(Veiled Threats) Moxie at Moxie

[Star]

Following Asp's recommendation has eventually produced a small mixture between a restaurant and bar: Moxie.

The name provided a ton of amusing thoughts, as well it's source. Because Arrows were Arrows. If there were a place called "Balls" or "Nerve" or "Badassery", even money said they knew about it. That wasn't fingerpointing. If Sacramento had a place called "Secrets" or "Skullduggery" or "Clandestine", that same money got you the same odds Principal Ari knew about it.

He liked it. The badassery. Like the Circle itself. Just a massive confidence in self identity. Running into Arrows right off the bat suited The Plan just fine. Illusions, he had a pocketful of, but not a single one about his own combat prowess. He had Air Jordans for combat. Straight up. He'd had Zoom Vicks until that wasn't super PC anymore, and no one in his business liked attention. Well, random attention. He'd attention whore for the right reasons, of course.

On arrival, he perused the scene. Not like the Arrows probably were. There was one door, sure, but he looked at the pictures on the wall. Cool pictures. Nice place. Kind of a like a good date place. File that away under 'useless because it's never used' information. Side note? Hope it was cheap. Scratch was lacking. Which gave him the jitters. The Plan, the idea, that was rolling around in his head, started to seem like a tough sell. It's annoying to wonder what you bring to the table. Winning personality? Not so much.

"So, ummm, yeah, this is nice, right? Good call. Come here often?"

Oh, no. Did he really just say that?

[Zodiac]

Mandy certainly had never been to the location before, but just as Cut had observed, the fact that there was only one door brought her a couple degrees of concern. On the one hand people would be watched as they entered - she made certain of that as she settled herself into a seat that gave her a view of the door - on the other... there was also only one exit. Was she being paranoid? Perhaps.

Even knowing that this wasn't a date, however, Mandy took the time to dress a little nicer than usual, pairing a dress shirt with a black pencil skirt, a pair of non-descript black mary janes settled on her feet. She also knew that the question wasn't directed at her - she didn't know this place. She'd never been. But it had struck her as only proper to dress a little nicer for dinner out with people. It wasn't as though changing in a washroom was particularly unfamiliar to her, anyway, so she had.

What the point of this meeting was, she wasn't altogether certain anymore. A pair of Arrows... and a pair of Guardians... What possible purpose could there be for this? A meet and greet extension? Whatever. She was hungry.

[Avis]

The restaurant looked alright. It was kinda fancy, but Avis thought it was also kinda empty. The black and white photographs, the chairs with wicker backs, the bottles of alcohol on display: all trying to evoke some ephemeral sense of a culture that was weathering away. Or perhaps one that had already passed on, sunken into the soil of history like the cameras that had first taken black and white photographs. She couldn't really tell which felt more accurate, but she did know that the the restaurant's atmosphere felt brittle and forced. She wasn't in the mood for benign illusions meant to lull her into complacency. Coming from the Circle to this pen for sheep was jarring for her. It wasn't just that this was a place for sleepers. It was that this was a place that belonged in the world of the coddled and blind, the world of people who were entirely unaware of just how fragile and subjective their lives were. It made her feel alien and bitter.

She shoved her hands deeper into the pockets of her hoody and trailed behind the other willworkers with her head bowed. She realized that she probably looked like a petulant teenager shuffling behind her middle-class family so she awkwardly sank into the first open chair at their table and looked at the faces of the people she was about to break bread with, determined not to appear like an emo. It didn't help that she'd changed out of her work-out clothes into a black, faded hoody and black, faded jeans.

"Soooo. Uh. What do y'all do? For money, I mean. Job-wise."

[Star]

The only concession made to the wardrobe change the others had pulled was the addition of a jacket. A dark-ish utilitarian blazer, cotton from the amount of wrinkles criss-crossing it. It wasn't about dressing up. Pockets. It had pockets. The hand in one of the pockets ran a finger around the edges of the deck of cards in there.

"You notice the pictures?" he asked, scanning them. "They're all buildings and single or couples, except that one, that has four people. What's that about?"

Random, sure. He totally wasn't a conspiracy theorist. The question was clearly rhetoric, words flowing as he found an empty seat. At Avis ' question, eyes widened and he smiled, perking up. The hand came out of his pocket with the deck, and a finger ejected a single card in a spinning arc that ended between the thumb and forefinger of his other hand.

"Guess. OK, you got me. Magic," he answered, laying the card face down on the table. "I've liked it since I was kid," he continued. Get that out there. He wasn't some clown that thought it was cute to be a Mage that did magic. Always had, always would. "But you said money, right? I'd love to say it's a glamorous, rewarding life in the material sense, but, I don't know. It's getting to be obvious that I'm no Copperfield and there's no Claudia Shiffer in the cards. It beats sacking groceries, though."

A shrug accompanied a wry expression.

"And I sometimes do work as a cable puller. For phone companies."

See? There was a grown up job he did, too. It just... sucked.

"How about you all?"

Fingers riffed the deck as he looked at the other three.

[Zodiac]

Mandy shifted a little in her spot, giving a curious look at the question, listening to Cut's response with amusement. He did somehow seem the dorky sort who'd do magic tricks. Though a part of her was amused by the notion of a Guardian - never mind an Awakened - who ingrained himself in 'Magic' of that sort. If she really thought about it, it was somewhat clever in its own way, she supposed, if not entirely so practical as the cable pulling (which left a little smirk of amusement on her features).

"Archaeology," she stated clearly after a moment in response to the question, her tone actually seeming a little bit engaged even at just the word. "Puzzling together ancient mysteries is a passion of mine and always has been. There's a lot to be said for authenticating relics, discovering more about long-gone cultures and finding out what really made ancient civilizations tick," she smiled warmly at the notions. If it seemed like she was rambling, she certainly took no notice as she dug into her messenger bag to pull out a leather-bound journal, worn and dogeared with pieces of paper sticking out of it in a bunch of places. It took her only a moment before she tugged one of the pictures from her journal and set it down on the table, looking perfectly excited.

"This was from my first dig," Mandy explained, gesturing to the worn picture of a small inscribed tablet of a sort that had yet to be fully removed from the earth, the small brush that was so often used to brush away small bits of sand and such was resting on the corner of it. "My first personal find. When you do something like that... when you find that kind of thing... there was this amazing rush of excitement. I knew right then that I was doing exactly what I was supposed to do." She sounded a little like a giddy school girl as she spoke, even at twenty-nine years of age. She had a passion, and that was clear.

"You go through all that schooling and spend so much time wondering what the point is, and what it's all for... and every moment of stress seems absolutely, unquestionably worth it when you find something like this. All the sleepless nights writing reports, all the long days of note taking and tedious lectures, all the exams, all the arguments with groupmates... every moment of it." And she was utterly lost to her thoughts and reminiscence now, her fingers absently brushing against the cover of the book as though she was petting it.

[Star]

aha

The archaeology thing made sense. Mandy had that Dead Poet education thing going on earlier, so no stranger to books. Which begged the question why she wasn't with the Alae. She sounded like one. There totally had to be a story there. Gossips. They needed a privacy check on aisle Moxie, at some point.

"That's cool," he nodded. "Not the, uh, note-taking, lectures, and exam stuff. The rest."

It was cool. Passion was cool, breaking down mysteries was cool. No tricks for you, though, Mandy. Don't need an audience that figures out the tricks. A hand moved out, then retracted. OK. The book wasn't some Show And Tell deal. He got that. Don't touch the cards.

"I went... once."

Asp's answer was accompanied by a head ducking to hide a blush. Once had been enough. Oh-so-relieved to find out that hooker had just taken his wallet rather than leaving him with some permanent souvenir. There had been some magic, though. Things he'd never seen. The humanity.

Martial arts didn't terribly surprise him, and it was nice to know she didn't just jog. And stretch.

Avis asked -- what did she do?

Twisting around, he scanned around them.

"I'm, uh, going to see about some privacy," he said softly. Best to give the heads up before you just start flinging.

The imago looked liked long rows of triangles, gently curved in a circle around them; close, but wide enough for a waitstaffer to enter. Small sets of rings; a pair, one of which he inverted over the other, spacing the bottom one at their shoulder level and the top one just above their heads. Sound waves would hit the ridges and bounce between them like a pinball machine. Distort the sound, instead of removing it. Silence was suspicious-licous. He wasn't a sound-ologist -- the idea had come from an article he'd read on Schipol airport. He read stuff, too, Mandy.

shit

Flubbing a spell was right up there with impotence or premature ejaculation. Way to come out swinging. Batting .1000. No one saw that. Painstakingly, he reformed the Imago. Look at the table, not the women, jackass. Get it right. The Plan might need some kinks worked out. Not kinks. Stop that. Complications.

The Ring of Unintelligibility blossomed into existence.

"OK."

Hell, yeah. He did that.

  Influence Sound, fail, success

Date		Action		Roll		Result
2014-05-27 12:53:53		Cut rolls 4 to Improvised Influence Sound (Gnosis + Arcanum) -1 Successive Attempt (10 Again)		10, 1, 9, 4, 10, 2		3 successes
2014-05-27 12:53:18		Cut rolls 5 to Improvised Influence Sound (Gnosis + Arcanum) (10 Again)		1, 2, 7, 4, 7		failure

[Avis]

"Thanks, Cut. Talking in code gets annoying," Avis said, the subtle, cold shiver running down her spine telling her that he'd put a spell up. "I guess we've got a pretty eclectic mix. An academic, a performer, a martial artist. I've got a question for you though, Mandy. If you're so interested in solving the mysteries of the past, and finding artifacts, why the hell aren't you with the Wings? That's kinda what they do. So why did you choose to become an Eye? That just seems kinda strange, is all."

[Zodiac]

Why? Because the Alae were foolish, poking and prodding at beasts they shouldn't poke and prod at, keeping things locked away, stored, where at a simple fault they could be brought back out into the world to wreak havoc again. She'd seen that already, treasures that were thought to have been stored...

"Some things should never see the light of day," she responded after a moment to the question after giving a thankful nod to Cut. "There are some things that if they got into the wrong hands..." She frowned, shaking her head as she tried to backtrack and clarify. "I've seen ancient kings' private hoards, hidden away beyond traps and puzzles, kept far from the eyes of any humans and protected by every means they knew in that day and age to hide things," she finally nodded, that was better. "I've seen them. I've acquired them. Dangerous objects should be destroyed, not left around to be hidden and prodded at like some sleeping beast. Eventually they'll become uncovered again. Things like this always resurface. There's always another academic out there looking, even if they don't know what they're looking for.

"Nothing stays buried forever. The Mysterium are fools if they think otherwise," Mandy ended her statement, tucking the photograph back into her journal without opening it, and putting it away into her messenger bag again.