(PRP Fire Heart) Kindling

[Phoenyx]

The Arrow glanced across to the others, then up and down the alleyway for anyone lurking.

"It's definitely a style I've seen before," she says, before looking to Puck. "But they look a little... unfinished. The older artists tend to have more accents. Here... and here, for example. Are you sure they're from people you know? I don't want to assume and you walk into a place where people just happen to use the same style who haven't had a formal education." It wasn't accusing, more thoughtful. She knew Puck wasn't the most informed on Atlantean after the Astral Dive. The double-speak was a pain, but necessary. Hopefully her meaning would be clear.

She looks back to the wall. "Also, it's not an invitation, more a... marker. See this one? A place of importance. And if this one were a slightly different shape, it would mean a beacon, but without it's more like... "monolith"? A waymarker, or a site. I don't suppose either of you have an easy way of... cleaning it? What building even is this?"

Phoenyx starts making her way up to front, to look around.

[Yumyumcrow]

The group is coming together, slowly.

Kaze finds a seat by the coffee outlet - a light metal chair accompanied by an equally small table. Thankfully, the outlet gets by on a few meals as well so there is a menu for him to 'peruse' while he keeps an eye on things.

Guru and Puck continue to 'admire' the artwork. Working with Scrutiny reveals a faint resonance of anticipation staining the small office building and its immediate environs. The Shaman's Life focus doesn't show up anything particularly disturbing - just what he would reasonably expect from an office building left vacant.

Under Puck's Sybil's Sight the building manifests an unusual knot of strands, vibrating as they fall into place. No wonder his Winds of Chance led him to this spot!

Enhanced by the Interconnections spell he wove, Puck examines the strands further. An EVENT is happen, or is about to happen - that much is certain. Inside the office building. The warp of Fate weaves tight and dense in the area but his discerning gaze can pierce most of the density. The Event is intimately tied to the trio who painted the sigils. Two of the trio are intimately connected with each other; the third less so (they are more Known than Intimate). The group's connections stretch away to the south-west (Acquainted) with a fan of weaker connections trailing south.

The group collectively have a frail Encountered connection with Puck himself. And with Phoenyx.

The group as a whole is Acquainted with something inside the building - something which has Intimate and Known connections stretching to the south-west and over the horizon. Given the depth of his scrutiny, he can detect the subtle shifts in the Intimate and an Acquainted connection - that the Intimate is new and carries with it the hard edge of destiny that is deeply welded to the Event, and that the Known connection used to be Intimate but has been deeply abused to weaken the connection (and that weakening has something to do with the new Intimate connection's ascendancy).

A singularity of Destiny is forming, bending and warping the strands even as he scrutinises their depths. They don't have much time...

Meanwhile, the Arrow among them is moved action. Phoenyx crosses the street and heads toward the office building. It is small as such building's go - two stories high; large shaded glass panels for windows; a small parking lot. The glass door at the front has been painted dark colours, and appears locked. There are "Vacant" and "For Lease" signs still evident and not showing much ware. The lot sports a few ugly flower beds - corporate, sterile, things - rendered worse by neglect and lack of water. The Arrow can ascertain that there is a rear entrance and a small garage space on the lot.

Hidden from the view of the street and parked carefully in the garage space is an older model sedan that has been very well cared for. The vehicle's interior is obscured by sun shading.

Near the garage space is a back door. The door is shut... But unlocked.

[Guru]

With Kaze off at the table that left Puck and Phoenyx but that was only for a second as she broke off from the group. He peeled back the layers and came up blank, alright so not magical no innate life signs. Then Puck said it was a message from his peeps and he furrowed his brow. Were the more Council here than he'd known about, was that a problem? Something seemed off to Guru. He took a few steps forward after Phoenyx but paused and waited for Puck not wanting to leave him behind. He didn't know if or how Kaze would follow but he was sure he'd try and stay under the radar. He was to curious to not go and investigate hoping this was a simple wellness check on some errant Councilors.

Active spells:
Pulse of the Living World / Sense Life (Pot:2/2)
Organic Resilience Pot: 5
Evidence Shroud Pot: 4 Combined Life+Matter
Spell Limit: 3/6
Spell Tolerance: 3/3

[Puck]

Welp, this was ominous...

The sympathy wasn't a surprise given he had scrutinized. Graffiti by a wierd love triangle was a new one, but the apparent countdown didn't leave much time for contemplation.

"We need to move. Now. Do me a favor?" One finger stabs towards Kaze as he looks at Guru. "Call Kaze back and either tell him to fuck off or stop fucking around. I don't care which."

Crystal had grated on his nerves for standing around and complaining in the Astral Realms, but at least he had the courage to keep up with Phoenyx. Kaze didn't even seem to be trying that much.

He rolls his eyes as he moves over to Phoenyx.

"Three people. Possibly abusive relationship? But otherwise close. Something is very likely to happen. Here. Soon. And they want it to. Some other connections south and southwest, but the thing is happening here. Inside."

For the time being, he follows the First Talon.

[Kaze]

Kaze gets up when he sees Phoenyx moving.

He sees Puck point at him and shrugs, okay we're pointing each other out in public now... cool.

Kaze waves back at Puck to acknowledge his gesture.

He heads over to back up Phoenyx as she takes a direct approach with the investigation.

Alastor would have had us scope it out, find out about the building and who owned it and everything before we went in. Weavebreaker would definitely have been more low key about the approach.

But they left, and Phoenyx is the Arrow in charge, so she's calling the shots.

Kaze hurries over to cover her back, glancing around to see if anyone seems especially interested in them. He's really just rushing to get to Phoenyx's side before any potential trap is sprung, though.

failure

Date	Action	Roll	Result
2021-07-24 16:41:14	Kaze rolls 6 to perception (Wits 3 +Composure 3) (10 Again)	4, 6, 4, 1, 2, 6	failure

[Phoenyx]

Going around, Phoenyx catches sight of Kaze moving and a small smile tugs at her lips. Despite Puck's irritability, she knew he would have her back.

She looks to the car curiously, hoping her Supernal sight would tell anything.

As the others follow, she looks behind and keeps her voice low. "Place has a lot of obscured glass, so anyone inside may have seen us. You sure those markers were from your friends?" she asks Puck. He never answered the question.

Though she also smiles a little at the Acanthus. She couldn't help it, the Arrow felt alive when there was danger. It was what she had trained her whole life for. "The thing about Fate is, if we do something then something happens. If they wanted something to happen, it could be related to us, or not. We'll only find out if it was a lure if we go inside.... and thus do something."

She removes her bag and pulls out the knife, clipping the sheath to her shorts. Then she rests a hand on the handle of the knife. "I'm going to perform a small trick to hide us from mundane recording. After that I'm going in to investigate. Kaze, you come second, then Puck, then Guru. Stay alert."

failure

Date	Action	Roll	Result
2021-07-25 05:56:36	Phoenyx rolls 1 to Paradox - base 2 -1 (magical tool) (10 Again)	3	failure

failure

Date	Action	Roll	Result
2021-07-25 06:00:31	Phoenyx rolls 6 to Invisibility to Machines: Gno+Forces+2(HS) -4 (4 targets) (10 Again)	6, 4, 7, 4, 1, 4	failure

She scowls. That wasn't right.

failure

Date	Action	Roll	Result
2021-07-25 06:01:01	Phoenyx rolls 1 to Paradox - base 2 -1 (magical tool) (10 Again)	5	failure

2 successes

Date	Action	Roll	Result
2021-07-25 06:01:29	Phoenyx rolls 5 to Invisibility to Machines: Gno+Forces+2(HS) -5 (4 targets, second attempt) (10 Again)	8, 8, 5, 6, 7	2 successes

As the spell blooms to life, she puts her back against the door and a hand on the handle gesturing to the others to move to the side.

[Yumyumcrow]

True to her nature, the Arrow's action breaks the deadlock.

Kaze moves; the Obrimos moving so quickly and abruptly that Puck had to wonder if he did have some command of Mind and his irritation had seeped into a full blown Urging cantrip.

Guru started. And then stoped. And started again as the the Acanthus took off after the First Talon.

The group collected around the back of the office building, by the garage and the out-of-place car. So far, so good, for it appeared that no Sleepers (or anyone else) had been watching them.

Some exposition for the office interior

The door (when Phoenyx moves to open it) opens smooth and quiet, revealing an empty storage area: an ugly rectangular room with naked brickwork for walls. The room has three doors. One is the back door, by which the party will enter. A second leads into the front space or reception area of the building (now disturbingly naked of furniture of any kind). A third door leads into a corridor with some office spaces - small cubicle rooms with walls made of light partition materials. The corridor is missing panels in the ceiling; wires and ducting hang down like feeble vines or entrails.

The light inside the building will be muted and sepia coloured thanks to the obscuring paint covering the windows.

[Guru]

He asked for a favor but it came out as an order. He turned over his shoulder to look at Puck an incredulous expression on his face before his eyes shifted and saw Kaze bringing up the rear. He shook his head and turned back around to follow Phoenyx, had Puck seen something dangerous? Then he gave the rundown and all it did was confuse things for the Shaman. Something. They. Too many variables to solve for still.


His head his mind trying to work out the math but fearing a confrontation, this wasn't the spider's nest Guru hadn't been planning for a confrontation. He'd just been out getting a coffee and ended up in a mess, he'd need to adapt rapidly. That's ok man, remember, be like water. "Yea, we're on the backfoot I think anything we do here is going to be reactionary. We just don't know enough right now."


Guru can't help but watch as Phoenyx calls upon the Supernal, seeing how she forms her own mudra watch as it built upon and suddenly collapse on itself before being forced into shape, she had a good idea and he'd take her cue. He did it for himself and he'd need to do it for them now. He'd have to drop his longer lasting one in favor of this shorter one. He'd have to redo the ritual tommorrow. Once Phoenyx began her casting anyone inside already knew something was going one anyway. "I'm going to do something similar; you won't leave any trace behind no dead skin, no hair, no footprints, nothing. You can choose to accept it or not."

3 successes

Date	Action	Roll	Result
2021-07-26 15:34:25	Guru rolls 5 to Evidence Shroud (Gno + Matter + HS -4 Targets) (10 Again)	9, 8, 10, 7, 4, 5	3 successes

Guru hadn't quite picked this trick up as a rote yet but it was an imago he called on often, he just had to adjust for targets. He'd give it to those who'd accept the only person in question, in Guru's mind, was Puck at least. Once the pattern took hold it formed around those who accepted it.


Guru had worked with Phoenyx before and they'd gotten out in one piece. Ears ringing, but in one piece. So when she said what was going to happen he nodded his agreement, made sense keep the medic in the back. Operational Support, that's what I can do! The hairs on the back of his neck began to stand on end and he shook his head falling in at the rear.

Guru drops the ritually casted Evidence Shroud for the new one to stay within Spell tolerance.
Took the higher penalty for max targets but you can choose not to accept it if you want it.


Active spells:
Pulse of the Living World / Sense Life (Pot:2/2)
Organic Resilience Pot: 5
Evidence Shroud Pot: 3 Combined Life+Matter
Spell Limit: 3/6
Spell Tolerance: 3/3

[Yumyumcrow]

Remember the casting time for Ritual Spells Shane Guru

[Guru]

It was the ritual spell that was dropped in favor of the shorter duration one to keep his spell Tolerance down. This one cast should be instant cast with the instant cast penalty for number of targets. Though it's entirely possible I missed something.