(The Heist) Indian Poker

[Star]

Ronaldo House

Hope has all but been massacred in the alley, distrust ruts around with solipsism in broad daylight. The houses are run down, graying, with more blasted patches of dirt and weeds, then parched and thirsty patches of grass. Old sneakers hang from power lines. Carrion Birds sit in parliaments, waiting. It's more than just this. Sneaking in, the feeling of void steals into the car. Realization then hits as they get nearer, driving by to case the joint to come back later and parking a block or two away. The house, a three family home with two beaten and run-down doors, and security bars on the windows, is supernally dead.

Florin. A hop, skip, and a jump away from South Sacramento. Plus? No fighting through down-town traffic. The down side is that apparently Jack owns The Munster's Mansion. Peeling paint waves gently at the four as they pass into the house, and shivers as the door creaks and whines closed.

Some houses are disguises. Crappy on the outside, plush on the inside. This... isn't one of them. Now everyone knows to think twice the next time he mentions knowing a place close by. Newspapers cover stains on the floor and industrial folding chairs surround a formica-topped table.

"Soooo... uh. Make yourselves at home. Anyone thirsty? I've got some Gatorade and, uh. Tap water. And a bottle of Monopolova."

Spiked blonde glamorous Lance has the decency to look apologetic.

"Kind of a safe house. Anyway? Compare notes? Who wants to go first?"

He tossed the gallery brochure on the table.

OOC

This is a Dead Zone. Any spell with 1 Potency or less is dissolved upon entry.

Nov 2016

(The Heist) Wild Cards

Nov 2016

(The Heist) The Gallery

Jan 2017

(The Heist) Indian Poker

Feb 2017

(The Heist) The Radio

[Tuesday]

At least it's better then the Baker House. But it still made her itch. Since. Well. Obvious.

Death heel spikes click against the floor as Tuesday makes her way to the table. First she takes the blue wig off, and rakes a hand through the hair under it. "Ugh. Itchy!" and also sweaty. Gross. Throwing the blue wig onto the table she plops her boney ass into a chair. Pulling the death spike heels off which fall to the floor with a satisfying thump. The Unicorn pulls her legs up to massage her poor abused feet.

"Gallery's got a destiny. Like the building itself. I couldn't get a read on it." an apologetic shrug. "I tried. Sorry." Looking at the others, "With the security a little timing, some luck. Doable. And. I should try coaxing the building's Spirits to help us. Or just not want to keep those lasers working."

Threading her fingers through her toes she looks at Star and shares an amused smirk, "Also I'm pretty sure we found the red head in the photo. Audrey. She's a bitch."

Turning to Team Fayrix she tries to arch a brow, "How'd you guys do? Got the light patters and exterior doohickies mapped out?"

ooc

Is Faye still an Acanthus in this scene or is she a Shaman?

[Aurora]

Faye had never been more glad to see her car than she was that day. There was the urge to peel out of the garage and speed to the meeting place, but she didn't. It had been a bad day and getting pulled over and given a ticket would only make it worse.

If Strix wanted to chat about whatever, she would. But if he preferred to be quiet, lost in lost, she could play that too. The building she pulls in front of wasn't what she was expecting, but then again, you never got what you expected from Star. She runs her hands threw her brown wet hair before throwing it into a messy ponytail.

"Uh, water I guess." cause she never liked the taste of Gatorade. Settling into one of the chairs, she puts her face in her hands. Which might still be shaking. "Is there a first aid kit here or anything?" cause Stix was hurt and she knew how to bandage wounds.

"Oh, yeah, we got those figured out." which was said absently. "We decided to get out of the rain and get some coffee, the starbucks which is like, right by it. I don't suggest going there, the place is, eh, kinda messed up." her voice was muffled by her hands, which she dropped. "We kinda got into it with some other mages. And for the record, we didn't start it." she adds. Well, she might have poked the hornets nest by casting bad luck on the bitch, but she had it coming. "It went bad really quickly, like, vulgar being thrown around bad. Think the guy did something to the Sleepers, but still." there was a shake of her head.

"How about you guys?" she asks with mock happiness.

[Strix]

As he figured, the smell of rot coming from his arm was more noticeable when they were in the car, though he figured it could have been worse if her spell had been more effective than it was and could have spread over more than just his arm.

Strix rolled his shoulders when they entered the place nearby Star knew about, not particularly liking the feel of it.

"I would take some tap water as well, please," he chimed in after Faye, deciding to question whether tap water from this place was consumable or not. Sitting down, he let his cabalmate speak and sum up their little bout — because ladies first.

"I'm pretty sure whatever he did with the guy wouldn't be all too out of place in one of those Silent Hill games," he supplied, not really sure if it would tell anyone anything, but they could google image it later. "We decided flight would be better than flight when the man lost control over his creation. As for the gallery itself, it's pretty damn sturdy. Take a bunker and downgrade it some and you get an idea."

Strix rubbed the back of his neck, looking around before gaze switched between Star and Tuesday. "Well, she may be a bitch, but is she a witch as well?" She probably was, but it didn't hurt to ask.

Curiosity did win out eventually, though. "Dare I ask how you know of this place being abandoned?"

[Star]

"Two waters, coming up."

Red plastic party cups. Guess who doesn't trust the dishwasher? He brought them over and deposited them on the table, paused, then picked up the blue wig and fiddled with it. Watch the heels, yo. Someone's gonna trip over those. And when it's 'someone' and 'tripping', that usually means an Angel.

"Wait, other mages?" Okay, so Audry plus...? "Uh. First aid kit. Ummm. I have paper towels?"

They double as plates. He grabbed a roll and set it on the table.

"Is that what that smell is? Gross. Okay, so, yeah, Audrey's a caster, affiliation unknown. But? She mentioned a club the Apostates used to hang out. Went there myself a couple of times when I first got to town, but it's been closed since the owner, uh. Disappeared."

He sat, and put the wig back down. Scootched his chair over across from Tuesday and lifted a foot to massage.

"Sooooo. One, possibly two, other interested parties. All casters. And we're all blown to our respective hostiles. Meaning however we do this, we gotta swap, if we want any sort of surprise. We know when and where the auction is and we got this nifty catalog. Now here's where it gets interesting. It didn't sound like the items were on premise. So I'm thinking we stake the place out and try to nab this radio when it arrives? If that doesn't work out, we can try again at the auction proper. In either case, I thiiiink I can phantasm up a replica from this brochure. So, like, no one should know."

Greeenish eyes looked around to see what everyone thought.

[Tuesday]

Tuesday thought that it had been the house that was smelling so bad. That it was Strix was...bad.

Hazels flick up to Faye memories of the blond being a pathmate felt farther and farther away. While the overlapping ones of her being a Shaman were stronger, more concrete and real. At least she knows that now they're safe that the Thyrsus will be able to heal Strix. Well. Once they're away from this itchy awful place.

Red plastic party cups are no match for the bottled water the blond in the gallery had handed her. A swig taken, before the unicorn sputters. "Wait. There used to be enough Apostates that they had a club they liked to hang out?"

Toes wiggle as a soft smile graces her face. She probably should have known that Star's the kind of guy who'd give a gal a foot massage, irregardless of other people in the room.

"Swapping's probably the best idea. Even if the baddies compare notes on us. If they're, you know. Working together." a soft groan as a thumb hit a sore spot, "Hope they're not. Since then there's no note comparing. But. Yeah. They're probably working together. Since. It's an awfully big coincidence that Audrey and the whoever you guys dealt with were there today."

If she sounds babbly it's because she's still trying to get over Silent Hilling a Sleeper.

"Yeah. I'm cool with a preemptive nabbing. Are you wanting to see if we can get away with the sheers. Or the mirror. Ooooh~. That meteorite thingy?" Hazels dance as she looks at Star. "Kidding! Or mostly kidding. If I thought we could get away with it, I'd remove the 'mostly' and the 'kidding' from that sentence."

[Aurora]

Nodding as Strix talked, “Yeah, definitely something from Silent Hill! But it was still wrong on so many levels.” She shudders remembering the way the man deformed and moved.

Paper towels? That wasn’t going to do much, so she’d just have to see I she could heal him a bit once they left.

“Yeah, two and two that were packing some serious vulgar and powerful shit.” She hoped Star and Tuesday wouldn’t encounter them, but she felt like Star could maybe handle it better than they did.

“Apostate club? Huh, maybe something to look into? Might appear closed, but that wouldn’t really stop people from using the building if they didn’t draw attention. A good cover and place to hide.” A good way for other Mages to lay low.

“They didn’t happen to mention when the item would be at the gallery did they?” wishful thinking.

“Well, if they are working together, you guys need to be on your toes. These two don’t fuck around and will not hesitate to throw vulgar around. I think I was able to give the guy some bad luck which caused him to lose control of his spell. So I’d have those in reserve, or do your best not to engage them.” She didn’t want to see her friends get hurt. Even if she could now heal them. Which was still weird on soo many levels.

“I’m more than willing to try going into the gallery. I’m just still thrown off from the whole change thing, you know? But I think we could still pull it off.” Well, so long as their two friends from the coffee shop weren’t in the gallery. Cause that would really suck. But, she is different now, so maybe they’d be more successful. Worth hoping anyways.

[Strix]

Uttering a 'thank you', he reached for the water with his good hand and took a large sip.

"Unfortunately," Strix agreed at the smell, then he turned towards Faye to comment jokingly, "maybe we should have stopped by some place to get a few little tree car fresheners to hang onto my person to cover the smell."

Strix also got his answer whether Aubrey was a mage or not. Three unknown mages within one day. Fun times. "One of the mages we met was a woman; the man's name is apparently Jerome. Whether that is his shadow name or real name," Strix shrugged in way of saying 'I don't know, figuring it didn't hurt to offer more information they had about the two, "he seemed well-versed in Life magic while she was pretty good with Death."

As proof about the Death mage, Strix raised his arm; at least, his strength had fully returned to normal again by now.

"The woman was staring broodingly at the gallery, whether they were waiting for Aubrey there or doing something else…well, I forgot to ask. It's probably better to assume they do work together. If they aren't, it might make things a little easier." Or not. "What with when two parties quarrel, a third rejoices." Ideally, they would be the third party.

Fat chance about that being the case, though. Call him pessimistic in that regard.

"Stealing and swapping the radio before the auction sounds good, as does swapping roles next time. Should they work together, they might have the same idea — or they simply don't care. The woman we met struck me as the impatient type, so going into a gallery or participating in an auction might not be her cup of tea." Strix made a thoughtful noise. "Either way, I imagine they wouldn't bring the auctioned items too late to the gallery. Maybe a day or two before it took place?" He looked at the others. "I mean...they would need to be properly prepared for the auction, maybe put on display and checked over that no damage came to them during transport. They would want to have a little leeway at least."

And while they were on the matter of swapped roles, he looked towards Faye again. "Maybe you can do something about this? It might spare us the smell getting worse."

[Star]

"Any of you see 'The Martian'? That part where they're talking about the Council of Whatever and Kristin Wiig is all, like, 'I hate all of you'?"

Because Silent Hill. What was that, even?

"Here." He'd gotten up again, and reappeared with an aerosol can that he liberally sprayed on Strix. "Better."

That's right. Jack's answer to Death Spell of Stinky Decay and Ouchies is... Febreze. Better? Maybe not for Strix but totally better for the rest of them. Apply liberally, twice hourly. Like this thumb that found a sore spot.

"Dude. That meteorite." If Tuesday was wondering what Jack wanted for his birthday... "Okay. So. Stake-out? We can take turns crashing here or I can grab a van and we can throw a mattress in the back. Worst case scenario, there's no opp before the auction proper and we have to do it there. Best case, we get it before."

Long fingers of one hand flipped through the brochure as the other returned to one of Tuesday's feet.

"I wonder if the auction is going to be catered? Or, hmmmm. If we should, like, verify this stuff isn't already on-site. Like, tonight."

As in Bee and Eee. Or Burgle.

Cayce does the brochure mention catering/refreshments or anything else that might indicate contract personnel brought in for the event?

[Cayce]

Another look at the brochure revealed that there was, indeed, going to be catering! What was more, there was even a small note at the end of the brochure that advertised the company that was being used: Hannibal's Catering and Events.

Furthermore, as the Magi discussed the possibilities for obtaining the Radio, they realized that the radio was likely already in the gallery. The building the gallery occupied was about twice as large as the showroom floor, and a door was set back in the far wall of the showroom, no doubt leading to a large storage area. Given that the building had once been a warehouse, it made sense that only half of the space had been converted into a gallery, with the rest kept to store pieces for future display.

My apologies for not making this more clear, I forgot that it hadn't been explicitly stated before. Half the building is gallery, the other half is storage, with an interior door connecting the two halves.