It’s early in the day. The sun slowly dawns, its first tendrels making themselves shown across the New Haven skyline, its dull golden corona drifting in its hesitance to interupt the things of the night.

Curious then. Though Avalon is in his home, Avalon hears the sounds of activity from a house close to his.

Though the area is usually quiet, this punctuation of the early morning quiet cuts deep. It’s like a knife through flesh, grating, abrasive, violent and as hostile as it’s possible to be. It ruins the quiet that Avalon was enjoying, the bastion of gentility and peace shattered.

It started with the sirens in the early hours, around six hours back. It continued with banging– knocking– hammering, and now there seems to be more. There’s activity that shouldn’t be. Activity that should be days off…

As Avalon checks, he sees that people are gathering, whispers passing, shouts for people to wait, and then he sees it.

‘The unfortunate death of Jackson Peters can be your thrift shop dream!’

Vultures have already arrived, the enterprising nir-do-wells of New Haven having infested the crypt of someone’s livelyhood like festering mould, only to sell everything he ever cared about– ever loved within hours of expiration.

Avalon huhs at the sigh as he glances from his bathroom window, not seeming all too bothered by either the death of the selling, but probably finding some mild annoyance in the large gathering of people so closeby to his home. Eyeing the congregation for a couple more minutes of pondering, he finally shrugs both of his shoulders, and muttering to himself “As long as they don’t come bother me…” Moving back towards the vanity he had been inspecting moments before, and kneeling down to keep checking the piping, apparently there was something wrong with the sink that he was in the process of fixing before his attention was diverted

The sale is well under way when Avalon checks his window, the sounds coming from people both streaming into, and out of the house.

Avalon recognizes one of them though, a Courtier from the Illusium, Roberta.

She’s apparently gotten a bargain there, a lackered box of some kind, and instead of exiting like a perfectly normal person, Avalon notices that she’s started scaling his house as she makes her exit.

Yes… There it is… Two official-looking types in ill-fitting suits are running after her. She likely stole the thing, what ever it is.

As Avalon turns to his sink, there’s a scrabbling. The steady tick-tick of nails on ancient mmortar, and the men begin pounding on Avalon’s front door. It looks like he may get breakfast after all. And of course, that’s when the albino vampire begins ascending the building right beside the window.

“It’s the Illusium Court…” Avalon reminds himself, with a gruff groan of annoyance as he crawls back out, away from the vanity and slowly stands to his feet, letting a second groan out with the motion “You can’t eat this one…” He mutters to himself again as he glances between the window and the house entrance, to the west, letting out a pronounced sigh “I am too old for this… If only I wasn’t cursed I wouldn’t have to deal with this…” He keeps on muttering to himself as he makes his way to the front door and opens it slowly, asking before even seeing what the two men even look like an impatient “What is it?”

Barely waiting to even speak to Avalon, the two men try to push past him.

“Let us in.” the first demands, a clean shaven man in a grey suit.

“Sir, you’re in the way. Please move.” the second demands, this one a tubby little sack of shit in skuffed shoes. “The woman escaping by clambering up your wall has stolen something that belongs to us. Stand aside and let us head her off.”

No weapons are drawn, but even as Avalon waits, he can see that they’re packing weaponry. The tell-tell bulging from under their overcoats. They’re both human though. They’re not able to stop him…

There’s a smashing sound from the bathroom. Of course there is. Roberta could easily have used lock picks, but instead, the sound of something being thrown through, and slamming against the wall can be heard, followed by the soft thud of feet on flooring and the crunch of glass.

“I didn’t do it.” comes the voice of the albino, and the men try to crowd the door in order to retrieve their property.

There’s something else though. Call it divine providence or serendipity, but the moment the first thunk hit and bounced across the floor behind Avalon, the tinny sound of music begins to play.

Over that though is a voice. It’s airy, low, almost imperceptable, and it stops when Roberta picks the box up, casually inviting herself into Avalon’s hall… Which of course causes the two men to redouble their efforts to pass Avalon to reach the vampire.

Avalon simply shoves both men backwards the moment they try to push past him and into his house, earning them a subtle frown. His attention though is diverted towards the woman as she invites herself into the room. There a moment of consideration, but ultimately he tells both of the suited men “No can do- That’s my superior over there…” A shrug of his shoulders, an oversized arm stretched to hold the door almost as a silent threat to close it on them, but not doing so yet, but also acting as a barrier for entry at the same time, and a careless close of his eyes to accompany the shrug “You can direct any complaints towards the Court… Or the Hand if you’d prefer that”

“Sir.” Grey Suit complains. “You don’t know what you’re doing. Move.” His weapon is drawn, a pistol, and it’s leveled at Avalon.

“Now sir.” his companion, Shoes answers, hands held up wardingly before him. “That woman has taken something of exceptional value. We need it back or payed for.”

They are both trying so hard, bless them, even as Avalon threatens to close the door in their faces.

And because she’s who she is, Roberta just cant help but to inflame the situation further– Breaking and entry, larceny, property damage… what next?

Roberta comes over, a grin plastered over her face, and she grins to the two men, the box held up, fingers already working on its winder, turning the handle, the clockwork whirring.

The box lid opens, and mechanical dancers begin to move slowly, their stunted motions matching the tinny melody that emerges– It’s a lullaby, and with that a manifestation takes form. The same low voice begins to speak again. It’s rapid, as if it thinks it’ll be cut off again. “Oh dear god, you have to help me. These men wanted to sell the box to a dealer. A necromancer from Trinity, and I’m bound to this thing. I have a message. I need to deliver it to the Blackwood family.”

There’s no chance that Roberta actually cares about helping the spirit, but never the less, a brow raises, and she looks accusingly at the men at the door. “I stole this?” she asks them.

Gaze drifting to Avalon, Roberta lore dumps as the men continue to fail to pass the much stronger man before them. “This is the spirit of a man who the Court hired for an important task in the eighties. We’d not been able to find what happened to him, but as it turns out, the box his spirit got bound to ended up in this itteration of the city-between.”

As Roberta continues to turn the handle, allowing the ghost’s manifestation to continue, the men glance at each other. “These two,” the albino continues, “located it before the Hunters could, and they were aiming to sell the box, with the spirit, in full knowledge that the task would never be completed, to the highest bidder.”

The man with the pistol raises it to Roberta, lining up a shot, the other wedges one of those shitty shoes in the door, aiming to stop Avalon from fully shutting them out.

“That’s enough Grey Suit snarls. “You know full well we cant let that spirit pass its information on to the Blackwoods. It’d give them what they need to resurrect Elenore. We cant let her out of that mausoleum.”

“Please.” the spirit begs. “I need to pass them the message– The Blackwoods need to know that if Elenore is able to break the key, she wont be trapped.”

“I really don’t care about any of this…” Avalon confides to Roberta as she explains the situation, the two men and spirit probably getting the message through, well, they have ears, right? They are just caught in his own explanation “But I am Court while I stay here so… Yeah, no luck” He tells the men as he goes to close the door, and, well aware of the foot that Shoes has sneaked to try and prevent that very same thing, he puts his whole strength into doing so, as if going to slam the door shut, only for it to avoid any damage to the frame or its hinges by being stopped in smashing the intruding shoe.

And not happy with only doing that, Avalon just a second later turns towards Roberta, not letting go off the door and instead leaning his back and his weight over it, trapping the feet in the excruciating position “If the Court wants this thing, go take it to them… Otherwise, I don’t think this needs to involve me too much”

The door gives easily under Avalon’s -care- and the man’s scream from his foot being crushed is high and pathetic.

The second fires his shot, though it hits the door and likely rebounds, because he too screams, drops and there’s a struggle as the two seemingly end up in a pile, allowing Avalon to finish closing the door.

Meanwhile, Roberta’s attention is on the spirit– She’s staring at it, her fingers having stopped in the turning of that handle, the clockwork slowly winding down. “I don’t care either.” she announces to Avalon.

The ghost blinks. “Wait, you’re going to help me?” he asks, elated… which is when Roberta drops the box, stamping on it until it’s nothing but trash and recked springs.

Wiping her hands, Roberta shrugs to Avalon. “Guess I can just go give the info to the Blackwoods myself. No need for this guy.” And like that, the spirit doesn’t move on, but loses its connection to the material world.

“Imma go out how I came in.” Roberta decides, heading back to the bathroom. “You may want to lock up– Oh, and get a new window. Someone broke it.”

And like that, the situation resolves itself. The box isn’t a problem, the enemies disrupted and likely bleeding out on Avalon’s door step, and Avalon is left alone to his peace again, even as Roberta fucks off, having caused all of this trouble.

A job well done.