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Veritas Willpower: 5/6 | Destiny: 4/5 | Conditions: None | Spell Effects: As Above, So Below (8-again / High Speech / 1 week) “Bright side, the diner doesn’t seem to be doing any harm and the food is fine as long as you’re not bothered by a complete lack of nutritional balance.”, Veritas offers as a sort of reassurance as she comes up, cradling her drink. (It's a Coke.) “But I checked around the area, and most people seem to have had their memories altered… and I say altered, yeah? Time still seems to be intact. Still, means there isn’t going to be a fuss about this sort of thing, which is a plus.” She looks thoughtful, “The people in the diner seem honest enough, though. Imports from Chicago, averse to the number 13, mildly superstitious.” There’s a slight pause, and she asks of the other cabal, “Has anybody else seen any other sudden bouts of Americana, come to think of it?”
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Aug 2, 2016 03:02
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| # ? Apr 25, 2024 21:47 |
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Imogen "Sephone" Ryan Sephone is dressing down today and has a loose resemblance to the John Constantine-associated vision of Death, but that just means she put on a lead ankh and has let her hair get frizzy. She really does look like a different person out of formal wear. Indeed, she's counting that. "An entire one?" she asks Parsival, raising one carefully exaggerated eyebrows. Then to Orion, "I'm sure they will." Her arms fold. "Well, they're getting the most of it. I can say that they seem to be as alive as you can expect the sort of people you'd find at a diner to be under Cameron." One hand comes up. "But." Her eyes turn towards the others for a moment. "There was something baout them. They smelled... You know when you pick a lemon off of a tree and it's not ripe and it's all full of that horrible fluffy white stuff, with this little hard nut of a fruit? No? Well, perhaps you should understand the analogy anyway." Sephone inhales deeply. "They were like that, spiritually."
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Aug 2, 2016 08:50
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The lady of the lake "Did anyone research the people themselves? does city hall have records of them, where do their families live, that sort of stuff? Because something is off here, in a very 'little tea shop that wasn't there yestoday' way. It's not timetravel, the temporal disturbances aren't great enough for that." The lady voulenteers, having just entered teh conversation. "though it does strike me as... interestinf, if nothing else, that the two establishments occupy similar cultural and societial roles. Pubs offer cheap, good food after a long day's work or an evening out with friends, and it is one of the most English things there is. The same seems to be the case for that sort of burger bar in american culture. Perhaps some sort of... archetypical replacement has happened? "
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Aug 3, 2016 01:37
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Malgis Willpower 5/6, Mana 10/10 "A sort of full scale archetypical displacement? Its certainly possible, I suppose. One question that it might be worth finding out is just where this diner came from? Did it come out of nowhere, or is there some city in the United States that suddenly found a pub that's always been there? Because that would be a quite different type of magic, wouldn't it? If this is actually a replacement rather than just a transformation? One thing I can say with some certainty is that the place appears to be real. These are actual people, not illusions or some sort of magical constructs." "The other question, and perhaps the more important one, is what's going on with the shifting of the leylines? As far as I know, they're not supposed to do that. But is the creation of this diner the cause or the effect? Was there some kind of magical effect so powerful it pulled the diner here and the laylines shifted as a result of that? Or was it the shifting of the leylines that created this diner? Or was it some third event that caused both? These are questions, and not answers, but asking the right questions is necessary to get the right answers.
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Aug 5, 2016 03:47
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Pneuma Pnuema looks up from his ebook as he comes into the conversation. "The issue with that, Malgis, is that that sort of magic either rewrites the past as an effect of Time shenanigans, or leads to a massive blowout of Paradox, and seeing as the news channels aren't reporting some sort of 'terror incident', we need to think outside the box." He ponders for a moment. "Maybe something's changed," he points up to the ceiling, "in the Supernal? Seeing as this world is like, a shadow cast by the Supernal Realm, if you move, doesn't your shadow change to reflect that ?"
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Aug 7, 2016 02:05
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Veritas Willpower: 5/6 | Destiny: 4/5 | Conditions: None | Spell Effects: As Above, So Below (8-again / High Speech / 1 week) "Oh!", Veritas starts up out of the blue. "Well, they had... indications of Chicago... thereabouts... maybe we could see if a place like that existed there?" She folds her arms. "On the other hand, maybe any signs of it already having been there already shuffled off." She bows her head slightly. "Ah, talking about this place so much is making me hungry for it again...", she admits with slight embarrassment.
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Aug 9, 2016 01:16
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Meeting "At least one." Parsival shakes his head. "That's part of why we called the meeting - to see who else has lost from this. I'm afraid we three have been too busy looking into the ley lines around here to check the people...did you get names for them? I'm sure it wouldn't be hard for someone looped into government systems to check their names..." Orion shakes his head. "Need a snoop for that. I hear all those Guardian types are in government, but none of my friends are. What's this about their not having proper souls? These aren't actually people here?" Herne grunts. "It'd make things simpler if that were the case...if they're not people, that opens a number of other solutions. But leylines I can speak to. They don't move most of the time, but they're not static. They respond to changes in geography, but most of the time that's gradual - construction projects and so on - and to changes in resonant power. If an area becomes focused on a different emotion in some event or series of events, that'll color the leylines and can shift them. The thing is, most changes aren't sudden or powerful enough to move leyline nodes - the things that correspond to Hallows and other loci of power most of the time. That's where a number of leylines cross." The door opens up and a small group shuffles in. These are all in black - the Old Crows, a group of necromancers and Death specialists. The first of them is Janus, a lanky Frenchman with greasy hair and a black leather jacket. "What's this about souls? Has something happened besides this giant Hallow weakening? My lab's been weakened significantly." Behind him is Isis, a Pakistani Free Councillor with a bit of an Egyptology fetish. She is wearing a purple head-covering and an ankh necklace. "Couldn't have come at a worse time, either. We've been working on some experiments lately." The other two are silent. One is Morrigan, an Irish Free Councillor who has dyed her hair jet black and tends to the pretensious, and the other is Theophrastus, better known as Theo, a Silver Ladder alchemist and the only member of the Old Crows that isn't a specialist in necromancy. Parsival heads over to greet them, and Orion nods to them before speaking. "The way I see it, the first priority is figuring out how to fix this. Finding out how it was done might let us reverse that. But seriously,. Chicago? What the hell would the point be of transplanting a restaurant here from Chicago? My money is on someone making it, maybe based off Chicago, but not that it's from there directly. Not that I know why you'd do that, either, but..."
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Aug 11, 2016 17:43
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Veritas Willpower: 5/6 | Destiny: 4/5 | Conditions: None | Spell Effects: As Above, So Below (8-again / High Speech / 1 week) "Well.", Veritas says, buying time for a moment while she thinks. "Have we started making a map yet? Maybe if we chart all the shifts, we can start to see a pattern." She rubs her neck. "Seems a bit obvious, I know, but it seems like a good place to start, doesn't it?"
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Aug 13, 2016 14:57
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Badger Badger nods. "Map'd help a lot. See where the leylines have moved. Could also see if they're connected to the diner in terms of movement; it'd be terrifying to learn they all shifted to get farther away from where the diner is, but it'd be something. So would finding out where this diner came from. Anyone know any Awakened in Chicago they could ask? And, if we don't mind risking it, we could summon something up and ask it if anything in it's realm changed. There's also the question of timing. Look, I'll be honest - I was out camping the night before, and was, uh, indisposed. Anyone here awake and sober? Have we tried to find anything else that could've gone on that night? Sorry if it sounds like all I got is questions."
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Aug 26, 2016 05:41
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Meeting "A map would be useful, yes...hang on." Parsival heads outside to his car. He returns moments later with a map taken from his glove compartment. "Knew I kept this around for a reason." He stretches it over the table, and Herne starts tracing ley lines on it in pencil. "These are the shifts we know about..." Isis grimaces. "No, that node's moved. It's gone now." "...ah, right then..." As the map is being drawn, the last two arrivals show up - a pair of smaller cabals, both only two mages. Findlay and Wyatt is the first of them, a small solicitor's firm that works primarily in criminal defense. The two men, Findlay and Wyatt, are both cheerful Scots with a love of drink. One is Silver Ladder and Obrimos, the other Guardian and Mastigos. The other cabal is the Collegiates, a pair of Mysterium scholars called Ramsay (an Indian man) and Thoth (a quiet local woman). Findlay and Wyatt have gotten drinks even before coming in. They cheer as they enter, and Findlay waves his mug. "Can you believe what's changed? It's bloddy amazing-oh, what's the map for? Ley lines?" He grins. "Bloody things moved and I'd like to find whoever did it and shake his hand. Wyatt and I, we've each got our own private Hallow now!" Thoth raises an eyebrow. "You went from zero to two overnight? Ours just got a bit more powerful." Isis grimaces. "You're telling me you came out of this with positives? That's...going to be an issue. We were hoping to put things back the way they were somehow." Orion gestures to Herne. "Keep mapping. This...we'll have this argument later. But trust me - I'm not sitting here and letting our Hallow get...get stolen. Did you lot cause this?" The map is taking shape, at least. It looks like the leylines got forcibly shoved about - most have very few connections to the area around the diner now. New lines formed and new nodes were made by the sudden shoves. Whatever put the diner in place appears to have just taken the old lines and pushed them away, sometimes up to ten kilometers away. The small ones that are forming around the diner will take months, perhaps even years to be able to support new Hallows near the locations of the old ones that were lost or moved.
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Sep 14, 2016 20:24
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Darrow Darrow's brow furrows. "Like someone took a great big stone and threw it in the water." He gestures at the displacement around the diner. "I'm no expert in the matter, but seems to me this is all just side effects. I hardly think any of us would spike a diner in the middle of town to shuffle some Hallows. Hell, I'd be amazed if anybody could've predicted the movement even if they'd been warned ahead of time." He leans back. "So I don't think 'cui bono' is the right approach here. At least for Hallows, that is. What we want to know if is there was any motive involved, or if this was just chaos at work. Some drat fool walking the wrong rune on a pub crawl while high on the right mix of bath salts, that sort of thing."
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Sep 14, 2016 22:52
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Veritas Willpower: 5/6 | Destiny: 4/5 | Conditions: None | Spell Effects: As Above, So Below (8-again / High Speech / 1 week) "Hey now, let's not throw blame around without reason behind it.", Veritas says, standing up partially as she looks to Orion. She settles back in, looking a little crestfallen for a moment. "I was hoping the map would give us some center other than the diner, but I suppose... we... missed something.", she admits. "Still, there are other things to look at, take a closer look at the shadow world, or the divination, try and find other realms it might ripple through.", she adds, as if trying to pick things up. "Main point, being rash isn't going to help anybody." She looks to her cabal a little nervously and then to Darrow, as if floundering a little.
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Sep 16, 2016 08:14
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Pneuma Seeing that Veritas is floundering a bit, Pnuema grabs the conversational thread and soldiers on. "Look, she's right. The last thing we need to do is squabble over territory and cast aspersions on each other. We need to focus on the matter at hand. Something has dramatically altered the very nature of our city on multiple planes, overnight, without any of us feeling anything. How are you all not terrified? Especially you two" He points at the pair of drinking lawyers. "We are Awakened, for god's sake! We hunt for the deeper Truth! And when confronted with 'huh Hallows don't normally move', you sit back and blithely accept the facts? " A sneer appears briefly on the young mage's face, and he turns back towards the big map. " We should figure out some sort of patrol setup, see if we can have willworkers capable of looking into at least two different planes sticking together at all times. Something caused this, and we are going to get to the bottom of this."
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Sep 16, 2016 08:57
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Badger "Again, wasn't here when all this went down, and I'm sorta waiting for anyone to speak up and say what that night was like in the first place. Alternately, we head BACK to the Diner and do more then just peak around as far as the other realms go. Really dig in, see if anything's changed. Maybe even have a summoning." She stares at the map a bit longer. "...Did anyone think to look this place up on the internet?"
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Sep 16, 2016 21:46
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Malgis Willpower 5/6, Mana 10/10 "Well, the real problem with just saying "Huh, guess we have hallows now", he points out to Findlay and Wyatt, "beyond what my sodales have said", Magis points out, is that you may have your hallows now, but unless we find out why this happened, you may not keep them. Without knowing what caused this, who's to say it won't happen again? Ley lines are where they are for a reason. They start getting confused, and, well, who knows what we'll end up with?" "So, right.", he says, looking at the map. ""That diner seems to be a very large rock dumped in a very small pond, and the ley lines are just rippling out from there. I agree that that's the key." He waves off the suggestion about the internet. "That'll no doubt have changed along with everything else. I mean, it's worth a look, I suppose, but I don't know if there's any point to spend too much time on it. It's the diner that's the key. Last night, I tried seeing through barrier, to uncover what I could about the mysteries of the place, but I didn't have time to really concentrate, and didn't have much luck. Maybe, though, with a more concentrated effort, we might find something.
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Sep 18, 2016 17:19
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Meeting Orion looks over at Darrow, then nods. "That's right. This...could be something unintended by anyone. At least, not directly...an undiscovered runewalk would be something, too. The problem is, we'd have to discover it without walking it again, or at least find out what it does without making something else like this happen." He still seems tense, however. Orion likes having something to fight. Findlay and Wyatt, on the other hand, are looking angrier. "Yeah, and if gold fell in your lap, you wouldn't celebrate?" Findlay walks over to Pneuma, getting up in his face. "Things change our city all the time. It's been one fecking day, you bloody oval office. Don't you get all self-righteous on us. We search for a deeper Truth? Aye, we do, but there's no call running around like a fool." Wyatt moves to hold his partner back as Findlay turns suddenly, but all he does is slam his mug down on a table hard enough to rattle it. "You want to pretend the sky is falling because you don't understand something immediately, do it. But don't you tell me I'm just accepting things because I'm not a coward. Try me again and you'll regret it." Isis sighs. "We'll handle looking into the realm of the dead here, but I doubt has our answers. Perhaps they might be found in the Astral? You mentioned proto-souls...my first guess would be those might come from the Underworld or the Astral. Both have a deep connection to human souls that we don't fully understand." Herne nods to Badger. "They have web presence. It's...well, simplistic. A cheap website, looks like it was thrown together by a college student or maybe a bright high schooler. Tell you what, let's divide up areas of responsibility. We Grail Knights will handle looking into the local spirit courts to see if they know anything. Maybe some newcomers came with this stuff. You can join us if you want, but...well, we need to let off steam anyway, I think," He looks over at Orion. "...actually, Findlay, Wyatt, you join us for that. The Old Crows will take the Underworld." Thoth raises a hand. "We'll join them on that." Herne nods. "All right. That leaves the Astral." He looks you all over. "How about you lot look into that? Anyone who wants to do some extracurricular work backing up one of the other teams, whatever, do t. But at least now we all have something to do here. Any objections?" Pause. He grimaces "And, you know, not that I mind a fight, but maybe don't pick one while we're all gathered in one spot next time? Eh, Findlay, Wyatt, Pneuma? As for time travel...well, if you can handle it, go to. I don't know how to do it."
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Sep 21, 2016 22:36
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Badger Badger's voice comes out thick with challenge. The air of violence was starting to get to her. "And if there IS a fight, you let me know, so I can throw any of you boys who can't keep your cocks in your trousers out, head first." After a moment, she...well. She doesn't cool down. She does, however, stop glaring at least a little. "...Right then. We'll head over and check out what we can. If anyone wants to do something else, speak up now." FFW to the diner to check out the astral?
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Oct 6, 2016 12:16
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Veritas Willpower: 5/6 | Destiny: 4/5 | Conditions: None | Spell Effects: As Above, So Below (8-again / High Speech / 1 week) Veritas sighed in slight relief. It wasn't a perfect situation, but it'd do for now. Getting up, she says, "We're on top of our part. Until this is worked out, no point getting distracted with shenanigans, right?", she adds more confidently. It would feel better, at least, digging back into the situation instead of... well, whatever this is.
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Oct 6, 2016 21:29
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