The space is a veritable haven of comfort, dominated by lots of comfy lounges. A sprawling, overstuffed sofa in a deep, muted burgundy velvet occupies the main wall, its cushions permanently indented from years of blissful repose. Nearby, a pair of equally plush armchairs, upholstered in a faded, floral chintz, invite long stretches of reading or napping. Each lounge is softened further with an assortment of knitted throws and plump, well-loved cushions

Amidst this landscape of comfort, evidence of playful inhabitants is everywhere. A collection of cat toys is strewn artfully across the worn rug: a feathered wand peeks out from under an armchair, a crumpled foil ball glints near a sofa leg, and a tiny, knitted mouse lies abandoned on a plush throw, perhaps just moments ago pounced upon. A tall, carpeted cat tree, its scratching posts showing clear signs of use, stands proudly in one corner, offering a vertical dimension to the feline domain. The lighting is soft, primarily from scattered floor lamps with amber-toned bulbs, casting a warm, inviting glow over the peaceful, purr-fectly arranged space.

It is about 65F(18C) degrees. The mist is heaviest At Hawthorn and Oakwood/span>/span(Your target has been afflicted by a curse which takes away control of one of their limbs, which now has a new and likely destructive purpose. It is up to them to control the cursed limb for long enough for they and their allies to figure out how to contain or solve the problem.
)

As the two are chatting away suddenly Roberta’s hand decides that it really wants to explore her foot. The hand pats its way blindly – it is a hand after all to Roberta’s leg. Down the thigh and starts trying to yank off her boots from the ankles! Only they’re thigh high boots so it don’t really come down.

Continuing to converse with Eloa, it takes a while for Roberta to realise what’s happening; Vampires arn’t well known for their sense of touch. “I’ve never even heard of this omegaverse. It sounds like werewolf porn, and I think my view on them speaks for itself.”

What ever it is, Roberta notices after a moment, raising her hand to inspect it. The vampire sniffs the air, scenting for anyone else in the room, listening out, that train of thought paused.

“Do you have a necromancer around here?” she asks Eloa, staring at that offending hand from behind her sunglasses with disgust.

Roberta only gets to lift that hand for a moment! And then it’s back trying to yank her boots off. The hand goes back to her ankle and starts pulling and tugging at her thigh high boots which must be on quite firmly. There’s a small amount of slip as it thinks it’s making progress and it starts continuing!

“Well it start with that but now there is lots where it’s just like… alpha men with girl but um.. No there is no necromancer around I think?” The girl frowns a bit at the strange hand and then makes her way up the stairs to poke her head out of the door. “No no one around. Are you okay?” She calls out.

With her head poking out of the trap door to the shop, Eloa can spot Robert walking in. “Robert is here. But Eloa no think he is necromancer.” She calls out, waving to the man before pointing down the stairs. “Miss Roberta’s hand is.. being strange.” She tells him before disappearing back down into the downstairs area.

Robert wanders into the scene, tired as he is, a bundle of files under one arm. Evidentially it’s been a long day for him, and he’s swung by to pick up some coffee and sit down and relax. He catches the movement of Eloa’s hand – and then withholds a sigh, glancing at coffee and files. With a grunt he tromps his way on afterwards, into the basement area. “What’s this about?”

Picking up Robert’s desire for well coffee, Eloa for some reason heads over to the kitchenette to start making coffee even while Roberta’s hand is well, currently in the process of trying to yank off her boots. To Robert’s perspective, it is just her looking like she’s awkwardly tryign to pull down thigh high boots.. for now anyways.

“That’s not okay.” Roberta deadpans. There’s a long moment where hostility blooms like wildfire, and it seems like Roberta may do something extreamly dangerous and or stupid. She doesn’t though, which is a miracle in and of itself.

“My hand isn’t obeying and it’s not Father.” she informs Eloa and the newly arrived Robert. “I also don’t have, and need a knife…”

The hand continues to scrabble, so Roberta improvises. It’s perfectly reasonable to Roberta, but likely a shock for Robert and Eloa.

The vampire rips off her glove– No point in damaging it– then in a flash, she sets her hand against the sofa’s padding, raises her other foot, then with little fuss or fanfair, promptly rams the silvered stiletto heel through the back of said apendage to prevent it from moving. “There.” she decides, ignoring the awkward situation and the fact there’s no blood from the impalement wound. “As I was saying. It’s hard to force the blood to do anything it doesn’t want without a necromancer.”

Curiously, Roberta seems all too calm about this. There’s not even a wince of pain. “It’s not normal for limbs to act independently to the body without external influences, and if you have a necromancer, I’m going to eat it.” Well… at least she’s telegraphed her intentions.

As the pleasant sent of coffee fills the air Eloa doesn’t even notice that Roberta is murdering her own hand until she turns around with a cup filled with coffee that says ‘WORLDS BEST FARTER I mean father’ and she just kindof…. stares at Roberta as she walks over to Robert and wordlessly hand him his coffee.

Meanwhile, Roberta’s hand is.. not enjoying being impaled by her own stiletto. Or maybe it does because it was going for her boots. The hand kindof… spasms like a convulsive manner as if dying… but then it doesn’t die and starts scrambling around making scratching motions at the sofa as if trying to dig it’s way through it. If Roberta could feel pain well.. she might feel it starts damaging nails.

“I do have a knife, and we could cut it off,” Robert suggests, deadpan, in response to Roberta, his nose wrinkling up in faint disgust – though for what may be unclear as his gaze drifts off to Eloa. And then, equally politely, “Why do you want -my- help with this? And, equally importantly, why should I help with this?”

“I mean… I could just have it put back on.” Roberta shrugs, giving credence to the duality and lack of morality in her views towards necromancy. “But I think it’s fine for now.” Eloa’s sofa… maybe not so much, but it’s second hand, so what does it matter.

“Case and point.” the albino sniffs, regarding Robert, having not yet noticed the nails becoming damaged yet, “I wasn’t asking for help. “I don’t need deals with Vigilants and Templars, and you’d rather not anyway.”

“What Bobbie said.” Robert answers easily and lofting his shoulders up in casual shrug, turning back towards the stairs and raising his hand in farewell. “Thank you for the grotesque display. I believe I am going to head to bed.”

Still offering freshly brewed brazilian coffee to Robert, Eloa blinks a little at his words, “Well um.. Eloa just said you no do necromancy.. But um.. Eloa will think you are more manly man if you stay and help? No? Okay…” Eloa just stands there holding the cup of coffee.

Meanwhile the hand seemly has gotten bored of trying to scratch it’s way through the sofa. It either knows it’s not doing enough damage… or doesn’t find this activity interesting enough. Pushing upwards off the sofa, it starts trying to impale itself further on Roberta’s stiletto heel.

Suddenly the hand stops. It freezes for a moment and then with force quite a bit stronger than what it’s owner would exhibit.. it flies across the room, crashing into Robert and all his files. With Roberta still attached!

The files well… they fly everywhere, startling one of the grey cats who starts batting at them as they flutter down from the sky.

Feeling exceptionally smug at her choice– The correct choice to impale her own hand rather than to ask for help, Roberta finds that hand ripping itself free, only the undead toughness of a vampire’s exceptionally resiliant body not causing -lasting- damage. Unfortunately, she also finds herself being thrown across the room via that hand, aimed right at Robert.

Squeaking a little as Eloa dodges out of the way, Eloa puts the coffee cup down, splashing a bit of coffee as she watches with wide eyes at the launching of the Roberta into the Robert.

Robert responds by dropping the files from his hand right onto the floor. They don’t fly everywhere so much as slide out, revealing documentation and things to sign for the Last Vigil, orders, and other paper-pushing bureaucracy that scatters. His immediate response is to get Roberta far away from him by throwing her. This is made a little bit more awkward when he steps right on the manilla envelope, slips on it and twists and ends up violently taking all the sudden force and slamming into the ground with Roberta.

Then the knife comes out.

The hand meanwhile seems to be loving it. It has dislodged itself from Roberta’s stiletto in the fray and is busy rubbing itself against Robert’s shoe. “Um… Last time this happen we give Matias chocolate and his hand stop moving.” Eloa calls out from the other side of the room, eyes widening as the knife comes out. “Eloa no keep chocolate here though because would eat all of it.. Oh dear..”

With equal dislike for this situation, Roberta’s fangs– Then a revolver comes out as the vampire, far smaller than Robert squirms, rat-like from the pile of folders, papers, Vigilant and general detritus of the thrift store. Roberta actually hisses as she scrabbles for an escape, that killing lust returning, all of it directed at the rebellious hand.

Roberta fails spectacularly.

Well. Roberta tried. However all she manages to do is trip on another file and go sprawling down ontop of Robert again while her hand turns into a one of those kissy duck faces and tries to make out with Robert’s shoe. How embarassing!

Robert seems inclined to stab Roberta. For all sorts of reasons. Possibly because he’s in a supernatural-hating faction. Possible because he doesn’t like her. Possibly because he’s in a bad mood now and wants to get some sleep. Either way, he’s angling to shove and kick Roberta away from him. “Get OFF me,” He growls, his own knife flashing up in a defensive posture between himself and her sharp, sharp teeth.

“There’s no chocolate.. there’s no chocolate.. What do we do there’s no chocolate.” Apparently being in a bind isn’t Eloa’s strong suit. Cupping her cheeks with her hands, Eloa just starts at the two blankly on the ground while one of the cats goes to bite some of Robert’s files and try to drag them away to use as scratching material.

The hand is very enamoured with Robert’s boots. Very much so. It rubs itself against Robert’s boot like a cat trying to rub it’s scent against the boot.

Robert does manage to kick Roberta away! Only to watch as she’s dragged along the ground by her own hand like one of those iron man hands that let you fly and the hand returns to rubbing against his boot.

Just as with Robert, Roberta is not happy to be in this situation. Shedrew a gun, which likely indicates something of that level of dislike; She did bring a gun to a knife fight.

Fortunately for likely everyone involved, Robert is able to send Roberta flying– She’s a small thing. Possibly five stone wet through, and she is sent tumbling away.

Absorbed as she is though with this inevitable conflict with Robert, she doesn’t pay attention to Eloa’s freaking out, but there is a solution that likely will work. It’s as stupid as impaling her hand, but she does it anyway, even as she’s drawn bodily back towards Robert’s boot. Roberta tries to get an angle to break her own wrist.

There’s a snap like a wishbone breaking as the vampire grasps, then renches her wrist savagely. “Fuck you!” Roberta bellows… to her own hand.

When the door at the top of the stairs opens, Lykaia is greeted by a ..scene. Robert and Roberta are both at the bottom of the stairs. Robert on the ground seeming not very happy with a knife drawn. Roberta’s hand is desperately trying to rub itself against his boot. And Roberta has a gun out and it looks like she’s trying to break her wrist. Well not try. Just broke her wrist as Lykaia looks down. Eloa is over on the couch going, ”

When the door at the top of the stairs opens, Lykaia is greeted by a ..scene. Robert and Roberta are both at the bottom of the stairs. Robert on the ground seeming not very happy with a knife drawn. Roberta’s hand is desperately trying to rub itself against his boot. And Roberta has a gun out and it looks like she’s trying to break her wrist. Well not try. Just broke her wrist as Lykaia looks down. Eloa is over on the couch going, “Oh my god there is no chocolate.” While cupping her cheeks with her hands.

Unfortunately for Roberta… the hand doesn’t seem to care it’s dislocated. It keeps rubbing it’s fingers against Robert’s boot and stroking it like it’s trying to court the man’s boot. It is a very handsome boot.

Robert realizes at some point, after the shot of adrenaline, he’s not actually being attacked. He calmly puts the knife away.

THEN he pulls out the taser and leans over to shock Roberta’s hand

Lykaia rubs her hand over her face, looking down to the trio and stays where she is until reaching to the baton over her sterning, pulling and whacking it out. She doesn’t yet move in.

The hand starts twitching and jerking as it gets tasered! There’s the smell of cooking dead flesh..

The hand continues to twitch and jerk which would… quite painful for Roberta if she could feel pain.

The wrist breaking doesn’t apparently bother Roberta, but the fact it continues is the tipping point. There is likely a simple solution to this, but… Roberta will not accept that with Robert, and her hand rebelling.

Eloa and even the newly arrived Lykaia arn’t even noticed, but incandescent with rage now, Roberta begins to hammer her hand against the floor, smashing it down again and again and again, spitting invectives like a teenager banned from their Ipad for missconduct, the tasering of the flesh just left to sit as her skin burns. “Fuck you.” she repeats, intent on proving her dominion over… herself.

The hand flies up when Roberta jerks it up with all her strength! Then goes back down towards the boot to cuddle it loving before being jerked up again as Roberta tries to hammer it! It doesn’t seem to mind at some point because it’s kindof being dragged up and down Robert’s boot like some perverted well.. jerking. And then it’s being tasered again and starts twitching again once Roberta holds still.

“Chocolate chocolate choclate… Oh Lykaia!” Eloa calls out when she notices the door opening, “Do you have chocolate?” Eloa asks the soldier woman who is absolutely likely to carry chocolate. While completely ignoring the fact that the hand seems to want something… else.

“Okay. It’s time to stop, whatever this is. Madam Bobby, please reign yourself in. Whatever that is.” Lykaia detaches a silver grenade from her thigh holster and keeps it in her open palm. “Or we will need to cut any and all supernatural from the area for fifteen.” She gives a stare at Eloa.

If only someone would give the poor hand a boot. The hand twitches next to it’s new love, Robert’s boots, still trying to crab walk through it inbetween spasms of being tasered.

Robert pockets the tasers; he’s out of ideas other than violently dismembering Roberta’s hand with a shotgun slug. And so instead he just – draws away and promptly switches to ignoring it and gathering up all his paperwork and tucking it into files. Half because he’s got work to do, and half because the player just needs to sleep. He rolls to his feet, bending over to pick things up.

“Fuck you.” Roberta repeats– The wrist wasn’t enough. Roberta fails to even acknowledge Lykaia or the neutralizer, her hand moving independently. Tasered, impaled, snapped and now with each finger methodically dislocated, Roberta is singlemindedly determined to stop it, too unwilling, or too stupid to offer it what it obviously wants.

Forelornly, the hand follows after Robert’s boots like a rejected lover when the boots start moving away from it. It follows determinedly and then.. spots Lykaia’s boots. Up the stairs Roberta goes flying towards Lykaia as the hand tries to entice it’s new sweetheart! Tactical boots so that Robert can go to sleep!

Robert strides on out, files tucked in hand, and exhausted.

Dragged across the floor again, Roberta suffers impalement, dislocation, electricution and bone breaking, only to have that impounded by carpet burn and being conked step-by-step as she’s dragged to ascend the steps towards Lykaia’s boots. “Fucking undead…” Roberta, the undead opines. “Stop being so resistant, dam it.”

Lykaia stares at Roberta when she comes for her, and then pulls the pin of the silver grenade and just holds it for a couple of seconds before dropping it, letting it fell towards Roberta.

“Oh.. Eloa no feel so good.” Eloa starts swaying where she sits on the couch, “What is this.. horrible feeling.” She asks starting to pat herself up and down.

And there it is… No longer with the resistance of a long dead undead, but as simple as an animated corpse. There’s no supernatural inevitability behind Roberta’s motions, no blood power, no regeneration. Still, Robert is gone, and she doesn’t need to put on a brave face… She does though. She’s too mindlessly enraged to do anything but.

Well the hand relaxes at least. Going floppy. No longer trying to make out with Lykaia’s boots.

It takes a few minutes for Roberta to realise, but when she does, hand ravaged, she just curls up, lets herself tumble down the steps and likely ends up concussed as she lands on the floor, the hand gripped so it cant get upto anything else without Roberta’s say so.

“Let me guess, it’s some weird curse. Someone touched something they shouldn’t.” Lykaia says, letting out a deeper sigh, now in the couple of minutes that the neutralizer lasts to look around for anything that’s new or out of place. “Shouldn’t, didn’t know…”

“I don’t know.” Roberta says around a bitten tongue. “I didn’t even steal anything.” today.

“Um…. Are you okay Miss roberta?” Eloa gets up and sways a bit, seeming not used to how she feels when she has no supernatural abilities. She makes her way over to Roberta and tries to help the woman up. “Does it hurt alot? Do you need drugs? Do drugs even work on you with neutralizer?” She asks as she tries to help. “The hand really seemed like it liked Robert’s boots.”

Someone who regularly frequents the thrift shop might remember that… for the past couple of days there’s been a new pair of boots lying around near the entrance of the shop. One without a price sticker on it like everything else.

“Fuck the hand.” Roberta all but spits.

Fortunately, there’s no blood or saliva there. But she does answer Eloa as she begins to calm from the veritable throffing at the mouth. “Drugs don’t work. I’m fine.” It’s a lie, her hand is flopping at the end of Roberta’s arm useless as a sack of flesh and bone. “I don’t feel a thing.”

“Eloa, you pick up too much random shit.” Lykaia says, looking around and then shaking her head. “I also brought have more neutralizer on me.” A warning, now making her way down into the lower floor. “Why do you need chocolate, Eloa?”

“Well last time this happened to Matias after we gave it what it want.. which was chocolate. It went quiet.” Eloa tells Lykaia as she tries to help Roberta up towards the lounge room. “So was thinking maybe giving chocolate will work again.” Totally sound logic of course.

Poor Roberta’s hand gives a twitch twitch even though it’s dislocated.

“Last time?” Lykaia stares at Eloa “This happened before. With rubbing boots?” She exhales slowly, and then looks around again. “Or was it doing this to chocolate last time?”

As the neutralizer wares off, the flesh begins to nit back together slowly, as if a slow time laps, the fingers relocating, the burn marks dwindling– likely to be gone in an hour. The wrist… that might take a little longer, but good news. Roberta is dead. It wont need setting.

With Eloa’s help, she stands, settles herself again, then does the most reasonable thing. She tells Eloa, “Every single time I see shoes that arn’t on the shelves and tagged, I am going to set them on fire.”

“It scratched chocolate in the table in blood. Matias’s blood. And fingernail.” Eloa informs Lykaia as if it were important.

As the neutralizer wears off the hand starts inching towards Lykaia’s boots again!

“Oh no you don’t.” Roberta demands of the hand. “It wants shoes. Did you get any shoes in?” she asks Eloa, finally putting two and two together after spending longer than a five year old on the simple addition sum.

“Uhhhhh well eloa did notice someone leave their boots in the store that wasn’t for sale.. Wasn’t sure if they were going to be back for them.” Eloa looks thoughtfully up the stairs as the hand starts heading for Lykaia’s boots once again. “But it seems to want Lykaia’s boots now..”

“Untagged boots? If it is an it, it would be a spirit. Why not do a ritual to banish it? I can’t.” Lykaia sighs when she sees Roberta’s hand twitch again and she takes a few steps back. “My boots were expensive. They’re not to be given.” She sighs, then makes to move back up the stairs. “Guess it can have those dumb abandoned shoes then. And I’ll expect you to banish whatever this is, Eloa.”

“Eloa, dear…” Roberta croons saccharine sweetly. “Go and get me those boots, there’s a love.”

Eyes narrowing behind her sunglasses, Roberta snarls at the hand, warning it with something between a lion’s inhuman roar and the ophidion hiss of a snake.

“We tried banishing it! It didn’t work! It isn’t ghost!” Eloa calls out as she runs up the stairs. The ugly hiking boots are thrown down. But the hand doesn’t want them! It still heads for Lykaia, “Did that work?” Eloa calls from above the stairs.

Lykaia makes her way up the stairs, and then tries to bash the door shut with wiggle-hand Roberta inside it and ending up hopefully staying down with that pair of abandoned boots.

Roberta’s hand gets jammed in the door. Ouch.

“Uhh maybe try these?” Eloa calls out as she grabs a few more pairs of boots with price stickers on them and lays them out for the hand.

The poor hand.. dislocated… tasered… burned… bashed… crushed… crawls into one of the new pairs of boots and spasms and jerks as if elated… And finally goes still.

“Yes.” Roberta lies. Of course it didn’t, and now Roberta has her hand jammed in the door.

Well, nothing else for it. Those boots obviously caused this, so an exorcism is in order… Alas, Roberta doesn’t know magic. What she does know is how to get rid of unwanted things… and those boots are unwanted…

Roberta produces a charge. It’s military grade. The thing is thrown at the boots, the explosive primed… Hopefully Roberta knows enough about demolitions equipment that the charge is shaped to not destroy the place and or cats-in-a-blender.
There’s the obvious wumph! And of course the hand finds some boots it likes.

“I didn’t do it.” Roberta -innocently- tells Eloa. She removes her hand from the boot. “That omega stuff you like sounds more and more appealing than this disgusting foot fetish stuff though.”

The poor downstairs gets a little bit blown up. Just a little. But the hand is now content and happy to be returned to Roberta in it’s uh.. slightly used state.

“It’s too early for this.” Lykaia groans, rubbing over her eyes. “I’m getting spoiled.” She also comments, watching Roberta put together smaller scale explosives exclusive for a boot. “Smaller pipe would do it, Bobby. Don’t use the C-4.” She comments, till it goes boom. “I’m not filing a report with the NHPD about random explosions for them.” She sighs, and then opens the door again to look at Roberta “Is this over with now, madam Bobby?”

“Oh my god.” Saying the lord’s name in vain, Eloa gets a broom and a pan and starts to head down the stairs to clean it. “You want coffee Lykaia?” She asks the other woman.