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.
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