Encounterlogs
Sophies Odd Encounter Sr Colton 241223
In the indulgent master bedroom adorned in greens and golds, Sophie finds herself at the mercy of a dream predator, a bizarre encounter that sweeps her away into a dreamscape shrouded in mystery and temptation. Amidst this setting of luxury and comfort, her reality blurs as she's lured towards the cold, foreboding doors of the Arkwright mausoleum by an overwhelming mix of dread and desire. Within its ancient walls, she confronts not only the eerie darkness but also a voice from beyond—a voice that knows her name. This entity reveals its tragic fate: once a Cardinal turned vampire, ensnared and entombed by powerful forces, its spirit bound and name stripped away. As the voice weaves tales of its past, laden with the promise of power, beauty, and immortality, Sophie is ensnared in a moral quandary, weighing her ability against her will to aid this imprisoned soul.
The narrative shifts focus to Sam, a character embedded within the clandestine world of the Hand, as he receives word of Richard Whalen's unexpected return. Tasked with convincing this retired and reputedly ruthless member to rejoin the fray, Sam prepares for the daunting encounter at his bar, The Trove. As Richard walks in, exuding an air of nonchalance and mystery, the conversation that unfolds between them is laden with unspoken histories and the weighty decisions that define their shadowy universe. Richard, with his dark, otherworldly gaze, hints at the complexities of his return, sparking intrigue and unease in equal measure. Through veiled words and shared whiskey, they dance around the truths of their world—a world where loyalty, power, and danger entwine. This meeting, set against the backdrop of The Trove, becomes a pivotal moment, gesturing towards future alliances, conflicts, and the ever-present shadows that haunt their steps.
(Sophie's odd encounter(SRColton):SRColton)
[Sun Dec 22 2024]
In the master bedroom crowned in green and gold
Spacious to the point of excessiveness, this room features a high ceiling and walls that are swathed in a warm, creamy shade, accented with gold-leafed crown molding and raised paneling. A warmtoned crystal chandelier hangs from the ornate ceiling medallion handmade with expert craftsmanship, the raised edges embellished with gold leaf.
A lavish canopy bed with its dark walnut frame and tufted velvet headboard rests along the western wall, draped in the thick, plush layers of an emerald green comforter to accentuate the silken gold sheets beneath. Too many pillows are arranged along it, certainly more than any one - or two, even - people might ever need.
The rest of the furniture is similarly ostentatious, though a cursory attempt has been made to keep it tasteful, still. The bed is flanked by matching walnut end tables, and a plush, Persian rug in soft, cream shades sprawls across the hardwood floor. Floor-to-ceiling curtains frame the window, made of thick satin that pools upon the floor with its sheer length.
It is morning, about -8F(-22C) degrees, and there are a few dark grey stormclouds in the sky. Ankle high mist flows through the area.
(Your target is attacked by a dream stalker who subjects them to their greatest fantasies in the dream world in order to keep their body passive while it's energies are fed upon. They need to, possibly with the help of allies entering their dreams, resist the temptation long enough for other allies to find them or for them to wake up.
)
Even if it's quite chilly in the wake of the year's longest night, it's a pretty morning. Light snows drift down past Sophie's windows, filtering through the pallid light of the winter solstice with every sweep and shimmy. The sight of it draws her forward, a small smile forming on the woman's lips despite herself, and despite the movements she had not consciously bidden. There's a pleasant, anodyne fog chewing at her brainstem, then swallowing up all conscious thought as she seats herself comfortably in the large windowsill, slipping into the beckoning dreamscape with little more than the tender caress of refracted sunlight against her cheek.
And then, once again, she stands at the doors to the Arkwright mausoleum, and an irresistible longing compels her to sneak inside, and find her way back below...
It's cold, despite the heating of Sophie's apartment. The sort of cold that yearns to slip through every crevice it can find, each sliver of space left open to it, sink deep into skin and bones and curl up in the lungs, spreading numbness throughout the body with each breath.
Sophie doesn't have to worry about that a lot, thankfully. She's curled up in bed, huddled beneath warm blankets, upon expensive sheets with a ridiculous thread count, weighted down by her heavy comforter-- until she's not. There's her window right there, and the seat at the windowsill, the dim rays of sunshine casting themselves upon her skin, warm and lovely, and her feet take her, stepping forwards, at the doors of the mausoleum--
Sophie glances back at the sunlight, forward at the darkness and cold of the mausoleum. Does she /want/ to go in there? Something inside her tells her she doesn't.
Something else inside her tells her she very much does. She - or that piece of her, anyway - wants it very badly; to retrace the steps of a past dream and rediscover the corpse-wax candles she knows she will find there, to push through the ancient, buried doors and happen upon a certain sarcophagus. Good things come to those who wait; the best things go to those who get there first. And oh, the things that being might offer her...
The thought hangs there, a half-implication buried in the back of Sophie's mind, left there as bait.
'You return to me,' a voice whispers, more softly than it once had. 'Good.'
Well. The sunlight will be there when Sophie returns - it's so early in the day, after all, and she can come back to the warm noon sun, as comforting as a mother's embrace. She steps in, the cold surrounding her, into the mausoleum, retracing those steps, until she happens upon the sarcophagus. She's not going to open it. She's not that dumb, or that gullible. She knows better, even if there's no pain this time that threatens to rip her mind in two. There's the memory of pain regardless.
"I'm here again," she tells it, crouching down close to it - not kneeling. She can talk, if it wants to talk. It doesn't have to be anything else. Just a simple conversation, before she finds her way home.
The cold makes her shiver.
'Welcome back, Sophie Wilson,' the voice whispers in reply. 'I have known for some time that we would meet again, but I am surprised it has come so soon. It is good; I would hate for you to find me half-asleep once again.'
There's the distinct feeling of a pulse as a wave of power radiates outwards from the sarcophagus, leaving behind electrical tingles on Sophie's skin. It's not pleasant or unpleasant - only a little unnerving, maybe, to feel a frisson of sensation that is not her own pass through her.
'You do not know me,' it says, soft and soothing. 'In life, I was a Cardinal. I practiced Sin Magic, bound to the spirit of Humility. A Justiciarum.'
The naming of the spirit elicits another pulse of energy from the sarcophagus, eliciting a little army of goosebumps to race along Sophie's flesh.
"Is that what you are like then, half-asleep?" Sophie hums, reaching out with a hand, fingers running along the surface of the sarcophagus, feather-light. "This is quite a difference from last time, I must say."
Her eyebrows arch up in mild surprise for a second, lips pressing together at the pulse of power that radiates outwards, sending a shudder down her spine. Her free hand goes up, rubbing at the back of her neck. "I do not know you," she confirms, soft and slow. "And yet, you seem to know me. I think it's only fair I have your name in return."
'They took it from me,' the voice whispers. It does not sound saddened. 'But you wear your name with pride, Sophie Wilson. You wear it on your body and carry it foremost in your thoughts.' There is no judgement here, either; both statements are made as simple facts, spoken by a weary voice.
'Like my name,' it says, 'There are pieces of my soul that will never return to me. They caught me with ropes they had fashioned from my mothers' hair, Sophie Wilson. Could not break the bindings, and their wighted priest spoke the words of exorcism over me. They took Humility from me, Sophie Wilson, and they trapped it in a box.' Another, full-bodied pulse lurches out from the sarcophagus - yet another box, trapping something within.
'It was the Arkwright's grandchild who did this to me, in the moments after I had been ripped in twain,' it says. 'And the Arkwright was not pleased. I was entombed as soon as the act was discovered. I do not know if my sire survived that night. I am not sure if I did, myself.'
Surely, Sophie isn't meant to feel bad for the creature that dwells beneath the sarcophagus, this mysterious being that's somehow both known and unknown to her; she does a little bit, her brow furrowing and lips pulling into a frown while she listens quietly, slowly coming to lean against the side of the box, her head tilted to rest against its cool surface. "I don't think you did," she tells the voice eventually. Blunt, perhaps.
"It is a fate as good as death, to have no name at all." She sits in silence for a few moments longer, considering. "Do you want to go back? To those days? Before... this? Is that what you're looking for now?"
Something else ripples outwards from the sarcophagus; a projected mixture of centuries-long unsated appetite and a bone-deep desire for freedom. The force of it almost knocks Sophie to her knees - is this how angelborn felt, feeling others' desires as their own?
'What I want is to be free of this place,' the box mutters, only now tinged with emotion. Its frustration sticks to its words like oatmeal to the back of a spoon. 'To be embraced as a vampire, then abandoned in a box for eternity, because your sire carried the wrong name? Because James Arkwright does not let his childer freely pass on their condition? I would rather have died as the Cardinal I was than have been turned, but this suffering is a misery, Sophie Wilson. I am grateful for when the dreams take me; I am otherwise acutely aware of the passage of time as I lie here in my captor's tomb.'
Sophie's breath is almost knocked out of her lungs with the desire that ripples free of the sarcophagus, and she exhales out a soft gasp, fingers clenching into the silk of her slip. Her breath comes shallowly. "I'm sorry," she whispers to the sarcophagus, an empty apology. "I can't help you. It is not in my power." Maybe she's not an Arkwright, but to go against the will of James Arkwright would be suicide nonetheless, in some way or another. Even her aching heart knows this. "He is not a man to be crossed." He's hardly a man - more of a monster. She doesn't say that part out loud.
'You can,' urges the nameless, erstwhile Cardinal. 'And I can give you what you desire, Sophie Wilson. I can make you unaging. Beautiful, forever. Powerful. Not the death mask of a vampire, but better than a human.' The lurid green flames of the adipocere candles flicker and dance in place, shivering in response to the psychic pressure within the room. 'I have studied the Old Science,' the voice whispers. 'The spirit of Humility gave me secrets long lost to humanity. I could perfect you, Sophie Wilson. And all you would have to do is find me. Find me, and pull the stake from my heart.'
'Please.'
The refusal is right there on the tip of Sophie's tongue; it freezes, not quite able to make its way past her lips. Her hands squeeze even tighter into her slip, threatening to wrinkle the fabric, and she breathes slowly, in and out, once, then twice, and again.
"... I'll see what I can do," comes the murmur, finally, quiet. Not a promise. Not a binding. That's all she gives. That's all she can give.
Heart in her throat, Sophie stands and turns to leave.
(Your target and their allies have been tasked with convincing a retired and burnt out faction member to come back to the fight.
)
Pausing his riding, Sam steps off his bike. He is under way to the Trove, the bar that he owns. The jock shivers, shaking out his shoulders. "Fucking ay..." He mutters under his breath, a puff of condensed breath coming from his nostrils.
Sam's phone buzzes when an incoming message: Richard Whalen is back in town and en route to The Trove. You need to convince him to stick around town.
Richard Wahlen isn't someone Sam's ever met in person, but he's likely heard some stories, maybe some rumors. A man who has been with the Hand longer than several of the newer members have been alive. With a reptuation for being ruthless, cunning and loving every second of it, he rather abruptly proclaimed retirement several months ago and fucked off to somewhere even the Hand couldn't find him. So what's brought him back to town in the first place is anyone's guess.
Nodding slightly to the phone-message, Sam heads over to the trove, heading to behind the bar. He quickly sends off a text to hsi contacts, trying to find out as much as he can about mr. Whalen ahead of time. Maybe this man can be a good ally. Maybe he needs to be cleaned up. Either way, the jock puts up his best winning smile, and ticks a nod to the bartender. "Yo, take 15." The bartender, by now half aware, knows this code: It means private business, and a paid leave. Either way, Sam is left alone behind the bar, waiting for the man while wiping down the bar with a dingy dishcloth.
Dean is quick to respond to Sam's inquiry. He's able to tell Sam what Richard is a Demonborn, well past the point of aging. When he was active his role in the Hand often revolved around Information Extraction, using whatever tools necessary to their fullest. On the field, he was an excellent marksman. Dean couldn't find any information surrounding the reason for his abrupt depature, but he warns Sam to be careful, pretty sure that Whalen is the sort to do whatever the hell he wants.
A short while later a man in his early 30s strolls in, walking toward the bar and sitting down in a seat like he comes in every day. "Swear this place never changes." He chuckles, briefly lowering his glasses as he sizes Sam up, revealing obsidian black eyes tinged with purple. "Let me get a glass of your most expensive whiskey."
"Coming right up, Mister Whalen." Sam flashes his trademark bar-man's smile, and shows the man his cuff-links, the clenched black fist of the hand hidden within the intricate snake design. He then turns, busying himself with pouring something from the off-the-menu bottles. Whiskey, neat. No ice. He smiles, and puts the glass down, showing the man the label.
"What brings you to Haven, friend?" He speaks, taking an empty glass and polishing it with that dingy dishcloth of his. A bartender busy always is less threatening. A simple trick. He looks at the man's eyes, from behind his shades.
"What brings anyone to Haven?" Richard asks as he picks up the glass with a nod of thanks, "Loose ties and bullshit." He takes a sip here, savoring it a moment. "And something tells me you're about to be part of the bullshit." There's no malice or heat behind the words, just a sort of acknowledgement of the Hand symbol that Sam sports. Though he abruptly changes the subject with a comment of, "You know, I used to work here myself back in the day. For about a week. Until I realized I was better off on the customer end of the bar." He takes another sip of whiskey. "I like drinking too much." He briefly sports a grin full of pearly white teeth to Sam.
The narrative shifts focus to Sam, a character embedded within the clandestine world of the Hand, as he receives word of Richard Whalen's unexpected return. Tasked with convincing this retired and reputedly ruthless member to rejoin the fray, Sam prepares for the daunting encounter at his bar, The Trove. As Richard walks in, exuding an air of nonchalance and mystery, the conversation that unfolds between them is laden with unspoken histories and the weighty decisions that define their shadowy universe. Richard, with his dark, otherworldly gaze, hints at the complexities of his return, sparking intrigue and unease in equal measure. Through veiled words and shared whiskey, they dance around the truths of their world—a world where loyalty, power, and danger entwine. This meeting, set against the backdrop of The Trove, becomes a pivotal moment, gesturing towards future alliances, conflicts, and the ever-present shadows that haunt their steps.
(Sophie's odd encounter(SRColton):SRColton)
[Sun Dec 22 2024]
In the master bedroom crowned in green and gold
Spacious to the point of excessiveness, this room features a high ceiling and walls that are swathed in a warm, creamy shade, accented with gold-leafed crown molding and raised paneling. A warmtoned crystal chandelier hangs from the ornate ceiling medallion handmade with expert craftsmanship, the raised edges embellished with gold leaf.
A lavish canopy bed with its dark walnut frame and tufted velvet headboard rests along the western wall, draped in the thick, plush layers of an emerald green comforter to accentuate the silken gold sheets beneath. Too many pillows are arranged along it, certainly more than any one - or two, even - people might ever need.
The rest of the furniture is similarly ostentatious, though a cursory attempt has been made to keep it tasteful, still. The bed is flanked by matching walnut end tables, and a plush, Persian rug in soft, cream shades sprawls across the hardwood floor. Floor-to-ceiling curtains frame the window, made of thick satin that pools upon the floor with its sheer length.
It is morning, about -8F(-22C) degrees, and there are a few dark grey stormclouds in the sky. Ankle high mist flows through the area.
(Your target is attacked by a dream stalker who subjects them to their greatest fantasies in the dream world in order to keep their body passive while it's energies are fed upon. They need to, possibly with the help of allies entering their dreams, resist the temptation long enough for other allies to find them or for them to wake up.
)
Even if it's quite chilly in the wake of the year's longest night, it's a pretty morning. Light snows drift down past Sophie's windows, filtering through the pallid light of the winter solstice with every sweep and shimmy. The sight of it draws her forward, a small smile forming on the woman's lips despite herself, and despite the movements she had not consciously bidden. There's a pleasant, anodyne fog chewing at her brainstem, then swallowing up all conscious thought as she seats herself comfortably in the large windowsill, slipping into the beckoning dreamscape with little more than the tender caress of refracted sunlight against her cheek.
And then, once again, she stands at the doors to the Arkwright mausoleum, and an irresistible longing compels her to sneak inside, and find her way back below...
It's cold, despite the heating of Sophie's apartment. The sort of cold that yearns to slip through every crevice it can find, each sliver of space left open to it, sink deep into skin and bones and curl up in the lungs, spreading numbness throughout the body with each breath.
Sophie doesn't have to worry about that a lot, thankfully. She's curled up in bed, huddled beneath warm blankets, upon expensive sheets with a ridiculous thread count, weighted down by her heavy comforter-- until she's not. There's her window right there, and the seat at the windowsill, the dim rays of sunshine casting themselves upon her skin, warm and lovely, and her feet take her, stepping forwards, at the doors of the mausoleum--
Sophie glances back at the sunlight, forward at the darkness and cold of the mausoleum. Does she /want/ to go in there? Something inside her tells her she doesn't.
Something else inside her tells her she very much does. She - or that piece of her, anyway - wants it very badly; to retrace the steps of a past dream and rediscover the corpse-wax candles she knows she will find there, to push through the ancient, buried doors and happen upon a certain sarcophagus. Good things come to those who wait; the best things go to those who get there first. And oh, the things that being might offer her...
The thought hangs there, a half-implication buried in the back of Sophie's mind, left there as bait.
'You return to me,' a voice whispers, more softly than it once had. 'Good.'
Well. The sunlight will be there when Sophie returns - it's so early in the day, after all, and she can come back to the warm noon sun, as comforting as a mother's embrace. She steps in, the cold surrounding her, into the mausoleum, retracing those steps, until she happens upon the sarcophagus. She's not going to open it. She's not that dumb, or that gullible. She knows better, even if there's no pain this time that threatens to rip her mind in two. There's the memory of pain regardless.
"I'm here again," she tells it, crouching down close to it - not kneeling. She can talk, if it wants to talk. It doesn't have to be anything else. Just a simple conversation, before she finds her way home.
The cold makes her shiver.
'Welcome back, Sophie Wilson,' the voice whispers in reply. 'I have known for some time that we would meet again, but I am surprised it has come so soon. It is good; I would hate for you to find me half-asleep once again.'
There's the distinct feeling of a pulse as a wave of power radiates outwards from the sarcophagus, leaving behind electrical tingles on Sophie's skin. It's not pleasant or unpleasant - only a little unnerving, maybe, to feel a frisson of sensation that is not her own pass through her.
'You do not know me,' it says, soft and soothing. 'In life, I was a Cardinal. I practiced Sin Magic, bound to the spirit of Humility. A Justiciarum.'
The naming of the spirit elicits another pulse of energy from the sarcophagus, eliciting a little army of goosebumps to race along Sophie's flesh.
"Is that what you are like then, half-asleep?" Sophie hums, reaching out with a hand, fingers running along the surface of the sarcophagus, feather-light. "This is quite a difference from last time, I must say."
Her eyebrows arch up in mild surprise for a second, lips pressing together at the pulse of power that radiates outwards, sending a shudder down her spine. Her free hand goes up, rubbing at the back of her neck. "I do not know you," she confirms, soft and slow. "And yet, you seem to know me. I think it's only fair I have your name in return."
'They took it from me,' the voice whispers. It does not sound saddened. 'But you wear your name with pride, Sophie Wilson. You wear it on your body and carry it foremost in your thoughts.' There is no judgement here, either; both statements are made as simple facts, spoken by a weary voice.
'Like my name,' it says, 'There are pieces of my soul that will never return to me. They caught me with ropes they had fashioned from my mothers' hair, Sophie Wilson. Could not break the bindings, and their wighted priest spoke the words of exorcism over me. They took Humility from me, Sophie Wilson, and they trapped it in a box.' Another, full-bodied pulse lurches out from the sarcophagus - yet another box, trapping something within.
'It was the Arkwright's grandchild who did this to me, in the moments after I had been ripped in twain,' it says. 'And the Arkwright was not pleased. I was entombed as soon as the act was discovered. I do not know if my sire survived that night. I am not sure if I did, myself.'
Surely, Sophie isn't meant to feel bad for the creature that dwells beneath the sarcophagus, this mysterious being that's somehow both known and unknown to her; she does a little bit, her brow furrowing and lips pulling into a frown while she listens quietly, slowly coming to lean against the side of the box, her head tilted to rest against its cool surface. "I don't think you did," she tells the voice eventually. Blunt, perhaps.
"It is a fate as good as death, to have no name at all." She sits in silence for a few moments longer, considering. "Do you want to go back? To those days? Before... this? Is that what you're looking for now?"
Something else ripples outwards from the sarcophagus; a projected mixture of centuries-long unsated appetite and a bone-deep desire for freedom. The force of it almost knocks Sophie to her knees - is this how angelborn felt, feeling others' desires as their own?
'What I want is to be free of this place,' the box mutters, only now tinged with emotion. Its frustration sticks to its words like oatmeal to the back of a spoon. 'To be embraced as a vampire, then abandoned in a box for eternity, because your sire carried the wrong name? Because James Arkwright does not let his childer freely pass on their condition? I would rather have died as the Cardinal I was than have been turned, but this suffering is a misery, Sophie Wilson. I am grateful for when the dreams take me; I am otherwise acutely aware of the passage of time as I lie here in my captor's tomb.'
Sophie's breath is almost knocked out of her lungs with the desire that ripples free of the sarcophagus, and she exhales out a soft gasp, fingers clenching into the silk of her slip. Her breath comes shallowly. "I'm sorry," she whispers to the sarcophagus, an empty apology. "I can't help you. It is not in my power." Maybe she's not an Arkwright, but to go against the will of James Arkwright would be suicide nonetheless, in some way or another. Even her aching heart knows this. "He is not a man to be crossed." He's hardly a man - more of a monster. She doesn't say that part out loud.
'You can,' urges the nameless, erstwhile Cardinal. 'And I can give you what you desire, Sophie Wilson. I can make you unaging. Beautiful, forever. Powerful. Not the death mask of a vampire, but better than a human.' The lurid green flames of the adipocere candles flicker and dance in place, shivering in response to the psychic pressure within the room. 'I have studied the Old Science,' the voice whispers. 'The spirit of Humility gave me secrets long lost to humanity. I could perfect you, Sophie Wilson. And all you would have to do is find me. Find me, and pull the stake from my heart.'
'Please.'
The refusal is right there on the tip of Sophie's tongue; it freezes, not quite able to make its way past her lips. Her hands squeeze even tighter into her slip, threatening to wrinkle the fabric, and she breathes slowly, in and out, once, then twice, and again.
"... I'll see what I can do," comes the murmur, finally, quiet. Not a promise. Not a binding. That's all she gives. That's all she can give.
Heart in her throat, Sophie stands and turns to leave.
(Your target and their allies have been tasked with convincing a retired and burnt out faction member to come back to the fight.
)
Pausing his riding, Sam steps off his bike. He is under way to the Trove, the bar that he owns. The jock shivers, shaking out his shoulders. "Fucking ay..." He mutters under his breath, a puff of condensed breath coming from his nostrils.
Sam's phone buzzes when an incoming message: Richard Whalen is back in town and en route to The Trove. You need to convince him to stick around town.
Richard Wahlen isn't someone Sam's ever met in person, but he's likely heard some stories, maybe some rumors. A man who has been with the Hand longer than several of the newer members have been alive. With a reptuation for being ruthless, cunning and loving every second of it, he rather abruptly proclaimed retirement several months ago and fucked off to somewhere even the Hand couldn't find him. So what's brought him back to town in the first place is anyone's guess.
Nodding slightly to the phone-message, Sam heads over to the trove, heading to behind the bar. He quickly sends off a text to hsi contacts, trying to find out as much as he can about mr. Whalen ahead of time. Maybe this man can be a good ally. Maybe he needs to be cleaned up. Either way, the jock puts up his best winning smile, and ticks a nod to the bartender. "Yo, take 15." The bartender, by now half aware, knows this code: It means private business, and a paid leave. Either way, Sam is left alone behind the bar, waiting for the man while wiping down the bar with a dingy dishcloth.
Dean is quick to respond to Sam's inquiry. He's able to tell Sam what Richard is a Demonborn, well past the point of aging. When he was active his role in the Hand often revolved around Information Extraction, using whatever tools necessary to their fullest. On the field, he was an excellent marksman. Dean couldn't find any information surrounding the reason for his abrupt depature, but he warns Sam to be careful, pretty sure that Whalen is the sort to do whatever the hell he wants.
A short while later a man in his early 30s strolls in, walking toward the bar and sitting down in a seat like he comes in every day. "Swear this place never changes." He chuckles, briefly lowering his glasses as he sizes Sam up, revealing obsidian black eyes tinged with purple. "Let me get a glass of your most expensive whiskey."
"Coming right up, Mister Whalen." Sam flashes his trademark bar-man's smile, and shows the man his cuff-links, the clenched black fist of the hand hidden within the intricate snake design. He then turns, busying himself with pouring something from the off-the-menu bottles. Whiskey, neat. No ice. He smiles, and puts the glass down, showing the man the label.
"What brings you to Haven, friend?" He speaks, taking an empty glass and polishing it with that dingy dishcloth of his. A bartender busy always is less threatening. A simple trick. He looks at the man's eyes, from behind his shades.
"What brings anyone to Haven?" Richard asks as he picks up the glass with a nod of thanks, "Loose ties and bullshit." He takes a sip here, savoring it a moment. "And something tells me you're about to be part of the bullshit." There's no malice or heat behind the words, just a sort of acknowledgement of the Hand symbol that Sam sports. Though he abruptly changes the subject with a comment of, "You know, I used to work here myself back in the day. For about a week. Until I realized I was better off on the customer end of the bar." He takes another sip of whiskey. "I like drinking too much." He briefly sports a grin full of pearly white teeth to Sam.