Naril

The Sunday Group - Seeds and Harvests

By "tomorrow" I of course meant "a week from now."

What year is it again? I've come unstuck.

The Sunday Group - Seeds and Harvests

Yes please! Apologies, work went mad for a little bit, but we're back down to earth. I'll have something up by tomorrow.

The Sunday Group - Seeds and Harvests

Okay, I'm back and my brain has recovered a little - I'm planning to write tomorrow!

The Sunday Group - Seeds and Harvests

I'm quite busy through Sunday afternoon, but I'll get writing after that!

The Sunday Group - Seeds and Harvests

Anything I should know about the dumpsters and remaining goo? I'm also happy to keep Making Shit Up. :3

The Sunday Group - Seeds and Harvests

Teajay felt her shoulders stiffen just before Blythe spoke. The...other being, the thing that made its home in Blythe's chest, had focused its attention on her; the thing that called itself a demon. Teajay liked Blythe, she really did, but it was so hard to get close to her. Not only because of the demon and its pull on Blythe's soul, but the rage, the pain, the fury that drove the woman radiated off her like heat from a forge. Every time Teajay thought about asking her out for a drink, she wondered if the cocktails would vaporize before they got to enjoy them. There were, of course, times for that sort of thing, that kind of fierce, furious potential, but...well. Not now, certainly.

She could hear the thing that shared Blythe's body, but Teajay couldn't understand it. The language was one she didn't speak, or perhaps it merely chose not to let itself be understood. The words arrived via something other than her ears, stripped of any meaning other than malice and a dark, distant desire. In that way, the demon wasn't really different from her DMs, but somehow it always seemed more immediate, more potentially dangerous. Teajay expected they would probably have some kind of reckoning, eventually - that's how that story goes, after all - and she honestly had no idea what would happen. If there were avenging angels, the red right hands of the Highest, Teajay wasn't one of them. She listened and she spoke, and that was that.

Wasn't it?

The distant rumbling of the thing in Blythe faded, and Teajay shook her head, clearing her thoughts. She blinked, and noticed Adri having arrived, her dark coat making her one more vaguely sinister figure in the increasingly busy alleyway. A cop, whether she left the force or not; her bearing stiff, proud, official. There were reasons that she came to join the spooky side rather than stuffing her truth down and staying on the force, but from what Teajay could tell, the job never left you.

"Blythe's got what we know," Teajay said, gesturing at the other woman with a thumb, "It's a little early yet. But you're right, camera footage isn't that hard to come by most of the time. You wanna take Blythe and go see if you can sweet-talk your way into the security offices for that building? See if that cam caught anything? This one feels weird enough that I'm guessing we probably shouldn't be alone."

Teajay pointed at Alcander, "And before you fall asleep on your feet, c'mon. If there's more of this stuff, let's see where it leads. Adri says there's some dumpsters up the alley with more of this stuff on it. Between the two of us, we can probably move 'em, see if there's something under or behind them."

The Sunday Group - Seeds and Harvests

I'll have a post up tomorrow with any luck!

The Sunday Group - Seeds and Harvests

I’ve also been broadly operating on the understanding that everyone kind of knows one another - at least what’s in the character sheets. For example, if someone heard the presence say Trajay’s real name, that’d be the first time they’ve heard that. In the same vein, I’m guessing we know that Blythe has a Dark Passenger, and we’ve variously come to terms (or not! That could be interesting) with that, and that Al seems like he might have tried to play fetch with Cerberus.

If that’s not the case, I suppose we should discuss it - for what it’s worth, I’m very not precious about Teajay. Everything in her character sheet is totally available for people to know. :3

The Sunday Group - Seeds and Harvests

For that particular one, I'm generally pleased to leave it up to folks - if she fully steps Outside I think that's largely private (unless someone feels like they could follow her - Blythe, maybe?), but I think everyone definitely heard Teajay's side. Whether they heard the other presence, well, I'll leave that to folks. :)

The Sunday Group - Seeds and Harvests

Samuel Priest had a routine with certain kinds of emails. He didn't let the computer do the sorting for him; he might know the rules of arcane bureaucracy but he had no real interest in working out how to make the computer do something he was perfectly capable of himself. Instead, with the kind of deliberation that could - and did - drive the younger members of his organization up the wall, he considered each message, then with all the speed of a growing oak, resigned it to whatever folder or trash bin it might belong in. He didn't even delete the endless messages from marketers and people who were certain that what he needed were "dynamic, modern, data-driven approaches" to his very peculiar business, but he did have a folder for them. If you could read the words, the label would say "Fools, Damn Fools, and Liars."

And then there were the...other messages. Missives from, well. You could call some of them peers, or fellow delvers in the darkness. Others were communications from dark gods, lost prophets, or the Faen courts. All had their particular strata of Priest's attention, given in their turn. And at the very top of that priority list were messages from Eleanor Tregellan. They were so special, in fact, that Priest even had a special routine for those messages.

He made them not his problem.

Priest sighed, then reached to his desk phone, a heavy, corded thing, and punched a number in while cradling the receiver on his broad shoulder. The line rang three times, before clicking with connection.

"Oh, you're awake, how lovely," he said without preamble, "Miss Blackwood, I do hope you have a moment. It seems our...associate...is looking for her employee. Yes, again. I don't suppose you've seen her lately? Well, I would ask you to get a message to her, if you wouldn't mind..."

----------------------

"You know that I'm not actually your messenger service," said Morgan Blackwood, her quick fingers buttoning up her shirt. "It is possible for you to look at your phone now and then."

"I check my phone all the time," Teajay replied from the bathroom. She pulled a brush through her hair, then used her fingers to tease the strands the way she liked.

"Let me guess, to see who you've matched with on Deisul," Morgan sighed.

Teajay poked her head out of the bathroom, "Morgan Blackwood, as I live and breathe. You know about Deisul?"

"I..." Morgan waved a hand, "Not what we're talking about." Could that be a flush on her cheeks? Surely not.

Morgan let out a surprised breath a moment later, Teajay having bolted out of the bathroom and wrapped her arms around Morgan's waist from behind in a hug.

"I'm so damn proud of you," Teajay said into Morgan's back, "Look at you! Baby's first online dating profile! You have to let me see it. Wait, did we match? Holy shit, is that why you're here?" Her tone held nothing but playful, teasing delight.

"Tarah," Morgan said, clearing her throat, "Tregellan says you have a case." She reached down and gently pulled herself away from Teajay's embrace, "And since apparently she included Mr. Priest on the email, this one might be important? So, please, if you could, just check your messages."

Teajay stepped away from Morgan, a sly grin still on her face. She walked into her bedroom and scooped up her phone, her thumb tracing a complex sigil on the screen. A moment later, she let out a sound halfway between dismay and surprise.

"Urgent, huh?" Teajay said, "I guess I'll have to wear pants for this one."

-----------------------

Chicago in February is not anyone's idea of a good time. The winter had lost its novelty earlier in the year, and the knowledge that there was still quite a lot more to go could be enervating. The last few months had been dry and mild, but the wind still blew with icy teeth. Teajay stepped down the alley wrapped in a wool coat to her calves, bright blue scarf at her neck, and a knit hat with a pink cat's paw on one side, her steps careful while she approached the knot of other investigators.

"Heya, everyone," Teajay said, stepping past Alcander. The man looked even more tired than usual, the poor thing.

"Oh, fuck," she managed, seeing the ichor-coated body. "You know, Eleanor, that you could mention something like 'don't wear something you mind getting stained,' in the messages sometimes."

Teajay stepped closer to the body, then lowered herself to take a closer look. No expression, no contorted limbs. Not even a smell, which...well. The less said about that, the better. Other than the black goo - which Teajay was not going to touch - hardly anything remarkable at all. Curious, that absence.

And while she thought about it, focused her attention, that absence deepened and grew. More than a simple lack of context, and lack of clues, there was something important missing here. Something about the body felt...wrong. Not just out of place physically, but something else. A cold blankness where even an impression should have been. She swallowed.

"Do...you guys feel that?" Teajay said, standing. She turned, her eyes scanning the empty air. The hair on her arms prickled, even under her jacket.

She took a few steps further down the alley, almost unconscious. There, a little way further away from the rumbling El tracks, she felt...something. With a start, she realized it was the Outside, but not an invitation, nor a demand. A presence, like a hand on the other side of a pane of glass.

"Oh, fuck," Teajay said to herself.

"Talenarael" came a voice, like a whisper on a wind. "You come for the soul."

"I..." Teajay swallowed, "No, I...don't..."

"Gone," the voice interrupted, "Missing. Taken. Destroyed. Lost. Nothing to speak for. Only a hollow." The words seemed to take a tremendous amount of effort, or come from a very long distance away.

"I don't know what to do with that right now," Teajay said, "Okay, fuck it. Do you know who he was? Anything about him?"

"Not the first," the voice said. And with those words, the presence faded, the pressure of the Outside falling away at the same time.

"Shit," Teajay muttered, then turned to look back at the group.

"Er...how much of that did any of you hear?" She said.