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  1. <--------------------< Grand Central Station - Midtown >--------------------->
  2.  
  3. 89 East 42nd Street at Park Avenue, the address of one of the world's most visited tourst attractions. An amusing thing to think about, since this address is the location of a train station. Yes, that would mean you've found your way to Grand Central Terminal, one of the many iconic landmarks of the Big Apple.
  4.  
  5. Grand Central Station services many key points in the northeast and is home to 44 platforms, more than any other railroad station in the world. Its platforms, all below ground, serve 41 tracks on the upper level and 26 on the lower.
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  7. The building has intricate, artistic designs on both its exterior and interior. It is home to monumental spaces and meticulously crafted details such as the starry ceiling high above the floor. Grand Central is often described as one of the most majestic buildings in the world.
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  9. The Main Concourse of GCT is monstrously vast, nearly the length of a football field and over a hundred feet wide, while also sporting a ceiling over a hundred feet above the heads of the crowd. The main customer service booth is at the center of the concourse. This place is busy, and always bustling, a buzzing hive of human activity.
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  11. The Dining Concourse below the Main Concourse is home to numerous restaurants and food markets, and almost fifty retail stores. Starbucks, Rite Aid, an Apple Store. Grand Central is more than a train station, it's practically a mall.
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  13. <---------------------------------------------------------------------------->
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  15.  
  16. Grand Central Station is abuzz like it usually is. There is a lot of traffic coming to and from every entrance and exit as people pass through the transit hub on their way to one destination or another. On this day, however, there's a bit of a slowdown.
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  18. Down the end of one of the long station hallways where there where usually restroom doors, one of them is marked over with three bars of police tape, shutting it, and a uniformed cop sits in a chair beside the door. A small section of the station is marked off by police tape in front of the police tape, keeping a wide berth from the door, guarded by the lone officer. The cop is a thin black man, grey in his hair at the temples and he sits with the chair leaned on its tear two legs so that his head rest back against the wall.
  19.  
  20. There are furtive looks from the passengers and bystanders, looking and gawking. At the far end of the taped off section is a pair of guys who look like medical techs, bored and grouchy. One of them is smoking, the other leaning against a wall with his arms crossed and his cap's bill pulled down over his eyes.
  21.  
  22. Sam prepares to enter the freight elevator to Pipeworks as he does every day after work, folding away his work-apron and taking out his wire-rimmed spectacles and getting ready to settle in with a nice hot cup of tea and his nightly reading materials. But today is different. Today is . . . ominously different. There has been a crime of some sort, and it seems to have happened right on the doorstep of where NYC's mage population has been gathering . . . "Uh oh, this could be troublesome," Sam thinks to himself, slowing down to observe the scene.
  23.  
  24. Nemesis is parked not too far form the entrance to the station, flagrantly positioned in a no parking zone. She probably has an hour to move the vehicle before someone calls a towing service unless she does something about it. The tall, slender brunette is making her way into the station, twisting to press past the people between her and the crime scene, and heading that way without slowing down. She was originally heading for the freight elevators but a split second decision can make all the difference.
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  26. Credentials and a detective's shield are already coming out of the woman's pocket. "Detective Martin. Can you give me a rundown on the situation here?" Nemesis, or 'Jennifer', speaks in a heavy Brooklyn accent. She just picks out a uniform at random and approaches him like she outranks him- which she does- and belongs here, which is arguable.
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  28. The cop stands with a small grunt of effort and hooks his thumbs into his belt loops. He makes his way to the edge of the crime scene tape and reaches out for Nemesis' credentials, looking them over before handing them back. "A dead body in the bathroom, ma'am. Messy suicide, the other detective said. We're waiting on the coroner to finish out and call it official." He looks like he's thankful for having something to break the monotony of guard duty, but otherwise is just waiting for the whole ordeal to be over.
  29.  
  30. Sam slows down, closes his eyes briefly, and slides his wire-rimmed spectacles higher up onto the bridge of his nose ((OOC: as he activates Mage Sight (Fate,Forces,Prime))) to see if there are any clues available as to what might have happened here, especially if something 'magical' has happened so close to the entry to Pipeworks. That sort of thing could be a matter of grave concern to all of NYC's mages, if true! "Could the Seers have gotten this close to us again?" Sam frets, "Did something happen *to* one of us?" he wonders, a bit worried, as he has a look around.
  31.  
  32. "Mmm. Nasty business." Nemesis nods briefly before taking a deep breath, tucking her credentials away once more. "Who found the body?" She asks quietly, tilting her head as she does. A quick glance to properly survey the surrounding area and then she is continuing to walk. Just assume the uniform will follow her. She's careful as she crosses the tap and heads toward the bathrooms. She examines everything as she goes. No reason to hurry too much. But she wants to see that crime scene.
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  34. Nothing can be seen from the outside of the bathroom in terms of magical sensations. The officer puts out a hand to help lift the crime scene tape for the detective. The bathroom door is closed behind the three strips of yellow and black crime tape and the officer, whose nameplate reads, "Jackson" doesn't seem the least bit interested in moving to remove it. He stops a few steps from the door and doesn't seem to make a move to go any further. He says nothing though, as the detective is from that precinct and has control over the scene.
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  36. Sam, on the other hand, very much -doesn't- want to see the body. He unfolds today's paper from his satchel and sits down on the bench to read, glancing at the clock and the train schedule on occasion. Sam has definitely already seen more than enough dead bodies, during the war, to last a lifetime. Probably several lifetimes.
  37. And some of those lifetimes belonged to friends of his. Sam is much more concerned with looking for any and all evidence of magical interference, effects, or someone's attempts to cover such things up, this close to Pipeworks. He's also carefully but subtly scanning the crowd(s), 'watching for other watchers,' so to speak, while keeping on the lookout for the other Pipeworks regulars, should any happen by. Hopefully one of those Pipeworks regulars is -not- going to be coming out of that restroom on a stretcher in a body bag. Very Hopefully Not.
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  39. Nemesis frowns for a second at the door in question. She looks back down the short hallway. She takes a deep breath after a half second of this and reaches out with a gloved hand to open the door in question. Time to see what is on the other side of the door. Take a look around. Soak in the atmosphere, mystically and otherwise.
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  41. The milling crowd around the bathroom seems to grow a bit as a detective comes on the scene and heads towards the open door. There are plenty of smartphones and other devices taking documentation of the scene, trying to get a glimpse, especially as the door seems about to open. The is one person who is noticed by Aum, though, that doesn't seem recreationally curious. A man about six foot tall with brown hair and an angular nose looks on with dark brown eyes. He wears a beanie and a black wind breaker with black jeans and blue and grey sneakers. He seem intently alert, as though on guard duty, looking, waiting...
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  43. The door to the bathroom makes a loud creak as it opens and to the dismay of many outside, not much can be seen inside as the bathroom angles sharply to the right, for obvious privacy reasons. The detective, however, can see it all very clearly.
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  45. The bathroom is mostly standard: white tile, stalls, urinals, sinks, a long mirror. The body and blood, however, are not standard. There is a black sheet mostly covering what is most likely a body on the ground that is not very tall. It could even be a teenage or a tall child. Long blond hairs stained red peek out from under the sheet. Around the sheet is a large splotch of blood on the floor and it has been smeared around, making the tile all slippery. There are a couple of different footmarks on the floor, outlined in blood, and more smears of it on one of the sinks where the victim had apparently tried to pull him or herself up off the floor. It is fairly gruesome and blood spatter sprays can be seen on the mirror, high on the wall and even on the ceiling.
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  47. Sam looks up as the crush of onlookers approaches, and he folds away his paper, gets up and moves naturally with the pressure of the incoming gawkers, allowing the inflow of the crowd to push him further and further back from the restroom entry. All the while, he trusts the vagaries of Fate Arcana to push him, although further from the door, into a better vantage point from which to observe and/or tail the man in the blue and grey sneakers.
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  49. "They're calling this a... suicide?" Nemesis takes a deep breath and slowly exhales. She clicks he tongue against the roof of her mouth and nods slowly, sighing. She frowns faintly, tilting her head as she considers the deceased's body. The brunette takes a moment to search the bathroom for anything which might be helpful explaining the scene, gingerly avoiding coating herself in blood in the process. "That sounds pretty farfetched at first blush. But... Hmm."
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  51. The man continues watching the door while Nemesis clears the tape and goes inside. The bathroom has the copper scent of blood fully active. Pulling back the sheet, a young woman is revealed, bright blue eyes staring open ahead of her. She wears a white and pastel colored sundress that goes down to her mid-thighs that is stained with the blood pooled around her. There is a thin line cut across her neck, from left ear to not quite all the way to her right ear. Her pale skin is stained from the blood that obviously came from the wound. In her right hand is a pen knife that is clutched tightly in her fingers and resting in the ever-present pool of red.
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  53. Sam will work his way away from the crime scene as though heading toward the next-nearest restroom. Surely a reasonable cover, since the one with a body in it is so very obviously . . . occupied. Sam reaches into his ((Gerua)) satchel, which has come with him all the way from the Himalayas and has seen many better days. Opening the folds of the ((saffron)) cloth inside, he retrieves his phone from the pocket in that garment. Holding the phone in one hand, and the bag in the other, he Casts ((Supernal Veil)) to cover his mystical Will-working from any other observers. Sam then keys in a number as he heads into the second mens' room. Turning the threshold, he appears to speak into the phone, "Ummmmm?" and Casts again ((Lucky Number)), while folding away the cloth into the satchel. After a second spent watching the digits swirls and change to match the phone number of the man in the black windbreaker, Sam remembers that phone number that appears for later use, 'just-in-case' this watcher turns out to be a "person of interest."
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  55. "It's very strange for someone to kill themselves this way. Too visceral. Too painful... I'm still wondering if there's something..." Nemesis is investigating what the woman is wearing, checking for a purse or items on her other than the pen knife, albeit with the utmost care. While she does so she quietly produces a simple talisman. It's a wheel, of all things, held in her palm while she murmurs, "I hope vengeance is swift." The Imago forms within the largely hidden confines of the bathroom, released so that Nemesis can look up, seemingly at nothing, watching for any spirits nearby.
  56.  
  57. There are a few spirits that can be seen in the bathroom area of the spirit realm, none of them look friendly. Three amorphous blobs cling to the walls, undulating and throbbing, but with no clear purpose. Outside in the hallway, Aum feels the tingle of magic in the vicinity. The man continues to watch and wait patiently.
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  59. When Nemesis speaks she does so quietly, and in a language no mortal could comprehend. It's a good thing she is in the bathroom and the other officer is outside. She looks up and over at the blob spirit, taking a deep breath while she stares. "Right. Filth. Did another person come and do this? Another of my kind... Bearer of disease. Humans. Or did she end her life herself and create this- offering for you? We might be able to delay it being cleaned up for awhile if I find something that requires it to be investigated." The woman gestures to the room as she asks this question, like she's indicating a point of interest. The body, of course. While she does Nemesis checks one more time for a purse, wallet, or other personal effects.
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  61. The spirits in the bathroom seem to talk over each other but they generally get their point across. "One. Kill. Much red. Fresh. Bad. Time. Good." They speak of what they perceived through the lens of their own existence, of course, but most of the concept seems to get across. The detective, does however manage to find something the original detective missed in his hesitation to disturb the body. Tucked into her bra, an ID card with her name: Justine Edwards, and her address, an apartment in Inwood.
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  63. Sam will send an actual text message or two, since he has his phone out now anyway. And, since he's actually now inside a functioning restroom, he might as well take an actual leak and wash his hands before going back out, buying time. No "cover" will ever work better than actually -doing- what you are 'pretending' to be doing. All the while, he monitors the feel of the Supernal vibes he's picking up from the direction of the first restroom, so that he has some idea of what the Pentacles of NYC might be dealing with over there.
  64.  
  65. Eyeing the ID card Nemesis takes a deep breath and nods. She surreptitiously tucks the item away into her clothing and straightens before walking toward the door. She is going to take a moment to nod at her new friend, Jackson, make sure the door is properly shut, and depart the scene of the crime. Don't hurry, don't look nettled, grumble about filing paperwork on the way out. Then just go be somewhere else.
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  67. "Have a good one, ma'am." Jackson gives a nod to the departing detective, then looks about for the cornor, seeing no one in sight he sighs and goes about resealing the door to the bathroom with crime tape. The crowds continue to linger, and a few people even try to find out what is going on, shouting questions to Nemesis as though they were press, which they clearly are not. Otherwise, things fall back to the way they were before the detective arrived and the officer goes back to his chair, wondering how many bodies must be lying around for the coroner to be taking so long. By the time Aum exits the bathroom, the suspicious man is gone.
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