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Timekeeper     Eras come and go, but time still continues forwards. Outside it may be 1928, but here within the marble and granite walls of the St. Pavlov Foundation HQ, the time is still 'the same as ever', which means paperwork, bustling staff who are each just informed enough of what's going on to be barely helpful, and more paperwork. They're briefed on the location-- Miami, Florida-- and some quick pointers about the era-- Prohibition; a surge of anti-arcanist sentiment resulting in little cultural goodwill towards the Foundation; puritan values and high crime-- before being shuttled towards the teleportation ritual chamber. They're provided fake, era-appropriate IDs as outsider contracts to the St. Pavlov Foundation, handed over with the standard instructions to not mention the Storm, the era, the multiverse, or the state of HQ, as usual.

    The request for aid put out to the multiverse today is as drably worded as ever, with no particular lenience given to offworld helpers who might not be as used to dense government paperwork, but the key points are clear enough. There's been reports of a haunting in Miami, and among the complaints about the ghost's presence and behavior, some people have reported that it makes comments about the future and seems confused about the current year.

    ". . . There's been mention of physical assaults against passerby, but just from word of mouth, it's impossible to be certain whether that's hostility from the haunting, or simply people's fears informing their perception." Vertin finishes explaining, waiting for the Elites in the teleportation ritual chamber. With them are two Foundation investigators that the Elites haven't met yet, in place of Sonetto.

    The utility of those small teleport floppy disks you've seen before seems even more dramatic, seeing how long the process takes to cast a long distance teleport ritual manually. Even between Foundation branches, a process that is no doubt much quicker than it would be otherwise, there's about ten minutes of filling in well-worn grooves of an array with arcane materials, calculations of astronomical coordinates that influence teleportation, and other such preparations, that other Foundation employees scuttle around doing while you wait. This leaves Vertin plenty of time to chat about the mission, and introduce the new investigators.

    "The arcane event was assigned a danger level of B, so we'll be treating it as such. But I'd much prefer to try and talk to them first and see if we can't find a more agreeable compromise." They abruptly fall silent for a stretch of time too long to be natural but too short to really be the end of the conversation. After a bit, they murmur something inaudible out of the side of their mouth and then adjust their top hat. "It seems likely that she'll be afraid, so please keep that in mind."

    Without explaining that or the sudden shift in pronoun usage, Vertin turns towards the other investigators. "Sonetto is busy today, by the way. Investigator Marcus here is somewhat specialized in ghost-related phenomenae, and Investigator Hoffman is her partner in the field, and a veteran in the Field Agent Administration."
Timekeeper     After that, teleporting to the small Foundation branch in the fledgling city of Miami is quick, and navigating from there to the beachside is only slightly longer. In this era, even the beach in summer isn't *that* densely packed, and there's less creeping urbanization intruding onto the sand. Still, hundreds of people relax on the beach or splash in the water-- there's hardly a midriff in sight, even among the men, and certainly no bikinis-- and winding along the coast is a relatively ritzy boardwalk.

    Vertin pauses before the set of wooden steps that descend onto the beach. Currently, Vertin is wearing their typical four-layered outfit, dressed up in a way that's ridiculously old fashioned even in 1928, and perhaps the worst clothing ever brought to a beach. They look back at the Elites, and then to the side at the ramshackle changing rooms on the edge of the boardwalk. "... Perhaps now would be a good time to get into our beachwear. We'll reconvene soon."

    There *are* plenty of stores nearby that could provide an era-appropriate swimsuit to those who couldn't access one in their own world. The Foundation made sure to provide instructions for what paperwork to fill out for mission-necessary expenditures in order to be compensated later, so picking up a swimsuit, sunglasses, and a set of flip-flops is effortless except for some future hassle with waiting for the recompense later.

    This is, actually, the first time any Elite has seen Vertin in anything besides her one outfit. She claimed to have multiple! And, though this swimsuit exposes approximately a hundred times as much bare skin as her usual suit, it's still... quite conservative, in vintage doll sort of way. A black one-piece, with frills and lace around the neckline and hips; it's got two shoulder-baring 'sleeves' made of lace that vaguely evoke bat wings, a ruffled collar around her neck, and sheer black fabric that hangs down like a skirt.

    She still has her hat on, and her suitcase in hand. Without any explanation at all, following Vertin out of the changing room is Regulus, who's also changed into a swimsuit.

    "Alright, then. Let's be on our way." It's a short walk across the beach to get to the site of the haunting, and no one wants to see a squad of Foundation investigators all geared up for ghost-hunting.
Regulus Regulus wasn't out of the suitcase for most of the leadup since she's still actually doing her best to dodge the Foundation authorities. As it turns out, The Timekeeper has smuggled a Regulus all the way to the changing but this time when Vertin opens up her suitcase and shakes Regulus out, she's ready for it! She rolls out of the suitcase, fanning both arms to the side (overly) dramatically as she says, "Regulus always lands on her feet!" Her ankles shake a little as she tries to hold that position like that long enough for Vertin to comment before Regulus ultimately pushes herself back up into a standing position.

Regulus is still wearing her sunglasses. And her captain's cap and her blue polka dotted scarf. But she is also wearing a blue tie-front bikini top with a similarly blue skirtini on the bottom with a small APPLe symbol patterned on her side. She says, "Wait! Vertin! Before we move on...there is a dangerous enemy we have to protect ourselves against..."

She opens up her hand revealing a bottle of sunscreen. "We can't let the sun defeat us...!" Regulus naturally put some on already. "If we get terrible sunburns, we'll be in trouble!"

And then she follows along, bobbing her head and going, " Ba ba ba bowww ba ba, ba ba ba boww be boww boww..." As she makes guitar noises with her mouth.
Riku Asakura "Physical assaults... that's not good.  We need to stop them from happening, obviously..." Riku says when the briefing starts, "Haunting..." he says.  He has never dealt with supernatural ghosts or anything like that before.  Still... he's not afraid!  He's ready to jump into the situation and help anyway he can.  

When Marcus is pointed out, he gives her a wave, wanting to be polite and friendly.  He also gives Hofmann a wave, smiling at them both with the boundless optimism that Riku seems to carry with him.  

On the other side of time, Riku stands out like a sore thumb.  He's still in his normal clothing.  A jean jacket, an orange shirt, jeans, and sneakers.  So he's one of the ones who goes to the local shop to buy something of a local flavor to blend in.  

Outside of the changing room, Riku's in a pair of flannel shorts, which are dark grey, with a white t-shirt, all of which seems a bit loose.  He's got a belt over the flannel shorts.  On the belt is both the Fusion Riser and the container that holds his Ultra-Capsules.  He's still boundlessly full of energy as he catches up with everyone else.  What skin is visible is pale, because Riku tends to dress in clothing that covers his skin.

"Hey... the styles here are different than back home, that's for sure.  Anyway, where should we go first?  Split up or walk together?" he asks, not sure exactly how to comb the beach for clues about a haunting.  He's never ghost hunted before.  He does take some sunscreen from Regulus, because he doesn't want to get burned!
Tamamo     'It seems likely that she'll be afraid, so please keep that in mind.'

    Immediately, Tamamo quirks her brow. "'She'?"

    'Sonetto is busy today, by the way.'

    Tamamo nods to the two agents, not quite bowing. "It is a pleasure to meet you, investigator Marcus, investigator Hoffman. I am known as Tamamo-no-mae." Having not yet seen Vertin change outfits, Tamamo's likewise not yet in any particular sort of disguise. Rather, she's wearing a summer yukata, sky blue fading to navy, with swirling patterns of flowers forming a curved line from toe to collar. Her two-toed socks are the same as ever, though her geta for today are of the two-toothed variety rather than solid blocks.

    She may stand out a bit more than Vertin does. Bright colors -- in particular, her ears -- make for that impression. But so long as Vertin appears unworried by it, why should she?

    "It is a bit more ordinary than I expected, perhaps." Like the most outrageous sort of tourist, "Will we see the mafia, here?"

    '... Perhaps now would be a good time to get into our beachwear.'

    "Oh, of course." Tamamo hurries her small steps toward the changing rooms, bypassing the stores entirely.

    The sounds and lights within suggest some sort of magical girl transformation is taking place.

    In far too little time, Tamamo reappears, clad from ankle to wrist in a black wetsuit with dark pink, angled stripes. She's still wearing geta, though she's ditched the socks, incidentally showing off painted nails that have somehow never before been on screen. Having done her very best at disguising herself, her tail fluff is absent -- replaced by the wavery light, like three enormous yet silent blowtorches, of blue tail-shaped halos of fire behind her. There's a little bit of the same above the tips of her ears, which are entirely unchanged. The ribbons holding her ponytail may or may not hold up in the surfing environment her wetsuit implies.

    She does a little spin for any interested, clearly proud of the results.
White White wouldn't say she's fond of filling out paperwork, but reading it comes easily enough with so many extra pairs of eyes to double-check for mistakes. She also wouldn't say she likes the sound of a ghost attack, but at first glance it seems more likely to her that this is a case of mistaken assumption; maybe someone displaced from their original era somehow, or someone with an ability that causes them to see the dead? Imagining so makes it easier for White to accept the request, assured that it won't be anything she can't handle somehow or another. If she's wrong... She can always hit the bricks!

The information about the conditions of the era do cause her to evaluate her presentation a little, though. 'Puritanical' is something a lot of her comrades simply couldn't abide, and while White herself imagines she's quite proper and reserved enough... She still lengthens her skirt a few inches, and dons her silk mantle and hood before being teleported. Maybe not everyone will know anything about albinism, but surely the men and women of the time will recognize that covering up against the sun to protect pale skin is important? She'll just have to adjust if not... She would really prefer not to draw a lot of attention to herself in a more judgemental time and place.

     She does notice the two new investigators joining the group, watching them briefly through her closed eyelids and giving them small nods when they look back at her. She doesn't stare too long though; she figures she'll get names from them eventually, and her focus defaults to Vertin while they're speaking about the mission. A fearful arcanist, again... Well. As long as they- she?- can't become invisible like Regulus did, it should be easy enough to take her time approaching and proving her intentions, right? She *almost* had Regulus, even, so... It's fine to be optimistic! Nevermind that her idea of how to handle scared people is making sure they know they can't run away, and then just lingering in their vicinity like she's socializing a rabbit.

Then she gets names for their new allies! Marcus and Greta get another small nod from her; she's slightly relieved to hear that this world has ghost-related experts... And a little uneasy that it provides more credence for it actually being a ghost. Darn...

     She's comfortable following quietly post-teleportation, looking around at the sights but remaining attentive to the group. When the word 'beachwear' crosses Vertin's lips, White alerts like a startled dog and stares (eyes still closed) like she's been told she needs an amputation. Thankfully once she checks what the other beachgoers are wearing, her heartrate is able to ratchet back down in palpable relief. It's still a sneak-attack, but not a lethal one... She spends a moment with a hand over her chest in a 'thank god' gesture, then gives the group a small bow and *poofs* away. She's not changing into a bathing suit outside of her own home, anymore. After that talent show incident, anyone else who expects her to change can accept her doing so in the comfort of home, at her own pace!

It still only takes about ten minutes, even with her making one from scratch though. When she returns, it's in a light blue one-piece with white trim, full leg coverage, and *two* dark pink skirts! One from the hips down just below her knees that splits beside her left knee, and the other over her chest that reaches low enough to overlap with the one below. It makes her look a little like a bicolor jellyfish, when she's moving enough for the skirts to sway.

She... *tried* to be especially modest around her chest, by adding that upper piece of cloth to obscure her silhouette a little bit, but since it moves a little when she does... Well, not every experiment is successful. It's probably cute, though, even if her posture looks especially scrunched-in.
White White is also wearing white button-strap sandals when she gets back. Flip-flops are the invention of some kind of demon, and not any one she likes!
Storm Investigators The two investigators sent to join everyone today in the mission to Miami are largely quiet until Vertin addresses them by name, looking like they almost couldn't be any more different from each other. The taller and older one, dressed in a long brown trench coat, offers a curt and utterly neutral nod towards the gathered group. The shorter and younger one, drenched in a blue trench coat with a chunky book case under her arm, looks both excited and terrified to be there at the same time, not even looking at the group as she instead has her gaze fixed on the Foundation employees working on the teleportation ritual.

"Investigator Greta Hoffman, Pavlov Foundation. A pleasure." The taller one says, sounding about as even-keeled as she looks. There's an awkward pause as she doesn't say anything, clears her throat lightly, and then whispers 'Marcus' under her breath before just giving the shorter one a light nudge with her elbow.

"Ah! Oh, yes, I'm Marcus... Huh?" the shorter one murmurs distractedly, taking another second before  realizing that Greta had tried to get her attention. Once she finally realizes that people are actually talking to her, she freezes up another awkward second, mind racing a mile a minute until she remembers what Greta taught her after her last mistake:

"Eyes forward. Shoulders relaxed. A normal greeting."

"H.. Hello! Investigator Marcus, Pavlov Foundation. It's a... Very good to meet you all!" She finishes, rushing through even that greeting. She glances over at Greta who gives her a slow nod, then breathes out a heavy sigh of relief.

"As the Timekeeper said, we will be joining you on this case today." Greta takes right back over, much to Marcus' relief. "As you may have guessed from our titles, we are investigators first and combatants second. Should the ghosts prove to be hostile, we will aid you however we can within reason."

She looks towards Riku and White in particular, but doesn't actually say anything to explain herself beyond that.

Marcus' attention, meanwhile, is fixed a little more on Regulus and Tamamo in comparison even though she does wave back at Riku and White meekly in return. "Those names... Named after the brightest star in the constellation named Leo, and the legendary fox spirit. Do you...?"

Marcus takes a deep breath. It'd be so much easier to just read them than to talk. She really wants to just read. Can't she just read? She looks over at Greta, who just stares right back at her. Somehow, that comes across to her as a 'no', and she sighs lightly before moving her hand away from the lantern at her hip.

She doesn't actually finish that sentence, either, looking and sounding terrified just from the idea of engaging in further small talk.
Rita Ma      An unremarkable-looking blonde girl acts subdued within the Foundation's walls, taking everything with half-distracted nods and little smiles of acknowledgement.

     She's already spent her weirdness budget here; can't overdraft.

     Only once Rita's outside does she liven up again. Biiig stretch, arms over head, as if to shake off the excess normalcy. "Are, um, 'arcane events' often scared? If ghosts are usually just people," she says, looking to the side at Vertin, "then that's a weird way to talk about a frightened person."

     She knows Vertin didn't choose the words exactly, of course.

     Beachwear . . . oh, right. Rita ducks into a changing booth without purchasing anything first, looking intensely thoughtful.

     When was the last time I had to pick out a swimsuit? she thinks. Usually these days I can just... undress. It would've been that time on the boat with Lilian, right? That was... the blue ruffle-y design. But that feels almost too kiddie for me, now.

     Instead Rita emerges (just thirty seconds later) wearing a white dress-like swimsuit, with modest shoulder-straps, a smooth torso and ruffled skirt, and a thin outline of round many-petaled flowers with black centers loosely strewn at the visual edges.

     That leaves her waiting and commenting on the others. "I really like your outfit, Ms. Regulus! ... Oh, no sunscreen for me." Is she trying for a tan? She is fairly pale... "Yours, um, goes really well with your hat, Ms. Timekeeper!"

     Rita startles just a little at White's re-arrival. "Oh! Oh. I... like the colors!" she says. And then bends forward a little at the waist, to examine further. She's not looking at the colors.

     When the group does take off, Rita gets sidetracked slightly into chasing and catching a small white crab. Maybe this one will be nice to her, for once...
Storm Investigators Purchasing swimsuits, too, would be a terrifying ordeal for Marcus, so she's lucky Greta's there to handle it. The veteran picks out some era-appropriate one pieces for both of them, opting for a brown and black checkered one for herself, and a blue and brown striped one for Marcus. They both have swimcaps that keep their hair firmly in check, although neither of them approach the water at first. There's a ghost to be found, and Marcus still has her entire bookcase with her!

She really doesn't want to get that drenched.
Lilian Rook     Yay! More Foundation work! That means another noble and just, pastorally governmental bureau thinks Lilian is a good guy! Oh those charming little bureaucracies and their funny eccentricities and inefficiencies; who can stay mad at them when they tell you not to get hate crimed? Lilian spends some of the redundant part of the debriefing (she did look up a little bit about the era since last time) thinking about making a scrapbook of fake IDs, like a spy movie, and feeling a little guilty that she's glad she's not an arcanist.

    And, like, way too much about how she'd have redone her argument with Mersmer Jr. to totally own her and make everyone stand up and clap about how right she is, but that's normal.

    'it's impossible to be certain whether that's hostility from the haunting, or simply people's fears informing their perception.'

    "People are always blaming ghosts for everything." Lilian says, idly staring at the teleportation prepwork. "Oh, the ghost scratched me. Oh, it woke me up at night. Oh, it moved around my keys. The ghost gave me bad thoughts about my wife. The ghost made my child disobedient. The ghost made ill during flu season." she sighs, vacillating between exasperation and intrigue. "When some invisible force that you can't see and don't have to prove could be to blame for every single thing, why not?"

    "I'm thoroughly on the side of ghosts." Lilian concludes, folding her arms. Then, after a moment's pause, "Because the other explanation is always far more logical." Trying to carry it to the endzone, she makes sure to add an unrelated subject. "Goodness, those teleportation disks must be expensive. Going to these lengths every single time must be exhausting; ah, though I'd still vastly prefer this to flying."

    Paying close attention to her pace and delivery of inane chatter, both in terms of carefully balancing what she actually means with enough verbal garbage to prevent examining it too closely, and in terms of keeping up pace without leaving too much space for someone else to say something stupid, Lilian can't help but immediately lock on to Vertin's overlong silence. At first, she only watches patiently, ruminating half-heartedly on what could be giving them pause. Then, she starts to actually wonder. She's just about to start talking again to cover the silence, when Vertin goes first.

    'It seems likely that she'll be afraid, so please keep that in mind.'

    "She?"

    . . . . . . . .

    '... Perhaps now would be a good time to get into our beachwear. We'll reconvene soon.'

    "Putting it on my calendar" is what Lilian says in vaguely non-sequitur reply, and is even a little bit pleased about it. Today marks the least aggrieved she has ever been about having to wear a swimsuit in the company of Elites, after all! She'd have brought one herself, of course, but because the Foundation has recently annoyed her with mistrustfully-worded paperwork, she has spent more hours than would make the dollars to buy a swimsuit on filling out the forms that make the Foundation have to pay for it instead.

    It's not enough that she should have something; someone else she mislikes must also lose something. That's the American way. The spirit of the times!

    Lilian is, of course, certainly in time for Tamamo's transformation sequence. There is no way in hell she does anything but applaud for her spin! Look at it! Look at her! She's perfect! However, after having to purchase something herself (also cheating in the changing room), she is brought to a moment's pause by recalling that she's wearing a swim skirt past at least a third of her thigh, and is currently feeling a waist tie rather than the sun on her middle, and thinks to ask the dread question, ". . . When were wetsuits invented again?"
Lilian Rook     It's probably fine. More importantly, look at Vertin. They have to change out of that suit! That's basically unthinkable! What does it--

    'Alright, then. Let's be on our way.'

    Lilian is caught staring at Vertin's hat, mouth slightly open, for at least two seconds after being signalled. She shakes her head, presses her hand to her face, and then shuffles along while trying not to look too disappointed, pulling her hair up off her neck and slowly folding and twisting it until it mostly exists in the vicinity of her head.

    'We can't let the sun defeat us...!'

    "I feel like I have that well in hand." Lilian says. She does not elaborate. "So. Did you finally sign up with the Foundation? Or did Vertin decide that you have to pay rent?"

    'Those names... Named after the brightest star in the constellation named Leo, and the legendary fox spirit. Do you...?'

    Lilian bothering Tamamo for a pin or a scrunchie to hold her hair appears to be the first point at which she notices Marcus instead of just Hoffman plus one. Glancing over from one to the other, she decides to finish Marcus' sentiment for her. "Be nice."
Tamamo     '...and the legendary fox spirit. Do you...?'

    "Do I...?" Tamamo will give Marcus time to decide what she was asking, and whether she'd really like to ask it.

    Lilian bothering Tamamo for a pin or a scrunchie...

    Of course, Tamamo has several pins. Having no pockets in her perfectly fit suit, and hardly a place to hide anything in it -- anything short of a perfect fit being entirely unacceptable, of course -- she retrieves the item from a wicker picnic basket that she hadn't been seen carrying prior to changing.
Regulus ''I really like your outfit, Ms. Regulus!''

"Thanks Rita! Yours is cute too, the flowers are real fab." Regulus is totally willing to talk Rita up, though she does seem worried about the UV even if she's too peppy to let it seep too much into her overt expression. She decides right then and there to find a chemical alchemist that can make a special sunscreen that works for Ritas. She's not sure if normal sunscreen would work or not but if the material is significantly different she probably should be wary of unintended chemical reactions right?

As she's lost in thought, a Marcus.

''Named after the brightest star in the constellation--''

"Eheh! That's right! You're a smart cookie, huh?" She puts a little too much emphasis on cookie. "You're right, I'm gonna be the brightest rock and roll star of all time!"

She has no idea that Marcus can read her, of course. Or what that even means!

''I feel like I have that well in hand.''

"Oh already put the sunblock on? Nice." Regulus nods approvingly.

''So. Did you finally sign up with the Foundation? Or did Vertin decide that you have to pay rent?''

"Hm hm hm..." Regulus brags. "I can't pay rent if I don't have any money." So neither.
Timekeeper "'She'?"

    Vertin shakes her head. "Intuition. If the ghost is a spirit of a person, then she's female."

"Are, um, 'arcane events' often scared? If ghosts are usually just people,"

    "There's several sorts of anomalies that can be categorized as a 'haunting'. Not all spirits... and in fact most spirits wouldn't be ghosts of people in a recognizable sense." Vertin exposits to Rita, neither defensive at the implication that they were her words, nor apologetic with the knowledge that they weren't. "A fairy light or will-o'-the-wisp can be similarly disruptive, but as arcane anomalies they're closer to critters than to people. 'Poltergeist' is a categorization for a kind of event, rather than a descriptor for a person necessarily."

    Then, to explain her earlier words a very small bit, "I have a sense for when I'm going to meet someone new."

"Regulus always lands on her feet!"

    Being that Regulus's audience is only one, Vertin makes sure to give Regulus her due attention and praise before leaving the changing room. The fact that her demeanor is completely unchanged even when she's in a frilly swimsuit feels kind of uncanny. "That's very good, Regulus. Elegant and dynamic."

". . . When were wetsuits invented again?"

    It's genuinely impossible to tell what Vertin thinks of anybody's swimsuits, besides that they're apparently good enough to not be commented on. Sure, Regulus is wearing a bikini, and Riku has some bright plastic greebles around his waist, but Vertin doesn't really seem to think that matters all too much. When Lilian points it out, Vertin tracks her gaze over to Tamamo, and tilts her hat back with a hand.

    After a few seconds of looking, they decide, "I'm not sure. Likely not until after 1928. There won't be any spectators looking to verify the strict fashion guidelines of our outfits, however; we only have to not stick out overmuch. I'd rather we be comfortable than not."

"Wait! Vertin! Before we move on...there is a dangerous enemy we have to protect ourselves against..."

    "That's right. I rarely ever think to put sunscreen anywhere put my face. Thank you, Regulus." Vertin doesn't come across as particularly self-conscious (though their swimsuit *is* modest), but seeing their bare limbs really throws into focus how nearly skeletal she is. Her arms and legs are both slender and pale, and even without the obfuscation of several layers of decor, her chest is only a few notches north of 'flat'. They rub in the sunscreen while walking, so as to not waste any time.

    Coming from downtown where the Foundation Miami Branch was, the boardwalk looks like as much or more of a city center. Albeit, a fairly sketchy one: there's barely any effort put into hiding which of the gambling halls have speakeasies in the back, there's ritzy hotels right next to run-down shops, and so on. The buildings are all, naturally, old-American style, with big flat facades and saloon-style overhangs, billboards advertising circus attractions, and people leaning out onto the wood-paneled walkway to hawk wares or make catcalls at the group of women-plus-Riku.

"Will we see the mafia, here?"

    "It's entirely possible that our destination even has ties to the organized crime of the era," Vertin asides. "It shouldn't be of any concern to us, however. Port cities are inextricable from bootlegging and smuggling groups, and we can't sacrifice commerce and people's safety just to spite them."
Timekeeper     The sand underfoot isn't exactly paradise-soft; it's filled with little rocks and shells from a relatively uncurated beach, and people leave cigarettes and glass bottles tossed in the sand carelessly. By sheer population difference though, and due to the lack of plastics, it's still bearable compared to any modern beach. While walking towards a restaurant on the seaside, Vertin explains to Riku, "The poltergeist hasn't actually strayed far from her cluster of original sightings. There may be several locations to investigate, but we won't have to go far."

    In fact, someone's already waiting for them outside the restaurant! A semi-classy seaside affair, glass walls facing the sea and a pier nearby where smaller tables are arranged for evening meals, it, and the beach surrounding it, and even the nearby boardwalk, are all completely deserted, despite the pleasant weather and time of day.

    The man waiting for them looks extremely uncomfortable with standing so close to the building, looking back over his shoulder repeatedly and shifting his weight between his feet. He's also wearing a suit and a fedora rather than a swimsuit, making Vertin look briefly put out. "Hello sir. We're investigators with the St. Pavlov Foundation."

    "Hey, you-- Christ on the cross, you've finally decided to haul yourselves over. I coulda died waiting on you bums! Look at this shit! Plates flyin' around, tables flipping, all that hollerin' and crying; I'm not touching this shit."

    Upon noticing that the group is (almost) entirely women, the man blinks and changes tact, shrugging and shouldering past them as if he suddenly doesn't have a care. "Ghosts, all that supernatural biz, I say it oughtta be left to the loonies. I'm a proper businessman, I got my concerns in reality."

    After silently waiting through all of that, all Vertin says is, "We'll have it handled soon, sir," before moving on into the building.

    Almost immediately inside, they pause and fold their arms. "There's certainly arcane energy present. We should split up and search the dining area, the kitchens, and storage for any spectral phenomenae. If we have to draw her out, try to do so gently."
Riku Asakura "Alright, together it is!" Riku says to Vertin whether they should split up or stay together.  He walks with the group, and when they get to the restaurant, the man at the front isn't what he expected.  Both a little onery and dressed fancily.  He bows to the man in greeting and listens to what he has to say.  

"Plates flying around..." he says calmly, trying to feel out the situation.  "Hey now, there is no need to call anyone a loony.  Supernatural stuff happens, and it's our job to help it," he says with a frown.  This man's attitude is bad, and it's likely because his business is being interrupted.  Not everyone can be Riku's part-time boss, who seems more relaxed than wanting to make money.  

Stepping inside with Vertin and the rest, he listens to the general plan.  "I'll go to the storage.  I've worked plenty of part-time jobs stocking, so I know my way around a storage room," he says and walks off towards the back, presumably where the storage room is.  

Once he's back there, he'll speak softly, "Ms. Poltergeist, can you hear me?  My name is Riku and I've come to help you out..."
White White is having to expend enough energy on repelling self-consciousness that it's immediately clear she's not paying quite as much attention to others; normally she could manage to praise more of the others' outfits, at least. Rita's comment and examination leads White to pinch her outfit gently just above the chest and check for damage; she's not sure why Rita was confused about it holding together, either, but when she can't find any holes or flaws in her seamless weaving... Well, she's just gotta move on. She doesn't take sunscreen either, despite looking like she should need it.

     Fortunately, she stops seeming *quite* so thrown-off by the time they've strolled a ways down the beach to the restaurant's front, but she's still glad it's mostly Vertin who has to speak to the suited man there. She doesn't particularly see fit to say anything to him, disinterested as she is in drawing attention (let alone with *that* kind of attitude)... But if she's one of the people he tries to shoulder past, he'd find the sensation about comparable to walking halfway into a wall-corner without looking.

     Finally, though, she can think about something besides her clothing. It's time to work! Yayyy!..? Looking around for a strange arcane phenomena that may be person-enough to have a name is right up her alley anyway, and after brushing her hair further out of her face and behind her ear, she lets her eyes open finally while stepping around Vertin. Riku mentions going to storage, so White looks back at Vertin and the others and daintly points toward the kitchens before tapping her sandals off at the door and stepping inside. She walks through from the front at an unhurried, polite pace with her hands folded in front of her waist, gently opening the doors along the way rather than teleporting through.

From there, she starts... Well, strolling through and looking around! She opens appliances to look inside, picks up things from the floor to place in somewhat neat stacks on the countertops, and runs the Evil Eye's gentle gleam across as much space as she can while looking for something resembling a name or a skill list to pop up and indicate a presence. She can't... Strictly *see* ghosts, or at least she doesn't know that she can, but if there's a magical signature she should still be able to notice when one's present. And if the poltergeist starts tossing things around, White is probably among the least at risk of a kitchen knife being introduced to her spleen... Not that she wants that. She just made this damn swimsuit, if it gets a hole immediately she's going to be irritated, even if wearing it is embarrassing.
Tamamo     'I have a sense for when I'm going to meet someone new.'

    "My, how curious."

    'It's entirely possible that our destination even has ties to the organized crime of the era,'

    "Oh, how frightening," says Tamamo, who doesn't look frightened at all, her poise alert-curious.

    'I rarely ever think to put sunscreen anywhere put my face.'

    "I do have other solutions, if you would like... however, there is some value in applying lotion. As well, a bit of sun may be good for you. Only 'a bit,' however." The Pale Gold Face is too much for mortals. Tamamo knows this, too.

    It's a work outing, to be sure, but it's also... well, no, it's just a work outing. This doesn't really qualify as any sort of tourism, but Tamamo keeps a sway in her step while imagining going out on the water and... "Have you ever surfed, Lilian? It seems rather interesting. Are there waves enough for that, here, do you think?" She has no idea.

    'Look at this shit!

    Tamamo lifts herself up on her toes in an attempt to look past everyone, scanning for flying plates. She lets her heels fall with a small feeling of disappointment.

    'We should split up and search the dining area, the kitchens, and storage for any spectral phenomenae.'

    "Gently, yes, of course." Tamamo nods with renewing enthusiasm, and sets down her picnic basket on the nearest unflipped table. From it, she retrieves a wooden rod a little longer than the basket is, the rope looped through a notch in one end of the rod, and the paper lantern attached to the other end of the rope. Carefully, she lights the lantern, hardly even visible in the streetside daylight, and lifts up the rod, the lantern gently swinging and flickering. It has a faintly sweet scent. "I shall go and see to the back rooms... beginning with the kitchen, I suppose."

    And off she goes, one hand held low to quietly draw sigils in the air. The lantern is certainly for more than just mood-setting, but the magecraft to let her spot arcane signs might give warning before she attracts any spirits.
Lilian Rook     'Eheh! That's right! You're a smart cookie, huh?'

    Lilian blinks.

    'You're right, I'm gonna be the brightest rock and roll star of all time!'

    Lilian turns her head.

    ". . ."

    Her mouth is open.

    ". . . Did you seriously pick a pseudonym before you even released any music?" she says, eyebrow raised.

    Oh god dammit now she doesn't have an excuse to put any sunscreen on Tamamo. Not that there would have been an occasion for it, given the actual mission and all, and not that it would have been necessary, very appropriate, or indeed possibly very legal, given the era, but still. She has to kick a little rock about it with the toe of her sandal.

    'I can't pay rent if I don't have any money.'

    "So you're out here paying with your body. I see." Lilian says, moody now.

    'I have a sense for when I'm going to meet someone new.'

    At first, Lilian's focus is on the exposition; something where she can ruminate quietly, then opine aloud, and observe an insightful yet irrelevant little nothing like "I continue to find it fascinating that your world already possesses all of the appropriate nomenclature from every individual culture for each of their supernatural nuances, and yet the modern parlance still insists stubbornly on being as vague and ill-fitting as possible." and repeating the words "Arcane anomaly." while shaking her head. Wasn't TTT one of those too? What does it even mean?

    Only after a while does that last bit of phrasing reveal that it's become stuck in her mind. Not really knowing how to approach it, Lilian says, "What an odd thing to call intuition. We meet new people almost every day, don't we?", and then watches Vertin as if they ever even make any expressions, much less accidentally let slip any clues.

    'I'd rather we be comfortable than not.'

    "As long as we don't cause a time paradox." Back to being a little pouty, then. "I'm certain you've been asked this a million times before, so I beg your pardon, but aren't they feeding you at the Foundation?"

    'Port cities are inextricable from bootlegging and smuggling groups, and we can't sacrifice commerce and people's safety just to spite them.'

    Huh. Lilian really doesn't know what to make of that one.

    'Hey, you-- Christ on the cross, you've finally decided to haul yourselves over. I coulda died waiting on you bums!'

    §This again? I thought it made sense for the Ford plant, given that high and mighty 'beacon of enterprise' attitude, but this is a nobody.§

    'Ghosts, all that supernatural biz, I say it oughtta be left to the loonies.'

    §What a delightful little stare. Very subtle. Do you think I'm stupid?§

    'I'm a proper businessman, I got my concerns in reality.'

    Lilian Politely places her hand on the man's shoulder. Looking up in the proximity of eye contact, she says, "Is that so? You'd seemed very frightened earlier. Is there something you might be able to tell us, somewhere else?" She chooses her words, their individual delivery, carefully and with the slightly condescending modesty of a government social worker; one that she was one very familiar with. The fact that she can absorb any attempt to swat her hand aside or shoulder past her, without adjusting or tensing her stance, is something else entirely. Her voice dips.

    "Agitation. Paranoia. Irritability. Lack of apparent source, coupled with rapid mood swings between depression and mania. Erratic and unpredictable behaviour. Seemingly unaware of place, time, appropriate address. Doesn't recall own actions from hours ago." She glances over to Vertin, as if to privately confirm something, but that much is for show. "Sir, are there any medications you usually take? Could you describe a sense of disorientation, currently?" She'll let him off before she gets down the list to 'what's the year?' though.
Regulus Regulus beams at Vertin, "Hm hm, thanks!"

She is accustomed to Vertin being tough to read, but she knows she has a sense of humor, even if she seems to keep it mild, and she's stood up for her! She already considers Vertin a friend rather than a landlord that doesn't charge rent though, of course, such a landlord...could it even be possible?

Regulus reassures(?) Vertin with a, "It's easy to forget!" But not for Regulus! clearly she wears the sunglasses because they protect the eyes from prolonged days out on sea and not just because they are cool right? Clearly. Her gaze dwells on Vertin for a moment. Are they keeping her too busy to eat or something? Regulus frowns and makes a note to store some sandwiches or something in the suitcase so she can just hold out a sandwich for Vertin now and then, something that she can do while moving around a lot, she decides.

But other than that she walks along, almost turning to the catcallers to put on 'a performance' she hasn't decided on yet but remembers Vertin wants to avoid attention so she just asides to Riku, "You've got some admirers."

"You know, a poltergeist... That's a ghost of a girl, you said? What exactly are we going to do once we find her? Ask her to tone it down? Mind the neighbors?" Ask her to haunt the suitcase instead, Regulus wonders privatley. Can ghosts just switch haunting locations like that? In truth, Regulus doesn't have much spooky experiences herself but they seem like something the Foundation's pretty accustomed with.

''PLates flyin around, tables flipping--''

"Sounds like a real party." Regulus pauses and then adds, "Uh sorry about the trouble, I mean."

''It oughtta be left to the loonies.''

"/Wow/." Regulus is from the progressive era of 1966 where all mannerse of social inequity was surely on its way for being solved forever, so she's pretty shocked by that! "I'll have you know that there are many incredible--"

''We'll have it handled soon, sir.''

Regulus clamps her mouth shut, instead looking to Vertin. "Y...eah that's a good idea. I'll check storage! If I see anything spooky I'll sing 'They played the monster mash, it was a graveyard smash'."

''. . . Did you seriously pick a pseudonym before you even released any music?''

"What do you mean I've been Regulus all my liiiiife--" Regulus says as she heads to the storage unit.
Storm Investigators "Do I...?"

Oh no, Marcus is on the spot! Maybe Tamamo will forget by the time they're on the beach. But what if she doesn't? What if she holds a grudge against her for insulting her, like some kind of prankster knocking on a door and running away? What if she really does have the legendary spirit's powers and curses her to die, lost in the ocean that'd be oh-so-convenient to dispose of her in?

But what if she asks Tamamo about her past, and she gets insulted by that, too? Wouldn't that lead to the same outcome? Would it be even worse, if Tamamo knew she knew about the legend in passing, and still chose to ask something so banal?

"Be nice."

"Ah! S.. Sorry, ma'am!" Marcus squeaks out in response to Lilian as her train of thought is finally forced to stop circling itself endlessly. It's only then that she even notices the different kinds of swimsuits everyone is wearing, with Tamamo's wetsuit being particularly confusing to her the longer she stares.

"Which era did that suit come from? If she was in the stone that whole time..." Despite Lilian being right there, Marcus just keeps on staring at Tamamo while the confusion continues to build. She doesn't even notice right away when Regulus addresses her, either, but eventually lets out another noise when Regulus starts to bewilder her with talk of cookies and-

"You're right, I'm gonna be the brightest rock and roll star of all time!"

"Rock? Roll?" It takes a few moments of sifting through the possible meanings of that before Marcus remembers something from her briefings: "Oh, the music styles? That was... Will be ahead of my time, but I've heard it's very energetic."

She almost sounds like she's calming down! Slightly. Very slightly. "Madam Hoffman might know more about that sort of thing, but do you perform with your... Er. Do you perform?" She glances right up and over at Greta after she asks that, earning a slight nod from the older Investigator.

Like Vertin, Greta doesn't pay any real attention to anyone's swimsuits. She seems far more interested in keeping an eye out for the ghost than anything else. She's not ignoring Marcus' fumbling around, but she's clearly prioritizing 'actually finding the ghost' rather than engage in pleasantries for the time being.

"Sunblock would be useful if we're to conduct this search for long, and if we need to speak with this ghost. Good thinking, and thank you, Regulus." She says with another light and courteous nod, borrowing the sunscreen once Vertin's done with it to get herself and Marcus covered up.

"I have a sense for when I'm going to meet someone new."

"A sixth sense... If this truly is a ghost we can speak to, then... Then I hope we can help her." Marcus murmurs after listening to Vertin, looking towards the water briefly and clutching her bookcase a little tighter against her side. "To find closure, perhaps to understand how she died... But if the ghost was speaking of something happening later, would there be any clues lying around?"

"we can't sacrifice commerce and people's safety just to spite them."

"The Timekeeper is correct. Our mission is to stop the haunting, not to do the police's job for them. The less attention we draw from the cops and the mafia, the better." Greta agrees while ignoring the noises from the boardwalk. "If the ghost is operating out of a closed area, then we may have an easier time avoiding their gaze and have more time to relax in the area once we finish."

Marcus looks just a little troubled about that.
Rita Ma      Tragically, Rita's Crab Enrichment Sidequest ends in a pinched finger. She comes back rubbing her hand and doing her very bravest to not let her eyes water.

     "Intuition..."
     Rita looks - over Vertin's head, but around their top-hat- at Lilian, softly questioning. Is that, like, particularly intuitable about ghosts? Is Vertin a prophet?? Lilian would know about those two topics.

     Maybe they're just weird. They are a little weird, for sure.

     ----

     Rita's never been especially good at dealing with rude men in the moment- chalk it up to low lifetime exposure. She stares after him with a frown, though. "Loonies...? Did he think we were all arcanists?" she says, vaguely in Vertin's direction but maybe in Greta's too.

     Lilian accosting him makes her frown vanish though. That means It's Dealt With, even though she doesn't know exactly what Dealing With It means, or what It is. Pep renewed, she steps inside, nods to Vertin, and heads into the kitchen. Bravely, she looks around and...

     ... Wait, didn't that guy imply the ghost is invisible? Hm. Now she feels a bit stupid, just standing there.

     "Excuse me? Miss Ghost?" she says politely, while awkwardly moving around the counters. "If you can hear me... I'd like to know why you're doing all this. Is something bothering you?" She starts putting the knives in a drawer, then leans against it to keep it closed.
Storm Investigators "I coulda died waiting on you bums!"
"We'll have it handled soon, sir,"

Neither Greta nor Marcus seem to be paying too much attention to the businessman on the way to and into the building. The former pays more attention to Vertin during that exchange than anything else, just quietly observing her technique in handling the guy and letting out the slightest of approving noises.

The latter, meanwhile, looks far more interested in the restaurant itself. She's holding that bookcase a little more tightly in both arms as she steps in besides Vertin, too, squeaking lightly at the sudden stop and shuffling to the side so as to not walk directly into them. "Split up...? Oh, alright. Yes, if the ghost can be spoken to..."

Marcus looks down for a second, then lowers the book case back under her right arm. "... I'd like to record her story, if she remembers it." She says, then starts looking around the dining room while Greta comes to a stop besides her. During her search, she occasionally holds her lantern up, but she isn't relying on just plain eyesight to find the ghost.

Instead, Marcus activates her arcane power, trying to 'read' the surroundings while Greta places a hand on her shoulder. "See if there's any patterns to this ghost's past appearances. Where things usually got wrecked, or where she often spoke of..." Greta pauses, glancing at the door to make sure that businessman isn't still there, then leans in to whisper just in case. "Eras that haven't happened yet. The newspapers might have reported them as arcanist-like ravings."

"Loonies...? Did he think we were all arcanists?"

"It's likely. Humans don't normally handle matters involving ghosts and critters without the right tools. That's why Marcus is here." ^Greta answers Rita, gesturing at Marcus as the younger investigator opens up her book case to take out a weird little device with a weird-looking powder in it.

"Detection spores... Ready, Madam Hoffman." Marcus holds the device over to Greta before continuing to scan the dining area, leaving Greta to release the powder in the hopes of finding some kind of magical residue from the ghost's past presence.

Only after Greta lets loose with the powder does she remember to add: "It's safe to breathe. It may help us detect the ghost, if something else doesn't set it off first."
Lilian Rook     'Which era did that suit come from? If she was in the stone that whole time...'

    Lilian, in business mode, starts loudly snapping her fingers in front of Marcus' face. It's probably just a sense of trampled-upon professionalism that she forces her way into the space between her and Tamamo, an. "Excuse me? Do you mind focusing?" even sounds like she's cross at Marcus spacing out. Right where Greta can see, Lilian sighs and says "I miss Sonetto."

    Rita's look elicits a shrug and a subtle shake of her head.

    'Have you ever surfed, Lilian?'

    "No, but I'd be happy to try, if it's something that interests you." Lilian says, apparently able to be peppy on autopilot when asked certain things in certain ways. "There are, allegedly, but I hear that the conditions for surfing aren't something that can occur every day. Like the opposite of most sports, you want to wait for those unpredictable days where it is windy, amongst other things."

    'What do you mean I've been Regulus all my liiiiife--'

    "You've been something all your life." Lilian calls back, as she separates to stick with Tamamo. Despite it ostensibly being a veiled insult, she can't seem to help a little bit of a smile creeping to her face as she raises her voice to be heard. Dammit.

    'Eras that haven't happened yet. The newspapers might have reported them as arcanist-like ravings.'

    "Beg pardon?" Lilian cranes her neck back, blinking in the senior investigator's direction. "Is that . . ." God there are so mant variants of this question. ". . . something that newspapers commonly do, and commonly for that reason?"
Lilian Rook     'It's likely. Humans don't normally handle matters involving ghosts and critters without the right tools. That's why Marcus is here.'

    "Ridiculous." Lilian says as if repeating herself, though she hadn't said so earlier. She folds her arms like she's been arguing about it for a while, which she has, in her brain, since yesterday. "It's just a ghost. Not a nuclear reactor leak. You hardly need anything special on hand, much less specialists." she huffs. "Is it like drivers in the south piling their cars up nine wrecks deep when snow finally happens one winter? I've spent my whole life around scores of ghosts and nothing happened to me."

    'Detection spores... Ready, Madam Hoffman.'

    "Oh. Vertin did say she was a specialist." Lilian thinks out loud. She blinks, then continues on as if Marcus is a funny little dog that she is observing, now implicitly 'from the same viewing booth as Greta'. "Won't letting that loose in here simply activate on everyone else's magic? How exactly does it work?"

    Oh noooo, aieeee, she's following Tamamo around with her magic lantern and all, alas!
Regulus ''Er. Do you perform?''

"Yeah of course, though I lost all my instruments when the great ship Apple sank to the bottom of the Thames in a dramatic battle against Manus Vindictae...!" Don't ask what an Oompa Loompa is. Don't ask what an Oopma Loompa is. You can't let Lilian know you don't know what an Oompa Loompa is.

Regulus gets an idea to lure out the poltergeist as she moves into storage. Namely, she turns invisible herself and starts wiggling around various items in midair right then and there. This is a genius plan, Regulus thinks. The poltergeist will want to know the other new poltergeist. She's so brilliant! Nothing can go wrong with this ingenious plan. Yep. She sees no potential issues at all.
Timekeeper "I do have other solutions, if you would like... however, there is some value in applying lotion."

    Vertin pauses, and their lips turn a teeny tiny bit downwards as they look at the white streaks of sunscreen on their arm. "Is that because of your arcanum dealing with luck and the sun? ... I suppose it's too late now that I've already begun applying it, but it's no matter. Thank you for the offer."

"We meet new people almost every day, don't we?"

    "On days involving field missions, at least. But I'd hardly say I 'met' those branch office employees, for example." That answer doesn't even really need to strain the believability of Vertin's completely neutral expression. There's certainly been more days of their life where they *haven't* met anyone new compared to ones where they have. On the topic of food, they shift their grip on the suitcase and answer in the most concerningly vague way possible. "There's never been an issue of food scarcity in the St. Pavlov Foundation."

"What exactly are we going to do once we find her? Ask her to tone it down? Mind the neighbors?"

    "Whatever we can convince her of that'll result in a successful mission. We're not tasked with 'containing' her or anything of the like; we only need reasonable certainty that she won't cause trouble. However, given her knowledge of the future era..." Vertin is, silently, on the same wavelength as Regulus, tilting her hat upwards to focus on the restaurant with both eyes. "I'd like to find some way we can cooperate."

"Supernatural stuff happens, and it's our job to help it,"

    "Happens, sure; on the account of those crazies." The man, entirely unsympathetic and more than comfortable demonstrating so, spits onto the sand. When talking to Riku specifically though, he's got an air of 'c'mon man, work with me here'. "Call a spade a spade, why not? That shit don't happen unless one of 'em's already in our community."

"Is that so? You'd seemed very frightened earlier."

    After riccocheting off of White when he tried to storm off, the business owner is already fussy before Lilian puts her hand on him, and *touching* him to keep him from escaping makes it that much worse. His huffy attempt at dismissal-- "Can it, broad; I've got a better idea of where you ought to put your hands--" cuts off when he tries to swipe away Lilian's hand only to find it practically immovable.

    'Unnaturally strong' has the root concept of 'unnatural', and whatever else is true about the people of this era, they know what 'unnatural' means. His eyes widen, and then swivel to Vertin, skip off of her, and land on Greta and Riku. "Hey, hey! Leash your fucking *bitch*, why don't you! Word gets out like this, and we'll run your crazy asses out of town!"

    Of course, the moment that Lilian's grip didn't feel 'human', in that he couldn't just overpower her, all of her words passed in one ear and out the other. Vertin meets Lilian's eyes when she looks to the side, but their expression stays still as they look at the business owner. "I'm sorry, sir. Please allow us to do our jobs. Hauntings *can* have several mental effects, especially if someone loiters in the area while experiencing antisocial emotions such as impatience and frustration."

    The businessman's eyes widen in fear this time, and then he wrenches himself away and stalks off muttering to himself after Verin finishes with, "You appear to be in good health, however."
Timekeeper > STORAGE

    The 'storage' for the restaurant is more of an attached shack than a room within the restaurant itself. Salt-weathered wood is far from impermeable to the breeze, which... seems like maybe a food safety hazard, but it's the 1920s. Several yellowed bulbs dimly illuminate racks of various food, fish hanging on the wall to dry, and a chunky old refrigerator that's certainly made of lead.

    When Regulus and Riku enter, the sudden insulation from the chatter of the main restaurant area, as well as the muffling of the sound of the waves outside, makes the room feel eeriely adrift, sinking to the bottom of the sea. The door creaks closed behind them, groaning like a settling shipwreck. Riku's words fall flat in the space, and there's no response at all for a minute as the pair of them carefully search the room.

    Then, a small, whining noise starts to build, at first hard to place. A light flickers, and drawing their attention up means that the pair spot the slowly twisting bulb, metal screeching agonizingly against metal as it pries itself out of its socket, sounding uncannily like a human's wailing. Then, all at once, the bulbs burst and shower glass down on them, and the fridge door swings open violently, throwing glass trays around the room.

>KITCHEN

    This area *is* full of knives! Rita is genre savvy enough to try to mitigate this, but-- it's hard to tell exactly, but are the knives pulling away from her touch *as* she grabs them? They don't escape her efforts to put them into the drawer, but her gut feeling registers them intuitively as scuttling starfish, or some other bottom-feeding prey animal that tries to launch out of her path.

    White's Evil Eye also gets a reaction from the environmental debris. When she turns her gaze onto a row of hanging pans, they start to twist and squirm away from her sight, thrashing against each other and causing a racket of clanging metal. She can see, of course, the permanent debuff 'Posssessed' cast on the otherwise unremarkable objects, but a complete lack of any associated abilities or attacks. The more that Rita and White try to control and observe the environment, the more hectic it gets, until Tamamo's lantern proves immediately useful when the lights all shut off. There's a trail, faintly glowing like ghostlight in her lantern's glow, guiding her out towards somewhere in the dining room.
Timekeeper >DINING ROOM

    Vertin remains with Marcus and Greta in the dining room, after giving Regulus an encouraging pat on the shoulder that subtly turns her angled towards the storage room, after which she promptly heads in that direction. Probably that was Regulus's choice. Surely Vertin didn't just angle her like a pinball.

    Marcus's reading unfolds the events in the diner like pages of a book, with the paragraphs that lead to the angles that each chair has been thrown to the ground, the scrawling narration of people's shock and horror when a tablecloth was yanked out from under their meal (there's no tablecloth around now: why...?), stampeding out after, with every person having a different version of the events in their mind. Tracing the arcane 'footprints' around the dining area, Marcus gradually comes around and around until she's angled towards the same closet that Tamamo's lantern light is guiding towards.

    And right when she looks at the door, all the lights in the restaurant shut off. A shrieking cry of fear rings out, deafeningly loud and directly in everyone's ears, as the chairs are all kicked up into the air at once by an invisible force. As inanimate objects all across the restaurant begin flailing around, the ghostly scream gradually coalesces into a young girl's breathy voice, tight to the point of gasping with terror.

    "No, no, no, no, no, no, no...! Get away! Stay away! Don't-- don't look! Please! Don't take me b-back--! I know you are! I can-- I can tell! That horrible, fishy, briny, salty smell, you're here to take me back...! Please, pleaaaaaase!! I just wanna go homeeeee! I hate it here!"
White White's head-turning examinations are quicker when she first sees 'Possessed' on her ocular HUD, but she slows again in the next few moments. She nods at Rita, Tamamo and Lilian joining her in the kitchen and pauses to get her phone out, sending everyone the simple warning that "It seems like it's-, she's affecting more than just her immediate surroundings. Be careful." Then from there she reaches over past Rita to stick the knife drawer shut with a few short strands of webbing so Rita doesn't have to keep leaning on it, and proceeds to follow Tamamo without question. As always, White is happy to defer to experts... Especially on things she really isn't all that familiar with. She's died enough times now, maybe she should be able to empathize a little more with a ghost, but... Nope, just follow Tamamo!

     Arriving at the particular closet, White's guard goes up briefly, which is to say she mostly just unfolds her hands in case something comes flying at her head, but then she ends up using them to plug her ears for the duration of the scream instead. Only afterward, she glances once more at Tamamo's lantern as well as the trail left by Marcus and Greta, then closes her eyes again. Whoever this girl is, she said "don't look", and... Well. There are a couple reasons that might be asked of them, that she can imagine. People... Rarely die in a state of comfort, and she can't imagine a terrified spirit is any more likely to have. She might not be audible over the yelling, but with her eyes closed she steps just a little closer and kneels down beside the door, facing partly away from it. She could look, even with them shut, but... It feels wrong to, so she mindfully controls her gaze behind her eyelids while beginning to weave a plain silk sheet of cloth, like a towel. Then she asks softly, "Do you need... Something to cover... Up with..?"

Dignity has to come first and foremost. White knows she wouldn't be in much the mood for speaking if she weren't presentable, either... And that's without accounting for whatever extraordinary state a dead woman might be in.
Riku Asakura 'You've got some admirers.'

"I do?" Riku asks Regulus, oblivious to the people who might be staring at him, he's tried to fit in the best that he can! When the man answers him back about the supernatural stuff, he just sighs at the man and wonders if it would help.  He's just as much put off by this man as this man is put off by him.  

He walks with Regulus to the back and the old-timey storage area.  He was baffled beyond belief at how lax things were back in the twenties.  He'd never get away with a health inspection at home with things looking like this!  Still, he's not here to do a health inspection; he's here to help a ghost.  

His words fall flat; nothing responds to them as he looks around and hears nothing at first.  However, when the whining noise starts to build, he flinches at the sound.  "Did we upset it?" he asks Regulus, as the noise builds up.  The lightbulbs shatter, and the door to the fridge opens.  He braces with his hands to avoid the glass from above, and from the fridge, he tries something novel.  

He reaches out for a greeble, and in his hands the GEED CLAW summons to his hands in a very small size.  Small enough for Riku to grab it and he swings at the glass trays pouring out at the kitchen at them, trying to cover Regulus so that she can come up with a way to reach out to the spirit.  

"Do you have a plan, Regulus?"
Storm Investigators EARLIER

"Excuse me? Do you mind focusing?"

Finger-snapping is a good way to get Marcus' attention! And to get her to make startled noises, and to freeze up for a second before backing away quickly and practically hiding behind Greta. "S-sorry, Madam Rook! It won't happen again..."

Greta, meanwhile, doesn't look particularly bothered by Lilian's reaction. It got Marcus to stop spacing out, after all.

"You survived, Investigator Marcus. Did the world end?"
"No..."
"Did you die?"
"No..."
"Were you cursed?
I don't think so..."
"Did you lose your job?"
"N... Not yet?"
"You won't, not from this. Carry on."

>LESS EARLIER

"You appear to be in good health, however."

At first, Greta has some mild concerns about the Elites present making things a little less manageable. The businessman already started out visibly irritable, but his getting riled up at White and Lilian does have her brainstorming how to settle the situation down without making future work more difficult. Luckily, the Timekeeper takes charge of that situation before she needs to step in, and there's a another quiet noise of approval as the business owner leaves.

"Yeah of course, though . . . a dramatic battle against Manus Vindictae...!"

"A battle in the scenic River Thames...? How exciting! O... Oh, I'm sorry to dredge up painful memoies, Miss Regulus." Marcus gets briefly starstruck listening to Regulus as the urge to read her and everyone else her keeps getting stronger and stronger, and then she gets right to apologizing once she realizes the loss of those instruments probably cost more than she and Greta are paid in months.

"But... Um. If you're alright with it, maybe I... Write about that battle sometime? So that there's a record of-" Wait. This would be recorded already in some kind of report back at the Foundation HQ, wouldn't it? Realizing her blunder, Marcus starts to sweat as she tries to figure out where else she could go with that.

She's not going to get anywhere, of course, but Regulus sure can see her sweat anxiously trying to figure out something!

"Is that . . . something that newspapers commonly do, and commonly for that reason?"

"Yes and yes. If arcanists are supposed to be unreasonable and unpredictable, anything they shout must be the because of their madness." Greta says with a slightly weary, yet still generally neutral tone. "It can work in our favor so long as nobody listens too closely and Manus Vindictae does not amplify those voices too much."

"I've spent my whole life around scores of ghosts and nothing happened to me."

"Have you? Hm. I wonder if you and Marcus might have some stories to share with each other when we're off the clock, then." Greta suggests, prompting Marcus to let out a mildly terrified noise at the idea of going near Lilian and getting finger-snapped at again.

"Won't letting that loose in here simply activate on everyone else's magic? How exactly does it work?"

"Most likely. If they go off in an area someone has not used magic, then we can narrow down where we need to look. They can detect trace amounts of arcanum left by the use of arcane skills, but you'd have to ask Laplace for anything more specific than that."
Regulus BEFORE

''I'm sorry to dredge up painful memories, Miss Regulus.''

"Don't worry, Miss Marcus, a brave pirate never lingers on the past for long, always seeking the future in new horizons! I'm sure you've got a bit of pirate in you too...!"

''Write about that battle sometime?''

"Ufffh....Writing reports?... How about I just tell you and you write it down? I'd figure Sonetto probably submitted something official right?--Ahh, ahh, I mean, it's fine don't worry about it??" Regulus's gentle pirate heart doesn't want to torment Marcus accidentally but a pirate heart sometimes can't help but terrorize the seven seas.

Regulus flows with the ocean currents like a true sailor and if that current is suggested by a little push here and there that works just fine too and she makes it to the storage room with no issue. But then...

Regulus jumps a little at the lightbulb shattering. "Ow ow ow watch it!" Regulus jumps away from the glass tumbling down only to have to duck a glass tray getting launched around. She reappears after and says, "Riku! It looks like I made her mad! This ghost...isn't so easily spooked!"

The scene cuts to the poltergeist begging and gasping at Marcus

"We did the mash we did the monster mash it was a graveyard smash!" Regulus shouts to try and get Vertin's attention. Instead she hears that her presumption on the ghost being HERE might not be quite right. "And it looks like she might not even be in here AHH TRAY!" She ducks under another one, backpedaling towards the door to the storage room as she fumbles at the storage room doorknob.

''Do you have a plan, Regulus?''

"Yeah I've got an amazing plan." Regulus says. "We run!"

And with that she pulls on the door knob and--

--the door doesn't budge.

"Ah shit shit bugger fuck me fuck me okay okay--help me push it. Okay--" She slams herself into it once. Twice. And (presumably) with Riku's help busts back out of the storage on the third shove.

"Okay! Now run! Run away! Good luck!!" She suggests to RIku before she vanishes again. She's actually looking for Tamamo since she is the one person who seemed to have an idea of what's going on and she's sort of hoping the poltergeist activity will follow Riku instead of her. Sorry, RIku! Soemtimes pirates do this sort of nonsense. And they usually make up their plans as they go along.
Rita Ma      "Detection spores..." Rita repeats. 'Spores' has almost never meant anything good, but she nods trustingly at Greta while leaning against the knife drawer. (She is, of course, usefully non-magical herself. Yay! One person not interfering with readings!)

     The more agitated the surroundings get, the more tense and sharp-eyed Rita gets- tough feedback loop to break. Even when White glues the drawer shut for her, she's still staring at those pans like she's ready for them to jump at her... which probably only makes them rattle more.

     prompting Marcus to let out a mildly terrified noise...
     Even this unsettled, though, Rita easily detects the distress call of an Even Littler Sister. Without looking at Marcus, her hand finds her bejacketed shoulder. Pat, pat. Steady.

     "If arcanists are supposed to be unreasonable and unpredictable, anything they shout must be the because of their madness..."
     "Isn't that sort of a vicious cycle then, Ms. Hoffman?" Rita finds time to aside through a doorway, while the environment gets more agitated, and others ramp up their efforts- it's not as though she can contribute a lot, if kind words aren't being heard and there's no tangible threat. "If everyone thinks of arcanists as--"

     Lights out.

     "--Oh." The breath hitches in Rita's throat. Tensely, she creeps forward near Tamamo, re-converging on that closet with a little nod to Marcus. In the awful shriek that follows, she first almost jumps out of her skin, then scoops up Marcus in her arms- "Sorry, sorry!!"-- like a little football and darts back to try to get in front of Greta too. A chair shatters off her shoulders harmlessly, and she has to kick another away, ungainly off-balance.

     "What's wrong with you?!" she yelps in the direction of the closet door, while trying to hunker her back against the ongoing poltergeist storm. "We're not taking you away anywhere, I promise!! Wh-- what are you so scared of??"

     Being gently sympathetic is important, but Rita can only muster so much of that when spooked. If she can find a lull to, she halfway sets Marcus down just to bring her own wrist to her nose. Surely she's not briny, right?
Storm Investigators >DINING ROOM

As Marcus reads the text of the dining room, she starts to wander a little. There's so much to take in, and she tries to capture all those little details in her mind before remembering that Greta had instructed her to focus earlier.

"So much silverware and furniture thrown around... Yes, that matches the angle there. One of the tablecloths... No?" Marcus pauses at where the tablecloth should be, noticing its absence before continuing her reading. "That one's missing... How strange. Evidence should be left alone, but perhaps someone took it as... A souvenir? But then that could be..."

Marcus pauses, then shakes her head. "No, no, that's not important. Oh. The trail is getting stronger from around this way..." She continues, holding her lantern up towards the 'pages' that she's reading and definitely not just shining it at the closet in a way that might be terrifying if someone's inside.

"Isn't that sort of a vicious cycle then, Ms. Hoffman?"

"It is. Greta nods once at Rita, looking just a little distant as she splits her attention between that same weariness from before and also keeping an eye out for things in the room as things start feeling worse. At leas Rita's not setting off more false alarms with the spores. "You may have noticed it already. Humans don't-

And then there's a shriek and plenty of flashing lights all at once. Marcus lets out her own startled cry at the sudden noise in her ears, and even Greta's generally dispassionate tone is broken by a quietly uttered "scheisse" that clearly wouldn't have been so quiet if not for Rita, Marcus, and Vertin being around. Greta holds it together better than Marcus does from the interruption, at least, and she's about to hurry over to Marcus when she finds herself...

Safe? With Marcus already brought her way? That earns Rita a blank stare from Greta as she takes a moment to process all that, only then remembering that Rita's an Elite and Elites can just do that. "Thank you, Miss Ma. Alright, Marcus.. We'll cover you."

To her credit, Greta's also body-blocking for Marcus while the football-ized junior Investigator keeps her eyes firmly shut the entire time.

"Miss Ma? Madam Hoffman? Th... There's a voice! Who...? Oh! I-I'm not looking! We're not.. Looking, anywhere, don't worry! She even makes sure not to turn her head towards the closet that may or may not have been the source of all the chaos just now.

"Sorry, miss. We're not here to take anyone back, okay? I don't even know where back is...?" She chuckles awkwardly while trying to hear which way the voice is coming from so she can project her own in the ghost's general direction. She dares not move while Rita's still holding her, partially because she's worried about disturbing her, and partially because she trusts an Elite's ability to move in this kind of situation way more than her.

She also straps the lantern back to the bottom of her book case, but largely trusts Rita with any actual repositioning while she's still being carried.

"I just wanna go homeeeee!"
"... Where is your home?" Marcus' voice gets quieter, yet clearer as she asks that, lacking that nervousness she had earlier. "I... I know how it feels to miss home, so if you tell us where it is... Maybe we could take you there, if you'd like?" She turns around a few times, but still has her eyes shut, so she can't really verify who else is around her. "We could even say on dry land the whole time, and take a train. Would that be alright, miss...? Oh. My name is Marcus."
Tamamo     'Is that because of your arcanum dealing with luck and the sun?'

    "It is so," says Tamamo, because that's both technically true, from a certain perspective, and easier than explaining otherwise. "I have taken a few trips through tropical climates, in which my charms were particularly convenient."

    Thanks to her immediately getting in the kitchen, she's spared the sight of the businessman's Lilianhandling, as well as his preceding and following -isms. She's certain she heard something behind her, but it's probably not important at all, and that was Lilian's voice so it's definitely handled.

    Instead, she has few moments to carefully step around someone else's workplace, looking curiously at ovens and bins and pots, and shining her lantern over each. And then, rapidly, the room proves other than ordinary, as she realizes, "Oh, hm. Everything here appears to have been spirit-touched." And then it gets much worse.

    "Oh, dear." The lights go out, but she can at least remember which way the door was -- and that's the way her sense are leading her. She hurries, leaving the knives to Rita, pots to White, and anything close enough otherwise to Lilian. Tamamo ducks beneath swinging cookware, keeping the lantern raised like a ward -- which it isn't, because she hid her wards inside her wetsuit, and she'd be relying on that invisible (and, unhappily, consumable-based) barrier if all else weren't present. "Everything here is quite uncooperative, and yet -- I do not believe the source of it is in the room, after all."

    At length, she reaches the door, but not before the screaming, nor does she reach the closet before it's dropped to gasping. Two things to which Tamamo is particularly sensitive, for different reasons, are 'mystical phenomena' and 'sound,' which makes this, overall, an ear-flatteningly unpleasant experience, but she soldiers bravely on.

    At the sight of White crafting a towel, Tamamo gives an approving nod. She cannot nod approvingly to Regulus, since she can't catch sight of Regulus, in the first place.

    "Miss, are you in need of assistance? I am Tamamo-no-mae, and I assure you, I am not associated with the sea, nor with fish, nor with fishermen, whatsoever!" This is all true. That's a completely distinct divine domain. Quietly, she murmurs, "To 'go home,' but not 'to go back,' that means..."

    Tamamo sets her lantern down nearby and, for want of a solid path, reaches out to hold and squeeze Lilian's hand. She'd say something about giving the ghost some space, but Rita is already retreating with Marcus in tow and, most importantly, the restanteur has fled out of health concerns. That should be enough, surely.

    "Timekeeper Vertin? I regret not asking for earlier clarification of your history with... 'poltergeists' is the term, yes?" Local knowledge is important, but there's also... "Investigator Hofmann, have you a close experience to share?"

    For being less like 'an eye,' Tamamo's not limited in the same way as White is, while still respecting privacy. Focusing in on the question of whether the one in the closet is dead can be determined by mystical reactions without requiring seeing anyone in an unpresentable state. "Miss, would you mind sharing the last date of the calendar you remember seeing?"
Lilian Rook     'Is that because of your arcanum dealing with luck and the sun?'
    'But I'd hardly say I 'met' those branch office employees, for example.'
    'There's never been an issue of food scarcity in the St. Pavlov Foundation.'

    "Why does every single thing you say feel like I need to sit down and have a long talk with you?" Lilian says, sighing and shaking her head. "I've already ruled out the possibility that you're doing it on purpose. At least not all the time." She shakes her head, 'oh well' implied. "I'm going to need you to open up an hour long Q&A session every shift at this rate . . ." She says it in good humour, like it's the incorrigible habit of a beloved written character, but she chews the corner of her lip as the group moves on.

    . . . . . . . .

    'Can it, broad; I've got a better idea of where you ought to put your hands--'

    "Aggression. Exaggerated libido. Difficulty identifying danger. Possibly hysteria."

    The apathetic drone that Lilian uses not ten minutes later should belong to a different person. Clinically dissociated, out of vague malice rather than boredom; cold and holier-than-thou in the same stroke. "Are you aware of the current president, sir?" She glances back from Vertin's face to his with the telltale impatience of having only looked for confirmation as a formality, not something she really needed.

    But some sixth sense pricks up at the second he catches on. First, his eyes go wide in front of hers; the moment the muscles under his shoulders tense up, she finds his gaze by memory. The way he scans his surroundings, where his eyes go, looking for the tribe, comes next, like a checklist she can recite by memory. Lilian's lips move soundlessly in the moment of arrest. She feels his nerves light up with adrenaline as a static crackle against her fingers, but that's only her imagination; a psychosomatic abstraction; just like the squeezing feeling in her chest, wrapping around her heart, pressing the air out of her lungs, flooding her limbs with shivering ice.

    'Hey, hey! Leash your fucking *bitch*, why don't you!'

    Lilian exhales at the most conscpicuous possible time. Her eyes say 'idle fascination', but her breath says 'liver blow'. Gathered up in the coiled force behind her twitching fingertips, her touch says 'should I break it?'

    §That's it. I'd almost forgotten. When was the last time I heard that?§

    The critical failure happens quietly, and in cascade. Knotted up feelings wound around tangled neurons snap free one after the other with each sequential misfire, coming from circle from just yesterday to eleven years ago and back. Her soft wheeze turns to a breathless giggle, then a brief struggle for control over her lips to keep them away from a smile. She wins control over her expression, but the thudding in her chest touches triple digits while she's distracted.
Lilian Rook     'I'm sorry, sir. Please allow us to do our jobs. Hauntings *can* have several mental effects, especially if someone loiters in the area while experiencing antisocial emotions such as impatience and frustration.'

    Lilian releases the man's shoulder, and performatively wipes her hand off on her skirt. Adjusting her hair a moment later, during Vertin's diplomatic explanation, she--

                -----[stop]-----
    --touches her fingertips to her collar, laughs quietly to herself, shakes her head, and checks each of his pockets with a smile on her face, leaning around to look, as if over a scale model, before touching. "People carry wallets in this era, don't they?" she says, searching until she finds one, and then with a little "Ah!", stops to check her own bag for gloves, and pulls them on.

    Lilian hums brightly to herself whilst thumbing through the money the man has on hand, taking most of it, then crouching down to drop it through the nearest storm drain. Just for good measure, she wraps her gloves up in the wax paper she has for talismans, then counts her cosmetics off until she chooses a perfume she hadn't chosen to wear today. Leaning up on tiptoes, she spritzes one, then two full-bodied applications into the inside of his shirt collar, and then hovers over it with magic until the top note has evapourated from temporal acceleration, making it less instantly noticeable.

    Settling back down on her heels, Lilian closes up her bag, tilts her head back the same way, and--
                -----[start]-----

    --stage whispers "Chaill tú se an cleas.", waving him off when Vertin concludes on 'You appear to be in good health, however.'.

    Lilian takes a deep, bracing breath, as the businessman storms off, and then releases it with meditative slowness.

    'Have you? Hm. I wonder if you and Marcus might have some stories to share with each other when we're off the clock, then.'

    "Mhm. At my old family home, as well as others." Lilian replies, brightly. She shakes her hand again at the wrist, as if she could disdainfully flick off droplets like a toad had secreted oil on her. "Off the clock." she concurs with Greta, nodding. "Then as you will, Investigator Hoffman. Or do you prefer Madam?" she says, looking between her and Marcus.

    . . . . . . . .

    Lilian's sense for magic is decidedly average, as far as it goes for anyone it concerns. It's a skill she hasn't had need to train since she was still a teenager. 'The enemy of humanity' doesn't use it, and if she needs to prove the underhanded workings of a human, she has other methods that will be less expected. Every so often, in situations like this, with people fanning out, dowsing rods in hand, she wishes she had a finer nose for it; enough to feel tense and a little frustrated while chasing down what she can make from the ambient noise on her end, but not enough to ever result in adding it to her regimen at the end of the day.

    The scuttling props, flickering lights, and the building sense of nostalgic, deep unease, all point towards not remembering the boring part before the day is out. She feels like she's holding her breath until something inevitable happens.
Lilian Rook     No, no, no, no, no, no, no...! Get away! Stay away! Don't-- don't look!

    Oh. She was. Lilian coughs it up all at once when the dining room starts screaming, squinting one eye shut and clapping one hand over the adjacent ear to preserve hearing on one side as a reflex. Stepping in front of Tamamo, she catches a chair almost by blind luck, and chooses to plant her feet there. First struck on the forearm raised in front of her face, Lilian twists her arm to grab the leg in her hand, and uses it as a shield against the ensuing clatter and crash in the dark. She breathes in, raspy and a little rattle, only once the last chair hits the ground-- but she has drawn her sword on the spot for far less.

    There's no helping a jump scare, but being told of a ghost ahead of time helps set her expectations low and put her nerves more at ease. Even with everything still jumping around of its own accord, she at least drops the chair once Tamamo starts talking to the voice.

    "Fishy . . . briny?" Lilian thinks out loud. The group hadn't actually been down to the water yet. It's unlikely a ghost is judging by their clothes, so . . . "Shipwrecked? Drowned at sea?" she says, leaning into Tamamo and whispering to her ear. "Passenger, or mob victim, or something like that. Being on dry land is 'escaping' the sea, probably. And now she's stuck near a beach, unable to get far away from the water."
Timekeeper "Why does every single thing you say feel like I need to sit down and have a long talk with you?"

    "What?" For once, Vertin seems genuinely surprised. "I can't say I know why either."

"I wonder if you and Marcus might have some stories to share with each other when we're off the clock, then."

    Vertin leans forwards to peek behind Greta and look at Marcus while she's freaking out. "She's quite nice, you know. She won't eat you." The brief pause that follows her saying that about Lilian can be read as her realizing that this *isn't* true of everyone in the room right now, but thankfully Marcus doesn't know that.

    Vertin stands back up to turn towards Lilian, though she's still directing her speech towards Marcus too. "I'd be interested in hearing about your history with ghosts as well, actually." So Marcus won't have to endure a one on one conversation with Lilian! But also, because Vertin herself has a relationship with ghosts.

    When the contents of the restaurant start being thrown around by the ghostly shrieking, Vertin shields their face with one arm and holds down their hat with another, grimacing. It's a pose that looks a lot more cinematic when they're wearing their typical outfit rather than a swimsuit. It just doesn't hit the same when what's flapping in the whirlwind impact of the flying chairs is her lacy swimsuit sleeves, rather than her waistcoat and ascot.

    "Careful, everyone! Something's upset her, but what...?! It can't just be 'being seen', right?

"What's wrong with you?!"

    The ghost's voice cuts off with a strangled noise so heartrendingly terrified it's as if she died again on the spot. Wordless noises pass through narrow gaps between sobbing breaths, none of them comprehensible but flickering haphazardly between apologies, anger, and fear. With the atmosphere of a chronic arachnophobe trying to ward away a tarantula, the majority of the objecting flinging around the dining room start honing in on Rita.

    Forks, chairs, tables, pots and pans, but none of them are aimed like weapons-- balls of napkins are thrown at her too, and loose aprons and tablecloths, and even pebbles yoinked off of the beach outside the windows. It's like the poltergeist is trying to beat her back with every means at her disposal, including her headache-inducing voice once she finds it again.

    "N-no no no nonononononono! Noooo! I-I'm sorry! M-monster--! I-I! Please please please don't take me back to the water I promise I won't go to the beach I won't t-try and hang out with everyone a-and show off again, I-I know, I know I sh-shouldn't have done it, b-but no one's here now, right?! P-please, leave me alone!!"
Timekeeper "We did the mash we did the monster mash it was a graveyard smash!"

    "H-huh?! Heyyy, hey, hey, wait!! *Wait*!" The ghosts voice cracks when she shouts, causing another bulb to pop in the ceiling. "Wait, wait! Th-that's music! Real music! I-I-I remember hearing it on the radio before! H-how's the rest of it goooo? A-augh, I c-can't remember!"

    The ghost's voice sounds genuinely on the verge of sobbing again from just that alone, hyperventilating unsteadily with panicked squeaks. If Regulus starts continuing the Monster Mash at this prompting, then Poltergeist hiccups and gasps in surprise. Scratchy, offbeat and offkey, she joins in with mumbling the lyrics along with Regulus like a meditative mantra.

    "I-I was, working in the lab late one night, wh-when my eyes, um, an eerie sight... r-right, right! I can remember that! I-it was something Charles and Steven b-bugged Nancy with by singing, a-and they were all laughing, and it was so funny th-that I could laugh along too... ah-ahaha...!"

"Do you need... Something to cover... Up with..?"

    "O-oh...!" With the voice settling down some, or whatever breathless neurotic mimicry of 'settling down' this is, some of the chairs clatter back to the ground and a trash can that had been hurtling towards Rita loses momentum and drops straight down onto her instead. The poltergeist hesitates, voice becoming small and nasally whiny, though still audible to everyone as if she's standing right there beside you.

    "Y-you're not gonna-- make fun of me, a-are you? You're not gonna pull it away? O-or, i-it's actually secretly see-through, a-and I'll only notice one I take off my other sheet, a-and you'll see how fat a-and ugly my legs are and all the gross freckles everywhere and then laugh at me? Y-you're... not....?"

    After a minute, the closet door stops shaking, and a translucent figure pokes its head through intangibly. The ghost looks like... a person wearing a shitty ghost costume consisting of a sheet thrown over their head with eye holes cut into it. There's a wine stain splotched down the side-- that's where Marcus's missing tablecloth went! Like a nervous stray animal, she scuttles towards White's offered silk sheet without meeting anyone's eyes, then nabs it and rushes back through the closet door to hide.

    Muffled behind the door, the ghost murmurs to herself, "Oh... oh this is nice. Soft, clean, smooth... this is safe. Th-that's good. ... Thank you."

"... Where is your home?"
"Miss, would you mind sharing the last date of the calendar you remember seeing?"

    "I-I'm from Fort Lauderdale... my home's at thirteen seventeen northwest 7th Court. I-I looked around and... there was nothing there...! It was all empty! A-and I went around calling for people, but everyone I saw just ignored m-me, u-until I... I...."

    Tamamo's magic confirms that this is in fact, definitely the 'dead person' version of a ghost. Vertin comes to the same conclusion and side-eyes people with a shushing motion to try to communicate that that topic shouldn't be brought up. Softly, they add, "... In 1928, Fort Lauderdale doesn't exist. That confirms she's from another era."

    "The last date... o-oh gosh, what was it? Had to be summer for sure..." Poltergeist's voice, even while she's calm, is punctuated with uncontrolled bouts of nervous giggles, perpetually stumbling and unsure. "I remember... I r-remember... looking up in the w-water and seeing the last bubbles from my breath going up a-and up and up wh-while I went down... a-ahhhhhhah...."
Timekeeper     Vertin straightens up from her defensive posture and carefully approaches the door, swiveling around to face away from it once she's close. She settles down into a crouch, lowering her voice to talk to Poltergeist.

"Alright, it's alright. I'm close by, but I'm not looking, so you don't need to raise your voice."
"H-huh?! O--... okay...."
"Do you have a name I can call you?"
"N-name...? I should, b-but... but I don't r-remember--!"
"That's alright. I just didn't want to be impolite by not asking, you see. I'm Vertin."
"V-Vertin...? You can just call me... whatever you've b-been calling me."
"Okay. That's 'Poltergeist'. Are you able to leave here, Poltergeist?"
"L-leave?! B-but... I-I've got nowhere to go... nobody e-even looks at me unless I-I'm crying, so...!!"
"I understand. I can look at you, or away if you want, but I'd like to know if you're trapped here."
"H-here...? Isn't this j-just some restaurant?"
"It is. Then... you are not as alone as you think you are. There are other people in situations like yours, and they're just not right here. That's why you haven't found them."
"I-is that true?! Really?! Y-you're not pranking me?!"

    "I'm not. I've brought some of them here with me, in fact." Vertin looks up and makes eye contact with Greta and Marcus, but especially lingers for longer on Regulus. "Would you like to come to that place with me, Poltergeist? Whatever you need, whether it's sheets, hiding spaces, or information... I will make sure that you have it there."
Riku Asakura 'Ah shit shit bugger fuck me fuck me okay okay--help me push it. Okay--'

Riku, with the Geed Claw in hand, moves to help Regulus with the door, and on a count of three, throws his weight into the door to help Regulus get it open.  

'"Yeah I've got an amazing plan." Regulus says. "We run!"'

"Wa-wait!" Riku says, following after Regulus instead of splitting off like she expected.  Sorry, Regulus, but your plan relied on Riku not being thick! This leads the two of them into Tamamo, right as the ghost manifests in there.  Regulus' singing appears to be doing a number for the Poltergeist.  

Riku's no longer running and watches as the talking gets Poltergeist to calm down and manifest.  He looks sad as she goes over how she died, his smile turning into a frown, and his eyes close as he says a silent prayer for the dead.  

"You should listen to her, Poltergeist, Vertin won't steer you wrong.  She's a nice person," Riku says with a soft, reassuring smile.  
White White weathers the storm of flying objects by virtue of being closer to the ground and up against the wall beside the door, checking a couple of times that the others aren't being overwhelmed by trashcans and napkin balls. When the sheet is taken from her, White gets a glimpse of the sheet already covering the girl's body in the corner of her lid-shut eye. She'd... Had a thought, briefly, about how it might be insensitive to offer a plain white sheet to a ghost, but... It seems like she's happy with it? Okay. Good! Good. Her intuition must just be that good!

     Vertin does just about exactly what White expected (in a good way) and White starts to get up from the floor slowly while she listens to them talk through the door. She nods when the ghost-girl admits she doesn't remember her name, nods again when Vertin suggests she meet with the others in the suitcase-world, and quietly offers when the sheets come up again, "If you... Need any other clothes... I can make... You some." Clothes, to her, are a thing that helps you stay grounded, to feel dignity, and to feel safe. Vertin might have trouble getting everything her stowaways need, so it can't hurt to make the offer known. In fact, she doubles down a few moments later, even more quietly addressing Vertin herself. "I can... Give you... One of my 'agents'. Just in case." She's aware they might prefer to keep their secrets while they're within their special hideout... But at least offering and getting an answer will help her understand whether they trust her, as well. She finds it hard to tell that kind of thing, most of the time.
Lilian Rook     'What? I can't say I know why either.'

    Sigh.

    'I'd be interested in hearing about your history with ghosts as well, actually.'

    Lilian pretends not to notice the earlier comment. It's not every day that someone speaks well of her to a third party on their own, so it's important not to ruin it. It has to take place naturally, without her interference. Otherwise, if she's actually involved, the baby deer will bolt and run and the beautiful fresh snow will turn to mud. "If that's a story you'd actually like to hear, for some reason." Lilian says, verbally shrugging. "But it might just be an endless collection of little stories, few of which are very interesting."

    Sorry Rita. She did, also, look at you when Vertin did. Consider it revenge for being silently fingered for borrowing Loggerhead's jacket.

    . . . . . . . .

    'O-or, i-it's actually secretly see-through, a-and I'll only notice one I take off my other sheet, a-and you'll see how fat a-and ugly my legs are and all the gross freckles everywhere and then laugh at me? Y-you're... not....?'

    Having bravely held her place all this time, Lilian makes a sound as if she'd just been punched in the gut and is trying to hide it. Something that strangely heartbreaking out of absolutely nowhere has her pressing her hand to her chest and her staring at the floor tiles in the dark. "Good god." she says, not explaining. ". . . Well, she's definitely a very unusually lucid sort." she adds. "No wonder they were talking about 'prophesies' and such-- that is, in a fearful way and not a gawking way."

    'I-I'm from Fort Lauderdale... my home's at thirteen seventeen northwest 7th Court'

    "Girl don't just--" Lilian starts, then presses her hand to her face as she stops. That's a leap even for her when dealing with a ghost.

    'I-is that true?! Really?! Y-you're not pranking me?!'

    Drawing herself up and approaching at last, Lilian says, with the confident relief of getting to tell the truth, "It is. Shockingly. And, of course, a lot of them are scared like you are. That's why they're all looking for each other, or at least part of why."

    But really, she's come up close so she can have a quiet word with Vertin, leaning close.

    "I know the spectacular part was there being a ghost, but what does 'this' mean? The ocean isn't affected by the Storm? It can't kill you if you're already dead? More likely there was a safehouse nearby, belonging to you know who. Isn't that where the Foundation will investigate next? That's what they want to know from this."
Regulus Music can change the world.

Regulus knew this. She's seen it happen. It changed her, certainly, and music led her to a strange life living out of a suitcase in the hands of someone who wanted to save her. And Vertin is amazing, she's incredible, she's so freaking smart and clever. It feels she's got eyes and ears that see and hear what most people are blind to. She's already grown to adore her so much with the little subtle acts Vertin takes here and there, some of hwich Regulus has noticed and some of which flew right under her radar. But the truth is...

...Vertin might have saved her life. But she feels that girl is the one that needs help. ... And she said as much, hadn't she? She doesn't know how to do that yet. But she's confident one day she'll read the winds right and know where to sail.

''Hey,hey, wait!! *Wait!*''

Regulus stops for a moment. Then she reappears. Whatever plan she was up to she's abandoning as quickly as that. "H, hey! Don't cry... Don't cry. I'll help you remember, just..hm... I don't have any instruments but--" She finds a fallen glass tray and picks it up, sitting down with it in her lap for the most important concert of her life (so far). "Okay, I'll start from the beginning okay?"

She drops her fingers against the tray to the beat of the song. She can't exactly play the guitar like this. This isn't going to help quash the arcanists are crazy allegations, unfortunately, but she's going to keep at it anyway.

"I was working in the lab late one night o/~, when my eyes beheld an eerie sight o/~, for my monster from his slab began to rise o/~, and suddenly to my surprise o/~" And then Regulus gets a bit too into it as she suddenly belts out, "He did the mash!" Then the other part. " He did the monster mash!" And soon she's even contributing the Waaawoooos and even the Wawawooooos and even the humble fast Wawoo!

The ghost seems to calm down a little bit and she adds, "Hey you're from...my era? Or after it?" Regulus asks. "I can remind you of anything past 1966 and Vertin there," She nods to Vertin. "Can catch you up on anything else." And everybody else can give her news... From the FuuUuUUuuture! But it seems like this ghost went through a lot. ... Well obviously she went through a lot, Regulus...

"The zombies were having fun o/~ wa hoo tennis shoe o/~ The party had just begun o/~ wa hoo tennis shoe o/~ The guests included wolfman dracula and his son o/~" She sings along as well, though softly so as to not interrupt ongoing conversations.

''There are other people in situations like yours.''

"Oh--oh yeah... I mean... I can't find my way back home either." Regulus says to Poltergeist. "If there's any other songs you're missing we can sing along." She doesn't seem to mind the offkeyness but maybe so long as one's having fun, Regulus is willing to eschew theory and pitch. "I still miss home sometimes, a lot actually, but it's a nice place to live and there's a lot of friendly people there. I bet you'll love TTT." She continues tapping out the beat. "Oh and Cristallo, she's a sweetheart, she's so imaginative...!" She considers what to say about Rabies. He ... says rabies? Okay she'll figure that out later.

"I'm Regulus--nice to meetcha!"

She glances back at Vertin, eyes watching her for a moment behind her sunglasses which, at least, conveniently make it easy to obscure where exactly she's looking.

"Whatever happened to the transylvania twist??"
Storm Investigators > SOME TIME BEFORE

"Ahh, ahh, I mean, it's fine don't worry about it??"

"I-is that so? Oh, that's great..." Marcus forces a weak chuckle, clearly trying to be polite while she feels her socializing score plummetting like a rock. How could it not, if Regulus already knows someone's done a report already after Odette's attempt at connecting? Even with Greta's reassurances before, she starts to wonder if maybe calling in sick would've been the better call this morning.

Maybe if she does that for a few weeks in a row, Regulus might even forget she existed and forgotten about that flub entirely.

"Mhm. At my old family home, as well as others."
"Or do you prefer Madam?"

"Great. It'll be good for her to learn, and to get used to all this." Greta replies to Lilian, glancing over at MArcus again. "And... Madam, if I had to choose." She answers, sounding just slightly more indifferent regarding titles. It's shorter, and Marcus is already used to it. What of yourself, Dame Commander? Do you prefer that, Madam Rook, or something else?"

"She's quite nice, you know. She won't eat you."
"I'd be interested in hearing about your history with ghosts as well, actually."

Marcus's anxious gaze goes from Lilian to Vertin, back to Lilian, over to Greta who seems to be having an easy time speaking to Lilian, then back to Vertin. "Y... You're sure? Oh, I hope so. And if Madam Hoffman thinks it's a good idea... Um. Spreading the memory of those ghosts?"

That, at least, has her calming down a little bit more. "... Alright. I think that would make them happy, too."

> DINING ROOM

"Investigator Hofmann, have you a close experience to share?"

"None that would help here, unless we're going to remove her by force." Greta pauses as she turns around to smack an incoming chair out of the air with another chair, wincing slightly at the splintering wood and squinting her eyes to minimize the blinding risk. Afterwards, she glances over at Marcus again, who's still trying to speak instead of fight.

Part of her isn't fully convinced this will get anywhere, but she's still holding it back for now. There's enough Elites around that they might be able to push through, and she's still curious to see where Vertin plans to go with this.

Part of that also involves hearing and watching Regulus and Riku bash through doors, but she's moderately confident Vertin might've already accounted for that as well.

"Ah shit shit bugger fuck me fuck me okay okay-"

Greta glances over at Marcus, hoping she isn't listening too closely at that moment. She grimaces slightly when she notices Marcus not talking at that moment.

"Please please please don't take me back to the water"
"looking up in the w-water and seeing the last bubbles from my breath going up a-and up and up wh-while I went down..."

Both investigators come to an uncomfortable realization about the ghostly girl at roughly the same time, even though they do so from different directions. Through deductive reasoning and past conversations with other ghosts, they soon realize how she died, and hearing where she's from along even confirms that she's been through the the Storm like they have.

They're able to breathe easier when Poltergeist calms down, too, and Greta even gives Marcus the go ahead nod after Vertin directs the ghost's attention towards them.

"H... Hello, Miss Poltergeist. My name is Marcus-oh. I said that already. Yes, my home is... It's gone, too, but... I'm okay, and I hope you will be, too."
"Greta Hofmann. There's more of us that have been displaced than not where we've come from. If this was all a prank, I'd question the culprit's sanity. We won't force you to come with us, but I wouldn't recommend staying here even if you don't. Too much water."
Rita Ma      Rita valiantly shields Marcus with her body for a moment or two longer- bonk, bonk, clankbonk- before realizing, scrunching one eye against the ineffectual assault, that... "Ms. Hoffman! She's aiming at me. I'm sorry- here- she'll be safer this way?"

     Rita hands Marcus to her mentor like a large cat, and then shields them for just a moment longer, before darting across the room and hiding behind the lip of a doorway. Just as she'd thought, the projectiles follow her, but she dares to poke the top of her head around the corner.

     "Noooo! I-I'm sorry! M-monster--! I-I! Please please please don't take me back to the water..."
     ... Oh. So that's why. She's someone who drowned? Rita thinks. And she thinks I'm... Awful, miserable compassion curdles in her stomach. That sniffling tone makes her face squirm. Lilian looking at her, too, makes her shrink and emit a 'gueh' sort of noise.

     The first thing you learn is that there's no point saying 'I'm not a monster'. That's what monsters say. So...

     "I'm--" The first word comes out rougher than Rita means it. She clears her throat, and peeks a little farther, now that she isn't having stuff hurled at her. "Sorry. I'm not here to take you back; I promise. I..." Another small hitch. "I ran away from the ocean too. So I won't tell if you won't. Okay?"

     'Or we'll both be in trouble' is the sort of thing little-sister-ish types understand implicitly. It's rock-solid.

     A new sheet. A new lease on life, hopefully. Rita sighs, and slumps behind the door's lip, and smiles. "Thank you for trusting us. Ms. Timekeeper's really kind. It'll be alright," she adds, on the theory that if a nice person and a monster both say something, it must be true. She gives an encouraging smile to Marcus across the room, too; maybe the two of them will get along.