Cox and Barmanrags meet

Characters in this scene: Cox, Oliver

Setting Location: Sanctuary

AncestralBoi Cox (Cox-Neon-Clem) — 03/22/2021

Cox had been waiting in Sanctuary's cafeteria since he got that card from one of the persons that had helped him in the past trough the forum. If his memory served him well he was another practitioner affected by the plays of prehispanic gods. He was more worried on finishing his sandwich before he appeared though, he was still recuperating of the lack of real food from his days on the run.

Barmanrags — 03/22/2021

Oliver enters the cafeteria. He looks like a sickly teenager. Someone who has just recovered from a long bout of some debilitating disease. His right arm sleeve is rolled up tightly to the shoulder, the arm itself seems to be folded in front of his body, buttoned behind his faded denim shirt. He comes up to Cox and extends his left hand for a shake. "Mr. Cox I believe? I am Oliver Stone. I requested this meeting. Lovely to meet in person."

AncestralBoi Cox (Cox-Neon-Clem) — 03/22/2021

"Hahaha! Sorry that I don't give my right hand, but it seems that we have both been disarmed." says Cox while showing that his right arm ends in a clean golden cut. "Please, call me Tommy." says while using the left hand for the shake In front of Oliver stands a man in his mid twenties with dreads and a short beard. "Oh, I can start imagining why you wanted to talk to us so sudden, Coy seems to be really wary of a certain spirit within you."

Barmanrags — 03/22/2021

Oliver sees the right arm cut of at the wrist but can smell the hand, right there in front of the amputation. Dismembered. A wave of nausea rises in him as he sense the glee in Inocelotl at the maiming. His right arm twinges in agony. "Awfully sorry. I am usually much better at keeping the Spirit I host more docile. Yet he seems to be exceedingly interested in you, or rather your patron.

The Jaguar spirit I host is a minor God of hunting, both as an apex predator and human hunters from the Toltec period. I noticed that you are a Priest. This may be rude but is your patron one of the deities of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica?"

AncestralBoi Cox (Cox-Neon-Clem) — 03/22/2021

At the mention of the word jaguar Cox's face changes, he's still smiling but it doesn't reach his eyes anymore. "She is, although not one of the most known I guess, we will try to change that."

"I'm sorry to do this but you would mind me watching you with this glasses?" Says Cox as he pulls out some glasses in the form of hearts. "I got them from someone from OMO they should let me know the deals you've taken this past week, I really don't want to do that but this have been some really rough days, and need to make sure you're not one of our pursuers."

Barmanrags — 03/22/2021

Oliver feels a bit sadder when he sees Mr Cox reacting to Inocelotl. He didn't hold it against Mr Cox, the reaction was merited. "Please, by all means. Do go ahead. I have not been doing much anything the last week. I met a benefactor and his son. I worked at the greenhouses. I find gardening nice. I do sense that you are being hunted by Death, or at least some Avatar of it. A particularly ravenous form of Death too. I thought you already knew this. I don't think I am working or am being used by this Death or by other enemies of yours. I hope I would know if that was the case."

AncestralBoi Cox (Cox-Neon-Clem) — 03/22/2021

Cox puts on his glasses and looks at the teen. He can see him giving some kind of rock to another young practitioner. Then something related to a green house, the images the glasses show him are blurry. Cox takes the glasses off and looks again at Oliver with relief. "Ok everything seems to be alright, yeah the death incarnation worries me, but I had another reason to do that: you see, the jaguar is related to a deity that Coy isn't fond of, are you related to the god Huitzilopochtli?"

Barmanrags — 03/22/2021

"Huitzilopochtli? Of war? No not him. I think the spirit I host is a fan boy of Tezcatlipoca, I hope they are not getting power from that source. After I became Host to him I try to offer my worship to Quetzalcoatal. I think Quetzalcoatal blesses me in ways that help me resist the influence of Inocelotl, the werejaguar. They come from such a different time and they see life death pain and honour in such different ways. It's a severe burden most of the time, I find."

AncestralBoi Cox (Cox-Neon-Clem) — 03/22/2021

A rabbit appears from withing Tommy's jacket and gets on his shoulder, looking at Oliver. "Oh, that's great! She seems to not be on as bad terms with them." He pets the rabbit with his hand, and then looks surprised at Oliver. "Oh don't think that I'm petting a goddess here, this is not really her, this bunny is more of an extension of her, something like a drone, but it's still a living animal so I can't keep but to pet her." Tommy looks at Oliver with curiosity in his eyes. "So, I gathered that you had some questions for us?"

Barmanrags — 03/22/2021

Oliver is almost struck speechless as he smells a horrifyingly dismembered bunny rabbit on Mr Coxes shoulder. Something that clashes with the clearly healthy bunny that his eyes register. "Is the rabbit taken to pieces? Like your poor hand? Your deity is unsettling." He takes a drink of water to compose himself. "Your deity. Do you know if she presides over hunting, or is propitiated by ritualistic sacrifice and other such devices? My spirit insists that is so. If you are her Priest then do you embrace this role? If it were possible would you like to have a way to dampen how insistent she gets on her demands?"

AncestralBoi Cox (Cox-Neon-Clem) — 03/22/2021

Cox looks a little bit shocked at the amount of knowledge the teen already got from just his sight, then takes a moment looking at the rabbit who looks him back, nods and returns her eyes to Oliver. "Ok, she says that we can tell you her real name, but you must promise first not trying to hurt us trough this knowledge, or share it, unless you're at risk of getting hurt, do you agree?"

Barmanrags — 03/22/2021

"Let me make us a bit more private. It's not offensive arts and to the best of my knowledge and intent, it is not going to harm you or your deity." Oliver reaches inside his shirt and brings out a piece of ossified femur bleached white in the desert Sun. He crushes it in his fist and white sand trickles out and blows around them, the air becomes still and sterile. Dry. Silence of the deepest part of the desert envelopes all three of them. (An anti eavesdropping, anti augury measure. Coy's emissary will notice that.) He raises his left hand to his sternum "I hereby swear to keep your confidence and secret regarding the nature of your patron to the best of my ability until I am dead, bound or worse. I will not use this knowledge to harm you or your patron myself."

AncestralBoi Cox (Cox-Neon-Clem) — 03/22/2021

Cox's face can't contain his emotions anymore, he looks surprised and happy at the same time. "Woooooaahhhh, not gonna lie, that was amazing." He takes a moment to calm down and looks at Oliver. "Well then, her name is Coyolxauhqui, sister of Huitzilopochtli. The kind of sacrifices she appeared to receive in the past weren't anything more than a mockery of her image, the Azteks wanted to show what happened to those who attacked them by making of her an example." Cox takes a beer from within his jacket and takes a drink. "Her real sacrifices consist of the dismemberement of the individual, but she was unlucky enough that the first person that she saw was me, we struck a deal and I'm trying to keep the sacrifices to the bare minimum. Lady Lim was also kind enough to provide us with some kind of blood things, I really can't recall their name, as a substitute for a real sacrifice. Trough those and my prayers she has gotten much more powerful, we're able to fight now, but still she's not anywhere near the power she should have. I've been asking around to get followers, but we still haven't gotten any so far, so if you have a tip on how to get more powerful while still avoiding sacrifices, please share it."

Barmanrags — 03/23/2021

"My own struggles deal more with control than power. So I know more about what I think helps control the release of power than getting power it self. Collateral damage is a dangerous pattern to fall into. Esp since the forces both of us are dealing with would probably not mind a pattern of excessive collateral damage to be associated to them. The nature of our patrons cannot be denied too long, we can only guide it. I usually go hunt deer, boar etc every other week to keep Inocelotl calm. We have also joined in hunts of those that were deemed to be a karmic sinkhole, once at behest of a Carmine judge and the other time to reunite a kidnapped girl to her mother. I doubt you could use the methods I am using with Inocelotl. Being a host is much unlike being a priest and your deity is significantly more Powerful and more independent of you. In the greenhouse I am working in I saw two golden bell vine flowers. It was rather peculiar since they are supposed to be purple, in fact the rest of the flowers are purple. It reminded me of when I found bright quetzal feathers in the white sands national park. A gift from Quetzalcoatal that helped me pacify Inocelotl. I think the golden bell flowers could help you too. If you seek to grow in power then I think you need a shrine to Coyolxahqui. Her power will gather in your demesene. Sadly I know nothing about the goddess. The spirit I host is adamant that human dismemberment is the only way but he is the sort of guy to whom everything looks like a nail when he has a hammer. I am sure you can find ways to propitiate her while avoiding too much of the gnarly stuff. " Oliver looks a bit more morose than he already seemed to be. "I am sorry I do not have more knowledge for you. Maybe you should thoroughly research the Goddess? I think one of the ancient knowledge spirits of that time may be of help. Though I don't know how kindly Coyolxahqui will take attempts to gather knowledge on her that doesn't come from herself."

AncestralBoi Cox (Cox-Neon-Clem) — 03/23/2021

" A shrine sounds like an amazing idea, I'll have to ask for permission from Lady Lim to put one as soon as possible. About the sacrifices she has been accepting for now thanks to the stuff we've been trough, she has been taking a lot of energy from me thanks to my own fury of getting pushed off our country, she somehow feeds of that anger, and for the things I was able to learn from her origin it makes sense. But I can't be enraged at the world forever, so we came up with a way around it, we are gonna try to teach her followers a way to use their anger in a positive way, we want their fury to be what pushes them to keep going when falling down, when getting cut to pieces mentally, we want that fury to make them rebuild themselves and stand up again" Cox looks at the rabbit once again and worry crosses his face. "She has been happy with this idea for our followers, but I'm deeply worried for when I actually get them. What would happen if they decide to go trough with more sacrifices of innocents? How would that affect Coy? Would she turn her back to me and try to keep on a bloody road instead of the most positive I'm trying to build?" The rabbit doesn't even look at Cox. "She's trapped by our deal right now, but I don't want to leave a monster behind if anything happens to me, and that's why I'll keep trying to help her by showing her the good stuff about this world she just woke up in."

Barmanrags — 03/23/2021

"Sanctuary is Lady Lim's demesene. I was thinking that maybe you get a demesene of your own and then have it be a shrine to Coyolxahqui. Although, a shrine within sanctuary just to start of is good. If the goddess has woken up after a long time then maybe you will make her see that the demands of the age has shifted! Reclaim her story from the one forced onto her by the Aztec warrior priests. The moon it self is powerful and vital. It's Providence most probably that have brought you and her together. Vet the incoming devotees carefully. You are the priest and they should not be able to usurp your authority. The nature of her worship should also reflect on her being."

AncestralBoi Cox (Cox-Neon-Clem) — 03/23/2021

"Oh don't worry I still have a lot of fight on me, I won't disappear yet." Cox looks with a grin at Oliver. "We also have a goal that we share, and we will go back home whatever it takes."

Barmanrags — 03/23/2021

"let's be friends. I will see you around Sanctuary. If you need help with wards or locating a person or Other, I have skills in those areas." Oliver stands up and starts to gather the fine white sand into a small glass vial. "Good bye for now. It was lovely meeting you. Please don't mind me, I will try to make this place clean again. No one needs magic sand in their cafeteria I assume."

AncestralBoi Cox (Cox-Neon-Clem) — 03/23/2021

Cox looks around the cafeteria and his eyes open wide to the sight of the sand still in the place, then stands up. "Well as sign of our new friendship let me help you with that, I'll go get a broom."

Barmanrags — 03/23/2021

Oliver and Cox set about tidying up the place.