When they arrive in Tara, Rey sells the story of Ambrose's quest hard. He also plays up Jared's duel. Ambrose asks Faris how he knows so much, and learns about the relationship of sidhe and time.
At the caern the day after the moot, Sonya sits down with Dances for the Spirits and grills him on his personal information and skills. "You can tell she's a law dog," Aila comments cheerily.
Ambrose visits his double, who's just hanging out around the castle. Rey takes the opportunity to do more digging into his sword's history. People seem to know more about it than they're telling. One suggests that it's either Fiona or Gwydion.
Sonya sets Dances for the Spirits to researching the Texas town where everyone vanished. There are a lot of ghost stories from that area. Aila follows up on that lead, and discovers that this is the third time in history that this has happened: 200 years ago and 400 years ago, the whole town's population vanished. RF gets a map and shows it to a Uktena Theurge, who says there are no Great Banes in that area. Vampires? Nephandi? He doesn't know about those.
They try their Project Twilight contacts, who register almost constant hauntings there: no particular folklore revolving around it, but a 30% higher murder rate than average.
As for the Black Spiral pack, they have few ways to follow that lead. Spirits know the warehouse they held Jungle's Fury in, but the pack is gone. Still, they can check it out.
Ambrose calls when he gets home. They have him search on the Spiral pack. He finds one Edward Simpson, an MIT grad at age 13--child prodigy--born in Boston, vanished at age 15 and a half. He was a whiz at accounting, and gifted at computer programming. He was listed as a potential recruit by the Technocracy. Sonya follows that up with the Glass Walkers. Did they recruit him first? But no, they never picked him up.
At the warehouse, the pack finds a hologram. It activates with an image of Simpson, who tells them to hold their breath. "Silver," Sonya snarls without needing to check. They shift into their breed forms. Other chemicals start pumping into the air--an air-fuel bomb. They step sideways. The Balam freaks; Jonas kicks her. Aila drags the Balam into the Shadowlands with Jonas, while the rest of the pack stepping into the Umbra come face to face with a Nexus Crawler. Sonya exorcises it. They all regroup outside.
Then they either dodge or step sideways again as the warehouse explodes. People in the Umbra spot some kind of powdered Wyrm-dust--corrupted bee spirits! Dances for the Spirits uses Call the Wind Gift to corral them. Sonya calls Ambrose, who shows up with his spirit vacuum and demonstrates his newly-perfected ability to "enter etherspace" (for which he cops a bit of Paradox, oops). He sucks up the corrupted bee spirits, and scans the wreckage of the warehouse a bit before Sonya ushers them all out. Jonas plays official for the cops to distract them, but they need to clear out before that very thin facade falls through.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
The Moot
Horns blow and howls rise: the moot is called. The Corax gives a high-speed recital of her news. "It'll be a Galliard's deed by itself to remember that."
Sergei stands to remind them, "Prophecies are useful, but lock yourselves into them and you become weak." Then he turns to confront Jungle's Fury. "Why are you here?"
She thinks she was sent by Gaia, but she's terribly vague on the details. Her half-assed answers and self-contradictions begin to annoy Sergei, who looks like he's hovering halfway between amused and ready to kill when Sonya cuts in, prompting the Balam to tell the tale about her mentor sending her that she previously told Sonya. She tells a story about her mentor sending her, but it's not the one she gave Sonya, which does not make for a happy Shadow Lord.
Walking Hawk chimes in. He was "otherwise occupied" when the Croatan fought, but he knows the ritual to bring them back. Jonas opens his mouth to shout "BINGO!" when he feels Sergei looming behind him. "Let me get you a more respectful paper for your prophecy," Sergei suggests, pulling the one Jonas has doodled on out of his hands. Walking Hawk tells them he will help when he can, but his time on earth is limited.
The Wendigo remand Dances for the Spirits to the pack, because they'll need a Wendigo to help sing the Croatan Song. The pack tells them about the Sept of the Still Waters and Wonshii's journal. Sergei wonders: is 'Croatan's home' the caern, or the Homeland? The Garou who go there only see ghosts. The last visit was by some drunk Get, who never came back. Sergei looks at Aila. "Again, you are uniquely positioned. You seem reluctant to acknowledge this. I stress: false modesty or cowardice must end now." Aila clams up and looks shifty and grudging.
Sonya knows the "lord of the land": Rastov. She has been tracking his involvement since all this began. Sergei knows him, too. "Dracula's boy. Old boy." Olesya tells about their latest run-in with his couriers and Giovanni. Sonya fills it about Dr. Sinris and what Ambrose told them about Goratrix and the book.
"Well," says Sergei. "If it's faerie, then why doesn't our visitor tell us." He reaches out and rips someone out of the Umbra--a shifter who smells like faerie kin. Irish, by his accent as he pleads with Sergei not to hurt him. Sergei forces him into a seat. The guy, who says he's a werecat, warns them about the risks of putting a True Fae back together. After trying briefly to talk his way out (which is utterly unsuccessful), he tells them he was sent by the Dreaming--Luna in her Dreaming guise. He tells them that Ambrose being involved is a clue to where the faerie should be put back together.
Sonya recalls the vision of Victoria Station. "The queen's carriage house," someone points out. Then the bastet decides to sit quietly till the scary Garou gives him permission to leave. Sergei declares a break after hassling him, and drags him off, looking like what Sonya describes as "practically jolly. For Sergei." The pack takes the intermission to call Ambrose about Victoria Station.
A little while later, Sergei comes back with a shaken-looking Bastet, and says he's confident their visitor is telling the truth.
Wanders the South, a Wendigo Theurge, identifies another point: the Apex of History, a Realm where a climber reaches the top and sees their version of the end of the world. They call Ambrose about it; he knows about it from Alexis Hastings' book, one of the Vistas. He tells them he's on the way to England, for which Jonas mocks him--his usual "gay mage wants you for a love toy" comments, at which point Ambrose hangs up on him.
The Get start getting rowdy. Their pack's Ahroun keeps offering--insisting, really--on some stupid interpretations of bits of the prophecy, interrupting people when he doesn't like their ideas. Sonya deals with it before Sergei decides he should, by letting him express his opinions and humiliate himself in public. then she thanks him for his time.
Walking Hawk gives them a spirit axe, which damages a possessing force without harming the host. He also gives them Dead Paint, which is fetish paint the Wendigo made from a Wendigo's pain in order to track down their killer. This is the Dead Pain of Little Fox, he tells them, the sorrow of the Wendigo tribe at their loss for Middle Brother. It will help them track clues. Aila stammers her thanks and then apologizes. Sergei sighs heavily. "Video games will ruin your eyes," he tells her. Jonas snarks across the pack's mental link. Aila laughs, RF comments, and Sonya clears her throat.
The moot begins to wrap up. Aila asks the Cielican--Phineas Sullivan--if he knows any songs about Astarte. He knows one. The Corax returns with more coffee. They talk with her about the Black Spirals. She says she'll see what she can turn up on them.
Then they see Mark talking to Walking Hawk, who looks extremely uncomfortable when Mark pulls out a book and asks for his autograph.
Sergei stands to remind them, "Prophecies are useful, but lock yourselves into them and you become weak." Then he turns to confront Jungle's Fury. "Why are you here?"
She thinks she was sent by Gaia, but she's terribly vague on the details. Her half-assed answers and self-contradictions begin to annoy Sergei, who looks like he's hovering halfway between amused and ready to kill when Sonya cuts in, prompting the Balam to tell the tale about her mentor sending her that she previously told Sonya. She tells a story about her mentor sending her, but it's not the one she gave Sonya, which does not make for a happy Shadow Lord.
Walking Hawk chimes in. He was "otherwise occupied" when the Croatan fought, but he knows the ritual to bring them back. Jonas opens his mouth to shout "BINGO!" when he feels Sergei looming behind him. "Let me get you a more respectful paper for your prophecy," Sergei suggests, pulling the one Jonas has doodled on out of his hands. Walking Hawk tells them he will help when he can, but his time on earth is limited.
The Wendigo remand Dances for the Spirits to the pack, because they'll need a Wendigo to help sing the Croatan Song. The pack tells them about the Sept of the Still Waters and Wonshii's journal. Sergei wonders: is 'Croatan's home' the caern, or the Homeland? The Garou who go there only see ghosts. The last visit was by some drunk Get, who never came back. Sergei looks at Aila. "Again, you are uniquely positioned. You seem reluctant to acknowledge this. I stress: false modesty or cowardice must end now." Aila clams up and looks shifty and grudging.
Sonya knows the "lord of the land": Rastov. She has been tracking his involvement since all this began. Sergei knows him, too. "Dracula's boy. Old boy." Olesya tells about their latest run-in with his couriers and Giovanni. Sonya fills it about Dr. Sinris and what Ambrose told them about Goratrix and the book.
"Well," says Sergei. "If it's faerie, then why doesn't our visitor tell us." He reaches out and rips someone out of the Umbra--a shifter who smells like faerie kin. Irish, by his accent as he pleads with Sergei not to hurt him. Sergei forces him into a seat. The guy, who says he's a werecat, warns them about the risks of putting a True Fae back together. After trying briefly to talk his way out (which is utterly unsuccessful), he tells them he was sent by the Dreaming--Luna in her Dreaming guise. He tells them that Ambrose being involved is a clue to where the faerie should be put back together.
Sonya recalls the vision of Victoria Station. "The queen's carriage house," someone points out. Then the bastet decides to sit quietly till the scary Garou gives him permission to leave. Sergei declares a break after hassling him, and drags him off, looking like what Sonya describes as "practically jolly. For Sergei." The pack takes the intermission to call Ambrose about Victoria Station.
A little while later, Sergei comes back with a shaken-looking Bastet, and says he's confident their visitor is telling the truth.
Wanders the South, a Wendigo Theurge, identifies another point: the Apex of History, a Realm where a climber reaches the top and sees their version of the end of the world. They call Ambrose about it; he knows about it from Alexis Hastings' book, one of the Vistas. He tells them he's on the way to England, for which Jonas mocks him--his usual "gay mage wants you for a love toy" comments, at which point Ambrose hangs up on him.
The Get start getting rowdy. Their pack's Ahroun keeps offering--insisting, really--on some stupid interpretations of bits of the prophecy, interrupting people when he doesn't like their ideas. Sonya deals with it before Sergei decides he should, by letting him express his opinions and humiliate himself in public. then she thanks him for his time.
Walking Hawk gives them a spirit axe, which damages a possessing force without harming the host. He also gives them Dead Paint, which is fetish paint the Wendigo made from a Wendigo's pain in order to track down their killer. This is the Dead Pain of Little Fox, he tells them, the sorrow of the Wendigo tribe at their loss for Middle Brother. It will help them track clues. Aila stammers her thanks and then apologizes. Sergei sighs heavily. "Video games will ruin your eyes," he tells her. Jonas snarks across the pack's mental link. Aila laughs, RF comments, and Sonya clears her throat.
The moot begins to wrap up. Aila asks the Cielican--Phineas Sullivan--if he knows any songs about Astarte. He knows one. The Corax returns with more coffee. They talk with her about the Black Spirals. She says she'll see what she can turn up on them.
Then they see Mark talking to Walking Hawk, who looks extremely uncomfortable when Mark pulls out a book and asks for his autograph.
The Prophecy
Almost too many stories for one song.
Before the song the memories return from rain forest.
A dragons’ lesson to a horned serpent that was given by the bird that walks.
The namers know the bird that walks.
Wars are beyond him now.
Three. Brothers’ blood. Brothers’ Memory. Brothers’ Song.
Turtles pack will take a walk
to the primal place but they will not walk in a straight line.
A journey is not a place.
They take the walker of chance who goes where fate is most amused. A compass of dreams.
An armored trickster is not a joke.
They walk.
To the apex of history with a namer of this new age to learn a lesson.
To the queens carriage house where Iron does not burn to find a secret.
On paths of silver to learn of ancient darkness.
Across a stage.
To where everyone plays a part.
Another step to one hell out of a thousand.
A monkey with the key is the hope.
A girl who can not be opposes.
The wyrm sends its’ minions.
They sing of nothing and make it real.
They name all nothing.
A dark pack rises.
And a girl who cannot be supports.
Ancient weapons of gods not gods.
Exiled dreams return.
A small part of the highest hopes.
To haunted places at the hour of midnight
where the father of a city gives aid.
Empty Knights, a marriage of oblivion and the Elder Dark.
Battle lines are drawn in the winter snow.
The Knight who must help must make a choice.
The walk continues.
So many places.
So much darkness.
The computer calls.
She who heads the family seeks more children in chains.
Men wearing white find the horizon.
The key to salvation is in the path of the one who walked in silence
and forgets the path.
Blood drinkers in the mountains.
A lord of the land,
His reach long.
Into the dead who seek the dead his taint runs.
Into the night a pack seeks the book.
Old magic of the earth,
Extinguishes a burning heart.
In the snow something is forged in ice.
Four tricksters take a walk to the dark side of the moon,
But three return.
Games are sometimes lost by a headshot,
and the teller of stories is silent.
Deaths songs are sung.
But not all is death.
The death bear must be fought
for middle brothers soul.
A song must be sung.
The song of the middle brother.
Sung in the primal place.
Sung in his home.
Sung by all three brothers.
In Turtles’ shell they leave Snake Island.
On turtles’ back they travel.
Turtles pack guards the walk of the willful kin home.
In the home of middle brother the family reunites.
A cold heart thaws.
A walk ends and a dance begins.
The once and future king is king again.
The griffon loses its favored son.
Not all circuses are fun, but carnivals are.
A queen hears her song and remembers.
The dreams must reconcile in the hunting ground.
They fight,
the elder dark.
The dream of the Wyrm.
The elder light and her children,
the eternal hope.
In the primal place there is balance,
and a lesson. A dream explained.
A queen must choose.
A flower found can be the first sign of spring.
A flower found can be the last sing of spring.
A fragile path is walked once more.
A song rediscovered needs to be sung.
Nothing is given a name.
The castles stand must be repeated
for the world to wake from a nightmare.
Two girls who cannot be,
must be one who is.
The last seat is filled.
The spider in the pearl is needed.
The movie girl gives a key.
In the primal place all are one.
The pack that remembers can bring hope.
The grandmother in her web sees all
and the grandmother is displeased.
To grandmothers house
to ease her pain a family goes to name a new child.
Not all who begin a walk will finish.
Not all who attend the dance will leave.
Sometimes they dance to a death song.
Sometimes to the song of spring.
The last song is unwritten and unsung,
so hope remains for the wolves.
Before the song the memories return from rain forest.
A dragons’ lesson to a horned serpent that was given by the bird that walks.
The namers know the bird that walks.
Wars are beyond him now.
Three. Brothers’ blood. Brothers’ Memory. Brothers’ Song.
Turtles pack will take a walk
to the primal place but they will not walk in a straight line.
A journey is not a place.
They take the walker of chance who goes where fate is most amused. A compass of dreams.
An armored trickster is not a joke.
They walk.
To the apex of history with a namer of this new age to learn a lesson.
To the queens carriage house where Iron does not burn to find a secret.
On paths of silver to learn of ancient darkness.
Across a stage.
To where everyone plays a part.
Another step to one hell out of a thousand.
A monkey with the key is the hope.
A girl who can not be opposes.
The wyrm sends its’ minions.
They sing of nothing and make it real.
They name all nothing.
A dark pack rises.
And a girl who cannot be supports.
Ancient weapons of gods not gods.
Exiled dreams return.
A small part of the highest hopes.
To haunted places at the hour of midnight
where the father of a city gives aid.
Empty Knights, a marriage of oblivion and the Elder Dark.
Battle lines are drawn in the winter snow.
The Knight who must help must make a choice.
The walk continues.
So many places.
So much darkness.
The computer calls.
She who heads the family seeks more children in chains.
Men wearing white find the horizon.
The key to salvation is in the path of the one who walked in silence
and forgets the path.
Blood drinkers in the mountains.
A lord of the land,
His reach long.
Into the dead who seek the dead his taint runs.
Into the night a pack seeks the book.
Old magic of the earth,
Extinguishes a burning heart.
In the snow something is forged in ice.
Four tricksters take a walk to the dark side of the moon,
But three return.
Games are sometimes lost by a headshot,
and the teller of stories is silent.
Deaths songs are sung.
But not all is death.
The death bear must be fought
for middle brothers soul.
A song must be sung.
The song of the middle brother.
Sung in the primal place.
Sung in his home.
Sung by all three brothers.
In Turtles’ shell they leave Snake Island.
On turtles’ back they travel.
Turtles pack guards the walk of the willful kin home.
In the home of middle brother the family reunites.
A cold heart thaws.
A walk ends and a dance begins.
The once and future king is king again.
The griffon loses its favored son.
Not all circuses are fun, but carnivals are.
A queen hears her song and remembers.
The dreams must reconcile in the hunting ground.
They fight,
the elder dark.
The dream of the Wyrm.
The elder light and her children,
the eternal hope.
In the primal place there is balance,
and a lesson. A dream explained.
A queen must choose.
A flower found can be the first sign of spring.
A flower found can be the last sing of spring.
A fragile path is walked once more.
A song rediscovered needs to be sung.
Nothing is given a name.
The castles stand must be repeated
for the world to wake from a nightmare.
Two girls who cannot be,
must be one who is.
The last seat is filled.
The spider in the pearl is needed.
The movie girl gives a key.
In the primal place all are one.
The pack that remembers can bring hope.
The grandmother in her web sees all
and the grandmother is displeased.
To grandmothers house
to ease her pain a family goes to name a new child.
Not all who begin a walk will finish.
Not all who attend the dance will leave.
Sometimes they dance to a death song.
Sometimes to the song of spring.
The last song is unwritten and unsung,
so hope remains for the wolves.
Sir Tristan ap Dougal and Ambrose's Quest through the Dreaming
Ambrose is hiking through the Dreaming holding Sir Tristan's eyes. "Don't drop them," Tristan cautions him, following behind him as usual.
"Could you walk where I can see you sometimes?" Ambrose asks him, feeling nervous about somebody constantly standing right behind him where he can't see.
They're heading toward the City of the Forgotten. Rey asks if Ambrose ever had an imaginary friend. He doesn't believe so, he says.
Ambrose thinks the City of the Forgotten looks weird. "Well," Rey puns, "since the eyes have it...," receiving groans all around. The eyes lead them to a junkyard. Ambrose likes it; it's full of all sorts of odds and ends. A cute moleman with enormous front paws is digging there.
"This place is awesome!" Ambrose greets it.
"Yeah. Yeah," the moleman agrees, looking around at the piles of stuff lying around. "Pretty neat. I dig it up."
Ambrose shows him the box that holds the eyes and asks if he has anything like that. "Think I have that. I have what you want," the moleman mumbles shyly. Ambrose asks him about making a trade, which confuses the moleman, who tells him he "digs and keeps," and gives things to his child but not for 150 years. Ambrose feels sad for him.
"This guy's a kid at heart," Rey tries. The moleman apparently likes Ambrose enough that he goes and roots out the box. Ambrose still feels like he should give the moleman something. It tells him to call when he wants something dug up.
In the box is Tristan's head. They have to put the eyes back in (Jared does it). After they do, the head opens its mouth and begins to spout a prophecy.
Ambrose makes a sling to carry the head in, since he doesn't want to swing it around by the hair. Faris teases him about how creepy it is, and offers to attach it to Ambrose to complete the image. The head mumbles in upset. "I agree, shut up!" Ambrose tells Faris.
Next they have to find the tongue. "Awwww, it's a ritual thing, ew!" Ambrose complains.
"Hope the satyrs don't have it," Faris jokes.
Ambrose covers Sir Tristan-head's ears. "He's been traumatized enough!"
But where to find a tongue? In a place of communication or silence. Eshu takes point.
Their path takes them to a huge amphitheatre called the "Concert of Forgotten Songs." A ghost gives them directions to a disembodied tongue that sings faerie sagas. He tells them that musicians here keep track of forgotten music, which reminds them that they're looking for songs about Astarte. Jared and Faris go look into that, while Rey and Ambrose search for the tongue. They find three of her songs and get copies. "Scratch three more off the list," the archivist mumbles.
The tongue is in the keeping of a Nocker, who complains that it's his diva.
"It's a guy," counters Rey.
"Don't go enforcing gender roles on me!" the Nocker snaps. The book hits him.
Nevertheless, the Nocker doesn't want to give up the tongue.
"Look at this gentleman," Rey points out Sir Tristan. "He's not a changeling. He's True Fae. If you help, he'll probably owe you."
"Well...," the Nocker drawls. "If it's for the cause, I want to give him my best tongue."
They get what they came for and vacate before that conversation goes any further.
Ambrose is led to the gateway to the City of Balloon, a Pooka city of inflatables. A sphinx perched over the door challenges him: "What is your quest?"
"To put this guy back together," Ambrose answers it, then shouts as he's hurled into the air. "Augh, I know this one!"
He lands in a muck pile, where the fae find him. Rey explains that he has to lie to the sphinx. Anyway, they're in the city. From the head's indications, they need to head upward onto the balloons. Rey tells him about the city: it's a communist collective. Leadership belongs to the most recent funny-man.
There's rococo everywhere, which the Pooka consider the greatest joke of architecture and design ever. "Be kind to animals" posters are slathered all over. Faris tells them that to defend the city, the inhabitants toss out flyers containing the funniest joke in existence, which is so funny that it makes your head explode.
They get a dirigible pilot to take them to their destination, paying him with a funny story. He takes them to a dog pooka who sells boxes. Ambrose shows him an example of what they're looking for, and he does have it. But they must pay via...balloon race!
Ambrose is thrilled, but Rey calls dibs on piloting.
Dirigibles have afterburners! While Ambrose is looking theirs over, he gets a call from Jonas, telling him they've just met a mage named Walking Hawk. Ambrose knows the name all too well, and while he works, he tells them all about the First Cabal, the first team of magi the Traditions ever put together, with one member from each Tradition. Walking Hawk represented the Dreamspeakers. The First Cabal fell when the Solificati member betrayed them to the Technocracy after going Nephandi. Many of them died. Walking Hawk didn't, but no one ever heard from him again. They're all legends.
The race begins. Ambrose fires up the souped-up afterburners, and they blast past the boundaries of the city. Rey whoops and tries to maintain control. When a dog on a broom flies past, Ambrose cuts the power, and the winds lift their dirigible up into cloud castles. The box appears and opens, a hand pointing out toward their next destination: Courts of the Silfer, the wind elementals.
When they arrive, they're met by crystallized ice manifesting into armored knights. They do have a body part to guard, but they tell the travelers it must be won in a duel. "Have fun!" Rey chirps to Jared.
Jared kicks the other knight's ass in the duel, for which they're awarded a torso. Now they just need two legs, an arm and a heart. "The count is off," Ambrose realizes. They were told they'd need to find six pieces, but that's eight. Even if the tongue was removed later, it's still wrong.
Upon investigation, it turns out that Sir Tristan's heart is also in the book. They also realize that a bit of Sir Tristan is stuck in the Shadowlands. Ambrose wonders if that's weird for him, and whether it might affect his nature.
Ambrose gets a call from the Garou asking about Victoria Station. They think that's where he's supposed to put Sir Tristan back together. He tells them the prophecy thing is "kinda neat." Faris tells him that's totally cracked by everyone else's standards. "Fate tends to warp and bend around you people like candy."
"If the world always did what we thought it should," observes Ambrose, "It would be a bad place." No one can really argue with that.
Birds start flying past them, whisking them off the silver path toward Parrot Island in South Carolina. Faris says it's tied to the "reptilian dream." This is one of those places that exists in the real world, though not the way it does in the Dreaming.
The birds refer to their visitor as "shiny." One chats with them, telling them the birds are preparing for war against the Fomorians. They have a body part for Ambrose. Ambrose promises them shinies if they'll take them to it. The parrots have seen the White Court waking in the Forest of Lies, stirring as long ago as 1969, when they chased sidhe back into the real world. They also have rumors of the Red Court.
The body part is a leg, which with apologies to Sir Tristan, Ambrose decides not to attach yet, for ease of transport. Sir Tristan doesn't mind. Ambrose worries over the idea that putting him back together might spell his doom, but Tristan says he doesn't mind dying. He was a sorcerer in life as well as a knight. He understands that an influx of Glamour like that near the Moon must be a good thing. Ambrose isn't so thrilled, but "Well, the way you guys work, you'll explode if you're supposed to, right?"
A giant, three-stories-tall parrot who calls himself the King of the Birds flies them to Santa Fe and drops them on the top of Turtle Rock--a giant granite turtle who was wrapped in chains. Except now it's free. Ambrose talks to it, and realizes it is Turtle! Or Turtle's dream, at least, which Turtle Rock says is basically the same thing. This confuses Ambrose.
Turtle gives them the other leg. Ambrose sticks them on the torso, which stands up and starts following him, and asks Tristan if it's actually him now, and if it's weird. Tristan says it is, a little. Turtle advises that they inform the High King. Their next destination, Turtle riddles them, is "at the edge, when Now becomes Then." Ambrose gets this one: Greenwich.
"Awww, back to England!" he moans.
Rainstorm's Edge, Faris realizes, the edge of Spring.
Mark calls Ambrose. The lightning bolt Hermetic popped up in his bedroom. Mark stabbed him and teleported him away in self-defense before he realized who it was. Ambrose laughs, then tells him about Walking Hawk. Mark wants to meet him, fanboying over it a little before turning serious. Ambrose reminds him of their little time travel jaunt in Egypt when they met Walking Hawk, and asks Mark to get him to autograph a book for him.
At Rainstorm's Edge, the rain heals Sir Tristan and his arm grows back. Ambrose is pleased for him. They decide to take him to Tara for now, till they can put his heart back. Rey gets excited about showing Tristan off, but Ambrose asks Tristan if he wants to be shown off. Yeah, he's basking in the very idea.
Jared slaps a Kingdom Hearts 'Heartless' sticker on him.
"Could you walk where I can see you sometimes?" Ambrose asks him, feeling nervous about somebody constantly standing right behind him where he can't see.
They're heading toward the City of the Forgotten. Rey asks if Ambrose ever had an imaginary friend. He doesn't believe so, he says.
Ambrose thinks the City of the Forgotten looks weird. "Well," Rey puns, "since the eyes have it...," receiving groans all around. The eyes lead them to a junkyard. Ambrose likes it; it's full of all sorts of odds and ends. A cute moleman with enormous front paws is digging there.
"This place is awesome!" Ambrose greets it.
"Yeah. Yeah," the moleman agrees, looking around at the piles of stuff lying around. "Pretty neat. I dig it up."
Ambrose shows him the box that holds the eyes and asks if he has anything like that. "Think I have that. I have what you want," the moleman mumbles shyly. Ambrose asks him about making a trade, which confuses the moleman, who tells him he "digs and keeps," and gives things to his child but not for 150 years. Ambrose feels sad for him.
"This guy's a kid at heart," Rey tries. The moleman apparently likes Ambrose enough that he goes and roots out the box. Ambrose still feels like he should give the moleman something. It tells him to call when he wants something dug up.
In the box is Tristan's head. They have to put the eyes back in (Jared does it). After they do, the head opens its mouth and begins to spout a prophecy.
Ambrose makes a sling to carry the head in, since he doesn't want to swing it around by the hair. Faris teases him about how creepy it is, and offers to attach it to Ambrose to complete the image. The head mumbles in upset. "I agree, shut up!" Ambrose tells Faris.
Next they have to find the tongue. "Awwww, it's a ritual thing, ew!" Ambrose complains.
"Hope the satyrs don't have it," Faris jokes.
Ambrose covers Sir Tristan-head's ears. "He's been traumatized enough!"
But where to find a tongue? In a place of communication or silence. Eshu takes point.
Their path takes them to a huge amphitheatre called the "Concert of Forgotten Songs." A ghost gives them directions to a disembodied tongue that sings faerie sagas. He tells them that musicians here keep track of forgotten music, which reminds them that they're looking for songs about Astarte. Jared and Faris go look into that, while Rey and Ambrose search for the tongue. They find three of her songs and get copies. "Scratch three more off the list," the archivist mumbles.
The tongue is in the keeping of a Nocker, who complains that it's his diva.
"It's a guy," counters Rey.
"Don't go enforcing gender roles on me!" the Nocker snaps. The book hits him.
Nevertheless, the Nocker doesn't want to give up the tongue.
"Look at this gentleman," Rey points out Sir Tristan. "He's not a changeling. He's True Fae. If you help, he'll probably owe you."
"Well...," the Nocker drawls. "If it's for the cause, I want to give him my best tongue."
They get what they came for and vacate before that conversation goes any further.
Ambrose is led to the gateway to the City of Balloon, a Pooka city of inflatables. A sphinx perched over the door challenges him: "What is your quest?"
"To put this guy back together," Ambrose answers it, then shouts as he's hurled into the air. "Augh, I know this one!"
He lands in a muck pile, where the fae find him. Rey explains that he has to lie to the sphinx. Anyway, they're in the city. From the head's indications, they need to head upward onto the balloons. Rey tells him about the city: it's a communist collective. Leadership belongs to the most recent funny-man.
There's rococo everywhere, which the Pooka consider the greatest joke of architecture and design ever. "Be kind to animals" posters are slathered all over. Faris tells them that to defend the city, the inhabitants toss out flyers containing the funniest joke in existence, which is so funny that it makes your head explode.
They get a dirigible pilot to take them to their destination, paying him with a funny story. He takes them to a dog pooka who sells boxes. Ambrose shows him an example of what they're looking for, and he does have it. But they must pay via...balloon race!
Ambrose is thrilled, but Rey calls dibs on piloting.
Dirigibles have afterburners! While Ambrose is looking theirs over, he gets a call from Jonas, telling him they've just met a mage named Walking Hawk. Ambrose knows the name all too well, and while he works, he tells them all about the First Cabal, the first team of magi the Traditions ever put together, with one member from each Tradition. Walking Hawk represented the Dreamspeakers. The First Cabal fell when the Solificati member betrayed them to the Technocracy after going Nephandi. Many of them died. Walking Hawk didn't, but no one ever heard from him again. They're all legends.
The race begins. Ambrose fires up the souped-up afterburners, and they blast past the boundaries of the city. Rey whoops and tries to maintain control. When a dog on a broom flies past, Ambrose cuts the power, and the winds lift their dirigible up into cloud castles. The box appears and opens, a hand pointing out toward their next destination: Courts of the Silfer, the wind elementals.
When they arrive, they're met by crystallized ice manifesting into armored knights. They do have a body part to guard, but they tell the travelers it must be won in a duel. "Have fun!" Rey chirps to Jared.
Jared kicks the other knight's ass in the duel, for which they're awarded a torso. Now they just need two legs, an arm and a heart. "The count is off," Ambrose realizes. They were told they'd need to find six pieces, but that's eight. Even if the tongue was removed later, it's still wrong.
Upon investigation, it turns out that Sir Tristan's heart is also in the book. They also realize that a bit of Sir Tristan is stuck in the Shadowlands. Ambrose wonders if that's weird for him, and whether it might affect his nature.
Ambrose gets a call from the Garou asking about Victoria Station. They think that's where he's supposed to put Sir Tristan back together. He tells them the prophecy thing is "kinda neat." Faris tells him that's totally cracked by everyone else's standards. "Fate tends to warp and bend around you people like candy."
"If the world always did what we thought it should," observes Ambrose, "It would be a bad place." No one can really argue with that.
Birds start flying past them, whisking them off the silver path toward Parrot Island in South Carolina. Faris says it's tied to the "reptilian dream." This is one of those places that exists in the real world, though not the way it does in the Dreaming.
The birds refer to their visitor as "shiny." One chats with them, telling them the birds are preparing for war against the Fomorians. They have a body part for Ambrose. Ambrose promises them shinies if they'll take them to it. The parrots have seen the White Court waking in the Forest of Lies, stirring as long ago as 1969, when they chased sidhe back into the real world. They also have rumors of the Red Court.
The body part is a leg, which with apologies to Sir Tristan, Ambrose decides not to attach yet, for ease of transport. Sir Tristan doesn't mind. Ambrose worries over the idea that putting him back together might spell his doom, but Tristan says he doesn't mind dying. He was a sorcerer in life as well as a knight. He understands that an influx of Glamour like that near the Moon must be a good thing. Ambrose isn't so thrilled, but "Well, the way you guys work, you'll explode if you're supposed to, right?"
A giant, three-stories-tall parrot who calls himself the King of the Birds flies them to Santa Fe and drops them on the top of Turtle Rock--a giant granite turtle who was wrapped in chains. Except now it's free. Ambrose talks to it, and realizes it is Turtle! Or Turtle's dream, at least, which Turtle Rock says is basically the same thing. This confuses Ambrose.
Turtle gives them the other leg. Ambrose sticks them on the torso, which stands up and starts following him, and asks Tristan if it's actually him now, and if it's weird. Tristan says it is, a little. Turtle advises that they inform the High King. Their next destination, Turtle riddles them, is "at the edge, when Now becomes Then." Ambrose gets this one: Greenwich.
"Awww, back to England!" he moans.
Rainstorm's Edge, Faris realizes, the edge of Spring.
Mark calls Ambrose. The lightning bolt Hermetic popped up in his bedroom. Mark stabbed him and teleported him away in self-defense before he realized who it was. Ambrose laughs, then tells him about Walking Hawk. Mark wants to meet him, fanboying over it a little before turning serious. Ambrose reminds him of their little time travel jaunt in Egypt when they met Walking Hawk, and asks Mark to get him to autograph a book for him.
At Rainstorm's Edge, the rain heals Sir Tristan and his arm grows back. Ambrose is pleased for him. They decide to take him to Tara for now, till they can put his heart back. Rey gets excited about showing Tristan off, but Ambrose asks Tristan if he wants to be shown off. Yeah, he's basking in the very idea.
Jared slaps a Kingdom Hearts 'Heartless' sticker on him.
Pre-moot: the Balam arrives
In Chicago, a great moot is being held. The guest list is growing increasingly prestigious. Sonya nearly curses when she learns her great-grandfather Sergei Burning Heart is expected. Aila and RF share their warm thoughts for the family reunion. Olesya, on the other hand, understands. "You'll see," Sonya simply tells them.
The pack is set to pick up a liaison from the Wendigo. They've asked for a Galliard, because they expect to need much in the way of lore. The Wendigo arrives early, and they're given time to get to know each other. He introduces himself as "Dances for the Spirits," and he bears a Stone Bow--a powerful fetish weapon. They also meet Mark Looks-into-Holes, a Uktena Ragabash, and Tim Runningaway is in attendence. The pack greets him warmly.
Meanwhile, the Balam has arrived in Chicago, and has to deal with getting through downtown. She's feline-born, and raised almost entirely apart from civilization, so this is...interesting. She nearly loses her sanity in the chaos of a human city. Traffic zooming, people rushing everywhere but only half-awake at this time of the morning, music, flashing signings. She finds people lined up to go in and out of a busy building that smells like coffee (a Starbucks). This, at least, the Balam feels a little familiar with. It looks to her like an exchange ritual is taking place. She hesitantly orders a coffee, and the order of a plain coffee confuses the cashier. "Do we do plain coffee here?" he asks one of the barristas.
The Balam thanks the coffee spirit before drinking. A jittery girl who's obviously already drunk too much coffee takes an interest in her after ordering a venti triple shot mocha latte. Noting that the Balam is sitting there, just gazing at the shop's patrons, the jittery girl shakes her. "Falling asleep? Lemme get you another coffee!" She orders a venti triple shot espresso, which she hands to the werecat. The Balam tries to beg off while the other girl makes small talk.
"Have you traveled from the land of secrets, chica? Cat got your tongue? Oh! 'What's she know, what's she know?'" "Wow, I can't slow down or I might die!" "Haven't found frappuchinos so you must be very removed from civilization."
The Balam ignores the girl's nattering, says maybe five words in response to her barrage of questions, and walks away when she's done with her coffee. The jittery girl diddles, torn over coffee or following the mysterious cat-woman. Finally she steals another guy's cup and takes off on a bike.
"You might wanna stop before the iron goddesses kill you!" she calls over the noise of traffic when she catches up to the Balam.
The werecat won't say where she's going. The jittery girl, who at this point has dropped enough hints that she's a Corax that someone might catch on, finally bets her she's going to the moot tomorrow, and tries to needle the cat-woman into asking for help, since she's obviously overwhelmed by the city. But the Balam barely acknowledges her, so finally the Corax girl shoves a map into her hands and takes off.
Introductions continue at the caern as people arrive. Aila is nervous. The Corax turns up a little while after leaving the Balam, with an important message. A Uktena banetender spoke a prophecy and passed it to her, telling her to bring it to the moot. She hands the papers to the pack, who look them over a bit. "Yeah..." says Aila. "Let's show this to someone who's good at it." Sonya stares at her, then shares a look with Olesya, who's clearly amused.
The Balam, meanwhile, is still trying to find her way through the metal jungle. A car pulls up alongside her, and a plain-looking man sticks his head out. "You should get in." She turns him down.
He leans back to reveal a tied-up teenager in the seat next to him. He draws a gun and shoots her. "Let me reinvite."
The Balam spins and runs, but a pickup truck cuts her off. "Mah friend tole ya to get in," drawls the hayseed behind the wheel. She ducks and breaks for the side, but someone trips her, grabs her, and throws her in the car. The woman who grabs her introduces herself as "Needs No Reason." The Balam stays silent.
They take her to a warehouse, where they demand to know why she's going to the werewolves. The unassuming man in the suit grumbles that they couldn't make the spirits talk, and asks if she's taking something to them--a message or something.
"I'm guessing you're one of our jungle people," he says, "Think this is all Wyrm-tainted and that it was better when we ate each other's shit."
"I'm not from around here," is all the answer she gives, which exasperates him.
He complains about the redneck ("Why can't evil fucking bathe once in a while?") and introduces her to "our Ragabash, Bleeds-for-Fun. He's happy so long as somebody in the vicinity is in pain." And complains, "Why don't they ever have dossiers? I'm from Boston. How about you?" The redneck mumbles how women always clam up when you want them to talk and they never shut up otherwise.
The gist of the whole thing is that they heard that someone's couriering important papers, and they want to know if it's her. She holds up the bus schedule, which is the only paper she has on her. The man takes it, annoyed, but "It's a bus schedule that's been touched by other people." He thinks he can get something out of it.
Apparently deciding that's all he'll get out of her, he tells her he'll send her where she wants to go. "Move over; you'll have to get off the corpse." They'd tossed her on top of the dead teenager. When she moves over, it gets up and climbs behind the wheel.
"Buh-bye, try not to eat this one!" the man chirps at her as the car pulls out.
The corpse drives badly, slinging the car all over the road till it goes hurtling toward the caern, up a ramp and nose-down into the meeting area. Startled shapeshifters leap in every direction. The werecat climbs out woozily, and is greeted by the Corax.
Sonya strides over to take in the scene, looking over the car and eying the werecat. She asks Aila to fetch some water. The car has no plates, no registration, nothing identifiable. "Is anyone here a mechanic? Can you get me some serial numbers off these parts?" she calls to the crowd in general. But that's a bust too. Car's been completely cleaned.
"I have names," the Balam offers from where Aila's escorted her to sit. "Needs-no-reason. And Bleeds-for-Fun." Turning attention to her, Sonya heals her wounds and asks her name.
"Jungle's Fury," the Balam inroduces herself. The Corax celebrates that someone got information out of her. Jonas flips through the corpse's wallet. Nothing has been stolen from it.
Jungle's Fury tells them about her kidnapping. Sonya sends Aila off with her while the others take care of the mess. She expects the police soon. She and some of the law enforcement-related kin deal with the police, which goes startlingly smoothly, which makes Sonya suspicious till one of the cops hands her a badge with the symbol of the High King David. She tells them to keep her updated on anything they learn.
Then the Balam becomes the center of attention. She tells them about her journey and her various encountesrs. She doesn't know what the thing was that assaulted her in Texas, but the pack recognizes the description of an Iterator. Jonas calls Ambrose. They learn that both groups received the same prophecy, and Ambrose promises he'll look into that girl. He finds it hard to believe she's really from Iteration X, but she can't be hard to trace. It's not like there are a lot of Iterator Nephandi.
Jungle's Fury is sure the people who interrogated her were shifters. Probably Black Spiral Dancers, from their behavior. She remembers the empty town in Mexico... Aila investigates and finds that it's actually in Texas. Everyone there vanished, with only the word "Croatan" left carved into a pole. She's offended. Jonas gets in touch with some people to check it out.
So. There were six people in that warehouse. Two were named, and Jungle's Fury can describe all of them, but she can't give them a good idea of where they picked her up.
While they were otherwise occupied, Sergei arrived. He is...distinctive. His every look seems to bear gravitas and judgment. "Is he cranky?" Aila asks, eying him apprehensively.
"No," Sonya replies. "Cranky is not what I would call him."
Sergei knows the old Wendigo who came with Dances for the Spirits, and is talking to an old human, whom he gives a great deal of respect. The man seems strangely familiar. Aila indicates she wants to know why, so Jonas pushes her at the man. She stammeringly asks if they've met. He doesn't believe so, he tells her, but he is a mage. Odd things happen to him.
Sonya prompts her to introduce herself. He nods in greeting and names himself Walking Hawk. Aha! That's in the prophecy!
Aila recites the line, "A dragon's lesson to a horned serpent..." Yes, he says, he knew the Mokole in question; in fact he gave him the knowledge to accomplish it.
Jungle's Fury is confused. Sonya explains about the prophecy they've received, then spots..."Jonas, are you filling it out like a crossword puzzle?"
Why, yes. Yes he is. Somehow his answer to that question meanders over into a rant about Lando Calrissian going Nephandi, at which point Sonya stares at the caffeinated Corax who's following him around. "How much coffee have you given him?" The Corax shows her a bag of 20 empty cups, from which Tim crawls. Sonya's about to reply when she feels her grandfather walk up behind her. She stiffens.
"So this is your pack."
"Some of them, yes," she replies.
"And a gaggle of over-caffeinated tricksters in the corner. I will be taking a copy of your prophecy."
She hands him one, and introduces him around. Sergei looks at Aila. "A word of advice: Ahrouns try to look bigger."
She sort of tucks in on herself and meekly says, "I'll try."
Well, Aila understands about Sergei now. She offers her sympathy to Sonya, who explains she didn't grow up with him. He trained her for a year after her First Change. "It did...interesting things to my family," she tells them, referring to Sergei's nature.
The pack is set to pick up a liaison from the Wendigo. They've asked for a Galliard, because they expect to need much in the way of lore. The Wendigo arrives early, and they're given time to get to know each other. He introduces himself as "Dances for the Spirits," and he bears a Stone Bow--a powerful fetish weapon. They also meet Mark Looks-into-Holes, a Uktena Ragabash, and Tim Runningaway is in attendence. The pack greets him warmly.
Meanwhile, the Balam has arrived in Chicago, and has to deal with getting through downtown. She's feline-born, and raised almost entirely apart from civilization, so this is...interesting. She nearly loses her sanity in the chaos of a human city. Traffic zooming, people rushing everywhere but only half-awake at this time of the morning, music, flashing signings. She finds people lined up to go in and out of a busy building that smells like coffee (a Starbucks). This, at least, the Balam feels a little familiar with. It looks to her like an exchange ritual is taking place. She hesitantly orders a coffee, and the order of a plain coffee confuses the cashier. "Do we do plain coffee here?" he asks one of the barristas.
The Balam thanks the coffee spirit before drinking. A jittery girl who's obviously already drunk too much coffee takes an interest in her after ordering a venti triple shot mocha latte. Noting that the Balam is sitting there, just gazing at the shop's patrons, the jittery girl shakes her. "Falling asleep? Lemme get you another coffee!" She orders a venti triple shot espresso, which she hands to the werecat. The Balam tries to beg off while the other girl makes small talk.
"Have you traveled from the land of secrets, chica? Cat got your tongue? Oh! 'What's she know, what's she know?'" "Wow, I can't slow down or I might die!" "Haven't found frappuchinos so you must be very removed from civilization."
The Balam ignores the girl's nattering, says maybe five words in response to her barrage of questions, and walks away when she's done with her coffee. The jittery girl diddles, torn over coffee or following the mysterious cat-woman. Finally she steals another guy's cup and takes off on a bike.
"You might wanna stop before the iron goddesses kill you!" she calls over the noise of traffic when she catches up to the Balam.
The werecat won't say where she's going. The jittery girl, who at this point has dropped enough hints that she's a Corax that someone might catch on, finally bets her she's going to the moot tomorrow, and tries to needle the cat-woman into asking for help, since she's obviously overwhelmed by the city. But the Balam barely acknowledges her, so finally the Corax girl shoves a map into her hands and takes off.
Introductions continue at the caern as people arrive. Aila is nervous. The Corax turns up a little while after leaving the Balam, with an important message. A Uktena banetender spoke a prophecy and passed it to her, telling her to bring it to the moot. She hands the papers to the pack, who look them over a bit. "Yeah..." says Aila. "Let's show this to someone who's good at it." Sonya stares at her, then shares a look with Olesya, who's clearly amused.
The Balam, meanwhile, is still trying to find her way through the metal jungle. A car pulls up alongside her, and a plain-looking man sticks his head out. "You should get in." She turns him down.
He leans back to reveal a tied-up teenager in the seat next to him. He draws a gun and shoots her. "Let me reinvite."
The Balam spins and runs, but a pickup truck cuts her off. "Mah friend tole ya to get in," drawls the hayseed behind the wheel. She ducks and breaks for the side, but someone trips her, grabs her, and throws her in the car. The woman who grabs her introduces herself as "Needs No Reason." The Balam stays silent.
They take her to a warehouse, where they demand to know why she's going to the werewolves. The unassuming man in the suit grumbles that they couldn't make the spirits talk, and asks if she's taking something to them--a message or something.
"I'm guessing you're one of our jungle people," he says, "Think this is all Wyrm-tainted and that it was better when we ate each other's shit."
"I'm not from around here," is all the answer she gives, which exasperates him.
He complains about the redneck ("Why can't evil fucking bathe once in a while?") and introduces her to "our Ragabash, Bleeds-for-Fun. He's happy so long as somebody in the vicinity is in pain." And complains, "Why don't they ever have dossiers? I'm from Boston. How about you?" The redneck mumbles how women always clam up when you want them to talk and they never shut up otherwise.
The gist of the whole thing is that they heard that someone's couriering important papers, and they want to know if it's her. She holds up the bus schedule, which is the only paper she has on her. The man takes it, annoyed, but "It's a bus schedule that's been touched by other people." He thinks he can get something out of it.
Apparently deciding that's all he'll get out of her, he tells her he'll send her where she wants to go. "Move over; you'll have to get off the corpse." They'd tossed her on top of the dead teenager. When she moves over, it gets up and climbs behind the wheel.
"Buh-bye, try not to eat this one!" the man chirps at her as the car pulls out.
The corpse drives badly, slinging the car all over the road till it goes hurtling toward the caern, up a ramp and nose-down into the meeting area. Startled shapeshifters leap in every direction. The werecat climbs out woozily, and is greeted by the Corax.
Sonya strides over to take in the scene, looking over the car and eying the werecat. She asks Aila to fetch some water. The car has no plates, no registration, nothing identifiable. "Is anyone here a mechanic? Can you get me some serial numbers off these parts?" she calls to the crowd in general. But that's a bust too. Car's been completely cleaned.
"I have names," the Balam offers from where Aila's escorted her to sit. "Needs-no-reason. And Bleeds-for-Fun." Turning attention to her, Sonya heals her wounds and asks her name.
"Jungle's Fury," the Balam inroduces herself. The Corax celebrates that someone got information out of her. Jonas flips through the corpse's wallet. Nothing has been stolen from it.
Jungle's Fury tells them about her kidnapping. Sonya sends Aila off with her while the others take care of the mess. She expects the police soon. She and some of the law enforcement-related kin deal with the police, which goes startlingly smoothly, which makes Sonya suspicious till one of the cops hands her a badge with the symbol of the High King David. She tells them to keep her updated on anything they learn.
Then the Balam becomes the center of attention. She tells them about her journey and her various encountesrs. She doesn't know what the thing was that assaulted her in Texas, but the pack recognizes the description of an Iterator. Jonas calls Ambrose. They learn that both groups received the same prophecy, and Ambrose promises he'll look into that girl. He finds it hard to believe she's really from Iteration X, but she can't be hard to trace. It's not like there are a lot of Iterator Nephandi.
Jungle's Fury is sure the people who interrogated her were shifters. Probably Black Spiral Dancers, from their behavior. She remembers the empty town in Mexico... Aila investigates and finds that it's actually in Texas. Everyone there vanished, with only the word "Croatan" left carved into a pole. She's offended. Jonas gets in touch with some people to check it out.
So. There were six people in that warehouse. Two were named, and Jungle's Fury can describe all of them, but she can't give them a good idea of where they picked her up.
While they were otherwise occupied, Sergei arrived. He is...distinctive. His every look seems to bear gravitas and judgment. "Is he cranky?" Aila asks, eying him apprehensively.
"No," Sonya replies. "Cranky is not what I would call him."
Sergei knows the old Wendigo who came with Dances for the Spirits, and is talking to an old human, whom he gives a great deal of respect. The man seems strangely familiar. Aila indicates she wants to know why, so Jonas pushes her at the man. She stammeringly asks if they've met. He doesn't believe so, he tells her, but he is a mage. Odd things happen to him.
Sonya prompts her to introduce herself. He nods in greeting and names himself Walking Hawk. Aha! That's in the prophecy!
Aila recites the line, "A dragon's lesson to a horned serpent..." Yes, he says, he knew the Mokole in question; in fact he gave him the knowledge to accomplish it.
Jungle's Fury is confused. Sonya explains about the prophecy they've received, then spots..."Jonas, are you filling it out like a crossword puzzle?"
Why, yes. Yes he is. Somehow his answer to that question meanders over into a rant about Lando Calrissian going Nephandi, at which point Sonya stares at the caffeinated Corax who's following him around. "How much coffee have you given him?" The Corax shows her a bag of 20 empty cups, from which Tim crawls. Sonya's about to reply when she feels her grandfather walk up behind her. She stiffens.
"So this is your pack."
"Some of them, yes," she replies.
"And a gaggle of over-caffeinated tricksters in the corner. I will be taking a copy of your prophecy."
She hands him one, and introduces him around. Sergei looks at Aila. "A word of advice: Ahrouns try to look bigger."
She sort of tucks in on herself and meekly says, "I'll try."
Well, Aila understands about Sergei now. She offers her sympathy to Sonya, who explains she didn't grow up with him. He trained her for a year after her First Change. "It did...interesting things to my family," she tells them, referring to Sergei's nature.
Danielle the Balam
A Balam woman walks north from the Amazon to Chicago, looking for the Turtle's Song. Just beyond the Mexican border, she sees a strange quiet in a nearby town. Heading into the center of town, she begins to smell the Wyrm. She makes a note of it and passes on.
Two nights later, she senses she's being watched. When she tries to escape the spy's attention, she feels a presence come up beside her. She can't shake it no matter how hard she tries, but it seems disinterested in attacking. It just follows her. She tries to run, and then to challenge it, but gets no response. She kicks some dust on it so she can see a pair of trousers, then tries heading for holy ground. A church yard is the closest sanctified site, but it's a Sunday and she's spotted. She runs again, only to discover she's now being followed by a car.
Two nights later, the invisible presence finally reveals itself--a man in a labcoat with a clipboard and inky black eyes. She attacks him. He defeats her without effort, and then takes notes.
"How does that make you feel?" he asks her.
Black tentacles emerge from his back and catch her when she tries to run. She flies into a rage, which seems to make the tendrils stronger. He takes a blood sample from her. "Do you have anything to add?" he asks.
A Native American girl walks up, with cybernetic implants in her face that leak black fluid. "Put the pet project to rest for a bit. We've got work to do," she tells him, then drags him off, ignoring the werecat entirely.
Two nights later, she senses she's being watched. When she tries to escape the spy's attention, she feels a presence come up beside her. She can't shake it no matter how hard she tries, but it seems disinterested in attacking. It just follows her. She tries to run, and then to challenge it, but gets no response. She kicks some dust on it so she can see a pair of trousers, then tries heading for holy ground. A church yard is the closest sanctified site, but it's a Sunday and she's spotted. She runs again, only to discover she's now being followed by a car.
Two nights later, the invisible presence finally reveals itself--a man in a labcoat with a clipboard and inky black eyes. She attacks him. He defeats her without effort, and then takes notes.
"How does that make you feel?" he asks her.
Black tentacles emerge from his back and catch her when she tries to run. She flies into a rage, which seems to make the tendrils stronger. He takes a blood sample from her. "Do you have anything to add?" he asks.
A Native American girl walks up, with cybernetic implants in her face that leak black fluid. "Put the pet project to rest for a bit. We've got work to do," she tells him, then drags him off, ignoring the werecat entirely.
Ambrose and the Evil Book; or, Turtle's Song finds Turtle's Caern
Rey decides he'd better start learning more about his sword. Turns out it's famous, but usually owned by Sidhe.
Sonya speaks with RF about the strange manifestation of his Ancestral Recall Gift, but he has no explanations. The Sept's other Theurges guess that something was trying to manifest to communicate through the Gift.
Ambrose discovers that the evil book has attaches itself to him. It floats around behind him wherever he goes, which does not make him a happy camper. Interestingly, however, this is fairie magic, which is at least several steps up from Nephandic. He goes to Dreamsoft to get help from the Crystal Circle.
"If he reads other books, will it get jealous?" asks Rey, cracking up.
Aila notices that the best online gamers have been disappearing. She can't get in touch with them by any way she tries. Asking around her online circle, she learns that ten entrants of recent tournaments have vanished a day or so later. Supposedly, they were offered scholarships and places on new research projects for use of the web.
The evil book is made of True Fae skin. To break its attachment to Ambrose, it must be returned to its body, buried, and consecrated, but finding the remains will be...interesting. Ambrose talks to the head of the chantry, who recommends he pay a visit to House Merinita, who deal extensively with the fae. Ambrose also requests help warding off possession by the book, as they have developed a theory that a Nephandus' personality has been stored in that book, and using it allows the Nephandus to slowly take you over.
Aila's investigation turns up the company that sponsored those recent tournaments. Turns out it's essentially a new dummy company with a blank reputation: New Vision Industries, "The future as one." ("What does that even mean?" wonders a confused Aila.) Sonya looks further into it for her while she has Aila call Ambrose.
Ambrose asks his VA friend to check it out, but when the guy goes in, he finds himself locked out of the system. Which means it's the Technocracy. He does get the name "Operation Crosshairs." Following that gives them the slender thread that it's an Iteration X project to create some kind of strike force.
Aila locates offices in California and Arizona, which is the main working location. Those are the same places they rolled over before in the Tellus operation.
The Virtual Adept also says that Progenitors are involved. Yesterday, they hired a Dr. Burke from her previous job at Our Lady of Perpetual Health--same Pentex Garou, new secret project. Something about video games as learning software. They figure that the Techs probably liked Tellus' idea and stole it.
Sonya considers finding a way to blackball the corporation and its project, rather than a head-on assault. The Technocracy has too many resources to do that easily. The people who were taken were 15 to 22 years old. The adults are one thing, but the Technocracy has essentially lied to parents about their minor-age childrens' locations, and that's kidnapping. They forward the information on to Dreamsoft.
The Virtual Adept also turns up mention of a "Project Roanoke." He's happy when Ambrose tells him that was to do with werewolves and maybe vampires. The VA had a bet with a guy. He wants to lie about it being vampires, since that's what the other dude's money was on. He tells Ambrose the bet was for $1, and Ambrose scoffs over lying over that.
"That's a Mountain Dew!" he defends himself.
"It's half a Dew! ...Where are you getting Mountain Dew for $1?"
"Pool hall down the street."
"Oh, really?"
"... Gaming store's got 'em for a quarter."
"Yeah, well."
"Well, yeah. Fake Dew."
"Dude, you're drinking Fresca?!"
The Merinita Hermetic turns up, but has to find out if he has permission to say anything. Once that's cleared up, he tells them that the guy involved with making the book was a mage of House Tremere. The mage is, he says, "accounted for, Avatar and all."
"He's dead, then?" Ambrose asks.
"Well...he's not breathing."
The book may indeed be trying to rewrite Ambrose. Its creation involved help from someone, maybe a faerie. He tells them to look up the name "Goratrix."
Sonya learns Dr. Burke is living in Phoenix. The Garou decide to pay her a visit.
Jared calls Ambrose. He fiancee has a mirror that shows her who's standing outside her door. They can try that; it might show them who the book is made out of.
"Everybody in but you and the book," his fiancee Dierdre greets them. Rey stutters a protest.
"What, it's not like he'll be kidnapped."
"Well..."
She ties a piece of string to Ambrose. "Better?"
The mirror shows a Dougal sidhe standing behind Ambrose. Outside, Ambrose gets hit by the book when he calls the Dougal "conventional" (referring to their creations). It won't stop, so Jared tells him to apologize. He refuses to take it back, but explains that he means they just don't create the sorts of inventions that push the boundaries of science. "I'm not saying they don't do great work!"
But it's interesting that the book apparently maintains some awareness. Apparently the fae has some effect on the book too. Is it attached to Ambrose for nefarious purposes or because it just likes him?
Rey calls the sidhe 'ostentatious.' The book hits Ambrose. He steps over near Rey so the book can hit the Pooka instead.
Faris points out that the True Fae seem to really go for Ambrose. Ambrose looks pleased. "You look pleased," Faris notes. "Why?"
"I was just thinking about the Autumn Queen."
"Well, don't!" Faris enspells him to see a naked Devyn Cavendish when he thinks of Astarte.
"You getting this?" Ambrose asks the book. It bobs. Ambrose steps next to Faris so the book can hit him. "This'll keep happening," Ambrose tells Faris. But more seriously, he points out that thinking of Devyn can in no way be a better thing than thinking of Astarte (whom he's having trouble not thinking of since they're talking about her). Faris concedes the point, but threatens a fat old Marlon Brando instead. Ambrose reminds him that Faris has to picture that first.
The mages get word that some teenagers with laser pistols took out an Arizona chantry. Ambrose tells the Garou and sets them up with a consultation with the Virtual Adepts. Ambrose and the faeries need to go to Ireland to start working out this book thing. He tries to look up information on Goratrix, but has no luck.
So for the Garou it's to Arizona! They break into Burke's house. Aila hacks her PC. Project Roanoka studies the Croatan Kin for why they don't manifest as Garou. They've already isolated the blood factor involved. Searching the house, Sonya finds research notes--Burke has muted her Rage somehow. Aila pulls the hard drive after trying to burn a CD goes oddly slowly, and spots a trap on the hard drive--a mister of silver powder. She disarms it.
Sonya is checking through Burke's bills and stuff when the television turns on by itself, displaying a Man in Black. Aila kicks the TV over. The pack tries to bail, but a ward has locked the house down, both here and in the Umbra. Aila takes them through the Shadowlands, which she notes look a bit more vile than usual.
Faris takes them on a trod to get to Ireland. The Dougal fae manifests a body in the Dreaming. He can speak with them, but he's forbidden to help them. Ambrose chats with him about hobbies and building things instead, figuring the guy could use a decent conversation after all this time.
They reach Ireland and visit a freehold. The fae there know of Goratrix--one of the founding Tremere. The bards track down a story about a battle against the Tremere and Balor, where captive fae were enchanted to fight against their own. The fight was over a Garou caern, which called its fae allies to its defense. The Tremere treated it like a test. They were beaten, Goratrix fled, and the book was cast into the Dreaming. It's said to be older than Goratrix, originally containing ancient fae lore. Goratrix got hold of it and remade it after gaining some secret. Ambrose suspects that the book may retain a shard of Goratrix's Avatar.
The caern is gone. A college exists on the site now, but some Garou and their kin still live there, and it's a reservoir of local folklore.
They learn that Ambrose has apparently been enchanted for quite some time. He shows the fae that he's been carrying around poppies from their little excursion in Oz, and Faris is floored that they haven't disappeared. It's changed his resonance, which is probably what's attracting True Fae who can sense that special band of Glamour.
The pack gets back and brings the hard drive to the chantry. Mark meets them at the door and escorts them in. "Who wants to hack a Technocracy hard drive?" he asks to the sitting room at large. Two VAs stumble down the stairs fighting. Sonya picks the one who helped Ambrose, who cheers and does the 'in your face' dance.
The Technocracy is planning to kidnap Croatan kin. The Adept can't stop it, but he reminds them that Dante owes them a favor... He sends an email. In four minutes, the man rewrites the Technocracy list of subjects and forwards the pack the real one. They call in Garou to help hide the kin within the next two days, before the Technocracy discovers the replacement.
Aila is impressed by the number of people on the list. Sonya stares at her speculatively, then double-checks--there are more Croatan kin than there were before. The blood is waking up. Aila stares at Turtle in surprise, who gives her a sort of "duh" expression. It means Eater-of-Souls may wake, but Turtle points out that they have time to fix that some other way.
They head back to the Sept, where the Elders think they'd better call a Moot. One of the Garou has also come up with an idea regarding RF's mystery. She offers him a Story Bag. He pulls out a story, and they watch a Mokole take a baby wolf to teach it something. The Mokole touches the pup and the story ends. RF thinks perhaps they should go to South America and talk to the family who found him.
Aila's Story Knife activates, drawing a battle against a serpent monster near a lake. There's a woman who's part of the land and a symbol for a Nunnehi freehold. A Uktena Galliard recognizes the site: it's in North Carolina near Roanoke.
In Ireland, Ambrose and Jared hit the library, while Rey charms the local Kinfolk into talking. They invite him to a frat party. Ambrose and Jared find an alchemist's journal containing an entry that mentions Goratrix making odd bargains, worrying that he might have turned Nephandi. The journal speaks about how he's been talking to 'Dark Kin'--Fomorian servants, Boggarts, Thallain, evil Pooka--bargaining for some kind of power.
In a later entry, the alchemist writes that he's grown concerned enough to hire another mage to follow Goratrix. That mage sent him a report of Goratrix contacting some kind of dark Arabic thing, which taught him how to bind a book (a book the mage speaks of familiarly, but gives no detail on). Aided by dark fae wearing Balor's ensign, Goratrix bound the book and made a pact with the thing...and the mage wrote back that he'd seen something else he dared not trust to paper.
Rey gets sloshed with the Fianna kin, who sing a song about a poxy mage who bargains with the devil.
The story is Rey hears is about two mages of House Tremere (one the "poxy Goratrix," the other a woman) who made a bargain with the Dark Kin and the Devil to rule the islands. They attacked the "brave Fianna" at the caern a few miles away, and a great battle took place where the poxy mage unleashed his "demon fae. The day was nearly lost until another mage arrived to fight by the Fianna's side, wielding lightning and fire to decimate everything before him. The mage wore strange clothes that the song describes as oddly modern. So the Fianna and the fae won the day, took the book and cast it into the Dreaming with a prophecy that it would be found again when it was time for it to be cleansed.
It was considered the last fight against the Fomorian forces. Legend says that some of the defeated forces fled to Malfeas. Rey heads back to tell the others the tale. Ambrose ruminates over who the anachronistic mage could be. His money's on Porthos.
According to the journal, the second mage was Meerlinda, another of the leading lights of House Tremere. As for the Devil...? No idea. A journal scrap indicates that the spy never arrived with that final information, but he sent a sketch ahead, which was hidden in a painting. The alchemist, for his part, indicates his panicked intention to get the hell away from here and never come back.
Ambrose searches the room and finds the sketch. It's of Goratrix kneeling to the Dark Man. His comment: "Fuck me."
They head back to the freehold. Ambrose offers his sympathies to the book.
The Garou, meanwhile, head to that Nunnehi freehold and tell the fae there about the Story Knife. They turn that over in their minds, then bring out a box containing a turtleshell compass. It's a fetish. "If you ever want to know where it takes you, just open a Moon Bridge and follow it," the Neunnehi tell them.
After that, the pack heads back to the Memory Caern, where the Garou welcome them warmly. Making a ritual offering to the caern's totem (which is Turtle), the pack goes on a vision quest to discover RF's mystery. The vision shows them that a Mokole put its Garou-related memories into RF. They'll activate fully when he returns to the Mokole wallow and passes their test.
They still don't know why RF's wolf parents did this, but he remembers a Mokole moot where the decision was made.
After the vision quest is completed, the pack tells their latest stories and share the news about the Croatan. RF calls his adoptive family, who remember the tree where he was found. They may be able to speak to it and find out what it knows. His family tells them that lizards led them to the tree. One swears he thought he saw a dinosaur, but he thought it was a spirit. The pack can't head down to the rain forest yet, because the sept wants them back within a few days for the moot.
But they can find out where that compass takes them. So they prevail upon the Memory Caern's sept to open a Moon Bridge for them. As they step on it, Sonya feels the compass move and the Moon Bridge shifts to follow it. Turtle tells Aila, "Wait and see," when she asks him about it, then she fusses over his cuteness.
The Moon Bridge leads them to an anchor stone on an island near the Outer Banks. It obviously used to be a caern...and she quickly confirms her suspicions of which one. The Sept of the Still Waters, whose totem is Sea Turtle. The caern where the Croatan mooted to prepare for their sacrifice. It sealed itself when they died. It has been kept safe as a nature preserve and historical site under the state government, due to the carvings and artifacts on the site.
They read those glyphs to find information about Red Eagle, the Uktena who was sent away to warn the other Garou. Sonya locates the central meeting area with Sea Turtle's ritual stone. RF finds a book, which is written in English by Wonshee, the Croatan leader. It's his journal of a trip he took to England--his insights and learning.
In Ireland, the next morning, they prepare to head for the old battlefield site. Ambrose holds them up at the freehold while he collects some assorted items. Rey hands out emergency peppermints. When they reach the old site, Rey notes the echoes that remain in the Dreaming. Ambrose sounds out the ground for buried items. Jared spots a cottage and a road down to the beach. An old Irish man yells incoherently at Rey from the cottage, so he heads over and chats the man up. The guy claims to have riches, and he knows the story about the battle, which he starts telling in Gaelic. He seems disoriented about the time line, and claims the fae warned the Garou after a faerie went missing: one Tristan ap Dougal, who used to guard "the place with the imaginary toys"--the City of the Forgotten, Faris identifies it. The place is where imaginary friends go when their children forget them. It is protected and nurtured by faerie knights.
Sir Tristan, the old man tells them, was taken away and skinned and made into a book. But he was True Fae (this was before the Sundering), so he didn't die. The fae buried his remains, but not necessarily all in one place.
So now they know the name of the book's faerie. He couldn't tell them before. Ambrose unearths a silver box covered with fae sigils. They take it back to the freehold before they open it. Inside are a pair of eyes. Faris thinks they're supposed to take the eyes and use them to guide them to the next body part. Ambrose looks at them dubiously. "Well...it wouldn't be the strangest thing I've ever done."
"Really?" Faris asks, astonished.
Ambrose calls Mark and asks him to do some research on what 'consecration' would consist of in this case, and forwards a report to the chantry.
Jonas calls, telling the fae little of significance, except that "we're having an apocalypse." Ambrose decides he'd better send the Marauder camera back before they head off to somewhere in the Dreaming.
Sonya speaks with RF about the strange manifestation of his Ancestral Recall Gift, but he has no explanations. The Sept's other Theurges guess that something was trying to manifest to communicate through the Gift.
Ambrose discovers that the evil book has attaches itself to him. It floats around behind him wherever he goes, which does not make him a happy camper. Interestingly, however, this is fairie magic, which is at least several steps up from Nephandic. He goes to Dreamsoft to get help from the Crystal Circle.
"If he reads other books, will it get jealous?" asks Rey, cracking up.
Aila notices that the best online gamers have been disappearing. She can't get in touch with them by any way she tries. Asking around her online circle, she learns that ten entrants of recent tournaments have vanished a day or so later. Supposedly, they were offered scholarships and places on new research projects for use of the web.
The evil book is made of True Fae skin. To break its attachment to Ambrose, it must be returned to its body, buried, and consecrated, but finding the remains will be...interesting. Ambrose talks to the head of the chantry, who recommends he pay a visit to House Merinita, who deal extensively with the fae. Ambrose also requests help warding off possession by the book, as they have developed a theory that a Nephandus' personality has been stored in that book, and using it allows the Nephandus to slowly take you over.
Aila's investigation turns up the company that sponsored those recent tournaments. Turns out it's essentially a new dummy company with a blank reputation: New Vision Industries, "The future as one." ("What does that even mean?" wonders a confused Aila.) Sonya looks further into it for her while she has Aila call Ambrose.
Ambrose asks his VA friend to check it out, but when the guy goes in, he finds himself locked out of the system. Which means it's the Technocracy. He does get the name "Operation Crosshairs." Following that gives them the slender thread that it's an Iteration X project to create some kind of strike force.
Aila locates offices in California and Arizona, which is the main working location. Those are the same places they rolled over before in the Tellus operation.
The Virtual Adept also says that Progenitors are involved. Yesterday, they hired a Dr. Burke from her previous job at Our Lady of Perpetual Health--same Pentex Garou, new secret project. Something about video games as learning software. They figure that the Techs probably liked Tellus' idea and stole it.
Sonya considers finding a way to blackball the corporation and its project, rather than a head-on assault. The Technocracy has too many resources to do that easily. The people who were taken were 15 to 22 years old. The adults are one thing, but the Technocracy has essentially lied to parents about their minor-age childrens' locations, and that's kidnapping. They forward the information on to Dreamsoft.
The Virtual Adept also turns up mention of a "Project Roanoke." He's happy when Ambrose tells him that was to do with werewolves and maybe vampires. The VA had a bet with a guy. He wants to lie about it being vampires, since that's what the other dude's money was on. He tells Ambrose the bet was for $1, and Ambrose scoffs over lying over that.
"That's a Mountain Dew!" he defends himself.
"It's half a Dew! ...Where are you getting Mountain Dew for $1?"
"Pool hall down the street."
"Oh, really?"
"... Gaming store's got 'em for a quarter."
"Yeah, well."
"Well, yeah. Fake Dew."
"Dude, you're drinking Fresca?!"
The Merinita Hermetic turns up, but has to find out if he has permission to say anything. Once that's cleared up, he tells them that the guy involved with making the book was a mage of House Tremere. The mage is, he says, "accounted for, Avatar and all."
"He's dead, then?" Ambrose asks.
"Well...he's not breathing."
The book may indeed be trying to rewrite Ambrose. Its creation involved help from someone, maybe a faerie. He tells them to look up the name "Goratrix."
Sonya learns Dr. Burke is living in Phoenix. The Garou decide to pay her a visit.
Jared calls Ambrose. He fiancee has a mirror that shows her who's standing outside her door. They can try that; it might show them who the book is made out of.
"Everybody in but you and the book," his fiancee Dierdre greets them. Rey stutters a protest.
"What, it's not like he'll be kidnapped."
"Well..."
She ties a piece of string to Ambrose. "Better?"
The mirror shows a Dougal sidhe standing behind Ambrose. Outside, Ambrose gets hit by the book when he calls the Dougal "conventional" (referring to their creations). It won't stop, so Jared tells him to apologize. He refuses to take it back, but explains that he means they just don't create the sorts of inventions that push the boundaries of science. "I'm not saying they don't do great work!"
But it's interesting that the book apparently maintains some awareness. Apparently the fae has some effect on the book too. Is it attached to Ambrose for nefarious purposes or because it just likes him?
Rey calls the sidhe 'ostentatious.' The book hits Ambrose. He steps over near Rey so the book can hit the Pooka instead.
Faris points out that the True Fae seem to really go for Ambrose. Ambrose looks pleased. "You look pleased," Faris notes. "Why?"
"I was just thinking about the Autumn Queen."
"Well, don't!" Faris enspells him to see a naked Devyn Cavendish when he thinks of Astarte.
"You getting this?" Ambrose asks the book. It bobs. Ambrose steps next to Faris so the book can hit him. "This'll keep happening," Ambrose tells Faris. But more seriously, he points out that thinking of Devyn can in no way be a better thing than thinking of Astarte (whom he's having trouble not thinking of since they're talking about her). Faris concedes the point, but threatens a fat old Marlon Brando instead. Ambrose reminds him that Faris has to picture that first.
The mages get word that some teenagers with laser pistols took out an Arizona chantry. Ambrose tells the Garou and sets them up with a consultation with the Virtual Adepts. Ambrose and the faeries need to go to Ireland to start working out this book thing. He tries to look up information on Goratrix, but has no luck.
So for the Garou it's to Arizona! They break into Burke's house. Aila hacks her PC. Project Roanoka studies the Croatan Kin for why they don't manifest as Garou. They've already isolated the blood factor involved. Searching the house, Sonya finds research notes--Burke has muted her Rage somehow. Aila pulls the hard drive after trying to burn a CD goes oddly slowly, and spots a trap on the hard drive--a mister of silver powder. She disarms it.
Sonya is checking through Burke's bills and stuff when the television turns on by itself, displaying a Man in Black. Aila kicks the TV over. The pack tries to bail, but a ward has locked the house down, both here and in the Umbra. Aila takes them through the Shadowlands, which she notes look a bit more vile than usual.
Faris takes them on a trod to get to Ireland. The Dougal fae manifests a body in the Dreaming. He can speak with them, but he's forbidden to help them. Ambrose chats with him about hobbies and building things instead, figuring the guy could use a decent conversation after all this time.
They reach Ireland and visit a freehold. The fae there know of Goratrix--one of the founding Tremere. The bards track down a story about a battle against the Tremere and Balor, where captive fae were enchanted to fight against their own. The fight was over a Garou caern, which called its fae allies to its defense. The Tremere treated it like a test. They were beaten, Goratrix fled, and the book was cast into the Dreaming. It's said to be older than Goratrix, originally containing ancient fae lore. Goratrix got hold of it and remade it after gaining some secret. Ambrose suspects that the book may retain a shard of Goratrix's Avatar.
The caern is gone. A college exists on the site now, but some Garou and their kin still live there, and it's a reservoir of local folklore.
They learn that Ambrose has apparently been enchanted for quite some time. He shows the fae that he's been carrying around poppies from their little excursion in Oz, and Faris is floored that they haven't disappeared. It's changed his resonance, which is probably what's attracting True Fae who can sense that special band of Glamour.
The pack gets back and brings the hard drive to the chantry. Mark meets them at the door and escorts them in. "Who wants to hack a Technocracy hard drive?" he asks to the sitting room at large. Two VAs stumble down the stairs fighting. Sonya picks the one who helped Ambrose, who cheers and does the 'in your face' dance.
The Technocracy is planning to kidnap Croatan kin. The Adept can't stop it, but he reminds them that Dante owes them a favor... He sends an email. In four minutes, the man rewrites the Technocracy list of subjects and forwards the pack the real one. They call in Garou to help hide the kin within the next two days, before the Technocracy discovers the replacement.
Aila is impressed by the number of people on the list. Sonya stares at her speculatively, then double-checks--there are more Croatan kin than there were before. The blood is waking up. Aila stares at Turtle in surprise, who gives her a sort of "duh" expression. It means Eater-of-Souls may wake, but Turtle points out that they have time to fix that some other way.
They head back to the Sept, where the Elders think they'd better call a Moot. One of the Garou has also come up with an idea regarding RF's mystery. She offers him a Story Bag. He pulls out a story, and they watch a Mokole take a baby wolf to teach it something. The Mokole touches the pup and the story ends. RF thinks perhaps they should go to South America and talk to the family who found him.
Aila's Story Knife activates, drawing a battle against a serpent monster near a lake. There's a woman who's part of the land and a symbol for a Nunnehi freehold. A Uktena Galliard recognizes the site: it's in North Carolina near Roanoke.
In Ireland, Ambrose and Jared hit the library, while Rey charms the local Kinfolk into talking. They invite him to a frat party. Ambrose and Jared find an alchemist's journal containing an entry that mentions Goratrix making odd bargains, worrying that he might have turned Nephandi. The journal speaks about how he's been talking to 'Dark Kin'--Fomorian servants, Boggarts, Thallain, evil Pooka--bargaining for some kind of power.
In a later entry, the alchemist writes that he's grown concerned enough to hire another mage to follow Goratrix. That mage sent him a report of Goratrix contacting some kind of dark Arabic thing, which taught him how to bind a book (a book the mage speaks of familiarly, but gives no detail on). Aided by dark fae wearing Balor's ensign, Goratrix bound the book and made a pact with the thing...and the mage wrote back that he'd seen something else he dared not trust to paper.
Rey gets sloshed with the Fianna kin, who sing a song about a poxy mage who bargains with the devil.
The story is Rey hears is about two mages of House Tremere (one the "poxy Goratrix," the other a woman) who made a bargain with the Dark Kin and the Devil to rule the islands. They attacked the "brave Fianna" at the caern a few miles away, and a great battle took place where the poxy mage unleashed his "demon fae. The day was nearly lost until another mage arrived to fight by the Fianna's side, wielding lightning and fire to decimate everything before him. The mage wore strange clothes that the song describes as oddly modern. So the Fianna and the fae won the day, took the book and cast it into the Dreaming with a prophecy that it would be found again when it was time for it to be cleansed.
It was considered the last fight against the Fomorian forces. Legend says that some of the defeated forces fled to Malfeas. Rey heads back to tell the others the tale. Ambrose ruminates over who the anachronistic mage could be. His money's on Porthos.
According to the journal, the second mage was Meerlinda, another of the leading lights of House Tremere. As for the Devil...? No idea. A journal scrap indicates that the spy never arrived with that final information, but he sent a sketch ahead, which was hidden in a painting. The alchemist, for his part, indicates his panicked intention to get the hell away from here and never come back.
Ambrose searches the room and finds the sketch. It's of Goratrix kneeling to the Dark Man. His comment: "Fuck me."
They head back to the freehold. Ambrose offers his sympathies to the book.
The Garou, meanwhile, head to that Nunnehi freehold and tell the fae there about the Story Knife. They turn that over in their minds, then bring out a box containing a turtleshell compass. It's a fetish. "If you ever want to know where it takes you, just open a Moon Bridge and follow it," the Neunnehi tell them.
After that, the pack heads back to the Memory Caern, where the Garou welcome them warmly. Making a ritual offering to the caern's totem (which is Turtle), the pack goes on a vision quest to discover RF's mystery. The vision shows them that a Mokole put its Garou-related memories into RF. They'll activate fully when he returns to the Mokole wallow and passes their test.
They still don't know why RF's wolf parents did this, but he remembers a Mokole moot where the decision was made.
After the vision quest is completed, the pack tells their latest stories and share the news about the Croatan. RF calls his adoptive family, who remember the tree where he was found. They may be able to speak to it and find out what it knows. His family tells them that lizards led them to the tree. One swears he thought he saw a dinosaur, but he thought it was a spirit. The pack can't head down to the rain forest yet, because the sept wants them back within a few days for the moot.
But they can find out where that compass takes them. So they prevail upon the Memory Caern's sept to open a Moon Bridge for them. As they step on it, Sonya feels the compass move and the Moon Bridge shifts to follow it. Turtle tells Aila, "Wait and see," when she asks him about it, then she fusses over his cuteness.
The Moon Bridge leads them to an anchor stone on an island near the Outer Banks. It obviously used to be a caern...and she quickly confirms her suspicions of which one. The Sept of the Still Waters, whose totem is Sea Turtle. The caern where the Croatan mooted to prepare for their sacrifice. It sealed itself when they died. It has been kept safe as a nature preserve and historical site under the state government, due to the carvings and artifacts on the site.
They read those glyphs to find information about Red Eagle, the Uktena who was sent away to warn the other Garou. Sonya locates the central meeting area with Sea Turtle's ritual stone. RF finds a book, which is written in English by Wonshee, the Croatan leader. It's his journal of a trip he took to England--his insights and learning.
In Ireland, the next morning, they prepare to head for the old battlefield site. Ambrose holds them up at the freehold while he collects some assorted items. Rey hands out emergency peppermints. When they reach the old site, Rey notes the echoes that remain in the Dreaming. Ambrose sounds out the ground for buried items. Jared spots a cottage and a road down to the beach. An old Irish man yells incoherently at Rey from the cottage, so he heads over and chats the man up. The guy claims to have riches, and he knows the story about the battle, which he starts telling in Gaelic. He seems disoriented about the time line, and claims the fae warned the Garou after a faerie went missing: one Tristan ap Dougal, who used to guard "the place with the imaginary toys"--the City of the Forgotten, Faris identifies it. The place is where imaginary friends go when their children forget them. It is protected and nurtured by faerie knights.
Sir Tristan, the old man tells them, was taken away and skinned and made into a book. But he was True Fae (this was before the Sundering), so he didn't die. The fae buried his remains, but not necessarily all in one place.
So now they know the name of the book's faerie. He couldn't tell them before. Ambrose unearths a silver box covered with fae sigils. They take it back to the freehold before they open it. Inside are a pair of eyes. Faris thinks they're supposed to take the eyes and use them to guide them to the next body part. Ambrose looks at them dubiously. "Well...it wouldn't be the strangest thing I've ever done."
"Really?" Faris asks, astonished.
Ambrose calls Mark and asks him to do some research on what 'consecration' would consist of in this case, and forwards a report to the chantry.
Jonas calls, telling the fae little of significance, except that "we're having an apocalypse." Ambrose decides he'd better send the Marauder camera back before they head off to somewhere in the Dreaming.
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Our Lady of Perpetual Health is not approved by OSHA
The plan is for Sonya, Ambrose, RF, and Jared to play official while the others try to blend in and sneak around the facility to see what they can see.
When they arrive, Mark notes that the staff are...not normal. He's wary. Jonas plays janitor while Aila simply sits down in the waiting room and tells anyone who asks that she's waiting for a friend.
She sees car accident victims get rolled through. She watches as a nurse tells one man with a broken arm that it's just a sprain...and then it is.
The others go with one Nurse Clarke to view the bodies in the morgue. She smells odd to the werewolves. The bodies are definitely victims of that thing. When Ambrose asks the nurse for blood work, she leaves to get it...and locks the door behind her on the way out.
The zombies sit up. Ambrose, who's investigating the lock, is completely oblivious to this till RF gets his attention.
The rest of the pack realizes their companions are in danger and head down toward the morgue...but when they get there, the door's open and nobody's there.
The group trapped inside apply themselves to zombie killing. Ambrose, vaguely offended by being attacked with dead bodies, sets up a sonic field which he refers to as a 'zombie-exploding field,' which does indeed take care of the problem.
Then he opens the door...and they find themselves in Silent Hill. The walls are best referred to as disgusting, caked with filth and old blood and smelling like evil. The floor is a grate and the lighting is, um, poor. Sonya's guess is that the nurse led them through a portal into an Umbral realm.
Back in the real world, Aila looks for Mark, who's confused about the number of mages working here. Alerted that something's wrong, he calls Ambrose and they catch up. Ambrose uses a sonic etheric field vibrator to agitate the energies of a gateway into visibility. Sure enough, there it is. He pokes around it, and is grabbed by Striplings, ghost children with eyes of flame. "Demon children, demon children!" he yelps a warning to the others.
They pile on him. RF drives them back with a wind wall. Ambrose belatedly recognizes that theyr'e in a Labyrinth, which revolts him. He opens the gateway, and everyone piles out to confront their allies in the hall in the real world.
But how are they hiding a Labyrinth in their basement when so many mages are wandering around? "We're early in the game," Jonas quips, referring to Silent Hill. "Have to find the knife and the lead pipe."
Ambrose grabs some chemicals and other items from the morgue. "Well, "I'm skipping to the rocket launcher!"
They decide to vacate the place and call in reinforcements, but when they leave the building the streets are creepily empty. It's like the town has never been inhabited.
"Go back in?" asks Aila, disturbed.
"We could 'rec the edges,'" Ambrose suggests. He's met with blank stares all around. "I mean look around."
"Wow," says Jonas.
They go back inside. An Etherite walks by (they can tell their own kind). Ambrose catches up to him and tries to talk to him about the whole situation. The man, Dr. Brandon Evans, drags Ambrose to his office to check for drugs, because apparently he's never noticed anything odd about this place. He's familiar with Ambrose's work, notes "Beast people!" when he sees the Garou, and tells them about a Pooka who works in Cardiology named Dr. Greg. But he's awfully confused about the idea that the hospital could be odd.
Dr. Greg, on the other hand, has noticed. "Been trying to leave for a year and a half. So I started doing heart operations."
Aila tries to show Dr Evans the weirdly empty streets...but when she looks out from his office it looks normal outside. She grabs Jonas and they go outside to look up at the window. The people inside can see them, but it looks like they're standing in a normal street. Aila, on the other hand, sees the same vacant town as before.
On the way back in, she sees a ghost. He tells her 13 or so non-spectres inhabit the building, and warns her that the basement is inhabited by Striplings. But he's surprised they can't leave.
Dr. Greg tells them he like to mess with a dauntain who works in the Child Psych ward; sometimes burns his notes and wrecks his office. It's a Boggan. Dr. Greg wants to page him and pants him.
The Boggan ignores the Pooka's antics, but is disgusted by the arrival of more fae. They walk him to his office. He can't leave either, but he insists that he wants to stay. They discover he believes it's still the Accordance War. He's startled when he hears they went to the morgue. "No one goes there." Rey pities him and calls him 'cupcake.'
And that's about what they can get out of him. "Let me just set his trashcan on fire and we'll leave." Jared recalls that the Striplings all had badges for the Child Psyche ward, so he heads down that way...but finds that the ward is so banal he can't go in. He comes back and locks the Boggan in his office.
They pass another pediatrician on the way back to Evans' office, one Patricia Burks. There's something just wrong with her. Her badge says she's a genetic specialist.
Dr. Greg and Dr. Evans talk. Burks is Garou, they know. Greg says that only the mages can leave. Six mages work here total--it's a chantry. Dr. Sinris, Evans tells them, is the chantry head.
Dr. Voldek, who's a vampire, knocks on the door when he notices the crowd in Dr. Evans' office. He's quite agreeable, telling them he's been stuck here for 210 years. This place was an asylum when he first arrived, and Sinris was already here. There are a few wraiths that old, too. He suggests they talk to Dr. Hartley, who's a ghost docctor.
Sonya and Aila go to the trauma ward to find him. Sonya's startled to find that she can see Dr. Hartley without any effort. There's barely any Shroud here at all...or Gauntlet. Hartley tells them this started as an army hospital, then it was used as an asylum, then turned back into a hospital. "It was a well of psychic energy till Sinris got here," he says. "Then it got weird." The basement is a gateway to the Labyrinth. The only way out of the hospital is to go up through it into the Shadowlands. Sinris is all evil; Hartley refers to him as a "spectre-mage." He became one about 20 years after his arrival--early 1800s. Sinris lets the mages come and go to allay their suspicions, and he frets about the Technocracy. He's working on some genetic merger experiments and he's doing something with brains. He's been working with the Giovanni because they know ghosts. Voldek comes by again and verifies the occasional presence of Giovanni--and also Tzimisce.
But why Chicago? Sonya wonders. And what is Nurse Clarke?
Ambrose and Mark want to talk to the other mages in the chantry. Dr. Olivia is a Cultist who works the emergency room. She's fairly easy to convince of the oddities going on around here. Dr. Voldek chases of the Boggan when he comes 'round again, and warns them they ahve 10 hours before they become too much a part of this place to find a way out. They can deal with Sinris, go through the Labyrinth, or...
Ambrose pulls out the Technocracy phone, demonstrating it as an admittedly insane third option. Then he slips it away when the head nurse comes by not a moment later asking about 'unauthorized technology.' Ambrose pulls out the Marauder camera to throw her off. She (who Aila pegs as a bane mummy after she recognizes the serpent bracelet she wears as Apophis) stares at it like it's venomous, then warns him to be careful. Aila snarks at her, but the mummy leaves, ignoring her.
When he sees a picture, RF realizes that Sinris looks like the Hermetic with the evil book he saw in his vision. But the timeline is off. He had to be Nephandi to make those abominations, but if he only went Nephandi in the early 1800s... He thinks they need to get a look at that book. It's in Sinris' lab, probably--his sanctum.
A ghost ambulance comes in with another body from Chicago. A couple of the Garou hijack the wraith with his corpse in the elevator, smash the body's skull (figuring the brains are important)...and then the wraith sends the elevator plummeting into the basement. Aila tries to slow it. Ambrose shoots a grappling hook down from the floor they were left on and pulls them up.
They turn to find the Garou nurse standing behind them. She's a Silver Fang who works for Pentex. "Looking for a cure for us," she tells them when they ask her why. That's Patricia Burke.
"I think we just found out what's happening to the Bone Gnawers," Sonya mutters when she leaves.
Nurse Clarke comes down again to accuse them of destroying hospital property. Ambrose takes a reading on her, and his monitor explodes. He tinkers with it to see if he can get anything out of it, and gets readings that the fae identify as a Fomorian general. She scoffs at him and leaves, annoyed by Etherite antics.
Dr. Evans comes by, still mulling the situation over, and agrees to show them to the chapel where the two Choristers can usually be found. The chapel, at least, is soothing, sustained by the mages' faith. They listen willingly to the tale of this place, but the visit is interrupted when Sonya spots a Giovanni passing by in the hall, heading toward Sinris' office.
If he's at his office meeting guests, then his sanctum is empty.
They break in to find an unbinding circle with 11 of 12 brains in corresponding points around the edges. A shimmering window in the circle's center shows the Shattered Peaks and a Fomorian freehold. The fae freak out.
Ambrose's Technocracy phone rings. He ignores it. They find the book nearby, picking it up with tongs to put it in a bag, then start hooking up explosives. Ambrose plugs in an etheric battery to the chain of explosives, puts it on a timer, and then he tells them to run for their lives, because they've got a few minutes before the top floor vaporizes.
They evacuate the building. Mage employees are startled find themselves standing in an empty town. The fae kill the Boggan dauntain on the way out.
And then Ambrose spots the Technocracy moving in. He rounds up the magic types from the hospital and they all clear out before the Techs close in.
Voldek parts with them at the next town. "Bye bye, poochies!" he bids them farewell.
The Technocracy calls again, wanting to know what the hell Ambrose did. He tells them about the etheric bomb, which aggravates the MiB. "Well, I didn't think normal explosives would necessarily take care of it," Ambrose defends himself, which point the MiB concedes--but it doesn't make him any happier about a big ol' magic-coated hole in the ground. Ambrose ignores his complaining, but warns them that one of the nurses is a bane mummy. The MiB is aware of that, apparently, since she's currently ripping the shit out of his vehicles, along with some kind of angry magic giant spider-thing. That'd be the Fomorian thing, Rey supplies helpfully.
They leave the Technocracy to it, heading back to Chicago and ditching the Boggan dauntain's body along the way.
Sonya is dissatisfied. She feels that they missed much here, but Jonas points out that they didn't exactly have a chance to explore further clues. She reluctantly agrees, but she's still not happy about it.
When they arrive, Mark notes that the staff are...not normal. He's wary. Jonas plays janitor while Aila simply sits down in the waiting room and tells anyone who asks that she's waiting for a friend.
She sees car accident victims get rolled through. She watches as a nurse tells one man with a broken arm that it's just a sprain...and then it is.
The others go with one Nurse Clarke to view the bodies in the morgue. She smells odd to the werewolves. The bodies are definitely victims of that thing. When Ambrose asks the nurse for blood work, she leaves to get it...and locks the door behind her on the way out.
The zombies sit up. Ambrose, who's investigating the lock, is completely oblivious to this till RF gets his attention.
The rest of the pack realizes their companions are in danger and head down toward the morgue...but when they get there, the door's open and nobody's there.
The group trapped inside apply themselves to zombie killing. Ambrose, vaguely offended by being attacked with dead bodies, sets up a sonic field which he refers to as a 'zombie-exploding field,' which does indeed take care of the problem.
Then he opens the door...and they find themselves in Silent Hill. The walls are best referred to as disgusting, caked with filth and old blood and smelling like evil. The floor is a grate and the lighting is, um, poor. Sonya's guess is that the nurse led them through a portal into an Umbral realm.
Back in the real world, Aila looks for Mark, who's confused about the number of mages working here. Alerted that something's wrong, he calls Ambrose and they catch up. Ambrose uses a sonic etheric field vibrator to agitate the energies of a gateway into visibility. Sure enough, there it is. He pokes around it, and is grabbed by Striplings, ghost children with eyes of flame. "Demon children, demon children!" he yelps a warning to the others.
They pile on him. RF drives them back with a wind wall. Ambrose belatedly recognizes that theyr'e in a Labyrinth, which revolts him. He opens the gateway, and everyone piles out to confront their allies in the hall in the real world.
But how are they hiding a Labyrinth in their basement when so many mages are wandering around? "We're early in the game," Jonas quips, referring to Silent Hill. "Have to find the knife and the lead pipe."
Ambrose grabs some chemicals and other items from the morgue. "Well, "I'm skipping to the rocket launcher!"
They decide to vacate the place and call in reinforcements, but when they leave the building the streets are creepily empty. It's like the town has never been inhabited.
"Go back in?" asks Aila, disturbed.
"We could 'rec the edges,'" Ambrose suggests. He's met with blank stares all around. "I mean look around."
"Wow," says Jonas.
They go back inside. An Etherite walks by (they can tell their own kind). Ambrose catches up to him and tries to talk to him about the whole situation. The man, Dr. Brandon Evans, drags Ambrose to his office to check for drugs, because apparently he's never noticed anything odd about this place. He's familiar with Ambrose's work, notes "Beast people!" when he sees the Garou, and tells them about a Pooka who works in Cardiology named Dr. Greg. But he's awfully confused about the idea that the hospital could be odd.
Dr. Greg, on the other hand, has noticed. "Been trying to leave for a year and a half. So I started doing heart operations."
Aila tries to show Dr Evans the weirdly empty streets...but when she looks out from his office it looks normal outside. She grabs Jonas and they go outside to look up at the window. The people inside can see them, but it looks like they're standing in a normal street. Aila, on the other hand, sees the same vacant town as before.
On the way back in, she sees a ghost. He tells her 13 or so non-spectres inhabit the building, and warns her that the basement is inhabited by Striplings. But he's surprised they can't leave.
Dr. Greg tells them he like to mess with a dauntain who works in the Child Psych ward; sometimes burns his notes and wrecks his office. It's a Boggan. Dr. Greg wants to page him and pants him.
The Boggan ignores the Pooka's antics, but is disgusted by the arrival of more fae. They walk him to his office. He can't leave either, but he insists that he wants to stay. They discover he believes it's still the Accordance War. He's startled when he hears they went to the morgue. "No one goes there." Rey pities him and calls him 'cupcake.'
And that's about what they can get out of him. "Let me just set his trashcan on fire and we'll leave." Jared recalls that the Striplings all had badges for the Child Psyche ward, so he heads down that way...but finds that the ward is so banal he can't go in. He comes back and locks the Boggan in his office.
They pass another pediatrician on the way back to Evans' office, one Patricia Burks. There's something just wrong with her. Her badge says she's a genetic specialist.
Dr. Greg and Dr. Evans talk. Burks is Garou, they know. Greg says that only the mages can leave. Six mages work here total--it's a chantry. Dr. Sinris, Evans tells them, is the chantry head.
Dr. Voldek, who's a vampire, knocks on the door when he notices the crowd in Dr. Evans' office. He's quite agreeable, telling them he's been stuck here for 210 years. This place was an asylum when he first arrived, and Sinris was already here. There are a few wraiths that old, too. He suggests they talk to Dr. Hartley, who's a ghost docctor.
Sonya and Aila go to the trauma ward to find him. Sonya's startled to find that she can see Dr. Hartley without any effort. There's barely any Shroud here at all...or Gauntlet. Hartley tells them this started as an army hospital, then it was used as an asylum, then turned back into a hospital. "It was a well of psychic energy till Sinris got here," he says. "Then it got weird." The basement is a gateway to the Labyrinth. The only way out of the hospital is to go up through it into the Shadowlands. Sinris is all evil; Hartley refers to him as a "spectre-mage." He became one about 20 years after his arrival--early 1800s. Sinris lets the mages come and go to allay their suspicions, and he frets about the Technocracy. He's working on some genetic merger experiments and he's doing something with brains. He's been working with the Giovanni because they know ghosts. Voldek comes by again and verifies the occasional presence of Giovanni--and also Tzimisce.
But why Chicago? Sonya wonders. And what is Nurse Clarke?
Ambrose and Mark want to talk to the other mages in the chantry. Dr. Olivia is a Cultist who works the emergency room. She's fairly easy to convince of the oddities going on around here. Dr. Voldek chases of the Boggan when he comes 'round again, and warns them they ahve 10 hours before they become too much a part of this place to find a way out. They can deal with Sinris, go through the Labyrinth, or...
Ambrose pulls out the Technocracy phone, demonstrating it as an admittedly insane third option. Then he slips it away when the head nurse comes by not a moment later asking about 'unauthorized technology.' Ambrose pulls out the Marauder camera to throw her off. She (who Aila pegs as a bane mummy after she recognizes the serpent bracelet she wears as Apophis) stares at it like it's venomous, then warns him to be careful. Aila snarks at her, but the mummy leaves, ignoring her.
When he sees a picture, RF realizes that Sinris looks like the Hermetic with the evil book he saw in his vision. But the timeline is off. He had to be Nephandi to make those abominations, but if he only went Nephandi in the early 1800s... He thinks they need to get a look at that book. It's in Sinris' lab, probably--his sanctum.
A ghost ambulance comes in with another body from Chicago. A couple of the Garou hijack the wraith with his corpse in the elevator, smash the body's skull (figuring the brains are important)...and then the wraith sends the elevator plummeting into the basement. Aila tries to slow it. Ambrose shoots a grappling hook down from the floor they were left on and pulls them up.
They turn to find the Garou nurse standing behind them. She's a Silver Fang who works for Pentex. "Looking for a cure for us," she tells them when they ask her why. That's Patricia Burke.
"I think we just found out what's happening to the Bone Gnawers," Sonya mutters when she leaves.
Nurse Clarke comes down again to accuse them of destroying hospital property. Ambrose takes a reading on her, and his monitor explodes. He tinkers with it to see if he can get anything out of it, and gets readings that the fae identify as a Fomorian general. She scoffs at him and leaves, annoyed by Etherite antics.
Dr. Evans comes by, still mulling the situation over, and agrees to show them to the chapel where the two Choristers can usually be found. The chapel, at least, is soothing, sustained by the mages' faith. They listen willingly to the tale of this place, but the visit is interrupted when Sonya spots a Giovanni passing by in the hall, heading toward Sinris' office.
If he's at his office meeting guests, then his sanctum is empty.
They break in to find an unbinding circle with 11 of 12 brains in corresponding points around the edges. A shimmering window in the circle's center shows the Shattered Peaks and a Fomorian freehold. The fae freak out.
Ambrose's Technocracy phone rings. He ignores it. They find the book nearby, picking it up with tongs to put it in a bag, then start hooking up explosives. Ambrose plugs in an etheric battery to the chain of explosives, puts it on a timer, and then he tells them to run for their lives, because they've got a few minutes before the top floor vaporizes.
They evacuate the building. Mage employees are startled find themselves standing in an empty town. The fae kill the Boggan dauntain on the way out.
And then Ambrose spots the Technocracy moving in. He rounds up the magic types from the hospital and they all clear out before the Techs close in.
Voldek parts with them at the next town. "Bye bye, poochies!" he bids them farewell.
The Technocracy calls again, wanting to know what the hell Ambrose did. He tells them about the etheric bomb, which aggravates the MiB. "Well, I didn't think normal explosives would necessarily take care of it," Ambrose defends himself, which point the MiB concedes--but it doesn't make him any happier about a big ol' magic-coated hole in the ground. Ambrose ignores his complaining, but warns them that one of the nurses is a bane mummy. The MiB is aware of that, apparently, since she's currently ripping the shit out of his vehicles, along with some kind of angry magic giant spider-thing. That'd be the Fomorian thing, Rey supplies helpfully.
They leave the Technocracy to it, heading back to Chicago and ditching the Boggan dauntain's body along the way.
Sonya is dissatisfied. She feels that they missed much here, but Jonas points out that they didn't exactly have a chance to explore further clues. She reluctantly agrees, but she's still not happy about it.
Advent of the Empty Knights
Several days of normalcy follow their visit to the High King's court. Sonya goes into the office to hack away at paperwork, and notices reports that a number of Chicago's homeless have been disappearing. She follows that up to discover that it's part of a new organ trade that's marked by weird occultist Mafia activity--Giovanni. Pursuing her contacts, she finds that many Bone Gnawers are missing. They were the first to notice, and those who've looked into it have vanished.
The shipping trail leads to a hospital in upper state New York. She tells the pack, suggesting that if the Garou who investigate at these homeless shelters have been vanishing, then a better place to start may be with ghouls who are involved. Find them and follow them. RF agrees to hit up information on free clinics, while Aila and Jonas go harass some vampires to see what they can learn.
They find one leaving Electronics Boutique, oddly enough, and trail him in a car (Jonas drives; when Aila protests about his age, he shows her a fetish that's basically psychic paper) till they reach a place where they can force him off the road.
He gets out angry. "I'm sorry," Aila tells him.
"It's not an accident!" he snaps. "Unless you're idiots-"
"That's not what I'm sorry for," Aila corrects him, then she shifts and pins him to his car.
He knows one Giovanni in an Italian neighborhood, and one who lives at the edge of one of the cemeteries--an undertaker who also specializes in "shipping." Aila kills the vampire and they clean up the mess. Jonas grabs the guy's CDs.
Getting back into the truck, Aila catches a flash of someone in the rear view mirror. Someone in torn up, unkempt clothes. She gets back out for a better look, but there's no one there--just footprints, along with marks like he was dragging a stick or something. They follow the trail to a creek, where they lose it.
Sonya's investigations net her nothing except that the Mob is uncannily quiet, like someone told them to clam up.
RF gets a catatonic patient who was found in an alleyway. He realizes their mind has simply been shut down. The orderlies tell him this is the third in the last two weeks. Except for the catatonia, they're all very healthy for homeless people. They've been getting forwarded to Our Lady of Perpetual Health in upper state New York, where a doctor has been studying their cases. RF calls him--Dr. Arthur Sinris--to tell him about the new patient. Sinris himself takes the call, which is odd for a busy doctor. He's sad to report to RF that he's made no progress in the diagnosis so far, and asks RF to do some forensic work for him. This is eleven of these patients in two weeks from Chicago.
After RF hangs up, a few moments later he gets a sense that something is off. The lights begin to flicker. People back away from the door when something...someone shuffles through: wet hair, a long coat, broken rusted armor, and a long sword he's dragging along the ground behind him. RF dodges around the thing, and finds that it follows him as he heads out into the street. It moves like a zombie.
He alerts the pack, who head in. Sonya names a meeting place for RF to lead the thing to, and calls an air spirit to accompany RF in case he needs backup.
Alarms go off at Dreamsoft, which they quickly pinpoint to an Eiluned dauntain--one who's really far gone. Rey and Faris take off.
RF leads the thing--the dauntain--to the meeting place, dodging its clumsy swings and keeping it from attacking anyone else. Rey and Faris arrive on the scene, and Rey hits it with the car. It flips back over the car and stumbles back to its feet. Rey backs up.
The Garou arrive. This is a public place, so they'll go in human form, hand-to-hand. Aila ducks in to trip the thing with a leg sweep--and her blow passes through it. She looks up into its face and sees a spectre's eyes! It's a...dead spectre fairy?
RF summons the coils of the Serpent to grab the thing. Sonya asks the air spirit to take it back with the fae.
RF checks the patients and personnel at the clinic. Some of the ones close to the spectre-fairy exhibit symptoms similar to the catatonic people, in a lesser degree. He thinks they should be okay, though there are a couple brought in shortly after that it looks like the thing had gotten to in the last couple of hours. Sonya checks over witnesses to the fight and finds something similar.
The pack heads to Dreamsoft to catch up with the fae. They all wonder why the thing went after RF. And what is it? Aila ponders the Keremet, but Faris says that's a myth. The sword this thing carried has the Eiluned symbol. Aila spots the deathmarks of a member of the Legion of Fate. It seems to be a ghost possessing a body of something that's not solid or visible to begin with. "A spirit possessing a spirit," Sonya sums up. That's not metaphysically possible. "A mingling?" she suggests.
"Not natural," Faris muses. "It would have to be artificially created."
On the back of the neck, Aila spots a triangle with a stylized dragon in it. Sonya recognizes it as a Nephandic symbol Ambrose has pointed out to them on other artifcacts they've found. Jonas sends a picture of it to Ambrose. Ambrose heads over.
His investigation reveals that this thing is three souls--a spectre, a human, and a faerie--all stuck together. RF has a brief vision: an army of these things in chains, slogging across a battlefield of Garou and fae. He shakes the vision off, confused. It doesn't feel like one from his own past lives.
Aila gets a Sluagh to help talk to the spectre. When they rouse it, binding sigils glow on its face--they're Dragon's Tongue sigils, holding this monstrosity together. It's an extremely powerful spectre...one with no Psyche. Ambrose picks out runes from among the sigils--the true names of the three beings involved, taken apart and put back together to form this thing. He recognizes it as twisted Hermetic magic. "Breaking names," he points out to the others. "Right," says Faris. "You're called namers for a reason."
Their study is interrupted when they find themselves under attack. Things arrive in the hallway outside the lab--like the faerie-spectre they're looking at, except that these are werewolves. Some of the Bone Gnawers that were missing, in fact.
Sonya tries to exorcise them. It seems like it should have worked, but the binding runes snap them back together. Sonya calls to the pack. A Nocker fires a silver rocket, which kills one. A Sluagh ties the other up so the Garou can kill it. When the bodies die, the spectres try to flee. The Sluagh grabs them.
Interrogating them, they learn one remembers being stuffed into a werewolf on a bus--a Greyhound, heading southwest. There's a ticket in the body's pocket. The other was ambushed in the Labyrinth. It recalls flashing lights and a doctor's mask.
They identify the Eiluned as Sir Garret, a young sidhe whose last assignment was to investigate th Our Lady hospital. Jared follows leads that take him to the same place RF ended up with Dr. Sinris. Ambrose finds a connection on the faerie-thing--it's like a walking hole of nothing. Now that he knows what to look for, he tells the others he could find it anywhere.
They send a report to Sir Garret's superior, who says they were investigating children going missing around the hospital.
The most disturbing part about this is that the human soul bound in Sir Garret's body was snatched from Arcadia. It's the soul that would have inhabited that body otherwise; it was called back and bound to the faerie soul.
Ambrose sends a report to the chantry, which sends Mark over. While they wait, RF has another vision: some of these things were in control of themselves--the Balor. He places the location of the battle in Ireland.
Sonya thinks that sounds familiar. To try to learn more, RF tries the Ancestral Recall Gift. When he activates it, the coils of a green serpent circle around him--it's not Uktena, and it's also not evil, but it's not something that normally happens with that Gift. He remembers that when these things came before, they had been constructed. He sees a mage holding an evil grimoire.
The Garou consult with Fianna while the fae ask the Fiona, but neither lead turns up useful information, which means they've pretty much run their local leads to a dead end. To learn more, they'll have to go to New York.
The shipping trail leads to a hospital in upper state New York. She tells the pack, suggesting that if the Garou who investigate at these homeless shelters have been vanishing, then a better place to start may be with ghouls who are involved. Find them and follow them. RF agrees to hit up information on free clinics, while Aila and Jonas go harass some vampires to see what they can learn.
They find one leaving Electronics Boutique, oddly enough, and trail him in a car (Jonas drives; when Aila protests about his age, he shows her a fetish that's basically psychic paper) till they reach a place where they can force him off the road.
He gets out angry. "I'm sorry," Aila tells him.
"It's not an accident!" he snaps. "Unless you're idiots-"
"That's not what I'm sorry for," Aila corrects him, then she shifts and pins him to his car.
He knows one Giovanni in an Italian neighborhood, and one who lives at the edge of one of the cemeteries--an undertaker who also specializes in "shipping." Aila kills the vampire and they clean up the mess. Jonas grabs the guy's CDs.
Getting back into the truck, Aila catches a flash of someone in the rear view mirror. Someone in torn up, unkempt clothes. She gets back out for a better look, but there's no one there--just footprints, along with marks like he was dragging a stick or something. They follow the trail to a creek, where they lose it.
Sonya's investigations net her nothing except that the Mob is uncannily quiet, like someone told them to clam up.
RF gets a catatonic patient who was found in an alleyway. He realizes their mind has simply been shut down. The orderlies tell him this is the third in the last two weeks. Except for the catatonia, they're all very healthy for homeless people. They've been getting forwarded to Our Lady of Perpetual Health in upper state New York, where a doctor has been studying their cases. RF calls him--Dr. Arthur Sinris--to tell him about the new patient. Sinris himself takes the call, which is odd for a busy doctor. He's sad to report to RF that he's made no progress in the diagnosis so far, and asks RF to do some forensic work for him. This is eleven of these patients in two weeks from Chicago.
After RF hangs up, a few moments later he gets a sense that something is off. The lights begin to flicker. People back away from the door when something...someone shuffles through: wet hair, a long coat, broken rusted armor, and a long sword he's dragging along the ground behind him. RF dodges around the thing, and finds that it follows him as he heads out into the street. It moves like a zombie.
He alerts the pack, who head in. Sonya names a meeting place for RF to lead the thing to, and calls an air spirit to accompany RF in case he needs backup.
Alarms go off at Dreamsoft, which they quickly pinpoint to an Eiluned dauntain--one who's really far gone. Rey and Faris take off.
RF leads the thing--the dauntain--to the meeting place, dodging its clumsy swings and keeping it from attacking anyone else. Rey and Faris arrive on the scene, and Rey hits it with the car. It flips back over the car and stumbles back to its feet. Rey backs up.
The Garou arrive. This is a public place, so they'll go in human form, hand-to-hand. Aila ducks in to trip the thing with a leg sweep--and her blow passes through it. She looks up into its face and sees a spectre's eyes! It's a...dead spectre fairy?
RF summons the coils of the Serpent to grab the thing. Sonya asks the air spirit to take it back with the fae.
RF checks the patients and personnel at the clinic. Some of the ones close to the spectre-fairy exhibit symptoms similar to the catatonic people, in a lesser degree. He thinks they should be okay, though there are a couple brought in shortly after that it looks like the thing had gotten to in the last couple of hours. Sonya checks over witnesses to the fight and finds something similar.
The pack heads to Dreamsoft to catch up with the fae. They all wonder why the thing went after RF. And what is it? Aila ponders the Keremet, but Faris says that's a myth. The sword this thing carried has the Eiluned symbol. Aila spots the deathmarks of a member of the Legion of Fate. It seems to be a ghost possessing a body of something that's not solid or visible to begin with. "A spirit possessing a spirit," Sonya sums up. That's not metaphysically possible. "A mingling?" she suggests.
"Not natural," Faris muses. "It would have to be artificially created."
On the back of the neck, Aila spots a triangle with a stylized dragon in it. Sonya recognizes it as a Nephandic symbol Ambrose has pointed out to them on other artifcacts they've found. Jonas sends a picture of it to Ambrose. Ambrose heads over.
His investigation reveals that this thing is three souls--a spectre, a human, and a faerie--all stuck together. RF has a brief vision: an army of these things in chains, slogging across a battlefield of Garou and fae. He shakes the vision off, confused. It doesn't feel like one from his own past lives.
Aila gets a Sluagh to help talk to the spectre. When they rouse it, binding sigils glow on its face--they're Dragon's Tongue sigils, holding this monstrosity together. It's an extremely powerful spectre...one with no Psyche. Ambrose picks out runes from among the sigils--the true names of the three beings involved, taken apart and put back together to form this thing. He recognizes it as twisted Hermetic magic. "Breaking names," he points out to the others. "Right," says Faris. "You're called namers for a reason."
Their study is interrupted when they find themselves under attack. Things arrive in the hallway outside the lab--like the faerie-spectre they're looking at, except that these are werewolves. Some of the Bone Gnawers that were missing, in fact.
Sonya tries to exorcise them. It seems like it should have worked, but the binding runes snap them back together. Sonya calls to the pack. A Nocker fires a silver rocket, which kills one. A Sluagh ties the other up so the Garou can kill it. When the bodies die, the spectres try to flee. The Sluagh grabs them.
Interrogating them, they learn one remembers being stuffed into a werewolf on a bus--a Greyhound, heading southwest. There's a ticket in the body's pocket. The other was ambushed in the Labyrinth. It recalls flashing lights and a doctor's mask.
They identify the Eiluned as Sir Garret, a young sidhe whose last assignment was to investigate th Our Lady hospital. Jared follows leads that take him to the same place RF ended up with Dr. Sinris. Ambrose finds a connection on the faerie-thing--it's like a walking hole of nothing. Now that he knows what to look for, he tells the others he could find it anywhere.
They send a report to Sir Garret's superior, who says they were investigating children going missing around the hospital.
The most disturbing part about this is that the human soul bound in Sir Garret's body was snatched from Arcadia. It's the soul that would have inhabited that body otherwise; it was called back and bound to the faerie soul.
Ambrose sends a report to the chantry, which sends Mark over. While they wait, RF has another vision: some of these things were in control of themselves--the Balor. He places the location of the battle in Ireland.
Sonya thinks that sounds familiar. To try to learn more, RF tries the Ancestral Recall Gift. When he activates it, the coils of a green serpent circle around him--it's not Uktena, and it's also not evil, but it's not something that normally happens with that Gift. He remembers that when these things came before, they had been constructed. He sees a mage holding an evil grimoire.
The Garou consult with Fianna while the fae ask the Fiona, but neither lead turns up useful information, which means they've pretty much run their local leads to a dead end. To learn more, they'll have to go to New York.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Audience with the High King. Hard.
At Dreamsoft, people are freaking out in the hallways, calling in all the information they can. Faris tells everyone how heroic Rey was. Rey is pleased, because that's reputation he can cash in on. He's also pleased to receive a $500 candy store gift card, and even more pleased when he discovers that the tale is ticking off some of the more arrogant Sidhe, who are grumpy about a Pooka showing them up. He starts regaling children with the story.
Sonya calls on the nearest Fianna Galliard to give her the story, then tells her, "We need information." The Galliard tells them about fae and Fomorians. Together, they theorize about what might have happened. Etherites are attractive to fae. Perhaps a Fomorian was able to free itself enough to channel itself through Evil Ambrose's dreams.
The Hermetic comes back to give Ambrose the box back. Apparently, the Avatar isn't Nephandic. Maybe someone was using him to summon the thing? At a loss for what else to do with a lurking Avatar, he suggests they put it back. "Maybe it manifested from you and whatever happens to it, happens to you," he offers to Ambrose.
"You know, Hermetics can be very unpleasant people sometimes," Ambrose grumbles.
The Garou dress for the audience. "S'pose I'll have to wear my Sunday best," Jonas sighs. "I wonder, early Sunday or late Sunday..."
"Try Easter," Sonya tells him firmly.
"Oh man!"
Mark stops by to warn Ambrose about his apparent draw with the wrong sort of people. Ambrose tells him about the MiBs from the day before, and the strange pin they both wore on their collars: a tower, crown and sword. It occurs to him suddenly that they might be part of Tillingtast's clique. On another note, he considers putting a compass on the Avatar box so it can point where it wants to go, if it so chooses. Mark is aghast, but Ambrose explains he just doesn't want to drag an Avatar around where it doesn't want to go. He asks the chantry head about it, who's unsure of the wisdom of communicating with Avatars via compass.
"Well, it's not right to just leave it in a box," Ambrose points out. "But it could be dangerous to let it out. So I figured this would be a happy medium." The chantry head sighs over Etherites, and suggests he talk to a Mind or Correspondence mage about communicating with the thing.
Ambrose --like most Etherites just as excited about formal parties as wild adventures--dresses to the nines: waistcoat, tails and all.
The Garou, having some experience at the proprieties of visiting powerful supernatural beings, arrange a gift of fine liquor for their host. Sonya barders stories to the Fianna in return for some aged scotch.
Everyone meets at Dreamsoft, and Faris takes them via trod. Ambrose demonstrates the compass-box, just so everybody's aware that he's carrying around an Avatar.
The High King's great castle of Tara is hidden behind the facade of an Adirondacks resort. They're escorted in to their rooms and given a loose itinerary. They're to meet the king, have dinner with the high court, an audience before Parliament, and then there's to be a ball on the third day.
"I didn't bring anything to wear!" Aila laments. But that's no problem--the wardrobes are magical. The majordomo throws hers open to reveal ball gowns. "How can I fight in this?" Aila wonders.
"Don't be naive," Sonya answers. "We don't fight in anything."
Rey is grumpy about having to look fancy. On the other hand, they have bells to summon servants for any need, and bowls that fill with whatever you like to eat--which means Rey's is overflowing with sweets. He likes that!
Aila sums up, "This place is awesome...oh, these beds are comfortable!"
On their way to meet the High King, they walk past murals of the Accordance War. Ambrose notices the picture of Caliburn, which prompts him to ask about Oberon and the sidhe. The other fae explain to him about sidhe and their reincarnation trouble.
The great hall is naturally magnificent. They're introduced to King David and tell him about the Autumn Queen. He asks Ambrose about his "special favor" with her. "She smiled at me," Ambrose recalls, with a shy smile. "And waved!" Murmurs go through the assembled court. Apparently the fae find that impressive.
The king clears the court, then, and asks them about the Fomorian. He talks with Rey about his newfound folk hero status and desires to knight him--on account, David says, of it irritating Duke Dray. Rey reluctantly agrees. "I confess, I have mixed feelings."
"I trust not regretful ones."
"Oh no," Rey assures the king. "Not regretful ones."
David talks to Jared about his repeated involvement with this group, commenting, "Telling." When he asks about the Circus, Rey answers. "I'm not often moved to honesty, but that place was as close to Hell as I've ever seen." David asks them again what they thought of the Autumn Queen. Ambrose raves politely about her. He thinks she meant well. Sonya thinks she's mad, and tells the king about the ring she wears that's part of the Hunger Stone. Ambrose prints out a copy of the document he got in the Circus.
Ambrose shows David the box after David asks him about his double. He wants to talk to Evil Ambrose. David asks, "Is that...a compass?"
"Yep!" Ambrose answers cheerfully.
David remains curious why Astarte waved at Ambrose. Rey and Jared prepare for their ceremonies; Rey goes for amusement value.
That night, Rey has a vision: a battlefield of fae, no later than the Middle Ages, in England. People in the battle keep yelling toward him for something, but he can't hear them.
When he wakes, he stands in the hall in his pajamas, pondering this while sucking on butterscotch. Jonas wanders by to chat, saying he's uncomfortable with sleeping alone in a big room.
The next day, the knighting of a commoner is big news. The Pooka eat it up. Rey hams it through the ceremony, just skirting the line of acceptability. He is knighted as "Sir Reynard the Up-front," which the Pooka find the most hilarious thing ever. It's etched into the sword the king presents to him: "Sir Rey the Up-front, Scourge of the Frost Queen." The Crystal Circle mumbles among itself.
As a knight pledged to the High King, Rey is a satellite member of House Gwydion, though he isn't required to take its oaths. He's given a suit of armor, which cheeses him off.
After lunch, Parliament meets. The group is summoned to the antechamber for consultation at the Parliament's pleasure. Rey naps.
And dreams: very very long ago, knights on horseback approach a wintery landscape.
He wakes grumbling.
Jonas wonders if it's odd. Rey grumbles about white woods. Ambrose reminds the fae that they told him about one when they found that cracked-open tree in that Welsh dream-asylum. Jared places it: Winterwere, Queen Lir, ruler of the Fuach, a half-Fomorian sorceress.
Evil Ambrose is escorted in, and then back out again a little while later. They call Ambrose in to see the box with his Avatar in it. Duke Dray tells him they think that Evil Ambrose was created by fairie magic rather than...however the Mirror Maze usually works.
Ambrose is sent back out, and the Garou are called in. Duke Dray keeps referring to them as "prodigals," which Sonya tells him is rude. He asks how they know their Ambrose is the real one. Aila responds that theirs smells right. He asks what they think of him. Sonya tells him that mages are dangerous. They bend fortune and fate around them. "So they like to say," sneers Dray. "So my Elders say," Sonya responds pointedly. He asks what their Elders think of their dealings with the fae. "They've said little," Sonya answers. "It's obvious to the Garou that we're in the midst of destiny. What happens, will."
The Garou are dimissed, and the fae are called in. The Ailil commend Jared before the Parliament, which Dray scoffs at, prompting the Ailil spokesman to respond, "Really." Dray complains that the Ailil are threatening him. A Pooka motions that Dray "sit on it." A second seconds, "Hard." A third produces a harrumphing machine, at which point the High King calls for a return to sanity.
They ask the fae about Ambrose and Astarte and get responses similar to the Garou's. The fae are dismissed.
The pack is called back in and shown an image of one of those odd magic vampires they fought in Chicago. The Garou confirm that it's what they fought. Aila asks what it is. A vote is made on whether to share the information, which is successful, so they're told it's a type of vampire called a Kiasyd, a sort of half-fae vampire experiment of the Tremere. They can be killed like normal vampires, and like fae.
They go back to the point of the cracked-open tree. Sonya explains the theory about the Fomorian channeling itself through the dreaming Evil Ambrose, and suggests that might be due to his method of creation. If the fae are right, that may even be why he was created. He could be a gateway to allow Astarte to walk out in the world to spread her message. The fae figure they'd best keep Evil Ambrose, then.
They return to the antechamber and hear an argument begin to build in the Parliament chamber; cries rise of "That's not possible!" and "You can't!" Then they all Ambrose and the others back to re-explain the theory Sonya just proposed to them, much to her amusement. Ambrose and Aila explain about Cara and the White Priestess. Her mystic position is such that Astarte's influence could have created Evil Ambrose unconsciously to suit her needs. The fae say they want to reach her through Evil ambrose, but they must call to her true nature to reach past the Circus's corruption and her madness. They lay a duty on the group, to find the 27 songs composed in her honor which will call her back to her self. They are lost, but "we've been told that at points, you may come across these. We would like you to gather them when you do."
They return to talk about Ambrose and the gateway. "You Etherites do loan yourselves to the Dreaming. More than other Traditions..."
"Well," says Ambrose with a sigh.
The King amends, "The Verbena..."
"I was thinking of the Cultists, actually," Ambrose cuts in.
"Well. Yes."
A Pooka with a gavel says, "Oh hohohoho. Yeah."
Dray comments about the Garou being "noble beasts, needing only a guiding hand..." and finds five suddenly angry Garou staring at him. A Nunnehi representative cuts in to save Dray's life, and when Dray continues, he's more conciliatory. Someone makes a side comment about the "Hidden Ones," against which Ambrose defends himself: "They're stalking me!" Jonas makes one of his patented gay sex jokes, and then, miraculously, brings everyone back to the topic at hand.
"The Autumn Queen--the burning, smoking, stunning hot Autumn Queen (a Satyr cuts in: "Yeah")--wants Ambrose. Does that strike anyone as wrong? I mean, look at him!" Ambrose bristles, defending his ability to get a date. "you think women with goggles and electrical devices are attractive."
"Yeah," agrees Ambrose, looking pleased.
They discuss how Ambrose seems to keep drawing strange things to him, and how he's apparently some sort of nexus or gate. Jonas complains about the fae not weighing in on the Ascension War if they hate the Technocracy so much. Heck, Iterators apparently blow up just from looking at them!
"Not lately," Ambrose notes, then realizes something. "Damn. That's probably my fault. That Iterator I kept from going Marauder? She shared that with Iteration X. Sorry, guys. You've got an entire Convention that's reached a level of unbelief no mage has ever reached before."
This causes dismay, but the fae do agree that they should talk to the Traditions.
Then there's some worry about Cavendish, and more discussion of the Circus. The Nunnehi comment on their notable nature, and Sonya points out their totem and its relation to Aila, who tries to beg off. Sonya points out that she's more Croatan than any living Garou. "Don't you think so, Turtle?" Turtle nods.
The fae explain that they must repay the debt of the help the pack has agreed to give them, and they prefer to do it before it's owed. A Nunnehi brings out a medicine back. Found long ago, he says that no one has been able to open it. "It has been mentioned," he continues with a glance at the Crystal Circle behind the High King, "that you're the ones to open it. It's believed to contain sanity. Peace." It was found in the frozen north, he tells them, hinting that it might even be Sasquatch's sanity, and hands them the bag.
The fae don't get presents. "Of course you'll do this for the Dreaming."
To Ambrose, the High King says, "You're so screwed, we're just helping you out. But you can always ask for help if you need it. Within reaon, you know."
A Pooka stands. "I woudl like to request I be allowed to leave since I am not a Pooka and have been here the entire time." When everyone turns to look at him, he books for the door. It's Tim! he's the one who kept standing up and saying, "Haaaard."
Well, that's done. They're thanked and dismissed, in time to go to lunch. Rey refers to his new armor as "GDA," the goddamn armor. He gets many invitations to the ball.
Ambrose wants to talk to his double, whom he catches up with after lunch. "Evil" Ambrose is groovy with the situation; he tells Ambrose he doesn't envy him having to go out and deal with all this while he gets to hang out in the lap of luxury with Nockers. He apologizes for the evil book and all the trouble.
He warns Ambrose that there's some kind of power struggle in the Circus. Devyn's skimming from the books, trying to hoard power to become some kind of god or demon. Ambrose realizes suddenly that the Mirror Maze = Labyrinth. Both of them are repulsed by the thought, and decide to keep it quiet. Ambrose offers to help with the Avatar ("I've forgotten math," his doppelganger tells him. "I need it back." Poor Ambrose is horrified), and gives his double the box. He hasn't seen his Avatar yet; they're both curious whether it's the same, so he tells Ambrose he'll call when he finds out. Neither of them are quite sure how to work out what really happened.
Rey grumbles more about the armor, and has another dream: It's cold and he still can't understand the people around him. They speak to him as if he's their friend, and call him by a name that isn't Rey's but that seems familiar. They're fighting Fomorians; Rey pins one to a tree with his sword--the same sword he has now.
When Rey wakes, the sword is surrounded with a fading glow. He talks to Jonas in the hall again, and decides he'd better speak to Faris. Ambrose comes by, wondering if he can contact his double sometimes and whether they'll still feel the same thins. "It's kind of like having a twin, after he gets over the whole 'take over your life' thing."
The ladies at the ball are entirely charmed by Rey, and then it's back to Chicago. Rey tells Faris about the dreams and the sword on the way.
Sonya calls on the nearest Fianna Galliard to give her the story, then tells her, "We need information." The Galliard tells them about fae and Fomorians. Together, they theorize about what might have happened. Etherites are attractive to fae. Perhaps a Fomorian was able to free itself enough to channel itself through Evil Ambrose's dreams.
The Hermetic comes back to give Ambrose the box back. Apparently, the Avatar isn't Nephandic. Maybe someone was using him to summon the thing? At a loss for what else to do with a lurking Avatar, he suggests they put it back. "Maybe it manifested from you and whatever happens to it, happens to you," he offers to Ambrose.
"You know, Hermetics can be very unpleasant people sometimes," Ambrose grumbles.
The Garou dress for the audience. "S'pose I'll have to wear my Sunday best," Jonas sighs. "I wonder, early Sunday or late Sunday..."
"Try Easter," Sonya tells him firmly.
"Oh man!"
Mark stops by to warn Ambrose about his apparent draw with the wrong sort of people. Ambrose tells him about the MiBs from the day before, and the strange pin they both wore on their collars: a tower, crown and sword. It occurs to him suddenly that they might be part of Tillingtast's clique. On another note, he considers putting a compass on the Avatar box so it can point where it wants to go, if it so chooses. Mark is aghast, but Ambrose explains he just doesn't want to drag an Avatar around where it doesn't want to go. He asks the chantry head about it, who's unsure of the wisdom of communicating with Avatars via compass.
"Well, it's not right to just leave it in a box," Ambrose points out. "But it could be dangerous to let it out. So I figured this would be a happy medium." The chantry head sighs over Etherites, and suggests he talk to a Mind or Correspondence mage about communicating with the thing.
Ambrose --like most Etherites just as excited about formal parties as wild adventures--dresses to the nines: waistcoat, tails and all.
The Garou, having some experience at the proprieties of visiting powerful supernatural beings, arrange a gift of fine liquor for their host. Sonya barders stories to the Fianna in return for some aged scotch.
Everyone meets at Dreamsoft, and Faris takes them via trod. Ambrose demonstrates the compass-box, just so everybody's aware that he's carrying around an Avatar.
The High King's great castle of Tara is hidden behind the facade of an Adirondacks resort. They're escorted in to their rooms and given a loose itinerary. They're to meet the king, have dinner with the high court, an audience before Parliament, and then there's to be a ball on the third day.
"I didn't bring anything to wear!" Aila laments. But that's no problem--the wardrobes are magical. The majordomo throws hers open to reveal ball gowns. "How can I fight in this?" Aila wonders.
"Don't be naive," Sonya answers. "We don't fight in anything."
Rey is grumpy about having to look fancy. On the other hand, they have bells to summon servants for any need, and bowls that fill with whatever you like to eat--which means Rey's is overflowing with sweets. He likes that!
Aila sums up, "This place is awesome...oh, these beds are comfortable!"
On their way to meet the High King, they walk past murals of the Accordance War. Ambrose notices the picture of Caliburn, which prompts him to ask about Oberon and the sidhe. The other fae explain to him about sidhe and their reincarnation trouble.
The great hall is naturally magnificent. They're introduced to King David and tell him about the Autumn Queen. He asks Ambrose about his "special favor" with her. "She smiled at me," Ambrose recalls, with a shy smile. "And waved!" Murmurs go through the assembled court. Apparently the fae find that impressive.
The king clears the court, then, and asks them about the Fomorian. He talks with Rey about his newfound folk hero status and desires to knight him--on account, David says, of it irritating Duke Dray. Rey reluctantly agrees. "I confess, I have mixed feelings."
"I trust not regretful ones."
"Oh no," Rey assures the king. "Not regretful ones."
David talks to Jared about his repeated involvement with this group, commenting, "Telling." When he asks about the Circus, Rey answers. "I'm not often moved to honesty, but that place was as close to Hell as I've ever seen." David asks them again what they thought of the Autumn Queen. Ambrose raves politely about her. He thinks she meant well. Sonya thinks she's mad, and tells the king about the ring she wears that's part of the Hunger Stone. Ambrose prints out a copy of the document he got in the Circus.
Ambrose shows David the box after David asks him about his double. He wants to talk to Evil Ambrose. David asks, "Is that...a compass?"
"Yep!" Ambrose answers cheerfully.
David remains curious why Astarte waved at Ambrose. Rey and Jared prepare for their ceremonies; Rey goes for amusement value.
That night, Rey has a vision: a battlefield of fae, no later than the Middle Ages, in England. People in the battle keep yelling toward him for something, but he can't hear them.
When he wakes, he stands in the hall in his pajamas, pondering this while sucking on butterscotch. Jonas wanders by to chat, saying he's uncomfortable with sleeping alone in a big room.
The next day, the knighting of a commoner is big news. The Pooka eat it up. Rey hams it through the ceremony, just skirting the line of acceptability. He is knighted as "Sir Reynard the Up-front," which the Pooka find the most hilarious thing ever. It's etched into the sword the king presents to him: "Sir Rey the Up-front, Scourge of the Frost Queen." The Crystal Circle mumbles among itself.
As a knight pledged to the High King, Rey is a satellite member of House Gwydion, though he isn't required to take its oaths. He's given a suit of armor, which cheeses him off.
After lunch, Parliament meets. The group is summoned to the antechamber for consultation at the Parliament's pleasure. Rey naps.
And dreams: very very long ago, knights on horseback approach a wintery landscape.
He wakes grumbling.
Jonas wonders if it's odd. Rey grumbles about white woods. Ambrose reminds the fae that they told him about one when they found that cracked-open tree in that Welsh dream-asylum. Jared places it: Winterwere, Queen Lir, ruler of the Fuach, a half-Fomorian sorceress.
Evil Ambrose is escorted in, and then back out again a little while later. They call Ambrose in to see the box with his Avatar in it. Duke Dray tells him they think that Evil Ambrose was created by fairie magic rather than...however the Mirror Maze usually works.
Ambrose is sent back out, and the Garou are called in. Duke Dray keeps referring to them as "prodigals," which Sonya tells him is rude. He asks how they know their Ambrose is the real one. Aila responds that theirs smells right. He asks what they think of him. Sonya tells him that mages are dangerous. They bend fortune and fate around them. "So they like to say," sneers Dray. "So my Elders say," Sonya responds pointedly. He asks what their Elders think of their dealings with the fae. "They've said little," Sonya answers. "It's obvious to the Garou that we're in the midst of destiny. What happens, will."
The Garou are dimissed, and the fae are called in. The Ailil commend Jared before the Parliament, which Dray scoffs at, prompting the Ailil spokesman to respond, "Really." Dray complains that the Ailil are threatening him. A Pooka motions that Dray "sit on it." A second seconds, "Hard." A third produces a harrumphing machine, at which point the High King calls for a return to sanity.
They ask the fae about Ambrose and Astarte and get responses similar to the Garou's. The fae are dismissed.
The pack is called back in and shown an image of one of those odd magic vampires they fought in Chicago. The Garou confirm that it's what they fought. Aila asks what it is. A vote is made on whether to share the information, which is successful, so they're told it's a type of vampire called a Kiasyd, a sort of half-fae vampire experiment of the Tremere. They can be killed like normal vampires, and like fae.
They go back to the point of the cracked-open tree. Sonya explains the theory about the Fomorian channeling itself through the dreaming Evil Ambrose, and suggests that might be due to his method of creation. If the fae are right, that may even be why he was created. He could be a gateway to allow Astarte to walk out in the world to spread her message. The fae figure they'd best keep Evil Ambrose, then.
They return to the antechamber and hear an argument begin to build in the Parliament chamber; cries rise of "That's not possible!" and "You can't!" Then they all Ambrose and the others back to re-explain the theory Sonya just proposed to them, much to her amusement. Ambrose and Aila explain about Cara and the White Priestess. Her mystic position is such that Astarte's influence could have created Evil Ambrose unconsciously to suit her needs. The fae say they want to reach her through Evil ambrose, but they must call to her true nature to reach past the Circus's corruption and her madness. They lay a duty on the group, to find the 27 songs composed in her honor which will call her back to her self. They are lost, but "we've been told that at points, you may come across these. We would like you to gather them when you do."
They return to talk about Ambrose and the gateway. "You Etherites do loan yourselves to the Dreaming. More than other Traditions..."
"Well," says Ambrose with a sigh.
The King amends, "The Verbena..."
"I was thinking of the Cultists, actually," Ambrose cuts in.
"Well. Yes."
A Pooka with a gavel says, "Oh hohohoho. Yeah."
Dray comments about the Garou being "noble beasts, needing only a guiding hand..." and finds five suddenly angry Garou staring at him. A Nunnehi representative cuts in to save Dray's life, and when Dray continues, he's more conciliatory. Someone makes a side comment about the "Hidden Ones," against which Ambrose defends himself: "They're stalking me!" Jonas makes one of his patented gay sex jokes, and then, miraculously, brings everyone back to the topic at hand.
"The Autumn Queen--the burning, smoking, stunning hot Autumn Queen (a Satyr cuts in: "Yeah")--wants Ambrose. Does that strike anyone as wrong? I mean, look at him!" Ambrose bristles, defending his ability to get a date. "you think women with goggles and electrical devices are attractive."
"Yeah," agrees Ambrose, looking pleased.
They discuss how Ambrose seems to keep drawing strange things to him, and how he's apparently some sort of nexus or gate. Jonas complains about the fae not weighing in on the Ascension War if they hate the Technocracy so much. Heck, Iterators apparently blow up just from looking at them!
"Not lately," Ambrose notes, then realizes something. "Damn. That's probably my fault. That Iterator I kept from going Marauder? She shared that with Iteration X. Sorry, guys. You've got an entire Convention that's reached a level of unbelief no mage has ever reached before."
This causes dismay, but the fae do agree that they should talk to the Traditions.
Then there's some worry about Cavendish, and more discussion of the Circus. The Nunnehi comment on their notable nature, and Sonya points out their totem and its relation to Aila, who tries to beg off. Sonya points out that she's more Croatan than any living Garou. "Don't you think so, Turtle?" Turtle nods.
The fae explain that they must repay the debt of the help the pack has agreed to give them, and they prefer to do it before it's owed. A Nunnehi brings out a medicine back. Found long ago, he says that no one has been able to open it. "It has been mentioned," he continues with a glance at the Crystal Circle behind the High King, "that you're the ones to open it. It's believed to contain sanity. Peace." It was found in the frozen north, he tells them, hinting that it might even be Sasquatch's sanity, and hands them the bag.
The fae don't get presents. "Of course you'll do this for the Dreaming."
To Ambrose, the High King says, "You're so screwed, we're just helping you out. But you can always ask for help if you need it. Within reaon, you know."
A Pooka stands. "I woudl like to request I be allowed to leave since I am not a Pooka and have been here the entire time." When everyone turns to look at him, he books for the door. It's Tim! he's the one who kept standing up and saying, "Haaaard."
Well, that's done. They're thanked and dismissed, in time to go to lunch. Rey refers to his new armor as "GDA," the goddamn armor. He gets many invitations to the ball.
Ambrose wants to talk to his double, whom he catches up with after lunch. "Evil" Ambrose is groovy with the situation; he tells Ambrose he doesn't envy him having to go out and deal with all this while he gets to hang out in the lap of luxury with Nockers. He apologizes for the evil book and all the trouble.
He warns Ambrose that there's some kind of power struggle in the Circus. Devyn's skimming from the books, trying to hoard power to become some kind of god or demon. Ambrose realizes suddenly that the Mirror Maze = Labyrinth. Both of them are repulsed by the thought, and decide to keep it quiet. Ambrose offers to help with the Avatar ("I've forgotten math," his doppelganger tells him. "I need it back." Poor Ambrose is horrified), and gives his double the box. He hasn't seen his Avatar yet; they're both curious whether it's the same, so he tells Ambrose he'll call when he finds out. Neither of them are quite sure how to work out what really happened.
Rey grumbles more about the armor, and has another dream: It's cold and he still can't understand the people around him. They speak to him as if he's their friend, and call him by a name that isn't Rey's but that seems familiar. They're fighting Fomorians; Rey pins one to a tree with his sword--the same sword he has now.
When Rey wakes, the sword is surrounded with a fading glow. He talks to Jonas in the hall again, and decides he'd better speak to Faris. Ambrose comes by, wondering if he can contact his double sometimes and whether they'll still feel the same thins. "It's kind of like having a twin, after he gets over the whole 'take over your life' thing."
The ladies at the ball are entirely charmed by Rey, and then it's back to Chicago. Rey tells Faris about the dreams and the sword on the way.
Rey and the White Court Fomorian
The pack meets with the Hakken, taking Caleb along with, but Sonya makes Tim stay in the car. Monkey Girl meanwhile picks on Ambrose for being chased by so many people, and is confused that he apparently has no doubts about trusting a Pooka.
When the Garou are done, they find a different hotel to stay at. RF shares a room with Ambrose, who sets alarms on his windows and oors.
The alarms go off that night, waking him in time to see some kind of half-snake/half-man jump out the window. RF doesn't see it. It doesn't seem to have taken anything, or left anything, so Ambrose reluctantly puts it out of his mind till morning.
In the morning, Ambrose finds out that the Garou have their own language. He tells the others about the snake-man. Monkey Girl says there are snake people sort of like her--called the Fu Hsi--but this wasn't one of them. They arrange a private plane back.
On the plane, Ambrose looks over the Marauder's camera, which contains exotic pictures. They get back without incident, and the pack drops Ambrose and Mark off at the chantry before heading back to the caern.
Having learned his lesson, Ambrose deposits the Marauder's gun with the chantry head, along with his demonic cell phone. He turns his laptop over to the Virtual Adepts to run checks on; they tell him they'll look into perma-deleting the map.
Aila prepares for a good lounge in front of the TV, which is how she learns that Evil-Ambrose has a special about Ether in a week. "Look at all that smarm!" she exclaims.
"Gives new meaning to the term podcast," Jonas quips.
The fae fret about their upcoming audience with the High King.
Ambrose investigates the camera, and discovers that a button activates a gateway to whatever picture is displayed in the viewer. He declines to activate it.
Aila takes off for the arcade. On the way, a wood hand emerges from a tree to hand her an invitation from the High King to the entire pack. "Nice bush," she thanks it. Ambrose gets one too, for him and Mark.
Aila and Jonas wonder what to wear, and are dismayed to learn that they'll be expected to dress up. The pack is amused to note that the king of the fairies lives in upper-state New York.
Evil Ambrose left a trail via Ambrose's credit cards (the limit of which Ambrose notes is much higher than it was). He also published a book on ether. The MiB calls to ask about killing him. Ambrose turns down the offer, but tells him about the children's book, "Ambrose goes to the Circus." Wanting a better look at this particular piece of devilry, he purchases a copy, and then burns it after chibi-Devyn winks at him from the cover. RF, having discovered this book as well, looks up the publishing info--Vesuvius Publishing, a Pentex property.
The next day, at the book signing, Rey knocks out Evil-Ambrose's limo driver to take his place. RF and Jonas hide in the car. Ambrose and Aila stick around to allay suspicion, so that everybody sees Ambrose is just fine. They plan to ambush Evil-Brose and get him back to the chantry.
And this plan works just fine...till one of those weird Asian supernaturals shows up again in pursuit of Evil-Ambrose. In fact, he gives chase to the real Ambrose, mistaking him for his doppelganger. Ambrose pops a fire hydrant on him and Rey freezes the water.
And then Iterators show up with a collar launcher, which Ambrose shoots out of the air before it reaches its target. Even an evil doppelganger doesn't deserve that fate. Rey fingers Evil Ambrose for the Asian guy; the Gurahl knocks Evil-Ambrose unconscious. Sonya throws the Asian man into a building while the rest of the pack kills the Iterators. Noting the unwanted attention they're gathering, Rey "films" the whole thing. With the threats pushed away or dealt with, they bail out on the scene, get Ambrose and his duplicate back to the chantry, and the Garou take off again. Ambrose has arranged to have a comfy cell ready to hold his double.
But of course it doesn't last long. Ambrose is staying up late working on reports and projects when he notices something strange. Investigating, he discovers the guards on the roof are out cold. Taking a wild guess at the target of the intruders, he runs down to the basement and finds that yes, indeed, his double is gone. He sounds the alarm, then follows the culprits down into the underground escape passages, accompanied by a Hollow One who'd been visiting the place. He grabs the chantry's Akashic, too, and they arrange to meet at the exit if Ambrose isn't able to catch up with the whoever-they-ares underground.
He's not, so when he and his companion reach the end of the tunnels, they find two strange vampires, a guy the Akashic can't seem to hurt, a sleeping Evil-Ambrose, and a garbage truck full of Sabbat vampires rounding the corner.
The Garou, who've been keeping watch on Evil-Ambrose by their own means, arrive. Sonya pulls her car parallel to the garbage truck, and informs her pack she's not going to crash it. They leap out onto the Sabbat vampires. Ambrose drops one of the other vampires into the pavement, trapping him. Another vampire, moving supernaturally fast, grabs Ambrose 2, but Aila charges him and knocks him away. Ambrose grabs his double and drags him to the side to keep him away from the fight while Aila and the other vampire (a Salubri) circle each other.
"Awww, can't I please have his soul?" the vampire drawls.
"His what?!" Aila repeats, startled.
Caleb, who came in with the werewolves, shifts and grabs the garbage truck, bouncing it repeatedly off the ground to squash vampires.
Sonya hits the indestructible person-thing, to as little effect as the Akashic. Getting nowhere, she throws it at one of the strange magic vampires, who explodes. Then the indestructible guy gets up and animates trees to go after Ambrose, who freezes one. Aila subdues the Salubri while mage reinforcements arrive to finish off the rest of the vampiric rabble.
Pleased with the previous success, Sonya swings her captive indestructible thing/guy into the other magic vampire, which also explodes. Ambrose freezes another tree, and calls, "Anybody want to give me a hand?" Jonas and Olesya leap on a third.
Then the fae arrive, and recognize Sonya's new toy as a White Court Fomorian.
RF pack-attacks the Salubri with Aila. The Fomorian, apparently wanting Caleb and his alarming strength well out of the picture, magically flings the garbage truck several blocks away, along with the werebear holding it. Sonya signales to the Akashic to coordinate their attack on the Fomorian on the same point of its armor.
The Salubri dies, and white mist begins to drift through. Some of the mages form a circle, working with the exploded vampire. Rey and Faris form up for war, calling up their armor. The Fomorian calls up white bark armor and a sword of its own. Faris pulls out a submachine gun from his car. "I spose he thinks we should be impressed," Rey muses, staring at their target. "Well, I sorta am, but..."
Behind Rey and Faris, a collection of stocky, tall people begins to form. The Fomorian looks at them, seeing them for what they really are: Troll knights. Sonya and the Akashic attack, successfully enough that the Fomorian turns its attention back to them. This offends Rey. "Hey, Whiteface!" he yells. It turns back toward him, lashing out with some kind of spell that freezes everything around them (including nearby buildings), then shatters it all into ice monsters.
The Akashic, getting exasperated at his lack of success in the battle, lashes out with a flying dragon kick. Aila mashes a Volvo into its face. The Verbena summon a fire elemental. Two MiBs with swords arrive ("Great," mutters Ambrose, "the peanut gallery."). Sonya throws the Fomorian at the fire elemental, resulting in a tremendous gush of steam. The fire elemental is dismissed, but it finally hurt the Fomorian.
Jared opens gates. The MiBs ignite their swords (which really confuses Ambrose; it's not exactly the Technocracy's style). Faris opens up with his machine gun. RF snags Evil Ambrose and gets him out of the way. Two helicopters descend--not Technocracy helicopters, but...well, actually they're more knights riding dragons.
The Fomorian chases Evil Ambrose. Rey throws a rock at it.
Now, this just ticks it off. Snarling, "Pooka!" it turns and heads for Rey, summoning lightning monsters.
"That's cheating," complains one Troll. "That's what they do," answers Rey. "They cheat!" The Fomorian growls again. Rey mocks it, "Oh, did I hurt his widdle feelings?"
One of the dead vampires sits up and rushes after Evil Ambrose, but it fails to pull him away from RF, who simply bites the offending vampire's head off since his arms are occupied.
A trod opens behind the Trolls, who part and snap to attention. Queen Mab comes forward. Aila throws a car into the air (it actually slipped out of her grip, but the toss is impressive), the Akashic leaps up and drop-kic,ks it out of the air into the Fomorian, and one of the Verbena lightning bolts the tank, sending the whole mass up in a fireball.
Apparently this gets through, because the Fomorian shapeshifts, into some kind of scorpion/crab monster.
On the other side of the battlefield, the MiBs pause to stare at Evil Ambrose. "He's the bad clone," Ambrose tells them helpfully.
"He's mumbling in his sleep in Dragon's Tongue!" one of them points out.
"I'm a little less keen on fairies than I was twenty minutes ago," Ambrose mumbles, handing the box to the Akashic.
The next morning, the Hermetic shows up for the box, and has a hard time believing Ambrose's story about a Fomorian.
When the Garou are done, they find a different hotel to stay at. RF shares a room with Ambrose, who sets alarms on his windows and oors.
The alarms go off that night, waking him in time to see some kind of half-snake/half-man jump out the window. RF doesn't see it. It doesn't seem to have taken anything, or left anything, so Ambrose reluctantly puts it out of his mind till morning.
In the morning, Ambrose finds out that the Garou have their own language. He tells the others about the snake-man. Monkey Girl says there are snake people sort of like her--called the Fu Hsi--but this wasn't one of them. They arrange a private plane back.
On the plane, Ambrose looks over the Marauder's camera, which contains exotic pictures. They get back without incident, and the pack drops Ambrose and Mark off at the chantry before heading back to the caern.
Having learned his lesson, Ambrose deposits the Marauder's gun with the chantry head, along with his demonic cell phone. He turns his laptop over to the Virtual Adepts to run checks on; they tell him they'll look into perma-deleting the map.
Aila prepares for a good lounge in front of the TV, which is how she learns that Evil-Ambrose has a special about Ether in a week. "Look at all that smarm!" she exclaims.
"Gives new meaning to the term podcast," Jonas quips.
The fae fret about their upcoming audience with the High King.
Ambrose investigates the camera, and discovers that a button activates a gateway to whatever picture is displayed in the viewer. He declines to activate it.
Aila takes off for the arcade. On the way, a wood hand emerges from a tree to hand her an invitation from the High King to the entire pack. "Nice bush," she thanks it. Ambrose gets one too, for him and Mark.
Aila and Jonas wonder what to wear, and are dismayed to learn that they'll be expected to dress up. The pack is amused to note that the king of the fairies lives in upper-state New York.
Evil Ambrose left a trail via Ambrose's credit cards (the limit of which Ambrose notes is much higher than it was). He also published a book on ether. The MiB calls to ask about killing him. Ambrose turns down the offer, but tells him about the children's book, "Ambrose goes to the Circus." Wanting a better look at this particular piece of devilry, he purchases a copy, and then burns it after chibi-Devyn winks at him from the cover. RF, having discovered this book as well, looks up the publishing info--Vesuvius Publishing, a Pentex property.
The next day, at the book signing, Rey knocks out Evil-Ambrose's limo driver to take his place. RF and Jonas hide in the car. Ambrose and Aila stick around to allay suspicion, so that everybody sees Ambrose is just fine. They plan to ambush Evil-Brose and get him back to the chantry.
And this plan works just fine...till one of those weird Asian supernaturals shows up again in pursuit of Evil-Ambrose. In fact, he gives chase to the real Ambrose, mistaking him for his doppelganger. Ambrose pops a fire hydrant on him and Rey freezes the water.
And then Iterators show up with a collar launcher, which Ambrose shoots out of the air before it reaches its target. Even an evil doppelganger doesn't deserve that fate. Rey fingers Evil Ambrose for the Asian guy; the Gurahl knocks Evil-Ambrose unconscious. Sonya throws the Asian man into a building while the rest of the pack kills the Iterators. Noting the unwanted attention they're gathering, Rey "films" the whole thing. With the threats pushed away or dealt with, they bail out on the scene, get Ambrose and his duplicate back to the chantry, and the Garou take off again. Ambrose has arranged to have a comfy cell ready to hold his double.
But of course it doesn't last long. Ambrose is staying up late working on reports and projects when he notices something strange. Investigating, he discovers the guards on the roof are out cold. Taking a wild guess at the target of the intruders, he runs down to the basement and finds that yes, indeed, his double is gone. He sounds the alarm, then follows the culprits down into the underground escape passages, accompanied by a Hollow One who'd been visiting the place. He grabs the chantry's Akashic, too, and they arrange to meet at the exit if Ambrose isn't able to catch up with the whoever-they-ares underground.
He's not, so when he and his companion reach the end of the tunnels, they find two strange vampires, a guy the Akashic can't seem to hurt, a sleeping Evil-Ambrose, and a garbage truck full of Sabbat vampires rounding the corner.
The Garou, who've been keeping watch on Evil-Ambrose by their own means, arrive. Sonya pulls her car parallel to the garbage truck, and informs her pack she's not going to crash it. They leap out onto the Sabbat vampires. Ambrose drops one of the other vampires into the pavement, trapping him. Another vampire, moving supernaturally fast, grabs Ambrose 2, but Aila charges him and knocks him away. Ambrose grabs his double and drags him to the side to keep him away from the fight while Aila and the other vampire (a Salubri) circle each other.
"Awww, can't I please have his soul?" the vampire drawls.
"His what?!" Aila repeats, startled.
Caleb, who came in with the werewolves, shifts and grabs the garbage truck, bouncing it repeatedly off the ground to squash vampires.
Sonya hits the indestructible person-thing, to as little effect as the Akashic. Getting nowhere, she throws it at one of the strange magic vampires, who explodes. Then the indestructible guy gets up and animates trees to go after Ambrose, who freezes one. Aila subdues the Salubri while mage reinforcements arrive to finish off the rest of the vampiric rabble.
Pleased with the previous success, Sonya swings her captive indestructible thing/guy into the other magic vampire, which also explodes. Ambrose freezes another tree, and calls, "Anybody want to give me a hand?" Jonas and Olesya leap on a third.
Then the fae arrive, and recognize Sonya's new toy as a White Court Fomorian.
RF pack-attacks the Salubri with Aila. The Fomorian, apparently wanting Caleb and his alarming strength well out of the picture, magically flings the garbage truck several blocks away, along with the werebear holding it. Sonya signales to the Akashic to coordinate their attack on the Fomorian on the same point of its armor.
The Salubri dies, and white mist begins to drift through. Some of the mages form a circle, working with the exploded vampire. Rey and Faris form up for war, calling up their armor. The Fomorian calls up white bark armor and a sword of its own. Faris pulls out a submachine gun from his car. "I spose he thinks we should be impressed," Rey muses, staring at their target. "Well, I sorta am, but..."
Behind Rey and Faris, a collection of stocky, tall people begins to form. The Fomorian looks at them, seeing them for what they really are: Troll knights. Sonya and the Akashic attack, successfully enough that the Fomorian turns its attention back to them. This offends Rey. "Hey, Whiteface!" he yells. It turns back toward him, lashing out with some kind of spell that freezes everything around them (including nearby buildings), then shatters it all into ice monsters.
The Akashic, getting exasperated at his lack of success in the battle, lashes out with a flying dragon kick. Aila mashes a Volvo into its face. The Verbena summon a fire elemental. Two MiBs with swords arrive ("Great," mutters Ambrose, "the peanut gallery."). Sonya throws the Fomorian at the fire elemental, resulting in a tremendous gush of steam. The fire elemental is dismissed, but it finally hurt the Fomorian.
Jared opens gates. The MiBs ignite their swords (which really confuses Ambrose; it's not exactly the Technocracy's style). Faris opens up with his machine gun. RF snags Evil Ambrose and gets him out of the way. Two helicopters descend--not Technocracy helicopters, but...well, actually they're more knights riding dragons.
The Fomorian chases Evil Ambrose. Rey throws a rock at it.
Now, this just ticks it off. Snarling, "Pooka!" it turns and heads for Rey, summoning lightning monsters.
"That's cheating," complains one Troll. "That's what they do," answers Rey. "They cheat!" The Fomorian growls again. Rey mocks it, "Oh, did I hurt his widdle feelings?"
One of the dead vampires sits up and rushes after Evil Ambrose, but it fails to pull him away from RF, who simply bites the offending vampire's head off since his arms are occupied.
A trod opens behind the Trolls, who part and snap to attention. Queen Mab comes forward. Aila throws a car into the air (it actually slipped out of her grip, but the toss is impressive), the Akashic leaps up and drop-kic,ks it out of the air into the Fomorian, and one of the Verbena lightning bolts the tank, sending the whole mass up in a fireball.
Apparently this gets through, because the Fomorian shapeshifts, into some kind of scorpion/crab monster.
On the other side of the battlefield, the MiBs pause to stare at Evil Ambrose. "He's the bad clone," Ambrose tells them helpfully.
"He's mumbling in his sleep in Dragon's Tongue!" one of them points out.
"I'm a little less keen on fairies than I was twenty minutes ago," Ambrose mumbles, handing the box to the Akashic.
The next morning, the Hermetic shows up for the box, and has a hard time believing Ambrose's story about a Fomorian.
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