Walking through Touristville was almost pleasant. The nice weather had brought in a good load of outsiders, so locals were all busy trying to extract the maximum nuyen from the visitors while they could. Calls of "Hottest noodles in Seattle!" "Cheap beer" and "Enter our den of pleasures" competed with musical buskers and the recorded music accompanying a dancer. Maybe a dancer, possibly a contortionist, but dance styles had changes so much that Forty still wasn't sure.
Either way, mostly a distraction for the kids circulating through the crowd, looking for valuables to filch fromm the unwary. Forty came near that crowd and she saw the pickpockets ease away from her path, recognizing a more dangerous predator when they saw it.
Definitely a good day in Touristville.
If she'd had time, and more nuyen on her credstick she might even have wanted to stay and enjoy the atmosphere. As it was, she strode quickly through on her way to reach public transit. For probably the hundredth time she ran through her priority list "Get job. Do job. Get paid. Get a bit better apartment. Then fragging learn how to drive, and get a ride of some sort!"
Near the bus stop she stopped to grab fried tofu from a hole-in-the-wall. Food back in touristville was probably better, but she hadn't had time to slow down and eat--that she could do while waiting for the fragging bus. "Job, job, pay, apartment, wheels!"
When she'd finished scraping the last of the unnaturaly green sauce from the bowl she discarded it, but sucked the last of the sauce off the disposable chopsticks, then carefully returned them to their packaging.
Wait. Bus. Wait. Train. Wait. Another Bus. Wait. Final Bus, and finally there was the park. "JobjobpayapartmentWHEELS!"
Checking her link and realizing she still has fifteen minutes to spare, Forty quickly finds a bench where she can sit for a bit while making magical preparations. With pin and pen she marks up the chopsticks she’d pocketed earlier, her nimble fingers not bothered by the narrow working surface. Symbols in place she frowns at the chopsticks—she’s pretty sure no proper Shinto priest would recognize them, but hopefully the spirits will be more flexible.
Then for the hard part, coaxing the kami to infuse magic into the sticks. By the time she’s done she finds her lower lip tender from how hard she’s been chewing on it, but she has her magic wands of mind talking. Well, magic plastic chopsticks, but they’ll do the job. They aren’t all that powerful, and the first one she did will do well to last an hour but the second worked out better--good thing she'd marked them differently to be able to tell them apart. Anyway they are for imminent use and don’t need much power -- The priest who had taught her this invocation had well understood the limit of the new apprentice and had chosen a good spell for a learner. Too bad that he’d been such an arrogant prick that after three lessons she’d blown up at him, and he hadn’t returned.
As she finishes the process she carefully returns the chopsticks to their packaging, protecting them from being touched until it is time to make use of their stored magic. Checking her link she sees that she still has five minutes until the meet, plenty of time to walk through the park to, uh …
And then Forty finally realizes that she doesn’t know where in the park the meet is to take place.
She snarls a curse to herself as she briskly starts striding towards the centre, but then composes her thoughts and calls to the spirit of man she’d summoned earlier (although letting it stay on the astral). “Most honored kami, please aid me in finding those that I seek. Within this park, this natural space bound by the roads, I think you could find either someone who is awakened, or whose essence has been cut at least in half as they turn themselves into more of a machine than a person. Please search for such a person then guide me to them.” As she starts looking around for likely individuals or gatherings using her own eyes she thinks “Let’s hope that the stereotypes of ‘runners are right, and that whoever else is coming to this meet are the only such ones in the park today!”
