EchoicChamber

Ink On Your Soul - Reboot (Members Needed!)

Stride’s eyes locked upon the badge as soon as it was produced, head leaning forward slightly to take a better look at it. It seemed legitimate enough, so, pulling back, Stride gave a brief grunt of satisfaction and leaned against the doorframe. “Can’t say I know much ‘bout her,” she said. “The name’s Julie Ambers, and the gal’s been livin’ here longer than I have. ‘ccasionally blasts some crappy music through the walls, but real nice lady when it comes down to it. Pro’lly won’t be ‘round for a bit.” She shrugged, then, after a moment of thought, stuffed her hands- and wrists- far into her jeans’ pockets.

“What’re these ‘special abilities’, anyway? Seems only fair if I get’ta ask you some questions, too.”

The guy seemed kind of straight-laced. Incredibly so, actually. Like the kind of fellow who’d say something smarmy on a train and bury his face into his newspaper.

@Daemanis

---

Madison smiled warmly. “Thank you, Miss Raterfall.” Placing his cup near the edge of the table- far from the work that littered most of its surface- he settled into the offered chair, meeting Stefany’s gaze with a curious one of his own. His wrist still felt like a furnace, but it was manageable enough. He took an idle sip from his cup, then looked down at the table.

“Final’s week?” It had been a long time since Madison had been made to attend a university, but from the sheer amount of texts and materials and whatnot, it didn’t take much to guess that Stefany was a student. Madison took a long swig, holding onto the warmth of his drink even after he finished. “If you’d like, I’d be more than happy to let you study in peace, Miss Raterfell. I know how difficult this time of the year must be.”

It was somewhat disappointing, but the last thing that Madison wanted was to get in the way of someone’s studies- let alone that of his partner’s. The pursuit of knowledge was an important one, to say the least.
@ineffable

The Runes (In Need of Players!)

Just as a quick PSA, a large majority of the characters likely don't know what the avatars of the main World Eaters look like, or that Kana can be a Jormy avatar, as Jormungandr is still stuck at the bottom of the ocean. c: They most likely know that wargs and jotun and the like can assume human form, but that's likely it.

The Runes (In Need of Players!)

Madison had become quite well-acquainted with paperwork in the past few months. He had already handled his fair share even before the promotion, going over and editing and contributing, but it was only until afterward that that he found himself with stacks almost as tall as his head sitting before him. However, he was determined. He rolled up his sleeves, set to work, then performed his own studies once the more tedious side of his work was out of the way.

He was currently finishing up one of his own papers- an analysis of runes and runic powers, and his own hypothesis on the subject. It seemed a fitting topic, Madison thought, given today was the first day all those marked would be meeting. He had gone out of his way to speak to as many as he could, interviewing them about their powers and their days, and had gathered a lofty amount of data to work with. Why just nine, and not all of the Norse runes? Why those specifically? These were the questions Madison sought to answer.

It was in the middle of his closing statements that his earpiece began to buzz. Humming, Madison gave it a swift ‘tap’, then leaned back in his chair. “Lovette speaking,” he chirped. “What is it?” He listened intently, free hand tapping an irregular rhythm on his desk, before pausing. “Oh. Oh, dear. I’ll be there in a minute- do you think it would be possible to close the gates for the time being? Yes. Thank you very much, Mr. Grant.”

There was a brief burst of static as the feed cut out, followed by silence. Before Silvarae could make it fully off the manor grounds, she would find that the guards would have begun to close the gates- effectively blocking off her means of escape. Rubbing his jaw, Madison quickly saved his work and shut off the computer, then jogged out of the office- moving as fast as one could reasonably expect someone in heels to.

By the time he had reached Silvarae, the Head Researcher was left somewhat breathless, but determined. Madison gripped the woman by the shoulder- gently, but firm enough to not be shaken off so easily- and smiled warmly.

“Excuse me, Miss Kaizen,” he said, “but I’m afraid that you can’t leave just yet. Miss Kovalenko should be going some important information around this time, and…” Madison trailed off, taking in the almost panicked look in Silvarae’s eyes, then frowned.

“Is something the matter? You look rather troubled.”

@Daemanis

Ink On Your Soul - Reboot (Members Needed!)

Madison’s smile faltered somewhat at the woman’s reaction. Her wrist was visibly glowing- like if an LED light had been embedded beneath the skin- but she seemed more...annoyed by the event than anything. “Well,” he said, after a moment. He extended his hand to the woman, allowing her to examine the markings that bore her name. “I hope that I’m not bothering you, Miss Raterfell, but my name is Madison Lovette. You and I seem to be soulmates.”

Now that he was close to her, and the initial excitement of discovering his partner had worn off, he came to realize that Stefany was very much human. The scent of mortality hung about her like a mist, and Madison’s nostrils flared ever-so-slightly in response. No matter, he decided. At the moment, making a good first impression was the most important thing.

@ineffable

---

Tall. Really, really fucking tall. Stride considered herself pretty average in height, and even she found herself stepping back in order to really look the guy in the eyes. She crossed her arms over her chest, giving him a quick once-over before speaking.

“If the reason ya came here was to get on me ‘bout my clothes, then ya might wanna find someone who actually gives a damn about ‘em.” Stride cracked her neck.

“Call me Stride. And ‘fore ya start askin’ more questions, ya mind tellin’ me why’re ya askin’?” The man spoke in the same manner as she did before taking a statement, or preparing to flash the badge in the face of a particularly unruly homeowner.

Well. He was a little more concise about it, admittedly, but it went along the same lines.

While pondering this, she came to notice something...that she really didn’t want to notice, actually. The guy, Zephyr, his wrist was glowing. Burning bright, actually. It was only after catching sight of it that she noticed her own had begun to sear, and Stride had to bite her tongue to suppress a groan.

Fuck.

Stride discreetly pulled her sleeve further up her arm, although the fabric did little to conceal the obnoxious glaring of her wrist. If he wasn’t going to mention it, she decided, then she sure as hell wouldn’t, either.

Perhaps someone would consider the move childish, yes, but Stride certainly wasn’t that someone.

@Daemanis

The Runes (In Need of Players!)

“I can imagine.” Dawn smiled, taking a moment to stir in a touch of milk into her coffee. She took a hefty gulp of the stuff, the heat of it stinging her throat as it went down. “It seems like it’s been a rather hectic day here so far. People, ah, suddenly crawling through windows aside. And the pleasure’s mine.”

Interestingly enough, the woman, ‘Kana Cerulean’, had quickly changed gears upon Clifton’s entrance- reintroducting herself as a superior instead of a rune, and saying that the whole thing had just been a test. A means of seeing their reactions in the face of...well, all that she had been pulling so far. Dawn took the whole thing a bit hard to swallow, and, if Volkir’s reaction was of any indication, a few of her fellow runes did, too. Clifton, however, seemed to take in stride. He ushered Kana out of the room, chatting amiably in the meanwhile.

At least that had been resolved, by the looks of it.

Soon after the pair had left, Amity, the woman who had broken the door on her arrival, had wandered over with coffee in hand. Dawn nodded at her in greeting, returning the smile without pause.

“It’s alright. You, ah, can’t really help insomnia, really.” Her fingers twitched slightly, as if the impulse to offer her hand to shake was present, but very well restrained. “I’m Dawn. It’s been...quite a day, hasn’t it?”

She gazed down at the nearly-full box of donuts, and then back up again. “Well, if you’ve been running around all day, I don’t see anything wrong with taking a little break, anyway.” A sip, a pause. “How long have you been working here, Helena? If you, ah, don’t mind my asking, that is.”

Dawn’s attention was stolen momentarily at the suggestion of an “outside city bonding trip”, and then held fast as Silvarae began to snarl at Isa about what lurked within said area. The woman stomped out soon after, followed by Maeve, who seemed just as surprised by the whole thing as Dawn felt.

As the sound of footsteps gradually faded, she glanced over to her company, brow raised. It seemed redundant to follow the two runes out, but it also wasn’t an event that could go wholly without acknowledgement.

@VitoftheVoid@Kuroakuma

The Runes (In Need of Players!)

The next to enter the room was a crisp, rather sharply-dressed man that even Dawn could smell from where she stood. He gave her the impression of a blooming politician, or a cars’ salesmen, or some odd fusion of the two. Like Isa, he seemed to work within the facility, if the knowledge of who they were and the striking professionalism was any indication.

And, like Isa, he immediately honed in on the intruder as someone who didn’t seem to belong.

The woman seemed content to deflect any question when it came to her identity, or, at the very least, give responses that were decidedly vague at best. Much to Dawn’s surprise, one of her fellow Runes, Silvarae, had chosen to defend the stranger’s appearance there. The excuse was a bit hard to swallow, but Dawn decided to simply let the staff handle it for the time being and sidled over to the side of the room. There was little else for her to do now, after all, but to wait and see what would happen.

Pouring herself another cup of coffee, Dawn stepped over to Helena, who was currently standing off by herself and looking fairly uncomfortable by everything. Understandably so. Dawn sipped at her coffee as she watched the scene play out before her, then, still keeping it within her gaze, turned towards Helena.

“I’m guessing that something this doesn’t happen often, by the looks of it?” Her voice was kept soft, unassuming. Her “polite office secretary” voice, used for soothing particularly aggressive interviewees. She took another gulp from her cup, before going on.

“Your name is Helena, right? I’m Dawn. Thank you for bringing the coffee, by the way.”

@VitoftheVoid

Ink On Your Soul - Reboot (Members Needed!)

Over the countless years that Madison had found himself with his particular condition, he had come to discover several things. As vampiric lore reiterated time and time again, his survival largely depended on ingesting blood. It didn’t matter if it entered his body through IV or mouth, if it was fresh out of a vein or from a bag, or even if it was human or animal (although he had found that the former of the two did a far better job of nourishing him). It was also true that food did little more for him than eating paper, but he had discovered that certain substances did hold some effect. Alcohol, for instance, was still something he was quite keenly familiar with.

Caffeine was yet another. And seeing as he had spent most of the night poring over his research, a little pick-me-up seemed like just what he needed. Humming brightly to himself, Madison turned the street corner, into his local coffee shop(seeing how close it was to his office, he tended to frequent it more often than not), and up to the counter.

“Hello again, Gloria,” Madison chirped. “One café miel, please. To go.” It took little time for his order to be whipped up- slow day, by the looks of it, and even less for him to pay and take the first taste of bliss and cinnamon. He turned to leave, but before he could even make it halfway to the exit, he noticed something.

His wrist was burning.

Perking up, Madison rolled down his sleeve, then glanced up. In all his drowsiness, he had forgotten that today was the day. The pain of the marking served as a sort of radar as the vampire wandered about the shop, sipping absently at his drink as he did so. The pain soon led him to a young woman bent over a pile of papers, and, with a certain sheepishness, he cleared his throat and spoke.

“Excuse me, ma’am. Your name wouldn’t happen to be Stefany Raterfall by any chance, would it?”

@ineffable

---

“Shit!”

Cursing, Stride dabbed at the fresh smear of paint on her canvas with a bit of thinner, watching the misplaced streak of red slowly fade- along with most of the tower she had made beneath. “Comin’!” She called, glaring daggers at the canvas over her shoulder. It would be hard to redo what had now vanished from memory alone, but there was no way of getting around it, either. “Give me a second, a’ight? Just- fuck- hang on a sec!”

From outside of the apartment, Zephyr would be able to hear the sound of wood grinding against wood, a string of rather creative swears that would make a sailor faint, the clattering of things hitting the ground, more shouting, and the “click” of a something shutting before, eventually, the door swung open. Stride gave the man standing before her a quick glance-over, squinting at him through her goggles. “Yeah? What d’ya need?”

She was dressed casually- a simple long-sleeved shirt and jeans- but the mask and goggles did a well enough job of hiding whatever expression she might have held. There was no sign of paint whatsoever on her, thankfully.

Her wrist was also burning like hell, but Stride was distracted enough to not notice for the time being.

@Daemanis

The Runes (In Need of Players!)

@ScoundrelQueen Approved!

The Runes (In Need of Players!)

@LorelleQuips Approved!

The Runes (In Need of Players!)

Out of all the things that Dawn could have expected, a woman tumbling in from a third story window certainly wasn’t one of them. Pale hair. Purple eyes. Claiming to be one of the newer runes picked up, although Isa, she noticed, seemed to have no idea who this person was, despite knowing the others gathered. Perhaps it was just a fluke, but Dawn would keep an eye on the woman regardless.

More and more people filed in as time passed. A gloomy looking man calling himself “Volkir”. Jeddah, a young woman about her height bearing a box of muffins. Dawn studied the little lineup silently, in a sort of absent reverie- something that from time to time. She was snapped out of it, however, by the door to the room soaring from its hinges and into the wall opposite. Dawn turned, alarmed, to see a rather embarrassed looking redhead standing in the gap left behind.

Super strength. Alarming, but given the fact that all of them had developed powers almost overnight, it wasn’t surprising in itself once the initial shock were off. Recomposing herself, Dawn glanced once more at the ruined splinters that once made up the door, then back to Amity. “I agree- I’m sure you’ll be able to get it under control with enough practice.” She smiled warmly, then stood, stepping over to where the muffins had been laid out and looking over them idly.

“Thank you, Jeddah. These look delicious.” Dawn plucked one from the box- blueberry- and sank her teeth into it, relishing in the taste. She paused, swallowed, then spoke. “My name is Dawn, by the way. It’s good to meet you.”

Behind her, she could overhear Ira asking the stranger to draw out her rune, and Volkir immediately offering up his own in response. She listened in as she took bite after bite, but before Ira could get any far in her questioning, two more entered to interrupt her. Both were strangers, although one, the girl of the two, seemed to be struggling quite badly with her cargo.

Finishing off the rest of her muffin, Dawn pocketed the wrapper and stepped over to the girl. “Would you like some help with all that?” She asked. Ira seemed to know this girl, Helena, and seeing as she hadn't been referred to a rune, she could assume that the newcomer was the last remaining marked.

Nine runes, two others. One of which still hadn’t been identified.

Even as she spoke to Helena, Dawn made a point to keep the wildcard of a woman in the corner of her eye.

@VitoftheVoid@Cloudburst@Kuroakuma@xXSINXx@GoodLuckTuck