As you push the portal open, you hear and feel bells jingling on the opposite side of the door. Stumbling inside, you stand there dripping awkwardly for a second. Gathering your wits, you take stock of your surroundings. A smooth jazz reaches your ears. Your eyes are immediately drawn to the bar on your left. The only well lit area of the room is there. Lights shine down on the wooden bar, and four diner style barstools adorn it. Booths line the walls with a handful of smaller, circular tables in the middle of the room. Blue tube lights line the walls above the booths, creating a cool lighting. The overall atmosphere of the shop was calming, but dark. The dim, blue lights create many dark crevasses around the room that someone could easily hide in.
While there was no one in the room when you first entered a young man, in what looks to be around his late 20's, walks out through a swinging door behind the bar. He was of average height, relatively young, thin, wore a nice white button up, black vest and dress pants. The most striking thing about him though was his hair, it was neon blue. Flipped over to one side the hair fell down to his shoulders.
"Hi! My name is Mystic, and welcome to Fugitive. What brings you by today? -Oh, and feel free to leave your coat on the hanger to your left."
He says. You start explaining your situation, how your friend was supposed to meet you here and whatnot, while you take the man up on the offer with your coat. Walking up to a barstool, you take a seat, shivering slightly. Looking around the bar, he asks if you wanted to get started with coffee, or another hot drink early since you clearly look like you need it.
You nod and ask how much a small coffee would be. "First time's free for fugitives" he says. You ask him what he means, and at that why the coffee shop is named fugitive, furthermore why it is in a back alley. He begins by fully admitting the space was cheap, he gets enough costumers to pay the bills but, not enough for anything fancy. That being said however, since this place is niche and hard to find, it often times lets its costumers be a fugitive from their everyday life, escaping whether it be social situations, responsibilities or a myriad of different things.
Explaining all this while he goes about gathering a few things he makes the coffee and places it down flat in front of you. You take a sip and despite not really caring for coffee, you have to admit this is pretty good. You start chatting and learn he is 29, lives a few blocks down the road, works a different job during the day and runs the coffee shop in the evening to night as a sort of passion project.
After about 20 minutes of pleasant conversation, you start getting slightly worried so you shoot your fried a text asking them where they are. Yeah sorry, something came up and I'll be 30 more minutes, I understand if you want to leave, up to you, the text reads. You would be more annoyed, but the room around you has a very relaxing air to it, and it has been a few years since you have seen them... so you decide to wait.
Telling Mystic about your friend's delay, he stands pondering for a moment. He then says, "Well... if you'd like, to pass the time that is, you could read some of the books over there," he points to his left at a bookshelf you hadn't noticed before.
Deciding to take him up on his offer, you start to get up but are interrupted by, "Oh, and if you wanna sit in a booth, take this." He reaches under the counter and pulls out a small reading light that clips on to the book, places it on the bar, and slides it over. You thank him, taking the light and walk over to the bookshelf. Your eyes flit over the available books, some seem to be very old, while others seem to be almost futuristic looking. You decide to take a book that threatens to fall apart at your touch titled, The Forging of the World. Retiring to a back booth, you prop your feet up on the opposite side, open the book, clip the reading light, and take the plunge.
Password: Creation