Molly Toombs
Earlier today Molly had gone to visit
Nate, as she's made a habit of doing since he came through the emergency
room doors half-dead and she pumped air back into his lungs to keep him
from slipping all the way past those silky curtains until he could be
moved into an operating room. When she'd paid her visit today, he had a
particular favor to ask of her.
There's an envelope on my desk. Burn it.
After
drilling him for the reason why, because it was such a curious request
to make, it came to light that the envelope had been delivered to him by
a group of what he called 'shades', but what she would call ghosts.
They'd told him that it needed to be burned seven days following when it
was delivered if he hadn't heard back from them. He'd explained that
today was the seventh day and there had been no sign of this group of
ghasts, so he needed that envelope burned. Not shredded, not torn up
and thrown away, but set to fire and turned to ash specifically. He
would be in that hospital bed for probably another three days or so, to
see how far physical therapy takes him and gets him back on his feet,
before he'd be released. Counting him a friend, believing the situation
he was in, Molly agreed.
She already had his apartment keys,
these had been claimed from his personal belongings while he was in
surgery the night of the crash. She'd used them to make sure his
apartment wouldn't go to seed in his absense-- she'd moved dirty dishes
to the dishwasher and fed the kitten. The next day she brought the
kitten over to her own apartment, because it was reported the poor thing
yowled and cried all night long being left alone as it was.
This is why the apartment is dead silent when she unlocks the door around eight at night and steps inside.
Molly Toombs
[Perception 3: Diff 10 for lack of Awareness]
Dice: 3 d10 TN10 (3, 5, 6) ( fail )
Molly Toombs
[Perception 3 + Alertness 3]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 7, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )
cold
The
hard-luck reporter who lives in this apartment has been gone for just
less than a week. Six days, and it's funny what a place'll do with
absence. After Molly took Lucifer away, orange girl-cat getting lankier,
still young but not palm-sized any longer, the place just emptied out.
The apartment feels like an absence when she unlocks the door at around 8
pm on Halloween in order to burn an envelope as a favor to somebody
instructed to do the burning by a pack of ghosts. The apartment feels
like absence and also like a window open somewhere: it's
bite-into-ice-cream cold.
And yes, the silence is dead. The
shadows are thick. The lights are all off and Molly can hear something
in the walls. Not an animal noise, just a settling noise. Pipes
cracking, maybe, pipes settling, plumbing working, the house is
settling, the foundation is settling, there's nothing in the walls,
there's no space between the walls for something to be, certainly
nothing that can stand that kind've thick and condensed dark, nothing
watchful in the dark, nothing watching, watching in the nothing between
spaces between rooms the walls that hold you in, nothing
nothing at all nothing oh
nothing in the walls, it's just the apartment settling that she hears.
Molly
has been here since Nate's accident. Molly, as far as she knows, is the
only person who has been here since Nate's accident, but she is
particularly alert right now -- maybe it's those noises she's hearing in
the wall combined with what she knows about the world now, maybe it's
just a moment when she's polished up to a sharp edge. But she's
particularly alert right now, so she notices that that the coffee table
by the couch has been moved. Just a little. Enough that she could tell
herself it was her imagination, except she knows it's not. And once
she's seen one change, she can see others. There's a glass in the sink
that wasn't there when she left. The bedroom and office doors were
closed.
The door to his office is ajar now.
Molly Toombs
Molly
had walked into the building, pressed the button for the 9th floor on
the elevator, and walked confidently, comfortably up the hallway to the
door marked 9D, almost as though she lived there. Except she didn't,
she was just apartment-sitting. The neighbor that liked to be nosy was
used to her coming by. She'd explained to this person, sparing all
details, that Nate was laid up for a bit and she was just checking his
mail and watering his cactus until he got home.
Tonight when she
showed up, she was dressed in what she was wearing as a Halloween
costume. It was a stretchy black dress whose hem stopped above her
knees and whose sleeves reached her wrists, and the fabric clung to her
considerable curves, exaggerating what she had even with the neckline
modestly up to her collarbone. She had black stockings, black
high-heeled ankle-boots, and a red peacoat. Her eye make-up was dark,
her lips painted bright red, and there was a standard pointy black witch
hat on top of her head. Nails dark like deep deep blood gleamed,
polished smooth in the hallway light, as she twisted the knob and opened
the door.
The red peacoat that she wore for the cold weather was
unbuttoned and shrugged off. She was going to drape it over the back of
the couch, but gave pause to hear the accoustics of her heels clicking
on his floor. Something seemed off, and it took her a moment to put her
finger on it. It wasn't anything she heard necessarily-- the apartment
was empty, there was no one there with her at all.
But that glass
she was sure she'd put in the sink basin, not left at the edge of the
counter. And she knew his coffee table wasn't that far away from the
couch that it sat in front of.
She was even more convinced that
she hadn't left the door to the room that wasn't his bedroom open.
She'd made sure to close all of the doors in his home when she took Lucy
away for the sake of conserving his energy bills. She'd left the heat
down quite low, but didn't turn it off completely in Nate's absence.
That
momentary pause passes with a low sigh that didn't carry any
vocalizations along with it. She should be worried, more tense than she
actually is, but more than anything she was exhausted with the idea of
already dealing with oddities. She'd just walked in here and hadn't
even taken the BIC lighter she bought at a gas station upon leaving the
hospital earlier today from her coat pocket yet.
All the same,
that lighter is retrieved, and her coat is laid over the arm of the
couch. From there, her heels clack quietly (she carried her weight
well) through the hall and to the door that led to his office. It was
nudged open with the toe of her shoe, and only after her eyes were given
time to skim the office for potential danger did she walk inside and
search for the envelope-- she remembered precisely where it had been on
the desk, but wasn't positive it would be there still since other things
were out of place in here.
cold
Molly doesn't see
any signs of robbery, doesn't get the feeling that anybody is waiting
in a closet or in the bathroom, doesn't hear any person breathing,
trying to hide.
Into the office, then.
Up go the lights, and
they buzz like the lightbulb needs to be changed. Poor Nathan, coming
home after such an accident to poor lighting. Still, it's just a dying
lightbulb.
The mail that Molly has been leaving on Nate's desk has
partially spilled off the desk, and the envelope in question - heavy
cream-coloured paper, dust-with perhaps some fingerprint smudges from
dust and darkness - well it's on the floor.
cold
[Mystery NPC #1.]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 4, 6, 10) ( success x 2 )
cold
[Mystery NPC #2.]
Dice: 10 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 4 )
cold
[3 & 5.]
Molly Toombs
[Oh Christ. Perception 3: No Awareness, Diff 9]
Dice: 3 d10 TN9 (1, 2, 5) ( fail )
cold
And
as soon as Molly steps into the office, she'll get a sense of being
loved, of being safe, a burrow-deep-into-warm-laundry feeling, smell of
grandma's turkey feeling, Christmas morning as a kid and a hug from your
mom when you're sick, chicken soup and saltine crackers and: it's just a
warm, loving feeling.
Molly Toombs
As she entered
the room she felt around for a light switch and flipped it up. The
lightbulb in the ceiling buzzes dim and weak, and Molly glances up
toward it-- waiting to see if it bursts and dies. When it decides to
carry on another day, she drops her gaze to survey the room she'd
entered.
The mail she'd been stacking carefully away from the edge
of Nate's desk has spilled over, the pile making a line off the desk
and onto the floor. Down there on the floor was that thick-papered
envelope, with a utility bill fallen on top of it. She glanced around
suspiciously-- couldn't shake that feeling of something being amiss.
Despite
that, despite knowing that things were out of place and Not Quite
Right, this room felt perfectly fine, though. It must be where Nate
spends much of his time, because suddenly it seemed like the only
lived-in part of the home there was. It even felt warmer than the rest
of the apartment. She had found a glass and plate in here, after all,
so it only made sense. She had half a mind to just stay right there
while she set fire to the envelope, even though it would make much more
sense to just go out on his balcony and take care of it.
Her knees
bent, kept together because Molly was practiced with wearing dresses
and skirts and traded them out for pants and jeans often, and Molly
stooped down into a crouch and began gathering up the mail that had
fallen.
The bills go back into the pile, and the envelope is held
in both hands in front of her. She stands in those heels, about three
inches high, without needing to hold the desk's edge or push off the
floor for balance and support. As she rises, she examines the envelope,
checks to see if it's sealed or simply closed over.
Molly Toombs
[Straight Wits 4]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 10) ( success x 1 )
cold
As
Molly gathers the mail, her left ear-stud falls out. Doesn't plink,
doesn't make a noise when it hits the pile of mail, but she sees it fall
and roll under a bank statement, maybe even spies it where it lands
just under Nate's desk.
The envelope feels old to her, the paper
thin. Like going to a library and touching archive paper, it's a miracle
it hasn't dissolved into dust. The envelope also feels heavy, ridge of
papers, something square and, if she pays attention, something inside
the envelope, a lump. There's a little tear in the corner, as if an
animal had chewed on it once.
In faded pencil, the scrawl almost illegible but not for Molly, Salome Willis
Holding
that envelope feels like, as a child, holding your mom's hand and not
being scared anymore. Molly wasn't scared, but that's still what it
feels like: a comforting hand.
Molly Toombs
When
Molly's earring had fallen out, she'd taken enough pause to retrieve it
and its back from where they'd fallen on the floor. She had to put a
hand down to support herself and stretch an arm to reach the little gold
ball from under the chair, but it's obtained and put back into the
piercing hole in her ear, and she's up on her feet in no time.
When
she'd straightened back up and dedicated her attention to investigating
the envelope, she found that the thing seemed ancient-- old and out of
place like the name that was scrawled on the front. Her fingers were
gentle, almost loving when they ran along the edges of the paper. They
found a corner to be torn slightly-- gnawed, perhaps, by a mouse or
moth. She smooths this imperfection with her thumb, and holds the
envelope between the flats of her palms, gauging the lump in the middle.
It
seemed right there in her hands. She felt almost as though it were a
letter from a loved one-- not from her parents, those phone calls and
letters were boring more than anything else. Not from her brothers--
she loved them, but they were teenagers and didn't offer much that was
interesting to say. It was like an unknown entity-- maybe someone that
she'll love dearly in the future. A love letter from ten years down the
road.
....But.
It needs to be burned.
Molly didn't
want to, but she remembered Nate's story well and knew that things were
out of place and wrong when she got here. She was a collected creature,
cool and smart and cunning. She had a task at hand, and she would see
it through.
So she took in a deep breath, checked to make sure her
earrings were still in (stupid earring backs, they're so unreliable and
flimsy), then turned off the office light and turned her back on the
room, forsaking it in favor for a path to the kitchen.
cold
The
earrings are in place, although when she touches the right stud its
back will fall off; she is quick enough to catch it, quick enough to
re-fasten it.
The apartment is still quiet. Just Molly's
breathing, just the sound of her heels. Not even Lucy, miaowing her
demands, scratching up the couch or the pillows or any stray socks left
on the floor or heck a book cats will scratch anything.
If she
tries turning on the kitchen light, it won't work. Burned out. The
living room light will work fine, though it'll buzz too. Buzz, buzz.
cold
[Mysterious NPC #1.]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 6, 6, 6, 6, 10) ( success x 5 )
cold
[Mysterious NPC #2]
Dice: 10 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 3, 5, 5, 7, 7, 7, 8) ( success x 4 )
cold
[6 & 4.]
Molly Toombs
Out
in the apartment it's cool and dark again. The warm-fuzzy feeling that
the office gave her faded away soon as she exited the doorway.
Out
here she doesn't turn on lights everywhere she goes. His apartment's
layout is fairly simple and easy to navigate. He didn't have odd
decorations or furniture arrangements to mess her up, and she wasn't
skiddish enough to need the light to accompany her wherever she went.
In the kitchen, though, she did reach for the light switch because she
would need to navigate the cupboards.
She flips the switch. It doesn't work.
Again
with the exasperated sigh. She's winding up in her chest, getting
tighter and tighter there, but she won't acknowledge it outwardly. Once
you let panic pimple your flesh with goosebumps and change your pace of
breathing it'll take a hold of you and make you lose your direction.
So she ignores the fact that Things Aren't Right still, ignores the
tension in her spine and neck and the bird flying in her ribs begging
for escape, and starts combing through Nate's kitchen in the dark.
When
she finds what she's looking for-- a glass or tin mixing bowl or
serving bowl of sorts (and if that fails, a cooking pot will have to
do)-- she closes the cupboards, tucks the bowl under her arm, and
crosses the short distance between kitchen and sliding glass door to
head out onto the balcony.
Molly Toombs
[Willpower]
Dice: 7 d10 TN7 (1, 2, 2, 2, 4, 7, 9) ( success x 2 )
cold
Molly's
ears pop when she steps out onto the balcony, when the air pressure
changes. Out on the balcony, there's noise. Neighbors having a Halloween
party, a few distant but fun-having screams. Traffic from outside, and
further off the barkbarkbarking of a dog.
Molly Toombs
The
pressure in the air shifts when Molly gets out onto the balcony, and
her ears pop as a result. She glances suspiciously over her shoulder,
back into the apartment, but shakes her head some and closes the sliding
glass door behind her. Reconsiders, leaves it opened a crack. She
didn't want it to mysteriously latch and leave her stranded out here on
the ninth floor all night.
Neighbors are partying, dogs are barking, but Molly isn't concerned with them.
She's
careful if it's windy-- she'll keep her grip on the envelope so that
the wind can't steal it from her fingertips. She'll reposition herself
if need be. However this works, Molly finds herself sitting in a chair
that Nate has wedged out there for lounging in while he smokes and
balances a laptop on his thighs, leaned forward with the mixing bowl
between her ankles and her lighter in one hand and the envelope in the
other.
She hesitates, and speaks quietly to no one (because no one
is there, right?) as she clicks idly at the flint mechanism of the
lighter.
"I'm just doing what was asked. And I hope that it's
correct. ...And that this helps. Somehow. With whatever it is you
need."
Well, here goes.
The lighter clicks to bring flame to life.
cold
Molly
standing by the window can hear how silent it is inside compared to
outside; the silence inside the apartment is thick, is waiting, isn't
absence any longer. Sure, there's something loving, oh yes, loving and
loved about the envelope, but not the apartment any longer. It's just a
dark apartment.
The lighter clicks to bring flame to life,
but it doesn't work.
Not
the first time she tries. Not the second, either, and if she tries a
third time? a sharp prick at her thumb, like the lighter bit her. No
blood, or no more than you'd get from a papercut or a hang-nail.
Molly Toombs
Click-click-nothing.
That's okay, lighters take a while to get going sometimes.
Click-click, nothing here either. Molly begins to suspect that
something on the outside (or inside, back behind you) was at play here,
but she gives it another try anyways.
Click-click-- "Shit!"
Molly
curses and drops the lighter, draws her thumb back toward her mouth but
stops and shakes her hand to air the snare of pain out in the cool
autumn chill of settling evening. She'll gather the lighter back up,
but not to use it again. No, instead she sits there with her elbows on
her knees, not caring that they were apart because there weren't
buildings around quite tall enough to see her and she was close enough
to the wall that no one would be looking up her dress anyways. She sits
like this because she's too wrapped up in Something Else to be
concerned with how she looks right now. She sits like this because
she's weighing whether she really wants to go back in or not.
Sure
enough, because Molly is reliable if nothing more, that sliding glass
door slides open and she goes back inside. She remembers that Nate has a
gas range-- she'd cleared an empty pan from it when she'd checked in on
the cat the first time around.
She goes back toward the kitchen
and sets the mixing bowl down on the counter beside the stove. If
nothing inhibits her otherwise, she'll try lighting that next.
cold
Click-click-click-click-click-click-click
and the hiss of gas. No flame.
If she turns it off, then tries again, click-click-click-click-click-click-click-
and the hiss of gas. Tiny flame! Not the full ring; to get that, she'd have to blow on it- but perhaps just one is enough.
Molly Toombs
[Wits 4: Molly, be a smart girl now.]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 5, 9) ( success x 1 )
Molly Toombs
Molly
tries the gas range, and it clickity-clicks its way rapidly into the
chilled, dense dark of the kitchen. The fact that it doesn't work even
after she cranks the switch all the way to the right sets that flutter
of panic flapping hard in her chest.
"Oh my god, come on, please
now," she begs quietly of the stove, leans her weight forward against
the appliance (like she's hugging close to the flame that's supposed to
come, like that warmth and light would protect her and keep her safe
again) and cranks the switch again.
Click-click-click-click-click-click-hisssss.
"Yes!" The sound is a quiet elation whispered from her lungs.
But
all that she got was a tiny flame, just a start, down too low for her
to reasonably manage to wedge the envelope in and catch it fire. She
was scared it would blow out on her. But then there was the
alternative....
It's nothing but suspicious staring and
calculation for several seconds, then Molly takes a breath, backs her
feet and hips up away from the stove, and leans forward. With her face
as far back as she can manage without making herself ineffective, and
with the envelope held up over the stove top where the flame danced and
beaconed and budded, she pushed her lips into an 'O' shape and blew.
Molly Toombs
[Courage: 4]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (5, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )
cold
[Mysterious NPC #2.]
Dice: 10 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 4, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 6 ) [WP]
cold
[>.> 8.]
cold
Molly
blows and the ring of fire catches blue all-round and then the flame:
gouts up. The sound it makes as it rends the air is like cloth being
torn or wet fabric flapping, coupled with a hiss. If Molly weren't so
careful, she'd've been burned for certain. Above Nate's oven there's a
black scorch-mark now, and the flame collapses in on itself just after.
Back to gas? Molly has other things vying for her attention: a chug,
chug, thick-throated cough, gasp, sputter, this deep and growly
pipe-sound that ends when the sink's water explodes into being, sends
water spraying out've the sink and onto the ground, and Nate's
refrigerator door slams open, whatever's within rattling, the bowl Molly
placed on the counter falls, the envelope pulls itself out of her hand
and goes skidding out of the kitchen.
And this is harder to put down as oddness, as coincidence, but some people would be able to do it.
Molly Toombs
[On a scale of 1 to 10, how much will Molly shit her pants?]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (1) ( fail )
Molly Toombs
Fire
makes a pillar out of the stove top, through the air and into the hood
of the range. There will be a scorch mark there now when Nate gets home
at last. Molly withdrew quickly enough that her face didn't catch
fire, though. Unfortunately, the envelope was yanked from her hand
before the fire had chance to scorch it, and she had to jerk her hand
back to prevent that from catching fire too.
The sink burst with a
rumble-whine-moan-growl, and sent cold water splashing up and over and
across the backs of Molly's legs. On top of that, the fridge door
banged open and closed violently.
Despite all of this, Molly still
has presence enough of mind to watch where the envelope skitters off to
and note its landing place, if there even is one. The fire had calmed,
and though water poured all over Nate's floor Molly scowled and shook
her head. She glanced back to the sink, contemplated for a moment what
was the priority, then determined that she should at least cut the water
flow before anything else.
"Oh you melodramatic asshole," she
grumbled into the air, and stooped down under the gushing water flow--
the hat did something to help keep the water off her face, but not much
overall. She'd find the valves under the sink and crank them until the
water was shut off.
With that addressed she'd stand back up and
remove her hat so that she could brush her wet hair back out of her
eyes. The hat was abandoned on the counter so she could go chasing
after that fucking envelope one more time.
"If there's a damn good
reason not to burn it, this would be a good time to tell me. Because
otherwise we'll just be doing this all night long. I've got noplace
else to be."
cold
[Mysterious NPC #1]
Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (1, 2, 2, 5, 7, 10) ( success x 2 )
Molly Toombs
[Perception: 3]
Dice: 3 d10 TN9 (2, 8, 10) ( success x 1 )
cold
No
whispery voice from the air. Nathan doesn't have convenient letter
magnets on his refrigerator, forming words. No real answer.
Under
the sink, the pipes make threatening-burbling noises at her and water
drip-leaks onto her as she cranks the valves, but nothing else explosive
happens. The refrigerator door stays open. The fire is
click-click-click-clicking gas again, but no flame. The envelope has
made it all the way to the couch.
Or maybe there is an answer, of sorts.
Because
Molly can feel, just for a second, a breath on the back of her neck,
sluicing cold. This unsettled settling, this cold-clamminess
goose-pimples all over, coupled with pins and needles, pins and needles,
which fade. But something stays, uncomfortable beneath her skin.
There's that: a sense of discomfort,
sense of something making room for itself
inside her bones. A shadow overlaying her own shadow.
Molly Toombs
She's
uncomfortable-- chilled without being actually cold yet. She's wet--
she'll want to towel off before putting her coat back on and leaving.
She'd resolved out loud to whatever it was hindering her progress that
she would get this done if she wasn't given a reason not to.
She
had straightened up and made it so far as the dining area between
kitchen and couch before she was stopped by a chill seeping into her very bones.
It
wasn't just the cold, oh no, but a sense of a presence. She wasn't
sure if it was intelligent, or if it was malevolent. Whatever it was,
though, it wasn't a part of her-- it was something outside, and it had
found its way within the core of her, and she sure as hell didn't give
it permission to be there.
She shivered violently and though no one (no one)
could see it, her face went pale and her eyes widened with mute
terror. She had no idea what to do-- if she should yell out, if she
should stamp her feet and throw a fit, if she should cross herself and
remember some half of a prayer that she picked up television and
occasional church sermons, if she should sacrifice a small animal....
That
still didn't last for long, though, and if she was able Molly would
make a rush for where she was sure the envelope had landed.
cold
[Mysterious NPC #1]
Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (1, 5, 5, 6, 8, 8) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Molly Toombs
[Willpower]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 6, 7, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 5 )
Molly Toombs
[At Diff 7, that's 4 suxx.]
cold
[Mysterious NPC #2]
Dice: 10 d10 TN7 (1, 1, 3, 3, 5, 5, 5, 7, 9, 9) ( success x 3 )
cold
The skeptic might claim that when Molly rushes
for the envelope the movement disturbs the air and that's why the
envelope whisks underneath the couch, just ahead of her fingertips. The
skeptic would be telling him or herself pleasant fictions.
Because
this is what happens: Molly rushes, and she can feel, as she reaches
for that packet of papers and who knows what else, that whatever cold
has settled in her marrow, whatever presence is lurking under her skin,
well, that thing yanks on strings and she has to fight for control. Not
when she lunges, no:
But when she reaches, her hand wants to go
somewhere else independent of where she wants it to go. Her hand wants
to grab an ashtray from the coffee table. Her hand wants to grab
something sharp, something heavy. Her hand wants to, and it is a
struggle of will to keep it from doing what it wants.
Molly
manages to keep control, and it's then, once she has rushed and lunged,
once she has reached and is relatively still, it's then that the
envelope whisks under the couch. But that rat-eaten corner is sticking
out.
Molly Toombs
This is all momentary, but this is how it goes:
In
the short amount of time that it took for Molly to move those couple of
quick steps across the floor to the couch and to extend her hand, she
felt the thing, that presence that had settled within her try to divert
her path. She'd gone down onto her knees quickly to reach for the
envelope on the floor, but she felt the muscles and wires in her arm try
and direct themselves elsewhere. It wasn't unlike taking magnets that
didn't want to play nicely together and trying to make them touch-- the
pulling sensation was quite akin. But Molly fought it, and instead of
grabbing for the ash tray or lamp on the end table beside the couch she
dropped her arm for the envelope.
It whisked away under the couch, so her hand missed and her fingertips grazed floorboards instead.
"Oh
for fuck's sake!" She's hardly quiet anymore. Any noise that she
could make now couldn't disturb the neighbors anymore than the sound of
bursting pipes or rushing flame would.
The gnawed on corner of the
envelope poked teasingly out from under the couch, within eyesight and
reach. Molly stayed down on the floor, on her knees with the palms of
her hands together on the ground as well. She stared at the envelope,
breathed shallow and uncomfortably, then pushed herself up into a
kneeling pseudo-sit. Her feet were under her rump, which settled back
against her heels and calves. Her hands were left at her sides,
knuckles brushing the ground. She looked frustrated, worried, run
ragged, but not necessarily defeated just yet.
"Why? Why the hell do you ask someone to burn an envelope and then fight me tooth and ghostly nail for it? Come on now!"
She asks no one. And waits, hoping for an answer.
cold
[NPC 2]
Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 9) ( success x 4 ) [WP]
cold
[NPC 2 again, for something else.]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 4, 8, 10) ( success x 2 )
cold
Molly
opens her mouth but Molly doesn't begin to speak. Something else does.
Something else, using her vocal chords. Using her lungs, using her
throat, using her body. Something else speaks using her, and she can
hear herself as she always hears herself when she speaks but her
intonations are different. And there's another voice, too. Molly opens
her mouth and Something Else speaks and that Something Else's voice is
the twin and echo to Molly's own so it's an eldritch duet. The something
else sounds like a woman with a clear voice honeyed a bit of a strange
accent. Irish maybe? but not quite what you'd think of as Irish today,
something a little skewed.
"We didn't ask for that. The one
who did is harrowed and lost to shadow, but a traitor. Nothing good will
come from burning the envelope. Leave it."
Molly Toombs
[Perception 3 + Empathy 2]
Dice: 5 d10 TN8 (1, 1, 1, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )
cold
[Again!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 4, 8, 10) ( success x 2 )
Molly Toombs
[Second Time, Same Roll: Perception + Empathy]
Dice: 5 d10 TN8 (1, 5, 6, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )
cold
[...]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 6, 6, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )
Molly Toombs
[Third Time's a Charm]
Dice: 5 d10 TN8 (2, 3, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )
Molly Toombs
As
soon as she had finished talking, her answer had come. She wasn't sure
how it was going to arrive-- maybe just an impulse in her mind? Maybe a
voice would whisper in her ear? She couldn't be sure, but she
certainly wasn't expecting to feel all the parts of her body that made
words being taken over. She didn't control the air in her lungs or the
flex of her vocal chords or the movement of her tongue lips teeth. But
her voice made words, mingled with a mirror tone so it sounded like a
duet when she spoke-- when Something Else spoke instead. The dialect to
her own words was old, Gaelic maybe, or some ancient and long gone
variation of an immigrant's tongue.
That wasn't exactly what she was focusing on.
When
the words stopped flowing and she was able to control her lips and air
again she gasped a breath in and touched her fingers to her throat and
the top of her chest. She stared in stunned quiet down at the envelope
and thought long and hard about the words she'd heard.
After a
full minute of quiet, fingertips reached slowly and cautiously for the
envelope. She spoke as she reached-- the motion wasn't trying to be
sneaky, by the way. It was more like when a dog snaps its teeth at you
for trying to pet it, and you try a second time with calmer, slower
motions and an open palm to show that you mean no harm. That was more
how Molly reached for that chewed up corner of folded paper and aged
glue.
"Why should I trust what you say? What happens when I burn it?"
cold
[NPC 2.]
Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 8) ( success x 3 )
Molly Toombs
[Willpower!]
Dice: 7 d10 TN7 (1, 1, 4, 4, 4, 10, 10) ( success x 2 )
cold
Perhaps
Molly was prepared this time for the sensation of being not in control
of her voice; of her own voice and another's coming out've her mouth.
But that doesn't happen.
This time, it's her hand which betrays
her, her will which gives, and instead of reaching for the envelope she
feels herself stand up
(of course she does, it's her body; her flesh and bones and blood and beating heart)
but jerkily, not quite balanced, and stutter back.
Molly Toombs
It
comes as a ferocious surprise to Molly not only when her hand fails to
move forward as she had commanded it to, but when that
magnets-in-your-bones sensation kicked up again and she felt her leg
muscles wobble and flex and stretch and she was brought up into a
stand. She'd had to grasp at the arm of the couch to help the rest of
her body back up off the floor, for reflexive fear of twisting her ankle
in those heels and falling down on her face.
She's still reeling
with surprise and discomfort by the time she's completely upright and
stumbling backwards, the motion awkward in heels to begin with but even
more so when jerking about like she felt herself doing.
She makes a
sound, not a word, of contempt for her situation and jerked her body
once more, but this time like she was snapping out of something. Her
arms went all at once straight to her sides, hands in fist, and she
stamped her foot on the ground like she was kicking something off her
shoe. After that, she was still, with her shoulders tensed up and her
breathing very deliberate.
Easy, girl.
"You already know I'm not leaving 'till this is done. So tell me why I shouldn't."
cold
[NPC 1.]
Dice: 10 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 6, 8, 9, 9, 10, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 8 )
cold
[...12.]
Molly Toombs
[Wits: Specialty "Cool-Headed" applies]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (4, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )
Molly Toombs
[Wits 4 + Athletics 2]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 10) ( success x 3 )
cold
[Doo-dee-doo.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 9) ( success x 1 )
cold
[Doo-dee-doo.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 10) ( success x 1 )
cold
[Doo-dee-doo]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (4, 4, 7) ( success x 1 )
cold
[Doo-dee-doo]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (8, 9, 9) ( success x 3 )
Molly Toombs
[Stamina 3]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (4, 6, 10) ( success x 2 )
cold
The
ghost under Molly's skin doesn't answer. Perhaps because it can't.
Perhaps because there's no time to take possession again of Molly's
voicebox. There's no time because -- once again, and the air drips with
malice, with Fury, with a black sense of rage that practically coalesces
into some tar-thick substance to fix things in place, once again chaos
erupts -- and see?
There is no warning, but Molly's wits are
sharp. There is no warning when the couch skuttles quickly across the
floorboards. Hits Miss Toombs, but not as hard as it might've because
she moved, just enough: hits Miss Toombs and wants to sweep her back
against the wall.
There is no warning, but Molly's wits are sharp.
The couch skuttles across the floorboards and right into her, flung
from its place, tossed, and at the same time the front door slams open
with a rattle of door-chain, and there is a ker-thump, ker-thump,
hollow-thump, as one two three four five six seven books are thrown
across the living room, their corners sharp, their pages whispering,
though fortunately they don't hit Molly, and the ceiling groans over her
head
groans like it's going to collapse, groans like something is rending it in two
groans like it is caught in a cycle and there's no way out
Molly Toombs
[Intelligence 3 + Alertness 3: Didn't that ghost say 'we'?]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 6, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )
Molly Toombs
She waits for an answer, but instead of getting that the world explodes around her.
For
a second she thinks that she feels the thing within her bones hesitate,
and something dawns on her. Didn't that ghost say 'we'?
Then the
air gets dense, cold, thick, suffocating. All at once the couch jerks
from where it stands and comes flying toward her. Not many people
outside of her college buddies know this, but Molly went to school on an
athletic scholarship. Technically. Okay, alright, it was volleyball,
but she was good enough to go to college because of it. She was soft
around the edges, but she was quick enough and tough enough, and she's
sharp of mind as well. When the couch swings violently toward her she's
able to jump back and catch the impact of the side of the couch with
her arm and hip and leg rather than taking the blow to her organs and
torso.
The couch tries to push her back, maybe to pin her or smash
her into a wall. She twists and scrambles out from under it, and
nearly twists her damn ankle in those stupid boots she was wearing, but
manages not to. Books fly off the shelf and around the room. She ducks
reflexively but nothing strikes her.
Then the groaning.
Molly
looks up at the ceiling, flinches even lower, then glances wildly about
before making another mad dash toward wherever she spies the envelope
laying, wayward and exposed with so much energy put into demolishing the
rest of the room (we hope).
Molly Toombs
[Perception 3 + Investigation 1 - Spending WP]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (4, 4, 6, 9) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
cold
[NPC 2]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 5, 5, 6, 7) ( success x 2 )
Molly Toombs
[Willpower]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 4, 6, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )
cold
The
wild glance around is enough for her to find the envelope again. The
envelope was under the couch and when the couch was thrown forward it
was dragged after the couch and then whisked toward one of the
bookshelves, and Molly sees it sitting just next to wires from whatever
gaming system Nate has by the television. The envelope looks innocuous,
even now. Certainly not worth the weight of emotion that makes the air
so dense.
And she lunges toward it.
The spectre tries to
control her limbs again: Molly can feel it. And just by a sliver, just
by a hang nail's worth of push, she pushes through, is not controlled,
and so the envelope is hers again.
The door slams closed, then
slams open, and the ceiling groaning begins to reach a higher,
splintering pitch, though everything else is on the precipice of new
movement, lurching still in place, just inanimate objects, just
possessed inanimate objects.
Molly Toombs
[Escape: Dexterity 3 + Athletics 2]
Dice: 5 d10 TN5 (2, 3, 5, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )
cold
[NPC 1?]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 6, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )
Molly Toombs
Her
eyes are wide and wild in the dark. She knows that something still
rides in her bones, and that this something is different than the
something that is bringing the world crashing down around her. She
knows that this thing in her bones doesn't want her to have the
envelope, because she (Molly presumes it's a she, or assigns it that
gender because it wore her own unmistakably feminine voice when it spoke
to her) did not want Molly to burn it. She presumes that the thing
trying to bust the ceiling through wants it burned, wants to escape,
wants to eat, to feed, to -- something. Something awful.
Those
wide wild eyes pluck out the envelope in the dark. It had skittered
along at the edge of her vision's reach and come to a landing near the
television.
Though the magnets in her bones tried to stop her,
Molly lunged forward once more, landed on one knee and one hand to
snatch up the envelope, and was back up on her feet just as quickly
though the thing inside her protested and rattled and shook.
She
barely manages to remember to grab her jacket, but it catches her
attention tossed onto the floor from where it had been resting on the
couch previously. The jacket is nabbed, where the apartment keys had
been stored, and she doesn't even consider taking the time to put it on
as she runs for the door. The neighbors will no doubt be complaining
about the clomp-clomp-clomp of angry shoes racing all around upstairs
last night, not to mention the banging and thumping and what the hell is going on up there, anyways?
The
instant that Molly is out through the front door she slams the door
back closed behind her. There is zero pause or hesitation or slowing as
she half-jogs half-runs up the hallway for the elevator--....
But
she stops. No. No fucking way, if those things followed her out into
the hallway then they would no doubt send the elevator crashing to the
ground. She'd finally unzip her boots, yank them off and up into her
hands, and make for the stairwell instead.
cold
Molly
runs for the door, and the game system's wires try to tangle her feet
up, but they don't manage to do so. She's out. Nothing stops her once
she's out of the apartment, even though she still has the envelope.
Nate's neighbors aren't poking their heads out yet, but whoever lives
upstairs is probably going to write a complaint. The building manager
will find out that Nate was in the hospital at the time of the complaint
and he'll put it down to the neighbors being complainers, which will
suit the building manager just fine.
The stairs look absolutely
safe, or safe as stairs ever look. Perhaps a little spooky; this is the
ninth floor, and if anybody can help it they're not usually using the
stairs here. They could be a little cleaner, a little less
between-places, a little less desolate.
But nothing stops her, and
the stairs look they always look. The air is cool, but it's night. And
it's always cool in stairwells.
Molly Toombs
The
path down the stairs is a long one, and Molly manages to regain her
composure by the time she reaches the sixth floor. She's taking her
time with the stairs, not winding herself (although she didn't lose her
breath very easily in the first place), and even bothering to hold the
railing here or there as she goes.
When she reaches the bottom of
the stairs she stops to put her boots back on, plucking debris from the
bottom of her stockings first though. The coat is donned next, and the
buttons are done back up.
She left Nate's door unlocked, but given
the circumstances she figured that it would be fine if it remained that
way overnight. Anyone who braved that apartment tonight and came back
out unrattled deserved the bounty they stole, and she would just buy
Nate a new damn TV-- the sales were all going to be starting up soon
after all.She would return to lock the front door the next morning.
Until then, though, Molly walked out to the sidewalk and began walking,
but took out her phone to call a cab as she went. The cab would meet
her two blocks up, and the rest of the ride home would be on her rump in
the back seat of a car rather than on her already sore, tired, worn out
feet and nearly-twisted ankles.
When she gets home, the envelope
goes straight into a fireproof lock box that she keeps in her closet.
Then she gathers up Lucy when the kitten comes bounding out to greet
her, to rub on ankles and plead for attention. The kitten is tucked up
to her bust, and Molly retires to the living room to do the most calm
and mundane things she could think of to shake the strange discomfort of
the night.
cold
Lucy doesn't come bounding out as usual.
Lucy hides, watching Molly from underneath furniture, the fur on her back bristling.
When
Lucy does come out, Lucy is unusually vocal, even for Lucy, and Molly
will find Lucy staring at Nothing At All like she's going to pounce it.
She avoids Molly's shoes like they frighten her.
But it's a well-known fact that cats are strange.
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