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It happened too fast for anyone to see anything.
One minute, Dandelion was there, and the next, she was not, snatched in the night and hauled off like a ragdoll by the bizarre, profane shartha that had been plaguing the city for the past month.
She wasn't the only one.
But a missed appointment, unanswered messages, failure to turn her up in any of the regular places had boiled to a fever pitch. Factotum Dandelion was missing, and wherever she was, if the rash of kidnappings and disappearances was anything to go by, she would not be returning of her own accord.
Nevermore has been calling people like mad since Dandy missed their coffee appointment, trying to figure out where she went an what happened. They're beside themselves with worry.
This pattern has knocked Quinn off his routine. This is generally bad. He's pacing the floor in the house, his whiteboard wall wiped clean so he can retrace any information about his beloved foster parent. He hasn't really tended to personal care in a few days, dressed in pajama pants and a t-shirt. He has called, he has texted, he has even tried to find her daughter. There was one particularly frustrating call to her doctor, to try and find her pharmacy and see if she at least had her pills.
"None of the Mages have seen her at all?" Nevermore says to Quinn over the phone. "Have any of you tried... you know.. magicking at it?"
"I've tried everything I can," Quinn snaps, his tone frantic and pressured. "I don't know - I don't know what to do, because it's Tuesday so it is Chicken Pot Pie night and she is not here to have chicken pot pie dinner. That is our thing. Nobody has seen her that I've talked to, nothing out of the ordinary, nothing!"
"Then what use is..." Nevermore catches themself and takes a deep breath. "Can I come over?" They say. "I want to try something, and it's going to be better if I have someone here to help."
"Quinn?" Liezel's voice rings from the entrance of the house. "Have you seen Auntie? She missed lunch." She doesn't sound super concerned- one missed appointment could just mean there was An Adventure to be had, or some Astral therapy needed. It's immediately clear she is out of the loop.
"*Do. Not." He nearly growls this at Nevy. "Just don't. Liezel is home, I have to tell her what's up." Quinn puts Nevy on hold, hurrying through the house to meet Liezel. "Liezel, she missed dinner, too. Nobody has seen her and I can't - she's not answering her phone." His fidgeting is pronounced; shoulders stooped, hands folding one over the other in an endless, panicked loop.
Nevy's caught by surprise at the mage's growl. They pause mid-pace, then catch that they've been put on hold and curse. They run around their apartment, collecting things as they see them - candles, matches, salt, iron filings, jars of ink (black and red), scratch paper, pens... it all goes into their messenger bag willy-nilly.
In the frantic digging around and pacing, Dandelion's tablet turns up. **
"... she hasn't?" Liezel's tone now bears a stain of concern, and she frowns, thinking to herself. "That's- not like Auntie. Did she leave a note? Or something explaining where she went?" Liezel starts poking around, searching for hints at where she might have gone.
It'll be Quinn that finds the tablet, though.
"Not that I've found, Nevy is on the phone and asking to come over, here," he tells Liezel, pushing his phone into Liezel's hands. He stops for a moment, perfectly still - and then jerks into movement again, pulling all the cushions and blankets off the couch. And there it is - her tablet. "This is her tablet! I found her tablet!"
Nevermore, still on hold, is tearing their hair out. What else might they need... they toss the few extra protective amulets they've got in the bag, a bottle of canola oil from the kitchen, a jar of incesnse... even they are having trouble telling if any of this is planned or if they're just collecting whatever they can get their hands on.
The tablet is unlocked, it's an older model, and it mostly has games on it, and a folder chock full of memes that someone - probably River - has been AirDropping in consistently over the last couple months. The font is set to the highest possible setting. Her messaging app is synced to her phone, making her texts accessible.
"You did? Is there anything indicating what she went to do?" Liezel has utmost faith in Auntie. Surely she went off to campaign against something or other. Sure, it was odd she'd drop so many appointments, but really- what could take her on anyhow?
Quinn sits on the floor; his nervous energy finally has focus, and it's a little scary. He bears no expression, nothing but a shrewd, alien intelligence in his gaze. He opens the tablet and immediately starts scanning her text messages.
The phone in Liezel's hand rings again. Nevy, it seems, has gotten sick of being on hold and decided to hang up and call back.
Liezel refocused at the added stimulus and answers. "Hello? I'm sorry. I got distracted. Who is this?"
Quinn continues to look at everything he can find on the iPad, including the list of accounts and passwords in the settings, her email, anything and everything he can find to assimilate and store in his giant brain.
"Liezel, this is Nevermore. Is... did Quinn tell you what we were talking about?"
"No. I think he got got distracted telling me that Auntie snuck off without saying anything"
Poor Liezel.
"Find anything?"
In the messaging app, a contact under "Sprout :cupcake:" with a text message history.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/708707593371123752/720098801649713242/unknown.png
"Sprout is what she calls her daughter," Quinn reports; he reads the exchange out loud to Liezel. "Nevy wants to come here."
"That's what we were talking about," Nevermore says with a tight voice. "Listen. Nobody I've spoken to has seen her. Where are you? I want to try something."
"We are at home. Can you come to us? If we have to relocate, we can tell you." Liezel listens to the exchange, blinking at Quinn. "I was with her at the protest. Is it relevant?"
Dandelion has some impressive Bejeweled high scores, recently ordered a handhold for the shower. The apps that are blocked by password are probably guessable birthdays, almost to the last. Like the Find My Phone application.
Quinn eagerly taps in the birthday to open the app. "I think we can track her phone," he says, thrumming with excitement and hope. "Please work, please work...I don't know, but maybe? We shouldn't rule anything out." He raises his voice, shouting toward his phone. "JUST COME OVER, NEVY, IT'S FINE!"
"I'm on the way." Nevy says, then hangs up and hops in their 2007 Toyota. "Come on, Metz," they mutter. Then they peel out, driving faster than they should.
Liezel let's the phone drop, pondering a moment, waiting for Quinn to share something new.
There's a knock on the door. Wow. Nevy must have really sped to get here.
As Nevy was arriving, Quinn had managed to get the Find My Phone geolocation software on Dandelion's roughed-up tablet to cooperate. A pulsing red dot indicates the location of her phone, but it isn't in Philadelphia. It's a little more than a hundred miles north, northwest in a place called Centralia.
Quinn hops up to get the door; he opens the front door and then turns, expecting Nevy to follow him back to Liezel. "Her phone is in Centralia, north by northwest. A little over a hundred miles from here. I don't have a car, so we will have to decide who's driving. I can pay for gas."
"Shit." Nevy says. They look between the other two. "We'll have to toss some stuff in the trunk, but I can drive. Do we know what we'll find?"
"I know what we'll find."
Liezel chimes in, hearing where it's located. "We can't go alone. Centralia is a hellscape. It's a town over a coal mine that caught fire decades ago and is still burning. It's where the Rats have been taking their victims. She is, probably, still alive. How long she stays that way depends on how we approach this. We need to go get her, but we need to do it smart, or we'll get her or us killed." Liezel's tone isn't flat. Not anymore. It's chilly, frigid, furious. "And as much as I want to go in, literal guns blazing, she isn't the only person at risk. I know people who have been preparing for this, but I'll need time to reach them, and we need to coordinate. When we go, I intend to see every last rat in that burrow as fading ephemera and nothing more."
"We will find her alive and well," Quinn replies, his tone rapid; his foot taps on the floor in an incessant rhythm. "We will find her alive and well. Alive and well." He nods. "We will find her alive and well. I will do whatever Liezel and River decide is best." His tone is flat, firm, brooking no argument.
"Are we sure that she's there, or just that her phone is?" Nevy says. "These things are smart." They frown. "And I don't want to leave her there that long."
The flickering light goes dead on the screen. The battery has either died, or the device has just been turned off, or, or, or... but the location is saved. Coordinates.
`40°48'02.7"N 76°20'13.6"W`
"Centralia is where THEY come from. We know this for fact. We've spoken to escapees. It could be a false read, but it makes sense based on all we know. And we can't afford to dismiss it as a possibility," Liezel states, setting aside Quinn's phone and getting out her own. "I'm going to call the POCs for the escapee. They're the ones that have been organizing the plan of attack. They'll be the best prepared to help."
Quinn makes a noise of distress; he shakes the tablet like an etch-a-sketch. "Goddammit! Come back on!" He gives the tablet a shake again, relaying the coordinates to Liezel and Nevy. "The phone turned off," he assures them, acting like he's not reassuring himself. "It's turned off, it just turned off. It's fine. POCs?"
"Points of Contact?" Nevy frowns at Liezel, then glances between the two. "Neither of you have a crystal ball, or something like that? A way to check?"
"Point of contact, yes. And I don't. Space isn't my specialty. We could ask Maddy. I made her some Lunargent tools. I think she would be willing to help." Pause. "Probably even if I hadn't made her tools." Tap tap tap.
Quinn shifts his weight from foot to foot, fidgeting. "What do I do, Liezel? Who should I contact? You're contacting Maddy?"
Nevy rubs their chin. "Do we have any... tools, or toys, or weapons, or something that Auntie uses all the time? Something she really loves?"
Liezel and Quinn remember exactly where Dandelion keeps her beloved khopesh, in her bedroom. https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/708707593371123752/720119496781856828/5.png
"Ooh, her khopesh!" Quinn appears to startle himself; he grabs Nevy by the arm, and races to the place where Dandy keeps her beloved khopesh.
Liezel keeps tapping at her phone. "No. The team responsible for the assault, first. Then Maddy." She pulls a sheet of paper from her satchel and murmurs a few words of High Speech to form a simple ballpoint pen in her hand, her Nimbus flaring momentarily. She writes quickly- the pen vanishes in mere moments, but not before she's finished the note. "I'm going to post this immediately and call Maddy on the way so she can have as much advance notice that we need her help as possible. Nevermore, you should do whatever you were planning to do with Quinn's help. We need eyes on this sooner rather than later and I need to get that awareness started."
"Whope!" Nevy yelps, tugged behind him. They look up at the khopesh with some apprehension. "Okay. So. There's something I've been wanting to try. I think I can... let the spirits write things out through me. I'm hoping..." They nod at the khopesh. "That thing's spirit has enough of a connection to Dandy to be able to give us some information."
"You have to check in with us," Quinn tells Liezel; his tone is almost bereft, little-boy-lost. Quinn's expression is painfully vulnerable - and then something clicks, gutters, and he averts his gaze to the floor. "I can ask Jeremiah to try using Space on this, too?"
"I'll check in, but I'll be fine. Any rats trying to jump me are going to find every single fucking surface around us turned into Perfected metal that eats their Essence." Liezel states matter-of-factly, checking inside her satchel to make sure her things are there. Then she stalks out the door and gets to work. She'll be back after she gets notices posted and people notified.
Nevy nods. "Okay." They glance at Quinn. "Do you think she'd mind me handling it?"
Quinn picks up his phone, tapping away. "Okay, Nevy. I like the way you think, so let's do it. I'm going to..to...tell Jeremiah, and...and maybe he can help us." Quinn pauses, giving Nevy a faint smile; his gaze rests on her collarbone. "She wouldn't mind. Not for this. I can talk to spirits too, but - I want you to try first. Okay? We'll give it everything we've got. What do you need?"
Nevy hefts their satchel. "This." They nod at the khopesh. "That." They shrug. "A table you don't mind getting dirty."
Quinn nods vigorously to Nevy; he immediately leads back into the sitting room and shoves the artifacts, books, and his satchel off the coffee table and onto the floor. "Okay. What next?"
Nevy gets out a sheet of (slightly rumpled - they packed in a hurry) paper. They set it at the edge of the paper, then carefully set the khopesh down across the top. "Now..." They carefully pull off their protective amulet and set it aside on the table, far from the khopesh. "Please, um... keep an eye on me?" They pull the jars of ink from the bag and set them at the endpoints of the khopesh's arc. Then, they pull out a pen and take a deep breath.
Quinn glances at his phone and there's naked relief in his posture, unraveling like thread. He takes a deep breath as Nevy takes their amulet off, obediently watching them like a hawk. "I am an Adept of Life," he murmurs solemnly. "I will watch over you."
Nevy hesitates, then reaches out and cuts their finger on the tip of the khopesh, then lets a drip of blood into each jar of ink. THen they close their eyes and start drawing an elaborate geometric shape, incorporating the curve of the khopesh into the design.
Quinn eases into a crouch to one side of Nevy, arms wrapped around his knees. His attention is firmly fixed on the medium.
As Nevy's breath grows even and calm, and their movements smoothe, they stop drawing their geometric background. Instead, they dip the pen in the red ink, and use it to draw...
The first one:
`One by one, then all at once.`
The second:
`The canaries were gone but now they're back.`
The third:
`To coronate with rot.`
The fourth:
`Beware false friends.`
After a minute, Nevermore's eyes flutter back open - when did they close. They survey the paper, then let out their breath. "It worked," They say. They look around and grasp for their amulet. "One by one, then all at once?" They say as they fasten the amulet back around their neck. "Does that mean... they're going to try to sacrifice the whole city?"
"They..I think they're keeping her underground," Quinn breathes, clenching his fists on the tabletop. "The canaries - that's what used to be the warning in the old coal mines, right?"
Nevermore nods. "They're... planning some... kind of massive group sacrifice. Everyone they've taken." They bite their lip, tapping on the table. "We... don't have long."
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