...yeah she definitely needs someone with a platform to shine a light on what she drags out of the dark.  And I'm thinking that with how I came out swinging against the cops when I talked with this guy who does raiment analysis and miscellaneous magical-person reporting, that I probably have the persona for it.

 

...I wonder if the senator from CA with the SW and drug decrim bill would also help.

Senators? Helping ANYTHING? Maybe if it scored them popularity points... All of them end up participating in the game of keep-away. The thing they're keeping is power and the ones away are everyone else.

Hey, there's gotta be at least *one* that's not enough of an asshole, and what they have that Brass doesn't is *attention.*  And given that she's trying to take away a lot of the primary vectors with which cops harass people, I think she'll bite.  It gives her project *ammo.*

Like, I don't think that getting these things to the Senator and the Senator actually publicizing them would *win* the battle Brass is fighting.  But I do think it would shift the terrain in her favor.  ...The other thing is, there's actually a *lot* of infighting between federal and local LE, the way I hear it; if you can turn them on eachother like an ouroburos that's a win, right?

I guess fed vs local would be entertaining at least? keep them busy?

I don't trust them but I hardly trust anybody so

I gotta jet soon fyi

You don't need to trust them to use them.  You just need to know them well.

 

Be safe out there, okay?

Safe as I ever am. Don't worry about me. Just avenge me if I vanish ok?

I will.  ...uh.  How serious is that request/should I actually be watching my mail for an 'if you're reading this I'm probably dead' letter?  b/c like

I *will,* though.  if you want.  you gave me something *important,* and I don't think I can ever truly repay that, y'know?  I doubt I'd be where I am today, or even remotely close, without your well-timed kick in the pants.  and that means something to me.

nothing specific

roll the dice enough and eventually you'll get five ones in a row

that's about my background daily risk of death AFAIK

Ah.  Yeah.  ...I'd offer to do something to make it not-that but I still have almost no idea how magic works.  Especially enchanting stuff.

The risk is mostly concentrated in one of your conspecifics exterminating me

The more secure bugout routes I have the safer I am

So if I vanish I'm not necessarily dead

Gotcha.  ...I'd write you an endorsement but -- huh, actually, I wonder *if*.

 

Anyway, oathy shenanigans, probably not a reasonable plan to consider just yet.  Would need more cachet and also, well, *trust.*  And I'm sure Maeve doesn't like me enough for *favors.*

uh yeah no that's a terrible idea

I really have to go now, and no signal. be safe.

Will do.  See you <3

And then, sleep.

...her dreams are surprisingly less unpleasant than she expected - she actually got to her various destinations, accomplished her various goals, and only then had her subconscious pull some new thing out.  And reality didn't suddenly become incapable of allowing her to progress, either!

Seriously, she's so tired of dreams where she just has to make it through a door or something but then she falls to her knees and tries to scramble through it anyway except the world is now molasses-slow, et cetera et cetera, being the only dreams she even gets, so anything not-that is nice.

Her morning is bright and early.

Or, well, dark and early, technically.  Luna is grumbling about the way school schedules make no sense because teenagers are supposed to sleep late, in the back, but Diana is pretty stringent about her morning workout, regardless.

Which is to say, she jogs to school quite often.

Nothing manages to interrupt her sleep! Or her morning routine!

On the way to school, though, there's something... Itchy? Off? Like the smell of black but not a smell in a weirdly synesthetic way? Probably a monster. Seems to be coming from a drainage culvert.

Oh, bloody hell, she has to deal with this in some way or another.

Fine.  Phone out annnnd, Ophelia and Clara, she chooses you.

Once their raiment has settled - Ophelia feels it appropriate to call upon Diana's, this time - she tries to call this in.

And Clara calls into the culvert - "Hello?  Is someone there?"

There's a faint squelching sound in the dark plastic tube? A hint of movement, too dark to make any details out, if she looks into it.

Her hotline call connects and starts off the answering machine spiel- If this is an emergency CALL 911 NOW

"Hello.  New spirit bearer, call me Luna, by the culvert near Rutherford and Magnolia; my spidey-sense is tingling and something just squelched in there in a way noncharacteristic of...whatever, really.  Want to have y'all on the line Just In Case, but I'm rather confident I can handle a slime.  That or I just jinxed myself."

Clara sighs.  She just wants to make friends, but she doubts this is a monster capable of thought.  Still, she has to try.

(A quick nudge from Luna has a bit of wind blowing over the microphone as she says this next bit.)

"Look, if you can understand me at all, I don't want to hurt you.  So if you can hear and understand me in there, uh, squelch twice?"

"-Understood. Please be careful, focus on yourself first. Do you want me to send a patrol your way?"

(Squelch Squelch Squelch Squolch, goes the culvert, not in an especially communicative way. There's a 'plop' from the other side of the street.)

"I think you should probably prep to do whatever SOP is here; I haven't had enough time to brush up on it and I don't have enough confidence to know where it might be wrong - but right now I'm going to focus on the fight or lack thereof."

Annnd phone goes into pocket and Sylvia is summoned up and she - well, she tries to stretch her proprioception out into the water, finding what hides within --

-- as Sylvia caps off the culvert with thin but sturdy metal.  Which is fine; it will, after all, disappear later.  She also flexes her will down the ditch's walls, reshaping them into a much less escapable furrow.

Her next move is to target the slime - if it has been found - trap it between hard metal and solid earth, and see if it will blend.