Lila’s shout for Sully cut through the battlefield and interrupted his jeers of, “Hey hey, you you!” He snapped his head in the direction of his little bird buddy, his mouth forming a wide-O as he saw her ruffled feathers matted with wet blood and fresh bullet holes. Then, catching the rest of what Lila said, Sully realized that the injured figure the corvid was carrying wasn’t an oversized and overcooked skunk but Lyss’s cousin. He felt a wave of sympathy for the badly sunburned woman. His pale, Irish family had sought out St. Portwell because of the opportunities it proved, with the biggest opportunity being that it was almost always overcast so they never had to worry about the sun immediately killing them. Lyss’s cousin must’ve been a local, the fright of seeing actual sunlight for the first time turning some of her hair white.
“Don’t worry, cuz! I got you both!” shouted Sully, glancing off to the treeline in case that jumpy bastard came back to snatch up his glory.
There was still some distance between Sully and the two wounded. Fortunately, he’d come packed just for such a thing. Sully picked up the SoakEm Mk V super soaker from where he’d dropped it on the ground and began pumping the cylinder as a battery-operated motor and lights started to flair up, a high-pitched whirring sound cutting through the actual gunfire peppering the barrier next to him. Sully shouldered the SoakEm Mk V and closed one eye, releasing his breath as he centered Lila and Liz in his sights. A shout to take cover from Ruby drew his eye up to the sky as he cursed and dove back behind the barrier, dirt peppering him as he landed roughly and tweaked his knee. Sully sucked in a pained breath as he grabbed at his leg and rolled onto his side, fumbling with his hand for the Chalice and took a sip. He felt something in the joint pop back in place as he wiped his lips dry.
Okay, round two. Nothing to come from the sky to stop him from hea-oly fucking shit!
“DRAGON!” yelled Sully, pointing at the portal that had just ripped open over the mansion.
The last thing anybody would see before the man disappeared behind a wave of fire and smoke was Sully coming up to one knee, tilting his head back, and lifting the Chalice up to his mouth. The flames tore across the ground as smoke filled the skies. It blackened the earth, vaporized the trees, and glassed the sand. Feasibly no man should have survived the blast of dragonfire, Emotional Fields be damned. However, in that moment Sully achieved his apotheosis, truly becoming the avatar of Broseidon, channeling the pure power of the popped collar and amplified by the feeling of having a true bro at his back in the form of Stormy’s shield that actually took the brunt of the attack.
Sully chugged from the Chalice hard and fast as the waves of flames licked around the shield. His cowboy hat was ripped from his head by the blast and sucked forward into the inferno, incinerating in an instant alongside the SoakEm Mk V, whose hard plastic shell and sick decaling turned out to surprisingly not be dragonproof. The smell of smoke and burning hair filled his nose along with what little air he could breathe in that didn’t become fuel for the fire. Sully smelled another strangely sweet aroma, like a pig roasting on a spit over an open flame, unaware that it was the smell of his skin being cracked and cooked by the heat, the Chalice out healing the burns, the elixir running down his cheeks and dripping down his neck as if he were basting himself.
Sully kept chugging until the metal of the Chalice became too hot to handle. The cup dropped from his hand. With the elixir no longer continuously healing him, the wave of the most insane pain he had ever experienced from the intensity of the heat was quick to get the best of Sully. He crumpled to the ground as the wave of fire cleared. His skin was like a burnt pie crust, incredibly dry, cracked, and oozing some kind of juice, with a nightmarish pattern of plastic and fabrics fused to his body from where his clothing and gear had melted from the heat. The world around him was nothing but ash. He convulsed as the red hot Chalice rapidly returned to its neutral silver, his eyes twitching, throat groaning, his hand just an inch away from salvation.
His eyes closed, he fell silent, and the convulsions stopped.
Then with an almost feral, Leon-like howl he opened his eyes. Sully pushed through the nuclear level of pain as he stretched his right hand towards the Chalice. Just an inch. He could make it just an inch. A centimeter. A millimeter. A couple of atoms. His burnt fingers felt the inexplicably cool metal of the Chalice, his lips cracking in a skeletal smile that became a terrified gasp as he nudged the Chalice ever so slightly. His eyes widened in horror as the goblet slowly rolled forward. An inhuman cry that was more like the moan of a zombie escaped from Sully’s throat as his fingers limply scratched at the ground, his strength rapidly fading, the Chalice just out of reach.
Interactions: One Protective Putty Tat@Fernstone Gideon's Guys Guy & DoppelDave@NoriWasHere South Side, The Circle, David Smith’s House
“Hey, seriously?” said Paloma as Vin blocked her from entering her house. Under her breath she quietly whined, “Sam, please, they’re hurting me.”
The Samaritan called her lie as Vin continued to trap Paloma in place. Unable to sneer at the ghost inside of her, she turned to shoot Vin the nasty look instead and got a faceful of tiger armpit. Paloma made a gagging noise as she squirmed uncomfortably between the threshold of the doorway and the weirdly ripped weretiger, her ineffective wrestling stopping as she heard It roar. Her body stiffened as snow dripped off the roof and snuck down the back of her shoe. She couldn’t see what was going on but the noise painted a visual image almost as bad as the real thing. Paloma’s hand shot out and grabbed hold of Vin’s fur, squeezing tightly as the snapping of bones and the rasp of inhuman laughter echoed from inside the house.
“Ahhhh the sweet naivety of a newborn. Tell me, apparition, have you experienced the death of a host yet?”
“What?” said Paloma, blinking in confusion, her breath fogging as the temperature dropped. She felt something strong seize her around the waist and jerk, lifting her up off her feet with a frightful ease as she started to fall. “What!?”
The anticipated impact wasn’t as painful as she had expected it to be as she was cushioned by the tiger. Paloma let out a tiny, panicked yelp as Vin rolled on top of her and protected her with their body, feeling the cupcake flatten in the box beneath her. She heard something punch loudly through plaster and vinyl, bits of dust and drywall sprinkling on the wooden floor of the entranceway and mixing with flecks of snow that had been tracked in from the outside. Her eyes widened as she caught sight of the twisted spear made of bone and muscle retract back through the hole in the wall, drops of blood from where it had cut across the back of the weretiger staining her sweater. Paloma’s breathing halted, the stammering words about how the tiger didn't have to do that dying in her throat as she felt Vin’s own breath hot on her ears, whispering for her to stay down unless there was an opening to get out.
It was a smart idea that she just couldn’t follow. Perhaps if she had seen David Smith get consumed by the doppelganger she would’ve happily hightailed it out of there, but she hadn’t. If he was unconscious maybe the Samaritan’s Messiah Complex wouldn’t have picked him up. He could be bleeding out. She could help him still, lock him away with the Bystander Effect for long enough until paramedics had arrived or she could at the very least get a chance to ask a few questions before he passed. She couldn’t just simply ignore this. She felt a painful heat radiate across her forearms as she shifted up to her hands and knees and, against the wise words of the tiger, crawled into the house instead of away. She peaked her head around the corner of the room that Vin had rushed into, hoping to see David Smith still breathing.
Oh what a fucking horrible idea that turned out to be.
This whole Paranormals being real thing was still relatively new to Paloma. A dragon attack she had barely got to witness. A few conversations with an annoyingly smug mage. Some ghosts lingering around the hospital. A handful of passing encounters with people who shrugged off her aura. A brief and toxic romance with a vampire she had mistaken for a hot goth who called her out for being a bloodtease. That week she was haunted by a killer doll before it gave up. Whatever that mold thing was. Etcetera. Most of the encounters were always strange, sometimes dangerous, and often tiresome. However, none of them had been as viscerally disturbing as whatever was going on with the anatomy of this doppelganger, triggering every animalistic instinct in her body to fuck right off as she jumped to feet before flooding her engines with so much adrenaline that she couldn't move.
An involuntary scream erupted from Paloma’s throat as she witnessed the dangling face flap of a middle aged man being sliced nearly clean off by a swipe of the tiger’s claws, the flesh twisting and spinning as it hung on by a thread of sinew like a babytooth that just refused to fall out, the mouth still smiling in her direction. Paloma had not been bluffing when she had warned Gideon’s men earlier: she was an extremely loud screamer. The banshee-like screech snapped the attention of the doppelganger back to its prey, giving Vin what briefly looked like the upperhand as they swiped its legs out from underneath them. However, a choir of snaps erupted through the house like a beatnik applause as the doppelganger's legs contorted and twisted into arms, its body inverting as it rolled through, snatched Vin by the scruff, and launched them over the chair covered in loose ropes and empty clothing. It turned towards Paloma, its chest cavity snapping open as another roar bellowed out and shook the foundation, its left arm splitting and spiraling to form another lance.
“What the hell are you doing, lady!?”
Paloma felt a hand grab her shoulder and pull her back as Caleb moved in front of her, an ice shield interposed between Paloma and the doppelganger. Her legs buckled as she stumbled and fell back on her rear, looking up in horror as the doppelganger’s spear shattered through the shield and sprayed a streak of hot blood across her face as it pierced through Caleb’s shoulder. Paloma raised a shaking hand, ready to hit Caleb with the Bystander Effect, and froze, arrested by her own desires for self-preservation. The selfishness didn't stop another scream from being ripped from her throat and accompanied by a backtrack of gunfire as Caleb was yanked forward by the spear, the toothy maw of the doppelganger cutting the man’s own howl short as it snapped down on his shoulder and the upper portion of his head, crunching through hard bone before squishing on soft lobe.
Effortlessly, the doppelganger chucked what remained of Caleb’s corpse at Malik and began stalking towards his prey. Paloma began to backpedal on the ground, dragging herself through wet debris, her heart beating in her throat. The twisted spear punched a line in the floor of where she had been as if the doppelganger was playing with its food. She felt her fingers scrape against a wall as she ran out of room. Dead end. Game over. The doppelganger loomed over her, bits of Caleb still hanging from its fangs as it pulled back its spear arm. Paloma instinctively curled up into a ball and threw her hands over her face with a cry, then—
Wham!
Wham!
Wham!
The hands dropped from Paloma’s face as she felt the spear breeze past her three times, piercing through the corner behind her. She watched again and again as the arm, directed for her head, twisted and slammed against the wall as it drew near her. The wavering fear in her eyes solidified into hard steel as she wiped her cheek. Hand still trembling, Paloma reached up, grabbed one of the holes, and pulled herself up to her feet. Again and again the doppelganger attacked the wall around Paloma, creating an almost cartoonish outline of her body in the drywall. She gritted her teeth, eyes watering at the stench coming from its maw, and then smiled wickedly, her lips cracking from the cold as the grinned stretched across her face almost ear to ear.
“I think I know what you are,” said Paloma in a soft, almost melodic whisper, scoffing as another attack missed her by a couple of inches. “You inherit their memories, right?” She coughed as a bit of drywall got in her mouth as it hit the wall again. “I'll take that as a yes. I just have a few questions for what remains of Mr. Smith. Then I’ll be gone. Poof!” A larger chunk of plaster fell out of the wall and hit Paloma roughly on the shoulder, almost pulling the inner Southsider out of her as she hissed and grabbed her shoulder, shifting ever so slightly to avoid anything else coming down on her.
“Jesus Christ, are you stupid?" whispered Paloma with a seething growl, turning her head as another stab splintered the wall next to her. "Give up on it already.”
Sloane maintained a face of neutrality as Britney did the right thing and passed her the radio. If being on what essentially felt like a suicide mission wasn’t nervewrecking enough, having to potentially spend her final day on this earth with someone like Britney who was so petty she could barely even acknowledge Sloane spiked her anxiety. She held the radio up to her lips, masking the vicious sneer that she involuntarily threw Britney’s way as the woman turned her back on Sloane. She took a second to collect herself and then pressed the button on the radio to respond to Anya, drifting to the back of the group as they followed after Clancy and Autumn.
“Not far enough. Who jumped the…” Sloane made a pained expression as a sunbeam came crashing from the sky and rocked the island as it struck the distant mansion. How their collaborators had managed to completely botch a plan that was so uncomplicated it could fit on half of a post-it note was besides Sloane. “We’re on the move.”
Sloane shuffled past the zombies that Clancy had dispatched, the undead sparking unhappy memories about the fiasco at Kari’s house. She found herself surprisingly grateful that Clancy had come along with their crew, even if his nearly luminescent yellow James Roberts Rectangularslacks ski mask made him pop out through the foliage. If anyone should be made to tango with the Starving Dog, there was no better candidate than the seemingly unkillable kid. She gave Autumn a side-eye as she chastised Clancy for splintering off to finish a few undead, slowly sidling up to him as Autumn moved out of earshot.
“Personally, I’d feel more comfortable knowing there were less ghouls to potentially block our only known exit,” said Sloane quietly to Clancy as Autumn revealed the side entrance. Before dipping through the secret door, Sloane pulled out the radio and informed Anya, “We’re heading in so we’re going silent.”
Sloane muted the radio. With the Eye highlighting the auras of the other teams, there were other means of telling if things went south for the alliance. She knew Anya was smart enough not to message them first in case the noise alerted any of the guards still remaining in the compound, but Sloane fully anticipated one of the other teams flicking to the wrong channel and accidentally blowing their cover. Sloane quietly closed the door behind them once everyone had entered the small corridor, hoping to make it less obvious to any patrols that had been ignoring the fighting that a group had slipped inside. She ducked into cover behind the others, patiently awaited her turn, and slinked past the camera with ease to join the others in the safety of the shadows.
The sealed gate, with whatever additions the Elite had added to it since Greenwood’s failed excursion last time, would be up next as the group continued to follow Autumn down the web of corridors. Ruby had implied that there would be some kind of nasty creatures guarding the gate as well as the halls beyond it. She pulled her Hexmarked knife out of her coat pocket, frowning as her finger brushed her channeler. The knife wasn’t useless without magic, but it would be nice if they were forced into a fight to have something with a little more substance.
Sloane’s eyes fell on the silhouette of the Noble Vow carried by Britney as her face, hidden by shadow, soured. As long as the Eye of Ankhara was up Britney wouldn’t be able to harness the power of the blade without pinging their location to the whole island. Sloane, meanwhile, had been training in anticipation of Ashley finally breaking and handing over the Apparition Killer to somebody who could make use of it. Plus, Sloane doubted that the Noble Vow would even accept Britney as a host. For the second time that evening Britney would feel a tap on her shoulder.
“You don’t actually know how to really use that, do you?” said Sloane with a hushed voice to not alert anything that might be around the corner as her hand reached out and flicked the hilt of the Noble Vow. “I’m trained. Could keep us from blowing our cover if a conflict arises. Actually protect the group.”
Once again, Sloane held out her hand expectantly, not budging as a shush came from Autumn up ahead in an attempt to slice through the bubbling tension. The corridor ended in a T-section up ahead. Autumn tiptoed to the edge of the hall, pressed her back against the wall, and leaned out just enough to get a glance of what was around the corner. The sealed security gate, a pair of metallic doors accented with yellow caution paint, an intercom, and a small screen that might be a kind of badge scanner was to the right. If there were any kind of magical traps or triggers then they were impossible to see with the naked eye. However, the most concerning thing wasn't the sealed gate at the right side of the T-section, but the padding of footfalls coming from around the corner down the left side. Autumn ducked her head back as, rounding the corner, was a giant quadrupedal reptile that loudly gurgled as it took every step - which was heavy.
The creature poked its head around, and for a moment, it was completely silent as both parties stared at each other, before it loudly screeched and charged forward.
Interactions: Who is the Heal Stealing SOB? @Blizz Team Aggro Elysium Island (Team Aggro)
Sully cracked his knuckles as the squad was teleported onto Elysium Island. He had given more preparation for this one moment right here than anything in his life, like, upwards to two and a half hours of planning. Sully righted his cowboy hat, cleared his throat, and…he needed a quick refresher. He pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and reread through the spiel, mumbling under his breath as the other teams grouped up and marched off. He tucked the paper away. Right. Now was his time to shine. Sully cleared his throat, pointed a finger in the air, and—“Alright, no speech,” said Ruby. A little croak eked out of Sully’s throat as his finger fell limp, Ruby inadvertently clamping down on the rousing speech he had prepared for the troops, his shoulders dropping as he deflated. He had transcribed that whole speech off of Youtube. It had taken multiple rewatches. All of his data, wasted.
And then machine guns started popping, shit started exploding, and he ducked for cover.
Little bits of mansion rained down on his back like the fragments of artillery shells as the high pitched ringing in Sully’s ears began to balance out. He blinked rapidly, the blindness from Jess calling down the fucking sun to nuke the mansion slowly fading away and revealing the destruction before them, spots of colorful lights still dancing in his vision as his stomach dropped. Sully had heard about Greenwood’s past run-in with the haters around St. Portwell since joining them, but his experiences with them had mostly been kicking it around a campfire, getting stoned, and listening to bad music from the nineties. Even in his one actual altercation with Greenwood at his back Sully had been too busy getting his ass kicked to ever really pay attention to how they operated, but he’d always assumed it was a little more…plucky, lighthearted hijinxs.
Like, even with Das Sonnerad he’d been under the idea that, with the exception of James defending himself against a neonazi prick, 8th Street had done the wetwork while Greenwood had been going around putting bananas in tailpipes and little sleeping nazi hands in glasses of warm water. Sully blinked away the stars, thinking that the mostly destroyed mansion would suddenly be rebuilt as he stopped imagining things. He wiped his eyes. Nope, still fucked. His breath quickened. Okay, okay, okay, so Jess had just orbital striked a building full of rich people eating cocktail shrimp and playing hide the sausage. Cool, cool, cool, okay, they were probably all bad and working with neonazis and child soldier mafias and there definitely wasn’t, like, a single, innocent cleaning lady or cook in the bunch. Sully gave a sniffled grunt as he stifled the urge to cry.
“Whaddafuckkkk, whaddafuckkkkkk…” hissed Sully. What the fuck was he doing here? He was just some dumbass with a sippy cup. He couldn’t drop nukes. "Come on, Aggro! You bastards wanna live forever?" Yeah, Leon, man, actually that sounded great! Sully watched as Kenshiro and Drake did some supercombo and dusted a whole buncha zombies. Sully couldn’t do that shit, man! He could toss water on somebody’s crotch and make it look like they pissed themselves, maybe splash a little lava around and oh great there’s a fucking lava giant so he’s even useless there COME ON, MAN! WHADDAFUCK!!
"Sully! Olivia! Somebody! Bring your asses over here!"
Hearing his name pulled Sully out of his shock, his head whipping over towards Ruby’s voice to see that Jess was half-cooked. HIs brain chalked up its hands, grabbed ahold of the still rings, and did a couple of backflips to draw up the conclusion that, nah, Greenwood weren’t actually way too extreme for him after all and that the mansion was just a monster closet full of zombies, primordials, and Wish dot com mobsters. Jess was his friend, she needed help, and only Sully could help her. Well, only Sully or Olivia. Nobody else. Well, one of the Amara clones probably knew first aid. So only Sully, Olivia, Amara clone, plus maybe Ken had a weird frog that could also heal. Okay, so only Sully, Olivia, Amara clone with a medkit, anime frog, oh, and Leon had some goop too, so really, it was only Sully, Olvia, Medkit Amara, Nurse Frog, Leon’s Hot Mom’s Goop, and that was it.
That was all that could save Jess.
Nothing else.
Not one more thing.
Sully grabbed the Soakem Mk V , rolled onto his back, and started pumping hard, building up the pressure needed to deliver the perfect sniper blast of heal juice straight to Jess. He rolled back onto his stomach, tucked the massive super soaker around one of Stormy’s barriers, and steadied his aim. Locked in. He squeezed the trigger and a fart of air came out. Sully cursed, realizing the elixir had disappeared, and rolled back over. In one sloppy motion that got his shirt drenched with elixir he filled the chamber back up with the Chalice, pressed in the plastic stopper, rolled over once again, and—
“Oh come the fuck on!” bellowed Sully.
He punched Stormy’s barrier as some nerd in—what was that, a bunny mask or some shit?—jumped out of nowhere, chucked a healing stick into Jess, and then jumped back into nowhere after firing off a bunch of sick shots from a bow and arrow. Utterly defeated, was about to roll behind his barrier as a cobwebbed covered light bulb flicked on in his head. If video games had taught him one thing, it was that the undead were allergic to health potions. Shifting up to a knee, Sully unleashed a streaming, high powered torrent of elixir over the killing fields, letting out a feral yell as zombie after zombie after zombie got a little wet. The yell died off into a whimper as Sully, utterly defeated, rolled back behind his barrier. Was he just cursed to wait for someone to almost die before being useful?
No! He had one more hidden technique! Clapping his hands loudly, Sully started up a cheer for his boy. Nothing made another man push harder than the fighting spirit given to him by a pack of cheerleaders rooting him on and, well, with all of Sycamore’s cheerleaders dead or missing in action it fell on Sully to carry on the legacy of the pom pom.
“L! E! Ooooooouhh,” Sully realized they were wearing masks for a reason. He pivoted with a clap clap, stick ducked safely behind his barrier as he cheered. “F! F-U! Eff who!? Zombie nazis! F! F-U! Eff who!? Magma bitches! F! F-U! Eff who…”
And so on until, hopefully, someone got shot or third-degree lava burns, utterly unaware that in all of the chaos someone already needed him, a small path cut clear between Sully and Liz by Jasper's painted automaton.
Interactions: The Breaking & Entering Bengal@Fernstone South Side, The Circle, David Smith’s House
It was so odd. Paloma used to think one of the many, many, manymanymany awful things about living in Cloverfield’s sprawl was the rudeness, impatience, and cold indifference of its denizens. Now, there was almost a kind of novel appeal, a nostalgic charm, when someone spoke to Paloma in a way that wasn’t doting or cloying polite. Almost. She still kind of hated it. She popped her gum and gave a little shrug as Vin turned to her with a look of annoyance. At least Paloma assumed it was a look of annoyance. Cats were hard to read.
“Oh, me? I’m just from the neighborhood,” said Paloma innocently lying as she gestured vaguely to somewhere over there. As if she were rich enough to live in the Circle. Owning a house? Pshaw! What was she, a millionaire? She could barely afford to live in an apartment by herself out in Jungleland, the locals name for the Westwood neighborhood that was so bad it made the rest of the South look like the North. It made her wonder what this David Smith did for a living? Nothing honest, judging by the kind of dangerous company that came to his door.
Her eyelids fluttered rapidly and her face looked as if she were attempting to suppress a sneeze as, unbeknownst to her, Vin’s spell detected the Samaritan within her. It was a good thing that Paloma was still so unattuned to actual magic. The Samaritan was her little secret, one she was deeply worried about getting out; there were all kinds of horrible, awful people out there that would abuse such a thing. She would’ve been pretty upset if she realized that Vin had sniffed it out, like, the nerve of some people. Just sticking their nose in business that wasn’t their own. So rude! Who would dare do such a thing?
Anyway, before Paloma just wanted a word with David Smith. Now, with the way Vin was talking, she was just dying to know what Gideon’s men wanted with the guy. It had to be something totally scandalous if they were possibly going to whack him, not realizing that the danger Vin was referencing weren’t them but the thing inside of Mr. Smith’s house.
“The boss doesn’t have to know anything. It could be our little secret,” said Paloma, biting her tongue to stop the urge of asking what they wanted with David Smith anyway.
She took a few more cautionary steps forward, stopping several arms lengths away as the tiger fixed her with a glare and holding up a handle signaling that she was no threat. With the thin line of guiding light from the Messiah Complex still threading around the weretiger’s tail, Paloma was confident that the Samaritan would protect her from anything that the thugs thought about throwing at her. She just didn’t want to deal with the fallout of what came after she was protected by Everyone’s Sweetheart. Plus, the Samaritan was persistent that Vin needed help with something. Finding an affordable tailor, perhaps, given how agitated they seemed to become when the limited wardrobe was brought up.
A funny little look crossed Paloma’s face as Vin told her not to scream or she'll regret it. She turned her head to look down the street and gave a theatrical inhale. Depending on how quick the cat was they might have a chance to react, but the aura would see to it that Paloma would be protected and able to scream. Only, the scream never came as a word that Vin said clamped a hand over Paloma’s mouth: It. Her scream would alert It. Not Mr. Smith. Not him. It. Weretigers were a known entity with pictures and stat blocks that she had seen while thumbing through monster manuals. Its were unknown, and unknowns could actually be dangerous.
The playful light dimmed in Paloma’s eyes as she stared at Vin with narrowing pupils. Hear her scream? Surely, it would’ve already heard the door be kicked in. A part of her wanted to run, but she couldn’t let herself come to a dead end with her one and only lead. Pieces of what Vin had said earlier—here to check up on you, it ain’t safe here, assumin’ he’s still alive,— rotated and clicked into place. Maybe they weren’t just some thugs sent to hurt David Smith after all. Maybe it was quite the opposite.
“What do you mean by it?” she asked, her squeak dropping to that of a mouse trapped in a corner between a bookshelf and a wall with a housecat fishing at it with its paws. No, if there was still a chance that Mr. Smith was okay then there wasn't any time for explanations.
"Nevermind. Mr. Smith needs help, right?” Paloma attempted to slip by Vin, who depending on their intention would easily be able to stop her from rushing ahead, and called out into the home, raising her voice, “Mr. Smith!?"
Even if Vin hadn’t tried to stop her, Paloma would’ve halted anyway in the entrance hall as her voice expanded her aura out through the home with no new trails of light appearing, her eyes widening at the sound of something shuffling from the other room.
The Evergreen Commons Apartment Complex, South Side, Westwood “Jungleland” Sunday Evening, An Ungodly Hour
The sound of shattering glass and blaring car horn beat Paloma’s alarm by five minutes this evening, interrupting the marathon shouting match started by the neighbors two apartments down that had already pulled her back into a semiconscious fugue state. Paloma groaned and reached for her phone, hissing like a vampire that had stepped into sunlight as the screen lit up her room like the flash that comes with the dropping of a megaton bomb. The hissing noise became a steaming shower head, a staccato shout of alarm squeaking out of Paloma as the hot water ran out and she ran out of the shower, hitting her shin on the edge of the tub with a clunk. The broken toaster clunked as the mechanism to eject the homemade bread got stuck as Paloma, back turned with a towel wrapped around her hair as she put the final touches of freshly cut strawberries on top of Barbie pink cupcakes, head turning as she sniffed.
A half-eaten burnt piece of toast was carried in Paloma’s mouth as she left her apartment and entered the hall, precariously trying to balance a tri-stack of glass containers with one hand and her knee as she locked her door. The shouting was clearer out in the graffitied hall, a crying baby joining the chorus as the slamming of something on the ceiling from the floor below became the beat. Shifting the weight of the baked goods as her eyes watered at the acrid taste of the remnants of burnt rye mixed unfortunately with the fresh stick of cinnamon gum, Paloma popped a pair of earphones in and set the mood for her hike to work as she ignored the wisp of luminescence as she stepped over the body of a drunk man sleeping in the hall. She hummed along to the music, an off-rhythm thunk causing her to turn her head and giving her just the right amount of a heads up to dodge with deftness as the door of the shouting neighbors burst open and a large man bowled through the frame.
His face red with anger, a strand of light tugging on his collar as another roped through the door towards the voice shouting over Paloma’s music. The tension in the man’s face dropped as he saw Paloma, the rage becoming embarrassment as his eyes followed hers down to the bleeding cuts on his knuckles. He began uttering some kind of apology and asking her if she was okay. Paloma leaned her head to the side to look into the apartment, catching sight of a red-faced woman holding a now screaming baby and noting the dent in the drywall, the woman’s eyebrows raising and a smile coming on her face as she waved to Paloma and said good evening. The screaming baby immediately stopped as Paloma said evening back, turning to Paloma and starting to reach towards her as he cooed and drooled on his shirt. Paloma’s face brightened as she gave the baby a little wave and received a giggle in response, her smile dampening as she noticed the lights leashed around the mother and son as they had also been around the father.
“I don’t have time for this, Sam,” muttered Paloma to herself as she dipped out of view of the doorframe. The man said something to her, prompting Paloma to pull out one of her earphones. “Huh?”
“I said it’s Matt, but you can call me Sam if you want,” said Matt. “You going to work, Paloma?”
“Matt? Matt? You should offer to give her a ride,” said the woman’s voice around the corner
“That’s what I’m doing here!”
“It’s dangerous for a young woman to be walking out there by herself.”
“I know! Dammit, Mickie, that’s why I’m going to fucking ask her. Stop butting in all the time. You always butt in. You always do that shit!” yelled Matt, anger resurfacing.
“Why are you being such a fucking asshole?” yelled the woman.
“Oh, let’s, um, let’s maybe stop yelling yeah? It’s cool, really. I actually enjoy the walk. Need the exercise, y’know?” said Paloma.
“Are you sure, Paloma? It’s no issue at all,” said Matt, the anger gone in an instant.
“You should invite her over to have dinner, Matt!” hollered the woman. “Show her that we can be neighborly!”
“She’s right, Paloma, you should really come over sometime. Mickie might be a,” the veins in his forehead popped as he screamed and turned his head back towards the apartment, “STUPID! FUCKING! BITCH!” His voice softened as he turned back to Paloma, “But she makes an absolutely killer veggie lasagna.”
Paloma let out a nervous laugh, “Oh, yeah, um, maybe, not tomorrow, but, yeah, I guess, another time, look, I really have to go if I want to catch the ferry.”
“Oh, okay, yeah, some other time,” said Matt, stepping back into the apartment. He started closing the door then paused, “You sure you don’t want that ride?”
“Thank you, you’re very sweet, but I’m sure,” said Paloma.
She gave Matt a kind smile that faded as she turned and heard the sound of the apartment door latching. Within a few steps the shouting match was back on and the kid was crying yet again. Paloma shook her head and went to replace her earphone, but the subject had changed from whatever they were arguing about to now Matt and Mickie arguing about Paloma. She couldn’t help but listen in. Matt was shouting about Mickie trying to drag their annoying and nosy neighbor into his business while Mickie shouted about Matt trying to screw the stupid slut right in front of her. Paloma’s jaw hung open as their conversation centered around absolutely trashing her, united in their hate yet still going at each other’s throats. Paloma closed her mouth and shook her head. It didn’t matter what they thought of her, really. She should just move on.
Moments later, she was knocking on their door.
Mickie opened it. She looked positively delighted to see the woman she thought was trying to steal her man. Paloma smiled at her, a look of mischief in her eyes as she pushed past the woman and entered the apartment. There was no resistance to the trespass, Mickie almost absentmindedly giving Paloma permission to enter as the young woman stepped by. Her eyes scanned the one bedroom apartment. Identical to hers, but feeling so much more cramped thanks to the addition of an entire of another person’s shit, the pack and play, and other baby bullshit taking up half of the living room. Matt looked up from the sink where he was wrapping his hand in a dirty towel and gave Paloma a warm regard as she set her cupcakes down on the folding card table that was stacked with dirty dishes, overflowing ashtrays, sliced rubber bands knotted together and burnt silverware.
She was happy to be wearing gloves as she reached out and grabbed an empty syringe off the ground, going the extra mile to add a second degree of separation by picking it up with a tissue from her pocket instead of directly with her gloves. Mickie stammered something about Matt having diabetes and needing insulin shots. Paloma shrugged, not really caring. Paloma tossed the syringe and tissue into the sink in front of Matt, wiping her hand on his shirt. She moved towards the crib and kneeled down over the baby boy. She carefully pulled off her gloves, set them on the floor, and lifted the child. Paloma wiggled a discolored finger in front of his face as she bounced him with one arm, pulling the finger back as he reached for it and letting him grab onto a handful of hair instead, wincing as he gave it a tug. She turned to the parents, cradling the baby. Instincts pulled at both of them to confront the stranger who had just grabbed their child, but they were unable to make such a move, the air of ease around Paloma telling them that they could trust her—or rather, forcing them to feel so.
“He’s a cutie. What’s his name?” asked Paloma.
“Michael,” said Mickie.
“Michael,” said Paloma, making faces at the baby to get him to giggle. Michael. The deck had been stacked hard against the kid. What a fucking lame name. If the kid didn’t already have it bad enough with these two as his parents, he was now forever going to be a Michael, a Mike, or, god forbid, a Mikey. She watched as the guiding light of the Samaritan winded its way around Mikey like a snake. What the hell could she do about his life? Call child protective services and shunt the kid into foster care purgatory, gambling on the odds that he winds up in a better situation than a worse one? This was unfair. She wasn’t the one who got knocked up. He wasn’t her responsibility. The light around Michael intensified as it corded around the child’s neck.
“I already told you, Sam. Cut that crap out. Be realistic,” she sighed. The light died as Paloma put Michael back in the crib, staring down at him with stars in her eyes. She pinched his little foot as her stomach tightened and cramped. She never should’ve entered the apartment. “You’re going to break a lot of hearts, cutie.”
Paloma walked back to the table, grabbed her cupcakes, and stared at Matt and Mickie who were looking at her dumbly. It was a common look Paloma had experienced since becoming Everyone’s Sweetheart, the look of someone who should’ve been pestered by her that instead was forced to be delighted, the mental hoops that they had to jump through to come to that conclusion temporarily short circuiting the brain. Or perhaps they were just high and she had failed to notice, distracted at first by the juxtaposition between their shifting rage and adoration. She could help them. She could change things. But it wasn’t her choice to make, was it?
“It’s late. The two of you should be more considerate to your neighbors and keep it down,” said Paloma, her Good Influence putting its hand on the back of their heads and nodding them up and down.
A frail gesture at being a good neighbor which did little to ease the bubbling anxiety in her chest, but at least the rest of the building would have a quieter, more peaceful night. Paloma sighed as she left the apartment and closed the door, snapping the piece of gum in her mouth. The voices no longer carried through the walls. She caught the eye of an old woman peering through a gap in her door, the chain latch still in place so that it could be opened no further, another nosey neighbor curious to see what all the shouting had been about. The old woman gave her a big, dentured smile as Paloma closed the distance to the gap, seizing the opportunity to cure herself of that creeping feeling of guilt that was mixing poorly with the burnt toast in her belly.
“You won’t believe what I just saw,” said Paloma, cupping a hand up to her mouth as she leaned forward and gave the old woman the dirt on Matt and Mickie. The old woman’s eyes were wide by the time Paloma finished up, “...It’s so sad, really. Oh well, what can be done, right?”
There. Paloma felt a weight lift off of her shoulders. It was the old bat’s responsibility now.
It was quite the hike to the ferry. With the dark settling fully over the broken shell of a city that made up South Cloverfield, the pushers and the bloodsuckers paraded out of their holes where they would run and terrorize the downtrodden left out on the streets for the night. Still, Paloma was undisturbed in her walk. She chatted briefly with a haggard woman on the corner who had said she liked Paloma’s outfit, returning the favor by complimenting her fishnets and pump boots and offering her a cupcake. She politely waved off a gentleman who tried to pass her off a “sample” in a plastic baggie but accepted the joint, returning it when he told her about the extra punch of fentanyl it was laced with. She returned a tip of the cap from a police officer with a polite smile that faded as she heard the sounds of violence coming from the alley he’d strategically parked his cruiser in front of to block anyone’s view.
All in all, it was a typical walk to work followed by a typical commute—the other third shifters shifting around to make room for Paloma on the ferry and then on the bus, offering her their seats up front, even when there were plenty of open spots in the back. That was followed by a typical night of work at the hospital, scrubbing, cleaning, and also slacking. Nothing would happen to her anyway even if she was caught shirking her responsibilities, other than a coddling reassurance that they believed she was simply trying her best, but the bribe of cupcakes to the other cleaners and night nurses would hopefully keep the hard feelings away when Paloma wasn’t around.
Interactions:The Big Cat Burglar @Fernstone South Side, The Circle, David Smith’s House, Monday Morning 9AM
Before she knew it she was back on the ferry and then back on the streets of South Cloverfield, her clothes smelling of the faintest hint of lemon and bleach. The morning light cleared the roads of the “undesirable” and replaced them with honest, hard working blue collars and stupid teenagers pretending to be wise guys. The visual deterrent of earbuds was the only thing keeping strangers from talking to Paloma on the streets. Before the Samaritan she had always felt unsafe on her commute, one headphone out at all times, listening for footsteps trying to sneak up behind her, taking wide berths around alleyways and idling cars, keys threaded between her fingers. Now she merely felt a little annoyed, mostly at herself for still feeling obliged to return every smile and wave that came her way. She should just ignore them. After all, they weren’t really the ones being nice.
She had ditched the large cupcake containers at work, letting the morning shift fight over the remnants. In her hand was a small carryout box she’d snagged from the cafeteria at work with one final extra special strawberry cupcake inside. In her other hand were two pieces of paper. One of them was a printed out map with a list of directions from the ferry, the other was a torn bit of notebook paper with a list of addresses. About a third of them were scratched off, all of them sharing one thing in common: they were the listed address online for all the David Smiths in the area. Perhaps, unlike the last two, this one wouldn’t be a dead end and actually be able to provide her with some information. She confirmed the street name with the paper and tucked them away into the pocket of her button up sweater. She disappeared around the corner before jumping back and pressing her back against the wall with a panicked look on her face. There was a trio of rough looking guys outside of David Smith’s house. Paloma placed a hand to her heart, telling herself everything was okay. She’d be in no danger and besides, who knew if they were even bad guys? She peaked around the corner and witnessed the cute one of the group rap on the door.
”Oy, David Smith, open up! This is one of Gideon’s men- I’m here to check up on you! To make sure you’re alright?”
She tucked back away. Gideon? As in Gideon Cross? She didn’t know him personally, but everyone in South Cloverfield knew of Gideon Cross. Nothing but good things were said about the man in public around here, largely because everybody had a different horror story about what happened to the last guy that talked shit about Gideon within earshot of his boys. Paloma mouthed a silent scream and thrashed quietly back and forth in frustration. As if hunting down strangers and interrogating them wasn’t annoying enough already. Maybe they’d move on if David didn’t answer. Surely, they would move on? A polka dot ribbon peaked around the corner, followed by a pair of alert eyes that only grew wider at what she witnessed.
The cute guy was getting undressed and she also probably wasn’t a cute guy after all. Paloma made a hmm noise that became a sound of disgust as the cracking of bones echoed down the street and the person started to shift, muscles expanding, fur and tail sprouting. Paloma blinked with confusion as their underwear grew to fit their new body, begging the question of why they bothered to discard the rest of their clothes, and silently hoping that this wouldn’t awaken anything inside of her. The last thing Paloma wanted to do was ruin her healthy, platonic relationship with Frosted Flakes by suddenly fetishizing its mascot. As if it sensed this concern and wanted to double down on it, the Samaritan took this moment to turn the Messiah Complex back on, a trail of light visible only to Paloma threading out to Tony (Tonya?) the Tiger. What? Were the two other guys unable to help the weretiger fit Mr. Smith into a nice pair of concrete shoes?
Paloma jumped out of her hiding spot as the tiger kicked down the door with one blow. She’d be screwed if her one big lead was eaten by a tiger. Paloma’s aura stretched out to Gideon’s men. If the other two were Paranormal like their tiger friend then they would feel the strange sensation that the weretiger felt when Paloma made herself known. The sensation wasn’t anything majorly disruptive, just Everyone’s Sweetheart skipping up to their physical forms and going in for a hug that was rebuffed by an Emotional Field. It was the feeling of a spiderweb brushing against the arm or a person with one spritz of perfume too many walking by, a mild sense of something’s off that soon became nearly unnoticeable.
“Oh, heeeeey!” hollered Paloma, leaning forward and smiling wide, her voice like helium squeaking out of a leaking balloon, her hands folded peacefully in front of her and still cradling the cupcake box. “Love the fur. Super trendy, and it’s cruelty free? Wow, amazing. You’re great. All of this is really great. Look, I don’t want to be a party pooper, and if anyone asks I wouldn’t dare say a thing, I mean, who would believe me? So by all means please feel free to carry on…in just a moment.”
Paloma took a tentative step forward, reminding herself that they wouldn’t hurt her, they wouldn’t hurt her.
“Um, first, would the two of you mind keeping your striped friend from doing anything violent?” asked Paloma, a wave of Good Influence rippling off of her. She doubted they were blind, but if they were One-Eyed Open they would be compelled to follow her request. However, if they had Emotional Fields perhaps they would just be gentlemanly enough to listen to someone as sweet and harmless as little ol’ she. She took another step forward, this one with a bit more confidence, her eyes on the weretiger. She held out the box. “I’ll even throw in a cupcake. It’s strawberry. Homemade. Full of love and sugar. I just want a word with Mr. Smith. Five minutes. That’s all I’m asking for. Just five. And then I’ll be gone. Forget I saw a thing. Because, I mean, what was there to see? Nothing. Nothing at all. So c’mon, be a good little kitty and just step to the side.”
A smirk crossed Paloma’s face as popped her gum and drew up to her full, unintimidating height of just shy of five and half. Shaking the cupcake box in one hand, she turned her other palm out to the tiger and with a wink said, “Or I scream and draw a crowd. Trust me, I can get really loud. Is that what you want? An audience? It’d explain the unnecessary exhibitionism.”
Sully engaged in some light stretching as the crew gathered along the cliffside overlooking Elysium Island, for once having an actual chance to warm up instead of getting tossed into a fight out of nowhere. He twisted and held with his left arm hooked under his extended right arm. This time there would be no random teleportation suckerpunches, no kicks in the nards, nobody forcing him to make out with a gun. He was on it. He had a cowboy hat pulled low and a bandana pulled high, with a strip of black grease underneath both of his eyes like he was about to approach the line of scrimmage. He switched arms and turned. The art bros had a limited supply of laser rifles, so Sully had the next best thing strapped to his back: the Soakem Mk V, a battery operated behemoth of a water gun with burst and stream options and sick LED lights. The bastard was so strong the guy at the store said it could strip the varnish off of a deck. It was a steal at only two hundred dollars.
Sully switched to some classic martial arts wax-on, wax-off posing that he’d lifted from some Jean-Claude Van Damme movies. Accompanying the Soakem Mk V were a pair of Pocket Rockets, single shot water pistols, one hidden in the pocket of his hoodie, the other in the hood. Rustling alongside the side piece in his pocket was a piece of paper torn out of a wide-ruled notebook, the little frayed edges tangling with the lint of the sweatshirt. Transcribed on that page was a fine little motivational speech Sully had poured his heart and soul into, something to give the boys and girls that little last bit of hurrah before setting off into the breach. Sully gave a spinning karate chop, letting out a yelp as his hand stopped just inches away from decapitating the beret off of someone in a balaclava and trenchcoat. Sloane took off her sunglasses, her expression seemingly unphased by almost getting her bell rung, and pulled down her face covering.
“May I have a sip from the Chalice?” she said, sounding absolutely exhausted.
Sully’s face lit up. “Hell yeah, dude. Open wide.”
“Wh—ugh!”
Sloane’s head recoiled violently as a blast of water hit her in the forehead. Sully winced and attempted to apologize to her, heavily sabotaged by his laughter making it impossible to get an entire sentence out. Sloane narrowed her eyes at him, took a finger, and squeegeed some of the healing elixir onto her lips. The exhaustion that was plaguing her was lifted, but a dark cloud still hung over the woman as she sharply turned from Sully, taking off her beret and pulling the balaclava off to use as a towel. His laughter, which had mostly been at the shock of having missed from such a close range, died off fully as Sully started to feel really bad. He called after Sloane and reached out to grab her shoulder, but she sensed it and jerked away before he could even grab ahold, firing off a look back at him that made Sully hold his hands up in surrender.
Sloane swore under her breath at Sullivan as she finished drying her face from the elixir, jamming her wet balaclava into the shoulder bag she was carrying, nearly pricking her finger upon the Brass Needle. A few other artifacts and Counterfeits were stashed away, should she need them, as well as a handful of knives with Hexmarks already prepped into their hilts and a few useless knick knacks she could use for Objects of Obsession. In her other hand was the Chrysalis Staff. She was going to pass it off to Sullivan, feeling that someone close to Leon should have it when the leash broke, but was too annoyed with the idiot to resist fantasizing about him being (lightly) mauled by the wolfman. Still, it should be in the hands of someone close by once Sully got his comeuppance. Her eyes scanned the “aggro” crowd, looking for someone in Sycamore she could trust with the Counterfeit. She shook her head, perhaps in disappointment, as she moved towards one of the few people she felt she could trust with responsibility—or at least she once had, some time not so long ago.
“Here,” said Sloane through clenched teeth, roughly shoving the Chrysalis Staff at Drake. For the first time in what felt like forever she didn’t avoid eye contact with him, a fresh shine of hurt reflecting in her gaze before it hardened as she motioned with her eyes towards Leon. “Just in case.”
There was a moment as she passed the staff towards Drake that her hand lingered on the object as if she had more to say. Instead, Sloane just rolled her eyes and walked away, ignoring the sharp pain that stabbed in her chest. She hesitated as the Eustis Veil went down, finally feeling the full weight of the gravity of the situation. She hung her head and pinched the bridge of her nose, fingers tracing over the ridge that had been healed by the Chalice after Drake had broken it. Her other hand gripped at her sleeve, remembering how Drake had jumped to her aid when she had nearly succumbed to the Rot. Her chest rose and fell with a heavy breath as she turned towards Drake, opened her mouth to say something else, and was poofed away by a teleportation spell.
Interactions (Sloane): Britney@Mixtape Ghost N, Artifact Group Cliffside
Sloane trudged along the south beach of the island towards the cover of the woods with the artifact team, the nausea in her stomach from the teleportation slowly settling. Why hadn’t she offered an alternative form of travel like her boat? Choppy waters sounded like a quiet comfort when compared to the absolute gut wrenching stomach fuckery that was teleportation. The dread of everything in this underbaked assault plan going wrong was overshadowed by the worry that if it actually went right then she was doomed to suffer through another unbearable jaunt through space and time.
Before she put her mask on Sloane took one final deep breath to fully settle herself and pretended to finish adjusting something in her bag, slinging it over her shoulder to catch up with the others, quickening her pace to pass the others and join up with Luca at the front—of all the people there she was still the most comfortable around the person who getting close to could kill her. She glanced at him, noting his already heavy breathing, eventually determining that it would be a wasted effort to attempt to convince him to divert to the support or communication group instead. She had to trust Luca that he knew what was best for himself, and that he wouldn’t push himself to the point of letting the Rot take control. And if he couldn’t, she had a contingency.
“Unless we’re in a pinch, let me handle the breaking and entering first before we resort to the Rot. Any security doors might have fail safes built into them in the case of damage, and in this scenario the Rot is effectively a battering ram. My spells should be able to tiptoe past those securities, preventing further headaches. I also have a spell that could distract the dog, but I imagine with it being a construct it just might not do the trick,” said Sloane, loud enough to address the group as she turned to look back at them. “So that one is on all of you.”
The sound of machine gun fire and explosions rang in the distance.
“That was a fast five minutes…” muttered Sloane, looking at her watch.
It hadn’t even been five minutes. Ruby’s plan was already falling apart, it seemed. She picked her Channeler out of her pocket and unlatched the clasp on her shoulder bag, ready for whatever was about to come. She heard Anya’s voice over the radio asking for a status update and turned her head, staring at the radio in Britney’s hand. Sloane fell back and, without a word, extended her hand out towards Britney in a silent demand for the radio. Her face was a wall of impassivity, but she might as well had screamed “give it up” by the way her fingers curled and beckoned towards herself in a c’mere motion. An argument could be made that Sloane should operate the radio simply because with her Hexmarks she could maintain it hands-free, but it was clear as Sloane’s chin lifted when the handoff wasn’t immediate that this was a challenge for authority.
[Baking] ⫻ Paloma’s passion sparked by a love of confections and an unhealthy infatuation for Noel Fielding. She’s actually quite good at it and generally finds the repetitive nature of it calming. Paloma almost exclusively bakes sweets and she’s prone to showing up to places with a sackful of sugary snacks. She’s even started posting photos of bakes online for a while. Follow her at Palomangina. Maybe one day she’ll update it. [Neat & Tidy] ⫻ She was always a bit of a neatfreak even before Paloma developed a passion for a hobby that gets flour fucking everywhere. She deep cleans her home regularly, keeps everything put away, clutterfree, and organized. She primps and preens herself constantly, always ensuring that her outfit is smooth, her hair is perfect, and her makeup is fresh. This extends beyond her own boundaries, ranging from basic good practices such as bussing her own table when she goes out to being an absolute menace who’ll lick her finger and wipe sauce off of a friend’s face. [Role-playing Games] ⫻ Yeah, yeah, yeah, but magic’s real well she still can’t be a half-orc barbarian named Swolga in real life or at the very least she doesn’t know someone with the spell for that yet. Pre-Cataclysm she used to play all the time, but a hospital getting dropped on her gaming group killed that campaign. Her attempts to persuade her friends to play have failed thus far. [Spunk] ⫻ Bravery. Pluck. Determination. Guts. Moxie. Grit. Cojones. Balls. These. Call it whatcha call it, Paloma’s got it.
Appearance
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"Aw, shucks. You’re not too bad yourself."
Paloma appears as a classic ingénue, an innocent little angel without a bad bone in her body, poise and politeness polished up and presented with a bow. Her face is all big, brown puppy dog eyes and chipmunk cheeks so perfectly rounded that she has grandmas vaulting over their walkers and shoving one another out of the way to get a pinch, plus a sweet little smile capable of melting even the coldest of hearts. Paloma’s long brown hair falls to her mid back. Her fair, youthful skin is heavily monitored and maintained, tackling any sign of aging through vigorous moisturizing, weird face masks, strange creams, and bulk packs of dodgy supplements. Any blemishes she cannot escape from she hides beneath what appears to be a light, tasteful amount of makeup, although in reality her scale noticeably shifts when she washes her face at night.
She is a fairly average height with a curvy build. She doesn’t have any real exercise routine outside of walking to and from the bus stop and being stuck on her feet while she works, and coupled with an irresistible sweet tooth her body is more cushion than muscle. She isn’t physically weak, per se, although nobody would ask her to help lift a couch. Paloma dresses in cutesy, modest clothing, favoring sweaters, long skirts, and comfortable sneakers. Her style is quite dated, and most of her clothes are old and second-hand, but never are they damaged or dirty. Paloma finds pride in having a neat and tidy appearance, all tucked in and buttoned up. Her hair is typically tied back by a ribbon when she goes out, and she regularly wears a pair of pearl earrings she inherited from her grandmother as her only piece of jewelry. She is rarely seen in public without a pair of long, colorful gloves that accent her outfit and cover up the scars from chemical burns on her arms she sustained during the Cataclysm.
Paloma has a very disarming and open presence, with expressive, curious eyes that hint at a level of mischievousness hiding behind her sweet demeanor. She hates the sound of her own voice, which she finds annoyingly high-pitched and squeaky like that of a cartoon character, and believes that it causes people to not take her seriously. Her posture is a thing of perfection and moves at her own pace, often looking around distractedly rather than focusing on the task at hand . There are people who have known Paloma for years that have never seen her without a piece of chewing gum in her mouth.
Psychology
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"I don't bite...unless that's what you're into."
MAIN GOAL ⫻ Money, money, money, money! When she was younger she wanted to be rich and famous, but as she grew older and wiser she realized the only really cool part about being rich and famous was being rich. Fame, on the other hand, is a massive hindrance. She wants a big house with an even bigger lawn surrounded by a massive privacy fence, a car whose previous owner didn’t leave a weird stain in the passenger seat, to never work another goddamn day in her life as a cleaner, to not have to deal with medical debt, and to have a harem of rich suitors, fit tennis instructors, and oiled up pool boys.
But first, she has a promise to keep.
PHILOSOPHY ⫻ Social change, a kinder, brighter world, yawn. Sure, Paloma supposes she could use her magic to usher in a better world for the future, but she’s living in the present and all it takes is a quick look at the past to see what happens to revolutionaries. She’s worked too hard to become some fucking martyr. Why break the system now that she can finally game it? Sure, she’s not an idiot, it needs a few adjustments. She supposes she could be happy with getting a smaller piece of the pie as long as she still gets a slice. Give the system a few more guidelines, a couple more checks and balances, one big smush towards the middle, maybe a few molotov cocktails through a couple of windows, just one single public execution of a bourgeois billionaire bitch. She doesn’t want to be the one to swing the axe, but she’ll get up close enough to get a droplet of blood on her face.
Still, Paloma ultimately tries to tune out these kinds of macro injustices, focusing on life at a more micro level. She lives her day by day following a personal and cliched creed of treating others how she wants to be treated, showing kindness and respect even to those who don’t deserve it, and saving her biting comments for when they are out of earshot. In short, be sweet. Nobody likes a suckup, but everybody is happy to receive a compliment. Paloma tries to stay on the latter half of the spectrum, a tad too twee but nothing that would make a person sick. And if someone doesn’t like her? Well, that’s fine. Who’d want to be liked by that cunt anyway?
SECRETS ⫻ Oh, there’s a whole bunch of them. A few notches in the bedpost she’d deny until the day she dies, a couple of white lies she refuses to admit aren’t true. Bad haircuts with all photographic evidence scrubbed from the internet, nasty text messages left on blocked numbers. A few minor crimes—shoplifting some gum, sneaking into a movie, some public indecency. Sitting and conversing with hospital patients when she was on the clock and should’ve been cleaning. Promising a young girl in room 513 that when her time came Paloma would take her to the Grove and wash her in the waters of rebirth, thinking at the time that it had only been a child’s fantasy, now becoming a whole thing that might require exhuming a grave.
She also plays it coy about being adjoined.
SEXUALITY ⫻ She might flirt and tease with all of the ladies until they get the vapors, but a quick glance back through her deleted contacts shows a steady stream of Liam Hinges, Brad Bumbles, and Dan Tinders.
FEARS ⫻ The special treatment she gets thanks to her abstraction has been novel but there comes a point, Paloma is sure of it, where the constant dotting and fawning will start to lose its luster. Perhaps it already has. Maybe just a little. Still, right now she sees the Blind as good old fashioned people who deserve to live their lives and make their own choices free from her or any higher power’s meddling.
But what happens when they start to wear on her? When she can finally hush that quiet little voice that says they only like her because she got lucky? When she stops seeing people as people and starts seeing them as followers, worshippers, sacrifices? Now that she has power the opportunity to abuse it is right there just waiting for her to reach out and grasp it. Getting everything she ever wanted would just be so. Fucking. Easy. She could’ve started a weird sex cult, like, yesterday. Yet, Paloma is afraid of being that person. Even more so, she is afraid of what the world would be like if anyone else had her abstraction, and is scared to think of what other magic there could be out there.
Also, dragons have now been absolutely ruined for her forever. Thanks, Princess. Now she’ll have to switch to Pathfinder.
WHAT DID THEY DO DURING THE CATACLYSM? ⫻ Paloma was at the last place anyone would want to be when the world is potentially ending: work. She spent several hours, perhaps even days, trapped beneath the rubble of the South Cloverfield Good Samaritan Hospital, listening to the muffled cries of friends and strangers, fading in and out of consciousness from the pain and blood loss, and coping with the fact that magic and dragons were real. She hardly recommends it. If not for a chance encounter with the Samaritan that day she definitely would’ve been dead. If the rescuers had taken one more day she probably would’ve been dead. If the Cataclysm was still happening at that time then Paloma missed out on the rest of the fun, getting evaced to a hospital in a nearby town that wasn’t getting acid pissed all over it.
FLAWS ⫻ Paloma is the absolute textbook definition of a busybody, always prying into other people’s business even when nobody asked for her opinion. Often Paloma is meddling out of pure curiosity or an actual desire to help, but sometimes it’s something else. See, unfortunately she’s also a chatty little bitch, so Paloma is simply unable to resist passing along the latest piece of gossip. While her private life is a thing to be treated with respect and kept on the down-low, other people’s lives are purely a source of entertainment, especially if they’re completely fucked up and messy. Telling Paloma a secret is the same thing as telling the whole world. Call her out rumor mongering and she’s quick to go on the defensive, acting as if she didn’t know it was a secret if not outright denying that she said anything in the first place. After all, sweet little Paloma? A malicious gossip? Who would say something like that? Was it Tiffany? Well, that’s funny, because Paloma heard that Tiffany…
Backstory
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"Once upon a time, there was this big, scary dragon..."
Her life was boring.
What else is there to say? Things didn’t turn out right. Grow up, go to school, attend college, dropout, get a job, sprinkle a good group of friends and smattering of boyfriends that seemed good at the time. Somewhere along the line something went awry. Or maybe it didn’t. She doesn’t know. Maybe the fact is that growing up in the Southside of Cloverfield means she was destined to achieve mediocrity. It wasn’t like she didn’t have ambitions or lacked dreams. They just fizzled out. It wasn’t like she had a bad family who didn’t support her. They just became background noise, strangers she saw for holidays and cookouts. Rent became a thing. Groceries became a thing. Her life became work, fuck around, sleep, repeat. Her job wasn’t too bad either, even if it was just cleaning the hospital. Just slap on some headphones, pull on some gloves, and scrub up some bodily functions. Her life was, well, it was happening, she guessed. Paloma wasn’t necessarily unhappy, not all of the time anyway. She was just bored.
Escapism became the key to enjoyment. Binge watching reality baking contests, imagining herself as a competitor getting that coveted handshake for her crumb game being on point, ignoring the smell of burnt cookies in the garbage. Delving into fantasy tabletop roleplaying games with her friends, slaying dragons and bedding princesses or bedding dragons and slaying princesses, depending on how much of a chaos gremlin she wanted to be that evening. Experimenting with an acceptable amount of drugs, none of that scary shit that involved injections or having a DIY chemistry set, but the fun kind that made the world kaleidoscopes and rainbows. Fall in love again and again, believing from the first kiss that each one was going to be the one, tucking and rolling out of the relationship the second the road got even a bit rocky. This was her life. Do it forever until she got stabbed in an alley or fell and broke a hip at the age of ninety.
Work was the biggest source of her boredom. Pop music and murder pods could only entertain Paloma for so long before she got tired of the same chord progression or by-the-numbers family annihilation. She started talking to patients in the hospital—not in the sense of the normal pleasantries she’d have about the weather or the game as she swapped out their trash bags or removed their dinner trays, but real, in-depth, sit down and get to know these strangers type discussions. All patients in hospitals are lonely, even those who have a family that came and visited. She thought she could ease that loneliness, even if just a little, even if it meant having to put up with that sinking feeling when she got to work and one of her tasks was to deep clean the now vacant room of one of her favorites.
See, the floor Paloma cleaned wasn’t the one where patients were sent to get better. It was the final cheap motel room, complete with free cable, a weird smell, and the view of the back of a billboard for a gentleman’s club. Most of the people there were elderly, or they were at the very least so hollowed out by the inevitability of their demise that they appeared old. So perhaps that’s why it was so shocking to her when she entered Room 513 and saw a young girl, no more than ten, who didn’t look all that sick aside from a scar on the side of her head. Paloma felt bad for the girl and, admittedly, she was curious. Why was she at the South Cloverfield Good Samaritan and not the Children’s Hospital?
Room 513 proved to be a tough nut to crack, not even answering Paloma the first time she introduced herself to the kid, but Paloma wasn’t about to back down. She visited Room 513 daily, choosing to talk to her if the kid wasn’t going to talk with her. She even came in on her off days, showing up with homemade baked goods and games to play. Eventually the kid asked Paloma why she was doing this, and from that day forward Paloma was in. She got the kid to dish out her life story. At the time Paloma assumed Room 513 had to be on some heavy duty painkillers or had some kind of brain damage with the shit she was talking about, rambling about this place called the Grove and its magical waters. Room 513 confided in Paloma that she wanted to see the Grove again. Paloma said she’d see what she could do, and so she came up with a plan that would end up killing three of her closest nerd friends.
The idea was a sweet one: run a little one-shot for Room 513 with Paloma’s friends, making her out to be the hero of the story, where she returns home to this place called the Grove and saves it from goblins. Okay, so the premise was simple and basic, but the girl was ten. Paloma poured her heart and soul into the game session. She drew maps, painted a little Room 513 mini, and baked a thematic Grove cake. She showed up to the hospital with her friends and set about to give Room 513 the funnest, nerdiest night of her life. Then, just like in every other previous game that Paloma tried to Dungeon Master, the session immediately went off the rails as the craziest thing happened—only this time, it wasn’t because of something in-game.
And to think, up until this exact moment in her life Paloma always thought it would be so cool to see an actual dragon.
Therapy. Medicatation. Doesn’t matter. Paloma can still sometimes hear the screams from that night. Her memories are a bit muddled from the concussion she suffered when the hospital came down. She can remember diving forward to grab Room 513 and run, twisting just in time as the floor above came down, the agonizing pain when the acid splashed her forearms ripping a scream out of her throat before something cracked against the back of her head. She can remember being buried, blinded by such a bright light she thought she had permanently lost her vision, unaware that the Samaritan had adjoined with her the moment she went to protect Room 513, realizing only later that it was the only reason she made it out alive. She can remember Room 513’s feeble voice comforting Paloma, when it should have been the other way around, telling her that it would be okay, promising her that if something were to happen to Paloma then she would take her to the Grove and have them bring her back. Because you would do the same for me, said Room 513. I would, said Paloma. It had been a question at the time.
Promise?
I promise, said Paloma.
The light got dimmer after that. Paloma would be one of the first ones rescued, rushed away to a hospital in a neighboring county for intensive medical care for her injuries and chemical burns, resulting in a lengthy stay, seemingly insurmountable medical bills, and a chance at life that her friends and Room 513 never had the opportunity to receive. When Paloma awoke from her coma the world was so much stranger. Everyone was so happy to see her—literally, everyone, not just the people she would expect—and she kept seeing streams of light, which she reported to her doctor but the scans and the tests came back showing no kind of cerebral or vision damage. Maybe a side effect of her medication? And the strange wisp of air she’d catch out of the side of her eye when she passed by a reflective window? Was that too a side effect?
She started to get a little freaked out by how nice everyone was being to her. Sure, she was always nice to others, but Cloverfield was full of assholes. Was this a bit? A weird, mean, fucked up prank? And why was hardly anyone talking about the actual dragon? Even when she snapped at people they still treated Paloma like she was an absolute sweetheart. It was driving her mad. And then, after having tried to ignore them for a few weeks, she followed one of the streams of light and quite literally bumped into someone who didn’t immediately apologize to her profoundly and excessively dote on her to make sure that she was okay.
This person turned out to be another Paranormal, and would serve as a kind of sherpa guiding Paloma into the world of magic. Around the same time she would begin to familiarize herself with that wisp she saw, an Apparition she called the Samaritan, who during the day would keep quiet but at night fill her head with gut wrenching, nightmarish memories of an impossible promise she had made with a young girl whose name Paloma had never even bothered to learn. And as Paloma went about learning ways the Samaritan could help her achieve this stupid promise of hers, as well as dipping more than just a toe into the world of magic, she couldn’t help but to sometimes think that maybe she missed her life when it was boring.
Abstraction
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"Gosh, it’s so hard being this popular."
TYPE ⫻ Aberration (Adjoined)
ABSTRACTION ⫻ The Samaritan, a protective, guiding spirit that can mass influence the behavior of people and apparitions.
ABSTRACTION DESCRIPTION ⫻ Although it takes its name from a nearly two thousand year old parable about showing kindness strangers, the Samaritan is a relatively new apparition. More than just acts of charity and kindness made manifest, the Samaritan is an apparition born from the anxiety and desire felt by people to appear to others as if they were kind, generous, and caring—less love thy neighbor and more what would the neighbors think. Budding in the late 19th century with the rise of philanthropy, the Samaritan grew throughout the time of radio and television before fully manifesting with the advent of social media. The Samaritan has no real physical manifestation outside of its host, appearing as a kind of wispy, ethereal entity with no definable form.
While the Samaritan is a proper capital G “Good” spirit that wants to do good, its grasp on morality is flimsy at best. Perhaps, as a newer apparition, it is simply naive. After all, it’s the creation of the guilty voice that makes you donate your change to charity at a fast food burger joint operated by people not making a living wage and the reason you deleted your Instagram after being ridiculed for not waiting the proper (and unknowable) amount of time required before following up your thoughts and prayers post with a thirst trap. Regardless, for the time being the Samaritan lets its host be its moral compass as it gains more knowledge of how the world works. Since the host is serving as the Samaritan’s baseline for good, the host won’t be compelled in any way by the Samaritan to act against their nature. However, the host does get a “gut feeling” when the Samaritan doesn’t like what they are doing.
When Paloma uses the Samaritan’s abstraction it is almost entirely subtle.The Blind and One-Eyed Opens see nothing and do not feel the influence, the compulsions coming to them in a way that feels natural. Those with Emotional Fields feel like someone is watching them and can get the sensation that something is trying to scratch through their defenses to suggest how they behave, but there is no obvious immediate tell that the source of the influence is radiating from Paloma. The abstraction works as an aura radiating off of Paloma, influencing those who can feasibly sense her. The aura can extend even through technology, affecting those who see her on a screen or hear her on a phone. She can add aspects to the aura or suppress them as wanted.
Everyone’s Sweetheart ⫻ Paloma’s version of the Samaritan’s default aura. Those affected by the aura are compelled to treat Paloma with familiarity and friendliness, as well as willingly and happily help her with reasonable things. This aura does not mean people are forced to notice Paloma or go out of their way to approach her (unless she is clearly in duress or if they were inclined to in the first place), only that when they do they will be nicer or more forgiving to her than they would be to most other people. This part of the aura is always on and cannot be suppressed by Paloma, but can easily be resisted by Emotional Fields to the point its lingering presence is almost unnoticeable. The main aspect of the Everyone’s Sweetheart aura is that while up nobody—human, apparition, or animal—can deal intentional direct bodily harm to Paloma. This aspect of the aura is so powerful that it fully bypasses Emotional Fields. While a Paranormal could still threaten Paloma with violence, actual attempts to harm her do not work—they pull the shot at the last moment, fire it over her head, or blast someone else. This part of the aura is also always on, but it is immediately suppressed for several seconds by the Samaritan if Paloma attempts to do anything violent herself, allowing for people to act in self-defense.
Good Influence ⫻ A secondary aura Paloma can turn on while Everyone’s Sweetheart is active. It is essentially mind control or powerful suggestion magic, although those under the aura of her Good Influence behave as normal until they receive commands. She can issue direct, complex commands to individuals by speaking with them, or subconsciously influence the masses to follow a simple order by putting out a mentally ordered “vibe check” through her aura. The orders do not need to necessarily be reasonable to the recipient, who retroactively see them as momentary whim, but they must be phrased in a way to make them sound good-natured or well-intentioned. While this allows Paloma to tweak her Good Influence if she ever wants to be shiesty, the Samaritan will outright prevent the aura from being used to incite violence, cause direct harm to the recipient, or are obviously cruel. This does not mean Paloma cannot use the Good Influence to put people in dangerous situations. Good Influence has a lingering effect that allows it to last once the recipient has left Paloma’s aura, lasting for a full 24 hours. This lingering effect can be extended indefinitely by exposing the recipient to one of Paloma’s auras again, resetting the day counter each time. The aura can be resisted by Emotional Fields. While Paloma can attempt to punch through the Emotional Field by “pulsing” her aura, this triggers the self-defense clause and suppresses Everyone’s Sweetheart, leaving Paloma vulnerable for retaliation. For example, say Paloma was in a bodega and witnessed an armed robbery. She could command the robber to put down the weapon, go home, and reconsider their life while influencing the crowd to do nothing so that nobody tries to play the hero and gets shot. After that, she could command the cashier to give Paloma the money in the register as a reward for stopping the robber, then the very next day the robber, who the Good Influence has lapsed on, would revert to their nature and go out to rob another store. Alternatively, say the robber was Paranormal and resisted Paloma’s influence. She cannot command the crowd to rush them to stop the robbery, but she could command them to try to secretly call for the police even though it could harm them if they were to get shot by the robber when they mistook a reach for a phone as a reach for a gun..
The Bystander Effect ⫻ A secondary aura Paloma can turn on while Everyone’s Sweetheart is active. The Bystander Effect draws upon the roots of the Samaritan being created from people’s anxiety to appear upright and moral rather than a true drive to do actual “good”. By activating the Bystander Effect, Paloma can effectively shut down people in her aura and render them in a stationary, catatonic state. As long as they remain in Paloma’s aura, Bystanders are effectively frozen in time and space, resuming as if nothing has happened once she suppresses the Bystander Effect. Notably, people cannot be physically harmed in any way while under the Bystander Effect, although it doesn’t mean that they cannot be released from the effect while in a perilous situation. For example, someone driving their car hit by the Bystander Effect would lose control of the vehicle and it will crash. However, they wouldn’t be harmed by the crash, but they could be harmed when they tried to crawl out of the aftermath. Alternatively, the car goes careening out of Paloma’s aura and the driver is released from the Bystander Effect moments before it crashes. Paloma can use the Bystander Effect on crowds or individuals. If targeting individuals, Blind will ignore the bystanders as if they were never there. She can pair it with Good Influence, giving detailed commands to crowds of bystanders before dropping the Bystander Effect and allowing them to follow her orders. She can attempt to use it offensively, but the spell will have to break through someone’s Emotional Field and it triggers the self-defense clause of Everyone’s Sweetheart, leaving Paloma vulnerable. Alternatively, she can use it defensively on others to protect them from harm, assuming they let her through their Emotional Field. However, the Samaritan is unable to determine Paloma’s intentions, meaning that she still momentarily loses her defenses. Paloma cannot use the Bystander Effect on herself.
The Messiah Complex ⫻ A secondary aura that the Samaritan, not Paloma, turns on while Everyone’s Sweetheart is active. The Messiah Complex creates faint, trailing streams of golden light in the air around Paloma that guide her to people in her aura that are in need of help that Paloma is, in some way or another, capable of providing. The Samaritan is still in its infancy as an apparition, so the consistency and urgency on which this operates is very hit or miss. She’ll get pings ranging from the cliched, like a kitten stuck in a tree, to the bizarre, like a dweeby teen in need of a prom date to impress his friends. Pings will also sometimes be downright criminal, like the mafioso looking for a cleaner to help dispose of a body, to actual targets in need of life saving, like highlighting a dude choking on a meatball sub. Most of all, though, it is just annoying, as the lights get very distracting. Paloma can ask the Samaritan to suppress it, which it does temporarily, sometimes for several hours but occasionally for a few minutes before turning it back on much to her chagrin. The Messiah Complex can also serve as a kind of danger sense. Since the light is typically faint, a blinding halo of light trails can serve as a sign that Paloma is about to stumble into some real rough shit.
LIMITS ⫻ Paloma’s aura typically fills the room or the immediate area, but it essentially expands out from her as far as people can sense her be it by sight, sound, touch, smell, taste, or even extrasensory means. Her aura can be expanded through live footage or loudspeakers and be diminished by anything that would muffle/drown out her voice or obfuscate her presence. In general, the effects of her auras immediately end when she can no longer be sensed, with the exception of Good Influence which lasts for at least 24 hours. The Blind do not notice her aura either influencing them or leaving them, but the Paranormal can sense a difference in the air when they are within Paloma’s aura. Thus, while she doesn’t give off any clear indication that she is using an abstraction, any Paranormal paying attention would be able to notice that the vibe changed when Paloma walked in.
Everyone’s Sweetheart protects Paloma against intentional bodily harm. She can still be accidentally harmed by others or be a victim of collateral damage. Generally, she is as vulnerable as any other Paranormal to mental abstractions. As previously mentioned, it is also suppressed if Paloma ever attempts to do something violent herself or attempts to use her abstraction to brute force through an Emotional Field.
While under the effect of Good Influence, people will still behave like their normal self outside of following their orders. Good Influence can only have one lasting effect rolling at a time. Any new commands replace the last ones. As previously mentioned, Good Influence cannot be used to cause obvious physical harm to others or to the influenced, and cruel and unusual effects are typically negated by the Samaritan. Good Influence bounces right off of Emotional Fields unless Paloma tries to brute force it, leaving her vulnerable to retaliation.
The Bystander Effect can cause (usually) unintentional and catastrophic accidents when carelessly used out in public. The Bystander Effect bounces right of Emotional Fields unless Paloma tries to brute force it, leaving her vulnerable to retaliation.
On top of already being inconsistent, The Messiah Complex is purely reactive, not predictive. Something must have already put a person into a state of need before a trail to them lights up.
WEAKNESSES ⫻ The Samaritan is still a very young entity. As such, it has not learned the difference between beneficial applications of magic and malicious. Thus, all obviously manifestations of magic will not work on her as her apparition protects her. This means that powerful buffs, healing, and support will have no effect on her. She can still loophole her way into getting these benefits but it would depend on her committing an act of violence against someone. Thus, if someone wishes to heal her she must strike them first.
Other
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“So sweet it’s making me sick."
Paloma playfully refers to the Samaritan as Sammy, unless she’s upset with it, in which case she calls it Sam.
Currently, she works in the slightly nicer hospital on the Northside of Cloverfield but still lives in a rough part on the Southside. Well, rough for other people, perhaps.
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