Hell Toupee 4 - I Know Where You Live This Winter

During a tea visit, Maya's sanctum gets woogy.

Date: 12/04/2018	Overgrown Ruins, Upper East Side This space, surrounded by three half-crumbled sections of brick wall, might have once been a large central airshaft or courtyard. The entire area is maybe thirty or thirty-five feet on each side, forming a substantial working space in the center of the overgrown ruins. Plants have been cleared away from all but the edges and corners, except for some grasses and tough mosses that create splotches of green one can still walk on. Smooth river rocks have been laid in bare earth, outlining a perfect circle and crossed lines that indicate the cardinal directions: a medicine wheel. The stones are almost completely buried so that the ground stays roughly level, only the top surfaces of the rocks showing and forming shallow bumps. In one corner where the walls meet, someone has created a sort of outdoor kitchen or workspace. A large locking metal train trunk rests on what looks like a block of poured concrete; the box is solid, its top at roughly working-counter height, its black-enameled surface scuffed. It still bears traces of some company's early-twentieth-century decal at one end, and clearly is an antique from the days when ship and rail travel were the main means of long-distance transportation. There's often a camp stove set on top, with a kettle standing ready. Beside the large trunk is a red-enameled cooler, probably dating back to the 1950s. A cylindrical water cooler sits nearby, on top of stacked cinderblocks. In inclement weather, sometimes a tarp gets stretched over that work area, protecting a span of space big enough for a laid-out tarp and some meditation pillows for sitting.
Cast: Maya Roz Storyteller: Aster
Maya's arranged to meet Roz here for some tea and a chat, perhaps; when the woman shows up, Maya is still tending the tea kettle. Roz arrives in her usual fashion: loud enough to easily hear, and clearly intentionally so. She picks her way through the overgrown bits, and emerges with a smile and a tupperware container. Maya half-turns, offering the tall woman a swift smile. "Hey! Um, water's not boiled yet, it's freezing c--" Yes, it's freezing cold, but that has nothing to do with the chill that runs up their spines. To Roz, that's where it ends, a shiver prickling at her skin and letting her know that something /feels weird/. Something here, but she just can't narrow it beyond that. But this is Maya's sanctum; she knows the atmosphere of this place. That eerie feeling comes from a box of hers -- the place where she'd left Dominic's toupee after that encounter in the club. Maya's eyes widen, and her attention snaps to the stacked trunks and things as she goes suddenly silent. "Roz," she says softly. "Something might happen. Something *is* happening. If you can see spirits, maybe check." She heads over to her makeshift storage area and starts unstacking. Roz shudders just about then, and gives a nod, saying nothing. It's clear she sensed something, as well. She hurries to begin focusing her attention away from this world, though she does briefly glance to the stacked trunks first. Her brow is furrowed, fists clenched, and she tries to peek into the Umbra and see what she can see. How does Maya collect so much /stuff/? Even picking through the stack will take some time, to find the item in question. And that sense isn't dissipating; whatever's happening isn't a one-off, but continuous. To Roz, the Umbra looks the same as it usually does out here: bright white streets, populated by gleaming chrome robots, like a Jetsons image of the future. Whatever strange thing is going on, it's not from the spirit world. "What are you *doing*," Maya mutters, as she takes a step back. Then she starts chanting softly, taking a stone from one pocket and holding it in her hand, touching a hand to the crystal at her throat. She starts chanting, using her boots to stomp and scuff out a background rhythm. "He-yah, I see you. He-yah, I hear you... he-yah, I see how it is." Roz makes sure to look in the general direction she thinks the boxes were in, and where she thinks Maya herself might be, just to be sure there's nothing there before she withdraws. But once she does, she blinks several times as she gets her bearings, and then notes quietly at some point in between the bits that look magicky to a layman, "Nothing out of the ordinary I could spot." That eerie feeling doesn't just remain, but /builds/, growing swiftly stronger, as if to finish its business as quickly as possible. With that, the sensation narrows in more closely. Roz still sees nothing amiss in the Umbra -- or at least, nothing more amiss than usual -- but it's definitely coming from that stack of boxes. The Dreamspeaker keeps chanting, using the rock now as an instrument, tapping it against a copper bracelet. "Na-i-yah, I am part of it. Te-i-yah, you are part of it. Iya-ya-i, all part of the same mother earth. Show me, show me what you are..." She moves in a binding circle around the big chest, as well. Maya's expression is grim, almost savage, her dance getting sharper. With that little bit of extra chanting, Maya finds that her dance naturally centres her facing on one corner in particular of that chest. And there it is -- the box she's stashed away and stuffed with quartz, all around the human-hair toupee. The way the box stands out for her -- it feels almost like piggybacking on another's magic as well as her own. Like the whole purpose is to find it -- to filter through everywhere it /can/ be, and zero in on exactly where that toupee has been hiding all this time. Roz heads over to where Maya is, though she keeps enough distance between them to respect whatever Maya's up to, or at least to make clear she's trying to, anyway. She's quiet for now, standing in a ready stance in case she'll be needed. It's clear she's trying not to interrupt if Maya's doing that magic that she do so well. Maya mutters a word that is definitely *not* part of the chant, and then switches to the sharp, glottal-rich sounds of Salish. "Iya-ya-i, he'qvtxa--" Another stone comes out of a pocket, this one rounded and smooth, polished by glacier action millennia ago. She approaches and rocks back, approaches and rocks back, stomping out a stronger circle that seems far more focused and aggressive now. Through that chant, Maya's mind reaches out, to follow to where all places are one. But when all are one, how can she narrow down to the one that she needs? Flashes run through her thoughts, glimpses before her mind's eye. A venomous look in amber eyes; dark, feminine lips moving in a harsh and guttural chant; hairs and other fibres being fed into a fire. And as that magic continues, her opponent withdraws, with those burning fibres burning off the trail as she goes. It won't last long. "I *will* find you," Maya chants. "I *will* see you." With that little bit more effort, that little bit more /will/, Maya finds the right track to follow back down from all-space. She gets a full look, then: a woman with dark mocha skin and light brown hair, her clothes old and shabby but her amber eyes intense. And having followed the thread, she can trace it back and know just where she's looking. Farther up in the upper east side, deeper in the disused places of measure 2. But the woman glares back, seeming to lock eyes with Maya. She throws the rest of that fistful of fibres onto the fire, and the trail swiftly collapses. The link holds for as long as Maya can get it. Looking on this amber-eyed woman through such magical sight, it's natural she'd see more than her mundane face. She'd /feel/ the sense of bitter darkness and vengeful fury hanging around her, a taste of the maleficient magic she prefers. Maya should maybe count herself lucky that this particular spell was just about finding her. You know, depending on what she does with that information. But as the last hair burns, the spell shivers and falls apart, and Maya finds her senses dropped back into her own body. Maya finally stops that stomping dance, eyes wild as she catches her breath. "Fuck," she whispers. "I gotta ward this place." Roz has been watching closely with a serious fascination, and she tilts her head as Maya comes back to reality. "Okay. Do you need layman's help? Should I like, be here in case something happens? Also, what *is* happening, anyway? Everything looked business as usual when I peeked." She crosses her arms. "Does something need its arms ripped off? I've kind of always wanted to try that." The Dreamspeaker takes a deep breath... and then practically jumps three feet in the air as the kettle starts to whistle.