Thursday, October 23, 2008

Book 3: Doc Quantum and the Circus of Midnight Lies

As a special treat, the cover blurb to Rey's third upcoming Doc Quantum book,
based on the group's first encounter with the deadly Midnight Circus!

Intent on taking a much-needed break after their recent adventures, Doc Quantum and his friends are lured to an evil circus where the vicious Ringmaster, Devlin Cavenaugh, has dark designs on the brilliant scientist. He intends to have his pet scientist, Dr. Fowl, create a clone of Doc Quantum! And Doc is separated from his faithful wolf shifter companions at the worst possible moment when they discover that the malignant masquerade is infested with the influence of their race's deadliest enemy!

But Doc Quantum is not without allies! After gaining the favor of the mysterious and lovely Etherian elf Lady Ishtar, who was once worshipped as a goddess but has now fallen under the sway of the Ringmaster's hypnotic powers, Doc Quantum vows to find a way to break Cavenaugh's control and free everyone imprisoned by the circus. In order to save the victims of this calamitous carnival, can Doc Quantum rouse the good in his evil double's heart? And will his wolf shifter allies be able to escape their own trap in time to help him?

Book 2: Doc Quantum and the Pendragon Seal

The popular acclaim of the first book leads to a publishing contract! Rey's second book, to be published a few months after the first one (hey, it's pulp; quantity over quality) is based on their three-part Enter Tillingtast adventure. Rey has graciously agreed to release the cover blurb before publication for his dearest fans.

A rival scientist has come up with an insane scheme! In a bid to recapture his country's ancient glory days, Dr. Tillingtast plans to fling England into the past using the energy harvested from captured wolf shifters and a powerful, precious Etherian artifact. Doc Quantum and his allies must do battle with the mad Tillingtast and the vile Sir Quinn to save England, even as they contend with the malevolent Illuminati, who pursue their own designs even as Doc Quantum saves one of their misguided agents.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

The Return of Tillingtast (oh yeah, and King Arthur)

To England! Ambrose wants to try to convince Tillingtast that Sir Quinn is a bad guy. Faris points out that won't work until they know what lies Quinn has been telling him.

In England, they hear a report that two robot knights robbed the British Museum on horseback and stole the Glastonbury Round Table. Following the trail away, it leads to the dead end of an alley. Ambrose finds a secret switch that opens the wall...and on the other side is Wales.

Ambrose hesitates. "See...if I go with you guys, he'll be suspicious. But if I go by myself...I don't wanna go by myself." Faris and Mark point out that Tillingtast doesn't know them. Ambrose smiles hopefully.

Mark rolls his eyes. "I'll go with you."

The Garou sense recent Umbral upheaval. All the spirits have taken cover. There's a temporal disturbance ahead--the castle on the hill. A very functional castle. Flying Balor's flag. In a four square mile pocket of Mythic Age.

Ambrose guesses that Tillingtast rebuilt the time machine using the Round Table to travel back along its time line, probably using fae energy to power it, but from where? He spots projectors on the towers.

Disguising themselves to suit the time (Saxons), the group heads in. Ambrose heads right up to the castle, escorted by a dubious Balor, who says Tillingtast is insane (no news there). Inside, a lion spirit is trapped in a cage, providing power to the time machine. The table is being used to try to open a gate to a locked realm (Sonya puts her bet on Avalon). Ambrose admires the robot knights. Tillingtast greets him enthusiastically.

The others sneak into the castle as staff helping with the feast Tillingtast decides to hold.

There's a young unconscious man being held in the castle. Tillingtast says it's Lancelot. "My mistake. Apparently this is why he didn't show at Caemlynn." As to the lion, "Lions always look angry. He's happy, Ambrose! He brought down many Balor when we caught him. Flailing about all teeth and fangs. Very happy." And Morgana is upstairs, locked out of Avalon, behaving erratically, getting along very well with the Balor. "They all like Fomorians," Tillingtast observes.

"This is...very impressive," Ambrose admits. Tillingtast adds that he also stole the Crown Jewels of England. Ambrose admires the diamond.

Jonas and Aila go into the kitchen to poison the food with iron filings (Jonas's suggestion). He backtracks when Jared and Rey are horrified (though probably plans to go through with it anyway). Rey and RF head upstairs to deliver mutton and come back down to tell the others that Tillingtast is holding Lion in a cage. Lion is one of Griffin's brood. Is this the reference to Griffin's favored son?

Lion's got about an hour left to him, the way his energy is being drained. Tillingtast says the castle is charged enough to hold for about a day after Lion kicks the bucket. Ambrose mentions that Black Spiral Dancers, who Tillingtast has guarding Lion, are Pictish, which has the intended effect of Tillingtast booting them out of the castle on grounds of being Scottish.

Tillingtast asks Ambrose to sedate Lancelot. Ambrose clandestinely feeds the man a system purifier instead to clean out the sedatives he's already got in him. The others come in with food.

When Tillingtast decides to move backward in time a bit further to speed up unlocking Avalon, the Garou decide they can't wait. They attack to save Lion. Two BSDs haven't left, seemingly mesmerized by Lion. RF and Sonya begin pulling out tubes from Lion's cage. Rey stands next to the door to lock and guard it. "Rey," his sword says. "Morgana is on the other side of the door."

Lancelot wakes up and begins trashing stuff, attacking Tillingtast when the scientist starts yammering about English greatness and Lancelot sleeping with the queen. Jonas makes a snide comment about Tillingtast having a thing for Ambrose. "That's just creepy!" Ambrose snaps at him. "Yes!" Tillingtast agrees, then makes a weird face.

"Hey, didn't Lancelot have a horn?" Ambrose asks. Then he spots MiBs in the doorway, aiming something at the Garou, and knocks them down. "No, Ambrose!" Tillingtast calls, still under the impression that Ambrose is on his side. "They're on our side!"

The BSDs turn into white wolves and start attacking robots. After they discover they can't get through the glass, Sonya grabs a robot and smashes it into Lion's cage. She feeds Lion the Gnosis she can spare, considering the battle, and asks Turtle to help him. Lion is too weak to protect himself.

Mark trips Morgana as she busts through the door. Jared tosses Lancelot the horn. Balors turn up behind Morgana, and get vaporized by a familiar boy with a staff. Lancelot blows the horn, which turns the burgeoning gate into a sucking vortex. "Is it a Pavlov response?" Aila complains. "Get horn, have to blow it?" Then everyone gets drawn in.

Everyone's split up. Sonya, Rey, RF, Tillingtast, Mark, and Aila fall into 1927 Chicago, in an alley. Tillingtast gives them the time frame, then leaves, telling them, "I'm going to England."

Then at the end of the alley, Doc Eon and his Terrific Trio turn up. Rey fanboys.

The others land in Avalon. One of the BSD/White Howlers land on Ambrose, who complains that he's very heavy. "RrrRr," the Howler replies, rolling off him. Looking around, they notice a big tomb and a castle. Lancelot is confused. Ambrose starts to explain about King Arthur's death, but Jonas shuts him up. "Oh, right." Ambrose remembers how it had a lot to do with Lancelot not being there, and revises his story. "He was fairytale-killed and his body was kidnapped by Morgana who brought him here to the tomb."

"So we have to get in there," Lancelot summarizes, and kicks in the door.

In Chicago, Rey fanboys enough to mention it twice. "You've read the books," Doc notes ruefully. He takes them to his awesome urban lair to explain the situation, and says he'll send them to England from there. "I can send you back, but you have to capture that fugitive." Referring to Tillingtast. He takes them to England in his experimental hyper-plane.

Doc Eon calls Rey by name. "How do you know who I am?" Rey asks.

"Your future, Rey."

"He'll never shut up," Sonya notes wryly.

"So Tillingtast is his name?" Doc notes. "We have to stop him before he becomes his own grandfather or something."

"I don't think that'll be a problem," Rey snickers, riffing on Tillingtast's unsettling fondness for Ambrose.

Doc suggests they use sonics to get through Tillingtast's force field, then starts blathering about the science of it. Everyone else commiserates about Etherites. Doc wonders what Tillingtast wants to do, so they explain to him about Tillingtast and the fae.

the folks in the tomb find a long hall. Ambrose throws a rock, anticipating a trap, but nothing happens. Skeptical, he puts up a force field and heads in. And well he does, because lightning bolts blast from the walls and bounce off the shield. Noting that the traps take a bit to reset, he motions the others through.

At the far end, there's a circular chamber with doors in many directions. Each has the blazon of one of the Knights of the Round Table. Gawain's door is notably huge. Lancelot explains that Gawain is a werewolf. He followed a sun spirit, he sasys, indicating Gawain's crest. "Only door you could fit a coffin through," he notes. "Unless they tipped it sideways."

"Okay...," Ambrose mutters.

"You think it's too easy?" Lancelot asks, apparently taking that for criticism.

"No, I'm just thinking how to get the door open."

"Well, you're a scientist. Like your friend."

"He thinks he's my friend," Ambrose retorts. Lance tells him Tillingtast talked a lot about Ambrose, who really doesn't want to know.

Ambrose spots a mechanism on the floor. The elaborate patterns, reflecting the Knights' blazons and the seats of the Table, can be rotated. Lancelot notes there's a spot for the Seige Perilous, but no corresponding shield for Galahad, then starts spinning the mechanisms to line them up and unlock Gawain's door. They head down the hallway.

Which leads to a room with a dragon in it! Lancelot jumps forward to fight the beast. Faris helps the others slip around it to get to the door it guards. Ambrose feels sorry for the dragon, trapped in there. He has to haul Lance along to keep him from getting distracted by a thrilling fight, and then strengthens the door to keep the dragon from busting through it after they close it behind them. "We'll have to deal with that on the way out," he notes.

In 1927: at the airport, Sonya hunts up a spirit and asks if it's seen a big man out of his time. The spirit points her toward town, where there's a freehold. The place doesn't bear any House markings, but then it's during the Interregnum. It's a Redcap bar. Rey offers candy around and asks the inhabitants if any of them have seen a "round guy."

"Fukkin' round guy came through about a hour ago. Shunted 'im into the Dreaming," a Redcap growls, grumbling that some kind of force field kept them from getting at him. "Tammy nearly fit the whole bubble in his mouth!" But since they couldn't eat him, they shoved him into the Dreaming. Rey negotiates to use their Trod to chase him down. "Big gay fuzzy people who don't belong," the Redcap grumbles by way of agreement.

Doc Eon keeps referring to the Dreaming as "Arcadian space."

They follow Tillingtast's trail to a scrap invention junkyard, where they split up to look for him. RF and Sonya, Mark and Aila, Doc Eon and Rey. RF hears Tillingtast harrumphing to himself. He's built a work bench and four or five robots. RF calls the others over. Sonya considers drawing the robots off, when Tillingtast lifts a huge gun. One of Doc's companions cusses to himself and fiddles with an electro-damper.

Rey makes stupid fake Army motions to catch Tillingtast's attention. Sonya makes real ones to signal the pack to surround and shut down the robots. She distracts him with cell phone feedback and the pack attacks. Tillingtast flees with a jet pack, but Rey leaps on him before he gets far. "I'm steering!" Rey crows.

"Steer me to England, then."

"No."

"You're steering me into the ground," Tillingtast rumbles.

"Yep!"

"Horrible beast-person."

Lucky Skunk ruminates over how he'll write this as an adventure. "I'll have to add some ambushes on the road or something, flesh this out."

"Well, it might not be over yet," Sonya points out.

Rey realizes the guy with the electro-dampener is a younger Tink, the head Nocker at Dreamsoft. Doc Eon hauls Tillingtast, figuring to take him back to Chicago and get him back to his proper time. Rey, less of a Dreaming navigator than Jared, guides them as best he can.

He does so successfully, and back at Doc's base, he warns them about the danger Tillingtast poses. Rey has Doc autograph a book for Doc Quantum. "Why did I know you'd ask that?" Doc quips.

"Because you already said you're from the future," Sonya replies. "The bluntness is rather refreshing."

Rey wonders aloud if Doc is Ambrose's son. "He'll never have sex," Mark disagrees derisively.

"Astarte likes him," Rey defends his friend.

"Oh good god," Mark groans.

Entertaining as the conversation is, Doc has to get going. He has business. Sonya carts Tillingtast, belting him on the jaw to make sure he stays unconscious and out of trouble.

In the tomb, Ambrose ponders breaking the summoning circle around the dragon's room to banish or clear out the dragon. "If it's freed, it might make us another exit," Lance considers. So they decide to wait and head on.

When Doc sends them back, the group with Tillingtast is immediately confronted by Nazi ape-men and a walking eye. "Oh my god Nazi ape-men!" is Aila's response.

"Focus!" Sonya snaps. Mark calls Horizon while the others fend off flying Nazi jet-packers and Sonya protects Tillingtast with the Turtle Shell Gift. Jet-men bounce off the force field. "This couldn't get cheesier!" Aila shouts...then sees a guy wandering outside with armor, a beard, and long blond hair, who looks very confused.

RF tears apart the walking eye and beats up rocketeers with the legs. Rey grabs a jetpack and takes to the air with his sword. He sees the confused man, too. "You know who that is?" he asks his sword.

"I think that's Arthur," the sword says, sounding a little wobbly. Nazi jet-men go after him while he absent-mindedly wanders toward the lake a little ways from the castle.

Back in the tomb, Ambrose and the others reach the central tomb, but it's empty. A portal hovers above the open sarcophagus, slowly closing. Well, looks like Arthur's already out. So they leap through the portal back into Tillingtast's lab, and then run out into the fight they hear outside.

"Oooh, yeah," Ambrose hoots in appreciation of the chaos.

"Have you seen Arthur?" Jared shouts to the general crowd.

"Heading toward the lake," Rey swoops past to call back. "I gotta fight jetmen!"

Tillingtast stirs, so Sonya thumps him off the inside of the force shield. Knowing there's got to be one, Ambrose uses his visor to spot a Nazi zeppelin coming in under cloak. "Use your goggles, man!" he calls to Rey.

"Where is it?!" Mark yelps, also realizing there's got to be an airship around here someplace. Rey points; Mark hits a button on his phone. A Hermetic lightning bolt rips down from the sky through the zeppelin. The Hermetic courier stumbles out from his landing point,disoriented. "What just happened? I think I hit a zeppelin!"

"An evil Von Allman zeppelin!" Ambrose tells him cheerily, as the zeppelin comes crashing to the ground behind them.

As Arthur reaches the edge, a hand rises from the lake with a sheathed sword. Jared calls a tornado upon the jet-men. Ambrose shoots down some flying ape-men. Lancelot steals a jet pack and heads for Arthur. The Hermetic heads toward Tillingtast.

Ambrose watches the zeppelin for movement, and spots an SS lizard-man climbing out. "Nazi Sleestak!" he shouts, tagging it so he can follow it with its camouflaging.

Sonya's force shield goes down, finally crushed by a robot knight. The two BSD/Howlers leap on the robot before she even needs to do anything. The Hermetic grabs Tillingtast (whom Sonya knocks out again).

The Nazi fliers are cleaned up. "Anything else?" Rey asks.

"Sleestak!" Ambrose calls. Nobody moves toward it, seemingly stunned by...well, by the fact it's a sleestak. It runs. Ambrose bolos it. Rey walks over to look at it.

"What do we do with it?" Rey wonders.

"It's an officer! We interrogate it!" Ambrose tells him.

"How can you tell?" Rey asks, baffled.

"It's obvious!"

Seeing an opportunity for unparalleled chaos, Rey leaves a message for High King David: "We found King Arthur, talk to ya later!" and hangs up, then starts following Ambrose toward the famous knights.

Jared gets the callback. "Seriously?!" Jared gets to be stuck with the explanation, as usual. Rey laughs at him.

The Garou, meanwhile, do pay attention to the sleestak. It tells them Von Allman wants Tillingtast's technology. "He's tangled with Doc Quantum before," it hisses with a touch of drama. It also informs them that the Nazis have taken over a good chunk of Hollow Earth. They're still beseiging the Great Library and the Rainbow City, and having trouble with the Dero, as always. Von Allman is tapping Hollow Earth's resources, building stuff, and hiding something.

The Garou are kind of flabbergasted about all this talk of Hollow Earth. Ambrose gives the knights some hot tea, figuring they could use a nice soothing hot beverage.

With the mayhem fading, Faris carts everyone to Tara, where he talks about turning the lizard-man ("Sleestak!") over to the Ailill. The lizard-man tells them that Hollow Earth connects to Pangaea and the Garou Homelands. Von Allman plans to build a spirit bomb to blow up the werewolves, but he needs a casing for it from one Wilburforce Sanders. Ambrose explains that he's an Etherite armorer who specializes in indestructible materials. He's usually to be found at the Gernsback Continuum, but he's currently on a speaking tour for Paradigma and not due back for three weeks.

Rey gives Ambrose the autographed book, which says, "Ambrose, till we meet again," and then lists a complex equation. Signed "Doc Eon." Ambrose spaces out a bit.

"Do you need a room?" Sonya asks him.

At Tara, they're shown in to the king immediately. "We found something of yours," Aila tells David.

"I think he belongs to himself," Ambrose counters.

"It was a joke, and you ruined it!" Aila laments. "Why...?"

Ambrose calls the Etherites to warn Dr. Sanders, and to tell them about Von Allman taking over Hollow Earth and blowing up the werewolves. "He has a thing for them, in the bad way."

"Like the Tillingtast way?"

"No, in the 'I'll destroy you all' way. And what?!"

"Nothing! He just really likes you!" Ambrose is requested to try to talk sense into the good doctor. Ambrose ponders getting King Arthur to come talk to him. That'd certainly get through to him.

Book 1: Doc Quantum and the Ether Paths

Based on the Ambrose's own Etherspace-wandering history and the group's first few adventures (the first session through Nighty Knifey), Rey's first book is published! Since you're one of our most esteemed readers, have a peek at the cover blurb:

After an experiment goes awry, Doc Quantum and his faithful mystic friend Marcus are thrown through time and space to find themselves wandering the mysterious and distant paths of Etherspace! With the help of their new-found allies, who belong to a shape-shifting race of Etherian wolf people, they discover a databank containing forgotten secrets of a long-lost wolf-shifter civilization. Indebted to Doc Quantum and impressed by his noble ideals, his Etherian friends choose to follow him back to Earth and aid him in his quests.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

There used to be a chantry there

Ambrose sends a letter to Doc Eon's action sidekicks. Rey and Mark protest that mail is too normal for such a job. Ambrose tells them about Alexis Hastings' experiments with telepathic snail telegraphs. Even the fae think that's bizarre, though Faris points out that the Grail armor is said to be guarded by telepathic snails.

Ambrose informs them that he sent the message the old-fashioned way because the old fellows are comfortable with regular mail...and anyway, it's nice to get letters sometimes.

Jared gives the key and the werecat to High King David. Rey has his first novel, Doc Quantum and the Ether Paths, published--the first of a new pulp series.

RF gets a memory-vision about a reservation in New Mexico, where he sees an abandoned caern with some kind of big machine sitting on top harvesting Gnosis from it. He has the impression that it's happening either now, or soon.

Since only eight of them can go to the Circus anyway, they split up.

RF takes Ambrose, Rey, Olesya, and Caleb to the caern. Sonya goes to the Midnight Circus with Jared, Mark, Jonas and Aila.

In the desert, RF hunts up some locals to learn about the site. They say some surveyors went there recently from Endron. RF is sure the rig is Ambrose's sort of thing, but Ambrose says he needs a closer look to get an idea of who might've built it. So they plan to sneak out to the location under cover of night.

In Chicago, the rest of the group get on with their thing till the Circus arrives. Aila notes a kid at the arcade who's older than he's pretending, and warns her friends away from the Circus...but that just makes this kid interested. He likes to play the original Gauntlet, and introduces himself as Max. Says his family is from New York.

"This is way boring compared to New York," he comments in a disaffected tone.

"Yeah, last time I was there, there was a lot going on," Aila agrees cheekily.

Max says his parents work for some corporation--he doesn't know what. But he's been lots of places: London, Hong Kong...he says he likes Italy.

The rig on the New Mexico caern is Von Allman's work again, and it's not drilling for something so mundane as spiritual energy. They're drilling for caern history. Pondering what sort of information he could want so badly, RF tries to "remember" what knowledge this caern contained. Information on pathways to the Mokole homelands...information on a ritual regarding Eater of Souls.

"Why's he got such a hard on for it?" Rey grumbles.

"well, it's the ultimate death ray, if he could harness it," Ambrose poins out.

Olesya spots Nazi guards--ape-men in SS uniforms, led by an Etherite in a Victorian waist coat. He's a young guy; Ambrose doesn't know him. Rey and RF spot the Progenitor Nephandus further up the hillside, also skulking. "What's that?" Rey asks.

"I think it's a cravat," Ambrose replies absently, eying the Etherite.

"No, that."

"Oh, snap."

In the Circus, Devyn meets them at the entrance. Aila greets him cheerfully. "You realize," he warns, "that you can't interfere with me in any way while you're here, or you'll break your little pact." Jonas mocks him about selling evil candy apples to children, which Devyn thinks is asinine. But he does point out that under the terms of the contract, they can see barbs and taint.

Jonas and Aila pick on his Snidely Whiplash moustache. "You know, you won't be under this deal forever," Devyn growls.

Jared breaks off and heads to Astarte's court, where he presents the Autumn Queen with a ring made of metal from the Arcadia key, and gathers two more songs.

Aila spots some kids from the arcade, including Max...and the werecat! Jared catches a glimpse and says she's not really Danielle, but a chimerical copy. But...where'd it come from? She's helping set up acts in the big top. "This one looks smarter than the real one," Aila notes.

Danielle hits her hand with a hammer.

"She still looks smarter," Sonya comments.

Back in New Mexico, Rey makes the Progenitor smell like bananas so the Nazi Apes chase him. The anonymous Etherite, annoyed and confused, zaps some of them with an electric prod. The Progenitor hides. With their path cleared, the group sneaks in.

Ambrose casts around till he finds the console. It's being hacked. He tries to pump false information through the intrusive connection, but it's too late; they've already got access to the data.

"Smash that," Ambrose tells the Garou, stepping back. RF rips out the hard drive before the hacker can finish copying the data. It's only a copy, Ambrose warns them. The data is still stored in the caern. He cuts off their replies: "Let's clear out before the apemen get here." But it's too late! They turn to leave and see the Etherite and some of his ape-men standing in the entrance. The exasperated Etherite closes his eyes and sighs.

Ambrose shoots him. "Make him smell like bananas!"

"No. I've done that already today."

"Ape musk," Olesya suggests.

Rey gets an evil expression on his face. That's too good to turn down.

"What're you doing?!" the Etherite shouts at his ape, while the others dart past.

Outside, they see the Progenitor and his Akashic ally fighting more ape-men. "Why do you smell like bananas?!" the Akashic snaps at his companion. "Really poor choice in the circumstances!" The group dodges past that cluster and flees.

The group in the Circus meets with Cara's fortune-teller representative to cut their deal. Protection from the Circus's illusions and immunity from being held by it for up to twelve people, in return for expanding Cara's influence in Texas (she tells them about a purification ritual to draw off the Wyrm's influence). She warns that this does not defend them from the actions of the Circus's personnel as individuals. Devyn may well move against them personally.

They kidnap the chimerical werecat on the way out, tossing her into a sack in her trailer. Decarabas is at her door as they leave, grumbling about her and her show. "Have you talked to her?" Sonya asks him out of clinical curiosity. His eyes widen and he seems to suffer a sudden attack of the vapors. He wanders off, pausing to set her trailer on fire.

They bail out past Devyn, who's at the exit with a pair of Freaks from the show. Aila swings at one with the sack o' werecat, they leap over Devyn and take off running toward Dreamsoft.

Once there, they send Chimerical Danielle to Tara.

Meanwhile, Ambrose and Co. get back to Chicago. Ambrose snags Joe the VA to help him study the hard drive...but when they hook it up, the Nephandic IX girl leaks out, forming out of a black ooze. She system-havocs the room, knocking out Joe (and melting his PC to his crotch, poor bastard.

Ambrose shouts for help, and tries to hold her till reinforcements get there. But she's tough, so he takes the better part of valor, snagging the hard drive with his grappler and throwing himself backward over the bannister into the first floor lobby, absorbing the impact with a neat roll and armored jacket. This at least attracts attention from lounging magi. He throws the hard drive into one of the extra-dimensional vaults set up in the chantry.

Seeing her target put out of her reach, the girl huffs and turns to run. He knocks her down in the doorway. He flings him off over her head into the street, and as Ambrose rolls to his feet, Mark gives her the people's elbow from the other side.

A cop car pulls up on a report of a girl being held captive in the building. At a loss, Mark knocks the policeman out.

And then the Chorister Nephandus crashes through the front of the chantry in a stolen car, stunning everybody by screaming through a megaphone. Ambrose, behind her and thus out of the worst of the sound, wraps the sound waves back around her. "Ohhh yeah. Ohhh, that hurts," she moans, apparently liking it.

Ambrose spins and manages to knock out the IX girl, who's disoriented. Then the Progenitor turns up, coming down the street with zombies. And Ambrose again realizes he's about to be attacked from behind by an Akashic Nephandus. "You're almost as bad as that ninja!" he snipes, just barely managing to dodge.

"How so?" asks the Akashic, looking like he might be offended.

"Well...the ninja was faster," Ambrose needles.

The Akashic begins some kind of move that's so fast he's dopplering...and Jared takes him in a flying leap from the car Rey hits Robert the Progenitor Nephandus with--prompting the line, "Was that a flying fairy?"

"Nice time watch," the IX girl says, suddenly at Ambrose's side, trying to steal it.

Outside, the Garou arrive. Aila flying-kicks a zombie while the others head into the building, except for Sonya, who pauses to exorcise the zombies.

Mark is taking on the crazy Chorister woman. Ambrose shouts a warning to all and sundry about the Dreamspeaker and the chantry vaults. He can get to the hard drive! Mark darts past to grab the hard drive, and then throws himself backward from a tanned hand reaching for his face. "He's in the Umbra!"

Outside, Sonya sees a tall native man, who looks at her, blinks, and suddenly has serpent's eyes. The tainted Mokole. Two homeless fellows who'd been huddled in a nook on the street suddenly...change, and their eyes flash red. HITMarks assigned to watch the chantry! They head for the chantry. The IX girl dodges over, grabs, them, and their eyes turn black as she takes control of them.

The Mokole begins to shift...oh. He's got wings. But then a net launcher drops on him, shot by NWO agents on the roofs. "I was having a moment here!" the Mokole shouts.

"We've got possessed HITMarks!" Ambrose shouts from the front lounge, which now affords a commanding view of the action on the street. Mark curses. Aila grabs the Dreamspeaker's hand as it reached out toward Mark again, hauling him fully out of the Umbra.

Mages hesitate as Paradox crackles through reality like the leading shockwave of a bomb blast. "GET DOWN!" Ambrose shouts. "He's gonna blow!"

...And then time freezes. Ambrose, the only one not affected, sees a teenager (Aila would recognize him as Max step through the hole in the front wall and push the Dreamspeaker out of reality. Time returns as the NWO agents lob the Mokole through the front wall (taking out whatever was left of it) at where the Dreamspeaker was an instant ago. It goes crashing through the rest of the first floor and out the back.

When the dust clears, the rest of the Nephandi are gone. The MiBs gun down the rogue HITMarks. One of them looks at Ambrose and says breathlessly, "We'll call." They take off.

Aaaaand then the chantry head, the chantry's Akashic, and a few other mages return from their grocery run. Ambrose gives them the grin of somebody who knows there's no hope at all of explaining, and chirps, "Well, that'll teach them to mess with us!" Then he starts snagging Etherites to help put up pillars to support the building, since the Mokole took out some of the load-bearing walls.

"...What the hell happened here?!" the chantry head demands belatedly, finally finding his voice.

Ambrose starts to ramble a disjointed explanation. He remembers to point out the poor unconscious cop. "Great, yeah, I'll take care of that," the poor chantry head grumbles.

"No need," Sonya says. "I've got it."

"I just went to get frozen pizza!" the chantry head laments.

"We might need a new stove...," Ambrose considers.

The chantry head takes charge. "Everyone, start cleaning up. All the Etherites but Ambrose, fix the kitchen. Ambrose, write me the report."

Sonya and the pack take over the issue of the hard drive. They'll get some Glass Walkers to help with it. They might have a safer angle to work from. Ambrose asks around, but nobody else saw the boy. He's confused, because the kid didn't just stop time, he paused the Paradox.

Aila meets Max again the next day. She takes him to Dreamsoft since he's disappointed about what he perceives as the death of good arcades.

As it happens, Ambrose is there to meet Rey before they head off to visit Joe "Lucky Skunk" Ross, one of Doc Eon's guys. He spots Max, and recognizes him as the kid who intervened with the Dreamspeaker yesterday. He stops to thank him for saving everybody's bacon, but Max just acts confused. Aila thinks Ambrose is being weird again.

Doc Eon's boys teach him more about using the time watch--he shows Ambrose how to set it so that nobody else can use it--and they spend some time talking about Van Allman. All agree that Doc Eon's around someplace, probably laying low.

Rey asks copyright permission to use Doc and the rest. "Hey, you got the watch," Joe shrugs. Rey gets stuff autographed.

When they return to Dreamsoft, Ambrose decides he's curious about Max and decides to check him out. "Going to hide and take some special pictures?" Faris ribs him.

"Yeah," Ambrose answers distractedly. "I think...oh, that's disgusting!" But scans aren't conclusive. Max does look more like a mage than anything else, but there's something odd about it, and his timeline runs backward.

When they get back to the chantry, the head drops by to tell Ambrose he won't be charged for damages...then, glancing at his desk, asks what he's doing with photos of a boy. Ambrose explains.

"What, like Merlin?" the man asks incredulously.

Ambrose is amused. "Yeah, that's what I said."

They talk a bit, the chantry head catching up on Ambrose's crazy life--and kind of curious about werewolves. "What do you call space...Umbra...around werewolves? Squmbra?"

"It makes them happy to use their words," Ambrose says dismissively.

"Wow. Those're the words I use too. Way to be condescending about us 'primitives,' Ambrose."

The chantry head muses that Ambrose leads a strange life to be able to be believed when he says that this kid is the same...whatever that froze time as an explanation for how he's not stalking children.

After a couple of very, very long days, it's time to hit the hay. Ambrose is awakened at 3 am to the sound of the time watch beeping. "Temporal disturbance. Sir Broderick Quinn, Wales," it tells him.

He calls Faris, who gives him a hard time about the kid again. Ambrose interrupts. "Would you know Merlin if you saw him?" Faris allows that he might, if he watched for the narrative flows. "Try that next time you see Max!" Ambrose hangs up on Faris, then his phone rings again.

"AMBROSE! It begins!" booms Tillingtast's stentorian voice, then he hangs up. Ambrose stares at the phone in horror.

Then he gets up, heads to Mark's room and knocks till Mark grumpily answers. "Tillingtast just called," Ambrose tells him groggily.

"To Wales?" Mark asks him.

"To Wales," Ambrose affirms dejectedly. "Oh! You know that kid?"

"Yeah...?"

"I think he might be Merlin." Ambrose turns to shuffle back to his room.

Mark chases him. "Wait, what?"

Ambrose calls Faris back, who calls Rey and Jared. Jared also gets a mysterious call from someone who tells him, "Take the Pendragon horn."

Ambrose calls Aila, the least scary Garou. "Tillingtast called. There's a temporal disturbance in Wales. Meet us at Dreamsoft. And I think Max might be Merlin. Or Doc Eon." He hangs up.

Aila wonders if he's drunk.

Ambrose's phone rings again. "Dr. Quintrell, are you ready to talk about what happened earlier this week?"

"I'm really busy right now," Ambrose demurs.

"Too busy for us?" the MiB asks in a tone halfway between amusement and menace.

"There's a temporal disturbance in Wales. I have to save the future."

Thus everybody congregates at Dreamsoft. Jonas and Aila act weird. Mark tells them about Ambrose's "I have to save the future comment," which Rey just adores. Sonya stares at the horn Jared's carrying--"Why do you have that?"--so Jared tells them about his own mysterious phone call. Nobody recognizes the number.

"Did it sound like a teenager?" Ambrose asks. Actually, when Jared thinks about it...yeah.

Monday, October 20, 2008

Sergei Burning Heart is dead. Doc Quantum is born.

Shadow Lord funerals are fierce, as uncompromising and unsentimental in death as they are in life. It takes place under an angry sky, Grandfather Thunder summoned to witness the passing of one of his children, and the Shadow Lords howl to the storm and dance in the lightning that fires the old wolf's pyre.

Sergei's death tale is worthy of the Silver Record.

Ambrose spends the time with the fae children, teaching them the joys of Science!

After the funeral, they turn over the soul eater thing to the Margrave. After studying it, the great Theurge tells them it's the core of Eater of Souls. It cannot be destroyed, but it would be useful in the purification ritual to free the Croatan. Freeing the Croatan would weaken it more. Ice will keep it, especially in a caern of purification. They consider leaving it in the Memory Caern where they buried the Mammoth Bone. Sonya stares at the frozen thing thoughtfully, wondering aloud whether it would be possible to kill a Triatic Wyrm. The Margrave begins to deny it...then reconsiders. Perhaps it is, but he cannot conceive of what conditions would be necessary.

He asks them what they will do next. They need to face the Circus and forge the pact with Cara. Sonya is concerned, though, about getting into the Circus to forge the pact in the first place.

Ambrose has an idea on that. Remember those amulets that the Arcanum agent had, that allowed him free passage? They look at him funny. But that's what they are, he points out; relics of an old pact. If the Garou can study one, maybe they can recreate it or communicate with Cara through it or something. And Aila has the Arcanum agent's business card.

But first, they need to return the children. After that, they will take the airship to the Gernsback to have it safely overhauled and any of Von Allman's nefarious work removed. Ambrose thinks he might keep it, if it's safe. And...why not show the children the Gernsback Continuum before they return them home?

At the Continuum, Rey spreads a manuscript he's written about "Doc Ether" around among the Etherites. Ambrose feels rather sheepish about that--it seems a bit grandiose to have people publishing things about him--but proposes Doc Quantum as an alternative to Doc Ether (taking the name of an entire Tradition for a personal moniker is just gratuitous, in his opinion). Doc Eon didn't call himself Doc Ether, after all, and if anyone had a right, it was him. The Etherites around them have to agree with that.

"Maybe he didn't call himself Doc Ether because the name was already taken in the future," Rey counters, which the gathered Etherites also consider a potentially good point. But Ambrose demurs. "You're his successor," Rey tries again. "He gave you the watch."

Ambrose freezes. The room goes silent. When Rey pokes at him, Ambrose pushes back his sleeve to show them the watch, and the wrapping paper.

When Etherites begin to breathe again, they start arguing about titles more avidly. Some of them point about that Doc Quantum is more modern and understandable.

Rey argues that "doc Ether'll go over better with all the time traveling we'll be doing."

Ambrose counters that his last name begins with Q. He wins Rey over a little when Rey considers using a lightning bolt as the dash of the 'Q'. Ambrose thinks that's kind of cool, too.

"Maybe a representation of the dual nature of the construction of light," one of the Etherites suggests.

"Oh, that's very good," Ambrose approves.

Anyway, while they ruminate over that, Ambrose gives all the childlings a tour of the Gerns and sells them on the wonders of Science! Noting that Jared's Dougal squire is blind, he plunks and interactive headset on her. She really quite likes that.

Jared has a private meeting with the High King, handing over two more songs about Queen Astarte that he collected from House Varich at Sergei's funeral.

Rey bemoans Doc "Quantum." Faris suggests Doc Quantum, the 'singular hero,' but Rey wanted Doc Ether, the quantum hero.

The pack contacts the Arcanum agent and arranges to examine one of the amulets. They turn out to be low-level fetishes, containing a Jaggling whose purpose is to ensure safe passage in order to make bargains. They learns they can deal for free passage for eight people at most, one time, in order to get in and make the full deal.

And Ambrose goes on a Seeking.

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Rastov part 3: burning hearts and newborn dreams

Rey, Olesya, and Te Hwan will go free the children. Ambrose rigs the teleporter to send the children to the ship as they're freed. The rest head to the top of the castle.

But as they blink into the room, a force field activates, blocking them off from the rest of the room. Sergei, Sonya sees, has been Embraced. She carefully restrains herself from reacting. Danielle has been hooked up to an energy chamber full of chrysalis energy.

Downstairs, the children are guarded by two war ghouls. Rey casts a silence spell so they can sneak upon them. Olesya starts mauling. Te Hwan summons a totem spirit. They follow a long corridor to a shadowy door at the far end. Rey tries and fails to summon sunlight...but his sword begins to radiate it. The shadows are dissolved and they begin to free the children.

Upstairs, Ambrose hisses to Jonas, "Distract them!"

"Right. Uh..." But then Jonas sees Timon top of the Flux column. The Nuwisha unzips his pants and unceremoniously takes a whizz on Von Allman.

"That works," says Ambrose. He quickly recalibrates the transporter and teleport-hops them out into the room. Aila hesitates at the wealth of targets.

Danielle yells at them from the chamber she's trapped in. "Have you tried to break out of that?!" Sonya snaps.

"Yes!" the bastet replies.

"Have you tried shapeshifting?"

"Ohh!" Danielle transforms and begins ripping her way out.

Sergei, apparently under Rastov's domination from his strangely-wired throne at the room's far end, heads for Tim, who runs and moons him. Growing increasingly angry and frustrated, Sergei's building Rage seems to make him pause.

Caleb guns for Rastov. Sergei activates the Aegis Gift so that things can't hit him.

Ambrose fires at Von Allman with a plasma rifle he snagged from the ship, which doesn't activate. "Do you really zink I vould design a gun-" Ambrose whips out his laser pistol and shoots him with that.

Mark and Sonya exorcise spectre-ridden Empty Knights as they appear. Aila shoots spectres. Jared and Jonas attack robots. Lady alison shoots lightning bolts that drain the robots' energy into a receptacle she has.

Tim continues to tick off Sergei. Sonya takes a look around, noting that the body in the coffin smells more Wyrm-tainted than anything she has ever encountered. There's a pretty vampire, whose blood is being drained into a centrifuge.

RF covers Ambrose's back while Ambrose tries to shut down that centrifuge. "You fool, you'll ruin everyzing!" Von Allman shouts at him.

Caleb cuts Rastov and sees something moving under his skin.

When Danielle frees herself, Aila calls her over to her.

Tim winds up near Ambrose. "Wow, he's really chasing him!" Ambrose glances over to see Sergei chasing an illusionary Tim.

Jared notes that there's nothing stopping him from cracking open that chamber of crysalis energy and letting it go back where it's supposed to. In fact...when he thinks about it, he really wants to. He pauses briefly to think about it, but isn't really coming up with any good reason why not...

Robots attack Ambrose. RF defends him, smashing the things into each other.

Dr. Von Allmans backpack, it turns out, becomes an exo-suit. He goes Lex Luthor at the same time as Lady Alison breaks Rastov's control over Sergei...who looks at Rastov, then at the coffin.

Caleb is now dodging tentacles that emerge from Rastov's body. One darts past him and grabs Danielle. Aila shoots it with a plasma cannon. She's pleased with the success of plasma guns on vampires, so she goes on to blast the other vampires in the room.

RF has to now defend Ambrose against exo-Allman, slamming a robot into his legs and wrecking the servos. Sergei grabs the body out of the coffin, lashing it with the Sunspear Gift over and over again, killing himself along with it. Ambrose at this point has brainstormed the device's workings and start rerouting all power into the Flux column. Von Allman shoots RF with some kind of silver-energy cannon, just barely missing him. Caleb and Aila succeed in tearing Rastov's head off...only to have tentacles from inside suck it right back on.

Von Allman is shouting science crap at Ambrose as he tries to stop him: "Don't you see?! Vampires, zheir Avatar ist in zheir blood!"

"...Yeah, I do see!" Ambrose says excitedly.

"Then if I do this..." Lady Alison breaks in, pointing her gilgul wand at Sergei, and firing it, which sloughs the vampirism out of him.

Sonya throws up Luna's Armor and wades through the fire to help Sergei kill the thing. If he wants it dead that badly, then it's first priority.

Jared finally gives up pondering, and smashes the energy chamber open.

Downstairs, the floor is shaking. About fifty childlings go into chrysalis at once. The Boggan nanny with them--Rose, one of Jared's friends--steers them all onto the airship. "Just want to be there," she suggests to them.

Upstairs, Caleb finally gets a good grip on Rastov, crushing him into a bearhug and cracking his skin open. Tendrils and snapping mouths on tentacles and eyestalks and even less savoury things pour out of him.

Sonya shoves her fist into the gaping hole of the undead thing's chest to grab its heart, and fires lightning bolts straight into it, finishing it off. Sergei slumps to the floor with it, not letting go, dying. Hauling the remains of Abisimilliard away and tossing them into the fire, she scoops up Sergei's body and carries him back out to the others.

As the chrysalis energy lashes out in widening arcs, Jared and the Garou sense the forest spirits moving. All this activity has awakened the Leshyii. Caleb finishes crushing Rastov and the...thing inside him, then Jared freezes it in a tidal wave of Glamour-powered ice.

Von Allman is gone.

...because he has teleported to his airship's cockpit, in the chair next to Rey's. Who draws his sword and goes after him. Startled, Von Allman flees, but stuff in the cockpit activates--bombs placed in the castle. Rey calls the others to tell them to get out. Ambrose tells him he can't--he has to keep the Flux energy from exploding.

Te Hwan uses her joss and swats a button that just so happens to be the deactivation switch. Ambrose finishes stabilizing the Flux beam...and hears a bampf behind him. He glances over his shoulder to see a cyborg tyrannosaurus rex! After taking a second to gape wearily, he lobs a matter disintegration grenade at it.

Rey starts the launch procedure, noting something weird going on in the air with all the Glamour lashing out. It's beginning to coalesce into something... Balefires begin kindling all over the place.

Ambrose finally notes the ice-thing and Sergei's body.

Aila wants to put the werecat on the ship.

"I don't need to be safe," Danielle argues with her.

"You need to be safe or you'll disintegrate all of existence, sweetie," Aila tells her.

And then everything outside stops. Heading down, they find a rainbow key lying in the snow. The fae know, instinctively, that it unlocks Arcadia's gates. Lying near it is a horn with red and white dragons on it. Ambrose recognizes it: the arms of Arther Pendragon. Bits of the metal the key is made of are lying around, so Ambrose picks some up, and finds he can shape it with a thought. He shapes some into rings for Jared and Dierdre.

Rose the Boggan reams out Jared and criticizes Rey. He loves her. Jonas notes that Tim is awfully good at his job, and never sticks around. He's not a young Nuwisha.

Sonya goes to the edge of the forest to speak with the Leshyii. This is what Sergei fought for. She wishes to light his pyre here, and asks the Leshyii if it will summon those who would honor him to this place.

The Shadow Lords come, and the Silver Fangs. House Varich, and the Margrave Konietzki.

Ambrose's phone rings. He hesitates miserably before deciding to answer on grounds that it'd only be worse not to.

"Dr. Quintrell...what have you done?"

Um..."

The MiB starts to speak. Ambrose cuts him off with the story, which goes on for quite a while. The MiB mutters now and then, "Oh my god... Oh my god."

Still sounding a little stunned, the MiB finally finds his voice as Ambrose comes to the end. "Dr. Quintrell...you saved reality. Very well done."

"I'm a Son of Ether," Ambrose shrugs. "It's what we do."

"It's what Electrodyne Engineers do," the MiB counters.

"That's what I said," Ambrose agrees, then adds almost sadly, "We're not the ones who changed. That was you."

There's a brief eloquent pause, then the MiB tells Ambrose he'll be putting a commendation in his file, and hangs up before Ambrose can figure out whether to argue.

Ambrose catches Rey telling the children all about the exploits of "Doc Ether." He takes Rey to task, because he thinks that's an inappropriate name, but he's secretly rather pleased by the idea of earning a nickname. Rey, however, wants to stick by Doc Ether, and decides to run it past other Etherites.

Saturday, October 18, 2008

Rastov part 2: the return of Dr. Von Allman

RF, Jonas, Rey, Ambrose and Te Hwan head to Youngsten's lab. Sonya, Aila, Olesya, Jared, Caleb, Mark, and Lady Alison take Sergei's path. Ambrose gives Jared some of the explosives he got from the Nockers.

Sonya's group find a wall and a stairway down to a cavern entrance.

Ambrose's group find a decimated lab. This wasn't done by Sergei. There are laser pistol marks. This happened maybe an hour ago. Ambrose grabs and ID and keys from a dead technician (the other technician is missing his), takes some photos, and gets a camera working to replay the scene.

He sees Youngsten working with his two assistants, complaining about being relegatedto a basement with all his hard work. "Once that Avatar is reprogramed, I'd better get what I want," the Nephandus grumbles. Then shots are fired--the Etherite cyborg girl enters the room and chases Youngsten upstairs.

Ambrose and the others follow. About 900 feet up, they find a security-locked transport tube. The coordinates go to somewhere above in the caverns--probably another lab.

And indeed it does: another wrecked lab. Schematics cover the wall. Youngsten lies on the floor in front of a machine. Looking it over, Ambrose judges that it takes a vampire's blood and distills its magic into an Avatar, then interfaces with another machine (which doesn't seem to be Etherite-designed) to re-program that Avatar and attach it to someone/thing else. A powerful Avatar, like some of the Traditions talk about the Wyck. Ambrose grabs the schematics, and they follow the next tunnel.

Sonya's group find themselves barraged by their greatest fears. Aila comes face-to-face with Set as he curses her tribe. It shakes her up. Sonya, who seems unaffected, hands her Turtle to hug.

Their tunnel leads out onto the mountainside, which is blanketed in snow. The path wraps around and back into another tunnel. Sonya has begun to spot Sergei's blood.

Ambrose's group follows their tunnel to a hangar bay, which is mostly filled by a big, ether-powered airship. Crossing over the catwalk, Rey strokes his hand along the ship's side and asks to fly it...then feels fine vibrations in the metal. A fight inside? Ambrose finds an access hatch.

In Sonya's group, Aila has begun to notice that the Shroud is very thin here. they come to a long room where Bone Gnawers of Sonya's acquaintance--some of the ones gone missing in Chicago--are suspended in sigil-scribed tanks into which blood is being pumped. Some of them are alive. Aila finds a living technician. Mauled by Garou claws, he'd been dropped in favor of the Giovanni who showed up. The werewolf chased the vampire upstairs. He tells them they've dragged in a lot of fairies to the main lab on the top floor of the castle's upper tower. He saw they had rainbow energy firing into a coffin, "via Dr. Von Allman's machine." They have the werewolves' wraiths trapped somewhere, so Von Allman can experiment on their spirits. Mark grumbles, not liking the mounting evidence of Dr. Von Allman being alive.

"Anyone else have any questions?" Aila asks. Nobody does, so she breaks the man's neck. Then they spot another guy trying to run. Caleb and Aila stop him. Sonya grabs passcards and a castle map from the dead people. The map shows that the top off the castle is really far, but there's there's some kind of tube nearby that runs all the way up through the castle to the top floor. It goes so deep, she loses track of it on the charts. Does it plumb all the way into Hollow Earth?

The airship Ambrose and co. find themselves in is big, very classy, and very Victorian. It's named the Fatherland. Ambrose patches into the computer system and downloads a map. The fight is in the ballroom--Youngsten and six robots against the cyborg girl. Ambrose uses the sound system to disrupt two of the robots. RF and Jonas smash two more. Rey and Te Hwan take the rest. Ambrose throws a flash grenade at Youngsten, who's blinded and staggers off the catwalk. RF catches him with his Coils of the Serpent Gift.

Ambrose looks around, but the girl is gone. They knock out Youngsten, and Ambrose strips him of his gear. He decides to pause in order to rig the ship in case they need a quick escape, and also notes that it's equipped with teleporters.

Sonya's group reach a room that contains the remnants of a truly massive fight. Two dead vampires, and some kind of scientific device covered in scorchmarks. Aila grabs the dead mens' keys. This used to be some kind of development lab. Whatever part they were working on, however, is not here.

Following the tunnel outside, there's no indication Sergei left the room, but his body isn't there. Sonya fears he was taken. Mark rewinds the events on a reflective surface: Sergei slashing through the room; Von Allman arriving; using some kind of weapon on Sergei which knocked him out; and then leaving with him. Mark calls the others.

Ambrose tells him he has a plan: rig the ship for a quick exit, and take the teleporters up to the top floor.

Calling up a map of the castle on the ship's system, he spots a satellite's ping on the radar, and realizes it must be the Technocracy. Mark's group will have to backtrack through the tunnels...or use the teleporter to bring them here!

Which works a charm. Now, they need to know what they're walking into. They wake Dr. Youngsten, who isn't inclined to help. Sonya asks Lady Alison if she can do anything. In reply, the Lady points her wand at the scientist, who starts babbling everything.

A lot of fae children are being held in shadow dungeons created by the Lasombra, guarded by the Dauntain doctor three floor below the top. Only Sergei is being held on the top floor. The tube Sonya saw is energy being piped up from Flux through a pipe driven all the way down into Hollow Earth. Rastov wants an Avatar back, and wants the one from the body the Giovanni gave him. Von Allman wanted to build a pipe fromFlux to Rastov because he thought it'd be cool to feed the thing inside him (which Rastov wants to swap out. Into the body?). Youngsten notices Ambrose's new watch and tells him it's awesome.

Friday, October 17, 2008

Rastov part 1: suicide run

"Wake up, Doc Ether!" Rey prods Ambrose. Jared comes in with a duffel.

Ambrose sits up, still staring at the watch in his hand. Mark still doesn't believe him, but Ambrose demonstrates: there are three of these time watches in existence, in the hands of Doc's three sidekicks...and none of them are this one. "This one is new, Mark," Ambrose says in a hollow tone, looking it over.

Mark really doesn't want to believe him. "It can't be new. Only Doc Eon could build those."

Ambrose shoves it under his nose. "It's new." And so it is, glossy-shiny and not marred by a single scratch.

"Whadda the buttons do?" Jonas asks, trying to stick his nose in. Ambrose points out the ones he knows--these watches are a matter of record--but "he never told anyone what this one does." So of course Jonas hits it...and time rewinds by five minutes. "It doesn't do anything," Jonas says disappointedly. Ambrose stops him from trying it again, looking a little rattled.

Finally Sonya rounds them up, before somebody hits a button they really shouldn't, and reminds them that they're going to Buchenwald.

"Buchenwald?" Ambrose repeats in surprise. "Um...it's story-time!" He tells them the story about Voormas.

Voormas was one of the most powerful of the Euthanatos, and the Master of the House of Helekar, a chantry of Euthanatos assassins who worked for the Council of Nine. But they fell to what Euthanatos call jhor taint, the spiritual pollution of death, and Voormas created a cult. It was called the Consanguinity of Eternal Joy, and its aim was to destroy death. The Council became aware of Helekar's corruption when they tapped the Buchenwald node--a node so twisted and corrupt that the Traditions and Technocracy alike refuse to have anything to do with it besides keep anyone from using it.

Ambrose calls the Council. The Hermetic courier shows up in his usual lightning bolt. Ambrose wordlessly shows him the watch. "You're not allowed to make copies of Doc Eon's watch!" the Hermetic exclaims. Ambrose shows him the package--postmarked 1952. The Hermetic really can't find anything to say.

Instead, he changes the subject. "Are you likely to run into Voormas?"

"I don't wanna!" Ambrose yelps, horrified by the idea. The Hermetic carries a message and Lady Alison ends up coming with them, just in case.

Sonya, meanwhile, checks with Garou in the region, who hadn't noticed anything till heaps of fae suddenly began turning up. Ambrose grabs a few things from the Nockers, and then they follow the trail of the Balor.

It comes out in a rustic little village in Poland. Caleb recognizes it, but to match his vision, there should be a great big castle on the mountain.

Suspicious, Ambrose takes readings--the castle is indeed there. It's cloaked.

There's no one wandering around, but the Garou smell blood. Inside all the houses are dead fomori--almost a thousand of them in all. One person did all this. Sonya recognizes the handiework: it's her great-grandfather, Sergei.

Ambrose locates tunnels going up through the mountain. "Find the one that's least guarded," Jared suggests.

"That's probably the one Sergei took."

Aila thinks the old wolf must be crazy to take this on all alone. Sonya tells her his pack is all head. "A Garou who's old enough...better to go out fighting." She thinks Sergei is expecting them. Aila wonders what Rastov has waiting for them.

"I think he has a death ray," Ambrose cuts in. He hands his spare pair of ether goggles to Rey, showing him the super-science array on top of the castle.

Sonya receives a call from a colleague: the Giovanni funded a bit architectural dig in Italy a few months ago. They sent whatever they found to eastern Europe, then tried to get it back when they found out what it was. Her colleague says it was a body. Someone, or something, called "Abismilliard." And the Giovanni are losing their minds over it.

Sergei left a trail of pure carnage, including the scrap from more of Von Allman's death's head robots. As they follow the trail into the caverns under the mountain, Sonya grows increasingly certain that he doesn't intend to come back from this.

They come to a bridge across an underground chasm emanating what Ambrose calls "transdimensional energy." In other words, an Umbral rift. Sonya gazes into it, determining that the key to crossing is to keep your mind carefully fixed on your destination. Ambrose wonders: if you focus a different destination, will it take you there? Mark thinks so...but they're not sure they want to go to the top of the castle, so they let that idea go.

Ambrose and Caleb aren't with them when they reach the other side. The two of them wake in the village, which is now full of people wearing archaic clothes. "I don't think we're in modern Kansas anymore, Toto," Ambrose quips.

People are gathered around the two of them, poking them in curiosity. Ambrose tries Latin. Caleb retrieves his memory of Slavic, and tells them he and Ambrose are from Paris. When he tells them they're going to the castle, the townspeople think they're crazy. ("You just showed up on our ground," one accuses. "And very good ground it is, too," Ambrose replies.)

In the end, they go to the church, where the priest ushers them in. They learn from him that it's 450 years ago. Ambrose tries to warn Caleb about changing the past.

Caleb asks about Rastov. When he was alive, he wasn't evil. He experimented with talismans and things, and cast spells to make the crops grow. He gives them directions to Rastov's old house.

Mark calls. Ambrose tells him where--and when--they are. Mark suggests Ambrose set a scan to make sure they don't do anything to disrupt time's proper flow. Ambrose notes there's already a function for it on the watch.

The house is a Hermetic sanctum. Rastov was a mage. There's nothing dangerous in here, and they're about to leave when they hear horses outside in metal harness--which means someone important. Peeking out, Ambrose recognizes the knights with their coats of arms: Cabal of Pure Thought. They've come with a proclamation to burn down the castle and free the townspeople.

The knights aren't interested in Rastov's house, so Ambrose and Caleb go back to searching. Rastov spent a lot of time studying ways to avoid death. There's an unusual amount of scholarship on the fae here.

Ambrose spots The Book (that will be Sir Tristan) and ducks from it. It's got a few other unpleasant-looking things around it. Rastov's notes indicate that he experimented with energy from the Dreaming to supercharge his magic. He theorized that it might allow him to mimic the power of the Mythic Age, but he needed a sufficiently primal source of energy. He thought that perhaps even non-magi could use it. His investigations indicated that it could cause significant damage to the Dreaming, but apparently he didn't feel that was his problem. There are a few things missing; apparently he'd come back and gotten some things.

Ambrose calls Mark back to get coordinates to home in on, sets the time watch, and takes them back to the others. Rey thinks this is awesome.

They continue on through the caves till they reach a fork. Sergei obviously went one way, but the other way smells...Etherite. Youngsten. Sonya suggests they split up.

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Time for Adventure!

The Crystal Circle confirm that Danielle was never meant to be a werecat. It happened because she ate her mother and took in her Balam spirit.

The ship's log lists trips and cargo, from which the pack is able to piece together that around 80 children have been taken in the past three years. Aila thinks that's an awful lot of fairies, and notes that it's not all Kithain. Some are Nunnehi and other groups, as well. They start combing the logs to make a list of the ports of call. The trade route runs from Minsk to New York.

Caleb the Gurahl shows up in Chicago, on the trail of missing Nunnehi children. He meets with the pack to see what they might know about it...and finds out.

Talk turns to Sings of Nothing: what tribe was he from? Aila recalls his tattoos and decorations. The markings are those of a follower of the Sun God. For Caleb, it brings to mind a story about Brother of the Sun. Entering a past life trance to remember more, he recalls that Brother of the Sun built a Wyrm cult that masqueraded as a cult of Helios. When he was discovered, the Pure Tribes went to battle against him. In the end, he stood against the massed Garou alone, and walked away alive. Sonya wonders if he's connected to that corrupted Mokole.

Meanwhile, Ambrose is in the Gernsback Continuum, helping study the chair, when he spots a circuit that's actually a Euthanatos-designed talisman. It seems to be the central control chip. When he brings others' attention to it, they...kind of try to pretend they don't notice it. When he takes a closer look, he realizes why. This talisman was created by the rogue Euthanatos Voormas; he of the terrifying sobriquet "Harvester of Souls."

But this has to be reported. Very shortly later, the Gerns is crawling with security types and specialists studying the chair. Anybody who'd been looking at it previously is ordered to stay until they can speak to them. The possibility of Voormas still being alive unsettles everyone.

Caleb's vision continues. He sees himself, petitioned by villagers who need him to protect them against a vampire--a local wise man who has been turned into a vampire by Dracula. They believe Caleb must be the one to deal with it, because this man was Gurahl kin from his family. In Transylvania.

"Ooo!" Aila says. Caleb, exiting the vision, wonders why he didn't succeed. "Probably because he was protected by Dracula," Sonya points out.

"Maybe you died in a giant knockdown dragout fight!" Aila suggests gleefully. Actually, now that Caleb thinks of it, that's exactly what happened.

While they're musing on visions, Ambrose is getting grilled by Quaesitor interrogators (which are still better than Euthanatos). When they get suspicious about his recent exploits, he points out his stacks of related reports. He's never lied or tried to hide anything, even stuff he'd probably be better off not telling people. They have to concede this...and wonder if he fell into an entropy pit.

Eventually, they finish with him and send him home, where he finds a package waiting, with a note saying, "Only open when it's time for adventure!" He shows Mark, who notes that that was Doc Eon's catch-phrase. "I'm telling you, man," Ambrose says to him, but Mark still refuses to believe Doc Eon could be alive.

Rey buys aviator goggles and starts calling Ambrose "Doc Ether."

Caleb is disgusted at being beaten by a vampire. Sonya comforts him...for a given value of 'comfort': "My entire tribe has been trying to kill Dracula for a thousand years. It's no shame." This gives Aila an idea: Sonya people might know who Caleb's past life was!

Aila calls her own Gram Gram to ask her about the Brother of the Sun legend--after her Gram Gram finishes catching up on recent news and Aila introduces Turtle ("Say hi to Turtle, Gram Gram!") Her Gram says that Brother of the Sun had a...sort of pet Mokole. According to the legend, he's supposted to get his 'pet' back right before he tries to end the world through the false cat. Aila's Gram is surprised to learn there's any validity to that. Aila signs off with love to the family.

Sonya has Jonas go hunt up Dances for the Spirits. She suspects that the mage set that whole legend up himself. She calls Faris about Danielle...but he's busy with something going on at Tara.

Sir Guy came forward with evidence of a ring of Balor sidhe selling True Names, and then House Balor just turned traitor and made off with Danielle! They opened escape routes into eastern Europe, kidnapping as many childlings as they could get their hands on on the way out. Including in Chicago. Including some of Sir Jared's relatives. King David made to pursue, but was fought by a Dreamspeaker in the Great Hall. The mage lost an arm, but got away.

Sonya asks about following the trods the Balor opened. They all converge on an area of about five square miles in Poland. "Somewhere near Buchenwald?" Sonya hazards a guess. Why yes, how'd she know?

Because there's a great tainted caern in Buchenwald, and she bets the people behind this are tapping it for power. That's how.

Faris calls Ambrose, who offers condolences and says he'll head to Dreamsoft.

Te Hwan shows up as an emissary from Jwo Dye.

When they meet at Dreamsoft, Rey greets Ambrose: "It's adventure time!" Ambrose starts to compliment his goggles, then pauses. "...What did you say?"

"I said, it's adventure time!"

Ambrose pulls out the package, staring hard at it for a second. Deciding he recognizes a sign when he encounters one, he tears it open...

...And passes out. Because he's holding Doc Eon's time watch.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Showdown in New York City

They hit NYC. Jared talks to some Sluagh who can tell him where to find the ship that's smuggling the children. It always comes in around 2 AM, bribes the dockworkers, carries Italians and freaky ghouls. They've seen the Dauntain and the Slavic vampire accompany the goods being loaded. Aila learns from ghosts that it comes every 2 to 3 months and stays a few days before leaving again. Ambrose finds the name; "The Demeter." (Great, Sonya thinks; they're classic lit buffs.) The sluagh also know that they have to deal with the local vampires, who oversee the trade, coming in and out of the shadows.

Mary scrys the future to they can plan traps ahead of time. There'll be a guy with Von Allman's DeathsHead robots (five of those--and Ambrose makes a note), two Tzimisce with six war ghouls (Sonya hates those things), five Lasombra, three Giovanni, a bunch of ghosts, and the Tzimisce from Chicago. The majority of them can be leveled by fire bombs, sonic mines, daylight spells from the fae, and bombs snuck onto the ship.

This leaves three war ghouls, one Giovanni, a Tzimisce, two Lasombra, two robots, and a mysterious person. Aila stakes the Giovanni and Sonya stakes a Lasombra for interrogation. Jonas the unconscious enemies. RF takes out the other Lasombra, Nockers who came in to help clobber the robots, and Jared stakes the remaining Tzimisce. Ambrose fails to roll a knockout grenade at the mysterious guy.

The staked Tzimisce starts thrashing and...changing, so Rey throws water on him to freeze him. Mark knocks an equipment tower on a war ghoul. Somebody from a corner they didn't man opens fire on the other war ghoul, and Ambrose and the mysterious guy's heads both whip in that direction as they recognize the telltale sound of a Thunderhead gun. It's Ambrose's friendly MiB!

Then the mysterious guy teleports away with another Von Allman device, which Ambrose quickly puts a trace on. And one spectre flees the scene before anyone can catch him.

The MiB seems torn between the efficiency of their work and the out-and-out vulgarity of it, but he's here to talk while his people can't trace him under the clouds of Paradox hanging in the air. Their conversation resolves into learning the following:

Von Allman had a Nazi lab in Hollow Earth. It's still staffed by his people.

The Tzimisce are possessed by things called Soul Eaters (a Void Engineer turns up with the ship's log, and stops to peer at the frozen Tzimisce, and explains). Vicissitude is an infection of these soul eaters, which grow into the cells of the people it's used on, contaminating them too. It activates in vampires when they diablerize, and in other people when they perpetrate horrors. The soul eaters seem to call to one another, and have a sort of hive mind. He theorizes it's pieces of something...and the Garou realize what of: It's Eater of Souls. Sonya pieces it together: Rastov was Embraced only weeks after the Croatan sacrifice. He may be the source host. He's doing all this to help it pull itself together. And that explains why the Nephandi are helping him, and his falling-out with Dracula.

The MiB didn't know about Dracula. Sonya mocks him for it. "He hasn't even bothered to move from his old castle."

"That cheeky bastard!" the MiB exclaims.

And Sonya thinks it's Rastov's activities that woke Baba Yaga. The Voivode wield ancient magic that connects them to the land. With an evil like that arising on her border, it may have disturbed the Crone's sleep enough to rouse her.

Ambrose asks about Project Invictus. "Do you really want to know?" the MiB asks, leveling a significant look on him.

"Oh no no no," Ambrose protests. "Don't be like that!"

The MiB scans the vampires' brains and digitizes the information for the group. The Void Engineer extracts the soul eater from the frozen vammpire, from which Ambrose takes a core sample. The Void Engineer starts talking about ways to handle the Tzimisce now, when Sonya grabs a plank, shifts to Crinos and stakes him. "Or you could do that."

Ambrose argues a little with the Technocrats over the Etherites, and the MiB gives in and explains that Invictus is bringing the Technocracy back to its true purpose. He starts reciting the compact of the Ivory Tower. Ambrose shudders at the first line, but irritatedly finishes the recital. The Etherites know it too; they were the first victims of its breaking.

Sonya keeps a war ghoul to see if they can be purified.

They turn over the various upcoming events and information. The Circus is due in Chicago soon. Can they summon Cara and make a pact with her? Free passage in return for helping her in Texas when the time comes? They need to talk to the Texas vampire again to learn more about Cara.

And the thing in the lake: a dream of Eater of Souls? Sonya muses on its captivity: the Fomorians were trapped in the Silver Sea, this thing in the lake, mirrors...the mirrored underside of the water. They're held by their own reflections.

They get in touch with gypsies, Aila's kin in Eastern Europe. Sonya sends information to Sergei. Ambrose goes to the Gernsback to help study the chair and gather information on Hollow Earth. He and Mark are both highly creeped out by the MiB just dropping in like some James Bond/Deep Throat character. It's so...not antipathetic. They wonder what that was really about. There had to be an ulterior motive. Was he sizing the group up? Collecting the werewolf side of events? He mostly speaks to Ambrose, after all.

Jonas goes on about writing a letter to Dracula about Rastov and signing it as Ambrose. "No," Mark tells him, "because in five years when we actually meet Dracula, he'll pull out that letter and I'll fall down laughing and piss myself in front of the Lord of the Undead, and I just can't do that."

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Frederico and the Funeral Parlor

When they return to Chicago, Sonya learns that a funeral home burned down after a struggle inside. The parlor's director met with someone from Chinatown about 20 minutes earlier.

Sonya checks out the crime scene. Something came out of the Shadowlands in the back. The fire started the next room over. Something came out, leapt into a body, and left. Sniffing around for a trail, she follows it toward Chinatown. Two scents: two dead people. One was fresher than the other. They lead to the Eternal Lantern funeral home, which is surrounded by walking-dead-people scents. The building is warded in the Umbra. Entering, Sonya inquires at the desk to learn that the business is owned by Jwo Dye. She leaves her business card with the receptionist, writing on the back: 'Jwo Dye - we're hunting Giovanni.'

According to the records, the guy who owned this funeral parlor owns another one in Chicago. They've been claiming a lot of John Does. In this case, they took a Jane Doe from Chinatown, but the family came to claim her two hours later. The girl was IDed as Kimo Namura, dead of multiple gunshots in a gang conflict.

Kimo Nomura was 18, a prostitute under the Triads. She came from an upstanding family. She leaves a message with the shih PI in case he knows anything, and then checks into the second funeral parlor. It's in an Italian neighborhood, run by a Frederico Giovanni. It's staffed by him and two other Messrs. Giovanni, along with various Italian employees. She spots strange sigils scribed on the building in the Umbra. They look sort of hermetic, and are subtly woven into the brickwork. Studying them, she recognizes protective wards vs. fire and scrying. There are no wraiths in the area, and few spirits. The otherworld seems to be giving this place a wide berth. She decides to bring a mage by the place. In the meantime, she goes back to the office to requisition the file on that missing reporter (and blows the attempt to do it quietly).

That evening, Ambrose gets visited by the Mob. When he answers the door, he freaks out to see two guys in black power-suits wearing shades, because his first assumption is NWO. They barge their way in, threatening him with a gun and demanding to know about Sonya. He tells them she's with Interpol. They decide to "take him for a ride."

He collapses the stairs as the three of them are descending them, shoots one with his laser gun (they turn out to be vampires), and takes off, pausing to slash their tires on the way out. He heads for the chantry, where he calls Sonya to tell her about this.

She collects blood from the bannister where one of them scraped himself, and follows it to a warehouse she already knew was owned by Mafia people. Going back to her apartment, she finds they tossed the place (best for them that she wasn't home, probably). She gets fingerprints, and is surprised to find them turn up as Capone's men. As in, Al Capone.

Ambrose goes home in the morning to find that his place, at least, was not ransacked. They're not Giovanni, anyway. Since he's been made, Sonya drafts Rey and Jared to go to the funeral parlor instead, figuring fae might be less conspicuous. They head over in early afternoon, to find that Frederico is there--not a vampire, then. There's a guy in the back in mortician's clothes who's Dauntain, who spots them. While they fill out paperwork for their anonymous dead friend, Frederico gets called to the back. Rey and Jared take the opportunity to look around, finding papers written in Russian, which they take photos of, and magicked blank paper. Rey spots wizard-locked compartments around the room. One has a Hermetic book, one contains a locked box, and the final one holds a human hand. Rey closes them up again.

People come back out. One of them locks the door. Rey distracts them with questions. Given the contract to sign, he spots hidden sigils with fairy sight. he starts vacillating over the ivory inlay for the coffin to put off signing it. "And you know that locked door is making me awful nervous." And then he throws a chair through the window.

Jared fails to knock Frederico out. He's a ghoul, supernaturally resilient. Frederico puts up his wards, starts shouting about them stealing and wrecking things "in my house!" Sigils start glowing all over the building. Great, it's his sanctum.

"Prob'ly has all sortsa force fields and things too, eh?" Jonas asks. "Well, there's a garbage truck over there." He creates an illusion of MiBs in the truck, which he crashes through the sanctum walls.

At the Traditions chantry, a report comes in of MiBs assaulting a funeral parlor in a garbage truck. "What're they doing?" Mark wonders.

Ambrose shrugs. "I told you, they've gone insane."

Rey grabs the magicked paper and they bail into the truck for an escape, dodging a fireball that hits the truck. "In my sanctum!" they hear Frederico shriek. "With a dump truck!" Rey deliberately crashes the building more when he pulls out.

They ditch the truck a little way away, and head back. The documents in Russian are information on meetings. One is set for a couple of days from now. Taking the hoodoo'd paper to Ambrose, he breaks the invisibility on it to reveal a list of orphanages and child hospitals from which children have been going missing. They've been kidnapping 6 to 12 year old children who're in the process of chrysalizing, flesh-crafting them into dead bodies to hide them and smuggle them out! They're also spirit-trapping the dead, often killing them to guarantee the capture.

Sonya receives a letter from Te Hwan: the Giovanni have started pillaging bodies from Chinatown, and Jwo Dye would be pleased to have further information. They decide that going back to the funeral parlor quickly is the best way to take it out. The Giovanni vampires will be in around nightfall, and Sonya realizes there must be a Tzimisce as well to perform the fleshcrafting. The shih PI calls back, and suggests they ask Jwo Dye for help dealing with this, as a sort of repayment of the debt he'll owe them for cluing him in. They call Jwo Dye to update him, and fetch the mages.

But returning to check the place out, they discover that it's now an antique shop! There's an old man behind the counter. The mages suspect a Paradox backlash. Asking people on the street, no one else has noticed a change. The shop is even reflected in the Umbra, and its address is in the phone book. Sonya and RF note that even the spirits believe the place is normal. Aila talks to wraiths, who have noted they can't get into the Shadowlands reflection. Ambrose and Mark talk it over, and suspect that Frederico booted the parlor into the Shadowlands, and Paradox rewrote reality to clean up his mess. Frederico might've avoided the backlash himself by staying out of reality...

They decide that in the absence of information, attacking or poking overly is unwise. Jwo Dye owes them a favor for the information and knows a lot about wraith stuff, so they make an appointment to see what he can tell them.

Sonya puts some calls into New York City to put people on the lookout in case any of those funeral parlor people arrive there. Ambrose and Mark talk to the Hermetics. The fae are disappointed to miss out on killing that Dauntain mad scientists. They contact the Red Branch knights who seek out chrysalizing fae to inform them of this case.http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=824073571361907610

That turns up some information. The Red Branch is missing around 12 to 15 children who were flagged as approaching chrysalis who've gone missing and haven't triggered. Sir Guy thinks a powerful sorcerer would be needed to siphon a chrysalis' energy away...but they've already encountered something similar, in that asylum in Wales, which was funded by Sir Quinn and lurked about by a Balor Dauntain.

They meet at Te Hwan's restaurant, the pack, the fae, and Ambrose. Sonya makes the pack dress well (Jonas and Aila complain). Jwo Dye suggests calling the MiB to see if they remember anything about the funeral parlor, and Ambrose admits he was actually sort of expecting an outraged phone call after all that. They return to the site to specifically look for traces of Paradox, and find that the building was created about 10 hours ago by demonic energy--either a spirit or an investment. The Garou note that traces of spirits here are very subdued.

Aila finds hair behind the counter, where the old man was. The fae think it looks like fairy magic, but not quite. Ambrose notes the hair is made of ephemera. It changes occasionally. It smells weird to the Garou. Ambrose keeps the sample.

Sonya sees that every fiber of this place has a particular brand, like a signature. She's able to coax it out, copy it, and show it to the others. It looks Asian, but none of them recognize it offhand. Jwo Dye takes a copy to research it.

Jonas suggests coming back tomorrow to talk to the old man. Aila wonders why people like antiques. Jared tells her, because they're beautiful. Sonya says that old things can link people to their past...then pauses. Looking around, she realizes that the antiques are odd--trinkets and odds & ends like someone might have in their basement.

Rey notes that it's strangely cold in here right after Aila says it seems...strange.
Nobody else thinks so...except Sonya, who takes a sniff around, and then has Aila take a second look. Aila and Jwo Dye recognize that all these things are wraiths' Fetters.

Is this a way of buying and selling wraiths? Or perhaps it's a storehouse. The record books behind the counter are blank. Ambrose suggests getting hold of a wraith through one of these Fetters. He thinks he can ping one and get its attention... Aila suggests that he ping a newer object. Younger wraiths are usually less powerful.

When Ambrose does this, all the fetters and the whole building glow. This entire place is being used as a Fetter and a power source--an impromptu node. And Frederico didn't design this. It's Asian infernalism, Jwo Dye tells them. He suggests redirecting local leylines so this place can't draw power from them. He's seen things like this before.

Ambrose thinks they'd better leave, before something comes by to check on that ping. So they clear out to a nearby diner, where they work out how to readjust the local leylines and force the funeral parlor back to reality.

There's a big CRASH as this forces the two buildings into co-location. Scanning inside, Ambrose spots Frederico, zombies, the old man and a Japanese guy. Sonya fails to knock out Fred. Ambrose fails to use a knockout grenade on the Japanese mage, who absorbs the force of it with hand movements similar to that ninja mage he saw once in the Midnight Circus. Remembering that guy was a freelancer, Ambrose asks, "You with them?" motioning to Fred and the others.

The man nods. "Oh yes."

Aila and RF clean out the zombies. Fred summons a couple hundred ghosts from the Fetters lying around. Jared attacks Fred, but is cut off by the old man, who shapeshifts into a tiger. A Rakshasa, Jwo Dye identifies him, then attacks.

Sonya grabs Frederico and attacks the Rakshasa using him as a weapon. This is wildly successful, considering the substantial force field Fred has wrapped around himself. The blow batters the Rakshasa and overloads the force field.

The Japanese mage bows to Ambrose, then vanishes, the bow having signified the beginning of the fight. "He's invisible!" Ambrose shouts, dropping his visor to scan for the man, and gets punched. Jonas throws itching powder, which connects, judging by noises. The mage escapes into the Umbra. Aila attacks Fred, who's mauled without his shield.

Mark begins to sing, drawing the attention of all the ghosts to him. He colors all the Fetters with a sense of anger targeted at Fred, and leaves that spell hanging to trigger later. The Rakshasa turns into a gnat and flies away. The Garou grab Frederico, who says he can't talk, even if he wants to; he's been ordered not to.

Aila figures that if he's useless, they may as well give him to the wraiths. Knowing how to threaten a Tradition mage, Ambrose suggests handing him to the Hermetics instead. Fred definitely looks less than happy about that idea. Mark calls the Hermetics after setting the Fetters back and letting the wraiths go. The Hermetics are pretty sure they can get information out of Frederico, whether he likes it or not.

They dig out Frederico's spell book, and find a chair in the back that was built by a Dougal fae. It draws off excess chrysalis energy into a container, but the containers are all gone. Sonya notes that there's something twisted about it that reminds her of Tzimisce. A Dougal Dauntain? Or just a renegade?

Jwo Dye says he'll take care of the Fetters. And he'll send messages to the Go Kamisori Gama about their rogue. He suspects, given the infernal type, that this place is probably on ground that was at some point part of Chinatown.

Ambrose is bothered by that chair. It reminds him so much of the one from the Welsh asylum. Poking it a bit more...yes. A Hermetic Nephandus was involved. Like...a cross-Tradition Hermetic Etherite. It reminds him of Dr. Sinris, too. Casting his mind back, he asks if Volkav Youngsten is a Slavic name. Olesya tells him yes.

Sonya notes that Rastov is in the middle of all this. They consider that wrecking his stuff up enough could bring him out of hiding...and Sonya ponders that there are Tzimisce whose skills allow them to "recreate" themselves in other people, taking over their minds and bodies as if they were clones or mouthpieces.

Their next move is to head to NYC, to follow up on this meeting.

Ambrose and Mark feel a little bad for Frederico. When Aila asks, Ambrose describes what the Hermetics will do to him, as a ghoul and a traitor. Then he finally places what's been bothering him about the chair: part fae-built, part Etherite, assembled by a Hermetic. The Etherite was Dr. Van Allman!

Mark goes wide-eyed, thinking Ambrose has to be mistaken. They explain that Dr. Van Allman was Doc Eon's arch-nemesis, a Nazi super-scientist who vanished with him in 1951. But he's been gone for decades...and these chairs are new. It's not possible!

Ambrose, however, is inclined to believe the seemingly impossible in this case. He tells Mark about the Doc Eon watch he saw on the man giving the presentation on Time at the Doctor Who convention. He never mentioned it to anyone because he thought it was so strange no one would believe him. Mark doesn't believe him either, exactly, but they agree that they need to find that man. And Ambrose wants to take that chair to the Gernsback to have other Etherites verify the evidence. Mark still thinks it's far-fetched...but Ambrose points out that the Etherites have never believed that was the end of Doc Eon. They'll invite some Nockers to the Gerns for their faerie-crafting expertise.

Reviewing the facts: they learned in Siberia that Baba Yaga made a deal with some Yomi Lord. Mikaboshi, lord of the Wicked City, now holds that contract. Rastov is making deals with all and sundry in return for favors, such as giving chrysalising children to Sir Quinn in return for his help on other things. Quinn/Tillingtast maybe are using this chrysalis energy to throw England into a pocket Mythic Age. Maybe Tillingtast is being manipulated by the Fomorians. One group of Nephandi are working with them, while another group is mucking with the Computer. And Yomi is making pacts to spread its influence beyond Asia.

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Project Crosshairs in the Crosshairs

Ambrose creates spirit-link disruptor discs to slap on the Crosshairs people. Sonya looks into a vampire civil conflict while Aila works with Dreamsoft to create attack plans against her friends.

Lady Alison takes of, done with the case for the moment.

The Giovanni have the local vampires upset. They're walking on the edge of breaking cover with the humans. It's something to do with dead bodies. Betting that someone's already noticed something, Sonya tracks a reporter who went missing after following leads at two local funeral homes where personal effects had gone missing and bodies had been mishandled. To human perception, it looks like the Mob was involved.

The Missing report was trying to tie this into a recent rash of vanishing children. The number of missing children corresponds to the number of dead bodies missing. Twelve and twelve, so far. Children have been vanishing across the Midwest, but he traced them all to Chicago, then NY, then eastern Europe. This guy did good work.

Sonya forwards that and Rastov's dossier to Sergei's people and to Jared. Then it's off to Hawai'i!

At the VA chanry, they set up traps and mines on Aila's and Jonas' lead. Ambrose hands out a few of those spirit-disruption discs.

The attack is nine Crosshairs people, two HITMarks, and four Iterators. Sonya and Olesya ninja Iterators and maul them. Ambrose works on an effect to disrupt their laser pistols. Only one Crosshairs guy makes it through the traps barrage. A HITMark tosses a grenade at the chantry, which vanishes and reappears embedded in its ass. Kaboom! Ambrose shoots a disruption disc at the final Crosshairs guy, who dodges, so Aila grabs him by the face and plants him on the disc, stunning him. Sonya mauls another Iterator, who tries to call for help, but Rey hushes him. Then they crash the last couple. Adepts take the surviving Iterator for interrogation.

It's time for surgery! The Crosshairs kids have DEI-like implants, which need to be the first things out. RF and Jared take care of it.

Ambrose makes arrangements for a hospice to take care of the kids while they recover. Aila's startled to learn the Traditions have such things. It's a little unsettling to think you need an entire infrastructure to care for the mind-fucked victims of the Technocracy.

Sonya visits the puma spirits with appropriate offerings. They agree to help design an appropriate rite.

Saturday, October 11, 2008

Iteration X Goes Rogue

The Technocrats move to attack when suddenly somebody in something like Boba Fett armor swoops in. Alexis Hastings! She drops a Digital Web bomb, digitizing everybody in its radius.

Quite clearly, Dante sent her. "I'm going to start owing him," Ambrose mutters. Alexis says he's waiting for them at the Spy's Demise.

Dante has news for them. Ambrose has been declared Marauder by the Technocracy. Their #2 Most Wanted. "Who's first?" asks Ambrose, before remembering it's Dante, who just raises an eyebrow at him. The Technocracy wants this motherboard so badly that Dante's not sure even the Spy's Demise will be safe, but they trade information with Dante while they've got a chance. Worst things worst, he'll e able to get it out to people who need to know.

Dante tells them Donna Matrix appeared to a Virtual Adept a few days ago and told him that Iteration X is trying to capture the Incarna of Science. They're holding it at an Atlanta Construct, planning to trap it in a board and expand the Computer with it. They figure that controlling the embodiment of Science could give the Technocracy the win.

Sonya's alarmed by this. She explains briefly about the Triat, putting this in Garou context: the Technocracy would be tapped directly into the Weaver. Lady Alison says she believes Ambrose is innocent. Ambrose ponders sending the New World Order some anonymous information on all this. He bets the Void Engineers won't like this either. And they learn that the Computer is the Incarna of Technology--that's the sentience powering the Computer itself. This concerns the Garou.

Then the Demise flickers, showing its base code for a moment. Dante does something, then informs them the place is surrounded wall to wall by digital HITMarks. He grabs the board and blueprints and tells them to go; he and Alexis will buy them time to vacate. Ambrose notes Technocratic visitors to the Demise are being specifically targeted along with his group and Dante. No witnesses, apparently. He takes photos for later reference.

The group escapes onto the Silver Path, passing a horned man standing at a crossroads. They fall out into a Nocker freehold, through someone's computer.

"What I get for looking at robot porn," the Nocker in question grumbles.

They're in south London. Outside, it looks like half the Technocracy is surrounding the building. Ambrose's phone rings. "In two minutes, there'll be a distraction," the MiB's voice says. "The only way out is through the Shadowlands. it's 11:40, Dr. Quintrell. Catch a train to Atlanta." "Yes, sir," Ambrose quips.

This they do. Looking back, they see the Wild Hunt tearing into the Iterators.

They make their way quickly to a train station, but Aila has no wraith money. Ambrose, on the other hand, does. He picked up some before, curious about the composition of it. In addition, Rey has chocolate. Wraiths don't get to eat chocolate very often.

The train pulls in. Aila steps forward, then stops. It's 11:59. She points this fact out to other wraiths on the platform, and that...that's a Spectre taking oboli. Wraiths flee screaming. The spectre is ticked. He takes a picture of Aila, so Ambrose takes a picture of him. He snarls...and is distracted long enough for the Midnight Express to crash into the back of the spectre train. A wraith in ragged black robes leaps forward to kick the spectre's ass.

They board the train. Ambrose is excited, chatting with wraiths on the train, and is fascinated to note that they arrive in Atlanta also at midnight.

They stay in the Shadowlands to do recon, heading for the Construct. It's strangely...perfect. Having noticed the effect before, Sonya uses the entropic properties of the Shadowlands to look for weaknesses, but there are none. It's truly,impossibly flawless. And the security's pretty damn tight, too.

The MiB calls again, warning them to get rid of any money. Ambrose warns him not to trust the Computer. Sonya gets in touch with some Glass Walkers to arrange a hotel room, and asks them to warn kin and friends about the Technocracy and the Black Spirals. Ambrose sends a report to the New World Order using his own laptop, which has VA-designed security protocols.

They stake out the Construct for a couple of days. The top three floors are absolutely locked down. The Construct is leeching energy from the city's...well, life force, for want of a better term. The spiritual energy of the city. it would have to be cut out of the city in order to shut down the power.

The Adepts tell Ambrose that the Crosshairs group took out a chantry in Washington state.

Aila's out reconnoitering the comings and goings of the Construct's personnel when someone sits down on the bench next to her: a man in a white linen suit, who greets her in a warm Southern accent. He knows she's Garou. She's nervous, but he assures her that no one in the city is looking for them. He has to lay on the hints pretty broadly before she gets it: this is Atlanta's City Father. He's here to offer to cut the Construct's power for them to break in, and to inform her that "the cleaning crew is in tonight." And asks them not to use fire.

Aila heads back to tell the others immediately. They have to explain City Fathers to Ambrose, who comments, "Wow, Hong Kong's must be really pissed off."

Sonya tracks down that cleaning crew: eight people. She takes Jonas and RF to ambush them in order to take their place. That night, they head in, the power goes down, and under cover of the anonymous dark, they sneak up to the ninth floor (there'd only been eight floors from the outside, but Ambrose tells them that Constructs sometimes have Umbral pockets).

Checking one floor up, the tenth floor is the records division. Ambrose flips through, finding something called "Arcadia Project." He quickly makes a copy.

Somebody comes in while he's working, so they hide and watch an Iterator upload info on the group, along with some Project Arcadia updates involving the cyborg girl. Ambrose snags the update after he leaves, along with a copy of Project Crosshairs. And then they clear out, as quietly as they came in.

Ambrose forwards copies to Dante and Dreamsoft before he tries to crack the encryption, wary of triggering something and losing all the data.

The Incarna is being held on Darkside Moon Base, part of an over-arching project to map the Moon. The Void Engineers landed in the 1920s, invading a jewelled city where they fought armies of what sound remarkably like fae. They've been there, besieging Arcadia ever since. They believe that slaving the Incarna of Science to the Computer will give them the advantage. The latest data is that there's been a sudden turn in the last two days as fae-like horned beings arrived to reinforce Arcadia. The Moon base is destabilizing. Reports indicate that Nephandi might have taken over sections of it for some purpose, tainting parts of the base.

Astonished, the fae can only ask, "Where is Arcadia?" Ambrose can't tell them yet; he needs to do more work to break the encryption on the calculations and coordinates. He finds out that theey're currently listed as allies of Mikaboshi. Additionally, he spots notes that a Nwo group called Project Invictus are listed as possible traitors. Ambrose recalls that--the guys with the pins on their collars.

The Computer is out-and-out lying to the rest of the Technocracy. There's an internal Most Wanted list, on which Ambrose and his friends are listed as #3. Dante is #1, of course. The IX girl's twin is #2. She has similar implants, but they're made of clockwork, and filled with glowing blue mists of ether. She's listed as "Ally of Science."

Cracking open the other file, Ambrose finds that Project Crosshairs is an attempt to create super-soldiers for eventual Digital Web deployment. It's carried out with implants, which take a month to set into permanence. It's been three weeks. The Project scientists are still looking for Aila.

Ambrose finds a dispatch from the Ivory Tower: the New World Order has removed Ambrose from the black list, claiming the Computer's information is wrong. The missive is signed Johannes Kepler.

"He's still alive?" Aila gasps.

"For a given value of alive," Ambrose replies absently, rather shocked himself. "He could be a brain in a jar."

Drawing connections, they realize that the Computer is a spirit. The Dreamspeaker Nephandus, is he using the IX Girl to tap into it and twist it? Is that why it's going haywire? Ambrose sends the NWO dossiers on the cabal of Nephandi.

The NWO thanks him by sending back a dossier on Undrech Rastov, who's working for Baba Yaga to find the Soul Egg--playing both ends against the middle between her and the Giovanni, because there's no way he'd truly work for anyone but himself. He hasn't told other vampires about Baba Yaga, acting as her agent outside the Shadow Curtain. He's also looking for something buried and trying to build a vampire army.

Musing on the prophecy briefly, they wonder if the bit about the fragile path is a reference to cooperating with the Technocracy. Maybe the Men and White finding Horizon is a good thing?

Anyway, the next thing to do is catch up with Project Crosshairs. They need to find their next target, which is conveniently in the file: a chantry in Hawai'i staffed by VAs who monitor the Digital Web. Iteration X wants them taken out so they can't warn about the invasion of the Digital Web.

While they're there, the pack can pay a visit to the puma spirits who live at the volcano and learn what they know about purification rites.