(1701) Sanctuary 4

[Star]

Ups and downs.

Days like today? He could feel the insidious lure of the road. Of vagrant homelessness, of not having to clean. The Circle was great, right up until it came time to look at the huge rooms and halls and try to clean them to get them in order. Double sucks for Order of one.

And that's what he'd been doing, when his phone chirped.

Which is why when he appeared from a far door from the yard, he was dirty. And smelled like bleach. Bleach is totally what you use to clean stone, right? Khakis looked like he'd rolled around in a fire pit (maybe he had) and the Deadmau5 shirt had one unhappy, dirty mouse on it.

"Hey! What's up?"

He waved as he swish-swished across the grass.

Why's everyone lying down, yo?

[Campanella]

Campanella shifts in his seat.

"Fail? What do you mean - we failed? We most certainly did not fail. We returned the Obelisk. We reactivated it. We... You! Fought off the Seer's. I would certainly not call the vision imparted by the Oracles a sign of failure."

There, he had said it. No Artefact backlash for him! Had his voice risen? Maybe - perhaps its was due to moving his weight so quickly. His battered body was still healing - and that would be his excuse if pressed.

And then the anticlimax.

A blank look between Faye and the others. "What are you talking about?"

Somewhere in all of that he managed to acknowledge Star's approach.

[Aurora]

Maybe she should have taken some more time to herself to figure this out. She felt weirdly out of place, the attention on her making her uncomfortable. Which in itself was fucked up.

“I, uh, I’m not sure how to explain it.” She shoves her hands into her jean pockets, “I thought it was a dream, but when I woke up, well, things were different. Really different, like, majorly different!” yeah…different.

And then Avis appeared, looking like she survived, barely, a war zone. Seeing Avis hurt, and Campanella obvious hurt made her magic itch. It was weird, it was like her arms tingled and itched at the sight of the injuries.

“I’m not sure how you guys fucked up. You survived, and it sounds like you did what you were sent back to do, that’s a win in my book.” She added with a shrug as she walked closer to the Warlock. “May I?” she asked, gesturing to the injuries, wanting to test her new found Path. But she wouldn’t do it without permission, that was just fucking rude.

When Star appeared, smelling like a cleaning closet, she offers a weak smile. Nothing was said cause she wasn’t sure what to say. Things had taken an interesting turn and she was still wrapping her brain around other things.

The look Campanella gave her brought a heavy sigh, “I’m not really sure, I woke up a few days ago to a complete change in my Path. I’m not an Enchantress anymore, I'm a Shaman.” It was obvious from her voice that it still hurt and strung, and wasn’t something she was comfortable with yet.

But a smile was forced, “On the other hand,” her hands were taking out of her pockets, “I can heal you guys.” And another shrug as she looks back to Avis.

[West]

Acheron is having computer problems, so let's not keep waiting for him

[Tuesday]

"Star!" boy was the Unicorn happy to see him. "We just got back. It...didn't really. Well. Uh. The future-present hasn't exploaded yet. So. Wining?"

Hazels zero in on Avis the moment she speaks. She was fine. Alive. The Obelisk didn't do anything to her.

...but it might have done something to Faye.

And to Campy from the sounds of if. "The future, our present was changed. But...it's already been changed. Maybe this is a change that was supposed to happen..." Is it though? Is this a change that was supposed to happen? Frantically Tuesday pulls upon Arcadia the responding gold glyph sputters into nothing. The Unicorn lets out a shuttering sigh. And tries again, this time a little calmer, and a like more focused.

Hazels, keep watch over the blond who once shared a path with her.

A glyph of gold blooms, her question woven through it. Is Faye supposed to be a Thyrsus?

No matter what her spell send back to her, no matter what she now understand deep in her bones, Tuesday gives the new Shaman a reply. "We could all use some healing. Avis, or Campanella first. They're worse off."

Rolls

  failure

Date		Action		Roll		Result
2017-01-11 12:39:25		Tuesday rolls 5 to Augury (Gno 2 + Time 3) (10 Again)		7, 6, 5, 5, 4		failure

  1 success

Date		Action		Roll		Result
2017-01-11 12:39:55		Tuesday rolls 4 to Augury (Gno 2 + Time 3 -1 retry) (10 Again)		9, 7, 3, 1		1 success

[West]

Remember that Augury is used to ask a question about the future, not a general question. I know YYC let you be vague with it in Bottle, but that was his plot This type of question (current state of being/correct course) falls more into the purview of Destinies and Fate.

To wit: the spell will return a 'Yes' because Faye is supposed to a Thyrsus in the future because she is one now.

[Star]

"Sweet!"

The getting back part. And winning part. But the talk about Faye? Clearly confused. Faye's a Shaman. Always had been. That's why she and Striker hooked up, right? So...

"Jay-ZUS!"

He'd finally gotten close enough to See. The rustle of a leisurely walk turned into a jog, showering morning dew from the grass everywhere as he got to Avis .

"You fall off a tall building and land on your face?"

Flat joke is flat. Because worried. Long fingers reached out to touch. Weird. Was this the first time he'd touched her since... Christmas? Yeah. So, that's weird. And it being weird is weird. But all the Extra!Weird doesn't change the lurching, tight feeling at seeing her hurt.

"Potato."

Between them, a bright green glyph blossomed, spiraling outward to completion before fluttering down into Avis' pattern. He'd waited for someone else, before. But that hadn't looked Bad. This? Looks Awfully Bad.

  Avis recovers up to 5L

Date		Action		Roll		Result
2017-01-11 13:50:51		Star rolls 9 to Fix 'er up! Healing Heart (10 Again)		8, 7, 1, 10, 2, 2, 3, 7, 10, 2, 10, 10, 7		5 successes
2017-01-11 13:50:17		Star rolls 1 to Paradox! (Mana Mitigation) (10 Again, Chance)		6		failure

[Avis]

Avis grunted when she heard the endearment, their code for never giving up, and then her eyes closed and fluttered as she felt the skin on her head knitting itself back together. A measure of pain slipped away as the torn flesh healed, but it wasn't nearly enough. The abyss had seeped into her like vinegar into a dry sponge, and it was slowly eating her from the inside out. Or that's what it felt like. She knew that, in time, it would fade. In time, her pattern would reassert itself.

Her eyes opened, and she reached out a hand again, groping for help, at least so she could sit up and continue the conversation at least somewhat vertically. And sure, she might have been able to do it on her own, but her gut felt like she'd just been forced to do 10,000 crunches, and beyond that, she wanted to feel another human's touch. To feel Star's touch. To help remind her that she was alive; that things would be ok.

"If we'd succeeded," Avis explained, once she'd been sat up, "nothing would have changed. Faye used to be an Acanthus. If her path is suddenly different, if her soul is suddenly different, then it means we fucked the butterfly."

Sure, it might not be as bad as A Sound of Thunder, but...fuck, no, Trump was still elected...

"Fuuuuck," Avis groaned again, burying her face in her hands. "I almost wish I'd landed on my face."

Avis still has resistant bashing, but no more lethal, yay \o/

[Strix]

Strix didn’t consider their journey a failure, the change in Sleeper's history not really bothering him all that much. So what if Sleepers would learn that the Storming of the Bastille happened a little differently than they had? What mattered was that the Seers didn't get the Obelisk and possibly use it somewhere else for whatever purpose their masters had in mind.

Hearing about Faye's sudden Path change made Strix give an ever so eloquent, "Huh," as reaction, along with a frown at the obvious distress in her voice about waking up belonging to a different Path.

Everyone always seemed to see everything so negative.

"Well, not the best outcome, maybe, but it could have been far worse if the Seers got the Obelisk under their control." Strix offered after having been quiet so far, giving a shrug. "Victory with unseen consequences," he offered, looking over at Faye with an apologetic look. "Sorry."

Rubbing the back of his neck, he did nod at Tuesday's suggestion to go for Avis and Campanella first, though Star seemed to have Avis mostly covered. As much as he could help, anyway.

"Ah," he said, remembering the piece of paper he found on one of the Seers and stuffed into his jacket to retrieve it from there, "by the way, I found a piece of paper on one of them. It was a list, but only two items on it were still readable. One was about the Maquis de Sade, I believe, and the other about 'Ashworth' with the date of 28th of March of 2002, which was struck out. I'm also mentioning this because the paper was definitely not out of the 18th century but modern fabrication. Guess we aren't the only ones traveling through time or having help in that regard."

[Campanella]

"Yes," Campanella emphatically agreed.

When Strix spoke, the Moros straightened (and was quickly reminded as to why that was not such a good move). He made a face and moved a lot more slowly.

"What was that? You found that one of the Seers?" He might have laughed a little had it not been so uncomfortable. "My friend, I believe you have given us a lead. We might be able to stop reacting and for once in this... Reality War... get proactive. Have you checked out the names yet?" The last few words came with a sigh as he moved.

Perhaps it was his hopeful eagerness, but he barrelled on: "I could check with my contacts, see if this Ashworth figure makes any connections."