Tom stepped forward to walk at Krystal's side: "Well, having a second look at the bar won't cost us much. we probably won't find anything, but just on the off chance..."

Krystal nods, "I'll take any chance I can get right now. Off. On." she takes her sunglasses off and turns to wipe at an eye, then puts them right back on and sniffs back the last sign of emotion. "At least there's one thing I know we'll find at the bar for sure! Whiskey."

---

The bar's outside was just the way they had left it.

{Alright, I'll get ready, then we can go talk to Frank.} Sent Tom, still in cat form. {He'll probably like the good news.}

Krystal just nodded, trying to distract herself by throwing away the two, no three, empty clove boxes from her bag still humming, In the Middle by Jimmy Eat World.

As they walked into the bar, Tom wore his glasses and examined Frank's aura for later reference. "Hi Frank. We come with a bit of good news, we thought you might want to have them sooner rather than later. We also have a little favor to ask."

He proceeded to repeat what the doctor had told them, and then explained that he wanted to look for clues as to what had happened: "Zoey is not the first girl who's been attacked: we know of at least another, and I suspect there may be more. There's something we can do to try and figure out what happened, but it would help if we could move your customers out of the way for a few minutes."

"Zoey's a good kid. I'm glad she's doing ok," Frank said. "If somebody did something at my place to hurt her..." anger flashed across his face. "If Jack trusts you, that's good enough for me. Whatever you need." He shouted at the small, early crowd. "We got some maintenance to do down here. I want everyone to move to the upstairs lounge for now." He returned his attention to Tom and Krys. "We can move them back down when you're finished so you can check up there too, if needed. Feel free to have a drink on me." He followed the crowd upstairs, encouraging some of the slower folks to move along.

Krystal's head head rocked with the words, Have a drink on me. The moment Frank was out of the room she rocked on her heels and headed straight for the bar. "Who am I to turn down hospitality?" she pulled a bottle of amber Tequila from behind that bard and a regular sized glass for mixed drinks. "Can I get you anything? Beer. Wine. Milk." she grinned at her companion and then drank as if she'd just poured herself 8oz of iced tea. Not  knowing what else to do she set the glass aside and waited for Tom to do his magic.

Tom took his glasses, looked at where Zoey had fallen, and concentrated carefully on the time of the events.

A short incantation later, bright auras appeared before his eyes.

He took a mental note of Zoey's aura for future reference, and studied the scene as the echoes of the events developed before his eyes. The first indication of magic or spell use seemed to occur on Zoey. A glow of magic energy that got brighter, and then spread through her.

The magic started to dissipate before Zoey displayed any symptoms: by the time she was collapsing, the magic was already fading.

Pretty much that had happened with Ashley, as far as he could tell, except that, on Ashley, the magic surge had started in her midsection, whereas on Zoey the point of origin was her upper right shoulder.

He briefly relayed what he was seeing to Krystal, then dismissed the spell and recast it, focusing it a short while before the incident, in case the magic he had noticed was a secondary effect, and the primary casting had occurred earlier, but he couldn't see anything out of the ordinary.

"Well... That was unhelpful. What do you think? Blowgun with alchemical poison or something? 'Cause I cannot see the caster, nor can I see any streaks of magic that would point to a ranged spell, but there was definitely some serious magic there. I doubt Zoey cast it on herself..."

"Maybe not entirely", Krystal was pouring more reposado into her glass. "We might be going about this backwards. You said the magic fades and THEN the fall. What if the physical attack is simply a side effect. For example. My petting you in the sun is not about making you pur. Really it's just mean wanting to pet a warm kitty. The fact that you enjoy it is irrelivant to my goals of sun baked fur under my hand." She turned her attention to the glass. "Wow, this is good shit!" She then reached down an picked up the bottle to examine.

"So you think this may not be an attack but rather... A side effect?" Tom pulled his ear, considering: "Perhaps. This just means we have a lot more options to consider, though." He poured a shot for himself, and took the chance to put the bottle back out of Krystal's reach.

"I was hoping we would have better news, honestly. We were there twice for this... Whatever this is. And we know almost nothing."

Frank came down the stairs and saw that Tom and Krystal were sitting and having a drink, so he figured it was safe to reopen the downstairs. He gave the two of them a nod, and then let everyone know they were free to return to the first floor. Frank made his way behind the bar while the crowd slowly trickled back in.

Jack mentally felt like he had been on one of those extreme looping roller coasters.  But he was happy, the building was in site, signalling he was nearing the end of the ride.

Jack parked his car in his usual spot in the back of the building and walked up the alley to the street entrance. He entered the Liar's Club and headed straight for the bar, where he spotted Tom and Krystal. He came up between them and placed his hands on their shoulders in a quick hug.

"Hey you two. Good to see you. Frank, a cold one please." The returning crowd quickly sucked up the bar stools as Jack greeted Tom and Krystal. "What do you say we grab that table over there so we can all sit and talk." Jack tossed his head toward an empty table in the room.  "I'm buying your next round." 

Frank walked over when he saw Jack. "Hey Jack, how's our girl doing?"

Jack was all smiles.  "Zoey is doing great!  She had a tough go of it for a bit.  But she is responding well.  Doctor said that she should be released soon.  I thought I would take the opportunity to get a change of clothes before I pick her up.  I didn't want to scare her." Jack laughed. "I just wanted to get a cold one in me to settle my nerves."

"God, I wish I was young again.  I eat a bad Coney Dog, and I feel like crap for two or three days." Jack took the frosty mug from Frank, took a healthy swig, and set it back down on the bar.  "Aah, cold and hits the spot.  First things first.  I'll be right back.  I got to hit the can.  Watch my beer for me will you?" he said to Tom and Krystal. "Frank, keep these two company.  And what ever they are drinking, put it on my tab."

Jack turned and walked to the Men's room.

"A rum and coke for me, please." He asked Frank.

Then he sighed: "I know this wasn't the last case... We were lucky with Zoe, but what about the next one?" He adjusted his glasses - he was still getting used to the aura sight, a little practice couldn't hurt - and literally, intently watched Jack's beer - as if he could find an answer there.
This message was last edited by the player at 05:16, Mon 02 June 2014.

"A bit TMI regarding the chili dog, Jack," Frank said as Jack walked away.



"Comin' up." Frank gave Tom a nod, and then stepped away to make some drinks.

Krystal threw back a good 3oz of her drink then held out the empty glass. "More Espolon por favour."

"Actually, Tom has a point. We did get lucky, in more than one way. Jack, can you look around and see if other people have had some strange fainting spell followed by death? Tom, could you look into the history of this place? Maybe the connection is this location and not just the victims. One or the other has to give us something to go on." Krystal made no effort to imply she was going to do any work and smiled when she got her refill.
This message was last edited by the player at 14:26, Tue 03 June 2014.

Zoey walked up to the table where Tom and Krystal were now sitting, "Hey guys! God am I glad to be out of that hospital, I mean the drugs were nice and the company was okay but this place is way more my scene. I don't suppose you guys have any further ideas as to what happened do you? Maybe it was just a big coincidence and it really had nothing to do with what happened to Ashley. I don't know, all I can say is I'm glad it's over with, I was a little worried there for a second" Zoey couldn't help but be all smiles as she stood there talking to her new-found friends.

Krystal nodded, "Just glad you're back! We were just going over a few things. Other than here, you didn't know Ashley outside of the bar, did you? We're trying to see if a connection exists beyond the club." Krystal leaned back in her chair moving her drink away as she could't need it as much.

"Zoey! I thought they wanted to keep you a little bit longer." He smiled at the girl: "Did you run out while they weren't looking? Can't blame you..."

Zoey shook her head "No, I didn't know her at all. The only reason I was outside that club when you and I met was because of the protest" She then turned to Tom and smirked "Noooo, I mean, I don't know" Zoey scrunched her face in confusion for just a second before shrugging "Hey who cares if it was a little early, I'm just glad they released me. I feel great, its like it never even happened"

Frank brought over a trio of drinks, placing one each in front of Krystal and Tom. The third one was Jack's usual, the "shotgun". Frank was standing next to Zoey, but never looked at her. "Let me know if you need anything else," Frank said, and then he went back to the bar.

Zoey smiled as she saw Frank, "Hey look Frank, they let me out early!" She made a face as he started to walk away without a word, "Really? C'mon big guy I don't think anyone will judge you if you show a little emotion" she sighed slightly as she turned to the others, "Poor guy, I guess he really missed me" she snickered. She looked at their drinks and then quickly turned back to the bar and shouted, "Hey!! Could you at least whip me up something to drink?"

Tom pulled a nickel out of his pocket and tossed it at Zoey with a telepathic warning: {Hey Zoey? Catch this.}
This message was last edited by the player at 07:56, Fri 06 June 2014.

Zoey looked surprised but reflexively threw her hands up to catch the coin thrown in her direction. The coin met with her hands perfectly but then continued effortlessly through her clasped hands and then further still it sailed through her torso and landed behind her, clattering to the ground. Zoey's jaw stood wide open for many seconds, she turned around and looked at the coin then back at Tom in disbelief. "What the hell?" she gazed at her hands for a moment and then pressed them against herself where the coin had gone through. After confirming that her hands wouldn't pass through her own body she looked back up at Tom and Krystal with a bewildered look on her face. "How did tha-- What was that? Was that some kind of trick? Like a spell? Magic, right? You do magic and stuff hunh" Zoey rationalized out-loud as she started to calm herself down.

Krystal had started drinking her tequila even before Tom had tried his little experiment. She was still pulling on the hard liquor even as Zoey stood confused, trying to make sense of it all. In fact, she didn't stop until she'd drained the glass and set it down on the table, empty.

Krystal rubbed the spot just above her eyebrows, using the gesture to cover her glassy eyes. "You don't remember them releasing you? And Frank didn't seem to see you." Krystal looked up and rubbed at her eyes for a moment then nodded, lowering her voice to just below conversational level, "Zoey? I need you to think about what you were doing just before you walked in here to talk to us. How did you get here? What's the last thing you actually remember?" Krystal hated this part, and would have rather let Zoey ease into the idea but that ship had sailed.

Tom, whose race treated death like a minor inconvenience, was rather a lot more cavalier about becoming a ghost.

That was probably why the ghosts lingering around hospitals tended not to ask for his help as much as they did with Krystal. {Welcome to the family, Zoey dear. You now have superpowers. If you need any help, all you have to do is ask. There are some inconvenient parts, as with everything, but we'll help you sort out them out. Krys here is a something of an expert on that. Which reminds me... What is the last thing you remember?}
This message was last edited by the player at 14:17, Fri 06 June 2014.

Jack returned to the table and sat down. His face lit up in a big smile as he spotted and reached for his drink.  "It is a nice night, after that hell night yesterday.  Finally, something went my way.  I get tired of one bad thing happening after another."  Jack tossed back the shotgun and followed it up with more of the beer.

"I know I am rushing things here a bit, but I still need to change. I don't want Zoey waiting for me." Clearly, Jack was in a good mood.

How do you tell somebody that a loved one is now a ghost? Maybe focus on the positives? "So, Jack... Remember I mentioned my race is immortal? I don't remember if I specifically said how our immortality works, but basically, we have unlimited lives. Every time we die, we just reincarnate in another body. It takes a while, however, so we have a choice: if we have something we'd rather do before we reincarnate, we can spend a certain amount of time as spirits. I have been a spirit a few times myself, but we cannot remain like that permanently: at some point, we are forced to find a new body. Humans, on the other hand, do not have that limitation: there are ghosts who have been on  Earth for centuries. According to some stories, some of them even formed families after their deaths."

He took a sip from his glass: "What would you think if I were to introduce you to some spirit friend of mine?"
This message was last edited by the player at 11:43, Sat 07 June 2014.