Shortly after the mission to fight GLaDOS, Vega remembered something. A little niggling feeling that had been in the back of his mind for a while finally crept forward. People were missing. People he knew.

Chief among these were Roxie Schreiber and Yuri Otani, two of the best friends he's had on this ship. They've been missing for... he's not sure how long, but it still feels wrong to not have noticed their absence.

But they're not dead or anything, right? Just gone.

It still feels weird. He feels like he needs to do something, if only for the memory. Vega heads down to the city, finding the old path to Roxie's favorite hideout.

Feel free to intercept him on the way, though.

Roxie's lair is much as it has been, though there have been a few changes. With the girl's paranoia inducing the place to run at half-alert status, the runes across the outside walls stand out in softly-glowing dark-edged curlicue, and odd posts topped with silver-chrome metal orbs stand out at odd angles from the building, humming softly. On the edges of the roof perch things like small birds carved out of bits of ivory and fragments of office supplies.

On a level past the physical, the entire building glows with a soft supernatural aura—practically broadcasting that it's at weapons-readied status.

But the door is open, as it long has been, and there is no impediment to entering. Won't you come in?

Roxie's little office-turned-into-lair is open for business today: the front door is open, the curtains have been drawn, and even the runes scribed into all the walls seem brighter and cheerier. There's a new addition, too: racks of archaic-looking weapons and armor of varying types now decorate the walls of the waiting area inside, as well as a few odd sets of glass vials with unknown liquid, scroll cases, rods and staves.

Roxie herself is waiting patiently for her subjects to arrive, and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is wafting on ambient audio from hidden speakers. The only thing to oddly offset the positive atmosphere is that one of the doors in the hallway has been sealed shut with multiple padlocks.

Somewhere in the City there is music... and it's loud. For blocks, easily, it can be heard pouring out from open windows and doors of the building it's coming from, and closer in, the bass can felt as much as heard.

And the building—well, the little independent office has been sharply redecorated, walls scrawled with bright runes and complex glyphs that seem almost like hyper-abstract graffiti, some of the windows methodically boarded over, the freestanding sign replaced with large, hand-lettered block print reading ROXIE'S, and under that, freelance monster removal &
artifact creation.

Maybe you've come by to tell her to turn that music down—or just to visit—or to volunteer some of the materials she asked for from anyone willing.

Roxie has been doing a lot of work here and there on her little ex-vet's-office. It's a small building, barely big enough for a reception area and a few offices and storage areas. She's taken down the alien lettering of the sign out front of the building, leaving it a freestanding blank, and an odd pile of removed shelving and cabinetry sits off to the side of the lot.

She's decided to leave the building to air out, today: there's the faint stink of drying paint coming from somewhere in there, wafting out through the open windows (in all room but one, the windows of which seem to have been painted over with black from the inside) and doors.

And Roxie herself, well, she's sitting in a rolling office chair that's been dragged out onto the sidewalk out front, and her head is leaning back with her eyes closed.