Encounterlogs
Seans Odd Encounter Sr Neha 241102
Sean's day at Vetr Mart begins as any other, with him smoothly handling customer service with a practiced charm in the antiseptically perfect environment of the store. The stark, artificial cleanliness of Vetr Mart sharply contrasts with the remnants of the previous night's Halloween celebrations and the natural beauty of the autumn day outside. Amidst this, Sean's routine is abruptly interrupted by a series of urgent messages from Elijah, an acquaintance from the intelligence community, requesting his immediate involvement in a sensitive matter concerning the Mayor's wife's grandniece. She has fallen under the influence of a member of The Golden Shadow, a notorious group, and is threatening to squander her family's fortune on him, believing herself in love. Elijah's call pulls Sean away from the mundanity of retail disputes and into the murky waters of political and magical intrigue.
Evidently reluctant, Sean nevertheless agrees to take on the task, his conversation with Elijah revealing a history of previous, similar escapades and a desire for a quieter life that now seems unattainable. The situation calls for a delicate approach, as the mayor's family is on edge and The Golden Shadow's manipulation suggests the involvement of love magic, a complication that Sean, despite his varied experiences, finds particularly challenging. The exchange between Sean and Elijah underscores Sean's expertise and the respect he commands in his field; however, it also highlights his internal conflict and longing for a more peaceful existence, far removed from the dangers of his past occupations. As Sean prepares to address the crisis, he is torn between the violent necessities of his former life and his hope for a resolution that doesn't plunge him back into the depths of moral ambiguity.
(Sean's odd encounter(SRNeha):SRNeha)
[Fri Nov 1 2024]
In the main shop floor of Vetr Mart
The main shop floor of Vetr Mart greets you with a calculated brightness, an overbearing wash of white light that seems to strip away shadows, leaving nowhere to hide. The floors are polished to a mirror-like sheen, reflecting
rows of immaculate, pre-packaged goods stacked in regimented perfection. The air is thick with the faint, sterile scent of synthetic lemon-clean, almost too clean. Workers in crisp, identical uniforms move through the space in precise, synchronized movements, their steps perfectly timed and coordinated, more like machines than men, their faces set in neutral smiles that never waver.
Above, red-lensed security cameras dot the ceiling like unblinking eyes, following every movement with silent precision, their lenses gleaming with a cold, otherworldly intelligence. At the very centre of the ceiling, a massive 360-degree camera looms, its presence impossible to ignore, a dark sentinel that seems to breathe with a quiet, omniscient hum. It swivels slowly, observing all below in a constant, unyielding sweep, a reminder that here, under the bright, relentless gaze of Vetr Global, every step, every glance, every breath is recorded, cataloged, and stored for purposes only it knows.
Above, red-lensed security cameras dot the ceiling like unblinking eyes, following every movement with silent precision, their lenses gleaming with a cold, otherworldly intelligence. At the very centre of the ceiling, a massive 360-degree camera looms, its presence impossible to ignore, a dark sentinel that seems to breathe with a quiet, omniscient hum. It swivels slowly, observing all below in a constant, unyielding sweep, a reminder that here, under the bright, relentless gaze of Vetr Global, every step, every glance, every breath is recorded, cataloged, and stored for purposes only it knows.
It is morning, about 50F(10C) degrees, and there are a few wispy white clouds in the sky.
(The Golden Shadow has kidnapped a beloved town figure, using them as leverage to push their own agenda. The town has been divided, with some willing to accede to their demands for fear of what might happen to the hostage. The group must track down The Golden Shadow, navigate their political machinations, and rescue the hostage, all without falling into the mercenaries' traps or becoming pawns in their game.)
Not so much in uniform as he is in managerial attire, Sean is slotted somewhere behind a Customer Service desk in the great, grand hall of Vetr-Mart's main shopping area. While a million faceless drones, both literal and figurative, skitter and flit about to tend to the needs of the mindless consumer base, Sean seems to be, if not the puppeteer, than at least someone side-stepped to the Ringmaster of this circus. If not the Main Attraction, than at least the star of a sideshow at this carnival. Dressed in a snappy suit with an easy smile and a voice that invites comfort, he's currently in the midst of gently debating the ins and outs of the return policy and the refund rules with a customer that seems, if anything, eager for the opportunity to -just- interact with another person.
It's a quiet Friday morning, as far as Friday mornings go; the town is still sleepy and slowly-rousing, considering Halloween was just last night and most people may still be entirely too hungover. There's only the occasional car passing through Paine Avenue right outside, most of them here for the sole purpose of shopping. It isn't as though there's many other things of interest on this here street.
The artificial lighting of the indoors is almost jarring, at least when compared to the Autumnal sunlight outside, a pleasant breeze flowing, the birds merrily chirping, the first hint of cold in the air. Of course, none of that is felt in the carefully regulated indoors of Vetr Mart. The temperature here is perfectly curated to keep customers browsing for more and more and more, the layout a maze that keeps them trapped within, looking for new things to buy every time they think they've got enough to check out. The store staff moves with efficiency, robotic, both humans and literal robots - they know better than to slip in their work, with how easily replaceable they all are. It's like just being in the place drains life from the employees - those who don't learn to thrive in it, at least.
While Sean debates with the woman who surely knows best - the customer is always right, right? - there's a buzzing of his phone, an urgency that makes itself known when one buzz is followed by another, text messages flowing in rapidly. It's from the TIA, one of the in-between guys blowing up his phone, whenever he can get around to paying attention to it.
The messages read out:
[10:04]: Hey Sean
[10:04]: You busy? Need you in for work.
[10:04]: Everyone else is either hungover or asleep
[10:04]: Something to do with the Mayor. Important stuff.
[10:05]: Call me.
He hasn't learned to send anything in just one paragraph, apparently. At least he knows better than to say anything confidential over text, just in case.
"Of course, ma'am, I understand," Sean intones, geniality oozing with every syllable. He's leaning over the desk at this point, rapturously engaged in the sheet of old coupons and the faded, crumpled up receipt that the older woman is painstakingly trying to use as artifacts and evidence in the case she is building, all over a collection of items that seem to amount to a total of no more than 60 dollars. God Bless America. "I do see that you utilized the 'Halloweenie Fright-Night Friday' promotion, however," Sean sleazes, dragging his perfectly manicured hands over the coupon sheet, "Which, of course, was valid only for the past few days, and, as it says here," he lifts that hand, fingers clean, hands clean, everything about him - CLEAN - and gestures to a simple-typeface-covered board behind him, bearing the Vetr Corp logo at the top, and reads, in perfect tandem with the wording in bold, big letters:
REFUNDS DO NOT APPLY TO SPECIAL PROMOTIONS
"Refunds do not apply to special promotions."
"I'm sure, however," Sean murmurs, twisting to lean closer to the woman, voice lowering, as if he is offering her an entry into a secret shared only by them two, "That we can work something out. Loyal Vetr-Mart customers like yourself are-" Buzz. Buzz. BUZZBUZZBUZZBUZZ. He's gotten so good at this over the past decade and more that he can ignore it. The first time. By the third, his hackles are raised. By the fifth, well....Instincts are instincts, and old habits die hard. Masking a grimace that only manifests as a tightness at the edges of his eyes, Sean turns to a less-charismatic, uniformed worker and claps them on the shoulder, saying, "Evan here will help you figure the rest of this out, won't you, Evan?" Before the man can even muster a response, Sean is slipping out of the Customer Service booth and, like a phantom, disappears into the throng of shoppers.
And out comes the phone, the damnable thing keeping him leashed and bound to the years behind him. Fingers like daggers sweep quickly across the lock-screen, typing out a password so needlessly complex that it's not even worth trying to hack through and up comes the phone dialpad, a number - not a contact - a number - typed in and called. Weaving through the aisles, Sean lifts the phone to his ear and doesn't bother, at this point, with niceties.
"....What in god's name is it now?"
Poor Evan. The woman had already been in the middle of trying to argue back about how the young lady who had helped her out the other day was /definitely/ more helpful, but that's about the time when Sean hooks her in with the L-word. Loyalty, of course. She's been a loyal customer of the Boston branch of Vetr-Mart for /ages/, she's got so many points on her platinum Vetr Card like you wouldn't even believe, and she was /so glad/ when they opened up the branch here in Haven so that she wouldn't have to have her son drive her out to Boston every weekend, and-
That's about the time Sean pulls away and leaves Evan to handle it, the newer worker looking like a deer caught in the headlights. He does get to helping her anyway though, because, well, that's his job. Even if the woman looks displeased already, starting to talk his ear off about how that young man who was helping her just now had promised her she'd get a refund AND a discount for all the trouble. Oh well. Not Sean's problem anymore.
The phone is lifted to his ear and yes, niceties are certainly not what the man on the other end is looking for. There's relief in his voice immediately. "Oh, thank God," comes the voice, a little crackly through the speakers. It's Elijah, one of the other Intelligence Officers, easily recognizable with his accent - he's got an infuriating way of drawling his words, speaking them too slowly even if he's in a hurry. "We've got a problem."
For an infuriating moment, it looks like the Intelligence Officer is going to stop there and wait for Sean to follow up before he says anything. Thankfully, he must have just been momentarily distracted pulling up some files, because he continues on, "So, you know those Golden Shadow guys, right? It turns out one of their higher-ups managed to get to the Mayor's wife's grandniece and the girl's /convinced/ she's in love, and she's ready to throw away the entire family's fortune on the guy. Mayor's mad, Mrs. Inigo is mad, her grandniece is almost certainly under some sort of love magic. Nobody else more qualified to handle this, and we need it handled /fast/. You down? I can send you the co-ordinates. The girl's being held under house arrest until she comes to her senses, but it doesn't look like it's happening anytime soon." He sounds mildly panicked, even if he's still speaking sluggishly slow. Nobody wants an Inigo mad.
It's Sean's last errant though, some thin thread of empathy for Evan lingering in Sean's utterly mortal brain, before Time and Onus and Habit pull him away from the comfort and safety of corporate cleanliness. Away from the clarity that Dominus' domain lends to Sean's mind, the ease, the peace. Fuck.
"Of -course- there's a problem. No one calls me anymore unless there's a problem. But it's not SUPPOSED to be my problem anymore," Sean hisses, body language indicating to all passersby and onlooking, nosy shoppers that, if anything, Sean seems locked into the age-old tale of an inconvenient relative calling with a burden at the wrong time. No one wants to be bothered while shopping, after all and even subconsciously, Sean is always the Actor. "Eli, I swear to god, I will reach through this phone if you don't-" THANK GOD. Because Sean might have literally tried to do so. Spooks back up spooks and you don't blow a joe's cover. "Of course I do. The dicks have tried to recruit me on, like, four different occasions, but I'm no merc and I didn't need their money." No, Sean didn't. CIA backing and Temple Intelligence kept him busy enough that luxury was an afterthought, a distant dream. Money wasn't something Sean needed, he never had time to settle down to enjoy it. Until now, at least. Now...now Sean had a home. A space. A House, a wife, and the -time- to enjoy himself. But, no. No, he doesn't Deserve those things. Old Habits Die Hard.
He's silent as Elijah explains, because being petty gets no one anywhere and the Job is the Job. Only when he's done, when he's silent, does Sean suck at his teeth so hard that they might fly into his throat, the air rushing through them making a sound like a knife's blade slashing through sheet metal. "...Well." It's the best response that anyone can come up with. "No. Of course I'm not up for it. But you wouldn't be calling me if it weren't a Problem. And if it's a Problem, Eli, then it's a Problem. Drop me the pin. You want me kitted, or kind?" He's got the Go-Bag in the trunk, after all. Old Habits Die Hard. House Arrest isn't likely to turn into a shoot-out, but you never know in this town, and magic was ALWAYS Sean's blind spot.
Internal Kind. Please, let it be Kind. Sean doesn't want to get Kitted, he doesn't want to have to dig into the darkness, to kill and murder and -desecrate-. Please, god, let it be Kind. Let it be Masks and Smiles, it is easier, it is lazier, it is something he can do without going home covered in blood.
Evidently reluctant, Sean nevertheless agrees to take on the task, his conversation with Elijah revealing a history of previous, similar escapades and a desire for a quieter life that now seems unattainable. The situation calls for a delicate approach, as the mayor's family is on edge and The Golden Shadow's manipulation suggests the involvement of love magic, a complication that Sean, despite his varied experiences, finds particularly challenging. The exchange between Sean and Elijah underscores Sean's expertise and the respect he commands in his field; however, it also highlights his internal conflict and longing for a more peaceful existence, far removed from the dangers of his past occupations. As Sean prepares to address the crisis, he is torn between the violent necessities of his former life and his hope for a resolution that doesn't plunge him back into the depths of moral ambiguity.
(Sean's odd encounter(SRNeha):SRNeha)
[Fri Nov 1 2024]
In the main shop floor of Vetr Mart
The main shop floor of Vetr Mart greets you with a calculated brightness, an overbearing wash of white light that seems to strip away shadows, leaving nowhere to hide. The floors are polished to a mirror-like sheen, reflecting
rows of immaculate, pre-packaged goods stacked in regimented perfection. The air is thick with the faint, sterile scent of synthetic lemon-clean, almost too clean. Workers in crisp, identical uniforms move through the space in precise, synchronized movements, their steps perfectly timed and coordinated, more like machines than men, their faces set in neutral smiles that never waver.
Above, red-lensed security cameras dot the ceiling like unblinking eyes, following every movement with silent precision, their lenses gleaming with a cold, otherworldly intelligence. At the very centre of the ceiling, a massive 360-degree camera looms, its presence impossible to ignore, a dark sentinel that seems to breathe with a quiet, omniscient hum. It swivels slowly, observing all below in a constant, unyielding sweep, a reminder that here, under the bright, relentless gaze of Vetr Global, every step, every glance, every breath is recorded, cataloged, and stored for purposes only it knows.
Above, red-lensed security cameras dot the ceiling like unblinking eyes, following every movement with silent precision, their lenses gleaming with a cold, otherworldly intelligence. At the very centre of the ceiling, a massive 360-degree camera looms, its presence impossible to ignore, a dark sentinel that seems to breathe with a quiet, omniscient hum. It swivels slowly, observing all below in a constant, unyielding sweep, a reminder that here, under the bright, relentless gaze of Vetr Global, every step, every glance, every breath is recorded, cataloged, and stored for purposes only it knows.
It is morning, about 50F(10C) degrees, and there are a few wispy white clouds in the sky.
(The Golden Shadow has kidnapped a beloved town figure, using them as leverage to push their own agenda. The town has been divided, with some willing to accede to their demands for fear of what might happen to the hostage. The group must track down The Golden Shadow, navigate their political machinations, and rescue the hostage, all without falling into the mercenaries' traps or becoming pawns in their game.)
Not so much in uniform as he is in managerial attire, Sean is slotted somewhere behind a Customer Service desk in the great, grand hall of Vetr-Mart's main shopping area. While a million faceless drones, both literal and figurative, skitter and flit about to tend to the needs of the mindless consumer base, Sean seems to be, if not the puppeteer, than at least someone side-stepped to the Ringmaster of this circus. If not the Main Attraction, than at least the star of a sideshow at this carnival. Dressed in a snappy suit with an easy smile and a voice that invites comfort, he's currently in the midst of gently debating the ins and outs of the return policy and the refund rules with a customer that seems, if anything, eager for the opportunity to -just- interact with another person.
It's a quiet Friday morning, as far as Friday mornings go; the town is still sleepy and slowly-rousing, considering Halloween was just last night and most people may still be entirely too hungover. There's only the occasional car passing through Paine Avenue right outside, most of them here for the sole purpose of shopping. It isn't as though there's many other things of interest on this here street.
The artificial lighting of the indoors is almost jarring, at least when compared to the Autumnal sunlight outside, a pleasant breeze flowing, the birds merrily chirping, the first hint of cold in the air. Of course, none of that is felt in the carefully regulated indoors of Vetr Mart. The temperature here is perfectly curated to keep customers browsing for more and more and more, the layout a maze that keeps them trapped within, looking for new things to buy every time they think they've got enough to check out. The store staff moves with efficiency, robotic, both humans and literal robots - they know better than to slip in their work, with how easily replaceable they all are. It's like just being in the place drains life from the employees - those who don't learn to thrive in it, at least.
While Sean debates with the woman who surely knows best - the customer is always right, right? - there's a buzzing of his phone, an urgency that makes itself known when one buzz is followed by another, text messages flowing in rapidly. It's from the TIA, one of the in-between guys blowing up his phone, whenever he can get around to paying attention to it.
The messages read out:
[10:04]: Hey Sean
[10:04]: You busy? Need you in for work.
[10:04]: Everyone else is either hungover or asleep
[10:04]: Something to do with the Mayor. Important stuff.
[10:05]: Call me.
He hasn't learned to send anything in just one paragraph, apparently. At least he knows better than to say anything confidential over text, just in case.
"Of course, ma'am, I understand," Sean intones, geniality oozing with every syllable. He's leaning over the desk at this point, rapturously engaged in the sheet of old coupons and the faded, crumpled up receipt that the older woman is painstakingly trying to use as artifacts and evidence in the case she is building, all over a collection of items that seem to amount to a total of no more than 60 dollars. God Bless America. "I do see that you utilized the 'Halloweenie Fright-Night Friday' promotion, however," Sean sleazes, dragging his perfectly manicured hands over the coupon sheet, "Which, of course, was valid only for the past few days, and, as it says here," he lifts that hand, fingers clean, hands clean, everything about him - CLEAN - and gestures to a simple-typeface-covered board behind him, bearing the Vetr Corp logo at the top, and reads, in perfect tandem with the wording in bold, big letters:
REFUNDS DO NOT APPLY TO SPECIAL PROMOTIONS
"Refunds do not apply to special promotions."
"I'm sure, however," Sean murmurs, twisting to lean closer to the woman, voice lowering, as if he is offering her an entry into a secret shared only by them two, "That we can work something out. Loyal Vetr-Mart customers like yourself are-" Buzz. Buzz. BUZZBUZZBUZZBUZZ. He's gotten so good at this over the past decade and more that he can ignore it. The first time. By the third, his hackles are raised. By the fifth, well....Instincts are instincts, and old habits die hard. Masking a grimace that only manifests as a tightness at the edges of his eyes, Sean turns to a less-charismatic, uniformed worker and claps them on the shoulder, saying, "Evan here will help you figure the rest of this out, won't you, Evan?" Before the man can even muster a response, Sean is slipping out of the Customer Service booth and, like a phantom, disappears into the throng of shoppers.
And out comes the phone, the damnable thing keeping him leashed and bound to the years behind him. Fingers like daggers sweep quickly across the lock-screen, typing out a password so needlessly complex that it's not even worth trying to hack through and up comes the phone dialpad, a number - not a contact - a number - typed in and called. Weaving through the aisles, Sean lifts the phone to his ear and doesn't bother, at this point, with niceties.
"....What in god's name is it now?"
Poor Evan. The woman had already been in the middle of trying to argue back about how the young lady who had helped her out the other day was /definitely/ more helpful, but that's about the time when Sean hooks her in with the L-word. Loyalty, of course. She's been a loyal customer of the Boston branch of Vetr-Mart for /ages/, she's got so many points on her platinum Vetr Card like you wouldn't even believe, and she was /so glad/ when they opened up the branch here in Haven so that she wouldn't have to have her son drive her out to Boston every weekend, and-
That's about the time Sean pulls away and leaves Evan to handle it, the newer worker looking like a deer caught in the headlights. He does get to helping her anyway though, because, well, that's his job. Even if the woman looks displeased already, starting to talk his ear off about how that young man who was helping her just now had promised her she'd get a refund AND a discount for all the trouble. Oh well. Not Sean's problem anymore.
The phone is lifted to his ear and yes, niceties are certainly not what the man on the other end is looking for. There's relief in his voice immediately. "Oh, thank God," comes the voice, a little crackly through the speakers. It's Elijah, one of the other Intelligence Officers, easily recognizable with his accent - he's got an infuriating way of drawling his words, speaking them too slowly even if he's in a hurry. "We've got a problem."
For an infuriating moment, it looks like the Intelligence Officer is going to stop there and wait for Sean to follow up before he says anything. Thankfully, he must have just been momentarily distracted pulling up some files, because he continues on, "So, you know those Golden Shadow guys, right? It turns out one of their higher-ups managed to get to the Mayor's wife's grandniece and the girl's /convinced/ she's in love, and she's ready to throw away the entire family's fortune on the guy. Mayor's mad, Mrs. Inigo is mad, her grandniece is almost certainly under some sort of love magic. Nobody else more qualified to handle this, and we need it handled /fast/. You down? I can send you the co-ordinates. The girl's being held under house arrest until she comes to her senses, but it doesn't look like it's happening anytime soon." He sounds mildly panicked, even if he's still speaking sluggishly slow. Nobody wants an Inigo mad.
It's Sean's last errant though, some thin thread of empathy for Evan lingering in Sean's utterly mortal brain, before Time and Onus and Habit pull him away from the comfort and safety of corporate cleanliness. Away from the clarity that Dominus' domain lends to Sean's mind, the ease, the peace. Fuck.
"Of -course- there's a problem. No one calls me anymore unless there's a problem. But it's not SUPPOSED to be my problem anymore," Sean hisses, body language indicating to all passersby and onlooking, nosy shoppers that, if anything, Sean seems locked into the age-old tale of an inconvenient relative calling with a burden at the wrong time. No one wants to be bothered while shopping, after all and even subconsciously, Sean is always the Actor. "Eli, I swear to god, I will reach through this phone if you don't-" THANK GOD. Because Sean might have literally tried to do so. Spooks back up spooks and you don't blow a joe's cover. "Of course I do. The dicks have tried to recruit me on, like, four different occasions, but I'm no merc and I didn't need their money." No, Sean didn't. CIA backing and Temple Intelligence kept him busy enough that luxury was an afterthought, a distant dream. Money wasn't something Sean needed, he never had time to settle down to enjoy it. Until now, at least. Now...now Sean had a home. A space. A House, a wife, and the -time- to enjoy himself. But, no. No, he doesn't Deserve those things. Old Habits Die Hard.
He's silent as Elijah explains, because being petty gets no one anywhere and the Job is the Job. Only when he's done, when he's silent, does Sean suck at his teeth so hard that they might fly into his throat, the air rushing through them making a sound like a knife's blade slashing through sheet metal. "...Well." It's the best response that anyone can come up with. "No. Of course I'm not up for it. But you wouldn't be calling me if it weren't a Problem. And if it's a Problem, Eli, then it's a Problem. Drop me the pin. You want me kitted, or kind?" He's got the Go-Bag in the trunk, after all. Old Habits Die Hard. House Arrest isn't likely to turn into a shoot-out, but you never know in this town, and magic was ALWAYS Sean's blind spot.
Internal Kind. Please, let it be Kind. Sean doesn't want to get Kitted, he doesn't want to have to dig into the darkness, to kill and murder and -desecrate-. Please, god, let it be Kind. Let it be Masks and Smiles, it is easier, it is lazier, it is something he can do without going home covered in blood.