Jarissa/Psychic Vampire Flu
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
Mission Report: Psychic Vampire Flu
I've missed several weeks of patrol lately: I've been pretty sick. It's not bad enough to get me hospitalized, and my DNA is sufficiently messed up that there's little point to visiting a doctor for any ailment short of "imminent death", but I've been moderately miserable. I'm exhausted, often running a very slight fever, my stomach rebels against all but the most boring of food, I have a headache and my eyes keep watering.
Also, noises seem unnaturally loud to me, which is why I nearly shredded my comms radio when it buzzed. I dragged it under my nest of blankets, figuring that no one from Wyldfire would call me unless the problem was really dire. With an effort to keep my voice clear, I identified myself and asked what the emergency was.
"This is Meganthe Priora, personal assistant to Azuria. We need you to come down to MAGI right away."
Naturally, I cordially recommended a biologically improbable yogic position for Azuria to try out, while rethinking that idea. Miss Priora hurried to fill in some details before I could switch off: Azuria's research team had (insert mystic buzzwords here) resulting in the startling discovery that (more mystic buzzwords about some kind of link) from several citizens suffering "colds" (buzz buzz would've made more sense if she'd said "Akashic field", but no, it's some other nonspace this link passed through) a suspected Banished Pantheon ritual space in Astoria. And, apparently, I'm the only non-civvie victim. MAGI wants to use me to trace the link down to a specific location, go in and kick various mystic butt until the buzzwordy-thingy ceases and can't be restarted.
Welllllllllllll, crap.
Given the unlikeliness of getting better when I'm under some sort of magic whammy feeding off my miserable state, I dragged myself out from under the covers, cleaned up a bit, grabbed a sports bottle full of Gatorade, and trudged away to the bus stop.
It took a long time to get to Atlas Park, then wait for MAGI's field team of the day to get their junk together, then ride in their electric stretch dune buggy (!!!) to the gate between Talos Island and Astoria.
Does Astoria creep the mystic set out as badly as it does me?
One of the MAGI team was this guy covered in short, fluffy feathers, kind of like emu feathers. You'd think that would give him all the gravitas of a Muppet but actually, he looked pretty badass. He had a sort of hollowed-out talon suspended from a stick; he sat between me and the driver, and he'd hold the stick up just above my forehead. Whatever direction the talon pointed, that was the way the driver needed to head. Eventually we found an abandoned burger joint, full almost to bursting with Pantheon shamans and their minions.
Unfortunately, an electric dune buggy is no quieter than any other off-road vehicle, despite the normal trend of electric motors being relatively silent. A couple of shamans heard us approach, rousted their minions, and shenanigans violently ensued. I thought I was going to drop dead of weariness by the time we'd arrested everything that moved. The MAGI crew spent a long time -- felt like hours -- questioning one of the shamans, then examining a cedar chest full of whatsits. One of the whatsits looked a lot like a soup tureen, and was pulsing with a really disgusting lime-and-magenta swirling light. I wasn't too surprised when one of the wizardly types told me this was the thing draining my health, and the other victims' health, for future spell fuel. Some of the other ritual whatsits still had price tags from the Talos Island branch of Tabitha Fabish, and in fact our hapless interrogatee still had a receipt tucked in his ... uh, I hope they got that out of his medicine bag or something, because that guy did NOT have pockets.
Thickening the plot, though, the receipt was not for Fabish, but was a bar receipt from the Art Bar, with a handwritten sales contract on the back. As emu feathers guy explained to me, the contract with the BP shaman was written out so there'd be no karmic link to use later on, buzzword buzzword my head was really pounding and I suggested firmly that we go find the other half of the economic interaction and pound him, her, or it for further details.
I think they considered me a bit of an uncultured thug.
Anyway, we did wind up talking to a guy at the soda fountain, who turned out to be a middleman for people who wanted to make "offsite magic supply purchases at discount prices". Right, back in the day when I was a gamer, we called that middleman a "fixer"; nowadays it's usually "accessory to sell of stolen goods" and still earns an appearance before a judge. On the plus side, Bob the would-be fixer was so enamored of Miss Priori's bellybutton piercing that he gave us the contact info for the magic bean sellers. The MAGI crew went off to arrest those folks while I headed home; they sent me an email a few minutes go that these two part-time clerks had been smuggling returned stuff out to resell, figuring it'd be easier than processing the return through the store's system. They'd hired some guy to launder their money through his pawn shop, only (naturally) he wasn't actually associated with the pawn shop at all. Everybody's on their way to jail, spell's broken, supposedly I'll start getting better now instead of continuing to be miserable.
Any minute now.
Busted: assorted Banished Pantheon shamans, two ex-employees from Tabitha Fabish, unidentified thug who tried to pass himself off as "Jack Cash from Easy Money Pawnbrokers", and Bob the Soda Jerk from the Art Bar on Chestnut Street
Clues: uhh, ask a wizard, I was there and I still don't get it
Leads still to follow: When and how, exactly, did I get tagged for the victim pool on this thing?
