Nate
[perc + alert!]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (5, 5, 7) ( success x 1 )
Lux
This isn't how the night begins. The night began the way the night began. For Lux, it was one thing (wake up [hungry], go through the motions, make some calls, hunt [chat]). For Nate, it was another (have dinner? Write? Curse editor's name? Stare blankly at laptop screen? Read? Stare blankly at blog? Play with Lucy?). Nate's home, though. Let's say Nate's home. Late enough but not too late. Evening comes sooner now, and it's much more convenient. Friday night, date night. Shannon used to drag him out on Friday nights, didn't she? The air of his apartment is full. Full, full, full of presence. Presences. Lucy is uncertain, unhappy, has to be enticed to get her food, keeps avoiding certain spaces in Nate's apartment. This has happened periodically over the last week. Merry Christmas. And then! Nate's phone rings, and it's x. dubois also known as Lux also known as a host of other names but Nate knows her as Lux and that's what she prefers so ring-ring whatever-ring-tone-ringringring or maybe buzz pick up Nate the presences are thickening, they're calluses on the air he can just feel them, their dull insensitivity.
Nate
Maybe she can hear the end of the semester in his voice. He always sounds tired. He looked tired that first night they met at the library and she'd seen him stand outside smoking a cigarette letting the side of the building hold him up. Not so long ago. It was at the beginning of the summer.
Shannon was still dragging him out places because she said it wasn't normal for an attractive young man such as himself to be holed up in his apartment on a Friday night. She would have thought the hauntings were fucking awesome and wanted to hear all about them. That's why he never told her about it.
The apartment feels like it's holding its breath. It's hurting his head.
It's winter and he can't sleep even though the fatigue comes on earlier with night falling so fast. She can imagine though. How he's sat on the couch with the laptop in front of him staring at a sentence that won't write itself. A bottle of beer open and nearby but hardly touched.
"Lux," he says when he answers the phone. "Hey. How are ya?"
Lux
"Real answer? I am as jumpy as a pickle at a science fair where the theme's electricity," Lux says, and he can probably hear the careless grin; can imagine the shape it makes, hear her breath against her phone, pick-up some ambient noise. There's always ambient noise; this time it's just the rush of traffic. Oh, police siren somewhere, wailing 'cause the world's dark and somebody's two weeks from retirement and that somebody is fucked because it's a dark world. The air thickens further, and Lux is saying, "Got plans tonight? Promise I won't say 'you do now' if you say no. But I'd like some company. Be my company, Nathan?"
Nate
She's never really had to drag or cajole him to get him to come out with her. Blame it on the allure of the unknown. A gravitational pull she exerts on him without meaning to. Lux can hear him draw a deep-deep breath like to acclimate himself to the idea of having to move.
"Sure. I don't have plans. Where we going?"
Lux
"Nathan, I give you choices. Without the ability to choose, what are we but sad sacks? The University of Denver's Historic Chamberlin Observatory," a beat, and he can hear the grin again. Lux sounds as if she is in a fairly good mood (and she is a hook [gravity, sink-hole, black-hole, c'mere- but it's fun to coax!]). "Where we can see the stars. Or at least fight the good fight against the stormclouds. Or the movies. We could try and sneak into the Desolation of Smaug ooooor Frozen."
Nate
[god damn it jess]
Dice: 3 d10 TN10 (3, 4, 5) ( fail )
Nate
"I've never been to the observatory."
That does seem to get his attention. Nate's interests are somewhat buried and esoteric. Hard to tell what he does in his spare time because it doesn't appear as though he does have much spare time. He has the typical bachelor setup of a secondhand television and a beat-up sort-of-next-generation gaming console and he has bookcases which are full of books and that's about as much inside into Nate's interests as apartment visitors get.
Still: he sounds buoyed by her good mood.
"You want me to pick you up or meet you there?"
Lux
[Quick Char + Inf! I don't think it's necessary, but]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 6, 7, 7, 10) ( success x 4 )
Lux
"Oh, good," she says, with relish. "Meet me there. Bring something interesting to listen to, if you can, or to read aloud. Something," and there the word is trail-away, as if it's hunting for an end to its sentence for the perfect end to its sentence but will savor being half-finished because it feels good to be half-finished suspended between this or that. More prosaically, "If you don't see me outside, text."
--
Time passes and it is cold and it is winter and there is a park in the middle of Denver and that park is called Observatory Park. And Observatory Park may well get its name from the Observatory that waits in the center of it, that holds fast to its patch of land in spite of the light pollution the light-net dim-glow cast by the city all around it. It is an Observatory which prays for darkness, and in Observatory Park, at least, it feels as if it gets that darkness, because it is dark in Observatory Park. But the city, understand, the city keeps its scientists and acolytes from truly reaching for the stars, from discovering unnamed galaxies, from naming them. Trees all leaf-scattered and hanging still-as-death and:
The building. Chamberlin Observatory, since 1894. Warm red brick and cream door limned in a friendly spill of butter-yellow light and shadows gathering at the eaves and windows everywhere and the ages smudging brickwork and a huge dome, gleaming, containing the telescope, and look a generous stair to the South a less generous stair to the North, and no sign of Lux.
Because Lux is inside. Lux is inside with the keys that she acquired. There is no read for crime when one knows the right people and can push just a little. Lux is not alone; there is a tech, an astronomy student staying over the winter break, a T.A. still helping his professor get through all of the final reports with a host of research that can be done at the observatory's offices.
Nate
This is the first time he's been on the motorcycle since the car crash. His physiotherapist would not think it was cute but he doesn't particularly care. It was warm today and the snow has melted off the tarmac and late at night like this most of the commercialists have finished their shopping and gone home for the evening.
Lux can probably hear the bike's engine before it sputters to a stop and idles for a moment as the rider gets the kickstand down and finds his feet. Sits astride the bike stretching out his back and staring up at the observatory and thinking to himself that this thing looks like it's about to crumble in on itself.
No sign of Lux. He does not know she's inside. Before he turns off the bike Nate cranks the helmet off his head sends his curls scattering the way the girls go nuts over and holds the helmet on his lap while he fishes for his phone.
The SMS goes flying off from the bike towards the nearest cell tower so it can find Lux's signal and bounce back towards the observatory. In the meantime Nate kills the engine and lights a cigarette. Single flash of flame in the dark and he's off the bike.
Lux
The thing about night is that sometimes night makes everything seem abandoned. The Chamberlin Observatory seems abandoned in spite of the welcoming gloom or because of the welcoming gloom at its corners gathering by its stairs huddling around its light fixtures. There are only three other cars in the parking lot for the Chamberlin Observatory and look a faded line for bus parking because of course this is a field trip haven and one of the cars has dirt dark windows and the windshield wiper's have unclouded the rain-splotched dirt let's say this car is a volvo and then there's something boring and indistinguishable from every other compact car on the road these days in gray and then there's a truck that a red light beeps in its tires massive look at that truck holding court on the abandoned parking lot and now there's Nathan's bike and Nathan. Nathan who is texting Lux or maybe he is calling Lux but if he is calling, Lux doesn't answer, and if he is texting, her return text is a simple coming and she is too, opening the narrow door on the north side up those narrow labyrinth-cornered stairs, and when she sees Mr. Marszalek (because you see if Nate is calling Lux just takes that as a signal that he is here and the end result is the same, a choose your own adventure which is pointless 'coz fate was always fated to do its thing), she says,
"Hello, Nate," sounding really quite pleased to see him. Lux looks quite pleased to see him too; looks him over, top to toe, toe to top, and darkness is drowning in her eyes, and darkness is captive in her hair, and she is pale because she never sees the sun, but vibrant 'coz god damn if you don't fucking live when you're given conditional immortality then what kind of dumb shit are you? [And if we're going to storm Heaven's gates, let's make that party worth remembering--]
"Come round this way. We don't have to be quiet, but we do have to be nice." The compressed line of her mouth after that statement is a suggestion of a smile; like she doesn't really think they have to be nice, but why not? "Did you bring the thing?"
Nate
[perc + alert!]
Dice: 3 d10 TN7 (6, 7, 8) ( success x 2 )
Lux
Nate's been feeling shades and shadows in the air where-ever he's gone for the past couple of days thick as a callus thick and the air a blister. But here at the Observatory, there's nothing. Nothing in the parking lot, nothing in the trees. Something, maybe, in one of the second floor windows. A restless shape, moving; let the shape unravel, become just a suggestion of humanity; a man in a hat, watchful, and then - nothing. It dissintegrates.
Nate
"I did. Hang on."
Maybe Nate drives a motorcycle because he thinks it makes him look like a badass. Lord knows his lurching physique and quiet disposition and pale skin don't help him look anything other than depressed. He does cut an intimidating figure stood there cigarette dangling from his lips, black boots and black jacket both leather in case he wipes the hell out. He does not think he looks like a badass because he does not consider himself to be a badass.
Cogito ergo sum and all that.
Anyway: he tucks the helmet into the bike's saddlebag and reaches across the back fender to shuffle around the other side of the bag. Cigarette weeping despite his failing to drag on it. He pulls out a copy of Paradise Lost and turns back toward her.
And his eyes go to the window on the second story. Lux can see the way he stops and looks. He doesn't gawk the way someone unused to feeling and hearing weird things would be. But he does look confused.
The only time he's seen one recently the shade was standing in the corner between his hospital bed and the wall. He was so hopped up on opiates that he didn't realize there was anything strange about a dead man standing next to him.
Nate blinks hard when the figure disappears and then keeps on like nothing happened.
"Alright." He ambles nearer to her and ashes the cigarette to get the dead bits off before taking another drag. Holds the thick paperback out to her. "Your thing, madam."
Lux
[Hide things.]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )
Lux
Lux can see the way that Nate stops and looks. Lux observes the way Nate stops and looks. If there is a whisper of tension that tightens her muscles or sends a lick of adrenaline (preparation [the night is full of terrors]), then she conceals it. A creature of poise and willful self-assurance is Lux; so she looks over, following the trace-echo of Nate's glance, then looks back at him as he ambles near in a cloud of tobacco smoke and her eyebrows draw sharply together like she's trying to unlace what just happened and then, instead of questioning, she takes the book. Paradise Lost. Opens to a page; a gleam of something sublimated, pleased, and she reads carefully- "Satan from hence now on the lower stair," she is walking backwards, never afraid of tripping; not Lux, who knows how to walk on the point of a knife, who has clearly made some kind of pact with the devil in order to move with such fineness, "That scal'd by steps of Gold to Heav'n Gate," flick of a glance up at Nate, to make sure he's keeping up, not looking anywhere, not giving her cause to be concerned, "Looks down with wonder at the sudden view
"Of all this World at once."
"I always liked that. Satan looking down. Maybe we can choose a star and name it for him," and she shrugs, negligent. Then, at the North side, leads Nate up the stairs, takes a key from her pocket and unlocks the locked door (the TA is still inside, but let's not let the public in, hmm?), "So how are you? What stories are you working on these days?"
The book's been tucked under her elbow.
If Nate is delaying, she'll reach out and snag Nate's arm with her other, link arms just like so, keep him like she's keeping the book.
Inside, their voices echo the way voices echo in museums. As if the muse were listening closely.
Molly Toombs
Somewhere within the five minutes preceding Nate's climbing into his motorcycle to head out to the observatory, he received a text message from one of the several people who text him on any regular basis. Molly Toombs's message to him read:
Florence tried to actually eat the squeaky toy I bought her. She's grounded, and that was the most excitement I've had all day. What's up?
The answer she got, whatever format it may be in, was an invitation to join him. He was heading to the Observatory. He'll probably be driving on his motorcycle already, but wherever he keeps his phone the pocket will buzz, and the message he'll find when he has the chance to check it is an affirmation: I'll see you there.
Molly didn't own a car, so she caught a bus whose schedule fortunately lined up nicely with her's tonight. She wound up arriving perhaps five minutes after Nate and Lux had actually come together to meet face-to-face and speak-- not at the Observatory directly, the bus dropped her about a quarter of a mile from that.
So she's a little while longer, and black lace-up boots with no notable heels thumped on the pavement and crunched over any salt tossed about to prevent students from slipping while they walked in a daze from one final to another. By the time she does reach the sidewalk that leads up to the front of the observatory, Molly's cheeks are flushed and her nose is red. Her dyed-dark hair was pinned up in a wavy devil-may-care kind of careless style, and she had a plum colored scarf about her neck and similar gloves on her hands. She was dressed in snug black jeans and a black peacoat that was stitched to cinch in at and flatter the waist.
She peered up to the front door of the observatory, unsure as to whether it was open or not. Penciled-dark eyebrows (masking the natural red that her hair grew in as) raised with curiosity. Her breath was clouds in front of her and the fronts of her thighs were as numb and cold as her cheeks were.
"Well... I hope it's warm," Molly said to no one, and crunch-crunched her way up to the front of the building to go inside.
Molly Toombs
[Perception 3 + Alertness 3]
Dice: 6 d10 TN9 (2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 8) ( fail )
ghost story
The front door is locked when she tries it. Molly can see lights on inside; not many, but the pale windows aren't the darkest of windows.
The place feels no more desolate than ambience allows. She does, of course, notice Nate's motorcycle.
Nate
Nate does not subscribe to the txt-speak school of SMS communication. When someone sends him something that he finds humorous he responses with a "Hah" instead of an "LOL."
So Florence the puppy tried to eat the squeaky toy. Molly got back a
Hahaha
and then a snippet of what his evening looked like. He was planning on just reading articles discussing the impact of increased holiday tourism on area crime rates and drinking beer all night but his friend got him off the couch.
Going to the Chamblin Observatory. Woooo.
When Molly arrives she sees his motorcycle parked outside. She will not smell the sharp cold-sweat or the lingering Camel smoke until she joins them inside. As for Lux: she gets the same line about tourism impacting crime rates and a factoid about how Denver had a record high for homicides this year.
She had to snag his arm to get him to extinguish his cigarette and hurry along with her. Inside they go arm-in-arm like one of them has to lead the other.
Molly can hear him laugh at something while the front door gapes open behind them.
Nate
[perc + alert!]
Dice: 3 d10 TN8 (4, 5, 8) ( success x 1 )
Lux
Now we've our actors. Nathan Marszalek, intrepid reporter, veteran, cat owner. Molly Toombs, inquisitive ER nurse, amateur occultist, dog owner. Lux, ornamental who-knows-what, ghoul owner (unfair to poor Gary, her Valet Noir, her Ghoul Friday; but accurate, no? [More loyal than a hound the blood-bound creatures]), possessor of keys to the Chamberlin Observatory, friend of Amory Beaton, the astronomy student and tech who is around to do his work and make certain nothing bad happens to the antique equipment. Is the equipment antique if it is still in use; is it antique if it still serves its purpose, or does it become well-maintained? We've our actors, and Molly at the front locked doors, Molly hearing Nate's laughter around the corner, maybe Molly catching the sliver of light spilling down a narrow tumble of stairs.
The actors have their places. Now they have their stage direction. Get together, people. Lux untucks the book from under her arm once she's inside; calls out, "Ames! One of them is here!" Her thumb is rifling the book's pages, seeking for another random passage from Paradise Lost. To Nate, she says, "Cheese puffs? Classy snackfood, I know, but it is all I could scrounge. I think there's also some hot chocolate. It's like an ice giant's ass crack in the observatory dome; or," and here, her chin lofts just slightly, angling arrogantly, "as cold as heaven's heart. For a prettier analogy."
Lux
That sense of the air being empty and silent begins to diminish; Nate can practically feel something gathering in the corner, gathering up, hulking.
Molly Toombs
A bit of a frown creased Molly's brow to find that the front door did not budge when she pulled on the handle. Neither did the second of the double doors. She stepped back and put her hands in her coat pockets and looked up and about the doors and on the walls beside them, hunting for a plaque or sign that might indicate hours of operation.
But Nate said to meet here, and she knew he drove his motorcycle rather than slumming it with the rest of the public transit users, such as Molly herself. So she turned and glanced about the parking lot nearest to the building, and pressed her lips together when she spied the motorcycle. So he had to be about here somewhere. Maybe over at another building someplace? Maybe he went to hunt for a bathroom while waiting for her?
Then a laugh came from around to the side of the building, and Molly blinked in surprise and followed the sound. This led her to the side door, left somewhat ajar, that led to the narrow staircase. Molly stepped inside, left the door somewhat ajar behind her (better to make the univeristy's heating bill trickle upward than to actively risk locking herself in, after all), and started up the staircase.
She was loosening the scarf about her throat and removing her gloves as she ascended. When she reached the first landing on the stairs she heard a woman's voice call out and paused. She wasn't sure who all she was supposed to be meeting here, but the voice that she'd heard was unfamiliar.
So, rather than slinking about quietly and making herself seem all the more suspicious, Molly called out when she reached the top of the staircase and stepped out of the stairwell onto the second floor.
"Hello?"
She hovered near the door, glancing left and right and waiting for some kind of an answer. As she waited, she loosened the scarf around her neck and removed her gloves.
Nate
"I don't do pretty. I don't know as I would've gone with 'giant's ass crack,' but--"
Hello?
And here is a good a place as any for a reminder that Nate is bigger and heavier than he looks. He walks around tired and quiet most of the time and when he's drunk he's laugh-happy. Like he's had a dose of analgesic instead of poisoning himself.
Then he raises his voice and it sounds like said giant awakening.
"Yo, MOLLY!"
Quieter, to Lux: "I think that's my friend. Uh... the nurse."
He flicks his dark eyes to the corner and tamps down a shiver before he takes Lux by the elbow and steers her back towards the front door. Let's not be rude. She'd had his elbow in hers as they waltzed in her earlier. Now he's hoping she'll lead the way back towards the side entrance.
'Lead.' Nate doesn't follow her. That corner is awfully fucking interesting to him.
Lux
[Something up with that corner, Nate-o? Percept + Emp -1 AUSPEX POWERZ.]
Dice: 4 d10 TN5 (2, 5, 8, 10) ( success x 3 )
Nate
[WAT. NO. manip + subt.]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 7, 7, 8) ( success x 3 )
Lux
The side-entrance leads to a foyer. They were in the foyer, heading toward one of the staff rooms, and it is cold inside. Not as cold as it'll be upstairs in the dome proper, but still cold. The floors are polished stone and they catch echoes, don't they? They catch echoes and the suggestions of shadows (of Shades [Hush]), and the corner Nate finds so particularly interesting is the corner beside a desk. What serves as the receptionist's desk, has a ledger in glass right now a guest book from the turn-of-the-century before this-century-turned so names written over a hundred years ago.
A map of stars, a poster. This is where tours for elementary school children begin. That is a hall, right there, and there is warm butter-yellow light glowing from an open door, the sound of somebody (Amory) at a computer, the sound of typing pausing when Amory decides to amble over poke his head around the corner and he is nothing much to look at Amory he is some average graduate student with eyes full of stars [Apt Metaphor], dark skin and a broad smile when he can be brought to smile (usually he's too self-conscious; his teeth are big, one is crooked, a wolftooth). He doesn't call after Nate and Lux when Nate takes Lux by the elbow and steers her back. When voices are raised. The other one's here. Hello? He just says, "There are m&ms too. Hi." Then pokes his head back.
Lux gives Nathan a sluice of a look when he begins to lag behind. It's a look that lingers and that sharpens; dredges visions out of thin air, this sight; makes the world lovelier, uglier, louder. All she knows is that he stopped following.
And Lux has long legs; she uses them to leave Nathan behind and open the door and let his friend in. The nurse. Lux is quite keen to meet The Nurse.
So she opens the door to let her in, and she's smiling. "Hey. Molly? Do be Molly, and not somebody else. There's no somebody else on the list tonight."
Molly Toombs
Now, she's never really heard Nate yell. Not much, anyways. The closest she's probably gotten to that are sounds of dazed pain and struggle from the night that a ferocious car accident claimed his friend's life and nearly took his along with it. Still, she can recognize familiarity in the deep holler that comes from the other side of a door. Molly looked at the door curiously and untied the scarf completely, leaving it draped over her shoulders and around the back of her neck. She didn't unbutton her coat, though, it wasn't nearly warm enough for that.
She was about to try for the door when it opened without her, and Molly stared with an expression of clear surprise on her face to see Lux-- a beautiful, captivating looking woman standing in the doorway. It took her a full second and a half to wipe the stunned look off her face. When she did, it was replaced with something far more neutral-- not uncaring, but difficult to place on anything strong or easy to identify. Mildly curious at best would probably be the most suiting description.
"Yeah. Uhmm... I'm Molly, I guess Nate must've told you I was coming?"
She cleared her throat, then removed a hand from her pocket (fingernails ruby red and trimmed short) and held it out to shake. It was only polite, after all. "Sorry, who are you?"
Nate
Nate isn't a high society type of reporter. He spends most of his time around cops and coroners. People who don't know what to do with you if you're trying to impress somebody. He will drink coffee that has sat in a canister for three days because that's what they used to do when he was in Iraq and Afghanistan. Places where the coffee was older than some of the kids the DoD had shipped out.
He thinks it's totally cool to be in a confined space hollering like that and not accompanying his friend Lux to meet his friend Molly because he's sure they're both perfectly capable of introducing themselves. Amory pokes his head out to bring the chocolate candies to their attention and he mumbles something sounding like thanks man before he goes wandering over to investigate the corner by the receptionist's desk.
So inconspicuous. Like Molly can't glance over Lux's shoulder and recognize the black leather jacket and the uncombed blond hair.
Lux
Lux in the doorway is now Lux standing to the side letting her body language be invitation in once Molly admits to being Molly. Her hand is on the door handle on her side of the door. The feel of it against her bare-fingers is distracting: its a grainy kind of smoothless. The lights in Molly's dark hair is distracting. The scope of the world outside is distracting, all that darkness. Lux clears her head of visions (by which we mean, she un-sharpens her vision; lets Auspex diminish), though it's not without a pang. The world's so godamned distractingly beautiful.
"I'm Lux," she says, taking Molly's hand. Her handshake is firm and her skin is cool, but not ice cream cold, not deadman frigid. One prepares when one cares about the Masquerade; one uses somebody's near death experience to be a little warmer (spring-thaw). "And yeah, he did. I'm really glad to get a chance to meet another friend of Nate's. Been here before?"
This is when the tech, who pokes his head around the corner again, mumbles another, "Hi. If, uh, if you guys need anything..."
This is also when the lighting flick-flickers with a sound like a moth got caught in a light. That's all. Just a little pulse, nothing strange. Amory is clearly anxious to get back to his computer.
ghost story
The presence stops 'growing,' and instead Nate can hear a voice. The voice is pleading in broken Spanish, saying something that repeats over and over, a broken record loop.
Even with his knowledge of French, he can't quite guess at any of the words. The accent is too strange (old).
Molly Toombs
A quick flash-glance of blue eyes was cast past Lux's shoulder and arm to spy Nate, moving toward the back of the room, distinguishable by shape of shoulders, that familiar leather jacket, and the same unruly light-colored hair that he always rocked. Her hand was accepted, and the cool touch drew Molly's attention back to Lux. Lux. That name was given, and Molly looked back up into the beautiful woman's face.
Her touch was cool, but the room was cool. She didn't stop to think much of anything of it. Molly's hand, in turn, was quite warm. She was a living thing, after all, and the mittens she'd been wearing up until recently were well insulated.
"Lux. That's a unique name." She commented on the name casually, thoughtlessly, before having her attention stolen away by the student poking his head out of a room asking if anyone needed anything. Molly blinked at him, shook her head, then looked back to the woman standing before her with questions unanswered.
"Ahhh, well, I was here for astronomy classes one semester, but I haven't been here outside of that, no." The woman, of average height and plain (but freckled) face, slipped her hands back into her coat pockets. She was thick without being able to really be called 'fat'-- curved nicely but more dense than the immediately imagined image for a 'perfect body' would be. She dressed to her shape nicely, though-- the cut of the coat complimented her nicely.
Attention slipped past Lux again, to Nate, and Molly lifted her chin a little and her voice along with it to catch his attention. "Hey, can't even say--"
The lights flickered, Molly paused and glanced up and about, then finished her sentence in a somewhat lower register, tone shifted and distracted as she still kept eyes up toward the ceiling, eyeing the light fixtures suspiciously. "...hello."
Nate
This is the part where he starts talking to himself because he's distracted and no one from the skinlands has interrupted him in too long a time. Nate approaches the corner and he stands with the calloused fingertips of his right hand on the ledger and he doesn't turn his head towards the tech when he comes back out.
"Je ne parle pas espagnol..."
This so quiet you'd have to speak French or be focusing on his speech to catch it. Nate remembers enough Spanish from shooting shit with the Hispanic guys in his unit to tell someone he doesn't speak Spanish. So:
"No comprendo, no hablo español."
And then the flickering. Nate brings a hand up to his brow and turns around like he's just now realizing Molly is inside. He has that same stupid expression on his face that he did his first night in the ICU, minus the morphine glaze.
"Hey, you made it."
Molly Toombs
[Perception + Alertness, take 2!]
Dice: 6 d10 TN9 (5, 7, 8, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 1 )
Lux
[For Lux too, 'coz yo. Let's see if she botches.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN9 (1, 3, 10) ( success x 1 )
Nate
[something + empathy, his cha and per are both 3]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (6, 7, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 5 )
Nate
[and another thing!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (5, 7, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )
ghost story
This, then.
They both feel it, Molly and Lux. Around Nate, a coruscating halo, condensed in that corner, the smell of something burnt-cinnamon sugar the sense of it scritch-scratching against the skull, a presence. The air is thin and quiet but
surely, surely
a chill for the spine, trickle-drop
something Other this way is
(and it isn't Lux)
ghost story
The frantic and repetitious murmuring ends (at last [finally]), skip-breaks like a record just leapt. Begins to start up again, but with more hesitation. Nate can smell burnt cinnamon now and the smell gets stronger when the prayer stops (let's certainly call it a prayer), and then the sense of Something Gathered shifts, breaks over him like a very gentle wave, coalesces at his side and he can feel
Yes, he can feel it
a hand in his hand. Cold as ice. The fingers close. Small fingers, but not necessarily a child's.
Lux
Lux still has that copy of Paradise Lost tucked under her arm. After Molly entered the room, Lux had allowed the door to close. Hadn't thought much of the lights flickering, if she'd even noticed them. If she'd even thought: This is something to notice. Lux is trying to be more aware of her surroundings, but she isn't there yet. She is trying to be more aware of people, and she is better at that. Better at studying Molly's suspicious eye-glance up (oh, did something happen?), then follow it with her own eyes. Nate's murmured French gets her attention, too [--another sharp cut, another sluice; Lux's eyes are all darkness, Lucifer's eyes, clear and crystal-fire but shadowed just the same--], and then a line etches between her eyebrows.
"Do you smell that?" she says, and it's asked thoughtlessly and impartially, but there is texture in her voice--as if she is going to pull Nathan away from that corner.
Molly Toombs
Nate had been speaking in languages to the corner, and that was definitely something worth noting. The way that he glanced back at her-- dopey-eyed , to be precise, was something she's seen on his face before as well. Molly was a smart woman, she was decent at putting pieces of puzzles together.
His behavior was worth noticing, but then Molly experienced a full body shiver that had started at the base of her spine and crawled its way upward. She frowned, feeling uncomfortable in some way that she couldn't quite place her finger on, and she glanced cautiously to Lux when the woman asked if anyone smelled what she could.
Molly's nostrils flickered while she sniffed at the air, and she looked thoughtful for a second before lifting a hand and swiping it under her nose a couple of times, like doing so would clear the scent out of her sinuses. "Burnt cookies or something, yeah."
She had no idea who or what Lux was. She couldn't begin to guess, really, and there was no reason for her to suspect that this woman was anything other than normal. She had no reason to assume that she knew that ghosts and vampires and magic was all very real. But then, protecting the truth wasn't exactly Molly's job, was it? Her concern for how much Lux may see only stretched so far, and Molly glanced about uncomfortably. Hands found either elbow, effectively crossing her arms across her front, and she nodded her head in a jerky upward motion to Nate.
"What-- ahh... What're you doing over there, buddy?"
Nate
Nate's hand comes down from his brow as he coaches himself to act normal people are here Molly's looking at you. For a few seconds he does manage to act normal. Stands with his shoulders back and his arms at his sides and looks like he's going to come out of the corner and properly greet his friend so they can move on with their evening.
Then a hard reset hits the muscles in his face. Where before he was distracted and concerned and veering towards anxious he takes a deep. He looks stirred and uncertain all at once.
The fingers of his right hand curl in slightly.
Does he smell that.
"It's okay," he says but still in that quiet voice. His eyes aimed down and to his right. Huge effort to look back across the room at the women like he's reassuring Lux.
Something's burning. What's he doing over there.
At a reasonable volume: "What?"
Lux
Now. Lux knows that Molly knows vampires are real. Flood. Bastard. Lux doesn't know whether or not Molly knows that Nate has experiences with haunts. Shades. Doesn't know about Molly's Halloween Adventure. What're you doing over there, buddy? Molly says, and Nate says It's okay, in that oh-so-quiet voice, as if he's reassuring -- Lux. Do you smell that? Lux, who is a cautious creature (paranoid [shadows]), who is so poised a thing that now, on the precipice of pulling Nate away from that corner and letting things unfold naturally (fall where you will!), there is something almost unconscionably graceful about her stillness. Most of her weight on one hip, determined chin more determined, ankle-dip, a promising sort of stillness. Could've been maybe is a dancer.
The point of all this is to say Lux does not go, Dude, is it?
It's not her secret.
She'd hate for her secrets to get out.
Really, she would. So when Molly says 'burnt cookies or something, yeah,' Lux nods. "A little like gingerbread, blackened in the pan. Or ... it reminds me of some other dessert."
What? says Nate, and Lux comes out of her stillness with an audible exhale, reaching up to drag her fingers through cloud of dark hair, hold it gathered up at the top of her skull. Released from motion, she-
Dude, she drifts over to That Corner the reporter's corner.
The lights do not at this time flicker again.
However,
[Roll Percept Alertness, people!]
Nate
[perc + alert!]
Dice: 3 d10 TN8 (1, 2, 4) ( fail )
Molly Toombs
[Percep + Alert!]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (5, 6, 6, 6, 6, 9) ( success x 5 )
Lux
[No Auspex. Do I botch, too??]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 9) ( success x 1 )
Lux
The cold fingers tighten on Nathan's. They tighten and they cling. His arm tingles on the verge of going numb, as if something leaned against him and robbed him of sensation. It's brief, and he doesn't really lose sensation. The presence stays near.
Lux
However,
Molly notices a number of things. This: when Lux goes to investigate that corner, it gets noticeably darker there; the darkness seems to seep out've Nathan's own shadow, seems to clot against the receptionist's desk, seems to throw a dingey shadow against the wall- shape of a door that isn't there. Ghost door, something.
The air hums with tension, and
oh, oh, there is an extra shadow near Nathan. It isn't Lux's. It's something else's. Molly only glimpses it once out of the corner of her eye, and when she looks more closely, it's gone- but she definitely sees it.
Hears, on the other side of the wall that just got darker, on the other side of the wall making up that corner, footsteps- coming closer.
But so very distant.
Molly Toombs
The 'what?' is met with an exasperated kind of stare, but it doesn't last for terribly long. Lux made mention of blackened gingerbread men and Molly glanced back up to her. The woman seemed stiff, alert, but graceful and composed all the same. The jury was still out on her and how to behave in a situation where the supernatural was trickling its way in through the observatory telescope and seeping into the room around her. She lifted a hand to rub at the base of her skull and the back of her neck. She was still uncomfortable, but she couldn't place what it was about her that felt off. Massaging her head, she thought, might help.
She had been looking about the room, frowning, while rubbing at the back of her head. She was on edge, didn't like one bit what she'd just walked into. In her glancing about the room, though, her eyes skim over the corner, over Lux's back and shoulders, and to Nate's front. Lux was approaching him, and Molly was looking past the both of them.
With her back turned, the Undead Woman can't see this, but Nate (if he's paying mind) will be able to see that Molly's eyes widen and the color starts to fade and drain away from her face, throwing her freckles into sharp relief. She was staring at something out of focus to him, something behind or beside or around him perhaps, but it was clear from her reaction that she was seeing something, not just thinking with her eyes open.
Her right hand reached out through the empty air in front of her, and her fingers reached at first, then waved rapidly at the pair. She didn't look directly at either of them when she said in an all-at-once hushed voice.
"Come away from there... back, back over here, now."
Her tone is tight, and there's an oh-so faint chord of budding panic to be found underneath that hasn't wormed its way to the surface just yet, and probably won't unless it's ripped forward by something drastic.
Nate
Blame it on the fact that he's a guy and he's still relatively young and he has an overinflated sense of his own toughness and understanding of what's going on but Nate does not spring away from the corner when Molly goes fear-pale and bids them come back from the corner.
He does make eye contact with Lux and jerk his chin back towards the door like yes yes that's a brilliant idea. But he looks uncomfortable now. Not because he's afraid or because he's sweating cold-metal sweat where they can't see it. Like he has a nasty physical sensation he's weathering and ignoring at once.
With the fingers of his right hand still curled in he reaches across his body to rub that arm with his free left and starts back across the foyer towards the door. He doesn't rush. He's fucking oblivious.
Lux
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (7) ( success x 1 )
Nate
[perc + alert]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (4, 4, 10) ( success x 1 )
Molly Toombs
[Perception 3 + Alertness 3]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 1, 4, 8, 10) ( success x 2 )
ghost story
[Hand-holder. Emp + Exp.]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 5, 6) ( success x 1 )
Lux
[P + A, again.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 10) ( success x 1 )
ghost story
[Mystery NPC Stealth Roll.]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 6, 6) ( success x 2 )
Lux
Molly doesn't yell or make a big deal. Her voice is hushed and the more effective for that. Lux can tell that the nurse really means what she's saying. That getting away from that corner seems like the best thing to do. But Lux is already there, looking at the mundane wall and the mundane floor and the mundane number of shadows as far as she can tell and the mundane place where the paint has darkened and then, there, something casts its hook into her attention and tugs it back to a certain spot on the wall-
Lux had begun to turn back to Nathan and Molly, Nathan's catch-your-eyes going entirely astray because the vampiress wishes to be between Nate and whatever is in the corner (there's nothing there but shadows, dust, and a feeling, the It already has him by his hand- right?), but she turns back briefly- swift thing- and touches one finger to the wall, draws it down-
And then, a stillness of expression that is expressive of- alarm? Lux is self-contained, rolls with the punches- but rubbing her fingertip and thumb together, she doesn't linger any further. Backs away, toward Nathan and toward Molly and if Nathan is being slow she 'accidentally' bumps into him to make him retreat faster.
"Should we leave the building, Molly?" since Molly seems to see something she doesn't, the clear-eyed inquiry is given to the nurse; Lux is still holding her finger and thumb together, shoulders taut but what of it. There's blood on her finger and on her thumb, dark sick-looking blood, clotted.
ghost story
The hand in his hand is joined by another hand this one on his arm by his elbow and the Spanish (Old? Accented? Difficult to understand) kicks in again. Nathan still can't understand the broken record repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat but he can tell that the ghost has broken its loop is saying something new and although he can't quite understand what it wants him to he gets the impression that it is scared wants to be taken away take me away take me away take me away or take something away take his friends away take away go away this isn't a warning it's more of a plea
a scared out of its mind plea.
ghost story
Molly sees, when Lux touches the wall, the wall get even darker; sees a brief after-image trail along the path her finger took; hears a distant tinny groan or wail or- something. Difficult to tell if it's a sorrow-sound or a pleasure-sound or a fear-sound; it's not the kind of sound one wants to think they half-catch when it's clear something supernatural is going down, regardless. The shadow on the ground darkened and became more solid, stretching out so that it was under Nathan's feet, stretching further so that it was coming perilously close to Molly's.
And she also catches, out of the corner of her eye, the sound of the tech's door opening, can see him in the perepheral poke his head out, disappear, return holding something-
Molly Toombs
Whatever color that was left in Molly's face was utterly gone now. She was reacting a moment after Lux had reached out and run a pretty finger down the wall. If not pale before, then Molly certainly was now-- a beacon of white in the room splashed with drastic freckles. She looked horrified and disgusted both, but not overwhelmed for it. Though it made her sick, she swallowed back any strong reactions that had spasmed through her and shook her head uncertainly at Lux.
"I don't know," Molly'd stated. She had her hands outstretched, and when Nate was near enough she snagged up his coat sleeves with her hands and pulled him urgently nearer the door. Even though she was saying she didn't know if they should leave or not, that's still her immediate impulse. Molly was curious about vampires, but didn't care to fuck around with ghosts. She's learned better than that first hand.
"I can't tell intent, but whatever is here rubs me no good way."
Nate
He is dragging ass. Nate's got his back to the wall and he isn't paying attention to it and he hasn't got much of a clue as to what it is that has Molly blanching and cringing. On his face is a deep frown like he's trying to concentrate and he can't. Lux bumps him and that's the thing that gets his boots moving.
When he talks he isn't talking to either of them.
"Okay," he says quiet his voice aimed down at his elbow, "it's okay, let's go."
Lux bumps him. Nate looks up finally. Molly grabs him. Taller than both of them as he is it does not take him long to reach the door that will spill them back outside.
Lux
[SC.]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 8) ( success x 1 )
Lux
"Yeah, okay," Lux says, after a bare moment's worth of consideration. "Blood isn't usually a great sign." Granted, sometimes it's a lovely sign, for Lux. Just not when it appears mystically from mundane objects. Lux hasn't ever once heard of that being a good sign even for vampires. Part of her wants to taste it, confirm what she already knows, wonder just what mystic blood like this would taste like. She resists, barely. "I'm going to get Ames. Meet you two in the lot."
It's perhaps natural that Lux probably puts more stock in Molly's reactions now than Nathan's. Nathan seems to be in his own little world. He's like the kid along for the adventure who keeps talking to the pet he has hidden in his pockets but the pets can actually see important things and maybe give good advice and occasionally he'll poke his head up and say something important, and anyway, he's clearly to be protected, bumped from one woman to the next, ushered out while his hand's still in that claw-hold on nothing-but-air.
Lux doesn't ask Nate what he's talking to. She's a bright thing. She does give him a sluice-of-a-look, something that goes from his face and down to his hand and, "'Let's,' huh," she says, with a touch of wry, a tone that says she doesn't think that 'let's' includes Molly and Lux and she's wondering what the heck he's talking out of the Observatory.
Molly Toombs
Once before when Nate and Molly stepped together into a space containing the essence of a dead person, the woman had clung terrified to Nate's arm while lights burst out and the sounds of something abnormal echoed out from rooms. This was different from that time. Perhaps because Molly had seen more since then, or because she had braved more violent supernatural turbulence than that while alone.
Either way, once Nate found his speed Molly released him and instead put her hands near her sides, shoulders visibly stiff and taut even through the thick fabric of her peacoat. Molly kept glancing back over her shoulder, as though watching to see if they were persued.
Nate spoke, inviting them to go, but then Lux made a comment with curious influction and Molly looked forward to pay a little more attention to Nate. To the fact that whatever it was he was checking on and talking to, it wasn't herself or the beautiful woman that she'd met just tonight.
Molly's brows knitted together with a scowl, and whatever theories or conclusions she was putting on the whiteboard of her mind she kept to herself. She just kept her pace brisk and aimed for the outdoors.
Nate
The problem with Nate's little ability is that he hasn't done any research into what it means or how to control it. He has ignored it his entire life. Kept it hidden from others that they would not think he is insane. People who claim to hear voices talking to them are often promptly hospitalized and thrown on antipsychotics. Hallucinations indicate a break from reality.
This is not a hallucination.
This ability ought to give him insight into how to handle situations like the one that took place in the apartment above Molly's. All he had done that day was recognize that the spirit in the place meant them harm and usher Molly back outside and downstairs before coming up with some excuse to leave quickly.
Molly knows he hears dead people. Lux knows he hears dead people. It would be nice if he knew what to do when dead people cross over and start to fuck with the living. But he doesn't. He's distracted. Not until they're outside does Nate seem to realize something is happening that the women can sense. He stops and frowns harder and looks over at Molly like he's just jerked out of a trance.
"Wait, what?" he asks and turns back towards the observatory like he's about to go inside again. "What blood?"
ghost story
[Mystery NPC Roll.]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 5 )
Nate
[aw hell]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 9) ( success x 1 )
Molly Toombs
[Wits]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (5, 6, 8, 10) ( success x 3 )
Lux
[?]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2) ( fail )
Molly Toombs
[Strength]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (2, 3) ( fail )
Nate
[SO STRONG]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 9) ( success x 1 )
ghost story
Lux began to head for the astronomy student's office. Molly headed for the door, and Nate, once outside, wheeled around and said, Wait, what? What blood?
He felt the ground shift under his feet. Just a little. If he'd ever been in an earthquake, he might associate the side-to-side movement with that. Or he maybe he's had a rug pulled out from under his feet before. Because that's what it feels like. Natural resistance kicks in and he's fine. Still on his feet. Still being clung to by who knows what.
But the door to the Observatory has closed, and he's alone outside.
ghost story
Wait, what? Nathan says. What blood? And Molly feels the ground lurch beneath her. Molly who has already noticed the strangeness of the shadows might even well realize that it's where the shadow had spread like a puddle pouring over and out that the ground lurching lurches beneath, but there's strength in it. A deliberate knock-you-down strength and though she has a moment to try and pull against it (it's pushing her down, see), she's not strong enough maybe it snags her heel and- Molly to the floor. A couple feet closer to the wall.
And Lux, Lux doesn't even have a chance to try. Lux, precise, well-balanced Lux, was taken completely off-guard when the ground moved; or maybe it's because she was still closer to the corner. Either way, she goes down almost immediately, grace bowled under by Strength. You could argue she lost her balance, but that's just not so. Something came too fast. She curses when she hits the ground, landing on her side.
ghost story
The door has slammed close, separating Molly and Lux (and the astronomy tech?) from Nate and - er, Nate.
Molly Toombs
Molly had been about out the doorway, with Nate pulled up ahead of her, when the building's structure beneath her hefted one direction and then the next. There was a second force, though, one that pulled backward and downward, back toward the corner that she'd beckoned Lux and Nathan away from.
Now, Molly was a sturdy enough woman. She'd gotten through college largely on an athletic scholarship (volleyball, of all things) and exercised regularly to maintain that level of health. This, though, was too much at once for her, so she fell.
She didn't have much time to react to right herself, so she'd landed on her front but managed to catch herself with her palms on the floor to avoid swatting her face into the floor. This was made uncomfortable and jarring for the fact that her heels skidded away from her a foot or so after she hit ground, for she was being dragged backwards as well.
The door slammed shut with an audible wham!, and Molly yelled out: "Christ, Nate!" Then, scrambled to regain her feet and looked back toward the corner that Lux had been near to, searching for the woman and her condition. "Lux! Are you alright?"
Nate
Nate catches himself. He has weathered earthquakes and mortar fire and other incidents that just happen to cause geologic instability and this feels like an earthquake but it isn't. He knows it isn't. It knocks Molly back into the observatory and the door slams shut behind her and that appears to be the kick in the head he needed to forget about the entity clung to his arm because he spins around and tries the handle.
"Fuck. MOLLY!"
If that door doesn't open he runs to try the other one.
ghost story
[Mystery NPC]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 4 )
Molly Toombs
[Wits 4 (Cool-Headed specialty) + Alertness 3]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 10) ( success x 2 ) Re-rolls: 1
Molly Toombs
[Reroll!]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 3, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )
Nate
[alert! all his mental traits are the same.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 8) ( success x 1 )
ghost story
Nathan tries the handle. Does he take his hand away from his 'friend'? If he does, he'll hear a sucking sound. Pop. If he doesn't, he'll feel nothing strange except the continued presence of that hand which isn't there. The door is locked. Doesn't need to be supernaturally sealed, it's one of those heavy doors that you can only open if you have a key because it automatically locks. And Lux has the key. If he runs around to the more imposing and far more intimidating front doors, he'll find the same thing. They're firmly locked.
But maybe there's another way in? Maybe he can coax a door open. Maybe the presence he can still feel near him can help. Maybe nothing bad is happening inside at all.
ghost story
Lux was usually quick to react. This wasn't one of those Usually times. Lux pushes herself up, first onto her elbow, then presses her hand against the floor and up she gets. Doesn't stagger, but there's a certain liquid measure of caution in her movements now. Or there would've been, if she hadn't been arrested mid-uncrouch. Molly can hear her suck in a sharp breath so that she can say, "Stay back. I'm fine, but stay back."
And Molly can see why Lux is saying that, too. Because Lux's left hand is covered in blood. Slick blood. Clotted blood. Dark blood, clumping, spoiled. Her handprint's smeared on the ground from where she pushed herself up and the blood's splashed up onto her coat, is a thick little pool beginning to trickle toward the wall.
"It's not mine," the vampire says, and she sounds both determined and angry.
Molly can also see Amory, the tech. He's crouched in the crack of the door to his office, and what he's holding is a phone. He's holding it out like he's recording something, which obviously he is. He looks scared as hell, and conflicted. Like maybe he wants to go out, his mouth white and pressed together, but like he knows it's better where he is.
Molly Toombs
Molly found her feet with no trouble, and had started to walk back toward Lux when she was upright again, but stopped. The woman's warning was heeded. She spoke and moved like someone who knew what they were doing. She seemed capable, and trusted that further was better.
Plus, there was the sound of Nate yelling after her on the other side of the door, and the rattle of a doorknob as he tried to open it.
Eyes darted toward Amory in the doorway, probably recording what he was seeing so he could post it to YouTube before 'the feds could come and cover the whole thing up, man'. She couldn't be bothered with him, he seemed unharmed anyways.
So Molly turned back to the door and mirrored Nate's actions on the other side-- she seized the doorknob and twisted to try and wrench it open.
ghost story
[Mystery NPC, again.]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 4 )
Nate
He does not wrest his hand away from the spirit. If it can stay attached to him while he races away from the side door to try his luck with the front then he will not shake it free. Nate does slam his palm against the front door in a surge of frustration before jumping back down off the steps and running back to the side door.
Fuck. Lux has the key.
Maybe nothing bad is happening. He doesn't trust that nothing bad is happening. He runs his free hand through his hair and huffs out a breath and pats his pockets for anything he could use to pick a lock. He does not know how to pick a lock.
"What the fuck," he says.
The spirits of the dead talk to him. They talk to him and he can hear them. Nate joggles his free hand against his thigh once he realizes he has nothing with which to jimmy open a door and then looks over at his cold hand.
"Help me. Please. Show me what you want, no hablo español."
Molly Toombs
[Wits: Cool Headed]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 5, 8) ( success x 1 )
Molly Toombs
[Strength]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (1, 9) ( success x 1 )
Nate
[char + exp]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 5, 10) ( success x 1 )
Molly Toombs
[Perception 3 + Empathy 2]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 4, 6, 10) ( success x 2 )
ghost story
The sound of somebody (Nate, probably; but who can be certain?) at the doorknob has ceased when Molly gets her hands around it. The ground lurches under her feet again, hauling her back and down. This time, Molly's struggle keeps her -- with her hand on the doorknob. But the door isn't opening, and the pressure dragging her back isn't letting it up. Feels as if there is no floor, just gravity. Feels as if she's hanging from the ceiling, disorientating as that might be. Like the door knob's the only thing keeping her from falling down. And down is the wall.
ghost story
This time the voice speaks to him in bad English, though it sounds even further away. Like the impression that silence might do of a voice if it cobbled that voice together out of found sounds around the city or from an old wax recording.
The man hood I want to go. Lost flower in the bad door. What you, (hesitation), want?
Molly Toombs
The door wouldn't budge, and the rattling she'd heard at the knob earlier had ceased. She felt no jangling opposite of her own on the knob when she tried to twist it and failed to actually accomplish anything. Her expression was bleak, almost defeated, and she tried the knob again with silent bleading written all over her face.
Then the world rocks again, and this time it begins and continues to tip backwards.
She managed to stay on her feet only because she'd gripped onto the door knob and used it to keep herself supported and upright. Yet, somehow, her feet fell out from underneath her a few moments later despite her best efforts. She scuffed the toes of her boots onto the floor, struggling and skidding for purchase, and then all at once the entire world shifted a full ninety degrees.
Molly made a struggled sound of horror that bloomed into an outright scream for all of three seconds before it strangled off, wrenched away by horror and disbelief forcing her lungs to constrict along with everything else. She grasped the knob, fingers curled and locked around one another, and kicked at the air, struggling for stability and somehow managing not to sob in desperation at the same time.
Only when she stopped swinging about wildly did she glance down past the length of her body to the wall/floor beyond.
"Lux!" She yelled, checking in on the woman. She could only hope Nate wasn't suffering similar fates on the other side.
ghost story
[NPC action.]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 5, 6, 7, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 5 )
Lux
[?]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 5) ( fail )
Molly Toombs
On the other side of the door, Nate can hear a noise of panic bloom into a full on scream for a couple of seconds before it strangled itself off. Molly'd made the sound.
It was followed, after a dozen seconds, by the same voice yelling in tremulous, searching panic: "Lux!"
Nate
"Okay."
He puts his hand on the door and tries the handle like he needs to make sure it's still locked before he does anything else. He can hear nothing going on inside and that's making him nervous. Even in the chill of the evening his palms are growing slick with sweat.
"Can you open the--"
Nate
"MOLLY!"
The sound of his palm slamming against the door.
"MOLLY OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR!"
Nate
[manip + subt]
Dice: 5 d10 TN5 (3, 4, 6, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )
Lux
[Hmm. Lux-y, baby. Getting on your game? -2 bps.]
Dice: 9 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 3, 5, 6, 9, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 6 ) [WP]
ghost story
Now. Nathan. He is alert. He is perceptive. He is tolerably so, at any rate. He can see under the door a shadow licking outward like a fern-tendril falling like a light moving. He can see it flicker, gutter, go out. The presence at his side pulls on his arm and falls briefly back into that record-loop repeat-repeat-repeat and then it indicates via a series of tugs that he should come this way away from that door. He can feel this sluice-of-fear from the presence-at-his-side, but it also seems to want to help him open the--open the something. No no no no no it tells him in a panic when he tells Molly to open the fucking door Don't scream the scream will make you lost in the forest of screams and more that is back in Spanish.
And then it starts to cry, but the crying is fading away. Because it's going around the corner of the building again. To help. Maybe.
Yes. He can hear the front doors open.
Nate
Nate does not want to go away from the door but the tugging on his arm does not let up and he knows the way he cannot claim to know a lot of things that the only way to make a haunting stop is to do what the ghosts want him to do. No terminology for it. Something keeps the dead here. That's all he's figured out on his own. Something keeps them here and to make them stop their rattling and their bone-riding you have to rest the thing that keeps them here.
With a growl Nate leaves the door. He heeds the flurry of no's and the request not to scream. Rushes off along the side of the building to keep up with the voice.
ghost story
Now. Molly's perspective. "I'm here. Hold on! I'm coming!" Lux tells Molly. Give Lux credit. She is in complete control of herself (determination [will]), taking the frightening strangeness as it comes. From Lux's perspective it looks as if Molly is defying gravity. Beginning to defy gravity. Lux's eyes widen and her pupils shrink from shock. She stands up completely, the blood dripping from her hand still drip-drop drip-drop flooding the ground. The blood-puddle has widened, is widening, though it doesn't flow naturally. Why should it? It's unnatural. It flows across the ground like a crime scene's aftermath. Black light revealing all the dirty little sordid stories.
Now. Lux starts toward Molly in order to- who knows? Grab her by the arm, lend her own strength to opening that door. Doesn't matter, because-
Something yanks Lux off-balance. Has her feet and pulls the floor away. Drops her back toward that corner. Lux 'falls' a good four feet- five feet? Hits the wall with a sharp thud and gets hauled back to the ground sitting sharply like there's a magnet attached to her back and somebody just zipped it down then lets her go.
And that's about the time when the Toreador becomes furious. Blood on her hands, fuck that. She uses vitae (real Blood) to make her that much more deadlier, that much more balanced, and wills herself up on her feet again and she outright races across the lobby to Molly's side.
She's fast, that Lux. Takes Molly's- well, let's just say she puts her hand over Molly's hand on the doorknob. She's not 'falling' backwards herself yet, and Molly can feel the gravitational drag drop her feet hard to the ground once Lux gets there, though she- they both- can still feel the tug tug tug backwards.
There's something else Molly is made aware of, holding onto that doorknob.
She said earlier that she didn't have a sense of whatever was here's intent- but she does now. Touching that doorknob this sense of something else's loneliness washes over her- washes over her along with a sense of hunger (for fear).
ghost story
[Mystery NPC.]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 6, 6, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 5 )
ghost story
[Nate's NPC.]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6, 9) ( success x 3 )
ghost story
The front door is open a crack. He sees no ghost. He just hears the dry hiccup-crying of it. Then he feels it by his side again, clinging to his forearm. He doesn't know enough to know that ghosts feed off strong emotion, but he does feel some of his helplessness bleed away; does feel himself bolstered, otherwise.
Inside, it's dark; he is free to go inside.
Nate
"I'm going to make him go. Okay? He's going to go."
What is he even talking about right now. He has no idea what he's talking about. This ghost is clinging to his arm and crying and Molly's inside screaming. That door is bad. Nate drags his free hand down his face and pulls open the front door.
"What do you need? Is it in the bad door? Huh?"
He takes a deep breath before he steps into the darkness.
Molly Toombs
The sound of Nate slamming against the door and demanding that she open it wrenched one of those quiet sobs half-loose. She didn't call anything back, she couldn't know what to say to reassure him, or how to explain why she couldn't open the door in any way that would make sense.
Then Lux was calling from behind her, telling her she was coming, coming to help no doubt. Molly looked back down toward her and watched as the woman stood up from the floor -- gravity was impacting her differently than it did Molly, apparently. But then, once more, the gorgeous woman (one that Molly didn't yet know was Undead) fell and slammed backward into the wall, where the shadow bloomed black and blood flooded the floor.
Molly said nothing, only watched while Lux won whatever battle she was struggling with and found her feet again and came to join her. When her hand clasped over Molly's and the doorknob, gravity corrected itself (for the most part) and Molly fell back to the floor, landing on her knees before quickly finding her feet again.
"Jesus, we need to go," she told Lux, and tugged hurriedly at the doorknob before looking back over her shoulder, back toward the room that the tech had been holed up in. "Aren't there other ways out?"
Molly Toombs
In response to the pounding and demand that the door be opened, Nate doesn't hear much. If things aren't very quiet on his side of the door then he won't be able to hear that Molly made a choked sobbing sound but didn't answer back directly.
ghost story
"Yeah. But Amory," Lux says, and her gaze flicks over to the hall where the astronomy tech is still hiding. That door opens a further crack and Amory doesn't say anything. Lux doesn't forget him but, like Molly earlier, Lux decides that Amory seems safe enough and she turns her attention instead to the problem of getting out. She tries the knob, too. And that does nothing. The blood smells real. The blood feels real, just half-dried. Sticky. "Yeah. The front door is that way. I think it's just this patch of ground that's haunted. I'll," and Lux nudges Molly in the side, as if maybe whatever it is that's there could understand english, but wouldn't see a small secret signal like that, "and we'll run." One two. Nudge.
ghost story
The sensation of ice-water creeps up his arm again, freezing him. Beautifully numb. The presence says a name. Ana. Ana is the name the presence says.
The main lobby is rather large. There are two ways he can go; the way toward Molly and Lux, or the other way. Each way is a hall, and then there are stairs, of course, leading upward. Does sneaking up on a ghost matter? Is it even possible? How the hell do they experience the living world, anyway?
They're just stuck here. It's gotta look different for them. They don't have senses, right? Blind deaf dumb mute. And then somebody like Nate comes along, the one eyed man in the land of.
Molly Toombs
"So he can come too!" Molly's tone was harsh and hushed, laced with insistence that was born of the tight hold of panic that was in her heart. Being trapped was a terrible feeling. But, there was no good to be had in actually losing her temper. Lux had done nothing wrong, clearly they all had the same interests in mind here.
So, Lux laid down the plan:
Front door. Hopefully just this part of the building is haunted. Run when I nudge you.
Molly had steadied her legs and straightened up as much she could against the backward pull of force, and when the nudge followed she pushed with thick strong legs against the floor and made a run in the direction indicated to find the front door.
Molly Toombs
[Willpower]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 6, 7, 7, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 6 )
Molly Toombs
[Dexterity 3 + Athletics 2, -1 diff]
Dice: 5 d10 TN5 (3, 8, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )
Lux
[Dum-dee-dum.]
Dice: 8 d10 TN3 (1, 3, 4, 5, 5, 7, 9, 9) ( success x 7 )
Nate
"Ana?"
He can't feel his arm. He can't tell what's going on where Molly and Lux are. If they manage to make it outside he's not going to be where they left him. They could be getting torn up by a malevolent spirit right now.
"Show me where Ana is."
Lux
[Dumdeedum again.]
Dice: 9 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8, 10) ( success x 5 )
Nate
[perc + alert]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 5) ( fail )
ghost story
There is a time to investigate and there is a time to get the Hell out've dodge and investigate from somewhere else. The time for somewhere else is now. At least that's what Molly and Lux appear to believe.
Nate is standing just inside the massive front doors, which are open a crack. He's standing there, his voice low, his attention on something that nobody else can hear, something that nobody else can feel. He doesn't feel as helpless as he did, that feeling having been drained out've him. He's standing there, perfectly oblivious, when
Molly first. Molly, running. Lux next. Lux, running. Both women are somewhat blood-splattered, because the blood on Lux's hands had got on Molly when- well. Nate doesn't know. The point is: He is standing right in front of them as they race for the door.
And he doesn't notice because when he concentrates, he concentrates. Also, wasn't that something behind him? He's sure he heard something behind him. Maybe the door closing.
The door is open.
ghost story
There is a brief moment after the nudge when something Drags On Molly's Psyche. (Drags On Lux's Psyche, too. But that's never very easy.) Molly throws it off admirably. This is a moment for her of steel will: of complete and utter determination. And she runs like she's a champion, pounding down the hall and around a corner and there's Nathan standing by the front doors, one of which is cracked open and outside cold winter Denver where there are no ghosts. Probably. Lux is right by Molly. Fast things, determined women.
ghost story
[Char + Emp. Nate's NPC.]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 4, 8) ( success x 1 )
ghost story
[Let's try that again with expression.]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 6, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )
ghost story
The presence doesn't seem able to fall back into English; it takes too much effort; it's too alien to it. But it seems to understand Nate just fine, nonetheless; it just can't shape that other language without more thought than it is able to give. Like putting too much thought would make it disperse, and dispersal would be one of the worst things. He gets the ghist from its tone.
It doesn't know what happened to Ana. It needs to know.
Molly Toombs
Though it pulled her heartstrings to do so, in some strange longing, lonely way that Molly was certain was not an authentic emotion, Molly still tore herself from the Observatory room and ran as though it were best for her very life to do so. The slick, real, old blood on her coat sleeve and hand from when Lux had touched her was sick and clung to the insides of her nostrils. But it didn't slow her down. She could wash in the snow later.
Around the corner, and Molly was racing like she was built for it. She saw Nate up ahead and called out to him:
"Nate!"
Then glanced over her shoulder to make sure Lux was behind her. Sure enough, the gorgeous long-legged woman with a hand drenched in clotted old blood was keeping up fine.
Up ahead, Nate seemed distracted. Confused by something, or maybe (probably) seeing and hearing things other than what were actually there before him. Molly leaned her momentum forward a little more and raced to the door. The door, it was cracked open, she could see the shadow in the frame to tell her so.
When she reached Nate, she didn't actually tackle him. But she did seize onto his arms and shoulders and twist around so she was moving backwards, dragging him urgently, pulling him out door along with her. "Nate, come on, Nate, we need to go."
Nate
Molly grabs his shoulders and tries to drag him. Nate plants his feet and reaches up to take hold of her right forearm with his left hand. His right hand is numb. She cannot feel that it feels cold and dead but she doesn't need to. There's a feverishness to his eyes that tells her what he's about to say before he says it:
"Go! I'll be right out!"
He's not going with them.
Nate pulls out of her grasp and runs in the direction they just left.
Molly Toombs
[When Molly hits, it makes a noise like "Nyeh!", so wimpy it is. Strength 2 + Brawl 1 (Spending WP)]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (5, 8, 8) ( success x 2 )
Nate
[DERP]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 3, 4, 6) ( success x 2 ) [WP]
Lux
Nate doesn't pull out of Molly's grasp. He tries, but Molly's grip tightens and she has a firm grip on him. That firm grip draws him inexorably back to the door. Lux stopped when Nate said Go! I'll be right out! and she stopped completely. The better to block any knight-in-shining-armor's valiant attempts to flee back into the Observatory, just in case he slips out of Molly's grasp. Because he doesn't, Lux moves forward, that-a-way, that-a-way, her hair all disarrayed, not breathing hard, but- intense: "We can come back, Nate. Out for now!"
[She has no leadership. We'll just Charisma + WP this. DON'T BE HURT, GRANDSON. I AM SO DONE WITH THIS SHIT.]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 8, 10) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
ghost story
The presence at his hand leaves when Molly grabs him. He can feel it cringe-back, jerk; hear a little sob pop, as if in a throat; and once again, it gets the impression across admirably.
Ana. It needs to know what happened to Ana.
And then it's gone. Wiped away. Blank slate.
Molly Toombs
Molly was paused for only half a second by Nate's seizing her forearm and looking at her with wild intent in his eyes. He wanted her to go on without him, and the request earned him another half second of dumbfounded staring before she shook her head at him and yanked and jerked and pulled on him further.
"You're a fucking fool, let's go!"
He'd struggled to wrench free, but Molly's grasp was firm and her determination was unwavering. Lux crowded up behind him, ushering them to move, insisting that they could come back if they had to.
Molly didn't encourage him to come back. She thought it better left the fuck alone for the rest of time. But that argument could come later, if at all. For now she just kept hauling Nate along out the building and down the front path, not letting up until he relented and moved along willingly.
Nate
"No!"
His head snaps to his right and he breathes fast like he's been holding this breath all this time and he sees the blood on his friends. Sees them like he's actually seeing them without the whispering and the death-cold distracting him and he's frantic for not being able to wrench himself out of their grasps.
The spirit is gone and they're hauling him and he looks furious but not at them. More than once he looks back over his shoulder at the observatory as they march him back towards the lot.
"God DAMN IT," he says. But he goes with them. He doesn't have much of a choice.
Lux
Molly's grasp is firm [she could hold down a patient in a seizure grip like that]. Lux's personality a force [Magnetic, follow]. Nate doesn't want to be dragged outward but he is. And out they go, back into winter. Back into the cold. Back and away from the Observatory, back into the lot. Near the cars, near Nate's bike. There's a time for what the Hell happened and that time is now. Nobody just walks away from something like that without saying anything, unless they're running.
But they can't just stay out in the parking lot forever. Lux won't be waiting until dawn to go in after Amory. Instead she texts his ass while they're standing in the lot and gets a response. Tells Molly and Nate, "He recorded the whole thing," in a dangerously silked tone. "Says it's stopped now. Says the blood's gone."
And eventually they'll part ways. Maybe the women will make sure Nate goes somewhere else first for coffee, something. Maybe Molly will get a page- do nurses get pages?- and be forced to leave right then. But they'll part ways.
And the stars will continue on their way as if nothing much happened.
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