[x] Get the book you borrowed.
[Atyche liked that.]
"I'm going to finish the job I started. I'm going to get the book and I'm going to go back to my job and get a favour from my boss for it."
"Oh my." Atyche covers a laugh with her hand. "Aren't you a hard worker? Very domestic."
You glare at her but decide against a reply. Setting off back the way you came, it takes you about twenty minutes to make way back to the apartment. The gang has gone from the street around it, leaving only blood trails and pools of crimson. You worry about Rayburn. Hopefully he'll find his way back to you.
Atyche opens the door and gestures you inside. The book is on the shelf with many others, heavy and black bound. "I've got everything I can from it, it's yours now."
"What is it exactly?" You pick it up, see the familiar stamps and lamination of the library, the expensive covers fixed around with synthetic to keep them from marking.
"An account of the minions of fate. The watcher and its ilk, as you now harbor."
It's so normal for a book containing this. For a moment you feel like the bottom of the world fell out. This morning you were just doing a normal job. Filing books, working nights for extra money. You had unrealistic plans, had dreams of making it. Had a stable world.
And now? What do you have? How many of your plans are even slightly good?
You sink down into one of the armchairs and begin to cry. Atyche's arms go around you slowly. She makes shushing noises. "It'll be okay."
"It's never been okay! Not once!"
"Leigna!" You look up to see Rayburn coming through the door. He's hurt, bloody from a dozen minor scratches, and with a black eye. His knives have disappeared. He rushes forward, then looks at Atyche. "Are you okay?"
You collect yourself, cough, then nod. "You're hurt."
"I'm okay. I was fighting with the gang when some
thing came up out of the sewers at us. We got separated then, and I had to double back. I got in here…" He cuts off. "It's worse than it looks."
"Let me clean your wounds. You might have got red rain in them." Atyche walks around Rayburn, pushes him down into the other armchair and brings a medical kit over from the kitchen.
"How do you know how to fight so well Ray?" You lean back in your armchair. "Those knives, those moves, they weren't something a regular university student would know."
"Would you believe I learned in a university dueling society?" He says, then winces as Atyche pushes a compress against the cut above his eye.
"No."
"We're called the Eleos."
You'd kind of guessed. Leftist rebels, called anarchists by some. Criminals against the order of the city. Someone like him. Someone like him would be an obvious candidate for recruitment. You nod.
"Leigna, my cell would really like to get ahold of that book. I was sent to the library to study material like that. I have a forged version that'll stand up to scrutiny for a while, but we badly want the information inside there. It'll be a favour, and I'm willing to pay."
[ ] "Alright..."
[Hand over the book, receive +1 Resources and +2 Favor (Eleos)]
[ ] "No, not yet, it's too dangerous."
"Either way. I should drive you back home. There's a city wide curfew coming down within two hours. No one allowed out."
"What about you?" You ask Atyche.
"I think I'll make myself scarce for a while. I'll look you up when I figure out a way to tamp down on your passenger." She pulls a bag out from under the desk and holds it up, her tattoos glowing. It starts to vacuum up her books, growing no larger as it does. Rayburn watches, fascinated.
"Alright" You push up, suddenly exhausted. "Let's go."
--Δ--
You wake up with the street lights coming on through your blinds. A police ornithopter buzzes past in the dusk, searchlights sweeping. You roll over and look down at yourself. You're still wearing your work shirt and stockings, your outer clothes discarded near the bed when you fell into it. You only intended to rest your eyes for a minute before you took a shower and ate a meal. You should do that now.
The world distorts, flickering with a red overlay. You blink, and suddenly you're upright, walking across the room.
Oh woe. Oh endless sorrow.
For I am trapped.
And these clumsy hands...
You right to grab back control, feeling the Watcher stir within you, pulling you across the room for all your attempts to resist it. Finally it stops before your full length mirror and reaches down for your hairbrush.
That's when you manage to force your eyes shut and regain control of your body.
Your hair. You must fix your hair.
You snarl a little, open your eyes and glare into the mirror. Your new body is as you've always wanted it. Less thin, with shapely muscles and just enough plump to only become apparent when you tense. Your hair really is in a state, having grown and regained some of the weft and thickness that stress and cheap food had cost you.
"Why do you even care about my appearance?" You sniff. The mirror finally confronts you with a face and body that isn't a stranger's, and it has to be like this. With this passenger watching you through your own eyes.
You focused my power to strengthen this corpus, knowing it would make you beautiful.
I am forced to admire it too.
"It's not for you."
How ungrateful.
I could have given you nothing.
It's not like I want to be in here anymore than you want me.
"You're the one who tried to possess me."
It was necessary. I was ordered.
"And now? I heard it. Your god denying you a place in his kingdom."
It's true. I am stuck here. All I can do is make the best of it.
You're saved from further discourse by the phone ringing. The ring tone for your other work. You pick up, The Watcher now making no attempt to control your body. "Hello?"
"Hey Liegna, it's Foresti." Your immediate boss at the cabaret. You mostly stand bar, though you sometimes wait tables. On the busy nights they prefer the prettier and more sociable staff for the former. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah. I managed to get back home before the curfew." You walk to the window and peer out. A line of troops in heavy rain gear carrying automatic rifles are moving down the skybridge below, torches up.
"Has anyone else called you?"
"No? Is someone missing?"
"You know Halna? Cute, short, short hair?"
"Yeah."
"I can't get hold of her."
"She hasn't contacted me." You've got her address. You could probably get there from where you are now fairly easily, especially with the powers of the watcher you feel boiling inside you. It might be dangerous, but people like you have to stick together.
What will you do?
[ ] Go to her address by using the streets, which would be faster.
[ ] Go to her address by using using back alleys, which is unlikely to result in encounters.
[ ] Go to her address by using rooftops and balconies, which will be challenging but sneaky.
[ ] Call Cadmey and see if you'll do you a favour and track her glass.
