Tenzin’s Monday night odd encounter(Ekaterina)
Date: 2025-09-01 04:27
(Tenzin’s Monday night odd encounter(Ekaterina):Ekaterina)
[Mon Sep 1 2025]
On Washington Avenue/span>/spannight, about 55F(12C) degrees, and the sky is partly covered by thin white clouds. Ankle high mist flows through the area. The mist is heaviest At Mayflower and Darkwater/span>/span There is a waxing gibbous moon.
(Your target discovers a cursed object in an antique shop that binds itself to whoever touches it, slowly draining their life force. They must find the object’s origin story and either fulfill its purpose or find someone willing to take on the curse before it’s too late.)
“Subnet…” Tenzin is a thickly cloaked, armored man mumbling to himself, standing just at the mouth of the mists. His staff rests in the crook of his elbow and he’s got his cheap cellphone in hand, the tip of his index finger pokes buttons at an awkward pace. “How do I do the logining again…”
The streets of Elysia are quiet at this time of the morning; It’s that liminal space between night and day where the monsters retreat to their coffins and dens, but before New Haven, the city-between has fully awoken to its dream-like, mist-enshrouded day-to-day life.
Those mists though, transient as they are can rise anywhere, and standing upon their edge as Tenzin is, it is, in all likelyhood that -something- will come to create discord in the monastic’s life.
Peaceful now, yes, though there are signs that there are changes to come. Headlights through the mist, those driving slowly down Washington Avenue, the sights and sounds of an early morning city rising in a gentle hum, the roiling background noise ever-changing, though in its way, perpetually the same.
That is until Tenzin notices a door that usually isn’t opened at this time. There is light streaming out on to the street, the mist defusing it, warping it into curious patterns of muted light.
From within, there are shadows moving– Pinpoints of brighter light and cast shades that block all off from vision.
“Da, the net.” Ekaterina responds over the coms. “Is login with user name, then the password you chose. Then navigate through headings.”
One monk has his eye on it. Two brows raise, wrinkling his forehead with apprehension. “Why can I not simply ask you both when is a good time?” Tenzin speaks back into his cellphone.
He does not call out to the shadows inside the open door. Instead, he puts his phone to the best use possible: switching on the built-in flashlight and shining it over the doorway. It is no floodlight, but it may be better than going in blind.
Gradually and as quietly as he can, he moves his sandals paces closer.
“I would think you could.” Ekaterina responds. “Though I think was suggestion to help set up easier- Though not all are as up to snuff with technology.” she gently chides over coms.
One monk, one frustrating plastic and metal abomination by which the world revolves. The struggle is mighty, but Tenzin overcomes the beast that is modernity, and that flash light pierces through the gloom of the night, the mists shimmering– parting in its wake.
What then should the ascetic see in the harsh light of that flash? Why, what appears to be the enterence to a store front.
It’s open wide, inviting, though should not be open at this hour, for surely honest business does not begin until the hours set upon the sign on the door, those being nine-til-five, as so many others are in Haven.
Though there is light within, it doesn’t spill out too far from the door, and so this reveals what otherwise Tenzin may have missed– The sparkle of shattered glass before the door way. This is not then the stock-taking of a conscientious businessman going about their early morning setup.
From within, Tenzin sees a few shadowed items, all of which large, antiquated, though one item catches Tenzin’s eye.
It appears to be a statue of a figure in supplication set upon a dais within what becomes clear to Tenzin as an antique store.
The shadows though… They have stopped in their motion, and what little light from within has grown likewise still.
Tenzin’s sunsoaked features pull into creases. “What may be good for one on one day may not be good for one on the same day in the following week, hence,” he challenges. The man’s voice remains on a controlled, calm key, despite the intent. Years of practice must have tempered that.
As keen of eye as the monk is, he scans the facade with calculation and quickness. The lack of movement gets his guard up more than with it. He clicks the flashlight off his phone and whispers one last thing.
“I am checking some disturbance about two blocks north of the Wat Pang Sai.”
The man smoothly stalks into the store. His sandals crunch on the broken glass. His khakkhara is readied on the defense.
“Understood.” one of the Temple agents responds. “Transmit if you need backup.”
Tenzin’s foot falls crunch gravel, the glass, and then cross the stoop, threshold, and settle silently into thick carpet.
The ascetic finds himself indeed within an antique store, the decore not lavish, but rather humble, the obvious signs of Asian heritage in every embellishment save that thick Americanized carpet– A carpet that is never the less tailored to look oriental, dragons and swirls across it in gaudy waves that are at once fitting for, and stand out within Elysia.
Tenzin sees two people within the store itself. Both are clad in grey– not black– the more true to urban thieving types who have recognized that black makes one stand out where looking generic does not.
Clad from head to toe with no skin visible, there is still something off about them. They are rigid, inhumanly still, and those ambiguous garments appear heavy on their frames, the draping wrong, as though the clothing were to bulk them up.
In their hands, pen flashlights glint– Those were the moving signs of light, but they are now focused upon that statue in the center of the room. Their free hands are upon the statue itself, and from here, Tenzin sees that it is not supplication, but it is an angel, head bowed, wings folded around it like a cloak, eyes covered by hands to suggest sorrow or mourning.
Where others may miss it though, Tenzin does not. He is perceptive. From the corner of the statue’s eye, a single droplet of red begins to pool, a glistening thing that bleeds unnaturally.
But more than that– Even with the obvious wrongness of this scene, Tenzin is tempted to reach out himself to touch the artistic representation of this angelic figure. It lures him. It tempts him, but Tenzin’s purity is what protects him.
Tenzin makes ready for an altercation, spotting two others inside the shop dressed like that. He may have encountered unsavory sorts such as these in the neighborhood. All remains still. Too still.
Still, he does not call out to the frozen figures. He does draw closer, beguiled by the unheard cry of this weeping angel. The wrongness is a treacherously comfortable fuzz in the frame of his vision; however, within the core of a man who has abstained from New Haven’s temptations, there may yet be a clarity that saves him.
Rather than join the two in their speechless worship, he nudges one thief in the hip with the butt of his staff. He takes care not to make sudden movements before an anomaly such as this.
All is still; Too still, and the unnerving nature of that is screaming in Tenzin’s head. That statue is cursed beyond the shadow of a doubt, and it takes very little effort for the monk to identify exactly how severe that is.
The ascetic’s staff nudges the figure’s hip, and unlike the expected, the responce is abrupt– a sudden shift that telegraphs itself with a crackle of autumnal leaves. The figure does not slump. It does not topple. It falls in on itself. The clothing crumbles in to itself, the pile dragging the hand from the statue.
The glove falls from the sleeve, the pen light drops with a soft clatter, the light shutting off as it hits the carpeted floor.
Bones clatter to the antique store floor, not white like the movies would imply, but yellowed with the patina of sheathing that protects the skeleton in reality.
Where the figure’s hand had touched the statue’s robe, there is a hand print, crimson and slick, though even as Tenzin looks on, it fades into the angel.
The lure still nags at Tenzin’s mind. It draws him. It guides him. It whispers those caressing sweet nothings in the monk’s ear. The promise of answers…
Even monks get startled. Tenzin jerks away as the husk of garments folds into itself like the rapture. It would seem the Second Coming has picked this one clean, leaving just the bones. He must have been finger-lickin’ good.
“Vile idol, it is not answers I seek,” mutters the nomad, watching the wet, red handprint absorb into the statue. “It is vengeance.” He spares no further time for thought. The intricate Tibetan detail of his staff’s finial catches light in its fine points. In one fell swoop, he swings hard with the one arm he’s got.
Should the angel remain in mourning, the crash of his khakkhara may crack its head severed from its body and see its face crumbled.
The whispers, insidious as they are worm their way further into Tenzin’s thoughts. Like sharp-nailed fingers they seek to claw at his being, but they simply have no ability to dig themselves deep enough in.
Tenzin’s purity enables the monk to weather this onslaught with an ease that another may not, and once that staff begins to swing, it’s all over.
The three rings clang together, the sound loud in the silence and in a single moment where time seems to slow to a stand still, the impact shatters the piece, its form severed, cracks spiraling out from the point of impact.
The head doesn’t drop– It shatters, and from that shattering, the entire piece begins its catastrophic downfall. The cracks continue to spread, dust falls, and where once a thing of cruel beauty stood, detritus.
The dais shudders at the impact, the second figure drops, and then the ascetic is alone.
The shop is empty, the debris atop the dais is little more than shards, and that clawing temptation is -gone-
All falls silent.
Upon investigation, Tenzin will find that this piece was never meant to be shown. Known as the Avatar of Tears, it is a cursed object that drains -sin-.
Cleanup crews arrive in time, the Temple covers this up, and Tenzin is able to return to his day-to-day live with impunity.