Adraius

End of session accounting: Principle: We Must All Look Out For One Another; gathered allies, affirming Humanity full Bond: His Peers (Wary Distrust); trusted Amber, affirming Humanity full +4 strain from session goal Spiritual Strain 13 -> 17

Quinn spreads his hands. To Amber, he says, "We're all in way over our heads. And I know tonight has been... real hard. For what happened before - I'm sorry." He swallows. "I didn't understand what you could do - I still don't, not really - but now I understand a little. We had to... figure it out as a group. It would have been impossible alone - I wish we had known you were out here fighting this, all alone." "We don't have to fight this alone. If... if we do need to go down there... maybe your roots could give us a way down - and, maybe Garrett could turn his wards to protect us down there." "But all this only works if we're working together, and not against one another. Can you pull your roots away from the town? And hold them back at the edge of the Hole?"

(Charisma (3) with Presence (A) to appeal to Amber for cooperation with Garrett -> Remembering dice formatting is hard! The first roll (in the dice tray below) is +0, for a result of 3 -> Wanting better, Quinn uses his once-per-scene reroll from B rank Presence -> On the reroll, Quinn gets +1, for a result of 4 -> Yeah, this a) a worth goal, b) seems hard, and c) is something Quinn really wants; Quinn spends 3 spiritual strain to get a final result of 7 -> Quinn has 13/18 Spiritual Strain remaining

"Whoa, whoa." Quinn's face is a little too tight, a little too wide-eyed. "You're talking about going down into the Hole. Everyone who's gone into into it - they haven't come back." There's a trace of emotion, something just a little raw, in his voice. "I don't think there's any kind of safe way down. And even if there was - what could we do? Ray can't punch an idea, I can't... mend a doomsday plan. Amber - if you got into the Hole, do you have any way to stop these things?" He looks at remaining two present, unease plain to see. "Sam, Eavan, we can't just... throw you at the problem alone." "We should... take this info to Garrett. His protections worked better the more he knew what was going on!" Quinn's face lights up as the idea strikes him. He turns towards the tree with Amber. "Amber - the man shielding the Hole, his name is Garrett, I don't know if you've actually met him - he's a good man working hard to stop what it's doing. But his protections are only as good as the things he knows. And you know more than anyone about what's going on! If we work together, maybe we can cut off what's coming out of the Hole," he appeals.

"Oh..." Quinn replies, slowing his hurried approach but still walking towards the ATV, as if his legs can't help themselves. He looks at the small ATV and visibly swallows whatever words were first crawling up his throat under the harsh orange glare. ""O-okay! You guys will be faster on that than Eavan and I will be on foot anyway... I'll share my location so you can catch us. Get me a power brick if they have one!" "And - be careful of the roots! Could be dangerous out there!"

Quinn opens the library's main door partway and steps out, looking about the immediate vicinity of the door; it takes him a moment to spot Sam and Ray further into the lot, and he takes a hurried step towards them, calling out as he does. "Hey! Where are you going?"

Quinn looks around the table, and no one speaks up to offer another course of action. "Okay. That's what we're going to do. We still don't have a clear idea of what's out there... but I think we need to go see it with our own eyes." He glances around and bites his lip slightly. "Okay," he says, seemingly to himself. To Sandra, he says, "Just have your phone. Or, if you could keep an eye on the Discord, and tell us if there's anything important happening?" Be the girl in the chair comes to his mind unbidden, a meme from some recent Marvel thing. He pushes the unwanted comparison away; it implied a level of trust that wasn't there with Sandra... but she was trying to help, and it would be helpful. Quinn flexed his shoulders in his set, suddenly feeling the lateness of the hour. But now was the time to do something.

"We're good," Quinn says. They really aren't any closer to a decision. But Quinn knows what he wants to do. "I want to go to the source of the new roots. We have reasons" Quinn stresses the word, "to think this is an attack, but also that whatever's out there isn't malicious. So, it's either different enough it doesn't realize what it's doing is dangerous, or we're just in the way and it doesn't care. If it's just ignorant, the safest thing to do is communicate. If I was Amber, that's where I'd be. We find her or something we can talk to and get to the bottom of this."

Quinn, Sam, and Ray troop down the stairs to rejoin the others. Quinn leaves his chair with his jacket drying over the back of it where it is and instead angles for the seat closest to Sam's squashed beanbag.

Quinn lips curl back to a strained grin on reflex, but his eyes are pained. "Um- oh, hey, Ray. We're... still deciding." He looks towards the way down and then at Sam. They don't look ready to reengage the mess awaiting them all, but it would eat at Sam even worse to be left out of the room while decisions are made, Quinn thinks. Sam had gotten hysterical because he cared. "C'mon," he says, standing up and offering a hand in Sam's direction. "Let's not freak Eavan out any more?" The grin is still strained, but this time it's real.

"Nobody has the handbook for what to do about stuff like this. Or, I guess Father Elston would say you use the same handbook as always. It is harder though. Er, he might disagree with that too, actually. I got worse at knowing what to do as things got more... complicated. Years ago, before things got extra screwy." Quinn gestures limply with both hands. He pauses a bit. "I think most people are like that. It would be great if people were better at knowing what to do. It's... just not like that, though. And I think we do some of our worst thinking when we're afraid. Which is hard, because people can do their best works at times when they're totally afraid." He pauses again. He's rambling. "I- I don't actually know what I'm trying to say. I don't think you're a bad Christian. I think you're afraid, which makes sense. You're not alone."

Quinn leans back and lets the silence stretch a bit as he thinks. "Let's say you got to pick. What would be the smartest thing for us to do? Hm?"

Quinn is temporarily too shocked to respond. Greg's mannerisms taking over Sam had been frankly terrifying, like something out of a horror movie. Quinn's hackles are all the way up, and he tries to force himself to calm down, to unclench the part of him that had reflexively readied itself to physically come to blows with Greg in Sam's body. He's mostly successful, and on some level he's grateful Sam's attention is preoccupied. "...I've got my doubts about Sandra too," Quinn says to either or both of them. "She's done a lot wrong - she literally bombed the place I worked! And that-" Quinn cuts off, remembering Sam and Greg have him beat when it comes to familiarity with the downstream consequences of her actions. "She's fucked up," Quinn sums it up instead, "in so many ways she's got more to tell us we didn't even know about. I don't trust her judgement - at all!" There's a gleam in Quinn's eye. "But... she's honest. And she's out trying to help." In the cold, after 10 at night, at something of a sketchy meetup. "So we're gonna hear her out. And we'll figure out what to do." Quinn pauses. "Good luck shouting Ray into submission. I'd like to you see your old self try, Greg." There's just a touch of pain in his voice, an acknowledgement that they knew each other from before, through school, however distantly. "And Eavan knows how to dig her heels in. Not steamrollering Sandra's spiel isn't 'not standing up', it's how we figure whatever we're gonna do like a group." A thought occurs to Quinn - has Greg's isolation been a contributor to his attitude? A second thought; he snorts. "Group projects - even less fun for real than in school." It sounds a little bitter.

Quinn seems to half expect a spectral hockey stick to the head or something... but when that doesn't come, he heaves himself down on the bench next to Sam. "He's 'upset,' sure. And whenever he's upset or peeved or bored that lands on you. If he wants to say something-" Quinn's tries to look where Sam had earlier, but his gaze isn't entirely in the correct direction, "-look, you and I have our differences but you're allowed to talk, and I'll listen n' stuff- but let Sam speak. You've been cutting them off. Undercutting them. That's a shit thing for an older brother to do," Quinn said, something creeping into their voice at the end. "Things need to change." On the bench, Quinn's hands feel clammy. Really, this conversation had been a long time coming. A long long time coming. Greg had been a problem been since Quinn met Sam. Greg's callousness towards Sam had made Quinn want to jump to their defense. Quinn's had tried, once, shortly after they had met, and the attempt had been disastrous and abortive. How do you handle a bully who is untouchable, imperceivable to anyone except the subject of their attention? Anything Quinn tried could be returned against Sam with interest. And so Quinn ground his teeth and did nothing. Tried to help Sam with things that weren't Greg. But now Quinn thought that maybe, just maybe, he had something. He'd also not addressed half of what Sam had said, and Quinn quickly tried to recall what else that was.

"You don't deserve the things your brother says to you. Don't listen to him." Bereft of his jacket drying over a chair in the room below, the change in temperature is immediately apparent. Quinn's tenses slightly. "Come on," he says, leading Sam by the hand up into the library after Ray. Immediately outside on the ground floor, there's isn't anywhere quite so comfortable to sit, but there's a low-slung bunch that will serve, and Quinn guides Sam to it. The cold doesn't leave them. He kneels in front of Sam. "Sam... you saw something out there with the tree. Something really dangerous. And that's important! Imagine if you hadn't, if we didn't know. Without you, I might have gone to the other trees and walked into a big cloud of gas and never come out. You did great, Sam, and I'm sorry I didn't tell you earlier. I hate that you even have to be here, but it's really, really great that you are. If Greg is telling you otherwise, Greg is wrong. Don't l-let him silence y-you." Quinn's teeth betray an actual clatter, the sourceless cold having deepened as he spoke. Quinn stands and spins to address the empty space around them. "You need to back off, Greg," he says, voice low, hands clenched.

"Sam!" Sam's escape up the stairs is sabotaged by weary feet and guillotined entirely by Ray's bulk in the stairwell. "Sam," Quinn calls from right behind, then puts his hand around Sam's right wrist on the railing. Sam swings around to plead- "I'm sorry, I'm sorry!-" -as Quinn's other arm goes around them and brings Sam's shoulder into him in the awkward staircase approximation of a hug. Quinn has never been particularly touchy-feely. Even here on the stairs, Sam is still shorter, their shoulder meeting Quinn's sternum. "I'm not mad at you," Quinn's voice hisses into Sam's ear, voice thick. "I'm mad at Greg." He releases Sam's wrist and puts his hand around their upper arm, just holding them there. "I'm mad at him, not you."

Quinn is only half-registering Eavan's words, and when Sam flinches again, he is done with it. "Back off!" Quinn growls out in 'authority voice', three volume levels too loud for the confined basement of an abandoned library. He looks angry, looking at no one in particular but glaring daggers in Sam's general direction. He's on his feet and doesn't remember standing up. He nearly says something else, but the frankly alarmed expressions of Eavan, Francis, and Sandra remind him where he is. "Not you, Eavan, s-sorry," he mumbles in her direction. "Hey Sam, can we speak upstairs for a minute?" Quinn asks tightly, his steps already carrying him halfway across the room towards them.

Quinn looks pained. "If we tried to find her, the forest is huge. It could take days. Even with more people." He pauses. "But, if she's likely to be anywhere, it would be where the things are growing. Either because she's making them grow or because she'll want to stop them from being cut up." He leans forward; it's a bit awkward in the deep bowl of the seat. "We should go, see what's growing there, see if we can find Amber." "We can try and figure out ways to find her? I could check out a part of the forest more quickly?" It's clear from Quinn's tone he isn't enthused by his own suggestion as he voices it. Split up? At night? In a forest full of strange trees? But while they sat here other people were fighting the tree vine things - something had to be done. To Sandra: "Where were you when you found Amber that once?" If it was on the northern half of town, that would be further confirmation.

Quinn looks with concern at Sam before shifting uncomfortably in his ostensibly very comfortable seat to address Sandra. "You said what she did was take some of the plants into her. How do you mean? Would she... act differently?" What happens when you take a thousand-year-old thing into yourself? "What was she like, when you saw her?"

Quinn interjects "he's kidding, seriously," and offers Sandra a basic nod in greeting. He looks over the room at everyone else with a small smile, but turns to Francis in particular. "Thanks for letting us stop by." He claims one of the cushy stairs in the room for himself, facing Sandra.   MechanicsQuinn spends 3 free strain from Rank S Empathy to boost his Wariness by 3 - from 4 to 7 - for the scene.

Quinn takes longer, evidenced by the loud whine of an air hand dryer from the men's bathroom. It flips off after a preset time, only to be coaxed back to life again. When he emerges, he's in a black tee, his green jacket slung over a forearm. The whole front seems to have been wetted down then wrung out or dried to the point of mere heavy dampness. It doesn't drip, at least - he'd followed Sandra's wet footsteps into his workplace (and tolerated Ray's) with his own twinge of distaste. Ray's new appearance catches him off guard, though. He looks Ray up and down. "Oh. That takes some getting used to."

"Because it's Sandra. I mostly just know what I've heard, and what I've heard is kinda wild." Quinn draws out the descriptor for emphasis. For a moment, it seems like he might have more to say, but it doesn't come. Quinn checks his phone and huffs, his breath misting before him. "I should get out the road to wait. Stay here and keep an eye on these guys, yeah? I'll text you when the ambulance's arrived."

That still wasn't a no. Quinn could live with that, for now. And he was a little scared of what trying to get anything more would look like. Hopefully Sandra would have information that would be useful. It felt like a dangerous thought. "Do you know Sandra at all?" Quinn asks, changing the subject.

Quinn opens his mouth and closes it, visibly aborting the first thing he wanted to say. "It's a tradeoff," Quinn says. "One I think is worth trying."

Quinn frowns. "I'm here 'cause tonight meat roots were crawling into town. That was the problem. And I would have done my best to rip up the tree's roots at the source, if you and the others hadn't come. At the sawmill - we never figured the place out. We just made it work the best we could, and it slowed things down so much. But you and Sam and Eavan did come, and so maybe we can figure these things out. If we can, maybe we can stop this faster, or maybe we don't have to find out the hard way what happens when a cloud of that gas floats into town." "Obviously having these things running through people's gardens and snapping at kids isn't happening. But give figuring this out a chance," Quinn says, looking hard at Ray.