A Strange Town

Theo entered the radio station blocking the other door with a stone slab on his way in. "It seems you missed one." He hadn't seen the first one escape, but he had seen the second one. He quickly encased the guy in stone except for his head. Now he couldn't do anything to hurt them. He had seen Leon here and there so he knew the guy wasn't a bad person.
 
There was nothing more to the conversation, what Jennifer thought. Very carefully closing her bathroom door, she began to take her clothes off and actually take a bath. It’s been a long day, and she’ll deliver the coffee supplies tommorow. If Amber made more noise th
The story of the “forest’s cobweb” was a dad book, telling of a little girl with a toy, who was thrown out of her home for being “weak”. The little girl walked into the forest and wished to have a perfect home. The next page showed a illustration and a description of the girl finding two strange, creatures who offered to make that perfect town, she accepted the deal.
...
The next pages were purposely ripped out, strange. It might be a children’s story, if not a bit scary, but the fact that she wished for a perfect town in the forest and Bellville could be said as that...

Gale’s laptop was strange, it had wi-fi network with no name, and the battery seemed to be not declining, rather rising. The laptop did ping his location luckily, but the problem now was how to get out of this place. If Gale took a lock around, this seemed to be a sleazy bit of tone, so it was heavily patrolled. He could explain himself, although it’s very possible the council member might shoot him dead on sight, but it was waiting in darkness otherwise.
@Alissa Ming
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The book was worth a look, but not now and not for the conventional reason. The book seemed to be a diary, a old and thick one has well. It had a name on it but it was too old to be properly looked at. The book may be good for later, but it doesn’t seem important currently. Most of the cultists he captured were injuried enough to be unable to be questioned until tommorow. It was very late at night, so it’s nearly certain there will be police coming here very soon.
@ShadowCoyote0

The cultist struggled and glared at Theo, knowing that too much noise would alert people. On a closer look, it seemed he was a messenger or delivery person of sorts, since just before getting encased in rock, it seemed there was something securely in his pocket. The question is it is the right time to, due to just how policed Belleville currently is.
@Draco Shadowdragon

@Maluon
——————————
The woman sighed and rolled her eyes, while focused on the wall. The paint was coming off pretty quickly.
“I want to, but I’m always too busy in the shop. ‘Oh, Helen! Can you clean the floor while tending to the customer. Oh! Don’t forget to BABYSIT me! I’m a useless manager!’.”
She made a false impression of her manager presumably, and she was being very passive-aggressive with that. Giggling slightly while cleaning, she replied to Torian.
“For all I know, Mister Dinkins has the maturity of a toddler, utterly unsuited to business! You ever had a bad boss?”
@Kanassa

@Green Door​
 
Zander decided he was going to the radio station to see whats wrong. He turned off his tape recorder, and got ready. He threw on some old work clothes that were stained from a few years of Zander working on engines.
"Damn"
Zander realized he couldn't just walk to the radio station due to the curfew. so he'd have to get creative. He looked out the window and saw the power lines. He realized he'd have to travel though them using his abilities.
Well, here goes.
Zander prepared himself mentally, and using his abilities, he sent himself through the wiring of his machine shop, then the power lines, then through the wiring of the radio station and out of the breaker box in the basement of the radio station. He didn't come out smoothly, he sort of fell out, into a large box. He picked himself up out of the box, and started quietly toward the stairs.
 
Leon secured the book in his pocket. He felt deeply disturbed at himself. His old master would've been proud, and that's what bothers him. Eventually, he heard someone. Turning around, he recognized the man. "Hey there. Theo right? What're you doing here?" It wasn't a threatening tone of voice. Theo had never given Leon a reason to distrust him. However, Leon could hear police arriving in the distance. He looked to a frozen window and shattered the ice on it, breaking the window in the process. "I'd suggest we get out of here soon."
 
Amber heard the water running and she grinned. Her suspicion had been correct. She wondered if Jennifer realized she had revealed her own lie. Unless, that was, she wanted to claim that she needed a second bath. Her grin grew wider as Gale finally pinged her his location. That left her with two options. She could tell him to sit tight for the night, probably the best course of action. She could get him in the morning, and with only her having the cloak, it could be tricky to get him out if anyone was watching. "I got you Gale. Stay there. I think for now it will be safer to wait until morning to join up. Still, we'll need a headquarters eventually, where you can set up and stay safe. I was gonna go out tonight, but I think I'd prefer to get you first, and that's going to have to wait until morning when I can get you out of there without trouble."
"Got it, Amber. My computer's acting weird, though."
"How so?"
"Well, first off, I didn't have to connect it to the Wi-Fi like I normally would. Wi-Fi doesn't have a password, though that's not uncommon. But that's not all. My battery should be draining, cause it's not plugged in, but it's not. If anything, it's self-charging, and that's not normal. It's not normal at all."
"Understood. Anything else?"
"Yeah, some guy who clearly didn't want to be seen had this kid. I know which way he was going when I saw him, but I'm not as good at sneaking through the streets as you, so I don't know where he went after that."
"Got it. Gale, stay safe, don't open your computer again unless you need to. If you feel safe, see if you can locate the others. I'd rather have the entire crew available if possible."
"You got it, Amber. And be careful."
"Always."
Amber went back to the book with the pages ripped out, which was odd. The bits and pieces left weren't much help. They said something about someone wanting a perfect town in a forest. But no such place existed. All towns had something about them that was less than perfect. A lifetime on the street had shown Amber that. She was going to have to go to sleep soon, in order to be functional tomorrow. But she was too intrigued currently to put the book down.
 
Torian tried hard to think back through his flickering memory, straining to make use of those second long instances of pictures in his head, cut voices and scared touches. "Pplenty in my life, 'Oh, Torian! Get on the floor and be my footstool. Oh! A little to the left, you're the target as well for the kid's archery practice! Now, put on this stupid costume and dance, monkey, DANCE! No, nobody cares if it's hot in and don't you dare pass out on the job from the suffocating heat!' And all on minimum wage and have to buy my own equipment. Sometimes it's hard to remember that I'm supposed to be a janitor now"
 
Leon’s suspicion was correct, as a loud banging on the door came right before a “Open up! This is the police!”. Now, Leon’s situation was two, well, three curfew-breakers now with Zander in a damaged radio station with at least seven cultists injured and one dead on the ground. There was also that guy outside stuck by Theo’s earth power. So if they wanted to escape, there was three options. Negotiate and try not to get shot on the slightest suspicion, hide in the basement where Zander just came from, or beat the crap out of the police. What other options were there?
@Maluon @ShadowCoyote0 @Draco Shadowdragon
———————
Jennifer didn’t seem to notice, being much too tired. As she got dressed in comfortable if not homely clothes, preparing for bedtime, she yawned. Zip. Which was then replaced with a feeling of shock.
“Nonono, Why this time of all time-”
Sure enough, she disappeared from the bathroom and appeared on the lower stairs, in full view of Amber, she just hoped the thief couldn’t see what happened.

The book’s description pages were mostly ripped out, leaving a few illustrations near the end. Could they have been ripped in a rush? The ripped pages were fairly messy, leaving a few words like “cursed” and “demons”. The few illlustraions were quite alarming for a children’s story, even if it was drawled childishly, it sends a chill down normal people’s spines. The last pages espically, showed the young girl, now naked, wrapped with flowers and smiling strangely, looking down on a couple of men in strange clothing. She also had a man in her hand, presumably a “terrorist” according to the description, who’s head was flicked off, just like a child flicking an ant or squashing a bug.
A children’s book, alright. It simply was too strange for a children’s story to be so gruesome and having pages ripped out.
@Alissa Ming
———————
“Torian? Oh yeah, that janitor at our small school. Must be hard, cleaning after the little buggers.”
She tried to empathise, but had trouble doing so without sounding fake, so she just gave a pitying comment, while focusing on the wall.
“Oh. Looks like it’s come off on my side, how about yours?”
@Kanassa​
 
Amber was marking her place, where the pages were torn for later perusal, and looking up as Jennifer flickered out of existence. If she hadn't seen Jennifer attempt to perform something similar earlier, she probably would have shouted in shock. As it was, her eyes widened. Magic wasn't a thing where she was fun, so far as she knew. But that didn't make it not a thing here.
 
Zander heard the police show up and he wasn't about go out into the main room. Instead he opened the door just enough to stick his head out. Seeing the two guys who weren't cultists, Zander spoke just loud enough to get their attention.
"Hey! Come down here! I've got a way out."
Zander was hoping he could get them through the power lines before the cops saw them. He hated other people knowing what he could do, he absolutely hated it.
This doesn't mean he was just going to leave the others there either.
 
Leon heard the voice. Considering his other options and current state of health, he decided to trust the stranger. He looked at Theo and nudged his head in the direction of the stanger. He wasted no time heading to the basement. His arm was still bleeding from the gun shot wound, an he started to feel weak.
 
Jennifer, deciding to come relatively clean rather then suffer worse problems, walked down the stairs and waved at Amber.
“Reading that one I gave you? It’s rather strange, that such a book, I have to hide from the council members.”
What was stranger about this book was that Jennifer had to hide it.
“Oh, you must be wondering about my flickering in and out of the air. I do that sometimes, I wish I can control it...”
@Alissa Ming
———————
The basement was relatively large and dark, so all three would be able to fit in there. The basement seemed like an archive and electricity control of sorts. There were vhs tapes, cds for pre-recorded announcements, and more importantly, thick power lines Zander might be able to fit them through.

Lucky too, it seems the police started to take more invasive measures, and the loading of guns can be heard.
@Draco Shadowdragon @Maluon @ShadowCoyote0
———————
@bluestars @Green Door​
 
"Oh yes, they always like to stare and most certainly nobody thinks that highly of the cleaner. You would never beleive the strange and outlandish ways those bastards can dirty the halls, it's like they're purposely looking for new ways to screw with me" He scrubbed harder and harder as he noticed her getting close to finishing, trying to scrub off his end first. It wasn't like it was a competition or anything, but nobody was saying it totally couldn't be a competition or something. "I'm close!"
 
"It's weird. It's missing pages. And you really have to hide a book? Why?" Amber also considered Jennifer's ability. "You know, to get better control over something, I've heard practice is a wonderful thing. I suppose you could also look for a teacher. But I don't have any magic, so I can't really help with that." Amber was thoughtful in her speech.
 
“Work is hard with kids, Mr Dinkin’s a handful, I can’t imagine what plight you have.”
The woman, upon seeing Torian speed up, sped up as well. While still talking.
“Janitor jobs never are. As long as you have a job, I suppose. The only people janitors look down upon are the welfare people. Living on bread and money provided by the council...How sad.”
She said that with a hint of disgust, having a dislike of ‘lazy bums’ apparently. She noticed Torian had finished his, so she quickly finished her side as well.
@Kanassa
—————
“Of course, the problem is I can’t. I don’t know where to start.”
It’s not like there were many people with teleportation, much less someone willing to teach her. Replying to the question about the book, she lied carelessly and guiltlessly, as if Amber wouldn’t know.
“Because council members are very bad with entertainment, and take away anything they consider inappropriate. Well, you can get those kind of books, but it has to be in that corner of the town. And they can’t really figure out my age all that well, since I seem to always look the same despite being here for..how long now?”
@Alissa Ming​
 
This girl was almost shameless. She wasn't even trying to hide the fact that she was lying. It was a careless lie. Not a thought out one, not with any real conviction, and Amber's eyes went back to narrow speculation before she could stop herself. Either this woman was a terrible liar, likely, considering the lie about the bath earlier. The trick to lying was leaving in enough truth to be plausible. For example, when she'd told Jennifer that she had other skills, that wasn't a lie. She'd simply left out what those other skills were. The way she'd paused would give away that she'd left something out. But she knew she could get out of any explanations if she had to. She considered telling Jennifer off for lying. But that could come with consequences she would rather not deal with. So for now, she decided to go to a different topic. "So, this applying for a house, how long does that take?"
 
It wasn’t that Jennifer was a bad liar, considering her managing to fool the council members into thinking she had normal books, it was just that she didn’t care enough. A maladaptive liar of sorts.
Also that she’s lately felt something strange, like...a good part of her skills and self are missing. The town wasn’t correct, and this feeling in her gut showed it.
“Oh, houses? Doesn’t take long, never more than a fortnight. We have a low birth rate, and houses are being built quite often, so there’s always room. The only problem is the person’s choice. My house only has three people in it, as it’s a bit hidden and hard to find, but the ones very close to town? They have the maximum of ten and some still try to squash in. There’s many small houses farther up, but it’s bothersome to walk to town everyday.”
It seemed Jennifer had a loose lip in general, saying so much so quickly.
“Hey, Amber? Shouldn’t you been sleeping! It’ll be a busy day, finding houses and introducing yourself tomorrow.”
@Alissa Ming​
 
Amber nodded. She didn't know enough about Jennifer to know how good a liar she was. But she nodded. "Yeah, I probably should sleep. Thanks again for letting me stay." She had a lot to consider, and she could stay up all night if she had to, but she was a thief. She slept when she could, and was up when she needed to do a job, some of which were for her own survival.
 
There wasn't many choices, so when the stranger's head peaked in and offered a way out, he didn't hesitate. He followed Leon down into the basement. His nerves were on edge now and the sounds of the police loading their guns hadn't helped matters. "So where is this way out," he said not sseeing one anywhere. He hoped this wasn't a set-up.
 
“Goodnight. I was checking on you, do you maybe need any new clothes? Or maybe bath?”
Jennifer tried to be even sympathetic, but she couldn’t, so her fake-caring voice sounded empty. She just thought that maybe Amber might appreciate new clothes or a bath, that’s what people do, right? She smiled, but there was no true politness behind it.
She did reach her hand out to Amber, asking for the book nonverbally.
“I would prefer you give it back. I’d like to put it in my room for security.”
@Alissa Ming​
 
Amber reluctantly handed the book back, noting the empty smile and fake voice. She knew better than most how to fake caring. But in a way, it was like she had no emotions not even fake ones. Amber smiled her own fake smile, but it was laced with realism. "Thank you, but I think I'm fine for tonight. I'll just get some sleep. And I'm good on clothes too." There was no way she was taking off her cloak. Or anything else that was hers. But especially the cloak.
 
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