Cephalopod Lothario
Tim
Proteau must be in better shape than he looks. After three stories of stairs, the cop is barely winded. In fact, he'd even had time to deliver stern warnings on his way up.
"You will be held accountable for any laws your break under my supervision, Doctor. Dieu How many different ways do I have to say this?"
As the reach the top of the stairs, and continue down the long hallway, he slows. The apartment is open, darkness within the doorway.
Across from them—coming from the other side of the hall are a group of five or six men. They look like locals. They're dressed in shabby tracksuits, or thin sports coats. And to a man, they move like they're preparing for violence.
The leader, a young man in perhaps his mid twenties with a shaved head and soul patch pauses, taking in Proteau's police uniform and suddenly growing very tense.
"Officier."
_____________________________________________________________________________
Jarl and Leon
Fortune sighs, hugging their arms to themselves, sadness in their eyes.
"Nuit vide"
As the wizard's eyes grow accustomed to the steady blue light of Leon's crystal, they notice an oddity—lace peaking from the sleeves of Fortune's ragged grey hoodie. Given that they're wearing faded blue jeans, and their feet are bare, it looks more than a little out of place. They reach down, picking up a handful of dirt and letting it filter through their fingers.
"Water would be better, but earth sufficed."
Fortune's eyes dart to Jarl, looking for all the world like a caged bird, ready to take flight. They shiver, then look over to Leon, curiosity burning in their gaze.
"Two wolves and a warrior. You are all very strange."
Before either wizard can respond, a sudden pop, accompanied by a brilliant white flash and the sound of breaking glass comes from behind them. Spots dance before all of their eyes.
When they fade, they're a figure standing in the shadowed living room behind them. The light of the crystal is too dim to make out their features, but something about them is oddly familiar.
After a moment, Tim and Jarl place it—they have the same frame as Fortune.
A voice comes from the shadowed figure, identical in pitch to Fortune's, sharp and full of anger.
"Stay away from her. She's a thief. She's guilty."
A soft drip, like wet paint, fills the second of silence that follows.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Alexander
Alexander's eyes widened at the manger's request. He certainly understood Ms Wagner's gasp of surprise. Even for a bribe, that was...excessive. Greed was universal, it seemed.
Despite himself, he laughed.
"I see you are not a stranger to this. Five hundred now, five hundred if I like what you have to say. Come now, you have a reputation, and a job to do. Consider this atoning for your previous indiscretion."
edited 26th May '17 9:25:12 PM by DrTentacles
World's Cutest Direwolf
"And personally I don't see that we need to rule out the 'threaten' option just yet," Terry noted, idly examining his nails. "Little variety'll do you good."
Just a harmless giant from a foreign land.
Tim considered pointing out that the French legal texts were oddly silent on the legality of owning and operating a handheld LASER device for private citizens, but then decided that antagonizing the already on edge special forces trained policeman with a gun in hand was a job better left to people making a career in this sort of thing.
Where was Jarl when you really needed him?!
So as they reached the tracksuit posse he stopped a step behind Protieu and remained silent. Still, he reached out with his Wizard senses and picked up the faint pulses of magic of the suddenly tense group of probably innocent joggers. Not enough for serious game, he concluded but some juice at least.
Ach, ich bin sicher Protieu schafft das schon. Er ist sich da ja sichernote
"You can reply to this Message!"
The Wildest of Ronins
Leon tenses during the flare of light that marked the newcomers arrival. His free hand digs into his pocket and pulls out the small enchanted metal blade he calls a lightning dart, but he doesn't point it at their new guest. Glancing between Fortune and the newcomer he frowns at their similarities in appearances. Then the newcomer speaks, with some interesting emphasis on the word guilty.
"Guilty thief they may be, but I wouldn't consider death to be the proper punishment for theft." Leon's eyes drifted in the direction of the suffocated corpse even if he couldn't actually see where it was at the moment. He recentered his gaze on the very probable murder monster in front of him, but did not actively make any aggressive motions towards, them curious to see what they would do next.
Click Click Boom Boom
Jarl
Man, remember when the whodunit would have us chasing around a city looking for increasingly-obscure clues to their actual location? Those were the days.
Jarl turned around, but Tjalfe's sights remained set on Fortune. While they might not be an immediate threat, the big wolf was watching its hunting partner's back. Jarl, for his part, though he still felt the mental strain of his earlier hex, pointed gloved right arm towards the simulacrum of Fortune, not attacking, but holding a metaphorical gun to the thing's face.
"And you, I'm guessing, is the reason someone's lying dead in that room. So really, who's the guilty one here?"
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Anne, Alex and Terry.
The manager gave Alexander a very disappointed face, then shrugged. A thousand would do fine.
"My instructions were to hand the keys to the Moroccans so they could search the room. Emphasis on search, not loot. They may have placed listening equipment there, but that wasn't part of the deal. I understand they work for a local up-and-comer, Samson ibn Khalid. I can't arrange a meeting directly - they left no contact information - but I can tell you that some of his lieutenants are attending some...conspiracy theory gathering, in the old catacombs beneath the city. You can recognise them by this insignia." He brought out a notepad and pen and scribbled a symbol on it, looking vaguely like a head with bits of the skull shattered and brain exposed. Lovely.
Still not embarrassing enough to stan billionaires or tech companies.
Is...is this just something that people do? Let strangers they don't know violate other stranger's safety and endanger them for money? This can't be normal. It just has to be the outlier. I can't...
Annette's face was pale, her stomach tightening in all the wrong ways. If she had been here instead of at the restaurant—as awful an experience that had been—and Samson's men had come "searching"...
She put her arm around David, holding him closer to her body. Though still pale there was deep-set anger in her eyes as she finally spoke up to the man in front of Alexander. "...th-th-this is illegal. And a violation of s-so many policies and b-basic right. H-How could you let anyone g-go into my r-room? Or through my belongings? What if I had b-been in there? What if my son was in there?! Du ekelhafter Mensch!"
edited 29th May '17 3:00:16 PM by KeiranGold
Cephalopod Lothario
Tim
Proteau stopped three meters from the tracksuits, the half-open door to the apartment between them, his hand on the butt of his service revolver. A wild west standoff in the middle of a dingy highrise, florescent lights flickering overhead instead of a noonday sun.
"Soirée, garçons." note
Proteau's fingers drummed a steady, slow, tempo on the leather holster of his revolver. His voice was measured, deliberately casual, but Tim could hear an undercurrent of smug satisfaction. The officer was pleased to have run into these people.
"C'est une nuit froide pour une promenade. Où allez-vous?" note
The leader—Soul Patch's—eyes darted to the open door, clearly wanting to be inside, rather than talking to a cop with a bunch of armed friends. He grinned—thin, clearly forced, his voice reedy and nervous as replied.
"Une promenade? Non. Nous aidons simplement un bon ami à déménager." note
Proteau slowly nodded, as though helping with moving at nine o' clock at night was a perfectly logical thing for a group of people to do. The hand not resting on the butt of his revolver reached into his breast pocket, pulling out an unlit cigarette, and putting it between his teeth.
"Bien sûr. J'ai entendu un rapport de bruits étranges à l'intérieur. Il était probablement juste un mobilier. Méfiez-vous si je regarde autour de moi?" note
Soul Patch hesitated, clearly wanting to say no, but he jerked his head toward the apartment.
"Aller de l'avant. Mon amie aime bouger dans l'obscurité. Bien sûr." note
Proteau took a step toward the apartment.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Leon and Jarl
Fortune looked between Jarl and Leon, an expression of horror on her face as they started to speak to the imposter. She scrambled back along the floor, words coming out in a breathless rush.
"Fools! Ne parlez pas à ..." note
The imposter surged forward, a sudden, jerky rush, still human-like in form, but it's movements anything but, limbs long and elastic, like that of cloth puppet. When it entered the light, the last vestiges of the deception was shattered. It had the face of Fortune, and wore her clothes, a white-haired, androgynous woman with bird-like markings around her eyes dressed in a ragged sweatshirt and jeans, but it was not human. Brush strokes, faint, but noticeably even in the dim light marked it's skin, as though clothes and features had simply been painted on, a portrait given depth and life. It's voice gurgles, cutting through Fortune's shout.
"Criminel!"
A long, slender arm shot up, and then the fingers extended, digits melting into tendrils of brown paint, shooting past the wizards toward the fleeing Fortune.
"Monstre de peinture!" note
_____________________________________________________________________________
Tim
A crash, and two raised voices came from within the darkness of the apartment.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Alexander
Alexander had stepped back from the manager, his business concluded with the information of the "mastermind." Or so though he thought.
Ms Wagner's outburst caught him totally by surprise, smug expression replaced by wide-eyed shock as he looked back at the tiny, seemingly mousey woman.
First a sense of humor, now a temper twice the size of her. Empty Night.
He groaned internally, annoyance flashing through his brain. Couldn't she see that the manager was just a patsy? He didn't matter. The real problem was secret society, this...Samson, and whatever they were after? The man was utterly inconsequential.
I thought I left moral outrage back with the wizards.
He still couldn't help but be a little bit amused by the amount of passion coming off the tiny woman, as unhelpful as it was. He reached out, taking the manager by the shoulder, one friend to another.
"I'd suggest going to attend to other guests. She might actually physically attack you. And if she does, I'd be laughing too hard to stop her. Run."
His hand darted into the manager's pocket, leaving the thousand he'd given as a bribe but taking the man's wallet with a light, Hunger-enhanced brush.
edited 30th May '17 2:45:45 PM by DrTentacles
Jarl
Well, he had the gun in his hand. Might as well pull the trigger. France didn't have a law against self-defense from smoke monsters.
With a cry of "Ríða!" Jarl summoned the wind. A cold, bitter gale, infused as it was with Winter power, flew through the house, flying towards the paint monster with enough force to shatter bones. Instinctively, he stepped in front of Fortune even as he felt his shoulders sag and his breath shake from the sheer power he was manifesting.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Alex, Anne and Terry
"This," the manager said, rubbing three fingers together in the universal sign for currency, "is why. And I made sure you'd both left the room before I sent them in. Same procedure as with cleaners. Very efficient."
He bowed his head and turned back towards another guest, blissfully unaware of the fact that he was a thousand euros richer and a wallet full of identification poorer. Oh dear.
Still not embarrassing enough to stan billionaires or tech companies.
World's Cutest Direwolf
"You wanna f- mess this guy up, I'll hold him still for you," Terry offered cheerfully, loud enough for the manager to hear before he left. It might not be practical to actually get any retribution on this petty little tool, but if he could scare him a little Terry guessed that'd work as a consolation prize.
Hopefully Ann wouldn't get upset at the suggestion of illegal assault or anything. Legality seemed to be an issue for her if that was the first thing she complained about, but they were already bribing this guy so god knew where the line got drawn.
edited 30th May '17 3:09:48 PM by rikalous
Annette bit her tongue, red hot anger still burning in her eyes as the man turned and walked away, but she refrained from speaking up again as fear contested the fury in her chest. She couldn't physically hurt him. Not in public, and certainly not with her...size. If she had one of her potions that was more subtle than the ones that started fires then maybe, just maybe, she would have done something. But she didn't.
Coward.
Instead she took in a deep breath, still looking furious, and breathed out slowly. David gave her a small pat on her hip. "Mom? He's a bad guy. He'll get in trouble somehow."
She met his gaze with a small, weak smile. "...r-right. Of course."
I don't think the real world works that way, but he doesn't have to know.
edited 30th May '17 5:12:52 PM by KeiranGold
World's Cutest Direwolf
"If nothing else, he's probably going to get nailed for it in the afterlife," Terry said. "I'm super clear on how a cosmology full of gods from mutually exclusive religions works, but it's apparently a thing and I can't think of any pantheons that are gonna smile on that kind of greed and callousness."
Cephalopod Lothario
Alexander
Alexander turned to go, giving the young woman he'd spoken to before a quick "call me" gesture and a wink. She was quite pretty, and after today, he really needed to get laid.
When they reached the doors of the hotel, he smirked at Terry and Ms Wagner, pulling out the manager's wallet and waving it before them.
"Well. Call me St Peter, then."
With an almost dismissive flick, he tossed the wallet to Ms Wagner, curious about what her reaction would be.
"Come now, Terry—you saw me do that, didn't you? Do with it whatever you wish. It might be interesting to find out how much you're worth, at least. I'd like to get back to the hotel. I could use some sleep, and I'm sure this...catacomb cult can wait a day."
"Huh...afterlife...I g-guess I'll add a few questions about gods t-to our next game," Annette sighed softly, her nerves not really helped by the thought of literal gods existing. She was still getting used to the thought of Incubi. But she had faster reflexes than she had thought processes, apparently, as she caught the wallet before noticing exactly what she was doing. She blinked at it a few times.
And then she almost dropped it, squeaking in surprise. "You s-s-s-s-stole his wallet?? M-Mr. Thorne, that's even m-m-more illegal!" She spoke in as hushed a voice as she could muster, for fear that the receptionists or anyone else would hear her. Why the hell had he given her his wallet?! She didn't want money for this, she wanted to splash the asshole in acid. "Wh-what am I supposed to do with..."
...alternatively...
She paused. And then she tucked the wallet into her pocket, her expression suddenly thoughtful and a glint of wicked intent in her eyes—though she tried to hide it with her glasses. "...th...this. I g-g-guess I can just mail it back later, once we g-get a lead. Thank you, Mr. Thorne."
David looked between the three adults before him. "...stealing is bad."
"Yes, sweetheart. Don't d-do what Mr. Thorne just did."
Unless it's a greedy little dick who deserves getting a bad luck curse seeped into his wallet.
edited 30th May '17 8:47:25 PM by KeiranGold
Just a harmless giant from a foreign land.
Tim shrugged and stepped up to follow Protieu, smiling at the tracksuit wearing gentlemen as he moved to step past them.
"Ne vous inquiétez pas, je suis tout simplement un Préoccupé par des tiers."note
Still, the raised voiced suggested someone had been introduced to Leon and Jarl. Which meant either they had been unpleasantly surprised or this was going to be...interesting.
"You can reply to this Message!"
The Wildest of Ronins
Leon's first reaction to the sudden attack from the paint monster, was to fortunately throw up a shield to block the streams of paint shooting from its 'fingers'. Unlike his earlier shield this one wasn't angled and was instead just a flat plane of force to stop the streams cold. His light crystal flickered at his divided focus, and without his shield focus on hand to help, he ended up dropping the light spell for a few brief moments to ensure his shield's integrity. It was really a shame none of them had thought to bring glowsticks or something.
Click Click Boom Boom
Cephalopod Lothario
Jarl, Leon, and Tim
The arctic gale hits the outstretched tendrils of the paint monster with a sound like breaking glass, frost-lines spiderwebbing across the outstretched limbs. The gale leaves a thin layer of rime across the living room floor, magazines, fallen clothes, and paper plates flung back by the gale to crash against the far wall with a clatter.
A second later, the paint monster's tendrils shatter, leaving broken, frozen stumps behind. Chunks of frozen paint spray across Leon's shield. Thankfully, it's a light assault—maintaining a barrier without a focus is always difficult. For a second, before his light winks out, he can see that the paint-monster is fragmenting, chunks of frozen flesh sloughing off the front.
Then, once again, it's utterly dark.
A flashlight flickers on in the entrance to the apartment, bright, mag-light beam moving across the frozen floor, the fallen body of the murder victim, and the trashed rear wall. There's a small pile of frozen paint chips where the monster was—not nearly enough to comprise it's full form
Proteau's voice booms across the room.
"Pardon me. What the fuck is going on here? Police."
Before anyone can respond, Proteau's question is answered prematurely by a truly horrendous amount of long, wet, cheerfully-colored tendrils erupting from the ceiling, and diving at the faces of everyone below.
edited 31st May '17 1:16:43 PM by DrTentacles
Jarl
A wise man had once said that a good defense is a swift and decisive offense. Feeling the exhaustion start seeping into his bones, Jarl still pointed his right hand upward, his eyes starting to glow a faint icy blue.
"Leon, Tim, careful! Things are going to get a bit chilly. Svell!"
Once again, magic sprang to life at his fingertips, but this time it was no Arctic gale, no great burst of wind. This time, it was sheer bitter, dark cold, drawn forth from the frozen heart of Winter itself, the heat draining from the room in a heartbeat, seeking to freeze as many of the tendrils as possible before they reached anyone.
Still not embarrassing enough to stan billionaires or tech companies.
The Wildest of Ronins
Cold didn't seem to do much more then temporarily disrupt its doppleganger body, maybe electricity would have better luck. With that thought, Leon flung his lightning dart straight up into the oncoming paint tentacles. Hopefully that would disrupt them, maybe even stun the entire mass of paint, depending on just how conductive it was.
Click Click Boom Boom
World's Cutest Direwolf
"'Don't do what Mr. Thorne did' is honestly pretty good advice in general," said Terry, with an apologetic look at the Mr. Thorne in question. "He pulls it off all right, but the way he tends to solve problems would leave most people under crippling debt or worse." Like ending up in jail with five STDs, but we can talk about that when you're older.
Just a harmless giant from a foreign land.
Tim, for a moment, considered letting Protieu handling this new threat as well. After all, he was the Staatsgewalt and surely he knew what to do.
But, alas, passive aggressive spite only went so far. So instead he took a long stride forward and raised his right hand, he channeled the raw force of creation and everyone behind him suddenly felt a momentary lurch upward as the downward acceleration of the earth was momentarily suspended as he drew the gravity in and then focused it before them, changing its axis from vertical from horizontal and slamming multiple g's worth of force into the oncoming Tendrils.
"Caun!"
"You can reply to this Message!"
Cephalopod Lothario
Up until now, the tracksuit gang had been quiet, unobtrusive, and restrained, clearly afraid of attracting the attention of Proteau.
Impending paint-tentacle doom changed that calculation. Weapons came out behind Tim.
One of the tracksuits pulled out a gun, aiming at the mass of writing paint on the ceiling, and firing wildly. Curses in french erupted from the tracksuits, and on the floor above, someone screamed—either in surprise, or pain. An angry shout erupted from the apartment next door, a man's voice erupting in a tirade, threatening to call the police, or do something ungentlemanly with the gunman's mother.
Tim's gravity spell went off as intended. He'd had time to recover from the mental battle with the Necromancer's journal, and was prepared. The tendrils nearest to him slammed back in the ceiling, dust raining down as the tiles cracked and fragmented, the building groaning.
Before the spell could spread further, there was a heavy impact on Tim's back, slamming him into the wall hard enough to knock the wind out of him. One of the tracksuits was slashing at the tendrils above with a box-cutter, and had staggered into him, almost impaling him on the blade. Behind them, the rest of the group was in similar chaos, a mass of bodies that threatened to do more harm to each other than the paint monster. It was impossible to cast or move in this.
Proteau drew his revolver, pointing it at the ceiling, before looking back at the gunshots and swearing.
"Fuckers! Lâchez vos armes! Démissionner!" note
No one seemed to hear him. One of the paint tendrils, vibrant crimson, coiled down to wrap around the officer's neck. Proteau dropped the flashlight, the room going dark again as he wrestled with the tendril.
Jarl's frost exploded overhead a moment after Leon's dart hit the monster, every light in the room remaining flashing briefly, again, blinding, before exploding from the current released. More curses came from the neighboring apartments—presumably they'd also lost power. The sound of burning paint filled the room as the tendrils lit up with crackling electricity, withering back into the ceiling like a fern touched to a live wire. A moment later, more chunks of frozen paint rained down from above, large enough to hit with bruising force.
Better than getting strangled, however.
The room was an clusterfuck of epic proportions, pitch black except for the fallen flashlight, the struggling tracksuit squad blocking the door, Proteau wrestling with a tendril, unable to fire his gun without the risk of firing through a wall into a civilian, Tim, pinned to the wall in the mass of goons. Chunks of frozen tendrils continued to rain down. The paint monster was almost certainly hurting—maybe even almost destroyed.
Fortune, back in the far corner of the apartment, took one look at the chaos, at the last few lashing tendrils, and her eyes went wide, another curse on her lips.
"Idiots! Nuit vide!"
She reached into the pocket of her hoody, coming out with something—a bean?—which she popped in her mouth. Then, she vanished. A small skittering animal dashed across the bedroom floor where she'd been, heading for the door, blocked and crowded as it was. Tjalfe took one sniff, then set off in hot pursuit, nearly bowling over Leon in the process.
It was a clusterfuck of epic proportions.
edited 1st Jun '17 9:53:25 AM by DrTentacles
Just a harmless giant from a foreign land.
Verdammte Amateure! Tim swore in his head as he collided with the wall. The pressure even kept up, quite literally jostling his elbow at further attempts at magic.
"Jarl? Some help please?"
"You can reply to this Message!"
Jarl
Jarl decided to trust Tjalfe's instinct when the massive apex predator bounded out of the room.
"Leon, paint monster. I'm going to go herd idiots."
He bounded forward, clearing the room quickly in pitch darkness - it's a wonder how quickly you can move when you don't have to be concerned with knocking things over - drawing his longsword as he came close enough to see the tendril Proteau was wrestling with, swinging to cut it neatly into pieces, yelling in French to the crowd:
"Will you chuckleheads please clear off my German friend so he can do his job here? Thank you."
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Anne
Jackie lived a very modest life. At least based on her apartment, she did. It was a sparse little thing in the inner city, a ramshackle one-bedroom apartment that was only really kept tidy by sheer force of stubborn cleanliness. In spite of the somewhat small, sparse conditions, her living room smelled like flowers.
She was also really pretty, now that Anne had a chance to look at her that wasn't obscured by a beanie or a ski mask. Her hair was set up in a bob that obscured her right eye slightly, she was slender and moved with a strange, languid elegance now that she was no longer doing something she was being coerced into doing. In spite of the weather outside still being winter cold, she'd at least managed to find some clothes with spring colors - lots of greens and browns.
"Oh, come in, come in!" She'd practically ushered Anne and David into the apartment, toying a little bit with the collar of her shirt like she was nervous. "I made tea. I know it's not any consolation for the things I did, but it's a start, non?" She turned to David with a conspiratorial wink. "I may have also baked a little cake."
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Alex and Terry
The catacombs underneath the city of Paris had always held a certain allure to French high society. For two hundred years, the wealthy and powerful had congregated in the catacombs purely as a curiosity, drawn by some kind of unseen power they could neither understand nor comprehend. Of course, times had changed since then. From ossuary to noble curiosity to a meeting place for underground counterculture movements and, apparently, the supernaturally curious.
Though, from the banners they'd seen coming in, it seemed much less like a society for people with minor talents of their own and more like the supernatural equivalent of a UFO-seeing society. Lots of cheesy vampire posters, blurry Bigfoot photos and claims of seeing the walking dead in the crypts below.
Though, the one thing they did seem to take quite seriously was security. A woman stood outside the entrance to the meeting. Though her skin appeared somewhat fair in the darkness of the catacombs, her facial features pointed to a North African heritage. She had a security vest, possibly bulletproof, thrown over a black shirt that matched her hair and dark eyes. Even from this distance, Alex could easily see that she was armed, and eying him and Terry warily as they approached.
Still not embarrassing enough to stan billionaires or tech companies.
Annette hadn't expected any sort of normalcy in visiting Jacqueline, considering everything else that had happened in the last twenty-four hours. What she'd thought would be a conspiratorial meeting between two (and David) people about mysterious, dangerous people turned out to be more like a woman's lunch. She blinked as she was ushered inside, David right at her hip as was usual, though he was clinging a little tighter than he'd been around the Thornes. Weird how he was more comfortable among the incubus and comedic werewolf.
Once inside Annette set down the handbag she'd brought with her—it clinked with the sound of plastic tubes—and looked around. "I, um, appreciate th-the warm welcome, attempted th-thievery aside," she spoke, still a little bemused, "This...is an okay time? I j-just wanted to stop by and talk, you d-d-don't need to make it a big, um, d-deal."
David peeked around his mother's side for long enough to notice the wink, then ducked away again shyly. Annette patted him on the head, smiling softly. "Sorry, he's always s-super shy. T-tea and cake would be nice. Thank you."
Maybe this won't be so bad. There's sweets and a pretty woman here. Just pretend this isn't about somebody trying to kidnap you and it'll be fine.
Dammit Annie.
edited 1st Jun '17 2:08:07 PM by KeiranGold
Bribery always looked like such a sleazy thing in films and books, and seeing it in person was no different. Annette's lips pursed together at how easily this apparently reputable guy was bought by Alexander...or so he'd appeared. At his price she actually gagged on her own breath.
Two-thousand dollars?! That's more money than I have in the bank on a normal month! Fuck!
David frowned somewhat, his hand gripping the hem of his mother's shirt.