Pearl didn't give Dalion the pleasure of a reply, tempting though it was to offer to show him firsthand what death was like. That sort of thing didn't seem to fly in the modern era. Though she didn't fully realize just how much the "modern" era had collapsed until the bookstore employee came by.

"I have to leave?" she repeated with angry incredulity. "For defending myself against someone trying to rob and assault me?" She gave the woman a quick once-over in return between pressing the buttons on her phone to get hold of someone, weighing her options, but they were exceedingly limited right now. She sounded calmer as she spoke again. "Fine, I'll go, just give me your name first - I can hardly tell the police I left the scene and have no idea how it came about."

"Understood" was Dalion's reply to the clerk, not without the warmest smile that he was able to summon. "Please forgive my demeanor, and forgive my disturbance of your peaceful evening" His movements became theatrical and bowed with exaggerated courtesy to the clerk.

He then bowed to the people who were filming with their phones. "I hope you can forgive me my good people of Bellhollow."

He then bowed to the writer "I beg your forgiveness Mr. Kirkegaard, for I brought thunder the same night that was supposed to be illuminated by the light of your talents."

"But most importantly...!" he said while turning toward the little undead "I plead for your forgiveness oh beautiful Persephone for I have wronged thee, and as proof of my sincerity and symbol of my shame for disturbing thy peace, I offer thee this, my treasure" Dalion took out of his jacket a small glass object that shined with all the colors of the rainbow, and offered it to the undead girl with both hands, took a step forward and then lowered himself with a knee touching the ground and his eyes looking down to that same ground.

At least the woman did offer up her name promptly, so Pearl mentally filed it away and gave her an acknowledging nod. She was hardly inclined to thank her for it, under the circumstances.

As for Dalion, once he made his dramatic offer Pearl was pretty sure she had him pegged. She'd met people like this before, who just had to have attention on them, regardless of whether it was positive or negative. Which also made the offered item a trap; setting aside that he didn't look like the sort who could afford to give something like that away, he would perceive it as a connection between the two of them, and thus an opening to harass her yet further.

Pearl opted not to engage at all. She just let her eyes slide briefly over the nearly-prostrate man, then headed for the exit to wait in the parking lot, now with her phone to her ear as she waited to be connected to an officer or at least someone qualified to take a report. She didn't mince words once she did make that connection. "I'd like to report an assault and attempted robbery. Pearl Dunn calling, currently in the Barnes and Noble parking lot."

    Ryan left the store and crossed the street, leaning against one of the columns marking an entrance to Gullbend Park. Mirrors. He was mindful of mirrors, the nape-of-your-neck feeling that you're being watched.
    Mirrors, of course, were everywhere. Rear-view and side mirrors on cars. Mirrors created by the evening light, and, later, by the streetlights. None of these were really a threat; they were too small, or angled in such a way as to make their view useless for any serious scrying effort.
    But the mirror in the store had been big enough, an unbroken strip along the ceiling. Sooner or later, the Hunters would find him.

    He watched the bookstore, to see if the 'cops' would show up, and what this world's enforcement agents looked like ...

"well..." Dalion stood up, took the clerk's hand, and gave her the rainbow item "for good luck and prosperity" then turned around and started walking down the street.

 After a couple of streets he took a right turn into a dark alleyway, he knew his way around the streets, fences were not an obstacle, the building's emergency stairs were his playground, the sewers were an uncomfortable shortcut to places of interest, not because of the filth or the smell but because of it's "residents" that Dalion did not enjoy with them,  he made sure to take an erratic route towards his "home". He thought it was funny that he saw that guitar guy only twice on his way home.

 To entertain his mind on his way home he decided to sing a song from The Black Mages:


                          Sparks from the fire rise up to the sky
                             Higher and higher, oh I want to fly
                          Out of the story this time I'll be free
                         Wake up for a moment from this dream of me

                            Just a legend, cold words on a page
                            Lift up my eyes and I'm soaring away
                            On silver wings spread out to the sun
                           I'm leaving this city for the skies above

                              O'er the ruins and ancient light
                                 Never lost, never failing
                             Follow me on my path to the heights
                             Before the shadows fade into night

                              Running back, but I'm out of time
                                  I could tell everything
                              Hear the words that fill my mind
                                 How can I say "she was mine"?

Pearl wrapped up the details with the police office, then took a quick look at the relevant crimes on her phone while she kept one eye on her surroundings. It wouldn't surprise her at all if the guy came running up to grab her hat again. Thankfully she didn't see him again.

What she did see was the guy that had been standing nearby for the encounter, who apparently didn't have a phone. Once she'd finished her brief legal refresher, she headed over to him. "Hey, sorry to put you on the spot earlier, no phone huh?" she said conversationally. "I wanted to ask, did you catch me earlier? I was sure I was going to fall over, there."

   "No, no phone. I dropped it," Ryan said. "Of course, it landed just right. Screen is cracked, and there's always some kind of proprietary enchantment to keep a good repair spell from fixing things like that."
   "But yes, I did catch you. Thought I might have bumped into you or something," he added. "Do you live around here? I'm ... new in town, you might say, and I'm looking for a nice place."

"Ah, I see. Yes, there are so many fiddly little things these days, I've done that myself," Pearl said with a sagacity that wasn't really earned. "Give me a sword any day - drop one of those and it's the ground that suffers. Anyways, thanks for the catch, I think I would have fallen right over otherwise. Trying to grab a hat like this... how does he think something this size stays on, wishful thinking?" She reached up to give it a small adjustment. "I'll have to re-pin it later once I've sorted things here."

She looked around. "Well, a few jerks aside, it's a nice area. I can't really speak to the housing market, I found a place and I've just been settled in it since. Do you need a, ah... real estate agent?" There were so many specialists these days it was hard to keep track. Pearl supposed she might even need a lawyer before the day was over.

    "Clerk at the hotel recommended Sandalow and Sons, but I thought I'd wander about a bit, first, see what the neighborhoods are like," Ryan said. "A small house would be preferable to a condominium or apartment."
    And any of them would be better than a muddy hole under the gnarled roots of a dead tree, Ryan told himself, remembering his hiding place.

     "I'm Ryan, by the way," he finally admitted. "Bellhollow is where, I mean, it kind of reminds me of where I grew up."

For a second there Pearl had wondered if Ryan was asking to board with her, so she was glad this seemed to be moving in a more normal direction. "Can't hurt to get a hotel in the meantime, buying a house is a lot of work these days," she said with more of her misplaced sense of wisdom. "Lot of money too, if you're ready to fork that over. Things are nice enough around here, most of the time. I wouldn't know the market that well though, I just run a restaurant - the Pirate's Galley. Name's Pearl."

   "Pirate's Galley? The clerk recommended your place as one of the better restaurants in town," Ryan said. "You'd think a good steak wouldn't be hard to find, right? But it is. I suppose you just have to know where to look."

Pearl preened a little when her restaurant was given a secondhand compliment. "It's the best in town, as far as I'm concerned," she said with a smile. "You should come by. Here." She reached into a coat pocket and pulled out a customized souvenir coin with the restaurant's logo on it, which she then handed to Ryan if he was willing to take it. "Good for a free appetizer."

   "Thank you," Ryan said, accepting the coin. "I'll stop by in a bit. It's been a long while since I've enjoyed an evening stroll."
    He glances over his shoulder at the lights and sounds of the festival and waves in the opposite direction.
    "Somewhere quieter, however," he adds.

Pearl nodded. "Right, well, I have to stick around for the cops, so I suppose I'll see you around." He still struck her as a bit of an odd duck, but he seemed okay overall.

It is about this time that a rather plain, beaten looking green sedan rolls into the B&N parking lot. As it rolls to a stop in a nearby space, the engine backfires, shooting out a poof of black smoke that drifts in the wind, leaving a rather unpleasant smell. A young man emerges, dressed in jeans and Amity Island T-shirt. As he shuts the car door behind him, he looks around and mumbles a soft, "Sorry, sorry..." in response to a couple of folks who had been startled by the loud noise.

He runs a hand through his short, brown hair as he looks over the people in the parking lot. His gaze only briefly touches people who are clearly on the move, entering or leaving the store. Finally, his eyes come to rest on Pearl and Ryan, as they seem to be the only people clearly waiting for something or someone. He makes his way across the lot to them. As he approaches the two of them, Pearl and Ryan both notice the police shield clipped to his belt.

"Pearl Dunn?" the man asks as he gets near.
This message was last edited by the GM at 17:31, Wed 03 Feb 2021.

Pearl would have helped by flagging the policeman down, but until he got closer she didn't realize that was what he was. He seemed very... casual. Still, she generally tried not to judge a book by its cover. "Yes, that's me," she replied. In her experience, the police preferred to take things at their own pace, so she left it at that and waited for him to ask his questions as she watched him attentively.

    Ryan disappears into the crowd. Or, rather, the crowd seems to melt and flow around him.

"Great," the man introduces himself with an easy, confident smile. "Detective Johnson. You'll have to forgive me. I got called on duty, suddenly, and didn't take the time to change clothes. Also... I... oh." He chuckles, "I left the paperwork in the car. Come on. Walk with me and tell me what happened? Assault and attempted robbery?"
This message was last edited by the GM at 21:48, Wed 03 Feb 2021.

"Sure, that's fine," Pearl said mildly. She knew it was better to seem as rational and unemotional as possible when dealing with the cops, and she'd calmed down from the earlier incident. She walked back to the man's car with him as she spoke. "I was looking around the bookstore when a man came up behind me and tried to grab my hat off my head. It's secured in place, so instead he hurt my neck and nearly yanked me over, except that there was a bystander that caught me. Then after I got my balance back, he reached out to touch my face - I don't know if he planned on pushing me or pinching me or what, he was talking like a crazy person - so I hit him to defend myself. He was still jabbering when a manager came over and said we both had to leave, which is why I'm waiting out here." That was clearly a sore spot for Pearl.

"He was about yea tall," she gestured with a hand substantially over her own head, "dark skin, wearing a suit, but there were people filming in there so you could probably get a picture of him anyways. I don't know where he is now."

     Ryan pauses to glance back at the vehicle with red-and-blue flashing lights. It's similar to the glamour used by the Hunters, a display meant primarily to terrorize those being hunted, but nowhere near as disorienting. It could simply be a parallel between the worlds, with no deeper significance than the outward appearance, but he wasn't entirely ready to dismiss it.
     He turned to look into a store display as if window shopping, and realized he'd found the realtor the hotel clerk had mentioned. They were closed, though it seemed someone was still in the back office. A sampling of available properties was displayed in the window.
     Ryan found himself looking for one particular property, of course, but didn't find it. He could go look tomorrow, during the day. He took one of the firm's business cards and tucked it into his pocket.

Detective Johnson nodded, diligently writing down everything that Pearl told him. Along the way, he asked for a few more details, which Pearl provided. He shook his head and said, "I'm sorry that your afternoon took a bad turn. But, I guess it's a good thing that we live in a digital age, yeah? There should be plenty of hard evidence to back you up... probably already on YouTube, even as we speak."

The officer's phone rang, interrupting the conversation. He glanced down at it and frowned slightly. Giving Pearl a charmingly awkward grin, he dipped his head and gestured with his phone, "Uhh... sorry. This is probably important. Let me just... grab this.."

He took a couple of steps away and answered, "Hey, LT. What's up?" He paused to listen...

It was, at that point, that everything stopped. The air in the parking lot seemed to still, the sounds became muted. And then, there was a clap and rumble. An invisible shockwave that was both physical and magical rolled across the land, sending car alarms blaring and any loose papers or dropped shopping bags flying. To the south, the sound of breaking concrete could be heard and cloud of dust rose into the air.

"Thanks," Pearl said with a nod when the detective expressed his sympathy. "Chafes me that the bookstore treated someone going crazy on me like a bar brawl, but I guess I can buy books, ah... online." That was still kind of a foreign concept to her, despite having spent some time acclimating to life on land in the 21st century.

She nodded understandingly when the man's phone rang, and looked away to give him some semblance of privacy. With no distractions for the moment, she was quick to take note of things going quiet and still around her. "Hmm?" she had time to murmur, just before the shockwave hit. She was able to keep her footing, albeit in a strange, hunched posture for a moment, then quickly straightened back up and looked around with her unnatural blue eyes especially wide. "Whoa, is everyone okay?"

   The explosion and its attendant chaos was much more what Ryan had expected in the way of Law enforcement. A merciless, Draconian response to any use of magic outside prescribed limits. It certainly hadn't been his assist to Ms. Dunn, but such nuances rarely mattered when the Hunters started sorting through things. Terrible and glorious, they not only sought to punish offenders, but identify rogue magicians.
   But that was another world, wasn't it? There had been nothing to indicate the Proctors or the Hunters held any authority here. He'd been here long enough to feel the magic in the ground and the air, free flowing as it should be, not hoarded away.
   Still, an explosion of this sort wasn't what one would consider an everyday happenstance. Something had just announced itself in a particularly nasty way.

Instinctively, Detective Johnson reaches out to catch Pearl by the elbow to steady her. However, the restaurateur has it well in hand, hunched and braced against the suddenly shockwave. It turns out that Johnson ends up using Pearl in order to keep himself from falling over as he loses his balance and jostles against her shoulder.

"Holy... oh shit..." Johnson quickly rights himself, looking between Pearl and the direction the explosion came from. He pats her shoulder absently before stepping back, doing an anxious little dance. "Uhhh... okay. I promise I'll be back later to finish this report... Ms... Mrs... Pearl! Gotta go!"

Johnson leaves Pearl standing in the lot as he jumps back into his giant, green jalopy and cranks the engine, setting off another round of backfires. The ancient car grumbles a bit before roaring to life, and the detective quickly departs the scene.

Pearl barely even registered the touch at first, under the circumstances, but she glanced over at the detective once she'd regained her balance. She nodded at that point. "Sure," she said. She could definitely see where the police would need to change priorities. "In fact, just call me." It wasn't like she was just going to hang out in a parking lot during an emergency.

She'd come on foot, so that was how she departed, too. She called Potts's personal number first, figuring he'd be more likely to pick up than the business line. Sure enough, there was soon a polite but brisk "Hello Ms. Dunn, everyone's fine here but we don't know the situation."

"Hey Potts, good," Pearl said. She thought for a moment, then changed course as she continued "I don't know the situation either, apparently neither do the cops. Just get everyone out, please, and lock up if it's safe enough. I'm pretty close to it, I'm going to check it out myself."

"Will do," Potts replied before hanging up. Pearl then broke into a loping sort of run to head for ground zero.

[Pearl leaves to Arlington Antiques]