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.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Our Lady of Perpetual Health is not approved by OSHA
The plan is for Sonya, Ambrose, RF, and Jared to play official while the others try to blend in and sneak around the facility to see what they can see.
When they arrive, Mark notes that the staff are...not normal. He's wary. Jonas plays janitor while Aila simply sits down in the waiting room and tells anyone who asks that she's waiting for a friend.
She sees car accident victims get rolled through. She watches as a nurse tells one man with a broken arm that it's just a sprain...and then it is.
The others go with one Nurse Clarke to view the bodies in the morgue. She smells odd to the werewolves. The bodies are definitely victims of that thing. When Ambrose asks the nurse for blood work, she leaves to get it...and locks the door behind her on the way out.
The zombies sit up. Ambrose, who's investigating the lock, is completely oblivious to this till RF gets his attention.
The rest of the pack realizes their companions are in danger and head down toward the morgue...but when they get there, the door's open and nobody's there.
The group trapped inside apply themselves to zombie killing. Ambrose, vaguely offended by being attacked with dead bodies, sets up a sonic field which he refers to as a 'zombie-exploding field,' which does indeed take care of the problem.
Then he opens the door...and they find themselves in Silent Hill. The walls are best referred to as disgusting, caked with filth and old blood and smelling like evil. The floor is a grate and the lighting is, um, poor. Sonya's guess is that the nurse led them through a portal into an Umbral realm.
Back in the real world, Aila looks for Mark, who's confused about the number of mages working here. Alerted that something's wrong, he calls Ambrose and they catch up. Ambrose uses a sonic etheric field vibrator to agitate the energies of a gateway into visibility. Sure enough, there it is. He pokes around it, and is grabbed by Striplings, ghost children with eyes of flame. "Demon children, demon children!" he yelps a warning to the others.
They pile on him. RF drives them back with a wind wall. Ambrose belatedly recognizes that theyr'e in a Labyrinth, which revolts him. He opens the gateway, and everyone piles out to confront their allies in the hall in the real world.
But how are they hiding a Labyrinth in their basement when so many mages are wandering around? "We're early in the game," Jonas quips, referring to Silent Hill. "Have to find the knife and the lead pipe."
Ambrose grabs some chemicals and other items from the morgue. "Well, "I'm skipping to the rocket launcher!"
They decide to vacate the place and call in reinforcements, but when they leave the building the streets are creepily empty. It's like the town has never been inhabited.
"Go back in?" asks Aila, disturbed.
"We could 'rec the edges,'" Ambrose suggests. He's met with blank stares all around. "I mean look around."
"Wow," says Jonas.
They go back inside. An Etherite walks by (they can tell their own kind). Ambrose catches up to him and tries to talk to him about the whole situation. The man, Dr. Brandon Evans, drags Ambrose to his office to check for drugs, because apparently he's never noticed anything odd about this place. He's familiar with Ambrose's work, notes "Beast people!" when he sees the Garou, and tells them about a Pooka who works in Cardiology named Dr. Greg. But he's awfully confused about the idea that the hospital could be odd.
Dr. Greg, on the other hand, has noticed. "Been trying to leave for a year and a half. So I started doing heart operations."
Aila tries to show Dr Evans the weirdly empty streets...but when she looks out from his office it looks normal outside. She grabs Jonas and they go outside to look up at the window. The people inside can see them, but it looks like they're standing in a normal street. Aila, on the other hand, sees the same vacant town as before.
On the way back in, she sees a ghost. He tells her 13 or so non-spectres inhabit the building, and warns her that the basement is inhabited by Striplings. But he's surprised they can't leave.
Dr. Greg tells them he like to mess with a dauntain who works in the Child Psych ward; sometimes burns his notes and wrecks his office. It's a Boggan. Dr. Greg wants to page him and pants him.
The Boggan ignores the Pooka's antics, but is disgusted by the arrival of more fae. They walk him to his office. He can't leave either, but he insists that he wants to stay. They discover he believes it's still the Accordance War. He's startled when he hears they went to the morgue. "No one goes there." Rey pities him and calls him 'cupcake.'
And that's about what they can get out of him. "Let me just set his trashcan on fire and we'll leave." Jared recalls that the Striplings all had badges for the Child Psyche ward, so he heads down that way...but finds that the ward is so banal he can't go in. He comes back and locks the Boggan in his office.
They pass another pediatrician on the way back to Evans' office, one Patricia Burks. There's something just wrong with her. Her badge says she's a genetic specialist.
Dr. Greg and Dr. Evans talk. Burks is Garou, they know. Greg says that only the mages can leave. Six mages work here total--it's a chantry. Dr. Sinris, Evans tells them, is the chantry head.
Dr. Voldek, who's a vampire, knocks on the door when he notices the crowd in Dr. Evans' office. He's quite agreeable, telling them he's been stuck here for 210 years. This place was an asylum when he first arrived, and Sinris was already here. There are a few wraiths that old, too. He suggests they talk to Dr. Hartley, who's a ghost docctor.
Sonya and Aila go to the trauma ward to find him. Sonya's startled to find that she can see Dr. Hartley without any effort. There's barely any Shroud here at all...or Gauntlet. Hartley tells them this started as an army hospital, then it was used as an asylum, then turned back into a hospital. "It was a well of psychic energy till Sinris got here," he says. "Then it got weird." The basement is a gateway to the Labyrinth. The only way out of the hospital is to go up through it into the Shadowlands. Sinris is all evil; Hartley refers to him as a "spectre-mage." He became one about 20 years after his arrival--early 1800s. Sinris lets the mages come and go to allay their suspicions, and he frets about the Technocracy. He's working on some genetic merger experiments and he's doing something with brains. He's been working with the Giovanni because they know ghosts. Voldek comes by again and verifies the occasional presence of Giovanni--and also Tzimisce.
But why Chicago? Sonya wonders. And what is Nurse Clarke?
Ambrose and Mark want to talk to the other mages in the chantry. Dr. Olivia is a Cultist who works the emergency room. She's fairly easy to convince of the oddities going on around here. Dr. Voldek chases of the Boggan when he comes 'round again, and warns them they ahve 10 hours before they become too much a part of this place to find a way out. They can deal with Sinris, go through the Labyrinth, or...
Ambrose pulls out the Technocracy phone, demonstrating it as an admittedly insane third option. Then he slips it away when the head nurse comes by not a moment later asking about 'unauthorized technology.' Ambrose pulls out the Marauder camera to throw her off. She (who Aila pegs as a bane mummy after she recognizes the serpent bracelet she wears as Apophis) stares at it like it's venomous, then warns him to be careful. Aila snarks at her, but the mummy leaves, ignoring her.
When he sees a picture, RF realizes that Sinris looks like the Hermetic with the evil book he saw in his vision. But the timeline is off. He had to be Nephandi to make those abominations, but if he only went Nephandi in the early 1800s... He thinks they need to get a look at that book. It's in Sinris' lab, probably--his sanctum.
A ghost ambulance comes in with another body from Chicago. A couple of the Garou hijack the wraith with his corpse in the elevator, smash the body's skull (figuring the brains are important)...and then the wraith sends the elevator plummeting into the basement. Aila tries to slow it. Ambrose shoots a grappling hook down from the floor they were left on and pulls them up.
They turn to find the Garou nurse standing behind them. She's a Silver Fang who works for Pentex. "Looking for a cure for us," she tells them when they ask her why. That's Patricia Burke.
"I think we just found out what's happening to the Bone Gnawers," Sonya mutters when she leaves.
Nurse Clarke comes down again to accuse them of destroying hospital property. Ambrose takes a reading on her, and his monitor explodes. He tinkers with it to see if he can get anything out of it, and gets readings that the fae identify as a Fomorian general. She scoffs at him and leaves, annoyed by Etherite antics.
Dr. Evans comes by, still mulling the situation over, and agrees to show them to the chapel where the two Choristers can usually be found. The chapel, at least, is soothing, sustained by the mages' faith. They listen willingly to the tale of this place, but the visit is interrupted when Sonya spots a Giovanni passing by in the hall, heading toward Sinris' office.
If he's at his office meeting guests, then his sanctum is empty.
They break in to find an unbinding circle with 11 of 12 brains in corresponding points around the edges. A shimmering window in the circle's center shows the Shattered Peaks and a Fomorian freehold. The fae freak out.
Ambrose's Technocracy phone rings. He ignores it. They find the book nearby, picking it up with tongs to put it in a bag, then start hooking up explosives. Ambrose plugs in an etheric battery to the chain of explosives, puts it on a timer, and then he tells them to run for their lives, because they've got a few minutes before the top floor vaporizes.
They evacuate the building. Mage employees are startled find themselves standing in an empty town. The fae kill the Boggan dauntain on the way out.
And then Ambrose spots the Technocracy moving in. He rounds up the magic types from the hospital and they all clear out before the Techs close in.
Voldek parts with them at the next town. "Bye bye, poochies!" he bids them farewell.
The Technocracy calls again, wanting to know what the hell Ambrose did. He tells them about the etheric bomb, which aggravates the MiB. "Well, I didn't think normal explosives would necessarily take care of it," Ambrose defends himself, which point the MiB concedes--but it doesn't make him any happier about a big ol' magic-coated hole in the ground. Ambrose ignores his complaining, but warns them that one of the nurses is a bane mummy. The MiB is aware of that, apparently, since she's currently ripping the shit out of his vehicles, along with some kind of angry magic giant spider-thing. That'd be the Fomorian thing, Rey supplies helpfully.
They leave the Technocracy to it, heading back to Chicago and ditching the Boggan dauntain's body along the way.
Sonya is dissatisfied. She feels that they missed much here, but Jonas points out that they didn't exactly have a chance to explore further clues. She reluctantly agrees, but she's still not happy about it.
When they arrive, Mark notes that the staff are...not normal. He's wary. Jonas plays janitor while Aila simply sits down in the waiting room and tells anyone who asks that she's waiting for a friend.
She sees car accident victims get rolled through. She watches as a nurse tells one man with a broken arm that it's just a sprain...and then it is.
The others go with one Nurse Clarke to view the bodies in the morgue. She smells odd to the werewolves. The bodies are definitely victims of that thing. When Ambrose asks the nurse for blood work, she leaves to get it...and locks the door behind her on the way out.
The zombies sit up. Ambrose, who's investigating the lock, is completely oblivious to this till RF gets his attention.
The rest of the pack realizes their companions are in danger and head down toward the morgue...but when they get there, the door's open and nobody's there.
The group trapped inside apply themselves to zombie killing. Ambrose, vaguely offended by being attacked with dead bodies, sets up a sonic field which he refers to as a 'zombie-exploding field,' which does indeed take care of the problem.
Then he opens the door...and they find themselves in Silent Hill. The walls are best referred to as disgusting, caked with filth and old blood and smelling like evil. The floor is a grate and the lighting is, um, poor. Sonya's guess is that the nurse led them through a portal into an Umbral realm.
Back in the real world, Aila looks for Mark, who's confused about the number of mages working here. Alerted that something's wrong, he calls Ambrose and they catch up. Ambrose uses a sonic etheric field vibrator to agitate the energies of a gateway into visibility. Sure enough, there it is. He pokes around it, and is grabbed by Striplings, ghost children with eyes of flame. "Demon children, demon children!" he yelps a warning to the others.
They pile on him. RF drives them back with a wind wall. Ambrose belatedly recognizes that theyr'e in a Labyrinth, which revolts him. He opens the gateway, and everyone piles out to confront their allies in the hall in the real world.
But how are they hiding a Labyrinth in their basement when so many mages are wandering around? "We're early in the game," Jonas quips, referring to Silent Hill. "Have to find the knife and the lead pipe."
Ambrose grabs some chemicals and other items from the morgue. "Well, "I'm skipping to the rocket launcher!"
They decide to vacate the place and call in reinforcements, but when they leave the building the streets are creepily empty. It's like the town has never been inhabited.
"Go back in?" asks Aila, disturbed.
"We could 'rec the edges,'" Ambrose suggests. He's met with blank stares all around. "I mean look around."
"Wow," says Jonas.
They go back inside. An Etherite walks by (they can tell their own kind). Ambrose catches up to him and tries to talk to him about the whole situation. The man, Dr. Brandon Evans, drags Ambrose to his office to check for drugs, because apparently he's never noticed anything odd about this place. He's familiar with Ambrose's work, notes "Beast people!" when he sees the Garou, and tells them about a Pooka who works in Cardiology named Dr. Greg. But he's awfully confused about the idea that the hospital could be odd.
Dr. Greg, on the other hand, has noticed. "Been trying to leave for a year and a half. So I started doing heart operations."
Aila tries to show Dr Evans the weirdly empty streets...but when she looks out from his office it looks normal outside. She grabs Jonas and they go outside to look up at the window. The people inside can see them, but it looks like they're standing in a normal street. Aila, on the other hand, sees the same vacant town as before.
On the way back in, she sees a ghost. He tells her 13 or so non-spectres inhabit the building, and warns her that the basement is inhabited by Striplings. But he's surprised they can't leave.
Dr. Greg tells them he like to mess with a dauntain who works in the Child Psych ward; sometimes burns his notes and wrecks his office. It's a Boggan. Dr. Greg wants to page him and pants him.
The Boggan ignores the Pooka's antics, but is disgusted by the arrival of more fae. They walk him to his office. He can't leave either, but he insists that he wants to stay. They discover he believes it's still the Accordance War. He's startled when he hears they went to the morgue. "No one goes there." Rey pities him and calls him 'cupcake.'
And that's about what they can get out of him. "Let me just set his trashcan on fire and we'll leave." Jared recalls that the Striplings all had badges for the Child Psyche ward, so he heads down that way...but finds that the ward is so banal he can't go in. He comes back and locks the Boggan in his office.
They pass another pediatrician on the way back to Evans' office, one Patricia Burks. There's something just wrong with her. Her badge says she's a genetic specialist.
Dr. Greg and Dr. Evans talk. Burks is Garou, they know. Greg says that only the mages can leave. Six mages work here total--it's a chantry. Dr. Sinris, Evans tells them, is the chantry head.
Dr. Voldek, who's a vampire, knocks on the door when he notices the crowd in Dr. Evans' office. He's quite agreeable, telling them he's been stuck here for 210 years. This place was an asylum when he first arrived, and Sinris was already here. There are a few wraiths that old, too. He suggests they talk to Dr. Hartley, who's a ghost docctor.
Sonya and Aila go to the trauma ward to find him. Sonya's startled to find that she can see Dr. Hartley without any effort. There's barely any Shroud here at all...or Gauntlet. Hartley tells them this started as an army hospital, then it was used as an asylum, then turned back into a hospital. "It was a well of psychic energy till Sinris got here," he says. "Then it got weird." The basement is a gateway to the Labyrinth. The only way out of the hospital is to go up through it into the Shadowlands. Sinris is all evil; Hartley refers to him as a "spectre-mage." He became one about 20 years after his arrival--early 1800s. Sinris lets the mages come and go to allay their suspicions, and he frets about the Technocracy. He's working on some genetic merger experiments and he's doing something with brains. He's been working with the Giovanni because they know ghosts. Voldek comes by again and verifies the occasional presence of Giovanni--and also Tzimisce.
But why Chicago? Sonya wonders. And what is Nurse Clarke?
Ambrose and Mark want to talk to the other mages in the chantry. Dr. Olivia is a Cultist who works the emergency room. She's fairly easy to convince of the oddities going on around here. Dr. Voldek chases of the Boggan when he comes 'round again, and warns them they ahve 10 hours before they become too much a part of this place to find a way out. They can deal with Sinris, go through the Labyrinth, or...
Ambrose pulls out the Technocracy phone, demonstrating it as an admittedly insane third option. Then he slips it away when the head nurse comes by not a moment later asking about 'unauthorized technology.' Ambrose pulls out the Marauder camera to throw her off. She (who Aila pegs as a bane mummy after she recognizes the serpent bracelet she wears as Apophis) stares at it like it's venomous, then warns him to be careful. Aila snarks at her, but the mummy leaves, ignoring her.
When he sees a picture, RF realizes that Sinris looks like the Hermetic with the evil book he saw in his vision. But the timeline is off. He had to be Nephandi to make those abominations, but if he only went Nephandi in the early 1800s... He thinks they need to get a look at that book. It's in Sinris' lab, probably--his sanctum.
A ghost ambulance comes in with another body from Chicago. A couple of the Garou hijack the wraith with his corpse in the elevator, smash the body's skull (figuring the brains are important)...and then the wraith sends the elevator plummeting into the basement. Aila tries to slow it. Ambrose shoots a grappling hook down from the floor they were left on and pulls them up.
They turn to find the Garou nurse standing behind them. She's a Silver Fang who works for Pentex. "Looking for a cure for us," she tells them when they ask her why. That's Patricia Burke.
"I think we just found out what's happening to the Bone Gnawers," Sonya mutters when she leaves.
Nurse Clarke comes down again to accuse them of destroying hospital property. Ambrose takes a reading on her, and his monitor explodes. He tinkers with it to see if he can get anything out of it, and gets readings that the fae identify as a Fomorian general. She scoffs at him and leaves, annoyed by Etherite antics.
Dr. Evans comes by, still mulling the situation over, and agrees to show them to the chapel where the two Choristers can usually be found. The chapel, at least, is soothing, sustained by the mages' faith. They listen willingly to the tale of this place, but the visit is interrupted when Sonya spots a Giovanni passing by in the hall, heading toward Sinris' office.
If he's at his office meeting guests, then his sanctum is empty.
They break in to find an unbinding circle with 11 of 12 brains in corresponding points around the edges. A shimmering window in the circle's center shows the Shattered Peaks and a Fomorian freehold. The fae freak out.
Ambrose's Technocracy phone rings. He ignores it. They find the book nearby, picking it up with tongs to put it in a bag, then start hooking up explosives. Ambrose plugs in an etheric battery to the chain of explosives, puts it on a timer, and then he tells them to run for their lives, because they've got a few minutes before the top floor vaporizes.
They evacuate the building. Mage employees are startled find themselves standing in an empty town. The fae kill the Boggan dauntain on the way out.
And then Ambrose spots the Technocracy moving in. He rounds up the magic types from the hospital and they all clear out before the Techs close in.
Voldek parts with them at the next town. "Bye bye, poochies!" he bids them farewell.
The Technocracy calls again, wanting to know what the hell Ambrose did. He tells them about the etheric bomb, which aggravates the MiB. "Well, I didn't think normal explosives would necessarily take care of it," Ambrose defends himself, which point the MiB concedes--but it doesn't make him any happier about a big ol' magic-coated hole in the ground. Ambrose ignores his complaining, but warns them that one of the nurses is a bane mummy. The MiB is aware of that, apparently, since she's currently ripping the shit out of his vehicles, along with some kind of angry magic giant spider-thing. That'd be the Fomorian thing, Rey supplies helpfully.
They leave the Technocracy to it, heading back to Chicago and ditching the Boggan dauntain's body along the way.
Sonya is dissatisfied. She feels that they missed much here, but Jonas points out that they didn't exactly have a chance to explore further clues. She reluctantly agrees, but she's still not happy about it.
Advent of the Empty Knights
Several days of normalcy follow their visit to the High King's court. Sonya goes into the office to hack away at paperwork, and notices reports that a number of Chicago's homeless have been disappearing. She follows that up to discover that it's part of a new organ trade that's marked by weird occultist Mafia activity--Giovanni. Pursuing her contacts, she finds that many Bone Gnawers are missing. They were the first to notice, and those who've looked into it have vanished.
The shipping trail leads to a hospital in upper state New York. She tells the pack, suggesting that if the Garou who investigate at these homeless shelters have been vanishing, then a better place to start may be with ghouls who are involved. Find them and follow them. RF agrees to hit up information on free clinics, while Aila and Jonas go harass some vampires to see what they can learn.
They find one leaving Electronics Boutique, oddly enough, and trail him in a car (Jonas drives; when Aila protests about his age, he shows her a fetish that's basically psychic paper) till they reach a place where they can force him off the road.
He gets out angry. "I'm sorry," Aila tells him.
"It's not an accident!" he snaps. "Unless you're idiots-"
"That's not what I'm sorry for," Aila corrects him, then she shifts and pins him to his car.
He knows one Giovanni in an Italian neighborhood, and one who lives at the edge of one of the cemeteries--an undertaker who also specializes in "shipping." Aila kills the vampire and they clean up the mess. Jonas grabs the guy's CDs.
Getting back into the truck, Aila catches a flash of someone in the rear view mirror. Someone in torn up, unkempt clothes. She gets back out for a better look, but there's no one there--just footprints, along with marks like he was dragging a stick or something. They follow the trail to a creek, where they lose it.
Sonya's investigations net her nothing except that the Mob is uncannily quiet, like someone told them to clam up.
RF gets a catatonic patient who was found in an alleyway. He realizes their mind has simply been shut down. The orderlies tell him this is the third in the last two weeks. Except for the catatonia, they're all very healthy for homeless people. They've been getting forwarded to Our Lady of Perpetual Health in upper state New York, where a doctor has been studying their cases. RF calls him--Dr. Arthur Sinris--to tell him about the new patient. Sinris himself takes the call, which is odd for a busy doctor. He's sad to report to RF that he's made no progress in the diagnosis so far, and asks RF to do some forensic work for him. This is eleven of these patients in two weeks from Chicago.
After RF hangs up, a few moments later he gets a sense that something is off. The lights begin to flicker. People back away from the door when something...someone shuffles through: wet hair, a long coat, broken rusted armor, and a long sword he's dragging along the ground behind him. RF dodges around the thing, and finds that it follows him as he heads out into the street. It moves like a zombie.
He alerts the pack, who head in. Sonya names a meeting place for RF to lead the thing to, and calls an air spirit to accompany RF in case he needs backup.
Alarms go off at Dreamsoft, which they quickly pinpoint to an Eiluned dauntain--one who's really far gone. Rey and Faris take off.
RF leads the thing--the dauntain--to the meeting place, dodging its clumsy swings and keeping it from attacking anyone else. Rey and Faris arrive on the scene, and Rey hits it with the car. It flips back over the car and stumbles back to its feet. Rey backs up.
The Garou arrive. This is a public place, so they'll go in human form, hand-to-hand. Aila ducks in to trip the thing with a leg sweep--and her blow passes through it. She looks up into its face and sees a spectre's eyes! It's a...dead spectre fairy?
RF summons the coils of the Serpent to grab the thing. Sonya asks the air spirit to take it back with the fae.
RF checks the patients and personnel at the clinic. Some of the ones close to the spectre-fairy exhibit symptoms similar to the catatonic people, in a lesser degree. He thinks they should be okay, though there are a couple brought in shortly after that it looks like the thing had gotten to in the last couple of hours. Sonya checks over witnesses to the fight and finds something similar.
The pack heads to Dreamsoft to catch up with the fae. They all wonder why the thing went after RF. And what is it? Aila ponders the Keremet, but Faris says that's a myth. The sword this thing carried has the Eiluned symbol. Aila spots the deathmarks of a member of the Legion of Fate. It seems to be a ghost possessing a body of something that's not solid or visible to begin with. "A spirit possessing a spirit," Sonya sums up. That's not metaphysically possible. "A mingling?" she suggests.
"Not natural," Faris muses. "It would have to be artificially created."
On the back of the neck, Aila spots a triangle with a stylized dragon in it. Sonya recognizes it as a Nephandic symbol Ambrose has pointed out to them on other artifcacts they've found. Jonas sends a picture of it to Ambrose. Ambrose heads over.
His investigation reveals that this thing is three souls--a spectre, a human, and a faerie--all stuck together. RF has a brief vision: an army of these things in chains, slogging across a battlefield of Garou and fae. He shakes the vision off, confused. It doesn't feel like one from his own past lives.
Aila gets a Sluagh to help talk to the spectre. When they rouse it, binding sigils glow on its face--they're Dragon's Tongue sigils, holding this monstrosity together. It's an extremely powerful spectre...one with no Psyche. Ambrose picks out runes from among the sigils--the true names of the three beings involved, taken apart and put back together to form this thing. He recognizes it as twisted Hermetic magic. "Breaking names," he points out to the others. "Right," says Faris. "You're called namers for a reason."
Their study is interrupted when they find themselves under attack. Things arrive in the hallway outside the lab--like the faerie-spectre they're looking at, except that these are werewolves. Some of the Bone Gnawers that were missing, in fact.
Sonya tries to exorcise them. It seems like it should have worked, but the binding runes snap them back together. Sonya calls to the pack. A Nocker fires a silver rocket, which kills one. A Sluagh ties the other up so the Garou can kill it. When the bodies die, the spectres try to flee. The Sluagh grabs them.
Interrogating them, they learn one remembers being stuffed into a werewolf on a bus--a Greyhound, heading southwest. There's a ticket in the body's pocket. The other was ambushed in the Labyrinth. It recalls flashing lights and a doctor's mask.
They identify the Eiluned as Sir Garret, a young sidhe whose last assignment was to investigate th Our Lady hospital. Jared follows leads that take him to the same place RF ended up with Dr. Sinris. Ambrose finds a connection on the faerie-thing--it's like a walking hole of nothing. Now that he knows what to look for, he tells the others he could find it anywhere.
They send a report to Sir Garret's superior, who says they were investigating children going missing around the hospital.
The most disturbing part about this is that the human soul bound in Sir Garret's body was snatched from Arcadia. It's the soul that would have inhabited that body otherwise; it was called back and bound to the faerie soul.
Ambrose sends a report to the chantry, which sends Mark over. While they wait, RF has another vision: some of these things were in control of themselves--the Balor. He places the location of the battle in Ireland.
Sonya thinks that sounds familiar. To try to learn more, RF tries the Ancestral Recall Gift. When he activates it, the coils of a green serpent circle around him--it's not Uktena, and it's also not evil, but it's not something that normally happens with that Gift. He remembers that when these things came before, they had been constructed. He sees a mage holding an evil grimoire.
The Garou consult with Fianna while the fae ask the Fiona, but neither lead turns up useful information, which means they've pretty much run their local leads to a dead end. To learn more, they'll have to go to New York.
The shipping trail leads to a hospital in upper state New York. She tells the pack, suggesting that if the Garou who investigate at these homeless shelters have been vanishing, then a better place to start may be with ghouls who are involved. Find them and follow them. RF agrees to hit up information on free clinics, while Aila and Jonas go harass some vampires to see what they can learn.
They find one leaving Electronics Boutique, oddly enough, and trail him in a car (Jonas drives; when Aila protests about his age, he shows her a fetish that's basically psychic paper) till they reach a place where they can force him off the road.
He gets out angry. "I'm sorry," Aila tells him.
"It's not an accident!" he snaps. "Unless you're idiots-"
"That's not what I'm sorry for," Aila corrects him, then she shifts and pins him to his car.
He knows one Giovanni in an Italian neighborhood, and one who lives at the edge of one of the cemeteries--an undertaker who also specializes in "shipping." Aila kills the vampire and they clean up the mess. Jonas grabs the guy's CDs.
Getting back into the truck, Aila catches a flash of someone in the rear view mirror. Someone in torn up, unkempt clothes. She gets back out for a better look, but there's no one there--just footprints, along with marks like he was dragging a stick or something. They follow the trail to a creek, where they lose it.
Sonya's investigations net her nothing except that the Mob is uncannily quiet, like someone told them to clam up.
RF gets a catatonic patient who was found in an alleyway. He realizes their mind has simply been shut down. The orderlies tell him this is the third in the last two weeks. Except for the catatonia, they're all very healthy for homeless people. They've been getting forwarded to Our Lady of Perpetual Health in upper state New York, where a doctor has been studying their cases. RF calls him--Dr. Arthur Sinris--to tell him about the new patient. Sinris himself takes the call, which is odd for a busy doctor. He's sad to report to RF that he's made no progress in the diagnosis so far, and asks RF to do some forensic work for him. This is eleven of these patients in two weeks from Chicago.
After RF hangs up, a few moments later he gets a sense that something is off. The lights begin to flicker. People back away from the door when something...someone shuffles through: wet hair, a long coat, broken rusted armor, and a long sword he's dragging along the ground behind him. RF dodges around the thing, and finds that it follows him as he heads out into the street. It moves like a zombie.
He alerts the pack, who head in. Sonya names a meeting place for RF to lead the thing to, and calls an air spirit to accompany RF in case he needs backup.
Alarms go off at Dreamsoft, which they quickly pinpoint to an Eiluned dauntain--one who's really far gone. Rey and Faris take off.
RF leads the thing--the dauntain--to the meeting place, dodging its clumsy swings and keeping it from attacking anyone else. Rey and Faris arrive on the scene, and Rey hits it with the car. It flips back over the car and stumbles back to its feet. Rey backs up.
The Garou arrive. This is a public place, so they'll go in human form, hand-to-hand. Aila ducks in to trip the thing with a leg sweep--and her blow passes through it. She looks up into its face and sees a spectre's eyes! It's a...dead spectre fairy?
RF summons the coils of the Serpent to grab the thing. Sonya asks the air spirit to take it back with the fae.
RF checks the patients and personnel at the clinic. Some of the ones close to the spectre-fairy exhibit symptoms similar to the catatonic people, in a lesser degree. He thinks they should be okay, though there are a couple brought in shortly after that it looks like the thing had gotten to in the last couple of hours. Sonya checks over witnesses to the fight and finds something similar.
The pack heads to Dreamsoft to catch up with the fae. They all wonder why the thing went after RF. And what is it? Aila ponders the Keremet, but Faris says that's a myth. The sword this thing carried has the Eiluned symbol. Aila spots the deathmarks of a member of the Legion of Fate. It seems to be a ghost possessing a body of something that's not solid or visible to begin with. "A spirit possessing a spirit," Sonya sums up. That's not metaphysically possible. "A mingling?" she suggests.
"Not natural," Faris muses. "It would have to be artificially created."
On the back of the neck, Aila spots a triangle with a stylized dragon in it. Sonya recognizes it as a Nephandic symbol Ambrose has pointed out to them on other artifcacts they've found. Jonas sends a picture of it to Ambrose. Ambrose heads over.
His investigation reveals that this thing is three souls--a spectre, a human, and a faerie--all stuck together. RF has a brief vision: an army of these things in chains, slogging across a battlefield of Garou and fae. He shakes the vision off, confused. It doesn't feel like one from his own past lives.
Aila gets a Sluagh to help talk to the spectre. When they rouse it, binding sigils glow on its face--they're Dragon's Tongue sigils, holding this monstrosity together. It's an extremely powerful spectre...one with no Psyche. Ambrose picks out runes from among the sigils--the true names of the three beings involved, taken apart and put back together to form this thing. He recognizes it as twisted Hermetic magic. "Breaking names," he points out to the others. "Right," says Faris. "You're called namers for a reason."
Their study is interrupted when they find themselves under attack. Things arrive in the hallway outside the lab--like the faerie-spectre they're looking at, except that these are werewolves. Some of the Bone Gnawers that were missing, in fact.
Sonya tries to exorcise them. It seems like it should have worked, but the binding runes snap them back together. Sonya calls to the pack. A Nocker fires a silver rocket, which kills one. A Sluagh ties the other up so the Garou can kill it. When the bodies die, the spectres try to flee. The Sluagh grabs them.
Interrogating them, they learn one remembers being stuffed into a werewolf on a bus--a Greyhound, heading southwest. There's a ticket in the body's pocket. The other was ambushed in the Labyrinth. It recalls flashing lights and a doctor's mask.
They identify the Eiluned as Sir Garret, a young sidhe whose last assignment was to investigate th Our Lady hospital. Jared follows leads that take him to the same place RF ended up with Dr. Sinris. Ambrose finds a connection on the faerie-thing--it's like a walking hole of nothing. Now that he knows what to look for, he tells the others he could find it anywhere.
They send a report to Sir Garret's superior, who says they were investigating children going missing around the hospital.
The most disturbing part about this is that the human soul bound in Sir Garret's body was snatched from Arcadia. It's the soul that would have inhabited that body otherwise; it was called back and bound to the faerie soul.
Ambrose sends a report to the chantry, which sends Mark over. While they wait, RF has another vision: some of these things were in control of themselves--the Balor. He places the location of the battle in Ireland.
Sonya thinks that sounds familiar. To try to learn more, RF tries the Ancestral Recall Gift. When he activates it, the coils of a green serpent circle around him--it's not Uktena, and it's also not evil, but it's not something that normally happens with that Gift. He remembers that when these things came before, they had been constructed. He sees a mage holding an evil grimoire.
The Garou consult with Fianna while the fae ask the Fiona, but neither lead turns up useful information, which means they've pretty much run their local leads to a dead end. To learn more, they'll have to go to New York.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Audience with the High King. Hard.
At Dreamsoft, people are freaking out in the hallways, calling in all the information they can. Faris tells everyone how heroic Rey was. Rey is pleased, because that's reputation he can cash in on. He's also pleased to receive a $500 candy store gift card, and even more pleased when he discovers that the tale is ticking off some of the more arrogant Sidhe, who are grumpy about a Pooka showing them up. He starts regaling children with the story.
Sonya calls on the nearest Fianna Galliard to give her the story, then tells her, "We need information." The Galliard tells them about fae and Fomorians. Together, they theorize about what might have happened. Etherites are attractive to fae. Perhaps a Fomorian was able to free itself enough to channel itself through Evil Ambrose's dreams.
The Hermetic comes back to give Ambrose the box back. Apparently, the Avatar isn't Nephandic. Maybe someone was using him to summon the thing? At a loss for what else to do with a lurking Avatar, he suggests they put it back. "Maybe it manifested from you and whatever happens to it, happens to you," he offers to Ambrose.
"You know, Hermetics can be very unpleasant people sometimes," Ambrose grumbles.
The Garou dress for the audience. "S'pose I'll have to wear my Sunday best," Jonas sighs. "I wonder, early Sunday or late Sunday..."
"Try Easter," Sonya tells him firmly.
"Oh man!"
Mark stops by to warn Ambrose about his apparent draw with the wrong sort of people. Ambrose tells him about the MiBs from the day before, and the strange pin they both wore on their collars: a tower, crown and sword. It occurs to him suddenly that they might be part of Tillingtast's clique. On another note, he considers putting a compass on the Avatar box so it can point where it wants to go, if it so chooses. Mark is aghast, but Ambrose explains he just doesn't want to drag an Avatar around where it doesn't want to go. He asks the chantry head about it, who's unsure of the wisdom of communicating with Avatars via compass.
"Well, it's not right to just leave it in a box," Ambrose points out. "But it could be dangerous to let it out. So I figured this would be a happy medium." The chantry head sighs over Etherites, and suggests he talk to a Mind or Correspondence mage about communicating with the thing.
Ambrose --like most Etherites just as excited about formal parties as wild adventures--dresses to the nines: waistcoat, tails and all.
The Garou, having some experience at the proprieties of visiting powerful supernatural beings, arrange a gift of fine liquor for their host. Sonya barders stories to the Fianna in return for some aged scotch.
Everyone meets at Dreamsoft, and Faris takes them via trod. Ambrose demonstrates the compass-box, just so everybody's aware that he's carrying around an Avatar.
The High King's great castle of Tara is hidden behind the facade of an Adirondacks resort. They're escorted in to their rooms and given a loose itinerary. They're to meet the king, have dinner with the high court, an audience before Parliament, and then there's to be a ball on the third day.
"I didn't bring anything to wear!" Aila laments. But that's no problem--the wardrobes are magical. The majordomo throws hers open to reveal ball gowns. "How can I fight in this?" Aila wonders.
"Don't be naive," Sonya answers. "We don't fight in anything."
Rey is grumpy about having to look fancy. On the other hand, they have bells to summon servants for any need, and bowls that fill with whatever you like to eat--which means Rey's is overflowing with sweets. He likes that!
Aila sums up, "This place is awesome...oh, these beds are comfortable!"
On their way to meet the High King, they walk past murals of the Accordance War. Ambrose notices the picture of Caliburn, which prompts him to ask about Oberon and the sidhe. The other fae explain to him about sidhe and their reincarnation trouble.
The great hall is naturally magnificent. They're introduced to King David and tell him about the Autumn Queen. He asks Ambrose about his "special favor" with her. "She smiled at me," Ambrose recalls, with a shy smile. "And waved!" Murmurs go through the assembled court. Apparently the fae find that impressive.
The king clears the court, then, and asks them about the Fomorian. He talks with Rey about his newfound folk hero status and desires to knight him--on account, David says, of it irritating Duke Dray. Rey reluctantly agrees. "I confess, I have mixed feelings."
"I trust not regretful ones."
"Oh no," Rey assures the king. "Not regretful ones."
David talks to Jared about his repeated involvement with this group, commenting, "Telling." When he asks about the Circus, Rey answers. "I'm not often moved to honesty, but that place was as close to Hell as I've ever seen." David asks them again what they thought of the Autumn Queen. Ambrose raves politely about her. He thinks she meant well. Sonya thinks she's mad, and tells the king about the ring she wears that's part of the Hunger Stone. Ambrose prints out a copy of the document he got in the Circus.
Ambrose shows David the box after David asks him about his double. He wants to talk to Evil Ambrose. David asks, "Is that...a compass?"
"Yep!" Ambrose answers cheerfully.
David remains curious why Astarte waved at Ambrose. Rey and Jared prepare for their ceremonies; Rey goes for amusement value.
That night, Rey has a vision: a battlefield of fae, no later than the Middle Ages, in England. People in the battle keep yelling toward him for something, but he can't hear them.
When he wakes, he stands in the hall in his pajamas, pondering this while sucking on butterscotch. Jonas wanders by to chat, saying he's uncomfortable with sleeping alone in a big room.
The next day, the knighting of a commoner is big news. The Pooka eat it up. Rey hams it through the ceremony, just skirting the line of acceptability. He is knighted as "Sir Reynard the Up-front," which the Pooka find the most hilarious thing ever. It's etched into the sword the king presents to him: "Sir Rey the Up-front, Scourge of the Frost Queen." The Crystal Circle mumbles among itself.
As a knight pledged to the High King, Rey is a satellite member of House Gwydion, though he isn't required to take its oaths. He's given a suit of armor, which cheeses him off.
After lunch, Parliament meets. The group is summoned to the antechamber for consultation at the Parliament's pleasure. Rey naps.
And dreams: very very long ago, knights on horseback approach a wintery landscape.
He wakes grumbling.
Jonas wonders if it's odd. Rey grumbles about white woods. Ambrose reminds the fae that they told him about one when they found that cracked-open tree in that Welsh dream-asylum. Jared places it: Winterwere, Queen Lir, ruler of the Fuach, a half-Fomorian sorceress.
Evil Ambrose is escorted in, and then back out again a little while later. They call Ambrose in to see the box with his Avatar in it. Duke Dray tells him they think that Evil Ambrose was created by fairie magic rather than...however the Mirror Maze usually works.
Ambrose is sent back out, and the Garou are called in. Duke Dray keeps referring to them as "prodigals," which Sonya tells him is rude. He asks how they know their Ambrose is the real one. Aila responds that theirs smells right. He asks what they think of him. Sonya tells him that mages are dangerous. They bend fortune and fate around them. "So they like to say," sneers Dray. "So my Elders say," Sonya responds pointedly. He asks what their Elders think of their dealings with the fae. "They've said little," Sonya answers. "It's obvious to the Garou that we're in the midst of destiny. What happens, will."
The Garou are dimissed, and the fae are called in. The Ailil commend Jared before the Parliament, which Dray scoffs at, prompting the Ailil spokesman to respond, "Really." Dray complains that the Ailil are threatening him. A Pooka motions that Dray "sit on it." A second seconds, "Hard." A third produces a harrumphing machine, at which point the High King calls for a return to sanity.
They ask the fae about Ambrose and Astarte and get responses similar to the Garou's. The fae are dismissed.
The pack is called back in and shown an image of one of those odd magic vampires they fought in Chicago. The Garou confirm that it's what they fought. Aila asks what it is. A vote is made on whether to share the information, which is successful, so they're told it's a type of vampire called a Kiasyd, a sort of half-fae vampire experiment of the Tremere. They can be killed like normal vampires, and like fae.
They go back to the point of the cracked-open tree. Sonya explains the theory about the Fomorian channeling itself through the dreaming Evil Ambrose, and suggests that might be due to his method of creation. If the fae are right, that may even be why he was created. He could be a gateway to allow Astarte to walk out in the world to spread her message. The fae figure they'd best keep Evil Ambrose, then.
They return to the antechamber and hear an argument begin to build in the Parliament chamber; cries rise of "That's not possible!" and "You can't!" Then they all Ambrose and the others back to re-explain the theory Sonya just proposed to them, much to her amusement. Ambrose and Aila explain about Cara and the White Priestess. Her mystic position is such that Astarte's influence could have created Evil Ambrose unconsciously to suit her needs. The fae say they want to reach her through Evil ambrose, but they must call to her true nature to reach past the Circus's corruption and her madness. They lay a duty on the group, to find the 27 songs composed in her honor which will call her back to her self. They are lost, but "we've been told that at points, you may come across these. We would like you to gather them when you do."
They return to talk about Ambrose and the gateway. "You Etherites do loan yourselves to the Dreaming. More than other Traditions..."
"Well," says Ambrose with a sigh.
The King amends, "The Verbena..."
"I was thinking of the Cultists, actually," Ambrose cuts in.
"Well. Yes."
A Pooka with a gavel says, "Oh hohohoho. Yeah."
Dray comments about the Garou being "noble beasts, needing only a guiding hand..." and finds five suddenly angry Garou staring at him. A Nunnehi representative cuts in to save Dray's life, and when Dray continues, he's more conciliatory. Someone makes a side comment about the "Hidden Ones," against which Ambrose defends himself: "They're stalking me!" Jonas makes one of his patented gay sex jokes, and then, miraculously, brings everyone back to the topic at hand.
"The Autumn Queen--the burning, smoking, stunning hot Autumn Queen (a Satyr cuts in: "Yeah")--wants Ambrose. Does that strike anyone as wrong? I mean, look at him!" Ambrose bristles, defending his ability to get a date. "you think women with goggles and electrical devices are attractive."
"Yeah," agrees Ambrose, looking pleased.
They discuss how Ambrose seems to keep drawing strange things to him, and how he's apparently some sort of nexus or gate. Jonas complains about the fae not weighing in on the Ascension War if they hate the Technocracy so much. Heck, Iterators apparently blow up just from looking at them!
"Not lately," Ambrose notes, then realizes something. "Damn. That's probably my fault. That Iterator I kept from going Marauder? She shared that with Iteration X. Sorry, guys. You've got an entire Convention that's reached a level of unbelief no mage has ever reached before."
This causes dismay, but the fae do agree that they should talk to the Traditions.
Then there's some worry about Cavendish, and more discussion of the Circus. The Nunnehi comment on their notable nature, and Sonya points out their totem and its relation to Aila, who tries to beg off. Sonya points out that she's more Croatan than any living Garou. "Don't you think so, Turtle?" Turtle nods.
The fae explain that they must repay the debt of the help the pack has agreed to give them, and they prefer to do it before it's owed. A Nunnehi brings out a medicine back. Found long ago, he says that no one has been able to open it. "It has been mentioned," he continues with a glance at the Crystal Circle behind the High King, "that you're the ones to open it. It's believed to contain sanity. Peace." It was found in the frozen north, he tells them, hinting that it might even be Sasquatch's sanity, and hands them the bag.
The fae don't get presents. "Of course you'll do this for the Dreaming."
To Ambrose, the High King says, "You're so screwed, we're just helping you out. But you can always ask for help if you need it. Within reaon, you know."
A Pooka stands. "I woudl like to request I be allowed to leave since I am not a Pooka and have been here the entire time." When everyone turns to look at him, he books for the door. It's Tim! he's the one who kept standing up and saying, "Haaaard."
Well, that's done. They're thanked and dismissed, in time to go to lunch. Rey refers to his new armor as "GDA," the goddamn armor. He gets many invitations to the ball.
Ambrose wants to talk to his double, whom he catches up with after lunch. "Evil" Ambrose is groovy with the situation; he tells Ambrose he doesn't envy him having to go out and deal with all this while he gets to hang out in the lap of luxury with Nockers. He apologizes for the evil book and all the trouble.
He warns Ambrose that there's some kind of power struggle in the Circus. Devyn's skimming from the books, trying to hoard power to become some kind of god or demon. Ambrose realizes suddenly that the Mirror Maze = Labyrinth. Both of them are repulsed by the thought, and decide to keep it quiet. Ambrose offers to help with the Avatar ("I've forgotten math," his doppelganger tells him. "I need it back." Poor Ambrose is horrified), and gives his double the box. He hasn't seen his Avatar yet; they're both curious whether it's the same, so he tells Ambrose he'll call when he finds out. Neither of them are quite sure how to work out what really happened.
Rey grumbles more about the armor, and has another dream: It's cold and he still can't understand the people around him. They speak to him as if he's their friend, and call him by a name that isn't Rey's but that seems familiar. They're fighting Fomorians; Rey pins one to a tree with his sword--the same sword he has now.
When Rey wakes, the sword is surrounded with a fading glow. He talks to Jonas in the hall again, and decides he'd better speak to Faris. Ambrose comes by, wondering if he can contact his double sometimes and whether they'll still feel the same thins. "It's kind of like having a twin, after he gets over the whole 'take over your life' thing."
The ladies at the ball are entirely charmed by Rey, and then it's back to Chicago. Rey tells Faris about the dreams and the sword on the way.
Sonya calls on the nearest Fianna Galliard to give her the story, then tells her, "We need information." The Galliard tells them about fae and Fomorians. Together, they theorize about what might have happened. Etherites are attractive to fae. Perhaps a Fomorian was able to free itself enough to channel itself through Evil Ambrose's dreams.
The Hermetic comes back to give Ambrose the box back. Apparently, the Avatar isn't Nephandic. Maybe someone was using him to summon the thing? At a loss for what else to do with a lurking Avatar, he suggests they put it back. "Maybe it manifested from you and whatever happens to it, happens to you," he offers to Ambrose.
"You know, Hermetics can be very unpleasant people sometimes," Ambrose grumbles.
The Garou dress for the audience. "S'pose I'll have to wear my Sunday best," Jonas sighs. "I wonder, early Sunday or late Sunday..."
"Try Easter," Sonya tells him firmly.
"Oh man!"
Mark stops by to warn Ambrose about his apparent draw with the wrong sort of people. Ambrose tells him about the MiBs from the day before, and the strange pin they both wore on their collars: a tower, crown and sword. It occurs to him suddenly that they might be part of Tillingtast's clique. On another note, he considers putting a compass on the Avatar box so it can point where it wants to go, if it so chooses. Mark is aghast, but Ambrose explains he just doesn't want to drag an Avatar around where it doesn't want to go. He asks the chantry head about it, who's unsure of the wisdom of communicating with Avatars via compass.
"Well, it's not right to just leave it in a box," Ambrose points out. "But it could be dangerous to let it out. So I figured this would be a happy medium." The chantry head sighs over Etherites, and suggests he talk to a Mind or Correspondence mage about communicating with the thing.
Ambrose --like most Etherites just as excited about formal parties as wild adventures--dresses to the nines: waistcoat, tails and all.
The Garou, having some experience at the proprieties of visiting powerful supernatural beings, arrange a gift of fine liquor for their host. Sonya barders stories to the Fianna in return for some aged scotch.
Everyone meets at Dreamsoft, and Faris takes them via trod. Ambrose demonstrates the compass-box, just so everybody's aware that he's carrying around an Avatar.
The High King's great castle of Tara is hidden behind the facade of an Adirondacks resort. They're escorted in to their rooms and given a loose itinerary. They're to meet the king, have dinner with the high court, an audience before Parliament, and then there's to be a ball on the third day.
"I didn't bring anything to wear!" Aila laments. But that's no problem--the wardrobes are magical. The majordomo throws hers open to reveal ball gowns. "How can I fight in this?" Aila wonders.
"Don't be naive," Sonya answers. "We don't fight in anything."
Rey is grumpy about having to look fancy. On the other hand, they have bells to summon servants for any need, and bowls that fill with whatever you like to eat--which means Rey's is overflowing with sweets. He likes that!
Aila sums up, "This place is awesome...oh, these beds are comfortable!"
On their way to meet the High King, they walk past murals of the Accordance War. Ambrose notices the picture of Caliburn, which prompts him to ask about Oberon and the sidhe. The other fae explain to him about sidhe and their reincarnation trouble.
The great hall is naturally magnificent. They're introduced to King David and tell him about the Autumn Queen. He asks Ambrose about his "special favor" with her. "She smiled at me," Ambrose recalls, with a shy smile. "And waved!" Murmurs go through the assembled court. Apparently the fae find that impressive.
The king clears the court, then, and asks them about the Fomorian. He talks with Rey about his newfound folk hero status and desires to knight him--on account, David says, of it irritating Duke Dray. Rey reluctantly agrees. "I confess, I have mixed feelings."
"I trust not regretful ones."
"Oh no," Rey assures the king. "Not regretful ones."
David talks to Jared about his repeated involvement with this group, commenting, "Telling." When he asks about the Circus, Rey answers. "I'm not often moved to honesty, but that place was as close to Hell as I've ever seen." David asks them again what they thought of the Autumn Queen. Ambrose raves politely about her. He thinks she meant well. Sonya thinks she's mad, and tells the king about the ring she wears that's part of the Hunger Stone. Ambrose prints out a copy of the document he got in the Circus.
Ambrose shows David the box after David asks him about his double. He wants to talk to Evil Ambrose. David asks, "Is that...a compass?"
"Yep!" Ambrose answers cheerfully.
David remains curious why Astarte waved at Ambrose. Rey and Jared prepare for their ceremonies; Rey goes for amusement value.
That night, Rey has a vision: a battlefield of fae, no later than the Middle Ages, in England. People in the battle keep yelling toward him for something, but he can't hear them.
When he wakes, he stands in the hall in his pajamas, pondering this while sucking on butterscotch. Jonas wanders by to chat, saying he's uncomfortable with sleeping alone in a big room.
The next day, the knighting of a commoner is big news. The Pooka eat it up. Rey hams it through the ceremony, just skirting the line of acceptability. He is knighted as "Sir Reynard the Up-front," which the Pooka find the most hilarious thing ever. It's etched into the sword the king presents to him: "Sir Rey the Up-front, Scourge of the Frost Queen." The Crystal Circle mumbles among itself.
As a knight pledged to the High King, Rey is a satellite member of House Gwydion, though he isn't required to take its oaths. He's given a suit of armor, which cheeses him off.
After lunch, Parliament meets. The group is summoned to the antechamber for consultation at the Parliament's pleasure. Rey naps.
And dreams: very very long ago, knights on horseback approach a wintery landscape.
He wakes grumbling.
Jonas wonders if it's odd. Rey grumbles about white woods. Ambrose reminds the fae that they told him about one when they found that cracked-open tree in that Welsh dream-asylum. Jared places it: Winterwere, Queen Lir, ruler of the Fuach, a half-Fomorian sorceress.
Evil Ambrose is escorted in, and then back out again a little while later. They call Ambrose in to see the box with his Avatar in it. Duke Dray tells him they think that Evil Ambrose was created by fairie magic rather than...however the Mirror Maze usually works.
Ambrose is sent back out, and the Garou are called in. Duke Dray keeps referring to them as "prodigals," which Sonya tells him is rude. He asks how they know their Ambrose is the real one. Aila responds that theirs smells right. He asks what they think of him. Sonya tells him that mages are dangerous. They bend fortune and fate around them. "So they like to say," sneers Dray. "So my Elders say," Sonya responds pointedly. He asks what their Elders think of their dealings with the fae. "They've said little," Sonya answers. "It's obvious to the Garou that we're in the midst of destiny. What happens, will."
The Garou are dimissed, and the fae are called in. The Ailil commend Jared before the Parliament, which Dray scoffs at, prompting the Ailil spokesman to respond, "Really." Dray complains that the Ailil are threatening him. A Pooka motions that Dray "sit on it." A second seconds, "Hard." A third produces a harrumphing machine, at which point the High King calls for a return to sanity.
They ask the fae about Ambrose and Astarte and get responses similar to the Garou's. The fae are dismissed.
The pack is called back in and shown an image of one of those odd magic vampires they fought in Chicago. The Garou confirm that it's what they fought. Aila asks what it is. A vote is made on whether to share the information, which is successful, so they're told it's a type of vampire called a Kiasyd, a sort of half-fae vampire experiment of the Tremere. They can be killed like normal vampires, and like fae.
They go back to the point of the cracked-open tree. Sonya explains the theory about the Fomorian channeling itself through the dreaming Evil Ambrose, and suggests that might be due to his method of creation. If the fae are right, that may even be why he was created. He could be a gateway to allow Astarte to walk out in the world to spread her message. The fae figure they'd best keep Evil Ambrose, then.
They return to the antechamber and hear an argument begin to build in the Parliament chamber; cries rise of "That's not possible!" and "You can't!" Then they all Ambrose and the others back to re-explain the theory Sonya just proposed to them, much to her amusement. Ambrose and Aila explain about Cara and the White Priestess. Her mystic position is such that Astarte's influence could have created Evil Ambrose unconsciously to suit her needs. The fae say they want to reach her through Evil ambrose, but they must call to her true nature to reach past the Circus's corruption and her madness. They lay a duty on the group, to find the 27 songs composed in her honor which will call her back to her self. They are lost, but "we've been told that at points, you may come across these. We would like you to gather them when you do."
They return to talk about Ambrose and the gateway. "You Etherites do loan yourselves to the Dreaming. More than other Traditions..."
"Well," says Ambrose with a sigh.
The King amends, "The Verbena..."
"I was thinking of the Cultists, actually," Ambrose cuts in.
"Well. Yes."
A Pooka with a gavel says, "Oh hohohoho. Yeah."
Dray comments about the Garou being "noble beasts, needing only a guiding hand..." and finds five suddenly angry Garou staring at him. A Nunnehi representative cuts in to save Dray's life, and when Dray continues, he's more conciliatory. Someone makes a side comment about the "Hidden Ones," against which Ambrose defends himself: "They're stalking me!" Jonas makes one of his patented gay sex jokes, and then, miraculously, brings everyone back to the topic at hand.
"The Autumn Queen--the burning, smoking, stunning hot Autumn Queen (a Satyr cuts in: "Yeah")--wants Ambrose. Does that strike anyone as wrong? I mean, look at him!" Ambrose bristles, defending his ability to get a date. "you think women with goggles and electrical devices are attractive."
"Yeah," agrees Ambrose, looking pleased.
They discuss how Ambrose seems to keep drawing strange things to him, and how he's apparently some sort of nexus or gate. Jonas complains about the fae not weighing in on the Ascension War if they hate the Technocracy so much. Heck, Iterators apparently blow up just from looking at them!
"Not lately," Ambrose notes, then realizes something. "Damn. That's probably my fault. That Iterator I kept from going Marauder? She shared that with Iteration X. Sorry, guys. You've got an entire Convention that's reached a level of unbelief no mage has ever reached before."
This causes dismay, but the fae do agree that they should talk to the Traditions.
Then there's some worry about Cavendish, and more discussion of the Circus. The Nunnehi comment on their notable nature, and Sonya points out their totem and its relation to Aila, who tries to beg off. Sonya points out that she's more Croatan than any living Garou. "Don't you think so, Turtle?" Turtle nods.
The fae explain that they must repay the debt of the help the pack has agreed to give them, and they prefer to do it before it's owed. A Nunnehi brings out a medicine back. Found long ago, he says that no one has been able to open it. "It has been mentioned," he continues with a glance at the Crystal Circle behind the High King, "that you're the ones to open it. It's believed to contain sanity. Peace." It was found in the frozen north, he tells them, hinting that it might even be Sasquatch's sanity, and hands them the bag.
The fae don't get presents. "Of course you'll do this for the Dreaming."
To Ambrose, the High King says, "You're so screwed, we're just helping you out. But you can always ask for help if you need it. Within reaon, you know."
A Pooka stands. "I woudl like to request I be allowed to leave since I am not a Pooka and have been here the entire time." When everyone turns to look at him, he books for the door. It's Tim! he's the one who kept standing up and saying, "Haaaard."
Well, that's done. They're thanked and dismissed, in time to go to lunch. Rey refers to his new armor as "GDA," the goddamn armor. He gets many invitations to the ball.
Ambrose wants to talk to his double, whom he catches up with after lunch. "Evil" Ambrose is groovy with the situation; he tells Ambrose he doesn't envy him having to go out and deal with all this while he gets to hang out in the lap of luxury with Nockers. He apologizes for the evil book and all the trouble.
He warns Ambrose that there's some kind of power struggle in the Circus. Devyn's skimming from the books, trying to hoard power to become some kind of god or demon. Ambrose realizes suddenly that the Mirror Maze = Labyrinth. Both of them are repulsed by the thought, and decide to keep it quiet. Ambrose offers to help with the Avatar ("I've forgotten math," his doppelganger tells him. "I need it back." Poor Ambrose is horrified), and gives his double the box. He hasn't seen his Avatar yet; they're both curious whether it's the same, so he tells Ambrose he'll call when he finds out. Neither of them are quite sure how to work out what really happened.
Rey grumbles more about the armor, and has another dream: It's cold and he still can't understand the people around him. They speak to him as if he's their friend, and call him by a name that isn't Rey's but that seems familiar. They're fighting Fomorians; Rey pins one to a tree with his sword--the same sword he has now.
When Rey wakes, the sword is surrounded with a fading glow. He talks to Jonas in the hall again, and decides he'd better speak to Faris. Ambrose comes by, wondering if he can contact his double sometimes and whether they'll still feel the same thins. "It's kind of like having a twin, after he gets over the whole 'take over your life' thing."
The ladies at the ball are entirely charmed by Rey, and then it's back to Chicago. Rey tells Faris about the dreams and the sword on the way.
Rey and the White Court Fomorian
The pack meets with the Hakken, taking Caleb along with, but Sonya makes Tim stay in the car. Monkey Girl meanwhile picks on Ambrose for being chased by so many people, and is confused that he apparently has no doubts about trusting a Pooka.
When the Garou are done, they find a different hotel to stay at. RF shares a room with Ambrose, who sets alarms on his windows and oors.
The alarms go off that night, waking him in time to see some kind of half-snake/half-man jump out the window. RF doesn't see it. It doesn't seem to have taken anything, or left anything, so Ambrose reluctantly puts it out of his mind till morning.
In the morning, Ambrose finds out that the Garou have their own language. He tells the others about the snake-man. Monkey Girl says there are snake people sort of like her--called the Fu Hsi--but this wasn't one of them. They arrange a private plane back.
On the plane, Ambrose looks over the Marauder's camera, which contains exotic pictures. They get back without incident, and the pack drops Ambrose and Mark off at the chantry before heading back to the caern.
Having learned his lesson, Ambrose deposits the Marauder's gun with the chantry head, along with his demonic cell phone. He turns his laptop over to the Virtual Adepts to run checks on; they tell him they'll look into perma-deleting the map.
Aila prepares for a good lounge in front of the TV, which is how she learns that Evil-Ambrose has a special about Ether in a week. "Look at all that smarm!" she exclaims.
"Gives new meaning to the term podcast," Jonas quips.
The fae fret about their upcoming audience with the High King.
Ambrose investigates the camera, and discovers that a button activates a gateway to whatever picture is displayed in the viewer. He declines to activate it.
Aila takes off for the arcade. On the way, a wood hand emerges from a tree to hand her an invitation from the High King to the entire pack. "Nice bush," she thanks it. Ambrose gets one too, for him and Mark.
Aila and Jonas wonder what to wear, and are dismayed to learn that they'll be expected to dress up. The pack is amused to note that the king of the fairies lives in upper-state New York.
Evil Ambrose left a trail via Ambrose's credit cards (the limit of which Ambrose notes is much higher than it was). He also published a book on ether. The MiB calls to ask about killing him. Ambrose turns down the offer, but tells him about the children's book, "Ambrose goes to the Circus." Wanting a better look at this particular piece of devilry, he purchases a copy, and then burns it after chibi-Devyn winks at him from the cover. RF, having discovered this book as well, looks up the publishing info--Vesuvius Publishing, a Pentex property.
The next day, at the book signing, Rey knocks out Evil-Ambrose's limo driver to take his place. RF and Jonas hide in the car. Ambrose and Aila stick around to allay suspicion, so that everybody sees Ambrose is just fine. They plan to ambush Evil-Brose and get him back to the chantry.
And this plan works just fine...till one of those weird Asian supernaturals shows up again in pursuit of Evil-Ambrose. In fact, he gives chase to the real Ambrose, mistaking him for his doppelganger. Ambrose pops a fire hydrant on him and Rey freezes the water.
And then Iterators show up with a collar launcher, which Ambrose shoots out of the air before it reaches its target. Even an evil doppelganger doesn't deserve that fate. Rey fingers Evil Ambrose for the Asian guy; the Gurahl knocks Evil-Ambrose unconscious. Sonya throws the Asian man into a building while the rest of the pack kills the Iterators. Noting the unwanted attention they're gathering, Rey "films" the whole thing. With the threats pushed away or dealt with, they bail out on the scene, get Ambrose and his duplicate back to the chantry, and the Garou take off again. Ambrose has arranged to have a comfy cell ready to hold his double.
But of course it doesn't last long. Ambrose is staying up late working on reports and projects when he notices something strange. Investigating, he discovers the guards on the roof are out cold. Taking a wild guess at the target of the intruders, he runs down to the basement and finds that yes, indeed, his double is gone. He sounds the alarm, then follows the culprits down into the underground escape passages, accompanied by a Hollow One who'd been visiting the place. He grabs the chantry's Akashic, too, and they arrange to meet at the exit if Ambrose isn't able to catch up with the whoever-they-ares underground.
He's not, so when he and his companion reach the end of the tunnels, they find two strange vampires, a guy the Akashic can't seem to hurt, a sleeping Evil-Ambrose, and a garbage truck full of Sabbat vampires rounding the corner.
The Garou, who've been keeping watch on Evil-Ambrose by their own means, arrive. Sonya pulls her car parallel to the garbage truck, and informs her pack she's not going to crash it. They leap out onto the Sabbat vampires. Ambrose drops one of the other vampires into the pavement, trapping him. Another vampire, moving supernaturally fast, grabs Ambrose 2, but Aila charges him and knocks him away. Ambrose grabs his double and drags him to the side to keep him away from the fight while Aila and the other vampire (a Salubri) circle each other.
"Awww, can't I please have his soul?" the vampire drawls.
"His what?!" Aila repeats, startled.
Caleb, who came in with the werewolves, shifts and grabs the garbage truck, bouncing it repeatedly off the ground to squash vampires.
Sonya hits the indestructible person-thing, to as little effect as the Akashic. Getting nowhere, she throws it at one of the strange magic vampires, who explodes. Then the indestructible guy gets up and animates trees to go after Ambrose, who freezes one. Aila subdues the Salubri while mage reinforcements arrive to finish off the rest of the vampiric rabble.
Pleased with the previous success, Sonya swings her captive indestructible thing/guy into the other magic vampire, which also explodes. Ambrose freezes another tree, and calls, "Anybody want to give me a hand?" Jonas and Olesya leap on a third.
Then the fae arrive, and recognize Sonya's new toy as a White Court Fomorian.
RF pack-attacks the Salubri with Aila. The Fomorian, apparently wanting Caleb and his alarming strength well out of the picture, magically flings the garbage truck several blocks away, along with the werebear holding it. Sonya signales to the Akashic to coordinate their attack on the Fomorian on the same point of its armor.
The Salubri dies, and white mist begins to drift through. Some of the mages form a circle, working with the exploded vampire. Rey and Faris form up for war, calling up their armor. The Fomorian calls up white bark armor and a sword of its own. Faris pulls out a submachine gun from his car. "I spose he thinks we should be impressed," Rey muses, staring at their target. "Well, I sorta am, but..."
Behind Rey and Faris, a collection of stocky, tall people begins to form. The Fomorian looks at them, seeing them for what they really are: Troll knights. Sonya and the Akashic attack, successfully enough that the Fomorian turns its attention back to them. This offends Rey. "Hey, Whiteface!" he yells. It turns back toward him, lashing out with some kind of spell that freezes everything around them (including nearby buildings), then shatters it all into ice monsters.
The Akashic, getting exasperated at his lack of success in the battle, lashes out with a flying dragon kick. Aila mashes a Volvo into its face. The Verbena summon a fire elemental. Two MiBs with swords arrive ("Great," mutters Ambrose, "the peanut gallery."). Sonya throws the Fomorian at the fire elemental, resulting in a tremendous gush of steam. The fire elemental is dismissed, but it finally hurt the Fomorian.
Jared opens gates. The MiBs ignite their swords (which really confuses Ambrose; it's not exactly the Technocracy's style). Faris opens up with his machine gun. RF snags Evil Ambrose and gets him out of the way. Two helicopters descend--not Technocracy helicopters, but...well, actually they're more knights riding dragons.
The Fomorian chases Evil Ambrose. Rey throws a rock at it.
Now, this just ticks it off. Snarling, "Pooka!" it turns and heads for Rey, summoning lightning monsters.
"That's cheating," complains one Troll. "That's what they do," answers Rey. "They cheat!" The Fomorian growls again. Rey mocks it, "Oh, did I hurt his widdle feelings?"
One of the dead vampires sits up and rushes after Evil Ambrose, but it fails to pull him away from RF, who simply bites the offending vampire's head off since his arms are occupied.
A trod opens behind the Trolls, who part and snap to attention. Queen Mab comes forward. Aila throws a car into the air (it actually slipped out of her grip, but the toss is impressive), the Akashic leaps up and drop-kic,ks it out of the air into the Fomorian, and one of the Verbena lightning bolts the tank, sending the whole mass up in a fireball.
Apparently this gets through, because the Fomorian shapeshifts, into some kind of scorpion/crab monster.
On the other side of the battlefield, the MiBs pause to stare at Evil Ambrose. "He's the bad clone," Ambrose tells them helpfully.
"He's mumbling in his sleep in Dragon's Tongue!" one of them points out.
"I'm a little less keen on fairies than I was twenty minutes ago," Ambrose mumbles, handing the box to the Akashic.
The next morning, the Hermetic shows up for the box, and has a hard time believing Ambrose's story about a Fomorian.
When the Garou are done, they find a different hotel to stay at. RF shares a room with Ambrose, who sets alarms on his windows and oors.
The alarms go off that night, waking him in time to see some kind of half-snake/half-man jump out the window. RF doesn't see it. It doesn't seem to have taken anything, or left anything, so Ambrose reluctantly puts it out of his mind till morning.
In the morning, Ambrose finds out that the Garou have their own language. He tells the others about the snake-man. Monkey Girl says there are snake people sort of like her--called the Fu Hsi--but this wasn't one of them. They arrange a private plane back.
On the plane, Ambrose looks over the Marauder's camera, which contains exotic pictures. They get back without incident, and the pack drops Ambrose and Mark off at the chantry before heading back to the caern.
Having learned his lesson, Ambrose deposits the Marauder's gun with the chantry head, along with his demonic cell phone. He turns his laptop over to the Virtual Adepts to run checks on; they tell him they'll look into perma-deleting the map.
Aila prepares for a good lounge in front of the TV, which is how she learns that Evil-Ambrose has a special about Ether in a week. "Look at all that smarm!" she exclaims.
"Gives new meaning to the term podcast," Jonas quips.
The fae fret about their upcoming audience with the High King.
Ambrose investigates the camera, and discovers that a button activates a gateway to whatever picture is displayed in the viewer. He declines to activate it.
Aila takes off for the arcade. On the way, a wood hand emerges from a tree to hand her an invitation from the High King to the entire pack. "Nice bush," she thanks it. Ambrose gets one too, for him and Mark.
Aila and Jonas wonder what to wear, and are dismayed to learn that they'll be expected to dress up. The pack is amused to note that the king of the fairies lives in upper-state New York.
Evil Ambrose left a trail via Ambrose's credit cards (the limit of which Ambrose notes is much higher than it was). He also published a book on ether. The MiB calls to ask about killing him. Ambrose turns down the offer, but tells him about the children's book, "Ambrose goes to the Circus." Wanting a better look at this particular piece of devilry, he purchases a copy, and then burns it after chibi-Devyn winks at him from the cover. RF, having discovered this book as well, looks up the publishing info--Vesuvius Publishing, a Pentex property.
The next day, at the book signing, Rey knocks out Evil-Ambrose's limo driver to take his place. RF and Jonas hide in the car. Ambrose and Aila stick around to allay suspicion, so that everybody sees Ambrose is just fine. They plan to ambush Evil-Brose and get him back to the chantry.
And this plan works just fine...till one of those weird Asian supernaturals shows up again in pursuit of Evil-Ambrose. In fact, he gives chase to the real Ambrose, mistaking him for his doppelganger. Ambrose pops a fire hydrant on him and Rey freezes the water.
And then Iterators show up with a collar launcher, which Ambrose shoots out of the air before it reaches its target. Even an evil doppelganger doesn't deserve that fate. Rey fingers Evil Ambrose for the Asian guy; the Gurahl knocks Evil-Ambrose unconscious. Sonya throws the Asian man into a building while the rest of the pack kills the Iterators. Noting the unwanted attention they're gathering, Rey "films" the whole thing. With the threats pushed away or dealt with, they bail out on the scene, get Ambrose and his duplicate back to the chantry, and the Garou take off again. Ambrose has arranged to have a comfy cell ready to hold his double.
But of course it doesn't last long. Ambrose is staying up late working on reports and projects when he notices something strange. Investigating, he discovers the guards on the roof are out cold. Taking a wild guess at the target of the intruders, he runs down to the basement and finds that yes, indeed, his double is gone. He sounds the alarm, then follows the culprits down into the underground escape passages, accompanied by a Hollow One who'd been visiting the place. He grabs the chantry's Akashic, too, and they arrange to meet at the exit if Ambrose isn't able to catch up with the whoever-they-ares underground.
He's not, so when he and his companion reach the end of the tunnels, they find two strange vampires, a guy the Akashic can't seem to hurt, a sleeping Evil-Ambrose, and a garbage truck full of Sabbat vampires rounding the corner.
The Garou, who've been keeping watch on Evil-Ambrose by their own means, arrive. Sonya pulls her car parallel to the garbage truck, and informs her pack she's not going to crash it. They leap out onto the Sabbat vampires. Ambrose drops one of the other vampires into the pavement, trapping him. Another vampire, moving supernaturally fast, grabs Ambrose 2, but Aila charges him and knocks him away. Ambrose grabs his double and drags him to the side to keep him away from the fight while Aila and the other vampire (a Salubri) circle each other.
"Awww, can't I please have his soul?" the vampire drawls.
"His what?!" Aila repeats, startled.
Caleb, who came in with the werewolves, shifts and grabs the garbage truck, bouncing it repeatedly off the ground to squash vampires.
Sonya hits the indestructible person-thing, to as little effect as the Akashic. Getting nowhere, she throws it at one of the strange magic vampires, who explodes. Then the indestructible guy gets up and animates trees to go after Ambrose, who freezes one. Aila subdues the Salubri while mage reinforcements arrive to finish off the rest of the vampiric rabble.
Pleased with the previous success, Sonya swings her captive indestructible thing/guy into the other magic vampire, which also explodes. Ambrose freezes another tree, and calls, "Anybody want to give me a hand?" Jonas and Olesya leap on a third.
Then the fae arrive, and recognize Sonya's new toy as a White Court Fomorian.
RF pack-attacks the Salubri with Aila. The Fomorian, apparently wanting Caleb and his alarming strength well out of the picture, magically flings the garbage truck several blocks away, along with the werebear holding it. Sonya signales to the Akashic to coordinate their attack on the Fomorian on the same point of its armor.
The Salubri dies, and white mist begins to drift through. Some of the mages form a circle, working with the exploded vampire. Rey and Faris form up for war, calling up their armor. The Fomorian calls up white bark armor and a sword of its own. Faris pulls out a submachine gun from his car. "I spose he thinks we should be impressed," Rey muses, staring at their target. "Well, I sorta am, but..."
Behind Rey and Faris, a collection of stocky, tall people begins to form. The Fomorian looks at them, seeing them for what they really are: Troll knights. Sonya and the Akashic attack, successfully enough that the Fomorian turns its attention back to them. This offends Rey. "Hey, Whiteface!" he yells. It turns back toward him, lashing out with some kind of spell that freezes everything around them (including nearby buildings), then shatters it all into ice monsters.
The Akashic, getting exasperated at his lack of success in the battle, lashes out with a flying dragon kick. Aila mashes a Volvo into its face. The Verbena summon a fire elemental. Two MiBs with swords arrive ("Great," mutters Ambrose, "the peanut gallery."). Sonya throws the Fomorian at the fire elemental, resulting in a tremendous gush of steam. The fire elemental is dismissed, but it finally hurt the Fomorian.
Jared opens gates. The MiBs ignite their swords (which really confuses Ambrose; it's not exactly the Technocracy's style). Faris opens up with his machine gun. RF snags Evil Ambrose and gets him out of the way. Two helicopters descend--not Technocracy helicopters, but...well, actually they're more knights riding dragons.
The Fomorian chases Evil Ambrose. Rey throws a rock at it.
Now, this just ticks it off. Snarling, "Pooka!" it turns and heads for Rey, summoning lightning monsters.
"That's cheating," complains one Troll. "That's what they do," answers Rey. "They cheat!" The Fomorian growls again. Rey mocks it, "Oh, did I hurt his widdle feelings?"
One of the dead vampires sits up and rushes after Evil Ambrose, but it fails to pull him away from RF, who simply bites the offending vampire's head off since his arms are occupied.
A trod opens behind the Trolls, who part and snap to attention. Queen Mab comes forward. Aila throws a car into the air (it actually slipped out of her grip, but the toss is impressive), the Akashic leaps up and drop-kic,ks it out of the air into the Fomorian, and one of the Verbena lightning bolts the tank, sending the whole mass up in a fireball.
Apparently this gets through, because the Fomorian shapeshifts, into some kind of scorpion/crab monster.
On the other side of the battlefield, the MiBs pause to stare at Evil Ambrose. "He's the bad clone," Ambrose tells them helpfully.
"He's mumbling in his sleep in Dragon's Tongue!" one of them points out.
"I'm a little less keen on fairies than I was twenty minutes ago," Ambrose mumbles, handing the box to the Akashic.
The next morning, the Hermetic shows up for the box, and has a hard time believing Ambrose's story about a Fomorian.
Monday, May 5, 2008
Tokyo Stopover
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.
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.
Friday, May 2, 2008
Return of the Midnight Circus
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."
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