(Blackhats) Trouble Comes to Town

[Cayce]

All across Sacramento, scattered across walls, plastering telephone poles, or half buried on bulletin boards only seldom cleaned, are posters advertising everything from lost cats, the latest underground gig, or the coming charity ball. And, though there are many posters that have been there for years, wheat paste stubbornly defending them from wind, rain, and even the most determined of clean up crews, more are always added. In places, they are piled high upon one another, pulpy, colorful scabs upon the face of the city.

Recently, a new rash of posters has appeared, cropping up in strange scatterings across the city. Black ink on green paper, advertising a new artist: The Thorn. Each poster has links to songs on The Thorn's own website, a simple affair with audio files and lyrics. The music is rhythmic, yet entrancing, following in the footsteps of Massive Attack and the other progenitors of Trip Hop, but the lyrics are what hold the keys to the message. They are songs of being taken. Songs of strange forests that shift and entrap the unwary, and finally, songs of slowly building anger...

Perhaps that was why the Posters said that the Thorn would be appearing at The Forge when, according to the Forges own schedule, they obviously were not. Besides, who ever heard of a Trip Hop concert in a Metal Club at 3pm?

Clearly, something fae was going on. And so it was that something fae walked into the Forge, precisely three hours after the stroke of noon. A leather jacket was draped over her arm, and the sleeves of a black blouse were rolled up to the elbows, perhaps accounting for the jeans and sneakers that must have been punishing in the Summer weather. In fact, the only piece of clothing that indicated the woman had paid attention at all to the sun were the sunglasses that she wore, and did not take off.

That was the first tell.

The second was the green poster sticking out of a coat pocket.

[InvertedMonkey]

Public postings were a common device of what Ramona had been taught to call "tradecraft." It's a word you'd find in a Clancy novel, something that spies supposedly use to refer to the sorts of skills and talents that can help you remain discreet and inconspicuous, acquire and pass along intelligence without blowing your cover. As one might imagine, it is also a valuable skill for secret communities, such as the Lost, with their own glamour-enhanced methods of concealing information. So when these new posters started popping up, in much the same way internal Freehold communication might, Ramona took notice. She could hardly be the only one. She'd visited the website. From an internet cafe. She'd listen to the music. It was actually rather good, if disturbing. She'd seen the posting. Her territory, the Forge. She'd made some calls. The Thorn had apparently just invited themselves to pay the Summer stronghold a visit. Ramona wanted to be there to greet them. With backup.

The Forge is not exactly bustling at 3pm. It might as well not even be open, with no patrons and few staff. They'll be here later of course, when the sun is getting low, and everyone is ready for hard liquor and hard music. But not now. The front doors are propped open, letting a huge wedge of sunlight into the otherwise dim interior of the club. This is intentional. On the surface, for the breeze. In detail, because anyone coming through that door would immediately be silhouetted by the light, and practically blind for the first few moments of that transition from blazing daylight to dimly lit club interior. Unless, of course, you're wearing sunglasses anyway. Big box fans, and others on rotating stands, enhance the breeze through the door, creating gusts and eddies that bring the stifling heat of the interior down to more bearable levels.

Ramona is behind the bar. It might not be very bullet resistant, but it could still be cover and concealment. And the mirror against the back wall means she always has an eye on the room, no matter where she's facing. Space has been cleared under the bar for her bastard sword, just in case. But if she has to use it, things will have gone very bad. It'll mean the revolver she has concealed at the small of her back will be either empty or worthless, and the bowie knife strapped to her side won't be enough. If she needs more than that, she's probably fucked anyway, so it is with a mild sense of serenity that she wipes down the bar with a rag. Zanshin, the empty mind, or as close as she comes to it. Relaxed alertness.

She glances up as the stranger appears. Anyone would, when someone silhouettes that much light. She had considered, prior to this, hardening her Mask against detection. Ultimately, she'd decided against it. The Thorn had annouced there intentions to be at this place, at this time. And if their music is anything to go by, they're involved in the Changeling world. The Forge wasn't exactly secret as a hangout for the Freehold, Summers in particular. And it is summer. It has the feeling of someone trying to arrange a meeting. So here she is. If they have violent intentions, if they think they can take Ramona in her house, let them try. If they want to talk to Summer, though, well... here she is.

"Afternoon."

[Malcolm Green]

Mountains do not move unless they have to.

Malcolm Green, Iceclad Armiger, Lord of the Inhospitable Chamber, Constable and Spymaster of the Sacramento Freehold, had been watching from afar. How could he not when a stranger to the Freehold appears and makes every possible noise to advertise their presence. By the time Green set out to the Forge on that warm summer's day, he had collected quite a few of the mysterious green flyers; he had even voyaged online to sample the music (it meant little; he had a tin ear for such things). The name, blatant, actually gave the Elemental a sense of irritation, though he could scare articulate why.

That he should coordinate with Ramona was furthest from Green's mind. Instead he planned to appear at just the right time, turning the early afternoon into a pleasant walk and an extra long lunch. The anticipation and the uncertainty of the challenge to come buzzing through his mind. He did not bother to harden his Mask for this encounter: The Thorn had made their allegiance clear; in Green's mind the time for subtly was over.

So he arrived some 10-15 minutes before 3pm. It gave him enough time to trade the necessary pleasantries with the Iron Queen and set himself up by at the bar, jug in hand, watching the brazen pool of the entrance. It was like liquid fire: heat from the street and the white hot haze combining to turn the open portal into a liquid broth that darkened when a shadowy form crossed it.

From this formless, yet anthropomorphic void stepped their challenger, their quarry, the Thorn revealed at last.

The mountain had no expected someone something quite so normal looking.

He grunted in disappointment.

Thought I'd dive right in rather than have Green turn up after the Thorn

[Daniel Leto]

The Freehold bulletin board. Daniel checked it regularly. Which entailed going up and down downtown a couple times each week, which was much easier with a skate board. He’d thought about buying a car now that he had more money, but the idea of having to stop, find parking, and check over the various poster and graffiti convinced him otherwise. That he still needed to get in better shape if he was going to be Ranger.

So it was that he’d discovered ‘Thorn’. A band that was going to be playing at the Forge. If that didn’t sound like a Fae message he didn’t know what did. A quick search on the internet showed there was no actual performance scheduled. Another got him a couple music files with enough professional music to convince him that this wasn’t just a call for a Hedge trip. He wasn’t entirely sure what it was all about but he was going to find out.

Daniel sat off in a corner, typing away on a smart phone with a skateboard in a backpack slung carelessly over his shoulder. Looking for all the world like every other barely twenty year old. Disconnected from the world around them. At least that’s how he appeared to those that were disconnected from the truth. Hidden in his jacket was Marcus’ trench knife. Beneath that, he wore the armor he’d recently bought. And further still, the Gravewight’s pale skin and dark eyes lay hidden beneath the blonde mop and blue eyes of the Mask. It was difficult to tell in the lighting but every once and a while those eyes would flick towards the bar where Ramona and Green were greeting the new arrival.

Daniel stayed back and listened from a distance.

Gear: Kevlar Vest (concealed); Trench Knife (barely concealed), skateboard, backpack

  2 successes

Date		Action		Roll		Result
2016-07-21 04:55:23		Daniel Leto rolls 3 to Dex+Larceny knife (10 Again)		7, 4, 2		failure
2016-07-21 04:55:10		Daniel Leto rolls 1 to Dex+Larceny knife (10 Again)		1		failure
2016-07-21 04:55:00		Daniel Leto rolls 4 to Dex+Larceny vest (10 Again)		10, 4, 5, 4, 9		2 successes

[Lesingnon]

The Thorn...it was an ominous name for a band. And the music did nothing to put him at ease. A desperate cry for help was a possibility, or an attempt to draw Changelings in for some ominous purpose. Or maybe someone just wouldn't recognize subtlety if it smacked them upside the head with a baseball bat. Regardless, it was something that needed to be looked into.

Three o'clock? He'd shown up well before that, and asked Ramona to stash a few things behind the bar for him; his staff, his bowie knife, and his old colt .45. Some of those weapons had served him well since his first days in Sacramento, he hoped hey wouldn't be called on to do so again here today.

He'd also supplied her with an old bottle of whiskey, now filled with apple juice. He found that it looked pretty similar unless someone was playing extremely close attention. And, supposing Ramona was amenable, he was drinking tumblers of the stuff far faster than it would be advisable for one to down whiskey.

So as he sat there, having taken the fairly uncommon (for him) precaution of hardening his mask, he hopefully looked like just another drunk to anyone who might be casing the joint.

Unfortunately the ruse prevented him from really staring at the door, but he could keep track of the time easily enough. So he glanced up as he heard Ramona say afternoon. Unless he missed his guess, things were about to get interesting.

[Cayce]

"Hello," the stranger replied as she paced up to the bar, her voice sounding soft, and somehow, almost tinny. Her jacket, a sleeker, business cut as opposed to the biker-esque attire more typical to the Forge, was delicately folded and placed on the bar top when she reached it, almost as though it were really made from tissue paper rather than the expensively cured steer hide it was clearly made from.

Explicitly, the green flyer remained visible, poking out from the topmost pocket.

"Tequila, please," she requested, her voice still soft and even, though threaded with a queer sub-pitch.

The sunglasses hid her eyes, but no one in the room missed the slight tilt of her head, in one direction, then the other, a clear indication she was observing the others sharing the space with her.

"How hot has the Summer been for you?" she inquired then, tone mild and abstract, as though the thought was inconsequential. Just a required pleasantry. "Any forest fires to put out?"

Imagine the text is cyan! Apologies if it's difficult to read.

[InvertedMonkey]

The barroom sounds of the glass appearing on the bar and the booze pouring into it are clear and familiar, even muffled as they are by the cooling fans. Ramona, it seems, has been practicing a little behind the bar, since taking stewardship of the Forge. Or at least she knows where things are. Her eyes flick back to the stranger's sunglasses at the questions. That familiar cadence, talking without saying what you mean, ready to play it off as a misunderstanding if you're wrong. "Not yet, this year," she answers, after a moment's pause, stowing the bottle back where it came from. "But we've been getting all sorts of little brush fires on the outskirts for a long time. We had a big blaze a few years ago that was... pretty bad. Nobody wants a repeat, we've been taking steps to prepare."

[Malcolm Green]

Green says nothing. He simply stares, watching. He hefts his jug and eases it to his lips; its as good a cover as any - can't speak with a mouth full of cheap beer. Above the rim of the sturdy glassware, his eyes focus on the stranger's form and their shadow.

  

Date		Action		Roll		Result
2016-07-23 00:21:28		Green checks for Wyrd tells and Ling-y shadows rolls 5 to Intelligence + Investigation + 1 Pledge (10 Again)		1, 7, 1, 8, 10, 5		2 successes

Green is looking over the stranger, checking for any Tell's that breach the Mask; or anything else that gives the person away as one of the Lost, one of the Fae, or Fae-touched. He doesn't want to resort to Kenning just yet. Right now, the stranger appears solidly normal apart from the obvious objects that flag their identity.

[Nathan Griffin]

Hither came Nathan, sullen-eyed, to thread the dusty floors of the Forge under his sandaled feet. He could have passed as a tourist, between his kaki shorts, dark sunglasses and the big black t-shirt that read "STRAIGHT OUTTA SACRAMENTO" in big, blocky white letters. He had been summoned by a dark ritual known as awful music (kids these days, modern stuff sucks, they just play the same sounds over and over and the lyrics are stupid, now back in the old times... etc.); he hardly needed to get to know the composers to know they were evil motherfuckers. Plus what kind of name is "The Thorn" anyway? Sounded like something some edgy high schoolers would set up in their basement... if it wasn't for the blatant reference to the Land Just Over Yonder. What, was Oz Imam Diaz taken?

He spat a chewed up breath mint just outside and hung the glasses on his shirt before entering. Before that he had examined the room, to make sure no one would know where his eyes were wandering. The chick didn't look like any musician he knew. S'up with Agent K? She was either blind or a jerk. Bet was on the latter. Or maybe she had really freaky eyes and was waiting for the right chance to turn them all to stone. Now that was a comforting thought. He went to the bar and sat close to Green but on the farthest side from Miss Gulch, producing a head tilt to the Mountain as his only greeting. "Beer. Cheapest. Keep coming," he told the bartender. He spent enough time at the Forge that he didn't feel the need to elaborate further. He turned to Green: "Want more? It's on me." His eyes, however, were looking past the Elemental, to the Summer Sovereign and the newcomer.

[Lesingnon]

He'd known a Changeling once who was virtually never seen without Sunglasses. Rook, Constable of Calefaction, dead beneath the smoldering ruins of the Four Seasons...and a man with a broken mask. It had been the eyes for him. Not even mortals saw orbs of flesh and blood, but metal shutters that were a clear give away that he was not quite what he seemed. Rick couldn't help but wonder if this woman's unwillingness to remove her sunglasses might be for the same reason.

Aside from that, there weren't many indications that she was touched by fae magic herself. A hardened mask was a possibility, or simply a mein so subtle that the clothing she wore was enough to cover it. Of course, there was her voice. It didn't quite sound like a natural human tone.

But whether it indicated anything or not...why go through all this to ask a few roundabout questions about what problems the Freehold might be facing? She was playing at something, that much was certain.

He raised his glass to his lips, taking another sip. And kept quiet for now...simply listening, occasionally stealing a glass from the corner of his eye. Ramona could handle the questions easily enough for now. No need for anyone else to tip their hand.