[img]https://txt.1001fonts.net/img/txt/dHRmLjEyOC42YTg4YjYuUzJWdWJua2dRblZ5ZEc5dS4w/necro-monger.regular.webp[/img] [hr] As expected, the resident maitre'dealer was of no help. Not that he expected it. BUt there was more proof in front of his own eyes that there was more than just smoke and mirrors. The Archivist had demonstrated with the light show, a web-work of fluorescent strands dancing over their heads. If this was an illusion, it was a good one... and the fact there were people that didn't belong here together. He and the town dealer were evidence enough of that. [quote=Archivist][color=DAA520]".. I can’t answer your question. You will answer that yourself. Do you want to be a trained mage? Or do you want to die?”[/color][@NoriWasHere][/quote] Kenny had some choices ahead... [i]Try and control the dwarf, lose my mind in the process. Let the dwarf have his way, also lose my mind in the process. Or die. Maybe then I'm still stuck with the dwarf.[/i] Those three weren't particularly appealing. [i]-or buy into the mysterious elf bachelor's secret circle and throw what little career you have away. Maybe the dwarf goes away. Maybe not. You're on the run from a secret society that has been around longer than anything you've ever known.[/i] And that was assuming this wasn't a coma-induced stupor, triggered by slipping and smashing his head on a barstool, and this was just the last few flickers of life in him before he became a certified vegetable. Or he was entering own personal hell, [i]punishment[/i] for what he did the night this all started. That almost sounded [i]easier[/i] to swallow than the news that came next - when the Archivist led them to the study.. [hr] Lots of 'fucks' followed the footage of the raid on the cabin. Kenny, for his part, kept his mouth shut and abstained from joining the chorus, he was too busy sizing up the place and trying to make sense of it all. [color=springgreen]'Fuck. Maybe there's a [i]real[/i] fight, eh?'[/color] Ivar was his stand-in for [i]that[/i] These 'Witch Hunters' guys were collectively better armed than anything he could've found in the station armoury, maybe better armed than the state police for that matter. Between the drones, the AR pattern rifles, and the body armour... it took him a moment to see past the [i]tacticool[/i]... it struck him that at least one of them looked like a kid costumed up for paintball. Some looked serious, but not all. [color=springgreen]'Not how I'd want my suckling dressed,'[/color] Ivar guffawed at the silver-haired Hush, wearing kevlar ill-suited for her chunky form. Kenny almost found that one funny, was about to exhale a snort of air through his nostrils, when- [color=springgreen]'You should be ashamed to [i]die[/i] to that lot, boy.'[/color] [i]Ruined the moment.[/i] [b]"Which one of us is breathing, dick?"[/b] Kenny muttered back, and shook his head like a dog shrugging water off its coat. He [i]really[/i] needed a drink. Maybe there was a liquor cabinet here? His eyes were searching for it in the periphery. Young, upstart [i]idiots.[/i] The Elf had that right, at least, but this was still serious. Kids with guns, still had guns. Any idiot with a gun could kill someone, and there were about two hundred years of American history to prove that fact. And when he dropped the Ravensmere name... a few things clicked. It definitely explained why he got the impression of [i]old money[/i] in more ways than one. [color=springgreen]'Ah, [i]Ravensmere[/i],'[/color] Ivar grunted making yet another [i]ptooey[/i] gesture off to one side, [color=springgreen]'Knife-ears that think they piss wine and shit mounds of silver.'[/color] Kenny jabbed a foot out where the spectre's shins would've been in response to the disparaging comment, prompting a spectral murmur of which he could only interpret the word [color=springgreen]'-cunts.'[/color] The dwarf's coarse opinion was neither welcome nor helpful, and if [i]Pom Evergreen[/i] could hear him, how long before someone else did? Besides... he felt the chalky façade of his own psyche erode every time the ghost opened their dead, scarred lips. [b]"That.... [i]algorithm[/i] thing they're talking about. Is that real? Do you think it actually works? I'm guessing they'll find something better soon."[/b] Even with the offer of money, it seemed sketchy at best. The elf-... [i]Ravensmere[/i] had made it clear that he was supposedly one of two experts on these affairs, the other being his own brother, off somewhere in Shangri-la. The short, Scottish girl seemed to fill in the blanks on the [i]Ravensmere[/i] name, which along with the [i]bitter, fuck-you old money[/i] impression painted a much murkier picture of their supposed benefactor. All of the above aside, he doubted whether the ties to the elf would find ways to bite them. [quote=Pom][color=deb887]“Oh, and we need to destroy our cellphones! You bastards can track us through them, can’t you?”[/color][@Atrophy][/quote] He couldn't believe that he and [i]Evergreen[/i] were on the same page, at least when it came to the paper trail, and being traced. That girl - [i]woman[/i] he corrected himself, just remembering that bad situation with the lake, remembering all of a sudden how long she'd been around, longer than him, even. That she was an old widow. Pain in the ass she was, [i]nobody[/i] deserved that. [b]"[i]'You'[/i] bast-..? Nevermind. [i]Sure[/i], whatever."[/b] He shrugged, not wanting to pick an argument, [b]"How much [i]real[/i] authority do these kids actually have? Maybe what, a couple hundred, thousand years ago, sure - but are you really telling me everyone with a badge is going to sit back and let these... 'Witch Hunters' go and shoot up their local town? What happens when this stuff gets on the news, when this gets reported up the chain?"[/b] That was the skeptic in him, the cop, the instinct to defer to his old habits. Thoughts moved back to the element of money, work, paper trail. [b]"How does that work, we all suddenly just pick up new jobs working for you. You ever heard of RICO?"[/b] Kenny voiced his concern, [b]"If these people are serious, more than just stupid kids playing paintball in the woods... won't that just draw attention to 'us', put 'us' all together? And.. shit, I've still got a job. A [i]real[/i] job, responsibilities... not some part-time summer crap, I got duty hours, I can't just drop everything, all my-..."[/b] [I]-because you're obviously a rising star. Get serious.[/i] [color=springgreen]'Go on, lawman, your balls haven't dropped off yet.'[/color] This time, Ivar's goading had paid off. A cumulation of a constant, dull headache, the lingering BAC in his system, and the inadvisable addition of pain medication had loosened his inhibitions in efforts to dull the migraine. [I]And why were the shadows moving?![/i] Frustration boiling, Kenny lurched forward to vent that rage at the dwarf, grasping at the spirit's incorporeal form, [b]"Screw you!"[/b] To Kenny, Ivar's spectral form appeared to dissipate, if only for a moment. To the others, he just came across as a man who's grasp on sanity was about as firm as Pom Evergreen had sobriety. He had just cursed at the thin air, after all. Though, for a moment, his eyes flickered a faint [i]green[/i] iridescence - not that he knew it. It didn't last long, though. A hideous, toothy grin formed across the dwarf's disfigured features as he reformed a few feet away, [color=springgreen]'By a thread, boy.'[/color] Ivar raised a reforming spectral hand, closing his thumb and forefinger together as though he was dangling something, then pivoted away, [i]satisfied.[/i] [i]Asshole got what he wanted.[/i] At that point, Kenny's reservations about this whole thing were being waylaid by the greater need to suppress his own, literal demon. Any longer, and he was liable to drive his car into the lake for a swim and enjoy some peace and quiet with the old man he'd been thinking about earlier. [i]Sorry, bad joke.[/i] Not to mention he'd have been joining the other [i]loose end[/i] he'd left there, the night this all started. Collecting himself, he realised he wasn't the only one on the track to losing their mind, [b]"-so how am [i]I[/i] supposed to figure what I can do? All I know is that this bearded [i]cocksucker[/i] won't stop talking off my fucking ears. What's my specialty, giving [i]dead[/i] dwarves the chance to haunt me?"[/b] Ivar, for his part, grabbed at his crotch and threw his unwilling host a lewd gesture. Maybe this was punishment after all.