Dabbler Returns: Get Punked!

HILTON, SAN FRANSICO
SKYBAR CAFÉ

It was a slow day at the Hilton, San Francisco’s Sky Bar café on the 46th floor. A few guests and families were there doing rich people stuff. Kids were out playing at the pool, while adults were doing things with their money on their phones or tablets. A couple of waiters went to and fro the floor, the blonde female floor manager standing by the elevator doors to personally greet new arrivals.

But the idyllic peace of the room would be disrupted when an elevator from the top floors arrived, and what emerged was a drenched, fully nude older overweight gentleman, running full sprint into the café, as if running for his life from the elevator.

“HELP! HELP ME!” He couldn’t get out fast enough, and ran right into a table, tripping and falling over, sending some expensive plates and cutlery to the carpeted floor. The quality of the ceramics were validated as they maintained their integrity, none of them breaking. That was some good plates, saucers and cups.

The manager approached immediately, wanting to find out what was happening. “Mister Pratt, calm down, please, you’re distressing the other guests. Tell us what’s wrong?”

“Ghost! There’s a ghost on my floor! The entire floor is haunted!” He wailed then broke down in tears. He sobbed loudly and continued. “I thought… I thought it was just the farm… but it’s following me… I didn’t do anything wrong! I DIDN’T!” He protested further, meaning there was a ghost and a story afoot.

“We’ll get help, don’t worry. Please, in the mean time please put this on.” The manager pulled out the table cloth to cover the wet man.

The other guests heard very well. They were murmuring among themselves, though the message was clear. They were going to clear out.

“Ghosts? Did he say ghost?”
“Is the hotel haunted?”
“I can’t stay here with my family. I’m checking out now.”

Then the lights of the café dimmed and flickered rapidly. Mister Pratt started another bout of crying and whimpering. The few folks who were at the café saw and heard enough. Whatever supernatural phenomena was happening whether for real or made up, they wanted no part of it. They got up, they cancel their orders, or pay their dues then promptly leave, leaving the café empty save for the floor manager, the naked old dude, and whoever else weren’t scared of ghosts. Or naked old dudes. Once word was getting out, everyone staying at the hotel was going check out pronto.

Danny buttered her toast. For once she dined alone. Her boyfriend was supposed to meet her, but alas, she dined alone. Tsukimi had her number to text. Yet, she dined alone. Bliss knew, but Danny would prefer to butter alone than to listen to Bliss.

In all honesty, Danny would rather update her Instagram with pictures of her and her boyfriend, regardless of how mow many lonely little men unsubbed, she still got more because regular people and their thirst, but still, Danny buttered her toast in- oh, the toast no longer existed.

Danny held the knife in her hand with the frayed remnants of butter on the edge, while the crumbs all existed on her plate. "This might be subconscious."

Wearing a pair of white shorts with a green tank top, Danny looked up as a man burst into the room decrying ghosts. "This almost feels too well planned." She looked at her bracelet. "Well, too planned."

She sent a quick text message to Bliss, but asked for her wife's help. "Mission accomplished."

Danny stood up. "Hey! Over here about the ghost stuff! Tell me what's going on?"

The man wrapped in a big white table cloth looked over at Danny and came over. Any comfort or distraction from the ghost was welcome at this point.

"Who... who... wait... you're one of those... heroes, superheroes aren't you? I think I might've seen my son watch you fight crime once. With that tall girl."

"...Do you... have you fought off ghosts before? Please, there's a spirit ... a specter or something... I think she wants to kill- OOH OOOHHH!!!" The man looked to the window and fell out of his seat, and unfortunately for Danny's eyes, out of his modesty table cloth. He pointed at the window was bloody texts began to appear.

KENNETH. LIAR. THIEF. TOOK WHAT WASN'T YOURS.

"I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING! Make it stop! Make it sto-hohohohop!" He sobbed. Clearly this was a personal haunting, as it contradicted the first premise- his hotel floor was haunted. The haunting definitely followed this old man... Kenneth.

"No, no, Bliss isn't tall." Danny put her phone away. "Or, you may have meant someone- how tall? Like 6 foot or 7 foot. Nevermind. I know who you're talking about. Yes, she's probably doing just fine in Korea. Again, probably."

Danny got a message back from Ashley Ferrier-Fukuyama. "Why didn't you just text me?"

Danny looked at her phone then looked up to the man. "Haunted mansion? Sounds good."

Blood began to pour down the wall in a cryptic script. "So, are you Kenneth?"

Danny kept texting Ashley to come to the hotel for a drink. She never tried connecting with Ashley. Only resisting Bliss.

The aging gentleman closed his eyes to shut out the sight, curling up into a ball and rocking back and forth. He began to hum a hymn, mentally trying to block it all out.

Kenneth over here didn’t dare open his eyes but he was listening to Danny. “Yes. Yes, my name is Kenneth. Kenneth Pratt. I’m a banker and I handle real estate and assets.” He spoke with his eyes shut hard, rocking back and forth in his table cloth. After “Liar” and “Thief” were being written several more times on the floor around him in blood, they eventually ceased, as he had reached peak trauma and wasn’t getting scared further.

He thought long and hard about what had happened lately that would have provoked this haunting. He confessed like a catholic to a priest, when they felt they might have done wrong. Or were being haunted for their actions. Kenneth had a good logical mind on him, and with no more manifestations he thought deeply. “Look my job at the bank is acquiring… land and properties when people won’t pay their mortgages… or can’t. I closed ten deals in the past fifteen days… But the haunting started… started at my brother’s farm in Kansas. Joel Pratt. There was an explosion over twenty years ago, his entire family was killed. Including my niece, Samantha.”

“But now… now Samantha’s back! She’s calling me a thief for taking the family farm. I got it legally, I had to fight tooth and nail to get it. I mean, it’s my brother’s land and they’re all dead. Why would it matter? It doesn’t make sense. She’s dead… she’s dead… she’s dead…”

Meanwhile, the manager lady keeping an eye on Kenneth got a call on her phone. It was their security guy. She spoke near Danny, her conversation clearly audible.

“…Hello? Ah Brandon, okay, what’s up? You detected an unauthorized log in? Okay. Yeah… we’re fine. We’ve got a client here who’s seeing ghosts. I was skeptical too. Until the bloody writing on the wall showed up. Someone accessed the penthouse security cameras? Okay… coincidence? I don’t really see the connection. High tech ghosts?” At this point the manager looked at Danny wondering if the hero was going to do something.

A perceptive eye would notice there was a couple of pigeons who’d been sitting outside the window for a while, since Kenneth came barreling into the café. Now they flew off and up, towards the penthouse. They looked like normal pigeons, sure, except for their glowly yellow and red eyes.

= = = =

DABBLER

Dabbler was sitting in a utility closet in the adjacent Tower 2 watching it all unfold on camera and through the eyes of her familiars, and on a security feed on a laptop. Getting a hang of technology made her heart stopping pranks even easier. She sips a sextuple caramel macchiato, sugar and caffeine pumping through her veins.

“AHAHAHAHA! Hmph seems I can’t get anymore laughs out of dear uncle Ken. Welp. Time to move on.” Dabbler stops making the haunting manifestations. She switched to a camera feed of the penthouse, looking about the rooms. The connection suddenly cut out.

Unauthorized Access. Connection Terminated.

"Oh darn. I guess using an employee's login when he's off on vacation was a bad idea. Live and learn." She got up and walked to a window looking at Tower 1, where the haunting was happening. POOF. Now she was on Tower 1’s roof. She made her way inside the penthouse and began looking around for important looking stuff, though stopping to admire the interior décor.

"That might not be illegal, but it sounds shady as fuck. If you want the ghost to stop haunting you, take the money and donate it to change the laws so it can't be done." Danny put her hands together and did a little bow. Her good deeds were done. Probably.

Then she overheard the phone call. "Are you expecting me to go do something?" She eyed the staff, then the elevator. "I mean I had other plans. I was going to update my Instagram story."

A poor excuse from a rich trust fund girl and once she spoke it, she heard it. "Okay, fine. I'll do something about it. The security room? Sounds like a trap."

Danny went to spring the trap. A text message came to her phone from Ashley, letting her know she would have back up from Mitsy, the fashion designer. "Great. And I'm setting off a trap." Danny put her phone in her back pocket and opened the door to the security control room to look in.

The security room for the upper floors was not difficult to find, being sensibly located on a floor dedicated to offices and housekeeping. The door was unlocked.

It was a small office with a few desks, and there was one station for all the CCTV’s feeds. A security guy with the name Brandon emblazoned on his uniform was looking at the screens, while downing hot pockets and sipping some milk tea. He looked up at Danny.

"Hey! you can't come in here! This is…” He started, but quickly changed his tune recognizing the hero. “Wait. You’re Danny the Sphinx! I saw you at the restaurant. Let me show you something about the ghost. Since the little show that mister Kenneth put on, silent alarms were going off at the Penthouse.”

Dabbler in her awful witch form was poofing all over the penthouse, trashing the whole place looking for something. She was especially quickly scanning through books, opening them up, shaking them, then tossing them aside when it didn’t contain what she wanted. The moment she realized she was being watched, she made some childish faces at the camera, before blasting it with evil witch energy.

“Do you know her?” Brandon rewinded and paused the video to give Danny a good view of the witch, and the gross evil eye in her hand.

"Shut up, Brandon." Danny walked into the room and looked at the CCTV feeds. Whatever the witch hated in the security room drove her to destroy the cameras. A real dick move. "I'm going to the penthouse. The milk tea doesn't offset how bad hotpockets are for you. And, no, I don't know her. Or maybe I do. I don't know."

Danny walked out of the security room with just as many friends as when she walked in. The penthouse would not walk to itself, so Danny put one foot in front of the other until she managed to get to the door. Her bracelet gave her many avenues to get in. A ram. A key. Something else.

The ram knocked the door down and Danny entered the room. "Alright, whoever is in here, Brandon wants you to cut it out."

Dabbler was halfway through a bookshelf when the doors were blown open. A pile of books lay opened behind her, scattered over the sofa and glass table. “That wasn’t locked you know.” She squinted at Danny for a few moments, before what passed as recognition came over her face. “Heyyyy I remember you. You were shooting a movie! In South America! You were fighting a Russian assassin!” she said, having a very vague recollection of their last outing.

Dabbler had picked up some tricks since then, as her four hands were checking through books, two at a time. Having eyes in your hands and an abnormal brain meant she read them without looking at them with her standard eyes.

She chucks two more books over her shoulders and gets a new one. Her two lower arms she folds behind her back. She showed no initial hostility and was making affable conversation. “You a friend of Kenneth’s? Is he still crying like a total loser? What’re you doing here? Who’s Brandon? Is that your new friend? What should I cut out? I say we cut out the ugly décor in here, everything is just so gaudy. You haven’t seen a scroll of home portal here have you? Or a 20 year old suitcase?”

"The door needed some oil then." Danny walked in while Dabbler threw stuff around. "I am not a friend of Kenneths. I told him to do better things than being a parasite investor. And, he probably won't do that, but if he does, good for him. And, no I'm not a friend of Brandon. Why does everyone like Brandon so much?"

"I don't think I was filming a movie there." It had been a while. "Fighting assassins may have happened. You were the little witch who was- I think helping me and Suzy?"

"How would I even know if luggage was twenty years old? That was 2002. Was there a big luggage revolution?" A book flew past Danny's head, hitting the wall behind her. Danny saw the scroll though. Her eyebrows moved from side to side. Maybe she could do more on luggage and fit it into a tight five while grabbing the scroll. "I mean, who the biggest thing to happen to luggage since the crate is putting wheels on bags."

Danny slid the scroll into her shirt before turning around. "Well, you've got some stuff to do and I-"

Danny ran into a bespectacled woman, knocking them both to the ground.

"Ow Danny!" Mitsy rubbed her head. "My glasses!" She started looking around on the floor for her lost glasses.

"Mitsy, you aren't that blind, you just-" And Danny heard a smash as she put her foot down. "That's on me. That was my fault."

Dabbler had six eyes in total, four in her arms. That was cheating. She could see everything that went on and glimpsed the women colliding, but she also spots something in the bedroom that she could only see from being far away. She did her POOF and vanished from the living room and was instantly in the bed room. Good old uncle Ken, slid the suitcase under the bed.

Dabbler knelt down and gets it out, though it was like grabbing a pan out of the oven. “Purification seals! Uncle Ken does remember the family traditions.” She blasts the seals apart with chaos energy, careful not to explode the whole thing in one go. The room was bathed in a malevolent red light.

Dabbler’s familiars – 3 Rodents of unusual size and 2 pigeons, who were basically rats with wings, converged in the living room where the two heroes were. Without input from their master, they saw her take something. They emerge from their hiding spot and formed a line on the threshold where there used to be a nice set of oak doors.

If Danny had it in mind to leave, the little critters would quickly begin harassing Danny. These were not normal pigeons or rats of course. They were evil, their glowing eyes made them evil. The pigeons would fly into her face while the rats tried to crawl up her shirt to get at the scroll. It wasn’t about hurting them- it was about keeping them here.

"My glasses pull this outfit together!" Almost feeling a bead of anger, Mitsy rose. "And, without them I can barely see the angry rodents coming for us!"

A part rose in Danny's lips as a series of questions rushed to her lips. Her brows pushed an ocean worth of waves across her forehead. Rodents? Blindness? Outfits? The pigeons arrived before the thoughts.

The pigeon hitting Danny in the face caught her off guard. She fell back, hitting the ground hard while the rats began an invasive search of her person. It was at that point Danny decided a little magic and heroism would need to rid this room of the rats not currently talking to her.

"Is the red light good or bad?" Mitsy took a step back only for a pigeon to force her back to the room.

"Bad!" Danny tried to her access to her bracelet. "Always bad!"

Before Danny could materialize a sword and shield to fend off the pesky vermin, they wrapped her arms to her side with the drawstring from the curtains. Another pigeon corralled Mitsuko to trip over the downed Danny while a rat trussed her up too.

And it got worse! One of the rats managed to snag the scroll. Danny and Mitsuko both rolled over in an attempt to get back to their feet, but found it much more difficult to do now. They could just watch as the rat delivered the scroll!

Dabbler finally, safely removes the protection wards on the box and opens it, and when she the contents it was good. So good, the witch Dabbler involuntarily went back to being human Samantha. The teenager from the American bible belt in her long blue Alice in wonderland dress. The reduction in mean-ness meant the familiars stop their assault and fly to Samantha, which made her look like some demented Disney princess.

“Narato, be nice and hand the lady her glasses.” Narato, who at this point had been rounding circles around Mitsy, handed her the ruined glasses.

“… Wow this must be a career low, to be beaten by three rats and two flying rats!” Dabbler remarked, having the scroll be returned to her by one of the rats. “Thank, mister Ratweiler.” She said, courteously receiving with two hands while her other two hands (she still has 4) flipped through the pages of the book she was reading. Her lower two hands held up the scroll and Dabbler read it with her hand eyes, transforming into a key.

“Now, I’ll be nice for a change, and tell you what I’m doing. I got a magic ritual here you might find interesting.” Dabbler said to Danny and Mitsy, while she went to the closet door with the magic key, using it to enchant the door. She continues. “Soul Separation. It is used when two beings are fused into one. I’ve been looking for it a long time so I can make Dabbler go away. But I’ll need your help.”

As if to prove she wasn’t lying, she showed Danny the book she was reading, detailing said ritual on soul separation.

Danny sat still while the rat ran around her and Mitsy. "A pigeon flew in my face! It's alarming!"

"Yeah, and these glasses are broken." Mitsy did not seem to focus much on the important matter, but put more emphasis on the fact she could not focus.

"Well, let me read it." Danny leaned forward, pulling Mitsy with her. "I mean, what happens to Dabbler when you do that? Does she disappear or is there no one left to control her. For whatever control you can say you had on her."

Danny began to shake, throwing Mitsy from side to side and sure enough, the draw string lacked the strength to keep the two of them trussed together. "How sure are you that this won't make everything worse? I don't know if an unchained Dabbler is the best thing, even though it sounds terrible to say it like that, but still."

Mitsy tried to collect herself off the ground, rubbing her head. "This all sounds very dangerous. You should consult with a magic expert."

"She's right." Danny put out her hand. "Let me read this scroll. I can act as the medium."

Dabbler eagerly showed Danny the ritual book, and the whole ritual, showing that there were secondary circles where the beings would end up. “We’ll both be bound inside magical circles after the separation. See. We’ll need an advanced summoning circle set up and shiz. When Dabbler gets out, A ton of magical salt and other components. Luckily, I know just the place.” Dabbler got up, opened the enchanted door and went right through, keeping the door open. The door had been enchanted with the Home Portal scroll, in this case, Dabbler’s home, the Pratt farm way over in Kansas.

Unlike gloomy San Francisco, it was a warm, sunny and pleasant afternoon in Kansas. Well, as pleasant as standing in a 20-year-old midwestern house that suffered an acute case of explosion in the basement and losing the entire front of the house could be.
The door in San Fran had connected to the last good door at the Pratt residence, the kitchen door, and to the dust covered but otherwise undisturbed. Dabbler put a rock in the way to keep the magical door open.

Samantha had to pause right there and have an acute case of sad backstory. She looked at old photos that managed to stick to the fridge door, her cultist parents living the American dream. Samantha’s grade school photos with her friends. Samantha drawing up her first magical circle.

Dabbler took a seat at the kitchen table, a few empty, dusty plates still there. With her illusion powers she conjured up a pitcher of milk, a nice big apple pie on the table. And her dead parents. Dabbler was doing a big sad.

Abigail Harkness was a bright cheerful woman who gave her guests a big smile. She was pulling out a big roast from the oven. “Hello dear, welcome home! Oh, you brought friends! Welcome, welcome! Please pull up a seat and have some pie. It’s a family recipe.”

Joel Pratt meanwhile sat at the head of the table reading a big magical book. “Hey champ! who's your friends?”

Big sad indeed.