First Reply Unintentional Vandalism

[Felix Astermo]

Felix was a bit low on credits. Fortunately, he had an idea.

The desk in front of him had been cleared. Atop it rested a sheet of flimsiplast covered in an intricate network of interconnected runes. Many were sourced from the guide he was using and the rest... well, he'd always had a knack for improvisation. Giving it a once-over and seeing nothing out of place, he nodded in satisfaction.

He was reasonably sure it would transmute the junk he placed on it into precious metals.

After a few minutes of effort, he sat down and wiped his sweaty brow with a shaky hand. There. The process should be self-sustaining. Now he just had to... ah. The runes were beginning to glow an ominous red. That was... not ideal?

A flare of danger saw him rush to his feet, grab his suitcase, and dash into the hallway.

Not a moment too soon, as the flimsiplast exploded with enough force to tear the hurriedly closed door off its hinges.

Whoops.

---

Did Felix just blow up the hotel room next to yours? Are you a police officer/Jedi/arsonist-loooking-for-companionship responding to the explosion? Are you doing something entirely different? Your call!

 

[Phobos]

Hotel
Tags: Felix Astermo

​

Phobos sat petrified as her hotel door all but exploded.

Well, it wasn't exactly her hotel room. She had snuck in, using the force to undo the latches of the window. She really needed a safe place to sleep. The Ashspawn didn't like to resort to such things, but she had no home and no credits to her name. Phobos wasn't sure what place was even out there for her.

It most certainly wasn't here. She had already been on edge as she sat in the bed of the hotel room, praying nobody would come in and find her. Then there was a dark chill, and the door was thrown of its hinges in a blast. Fortunately her new body seemed to not mind the shrapnal, though her dress was slightly damaged. She regained her composure, slowly sliding off the bed and approaching the door, peering her head out beyond the now cracked frame to see what had caused the sudden explosion.

"W-who's there!" she shouted, trying to sound dangerous. "I-I'm armed! A-and very dangerous!"

A lie, of course. She was very harmless.

 

[Felix Astermo]

Wide-eyed and panting, Felix brushed a bit of debris out of his hair, but felt otherwise intact.

Part of him was waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it seemed- ah, someone else. At least she sounded harmless en-

Hair like emerald fire - and was her neck missing?! Oh kark.

His little ritual circle hadn't just exploded, it had somehow pulled in a great and terrible spirit from the Netherworld! Damn it all, why had past Felix decided to skim the chapter on Spirits to get at the fun stuff? Curses.

"You can't have my name! Or my soul!" He blurted out, then winced.

That was not the greeting the book recommended.

Phobos​

 

[Phobos]

Hotel
Tags: Felix Astermo

​

"You can't have my name! Or my soul!"

Oh. They were scared? Maybe that ment that she could scare them off... No, that would be too mean, right? Phobos felt really bad about making them scared.

This was fine.

"I, uh, f-find your soul to be... inseficient?" she stammered, trying to come up with something to spook them. "Yes! Inseficient! So, uh, d-depart from this place now! Please!"

She shrunk a little more behind the doorframe. This was not going very well. Why coulcn't she sound more intimidating? All she could really do was hope that the arsonist she was staring down was super easy to spook and really wasn't interested in continuing whatever this was.

 

[Felix Astermo]

For a moment, it seemed like Felix might actually depart with all due haste.

Then the moment passed as he squinted at the fire-haired girl.

His Force senses were poorly developed, but he still felt something from her, and it wasn't the overwhelming presence he had expected. Add to that her stammering voice and the way she seemed to want to hide behind the doorframe?

Accidentally summoned or not, she did not seem terribly dangerous.

"I'm pretty sure you mean insufficient," Felix noted dryly. "You aren't some cosmic horror, are you?" He felt more and more confident as he spoke. "Did I call you forth from another plane of existence? If so, you have my apologies."

His eyes flickered to his demolished hotel room as something audibly fell over inside.

Returning her from whence she came was going to be easier said than done, wasn't it? Shit, why hadn't taken a photo of the runic sequence before activating it? He didn't even know what he'd done wrong!

Phobos​

 

[Phobos]

Hotel
Tags: Felix Astermo

​

"O-oh."

She had said that word very wrong. It was all but over now. Phobos shrunk a little more behind the frame of the door as the man who had blown it up continued to speak, and... was surprisingly rather polite. That was strange. Of all the shifts in tone that was the last kind that the young woman had expected.

"Did I call you forth from another plane of existence? If so, you have my apologies."

"C-call forth?" Phobos squeaked in confusion. "I-I don't understand what you mean... Why would I have been summoned?"

Maybe this was all some kind of way to confuse her and get her guard down. But what for? That seemed kind of pointless now that he had already made it clear he believed she was harmless. Or at the very least not a cosmic horror. Phobos really didn't know how to respond to all of those things.

"Y-you're not here to blow me up, are you?"

 

[Felix Astermo]

Was she shy? Scared? That couldn't be right, could it?

Spirits weren't supposed to be shy! Sad? Sure. Wrathful? Definitely. Wise? Probably. Never shy, though.

"Why wouldn't you have been summoned? How else..." He drifted off, a thoughtful look on his features. Then he began to inch closer. "Why would you worry about being blown up?" He asked, almost rhetorically.

Unless she'd moved backwards in response, he would suddenly reach out to poke at the 'thin air' where her neck would be. What kind of 'spirit' was worried about being blown up? Exactly! A flesh-and-blood person wearing... holographic neck jewellery, though? He might not be a proper Force User, but he wouldn't be made a fool of with cheap tricks!

The fact that he more or less admitted to criminal negligence shortly before had slipped his mind in his excitement.

Phobos​

 

[Phobos]

Hotel
Tags: Felix Astermo

​

"Why wouldn't you have been summoned? How else..."

Phobos simply froze as the man inched closer, far to petrified to move. Something about the scenerio made her knees buckle. His hand would pass under her head for a split second before she flinched, drawing back further behind the door. A shudder went down the young woman's spine.

"I-I... climbed through the window..." she stated, trying to still her breath. "W-walked here from the spaceport..."

 

[Felix Astermo]

She was neckless - it wasn't just an illusion!

Unless her entire body was a hologram, that is. Oh, or an incorporeal spirit! He hadn't seen her move anything, had he? Perhaps the door, but telekinesis could explain that. Part of him wanted to prod her to find out, but she seemed nervous enough already. Better not exacerbate things - even if it could be a carefully-honed mask!

"... you climbed in through the window? You walked here? From the spaceport?"

That was dreadfully mundane. It couldn't be that simple, could it? Squinting in her direction, he eyed her assessingly. The little of her that wasn't hiding behind the door, that is. "Are you sure you didn't at least fly?"

Phobos​

 

[Phobos]

Hotel
Tags: Felix Astermo

​

"F-fly?"

These questions only seemed to get stranger and stranger. How was she supposed to answer a question like that? Phobos certainly wasn't a bird. The man seemed to be fixated on how bizarre she was that he wasn't accepting the mundane reality before him. That only made the Ashspawn's nerves way worse than they already were. She was about on the verge of a panic attack.

"N-no, I can't fly..." she muttered. "I said I walked... I'm... sorry that I seem a little odd. That's just how I am."

Phobos nervously turned towards the heap of scrap that had once been the door of the hotel room.

"Th-this is a lot after you blew up my door," she admitted.

 

[Felix Astermo]

There was a long pause at her explanation. A long pause.

He felt... kind of bad? She seemed terribly distressed, and it was definitely his fault, but her presence near his failed 'ritual site' (calling it a proper ritual - or a proper site - was probably a bit pretentious) seemed so implausible.

Then again, implausible did not mean impossible.

"... you weren't summoned, were you? You weren't even drawn in by the, uh, random incident. Random incident for which I'm in no way shape or form culpable." Shit, he hadn't admitted to anything criminal, had he? "The Force works in mysterious ways, or so I've heard! Unpredictable fluctuations are bound to happen! Actually, who says the Force had anything to do with it? It could have been a gas leak! That sounds like the hotel's at fault!"

He was rambling, wasn't he? He should probably shut up now.

Phobos​

 

[Phobos]

Hotel
Tags: Felix Astermo

​

"N-no summoning," Phobos insisted, "Honest to goodness..."

At the very least it all seemed to suggest that the man before her hadn't expected anyone to be present here. It made sense after all, the room was technically still vacant given the fact that she had snuck in through the window. A frown came to her face as she tilted her head, perplexed on what to do. This was all so strange. He seemed to even be dismissive of the fact that anything had happened at all.

Had the man planned this out?

"If... you aren't here to hurt me..." she began again with a weary voice, "Why... was it necessary to do this? Doors don't really have gas... so I-I'm rather certain it was you..."

She just hoped she wasnt still in some sort of danger. That would really suck.

 

[Felix Astermo]

Damnation, she hadn't believed his implausible explanation.

But she had seemed so gullible!

"I've heard gas can spread all over the place, actually!" Alright, that was a stretch. Was gas even used for anything but blasters in this region? Who knows, he'd never checked. "Let's say, hypothetically, that a handsome artist caused a minor explosion. Surely the reasonable assumption would be that it was an accident. Hypothetically." There. Surely that was better.

He was usually much smoother than this, but the situation still had him off-kilter.

Phobos​

 

[Phobos]

Hotel
Tags: Felix Astermo

​

"I'm sure some might wish to give him a pass for being handsome," Phobos remarked, "but accidents still come with liability, right?"

Did that make sense? She didn't know, and frankly Phobos was too all over the place to determine if any thought in her mind was coherent right now. The gas spreading hardly made sense as it was, so she simply decided to avoid that for the time being and focus on what was happening now. More and more though, the Ashspawn was beginning to have anxieties of her own. She was not ment to be here. Would she be found just as liable, if not an accessory to the crime?

Oh no.

"S-say, do you think they would blame me too?" she asked sheepishly, trying not to sound concerned. "Surely they'd just... s-state I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. R-right?"

 

[Felix Astermo]

The reasonably subtle implication that she wouldn't just let him escape responsibility made his eyes widen. Not because it was a particularly radical statement, but because it meant he'd clearly misunderstood her intentions. Was it all a mask after all? A visage of harmlessness obscuring a canny operator? Was she here to-

"S-say, do you think they would blame me too?"

Ah.

If he wanted to, he might well be able to gaslight her into thinking herself responsible. Somehow. Still, at this point, he was starting to feel bad for the confusable girl - especially since her fears weren't wholly unwarranted.

"Perhaps we should both leave. Just to be sure. The receptionist was day-drinking, but someone surely heard this... ruckus for which no one is truly at fault." He would feel bad if she got tangled up with law enforcement for the sin of looking strange. Levitating heads and mysterious explosions? The fearful might assume it to be the work of Sithspawn!

... not that he could recognise Sithspawn at a glance, but she didn't feel particularly Dark.

Phobos​

 

[Phobos]

Hotel
Tags: Felix Astermo

​

"Perhaps we should both leave. Just to be sure. The receptionist was day-drinking, but someone surely heard this... ruckus for which no one is truly at fault."

"I... s-suppose that makes sense."

Were there any cameras that could see her? She didn't exactly have a place to run away and hide at, so there was the entire matter of what to do once she actually got somewhere else. It was all making her head spin, more in a metophorical way anyways. She didn't yet know if her head could actually spin. A nervous sigh escaped her chest as she glanced back into her room.

The open window. She didn't want to admit that was the path of her entry. Phobos didn't like resorting to that sort of thing to get by.

"M-my window is open," she noted, gesturing for the strange man to follow. "I-it isn't too far off the ground. I-I don't think it is, anyways..."

Maybe she just couldn't tell. The Ashspawn could float after all.

 

[Felix Astermo]

Nodding enthusiastically, Felix followed her into her room. "Good idea! Do you do this often?"

After presumably getting a flustered response, he hurried to the window, head swivelling back and forth to check if the exit was clear. As it turns out, it was clear-ish. There was no one looking at them, but two speeders had settled down by the entrance. One vehicle's worth of emergency response personnel had already hurried inside.

The other? Law enforcement.

Phenomenally lazy law enforcement.

"... are those two smoking? Seriously? They just got here!"

Phobos​