Introductory Cocktail Party

Nicholas Hyde
A cardinal rule of introverts: They are frequently lost at parties.  Even work parties, which generally don't get too out of hand and remain confined to relatively safe topics.  There's the occasional "Donald Trump is going to make America great again" filtering through the conversation, but by the time it reaches an ear it's difficult to tell who said it.  It could be anyone.

Nick is not quite hanging out by the drink table - no.  Nick is a counselor, and it is therefore expected that he has more outgoing tendencies than, say, Dr. Antwan, the epidemiologist leaning into a corner by the snacks and playing a game on his phone.  The mental and behavioral health staff have congregated, split off into small groups, and he is mainly listening to others and asking questions.  "So after you graduated, you - " "Ah. And what about - " and the like.  Small talk.

Pen is not with him today.  One magus, here alone, is sometimes innocuous enough that it doesn't set everyone in the room on edge.  It would not be the same with two, and one of them a Hermetic.
He has a beer in hand (he is driving home, and nobody wants to be the sloppy drunk at a work party) and where he stands, the conversation is often just a little mellower.  "Real talk" comes out a little more often, in spite of his efforts to keep conversation light so he can extricate himself and go home before 8.  Nick has this effect sometimes, in spite of himself.

He looks at his watch infrequently enough that he's not rude.  Nick is more comfortable in this situation than many Awakened mages would be, and yet.

Andrés Sepúlveda
The one magus is unaccompanied but that does not mean he is truly alone.

Someone mentioned earlier offhand the way it seems folks mention impending events that are of little consequence or interest to anyone else that the forensic pathologist just texted back to say that yes he was going to show up. Sepúlveda or however you pronounce his last name.

And in time he does arrive not alone as Nick was alone but with a psychiatrist. They circulate throughout the room greeting the other medical staff and almost straightaway he looks across the room as if scenting blood on the wind. A sense of consecration niggling at him.

Even the Sleepers notice the Etherite's resonance. Like a chill up the spine. Someone walking over your grave.

He is a small man. Short and small of frame. He wears a well-fitted windowpane suit and a blue maroon and white checkered tie and tan brogue shoes. After eating a handful of pretzels and procuring a glass of punch he excuses himself from a conversation that was about to happen and begins to cut a path towards Nick.

The universe wants Nick to be less comfortable than he is right now it would seem.

Nicholas Hyde
Not truly alone - that, no.  And yet, Nick is unaccompanied in a new city.  He has been in Denver for a little less than a week, not long enough to have driven out to the chantry or have properly settled in with Pen once more after some separation.  Had he wanted a chance to prove himself to his new coworkers and supervisor, he would have gotten it this week: Nick's second day involved shadowing a coworker on another floor, accompanying the family of a suicide to the morgue while they identified the body.

This comes back to him in sharp relief, the sterile environment and the mother of the young man, who had covered her eyes and peeked out just long enough to glimpse her son's face before covering it again.  It takes him a moment to understand what triggered this memory, that feeling of standing beside the woman wondering whether to touch or not to touch, whether his coworker would frown on that because there are boundaries, a certain expected behavior: that chill up the spine, that's the reason.  He felt it there too, sensed something perhaps supernatural about it, but it was a morgue after all, and Nick was distracted.

Now, as he smiles and excuses himself from a group of his coworkers (ostensibly to go get another beer), he wishes he had paid more attention.  He turns around and there is Sepulveda, working his way through the crowd.  Nick, a man in his late twenties or early thirties with a head full of wild dark curls, has something a little wan and world-weary about him: he brings to mind empty churches, silent glades, places undeniably sacred and yet just a little unsettling at the same time.  More casually dressed in brown corduroys and a striped blue oxford, he is likely also easily identified among the "support staff," or else a young and somewhat casual doctor.

The last thing Nick wants to do is smile at this approaching stranger, and yet smile he does.  He continues to drift toward the drink table, though at this point, this is more pretense than anything else.

Andrés Sepúlveda
One man leaves the drink table and the other approaches it.

A moment of passing recognition perhaps. The forensic pathologist is also a medical examiner with Denver County. Just moved here from Miami a few weeks ago and has been learning his way around the Colorado penal code and the statutes put in place by the Denver Health Administration. On more than one occasion he has passed through the halls of Denver General to begin an inquisition before the body has left the hospital room.

Though he is small he has handsome features and a certainty woven into his spine. A sense of purpose in his walk. His black hair is flecked with salt-white and his five o'clock shadow is dusted with gray. Somewhere in his middling to late thirties and the jangling sense of attention-deficit energy is the fault of his personality rather than his resonance. Before he even opens his mouth Nick can peg him as hyperactive.

His voice carries with it a faint accent. Not an immigrant himself but the child of Mexican natives. If he speaks Spanish it is the conversational Spanish of one who never studied the language in a formal setting.

"Ah, don't look so happy," he says when their paths cross. Extends his right hand to shake. His drink has been in his left hand this whole time. This isn't his first introductory cocktail party. "Andrés Sepúlveda. You're a counselor, yeah?"

Nicholas Hyde
Another Corona having found its way into his hand, Nick turns to face the stranger.  He is edging the two of them back and away from the crowd of Sleepers, whether consciously or unconsciously.  Nick's resonance is not weak, but neither is it strong; it marks him among the initiated but not as one with extensive experience with the arcane.  Yet - he has been around long enough to know that strange magi he meets are not always his friends, particularly not in this, a medical setting.

None of that wariness has found its way to his eyes, which are tinged with a sort of impersonal warmth, crinkled at the corners.  They are the same light brown color as his skin, which manages to be rather striking in its way.  Nick shifts his beer to his left hand and, after a moment's pause to wipe the condensation on his fingertips off on a pocket, extends his hand to shake Sepulveda's.  "Yes, I am," he says.  "In hospice."

Closer to Nick, it becomes more evident that there's a small lump just beneath his collarbone, some sort of necklace.  "It's a pleasure to meet you officially, Dr. Sepulveda."  While his voice does not carry an accent, there's no hesitation in his words or inflection as he pronounces the doctor's name (correctly).  Then again, it isn't so unusual to run into Spanish speakers in Colorado, or ethnically ambiguous people like Nick.

He pauses, inclines his head, and adds, "Nick Hyde.  I think I may have come by the morgue where you work earlier this week."

Andrés Sepúlveda
"I feel you may have, yes."

Suicides don't take up much of his time. Not the straightforward ones anyway. The coroner is more than capable of handling those autopsies. Much of his time is taken up by the cases that require police investigations and he has grown accustomed to testifying in court. Wording his answers in an intentional way.

He had tucked his right hand into its pocket after shaking Nick's hand and now he's jingling something his fingers have found inside. Keys or coins or both. Sometimes it's better not to know what a Scientist carries in his pockets.

Drawing away from the group is a subconscious action for their kind. Their drifting occurs in tandem.
"You're with the Chorus, or the Chakravanti?"

Might as well cut right to the chase. No one is listening to them and if anyone is there's a rote for that.

Nicholas Hyde
There are certain magi who are so obvious a fit for their Traditions that others, particularly the more experienced, can identify them almost immediately.  Nick is one of those: the way in which his eyebrows lift, amusement crinkling the corners of his eyes a little further, says so.  "Chakravanti," he says.  There is a pause, space in which he allows Sepulveda to reply in kind.

His eyes flick, from time to time, toward Sepulveda's pocket and the delicate metallic clicking from within.  Nick has heard that the Technocracy these days is a gentler version than what was.  He and his cohort have realized themselves during a time in which older, more experienced magi are still used to operating as though their every move is being watched.  Nick heard stories in Connecticut of people who knew people who had virtually disappeared, a spy in the chantry in New York, an Adept in Boston who left wherever she was and is now permanently in hiding.  This is not the world Nick Awakened into. Still, the stories have been enough to make him cautious.

It wasn't that long ago.  Sepulveda: perhaps he remembers.  Perhaps he is just as wary as Nick of meeting a stranger in this place.

"To be honest, I haven't lived in Denver for very long.  I hadn't expected to run into anyone outside of the chantry.  Are you very familiar with the area?"

Andrés Sepúlveda
Sepúlveda does not offer up his own tradition so soon as Nick does his. Lets him explain that he is new-arrived to the city and ask a question of his own. Just before he answers he shifts his weight from one foot to the other and takes a swallow of whatever mystery beverage is in his cup.
Punch is always a risky proposition. The proportions don't follow a standard measure and the composition of the ingredients themselves are at the mercy of the one slapping the entire thing together. There's an analogy to be found in there somewhere.

"I was," Sepúlveda says to the matter of his familiarity with Denver. "Years ago, towards the end of the war. It's always been my understanding that this was a bit of a Verbena town, but I believe your people had a presence here, once, as well. I'm with the Society, myself."

Nicholas Hyde
At this point, Nick has been in a Sleeper career only a bit more briefly than he has been Awake.  His Awakening and his career are enmeshed in some ways, to the extent that should he ever have to do his Work apart from being a counselor, it's likely he'd be a little lost.  That means that he's been to a lot of work parties and events - enough to know that most of the time, some well-meaning person has cobbled together punch out of Sprite, three dollar liquor and whatever else they had in the fridge.

"I think that's supposed to be sangria," he offers, as Sepulveda sips from the dubious concoction.  Only a few sad pineapple chunks hint at that possibility.  Then, helpfully, "I stuck with the beer."

A former cabal mate, given to nicknames, had referred to Nick as Casper the Friendly Ghost.  It's apt enough.  There's a single slow nod of his head at the "once," which he processes in silence, and then again as Sepulveda offers his own Tradition. Nick asks, leaning against the wall and crossing one leg over the other at the ankle.  "So what brings you back?"

Andrés Sepúlveda
Nick stuck with the beer.

"What's life without a little risk, eh?"

As they continue their conversation the Etherite sets his Solo cup down on the table and comes to stand before the Euthanatos. Reaches into an inside pocket of his suit jacket and rifles around until he finds a small dropper bottle. Checks the clear glass and the clear liquid inside holds it up to the light as if he's checking a label. Then he doses his cup with whatever the hell is inside the vial.
The liquid morphs from a wan pink color to a darker winier red. The pineapple becomes pear.

As for what brings him back:

"My wife was Verbena. There's been talk of our friends in the Technocracy destroying a grove of theirs and plotting to start up the war again, or a war, or... whatever it is they'd care to call it." A swirl of the cup to ensure that the transmutation has taken and Sepúlveda returns the vial to his inner pocket. He lifts the cup in a silence cheers motion and takes a slug. That's more like sangria. A flick of his eyebrows and he adds, "This is where she would have wanted to be, times being what they are."

---
Dr. Sepúlveda @ 12:42PM
[matter 2: if you're gonna be sangria be sangria. dang.]
Roll: 3 d10 TN4 (1, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )

Nicholas Hyde
One reason to envy magi who work with Matter: it's likely that their food and drink is, with few exceptions, probably always better.  Nick knows better than to ask what it is - he's encountered enough technomagi to understand that it very likely would not make things any clearer.  "Some risks are always worthwhile," he says, the corners of his eyes again crinkling with good humor.

He tips the mouth of his bottle toward Sepulveda as the other man lifts his glass and takes a swig from the bottle.  His face is expressionless when Sepulveda tells him that the Technocracy has destroyed a Verbena grove; perhaps he has already heard.  "I'm sorry," he says, and his tone is sincere.  Then, "So it sounds as though you're here on her behalf, then."

Andrés Sepúlveda
"Eh, that's one way of putting it. In spirit I suppose she's here, but that's a Sphere I've never had much success with."

He does not seem like a man given over to grief. Time the healer has been kind to him or else madness has been. Few of his tradition have reputations for going about Work in the name of Science and maintaining their sanity. Some lingering darkness in the way he words his answer.

Nicholas Hyde
Were Nick in session, this is where his questions would tease and prod; he is a man who picks up easily on that lingering darkness, and who perhaps has enough insight to speculate with reasonable certainty as to its origin.  He has only just met this man, however, and there's a time and place for everything.  "It sounds as though you've tried," he says.

Magi are far less predictable than Sleepers.  This, too, he knows.

So he doesn't linger.  Then, "So what do you hope to do, if they've just attacked this grove?"

Andrés Sepúlveda
It sounds as though he's tried and it looks as though this isn't a topic he's itching to discuss.

Some folks cannot help but disclose the contents of their baggage the moment an opening presents itself in the conversation. So much of it so tightly packed in too small a container or else they are just wired that way. Awakened folk have more at stake than their own contentment than does the average Sleeper but some Awakened folk never attain either self-awareness or enlightenment.

This isn't a session. They're at a cocktail party and happened to find the only other Awakened person there. More is at stake than what the two have riding under their skin and the doctor does not look as if he is any more inclined to linger than does the counselor.

"I don't think it's a matter of 'just,' eh? Why 'just' attack a, ah, symbol of... well, they claim to want what is best for mankind." Rational discussion of the opposition's mentality calls for alcohol. The Society of Ether used to belong to the opposition. They were too wild for the Technocracy. So he drinks. "Renewal, growth, healing, these are the things the pagans want. Yes, okay, they praise Old Gods and their craft is dying, pero respect for the Earth and the natural order, these are not things that threaten humanity. Holistic views are just so much a part of the Consensus as modern medicine. So even if it is a matter of 'just,' I do not understand why this attack occurred, and I wish to. This is not something I can do from three thousand miles away."

Nicholas Hyde
Nick's eyebrows arch, ever so slightly.  Words can take on so many different meanings: the "just" he had used here had been meant as to say, recently.  And yet - merely, that's another meaning one could take from what he said.  Still, he listens, and does not rush in to explain his meaning.  Nick is a good listener, whatever else may be said of him.

He, too, drinks.

"That's fair," he says, considering Sepulveda's rationale for moving closer to the attacks.  Once it has been explained, there's even a touch of consternation in him, too.  Sepulveda is right: it doesn't make sense.  "Zealots, possibly?  I'm sure the Union is like any other large organization.  It must have its renegades and reactionaries.  That much authority tends to go to someone's head."

Nick is mulling out loud; the distance in his gaze, the way he seems to have detached a little from the conversation, implies that this may be unusual for him.  Sepulveda has caught him off guard.  Still, it doesn't last long; his eyes refocus on the other man and he says, "So what do you think happened?"

Andrés Sepúlveda
It would not surprise the medical examiner to learn that he had taken the counselor by surprise. No one expects anything of any interest to happy at a holiday party and yet the collective consciousness has itself prepared for the possibility of someone having too much to drink and making a spectacle of the entire affair.

This is different. They are talking of wars gone and wars impending and it's enough to make anyone drink harder but there is restraint in the way Sepúlveda swallows down his transmutated sangria.

"If I have to think," he says and it's less a matter of thinking itself presenting a difficulty and more thinking like a Technocrat, "I would posit they chose this target to try and kill off every reality deviant they could find. Not just the grove but the chantry in the city, I hear they destroyed. It's the why, yeah? Search-and-destroy has not been their M.O. since the war ended."

Nicholas Hyde
This is true, though for Nick, this is somewhat akin to hearing an old man tell war stories.  As far as he is concerned, the War happened before his rebirth, before his time.  He is young in Awakening, even though there are people his age (or not much older) who fought and died.  This aside: Chakravanti he may be, but Nick is not a soldier.  One has only to look at him to know that.

The party moves around them, unaware of the discussion passing between two otherwise unassuming men at the margins.

"I would think it would happen everywhere else, if that were the goal," Nick says, gently spinning the neck of his beer bottle between his fingertips.  He is thoughtful.  He is also a man who is uncomfortable with unanswered questions.  "Did anyone in the city survive those attacks when they happened?"

Andrés Sepúlveda
"That's what I'd like to find out."

As clear a purpose as he'd voiced already he has done little in the way of investigating what befell the prior Chantry. Moving across the country will do that to a person if that person is not skilled in Correspondence. Time would be a useful Sphere to enable a body to accomplish multiple tasks at once but still.

His green eyes flick away from the other man's face just once as if to gauge whether they are still beyond interest. A cluster of physicians several yards away has just burst into laughter at a story one of them is telling.

"I feel it may be helpful to, eh, meditate on this, yeah? Perhaps I can jog my own memories, see if I remember anything from when Eloise and I were here last. At least a name or two."

Nicholas Hyde
As Sepulveda's eyes wander, Nick is suddenly reminded to take a moment to look too.  He seeks out his coworkers, all of whom still seem gathered in a clump away from the doctors and nurses.  Not unexpected.  He does not seem to be overly missed, yet, though he suspects that at some point he will be labeled as avoidant or shy should he stay away for too much longer.  He is, after all, ostensibly here to bond with all of them and spend more time with the department.

"That would be helpful," he agrees.  "My wife hasn't been in town much longer than I have, but I can ask her and see whether she's found out more.  Or has heard anything since she got here."

Nick has straighened away from the wall, his hand wandering into his back pocket, emerging again with a black leather wallet.  He slides a business card (Nicholas Hyde, LPC) from it with his thumb, and extends it toward Sepulveda.  "In case you need to get in touch with me.  I've heard a lot of chantries don't keep contact information on hand."  The more cautious ones, the ones that remember a time when the Technocracy was more on its toes.

Andrés Sepúlveda
"Eh, they think they're being proactive."

The Etherite studies the card for a few seconds before removing his own wallet and tucking the card into it. If he has his own card he does not choose to share it with Nick. Instead he pockets his wallet and removes his cellphone from his suit jacket.

With his eyes on the screen he asks, "Your wife is Awakened, or an acolyte?"

Nicholas Hyde
Once the Etherite has removed his cell phone, Nick tucks his wallet into his back pocket once more.  If he is put off that the Etherite has chosen not to reciprocate, it doesn't show; the Awakened are strange creatures, after all, and often wary with good reason.  Business cards feel sensible enough to Nick - they're relatively innocuous.

"Awakened," he says.  "Order of Hermes.  Her name is Penelope, have you met her?"

Unlikely, perhaps; Nick feels that he would have remembered should Pen have told him about someone like Sepulveda.  Friendly though the conversation they've had may be, there's something unsettling about him all the same.

Andrés Sepúlveda
"No." He pockets his phone. "Not yet."

A moment later the counselor's phone heralds an incoming text message. Whether he checks it right now or after he's left the party already the text comes from the 305 area code and the message body says:

Yo.

And that's it.

"Maybe we should change that, yeah? Go to dinner sometime."

This is before he's met his students. He cannot threaten everyone with the good time of hauling two apprentices along to such a social situation.

Nicholas Hyde
Nick hears the chime of an incoming text, and like any child of the internet age, he obediently reaches down and into his pocket.  "Oh, thanks," he says, upon seeing the examiner's message.  He taps at the screen a few times, pecks with a finger to type out Sepulveda's name (at least, insofar as he heard it.)

"I'd like that," he says.  "I'm sure she would too."

He returns the phone to his pocket, shifting his leg to allow it to settle.  Nick's eyes meet Sepulveda's again, and there is again that thoughtful look - appraising, reflective.  "It's interesting to meet someone else who's kept a profession, besides," he says.  Though: perhaps Nick's perception of the rarity of this is somewhat skewed, given that he is married to a Hermetic.  They are notorious for pursuing Ascension at the exclusion of all else, if need be.

Andrés Sepúlveda
"Yeah, tell me about it. Eloise didn't have a career, either. She was a real hit at cocktail parties."
Now that that's over the medical examiner holds out his right hand in an offer to shake. Meets the other man's eyes as he does so and then cants his head back towards the party.

"I'd better go rescue Melina, eh? Give me a call sometime, we can compare notes. Tell you all about how the first level of the Mind Sphere is a blessing to a med student. Ciao, brother."

If Nick has any last-second parting thoughts he is not in so huge a rush as to leave without hearing them but this may be the last they speak tonight. The medical examiner returns to his friend the cardiologist and in a few minutes they leave together. Everyone knows why they're leaving together. No one questions a widow and a widow making time together. No one in the room has an abundance of it.

Andrés Sepúlveda
[YAY WRAP]

Nicholas Hyde
[BOOM]