5911/The curse of random desires

The curse of random desires
Date of Scene:	11 April 2021
Location:	Downtown Manhattan
Synopsis:	No description
Cast of Characters:	Camellia Lowe, Lara Croft

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Camellia Lowe has posed:
Camellia Lowe was having yet another miserable day, this one was particularly bad, the demon's curiosity was running strong, the morbid streak was always the one that called the loudest. As such she found herself in a corner where a poor man usually sold his hotdogs. In this case she was not the only demonic presence, there were three slightly hunched, small-ish gray goblin-like creatures with her. Two of them were holding the man in place while the third was perched up on the stand, taking hotdogs from it and force feeding the man one by one. He was protesting the best he could without choking.

Lara Croft has posed:
As a member of the Wizardry Alchemy and Necromancy Department of SHIELD, Lara sometimes gets called out on random assignments becasue she happens to be close to a situation as it is unfolding.

This includes this forced hot dog situation... As it happened the sounds coming from this event were setting off some alarms and people reported it down a chain of contact that lead to Lara's phone.

Since she lived in downtown Manhattan, she wasn't far. She'd been stepping out of a rare books store when the call came and she tossed her belongings in to the back of her black Jeep then set off to where the noises were said to be coming from...

Camellia Lowe has posed:
Camellia Lowe was taking her time with this, as often was the way of the demon, though mostly it was because she was exerting a massive amount of concentration on the three demons she had summoned, to keep them from getting out of line. The demons twitched and moved erratically from time to time, as her concentration faltered a bit against their own desires. It was going fairly well so far. The man obviously didn't want to eat so each bite too some time to go down, and often required the third goblin to grab his chin and force chew the food inside his mouth. This was the worst, she was feeling like the greatest trash, but it couldn't be helped.

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara's Jeep pulls up at the mouth of the alley and she spends a second getting out of it. When she does, she tosses her hoodie back inside the vehicle then raises her sunglasses up to her hairline. Her brown hair flows softly at the sides of her brow and she walks around the front of her vehicle toward the sidewalk...

It doesn't take her TOO long to hear the sounds too, they're bouncing off the walls down the alleyway. This has Lara walking a little faster in to the alley.. She tries to get a better look at what is happening before she intervenes.

Camellia Lowe has posed:
Camellia Lowe was wondering particularly about the reason no police had been called yet, it was strange, but a relief. Things would get really ugly otherwise. She was starting to feel a need to hurry for this exact reason, but she was trying not to choke the man on his own hotdogs. Even so, by then the demons were shoving them into his mouth rather roughly, sometimes more than one at a time, and forcing him to swallow. She simply stood on the opposide side of the stand, a hand nervously flipping through a bundle of cards she was holding. At a first glance she simple looked like a girl wearing shoddy clothes, but it would become more obvious she was involved the longer she stood around watching it happen.

Lara Croft has posed:
Once Lara could recognize the little demons she was ready to take action about it. She actually stepped quickly back to her Jeep to get something out of the passenger side seat. She pulls a book out of a leather bag she had sitting on the passenger seat, then sweeps back toward the alley and in her hands she holds a grimoire of all things.

Lara starts to flip through pages rapidly before she stops and then looks down the alley. "Excuse me." Lara announces, loud enough to be heard quite easily. Once she has their atention (hopefully?) she continues. "I'm Agent Croft with with WAND. I have to ask you to cease what you're doing there..." Are those hot dogs? What on Earth...

"Stop what you're doing there and return to the realm from wence you came." ITs an interesting approach, but hey, she's new at potentially having to bannish demons..

Camellia Lowe has posed:
Camellia Lowe gets a chill up her spine when she hears the words 'return to the realm whence you came' bad exorcism memories, that experienced had been truly terrible. She turns around with a very upset expression, her fingers digging into the bundle of cards at a specific point and pulling out three. "I'm afraid I cannot until I find out what this man's limits is." She blinks a few times, making a face as she focuses inwards for a moment. "...uh." She says, as if preparing to repeat something. "This man wishes to vend the hotdogs, but has he truly mastered them? What is the limit of his domain over them? Does he really deserve the position of master of hotdogs? I must find out." She says with a sort of monotune voice, then clears her throat. "Ehm. So yes, that. So I'd prefer you left until this is done." She closes her fingers, squeezing the cards into her palm then flicks her fingers back, causing the cards to fly out. There's a brief flash of greyish light and three more of those demons appear in front of her.

Lara Croft has posed:
Beginning this job in earnest over a year ago, Lara had been growingly more and more immersed in the occult and the magical world that lived in the shadows of the normal world. Reading, as ever in her life, was one of of her biggest time sinks, and the more situations like this she's gotten herself in to the more learned she's tried to become at dealing with these manner of things.

Of course, she's still no expert. Not at magic, not at charms, not at wards or anything.

The woman with the cards is noted as beingly a ... potential hostile. Confirmed with she summons 3 more of those creatures to the area just before Agent Croft. She glances back down at her book and just shakes her head. "Blasted." The Briton says as she snaps the book shut and reaches behind her back to pull out an ICER pistol stun gun. "Last warning. Release the poor man, be on your way or you'll deal a lot more than just me." Did she call in for backup? Maybe?

Camellia Lowe has posed:
Camellia Lowe glances over her back, there were still a fair amount of hotdogs to go through, but the man was getting really full. The demons had to practically shove them down his throat by now. She just had to hold out a bit longer. Her fingers squeeze another card, holding it between them. "It doesn't matter, bring whoever you want, my point stnads. This is something I must do." She replies coldly, it was, if anything, one of the most benign ones. Understanding human nature, behaviour and morals was something that could potentially lead to really terrible experiments that she was trying to avoid. This was much preferable, even if she had to fight this woman. "But I warn you, if you try to exorcise me I will have to get rough." She adds at the end, sounding more upset than threatening.

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara's eyes look to the Hotdog Vendor before going back to the 3 demons that had been summoned closer to her, and then finally to the woman who'd seemingly conjured them.

"That's fine." Lara replies to her. "You can rough me up if that is your desire. But in going from him, to me, and inevitably there-in further you will be advancing down a chain that rapidly grows more difficult in your adversaries. You'll be quickly defeated, if not by me, by the next person on the chain..." Lara tries to reason with the woman.

"Take your 'friends' here and go back to where you belong, send them back to where /they/ belong, and release that poor man from this ridiculous humilation exploit." Her ICER is kept trained on the 3 demons in front of her.

Camellia Lowe has posed:
Camellia Lowe smiled as the process was nearly done, she could feel it, it was just a matter of time, she knew where this was going but the demon was stubborn. "They'll be gone once this process reaches its end. If others come for me I will just have to deal with them as they come, not carrying out these sorts of things is not an option for me." She continued coldly, the man was breathing heavily behind her, and finally, the sound of puking. There was his limit, finally. She seems to lose focus for a moment, her eyes staring at the distance before fixating back on Lara. "And there we go." She focuses for another moment, her face contorting into a look of disgust and misery for just a second.

She turns around, since this was something she had to see. The three demons let go of the man and instead start trashing his hotdog stand, using claws and a suprising amount of strength for their size to smash it to bits. She stares at the man with such intensity it's like she's trying to look into his soul. Unfortunately she could not do that. She takes in every reaction, every panicked moment, every outraged looked, every saddened glance before the man simply takes off running in horror, it only took a few seconds for him to take off, though. But it was enough.

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara's eyes dart over to the Vendor when she hears him unable to down any more of his tasty hotdogs. She doesn't outwardly react to him dumping it all on the alley floor, nor does she do anything when the demons start to trash his hotdog cart.

When the New Yorker starts to run, she feels a since of relief that he was getting away. Her eyes dart back over to Camellia then. "Now then. It looks like you're free to go after all. As you can see, he's reached his limit."

She still doesn't take any shots with that stun gun, she doesn't want to escalate things if she doesn't absolutely aave too... she's learned that much in her young life, to be sure.

Camellia Lowe has posed:
Camellia Lowe massaged the back of her neck, seeming to be some kind of nervous habit. She lets out a long sigh of relief and seems to shift into a more relaxed pose. With a snap of her fingers all of her demons shatter into a shower of white and grey particles. Six cards returning to her hand, which she places back onto the deck. She holds one card between her fingers still, though, and stares down the woman. "Yeah." She sounds tremendously depressed when she says that, but nods in return. She's quite cautious as she begins to back away, not turning her back to the woman and that strange book, she walks backwards until she reaches a corner. "Hopefully this is the last time we meet. Things don't always work out as tame as this." She tells the woman before making the turn and starting to hurry away, unless the agent decided to pursue.

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara twitches a little when the demons all shatter in to nothing, but then her eyes go back to the woman who was the root cause of all of this. She starts to lower the ICER though as the woman starts to speak and back off. Lara just stands her ground, though she does shift her weight from one booted foot to the other.

Once Camellia has backed off and retreated away, Lara just exhales and shakes her head. "I'm well aware of that..." The Briton Noblewoman quietly says mostly to herself now that the other has gone. She drops her gun back to her side and slips back in to the holster on the back of her belt at the small of her back.

Lara starts forward though, toward the hotdog cart as she pulls out her phone and starts to send this report in, and to get someone here to deal with the cart so it is returned to the owner...