Jacob Prentice
This city,
This monster, created
By man himself,
Ingests me, swallows
Me whole and
Spits me out!!
No sun, no moon,
No stars....only
The glitter of
Streetlights casting
A tiny pool of light
Which serves no purpose.
~Scarlett Treat
This monster, created
By man himself,
Ingests me, swallows
Me whole and
Spits me out!!
No sun, no moon,
No stars....only
The glitter of
Streetlights casting
A tiny pool of light
Which serves no purpose.
~Scarlett Treat
The Basics
Name: Jacob Prentice
Nickname: Jack
Species: Human Sorcerer
Gender: Male
Age: 26
The Physical
Height: 6'
Weight: 160
Hair Color: Dark Blonde
Eye Color: Blue
Physical Description: Six foot and lean, Jack looks fit though also vaguely like he hasn't had a good meal in a few weeks or is on one of those diets that doesn't include sugar or carbs or anything remotely appetizing. That's not true at all, he's got a metabolism that just won't quit and eats all the worst stuff you can imagine, mostly from carts on the street or shops that only offer counter service.
His dark blonde hair is just one step from full perm, falling somewhere between wavy and curly and his eyes are a shade of blue more neon than sky. He's currently dressed in black, black teeshirt, black coat (vaguely tuxedo like), black pants (vaguely jeans like) and a black hooded overcoat (vaguely gray like). He used to be more of a suit and tie guy but is currently more of a thrift store guy.
Alternate Form Description: N/A
Under The Hood
Personality: Prior to now Jack had his life mapped out for him. A trust fund baby with all the best schooling, he was going to be one of those high-rise go-getter sorts that would be pissed he'd be missing out on the BlackBerry revolution. That Jack would have had at least two the moment they went on sale!
Work hard, play hard, he really should have been born in time for Wall Street in the 80s where his biggest concern would be how color his business card would be and what font he'd use (egg shell with romalian type?).
He's a lot more laid back now, he's seen stuff, knows stuff, the grind is small thinking, shadows on the wall stuff. He's all about the big picture now though it's so big that it might be more than a human brain can handle, sort of like an Outsider. OK, maybe not as big as an Outsider but big.
His mood is fickle and varied. In some ways, he's like a constantly open gateway to the Nevernever and can shift gears and moods depending on where he is as much as what's going on. Sure sure, he should be like a jedi knight and resist the darkside but he's not a knight, at least not yet, besides, the darkside has cookies.
Goals: Though he got a jumpstart on being the whole, whatever it is he is, he's still not exactly sure what that job is. Figuring that out is goal number one. Goal number two is figuring out why he is what he is. Those two goals may be related.
He also needs to get plugged into whatever is going on in the city.
"My city," he corrected.
He also needs to get plugged into whatever is going on in his city. There are sneaky little things hiding whenever the light turns on them, like cockroaches. Fortunately, the cockroaches are mostly his too and he knows their language.
Fears: He's afraid of the Dark City. He's not sure if it's the same city, like how a full moon and a new moon are the same moon, just in a different light or whether it's actually a different city. He thinks it's a different city, that or The City is psychotic and that's even scarier. The City is definitely sick though, he's sure of that and that scares him since he doesn't know how she's sick yet, just that she is and he can't help as well as he'd like.
Talents
Mundane Skills: Jack was pretty up to speed on current events and pretty plugged into the ins and outs of the mundane power structures of the city. He knew all the maître d's at the best restaurants and the doormen at the hottest clubs. A lot of those have changed in the three years he was, wherever he was, but some are still around and he's got an in with most. He can't cook to save his life and is not allowed near a stove but does pretty well on a dance floor and has a mean bank-shot (whether on a pool table or air hockey one). He's fairly well educated and even has a piece of paper to prove it (assuming he still has an apartment, he lost the keys and isn't sure whether he's paid rent in the last few years so that paper might have wound up at the dump).
Powers: Jack is intimately connected to the City. It speaks to him, sometimes literally. OK the city doesn't speak to him, its denizens do. It's unsettling to say the least, to have a rat stand up on its hind legs and start to talk in a Bronx accent (especially when you're in Brooklyn... what's a Bronx rat doing in Brooklyn?) or a roach chitter on and on about how proud it is of its kids getting into NYU or the Plaza Hotel, god they had high pitched voices.
Point is, while he was tuned in before, he's full-on hardwired now. Not a lot goes on in the city without him knowing, or if it does someone went to some effort to keep it off his radar.
He's also got a keen sense of direction (but a terrible sense of distance), knows all the best shortcuts, manages to avoid all the worst traffic and can walk the Ways from just about any alley or subway station.
He understands most of the languages spoken in the city (and there are so so so so many languages spoken in the city) and has a vast though scattershot knowledge of magic. His own personal magic would mostly be considered sponsored magic, his sponsor being something or someone, he's not quite sure who or what and just calls it 'The City'.
He also has the standard abilities of a practitioner, magical sight, precognition, sensitivity to magic, and presumably better healing, though he'll have to get hurt first to be sure of that (and who wants that) and a long life though how can you really know that other than not dying for a really long time (he's optimistic about that one).
Vulnerabilities: Jack has the standard vulnerabilities of a human practitioner. He can be injured by normal means though he heals 'better'. His magical prowess is tied specifically to the city, take him elsewhere and his powers would be greatly reduced and eventually utterly gone. He's beholden to what he calls 'The Will of the City', which can be fickle at times and isn't the sort of thing you can resist.
Society Info
Occupation: He's still working on a cool title like The People's Champion... nope... dammit... The Rock snagged that one. Whatever it winds up being, as far as the IRS is concerned he's unemployed.
Families/Organizations/Factions: None, unless you consider The City a faction (or whoever it is representing itself as the Spirit of the City)
Questions:
1. What are you doing in New York, and how have you fared since arriving?
Jack was born and raised in the city and fared pretty well. His family had a lot of money, so much so he didn't really need to work, though he was planning too. If asked what it was they did, he'd say "stuff with money". He hadn't done much of it himself, had just gone to school and had just graduated before he disappeared (so to speak).
He's only been back a few days but so far he's met a lot of cool people and reacquainted himself with the city he considers his own.
2. You've just spotted a human getting mugged across the street. Before you can react, the victim suddenly begins to shift, changing into what can only be described as a werewolf and assaults the mugger. What do you do?
Shout "hey" to hopefully get the werewolf's attention and then proceed to explain how that's a little bit of overkill and then recall that there's nothing in the Accords about not killing mortals and realize I've made a terrible mistake.
3. You've been accused of a crime you didn't commit, and are currently being interrogated by one of New York's finest. How do you go about convincing them of your innocence or, if all else fails, breaking free?
A. Mind control. The detective won't believe me, so I'll make them believe me.
B. Force. Break free with sheer strength of will and, potentially, the use of magic.
C. Do nothing. Refuse to answer any questions and request an attorney.
D. Use my silver tongue to simply convince them.
E. Request a cup of coffee and help them solve the crime.
4. What does your day-to-day look like? What can you be found doing on an average day?
If we average out the last three days it's mostly involved following random omens and signs, doing random acts of kindness and senseless acts of revenge, oh and spending way too much time shooting the breeze with a rat (who I'm calling Templeton though he keeps assuring me his name is Bernard).
The Juicy Bits
Backstory: She could be loving. She could be cruel. She could be seductive. She could be cold and she was possessive as hell.
He wasn't actually sure she was a she, that might just have been for his benefit, a goddess easier to serve than a god. He knew that was sexist but the city had a way of forcing you to take a good hard look in the mirror now and then like that and expecting you to own up to all your faults. It also had a way of being what you wanted it to be at times, like a high-class hooker really good at roleplay.
"She's going get me back for that one," he said to himself. He loved her but he also kind of hated her. It was one of those relationships you could call 'complicated' and tempestuous. It might not have been Burton and Taylor complicated Whitney and Bobby complicated Tommy and Pam...
"But she's definitely high maintenance."
Yep, she was definitely going to get him back for that.
"She's also old."
He was already in trouble, he might as well get it all out.
She was an old city. Not the oldest or anything, but old, which was maybe why he felt old-school sexist like that, she was a straight bourbon and cigarettes after sex kind of town. She was also a modern city, which was probably why he tended not to discriminate beyond a soft spot for the tempest-tost and a hard-on for the privileged few; magical or mundane.
He was privileged himself. The city had been good to him long before he'd been good to her. He was probably still privileged, he hadn't actually checked in a while but he assumed his accounts were still in good standing unless someone had declared him dead. How long had he been gone? Shit. What day was it? It took him a moment to find a newsstand and check the date.
"Truth is, she could be totally playing me," he told the man at the newsstand who stared at him warily, unsure whether he was going to pay for the paper.
"That's a dollar," the man pointed out, which had Jack rummaging through his pockets which were filled with an ungainly amount of coins, most of which turned out to be subway tokens.
"One, two," he began counting out pennies since they were the easiest to spot.
"Three. I mean, she could be a faerie for all I know or maybe one of the fallen," he trailed off, pushing around a few more of the coins, checking the blackened ones just in case she really was Denarian.
"One dollar," the man at the stand repeated impatiently.
"Sure, sure, I'm just saying, I'm not sure she's really who she says she is, she could be anything. You know what, I guess that's true of all of us, right?" he said with a smile, pushing out a quarter, two nickels and a dime.
"What's that now?"
"Forty eight cents."
"OK forty nine, fifty," he said, continuing on.
"You've been in this spot for twelve years now, right?" he asked the man. It wasn't really a question.
"Twelve years and you've always kept it nice and clean, never missed a day. We've noticed," he told the man, who was starting to think he hadn't been wary enough and should have sent Jack on his way with the paper, a dollar wasn't worth this headache.
"And let me get a scratcher too," Jack pointed at a locked display of scratch lottery tickets, shuffling through the coins in his hand to separate out the tokens and giving the man all the currency; let him do the math.
Taking one of the tokens he started scratching a couple of the spots before putting the winning ticket in the Need a Penny/Leave a Penny tray.
"You're in a good mood today," he noted as he headed away, newspaper (tabloid really) tucked under one arm.
"So what's next?"
~O~
He had to do the math himself, counting backward to figure out how long he'd been gone.
"Three years."
"Was I Rip Van Winkling it or something else?" he wondered, rubbing at his beard which wasn't more than a few days old, certainly not three years.
"Faeries usually take people for seven years, right?" he asked as though the pigeons gathering around him had all the answers.
He could remember before and after clear as day though they were very different days and for that matter, different hes (i.e. the plural of he).
"Weird," he told one of the pigeons. It stood out mostly because it wasn't pecking at the bread crumbs he was throwing out from the sub he'd grabbed from a vendor on the corner of 7th and W 57th on his way to the Park.
"I feel like I've been doing this for a long time but I know I haven't," he said, nodding his head.
"She didn't have any time to waste?" he supposed. Something had happened, something that forced her hand.
"And you didn't think to clue me in on that part? Seems kind of unnecessary keeping me in the dark like that," he frowned, no longer talking to the pigeon so much as just talking. The frown lingered and it was a curiosity that was going to nag at him.
"Alright, I've fed the birds, now what?" he asked her, to which the birds he'd been feeding parted, their excrement left in the shape of an arrow.
"God damn, I love you," he chuckled, tossing the last of his sandwich away and following the sh!t-stained road.
~O~
"The Sidhe have their knights. The Outsiders have their Walkers. The Vamps have their... well... I'm not actually sure what the vampires have, but they've all got some sort of champion, why shouldn't the City have a champion too?" he asked then shook his head.
"Wow, that sounds really stupid now that I've said it out loud."
"OK, we won't call it that again. The Voice? No, she's the Voice. I'm The Hand. No, too Game of Thronesie. I don't know. We'll come up with something later. Point being, sometimes you need someone to do your dirty work for you and for The City, that's me," he explained before considering other alternatives.
"That or I've had a really serious head injury. That's a distinct possibility since I'm talking to rat in an alley and that graffiti is moving" he considered, pointing at the wall before checking his head for lumps or cracks in the bone. Unfortunately, he seemed all too intact.