Doc Quantum and the Turtle's Song

Book 3: Doc Quantum and the Circus of Midnight Lies

2008-10-23T02:02:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

Book 2: Doc Quantum and the Pendragon Seal

2008-10-23T01:01:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

2008-10-22T18:22:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Your future, Rey."

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Okay...," Ambrose mutters.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Steer me to England, then."

"No."

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

"Yep!"

"Horrible beast-person."

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Astarte likes him," Rey defends his friend.

"Oh good god," Mark groans.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"It's obvious!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Like the Tillingtast way?"

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

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

Book 1: Doc Quantum and the Ether Paths

2008-10-22T00:01:00.000-07:00

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

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

There used to be a chantry there

2008-10-21T19:08:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"No, that."

"Oh, snap."

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

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

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

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

Danielle hits her hand with a hammer.

"She still looks smarter," Sonya comments.

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

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

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

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

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

"Ape musk," Olesya suggests.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Once there, they send Chimerical Danielle to Tara.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"To Wales?" Mark asks him.

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

"Yeah...?"

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

Mark chases him. "Wait, what?"

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

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

Aila wonders if he's drunk.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sergei Burning Heart is dead. Doc Quantum is born.

2008-10-20T20:37:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And Ambrose goes on a Seeking.

Rastov part 3: burning hearts and newborn dreams

2008-10-19T19:51:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Yes!" the bastet replies.

"Have you tried shapeshifting?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Caleb cuts Rastov and sees something moving under his skin.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Von Allman is gone.

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

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

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

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

Aila wants to put the werecat on the ship.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Um..."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rastov part 2: the return of Dr. Von Allman

2008-10-18T19:40:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rastov part 1: suicide run

2008-10-17T18:06:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"That's probably the one Sergei took."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Time for Adventure!

2008-10-16T14:27:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Te Hwan shows up as an emissary from Jwo Dye.

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

"I said, it's adventure time!"

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

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

Showdown in New York City

2008-10-15T20:31:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"That cheeky bastard!" the MiB exclaims.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Frederico and the Funeral Parlor

2008-10-14T18:22:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The man nods. "Oh yes."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Project Crosshairs in the Crosshairs

2008-10-12T17:25:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Iteration X Goes Rogue

2008-10-11T16:40:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"He's still alive?" Aila gasps.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Motherboard and the Wicked City

2008-10-10T15:33:00.000-07:00

Leaving the Umbral movie theatre, they fall out of the Umbra into Hong Kong, just in time to see Demons of Iron and Violence come bursting out of Pearl Paradigms' building with HITMarks in hot pursuit. One of the demons runs away with something. All the combatants clear out at an invisible siren--the New World Order is on its way. Alison taps into a Technocracy frequency, and they listen to a report that "the motherboard" was stolen. The Technocracy is locking the whole city down against any escape.

Ambrose points out that their resonance will be noticed, falling into consensual reality so close to the crime scene. Faris takes them to Dreamsoft's Hong Kong offices to lay low for a couple of days till the Technocracy calms down, and he fills them in on Pearl Paradigms, which is a joint operation between the Syndicate, Iteration X, and the Progenitors. Some kind of R&D firm, obviously; an outlet for new technologies the Technocracy wants to unveil to the Masses.

From Dreamsoft's high rise, they can see the Technocracy is having problems with a rift in reality. They get it sealed after messing with it for a little while, but the pack gets a glimpse of the Wicked City's skyline before it closes.

After a while, the Technocrats seem to catch on that it's the escape route for the thieves, and apparently decide to re-open it, fussing with some equipment they bring out and set up. Ambrose is curious about the desperation such an attempt represents. The Technocracy could barely want this back more badly. His friends head off to find better ways of entertaining themselves, but Ambrose decides to hang around and observe them from his vantage point for a while. There's something about the way they're setting up their equipment that doesn't sit quite right with him...

...And he realizes just what a bad idea it is right about the time the whole setup explodes, dropping Hong Kong through a sudden lack of Gauntlet straight into the Wicked City.

Oh, well done, Technocracy!

The radio snaps back on, with scientists and agents screaming imprecations, then Iteration X cuts in to announce they're taking over by situation protocol. For once, Ambrose is all for it. This is what the Technocracy is good at, and somebody needs to protect the city's residents. Agents are deployed to herd citizens to safe zones. The locals don't seem to quite have noticed what happened. They seem to think it's terrorists or a tidal wave or something.

And apparently somebody else stole some blueprints while the Technocrats were chasing whatever the Demons of Iron and Violence stole. By reports, it sounds like the Monkey Girl. Ambrose can find her. He takes Lady Alison, RF, and Jonas with him.

They find her riding a HITMark with five more chasing her. She's got some kind of remote control joystick hooked up to its head.

Ambrose whips out a disintegration grenade--field test! It destroys the cohesion of unliving matter, wiping out about half a HITMark. The other half keeps on coming, but, well, it's stuck in a hole where the pavement used to be. RF clobbers another HITMark with a car. Jonas clubs one, and Aila rips up a phone pole as a melee weapon. Hey, it worked great last time! The Monkey Girl looks thoroughly entertained. Ambrose waves at her. "Hey! they have chain guns in their chests!" Thrilled, she starts pushing buttons.

The damaged HITMark takes a swing at Ambrose, who ducks (good thing it's half-wrecked!). He fires up his etheric gauntlet and grabs some exposed wires, giving it a good hard power surge. RF is winged by his assailant, and pile-drives it into the ground in retaliation.

Having held back to wave her wand around and chant, Lady Alison now fires a tiny glowing ball at a HITMark, which embeds itself in metal and starts spinning. She calls it the Blooming Flower of Abyssal Flame.

Aila crushes a HITMark with her phone pole. Monkey Girl's chain gun caps the remains of the rest.

Ambrose spots the small Technocracy tank bearing down on them, leveling a plasma cannon in their direction. It's also got two guns that fire quintessential discorporation rays (in other words, Flames of Purification, beams that eradicate even the underlying essence of whatever they hit). Outside consensual reality, the Union is bringing it's big guns to bear. He lobs another of his matter disintegration grenades at the tank treads, but misses. The grenade is booted back out of a shop window by an irritated and confused shih.

The Garou, with their fighting blood up, mob the tank, flipping it over to maul its underside a bit. Ambrose, on the other hand, just wants to clear out, now that they've got who they came for. Finally getting the gleefully destructive werewolves to finally listen and back off the tank, he spots IXers on Mirage motorcycles coming in from the other direction. "Awww, come on!" he cries in frustration. The Garou tear over to take those apart, since they're blocking their preferred escape route. RF smashes one bike by swinging another into it.

Then the tank turns into a giant robot. Ambrose advocates running. Since their escape routes on the street are blocked, he suggests going up and over the buildings.

At Dreamsoft, Sonya figures they could use some backup.

Ambrose asks Lady Alison for some turbulance to hold that robot off. She needs a minute to draw some circles, so he sonically disrupts the air currents behind the robot's jet boots in order to gutter the thrust. It crashes into the building's side. Checking on it, he spots a team of Asian Technocrats pacing them from the ground. They're not the usual agents; look like some kind of strike team. The shih they saw earlier is running along the power lines.

Lady Alison hands Ambrose two plates with sigils on them. "I need these attached to either side of its head." He rigs his bracer crossbow and some magnets and fires them at the robot while the Garou smash things. The robot dislodges itself from the building. The shih throws paper strips at the strike team.

Climbing out of the masonry, the robot falters...and Aila realizes it's thinking for itself. Alison gave it sentience! A sentience that doesn't like Technocrats. It spits out its Void Engineer passengers, and turns to mess with other pursuers that are moving in.

It's definitely time to split, before this gets any worse. As they vacate, they discover the robot following them. "Do you want to come with us, big robot man?" Aila asks it. Getting it to turn back into a tank, they give it a spot to park at Dreamsoft.

Finally back in safety, they greet the Monkey Girl, who still won't give her name. Aila wonders about that shih they saw. Ambrose notes the aforementioned is perched outside the window, and goes to let him in. Monkey Girl shows them the blueprints she stole: a motherboard that traps an Incarna. It's meant to be slaved to a greater machine, and Ambrose realizes it was designed by the Computer.

"That's it. They've lost their minds," he announces, throwing his hands up in perplexity.

Aila asks what Iteration X actually is. The mages talk about it, but they've never described it. Ambrose explains that they're a Convention of mages who have merged themselves with technology as the next step in human evolution, and they've all plugged themselves into a single central Computer, which they allow to coordinate and control them. "Okay," Aila finally interjects. "You said they were crazy, not CRAZY."

So. Mikaboshi now has this board, which is meant to trap an Incarna. That'll need to be addressed. Can they get it back? Monkey Girl thinks it's probably still in his mail room. He's all about the bureaucracy and procedure. Any package entering his tower first has to get processed through the mail room on the lower levels. They can sneak in by pretending to be delivering something, and then search for the package. Ambrose says it's Technocracy tech; it'll probably stand out in there. He thinks he can track it. Sonya, Ambrose, Monkey Girl, Aila, and Jonas will go.

They're given a pass for their package and are allowed in. Ambrose detects the package 150 floors up, and then finds them a priority elevator.

Retrieving the package is no problem. Getting out with it, on the other hand, is. The trap door in the elevator ceiling opens and a gas grenade is tossed in. Ambrose throws it back up. RF reaches up and grabs the IX girl, who sends an electric charge through the elevator.

Ambrose soaks it, then drops her through a hole in the floor. The elevator speeds up and alarms go off. "We gotta get off!" Aila declares.

"There's a hole in the floor," Ambrose replies. They jump out; Monkey Girl produces a parachute. The IX girl grabs the package with a black tentacle that emerges from her eye socket. Sonya partial-shifts and grabs it back, yanking on her eye-tentacle. "OwOW!" the girl yells.

The group clears out of the elevator shaft on the ground floor, running straight into five Demons of Iron and Violence. "There's a crazy girl trying to steal our package!" Aila tells them. They stare. She shrugs. "Figured it was worth a try."

Jonas uses Turtle's Elemental Gift to tear up the floor and make a path through the monsters. They run and get chased. Clearing out of the tower, Monkey Girl hauls out a jade key and uses it to separate the worlds.

And then they run smack dab into that police tape. Ambrose skids to a halt, seeing a veritable army of Technocracy vehicles and personnel.

Rey takes off from Dreamsoft with the robot, heading to the rescue. Faris puts him in a Voltron outfit. They swoop in to strafe the tanks.

The mages start invoking anti-magic. the Garou shift and brace themselves. Ambrose wonders wistfully if that Matter Paradox spirit is lurking around here anyplace. He hears the distinctive sound of ARC planes swooping in. "Least there aren't any Vaders," he mutters.

"Yeah, there are," Mark says. Oh boy.

Then he realizes everybody he's seeing is Iteration X. There aren't any NWO agents here. He suddenly develops a suspicion. "Are you guys being naughty?"

They Walk: to the apex of history

2008-10-09T12:20:00.000-07:00

Back at home, Ambrose and Mark file reports and are informed that they'll be getting a visit from House Quaesitor. Oh joy.

Well, it's better than the Euthanatos.

The pack tells the tale to the sept, filling them in on the tainted Mokole and the Black Spiral pack. They learn the Nephandus shaman is called Sings of Nothing. He's from a tribe in the northeast US, hasn't been seen since the 1940s. Even before then, he was mostly encountered in the Umbra's far realms.

The Quaesitor is named Lady Alison. She is pretty, blonde, blue-eyed, and so very British. After meeting Mark and Ambrose and listening to their adventures with the enthusiasm of a librarian who wants to get out more, she decides to come along and observe them for a while to determine whether they're traitors or victims. They agree, figuring it's an acceptable alternative to brain-melting enchantments to discover Technocracy or Nephandi sympathy. She shows them her wand, which the Quaesitor masters of the rite have stored a Gilgul spell in for emergency occasions. They don't find that reassuring, but she stows that away, hoping she'll get to use it on that Dreamspeaker Nephandus.

Ambrose sheepishly brings up Goratrix to her, knowing how the Traditions don't like having their black memories brought up. She tells him to relax about it, and promises to see what she can find on the man.

Her scary Janissary bodyguard, Damon Stirletti, catches up to Ambrose in his room to very politely inform him that Damon may kill him if anything happens to Lady Alison. Ambrose quite sincerely thanks him for the most civilized death threat he's gotten. "It's very kind of you to warn me." The stoic Janissary is taken aback. "Do people try to kill you often?" "Oh yes, but most of them aren't nearly as polite about it." Deciding to set that aside, Damon explains that the Lady is somewhat impetuous and that he believes her decision to accompany them is based partly on a chance for excitement. Ambrose had already figured that out, and promises to do his best to look out for her.

As soon as Damon leaves, Dante drops in (literaly) to tell him that the Iteration X girl was born Awakened, and has a twin sister who was likewise. Both of them were taken by the Technocracy, but went AWOL around the age of eight. They should be around 15 by now. They were born in New Mexico on a reservation. He gives Ambrose a map of their reported locations, which forms an interesting pattern.

Dante asks about the Janissary who just left. When Ambrose tells him the man's name, Dante's impressed. He says Lady Alison is the Hermetic Order's youngest Master. Imagine that: the only impetuous Hermetic is assigned to Ambrose's case.

With the paperwork taken care of, everyone meets at Dreamsoft to proceed to Tara. Ambrose takes Lady Alison and introduces her to the others. Aila offers to break her knees if she comes after Ambrose.

When they reach it, they find Tara fortified and prepared for war. Jared's friend, Sir Gaius Meldin (Sir Guy, he introduces himself), makes known his stress over helping Dierdre prepare for the wedding. They notice Sir Guy has buckhorns.

Escorted into the audience with the High King, Rey discovers he is now Sir Rey of the Many Colors of the Shining and Noble Blade. Quite a mouthful. He thinks it's hilarious.

When asked about herself, Danielle can't get her story straight, telling the king three different stories before Rey finally knocks her into her seat and tells the story he heard from her. David, irritated, notes the irony of a Pooka speaking the truth for her. Rey gets it, yeah, thanks.

David calls on the Crystal Circle. They pull out her memories and show themto everybody. Sonya offers to consult with them on shifter physiology. The sorcerers offer to show other memories in Danielle's head. Taking them up on this, Sonya asks to see her early years.

Danielle and her mentor both had the vision of her coming to Chicaggo. They sat and talked it out, agreeing that Danielle should go as she was younger. They also get the impression that her mentor was sending her away for safety. They also see her eat her dead mother--all of her. The Balam having told Sonya they could do whatever they felt necessary, Sonya talks to the fae about Danielle's pact with the Thing in the Lake. They want to study her.

Ambrose talks to Sir Tristan, who says he's doing well. He met Dierdre, who wanted his opinion of color schemes because she felt a true fae would have an exquisite color sense. She was displeased when he disagreed with her choices. And the Nockers on Victoria Station believe they've figured something out.

So, to Victoria Station then! Aila is excited to see the Moon up close. The head of the space station's Nockers is named Clank. He starts drawing charts--they got the Great Machine open and found a Tristan-shaped hole inside.

"Two guesses," says Clank. "It's either a death beam cannon to kill our enemies, or a radio tower. I'm actually thinking a radio tower. Kind of disappointing."

"The only difference between a radio tower and a death beam is how much energy you put through it," Ambrose comforts him.

The Nocker looks at him thoughtfully. "I'll talk to you about that later."

The fae discover that Etherite iron doesn't hurt them. Ambrose thinks nothing of it, explaining that it's purified iron that Etherites use for precision tools. When they want to know what that is, he explains about the theory of alchemical gold and Platonic ideals--that essentially, purified iron is iron that has been brought into resonance with the ideal of iron.

The fae ponder the possible effects of this rarified iron on Dauntain.

They take Tristan to the Great Machine, where Ambrose puts Tristan's heart back in (this idea of carrying around somebody else's essential body parts still weirds him out). The Machine fires up, sending a pulse into the Dreaming...and that's it. The Nockers are disappointed. Tristan seems just fine.

When they return, the Crystal Circle calls Ambrose in to show him Danielle's conversations with the IX girl. Odd that she knows so much about the Croatan tale. Ambrose suggests they ask among all the Croatan kin they've been gathering up if anybody knows of a young native girl with no name but cybernetic implants...or of twin girls who went missing from a New Mexico reservation about 15 years ago.

He wonders how they got away from Iteration X. It's not exactly easy to turn tail on a Convention whose membership you carry in your head. Sonya considers it: perhaps, if they're kinfolk, their bloodline did something.

The Garou take their mage friends to the Apex of History to see what they're supposed to see. It's an Umbral Vista, a place where the spirit paths carry you above landscapes that show you histories and futures and strange far-off places. The Apex of History shows the punch line--the inevitable destination of the future. The Garou see the Apocalypse when they look out toward the horizon. The fae see Winter. But the mages see...nothing.

Baffled by the reactions of the Garou and fae, who are in turn baffled by the mages' insistences that there's nothing there, the mages try harder, discovering that if they concentrate, they can make futures appear--any future they can imagine. Well, that's not how it's supposed to work either, so some of the pack step over near the mages to see if they can get a perspective on this odd vision. When they get near the mages, their own visions of the inescapable Apocalypse vanish. The fae, trying out this strange phenomenon, have the same experience. Get close to a mage, lose the landscape of the future. Experimenting, Sonya tugs Faris off to the side, and finds that it doesn't work without being near a mage.

It's perfectly reasonable to Mark and Ambrose, who scoff at the idea that the future is set and that it must be bleak. Ambrose is offended at the implied dismissal of personal will, and especially the lack of hope inherent in such a vision. For that matter, he admits that he's not all that impressed by the prophecy either. Oh, it's not that he thinks it's false, but he calls it a "suggestion" rather than destiny. Destiny, he claims, is just a fancy way of saying "what you choose to be."

Faris thinks that might be the point. The mages don't believe in predestined futures, and their wills are powerful enough to make their beliefs change reality.

On their way out, they pass through a theatre where a shadow play is being performed. They watch as a lizard, a raven, a coyote, and a wolf run across paths to a building on the moon, which explodes. "I don't wanna blow up the moon!" Rey complains, at the same time that Ambrose exclaims, "You're gonna blow up Darkside Moon Base?"

The others look at him in shock. He explains that the Technocracy has had a base on the dark side of the Moon for decades. Then the film starts again. From the center of the base's remains, Arcadia rises. "I don't wanna blow up the Moon!" Rey says again.

They think about this briefly, until the shadows start up again: a Crinos werewolf, just standing there. Sonya spins to see the Black Spiral pack at the rear of the theatre, one of their Ahrouns standing in the light beam, drooling. But they don't attack. "There's a force field," their Theurge answers Sonya's wary look with a wave at mid-air.

Sonya uses her Hidden Secrets Gift, and discovers the second Ahroun is hiding the fact that he has trace amounts of decency--a family he cares for living in Canada. It's possible to appeal to his honor.

Faris tells them they're in a no-conflict border realm, while the redneck in Crinos bangs his head repeatedly off the force field. The Theurge sighs. Sonya nods in agreement. "Yeah," Peter says, "that'll make us intimidating later on. Thank you, Cletus, the slack-jawed yokel."

"Is his name really Cletus?" Ambrose asks in something like awe.

"No," Peter answers, looking vaguely annoyed by the obliviousness of such a question. Then another werewolf cuts his own tongue off. "Meet Bleeds-for-Fun," Peter introduces with false cheer. "He bleeds for fun. Anybody else want to embarrass me?"

Aila begins to ask a question, but Peter interrupts her by grabbing Bleeds for Fun and pouring silver dust into his mouth. He comments on his low tolerance for stupid BSD stuff. Then, considering briefly, he summons a Paradox spirit. It glowers at the mages. Ambrose waves at it. "It won't hurt us here, you know." Aila shoos it away, literally: "Shoo! Shoo! Bad spirit, this is the wrong place for you!" It edges away to the exit, looking shifty.

"Even my spirits..." the Theurge grumbles. But he says he just wanted it to catch the mages' scent.

Well, they can't accomplish anything else here but looking stupid, so Peter chases his pack out, growling at them when they're reluctant to move. After they've gone, Sonya ushers her own pack out thoughtfully. Jonas is apparently thinking about the same thing, as he pipes up with the suspicion that they're meant to underestimate the Black Spiral pack.

Ambrose offers the tidbit that he's heard summoning Paradox spirits can rebound on the caller, if the spirit slips its leash. They're not meant to be summoned, and they don't like it. The werewolves take that under advisement.

On the Road to El Dorado

2008-10-07T21:57:00.000-07:00

Ambrose's fairy phone rings. It's a man whose voice he doesn't know. He says he's one of the BSDs, describes how they tracked people, interrogated spirits, interrogated a Dreamsoft "thing," found out Ambrose has been traveling with the pack. They can't track him, the man admits, but "I'm about to let you know where we are." A picture comes across, of the redneck guy waving from on top of Danielle's temple. "Thing about bindings," the man's voice continues, "is that you can either go through extremely complex rituals or-"

"You can break it," Sonya finishes.

"Several hundred points of TNT should do it," the man confirms. Four seconds later, an explosion rips through the distant jungle, its sound echoing for miles. Ambrose correlates: about 50 miles away. Sonya notes that the temple locks away some kind of Wyrm thing. An earth spirit she queries says it was a corrupted serpent. Not a bane, but "someone." A shifter?

Well, the BSDs have just garnered a lot of attention. They're probably booking it. This is likely an attempt to pick up Danielle's trail. Sonya makes the call to keep going. The thing, whatever it is, is already free, and they won't be able to do anything about the BSDs now.

They come across an entrance to what Ambrose realizes is Hollow Earth. He fanboys. The others don't believe him. There are traces of Pentex teams and Technocracy explorers in the vicinity.

Nearby, RF catches wind of a Pentex First Team. With forewarning, they can take these guys out easily. Aila and RF recon. Ambrose plants grenades in the ground, to take out the first vehicle and four people. 8 more and a small tank are behind that. Aila takes the tank. She breaks in to find people strapped into the tank with green liquid in hoses. RF destroys one. Olesya mauls one. Sonya snatches one into the tree, roughs him up, and invites a poisonous tree snake to take a bite. Danielle mauls, the Wendigo shoots one with a Bane Arrow from his Stone Bow--the target soaks most of it.

Mark wades in with his blade. Ambrose sabotages another guy's ray gun. Rey turns one paranoid. The guy hides beneath the tree Sonya's in. She helps the paranoia along, dropping the dying man on him. Aila yanks out the tank's driver and throws him in front of the tank. RF brutalizes another.

Danielle's victim breaks loose and runs for paranoid guy for help, who knifes him. Rey spots the Wendigo's target making a break for it and charms his sight. Sonya whammies the paranoid guy: "He's the one." The paranoid man throws a knife into his fleeing team mate, then Sonya breaks the man's neck.

Ambrose disables the tank and cleans up the tech in the area, while Mark deals with the balefire gun. Sonya gets some local spirits to hide the paths here.

Further on, they walk through a shallowing. Ambrose senses something...old school in the distance. El Dorado. "I'm not allowed to take a picture, am I?" he asks plaintively. But RF thinks it'll be okay with the fairy phone.

they're met by painted Uktena, who greet RF as kin. The courtyard has statues to all the tribal totems. The pack pays their respects. Rey admires the local insect life, to the Uktena's confusion. The velociraptor Mokole is there. He warns RF that memories aren't always convenient or happy. They'll drag him off on quests. Garou are calm with that, pointing out that it's their job.

An old, vigorous man wearing a chieftain's feathers descends the steps. The mages know an oracle when they meet one, and feel rather intimidated.

Feast! Walking Hawk turns up partway through. "Ohmygod, they're swarming!" Ambrose says of the two Oracles. They're introduced to RF's kin, over whom Aila goes all gushy.

RF and Aila see El Dorado wearing symbols marking him as Clan of the Horned Serpent. Walking Hawk wears markings of the Turtle Clan. Aila fangirls.
Mark: "Ohmygod, it's right here on page...sorry, sir."
Ambrose: "You have-? *snatches copy* *hides it* Hi, sir!"
Walking Hawk, caught between amused and chagrined: "Yes, that's why I went through all this." He's Croatan kin!

RF goes through a ceremony to accept his lost knowledge, which is auspiciously successful. He knows immediately that they'll have to go to Pangaea, where they'll have to open a bridge to the Croatan Homeland at the same time as someone opens one at the Sept of Falling Waters. The ritual must happen in three places at once.

They converse about the Name-Eater. Eating names is very close to the Croatan understanding of Eater of Souls. The Croatan gave up their name, but not entirely. The pack decides to stay a few days. Sonya learns that under the temple was a Rank 6 Mokole, fallen to the Wyrm.

The Uktena (and Balam, some of whom who also live here) are startled to learn about the Balam and her mentor, however. They had reports from the temple's guardian only a few days ago, but it's not Danielle Stormsinger. Danielle tells her story again. That tomb was where the rite to pass guardianship is normally held. Was it sealed properly? The proper guardian was a Balam named Patiently Waits. Ambrose hesitantly offers up the paw. It was hers. Danielle's mom. Walking Hawk considers--if she ate her mom's heart, it's an ancient rite not used anymore but it would pass the guardianship. if someone kept body parts preserved to use in rituals, and sent false reports... Not sure if it's malicious, but...

The Balam will convene over this. Meanwhile, what else is wrong with her? Danielle tells them about her journey. "Wait here," says the eldest Balam. Others gape. The Nunnehi are horrified, especially when Rey tells them about the Green Court.

Returning, the Balam tell her they'll call her back when they've made a decision.

The Garou tell of the Memory Caern awakening. The Mokole are shocked; they thought the Gurahl dead. They tell about the Camazotz kin who was sane and his blood awakened. The Mokole prepare gifts for the Camazotz. They're also startled to hear about the recovery of the First Klaive. Wistfully, RF wonders if they'll get to go to Hawai'i--and yes, quite likely. The puma spirits of the volcanos know much about purification. Jonas snerks about soccer. Ambrose points out they're at least partly in Brazil, so he should be careful.

Sonay realizes that if the Balam decide Danielle knew what she was doing, they'll have her killed. She warns them about the thing in her soul, and that killing her without more information could be dangerous.

Rey celebrates with other tricksters, who plan a good prank. When Danielle falls asleep, he tries to steal into her dream. She resists. Ambrose puts an ear-bud on her with a disruption field to annoy people away from her dreams. It makes her queasy, but hey.

She dreams she's laying in a hotel room. Something knocks in the bathroom,her own voice calling, "What is that godawful noise? I was sleeping; you just woke me up. God that's annoying!"

Rey peeks in, watches the thing curse at her, and snarl about trying to weasel out on their deal. It's furious that she'd welch. "Do you have any idea how important pacts are to my kind? Look, could you just have them dial that down a scoonch?"

Ambrose turns it down on Rey's say-so, but is interested that he managed to disrupt its link through her. Investigating further, he discovers he could disrupt the link completely, but that might free the thing.

The next morning, after the Greeting the Sun ritual, they ask the Mokole about the Death Bear. They're told the Gurahl have a resurrection ritual. They summon the Death Bear and wrestle him for the soul he took.

Ambrose talks to Walking Hawk about prophecy bits. He guesses they have to patch up the Traditions, and tells Ambrose there was a 10th Seat in Horizon once upon a time. Ambrose asks him about the Nephandi Dreamspeaker, and Walking Hawk is...displeased. It's a Nephandic Oracle. He promises to learn what he can.

That afternoon, Danielle makes a speech on he steps of the temple, wherein she justifies eating her mother and promises to redeem herself, and changes her Deed Name to "Waits No Longer."

"Will we have to listen to her talk all the way home?" Aila asks.
"Yeah..." RF drawls.
"No," Sonya cuts in.

Danielle the Problem

2008-10-06T21:25:00.000-07:00

Danielle wakes in a restaurant, alone. There's a dish under a metal cover, with bits of cat underneath. The girl with the implants is sitting across from her suddenly. "Reading your datastream is hilarious."

Danielle is busy being revolted. The girl points out that the BSD pack is backtracking her trail. Where did she leave from? (Implying: will they find your family?)

On the plane, Rey notices Danielle's having bad dreams. Ambrose wakes her. The Iterator throws a cat paw at her, which rolls off her chest in the real world. Ambrose puts it in a containment jar.

Danielle freaks out. Ambrose gives her brandy and calms her. She tells a halting story about her mother...which Olesya interrupts with, "So what parts of her did you eat?"

The others are shocked. Danielle only says she can't remember. Olesya asks if her mother was Balam. Danielle doesn't think so...but Ambrose checks the paw. It's Balam, and it's female, and it's kin to Danielle somehow. Sonya sniffs it, verifying it's family, and is interested to note it's not decayed.

Sonay and Jonas ask about this quest Danielle says she's on. She says she grew up with her mentor telling her she'd leave one day to go to the City of Winds. Then one day she left, leaving clothes and a note saying, "You will know when to go." She never saw her again. Jonas notes this is all because she gave the BSDs a map--there's something mystical about travel maps. What about her mentor's note? Danielle says she left it.

Ambrose notes that cats tend to go for protein--liver, heart.

They need to follow RF's trail before Danielle's. They transfer planes, heading for South America. Danielle falls asleep again.

She wakes in an office. Robert the tentacular Nephandus is sitting there. "How does it make you feel?"

"Actually," she answers, "you scare me."

"Awww, thank you!" He needles her till she tells him that the purpose of Bastet is to watch. "So you're not like Garou, then, who have a useful purpose."

They know the legend of the Three Brothers. The IX girl is there suddenly. Robert's happy she's helping him write an important thesis. "You really should be honored!" he tells Danielle. The girl hisses in irritation and takes a soda from the fridge, then accosts Danielle about why she's here.

"To learn."

"This is not a learning curve. This is a learning spiral. Maybe someone else sent you. Calash?" Robert protests he's supposed to be doing this. "Yes, why don't you go run the genetic sampling test?"

"Yes!" he yelps happily, and scurries off. Danielle digs her nails in her palms.

"Do you enjoy that?" the girl demands. "Could be a telling sign who sent you. Do you enjoy your Rage? Some werewolves do." But then she begs off. "Off to have a conversation with the thing in the center of your soul."

Danielle wakes up on the plane. Some of the others are snoozing. Sonya and Rey are up front, talking about fae and Fomorians. Danielle comes forward, looking worse than before she slept, and tells them the dream. "I can't do this anymore. I can't deal with it!" she grits out.

"It doesn't matter if they're figments or monsters," Sonya answers. "You don't have the real answers, so find them."

Sonya asks questions, learning she never met any other shifters, and no one knows Danielle's name. Weird. Yet she's Rank 2. Sonya asks why. Danielle tells how she stopped fomori from breaking into a tomb near the pyramid in her territory. She never left that territory. Sonya realizes her mother must'vebeen the temple's guardian. If she left, then, she was probably passing it to Danielle. Who does have a feathered serpent tattoo like the one at the base of the temple (its mouth was the tomb entrance). Jonas tips his hat back and points out if Danielle left, then her mentor probably came back in that case. Danielle doesn't know her mother's name. Sonya plans to ask around in the Amazon.

Danielle says her mentor led her to the temple while the fomori were breaking in, and stood back. "They didn't know what hit them," Danielle boasts.

"Yes, I'm sure your battle prowess is legendary," Sonya says dryly. Rey snickers. Danielle's mentor told her nothing about the tomb. The fomori were just grave-robbing. The Bastet returned everything and resealed the tomb.

Sonya asks about smelling Wyrm taint. Danielle says she has no skills to smell it...yet she's identified it correctly during her journey so far. It's not a skill, it's an ability of shifters. So either her ability was repressed, or the place was so Wyrm-tainted that she had no basis for comparison. Or her mentor lied and there was no Wyrm taint at the temple at all.

Jonas points out the unusual nature of a shifter being born directly to a shifter parent. Coincidence, or spiritual lineage? Maybe her mother was the proper temple guardian. Was Danielle even destined to be a shifter? Did eating her mother do something?

The plane lands. They go to RF's adoptive human family. Sonya decides to bring Danielle. Let the Mokole decide what to do with her. They settle in, get treated to an impromptu party, and plan their further journey.

that night, Danielle dreams of a train station. The girl says trains here lead to different destinations, and changes the setting to a crossroads. She asks if Danielle's developed any theories.

Rey notes Danielle's dreaming again. He peeks in to see the girl telling Danielle it's a Green Court Fomorian's shade in her soul. She bothers Danielle about avoiding choices and knowledge. Rey slaps Danielle awake. She tells about the dream, then asks if crossroads are significant. Of course! Any of them could tell her that.

Onward! They reach the tree where RF was found, and are met by a brontosaurus and a pterodactyl. The Garou are silent and respectful. Ambrose nearly vibrates with excitement. He feels breath on his neck, turns, and finds himself face to face with a velociraptor. "Hi, sir! I'm just the help. You want to talk to them."

"I'm well aware," the dinosaur replies.

Ambrose gapes. "It's so cool when you talk!"

"I know." They ride the brontosaurus to the wallow, where the Mokole take human form. Walking Hawk is there.

They talk to RF, give him a drinking bowl to remember where he was born. His vision: born to Uktena in El Dorado. Ambrose thinks that's awesome. A Mokole tells the story:

Technocrats with the Conquistadores mapped and locked things down here. They fought a war with a Dreamspeaker king named El Dorado. They finally won by locking his city out of reality, but they couldn't finish it. He was too powerful. He sealed the city into its own realm to keep it safe. Only natives of the city can find the paths to walk to come and go. Walking Hawk says the Mokole can't walk the way he does. The Mokole warn that there will be Pentex and other enemies on the way, but RF can lead them back.

They share the discovery of Wonshee's journal, which laments the fighting between tribes and that it leaves them alone to deal with their fate.

Silent Hill is in Texas

2008-10-05T20:32:00.000-07:00

They stop by the lake to pick up the trails of the Nephandi, then hit the cult-infested town around 8:30 pm. Ambrose excitedly recalls how to draw out cults in movies: you rent a room and they'll come and try to get you. With no better idea, the others agree to it, checking into a motel. They're each given their own room.

Ambrose sets up mad surveillance, wards the place and chases out bugs, because eww. Danielle lies down and hears a buzzing--many bugs, of many sorts. She tries to leave, but her door won't open, and she bounces off the window when she tries to jump through.

Rey, who's dozing, feels like he's being watched. Opening his eyes, he sees a big fat beetle. Which, being a chameleon pooka, he eats. Mmmm, tasty juicy beetle.

Danielle squishes bugs after pounding on walls for attention gets her nowhere. They start pulling her into the bathroom, where she finds her reflection isn't being grabbed by bugs. It reaches out and pulls her into the mirror.

Ambrose gets a blip and calls Mark. They check on the others, who seem fine. Danielle asks how to work the TV, clock, and bathroom. Rey is shifty about the suspicious beetle he saw, which is 'mysteriously' not around any longer. They check around back.

Danielle wakes in her bedroom, and leaves to check on the others. There's no answer at their doors. A step-drag noise on the walkway turns out to be some messed-up dead thing, like a freakishly warped zombie. She backs away and goes out to the convenience store, looking for help. The cashier has his face buried in a newspaper, and she somehow doesn't want to see his face. She leaves without bothering him and heads for the edge of town.

There's nothing beyond it but darkness.

Behind the hotel, Rey rustles around looking for more tasty bugs. Ambrose narrows down the disturbance to the back wall of Danielle's room, then notices something moving around her front door--a Baali. The motel manager.

Danielle returns to the motel and sees five of those shuffling things. Dodging past, she sees a normal guy with a baseball bat, beating one of the shamblers down. He turns, sees her, screams and attacks (she's in Crinos). She tosses his bat, he runs, and she heads for her room, barricading herself in. Then she finds black ooze pouring from the mirror.

Ambrose wakes the Garou to tell them about the Baali. Jonas grabs his shotgun. "Does that work?" Ambrose asks h im. "Does now... Well, they're resistant, but..." Ambrose grabs it for a second and does something to it, then hands it back.

They jump the vampire, the shotgun blowing away his lower legs. He complains about Rey eating his bugs ("You're sick! It wasn't even expecting it!"), admits he was using the bugs to spy on them. Bugs start inching in. Ambrose drives them away with his sonic generator. The Baali notes that's what drove his bugs nuts earlier. He says most of the townspeople are cultists. Only 20 or so aren't. They sacrifice people to the thing in the lake, and feels they've made progress recently. "It noticed us a few weeks ago!" and "Demons like us! They sent us leaders!" meaningg the Nephandi, who come and go. Ambrose, curious, asks why he bothers to do this when he's got eternity to do and be whatever he likes. The Baali talks about demons appreciating their worshippers, granting them power, blah blah blah. Ambrose, unimpressed, points out, "You are a motel manager!" The Baali is offended, protesting it's just his cover. Rey breaks down laughing. Ambrose indicates that he thinks Baali sound like losers. Aila kills it before it frenzies.

Rey to Ambrose: "I am taking you to my next party!"

Danielle breaks out to escape the ooze, encounters the five lurching zombies, and fights them. She dodges, they stop moving, she backs into someone, who says, "How does all this make you feel?" She spins, swinging...but the scientist is standing behind an Asian guy who strikes her twice, numbing her arms. The labcoat guy tries to interview her about it as she attempts to duck away.

Aila wonders what to do while Ambrose cleans up the Baali. Mark thinks they must be controlling people by feeding them vampire blood. He suggests a vampire detector. Ambrose obliges, grabbing a sample of Baali blood and setting his detector to home in on the stuff. For their part, the Garou simply take a good sniff.

Ambrose detects five vampires in town. Two are at the bar--he bets that's where they're feeding people blood. Aila wants to start a bar fight. There's one stronger vampire in the cemetery--probably the creator of the others.

For Danielle's part, the Progenitor Nephandus is still bothering her about 'internal balances.' "This is for science. Please. Try to be helpful." An unhinged-looking woman in a puritan outfit comes out snickering about how it reminds her of The Princess Bride. Danielle won't answer the Progenitor, who points out that "Your value to me at this moment is in answering questions." He considers asking the double they made.

Danielle sees headlights, then the Nephandi get hit by a truck driven by the guy she previously abandoned (which costs her Honor renown). He looks at her, she hops in the back, and he drives off fast. After they get clear, he stops and tells her to run, giving her something to smoke that heals her arms--"I'm gonna worry about no arms on the person I'm running through Silent Hill with."--and yells at her for taking his bat. Her answers about who the Nephandi are are, as usual, uninformative.

After pondering the church briefly--"...No. That's always the worst."--the guy takes her to the bank to look for guns, complaining about how hiding never works in zombie movies. He pries info out of her (it's tough) about how she got here, hits on her for being a cat-lady ("That's kinda cool..."), and to her query he answers, "Oh no, I am very human. You know what's the first thing I did? I shit my pants! And I had to get a new pair. I'm human and those people out there will kill me." Giving up on getting her to tell him anything useful, he decides to head to the liquor store for flammable material.

At the bar, Ambrose rolls gas grenades in to knock out 8 ghouls. Mark turns the bar lights into sunlight. The pack contains the frenzying, freaking vampires that try to escape. They die quickly.

The guy--a mage; a Cultist if you know anything about them--speculates they could get back through mirrors. Danielle thinks the Nephandi are after her, so the mage says obviously they can't have her. "Awwwww, I don't wanna beeee here! I'm a sub-par stage magician with alcohol dependency!"

The pack skulks up to a house with two vampires inside. Aila senses something weird as she passes a mirror. Her reflection grabs her and hauls her in. The others see it. "Why'd she step sideways?" Sonya wonders.

Aila wakes in the mirror world with zombies slumping toward her. "Are you serious?" she asks the air, looking around. Then she crushes a zombie.

In the liquor store, the mage spots her. "Is one of your friends...a werewolf?" Zombies come out, led by a Native American girl with cybernetic implants that bleed black. Aila alerts the pack through their totem-bond. Sonya figures it's a spirit realm linked to the town with mirrors as gateways.

The Bastet and the mage run outside. The guy throws a firebomb. Everything it hits slows down. Aila rips up a light post and swings at the zombies. Squishy. She takes it with her, figuring it's a good weapon.

Turtle takes the pack to Aila. Ambrose: "We lost our werewolves!" Mark, annoyed, brings the others after.
"Statistically poor odds," notes the Iterator.
"Fuck me, you're real!" Ambrose blurts.
"Yes, I am."

Danielle is dragged back into the liquor store and replaced by her double. Someone behind her in shaman's facepaint says, "They're not going to hear you," when she yells at the others. She tries to dodge around the curtains she was dragged backward behind, but they keep hindering her. The shaman explains the double is living her life so the Progenitor can learn about her. For his part, the shaman is humoring their "play time."

Aila wonders about stepping sideways here. "You can't step sideways from an Umbral Realm," Sonya tells her, "but you can find exits." In fact, she spots one behind the Nephandi, who have clustered and are muttering.

Then the shaman walks out and calls truce. They're allowed to leave in peace, because he doesn't feel like dealing with a fight. He seems extremely confident that it would be nothing more than an inconvenience to him.

Ambrose notes his marks--binding sigils from the Nephandi the Technocracy and Traditions banded together to expell after WWII.

The mage--Bob Cramer, 'The Amazing Cosmo'--is thrilled with Aila's light pole. Ambrose identified him immediately as Cult of Ecstasy, and tells him about the shaman. Sonya guesses the mirror world might be an atrocity realm.

They check on Bob, who says he's okay. But he really wanted those guns, which he had to leave in the Umbral realm. He tells them about meeting Danielle, and how she ran away. Ambrose warns him never to work for Anastagio's Circus.

The real Danielle tries getting out through a mirror. Her reflection looks at her. "Yes?" She demands to get out. It suggests she try convincing it. When she asks what it is, it tells her it's just a gatekeeper. They make deals.

The pack goes to the house with the two Baali in it. One is getting glasses in the dining room. The other is in the kitchen with a hostage.

Rey hears whispers. Danielle promising to do what she can to free the gatekeeper...who releases her. Danielle pops out in the liquor store, where she runs into the IX girl, who explains that "Robert's so happy about this, we don't get to do it very often. So you stay where you are." Danielle tries to get out through the back, but the IX girl is there. "I know everything about you. You're not clever enough to get out."

"I got out," Danielle replies.

The girl looks her over, hugely amused by something, and lets her go. "By the way," she tells the werecat, "You're awesome."

The others notice the double is gone, and they spot Danielle coming down the street. Aila bursts into the house when someone screams. A vampire's starting to drain their captive. She throws a chair at him. Sonya intercepts the other vampire. RF grabs the splintered wood from the chair and stakes that one. Mark flips a table and kicks the legs through the other vampire.

RF and Ambrose help the poor captive girl. There are more vampires downstairs, so Rey and Dances free them.

A man in a priest's collar catches up to Danielle outside, asking if she's okay. One of the Inquisitors, he doesn't know she's a supernatural. They run toward the house when it goes crash-bang! and the Inquisitors take over from the pack. They happily tell the Inquisitors about the other vampires in town. A nun walks past Danielle: "You really should charge them for rides, dear." And the paladin-like one looks oddly at Mark.

The group leaves, and Danielle tells them the story. Sonya lays into her about stupid pacts. Ambrose notes she's now connected to some dream-thing. Sonya realizes: it's a pact with the Word-Eater.

Elsewhere, Jared wakes suddenly from a dream and calls Rey. He dreamed of the Green Court! Rey's actually shaken by this--a little--and Jonas explains the Green Court to Ambrose (the fear of the unknown, the nameless thing), who's offended by the idea that there's no room for bright hopes in the world when Jonas tells him Fomorians can walk but Tuatha couldn't.

Rey helps the Cultist steal a car. Ambrose sends a message to the Traditions with him. Sonya suspects the Bastet has taken a step toward completing the appeasement ritual, and the Thing in the Lake was sealed into the other side--the underside of the mirror.

The Peaceful Texas Town

2008-10-04T19:54:00.000-07:00

Ambrose hands over the Technocracy phones to the chantry's head. He pulls a gun out and shoots one, then hands the other over to the Virtual Adepts. Ambrose builds himself a new cell phone.

They head to Texas to investigate the town Michelle told them about. Rey pilots the plane, and Mark and Ambrose come along. On the flight, Ambrose tells them the story about his quest, mentioning that Aila's happy Turtle Rock is unchained.

Ambrose talks to people the next town over from the place in question. They're confused and blank on it, insisting that the place has been a ghost town for ages.

In the town, Ambrose notes ghost readings. Aila spots a ghost at a window. Looking inside, it looks like people simply got up and left and never came back. Upstairs, there's a wraith on the bed, repeating a pattern of getting up to look out the window. Aila identifies it as a drone. They note the moment of shock on its face before it restarts, like it saw something. Looking out, they see footprints in the road, as if everybody went out into the street.

Sonya notes no records, searching license plates, birth records...anything in any database. Nothing on anybody from this town. Considering how dusty the town is, Ambrose indulges a sneaking impulse and analyzes the dirt: it's the mineral composition of the human body. They disintegrated.

They split up to check the town hall and store security cameras. The tapes in them show people walking out to gather in the road. They all turn to face the same direction. The tapes don't catch what they're looking at, but it's like a wind blows and they all turn to ash. One guy wanders across the parking lot, looking confused and very upset, but unaffected. Something changes in his eyes, and he runs away. Taking the tape, they catch up to the others at the town hall.

Rey picks the lock on the town hall. Sonya recognizes the town's seal laid as a mosaic into the lobby floor, as a magical sigil--a binding or sealing sigil. Dances finds the town's "oddity file." Somebody traced the town's history back for at least 1000 years, and the records show that every 200 years something odd happens here. The town disappears and is then refounded each time, about two years later. The work was done by one Roger Sanders, the police chief from 1952. 30 years served, WWII veteran. The date this file was submitted was two days before the town records end. They get his address. Rey snatches some valuables.

The town seal was designed by a man named Milwood Jennings at the "founding" of the town. Interestingly, it's the same seal...and the same man designing it every time. They get his address, too, and let the others know. Then they hit up the historical society across the street. There are lots of log entries there from Sanders during his research. They find a book of local tribal folklore containing an appeasement ritual the tribes here used to practice. When the Europeans came, the natives tried to warn them away.

400 years ago, Millwood Jennings first designed the town seal. He stuck around and didn't seem to actually do anything else. Ambrose notes the seal is mathematical--a constantly changing equation that has to stop every 200 years for about four hours. He's impressed.

During their wandering, they spot lots of drones around town. Ambrose reads one--shock, then...nothing. There are pictures of Jennings here and there, from various periods. He looks the same in all of them. Ambrose looks through some historical society texts while the others ponder Aztecs, and finds that there's always a huge party when the town is establish--almost ritualistic in its 'town fair'ness. The others find Sanders' research, which is always stuff he pulled as weird or ritualistic--and always the same ritual, even though these groups couldn't have known each other, seeing as they were disintegrated. Jonas pulls out a flyer...for the Midnight Circus. Every time the town is founded, the Circus is there.

On the other hand, the word 'Croatan' was never carved here before, and a newspaper article being written about it is new. No one ever noticed what happened to the town before.

Rey and his group head to Sanders' place. Dances finds a metal box under the floor boards in the study. It's research notes, along with a note, "Need to go see Jennings." He was worried about the Circus, but also confused. It almost seems to co-locate at these events, being reported in other locations at the same time as the town. Mark explains to Dances about the Circus. They theorize that it might be drawn to an old-fashioned carnival rite, and ponder the possibility of it being a not-negative manifestation of the Circus.

Close analysis of the pattern of the traditional dances at the festival show they're very similar to the town seal. Sonya recognizes this: the dance channels the energy of the town's spirit, so to speak. The seal must mimic it, so it's holding something back. Something down at the lake, which is the traditional site of the festival. Dances thinks the dance is closer to something Mediterranean or Middle Eastern than American or South American.

The others go to Jennings' house. It's palatial, five floors with a courtyard that contains statues. The house and everything is was carved by hand. Jonas unlocks the house. Ambrose calls out, but there's no response inside, so they slip in, making a note of where things are positioned. Aila thinks she smells cooking. The others are startled to note no food smell at all--not even rotting. The place is clean, dust-free, and there are newspapers from a couple of days ago.

Ambrose puts things together: all the pictures were taken at night. Jennings might be a vampire.

Downstairs, there's an artist's studio. Ambrose notes the paint is wet. The sub-basement is just a huge granite door, with a mathematical/language-operated lock. Ambrose is incredulous: "I'd have an easier time going through the wall." Only that's reinforced too. He spots Enochian and Garou glyphs in the languages. What is this guy?

20 minutes till nightfall. They go upstairs. The second floor is a library. Jennings' handwriting is on relics dating back to 3000 years ago. RF spots the mysterious 'guy who survived' in a lot of pictures starting around three years ago. He stopped aging around 1970, it looks like. His name is apparently Tommy. Vampire definitely seems like a good bet.

The top floor is an observatory. Ambrose notes the telescope is Etherite-built. The rest of the group arrives, and they all head back out to regroup after a quick second look at the library. Rey spots a book radiating Glamour in a place of honor in the displays.

Ambrose supports leaving and knocking politely when the guy wakes up. This they do, and the fellow greets them, inviting them 'back in.' He's agreeable about explaining.

The thing in the lake is a "Word-Eater." Ambrose realizes that the seal recalculates names, keeping it preoccupied. It eats names, erasing people from existence so that others don't even remember them. Cultists murdered Sanders. They came from the next town over--the guys who published that news article, in fact. And he tells them about five Nephandi who've been poking around, and a Black Spiral pack that came through. They're the ones who carved 'Croatan.'

The town has been eaten and re-established 15 times. Jennings calls people back each time because he needs their energy to keep things going, and keep the thing in the lake. It has never left, but he doesn't know if it could if it had nothing to eat. It only eats living people. The Nephandi are poking at it because the appeasement ritual involves binding a person to it to become its courier in the world. They've been mucking in the town with cultists too. The BSDs were more concerned with back-tracking the Balam's trail.

Ambrose wonders, what if you got the Name-Eater to eat its own name? The vampire says he's been trying to find its name. Ambrose admires the telescope, which Jennings offers to let him use, so long as he calls ahead.

RF asks about Astarte songs. Jennings has two. He says the Circus is very different when it's here; safer, less tainted. The pack figures they can't do much here now, but expect to come back. Meanwhile, spring whatever trap is waiting for them here (obviously the BSDs lured them deliberately) and then go cult-busting in the next town over. The Balam is startled by Jennings' civility.

There is indeed a trap. Laid by the Nephandi, it slides right off Rey's fairie car.

The Nephandi Cabal

2008-10-03T22:38:00.000-07:00

Sings of Nothing - (proto)Dreamspeaker

Disturbing. Malfean symbols mark his flesh. He wears the flesh of a dead Garou as a cape with the head as a headdress. He carries archaic weapons: a spear, stone ax and club. He was one of the Nephandi bound by the Traditions and the Technocracy after the end of WWII. Freed by the other four on the orders of the Wyrm and destined to lead them. It took a combination to free him, just as it took one to chain him. Not even the others know the full extent of his powers.

He is very rarely seen in reality itself, because the level of his power is inimical to consensus. He is a Nephandic Oracle, brother to Walking Hawk, also known as Brother to the Sun, the legendary enemy of the Pure Tribes.

Bethany Morris - Celestial Chorus

Skewed Puritan. Traditional dress, but without a bonnet. Long wild red hair. It seems like the only thing keeping her spiritual excess from overflowing is the outfit, almost as if the implied propriety of it contains her. The madness of the excess she harbors shows in her eyes. A tempest chained, she walks on the hinge of explosion at all times. Her voice is her weapon.

Robert Sterns - Progenitor

The best experiment: yourself. Living black tendrils extend from his back. He has the whole lab coat and clipboard thing going on, but it does not fool a soul, because a tendril usually holds the clipboard. His eyes are totally black. Whatever he filled himself with, he put in too much. He never loses his cool and is the counterpoint to Bethany in most circumstances...and one of the few people who can haul her in when she breaks her self-imposed chains. Robert usually seems obsessed and lost in his experiments...which seem to include just about anything unpleasant that happens around him.

Strikes the Heart - Akashic Brotherhood

Looks the most normal of the bunch. It’s not true.

The Nameless Girl - Iteration X

A freakish rarity--an Iteration X barrabus--she looks 17. Native American. Wears a long trenchcoat and gloves. Kind of like Dante, she bears noticeable cybernetic face implants, but these are engraved with Malfean symbols. She leaks what looks like oil from the face implant, but it is Void-stuff. The computer was Mother...now He is Mother and Father. He lets her feel. He lets her feel everything...and it makes her want it all--all of it--to stop so she can have silence in her head. She hears it all, feels it all. And nothing is worthy of being saved.

Born Awakened, she and her twin sister are Croatan kinfolk. They escaped from the Technocracy at the age of eight, and are now chronologically around the age of 15. Her sister is now an Etherite (at least, she's chosen to be one, whether she told them or not) who serves the Incarna of Science.

The Dark Pack

2008-10-02T22:38:00.000-07:00

Peter Walks the Spiral - Male Theurge

A bona fide, MIT-educated genius. Alpha of the pack. A dangerous man: a Black Spiral able to have a daily life. He is the pure definition of a sociopath. He even took a generic deed name because he finds it foolish to engage in such asinine play acting. You’re evil. Just be evil.

Shadow Lord kin, Changed late, and taken (or sought out) the Black Spirals before the Garou even found out about him.

Bleeds for Fun - Male Ragabash

Ex-Uktena, he is the opposite of Walks the Spiral. Twisted and sadomasochistic. Someone will be hurt; if not you, then it’ll be him. Sly and stealthy, he is a prankster with disturbing effect. Pain, yours or his, is all he cares about. Well, that, and getting it done with a flair.

Grandmother Beater - Male Ahroun

Just a hick. Comes from one of those redneck BSD kin/fomori families. He is simplicity itself: a gun toting, beer drinking, violent brute. About as bright as a box of rocks, and about as hard to kill. Peter hates him possibly more than he hates his enemies.

Needs no Reason - Female Galliard

Broken in the head, and she spews prophecy. Attractive in that slipped otherworldly way. When she fights, she is unhindered violence and uninhibited primal attack. Otherwise, she is passive and mutters prophecy.

Tastes the Sin - Female Philidox

Much like Walks The Spiral in the sense that she is more grounded in this world than the otherworld, but she has a bit of the serpent in her. She is a tempter by nature who believes that everyone falls. Everyone is flawed and no one is so good as to ultimately rise above those flaws.

Mysterious and elusive, they've seen nothing of her and Sonya has been unable to dig up any information on her. Peter has most likely been keeping her out of sight as an ace-in-the-hole...or else she specializes in infiltration.

Answers to Nothing - Male Ahroun

He is a contradiction in terms. He is a servant of a very old darkness. He believes in honor in battle, and that Nothing will win because it is stronger and the ultimate end of the universe. Since all is nothing, then only strength matters. That can be physical strength (mostly for fun) or the strength of breaking another’s worldview and hope. To shatter another and reduce them to nothing on the inside shows your strength and strengthens them with the truth.

Used to be a Get, but he fell so deeply to Harano that he sought out oblivion in order to serve it. He still retains some of a Get's sense of honor and duty, caring for his family in Canada, whom he keeps hidden from his packmates. His sense of honor can be appealed to, and he hungers for a good challenge.

Meet Reynard "Rey" Voss

2008-10-01T12:45:00.000-07:00

The very earliest memories Reynard has are of the Orphanage. He never dignifies it with another title or even mentions where it is. In fact, he rarely speaks of it at all. No mention of parents or family were ever made during those years, and he doubts that 'Reynard' is even the name he was given at birth (if, in fact, he was given one at all). No one seemed to know where he came from, other than a sad story about being found in an abandoned building by a noble officer of the law. And, as far as he could tell, no one really cared. Neither, for that matter, does he.

Reynard was always a bright, likable young man who did his best to ingratiate himself to whomever was in charge. Adults found him to be a well mannered, helpful child. Bullies saw him as too boring to bother. Indeed, it seemed Reynard was always whatever he needed to be to get what he wanted. It didn't take him long to learn the rewards of manipulation and misdirection. Still, he always longed for something more than simply getting by.

So he left.

At the age of eleven, Reynard realized that the much-vaunted "real world" wasn't all it was cracked up to be. He had to work a lot harder to charm the jaded, worldly citizens of the big city than he expected, and soon found himself stranded in a small mid-western town. Fortune favored the boy, though, when a circus set up only a few days later. They were more than happy to take in a talented, sweet-natured, hard-working orphan off the streets.

Now this was living, he quickly decided. His natural dexterity, quick wit, and silver tongue made Reynard a fast favorite among the carnie folk, who found plenty of jobs to occupy him. He proved to be quite the daredevil. There wasn't much that the boy wasn't willing to try his deft hand at--usually successfully. He taught himself to drive a motorcycle when the adults refused to let him learn. Reynard figured out how to operate the various rides when they shooed him away. Indeed, it proved to be difficult to keep the child from puzzling out anything mechanical or motorized that he put his mind to.

Fortune smiled slyly on him again when he underwent his chrysalis at the age of thirteen. Several fae had attached themselves to the circus over the years and had begun quietly observing the boy over time. A soft-hearted Eshu fortuneteller and a voracious treat-vending Red Cap made sure no harm came to him, and introduced him to the faerie world. Let's say they weren't shocked to find that Reynard was a Pooka.

Over the years, Reynard developed a true affinity for all types of vehicles. He began taking part in the circus's stunt show as soon as he got a license to drive. His daredevil nature came out and made the kid a huge hit with paying customers, but it tended to concern everyone else. He seemed quite willing to try anything, no matter how dangerous. The fact that he nearly always succeeded was beside the point.

As far as Reynard was concerned, if a bunch of saps wanted to shell out cash to watch him perform a few easy stunts, all the better. It was a great con to make something simple look too hard for other folks so they'd pay YOU to do it. His part in the show was quickly expanded by the management and became so popular that the stunt show soon was the biggest draw, easily supporting the rest of the circus. "Daredevil Rey" can drive, fly, or sail anything!

Everyone will tell you what kind of guy Reynard Voss is, but you'd be hard-pressed to find more than a few who'll agree on what kind of guy that is. His chameleon affinity suits him just fine. He'll rarely lie outright, preferring to deflect or misdirect instead. He makes friends easily, getting people to tell him all about themselves while mentioning nothing of himself. He hasn't a care for how many toes he treads on or how many backs he puts a knife in, as long as he gets what he wants and can aim the pointing fingers in someone else's direction. The only thing everyone can agree on about "Daredevil Rey" is that he has a voracious sweet tooth and always has candy on hand. He also tends to refer to people in endearments relating to sweets. Despite his roguish nature, though, Reynard does follow a strange sort of code of honor.

The Dark Pack Revealed

2008-09-28T17:26:00.000-07:00

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.

The Moot

2008-09-28T16:37:00.000-07:00

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.

The Prophecy

2008-09-28T15:04:00.001-07:00

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.

Sir Tristan ap Dougal and Ambrose's Quest through the Dreaming

2008-09-28T14:26:00.001-07:00

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.

Pre-moot: the Balam arrives

2008-09-28T14:00:00.000-07:00

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.

Danielle the Balam

2008-09-28T13:00:00.000-07:00

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.

Ambrose and the Evil Book; or, Turtle's Song finds Turtle's Caern

2008-09-28T10:06:00.000-07:00

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.

Our Lady of Perpetual Health is not approved by OSHA

2008-09-27T12:13:00.001-07:00

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.

Advent of the Empty Knights

2008-09-27T11:23:00.001-07:00

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.

Audience with the High King. Hard.

2008-09-25T18:09:00.001-07:00

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.

Rey and the White Court Fomorian

2008-09-25T17:56:00.001-07:00

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.

Tokyo Stopover

2008-05-05T13:35:00.001-07:00

While they're shopping the next day, Aila spots a Sony employee talking to a Tellus rep. "Faris, you can't let that happen!" she exclaims. Faris walks over and summarily punches the Tellus guy, then lies that the man is wanted for corporate espionage. They haul him out. Sonya takes over, figuring on pinning a few crimes on the man that'll lead to further investigation before throwing him to the police, but when she looks, she finds the man is completely clean. In fact, there's an industry convention in town and this guy, um, was interviewing for a job with Sony.

Faris leaves to wipe the Sony rep's memory of the little incident.

"So you were going to frame an innocent man," Monkey Girl asks. "No," Sonya replies. "I was going to frame a guilty man." "Just not for what he was guilty of," Monkey Girl clarifies. "Right," Sonya confirms, to which Monkey Girl comments, "Her morality goes up and down like a hooker on a trampoline."

They prod Faris into setting up an interview with Dreamsoft for this man ("He'll have to show up for his job interview," Faris jokes. "He missed the last one."), and Sonya and Jonas convince him to whistle-blow on Tellus. He was, in fact, getting out while he could because of the dirt.

Then Ambrose discovers he's got another guy using his name and face. Guess who? The others tease him about it, and wonder if Tillingtast'll hunt up Evil Ambrose. Good Ambrose has calls to make to keep control of his own identity.

Aila remains a little depressed about ambushing an innocent man. Monkey Girl reassures her. RF spots a Magadon commercial for a new line of medicine for animals that's set to ship to Red Talon-heavy areas. Wondering why that'd be airing in Japan, Sonya looks it up to discover that they're premiering the vaccine in Japan for use on endangered Japanese red wolves. Which are pretty much entirely Hakken Kin. Monkey Girl places a call to the Hakken to make sure they know; Sonya volunteers to meet with them in order to pass on everything they know about Pentex, since it's beginning to operate more heavily in Asia. The meeting will be in two days.

At the same time, RF discovers that the Tellus employee had opted out on a 'general health drug' made freely available via Tellus's health plan. Called Anagraph 45.6, it's been around since the 40s, a project of Enzo Giovanni that supposedly promoted health, vigor, and retards aging. Probably vampire blood.

The fae receive a summons from the High King in light of 'certain issues' addressed in a report he just received--in other words, the Arcadia Jar. Man, word gets around fast. Maybe it was that Boggan kinian, Fitzsimmons? Ambrose gives Jared the Astarte box.

Ambrose's credit card was used in Chicago, at a highly skeezy Chinatown black market shop that, um, deals in what we'll call "spontaneous organ donations." He gets a knock on his door at 1 AM from a MiB with an advance copy of Paradigma where "Ambrose" published a tell-all report on his myriad plagiarisms. "Do you want us to kill him?" the MiB asks. "I'm not asking the Technocracy for favors," Ambrose replies. "That's not a 'no,'" the MiB observes. He offers to frame Evil Ambrose as a Progenitor clone, to which Ambrose repeats, "I'm not asking the Technocracy for any favors." The MiB compromises by leaving a bag near the door. "Take it if you want or leave it if you don't." He leaves.

Ambrose can't resist peeking into the bag. It's, ew, cloning material: organs and tissue from Ambrose. How very morbid and alarming. Jonas, walking by to take a leak on the wall (he claims to be terrified of Japanese toilets), makes some comments and enough noise to wake up Mark, who shares Ambrose's alarm. Various others pop out, grumpy about the noise. Finished with the wall, Jonas walks in a circle and lies down in the hallway, then gets poked back up and sent to bed. RF and Aila order Ambrose to just take the bag and go to bed.

"Take the bag and go to bed," Mark repeats mockingly. "Thank you!" Ambrose tells him. "At least one of you appreciates the irrationality of what you're asking me to do!"

Aila worries over whether the circus is in Chicago, so Jared calls the city's tourist bureau and learns that it's scheduled for a show in two months. Jonas plots to spread allegations of bestiality online before it arrives.

Jonas makes a comment about cameras sucking peoples' souls. "Mine might," Ambrose realizes. "Yours might," Jonas agrees. "You be careful with that." Consideringly, Ambrose looks around then takes a picture of a nearby fern with the Nephandus-tampered cell phone. The fern does indeed wither on the spot. Ambrose squeaks. "I have to get this thing exorcised!"

Finally people get herded back to be. Mark points out that it would be dangerous to leave the bag in the hall. Ambrose takes it in and plans to leave it out in the morning. Turning to step back into his room, he comes face to face with a black-clothed man who punches him in the solar plexus, then snatches the bag and leaps for the door. Ambrose whips out his sonic pointer and assaults the man's sense of balance with it, sending the ninja or whatever toppling out the window some 12 stories to the ground. The sound wakes the Garou. RF stays with Ambrose for the rest of the night, and in the morning talks him into keeping the bag with a reminder that the Technocracy does sort of owe him a favor.

In the morning, commotion occurs on the street when a flat ninja is discovered on the sidewalk. "So why do you think the ninja tried to steal the bag?" Monkey Girl wonders. "I don't know what ninjas want," Ambrose replies. Maybe he planned to hold it ransom for the map?

They take the day to sightsee around the city. Ambrose spends most of it on the phone, sorting out his doppelganger's mess. But he keeps forgetting the phone has gone evil, so when the Adept on the other end asks, "You okay? Your phone sounds kind of staticky," he quickly borrows Aila's.

Aila sees a lot of ghosts, and while she's looking around at them, she spots a black limo with a blowgun aimed out the window at Ambrose. She shoves him out of the way. "Ow!" Ambrose exclaims. "I gotta go, somebody just tried to kill me." "Okay," the VA replies, unruffled. Sonya nabs the license plate, which is traced to the Shinjuku Corp., and Aila snags the dart, which is dipped in some kind of psychic projection drug meant to kick a person's astral self to the Wicked City. How unpleasant. "We're escorting the Lindbergh baby!" Monkey Girl declares. And it's revealed that Ambrose would rather be mocked about having a hand in a jar or soul-sucking phones than about Tillingtast.

"Before we go, I want General Tso's," Caleb pipes up, apropo of nothing.

In the evening, Ambrose is getting ready for bed when he sees the hand in the jar twitch. It waves when he pokes at it. He grabs Mark, whom it flips off, then starts making shadow puppets. "I'm getting Monkey Girl," Ambrose declares, figuring this is up her alley. In fact, it's so up her alley that it turns out Monkey Girl is the one doing it. Ambrose and Mark are very relieved.

The Garou have their meeting with the Hakken the next day. Caleb goes with them; Tim does not. They take a taxi to the meeting, which gets attacked by corrupted shapeshifting spider-people! Six of them!

Spiders swarm up the windshield and then huge pincers rip through the roof to yank the cab driver out and suck him dry. Caleb gets out, shifts, and attacks. Sonya slides into the driver's seat and runs over one with the car. The rest of the pack shifts and attacks. Aila rips a door off and wields it as a weapon, clobbering one with a door, stabbing another with the pointy misshapen shrapnel left from the clobbering, then throwing it like a warped metal discus at a third. Caleb sweeps the spider off the cab's roof and hurls it. When a spider leaps onto the back of the cab, Sonya leaps out, shifts, and drives the thing face-first into the car.

Meanwhile, at the hotel, a calm Japanese man comes to the door asking for Ambrose. Rey plays gatekeeper, amusing himself with excessive formality. "Dr. Ambrose, sir, a caller is here to see you."

Ambrose doesn't want to let the guy in. "I'd rather talk to you from there; people who come in keep trying to kill me." "And if I stay out here, I won't?" the man asks curiously. "If you stay there," Ambrose points out, "I'll have more time to run." The Japanese man threatens Ambrose's spleen, making no good impression on anyone, then tries to winnow a description of the 'shapeshifter' from him. "I told the other guy," Ambrose says apologetically (because Monkey Girl is sitting right there). "They looked Asian, had several faces, dark hair, dark eyes, good cheekbones."

When the man tries to get Ambrose to let him poke around through his memories, Ambrose categorically refuses. "I don't like having threatening people in my head." "I'm being honest about violence," the man says reasonably. "The other guy wasn't exactly subtle with his offers to negotiate a good deal with a demon for me," Ambrose points out. "I know him," the man dismisses. "He's a bit heavy-handed."

Of course the guy isn't going to get anywhere, so he starts changing shape into...a really frigging huge evil dragon! Time to run. Rey closes the door on the morphing dragon-man in the hallway. Jared bops them across the hall into the other room, then bops the whole group of them outside to a nearby alley. Tim tells them to hit it with gold. The dragon, now a full 100 and some feet long, rips out of the building to chase them. Ambrose, who habitually carries silver trinkets around, changes some of it into gold and throws it at the dragon, and they book it.

Down the street and around the corner to where they find the Garou standing in a pile of spider-bodies. Jared calls them over and turns their claws to gold, and the Garou pack attack the dragon. Ambrose, meanwhile, finds himself being assaulted by swarms of little spiders, which he tries to fend off with bug spreay. They pull back and combine into another spider-monster. He dodges the thing with a yelp; Jared traps it, Rey calls his hell hounds, Monkey Girl sets it on fire, and then Mark stabs it. The spider-monster dies. Tim laughs.

Then they need to get under cover before authorities arrive, which means making different hotel arrangements. Ambrose eradicates the evidence at the scene. The Garou still need to get to their meeting.

Return of the Midnight Circus

2008-05-02T09:25:00.000-07:00

Well, this is a big fat Pentex oopsie. After they take a moment to stare in horror at this latest development, Rey fills in anybody who wasn't there for the last go-round with this traveling abomination. Ambrose tells them about Astarte, the true fae in the Renaissance faire. The changelings know her name, and her reputation for being completely insane.

A large attachment suddenly starts coming in on Ambrose's laptop. It's a report on the circus compiled by an Etherite, but Ambrose can't get any information on who sent it to him. Still, this isn't the time to look a gift horse in the mouth, so he starts browsing through it. It's got some extremely interesting information.

He reads aloud the bit about how it was founded by the followers of Cara, a spirit of fair trade and equal returns, around the demon-serpent Apophis, in order to keep the monster contained. The Wyrm and other infernal interests got brought in later by successive circus-keepers who found Apophis' hold growing too strong and sought to balance it out with other forms of entropy. Cavendish has stepped that up to a whole new level, making all sorts of pacts with various forces. He's also interested in the bit about Astarte joining opened up 'new gateways,' and freaks out at the narrator's frightened comment that "the Man with No Name pursues me."

The Garou spot Caleb the werebear. Getting his attention, they explain to him about the circus.
Ambrose looks up from the report to see the Ringmaster talking to Dr. Fiedler, an old enemy of Doc Eon. He was a Nazi super-scientist, but he was supposed to have died in a volcano or something... Astarte glides up, brushing the scientist aside. She glances toward the house to see Ambrose peeking out the window (staring at her in enchantment, at the moment). He smiles sappily when she waves at him. The Garou notice the ring on her finger, which seems to contain a fragment of, well, nothingness. Aila spots a man walking toward the swiftly-assembling circus, talking to a ghost. He's some kind of squirrely-looking kinain. Oddly enough, Rey recognizes the signs of Boggan kin. He'd have guessed Sluagh. Then a Tellus rep walks over to talk to Cavendish, who walks him around seemingly explaining the circus's operations to him before they finalize a contract.

Ambrose spots a cyborg standing at the edge of the circus grounds. He points him out to the others to ask if they want to talk to the guy, but (to his relief) they nix the idea of working with the Technocracy on this.

Sonya snags a program after a kid drops it. There's an ad inside introducing 'Dr. Quintrell's Tales of Adventure!' The cyborg, she notices, sees it too, and looks fairly confused about it. Shortly after, Ambrose's phone rings. Ambrose speaks before the MiB can say anything: "It's not me, it's an evil duplicate, don't go into the mirror maze." He suggests that maybe they shouldn't send in the cyborg. The MiB says that's not his department, but he asks if Ambrose really thinks it's a bad idea. When Ambrose affirms that it really really is, the cyborg keels over with a heart attack. I'm not talking to you anymore, murderer!" Ambrose snarls, aghast, then hangs up. He ignores the phone when it rings again.

The incident has the Ringmaster irritated. They have to call an ambulance and fuss over the poor man. Evil Ambrose spins by to hand Cavendish the code for a video game. He gives the Tellus rep a DVD that looks to be a demo of the game, which starts at the circus gates. Cavendish and the Tellus rep both look pleased, and Cavendish gestures Evil Ambrose toward the arcade with a couple of machines with the demo loaded onto them.

Vendors are offering 'ghost glasses,' which are billed as letting you see spirits. Kids are snapping them up left and right. They can't just leave and let the circus suck up the children. Besides, an unreasonable percentage of them are Kinfolk. Sonya begins musing on the possibilities of sabotage, when the fae get distracted by something in the air. It feels like a storm blowing in. Waves of rainbow mist begin rising from inside the circus, and then detonate in a multi-colored explosion. It knocks down tents and rumbles against the buildings. A changeling has just gone into Chrysalis.

It all blacks out for a second, and then they wake in not-a-circus. It's a field in a town that looks considerably more rustic than the one they were just standing in. And then the circus arrives again, coming in on horse-drawn carriages and carts. Startled, Ambrose takes a reading and determines that it's somewhere around 1880. His mind boggles at the thought of being knocked through time. It must be the wild energy of the chrysalis that did it, interacting with the strange energy fields of the circus. There's still residue drifting about from the event; he figures if they can find that kid, they might be able to follow it back.

The Garou quickly latch on to the possibility that something happening now could be the reason the area gets so messed up by Pentex later. If they can change that...! Mark cuts in, alarmed. It's way too dangerous to go messing about with time. They could unravel the whole fabric of reality or something. They need to find the fledgling who set this off, and avoid changing the way things should happen, both of which require going into the circus.

It's easy for the changelings to find 'ground zero.' From there, the Garou start tracking by scent. The trail heads, unsurprisingly, toward the Renaissance faire. Between one step and the next, Ambrose vanishes.

He suddenly finds himself back in the present-time circus, except somebody steps right through him. A quick test proves that he's out of phase with time. The older something is, the more "real," and the harder it is for him to pass through. Looking around, he spots what seem to be holes in time all over the place. A scan of the area and some quick calculations give him an idea of where he'll be able to find them. He ducks out of sight when he sees the Ringmaster stride past, looking warily at the time holes as if he's searching for the cause, then decides to go catch up to the others.

He steps through a hole and reappears right next to them, then has to protect his PDA from an invisible force trying to take it. When the whatever-it-is shocks him (and he zaps it back), he realizes it's his evil duplicate. "Hands off!" he snaps, driving the guy away.

After he explains what's going on, the Garou plot. They need to keep kids away from the most dangerous places, so Faris and RF keep watch over the ferris wheel, Caleb and Aila stand guard on the mirror maze, and the rest keep following the new changeling's trail. The ren faire is packed, and saturated with changelings. A small group is gathered around a vendor who's being roused from unconsciousness. Somebody stole his clothes. The others hesitate, wondering if that could be their quarry, but Rey has a better idea (not least because he's feeling the call himself): the candy shoppe. And indeed he spots the boy there almost immediately. "Hey, kid!" he calls. The boy darts away, the others in hot pursuit.

Except for Ambrose, who finds himself summarily kidnapped by elephant. It drags him back through another time hole, where he sees Evil Ambrose sitting astride the beast. But Ambrose immediately fades out, phasing through the elephant's trunk, and dives back through the hole to catch up to the others. "Hands off!" he repeats. "Get your own!"

In the rear of the candy shoppe, Rey spots a candy barrel with a straw sticking out of it. Jared reaches in and hauls the boy out. He notes that the kid looks Fiona. They quickly reassure him they're not 'after' him, and Rey gives him a brief Pooka-style rundown of the wonderful world of changelings. Ambrose records it.

Elsewhere, a clown wearing a white robe gives Aila a card for a free fortune-telling. There's a crescent moon and a tree on it. RF, Faris, Aila, and Caleb see present-time people starting to stumble in and out through the time holes. They call back to report it. Whatever's going on, it's getting worse. Evil Ambrose tries to take Ambrose's PDA again. Ambrose slaps his hand, then makes copies of the map for the others.

They arrange to meet at the location on Aila's card. After they do a round of introductions for Tom, the sidhe boy, they step out of the candy shoppe where they're confronted by Evil Ambrose astride his elephant. "Knock it off!" Ambrose commands him irritably. The elephant's eyes glow red. "What did you do to that thing?!"

"I built a HITMark elephant," Evil Ambrose replies with a grin.

"Run!" Ambrose shouts. Rey, Jared, and Tom duck back into the candy shoppe and head around to the fortune-telling tent. Mark, Ambrose, and the Garou hightail it.

Near the edge of the ren faire, the elephant vanishes, replaced by the Autumn Queen, who wants to know where their fae friends went. Since they honestly aren't sure where the changelings have gotten off to, they have to honestly tell her they don't know. She hands Ambrose, who's staring again in smitten awe, a box, with instructions to give it to the changelings when they see them again. The box is enchanted, but he shakes it off, and they finally catch up to the others.

Ambrose and Rey argue over the box. Rey's upset that he accepted something from a faerie ("Don't you know how dangerous that is?"), and is reluctant to take it, though he wants to see what's inside.
"Shall I open it, then?" Ambrose offers.
"Are you autistic?" Sonya asks him in disbelief.
Ambrose figures that if they don't want to open it, he could throw it at his evil duplicate's elephant. Rey says he does want to open it; he just doesn't want Ambrose to do it.
Confused over who wants the box open, Ambrose finally does it anyway. An image of the Autumn Queen appears, holding a jar. Inside...is a piece of Arcadia, the lost homeland of the fae. Jared and Rey go into hysterics. The image vanishes, the box falls to the floor, Ambrose picks it up and puts it away.

Aila turns to the fortunetellers, who've been watching all this with bemusement. "Can I have my fortune read now?"

They draw her cards: a tower that's the big top with Devyn Cavendish standing on top, being hit by lightning. A magician who is the vampire, Decarabas. A silver tree. Aila asks what it means. "Well, you're schooled in reading fortunes, aren't you?" the oldest woman asks. They're aghast when she replies she's not. They seem to think her mother should have taught her. "That's just like her," Sonya hears the old woman mumble.

But since Aila doesn't know, the youngest woman explains the fortune. "The way out is when the vampire does things he doesn't know he's doing," she tells them. Sometimes, she explains, Cara is able to channel herself through him without him knowing. Ambrose remembers that being mentioned in the file. If they're head back to their own time, Aila reminds the others, they'll need to take that Boggan kinain. He's in the food court, one of the women tells them.

On the way, Ambrose narrowly dodges the Ringmaster's grab for him through one of the time holes. "Ringmaster on the prowl!" he alerts the others.

The kinain sticks out here. Rey simply walks up to him and asks, "You wanna go home?" "Shit yeah," the man responds.

They use the time holes, getting as close to the edge of the circus as they can before they step back through into their own time. The kinain crosses the edge; the others bounce off. Reaching back through, he tells them, "Hold hands!" and pulls them out. Which is when they catch sight of the ancient-looking crescent moon pendant he's wearing. He hands them a card that announces he's with the Arcanum. Devyn stands nearby, looking ticked. "How do you people keep doing that?" he asks. Ambrose bites his tongue to keep from saying, "Can't you?" because it occurs to him the Ringmaster quite possibly can simply step over and swat them.

They move away in a hurry. Tom tells them his school goes on a field trip to the circus tomorrow. There are no trods nearby, so they send Tom with the Arcanum agent, Fitzsimmons, to take him somewhere safe. Fitzsimmons hands Ambrose an extra pendant before he leaves.

They lace the cafeteria food with mild food poisoning to keep the kids out, but that still leaves 110 Kinfolk children to clear out. They're mostly Uktena descent, RF notes, adding, "One thing that'll lure Uktena away from a puzzle is a bigger puzzle." "So we wave Ambrose at them?" Sonya asks.
"The circus is cool," RF observes, "But there's no puzzle there."
"What?" asks Ambrose. "There's a huge puzzle there!"
"SHUT UP," Mark tells him.
Ambrose turns to find RF staring at him expectantly from about six inches away. "What puzzle?"
"Um, nothing," Ambrose mumbles, suddenly aware he couldn't explain it anyway, even if he tried.

Instead of puzzles and luring, they decide to take a simpler route: mess up the town's gas lines. Ambrose declares this to be his bailiwick (he doesn't even need to use magic! He just gets into an access point), while Mark and Caleb, two people the Ringmaster hasn't noticed yet, go back into the circus to spread the tale.

It certainly ticks off Cavendish. Outside, Ambrose's phone rings, displaying Cavendish's name. He doesn't answer. The phone starts to spark. "NO!" he tells it. "Bad phone!" Since that's actually countermagic, the phone settles down. The phone rings again, no number listed this time, and Ambrose lets it go to voice mail. The third time it rings, it's his own number, which he thinks is completely gratuitous and nonsensical.

They spot the Tellus representative preparing to leave with the documentation. Jared sneaks over and pours sugar into the gas tank to slow him down. When the car won't start, Rey saunters over to volunteer his mad car skillz in getting the thing running again, then knocks out the Telluls rep while the man's distracted by car troubles. Jared slinks back in to hold people off, declaring, "I'm a doctor!" The Ringmaster, seeming quite naturally concerned, offers Jared the use of their medical tent until emergency services can arrive.

Sonya turns to her Ragabash. "Jonas. Away." Jonas sneaks behind the car to get the briefcase. Then, unexpected to all, the driver turns and pantses Cavendish, who's so shocked he doesn't even react. Rey shoves him over. Jonas runs. Rey runs. Jared runs.

Rey calls up his car and they get the hell out of Dodge, only to notice a minute or so later that they're being chased by a really angry Nephandus Ringmaster in a limo that shouldn't even be mobile. Jared tries to shoot out the limo's tires. He even hits one, but it doesn't stop the car. Ambrose doesn't answer his phone again, and then finds his hands full with a radio that tunes in to frequency 666 and starts chanting in Dragon's Tongue. He disrupts that with his sonic pointer when it starts opening a portal in front of Rey's car.

The limo's wheels are on fire, and it's not stopping. Deciding urgent measures are called for, Jared gates Rey's car about a mile away, depositing on them on the highway. Since they're pointing in the wrong direction, Rey does a bit of daredevil maneuvering and spins them back into the right lane.

They come to a stop about 20 miles further north, where they figure they've cleared enough distance to stop and go over their options. They get stopped by an incoming train at a railroad crossing...and it's a circus train! The circus train! Good lord, this man is persistent. The train comes to a halt and riders jump out on horses that're actually banes. Sonya stares one down and scares it off. Caleb gets out and shifts. Ambrose seals the train car's doors shut, but one gets ripped off its hinges by one of Dr. Owl's monstrous constructs. Rey, still behind the wheel, feels the road vibrate and begin to soften, the car sinking into the tarmac. It's Evil Ambrose, using his sonic pointer to soften the asphalt.

The others dive out of the car, and Rey turns it back into a box. Clowns attack. Jared calls up briars in their midst, entangling and ripping clowns apart. Aila shifts into Crinos when she spots a metal-masked spectre. Then Devyn gets off the train, looking enraged. "Cheese it!" Aila yells.

And a clown pantses him. "We may need to give your Deed name away," Sonya tells Jonas.

Then something really fast grabs the Nuwisha (it's Tim again, of course) and pitches him through a train car. Holy crap, the vampire's fast. And strong. Rey, Jared, and Faris are distracted, however, because the Autumn Queen's car is opening and a red carpet is being rolled out. If she's able to leave the train safely, then it means they're in the circus's sphere again.

Their Ahroun is otherwise engaged, so Sonya grabs Olesya and they square off with the vampire, activating Luna's Armor because this is likely to hurt. Jonas uses a Gift that calls to trickster spirits. Ambrose ducks as he senses mage behind him, and a Primium net flies over his head to wrap around Devyn (who if he gets any angrier will probably die). It's two MiBs wearing an odd insignia. Tim leaps back into the fray, rolling into Devyn's legs to trip him up again. Cavendish howls in fury.

Ambrose suddenly realizes his duplicate is standing behind him. The copy grabs him and knocks him down. The MiBs look confused. "I told you!" Ambrose says over his doppelganger's shoulder. "Evil clone!" One of the MiBs shrugs and shoots Evil Ambrose in the spine with a dart. Then the Monkey Girl turns up out of nowhere and covers the two MiBs in burning silly string. Faris activates his wayfarer staff and things go dizzy for a moment.

When the world rights itself, they're standing in the street in Tokyo: all of them, including Evil Ambrose and the MiBs. Evil Ambrose hits a button on his belt and vanishes.

"Why does everyone have teleporting belt buckles but me?" Ambrose asks no one in particular.
Then he's struck by sudden wooziness, and one of the MiBs, noticing, asks if he'd happen to have any kind of mystic connection with his double. Because what they shot him with was a hallucinogenic nightmare drug that makes your worst fears manifest. Ambrose manages to shrug it off without more than hearing Tillingtast's coughing rumble in the back of his head. Then he laughs, because it occurs to him that Evil Ambrose will be conjuring his worst fears around fairies.

The MiBs usher the group off the street and try to get them to hand over the briefcase. Ambrose doesn't have it. Jonas does, and the pack won't turn it over. The MiB insists they don't have the capability to protect it. "You can't even protect yourselves. Or your labs!" Ambrose retaliates, "You burned my lab! Communists!" As usual, the Etherite and the NWO mages argue about magic and reality; when they try to act all virtuous about it, Ambrose pegs them for changing the rules to suit themselves. Presumably deciding that two MiBs are not enough to get on the bad side of a pack of Garou, they give up, hand Ambrose a number and tell him to "Call if you see the light of reason." right after they leave, Devyn calls again. Ambrose doesn't answer.

Then, noticing the Monkey Girl, he warns her that he told some Japanese guy he'd given the map to a shapeshifter. She thinks it might be a 'yang-aspected' akuma (thus he might look like he's alive even if he isn't) who works for Emma-O, the Japanese god of death. Sonya asks her if it's true the Beast Courts are led by honorable Shadow Lords. More or less, Monkey Girl tells her: them and the dragon-shifters.

Faris books them a hotel and arranges a flight back. Monkey Girl decides to stick around for a bit to take advantage of a five-star hotel, and Aila campaigns for visiting Tokyo's electronics district. Ambrose checks his voice mail on the way: three messages of the Ringmaster snarling in Dragon's Tongue, which he quickly deletes and adds his cell phone to the list of "Stuff to get a VA to look over."

Video games lead to mass destruction

2008-04-24T14:33:00.001-07:00

At the chantry, one of the door wardens tells Ambrose he has a visitor. It's a Japanese man, yet another person asking after the map. Ambrose tells him up-front he doesn't have it anymore; he gave it away. To whom? Uh...well...that was, I mean it was really confusing, and there were explosions and running and shooting and a lot of people...uhm... Yes, Ambrose is smooth as usual.

The man attempts to purchase the information of who Ambrose gave it to, making offers of increasingly unusual nature. Ambrose turns down money again: "The Technocracy keeps scrubbing my accounts." The man offers tomes containing every invention ever conceived of. Ambrose's reply: "I'm not really into copying other peoples' work."

His initial offers rejected, the man tries explaining (or possibly courteously threatening) that he represents 'powerful interests'--"By powerful you mean...mythic?" asks Ambrose. "Historic," the man corrects him after a moment's thought-- which oppose certain 'upstarts.' Ambrose takes that to mean this Mikaboshi guy, which the man verifies. This Mikaboshi used to be a human wizard, he remarks with contempt, then unveils his final offer. "Dr. Quintrell, how would you like to never have to worry about Paradox again?"

Ambrose recognizes that for what it is, and thinks it takes balls to make an offer like that standing in the doorway to a major chantry. But what he says is, "That sounds...shady," then when the guy displays his increasing frustration, suggests, "You could check your email." "My employer doesn't have email," the man grates out, beginning to get truly annoyed.

Asked again whom he gave the map to, Ambrose quite honestly tells the man that he gave it to a shapeshifter, which makes it terribly difficult to hand out any decent descriptions, as it wore several different faces in the short time he knew it. "A shapeshifter, interesting.," the Japanese man muses. "What did those faces look like?"

A horrible pause descends, during which Ambrose tries to find any plausible lie other than the one he just thought of. When the man's eyes narrow ominously, Ambrose blurts out, "...Asian people?"

"You're an idiot," the man tells him, then turns, seeming to feel he's gotten everything useful out of this conversation, and leaves.

While Ambrose has interesting conversations with ominous Asians, the video game junkies among the pack have discovered a hot new game that's due out soon, called "Wicked City." It's part of a lineup of new releases marketed through Tellus for the Shinjuku Corporation, which also include "Wolf Killer" and "Mage Hunter," a game in which you play a heroic Man in Black who hunts down alien 'magicians' that eat the brains of children. Those aliens, Aila notes, look kind of like Etherites.

The Virtual Adepts have heard about it, too, and are in a morbidly thrilled uproar. Ambrose's friend grabs him to show him the news. Ambrose can't get any more out of him about that email map (except that they loaded it up on the big screens at the Spy's Demise), but if Ambrose wants spoilers, the Adept suggests he check the messageboards. When he does just that, Ambrose finds all the code crackers saying the map's just a hoax...but he notices that they all say it in almost exactly the same words. Which is really odd, because you can't get two Virtual Adepts to point to the same horizon when you ask, "Where does the sun rise?"

Well, Ambrose knows how to play this game. He simply posts a message pointing out how they're all wording it the same way, which has the whole VA Tradition descending on the mystery within an hour. It takes a little while longer before one of them announces he's hacked it: there's Mind magic embedded in the code that takes control of the crackers when they access the code. "You just have to be elite enough to not be where you are," he announces smugly, going on to say (perhaps with more gravity, but knowing the Adepts, possibly not) that it's not just any Mind magic: you take a good look and it's an Akashic nephandus. Now that gets the Adepts' attention. Ambrose prints out a copy of the thread along with his own notations translating l33t-speak for the Akashics, and sends it over to the Brotherhood's representative.

Back at the caern, the Garou review their information on these new video games like they're sizing up the enemy--which they are. If the Shinjuku Corporation is with Pentex, then the Garou are against them. With prejudice. These Shinjuku people evidently know about the whole Technocracy and Sons of Ether mage-rigamarole. Following along her video game contacts, Aila gets a screen shot of "Mage Hunter's" final villain: it's Ambrose!

Right about the same time, the MiB calls Ambrose, sounding confused and annoyed (two things that are never healthy, coming from the Union). "What are you poking?! Find out and call back!" After a bit of thought, Ambrose does call back, to pass on the information about that haunted map and the Akashic barrabus. "Why, thank you, Dr. Quintrell. You've been very helpful," the MiB replies with gracious silkiness. Ambrose shrugs it off, reminding him that when it comes to Nephandi, everybody's on the same side. He deliberately does not mention that the entirety of the VA tradition has poked the thing, but he does suggest they might keep an eye on their more adventurous Void Engineers. "Oh, don't worry," the MiB reassures him. "We have that under control."

I'm sure you do.

Following their disparate leads, everybody ends up hitting Dreamvision at once. Faris tells them all to come over and he'll give a briefing.

His word is that Shinjuku is holding a preview party for their games in three nights in Los Angeles. They've been testing these games at a facility in a school on a Navajo reservation in Arizona (which gets Aila's and RF's hackles up, particularly). While someone is obviously out to get Ambrose specifically (Ambrose considers filing a lawsuit over the use of his identity, figuring that if they need a delay, it'd at least slow down the release), there's another game in the lineup that Faris thinks is Pentex's angle on all this. It's called "Spirit Quest. " You play a native American kid on a vision quest where you fight wolves who try to prevent you from reaching your spiritual inheritance in the mystical world. The Nockers have discovered that Pentex worked something into this game that feeds on the energy of Kinfolk who play the game in order to home in on real spirits.

They need to stop that demo party, or any other action they take will get caught up in media attention, but they need to sink that facility in Arizona even more. Most of the work's being done there, so if it goes down, production goes down completely. This means splitting up.

Sonya, Faris, Rey, Jared, and Ambrose head to LA while the rest--Jonas, Olesya, Mark, RF, and Aila--go undercover at the facility to find their targets and wreak havoc. Rey cracks that he's "no good at blending in," which to Rey's disappointment, Faris just vaguely nods to. When Ambrose warns them that the Technocracy is already poking their noses in, Faris looks sly. "Go ahead and send them all the information on Pentex that we've given you." (This gets a very gratified response from Ambrose's attendant MiB, to the effect of, "I knew we were right about you!" which Ambrose stoically ignores.)

"You do realize that was a chameleon joke," Rey says to Faris on the way out. "Because you didn't seem to get it..."

The demo party is like a Who's Who lineup of supernatural slimeballs. They spot the leading lights of Tellus and the Shinjuku Corporation; along with luminaries such as Kiro Yamizaki, Tellus's new CEO, oddly clean record, and avid martial arts hobbyistt; and Enzo Giovanni, who Sonya knows as not only an overflowing business-world scuzzbucket, but an ancient and obscenely powerful 'methuselah' vampire who sits on the Pentex Board of Directors. Aila notices that he's surrounded by an entourage of unsavory ghost types. There are something like six other Leeches in attendance, mostly the beautiful kind.

On the res, the new arrivals are given a tour. RF, playing doctor, gets shown around the hospital while Jonas and Aila yet again play student. Mark, with his generically ethnic looks, fills in as their uncle and legal guardian. One of the first things they're given is passes to the game testing facility. Apparently these are handed out as free 'perks' to all the kids. On RF's part, he hears from some concerned nurses that the kids who play a lot of those video games have been complaining of an unusual number of migraines.

A few of the doctors wear interesting badges that mark them as working for Project Odyssey, which a bit of digging turns up as Pentex's psychic research team. The head of Project Odyssey, Kiro Yamizaki, was recently appointed as Tellus' CEO.

At the party, recognizes Yamizaki as an Akashic Nephandus, and Yamizaki pretty clearly recognizes Ambrose right back. Ambrose also spots one of the vampires trying to hit on a well-built brick shithouse of a man, who glances at Ambrose and lets him see the lasers hidden in its eyes. A HITMark. In fact...there are a lot of really big Aryan ubermensch types wandering around in here, and after a waitress clues him in with similar discretion, he realizes Iteration X is here in force. This, ladies and gents, is a full-blown Technocratic purge. He warns the rest of the group.

People schmooze. Some of the group notice that the vampires are being served by a specific waitress, who's handing out hoodooed glasses that disguise their true contents. One guess what's in there instead of wine. Sonya is introduced to the head of the Egyptian office: one Tahab Al'Ara. They've heard that name before, actually, when they were in Egypt. This thing is a Bane Mummy. However, it's not staying long, heading for a meeting in New York.

The speaker steps up to the platform to open the presentation. He talks about a simultaneous worldwide release (figures Tellus would be the only one to figure out that's a good idea), and also unveils the new full-immersion controller system Tellus has been working on. The new interface allows for true virtual immersion into the game, he gloats, so it will feel more real than ever before.

Ambrose, keeping an eye on the Technocratic presence, notices that it's still growing. More of the wait staff have that subtle IX look about them, and six more Conan-types have joined the ranks of the hulking. When Sonya spots a couple of remarkably ugly, hirsute security who're actually BSDs in Glabro, she tips off one of the wait staff and starts plotting exit strategies.

Ambrose spots some disguised waiters who are not cyborgs. Rey feels uneasy around them, like he's being affected by Echoes. One has slipped into the vampire-server's position, and right about then, the vampires start smoking. Not like 'light up a cigarette' smoking, but more like 'on fire from the inside.' "Oh dear," says the waitress, "Someone seems to have replaced your blood with communion wine." Then the paladin guy ignites his flaming sword, holding it up to the sprinklers, which turn out to have been filled with holy water.

All hell immediately breaks loose. Their carefully laid plans blown, the HITMarks deploy. Ambrose alerts the Technocracy when he sees Enzo Giovanni slipping out the back way. Jared intercepts him with his dusk blade, then gets two spectres sicced on him for his troubles. One of the Inquisitors swings by to impale one with a blessed sword. Rey grabs the prototype interface and hides behind the bar with it, from which vantage he takes out one of the Black Spiral Dancers.

The HITMarks form ranks and open up fire, blazing everything in sight with chain guns. The picture windows behind them frame the helicopters as they rise up to surround the building. Another Inquisitor stakes Enzo from behind while Faris mugs him.

Realizing they're missing a bad guy, Ambrose looks around for Yamizaki--who's right behind him! Ambrose swings the Bigfoot-hunting gun over his shoulder to shoot the man...

...and a plasma explosion erupts from it in a concussive wave of screaming, tortured reality that doesn't harm living matter but shreds everything else. The Nephandus is hurled back by the sheer force of the detonation. The glass from the glorious skyline-framing windows explodes outwards in a sparkling, razor-tipped mist as half the room is thrown out through them. The blast rips into the HITMarks, who go flying, sets the vampires on fire, disrupts cyborgs, and sends the helicopters careening like pinballs. Several of them are brought down under the cascade of debris, HITMarks, and shivering reality-fabric.

"Everyone to the bathroom!" Faris shouts over the cacophany. He teleports them out to the street, where mayhem reigns supreme. Shards of plate glass and helicopter shrapnel litter the pavement and continue to rain down. The Inquisition are clearing the hell out, with expressions that communicate they did not sign on for this. A vibration tears through the ground and everyone looks upward as the top floor of the building shudders and collapses.

"Dr. Quintrell, you never cease to amaze me!" Rey crows. "I shot the Nephandus in the face with it," Ambrose replies vaguely, stunned. As if mention of him conjures him, the Nephandus in question climbs out of a pile of ruined helicopter, pulling out a skid which had impaled him through his chest. Then the sound of engines that don't belong in this reality pierce the night, and Ambrose looks up to see an Iteration X ARC plane coming in.

"Get the hell out!" he yells to the others, who pile into Rey's car and book it.

The MiB calls. "What did you do?! I have a reality fissure three fourths of a mile wile and the energy ripple is still going out over the Pacific! You had better hope it dissipates before it hits Japan!" Horrified, Ambrose stammers out an apology and swears he's disposing of that gun in the most careful manner possible as soon as he gets the chance.

The MiB isn't appeased. "This is going on your permanent record!"

"You have fun filling that out!" Ambrose snipes, feeling rather aggrieved himself.

Back at the reservation, Aila and Jonas get their new textbooks, which are completely whacked. They get to read about what vicious killers wolves are, and their history books glorify the achievements of Pentex in the name of Western civilization. Smelling a rat, they do a quick investigation and learn that Pentex has a new subsidiary: Research Write Corp., an educational press. Oh joy, as if the textbook publishing industry weren't screwed up enough as it is. When they get home, they find Mark staring dubiously into a few bags of groceries that he says were delivered gratis. They smell equally evil, and yep, it's all Pentex-produced junk. This whole place is Wyrm-riddled!

RF discovers that the head doctor is similarly Wyrmy. He's been administering vaccines to the children that're intended to increase their psychic ability.

Rey drives south toward Arizona, where they'll join up with the others. As they approach the reservation, Rey notices that the Dreaming has gone warped and twisted here. It's thin in spots, and there are a lot of clown monsters. In a faerie car, following the silver trod, the trip doesn't take as long as it normally would. "What happened?" Jonas asks when they arrive, dust-covered and still reeling on adrenaline.

"You wouldn't believe us if we told you," Sonya answers him wearily, earning an incredulous look.

"Dr. Quintrell is a genius!" Rey exults. Ambrose disagrees. "That was reckless, even for me."

They head into the house to regain their composure and plan how to handle the mess on the reservation, but pause when an odd feeling washes over them. Something...disturbing is approaching. Something with...calliope music. Rey opens the window to look out, and gets a flyer in the face. Anastagio's Olde Time Lunar Carnival and Midnight Circus! Here on special request to play at the reservation for a full five nights.

The Evil Map

2008-04-23T14:27:00.000-07:00

On the flight back, the Garou ponder all the exceptionally weird stuff they keep getting involved in. They lay this at Ambrose's feet. Ambrose is not sanguine about accepting responsibility for it. When he protests, Olesya tells him, "Ask yourself then why we keep encountering these Men in Black." Ambrose positively bristles. "Are you accusing me of being manipulated by the Technocracy?!" Sonya breaks in over his outrage: "I believe she meant that you may have a destiny about you."

"Oh," says Ambrose, mulling that one over. "I don't really do destiny." "That's okay," says Sonya. "Destiny does you." "Destiny does you hard," Jonas chimes in, lewdly and with complete accuracy.

Deciding to sulk a bit while he puts together his latest report for the chantry, Ambrose spots an Asian girl on the wing of the plane. She's just sitting there. The Garou don't see her when he points her out, but when Aila holds up Turtle to see out the window, he nods that he does. A little bit later, Ambrose spots an Asian guy all in white wearing sunglasses on the other wing. He wonders if that's a Technocrat, except it's really not their MO to show off like that.

"Are there other Asians in white?" Aila asks.
Ambrose thinks about it. "Well..."
"What?" Sonya snaps when he pauses too long.
He answers sheepishly, "I was thinking Yakuza, but I doubt they'd be on the wing of the plane."
RF and Aila discuss luring the Asian girl in from the wing with video games, apparently blissfully incognizant (or amused by) of the casual racism of the idea. Olesya regally ignores them all. Sonya puts her head in her hands, and Jonas turns to her. "Sad when I'm the one you can rely on, ain't it?"

Ambrose proceeds to skulk around watching the man in white, who looks dubious. Sonya finally orders him to sit. "But he's...looking at me funny," Ambrose protests.
"That's because you look like a moron. Sit." He does, a little sulkily, and starts peering at the Asian girl, who seems to find him hilarious. "She's laughing at me."
"We all are," says Sonya.

Taking pity, Aila pacifies him with Tetris. Once the neurotic mage calms down, he starts sneaking readings at the two unregistered passengers. The girl reads as a spirit, if a little oddly, as if she'd managed to pick up her own bona fide human body somewhere. The Garou find that intriguing but not too bizarre. The man, on the other hand...he doesn't read as human at all. Actually, he kind of reads as a walking corpse: not a vampire, but a real honest-to-god dead body animated by a human soul. Creepy. And fascinating.

"The Elders were right," Sonya mutters. "Mages are nothing but trouble." The others nod sagely.

When the plane comes in to land, the strange people are gone, so the Garou grab their bags and head out. The pack takes Ambrose home then returns to the caern.

Shoved under the door of his apartment, Ambrose finds a manila envelope containing a map of Chicago's Chinatown with a location circled in red, along with a notice of an appointment with one Te Hwan on behalf of someone named Jwo Dye. There's also a warning: "Beware of contact with Ji Ken." The warning hits home. Ambrose has had too many people messing with him lately, so he heads to the chantry, where he has business to take care of anyway.

Mark is at the door, working the evening watch. He hands over an envelope identical to the one left at Ambrose's apartment. Apparently somebody didn't want to miss him. Ambrose shows it to him, then says he's going to see if one of the Akashics knows anything.

The Akashic, unfortunately, doesn't. When Ambrose describes his adventure in Siberia, the Akashic is able to tell him he was in hell, and explains the basics of "Kuei-jin" to him: sinners who die and are given a chance to redeem themselves by returning to their bodies. This explains the man in white. The Akashic has no idea about the girl, though. He says he'll research the Shinjuku Corp.

Ambrose asks him if he knows this Te Hwan, by any chance. "Well, we all know each other," the Akashic replies sarcastically, leaving poor Ambrose feeling rather awkward. Apparently the Akashic notices and finds it pretty amusing, because he continues, "Hey, I met this guy named Ralph in New York once. Friend of yours?" "Okay, okay," Ambrose gives in. "I'm sorry!"

Mark catches him again later on to remind him about the ninja they saw at the circus, and suggests that Ambrose might consider bringing the werewolves along. "What if you're hunted by ninjas?" he asks, finding the idea pretty entertaining. Ambrose says he'll give it some thought. Werewolves are extremely good at killing things that want to hurt you, but on the other hand they're awfully good at wrecking the joint. Subtlety, thy name is not Garou.

In the meantime, he settles in for some more research, learning that Ji Ken works in security for the Shinjuku Corporation, reporting to somebody named Sou Kwan. Ambrose finds a picture of Sou Kwan. There's something...wrong with the man. He looks completely emotionless, but there's just something inhuman about him. Te Hwan, meanwhile, is a well-to-do businesswoman who owns various businesses in Chinatowns across the US. It's remarkable for someone like her to be representing someone else. The meeting address is at one of her restaurants: quite a nice place, in fact, and pleasantly public.

He calls RF (who he finds the calmest and/or least scary of the bunch...let's say most reliable) to let the Garou know about this new development. They arrange for some of the pack to be in the dining room while Rey and Jonas hide outside.

The pack credits the sept in Washington when they return the First Klaive to the caern. They also pass on the news about the Prince of Minneapolis (which gets a snicker) driving the Garou out (which gets an ominous, "Oh, reeeeeally?").

In the morning, Ambrose passes Mark in the hall, who asks, "Hey! When did you get in?" Turns out, he wasn't on guard last night. He never saw Ambrose till this morning. They tell the head of the chantry, who finds that there's also no recording of Ambrose talking to anyone at the door, despite the fact that the Virtual Adepts set up that security system. This definitely bears looking into.

Ambrose makes sure to dress well, figuring the restaurant sounds classy enough to have a dress code, then Rey spins by to give him a lift to the place. The Garou are already there, as is the woman Ambrose is meeting. She's there to buy that copy of the transit map he picked up in the spirit world city, offering a princely sum of $1 million for it. It's tempting, but Ambrose figures the Technocracy flushes his accounts too often for it to be any real use to him, so he makes a counteroffer: information, notably information that'll help him survive the people likely to hunt him up in pursuit of this exceptionally valuable map.

Thus he learns that the man in white from the plane is her employer. Ji Ken is an 'akuma,' which is a servant of some demon lord. He can speak to ghosts, grow scorpion parts, detach his limbs, and control metal (which Ambrose takes as a bit of a challenge). She does not know anything at all about an Asian girl on the other wing. But while she's explaining, a guy dressed like a Hong Kong movie badass walks in the door, only to be blocked by the concierge, who's upset over the fellow's sartorial carnage. The woman ignores it for a bit, but when the kung-fu superstar refuses to leave, Te Hwan excuses herself and heads over to deal with it. Ambrose watches them briefly, curious about this: the man's definitely human, but Te Hwan is...not, quite. Actually she's got the craziest energy field around her, as if the only thing holding her together is wild, insane luck. Looks kind of like a paradox backlash waiting to happen, to him.

While she argues with Hong Kong Phooey, the Asian girl from the other wing of the plane sits down in her seat and starts eating Te Hwan's steak. She sarcastically complains about Ambrose apparently trusting everybody he comes across and registers her displeasure at this 'half-vampire' getting the map, which she says is a powerful magical artifact. She warns him that things are about to go down. "Ninjas on the roof," she says, to which Ambrose replies, "Really?" "No, not really, retard! God, you are gullible. Well. They might be up there by now." And she warns him that some group of people she calls a Zero Team is looking for him.

He asks her more about the map, which she says is "a cosmic windfall for whoever gets it." And Ambrose has a horrible thought. "Well, see I...um." "What did you do, mage?!" she accuses. "I...digitized it." "I don't even know what that does!" she exclaims in horror, to which he adds with morbid humor, "Do you know what a trinary is?"

Sonya uses a Gift to listen in on Ambrose's conversation, but he seems to be talking to midair. Aila opines that he's gone nuts, but Sonya has a vague sense of a hidden spirit in the room.

Meanwhile, Jonas and Rey spot those ninjas the girl mentioned. Rey heads in to warn the Garou, and he sees a monkey-girl talking to Ambrose and eating somebody else's meal. He pulls the fire alarm to evacuate the diners right before Jonas runs in screaming "NINJAS!"

At which point ninjas descend through the skylights.

The Hong Kong Action Hero pulls out a shotgun, while Te Hwan ducks behind the bar and pulls out weapons. The guests, filing out due to the alarm, don't seem to notice any of this, which works in the group's favor--except for one guy Rey spots who he defines as some weird faerie creature.

Sonya grabs a ninja that lands on her table, swinging it into another ninja, leading to the immortal line, "What's the damage on a ninja?" The "dead" ninjas disappear in a puff of smoke. They're chimera! Dream creatures! Seeing this, Rey laughs and the Asian biker guy pulls out prayer strips, which light ninjas on fire upon contact. Rey conjures up hellhounds to maul another. "Excuse me," Ambrose says to the girl, and dives under the table to do something to the carpet, which animates itself and starts tangling ninjas. The girl lunges for Ambrose's computer case (which is still slung over his shoulder) and leaps off with it, dragging him along for the ride as she, now quite monkey-like, swings across the chandeliers for the door. "I'll just get this to safety!" she yells at everybody else.

Jonas leaps in front of the door, so she dives through the window. Across the street there's some weird Asian guy who looks to be made of metal. He's looking straight at Ambrose. "It's a metal elemental," the monkey-girl explains, conjuring a cab from paper and throwing him into it. Aila sprints out of the restaurant and leaps on top of it. The metal guy/thing gives chase. Running outside, Jonas shifts to Crinos to chase onlookers away, sending them into screaming frothing panic. Gets the area vacated, though. RF spots a sporty red car taking off in pursuit of the cab, Te Hwan at the wheel, and he shifts into Glabro to chase it. The Asian badass pulls out on a motorcycle right behind him. Rey and Sonya finish mopping up the ninjas, then grab the rest of the group and bring up the rear in Rey's faerie-car.

Ambrose, looking backward, moans. The Technocracy's going to be on this like stink on fish. No way they're letting a caravan like this slide. And indeed, as he turns around to tell Monkey-girl so, he spots one of their black sedans heading for them on a collision course. The taxi sprouts a tail, using it to spring over the sedan, and the MiBs plow straight into the metal man, who sucks up the car, leaving two angry agents who roll to their feet and draw weapons on him.

Te Hwan improbably spins her sports car up a wall, bounces it off the top of a fruit cart, and lands next to Rey, who's just passed the guy on the bike. Te Hwan pulls up right alongside Monkey Girl's taxi to say something to Ambrose. Monkey Girl swings the wheel and rams into the red sports car.

That's the last straw for Ambrose, who slips out of the taxi's passenger side window and into the red sports car. "It's not you!" he calls to Monkey Girl. "It's your driving!" Aila follows him over, leading Te Hwan to growl, "Ferraris don't take 500 lb. werewolves!" Ambrose fidgets with something quick and says, "This one does."

The Leather-bondage Action Star pulls up on the other side to declare, "The map is evil. I need it." And the Ferrari's hood ornament becomes the monkey, which irritates Te Hwan rather a lot. And then the Technocracy calls Ambrose, who yells at them because really this is not his fault. Monkey Girl squirms up onto the roof and tries to grab his cell phone, chortling, "I want to talk to them!"

"A monkey wants to mock you," Ambrose bites off into the phone, then holds it up for her.

She sulks. "Now you ruined it." Then, looking around, she asks, "The bad guys have gone away. Why're we still driving fast?" Which is what Sonya would like to know. Having found her last straw, she whips out her cell phone and orders them all in the voice you don't like to hear out of a werewolf to get to a location she gives them and then talk like reasonable people.

They obey, and everybody gets themselves sorted out. Introductions: Monkey Girl is...well, sort of an Asian pooka thing. "Like the Monkey King?" Rey cheerfully asks. "Very much like," Te Hwan answers dolefully. Black leather assassin-man is a demon hunter. Both Monkey Girl and Te Hwan vouch for his reliability. Shih, as they call them, are moral and good as the day is long, but they're entirely human and rather easy to disembowel. And the shih and Te Hwan both admit that Monkey Girl is good at heart, if entirely irritating. The job of her kind, Te Hwan says, is to defend and guide humanity. Te Hwan, on the other hand...well, the shih and Monkey Girl both agree that she's decent people, but her dad (the man in the white suit) is one of those kuei-jin types, and while he personally is not particularly bad either, they tend to have unsavory associations with less virtuous kuei-jin and thus dangerous relics aren't necessarily safe in their hands.

After a fairly extended go-around, Ambrose finally settles the question by asking, "Which of you having this map would upset the bad guys the most?" They all have to agree that'd be the Monkey Girl. "What would you do with it if I gave it to you?" he asks her.

"I'd go into hiding till the heat died down and then use it to wreak havoc on Mikaboshi," she answers. Good answer. He pulls out the folded-up map and hands it to her.

But he's still got the digital copy on his laptop--well, his PDA, which is synced to his laptop. They need to do something about that. He starts to delete the file, but Monkey Girl stops him. "What happens to files when they're deleted?"

"Well," muses Ambrose, "the Virtual Adepts believe that they remain on the Digital Web. Of course, they also argue that simply knowing something makes it real, in which case..."

Instead of deleting the file, he moves the copy from his laptop over to his PDA so at least they only have one left to worry about, but he needs to talk to some Virtual Adepts before he does anything else with that. He's pretty sure it hasn't had any weird, dangerous effects on his computer, but it's best to check. When Aila suggests various ways of trashing his computer, he replies, "Magnets and sticks are two traditional enemies of computers. We've designed these with that in mind."

Aila talks to the demon hunter briefly, who gives her a business card: Ryoshi Takeda, P.I. Shoving a Humphrey Bogart costume onto Ambrose, Monkey Girl says, "Well, I guess this is so long," then swings off, chortling. Te Hwan promises she or her father will be in touch. Ambrose still owes them for that information she gave him, after all. You can tell how overjoyed he is about that.

Once everybody else clears out, Sonya tears into her pack for breaking the Veil. Against the Litany. Five times. In an hour. Aila and Jonas try to convince her that it was kinda awesome, though, but she doesn't think so. Really, really doesn't think so. Sonya is pissed. RF, the Philodox, doesn't say anything (as usual) but his glower implies he isn't especially thrilled either.

Ambrose's cell phone rings again. He checks the number (0), and doesn't answer--mainly to see what they'll do if he doesn't. As it turns out, they leave voice mails, wanting to know what exactly is going on. He ignores it, annoyed that they act like he owes them some kind of accounting.

Rey gives them another ride. After they drop Ambrose off at the chantry, the pack heads back to the caern to account for themselves. The sept has heard no word of any disturbance. Gotta give them this: the Technocracy does good work. The Elders ask, if they run into that monkey-girl again, to see what news they can get out of her about the Beast Courts. The rumor is that they're led by, of all things (and the Elder tries to be politic about this in an entirely failing way), honorable Shadow Lords. He needn't really have bothered, because Sonya doesn't mind; the Shadow Lords know what they are.

The chantry, on the other hand, has heard of the disturbance. After Ambrose gives them the run-down, he hunts up one of his VA acquaintances, who excitedly tells him about this 'haunted map' that's been doing the rounds via email in the last 24 hours. He describes something that rather resembles Ambrose's transit map. "They say if you open it, then in seven days you get sucked into a hell vortex!" He seems to think this is pretty cool. Doesn't quite believe it, but he plans to find out. From the way he talks, just about all of the Virtual Adepts have had a gander at this thing by now, and probably most of House Thig and a fair portion of the Etherites too.

Healing the First Klaive

2008-04-23T12:01:00.000-07:00

It's off to Minnesota to find the sept that can help fix the First Klaive. While Sonya, never one to let a loose end flap in the breeze, sics researchers on the Shinjuku Corp., Aila grabs Ambrose to come along with them. It was his doing that got the Klaive into this bizarre situation, after all. He's hunting up information on Shinjuku Corp, himself, since he suspects it of Technocratic if not Nephandic ties.

The caern they want is at a campground, except that when they arrive there's no sign of it. Sonya can't even find any local spirits to ask for information. Aila snags a wraith named Derek and agrees to do him two favors for his information. He tells her that vampires from Minneapolis came down, evicted the werewolves, and took the caern. "Took the caern?" Aila repeats in shock. Yep, he replies. They brought in some mages with weird blood symbols who sucked up all the energy and left with it. The Garou migrated out to Washington state. This was only about a week ago.

So they catch a plane to Seattle. Ambrose warns them that Seattle is a New World Order stronghold, and indeed, when they arrive two MiBs with a sign saying "Quintrell" are waiting at the airport with a limo. They offer him a ride, but he turns it down vehemently. The MiBs shrug it off, handing the Garou a map to the campground they want. "Is it an evil map?" Aila asks. "It's a normal map," one of the MiBs tells her. "Our interests converge once again."

Feeling miffed, Ambrose prods them for something to call the MiB who keeps following him around. No dice, of course. They won't even hand him a random number he can use. "He does seem awfully fond of Ambrose," Aila says, to which a MiB replies, "Tillingtast seems awfully fond of Ambrose."
"That's low!" Aila accuses.

"If you ever need us, just dial 0," the MiB says in farewell.
"What if I just want an operator?" Ambrose asks.
"Who says we're not all operators?" the MiB answers.
Ambrose says, "I hate you," and stalks off muttering about spoons and the Matrix.
"Oh, there is a spoon, Dr. Quintrell," the MiB says.
"There's a spoon if I damn well say there's a spoon," Ambrose grouses.

To get to the campground, they have to drive through a conspiracy theorists' convention. "Oh, the Virtual Adepts are in town!" Ambrose says when he sees them. "You know, a lot of these people are right." Turns out, this is also prime sasquatch country. The Garou mess with him on this, explaining with deliberate vagueness that Sasquatch is actually Wendigo when he's not eating people. Olesya finally has pity on the mage and tells him the story about how Sasquatch lost his mind after the Croatan died and became the frozen Wendigo. Ambrose sums it all up: "I might get to see a sasquatch? Cool!"

A cabin has been rented in Ambrose's name at the campground, using his credit card. He dials 0: "Now you're just being jackasses!" The place is totally wired; it'd do credit to a luxury penthouse. Naturally, the cameras are watching them, so Ambrose takes the opportunity to aim sarcastic comments at them.

The Garou at the caern think they can help, and invite the pack to stay for the night. Ambrose plaintively asks if he can stay, too. He explains to the Garou his theory that the NWO actually arranges for these conspiracy conventions to be held in places like Seattle so the Technocracy can monitor them and discredit them among the general populace. He figures that's what the Technocrats want out of them: a convenient incident to make everybody look stupid and paranoid.

Turns out he's wrong. He's awakened around 3 AM by a group of people tromping through the forest hunting for Bigfoots. Bigfeet? At any rate, he indulges his curiosity and follows, along with Aila, who isn't about to let the hapless mage wander off on his lonesome. The troupe of Bigfoot hunters seems oddly displaced in time or space or something; Ambrose can't touch them. At first he assumes they got lost in 'etherspace,' until Aila accidentally wanders through whatever breach they've managed to wrap around them. He can still see her, but she can't see him. He pokes her to get her attention, but while she feels it, she still doesn't spot him. So not the spirit world, then, or the Garou wouldn't be lost or confused.

The bigfoot hunters, on the other hand, definitely do see her. They turn out to be Etherites who are hunting sasquatch to capture and interrogate because they believe them to be evil alien mind-slaves of...um, something. They're not terribly coherent on some points. When she laughs and tries to explain their mistake, the leader dismisses her as an 'ignorant girl.' He gives the date as being the 1960s, and is momentarily alarmed when he sees her cell phone, accusing her of being a Technocracy spy. After she explains a faerie gave it to her, he allows her to come along.

Ambrose follows, growing increasingly confused by these Etherites. When he begins taking readings, he realizes the leader is a Marauder. "Care to help us now, Dr. Quintrell?" asks the MiB, who's suddenly standing behind him. "Nope, got this covered," Ambrose replies cockily. The MiB isn't there when he turns around to look at him.

Tearing off a piece of notebook paper, he writes a note to Aila explaining about the Marauder, and that he's right next to her, and puts it in her pocket. He then pokes her profusely until she checks her pocket, at which point she uses the pack's link with Turtle to rouse the other Garou. They catch up quickly. While she waits, Aila chats with a sasquatch spirit (a number of them have been following this crackpot around, bemused and amused by him), and it obligingly pops her out of the Marauder's little world-bubble.

Ambrose explains poorly about Marauders, which leads to Jonas and Aila wondering if showing this guy a sasquatch might snap him out of his delusion. Seems like it'd be worth a try, so Ambrose grabs some branches and things and proceeds to build a fake bigfoot. He attaches an antenna he uses to tune the construct in to the Marauder's wavelength, and...voila!

"A sasquatch!" the lead Etherite yells, grabbing his gun. "It has the telltale antenna!"

Who knows? Anyway, it works. He pops into reality, his entourage stumbling out in how and reverting to the clothes and appearances they had before they got trapped in the Marauder's delusion. They're pretty disoriented, but they don't have the moment they need to catch up to speed, because Technocracy helicopters immediately descend.

Ambrose warns the pack they're after the Marauder. Scooping up the Marauder and other mages, the pack takes off, shooing mages off into the wood at intervals so they can get away safely while the Garou draw fire. The Technocrats fire off some sort of barrier-gate that unfolds to reveal Void Engineers. When the Garou leap over that, the Technocrats stop chasing them.

The pack is suspicious. They head back to the caern with a feeling that they know what they'll find, and they're right. The Technocrats have put up a barrier around the caern, and there's a MiB (probably the usual guy, but it's hard to tell) waiting with an offer to trade the klaive, which he's holding, for the Marauder. The Garou hesitate, but they can't really risk the klaive. When they ask Ambrose his opinion, he surprises them by agreeing with the Technocrat: Marauder is too dangerous. They might've broken his delusion temporarily, but you don't just unmaraud mages. Thing is, if he handed him over to the Traditions, they'd kill him and possibly gilgul him, but the Technocracy won't do any better and possibly marginally worse.

Aila looks at the MiB. "You've only got one klaive," she comments.

"I could go grab the other one and make you trade two things," he answers. "How fond are you of Ambrose?" Which puts a cold chill down Ambrose's spine, for certain. But however amusing he finds that, the MiB is here on business. Ambrose stands guard over the marauder while the Garou pull aside to discuss the situation. Figuring he already know how this'll end, he busies himself by removing anything from the Marauder's person he thinks the Technocrats shouldn't have, which includes a talisman Bigfoot-hunting gun and a camera.

The Garou realize they don't have much of a choice, either, and agree to hand the guy over. Sonya's sort of planning on mercy-killing the Marauder, but the Technocracy isn't taking chances. The MiB doesn't lower the barrier until after two HITMarks collar the man and take off with him. Then he hands the klaive over and congratulates Ambrose on making the right choice, which as usual ruffles the Etherite's feathers. Just because they can agree that some things are too stupidly dangerous not to deal with, doesn't make them anything alike except in a very basic level of common sense.

The Technocracy packs up and leaves quickly. The sept, of course, didn't notice anything at all, though they're surprised to find the klaive has been moved. The next morning, they do their ritual thing and fix the Klaive, and then the Garou and Dr. Quintrell head back to Chicago.

The Shadow Curtain part 2: Trek to Siberia

2008-04-23T10:53:00.000-07:00

With things in St. Petersburg as well in hand as they can be, the pack heads eastward to find that Siberian caern where they hope they can fix the First Klaive: a ten-day journey by train.

Seven days in, Ambrose is entertaining himself by working on his laptop, when he notes his readings dipping. The Shadow Curtain seems to be weaker in deeper Russia. Wondering if there might be some phenomenon in the area that's causing this, a quick search turns up news articles on several recent murders in the region. He points this out to the Garou.

Aila wants to get off at the next stop and take a look, but Sonya reminds them that they have more important things to do. Aila sadly agrees, but she's still curious, rattling off some theory about blood sacrifices to weaken the Curtain. In fact, Ambrose says, he agrees with her. The Shadow Curtain was built on blood magic, so it only makes sense to use the same thing to weaken it. It'd have to be a hell of a blood magician to play in the Hag's back yard, though...

On that ominous statement, the train shudders and begins to slow down. They're stopping because there's a dead man on the tracks. In fact, when the werewolves get off to take a peek, they realize it's a dead Garou. The train has to report to the local police, so they're halted for the night anyway, so the Garou follow Aila as she tracks the fight that killed the Garou back toward the nearby town. Looks like he was fighting a Verbena or something, because the woods have been torn up as though someone was controlling the trees.

The town is unusually--one might say bizarrely, for Siberia--high-tech. This place is completely wired with the latest in connectivity...and it exists within a bubble in the Shadow Curtain. Here, the Curtain does not exist, and Ambrose notes that this bubble centers on the cell phone tower. His guess is Yusupov. It makes sense that a man like that would want to hedge his bets. The tower, interestingly, is built by the Shinjuku Corporation, out of Japan. "Must get great reception here," Aila comments. "Well, Ambrose," Sonya says, "use that great reception to log on and learn more about Shinjuku Corporation." Only, he when he tries, he finds the signal is locked down with a...let's say an exceptional level of security. Ambrose cracks it, but it takes work. Whomever's behind this is definitely not normal.

The pack splits up. Some of them head toward the Shinjuku Corp. local offices to see what they can find, while Ambrose, Ray, Mark, and RF check out that tower.

The closer they get to it, the thinner the Gauntlet gets. In fact, before they know it, they're walking right into the spirit world. A low moaning in the background grows as the landscape begins to change to a city street, with skyscrapers towering nearby. People flicker into focus, going about their business; all are Asian. But the city is...wrong. "Non-euclidean geometry," as Ambrose puts it. About the time they realize that there seems to be no end to the cityscape, Ambrose looks behind to realize that however they got in, they're got getting out the same way. "We're not in Tokyo. Or Kansas." No, Ambrose, as the Garou can tell you, you're somewhere very deep in the spirit world. Or etherspace or whatever you like to call it. But no Etherite would allow that little detail to daunt them. When the others look to him for suggestions, he says, "I suppose we might as well figure out where we are before we try to get back."

As they walk through the city, looking around, he notices that almost everyone they pass has some kind of cybernetic implant. He pausing at a city square, to check his laptop, when he becomes aware of a big, angry living metal statue standing behind him (a Demon of Iron and Violence, which they've seen before, though they aren't quite sure what they are yet). He gently clicks the laptop closed. "Sorry?"

It nods approvingly, then says, "You should get back to work."

They back away slowly into an office building, where Ambrose asks a receptionist for a transit schedule. She digs one out, then asks, "Do you work here?" "I'm on an errand," he excuses himself, not wanting a repeat of the previous event. He hands it back after scanning a copy into his PDA, then they vacate quick before they draw attention and hie themselves to the nearest subway.

Which is crowded with people and banes and other strange critters. One fomori bumps into Ambrose, dislodging his packages. Ambrose unthinkingly helps him/it pick them up, till he realizes that what he's holding in his hand is cyborg/Matriarch porn, at which point he wipes his hands vigorously on his pants and goes to hide behind the Garou. Thankfully, considering how the banes are eying them, their line comes in not long after, and they board to head toward the edge of the city.

Meanwhile, Sonya and the others break into the office building. They head around back since the lights at the front of the building indicate somebody's still in. The building smells awful, the sewage stink of cosmic corruption, but the office is beautifully appointed. In the desk and filing cabinets, they find grovelingly-toned memos to Mikaboshi, 'Lord of the Wicked City,' and a report on a phone tower on 'the other side of their territory.' The implication seems to be that Baba Yaga violated some ancient boundary, so now whoever this is sees no reason to respect it either. There are a lot of references to 'the Courts.' Beast Courts? It's the Garou's best guess.

While the others rummage, Aila peers through the office window. The view seems a lot higher than it should be, and it's looking down over a seething metropolis that is definitely not a small Siberian town. She spots Ambrose and company heading down into the subway. After Aila draws their attention to it, Sonya checks outside the office door. Sure enough, it doesn't lead back into the office building they broke into. They're trapped in the spirit world too.

Well, in that case, there's not much to do but catch up to the others. They arrive after RF's group departs, but a quick call takes care of rendezvous. On the subway, Ambrose sees a poster showing people locked up in MECHA's slave collars. He points it out to Mark, who reads that it's a bounty ad for mages who're brought to the 'Five Metal Dragons.'

After everybody catches up, they head topside at the edge of the city. There's a shimmering boundary marking it, flickering through various potential destinations, mostly in Asia. Running some calculations, Ambrose pinpoints an exit in Kazakhstan. Stepping out into an opium den, Sonya looks around, pulls out a notebook and writes a memo to herself. The guy at the door smirks a bit and says, "Come again," as they leave. "Oh certainly," she placidly replies. Ambrose notices the guy is a cyborg.

They take another train to Siberia--this trip is much less adventurous--and then a cross-country hike to the caern from the pitifully small and scuzzy outpost where the train drops them off. After they're welcomed into the caern, they warn the sept about Baba Yaga looking for the Soul Egg ("Well, it's safe enough," they reply; "She'll never find it."), and their Shinjuku Corporation adventure before they get on to the meat of their visit.

The Garou are dumbfounded when the pack hauls out two First Klaives, not to mention deeply concerned. "The pact of the First Klaive is the seed of all klaive pacts.," the Ritemaster explains. "If we can't coax the spirit back, then all klaives will fail." They keep blaming it on poor Ambrose, who's a little annoyed about it, seeing as he saved the thing, but he's not about to argue with that many furry killing machines.

The Garou are at a bit of a loss, though. They have a ritual for it, but with the Little Grandmoter on the rampage, they don't dare enact it. "Maybe we can ask Turtle," Aila suggests cheerfully. The Elders look at her a bit funny, so she scoops Turtle up and holds him for them to see. "Turtle!" she repeats. They look startled to see Turtle up and around, but in the face of current events, they let it slide. After some thought, the Ritemaster tells them, "It's possible your answer may lie in Minnesota." "Minnesota?" Aila repeats. "There's something in Minnesota?" Ambrose can't resist quipping. "Quiet, Klaivebreaker!" the Garou barks at him, then explains that some members of the sept left to settle in Minnesota. They know the appropriate rituals, and can probably help more easily since they don't have to worry about attracting the Hag's attention.

To save them a fairly enormous trip, the Garou haul out some powerful, if somewhat random, hoodoo which drops them in London. From there, Jared gets them back to Chicago through the trods.

Rasputin and Felix Usopov

2007-10-10T10:13:00.000-07:00

Grigori Efimovich Rasputin

Known as the "mad monk," Grigori Rasputin was an outlandish figure in the court of Czar Nicholas II of Russia. Born in the Siberian village of Pokrovskoe, his conduct there got him into so much trouble that he disappeared into the Russian wilderness.

He wandered over all Russia, made two pilgrimages to Jerusalem, and roamed both in the Balkans and in Mesopotamia until he came back to Russian in 1903, when he arrived at the religious Academy of St. Petersburg, where he was welcomed as a penitent. He became highly popular in religious and mystical circles. The Grand Duchess Militsia, a leader in Russian mystical circles, introduced him to the Tsar in 1905, when Rasputin stopped Prince Alexis' hemophilia by laying on of hands. He quickly became a fixture in the royal household and a particular confidante to the Empress.

Rasputin spoke for the Russian peasantry to the Tsar. He abhorred Russian nobility and declared that class to be of another race, not Russian. Wild-eyed and unkempt, he was strangely charismatic and his personal magnetism was legendary; at the same time his bouts of drinking, womanizing, and wild behavior created a scandal in Russian society. He was a hit in the salons and reveled in luxury and extravagance. He made a point of humiliating the high and mighty of both sexes. Too clever to sell himself to anyone, he was courted with gifts from followers and those hopeful of getting into his good graces. On many occasions he took from the rich and gave to the poor.

He was finally killed in 1916 by a cabal of aristocrats led by Felix Yusopov, who feared Rasputin's influence had grown too great. Rasputin's death became the stuff of legend: assassins fed him poisoned cakes and wine, and when the poison failed to kill Rasputin they shot him and beat him. Still Rasputin didn't die, until finally the men bound him and tossed him into the Neva River, where he drowned: 30 December under the modern calendar.

Felix Yusupov

It is interesting to note that, aside from a memoir penned by his own hand (if you can trust the objectivity of such a work), exceedingly little is to be found on the subject of Prince Felix Yusupov.

A review of Prince Yusupov's published memoirs, Lost Splendor: The fascinating first-person account of the cross-dressing prince who poisoned Rasputin with rose cream cakes laced with cyanide and spiked Madeira is now back in print. Originally published in France in 1952, during the years of Prince Youssoupoff's exile from Russia, Lost Splendor has all the excitement of a thriller.

Born to great riches, lord of vast feudal estates and many palaces, Felix Youssoupoff led the life of a grand seigneur in the days before the Russian Revolution. Married to the niece of Czar Nicholas II, he could observe at close range the rampant corruption and intrigues of the imperial court, which culminated in the rise to power of the sinister monk Rasputin. Finally, impelled by patriotism and his love for the Romanoff dynasty, which he felt was in danger of destroying itself and Russia, he killed Rasputin in 1916 with the help of the Grand Duke Dimitri and others. More than any other single event, this deed helped to bring about the cataclysmic upheaval that ended in the advent of the Soviet regime.

The author describes the luxury and glamour of his upbringing, fantastic episodes at nightclubs and with the gypsies in St. Petersburg, grand tours of Europe, dabbling in spiritualism and occultism, and an occasional conscience-stricken attempt to alleviate the lot of the poor.~Prince Youssoupoff was an aristocrat of character. When the moment for action came, when the monk's evil influence over the czar and czarina became unbearable, he and his friends decided that they must get rid of the monster. He tells how Rasputin courted him and tried to hypnotize him, and how finally they decoyed him to the basement of the prince's palace. Prince Youssoupoff...is perfectly objective, remarkably modern and as accurate as human fallibility allows. His book is therefore readable, of historical value and intimately tragic. It is as if Count Fersen had written a detailed account of the last years of Marie Antoinette. --Harold Nicholson, on the first English edition, 1955.

Excerpt from a news article about a Mexican artist who was a favorite of Yusupov during his exile:

"In Paris, Contreras met the Countess Ksenia Sheremetyeva, a descendant of the famous Russian aristocratic family. She invited him to lunch with her grandparents, the Prince and Princess Yusupov. "I had no idea who they were at the time," Contreras said, laughing. "I was served like royalty, and there was this beautiful old gentleman sitting across from me." The artist's voice took on a special intensity when he recounted the instant connection he felt with the prince, then in his 70s. "He was a very great soul," Contreras said, "a mystic, who could heal with the hands."

Indeed, the prince -- not unlike Rasputin -- had a reputation as a faith healer. He also claimed to have glimpses into the future. Contreras used to accompany the prince on visits to sick members of the Russian emigre community. Yusupov would place his hand on the patient's forehead and pray, and "the person would come back to life, back from death," Contreras said.

The young artist was invited to live at the Yusupovs' home in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, and he spent the next five years there. He described his relationship with the prince as that of an adopted son and his father. The family used to introduce him to friends as "the son who fell to us from heaven."

One forbidden topic was the prince's role in Rasputin's murder, which remained a source of shame for the family.

According to generally accepted history and Yusupov's own memoir, "Lost Splendor," the prince led the group of conspirators that assassinated Rasputin in 1916. The so-called "mad monk" had scandalized St. Petersburg with his controversial lifestyle and immense influence over the royal family. Yusupov, together with a group of nobles and army officers, decided to kill Rasputin in an attempt to save the Romanov dynasty from self-destruction.

On Dec. 29, 1916, Rasputin accepted Yusupov's invitation to dine at his Moika Palace, where the conspirators served him wine laced with cyanide. When the poison left him mysteriously unaffected, the conspirators shot him four times, clubbed him and tied him up before dumping the body in the Neva River. Three days later, the body was found in the frozen river, arms freed in an upright position, as if he had tried to claw his way out from under the ice.

The murder was never discussed at the Yusupovs' home in Paris, Contreras said, until one afternoon when the old prince "confessed everything."

It was during the artist's last year in Paris, not long before Yusupov's death at 80. One by one, the princess, her daughter and the governess left the lunch table, leaving only the prince and his "spiritual son." Yusupov wanted him to know the whole truth, never before divulged to anyone, Contreras said.

Yusupov told him about his first meeting with Rasputin, at the Peterhof Palace outside St. Petersburg. The two established a mystic link, the prince recalled. "The prince told me Rasputin looked him in the eyes, and he fell down under his gaze," Contreras said. "He felt the soles of the feet tingling, saw through the eyes of Rasputin. When the prince managed to stand, Rasputin stumbled in turn and cried out, 'Felix, together we could own the world!'"

The artist described Yusupov as the antidote to Rasputin. "The same powers that man had, he had in good," Contreras said. "He vanquished him!" But the artist was unwilling to say anything about Rasputin's murder in the interview. He said he was preserving the prince's private papers, entrusted to him by the family, to publish along with the revelation of Yusupov's testimony."

The Shadow Curtain

2007-09-02T21:34:00.000-07:00

Finally home, the pack arrive at their caern, only to find it surrounded by the Technocracy's caution tape. Ready for a fight, they duck under to find the area swarming with Technocrats. The sept, meanwhile, is not even aware something odd is going on.

Ambrose gets home, smells ozone, puts coffee on for Hermetic ("So what do the Cultists want this time?" "Not the Cultists. You've been summoned to Doissetep"), and catches a quick shower and a change of clothes before they head out. The Hermetic is kind of disappointed in his lack of reaction.

But that changes when he arrives at Doissetep to find a group made up of Porthos, some Virtual Adepts, Mark, and two New World Order agents. To which his only response can be, "Oh my god." Mark agrees.

Both groups follow their respective MiBs to a Technocratic Construct. One of Ambrose's MiBs is a young smart-mouth, who keeps making sarcastic comments when people talk to him. After observing the young guy's rather un-MiB-like behavior, he turns to the older MiB. "Training?" The older man rolls his eyes.

At the Construct, the shifters and mages meet up with each other and a man in white. "You are in the Matrix," Tim quips.
"You only think that's funny," Ambrose tells him.
Ambrose to the young MiB: "Don't you dare say anything about spoons!"
MiB: "There is no spoon."

Displaying a map showing a whole lot of stuff the Technocracy supposedly didn't know about (grandstanding bastards), the Man in White briefs them on the disappearance of Russia from all surveillance. The Union wants the group to go in, get info, and maybe find a way out if they can manage it. Nobody else has, so far. When the Garou challenge them on it, the Man in White informs them that their caern will be held hostage. Ambrose is given override codes for Technocratic resources. He reads one number aloud, and sees the young MiB stiffen. Shame; he was sort of eying that kid for possible Tradition recruitment.

At any rate, it looks like the fae may have a way in and out. He needles the Man in White by casually calling Faris to arrange the trip, which takes about 30 seconds. Though Faris thinks they're insane for wanting to go there now.

Stepping out of the briefing room, they come face to face with Room 101. Ambrose shudders. Before they leave, Sonya grabs a bunch of tradeable goods; cheap, readily available American goods could come in handy for bribe material or quick cash on the Russian black market.

Then they're off to the Russian freehold, where they're met by a Troll. He points them to a Glass Walker caern, but when they arrive, it's empty. Everyone is dead, the caern's Gnosis stripped. Rey uses his psychometry spell, backed up by Sonya digging up a security camera: they see a guy who seems to be a Zmei--a Russian dragon--eat the caern's heart. Sonya shares a look with Olesya, murmuring, "That's not possible..."

Interestingly, plain old regular cell phones seem to work. The Garou are suspicious that the Technocracy knows more than they're telling. Ambrose doesn't bother being suspicious of something that obvious. They follow the "Zmei" trail to St. Basil's, where they detect some kind of mind control effect lingering over the altar, like a shimmering warp in reality.

Then it's onward to to Moscow University, where a Technocratic Construct is located. There, they find 30 dead MiBs in an office and two frozen Iterators. Their DEIs are stuck in a loop. Rey does his psychometry trick again: a well-equipped, well-trained MiB comes to the door, then smashes his way through everybody. The other MiBs seem to know and fear him. The Iterators are already frozen when he arrives, and the blood from the fight splashes across them. He's wearing a ring w/Nephandus symbol. One of the MiBs, more composed than most, gets a message out to Control before dying.

The group raids the Technocratic gear at the base, and Ambrose closes down DEI signal (interestingly, he notices it's an Umbral linkup). The Iterators come back online. They can't add much to what the group already saw, but they agree to cooperate. They trade contact info, grab heavy arms, and head out to find more Technocrats. Iteration X doesn't know the MiB, but obviously the NWO agents did. The NWO keeps their secrets well, one of the Iterators comments.

Returning to the street, Sonya buys a paper in which she finds a hidden message: 30505 Kremlin. It's an address. Slipping in during a tour of the famous fortress, they find that 30505 is a broom closet, and also a hidden Eiluned sidhe's office. He tells them that three days ago, the Celestial Chorus and Verbena in a chantry north of Moscow started acting odd. All the Tremere and Tzimisce suddenly abandoned ship. Two days ago, the Shadow Curtain went up, shutting down almost all movement and communication between Russia and the outside. All the vampires who hadn't already evacuated Russia died suddenly, within three minutes. One day ago, people started dying.

He pulls a file on the Zmei, and Olesya and Sonya realize, to their horror, that the Garou missed one when they were packing those things up a few millennia ago. Is this MiB working with it? Controlling it? The sidhe says he "isn't authorized" to tell them everything about the MiB, whose file runs back to the late 1800s. The human intelligence community knows something's up, but so far has no idea about its true nature. The Nosferatu are watching. Ambrose suggests communicating with the outside world via normal phones and short wave radio. He thinks the Technocracy has gone underground, piggybacking on normal communications.

The sidhe sends them on a Trod to the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, where he tells them the resistance is HQed. Ambrose, having a tourist moment, takes some pictures when they arrive. The ones taken with his paranormal film reveal a hidden door into one wing. It leads to a chamber containing a gear puzzle that has to be put together. When that's done, two Tesla coils pop out and light up to reveal a gateway. They step through into the palace's grand hall, except it's filled with an enormous, bustling lab. Etherites and fae (mostly Nockers) are scrambling all over the place, all action centering around Nicola Tesla, who's standing at the far end of the room, observing a huge screen. Ambrose has a starry-eyed fanboy moment (Jared: "Is he alright?" Mark: "I don't know, I've never seen this before.")

When they approach to ask what's going on, Tesla whistles up four round floating gizmos. "No, you," he says, pointing at one. It projects a hologram showing events it recorded several days ago:

A caern outside Moscow is under attack. The Garou are fighting well against a swarm of banes, BSDs, and Nosferatu, who are led by a beautiful man with a black sword. When two Corax who've been aiding the Garou try to flee to carry the message to other caerns, the man sprouts bat wings to chase them down (Mark says the "man" is a demon). Falling back to regroup during a lull, something swoops over the Garou's heads that startled them so badly that they actually fall out of rage and stop fighting. It's Baba Yaga, who sweeps in on her mortar and pestle, three Zmei following her.

Perhaps understandably, the record ends there. The Garou ask Tesla about getting word out, but he says there's a Mind effect worked into the Shadow Curtain that garbles any message on the way through. There's the Dreaming, but he's reluctant to play that hand just yet, since it's the only edge they've got. He has tracked a lot of activity out in Siberia, but he can't get the Garou there to talk. When Tesla informs them that Baba Yaga is after the Soul Egg, Sonya explains that a long time ago, the Wyrm managed to reach its hand into the world. The Garou drove it back out, but the talons of the hand remained, forming terrible monsters in their own right who ravaged the earth. One is the legendary Deathless Koschi of Russian myth, and he was locked away inside that egg. They don't know what Baba Yaga wants with it, but she reflects that the two interact a lot in the myths.

Ambrose tells Tesla that Dante came in with five MiBs, and has gone missing. Then they need to go to Siberia to find out what's up. Sonya decides it's time to call on family. They head down to the Shadow Lord caern where her great-grandfather resides, near the Caspian Sea, so they can take a Moon Bridge to Siberia. On the train, Rey wanders restlessly, and feels someone watching. When he casts a spell to call them out, the Nephandus MiB turns up. They chat, then the train stops, declaring there's a moose on the tracks. Not too odd for Russia, but right now everything is suspicious. The MiB insists that it wasn't him.

Meanwhile, Ambrose and Mark discuss the Shadow Curtain. Ambrose thinks it must be a thin veil surrounding the territory rather than an effect blanketing it, because such a thing would simply be too big to sustain. He suggests that it's probably passage through the curtain that garbles the message--a viral effect, because otherwise the Shadow Curtain would be be blanketing the whole world. So if they can pass a message through that doesn't depend on the interaction of minds...something like the trick where you teach a horse Morse code, or something automated... Mark suggests a HITMark. Ambrose calls the Iteration X operatives, who think they might be able to send a message straight to Control, where it'll be obsessively decoded until they inevitably work out the randomization. A pattern can only get so random, after all. Jonas, on the other hand, suggests going to sleep and thinking really hard about Faris, and someone else suggests the Umbral tunnels. Sonya isn't against the idea, but points out they'd need to be wary of the Ratkin.

When the message about the moose is yet again repeated, Sonya gets suspicious and notices Rey is missing. She sends Jonas to hunt him up. The MiB leaves as Jonas gets there, then the two of them head forward to the engine to find the engineers hypnotized. After they call the others, Mark comes forward to snap them out of it. Rey does his psychometry trick and sees a man with spooky eyes hypnotizing them.

Distrusting the situation, they get off at the next station and drive onward. Sonya notes they're being tailed. Checking it out, Ambrose detects two mages: one seems fairly average, but the other reads as an enormous bear of a man. When the group stops at an inn for the night, they note the huge guy come in, except that he looks normal-sized. He watches them briefly before he gets distracted by a pretty bar maid, and ends up getting plastered, acting barbaric, then staggering up to his room.

Well, if they want info, Sonya figures there's no better time. "He may not even remember talking to us tomorrow," she points out. She and RF go upstairs, but the guy's so out of it that poking and prodding doesn't wake him up (though he does cough up a whole roll). Finally Sonya says, "It's 11:30 at night, and I'm a woman in your room." That sits him up. Still sodden drunk, he tells them he's tracking the MiB, whom he hates personally though he won't explain why, and he isn't affiliated with any group at all. He turns down their offer of alliance, saying, "It can only end in sorrow. Women want me, men want to be me. And some of them want me too." Since he's now up, he proceeds to make huge noise. giving up, the group goes to a different inn.

The next morning, Sonya plots to lure the rogue MiB out of hiding. Part of the group will scout while the rest of them run errands. At the general store, Ambrose says to Mark, "I wonder if that spyglass of mine can spot invisible people." Mark figures he might as well try it. Ambrose quickly spots one quiet bubble near Aila, and another bubble that's imagining everyone naked. Horrified, he shuts down the spyglass and tells Mark. A quiet voice sounds over his shoulder: "You shouldn't talk so loudly."
"I'm not talking loudly," Ambrose retorts, insulted.
"I can hear your thoughts," the invisible MiB tells him.
Then over Ambrose's other shoulder, the big Russian's voice rumbles, "What are we talking about?"
"I hate you both!" Ambrose declares.
"Who?"
"You know what?" Ambrose snarls. "Right there!" He points to where the first voice was coming from, then dodges away as two invisible men go flying through the store's front window. Sonya orders them to move out as the huge Russian man (whom she recognizes as the monk Rasputin) and the MiB Nephandus square off in public, the MiB (whom she places as Felix Usopov) backing away and pumping Rasputin full of bullets from his two guns while Rasputin, pretty much ignoring the assault, keeps coming after him. "You're a fucking cockroach!" Usopov screams.
"Felix, I slept with your wife!" Rasputin yells back, sounding highly entertained. Mark and Ambrose flee from the Paradox they feel crackling around the area.

Clearing out while the two men thoroughly distract each other, they reach the caern without further incident, and tell the Garou there the story. Since the caern is near the edge of the Shadow Curtain, Ambrose asks to go to the border so that he can take readings on it.

They take a Moon Bridge to Siberia (Sonya warns Ambrose not to probe it), where they repeat the story to the Wendigo there. Already aware that the dragons are stirring, they've been fortifying the bound Zmei. They suggest consulting the Firebirds if they want to find the Soul Egg. Mark and Ambrose talk with them about the demon, suggesting banishing it by breaking its summoning bonds, and speculate that if they're lucky it might even turn on Baba Yaga. To the group's bemusement, the Wendigo ponder whether it'd be more Renown to fight Baba Yaga or the thing that killed her. Ambrose comes up with an unpleasant plan: in the worst case, they could render the Shadow Curtain visible and let Paradox deal with it. But that'd probably be catastrophic.

Tesla gave Ambrose a letter before they left, which now activates with a map into the wilderness. Following it takes them to a Gurahl who lives with a tribe full of crossbred Garou--the Siberakh, who are half Wendigo, half Silver Fang--and young Dmitry Romanov, last of the Romanovs and also a Silver Fang. Gurahl Ivan is unhappy about the letter from Tesla, which says, "Come to the Winter Palace." "Hunting in woods is great," he monologues, "but sometimes you just want to sit around at home and sleep for a few months." Still questioning the man's judgment, Ivan grumbles that he wants to talk to Tesla, so Ambrose phones him. Ivan tries to argue over the phone, mainly by repeating, "I don't want to," and "Are you sure?" Handing the phone back to Ambrose, he instructs him to "Tell him his thinking is not straight." Ambrose repeats it, incredulous. After a 'cunning' argument, which pretty much consists of Tesla affirming, "Yes, I want you to come," Ivan agrees to lead all 200-some Siberakh to St. Petersburg.

When he hangs up, one of the Siberakh knock on his door to ask, "Do you want us to keep surrounding the place and intimidating the strangers while you serve them tea?"
"Hi!" Aila chirps at him.
Ivan waves him off. "No, you may go."
"Actually," Sonya intercedes, "if you'll call your leaders in, we'll fill them in on events."

Ivan explains that it's Tesla who found Dmitry and gave him to Ivan to raise. He sends people out this way to tutor the boy in anything useful for him to know. Though he's only 18, the Siberakh already see him as a leader. Ivan seems to be very protective of the whole bunch, but especially Dmitry, whom he says has never exhibited any of the Silver Fang instability.

They take the Umbral tunnels back. With 200-plus Garou, Sonya doubts Ratkin or any other tunnel-dwellers will be an issue. Ivan suggests they find the Firebird Pendant, which will lead them to the Firebirds, and tells them it's also a weapon. It was hidden in the Dark Umbra by Silver Fangs of the Ivory Priesthood. Find one of them, and between it and Aila, they'll surely be able to get the pendant.

At the Winter Palace, which Tesla explains is a pocket reality of his own making, Olesya hunts up an Ivory Priest while Ambrose and Tesla analyze the Shadow Curtain data. Realizing that it was designed by the Choristers and Verbena from that chantry that went weird, they work out that they might be able to break the Choristers free of the bond on them, which was probably slipped into the Communion wine--hence the reality ripple over the altar at St. Basils, which was probably caused by conflict between that and the cathedral's paradigm. It may even be combating the compelling magic. Besides, the Chorus probably summoned the demon, and may be so upset by that that it could shake their compulsory faith in their new mistress.

They send Jonas, Tim, and Rey to steal some personal possessions from the clerics. That part is easy, but on the way out, the Zmei intercepts them. "Scatter!" shouts Jonas. Tim throws a ninja smoke-bomb, Rey darts into the cathedral and pulls the fire alarm, and Jonas dives into the ensuing crowd, popping up to yank the Zmei's pants down. Tim sneaks into the Russian tank on display in the square, uses it to shoot the Zmei, then they all bail. Jonas's Deed name may become "Pants-the-Wyrm!"

The fae slip into the Choristers' dreams, giving them ominous nightmares to shake them from the bond. Jonas raids the Zmei's wallet ("Did you mug a Zmei?") and finds his address on a Netflix card, as well as a business card with the address of a Black Spiral Dancer hive in a Moscow warehouse.

Next day, word is that Baba Yaga's army is moving so fast that it seems to almost literally be in three places at once. That has to be Dante. Priority One immediately becomes getting him out before Baba Yage is able to exert any further control over him. But where could he be? Ambrose bets he's still fighting, and asks if anyone has spotted anything out of place or exceedingly coincidental happening. Dante might've left clues somehow. Minus that, he suggests Moscow University. The MiB Nephandus might want the equipment at the Technocratic Construct to help break Dante. They call the Iterators, who wistfully suggest a self-destruct sequence which would kill the Virtual Adept. Instead, Ambrose asks them to talk to the systems and see if he's there. He's not, so he uses Technocratic gear he snatched to build a crude tracker for Technocracy gear. While delving through the stuff he nabbed, he discovers a Talisman among the stuff: a cell phone that analyzes a person, then provides a cell phone number that hacks the person's brain and gives a limited amount of control over them. Nasty thing.

Remembering the business card, Sonya guesses they might be holding Dante at the hive. They load themselves for bear (speaking of which, Ivan arms himself with a war hammer klaive and comes along), then Mark teleports them into the center of the hive. The shifters jump the BSDs while Ambrose tries to knock out Dante (who's hooked up to an IV of vampire blood). He gets ambushed by Dante's co-located duplicates. Jonas knocks out Dante by beating him with a table.

The BSDs scatter out of the building, the Garou in hot pursuit...right into a parade. People run screaming except for one old man on a bench. Running down an alley, Aila encounters the Zmei, and starts chatting with him. She learns his name is Shazar. After a bit of conversation, he observes, "You're buying time, aren't you?"

Ambrose shouts at everyone to get clear, then destroys the warehouse by weakening its support structure till it collapses. Then the group catches up to close in around the Zmei. The old guy pokes his head in, absolutely relaxed about the whole thing. But the Garou are totally outclassed by the Zmei and they all know it.

"I have a plan," Ambrose declares. The Zmei, amused, wants to know what it is. "You want to see the plan?" asks Ambrose, surprised. "By all means." So Ambrose walks right up to the Zmei, then shoves an industrial-strength stink bomb into his face. "Run now!"

They all scatter, meeting up a couple of blocks away. Sonya orders them to pile into Rey's car, and they get chased by the Zmei and something that they don't spot but which feels like a Dauntain, which nixes the idea of scrambling to a freehold. Dante is still too beaten up to focus. Aila asks the Gurahl, "Aren't you all about healing?" Ivan licks Dante to use his healing Gift (Dante's all, "Augh! What...?" Ivan: "I still respect you.") and Dante clears them out to a road near the Winter Palace with a seamlessly executed effect that not only has them making a perfect transition from one street to another, but also blurs any chance of detecting what happened by making all the cars blend together where they left.

Dante gets patched up, meets with Tesla briefly, and then leaves to inform the Traditions of what's going on. Now that he's back in form, no Shadow Curtain is enough to keep him pinned down.

Enter Tillingtast part 3: Follow the yellow brick road

2007-08-23T20:33:00.000-07:00

When they get to Wales, they find that Tillingtast's place is subtly surrounded by the Technocracy. So Ambrose calls him and arranges to meet him in a nearby town (of course Tillingtast has a back way out of his secret lab). Tillingtast missed much of the context, so he believes that Ambrose is still on his side, having narrowly escaped from the savage killer werewolves.

But when they get to the town, they find it infested with living killer mannikins and everyone human is dead. What's more, they find they can't leave. When they try to head back toward the edge of town, it just stays away from them. While they ponder this, a mannikin comes out of the dress shop, dragging a dead Man in Black behind it.

Spotting them, it attacks, but the Garou kill it easily, and then the MiB wakes up. Apparently he's got nanites, which doesn't make Ambrose happy. He tells them that his group came to deal with the situation. Something had clued them in a while back, so last year, they genegineered the wheat crop so it'd let them track the town's inhabitants, as well as act as a dead man's switch. They can activate some enzyme and kill anyone who's eaten the crop.

He's not about to let this stand, and right now, killing him is more trouble than it's worth, so the MiB comes along while the group tracks down anybody still alive in the town. They get a bead on three people. One is a Nocker, holed up in his barn, who got hold of the Technocratic helicopter and...modified it. It can't fly anymore, but now it can turn into a giant robot. The MiB is displeased. The Nocker comes along, figuring hanging out with living death machines is better than waiting for mannikins to eat his face. His unusual arsenal gives Ambrose an idea; he grabs some shotguns from empty houses and starts to tinker with them.

The second guy is a pale mage who lives in a house with a vampire in the basement: a Tremere, judging by the weird altered Hermetic symbols Ambrose finds marked on the house in blood. The guy tries to chase them away, but the Garou sense badness in the basement and are determined, so a fight breaks out. The MiB pulls out a Thunderhead, second-B-est FG to be found. Jonas uses one of Ambrose's modded shotguns (now operating something like rocket launchers) to blow a hole in the roof, which works out well when someone else puts a hole in the floorboards, leaving the vampire exposed to sunlight. They knock out the mage, a ghouled Verbena, and take him along in some kind of extra-dimensional sack Tim has.

The third person is holed up in the general store. He's a totally normal guy who's just hiding out and has managed to survive. When the MiB voices his admiration, Ambrose recognizes the gleam in his eye and argues with him over recruitment. The man tells them that the mannikins showed up a week ago. Just before that, yellow-brick roads and scarecrows started popping up. Ambrose invites the guy along. Sonya, realizing he'll get totally messed up by the Delirium (not to mention other things, most likely) instead has RF knock him out and stuff him in Tim's bag.

Then mannikin police show up outside the store, and get blown up by Ambrose's shotgun-cum-rocket launchers. The Nocker calls his car and has it transform into a giant robot, at which point mannikins swarm out of the surrounding houses. The group runs.

So now they get to follow the yellow brick road, which yes indeed, runs through town. They get attacked by monkeys, of course, which draw back and simply watch from a distance once they realize there are Garou in the group. When they hit the poppy field, Ambrose and Jonas pass out and have to be carried out and woken up. To everyone else's combined amusement and irritation, Ambrose and the MiB keep sniping at each other: "Your fake ether..." "It wasn't fake until you published that essay!"

In thiws way, they reach the "Emerald City." Which looks like it's half city and half hospital. Nurses, doctors, and orderlies wander about, ignoring the group completely. Aila, the Nocker, and Tim start nattering about Silent Hill, which annoys Sonya and the MiB.

The group splits up, one half going upstairs, and the others down. Ambrose notes that some of the "people" wandering around are only illusions of people, or maybe after-images, visible memories. Others, the fae say, are chimera.

Upstairs, Sonya and the MiB spot a drug-runner they know works for some eastern European vampires. He looks deformed. Sonya thinks he might be a fomori. She also notes an unusual number of burly orderlies. Jared gets to a computer, where he's able to confirm that this was a mental hospital.

Downstairs, they spot a weird-looking, crazy-eyed doctor with bad dress sense and a special badge that says "Access Area O." There are huge orderlies down there, too. Following Wild-eyed Doctor through the door, Ambrose memorizes the passcode he enters. The doctor seems kind of...more real than the rest. He follows a long hallway with a door at the end marked "Patient prime," where he talks with a nurse about a 'worsening condition.' The employees here wear "Autumn Health Care" logos. When Ambrose tries to memorize the code for the "Patient Prime" door, he gets caught in a flash of light and goes missing. After the flash, the doctor talks as if he's just come out of the room, and he's carrying a blood sample he didn't have before. They keep along in the doctor's wake, accumulating more passcodes, to a large lab. In there, the doctor waits until lab techs leave, then he drinks the blood.

Upstairs, the fae feel a pulse or tremor and an orderly heads upstairs. They spot the Autumn Health Care logo, too. The orderly heads to a man in an office who seems relaxed, menacing, and in charge.

Ambrose wakes in the hallway, but he's not in the fuzzy-edged dreamworld anymore. He sneaks into another hall, avoiding orderlies, then hides from some giant freaky Silent Hill-looking dogs in an A/C vent. In there, he hears voices echoing through from a nearby room where two men are arguing over a patient. One sounds Russian, and talks like he's in authority. They sound angry that something hasn't happened. Spying through the vent, Ambrose sees a doctor saying something about "you can't rush Awakenings." The Russian ignores him, wanting a timetable stepped up because a Tremere from the "camarilla" is in town.

The group downstairs continues to observe the wild-eyed doctor, who is typing notes on a dangerous experiment with the patient that he thinks should wait due to her instability. But it's "James'" orders (apparently the annoyed guy who was talking to the Russian isn't really a doctor). The group wonders if the experiment is what caused all this. They want to find Ambrose but don't know where to look.

The upstairs crew follows the orderly and the menacing man down an elevator behind the office that exits below basement level, where they overhear the same conversation Ambrose just heard. Speaking of whom, Ambrose pops back into the dreamworld when his friends enter, and slithers out of the vents to join them.

Heading out, they meet up with the other half of the group, then catch up to the doctor who's carrying a horrible helmet covered with spikes and hermetic symbols. Ambrose waves the MiB up, and they look it over, wondering if it's Nephandic. At any rate, they confirm that it makes them both feel sick.

He heads back to Patient Prime's room, where Ambrose catches the door code this time. Patient Prim is an 8 year old girl. The doctor straps the repulsive helmet to her head and pumps in quintessence (they do indeed spot a Nephandic symbol on the helmet when the doctor moves his hand). Something seems to go wrong with his readings, because he suddenly calls in the other doctors, and then pulsing colors and waves of energy erupt from the little girl.

The surroundings start to fade in, edges sharpening. The Dauntain comes in, quite pleased with the result. Then there's a rainbow explosion, which throws Ambrose into the wall.

When it clears, there's a twisted black tree that rises as far as their eyes can follow. Nothing to do but climb up--at which point, Ambrose and the MiB both demonstrate that they have anti-gravity devices. The little girl is lying unconscious at the top. Jared gets the helmet off her, and they note that the tree wasn't made by her. She's fine, but her chrysalis energy was corrupted by the helmet. Noting that the tree looks like a prison that got busted open, they work out that the point was to do exactly that.

Closer inspection shows that the helmet was created by a Thig Hermetic. Rey does psychometry on the tree: he sees it transplanted from the Milderwood. He sees the tree split open and a person all in white with a mask, beautiful but frightening, emerge. She leaves with the Dauntain--a Fomorian of the White Court. The mage was tossed away by the explosion, the crazy-eyed doctor--a vampire--simply fades out of sight via some power of his.

They need to get the girl out of here. Emily wipes out the MiB (the sudden violence toward a guy who'd been helping them alarms Ambrose), Ambrose removes the quintessence batteries from the helmet and has them smash it. He plans to rig a car to explode and send it at the building, but they run into more mannikins outside. He lobs a smoke grenade and frag grenade at them. Garou smash! Ambrose hardens the smoke to trap mannikins; the Nocker summons the copter-bot. Rey hides the girl. Ambrose uses electro-magnetic fields to wrap fire around the robot, after which the trashing reaches its climax.

Letting the robot guard their rear, they get the hell out of the town. At the edge, they see an overturned Bentley and a copter taking off. Sonya throws Aila at the copter. She grabs the side, tears the door off, snags the klaive and Dr. Tillingtast (who's wrapped up and drugged), falls backward in a flip to land on her feet.

When the copter comes around to confront them, Ambrose shoots the copter with one of the rigged shotguns, taking it out.

His phone rings. "Dr. Quintrell..." "You blew up my house!" he shouts, and hangs up.

Dr. Tillingtast, still uncionscious, teleports away. He must've been on a dead man's switch. The group, with more important things to do, heads toward the freehold. The canister the Klaive is in is locked up to crazy levels and wrapped in anti-magic. Sonya considers simply tearing it open, but gets distracted by HITMarks on motorcycles chasing them. Rey, driving, takes off. Sonya shoots out a bike tire, the bike flips, the HITMark lands, throws the bike at them and keeps chasing. Aila starts tearing out seats from the car and throwing them. Ambrose dives under the dashboard to soup up the car, then his phone rings. "Dr. Quintrell," the MiB asks, "why do you keep answering your phone?" A horrible screeching dissonant noise erupts from the speaker, disorienting everyone in the car. Tim grabs the phone and calls back with a Gift that gives the answerer a bladder control problem. Jared turns the pavement to mud.

Then a guy on a motorcycle and a man on a goat joust with the HITMarks, which lets Rey outdistance them and reach the freehold.

Jonas opens the Klaive case. Jared looks sick. Ambrose's phone rings again. Ambrose almost doesn't answer, but this time it's Mark, asking if things are okay, and if he ran into Technocrats. "I trust you, but people are talking about you plagiarizing your last two papers." Que one enormous rant from Ambrose about the Technocracy being jerks.

The group takes care of the Verbena, arranging for him to be shipped off to a Verbena chantry, and the shopkeeper, who will pleasantly not remember his trauma, and then they spend the night at the freehold. The next day, they head back with the Kin Jared saved.

It's three days from Halloween, and the fae go on the warpath. There's a Fomorian loose!

The Garou, anticipating a nice calm rest for a couple of days before the next crazy adventure, return to their caern in Chicago. It's surrounded by Weaver-smelling police tape.

Aila: "Oh my god, they took our caern!"

Enter Tillingtast part 2: Back to England

2007-08-22T11:44:00.000-07:00

Not even 24 hours later, Dr. Quintrell is made to eat his words when he's accosted by a British urchin child with another invitation from Dr. Tillingtast. The kid is persistent, and though Ambrose inexpertly tries to politely extricate himself from the invitation, he feels sorry enough for the boy to invite him to dinner. The child begs off, muttering something that sounds like "the steak isn't rare enough."

But Tillingtast looks to be playing a role in events, so information-gathering is called for. In their research, the changelings and Ambrose quickly turn up the fact that Quinn and Tillingtast are connected. Quinn holds a seat in the House of Lords, for which Dr. Tilliingtast is a scientific advisor. He is also mega-rich, and work is classified by the British government. Or, well, technically some secret society/conspiracy group thereof.

Sonya ships out some of her collected info on Giovanni activities to Interpol and other Garou positioned to make use of it. She holding some back because the wraith has given her enough dirt that, timed properly, it could stagger the clan when the Garou need a major distraction for something significant. In return, her contacts tell her the Giovanni are putting out feelers for anything they can learn about werewolves. The intelligence community, which combats them as organized crime with a weird occult edge, reports that some Giovanni tried to enact some crazy ritual in Italy. Sonya recognizes the rite as one used to control an ancestor spirit, but there's no sign whether it worked or not.

Contacts in MI5 tell her that Quinn's group is more of a conspiracy thing, a group called the "Harbingers of Avalon." Technically speaking, they're a circle of businessmen who want the Empire back. They're obsessed with King Arthur, think the world's destiny is the British Empire and that it'll save the world or something. Between the lines, Sonya recognizes a possibility of Technocracy ties. Dr. Tillingtast builds technology for them. She also collects the interesting tidbit that Sir Quinn has a prosthetic mechanical hand, but no one talks about it because the last person who mentioned it vanished along with their whole family and all their pets.

Jared is called in by the fae to dig up Sir Quinn's genealogy. His family started Irish, but after they were anglicized, they set about eradicating all Irish ties. Quinn's family helped the potato famine along just to kill off the Celtic branch of the family, and those were the mundanes!

They all gather for a meeting at Dreamsoft, where they meet the Fiona knight Emily, who's a cousin of Jonas. Dreamsoft's connections say that Dr. Tillingtast is building something huge. Ambrose requests a description of Tillingtast's equipment from Faris, and rest of the group decides that the easiest course is to have Ambrose visit Tillingtast, much to his dismay. Jared and Ray will go along, since Tillingtast apparently believes that the fae--especially sidhe--are god-like aliens from whom the British were descended and are here to save the world.

Tillingtast's manor is just outside a pretty old-fashioned English town. He's practically a caricature of a broad English gentleman. For example:
Jared and Tillingtast: "Is it Jared with one D or two Ds?" "One." "BULLY!"
Ray and Tillingtast: "Toffee, excellent." "Care for some, sir?" "No, I have to cut back on the sweets. I'm getting HUUUUGE."

Dr. Tillingtast sits them all down for a two-hour excerpt of one volume of his Greatness of the British documentary series. "Since making this, we've discovered that the English are even MORE spectacular than previously thought." He shows them some pictures of the globe, with bits belonging to the British Empire blocked out in red. Past, present (claiming a number of spots that aren't in fact British), and the future--which is all red, including the oceans. He also displays a picture of the "Enemies of the British Empire" which is everything except Britain. Obviously interested in showing them more, he hesitates over whether he can trust Ambrose's companions...so the fae reveal their seemings. He hits the floor and kowtows backward out of the room.

In the town, the others explore. A little old man/lady rambles about how the town is nicer, Dr. T owns everything, the vampires get a couple of tourists each month, and a lot of jobs are supported by working on his secret project. Which is quite a lot of startling information from an apparently mundane old lady...man. Vampires?

S/he also complains about the emopunk kids who hang out at the arcade every night. Jonas and Aila take that cue and stop by. They meet an Etherite girl named Miriam who talks about crystal tech. She says people have to go help out at the manor sometimes.

Back at the manor, once he recovers from the shock of having his lords and masters drop in, Tillingtast lays out his Grand Plan:
Step 1: Be English.
Step 2: Build a time machine to go back and change the course of the British Empire. He shows schematics for this machine, powered by "beast people things." "Now, I am not saying that we have killed people, because we do not. But, almost." He's using Kinfolk blood as a conductor for the power, with the help of some vampires (Giovanni). His target: "And hopefully...kill Ghandi!" Along with several other people they've tagged as needing to go (George Washington, for example). He also mentions that if all that fails, the backup plan is simply to rebuild the Empire through political maneuvering.

He explains that they stole a Garou artifact called the First Klaive. It's a desirable object for its age, because the machine will allow them to travel through time for the extent of the item's lifetime. He mentions that other vampires have been poking around, apparently unhappy with the attention his project has been drawing.

On the way out, Dr. Tillingtast agrees to give them a tour of his work tomorrow, then arranges a ride back to town. The vampire urchin shows up again as Tillingtast's chauffeur. On the drive back, he lets slip that he's a 345 year old spy for London's Prince.

The rest of the group patrol the town, find a vampire running the local grocery, and get answers to some questions from him. Turns out, he was sent by London's Prince, too (but he won't name the Prince). He tells them that three Giovanni are staying at Tillingtast's manor, and is able to give them some information about Tillingtast's security measures. Since he's so cooperative and seems to be helping out, the Garou don't kill him.

Aila talks to Miriam again. She says Dr. Tillingtast needs to steal a crystal from the Dr. Who convention they drove past on the way out of London, and also she knows where the Kinfolk are.

The next day on the tour, they discover that Tillingtast has Gremlins, not Nockers, helping him. Ambrose gets a photo of the First Klaive, which is hooked into a machine, and investigates the time machine. It's constructed to spin so fast that it vibrates through time...or else explodes. When he spots robots acting as security guards, equipped with Havoc Guns, he tries to warn his companions: "In the world of BFGs, these are the B-fest, Effing Gs." After that, assured of his guests' trustworthiness, Tillingtast reveals the next step of his plan: he needs to get the crystal from the Dr. Who convention, and he expects Ambrose to steal it for him.

The Garou look up the old lady/man again. It turns out to be the Nuwisha, Tim Runningaway. He tells them Tillingtast has 112 Kinfolk locked up to power that machine, the machine is being constructed in an Umbral pocket, and that yes, he can get in and out (Nuwisha, as Sonya grumblingly observes, get into everything). He tells them about a research assistant named Melanie, who vanished the same time as the Gremlins showed up. She had previously worked for him all over the world, but only stayed at his house for about a day before she disappeared.

The group heads out to the convention, which is a front for an Etherite expo. When he spots a Doc Eon Action Jacket up for raffle, Ambrose can't resist throwing in for it. Nobody there knows Melanie, whom he was hoping might be an Etherite, but he forgets all about that stuff when the guy with the crystal sets up his presentation. The crystal is from Shard Realm Time, and is surrounded by a small force shield. Studying it, Ambrose realizes that the crystal is constantly bombarded by energies from a pinhole gateway into the Pulse, which sets it vibrating. He notes that the presenter is wearing a Doc Eon time watch...which is really odd...

But the Garou poke him back to current matters. They need to get that gizmo. It turns out to be easy enough. After Ambrose tells him the best way to distract all the Etherites, Tim the Nuwisha makes illusionary HITMarks to draw out the Etherite crowd while the others grab the device. Tim snags the Action Jacket, and they split.

There's no way they're giving the real thing to Tillingtast. This device is way too dangerous. Instead, Ambrose creates a fake machine and with the fae's assistance designs a fake crystal, then they take the duplicate to Dr. Tillingtast and plan to return the real one to its rightful owner.

When he gets the doohickey, Tillingtast shows them the inside of the time machine. Ambrose is distracted by a voice that keeps returning to whisper dire predictions over his shoulder. When he sees the reflection of a Paradox spirit in the glass, he nearly freaks out, making excuses to run to the bathroom so he doesn't hyperventilate in public. There, he senses the remnants of a chaotic surge of energy. When he tells the fae, they think it might've been a fae going into Chrysalis. Melanie?

While Tillingtast wanders off to take care of something, Ambrose brainstorms a way to shut the machine down. What they need is to keep the power from building up in the control spire so that the machine never activates. He explains that if it does activate without anyplace for the energy to go, it'll probably explode in epic manner, possibly taking a chunk out of the Umbra and maybe even the Dreaming along with earth. He rigs up a power sink, disguising it cleverly among the structure of the machine.

Dr. Tillingtast invites Ambrose to be one of the people on the time travel expedition. He says Sir Quinn will inspect the machine on Halloween. Then he gives Ambrose a teleportation device for emergency escapes.

Back in town, the Garou find a dead body. Looks like someone was being turned into a cyborg, except that all the robotic bits are completely meaningless and non-functional. RF volunteers to do the autopsy for the town officials (they're short a doctor at the moment), so he can get a closer look. Then weird time ripples start affecting the town. During one, someone in the group spots a woman in a lab coat wandering around.

Collecting at the hotel, Ambrose realizes that some kind of energy flux is interfering with the containment field on the crystal. It could be Melanie, if that chaotic energy is still clinging to her. Guessing that she's the woman in the lab coat, Ambrose traces her resonance and they track her down to the town park--except no one's there. Betting she's out of time-phase, Ambrose leaves a note on the fountain saying they want to help and asking her to reply. A moment later, he spots new writing on it: "I don't believe in fairies."

He spots her reflection in the fountain: a young woman in a lab coat, cables, cybernetics, and circuitry winding through her flesh in meaningless patterns. She reaches out for him from the water, and he throws himself backward, then takes a more cautious second look. Sure enough, she's got the Iteration X symbol on her coat. She's an Iterator gone Marauder.

Well, what do you do about that? Ambrose has a crisis of morality, announcing dramatically, "I can think of one thing, but I'll never be able to live with myself it if works." The others demand an explanation before he does something stupid, but he fails at communicating his thoughts coherently, so instead he simply walks over and writes, "You had a visual malfunction. You know the Computer is right."

It works. She pops back into reality, standing in the fountain. Thanking him, she invites him to Autochtonia. He could come with her, she says, since the Computer is calling her back. He stammers his way out of that one, of course, and feels awful.

With that sorted, they go to bed. Ambrose, not sleeping well to begin with, has a dream about a Sidhe who adores the Union. The guy seemingly walks into Ambrose's dreams to congratulate him on the job well done, and tries to convince him that cold reason is good. Ambrose at first thinks he's a figment, then gets upset about being fed the Union's party line from a faerie. During their discussion, the fae tells him that Sir Quinn wants the machine to explode so that he can combine the wreckage into a perfect mythic Britain.

Next morning, Ambrose receives a cookie bouquet with a 'thank you' note and mirrorshades that let him see Time. He's very upset. The others, giving up on getting any complete sentences out of him before lunch, take the crystal gizmo to a London freehold (ruled by one Berwin Lindell of Oxforshire) to keep it safe.

At Tillingtast's, gremlins are loading Glamour into boxes attached to the machine. While he's off ordering the gremlins about, the group develops a plan. Jared will disconnect the Kinfolk. Ambrose will disconnect the Klaive. Ambrose quickly rigs a sonic structural integrity disrupto which they can use to shatter the glass through which the Kinfolk blood is flowing. The Garou and Tim will head in via the Umbra and hold off the robots and whatever else turns up to stop them. This'll be during the day, so they won't have to worry about the Giovanni.

It all goes according to plan. Jared impales the gremlins (Tillingtast: "You accidentally killed our Nockers, m'lord!"), then turns on Tillingtast, who turns out to have an impenetrable forcefield. Seeing Ambrose already over by the Klaive, he calls to him to protect the Klaive and run away with it. "Sure thing!" Ambrose replies.

Meanwhile, the blood vats crack and blood floods everywhere--enough to wake three sleeping vampires into frenzy. The three Giovannis come ripping in through the ceiling after it, but they're less interested in combat than food. Sonya snags one of the Havoc Guns and fires, jolted when the thing blows away two of them at once. Everyone kind of freezes for a second, because it's a really big bang. Tillingtast tells her to put the gun down before she does something disastrous with it. For once, she thinks he might be right.

The third Giovanni, driven out of torpor by pure shock, gets splatted by Jonas. Ambrose gets Aila to throw him across the wreck of the room toward the door, but in the hall he gets caught by the Sidhe from his dream (a Dauntain, the other fae informed him), who tries to take the Klaive away. He refuses to let go. They fight over it, till Jared and Ray get out there to jump the Dauntain. Jared slices him open with his Dusk Sword. "What the hell...was that?!" the Dauntain demands. "Oh god, it hurts!" A spider nervosa appears to protect him.

Then everything goes to hell when a Drone shows up, which turns out to be a werewolf stuck in Crinos with an illusion around him. At that point, Dr. Tillingtast extracts himself from the wreckage in the lab, zaps the Klaive with some weird ray, then teleports himself away. Ambrose rips the emergency teleporter off his arm, not wanting to get zapped away after him. Tim snatches it up and destroys the Drone by teleporting it into the time machine, which is full of Glamour all set to react to a massive infusion of Banality.

But the Klaive is disappearing. Its essential Pattern seems to have been teleported away, and the rest of it is fading out to follow. Ambrose is able to freeze the pattern into place, but that leaves them with a very strange phenomenon of two instances of the First Klaive, both of which are the "true" one. And Tillingtast has the other.

The Garou insist they need to go after it. The child vampire (presumably also awakened by the flood of hemoglobin), tells them that Tillingtast has a secret lab in Wales. Tillingtast then calls Ambrose and gives him the location and passcodes. So it's off to Wales for Round Two.

Enter Tillingtast

2007-08-21T22:36:00.000-07:00

Sonya gets a vision. She doesn't recognize it, but it's the Gernsback Continuum, where she watches mages experiment with a Native American spear that has an evil spirit trapped inside it. The vision shifts to Victoria Station, and then to Darkside Moonbase. She tells the pack, and realizing this is mage stuff, they get Ambrose to explain the dream.

Elsewhere, Ambrose, stopping at a coffee shop to pick up lunch, finds a napkin with a note: "Head to Jellystone."

Meanwhile, the Gurahl Caleb is working at Yellowstone as a park ranger. He's been having trouble with a new Pentex subsidiary called Native Heritage Inc., which supposedly is a charitable organization for preservation of native and culturally important places and artifacts. Needless to say, their idea of preservation is somewhat unorthodox.

Currently, however, he's tracing the theft of a spear from the museum there, which was removed along with a Uktena banetender's staff. They were taken by a Raven Mocker, a corrupt crow spirit, who then lost it to some laser-wielding mages during its escape into the park. Caleb meets a Nuwisha who calls himself Tim Runningaway, and two federal agents who are investigating the case (the Project Twilight partners the group met before, in Pennsylvania). They're heading down to Arizona, where the spear was originally found.

Hearing of the theft and betting it's connected, the pack takes Ambrose out to Yellowstone with them to investigate this dream of Sonya's, and they encounter Caleb there. While they fill each other in, Ambrose pokes around with his gadgets and ends up following around a fomori who's wandering around the museum. He catches the fomori's attention, in fact, and stumblingly tries not to incriminate himself when the guy asks him what he's doing. Jonas drags him back out to the others as they prepare to leave.

Ambrose suggests they check out the Etherite science stations at Yellowstone before they go, and indeed the assistants there give them the names of the Etherites involved and explain what happened. They found the Raven Mocker trying to make off with the spear, shot it down, and then took the spear to the Gernsback to test it once they realized it was odd. They also are able to put clues together to figure out that a Lasombra stole the staff separately.

In Arizona, they learn that the cave complex--old copper mines, dug into an older cave complex--where the spear was found has been bought by the Venetian Equity Mining Corp. Sonya is suspicious, and rightfully so: digging through records turns up that one Antonio Giovanni is in charge of the company, along with stories that the mines are haunted. Sonya makes note of the court records, which point toward some judicial corruption (she stores that information for later use in legally getting the mines back into the proper hands).

RF finds them a Uktena caern not too far away. The Uktena there say that the spear contained an ancient mage spirit-talker named Desire on the Wind. He was an ancient Navajo badass, extremely evil, and knew where even worse objects were: a talisman called the "Wolf's Paw," which granted the fighting abilities of a werewolf, a book called the "Book of Rashalka" which was a legendary BSD artifact that was said to drive you mad if you read it, but also impart great abilities such as the power to wield plagues. It sounds almost like someone managed to set the Black Spiral to paper. The Uktena say that the spirit of the Banetender is said to still be locked in the spearhead with the mage.

Ambrose hacks into the Giovanni records, but gets himself possessed by a ghostly guardian. It takes off with his body, but before the Garou can catch up to him, he manages to force it out of him, then sucks it into a containment jar. Aila makes him release it, and once the ghost discovers he's in safe hands, he's willing to turn over all kinds of information on the Giovanni: the three Giovanni in town, where they're staying, what they want (the book and staff and spear; they think the spear holds a powerful ghost and that the staff can control it). One house is cordoned off. It looks like someone broke in, killed five people--one of whom was incinerated--in a huge struggle. The pack wonders if it was the Inquisition again. It also looks like the Giovanni sent ghouls into the mine.

Ambrose makes a note to self: learn to ward against umbral entities.

Heading into the mines (Ambrose makes a spirit-viewing flashlight), they find Navajo glyphs on the walls across the Gauntlet. The story is that the Uktena banetender hunted the mage and called on Coyote's help to stop him. Coyote gave the spear to the Uktena to guard.

They find a perimeter alert gizmo. Ambrose recognizes the construction as being distinctive to an Etherite by the name of Dr. Gavin Tillingtast. The man is British beyond British, vanished about 30 years ago, studied in similar fields to Ambrose. He was known as a Victorian throwback even among the Etherites. He believed spirits were evil, just about worshipped the fae, made alarming compacts with what he considered "pure" British spirits, and was into crazy revisionist British history.

Making their way onward, the group gets attacked by shadow tendrils. One grabs Ambrose, whisking him off to a dark room where a Lasombra who was apparently hired on wants to know what they're doing there. The Lasombra's just interested in money and entertainment. He has three ugly Nosferatu or something with him. He calls Ambrose a warlock (which Ambrose vocally disapproves of), a Hermetic and a Tremere, refuses any gift or trade when Ambrose tries to talk his way free, and finally deciding not to get involved, lets the Etherite go and vanishes into the murk.

The others arrive just afterward, and united again, they all head down to a ritual room where they're attacked by bane-possessed bats. Aila beats up a spectre (noting that there are many in the area), then steps sideways into the Shadowlands, where she spots a Giovanni, three spectres, and two guys in Pentex lab coats hauling up something from a chasm.

Ambrose rigs up a half-built prototype of a gizmo that thins the barrier between worlds enough to basically just dump them all into the Shadowlands, and they all fight. Sonya knocks the Pentex guys into the chasm while the others tear the spectres apart. A Sluagh turns up to snag a book out of the chasm with his prehensile tongue. Ambrose disrupts the Sluagh's pattern (Rubs the Bones) with a sonic attack, Sonya spin-kicks him into the chasm, and Aila catches the book, which tries to possess her. She calls it a "pervert." RF claws apart the Giovanni, but after it gives him puppy-dog eyes, Ambrose refuses to finish the job on the vampire because he feels too bad about killing someone who's helpless. The Giovanni takes advantage and mind-whammies him so Ambrose will defend him, and then an armband he's wearing starts beeping. Ambrose, who isn't thinking straight, bends down to have a look and gets teleported away along with the vampire.

They get whisked to Dr. Tillingtast's manor in England, where Tillingtast offers him tea and a thirty-minute movie about the glory of the British. Ambrose gets kidnapped by Tillingtast's hunchback (actually the Nuwisha), who stamps him on the forehead with something and tosses him into the English countryside.

A helicopter shows up as he climbs to his feet. "Oh, COME ON!" Ambrose shouts, then waves his hands in futility and turns to walk away. The MiB--seemingly the same one as usual--is incredulous: "Are you walking away?", and shoots him in the knee with a novocaine dart. Ambrose can't get very far when he can't feel his leg.

They argue about who's bad for reality (MiB: "Reality is a 98-year-0ld man on life support." Ambrose; "Well, he wouldn't be so stodgy if you lot hadn't stiffened up his joints!"). The Technocrat is mad about all the dimension-hopping Ambrose has been doing. Ambrose defends that it wasn't his idea! He was kidnapped by a hunchback! This understandably produces a weird look from the MiB, who asks, "Do you expect me to believe that?" Ambrose, ignoring him, announces he'll take a plane back. The MiB thinks he's being naive.
MiB: "When's the last time you had a reasonable conversation with someone who wasn't a Technocrat, Dr. Quintrell?"
Ambrose: "You have no room to talk!"
MiB: "Deep down, you know we're right."
Ambrose: "I think a passenger plane is a perfectly reasonable method of crossing the Atlantic!"

Then there's another metaphor about stealing reality's liver, which eventually they give up on. "We're stretching that metaphor an awful lot," the MiB concedes. After which he offers him a ride back in the black helicopter, which Ambrose passionately refuses.

Ambrose then calls Mark, intending only to let him know where Ambrose has gotten to, but Mark just teleports him back. Ambrose grumbles about the MiB being right, and his fit of pique isn't helped when a letter arrives saying, "Told you so."

The Garou drop the book off with the Uktena, but not before it produces some weird dreams in its attempts to tantalize someone into picking it up and reading it. Then they head back to Chicago. Upon arrival, a letter comes from Dr. Tillingtast, inviting Ambrose back to show him proper hospitality and apologizing for "those random hunchbacks we've been having. This is the third one in two weeks. Have to put up strips or spray or something..."

"I'll never go back to England!" Ambrose swears.