Summary:Tigra goes looking for more on the Fair incident and finds Zee Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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Tigra had an experience at the regularly that might have left her a little off balance. She might even have decided to investigate.
The fair in question is still in the Park but there's no further reports of the sort the experience that Tigra and the others had. Which … is strange, really.
It's a rare early evening for Zatanna Zatara. Her show isn't for a couple of hours and she's got free time. Free time she's decided to use to visit the fair, eat some cotton candy and maybe corn dog. Dressed in her usual street clothes - leather pants and jacket, biker boots and a tank top underneath, she's still recognisable from her billboards and advertising.
Right now, she's finishing off a corn dog and watching an impromptu clown performance. They're searching for 'volunteers' from the audience.
To say it put her off balance would be an understatement. It certainly wasn't the first time she'd been transformed, but it was a particularly odd experience for her, and then there's the woman who ebcame a giant and got even weirder from there. Things like that don't just happen, even in New York, and finding a shard of mirror amongst her things upon returning home helped to give a little direction.
Wrapping it carefully in a bit of cloth, she's made her way back to the park for a bit of snooping, wandering around the carnival, listening and looking. It's while she's wandering that she spots a familiar face, and with a small smile, heads over to join Zatanna watching the clown show. "Ms Zatara, fortunate to find you here today."
Tigra might not have found anything just yet and she's probably a little bemused that things seem normal. People are entering and exiting the house of mirrors without any issue, or so it seems and nobody seems particularly off colour. Well, maybe that youth over there who just ate a dozen corn dogs on a dare.
"Ah… Ms Nelson, yes?" Zee smiles at the cat woman giving her attention as they stand there.
The clown chooses a young teen girl from the audience and has her stand in the centre of the circle of onlookers whilst getting her to mimick some movements.
"And Zee, please. Ms Zatara is so stuffy … Are you enjoying the fair?" She frowns as Tigra's words finally hit her. "Fortunate? How?"
That the hall of mirrors is even open, still, is cause for curiosity for her. She's certainly she didn't imagine the whole affair, and it's not like there weren't others there who could confirm it happened. "Tigra would be fine," she says with a quick grin. She watches the clown with the girl, tail flicking lightly. "Fortunate in that I need some help from someone with expertise in the occult. I've travelled in those circles, and I know a wand from a staff, but I'm not a practicioner, and I had an experience that was most likely supernatural in origin." She glances at Zatara. "Did you hear about the chaos in the hall of mirrors over there?"
"Tigra then …" The Mistress of Magic looks intrigued as Tigra shares that information. "I heard something but at the time was involved with another issue. You had an experience, in a house of mirrors? A supernatural experience?"
There's a chuckle though as she adds "So you know it's not just the size. The difference between a staff and a wand. It's what you do with it?" A little teasing as she waits for the answer.
She's certainly not paying any attention to the clown and the girl for the moment.
"Mmmhmmm," Tigra says, looking back to clown and child. "It was an experience. it's possible that it -wasn't- supernatural related, but 'only' strange science or dimensional rifts of something, but it sure felt like magic to me." She can't help but snort at the joke, and she gives Zee a good natured smirk. "Oh, it's all in how you use it, yes," she says, letting her voice go a bit husky to tease back. More seriously she continues, "Anyone who looked into a mirror was transformed, some people rather dramatically," she understates.
"Really?" That certainly gets Zee's attention and she's intrigued. "Why do you think it felt like magic? And were you one of the ones who was transformed?"
Gesturing Greer to follow, she moves away from the crowd in the direction of the house of mirrors, pausing some distance from it as she considers. "It's often difficult to tell the difference between magic and technology. You've heard of Clarkes Third Law, I assume? What was it you were hoping to speak with me about?"
Zee might be intending to investigate the House, but she wants to be sure what Tigra is after.
"I was," Tigra says, glancing down at herself briefly, remembering it. "In my case, I wound up with another set of arms, which was damned strange. Also I, well, beefed up quite a bit. Bigger, taller. Not as big as one woman who became giant sized." She lfits an amused eyebrow. "I may not look it, but I was a science geek in college. I know about sufficiently advanced technology." She walks along with Zee, pausing when she does. "In my experience, even advanced technology tends to have…well, some sort of source. An emitter, a transmitter, that sort of thing. Something happening from looking in a mirror, that feels more like magic to me. Wouldn't be the first time I was wrong, though," she admits. "And that's why it was fortunate I saw you."
"Beefed up? That … would have been interesting. With extra arms." Zee can't imagine how awkward that might have been. "You said there was another beefed up too? What about others? I take it there were more who looked in the mirrors."
She's thinking though, looking at the mirror house. "How did you get out? Mirrors could have transmitters embedded, after all. And … I can look at the House and see what I can find but I suspect there'll be precious little there."
"Normally I get to work with the artifact, or remnants of it, directly." beat "Was anyone injured during all this?"
"It was…very interesting," Tigra says softly. "Being that strong, or feeling that strong at least, that was…it was a rush. The extra arms were disconcerting. I mean, we all have moments where we don't know what to do with our hands, right? This was like that, tenfold." A nod. "A woman got up to, maybe 12 feet? I'm not sure. Things got chaotic around then, and it was hard to keep track of it all. She had extra legs at one point. I think there were tiny duplicates of her also."
"There were other people there, and other changes." A quick grin. "One girl turned into the cutest kitten, but I don't think she found it funny. Noody was seriously hurt that I know of. Bruises, scrapes, cuts, that sort of thing." She now digs out the wrapped mirror shard. "I don't know how I wound up with this, must've stuck in my fur, or maybe hitched a ride somewhere in my bikini, but I'm pretty sure this is a piece of one of the mirrors."
"Interesting. So not all the … transformations … were the same. Which makes it more likely to be arcane or psychic in nature … perhaps. Technology has it's limitations and that's usually to do with programming. You can 'tell' it what to do, within a set of parameters."
Zee is fascinated, clearly and looks at the package that Greer hands over. "Have you looked into this since then?" She asks as blue energy flickers over her fingers and her eyes glow a little, making the blue even bluer than usual.
With a murmur of unintelligible words, arcane symbols form and surround the wrappings. They arc and spark brightly, as the shard within the wrapping glows a dull red - just bright enough to be seen.
"The craziness of all of it, that's another reason why it felt like magic to me," Tigra agrees. "It's certainly not impossible to have strange technological devices doing random things, but, well, when it comes to rolling dice on a chart of random effects, that's just more like magic." She shakes her head at the question. "Not directly, no. I've thought about it, but thought I'd better play it safe, at least until I had someone else on board with me." Tigra grows quiet as magic is worked and the shard glows. "Magic, then?"
"Right. Magic has a habit of being unpredictable. It can be affected by the practioners will and mood but also those it affects. For me, one wrong word or a slight mispronunciation could be the difference of a cheese board or a board made of cheese. That's a poor example, but you get it, I think." Zee watches as the package glows and her own runes react.
"Did the effects stop when the glass shattered, Tigra?" The mage really doesn't think so. "A simple magic detection spell, directed right at the package. Yes, there's magic associated here so I don't recommend looking into the glass anytime soon."
Letting out a sigh, Zee drops the spell. The symbols and glow slowly fade. "Magic ALWAYS has a cost. To enchant a room of mirrors would require a fair amount of power and time … and disrupting the spell … might have had effects. The question is … why? Why the house of mirrors and why then?"
Tigra nods to the cheese board explanation. "In science, you have to be careful of your decimal places and that sort of thing. Easy to go from a light tap to an earth shattering kaboom if you don't pay attention. And the effects ended when someone took out the lights, so there wasn't anything to reflect. And then mirrors got smashed up and when the lights came back on, everyone was, well, 'normal' seems such a poor choice of words," she says with a grin and gesture at herself. A dry chuckle at talk of looking at the glass. "What could -possibly- go wrong?" she murmurs, then nods. "Why, and who?" she asks. "And that's why I'm here looking around."
"I imagine the mirrors were more than smashed up when the lights came back on. Shards still reflect, after all." Zee says absently as she considers. "Well, shall we go and inspect the House of Mirrors? Given everything we're seeing today, I don't expect there's much but it's a start."
Handing the shard back to Tigra for safe keeping, Zee starts moving again towards the amusement for an inspection. "Did you know my Dad was an occult detective, Tigra? So much of this work isn't magic, but … investigating. Magic will only tell us so much. We need some cold, hard, data. Know anyone that might be able to help?"
Of course, Zee hasn't said what they need yet has she?
It's easy enough to get into the House and soon they're inside, the mirrors reflecting their different shapes and sizes. Nothing untoward as Zee asks "Was it this room that caused the problems?" It wasn't, it was the next one and when Tigra leads them through to it, it's an entirely different configuration to the day she'd been there.
"After you, my lady," Tigra says with a sweeping bow towards the house. She tucks the glass away carefully and follows the other woman inside. "I've spent some time as a private investigator, but not something like this." She looks around the room a bit warily. "Was the next room," she says, leading the way there, almost expecting trouble, but then, people have been coming and going without incident, so… "Depends on what kind of data you think we need," she says. "What do you think we're going to turn up?"
Looking around, Zee glances at Tigra "It's a good guess these are all new mirrors. Are they the same as the ones you saw?" No, they aren't. Not that that means much - it might have been a case of supply and demand. "Let me work here and I'll explain …"
Again, the Mistress of Magic casts a spell using unintelligible words and arcane symbols. The symbols 'fall' to the ground over the area not responding as they did for the shard, except against one wall where one symbol glows brightly and the wall itself glows red. "There's the remnants of a mark there." Zee says "Take a look around here and see if you can find anything that might give us a hint. It's been a while, but people often leave behind clues they don't even realise."
Tigra might have to use her senses for this - the place looks like it's been cleaned pretty well. Smell is troublesome with all the scents from the fair and the people walking through, but to her vision she can see something, jammed in the join of the wall and the floor. It's a scrap of plastic - part of a pass card perhaps? There's a logo on it … or at least part of a logo.
"They don't look the same. They're obviously not changing anyone, so there's that." She watches the spellwork curiously, making very little sense of it, of course. She nods to the suggestion and proceeds to do that, using each sense in turn, smell, touch, hearing, sight. Ah, sight brings up something. Gently using a clawtip, she pries the bit of card loose and holds it up for a better look. "Might have something here."
It's hard to make out the logo, it's not complete at all but it looks sort of … security-ish … maybe, perhaps. It's something at least.
"Do you recognise the markings? It's a logo I think, not one I'm familiar with and it doesn't look like the Fair logo, does it? And this is what I mean by extra help. We're going to have to do some good old fashion sleuthing." Zee grins. "We know a couple of things but we've got more questions than answers. We know that someone did some enchanting and set this up. We know when the enchantment kicked in. We know, or can easily find out, when the fair set up here. And we have this." She taps the piece of 'card' that Tigra is holding.
"What we don't know is who or why. Now, I can use my magic to try and find out who, but that's risky and I'll want to stack the deck in our favour first. Some background investigation on the Fair and it's employees would be a good place to start. Any rumours or stories that follow it or it's people? Have there been any other complaints about it since it came here? And then, are there any practioners doing things they shouldn't?"
Tigra can certainly work on some of those. She might even enjoy some of them …
"Enh, I'm not sure," Tigra says, frowning absently at the logo. "Security company maybe? I'll run it through our systems, see if we can match the logo to anything," she says. "And while that's running, I can do some asking around about this place, see if anyone else has had a ray Bradburyesque experience with the place. Practicioners practicioning what they shouldn't, think that's more up your alley?" she half asks, half suggests.
"Definitely more up alley than yours but maybe you could ask around, anyway? I've a particular profile and not everyone talks to me, despite what the broadsheets will have you believe. We might need some back up, both physical and arcane, depending on what we find."
Zee is a good mage, ok a GREAT mage, and she's no slouch in a fight but she's not a fighter - not super human and magic requires attention and concentration. The fastest way to disrupt a magician, is to knock her out.
"Looks like we've got some work to do and it should probably be done rather quickly. How soon do you think you could get preliminary information?" This is all Zee needs. With someone messing around with cursed artifacts and her show, she's got a lot on her plate.
"As far as the logo goes, Avengers computers are pretty fast. If it takes more than a day or so I'd be shocked, unless the source is jsut that obscure. The rest, depends on how talkative people are and how quickly I can find the right ones," Tigra answers. "That can be sheer luck, but I'll try to do it as quickly as I can. On the backup front, I know some people I think I can ask. More physical, but I'll see what I can turn up."
"Alright then, let's meet again, at my club after my show in two nights time. That will give me time to do some digging. Bring the shard, I might have others who will want to see it." Zee offers. "Z's at The Alhambra Theatre down in Harlem."
With a flourish, Zee produces a couple of cards - complementary pass to her show and dinner for the bearer and a guest. "We'll get to the bottom of this, Tigra."