Sunday, June 17, 2018, 8:00 PM Norfolk

I started out the day with going through my normal prospects of preparing all of my gear and letting Rex out. On the balcony, I whispered to him to remember that he can only use it a total of five times a day, and only twenty feet per instance. Rex acknowledged my reminder and said that he’d be extra careful today. I looked around and got everything ready for my upcoming day. As I laid in bed, waiting to fall asleep last night, I figured that I needed to go against the Pepsi Boys for one reason more than any other.

I needed to vary up where and when I attacked, to make sure that they didn’t get a grasp on where I was yet. I didn’t mind the whole “verdigris vigilante” aspect, as since my armor was already green, it just worked for what I was trying to accomplish, creating a shadow for the enemies of the good folk to tilt after. It certainly doesn’t hurt that my normal clothing is closer to grey than green. With everything prepared, I made my way to the storage unit, opening up the gate and making my way in, closing it after me. I saw that portions of the craft work were complete, but that there wasn’t anything that was finished yet.

I started up the animation of the tools again, working to finish up on the frame and everything for the shower first. I was having the tools work more diligently than fast, to ensure that everything was high enough quality for enchanting. I’ll work on carving in the runes for the final work when it is ready. It was going to be more of a work of art, unfortunately, but maybe it will add to the kitsch of it. With everything ready, and it was still early in the morning, I decided to utilize something that I had rarely used since I got here, but I figured that it was worth it for today.

I opened myself up to the vagaries of chance, to see what the fates had for me today in my Augury, first with an attack right now against the Warlocks. I got such a strong “WOE” response that I almost fell over. I repeated the request for the universe to give me a sign about attacking the Painkillers right now. Strangely, I got no response, not a “Weal”, “Woe”, or a “Weal and Woe”. I’ll have to look into that a bit later. Finally, I asked the same question for the Pepsi Boys, and came up with a “Weal and Woe”.

Well, that was my best result, so I left the bike in my storage unit, locked it up after me, and then snuck rapidly to the center of Huntersville, where I had discerned that a den happened to be. Rushing to get there, I made it there with a quick stop to get the last thing that I needed in less than twenty minutes. It was barely seven in the morning, and I was preparing for my first actual drug den bust in this world, at least, and definitely my first solo event. I got my new piece of equipment out, a short bow and a quiver full of arrows designed to knock out rather than kill. I wanted to vary up my attacks, just to make sure that people didn’t get too much of a handle on my tactics.

I got to the building, and hid while I prepared. I changed all of my gear to be a green with Prestidigitation, that would be something for them to focus on when I attacked. I also prepared a green handkerchief mask to go over my face, before uttering my Oath of Anonymity. The last thing I did before slipping into the building, was activate my Haste Spell. Sneaking into the first room, I saw that these thugs were armed with what I recognized as shotguns, held low while they paced. I listened while the three of them talked to each other about how they needed to make a big push to try to get land back from the Painkillers, before the one guarding a door bent over to light a cigarette and the other two went to go check out windows for any personnel attacking.

When they separated to go check different corners, I took on my stance, lined up my shot and fired with my blunted arrow and aimed to bounce from the first to the second, focusing more on the second than the first. I dropped both of them with one shot, lined up so that it bounced off of one thug’s temple and struck the solar plexus of the one lighting up his cigarette. I lined up my second arrow to the third thug that was now facing away from me and the other two, striking him in the back of the head, knocking him forward into a wall and bouncing him off of it, knocking him out and silly.

I got the three of them tied up and gagged quickly, not bothering to check their gear or treasure, just making sure that they can’t get free or fire at me if they wake up. I went to the door and realized that I could really use something that would allow me to look through walls right now. Sighing internally, I listened to the door for a few seconds and realized I could make out at least nine different voices, with at least five of them being whiny female ones that sounded a bit slurred, maybe drug abuse. I heard one voice say something about taking these two girls and not wanting to be interrupted for the next two hours. I heard a door shut and I heard one male voice quietly say something to the effect of, “yeah, more like five minutes.”

Thinking quickly, I utilized a Vanish spell to get some short term invisibility, and looked through the keyhole. I saw a small pipe of some sort on a table about ten feet away from me. I lifted it up telekinetically with the Prestidigitation that I still had access to, and slowly moved it away from the door. The thugs, who had all likely partook of the substance in the pipe, were transfixed by the floating implement. Lining up another shot, while still invisible, I carefully moved to line up my shot to deflect again, while missing the young women who were around the men at the same time.

I was still invisible, so the three of them were not prepared at all for my attack. With my first attack, I lined it up and knocked out the two thugs while the furthest was still not paying attention, until I slammed him in the head with my second arrow. This time, the thug wasn’t knocked out like the previous trio and I figured that maybe the bow was losing its pull? The remaining thug, and all of the girls turned to look at me as I faded into view, a viridian vision of vengeful violence. The girls all tried to say something, with bits coming from them like, “oh look, it’s the versa, vega, virgo, virgin, vigilante.” They looked back to the thug who passed out from the secondary effect of my strike.

I looked at them all and wished that I had a way to clean them out of the drugs that they had coursing through their systems, but the best I could do is tell them to scram before “the Viridian Vigilante” takes offense to drug abuse and likely prostitution. The girls looked at me dumbfounded, but stayed in their seats. I grabbed some rope and hogtied all of the thugs in this room before lining them up in front of the door, with the other three as well. I lined up all six and got into position. I summoned up an Unseen Servant to help me move them, and then while I was getting ready, moved over to the door.

I walked over to the women, and told them that they should probably call the cops now. One of the girls did so, and I Vanished again, before walking over to the area behind the line of hogtied thugs. My Unseen Servant knocked on the door incessantly. After about twelve seconds of time, while my Vanish spell was ticking down, the big bad came over and opened up the door violently, and got to briefly see his gang all hogtied and trussed up in front of him, before he got treated to a pair of arrows heading his way and my form fading in to view, as he faded from consciousness. With him dealt with, and everyone else already unconscious, I checked over the two girls in the room.

They were okay, but undressed. I noted that they probably only had a few minutes until the police got here, so if they didn't want to be seen au naturel, they should probably get dressed. I walked carefully back out of the building and stealthily waited a distance away. It was less than a minute before the police showed up. They walked up to the drug house carefully and were in there for a few minutes before more police showed up and escorted the addicted young women out. Then a pair of vans showed up and the entirety of the gang were taken by the police.

I hoped that it would be something that would stick, at least for a little while. I made my way back to the storage unit the long way around, hiding and keeping out of the line of sight of any police men. Back in the storage unit, I reflected on what I had done and how it might improve our city. I then updated all of my notes in the main area of the different gangs and powers in the area. This was a blow for the Pepsi Boys, but I didn’t know if it would be enough to take them out of the running.

With a fair amount of time left for the day, I decided to spend it on getting my storage unit supplies increased. Bookshelves, books, a set of more tools, and more food items. I didn’t have access to power like I did before, and didn’t want to worry about open flames and what that might do in the storage unit, so I resolved to research a spell when I developed the ability to do so, or just make an item that could cook it magically. Then again, if I go with the field ration box that I was thinking about making, then I could just use it. But there were a fair amount of things that I just could not acquire in a way to get it back to the storage unit on my own.

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But the summation of what I can get there, I did and set up as I could in the tent’s main area. I also found a collapsible cot that I can still fit into my handy haversack, and acquired that as well. It would work for my use until I got something better at least, or got the materials to make something better back to the storage unit somehow. Making my way back to the storage unit, I had the idea that I should probably take a nap or something, and sent Rex a mental thought of homesickness, and the feelings of being in the tent. I kept myself in the non-expanded area of the storage unit until I got confirmation that he was on his way. Then I moved into the tent, setting up more things, including a place to nap. I had used a fair amount of spells, and while I knew that I couldn’t regain the ones spent until after I slept for a full eight hours, I wouldn’t have time for that, and then I got the idea to think about ways to get around this issue.

Rex made it back okay and without asking, curled up onto my chest as we slept on the cot that I had acquired. When I woke up, I realized that I had crossed another plateau. I felt that some knowledge had actually been taken from me, and realized that I no longer had the knowledge of the spell to conduct short dimensional jumps, but I gained some more defensive spells that will help with combat going forward. Hopefully, the boots will provide what I need for the dimensional jumps. I also realized that I had gained quite a bit better with my combat forms, and a few of them had been advanced as well. I also had garnered a much greater understanding of the manufacture of magical items.

I got up and started setting aside what I knew I would need going forward and writing down everything that I would need to get to make my needed items going forward. I got up out of the cot, after Rex got off of me, and went over to my empty planning area. I didn’t have a desk yet, but I did have the space assigned, so I set my updates for the gang status and what I was going to have to plan next. Warlocks were going to have to be hit, there was just no two ways about it. I was going to have to plan it though, they were much more reinforced from what I knew.

Going off of what I would need, and what I already had, I decided to “burn” some spells on getting as much information as I could on the Warlocks. Using both Page-Bound Epiphany and Eyes of the City, to try to get more information about the motorcycle gang and what I could expect. It was the last rumor that I heard while doing the Eyes of the City spell that uncovered a name for one of the mysterious “supers”, Francis Noche. A name gave me at least enough information to Scry, assuming that I can find a mirror that will fulfill my needs.

Heading into the other section of the storage unit, I popped open my S.H.I.E.L.D. phone and gave it a look. Coincidentally, there was a shop here in Norfolk that carried the item. Even more coincidentally, it was open on Sundays, and still open after I woke up. This was really straining credibility, to the point that I was wondering IF a Deity of some kind was looking for me to put an end to the predation of these gangs upon the populace. I let Rex know where I was heading, and then made my way to the store, the “Antique Treasures”.

The clerk was a bit nondescript, maybe too nondescript, as I showed them what I was looking for from their “website”. They were a bit snooty with me when they went off to check, asking me why I couldn’t just order it online like a normal person. I looked around while I was waiting for them to come back with the mirror. I found that they had quite a fair amount of older books that looked to have been previously enjoyed, so I grabbed up a stack of those, and then found a very nice portable table that actually would fit inside my haversack! I added it to my purchases along with the extra books and the mirror.

Another three hundred bucks down, paid in cash because I thought that it would be better for this individual vendor. I grabbed everything and brought it out to my bike, careful to put my new stock of items in the haversack away from prying eyes. Getting back to the bike, I started my way back to the storage unit, being mindful of traffic and getting back without any further issue. Rex was still curled up on the cot, so I got the table set up along with the mirror, and did some more research via spells for whatever I could find for one, Francis Noche. I invoked the Eyes of the CIty along with focusing on this individual “Francis Noche”, and finally managed to get a picture on the last “rumor” that I was able to track down.

This gave me a picture of him, his name, and also the name of a group called “The Slicing Talons”. I decided to use my Page-Bound Epiphany spell to get whatever further information I could get on this “Francis Noche” and the “Slicing Talons” that he apparently had been included in the roster. There was some fairly interesting information regarding how they (the Slicing Talons) had been members of a team that had gone against Coulson and his team. There were some other names mentioned, Wendell Levi, David Angar, and Karla Faye Gideon among them, as members of the team known as the Slicing Talons. There was enough of a background that I felt that I could TRY to do a Scrying on him.

Surprisingly enough, I succeeded, and managed to get some rather riveting images of him in the mirror, of him not doing much but just sitting at a table and drinking. I managed to get my phone out and take some pictures and video of him, hopefully Jonathan will be willing to get me more information on him specifically. I nodded to myself as I took down as much information as I could, his location description (a rundown tavern of some sort), Modelo Especial on the label for the beer in front of him, and a bit more information of all of the inner details of the bar as well. I wondered if Noche had known that he was being observed, but I figured that he didn’t because he never actually glanced at the Scrying aperture the whole time. I didn’t see any of the tell tale signs of someone knowing that they were being observed either, so maybe he is just so intellectually dim that he didn’t have anything much going on mentally at the time anyway.

Not having all that much I can do with what I have to get more information on Mr. Francis Noche, I decided to get any more information that I could get on the world religions, going further to transfer everything that I got from the further Page-Bound Epiphany spells and I started having the documents be designated by the individual religion. It was a LOT of basic information for the different faiths that I was researching but it would give me at least a fairly good overall starting point for when I needed to do further research into any of them for any specific reason. Building a dossier for all of the different religions and philosophies is going to take a LARGE amount of shelf-space, so I need to keep it brief, until maybe I make a blessed book or something like that. Maybe I’ll need to find a way to modify my spells to work on this new “electronic media”, but for that I will definitely be needing some sort of power source in this area, and it is going to HAVE to be magical, as I can’t trust the single light access outside of the tent.

By the time that I was done with the Scrying, Rex had woken up and wandered over to the area that I had made my “office”. With him awake, I felt no shame in having more of the furniture and other things be assembled and books shelved. I let him read over my notes for Francis Noche and the Slicing Talons while I went to look at my new gear. There wasn’t anything much that I could do except any of my cantrips. I made LIBERAL usage of the Stick Cantrip to put some of the pictures that I had drawn of the various people, along with my notes for the various gangs.

I used Prestidigitation to clean everything that I could with it, got everything ready, and noticed that I was feeling a bit peckish. I informed Rex that I was going to be locking up the Storage Unit for the night, and heading back to the hotel. Rex yawned and indicated that he was going to make his way to the hotel after dark, that he’d let me know if he was trapped. I nodded and asked him why he didn’t want to fish anymore today and he yawned and told me that fishing was always best in the morning. I shrugged, and emptied out my Haversack of everything that I would not need for the night and tomorrow morning, and with a glance to him looking at some of the easier books, I shut the gate to the storage unit and locked it.

I made my way to the hotel without too much of an issue and hit the bar/restaurant. The bartender Amber who had been there the previous night wasn’t on staff tonight, but the one who was there noticed me coming in and had a steak and a whiskey delivered to my table without me even having to place an order. While I ate, the television that was easiest in my line of sight was changed to be the “local evening news”. I immediately recognized the background that the “reporter on the scene” was at. It was the drug den that I had “busted” earlier.

The reporter was there with one of the local police, and asking questions about the event. The police representative was playing it pretty close to the vest, but it was obvious that they didn’t have much of a clue who the “Viridian Vigilante” was, nor even have a good description of who it was, only that he seemed to use a homemade bow and arrow set, modified to not lethally damage the criminals that were found in the drug den. The policeman reiterated that it wasn’t the policy of the Norfolk Police Department to allow or encourage vigilantes of any kind. It was obvious that this was a line that was delivered as required, but there seemed to be little heart in it. When the news put up the best recreation they could of this “Viridian Vigilante”, the bartender gave me a knowing look, and I tried to look as innocent as I could as I finished my meal.

I finished up my drink after the meal and retreated to the sanctity of my temporary room. I thought about how I would be dealing with the gangs going forward, and what it would take to get rid of them in large enough numbers to get the city safe again. I know I have a long way to go, but I think that with some of the things that I got access to today, I might have a bit more of a chance. I used Prestidigitation to clean up all of my room, after doing another Sift search to see if there was anything I was missing. With no signs of anything out of order, I decided to retire for the night.