Bright Lights, Big City

[West]

~~Narration~~

Ruby had seemed uninterested in pursuing the ley lines that day, but Theo had already prep'ed himself for the task with spells, and was loathe to waste the effort.

Climbing into his rental, he took his map, and began the laborious task of driving, stopping, checking lines, and marking them on his map. Rinse and repeat.

After several hours, as the sun was beginning to set, Theo had come to several conclusions.

The first, was that Tyria was still a bitch, and this was going to take more than a day or two.

Secondly, there was some damn odd graffiti around town. Some, he had no idea what to make of it, but some had almost seemed Atlantean.

Third, somebody on a red motorcyle might be following him.

[Thistle]

The day was weighing on Theo, more than he would have liked. There had been no shortness of boredom looking alone. The stop and go traffic had almost made him want to just give up the rental and go by bike. The car's AC convinced him otherwise though. He was feeling homesick for the cloudy cool of Germany. The American sky was expansive and beautiful but damn if it wasn't hotter than Spain and Theo wasn't used to it.
He made notes of the graffit and design. He'd tell Tyria of course. He wouldn't ask questions on it though, oh no. He'd look into himself, since he was fairly sure she would give answers anyway.
Theo kept an eye out for the motorbike as he got out to follow a line that flowed oddly around a side street. His suspision had him on edge this late in the evening. He thought about carrying along his spear. Why bring it if your not going to use it after all? It would look odd though, carrying a stick with a point on the top around the city. He wished he'd read American law to know if it was even legal.
"Oooa!" was his voiced frustration.
Theo opened the trunk, got out the weapon, locked up the car again and started walking along the line.

[West]

Theo walks down the alley, and notices some more off the almost familiar grafitti. Odd thing is, as the ley line he's walking strengthens and weakens, the sigla on the walls get larger and smaller.

He's tempted to take a closer look.

As he pauses to debate, out of the corner of his eye he almost sees something. As if, for a second, he could see a ripple of wind blowing.

[Thistle]

Theo turned out of instinct. There was nothing there, but being on edge Theo wasn't about to just go back about work. He knew the higher laws of Forces could bend, twist and negate light and sound. At higher levels of understanding they could render someone invisible. Was that what he had seen? A small flaw in an invisiblity spell?
Of course by looking, he might have alerted them, if they were there at all. Lord, he was getting paranoid. Still it couldn't hurt.
Theo looked past the mundane world, seeing the magic the flowed and permeated everything, even with the Lie. He gazed for several seconds at the arcane energy, searching for spells, auras, and resonance.

Spoiler

01-01-2008 10:00 Theo rolls 6 to Scrutiny Int3+Occ3 (10 Again) 8,10,9,6,8,7,8 5 successes

[West]

Theo's exceptional Scrutiny of the area reveals a very hard to see distortion against a wall, almost like an Aura. Another slight ripple, akin to a heat wave rising off of a desert road, occurs in the midsection.

As Theo continues to stare, suddenly there is a man standing there. He's your average Asian guy, dressed in jeans and a red leather jacket.

"You're pretty observant," he comments, leaning against the wall with his arms folded.

[Thistle]

Within his mind, Theo ran through dozens upon dozens of faces before deciding he had not ever seen this mans. The part of his mind that was on auto pilot during the search of his memories said "Thank you," to the man.
Theo did his best to hide his nerveousness. The man was at least disciple level in one arcana and Theo didn't know what other talents. On some level though he was glad to have been right about being followed. It made him feel justified in a way. Of course now he was in a conforntational situation. But at least he had been right for all the good it did.
"May I know who you are?" Theo asked. A little voice in his head started talking about curiosity and cats, but Theo didn't listen to closely.

[West]

"You can call me Wallflower," he said with a slight shrug. "So what are you doing?" His eyes glance at the graffiti, then focus back on Theo.

[Thistle]

Even with a sense of humor the man felt dangerous. Theo wondered if Tyria might have set this up as some sort of test.
"Getting to know the city better. Truth be told, I wouldn't think it enthralling enough to warrant such interest as you've shown." To say spying seemed accusatory and Theo didn't want to be that just right now.
Still he almost couldn't help himself following up with a "Was there something you wanted?"

[West]

"I was just trying to figure out if you were following ley lines, or the weird-ass runes," he replied with a frank tone.

[Thistle]

And very suddenly Theo found he liked this man much more. Frankness was so refreshing after all the "subtle answers" he had been getting since Awakening. That wasn't to say he trusted the guy, but he did make him smile and Theo's tone was more polite.
"It's been slowly turning from one to both. I'm sure you've noticed a corresponce between the two while following me. Can't really make out the markings though. But then, I can't read normal graffiti without effort, no matter the language. Too much elongation, twisting, and overlapping of characters." He glanced at the warped script before going on.
"Did you make these runes, that you're so interested in who's following them?"