Absit Omen RPG

Nicholas made his way to the door when Quill signed off on his plan but he was listening as Anton explained what he knew to Fauna and his boss.  Shit.  Blowing up on Twitter and Facebook was not good.  At least he wasn't in charge of fixing that.  He just had to keep anything else from ending up on the internet. Not a tall order or anything since he had to cast spells while apparently a bunch of muggles were all trying to figure out what was going on with their cameras pointed at them.

He opened the door, careful to avoid getting close to the flowers while he checked the hallway. Nicholas let out a disappointed sigh when he immediately saw several officers look his way.  He pulled a swab from his pocket and pretended to take a sample from around the door jamb before carefully shutting the door and locking it again.  It was really much easier to cast when he could see where he intended to anchor the charm.

Nicholas glanced over his shoulder, this was his chance to impress his boss which he wouldn't do if his charms sent Anton running from the room.  He took a deep breath and focused on his spell work and started casting.  First to encourage anyone inside to stay in their flat.  Then a strong one to keep everyone away from the damn door.  Then the hard one, make the building uninteresting.  But not so uninteresting that the police just pulled up and left because that would cause more questions.  The last spell hit the wall and a ripple of grey light spread out along the wall before quickly fading.

He unlocked the door and stuck his head out again, this time with a smile because the muggle officers had backed further down the hall and no one looked his way.

Nicholas locked them in again and turned back to the room, he tuned them out while he worked but Anton was showing them something on the computer.  "Done.  The charm on the building should last a couple hours, I've never cast it on a building this size."  And he'd rather cast it again than mess it up.

Nicholas certainly wasn't going to be left out.  He was however going to be warm when he went in though.  He never could figure out why everyone forgot they had a wand when they started planning on jumping into cold water.  Maybe cause the women didn't have anything that shrank.

He shed his clothes on dry land before casting a warming charm on himself.  Anton had been too quick into the water, or he'd have broken a few rules and cast a warming charm on him.  It was only fair.  The witches could take care of themselves.  His skin already warming, he laid his wand down on top of his clothes and ran straight into the water.  He splashed water at Anton before turning back to the beach, "Someone keep an eye out for sharks, or someone from level four could cast a shark repelling charm," he shouted.

"Understand?"

"Yes, ma'am," Nicholas replied as Fauna's phone started buzzing. He was surprised however when Som told her to answer it. And even more surprised when Fauna went to open the door for Anton, the somehow token muggle in their friend group that shouldn't include any muggles.  Normally, he had no issue with Anton joining them.  This was not a day at the beach.  This was still both a muggle and magical crime scene and Anton shouldn't be at either of those.  Especially when the head of level three was at said scene as well.

"Seriously Anton, you can't be here.  Why are you here?" Nicholas said, echoing Fauna's last question.  He really hoped he wasn't going to have to be the one to explain Anton to his boss, the rules allowed him to know but Anton seemed to want to participate.

He quietly sighed and turned his thoughts back to the job. Containment, he thought looking at Anton before looking at the door. Even the muggles couldn't do that much and there were plenty of them swarming all over the building. "I can cast muggle-repelling charms to keep any one else from getting too curious.  Light ones on the building, won't affect police and residents, stronger ones in the hall to keep everyone," he made a point of not looking at Anton," else away from the door."  Nicholas wasn't sure if Som expected him to just do things or if she wanted to approve what he was going to do first.  Was this a test?  And what kind of test was it?

Nicholas hadn't really anticipated how much of his job would require putting on costumes and impersonating muggles.  And this was his first time impersonating muggle law enforcement to get into a crime scene. Thankfully at least it wasn't the first time working he was working with his department head in the field.  He'd hate to be nervous because the big boss was there... who was he fooling, other than the muggles hopefully, of course he was nervous as he followed Som through the police who were trying to make sense of things that would never make sense to them.

As he locked the door behind the police that Som had easily pushed out of the flat, Nicholas hoped there was a log of who had been inside.  It was going to be difficult to track everyone down as it was, and it didn't help that some of those people were paid to be observant and take notes.

He shot Fauna a small smile as he was unnecessarily introduced to her. "Wait, this is Sasha's place?"  He hadn't gotten that information when he'd been told to suit up and come along.  "Sorry," he added for interrupting.  He hadn't been expecting murder at a friend's flat.  Though of course the place was Sasha's and of course it was a murder scene.

He waited for Fauna to finish before directed a question at the witches, "Do we need to lock anything else down? We let the police keep working, right? Until we have a story for them?" This was covered in the manual but that didn't mean Nicholas was sure what to do. Leave it to Sasha to make sure Nicholas got his first muggle murder scene before he'd had a year on the job.

Nicholas gave Fauna a grateful smile as she very adeptly pointed out Gris without pointing out Gris.  He wasn't sure what sharks had to do with skinny dipping, especially when there were several people from Level Four that should be able to handle any curious creatures magical or not.

He took the hand that Tessa offered.  "Nicholas.  And guilty as charged. Obliviator.  Cleaning up after everyone else.  Level Four, right?"  He also recognized her from the ministry though he wasn't sure what office she worked in. There were quite a few people on Level Four and he hadn't directly crossed paths with Tessa, and she didn't look like she'd been mauled by anything that got it's own office.

"Well turns out Sharks will eat people regardless of being dressed, so I'd say skinny dipping depends on drunkenness."

"I think there are enough wands here to protect everyone," He glanced at Anton, presumably the only one at this party without a wand, "from any curious sharks.  I don't need any drinks to go in but maybe after we eat, I'd hate for all of Ambrose's hard work to go to waste."  And Nicholas was hungry.

Nicholas was late, though it wasn't his fault.  Okay it was his fault, but he was just fashionably late, right?  He'd been surprised by the invite in the first place.  He vaguely remembered a Gris but not well enough that he'd  excepted an invitation to her birthday party.  He'd brought some nice bottles of mead, hopefully the birthday girl liked mead.

With a crack he was standing in an archway on the beach.  The glimmering of the disillusionment charms caught his eye and if it wasn't for the smell of the grill and the pull of conversation his professional curiosity would have won out and he'd have spent some time examining the wards.  He could check them out later.  Instead he bounded over to Fauna, loudly asking "When are we going skinny dipping?! Please tell me I didn't miss the skinny dipping!"

He dropped his voice into a whisper, "Also, which one is the birthday girl? I can't put a face to the name."  He looked around at the gathering trying to guess which one was Gris.  Unfortunately there were a few people whose names he could not immediately recall.

Nicholas tucked the vial into his pocket, "I will."

"That's the same place Fig's at, right?" He wrinkled his nose, the place wasn't terrible. It was just unabashedly cheap.  But not everyone had two flatmates and their connections and a neighbor with too many owls to lower the rent to something reasonable.  Not to mention jobs with steady paychecks.  He didn't imagine Waverly's income was regular.  And he wasn't sure what Gabby was doing.

"Just let me know.  I'll be there."  He hoped he would be anyway.  "So you and Gabby, huh?  How's that going?"

They were all going to die, Nicholas thought to himself.  Though that wasn't necessarily anything new.  At least it would be their own damn faults this time.

"Yeah, Yeah, I agree.  But I'm not calling it fun."  He still had to figure out how to report it to level two without getting anyone he liked into trouble and make it important enough not to end up at the bottom of someone's list.  He didn't want to be investigating this if he didn't have to.

"Yea, sure."

"Cool," Nicholas slurred out.  Maybe wixes were finally on the verge of having magical movies.  He missed movies, not that he didn't go, but it was hard to keep up.  And the wireless just didn't compare to the spectacle.

"So you know about that too?  Yeah he poked around. I made sure to think dirty thoughts before I ripped him a new one."  They were okay now, at least he thought they were.  He wasn't angry about it anymore. Most of the time. Ninety percent of the time he wasn't angry about it.  The other ten percent, he was allowed to have conflicting emotions.

"Yes and no.  But haven't we all changed in some ways."  The castle had been so isolated from everything else, how could they not have changed in some way since leaving.  Since being thrown headfirst into a much larger much more complicated world.

Nicholas stared down at the table. They'd do something if level two wasn't getting anywhere. With everything going on, he doubted they'd even spend much time on it. He also wasn't about to let his friends do something stupid and reckless without him.

"No, I'm not okay with this.  Not at all."  He made eye contact with Aria and then Virgil, "But I'm not letting you two do something like this without me. As long as we try it the right way first."  He'd report them all otherwise, though he wasn't going to threaten them with that.  As long as they gave the proper people a chance to deal with the shit they were trained for, he'd help.

"I don't know what training they give you on nine," Nicholas held up his hand to indicate he wasn't asking, "I did get some defensive training from the aurors." He thought it was supposed to continue, but they were busy. Everyone was busy. "There are also spells to make people's memory of you fuzzy without leaving much of a trace."  He'd been using it a bunch lately. It was simpler than completely erasing himself from someone's memory but wasn't as thorough.  It was good for a busy day.  Or maybe for investigating dangerous drugs.  He'd never really used it on another wix though. "It's usually for muggles though."  He shrugged.  They'd have to test it.

They were going to get themselves killed but they could at least test the memory charm first.

Nicholas sighed, did he trust the Ministry-not really.  He trusted most of the people he worked with on a daily basis.  He trusted his friends who now worked for the Ministry.  So he understood why Virgil was reluctant.  Then again wasn't prophecy vague whereas legilimency at least in this case wasn't.  Nicholas had spent that night flying around on a broom, freezing his ass off with thankfully nothing to do.  Of course his quiet night had been an illusion shattered by howlers the next day calling him in on what was supposed to his day off.

"None of us are patrol or aurors, we don't need concrete evidence.  Just enough to get them started."  He rubbed his eyes, he was not awake enough for this.  "I can write a report that keeps your name out of it.  I should be able to translate what you felt into something I could have felt if I'd been paying attention to more than the high."

Nicholas shrugged in response to Waverly's question about the dream. He refrained from commenting that obviously not everyone had had that dream. Some people's teeth were just more attached to their head.  Even in dreams.

"Well, that's on brand."

"I don't know what you are talking about," he said unable to keep the grin off his face.  There were times that he played up his reputation and there were times were he'd earned his reputation.  This was definitely one of the latter. "So its like a 4D movie in your head while you are tripping?" He could get behind that. Just not at Spellpunk.

"Virgil's a prat."

Nicholas let out a drunken gaffaw.  "Yes. Yes he is. Try living with him."

"Your teeth fall out in your dreams?" Okay, maybe Nicholas was focusing on the wrong part of her description but that seemed a little messed up.  His teeth had never fallen out in any of his dreams.  That would just be really weird.  Maybe better than his own nightmares.  Or worse.  With a few drinks in him, he was mostly just curious why Waverly's teeth fell out in her dreams.

"A good memory, I hope." Nicholas had plenty of memories he had no desire to relive.  "Do you know what it will be before hand? Is it like a play that someone scripted.  Cause I'd like the orgy one if you've got it."

It wasn't cheating if it was a drug, right?

"What was it for you?"

"I'm not turning in the person I bought it from."  Nicholas said rather defensively.  He had no problem with someone doing things that were essentially harmless.  Virgil was the one saying that someone had been harmed in the making of muse.  That was wholly a different matter from growing gillyweed or harvesting billywig stings.  Things that frankly had been done for centuries for potions.  But Waverly wasn't the one making the stuff.

Nicholas sighed as Virgil made excuses for not telling level two.  "There are ways to discretely get them involved.  Hell, we all have friends in the department."  And he'd gotten to know a few more with his extra training.  Not what he thought he'd be using those connections for, but he did agree with Virgil about not turning anyone's gaze in Waverly's direction.

"I told Yavin. He'll probably keep an eye on it if something... I don't know, if something happens. That's the best I can do for now. I just wanted to tell you both that Muse might be more trouble than it's worth."

"You want me to trust the unspeakables?"  Bottling up memories for others to smoke seemed right up their alley.  Nicholas took a deep breath, not making eye contact with Ari and doing his best not to let his mind go down that road.  "Other unspeakables."  He did trust Virgil.  Or well, he trusted Virgil to be Virgil. And Ariadne was not her grandfather.  "If you are sure that the memories are being taken, I'll talk to someone and make sure none of our names end up in a report.  If you aren't, I'll leave it alone." Either way, he wasn't partaking in the stuff anymore.

"Good dreams can be hard to come by,"  Nicholas muttered as Ari asked Virgil how he knew the memory was taken.  He might not have reacted well to Virgil's legilimency and he was pretty sure he'd never apologized for how he reacted. Hearing him describe how the memories felt made him a little jealous. It would certainly make his job easier.  Not that it needed to be.

Nicholas did at least understand what he was saying about a mediocre Obliviator leaving rough edges.  He worked hard to ensure that he never left anything discernible at first glance.  Nicholas couldn't help but wonder what Virgil would feel in the mind of someone he'd obliviated.  Something for another time maybe.

"I'd never even heard of it until I bought it on Friday."  If someone was out there ripping enough memories of people for them to be selling muse that was a nightmare to say the least.  And something that surely he'd have heard about at the Ministry.  Unless the sellers were staying completely under the radar.

"Have you told someone on level two? Especially if people aren't selling the memories."