8559/Acheology, Magic, Burglary, and A God

Acheology, Magic, Burglary, and A God
Date of Scene:	28 July 2019
Location:	Sanctum Santorum
Synopsis:	Lara swings by the sanctum, Jeremy gets banished to the moon
Cast of Characters:	Loki, Lara Croft, Doctor Strange, Black Cat
Tinyplot:	Weather Spheres

---

Loki has posed:
The Seasonal orbs, once so close to all being contained and under control, are once again loose in the world. Worse, there's suspicion of them being in the hands of villains (specifically one villain) that might choose to do very dangerous and problematic things with them.

The season orbs, supposedly, have the power to control or even undo the seasons, and the stress upon the weather and time could be disasterous.

As of earlier in the month, the last of the orbs known to the Sanctum was removed, by the hands of Felicia, handed off to an unknown magic user. As of last news, the orbs were all gone.

--

On the top of the stairs sits a reasonably common sight: Jeremy, a young teenage mage, is there, with one of his books, ankles crossed. He's eating an apple and flipping through two pages, but he looks down the stairway as Lara appears. "Hi," he says, agreeable and friendly, to Lara, as she moves into view, and waggles his apple at her with his hand and some fingers in a wave.

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara Croft just parted ways with Wong moments ago once entering the odd, but charming home of Doctor Strange. She was ascending the steps when the young man spoke a greeting to her and while closing the limbs of her sunglasses together, Lara offers him a light smile and a little singular dip of her chin in a nod.

"Hello." The British woman says then as her eyes leave the young Jeremy and scan about. She was to be lead to where Doctor Strange is, so Wong had said, but she asks Jeremy anyway. "Is the good Doctor busy this afternoon?" Is her question once she reaches the top of the grand staircase and stands with booted feet side by side and her hands together in front of the silver buckle of her belt around her waistline.

Doctor Strange has posed:
    "I'm right here." Stephen says, as he steps out of a sudden orange framed hole in reality and space time. Stephen steps into the foyer with a motion of his hand dispelling the opening without a thought, shutting off the work room he had been in.

    Stephen looks up from the bottom floor towards the banister that Jeremy is on and he frowns deeply before looking over to Lara, "I was informed by Wong you were looking for me." Stephen informs before he looks to Lara, waiting for her to fill him in on the reason for the adventurer's visit.

Black Cat has posed:
There floats the thought, spoken aloud for the benefit of others, "Oh, guests." One of the perennial guests of the Sanctum appears out of one of the side-halls on the second floor. By the loose bundling-up of her white-blonde hair in a tortoise-shell clip and its damp state, Felicia must have just indulged in a shower. She's in a comfortable fitted tanktop in mint-green and a pair of black yoga pants; the fuzzy socks in a lurid pink clash delightfully.

"It's crazy how we all end up in the same place sometimes." Felicia twiddles manicured fingers as she approaches the top of the stairs. "This house is the best kind of spooky, don't you think?" It's a comment for the group as a whole even as she sits on the railing of the grand staircase side-saddle. Then, controlling the speed of her descent with her legs, she begins to slide down it.

Jeremy gets a light ruffling of his hair of greeting. Lara gets another twiddly-fingered wave and a wink. Stephen himself gets a daring lean-in and fluttering of lashes as she slides past him as well. "I'll be back, just getting my shake out of the fridge."

The small fridge, not the OPEN IF YOU DARE fridge.

Loki has posed:
"Going for apprentice, not really secretary," Jeremy says to Lara, cheeky but not annoyed. He doesn't mind, really. His youth shines through with a sudden point towards Stephen. Look, he found him for her. "Yet I think maybe I could handle it," he smiles to Lara.

An elusive little headtilt is offered in Stephen's direction. The apprentice mage is pretty low key and hasn't been underfoot; this is no different.

The playful ruffle as Felicia touches Jeremy's hair gets a surprised little look up at her and then an immediate friendly grin. Maybe a little too smiley, but the amusement is very honest. He uses his free hand to un-ruffle his shoulder-length, brown hair a little with a rake of fingers. "Got a spare shake?" he asks loudly, hopeful.

Lara Croft has posed:
The response from Jeremy earns a light smile from Lara and she's about to respond to him again when Strange appears back down on the first floor, and then Felicia to her left. A small smile is offered to Felicia and her wiggled wave. "Its nice to see you again." She softly tells Felicia, whether the woman believes her or not!

Lara will move to step out of Felicia and Jeremy's way if they're going to go retrieve shakes from the first floor and she'll instead look down to Strange and start to slowly descend the staircase again with her left hand reaching out for the smooth wooden railing for a little guidance as she starts to take one step at a time.

"I am looking for you." Lara says to Strange with a slight smirk. "Just checking in on the situation." He knows why she's here, she doesn't even really have to say it at all.

Doctor Strange has posed:
    Stephen smiles towards Felicia but for the briefest moment as she leans into him and he gives her shoulders that one armed squeeze of a man who cares but is also dealing with something else at the moment. "You do that, maybe take Jeremy and get him one too." Stephen says with a nod towards Jeremy up the stairs before Stephen turns towards Lara.

    Stephen looks to Lara and crosses his arms before his chest and he cants his head just slightly, "The situtation has been in flux lately, things are behaving erradically. Two of the orbs suddenly appeared on one of my desks the other day, but do not fret, I have hidden then since, even replaced the continers they were in. I may have created something even more useful..." Stephen retorts, frowning slightly as he did what Reed and Stark tend to do, he went too far.

    "Before I tell you more..." Stephen frames his hands around the Eye of Agamotto at his chest and a third eye opens up slightly and a brilliant light shines out of the amulet to wash across Lara, Stephen aims to reveal any truths that might be hidden by the 'waking' world. He wants to see if she is in fact Lara.

Black Cat has posed:
"No spare shake," singsongs the Cat on her way around the corner of the broad landing beneath the stained glass window. She keeps her seat on the smoothly-carved turn of the bannister and dismounts with a silent bip-bip of her feet on the foyer floor below.

"But Wong might have left some ice cream if he wasn't up working late again," she calls up the stairwell towards Jeremy in particular. Her jade-green eyes flicker to the Sorcerer and to Lara and her red-red lips curl to a degree unseen at this distance from them all. "Let's go look, kiddo."

'Kiddo' being Jeremy, of course.

Loki has posed:
"Yes, maybe take Jeremy and get him one too," Jeremy third-person parrots in agreement to what Strange said, indicating his own chest. He tosses the rest of his apple in the air once and gets to his feet, heading down the stairs without sliding on any banisters, though he does run his free palm down the wood as he goes down.

Jeremy does pause to look back and watch the use of the Eye, and gives Felicia a sideways lift of brows in a 'how about that?' sort of look with a smile. "Suddenly appeared," Jeremy observes to Felicia, his tone curious. He's an excellent little liar, there's no show or tell at all that he knows what may have happened. "It wasn't you, was it?" he teases her aside.

Lara Croft has posed:
The use of the magic spell to determine the validity of Lara being Lara indeed does certify that she's telling the truth simply by being...

A ghostly copy of herself is displayed beside her, she doesn't even see it, but it yields the evidence that her soul is her own.

Lara's eyes, meanwhile, are looking at that odd necklace that Strange wears, of-which she's never inquired about it though she has a wealth of internal intrigue and curiosity about it, its origins, its purposes and what all it can do... she's naturally a curious person and those kinds of relics and items are the very thing she's often sent to go and track down.

But, she was raised as a proper English Lady, so she doesn't inquire about it, it would be rude.

Instead her eyes go back to Stephen's as she descends the steps and leaves her hand on the edge of the railing at the bottom of it. "They re-appeared?" She asks then. "Well... thats good. Perhaps it is some sort of security measure that has brought them back to you, that we weren't even aware of. They evidently consider you their protector now, after all, since the spell I used which first lead us to meeting chose you to call upon after all."

Lara glances after Felicia and Jeremy, but they've gone so she looks back to the Wizard. "So we've three of the four again?"

Doctor Strange has posed:
    "A security measure, is doubtful, and it seems you and Felicia both weren't aware of them being placed there, so I'm lead to believe Loki, or even an unknown party returned them to my sanctum." Stephen says, lifting his hand to stroke at his chin and goatee, as he starts to pace away from Lara.

    On the turn around he's walking back to the British woman, "No, only the two, the last one was removed by cunning and devious trickery." Stephen reports with a frown as his voice drops beyond quiet, a hushed whisper, "It has been brought to my attention that Jeremy, the boy with Felicia now is in fact Loki himself, so do be warry." Stephen says before returning to his boisterous voice. "You came to this sanctum in order to 'check up' on me and the orbs, I'm not sure if I'm offended or flattered."

Black Cat has posed:
Indeed, the use of the Eye does draw attention in its gleaming display of magical light. Felicia slowly continues walking backwards, limber fingers rising to adjust the lay of a strap of her tanktop, this having rolled once.

"Gosh, Jer, I couldn't tell you," replies she airily. "It's all the Doctor's business, you know. You know me, I'm just a little old mundane chick who likes card tricks and nice walks on the beach." Turning on her toe like a dancer, she then proceeds to sashay into the kitchen. She goes to the small fridge and pulls out a half-finished mango-banana protein shake from the Jamba Juice smoothie shop. Peering into it, she reaches in and also removes a small container. "Looks like Wong got into it after all, but there's about a third of the mint chocolate chip left I brought over a few days ago. Here." The thief underhands it at Jeremy with a lazy flick of her wrist.

Loki has posed:
The mint chocolate chip sails through the Jeremy illusion and crashes in a wet mess on the kitchen floor behind him.

"How wasteful. .... I'm not cleaning that up," Jeremy lets her know mildy. "For obvious reasons." Such as being an illusion. That would be the main reason.

The illusion does come over to look at what else is in the fridge, though, as if everything were normal about the situation.

Lara Croft has posed:
The Briton watches Strange as he paces away from her and she remains where she is up to the point where he reveals that that young man she'd just met was in fact Loki himself? This makes her look in the direction of the kitchen, which is out of ear shot (as far as she knows) and she then looks back to Strange as he's making his pacing pathway back in her general direction.

"-That- is Loki?" Lara asks with a forcefully hushed voice just to be as safe as she can. She is moving to Strange now, to step beside him. "You should be flattered too." She idly adds. "Not often is it that I check up on others, I barely have time to check up on myself." Whatever that means.

Either way, she's going to pace with him if he keeps walking, or she's going to stop aside of him. "So he's quite literally just toying with us then? Stealing these things and hiding them, then randomly returning them and what... sitting here asking for protein shakes from your... your friend?"

Her dark eyebrows lower in displayed confusion upon her face. "I'd say that this is madness, but what I know of the mythical Loki's reputation... puts all of that utterly on-point. Admittedly I'm just sad for how utterly and entirely -bored- he must be to sink to this sort of level..." She glances away then, wondering just how boring a godly figure's life must be.

Doctor Strange has posed:
    "He isn't aware of our knowledge." Stephen says softly to Lara before he rolls his neck and straightens his back briefly before he starts to march towards the kitchen, expecting Lara to follow him. "What was that sound you two?" Stephen asks calling out into the room before he arrives, wondering what the clatter of falling ice cream containers might have been. While to Lara he replies belatedly, "I couldn't possibly claim to understand the mind of a young god." And young is of course used relatively.

Black Cat has posed:
It does take Felicia a handful of seconds to recover from the surprise of the illusioned vision of Jeremy. It's a bit like ripping off a Bandaid and stings yet again. Her eyes gone wide slit to narrow, glinting in the kitchen lighting.

"...you're about as funny as a hangnail," she hisses at him before she puts her shake aside on the counter with a firm thump to accent the recent clatter of the cracked gelato container.

"Jeremy's got butter-fingers." It is with no shame that she announces this loudly enough for both Stephen and Lara to hear on their approach. "It's okay though, I'll get a sponge." The sink water indeed comes on as she grabs at one, fuming down at the cheery flower-patterned cleaning tool she wets.

Loki has posed:
"Ooooh, so burned," Jeremy replies to Felicia's hangnail comparison, with a clasp of hand against his chest over his heart, fingers curled in a talon-like grip into the fabric. He instead (appears?) to move to hop and sit on a counter, as the others join them, and Felicia to do some cinderella cleanup. "Maybe don't throw stuff at me," Jeremy says in a mock-huffy way, and leans over to look in her leftover Jamba Juice. He doesn't want it, not really, but it still is possibly prudent to not leave it near the prank-prone 'young' god.

Lara Croft has posed:
Its Strange calling out to the ice cream and milkshake duo that makes Lara cease her desire to talk on this subject. His last comment on it just gets a small nod from the archaeologist and she places her hands upon her hips, sunglasses held between thumb and forefinger of her right hand as she just starts to walk in a aimless direction toward the far side of the foyer.

"Well." Lara then says as she glances toward where Felicia and Jeremy are. "I'm here if there are any ways that I can help with all of this." She says to the Doctor then, looking back to him. "I know this is a bit of a mess now, a large one, but I still believe its better than the alternative would have been. When you first met me, there were very bad people within minutes of acquiring the item. They would be... doing far worse things now with it, had they gotten it."

"At least, as far as I can tell. Childish pranks and immature antics are ideal over that outcome." Lara states then as she raises her sunglasses up to hook them into the low-scoop neckline of her gray tank top. She's clearly trying to watch her words, and speak in vagueness.

Doctor Strange has posed:
    "And if they had gotten them, I wouldn't have been able to do anything about it." Stephen says with a sigh towards Lara, Stephen says, stopping in the doorway to the kitchen and looking back to Lara, "I will certainly need your help, soon." The wizard remarks to Lara before turning back to Felicia and Jeremy as he watches her clean up the mess.

    "How did ice cream end up on the ground on the far side of my kitchen?" Stephen asks the two of them both not indicating which one he expected an answer from.

Black Cat has posed:
Thank god (well, not one of them) for the ice cream's fairly minor splattering, when all is said and done. Felicia rises from wiping up the last of it and takes the cracked container with her. This is placed in the sink until further decisions are made regarding it. Felicia looks over her shoulder at Stephen and arches an imperious brow.

"I said Jeremy has butter-fingers," she replies tartly before the rinsed-out sponge is then hucked at the young man once more with more than a little force than the initial under-handed toss of plastic gelato container.

Loki has posed:
Jeremy innocently lifts a hand and bats the sponge back, with a tiny little magic use; he wouldn't want to actually touch the gross sponge, really. It's sent back at her head, naturally.

"Maybe don't throw stuff at me," Jeremy says in the exact same way he'd said it not a moment before. The tone is still consistent with his young appearance: snarkiness fits in great with a fourteen year old boy. There's no traces of godliness apparent from the adept actor.

"There's a mess?" Jeremy asks more directly at Lara, light eyes turned towards her questioningly.

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara nods softly to Strange when he says he'll need her involvement 'soon'. "Fair enough." She says then to him. "You know how to reach me for that eventuality..." She turns then toward the main entryway of the house, smiling back at the ice cream commentary. "Good luck with that." She says then as she starts to make her exit.

As she reaches for the door handle, she pauses to look to Jeremy. Lingering a gaze on him a moment, the British woman smiles warmly as she pops the handle on the door causing it to pull open. "I work for SHIELD. There's always a mess." Lara says as she seems to be making her exit now, stepping on out into the summer weather of Greenwich Village.

Doctor Strange has posed:
    Stephen looks over his shoulder as Lara leaves, giving the woman a kind nod before she goes and then turning his attention back to Jeremy and Felicia, "This game has grown irksome." Stephen says unprovoked as he steps closer towards the two in the kitchen. "What is it you are after?" Stephen inquires, accusatory tones dripping from his words as he says this, his grey eyes locked onto Jeremy with an incredible intensity.

Black Cat has posed:
The sponge ends up batted away, in turn, into the kitchen sink with a flickering twist of Felicia's head. She gapes at the young man before outright folding her arms and glowering at him. The departure of the archaeologist redirects her attention briefly.

"Thanks, Laraaaaaa," she calls out towards the departing woman before turning her attention back to the two gentlemen. Oops. That's the Look.

The thief sliiiiiide-steps to put the kitchen table between herself and the two practitioners, as if it might count as any form of defense in the case of a sudden wizard-off at worst. Nails run in a mirrored line of tick-tick-tick-ticks along the back of one chair as she looks between them, relatively wide-eyed, but god -- the thrum of her heartbeat in her neck is drugging. Behold, the adrenaline-seeker in her silent, attentive element.

Loki has posed:
"How very aggressive of you, Sorcerer Supreme," Jeremy says, cheerful tone dropping into a chilly, steely one. It doesn't destroy Jeremy's 'character', but it does kill the innocent aspect. "You could have asked for my favor, and benefited from my current good mood. I was perfectly willing to help: in fact you could say I have helped a great deal, acting as a guardian." Jeremy moves to slide off the counter edge. There's no real surprise; he assumed Felicia told all of them about who he is.

"I'll take this to mean you don't want the others. Or are you concerned with your ability to handle all four? It could be apocalyptic for somebody to have them all if they didn't know what they were doing." Jeremy's not upset, there's still ease to him.

Doctor Strange has posed:
    "I expected you to be more respectful." Stephen says, the floor around Jeremy's feet starts to slowly shift and warp from the tile to something more rough, almost purely rock like as Stephen's hands slowly move from his sides up before his chest to cross at the wrists. "You make assumptions, Jeremy," Strange says with a calm, but overpowering tone, "and yet you refuse to answer my simple question. One I will /not/ repeat." The wizard says, while beenath Felicia, another rift in space time starts to form. Stephen plans to quickly move her without her permission and drop the white haired woman onto the sidewalk next to Lara's Jeep.

Black Cat has posed:
Whoa, where did the floor go?! Rapt with attention and with her heart still fluttering in her throat, Felicia's nearly lost to the immediate outwards spiral of the oculus beneath her feet. As such, hyper-quick reaction time of surprise means she instead grabs onto the back of the chair.

"Hey?!" Prideful irritation makes the remonition a raspy spitting of word and almost impossible to hear under the Sanctum reacting to the command of the Sorcerer Supreme. Swinging her legs to one side, Felicia lands clear of the immediate area of the chair and then darts around to insert herself //between// Stephen and Jeremy. A manicured finger whips out and points dead in the young man's face. Felicia's eyes glitter.

"You touch one hair on his head, Trickster, you answer to me. Don't make me act in defense." Color's high in her cheeks now.

"Look, I brought two of them back! Can't we talk about this like adults?!" This is for the kitchen as a whole -- and Felicia has clearly never been in anything akin to a magical spat before. If there are any ancient elements of rite or rules, she's unaware of them.

Loki has posed:
"Respectful of the orbs? I am. I completed what I wanted them for, and I'm done; I'm not a warden of magic objects to guard things indefinitely that I'm not going to use further. You can deal with them now."

But then Stephen proclaims he won't repeat himself. That's all right, 'Jeremy' doesn't need a repeat. Jeremy lifts his illusory eyes to look upwards as if to recall the question, or stall, or both. "Ah, yes. What am I after. A smoothie," he answers, in a sly, asshole tone. Sometimes it just can't be helped, and the jerk that Loki often is comes out in full.

"I also would accept gratitude. You could say I'm here for that. And entertainment. So, I'm only at one out of three."

Jeremy draws a hand across and towards his torso, and summons a smoothie. He sips from the straw. SIIIIIIP. "Two of three."

Doctor Strange has posed:
    "What did you- Felicia..." Stephen says, a moment of weakness shows on the sorcerer's face. He uncrosses his arms and starts to reach for her. "He gave you two, yes. What did he."

    Stephen looks back to Jeremy, "What did you do with the other two?" Strange demands of the young false wizard. "What did you do with the orbs anyways?" Stephen wants to know, but he keeps Felicia in the Kitchen for now, the protal that opened below her in the kitchen and the one near the jeep closes quietly.

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara is outside not far from her Jeep. A hot dog vendor that works on the street has noticed her going in and out of that home several times and he's now called her over to question her about it while she's merely ordering one of his bottled teas. The portal opens on the street and Lara looks over to it, as many others would as well. But when it closes she just looks back toward the house.

"That place is Addasm Family weird, Lady. No idea why you'd wanna go in there." The Hot Dog vendor says in a thick New York accent.

Lara just smirks at him and offers him a bit of money for her drink.

Black Cat has posed:
The thief can't tell if the Trickster took her seriously or not, but this seems to be par for the course. Her mercurial little heart takes solace in her edict leveled, at the very least. The appearance of the smoothie has her blinking and then snatching up her own from the counter.

With a sharp-eyed sense of self-approval and -appreciation, Felicia SLURRRRRRKS loudly on the straw of her own smoothie as if to make a point. Then, stepping aside, she saunters to Stephen's side and simply stands there, straw remaining between her pursed lips. Magical, her silence!

Though not for long: "May I please have the other two orbs?" It seems an even-enough request from the blonde.

Loki has posed:
"I allowed Felicia to return two, as she was respectful of both myself /and/ the magic involved. I wouldn't /dream/ of handing her all four at once. That would be very unsafe," Jeremy answers.

Jeremy sips his smoothie once, and then smiles a little on one side of his lips.

The shapeshift melts over Jeremy from toes up to head; Loki saw little point in staying in the Jeremy guise at the moment. He isn't in battle regalia: just a cutting-edge fashion sleek black suit, tailored exactly to waist and shoulder. His hair is slicked and shiny as feathers, even with a slight ducklike lick at the neck. The remainder of the role of Jeremy drops away from his attitude, as well: mostly to give way to a regal arrogance.

"Used them, of course. Not /here/. I have other realms, you know," scoffs the god. "They're probably very drained," he adds, with a disinterested hand gesture in that. "Makes them safer for the next few centuries. Again, I'm just FULL of favors to you lately."

Loki meets Felicia's eyes as she asks for them. "No 'your highness' this time?" Loki asks, in a muted sadness: as if she'd have gotten them, except for that one mistake.

Doctor Strange has posed:
    "No. Not this time." Stephen says before lifting his hand to rest on Felicia's shoulder and he aims his free hand towards the revealled Loki. "I will be coming to you for the orbs in time trickster. Until then." Stephen says as the very Sanctum itself seems to regurgitate the adopted prince from the kitchen, to the front door, that has relocated to be connected to the kitchen. A mystical sensation of a retching stomach and spasming esophogus projects Loki's visage out from the hose that was in Greenwich village, but now seems to have been set up on the moon somewhere, and not near Attilan.

Black Cat has posed:
Another long SLURRRRRRK is Loki's immediate answer to his question. Felicia squints as if musing about //how// to answer for a time before Stephen speaks up. Thank god he does. There wasn't anything intelligent or diplomatic lingering behind her lips pursed about the smoothie's straw.

And then, Loki's spiffed and polished form is...gone.

Blinking, the thief looks around the kitchen -- even up at the ceiling -- before stepping away from Stephen to peer out into the foyer.

Stephen gets a wide-eyed look of plain surprise from the kitchen doorway. "Is he banished?"

Loki has posed:
Being quieted is one of Loki's least favorite things. There is an instant of a heady, burning resentment that flows through the god's visage, a reminder that he is not human, not hardly, and the insult of being shown the door might cause some retaliation in the future.

"Perhaps someone else is more worthy of---" Loki started to say, before he's forced out by the power of the Sanctum.