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Post by littlekreen on Jan 25, 2020 22:23:43 GMT -6
The worm stayed quiet outside while holding its manifold. Though carried it recognized this was a place it ought not to be and chose not to draw attention. Raindrop cling represented its grasp onto her elbow with its tail a more familiar thing than the press of the ridged gecko paws. Mass regrown and a bit then some after cleaning some of her car the iguana sized onyx gecko drew a few eyes from the street. There were whispers nearby as some noticed her waist but they made sure not to stare long enough to catch the eye. Places like this had quite a few of those but a quiet behavior from those sorts often meant tacit respect for territory. A few thugs hadn't enjoyed their trip breaking into the building before its door had been reinforced.
Atilio turned from rumbling boxes and tapped their lid so the noises would cease. The man gave her a critical eye more for weapons than the card at her belt. Though he stopped on that next and squinted to read it. There was something about it he didn't like but couldn't put a finger on it. Though figured he could let her through as long as she wasn't immigration. Amplio negro geco was weird enough but didn't mind it as long as she didn't let the lizard loose. He hadn't seen a rat in weeks that wasn't afraid to go in the walls. Some things you don't ask too many questions about even with these empty Jefes.
"What do you want with Los Jefes, Chica? They don't have an office, I do. They're the new owner but this is still a bad place for new blood." replies Atilio with clear enough English.
"They don't like troubles brought on the residents, entender? Just tell me what you need." Asks the doorman less a hard-faced accusation than concerned brow.
They'd all heard from the little hija what happened to the tweaker last month. Los Jefes didn't mess around when riled. After he advised her father to get a handle on it he finally got her to stop talking about the 'scary man that got ate'. It'd bring the law in more than they had and he was already surprised they hadn't come looking for an explanation of how spine screws behind. Didn't care enough to mess around down here just for a tweaker but maybe that changed.
He eyed the bagged arm. Hadn't he seen that arm just yesterday?
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Post by demikara on Jan 28, 2020 14:48:42 GMT -6
"Dead tenant." She answered shortly. "I have some questions about him, and need to get into his apartment. It shouldn't take long." She planned on getting a quick check with mage sight and then leaving if she didn't find any traces and she doubted she'd find traces. He was mundane, after all. "No one's in trouble, and I'm not here to cause trouble or arrest anyone." She tended to not cooperate when faced with immigration, but understood the worry having nearly been deported at least twice. Molly wasn't white passing. She got into troubles over it, even when on duty. The Unseen had it's fair share of prejudice too, after all. "No troubles. Just questions about the prosthetic and the lizard." It wasn't normally done to bring the animal with, but under the circumstances, it'd work. She wasn't exactly a mundane cop after all. "Supposedly, it should go home. I'm hoping to find its home here, given it came with the tenant."
All true, if not how the man probably thought it was.
She was armed of course, with a pistol at her side. "If you're the manager, then I can speak to you instead." And if he had an office, he was probably the manager. Either way, this was an interesting place. If she could still Walk she'd have gone ahead and snuck through the building tonight, rather more illegally. It was always best to try the legal tactic first, of course.
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Post by littlekreen on Jan 28, 2020 18:49:15 GMT -6
The owner of the arm clicked once she explained from the myriad of people he saw go back and forth every day. Doormen seeing the same faces every day tended to stick. The amigo on 612 stayed in until Los Jefes fixed the rickety elevator a few days back. Wheelchair, clean, depressed. Barely managed to pay the rent but Los Jefes let him slide. While he hadn't seen the man from the supply closet he heard him. A cheerful loose tongue about buying a new arm from Los Jefes. A bad feeling about that even half-listening told the guy whatever he got to keep quiet or somebody might notice. Seems he was right. Cholos might be sniffing around for more as and Los Jefes might want to know. He didn't remember the lizard but it didn't matter.
Instinct said she wasn't immigration. Armed but not a strongman as far as he knew. No clear backup and not in a patrol car. Stood out in this part of town. Pistol ought to keep the resident troublemakers away from their funeral as well.
Atilio sighed looking at the pistol then sat down, "Good. It's been quiet now and we like it that way."
A hand out from his shoulder then to his knee takes a breath and shakes his head, "I think I know who you mean. Quien con la esperanza vive, alegre muere."
Miming with the wooden chair arms, "Wheelchair? Nobody saw him much until the elevator got fixed but he hasn't been back yet. What happened?"
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Post by demikara on Jan 28, 2020 18:56:16 GMT -6
"Looks like he got hit by a bus. Kind of. Definitely blunt force trauma, but...weird." She shrugged, recalling the report. "Witnesses say the bus hit him, but the trauma wasn't consistent with a bus actually hitting him. So I get to look more into it. I get all the weird ones." That was one way of saying it. She did get all the weird ones. Largely because the weird ones were usually Unseen.
"Name of Sergio. Can you get me in his apartment?" Hopefully he could. That was where she needed to be after all. It would be a good first step. "The lizard wouldn't leave the body, so we're assuming it was his, since it's obviously tame and friendly." True enough. The lizard only left the body after the arm was detached.
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Post by littlekreen on Jan 28, 2020 20:04:33 GMT -6
The lizard kept silent, asked to keep quiet by Molly among the public, to say nothing throughout the exchange. Given its spark eyes were quiet as well the worm could only hear its environment thus didn't know where it was. An idle lizard clench stayed on her arm staring at Atillo with false unblinking eyes.
~~~
Atilio nodded taking it all in raising an eyebrow at the notion that the bus almost lost, "¡No mames! Well if it's not cholos it's something else. All the things I hear in shadows from México that were just stories. Now they're on television."
Since all the news Atilio knew Los Jefes weren't human but they didn't make much of it. They didn't answer anything about it but never left the building. They'd made the place safe and he wasn't about to rock the boat. So something went after him? Did they have enemies he didn't know about? They didn't say much. Though if somewhere out there they had enemies he understood why Los Jefes made the front door strong enough to take an angry bull. Atilio had a lot of questions that he didn't want the federales asking too. Though he didn't want to be the one asking any nightmare things why they're running over people. if Los Jefes didn't want her here they would have made themselves known by now.
Deciding the Federales the lesser of evils given the devil he knew fixed the plumbing on time, "If it makes sure the strangeness doesn't follow him back home. I'll get my key. I can see later if someone can take care of the lizard."
Atilio reached under the counter and pulled out a large brass key fitted with a meander at its top. A skeleton key keeping him from getting lost and opening doors. Something the upper floors got as they always seemed a bit larger than he remembered. Large keyholes by each apartment door added by Los Jefes downward floor by floor. Then the intersections got keyholes though he wasn't about to see what they did.
He left via a side door to the other side of the thick entryway door inserting the key and turning it, "Just keep up, eh? You scare the locals and it's easy to get lost in this old building."
Faint buzzes soon sent a clang that pulled some unseen bolt as Atilio removed his key. Light appears from the door jam as Atilio pushes it toward Molly with a leaning shove to get it moving. Heavy pivot hinges well balanced only the entryway carpet scuffed as metal passed close overhead. The steel pegs at the top and bottom rumble heavy bearings as its own weight offset partly by an obscured interior mechanism.
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Post by demikara on Feb 9, 2020 18:20:13 GMT -6
"Eh don't worry about those things too much. They have cops specially to handle them." She pointed out and shrugged. She followed him made sure to keep up. The entire building was just slightly off and Molly cast mage sight as they walked, following a hunch. All she had to do was get the lizard home, and to do that she needed to find out where its home was. And that meant tracking down where the previous owner got his arm. Which meant following this guy to Sergio's apartment. "I don't think I caught your name by the way. I'm Molly." She did not look like a Molly.
She'd punch a person for saying that though. She went by Molly and that was the end of the story.
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Post by littlekreen on Feb 9, 2020 22:10:58 GMT -6
Formal dress as best his money could buy gestured to the elevators at the back of the room, "Call me Atilio, Molly. This way to the elevator. Unless you want to climb six floors, eh?"
Built as a hotel originally and built with each a kitchen this building survived well for a while. As economies are wont to do the building's finances went poorly thus so its maintenance as time went on. As this area faded away and the building lost quality its nature refurbished to individual apartments instead. two crosses for hallways but for the first floor of offices, storage, and utility rooms. Some of the imprints of that long history were left on its surface. Mage sight added bends that glamour to fail entirely for Molly the wear and grime seen too closely by a critical eye. The walls are covered in both dyed and gleaming angular patterns to suffuse the illusion of the entry room. The intent for showing the damaged building as it once was rather than walls now completely repaired to sport clean fixtures. As well to hide wards etched everywhere on the ceiling as things of passionless articulation, unlike emotive human or fae magic, to target demons, undead, and heaven-born alike. Dingy copper painted ceiling tiles as actual copper served as an active substrate no longer as banal as they seemed. Though as a ward breaker she may rather notice their direction not to keep such things out but to keep them confined to the lobby.
As they moved patterns of magically loud living things somewhere within the floors slosh through as some river poured between floor joists underneath. Above much the same as the organic movement of aura-carrying flows made difficulty to sense one's way through. Though as any cloudy day as some construction of strong space-time magic shines through from upstairs. A swirling tangle of tethers concealed in a building-sized bottle. If she saw the key Atilio used to call the elevator showed to Molly's eyes as in a similar vein revealed the device a true labyrinth key. The keyhole itself no less bonded to some deeper magical infrastructure. They had drawn against magical wells of power in the city to build their gate seal that they might even have deformed some of the ley lines ever so slightly toward them. Though resilient and obstinate to change as such natural features were their habits to nature made for a strong island of power.
The elevator opens as Atilio enters and waits until Molly enters to press the button for the sixth floor.
Atilio comments from the open door tapping the door jam, "Los Jefes have made the elevator less terrifying to use. Level with the floor again for wheelchairs and little abuelas that can't pick up their feet. Just before I saw him go out of the lobby."
He shrugs with an upturned mouth, "Still haven't painted the lobby but then cholos like to look in, eh? It's bad enough they talk."
The sixth floor laid out much like the first just without the open lobby where apartments were. Though at each corner of the intersection across from lay another keyhole with a thin clasp. Up here just below the penthouse floor furthest from the interference of natural earth forces where some magical construction burned above.
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Post by demikara on Feb 10, 2020 7:59:39 GMT -6
This building was heavy with magic and with wards alike. Well, that confirmed that she was in the right place at least. And if she wasn't mistaken, and she definitely wasn't, that was space-time magic. That was a good indicator she was in the right place, for sure. Los Jefes were magical then, and likely the source of the arm. Which meant she needed to speak to them to return the gecko to its home. "They sound like good landlords." She said and gave him a smile, hoping he didn't notice how the light reflected off her eyes with mage sight. At they rose, the inferno of magic grew and she blinked away the mage sight. "Though the keyholes everywhere are a bit odd." And they reeked of magic as well.
This place was heavy in space time. How much of it was folded away and how had they managed that on this world with its restricted magic? Between that and the wards this was tipping over from a Ratatoskr thing to potentially an MCU thing. She'd see if she could solve it all first though.
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Post by littlekreen on Feb 10, 2020 11:06:43 GMT -6
Raised brow he gives a thumbs up, "Better than most other buildings around here. They don't put up with Cholos fighting in the halls, the heat has never worked better, and the rats are afraid to go near the building. The rent isn't too expensive so all the units are usually full."
After stepping out of the elevator gestured one hand at a door down one hallway, "It's over there. 610."
Then Atilio looked at the corner placed lock at her question, "Los Jefes said not to use my key on those. Some of the kids try to pick them though they get swept off so no fried idiotas yet. I only unlock the tenant doors. How did they say it..."
He brushed his chin remembering their strange wording as they went, "If I did I'd 'bridge the storm' and it would hurt. I think Los Jefes mean the new electrical and I'm not about to make myself into crispy flautas. etiendes?"
Going where a dangerous boss told you not to was bad for your health. When a good one with a just as strong arm told you not to go somewhere doing it was just stupid. He walked up to 610 and put his skeleton key not in the handle but the large keyhole beside the door. The magic barely flickered for recognition of the key this half writ for the local fabric and mostly mechanical. The gears whirr as a rather long deadbolt shuffles metal through the wall. The door clicked open as Atilio stood back.
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Post by demikara on Feb 10, 2020 12:00:13 GMT -6
Molly paid close attention and frowned. Bridge the storm. This definitely sounded like something she needed to investigate. Which meant speaking to Los Jefes. She hesitated a moment then stepped inside and cast mage sight again. There was something off about the door as well. She looked around the apartment, mage sight causing her eyes to glow rather like a cat's at night would. She stepped more firmly in and looked around, checking for any signs of magic. "Thanks Atilio. And I think I need to speak to Los Jefes. Is there some way I can set up an appointment?" They weren't in trouble. The mundanes hadn't even noticed anything that weird, or at least not weird enough to comment on it.
But she did need some serious answers, and if this building was dangerous magically, she needed to know. And given the amount of space time woven into it, she definitely needed to know. Space-time was a rare magic. Most people couldn't touch it and the few people who could do working this big? Well, usually they got contacted by a Ratatoskr at a young age and offered training. But she knew well enough to know that the entire United States had three Ratatoskr in it. There were a few other pockets of space time users she didn't have numbers for and Zander just told her to leave them well enough alone, but a working this big?
It was a beacon to trouble.
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Post by littlekreen on Feb 10, 2020 13:00:50 GMT -6
Atilio visibly leaned back one hand on the doorframe and looked up the hall, "no hay pedo. I think he knows I opened the door."
He walked off to meet a pair of soft whumps just out of view of the door as she looked about the room. The apartment was fairly small as one single hallway with a single bedroom. These walls themselves rather opaque compared to the flows in the lobby floor. Efforts taken to ensure it was difficult for mundanes to sense curious efforts throughout the building let alone directly above them. The only magical thing was a small bronze rack sat upon a worn coffee table in front of a old tube TV. An aggregator of ambient power likened more to elemental familiars of purely magical origin than what connected to the gate. The equipment left a shadow isntead of what was in the flaring penthouse by virtue of turbulent powers. The veil on one side and a tepid hollow breeze blowing traces in the opposite direction above. The walls and even the window kept that tepid wind from passing but not the veil. Errant frosts of ectoplasm viewed by mage sight scored the windowsill. Something seen more when the ephemeral or in this case, planestuff, bled.
The lizard jumped down from her arm and scuttled over to the bronze rack now that the mundanes had been dismissed. Too-large gecko feet clamber up as its body flowed back into that of a worm. While clearly built for the arm the worm coiled around the rack and began to draw. As an independent thing built to express within the veil it had to rest.
The worm's voice chirps Fae as a magical headwind pours from the vents from other moving creatures forcing traces out by their passing among this floor, "I must charge now! I require biomass! We are home now."
Clad in overalls and heavy boots the Jinhai sported a thick plaid shirt under a hoodie. Though the servitor bent slightly to pass the doorframe its eyes conceal behind a softly breathing gas mask shaded to pure black. Thick leather work gloves clad away the last bit of what might expose skin. The baggy clothing well concealed its boneless form though left no niceties for its unwitting menace.
In a wordless stare at the cognition engine outside stealth the Jinhai's english reply was stilted and breathless in an accent vaguely italian, "This is Los Jefe. You wished to speak... Cohortes urbanae?"
It paused as it picked tenant rather than 'humankind' then offered, "There is an understanding that a tenant has ceased."
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Post by demikara on Feb 10, 2020 14:10:07 GMT -6
"Yes. I'm investigating where he got the prosthetic arm and the circumstances of his death." She considered the gecko and the headwind her mage sight had picked up and switched to Fae. ["Do you understand me? If so, we should switch to this language."] And if so, they definitely weren't human. Though the look of them pointed to definitely not mundane. "If not, I am fluent in english." The conversation would just be less private. Molly investigated the bronze rack as she spoke, then caught sight of the ectoplasm at the window. Molly pulled out a pair of latex gloves from her pocket and pulled them on.
"One moment. I need to take a sample of something." She dug into her satchel and pulled out a swab and an evidence bag. Molly passed the swap through the ectoplasm and dropped it in the evidence bag. "We're a little concerned over the origins of his arm." And the fact that a worm had come out of it. Mostly the worm thing, but you couldn't just say that some sort of worm had come out of a prosthetic and freaked the ME out. For one, if the ME ever found out, you were toast.
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Post by littlekreen on Feb 11, 2020 11:00:37 GMT -6
It considered after looking at the cognition engine then the muffled voice replies, [As it must be. There is reasonable conjecture for the occupant's death.]
As she left to the window the boots softly advance with a faint dusty hiss as it removes the gas mask. Motes pour out as ebon sand before the grains acquire loft to a silty cloud. They reverse course to concrete into a coarse simulacra of a human face. Two sparks among dust ignite ahead of the sockets and turn to swirl eyes as to better see without the obstruction of plastic. The clear mask set gently on the coffee table. Its glove removes to yet another glove as motes already prepared to imitate a leathery glove. A finger of the Jinhai touches cognition engine and reads memories into the cyclopedia. A mind's eye thought on the impact as it occurred to see the chain of events perceived by the worm directly.
The ectoplasm came off easily enough from the window visible by mage-sight as nonphysical a thing as it was. As if a gel concreted to the window the outside a more frigid place it could not get to. They had insulated the entire building that the installation above could not leak out easily. In itself keeping outer things from disrupting their attempts to further stabilize the central axis.
Unobstructed its swirl eyes turn to Molly to quality her type as its dusty hollow voice came more clear, [Essencekind Police? Rome is truly dead.]
The Overbeing would need to consider a course of action with a defunct line of succession for Caesar. It already saw Myrkul reading that page of the Cyclopedia. A problem the Jinhai wasn't sure how to solve. Stabilizing a depleted cognition engine proved a more reasonable course of action.
It stood to retrieve a trash can nearby to lean against the table, [The cognition engine has been severely depleted due to a failed counter-warding event. Defensive purposes are not part of its template. The cognition engine consumes biomass to allow aethermechanics to operate properly in an aether-limited environment. It does not pose a hazard to humankind by aether consumption until fully depeted.]
The worm left its already depleted charging stand to float more stably into the trash can to chew at the remainder within as the Jinhai observed, [Servitors were asked to repair a tenant but will not alter damaged human forms in that way. A suitable replacement appendage was fabricated within the central axis and installed. It also protects the cognition engine from the hostile environment. The arm will require significant repairs.]
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Post by demikara on Feb 13, 2020 20:13:23 GMT -6
[Rome has been dead awhile.] She admitted. [But I'm here for a reason other than the tenant. The replacement appendage isn't of this plane. I'm supposed to make sure it gets back to its own plane. It stands out too much on this one.] But that was complicated. [It mentioned something about a planar collision though. I'm going to need to know more about that too, to know if I need to get the Guardians involved.] She really preferred not to. Frankly, she viewed the guardians more as bullies than as a police force, but they had frightening abilities so they got to be the police. The best a Ratatoskr could do is slap a time out bracelet on you to keep you on one plane. Rumor said the guardians could do a lot worse than that.
[I'm Ratatoskr. I walk the world tree. If there's a problem with it in this city I need to know so I can fix it.] She had a duty to the tree after all, above her duty to MCU. When it came down to it, her planar duties outweighed her MCU ones a significant amount. And part of those were making certain that humans didn't find out about the abilities or about other planes. Humans would break the planes and try and conquer all the others. It wouldn't be pretty. And if things from other planes came here, it could also be very messy.
Molly was an explorer and a scientist, but she knew her duty when it came to the meeting of realms.
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Post by littlekreen on Feb 13, 2020 21:10:04 GMT -6
The Jinhai nodded then canted its head at the center, [Then you should not have breached the bulwark, Essencekind. As servants of the Great Machine we were contained by the bulwark; we do not know how to repair it just to restrain further degradation.]
It inspected the object on her wrist as it spoke, [Damaged wards on the bulwark's surface attempt to destroy us in this plane. The building is armored to keep them within safely and this is what destroyed the tenant. It must arise from an unhandled breach intraplane.]
A Black sandstone key deep within jean pockets sported marks of the same star in a gear symbol removed with one gloved hand. Not a labyrinth key but a gate key. Their sensibilities of what such a thing should look like a product of ages and a culture long passed. Four spark eyes disappear behind the mask once more as roughly humanlike dune that formed its attempt at a face. It gestured at the arm in a bag then to the recharging rack.
Then nodded toward the door its dusty voice slightly muffled once more, [We will show you the Central Axis if you wish. You may see the damage from there but not enter. The Great Machine's flow of time has already been slowed to this one but the central axis will be exposed to the void for decades.]
It waited with a patient stare until she followed to lead her back to the elevator. A particular keyed floor no longer led to the penthouse. The worm would remain not so quietly consuming the trash.
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