Olga Interlude

1/23/2009

12:20 PM
Logfile from GarouMUSH.

Currently the moon is in the waning New Moon phase (17% full).
It is currently 12:18 Pacific Time on Fri Jan 23 2009.
Currently in Saint Claire, it is a cloudy day. The temperature is 33 degrees Fahrenheit (0 degrees Celsius). The wind is currently coming in from the northeast at 6 mph. The barometric pressure reading is 30.24 and rising, and the relative humidity is 92 percent. The dewpoint is 31 degrees Fahrenheit (0 degrees Celsius.)

Odeon - Upstairs Lounge(#3729RAJ)
This is one of the few rooms in the theatre which gets enough light during the day not to trip over one's own feet. One whole wall has a wide bank of filthy windows which look out west onto the filthier street below. Across from the stairs are the washrooms, and the projectionist's booth is nestled in to the left of them. In a corner is a wooden construction that must once have been a wide, comfortable bench, but all the padding has been removed except for rare traces, and it's now just rough plywood and unsanded boards. The walls are a creamy yellow though they probably weren't painted that colour, and everything's grimy and dusty. The corner opposite the bench, near the stairs, seems to be serve as the garbage, which spills about a metre out from the wall at its deepest. It's a gruesome heap of organic and inorganic rot, needles, bottles, and styrofoam containers, to which a family of rats has staked its claim, which they defend with violent chittering at the slightest provocation. Open windows keep the place from stinking up too bad, but there's still an underlying, unpleasant funk.
See +view for more details.
Contents:
Olga(#4061PJceq~)
Obvious exits:
Projectionist's Booth  Downstairs

The evidence of Yi working in the upstairs lounge manifests in a somewhat steady, arrhythmic clanging of metal against concrete. It perhaps does a number on anyone trying to sleep in this joint, but the ragabash is up and at 'em, chipping away at the coins that have covered the six walls, run down the stairs, and into the rest of the theatre. And she only has about ten dollars to show for a day's labor. It's cold outside, but the ragabash has her jacket off and tied around her waist.

Olga's entrance is masked by the noice of Yi's work, but her trip up the ancient spiral staircase isn't, and its iron groans pierce right through the walls. She moves slowly and appears at the top as a bobbing handkerchief which eventually emerges into a head and then a stiff and well-worn army coat; Olga herself lurks between the two somewhere, peering across at Yi with pinched eyes and curiosity.

Yi's own expression is screwed down into a working frown. Her mind is elsewhere, and the bent coins piled haphazardly in the opposite corner of the chipped at, broken concrete are evidence of it. Crowbar in hand and hammer at the waist, she pauses for a short break. It's only by coincidental gaze that she spots Olga, and startles at the sight. "You surprised me."

Olga continues to stare for a couple of seconds or so, then her pointed inquisitive face melts into an easy smile wrapping loosely around her hooked nose. "Oh sorry," she apologizes, half-heartedly. "That's your job, right?" She mounts the last few stairs at a brisker pace, almost a jog, and comes swiftly to the long bench that lines the wall along the windows. Even as she lays herself langorously down on it she asks, incongruously, "Mind if I join you?"

Yi waves her crowbar in open invitation. "Just working on getting this money off the floor," she gives in unsolicited explanation. "If you want to count how much there is, though, be my guest." A few hearty resumed whacks later, and she adds ten cents to the pile.

Olga hefts her feet up onto the long bench with a groan. "When did you get in?" she asks, breezily. "You're not a Guardian anymore, eh?" The question's certainly curious, but its tone is such as to suggest she already knows the literal answer and is asking explanation. She yawns, and leans her head against the adjoining wall, pulling her 'kerchief from her greasy hair.

Yi leans against the crowbar as she picks out her next target. The question from the theurge gets her to pause a little longer. "Maybe two, three nights ago," she answers vaguely. "I was out of town. San Francisco. Wonderful place," she describes succinctly even though her expression doesn't quite match it and instead lends a wryness to the statement. "I went with Diego to find Ed," she then supplies, "and we found her with her family. At Christmas Eve dinner." Here, the ragabash looks up and over, expression turning pointed.

Olga's head lifts off just far enough from the wall to nod dully, sharp noise bobbing in the air. "Yeah, I heard someone had finally taken her out: figured it was you," she answers, evenly, her tone betraying nothing but interest. When she speaks next her tone is different, more tentative, more worried. "Christmas Dinner, eh?" she asks. "I, uh, I hope it didn't get messy. I mean - I hope it wasn't too hard."

"I'm sure it was delicious," Yi remarks in regards to the dinner, turning back to the group of pennies below and chipping away, perhaps more chipping at her residual anger than at the money below. Loosening three cents later, she adds in a more tired remark, "I didn't do it with them there. We went to where she had hidden while she was turning, and waited until sunrise. It was quick." If messy. And after a longer moment, Yi sighs with a complaining, "Vampires /suck/."

Olga listens closely, her posture loose but her eyes tight and focused, though her stare is somewhere below Yi's eyes and glances away every three or four seconds, habitually. "Did you find the leech that did that to her?" she asks, eventually, hopefully.

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7           From:  Headless-Ed       At: Wed Jan 21 18:40:51 2009        
Subject: Dreams.                                                          
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The next time you sleep in the Caern/Bawn, you have a strange and rather vivid dream. You dream of the Sands-Of-Time Spirit in the Caern, slowly making it's way in to the center, then everything goes dark. But no, it's not completely dark... There is cold wet cement, dripping water, rags are piled in to a corner and above the rags, a shattered mirror hangs.

It is a cold dark room and rodent bones crunch underfoot as you move around it. From above, a fine sand/dirt drifts down from the ceiling. Before your eyes, the shattered mirror becomes whole. There is noise and light coming towards the room, but you never get to see the source, as that's when you wake up.
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Yi shakes her head slowly in answer. Frustration evident, she looks back over at the theurge. "She might have known who he was, but I guess in my impatience I did not take her offer to help me hunt them down before..." She lets her sentence fade. She then looks up again, brow pinched and mouth tightlipped. "And I fear Chimera might be trying to tell me something," she adds in quiet confession.

That last cuts off any further questions Olga might have; instead she leans forward, until her head hangs over her knees, her expression changing from mere interest to concern, curiosity, and, underneath it all, a sort of need. Her question is soft, easy: "What?" she asks, quietly. "Tell me. I'll try to help. What has she shown you?"

"A dream," Yi admits with a pensive expression of her own. "I slept on the bawn the night I brought back the vampire's head to show to Jacinta that I had performed my duty. And that night, I dreamed of the spirit that came to the caern and changed time. But then everything changes to darkness. But not..." She shudders with memory. "I hear water dripping, and smell the wet cement. It is a dark room, but over a corner of rags like the ones the vampire slept on, a shattered mirror. And I feel, underneath my feet, the bones of rats. I feel, above me, sad and dirt. And the mirror becomes whole. It is darkness then, but after, there is noise and light. I woke up from that." She shakes her head then, and looks back up to Olga searchingly.

Olga's hand comes up to her face, it lingers at her cheek for a while before coming to chin and then finally supporting her whole head. As Yi's narrative progresses her eyes get more strained, more intent, more worried. "I would say that it is a good dream," she begins, though her voice is not strong or certain. "The mirror has become whole: silent darkness has turned to noise and light. But the `bones of rats` worry me: I wonder, are those the bones of her kin - has she destroyed them as she herself was destroyed? I don't know though, the signs are vague." Her voice trails off, a sharp glance lifting back up to Yi, her tone getting emphatic, absolute: "I can tell you this, though: Chimera does not let a false dream approach her children while on her bawn. You - you should probably approach Masquerade about this. They have the Lady's gifts now to interpret your dream, I don't." There is a deep honesty and a deep shame in the way Olga says this: her eyes are piercing, drawn down at the sides, her tone is tense.

Yi nods slowly, but looks not much relieved. The expression turns a touch concerned on its own at the theurge. "But we are all patroned by the Lady of Mirrors. Maybe I will go to see them, but it could just be a random happening. My mind is not... the bawn was good for sleeping on, before. I had not that sharp a vision for a long time. Still, it was just a dream, right?"

"No," Olga says, flatly, sitting up now on the bench with her knees buckled and her arms around them, and her eyes straight and serious like a level. "It's never `just a dream`. All dreams are true, except those have been tainted by the Wyrm and sent to you like a curse. It's just a matter of what it means: this may not be a dream for the Sept, a dream that heralds true things, but if not it's a dream for you, a dream which tells you who you are and who you should be and who you shouldn't." Her lips twitch up, she's worried, but her tone stays even and soft. "If Masquerade says it isn't a dream for the Sept," she adds, quietly, looking away now, "I'll help you figure out what it means if it's just a dream for you."

Yi picks up her crowbar and leans it against her shoulder, peering at the theurge on the bench across. "Maybe you should come with me when I go," she proposes as she eyes Olga. "You have the experience."

Olga twists her head, she looks at Yi crosswise, her chin sets on edge. "I will if you want," she offers, easily, shrugging her shoulders, but with something behind it. "But if you're planning something you should know I already talked to them, and we don't have the same goals. I promised I'd see that what happened with the Pink Fuzz never happens again, and I can't do that from the woods where they are. But I'll go with you - I'd be honored to - if that's what you want."

Yi scares up a genuine smile, mild though it is. "It would be my honor to be with my tribemates again, no matter where I am or what I am doing," she replies to the woman. The pointy end of the crowbar slips back down to her side as she adds innocently, "I was not planning anything, either. But I do remember you have not had a pack in some time, since Griphus. Is something the matter?"

"I follow the Lady," Olga says, simply, unequivocally. "But I can't follow her there." She pauses briefly. "I'm working with Basil, Sean, and Harry to look into the sewers, so I'm doing my part," she assures, simply. "We're just not following a Totem right now - and anyway we haven't the cohesion for it." She leans back from her tight, interested position, glancing briefly out the window, and continues to speak, easily enough but the way she's trying to change the subject is obvious and not very artful. "So you have any idea what these coins are all about?" she asks, jutting her chin out to the Ragabash's efforts, again curious.

Yi might take notice, but purposefully turns her attention to the coins as well. "You tell me," she says a little helplessly with a gaze around to their surroundings. There is a moment taken for musing, but then she realizes aloud, "I don't remember a Harry." Her eyes travel back to the theurge, blink, then look past to the wall of coins beyond her.

"A Gnawer," Olga answers immediately. "A Ragabash, actually. He's got a shop in the middle of Bridge Street: Harry's Cornucopia of Excellent Values. Sort of - indifferent, but a good guy, useful. He got us the city sewer maps. I like him."

Yi piques with interest at the mention of the shop, particularly on its location and the owner. "Really? I should pay a visit, I think," muses the ragabash. At the mention of the sewers, she pulls a face and nods understandingly. "If you need help, too, I could perhaps offer a little knowledge of my own to add... as soon as these coins are all pulled up." Her eyes shift to the metal circles again and she shakes her head in disbelief of it.

Olga takes a second or two, marshalling her thought and opinions as she stares sternly out the window at the trenchcoated man who sneaks out of the adult bookstore below. "Actually Yi," she asks, straightforwardly, but with a certain amount of deference in her tone, "would you mind leaving the coins in the lobby? They interest me: I want to get to the bottom of this. It's a puzzle. Anyway, if nothing else, they'd sure freak the hell out of anyone who busts in the front door. I mean, it'd be obvious we're crazy motherfuckers when they see _that_."

Yi follows Olga's gaze out the window as well, though from her angle she doesn't see the same. So, she looks back to the theurge instead. "Sure?" she agrees hesitantly, "And it will take some time to pry up even these in this room." Her gaze looks upwards to the coins on the ceiling, then back down. "What about the ones in the theater?"

Olga's shoulders hunch: "As y'like," she answers, easily. "Curiosity's got the best of me, is all it is. I haven't seen any pattern so far so it doesn't matter too much. I noticed there's concrete dust on a few, so I don't figure it's anything spiritual which did it: something did this from the Realm, though maybe with some spiritual purpose. I aim to check out the penumbra soon as Luna's amenable to that." She slurs `amenable` so it's like it's just one long vowel with a `b` hidden somewhere in the middle. "It's weird. I don't like weird," she generalizes, flatly, but amends with a sharp smile and a faint look of guilt: "Well, I like weird but I want to figure it the hell out, right?"

Yi processes the request with an assenting nod. "I noticed the dust too, which means /maybe/ there could be someone we know involved. But even so, trying to track the scents of these coins? A foolish idea." Meaning, likely, she might have tried it already. She starts to mouth that slurred word, catches herself and shakes her head lightly before setting the crowbar aside. "Well, I suppose I will take this change I have and go have myself a treat. McDonald's has a sale. 2 Big Macs for 3.50. Limited time only!" Her grin following that is fairly eager as she scoops up the change to stick in her pockets. "You have fun with this puzzle? And I will bring back some fries. I promise."

Olga can't help grasping for just a little more: "Bring me back a Big Mac," she promises, settling where she is and watching Yi as she moves towards the stairwell, "and I'll be your friend for life."

Yi flashes the theurge a smile that could get tossed in for nominations in awards, and with a pocket full of change turns to head down the creaky steps. "Super size!" she calls back, and then can be heard walking over the concrete ridden floor out the lobby doors.

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