Links up in Guilt's character sheet for Spender, her daughter Ofra, Dr. Neimi, and Christopher. Pix in the 'main npc post' below for Ada (Strife) and Patrick (Chaos) from Precipice Citadel, as well as Lady Chance (who seems to know Terminus), and the new power of Sacrifice.
In addition: Macy with 'the twins', Macy in disguise in Victorian England, Macy's bid for power, and my personal (not work-safe) favorite: Lust's Door Knocker.
Finally, Nephele, Power of Festivals and rather confused young Utah girl named Tandy.
And updated list of the NPCs from Chancels you're familiar with. Updated chancels with new members and added two of the members of Ambrolam.
Locus Ambrolam, the Precipice Citadel (Inquisitor Chancel) |
 Ada Willamette, Power of Strife. A harsh woman from a dark period of America's history, Ada is known to be kindly disposed towards those who practice "the oldest profession" (though not the profession itself). Already an exemplar, Ada is even more feared due to the face that she carries and occaisionally wields the Excrucian knife "Kottos". |
 Cerny Krizova, Baron of Knives. A harsh man from a darker era of humankind's history. To him, it is irrelevant if his prey is Guilty or Innocent -- only that they are Accused. Once he has been given a name, his purpose is solely to bring his estate to bear upon that individual. He is unrelenting in his pursuit. Cerny has joined the Chancel of Abrolam after his Inquisitor and the rest of familia was convicted of treason and/or gross negligence. |
 Patrick Romney, Power of Chaos. |
| Walking Eye, Power of Borders. |
Deus Sanguinas, chancel of the Perpetual Wanderer
Locus Nephys, chancel of Lavinkyo, Imperator of the Blind Whisper (Inquisitor Chancel)
Others
|
Joshua Stark, Loyalty's Regal. Stark is anything but the embodiment of his Power -- he approaches Loyalty a tool to be used (like mankind) towards whatever goals suit him (or, of course, his Imperator) at the moment. On a personal level, Stark considers Loyalty a flexible thing (an attitude possibly brought on by the ease with which he manipulates his Estate). 
Avrileros, Viscount of Eternity. An unsmiling and vicious man who fights grimly against the encroaching destruction of creation, all the while wearing an expression that speaks volumes as to what he believes Creation's chances are. 
Senachiel, Marquis of Lost Things. A seraphim who survived the death of its first imperator and was taken into the family of Perpetual Wanderer, Senachiel has been the Power behind its Estate for longer than most remember. During the final confrontation with Friendship in the events surrounding the destruction of Pen Lo's Familia, Senachiel sustained a mortal wound that he has yet to recover from. 
Marenka Zeleny, Jealousy's Regal. Said by many to be the very embodiment of her estate -- it is not usually meant as a compliment. Marenka has not responded well to the gradual weakening of her Family's chancel. 
Michel Tomas, Saint (aka 'pawn') of Justice. A deeply pious and strict man, Michel is an unbending and extreme servant of his Estate, striving to achieve the exactly letter of the law, even in the halls of the Nobilis. He is not popular at parties. 
Depa Vastri, Duchess of Conspiracies. A dark-skinned woman with knowing eyes, the Duchess sees her Estate in all things, from the simplest act to the most complex series of events imaginable. Her role as a member of an Inquisitor Chancel is essentially to ferret out the presence of her very own Estate and destroy it -- for this reason alone, many fear her. 
Alexander Hawthorne Lawrence, Baron of Regret. The voice of temperance in his Chancel, Alexander was a serial murderer/rapist carrying out fifty-eight consecutive life sentences at a maximum security psychiatric institution when Lavinkyo enNobled him and give him full cognizance of his life. 
Sacrifice
Emma la Rue, City's Regal. A woman of contrasts, by turns harsh and unforgiving, beautiful and full of hope. Her methods are frequently inscrutable, following carefully laid plans at one point and random impulse the next. For all that her Estate serves as its home, she is not a friend of Humankind.
Haley, Power of Imagination. Cheerful and helpful young woman, generally loveable though not entirely predictable. 
Lady Chance.
Penelope, Marquessa of Memory. Flighty, unreliable, irresponsible and sometimes malicious. In messing with the Nobilis Chancel-creation Tool, I realized that we'd sort of done some things oddly in Storyville.
| Feature | Points |
|---|---|
| Avara | |
| 2 Banes | -1 |
| Chancel Blessing | |
| Chancel is a primary Excrucian target | -4 |
| Chancel is important, and its powers respected everywhere | 4 |
| Defender's Blessing | |
| Requires 1 Penetration | 2 |
| Extra Landlord | |
| Aggressive Warden with 9 RMPs | -3 |
| 1 Gate to Allied Chancel with Friendly Powers | 2 |
| Some Inhabitants with Earthly Magics | 1 |
| Who can be Anchors | 2 |
| Resources | |
| 1 Wierd Science | 1 |
| Technology barrier | 1 |
| Normal Magic | 3 |
| Total | 8 |
Obviously, the points are a bit messed up, since the previous total came out to 1. I messed up how 'normal magic' and 'magical inhabitants' works. Oops.
Recommend a variation like this:
| Feature | Points |
|---|---|
| Avara | |
| 2 Banes | -1 |
| Chancel Blessing | |
| Chancel is a primary Excrucian target | -4 |
| Chancel is becoming important, and its powers somewhat respected | 2 |
| Defender's Blessing | |
| Requires 1 Penetration | 2 |
| Extra Landlord | |
| Aggressive Warden with 9 RMPs | -3 |
| Resources | |
| 1 Gate to Allied Chancel with Friendly Powers | 2 |
| 1 Wierd Science | 1 |
| Normal Magic | 3 |
| Total | 2 |
Currently paid for by the two Realm points invested by players, as the Chancel isn't 'really important' yet... that's happening over time, so I don't have to sweat the balancing act yet.
In Locus Noctis, we see...
| Feature | Points |
|---|---|
| Accessibility | |
| Convenient | 2 |
| Avara | |
| 2 Banes | -1 |
| Chancel Blessing | |
| Chancel is a primary Excrucian target | -4 |
| Chancel provides an important service to Lord Entropy | Free |
| Defender's Blessing | |
| Requires 2 Penetration | 4 |
| Extra Landlord | |
| Aggressive Warden with 9 RMPs | -3 |
| 1 Gate to Allied Chancel with Friendly Powers | 2 |
| Normal Magic | 3 |
| 1 Wierd Science | 1 |
| Technology barrier | 1 |
| Total | 5 |
Jealousy almost makes me appreciate Terminus. Almost.
I'll have to schedule a business lunch with La Fleur. I seem to be the only one of my familia who doesn't dislike her intensely. She seems to do her job for our Lord well enough and He did see fit to place her in a position of great responsibility. Perhaps my bureaucratic experience has inured me to her type.
We need to expand the chancel quite a bit. Doing so would require a fair amount of coordinated effort by myself, La Fleur, Terminus and June. Difficult. Still, the rewards may be great enough to lure them into cooperation.
We need more high quality hotels or bungalows for our anticipated guests. Macy should be able to design the perfect things, if she can be talked out of decorating every surface with erotica.
Every so often I'm reminded that I'm a young Power. That the Power of Festivals is optimistic about her chances dueling the Power of Strife boggles my mind. Certainly an opportunity for publicizing our... resort.
Doors is extremely useful. Seems to be fairly easy to please, too, with insider information.
We'll need a backup plan or three to explain away the disappearance from mundane Earth of our 1500-odd staff to be. For the authorities -- lots of authorities -- and for their creditors and enemies. Bound to be a certain number of mob or government hitmen involved. Recruit some of them?
7500 paranoid barbarian uberwarriors and 7500 Victorian London streetwalkers. What the hell were my brother and sister thinking? Gah.
Could be worse.
Livers, Hookers and Entropy...
-- Edward (Power of Doors): "Terminus, a pleasure to meet you, sirrah."
-- Terminus: "I doubt that."
-- Lord Entropy: "For what is life without poetry and song?"
-- Terminus: "Death?"
-- HG: (speaking to Donner about what he's doing" "Figger 15 to 20 minutes for you and Gwen to be umm...intimate."
-- Donner: Uh, nooo.
-- HG: (describing the chancel of Cityback) "...an odd place. Some of the alleyways are friendly, some are lethal."
-- De: "Even so, you don't want an alleyway walking up and sniffing your crotch."
-- A gargoyle, about to present a woman at the chancel gates to Donner: "Damn, I forgot her name. I had it carved on my hand just a minute ago."
-- Lee: (Donner is left alone in the chancel whilst the others are out performing missions): "I bet Donner strips down to his shorts, singing "Old Time Rock and Roll" while sliding across the floor in his socks."
-- The Power of Festivals: "Nice place you've got here, good place for a party if you don't mind my saying so."
-- Donner: "Well I certainly appreciate a compliment from an expert."
-- HG: "Time for the rubber to meet the road. And by that I'm referring to Lust."
-- HG to Lust, who is fighting Jack the Ripper whilst wielding a brick: "If you deflect the Excrucian knife with your brick, it'll destroy the brick."
-- Lust: "I'm okay with that, the brick can die."
-- Lust: (after fighting Jack the Ripper, who was being defended by an earlier version of Amaciel) "I wouldn't know Amaciel from Jack at this point. Literally."
-- HG as Amaciel: "You are wise (looking at June) and...err...enthusiastic (looking at Lust)
1. Straw hat collection.
Hee hee hee!
I was so ecstatic when I got back to the house that I opened up the jewelry box and pulled out that naughty brooch I'd had in there--a pretty, pink cameo locket with a Greek hetaera on it. I pulled out those pictures of Death, snipped one up then and there, and tucked it right inside. Then I found the floppiest straw hat in the house (and I have quite the collection of floppy straw hats) and pinned the brooch on the ribbon. The other pictures--he'll never find them!
I sent Lust a thank-you gift of a chocolate cake over that one, layers of liqueur-soaked cake with chocolate truffle filling, all wrapped up in an enormous chocolate band, with piles of white-chocolate leaves on top. --I had Michel make it for me. The idea of importing good cooks, etc., was brilliant, if I do say so myself.
Never let it be said that running after Lust will get you nowhere!
2. Merlinus.
Not much else to note; we got the prostitutes back. I had the doctors take care of them, and I've put a little health back into them myself. So many children! Clothes and homes and food and shoes and combs and toothbrushes and blankets and so on...LeFleur did help, I have to admit.
On the way home, we met an old man named Merlinus, who helped us get ourselves lost enough for Lost Things to find us. He looked at me like we'd met before.
Wonder who he was.
Cast of NPCs:
Merlinus, an old man in a strange place.
Ada Williamette, Power of Strife, Cowboy Gal of Sanguinas
Power of Eternity, of Sanguinas
Griv the Gargoyle
Nephele Nikolaidhis, Power of Festivals
Gwen, the Electrick Zorch Woman
Edward, Power of Doors
Pen Lo, Imperator of a Thousand Body Parts
Lord Entropy
Meon, Desecration's Regal, one of Lord Entropy's crew.
Jack the Ripper, former Power of Punishment (under a different Imperator)
1. Death: Paradox or not, he always would have been a bastard.
Death receives a message from Lord Entropy, via the Power of Doors. "Your punishment is concluded." Death decides to find out what's going on. Edward, the Power of Death, notes in a Britishish accent that while the first visit to Entropy's chancel is free, afterwards you must bring a gift pertaining to your domain.
Edward opens a door onto a coastline; they hire a boat and travel into the seas. Lord Entropy's chancel centers around an island surrounded by gray algae; the island itself is desolate gray slate with some greenery stuck on top.1 The two are met by Meon, Desecration's Regal.
While Meon's gray robe seems to swarm with a life of its own, the Noble seems to be able to hold conversations without too much help from it: after Edward makes introductions and leaves, Meon invites Death on a unicorn hunt. They discuss Punishment.2
After a delay, Death is presented to Lord Entropy. During the discussion, Lord Entropy reveals that he forced Amaciel to imprison Death as a sword all those years ago as punishment for recently traveling back in time and forcing his fellow-tribesmen to become "weapons" themselves. "It happened then, so I punished you then," Lord Entropy says.
Lord Entropy continues, "I had intended to kill you, but Amaciel pleaded for your life. In exchange for your more lenient punishment, Amaciel himself was punished. I forbade him to tell you why you were being punished, or by whom. His punishment has ended, and you can be told." Death is dismissed and meditates on the nature of time travel, punishment, and paradox--but who are we kidding here? He thinks about revenge.3 Death decides to stay for the unicorn hunt.
2. Electricity: Always a people person.
Donner exits Cityback in Mexico City, carrying Pen Lo's liver to return it to Locus Sanguinas. He takes a cab as far as possible (i.e., not very far), and ends up flying the rest of the way "disguised" as a UFO.
He's greeted by Jealousy, always a people person, who takes the liver and basically leaves Donner on the front doorstep. Donner takes the nearest powerline home. During an interlude with Gwen4, Donner is interrupted by a knock on the door.
Griv, one of the chancel's gargoyles, announces that there's a visitor. It turns out to be Nephele Nikolaidhis, the Power of Festivals. Gwen, the Electric Zorch Woman, decides to accompany Donner to the meeting. Nephele Nikolaidhis is a disturbing, young-looking woman with the shadow of a crone. She announces that she and the Power of Strife, Ada Willamette, are looking for a neutral ground to hold a duel. Donner tells her that he’d have to discuss the matter with the rest of the familia before making a commitment.
Donner uses a Holly branch to speak to the Power of Doors, asking that he mention Storyville’s search for the finest in all areas to any suitable person or Noble that he should come across. He makes other arrangements along the same lines.
3. The Goyles: Slaughterus Interruptus, Pt. 2.
Lust continues to fight the man in the alleyway--Jack the Ripper, we presume. She manages to mark him with a brick. Jack flees; Lust follows. The alley wall, previously stabbed with the Excrucian scalpel, becomes too corrupted to stand and collapses around Lust as she pursues Jack.
The air fills with dust, choking Lust’s lungs painfully. Lust throws another brick, hits Jack again and knocks him to the ground. The dust thickens even more and begins to grow. Lust, suspicious, summons the Power of Fungus, whose almost treacherously ignorant reaction is “Neat!” Controlling her rage at her inability to get what she wants5, she makes a miraculous jump out of the stuff and lands clear on the top of a nearby building.
The mysterious figure that seemed to have been following her in the alleyway now seems to be following her across the rooftops. Lust throws a brick at him but misses.
Lust summons Reality, who manages to save the day by preventing Lust from further attacking the mysterious figure, now revealed to be Amaciel. As with Fungus, this is the Amaciel of the past, who knows nothing of his two future Nobles. He carries the Sword Death on his back.
On finding out who they are, and announcing that Jack, as the former Power of Punishment (belonging to a different Imperator at the time) will get his just deserts, grants Reality and Lust a favor, each.
Lust saves her favor for another day, but Reality asks, and is granted the request, to place a bright yellow smiley-face sticker on the Sword that is Death.6
The Power of Eternity meets Lust and Reality at St. John’s Cathedral. He leads them and 7500 prostitutes and their children into the sewers to get them lost. This turns out to be more difficult than they’d planned; they may not know where they are, but the city does. They check a door and almost walk into an alternate future but back out quickly.
Eventually they meet an old man in the tunnels named Merlinus, who smiles familiarly at Reality and offers to lose them if they like. Eternity, who lives with the knowledge of his past and future, says, with either fear or wonder, that they must be doing something right, because he has no idea what’s going to happen. Merlinus guides sup>7 them; they find themselves inside the bole of a tree. They return with the prostitutes to the chancel.
4. Death: Corrupting Desecration.
Death, during the unicorn hunt, suggests to Meon that a more interesting variant of the unicorn hunt would be to empower the unicorn to hunt them. During the conversation, Death starts to complain about Lord Entropy, but Meon interrupts him and changes the topic. Death wonders aloud if this change to the hunt would pique Lord Entropy’s interest, and Meon answers that it might. Death suggests that such an entertainment, put on for Lord Entropy’s benefit, might win them back into his good graces (Meon had been blamed in the Pen Lo fiasco for making the Imperator-killing swords). Meon dithers, putting off the idea, saying that he has business in Miami soon; there’s something he must investigate.
1For some reason, I immediately thought of The Island of Doctor Moreau. Or maybe “The Most Dangerous Game.”
2 Cost you a dollar if you want to find out what they said. Dave.
3REVENGE.
4You have to wonder which ACDC song was playing. Oops, I mean “songs.”
5Not a natural part of Lust’s character.
6She took pictures.
7Or whatever the word is for the opposite of guides.
Doctor: Niemi
Subject: C.J.B. Spender
Location: Dade Office
The Subject presents signs of severe distrust, paranoia and delusions of grandeur. The subject also shows signs of an acute oral fixation.
Topic:
Subject was recommended to us by a higher order. The subject was manifesting paranoia by suggesting that this was some sort of punishment for a recent incident at sea.
His story suggests that he may have a bit of a persecution complex as well. The subject claims that he was sent on a secret mission by the Power of Guilt (The power that makes the World go ‘round) to locate the source of some sort of super weapons. The fantastic claim that these were located in the Bermuda triangle of all places makes one wonder about the subjects over all mental satiability. The fact that the subject makes all sorts of claims with complete seriousness is quite unnerving. The subject in the past has claimed to be helping Aliens from outer space try and take over the world, and to be working with a secret arm of the FBI leads us to want to up his medication. He also claims to be involved in the recent Blue Angel “sightings”.
The Subjects tale of his Visit to the B.T. continues in this vain. The story he been written down without alliteration.
His narrative started with the Claim that he was brought to an Island by the DD 991 Fife to investigate an illegal weapons transfer. When the DD 991 reached the location in question he had ordered an advanced party (Encounter Team Able) to be sent out to investigate. They soon lost communication with the advance party. Another party (Encounter Team Baker) was formed up and he would be leaded this one. While the ship had been surrounded by gale force winds the Zodiac that the Encounter Team soon found themselves in calm sea’s and tropical clime. This did not seem to faze the Subject, and (see earlier C.R.’s 114.1.6, 114.1.16, & 114.1.18 dealing with Alien’s, & Agents Mulder and Scully) he went on to attempt the cover up Encounter Team Abel’s survival. He sent out Encounter Team Baker to reconnoiter the area and find out what was going on. Meanwhile the Subject claims that “the” higher power “guided” him to an area that had human habitation. At this new location the subject claims to have met three human like suspects and an extinct animal. The encounter with the extinct animal did not seem to alarm the Subject (again see C.R.’s 114.1.6). At this point he Claims to have summoned the “Higher” power to his location to meet with the three Humans. This part of the narrative seemed to fill the subject with a high degree of satisfaction.
Memo to Dr. Niemi
While you were:
Out of the office*
In a meeting
With a Client
At the Hospital
At the Radio Station
Your Friday meeting with Ms. Mariska Marinovich has been cancelled. She is going to be in New Jersey meeting her Daughter Ofra’s new Boyfriend.
12C session postponed due to inclement weather.
In the jail cell with the beautiful boy. Foam the room to keep out the prying eyes/ears. Guilt gets a cell-call. (Need to identify cell blocking fungal properties.) The boy tells us what he can or what he will. The being that removed the weapons was a construct. It walked like a man. It had a small head with many lenses on it. The large chest was a boiler. It was made of brass and ran on gears. It did not combust dead animals.
The boy was fostered to the ship’s captain, not a high level player. His lord and master made arrangements with on of the nobles to bring Excrucian weapons that do not call attention to themselves. They were to receive an entrance into this world and a concept as payment for their effort.
The boy did have one question. “What will happen to me?” I give him the only true answer. “That is up to our master.” “Does he even know that I’m here?” Well there isn’t a good answer to that so we say nothing. “I know your laws. I have harmed none here….”
“My name is Cixtin, so you can stop using that ridiculous application. I am not particularly comely for my species.” We turn to leave.
From the door I ask “By the way, do you reincarnate?” “We persist, but not in the way that you are saying.
Moonbeam
The people in the lobby are looking up to the balcony of the second and third floors. “Go to three” I squeak while deal with being myself and my lord at the same time. As the elevator doors open, screams greet us. We quickly follow the noise to a suite. I lose contact with Her. A classic salesman approaches me with eyes wilder than his suit. “Where is the house phone?” I point in a random direction. “Where is the trouble?” “Number 123!” He yells as he runs into the lobby. A dude hulls as he leaves the room. People are milling about.
The room is a mess. The body on the bed is missing his skin. Let’s not look there. The wife must be the wife, fifty with too much make-up. Mascara running down her face, she is in hysterics. “Do you have a photo of your husband?” She points to an ugly purse still sobbing. I find a worn anniversary shot. It was the man who past by before asking for the phone. Damn someone is wearing a brand new Edgar suit. I grab his slippers and underwear; while his nib’s finishes whatever he was doing with the body, let’s not think of that now.
I duck into a vacant room. Plenty of fungus in the bathroom to pray to the Graf. I’m still shaky, but I fill her in with the most important details. She sends me to the van so we can do some work in peace. Although, she might have done it just to give me time to pull myself together. The skin is easy to trace, athletes foot and some other things that he picked up on the road.
The Graf
I get a prayer from Dr. Wirtz. They have had a brake-through on the communication device. He transfers the knowledge to me. I use some tamarisk, and pray to Crime. He comes over and I give him a device. I them try Punishment, but she is busy. Next on the list is Guilt. After some difficulty, I get her. She is in a bit of trouble, so I offer to come to her. “Just make sure they know I’m coming and it’s Ok.
-Margie asking about Guilts abilities
"Can't Guilt find out about the new guy...you know...something like a guilt check?"
-Doyce pondering how to describe the robot in the scene...and we helped!
HG: "I can see it visually..."
John: "...Rock'um Sock'um Robot..."
Stan: "Tweeky...BadaBadaBada..."
Dave (holding his arms out): "...WARNING...WARNING..."
Margie: "...C3PO..."
HG: "...Nooooo...
-Doyce needlessly worries Dave
HG: "Ahhhh...."
Dave: "What?!?"
HG: "Oh nothing. I just came up with an idea for something that I couldn't figure out how to do. Yes Folks, a little peek behind the Curtain."
-Crime checking into things
Dave: "Can I pick up crimes from the Mother?"
HG: "Um...not much...Petty Larceny..."
Margie: "...Neglect..."
HG: "...No..."
Dave: "...Tax Fraud..."
HG: Ohhh Yeahhhh. But you get that from everybody."
Dave: "Yeah, your going to have to add that to your filter, otherwise you'll overload."
-Crime with his new toy
Crime: "I've got guy's that can help."
Jason: "Ummm Yeah. But I could really use some help with my Mom."
Crime: "Hey! I could help you with your mom!"
-Dave on doing the log
Dave: "Yeah...I'm going to have a great time doing the log this time because there won't be any jokes about Sian's stick."
John: "Yeah, but Stan is doing the Quote's"
-The stick joke of the night
Old Crone: "Where is your stick?"
Punishment: "Grrrr...I have found this walking stick..."
-Doyce needed a type of tree for Sian...And We helped!
HG: "I can't remember what type of tree I'm looking for..."
"...Apples..."
"...Pears..."
"...Almonds..."
"...Persimmons..."
"...Pomegranates..."
"...Bark..."
"...Dodges..."
"...Apricots..."
"...Nuts..."
"...Leaves..."
"...Sticks..."
"...Woe..."
HG: "ARRRgggg! You people aren't any help what so ever. I need to go into the other room for a minute"
-Punishment gets a gift from a friend
Sian looking at one of the Fates: "Ummm...Can I keep these knitting needles?"
Fate: "Sure...if you feel you need them."
Margie: "look. Now Punishment has two little sticks"
-John helps Doyce in describing a vision for Dave
HG: "You see...ummm..."
John: "...Yourself in bed with crime."
Dave: "No! That's when I use the knitting needles on my own eyes."
-Sian takes on one of the "Not-a-man"
Sian: "There is no need for you to waste your time on regret."
Margie: "But there is always time for Guilt."
-Doyce describing one of the "Not-a-men" to Sian
HG: "You see a man who is not a man passed out on the floor of the kitchen..."
John: "Naaaahhh...It's not the being dead drunk part that is not not being Manly. It's the passed out in the kitchen part that is suspect."
-While Crime is talking to Jason about his big plan
Dave: Meanwhile, Jurat is outside on a window washing scaffolding saying "Perrrrrfect...everything is going according to plan."
-Crime offers Jason a "favor"
Crime: "I have a special request, if it's not to much to ask..."
Stan: "I like big butt's, and I cannot lie..."
-Crime taking Jason to the Kamoran speedboat
John: "Kamoran speedboat. That sounds like some sort of girly drink."
-Dave joking around
I knock on the door "Hey! your knockers fell off."
-Margie having fun at Sian's expense
Margie: "Hey! I wanted to see Punishment in a thong"
Doyce: "funny. But I don't want to see Dave in one...Ever."
Dave: "Not that you ever will..Ever."
Doyce: "Plus those things ride up...Not that I know."
-Doyce enjoying the visuals of Crime Talking to Justice
Doyce: "I like the vision - A skinny black Frenchman talking to a pot bellied Haitian."
John: "Oh, he speaks French. I talk to him in Creole just to piss off Alejandro."
-Doyce to Sian as the "Garden"
Garden: "you know, it's been a long time since Lord Entropy has been able to trick...ummm negotiate some one into performing this task."
-Doyce describing the Garden
HG: "He has very bushy eyebrow's...being a garden and all."
Dave: "I hate the Mythic..."
I've been thinking a lot about conflict and opposed Miracles tend to work. I'm not entirely happy with the standard way of doing it from the book, and I had been doing it another way for a couple of sessions, but I decided to give the 'straight' rules a try.
The thing is, I perceived the straight rules as being somehow different from the variant rules I was using; they aren't, they just require more math.
I hate math.
What I like about Nobilis is that you've got your 'normal optimum' in each Attribute and those lovely little Miracle Points that can be used to stage things up to a Greater Effect if you need it... you can't really said you've Given It Your All in Nobilis until You've dropped 8 MP's on a Word of Command whose very invocation ruptured your spleen. THAT'S effort.
What I don't like is dealing with the rules on spending MPs towards Penetration rules and Auctoritas.
-=-=-
Therefore, I'm going to (re)implement a house rule regarding miraculous conflict and how it works with Auctoritas:
Way it currently works: An attack must have 'penetration' defined ahead of time or it goes poof if it hits any sort of Auctoritas, or if it hits an Auctoritas higher than the Penetration you decided to use.
Example:
Player one has Aspect 4, Spirit 1.
Player two has Domain (cold) 4, Spirit 4.
Way combat works now:
1. Player 1 punches player 2 as an Aspect 4 miracle. Player1 defines no Penetration on the attack, so nothing happens. Poof. P1 eventually has to declare (on some later action) that the attack was Aspect 0, Penetration 4 to get a crappy effect (and he probably has to make several attacks to "get the range": "I try penetration 1... no? how about 2? no? damn..."), or spend miracle points to keep the attack high and still penetrate... and still keep guessing for awhile. Ugh.
2. Player 2 uses a Domain Cold attack on Player 1. Domain 4, but no penetration. It goes poof. There isn't much Auctoritas there, but it's enough.
The Way I want it to work: Auctoritas interferes with any incoming miracle, moving it down in strength to a degree equal to the strength of the Auctoritas... the remaining strength of the attack or effect gets through.
How it would look with the same characters:
1. Player 1 punches Player 2 as an Aspect 4 miracle. Player 2's Auctoritas of 4 pushes the punches strength down to an Aspect 0 miracle, which is basically a competent Mortal's punch, and that is what connects... a bruise at best, unless P2 is already hurt. Player1 knows he's going to have to 'push himself' (spend MPs) to do serious damage, but doesn't have to specifically allocate MPs towards penetration.
2. Player 2 uses a Domain Cold (4) attack on Player 1 (who has Spirit 1). P1's auctoritas pushes the Domain 4 miracle down to a 3, which isn't enough 'miracle' for Lesser Creation of Cold (need level 4), so it basically becomes a illusory ghost miracle within P1's auctoritas (actually, at level 3, it strengthens and preserves any existing Cold in the area, but doesn't create any of it's own), and P2 knows that he needs to pump it up (but necessarily by how much).
Anyway, this means the players don't have to worry about declaring Penetration or crunching numbers at all. Here's what they see:
1.
"I punch him. Aspect 4 Miracle."
"His auctoritas is strong, pushing out against every hostile move you make in his direction... you're landing punches, but they don't have any more oomph than a mortal brown belt."
"Damn... okay, time to push."
2.
"Freeze the area: lesser creation of cold... something like a sleet storm."
"The area is rimed in ice and several of the mooks are knocked to the ground by the slippery conditions and the incredibly painful slivers of ice blasting through the air, but the air around your main opponent contains on the mist of his breath as it mists in the air and the ghostly images of the effect... nothing significant seems to be reaching him."
Both players know they have to spend MP's to overwhelm the Auctoritas, but they don't have to declare a Miracle/Penetration split, just overall "Oomph". The net effect on their MP's is EXACTLY the same, but the combats play faster, with less focus on number crunching and math.
The limits on how many MPs can be spent on any action remain exactly the same: 1, 2, 4, or 8.
The interesting thing is that this is exactly how the rules play out in the Great White Book... it's just more complicated. :P
Just stuff I've cleared up in re-reading bits of the book.
- One may only sustain one miracle at a time. If you decided to do a level 6 Aspect miracle of 'defeating an entire army, one man at a time, over the course a week's constant battle', then you can't sustain any other miracles during that time. However, you can perform other 'instant' miracles or use Gifts while sustaining a miracle, provided the second miracle/gift use doesn't cost any MPs to perform.
- I'd previously said that you couldn't do two miracles at once (as in: one long, one short). As you see above, that's not the case, but you can still only perform one miracle per 'round' when in conflict situations -- answering a prayer counts as a miracle, thus answering a prayer in mid-combat is probably a bad thing.
- In the event of using Penetration vs. Auctoritas, it states at one (and only one) point in the book that ties go to Auctoritas. Every other example given in the book indicates that ties breach Auctoritas -- that's what we've been doing, and that's what we're going to keep doing. (I.e.: Penetration 5 penetrates Auctoritas 5).
- I'm still trying to figure out how 'points spent to make a more power miracle' layer with 'points spent on penetration of the miracle'. More on that later.
Because Randy asked about it as a possibility, and John also mentioned more anchors it in passing:
Extra Anchors Gift
Miracle level: Total maximum # of Anchors, minus 1.
+1 Automatic
-3 Self-only
-1 Comprehensive Use
+1 Uncommon
FINAL COST: Total maximum number of anchors you'd end up with (counting the ones you already have), -3
So, if you wanted Six anchors total: 6 - 3 = a 3-point Gift of Spirit.
The maximum anchors possible would, I suppose, be 11 (an 8-point gift).
On Christmas night a year ago, God fled Heaven to escape an audacious demon attack. The demons smashed to dust his palace of beautiful blue-moon marble. TV news kept it secret, but homeless children in shelters across the country report being awakened from troubled sleep and alerted by dead relatives. No one knows why God has never reappeared, leaving his stunned angels to defend his earthly estate against assaults from Hell. "Demons found doors to our world," adds eight-year-old Miguel, who sits before Andre with the other children at the Salvation Army shelter. The demons' gateways from Hell include abandoned refrigerators, mirrors, Ghost Town (the nickname shelter children have for a cemetery somewhere in Dade County), and Jeep Cherokees with "black windows." The demons are nourished by dark human emotions.
I can't decide whether to be deeply saddened by the kind of life that's portrayed in the article, or to use the whole thing as the incredible treasure trove of story it is.
The secret stories say the angel army hides in a child's version of an ethereal Everglades: A clear river of cold, drinkable water winds among emerald palms and grass as soft as a bed. Gigantic alligators guard the compound, promptly eating the uninvited.
Okay, so what happened next?
Well, I could see, in the tapestries we were weaving, images -- the past, the present, the future, combined and mixed all up.
What did you see of your future?
I couldna tell. I knew they were pictures of what was yet to come, but only because -- I didna recognize them. Perfect memory, y'know? So I knew what hadn't yet happened -- poses, places -- but it's not like I could say, "Ah, well, when a tall man with a bright blue beard confronts me, I'll have to chop off his head because he's going to try and shoot me." Because that would have been too useful, too straightforward.
And you prefer things that are spelled out clearly.
Of course. But, like I said, it was all mixed up. So I tried to see if there was a pattern -- things from the past or the present that matched up, and maybe then how they related to the future.
Makes sense.
I thought so. The crone, though, she didna much care for that.
She wanted you to just go with the flow.
Right. I know I'm too analytical sometimes. It's hard to avoid when you have perceptions like mine. And I was trained to correlate facts, figure out clues.
Heh. Yes, well, we've talked about that before. More tea?
Ah, sure.
What flavor? Hyacinth? Granite? Little pink beetle?
Um ...
Remember what we talked about. Open your horizons.
Riiight. How about some Earl Grey?
Sheesh. Oooookay. But decaf. You have got to unwind.
I thought I was unwinding. Unwound.
You're a twenty-year grandfather clock who's been ticking for five minutes. Unwind more. What happened next? The crone had a fit.
Well, not a fit, exactly, but she told me to stop, and that we needed to take a walk. And then she started talking about eyes.
Eyes?
I didna quite follow. See, she had one eye -- at least in front. And the matron in the river had none. And the maiden doing the drying had two. But they all seemed to see equally well, to the degree they needed to.
I went about with my eyes closed for three weeks. Didn't faze me.
No doubt. But we're talking about me, right?
Right.
I mean, this was your idea, right? Just a chat between the two of us, someplace cozy and comfortable, a spot of tea and you hear about what I've been up to.
Girls' night out.
Um --
Right. I always find the stuff on the World Tree to be fascinating.
I'm glad that makes one of us. So we went for a walk, and chitchatted about the Tree of Triumph Fruit, and this reed boat that I was going to be sailing in.
Were there an owl and a pussycat involved?
No.
Um ... okay. So, let me guess -- she said something else cryptic.
That hardly takes any imagination. She said that I was going to succeed in my quest.
That's not very cryptic. 'Cause you did succeed.
Right. After a fashion, as she said. And then she said that I'd succeed frequently.
Good, good. More frogs?
No thanks. She said I should be wary of that.
Wary of frogs? Damned straight -- some of them will creep up behind you --
No, wary of success.
You strike me as a very wary person.
Always. I figured she was going on about being overconfident, but she said that success was not always best for me.
Mm-hmm.
I mean, that's rather cryptic, don't you think?
No.
Fine. Well, I think it's cryptic. I mean, when is success not success?
You want examples?
I know, I know -- "What shall it profiteth a man if he gain the entire world and lose his immortal soul?" That sort of thing.
Right! Good! Mundane example, and kind of silly, but nice thinking outside the box.
But that's all she said. That's the cryptic part. No specific warnings as to times when I should not succeed, or what sort of warning signs I should be aware of, or the consequences, or anything like that. Just this vague metaphorical warning. Am I supposed to spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder?
Don't you already?
Right, but it's usually for failure. Now I need to be watching out for success, too?
Or maybe you should just take things as they come. Go with the flow. Or make up your own flow. Be the flow.
Twaddle.
Of course. That's what makes it fun.
Right. Anyway, I traded her the walking stick I'd crafted for a pair of the knitting needles. They were well-crafted, very pointy, very strong. Much better weapons.
You hadn't been attacked yet.
I was using my imagination.
Heh. Touché. But that's hardly a stretch for you. What did the crone say?
"Charming. Weave well." I think she was being sarcastic.
Probably.
So we went back and I got in the boat -- a coracle, really -- and sailed off. And when I looked back --
-- They were gone.
No --
-- They were all staring at you with their limited eyes.
No --
-- They were all laughing and pointing.
No --
They were climbing into a puce flying saucer, driven by Elvis, and propelled by several large five-winged swans.
No! They were all shadowy shapes of spiders.
Oh, well, that, too, I suppose.
Riiight. I wasn't quite sure what to do at that point --
Couldn't kill 'em, I guess.
No, of course not.
Well, that's good. It would probably have annoyed them.
I wouldna killed them just because --
You know, you have the cutest accent when you let your hair down.
I haven't let my hair down. It gets in my eyes.
I was speaking meta -- never mind. What happened next?
Well, that was three women who were no women. I'd told the crone next I was supposed to run into three men who were not men. She was surprised by the descriptions, seemed to guess it was the tree, and suggested I didn't mention it to the menfolk.
Ooooh. Mystical female secrets! Cool!
Oh. I thought she was admonishing me to be polite.
Nah, I like the mystical female secrets thing. Maiden, mother, crone and -- um -- you. The, ah, avatar of Nemesis, the goddess of --
I dinna think so. I'm not exactly, well, qualified.
Well, qualified enough for the Spear. Besides, you have to use your --
-- Don't. I'd rather not talk about it.
You never talk about it.
I don't want to talk about not talking about it, either.
Maybe that's what this was all about. Experiencing it, talking about it, coming to grips --
It was all about my being a stupid idjit and forgetting to bring a host gift. And someone having a yen for fruit in their diet.
If you think that's all this was about, you're just not seeing it.
Well -- no, I'm not.
Oh, well. It'll come to you. So, there you were, bobbing down the Mysterley River ...
Is that what it's called?
Well, it is now. to me, at least.
Okay. Well, whatever it was, I went floating along, until I heard weeping in the distance.
A maiden in distress?
Not exactly. The coracle came ashore where a path came to the river. I walked along, and found this -- man. He was sitting there, along this cart path, weeping. Just bawling his eyes out. He saw me, and then kept crying.
Some terrible tragedy?
No, he'd broken some big ceramic urn of milk, and he was just -- well, devastated.
You're saying -- wait, you're saying he was crying over --
Exactly. It was the stupidest thing I'd ever seen.
Maybe he really liked milk. Maybe it was the last milk in the land, and he needed to take it to his starving children. Maybe some horrible dragon was going to kill his mother if he didn't return from a quest for milk. Maybe --
Maybe so, maybe all of those things, but, y'know, come on. Get a grip, man. You spilled the milk and broke the urn. Get over it. Figure out an alternative. Suck it up, take your lashes, whatever, but don't just sit there and whimper and wail. It was -- well --
Annoying?
Womanly.
Reeealy?
Not like that. I mean, well, yes, it was unmanly. A man faces adversity, deals with the blows it sets him, and moves on. He takes responsibility. He takes action.
Like you.
Like me. Exactly.
You set such an example for men.
Right. I mean, except for the --
What?
The -- you know --
What, your boobs?
Yes. My -- bosom. Right? I mean, I can't exactly tell some bloke, "Be just like me," because he doesn't have the -- and I don't have the --
Sian, you've been a woman for years and years. Are you that uncomfortable with your body, still? That you can't even point to it and call it for what it is?
A gentleman never --
Exactly. Women are much more sensible about such things. Comes from changing diapers, I think.
Easy enough for you to say. You've never had your gender changed.
Who says?
What?
Well, I am the Power of Imagination. I can be whatever I can conceive.
So you've --
We're talking about you, right?
Um --
Right?
Right.
So this guy was acting like a weepy woman --
I have a great deal of respect for womanhood, I'll have you know. I've dedicated much of my life to the protection of --
Interesting you can respect them, and protect them, but not accept them.
Accept them?
Well, you're a woman, have been for centuries, but you don't accept that.
It's not that I don't accept it, I just don't dwell --
And you see some guy sobbing uncontrollably, and you say he's acting like a woman, which doesn't sound very respectful to them.
Well, it's not so much a matter of respecting them, as, ah ...
Never mind. So you left him there.
Well, I figured, if he was meant to be a guide, he wasn't much use as one. I could always come back to him, if need be. And, besides, it wasn't certain that the ones I met were all meant to be guides, as opposed to simply milestones.
You didn't kill him or anything.
I don't just kill everyone I meet!
Of course not.
Or even everyone who annoys me.
Good thing that.
For some folks, yes.
Am I annoying you?
You -- have your moments.
Good! And you're not killing me, and that's good, too! Right?
Asking me in a bit.
More tea? Chamomile?
Thanks. So, I said something like, "No use wasting time on regret," and moved on. I walked along the path, and suddenly realized I was being watched.
Some terrible, horrible, utterly awful enemy? A spotted snake with purple tongue? Thorny hedgehogs?
No --
Success? Failure? Did you look over your shoulder?
No. After a while, I did the last thing anyone ever does.
Looked up?
Right.
I always look up first. Or other directions, sometimes.
Riiiiight. Anyway, a planet and a moon were watching me. They didn't want me to know it, though, so they looked away, quickly. And whistled, as though admiring the stars or going about on an errand.
I love the World Tree.
That makes one of us.
No, really. Where else could something like that happen?
Nowhere else. Mercifully.
No, everywhere else. That's what makes it so special. You just have to be willing to see it. You're doing that thing again.
What?
Sighing. Rolling your eyes.
So anyway, I soon came on another crossroad.
Another one?
Well, the guy with the broken urn was at a crossroad. Though it was interesting.
The crossroad? What was interesting about it?
It wasn't one when I turned to leave. It was just one path, leading away.
Oooh. Very symbolic.
Right. I just like my symbolism a bit less -- well, real.
Like your boobs.
What?!
They're real. But they're symbolic.
They're symbolic?
Everything's symbolic. You just have to decide what they symbolize.
Could we not talk about ...
Say it!
Say it?
Say it. Boobs. Or I'll keep talking about them.
Could we not talk about -- my -- boobs. Breast. Bosom.
Want to talk about your cock instead?
Anyway, next I came to another crossroad, and there was this little run-down cottage there, and a well in front of it. And these two kids were playing on the well, standing on either side of it, tossing a ball back and forth.
How fun! What were the rules they were using?
I thought you didn't like rules.
No, I don't mind rules, as long as they change.
Then they're not rules, are they?
No, then they're not eternal, rigid, perpetual, cosmic laws -- which never are, anyway, except that people pretend they are, so they get to be.
As you say. So the kids were -- well, it was dangerous.
Oh.
So I got a bit put out by that.
Maybe they liked it that way. Danger they could control.
It's all fun, till one of them falls in the well.
So it would be better if they didn't have any fun at all?
Well, so long as they're safe, yes.
Mm-hmmm.
So I was put out, as I was saying, and I asked them about their parents. My Ma would have had my hide if she'd spotted me doing that, and my Da, too. The kids point to the house, where their father is having a nap. A "siesta." Well, that's just too much. I go in, and there he is, passed out on the table, a jug of some foul brew by his side.
Haven't you ever gotten drunk?
Well -- yes. Once. No, twice. But I paid for it, in body certainly, and when Father David found me the first time, in penance, too. And I didn't have any kids to look after.
Didn't you ever pretend you did? Have kids, that is?
No! I mean, that wasn't the sort of game boys played, and it would have been silly as a man. And then, well --
Ever want to have one? A kid, I mean. Or a man, I guess, too.
I -- I --
You sputter very colorfully.
I thought we were talking about me.
I am. Or a woman, if your taste still runs that way. Or runs that way now. Or if you're just curious, I mean, nothing wrong with that, might as well be flexible and creative, broaden the old horizons, nudge-nudge. That's what I keep telling you, at least.
So I went over and emptied the pitcher of water over his head. Now, he doesn't care for that, nor for my telling him his kids are in danger and he's a drunken sot.
Imagine that.
He grabs the jug, swings at me --
-- and you kill him.
No! Stop that! I dinna need to kill him. I simply punched the jug, so that it shattered. A show of strength, and striking at something that he values. And, can you believe it, the useless piece of garbage drops to his knees, horrified, sopping up the booze from the dirty floor --
That reminds me of a joke. This drunk staggers out of a bar and starts to cross the street --
It's not that I'm one of those temperance fanatics, you know. A small glass of brandy, now and again, never did any harm. And the Lord served his disciples wine, not that horrid grape juice some of the more radical Protestant sects fob off on their people. Did you know that --
Actually, I have something of a fondness for drink. Or of drunks. You know, the whole pink elephant thing? It's kind of nasty, but, well, that's part of the package.
Well, this drunk I had no fondness for. Again -- and, yes, before you say it, I understood the symbolism even then -- I'd encountered a man who was no man.
Are you saying he had no --
I'm sure I dinna know that. But being a man means more than the physical. A true man watches after his children. He deals with the world on his own terms, not fleeing from it into a bottle. He faces reality, plays the hand he's dealt, and lives it. That's what a real man does.
Like you.
Like me.
Mm -hmmmm.
You know, you keep saying that. It's damned annoying.
More tea? Or something stronger? I've some distilled dreamstuff in a bottle around here. It's a bit potent straight up, but with grapefruit juice it's divine.
... Maybe not right now. At any rate, when I went out, I made sure the children were all right. They said their mother would be home soon, and they could stay with their parents if need be. So I went on from there.
Which way?
Again, the only way. The crossroads was now just a path.
You'd made a decision --
--- And had to live with the consequences.
Like a real man! I get it!
Right. That's what I try to do.
Mm -hmmmm.
Anyway, as I passed on, the trees about me started changing shapes, eventually becoming a village, a world of organic, living houses, inhabited by a bird-like people. Though others dwelt there as well -- plant creatures, human types. It was dusk, and people were clearly concerned being out after dark. A large church sat in the middle of the town, but I saw a pub there, under the sign of a purple pine cone, and I went in there instead.
I think it's great you can be so tolerant of different forms and shapes of people. That shows a lot of flexibility.
My brother -- er, sibling, in my Chancel, is a mass of Fungus. My Imperator is one of the great Worms. One learns to deal with it.
And with your own form and shape.
One -- learns to deal with it. At any rate, I had no coin with me, but I knew there were those within who were transgressors, and the fines they ought to have paid found their way to my pocket. As I sat there, nursing something that ought to have been ale, I overheard rumors of murders that were taking place in the village. Working women, that caught my first attention, but menfolk as well. Shopkeepers. Everyone seemed vulnerable. Much speculation was about as to who was responsible, but all that was for certain was that the town protectors had been unable to capture the killer.
I'll be that got your dander up.
I'm not much for grand symbolic quests and living in a world of metaphors. But a murderer and predator upon defenseless women, and upon the others in this town -- that was simple, clean, and straightforward.
An odd way to describe it.
You know what I mean. It was something I knew, something I was trained for. Something that felt right.
So things can only be right if there are things going wrong?
No, not at all. Well, not in any way that's important. It just feels that way, perhaps.
And the feelings aren't important.
... Maybe we should talk about my bosom again.
What?
Just a joke. 'Twas a simple matter, then, to divine he who needed punishment for these crimes. A house stood atop a hill, overlooking the village. It was haunted, they said.
That's not very creative. Now, if it had been the church -- no, maybe the little girl who was picking up the empties in the bar, and with each empty she flipped a three-sided coin she carried to see if that person would be the next --
Do you mind? At any rate, I journeyed there, straightaway, and found him. And, again, not to belabor the point, he was a man in form, but not a man, but a monster, a gibbering lunatic. He came at me with a butchers knife, though I disarmed him with ease. Then I forced him to confess his crimes.
And the protectors of the village, they put him in jail, then?
No, him I killed.
Ah.
He well deserved it.
For being unmanly?
For being a ruthless killer.
Being a ruthless killer makes one deserving of death?
Of course.
You don't see the irony here.
What irony?
Mm-hmmmm.
I wish you would stop that. Here, pour me a bit more of that.
Only if you let your hair down. Literally, I mean. And you stop with the sighing and eye-rolling. Come on, nothing's going to attack you here, if a bit of hair gets in your eyes you'll only be ninety-eight percent as lethal as you usually are, but I think you can manage.
Fine.
There. That's better. Here.
Mmm. That's -- very tasty.
Don't drink it too quickly, it'll make your head spin. Literally. Ah. Your hair is like spun silver. I like it. You should do something more interesting with it, though. Here, let me --
Don't. Touch. The hair.
Oooooookay.
As I was saying, I left town after that. The madman's head I left on a spike at the gate of the haunted mansion, so that the people would know they were safe.
Wouldn't that make the people think the killer had struck again?
Not when people stopped dying after that.
Unless a copy-cat killer started picking up where the crazy guy left off. I saw this movie once --
They knew they were safe. I saw the ghost of the killer dragged into the ground by the ghosts of those who had lived in the house. And I felt -- saw -- the spirit of the village become clearer, less dark. Indeed, dusk had fled, and it was morning again.
Very symbolic. Though I like the copy-cat thing.
There was, of course, but one road out of town now, and that is what I took. At length, I came to a fork in the road. I'd run out of men-not-men, so --
Hey, that was funny.
I do have a sense of humor. Rather dry one, I was told, though Father David said it would get me in trouble some day.
Humor is very important. It shows a different way of looking at something. I like it a lot. Hey, here's one: a Noble, an Imperator, and an Excrucian walk into a Chancel --
The fork in the road, as I said, had a sign. Down one path, "Pandemonium Garden." Down the other, "Everything else." Now, Pandemonium was the capital of Hell, the city of "all demons" in Greek, in Milton's Paradise Lost. I assumed this was somewhat less ominous.
Besides, Hell isn't anywhere near that spot on the World Tree.
Right. Still, a Garden is what I was looking for, so that's the path I took. The road took me up into the wooded hills, climbing and descending in the rills and chasms in the bark of the Tree.
Very poetic.
Thank you. I heard, at length, a giggle, and a rustle in the undergrowth. I was ready for an attack --
You had your knitting needles in quatre?
I had the butchers knife now, remember? No, naught drawn, but I was ready for it. And then the attack came. It was --
Yes? Yes? Black arrows? Poisoned black arrows? Black poisoned arrow frogs?
Acorns.
Acorns? What, giant squirrels? I've heard of giant squirrels that inhabit the World Tree. No, really, they're a mile tall, with big, bushy --
I parried the first acorn, then the second, then parried and dodged a barrage. I heard bare feet upon the leaves and wood, and waited a moment. Then I decided to move on.
You didn't kill him!
Y'know, I don't kill everyone I meet.
The day is still young.
Indeed. At any rate -- yes, please, just a bit more -- as I turned to leave, he was standing in the path. "You canna do that," he said.
Did he have a cute accent like yours?
I dinna have a cute accent. I worked very hard to speak the Queen's English in my time in London. Too many folks were willing to consider us Welsh half-barbarians anyway.
Well you have a cute accent now.
So that's what he said. He was a young boy, maybe fifteen years old. A face of mischief, and eyes as old as the hills around us.
Peter Pan. Huckleberry Finn. Robin Goodfellow. Pan. Tom Bombadil as a teenager.
Whoever. That's how he appeared to me. He made faces at me. "Is there aught wrong with your face?" I asked, and he said there was not, and questioned me as to what I was doing there. I told him of the Triumph Fruit. "That'll be pretty difficult. It's in the garden."
See, he did have a cute Welsh accent!
He did not.
Then you do.
I dinna have a cute Welsh accent!
Well, it sounds like what I think a cute Welsh accent would sound like.
Have you ever been to Wales?
Yup. And to the dolphins as well. Hey, here's one -- a dolphin, a porpoise, and an orca go over a sand bar --
So ... I ask him, wasn't I on the path to the garden? And he ventured as the garden was along the path. Then he stepped closer, and said it was on the path, then danced away and said it wasn't on the path any further, and I'd have to catch him.
Ah. So he --
Yes, I realized he was the garden himself, somehow personified.
That was very good, imaginative thinking.
I was on the World Tree. It was the strangest thing I could think of, so I knew it must be true. Then he started chanting poetry at me as we ran through the wood.
Love poetry?
Of course not. Taunting poetry, like, "Sian, Sian, spank and yawn, / Came questing for the Garden / On a search for Entropy / Who for fruit had a hard-on."
Oh. Not very good poetry.
I tried to register my complaint personally, but -- well, he was pretty fast. Nimble, too.
He knew your name.
You noticed that.
So, he was faster than you?
As fast. Had I the Spear, I'd've caught him easily.
But you were without your pointed stick. Hey, you're doing the sighing/rolling thing.
Never mind. Yes, I was without it. So I performed a miracle, and outstripped him in speed and power. And, no, I didn't kill him. I realized I needed something from him, and that the best way to get it was with charm, not harm.
Hey, you can do bad poetry, too.
You should read my haiku.
Oh, I love haiku.
You obviously haven't read mine.
I'm sure it's charming. You know, there are certain Japanese poetic forms that are used just by women, and others used just by men --
Huh. I wouldn't know. Anyway, so I realized the best thing to do was to make this all a game. I mean, I could just tackle him and put him into a wrestling grip or something, but that wouldn't help all that much. But if I made it a game of tag, and won, then maybe --
Oh, that's good.
Thanks. So we're running, jumping, climbing, swinging, leaping from hilltop to hilltop, but now I'm going faster, further. I'm cutting him off, making him turn, taking the initiative back. And he keeps pushing, and eventually tries to jump something, a chasm, he can't. And I bound down, catch him in mid-air, and land him safely.
How heroic! Did he swoon?
Ah ... no.
Aw. Did you swoon?
No! He bowed to me, and I bowed back.
How ... moving. Here, take a bit more of this, the bottle's almost empty.
Fine. That's good. Stop. Anyhow, he bows, grins, and asks, "What can I be doing for you, after owing you for a fine tumble?"
A fine tumble! That's funny. So, did you wish you had? Taken a tumble with him?
What do you -- no. I did not. He was -- a garden, for God's sake. It wouldna be proper.
Oooooh -- "It wouldna be proper." Well, we can't have that.
Are you going to let me finish?
Sure, it's the only "proper" thing to do.
So I tell him again about being tasked by Lord Entropy with bringing back some of the Fruit of Triumph. And he says, "Ah, well, you'll need to enter the garden, then." And next thing I know, I'm at the entrance of this garden, and his voice is saying, "Enter freely, and of your own will."
That sounds very sexual.
You know, Haley, if I may be frank with you, you have far too much of an obsession with -- carnality.
Sian, 90% of the humanity spend 90% of their fantasy life focused on "carnality." What do you expect from the Power of Imagination?
Well, I don't spend that much time considering such mattes.
No kidding.
What?
Nothing. So, what happened next ...?
They were magnificent. They fought like rabid tigers, each one the center of an expanding pile of twitching casualties and corpses. Their swords spun and danced in their hands, spilling lifeblood to the ground in gouts.
I watched from a hilltop, seated on the black gold throne that they had created for me and considered. These three were the very best that I could make of them, being merely human to begin with. It had taken a century of precise breeding in the harshest conditions imaginable, ruthless culling of the weak and continuous challenges, but I believed that they were ready.
I threw a pair of die to the ground and called out her name. The dice came up six and three and she did not appear. I sighed inwardly, picked up the dice and tried again. It took seven tries before they came up six and one, then she appeared.
Lady Chance’s appearance has always annoyed me, the constant fluctuation not only between meetings, but especially in the way that while you speak with her, her hat blows off, constantly replaced with another, carried by the wind. This is particularly aggravating when indoors.
She looked down into the field, where my creations were finishing off the tribe of berserkers and asked, “You are ready to try me again, then?” Her smirk of amusement made me want to throttle her.
“Yes.” I said.
“Very well,” she said, looking about the area. “A moment while I summon my warriors.” She made a series of brief, complicated movements with her hands and a blue shimmer appeared in the air, through which three creatures walked. One was a Roman Centurion in full battle dress, the second was an elderly woman from the late 16th century by the look of her. The third was a rabbit. Small, floppy of ear and bushy of tail.
“Hmm. A different set of champions you have this time, Lady.” I said.
“Yes,” she replied, sitting down among the dandelions and short grass beside me.
At a word from the Lady, the Roman Centurion moved down the hill toward my champions and engaged them in battle. My men were at first cautious, sensing some sort of trick due to the ease with which they could dispatch their opponent, but after a few moments of testing him, Shur’koth, the leader, gave the signal and Roth, second in command, batted aside the Centurion’s sword to deliver a swift death.
The bronze sword shattered from Roth’s blow, and I watched as two almost identical slivers of metal winged through the air, the first spinning through the Centurion’s eye and burying itself in his brain. The second of course did likewise to Roth.
“Rather predictable, don’t you think, Lady?” I asked.
“Poetic, I prefer to think. A certain harmony or synchronicity,” she replied.
The remaining two warriors looked up the hill to me. I indicated the two champions of the Lady and said, “Kill them.”
The old woman spun on her heel and dashed away. She had a surprising turn of speed for someone as aged as she was. Shur’koth gave chase, the speed of his passage whipping the long grass past us as he ran.
He caught up with her almost instantly and she shrieked in terror as his iron boot lashed out to trip her, then pinned her to the ground. His heavy short sword spun once in his hand, the sharp point plunged downward. At the very last second, just before the blade ended her life, the old woman twisted, the blade went awry and Shur’koth sliced open his palm to the bone, his blood mixing with that of his victim.
I turned to look at Lady Chance, “I believe that your failed attempt leaves you but a single champion.” The rabbit sat paralyzed with fear near the Lady.
“We shall see what we shall see,” she said.
My warriors moved toward us, Shur’koth giving instructions to Tab’l as they circled, swords held defensively before them. Without warning, the rabbit sprinted toward the blue shimmer through which it had appeared with the others. Tab’l darted forward, a thin throwing dagger appearing like magic in his hand as he ran. The dagger flipped end over end toward its target. And there it should have ended, and in a way it did.
The dagger sliced easily through fur and skin, just behind the base of the creature’s skull, severing it’s spinal column and ending it’s dash for freedom. At the same moment, a bowler hat spinning like a UFO in a bad science fiction movie, whirred past Tab’l’s face, ending its flight atop Lady Chance’s head to replace the fedora that had been there a moment ago. I didn’t need to look to see that the bowler had neatly slit Tab’l’s throat.
I rose to my feet, a feeling of vindication like a fine wine warming my stomach.
“You lose, Lady. And I believe that last move of yours was…questionable within the rules that we have agreed upon.”
“No, milord,” she said, rising with me. “It is a tie, and my moves are completely fair, though perhaps unorthodox from your point of view.”
I pointed to Shur’koth, “My champion still lives, Lady, while none of yours do.”
“The old woman carried the Black Plague in her,” said Lady Chance as she walked through the shimmering blue portal.
“Dammit.”
Life is just ironic as hell. Last evening I was terrorizing two states and kidnapping a twelve year old, today I am going to swoop down upon a competing chancel with the power of Justice and right a wrong done to the boss, all in the name of the law. I sort of get an insight into how my brother the police chief must feel. Taking bribes in the morning but catching a shooter by afternoon. Weird.
My trip to Boise turned out pretty good. Jason was an easy snatch job and I spent a little additional time ransacking his computers and his mother's laptop. The kid was pretty easy to handle, especially taped up in the back of the UPS truck. We got to talking about his particular activities and I learned enough to know I want the kid to take me off his "suck" list and do work for me.
The problem with just turning him over to Jurai is I will lose out on all his potential. I'm selfish that way. If he starts doing his thing for the Commora, illegally transferring funds between various organizations that "suck" as he puts it, I lose out on that warm and fuzzy feeling I have come to enjoy. He has to be working for me! Yet, a deal is a deal (most of the time) and I need to turn him over to fulfill the letter if not the intent of the arrangement. So here is what I decided. I would "hire" Jason to infiltrate the Commora for me and go ahead and suborn the jobs they want him to do. Blame the overkill on copycat hackers.
The main thing is to make him willing to work for me. Happy employees are loyal employees so I took him to my place, gave him a suitable cover story and plied him with booze and a hooker. I now own him. He is mine. His crimes will be mine. And the Commora is paid off.
I took him to Jurai this morning and made an additional offer....the kid's gear in return for a future Commora favor. Jurai is thinking about it (no doubt hoping to locate the stuff on his own). Next stop was to go see Justice.
Alejandro was sucking up to him on the roof of the courthouse when I got there. Justice and I started to converse in the mother tongue and I outlined my findings that Arnaud is likely involved. Justice agreed that there was enough evidence to proceed with an investigation of Arnaud's chancel. First he wanted to finish observing the ritual war and then he wanted to see the Excrucian to hear it from his own lips. Fine. As we were discussing things, a non-legal "move" took place on the ritual battlefield and a building blew up. Fortunately I was right there in front of Justice, so I have an alibi. Still, now I have new crimes in the chancel to investigate and a "warrant" to crash Arnaud's pleasure palace. A life as Crime is never dull.
Dee to Lee : “Are you dark or hell?”
HG : “Good question isn’t it?”
Dee to Lee: “I’ll just look on your sheet.”
Lee : “Hahaha ha notice that is the one square not marked.”
Lust : “No one can look like a hooker like I can look like a hooker!”
June : “Your logic astounds me sometimes Lust.”
HG as Eternity to Lust: “ No touchy touchy ok?”
Lust : “Myself or someone else?”
Donner : “Hey what am I going to say you’ve been stealing organs haven’t you?”
Macy: “I wouldn’t open with that.”
HG as Eternity to June about Lust: “She always this predictable?”
June : “Like I said I am astounded by her logic.”
Macy : “You could have done that for me and instead you let me owe someone a favor?”
Death : “I was going to tell you but I wasn’t there.”
Death : “Randy going pee doesn’t mean time stands still for me.”
Dee : “There’s sodium in peanut butter.”
Lee : “ But it is evened out by the dog spit.”
Lust : “Nothing some good sex can’t fix.”
June : “Yeah but you are evil.”
Lust : “I am just misunderstood.”
Macy about Eternity: “He is so out of style then that he is in style now.”
HG as to why it is so late : “It’s not my fault it’s daylights saving time.”
Lee : “Sure blame it on the rotation of the earth.”
June to Eternity : “Hey you remind me of someone – must just be the stick up your butt.”
Before the circus gets too crowded I want to make sure I get my share of people here in the chancel, but there is a problem because the people I want are not easy to find. I have to go back in time to get them. I need a plan and I don’t have one. I supposed the best way to do this is to go to the library and look up any information on time travel that I can find. I spent most of the day in the library before June comes prancing through and I ask her about it, because in my mind she should be able to just make it happen what good is it to be reality if you can’t warp time?
I have to admit of the two old broads I like June better than the bitter pill that is Guilt. She said she would think about it. June thinks that with Eternity’s help the time travel could be done. Eternity is willing to help in return for a favor. Whatever like saving his family wasn’t enough? I think by the time the end of the month I am going to need a big favor board. I owe Eternity, and crime owes me.
Time travel is weird and June was a little vixen in this time era. We were looking for the proper people to return to the chancel with and I noticed hushed crowds talking about Jack the Ripper and I decided to do give all the girls in this era a break Maybe what I will do is make him into my little pet after June turns him into a girl. I think I like the idea I think Punishment would love it so I will never tell her. I get some of the girls to hook me up with the proper garb for attracting him and keep most of the girls out of the area where he is said to roam. One little lesser creation of Lust ought to do the trick, heh trick get it?
June is going to stay with the girls in St. Paul’s while I go find my little friend and make him suffer. It doesn’t take too long before he shows up. I decided that I should let him move to attack me before getting out of the way. After all one must follow the rules, well at least the ones that would put you on trial anyway. I decided to try and use glorious on him. It fails; alright this is not what I expected so I look using the ‘other sight’. Oh boy the scalpel is an excrution weapon. Ok so this would be the part where I pull out my gun and end him, except for the part where I was expecting a normal human and get something else and didn’t bring my gun. Oh joy and as I am thinking all this here comes Jack thinking he is all that and I attack to disarm him. He is not expecting me either so this works. I separate him from the weapon using my body and he is really confused by this and starts to pull out a cane and comes after me. I decide to go for a brick that is between him and me in the building. I should be fine as long as he can’t reach the scalpel. As I am thinking this, the scalpel has apparently learned to fly and comes back at me and to his hand. I get a small scratch on the cheek alright now I am just plain pissed here I was going to let him live, and now I want to kill him slowly and torture him. As I am turning my head to have the scalpel miss me I see another dark figure in the alleyway. Here’s to hoping it’s Eternity.
1. "Shrooms."
I don't remember nineteen sixty-nine as the Summer of Love; I remember it as the year Jim, my husband, died. I laughed and cried. The kids were listening to wild music, taking off their clothes and sleeping in fields (forgetting about the fertilizer), smoking marijuana, eating psychedelic mushrooms and whatnot.
I understood. I grew up in the jazz age--believe it or not, my granddaughter still has one skinny black dress with fringes on it, the smell now carefully laundered out, but cigarette burns still on it, here and there.
Look how I turned out, though. And look how those flower children turned out. Maybe that's all a mortal gets, just one chance to run free before you end up paying too much for it. Quick! Your heart will break if you don't settle down soon enough, and it'll break anyway if you do.
Poor Macy. Either she never had the chance that I did, or else she dragged it out too long. I decided to help her today; she wanted to find some prostitutes to help us repopulate the home place. I advertised in the papers; she had to travel through time to Victorian England.
Locus Sanguinas is never a happy place.
Eternity will take us. He gave us a handful of mushrooms. To my mind, I'd rather have Scotch if I'm going to fall off the wagon. Tastes better.
2. Close your eyes and think of England.
So I found out that time isn't what I thought it was, but I knew that already.
I spent some time on the way reliving my past as a girl, before Jim; a young man named Gabriel took me dancing and brought me home at disgraceful hours, giggling. He left me. I heard he died in the Second Great War.
During the first Great War, I knitted blankets, did chores, and worried about my brothers and father. My father died in France; my brothers died the first winter in training camp of influenza. My mother never cried for my father. She loved him, but I think by then she'd lost her mind, although we didn't find out about it until years later.
I remembered seeing my first Model T. I remembered the first electric lights. I remember--and so on.
Macy, when I looked at her, had her own body but the face of Sisera instead of her own. I never liked him.
We set out a bargain once we were in London: Come with us, and we'd save you from poverty and disease. You'd only have to cut yourself off from everything you'd ever known--I laid out the rumor that we were recruiting for the men and officers in India. Little ones welcome to come along, if they'd nowhere else or better to go.
Within a few hours, the St. James church had filled, and more poured in to fit around the corners. They filled the choir, they filled the rectory, they sat under the altar.
We prayed to Jesus, and to anyone else who would listen and have mercy.
1. To Russia, with knitting needles.
Bunch of gossips. That's what is means, "Chancel of the Secret Whisper." At least I never was the kind of little old lady that gleefully lisped private business past my filthy dentures across the backyard fence.
The entrance to Locus Nephys I used was an old woodcutter's hut. Dreary old thing, I spruced it up a bit. I kept expecting a fat old witch flying a mortar and pestle, or a house with chicken legs. Oh, well.
Nephys starts out quiet. You step onto the quicksand of loose evergreen needles and toddle along: the only sound is you, panting as you drag yourself up the path over those ridiculous hills. It just goes on and on. And when I say "path," I don't mean a hiking trail, lovingly maintained by the U.S. Forest Service. I mean the kind of path where you have to follow your heart, because it's too dim to see the fallen branches waiting to impale your (or at least catch on your skirt). Find me some kind of deciduous place where the leaves flutter in the wind instead of sieving the air for birds. You'd swear them things were carnivorous, because I didn't hear a bird the whole time I was there.
2. Three challenges.
Whatever idiot decided to come up with three challenges has read too much Brothers Grim. First the red rider came, chasing a red fox. I suppose he symbolized Sexual Congress, which would explain why he didn't stop to chat. Next the white rider came. He stopped. He must have been Truth. I asked him where to find his master. He started to say that he didn't have any, but he stopped himself. The black rider didn't bother to ride; he just waited for me by the stream to try to stop me. He must have been a Fruitcake. I left him fighting his own reflection and hiked it up to the castle.
3. Midwest meets Middle East.
A Jester met me at the door, which made me think they thought I was a Joke. He escorted me to the abode of the Power of Conspiracy. (You can call it an abode when the room is over sixty feet to a side with unnecessary pillars and more than seventy-six tasseled throw pillows.) She served me oatmeal cookies and lemonade, which makes me wonder who she's been talking to. She smiled and nodded at me, refused me her help and offered me anything I needed, and introduced me to her seven-year old paramour.
I'm not built for this. She checked her Pen Lo parts, and I left.
Biddy.
4. Hank.
Hank called just before a radio interview for a new book. He was worried about how he'd look! --Poor man, he deserved better than me at that moment. I sent him to Penny's with instructions to buy himself a new suit, one that fit this time. I bolstered up his ego and left him to jitter on his own.
I warned you I would do it:
A game log all of haiku.
(Sorry 'bout that, John.)
Guilt
Daughter calls for dinner date.
Her fiancee wants to meet.
Mariska chortles.
Spender
Set sail from a destroyer,
Teams of soldiers pierce the veil.
Cigarettes, land ho!
Fungus & Guilt
Cixian is ignorant.
A big clank took the weapons.
Clockwork dragon? Hmmm.
His lord made the arrangements --
For weapons: redoubt, concepts.
Resurrect? Persist.
Crime
Bag the hacker, steal his stuff.
Searching for Cammorae clues.
Named "Angel"? White hair?
Jason has a cunning scheme,
Shuffling buck between "bad guys":
Klan funds Robertson?
Pendant shields from Cammorae.
Crime needs to keep his hooks in:
Offers him a job.
Punishment
Pictures weave without pattern.
Sian tries too hard; the crone sighs.
They go for a walk.
Seeking the fruit of triumph
She will succeed, and often,
But not for the best?
A weeping man cries over
Spillt milk. A man not a man.
Then a drunken oaf.
Each time crossroads diminish
To a single path ahead
Next up: a village.
Spender
On the island, the soldiers
Find an observation post,
A hidden crate dragged.
Hateful prayer to Mariska
She divines the chancel here
Dinosaurs, natives.
Moonbeam, Fungus
Where are people looking here?
A scream! A skin was stolen!
Where is Mr. Skin?
Crime
Undercover Cammora.
Bribe him with money ... and sex!
Take him to Jurai.
Leon
Follows Moonbeam. Calls up Crime.
Spread the word to all the gangs
Go whack Mr. Skin!
Punishment
Murders most foul, by no man
But a monster on the hill
Sian takes, mounts his head.
A split path to the garden,
A puckish youth who taunts her,
A chase through the trees.
Spender
Oh, look! A T-Rex! What fun!
He summons Mariska while
The rider calls kin.
Fungus
The comm tech is here at last.
Fungus sends word to Crime first.
Sian is too busy.
Guilt is busy too, off on
The island chancel facing,
The three nobles there.
Crime
Cruises Chancel; Knives scrying.
"Hey, Justice -- check out Arnaud?"
Tomas says okay.
Clanks battle chupacabra,
But Justice says all is well.
A building then falls.
Punishment
Pump up Aspect to catch him,
Make into a game of tag.
Gotcha! He concedes.
Sian seeks the garden. It's him!
"Enter freely, of your will."
And we'll leave it there.
No time to write and since the trouble with C’s death, my memory is not what it should be.
Sent the girl Moonbeam to look for Excrucian mold outside new chancel.
Did the local survey. Note - collection of plants on the balcony of the temporary residence building across from the courthouse. New Cammora? Who to deal with it? NOT ME!
Through Moonbeam find some more bits of E. shipwreck and crew bodies. Some in basement – hard to see. Trace hotel staff and see them mug a customer on the beach and find a beautiful body – E.?
Pray to Crime – get a man on the scene to help Moonbeam. Arch-bishop Leon.
E. fungus is being washed away. When they get to the room – bodies of hotel staff thrown about the room. Body missing. Can’t trace – Auctoritas renewed? Divine lobby to see where everyone is looking.
Receive prayer from Punishment (need to get something else working). She is wet and put-out. Only the wet part is notable. She will be away for an unknown time, wanted to let someone know. If she needs to return quickly, we might be able to make a fairy ring. Remind her that old socks work just as well as soup mix. (Great leave me with this weapons excrement and go swimming instead.)
More work on tracing weapons. The ones removed were in a stainless steel chest. Hard to see what happens when it disappears. Finally see some wet footprints leading away from where chest was. Follow until leave through window in Captain’s cabin. Not until see Punishment arrive that I remember that the beautiful boy was in the cabin all along.
Gather Guilt and go to see E. boy.
Moonbeam:
The Graf calls to me and asks me to leave the chancel, so she can work a miracle through me. She is always so stiff and polite. I wonder one again why the other anchors don’t appear to have the same relationship with their masters. I grab my bag and the car keys and head towards Miami. The van is idling funny again. I’ll have to get someone to heal it.
Outside the chancel things feel different. I haven’t been out since before the new chancel was created. I have a hard time remembering the old chancel. I could perform that rite I created for the boss when the family lost their memory, but maybe it is best I don’t know. If it doesn’t affect my work, I should leave well enough alone. Anyway, the real world feels two-dimensional when compared to the chancel. No gargoyles or talking buildings. Sure, if I work a little magic, I can talk to the red VW over there, but it’s not the same.
I find a good place to park near the ocean, and move to the back of the van. Getting comfy on the cushions, I side my center and focus on the task at hand. I open my mind to the Graf’s gentle touch. She works through me to see all of the Excrucian mold in the area. We find bits of flotsam and jetsam that have washed up on the beach at high tide, a few bits and pieces tumbling around the ocean floor between here and the chancel, some ugly pale bodies returning to an Earth that was not theirs, and finally, something vague in the basement of a near-by Hilton.
There are two men and a woman in hotel uniforms around something Excrucian in a storeroom in the basement. The Graf finds some mold on them and traces their recent activities. It appears that the woman, a maid lured a guest out onto the beach where the men, a cook and a server, lay in wait. (Don’t you just love that phrase?) The gang mugs the guest and as they begin to run away, when on find a body. The others gather around and ogle. They bring the body back to the hotel and hide it in the storeroom. They were lovingly cleaning the body when I first scryed them.
The Graf contacts the new noble Crime and asks him to send back-up. I go out onto the beach to wait for a man in black with a dog-collar. After some hesitation we hook up and head for the hotel. I suggest we try the service entrance. I ring the bell and suggest that I’m sneaking the priest to marry my honey. Leon tips or bribes the man as we walk in. He also arranges for a hearse to be waiting for us out back, should we need it for moving the body.
No one notice or pays attention to a priest wandering the halls. His nibs smells something like church incense, but I think its sandalwood with some patchouli mixed in. We get to the storeroom and see bodies, bloody bodies which died violently. The blood is still dripping. They are all hotel staff, or at least they were when they died. I stay long enough to see that body from the beach has got up and walked away, repaying their careful ministrations with cruelty. The bishop stays to say the last rites.
The Graf uses me to search for the missing Excrucian mold. It is faint. Most of the mold has been washed from the body and the being’s Auctoritas is now making it impossible to trace him directly. We search the hall and service elevator. As we go to press the button to take us to the lobby, we notice a smudge of blood on the button. I lean back against the wall as the Graf performs a miracle and views the lobby above us.
Burn baby burn!
I decided at the last minute to torch a second whorehouse I knew since the first was so much fun. Got lots of good polaroids of prominent citizens jumping out windows in their skivvies too.
I dumped Eve's body in the second one to minimize the likelihood of interference.
Lust has a soft spot for minors as it turns out. We came across a sweet young thing, maybe twelve years old [prostitution, shoplifting, pickpocketing]. Lust took her underwing and bid me adieu. Just as well, I got things to do, people to see and felonies to foster. Guess Lust needs to do something for her chancel, so I headed off to Noctis to report to The Man.
Dade is getting pretty weird these days. Some of the streets are choked with the mechanoid invaders facing off with The Man's gargoyles and occasionally fighting it out. Like a chess game on acid. I am told I am not supposed to interfere, so I guess I need to pay back Jurai for the scoop on the bribe.
Guilt contacted me about his preferred payment. Seems there is a snitch being held under some kind of witness protection program in Boise. Jurai's boys can't find him and they want him real bad. Looks like I get to head to potatoville and roust up the snitch. Time is supposedly of the essence, so I am gonna need faster transport.
I took the Salt Lake City exit from Noctis and dumped the buick. Jumbo is pretty much parted out, so I dumped the last nasty bits in the river and paid a visit to a Porsche dealer for a fresh set of wheels. I flashed a bit of my counterfeit cash, finagled a "test drive" with the saleman [fraud, narcotics distribution, tax evasion, vandalism] and took off for Boise. He quickly realized I was not a paying customer, so I pulled my .44 and dumped him off on the highway.
When it comes to a getaway car, Porsches rock. Accept no substitute. It did not take long for the cops to start chasing me. I exchanged a little gunfire with a couple to keep their interest and played chicken with folks in the oncoming lanes. Made the trip go much faster. Nothing like listening to Blue Oyster Cult's Career of Evil on the radio doing 140mph up the wrong side of the road and popping off a few rounds out the window to keep a guy awake.
Just this side of Idaho I found a good spot to ditch the porsche and get a new one. A cute little blond gal was stopped in her SUV, so I pulled out the .44 again and told her to scoot over. She was completely terrified of me and gave me no trouble at all. I crossed the state line and started trying to get her to relax a bit. Found out her name was Tandy and she was as squeaky clean as anyone I ever saw. Made me wanna slap her around a bit, but I decided she needed a little crime to liven up her existence.
Took a while, but after changing my appearance in front of her, putting on the "aura" and such, I soon had her convinced I was the Archangel Michael from scripture. I said I was here to give her a chance at redemption for taking a bite out of an unpaid for slim jim when she was six. I kinda felt like I was butting in on guilt's schtick a bit, but she soon fell into a religious frenzy.
We pulled into Boise and I stopped at the first junior high school I could find. I told Tandy that in order to be saved, she had to take a gift to the Lord's prophet. He was inside the second classroom to the left and his name was Michael. Of course, doing a holy thing requires ultimate purity, so she had to disrobe completely to perform the task. I gave her the gold colored cigarette case I had lifted from Jumbo's grave (now packed with low grade grunt weed) and sent her off to the classroom after she stripped down. Damned nice body too. Lust woulda been happy.
Now that I was free to get to work, I cased the whole damned town divining for crimes. I selected fraud and electronic theft and eventually found where Jason Dupree had ben buying computer gear using stolen funds. A little more tracking led me right back to the school where I had dumped off Tandy. The little shit was an eigth grader. Apparently he had cracked a couple Comorra servers and pissed some folks off. I guess they wanna recruit him or whack him. Matters not to me.
I followed him home and decided to approach him as a UPS deliveryman. I found a van, carjacked it after knocking out the driver and swapping clothes and drove back to Jason's house for a "special delivery".. I hope the little bastard doesn't put up too much of a fight. I wanna know more about what he found out.
The Sargasso Sea, like the Bermuda Triangle, receives popular and often tabloid press. Paintings showed sailing vessels being devoured by the Sargasso and freighters sitting becalmed and weed-shrouded alongside old sailing ships — even Roman triremes, for nothing ever changes in this stagnant sea.
An evaluation of ship and aircraft disappearances draws a striking connection with this sea of mystery and the modern Bermuda Triangle: the northern boundary of the Sargasso Sea more correctly represents the northern limits of the area of disappearances; many aircraft and ships were in this vicinity when they vanished – a few hundred miles north of Bermuda but just entering the Sargasso Sea.
· The S.S. Poet, 520-feet, bound for Gibraltar in 1980
· An SAC B-52 on maneuvers in 1961
· KB-50 aerial tanker in 1962, a Super Connie in 1954
· A Navy Martin Marlin amphibian patrol bomber in 1956.
· The Rosalie sailed through this area in 1840 before later turning up derelict.
· In 1881 the schooner Ellen Austin supposedly found a derelict schooner and, placing a prize crew aboard, sailed in tandem for port. Two days later the schooner was sighted sailing erratically. When boarded again, the ship was once again deserted. There was no trace of the prize crew.
· The bark James B. Chester was found deserted in the Sargasso Sea in 1857, with chairs kicked over and a stale meal on the mess table.
· Modern derelicts have included the Connemara IV, found drifting 140 miles from Bermuda in 1955, plus a number of yachts and sailboats found in 1969 and 1982.
The mystery of missing aircraft seems even greater since neither calms nor Sargasso can affect them. Nor can it affect the large freighters that can easily plow through the sargassum and steam through calms with little effort. Regardless, a number of large cargo vessels are completely unaccounted for after entering this sea.
Change to this schedule...
Oct 25, Saturday: Chrysalis C Cry Havoc
Oct 27, Monday: Chrysalis A
Nov 1, Saturday: Chrysalis C
Nov 8, Saturday: Chrysalis C
Nov 10, Monday: Chrysalis A
Nov 22, Saturday: Chrysalis C
Nov 24, Monday: Chrysalis A
Nov 27, Thursday: Thanksgiving
10C.
Punishment:
Sian is flying over water, eagerly awaiting her next breathtaking encounter with Meon. Her heart aflutter, she lands and greets him as politely as she can. She gives him warning that the Excrucian weapon(s) found had been taken from Pen Lo's chancel and asks for information about their distribution dating from Pen Lo's fall. It is only her wish that she might clear Meon's noble name from any suspicion of wrongdoing. Not content with that, she also warns him of the impending crass bribe being offered in the attempt to sway his opinion against Cathetel. Meon is touched by her concern, even as he feels the wondrous desecration taking place in Miami.
Meon smiles as he discovers Sian has failed to bring a gift for Lord Entropy. In her rush to be with Meon again she has totally forgotten the requirement to bring a gift. He explains her transgression and takes Sian to see Lord Entropy to face his judgment. To erase the transgression, Punishment must fetch him special fruit from a protected world on the world tree. She must leave behind her spear as collateral and face the terrors of the Mythic, sent off in a rickety rowboat to the Old Sow where the gate to the world tree resides.
Guilt:
Guilt continues her long standing persecution of her anchor Christopher by tasking him to bring Billy Bob Carlos to Michel Tomas for questioning. Billy Bob is not to be harmed to any significant degree, but Christopher "coaches" him to reveal only the presence of the single Excrucian weapon.
Guilt contacts Mr. Spender and sends him off to check on an area of the Sargasso Sea, looking for more evidence of Excrucian plots. She scarcely finishes giving him the coordinates of interest when she is visited by Jurai. He provides additional details regarding the desecration of Eve and relates what his preferred price will be for the information. The Commora is looking for an individual in Boise who appears to be in a witness protection program. The person'?s name is Jason Dupree and he is to be turned over to the Commora as soon as possible.
After Jurai slinks away, Christopher shows up with Billy Bob in tow. He is taken to the top of the courthouse to see Tomas.
Crime:
Crime finishes his arson job in Miami with Lust assisting. Crime torches the original whorehouse as expected, but moves on to a second one where he actually plants the body of Eve, complete with evidence of drug abuse. The second whorehouse goes up in flames, though Lust takes the time to rescue an underage prostitute from the flames. Crime takes a few photos of the Johns for later blackmailing as they emerge from the burning whorehouses. Crime and Lust split up, their work being done in Miami. Crime puts the finishing touches on the reports with his anchors, then returns to Dade. Guilt contacts him and lays out the job he needs to do to repay the Commora. Crime grins and heads to Boise via the Chancel to the Salt Lake City exit. Tired of broken down buicks, Crime carjacks a Porsche from a car lot and hightails it towards Idaho, chased by the police most of the way up the wrong side of the freeway. Exchanging a few gunshots with the police to keep their interest up, Crime finally gets bored playing chicken with oncoming traffic and ditches the car near the border. He carjacks an SUV with a young woman (Tandy) at the wheel as soon as he evaded the prior police pursuit. She is very nearly crime free. Crime decides to consider that a challenge and begins plans on corrupting her to commit a crime or two even as he kidnaps her and drives to Boise.
Fungus:
Fungus contacts it's anchor Moonbeam and uses her as a focus for more divining. Excrucian fungus is the target and a source is located in the run down section of Miami. Some more bits of ship are detected, but it seems an Excrucian body was found and smuggled into the basement of a hotel where it is more or less being worshipped by locals. The body has been washed with a sponge, removing bits of the fungus from the auctoritas of the Excrucian and making it visible to the divination. Fungus decides Moonbeam should have help, so Crime is contacted for assistance. Crime supplies his anchored uncle Leon as back up. Leon is the Archbishop of the area, so he arranges a hearse and coffin to be made available to receive the body and meets up with Moonbeam. The two track the body to the hotel. Leon bribes his way in after it becomes apparent Moonbeam's marriage story is not working. They make their way to the basement only to find the body gone and the "worshippers" slaughtered. The two carefully try to follow the trail of what appears to be a revivified Excrucian.
Punishment:
Finding the Old Sow, Punishment descends into the whirlpool directly from the south as instructed and emerges on the world tree. Already missing Meon terribly, she meets the "guide" described by Lord Entropy. The guide is a talkative tree and Sian learns that only a select few have been foolish enough to undertake the mission for Entropy. She is told there will be three women who are not women, three men who are not men and a final guardian before she will reach Eden where the fruit may be found. The limitations on Lord Entropy are discussed at some length and Sian becomes slowly more aware that she is not having fun.
Guilt:
Billy Bob Carlos is presented to Tomas. Rather than question him immediately, Tomas directs them to keep Billy Bob on ice for a while until the ritual war is concluded. From what Guilt can determine, it looks like Cathetel is winning the ritual war. Guilt decides to work on finding the real smuggled Excrucian weapons and contacts Knives for help in finding them. She arranges to meet him and bring him to Dade to help in the search. Guilt then speaks with Alejandro and tells him to keep an eye out to protect Knives from interference while he does his divining.
Fungus:
Fungus returns to the shipwreck and tries another divining, looking for different things. It learns that the original entry into the wreck was through the hole in the bottom and the culprit brought the weapons out through the captain's quarters where the surviving Excrucian likely saw him/her. Fungus eventually realizes the captive Excrucian might be willing to talk about it, so it heads to the jail to start asking some particular questions.
Crime:
Crime decides to use the girl's religious fervor against her and begins using his power to convince her he is the Archangel Micheal come to earth to perform a task. She will be forgiven her one sin and assured a spot in heaven if she simply presents a special gift to a prophet currently spreading the Word in Boise. She must take the small golden case (cigarette holder containing a substantial number of joints) inside the junior high school and present it to the Prophet Michael found in the second classroom to the left. Oh, and she must be unsullied by clothing when she presents the gift. As soon as the naked young woman entered the school, Crime sped off to begin his search for Jason Dupree.
Jason proves to be a young student with hacking talent. By tracing his illicit purchases, Crime locates him in the very junior high school he sent young Tandy into. Crime waits to follow him home, then jacks a UPS truck to make his approach. Ringing the bell, Crime awaits Jason at his front door...
Guilt:
Guilt contacts Spender to get an update on his search. Helicopters, ships and more secret government resources are poured into the effort. Such a misappropriation of government assets makes Crime smile in Boise. No results worth reporting are found yet. Guilt is contacted by Fungus who wants to know where the Excrucian captive is.
Fungus
Fungus goes to the jail and begins trying to get information from the captive. Fungus gets a reply in succinct English to her initial inquiry. Who was it that took the weapons from the ship? Will the Excrucian spill the beans? Stay tuned!
Punishment
Punishment begins her journey and encounters three singing women, all working on tapestries spun from the river itself. One woman is drawing the thread from the river, one is weaving it into skeins and the third is hanging the tapestries on trees to be completed. Sian is offered a deal...assistance in passing to the next encounter in return for her help in weaving a particular tapestry. Punishment decides that weaving might make a good back up occupation and begins learning the tasks. An indeterminate amount of time passes as Sian learns each job. It's all very metaphorical and it makes to log keeper's head hurt.
The HG is recounting the other chancel's previous session.
HG: Reality was going to screw with him, then Lust was going to anchor him.
Dave: You'd think it would be the other way around.
Someone has interrupted the HG's revelations with a quip.
HG: Hey, you're stealing my thunder!
Stan: And Electricity isn't even here.
The HG unwittingly provides Stan with a straight line.
Jurai: Ah, yes, Lust is good with words ...
Guilt: Yeah, she's a cunning linguist.
The HG tells Crime how he's doing in his quest.
HG: It's November in Idaho. You've been complaining silently about the cold since you've been here.
Margie: I keep imagining Crime having an ongoing internal monolog.
Stan: He's in is own private Idaho!
Crime has abducted a young girl and has convinced her that he is the Archangel Michael on a holy quest for God's prophet.
Crime: We pull into Boise.
Tandy: God's prophet is in Boise?
HG: Her faith begins to fade ...
More gratuitous Lust jokes keep arising.
Stan: Lust, spreading things around? How odd.
Siân, minus her spear, has been sent on an errand for Lord Entropy.
Punishment: As I hike along, I look for something to use as a staff or a club.
Stan: A stick!
Punishment has been caught up in the rhythm of the Fates' music.
HG: You realize, after a time, that you've been singing for a while.
John: "I can't get no ... satisfaction ..."
I. "Fly Me to Meon"
I soar over the Atlantic, seeking the desolate islands of Lord Entropy's chancel. I fear I ought to have told the others -- but who? I would rather not tell Crime anything save what is absolutely necessary. Similarly Guilt -- I ought to feel closer to Mariska, but she seems to scheme too deeply for my taste. Fungus is too difficult to talk to, save when I must; I'm never quite sure it understands what I'm saying, or why I say it.
Others I know? Not of my Chancel, and this is Chancel business. And Cathetel must not know; if something goes wrong, he must be able to deny truthfully knowledge of my actions.
I grip the Nemesis Spear tightly, but as I approach, no threats rise to meet me. Instead, I descend to where I see Meon approaching to greet me.
He is silent, disturbingly so. Even when we exchange greetings, he is curtly quiet.
"I come first with a question, then with a warning on your behalf," I say. He nods within his hood for me to continue. "First, then, Michel Tomas --" I eschew the use of his title. "-- has identified the Excrucian trident he saw as one that had been in the possession of Pen Lo. I know that Lord Entropy's chancel participated in the division of those spoils. Do you know of such weapons, and what might have happened to them."
He shakes his head. "We were given charge of a portion of Pen Lo's possessions. We did not receive any weapons. Nephys was in charge of that."
Justice' own Chancel. Interesting.
"You said you had a second message for me. A warning?"
"Yes. I warn you of an attempt to bribe you. Those who oppose my Imperator's position in this dispute with Arnaud seek to influence your opinion with a great desecration. While I know you could not be so swayed, that such an attempt would be so openly attempted and widely known to others gives me some concern for your reputation."
I sensed ... surprise. At length, though, he merely bowed again. "Thank you for your warning. Now ... there is the matter of your gift."
Oh my. I had forgotten my last visit, and Meon's warning, though it was only a day or so past. A busy day, to be sure, but, still ...
"I had thought -- since I was here to consult with you, not with Lord Entropy." That sounded slightly insulting. "That is, as he is lord of the Chancel."
He might have been smiling. I am getting an odd sense from him, a tempering of the hostility of before. Still, my discomfiture clearly pleases him. "The gift for visiting the Chancel." He gestures around. It seems hardly inviting or worth paying a gift for, but I understand that it reflects on the Imperator himself. "You must follow me to Lord Entropy, then."
I seek something to say. This is not a time I can afford to be away from my own Chancel or my Lord. "Is my purpose in coming to you with this warning not sufficient a favor to the Chancel?"
A sense of amusement again. "I am not in such high standing these days."
I sigh inwardly. An open suggestion such as I am about to make is very dangerous, but I cannot think of how to place bound on it that will not be themselves insulting. "Is there then a service I can provide the Chancel, as my gift to it."
"I believe that's usually the idea of what Lord Entropy will ask of you."
Wonderful.
I am kept waiting some time in an antechamber. An insult, a reminder of my status, either as a mere Noble, or as one who has given offense? Or simply a reflection of Lord Entropy's limited time or limited interest in the matter.
At length, I am brought in. I genuflect before him, doing due obeisance.
"We understand that there was some confusion in your obligations as a visitor to this Chancel."
"The fault was mine, Milord. I take full responsibility." And I do. I am at fault, and it is only fitting that I be punished. My only regrets and concerns are how this may redound to my Chancel and Imperator.
(Though it raises a thought as to whether we could, in turn, impose such a duty upon visitors. Is it that it is Lord Entropy, or a tradition we could begin. Something to consider in the future.)
He summons his majordomo, who speaks with him in an unintelligible tongue. Finally, the other turns to me. "There is a particular fruit which grows on a particular tree that the Chancel has difficulty in gathering. A small basket of that fruit is desired by Lord Entropy." The creature tells me of the tree's location, upon the World Tree, and how to take the first step upon my journey, after which I will receive further guidance.
I bow, in acknowledgment of the obligation upon me.
The instructions, however, are not finished. "As recognition of your lapse," the creature says to me, "your token of office will remain here in this Chancel." It gestures over at a rack of weaponry, both strange and mundane in appearance.
My spear. Hellfire.
I consider an objection. Lacking it will make me more vulnerable to the inevitable barriers I will face. Further, only the spear gives me the power of flight, without which the trip will take far longer.
But surely this is already know to Lord Entropy. Arguing of the difficulty of the quest given seems unlikely to sway him, and will only lose me face. And even reduced, I am still well able to handle much of what I might encounter.
I arise and step to the case, placing the spear upon two pegs that are conveniently vacant. I feel suddenly empty without it, for it has been by my side for over a century.
"The journey will take but a small period of time," the majordomo is nattering on. "Not long enough for you to be inconvenienced by its lack." Easy for it to say.
I bow to Lord Entropy, dismissed, and am escorted by Meon back to my point of arrival. Now there is a large, sturdy row boat tied there, bobbing in the water. I know that my journey will take me to the Old Sow, a great whirlpool in the North Atlantic. I still retain prodigious strength and speed; it will not take long, even in such a craft.
Still, I am diminished. There is flight of course, and physical prowess that the spear granted me. The terrible mien I could present to my targets, too, came from the spear. Not that I expect to need that on this journey.
Meon stands by as I step into the boat. I look at him, and, politely, say, "I hope that my lapse will not adversely impact on your station."
He shakes his head within its dark hood. "It has been dealt with appropriately."
Well, at least I've not made more of an enemy of him than he already was. Cold comfort indeed.
II. "The Countess of Punishment went to sea // In a rickety old row-boat"
I cross the sea with mighty pulls upon the oars, each of which sends me far into the air, then, as I land, acts as a hydrofoil to let me skim further. I have time enough for contemplation of my sins, never the most comfortable of pastimes.
I can, I suppose, contact the Cammorae, and get them to take on this burden. The thought of treating with Jurai, though, makes me almost physically ill. There would not be just the cost he would impose on such an errand -- and it would be high, as the Cammorae are Earthbound, and would themselves need to call in favors -- but the degradation of having to actually ask something of him, and the joy he would take at it ...
Well, Desecration's Regal would probably be thrilled by the prospect. I'm surprised he did not suggest it.
Knowing I will be kept away for a lengthy time, I realize I must report back in to the Chancel. I decide upon Fungus, who will ask the fewest questions, and revel least in my embarrassment. I find some of the remaining mushroom soup mix in a pocket and begin to pray to it, feeling faintly ridiculous (despite knowing that others could do the same with my own coltsfoot). Why, I wonder, have the new communications devices not yet been produced by the Chancel?
"I am occupied," I tell Fungus, once it answers my prayer to it, "by an errand I am told will be short. Let our Lord know, if you will."
It agrees, then adds. "If you need to return quickly from somewhere, let me know, and I can gate you here."
An interesting thought to bear in mind. "I will be in touch," I tell it, and end my prayer.
I hear the whirlpool before I reach it. Diminished, I can still navigate from its true south, as instructed. The boat spirals downward, inward, narrowing, then, abruptly, widening again, as I rise again, inverted, upon a broad, placid lake or sea.
Upon the World Tree.
The current from the reversed whirlpool slowly deposits me upon the nearby pebbly shore. I keep my eyes open, watching for any threats -- and letting my vision slip into the Mythic, as much as I find it unsettling.
A great tree by the shoreline watches me, an amused yet equally disdainful expression on its -- well, on it.
"Are you my guide?" I ask.
"I am a guide," it replies. "What is your name?"
"Sian, Viscountess Punishment."
"Carve your destination upon me, and I will tell you where you must go next."
I do so, and it gives me the route to take. "That is not," it says, "the full path, but it will take you to the next guide."
I nod.
It hesitates, then asks, "Out of curiosity -- and you may deny me if you wish -- is this a personal quest? Or are you sent for another."
"For another," I say, cautiously, not spelling out whom.
The tree nods. "Lord Entropy?"
"Why do you ask?"
"He manages to get so few to pursue this, since he is forbidden to do so."
I consider. "What will I encounter along the way."
The tree nods again, as though expecting the question. "First, three women who are not women. then, three men who are not men. Then you will meet the Guardian of the Tree, the Tree itself, and, finally, most difficult of all, the Fruit."
"Why is the fruit so difficult?"
It leans toward me slightly. "You do know you will have to find a different way back? Did they tell you that?"
Of course they did not. Though they said nothing about it one way or another. "Why is Lord Entropy forbidden to obtain this fruit?" It occurred to me that if this was some crime, I would rather know of it now than later. Not that there was much I could do about it at this point.
"He is, it is said, only allowed to be on Earth, save for those Chancels elsewhere which can be reached from there -- the Locust Court, for example. Further, he and his weaken when they are off of that world. Thus, they must find others to do them such services as they cannot themselves perform."
Before I depart, I consider. There seems no value in not leaving behind someone favorably disposed toward me. "While I am here, is there any small favor or service I might perform you?" I think, being a tree, it might need something that its immobility prevents it from obtaining.
"You have given me your name. That is enough."
Hmmmmm.
III. "Witchy Women"
I walk along the path indicated, through woods, over hills, a river dancing and chattering a short distance away. Above me, heavenly bodies argue over who to invite to a party.
Along the way, I find the deadfall I need to craft a staff. There are times when it is better to have a weapon than not. I could have taken one of the oars, but I might return to the boat after all, and rowing with one oar is quite a bit more difficult.
I just feel better with having a stick. What can I say?
At length, I begin to hear music. Three women's voices in close harmony, singing some sort of rhythmic work song. I advance cautiously (realizing these must be the three women -- not women?).
I come upon them, beside the river. A matronly woman, blind, draws threads from the water, passing them on to an old crone with but one eye, who weaves them into sheets of cloth, handing them on to a two-eyed young maiden, who sets those sheets to dry upon the tree branches.
I do not read as much as once I did, but my memory is not so dim as to not recognize an incarnation of the Three Fates, the Wyrds, the Three Sisters, the Moirae, whatever they may be named here. What else might one expect from a sojourn to the World Tree. Which is one reason why I try to avoid same.
They greet me in unison, in song. "Hello, Sian. How is your adventure going?"
I am expected. Still, if they are the Fates, how could I not be? "So far without difficulty."
They wait for me to say something, so sure I must. "You sing beautifully."
"So do you."
Recollections of choirs and church flit past my mind's eye. "Not for a while."
"Are you sure?"
Now what the hell did that mean?
"Will you weave with us?"
I shake my head. "I have never woven before -- though I am sure I would be a quick study."
"Oh, we can teach you ..."
And so they do. The maiden takes me into her tutelage first, where she is hanging cloth upon gossamer threads. These reflect and are transparent at the same time -- but upon a second glance, contain images. Of me. Memories I hold, some locked away for a long time, many with reason. It is not a pleasant review, though rarely do I catch more than a glimpse before a ripple of breeze, a flicker of light, or my teacher's insistence upon further work take my attention from a scene.
As I see more, there are other places, other areas that are dwelt with. They are not sheets, but pieces of a tapestry, all but transparent, telling a story, giving a warning, showing a place. I look about and see hundreds of them.
I take one and examine it in closer detail. I am both astonished and not, in seeing that it shows me looking at a tapestry of myself looking at a tapestry. I set it aside, quickly.
The tapestry is not complete (I hope). Before I can read more, the maiden interposes. "Now you must study at the river."
There, the matron, blind, draws threads out of the water. "You must draw these," she says, "because they are needed for your tapestry."
"Who creates the threads?" I ask. They merely gesture, in unison, at the river, unhelpfully.
I learn, shortly, how to find the right thread, the one that feels right. It is intuitive work, not analytical. I cannot simply look and see what qualities are the correct ones, but must somehow feel it nonetheless.
And I can, which is a disquieting surprise. I assume that some lesson is being taught me, beyond the ostensible. I both resent it and find it intriguing. I, someone who knows I care to know the measure of things, must learn to know the unmeasured. As I said, disquieting.
(I am that much more introspective than once I was -- I blame Imagination, to be honest, though I also realize it's a gift. It's confusing. And, again, disquieting. I suspect it is for the better, but so is an overland journey without food or water across a burning desert to get to some desired goal. At any rate, I am more introspective, but not as much, perhaps, as I ought to be. I may have a blind spot there, but I'm not stupid. No matter what some folks may joke about without recalling my preternatural hearing.)
As I begin to get into the -- rhythm of drawing out the threads, I realize I've been singing. For a while. What in hell?
Before I can contemplate this, I am called to weave with the one-eyed crone, learning to craft the tapestries. I go to her, where the fabric is bundled up on her lap. I can see, once more, imagery there, disturbing pictures, unhappy ones -- but there is no time to study them more closely, for she is speaking.
"The pictures -- they will not be visible until they are done. And until they are hung. But then it will be ... too late."
So, is La Rue screwing with me or not?
The liver looks like a Pen Lo part. The mercury/godjuice looks and smells right. I’m tempted to taste but putting little bits of Pen Lo in me, when his severed head can still talk and is still mystically connected to his parts – no.
It doesn’t seem likely that she’d take on four chancels at once, two of them Inquisitors. An alliance with me would benefit us both. War --- we could really fuck each other up.
Pen Lo should know if she tries to do evil to us, and June can probably help him know what’s up with his parts.
Glad to get out of there intact
Citybeck will be useful. Exploring should be a kick in the ass. Many kicks, just to get a notion of what’s there.
Who did the blackout? Should be traceable. Make damned sure I’m not just getting used by La Rue.
Hope there’s clouds between Mexico City and Yucatan. If not, I suppose I’ll have to raid a cash machine and charter something. Or fly commercial. Maybe there’s a fairy ring? I could phone Fungus… no. Crime, dammit. Or…. Maybe I can manage to look like a UFO? Would that count as a violation?
10:1
Macy speed-checked the Chancel library for some method of time traveling to Victorian England. June came by and was invited into Macy’s insanity; she said she’d work on it. ‘Work’ consisted of thinking about it.
Library exhausted, Macy and June toddled over to Locus Sanguinas to chat up Lost Things and Eternity. Eternity met them at the gate and cut short the beginning of Macy’s explanation,
“I know.”
“How?”
“Time is a flexible thing, like a rope you climb up hand over hand.”
“Can you do it?”
“What’s in it for me?” Avrileros/Eternity sounded bored; like he was reciting lines for a play he had no interest in.
“You must have something in mind,” she said, smiling wider.
“Why don’t you owe me a favor?”
“A little favor. You—“
“--- It’s a favor. It won’t be fun.”
“I thought you were good.”
“Yeah, sure.” He looked at June, “You’re the Reality chick. Is she as predictable-“
“Where’s Lost Things?” Macy interrupted.
“Convalescing. Cut in half, remember?”
“He’ll want to talk to me.”
“He’s sleeping. He does that a lot.” Avrileros realized he was wasting his time, “I’ll be back. No touchy-touchy.”
“Me or him?”
“Him. Stitches.”
10:2
Donner worked out his cover for visiting Emma La Rue, the Power of Cities. First, a guest gift. He dialed himself to New York City and the top of the Empire State Building, for the view. The first thing he noticed was that there were at least 30 more stories to the building in the Mythic. Somebody’s Chancel. Not the best place to exercise his abilities. He zapped to observation deck of the Chrysler Building and checked – OK. Closed for some reason though.
He scanned the city’s electrical self in preparation for optimizing it. There was still considerable damage from the blackout. The gift should be all the more welcome then. He exerted himself…. There was resistance. The blackout had been the doing of some Power. Aimed at Cities or himself or any number of other possibles. Traffic. Illumination. Noise. He put more power into his efforts and felt slow success. He extended the optimization throughout the city, and then basked in the smooth functioning of his Domain.
The elevator behind him opened, revealing an antique carriage and an elderly, white-suited attendant.
“Madame will see you now, sir. I hope you weren’t waiting long.”
“Not at all.” Donner stepped into the elevator. The old fellow closed the cage manually and pressed the UP button. “I’m not used to people anticipating my movements.”
“Madame was expecting someone, sir, somewhere. It took a little time to find you.”
Donner nodded.
“It has been some time since an Electricity visited us.”
“Really? Which one?”
“Miss Vokacs, sir, in the 1920’s.”
The car arrived at their floor and opened. Donner lost all interest in the old man. La Rue, a slim Caucasian woman in a long white coat and white pants, stood with her back to him on a balcony looking out from a city seen from a dizzying height. And what a city! The preternaturally clear air showed a vast metropolis stretching out and out past the horizon.
“Welcome to Citybeck.”
Donner had been to Citybeck before, the subcontinent-sized city-chancel of the mighty Imperator Ananda, Spirit of the Fourth Age, but never by a route he could use unaided. This one --- he extended his awareness of all the electrical connections out into the gigantic city and back to Earth… yes. Citybeck had direct connections to many, many places, many worlds, including the Tree.
“I’m pleased to meet you in person, Ms. La Rue.”
“I suppose you’ve come about the liver.”
“Well, yes. Also to apologize for the little contretemps with the Bronze Man earlier.”
She turned, “Ah, yes. Thank you for cleaning up that damage. It was troubling me.”
“Glad to be of service. What caused that?” He let his eyes glow with intent for a second, “It does impinge on my domain.”
She nodded slightly, “You may have a chance to do something about that.” She walked to an elegant chair and sat, gesturing for him to do the same. “Would you like something to drink?”
“Yes, please. Whatever you’re having will be fine.”
10:3
Death walked. He pushed and prodded at his various abilities for quite some time until he saw with some surprise that he was indeed moving back along his own life line.
It was a long trip, though walking it in reverse was curiously without effect. In… time… he arrived at his destination and walked among the people of the tribe he’d been born into, stone-age hunter-gatherers whom he hated, of course.
[This is empirical proof that deranged minds think alike, that Hellish Lust and Nihilistic Death both want to time travel at the same time.]
From there Death opened a Gate to a world he’d made up and named Bastard World. He convinced the tribe to go through the Gate by killing those who protested too hard. He helped them out for a time – years – as they desperately adapted to the hell-world or died. Mostly they died. When they were settled enough to survive he left.
The journey back along his life, with frequent stops to check in on and help or harry his tribe, was more enlightening. Death’s hatred now was but a pale shadow of the hate he’d festered in for millennia. Amaciel was different too. He was a simple creature back then, and careless. The centuries had mellowed him.
Death made some errors in shaping his tribe over the centuries. Once or twice he nearly exterminated them. Still, they became what he wanted: tough, paranoid, observant, disciplined, obedient.
10:4
Avrileros gave Macy and June some small, powerful-looking mushrooms. “Need to get you into the proper mindset.”
June gave hers the hairy eyeball, “Take them now or….”
“Hold them now, eat them later,” Avrileros replied and led them in to Senachiel’s rooms. “Alright, Sen, you up for this? We gotta gallivant around.”
Senachiel, the Power of Lost Things, looked lost.
“We gotta go to Victorian England. I’ll be fine but you gotta get them back.”
His Angelic voice only slightly marred by his wounds, Senachiel inquired, “Will more people be coming along with you?”
“Seventy-five hundred and two, altogether,” Lust purred.
Senachiel’s thought, “The things I do to get into this creature’s pants…” showed clearly as he said, in a small voice, “I’ll do my best.”
June took pity, “I’ll do a ceremony to aid you.”
“That’s useful.”
Eternity herded them out of Senachiel’s room and into a handy sitting room. “Eat up.”
“We should at least get some wine.”
“Just eat the damned mushrooms.”
They ate but Macy kept complaining. Visions of the past came to them. Macy saw June in a 1930’s style sundress, young, plain and wholesome. “How much did you abuse that body back then?”
June declined to answer.
Macy had Sisera & Macy flashbacks, then pre-Macy Sisera visions. Back… sometime, before he was Amaciel’s, Sisera had all different anchors and a completely different style of dealing with them. He was affectionate and he explained things. A flash of his old Imperator’s destruction, along with his Chancel and all his Anchors -- something about an Excrucian impostor – ruin, death, destruction and despair.
June and Macy had been wandering around in London, November 1888, for quite some time before they noticed it.
“We gotta get you some clothes,” Avrileros growled.
“What’s wrong with our clothes?” Macy demanded.
“PVC’s not in this year.” Muttered, “How did you guys catch Pen Lo’s people?”
Shortly thereafter they were properly clothed and rounding up East End streetwalkers. Upon learning that Jack the Ripper was doing his bloody work right there, currently, Macy fell in love with the idea of making him a Hate Anchor. June continued with the hookers while Macy trolled for Jack. They did happen to encounter Sian – Punishment – in her native, male, mortal form. Macy suggested a stickectomy.
On their last night June gathered the 7500-odd women into St. Paul’s Cathedral in preparation for the trip back while Macy made a last stab at bagging the Ripper. They found one another and did a little dance of setting each other up. Jack pulled a big scalpel and jabbed. Macy went for the disarm – and missed. She took on her Glorious aspect – Jack barely blinked and the air went tingly cold around him. A quick glance into the Mythic showed the scalpel to be a goddamned Excrucian weapon.
Macy put real power into disarming Jack and knocked the blade into a brick wall and booted Jack backwards a few feet. (Mythically, the wall started to die.) She pulled a brick out of a wall and started to close, then twisted like a frightened ferret at a noise behind her. The Excrucian weapon grazed her cheek as it zipped through the air to Jack’s hand.
Jack smiled. A shadow moved behind Macy in the alley.
10:5
Donner reined in his impatience and savored the wine. After a civilized interval he spoke up, “You brought it up earlier, the liver.”
“I was put out about the difficulties you and Pen Lo’s creature exposed me to. Later, when the spoils were divided I wanted to speak up for some recompense but was persuaded to refrain from doing so. I took the liver to even things out a bit. I meant to return it. Without anyone being the wiser. How did you find out it was gone? I left no traces.”
Donner let that last statement pass without comment. “He’s awake, sometimes. He retains some connection to his sundered parts and some knowledge of what is being done with them.” Everyone at the Sanguinas, Noctis and Abrolam Loci knew, so it was hardly a secret. “There are things that could be done with it to damage the four involved Chancels. So we’re concerned.” Do you really want to declare war on four Chancels?
“I bear you no ill will. Perhaps an exchange of favors?”
Donner nodded.
“You can return the conquering hero with the liver and take all the glory. Just keep my name out of it.”
“I can agree to that, though I can’t guarantee they won’t figure it out for themselves. Now, no offense intended but I would be remiss if I didn’t remember that business is business, will you swear that you have not and will not do any harm via the liver to any of the four chancels involved?”
Emma La Rue swore by the World Tree and her Domain that she had not and would not. Donner swore to return the liver to Locus Sanguinas and not mention her name nor give clues leading her way.
“Excellent. I believe that there are many ways in which we could act together for the mutual benefit of our Domains. A toast: to mutual profit.” They touched glasses and drank.
The liver, unfortunately, couldn’t be converted to elemental form and zapped through the phone lines to its keepers. La Rue showed Donner the Citybeck exit closest to the Yucatan and Locus Sanguinas. He stepped out into Mexico City with the liver in an ornate, leak-proof box.
10:6
Death brought his chosen people through into Storeyville and sent them into the swamps. After Bastardworld, gator-ridden Louisiana swampland was like Paradise to the poor shmucks. Storeyville’s swamps were, however, a bit confined for a tribe of 7,500 to live in and on. Death instructed Madame La Fleur to make the necessary alterations to the chancel.
“You have abilities; you could help,” La Fleur said pointedly.
“You are our maid, the keeper of our chancel.”
“The title is WARDEN.”
And on that happy note, we end.
June and Macy are in London of November, 1888. June is in St. Paul’s Cathedral with 1700 streetwalkers. Macy is fighting Jack in an East End alley.
Death is in Storeyville.
Donner is in Mexico City.
"In real life, unlike in Shakespeare, the sweetness of the rose depends upon the name it bears. Things are not only what they are. They are, in very important respects, what they seem to be."
-- Hubert H. Humphrey
Lust arrives with interesting news. Part of Pen Lo is missing. Our body part and theirs appears unchanged. Lust plans to check the other parts. In the mean time Crime uses Lust’s errand and an excuse to get the hell out of Dade with the weapons. I mark the weapons and bag for easy tracking
Guilt joins me in going after Billy Bob Carlos, the scavenger from the beach. We start with the biggest concentration of marker fungus. We find the truck parked outside of a flamingo pink air-stream. The domicile has a molted appearance from the variety of paints used to touch-up the original paint-job. There is a flock of lawn flamingos in the crabgrass and dirt in front.
Guilt goes to the door. When Carlos comes out, she reads him like a book. She has him come outside and talk. I approach and question him. He honestly can’t remember who contacted him to do the job. His cousin Billy Bob Jorge helped him with the work. I walked him through the job interview. Someone approached Carlos at the body shop where he works.
I survey the fungus on Carlos’s body and pick a likely strain. I then follow the fungus back in time. Weeks before the shipwreck, Carlos received very specific instructions and money from a muffled voice. I shift my focus to some mold in the body shop and see that Carlos if speaking to air. Thus, the speaker is a noble or other being of rank. I will have to trace the crate itself to determine where it came from.
Guilt wants to retrieve all of the Excrucian material. Because Carlos doesn’t feel guilty about acquiring the material Guilt would have to expend some effort to make Carlos comply. Saving Guilt the energy, I simple give Carlos a very bad case of jock itch and inform him that it will go away only after he loads every scrap of salvage from the shipwreck into the trunk. He quickly obeys. I remove the jock itch, but leave a marker on him.
Punishment calls us all back to the courthouse.
Guilt drives while I divine the Excrucian mold on the weapons crate. The crate was brought to shore via a rowboat at dusk on the day of the last chancel sacrifice. An unknown man carries it to the cave. Going further back in time I see the rowboat entering the chancel territory. The vision then shimmers and I see (something to be determined in session 10).
Back at the courthouse, Guilt talks to Cathetal and Punishment about the missing Pen Lo part. Punishment asks where Crime is and explains that the whole family is needed as Justice will be back soon. On cue Justice enters the room saying “Yes, I will.” I let Justice know that Crime went with Lust to Storyville and offer to send a person there to recall Crime. Justice consents and suggests the discussion can begin without Crime.
I begin by telling what we had just determined. I did this because we had not had a chance to inform Cathetal and Punishment before Justice returned. So I told Justice “I have determined that the spear was in a crate that was hidden in a cave on the last day on the chancel’s creation. There is divination evidence of the crate’s arrival. A habitant of the chancel was then commissioned by an outside noble force to move the weapon to the lighthouse where it was found.” Justice allows that he would like to speak to Carlos later, if he was still alive. He goes on “While you may not be guilty of treason, you are certainly derelict in your oversight of your chancel.” I take exception and point out that the events occurred before the chancel was formed, during a time when my Lord claims interference. Justice agrees and decides to return to his chancel with the Excrucian spear and then he will continue with his investigation. Claxons go off and Cathetal engages the enemy.
Punishment takes us aside and tells of a plot to desecrate Eve as a bribe by our enemy offered to Desecration.
The Game (group C) is at Dave and Margie's, ~5pm.
Justin's game starts at 2pm in Arvada, so that's cutting it close, but that should be about right.
UPDATE: Justin's game is postponed until tomorrow, so how about 3pm?