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Annikah has arranged a meeting between her coterie and Bones, by which she means she made doe eyes at Artje until Artje arranged a meeting place, because if everyone left it up to the Gangrel they'd just be standing around in the woods somewhere.
The meeting place is a conference room at a salvage and restoration company, which is where Annikah is, currently. She's dressed more normally than she sometimes is, which means that she doesn't have on her weird robes, or any blood on her. Just jeans, a hoodie with a leather jacket over it, combat boots, and hair that's a dark purple tonight. She was the one who waited outside for Bones to arrive and then guided them in, since she's the one who knows Bones already.
Visigny looks the part. A blue work shirt and jeans with a brown sport coat. Collar worn open. It's a good 'I own the company and work with my hands' look suitable to this sort of environment. He's got a deck of cards which he's doing sleight of hand tricks with, close-up-magic style. Lots of little flicks of the wrist and palming of cards. He keeps doing a trick where the Queen of Hearts keeps appearing in his hand despite him trying to 'get rid of it'. It's done mostly for Artje's benefit to pass the time.
Sitting in the chair behind the desk is Artje. She's tiny -- not as short as Ylva, mind, but small, 5'0" in her stocking feet -- and looks like someone's china doll dressed up as Vampire CEO Barbie. A sleek, long, collarless suit jacket, a short skirt, tall boots, and she's leaned back in the chair, her gaze trained on Visigny and his card tricks. No one else is here at the moment, so she's not bothering to either blush or conceal the adoring expression on her face. She could watch this forever and definitely not just because she's a pervert.
No, wait, perversion.
Whatever.
All right. Officially here as Sentinel. Officially talking with a group of non-Awakened supernaturals. As a Sentinel. You can do this Bones. You can do this.
Bone of Magic arrived at the salvage company by, what else, magical means. Once in the grounds of the yard, and checking for Sleepers, he dropped his invisibility and speed and the like that got him here.
He wore a black suit, well made and business style. Made for him and he ran his hands down the front of it before approaching the Gangrel.
"Good evening Annikah."
"Tommy," Annikah says with a flashed grin. "You didn't tell me before you were some kind of VIP." She doesn't sound like it matters to her that much, and it probably doesn't, because that's the kind of reaction she often has to authority figures. She just makes a nod toward the door and leads the way inside, to the conference room, as she talks. "I'll let my husband explain most of things," she says. "Since he's the one who actually acquired it. I just happened to make an offhanded comment to someone it turned out could help point me in the right direction."
When they reach the conference room she leads the way in and says, "my loves, I present to you BONES, who is apparently officially in charge of this investigation on his..." she looks at him. "His tonight? That side of the fence, anyway. Bones, this is Artje Berenyi-Winthrope, my lovely wife, and Jean-Louis Visigny-Winthrope, my dashing husband."
Visigny is putting on a show now, with the Queen poking out of his sleeve here, and then poking out behind his knuckles there, and just generally being where she shouldn't be when he keeps trying to produce her. He's managed to conjure both Jokers and the Queen of Spades so far. He flicks a card into his hat and flicks his wrist to conjure the Queen of Hearts again. He flicks it into his hat, and it's there again. Another card into the hat, and it's still in his hand! He sighs at that final card in his hand and flicks it off into the air to spin like a boomerang outwards and then back towards him again.
As it's flying, he offers a slight bow and sweeps his hat out to the side, catching the queen of hearts in it before it hits the floor. He rises back up with the hat on his head, and the cards presumably still inside.
"Enchanted, I am certain, sir." He gestures then towards Artje to give her her own proper little moment.
She unfolds herself from her seat, and her attention shifts itself from Visigny to Bones flawlessly. Artje's square-heeled boots click on the floor as she rounds the desk, and she extends her right hand towards him, palm-down, in greeting. Her accent is a sort of pan-European, with French-flavored vowels and top notes of Austrian on her consonants. "Charmed, I am certain," she greets, her left hand pressing its flat palm against her stomach, fingers splayed. "I believe you may be the first wizard -- is wizard the polite term? It is different in German, I am certain -- I have knowingly met in Philadelphia. Thank you for coming to meet with us."
"I wasn't, when I met you. Now, I am. So I wanted to follow up and see what I could see. Thank you Annikah," a smile and a bob.
He bobbed his head again, for the pronouns.
"I am Second Degree Master Bones of Magic, Mystagogue and Theurge on the Path to the Aether, Supernal Realm of Prime and Forces, and abode of Angels, Savant of the Mysterium, Sentinel of the Martyr's Tree of the Lesser Convocation of the Northeast. A lengthy title, and yet I feel important to share as it's a bit like my CV."
He bowed deeply, with respect, and like someone who learned how to bow at a court through reading, taking Artje's hand and kissing the knuckle, "It is most certainly a pleasure to meet you both. Annikah and I have spoken at the Waffle House and at a billboard when All Robocops Are Bastards was coined.
"Wizard is good enough, but we call ourselves Mages, with a sobriquet of Awakened. Like Vampires and Kindred, for example."
Annikah pulls a chair out with her foot and drops herself into it. "My condolences on your promotion, then," she says with a grin. "Mages, wizards. Sorcerers supreme. Which is like a normal sorcerer, but with sour cream and diced tomatoes, judging by the menu at Taco Bell," she says. She might make fewer jokes if the contact with the mages wasn't someone she knew already, but in this case? Yeah.
"Oh, dear. That sounded terribly formal," Visigny observes with a thoughtful hum of consideration. In his defense, Bones started it.
Visigny starts his introduction all over again, from a dancer's first position. He steps back into third, bows forward from the waist and spreads his arms slightly wide in what looks to be a terribly painful to maintain sort of bow. He maintains it, of course, with apparent and practiced ease.
"I have the honor of being Captain Jean-Louis Visigny-Winthrope, Carthian Gadfly, childe of Dame Eleanor WInthrope, childe of Duke Caspian Devereux du Mont Claremont, childe of Sir Artus le Jumel. I am at your service, sir." He remains bowed, and like Steve Rogers he can do this all day. (edited)
The kiss to her knuckles makes her smile subtly, and she curtseys. "Artje Visigny-Winthrope, Carthian and Toreador, the childe of Marcello, the childe of Maria Adelaide de Joly de Choin, the childe of Marie of Savoy, the childe of Cristbal de la Vega, the childe of Castillejo." She straightens up again, taking a step back and removing herself to her chair, slinging herself into it in a manner which is artfully imperfect. Everything about her seems so perfectly arranged, even when it's messy.
"Yes, I did my job and I was promoted without my prior knowledge. Thank you for your condolences," a laugh as he moved to sit down as well, "I prefer jalapeños in place of the tomatoes."
Stopping while holding the chair, he spoke with respect, "It is certainly a pleasure to meet you, Captain Visigny-Winthrope. I am grateful for your offer and your desire to share information about the machines."
"And to you, Artje Visigny-Winthrope, tis an absolute pleasure meeting both of Annikah's spouses. I got the chance to meet her first in her alternate form and it was breathtaking, so I see why all three of you are together and so lucky to have each other."
"One of my alternate forms," Annikah chimes in from where she's sitting. "I didn't know you could get jalapenos instead of the tomatoes, but maybe I'll try that at some point." There's truly no reason for her to eat Taco Bell, but that doens't necessarily stop her. "Thanks for the tip."
She looks over at Visigny. "Do you want to do the reveal?"
"Want to is probably the wrong way to put this." Visigny rises out of his bow and adopts a troubled frown again. "I suppose I should begin with the fact that I would like you to stop calling them 'the machines'." A beat, a hesitation really before he decides to just have it done.
"I was accosted by one of the officers. Only it recognized me. It claimed to be a man I had known-- loved, in truth. During the war. He had been killed-- I thought at least --at Monte Cassino. Along with most of my company. Along with me, in truth. But for the intercession of Player Rinaldi." Visigny's expression gets all corpse-like and still. Clearly not really thinking about the here and now for a moment.
"I am a desperately persuasive gentleman when I need to be. I was able to convince David to come with me. Which the robot holding him captive didn't seem much to care for. Which is why it blew up, I would imagine."
Visigny reaches out for a white satin cloth that had been rather hiding there the whole time and draws it back to reveal the large Mark II Digital Human Consciousness module just lying there on the table, all lights green and terminal winking.
"Monsieur Sentinel, Corporal David Touati. David, if you can here me, this is Bones. Ehm." He leans over to poke at the terminal interface, hunt and peck style. "I'm terrible with these contraptions."
"She has so many, and they are all breathtaking, it is true." Bones clearly did well in Artje's eyes by referring to Annikah's other forms positively, as the Toreador graces the Awakened with a precise little smile, and tosses an adoring little look towards the Gangrel. She rises from her seat when Visigny's expression forms into that troubled frown, circling quietly to stand by his side and rest a hand on the small of his back.
The terminal interface's screen blinks, a single cursor in bluish-white on a black screen. Blink. Blink. If it can hear him, it does not, presently, answer.
"Oh. My. Goodness," he ran a hand through his poof hair and studied the device, mundanely for now. The make-up of the item and the magic that must be required. Any sort of runes or anything that they could see on it.
"Corporal David Touati, of which nation's military and branch? And I'm going to wager .... World War II age, give or take?" to Visigny.
"There is a chance, based on what the Consilium has done to help others, that they could do something to help further..."
If the device still didn't show input after the previous attempts to prompt interaction, he would try one other line of thought, "Laika, the Good Girl, are you present?"
Annikah watches Bones at this point, because she has no idea how much he might know or what approaches he might take. Plus, she doesn't have a ton of information to provide, except, "I do happen to know that the mind that's in there is actually him, if it matters. Not a digital simulation, or emulation, or anything like that. I don't know how, just that it's what... divination... revealed."
"Colonial French. We were attached to the British army at Monte Cassino, if you want to be terribly technical. I had ribbons from all sorts of countries by the end of it all." Visigny's smile tightens a bit when mentioning Monte Cassino doesn't lead instantly to knowing the time period.
"Yes. 1944. First part of it, anyway." Visigny looks down at Artje when she steps up to his side, his frown remaining fixed in place.
"The Battle of Monte Cassino took place between 17th January and 18 May 1944. The objective of the Allied forces was to break the Winter Line and facilitate an advance towards Rome," explains Artje to Bones, her hand still resting on the small of Visigny's back. "Technically, it was four different assaults, and is also known as the Battle of Rome. Approximately fifty-five thousand Allied troops, including partisans, and two thousand civilians lost their lives." Notably, she does not say how many Nazis were killed, as if they don't fucking matter.
There is no answer from Laika, and the cursor continues to blink. Closer inspection reveals a ring of runes inscribed along the bottom of the case, just below the seam where the top of the brain case and the bottom are seamlessly joined. Bones can make out the runes for Mind, Matter and Death, linked together as seamlessly as the joining of the case.
"Captain, he's your friend, and this is yours according to what we call the Lex Magica. do you wish for me to engage in more magics and ways of study, or do you wish for me to simply find someone who can help him, or both?" he says reverently while studying the runes on the case.
"Thank you all. Thank you for reaching out through Umi, and for your divination, Annikah. Thank you Artje for your description of the dates. That might be important," after a pause, he shares more, "We know of three people freed from around that time. Two Awakened and became like me. One is still in a cyborg shell of sorts. There are discussion about saving as many as we can, and that the other side, those who would imprison people in the Astral or in these containers... want us to be delayed by the Human effort of saving them, while they advance other aspects of the plan. And we accept this. We will save all we can."
There's not a ton for Annikah to do here but take everything in, file information away in case she needs it, and watch Visigny to make sure that he's handling things well enough. She gets up from her seat to move closer, there to provide support if he needs it. Or restraint, as the case might be, on this topic. "The Astral?" she asks, with a dangerous edge in her voice and a bit of wickedness in her smile. "Is that where these people are hiding?"
"Yes, I would like for you to help him if you can. You say you have friends in similar circumstances? Perhaps they will know how to help him. I can't even speak to him. I can't even let him know I'm here. Or that he's safe. I don't know if he's frightened. I don't know anything! So, yes. Please. Whatever you can tell me, and then whatever I must do to help him. That's what I wish to do. At once. Tonight. Immediately. Or sooner, if that wouldn't be terribly inconvenient." Visigny's smile is a bit forced. But at least he's smiling.
"Other Mage may need to come here then. Is it okay if they come to this location, or should I bring him elsewhere?"
With the permission with whatever one can tell, hthey begin to Scrutinize the container, potentia flowing in and out of it all to get a taste of what was going on with it.
They used the potentia within also, to pull up Mind, Matter, and Death to active mage sight levels.
Artje leans to kiss the round of Visigny's shoulder, and she murmurs something softly, in French, which one doesn't need to understand directly in order to know that those are words of comfort, or at least, words intended to comfort. She stays posted by his side like a soldier on watch, her hand at the small of his back.
Annikah nods her head. "Unfortunately, for all my ability to smash through most anything in my way, this is the kind of situation I'm not particularly equipped to help with, so..." she gestures at the brain case. "Anything you can do to help would be appreciated." She puts her hand on Visigny's shoulder, but watches what's going on with Bones and the Mark
They pulled out their mirror and set it behind the case, to view it through the mirror. His stone wand was pulled out of the satchel, and he tapped the case with it, while speaking in Egyptian. It was a hard case to crack, so they needed all their benefits the ycould... a journal was pulled out and they read from some notes. (Using SoS that says you can use Path or ORder tools to gain scrutiny bonus.)
If the Kindred studied the items, the mirror was a flawless reflection, the stone sounded harder than it should for looking like petrified wood, and other strange things with the items.
With the tools all set just so, they decided to do the highest likelihood of success and study the case with the Arcanum of Mind first. All of their focus dialed into it, and so it began, the mage focused on how the potentia flowed through the mirror as they tapped the case with the stone wand...
He falls on his ass, missing the chair, as the revelation takes hold and he tries to process scrutinizing an Archmaster's spell.
When Bones falls on his ass, Artje moves away from the other Daeva, taking a step closer and crouching slightly, offering one immaculately-manicured hand to the Awakened. "Are you well?" the Toreador asks. She's quite a bit stronger than she looks, and if her hand is accepted, has no problem hauling him up to his feet.
"Well... we ... we need to get him, and this case, to ... to... my people. They need to help... him, it, me...maybe."
HIs gaze swept the vampires, forgetting a second that his Death Sight was up, and seeing vampires in it was always an event. Especially when boosted with a total of six of the ten arcana at once.
Banishing the sight away then, he just quietly said, "Water?"
THen when Artje was there, he took the proofered hand and stood up, "Merci."
Visigny has to take a trip out of the room to locate water for the living human that needs that sort of thing on a regular basis. It's ice cold and in a clean glass, but then again of course it would be. He hands it over with an expression of bemused concern. "You need to-- to your people? What assurances do I have that he won't be tortured and prodded at and treated like some sort of curiosity or weapon? I didn't go through all of this trouble liberating him just to have him wind up making someone's toast." Visigny flashes a brief, but clearly fraught smile. "No offense implied or intended."
"No, I think he will stay with us. With people who knew him and know him now," agrees Artje with her sunniest of smiles. Once Bones is back on his feet, she gently pats him on the shoulder with one perfectly-manicured hand and then her heels go click-click-click across the floor as she goes to retrieve a glass of cool water for their guest. "But of course we can always host guests."
Annikah's reaction is to shrug and say, "they say that he stays here, so he stays here, I think." She's casual about it, but there's also something in the tone that brooks no argument. No threat, just a quiet undercurrent of assurance that there will be problems if people try to make things otherwise. She moves to Visigny's side and gives him a smile of reassurance. "What did you see that hit you so hard?" she asks of Bones.
"Well, to be clear I asked what assurances they can give me with respect to his safety. And everyone inferred from that that I was demurely expressing a great deal of upset. It is rather more concern. A great deal of concern." Visigny glances about with some worry that he might have caused a social ruffle. As though that is the chief concern at the moment.
"I don't know how I can trust you. That is all. Our ways of ensuring trust are, typically, ensuring instead one's obedience. And I won't even suggest that. Will we have free access? Will we have collateral? The Laws of Carthage do not apply to you as you are, and you are the better for it. But that's typically how I get around these predicaments. Binding agreements in blood. But, again, that is not a thing I am asking you to do. Just attempting to illustrate how alien our interactions are going to be. And how many concessions I am already having to make in order to be a pleasant acquaintance. And therefore view my reactions this evening as those of a gentleman already greatly taxed.*
"Oh... of course, sorry Monsieur," he said to Visigny as the water was handed off, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean offense either. Just... yeah... I'll let them know about this, and have them reach out to you directly, or perhaps your organization, through official channels..."
A hand ran through his hair, "Archmastery. It's... as different from Awakened magic as our magic is from the Sleepers. It's phenomenal, and awe inspiring. Terrible, but awesome. Further yet, I appreciate all of the taxations that you've gone through as is..."
They drank the water with shakey hands, growing silent.
"I did not infer anything, my darling," Artje assures her husband. "I made a decision independent of your statements: you spoke previously of him being confused and upset. It seems clear to me that it would be inhumane to have him somewhere where no one knows him. I would say that I cannot imagine how distressing it would be to be in a situation where one is unable to independently move, or speak, or remove oneself from the situation, and one knows no one there, but actually, I do know how distressing that is, and how helpless one feels, and I would not subject someone dear to you to such a circumstance, not by my own choice."
Her voice is so perfectly-schooled, her tone so calm, her face as still and delicate as a china doll's expression, and she quietly walks around the table to rest her delicate, pale hand with its neatly-sculpted red nails on the top of the brain case, protectively. The person in here matters to Visigny, says that gesture, and so matters to her, and she will protect him. Her gaze swivels from one to the next, and returns to Bones. "Archmastery sounds terrifying, given your reactions." And yet she has no expression in her face or voice. "But still, he will stay with us, and as my husband says, we will find a way to work together."
Annikah shrugs slightly and says, "I didn't necessarily take you as upset, just not inclined to hand someone you cared about over to strangers, and if that was the case I was prepared to do my best to ensure that didn't happen." She leans against the edge of the table, which she does carefully, like she's afraid she might break the thing. "I've seen some of the things that you all can do with your magic, including turning gravity around so that I got flying into the sky instead of being pulled down. People with power that dwarfs yours does sound rather terrifying," she says with a slight frown.
"They make us look like pawns, truth be told. They need people to follow paths they set, to build enough energy to build up their spells, but their spells could ... hell, make the Nazis win the War. Keep the Egyptian Dynasties for another dozen generations or more, so on and so forth. They could... do whatever they want nearly within their plans. The issue becomes they are policed by each other. If one breaks a fundamental process of the universe, the others correct it, and so on and so forth."
A sigh and a shake of the head, "I will inform my superiors. Thank you for reaching out. I will let them reach out in time. Was there anything you need from me tonight or in general? I'd be happy to help in ways that I can."
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