Atrophy

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1

Man why we gotta keep creating stuff with the sole purpose to fuck us up even more? Why can't we ever get a nice apparition added in like a Pizza Fairy or a Random Compliment Ghost?

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1

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Interactions: Anya @Fernstone Ruby @Shin Ghost Note Lila @NoriWasHere
The House on the Hill

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“Whoa, hey Anya, weird time to go for a hug you know?” said Sully, not realizing she was trying to nudge him out of the way.

His empty-headedness transcended him from the run-of-the-mill dunce to an enlightened monk as he unintentionally counted her push, wrapping Anya in a quick one-armed hug around the shoulder as he shuffled to keep himself between Sloane and the Kool-Aid drinkers. So Leon and Layla were into weird new age movement bullshit. So what? As long as they weren’t required to buy monthly crates of Mama Leon’s goop to avoid becoming completely blacklisted or weren’t looking to escape from planet Earth by hitching a ride on a comet it really wasn’t any of their business.

And look, Sully got it: Sloane was shook because one of her little nerd buddies got jumpscared by the Gimp of Christmas Past and then Leon got a little too close for comfort. Leon could get a little intense sometimes, but he’d always seemed like a good egg and wasn’t as dumb as he looked. Leon had a handle on the Alizée situation. Even Greenwood was cool with the situation, and they had the biggest chip on their shoulder against the girl. Sure, the hushed exposition between Layla and Alizée illuminated the Temple in an eerie, unsettling light, but there was no way Leon was part of some bizarre evil cult even if his mom was running the show. Dudes with traps that big were too devoted to their gains to be agents of some nefarious cabal.

"If anyone dares lay a finger upon this Soul, or the Body meant for her; I will be their retribution."

Sully snapped his head back to the fog cloud that had blossomed around Leon and his ladies. The gears in Sully’s head stalled and smoked before they snapped through the mental bar jammed between the two: he was pretty sure Leon was just quoting Pulp Fiction and not revealing himself to be throw-a-virgin-in-a-volcano, cut-a-motherfucking-heart-out-on-a-ziggurat style zealot. Yeah, that must be it. Leon was just expressing his desire to protect Layla’s choice as well as the First Amendment. Right? Right. Right…but judging by the widening eyes on Sloane’s face it was pretty clear she didn’t realize that Leon was just being a patriot.

”... You know what? Do whatever the hell you want with them. I'm done.”

Sully watched as an expression of pain shot across Sloane’s face as she hung her head, her arms dropping so that the business end of the staff pointed to the floor. The way she slightly drooped before freezing in place made her look as if she were a wind-up toy that had just run out of juice. Sully was about to reach the point where he felt obligated to wave his hand in front of her face when he got distracted by Ruby rightfully admonishing Sycamore for being nothing more than a hot mess. She was making some points. She was making some good, good points. Sycamore had some good eggs in the bunch, but a few rotten apples mixed there made for a shitty omelet.

Then Lila started speaking up and making some even gooder points of her own. Small groups could let the good eggs hang separate from the rotten apples. The rotten apples weren’t inherently bad—they mixed poorly with eggs, but together they could be fermented into an appropriately seasonal hard cider. Sully licked his lips, becoming lost in the metaphor, and followed through with the goodest idea of the evening as he filled the Chalice up with a steaming cocktail of apple cider, hints of cinnamon, a fresh squeeze of orange, and a shitton of bourbon. Chugging the liquid courage, Sully sidled up to Ruby.

“Lila makes a good point, boss. They might not look or act like much of a team, and the locker room banter is enough to get every single one of them canceled, but when that two-minute warning hits and they’re trailing in points the home team always manages to pull off some kind of miracle and send the fans home happy. Trust me, if it weren’t for the people in this room none of us would even be here today to have this conversation. Come on, what’s the worst that could happen?” said Sully, pretending to take a sip of his Chalice to block his mouth as he leaned in and muttered in an attempt to let only Ruby hear. “I’m willing to even rep Greenwood in those small meetings if you want so you won’t even have to deal with these bozos.”

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”Interactions”: Layla @Estylwen Leon @AtomicEmperor
The House on the Hill

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This wasn’t happening.

The others were just going to let them walk out of the room.

One blatant threat and any sense of righteousness was dropped.

Cowards.

They were just here for themselves, after all, only interested in protecting their own necks, the only other two apparently giving a damn either hoping to die or seemingly unable to.

Cowards.

She fit right in.

Coward.

Sloane stared at her shoes, fixating on a scuff in the polished leather that she’d never noticed before as the chatter around her turned into a humming static. The noise was annoying, nearly as frustrating as the damage to her once pristine boots, and nowhere near as infuriating as the thoughts crashing around in her mind and threatening to burst out. She tried to quell them, focusing again on the cracked leather, ignoring how Sully had gotten in her way, or how Britney had gone against her word, or how stupid Sloane had been to believe that woman would ever do anything right. She tried to ignore how Ruby was insulting them for their inability to function when she’d offered poor guidance and her own people had done nothing but quip and huddle around their own.

Sloane even tried to ignore how Auri had, yet again, failed to even attempt to play the role of mediator she had unrightfully claimed, her seeming indifference and inaction in the moment shifting her performance from mediocrity to borderline maliciousness. She just focused on the scuff. It was way more important than the fact that they were allowing a dangerous and untrustworthy man to take a young woman away to perform some kind of ritual. Layla wanted to go, so let her go. It wasn’t like there was a massive history of groups like the Temple manipulating decent but lonely or scared people, isolating them by saying the world sees them as “freaks”, and getting them to agree to commit horrible, seemingly insane ideas through love bombing and veiled threats. Just let it go. In the grand scheme of things, Layla, Alizée, Leon, the Temple, none of them mattered. The only thing that mattered was getting that annoying little scuff buffed out.

Like you care about anyone but yourself.

The Chrysalis Staff softly clattered to the ground as Sloane watched the scuff start to move forward. This was stupid. There was no need to get involved. It was none of her business. She should just focus on her own survival. Her footsteps quickened as they moved past fresh sneakers, dirty boots, and blood stained floorboards. Don’t pursue this. There were bigger fish, more pressing matters. Kari, Emily, Father Wolf. Sloane at last looked up, brushing past Bé and his entourage, never having a chance the whole meeting to say more than a single word, lacking Lynn’s foresight. In the moment they didn’t matter. Right now, there was only one thing that mattered as Sloane left the bar in pursuit.

“Layla!” shouted Sloane, pushing through the front door.

The taillights of Greyson’s car were the ones to respond, saying it was too late to try to care now.

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1

Like, this wouldn't notify me, right?

Estylwen

You'd think.

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1

@Ruby My apologies for the disturbance, I'm not sure how I'm tagging you. ^^; Thank you, though!

@Estylwen

Quoting someone tags them and sends them a notification, so quoting a character with the same name as a user would do it.

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1

rip Alizee x2

@Shin Ghost Note

Spoilers for Part 2

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1

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Interactions: Anya @Fernstone
The House on the Hill

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Back during the summer that should have been her last, Sloane had felt like little more than a burden whenever she was caught out in the field against the Stygian Snake’s minions. She had been passed over and sidelined more than once due to spells lacking the hit like those used by Drake or the utility offered by someone like Stormy. An almost resentful determination to not be remembered as a useless burden had spurred her on to play the decoy in their final fight with the Snake, and if not for Jade she would’ve only been remembered by her initials and a cryptic title carved in the trunk of some old tree. After everything was settled, Sloane took it upon herself to learn to fight, focusing on fencing due to the erroneous belief that inevitably Ashley would give in to Sloane’s will and hand her over the Apparition Killer. It never happened, but thanks to the lessons she had improved her reflexes and strength. She could hold her own.

At least Sloane thought she could until now. The problem with training with a combat sport is that it is a sport. There are rules, regulations, and a referee present to reinforce them. Sloane with her knockoff staff held out before her like a foil was prepared for this “Alizée” to rush her or throw a chain. She was ready to adjust her positioning when one of the others took this opportunity to dogpile on Alizée. What she hadn’t anticipated was for someone in the crowd to come after her. Sloane saw the mad dog Leon rushing at her out of the corner of her eye. She was no match for his speed. The staff flew out of her left hand as Sloane frantically grabbed for her knife with her right, anticipating the swipe of his claws as she took a step back, tangled her leg up in her knocked over chair as she stumbled but stayed standing, and defensively crossed her arms over her face, tucked her chin to her chest, and closed her eyes as she waited for the mauling.

”Sloane,” she heard Anya say.

Sloane had experienced enough near deaths to know that they weren’t this painless. Either she was alive or Leon had finished her with one strike, but judging by how fast her heart was still beating it had to be the former. She opened her eyes, still somewhat shielded by her arms, and saw Anya holding the Chrysalis Staff out towards her. Sloane quickly snatched it back without a single show of gratitude like a selfish, spoiled brat who’d caught their sister playing with their favorite new toy. She swung the staff up once again, her teeth gritted, a rare display of fury in her eyes as she leveled it towards Alizée but drifted the end at Leon before dropping the business end to point at the ground as the Apparition surrendered.

Sloane rolled her eyes and planted them firmly on the ceiling. If the room had fallen silent they would’ve heard the sound of Sloane’s joints popping as her body, in a faltering attempt to keep her annoyance and anger sealed inside, tightened like a screw being drilled so deeply into a piece of wood that it split the plank. But no, they were all insistent on making noise, all offering up their two cents worth of valueless currency with what to do about this imposter Apparition. It was a sure sign that the coven’s faux democratic, wholly anarchistic approach to problem solving was utterly asinine when the one making the most sense was Linqian—even Anya wanted to hear Alizée out, unfortunately prompting Britney to continue acting like she was the voice of authority.

And then, ”... Hear me out! There are some people who would pay big-money for some freaky-deeky chain bondage. We pimp you out to them and make bank.”

A noise squeaked out of Sloane like she’d just been stabbed in the gut as she shut her eyes and clenched her jaw together like a vise. It wasn’t helping that stupid Jasper was either completely ignorant or just burying everything Sloane had done for St. Portwell. Anya would be close enough to hear the frustrated, humming chorus of shut up, shut up, shut up trapped inside of Sloane’s throat as she massaged her temple. It was impossible to tell if the shut ups were directed at Britney, at Jasper, or a mantra meant solely to keep Sloane in check as she attempted the herculean task of remaining civil in the presence of guests.

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Interactions: Lila @NoriWasHere Ruby & Britney@Shin Ghost Note Alizee &Layla@Estylwen Leon@AtomicEmperor
The House on the Hill

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“Could I borrow your healer?” asked Lila.

Oh, wait, that was him.

“I’m on it!”

Sully picked his jaw up from where it had dropped on the ground after witnessing Leon hit Alizée so hard that it had apparently caused a goddamn explosion which had pulped Alizée’s arm in the blast. He hustled over to Lila, her strange avian features becoming increasingly mundane given the presence of shadow kid, kink gal, and juicing wolfman. Instead of doing the sensible thing and just lifting the Chalice to Lila’s mouth so she could drink from it, Sully popped open the plastic stopper on one of the squirt guns and began filing it up with the elixir. Blood red liquid poured over the outside of the toy gun as it overflowed due to Sully still being distracted by Leon and his perfect,flowing, dumb hair and his stupid, incredible body. How was he even taller? Some guys had all the luck. Leon got magical steroids and Sully got a cup.

“Open wide, baby bird. Mama’s here,” said Sully. He blasted Lila with the healing elixir from the squirtgun, inadvertently leaning too heavily on the trigger as he kept looking back at Leon, the endless flow of the Chalice turning what should’ve been just a few spritzes into a steady spray of elixir. A few drops was likely all that Lila would need to patch herself up, but if they didn’t duck out of the way of the stream they would become a picture perfect portrayal of a telekinetic prom queen seconds before she massacres a school. Sully’s face jumped in surprise as he looked back. “Oh shit! My bad, Lila. Let me get a towel.”

Sully lumbered back behind the bar, drifting in on the conversation as he searched for a rag to clean up the mess he’d made. It hit him odd when Luca insisted that this Apparition Alizée wasn’t a person. Sully didn’t know much about the paranormal. Like he got the general gist about everything, but he’d never truly done any real deep digging into all of the nuances or classifications. The curiosity just had not been there when he was younger. Learning that things like ghosts were real would be kind of like learning that there was life on other planets—like okay, cool, but does it really affect his day to day when he’s just trying to earn enough dosh to buy a new set of tires for his truck? Nah. Once the Stygian Snake was stopped all of this kind of stopped mattering. It was background noise. Problems for other people to solve.

Still, now that he thought about it did it really matter if Apparitions weren’t people? They were like people. It sounded like they had thoughts, wants, and desires. The Kid certainly had some strong opinions with the way he was always (often correctly) calling assholes assholes and had some kind of sense of justice with wanting to see Ashley avenged. Even Alizée had just been waxing poetically about love, even if the object of her affection had been a handsy ball that, if it had been an actual person, would have to register itself on a list and not be allowed to live within one thousand feet of a school. Sully shook his head, clearing that thought clean from it like an etch-a-sketch.

The point was he agreed with Britney: give the ghost a chance. She’d agreed to drop the whole searching for the Void Heart thing, so everything seemed gravy to Sully. It was another person…uh, another sentient? Another being? Oh, whatever, it was someone else that could help them take down Father Wolf and stop 8th Street from harassing them. Sully bent down behind the bar, rummaging through dusty shelves in search of a towel. When he came back up with a rag in hand he saw that Layla was in the grasp of Alizée.

“Where is he?!” demanded Alizée, immediately going back on her word about searching for the Void Heart. “Where have they sealed him?”

“Eww bitch, you literally just said you wouldn’t!” shouted Sully, chucking the towel at Alizée in disappointment. “Have some self-respect! That thingy is a creep!”

“A bunch of idiots! There you fucking have it! We gave her her fucking undeserved moment, Jasper!” exploded Sloane, stomping her foot down as she leveled her staff, ready to zap Alizée if she attempted to resist. “And she blew it, so stop projecting your guilt on us. Come on, Britney. Do it.”

“Wait wait wait, we shouldn’t get ahead of ourselves,” said Sully, stepping forward between Alizée and Sloane, temporarily blocking a shot. “Leon and Layla might have a plan. Plus, Ruby said she’s just scared and in disbelief. Maybe it’s like a Stockholm Syndrome kind of thing?”

“RUBY IS FUCKING HIGH AND THOSE TWO ARE CULTISTS!!!” screamed Sloane, shifting to lineup a clear shot.

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1

@EstylwenWhile it's your call if Sloane's curse would even work on Alizée, Leon will be successful in disarming her so feel free to have the curse immeidately drop so Alizée can go full Pinhead on our favorite Werewolf.

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1

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Interactions: Edict@AtomicEmperor Ruby@Shin Ghost Note Anya @Fernstone Alizee Deux@Estylwen
The House on the Hill

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Sully would say everything was going well for a Coven meeting. Sure, sure, Linqian was going off on Anya and showing that Sycamore, as a whole, lacked cohesion. Sure, sure, Layla must’ve taken too big of a rip from Aislin’s bong before the meeting that had sparked some kind of panic attack, spouting out what sounded like harebrained, paranoia induced conspiracy theories. At least Sully assumed that was the case, unable to imagine that Layla was willfully deluding herself to the point where she’d just ignored Alizée’s attempted kidnapping of Jess simply to stir shit. Worst of all, the pizza place had totally stiffed them on those little yellow peppers that come on the side. Still, nobody had pointed a magical sword against anybody’s throat and the pistol had been put away instead of placed against a head so, overall, pretty good. Ruby was even busting out the weed. Maybe she’d share it for once.

Across the bar Sully heard someone quietly cough.

"Now, I do wanna ask: If y'all already shacked up with 317 and The Temple? And you claim the kill for the nastiest Nazi on the west coast since Walt Disney? Th'fuck do you need to get wrapped up in our business for? Lynette put you up to it or something?" said Greyson.

Sully heard another faint cough as Greyson lit his cigarette.

“You cut that cigarette with more than tobacco, Greyson? She doesn’t have anything to do with Greenwood, man,” said Sully after Greyson finished, confusing the Lynette that Greyson had been referencing and jerking his thumb towards Dominguez. “Anyway, Ruby already said why they’re helping us out. Greenwood’s good people. And Sycamore might be a little disorganized, and maybe some people can’t stand each other, but from what I’ve seen Sycamore’s good people too.”

Mostly, anyway. No point in highlighting that though. Sully wanted Greenwood and Sycamore to work together. He couldn’t understand why Linqian and Greyson would go out of their way to point out that Greenwood was definitely getting the short end of the stick here. If Sully took a moment to look a little bit deeper, maybe he would’ve realized that Greenwood lacked something that Sycamore had: numbers. Only a fraction of the Coven had bothered responding to Auri’s call to arm, but they still outnumbered the Greenwood Coven nearly three to one. After all, Greenwood’s greatest accomplishment—taking out Das Sonnenrad—hadn’t been achieved on their own. That was something that Sully didn’t know.

However, Sloane knew. She coughed again into her fist, annoyed that the others were smoking indoors. 8th Street also claimed to be responsible for the destruction of Das Sonnenrad, but Sloane was aware they had outside help. She just never got an answer as to who the help was until now. She wondered if it had just been an “enemy of my enemy” situation, or if Greenwood’s roots expanded further beneath 8th Street than that. She leaned over to Anya in a move that looked as if she was going to say something secretly disparaging about Linqian.

“Greenwood’s worked with 8th Street,” she whispered so that only Anya could hear.

Perhaps it meant nothing.

Perhaps they were being played.

Sloane raised her hand again, waiting her turn.

“I get why you’d be suspicious of others, Greyson, but there’s no hustle here. If people don’t want to return the favor after Greenwood helps us settle our problems that’s no problem. It’s an alliance, not a takeover. You’re free to scurry back to run whatever legitimate business whenever. It’s cool, man. Th others will help,” said Sully, turning his attention to Ruby as if he was trying to convince her this was true. “We’ve all had a rough go, but when times get tough Sycamore always pulls through. This is the best for everyone here.”

Sully mouthed “trust me”. Before he could continue his appeal, he was interrupted by Sloane. “Excuse me, I have another ques—”

Sloane coughed, this time involuntarily, as a wisp of smoke tickled her nose. Okay, fuck this tact nonsense. She had managed to keep her cool when Linqian had pointlessly gone off on Anya and she had chosen to ignore Ruby’s eye rolling, but smoking inside was an unforgivable transgression of a shared space. Her head snapped between Greyson and Ruby, unable to determine who to bury under a mountain of shame, when her vision was drawn towards Jack as Sully hollered out, “What the hell is that?”

Something thin and skeletal ripped out of a portal and grabbed Jack by the collar. It started to speak, but its words were lost to the sound of blood pumping in Sloane’s ears as she moved to defend one of her few friends. Her sometimes annoying, boundary ignoring friend, but a friend nonetheless. A growl in her throat erupted into a roar as she grabbed the Chrysalis Staff.

“Can we not have just one,” Sloane screamed, turning towards the apparition as she jumped form her seat.

“Normal.”

Her chair clattered to the ground.

“FUCKING!”

She pointed the staff at Alizée.

“MEETING!?”

A swarm of spectral, blue butterflies burst from around the Chrysalis Staff, crystalizing instantaneously and crashing upon the ground where they shattered into a fine powder. The tip of the staff pulsated between a dim blue and orange light as Sloane tried to curse Alizée, wisps of orange light leaving trails of blue lux crawled around Alizée’s body like larva. As long as the staff stayed on the apparition, assuming it could even work on one, Alizée would begin to feel her body start to harden and become more and more difficult to move until she would be turned into nothing more than a colorful statue.

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1

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Interactions: Ruby @Shin Ghost Note
The House on the Hill

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While everyone else seemed worried about Luca, Sloane was worried for everyone around him. The conversation Sloane had with Luca in the park the other day had rooted a new fear inside of her, adding another worrisome weed to her already overrun garden. She felt her hand go numb from how hard she was gripping the Chrysalis Staff. She planned to stasis Luca at the first sight of any abscission. Curiously, the tip of Sully’s squirtgun did not show any signs of decay even before Stormy moved to intervene with his Lux, and while Luca’s hand moving to caress Jasper’s face caused her heart rate to spike there was no body horror to follow.

Her grip on the staff relaxed as Luca gave her a thumbs up, the momentary wave of relief replaced by a quiet anger as she shook her head at him in disapproval. The urge to unleash on Luca for acting so foolishly as well as on that idiot Sullivan for his failure to act immediately thus prompting Luca to move bubbled up to her lips. However, the presence of Greenwood kept her tongue in its place. If they wanted this alliance to work it was then best not to immediately pull back the curtain and reveal that Sycamore wasn’t a cohesive coven that could offer Greenwood something in return but rather a bunch of rowdy children in desperate need of a babysitter. Did Sloane even want to work with Greenwood? Maybe. It depended on if they were going to be more eyes to watch out for Father Wolf and 8th Street or just more voices blocking out any good ideas by contributing to a wall of sound.

Sloane turned sharply and returned to her seat once it was clear that Sully would continue to tend to Luca until he was one hundred percent. She grabbed the Quill, which had run out of page and started to take notes for her on the table, and set it on a fresh page in her notebook, keeping her hand on it to stop it from writing over on the table again the next time it ran out of space. She took control of the pen to write down a series of reminders for herself—one to learn more about the crystal that had been in Clancy’s chest, two to learn exactly what Clancy was, and three to see if Luca would be able to get her in contact with Carol—and then let it resume its autopilot as she listened in on the others replying to Ruby.

“Yeah I got a question,” hollered Sully from the back with his mouthful of pepperoni pizza, having apparently abandoned his healing duties the moment Kashmira moved to take over. “We got any red pepper flakes lying around here?”

Sloane sank down in her seat and gripped the bridge of her nose as one of the ancillary Greenwoods pointed him to the pile of packets. Stormy asked the obvious question more diplomatically than Sloane would’ve: what’s the catch? Sloane was all for altruism but highly doubted anyone other than herself who ever showed it. Greenwood surely had to come with some baggage of their own if they were willing to work with Sycamore. She shifted back up in her seat as Clancy piped up. It was curious how none of the ex-Sycamore’s in Emily’s coven had been targeted by Father Wolf yet, although it could just be a simple matter of coincidence.

She stared at the patchwork child, noting the hateful look on its face as it spoke of Emily. Sloane hoped that by “taken apart one-by-one” that the aberration meant dismantling the 8th Street Coven instead of decimating them. Even if the want was to only take out Emily and Vashti, it didn’t sit well with Sloane. Felt like something Emily would champion. Eye for an eye, blah blah blah. There were better ways to handle these kinds of things.

“Sloane Faris. I have a question,” said Sloane, raising her hand as if she were in a class. A flash of pain crossed her face as she heard Sully, his words muffled by pizza, say something about asking if they got an extra garlic sauce. She put her hand down on her lap. “While I am also interested in hearing how you’d want to deal with 8th Street or what else you’d be looking to get out of this alliance, I think it would be nice to learn more about our potential partners before jumping immediately into business with strangers.”

“Oh, they’re not strangers, they—” Sully was cut off as Sloane raised her voice ever so slightly and continued on.

“Perhaps this was addressed at the previous meeting, but unfortunately…” Auri is a bitch “...my schedule is quite full on Sundays. You already seem to have a general idea about Sycamore—our problem with 8th Street, our nasty habit of getting murdered, etcetera—but outside of hearing the name before I don’t really know anything about the Greenwood Coven. How long have you been a coven? Why did you form? Notable accomplishments? Things like that.”

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1

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Interactions: Adora @Shin Ghost Note Clancy @Zombiedude101 Luca @Fernstone
The House on the Hill

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Sully exhaled a deep sigh of relief as Luna apologized to Drake and Drake was grateful enough not to light her up like a Christmas tree. He leaned against the wall, absentmindedly making a drinking motion with his hand before realizing that the Chalice was in Sloane’s possession. He hoped that she’d hurry up with whatever magicky crafty thingy she was doing. There was a part of Sully that resented his role in the Coven just being the dude who carried a cup around, but at least with the cup he had some kind of importance. Without it he felt like little more than the mascot—technically part of the team and helped with lifting spirits, but ultimately a nonfactor in determining the outcome of the game.

Sully slipped behind the bar. Others had already started to help themselves to the dusty spirits that still haunted the closed down establishment, so it wasn’t like he was doing anything uncouth by helping himself. He shuffled through the glass bottles, recognizing none of the names on the labels and unable to determine if that was a good or bad thing. He took a tentative sniff of a random whiskey and gave it a sip, reeling back and gagging at the taste of turpentine from what had probably been the cheapest, saddest, dustiest handle of bottom shelf whiskey that had been gussied up by being poured into a nicer bottle. Sully could taste the plastic. It suddenly made sense as to why the bar shuttered as well as why nobody took the bottles with them. Only the deprived, debased, and desperate would dare drink something as god awful as this.

So naturally, Sully dusted off a rocks glass and poured himself two fingers. He was inadvertently saved from making an awful mistake as the door burst open and the glass dropped from his hands, shattering on the ground and stripping away some of the finish on the wood. The Kid, as Sully had come to identify Clancy as despite already having a frontrow seating proving that Clancy was well deserving of a more sinister moniker, stumbled into the bar. Whatever was left of him, anyway. The sight was sickening and Sully had to swallow back some bubbling acid of his own as Clancy retched up something akin to motor oil. Sully gripped on to the bar to keep himself steady as his legs grew weak and he stared wide-eyed in horror as what was left of the Kid called out for help.

What happened next felt disconnected and disorienting, like Sully wasn’t watching the events unfold before his eyes but rather witnessing a film student’s failed first attempt at making a stop motion movie. People crowding the body, others reeling back like they were ready for a fight, Adora tripling, Luca moving forward to put his hand on the crystal in Clancy’s chest. Sully tried to call out for him to stop, out of fear for Luca, out of fear for Clancy, but his voice was trapped in his throat and all he could do was watch as Luca and crystal began to rot away bit by horrifying bit.

“SULLIVAN!”

Something was slammed against his chest. Sully looked down to see the Chalice, suspended in air, a faint orange and blue glow radiating from beneath the base of the goblet. He didn’t reach for it immediately and the glow stopped, the Chalice clattering on the bar top as he saw Sloane violently shake her head in frustration, stop channeling her Hexmark, and start moving towards one of the Adoras, a staff identical to Auri’s staff in her hand. Sully stirred from his stupor and grabbed the Chalice as he moved towards the injured two. He was pretty sure he heard Sloane say, “Get that idiot away from that thing.”

By the time he made it to the pair, Luca had been shifted so he was face up and separated from Clancy. Sully had the Chalice in one hand and a freshly filled squirt gun in the other, his stupid little bit proving to actually be beneficial. Sully kneeled down beside Clancy, set down the Chalice, carefully propped his head up against his knee, and picked the Chalice back up with a trembling hand. He moved it towards Clancy’s mouth and pressed the rim of the cup to it, encouraging him to drink from the Chalice while trying not to think of how over half of the Kid’s mouth was some spooky shadow demon bullshit that could probably rip his hand clean off in one bite.

“It’s gonna be okay, Kid, I got you. H-hey, Luca, reach for the sky,” said Sully, trying to break the tension with a dumb joke as he leveled the squirt gun toward Luca and fired off a spray of elixir. The color drained from Sully’s face as Luca did not move to catch it. Bracing himself for what was sure to be a painful experience, Sully gently set Clancy back down on the floor, scooted on his knees over to Luca, pushed the tip of the squirt gun into his mouth, and pulled the trigger. Sully caught Sloane staring at him, her typical annoyed look seemingly amplified by what he assumed she would believe to be pointless antics.

“It only works if he can drink it, and the Rot could destroy the Chalice,” said Sully through gritted teeth as he shifted away from Luca, Sloane’s unblinking stare compelling him to explain. She didn’t respond. She didn't even look at him. He realized that Sloane hadn’t been staring at him at all. She was watching Luca intently, her hand tightening on the staff.