Alice’s Sunday evening odd encounter(Obadiah)
Date: 2025-08-03 17:42
(Alice’s Sunday evening odd encounter(Obadiah):Obadiah)
[Sun Aug 3 2025]
On Atlantic Avenue/span>/spanafternoon, about 78F(25C) degrees, and there are clear skies. The mist is heaviest At Mayflower and Washington/span>/span(Your target discovers a cursed antique in a thrift shop that begins warping reality around them in increasingly dangerous ways. They must figure out the object’s history and how to break its hold before the distortions become permanent or fatal – all while dealing with the shop’s suspiciously knowledgeable owner who may have their own agenda.)
Obadiah sits comfortably at home, watching some mindless show while working on cleaning his shotgun. It is an average, lazy Sunday afternoon activity for the man, when a message comes across his phone. It’s from Ezra. That white haired arcanist was calling in a favor from the merman. “Take another Librarian and report to this brownstone off of prospect street,” the message read. “My research indicates there is a strange object there. Retrieve it catalog it, and report back.”
“Ugh,” Obadiah groaned before texting Alice, “Meet me at this address. Bring Stelle. And fruit snacks.” And with that, he mounted up and made his way to the similar address, awaiting the smarter, stronger, and better looking women.
Alice gets that text as she’s in the back room of the Quill and Key, trying to place orders for terrible stupid anime merchandise and complaining about the profit margins since shipping has gone up so much. And, excited to have something to do, she immediately fires off a text to Stelle, calling in girlfriend privilege and insisting, no, DEMANDING she arrive at the proferred address. It doesn’t take her long before she’s bringing Sunday Brunch to a canter, then a stop, and hopping off.
She’s already on the hunt for Obadiah, eyes scanning until she spots him, giving him a big wave. “Obie! I got your text!”
Stelle happened to be at the Quill and Key, demanding someone fill a bucket with whipped cream for her own horse. The bucket filled and another bush ruined by the shrubbery terror, Cheval, Stelle lifts herself onto her horse and sets him trotting off. She arrives immediately behind Alice, dropping off and flicking her sunglasses from her face before she too comments in a quieter tone, “Alice, I got your text.”
“Ladies,” Obadiah smiles over to the pair before motioning towards the door to the empty brown stone and laying out the scene. “Last night, a pair of teens broke into Esme’s pawn shop and stole a pocket watch. I didn’t think anything of it, not my problem, but then Ezra reached out to me about things happening.”
He flicks his eyes back inside briefly, “The neighbors saw two teens enter the house around 1:00 AM. This was about 20 minutes after the robbery. At 1:23 there was a flash of purple light and suddenly the air smelled like onions and fudge.” He pauses and looks in, “So, Ezra decided we needed to do something about it. I’ll go interview the neighbors secure the block, and if you two wouldn’t mind, could you go… find and secure the watch so this doesn’t get out of hand?”
Alice listens carefully and, although she starts to reach for the pistol concealed just under her sweater, she freezes and stops when he says ‘secure the watch’. We’ll just pretend she wasn’t ready to pop a cap in somebody. “A pocket watch?” she wonders, glancing at Stelle. “If Ezra is worried about it, it’s probably magical… or he’s a watch enthusiast and he had his eyes on that one.” Both equally likely. She approaches the door, eyebrow raised, trying to peek with Obadiah. “I can probably help. I mean, what could go wrong?”
Stelle leans towards Alice and gives her a little bump with her shoulder. “Yes, it euh… sounds like it is euh… up your alley, no?” Stelle asks, that francophone accent flaring as the words come out as if they were foreign to her. There isn’t much in terms of delay from Stelle, settling by the doorframe and peering with with her stormy blues. She’s looking respectfully. “I am betting it is cursed or something.”
“You’ll be fine!” Obadiah says with a wave of his hand. “You have spent enough time to learn how to Mercerize a situation,” he says giving a thumbs up to the pair before taking a step away from the door frame and heading off towards the backyard. “If you need me know how to find me,” he reassures them before disappearing around the corner.
“Mercerize… I don’t want to beat anyone up…” Alice murmurs. Nonetheless, it’s time to get started. She gestures to Stelle, bossing the woman around even though Stelle could put Alice through the wall without a second thought. “Do you want to stand in front?” she asks sweetly, knowing the answer. “Head inside, and I’ll be right behind you. Just in case there’s, like, a swinging log trap or something.” With that potentiality spoken into the world, she settles right behind Stelle, urging her onward.
“I am here anyways, no?” Stelle responds to Alice, she isn’t really one to ignore a demand from the redhead though. Nor is she one to allow Alice in first, it’s simply ungirlfriendly. “If there was a swinging log trap I would just not get hit,” she replies with an air of certainty, a wide step taken into the building and acute eyes looking around as if she expects to find the pocket watch directly in view.
Two steps in, or when the pair are in, the door slams shut behind them. Just the wind probably. However, there are no immediate threats, just the usual dust and cobwebs covering furniture with sheets over it. There are some cheap, if beautiful, paintings hanging over the fireplace. In general it looks like an abandoned house. Footprints in the dust seem to lead in the direction of the basement.
Alice jumps a little when the door slams shut, looking over her shoulder with a grimace. She’s not the same scaredy-cat she was months ago, though. Also, she keeps that motha-fuckin’ thang on her, these days. So, she surges forward, one hand on Stelle’s shoulder to use the other woman as a shield slash guide. The footprints don’t escape her notice, but she pauses a little. She squeezes a shoulder to get Stelle’s attention, pointing at the tracks wordlessly, then the door to the basement.
Stelle tenses but she doesn’t jolt at the sound and sensation of the door slamming shut behind her though she does look back to check on Alice. The suddenly touch on her shoulder before she manages to see the the other girl seems to cause her more panic than the door, but it’s not much. She moves quickly then, a nod to her partner and feet leading forward towards the basement. If there’s a door she tests it and if it’s locked it’s going down. A casualty of war.
The door is old and creaky, painted white and turning yellow with age. The door knob was probably polished brass at one point in its life. The hinges whine in protest when Stelle opens the door for the pair to follow the footprints down to the basement. Once down there they see a disturbing scene:
In the center of the room are two bodies, one uncomfortably young, the other impossibly old, both dressed in the latest fashion of teens these days.
Alice eyes the scene with some disgust, murmuring, “Oh, god. That’s not good,” as she looks upon the poor victims. It takes her a moment of thinking before she posits her theory: “Pocket watch… it’s making them age in one direction or another, I bet. That’s a BIG curse.” She grimaces and, before she approaches, puts two fingers out like she’s a Disney World worker pointing the way for a guest. Using those two fingers, she draws a quick rune, wide enough that both she and Stelle can step through it – and she does, warding herself against magic as best she can on the approach. “Where’s the watch?”
Stelle whispers unprompted, “The basement that makes you old…” as she settles by the stairway. Cursed objects certainly aren’t her strength and she steps slightly aside to offer Alice the room and follows behind now, swapping places smoothly, almost practiced. “Euh… Let’s see,” she says then, those eyes scanning the floor and walls as if she might find something.
The area ward spreads out over the room and bathes the room in a soft blue light before it fades into the walls, protecting the basement from something…. Both can hear, and see, that the watch is clutched in the hand of the old man, it’s chain spread out between them, but the hour hand spins in one direction the minute in the other. Instead of numbers, there are Greek letters, but they aren’t in order, either.
Stelle keeps close to Alice now, eyes on the watch. There’s a flicker of recognition in the eyes but she doesn’t seem to actually understand anything and she gives Alice a rather helpless look. “What do yu think?” she asks as she scoots a touch closer but keeps her hands to herself, eyes flicking between the old man and the not so old form. “Euh… Some sort of age transfer? Or do you think I am misinterpreting?”
Alice has, more or less, learned her lesson from the Blind Heron about picking up cursed items. She does approach, though, looking it over and cataloguing the out-of-order Greek letters, the opposite-spinning hands… “They must have activated it, somehow,” she posits, kneeling beside the bodies, especially the old man. “I should have brought tongs or something, I don’t want to pick it up.” She glances at Stelle, and slowly nods. “Transfer… yeah. It could be a transfer, actually. There’s magic for that. Let me…” Alice inspects the watch much, much closer, getting as close as she dares without actually touching the thing. Can she suss out anything more about it, with her expertise?
Then the pocket watch’s hands passed over each other, triggering a bright purple flash!
The two step in, the door slams shut behind them. Just the wind probably. However, there are no immediate threats, just the usual dust and cobwebs covering furniture with sheets over it. There are some cheap, if beautiful, paintings hanging over the fireplace. In general it looks like an abandoned house. Footprints in the dust seem to lead in the direction of the basement.
Stelle pauses in her tracks, eyes front. She looks back for Alice then back towards the ‘front’ she’s chosen again. Her mouth opens then closes. Opens then closes and for a moment she looks lost for words and instead turns back to Alice, an eyebrow raised.
Alice not only knows what this is, she has read a paper about it, maybe she wrote a paper about it. This is the Watch of Chronos, presumed lost to a time paradox, once wound it resets reality at random intervals to the time which it was first wound. There are two ways to stop the watch, first let it unwind, or second pull the knob on the top which stops the mechanism from working. Very likely, the pair got caught in different time loops and were two inexperienced to know how to stop it, the first regressing and the first super aging. A quick calculation means they probably lived the same 15-30 minutes for a mind numbing number of _years_ to get to where they were.
too inexperienced, and the pair of teens. Alice and Stelle are fiiiiine.
Alice gasps as she realizes she’s not looking at the watch, she’s standing at the door again, staring down at dusty footprints and being startled by the door. She almost jumps before it closes – the anticipation almost tricks her body into jumping twice. She looks to Stelle, though, making sure the other woman is there, is fine, and leads the way to the basement this time, more confident now that she knows there’s not a log trap like what killed that AT-ST on Endor. “Come on! I think I can get it!”
She takes the steps two at a time on the way down, nearly tripping on one and having to steady herself on the wall, then skids around the corner to the bodies. She pulls her sleeves up over her hands, still overly cautious with these kinds of items, looking to pry the watch out of the old man’s hand and yank up on the knob, groping with her sleeved fingers. “It’s a loop!” she says. “Not a transfer, a loop! And it might loop again!”
“Uh, yes, let’s go,” Stelle replies, following quickly. Matter-of-fact she just picks Alice up and puts on God’s most hated pair of Nike’s, godling speed sending the duo down the stairs and across with dangerous force as /she/ takes the stairs two at a time before settling Alice on the floor feet first. She watches with intensity though she seems more than comfortable putting her supposed life in Alice’s hands, even if she tenses when Alice reaches towards the very much still cursed in her mind object. Trust wins in the end here.
The knob gets pulled, and the ticking stops. The clock hands swing around to midnight and is rendered otherwise inert. Alice and Stelle have saved the day. Stelle’s Valkyrie impersonation reduced the amount of time required, which means there were no anomalies preventing the stopping.
“You two alright down there?” Obadiah shouts down to the ladies, “I saw Stelle Koolaid man that door. Oh and did you bring those fruit snacks?”
Alice holds the watch gingerly, looking at it as if it might explode, sucking air in through her teeth before she peeks up the stairs, calling up to Obadiah, “I think I fixed it!” she says, tempting fate to prove her wrong, but she’s got the watch in hand and she starts up the stairs more carefully, holding it out and away from her body like a bomb. “Oh, um. I have…” Once she’s at the top, her spare hand fishes out something from her ingredient belt, handing it over to Obadiah. “I brought sugar cubes. That counts, right?”
“And there’s two euh…. Well we should probably call Doctor Lin and Ezra, no?” Stelle replies, motioning towards the basement as she follows Alice up, “They will want to take a look at what the watch did.” She pauses a moment then, eyes on the sugar cube longingly.
“Nerd,” Obadiah says to Alice as if he himself isn’t one. He takes the sugar cube and pops it into his mouth like a heathen before continuing. “Alright, well, I’ll let you two take credit for this one. Go ahead and check it in with Ezra please?” He pauses then and winks, “Or, you know, keep it and I’ll tell Ezra it was destroyed. Up to you. I mean one of you will have to explain it to the warden.” He gives the pair a fiendish grin, “That will be an interesting pillow talk conversation.”
(OOC: Thank you for going on this encounter! You can do cdrives if you want, go ahead and make one last pose if you want then head down to leave!)
Alice glances down at the watch, then at Stelle, pursing her lips. She’s considering it, but then she decides, “I’ll give it to Ezra and let him deal with it. I’ve had enough with weird curses,” before she places it into one of the warded pouches on her belt, keeping it sealed in there where it won’t get jostled around too badly and maybe accidentally make her relive her entire life again. “Warden Stelle would get really mad at me if I kept it, anyway,” comes her quip, before she waves goodbye to Obadiah. “Call me if you need anything else, Obie! Always happy to help.”
“The watch that makes you old,” Stelle offers this time, eyes held upon it the object. “It’s going to be Warden Alice who will be mad at /me/ if I keep it, really,” she adds but then she waves her own goodbye and holds up a peace sign on her way out. “Same offer, no? Happy to help.”
Veronica has just gotten out of her car, looking a little rough as she starts to head into the Four Seasons.
(Your target discovers a cursed object in a thrift shop or estate sale that compels them to keep it close. The object whispers dark secrets about everyone they meet, but each revelation comes with a price – a small piece of their humanity or sanity. They must find a way to break the object’s hold before they lose themselves completely.)
The sun has just gone down over the young town of Haven and Veronica has arrived at the four seasons to head inside. She’s dressed like she just finished a shift at the hospital and probably has, the floaty sensation of well used leg muscles make her walk just a little sluggish, she has a workers stink to her from not showering after a long day. She probably has countless stories of patients ignoring medical advice, or elderly patients diving out of bed just for attention.
Despite all this Veronica has made it to to hotel. On the way she passes a man on his way out, he’s in a suit. Well dressed and is already getting into the back of a taxi when a voice whispers
“He’s carrying roofies if he isn’t lucky.”
The voice, and then Veronica looks back at the man. There’s a frown, as she looks around, trying to find the source of those words … looking back in the direction of the taxi.
Within moments the man is gone in the taxi as it drives off and Veronica is left unsure if she heard what she heard. She could just be tired. The rest of the approach to the Four season’s front door and beyond seems to be uneventful. The last light of the sun finally fades away, hardly notices at the street lights of Haven turned out about thirty minutes before dusk.
Veronica double-takes: she keeps walking, of course, going upstairs to change into something more casual before she goes down to the bar the hotel, looking there. It has been, in fact, a very long day. At the bar, she keeps looking around, trying to find the source of the voice.
The source of the voice remains a mystery as it was a one off till now. But it comes back, confirming to Veronica she wasn’t just ‘hearing things’ unless she is continuing to have some kind of chaotic break. The bartender is a friendly enough fellow who ask what Veronica wants.
In Veronica’s ear is a whisper, its sneaky and conspiratorial, “This one lets women get too drunk then takes them home.”
Veronica hears this just fine but there is no indication from the bartender that he hears it too.
Veronica looks sharply over at the man as she orders a drink. Focusing on him, for a moment, she says… “Buy me a drink?”
“You buy the drinks. I serve them.” The bartender replies to Veronica with amusement. He moves off down the bar to actually deal with a paying customer who isn’t asking for handouts. Giving time to Veronica to think about her error before returning to ask her, “You going to buy a drink then?”
Veronica distinctly received the whisper about the bartender letting women be over-served so he can take them home at the end of the night.
Now Veronica watches … she does order a drink, eventually, watching how the bartender interacts with women. One, and then the other … she begins to order more drinks. She’s not really drinking them. When the bartender isn’t looking, her gin and tonics go into water glasses, so it looks like she’s been draining them, as she starts to act more and more drunk with the bartender.
Ploys to catch the bartender in the act and bait him with her fake drunken-ness but she can’t help but hear more and more whispers when various patrons come to the bar. Something whispers conspiratorially in her ear each time someone comes to tell her something about them that they probably would like to be quiet.
“They don’t pick up their dogs shit.”
“They have a favorite child.”
“They voted Republican.”
And so on. Eventually Veronica would look for her phone, or pull out her wallet to pay for her drinks, its then she would find something round and hard in her pocket. Upon pulling it out she finds she’s acquired a polished stone of some kind, it’s a pretty blue with a swirling white pattern. Something you might pick up off the street just because it’s pretty.
“Huh …” Veronica exhales, looking at the stone. She holds it in her hands, feeling the warmth of it, and then she looks up and around at all the people. At all the things that are wrong with them, the things that she can sense. Are they true? Well. There’s a test, isn’t there? Is the bartender hitting on her, all fake-drunk?
“He doesn’t like you.” The voice whispers pointedly at Veronica, reading her intentions and communicating more directly. The stone does feel warm in the hand, and as Veronica recalls a buried memory, something hidden from her own subconscious. She gave a kid a dollar out of charity who was hawking various stones on the corner while she was on her way to work. How could she forget that? Somehow she did till now.
“I can tell you who wants you if that is what you desire? I can tell you who deserves punishment if you want to do good. Use me.”
Now, in Veronica’s mind, something triggers. Something afraid. She pays her bill, full of hesitation … fear at whatever this is taking over. Fumbling for her phone, she switches to a Vigil encrypted app and texts the guard at the Natural History museum to be ready for her to arrive with a lead-lined box.
The stone becomes cold in Veronica’s hand, incredibly cold until its painful to hold but when Veronica tries to release it, she can’t as though her fingers have been frozen to the stone and are unable to let go.
“Listen you bitch. You can’t get rid of me, you might as well accept me or else I’ll destroy you.”
The threats are intense and the painful cold is hard to ignore. While all this is happening none of the other patrons or the bartender notice anything amiss and don’t hear a thing that Veronica does.
Rising from the bar, quickly, with some fear in her steps, Veronica starts to head for her car. She squeezes her hand tightly: she’s not trying to let go of the stone, but she is trying to get it the rest of the Last Vigil before it burns through her palm.
“No!” The voice shouts at Veronica in a tone only her ears can hear. It tries a different tact. When Veronica reaches for the door handle of her car the stone in her other hand tries to zap her with the force of a tazer. It WANTS Veronica to let go and she finds that if she wants to. She can.
At the front lobby, Veronica drops to her knees, gritting her teeth in pain. She doesn’t let go, but she fumbles for her phone, hitting some emergency button. Hoping to summon help.
The display draws some awkward gazes from patrons passing in and out of the hotel but in Haven, not many people are willing to lend help to the crazy girl on her knees in a hotel lobby. The emergency call goes out, putting a clock on Veronica to try to hold onto that stone that fights back with every trick, it goes hot enough to scald without physically burning any flesh, it goes cold again to try to freeze Veronica’s fingers but it gives no frostbite. The pain is excruciating but the damage is non-existent. Its simply a battle of willpower and time to go along with threats, “I can give you power! Free me! Protect me!”
Veronica shuts her eyes, and she starts to focus on her thoughts: on her memories. It’s Italy again, in 1943, when the Germans overrun her camp. She should have been safe, behind enemy lines, and even as a POW, a female POW, she should have been well-treated, but of course she was scared. When the German officer came in … she didn’t recognize the symbol then … he told her that there was going to be a prisoner exchange, and he could move her up on the list. All he needed was for her to agree to give him some blood. The agreeing, the bargain, that was the part that mattered.
Soon the pain becomes distant as Veronica blocks it out with thoughts of her history. Since the stone is attacking her through mental means, the mental distraction is quite effective in holding it off. It tries to whisper to her but the words are meaningless garble. A black van soon screeches to a halt outside, a side door slides open and a pair of men in trenchcoats and vigil symbols come rushing inside to Veronica. One holds a box and the other has a gun concealed just under his coat to watch for outside threats. “Quick, put it inside.” the man suggest. But not before the stone breaks through Veronica to warn her, telling her “They do not care about doing good! They lie. They only want to hurt people like you.”
Shoving the stone inside,” Veronica nods to the man … breathing hard. “I almost lost it,” she says. “Almost. But I’m safe.”