cityofhex | WEEK 05

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WEEK 05

Weather: The temperature has dropped another notch, enough to start being seriously uncomfortable for those who sleep outside with no cover. Tuesday and Wednesday will have freezing rain at night, though it’s not snowing as of yet. Some of the kids wish it would, though, the closer it gets to the Festival of Lights.

Moon Phase: Monday brings the new moon, not that most people will be able to see it through the gathering clouds. If you look, though, it's possible to see the waxing crescent in the early morning late in the week.

School's Out: This week is finals at the college, and as a result, Friday through Sunday see a large number of the students moving out for the winter holidays. Most of those who opt to remain are shuffled around in order to leave two buildings - the senior hall used by students in the sciences and one of the freshmen halls - completely empty. The official explanation is building maintenence. On Wednesday, Ryoji will get a text from Ci asking if he's staying over for the holiday.

Winter bluster, winter blow: Things are starting to get a little messy in the Winter Court as their season approaches. For most of the last year, the Court has been run by committee, after the last Winter King inexplicably vanished. No successor was named, and with the seasonal coronation less than a month away, the court's usual plots and intrigues are starting to spill into the open. As of now, things seem to be divided between three factions - a group of diehard supporters of the previous King, certain he'll return; a group supporting the former brother-at-arms of said King, who may have been involved in the disappearance; and a third group supporting the King's protege, clearly hoping that the youth's relative inexperience will make him an easy puppet. Business as usual in the Winter Court, but it has the potential to spill into the others and turn nasty.

Day Zero: Network Zero’s been alight with chatter for those who follow it. There’s been clear footage of something that appears to be a man with a knife on fire in one of the warehouses - and yet none of the fire seems to catch anything around him. There’s also a report that the person who took this footage is in the hospital for a broken bone, though there haven’t been any updates yet. The local Sin-Eaters aren’t thrilled about this either, and on Friday night two teenagers are spotted around the area, along with a trio of younger boys armed with a camera.

A Strange Guest: Casper's new... ahem, roommate, is causing a few side effects. Most prominent will be the small patches of black and dark blue scales - they start tiny, like freckles, but grow in over the course of a few days to something better called patches before they stop. And the entire time they're growing in, they itch like the bejeebus. On the bright side, after some adjustment, the new addition is alert and willing to communicate... as long as Casper doesn't mind that he's going to have a near-encyclopedic knowledge of astronomy before the week is out.

Words for the Wicked: In the park where the hunt took place last weekend, something is writing on the trees. It starts out with just scratch marks, but before long it's scraps of the sorts of conversation you might overhear in the park, people talking to their children or dogs, that sort of thing. On Friday night, however, the words start to take a darker turn - KILL IT is repeated in numerous places, sometimes accompanied by the words TROPHY and MONSTER. And on Sunday, all the words are gone, except for a single phrase written under the hole made by a stray bullet during the hunt - i'll hunt you back.

Frostgrowth: The entrance to the Hedge used by the recent Goblin Market is continually frosty this week, as is the Underworld entrance used by Ryoji and Casper. The changelings in particular are wary about the change, though none of them seem to have put it together with the other strange patch of frost. Lingering at either location too long will draw the attention of the Frostiron Guardian more quickly than usual.

Trains keep on rolling: Construction on the building in the Sixth has progressed far enough that watching the building is pointless even for the thickly built man, who has instead resumed his trainspotting ways.

Weekly service: The nighttime bell-ringing at St. Madeline's church occurs again on Sunday night, this time drawing a bit more of a crowd. In hushed voices, a few people approach the Acolyte responsible for the bells about organizing a regular service of the church of the dead. She seems uncertain, and no formal plans are made that night.

Put Yourself Back Where You Came From Or So Help Me: On Thursday night, Tobias will have a brief visit to his lair through the Primordial Dream - another, weaker Horror, still wary and apparently checking things out. It's hard to tell exactly what the creature is, but the impression is of something shadowed and low-to-the-ground that leaves behind a smell of soured wine.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I. Words

Corwin is oblivious to the hunt that happened here, but the scratches and words do catch his attention. After finding them two days in a row, he starts hunting through the park with a notebook in the afternoons, writing down everything he finds, in as much of an order as he can make out. He winds up spending most of his free time there when it's not raining to heavily, captivated and, slowly, concerned by the not-conversation.

He tries leaving a couple notes of his own, too: "Hello :) " on Thursday next to an innocuous snippet, "Don't kill anyone :( " on Saturday morning opposite the tree with the word "trophy", and "Can I help you?" on Sunday below the bullet hole message. Yes, the happy and frowny faces are included.

II. Frost

He spots the frost while working, and stops by again on his way home before his trips to the park and on his walks to the dump to pick up his truck pre-dawn on weekday mornings, pausing to examine it, to tap on it, and try to peer through it. It's like the frost he met Avere and Edda at, and that makes him curious. He attempts to sketch it, adding it to his notebook of park-conversation, but his artistic ability is not really very good, so he settles for a photograph or two on his phone, just to see if it changes between visits at all.

III. Etc

On the rainiest evenings, Corwin stays in, to visit with Malin before she goes out for the night, work on his experiments, peruse the internet, watch movies on the local equivalent of Netflix, and maybe exchange text messages with the few people who actually have his phone number. If Avere contacts him again, he'll share his photos of the frosted portals; otherwise, he searches Network Zero for what other people have to say about them, or the words in the park.

She's noticed that he seemed to be looking at the frost.

Much more like the frost would deserve if it was just a bit of frozen ground in a random place. And that in turn makes her wonder if he knows anything more.

"What are you doing there?"

She looks much the same as at the market, with the one striking difference that her eyes look perfectly normal - there's white, brown irises and normally sized, round pupils.

"It looks a lot like the ice from a couple of weeks ago," Corwin explains, looking up and offering her a little smile. "That blocked some of the city gates. It's not as bad, but it's only right here, not everywhere else around it, so it's made me curious. I'm trying to track if it changes every day, or if it stays just like this." If it doesn't change, after all, that suggests it's unnatural.

"...Some of the city gates?"

The only thing she knew was that it had blocked and entrance to the underworld, where the angel and Ryoji had met.

"How many? And what gates?"

OTA

II

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Words

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ota, obviously nighttime

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OTA

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II

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1 - [text]

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3

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OTA

but what if, in a Plot Twist, the police officer is a bear shapeshifter

ohshi-