2020.05.17 - Triangulation for Dummies
This log follows the story from: 2020.05.13 - The Ghost Whisperer
The story continues in: 2020.05.20 - Into the Woods Finale - Part 1
It's early evening in Port-Au-Feu and darkness is beginning to chip away at the bright, pastel colors of dusk. The sky is cloudless and there is no wind today, almost like the calm before a storm. Fitting, given the group that has gathered together at the Hidden Grove tonight.
Several fights and a prophecy or two later, Ciaran has called some of his friends and allies together at the cafe to make final preparations for the battle to come. Arriving early in order to claim a table furthest away from the door, he waits patiently for the few he asked to come. There would not be a representative from the witches this time, although he intended to reach out to them later.
He's dressed in a rather serious black, given the usual colors he wears. Black short-sleeve button-down shirt and a pair of black jeans. As he waits at the table, his fingers begin slowly drumming on the surface. He fiddles with the buttons of his shirt with his other hand, an edginess and nervousness in his movements. He can't seem to sit still tonight.
There's certainly a representative from the witches, if all witches are considered to be included in that classification! The door opens to admit Tenebris, dressed in his bodysuit today, curiously, instead of his usual more normal (for lack of a better word) clothing. It's skintight, with cutouts all over it to show off glimpses of his well-honed form, and seems to shimmer only when it catches the light, like some sort of sublimated sequins or a very understated glitter. Otherwise it looks black and fairly matte, and it all flows into everything else: gloves and boots appear almost to be a part of it. But it's different now than it was the last time, which was different than the time before it. Perhaps it's magical in nature.
He looks confident as usual, but there's a kind of tiredness in his eyes. He did say he intended to do something last night, and it's reasonable to assume that he's just been busy doing that. Perhaps solidly, since then. Maybe he can go without sleep for a while. Whatever the story, Tenebris strides to the table and comes to a stop there.
Otis is one of those called, though including the taciturn giant in a planning session is an interesting choice. It's probably for what he can provide, carried on his shoulder in what looks like a professional document tube. It's leather and everything.
The big man himself is just in jeans and a Henley, the sleeves pushed up to mid-forearm. He doesn't head directly to the table, although a slight flaring of his nostrils indicates that he knows that Ciaran is already there. Instead, he heads to the counter, where he gestures to the barista on duty that seems to know what that gesture means, depositing a HUGE cup of coffee on the bar. Paying for his drink, Otis makes no bones about just -taking- the honey bear at the condiment station and carrying with him to the table, where he grunts an amiable greeting to those assembled.
Lucien is in a pair of black jeans, but color seems to be gradually creeping into his wardrobe. The shirt that he is wearing is a dark, blood red Henley, though the light jacket over it is black, as are his usual combat boots. He's armed, per usual, and a pair of dark shades either sit in front of his eyes if the light is bright, or are pushed up on top of his head when indoors, or in sufficient shade. He appears serious, but then he almost always appears serious, as he sits with the others, awaiting the start of the planning session. He has a cup of coffee in front of him, but he hasn't touched it.
Taliesin got the message to come to another planning meeting. After their last jaunt with ghosts he is ready to put all of this behind him and resume his life of pretending outsiders do not exist. He's dressed in an orange long sleeve shirt and a pair of jeans and has his guitar case slung over his shoulder. Walking in he spots Ciaran, and Otis, but tilts his head at Tenebris. When he spots Lucien he smirks. "Careful, people might think your wardrobe has color." He's teasing of course as he finds a chair and makes himself comfortable. "Good to see you again, I hope we're not going to die this time."
As everyone makes their way to the table, Ciaran nods at each one in turn. He doesn't comment on how Tenebris looks, but he does note that he seems the slightest bit more subdued than usual. As Otis rests the document tube on the table, Ciaran gestures at it with his hand and to the table. "Otis brought something to help," he says in a soft voice so that it doesn't carry too far into the cafe. Even though it’s not full today. Still, it pays to be cautious.
The corner of his mouth lifts up at Taliesin's words. "Oh, hush. You didn't die the last time," he says with a shrug. "Or the time before that," he adds. Looking around the table, he begins "Thanks for coming. As I shared with Tenebris last night, and you witnessed first-hand," he says with a nod to Taliesin "A bit of information has come our way. Useful information, even though it doesn't exactly bode well." Frowning, he leans back in his chair. "Long story short, we were called out to the Enchanted Forest and delivered a message from a ghost. Tenebris believes this message means that the Abomination has created another." Holding up a finger, he clarifies "And I don't mean the lesser creatures we encountered. Another Abomination."
A nod is spared for Otis, and Tenebris seems to get that slightly playful smile back for the big bear of a man. There will be another time, another try. Then Taliesin arrives with his own comment, and things start leaning towards the meeting rolling to a start. "Thank you, Otis." There's a little bit of mirth there, even if he is holding back in noticeable ways.
And the subject shifts to more serious pieces of the mystery, fitting together in their way. It is concerning, but there's still hope. Still strategy. "They've been learning more," he explains, with a tone he hopes is comforting or reassuring somehow. "They sometimes imitate other life, in attempts to infiltrate and destroy from inside. But it is only ever an imitation of life. They do procreate, but they still haven't started to react to the distress of their own kind. They couldn't care less if another one of them is annihilated. After all, chaotic, wanton destruction is something of their modus operandi."
Otis grunts at the recognition from Ciaran and Tenebris, giving the witch a smirk of his own. He blinks twice at this new information about a new Abomination, and there's a very dangerous-sounding growl that rumbles through his chest and doesn't really dissipate. His expression is dark as he opens the document tube, coaxing out the rolled paper within with thick fingers. Once it's out, he puts the tube on the floor and unrolls the paper. On it, there's a charcoal rubbing of what appears to be a detailed relief map of all the wooded areas between Port-au-Fe and Queen's Cove, all the way to the sea. It's too big for the table -- it's the size of a door, nearly, but Otis' arms are wide enough to hold it open over the table.
Lucien glances over toward Otis when it is mentioned that he bears something that might help, studying the man and the item that he bears. He gives a faint little smirk at Taliesin's comment on his wardrobe but doesn't comment otherwise. His attention flicks back to the charcoal rubbing as it's set down and his brow furrows at the mention of an Abomination. "So now they're multiplying." He groans. "Great. Because one wasn't enough."
"I could die at any minute, it would be tragic." Taliesin teases back to Ciaran, but then they're getting serious. When Otis rolls out the map he leans over it, trying to get a feel for the area. Flicking his wrist toward it, a small speck of light hits in the area that he, Rey and the others fought the creatures. "Well here is where we met the weird wolf with two mouths thing, if you point out the other spots I can light them up on the map." It's just a little illusion, nothing fancy. Hearing that there might be two of them he frowns. "Well that's fucking tragic."
Ciaran gives Lucien a knowing look. "Yeah, tell me about it. And if you thought the wolf was bad... I don't even want to know what this thing is going to look like." He then nods to Tenebris. "Which explains why there hasn't really been much of a... pattern to the attacks or locations. There's no coordination at all, and it seems random. Hence why this part of it is so important." As Otis rolls out the charcoal map, Ciaran pulls a pen out of his pocket. Smiling at Taliesin's light, he winks. "I came prepared this time." It's one of those that has different clickers for multiple colors. More for school than practical use, but it serves his purpose.
Ciaran leans down and begins marking spots on the map. As he circles each one, he indicates what it is. A green circle around the park is the spot closest to the town. "The park, plant mutations." Several inches away, a circle in blue. "The tentacle creature." Back towards the city again, a brown circle. "The brownies." The final circle is further into the map than the others where Taliesin lit it up, and he circles it in purple. "The wolf and the hounds." Glancing up, Ciaran adds "Which, by the way, Tenebris believes may have been creations of some kind as well. I couldn't detect any trace of life in them, so it’s entirely possible they were never real dogs to begin with. Here's hoping," the last two words are mumbled under his breath.
As Ciaran finishes indicating all the spots, he leans back. "So this is the area we're working with," he says as he traces a black line between each the circles, creating an approximate diamond shape. "With the center being here," he says as he makes a cross in the center between points. "Odds are, it's near the center of this oddly shaped semi-diamond." He traces a circle within the furthest triangle, away from the park. "By the time those plants got to the park, they were well away from the taint. So I'm leaning towards this circle here." Glancing up at Tenebris, he cocks a brow. "Don't suppose you have any way to narrow it down further than this?"
Raising a gloved hand, Tenebris waves it dismissively, though not quite casually. "I shouldn't worry much about it dividing. That may actually mean that the pair are weaker than usual. It would take a time for it to recover from that, and time for the new one to come into its own energy." He watches the map light up, and with a flick of the wrist, he's produced a pendulum, presumably from...somewhere secret in that very form-fitting bodysuit. "They thrive off negative energy, so they have to soak it up. And of course, they generate it too. But even they take time to get it together. Here, use this." He holds out the hand, and his pendulum, to Ciaran.
Once that's taken up, Tenebris figures it'll be a simple matter to use it. Anyone taught in most magic will be able to use it effectively enough, probably. But there is an important difference. "Abominations are creatures so anathema to everything in this universe that you'll be better off scrying *around* it, rather than trying to pinpoint one directly. I've been setting up some magic locally -- spell symbols, runes, sigils, and the like. We should have an altogether easier time now, at least locating it."
Otis' growl is not going away, and his mouth flattens even further, disappearing into his beard. Now that others are working on the map and holding it down, he's free to step back and fold massive arms over his chest. He watches as each of the spots is marked, and grinds his teeth a bit. He -is- magical, but he doesn't know enough about magic and scrying to offer any insight. So he defaults to security mode, watching the table and those nearby with sharp eyes.
"So locate all the areas it isn't, and the void is the most likely place it is?" Lucien muses from where he sits, finally lifting up his cup of coffee and taking a sip from it as he watches Ciaran make his circles on the map and Tenebris provides information on the pendulum and how it might be used as well as the magic that he's set up.
Taliesin looks over the map as the circles are drawn and shrugs his shoulders. "Of course, if there are two of them now, this might only solve half of our problem." He leans back in his chair and quirks a brow as the pendulum is brought out. "Oh how fancy."
Ciaran takes the offered pendulum from Tenebris and holds it over the map, near the spot he's circled down to. "Taliesin, be a dear and project a pinprick of light down from this?" he says with a smile to the other Fae. With that, he moves the pendulum slowly over the map, allowing his magic to flow into it and seek out the absence, the void, the /missing/ life that he feels so keenly whenever one of the things is nearby. As the pendulum moves, it seems to be drawn to certain points. It's slowly apparent that there are two spots on the map it's swinging around, no matter which way he moves it. At each one, it begins to waver just a bit before swinging another direction.
A subtle adjustment in Ciaran’s hand has the pendulum slowly circling one of the points. "This is one," he says as he follows the light down and marks it on the map with a thick black dot. "That other spot must be the second," he says as it swings back and begins shaking slightly in place. He marks that one as well. "So, two targets. We should probably eliminate them simultaneously, lest it multiply again if we only take one out first." Glancing at the others, he hands the pendulum back to Tenebris. "Thoughts on how to handle this, guys?"
Tenebris circles around, close to Otis, and reaches out to tentatively touch the man's shoulder. And if it's not a particularly bad reaction, he'll move to rub his fingertips in certain places. Relieving. Soothing. Comforting. He isn't an acupressure expert, but he knows a thing or two about which places in the muscle tend to be tension centers. "Well done, that's exactly the strategy," he replies to Lucien. And then, a moment later, to Taliesin. "I'm sure Ciaran can find both of them. I don't expect them to be the best at stealth...just taking a different track to detect."
Then Ciaran is doing exactly what Tenebris wanted and expected, and he takes the pendulum back, pausing in his sort of makeshift therapy to make it disappear again. "I think the solution is obvious," he speaks up, first. "We attack on two fronts."
Otis is a solid mountain that doesn't react to that light touch on his shoulder, although his gaze shifts to Tenebris thoughtfully. But the massage has the intended effect, and that low-grade growl shifts into something more rumble-like. His jaw doesn't loosen, but he offers a nod for the strategy being discussed. He reaches up to tug at his ear, and wrinkles his nose as he makes a show of counting those at the table with that same hand, then lifts his eyebrows inquisitively at the witch, then at Ciaran.
Lucien nods in agreement with Tenebris and says, "I think that's what we're going to have to do. On the upside, hopefully since it recently divided, both are weaker than they would be if it was just the one on its own.. if we're going on that working theory. On the downside, it means we're also going to have to split our forces and our resources, making sure we have enough magical damage that can take them out on both teams. Because I don't have any sort of magic that's going to take one of these down. Best I can do is annoy it with stabbing until someone else can take it out." "Let's split up, we'll take more damage that way." Taliesin says dryly but he shrugs his shoulders, they really don't have a choice. Looking to Lucien he nods his head. "Perhaps we can call Rey up on that favor of enchating our weapons. Sure they won't be to the level of his blade, but if they can at least do damage on these assholes we'll be in better shape."
Ciaran nods at the comments made by the others. "Yes, I agree with that. Lucien, you're right that we are going to need to make sure someone can banish these things in each instance." Pausing to reflect on that, he nods to Taliesin. "Enchanting your weapons may be a good idea right about now. Also, Jesse mentioned stepping up training until this matter is done and over with." Mulling it over, he traces the circle around the two dots where the Abominations are most likely lurking. "We're going to have to be strategic about how we do this. I suppose Tenebris should lead one team and I should lead the other." Glancing sideways, he adds "We can't wait much longer. I say no more than one week to prepare before we attack. Delay anymore and more of those things might spawn. Or they'll create more offsprings to derail and distract us."
Taliesin gets the hint of a smirk from Tenebris. "We're not in a slasher film. Or a giallo, thank goodness." He quiets again, returning to his ministrations to Otis, in attempt to soothe and relieve the tension caused by these Abominations, even indirectly. "I would suggest that we make certain those of us who fought the thing in the forest and banished it are in both parties, if possible. At least one of us in each party. That way, we'll have the necessary first-hand experience to be sure of it. You who were there with me saw how it dissipated. That's exactly what we need to make sure happens to these as well."
Otis doesn't really soften under Tenebris' ministrations. If he had a question, he doesn't repeat it, although his expression is dark. Abominable influence or just grumpy beard, he definitely looks like a man about to stalk out. He looks around the group as the plan is made, and nods once, at Tenebris' recommendation. Then he bends to retrieve his document tube, slipping the strap over his shoulder before fishing out his phone and swiping it open to make a calendar reminder with a small dip of his chin.
"We may have to ignore anything else they spawn to distract us while we focus on bringing them down and clean up the rest afterward, if it comes to that," Lucien says. Then he nods in agreement and says, "We'll have to enchant our weapons if we can, or we might risk not being effective at all. And training never hurts. I'll go with whatever group you want to send me with. And I'll try to make sure that I'm ready with what I need for when it's time to go."
"Slasher film or not spreading resources will be taxing and could cause injury, but hey I'm just a pretty face what do I know?" Taliesin shrugs. He listens to the rest of the planning and nods to Luicen and Ciaran. "Yep, training, enchantment, all of it sounds fantastic." He nods to Otis as he gathers his things and looks at the map for a moment before getting to his feet. "Is there anything else you need of me?"
Ciaran nods to Tenebris at his suggestion. "Yes, Rey was able to take one of them out with his Blade. Pretty effectively, I might add. That sword is all kinds of magic." Letting out a faint sigh, he folds his hands together on the table and looks at the others. "I'm confident we can do this. And, if certain conversations are to be believed, we rather need to. If higher powers get involved it may get even messier." He frowns at that thought, definitely not a good outcome. As Otis picks up his tube, Ciaran glances at the map. "Okay, I'll take this back to the Court and show it to the others. Tenebris, let's plan to meet at the forest's edge mid-next week. We'll split up there and head to one of the spots I marked."
Cairan gives a decisive nod, slowly beginning to roll the map up. "Taliesin, Lucien, let's talk to Rey about getting your weapons enchanted. I think that about covers it." As he finishes with the map, he gives Otis an affectionate rub on his shoulder. "Thanks for bringing this," he says with a warm smile to the large man.
Lucien gives a nod of his head when it seems that the planning has come to an end and they have the things that they will need to work on in the coming days. He finishes off his cup of coffee and then slides out of his seat, giving a nod to those gathered. "Until then. You all know where to find me. If something happens before we're ready to go out, just call."
"We can do this." Tenebris looks between the assembled heroes, the braves readying for a great battle in the immediate future. It is approaching, inevitable, but there's not the slightest modicum of fear or insecurity in his tone. Maybe he is afraid, but he hides it well; it's Tenebris's cool way of carrying himself that helps in so many ways. No use panicking and causing his allies to panic. "I have done this most of my life. While you may not all be trained War Witches, you are all very capable in all the things you know to do. We can do this...and we shall." He finally smiles a tad, again. "I'll be with you. And more importantly, the blessings of Mandra will be with us. No abomination could stand against that."
Is the bear listening to Tenebris' pep talk? If Otis is, it doesn't seem to be penetrating. His look is thoughtful, although he nods when the man finishes speaking. His gaze snaps to Ciaran at that shoulder rub, and his expression is hard. His eyes seem flinty, and he grunts a deep, removed noise from deep in his chest, shrugging off any further rubbing. He nods to the younger man, and Tenebris, and the rest of the group. Then, he turns on his heel to actually stalk out, his back stiff. A group of patrons near the door disperses like a flock of startled birds when he approaches and growls a short, sharp sound. Still, it clears the door so he can push through it. And then, without looking back, he's gone.
The story continues in: 2020.05.20 - Into the Woods Finale - Part 1