Zombiedude101

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1 [Cancelled]

<Snipped quote by Zombiedude101>

Cucked

@Punished GN

well at least I still know more about linux

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1 [Cancelled]

post 60 imminent

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1 [Cancelled]

---

Tacoma > St. Portwell Interchange

Ambience

THIRTY THREE HOURS AGO

---

"You alright, kid?"

Clancy blinked, glancing over to one side. He'd taken the empty seat on the bus. Always the empty seat if he could. Walking was preferable to being hassled by strangers, sometimes - even if the bus ride in question was measured in hours rather than minutes.

In the seat across from him sat an older woman, probably pushing her mid-late sixties, with cropped platinum hair and an orange bodywarmer accompanying her choice of denim. By his standards of "old lady" she was decidedly modern.

"You looked a little ah-... 'off', was all, and it's a long road from upstate."

Clancy didn't have an answer. Was he visibly agitated? He didn't realised he'd been giving her a tell if he had.

"It's fine, you don't have to talk to me if you don't feel up to it... I just wanted to make sure you're alright."

"I am alright.

"He talks, then."

"I guess."

The old woman shuffled along her seat "Sorry, I just got a feeling you're a ways from home... used to be a social worker, so I know the look."

Sigh. Clancy shrugged; he'd been through this conversation before, each time rolling his eyes, shaking his head, telling them to go away, or just being silent. It made no difference usually. People either engaged with him or they didn't - sometimes it was a stranger, sometimes it was a cop, or some other figure trying to do the 'right thing'. They were well intentioned, but annoying at their worst, and none of them would really understand him.

"Look... I won't force anything you don't want," the woman said, tugging a creased slide from her purse, "But if you need anything, or just a place to talk? Here's my card, I kept the number after retirement." She leaned over, to plant the card in his twitching palm, and her fingertips momentarily brushed his palm.

"Do not-" Clancy hissed, jerking his hand back, "-touch me." He shot her a glare that could split ice.

"I'm sorry-... and I know, your business is yours, so-"

"Then mind your own." Clancy snapped back - and that seemed to get the point across, judging by her expression - as if she'd been slapped. "Okay, alright. Just... take it with you? And.. stay outta the cold." Maybe she misread, or was willing to take the chance of pushing him away. He found her irritating either way. but to keep her quiet he pocketed the card.

Another twenty minutes of disconcerted silence, and Clancy made a point of getting off a few stops earlier than he'd originally intended, just in case she dropped a call about a child-at-risk. He wasn't too worried about being flagged down, but being stopped and bothered was just another waste of his time, extra hassle he didn't need. He glanced down at the phone, a basic handset which probably cost less than the bus ride had. A new message headed the screen, indicating the vibration he'd felt in his pocket earlier hadn't been his his imagination, a cue he was expected somewhere.

see u soon buddy ;)

Glancing over his shoulder, Clancy tugged the hood over his head and started moving again.

---

It was relatively late in the day when he arrived, the silhouette of the building complex masking the sun like a wall of obdisidian. Clancy stepped inside a relatively narrow corridor, finding a door by one corner where the field of view was about as narrow as you could get. He tugged at his phone and keyed in a message.

im here

The door cracked open no less than a minute later.

"Nick?" a voice asked, a squat man in his early thirties with a scraggly blonde mustache. A friend. Connection he'd made a few days in advance - needed someone to help keep him going. "Hi," 'Nick' said back, shyly, "Um.... sorry if I'm late."

The man threw up his arms, "Hey dude, don't sweat it, I uh-..." he glanced over Clancy's shoulder, then further through a slit in the curtains, "I got a couple beers and some pizza, know you said you were hungry. You uh, don't mind pineapple, right?"

"No, it's cool." Clancy shrugged, a weak smile creasing his lips, "I mean uhm, thanks."

"C'mon in," the guy nodded, his expression relaxing a little. Clancy nodded. It wasn't like he had any other options, he was out of town, needed some extra cash, and hadn't eaten for a while. Some things were a no-brainer, pride or not. He glanced over his shoulder, then off to each side - stepping in shortly afterwards.

---

The agitation had somewhat settled by the next morning. He'd taken what he could get, and used the opportunity to snag a spare change of clothes and a couple other things. Before long, his 'friend' was a barely cogniscient memory that he pushed out of sight and mind, no more calls or texts, and he could get on with what - and who he came here for.

Ashley Stone.

They were connected through her grandmother, who was herself a Patrick by maiden name before she'd married out. She had been a crutch for him maybe, as the only family connection he could actually speak to - even if it was by way of internet messaging. He'd already lost his sister, and it wasn't like he could talk to his brother or parents. And now Ashley was dead.

For all intents and purposes he was a stranger in a strange town. But he wasn't blind, deaf or dumb; he knew the stories about St. Portwell just like any other place, and he'd learned that Ashley had been a part of it - she'd told him enough. And Ashley had friends, and people who knew her from her days as a kid, and all the stuff that happened. The internet was far from a reliable narrator, but he'd found a small collection of names and faces that may have been familiar or linked to Ashley, and recalled from their discussions just what happened. And he had been through enough homeless encampments and shooting galleries in desperate times to intuit his way towards an answer.

Father Wolf.

Supposedly this person had claimed responsibility for her death. Others too, based on the rumour mill. And things pointed towards a local crew of assholes that at best were a bunch of worthless lowlives, and at worst thought they were demonstrations of the primacy of the white race - something which amused him very little in light of what he'd seen back home, when there was a home. Assholes were assholes, even a kid could recognise that, and his dad had taught him too.

If he wanted answers, it was a real possibility that the Wolfpack were at least one of the go-tos. How he'd manage that, he'd figure it out. While at his 'friend's place, he had seen a flyer for some local skinbar, Veni Vedi Veni.

Guess some assholes liked their Latin

There was just one question.

How did he get in?

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1 [Cancelled]

Declassified.

Clancy Patrick

obligatory theme

_______________________________________________ Clarence Patrick He & Him | 12 ½ | Irish-American | 4'9 | 84lbs _______________________________________________ Lonely _______________________________________________ Skills & Talents ___________________________________ [+] Lockpicking ⫻ Surprisingly, Clancy has some nimble fingers and can pick through some of the more basic locks out there. Outdoorsman ⫻ Hitchhiking hundreds of miles from home, and being raised by a military man with some hard old-fashioned values has taught Clancy a ways of how to behave in the wilderness. If you left him out in the woods, odds are he wouldn't struggle too much. Clancy's hiked his way far enough to at least have a rough idea of what's safe and sane. Grift ⫻ Clancy has a natural grift for getting a hold of items & getting into places he shouldn't. Lifting stuff off shelves, climbing into locked buildings, slipping under a gap in the fence to get into private property.

Appearance ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ Clancy carries the frame of a pubescent boy, no older than twelve or thirteen, with a voice that just about veers on the cusp of breaking. His features are smooth, with not even a wisp of body hair apart from that found on his head - an unkempt mass of charcoal fuzz. His eyes possess a dull, ice blue tone, resembling flinty chips of ice - and his skin is a pasty white, more likely to burn than tan. A length of puckered skin runs along the underside of his left arm, from the elbow to halfway up the sleeve; a consequence of a bicycle mishap when he was a little younger. Some time on the road had taught him to dress sensibly; Clancy wore a mottled-green flannel lumberjack hoodie over a khaki-tone undershirt, with navy cargo pants & a laced pair of sneakers. Sometimes with a pair of gloves, if the weather wascold. Among his possessions was a denim knapsack which he was often seen lugging about, containing whatever goods he can snag off store counters when nobody's looking. Since the incident at the strip club, he's been forced to undergo a change of clothes, wearing a green hoodie bearing the likeness of a state sports mascot best described as a poor man's Donald Duck, and a pair of oversized denim pants with sleeves that have been obviously torn at the edges in an amateur attempt to adjust them to the wearer's shorter height. When not containing his inner-self, Clancy's monstrous form hides within his body aa a skeletal shadow, oily black, with sharp and angular features. Fingers and toes become claws. His face a featureless oval that opens to form a jagged maw.

_{Psychology
^{▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔}}

MAIN GOAL ⫻ Clancy had sought out one of thw few family connections he had left in Ashley, only to lose her. His upbringing and background has left him missing out on the much needed familial ties and friendships. Now? He wants the person who killed her, and to make sure they pay for what they did. Once Father Wolf is dead, he wants the Apparition Killer in hopes of finally ending the entity which forced this 'life' upon him, and then find a way to end his own perpetual existence once and for all.

PHILOSOPHY ⫻ Self-reliance is something Clancy has come to depend on as a consequence of his upbringing, even to a fault. Trust is something he struggles with, as his own family situation made it difficult to make connections, and the only person he really connected to - his sister - died after a long battle with a terminal illness. He's still going through the grief of losing a sister and working it out in his own complex way. Authority figures aren't something which carry an automatic respect.

SECRETS ⫻ Clancy isn't just a child, not anymore. He looks like a child, but his mind is far older than what anyone would guess. Some time in the sixties, he was taken, subsumed and spat out to serve as the puppet of a greater predatory entity. His family died out over the years, starting with his brother in Vietnam, his parents in the nineties, and his elderly sister a year ago.

SEXUALITY ⫻ Not something Clancy even considers.

FEARS ⫻ Failing to find the person who murdered Ashley, and by extension failing to find a way to end his own perpetual existence and the entity which made him what he is.

REPUTATION IN OLD COVEN ⫻ He's an unknown to the Coven, having never been around during the fight with the Stygian Snake.

ROLE IN THE BATTLE AGAINST THE STYGIAN SNAKE ⫻ N/A

FLAWS ⫻ Despite his age, in many respects Clancy is still very childlike, approaching the world from a perspective that was twisted and contorted at a key developmental stage in his life. Emotional baggage stemming from a loss of his childhood, family and the tiring perpetual existence of predation also weighs upon him to the extent that he forces himself to project an emotionless facade, but the truth is that he is a 12 year old boy who was subjected to a nightmare beyond human understanding and never had much of an opportunity to grow past it.

_{Backstory
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Clancy's upbringing wasn't anything outstanding, as the youngest of a brood of three. His parents were old fashioned, but not outright abusive - having undergone their own formative trials in Europe during WWII. His father, an Irish-American serviceman, was present at European theater, present at the discovery and liberation of a concentration camp , while his mother was a Polish Jew who lost most of her family to the Holocaust.The family they raised consisted of three children; their eldest son, Frank, their daughter Judith, and their youngest - Clancy.

Self-reliance was a simple fact of life for the time, although Clancy's relationship with his family was healthy, and normal by the standard of the times - the sixties. He got roped into stupid stunts by his brother. His sister looked out for him. He had friends, and did things that most children did, like riding through a suburban forest trail on his bike, and it was on such a normal occasion that he happened to stumble across an entity that far outlived the European settlement of the Americas.

This entity, itself a powerful being in its own right, consumed Clancy in a tortorous, agonising experience, feeding on body and soul. As part of its 'lifecycle', this entity would periodically use the memories and consciousness of those it consumed to dispatch puppet hosts that, while not directly under its control, were driven by an instinct to hunt, kill and feed, which would in turn nourish the host. This was a matter of pragmatism, not kindness; the homonculi it released would return to their communities to predate upon their fellows, and in truth that was the origin for many of the local folklore in the Americas around wendigo and other monstrosities.

Clancy was selected as one such example, essentially spat back out into the wilderness as a hollowed out instance of his former self, with memories and consciousness the only true thing remaining, his maker buried at the base of his mind. He looked like a child - that was the point - but he was in truth a hollow shell, timeless, cold to the touch, and driven by base instincts. At first, he stumbled through the wilderness in a state of disorientation, cold, hungry, alone. Desperately trying to return home, the first thing that he stumbled upon was another family on the trail, and the imperatives branded upon him drove him to tear them apart and feed on their fresh corpses.

Terrified, the thoughts of his family came to him as just meat - he purposely exiled himself into the wilderness, slowly losing himself into a devolved, half-feral state, driven by instinct and automated function. His conscience and other thoughts remained repressed, months stretched into years, the body count extending past the double digits. Hikers, hunters, the odd family - it didn't matter. He tried to die, several times, throwing himself in front of cars, off bridges, under trains, each time coming back with worse consequences for anyone close enough at the time For periods, Clancy found a part of himself, but without any ability to control the urge to feed, the cycle would repeat - and the only thing he knew was that he would not inflict himself upon his own family. H

What truly broke this cycle was a chance event. As another hiker fell victim to his imperatives to feed and nourish the ancient entity which had forced this existence upon him, the sound of music from the cassette player his victim had been carrying. A song he and his brother had listened to together, enough to bring him back from the brink. It formed a window which allowed Clancy to claw his psyche back from the repressed, feral abomination he had become. He sought to try and impose limitations upon himself, with some initial failures.

He could not refuse to eat - that would invoke the imperatives to feed, and he would have no control over that part of his self. He could choose his victims. Not always - sometimes desperation forced his hand, but he tried desperately not to slaughter random people en-masse. He shifted tack to the cities, wandering the streets as a homeless child amidst the crack epidemic. Sometimes it was a drug pusher or a gangbanger. Sometimes it was a homeless person.

Through trial and error, he selected those targets he felt were more acceptable - less likely to be missed. Criminals. Scummy people. Sexual predators became a favourite target, if for nothing else then because it felt as close as he could find to hitting back at the entity that had targeted him. He had rules and a working system. He didn't stay in one place for long. He shifted, town to town, city to city, carefully quieting his appetite for temporary periods.

It was a lonely existence, but he had no other choice - kill a few people, or kill many people. It was the lesser of two evils.

Over time, he tracked his family. He learned that Frank had been drafted and died in Vietnam, just over a year after he disappeared. His parents, grief-stricken, would spend their last days in nursing homes, perishing in the mid and late nineties respectively. His sister - the last real connection he had, would eventually suffer from alzheimers that would rob her of her mind, and later a terminal cancer that would rob her of her body. Though he had forced himself apart from his family, both for fear of traumatising and harming them, he broke the rule just the once for Judith's sake, visiting her on her deathbed.

Several months after Judith's death, he learned that she had surviving family - a granddaughter, his great-niece, Ashley Stone. Clancy did his homework, and broke another rule. He reached out to her, and with slow progress, a trust of sorts formed between them.

As it happened, Ashley herself had experienced a lifetime of horror in her hometown of St. Portwell through the Stygian Snake, and the shared struggle was a bonding point of sorts, although neither explicitly spelled out the step-by-step details of their lives. Clancy knew Ashley had wielded power, and been involved with a group of similar people. Ashley came to realise that Clancy was not the anonymous cousin he had claimed, and that he himself was cursed with some affliction that could not be cured by conventional means.

Clancy, through Ashley, learned of the Apparition Killer. Learned of a possible means to end the entity which forced this malformed existence upon him, finally end the tiresome existence he'd suffered.

Except, Ashley was murdered. Clancy found out the hard way, losing contact until he stumbled upon an obituary about the murder.

Seeking answers, he travelled to St. Portwell, learning of the Father Wolf case. Learning of Ashly's old friend circle being picked apart. His arrival in St. Portwell was not without noise. Within 48 hours of arriving, he'd proven himself to be far different to the expectations of any onlookers, with a trail of blood and broken bodies following him. He was present at the death of the Wolfpack's Club "President", Judas, and subsequently evaded the PRA raid on the Reformed Coven's hideout. A week in, and still, very little is known about him - save that he isn't just a kid. Surving gunshot wounds and a wooden cane through the eye was proof enough of that.

More encounters with Ashley's old coven led to him inserting himself into their ongoing investigation, willing or not. He was present at the church raid, at the decimation of Kari Wilson's house by 8th Street, and later formed some connections of his own, perhaps for the first time in decades.

That also brought him into conflict with St. Portwell's less svaoury denizens. His investigation into the Dollhouse lead, prompted by Judas, put him in conflict with Shayton, and later incurred the wrath of their agent Shaquita - spearing him with a crystalline shard that invoked pain and neutralised his strength. Were it not for the intervention of Luca, he might have been incapacitated.

Clancy's motives remained unchanged, but as he joined the group on a raid, he found himself questioning whether it was just retribution he sought.

His accent is hard to place, save that he comes from same place north of the Ohio River - possibly Chicago or Cincinatti? Maybe even further out west, like Bellevue

_{Abstraction
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ABSTRACTION ⫻ Cannibal



ABSTRACTION DESCRIPTION ⫻ A long time ago, Clancy took a wrong turn on his way home and fell into the awareness of an old, predatory entity of inhuman origin. Strigoi, Jiangshi, Wendigo - different cultures would've named it thus. The entity devoured Clancy, and salvaged his consciousness and memories to create a 'puppet' of sorts - a shell with the memories and appearance of a 12 year old boy, the Cannibal entity sat somewhere.deep within as a core imperative.

If you wanted to be coy, he's perhaps as close to the urban legends as you can get. He doesn't age. He doesn't change. In a somewhat uncanny sense, any damage or change afflicted to his body gradually shifts back into the form he had when he was subsumed in the wilderness - an effect which works to a fault. That scar on his arm would've probably faded if he'd aged out naturally, but instead he's stuck with a personal reminder that he is frozen in time. He doesn't sleep, he doesn't need to breathe, and his skin is cool to the touch. A few half-hearted attempts at dying over several decades have proven that he can't naturally die; falling off a bridge into a frozen river and being hit by a train among the two that stand out, with the only thing to remember either being his own scathing memories of the experience. That, and a distant vestigial view of the Void are generally not good for one's mental health.

Uncharacteristically, while his form is that of a child, his actual capacity is... more so. He can handle heftier burdens than a boy of his age and height should, and has a stamina and dexterity that would put an athlete to shame, able to run, vault and climb into spaces. But the true power, or whatever one would call it - Clancy's core self is a vaguely humanoid shape of skeletal shadow that alternates between bipedal and quadrupedal movement, buried beneath the facade of a child. It's faster, stronger and hungers - projecting a form of around five feet, depending on Clancy's hunger and stress levels. While Clancy in his original body is strong enough that, bare handed and with some effort, he can crack bones to get at the marrow, his exposed-self can uproot trees, bisect mammals and twist an adult human being's head clean off. It can scale trees and buildings, and slip through grating and fences due to its somewhat intangiable nature.

LIMITS ⫻ Clancy has to feed on others. If you wanted to get into the science, or specifically, the Lux behind it - the material isn't so much the physical matter as the essence behind it. Fresh blood and meat, it's all part of a living creature's experience. Who they were, where they want, their memories - it feeds the entity which malformed him. Gutting a rabbit is some base sustenance - like eating a cracker, or stale brea, but people are inherently nourishing - even to the point that for a moment, he retains a brief glimpse into the mindset & warm sense of self of those he consumes. A cooked meal, or a candy bar, on the other hand, is about as nourishing as eating flavoured sand

Additionally, longer he remains in this form, the more Clancy's sense of self-control and identity begins to loosen, and if he doesn't feed, then the point that the smoky shadow projection that uses him as a sheath starts to manifest without regard for autonomous control in an effort to sate his appetite. The hunger doesn't discriminate either - animals, children, decent people and otherwise are all just prey - so the less he manages it, the more likely he is to start indiscriminately lashing out and feeding on others. It's happened before, and at this point, he has a body count to rival the combined figures of some of the world's worst serial killers.

WEAKNESSES ⫻

^{Other
_{▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔}}

Clancy knows.

PRA casefile

Anecodtal commentary on Case 74-00184 from an unknown PRA official.



For as long as records last, the PRA and its preceding agencies & organisations have been aware of paranormal activity stretching from the Midwest to the Great Lakes. Among these, a range of perculiar sightings and events have occured, poorly documented due to the vast expanse of wilderness between developed urban sprawl. One such case that has arisen from this region, with sightings said to go back almost fifty years, is that of C74-00184, where victims have been found dead. In each instance, the victim(s) were mauled, dismembered and partially consumed, with injuries comparable to wolf & bear attacks. Although one could easily dismiss these as a consequence of animal attacks in the wilderness, evidence tampering and eye-witness accounts of a humanoid presence close to the scene suggest otherwise.

A key example is that of a party of four hunters, of whom three were found dead in late November 1968. The sole surviving member of the party reported that one of his companions had encountered a child who fled upon being sighted. Although a description of the child has not been consistently captured, the second-hand description suggests they were a caucasian male aged somewhere between nine and thirteen years old, wearing torn and bloody clothing and in a state of apparent distress.

Although the survivor was not present during the attack, having remained at camp while their companions formed a search party, they reported hearing' panicked screams for help and arrived on-scene to find the rest of the party dead, exhibiting injuries consistent with being violently mauled and partially consumed.

Although the sighting of this child was among the earliest sightings, other sightings have been recorded in the following decades, most prevalent between 1968 - 1982, with the last known sighting being recorded by a Wisconsin park ranger in 1987. Although the number of deaths in the wilderness matching this profile have decreased rapidly since this period, the agency has now linked a spate of murders along the Great Lakes region within developed areas of urban sprawl, most of which span from Erie to Duluth.

In each instance, the attack profile remained similar; violent dismemberment, remains partially consumed. While the victim profile seems to make no discernment between age, occupation or race, most if not all victims documented since 1982 have been identified as adult males, with approximately 42% of subjects holding some form of criminal record tied to organised crime, gang-affiliation, or sex crime. Subsequent review of witness accounts, surveillance footage and the implausability of animals in such a location (as per the case of C74-00184-69, where the victim's remains were found on-scene in the bathroom of a Detroit gas station) indicate a clear link to C74-00184.

Strigoi, Jiangshi, Wendigo - different cultures would've named them thus, but the latter of the three is perhaps the best match for this case. Such instances have historically been documented among the Algonquian peoples in the form of oral storytelling and cultural mythology, and it is expected that C74-00184 is a direct manifestation of one such regional myth.

The concern here is - contrary to the theory that victim numbers are decreasing since the 1980s - the subject of C74-00184 may be simply getting better at covering their tracks. For this reason, I would like to make the case for the agency increasing resources towards addressing this issue. We are dealing with a body count that dwarves that of some of North America's worst serial killers and have nothing to show for it, nor any counter to prevent further deaths occuring. In the absence of reliable intelligence, the agency should shift investigation towards urban sprawl and co-operate with local law enforcement wherever possible.

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1 [Cancelled]

@Punished GN my first sheet is up

Clancy Patrick

Clancy Patrick

_______________________________________________ Clarence Patrick He & Him | 12 ½ | Irish-American | 4'9 | 84lbs _______________________________________________ Lonely _______________________________________________ Skills & Talents ___________________________________ [+] Lockpicking ⫻ Surprisingly, Clancy has some nimble fingers and can pick through some of the more basic locks out there. Outdoorsman ⫻ Hitchhiking hundreds of miles from home, and being raised by a military man with some hard old-fashioned values has taught Clancy a ways of how to behave in the wilderness. If you left him out in the woods, odds are he wouldn't struggle too much. Clancy's hiked his way far enough to at least have a rough idea of what's safe and sane. Grift ⫻ Clancy has a natural grift for getting a hold of items & getting into places he shouldn't. Lifting stuff off shelves, climbing into locked buildings, slipping under a gap in the fence to get into private property.

Appearance ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ Clancy carries the frame of a pubescent boy, no older than twelve or thirteen, with a voice that just about veers on the cusp of breaking. His features are smooth, with not even a wisp of body hair apart from that found on his head - an unkempt mass of charcoal fuzz. His eyes possess a dull, ice blue tone, resembling flinty chips of ice - and his skin is a pasty white, more likely to burn than tan. A length of puckered skin runs along the underside of his left arm, from the elbow to halfway up the sleeve; a consequence of a bicycle mishap when he was a little younger. Some time on the road has taught him to dress sensibly; Clancy wears a mottled-green flannel lumberjack hoodie over a khaki-tone undershirt, with navy cargo pants & a laced pair of sneakers. Sometimes with a pair of gloves, if the weather is cold. Among his possessions is a denim knapsack which he's often seen lugging about, containing whatever goods he can snag off store counters when nobody's looking.

_{Psychology
^{▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔}}

MAIN GOAL ⫻ Clancy's seeking out one of the only family connections he thinks he has left available, and part of that includes understanding what happened to his cousin. His upbringing and background has left him missing out on the much needed familial ties and friendships.

PHILOSOPHY ⫻ Self-reliance is something Clancy has come to depend on as a consequence of his upbringing, even to a fault. Trust is something he struggles with, as his own family situation made it difficult to make connections, and the only person he really connected to - his sister - died after a long battle with a terminal illness. He's still going through the grief of losing a sister and working it out in his own complex way. Authority figures aren't something which carry an automatic respect.

SECRETS ⫻ Clancy is a runaway, having left home and hitchhiked some many miles to make it to St. Portwell. He's spent a long time (by a child's standards) roughing it, and has been through a few things a child probably shouldn't, and won't be open to talking about it.

SEXUALITY ⫻ Though he's a little young to be enjoying that element of life, he would assuredly be into the female gender.

FEARS ⫻ Loneliness and the idea of being out of control with his life, to an extent. The difficult upbringing has thrown a lot of abstract concepts at his young mind, with loss and grief exacerbating this.

REPUTATION IN OLD COVEN ⫻ He's an unknown, being a child and all.

ROLE IN THE BATTLE AGAINST THE STYGIAN SNAKE ⫻ N/A

FLAWS ⫻ He's a child, and one that has some serious emotional baggage stemming from family issues and personal grief. To say his view would be a little skewed goes without saying. They're not in Texas or one of the Pacific SovCit compounds, so it's not like he can just pick up an Armalite and go to town, is it?

_{Backstory
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Clancy's upbringing wasn't anything outstanding. His parents were old fashioned, but not outright abusive, having met after his father returned home from military service in Europe. Self-reliance was something he learned in part from his parents, and other factors in life. Coming as the middle child from a brood of three, his brother Frank is serving overseas in the Marines, and his little sister died a year ago - something he took really hard. He reached out to one of the only other family connections he had - a cousin, Ashley Stone - from her dad's side of the family.

Ashley seemed to get him, and she helped him through dealing with his sister's death. The family situation at home was getting more difficult by the day, and other issues made things untenable to him. Then Ashley lost touch, and Clancy felt there was only one thing for it. He ran away from home, catching buses and hitching rides where he could.

His accent is hard to place, save that he comes from same place north of the Ohio River - possibly Chicago or Cincinatti? Maybe even further out west, like Bellevue

_{Abstraction
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TYPE ⫻ N/A

^{Other
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Clancy believes (One Eye Open baby)

Recollections: Who Is Eleanor Black [CANCELLED]

@FernStone@Punished GN@Atrophy
Nowhere

Ambience

---

For the drive, he had few words to say apart from the odd "uh-huh" here and "heh, yeah" there. More than anything, 'Carl' seemed to be in his own thoughts and he was. Dealing with Black, finding the money, getting out and gone so he could go back to figuring what he might do to salvage or recalibrate his career. Warily, he briefly glanced towards Ophrenia and Zeltz9n - the two that were openly packing heat, of which he was dubious they even knew how to use.

The van pulled up and steadily people filed out. Clay had come dressed for the job. A rain poncho, gloves, boots with good ankle support and the tool bag slung over his shoulder. There was a dry change of clothes in the trunk of his car for when he got back to the motel, and hopefully a warm coffee somewhere a ways down the road when all this was done.The rain... he'd thought Memphis got it heavy, but thsi place made hometown seem like a shower by comparison. Visibility was down to shit, but that played both ways for anyone else around. He just hoped he wasn't wasting his time here, and made a rough mental note of the route for when he found himself walking back. At least he could trade the pungent stench of weed for rain and swamp water.

And of course the gate was locked. He had brought the toolbag with him, but he wasn't too wild on outing that someone had forced entry to the property in the event that someone came down here. Instead, he kept his mouth shut as Jen and the other girl, Ophrenia - one slinging the twelve gauge - argued about whether or not the latter would try and shoot off the padlock. He wasn't exceptionally willing to count on that either - if the lock wasn't bottom-of-the-barrel quality, it would.more likely chip it than shatter it. He'd seen that once or twice, dumbass perps who'd tried and failed to blow off a lock with a .22 or birdshot and only signalled to that side of town they were trying to rip some olace off.

You bust the lock, that's B and E... the British, no - Scottish girl had it right. Shotgun girl too - it would've been better if they parked it down the road, out of the way, but he suspected Jennifer wasn't going to bother now - and to be honest, the van wasn't in his name either, so it slipped past a point of him caring. Instead, he pulled out a maglite from his toolbag and quickly pointed it at the ground in front of him to make sure he wasn't stepping into any sinkholes, then did the same for the fence.

Lily and Jennifer climbed over first, the former whining about ruining her pants, which prompted Clay to briefly double check there wasn't anything he was going to snag himself on, before carefully maneuvering himself up and over the gate, before dropping to the other side with a faint, sucking splash. "Here-" he said to Charlie, pointing for the same foot and gandholds so the girl would know where to go. Zeltzin seemed like she'd pulled a muscle or twisted something coming over, and he figured it wouldn't be good if another one of the girls ended up the same way - things were slow enough as is.

"... What. In. The. FUCK?" Lily's exclamation caught his attention and his gaze shifted over to the... effigy. Clay blinked, realised it was still there, then squinted hard, his own torch beam further illuminating its features. For a moment, he thought it was some transient or junkie lost in the swamps, then he noted the antlers arcing out towards the treeline in either direction, the fact that whatever tissues - fur and otherwise, looked like it had been moldering there for at least a week, roots and moss growing through its 'body' until it might as well have been a permanent fixture.

His sentiments were shared with Lily. What the fuck? Even by his own standards, this counted among some of the strangest things he'd seen.

"Yooooooo, what the fuck? I seen a lotta' shit, but I ain't eva' seen some shit like that?"

"Yeah, um.... let's... keep moving."

"Fuckin' swamp people." Clay muttered. Somehow, he suspected this was either the work of some locals, on bath salts or otherwise, or some dumbass fratboys off on Spring Break. Who else propped up a warped take on hybrid taxidermy in the middle of this shithole? He glanced over his shoulder, bristled at the notion of being in the company of even more strange characters, and paced over towards one of the others with a degree of impatience.

The other girl, one of the last to come over - Neko - was too busy fumbling for something in the ground. Her phone, he'd guessed. The longer they were here, the less he wanted to linger. Clay grunted, pointing his torch beam at the ground towards what he thought might've been a phone-shaped indentation, and gestured to Neko.

Recollections: Who Is Eleanor Black [CANCELLED]

@FernStone@Punished GN
Webb Family Coffee House

---

Clay quietly gulped down mouthfuls of caffeine while the group engaged in the discussion around their next plan.

The Doctor's words were stuck in his head.

Magic?

The jar that Lily had taken reminded him of those homeopathic treatments he'd seen too many fall into alongside the rest of the New Age bullshit. He wrinkled his nose. It reminded him of a bad case he'd seen a long while back, some mother who'd tried to treat her kid's near-terminal illness with another snake oil solution.

But if she `was what qualified for a doctor around here, maybe that set the example for what to expect. For all he knew it was a local recipe, a key to a bad trip.

He blinked it off, focusing back to what he was supposed to be here for. Where the group were going, this old rotting family mansion that may or may not have had what they were looking for, and how it related to what he came here for in the business. One loose end, and a retirement plan.

There were a few snags to his plan.

One. That was assuming his retirement fund was there.

Two. Finding the fund, and getting it out. Assuming Black, or whoever she was, hadn't already split it up and buried it in different parts, he had to figure out how to work around the others.

All they knew was Carl - a First Responder looking for his wife, or at least that's the story they'd been sold. Whether they bought it, well... he wasn't sure, but he'd not given any indication otherwise, or at least he didn't think he had.

Three. Black herself, or whatever name she was going by. The Black he knew, the wily bitch who, as far as he could tell, had turned on her fellow badge and ditched town with a share of something that was rightfully his, was no louch. She'd be trouble to deal with, if she was around. And if she wasn't, if she'd already ditched town, with or without the retirement fund, well - Clay wondered if he wanted to spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder.

Cross that bridge when /I/ get there, he figured, glancing at the others.

Most of them were kids anyhow, and he didn't want them getting caught up in his business - that was a headache for him, and he wasn't interested in seeing them hurt. Yeah, he did things his way, made sure he got his dues, but he wasn't a monster.

Monsters, Werewolves and Ghoulies, huh. He snorted at the thought, almost interrupting the conversation that was taking place. Maybe it was them who got that 'Gene and the other one. They were apparently responsible for the girls that had gone missing, now that struck him as something off.

And judging by the point they'd caught up to....

"-hour? There might be monsters. There might be something worse. But, as long as we're out during the day, everything should be fine."

"But, I saw something at the motel. When...- I was at the motel... I saw a woman, but there was something wrong with her. It was like she was a... ghost."

"... You may have seen an Apparition."

"Ya, that's what I'm saying, I mean- uh, never mind. We'll, um, just meet in the motel in an hour?"

Neither Clay nor 'Carl' could argue with that. He threw her an affirmative expression, motioning to finish his coffee while the others slowly filtered out.

---

It was the waiting that had him thinking as he stood over the back of the car.

He glanced over his shoulder, a little wary. Keys were in his pocket. If the other two had cut their losses and run, then there was nothing stopping him.

Something kept his interest, either way. And deep down, he couldn't be honest with himself and say he was only here to tie up loose ends, right now. A part of himself he had figured was buried under years of apathy, weariness and paperwork.

"Ain' a badge anymore, just don't know it yet," he chuckled, almost bitterly, then shrugged, "Gonna get my ass chomped by Nosferatu."

Still, they were out in the ass-end of the swamps, real society miles away. He wasn't chancing it. Between the locals, the wildlife, and all the rumours, there usually wasn't some smoke without fire. Odds were, this town had a nasty problem with tweakers, and he wasn't taking any chances there. He popped the trunk, then pulled back a sheet to check he'd got everything he'd need. A pair of rugged boots, gloves for when he needed to handle some extra wear and tear - or otherwise ensure he didn't leave anything behind - and a dufflebag with a couple of tools that'd come in handy. After all... one thing he'd learned was a degree of self sufficiency, and the motto 'If you're gonna do it, don't half-ass it.'

He did carry a maglite, too, which was probably good for smacking a junkie in the face in a pinch, but under his waistband was where he'd come heavy.

One last thing to check, before the other showed up. He dropped the trunk, then circled around to the driver's side of his car. He knelt, felt underneath the wheel well. Yep, there we go.

It was about as ready as he was going to be.

Recollections: Who Is Eleanor Black [CANCELLED]

@Fernstone @Punished GN
Sybil A. Harkness MD.

---

"... and keep your damn head on a swivel, especially at night. There are some things here that are a lot worse than an alligator, or a methhead."

Clay's expression crinkled at that - there was something about Sybil's phrasing that seemed deliberate. A gut feeling at the pit of his stomach. Fuck. What was he caught up in? It wasn't completely out of the question that some backwater place like this, families with old blood and deep roots, there were some folks pulling the strings. He'd not run into the local sheriff's department yet, or even seen a passing cruiser at this stage, but he could've guessed they knew who everyone was, and could pick out everyone who wasn't.

He'd heard stories of just how far that could go. Hell, he'd lived it back home, having to deal with things a certain way, well outside the realms of due process.

Instinct was that he could cut and run, but he was committed to this now. If he went home, tail between his legs, there was a fifty fifty chance he could end the year with the clothes on his back and nothing more. Riskier chance he might end up in a cell. That wasn't ideal, and given his history, he wasn't sure if those were the terms he wanted to go down on.

Leaning forward, he pressed the doctor further; "What's been said here, stays between us, so just level with me," 'Carl' asked, "Who are we talking about - people willin' to hurt folks for asking questions?" Briefly, he glanced off to one side, keeping his tone fairly hushed. "Look, she's just trying to find someone who mattered to her. You figure where these girls went? At least, y'know, I can keep an eye on these two, keep 'em outta trouble."

Recollections: Who Is Eleanor Black [CANCELLED]

@FernStone@Punished GN
Sybil A Harkness MD

Clay's brow arched for a just a second as they were led in past the receptionist, the nurse, all the way to Doctor Harkness herself.

This wasn't quite quite he was expecting either; small town family doctor out in the swamps, at the least he expected someone older. That might've gone either way for them, he rationalised.

The act - she wasn't buying it either - not that he expected it would've worked for too long - and he got the impression doubling down hard would throw up walls. Best to go with a soft approach. Before Lily or Charlie could blow it for them, he decided to speak up, projecting as best of a warm, disarming expression as he could.

"Look, bein' honest I just ran into these girls, saw this one seemed a little green aroun' the gills. I help take care of a fire crew up in Memphis, so I get it, but I always figure best to play it safe, but..." he shrugged. "I'm a Tennessee boy, so I know how tourists up north an' east can't take too much sun like us..." he chuckled, trailing off a little, then projected a warm expression .

He offered out a hand to her, projecting a warm expression, "Hell, I bet you get enough tourists on your plate as-is, huh?" he led on, projecting that warm persona. "Name's Carl - sorry for wastin' your time."

Recollections: Who Is Eleanor Black [CANCELLED]

@FernStone@Punished GN
Sybil A Harkness MD

---

"... not going to believe me when I say this, but magic? It's real. So are monsters and ghosts and other nasty things. Your fearless leader clearly has magic herself. I wooooould elaborate buuuuuuut... I can tell by the looks on your faces that you think I'm crazy! But, you all will find out on your own soon enough. Just uhhhhh... if you see a deer with flayed skin: run. If you see a tree with a talking skull on it: run. If you see a skeleton in a robe with a gold necklace: run. If you see a green werewolf... you're probably already dead. And whatever you do, stay out of the swamp - especially at night. I'll be around!"

Clay's expression crinkled as Odessa pulled away, but he didn't take things any further. That girl's skin was clammy, and cold. Only way he could describe it.
"What the fuck wqs that?" Lily asked, and he shrugged. "Better we don't get involved," She didn't have any track marks that anyone could see, and though she was cold she didn't exactly have the rotting teeth associated with meth mouth or sticking to the pipe. "If its drugs, or other issues, folk like that can get unpredictable if you push 'em while they're spiralling." Mental illness was another possibility, but some things didn't fully add up. She was awfully specific, and the spiel she'd run her mouth off on suggested she was going through some kind of episode. Didn't matter, he figured. They soon moved on.

"... Let's get a move on. Remember: we're going with the heatstroke story."

Nodding, Clay briefly gestured his palms towards Charlie.

"Doctor's gonna figure out quick that you're full of shit, so make sure you do it right. Remember, don't talk too much. You're head's gonna be spinnin', feelin' like you wanna throw up even if you've got nothin' in you, maybe your body's gonna feelin' tight like you got cramps everywhere. Head's gonna feel like it's on fire, and you're gonna be thirsty."

Then, as an aside, he chuckled "Anythin' else, we can really just put it down to you being a weak-ass tourist."

For added effect, Clay gently reached out for Charlie's tricep to lead her along into the waiting room.

"Hiiiiiii, mami, is Dr. Harkness available? Too obvious that. How's an out of towner gonna know the doctor's name firsthand? Sure, it wasn't implausible - there was a sign outside that read Sybil Harkness MD - but Clay felt it gave the game away a little too early.

"She's in the middle of someone's check-up, is this an emergency?"

"Ummm... Mami over here... she hasn't been feeling too good?

That was Charlie's cue. “I feel faint," she mumbled, "Think I’m gonna be sick.”

He felt the British girl lurch forward, almost on cue - and braced his feet to take some of her weight, just enough that when the girl accidentally lost her footing, he was better suited to take her weight. Instead of toppling over and pulling him down with her, she ended up swinging around into his side, with 'Carl' propping her up, "Woah, hang on-.." Playing this a little too well, maybe. With a grunt, he shifted the girl's weight against his shoulder to stabilise the both of them, then apologetically nodded to the receptionist.

"Sorry, ma'am," he interjected, not wanting to get on the receptionist's bad side with their unsolicited drop-in anymore than they probably had, "I'm not from around here - but I ran into these girls and this one looks like she might have been out in the sun too long, so I figured to get her checked out. I looked her over quick, but I think she's better off gettin' a professional's eyes on her. I'll wait with her while the Doctor finishes up, if that's alright."