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Tom didn’t really have much to add to the conversation as he took a break to sit down on the ground a bit just to rest. He hadn’t done much with his group after all, he had mostly observed the entire thing and then… they went back. That was about all that had happened with them. Sure, they found another chosen, but he felt that they could have spent a bit more time searching.

It wasn’t his place to say though. He hadn’t been the leader of the group and he certainly wasn’t in any place to be giving orders to anyone. So, he kept his mouth shut.

It felt good to rest though, using his backpack as an angled pillow, he almost felt like napping, but he wanted to hear what the others had found. He wondered what the witches were about though. What could they do, what type of witches were they exactly? He sighed, just trying to keep his energy up.

"It is a pleasure to meet you Beth, and usually I remember to grab a wide brim hat but then, I wasn't planning on well," He motioned with a hand to the camp," this." He gave an easy grin, taking her hand in a firm but relaxed shake.

"No offense," He said, quietly towards Beth, "but they just aren't coming across as the root to well, this problem," He nodded to Arthur the raccoon. "There seems to possibly be two witches of note. The women who led the teenagers astray, and then the owner of the tea shop."

"And it's not just our people who have gone missing." Misha rose from her crouch beside the stewpot, bowl in hand. Her expression was solemn, full mouth in an unusually still line. She had been one of the last to get her first helping from the pot but that was her choice. She had waited until she saw everyone tramp back into their sad little camp before moving to feed herself. As she moved towards the edge of the circle to find her own seat, her grey eyes searched over certain faces. Her free hand squeezed Rob's shoulder as she passed and ruffled Briiva's hair.

"From what Griffin said, it sounds like people have been going missing for a while now," she continued. "Maybe we can find out if there is a trend but I don't know if that's going to help." She settled down on the ground near Mal and Brian, legs folding easily beneath her. Then she lowered her bowl to rest on her lap. "But whatever happened here looks like it started inside and moved its way out."

Looking straight at Mal suddenly, she smiled. "And can I have next dibs on that bug spray when you're done? Just to change the subject."



WC: 206

Mal took the bug-spray from Beth's outstretched hand and smiled at her. "Malcolm. Mal. Zeus Chosen." Since that seemed to be the way to introduce oneself around here, he took the bug-spray and briefly shook her hand before he sprayed his hands and used the spray on his hands to make sure he wouldn't get eaten in little bits and pieces.

"I don't know that the tea shop has anything to do with it. Just because a tea shop has, and I quote, summa that crystal bullshit, doesn't necessarily mean it's involved." Mal did a credible impression of the cantankerous, curmudgeonly bartender before he passed the bugspray on to the next hand that had reached for it -- Misha.

Misha got a brief smile, a lift at the corner of his mouth. "The bartender said there was a drop in business. The one place that doesn't usually see a drop in business is a local watering hole. Bartenders hear everything, eventually, if they're good bartenders." He ruffled his fingers through his hair and finally reached for a bowl of stew for himself, picking at it before he realized how hungry he was and beginning to dig into it for real.

Asher still got a snort of amusement, once he'd swallowed a particularly large bite. "Asher. Darling. A deity spoke to all of us. I don't know about your experience, but I'm willing to think about the possibility of full moon werewolf s**t until it's otherwise ruled out." He glanced at Brynn; she seemed like a whatever remains, however improbable sort.

"We have the possibility of witches." Mal nodded at Lex, agreeing with him. "They're mostly teenagers." But Mal couldn't help the itch of worry that was in his voice about that. Teenagers were ... messy.

He blinked at Brian and then nodded. "Yeah. We hit a bar for the gossip-- and nearly got run over by a group of possibles on the way into the building. And it happened pretty recently. It's correlation, at least." He stirred his bowl with a spoon, thinking hard-- maybe, considering his aping of the bartender, trying to drag the words up. "He said it happened pretty fast. Anyone remember the exact wording? He said the new woman in town was mid-thirties. No remarking on her looks, so she's likely not to be otherwise outstanding, or is trying to appear that way."

(574)

Zebulon had thought he had left this outdoors around a campfire nonsense behind when he was removed from the boy scouts, but that was apparently not to be the case.

At least they were behind an inn and not a suspicious cabin.

Lazily, Zebulon swirled the spoon around in his stew and watched everyone else, picking up on what they were saying and putting the information together in his head. Torn apart campsites, some people going missing, a Chosen that was apparently now a damn raccoon (how did that-- well, they were chosen by gods, perhaps the how was just as simple as reality-bending magic), and a town filled with teens that wished they were witches.

Great.

He took a sip of his stew and cleared his throat, before lifting his gaze to meet Mal's eyes.

"I believe he said, like overnight they started painting themselves up," he changed the tone of his voice a bit, attempting to mock the gruff and agitated voice of the sour barkeep. It was rather obvious that Zebulon wasn't ... entirely fond of the man they had spent their afternoon speaking to.

After a moment, he added to the general conversation, voice going back to it's normal tone, "The Chosen who were here had been by the bar we went to. According to the 'keep, they asked about the local wildlife an' some of the shops in town."

Mal recognized Zeb's face, even if he didn't know the name, but the attempt at mocking got that brief smile. It was the teenagers that bothered him the most. "Sounds about right," was his agreement with Zeb's words, and what he reported about what the other Chosen had asked.

He shook his head a little at Brian. "Less directed hatred, more 'not of us' disdain. It probably is. I mean -- getting teenagers to all go in the same direction is like trying to herd cats. Getting them to agree to anything, all together.... is unusual. Seriously--" He paused, and his eyes flicked to Misha, and he caught some of the people around them. "--unusual." He'd almost said something else. Probably something more off color.

(69 cool

"Hm," he offered to Mal, not wanting to be rude in not acknowledging what his fellow Zeus Chosen had said.

Which was worse, witches or rogue gods? Witches, he decided, because even Hades had a Chosen. Witches weren't quite as dangerous as giant metal birds, he imagined, but all of that kind of got swept under the rug when you were a raccoon. Maybe the couple dozen of them as animals could take a person down? Maybe. He still didn't want to be turned into anything.

"I don't know. Hive mind and all. Teenagers go into Angry Mob mode faster than anyone I've seen," he admitted.

he turned to Beth then and laughed slightly. She was the first one to get a smile out of him yet. "I can't say I do, no. Crystal shops, deep South..." He held up both hands as if weighing the ideas against one another.
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Briiva, for her part, had said what she wanted and put her now empty bowl to the side. She keep some of her attention on what was going on around her- enough to flash Misha a smile as the woman passed her, but focused the rest on her bow. The fact that everyone was so seemingly relaxed was in fact putting her on edge. In the Alps, they had been attacked immediately, here though; Here was different.

Briiva finished greasing the string of her bow before carefully wrapping it back around, now taking the time to inspect her arrows, making sure that the fletching was affixed properly. She was still learning, just like everyone else, and she didn't need anything to compound her already less than stellar aim. Her flask, while at her hip, remained full and unopened. All of this felt too relaxed and she wanted to keep her senses sharp through the night.

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