But who are you?

[K. R. Jakes]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)



[K. R. Jakes] The apartment of K. R. Jakes has seen more than its fair share of (strange) visitors [pilgrims]. Today, while afternoon sunlight washes through the dismal white of snow-pregnant clouds, while wind wolf-whistles through street signs, around iron street-lamps, Kage is home; whatever job she has does not require that she go out (freelance researcher, she'd said, whatever that meant, way back in November when Jon and Kage met briefly). Her door is unlocked, and more importantly, open, and there are stacks of books on the ground, just inside, to trip anybody who tried to enter, and Kage? Kage is curled up on her couch, whereon two piles of books lean toward her, reading one of them. There is music, too! Rock. Not conducive to reading, but there you go.



[Jonathan Kincade] There had been so much that had gone down since Kage and Jon had met that first time. There was the information he had collected from Bean's trash file. the visitation from the Chantry's spirit, then the discovery that the Chantry's Guardians had been slain. Then they had been drawn to this apartment, where had met a strange creepy mage.



He had a lot of questions, and not many answers. So here he is just outside of Kage's apartment approaching it steadily. Upon reaching the open door, he raps his knuckles on the timber "Hello anyone home?"



[K. R. Jakes] [Lalala awareness?! Do you resonate?!]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 6, 6, 8, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)



[K. R. Jakes] He had a lot of questions and not many answers, so here he is. Kage lifts her eyes from her book and sets it down. Then she crawls across the couch, resting her elbows on the couch arm, while she lean, leans forward to look at whoever is framed in her doorway. Jonathan Kincade: a familiar face with a name attached. Jonathan Kincade. Didn't he have a dojo? "Yes. Hello? Can I help you?"



[Jonathan Kincade] Jonathan is a man with a clear practical mind and his magic is the same. It would remind someone of building blocks , pieces of a puzzle being put together. A logical sequence order being perfected, a multitude of lines of code reduced to the most simple form. The faint traces of a spell in his eyes, a map connected by lines .. moving around as if he was searching for something or someone.



[Jonathan Kincade] "Yes Ms Jakes, I'm not sure if you remember me I'm Jonathan Kincade... we met some time ago. I've been meaning to drop by sooner, but things just seem to keep getting in the road. I was hoping we might be able to talk... about ..business." He waits at the door till he is invited inside.



[K. R. Jakes] I've been meaning to drop by sooner, he says, and Kage raises an eyebrow. The longer she looks at Jonathan the more she gets a sense of his Otherness: constructive, refined; a mage of stability, solidity, of numbers and graphs. Of maps. Her breath stills for a second; tangles in her throat, catches: leaf, sailing down a river, stones on either side, brambles, roots, water-weeds. "Oh," she says, and her gaze shades ironic. "Why the hell not? Come on in; shut the door. And it's just Kage, Jon."



[Jonathan Kincade] He nods as he steps into the apartment and closes the door behind him "Okay Kage it is" as he heads over and begins looking for a seat "Yeah I dropped by a couple of weeks ago, but it seemed you had gone out. I met an interesting man though who also seemed intent on visiting you. Very strange... almost morbid.. I don't know how to describe him. Definitely creepy though."



"I was wondering though, if you've been told about the recent events at the Chantry ?"



"

[K. R. Jakes] He has to take a step down into her living room. As mentioned before, there are stacks of books everywhere just now. And a small, old fireplace, which has been freshly cleared of books, and there is a small fire within new-built. There is soot on Kage's cheek, dark smudge against pale skin; soot on her wrists, too.



There is a music stand, walnut, of good wood, and a violin against one of the bookshelves -- there are many bookshelves, and wall-hangings, tapestries and beeswax candles and a few [medievalism] knicknacks. The floor is wood, and has been covered by a threadbare and faded rug. The dining room is to the right, and has a plain table, with some binders and the laptop, a trough of candles and a stuffed rabbit. The kitchen opens into the dining room, but that's all the way over there. Not-quite-straight-ahead [crooked lines] there is a hallway. More stairs, not too many. Just a leg up. As for seats, there is the chair Kage is sitting on -- a leather armchair, next to that, and some pre-raphaelite looking wooden chair on the other side, which looks a shade uncomfortable.



She makes an open-handed gesture, inviting Jonathan to take a seat whereever he would like. "Ah," she says, and knows precisely who Jonathan means. "Yes. Him. Did you two speak?" Emily hadn't been kidding when she said there were a bunch of Us outside that day, it seems. "What were you doing here? A couple of weeks ago?" Kage stands up, closing her book altogether and putting it down on her chest-as-coffee-table. Then she frowns, until she spies the remote control to awesome sound system. Because loud music is not conducive to talk. And ACDCs Back In Black is not what she wants playing in the background while she is discussing the White Fence House.



"Would you tell me?" re: recent events at the Chantry, which isn't exactly an answer, but she gives him such a [wistful (pensive)] dark-eyed look when she asks. And also: "And would you like something to drink? Eat?"



---back in Black, turned off.



[Jonathan Kincade] He looks around the room, and a small part of him is envious. All these books.. there was something about the smell of pages as they were turned. Although there was also something grand about searchable text and indexing. He takes a seat and waits for the music to be turned off.



"We spoke... very briefly.. just to find out why the other was there. I didn't really get a suitable answer at the time."



"As for myself I was there to see you.. I'd been searching about on the Net and had come across a list of people. The file belonged to Henri Bean.. and it had the names and contact numbers of several mages, Including marla and jackson."



"As for the Chantry.. were you told about the fight that took place there?... that Marla and Jackson are no longer with us?" he frowns for a moment.."Oh um .. yeah a coffee would be great."



[Jonathan Kincade] "As for myself I was there to see Ms Smith(can't remember name)..I was assisting her with a online shopping site. She needed someone with database experience. When I arrived at the apartment building I noticed your name on the post boxes. So figured I'd come up and say hi."



[K. R. Jakes] "I'm sorry, but who are you? What are you? I'd like you to give your shape some definition. Please." Kage does go into the kitchen and starts a pot of coffee. French press, so it will be thick and velvety when it is done. Her supply of coffee is nowhere near as extensive as her supply of tea: something easily obtainable, but not poor in quality. There Jonathan goes, using us. In this case, us could be 'the living,' and it doesn't set Kage's alarms off the way it usually does. "Were you there? At the White Fence House?"





[Jonathan Kincade] He frowns "As I said I'm Jonathan Kincade, I am also a Mage like you, however I am a Virtual Adept....an initiate." this woman was particularly strange, he watched her from his chair.



"And yes I was at the White Fence house... I was the one that found Marla and Jackson."



[K. R. Jakes] The coffee brews, and Kage leans against her kitchen counter, up on her tiptoes, elbows on the flat surface and dark (resonant) eyes on Jonathan while he sits in her chair and watches her. They watch each other; they're having a conversation. This is what people do. Normal people. They're just a couple of normal people. And Jonathan? is a pretty damned fine looking normal person. Eyecandy, good. As I said, he says, and her mouth quirks [true smile, sheathed; a promise, not a threat]. "That's what I wanted to know," she says, seriously. "Whether you were a traditionalist or a conventional. A virtual adept? I'm surprised you didn't ping me up on Trillian under some mysterious, troll-like username." He was the one that found Marla and Jackson. That news drains anything but gravity from her eyes. "How were they?" Besides dead, she means. Was it a mess.



[Jonathan Kincade] He raises an eyebrow as he catches her watching him, perhaps more intently than absolutely necessary. He doesn't seem to mind though and offers her a smile.



"They were.....well it wasn't pretty... poor Emily followed me in .. she nearly keeled over from the site." he sighs shaking his head, as his eyes close trying to remove the image from his mind.



"Heh sorry I'm sorta new to doing a lot of this...outside the confines of my office. So I haven't had much practice dealing with the others, though that's been changing recently." his mind flicking to someone.



"I guess I could have contacted you that way. But these days a random message appearing on a screen is likely to get treated as spam. or a virus."



[K. R. Jakes] Aw. He caught her (did he?) noticing that he wasn't too bad looking. And, aw. His resonance might be refined, but his social skills aren't. Badum, pum. Kage echoes the smile [there, promise half-revealed], and then listens.



"Don't apologize," she says, when he does so. "Why did you decide to ... leave the confines of your office? I'm not complaining. I'm just curious. Changing recently, hm?" And she straightens, tucks a lock of redred [heart's blood] hair back behind one ear, and she takes a mug out of a cabinet. "Milk with your coffee? Sugar?"



A beat. And then: "I apologize in advance if I'm forcing you to think about something you don't want to. But -- Marla and Jackson. Did it look like -- ritual? Or were they both shot?"



[Jonathan Kincade] He pauses and thinks "The reason I left my office ? I guess I realised I need to learn more about the world around me. What was happening in Chicago. Normally I'm in my classroom trying to get students to think outside the box. Figured it was time I listened to my own advice."



"Hmm no.. not really. A few years back really, but I never felt I knew enough. So have spent that time trying to acquire more knowledge. As for the coffee.. black with two sugars."



He frowns as he goes back to that image "It is actually hard to say... their bodies were pretty much massacred. Blood and remains everywhere."



[K. R. Jakes] Black it is. Black as the inside of a grave. That kind of black. They'd also call it sin, down south and over eastwards, sin-black. The smell of coffee is a smell that even people who don't like coffee admit is addictive. Two sugars, plunk, plunk, and a spoon to stir it with -- Kage brings these things out of the kitchen and hands the mug off to Jonathan, and then she reclaims her seat on the couch, curling up, book-pile half-collapsing on her again, Tarot symbology, falling tower.



"Hmm," she says, as she uncurls long enough to stack the books on the floor. "Thank you, anyway. For trying to remember."



[Jonathan Kincade] He sips at the coffee "mmm that's good thankyou. Yeah I'm sorry I couldn't provide more detail, but the police force could already be heard. We needed to clean up the scene, place security and get out of there pretty quickly."



He eyes the tarot card with vague interest, though the image means nothing to him.



"The thing that drew me to the Chantry though.. the weirdist thing... I was visited in my head by something... it called me to that house that night. I'm not sure if was an after effect of my research on the Digital Web where I found the Chantry and well a lot of other information."



[K. R. Jakes] "Don't apologize," she says, again. No coffee for herself, but there is a mug on the chest already, something the colour of fire-warmed stone, something that almost glows with colour, and it is half-full of something else. "And I doubt it was an aftereffect of your research. I don't think the others were researching the White Fence House at all." A brief pause, and curiousity, along with a mymy what are you doing: "What other information?"



[Jonathan Kincade] He nods at that.. the second time she made the comment "Well I was searching for other Magi in Chicago as I didn't really know many. Anyway I happened across a file that contained a series of names, phone numbers and addresses. Several of the names I knew, it also included the names of Marla and Jackson. That's how I first came to know of the White Fence House.... I actually visited the house via the Digital Web.. that's how I found out Marla was a Dreamspeaker as well as other sensitive information."



[K. R. Jakes] He actually visited the house via the Digital Web. And Kage? looks perplexed. "Like a ghost? I'm not very tech savvy." This is said with a touch of rue [and preparation (ranting revolutionaries)]. But she doesn't apologize for it. Look around: her apartment was pre-Raphaelite medievalism + some expensive technology (that sound system [that laptop]). No computer books, though. None that Jonathan can see. Just what Tradition was she part of? He could guess.



After a long look, she forces herself to glance down, instead, to contemplate the corner of her rug. Fine [plain] features, thoughtful. Not irradiated, because ... well, because. The rug is fraying a little, as if moths have played some game with it. There's a splotch of ink half-beneath her couch. She should get that looked at.



[Jonathan Kincade] "Mmm somewhat like a ghost. But the House actually has it's own presence on the Web due to Marla having an unprotected Internet link. I found the network address and transferred my digital icon too it." Indeed her house did have him puzzled, now it was time for her to hopefully answer some questions "What about you Kage.. I've shared a bit of my story, what about yourself? Lets start with your tradiition ?"



[K. R. Jakes] She considers his explanation, and what she is imagining likely is not at all what the Digital Web is actually like. Kage is imagining ghost-structures of luminous numbers; she is imagining the Matrix and Hackers, imagining glass cities of nothing at all but information echos, easily encrypted, easily broken-open. She is also, very likely, thinking warily of her own apartment [not that every damned mage in the city doesn't wander by eventually anyway].



Some of this, the musing quality to her consideration, bleeds into her tone when she answers his question: "I don't have a Tradition. I'm with myself."



[Jonathan Kincade] He sits quietly and looks at her "And that satisfies you?" he askes simply.



[K. R. Jakes] A moment of silence. This silence is grave, is studious. Kage makes of Jonathan Kincade a study, as if he were a book she might read. Then she smiles -- briefly [radiant (ardent)]. The smile touches her eyes with a hidden gorgeousness (the kind that faerie has, in books). "Nothing satisfies me. But it is was my choice. Not my only option."



[K. R. Jakes] ooc: ack wait, no, punctuation bad. "Nothing satisfies me. But it was my choice, not my only option."



[Jonathan Kincade] Jon frowns "Nothing satisfies you ?" an eyebrow raised "Hmm an interesting choice... I guess it depends on what you believe in. Even though I could say my choice was inevitable.. perhaps it wasn't. So what were your other options?" It doesn't pass his notice though, the way her face lights up... he wondered what he had said that caused such a reaction.



[K. R. Jakes] "Of course." That was for the raised eyebrow. That was for the echo, making her words into a question. And so is this: "Are you satisfied?" Kage blinks once at Jonathan and rakes her fingers through her hair, half-damp from an earlier shower, all touched by brass, by copper, from the fire -- which is the counter-rhythm to their conversation [not the kind of conversation she was expecting to have at all]. "And, ah. I don't believe in inevitability, not really."



[Uh, shoot. I lost the rest of the transcript. Blah blah. More chatting ensues!]