Charity auctions are good. Charity auctions are good.
Sabrina had to keep repeating her mental mantra as she teleported to the front outside entrance of Vorerra’s main business building. It still felt weird for Vorerra to be doing this sort of thing even if they apparently did it every year. From her own run-ins with its younger members to the whispers around town, Sabrina knew they had earned their reputation and seemed to hold steadfastly to it, but it seemed doing some good every so often helped keep people out of their business as well. She just wished they would stay out of hers as well.
But what was it that Aunt Zelda had used to say, ‘keep your friends close and your enemies closer’? And also probably to eat your enemies as well, but Sabrina had never been a fan of long pig, even if it was her aunt’s favorite. She could attend meetings though, especially if Dr. Strange would be at them as well.
Salem meowed at her from his spot on the sidewalk, wanting to make sure she was good to go on her own before heading off to do his own bit of exploring for the day. She made sure to do another check on her mental blocks, not wanting to let anyone slip inside of her head, as she waited for Stephen to show up.
Charity, well, it was hard to say no to that - especially since not all of the magically-inclined schools had oodles and oodles of money to toss around, to spend on things like books or spell supplies. Anything that could benefit education, Stephen was all for - he wasn’t entirely a grinch with a heart made of stone and pebbles, and he suspected that was the case for Vorerra too.
They just did really well at feeding the parts that were the exact opposite, however - and showing them off to the masses.
But fine, not his life. He was just here to help and he promised he’d attend meetings with Sabrina. Plus, Avelina seemed to want to work with them - she’d specifically reached out to them, after all - so the least he could do was meet her halfway. As long as she kept her snotty kid and his frivolous gold-encrusted cell phone cases or whatever away from the part where grown-ups were doing work.
The sling ring took him to the correct address, orange sparks closing off behind him, becoming smaller and smaller until the portal was gone. “Right on time,” he greeted. Things were weird in Vallo now (what? Surely you jest) and his magic was feeling a little wonky and shaken up - but he was trying to go along with his routines as best he could, without succumbing to intense paranoia or anxiety by listening to the whispers about what this all may even be; he paid attention, but flipping out wouldn’t help anything. “Let’s go on and see what ideas they have today?”
Okay, but why did the security around the building seem lax all of a sudden?
Something was definitely happening in Vallo, but there didn’t seem to be any real information about what exactly it was. Something was always happening in Vallo though, so until someone actually figured out what it was Sabrina simply kept doing what she was doing. Not that she had any plans to get involved in whatever might be happening. Her days of running off to try and help out were behind her, at least for a while. After her memory update toward the start of summer, she’d been growing less inclined to step into any of the messes, even the smaller sort.
She’d died once--twice?--to save the world and left behind a mess back home, she had no intention of doing anything close to that in Vallo. Especially not after what it had caused Nick to do and with him struggling through knowing what he had done while being here.
“They better give us the good water today,” Sabrina murmured as they headed inside of the building and were waved over to the executive elevator. Avelina’s people were expecting them.
“Something flavored. Maybe even something fizzy,” Stephen snorted dryly, pressing the button to call the elevator to them. The executive elevator was fancy (was anyone surprised?), and expensive with its neo-gothic styled cast iron; surely it cost millions of dollars by itself, and Vorerra certainly flaunted the price tag.
The building itself was a showboat - a cream and gold lobby, complete with a ‘catwalk’ which floated and led to other meeting rooms and offices. But it was the executive elevator he took with Sabrina, making their way up to the right floor. Ding - there went the door, parting like the Red Sea, and Stephen stepped out into the hallway.
It was quiet. So very quiet. Quiet as a tomb - that wasn’t a good sign, was it? “Is it the same room as last time?” he asked - because maybe they’d switched things around and just conveniently forgot to mention.
“I think so.” She’d also recognized the lack of sound coming from well, anywhere. The others could have been off doing tasks elsewhere though or maybe everyone was coming in later. Hopeful little excuses to help push down the dread that had been slowly filling her up.
Sabrina waved the door open as they headed into the meeting room where they were supposed to be meeting with Avelina and a few other members of her coven. Fresh bottles of water were set out on the expansive table, along with a basket of fruit and various pastries from around the city as well. The screens were all on, ready to be presented, but the Vorerra coven members were all slumped in their chairs, heads rolled back and eyes white. One of them had collapsed onto the floor near the window, though Sabrina saw that she had the same absent expression on her face as the others.
She didn’t want to let her mental shields down and check to see if the same had happened to everyone else in the building, worried doing so would have it happen to her as well. So she took a step backward and headed to a different door, opening it and finding similar inside of that office and the next before she headed back to Stephen.
“This really can’t be good.”
Releasing the hold on any kind of mental shield was definitely not a wise idea - Wanda had worked to rebuild them for both her and Stephen after Vorerra somehow found a way to breach the gates, and he wasn’t about to rock the boat there. But this - this was something.
Sabrina went off to check another room, and Stephen immediately strode further into the Conference of Dead People (or - shit, he hoped they weren’t actually dead) to assess what was happening. He checked for a pulse on some of them, deducing that they were indeed alive - but somehow they’d gone unconscious and it was a prolonged state of being there.
Just in case, he knelt by the woman on the floor - yep, same state. None of them were responding to sounds or other stimuli. Though for her, he hoisted her up to get her into a sitting position. “Hard to tell what happened,” he said once Sabrina had returned. “It doesn’t look like there was any trauma. No bleeding. A coven-wide stroke? Some kind of infection...” he trailed off. “I can open portals though - they should be in a hospital.” Maybe they should call for emergency backup too, if the whole floor was like this.
Apparently his day had just morphed into ‘toss Vorrera bodies through portals, achieve medical care’ so that was fun.
“I think we might want to call for some help with the portals because I kind of doubt it's just happening on this floor.” Though it looked like it was only Vorerra members that were affected. The security on the ground floor had been fine when they headed in and there had been a few others milling about. “We might want to get people to check on other Vorerra members.”
Sabrina knew they didn’t all work in this building and none of the kids her age would have been there. She pulled out her phone and sent off a quick message to the one girl who’d squealed on the others, hopeful that she’d get a response, but there was nothing. It didn’t mean anything exactly--maybe she was just busy--but Sabrina had a feeling that wasn’t it. Not with everything else going on in Vallo and the unsettling feeling that had been over the world lately.
“Yeah, definitely some help,” Stephen agreed, exhaling slowly. “I can open that many - “ And he had, for that battle on the Hudson when those who had been nothing but dust lining the atmosphere for years suddenly returned and had to go to war against Thanos’s forces - both he and Wong opened plenty of portals. “But...I feel kind of weird too.”
Nothing like this, obviously, but it was still distressing. Off, somehow. He’d try not to focus on it and would get the job done - many would have just left Vorerra to rot along with their expensive pastries and organic fruit, but Stephen didn’t really see any reason to do that.
“Should we alert other Outlanders?” he asked. “Use the network? Maybe you know people who can come and help and check on others.” Also known as, Sabrina had plenty more friends than he did.
He’d just be over here, in the corner of the conference room opening the first portal - he’d open at least one on each floor too, if need be. That was the plan.
It wasn’t that Sabrina doubted Stephen--usually he probably could open enough portals--but considering what they were seeing and everything else that had been happening, she wasn’t so sure he could currently do that. So yeah, she was going to contact the network. “I’ll post and see who can come and help,” Sabrina told him, already clicking over to that app on her phone.
“I’m just hoping this isn’t happening in other places too.” Because if it happened elsewhere and wasn’t an isolated incident then it could start happening to them too, couldn’t it?