Lola’s Friday night odd encounter(Lola)
Date: 2025-08-01 23:59
(Lola’s Friday night odd encounter(Lola):Lola)
[Fri Aug 1 2025]
In an entryway/span>/spanThe entryway is quiet and clean, with smooth polished pinewood floors. A/span>/span
soft overhead light casts an even glow, bright enough to see by without/span>/span
feeling harsh./span>A square metal trash can rests in the corner, lined with a disposable bag./span>/span60F(15C) degrees. The mist is heaviest At Hawthorn and Woodcrest/span>/span(Your target has been afflicted with a curse that mentally regresses them back to the mental state of an irresponsible teenager. It is up to their allies to figure out what’s happening and fix it before they do anything too bad.
)
Robert plods heavily up the spiral staircase from the basement, lightly sweating and shotgun and spear in hand and readied – a man who’s been working himself and throwing in physical labor and efforts as the mental ones have been stressful of late.
The night has been busy- the mist monsters have been more aggressive than usual, kidnappings left and right, and yet nothing can possibly disturb the sanctity of one’s own home, right? But Robert is armed to the teeth, perhaps rightfully so, it seems, because the quietude of his home is quickly disturbed by a trio of knocks upon his door. Then again soon after, impatient but light, feminine, or perhaps simply petite, dainty fingers rapping away on the entrance to his domicile.
A pause, and then to slate his curiosity, soon after a soft, feminine voice echoes to match the knocks, familiar and almost tearful. “Mister… Mister Robert…?” says that voice, the flowery words of a certain mushroom witch, who sounds hurt, or maybe frightened. Desperate. A tear-choked sob follows after, then a huff, and a sniffle. “Mister Robert…? Please…”
Robert pauses at the knock. His first response is paranoid, but perhaps understandable, as he stands to one side of the door and raises his shotgun. His other hand reaches out to gingerly grasp for the knob, perhaps to let the weight swing open on it’s own and put the blasty to any nasty that charges in.
Then he hesitates at the familiar voice on the other side, a weary sigh drawing from his lips. His shotgun gets holstered, but that strange quartz spear remains in hand. He doesn’t seem to realize he’s still holding it as he unlocks the door with a -clack- and pushes it open, his expression distant but neither hostile.
The door swings outwards. “Hello, Lola?” He questions as he peers out into the rain.
Lola is drenched, like a sopping wet cat as that door swings open, a myriad of bruises upon her face, a few cuts on her arms, little scratches on her her tiny fingers, but at least the downpour conceals the tears that drip down her scarred cheeks. She chokes back another sob, but the contortion of her face betrays that it almost slipped out, that little outpouring of emotion that she swallows down and murmurs: “Hi… Mister Robert… Can I come in?” Questing for entry, but not barging, if she notices that spear she either doesn’t show it, or doesn’t mind it, her fearless expression filled with hope that Robert will grant her entry to his home. “I’m sorry.. I.. I know it’s late. I don’t mean to intrude, I just…” her voice trails into saddened silence.
Then she speaks again, trying to find her words so that she isn’t wasting the Templar’s time. “I was scared, and alone, and I… I didn’t know who else to go to. I was hoping you were home. I’m sorry… I’m sorry…”
Robert does not have it pointed at Lola. The spear is just there, seeming like it simply belongs in it’s owner hand, raises and in a relaxed posture upon the shoulder in his left. “Come on in, Lola. You’re soaked.” His expression relaxes marginally as he fully sees who it is, taking a step back to let her in. “Feel free to use one of the towels hanging up and sit down.” His tone is brisk – firm. Someone who commits to orders and expect them to be followed regardless of what they are.
“Are you being stalked or in imminent danger?” He says curiously, ready to slam the door shut right behind Lola as soon as she steps in.
Luckily for Robert, Lola prefers to be obedient, so when those commands are given, she moves with an efficient grace, stepping shyly into the home and keeping her head low. Submissive in presence, she glides towards one of the towels offered and starts to gently dab her exposed skin dry, then starts to work on her clothing. “No, sir. I’m not being stalked… I’m okay,” she whispers, the tears heard more than seen at this point. “I ran away from home.. I.. I was trying to… To cultivate this new subspecies of fungus, and… I made a mistake. Spores got everywhere, the whole alechemical workshop is ruined, and.. And he’s going to be mad at me. I didn’t want to be home,” the witch explains, the faint glow of sparkling… Perhaps glitter? Or even mushroom spores… Glinting upon her skin, some of them having departed her flesh to instead cling to the towel.
“I feel so funny.. I don’t know how to make it stop,” the blonde reveals next, and now the haziness of her eyes is revealed: dilated pupils, a flush to her cheeks, a redness blushing about her throat and shoulders. “I need.. I need help… Templars, they… They can get rid of magic.. Right..? Please…? This.. This isn’t normal for me, I want… I mean, I ran away from home instead of cleaning up my mess!”
The man takes a careful step back away from Lola, and he towel, and reaches carefully, slowly, as if going for a weapon –
Oh, it’s a plastic bag. Ah, the modern miracles of contaminating, polluting technology. He offers it over to Lola while she’s wiping herself down. “Put your contaminated clothes in here and take a shower and brush yourself down. It’s behind you and to your right, through that door there.” He says, briskly. “Leaving it on your skin isn’t a good idea, and you should have had an eyewash and emergency shower station in your laboratory for exactly these occasions,” Robert says with mundane severity.
“And some of my research has lead me down those directions, yes, but it tends to frequently be… temporary.” He says, with a hint of annoyance in his voice, as if this is something that is deeply problematic. He sighs.
“And perhaps you’ll need to hire a crime-scene cleanup person. I’m sure your own groups can manage that.”
“I..” Lola starts as Robert pulls out that bag, taking a step forward and murmuring, “Okay…” Though, in the process of taking the bag, her fingers may brush against his own, subtle, sweet, warm… The gentle brush of soft, feminine fingers an easy distraction from the fact that the transfer of ‘pixie dust’ is imminent. “Thank you,” says the femme sweetly, a smile on her scarred face, her dilated pupils staring up at him as though he were some knight in shining armor come to her rescue, here to rescue her from the dragon-guarded tower. “I did try to take a shower at home before I left, but.. Not all of it came off. I didn’t wait for the water to heat up, though. Maybe I’ll try that now,” she offers, turning slowly with that bag in hand and departing in the direction that had been indicated.
Golden hair flowing over her shoulders from beneath that wide-brimmed witch’s hat, she shifts through the home and disappears towards the bathroom (hopefully). Meanwhile where her fingers had brushed so tenderly against Robert’s hand, a warm, tingling sensation begins to settle in. The faint glow of glittering mushroom spores is present for only a moment- then slowly they sink into masculine flesh, disappearing soon into the blood stream and beginning to travel. That warm sensation begins to spread, up the Templar’s arm, into his shoulder, and then eventually pulsing in his throat. His gaze, his pupils, they begin to dilate, and he would feel his muscles tense up, then relax soon after.
“You’re welcome.” Robert calls out to Lola as she vanishes through rooms that are – well, she passes through a concrete bunk room into an equally concrete bathroom. Apparently luxury and comfort are things that come at a premium in his household. The man sighs faintly as Lola backs away, reaching up to rub the side of his cheek in exasperation and spreading the spores further unintentionally as he leans briefly on the spear in hand, accelerating the whole process across his body.
He blinks slowly, wearily, wobbling a little – at first assuming it’s just tiredness or something else, but the way it blossoms across his body oddly makes him straighten up in righteous indignation. And he does the only sensible thing he can think of. He slams the spear down to the ground, tilts the blade up – and with an exasperated hiss of displeasure he wraps his hand around the weapon until the quartz-salt bites into his flesh, his own blood oozing across it, the material making the blood burn worse as he grits his teeth briefly.
Such a grand idea- neutralize the magic- the witch had said it was magic. This is easily done. It’s /simple/, so it should work. So why doesn’t it work? The spear slices into flesh and infects the blood with an odd anti-magic of its own that seeps into Robert’s veins, and yet… He still feels that reckless abandon. This isn’t some date rape drug magic- it’s an infection. It’s a high. It’s natural, the innate effects of the mushroom spores themselves soaking into his blood and making his entire body feel like it’s on fire. It’s lasting, and then it’s gone, and then the Templar still feels like a teenager all over again. He wants to be reckless, he wants to be immature, he wants to /live/, to parkour across the roof tops, to graffiti the train cars, to chain smoke cigarettes out of the window of his bedroom. Hell, maybe he even wants to peep at a pretty young witch tryign to wash off the same effects.
2line This won’t take anti-magic to remove- it’s going to take anti-drugs, and it requires Robert to delve into his knowledge of mood altering chemicals and sciences, if he has any at all. How do you get un-drunk? How do you get un-high? Especially when it’s already in your blood stream? Does he even want to?
Robert leaves contaminated blood across the tip of that blade as he draws his hand away, staggering momentarily and taking in a deep breath and rough exhale. His teeth clench and his hand tightens around the pole in his hands, muscles quivering as he fights against that sudden influx of teenage misbehavior and misdemeanor.
Alas, he’s not a chemist. So instead he puts in the call, reaching up for his comms: “I’ve been drugged.” He says, momentarily, rolling his shoulders – and then he decides, oh, to hell with it.
Life’s been shitty.
So out the door he goes, into the rain, plunging into the wetness that’s chill and crisp and flesh, armed and armored, to get into a bit of trouble in the town.
Out into the rain Robert goes, cold and crisp, but not /too/ cold. It’s still summer, after all, and the world of New Haven is humid and warm. Sixty degrees Fahrenheit, however, is just chilly enough. He steps out into the weather, but just behind him is the sound of Lola’s voice- “R-Robert!” calls out the tiny witch, barely dressed, but wearing her blouse and skirt, and she pauses in his doorway, hesitantly gazing out into the rain where the Templar is tromping away. “Mister Robert! Wait! The shower- take a hot shower!!” she insists, gritting her teeth and then running out into the storm after him, squealing as the cold droplets pellet her to spite the hot shower she had just taken. “Mister- H-Hey! Don’t.. Don’t do the bad things in your head!” she insists, trying to find a way to stop him without touching him and starting the cycle all over again, her blouse sticking to her skin and exposing the flesh beneath, clinging like a wet paper towel as she starts to shiver all over again.
It’s the perfect weather for enjoying a good rain. Fifty-five, now, as the temperature continues to plunge as darkness takes hold. The man strides with sudden confidence down the road with a jig in his step, the water plastering his hair down his head and sliding down across his form. There’s a way he moves, a familiarity to the wet and miserable and flashing a ridiculous grin back over his shoulder at Lola. “I’m not going to do anything bad!” Robert promises, declaring with a glint and glee in his eyes. “I’m going to go have a bit of fun for tonight! Have some singing and striding in the rain.”
“Wh- dang it, Robert! N-No! Oh, gosh, this is my fault. This is my fault.. You’re going to kill me in the morning,” she insists, her heart thundering in her little chest. “Mister Robert! Please come back in the house- you’re going to get in trouble, and that’s gonna get me in trouble!!” she insists, frantic, grasping at the man’s shoulder if she can manage, touching clothes only, and trying to gently tug him back, pulling at him again and again until a shitbox of an old Ford F150 pulls up, spitting out smoke from the shuddering tailpipe, which clangs angrily against the bottom of the truck bed.
“Alright, alright,” says a massive butch woman well over six feet tall, wearing a red and black flannel and pulling on a cigarette as hard as she can, stinking of Marlboro Reds and glaring out at Lola and Robert with forest green eyes resting over freckled cheeks. She’s a brown-haired beast with a silver collar around her neck, and with her rolled-up sleeves on can see the distinctive claw marks and bite indentations of a long-passed werewolf attack. She chews on the butt of her cigarette, her large beaty hands reaching into her pockets and fishing around. “Robert, right? Yeah, you’re Robert. Don’t fuckign answer that- just sit right there, I’ve got somethin’ for ya,” she claims, and from a pocket full of lint she pulls out a capped hypodermic needle.
“It’s fine! I feel great! Fantastic, even!” Robert says with smiling cheer, his booted feet drumming across the concrete floor. And then a woman – familiar to he – rolls on up as he turns about upon the butch woman, sizing her up with sizable and serious interest, the collar getting an approving nod from the man. He opens his mouth, “Yep, that’s me – ah, more of the sunshine in a vial? You know, I feel pretty great. Think I might go for a run, zip around like this. It’s been awhile since I’ve felt that way…” In spite of his words, something rigidly holds him there. The willpower that keeps him the leader of the Temple, however temporary, and rigidly stuck in place, unyielding and waiting for his ‘fix’.
“Yeah? Why don’t we all fuckin’ run an’ zip an’ fuck around the town tonight? Put ‘er there, man!” says the butch woman, built like a brick shithouse as her Timberland-booted feet scuff along asphalt and through puddles. She extends a hand towards the Temple Commander as though to shake, though seeing him frozen in place by sheer willpower alone, she takes the opportunity to snag him by the arm and pierce his flesh with that needle right at the wrist, finding the main vein and plunging it deep, spewing vile green liquid right into his blood stream with a snarl on her face that grits her cigarette between her teeth, now burning cotton with malicious glee. It doesn’t hurt- it pinches at first, and there’s a subtle burn, but nothing compared to the spear.
One second. Two seconds. She plucks the needle free and glares in Lola’s direction. “You want some?” she asks, but the qitch squeaks and shouts: “No!!” then runs right back into Robert’s house, slamming the door behind her followed by the sound of two locks clicking shut, like that will stop an angry butch lesbian from hunting down a sopping wet lipstick. It won’t. But perhaps it makes her feel secure, locking poor Robert out of his own home in the rain. Ten seconds go by and Robert can feel his mind returning, slowly at first, then all at once. But she doesn’t stop to chit chat about how he feels. The collared Werewolf just huffs, spits out her spent cigarette, and stuffs another one between her teeth, already soggy from the rain. “Yeah. That should do it. I’m fuckin’ out,” says the Demolisher, turning on her heels.
Robert takes the handshake, in eager, exciting grin, his hand cleaved with the bite from his blade and slapping it right against the butch’s woman. Then his face scrunches up. Oh, that was a mistake. -Ow-. He barely even registers the jab in contrast to the slit mark in his hand in that sadistic grip with a demolisher whom seems, for all intents and purposes, to enjoy it. So let them have their moment of his agony. He takes in a deep, shuddering breath.
At least the rain washes the blood away, his form left a-shivering for all sorts of reasons and shaking out his hand. He stares up at the woman through glinting sunglasses as a grimace crosses his features, his own memory returning. “Until later. Thanks for the assist, soldier.”
“Shit weather,” He grunts, after a moment, turning to tromp back across the walkway to the door he has keys to. He has a woman to kick out now. And potentially stab, if she gets difficult about it.
Robert would return to his home and find Lola cowering behind the couch, or perhaps a chair, using it as a shield and wielding a lamp as a weapon with wide, fearful eyes, though mistakenly she relaxes somewhat when she realizes that he is alone. “I.. I thought you were the angry lady,” she murmurs, taking refuge in his home despite, well, his obvious intent to remove her from the abode. She blinks in utter confusion, as though she couldn’t take a hint, however, and cants her head to the side. “Huh?” is the ditzy little answer he gets, and from there, well, one supposes Robert will decide how things go… Down.
FIN
Robert just gives Lola some tea and gently shoos her out the door so he can get a visit and a nap. He’s had a long, tiring day.