Perhaps Grace was beginning to wonder if Ian no longer required her help. It had been... what, a week since they'd spoken? A few days more? Ian didn't waste time explaining why it had taken him so long to get back to her. Instead he just fired away a text on Tuesday afternoon.
About our last conversation: I got something I think you can use. I'm meeting with Alyssa tonight. Apparently she's involved in this too. Want to come with me?
When she agreed, he'd offer to give her a ride if she needed it. If not, they'd meet there. Either way, at some point on Tuesday evening the two of them showed up at Alyssa's apartment on East Colfax. Ian parked outside and grabbed something out of his car: an old quilt, neatly folded and tucked beneath his arm. Then he walked with Grace to the door and hit the buzzer, waiting for Alyssa to let them inside.
"Thanks for doing this, by the way."
This he offered to Grace, because she could have just as easily said no. And whatever assumptions people might have had about Ian, he was, in fact, capable of recognizing when he owed someone his gratitude.
Grace
"Don't mention it. I just hope I can actually help," Grace says, while they wait at the door. Wasn't too long ago that she and Alyssa first met -- at this very door. It was a tense affair, really -- the second time anyone had leveled a gun at her. But that's in the past.
Alyssa's apartment isn't exactly her favorite place, all covered with sigils drawn in blood. But the virus that made the blood on the walls so uncomfortable is another thing that's in the past.
"You ever met Alyssa before? She's really nice, once she trusts you."
It must be a Mage thing -- so often their kind distrust each other, and then go on to save each other's lives.
Alyssa Solomon
[[Magedar!]]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 6, 8) ( success x 2 )
Alyssa Solomon
Alyssa is waiting for them, of course; she knows that they're on the way. She doesn't bother to straighten up the place for a couple of reasons; the first is that she knows Grace has already seen it and so she doesn't have anything to hide. The second, honestly, is that she only does so when she has clients that she sees here. She doesn’t take a lot of meetings for her job in the residence but it is known to happen and that's the only time that she puts up the posters to hide the dried-blood seals on the walls around the room, old and retraced a few times from the look of it.
Those seals are the creepiest part of her apartment; the rest is fairly normal for an occult investigator. There is clutter but it is mostly kept in fairly specific areas, piled on in a way that Alyssa can probably find anything quickly but anyone else might have problems. A full bed is off to side of the room, far enough away from both the entryway and the screen door to the balcony that she can’t be surprised by anyone coming in either. (That might be a little paranoid, since she’s on the third floor, but when you’re a mage..) The floor isn’t carpeted but laminate; she chose the apartment specifically for that because it’s easier to get your security deposit back if you don’t have a lot of bleach spots dotting the floor. Also, it lets her use spray paint and candles without the need for concern that it won’t ever come up. She does have a spot where there’s a coffee table, a couch, an old worn easy chair and an old (CRT, not LCD) television, though the area is the least cluttered and thus probably doesn’t get a lot of use.
Everywhere you look there are strange knick-knacks or piles of books. Next to the bed is an assortment of old paperbacks with the covers worn thin or missing; next to her desk is a set of old tomes in Latin. On the wall is a map of Denver with lines drawn this way and that, a bunch of color-headed pins stuck in. Pictures of people are taped to the wall next to it and some names or locations are ones that Grace and Ian might be familiar with (Gallowglass, Carnevale, etc.) The kitchenette are appears to be a place where she goes to microwave stuff or get drinks. And there are more than a few ashtrays around, in various states of being full. Currently sitting on the coffee table are several folders and another, smaller map with various notes drawn on it in English and Latin. Highlighter marks. Alyssa’s been busy.
And that's where Alyssa is currently, dressed down in a black Sex Pistols tank top and jeans. Her face is makeup free in one of those rare moments, her hair currently rocking a neon green color. She's got her right hand wrapped up in bandages underneath a wrist brace, looking over the papers and making a couple of notes. Her gun sits on the couch next to her. She's keeping an eye out for the door or a sign of the Resonances she knows--Grace's, that is.
She's already rising when the buzzer sounds. She hads to the door, hitting the buzzer so they can head up. The gun is left on the couch; she doesn't have any need for it now, she hopes.
Ian Lai
[Per+Awareness]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 6, 6, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )
Ian Lai
[Prime 1 - watch the weaving - diff 4 -1 (practiced)]
Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (3, 6) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Grace
[Per+Awareness]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (5, 5, 7, 7, 9) ( success x 3 )
Ian Lai
Ian wasn't aware of the history between Grace and Alyssa. He knew that they knew each other, and that was all. Perhaps he'd asked Grace here as much for diplomatic reasons as he had for the sake of efficiency. It was not always especially clear why Ian did much of anything.
"Not yet. I don't care if she's nice. I just care about what she knows."
Alyssa's habit of distrusting strangers was hardly unfamiliar to Ian, and he only cared about it insofar as it proved an inconvenience to him. They were not altogether dissimilar creatures, he and Alyssa. At least as far as trust was concerned. And apparently they had a particular focus in common, because while Ian and Grace made their way inside the building, Ian slipped a small knife out of his pocket and used it to nick a small cut in the pad of his thumb. A drop of blood welled up where the skin was broken, and he sucked on it briefly, looking around as he did so. His senses were wide open tonight, casting out around him for signs of Alyssa's willworking. Whatever marks she'd made on the space to call it her own.
Evidently, he didn't find anything that gave him cause for alarm, because he had the knife back in his pocket a moment later, and his attitude seemed slightly more relaxed.
Not that Alyssa's resonance alone wasn't somewhat alarming, but he'd dealt with worse. Blood was hardly a thing to be feared, for him. He eyed the sigils on the wall with aloof curiosity and a hint of interest before turning his attention fully to Alyssa.
"I think we've got some information to share."
Ian, of course, was dressed as he usually was. Casually fashionable, in dark fitted jeans, black harness boots and a black t-shirt. His left wrist had a braided leather band around it. He let Grace make her own introductions (since she and Alyssa already knew each other) and stepped over in the direction of the couch.
The smell here was... not pleasant. Cigarette ash tended to give him headaches, particularly with his acute senses. But he didn't say anything about it.
Grace
Ian doesn't care if Alyssa is nice, and Grace just remains silent. Yeah, you might care a wee bit if she decides not to be nice there, bucko. The woman doesn't wear steel-toed shoes for nothing. And that's not to mention the gun.
"Hey, Alyssa," she says when the door opens, and then her gaze drifts down to Alyssa's wrist brace. "What happened? You decide to get in a fist fight with a rock monster?"
She strides into the apartment, not really noticing the cleanliness (or lack thereof). More concern is placed on those wards and maps.
"Oh yeah, this is Ian. He brought Sky's quilt. I hope I can, you know, trace some residue to its source, so to speak," she says, and pats her laptop bag.
Alyssa Solomon
Ian's lack of concern over niceties is mirrored in Alyssa. Yes, the woman can be friendly but that belies the nature of her upbringing and the fact that she is, essentially, a cynic who has a bit of a history with the dead. And much as she's normally smiling, she's in an absolute shit mood right now. As soon as the buzzer had been hit she was walking back toward the kitchen, grabbing a Corona (or "piss beer" as Kalen loves to refer to them and popping the top off. She's drinking from it as the two come in.
One other thing of note about the apartment: there are no mirrors located anywhere within. The bathroom mirror was removed and none other could be found if Ian or Grace went searching. Most things that could potentially reflect are covered, with the exception of the TV and computer screens, and the windows. If Ian looks closely enough, he'll see only two of the current residents of apartment reflected in them.
"Hey Grace." That's the best she gets of friendliness at the moment, before she's looking at Ian, sizing him up. She hasn't felt his Resonance before, which is surprising; she expected his to be the one from Claire's apartment. But then Sky's would make sense, now that she knows he was (is?) a mage. That she has a face to place with the name doesn't help. It's also worth noting that while she's willing to talk with him since Kalen vouched for him, there isn't a strong sense of inherent trust directed toward the man. She's questioned Kalen's judgment about people before, and it's been acknowledged that the Hermetic's opinion is potentially biased, so she just regards him and nods a little.
"Yeah, guess we do. Have a seat. I have terrible beer if you want it. I think we have a fair amount to share."
She looks Grace. "I punched out the window in my bathroom. It looked at me funny." There's a curt wryness to the joke. "Sounds like a plan. I think I know where we might find him though."
Ian Lai
Ian lofted an eyebrow lightly at Alyssa's comment about punching her bathroom window, but he didn't question her about it. Alyssa's business was her own. Perhaps another day they could sit down for a chat, but tonight neither of them seemed interested in doing that.
She offered him a seat, and Ian glanced at the couch for a few seconds - as though it was a thing that required contemplation - before settling down and setting the folded quilt beside him. He sat like someone who was not expecting to be seated for long: perched at the edge of the cushion with his spine straight and his hands on his knees.
Alyssa didn't trust him. Most people didn't. Something about the combination of his resonance and the sense of the feline predator that lurked behind his eyes and beneath his skin. His behavior didn't exactly help, either.
Though it was easy enough to see why Kalen had found him interesting. Perhaps that was why Alyssa found the Hermetic's judgment suspect.
"I'm fine, thanks."
When Alyssa suggested she might know where Sky was already, Ian looked at her with interest. "You think he's at the lake you mentioned?"
Grace
"You think you know? A lake?" Grace asks, the odd one out here.
Also, the odd one, in that she trusts everyone in the room, at least enough. Enough to bring Ian here. She doesn't actually think either of them will get murderous here soon, but they are still quite leery of each other.
Grace walks over to the map, to look for a lake upon it with a pushpin or note.
"If anything, I might be able to at least get confirmation if you don't already have it."
Alyssa Solomon
Her trust issues, if they ever get comfortable enough to discuss it, have nothing (okay, not much) to do with Ian's Resonance actually. She's not one to talk, after all, the bloody angel (or demon when she's enraged) has been the source of more guns pointed at her by mages than anything else. But that's neither here nor there right now.
She shrugs when Ian waves off the beer and takes another drink of her own. It's down to half now, by the way. Ian's the feline predator, but Alyssa is the one who is prowling at the moment, walking back and forth and around the apartment. It's twitchy, angry energy and it probably isn't the best thing for this situation but she's not happy and this is her sanctum (lowercase s) and fuck anyone if they think they can tell her how she should behave in her own place. She makes apologies for nothing.
"I think it's a pretty damned good guess. You said he's underground. You said that it's feeding off of him." It. Not her. Claire is no longer a person to Alyssa, at least right now. Alyssa is fairly certain that Claire isn't Claire anymore. "And I know spirits. There are all sorts of different types and they all act differently, but they have to be going back somewhere. That's where your pal and his Consor were headed, to look at some kind of pollution."
The lake isn't marked on the map on the wall that Grace is looking at. Alyssa sweeps some folders off the coffee table to reveal the other map. Chatfield State Park is where their eyes are likely immediately drawn, with all the orange highlighting done to the water there.
"Five to five he and it are there. I'd bet what's left of my security deposit on it."
Ian Lai
Ian leaned forward to look at the map, tilting his head lightly as he took in the topography and the marks that Alyssa had made. If he really wanted to, he could drive out there on his own. Perhaps for a moment he even considered it - weighing the potential merits and flaws in his head. But Alyssa knew how to deal with spirits. He didn't. It was as simple as that.
"Confirmation would be preferable," Ian replied to Grace. When he looked up, he eyed the ubiquitous laptop bag she carried with her. "Are you okay to do this here?"
By 'this,' of course, he meant whatever Effect she'd planned on trying. And he glanced at Alyssa a moment later, as though to include her in the question. Because this was her space. And perhaps he felt that this was the sort of thing that one ought to get permission to do while in a stranger's home. (He had an interesting sense of courtesy, Ian did.)
If Grace was ready, he'd hand her the quilt.
"I'm guessing it found them there. The thing tasted like pollution when it attacked me." He paused a moment before adding. "You think there's anything left of Claire?"
Grace
Grace follows the movement of Alyssa sweeping the folders off of the coffee table, and notices the other map. The map with notes pertaining to this case.
"Under the lake?" she says, and her eyes flicker to Ian. Maybe she shouldn't have said that, because if his friend is truly underwater, then Sky is probably long gone by now.
"I can try. If I'm not blocked, and if Alyssa thinks it's okay for me to try to directly connect to this dude from her apartment," she says, and it's a question posed more than a statement. Connections can be traced to their source and used, even if she tries like hell to be subtle about it.
"I could just try to get a general idea of where he is rather than attempt to pinpoint him, it might be safer."
Alyssa Solomon
"Do whatever you're most comfortable with," she says with a shrug to Grace. "If it tracks back here, I'll just kill it. A lot. Then burn it, kill it again and burn it some more. Maybe piss on its festering fuckin' corpse for good measure."
Ian asks about Claire's status, and she shrugs. "Claire may be alive still, and may be herself. It's possible." The word possible might as well have a technically in front of it. "Spirits that come out of toxic places however...they're not known for being gentle. If the chick really did get one inside of her, then putting her six feet under is gonna be a mercy because whatever's walking around in her skin is just defiling everything. It's probably what killed Priscilla and frankly, we'd better hope it was. What did this thing do when it attacked you?"
The question is for Ian of course, a sudden turn from information into questioning. "What did it look like, how did it attack you? Did it look like Claire?"
Ian Lai
Under the lake? Grace asked, and Ian shook his head. "No, he's in a room underground. That's what he said, anyway. I had a dream about it. I think he was trying to reach out to me."
He said all of this as though he was talking about something far removed from him emotionally. A news story he'd read online, or, like Alyssa, a case he was working on (except he wasn't an investigator.) It would be easy to believe that he didn't especially care about what happened to Claire or Sky. Except that he was here, doing all of this.
To Alyssa, he said, "I didn't see it then. Just felt it." He had to pause a moment to gather his thoughts - to find a way to describe what it had done. "It's like a psychic vampire. Leeching Life from everything it touches. That's what it took from me. Heart's Blood." (And if Alyssa was familiar at all with the workings of Prime magic, then she'd know what he meant by that.)
"That's what it's doing to Sky, too."
A beat.
"I'd rather not kill Claire, if it can be avoided. But I'll do whatever we need to do. Is there a way to make it leave her? I can be pretty damn persuasive."
Grace
[Corr 2: Firewall (Correspondence ward). Diff 5 - 1 (taking time)]
Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (5, 9) ( success x 2 )
Grace
Grace nods, first to Alyssa and then to Ian as she takes the quilt from him, and goes to sit in a chair -- one from which she can see the map on the table.
She pulls out the laptop and boots it up -- a thing it accomplishes quickly. Then, there is Grace in her natural element, with her face lit by pixels and her fingers to the keys.
The others will feel it when she starts, her resonance sharp as she slices into the source code of all things. The plan is to start with a firewall, because safety first right? It's not just spirits who might want to trace this. She's pretty sure Gadfly got caught because he loved to watch over people's shoulders on a nigh constant basis.
The trick to it is to only allow a small window -- a single port through which to punch your own data through, denying all others access. And that single port -- a one-way communication. She's going to connect a scrap of dead skin or a subtle vibration woven into its threads to where it originated.
"Shields up," she says, although she doesn't look up from her screen or acknowledge anyone else is there. She could just as easily be talking to herself.
Alyssa Solomon
She frowns when Ian describes what the attack was like, continues pacing. She is familiar with the term that he's talking about: Heart's Blood. That makes her nod as she takes another drink off of her beer. The feathery wings of her Resonance get a little bit more leathery, anger rising to the surface more. This is the kind of shit she hates. This is why she stands vigilant against spirits who would harm Sleepers, and Mages too. And Mages who would harm Sleepers. And it angers her that this has happened under her watch.
"It..." She sighs, stops herself. "Again, it's possible. It depends on the spirit, and how deep a hold it has on her. I would say that I'm not optimistic from what I'm hearing, but it is conceivable." She sets the now-empty bottle down and rubs her wrists against each other, scratching old and itchy wounds. "We also have to consider the possibility that the spirits aren't alone. Priscilla was stabbed, from what I got from the cops. Or at least, cut. Spirits don't generally cut, they have other methods. Especially if it just leeches life in the way you described; they doesn't sound like fucking cutting. But that's still guesswork. There are more types of spirits than their are types of porn online."
She lets Grace work her thing. She knows now to interrupt. "Anything you know, man, I need to know. I'm giving up a lot here, and I appreciate that you're sharing. If there's anything else...tell me." It's not said out of a belief that he's holding back, just in a way that says if he's omitted anything at all, she needs to be aware.
Ian Lai
Ian glanced at Grace when she spoke, but he didn't interrupt her focus. With his senses alive as they were now, he could both feel and see the working of Grace's will as it coalesced around her. For a moment he watched it, as though curious, before turning his attention back to Alyssa.
The allusion to internet porn got a slight smirk out of him.
"I saw Claire in the dream, right at the end. But it wasn't her. She had green algae spores on her skin, like she'd been infected. That's... really all I know."
He didn't seem to be lying when he said that.
"What else do you know? How high of a threat level do you think we're walking into?"
one-ix-is-peeking
[It is late. I can, perhaps, do the scrying with Noel tomorrow night and we can maybe do a short e-mail wrap after? Since I don't know that I can get you all again until we are supposed to do the bigger scene?]
Grace
[Corr 2, Prime 1 -- Tracing the resonance of the quilt to... where it will lead. Diff 5 - 1 (taking time), spending WP!]
Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (1, 5) ( success x 2 ) [WP]
Grace
And now, for the trickier part -- connecting a piece of Sky to Sky himself. All Mages leave their mark on the world, and all people leave their detritus behind as well. The latter, she decides, is going to be harder in this case -- more than one person can use a quilt, after all, and there would be no way for her to determine which bit of hair or protein belonged to Sky at one point.
So, the resonant connection this quilt has with its owner is going to have to be tracked. It's much like a vibration, really. When people say they've got 'good vibes' about a place or a person, they're on to something there. But Grace can do amazing things with a waveform equation -- things the 'good vibes' people wouldn't begin to understand.
On her screen, she's got a map display up of her own, centered first around the apartment, and hopefully it shifts and zooms itself to the right place. Maybe it's that lake, maybe somewhere else...
Alyssa Solomon
"Threat level?" She shrugs. "Somewhere between Moderate Risk and We Might As Well Be Trying to Breaking Into a Nephandic Laybrinth. To be fair, it's probably a lot closer to Moderate Risk though. If it were too powerful than we'd already be dead. In truth, I'm not even 100% convinced it's a toxin spirit; it could be some sort of nature spirit that is simply reacting to the alleged dumping and is trying to suck down all the magical life it can find in order to live.
"And everything I know, you know."
scrying
[Infestation-Detect]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 9) ( success x 4 )
scrying
[The Abyss Stares Back]
Dice: 6 d10 TN8 (4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 9) ( success x 3 )
scrying
The computer starts to zoom in, yes on that lake.
To Grace's eyes the screen shimmers, the thick murky green of algae-thick waters seeping from the image of the lake to consume the whole of her screen. Tentacles of that sluggish water reach out from the screen for her face, coil around her head.
Pull her through the murky water that obscures her screen as though it is a portal.
She surfaces in a lake in a tropical forest. There is the heavy scent of decay. Mold and fungi have colonized the tree trunks. There is only the memory of living fish to stir the opaque water Grace is standing in. Vines swarm over the canopy, their leaves blotting out the sun in place of the wilting and fallen leaves of the trees whose life they devour to flourish.
Grace
Grace starts to tell the others, but only gets so far as "Yeah, it does seem like--" before the screen erupts with tentacles. A futile attempt to shut her laptop screen ensues as the water wraps itself around her head.
She can't even scream. She's had visions like this before, you see. Visions of larvae or worse crawling around her, looking for a way in. Instinct kicks in to keep her mouth shut. It would just crawl down her mouth to eat her from the inside.
But this is no Hydra vision. For all she knows, this is truly happening (although didn't they all feel that way, every single time?) And because it is not a Hydra, the tentacles do not devour her. They just deposit her in a lake, as though whatever did this to her needs her alive. That's not exactly a comforting thought.
"What the Hell?" she says, as she looks around to take stock of her new situation. Then, she begins to wade through the lake. Should probably get the fuck out of the water.
scrying
There is this this much mercy in the world - she was searching not for a monster but for Sky, and she did find him. She also found a monster that is a legion of monsters. A nightmarish swarm of insatiable hungering things. Grace can sense them, can glimpse the shapes of some things human and inhuman that the swarm has overtaken and turned into its own as it did Claire. Grace can see the forms of people and animals with tendrils of vines for hair, for extra limbs. She can see thorns that have erupted from flesh. Delicate, toxic flowers that unfold from their skin.
But she was searching for Sky.
And he, wrapped in sunlight in a place where there is none comes wading into the water to meet her. The horrible cloudy water around him clears a little. Becomes something that might host more life than this horrible unchecked slime. And despite the fact that they are trapped in some horrible vision, he smiles and she can feel a summer wind that blows through oak trees, heavy with the scent of rich, warm earth.
As the both step out of the water Grace feels something still wet and slick on her right ankle. Looking down she can see a little ring of leaves sprouting from her flesh, tiny roots extending into her skin.
Grace
She wades through muck, trying to get away from the monsters around her, but there is little hope. Without her tools she is fairly useless, and even with her tools, in the middle of a lake... But then, there is a man who shines, who banishes the gloom. And she runs for him, as fast as the water will allow.
"You. Who are you?" Grace asks, because while she has his quilt, she's never actually seen the man she seeks. "Are you Sky?"
They climb out of the lake, but when she looks down, sees that thing on her ankle, she turns to look at the lake monsters. "It's happening to me isn't it?"
scrying
"Not if we can stop it." The monsters are coming, crowding around the edges of the circle of Sky's light. He looks at them, warily. He knows this hesitation cannot last. That their hunger will overwhelm their fear as it overwhelms everything else.
"You know your essence, yes? Reach for it. Find it. Use it to burn away what is clinging to you that is not yours." The ground around them is changing, new trees sprouting up from the earth, new growth that the mushrooms and mold do not take hold on. "I will give you all the time I can, but it will not be much. Do you understand?"
Grace
"I... No? Maybe?" Grace says, and she sits down on the damp ground to grab her ankle and give it a proper inspection. She doesn't understand. None of this makes sense except for the fact that strange things happen to her anymore.
"Is this Chatfield State Park?" she asks, incredulous. If it is, then all these monsters, all these people -- they're just park-goers, aren't they? People like her that found their way to the lake and...
Focus.
She closes her eyes, puts a hand over the roots tearing into her skin. That stuff isn't her. It's not her.
[WP Roll: Diff 8 -- Try to remove the plants!]
Dice: 6 d10 TN8 (2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 2 )
scrying
"No. This a construct of that thing's consciousness and ours. It means to catch you here. To trap you. But you are not here. You need to figure out your ruby slippers, tap your heels three times, say there's no place like home, and get the fuck out." One of the creatures, a tall young man with a good four inches in height on Sky and the same difference in the width of their shoulders steps into the circle of sunlight.
Sky lifts a hand. Murmurs. And roots reach upward through the earth and start to weave over the man's feet. He tears one foot, then the other free, but his every step toward them is slowed. Sky looks at the forms of those infested, and his eyes are sad. Determined. And not at all afraid.
Grace
She is not a thing of nature, that reverberates greenness and growth. She is a knife that slides to cut away the rot, and at this, she succeeds. The plant life circling around her ankle dies and falls away under the knife that is her. "Haha! Take that, evil plants," she says with a smirk. She stands and shakes her ankle off.
"A vision? Ugh," she says, because fuck evil things that screw with your brain, honestly. "I'm very sorry. Are you in Chatfield State Park?"
Right... focus, Grace. Click your heels together (joke's on Sky, she never wears heels) and go home.
[WP Again! Diff 8, using WP because Ix said so!]
Dice: 6 d10 TN8 (1, 2, 6, 7, 7, 8) ( success x 2 ) [WP]
scrying
Infestation
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 5, 10) ( success x 1 )
scrying
Sky
Dice: 7 d10 TN8 (1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 2 )
scrying
"I...." Sky frowns. "I was there. And this thing is there. It spreads like, like a blight. But-" He frowns. "We left. We went to the reservoir, to see how far it spread.
"The next thing I really remember, we were underground."
There is a cold, damp breeze, and the sense of the sun going behind a cloud. The creatures around them stir restlessly. There are some quick footsteps toward them. Sky sways, eyes closed, murmuring. And the warmth of summer returns. The light returns. But Grace knows there is only so long Sky can do this. There is no retreat and no node for Sky, held captive as he is. There is nowhere he can regain his strength.
He has been trapped in this nightmare for a long time. His only salvation has been that these things cannot corrupt all of his light. They cannot take him, as they took the poor mundane people they gathered, as they took Claire. They cannot reach far enough to leave their marks on him in the ways that would make him theirs.
But they can wait for him to break. He has not yet, but how long could anyone really hold against this place? Against the constant chill of something feeding on their very essence?
"Don't be sorry," He reaches out to touch her face, and if she doesn't pull away she'll find that his touch is as warm as she would expect, like sunlight spills outward from his skin through hers. "Life is not meant for regret. It's meant for joy. For love. For living. Not regret. Certainly not yours for me."
Grace
Grace does pull away. Anyone reaching to touch her face for no apparent reason would probably get the same response, even if she knew them well. But there isn't fear in her eyes, just confusion. Why do that?
"I didn't mean it like that, really. I just know how much it sucks to be stuck in a nightmare. Help is on its way, okay?" Even if she does flinch away from him, she gives him some comforting words.
And then, well... she decides that maybe he reached out for her because he wanted to touch someone else in this place, for whatever reason. So she takes his sunlit hand in hers. Not so warm, she. Not sundrenched, this one.
Her brows furrow in concentration, and she squeezes his hand. "No place like home?"
Dice: 6 d10 TN8 (4, 4, 6, 6, 6, 10) ( success x 2 ) [WP]
scrying
Infestation
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 5, 10) ( success x 1 )
scrying
Sky
Dice: 7 d10 TN8 (5, 6, 7, 7, 8, 8, 8) ( success x 3 )
scrying
"I'm entirely sure how much you can do for me," Sky says. He sounds perhaps a little sad, but not afraid. What place can fear hold in the heart of summer. It must, in the end, surrender to fall. To the season of harvest. But that has always been true.
He squeezes her hand back and smiles.
The wind that blows through the clearing this time doesn't even dim all of that glorious sunlight that spills off of him this time.
"There's no place like home."
Grace
"Damn, I was hoping that would work. Magic words, you know," she says, still trying to keep up some bit of wry humor, though he's looking a bit worse for wear. All this heel-clicking tires a girl out.
She hangs her head for a second and then turns her face to the brightness of his sunlight, eyes closed, remembering where she really is.
[WP! Diff 8, using WP again, because!]
Dice: 6 d10 TN8 (3, 5, 5, 7, 7, 10) ( success x 2 ) [WP]
scrying
And Grace is back. Only seconds have passed.
She's left with the lingering warmth of sunlight on her skin, looking a a map on her computer screen, centered on the South Platte Reservoir. For a few seconds she can see Sky, not as he appeared in that vision, but as he is in physical, locatable form: very still in an underground room, eyes closed, deathly pale, with thick roots growing into his skin, thick enough that Grace can see their raised outlines and the faint greenish tinge through as much of his skin is exposed.
Grace
Grace starts to tell the others that her trace is indeed pointing at a lake, but only gets so far as "Yeah, it does seem like--" before she abruptly cuts off. A futile attempt to shut her laptop screen ensues, before she freezes and stares through her monitor.
A few seconds pass, and in those seconds her eyes flit around in their sockets like they're trying to escape. Her eyelids grow heavy and droop slowly though her body stays rooted in place.
When she comes back to, her voice is a tiny, weary thing. "South Platte Reservoir. He is in an underground room. He is still alive."
For certain definitions of alive, perhaps.
"I'm sorry, Ian. He looks..." she says, and falters, her head lolling. She shuts her laptop slowly. How do you tell someone that perhaps their friend would be better off dead? "He has roots growing inside him."
"There are others. Other people. Animals. Crawling with roots. It saw me, but I shook it off. I need a nap."
With that, she puts her laptop down on the floor, curls her body up into Alyssa's chair, and starts doing just that.
Ian
Roots, she said. Sky had roots growing inside of him.
Ian looked up when Grace's eyes went blank, and his own manner grew still and alert - waiting for further signs of trouble. Seconds passed like that - in charged, weighted silence - and when Grace snapped back to life, Ian let out an almost imperceptible breath.
He stood up then, and made his way to the door. "Need a ride back?" he asked Grace.
But she was already half-asleep, and whether or not she roused herself enough to respond, it seemed pretty clear that she wasn't really interested in moving at that precise moment. So Ian let her be. And unless Alyssa had anything else to discuss, he'd show himself out.
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