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August Kohler EARLY AFTERNOON
The City of Exodus

There has been stories about a city known only as Exodus, based on the signs near the warpgate. According to different sources, there is a massive psychic energy source coming from this city. The Watch (and any coming with them) would know of this from Rex Hazard, famous adventurer, while the Concord would know this from a lead given to one Flamel Parsons, Psychonaut. No one has been able to find the source, however, besides a constant thrumm, because of multiple larger signatures masking it around the city. Whatever it is, though, is big enough to be useful, whether as a power source or a weapon, and also, more importantly...Exodus is abandoned.

The local warpgate opens out into a grand city park, not far from a small river, facing the bridge near it. Grass fills the ground, either overgrown or dead depending on where the city sprinkler system is active. Flowers in planters are wilted, seemingly no one to water them. One would expect the sounds of birds...but there are none. In fact, the entire area is eerily quiet. The background noises many take for granted - the sounds of birds chirping, insects fluttering, cars running, is all absent. Despite the sun high in the sky, the cool air breezing through making this a nice day to spend it in the park, there's no one to do so.

This city park, across the bridge, seems to have a local help center. There's also a sign nearby - EXODUS CITY PARK, which is how people know that Exodus must be the city's name. The streets nearby seem to lead to many buildings, probably the shopping district of the city based on some of the signs, though there doesn't appear to be power anywhere. Several cars are abandoned, just lying there in the streets. From layout and architecture, this appears to be a very modern Earth, reminiscent of a big American city.

Those with senses tuned towards psychic energy, or looking for it, will immediately know that the rumors about this city are accurate. There's a large thrum, constantly but not overpoweringly, indicating that there's psychic energy somewhere.

Immediate points of interest, for those looking for them:
THE PARK ITSELF - While seemingly empty of anything interesting, there's several large trees which may assist in scouting around the park for more information.

PARK CENTER - Across the bridge. May have information inside - large windows indicate that it's empty, at least at a glance.

THE SHOPPING DISTRICT - If one is to find a source of people, or a sign of how abandoned the city is, this might be a good place to look, and the large buildings, if scaled, are likely a good scouting position.

MISCELLANEOUS CARS - While not guaranteed, the cars may have identifying information, or technology inside.

PSYCHIC BLIPS - Besides the big thrumming, there are several very small psychic blips nearby, deeper into the park in a grove of trees.
Flamel Parsons     Parsons leads the expedition here. All attired in that classic suit of the Vague Yet Menacing Government Agent, he leads the way, adjusting his sunglasses as he peers around. "Alright." He says. "So, normally this would be a purely Psychonauts kind of problem! It's not, this time. We're looking at pure psychic energy, which is a lot different from regular psychic energy, because most psychic energy carries a lot of traces of an active mind. Thoughts, feelings, that sort of thing."

    He presses two fingers to his temple, and seems to "tune" with them. "But this seems pure, way too pure to come out of a /traditional/ mind. It might be an alien mind, it might be a high-intensity memory, it might be some kind of weapon, a jarred clone-brain, I can't tell. But it won't just be a mind issue. So! This isn't just psychic, I need eyes on all sorts of ways here."

    "I'll try a little clairvoyance..." He mutters, tuning his brain until he reaches some good setting, and then pulsing his clairvoyant power in a radial burst, a ring of light that surges over the park while it tries to summon up visualizations of old feelings, memories, or events that happened here, in phantasmal images or sounds. Alongside whatever results may come of this, he feels the blips; a few phantasmal psychic hands emerge from his brain and point directly in their direction. "Couple blips... Not sure if they're minds or just energy." He says, lifting off with levitation power and heading their way.
John Rizzo      A promise is a promise.

     This would be the first time John Rizzo has set foot in the Multiverse since it happened. But for the kindness and empathy of others, he'd never have dug himself out of that hole. John is exhausted, his mind muddled, his health in danger. Upon him, he can feel the dangerous warmth of the sun, its light threatening to set his body ablaze should it find any purchase beneath the shade of his old hat, the lenses of his sunglasses, or the bandages which cover his skin.

     He hasn't felt better in months. The vampire feels the psychic blips tugging at the back of his mind as he listens to Parsons. "Me neither, bo," says Rizzo in response. "I'm..." He rubs his temples distractedly. "...gonna blow, see if I can crab what's got the place all dormy." It's always the temptation of Awakened beings to go for stuff in that wheelhouse first. He ignores them. Parsons is here, and he can handle them--Rizzo doesn't want too many cooks in that kitchen. Instead of going for the blips, Rizzo heads for the shopping district.

     He shifts into the background, hiding in the subtext of reality. He makes an effort to look for people, or a sign of what happened. Cars seem to have been left behind. Is there anything people left behind in the shopping district that would point to something being more obviously amiss? He attempts to find such things--trinkets, wallets, uneaten food, as he wanders from storefront to storefront.

     His attention, unfortunately, is split between the task at hand and the primal urge to run like an animal into the nearest patch of darkness. He ducks into the first place with an open door, trying to collect his thoughts. Shadows cast by the afternoon sun shift slowly with the passage of time. He loses himself in them, studying their movement as only a Malkavian can, eyes intently scrutinizing their glacial crawl across the asphalt.
Sanary Rondel      If there's one thing long abandoned cities are good for, it's loot! Magical artifacts, confusingly shaped weapons, maybe even a specially-crafted piece of armor? Whatever's in this place, Sanary's determined to find it, and her first stop is the park!

     Not because she's expecting to find anything in the park, anyway. No, she's just a little worn out from having to deal with that constant thrumming noise. Whatever it is is a constant annoyance, and her earplugs haven't helped one bit. Grunting in annoyance, the healer stops briefly as Parsons speaks up,

     "There's... Different mind qualities?" She sounds confused by the notion of that, then furrows her brow. "... What if that means they're crazy smart or something? Like a superbrain putting out super pure mind... Juice?" She gestures vaguely before turning around to take a quick look around.

     Too many things to look at, not enough her to go around if everyone else is looking for something as well. "I'll head... Uh. That way. Holler if anything gets cut off!" Thus, the healer heads towards the PARK CENTER! It's a start, and who knows? Maybe there'll be something valuable in there.
Lezard Valeth Psychic power sources are important, they can be turned to all kinds of interesting uses. Lezard, of course, isn't going to ignore such a thing when the opportunity arises.

The group arrives, Flamel explaining what's going on. and Lezard simply scans over the area, trying to seek out sources of energy. "Perhaps if we can find the source, we can /provide/ it with a suitable channel, hmm?" Lezard comments off handedly. He looks through the Philosopher's Stone as he walks, trying to narrow down some form of disturbence so he can get an idea of what's going on. Flamel's clairvoyant hands quickly point out a lead, and Lezard nods. "My thanks." He says to Flamel, and heads over to do the dirty work of actually tracking down the lead that the gifted psychic has pointed out.
Nie Li     Compared to Flamel, Nie Li looks... very, very out of place. Dude walked straight out of some oriental fantasy land, quite literally, and is still wearing the duds. Though only perhaps thirteen years old or so, he's dressed as a warrior with a loose fitting and flexible martial arts getup.

    "How's this for strange? You say there's all this energy about... and I don't feel a thing. I guess Psychic power has nothing to do with Soul Force." He doesn't waste any time in just walking along with Flamel, seeing him as the best case for solving this mystery!

    "So how do you narrow down the possibilities? If it's a field, it should have a starting point. Perhaps we can use math? Scope out the boundaries of the field and find the center?"
Korra Psychic phenomena are matters of the spirit, and matters of the spirit are handled by the Avatar. Or so the theory goes: the reality is closer to 'Korra felt a strong pull - a strong pain, like a spiritual migrane - towards this desolate, empty place' and felt responsible for figuring out why. Her journey was connected to nothing and no-one, for the elements and spirits were everywhere.

Even in this desolation, like a bleeding wound, there was still life: just not human life.

But arriving isn't hard, and the thrum doesn't send interested people away. A mystery to be solved.

Carrying a long bindle-sack of gear over her shoulder, Korra glances around, noticing that already a number of people have arrived to investigate: but there doesn't seem to be any locals. A... businessman? Two? Plus some soldier, and a bender of some variety...

"Hey, where's everyone else? Or did you feel the noise too? Is there nobody local around?"

Korra snorts out a restrained, nasal 'laugh' as she adjusts the sack over her shoulder. "Figures. It's some sort of spirit problem, then. Well, don't worry. I'm sure I'll be able to solve it." The Avatar announces, before noticing Flamel getting his Psychic Juju on. "Oh, are you a spirit medium? That's cool. What do you feel? I feel..." She wonders, before closing her eyes and reaching out her senses, trying to get a direction for the thrumming sound and immediately recoilining. "Yikes, that's... loud. Are you cutting through that noise?"
August Kohler As Flamel starts his clairvoyance, besides the blips, he immediately finds some information. Phantasmal images of people setting up tents, carrying others into them, worried, panicked. Sounds of coughing, violently. And then, eventually, the tents getting torn down - this part is mistier than the others, though it has some sadness to it, but they're all misty, old events.

Rizzo can find open buildings easily enough, though several doors are locked. As he investigates, what he finds in the form of closed up restaurants and stores tells him that wherever people went, they expected to leave. But there's little signs that they expected to come back, too - left-behind or forgotten coats, some stores still open, and most importantly, the words swirling out of a nearby sign, ones that might not actually be there if anyone else looks, but Rizzo can see clearly: 'We'll be back shortly.' And that feels like it was a long time ago.

Sanary moves to investigate the park center. The doors are unlocked, allowing her inside easily. There's some coats left on a coat rack, and sleeping bags and beds on the floors, not many, but it seems that people have been living in here. Near the back, in an office, is where the interesting stuff is. A newspaper, which dates this world at 'late 2017', and talks about how governor Damon Drake has been reuniting the people, about some expressionist artist named Rosa Marino working on her 'masterpiece', and about how 'the death toll has gone down, and the air looks clear'.

There's also a city map on the wall, which may be useful for Sanary.

Lezard, Flamel, and Nie Li head in the direction of the blips. What they find, in the grove of trees, is not real minds. It's vaguely person-flavored, instead of completely alien, but it's not people. Once they reach the shape, they can tell that visually as well.

They're squat and grey, but humanoid. About four to five feet tall, varying, there's three creatures, moving around aimlessly. They don't do much, and if the three don't stealth, they seem to notice them and start moving over to surround them, but they appear non-threatening. They don't make any noises, and their limbs are all weird. One has two heads and five arms (three on one side, two on the other), another has one head and three arms, and the 'leader', the tallest, seems to have three heads, one coming out of its chest, and two arms. They seem super curious about anyone investigating them.

Korra looks for the source of the thrum, and she'll notice that she's having a very hard time finding it, because looking for it will take her all around the park, out of the park, into different directions. It seems to be concentrated soemwhere, but there's 'interference' coming in and masking it before you can find an actual direction. With focus, Korra can count an exact number of interferences, though, all coming from different directions.

Seven, in total.
Sanary Rondel      "Finding the source isn't a bad idea. Might be that noise, might be that... Whatever it is he's tracking." Sanary looks from Lezard to Flamel, squinting briefly at the latter before shrugging and continuing onwards. "I'll see if I can't dig somethin' outta here, though."

     Like weapons! Or armor! Or... Coats? Magically enchanted coats, perhaps?

     Nope, just some regular coats. She rifles through the coats and sleeping bags briefly, squinting for a moment before sighing at the distinct lack of STUFF she's found. The map could be useful, at least, and she tries that entire thing off the wall to bring with her. Otherwise, she's just going to try memorizing the landmarks (badly).

     <<"Looks like people have been living out of here. Er. Had." She comments over the radio while pausing to flip through the newspaper, poring over it slowly on her way out. <<"Something a Governor Drake and an artist Marino... 'Masterpiece'... Fewer people dying and clear air, too.">>

     Another pause. <<"... Doesn't look like the death toll went down if there ain't anybody here. Did the rest of you find anyone?">>
Priscilla     An entire city supposedly not existing is a curiosity that interests Priscilla on a personal level. Some kind of ridiculous kind of weapons grade energy source sitting around mysteriously, waiting to be stumbled upon by whoever finds it first, is something of a high enough pay grade to make a field mission out of it --with the experts on power fields bigger than one's head on staff, of course. Frankly it's nice to see Parsons back in a suit and shades again. Own that look.

    Five seconds in the eerily empty park, with nothing but the sound of the wind and the rustling of whatever is left to be moved by it, Priscilla tilts her head towards the sun, and remarks, just loud to be heard. "This is pleasant. A surprise, given, but not unwelcome." She just kind of soaks in the desolate emptiness of a dead civilization for a bit, before moving on into the surroundings that ought to be noisy and cramped and overpopulated to high heaven.

    "Sir Parsons is an expert." Priscilla says to Korra, as if that answers all questions and assuages all worries. "Granted, I am interested in seeing the famed Avatar's take upon such matters. If thou believeth it to be the work of spirits, pray demonstrate." Third time running into Korra too. "Indeed." she shrugs with a hint of lament towards Nie Li. "Though it is not without some blessings that the mind be separate from the soul in these certain ways." It's only when Rizzo buggers off that she releases a breath and admits "Wouldst any of thee knoweth who that is, precisely?" in the kind of tone that might have felt awkward for not knowing someone's friend, but two thirds in the realm of 'I might kill him if he's nobody important'.

    "Keepeth me apprised." she says, and then vanishes, thus being impossible to keep apprised except by radio. Thanks. She ends up at the top of one of those park trees, balanced higher than she really ought to be (not gigantic for obvious reasons) and starts scanning the horizon of the city she can see from the tallest height she can attain for visually confirmable landmarks, as opposed to endless rambling shops.
Lezard Valeth Pursuiing the blips gets some kind of interesting response.

Mainly, that they have encounted some local life. It doesn't seem like the life one would expect from the area, but so be it. Lezard is also not one for stealth, so he is easily detected as he steps out. The book is open in his hand, but he makes no aggressive moves yet. "Greetings." He sauys to the creatures. "I am Lezard Valeth, Sorceror of Midgard. Please identify yourselves and tell us what your purpose is in this place.
Sanary Rondel      On her way out of the park, Sanary notices something suspicious! Namely, a white figure that she didn't see on her way in. She freezes up, hand reaching instinctively for her axe, but she doesn't go on the offensive or anything. No, she just stares. A lot.

     Right until Priscilla disappears. She breathes a light sigh of relief and moves to start following the others again, then freezes once more when Priscilla's suddenly in a tree. "How...? How the hell did you get up there being that big?!"
John Rizzo      Rizzo watches as the shadows of buildings slowly crawl across the asphalt. To anyone else it's the passage of time. But to someone who can peel back the Lie and see things for what they really are...

     The darkness overtakes more and more of the black plains with every passing minute. Grains of dirt--tiny travelers--slowly flee the encroaching darkness. Where do they go? Rizzo follows their journey. They flee towards the light. It swirls downward from a great metal totem rising hopelessly high into the air. A stop sign, to anyone else. At the top of the stop-totem, the light snakes and writes into legible words. 'We'll be back shortly.'

     Rizzo snaps out of the vision, nearly falling over from the abrupt return to the glaring hatred of the sun. He stops himself with a bandaged hand held to a nearby wall. They'll be back shortly... "Wish that was true," muses the vampire sadly. Still, it's something. It gives him a timeframe. He leaves the restaurant he managed to tuck himself into, and braves the sun's weight once more in search of answers.

     Rizzo takes hold of a chair left on the patio of an up-tempo cafe. He carries it with him all the way back to the abandoned cars. The vampire searches for the most beat-up car he can find. Typically, those have stronger emotional connections than brand-new ones. Their owners have little rituals they engage in. If it doesn't start, slap the dash three times and then rub the steering wheel. If the AC starts rattling, make sure no one's behind you and step on the brakes.

     Upon finding it, or at least settling on one that's reasonably older, Rizzo sighs. Normally he could just touch the car--but it has to be skin contact. Removing the bandages would set him on fire. So, in his search for answers, he drives the metal leg of the restaurant's chair through the driver's side window. The vampire carefully brushes any broken glass out of the seat with his foot, then leans into the car (even if the alarm goes batshit) and begins rummaging around for personal effects of the driver's.

     If he can find any, he'll take them some place with enough shade to read their history. Perhaps that'll help him get an idea of what happened?
Flamel Parsons     Parsons approaches the mysterious forms. They seem curious. And harmless. He lets others handle speaking, because they're often so much better than he is about speaking. Instead, he tries for what he always tries, which is mind-reading. There's minds here, right? Gotta be. Where there's body, there's mind, at least if the motion is happening. As they surround him, he happily makes an effort to check to see if anyone's home while the lights are on. Are those ones with two heads also having two minds? Any memories, behaviors, what can he get from them?

    Maybe names? A language?
Nie Li     Apparently it just took a bit for Nie Li to recognize what he -was- feeling. After a bit of intense focus... he slaps a hand to his forehead as though pained, and forces down that sensation. "Ngh..."

    The Flamel-group coming across some VERY strange little creatures, and while Nie Li's impulse would normally be to observe them stealthily... he's sure that's not what his allies are going to do, so he just tenses slightly and observes in the open.

    All he can do is shake his head at Priscilla. "No idea. But I get a weird feeling from him... something isn't right."

    He remains tense with the squat, weird humanish-THINGS approaching, fully aware that creatures that look innocent and harmless at first can instantly be trying to drink a guy's blood or worse. Sharp, swift eye action follows the things no matter how they circle. "Hey," He casually remarks towards the creatures, trying to provoke them into doing something he can better judge than just sniffing around!
Korra Striking off for a moment with her eyes closed, Korra disappears down one of the paths only to double back a few seconds later, bewildered, with her eyes open. This repeats down another of the paths, before - with frustration evident on her face - Korra heaves a great big sigh. "I don't think it's just one source. I can't get a good idea of where to go, but then again..."

She thumbs down the last direction she went down (the park) and then opens hand and raises shoulder in a 'who can say' motion. "It also means every path is as good as the rest. Convenient... I guess."

Priscilla appears suddenly, which remains as startling as the first two times it happened, but at least isn't shocking. "Heh, well, *I*'m not famed yet. And now that I've got a better feel for the place, my best guess would be that it's not the spirits at all. It's another kind of imbalance."

She makes a weighing motion substituting a line-gripping fist for the other scaling palm. "Balance takes two sides: the world of mortals and spirits. I don't think this is a spirit problem: I think it's a people problem."

Her eyes narrow thoughtfully. "Which probably makes things harder, not easier. Sickness, irresponsibility... Anything could ha-"

Prisilla buggers off with her Batman Maneuver, leaving the avatar to sigh and shake her head, looking to Nie Li (being another member of the Concord she had met last time). "Does she do that often?"
August Kohler Sanary gets 1x MAP, yanked off the wall. There's one tiny graph on the side of the newspaper, as if hidden out of the way but too important to completely ignore: it seems that more and more restaurants are closing down. Wonder why that could be.

Priscilla climbs a tree and moves to get a look at what's out there. She finds two very useful, very strange landmarks: there's a skyscraper further into the buildings that appears normal, at least until you get to the top floors...where it appears to be the top of a monk's temple, Asian-style. It just seemlessly changes into a temple, as if that's what it was meant to be, wood and bamboo on top of steel and glass, the lower floors obscured by angle. The other landmark is on the other side of town, where an absolutely colossal tree has taken root in-between what appear to vaguely be apartment buildings and lofts. Both directions correspond with the interferences others may have noticed, Korra able to confirm such.

Lezard, Flamel, and Nie Li investigate the creatures. The first thing they'll notice is that they can't speak - the lines that make up their 'mouths' appear to just be decorative, as if someone painted them on. However, they can gesture. First, they just sort of shrug when asked to identify themselves and their purpose, the closest way they know how to say 'I don't know'. Then, they point at the group several times, and then themselves, and then back.

Flamel will find these aren't actually really living creatures. They're psychic constructs, who have memories of just appearing here about a year ago and sitting and wandering in this park ever since. They're dull memories, the creatures not really smart enough to learn or do anything, though they seem to, vaguely, want help. Anyone who can read the psychic energy can tell they feel like the thrum, and Flamel can confirm that they're related to it in some way.

Rizzo breaks into a car, setting off the alarm, but he doesn't care. Rummaging inside, he finds an old hat, left under the seat - it seems worn, probably one someone's had for years, but left behind despite its importance. They must have been coming back for it. There's also, in the glovebox, a photo. It's of a young woman, also worn.

Both give different history. The hat gives a recent history - someone hungry, finally hopeful, leaving the hat as they head off to go with someone else, to somewhere in the city their problems will be solved. Presumably many people went with them. They were finally going to change their life.

The photo is full of sadness. Someone was lost, quickly and unexpectedly. From the feeling, it seems like the owner knows this happened to a lot of people, but because it was someone special to them, they're very hurt by it, obviously.
Sanary Rondel      Once Sanary's gotten over her freakout at Priscilla appearing on a tree, she focuses on the newspaper in her possession. Thankfully, the graph doesn't take nearly as long for her to decipher as she moves towards Rizzo at the cars. <<"Hey! I got a map and a newspaper. There's this thing showin' that a bunch of restaurants have been closing up shop.">> She waves the newspaper a few times to invite him and anyone else curious enough to take a look at it and the map as well. Who knows? Maybe they'll catch something that she missed.

     "It's weird, though, ain't it? All these people just disappearing from this place, all their stuff left behind. It's like they all decided to strip and run off somewhere without any of their stuff." She comments while looking at one of the open vehicles. "Or they got teleported or something... Hm. You think their ghosts might still be floatin' around?"

     A pause, and then she puts a hand on her axe's handle just in case as she starts moving to regroup with Flamel, Lezard, and Nie Li. "Come on. Sounds like they found something. Could be trouble if we're unlucky."
Flamel Parsons     "Oh! Oh, you want help? Oh, definitely, definitely. Let me see..." Parsons mutters eagerly, heading for the leader. "Hey! I definitely want to help. What's got you worried, friend?" He tunes his mind to focus on at least one of the leader heads, and tries to see if he can pick anything up. Any mental images of the sources of stress? Any concerning memories of past events needing avoiding? Any roots in there for the need for help? He tries to flicker any imagery he can get out into ghostly echoes as well, just like his Clairvoyance.
Nie Li     Nie Li's operating far out of his bounds here. But he's quickly getting comfortable with these things... they don't seem to be hostile, just curious. Frustrated, maybe? He'd be frustrated too if he didn't have a mouth. That would absolutely SUCK.

    A dozen ideas run through him quickly about what sort of creatures these might be... and he concludes, "Fragments. Fragments that coaelsced into something greater." And so in the end he smiles at them.

    "We're gonna check the place out, see if we can help out, but we'll be back! Anything dangerous around here?"

    They seem capable of SOME communication, so he might as well see if they are THAT aware.
Lezard Valeth Well, this is kind of frustrating. There are some Things Lezard can do to begin interrogating these things. Psychic amalgams aren't souls, precisely, but he could take a shot at it.

However, it is /far/ more efficient to let the specialist handle things. Psionics might be adjacent to sorcery in many ways, but Lezard is far more versed in the latter than the former. He looks back and forth to the beings... "So we are to play charades?" He asks aloud.

He watches the constructs carefully, considering his options.
John Rizzo      The vampire, from the safety of an abandoned building, observes the history of the hat. It's recent, vivid. As recent as something can be, given what happened, anyway. He loses himself in the memories, muttering sentences that aren't his, silently mouthing names and thoughts. Faces, places, they all rush past him in start-stop flashes. The mind is funny... always placing emphasis on some things more than others. It only gets more exaggerated as time passes. Memories become caricatures of themselves. As the memories of the hat fade, Rizzo feels a profound sadness. Somehow, he doesn't think they got that better future. Or, if they did, they left this place far behind.

     The sadness does not fade when he then examines the picture of the girl. That feeling... he knows it. He feels the sense of loss from this photo all the more, because of it. That kind of pain can drive people to act pretty strangely. What can he do about it now, but gently run his thumb over the surface of the photo? A vain effort to connect with or comfort someone he's never met. Rizzo fastens the gauze around his hand once more, double, then triple checking it as his mind threatens to lose focus. Focus.

     What does he know so far? People left because other people were dying. Whatever it was, they thought they'd be back soon. That could help narrow it down... what's dangerous, but temporary? Pollution, maybe? Poison? Radiation? That kid on the radio mentioned something about clean air. And falling death tolls. She also mentioned restaurants closing.

     Why would they be closing? Was the food contaminated? That could be something. It could be nothing, too, but he's got to keep moving. Got to keep active, keep thinking. The Malkavian paces anxiously, slapping a fist into his open palm. He ventures into the streets again, this time heading for one of the closed restaurants. He'll try and find one he doesn't have to break into--but if he can't, he's superhumanly strong even in sunlight.

     Breaking down a door if he has to, Rizzo enters a closed restaurant. He heads for the back of house, wherever the manager might have been, and snoops around the office for clues. Why did it close? If that's not obvious from what's available in the office, then when did business start to slow down? Hopefully, he can get a concrete date on the start of all this--then, maybe, he can see if this city has a library with older copies of the newspaper.

     There is an oppressive curtain of sadness on the abandoned town, completely empty on such a beautiful day. Rizzo can feel it, even if a beautiful day for most is a deadly hazard for him. But, despite that sadness... there is a reassuring sense of purpose. It feels good to be figuring things out again.
Korra "Alright. I've got an idea." Korra begins, as the group scatters off. So, with Priscilla having Batmanned her, she leans in to sticking with Flamel and Nie Li. "Let's just, you know, pick a direction. All three of us can feel the sounds, I think, so we won't get lost. Let's just chase one down. Nie Li, you're an expert on detecting spiritual things, and this glasses guy has all the answers, so, if we stick together, we can handle anything that caused it between the two of us, right?"

She claps her free hand on the martial artist's back. "I'm pretty interested in what you can do with that 'soul force'."
Priscilla     "It is more than likely that those who were slain by this invisible disaster were then burned or quarantined, for the nature of these things to spread --or perhaps simply left where they lay in care. Those that didst remaineth wouldst hath fled for a central place of refuge." Priscilla says on the radio, adding a couple of twos together.

    "To one end I see what may very well be one; some sort of great tower of industry converted to a place of worship at its peak. The opposite, a tree of improbable size. If this hath something to do with the very air itself, a tree is a conspicuous feature, well known to clean the air of toxins, or to fill the air with its own. I shalt see to it first."

    Trusting that the people here can handle themselves in a group, and that she can make better time than all but one of them on her own, Priscilla does that acting with chronic independence thing and makes off for the gigantic tree. It's more familiar.
August Kohler When Flamel roots around the leader's head for mental images or sources of stress, faces appear. Seven vague faces (they don't seem to actually recognize faces well, the creatures, even images of your own faces if you look are kind of blurry), all belonging to humans. They need help with them, though the creatures don't seem to know or care what kind of help they get, and don't know much beyond that and that they're scared of the seven faces.

When asked if 'anything dangerous around here', the faces flicker through their mind again, as one of them crouches to dig in the dirt. With a finger, it scrapes through the dirt, showing surprising strength, and draws two lines. One horizontal up top, connected to a slightly vertical slanted line at the right side, sloppy, but clear in what it is.

A seven.

The creatures don't respond to the question about charades. They just seem to hope the group can help them.

Rizzo breaks through a restaurant, and moves to investigate. He finds the most useful thing, since everything's out of power: someone who actually wrote down notes in the manager's office. It seems the latest ones are dated over a year ago, and a few months change, and there's complaints about the 'food shortage'. Digging and digging, he finally finds the answer to their question. 'That damn plague' is mentioned off-handedly in one of the writings, one that comes of venting in someone's notes. Whatever happened, there's a plague, and it's connected to the food shortage. May this also be connected to the complete lack of animals in the city?

Priscilla heads off for the giant tree. With her quick movement speed, she can make good time, heading into what appears to be a residential district. Houses, apartments, lofts...it's in the area of lofts that she finds the tree. It seems placed weirdly, and there's no soil beneath it. The tree is growing out of the concrete, where a loft once was.

And it's colossal.

The tree reaches high into the sky, sort of blotting out the sun in its direction, casting large amounts of shade. Branches form out into 'rooms', like it's a housing structure, and more and more branch out the higher you go. There's probably something at the peak of the tree, but immediately, there's sounds of fighting in a few of the lower branches. Fists clashing, men duking it out. Which is strange.

Isn't everyone gone?
Nie Li     For some reason Korra suddenly putting a hand on him sends a SHIVER through Nie Li. His whole body tenses with a jolt of awkward nervousness, but he subdues it with a deep breath.

    "We should DEFINITELY not get separated here." Nie Li states firmly on that's achieved, nodding his acknowledgement of Korra's assessment. "I can sense this place... but it's a weird pressure. Not sure if I'll be able to pick anything out against it by aura alone... don't forget about your other senses here. And definitely don't expect anything that can take human form to be friendly like these... little ones."

    A moment later, he delivers in a conspiratorial whisper, "Yeah. She does that a lot."

    He's startled that the creatures are afraid of 7 though. He recognizes the symbol, if only thanks to the translation effect. "Seven... we should be worried about seven?" He glances at his companions thoughtfully. "Seven spirits? Seven locations? Anything that moves in groups of seven? No telling WHAT the rules of this place are..." A little frustrated he turns to scratching the back of his head and sighing.
Flamel Parsons     "Hmmm... Okay! So, we need to find seven people. People-ish. I think people! We need to find them, and then figure out what sort of disruption they're causing. I think they're interfering with the natural processes going on in the psychic energy, maybe. Then, maybe we can find some way to work with the weird phenomenon going on here."

    He turns to the leaderly one and plants his hands on his waist proudly, almost heroically. "Don't worry. We're experts about this sort of thing! I don't know what's going on here, but my friends will make sure it turns out okay. All you people need to do is hold out hope and we'll find a way to solve it, either on our own or together with you!" He cocks his head slightly. "I think there's fighting somewhere. If there's fighting, maybe one part of the fight is one of the problems. Let's go take a look!"

    He gives a firm, positive nod to the gnomes. "Don't any of you worry! I'll make sure everything's okay for you!" And then he's speeding off on fresh levitation, heading to Priscilla's signal at the tree, and already spinning up his mind-reading. Now it's less to perceive the past, and more to perceive the present. Who are the combatants? What can he glean about their psychological nature, their purpose, or the stakes of their battle? He'll do the best he can to find the most important-sounding information, but people in battle tend to have their guard up and that often can mess with psychic extraction.
Priscilla     Priscilla, after a brief notice to the others over the radio to tell them about the sounds of combat, drops in on the fighting herself in the more straightforward form of seeking it out with her eyes and ears, completely invisible once again so as not to draw any attention that might interrupt it. Theoretically, also not draw any attention that might prompt an ambush or fight, but she's not so much worried about that as she is concerned with scouting the situation 'in its natural habitat'.

    The tree, up close, is 'off' in a way that she instantly recognizes. Even without any kind of psychic ability whatsoever, having spent a thousand years living inside a painting --of art made tangible reality-- she can't help but instinctively recognize the feel of something similar. "Masterpiece indeed." she murmurs under her breath, noting the way it sprawls out of the middle of the pavement, having exploded from some nonsensical seed, but her focus is on navigating to where she can get a close and unobstructed view of the fight.
Korra Korra, after convening with her Great, Excellent Wuxia Hobo Plan, crouches down closer to the little gnomes to watch their pantomime. She doesn't have the spiritual connection to them to really get a read on what they're doing, though Flamel seems to be more than capable of picking up her spiritually stunted slack. She gets bits and pieces, nodding along while balancing her elbows on her spread knees and frowning. "Seven. Yeah, I feel seven sources. So, there's seven problems, and seven of those weird sounds..."

Korra claps her fist into her palm, before popping back up. "Right. Well, that's simple enough. We bust the sources of the problems. Easy!"

When asked if they're astrally projecting, Korra shakes her head. "Can't be. If I were, Tenzin said I wouldn't be able to bend, and look..." Bringing up her right hand, she twist-curls her fingers around in the air, a gesture not unlike screwing on a lightbulb crossed with a snap, and produces a puff of flame that hangs there like a rather bulky candle-flame. "... Bending just fine. We're here, for real."
John Rizzo      Rizzo taps a few buttons on a computer in the manager's office. No dice. Not that he'd be able to do much, anyway. The vampire's pushing a hundred and can barely scrape by on even the most primitive computers. When did the world get in such a hurry?

     The heavily bandaged figure looms over the manager's desk, hands brushing aside unfinished paperwork, opening drawers... there. He pulls out the ledger, opens it up. Scrawled notes in the margins, a torn-off piece of notebook paper. 'That damn plague.' That explains everything. It also makes his job that much more difficult. If the plague is still here, others might be at risk--and even though he isn't, he's still a carrier.

     Still... there are certain advantages to his condition. Rizzo backtracks, from the restaurant all the way to the Warpgate. There is one car here which does not belong to any citizen of Exodus. It is a pristine black '65 Dodge Polara. This is one piece of technology he knows--one he's intimately familiar with. This car has saved his keister so many times... The vampire unlocks it, hops in, and turns the ignition. The V8 roars to life.

     Focus, John.

     With no cops in town, the speed limit's more of a suggestion. The car peels out, kicking up a backwash of grass and dirt as it races onto the pavement. The precision drumming of Buddy Rich starts up in the cabin, followed soon by a crisp horn section. The Dodge screams across the streets, Rizzo turning his heavily bandaged head at each intersection in search of something.

     Road signs are consulted via his enhanced vampiric senses as they pass by--they'd be a blur for someone with less sharp vision. His eyes scan also the horizon, looking for the universal signs of healing. Red crosses, the caduceus, or failing those, the big, bold letters HOSPITAL. He passes by the entrance to one going 40 miles over the speed limit.

     The Dodge's tires screech as Rizzo's experienced hands guide it into a high-speed U-turn, drifting expertly around a median without once clipping the parallel-parked cars on the sidewalk. A trumpet solo blares proudly as the car pulls into the facility's garage, and is followed by a quick but intense rapid-fire drum solo from Rich.

     The song ends as Rizzo pulls the car into another drift within the garage, whirling it into a parking spot. The car stops, the ignition is cut, and Rizzo strides into the hospital. He makes a beeline for the records storage, and begins flipping through patient data, breaking sealed folders with his finger and tossing useless info aside. Who was the first patient admitted with signs of the plague? He can use that to find out where the plague came from... and if it has any bearing on the immense psychic presence here.
Lezard Valeth Lezard considers the information gathered by Flamel. "Expert work indeed." He states to the Psychonaut in a show of praise. Korra joins them, but Lezard lets his martially-inclined associate deal with the situation, giving her plenty of room to mess with Nie Li.

In the menatime, reports of combat are spreading. "We have some of the pieces of the puzzle here, but there is much to learn. I am going to investigate the situation elsewhere, however." He turns and leaves the amalgams, instead heading to Priscilla's last reported location to observe the artwork tree. "This is supposed to be the result of a plague? Or one of the subsequent responses? I have seen examples of nature overtaking civilization, but something like this would take far, far longer to achieve, not a mere handful of years." He extends his arcane senses to the tree, trying to find if it is some kind of gate, or some kind of threat.

He's Norse, he's used to the idea of trees that go places.
August Kohler The creatures try and nod. They should be worried about seven. The leader doesn't really have much of an emotional reaction as Flamel reassures it. They don't seem to actually know much beyond 'seven is bad' and 'we want help'.

Lezard finds that the tree isn't a gate, or really a threat. It seems to just be a tree, if one that looks weird and has psychological important, as Flamel will find. See...

Flamel DOES find, as he reaches the tree, which is more like an expressionist painting of a tree, colorful, artistic, not fitting in with its surroundings, that there are many small blips of psychic constructs inside. But there's something even more important. There's an actual human being inside this tree, higher up. He knows this...

Because the tree is theirs. It is made of their psychological makeup, similar to a warped area in the collective unconsciousness or a mindscape, except it's in the real world.

Both he and Priscilla go to investigate the fight. Flamel does so with his mind, finding that the combatants are simply 'servants' who are fighting...for no reason, really. Because 'she' is inspired by it. Because it reflects the verbal abuse they (unclear if it means them or someone else, to Flamel) were given.

Priscilla can see and hear them, as she enters one of the branches through a hole that serves as a door. They're laughing as they fight, and then crying, and showing all sorts of emotion. They're colorful people, all sorts of pastel colors mixed with 'human' colors, dressed in warped suits that resemble gladiator armor as they beat each other with fists. Two men, to be specific, before a third comes and joins in, trying to get hit specifically. It's complete senseless violence, as the branches resemble rooms of a house, chairs and tables and furniture. One of the gladiators ends up noticing her.

He turns away from the fight, getting hit in the side in the process, and moves to...beckon her. "Another! Let us inspire the mistress! Let us transform into art for her canvas! Hahahahaha!" He seems...very sad about this, despite the jovial appearance. Tears come down his face, and Flamel can pick up the emotions behind it. Like there's mixed feelings about the violence.

Korra is definitely not astrally projected. Her bending works perfectly fine, so if this isn't the real world, it's not something she'd ever be familiar with, but it's probably the real world, based off all signs.

Rizzo breaks all the speed limits and heads for a hospital. He ends up finding one, not far from an area that says the police station is nearby. But that's weird, as when he approaches the hospital, he'll get a good glance of the police station...

And find a heavy military bunker in its place. Barbed fences wrap around a large fortified base, as with his keen vision, he can notice robotic-looking soldiers patrolling, carrying heavy weapons. It doesn't belong near a hospital, and robot soldiers doesn't match anything else in the tech level. The barbed wire appears to be electrified, and the base is big enough there may be even more defenses inside.

But Rizzo's focused on the hospital. He gets into the records storage, searching quickly for the first patient admitted with the plague. He can find intel. It was about two years ago, the name of the victim unimportant, as is the name of the plague. From there, if he looks, he'd be able to find records on the plague itself: it was a global epidemic, something that hit people, animals, and the soil for farms. It doesn't appear to have anything to do with the psychic effects, but it explains the food shortage and part of the disappearance of people.
Sanary Rondel      With the report of possible fighting going on at the tree, along with the fact that there /is/ a giant tree around, Sanary heads in that direction next with the rest of the group. The whole experience is rather surreal, and she's starting to get the distinct feeling there isn't going to be anything worth looting.

     Still, weird places are interesting enough in their own right, and there's always the hopes of finding other valuable information down the line. Finding the source of the commotion, Sanary stares blankly at the colorfully warped gladiators.

     Also, Flamel and that freaky dragon lady, but she manages to fight her anxiety down enough to focus on the display at hand. The emotions they show are confusing to say the least, but the healer soon makes... A CONNECTION.

     She pulls that newspaper back out, rereading that bit about Marino's 'masterpiece' to see if she missed anything. "Wonder if... Hey, fighters. Is the name 'Rosa Marino' familiar in any way?"
Nie Li     Nie Li's not about to let Flamel run off on his own. With a dire look at Korra, he dashes off, transitioning into a swift set of leaps that keeps pace with Flamel's levitation easily. Tiny hints of Soul Force strengthen his body, letting him zip along without much care about the horrific forces that his legs should be suffering according to common sense...

    He does end the jaunt with a handspring-flip-landing-skid to a halt though, keeping some distance from the strange... STRAAAAANGE goings on in the distance.

    "....... Huh." He's very quickly rubbing his chin. NOT AT ALL grokking the MEANING of what he's seeing... not yet, anyways.
John Rizzo      The vampire tosses the last of the records aside. "Nothing doing," he sighs, closing a file cabinet with that familiar 'clack' they always seem to have. The plague started two years ago. A few months after that, the restaurants started closing down, the animals started dying, food shortages... but nothing to correlate with the psychic stuff. It wasn't helping, that's for sure, but it's not the cause.

     There is one thing that caught his eye, though... the police station. Everything else here seems really placid for a place so on the decline. It's weird that there weren't more barricades, or attempts to quarantine. But in the absence of those things, the heavily militarized police station seems excessive by comparison.

     Rizzo peers out the nearest window adjacent the precinct. Robots... electrified barbed wire fences, heavy weapons. Why do they need all of that? And didn't anyone have an issue with this being put right next to a hospital? That's... too much firepower for him to tackle like this. He releases the blinds from which he was peeking, heading back for the stairwell.

     He returns to his car, and once in it, heads for the warpgate. He flicks the transmitter on the radio rig he's set up in the Dodge. "Police station's gonna be one of those 'domains,'" he says to the others. "Place is locked up tighter than Fort Knox. Barbed wire, electric fences, robots packing pieces. Gonna hang it up till sundown."
Flamel Parsons     If this is reality, something is /very/ wrong. Parsons is having trouble comprehending what it is, but he's fascinated by it. He has to hold back from spending all his time and focus just physically examining what the tree is like right now. He lets the man alone -- he's not sure his words could do much to figure out what's going on, and he's also relatively certain that trying to Cobb-Maneuver a man who is Astrally Ejecting is a psychological disaster waiting to happen, one that could bomb his mind out.

    Instead, he turns to using his Clairvoyance like a radar. Is this a mental exterior? Is there an /interior/ space he could seek out? A path higher among branches to look for? No mind is all exposed, and if there's damage or important processes, they're probably buried deeper or raised out of reach, so he'd better find square one of a path to get there after regrouping!
Korra Nie Li and Flamel hurry on, but Korra is unhurried in her stride towards the tree. She waves goodbye to the little gnomes and meanders with Lezard, shifting her bindle-bag to the other shoulder and stretching her right arm instead to work out the kinks from carrying her stuff around like a trip to the grocery store. "Well, the guy with the nightmares said it was a while ago... But it doesn't seem like a sickness, to me. Everything's too clean. If something bad happened here, it happened fast - suddenly. Nobody would leave this much stuff behind in a crisis."

Gesturing to the path, and the large artistic tree, Korra considers. "If a long time had passed... This whole thing would be overgrown. Unless something was keeping the place the same, like the spirits, then anything was possible."

Her gaze tracks up, up, up the massive tree, and the strange way it expresses itself. "I don't think this is the result of a sickness, though, no. It sounds like..."

She closes her eyes for a moment, and immediately furrows her brow like a migrane hit her full-force. "No, it's... one of those disturbances."
Priscilla     Priscilla straight away knows how this goes. The second she sees it. Ariamis. Iianor. Shiori. Tharmas. Creators become would-be gods of their own domains, bringing into existence that which pleases or inspires them. Some have the grace to work their magnum opus and pass it on, some insist on living forever and become ever more strange and unstable.

    Seven is a small number. It is a Significant number. It corresponds to powerful, individual presences, scattered across an old world, creating their own little fiefdoms in reality. Sole survivors and their creations. Priscilla considers, and decides she won't be surprised if the temple-skyscraper houses another being of power who has made believers of former survivors, one way or another.

    So she reveals herself to the quarreling gladiators, strange, inhuman, and unsettling as their emotions are. They exist for someone's entertainment --inspiration at best-- and wear them on their sleeves to exaggerate the intense emotions of combat, Priscilla gathers, but in a decidedly schizophrenic, unaesthetic sense. A year isn't much time for a painter to grow that unhinged, but it's not exactly unheard of . . .

    She pauses just long enough for Sanary to ask her question, briefly lost in a kind of thought that would seem perhaps a little sad were it not for the intensely predatory anatomy of her stare. As she thinks, the temperature around her drops by degree after degree --a cold spot like a ghost in the room, just out of sight. Standing on the fabric of living art makes it worse. Blood rises out of the tree beneath her feet, puddling bright red.

    "Ah." she finally arrives at, with a sound more than a word. "Very well then." she says.

    The Lifehunt scythe comes out, blade head by her ankles, haft braced across her back. With one motion of her arms, the edge reverses, the haft turns, and the weapon revolves completely around her body, sweeping the blade around her back, up under her arm, into both hands, held back and high from her head, and brought spinning back down in one fluidly writhing slash.

    She doesn't actually make certain to make contact with the gladiator. Time and training and power unlocked express her intent. 'A wave of Lifehunt' is a useless descriptor to an observer, but it's observable all the same --even for someone without the special senses to get a picture of the metaphysical warp and weft around them, and feel the dark, terrible shape swimming just below the surface. There's an instinctive, primal recognition of something spine-chillingly horrible passing through the room, and then all the gladiators that get caught in it do that thing where people explode from the inside out in a shower of all their blood lancing and ripping out of their flesh. It's even weirder (and more physically violent) without an actual blade cutting someone open; it's like lifeblood itself is the blade and eager to escape, doing so at such speed and in such volume that it can paint a room. It freezes right after. In fact it freezes so fast that some of the blood crystallizes while still escaping.

    It's not random unnecessary cruelty to painted people though. On Priscilla's part, it's a statement to the artist; flicking a vision of red paint on their canvas to change their work, both in literal terms of colour and structure, but also quite pointedly spiking the emotional content with the purest expression of fragile mortality. That's something a painter god is more likely to pay attention to. That, and it also flexes a bit of showoff power, to indicate she is not to be fucked around.
August Kohler Sanary moves into the tree, reading the newspaper, and asking the gladiator-servants a question about a specific name. One of them speaks up quickly. "Ah, you speak of the mistress!" He's about to beckon Sanary to come help fight as well...when the others watch, talk, and then Priscilla moves to take up their offer. But even as she draws her scythe, slicing through the one gladiator who beckoned her over, it's worse when the others explode. Their blood is pinks and blues, and as it bursts out of them, shuddering right before their deaths, the crystals look like works of art along the trees. As a sort of 'thanks', it seems that the branch they're in starts cracking open, exposing it more to the air, and twirling out wood to make it easier to get to other parts of the tree. If they decide to return to this tree, they may be able to explore further inside as the bark unwinds into the main tree itself.

Flamel finds information, sort of. This was once a real building, but it got warped and painted into a tree. The interior is an artistic tree, the exterior is an artistic tree, it's all psychic bullshit trees the whole way up. At the very least, if they decide to regroup here later, he now knows the path Priscilla just got opened for them is probably pretty safe...but the higher up is probably much less easy to get to unravel. It'll take some work, some exploration, maybe some old-fashioned psychic puzzle solving.

Next time they gather up, it seems they're going to venture further into the tree. What could they find inside? Whatever it is, it's probably not pretty.