Encounter
The short alley led to a second courtyard filled with a debris. Mogo waded in, pushing towards a large heap of trash bags and discarded clothing. He stopped when the garbage reached his knees, looking over the strange mound. Bag after bag of items. Filled, tied and piled in a heap, one amazingly devoid of rotting food stench. There was a pallor, but not the sort of thing you'd expect from a trash heap. More like the scent of mildew and age and stagnancy.
He reached up his sleeve and withdrew a bouquet of roses. He held it aloft and the petals burst into flame.
"Come out! Now, or I torch it all!"
There was a moment of silence, then a faint rustling near the center of the mound. Someone slowly emerged, a dark thin shape hunched over slightly in an oversized blue hoodie. Mogo felt a slight chill in his innards. It moved sort of like a human being. It was trying.
The was a voice. It mumbled something incoherently, without inflection or obvious sound of gender.
"What? What did you say?"
"didn't do nothing wrong..."
"Who are you? What are you doing here?"
The opening of the hoodie turned slightly towards Mogo, briefly flashing an eye from within. Too big. Too oddly placed for a human head.
"Where is your office police officer?"
"Answer my questions. Who are you?"
"I did nothing why are you asking me have an axe to grind.."
Mogo dipped his torch towards the mound of refuse. The figure turned a bit more, one of it's arms flapping up in a vague gesture of alarm or supplication.
"You don't want me burning this do you? You don't want me exposing what's hidden underneath?"
"It is my home I am home less less home..."
"What's your name?"
"I am homeless lost my way hit the street no roof over my head.."
Mogo reached inside his vest and pulled out a small glass globe shining with white light. He held it close to his mouth, mumbling some arcane phrases over its surface, then he crushed the thing in his hand. For a moment, the space was flooded with a pure white brilliance as Mogo winced and looked away to protect his eyes. The strange figure stood there motionless, apparently oblivious to the spell. It failed to show even a faint response to the flash.
Mogo rubbed his jaw. Any kind of demonic entity would've experienced intense pain from the spell. Anything mystical in origin would've had its nature revealed. He wasn't sure that his magic would shed any light on this bizarre entity.
"Do you have an axe to grind do you have a bone to pick.." The thing gestured limply
towards the other courtyard back the way Mogo had come. "Bones to pick." There was an odd feeling of motion in the mound. Mogo wavered a bit, slightly off balance. Had the figure gotten bigger? Had the debris shifted? He took a couple steps back.
The thing was looking at him full on. The glowing oversized eyes floating over a shell of darkness , the mouth moving silently and out of pace with its words. It seemed to grow in his field of perception. Things in the courtyard where becoming too big and too small. Mogo looked at the flowers in his hand burning. What were they? He'd lost the word.
"Are you charging me with a crime officer charge me with a crime charge me with crime"
"What? What are you asking me?"
"Can you give me a hand with something?"
"What? Do you need help?"
"A hand with something can you give me a hand with something with something?"
"Help you with what?"
"A hand with something....a hand"
Mogo wrenched himself away. He turned back towards the alley breaking through the lines of vertigo twisting his vision. He shook his sleeves as he stumbled through the refuse, dropping colored eggs out of his coat the hit the ground and broke open, obscuring his departure with prismatic smoke.
The ground seemed more solid when he reached the alley, his pace steadying. He adjusted his outfit and proceeded forward. His motions became stiff, his arms moving stiffly from the shoulders. His legs stiff, marching like a tin man. He shrank, his coat changing color, his skin turning to wood. Mr.Fibbs turned the corner and hurried to one of the dead bodies that Mogo had spotted earlier. Only this time, he touched it and the illusion faded revealing the daper magician sprawled out on the pavement.
Mogo's spirit left the dummy and jumped back into its own flesh, which jerked to life as he scrambled to sit up. Mr. Fibbs wavered and sank to his little puppet knees.
"Here Fibbs, quickly." Mogo unrolled a large sheet of vellum underneath him. Fibbs leaned forward and vomited out a jet of black ink on to the page, forming a series of strange characters and abstract angular shapes.
Mogo took Fibbs and set him on his lap as he looked over the markings.
"Thanks buddy. If I had gone in there in person I think I would've been charmed."
"I could feel the creature's influence myself. Somehow bending reality."
"Have you ever seen marks like this?"
"No. A couple parts look somewhat familiar, but overall it's alien to me."
Mogo removed his hat and rubbed his head.
"I'm out of my depth."
