Encounterlogs
Brians Odd Encounter Sr Roger 240907
In the heart of a well-used leatherworker’s studio, after the sun has set and a crescent moon hangs low in the sky, Brian finds himself caught in an unusual encounter. The space, filled with the tools of the trade and the scent of worked leather, suddenly becomes a stage for a meeting that blurs the line between the natural and the supernatural. Brian, after attending to his mundane tasks, senses the charged atmosphere of the room, hinting at the imminent intertwining of his fate with that of the otherworldly. A tapping at the window breaks the stillness, revealing an ethereal figure whose eerie beauty and commanding presence mark her as a creature of the fae. Her request to be let inside, veiled as a command, compels Brian to comply, despite his better judgment.
The fae’s introduction into the studio sets the stage for an unsettling exchange. She steals Brian's name, claiming it as her own, and unveils her intention to grant him a gift: the knowledge coveted by many, a treasure of consciousness and understanding far beyond the mundane. However, Brian, feeling unworthy and wary of the fae’s intentions, resists her advances and the obscure cost of her ‘gift’. The creature, frustrated by Brian's refusal to play his part in her anticipated script, threatens to take him away for a sinister form of education. Brian, with a mix of humility and courage, declines her offer once again, prompting the fae to retreat in a fit of pique, leaving behind only the physical evidence of her visit and a lingering air of mystery. This encounter leaves Brian, alone once more in his studio, to ponder the strange and dangerous intricacies of a city where the supernatural can breach the walls of reality with a simple knock on the window.
(Brian's odd encounter(SRRoger):SRRoger)
[Fri Sep 6 2024]
In a leatherworker's home studio
Wide and well-lit, this studio is somewhat cluttered, even when organized. Recessed shelves line most of the northern wall, filled with rolls of leather and a range of fabrics, coordinated first by material, then by color in a wide gradient. Counters line both the northern and eastern wall, cabinets and drawers resting beneath in even spaces with ranges of tools - knives, bevelers and skivers, setters, stitching tools, and others for stamping and tooling, all clean and carefully placed, similarly organized in groups. The tools themselves vary in age, but all seem slightly worn, handles evened oddly by continuous use. On the southern side of the room, a plush carpet has been set, with seats and a partition, a space made for fittings and conversation with clients, undoubtedly.
It is after dusk, about 75F(23C) degrees, There is a waxing crescent moon.
(Your target and their allies are charged with tracking down a supernatural criminal on the run from the factions, what they do with them then is up to the players to decide.
)
Brian returns to his room after doing some laundry. He puts his clothes away, answers a few outstanding texts, then begins to field strip and clean his handgun. Once completed, he settles down for a short power nap.
The room hums with the low, almost subliminal whisper of the leatherworkers trade-a symphony of scents and textures blending together in the twilight hours. The recessed lights overhead cast their glow across the northern wall, where shelves brim with an array of leathers and fabrics that paint a spectrum of color in the otherwise muted space. Each roll is a story waiting to be told, each tool on the well-worn counters along the eastern wall a testament to the craftspersons labor. A soft, steady drip of rain against the windowpanes offers a hushed rhythm to the scene, like distant applause, muted by the thickness of the walls.
Brian stands amidst the scattered tools and the curated chaos, a figure caught in the stillness of the moment, framed by the warmth of the room against the encroaching chill of the night outside. He can feel the weight of the air around him-thick, almost expectant-as if the very room itself holds its breath, waiting. There is a certain gravity to this space, a sense that something important has happened here, or perhaps is about to.
The moon outside hangs like a sliver of silver in the sky, waxing and watching with an indifferent eye. The leatherworkers tools seem to gleam faintly in the dim light, their worn handles whispering secrets of past works and the patient toil of hands that have crafted things both beautiful and necessary. It is the kind of place where stories begin-where the seams between the ordinary and the extraordinary are stitched together with careful, deliberate hands.
And yet, there is an undercurrent-a tension woven into the fibers of the room itself. A draft slips through a crack in the window, carrying with it the faint scent of salt and brine from the nearby sea, a reminder that Havens mysteries are never far away. Somewhere beyond these walls, a supernatural criminal is on the run, hunted by forces both known and unknown, slipping through the cracks like smoke through a sieve. The factions, Hand, Order and Temple, all want this fugitiveeach for their own reasons, and each with their own secrets to keep.
A fae. A woman. One who threatens to reveal the supernatural on the near daily. A crime that even the Big Three can agree on.
The target is clever, elusive, and dangerous in ways that are not easily quantified. They have slipped through fingers before, danced through the shadows cast by Havens ancient, tangled streets, always a step ahead of the hunters, always just beyond the reach of the grasping hands that seek them. But now, they are close. Perhaps too close.
Somewhere in the studio, a faint tappinga subtle knock, perhaps, or the sound of something brushing against a windowpane. It is barely perceptible at first, like the distant flutter of wings in the dark. But it grows louder, more insistent, a reminder that time is always moving forward, even in the stillness of the studio.
The question hangs in the air, unspoken but palpable: What next? Does Brian wait here, amidst the warmth of the leatherworkers haven, listening for the sounds of approach? Or does he move, step beyond the comfort of this place into the uncertainty of the night, where shadows twist and turn, and danger waits with bated breath?
The choice is his, or at least, it appears this way, but he can feel the weight of the decision pressing down on him, like the hand of fate itself.
The hunt has begun, but is Brian the hunter, or the hunted?
For good or ill, that tapping noise? It isn't a figment of the man's imagination, and it's insistance grows with each touch, and tap. The windows shake in their frames, icy tendrils drawing across them despite the relative warmth of the evening.
Brian looks at the window, then gets closer to see what the noise is. He doesn't put his face against the glass, but he gets close. "What -is- that?" he murmurs to himself.
What is that? Well, it's a person, of course. Ethereal. Beautiful. Strange. There is a face on the other side of the window, staring through the portal toward Brian. Their eyes are a little too big for their face. Their ears are long, and pointed. Their hair frames and falls about their features like they were underwater, a shifting, mercurial mass of lavender locks. They're wearing little more than a shift, and they press their hands, spindly things, with fingers that are far too long, against the window.
"Let me in, open the window." They whisper, and it isn't a request. It's a command. Their words smell of elderflowers, and berries, yet another unusual idiosyncrasy.
Your subconscious is being pressured to open the window.
Brian steps foward, his hands seemingly not under his control as they reach for the window latch. Suddenly, the window is open, the rain and wind spattering into the room as Brian steps back, his eyes still locked on the strange woman.
There is a moment where the strange woman is outside, and then in the next breath she is standing in the room. In front of Brian, intimately so, so close that she literally shares this breath with him, breathing in his exhaled air, as she studies his features with those too large eyes. You could get lost in them, unusual as they are, how they draw in the light, and the eye both, and trap them inside. Like an opal-flecked black hole.
Those long, long, alien fingers raise slowly, and with a gentle touch she strokes at Brian's check, cold and warm in equal measures. "Can I have your name?" This ethereal creature wonders of the man, and once more there's scent on her tongue, and words. A smell that might best be described as 'want', which isn't usually a scent, is it?
Brian nods, slowly. "My name is Brian. Who are you, and what were you doing outside my window?" he asks her.
Is it? Is that Brian's name?
"My name is Brian." The strange, fae woman echoes back to the man, and truth be told? She's right. He might not quite be sure what his name is any more, but it certainly isn't Brian. That name belongs to her now.
"I was waiting, I was watching. I was spinning webs, and setting lines." The woman, known as Brian, explains to the nameless man, "You are new here. Fresh. A spring morning, covered with dew." It isn't a question, it's an observation. Those long, long fingers stroke and touch at Brian all the while, invading his personal space like it doesn't even belong to him.
Brian nods, and while he doesn't pull away, his expression makes it clear that he doesn't like being touched without giving permission. "I am new here, yes. I am a student at White Oak, and I have a job, and I have someone I care about. What is it you need from me?"
"Need?"
The word is repeated back to the Man-Once-Known-As-Brian as if it were an insult, and there's an accompanying cant of the strange woman's head as she studies him. "I am here to give you a gift, my dewdrop. Not to take. Not this time." She explains to him, despite having already robbed him of his name. "It is a simple game, hm? And the treasures, oh the treasures, dewdrop." She sighs out softly, as a set of nictitating membrane, third eyelids, slide over that opal-flecked oblivion that serve as her eyes.
Brian nods. "Alright, what gift is it you wish to give me? And why me, when it seems you could have chosen anyone here to bestow your gift upon?"
"Knowledge, my little dewdrop." New-Brian informs Old-Brian, as if it were obvious, "To sup from the tree of good and evil, to drink deeply of the river of awareness? To sing, and dance through the gardens of conscious thought." Once more she is invading his space, raising her hands to stroke at him, to touch him. Laying claim with each and every little invasion, and with each being more invasive than the last. "The knowledge that some try to harbour, and keep, but you.. You can have it all, and all it will cost?" She flutters her eyelashes toward him, motes of light flicking through the night air between them.
She doesn't finish the thought. Brian already knows, somehow, what the cost would be. He had already paid parts of it. Parts of himself, without even realizing. His name belonging to this creature now. What else was she stealing from him with her very presence?
Brian shakes his head. "I am unworthy of such a gift, not wise enough to make good use of it, and I have nothing to offer in return that would be of any real value to one such as yourself."
"Yes, you are." There's no argument there, Brian is unworthy, but that doesn't seem to matter much to the strange, fae creature. Worth? Worthiness? These might as well be alien concepts. "Oh, sweet spring childe, you only a seed. A precious little thing. A dewdrop." Her fingers raise to cup his cheeks, long, and slender, and yet full of alien strength, "You will grow." She assures him then, leaning in closer, closer.
Closer.
Closer.
Her eyes are all that Brian can see now, cold and warm, and full of everything and nothing alike. They draw him in, until he's falling, tumbling through the opal-flecked darkness. Without a lifeline. Without anything. It's doom, his doom.
But She offers him a lifeline, as her lips press against his own, eyes open all the while, ensnaring him, as the sweet taste of sugared decay invades his mouth along with her tongue.
Brian pulls himself back, and damn the consequences. "You place me in an awkward position by giving me a valuable gift of which I am unworthy, and which I cannot repay in kind. While I am grateful for your offer, I feel that I can only save what little face I have by declining."
There's a long pause here, as the woman tries to parse exactly what Brian was trying to say to her. Denial? This isn't just a river in Egypt? There's a flash of anger within those soul-ensnaring eyes, and a low hiss expells out of her.
"You are not playing your part properly, dewdrop." She insists to Brian, her lips twisting into a frown that reveals her pointed little teeth. "You are going /off script/." The accusation is a cold thing, and her breath too, as icy little whirls and flakes of snow are expelled by the woman.
Brian nods. "And you have my apologies, but I cannot accept your gift. It would not be right to do so. You would be far better served, I think, by offering it to someone with more power, wisdom, influence... someone who is not, in the eyes of his own people, a child barely old enough to think for himself. As much as I wish I could accept, it would not be right of me to do so."
"..You are still doing this wrong." There's another accusation levelled toward Brian as those huge eyes begin to narrow, and turn into little more than slits. The woman takes a long breath in through her nose, before darting forward, supernaturally fast, hypernaturally so.
It's a blink and you'd miss it moment, one moment she is invading Brian's personal space, and the next those long, long fingers have stabbed their tips into the warm, soft fleshmeat of his stomach. "I should whisk you away. Bring you home. Educate you. Until you have learned your /part./" The threat is hissed, quiet, and high pitched. Like a kettle with claws.
Brian says "I would ask you not to, as I have reasons yet to wish to live. You honor me by choosing me and offering a gift, but with the other hand you place me in a position of shame, since I am unworthy and unable to repay in kind. Since the one cancels the other, I would ask that you leave me, and we will call it even."
The fae woman considers Brian for several long seconds through that slit of a gaze, her focus shifting between his face, and the fingers stabbing into his pretty fleshmeat, and after a few moments there's a hiss from her, and she darts back and away from him. "You are a very bad actor." The woman insists, fluttering over toward the window she'd invaded through.
She doesn't walk, she glides, feet barely touching the ground. There's a pause as she lingers by the window, noting some of the tools and objects left upon the various counters, and then in a display of severe pettiness she reaches over to touch something expensive, and breakable, and tips it off and onto the floor to break.
When Brian looks up from the shattered remains of whatever this way, he'd find himself alone once more.
Brian looks at the shattered remains of something that wasn't even his, shakes his head and lets out a slow breath. "This fucking city..."
The fae’s introduction into the studio sets the stage for an unsettling exchange. She steals Brian's name, claiming it as her own, and unveils her intention to grant him a gift: the knowledge coveted by many, a treasure of consciousness and understanding far beyond the mundane. However, Brian, feeling unworthy and wary of the fae’s intentions, resists her advances and the obscure cost of her ‘gift’. The creature, frustrated by Brian's refusal to play his part in her anticipated script, threatens to take him away for a sinister form of education. Brian, with a mix of humility and courage, declines her offer once again, prompting the fae to retreat in a fit of pique, leaving behind only the physical evidence of her visit and a lingering air of mystery. This encounter leaves Brian, alone once more in his studio, to ponder the strange and dangerous intricacies of a city where the supernatural can breach the walls of reality with a simple knock on the window.
(Brian's odd encounter(SRRoger):SRRoger)
[Fri Sep 6 2024]
In a leatherworker's home studio
Wide and well-lit, this studio is somewhat cluttered, even when organized. Recessed shelves line most of the northern wall, filled with rolls of leather and a range of fabrics, coordinated first by material, then by color in a wide gradient. Counters line both the northern and eastern wall, cabinets and drawers resting beneath in even spaces with ranges of tools - knives, bevelers and skivers, setters, stitching tools, and others for stamping and tooling, all clean and carefully placed, similarly organized in groups. The tools themselves vary in age, but all seem slightly worn, handles evened oddly by continuous use. On the southern side of the room, a plush carpet has been set, with seats and a partition, a space made for fittings and conversation with clients, undoubtedly.
It is after dusk, about 75F(23C) degrees, There is a waxing crescent moon.
(Your target and their allies are charged with tracking down a supernatural criminal on the run from the factions, what they do with them then is up to the players to decide.
)
Brian returns to his room after doing some laundry. He puts his clothes away, answers a few outstanding texts, then begins to field strip and clean his handgun. Once completed, he settles down for a short power nap.
The room hums with the low, almost subliminal whisper of the leatherworkers trade-a symphony of scents and textures blending together in the twilight hours. The recessed lights overhead cast their glow across the northern wall, where shelves brim with an array of leathers and fabrics that paint a spectrum of color in the otherwise muted space. Each roll is a story waiting to be told, each tool on the well-worn counters along the eastern wall a testament to the craftspersons labor. A soft, steady drip of rain against the windowpanes offers a hushed rhythm to the scene, like distant applause, muted by the thickness of the walls.
Brian stands amidst the scattered tools and the curated chaos, a figure caught in the stillness of the moment, framed by the warmth of the room against the encroaching chill of the night outside. He can feel the weight of the air around him-thick, almost expectant-as if the very room itself holds its breath, waiting. There is a certain gravity to this space, a sense that something important has happened here, or perhaps is about to.
The moon outside hangs like a sliver of silver in the sky, waxing and watching with an indifferent eye. The leatherworkers tools seem to gleam faintly in the dim light, their worn handles whispering secrets of past works and the patient toil of hands that have crafted things both beautiful and necessary. It is the kind of place where stories begin-where the seams between the ordinary and the extraordinary are stitched together with careful, deliberate hands.
And yet, there is an undercurrent-a tension woven into the fibers of the room itself. A draft slips through a crack in the window, carrying with it the faint scent of salt and brine from the nearby sea, a reminder that Havens mysteries are never far away. Somewhere beyond these walls, a supernatural criminal is on the run, hunted by forces both known and unknown, slipping through the cracks like smoke through a sieve. The factions, Hand, Order and Temple, all want this fugitiveeach for their own reasons, and each with their own secrets to keep.
A fae. A woman. One who threatens to reveal the supernatural on the near daily. A crime that even the Big Three can agree on.
The target is clever, elusive, and dangerous in ways that are not easily quantified. They have slipped through fingers before, danced through the shadows cast by Havens ancient, tangled streets, always a step ahead of the hunters, always just beyond the reach of the grasping hands that seek them. But now, they are close. Perhaps too close.
Somewhere in the studio, a faint tappinga subtle knock, perhaps, or the sound of something brushing against a windowpane. It is barely perceptible at first, like the distant flutter of wings in the dark. But it grows louder, more insistent, a reminder that time is always moving forward, even in the stillness of the studio.
The question hangs in the air, unspoken but palpable: What next? Does Brian wait here, amidst the warmth of the leatherworkers haven, listening for the sounds of approach? Or does he move, step beyond the comfort of this place into the uncertainty of the night, where shadows twist and turn, and danger waits with bated breath?
The choice is his, or at least, it appears this way, but he can feel the weight of the decision pressing down on him, like the hand of fate itself.
The hunt has begun, but is Brian the hunter, or the hunted?
For good or ill, that tapping noise? It isn't a figment of the man's imagination, and it's insistance grows with each touch, and tap. The windows shake in their frames, icy tendrils drawing across them despite the relative warmth of the evening.
Brian looks at the window, then gets closer to see what the noise is. He doesn't put his face against the glass, but he gets close. "What -is- that?" he murmurs to himself.
What is that? Well, it's a person, of course. Ethereal. Beautiful. Strange. There is a face on the other side of the window, staring through the portal toward Brian. Their eyes are a little too big for their face. Their ears are long, and pointed. Their hair frames and falls about their features like they were underwater, a shifting, mercurial mass of lavender locks. They're wearing little more than a shift, and they press their hands, spindly things, with fingers that are far too long, against the window.
"Let me in, open the window." They whisper, and it isn't a request. It's a command. Their words smell of elderflowers, and berries, yet another unusual idiosyncrasy.
Your subconscious is being pressured to open the window.
Brian steps foward, his hands seemingly not under his control as they reach for the window latch. Suddenly, the window is open, the rain and wind spattering into the room as Brian steps back, his eyes still locked on the strange woman.
There is a moment where the strange woman is outside, and then in the next breath she is standing in the room. In front of Brian, intimately so, so close that she literally shares this breath with him, breathing in his exhaled air, as she studies his features with those too large eyes. You could get lost in them, unusual as they are, how they draw in the light, and the eye both, and trap them inside. Like an opal-flecked black hole.
Those long, long, alien fingers raise slowly, and with a gentle touch she strokes at Brian's check, cold and warm in equal measures. "Can I have your name?" This ethereal creature wonders of the man, and once more there's scent on her tongue, and words. A smell that might best be described as 'want', which isn't usually a scent, is it?
Brian nods, slowly. "My name is Brian. Who are you, and what were you doing outside my window?" he asks her.
Is it? Is that Brian's name?
"My name is Brian." The strange, fae woman echoes back to the man, and truth be told? She's right. He might not quite be sure what his name is any more, but it certainly isn't Brian. That name belongs to her now.
"I was waiting, I was watching. I was spinning webs, and setting lines." The woman, known as Brian, explains to the nameless man, "You are new here. Fresh. A spring morning, covered with dew." It isn't a question, it's an observation. Those long, long fingers stroke and touch at Brian all the while, invading his personal space like it doesn't even belong to him.
Brian nods, and while he doesn't pull away, his expression makes it clear that he doesn't like being touched without giving permission. "I am new here, yes. I am a student at White Oak, and I have a job, and I have someone I care about. What is it you need from me?"
"Need?"
The word is repeated back to the Man-Once-Known-As-Brian as if it were an insult, and there's an accompanying cant of the strange woman's head as she studies him. "I am here to give you a gift, my dewdrop. Not to take. Not this time." She explains to him, despite having already robbed him of his name. "It is a simple game, hm? And the treasures, oh the treasures, dewdrop." She sighs out softly, as a set of nictitating membrane, third eyelids, slide over that opal-flecked oblivion that serve as her eyes.
Brian nods. "Alright, what gift is it you wish to give me? And why me, when it seems you could have chosen anyone here to bestow your gift upon?"
"Knowledge, my little dewdrop." New-Brian informs Old-Brian, as if it were obvious, "To sup from the tree of good and evil, to drink deeply of the river of awareness? To sing, and dance through the gardens of conscious thought." Once more she is invading his space, raising her hands to stroke at him, to touch him. Laying claim with each and every little invasion, and with each being more invasive than the last. "The knowledge that some try to harbour, and keep, but you.. You can have it all, and all it will cost?" She flutters her eyelashes toward him, motes of light flicking through the night air between them.
She doesn't finish the thought. Brian already knows, somehow, what the cost would be. He had already paid parts of it. Parts of himself, without even realizing. His name belonging to this creature now. What else was she stealing from him with her very presence?
Brian shakes his head. "I am unworthy of such a gift, not wise enough to make good use of it, and I have nothing to offer in return that would be of any real value to one such as yourself."
"Yes, you are." There's no argument there, Brian is unworthy, but that doesn't seem to matter much to the strange, fae creature. Worth? Worthiness? These might as well be alien concepts. "Oh, sweet spring childe, you only a seed. A precious little thing. A dewdrop." Her fingers raise to cup his cheeks, long, and slender, and yet full of alien strength, "You will grow." She assures him then, leaning in closer, closer.
Closer.
Closer.
Her eyes are all that Brian can see now, cold and warm, and full of everything and nothing alike. They draw him in, until he's falling, tumbling through the opal-flecked darkness. Without a lifeline. Without anything. It's doom, his doom.
But She offers him a lifeline, as her lips press against his own, eyes open all the while, ensnaring him, as the sweet taste of sugared decay invades his mouth along with her tongue.
Brian pulls himself back, and damn the consequences. "You place me in an awkward position by giving me a valuable gift of which I am unworthy, and which I cannot repay in kind. While I am grateful for your offer, I feel that I can only save what little face I have by declining."
There's a long pause here, as the woman tries to parse exactly what Brian was trying to say to her. Denial? This isn't just a river in Egypt? There's a flash of anger within those soul-ensnaring eyes, and a low hiss expells out of her.
"You are not playing your part properly, dewdrop." She insists to Brian, her lips twisting into a frown that reveals her pointed little teeth. "You are going /off script/." The accusation is a cold thing, and her breath too, as icy little whirls and flakes of snow are expelled by the woman.
Brian nods. "And you have my apologies, but I cannot accept your gift. It would not be right to do so. You would be far better served, I think, by offering it to someone with more power, wisdom, influence... someone who is not, in the eyes of his own people, a child barely old enough to think for himself. As much as I wish I could accept, it would not be right of me to do so."
"..You are still doing this wrong." There's another accusation levelled toward Brian as those huge eyes begin to narrow, and turn into little more than slits. The woman takes a long breath in through her nose, before darting forward, supernaturally fast, hypernaturally so.
It's a blink and you'd miss it moment, one moment she is invading Brian's personal space, and the next those long, long fingers have stabbed their tips into the warm, soft fleshmeat of his stomach. "I should whisk you away. Bring you home. Educate you. Until you have learned your /part./" The threat is hissed, quiet, and high pitched. Like a kettle with claws.
Brian says "I would ask you not to, as I have reasons yet to wish to live. You honor me by choosing me and offering a gift, but with the other hand you place me in a position of shame, since I am unworthy and unable to repay in kind. Since the one cancels the other, I would ask that you leave me, and we will call it even."
The fae woman considers Brian for several long seconds through that slit of a gaze, her focus shifting between his face, and the fingers stabbing into his pretty fleshmeat, and after a few moments there's a hiss from her, and she darts back and away from him. "You are a very bad actor." The woman insists, fluttering over toward the window she'd invaded through.
She doesn't walk, she glides, feet barely touching the ground. There's a pause as she lingers by the window, noting some of the tools and objects left upon the various counters, and then in a display of severe pettiness she reaches over to touch something expensive, and breakable, and tips it off and onto the floor to break.
When Brian looks up from the shattered remains of whatever this way, he'd find himself alone once more.
Brian looks at the shattered remains of something that wasn't even his, shakes his head and lets out a slow breath. "This fucking city..."