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.