January 21st, 2016 - Goblin and Fungi [The Doc, ST'd by me]

Margot
It was a little past midnight and the city was relatively quiet.  After all, most people worked or had school the next morning and needed to sleep.  Even those who didn't were staying in-- a winter storm was projected to begin overnight and make the morning commute a proper pain in the dick.  It was cold and damp and windy.  There was no reason to be out tonight.

Unless, of course, you were aiming to get in some trouble.

Andrés Sepúlveda had lived a good amount of adult life at this point.  He was settled into a career and had numerous stories to tell.

He knew that it was never good news when your phone started ringing after midnight.

When he answered, regardless of how pleasant or otherwise he sounded, the voice on the other line would be just as pitched and shaky and tight with anxiety.

"Doc, I'm so sorry, I didn't know who else to call.  I just, I mean...."  It was Margot.  He didn't know her well, but she didn't seem the sort that was prone to unwarranted hysterics.

Dr. Sepúlveda
Even if he had not spent the entirety of his adult life preparing for a career in a field that required a person to function on little sleep Dr. Sepúlveda would have known no one ever calls late at night just to chat.

Well: okay. Sometimes folks call late at night just to chat but those folks are drunk or high or both and he has known Verbenae and Cultists for about as long as he has known he wanted to go into forensic pathology as a career field. Even then those phone calls are not exactly good news.

So his phone tells him that Margot is calling and for half a second he considers letting it go to voicemail but then he registers the time. Peels off the nitrile gloves that are covered in god knows what and answers with a "What?"

She's so sorry. She didn't know who else to call.

"Christ," he says. "Relax. Where are you?"

So she tells him. Or starts to tell him. Or doesn't know. Either way he's moving.

"I'm coming. Stay on the phone a minute, yeah?"

Margot
"I'm in the parking lot of this shut-down gas station from the Ogden.  I was waiting for the bus and these guys came up and I.."  He said to relax, but as soon as he spoke the word he probably already kenw it would do nothing.  There was a particular keen of panic to her voice that sang the song of unreason.

"There's something wrong with them.  I missed the bus, they didn't get on it either.  I just don't want to..."

Again, she failed to finish her thought or really explain.  This second time she at least did pause to take a  few deep breaths.  She was trying to make herself be calm, but the gulping quality to the forced breathing made it seem a bit futile all the same.

"They're just.... sitting there.  Like maybe they passed out, but not."

Dr. Sepúlveda
"Stay where you are."

He has to imagine that one if not both of his students have post-traumatic stress riding their bones but that doesn't mean he's going to coddle them. So long as he can keep her centered in the present she won't lose herself to it.

Awakening is traumatic enough without adding in car crashes or domestic violence to the mix. From what he told them of his Awakening they could gather nothing from the emotional tone of it. Whether he had emerged from it unscathed or not.

"I'll be there in twelve minutes. Maybe eleven."

This is when Margot learns about the realness of the theory of relativity and time dilation. Twelve minutes was the estimate he gave her assuming that his GPS was full of shit. It was not the estimate he gave her knowing that any time he has to be someplace in a hurry that the universe takes notice and laughs at his sense of urgency.

He arrives eighteen minutes later. Headlights cut through the dark and he makes the righthand turn into the gas station fast enough that Margot can hear the chassis of his sedan bark with the impact. When he pulls up next to her it's with the passenger-side door facing her.

Deep breath and he flexes and relaxes his hands without taking them off the steering wheel.

Margot
The parking lot that he pulled into was dark, the streetlamp on its corner having long since burned out.  It was entirely possible that the city may have just temporarily shut that particular grid down, for the gas station and the two buildings beside it didn't look as though they'd seen much use in the past thirty years.  The building that sat on the lot itself was a small thing that couldn't have held more than just a few candy and snack aisles to go along with the counter and fridge-walls.  The windows were gray and almost impossible to see through by this point.  The overhead structure for the pumps stood like a skeleton, the pumps themselves having long since been removed.

Margot sat in the deepest shadows, came out of them almost like an owl (with those wide-eyes and her dark hair flapping out in the wind as to imitate the wings).  She'd been against the front wall while waiting, and soon as he arrived she walked stiffly to the passenger door and got in.

She didn't look at him, but stared forward through the windshield instead.  She looked like she'd been crying, and was no doubt embarassed over the situation as a whole.  But all the same, speaking thickly as though through a throat still clenched with anxiety, she gestured through his window with a point of a finger.

"There."

Across the street stood a pair of men, one small and lean and the other taller, stretched out and paunched.  They dressed in the winter clothes of men who worked outdoors.  They were at the bus stop, and the light above it was dim to begin with and flickered often.  They wore hats, and their hoods up.  Stood shoulder-to-shoulder, arms to their sides and still (except for the occasional sway or waver, as though about to fall down but then catching themselves).

They stood facing away from the street and into a paved parking space for an appliance repair shop.  Saying nothing at all.  The most curious thing of all was, in the poorly lit night it almost looked as though a vaguely orange cloud was hanging around them.

Dr. Sepúlveda
This car was built with a larger body in mind. Particularly the front cabin. He has the driver's seat pulled up close to the steering wheel and the wheel itself adjusted so he does not have to reach up to grab it. A man of average height would find it difficult to slide in and drive without making some adjustments.

She may or may not notice that he is wearing the same getup he had had on the day they met. Scrubs and a lab coat and black-rimmed spectacles. At least she did not wake him up.

Though he looks across the darkness at her he does not begrudge her either her tears or her frazzled state. All he does is turn some knobs so that the seats begin to emit heat and the radiator blowers do the same.

There.

He rests his hands on his lap and takes a moment to observe the two miscreants who had caused her alarm in the first place.

"Ah, hell." Though they're within line of sight of their targets he is still not close enough to do much. "I don't suppose you Awakened with Correspondence in your bag of tricks, did you?"

He knows the answer.

"Lock the doors. I'll be back in a moment."

Margot
Margot looked confused at the question about Correspondence, as though she had to stop and think for a moment about what that would actually be.  Then she shook her head.  No, she realized, she always had to be in some kind of immediate proximity to whatever it was she was picking up a reading on.

Lock the doors, he advised.  She swallowed at the lump in her throat and nodded, stayed firmly in the passenger seat, and would lock the doors promptly after he was outside the car.

This particular stretch of street was not particularly busy, so far as traffic was concerned.  By this point a light snow had started to fall, the flakes small and still easy to see through.  They helped mask the strange cloud effect happening around the men, made it seem as though the orange tinge could be due to the dirty filter through which the street lamp was struggling to burn.

But no, all the same they had both seen otherwise.  The men still simply stood shoulder-to-shoulder and swayed a little with the breeze, but made no movement beyond that.

Dr. Sepúlveda
That look of confusion isn't anything he hasn't seen from her before and he doubts it will be the last of its kind either. Students have only a few default expressions and confusion is one of them. In the meantime her safety is the reason he is out here and it's the reason he implores her to lock the doors while he leaves the engine running. What passes for kindness from a man who seems as capable of affection as the corpses with whom he spends his days.

As he pauses at the sidewalk the snow melts before it can settle on his dark hair btu it begins to dust the shoulders of his peacoat. Crossing the street brings him near enough to notice that the orange tinge hasn't dissipated.

The rational part of him wants to think there's a perfectly reasonable explanation for this but the part of his brain that believes in jetpacks and time travel and reanimation of the dead knows that a cynical mind clinging to reason in the face of that which does not follow such rules is a dead mind.

He watches them for signs of illness or intoxication as he approaches.

"Oye," he says. Whether or not they turn: "You alright?"

[matter/mind/life 1: KITCHEN SINK SCAN. base diff 4, +2 after all the other modifiers.]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 7) ( success x 1 )

Margot
When called to, neither man turns.  Up close the orange cloud was a little bit less noticeable, for it was fine in how it hung in the air.  The men didn't turn when they heard footsteps, nor when the good doctor called out to them.  There was a kind of sweet-rotting smell about them that was strong enough to be detected even with the winds blowing most of it away.

They just stood like young trees in the wind, offering no protest whatsoever to the doctor's approach or his scan over their faculties.

He'd find that they were alive, living human beings, men with names and day jobs and (based on what the life scan told him) poor health due to crippling addictions to herion (what year is it, anyways?).  However, they were in what would amount to being a coma (from what he could tell about their minds).  There was another kind of a life to be found as well.  Something apart from them, but growing within them.  Like a... bacteria, maybe?

He could sense the material of what was growing within them, something sticky and clotting within organs but the scan wasn't strong enough to tell him for certain.

All the same, these men were vegetative to the world.  He knew he would get no answer from them.

Dr. Sepúlveda
Though he could not tell from looking at them the sense of a spore-like growth was enough to grab his attention. Proliferation inside a living organism is almost always cause for alarm. In only a few instances is the proliferation wanted and even that's not always a given.

He still can't do anything with it without knowing what it is. So he comes closer prepared to startle the men with his presence and transfers the sheathed scalpel he had grabbed on his way out of the lab from his breast pocket to the left pocket of his scrub pants.

Though he left his portable lab in the car he still has a stethoscope around his neck and the ability to tell if a body is living or not more or less by touch. If they will let him he steps nearer to the smaller of the two and puts his index and middle fingers to where the kid's radial pulse ought to be.

[extending that last roll]

Dice: 3 d10 TN7 (3, 8, 9) ( success x 2 )

Dr. Sepúlveda
[perc + alert!]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 4, 7, 8) ( success x 2 )

Margot
Tools always help, and even if Dr. Sepúlveda's were a stethoscope and an understanding of medicine, they still did what he wanted and needed them to do.  With those tools he was able to understand much more than a sleeping human doctor would.

He was able to confirm that there was a fungus growing within the two men.  It bloomed in their bellies and was spreading throughout their bodies, into their major organs and swimming in their bloodstream.  There seemed to be one particular growth forming along the spine, stretching slowly and crawling its way up the spinal column and, presumably, toward the head.

The fungus itself was unfamiliar.  Not anything that he'd recognize.  Maybe tropical?  Probably something entirely different, given the affected hosts.

It was as the Doc was recognizing this was an entirely unfamiliar strain that he picked up the sound of footsteps on the sidewalk, rapidly approaching from the shadowy depths of that repair store parking lot that the men were facing.  They continued to sway, unaffected by this figure's approach as well.

Given how the doctor stood under the lights along with the men, he was largely visible.  Wouldn't have the opportunity to try and hide himself from this figure's approach.  Whatever it was, it was short, no more than five feet tall and perhaps even less, and it was dressed heavily in a hat and scarf and long coat and long pants and boots.  Its voice was surprisingly high-pitched when it called out from the shadows.

"What do you want!  Go away!"

Dr. Sepúlveda
Oh shit.

Sepúlveda puts his hands up shoulder-height and palms out to show whatever it is that he is not armed though he has no notion of how long his new companion has been stood in the shadows and how much of his activity it has seen. No point showing his palms if the unseen entity knows he's got a fucking scalpel in his pocket.

He had told Margot to stay in the car with the doors locked. He's sure it is of no comfort to her to see her two almost-assailants immobile with her mentor holding his fucking hands in the air but compassion and empathy are skills that were never his forte to begin with. That's why he works with the dead and not with those on the other side of the coil.

"Do you want me to go away," he asks the figure, "or tell you what I want?"

Margot
Half-shadowed as it was, it was difficult to tell if the person in the parking lot starting conflict was male or female.  Abnormally small for certain, and the pitch of the voice suggested that there was a medical reason for this, perhaps.  If the doc were to glance back at the car again he'd find Margot still in the passenger seat, watching fretfully from the driver's side window.  Where he parked the car, though, you'd have to really look to notice anybody sitting inside.

The figure wasn't looking there, fortunately.  It was much too wrapped up in the man messing with the two fungus-filled people standing and waiting for the harvest.  Apparently this person, whoever they were, was the farmer.

At the question the figure paused, having to think carefully about it.  Apparently this person wasn't the brightest crayon on the box.  It sounded pretty dull when it answered finally.

"I want you to go away.  Go away!  Leave us alone, we were here first."

Hands raised from jacket pockets to make a shooing gesture, and the doc would probably notice that the fingers in the shadows seemed far longer than they ought to be.

Dr. Sepúlveda
[perc + occult: can i tell what you are in the dark?]

Dice: 5 d10 TN8 (3, 4, 7, 7, 8) ( success x 1 )

Dr. Sepúlveda
There's something to be said for the moral imperative and as he stands in the dark considering the goblin-like creature that defies scientific explanation he makes a mental note to talk to the kids some night about knowing when to persist in a matter that has nothing to do with them and knowing when to say Fuck the consequences! and risk bodily harm in the interests of resolution.

He is a Scientist. He does not believe in mystery or allowing mysteries to remain so. That does not mean he has to teach his students that the only reason to do anything is FOR SCIENCE. His way is the right way but it is not the only way.

"'We'?" he says. "Look, these boys are sick, they need medical attention. I'm a doctor. Let me help."

Margot
"No!"

The thing practically shrieked at Sepúlveda now, its hands flung obstinately down to its sides in angry fists.  It scrambled into its jacket pockets now, and whipped out what looked to be a small switchblade.  Not anything especially threatening, but a knife was a knife and in the hands of an unhinged whatever it was still something to be quite worried about.

The thing wielded the knife awkwardly in the doctor's direction, waving it here and there almost like a sparkler on a summer night.  "They only need my help, now scram!"

All the while, the two men stood and swayed.  One of them hiccupped.

And across the street, a car door quietly clicked closed.

[Dexterity 4 + Stealth 0 (+1 diff penalty): Sneaky sneaky?]

Dice: 4 d10 TN7 (2, 3, 9, 10) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

Margot
[Goblin Perception!]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 8) ( success x 1 )

Dr. Sepúlveda
[!!!]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 3, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )

Dr. Sepúlveda
Waving a knife at a doctor. He's not afraid of the pain so much or the damage that causes the pain. Doesn't mean he's fearless or eager to get himself injured. Gives him a sense of bravery he might not have possessed otherwise.

Then again here comes Margot trying to creep out of the car from across the street. As if sound doesn't carry.

Sepúlveda groans and it is an exasperated sound but it is not directed at the goblin. Or maybe it is. The goblin doesn't hear the car door slam.

"Are you?" He doesn't sound calm exactly but he isn't panicking in the face of that flashing knife either. "I'll scram, but they're coming with me."

Margot
Surprisingly, the little goblin-creature dressed up as a human under a mask of winter clothing layers didn't attack or scream or inisist further, which would have made much more sense.  Instead, he laughed.

Well, cackled.  The sound was as high-pitched as the voice and cracked off like firecrackers in the night.  The long fingers emerged again as he pointed at the men, whose faces were turned vaguely upward, jaws slack and slightly frothed, eyes rolled toward the blanket of clouds above.

"They're not going anywhere.  Look at them.  They cannot walk with you."  It cackled again, and the knife lowered.  "Go ahead, try."

True to the goblin's point, the men didn't appear to be in any condition to do much more than stand.  It was entirely possible that the only reason they were upright at this juncture was due to the fungus in their bodies.

Meanwhile, around the outside of the parking lot Margot crept carefully over the pavement.  She was watchful for cracks and wrappers and things that would make noise, kept out of the reach of the flickering streetlight and low to the ground and even of pace.  For somebody who hadn't done much sneaking around before in her life, she was pulling it off pretty well.  While they talked, she made her way around into the back of the parking lot instead.

The goblin was too distracted to notice, the men too far gone to see, but The Doc would see his new student with her fingers nervously near her mouth while she searched over a pile of general rubble from where a ledge had crumbled in ill repair after a fence post was knocked down.

Sepúlveda
Like he doesn't have enough problems right now. He has to worry about Margot doing something that is the antithesis to her continued survival.

He does not worry. He keeps himself aware of the fact that she's skulking around in the dark but he does not turn his attention that way. Worry implies a lack of control and if it came to that he could split his attention between his new student and his most recent pain in the ass.

The two young men who had spooked her into seeking refuge are in no condition to leave of their own accord but Sepúlveda is a physician before he is anything else and though they are not dead the dead are still afforded respect in his book. If he can stave off their impending end then he will. If he cannot he will still try.

One hand remains aloft while the other comes towards the laden pocket of his lab coat.

"I think I will, thank you."

If the goblin does not protest with violence or further shrieks he removes from his pocket a small vial filled with clear liquid and stopped with a dropper.

Margot
The goblin was, for the moment, content to watch.

Mercifully Margot had stopped any further movement and was now standing there in the dark, against the back of the lot with her hands wrapped around a good sized chunk of concrete-and-rock mix that had crumbled and fallen to the earth.  She was reading the situation relatively well from afar, enough to recognize that the doctor didn't seem to be in any current immediate danger of being stabbed.

The little person in the big coat and hood folded their arms over what one presumed to be a bony chest, for how the clothes hanged off narrow shoulders and skinny arms, with the knife still in one hand and now pointed outward from their body.  A boot-covered foot tapped impatiently at the pavement while it watched and waited.

Curious, but not smart.  Wanting to see what could happen from here.

Sepúlveda
That vial of his contains nothing that would alert anyone walking past as to either its contents or its lack thereof. The only person who knows what it is is the person who removes it from his coat pocket and the only person to whom he might divulge its chemical makeup is watching from a distance. Waiting to see if she needs to intervene.

So long as the doctor is upright and conscious she can rest assured that he does not require intervention. They do not know each other yet. They do not know the other's capabilities yet.

The goblin stands back and Sepúlveda can perhaps guess that he is impatient. Even if he could not guess the tapping foot gives him away.

So Sepúlveda takes a deep breath and comes to stand beside the shorter of the two gentlemen and speaks to him low and knowing that if he hears and registers he will not respond. Tells him he is about to give him a medicine and the medicine will make him feel better and he believes what he says. Belief is half the battle.

[life 3/matter/prime 2: ANTIFUNGAL POWERS ACTIVATE. base diff 6, -1 taking his time.]

Dice: 3 d10 TN5 (2, 7, 10) ( success x 2 )

Sepúlveda
[extending. +1 for that, -1 for quintessence, spending WP.]

Dice: 3 d10 TN5 (5, 6, 9) ( success x 4 ) [WP]

Margot
The medicine would have to be administered for them, be it dribbled into slack mouths or injected or rubbed onto their skin.  It would take about a minute of suspense to finally start working, but it was noticeable when they did.  The stink of fruit-and-meat rot would begin to abate, and the jaundiced and waxy quality that their skin was taking on had lessened considerably.  The swaying stopped, and the men became more relaxed, like puppets with the strings cut.

They weren't altogether instantly cured, certainly not.  However, they were at least able to wearily shuffle themselves around to the bus bench and sit down before they slumped back.  Passed out, but The Doc knew that they would be okay.  At least, as far as that fungal infection went.

The Goblin, on the other hand, didn't look all to impressed.  In fact, judging by the way its narrow shoulders were hunched sharply up under its coat (its face was masked by shadows from its hood, but one could imagine it contorted with anger).

"What...?  What did you give them?  That shouldn't have worked!  Damnit, they were mine!  I had to follow them for a week and now that's all wasted!"

The knife flashed again, and now the goblin seemed to be considering whether it was worth the fight or not himself.  It was worrisome, but not really competent apparently.  Waffling on whether the men on the bench were worth fighting over or not.

Sepúlveda
At the flash of the knife the doctor does not quite roll his eyes but that resignation to an inevitable and pointless fight crawls into his bones and he takes a huge breath in preparation to have to do something more trying than what he just did.

He did not need to try as hard as he did to cure those men. Yet he did. It was an effort and he will have to dose himself up and sleep sound through the night to shake off the effort.

From a distance Margot cannot read the effort. He is better off than the young men were and besides he was not reliving a past trauma like she had been when she called him. He pockets the vial and faces the pissed-off goblin and after that huge breath turns into a sigh he considers his options.

"Life is hard, pal. What do you want, you wanna fight? Come on, then. Let's get this over with."

Margot
[Inits! +4]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (1) ( botch x 1 )

Sepúlveda
[+6]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (1) ( botch x 1 )

Margot
[Margot's Init! + 7]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (6) ( success x 1 )

Margot
Order:
Margot: 13
Doc: 7
Goblin: 5

Goblin Declare: Stabbity at Doc!  Stab stab! (one action, to be clear)




Sepúlveda
Doc: Basic Transmutation! Turn the Goblin's knife into... uh... dirt. Dirt is awesome.

Margot
Margot: Moving one round, still taking advantage of the prior stealth roll to sneak up on Goblin-head for a stealth attack next round

Sepúlveda
[matter 2: YAY DIRT KNIFE. base diff 6 (vulgar lololol) blah blah modifiers -1 for quintessence the practiced rote/outlandish feat cancel out)

Dice: 3 d10 TN5 (1, 6, 10) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

Margot
[Well there goes my fucking knife.  Good thing I have claws!  Ahahaha!]

Dice: 5 d10 TN7 (1, 2, 2, 7, 10) ( success x 2 )

Margot
[Damage! (L)]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (5, 6, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )

Margot
ROUND TWO!

Margot: 0 damage
Goblin: 0 damage, no knife
Doc: 3 lethal, sorry buddy

Goblin Declare: Haha, that sucked, didn't it?  What if I do it again?!  Claw Doc!



Sepúlveda
Doc: YES THAT SUCKED WHAT THE FUCK. rip the man body. you goblin fuck.

Margot
Margot: Throw a big fucking thing of concrete right at that Goblin's fucking skull

[Dexterity 4 + Athletics 2, +2 diff for called shot, -2 diff for sneak attack]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 5, 6, 7) ( success x 2 )

Margot
[Damage (L): +1 suxx, +1 big fucking rock, +2 headshot]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8) ( success x 1 )

Margot
[Goblin Soak]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (6, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )

Sepúlveda
[life 3: pattern damage, bitches! base diff 6, blah blah modifiers.]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 8) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

Margot
[Goblins aren't smart, and don't like being hit with rocks.  Switching to claw at Margot wildly!]

Dice: 5 d10 TN7 (4, 5, 6, 7, 9) ( success x 2 )

Margot
[Damage]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 6, 9) ( success x 2 )

Sepúlveda
If he stops what he's doing before he's gone ahead and fired off the effect he's going to effectively botch the damned thing. It doesn't seem to him much of a question when his student attempts to brain the little imp bastard over the head and doesn't knock him out. All she gets is a swipe across the cheek for her efforts.

For his part Sepúlveda is hurting. It's slowing him down. But he's old and he's lived his life and if he gets killed by a goblin at a fucking bus stop while two low-lifes walk off their fungal infection in continued oblivion then it isn't as if he's got a whole list of hopes and dreams he hasn't fulfilled. Margot though.

He drops the effect and tries to restrain the goblin.

"GET BACK IN THE CAR!" he says. To Margot. In case that isn't obvious. "DRIVE!"

Margot
What should have, and easily could have, been something that they didn't need to become involved in became bloody fast.  The knife dissolved into dirt, which startled the goblin creature, but not enough to fall to inaction.  It was challenged to a fight, and didn't have the wit or intellect to know that it was better to back away.  A combination of threat, challenge, and the fact that its cultivated prize had been ruined had it abandoning the fistful of dirt and jumping forward to swipe at Andrés with long fingers, some of that length apparently happening to be claws.

Unfortunately, those claws caught him in the shoulder and chest and bit deep, ripping through into muscles and doing a large amount of damage for a creature so small and wiry and obnoxious.

There was a brief moment where the Goblin's dark little eyes flashed with victory and realization-- its claws were a better deal than the knife anyways, weren't they?  It flexed fingers to swipe again, but paused when a hunk of concrete thumped off the back of its thick skull and onto the ground.  Little to no damage was done, and the goblin just looked surprised and angry at the new assailant.

With a flash it whipped around and laid those same bloody claws into Margot.  She yelped, surprised, and slapped a hand up to cover her neck and jaw and cheek where the claws had raked.  The cuts were deep, and they bled bright red that seeped quickly down her front, but for the most part it looked cosmetic.  There'd need to be plenty of stitches, but she'd be okay.

Still, the Doc shouted for her to go to the car and drive away and jumped to try to physically restrain the terrible little beast instead.  Margot's face was pale, especially under the red of the blood and the dark brown that her hair cast in the night shadows.  By now the snow was swirling in dense flakes around them, the wind whipping it up and about to generate confusion in the atmosphere.

Wild-eyed, panicked, Margot shook her head quickly.  It seemed she was unlikely to just leave her small mentor here to wrestle with a similarly small knife-fingered monster.

[Keeping the same inits for ease's sake-- the Goblin's gonna try clawing at the Doc again but is probably just gonna end up trying to fight the grapple]

Sepúlveda
[Action: LOL screw grappling that was so Margot could GTFO he's just gonna use Life 2 to cause pain and try and incap him for a round.]

Margot
[Margot's gonna stick to what she does best then:  Kick that fuckin' guy right in his fuckin' center]

[Dex 4 + Brawl 2: Kick + 1 diff]

Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

Margot
[Damage! (B): Str 2 + 1 kick dmg + 2 suxx dmg]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 6, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )

Margot
[Goblin soak!]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (5, 6, 6) ( success x 2 )

Sepúlveda
[life 2: cause pain. base diff 5, fuck modifiers it's late af.]

Dice: 3 d10 TN5 (3, 6, 9) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

Margot
The funny thing about being in a panic-inducing situation was that it evoked a Fight or Flight response.  Margot really was geared more toward Flight when it came down to it, but sometimes that option was blocked off.  In those instances she flipped over to Fight instead.  When cornered and all of that...  Except rather than being cornered here, she stuck by out of sense of guilt and some budding notion of loyalty.  She was the one who called the Doc here, she was the reason he got mixed up in all of this and was splashing blood onto the sidewalk now.

Throwing the rock didn't help her much, so this time around Margot defaulted back to one of the very few lessons her brother provided to her that was worth keeping:  how to kick somebody like a beast.  Don't hit people with your fists, not unless you had something on them to protect them. You'll just break your little hands, he'd explained to her.  She was a sprinter, a hurdle-jumper, an all around track-and-field star.  She had leg strength, she may as well put it to use.

And that's precisely what she did.  If it weren't such a shitty situation it might be an impressive moment, because Margot lifted one knee up high and powered the heel of her shoe right into the little goblin's skinny spine.  There wasn't much finnese to the action, but the strength behind it was very effective.  The little creature stumbled forward from the impact and almost fell to its knees.  Cursed loudly and angrily and then--

screamed

because the pain that wracked its body was sudden and unexpected and the worse thing that it knew, as though its nerves were dipped in acid-fire and then laid out on a griddle to cook dry.  It collapsed to the ground, seizing and twitching and panting and its eyes rolling in its head.

This would be a great opportunity to run, but Margot was standing and staring instead.  Seemed to be stuck, with her gaze transfixed and horrified and her breaths shallow like she might benefit from an inhaler or just getting the fuck out of there.

Sepúlveda
For a few seconds the doctor stands breathing heavy for the adrenaline that just injected itself into his bloodstream. Part shock that the experiment worked and part shock at how well it worked.

He had wanted Margot to take off running and get the fuck out of here so she wouldn't have to witness any further violence. That she would haul off and kick the thing in the spine wasn't a variable he had prepared for.

Now he isn't sure whether he'd rather just kill this thing and dispose of a body or if he'd rather haul it back to his budding laboratory in the basement of his apartment and study it. This would be a great opportunity for Margot to run. Being as she does not run she gets to witness the Doc blowing out a breath like to mentally prepare himself for something awful and crouching down next to the goblin.

"Can we stop?" he asks as the throes begin to abate. If the goblin tries to rise from his writhing he's prepared to put a blood-drenched hand on its chest and try to pin it to the ground. It can swipe at his arm and he is prepared for it to swipe but he would like to think the thing will take the opportunity to withdraw if given it. "Eh? I mean you no harm, and I am sorry I caused you pain, but if we don't stop now and walk away, I will kill you. You understand?"

Margot
Some brief amount of time passed and the seizing subsided.  The hood had knocked back and the goblin had a very humanoid face, but with skin like old parchment and beetle-black eyes and an unnaturally long and crooked nose, with a wide-set mouth and sharp little teeth.  It had wispy black hair on its potato-like head and pointed ears and was panting when the pain begain to ebb away.

It looked around quickly, like it was just coming too, then looked sharply at the Doc whose hand was on its chest, holding it down, promising more and worse if the fight continued.

"N--no.  No no, no it's smarter to walk away, huh?  Eh-heh-heh-heh?"

It giggled nervously, panted some more.  The fight was gone from it-- the imp was not smart but it had survival instinct embedded somewhere in the back of its head somewhere.  Two junkies and a week's worth of work cultivating supernatural fungus within them wasn't worth that kind of pain again.  The little beast would hold true to its word as soon as it was let up.  There were no apologies made for what its claws had done, and as soon as it found its feet it stumble-scuttle-ran away, still with both of their blood under its nails.

Margot watched it go, still holding one hand to the blood still oozing from her face.  She didn't look like she was going to start walking on her own without some proper kind of prompting, but when said prompting came she'd find the ability to use her feet again and start back toward the car without saying a word.

January 20th, 2016 - A Bit of a Mess [Ned]

Margot
The night at the strip club had ended hastily.  Though still full of many questions, Margot seemed to have heard enough for one night.  For fear of overloading her mind, and because she didn't want to stay in that setting for much longer, she had bailed via Uber soon after.  Offered to split the ride with Ned if he wanted, otherwise-- well, it was 2016.  They could get in touch.

The next week Ned had reached out to Margot first, as was becoming their pattern.  They should compare understandings and, perhaps even more resoundingly, they should compare their works.

"Craft," Margot had said in the conversation.  That was what she'd decided she was calling it.  It was what it felt like.  "Like a witch."

They ultimately landed on staying at Margot's apartment for this.  She lived in a part of town where nobody really minded loud noises and smells could be blamed on the small Thai restaurant that occupied the building next door.  She lived in a studio that was built into a mundane four-story brick building, up on the top floor (which was a pain in the ass for groceries but Margot didn't seem to mind the climb anymore [no elevators, sorry, the building's too old]).

Built in the early 1910's, the apartment hosted hardwood floors and was, as most studios were, simply a large room with dark floors and white walls (decorated sparsely, as evidence of her prior claim to being new to town).  Her bed was in the corner opposite the door and hidden behind a paper divider,  a single couch, coffee table, and small dining table squeezed in with a kitchenette.  There were a couple of plants here and there, including a fern hanging by a small wood door that leaned out to a similarly small (you get the theme here) balcony.

It wasn't the best part of the city for a girl to live on her own, but Margot seemed to do a decent job of flying under the radar even without people supernaturally forgetting her face and name.

"It's a little cramped," she apologized when they were both there and the front door was closed and locked behind them.  "But, y'know, college student."

Ned
"-College." Ned said simultaneously, overlapping Margot's apology with an understanding line of his own.

He was dressed in a long coat, a soft gray strip beneath each armpit that went to the hem, while the rest was felt black. Jeans and a sweater with the faded lettering of some school sports team, that was no longer translatable, the navy blue colour faded from too many washes. He slipped his boots off without undoing the laces, a brief struggle ensuing before setting them off to one side (on a shoe mat if available).

His eyes take in the interior, hand rising to brush the toque from his head, stuffing it into the jacket pocket.

"Balcony. Heh. Talk about luxury." He nods toward the egress.

"Crafting. Working." Ned seemed to shrug through both words, not quite comfortable with either. The word Witch brought a vague smirk to his face as he pushed a little deeper into the apartment, hunting down a spot on the couch.

"That's a bit gender biased, don't you think? What does that make me? A Warlock?"

Margot
"I think it's gender-biased to say that you couldn't be a witch yourself."  The smirk was returned, if briefly, and Margot made some vague gesture straight ahead from the door, indicating that he was welcome to settle at the table or couch.  She herself walked into the kitchenette and went about the steps to make coffee.

Small kitchens were stacked high to save space, so she had to stretch and nudge things down from the higher shelf, but at no point did she seem to want or necessarily need help going about the process.  One cannot doubt that she's gone through these same steps many times before.

As she did, she continued on across the cramped space.

"I think you'd need to figure out what makes your craft work to figure out what you wanna call yourself first, though.  Mine feels pretty...."  She waved her hand vaguely, trying to describe the feeling of doing actual magic.  "You know... like it should be happening out in a forest somewhere in autumn, under capes and candles and with blood and earth and the like."  Blood.  Always the blood.  But that was what they were here to talk about, wasn't it?

Ned
"Solving." A pause. "Half the time that's what it feels like. I'm solving some equation or shape or pattern." He offers as she busies herself in the kitchen. He doffs his jacket, settling on the couch rather comfortably, the coat left to dangle off the arm of the couch. Not so much at home as he is staking a spot out to get comfortable in. His gaze runs the apartment still, trying to parse details about Margot's life based mostly on what she populates the landscape of it with. So far, sparse college student fits the description.

"Blood is...part of it." He calls out, agreeing. "Not the entirety though and I don't think Candles really do much. Or...capes or...what time of year it is. I've never tried anything in a forest mind you so anything's possible I suppose-" He sounds skeptical, per usual. Whatever they had sourced out or found out with the Doc's first lesson, had settled in Ned's mind and he had gone to the trouble of taking at least some of it to heart. If only for a place to begin.

"Given your...well Avatar-" He still felt weird saying that, unable to get the image of giant Blue Aliens out of his head. "-it's not surprising you lean on that imagery."

"My own, so far as I get it, seems to run the gamut of Blood...Touch or contact...Pain is a big one-...not terribly excited about that one, mind you." The last part is a murmur, accompanied by another frown, his eyes finding the balcony and the city beyond with a vague distance to his seeing.

"...But those don't really support how I view it all. It's borderline scientific. Or at least, pragmatic. Do what you need to do, to sort out what the Avatar wants." He shakes his head. "I'm not calling it that by the way. It's a ridiculous name."

Margot
While the coffee was brewing in an inexpensive machine on the countertop, Margot walked across the space and turned around the dining chair nearest to the arm of the couch.  Hauled it out away from the table so it was closer to gathered around the coffee table than not and settled into it for the time being.

"You're so literal."  She was shaking her head.  "It's more thematic than anything."

As he spoke of what he found made magic work for him, she frowned empathetically at how pain seemed to drive things stronger than anything else so far.  It seemed to be something that she was commiserating with-- not the pain directly, but rather having something about the paradigm that he didn't like.

"I don't care for how these things are built in.  We don't get to choose ourselves.  It had sounded so much like building your own belief system, what Doc was saying, but it's built in already.  Attached to and associated with the .... Avatar."  She found herself pausing, based on his assessment of that word, then grinned a little bit in agreement.  "It is pretty dumb.  Plus, I don't think of her as being mine."

A glance at the painting that was hanging behind the couch-- some big piece of canvas under an inexpensive frame, abstract rough brushwork made to resemble a forested landscape only if you looked at it correctly (signed for her, from a friend apparently).

"It's more like it's the other way around."

Ned
"I think it's not so much built in, as fallout from how we Emerged." A pause, glancing at her. "Awakened." He knew it was a touchy subject. Seemed to register her discomfort before it had a chance to really bloom around her memories of it, and pushed on with his own.

"I got into a Car Crash. I don't remember it very much but what I do recall...there was a lot of blood. A lot of pain, involved. I don't...remember much about either of those things? But I know they were there. I know how strong a representation they both were at the moment it all happened. Which tells me my brain, mind or-...Guide." He smiles, small but genuine. "My Guide, associated all the most obvious things in the crash with whatever changes occurred during the Emergence. Blood, Pain-" He pauses. His face going slack, like realization, epiphany or...

He's scrubbing his face for a moment, palms in his eyes trying to push back at some memories or emotion-

"I don't envy you that." He looks up at her, a sad smile on his face. "That sensation of being 'owned'. Like you're in debt to it. I get it. I don't feel that way but I get it. It's scary...part of me thinks that's a bit of a representation..." Head shaking. "Sorry, I just mean, the answers we want, the comforts we're looking for. Maybe we need to go down roads we're scared of. The Doc seemed to suggest as much anyway if we're ever going to do these...Seekings."

Another face. Another word he didn't seem to have a taste for.

Margot
When Ned took his hands away from his eyes after scrubbing his revelation away from them, he'd find Margot watching him carefully, quizzically.  She recognized that something significant had occurred.  However, offering the same respect that he did the memory of her own Awakening, she did not pry.  Instead she just smiled back and shrugged one shoulder in a loose 'what do you do' gesture.

"It seems like everyone's magic is bestowed upon them differently.  Maybe in some people it's.... genetic, y'know?  Maybe other times it's gifted to them by spirits and gods, or enchanted items like with Doc's book.  Maybe sometimes it's a matter of enough force releasing, like in a car accident, in the right or wrong place at the right or wrong time.  Y'know, triggering some kind of energy backlash on a leyline or something."  Recognizing the sound of grasping at straws in her own voice, Margot frowned a little bit and stopped.

Thankfully it was at that time that the coffee pot rattled and hissed to indicate that it was finished with its task.  She took the opportunity to stand up and retreat to another task for a moment.  When she returned with both coffees fixed up (how do you take yours?), she passed a gray mug, heavy and deep, to Ned, and kept a petite white one for herself.  She set her own mug down on her coffee table and straightened up in the chair.  She adjusted the couple of bobby pins that were pinning her hair out of her face and looked to Ned with a questioning raise of her eyebrows.

"So.  What should we try?"

Ned
"What do you know is more the question."

He throws back, a chuckle in his voice, reaching to take the cup of coffee and set it down on the table to cool. He set his knees up, elbows on either, leaning forward to regard the table and the coffee for a moment of consideration.

"So far I've had inklings of Health? Or medicine? A general sense of well-being in living things. Not just people, but anything alive with a circulatory system or a beating heart or...well no that's not true. Plants as well. I've seen the insides of their structures and make up pretty clearly when I was Solving their patterns." At least one word, seemed to have stuck from the Doc's lesson. Patterns made sense of Ned. Gave everyone and everything a 'Lowest Common Denominator'.

"There's...what did he call it?? Forces? Which is as good a word as any for it, really. Various forces that exist within Nature. Electricity was the easiest for me to notice. Bright blue lines existing inside and around various things. Electromagnetic...uhh...halos and.....pressures. That one might be best to leave alone for now though." The fear and nervousness in his voice says his experiences with Forces were not the most pleasant.

"...And tangible Matter." He taps the coffee mug, the table. "That one seems to register differently than the Life, living thing. I can sort out the composition of various materials, divide them into different components. Part Cotton, Part Polyester. I think if I knew a bit more about what I was looking at, I could probably tell you a more approximate percentage split on the materials this Coat of mine is made up of-" He plucked at his jacket sleeve, still draped over the couch arm. "I also know there are several threads loose or frayed that make it signficantly weaker under the right arm and along the hem."

His gaze finds her again, brows rising expectantly.

Margot
Margot blushed only the tiniest bit when Ned reminded her that she was jumping the gun.  What could they do, first.  She sat scooted back in her chair, and with a body small as hers it was no trouble to bring her feet up onto the seat as well.

She was wearing a thin yellow sweatshirt with a hood along with a pair of skinny-legged dark jeans, and sat with her legs crossed indian-style and leaned forward with her hands rested together on her ankles.  The apartment wasn't very chilly-- one good thing about the building being so old was that it was set up with radiant heat.  All the same, Margot tugged her hood up over the back of her head and listened while Ned described what he was able to Sense and Understand now.

Nodding in agreement, Margot stretched a lean arm forward to grab her coffee, then leaned back with it cradled in both hands when she was sure it was cool enough to sip.

"About the same things-- the living, the matter, the forces.  Plus I can sense when magic's been used."  She paused, then added almost doutfully-- "and spirits."  She cleared her throat and expounded on the last two.

"There's always something that goes into the atmosphere when somebody does their craft.  Kind of like what we feel from one another, you know?  A personal stamp that's left behind and there's just this lingering... sense and taste of it still.  Like a memory."  That one was easier to explain.  The hesitant look on her face and how she partially hid it behind her coffee mug suggested uncertainty on how she'd be perceived with this next one.

"And spirits-- ghosts and more, that's all real.  I know when they're around.  They're different, ghosts and spirits.  Spirits are still attached to someone, or they're over on the Other Side.  If they're neither of those two things they're misplaced, and a lot of the time that's because a person's spirit didn't pass properly.  It makes a ghost."  She cleared her throat a little, paused for a sip, and added:

"Makayla and I ran into a ghost at a frat house.  We didn't stick around to find out what it's deal was or to solve its problems for it-- it was making frat boys attack us."

Ned
"Well we're Witches and Warlocks and Magicians and Mad Scientists. Why not ghosts, right?" Ned shrugs. At this point, it would be hypocritical and ludicrous to deny the boundaries of what was and could be. He had been expounding on whether God existed and whether He/She/(It?) was republican a week or so ago. Ghosts were the least of his concerns or considerations. It was nice to know it was a possibility though.

"The other side." Ned's eyes narrow at that. "The Doc mentioned that as well. An attached world to ours which...I'm going to flat out admit right now, scares the crap out of me. Afterlives have never been something people have been comfortable with. We go-" He pauses. Clears his throat. They had to get used to this distinction. "-People goto war, kill each other and promise all sorts of cancerous hate on themselves for the chance to send someone else to Hell or claw their way into a Heaven. The possibility those exist...in all the myriad forms that Humanity has invented over the years...millenia? Well yeah." I don't envy you that one, Dear, he didn't say it, mind you but it was there. Implied.

He's drinking generously from his coffee now, the progress and expansion of thought (without a Teacher around to curb that thought) seemed to energize him to participate.

"Making frat-...like possession?" And suddenly the thought of not being able to see these things much less defend against them, brought a whole set of new nerves in Ned's system to life.

Margot
"Exactly like possession.  One of the gals that was there at the party had to bean one of them with a fire extinguisher."  She pressed her mouth into a grim line when she realized the gravity of that.  They could have just killed some poor guy who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Like she said, they didn't exactly stick around for very long.

She sipped her coffee for a few quiet moments, thoughtful.  When she spoke again she did so quiet, thoughtful, and slow.

"The one who chose me...  She's this goddess of war, I think.  Andraste.  Or... Morrigan, I think she's been called?  If she's a goddess of war, I think that means that I'm expected to have something to do with war as well."  She looked afraid of the prospect.  "I didn't bust my ass getting into college to go to join ISIS seeking war on half the world.  I--"

She stopped suddenly, for it sounded like she was about to start rambling nervously.  It was clear that she fretted what her Avatar may ask of her, with this relationship of debt that she seemed to have with it.  Margot didn't look much like a soldier.  She was a scholar.  A goddamn 19 year old girl who thought maybe she would be an ecologist and fight global warming when she grew up but now there was this big magical wrench being thrown in that plan.

"Doc said not to worry about the boogiemen, but I do.  Witch hunts have happened throughout a lot of history.  I doubt they've gone away entirely as much as just gone underground."

Ned
"Now who's being literal?" He offers sardonically. It isn't so much dismissive of her concerns, as it is of her attachment to the idea it demands something from her. Ned climbs to his feet, his body telling him to move. He paces around behind the couch to get his feet under him, scratching at his head as he goes.

"The Doc said the Avatar...our Guides? They're part of us. It isn't so much a choice as they've been waiting around, for us to Wake up so they can finally start interacting with us. Enlightenment ahead and all that. Getting us to a better place and time that we can begin to affect Reality-" he throws his hands up and around them, indicating 'Everything' in another small bid of sarcasm "-in these fantastic ways. It doesn't really make a lot of sense to be able to do what we do, while simultaneously being indebted to something for it. Does it?"

He pauses his pacing to stare at her, brow perked.

"You think you're in league to some faustian thing? Or maybe you've just got an overly assertive Guide who's been waiting around for a long time for you to finally open your eyes and is impatient to get on with it." He shrugs, sucking in a large exhale. The pacing starts again.

"Or maybe it's that some guides are more forceful than others. Yours is pretty direct but much like what we do with our power, I get the feeling how we get there is part of our choice as well. Going to War...heh, lots of ways to do that these days that don't involve guns, bullets and Shell shock. Besides...Goddess of War, yeah?"

He perks a brow, face screwing up in sudden thought. Eyes find her again.

"Who says she isn't tired of it and is maybe looking for you to come along and show her a different way? A different path to her means and ends?" A small smirk. Chiding but not cruel. "Gods aren't the most forward thinking of sorts afterall."

Margot
Ned got up and paced, but Margot stayed in her seat with her ankles firmly crossed and her mug still cradled securely in her hands.  He wanted to convey to her that she didn't have to put herself in so much of a box of violence, but she only appeared to be moderately receptive to what he was saying.  It was one thing to speak of an entity and theorize about its desires, but it was another to be standing before it with its starkly contrasting warpaint and blood-red hair and its teeth red with blood and black with death, speaking with such anger and insistence and demand.

"I don't know," she said quietly.  "War and gods were both born of humanity.  They're equally old.  I don't get the feeling it's something that would be changing.  Certainly not what I would be changing."

She tapped her toes on the edge of her seat a couple of times, then set them on the floor and stood up herself.  The mug was abandoned on the table, and she jerked her thumb toward the slim wooden door that led out to the balcony.

"How about we go for a smoke and start talking about the craft itself next?"

Ned
"You're not humanity anymore."

Blunt. Obvious. Unapologetic. Ned's eyes don't catch hers, rather he remains in his pacing step, almost as if he were speaking to both of them. Admitting to something he'd concluded a while ago. Time to draw distinctions. Between who they were and what they were now.

"...And really, Gods are the excuse, the ambitious use to goto war. An actual god? A real one? Who knows what they want.-" Go for a Smoke

"Yeah." He interrupts himself. Catches the edge of some bulldozing argument or discussion. Theology among College kids, often times led down paths of...well let's just skip that part and go right to the balcony scene, yeah?

* * * *

Ned leans against the rail, his little pot pipe clutched between thumb and fingers, squinting into the wind this high up that's lashing the building's face. It isn't bitterly cold but there's enough of a chill he's worn his jacket again. The bowl of his pipe is still huffing slightly, the embers charged and dancing with the wind. He exhales a vapour trail that vanishes into the night as quickly as it appears from his mouth.

"At this point-" Cough. "-The Doc says we've got as much to work with as we can sense. I'm not inclined to argue as that's as much as I've recognized about my abilities so far. Like there's this glass ceiling above me that I can't even touch let alone break, inside a room filled who a whole other assortment of....Perceptions. Things to see and touch and smell and taste...Fog cloud of possibility. Just gotta walk around exploring, right?"

He takes another small puff, before holding it out toward her to accept or decline at leisure.

"As far as I can tell, these perceptions give us access to things we normally wouldn't be able to know. Hidden information suddenly made available to us. How that information is used is just like anything really...but without the skills to put half of that new information to use, I doubt we'll be Spiderman and Wonder Woman anytime soon."

Margot
Out on the balcony the space was cramped like everything else, but Margot managed to fit a pair of small chairs and a table that was just barely big enough for two drinks between them.  They were using his pipe, but Margot was a gracious host and supplied the green.  She stood leaned against a balcony that was mostly chipped of its white paint but held pretty well.  The view from the top floor of the building was a pretty decent one, and gave a good view of Denver's general skyline against the wall of mountains behind it.

She had the yellow hood of her sweater up and her brown coat on overtop that.  When she wasn't actively using the pipe her hands were in her pockets and out of the chilly air.

"Yeah, pretty  much the same.  I can't push through or touch or change anything really, not so much as just know it better."  Cue the lighter, the ember, the drag-hold-exhale into the night.  She was quick to pass it back, and confessed as she did.

"I haven't really tested it out too much yet, to be honest.  I've been worried about it.  Like, what the repercussions might be.  I thought maybe the fact that I had to use blood meant it was a pained craft-- like, maybe I was hurting someone or something every time I did it?"  Jesus, girl, shake the guilt.  You're a witch, not wrecking the world.

"But," she added, looking up and trying to put on a bit more optimistic of an expression.  "Now that I've got a better idea about this Paradox business, I'm going to be testing it out more."  She hitched an elbow up on the railing and squinted out through the evening at the outline of the mountains in the distance.  "The books that I have talk a lot about rituals, but.... none of that is really very practical."

She looked back over to Ned and cast a sideways grin.  "What does one do with the ability to sense everything around them, huh?"

Ned
"A lot."

He turned so his back was to the railing, leaning his weight against the metal bar, while staring forward at the building wall and structure with something like careful scrutiny.

"Given what we know about the...well, Spheres...Categories?" Come back to that. "I could tell you the materials used to make my jacket. Or where in this building, with enough walking time and scanning, I could put a Bomb to bring the entire thing down. Weak points and structural integrity. Or I could-" He offers with a somewhat sheepish shrug "-if I knew much about Architecture. Even then, I think if I had the bomb, I might be able to manage without that level of knowledge. Or do some serious damage, anyway. If I did know about Architecture though, I could, without a doubt. Knowledge supplemented by Perception..."

Then he turns to her.

"Simultaneously, I could use...uhh...Forces? Living-..Life? Maybe both, to track someone through a building. I've done Infrared and x-ray vision before, though...not keen on doing the latter again." He stuffs his face deeper into his collar, trying to hide the vague blush creeping into his features. "With my medical knowledge, I've been able to tell how quickly someone's bleeding out and how much time they've got before they go into cardiac arrest from blood loss. Or how long before their brain stops working due to lack of oxygen."

He turns out into the world, sucking in a slow breath.

"...and Forces." The scary one. "I can walk around the city and tell you where electricity flow is going. I bet if I had training as an electrician? I could probably tell you how much electricity is going into a particular device? Or how much could overload it. Or trace it back to it's source. I think...I could even tell you how much pressure it would take to break a bone...or put it back into place. Sculpt the proper angle for re-locating a shoulder, without much trouble. All of that based on what you and I have access to..."

He smiles.

"That's pretty good, considering we're new."

He takes the pipe back for another haul, sucking in slowly and releasing.

"With your...Ghost? Spirit thing? You can easily track disturbances that could come up. Avoid areas that are heavy with them. Tell me which areas to avoid at that, please, heh. You can also...how did you put it? See the Craft? The magic? Being able to identify and categorize various...feelings and craftings will help us locate others. Or even possibly give us headstarts on avoiding them if we need to..." The boogiemen.

"Knowledge multipled by Perception = New Skill."

Margot
Ned was a talker, but thankfully Margot was a listener.  An observer.  She nodded along with him here or there, but mostly just stood with her back to the balcony's corner and learned things he's tested and learned he could do.  She started smiling a little at the bit about x-ray vision (of a sort), and her resting expression after that was more relaxed.  She defaulted toward worried and nervous looking most of the time, so the contrast was notable.

"Yeah, but what do we do with all of that?  It seems paltry to just... I don't know, get a job and make lots of money off this cheat code into the world."  The wind caught at her hair, so she paused and took her hands from her coat to tug at her hood and tuck the licks of brown back under it again.

"Like you said-- it's Them and it's Us.  They're different worlds, what we lived in and what we Awoke to.  The question is-- what the hell do I do with all of this power?"

She paused thoughtfully and swallowed.  Tapped her fingertips together before putting her hands into her pockets again.  This time when she did so her body language went stiff-- shoulders up and elbows straight.

"I think I can learn to heal.  I healed when I Awoke."

Ned
"Me too."

It's all he says. The healing thing. There's something...more drastic there, mind you. Ned was a talker and it's all he says about that for a long moment. Staring at the door leading back into her apartment. He just breathes, slowly, settling into his stance. Then-

"Maybe that's what the Guide is for." He posits, finally turning a glance toward her. "What we do with it. There to give you an option on how to proceed. Whether you agree to or rebel against that option or find something else. We improve and progress and toe lines and find ways to work around the new abilities...or with them."

He paused. Coughed gain, hand coming up to muffle the sound into his fist.

"All I know is I'm not a superhero. I don't want to daredevil around the city, beating up muggers and kingpins and mafia folk." A pause. A shrug. Comical. "Frat boys...maybe..."

Margot
The silence there was significant, each of them sinking into their own Awakenings and what all came along with them.  An Awakening was a heavy thing for anyone, something that they had all no doubt contemplated on their pillows for hours on end.  Ned stared at the structure of her building, and she out into the distance once more.

When he started speaking again she looked back, but she seemed grim all over again.  One day she'd have to work through whatever happened, if she wanted to proceed at all with her Avatar and sense of enlightenment.  Whether that could happen within a week of realizing this, though, was pretty doubtful indeed.

"No," she agreed with a brisk little shake of her head.  "I'm not a superhero.  I'm just a survivor."  She paused, and grinned back a little, willing the dark cloud that came with recollection away best she could.  "Like a Jessica Jones instead of a Wonder Woman."

A moment of thought passed, then Margot voiced something that had occurred to her since the last time they talked magic together.

"I feel like we need to learn more about these traditions first.  I expect that finding a group of like-minded folks is going to help a lot of the rest fall into place.  We could pick up some tricks of the trade too, I'm sure."

Ned
"Yeaahhh..."

Ned's reluctance comes through in the drawn out avoidance embedded in that one word. He scuffs at the balcony floor with one toe, the rough concrete sticking to and plucking at his thick wool socks which help to rebuff the cold. Enough that he didn't need the hassle of his boots.

"The Doc. He's stubborn, you know? He's got this belief in place that says 'It's work, not magic'. Not just a belief but he knows. At least according to him. I get the feeling that's pretty universal with our...kind. Us. The more you know, the more ugly that Paradox shit hits you but...the more fantastical everything you do, gets as well. That takes guts...belief takes guts. The stronger your belief, the bigger and better you get so...of course the Doc says it strong. Says it like it's the only thing that matters. I think...we lucked out a bit finding someone who is content to let us explore and ask questions like we do. Give us straight answers and just correct our mistakes."

He sends his gaze into the apartment again, frowning openly now.

"I'm not sure these traditions are the same bet. Tradition is something you have in place and adhere to. Ritual and comfort and dogma all at once. Not necessarily a bad thing but...all that Belief, from higher powers than you or I. Fresh faced as we are. Thanks but...no thanks. I want to get my head wrapped around my beliefs, solidified and firm, before I go trusting in someone else, just as stubborn and maybe not as open about all this as the Doc is."

He regards Margot then, eyes bloodshot from the marijuana, squinting in part due to the winds out here.

"Maybe these other Traditions can help. Show you what you need to know. Same time, maybe part of that involves pushing and forcing you to confront that stuff you've been avoiding." He shrugs slightly. "Which maybe you-....maybe we need."

Margot
He had a pretty good point, and that showed in how she furrowed her eyebrows.  The Doc just gave them some guidelines and wanted them to go nuts figuring things out for themselves.  Somebody else might try impose their own beliefs, and that could create way more conflict down the path to understanding than they needed.

But then, maybe she needed that to make her confront her demons.

Margot's eyes hopped quickly up to Ned's face when he said that part, covered it up quickly with a 'we' instead of 'you', but there was a chance she could take his statement personal.  For a moment, it seemed she might have.  But then she nodded and looked down at the street below, watching somebody carrying groceries out of their car.

"Nah, you're right."  She spoke slow and thoughtful.  Looked like she was growing resolve within herself, making some kind of a decision.  Perhaps even finding that purpose that she was talking about seeking earlier.  What to do with her newfound power.

"I mean, I kind of knew I'd have to go back to Maine sometime.  I left a bit of a mess behind."

Ned
(Arete 1: Forces 1 - Watch the Heat. Difficulty 4 - 1 for Tools (Narcotics)

Dice: 1 d10 TN3 (5) ( success x 1 )

Ned
"We've got time. More to learn at that."

It's a segue into softer territory. Ned's not one to push at trauama, his fair share a bright haunting in his own head. It isn't a dismissal though, not by far, his hands falling to wrap around the pipe and check the bowl for it's contents. A quick blow and a knock of the metal piece against the railing, empties it out into the wind before he's putting it back in his pocket and lifting off the rail.

"It's cold. Let's continue this back inside."

He pulls the door open.

* * * *

He returns to his coffee, hands scrubbing together to ellicit warmth. A moment of consideration for that gesture slumping back down on the couch and he chuckles. There's a second of pause, making sure Margot is back in the room and settling into her own seat, eyeballing her with those pot-high and squinted eyes.

Then he inhales and sets his hands together, rubbing them like he was warming up. His eyes are on his hands and his breathing is slow.

"...During the Car Crash. There was...something else." A bit of discomfort but he clears his throat. Pushes through it. "I was drunk. Drunk enough, anyway I'm pretty sure that's what happened with the Crash. Or why, anyway-" The air around Ned. In the apartment. It begins to feel...closer. Or there is less of it. A presence similar to the first time they had met, it claws and grasps and seems to horde the oxygen to itself. Makes each lungful a little deeper. A little more desperate but not by much.

"I hadn't touched a lick of alcohol since....well, that Tequila shot with the Doc. Walking home I...sort of figured something out. Put a couple new pieces together from one other time..." His hands are moving fast now, scrubbing together swiftly, the sandpaper like sound lighting the air. His gaze is focused on it, eyes dancing around the space of them.

"...The Alcohol. Not just that but...the Weed too. I think there's something about the state of mind...the change it induces. You're more...receptive to the world. More willing to go with it and less with...what you're been told or taught."

He releases his hands suddenly, lifting them up to stare at his palms, eyes a little wide and dancing between his fingers.

"...Waves of orange and blue. Static and Heat."

Margot
[Arete 1: Spirit - Scan for Hauntings, -1 diff for tool]

Dice: 1 d10 TN3 (1) ( botch x 1 )

Margot
Going back inside was a good idea.  It was cold and they'd finished smoking, and the apartment was warm and cozy and the coffee wouldn't have cooled off too much just yet.  Ned settled onto the couch, and Margot came to sit back in her chair instead.  She'd only had the one hit and seemed fine with that alone, so her eyes didn't show the marijuana too much-- glassier, perhaps, but not by much.  She picked up her coffee as well and sip-sipped while watching him rub his hands and listening to him speak.

He was drunk when he crashed.  Alcohol triggered his ability to do magic-- he could focus on the altered state of mind as a window through reality, as a way to see what normal eyes could not.  Margot nodded-- she suspected something like that.  Wondered whether he was the one driving, and if that's why he didn't much care to speak in detail about the crash and the circumstances surrounding it.  Again, had the common decency not to ask.

As he watched what heat looked like on his own hands, orange and blue crackling static and heat, the promise of fire that wasn't quite ready to bloom, Margot chewed the inside of her lip thoughtfully, then stood up abruptly.

Into the kitchen, and then back again.  She carried with her two things-- the coffee pot and a pairing knife.  After topping off their coffee mugs, Margot sat again-- not in her chair, but on the sofa beside him instead.  She leaned forward over the coffee table, the knife in one hand, and paused to look back at Ned.  A small smile quirked across her mouth and she shrugged her shoulders loosely.  "I was thinking I should do this, anyway..."

She then took the pairing knife and pressed it into the pad of her left ring finger, drawing it quickly across the surface to create a small, shallow cut.  She hissed quietly at the sting of it, but stayed the course all the same and held the finger out over the surface of the tabletop.  Droplets of blood fell onto the surface while Margot concentrated, then pressed the wounded finger down onto the table's surface as well.

As she did this, the air seemed to grow thick and sticky-sickly sweet like blood were clotting on the walls and seeping into the air as well.  Then, several seconds in, there was a sudden, small and sharp jolt! in the atmosphere that Ned would pick up on only as a bit of an aftershock-- slight and hardly perceived ripples in reality.

Margot, however, yelped.  "Jesus Christ!"

She jerked her arm back, shaking her hand as though it were burning then grabbing her finger and squeezing it tightly in her other palm.  She sat on the edge of the couch, curled over her hand while a burning pain worked its way through it.  Too distracted to notice herself, but Ned would probably pick up on the fact that the few drops of blood on the coffee table were sizzling and burning their way into the wood as well.

When you play with fire....

Margot
[Soak?]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (4) ( fail )

Margot
[Uh, one more die plz]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (2) ( fail )

Margot
[Unhelpful, but okay]

Ned
Ned watches. His fascination is pretty up there. Dedicated in the same way someone who was High, could actively participate with a brick wall and the patterns it's pock-marked surface relayed. Margot's efforts are given his full attention from the blood-letting (no reaction) to the table where the blood dripped and pooled (a slight frown) to the sudden sizzle and yelp of 'blasphemy' from Margot (a brief start and wide eyed surprise).

He leans forward, glancing at her on his way with an

"Are you alright?"

Followed closely by an eye down at the table surface with it's sizzling blood and stench of acrid, dissolving wood. His head tilts to the side, features cast in a grimace of confusion. He's still staring at the table, pushing a bit closer to her on the couch to get a firm view of the effect, when he says abruptly.

"What...the hell did you just try to do? Did you mean to melt the table? Are you even capable of that yet?!" Clearly a bit frazzled, leaning back from the stench with a waving hand, clearing his nostrils and coughing in the suddenly cloying air. Finally getting around to looking at her in confused alarm.

Margot
Thankfully the bad blood didn't burn completely through the tabletop, but it did scar the surface permanently.  She didn't answer verbally when asked if she was alright, but nodded quickly and kept her jaw clenched shut.  Waiting for a break in the burning that was working its way through the cut in her finger and back up her forearm before it would disappate, as though the burning of the blood was running back into her veins as well.

After he had enough time to ask if she was actively trying to make the table melt or not, Margot was finally able to relax her muscles enough to let go of her finger and glance hesitantly at her finger.

Cringing, she turned to show it to Ned who was near to her side.

When she moved her hand to reveal her finger again, he'd see that the small spiderwork of veins working their way back into her palm were bold and dark green, fading to invisibility past her wrist.  He could see the color actively fading away, creeping slowly back toward her fingertip itself.  She looked down at it with bewilderment, or what of that could show through the furrow-browed mask of pain.

"No!  I was just trying to see if there were ghosts in the building."

Ned
"...See ghosts, why the-" Ned stops himself, hands upraised and breathing. Always breathing. Steadily breathing. He leans back into the couch with his eyes closed and lips pursed around the relaxation that normally comes with attempting to meditate. Easy enough to think this was some minor exercise he may have picked up off an after-school special or some failed attempt in college to take Yoga.

"Alright." His eyes pop open, still bloodshot but somewhat more alert than they had been a moment ago. He scrubs at them with his fingers, trying to push away the high (or perhaps dispensing with the remnants of his own Solving).

"So you just did some crafting...and got a burnt table and a hurt finger." Ned's pouring through what information he has from the Doc and his own experiences and seems to circle around possible options. Options that get discarded in favour of the actuality. He grimaces and sets his brow in his hand, leaning elbow to knee for support.

"So the Doc says we're not capable of this sort of thing yeah? We both know that too. Nothing we can really affects anything but our own perceptions...but here we are, you having burnt the table...and hurt yourself in the process." He pauses. Pinches his nose. "Which leaves the possibility that you either did something wrong-...which I'm not inclined to think you did." He says a bit rushed, lifting his face back up to regard the burnt table.

"Or Reality just came along and told you 'No'..."

Margot
"I'm pretty sure it's the latter," Margot supplied through gritted teeth.  But for the most part she was relaxed now.  The unnatural color had receded back to her finger alone by now and she was sitting with her feet planted on the floor, elbows on her knees, lightly crading her left wrist in her right hand.  Watching the color crawl away, making sure that all of it left by the end of it.

"I did that same thing before, the night at the frat house.  It's how we figured out what the hell was actually going on.  It was weird-- we were out on the balcony but then the world around us just kind of went... black, like it fell away except for us and the building.  And the elevator would just loop back to the same floor if you tried going up or down."  She shook her head, and continued:  "I could feel the physical structure of the building and the foundation, that they were all still grounded in the earth so I knew we didn't actually go anywhere.  That ghost was shrouding the place and trying to keep us in."

Again, she didn't know why.  Fuck that ghost.  That ghost was an asshole.

"I'm gonna go wash this," she concluded, and stood up from the couch to go gingerly scrub her hand under cold water in the kitchen sink.


Ned
"There's gotta be an easier way than just...cutting yourself open all the time." He offers from the couch, watching her move into the Kitchen before returning to his coffee. He sips at it gently, eyes glancing at one of his hands which hovers in place while he drinks. Inspecting it for possible harm as well. Some sort of backlash that may be lingering in the air. Or...feeding off his own. Or making him hallucinate or an number of other-

The coffee mug is put down and he begins to breathe again.

"Fucking paranoia." He mutters, beneath the running faucet, inhaling and exhaling forcefully.


Margot
"That's what I've been thinking.  I'm wondering about maybe.... I don't know, bottling up chicken blood maybe?  It's strongest, it seems, right from the source.  And if it's from a human too, I think."  She frowned, adding thoughtfully:  "I've never really tried killing an animal for their blood before.  I don't get the feeling that shit donated from a butcher shop is going to appease anyone or anything into changing reality for me, though."

So as not to waste water, once the wound was clean she turned the faucet off.  Running it under cold water probably wouldn't help much anyways, she doubted this played the same rules as an actual burn would.

Margot dried her hand on a paper towel and glanced back over to Ned to find him breathing in and out like he meant it, with force and focus behind an action that should be thoughtless and natural.  Suddenly much less concerned with her own Paradox-addled cut, she frowned and moved back over near the couch.

"You alright?"

Ned
"Yeah I'm fine. Just some exercises I learned a while ago. Help to settle the nerves. Centre, zen, calm stuff-" He doesn't seem too invested, offering a small smile when she comes back.

"You're the one changing reality. So long as you recognize the Blood's the key, I doubt it'll matter. Belief, yeah? Believe the Butcher blood won't help it probably won't. Believe you have to bleed personally...well...that kind of says a lot about your willingness to suffer, doesn't it?"

He scrubs his face again, trying to push aside the high that's still lingering in his system.

"I think tonight was a success. Regardless of what actually happened, we managed to get some good information and...confirm a few things the Doc has been saying. I feel better going into his next lesson." There was a hint of expectation. Perhaps even anticipation in Ned's tone, though it didn't show much beyond a blank stare at the coffee table and it's new burn mark.

"It'll probably help a lot if we have these little meet ups after the lessons. Though...how much do you want to tell him about what we managed here?" He glances at her, a bit of uncertainty lingering in his features.



Margot
Ned earned himself a small wry grin at the comment about suffering.  "It doesn't always have to be mine.  Someone else's would work too, just as well I'm sure.  Even better if I'm trying to read them directly."  Her brow furrowed, and she sat down on the couch as well.  Laced her fingers together so that her hands folded neatly into her lap.  "But there has to be more to it than that.  Other ways than just blood alone."  She liked to believe herself to have more depth than just blood witch.

"I think we should be up front with the Doc.  He has the decency to give us his time and help for free-- or, at least, free from what we can tell."  She rubbed at her own face a little, the repeated habit wearing off on her to some degree.

"Besides, for all we know he probably has ways of finding out or knowing anyways.  He's an Enlightened Mad Scientist, for all we know we're bugged."

As if his paranoia wasn't doing poorly enough.

Ultimately, Margot didn't seem to be in any rush to kick Ned out and get herself to bed.  She was content to talk further, but when the point came goodbye would come as well.  They'd meet with the Doc again soon, and who knows what they'd have to share by then.

January 13th, 2016 - Lessons at a Strip Club [The Doc, Ned]

Margot
The both of them would've received a text message (or phone call, perhaps) from the good Dr. Sepúlveda earlier that day.  They were going to meet and he was going to explain some shit to them.  An address was provided as well as a time to meet-- it was rather later in the evening than Margot had hoped for (she had class in the morning, damnit), but so be it.

Margot volunteered to drive and offered Ned a ride.  She'd pick him up wherever he requested (within reason, of course-- if he wanted her to pick him up from outside the city she'd probably be grumpy about it).

Before they new it the sun had long been down and the ice chill of January in the Rocky Mountains settled in with the night.  Margot drove a car that was probably about five or six years old, a little inoccuous green four-door sedan.  Inexpensive, easy to afford on no credit, and most importantly easy to overlook.  She kept it clean and there was a Yankee candle air freshener dangling from the rear-view mirror to make it smell like "fresh linen" in the cabin.  Listened to NPR if they weren't making conversation, and contributed distractedly while driving if conversation were to be had.

Federal was a sketchy stretch of road, and Margot's reluctance to be here showed in a pinching together of eyebrows.  When she found the number of the building that they had been looking for she took a left turn across the lanes to pull into the parking lot and still the car in a space.  When she finally bothered to squint at the sign in the window, her jaw went a little slack.

"You've got to be kidding me."

The Paper Moon.  The squat brick building painted black and left to float in its own island of crumbling concrete that the doctor told them to meet at was a strip club.


Ned
He didn't like driving much.

He could, mind you but he didn't like it. Car crashes did that to you. Especially those potentially responsible for turning your whole life view and value around until nothing makes any concrete sense any longer. So when Margot makes the suggestion and arrives to pick him up, he is somewhat askance of it all. He greets her with a careful nod and an easing into the seat, immediately reaching for his seat belt to buckle in. He sits there with his hands on his knees, staring out the windows with a furrowed brow that he probably doesn't realize is there.

The entire drive is riddled with him glancing out the window. There are a few moments where his hand comes up, half in the middle of pointing out some well-distant obstacle or problem that might cause Margot some trouble while driving, only for her careful methods to make it obsolete halfway to his pointing. Most of it is obvious, easy to avoid/notice. Evidence of his nerves.

He makes no attempt to converse, content with NPR (or maintaining vigil on the road to where they are going) and it isn't until they come to a halt and he's glancing out of the window at the sign she's brought them infront of that his brow furrows in conscious effort.

"...Apparently not." He turns to glance at her, hand moving for the seat belt, the other moving to pop the door open with a little too much effort and speed. "You bring any singles?" With seriousness implied. Then he's climbing out, slapping the door closed and staring at the window and the establishment beyond with his hands in his jean pockets, thick winter jacket a puffy cushion of warm that buttons right to his nose.


Sepúlveda
It's warm in Denver today. Clouds choked the sky all day but the temperatures reached into the fifties and now that night has fallen and the skies are starting to clear they will take what little warmth remains with them.

The medical examiner is standing outside of Paper Moon smoking a cigarette and gazing off towards the Rocky Mountains with a pensive expression on his face. His hair looks as if he - or someone else - combed it with his - or her - fingers before he continued on his merry way. He's wearing a suit which implies he had to testify in court or else assist in an inquisition or an investigation or else he just felt like putting on a fucking suit to go to a fucking strip club.

Early enough in the evening that the rowdy crowd hasn't even started considering where they were going to end up yet. Right now it's just regulars and your run-of-the-mill dirtbags.

When Margot and Ned step out of the car and come towards him he takes a final killing drag off the cigarette and deposits the butt in the canister by the wall where he's standing.

"Give me your wallet," is the first thing he says to Margot. A flick of his eyes to Ned like he already knows what's coming: "You're underaged and I'm a firm believer in the power of practical demonstration. I'll at least need something that resembles an ID."

Translation: Hi guys glad to see you made it okay are you ready for your first lesson?


Margot
The car chirped to indicate that she'd successfully locked the doors, and Margot stepped up onto the sidewalk in front of the curb the nose of her car was at.  She was dressed in a pair of dark gray pants and black sneakers, with the same brown tweed coat that she'd stepped outside work wearing to chat with Ned when they first met (just a few days ago, crazy what a change a week will make).  She'd tugged a hat on over her hair to keep her head and ears warm as well, and kept her hands (and keys) tucked into her coat pockets.

Did she have singles?  It was probably a joke, but he sounded pretty serious all the same.  "I have a five, I think?  I never really have reason to carry cash, everyone accepts card."

The Doctor wasn't difficult to find, and the pair walked up to greet him.  Margot looked about ready to say something about the location, her mouth had opened to begin words and she was turning her head to gesture toward the building already.  She was interrupted before getting anything out, though, by a demand for her wallet.  Margot blinked, caught a little off-guard, and produced a slim purple wallet from her coat pocket.

"Alright," she conceded, but quickly remembered her indignance.  "Was this really the only place you could think of?"


Ned
"Could probably get change at the bar or something." Ned offers, perhaps attempting to be helpful or reassuring.

Ned's already digging into his pocket when the Doctor asks Margot for her ID. He fishes out his old student ID, flipping it over to check the face there and inspect the ID For the required information: Date of Birth, Location etc. etc. Wonderful. He taps it against his opposite hand, wallet clutched precariously between clenched fingers, even as his eyes lift back up to the sign and the establishment.
"This is either going to be depressing, embarassing or resembling violent." If it seems prophetic, then you'd be mistaken. Ned hands it off half-heartedly, quirking what might be a smirk at Margot, before eyeballing the Doc.

"...and what exactly are we supposed to do?" It comes in on the tail end of Margot's own question. Parameters. Figure out the rules of the game or the question so you can get to answering it properly. If Ned's features, bunched up into a frown. Equal parts cold and concerned.


Sepúlveda
Like the smallest bouncer this side of the Rio Grande the doctor reaches out for Margot's wallet and Ned's student ID. Rifles through the former only so far as he needs to in order to find either her driver's license or her university ID card and then thrusts the purple patent leather thing back at her.

Was this really the only place you could think of?

No Margot he also considered multiple libraries and a diner and just sitting in his fucking Toyota on a curb somewhere but then he decided if he was going to have to lay out a syllabus for Wizarding 101 to two wide-eyed young things then he wanted to drink tequila and look at bare breasts while he was doing it.

The doctor just flicks his eyebrows before removing from his own coat pocket a small gray metal box that looks like a '90s era PDA. He feeds the first badge to a slot in the side of the machine and starts to tap buttons with the pad of his middle finger.

...and what exactly are we supposed to do?

"What?" He wasn't listening. He looks up from his work. They're cloaked in shadow. No security cameras here and if there are no one is sitting in a room somewhere watching them. Closed-circuit. The machine begins to chirp and then whir. "Oh, I'm sorry, am I keeping you?"

[matter 2: MELT AND REFORM BITCHES. i think he only needs like 2 successes for it to last the rest of the scene. base diff 5, -1 for practiced effect.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (9, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )


Margot
A glance was cast toward Ned, and the smirk wasn't quite returned but she did at least look a little bit less anxious for a moment.  Then the Doc set to work with what looked like an old handheld from the second-hand stores of childhood gone past.

The distracted 'What?' had Margot clearing her throat and trying again.

"How do we learn at a strip club?"


Ned
"...Right. Shut up and wait." It would seem Ned is used to this sort of response. From Doctors, Nurses, Former Professors, etc. etc. A lifetime of being told you're not important enough yet and this isn't the right time for asking questions. He doesn't look perturbed or even annoyed, just impatient, eyes scaling and climbing along the length of the building they are standing in front of.

"...Imagine we try not to get distracted and see where our morals take us." It's a half-assed assurance to Margot, though no less a guess than anything else they've tried to get out of the Doc.


Sepúlveda
When he hands the ID back to Margot the state and her name and address remain the same but her birth year has dialed back far enough that so far as the plastic is concerned she is now 22 years old. Scanning the ID will tell the bouncer as much. He accomplished what he set out to do.

Which means he's feeding the little device Ned's ID as the two apprentices go on. His eyes are on the screen and not on them.

"I suggest you leave your morals and anything else you think you know about the world outside. Your environment doesn't dictate what you're capable of doing."

[matter 2: and again!]
Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (5, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )


Margot
"Of course it does," Margot retorted quickly at the bit of advice the good doctor offered about environments.

She seemed stressed, but of course she did.  She was about to go into a strip club for the very first time, a place she'd have rather avoided if she could, and it was to serve as a classroom (or laboratory?) of all things.  Perhaps they were just here for a conversation-- that would make sense.  But if they were supposed to do anything practical and hands-on themselves....

She was beginning to think that may not be the case, though, and accepted the ID back.  Looked it over and noted that the date of birth was reprinted.  Same date, different year.  No signs of alteration, but of course not.  This was magic.

The card went back into the purple wallet and from there into her jacket again.  Finally, sounding like she was trying to bargain, she asked:

"Can we at least not sit at the stage?"


Ned
"Well that's good." It genuinely was. Ned had been concerned that his efforts so far were going to be exclusive to the Hospital given most of his 'Workings' revolved around certain regular occurrences present at such a location. It was a more casual response than Margot seemed comfortable with, but at least it was a parameter he could test. He'd been scared to do much outside of the Hospital, incase something went wrong. 

"So the thing with the IDs-" Ned leans over to glance at Margot's ID, taking a hard look to see if there were any noticeable discrepancies "-is part of the Trick. You paint over the current visual and replace it with whatever anyone wants to see? Or did you actually change the numbers themselves to read differently?"

"I always feel bad sitting next to the stage. I don't have any money to give them." Casual, off-hand and dismissive. Yes, he was a former university lad. 


Margot
To tack onto the list of things that Ned mused the Doc might have done, Margot-- wide-eyed as ever, added brightly:

"Or did he change my age?"

Ooooh.


Sepúlveda
Of course it does.

And he hands Ned back his student ID which has undergone a similar alteration only unlike her driver's license his badge no longer says UNDER 21 in big red letters. His new birth year supports the absence of such.

"No it doesn't."

Can we at least not sit at the stage?

The longest of long-suffering sighs. He doesn't answer right away. Tucks away his little presto change-o device and runs his left hand through his hair. A man wearing a wedding band taking two underaged kids into a strip club on a Wednesday night. What will the neighbors say.

"Fine," he says.

So the thing with the IDs.

"What I did is basic transmutation. In order to alter another's perception of the contents of the license I would need a stronger grasp on the Sphere of Mind, which I don't. Yet. I reprinted the cards so they displayed a more appropriate date of birth. Nothing fancy."

That's the last question he takes before they head inside.

--

Anyone who has ever stepped foot inside of an adult entertainment establishment knows the drill. This place looks like any other 21+ night club with a dingy foyer and an unmanned coat check booth and a register counter where a bored girl with golden skin and chemically-straight black hair stands examining her manicure while she waits for customers. Low light and through the darkness newcomers can see the bar off to one side U-shaped and thin-populated and off to the right the stage. Pink and blue lights and most of the men sat right up by the stage are neither in the prime of their lives nor seem interested in what is happening.

Apart from the bartender and the cocktail waitresses every girl in here is topless.

Dr. Sepúlveda takes a shot of tequila at the bar and orders another shot and a beer back for the trip to the table. He'll pay for whatever the other two want. Does not pressure them into cola or water if they don't want anything. They're college students. Food trumps booze.

Five minutes into the indoor aspect of their adventure they're seated. The doctor twirls the wedding band one two three times. Knits his fingers and rests his forearms on the table.

"They have good chicken wings," seems to be his final comment on the matter of the location. He removes a prescription pad from his pocket opposite the side where he keeps the PDA stored and begins to scribble. "Alright. Settle a bet: how did you two meet?"

[forces 2: SOUND SHIELD MOTHERFUCKERS. this might be vulgar? no one is paying attention to them tho. welcome to mage the rules are made up and the points don't matter. -1 for practiced rote.]

Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (6, 7, 7) ( success x 3 )


Ned
"Plate of fries please." Is Ned's order, the Orderly passing on a drink except a glass of water. He doesn't hesitate and takes the Doc's offer for what it is. Food was scarce perhaps, or he just didn't seem to have the normal level of appetite one would expect for someone of his age. Disposition, events being what they were, that might be understandable.

The table they sit at is a little small, all the better for potential on the spot lap dances and lounging 'workers' offering their wares with the most flexible ease. He seems to take passing glances at the roving breast farm here or there, but doesn't commit much to the eyes or faces. He takes one of the chairs at the table, with his glass of water, sipping at it gently before turning his attention to the Doc.

"Margot works at a pot-" He pauses, eyes narrowing, pulling his winter jacket off in slow increments "-You did something. I'm suddenly a lot colder...and creeped out and it isn't the missing jacket." He rolls his sleeves up on his plaid shirt, collar half sprung, hair a touch messier than it probably should be. 

"We met at a pot dispensary. She works there and I needed some. She noticed my oddness and called me out on it. I caught the same off her after that and we exchanged numbers." Ned's plate of fries arrive quickly and he accepts them without meeting the girl's eyes. Presumably the table goes quiet on her arrival and only picks back up again when she leaves. 

"Guess you could call that the meet-cute to this hurricane..." He begins munching on some fries, pushing the plate forward for folks to help themselves.

Margot
Inside the strip club Margot felt out of place.  She was sure that she stood out, but in truth nobody really gave a shit about whether she was there or not.  She ordered the chicken wings, per recommend, and a bottle of beer.  As they found their table and settled in, Margot glanced around the establishmennt and looked vaguely as though someone put a bad smell right under her nose.

That look would fade when their conversation kicked off and food arrived, and she was able to focus on something beyond the topless women roaming around and stewing in her own little cloud of young-minded feminist righteousness.

The wings were surrendered to the center of the table as well, and they were pretty good as a matter of fact.  She washed them down with her beer before cutting immeditely to a question of her own

"What happens to the folks like us that don't find each other?"

Her look was probably comical for how serious she was on the side of the table opposite the good doctor.

Sepúlveda
You did something. I'm suddenly a lot colder...and creeped out and it isn't the missing jacket.

The doctor flicks his eyebrows but does not offer up a concrete explanation. He's in the middle of scribbling out what he wants the universe to do and it's not the most intricate or precise effect he's ever fired off on a whim but it does what he set it out to do. The cocktail waitress can hear them only because she's inside the area of effect.

Once she drops off the fries and wings and a third shot of tequila she steps outside of it again the Work he just performed reveals itself. They cannot hear the Iggy Azalea song the bleach-blond anorectic is dancing to right now. They cannot hear the din of the crowd. They cannot hear the bass throbbing out of the speakers. They cannot hear the kitchen door opening and closing. A yawning effect when the force shield engulfs them and the inevitable cold of the doctor's resonance and that is that.

The term 'meet-cute' makes him scowl and knock back his second shot of tequila. He lets the burn burn for a few seconds before dragging his beer closer. He does not touch the fries or the wings.

What happens to the folks like us that don't find each other?

"Well..." He does not think her look comical. The man has seen some shit. Before he answers he scratches at his forehead. Gold band dull in the multicolored light. "The resourceful ones make valuable use of inductive reasoning. They learn valuable life lessons, pick up a variety of cosmetic and hepatic scars, and more often than not disappear from the streets and return months later to begin their lives anew as Technocrats. Most folks don't go very long without finding a mentor. If it's any consolation." Beer. "Being as you found a mentor, my gift to you--" A pantomime as if he's bestowing a bounty upon them. "--is deductive reasoning. If we all focus and remain on task and set out reasonable and attainable goals for ourselves and each other, by the time you achieve a higher state of enlightenment and can function on your own you will be able to solve most of life's problems using your Spheres and trusting in your Avatar not to lead you astray."

Beer.

Ned
"....Avatar. I'm going to assume you aren't talking about Air-Benders or Blue giants." The term gets stored away in Ned's brain. He had been tempted to bring along a notepad but thought better on leaving behind paper trails for people to find or localize. The less evidence the better and really, he wasn't in any danger of forgetting what was happening anytime soon. The terms would come easily enough.

He turns, almost sharply to shake his head vigourously at an approaching dancer, no doubt with an intent to offer a Lapdance and some 'friendly conversation', sending the girl shrugging on to another table with a single fellow dressed in greedy eyes.

"Spheres. Are th- Wait..." Ned pauses, eyes narrowed in regard of the Doc, leaning forward with his elbows on the table. "You said 'Set out reasonable and attainable goals for ourselves..and each other'..." Another brief pause, to ensue everyone heard it correctly. 

"Does that mean we can expect to have goals for you?"

Margot
Margot, too, wriggled free from her coat and draped it over the back of her chair.  Under the coat she wore a black long-sleeved shirt with a boat neck and a thin chain about her ­­neck holding a small charm that was made to look like a bookcase.  She brushed her fingers back through wavy-messy brown hair to tuck the right side behind her ear.

A carrot stick was plucked from the basket of wings, and she nibbled this while producing a small notebook and pen from a pocket in her coat.  She promptly set this on the table and ducked her head down to begin scribbling notes quickly-- just terms, really.  Avatar.  Spheres.  Mentor.  Just to name a few.

Ned asked about Avatars, but more importantly asked about goals they could set for their mentor.  Sharp hazel eyes skipped up from her notebook and to the doctor's face, still looking as serious as before, when she asked what she felt to be a more pressing question.

"What's a Technocrat?"

Sepúlveda
[manip + subt: i am not pleased by the fact that you're taking fucking notes]

Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (8, 9) ( success x 2 )

Sepúlveda
They're new. They're so new. They just stepped off the boat and they're new and they can both see Dr. Sepúlveda take a deep breath to remind himself that he needs to be mindful of this and not talk to the two of them like they're actual interns. Actual interns he can treat like shit because it builds character and hardens them to the harsh realities of forensic pathology.

These two met because one of them works in a medical marijuana dispensary while going to school and the other one wipes down stretchers and mops floors at a fucking hospital. They didn't sign up for this.

Director's commentary: it warms the cockles of his shriveled lump of a heart that Margot starts taking fucking notes. His poker face is just fine as long as you don't read the movement of the muscles beneath his beard.

Does that mean we can expect to have goals for you too?

He flicks his eyebrows. Yes. That is a reasonable assumption.

What's a Technocrat?

"We'll get to that," he says.

The weight of the project they've undertaken has settled on his shoulders. Their mentor is roughly the size of a fifteen-year-old boy and does not have broad shoulders. His spine is straight and strong though. Plus he has something fifteen-year-olds do not: alcohol.

"Before we go any further, I need you two to divest yourselves of the notion that your lack of consent insofar as Awakening goes is a variable in this equation. Very few people choose this, and the ones who do had coaxing. I, myself, would not have Awakened were not for a more powerful Scientist recognizing some kind of potential in me and introducing her paradigm to my life. Which, in case you're wondering: I went to Denver University on a minority scholarship to study biochemistry. Graduated in 2000. Med school: Johns Hopkins. Anatomic pathology residency: Stanford. Forensic pathology fellowship: Miami. When I Awakened I was alone in the chem lab at DU and a shadow started whispering to me. Just over my shoulder, disappeared soon as I turned around. I followed it." A beat. "Right through a wall."

He gives them a moment to both digest that and wrap their heads around the fact that he took a sharp left away from their questions. Keeping to the syllabus they haven't received yet.

Ned
"....A Shadow." Ned might be incredulous at such an innocuous mention, but-

"Mine was a puzzle." He frowns, eyes flicking toward Margot for a second. She had mentioned a Goddess. "Infinite colours and untold shapes. Nothing but shifting pieces and some...well, lovecraft level symmetry. Non-euclidian? Felt like I was trying to put together a map for epilepsy." It's clear in his demeanour, slightly hunched shoulders, darting eyes and the discomfort clouding his face that this is new territory to talk about. New territory he has been avoiding.

"Everything I've done which...well, really isn't much...sort of solves a part of it. Or...unfolds new parts, I dunno." His gaze finds Margot again. "You said a Goddess. A War one." And back to the Doc. "Is there any rhyme or reason to these images? Are they random or actual entities or...?" 

Translation: Should we be scared?

Margot
Whatever pleasure it may have caused their thirty-something teacher to see her actively taking notes in her little notebook went missed-- Margot's head was ducked, eyes on the words she was writing.  By the time she'd looked up he had his poker face well affixed and had moved on to other thoughts.

She paid attention when he spoke of his Awakening.  She remembered him mentioning something about a book, but glanced to Ned when he mused about the shadow then took a moment to speak at length about his Avatar.  He'd find her already looking at him, meeting his gaze when he mentioned hers briefly-- the Goddess of War (or, well, one of many really).

She didn't speak to confirm or give anymore insight into her Avatar.  Didn't even come close to touching on her Awakening.  Ned already knew that she was adamant about not talking about that particular subject just yet.  Which made her feel just a little bit like shit, because here he was laying cards and great detail on the table even though his body language spoke of clear discomfort.  Sorry, buddy.  Not just yet.

After a moment or two's delay she turned her attention and gaze back to the Doc as well.

"You said that a book awoke you.  Did it speak of shadows as well, or was that just.... what found you?"

Sepúlveda
"The Avatar!"

Sudden enthusiasm from a man who from the looks of him ought to be a sarcastic piece of shit who hates everything. He's small and a bit sallow the long hours underneath the fluorescents eating away at his melatonin and besides that he works with dead bodies all day. The impression they have gotten from him so far is that he is beleaguered and hyperactive. Talks a lot. That's a side effect of being a decent teacher.

His non sequitur outburst is just that. He's fucking scatterbrained. As Ned talks he thinks of other things. Listens sure and retains but his primary focus is internal.

"Okay. Listen: your Awakening is the closest to a definition of you, as a.. mage.. as you're going to get. Everyone has a different word for what it is. You listen to the Choristers it's the shards left over from the One ringing the note that begat the universe. The Cultists think it's... everything. Weed. I don't fucking know. Cultists are insane." Says the mad scientist. "It's... I think it's a higher consciousness. An inner awareness that allows you, the willworker! Your will is what allows the things you do to happen as they do. You. Not... your instruments, not your rituals, not your candle-burning throat-singing nonsense. You. Some people have very strong Awakened selves and others are... ephemeral. Barely capable of lighting a candle. The stronger your Awakened self, your Avatar, the more Quintessence, the raw Stuff of the universe, you're able to work with. Even if it's weak, it finds you when it's ready for you to open your eyes."

Time for questions. His third shot of tequila is yet untouched. A good sign.

Ned
"Quintessence. Alright..." Ned clears his throat, leaning over the table again, hands to elbows, forearms to cheap wood furnishing.

"So our awakening, is an emergence of Will, as defined by our own personal belief structure, whatever that may be. Belief, by my own definition, is the strongest representative values within my own core understanding of the world including morality, tenacity and conviction all blended together. In essence..." He holds up a finger, eyes falling to the table for a moment of speculation and attempted word adjustment.

"...Whatever we believe on some greater level, be it apathy, faith, logic or compassion, will drive not only how we perform these 'Acts of Will' but also why it happened to begin with. The emergence happens when we're "Ready"..." He air quotes "Which is ambiguous enough to warrant this being some pyramid scheme only...well we've got the evidence to prove our special powers, don't we?"

He exhales. Loudly.  Getting used to the cone of silence they were in. The background tits and poor music are easier to ignore when in here.

"So when Margot and I emerged, presumably-" A glance that could be apologetic, thrown at his fellow apprentice "-we did so with a sudden explosion of belief and conviction, that resulted in a hard knot of 'Will' capable of re-organizing Existence. Our own personal bubble of 'Id and Ego trumps all'..."

He pauses, eyes tracing the Doc.

"How am I doing?"

Margot
Sepúlveda and Ned both got affixed with different stares.  First, for the good doctor, was the stare of a student trying to sponge up all of the key points in a lecture.  Bright-eyed, a blank slate willing to (at least with a grain of salt) believe that you knew exactly what you were talking about.  He was about a third of the way through his spiel before she remembered and looked down to frantically scribble notes and catch back up.

Then Ned got to talking, relaying what he was perceiving from their conversation, and the stare he received was more impressed than anything.  His question of how he was doing hung in the air.  This time around Margot didn't come up with any questions of her own to tack onto his, as had apparently become her habbit.

Instead she combed her fingers through her hair again, this time with a bit of exasperation, and reached for her beer bottle.

"This is so fucking philosophical."

Sepúlveda

This is so fucking philosophical.

"Of course it's fucking philosophical. We're discussing the foundation of reality."

Belief is as good a word as anything from which to hang the rest of the lecture and the Etherite considers its appropriateness and Ned's question with a swallow of beer and a frown.

"You're doing fine."

He picks up the pen he'd used to scrawl on the prescription pad and clicks it several times before continuing on.

"The Awakening is a burst of wild talent that one must sublimate into belief, and eventually a paradigm, or you're no better off than a sleepwalker. Without belief in something, you cannot change reality, and that belief is the core of your paradigm. A reflection of your place in the world and how what you do affects the change you want to see. Paradigm is more of an intellectual framework than belief is, but you see, they need each other. One is the how and the other is the why, yes?"

NedYou're doing fine

Ned couldn't help but crack a smile at that, the confirmation some solid piece to the puzzle he'd described before. It brings about a small burst of internal joy, like fitting pieces to the corner of a jigsaw you've been staring at for the better part of a year. 

"It's not difficult to understand why most people have failed to emerge then. Belief, denial and delusion are so tightly wrapped up with one another in Western society, one mistake sends most of us spiralling off into skepticism and...uhh..." He blinks, frowns and bites his lips, possibly coming to some sort of internal realization in that moment just then. His shoulders hunch a little bit and he takes a few fries.

"Paradigm. A structural basis for a concept or idea, meant to translate into practicality...or at least something resembling practicality. Ultimately, we want something practical, functional and most of all, believable, to ensure we can Work without compromise or conssession." A pause, re-thinking. "We want to be able to do what we want, but we have to think and believe in it, in terms we can trust. Like the kid who imagines his blankets are a forcefield against the boogieman. Doesn't matter who believes it, so long as he does. For all intensive purposes, it keeps him safe until morning, whether folks know there's a boogieman or not. That's enough reasoning for the belief to be strong, regardless of whether anyone's seen the boogieman or not, the kid included. So..."

His eyes flick up toward the Doc and briefly around at Margot.

"What happens when that belief is compromised? What happens when I stop believing the blankets are forcefields?"

Margot
Through the conversation, Margot had been jotting down notes in the petite notebook that she'd brought along with.  A glance at the page (when visible from behind her hands and arms) would reveal tidy handwriting with things scrawled in bold and underlined and asterisks holding places for questions and further thoughts as well.  She glowered at the pages like they would organize themselves or fill themselves in.  It was partway through the analogy about the boogeyman that she stilled the ballpoint on the paper and looked up.

It was like a light was turned on-- not immediately, but with a dimmer switch that was only just inched up enough to begin the flow of electricity.  There wasn't enough light to make out the room, but she could at least see the source from which the light came.

"You need to replace the blankets with something else-- like a teddy-bear guard, or a 'sword'.  You've got to adapt the belief or replace... right?"  The right is directed at the Doc, of course, checking her theory.  "If you simply lose it, then you've lost everything else too."

Everything.  As though this ability to bend and manipulate and sense reality beyond what they used to know was the only thing that mattered.  But when you were awake it was so difficult to fall back to sleep again, wasn't it?

Sepúlveda

The kids start to lose him around the time Ned refers to instruments of practice in terms of childhood application of fantasy to protect them from forces they do not understand. Across the table his disapproval appears as mild disgruntlement.

Dr. Sepúlveda is old enough to be Margot's father, at least. Ned escapes that designation by virtue of the laws of biology but judging by his career and his position and the salting that has already introduced itself to his hair and beard he is at least twice Margot's age. Nothing fatherly about him otherwise but age has its place in their society as much as it does anywhere else. Not in terms of enlightenment but life experience.

These two have had their fair share of the latter if only by Awakening. He has surpassed theirs by surviving. He remembers being a teenager and he remembers being in his twenties. Even when he attains the power necessary to travel through time he rests assured that for no sum of money would he willingly go back to being a young man.

Anyway:

He's scowling a bit as Ned continues on paraphrasing a sentiment he did not express. Takes a long swallow of beer at the point of the blanket forcefield keeping the kid in question safe until morning and then he looks away to find their server. Puts his empty shot glass pointed near the edge of the table to draw her over.

It's slow tonight. Even though she cannot hear them she can still see them.

By the time Margot has laid the facets of her hypothesis upon the table their server has ambled over and breached the sound shield. Dr. Sepúlveda swipes his hand through his hair and orders three shots of tequila. For the table. He is not going to be the one imbibing all of them. She does not question it. Just picks up discarded dishes and returns to the bar.

"The instruments you use to Work are nothing like hiding your head under a blanket because you're five years old and think there's a monster under your bed." <i>Christ</i>, he doesn't say. "You're on the right track, but--"

This is not his first time working with students. Frustration is a universal part of the student-mentor relationship however. Doesn't matter how many times a body puts himself through it. Stupid shit has the power to transcend time.

"Let's go back to belief, for a moment, yes? This is important: Paradox. To use your..." Sigh. "... 'sword' analogy, changing reality is such a thing, double-edged. You use this sword to do as you wish, but in doing so, the blade can cut you. There will be consequences for doing as you do without proper respect for the laws of physics. One day I'll demonstrate for you what occurs when one attempts to reshape the world in circumstances that are less than ideal. In front of Sleepers, say, or without the tools necessary to one's paradigm."

He could just tell them a story but a lecture does not take the place of practicum when teaching students how to operate beyond the confines of what the average person can understand. They don't need to hear about his wife dying twice right this second.

"On another night I will explain Paradox. What it is, why it exists, how you get around it, but for right now, wrap your heads around the fact that it is what happens when the reality that the world accepts and the reality that you make exist in the same place at the same time and your reality is the one that gets its ass kicked by the world's reality."

Here come their shots. Dr. Sepúlveda knocks his back and trades the server his empty glass for the three fresh ones.

"Your instruments aid you in shaping reality," he says after she's left. "You aren't children. Boogiemen are very real, and hiding won't save you if you don't know what the hell you're doing. Drink."

Ned
It's Poly sci all over again

Ned's hands come up to scrub at his face, pushing his eyes in slightly and wincing with the effort. The Doctor order's shots and Ned doesn't offer much by way of argument to his corrections (no small amount of attempts at clarification and getting reamed out in front of the lecture hall, instilled that thought process early on) and his hands come away to slump back onto the table in time to collect the Doctor's sword analogy.

Two separate realities. Perform belief or get fucked up by existence. Tools...

"So these tools we're using are what? Physical representations? I don't necessarily need them to do these Works-" He pulls a face at the word, obvious unsatisfied with it "-but I'm liable to get hurt if I don't? Are the Tools symbolic then or actual? Am I getting some sort of chip to help me recognize how long I've been sober from reality or being asleep or-" Ned looks down at his shot of Tequila, a frown crossing his face, but he doesn't stop his sentence "-are these instruments there to help lubricate the ass kicking process?"

He finally halts long enough to give the Tequila shot another look, toying with it between the fingers of his right hand.

"I really do hate Tequila."

Margot

When she had time to think about it later, the Cone of Silence would be a pretty impressive trick that she'd have to try wrapping her mind around.  Somehow dampening sound from passing a certain point in either direction could be pulled off a couple of ways, she imagined, if you could just force reality to do things for you and could bypass the need for scientists and inventors to find way to bend with traditional science and technology instead (after all, she imagine that flight was something only the Awakened had obtained before balloons and airplanes came along).

Ned pondered tools and wondered what would happen if the tools were removed from the equation-- after all, The Doc had mentioned how you could still manipulate reality without a tool, but then reality would be upset with you and cause Paradox (whatever that was, they'd learn some other tie no doubt).  This brought forward doubts about the necessity for tools in the first place or how faith and belief could still be upheld if the tools weren't needed after all.

Margot contemplated her shot of tequila when it had arrived, reached out and tapped the glass edge quietly with the pad of her fingertip.

"The tool.... helps.  It refines things, makes them more reliable.  But kind of like a burst of adrenaline, I guess, you can still <i>make</i> things happen without your tools."  She glanced up from the shot of liquor that she was addressing to begin with and looked between the two.  "The blood, the time, the ritual-- it all makes things easier and more natural.  It... flows, I suppose.  But I was able to sense everything without it in a pinch.  It was on a wing and a prayer, I suppose, that I was able, but I wasn't sure it would work, and I wasn't quite sure what answers I would get either.  Instead of building with a reliable method and plan, it's more like groping wildly in hope that something will happen."

Ned hated tequila, but Margot didn't seem to have the same troubles with it.  With an almost grim look on her face she tossed her head back to take the shot.  While grimacing and shutting her eyes to the burn that she wasn't quite familiar with, she set the glass gently back down onto the table instead of slamming it.  Through her teeth, she spoke again.

"I'm more worried about the boogiemen."

Sepúlveda

"Eh, worrying won't do you any good. Preparing, though, as you're doing now, this will enable you to face the boogiemen without fear for your sanity."

Without perspective they will have no idea of their own limitations. It's the sign of an advanced mind and an advanced understanding to be able to grasp and articulate dichotomies. Needing tools and being able to perform impossible feats without them. They call it Paradox for a reason.

"Forgive a clichéd statement, but you cannot run until you learn how to crawl. Your able to Work is thus far limited to the perception of what's known in the common parlance as the Pattern of things. With the proper Spheres you can sense... space, or probability, or natural forces. And so forth. Nine Spheres altogether. To achieve mastery of a Sphere, one must undergo a series of... Seekings. Tests that your Avatar will put you through. If your mind is open and willing, you will succeed, and you will find yourself capable of greater levels of comprehension and ability to manipulate reality."

He pauses to take a swallow of beer but not long enough for them to interject just yet.

"Until such a time as you attain higher levels of enlightenment, you cannot perform feats that are likely to induce Paradox. If you attempt to bolster your own mind, or sense other lifeforms around you, or sense the, eh, strength of the barrier between the physical and spirit worlds, and you attempt to do so without the use of an instrument, you may find it impossible, and reality may bang you up a bit, but it will be no more of a blow than attempting to scale a wall with your bare hands and falling. If I, however, attempt to, say, heal someone with fatal injuries, and I do so without the use of my tools, I may find myself thrown into another realm of existence. You must use your instruments while you are learning how to manipulate reality, not your will alone. You will never attain further enlightenment if you attempt to do so with your will alone at this stage in your training. Does this make sense?"

Ned

"More Tests..."

Ned downs the tequila. It's the quick shot-wince-shake-breath motion, brushed aside with the drumming of fingers. His first taste of alcohol since...well, this all started some small while ago. He sets the glass down on the table, with a grimace, eyes creeping back open a moment later to regard the Doc where he sits. 

"I've done a little bit of that here or there. Senses the consistencies and inconsistencies in several patients and people. Heartrates, blood pressure, irregularities. I could even-..." A pause, eyes narrowing, clearing his throat of the burn. "-see the Cancer in one of the patients, though I had to touch them to be sure. Seemed to...make it-" Ned's eyes narrow, gaze finding the Doc again from that brief moment of reverie.

"Contact with the individuals seemed to make it clearer. I could feel and see colours and sensations under my fingers and over my vision. The cancer was this...bulbous, purple. All ridges and violets-" He clears his throat again, coughs a little "Pardon, sorry."

"So Paradox is Reality telling you 'no' and your Tools are a bit of sleight of hand, to ensure Reality doesn't notice you doing what you're doing...at least, not as easily given you can still fall apart or get cuffed for it." He can't help but huff a small laugh. "Kind of like mom with the cookie jar-" He loses the smile and glances at the Doc. "Sorry." For the analogy. Then he coughs again, thumping his chest with his fist gently. "Really hate Tequila..."

"The stronger we get though...the worse the comeuppance when we get caught?" Ned's frown was back. No going back to what they were but...things got more dangerous the further they went. Could one just stand still maybe? He didn't ask that. Somehow he guessed the Doc's answer would be unhelpful.

Margot

"Well, think about it."

It wasn't that Margot was trying to sound like a know-it-all, or even that she necessarily did.  It was more like she might be catching on to things a little bit quicker.  Maybe it was something about the process of pen on paper and putting it all down into a page (creating a manuscript, perhaps, like the monks of old times gone past), that helped her process and grasp as she did.  She didn't seem to be the kind of girl that ran with the popular circle of kids in high school, so it was easy to see her instead pouring into her schoolwork and keeping a closer circle of like-hearted souls nearby instead.

She reached for some of the fries in the center of their table and wagged them a little to emphasize as she spoke.  "The stronger we are, the more we can do to reality.  The bigger the changes we make.  So that would be much bigger waves in the water.  If we fuck it up, the tidal wave that comes crashing back is stronger too.  At this point we'll just get our heads wet, but the Doc here?"  She glanced to the Doc next.  "He could drown."

After finally eating the fries she'd claimed for herself, Margot went back to her beer and sipped what was left of it down.

"So, Doc, how does this work from here?  Do we have, like, scheduled times that we're supposed to meet regularly?  Or do we go out on 'field study'--" this said with the quotation marks almost visible, they were so heavy, "on our own and reach out to you as a kind of Wikipedia?"

The tone suggested she was ready to wrap it up and get going.  It was likely no coincidence that she'd just been reminded of where they are by looking up and glimpsing the pole routine happening up on stage.

Sepúlveda

Punishment is the least effective form of behavior modification but there's something to be said for negative reinforcement. If knowing the possibility of another tequila shot will keep Ned from using another childhood reference to attempt to verbalize his understanding of a concept the Etherite has just laid out for him then by god the system works.

Well, think about it.

Sepúlveda takes another swallow of beer and settles back in his seat arms crossed over his chest to watch the kids as one answers the other. A tilt of his head to one side as she rewords what he just said in a clearer fashion.

Her question has him considering the fact that he still has that third shot of tequila oxidizing in the grimy strip club air. He picks it up and knocks it down only after she refers to him as a Wikipedia.

"Different traditions do things differently," he says, "and disparates do things a different way entirely, and you don't even want to know how one goes about joining the Technocracy. Being as the odds of you joining the Society of Ether are... not so good, I propose we meet again another time and discuss the essence of the Avatar and how it is the two of you feel, instinctively, that it is you go about your Work. With the... laying on of hands, or the blood, or whatever it is the two of you feel is natural."

He holds up a hand like to stop Ned before he gets going.

"Not tonight. As I said when first we met, as far as I'm concerned, until such time as you two feel comfortable introducing yourselves to the rest of the community as... Verbena, or Cult of Ecstasy, or... Orphan, or whichever tradition it is that takes you on as an initiate, you are my students. Reach out to me if you have questions, practice on your own if you feel so inclined, and just... go on about your lives, yeah?"

They're free to go. He isn't going anywhere.