World Tree MUSH

<Eddie.> Venom grumbled as Eddie walked along the streets of a city that should have felt familiar, but it was those little diffrences that screamed 'this is not home.' <You do not have press credentials for this world. This girl will not want to speak with you. She has likely been hounded->

"I know Vee. I know." Eddie gave a tired sigh as he consulted a map, mostly because his carrier didn't offer an 'inter-universe' data plan. "But the whole thing with the mill just-"

<Reeks. I know Eddie.> Venom grumbled before forcing Eddie to sidestep to let someone pass by. <We have enough problems at home. This place has its protectors.>

    It's summer break for San Jose high school students. So tracking down somebody with a painfully generic name like Dorothy Andrews would be slightly difficult. Eddie and Venom do catch the eye of Aurelia as she's bicycling down the bike lane. The teen girl stops and starts with a "Hey, I know you. We need to talk." at the inseparable pair.

"Who is...?" Eddie muttered as he saw Aurelia stop.

<Sutter's Mill.>

"Ah..." Eddie took a breath and reached into his pocket for a flash drive. "Here's one of the thumb dives from that demon infested office." Then he fished a second one out. "And I did scans on the printouts I managed to get. Figure keeping the hard copies in a whole other universe might be a good idea."

Then his head tilted, "By the way how're you holding up? I don't know how the whole magical thing goes, or how you manage it and school."

<Same way we manage most likely.>

    Aurelia kind of helplessly shrugs. "School's out at 2:30. Homework's just busy work in high school. Plenty of time for extra-curriculars." She quietly pockets the flash drive. "Any interesting names in there?" Yeah, there's probably a bazillion cameras in the form of cell phones, but unless somebody is making a ruckus or scene, none of them ever come out.

A shrug from eddie. "Kinda got sidelined on my end with local work." He didn't have the heart to tell the girl for him this was a secondary priority. Too many other things on his plate.

<And yet you dropped all of it to check on a girl.> Venom snorted. 

"I do have a few preliminaries on those drives, but without a lot of local research it's mostly stabs in the dark." There was a beat then he chuckled, "Truethfully a lot of it was Anne chewing thorugh things. Said a lot of everything going on in those papers just felt 'off.' Her words, compared to the firm she works for."

    The girl nods and smiles nervously. "Well, I guess it's not fair to expect you to recognize anything from here. Is Anne a lawyer then?" Aurelia is not going to mention in public that the law office they broke into belonged to mages, as that might attact too much attention even with all the outworlder oddness going on. "Do you feel like lunch?"

"Yea," Eddie started walking along the bike road so they were moving instead of standing around like drug deal was happening. "Good enough her firm did work for a bigshot company back home anyway." He looked about then inhaled. "So this Dorothy Andrews. I actually came by to check on her, but at the same time I'm also pretty sure she's either been ostricized, or all the wierdos have started clustering around her." Eddie had at best vague memories of highschool. He didn't know how things worked now anyway since school felt like a universe away all on its own.

    "It's summer break and Dorothy always hung out with the punk and goth crowd. She's probably going to an EDM festival or something for the Fourth of July." Aurelia explains. "Still dunno where she got that black obol though..." Aurelia gestures to an In 'n Out Burger nestled into one of the first floors of a building. "Ever eaten here? It's a California specialty."

"HUH.... some franchises seem to be multiversal constants." Eddie grinned as he looked at the In-and-Out. "Same parking layout. Same signage...." Once inside he looked at the menu and quirked an eyebrow, "Same menue too."

A look about the burger joint and Eddie quirked an eyebrow at a guy that was very obviously not from here, "I don't want to bring up anything sensative but is the guy with the dog head normal for here? I don't wanna make the poor guy uncomfortable."

    he burger joint's staff is just acting as though Mr. Dog is just another customer. Aurelia says to Eddie. "It's the Bay. We get so many tourists just from here in California before you even start thinking about other states and countries. Is it so surprising that outworlders also visit?" 
    Aurelia orders a double double, animal fries, and a strawberry milkshake. She does pay for herself though.

Paying for food in the multiverse is a weird thing. In this instance the guy at the counter took Eddie's money. Mr Dog looked over to Eddie and sniffed once before sneezing, then going back to his food. Eddie's response wasto shrug at Aurelia, "Probably can tell my buddy's hanging around."

"I do have a lotof questions." Eddie looked to the highschooler, "Problem is where to start, and what's actually important. Weird spooky things aren't a thing either of us are used to dealing with and trying to research groups that are off the grid and ultrasecretive is a pain in the neck." There was a pause then, "Then ther'es all the internet crazies adding a lotof noise to any information out there."

    Aurelia flops down with her reciept at a table. "'s why we have other ultrasecretive people. Cold war stuff, as my dad and mom would say. Take what you need from the people who have it. I mean... somebody's probably selling all the magical stuff to the Obsidian Cabal and the Hermetics are usually the ones with their fingers in those pies."

Eddie nodded slowly as his brain chewed through the implication. "At the very least I managed to get the demons to do most of the heavy lifting for me." He had his own reciept as he sat at the same table Aurelia was at and looked off in the middle distance as his mind worked. As this happened Aurelia would see Eddie's eyes cloud, the entire eyeball turning black as a new voice spoke, "It is funny. Eddie's idea of shining a spotlight on these organizations would both come across as just another tinfoil conspirasy theory, or some weird internet RP group that's taking things too seriously."

Eddie's movements became less smooth, more as if his body was being puppeted as his head turned to stare out at the resteraunt proper instead of Aurelia. "On the other hand if here is like home the powers that be will probably assume your world has been connected to the tree far longer than any realized and these groups are from Outside. Which Eddie tells me would in turn cause a spike in people looking for excuses to stamp down on anyone they don't like."

    Aurelia says "They're already trying to make it harder for outworlders. But I think the money from outworlder trade is just too good. The Hermetics aren't getting a lot of headway in making xenophobia popular. The Cabalites probably think it's great because they can hide their experiments behind 'outworlder antics'." Her order is called, so she gets up to get her tray from the counter, then settles back in.

A nod from Eddie? Venom? "Eddie's amused at how spectacularly that would backfire." Their order was called and Eddie's motions smothed as he reached the counter.

THen on the way back his eyes again clouded over and his motions again became stilted as he sat. "They sit too far outside of normal society and command forces science has yet to get a grasp on." The laugh that came from Eddi'es mouth was not particularly pleasant sounding. "Hopefully it won't come to that though. Too many innocents would get caught in the literal witch hunt."