Paragons

Gem regards the youths outside, where the woman had indicated. She catches the fading glow of flame, though she can't see either of the girls holding a lighter.

The younger of the two does appear quite strange, with either scars or some form of hardware lining her face. It also seems odd to Gem that a child that age is out on her own at this time of day; some schools might be out by this point in the afternoon, but surely this child should have been picked up and taken home by a caretaker, if not sent somewhere else for after-school care? The older one, though, looks like every shady teen Gem has ever seen - hell, that could just as well have been Gem about ten years ago. "Neither of them look old enough to smoke, if that's what you mean by suspicious," Gem says. "But yeah, I guess there's something kind of off about the younger one."

Oh, you little... But Adele allows herself to breathe a sigh of relief. She stops the car and gets out to collect the creature.

"Hey, uh, Tom? I think everything might be okay, actually... Uhhh, maybe check from outside the building?" She really doesn't want to try to explain the existence of a dragon to Tom of all people; he'd be the least likely to understand.

"Alright, Squirt, get over here," she whispers as she reaches for the dragon. "I won't stick you in that cage again. Promise."

The creature climbs up her arm and flops around her neck with a happy growl.

"What did you do? Am I going to need to go apartment hunting again?" But she can't help but chuckle at the funny little monster. Something about its presence is instantly calming.

She returns the car to a parking spot and retrieves a hoodie from the backseat to better hide her new companion. She decides to finish her conversation with the apartment manager before she returns to the coffee shop.

Dominic released a heavy sigh.

“When this is over, Virgil, remember that I did ask nicely.”

He reached out to his master, and let the potency consume him. The bills he had laid on the table returned to his pocket without his touching them. Virgil’s wrists were restrained and Dominic was able to quickly and even gently procure the blood from their forearm and catch the droplets in the now open book. He then made for the exit.

To Grier ~~

You see a red light ignite behind Dom’s eyes as he speaks... then, the book he had laid on the table begins to glow.

You feel, more than you see, dark tendrils of inky blackness come from underneath Dom’s hoodie and restrain your wrists. You are held petrified and restrained as he delicately pulls a small knife from one of his pockets and pricks your arm, catching the precious droplets in the book before slamming it shut.

Then, without moving, he floats towards the door...

It was then in which several things happened at once.

You see, the problem with the movement of Dominic was that he was not looking with his human eyes... merely the eyes of his divine master... and those eyes could not see the agent of chaos.

This agent, bearing what he thought to be a family heirloom, was actually carrying a ruby pendant that made him invisible to the gods themselves! It also served the function of containing any magic it came into contact with.

This was inconvenient for several reasons. First, the agent’s wide gait caused him to both be in the path of the floating Dominic and unable to retain his footing when the floating man ran into him. This triggered the pendant to attempt to contain the magical artifact... specifically Dominic’s unusual book. This particular artifact, however, contained the essence of a deity. One thing that deities have in common is immense power... the amulet knew it needed more energy to execute its function, and, unfortunately for the agent, it pulled his life force as an initial boost... but that was not nearly enough.

By a force some would call coincidence, a secondary energy source was nearby. Unknown to her, Kathy was carrying within herself the immense energy source used by 0814 to power their equipment... the amulet reached out for it...

But technology and magic do not mix very well, and so the collision of ancient magic, vengeful deities and nearly limitless power of technology caused this fragile state we all live in called reality to... tear... more than a little.

A vortex appeared within the coffee shop, pulling object and lifeforms alike into its grasp.

"And callin' people 'human' is def gonna get their attention." Vivian commented blithely in the pause, giving the kid another searching look before turning back to her cigarette and this time getting it to take. "You're weird, kid."

She leaned back and let out a scoff that might have been a laugh for someone else at the question's phrasing, "Name. What's your name. People gonna think you're some kind of alien with that talk. Or mebbe a computer since your face looks like you stuck it in box of spare parts."

The couple of draws on the cigarette since relighting it did ease some of the tension at the back of her neck, less than it did a week ago to be fair, but that didn't mean she was any less watchful of her surroundings. Maybe the weird kid wasn't trouble--Yeah, right--but that didn't mean it wouldn't find her somehow. Always did.

"You can call me Vivian, I guess, if yah haf'to." She pulled up one leg until her sneakered foot was resting on the chair seat and went on, continuing to blow the smoke from her lips up and in the opposite direction from the kid, "And when someone asks you for your name, don't go givin' them a number, yeah?" Designation seemed like something someone with a number would say. "At least make up somethin'. And don't use my name either." She added. "That ain't gonna fly."

Vivian hid her smile behind the cigarette, "You got all that?"

0814 felt their power being tapped into before anything exploded. Given the proximity, there were only a handful of possibilities and all of them were bad... very bad.

Reaching out very suddenly they grabbed the human’s arm and yelled against the growing chaos in the shop mere meters from them and their new companion.

“Do not let go friend Vivian! Else we will be separated on the other end of the wormhole!”

They then felt the vortex pull both of them in.

I couldn't move. His hands weren't on me, yet I couldn't move. Sweat ran from my pores.

Not again.

The prick's pain didn't register. When he released me, I jumped. He was floating? Even though I didn't know where the exit was, I ran to the back.

I looked over my shoulder when I heart it. Wind. Chaos. Collision. I knelt and pressed my hands into the floor.

Don't fail me now.

And I held on.

Behind her was not the direction Vivian remotely considered as being where the trouble would come from, and it left her bolt upright in her seat as glass shattered and bits of concrete went flying and skittering across the road, eyes widening as she looked over her shoulder and caught sight of the vortex now occupying what had been the majority of the coffee shop moments ago.

Instinctively her lips and teeth clamped down on the cigarette in her mouth, trying to keep ahold of it.

Mom would kill her if she learned Vivian had wasted even one of the damn things.

The kid's grip on her arm brought Vivian's attention roaring back to the present mayhem and, barely registering a word the other said in the chaos, Vivian was off her feet in an instant and using the contact with the kid to pull the other towards her as she tucked the necklace threatening to lift off over her head in the violent storm beneath the collar of the t-shirt whose loose edges were whipping aggressively around her scrawny limbs.

Dropping to one knee on the sidewalk, Vivian put her back to the shop and curled her body around the other, keeping the kid between her knees and wrapping arms around their tiny body to shield them as best she could from the angry chaos around them.

"Don't worry about me, kid." For the first time since their conversation started, Vivian flashed the other a sidelong grin, even as she felt the pull of the vortex start scraping her foot and the other leg against the sidewalk and leaned forward trying to counter-act it and only being somewhat successful.

She blinked. Wormhole?

"...I guess we're goin' in, then?"

The other seemed willing.

Another internal sigh. Trouble.

"Alright, sure. 'Spose I didn't have anything better to do." Vivian grumbled, shrugging a shoulder before she unsteadily rose to her feet.

Still holding the kid tightly up against her, she glanced back and relaxed, jumping backwards off her feet and letting the vacuum do the rest.

Leaning against her car half a block away from the coffee shop, Adele continues her conversation with the apartment manager. Meanwhile, she wonders how her new companion managed to get out (and then find her, but that was yet another consideration). Broken window? Burnt a hole through the wall? Teleportation? That's the least likely...

Suddenly, the air pressure changes in the vicinity - not unusual in the Midwest, but this felt different. She stands up from her reclined position and sees a swirling mass form inside the door of Slingers. Blueish-purplish fingers tendril out through the windows and door and reach for the two girls outside.

"Oh! The kids!" she cries. But they are almost immediately snatched away. "Uhh, Tom, I'll call you back..."

She gives her pet a suspicious glance. "You didn't..., did you? Oh boy..." The creature seems, to her relief, to be just as taken back by this new development as she is. "Look, sorry, but it's the same color as you, okay? I'm just... worried. I don't want it to be my fault."

She pulls her hoodie strings tighter and steps fearfully toward the now mangled entrance so she can at least offer help.

I'm okay.

I let my breath go. I hadn't realized I was holding it. I used the neckline of my hoodie to wipe off my face. The wet material clung to my back.

I'll deal with that later.

I stood to take stock of the ruined space around me.

Gem is still waiting for the woman to voice any further opinion on the kids outside when the coffee shop, as near as she can tell, starts to implode. Her body starts to react on instinct; she can feel everything becoming tighter, her senses starting to heighten. Not in here. Not in front of people, she thinks resolutely, and shuts her eyes tight, willing her body to resist its newfound automatic fear response. She feels the tightening stop, and her whole body starts to loosen - she's won, for now. However, with the relaxation of her muscles comes the inability to resist the pull of the vortex. In the final second before the wind of the vortex whipping around her legs succeeds in pulling her in, she snatches her bag from the floor and hugs it to her chest - she'll be damned if she loses that laptop, as decrepit and clunky as it is.

And then she feels herself flying backwards, vacuumed up by a powerful and unexpected force. She can see the kids outside getting sucked in alongside her, and feels a slight stab of shame that her first instinct was to protect her possessions, and not other people. But what was she supposed to do, grab the woman next to her, who seemed to have been involved somehow in the formation of the vortex itself, and ensure she got sucked in, too?

As the vortex disappears, a solitary creature is standing in the wreckage and tossed about objects and creatures.

He is not tall, but also does not appear to be standing up straight. He is oddly dressed and carries a harp, small horns protrude from his head and are easily visible despite his shaggy hair.

What he looks like...

“Why ‘ello!” He says to no one in particular. “What eve we ‘ere den?”

Shit!

Some kind of musical goat appeared amid the overturned tables and spilled drinks.

Go to Coffee Slingers, she said. You can pass, she said. You have to get out in the world, in the sun, she said. Nothing will happen, she said.

At least the new creature was a freak.

"We've got a mess," I murmured. The blood was about me, but the swirly thing looked like an accident. Accidents usually make people angry. The humans would respond to the disaster soon. That's at least three threats. I didn't have enough tea to deal with that.

Turning to Grier, the newcomer with the harp smiles warmly.

“Ain’t ye a pretty one ‘den, eh? Tell me luv, what went si’ways hereabouts?”

"Pretty?" I asked, taking a step towards the creature. "You've got peculiar taste."

I looked down at my hand. Its color fluctuated.

"Someone stole from me and made a run for it. They got sucked in along with," I motioned around the room. "Everything else."

"The humans will be here soon. Better make yourself scarce."

“Oomans? I luv em! They’re so joval n gay...”

The creature chuckled for a moment before seeming to snap back into the second part of what Grier said.

“O dear darlin’, what wis steelen from ya now? Tell me n’ i’ll Get one back for ya.”

Jovial? Gay?

What humans has the goat encountered? I sighed and turned back around.

"Sweetheart, they're going to eat you alive with an attitude like that." I put my hands in my pocket and listened. No sirens yet.

"They took my blood. Which probably means they can track me, clone me- maybe even control me to attack you."

As the vortex dissipates, Adele peers in through the door before gingerly opening it and making her way inside. She takes note of the new arrival - a not-quite-faun - and the rest of the situation. And where's Mr tall, dark, and brooding? Not back in the corner...

Unable to fully hear the conversation between him and Virgil, Adele addresses the not-a-faun, "Excuse me, did you cause this? What even was that? And, um, no offense, but what are you?" She hopes she doesn't come off as brash or accusatory, but the words mostly just tumble out of her mouth in disbelief and with very little thought.

To Adele and Grier ~~~

"Eat me 'live? Hope dey do eh?" He chuckled. Then seeing the genuine concern on Grier's face softened. "Nah lov, 'omans are ni'tor'ous bad o' magic... they canno even man'ge to harm any but the'selvs."

Addressing this new entry, he makes a hat doffing gesture.

"Galwix 'da Satytur a' yo' s'vce!" He ignores the other questions. "Is ev'one in 'dis demin'scion so g'rgous? How's a bloke to s'vive?"

To Adele~~
You DO notice mr tall, dark and brooding... he's lying on the floor amidst a pool of dark liquid that looks something like ink... and its growing.