Tessa’s Thursday night odd encounter(Eric)

Date: 2025-10-30 21:18

(Tessa’s Thursday night odd encounter(Eric):Eric)

[Thu Oct 30 2025]

On Beacon Street/span>night, about 59F(15C) degrees, and the sky is covered by dark grey stormclouds. It’s raining. The mist is heaviest At Maple and Sidney/span> There is a waxing gibbous moon.

(Your target discovers a supernatural “chop shop” where stolen magical artifacts and creature parts are being harvested and sold on the black market. They must decide whether to shut it down, steal something valuable, or use it to track down the buyers before the operators realize they’ve been compromised.)

You are walking alone Beacon Street, when out of the corner of your eye, you see a pale, shady-looking man ducking out of sight into an alley. He holds a package under one arm, clutching it tightly to his side as if it contains something extremely valuable, and he casts frantic glances over his shoulder.

Tessa looks back along where the man’s eyeline should lead, watching for someone, as she moves to quickly follow the guy. She’s nothing if not nosy, and a blade ends up slipped to her sleeve, held, but not wielded.

Slipping along through the alley on light feet, the man in front of you seems satisfied that he is not being followed, turning his eyes back to the front just as you fall into step behind him. Soon a narrow door along the wall presents itself, a drab and bedraggled portal into somewhere unknown, yet it opens on well-oiled hinges without so much as a squeak. A strange melange of scents wafts from within, the bare dry tingle of dust, the sharp reek of ichor, and something altogether less easily defined, mixing parchment and decaying flesh with a stomach-churning fog. The man is unbothered, slipping through without pause, the door closing behind him.

Generally fearless, in a way she shouldn’t be, Tessa tries to slip in behind the man, and if not right behind him, only a step or two behind. She’s minding his aura, minding what she can see and hear, occultist she is, and she’s not afraid to break and enter. She raises a linen sleeve, covering nose and mouth.

There’s a startled half-second when you swing the door open right behind him, where you’re coming through the door, he’s frozen mid-step, and the two hulking flesh golems to either side of the door have yet to stir into motion. Then he’s yelping, they’re moving to seize you, and the entirety of what you’ve stepped into is unfolding before you. This is a cramped space, the cavernous depths rendered narrow and convoluted by sheer dint of material crammed cheek to jowl across teetering shelves and racks. Dried, pickled, stuffed and all manner of things inbetween, countless monster limbs rest in their designated places alongside strange artifacts, from ancient weapons and armor, to more modern apparati such as cellphones, coins, and even a bicycle with a sign reading, “Enchanted Bike Ride, DO NOT TOUCH.” The man spins towards you, hoisting his package over his shoulder. “Out!” He shrieks the word, pointing one finger at you. “I don’t care who sent you, out!”

“What if I have something you want?” Tessa asks, the gold blade going to hand, hidden within the wing-like sleeves of her Conclavian habit. “I know a thing or two about the occult, and I sensed someone trailing you.” She sounds completely legitimate, one of the best actresses… in the world. unparalelled.

The man blinks, brows drawing down. He’s a sallow little fellow, twitchy, his frame all stringy muscle over thin bones and a hunched posture. Sharp eyes, like those of a rat, dart around her face, then back over her shoulder to the door. “You saw someone? Who was it. Was it the Temple again?” He’s pacing now, back and forth across the floor in front of her and the hulking golems, which haven’t moved at all from where they hold her shoulders. “They keep sniffing around, I’ve had to move two times already.”

Tessa flashes a devil’s grin at him, saying, “Funny thing about the Temple,” lifting a hand to pat one of the golems with the hand not currently holding a blade. “I know their leader, real well. I can probably speak to her, ease up her attention on you. But, of course, curiosity killed the Nun, tell me about what they want?”

Wetting his lips with a nervously flicking tongue, the necromancer, for that’s very clearly what he is, jabs a bony finger at her. “How’s I know you ain’t just sent by them then, huh? To find out what I got.” He’s still shuffling around, nearly dancing with restless energy, though he keeps himself between her line of sight and the counter, where the package he was carrying rests.

Tessa holds out her hand, lifting it, to show the ring of thorns pressed into her ring. “Conclave, not Templar. Orderite, technically, but that’s… semantics.” She dismisses it all with a hand. “I work for a necromancer, and am a curious sort, of course.” Her eyes track to the package, and she tries to get a peek.

Twisting fingers through his lank hair, the man clicks his fingers, seeing her released from the flesh golems. He beckons her closer with a clawed hand, snapping, “Be quick then, be quick!” The lightning strike sees him nearly tipping over with fright as he leaps a few feet in the air, black cloak flaring out dramatically. The necromancer leads Tessa to the counter, unwrapping the layers of cloth wrapped about a single polished thighbone. “This is what they’re after,” he murmurs, running a finger across the surface. “The thighbone of Saint Teresa. Angelborn bone,” he continues, covetously stroking the bone where it rests. “Normally used for their healing capabilities, but tainted just so, the ruin I could inflict were I to turn this into a focus…”

Tessa waits until his back is turned, brushing a finger over the cuff at her ear. Her voice comes out as a sweet purr, laced with persuasion, as she asks, “Don’t you want to give that to me?” The suggestion weighs heavily on his mind.

As soon as she touches that cuff, about five hundred things start whistling, banging, skittering, flashing, and shrieking, casting a rainbow of hues across the room as their alarms activate. The necromancer whirls on Tessa, eyes gone wide, and he bellows at his flesh golem sentries… Who just stand there, because they can’t hear him. Instead he snatches up a nearby sword, charging at Tessa not unhandily, blade raised.

Tessa sighs, a blade leaving her hand as the speedy yoga babe does her best Neo impression and ducks, bobs and weaves toward the bone, wanting to steal it more than anything.

The necromancer’s scream dies in his throat as the knife strikes him, right in the neck. He does a slow, dramatic topple over backward, the sword clattering away from his hand across the floor. Behind Tessa, the two flesh golems melt on the spot, leaving an enormous mound of putrefying flesh in front of the door, which she will need to climb over if she wishes to escape. Around the shop all the alarms still blare their warnings, painting everything in hectic blurs of color. The bone is warm in her hand, radiating a fortifying heat through her entire body as she picks it up without any resistance.

Tessa makes like a baby and heads out, wrapping it carefully within the layers of fabric, realizing it’s not something she should probably be holding onto… but the dragon has added a new thing to her hoard. And she’s outie, over the pools of ick, new, magical bone in hand, a text shot off to Temple security on her way out.