WEEK 03

[modmachine]

Preparation for the holidays continues at a steady - if slow - pace. Almost all traces of Halloween are gone by now, except for a few rotting pumpkins shoved into compost heaps, but with over a month until Christmas and the Day of Lights, nobody is yet in a hurry. Still, a few early holiday shoppers are out and about, usually in pairs if they aren't families with children, happily chattering about gift plans.

Weather forecast: The rain has passed, and days grow clear again for this week. Hex’s weather has been getting colder, and people are bundling up a bit more - even those who don’t need to, just in an effort to fit in. Hats and gloves are being prominently displayed in stores, even if they’re not strictly needed yet.

Moon phase: The moon is full on Monday the fourteenth, reaching peak fullness over the city at about 2AM. Afterwards, it begins to wane.

More employment: More decorations for the Day of Lights are going up, with some stronger-backed labor being recruited for the stockrooms in preparation for the incoming holiday rush. No one seems concerned about work history, a boon for people without a human paper trail. The park lights aren't finished yet, either, though things are on schedule to open next week.

Hitting the books: To prepare for the holidays, and raise funds for their community party, the library near the university is selling some of its used books. Most of them are fine, if an odd selection - you might find a cookbook, or you might find a book of poetry. There’s something weird about the books, though - a few of them smell faintly of mint. Watching over all of this is a sharp-eyed librarian. Don’t take a book without paying, or she’ll get up from her desk and try to block the door. She keeps having to chase away teenagers with dirty hands, too.

Bake sale: Some of the local schools are starting to take up donations for their holiday parties. One in particular in the residential district is holding a bake sale in front of the elementary school for an hour each day after classes let out. If you can fight through the sea of small children hoping someone will buy them something, you’ll find a variety of brownies, cookies, and tiny cakes. Many of them are lopsided, but a few look put together by expert hands. They cost more, of course, but it’s all for a good cause. A grouchy mother can be found near the cash box at all times, making sure no one steals the money.

Whoo are you?: Malin will notice that owls seem to be happening at her; they're hard to see, just shapes against the lesser-dark of the night sky, but they definitely seem to be watching her. They particularly seem to gather when she feeds. If she doesn't confront them, this will increase slowly but measurably throughout the week.

Time waits for no one: An old clock tower in the part of downtown leading into the Sixth has been restored to functionality... Mostly. The belltower stands empty, though there's a visible place where a bell should be hung, several stories above the floor. Ryoji might find the scene familiar. On Wednesday evening, there is some kind of reopening gathering at the church below it; the brief service and meet-and-greet is not particularly unusual, save that the young Acolyte handing out papers in the entry won't step into the congregation hall itself.

Like a dog with a bad...: In the Sixth, the construction is ongoing, still with the same handful of men, who rotate through almost like randomly generated NPCs. Lurking around outside is a thickly built man, who watches the whole goings-on with suspicion; strangely, he seems to be watching it mostly through the camera on his phone. On Friday morning, though it shouldn't be cold enough for frost, three of the strangely similar men slip on patches of ice and fall behind a half-finished wall... Where they vanish completely. They reappear after lunch, if it's even the same men, with no signs of injury. That afternoon, the man with his phone looks smug.

A touch of the season: And speaking of ice, passage into many of the city's Avernian Gates is blocked this week by a thick frost that seals the entries shut. An Unsettling Youth and his girlfriend can occasionally be seen investigating them; though they're constantly together, they don't seem much inclined to talk to each other. Occasionally, she'll drape her arm over his shoulders and giggle, while he looks confused; other times, she seems almost to shy away from him.

Comments

Kitty | OPEN; closed to Hajime; closed to NPC

[runs]

1. Open

Kitty is out with a purpose today, and a few days after that, too. She needs to make sure that she can shift safely in more than one place around the city, and to that end she needs to hide clothes in various locations so that she won't run around naked after returning to her human form.

The problem here is, obviously, that she has no money. But nobody can't say that she isn't resourceful. It's just different resources from the ones that the shopkeepers would like to see.

In other words, she has the ideal ability at hand to perform petty clothing thefts. She can mask her appearance, full-sensory to both man and machine.

She visits a number of higher end and lower end children's clothes and shoes retailers all over the city. Never those that will have a salescleark breathing down your neck the moment you enter, but rather those where you can shop somewhat anonymously. Her approach is simple: She enters looking the same way in which she left, claiming that she was just trying to pick out what she wants her grandmother to buy for her. At least that is what most people see.

People that have reason to assume that masks or illusions are a thing and may purposefully try to see through them might notice that this kid is performing shoplifting in plain sight, feeling perfectly secure in that nobody will notice - sometimes even chatting with a salesclerk or costumer after she's already snatched something up. Because in reality, she enters barefoot into shoes stores and only very lightly dressed, but with shoes on her feet into clothes stores. And she leaves with shoes on or, in the case of clothes stores, with a second layer of clothing (or a third, if they also sell coats, then she came in without one) over or under whatever she entered in. People who can notice that will also notice that her eyes aren't human at all, but rather resemble that of a cat very closely.

The tactic is easy - pick up a bunch of clothes, go into a fitting room, pick what she wants and put it on, and then drop off the rest of the bunch of clothes when she exits the fitting room. They always say that you should count what you take in with you, but nobody really counts, she has found. It's a bit more complicated with shoes, but trying on a number and packing them back up neatly with one empty box among the full ones works quite well.

Talk to the single child browsing shoes or clothes, or approach her about using magic to conceal that she's a little thief? She'll at least quite happily engage into conversations. Just a little darling child here, nothing to see. Dropping her story about the generous but immobile grandmother on interested people before someone can wonder, preferably.


2. Hajime

Kitty will be pointedly searching for Hajime this week. There's something that she needs to ask him, after all. At one point, she finds him, and whatever he's doing, she'll only let him finish it if it's talking to another person. If not, she'll just head over and address him directly.

"Hey."


3. NPC needed :3 ; Friday afternoon

The thickly built man will find that a little girl, clad in a thick coat and a colourful hat, is watching him. She noticed him the day before and at first did it stealthily, but today she decided to just sit down nearby and stare at him, and finally she'll hop off what she was sitting on and walk over to him.

"What are you watching?"

2

[chalicejoker]

Hajime looks up from the shot he was framing. "Hey." There's a pause. "Shouldn't you be in school?"

It's a school day, right? He thinks? It's hard to keep track of where small humans are and aren't supposed to be.

[runs]

"No."

...She doesn't even have an identity, for starters, - she doesn't come from here, which may be worse considering that she seems to be the only one - so there is no school that she could go to without raising eyebrows. If she even wanted.

"I have a question for you."

3

[modmachine]

The man seems rather pleased with himself, though he glances over at her briefly. "There was a construction accident over there earlier today," he says, nodding his head at the working group.

[runs]

"And then?"

He looks awfully happy for someone talking about an accident.

Malin | OPEN; closed to owls

[movingon]

1. Open

She needs a phone.

With a contract, because she wants a smartphone that she can use the internet with and that she can actually use - she's a few years out of touch with the most recent developments, but she should be able to figure things out. And even back before Lars's death, she'd sometimes poked around internet forums for a feeling of normalcy, so that may work again.

The issue is that she needs to procure it more directly than just nicking it from someone, she can't risk those things being tracked. And the problem with that is that she can't really go into a store and just buy one. She could find money, but she's... not very presentable, and while being a fox or an owl might work for stealth normally, they won't do if she tries to go into a store and buy technology. Walking into a brightly lit store with cameras is just too risky. It would be easier if she had things like a computer and a bank account and could just order online, but alas...

So for now, she's just window-shopping a bit awkwardly, a malformed figure in a huge coat staring longingly into the windows of stores that display phones, trying to figure out what all the tech details on the price tags mean.


2. Owls

It takes her a bit to notice the owls. Actually not that long, but it takes her one or two nights, and then another night to make up her mind to confront them, opting for the park at the centre of the city. Parks are good, they have places to hide if necessary, lots of open ground, and shield one from curious eyes. And Lars always impressed on her that there was nothing better than a park for confrontations.

So this is where she'll sit in a tree and wait to see if they will gather. If not... she noticed that pattern with the feeding, so perhaps she'll need to fly around a bit and hope that there's some passed out homeless person lying around somewhere.

2

[infinitemayonnaise]

There's not a passed out homeless person lying around, but there is a guy with a tent out in a park. He is all alone and very focused on the cheeseburger he has acquired somewhere--nothing but the mayonnaise he is very liberally applying to the poor burger matters.

[notachickenhawk]

Tobias likes parks. He likes the feeling of being surrounded by nature without having to go all the way out to the farming district. So he's in a good mood when he's crossing through - a mood that immediately disappears when he spots some familiar shapes against the night sky. A lot of familiar shapes - to the point where he's glancing around to see if there's anyone nearby.

He can't seem to spot anyone, so he pushes off the ground and leaps a good few feet into the air, enough to grab onto a branch and climb into a tree to get a better vantage point.

1.

[crazycatvampire]

As soon as Malin let slip she's been looking for a phone, for whatever reason at all, Corwin immediately jumped on the idea. He had extra money, given he doesn't eat and he can scrimp a bit on his alchemical reagents if he needs to, and while his power bill is necessarily high, he still has a little left over-- so why shouldn't he spend it on his only friend? Late in the week, he's out with her, a taller and more looming figure at her side with an equally big coat and sunglasses on despite it being after dark.

"Do you want me to bring phones to the window to show you what they can do?" he asks happily. "Then you can nod or shake your head if you like it or don't. Then I can buy it for you. I can explain things, too, I'm pretty good with technology stuff."

[dangerouslyinlove]

I

After his stint in the Underworld, the belltower definitely catches Ryoji's eye. It takes him a few passes by to figure out why it seems familiar, since it looks, you know. Part of the living world. The missing bell is especially curious, and if there's a chance he'll snoop around so he can try and figure out what happened to it. Even if that means going to the service, which both he and Thanatos are vaguely uncomfortable in. He figures he'll try and check in with Lirisoir too to talk about it, once he has the chance.

II needs NPC runin!

...so about that plan to go talk to Lirisoir...

The gates being frosted shut is incredibly frustrating, especially since normal frost shouldn't be blocking his way in. He remembers the chill of the... whatever that thing was that Tobias told him to stay away from, and suspects they might be linked. But not enough to still make the rounds periodically all week, which means he almost certainly runs into the Unsettling Youth at some point. "Oh! Sorry!"

...He might be assuming he interrupted something.

III

Though he's incredibly annoyed that his current project is being blocked again, Ryoji does focus his attentions elsewhere in the meantime. He's still got classes to go to, after all, and periodically he can be found at the coffee shop or in the library to have a warm place inside to study and do homework. More often that not he's seated in a chair not at all properly, legs up on the cushion with some kind of drink (usually coffee) in his hands, pouring over a book. Well. He's trying to pour over the book. He's very distractible, though, and very likely to wave at any face he even remotely recognizes.

III

[chalicejoker]

All Hajime wanted was a coffee, he did not want social interaction, the horror. He finds himself very awkwardly returning that wave.

I

[runs]

"Where are you going?"

She runs into Ryoji while he is heading to the church for the service, falling into step besides him easily.

II

[modmachine]

It doesn't look exactly like he's interrupted something; the girl is leaning over to inspect the gate hidden under a stairway, while the youth leans against a nearby wall almost as though he's standing guard. (Or at least, he was before their near-impact.) Ryoji gets a brief blank look, before the boy glances at his companion and then back. The reply is hesitant and a little uncertain. "...Hey. It's fine."

Nitou | Open

[infinitemayonnaise]

[Bake Sale, Open but an NPC would be Great]
There's a rather scruffy-looking young man with a mysterious squeeze bottle full of some white substance hanging around the bake sale. To those who can see through Changeling masks, he's not just scruffy looking, but some kind of chimerical Beast with a mane, small buffalo-like horns jutting out from his head, and claws. He doesn't care what the pastries look like--he only cares what they taste like.

He's also squeezing white stuff onto everything he eats. "Oh man," he says between bites, "this is great. Really great." And he grabs another brownie--did he pay for that?-- and adds a big dollop of his mystery condiment, adding, "you should really try this" and offering it to whoever might be nearby.

[Employment? What's that?]
So there are lights going up in the park...and there's also a tent that has gone up in the park. The tent is right in the middle of an in-progress work and is likely very much in the way. There also appears to be something inside the tent. Investigate?

Bake Sale

[modmachine]

Oh, she knows what that substance is, and the woman running the bake sale nods to one of her horrified assistants. She'll handle this. She reaches out to grab Nitou's wrist.

"You are going to pay for what you took, young man. If you don't, I'm sure we can go talk to the safety officer inside and get the police here. I'm sure they'd be interested in hearing about someone taking money away from children."

Her grip is tight, and her smile is thin.

[Employment]

[crazycatvampire]

Corwin does not remember that tent being there the last time he came through the park. He isn't working on the lights, but he does wander a lot, and the park is a familiar and usually safe place to do so. He's aware there are homeless people in Hex, though it dismays him every time he finds them, so he can only guess this is either a surprisingly resourceful homeless person, or a very eccentric college student.

Either way, he's bending over double by the tent flap and peering in. "Hello?"

Have a gawky, creepy giant with a heart of gold and waves of disquiet rolling off him, Nitou. Will that bother you terribly?

Employment

[runs]

There's a kitten poking into said tent. She will totally try to sneak in on whatever food is lying around and steal it.

It smells like there is food in here, and you can never have enough of that when you don't know where to get the next food from. The food pantries only open much later in the day.

OTA

[crazycatvampire]

I. Hitting the Books

Corwin is all about cheap books. Books are a very safe (and fun!) way to learn about humanity and other things, so whenever there's a sale, he's right there. He even brings a shopping bag, one of the nice fabric ones, so he can fill it up with as many books as he can carry.

He offers the librarian smiles from behind his protective sunglasses and raspy apologies for his clumsiness when he knocks over a small stack of books, and promptly kneels to pick them up again. Any other people at the book sale get similar, or maybe a question: "What books are you looking for?"


II. Whoo are you? (kind of)

Every evening, just after sundown, Corwin sits out on his porch in the hopes that Malin will come visit. If she does, he'll let her in, or go for a walk with her if she wants, and if it's the day after the library book sale, he'll have a small stack of books for her if she wants any of them. He may or may not notice the owls...

He'll also have the same offer for her every evening she does visit: "Stay with me for the day, if you want. It's safer."


III. A touch of the season, etc

On his usual afternoon wanders through the city, Corwin can be found in the parks, by the college, wandering the shore, watching the construction workers or the clock tower waiting for a bell-- he does so love the sound of church bells-- but mostly he's confused by the frost. He doesn't notice the two young people, at first, but he does spend a goodly amount of time tapping on the ice, listening to the sound of each place, trying to find a way to crack through.

"Someone ought to call city maintenance," he muses, mostly to himself. "Places shouldn't be iced shut."

Re: OTA

[movingon]

She drops by - not every day, but every other day, not always in the evening, but at some point during the night. It all depends on how hungry she is and how well the night goes. She's been especially paranoid ever since he showed her the picture, and now with the owls...

Each time, she will come in quickly, fidgeting a bit, only slowly getting used to being inside a regular house again, not just like a thief in the night but invited, like someone coming over for fika. There's no coffee or cookies, obviously, but going by the feeling.

She turns down the books, explaining that she would have nowhere to put them. And for the first few night, she won't react to his offer of staying at all, unsure how she would properly react and unsure of his intentions, unsure if it would be safer or more dangerous than what she is doing now, and perhaps a bit lulled by the feeling of ...being human, that being in this house, strange as some of it is, has brought on.

Finally, she decides to confront him about it, and when he asks again, she replies:

"Why are you offering?"

III

[modmachine]

Well, he might not have noticed the two teenagers, but they've definitely noticed him. The girl is human, but the boy's unsettling eyes spark with recognition - and Corwin will be able to feel the spark in him, though his skin is sewn back together instead of rent. There's a trail of such stitches curling up along his jawline and over his cheek.

It's the girl who speaks up, though. "The city... They wouldn't do anything about this."

Tobias | OTA

[notachickenhawk]

I.

Of all things, Tobias isn't an idiot. He's seen the colder weather and has started to prepare. He remembers Ryoji's advice from the first time they met, and so he sets up on a little table near the university. Not on campus - he doesn't want any complaints about how he's not a college student - but close enough.

He sets up a little sign listing prices, along with some cityscape drawings he's done. They're not half bad, though they're all in black and white. Hopefully someone will come by and buy something... he really needs the cash for winter supplies.

II.

Tobias is in an awful mood following his chat with Malin. He's grown insular, taking refuge in high places. It's easy enough to spot the weird kid on top of a building, or in a tree, or parkouring his way up a fire escape with little regard to speed, safety, or noise.

He looks like he hasn't slept in a week, leaves caught in his hair, even though it's only been a day at maximum. It doesn't matter. He can't sleep. Not now. His Horror knows that he's pushing himself to the limit, but that's fine - all the better to get more of a chance to roam. He's been pushing himself too far lately, anyway.

II

[runs]

Tobias isn't doing well. She can't tell why, but she sees him often enough to tell that much, and today she decided to follow up on it. So he'll hear someone climbing over the side of the roof that he's currently sitting on, and if he turns around, he'll see Kitty taking off her gloves and stuffing them into a pocket before walking over and sitting down next to him.

He tends to be fairly forthcoming with information, so she just sits there for a while, waiting if he is going to speak of by himself.

I

[dangerouslyinlove]

It's later on in the week when Ryoji finally catches up with Tobias, but he's pleased to see him all the same. Especially since... well. After a certain dream he's been a little worried about the guy. "Hey!" he says brightly, coming over to see him. And possibly just plopping down next to him. "How are you?"

Mob | OPEN

[shigeo]

[Hitting the Books]

A young boy is present at the book sale, and has separated a stack for himself. The more outlandish, occultish stuff is neatly piled in front of him, ranging from "how to read tarot" to "the satanist bible" to "numerology for the uninformed". Despite having separated a neat little stack of books just for himself, he isn't reading them. Right now, he's reading something else entirely - a book titled "Emotional Awareness".

Anyone with the ability to detect the presence of a mage will feel it from him, rather abruptly. This kid doesn't seem that different, and isn't wearing anything that might signal a connection to the world of the supernatural... he looks like a normal kid in a goofy hoodie that has a cartoon dog face on it. When approached, he looks up, staring with a strangely deadpan expression.

[runs]

She isn't here for the books. She was just passing through and poking around, hoping that someone will leave their wallet lying around on some books and move on without noticing, but the sharp eyes of the librarian really just won't leave her back so she's almost on her way out when she catches sight of Mob.

What a shitty haircut. And the covers of those books look really ...tryhard-to-be-edgy. And still... it's just a hunch, but she squints and assesses him anyway.

Okay, that was worth it. She hasn't seen someone so clearly and purely awakened since coming here. Unlike Tobias, his aura looks exactly like an awakened person's aura should look. He also seems to be fairly annoyed.

Maybe- The girl that was walking around the book sale aimlessly so far suddenly changes direction and walks towards him, nodding at the stack of book at his side. "Are you going to burn those?"