Fantasy Culture Shock (Tarmagon & Angelofwishes7)

[Tarmagon]

Ryan looked around the, well, it wasn't a strip mall, but one of the converted industrial complexes that now housed trendy markets, over priced clothing stores, and restaurants with odd names, and sighed. Something was causing problems, and despite the urgent requests for updates by his client, he had no idea what was causing the outbreak of unexplained break ins, or the odd nature of the thefts. Food vanished from the kitchens of certain restaurants, and the one across the way wasn't touched. Some employees came to open their stores to find merchandise strewn about the floor like a child's discarded toys, and some discovered a single, small items missing when they conducted an inventory. All of this without any security cameras catching anything, and despite increased night watchmen, no decrease in the odd happenings. Ryan himself had staked out the area two nights in a row, first with a thermal camera, then the next with night vision optics, and the most exciting thing he had seen was a stray cat. Now he was wandering the outdoor mall, trying to figure out what he was missing.

Letting his steps wander randomly, Ryan found himself near the back corner of one of the building blocks staring up at a small sign proclaiming Min's imports and oddities. It was a small store front, decorated with sigils that looked vaguely oriental, and the front window held an eclectic mish-mash of figurines, decorative weapons, and dried herbs. After a moment, Ryan pushed open the door to a bright jingle of bells.

"Welcome, welcome," a bright voice said from somewhere in the rear of the shop. "I'll be right there."

A moment later the source of the voice appeared, a wizened little woman with a cheery smile and features that proclaimed a minor asian influence a generation or so in the past. A colorful scarf adorned her head, and matched the bright shirt covered with a design of dancing dragons. Smile wrinkles added character to a strong face, and bright eyes looked Ryan up and down with interest.

"No, not a customer," she said, still smiling. "You hunt our mischief maker. Good. The hososhi was not able to bid it begone."

Ryan had met people like this before, and while it was always startling how much they knew, he had learned to trust what information he was given. He had also learned not to press, so he smiled at the little woman and just nodded.

"I'm Ryan," he said, holding out his hand. The hand that shook his felt like steel over leather, and there was no sign of weakness at all, though Ryan guessed this woman had to be in her sixties.

"A good name," the woman replied. "Name me Julia. My parents learned their english watching cooking shows, and well, here I am. And here you are, seeking the source of our misery. There are two, an amanojaku and a bakeneko. The first a minor demon, and the second a shapeshifter in the form of a cat. Together, they vex this place, though I know not why."

"Thank you Julia," Ryan said sincerely. "Might I ask how to deal with them?"

"Ask you can, but tell you, I cannot." Julia intoned in a credible Yoda accent. "Traditional remedies have failed, and only my own arts keep my humble shop safe from their attentions."

Ryan started to ask another question, then froze. Cat. He had seen a cat both nights he had surveilled the property. But how had it gotten inside, and how had the cameras not caught...the minor demon, he would bet it was some type of fae, and they ate electronics for snacks.

"Thank you Julia," he said honestly. "I will amend my hunt accordingly."

"And I thank you Hunter Ryan," Julia replied with a small bow. "Please, return to me with news of your success."

Ryan left the small shop with a bemused smile on his face. Practitioners always made his head spin, but they were knowledgeable in ways he was not. He would return tonight, armed with knowledge and whatever he could scrape together to deal with a fae.

Angelofwishes7

 

[Angelofwishes7]

Misoki Rayn Ro'Tellia

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Misoki walked down the sidewalk of the town, she had only been it for a few days and she was beginning to get used to her new life. Moving here from Japan was a very big change, but she at least seemed to be adjusting to it well, though her job searching could be going a bit better than it had been. She began to wonder what she could be doing wrong. It couldn't have been her English, was it? She had taken many classes, even given extra free time so that she could learn to pronounce her words properly. Of course, she still had trouble here and there, but it was rare. She gave a soft sigh, she had an interview earlier today, but it didn;t seem to go very well. Maybe it was her people skills? She never had any issues before. She gave an another soft sigh, it was then she had noticed that she had been walking along this road for quite some time. As she looked up from the sidewalk she noticed that she was closer to her apartment building than she originally first thought. She was only a few steps away, if she hadn't decided to look up she may have walked right past.

She turned and walked up to the entrance of the apartment building, entering then slowly going up to her apartment. Opening the door and walking inside, it wasn't much, It was small, and she was limited to what she could do for decorations, but she had tried to decorated it in a traditional Japanese sense. Pictures of cherry trees and pink carnations covered the walls pale gray walls. She had a silver rug on the floor leading into the dining room. On the table in the dining room, there was a white and pink table spread to add a bit more color to the room. In the middle of the table sat a vase full of a mixture of lavender, jasmine, and sweet peas. She walked over, smelling the flowers and putting down her bag, letting it hand on one of the chairs as she went to her bedroom.

Her bedroom continued the theme of Japanese trees and flowers. She had dried flowers in frames and more pictures of cherry blossom trees, some of them hand painted. She sat down on her bed, the bedding a pale lilac purple on one side, with the underside of it being white with cherry blossom petals spread across it. She grabbed her laptop from the small table that sat beside her bed, opening it to look at different locations in the area that were hiring. After a few minutes of looking through different websites, she brought up a page of a place similar to a strip mall. It was different from anything she had done before, but she was interested. She began to read the pages, trying to see if any of the places where hiring within it. To her luck some were, and though she didn't particularly find great interest in any of them, but it was a good place to start. She looked at the location and the hours it was open. Looking at the time she noticed that she had time to run down and place in a few applications before they closed down the area for the night.

Quickly getting up she went back to the small dining table grabbing her bag off the chair and heading back out the door. She began estimating in her head. It would take about twenty-thirty minutes to get there with her walking at the pace she was. That would give her at least a few hours to give out her resume and try to make some acquaintances so that her name was out there. She took a deep breath, readying herself.

 

[Tarmagon]

Something was nagging at the back of Ryan's mind as he entered the rv which served as his mobile base. The encounter with the shopkeeper, Julia, was replaying itself in his mind, and he couldn't shake the feeling that he was missing something important. Settling in behind his workstation, Ryan began to search for information about Julia Min. Despite the access he had to certain databases, access which would certainly raise the eyebrows of the database's owners, he could find no record of a Julia Min.

"Okay," he thought aloud. "Maybe the shop carries her parents name. She said they learned..."

His thoughts broke off suddenly, then came back on a completely different tangent.

"She said her parents learned their english watching cooking shows," he mused. "But that would mean both her parents were immigrants, and she looked like she had asian ancestry at least two or three generations ago. Somethings not right."

Switching to a local government link, Ryan searched business records for Min's Imports and Oddities. Sure enough, there was an application for a business license, filed by a Kim Min and his wife, Lin. Diving back into DMV records, he found pictures of both Mins, and the woman who had introduced herself as Julia looked nothing like either of them. More searching, this time through county records revealed that the Mins did indeed have a daughter, but she was thirty and named Anne.

"Time to get some more information," Ryan thought wryly, opening a security cabinet and extracting several small devices. "Let's go see what we can see."

Pocketing the tiny cameras and listening devices, Ryan headed back towards the mall and a certain shop. Time to try a different tactic.

Angelofwishes7

 

[Angelofwishes7]

Misoki Rayn Ro'Tellia

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Misoki continued her walk her bag and resume held tightly in her hands. It took a bit of time, but after about twenty-six minutes of walking, she made it to her destination. The place didn't look how she first thought, but she wasn't too worried about it. Though, It looked larger than she first thought it would. Which made her a bit nervous, but also excited as she slowly walked in looking around at the different shops and stores inside. Everything seemed to have their place, and it was decently easy to get around the mall.

Even though Misoki wasn't too interested in any of the jobs the mall was looking for she decided it would be best if she stopped by each store and at least hand them her resume and introduce herself. It would be nice to make some new acquaintances and to talk to some people. She hadn't really talked much to anyone since she's been here, well besides the few interviews she has had that is. She walked into one of the first stores, it looked to be selling most arts and crafts supplies. It was nicely decorated with a pale yellow and blue wallpaper and had matching carpet flooring that continued throughout the store.

"Hello, welcome to The Craft Depot." An older looking lady said from the front counter as Misoki walked in. "Is there anything I can help you with today?" The lady smiled at her kindly.

"Actually, yes." Misoki smiled kindly walking up to the lady. Reaching into her bag she pulled out a copy of her resume. "I understand that you may or may not be hiring at the moment, but I would like to introduce myself and hand you a copy of my resume." She paused handing the lady her resume. "I'm Misoki Ro'Tellia." She smiled at the lady holding out her hand to the woman. The woman smiled shaking Misoki's hand and gladly excepting the resume.

"Well, it's very nice to meet you Miss Ro'Tellia, I'm May, May Raider." She paused taking a short look at the resume. "I'm sorry to say this but we are all filled with staff right now, but I can put your resume in our folder and if we need anyone you'd be one of the first we call." The lady smiled as she reached for a folder that was in one of the cabinets behind the desk.

"Thank you, I'd appreciated that very much." Misoki again smiled to the woman as she watched her add her resume to the files.a She continued to speak with the woman for a bit of time, telling her about herself and letting her know some of the skills and abilities she had in the work field. When a few customers walked in Misoki let the woman continue on with her work, waving her a goodbye as she turned to leave.

"Have a nice day now." The woman waved back before getting back to her work.

Misoki continued on through the mall, putting in different applications and handing out her resume to the many different and unique staff of the mall. She sighed as she walked onward. she had put in plenty of applications, and her name was now out there saying that she was looking. She had hope that someone would call her back sometime soon. With some time, she found herself getting further and further into the back of the mall. She began to think that maybe she should turn around, she had already done plenty for the day. But she paused when she saw a particular store that caught her eye. "Min's Imports and Oddities..." She wondered what she'd find there as she began to walk toward it, obviously curious about what may be inside, who knows, maybe they would be hiring.

Tarmagon

 

[Tarmagon]

Vishray N'Gannon, witch of the Grey Kingdom and currently masquerading as an insipid shopkeeper named Julia was vexed. This had seemed such a simple assignment. An up-welling of power had been detected, and she had been sent to tap into it. What she had not expected was to find a strip mall, full of the human cattle she so disdained, and worse yet, the foreign hedge-witch and her damnable, interfering ways. It had taken Vishray days to actually locate the little shop, the old bat's cloaking spells had been that good, days she could have spent far away from the little hell-hole of a town she was currently stuck in. When she had finally discovered who had been interfering with her spells, she had waited until one evening when an early storm had driven most of the foot traffic away, then forced her way through the wards protecting the little shop and unleashed her power upon the old couple inside.

Unfortunately, things hadn't been what they seemed. Rather than succumb quietly to the potent energies Vishray had directed at them, the old couple had, changed. The old woman had taken a killing spell full on, vanishing into a roiling cloud of black, but rather than a twisted corpse, what had appeared when the spell dissipated was a large cat that had yowled defiance at Vishray and bolted from the shop. Turning her attention to the old man, Vishray had just managed to see him collapse in on himself, leaving only a small ball of blue light that had exited the shop hot on the heels of the cat. Vishray had expended a significant amount of her power to assume the form of Julia, and her spells ensured that all who might question her presence remembered her as a distant relative of the Min's. Since then, all of Vishray's attempts to tap the power she could sense lay just beyond her reach, had failed. Spell sigils were disrupted, traps were sprung, and now this. Her battle with the two whatever they were's, had attracted the attention of a Hunter. He had seemed to accept her words, but with those, you could never know. She would prepare for his eventual return, and add his head to her trophy collection.

Vishray was brought out of her thoughts by a sense of, something. Something, or someone, with potential was outside the shop.

Angelofwishes7