8846/Special Delivery to Lost and Found

Special Delivery to Lost and Found
Date of Scene:	17 August 2019
Location:	Jonah's Place
Synopsis:	Felicia seeks out Lara to deliver the fake-Orb of Spring as well as a plead for aid in finding a lost Sorcerer Supreme.
Cast of Characters:	Black Cat, Lara Croft
Tinyplot:	Weather Spheres

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Black Cat has posed:
Phone calls went to voicemail. Texts remain unanswered. Felicia can't decide if she's incensed or worried out of mind. Either way, she's frazzled, and laps the square footage of her home in East Manhattan several times before finally deciding on a conclusion. The thief doesn't want to ask for help, not about this, not if...not if it involves explaining in //fine detail// how it all came to be, but...she can't do this alone. It's a pride-bruising sort of conclusion, but it brings her to arrive at a restaurant.

Jonah's Place is renowned for an eclectic mixture of food-stuffs from Hawaii, New Zealand, and America all tossed on grills and served with casual charm. It's a shot in the dark, but the platinum-blonde cat-burglar is erring on finding one particular patron here, given Lara's mentioned Jonah more than a handful of times, including extending an invitation for her and Stephen. Her heart pangs to remember this, in light of the absentee Sorcerer.

She steps in and pauses, stepping off to one side. Dressed in a caramel-brown cardigan overtop a shell-pink camisole and straight-legged blue jeans with sandals, she's definitely civilian rather than in her black leather cat-suit. This will be new to Jonah, though not to Lara. Putting on her most winning smile, Felicia steps up to the front desk and asks the male host, "Excuse me, I'm a friend of Jonah. Is he in tonight?" Surely the red-red lipstick helps her request.

Lara Croft has posed:
Jonah's Place is billed as a family restaurant, though after around 10pm it does shift focus and no longer allows customers under the age of 21, as it has a bar area that becomes the main focus of business while the dining areas are closed off to customers. Its a pretty big place, it probably cost a fortune to buy, likely to maintain too in this wildly expensive city of Manhattan.

But it has a... wonderfully charming feel to it. In fact its designed to look like a restaurant aboard an old wooden ship, a pirate ship motif with an emphasis on nautical decor.

So when Felicia enters and asks for Jonah, the employee (not dressed a pirate mind you, they don't make the employees go THAT far at least) nods to Felicia and points up a small flight of stairs to where a row of booths sit behind a wooden railing like you'd find near the navigator's wheel of an old world ship. Its up there that Jonah can be spotted. He's standing in front of a table with a family seated before him and he's regaling them with a story of his adventures at sea... Jonah was a cook on a number of ships, dating back to his youth and on into his military service career.

The story seems to be quite entertaining as he's motioning with his arms and emphasizing words with raises in pitch of volume. The children at the table, four of them, seem to be in awe of the story too. "A living, breathing, Mermaid was on our deck!" Jonah can be heard over the noise within the rest of the restaurant...

And if Felicia looks about, she'll spot Lara is here too. Though not with Jonah, she's near the front of the restaurant, at the bar. Standing beside its corner and holding one hand on its edge, speaking to someone seated at the bar, she's nodding her head and smiling lightly... out of the corner of her eye though, she notices Felicia (ever perceptive, Lara Croft is). She looks to her and smiles softly from across the room, raising a hand to wave lightly to her.

Black Cat has posed:
Following the host's directive up towards the second floor and its seating, Felicia squints. Ah, yes, she recognizes the young man from their...adventure...up in the mountains. Her smile is half-stifled, as if allowing herself to find amusement in the memory were embarrassing somehow -- mustn't get attached to people, after all, though she's failed dramatically once in this premise.

"Ah, thank you. I'll say hi to him after I..." Lara's little wave is caught over the host's shoulder and Felicia changes tack mid-sentence. "...go get a drink. Thank you again," she oozes, giving the man a shameless wink before she saunters by, leaving notes of her perfume in her wake. Adjusting the strap of a small dark-brown satchel on her shoulder, she gives Lara a tighter smile and twiddly-finger wave before her chest, all body-language screaming a request for secrecy.

"Hey, it's good to see you. I need to speak to you someplace quiet." It's right to the point, apparently. Felicia's jade-green eyes can't hide her concern even if her social mask is flawless.

Lara Croft has posed:
As it so happens, Jonah catches sight of Felicia when she enters the main part of the restaurant and weaves her way between the tables to get to the bar where Lara is. It makes him stutter a bit in his tall-tale for the children's amusement but he eventually looks back to them and restarts where he'd left off after a little charming silly laugh, his specialty.

At the bar, Lara her finishes her conversation with the portly old fellow with graying hair and then she steps a pace or two away when Felicia approaches. "Hey." She quietly says to her, but when Felicia cuts straight to business, Lara's expression falls to bit more serious one. Croft is wearing a black button-up shirt that has only a pair of buttons closed at the bottom, showing off a maroon colored tank top on beneath it. Her lower half is in tan denim pants and brown boots, a very Lara-styled attire.

"Of course. There's an office, just back here..." She turns then, an inviting gesture offered to Felicia to follow her and she moves back into the employee hallway where she takes a left and flips the light on just inside the office, Jonah's office most likely. "Come on in." She tells Felicia after striding into the room, its private, well kept and has a modest collection of furniture inside it. Desk and chairs, a sofa against the wall and some filing cabinets.

Black Cat has posed:
Lara's fellow conversationalist is given a tight little smile of greeting. Curling her nails through her hair, she tucks a loose lock, fallen from her hasty bun, behind her ear as she then follows Lara against every thief-ly lesson learned in her life. Instincts scream at being in the room with the capable archaeologist, especially behind a closed door, but Felicia swallows down her anxiety. Carefully, she takes the satchel off her shoulder and then pirouettes on her toes to face Lara. Fingers take to wending and wringing themselves at the height of her navel.

"Look, I..." she begins and falters. It's embarrassing, how tears fill her eyes in a stupid flash. "Stephen's in trouble." Her voice wobbles. "Loki took over the Sanctum and he threw me out. I still...I think there's an innocent man still stuck inside -- he - he tried to help me. Wong gave me this bag. You need to keep it," she stresses, voice now dropped to a raspy whisper of faltering composure. "I don't know why he gave it to me, but he did."

If opened, the satchel will be found to carefully contain the decoy Orb created by Stephen, faux Orb of Spring, confoundingly beautiful and radiating its pale auroral hues.

Lara Croft has posed:
Once the door is closed, Lara is stepping over to the office desk when Felicia twirls about and starts to talk. The Briton's reaction is as simple as she could muster it to be. She blinks at the thiefly woman. "He's in trou--" She's cut off as the bag is thrust at her. She accepts it and does look down into it, after opening it spies the orb and believes it to be the real one at first until all the pieces and clues come together to make it obvious that its not. It is a hell of a fake though...

Either way, Lara closes the big and she sits down half-way onto the front of the manager's desk, holding the bag in her lap. "Loki... has thrown Stephen Strange... out of the Sanctum Santorum, and is how holding someone hostage inside of it?" She tries to get all the 'ducks in a row' with this. "And its not Wong?" She tilts her head and narrows her eyes, and a moment later she shakes her head from left to right.

"My initial reaction is pure confusion." She says then to the other woman. "I'm not even sure why Loki would want to do such a thing, but then again I don't know Loki. Not the real one. I know the one from legend and folklore, but I've had no dealings with the real... living Loki. Only with Thor, have I had any dealings. I..." She straightens her head's angle and softens her stare. "I'm happy to help you, Felicia. Stephen as well. Only I'll need to know how I can help. If this isn't a problem Stephen can solve, I'm not... sure what I could do other try to speak with Loki? I've no idea what I'd even say." She pauses then. "Where is he, Stephen that is?"

Black Cat has posed:
Felicia herself has settled on the arm of the couch by now, knees drawn close together, and watched in silence as Lara inspected the satchel as well as its contents. Her fingers rise to cover her mouth and she closes her eyes. Fingers curl and she seems to be kissing her own knuckles as she listens. A swipe of the meat of her thumb removes an escaped tear because she - is - not - crying.

"I don't know where Stephen is," she replies in the same strained, raspy tone. "I tried calling him and texting him and he's not answering. I haven't called the cops for a missing person's report because...god, you know him, he's a stubborn jerk and he's not dead." She seems so sure of this without any validation, it's pitiful. "I need help finding him." Her jade-green eyes are especially bright as she looks up at Lara again.

"Yes, Loki did banish Stephen from the Sanctum. There's nothing we can do about Loki, not right now. He's a slippery, slimy, two-timing son of a bitch. You can't trust a word he says," she snarls. "Wong...made it sound like he was safe. We have to trust he is. I don't if the other guy's still a hostage. He..." Her mouth works for a second before scrunching as if tasting something bitter. "He bargained for Loki to let me go, even though I told him //not to//. I told him //not to// and he //didn't listen//." She wipes at another tear again. "He's the scariest guy I know who can't do magic, but he's...I don't know, he could still be stuck in there, but I don't know."

Lara Croft has posed:
All of this sinks into Lara as she remains with rigid posture on the edge of the desk and her reaction to Felicia's additional rundown? She exhales and looks away, she gently shakes her head from right to left and then lets her gaze drop down toward her lap with the bag and the faux magic ball within it. "This is why these things, the real ones, aren't even safe with Strange." She quietly states first before she looks up to Felicia.

Lara's head is just gently tipped to the right, her eyes look to Felicia with a soft expression. "The only way I know how to reach Stephen, without his direct assistance, is to use the chant on one of the real sphere's. The chant that opens a doorway to the nearest Wizard Protector of the sphere's. The two time's I've used it, both times it opened a gate way directly where Stephen was. You were with me on one of those two times."

The bag in her lap is gently lifted up and then set down again upon her thigh. "It clearly won't work with this facsimile, but... the real ones? I'm not even sure where they are now. Inside the home, with Loki?"

Black Cat has posed:
Felicia rubs at her cheeks before shoving her hands away beneath her armpits, as if they'd gone cold despite the relative warmth of the office. Her ankles cross and uncross multiple times as she replies, "I remember the chant, believe me... It scared the hell out of me." Her lips tremble like they want to smile and almost make it -- almost. Her head shakes quickly, however, dimissing the idea even before words follow. "I don't think we should try that. I'm very sure that Loki's got all four Orbs."

Her shoulders droop to admit this. "He...he went on and on about how he's got the Sanctum and the Orbs and something about saving Asgard -- saving millions of people, but..." Her red-red lips roll to stifle what has to be a sniffle. "He didn't care about the cost." She looks up at Lara again. "You know how Stephen goes on and on about magic and its cost: don't screw around with it, it'll cost you. Loki said he didn't care if this world took the cost. I don't know enough about magic to know if it's going to do something...really, //really// bad. He said 'Asgard' like it was a whole other world." She shivers.

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara's attention is on Felicia, she shows a light and faint smile when Felicia does and she otherwise just is a good listener, a gentle nod following key notes of what the Black Cat is saying to her and just as she's about to speak, with a breath being taken in and her shoulders rising...

There's a gentle knock on the door, followed by a male's voice. "Lara...?" Its Jonah.

Croft's stare breaks from Felicia and she stands up and moves to the door. She turns the knob and opens it up about a foot. "Hey." She says to her friend, he's quite a bit taller than her, well over six feet so she has to look up at him. He looks from her, to Felicia. "Everything all right?" He asks them both, his smooth and deep voice laced with concern.

Lara steps back a bit so he can more easily see Felicia and she leans on the door, holding the knob with one hand and the bag against her hip with the other. "Yeah, for the most part." She says to Jonah then. "Felicia is here to tell me that some things are going on with that Doctor, the one in the Village."

"Oh, Count Spookula." Jonah says then with a nervous laugh. He then catches himself and looks from Lara to Felicial. "I mean... is he okay? Its good to see you again, ma'am." He says to Felicia directly then.

Black Cat has posed:
The knock makes the thief startle. Her sandal soles scuff on the floor for a second before she gathers her composure. Rapidly wiping at her face and looking up at the ceiling to puff a few quick breaths of air seems to help...somewhat. Geez, it's Jonah, come on -- gotta pull it together, girl, you'll ruin the impossibly-charming image you have for him.

Thank god Lara still fields the immediate interaction. It gives Felicia a chance to further regain her dignity. Jonah's nickname for the Sorcerer Supreme earns him a brief outraged look which quickly dissolves into a helpless titter despite herself, a very soft sound even beneath his own laugh.

"It's good to see you too, Jonah," she replies, letting slip just enough of her despair into her tone towards him. "Stephen's not okay right now. He's...he's missing. I came to ask Lara for help." Sweeping her hand out at the archaeologist, she then lets it fall to her lap again and her chin drop along with her eyes, as if it were too much to keep looking at Jonah, as if it might risk more tears showing.

Lara Croft has posed:
Jonah's wise enough to know that his nickname for Strange didn't land so well with Felicia and he looks a bit embarrassed by it now. A glance is given to Lara who affords him a soft smile and then his eyes drift back to Felicia.

"I'm sorry." He tells her. A second after that he continues, while shifting his weight from one big foot to the other. "Gosh, if there's someone in this world like him who could go 'missing' and be in trouble? I can't imagine what could cause that. He seemed like he was more capable than the entire Avengers roster, like... Gandalf." He pauses for a minute. "Maybe if its like Gandalf, wherever he is right now is precisely where he means to be, or needs to be. However that quote goes..."

The big man draws in a breath. "Anyway... I'll let you two be... Let me know if you need anything." The sounds of the restaurant at peak operating hours are a bit louder even with the door just partially ajar but as Jonah starts to retreat, Lara smiles to him. "We will." She offers him back before moving to shut the door again and stand beside it as her stare goes back to Felicia.

"He is capable, you know." She says to the white haired woman. "I know you're distraught... but, its possible that wherever Stephen is right now, he's working all of this out." Seems she might partially understand where Jonah was coming from with his statement about a Wizard in Middle Earth.

Black Cat has posed:
A weak, twiddly-finger wave is directed at Jonah as he leaves. Felicia looks up at Lara once more, her lips thin and jaw set. Her heel bumps softly against the couch once as she shifts, crossing her arms to hug herself.

"I know he's capable, Lara, I know he is, it's just..." Her stomach knots on itself. "Look. Look, if...if I tell you this, you can't tell anybody else. Anybody -- and I'll know if you do and you do NOT want to cross me," she claims, her voice tight and hissing for a second. "Promise me you're not going to tell anyone? Actually, you know what, you promise on Stephen's good name: swear on his name that you're not going to tell anyone else."

My my, she's //very// insistent about this, jade-green eyes gleaming.

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara hangs on the door's knob for a moment longer until she hears Felicia's tirade about the swearing and it just makes her release a light exhale of a laugh at the way the woman says it, a tired sounding expression. She releases the knob and moves to the desk again to set the bag down upon it with the faux sphere inside of it.

"I have more secrets locked away in my head than any one person ever should, on a wide range of topics that no one should ever know." Lara responds before she finds the chair on the other side of the desk and turns it around to sit on its edge. She's an investor in this restaurant, she helped fund the place, so she's pretty at-home here.

"But fine." She says then, pressing her hands palm-together between her knees which come together on the backs of her hands. "I swear on Doctor Stephen Strange's name, that what you tell me here will come to me, and go no further. Forever to stay within my mind of already cluttered madness." She says to Felicia, her British accented voice soft and calming as ever.

Black Cat has posed:
Lara does, admittedly, get a squint for a handful more of suspicious seconds from her guest before the facade of prickliness melts away into a tired rue. She takes a moment to wipe her palms down her thighs as if to dry them before returning them to her crossed arms, though not as high and tight as before. Rather, at her elbows.

"We tried to trick the Trickster God. I had a spell placed on me, so I'd look like Stephen, and I thought I'd go tell Loki to give the spheres back. I tried. It didn't work. Loki told me..." A slow inhale and exhale. "Loki told me that Stephen's bosses fired him. I don't understand why, but they did. It isn't a lie because...because how could Loki control the Sanctum like I saw? Stephen wouldn't tell you this, but I am because...because you need to understand."

And somehow, it's an admission of guilt on her own part.

Lara Croft has posed:
When the admission of the plan is relayed to her, Lara just sits up a little higher in the chair and then... sinks back into it. Rarely does Lara Croft slouch, but she does when she hears an epic... failure such as this? Her right hand goes up to her face where she brushes some of the brown strands of hair out from her forehead and in front of her right eye and then her elbow on that arm plants itself on the arm of her chair.

She looks over to Felicia and presses her slim pointed chin down into the palm of her hand though and just looks at the white haired woman. "You did your best." She says to her, because its true. "Stephen is a smart man, a powerful man. You're a smart woman, an extremely capable one--as I've witnessed personally--." There's a 'But' coming, its obvious. "But... Loki has been 'at this game' for, hundreds, of years."

Softly she shakes her head side to side. "There needs to be more fail safes in place for plans like this, Felicia. We need to find Thor... and if not Thor, we need to get ahold of the Avengers or the Justice League. Its time this gets more serious. Loki is declaring the Earth's safety forfeit to his mysterious, and wicked, plans. This is beyond you and I now, its beyond Stephen too. Its our responsibility to bring the bigger... guns... in on this now. If we don't, then we're almost just as at-fault for whatever happens next, as Loki himself."

Black Cat has posed:
"Yeah...I know..." the thief allows miserably where she sits. "I don't //want// to have to go get his big brother and friends to clean up the mess, but here's the thing too, Lara." Reaching up, Felicia pulls her hair free of the tie and allows it to cascade down her back. She pulls a lock forwards and begins twisting it tightly around her finger. Gently tugging and releasing it follows.

"Remember what I said...? About Asgard? How are we going to convince Thor to not let him to do this? I said that to Loki's face, that his brother guards this world too, but he just laughed. He thinks Thor will agree with him. Stephen probably knows people, so...we need to find him first -- even before everybody else. I think he still has his magic. That's important. It means he can still fight." Her fingers clench at her thigh before releasing again.

"I mean...I just want to know he's okay," she adds plaintively.

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara sits forward again then and she rests her elbows on top of her thighs, sliding them down toward her knees while her fingers interlace between each other and her eyes remain on Felicia's face. "Thor is a smart man as well. He can be reasoned with, where Loki likely cannot so easily be. Thor will see reason, he'll know that whatever threat that Asgard is facing, it can be dealt with in a way that is more beneficial to all parties involved, rather than just finding the simplest solution and going from there... which seems to be Loki's way of handling this, whatever it is, that he's doing."

A moment is taken for Lara to glance toward the desk and the bag with the fake orb in it. "As for Stephen, our only other option is to go and find Wanda Maximoff." She looks back to Felicia then. "She's a wise and powerful sorceress. I've been lucky enough to speak to her more in depth of late and... she might know a way to find him, or at least find out what his current condition is and that will yield you some needed comfort on that subject, I would think."

"And since she's with the Avengers, well, they better find out about whats going on inside the Sanctum. This matter is certainly reached their levels of jurisdiction, I would say." Its certainly going far beyond Lara's, she's not even a high level SHIELD agent!

Black Cat has posed:
Morosely, Felicia nods her agreement at the conclusion drawn by her cohort. "Yeah...if the Avengers can't do something, I don't know who else can. The whole Battle of New York made that glaringly obvious to me. I still hate him for that," she mutters, wiping at her face again; 'him' being Loki, of course. "I can speak to Thor, if Wanda can't. I remember her from lasagna, she's got dark hair and likes to wear red leather. She wears it well," the thief admits with a weak smirk. "Would you..."

It's another step in extending hesitant trust, the way she rises to her feet after a second and walks over. "Here." A sticky note is grabbed and a number scribbled on it. "This will forward to my personal phone. Can you...text me or something when you go talk to Wanda? I want to be there, in case...in case she finds him. I'm his girl...y'know?" Her voice breaks a little even as she holds out the small square of paper towards Lara.

Lara Croft has posed:
All of the battles and engagements that the 'super heroes' of this world got themselves into were not really where Lara Croft's mind focused. She was a bookworm, she was a 'nerd' and her focus was often on the past rather than the current events of the world. The 'Battle of New York' is something she's admittedly not even sure precisely which fight that was. She's seen a lot of them... she's even participated in some battles inside this wild American city. Even still, she could understand where Felicia was coming from. "I admittedly look forward to meeting Loki. If I do get the chance. I've been reading about him since I was shorter than this desk." She glances at the piece of furniture in question and then looks back to Felicia and shows a light smile. "I'll keep Thor's gauntlets close at hand." She probably hasn't mentioned what those are, or that she even has them...

When the note is grabbed, scribbled out and handed over, Lara sits up and accepts it. She gives it a look and then raises her eyes to Felicia's own. "I'll get in touch with her and there-by you, we'll meet up and find out where he is..." She understands Felicia's motivations here, or she thinks she does! Lara can be a bit of a trusting person when she thinks she's helping people.

"He's going to be fine. I'm sure of that though." She adds, for whatever its worth.

Black Cat has posed:
"I think he'll look fine, but it'll be...in here." Felicia pokes at where her heart sits in her chest, a nail denting the pink camisole before pulling away. "You know how proud Stephen is. He gets...he gets stupid about how it's all his fault if things get messed up. Help me convince him if he's being...a broody hen." Her nose wrinkles against a sad smile, but it shows up regardless.

Then, for some reason, she laughs -- only once, but it's bright and twisted, almost a snicker. "God...if we meet Loki again... You say nice things to him while I hit him from his six. I owe him something more than a slap this time," she purrs with a dark, flat note in her voice, her eyes on her nails even as she closes a fist white-knuckled.

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara shows a smile at all of what Felicia says then. "I'm not sure Stephen would even consider me a friend, to be honest, but I'll do everything I can to help him. He's helped me, he's owed that much. I'll contact Wanda first thing in the morning and see if I can't get us an audience with her." Lara will start to stand up then. "As for Loki... I can certainly say how impressed I am to meet him, if you think it'd help. I imagine that type of flattery doesn't really work on him, however. The few celebrities I've said it too in my life, only ever seem to be bothered by it."

Lara shows a smirk then as she steps toward the doorway. "Would you like to stay for a drink or two? On me of course? It might be a nice way to relax a bit, rather than worry yourself further at home." Wherever it is Felicia calls home.

Black Cat has posed:
"He'd want you to grovel before him, not just compliment him. I doubt either of us will do that. I certainly won't. I'll grovel before him when it's my dead body lying there...and I won't let that happen either," she murmurs with velvety certainty. Knowing that there's someone else to share the burden of the missing Sorcerer Supreme seems to take the worst edge off of the anxiety eating at her innards. Felicia wipes under her eyes for a final time and rises too from her seat on the couch's arm.

"I...I normally would, but I forgot to feed the cat before I left." She gives the Brit a forlorn, knowing smile. Yes, ah-hah, funny, the Black Cat owns a cat -- albeit a mystical construct of a cat. "That, and I put a fifth of vodka in the freezer before I left too and there's orange juice in the fridge. Screwdrivers have my name on them this evening. Let me..." She straightens her cardigan and wipes her palms off once more on her jeans. "Can I take you up on that another time, when we're...we're less concerned about the fate of the world as we know it?" Her smile twitches.

Never in the EVER did Felicia Hardy think she'd be worrying about the fate of the world as she knows it.

Lara Croft has posed:
The bit about Loki at the start of Fel's response gets a soft smile, a knowing one but she doesn't comment on it... there's not much to say there, she agrees and definitely gets where the thief-y one is coming from. As Lara reaches for the door she turns the knob but keeps it closed.

"If thats what you feel is best." She replies about the turned down off for a drink here at Jonah's place. "You'll miss out on all the tall tales of Jonah's sea faring days." She chides with a slight grin. "But I trust you know whats best for yourself, and for your feline friend."

With that, Croft twists the silver knob and pulls the door open back to the employee hallway. She lets Felicia step out first if she so desires. "I'll contact you as soon as I hear from Wanda." She adds then. "And we'll... start fixing this."

Black Cat has posed:
With silent steps, Felicia does exit the room first. A trickling feeling of fear abates from the base of her spine and she seems to breathe easier out in the hallway, as if knowing where all the escape routes are means far more than she initially suspected, at least unconsciously.

"Thank you, Lara," she then breathes as she turns to face the other woman. Her face scrunches up momentarily before smoothing out. Clearing her throat, she then continues. "It means a lot that we can meet in the middle on this. I know we...we weren't on the best of terms for a while. I mean...we can kind of blame Stephen for that one," she laughs faintly. Green eyes flick back towards the main portion of the restaurant and in theory towards the tale-telling.

"Let Jonah know he owes me a story or two? I'll bring Stephen with me too, when things are less crazy?" It's an offering of trust yet from the chary thief. Then nodding to Lara, the Cat slinks away, headed back to her domicile and the lure of many, many Screwdrivers.