Session 23

Death tells Esteban he has six hours to come up with a plan to help Death distract the Serpents while everyone else drops Jotenheim into Hell. "Did I mention excruciating death?" Death asks. "Yes, my lord," Estaban replies.

Punishment gets a prayer from Haley about a letter that Punishment sent her. Punishment says she didn't send Haley anything. Haley says the note is disturbing and asks Sian if she's been making deals with Excrucians. When Sian says she hasn't, Haley says that it'll be fine and she isn't going to let her imagination run away with her. She tells Punishment that she'll be in Miami, and she really wants to talk to her.

June enters the possessed candy store with a volunteer, an artist. The man eats all of the pastries in the store, one at a time, swallowing the whimsey bane, and waddles into the street. The terracotta soldiers escort him to the circle at the center of the chancel. The artist establishes himself in the carnival, grows a grotesque and pointed mustache, and sells surreal charicatures to the tourists.

One of the servants of Locus Noctis tells Mariska that there's a lighting bolt in the center plaza, and it's been asking for her. It's Donner, who is looking for a quick route to Jotenheim. Mariska directs him to the fairy ring leading out to the tree, from the tree to Jotenheim--Fungus still has to grow the large ring they're going to use to transport people off the world. Mariska whines to Donner about all the things she has to do and shows pictures of her family to him. She thinks someone's trying to nettle her through her daughter, using her daughter's fiance, Noah.

Donner calls June, who meets him at the fairy ring in Locus Noctis. She hasn't seen it yet, but there's a new flower in her garden, a parasitical vine that ends up strengthening the host plant when it dies. June gives her Deceiver ring to Guilt--if worn by a Deceiver, the Excrucian will no longer hear the name of the person it's replicating, but the person who is being copied will hear the Deceiver's deepest desire. Donner remarks that he's afraid that June's "pet" will kill the fairy rings, but Mariska assures him that the Deceivers made it through without damaging them at all.

On the tree, Iaziz appears and speaks to June about the weapon. They make a "deal": June doesn't tell anyone where her "pet" came from, and Iaziz won't try to take it back.

The Imperators arrive: Amacial and Cathetel meet in Locus Noctis. Cathatel tells Mariska that she and Fungus will have to establish a gate for them soon. Meanwhile, Terminus sucks up to Lord Entropy and Donner scouts the world disguised as lightning in the clouds.

Donner finds miles and miles of fields of some kind of purple flower. Surrounding the fields is a barren wasteland of snow. The flowers don't show up on Fungus's "radar," and nobody else knows about them. Donner does a few weird tests with lightning strikes. He makes a ghost miracle by the castle, so the others can see an image of the flower: Dame Violets, symbolizing watchfulness, kind of like an early warning system. Donner takes a sample of the flowers for June. They all discuss the flower and decide that the Excrucians are planning a trap to get our heroes to destroy Jotenheim and symbolically destroy the thing--Vigiliance--symbolized by the flower. After all, as Excrucians, they don't really need the rainbow bridge, as they can travel wherever they like in existence anyway.

Fungus assumes the body of one of her anchors who is with the Power of Ordeal, who has a book of all the flowers that have been wiped out of heaven. She and the other nobles try to come up with a plan to get out of the Excrucian's plot and turn it on them: they will altar the Dame Violets to change Vigilance into a kind of sixth sense where creation is more aware of itself and the things that don't belong there--kind of like an extra immune system or a neural net.

Haley arrives in Locus Noctis. She tells Guilt she needs to speak to Sian. Mariska passes the word to Donner, who tells Sian. Sian is summoned back to Locus Noctis. Haley, who looks terrible, hands a letter Sian. "Do you know what it's about?"

Sian explains: "Some time ago I found myself very uncomfortable with the status quo. Unwilling to continue to live with that unhappiness, I chose to sever it and other aspects of myself from myself so as to better to focus on my vocation. Those inconvenient aspects seem to have taken on a certain measure of independent, uh, identity. And having reached a similar conclusion as I did to the overall desirability of the order in creation remaining as it is, has chosen to be part of the sacrifice of a world tumbled down to hell as a part of a grand scheme . . ." I.e., the essence of Sian's humanity was turned into a separate person. He decided he'd be happier if existence were destroyed, went over to the Excrucians, and has written a letter to say goodbye to Punishment.

Sian's human side is currently trapped in a mushroom puffball rolling down a tunnel below Asgard. She asks Fungus to be careful with him; she'll be back in Jotenheim shortly. Haley comes back with her.

Terminus contacts Iaziz by killing a thousand soldiers by exploding their organs in alphabetical order. He trades the excrucians the extinction of crickets for insight in how to cross the wall of existence into the Excrucians' world--however, hidden in the extinction of the crickets is death itself--the ability to die. Previously the Excrucians were immortal, but no longer. Death intends to present this to Lord Entropy as a gift.

Session A ? Log

As it turns out, writing on small pieces of paper makes for a very short log.

1. A plot.

Donner isolates the chancel’s “pink” bane in a candy store. The “black” bane is still loose, and the residents of the chancel are still on strike. Donner talks to Amaciel, who details a situation that has come up. Jotenheim has been captured by the Excrucians, who wish to use Asgard’s Rainbow Bridge to attack the rest of creation at will. Cathatel’s chancel has proposed we help them sever Jotenheim from the Tree. Jotenheim will fall into Hell, where Loki will lead the legions of hell to crush the Excrucians and rule it himself. Amacial asks Donner to organize a fact-finding mission. Macy and Terminus agree to go.

2. The mist thickens.

Leaping after one of June’s memories, the weapon blocks a bullet from Iaziz’s gun, protecting June. The twin attacking Hank dodges to avoid June and pulls back. The mist thickens, freezing most of the crowd (including Meon) in place. June carries Hank out, dragging the weapon behind her. June, Hank, Jonathan, the weapon, and the tourists leave on the ferry. June nettles Iaziz.

3. Macy gets Loki.

The path to Jotenheim starts in the serpents’ graveyard. Loki, in a tree, makes small talk with Macy. Terminus and Macy leave for Jotenheim.

4. A brief detour through the center of the earth.

Punishment, flying through the center of Jotenheim and followed by a mysterious pursuer, collapses the Svartelves’ tunnels. She loses her pursuer. Upon leaving the tunnels, she’s greeted by a group of Valkyres, inluding Thrud Thorsdottir. They direct her to the secret meeting.

5. A couple of inconspicuous disguises.

Terminus and Macy appear in Jotenheim. After some discussion, they guise themselves as giants.

6. Ruse & Squirrel.

Punishment, Lust, & Death join the meeting. Fungus introduces Ratatosk & Hrungnir. Only the Valkyries are left to sign off on the plan, and their decision will be had within the hour.

7. Winged Helms for Death

The valkyries wish to speak to Death, who speaks.

8. Hope you enjoyed the vacation…

June takes the ferry to Storyville; she talks to Donner and warns him to stay away from the weapon, which could sever his link to Amaciel. Donner asks June to help convince residents to stop striking. He tells her about the banes.

Session 21C

Sian and Mariska

In the Cemetery she dreams. She sees death, Lust, and lawn bowling. When she awakes she sees Mariska having a conversation with a Grave stone. Sain informs Mariska of Fungus’ plan to deal with Jotenhiem. The plan is to drop it in to Hell and let them deal with it. They go and find the Stem.

Fungus (Hans)

Fungus has a vision…Dropping Jotenheim in to hell.

Fungus reconstitutes in Utgard the only remaining in Jotenhiem. As it travels it comes across Loki. They talk about what he has been going on in his life over the past 1000 Years. They discuss hell, its surrounding environs, and it’s inhabitants.

Loki has agreed to help and will go to hell and take credit for it. The added bonus will be that he will become a Duke of hell. They decided to talk to Hrungyr the giant to see what he wants in for return for his aid in the scheme.

*******

The plan will need either 5 Nobles or 2 Imperators doing level nine miracles. Looking at June, Sain, Fungus, Macy, and hopefully Donner to do the.

Session 21 Log -- All the News that's Fit to Print

STRUMPETS ON STRIKE!

Thousands of immigrant trollops refused to walk the streets today in Storyville. No firm reasons on why the call girls, harlots, and concubines refused to ply their trade have been heard; however, rumors of a tragic death have been spreading quickly. Town officials are concerned about the whores’ effect on the upcoming festival. “Our strong economy just might go limp,” said Brian St. James, local business owner and crewe member. “I mean, how many people are going to want to party down if there aren’t going to be titties?”

HIGH-LEVEL TALKS RESULT IN “MUTUAL UNDERSTANDING”

Lord Death and Lord Meon met today in the former First Castle chancel, an appropriate location for the tense negotiations that were to play out between the two powerful Nobles. The discussion started out with an “apology” from Lord Death for causing Lord Meon to lose face during their recent confrontation in the past. Meon, whose face did indeed seem to have lost some of its usual vigor, retorted that he, too, was sorry that he had to find out about Lord Death’s deal with some rather unsavory characters. Lord Death complied with the two particulars of Lord Meon’s offered deal: he would present Lord Meon with his servant’s left hand and the name and location of one of Dame Reality’s anchors. According to reports, Lord Death has agreed to the deal.

FOURTH AGE STAR CHAMBER?

You’ll never guess what a little fly on the wall told me! The Imperator Ananda and his familia (excepting the unnamed and mysterious new lord of the Fourth Age) met with Lord Donner of the Storyville chancel today for coffee and cakes. Ananda heaped praise on Lord Donnor for his chancel’s recent efforts against a few naughty Excrucians—one would almost think there was a criticism against Lord Entropy’s punishment of them hidden in there! After Ananda left (had to wash his “heir,” apparently!), the rest of the familia dug into the real purpose of their little soiree, which was a scandalous little exchange of favors. The familia would keep Baal-harmon off Lord Donner’s back if he found a way to fix the upcoming fight between Ada Willamette and the Lady of Festivals. Hm. I have to wonder if they’re more worried about the weapon she carries or the bets they’ve made.

CNN CAPTURES PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST

Today in the Middle East, you couldn’t have found a more touching moment if you paid for it. It’s the heartwarming story of three people from three warring cultures. Yesterday, Abassi was a former Egyptian soldier, Shifra was an Isreli woman with a fondness for chocolate, and Pelkus was a local Palestinian orphan. Today, they are friends. During a suicide bombing of an oddly empty passenger bus in the West Gaza strip, young Pelkus was injured with flying shrapnel. Moved by pity, Abassi ran into the street and began to carry the boy to safety before he was wounded by rebel gunfire. Barely mobile, he and the young Palestinian boy were escorted by Shifra, who had been involved in the ensuring gunbattle as a member of the Israeli armed forces. Their escape from the battleground, captured by both television and newspaper cameras, has captured the hearts and minds of the warring peoples of this war-torn region.

…

In related news, Lord Joktan is rumored to have been nettled by Lady Lust, who has herself suffered a recent tragedy in the loss of her Chief Whoring Officer, Jessica Jones. The cause of Ms. Jones death is unknown.

STRANGE BEAST HAUNTS HISTORIC SITE

Recently, local anchors and nobles have reported seeing strange apparitions on the San Francisco horizon near the former federal prison of Alcatraz. While most of the mortals haven’t noticed anything out of the ordinary, others “in the know” agree that “something new has moved in.” “The island’s like a corpse that’s been infested with bugs. Really big bugs,” says Enrique Lopez, owner of the Herb Shoppe. Little did he know how close he was to the truth. Alcatraz was built on the corpse of an unnamed angel fallen in the war against the Excrucians.

The angel had been attacked and driven into the ocean using a monstrous weapon, which remained somnolently embedded in the corpse until recently. An anonymous source reports that a battle between one of the Storyville nobles, Dame Reality, and one of the more notorious strategists, Iaziz, occurred there recently. While the outcome of the fight is unknown, it was rumored that one of the noble’s anchors was wounded and that Lord Meon arrived to assist Dame Reality in defeating the strategist’s plans.

Chrysalis-Amaciel Log 20

MACY rested as best she could with Joktan somewhere in the Chancel, which is to say badly. Joktan, Joktan, how to nettle Joktan?

A prayer interrupted her musings: Jessica. Jessica managed to bypass Macy’s evasions and convey her message. She’d had enough of being supergeriatric and wanted Macy to either fix her or retire – kill – her.

Macy went to Locus Noctis and from there via fairy ring to Jerusalem. She studied the political and social situation vis a vis the Palestinians and Israelis for some time and concluded that the best way to de-scorn the place was to twist some incident involving representatives of all parties wherein they would have to work together and could – with help – develop a little mutual respect. She perched atop a building and listened.

JUNE couldn’t contact Hank. Little did she know that Terminus had struck both Hank and Vera with amnesia. In Vera’s case she’d nearly forgotten how to talk. Hank’s instincts kicked in and he ran, hopped a bus to Chicago.

Meanwhile June was on Alcatraz Island where the ground shuddered in reaction the the Excrucian Pet while Iaziz And Company – all his shards and minions -- drew nearer on a tourist boat. June caused the tourists to all point their flash cameras at the magnificently photo-worthy Excrucian and blind him for a moment. June used it to make her anchor part of a crumbling concrete wall, then search for the Pet. She intends to twist it so that it would be useless to Iaziz.

TERMINUS had timeshifted to February 1973 and gone to Wounded Knee, South Dakota and nettle Meon, Desecration’s Regal, by un-desecrating things from a Lakota perspective. The improved Ghost Dance was not working against Meon’s influence. Terminus went ahead and used the power given him by the Excrucian Strategist Iaziz. He shoved the Alien Death Blade into the ground and spread the energy about reinforcing the Sioux shamans’ efforts with power that could ignore the time-stresses binding everything native to our Reality.

Next he visited his Noble Sister June’s husband and struck him down with the wasting disease (via poison apple – Terminus is a traditionalist) that had made much of June’s pre-Ennobled life a kind of Hell.

Terminus returned to the present day and collapsed in hideous pain. It took him some time to sort it out. The alien power had strengthened the Ghost Dance to the point where those empowered by it were practically unkillable, immune to Death. In the intervening forty years word had spread around, the Ghost Dance ritual was shared with tribal peoples and rituals resembling it had started to work too. Even among the rest of Earth’s population it was known that some men had learned to beat Death.

DONNER checked in with the Chancel’s Camorra liaison and learned that Lord Entropy had assigned Baalhermon, Destruction’s Regal, to nettle him. Destruction was the subtlest of Entropy’s Powers. The Camorran suggested a Destruction of Trust between Donner and his anchors. Donner denied that there was any such Trust; he preferred Obedience. So much for making a deal with Meon or the advantage of having Joktan right there in the Chancel where he could be watched. Wait… Was that really Joktan?

Donner attempted to contact Gwen to warn her. No dice. He Divined her location: zip. Not on Earth then. He zapped to New Orleans and then to City Back and tried again --- lots of electricity there, made Earth look sad by comparison --- and found her. She was very, very nervous and so paranoid that she used elaborate circumlocutions even in mental speech. Donner boosted his Aspect and searched her locus for electronic equipment, bugs, cameras, etc. She was in a football stadium sized penthouse office and not alone. There was Emma LaRue, the Power of Cities, some big hairy brute standing a good 7’ tall and weighing at least 300 pounds, a veiled woman and someone who fritzed out the cameras every time he paced in front of them. Shit.

Donner told Gwen to hang tight and zapped back to the Chancel. He pulled Thunderbolt out of its hidey-hole and did a little research in the library. Then he put Thunderbolt back. The brute was Murder, the veiled woman probably the Fourth Age and the unseeable one Ananda His Own Self, Lord of the Infinite and the future ruler of the Fourth Age. Donner looked up protocol for visiting an Imperator in his own Chancel. It was an honor, really, in a Fuck Me kind of way. He loaded up on flowers and wrote a note to Amaciel. The Boss replied immediately, "Don't start a war."

Donner prayed to Cities from City Back.

“Donner, I’m sure you’ve located us by now.”

“Yes. What is this about?”

“We need to talk.”

“Alright, provided you guarantee safe passage for me and my agent. So far as I know neither I nor any member of my Familia is at odds with any member of yours.”

Cities swore it by the Fourth Age.

JUNE watched a sort of big, metal Venus Flytrap writhe out of the shattering ground, biting the air.

TERMINUS swore off time travel forever.

DONNER, wearing Armani and all the confidence he could manage, reminded himself that it’s good to be the thunder god.

Session Log 19 A

June
June is going to start looking for the weapon and butting in where she shouldn't (her words). Hank is in a bar at a booth staring at Vera. Vera is staring off into space with a very vacant look. Hank is starting to remember who he is. The bartender is looking at Hank and asks him if he is all right. Hank is starting to remember more things.

Macy
Uses a knife to open a wound in her heart and bleeds on the carved heart in the wall. A statue walks out and the wall's heart becomes fleshy. Donner shows up shortly after. They discuss stratagy for getting the statue, heart and themselves back in one piece. They arrive back in Noctus. Jurai greets them at the gate and they pretty much ignore him. They use the fairie rings to get outside New Orleans and near Orochi's blockade. Orochi starts out with a flippant tone but changes Orochi tells Macy to give Amacil his regards and that she may call on him if there is a need. He carefully avoids saying he is in her debt. Orochi turns into an old Japenese man he offers his arm to the statue and they go off together. Donner asks Macy if she wants to be carried and she accepts his offer. Donner contacts Gwen and she tells him she cannot talk now but there is stuff going on. Macy is put up in one of the pretty houses. Griv flies along and talks with Donner as he takes her to a house. Joktan asks for permission to stay in the chancel for a time. Macy is very against the idea. Donner does two perservation miracles - one for Macy and one for the chancel in general.

Donner calls June on the communicator. Donner recalls the tale of Orochi's heart to June. Donner asks the Commoran for two favors - one is to see whom Baalhermon is to nettle and what are Japtan's gifts. The commoran is known for his prowess, intelligent and master of his domain, and irragant. Japtan is known as the grey king of the cleave of the botonist - sorcerors who worship him in effigy. Donner assigns Joktan all sorts of whores to please him and dictates his location to the chancel.

June heads towards the blood flowing downhill to find the weapon. Alcatraz is shuttering and convulsing. She has one of her anchors with her. He wants to know if she wants to use a ferry or rent a boat. He decides to procure a boat for them to drive. The water is choppy - June sees this is coming from the island not the tide. The island looks anthopormophic in the mythic. The island when she gets close looks like a giant burnt body. The body does seem to be dead and yet thrashing. June looks around and one of the ferries is bringing over one of the excrutions and some tourists.

Donner checks in on things while he has been gone to make sure Mion has kept out. .

Session Log 20C

Fungus

In a large long-hall in Utgard (Chancel) Fungus stood discussing the situation with Ratatosk and Hrungyr. Ratatosk beings, “You are familiar with the legends of Ragnorak. The very specific details of which were detailed far before the actual events. The prophesies of Ragnorak were very detailed and accurate. The reason is it is a cycle, recounted from past Ragnoraks.

Originally it was easy for the Norns, the goddesses of destiny to be the ones who remembered it. I remembered it because I was outside of it. But even an idiot like Thor eventually, after 700-800 times, remembered it and did not want it to happen again and again. Aside from our pre-determined internal struggles, Jotunheim was peaceful. We are not rich in any resource so we were pretty much left alone. When we were given an opportunity to trade away some of the aspects of Ragnorak, after so much time it did not seem to be a sacrifice. The cycle itself became less repetitive. Thor wandered off as did Loki. Eventually a certain accord was reached and ceased to have meaning to us. We gained somewhat from what was traded away. Jormungand, the world serpent, traded away these things to another world serpent. We lost our connection with your world, but that was a small price. There were other benefits.”

“Who did you trade with?” Fungus asks. “It was another world serpent.” He came in many guises. He had many names – Amaciel was one. Loki advised against it, but we just assumed that he was up to something else. Sometimes he sent emissaries mostly he came on his own. I gathered that he and Jormungand were related or lovers or allied in some way.”

“We felt that we had lost nothing. Then the Excrucians came. We never thought that our world was never important enough to warrant the war coming to us. Thor had already left with the other serpent. We are not a well covered world. We are near the edge of the tree. That put us in easy reach of the Excrucian when they came through the wall. Then they realized that we had something they could use. Jormungand was the first to die and with her death we realized what they wanted. So Azgard was razed and the bi-frost bridge was destroyed. The bridge was not strong enough at the time, but they had hoped to strengthen it and use it to pour legions into the Earth. The Svartalf fell in with them and the Dwarves, the Aesir and the Giants have been fighting a slow battle.”

“What we discovered was that we had destroyed the bridge but not the spirit of the bridge. They have rebuilt the bridge. We made one more deal with our old partner to bring us weapons that could destroy the spirit of the bridge. We intend to make one more run at destroying the bridge. Heimdall is dead, as is Brokk the smith. They have their memories. They can cause the bridge to reach out to any world on the tree.”

The Giant Hrungyr adds “We have decided that they will not have that, if we can prevent it.”

Fungus observes that the other end of the bridge is not currently held by the Excrucians. Such a presence would not be tolerated by the other worlds on the tree. He would raise an eyebrow if he could when she hears the list of powers that have left Jotunheim – Thor (Electricity), Freyja (Lust), Verdandi (Reality) Forseti (Justice), Vali/Vider (Vengeance on those who have done wrong), and Loki (Trickery). All that remains in Utgard are Ratatosk (Stories), Einmyria (Ashes), Eisa (Embers) and Thrud, Head of the Valkyries

Punishment & Guilt

Sean and Mariska head towards the Seattle Fairy-Ring. Christopher asks Mariska “So, if you want your daughter to be happy, but you want her fiancé to suffer, won’t you end up causing her to be unhappy.”

“I wonder if we should stop by and inform…” begins Sian. “Alahandro” Mariska says the management of the chancel at the forefront of her thoughts. “Cathetal” Sean replies disturbed by her sense of priorities. (You psychotic woman)

They go to the courthouse to take care of both. They first notice Jurai by the scent of bitter almonds. “Mariska, it feels as if I have been away for ages. It is so delightful to see you. You have had a bit of excitement, fighting Excrucians hoard and all.” Sean replies with a curt “Yes.” Mariska is more friendly “Good to see you. How are thing going?” Sean resists the temptation to bandy words with Jurai, while Mariska bandies on. He brings up Sean’s recent trip to the court and Mariska’s

“I haven’t been able to talk to your master. He doesn’t seem to be around the house. Perhaps he is in the heart of the chancel.” He says with a knowing look. The powers choose to ignore this and ask “Is there a message we can deliver?” “Just remind your master that we are at his disposal.”

They them proceed to the heart, making sure that Jurai doesn’t know where they are headed. They find him is a different position. He is poised with the bulk of his body straight up in the sky, swaying slightly. Punishment flies Guilt up to Cathetel’s head.

“My lord” Sean says with respect. Her voice does not carry far in the heart of the chancel. When there is no response, Mariska tries again “Hello, are you well?”

“I am merely seeing to certain tasks. Everything is going well enough.”

They discuss the situation with Cathetal. He recommends that they see to they’re sister chancel for assistance. Some are already on the tree. He also tells Mariska that he may have need of her soon. “Go with speed. The Excrucians in Asgard are known. I do not know this tactician you traded the boy to. That was unfortunate. He too will know where the weapons are and be heading there soon.

Punishment and Guilt receive a prayer from The Graf. It is very strange since they are in the heart of the chancel. They agree to meet at the crossroads near the cemetery were Amaciel was buried. Fungus shares her learnings. When he was going through the powers that were traded away to Cathetal, Punishment shares that Amaciel and Cathetal were once one. She learned that from the first apple. They discourse and plot the destruction on the bi-frost bridge.

Who’s who in Asgard

Jormungand: World Serpent

Hrungyr: Strongest Giant
Ratatosk: Stories
Einmyria: Ashes
Eisa: Embers
Thrud: Head of the Valkyries
Brokk: master smith – dead
Svartalf: Dark Elves

Thor: Electricity
Freyja: Lust
Verdandi: Reality
Forseti: Justice
Vali/Vider: Vengeance on those who have done wrong
Loki: Trickery

Utgard: Citadel
Asgard: Fallen Chancel
Bifrost: Rainbow Bridge
Nidavellir: Nine lands of the Dwarves

CHRYSALIS: AMACIEL 18

JUNE’s Dinner With the Strategist: Everyone but the cooks and the waiters were unreadable: shards. There was a strange flower on the table and Iaziz doing his best to be charming. (Doyce channels the Merovingian.) June was interesting to him as the embodiment of Earth’s uniqueness: the split between the mythic and the prosaic. June represented the Prosaic. He thought of her as the Great Liar. Whereas he was Truth; he collected all the lies of Earth and protected them.

Iaziz wanted June out of his way without harming her. So he offered her a present, a flower that no longer existed on Earth since he’d Excruciated the concept it represented. And she just might be able to reacquire the concept as well. She should take it and refrain from interfering with his search for the Glutton he’d left on Earth long ago. The thing had been starving for its food of supernal grief and might eventually eat a hole in the world. He’d take it away, June would get the flower, everybody benefited.

June wasn’t having any. They parted on more or less cordial terms.

TERMINUS felt someone working against him… no, not against him specifically but contrary to his wishes. He tracked down the source of corrupted rites and found Desecration, an earlier, more confident Desecration. Terminus presented himself as a messenger from the future Lord Entropy and ordered Desecration to stand down. Desecration was unconvinced and left.

Iaziz appeared to Terminus, Cloak of Eyes and all, and offered to help. Terminus was trying to sting Desecration and Iaziz was all for it. The Excrucian would arrange for Terminus to get enough power to overwhelm Desecration’s efforts and demand nothing in return. Terminus agreed. This power was acquired by killing a thing from outside Creation, something only vaguely comprehensible to the Amaciel-shard within Terminus, the Excrucian equivalent of a tiger – or so Iaziz said. Terminus killed it. He’d killed Excrucians himself, as a sword in Amaciel’s hand. This is not nearly so bright but it is all his own; he stores the power in the form of another sword.

MACY huddled in her crevasse from the city-sized World Tree bees. A worm broke through the wall, an Aaron’s Serpent larva. She split and shouted at the nearest bee, miraculously loud. Zip. She took out an eye with a medium miracle and rubbed the jelly over herself while the hunger spirit ate a lot of it. The bees avoided the smell of her thereafter.

Hungry asked to be released once the city was in sight and Macy let him go. She reconned the Castle. The people were more organized than ants. Radnagast was the Castle itself. Macy spoke to her. Flattery and wheedling got her told that Radnagast had nothing of Orochi’s. Eventually it came out that he claimed Radnagast had his heart. On the World Tree, that was probably literally true. Macy tried to work out some sort of miracle of Lust to make Radnagast give the heart up.

DONNER checked in on the preparations for the grand opening. All was well. Gwen Raiden had butted heads with La Fleur a few times and used his name in vain. Donner backed her up in everything. Gwen was clearly going stir crazy, so despite the threat of Desecration he sent her out to New York to check out the electrical grid repairs – and steal stuff and blow off steam – in disguise.

Donner passed over to the World Tree and acclimated himself to the place. He discovered that he could use his zap travel trick through the Tree’s sap, though it made him giddy. A damned good thing, too, as Macy was to hell and gone from Earth’s branch, as he found out by praying to her. Zap. Zap. Zap. Zapzapzapzapzapzap. Bees. Big fricking bees. Zeroing in on him by smell. He could zap away easily, but further tests showed that he could ionize and vaporize away his scent. It should work for Macy too.

Gamelog - Session 19c

-Fungus-

Svartzelves are swarming over Fungus screaming “FOOD!” Fungus realizes that there are more involved in the current conflict when it is hit by a power pole sized crossbow bolt. An Excrusian weapon…ouch! Fungus watches as people approach it from the ruins of Bifrost. As they approach, they seem very Nordic though very much Excrusians, and it ponders doing a miracle to take them out. Excrusians attack Fungus and it succumbs in a humongous puffball explosion. Coating everybody and everything in fungusy goodness for markers.

-Punishment-

Looking for Haley in a homeless shelter in Miami, She is a bit worried to see Sian. They move to a room upstairs to talk about things.

Haley opens with the meeting Sian had with Lord Entropy and the sharing of Sian’s Apples.

They discussion moves to the “Third apple”. Sian digresses and asks about Haley’s chancel. Haley replies “Melek Taus”….the Peacock Angel, one of the fallen, that has in turn, rejected the code of the fallen. Given Sian’s conservative nature, she is repulsed by this revelation.

The power Memory is also a “member” of the club, as well as Envy.

But what about you Haley asks….

Ahh…The third apple. 500 hundred years ago on a hill top on the Isle of Man, regarding the erasure of those years, and my own reaction to it. The decision that at I made at the point to. I lost something at that point, it flew away. Did you know what I was going to do?

Haley had an idea and confronted Sian over it and Sian shot Haley. So Haley waited. And starts to mention things that went away in the reset.

Haley is worried about Sian’s happiness since Sian hasn’t been happy since 1915 (Ben Falk). So 89 years of an unhappy Sian. So why so much interest in Sian’s happiness on Haley’s part. This is really what Sian wants to know. Haley finds Sian’s confusion to be cute, and she wants to know if Sian needs any help in finding herself…you know like a Soul Sherpa.

Is there anything else that she (Haley) knows that I (Sian) may not know. Haley does not recall anything, but she reveals that Sian has a serious Peter Pan Fetish.

Oh, by the way you may want to stay away from Jotenhiem, because, you know they hate you.

-Guilt-

In Seattle with Cristofer. Phone book look up, by Chistofer. There are three: Freada Levy, F. Levy, and F.R. Levy.

Full name Freda…is a older woman. Not the one.

F.R…Blank. The one.

She lives in an apartment complex on the seventh floor in a nice neighborhood.

Guilt does a rite to see if there is anything Noah related. And Christofer finds a vial of Noah’s blood at which point Frida walks into the Apartment. There is a confrontation, and it turns out that she is the Power of Responsibility (Flower Yew).

Shop Talk.

Kindred Spirits.

Christofer is horrified.

Huzzah!

It is agreed to keep Noah with Ofra, and punish him.

Imperator: Astura
Chancel: Astura
Domains: Responsibility, Oceans, and Adaptability.

-Punishment-

Sian thanks Haley, and Guy hugs her help.

Sian flies north and tries to contact Fungus. No answer so she contacts Guilt. Guilt tells Punishments plans, and convinces Sian to come to Seattle for a meeting prior to meeting with Fungus. Punishment is a little concerned about Noah and his “punishment”. Sian arrives and they start to prey to Fungus to find out what has happened to it after the Earbuds fail to work.

-Fungus-

Wakes up in Nidavellim and they are the Nidavellir one of the walks up and introduces himself Eirim.

“Greetings Great One. I am Eirim leader of these people, and I sense the miraculous in you. Are you an Ally?”

“I fight those that are not of our world”

“Ahh, you speak our world tongue remarkably well”

“I am from the other side of the Bifrost Bridge”

“Ahhh…Midgard! We will take you to Hrungnir”

With this they make their way out of the bowels of the earth.

They see a giant Plinth…Utgard the home of the Giants.

Ratatosk. A Giant squirrel introduces himself as the Power of Stories.

“We have not seen your kind in our land for many a year”

Praying.

Giant squirrel talking.

Praying.

Punishment shows her concern as to Fungus’ condition. Fungus fills in the Familia as to what is going on. Ratatosk fills in Fungus on the history of the war.

Session 17A

From the Annals of His Excellency, Lord Terminus
Antonio Escobar, Archivist

Day 3824470: A day of relative leisure for my master, the details of which I list below.

(a doodle in the border of this page depicts the face of an old woman with missing teeth and a sizable moustache)
The doddering old witch, June, was to meet with one of her presumabe accomplices, an Excrucian named Izaz at a restaurant. Although it is unknown what the two spoke of, it is assumed that some sort of plot against Creation was discussed over expensive foods, most likely paid for by the chancel. From my underworld sources, I understand that she is looking into branching out her drug trade to include prostitution as well.

(another doodle on the next page is a crude depiction of a woman having carnal relations with a rifle)
Macy Hamilton, the Prostitute of Lust was to perform a task for one of the Great Wyrms, a favor owed by the chancel for some trifle performed by the Wyrm. It is assumed that she will fail, her constant distractions of bodily desires make her a less than reliable agent for my master. From what pieces I can gather from overheard conversations and second hand retellings, she seduced a spirit of hunger to assist her (and sate what ever lewd desires should arise during her journey) and the two were assualted by insects on the Tree of Life. The two escaped the attack and hid in a crevasse of the tree, presumably for a tete' a tete'.

(the doodle on the next page depicts a man with spiked hair, one finger in an electrical outlet, the other in his nose)
Ambrose Donner, the Duke of Electricity finished a liason with another chancel, some sort of ritual with The Graf and the Viscount of Punishment. Afterward he spoke with Depa the Conspirator. Using the library of the Conspirator, he "discovered" some weaknesses of the Excrucians, reporting them to Reality.(must investigate links between Conspiracy, Electricity and Reality, perhaps some sort of intrigue against the master)

(the doodle on this page has been fiercely scribbled out with black ink, but careful examination reveals a skull with a penis for a nose)
My master began his quest to reverse the nettling against him. The details are unclear to me, but from what I understand he was travelling backward in time by following the ongoing death of some nearby creature. The specifics of how this is done are unknown to me yet. Once there, his plans to return the Black Hills of South Dakota to their original inhabitants continued (see pages 3824478 through 3824479 for additonal information)

Game Log - Session 18C

GUILT, PUNISHMENT, FUNGUS
Fungus maintains watch outside, to make sure nothing and nobody untoward enters or exits the building.

After exchanging pleasantries, Noah goes off to pick up baked goods at the local Starbucks, with Sian accompanying him. Mariska chats with Ofrah, and manages to snag a bloody rag from the bathroom sink.

Sian grills Noah lightly, but only learns enough to know that he's lying about having been mugged.

Upon returning, Noah announces the arrival of muffins, then goes to make Sian tea. More chit-chat. Ofrah then heads into the kitchen, with Sian providing cover, while Mariska grills Noah.

Noah eventually confesses to having memory blackouts, often returning to awareness with some injury. The previous night, he'd just ascended from the subway, in sight of Oprah's apartment complex; he then "reawakened" some hours later, in front of the building, bloodied.

Mariska give him her card, and urges him to call her if it should happen again.

The quartet (minus Fungus) spend the afternoon touring NYC, taking ferry rides past the Statue of Liberty.

FUNGUS
Fungus travels to chat with Orachi about Bodenheim. He says various cryptic things, but essentially describes the place as a land of Norse myths where Ragnarök has come and gone. They all welcome help, even from non-giants, against the Excrucians. Their allies have suffered reversals of late.

Orachi mentions that Cathetel was once much more tied to Jotunheim in the past. He also drops a hint that Abram is probably waiting for that delivery of Glantri Shelf Fungus from the Graf, as promised.

Finally, Orachi offers some information to assist in that quest -- should Fungus provide him with some of the good stuff, too. He directs Fungus toward Locus Sanaischara, which was the previous chancel (Scent, Melancholy, Ordeals) that dealt with Glantri Shelf Fungus.

Fungus heads off to Jotunheim, while dispatching an Anchor to track down Chancel Sanaischara, which is thought to be in the Aegean.

GUILT & PUNISHMENT
While Sian keeps Ofrah busy on the ferry, Mariska continues to grill Noah. She eventually drags out of him that the blackouts began the day after the funeral of his first fiancee, Eliza Levy, who had died in an automobile accident while he was driving, back in his old home of Seattle.

The Levy family took Eliza's death with mixed feelings; Freda, her older sister, was particularly bitter toward Noah.

He also mentions that he has particularly vivid dreams, though without any great meaning to him. Angels, stuff like that. Flowers, too -- unearthly ones.

Mariska heads off toward Seattle to learn more. Punishment heads down to Miami, to have her postponed chat with Haley.

FUNGUS
A flaming rainbow bridge -- Bifrost. It is intact, but showing cracks in its surface. It lands in a realm of very Norse terrain, and a great, very ruined city.

Amidst the ruins, figures flicker -- weaselly/rodent-like humanoids, with razor-sharp weapons. Fungus take on a giant size, and demand that they direct her toward the smith of the gods. They shout out that she is clearly in league with the giants, and launch themselves toward her in battle ...

Excrucian Weapons

Flowchart of the Excrucian Weapons that passed through Locus Noctis over the course of the campaign, who had them, where, and how they moved from place to place ... so far as we know.

14A-15C-15A -- Randy's Version

Apparently, there was some confusion about who was going the log, so we have two... s'what happens when a month goes by, I guess...

Double MPs?

TERMINUS and DONNER
Lord Entropy asked Terminus what boon he’d like. T asked that his new Anchor be granted access to LE’s library.
“He is human?”
“Mostly.”
“Very well. He will be admitted with a suitable gift.”
Terminus pointed out, very respectfully, that he had been acting – as usual – as a tool of Death.
LE: “Yes. But now you are a Noble with free will.” A messenger came in and whispered to LE. “You are to be congratulated, both of you. I’ve just received word that your Imperator is fully recovered and ready to rejoin the Val Bellum.” He dismissed them with a slight gesture.

They left via Terminus’ Gate and stood in Miami. T immediately detected the presence of something like the Excrucian bullet that had narrowly missed him earlier. They quickly located the object, lodged in a corpse with a small area of utter desolation – bereft of even any trace of death -- around it. Donner blasted the corpse away. Neither was eager to touch the thing. Donner put an electric fence around it to keep out the unwary.

Terminus shifted uneasily. . . someone was nettling him.

Donner studied the Blighted area. It was wrong, unnatural, evil, loathsome, an offense to nature, to his Domain, to himself. In an instant he went from regarding the Excrucians as merely the Enemy to hating everything about them. He recalled that Guilt was off chasing a Deceiver on her own, one wearing her form and power. He contacted her indirectly and offered to help out. She accepted and he zapped to her location.

Terminus prayed to himself/Amaciel. He described the blighted area and suggested Amaciel send another lackey to deal with it.
“IS THERE ANY REASON YOU CAN’T DO IT YOURSELF?”
“I don’t care to.”

Terminus attempted to Gate to Storeyville and ended up elsewhere. While he pondered that, the Power of Doors stepped out of one and handed him a message. T asked his opinion of the Gating problem. Doors said his methods worked differently but gave it a try. Bangkok. No idea. Doors tried to take Terminus with him – T ended up in a bar in North Dakota. Doors stepped in through another door. “Very curious.” He suggested T scan the path connected with the Gate; the thing was writhing like an angry snake. “It doesn’t seem to like you.”

Doors left for Storeyville to let them in on what was happening. Terminus read the message,

”Greetings, my children.
I have received a message from Lord Entropy regarding the recent Excrucian breakthrough. I take it that there were a number of deaths.

JUDGMENTOF LE

Doors: “Oh, that doesn’t sound very pleasant, does it?

Doors pointed out that the world paths seemed to have developed a certain Scorn for Terminus. He told a story of Joktan, who had once spent a century being hated by everything.

MACY and FUNGUS and CZERNY
Discussed possibilities for striking at the faux Bronze man deep underwater. They contacted Nyssa, the Power of Water and oldest living power from Earth, a survivor of the Second Age. The Graff and Czerny dealt with Nyssa while Macy left for Storeyville, stopping in Locus Noctis to drop off the Excrucian whip.

JUNE
June triangulated and traced the Excrucian to San Francisco. Mythic San Francisco had a bad case of the wiggins. June followed a flood of metaphorical blood uphill to a single house. Looking downhill she could see the mythical blood staining the waters of the mythic bay. The flood of pain, remorse and guilt looked like a good job for her corrupt evangelist anchor Jonathan. Jonathan talked his way inside past a stern woman guarding the sufferer – he’d been delivering Meals on Wheels when he heard the wails of a soul in torment, he said – and, with June’s power backing him, calmed the wailing woman who was the source of the mythic blood down. The woman had thought her boyfriend was having and affair. She accused him. He left. She found out he’d been innocent – and that he’d died in a bizarre case of spontaneous combustion just after leaving her side. The stern woman tried to get to Jonathan to leave but he stood firm and continued to comfort the sufferer. (Jonathan is good at this.) Eventually the distraught woman fell asleep. The other woman put on a jacket and left. June’s attempt to nettle her failed. She followed on foot through the blood-soaked streets of San Francisco.

“Are you leavin’ me with this cryin’ psycho?”

June crafted a false memory for the poor woman, of her boyfriend forgiving her, and forced Jonathan to leave her $200.

The stern woman walked fast.

June tried to capture her quarry’s picture in her compact mirror in order to find her anywhere. No go. She put real power into it and it worked. She ordered Jon to come to her and they followed the trail in a trolley car.

Their quarry walked into the Hilton and took the express elevator up. And up. And up, past the mundane levels of the hotel to open into a lavish penthouse. The Excrucian of the Eyeball Cloak was there, lounging yet tense. He got up and went to one of the huge windows. Their quarry doffed her jacket, revealing a carved disk.

MACY and AMACIEL
They strolled by the main square. Amaciel studied Bossou. “Perhaps next time we should freeze him in a less tumescent state.” He looked at Macy, “You’re smaller than I remember.”

“Why is there an Aaron’s Serpent surrounding my chancel, prevent normal egress for everyone?”

“Orochi – a promise we made, to get something for him at a castle on the World Tree.”

“Go. Talk to him.”

Macy turned to go, then looked back, “The last time I saw you was 300 years ago. How weird is that?” Macy went to Locus Noctis via their permanent Gate. She took a plane back to New Orleans at supernatural speed. Orochi nearly covered the whole chancel. She approached the serpent’s head.

“NOBLE.”

“Our apologies, great Orochi, and you have become priority Number One.”

“YOU ARE TAKING CARE OF THIS?”

“Right now.”

“I AM NOT AMUSED BY MY IMITATION OF A BASKET. YOUR SPEED IS APPRECIATED.”

“Stay right there if you want.”

Macy returned to Locus Noctis. On her way to the Graf’s fields of mushroom-Gates a big, Amerind-looking man with his hair in a Mohawk intercepted her. “Ah, Lust. I want to inform you of something. I am Joktan, Scorn’s Regal. Lord Entropy has assigned me to train you in conflict. Just as the Excrucians know that you will try to stop them, you may try to stop me. I will find one of your Bonds, destroy it, nettle you and use no miraculous abilities doing so. As you have no chance of stopping me –“

“OK. I got something else to worry about now.”

DONNER and MARISKA
Guilt traced the Deceiver to the Watergate Hotel. The hotel was horrifying in itself, a great big Blight on Washington DC. They brainstormed. They were too far from the Beltway (where it and she would be weakened for some reason) to knock the Deceiver there or drag her there reliably. Crashing a plane into the hotel was right out. Moreover, Donner had been impressed by Lord Entropy’s instructions regarding Excrucians, particularly in light of the massive destruction in Miami and its marginal payoff: Find them, foil their plans, nettle them. Both Guilt and Donner really wanted to kill the thing but couldn’t see a reliable way to do it. They prayed to Cities and got an Anchor out to advise them. They did get one really useful bit of information out of Cities: while impersonating someone, a Deceiver had to obey a command given in the real name of the original.

Eventually they settled on surrounding the hotel with spies – FBI, Black Ops types under Mariska’s control and paparazzi lured in by lies – to attempt to follow Excrucians that left. Mariska would call the Deceiver out using her name and Donner’s ability to control the Watergate’s commo systems. Mariska would keep the fake busy with questions while Donner upped Aspect and glad-handed every possible Excrucian shard in the hotel, posing as a RNC flack. That should interfere with its plans enough allow Mariska to nettle it.

The faux Guilt came out when ordered to report for questioning. Donner managed to pop one Shard before the plan went to hell. Faux Mariska summoned more troops to ambush the real one and got away. Real Mariska took a bullet in the leg. Donner zapped off half a mile in the Excrucian’s direction of escape while Guilt made the park’s paths insanely guilty about allowing FM to escape. That slowed it down enough for Donner to put a supercharged bullet into it. As he walked up to finish it off, it said, “You’ve killed me,” invoking its power to make anyone believe one lie completely, a power Donner and Mariska were unaware of. So when Mariska and Cities’ anchor found Donner he was smiling at an ichor stain and insisting there was a corpse. Massed incredulity slowly eroded Donner’s surety to the point where he could allow that they just might be right. The nettling was moderately successful though, and they were hopeful that they’d disrupted some plans. Donner left.

Several failed attempts to zap into Storeyville later, Donner diverted to Locus Noctis and their inter-chancel Gate. He stopped at their hospital and inquired after Tomas, the wounded Locus Nephys Inquisitor. When Donner approached the room he felt the Blight effect spreading out from it. Tomas was aware that something was very wrong, but not how bad it was. Donner offered to try to surgically remove the bullet. Tomas accepted with impressive Gallic savoir faire. At higher Aspect Donner was able to do the surgery with long-handled tools while Tomas dealt with the agony of the procedure with great courage – the bullet didn’t want to come out, but did. Donner vaporized it and the tongs holding it. Tomas collapsed. Donner did what he could to set up contrary influences in the mildly Blighted hospital. He contacted Tomas’ sister-noble Conspiracy and informed her of Tomas’ condition. She wanted to know why Donner had helped Tomas. Donner said their chancels had dealt well and honestly with each other in the past, that all good Nobles should come to the aid of Reality and that anything he could do to undo the works of the vile Excrucians, he would do. Donner asked after Tomas’ favorite wine.

Back in Storeyville, he sent a bottle of Tomas’ favorite to him, sent another to his quarters to try out and went looking for Amaciel. There seemed to be a lot of holes in their knowledge of Excrucian tricks. Where could they go to remedy this lack? Amaciel suggested he use his new pull with Locus Nephys to study in their well-established Inquisitorial library.

Session 16A Log

1. The Monster Hunters

Two of June’s great-something-grandchildren, Ben and Lori, drove away a monster under the bed using a magic monster-only gun that June had given them.

2. A Date with the Devil

After locating the Excrucian at a hotel in San Francisco, June leaves Jonathan to preach the gospel on a street corner and goes into an antique shop to hide and think. She sits at a table—happily there’s a coffee kiosk in the back—and finds herself musing about her grandchildren.

Before she can check on them, she’s interrupted by a stranger who sits at her table. He slides an invitation across to her. The “boss”—the Excrucian—wants to meet her. The man avoids June’s hand when she reaches for the card.

She considers the invitation and accepts.

3. You Look Good Enough to Eat

While she searches the World Tree, Lust finds a hunger spirit willing to help her find Radmanghast.

The spirit (who looks like a lumpy Humpty-Dumpty made of pate) tells Macy that the Castle Radmanghast is the first castle, and wise and powerful spirit in and of herself. Oracci and Radmanghast, in fact, were once lovers, of a kind, but Oracci dumped her. The hunger-spirit warns Macy that Radmanghast won’t let go of Oracci’s possessions easily.

To reach Radmanghast, they’ll either have to travel the Appian Way (and pay their toll price) or go around it, which would be very dangerous (“We could be eaten,” the hunger-sprit says, and licks his lips). Lust decides to find a different way—perhaps by flying. She locates some mushrooms for an unknown purpose.

4. You Are to Be Commended for Your Enemies

Death forces his recalcitrant gateway to take him back to the Chancel. Oracci, blocking the chancel gateways, advises him to go through the Noctis gateway, which he has left open. Oracci praises Death for earning the antagonism of Lord Entropy and says farewell.

Death returns to the chancel and convinces Hank, June’s anchor, and Vera, a mortal June brought to Storyville with Hank, to eat some enchanted mushrooms. The two humans lose their willpower and follow Death to the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. Death wants to try to reconsecrate the Black Hills—which have been desecrated—in order to nettle Lord Meon.

Death leaves Hank and Vera on the rez and locates (according to Estevan’s research) the greatest Lakota shaman living, Grass Snake, in the local pool hall. They plot.

5. Civility is the art of living in cities

Donner locates Thomas (the power of Justice) in a hospital in Miami. Thomas is dying: he has a blight-shot trapped in his chest. Donner cuts Thomas’s chest open, removes the blight, and zorches it into particulate with a lightning bolt.

Donner, stretching his powers a bit, reinforces the spark of life in the entire area, which purges the last traces of the blight from the air.

Donner makes contact with June and Conspiracy and talks them into discussing the June’s Excrucian with each other. From Conspiracy, he finds out Thomas’s favorite wine and leaves a bottle in Thomas’s hospital room.

Donner tells Amaciel of his progress; Amaciel gently tells him he needn’t check in every five minutes. Donner shrugs this off and spends some time with Gwen.

Game log - session 17c

Punishment, Guilt, and Fungus

Sian calls Fungus. Asks if Fungus had called earlier. Uses an excuse about why she did not contact Fungus as requested. Tells her that we (Fungus and Sian) need to some private conversation time. Guilt chimes in to Sian that she is willing to sacrifice her happiness for Sian’s need to communicate.

Sian receives a prayer from Imagination. Hangs up and tells her she’ll call her back. And continues her conversation with her Sisteren. Sian tells them about the apples. Especially about the ones that she kept and ate. Conversation of the parallels of our current problems greatly enlighten all of us. Off to New York for all of them.

List of things to do:

1. NY to capture pretty boy.
2. Jotenhiem.
3. Find the missing Excrusians from the Boat.
4. Galantrii shelf mushrooms.

Guilt informs Sian and the Graf about Noah. By the time that they get to Ofra’s brownstone, they detect Pretty Boy in the alley behind across the street. We have a plan. The Graf divines Ofra and finds Ofra dabbing at air. The Graf express concern and checks on the fungus in the apartment and she doesn‘t sense anything besides Ofra. Ofra say’s “…I am too going to call the police” to what appears to be nothing. Fungus blocks Ofra’s door.

Sian goes over the top she spots Pretty Boy down and out. There is an Excrusian standing over Pretty Boy’s lifeless body. Sian descends into the fray. The new Excrusian claims Pretty Boy as his own. There is a discussion as to ownership of Pretty Boy. Fungus comes up with a great Idea for use of Pretty Boy’s knife. Fungus wants to use the knife to locate the lost weapons…to verify the weapons possible location in Jotenhiem. A deal is made to meet at dawn and exchange items. We start to set up a Rite to remove any impressions of Guilt, Fungus and Electricity from Pretty Boy prior to giving him to the new Excrusian. The rite is a success and all is well. The knife ritual is inconclusive but seems to point in that (Jotenhiem) direction. The weapons are seem to be looking in that direction. We turn over the goodies to the other Excrusian and he leaves.

Sian and Mariska go upstairs and they ring the doorbell. Noah answers the door and says “Hi Mom…” as Ofra comes rushing into the room.

Session Log 16C

Punishment

Punishment tries to use her new ear-bud and call The Graf. There is a long pause. Siân wonders if the thing is really working. Finally the voice of Fungus comes through the device. “So, have you taken care of that Great Harvest yet?” Siân is taken aback, her first attempt at reaching out to the family and she feels rebuffed. She continues half-heartedly. “I was calling to see if there were any chancel related business you need help with. You have been taking on a lot of responsibility and haven’t been getting a lot of support from the family. That’s not right. But I guess I will go and do the Great Harvest now.”

Siân leaves to take care of that. It has been overlong since she has seen to her duties, other duties getting in the way. The harvest has congealed and condensed. The air is head with the power. The silver bowl is scorched with the intensity of the liquor. The fumes cause Siân to slip into the mystic. The images that she sees on the wall take on new meaning in light of the apple of her memory. Her mind wanders to her family and the image of damp earth, cold and pain comes to her. It takes her a moment to realize that The Graf has called her back on the ear-bud. “I’m sorry, did I interrupt you?” The Graf begins, “I thought that you would be done by now” Punishment choose to take offense. Images of Siân flying with her spear cross with some kind of windy Scottish heath, scents of potatoes and Disney music.

“So what did YOU want? I mean yeah.” Siân explains “No, it is a bit strong down here.”

Fungus leaves Siân to her work, “Just call me when you are through.”

Guild and Fungus

Mariska and The Graf try to track the pretty boy with a blood hound and a couple of FBI guys. The power of the Excrucian is making such mundane means ineffective. They decide to put together a rite instead. They use a large jar and some wire from the Watergate, the spilled blood of the enemy, something pointy to show the way. “Hey, let’s use Crimes knife” Fungus suggests, “That would be great it was on pretty boy.” Fungus and Guilt are surprised that they didn’t think of it sooner. The knife in questions seems to slip and slide from one’s mind.

They send the agents into the Watergate to get the necessary items. Crime sends the knife over with little interest. When everything is gathered Guilt and Fungus have a nice pretty boy compass. The blood goes in the base of the jar and the knife suspended above pointing the way.

The compass points north. Everyone piles into an FBI suburban and Guilt takes the wheel. Fungus begins rotting the fine leather seats while giving directions. When they pass through D.C. Guilt starts to get nervous. By the time they clear Maryland, she floors it all the way to New Jersey and into New York.

Punishment

Punishment finishes her task and head to Cathetal with the offering. She still has questions for her imperator. After presenting the bowl, she brings up the topic of the apple. She wants to know why. Cathetal reminds her that they already had the conversation, when it happened. With a brief puzzlement, Siân realizes that she does remember the conversation. Cathetal refuses to say more. “I play friend against enemy, but usually for the greater good. Go with The Graf, he has enough pieces of the puzzle now.”

Game Log 15C

[Some very sketch game notes, I fear.]

FUNGUS
Sitting on a personal mat of fungus as the AWAC circles overhead, and Czerny dives into the water to call the Bronze Man to task. It descends with him, looking like a deep sea diver. Bronze Man comes along, then comes to a stop. It orders the Bronze Man to "surrender and reveal your plans."

Bronze Man now a shocked and panicking street person. Fungus envelopes him and takes him to the surface.

Alejandro contacts via the ear bud. "Your ... person is in the hospital ..."

Fungus heads over immediately. Czerny will take the street guy to the chancel. The hospital is still in good shape.

Moonbeam's in bad shape, needing constant resuccitation. In the Mythic, there's a swirling melee of little red Picts decimating villagers. Up at the place where you'd burn witches, Moonbeam's wounded and trying to organize the troops, none of whom are listening to her.

PUNISHMENT
Back in Miami, looking for Haley. She's in the midst of horror, helping out at a homeless shelter. Doing Something, but apparently just doing a soup kitchen.

Haley is unhappy. Not happy with Punishment's comfort that the guy is being punished. "Oh ... you want ... your thing."

Recover third unknown apple and eat. No time to dwell upon it. Pull out some Anchor info. Nothing critical. Meetings, cooperations to apprehend and punish. Add to the basket.

Travel to LE's chancel. Folks impressed/daunted/scornful of the number of apples she's brought. LE is pleased, invites her to hunt. She declines and leaves, with her stick.

GUILT
Hotel. Pretty boy. Life is good. Watergate Hotel, an excrucian hide-out, at least where the faux Guilt is.

The hotel's image shifts. Sometimes a great black tower. Sometimes the hotel, with the windows running with blood.

Mariska's questioning. Electricity advises.

Surveillance. Calling in a van of FBI guys, some paparrazi, etc., to use as troops.

Spender's guys. Automatic fire. Duplicate runs, changing form.

Electricity attacks gunners from the window.

... [distracted by something]

Electricity makes the path writhe, then supercharges some bullets after Pretty Boy. Kills him.

FUNGUS
Leaps to the fray. Attackers beaten back. Attacks are coming every half hour or so.

Meanwhile, in the Prosaic, the Graf used fungal growths to stop hemmorhaging. Her body is shattered, but far better than unprotected mortals from the area. Stabilized.

Goes to follow up with others about the missing Pretty Boy.

Someone informs her that Cathetel is summoning everyone.

PUNISHMENT
Flying back. A bitter freedom.

Look at the Mythic. Mother Ocean. Air sprites and wave sprites.

But somehow oddly poignant. Isn't that annoying? Yes.

Back to Cathetel. Courthouse. Ear fungus. On the network.

Brief Cathetel on bribe, quest, apples.

Tomas is still healing, and slowly.

Crime has lost an Anchor -- has taken a leave.

Mention Apples 1 and 2. But ... later for #3.

Greets Fungus on the way out. Seems ... friendly. And open. And glad to see her.

Tell about Crime.

Speak with Anchors?

Edgar Suit

Cixtian

Guilt's dupe.

Source of Excrucian weapons -- ((1) Pen Lo's weapons split up by two I chancels, the other guys, us, and the Cammorans. Then someone of that group hid them in another chancel -- Autumn, Extinct, Eternity. Then moved to us, planted, to be mistaken for those from the Ex ship --> the ones in the light house. (2) We never saw the ones referred to in the fake contract, but we know that they were Ex wepaons, but not immediately identifiable as both. Carted off by machinery/metal creature; left the ship by the room Pretty Boy (Deceiver) was in; lead on a chancel (Jotunheim) where such a clank would be from.

Any info the other way? Um ... busy at Lord Entropy's court.

Mariska - any anchor to send to DC? Donner is dancing in puddle of blood. Deceiver has moved on. Blind Lie works,

(Meanwhile, Fungus wants to have the building (Watergate) condemned.)

Blood hound? Punishment will come through, via faerie rings. [I think.]

EOF

Chrysalis Log 14A

Macy goes to see her reporter friend [not an anchor]. The woman is not at her desk so Macy has to use the guy in the next cube, Jaimie, to find her -- using her Glory. Eventually, Macy has the entire office looking for Rebecca. She is located about 20 minutes later. They go to lunch at Balthazar's and discuss... things, as Macy is thinking about anchoring her. Rebecca, unfortunately, is working for Cities as an anchor. Still, there's no real reason to blow a good relationship -- they have lunch and chat for a spell.

Donner
Pulls out Punishment's flower to find out what's going on in Miami, but she doesn't answer. Marie LaFluer calls on everyone in the Chancel because the harvest needs to happen. Donner and June are going to do the harvest (Death offers to handle it so everyone else can head off to Miami that much sooner, but the familia thinks not).

Macy hears about this from the Familia and tells Rebecca, who calls Cities to let her know there is a problem in Miami.

Meanwhile, Pen Lo is prophesizing in tongues to Donner and June -- much doom and destructions, yadda yadda.

Death contacts Cerney to tell him about the break-through. Turns out Cerney was in the Miami area anyway and was on the way to the fight already, so now Death is going to go because Cerney is going -- he's got that pesky vow to make sure Cerney doesn't die.

Donner calls Doors to tell him about what's going on and Donner asks him if he will call Ada Willamette (inquisitor, Cerny's familia, and general badass) and also if he will pass along to Locus Entropy about Meon getting hurt.

June
During the havest ritual they hear a gong sound -- LaFluer's indicator that someone tried the currently blocked gate from Locus Noctis. After the ritual Bosou is back on duty again, which is good, since he'll be in statue form right next to that gate.

June checks with Guilt, Conspiracy and Eternity. She tries Guilt first. Mariska tells her that they have a problem and not to use the gateway right now. Guilt talks about someone -- someone bad -- going to Washington DC. It was a bad person who went through the gate and tried to come into our chancel, but they've taken a different gate now and the gate to Noctis should be safe to use now.

Donner tries Ada's emblem and she does answer -- which makes Edward's favor redundant, but oh well. He tells her about the break-through; she was aware of it but didn't think it was too bad -- Donner made the situation more clear and she determines to head that way. Conspiracy does not answer June, so she calls on Eternity. He answers and she tells him about the break through in Miami. He is vague about if he can make it.

Death, Donner, and June (with her anchor) arrive in Locus Noctis (in N. Miami) about the same time Macy drives into the city. The Noctis chancel is chaotic at best right now. There seems to be dust hanging in the air that won't settle.

Donner tells us to be careful around Guilt because she might be an excrucian double instead of the real Guilt. The chancel does not seem to be currently under attack. Macy stops to pick up her other familia as they exit the chancel into Miami members and burns rubber to the fight. As they close in, a huge explosion coming up on them encourages them to evacuate the escalade. Macy takes June's lackey into the air higher and throws him up higher to lessen the effects on him and the damage he takes, Death gates out of the blast area, Donner switches to elemental form, and June is simply to precious to be bothered by such things as explosions. At the fight, Crime and Fungus are staying back (they are both hurt, their power is used quite a bit, and they both have badly injured anchors). Punishment is in the midst of the fight -- she, Justice and Cerney are dealing with three Excrucian shards. No one seems to be fighting the guy on the horse who seems to be in charge (the shards are keeping the three aspect-people off of him).

Macy drops off the preacher on a pile of rubble and moves to another so she does not draw attention to him. She cocks her gun and aims it at the main guy's horse. Punishment hears the gun cocking, recognizes Macy from the sound, and is going to go after the horse as well. Fungus is going to attempt to lock the horse down. Donner summons Zeus's thunderbolt to his hand. Macy shoots the horse in the knee and it hits; a split second later Punishment rakes the underside of the horse and the creature tumbles down and Fungus's attack keeps the horse down. Tomas and Churney continue to fight the triplets. June bursts a water main under the leader to throw him even further from his mount. He rolls to his feet and hits Macy with his whip. Terrible pain rolls over her and hampers her mind and body.

Macy jumps down on one of the triplets and touches him -- a gift of Amaciel to his familia severs the shards connection to the warmain and he's just a plain old vagrant again. Punishment moves in an disarms the whip. Death is opens a gate to Entropy's chancel (the idea was to open a gate to a nearby chancel in Miami, but Death sees more opportunities if he's gated to Entropy). Donner sends the bolt back to its home in the chancel, because using it would be quite painful and its probably no longer necessary. June redirects the watermain to knock the big guy into the gate, except she knocks Punishment through the gate too. Cerney guts one of the triplets and Macy is able to release the third one as well. The gate opens into the throne room. "A gift to you" Punishment says to Entropy as she slides across the flagstones in a gush of water. Punishment calls her weapon to her. Donner enters the gate as well, since this seems a fine way to make his first impression on Entropy, and Death goes through the gate to make sure Entropy gets his gift.

Long story short it is not pretty for the big guy. Fungus and Macy take care of the horse and the whip. Cities provides transportation and the horse is taken to the Noctis's chancel per Entropy's instructions. June helps Imagination and Cities with the cover story for all the destruction. June nettles the excrucian for his failed -- in fact, utterly decimated -- plan and shows Crime how to do that simple ritual as well -- he does, and both chancels reap the rewards for the pains they suffered during the attack.

(Except: Guilt is still pursuing her doppleganger in D.C...)

THE JUDGEMENT OF LORD ENTROPY

Re: The Miami Breakthrough

In considering the facts of this event, We find no noble at fault in the proceedings. The letter of the Code Fidelitatis was adhered to, likewise was the law of Sevenfold Vengeance and the salient points of the Edicts of Tal.

In Our official capacity, We note only that the written rules of the Nobilis have been observed.

- LORD ENTROPY

On a personal note:

The clearest unwritten rule of the Nobilis is this: to fight is to lose.

After reviewing the excreble manner in which the battle itself was conducted, I find the most cogent question to present itself is simply why. Why was there a need for a battle of any kind?

Foil, nettle, dismiss; I believe certain members of the Nobility require lessons in what it means to win, and what it is to lose. Thus, as a personal favor, I have dispatched instructors to affect that education.

Parenthetically, the following specific favors:
* Justice's Pawn assigned as lesser bailiff to the Locust Court to observe the exercise of good judgement. Service to begin immediately.
* Marquis Death to learn judgement in the use of specific Gifts. Lessons to begin immediately.

- E

Game Log Session 13C

Guilt
Dinner with Ofra: As we left the party, Mariska was eating the heaviest most caloric entree. She discovers that Noah doesn’t scan. This disturbs her. Crime uses the new communication device to lets Mariska know that there is a situation in Miami, “maybe an Excrucian breakthrough, partly because I don’t know what that means…”

Mariska continues dinner:
“So, how did you meet Noah?”

“Where are you?” Alejandra yells in Mariska’s ear.
“I’m at a nice French restaurant in New York.”
“Well I just saw you on film leveling the Sheriff’s building.”
“Well, I’m here and not there.”
“Well your body is here, causing an amazing amount of damage.”

“I’m sorry, my service just went off.” Guilt excuses herself.

She calls Christopher. “What’s going on?”
“Why are you talking to me like that, no offense?”
“Like what?”
“Well, you are right in front of me.”
“NO, I’m in New York.”
“Then who is in front of me?” Christopher asks in sotto voce.
“I would imagine that it is some kind of Excrucian doppelganger.”

Through Christopher, Mariska causes a large pickup swerves off the road and clips the faux Mariska. Someone looking a lot like Billy Bob Carlos goes flying through the pickup windshield as the truck wraps around the faux Mariska.

Faux Mariska creates a whirlwind to lift her from the street.

Christopher pulls his gun and starts firing. After the first shoot the bullets are lost to the wind.

The faux Mariska solidifies the dust in the whirlwind and flees the battlefield.

Crime calls out to Mariska from Miami, “We are not at the ‘Oh my Jesus’ part yet, but do you know how to get a hold of Punishment. She’s not responding and I don’t think she has an ear thing yet. Do we know any of her anchors?” “No, try praying.”

There is percussion from the caves, where the fairy rings are. It sounds like a ward exploding where Mariska didn’t know there was one.

Mariska begs off of the dinner party with Ofra. Goes to deal with the fake Mariska situation, and how the Excrucian in the jail was handled. Talks with Christopher and then head to D.C.

Fungus, Crime, Punishment and Session 14A
Warehouse district. Crime is there – Leon called him – and Tomas, too. Leon gets ready to depart. Lots of gang members arrive giving Crime deference. Moonbeam is there, out of place. Galumph over to Crime. Believe it’s an Excrucian from the ship doing something bad. Have to go in? Why not collapse the building? Creation of Crime: Retroactive Violation of Building Codes. The whole building collapses. All except an area right by the front door, whence an Excrucian rides out astride a dead white horse, hooves ringing like bells, dressed like a centurion, wearing a six-shooter, a cloak of eyeballs, a tan sash.

“I am not part of this. I only wish to pass. I use the opening to search for something else. Your argument is clearly with these others. I have no need to kill you. Let me pass.”

Is he a Shard, about the same power level or an Imperator equivalent? Well, he shrugged off a Level 7 Miracle … and Tomas knows who he is. Tomas – “None shall pass!”

Quick battle: The guy is clearly out of their class – but when they use the true name of the Bronze Man to sic that Fragment on him, and Knives arrives as well –

Tomas takes a Deadly Wound.

Then the others crawl from the rubble – one with a Pain Whip that strikes Fungus. One Shard tosses Tomas away, while two others throw the Bronze Man to about the continental shelf. Fungus sends a cloud of spores into the air to obscure the area from onlookers.

The main Excrucian tosses off Knives, and leaps to a rooftop – straight to where Punishment is arriving (having finally responded to her Prayer).

The Excrucian with the whip sends a shock wave through the area, tumbling buildings and killing all of the gang members. Fungus shields Leon and Moonbeam from the blast, but they are badly injured. Crime pulls them out and heads out of the combat zone.

Death, Lust, Reality and Electricity arrive. They heard what was going on and came through the gate to our chancel as fast as they could. They join the fray Reality bursting pipes, Lust and Death wading in and Electricity calling for Thor’s hammer.

City arrives and attacks with rebar.

The Excrucian with the whip call forth a horse and leaps from the rubble to flee the scene. There is a coordinated attack on horse. The horse goes down. Fungus immobilizes the horse. Lust gets attacked by the whip. Punishment disarms the Excrucian and Death opens a gate. All those still able, toss the Excrucian through the gate. Punishment, Death and Electricity follow through. They all end up in Lord Entropy’s throne room. “A gift for you.” They all say as they slide in.

The remaining battle is short. Crime and Reality use the whip and the horse to nettle the Excrucian. The members of the court finish what is left of the immortal. He is pinned to the floor, captive of Lord Entropy.

Reality, Lust, Fungus, Imagination, and Cities begin damage control and clean-up.

Chancel C session 14

Lord Entropy’s Throne room:

Present - Meon, Ba’alhermon, Jaktan, Verious Ogres, Death, Donner, Punishment.

Miami - Cites, June, Hallee, Lust.

Approaching the Chancel - Tomas, Czerny, Crime, Fungus.

Washington D.C. - Mariska, and pretty boy disguised as Guilt.

-----

-Lord Entropy is not happy with the way things were done, and not happy with the explanation.

-Lord Entropy was wondering where Sian’s apples are.

-Discounts Meons offering/bribe because he thinks that the Excrusian is better.

-Entropy wants Sian’s apples and sends her for them. He is very mellow. Sian contacts Hallee about her apples. Hallee tells Sian that she’ll get them when she finds them all. Sian panics.

-Asks about the Gate, Death admits to doing it before Donner rats him out.

-Lord Entropy dresses down Death and Meon for losing the Excrusian.

-Lord Entropy grants Donner a boon and tells him that this does not count for his one free visit to the Locus Court.

-Lord Entropy talks some more about Death’s and Donner’s punishment: see Chancel A.

-Meon has to see to the dispute between Sian and Meon. It is Lord Entropy’s opinion that the other failed party is responsible to find the lost Excrusian. Punishment CYA’s her response. Sian does the right thing and takes on some culpability. Punishment gets dissed by Lord Entropy when she questions Lord Entropy’s wisdom.

---

Washington D.C.

Mariska tracks down her clone to the Watergate hotel. It turns out to be a pit of death and destruction. She contacts Spender to get reinforcements. Next she prays to Lust to get information on what it could be. Lust educates Mariska on what it is, A Excrusian Flower right was done there in 1972. Donner prays to Mariska and he comes through to help. Donner contacts Conspiracy and she sends an Anchor. Donner does a miracle of creation to “page” the deceiver to the loading dock. It takes some penetration to accomplish this.

---

Lust and Fungus Approaching the Chancel. The horse, the whip, Czerny and bodies to the Chancel for Crime to take care of. Czerny wants to come along and find the Bronzeman. Discussion of how to deal with the Deceiver Guilt by locking down the Fairy rings. Make creation of Bronze WACS to search for the Deceiver Bronzeman off in the Ocean. Go to his location as he travels north along the bottom of the Ocean.

Session Thirteen A Log

Session C folks: please do not open up the extended entry until after your next gaming session. Spoilers ahead.

1. Rain.

Donner walks to the center of the chancel for the first time unaided. His path starts in an overgrown cemetery at dusk--the fireflies have just come out, casting glimmers of light on chiseled flowers and lush statuary. He walks into a crypt and from the crypt into a tunnel. Fireflies fill both--the "June effect" prevents him from knowing whether he sees the light at the end of the tunnel or just another firefly.

The tunnel opens onto the opulent grounds of a red brick, Southern-style mansion: LeFleur frowns at Donner from a rocking chair (probably one of June's) on the veranda. She leads him inside and shows him around the place. Icons, some covered with velvet cloths, representing members of the familia hang over the mantle in the parlor. The center icon is a carved jade dragon. Donner asks to speak to Amaciel; LeFleur leads him out to the hedge-labyrinth at the side of the house. "Amaciel's not well," she cautions him.

Donner walks right up to LeFleur and kisses her on the forehead. He disappears into the labyrinth.

At first, the hedges of the labyrinth appear neatly trimmed, but the edges become less defined and more complex as Donner walks among them. The leaves' edges split and groove into themselves until they appear to be feathers, moss, the velvet on antlers. In places, the velvet has scraped or shed away, and what lies underneath steams in the moist night heat.

The sound of breathing underlies all other sounds. Donner realizes that Amaciel is the maze. Amaciel is feverish and sick--as LeFleur said. Donner causes a misting rain to fall, to help keep his master cool. When he reaches the center of the maze, he kneels and plays a lullabye on his theramin. Amaciel wakes enough to tell Donner that it is good that one of the familia can reach him, Amaciel, unaided. Amaciel asks for the news; Donner tells him about the upcoming festival and duel, about trying to build a neutral ground, about all the work that he and the others have done. Amaciel seems to drift off. Rain hisses on Amaciel's burning skin.

Donner plays on.

2. Death commissions a Christmas gift. Or something.

Death commands his new apprentice, Estevan Alverado, to find the greatest living painter for him. Estevan suggests someone, a surreal Japanese artist whose work he admires, and Death gives Estevan permission to hire him to carry out Death's work: he wants to commission a picture of the End of the universe, meant as a gift for Lord Entropy.

Death means to have the image of the End large, visually overwhelming, but in the foreground will stand a small representation of Lord Entropy, his hands spread to hold back the coming chaos. "It will have several interpretations," Death comments. The painter begins his work under Estevan's instruction.

Death uses the flower of Lord Meon, a yellow lily, to contact him about their upcoming meeting in Miami. Meon requests that Death meet him at a certain location in the city; Death travels through the gates to Miami, then decides to take a cab from there.

The area is run down, the kind of place with too many empty warehouses, whores, and dog shit in the streets, and not nearly enough shiny skyscrapers and vending machines carrying the Wall Street Journal. Meon says, "If you wouldn't mind ducking--" from somewhere behind Death. Death does; something awful whizzes by his head.

A man on a horse with the bells from Notre Dame for hooves (or so it sounds)--well, a man: an Excrucian has been attacking Desecration but will gladly throw in Death for free. The Excrucian wears a Roman centurion-style robe with a half-cape of woven eyeballs.

The cabbie flees--without getting paid. People dressed as gang members do the Night of the Living Dead walk. Death takes offense and drops them. Meon courteously thanks Death for arriving--and so promptly, too.

Death calls for the seeds of the centurion's death out of its existence; he expends so much power that a gash, the twin of the one that erupts out of the centurion, bursts out of his own flesh, too. Unfortunately, it doesn't start healing the way the one on the centurion does. Meon commands the eyeballs on the Excrucian's cloak to crawl into the hole Death opened. The wound, although much more disgusting than it was a moment ago, continues to heal. Meon takes a wound similar to Death's.

Death says, "Let's go. Let's go now."

Meon flies away. Death rides his horse.

3. Oops.

Hank is still driving Vera and June back to Storyville. Hank and Vera are doing the relationship-with-an-asshole dance. June checks both their belongings for anything suspicious. She finds a lot of touristy souvenirs in Vera's bag, but nothing of unearthly origin.

Griv greets them at the chancel's entrance with a horse-drawn trap. Vera and Hank gape at the gargoyle--Vera becomes so upset that June eases her into sleep: "a lesser preservation of sanity."

June talks to Hank about the chancel as they pass a park filled with five hundred prostitutes promenenading the paths with books balanced on their heads. A few are trying to recite a Tennyson poem with cockney accents; one says something about a draining sprain that's mainly in pain. In the distance, Bossou bellers: "More rum! And a pig! Wait! Fill the pig with rum!"

The day is wet and rainy; as they ride (June holds the reins; Vera sleeps in Hank's arms), a shadowy figure appears on the street. They run over the figure, expecting it to move out of the way. The horse rears and tips the trap over. Everyone falls to the street.

The figure is Death, wet with rain and bleeding silver streams.

June bandages Death as he talks about the Excrucian attack in Miami. June speaks to the rest of the familia, and they all prepare to defend Miami. LeFleur gathers her defenses; Donner and June leave Gwen and Hank inside the chancel. Another of June's anchors, Jonathan, will travel with them.

Jun puts on her best hat and a string of bright and fancy beads: all dressed up and ready to go.

Chrysalis: Amaciel Twelve

The whole Familia plus La Fleur pooled their powers and vastly extended the area of their chancel. Each molded sectors to taste as well as blending their talents to create such things as fishing and hunting challenges suitable to Nobles and guest houses of lustworthy perfection. They eliminated the tech barrier en passant. June walked the borders into existence.

June’s anchor Hank prayed desperately for her help. She answered and allowed him to summon her. He’s written a book using what he’d seen and felt of the mystic side of reality which sold reasonably well as poetry and some of which (the less-racy bits) were being considered for a collection of children’s stories. He suddenly had money and a bit of fame. Then someone brought the public spotlight on an older piece, a very disturbing thing called Bruised and Bloody Hands. Parents objected to the author of BBH writing for their children. Hank’s explanation, live on Chicago radio, made it worse.

Hank was now besieged in his apartment by Hank-hating protestors and Hank-supporters. He wasn’t sure which group was scarier. He couldn’t write, he’d run out of groceries, he didn’t dare leave the apartment.

June invited Hank to visit Storeyville. She went out to deal with the crowd herself. She gave a nice Spirited speech that dispersed all but the most hard-core demonstrators. None of the rocks thrown at June dared to hit her. By a wild coincidence Vera, who’d given June a ride some weeks earlier, was one of the demonstrators. They had a happy reunion. Vera was getting her divorce. June was vague about getting called away suddenly… from a truck stop. They went up to Hank, who was relieved to learn that Vera had been on the free speech side.

Terminus felt a horrible twinge. He checked his Bonds and Gated to his oh-so-Special hospital --- which had just burnt to the ground. He examined the ruins and decided that the fire had been set with cheap gasoline two hours previous. A hard divination revealed the culprits: four men from the local village. He Gated there and gathered them up. Terminus killed one at once. “He didn’t tell me what I wanted to hear.” The others were very forthcoming: a white-haired man in white clothes with pale, pale, not-pink eyes had hired them. He’d even given them a business card to give to Terminus. It had a Madrid, Spain address on it and a phone number, but the man was staying at a nearby hotel – they’d gladly drive him.

As a reward for their helpfulness, Terminus allowed one of the men to live -- the group had to fight to the death, and the survivor could live out his life. That the survivor of the melee had colon cancer was merely a tasty ironic twist.

The gentleman in white was Esteban Alvarado, a notable sorcerer. He knew something of the Nobilis and of Terminus in particular. He even knew quite a bit about how Anchors worked. Alvarado had set all of this up in order to become a hate anchor for Terminus. Alvarado feared old age and death; he gambled on his usefulness and audacity to link himself to a Noble who’d lasted thousands of years.

Terminus liked Alvarado and liked his possible usefulness. He Anchored the sorcerer and warned him against intriguing against him. Anyone else was fair game. He then gave him his assignment: learn everything he could about Lord Entropy, their target. That worried Alvarado. Terminus invited him to think larger. Alvarado was to exhaust the chancel’s library first, then others as Terminus arranged for access.

To the death of all things!

Macy bullied Jessica into taking over the training of the new whores – all 7500 of them! – without any further complaints.

Macy continued on that note when her pet preacher accidentally prayed to her with the proper incense. She visited him and enjoyed rubbing his face in his enslavement. She left him bereft of his treasured faith (money) and facing the prospect of working his ass off for nothing, forever.

Macy visited her favorite angel for flirtation and gossip. Senachiel had recovered sufficiently to walk with assistance and to flirt back with more energy. Macy invited him to the Grand Opening.

Donner discussed the proposed duel of Strife and Festivals with La Fleur. She insisted on a five mile separation between the two and assurances of minimal property damage. Donner agreed with the precautions. He made some friendly overtures which La Fleur rebuffed.

Donner went to the World Tree and Locus Ambrolam to see Ada Willamette the Power of Strife. She accepted Storeyville as the site, had no problem with the rules or with Lust as a judge. She seemed to be just as confident as her foe about the outcome of the duel. Their vendetta had started with competition for the Pegasus, a unique creature. It had died in the conflict.

June, Hank and Vera began their road trip to New Orleans and Storeyville. Hank and Vera hooked up.

20 days until the opening party.

Session 12C Gamelog

Fungus and Guilt start off the festivities with a nice little chat with Apathy, Extinction and Autumn after Spender brings Guilt in to talk to the other powers. Spender is secretly delighted to learn about Apathy's power to annoy and ignore Guilt. Guilt is not happy about the situation to say the least. The pit where the weapons were stashed was shown to the local powers and questions are asked. Once Fungus reveals that a mechanical creature was involved, Autumn mentions the possibility it could have been a golem from Jotunheim. Fungus and Guilt decide to enlist Autumn to assist.

Punishment completes her quest after subduing the Garden, ending up back at the same tree she started from. The tree advises her to pick all the fruits that resulted from Sian's experiences lest they take to seed and cause problems down the road. Sian picks them all but is understandably loathe to give them all up to Entropy. Anyone who eats one experiences some event from Sian's life. It is an extreme violation of privacy and could reveal far more information than is acceptable to Sian.

Crime follows Justice to investigate the sabotage of the building that disrupted the ritual battle. Alejandro asks Crime to help in cleaning up the mess. Crime readily agrees after confirming to Justice that a crime was commited to cause the collapse. Hours from the opposing chancel arrives and begins levelling accusations. Crime decides not to bitch slap her but refutes her claims, countering them with accusations of his own. She leaves and Crime works with Alejandro to rebuild the area, twisting it into a casino for future white collar crime possibilities. Once done, Crime gets Justice to commit to an investigation of Arnaud's chancel to follow up on the mechanoid lead. They drive to a mechanical looking forest where they are greeted by Lawrence, the Power of Circular Motion.

Guilt rounds up the apathetic victims and leaves the chancel to go attend the dinner that has been arranged with her daughter. *Cut scene* Noah and Ofrah are stressing over meeting Guilt for the first time together. Noah tries to be pleasant and give a favorable impression but keeps sticking his foot in his mouth. Guilt is alarmed to learn that Noah is empowered in some way and can't be read. Noah also learns that Guilt is empowered in the same way. The tension in the room increases.

Fungus' anchor Moonbeam drives around an area where some sort of gate ritual is being performed with Leon the Archbishop in tow. She alerts Fungus. Leon calls crime. It looks like majorly bad juju in Miami.

Sian contacts Haley to ask for advice on what to do about the apples after rowing back to Miami. they get together, drink a lot and discuss things. Haley samples a couple of fruit, then has Sian screen them for hidden memories. Sian finds a couple that she can't account for. At least one turns out to be the memory of meeting with Amaciel and learning of the chancel split. The remainder of the non sensitive fruit are Ok to give to Entropy but Sian contemplates making another deal altogether and keeping all the fruit

Crime and Justice question the inhabitants of Arnuad's chancel. Little Doc is unable to detect any direct indication of culpability and the style of mechanoids they encounter do not match the decription given by the Excrucian. Crime is becoming convinced that Arnaud's people are just convenient scapegoats for a more subtle plot engineered by someone else.

Session Eleven A Log

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.

Game Log - Session 11C

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.

Game Log- Session 10C

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.

Amaciel 10 Log

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.

Log 9A

Donner calls Eternity via flowers. Donner tells him to step away from the phone that he is going to come through. Donner explains the situation with Penlow’s missing part. They head out of the room into the jungle like chancel. Loyality joins up with them looking dapper in his 3-piece suit. Loyality is then filled in on the situation. The group decides to go take a look and see if they are missing any part of their Penlow. They go towards to the top of the pyramid and Donner spots some dried blood that looks like car primer. Inside the area is where they have the heart, kidneys and the liver. Well where they normally have that but now they have the heart only.

Death is going to see where there is a gate to his old buddy knives. He exits the chancel and goes to find a way into Churney. He goes to Colorado using world walker to open gates to get closer. He opens a gate into their chancel to find knives. The path to the chancel is off the road to the Tree. He is looking for Churney or where they would be keep Penlow’s parts. He is ordered to halt and he does only long enough to ask a question. He waits because it is Churney who is on the way. Death cuts to the chase and asks if any Penlow parts are missing. They are going to find Ada she can see if parts are missing.

Crime and Lust are working on ditching the weapons. Crime suggests a Georgia cemetery and they dig up a recently dead obese man who died fornicating with pigs. They empty the casket into the trunk and dump the weapons into the casket and bury it again. After they are done with this they head to Tennessee, and Lust drives them to a southern Bapist revival. They help serve up the obese man as a pig roast. While Lust is talking with the preacher, Crime takes the microphone and begins to work the crowd. Lust anchors the good preacher and teaches him some long past due humility. Crime preaches about the evils of society and that a laundry list of things should be illegal.

June is going to Nephest. She hitches a ride through to Locust and uses the friendly faerie rings to go where she needs to be. There is a strange structured battle going on Clockwork men vs. the gargoyles. She goes through to an eastern block sort of country. There is an old hut and June goes in. She has general instructions on how to find the castle. A Horse is heard in the distance, and there is a rider in red armor on a red horse. June is ignored. After a little while she now sees a white horse and rider approaching. This one stops and talks to her and asks who walks the path. She announces herself as Dame Reality. She is instructed to go to Lavincois castle. She crosses the stream and in front of her is a black horse and knight. He argues that she must best him if she wishes to pass.

Donner bumps up his senses to examine the room. It appears that a woman broke in and stole the item. The perfume she wears is only available at Sacs. On the mythic side this place is unpleasant. There are a lot of unhappy ghosts in the area. Donner decides to question the kidneys. The liver was taken by a woman in white. There is a faint smell of pollution. The spirits say that the woman just appeared. The spirit tells him the woman had blonde hair and a 3-piece suit like Loyality. Donner asks if they can agree to exchange information freely about this issue.

Death is taken to Ada. She is straight out of a western with two guns and a western outfit. Death asks about the intestines of Penlow. Ada is easy on the eyes as she walks away. Ada reminds Death of Lust in her movements and body structures. The room he is taken to has many many bodies including those of imparators and traitors. They do not appear to be missing any of their parts. Death decides to get in touch with the other member of his chancel using flowers. Churney shows him to the garden to pick out the flowers he needs.

Donner lets Death know that Sangreness is in trouble and has lost their liver.

June tells him that he will fight her champion and she leads him to the water. She has him look into the water and makes his reflection come to life to fight him. June just walks the path while he is distracted. June is shown into the castle. Sitting at a low bench is Conspiracy. June lets Conspiracy know what pieces are missing that are known. They have milk and cookies together. Conspiracy says the woman who matches the description sounds like the Regal of Cities. They chat just a bit longer and then June takes her leave. June is getting a prayer and it is Hank and he has a problem. No idea what to wear for the radio interview he has.

Crime and Lust head to talk to Trixie. Crime fills Lust in on the plan to desecrate Eve and he wants her help to try and spin it and make the gift from Crime’s chancel instead of the other house that is trying to frame them. The two begin trying to take down where the body is or the whorehouse. They question someone they find that in involved and an address for the fuel seller. Lust and Crime make their way to the warehouse where the guy is working. Lust pretends to be a Swedish maid with a singing telegram. She sings and then tells him she has a special gift that she cannot give him in front of everyone. Crime strikes a deal with him and offers Lust as bait. Crime and Lust secure the body and are ready to perpetrate.

Session 9C

Guilt, Fungus, Crime, and Lust

On the beach trying to deal with the Excrucian Weapons. Macy call's out loudly, Mariska responds in kind. Macy informs them that she is looking for a piece of Pen Lo's that has gone missing and tells us that we should see if any of our piece's are missing. None of Amaciel's Chancel's parts are missing, but there are several other Chancel's that they could be missing from.

Back to the matter at hand, Fungus has a plan. Fungus, Lust and Guilt debate what to do. Fungus decides to "tag" them with some magi-spores, and anything else that is excrucian in the Chancel as well. After some hurried planning it is decided that Macy and Baby Doc haul the previously unseen weapons out of the shadow.

Fungus and Guilt

Using Fungus' tagging trick they are able to tack down the load of stuff Crime had witnessed being hauled off of the Beach. On the way there they are picking up any thing that had fallen off of the truck. They are standing in front of a pink aerostream owned by one billy-bob Carlos. Crime had provided a small background on B.B.C.: Child abuse, Neglect, abuse of mother, etc. After Guilt pounds on the door for awhile, B.B.C. steps out. Fungus and Guilt do some divining of B.B.C. after he tells them what had happened, and how he had been recruited. It all started be for the Chancel was complete (maybe around day 88) and B.B.C. was approached by a stranger at his Body Shop (chop shop). He was given money to take everything out of the Cave and put it in the Light House during the night of the storm. The stuff in the truck was just bonus stuff that B.B.C. thought could be worth something.

Punishment

With Cathatel. She is seeking defense against Arnaud's folks. She fills Cathatel in on the suspected frame job. Punishment and Cathatel discuss all of the ramifications of the frame job.

Tomas arrives, and he tries his best to reassure and comfort Punishment. Tomas tells Sian to talk to Meon. Sian is not amused. Sian offers to have Fungus, Crime, and Guilt talk to Tomas to alay his fears. Sian goes up to the Court House tower and bellows for her Familia. Sian and Tomas wait...and Sian is very frustrated to be having to do so with Tomas there. Sian's frustration has hit it's peak and she heads back to the Court Room. The Bailiff just lets her pass this time. Alone with Cathatel she tells him about the cache of Excrucian weapons found in the Light House, and that Crime, Guilt, and Fungus are trying to take care of it.

Jurai knocks on the door just as Sian finish's her talk with Cathatel. Sian takes up a defensive position in front of Cathatel. Jurai tells of his deal with Crime and Guilt, and what the "bribe" is to be. The payment is to be a grand desecration...a piece from a burial plot (Pen lo's body part?) to be found in a brothel. Jurai mentions eve...The Eve...body part is to be used. Jurai is looking for payment for this information, but Sian tells him that Crime and Guilt are responsible for that debt, and not her. Jurai leaves in search of Guilt and Crime.

Fungus and Guilt

Fungus does a lesser Divination to figure out how the crate got in to the Cave in the first place. The Crate was brought to shore via a row boat on the day of the last murder, and was put in the cave to be found later on the night of the ship wreck.

Guilt gets B.B.C. to load all of the Excrucian stuff into the car and trunk. Fungus, feeling nice, but not too nice remove's 99% of B.B.C.'s jock itch so that she can keep an eye on him. Guilt tells B.B.C. that she will talk to Crime and Alejandro for him. As soon as Guilt and Fungus are on their way, they hear Sian calling for them.

Back at the Court House

Guilt and Fungus inform Cathatel and Tomas that Crime and Lust are on vital inter-familia business, and not in the Chancel. Tomas is disappointed by this news, but does not dwell on it. Fungus says that it will send someone to Storyville to try and track crime down and bring him back. Fungus tells Tomas that the weapon found in the Light house came from the Crate and that it was a frame job. Fungus informs Tomas about almost everything involved in the plot. Tomas wishes to speak with Billy Bob Carlos about the Cave, the Crate and the Light house. Guilt says that she will go and find Christopher and have him bring B.B.C. to the court house.

When she finds Christopher, Mariska informs him that B.B.C. should be made to recollect the events as "Honestly" as possible. Christopher drives off in search of B.B.C..

While Guilt is gone, Fungus does a Wonderful job of BS'ing Tomas. Fungus inform Tomas that it was not able to find out how the Row boat got here. Tomas recognizes the spear when it is presented. It is from a case one hundred years ago, and that Pen Lo's Chancel had captured it. The storm it turns out was a Magical, not a Miracle creation.

Tomas takes the spear and asks Sian about the person carried the spear out of the Light House. Sian tells him that it was "Taken Care" of. All is well with the Universe as Tomas leaves.

Fungus makes sure that none of the little bits o' Excrucian stuff wonders off in the surf, and covers it in a thick carpet of fungus. When Guilt comes back, Sian, Kim and Mariska discuss Pen Lo, Macy, Storyville, Eve and how it all ties together. Sian and Mariska decide that Guilt and crime would be the best suited to seek out the information on Eve.

Session 8-A Notes By Donner

We decided to go through Bossou’s boss to get to him. That would be Damballah, a big snake god. Damballah liked white things as sacrifices. Lightning was part of his schtick – perfect.

LaFleur insisted we repopulate the Chancel since we were down about 30,000 people. Death insisted that more people were an unnecessary evil. Lust had unsavory ideas of what kind of people to bring in. June and I looked at each other for help. We all agreed to disagree – each of us will pick 7500 to bring in. Joy.

We trucked off to our summoning area (I flew, what with the pigs and all), a hummock in the swamps, with a gang of Voodooistas who actually knew what they were doing. Midnight. Orgy, led by Lust. Lightning sacrifices via me.

Orochi showed up. Lust and I hadn’t seen him before but June and Death knew Him. He looked at Death, “I know you. You’re different.” Damballah is one of His guises, whatever that means. He asked why we’d summoned Him. I clarified – we’d invited Damballah (pays to be polite). He agreed to help with Bossou in return for a service. We are to retrieve something from Charengast Castle. Orochi had promised to not return there for a thousand years. The Castle would oppose us. It was a little late to change our minds.

We summoned Bossou, who turns out to be a large, unpleasant fellow with three horns and a low IQ. Orochi leaned on him – there was a lot of boastful bellowing -- until he agreed to serve us for a time. We took him through New Orleans disguised as a parade float.

We bound him at the center of our pavilion with paper chains that turned more than real. Amaciel spoke through Marie LaFleur. Bossou will rise to the defense of the Chancel, be given a pig per month, be released once per year (his 'holiday') and released permanently if he hears the creator's name 13 times in a moon's cycle.

LaFleur informed us that Pen Lo’s head was demanding attention. Death went to see what it wanted and I tagged along. Pen Lo claimed that part of him had been stolen, elsewhere. This was bad because if it were harmed in certain ways it would harm all those who’d fed upon Pen Lo’s essence. All of the essence could be drawn away at once… The telling exhausted the Head.

Macy got only partially though her long, post-orgy in the mud bath when I zapped in an told her about the problem with Pen Lo’s parts. She flower-talked to Lost Things and asked him to check on their Pen Lo part.

Meanwhile, June met with a VIP visitor. The Camorra had sent us a liaison, as they did to all Inquisitor Chancels. He introduced himself as Walter, a human-looking fellow in 1900-ish clothing and over-fullsome manner. June took an instant dislike to him. She couldn’t convince him we didn’t need him. Lord Entropy had sent him so we couldn’t just send him away. June told him to stay in one of LaFleur’s outbuildings. She doesn’t like LaFleur either.
We set out to consult with the other holders of Pen Lo’s parts.

Death went to Abrolam.

I went to Sanguinas via phone.

June held the fort in the Chancel. [ed.: not real sure if this is right]

Macy went to Noctis where she found troops massing and another Camorra rep, a man named Stephen Jurai who was even nastier than our liaison. The Nobles were unavailable as they were being tried for treason. Michelle Tomas, the Power of Justice, had accused them of possessing banned items. Macy went to check on their Pen Lo part herself.

Session Log 8C

Guilt goes to Storyville, Locus Amaciel, to clean out her desk and abuse Christopher. Marie Laveau appears just as Guilt is planning to leave. They chat. She mentions that Death is still unconscious, in a black plastic chrysalis. She has plans for him. Marie changes the subject to Locus Noctis’s warden. “It must be difficult having a warden who is disagreeable.” Guilt: “You, of course, would never know.”

Upon returning to Dade. Christopher starts complaining about the heat and humidity. “So, where am I going to be chained up here?” Guilt replies, “We have a nice little office for you down in South Beach.” The new monorail brings them to beachfront. Christopher immediately becomes suspicious. The area looks too nice, a little run down, but the view is great.

The DA Alejandro de la Cruz is waiting for Guilt. Smoking and waiting. “So, Alejandro, what can I do for you?” Alejandro explains “The rest are on the beach. About 2 miles down. I can take care of settling him in.” Guilt says her thanks and remands Christopher, “Enjoy the view, but don’t become wedded to it.”

Siân goes to investigate the pleas for help that she felt/heard. It is around at the back of the ship. What would normally be high windows are almost level with the water. She looks into the darkened room. Her sharp eyes adjust effortlessly to the gloom. It is the captain’s quarters. Anything that was not nailed down has been tossed around. The faint noise is coming from the far corner, out of sight of the windows.

Every piece of wood that came from the ship is covered with Excrucian script, not unlike the hieroglyphics on the sarcophagi at the British Museum. The ship is a beautiful work of art. Everything looks like it should be in an art museum.

The car motors up noisily.

Punishment enters the captain’s room. There is a young man lying in the corner, holding his chest. She can smell blood, Spiritus Dei. He appears to have a broken leg and several broken ribs. He occasionally groans, when he breathes. He is a supernatural being of like caliber. Siân is distracted by his beauty.

Crime and Fungus approach the ship. Not one to pass up a crime, Crime strips naked just in case he needs to get wet. Fungus looks at the scene in the mythic trying to determine the effect that the ship was creating. There is an almost dry ice effect, coming off of the ship. The ship itself does not have a spirit, but it is giving off energy. The local spirits are very interested in it. They are puzzled and confused. The water sprites are grabbing at the deck as they rise out of the water. Others spirits are looking at the fog. The fog does not appear to have an effect on the water.

Punishment approaches the young man and says “Look, I’m going to have to move you out of the ship. It’s not safe.” He is very pretty. Excruciatingly beautiful. Punishment spends a moment looking for a flaw. She gently lifts him and flies out of the ship.

Crime: “What do you have there?” Punishment: “A survivor.” Crime “Bring him down here.” Punishment lands, gingerly. Crime helps to make a splint for the leg. He actually does a good job. Fungus deduces that he is probably an Excrucian. He is too beautiful. He creeps them out a bit, just as the ship does. The boy is wearing a minimalist shimmery fashion. Almost a Lycra body suit. There are no signs of rank.

Crime checks him out for injuries. Fractures, etc., blow to the head (eyes off – oh, wait, they look like falling stars. Is that normal?). He is armed with a longish knife on his waist. “Over six inches in length?” “That would be a crime.” Attention keeps trying to slide away from it. He concentrates on the sheath and is able to remove it. Crime puts the sheath on. He soon forgets that he is wearing it.

Fungus checks the boat for mold. Old mold. Excrucian mold. It takes a while to recognize it as fungus. But it is as if it were a different paradigm. It is not like any of the fungus he has seen or felt on the world tree. These are fungi, because other sentient species recognize these as fungi.

Alejandro’s car and driver arrives at the shipwreck with Guilt. She causes the driver to drive up onto the sand to where the others are gathered.

Punishment looks for other survivors. All she finds are the bodies of the same pale, hairy, ape-like deck-hands migos. There are not any bodies that look like officers. The boy does not look like he belongs to the crew or command.

Fungus links to the ship fungi and uses them to divine the actions on the ship prior to being shipwrecked.

Guilt approaches Crime, Fungus, and the survivor.

Punishment moves down to the second tier. These appear to be crew quarters. There are no cannons here, but that section of the ship is missing. The lowest level is flooded with sea water. It probably was storage. This ship was not designed to be solely water-born. The damage to the ship does not match with a damage expected for hitting the coral reef. It would appear that part of the ship was already missing when the ship hit the reef. Most likely it was broken in two.

Guilt eyes Crime’s nakedness and comments, “It is so nice to see people who are so comfortable with their inadequacies.” Crime just assumes that she is talking to the survivor. Guilt uses her connection with the realm to divine the shipwreck and try to determine is there are any other parts of the ship in the realm. There are bits of jetsam around the shipwreck. There is a lot of stuff washed up all along the shore, some at the high tide line, others clumped down the beach.

Crime: “Can you watch pretty boy here?” “Sure, what is the story?” “He is a survivor. Busted up a bit. Broken leg, wrist, and ribs.” “Where is Punishment?” “The bitch is up on the ship (Should we explain to him now that with an aspect 5, she can here you?)

Fungus witnesses the ship docked in an ocean of stars. Somewhere on the tree, near Earth. Four or five beauties are on the deck of the ship, speaking with a hooded individual. There is some sort of paper, scroll, or velum rolled out on a table. They are making a deal. Signing/marking the scroll. The hooded figure indicates The Earth and then brings up a chest. A pretty boy opens it and it shines. The stars stop briefly. They are pleased. The leader hands it to the young survivor. He takes it down below deck past the migos. The cloaked figure leaves. The ship heels about and Earth comes into its sights.

Some period of time later, an enormous eruption tears the ship in half. The parts plummet to Earth & Dade. From the looks of it, the chest was the source of the explosion.

Crime tosses the captain’s quarters. Punishment returns to the captain’s quarters and confronts him. Crime has pulled a spyglass, some brass fittings, and a logbook with some loss pages inserted in the back. Crime points to the book and the other things he has collected and calls them evidence. Punishment can not find fault in this.

Crime and Punishment return. Fungus tells them what she has divined. They look at the loose pages and find the contract. The contract is in excretion and angelic. The symbol on the angelic side is Cathetel’s. The contract states that the services rendered by the angelic side will be exchanged for Excrucian weapons. Punishment looks at the spirit of the contract; it is guiltless. There was a crime. The spirit of the contract was criminal in intent and also at other levels. Crime does a simple divination on the spirit of the contract. The obvious crime at the highest level was contact between this side and the Excrucians. There is also treachery, probably from the destruction of the ship. Crime also determines that it is a forgery to implicate Cathetel and the contract was intended to be found. The fundamental motives for the crime are hidden. They can not be scryed, thus someone divine must have been involved in the forgery.

There are no Punishment clauses in the contract.

Punishment opines someone needs to tell Cathetel. She elects herself and heads out.

“Sevenfold law means we can’t just kill the survivor. But we can take him into custody.” Crime dumps him into the trunk. Guilt and Crime return to town with the survivor. Fungus stays behind to search the debris.

Punishment goes back to the court house. She sees the chupacabra lining up in the courtyard. They appear to be forming squads. She continues on into see Cathetel. Outside of the courtyard there is a guard and a man dressed in ornate robes. The guard says “He’s in conference and asked not to be disturbed.” “Ordinarily, I would wait, but I’ve had a bad day and he needs to hear what I have to say.” “Is this the part where I get out of the way?” “Yes” “He’s not going to be mad at me? Wait, I think I here him coming.” Punishment opens the door as Tomas reaches for the handle. “Thank you. How is the boat?” “In poor shape,” Punishment replies over her shoulder.

Punishment describes the forged contract that they found on the boat. Cathetel asks if the weapons have been found. Punishment did not see any weapon. Cathetel asks Punishment not to discuss these things with Tomas or Lord Arnaud.

Punishment then brings up the subject of Crime. Cathetel explains that Crime is a gift or need filled for our new responsibilities. “His domain will help mirror yours to determine not only the need for punishment, but also the crime itself. It is natural that one of your estate is repulsed by one of his. It would be best if you can separate the response of yourself from the response of your estate.” Punishment tries to put the game face and suck it up. Cathetel also reminds Punishment of the Chamomile Law – adversity builds strength. “By being exposed to the strongest of crime than you will be more prepared for when you come across it in our work.”

Cathetel asks Punishment to find the weapons. He is afraid that Lord Arnaud might attack soon. It would probably not be a good thing to have them loose in the realm when that happens.

As she is exiting, a man stops her and says “I am Jurai, the new contact with the Cammorae. I look forward to meeting all of the family. I have been provided rooms. Please let me know if I can be of any service to you.

Guilt does a major preservation reinforces the drunk tank cell at the jail to hold the Excrucian.

Fungus scrys around the flotsam and jetsam to see if they overlooked anything. A major divination finds all the chucks and then a lesser creation tags it with marker fungus, so she can find them later.

Big chunks of ship hither and yaw, including the back of the pick-up, a spot down the beach, a cave, the reef, on the jetty near the lighthouse. The cave is most noteworthy, because there is an alien chest there.

Justice goes down to milk Pen Lo and finds him tumescent. She continues the ritual and returns to the courtyard.

Crime and Guilt try and talk to the survivor. They try to break his will be making him listen to Guilt’s radio program, “The Best of the Worst.” They then drive to meet Siân. Crime runs over the neighborhood watch signs along the way. Before they find Siân, Jurai finds them. “Hello, I am Jurai of the Cammorae. Could we talk?” He brings them out to the picnic table. “I understand that you have a bit of difficulty with Lord Arnaud. I have heard from another Cammora, that two gifts have been sent from Lord Arnaud to influence the decision. Lord Tomas is investigating here but Desecration's Regal will be passing the final judgment in Miami.” The first gift was spices sent to Lord Entropy. The second gift will be for Desecration's Regal, a special gift for him as a “how to you do” when he arrives in Miami. Crime arranges for Jurai to determine the nature of the gift so that they can appropriate it instead.

Guilt - “Are you well, Siân?”
Punishment – “It has been a bad day. How is our captive?”
Guilt – “He is in a well reinforced drunk tank at the sheriff’s”
Punishment – “Cathetel has asked us to find any Excrucian weapons that might have come with the shipwreck.” Punishment finally re-notices the dagger at Crime’s side and realizes that it was on the survivor. “Like that one at your side. So we will need to round that one up with the others.” Crime “OK, I’ll hold onto it until them.”

They discuss the troops of chupacabra forming in the streets. There are two types, airborne and jumping. They may be needed for defense.

Crime shares the information from Jurai and the plot. Crime decides that they should wrap Fungus into the conversation. He takes off his shoe and call for Fungus.

On the beach, Fungus feels one of his family wanting to talk to him. There are several chupacabra and coast guards around the lighthouse. He calls a chupacabra over and sends it to Punishment to have her come here. She then makes sure that none of the steals the chest.

The guardsman’s radio squawks. Sir, Ma’am, there are people, headed down the beach. The attack has begun.

Punishment divines a Coast Guardsman entering a room with many shiny things ordered within. She senses that it is near the beach. She calls out to Crime and Guilt and then heads towards the beach.

Motorized contraptions are rolling up the beach.

Tomas watches from the cliff top.

A voice in all of their heads, Cathetel: “Don’t kill them yet.”

Crime does a minor divination to determine if they are broadcasting without a license. They are, so a crime is being committed. Crime arranges for the signal to be jammed.

Punishment sees a guard coming out from the lighthouse with an Excrucian weapon in his hand. He begins to yell at his partner. Punishment stuns him and takes his hand off. The trident falls to the ground.

Fungus causes a spore bloom around lighthouse, obscuring the view, and then plugs the cave mouth before heading for the lighthouse.

Punishment arrives at the lighthouse. She checks the lighthouse and there are 2 very strong Excrutian weapons in a store room. There are also about 6 potent weapons and 12 less potent flintlock-looking weapons. She bats the trident into the lighthouse and into the store room. Crunches the door so that nobody will open it soon. She explains what is going on. Then flies to the court house.

Crime and Guilt arrive at the cave and find Fungus.

Punishment overhears Tomas: “…formal hearing…statements from everyone…”

“Just the person I want to see.”

“Likewise.”

Fungus divines the fungus on the cave and discovers that the two beachcombers with the pick-up truck were the ones planting the weapons. “Where did he say that to put them?” “In the lighthouse. Let’s go.”

Session Seven A Log

1. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

After Lord Entropy handed down judgment (clearing him of guilt if not blame), Amaciel Cathetel made a decision to split himself in half. Part of him (Cathetel) would be able to focus on the fight against the Excrucians and carry out the tasks of an Inquisitor; the other half would be able to find a solution to the crimes he had committed against Death as well as the crime Death had committed against him.

The first half of his plan succeeded completely: he separated himself into "Cathetel" (who then created a new chancel, Locus Noctis) and "Amaciel" who remained in Storyville.

However, several of the Nobles simply... didn't go to the new chancel as planned. Perhaps June stayed to help with the healing, or was too attached to 'her Amaciel' to go; Macy had sworn her oath to Amaciel personally; Donner (and all the Powers of Electricity) had always been more wild and headstrong than the rest of the Imperators Nobles. Death stayed because he could not go.

Amaciel accepted this change in his plan, perhaps because he felt he couldn't face the burden of Death alone.

Not only did Amaciel make changes to his self and his chancel, he changed time itself. The nature of Storyville changed in small ways, as did Amaciel's two halves: none of his Nobles (or any of the Nobilis) remembered this change. It was as if there had always been two chancels -- two Imperators like Brothers.

And Death slept within a ridged and leathery chrysalis (to protect Amaciel from another attack? to protect Death from his fellow Nobles? to complete the metamorphosis that expunging ten millenia of hate will cause? none know).

2. Mojo

It was the end of Summer when the Nobles (excepting Death) traveled to the cemetery to perform the ritual of collecting the essence of the dead Imperator, Pen Lo, which was required to keep Amaciel alive.

The head of Pen Lo rested on a spear set into the floor of one of the mausoleums. It dripped silver essence into a silver dish below. In the beginning, the head would talk--nonsense. Lately it only had the strength to grimace and roll its eyes. The Nobles collected the essence and infused it back into Amaciel. They were given to understand that the surviving essense of other traitors to the Valde Bellum might eventually be contained within -- one of the 'rewards' of an Inquisitor's chancel.

Soon after, they were all summoned back to the cemetery by the Chancel's new warden, Marie La Fleur. She had a voice like a disease and a face not much better, although you might have called her pretty to see her silhouetted in the dark.

"Y'all are done sitting around and collecting belly lint," she said. "The master's got you something to do, since you can't find anything to do yourselves. First you got to build him a court, a place to hold trials on the criminals I s'pose you'll eventually pull in. There must be a couple of them too stupid to get away." She chuckled. "Second you got to call up some muscle to protect the place, seeing as y'all can't do it. The master wants a mighty loa, called Bosou Koblamin, and he wants him chained up in the heart of the chancel, standing right over his body. Just in case something should get in there, 'cause you can't unless I takes you by the hands and leads you."

3.

The Inquisitor's court was to be built jointly by all of them, one quarter to each. The whole structure resembled a carnival. Electricity's quarter housed a dance-floor, sparkling lights, strange contraptions and weird, gigantic theramin. Reality's quarter held tests of strength and skill, barkers and side-shows, beautiful women geeking and children sticky with cotton candy (in the darkest corner of was an entrance to the freakshow; few entered twice). Lust's quarter held curtained booths, some silent and dark (but not empty) and others brightly-lit and loud with the stamping of feet and thrown beads and calls to the performers. Death's portion remained barren -- might even remain so once Death emerged, but who could say?

After that had been completed, they went into the swamp to start the ritual of calling the loa...

Game Log - Session 7C

A reading from The Book of Cathetel, Chapter 7, Verse 1 ...

Many great changes had come upon the world, then, as has previously been related. The Chancel of Cathetel, kin serpent to Amaciel, was destroyed in the great battle that did see Friendship and Sacrifice also killed. And, yet, with the fall of Pen Lo and his Inquisitors, the Lord Entropy did name Cathetel to lead a new Inquisitorial Chancel, which must be built anew with one hundred days of blood sacrifice.

Then did Punishment slay a quarter of those to die, for many there were in the city chosen who deserved such a fate. And so did Guilt slay her quarter, driving them to felo-de-se, or to slay others, as their own feelings dictated. And so did Fungus slay her quarter, the weak and ill. Yet all the slayings were just, according to the law.

Cathetel himself, slew a quarter of the hundred, unto the last death. For he came to the mayor of Dade City, which would be the new Chancel, and offered to him the opportunity to serve as a Noble, giving him a taste of the power which he exemplified. The man did agree, and committed the final killing, that of his aide, and did so with his own hands, scorning the blade offered to him.

Then about them did the city melt, descending into madness and perpetual night. Dade City left the memory of Man, to become the new Chancel Cathetel. And it was named Locus Noctis, the Place of Night, for never would the sun shine upon its people.

Chapter 7, Verse 2

Cathetel did name the man Crime, and bespoke him of the Mythic, and what he must do to serve.

Then, the Chancel created, did Cathetel consider the ills that beset him. For others of his kin and peerage were against him, out of envy, malice, or greed. And they had sought to prevent the great rite which would create the Chancel, even unto sending a great hurricane upon the land, to kill so many of the people there, by its winds or by direct action should needs must, that there would be not enough for the hundred slayings.

One such foe was Yolet, self-styled as the Empress in Sapphire, who drew unto her Architecture, Colors, Protection, and the Transformation of Life. She argued bitterly with Cathetel, who sought to know humanity and considered it of importance, where she simply saw humanity as the knife's edge of evolutionary change.

Yet still greater a foe was Arnaud, who wished no Chancel built in that place. For there, so he thought, would the Fourth Age begin, and any who held sway over that land would ascend in greatness. Arnaud, called also the Clockwork Dragon, who drew unto himself Hours, Rotation, and Mechanical Devices, spoke even the blasphemy that he might, should he alone hold sway over that area, become as a new World Tree when the new Age arrived.

Cathetel wished that none would interfere with him or his, and so he sent Punishment unto Lord Entropy, to claim injury from Arnaud, that all would know that Cathetel would brook no such interference, no such offense.

For Cathetel knew that to show weakness in this would be to invite further attack, but to show strength would be either forestall further attack, or draw his foes into more open combat.

Chapter 7, Verse 3

And Cathetel sent Fungus to craft the entrances and exits for the Chancel, devising fairy rings which would tie it to other lands and places.

For this was a skill Fungus knew of old, and so could pass from place to place about the world.

And Cathetel sent Guilt to organize the affairs of the Chancel, though the people there would hate her for it. For they were confused by the change, tormented by old memories, and panicked unto riot. Guilt, then, would use a rod of iron to break them, declaring martial law, using her talk show radio host to make them compliant, and building a great skyway from the borders of the land to its center.

And Cathetel did set as warden and chancellor over the land a mortal, though gifted with power, named Alejandro de la Cruz. And the warden had known Crime when the latter was mayor over the city, and cared not for him. Cathetel did this, knowing that the warden's will was strong, and would at times conflict with that of his Nobles, but this was according to his plan.

And Cathetel sent Crime to select Anchors, bringing them unto him through draughts of his blood.

So did Crime seek out his brother, who was chief over the police, and made him an Anchor. And he sought out another brother, who did chronicle the events of the city each day as a journalist, and made him an anchor. And he sought out his sister, who did whore within the city, and made her an Anchor. And he sought out his cousin, who was a high priest of an Earthly church, and made him an Anchor.

Chapter 7, Verse 4

Punishment, at her master's behest, flew then to the Desolate Lands, the Chancel of Lord Entropy. This was close by, at the southeast corner of the area known to humanity as the Bermuda Triangle. And she passed through great storms, and slew a mighty beast that sought to oppose her.

Yet, when one of Lord Entropy's Nobles came to meet her -- Desecration, rather than his brethren Scorn or Destruction -- she stayed her hand, and spoke of her business. And Desecration escorted her into the Desolate Lands, over its fouled waters, past the great beasts, and yet also past places of tremendous beauty. And Desecration jested with her, speaking of how he enjoyed to hunt the unicorns which were there, for sport, and she was wroth, but said nothing, only holding that flame of anger close to her heart, where one day she would call upon it.

She was brought before Lord Entropy, terrible in beauty and hideous in strength. And she spoke the words Cathetel had bade her, and Lord Entropy said that he would send Inquisitors to them, to investigate the charges, and that this would suffice. And she took her leave.

Chapter 7, Verse 5

Guilt did dispute with the warden over the skyways to be built, for the latter, knowing well the city, called upon five such ways to be crafted, not the four which Guilt had wished.

Guilt acceded to his wishes, and together, then, they also held of the hurricane which still could strike at their new Chancel, preserving the weather upon it.

Then did Guilt travel to the Chancel of Amaciel, which Chancel was linked to her own by a gateway. And she brought from there to her new home her Anchor, Christopher..

Chapter 7, Verse 6

Then did Fungus build up the gates from the city, starting with places with were of interest to Fungus -- England, the south of California, France -- and then crafting fairy rings to tie to all other places in the world, that it would be convenient to travel to and from the Chancel and anyplace upon Earth.

Fungus did see Cathetel speak with the Inquisitor from Locus Nephys, Michel Tomas, dark of skin and like unto a woman in manner. So it was Tomas whom Lord Entropy had dispatched to investigate the charges Cathetel had laid. And Tomas took up a residence in the Chancel, for the length of his investigation.

Then did Cathetel come to Fungus and said that Arnaud had sent unto Lord Entropy many rare spices, seeking to stay his wrath. And Cathetel warned that soon he might needs must invoke certain formal rites of conflict, and that they should stand ready for this.

And Cathetel also spoke of a ship which had run aground upon the coastline they now did possess, and bade Fungus to take Punishment, just returned from the Desolate Lands, and Crime, just returned from his Anchors, to investigate it. So did Punishment and Fungus first meet Crime, and Fungus was cordial, for all is the same in the long memory of that Noble. But Punishment was cold in anger and disdain. For though Punishment would not exist save for Crime, she did hate the injustice he did, and was offended at their tie through their Imperator.

Crime and Fungus did drive to the coast, while Punishment flew. Upon a promontory, they saw the ship, and Punishment flew to her. Crime and Fungus did speak with beachcombers in a pickup truck, who had gone to the wreck and taken some pieces of wood as souvenirs. And upon that wood, Fungus saw the writings of the Excrucian race, and wondered at it.

Punishment, too, saw the writing upon the wreck of the boat, and knew it was not of the Earth, for it was like unto that of the Angels, but not so. In the water she could see strange corpses, of hairy, pasty-skinned beasts, but she also could hear the voice of one in distress, and flew then unto that one's aid.

Thus endeth the Lesson.

Game Log - Session 6

Secret Music

I keep such music in my brain
no din this side of Death can quell;
Glory exulting over pain,
And beauty, garlanded in hell.

My dreaming spirit will not heed
the roar of guns that would destroy
My life that on the gloom can read
proud-surging melodies of joy.

To the world's end I went, and found
Death in his carnival of glare;
But in my torment I was crowned,
and the music dawned above despair.

S.S. 12/16

-Road-

Death, Punishment and Fungus continue down the double helix superhighway of the Appian Way that winds down the side of Yggdrasil. The roadway is as varied as life itself; sometimes 40 feet, sometimes 40 miles wide. They are concerned about the lack of time on the tree, Death finding it most annoying.

In the distance they spy a city and debate what to do next. Looking around, they are able to see that all four lanes of the double helix (since both sides of both strands are used for travel) terminate at (or pass through) the City. From what they can tell the City is HUGE. After debating how much time would be wasted going around it, the approach and find the distance closes rapidly.

Locus Abrolam - Inquisitor Chancel

The Inhabitants refer to it as the "Precipice Citadel". Even though Fungus is the eldest she has never met Strife, Chaos, or Borders, the Powers who control this Chancel. They find the great amount of flying creatures over the area to be a bit disconcerting (since they certainly interfere with simply flying past the place).

They think about guising themselves to pass through the city easier. Death puts the kibosh on that when he informs the other two that he is unguisable.

-On into the City-

Punishment parlays with the gate keeper and it goes better then expected. They are told to follow the grey line along the streets until it ends. They try and cheat the grey line by wandering away from it, but it always tracks them, appearing in the cobblestones of whatever street they've turned on to, showing the correct pathway to their final destination.

After a bit, they find themselves in front of a large palace, where they are greeting by the Power of Chaos. None of them have a good feeling about this. 'Patrick' shows them in. The green swirling interspatial jelly that is the Imperator of Locus Abrolam demands to know where they are going. The intrepid three refuse to say. The green swirling jelly that is the Imperator of Locus Abrolam demands...things.

• From Fungus: a Galanti Shelf mushroom, which the Graf attempts to Create, but cannot -- apparently, the fungus in question is from the Second Age, and no longer exists.
• From Punishment: Judgement against one who has wronged US.
• From Death: Death is to spare the Power of Knives - Permanently.

After they (reluctantly, in some cases) agree to fulfil these demands, they are on their merry way again.

-Chancel- (Macy, Donner, June, Mariska)

Macy finds some records about Ife, the Sword and Tamerisk. It seems that since the ritual tied into the Tamarisk was designed to determine Guilt, it flowered both in the presence of the Sword and... the one who wielded it? Friendship?

Macy also finds a chart of concepts -- possibly some sort of word association game, and ostensibly done in Amaciel Cathetel's hand. While she is pondering the odd associations between the various words, the Chancel is visited by Imagination. Punishment's stick is discussed, but the discussion as a whole turns to the "Hipbone Game", as Imagination calls it -- the word association game is common amongst some circles of the Nobilis.

Meanwhile, Donner and Mariska discuss the army hidden outside the Chancel within the Prosaic city of New Orleans. The Bronzeman's troops of humanized terra cotta warriors make up most of the forces, but the Inquisitors from Locus Nephys are in the area as well, watching both Storyville and the Army equally. (Although Locus Nephys was commanded to become involved in the Inquisition that originally 'belonged' to the First Castle (Sacrifice, Friendship, Knives), they have never taken direct action.)

The group decides to go and have a little chat with the powers of Locus Nephys (they hope Nephys might be neutral in this situation). They arrange to meet them in an Oyster Bar just outside of the gate.

-Road-

Death, Punishment and Fungus

As Orachi predicted, a huge Aaron's Serpent is causing large amounts of damage to the tree in the regions 'south' of the Appian way.

They find random weirdness: A destroyed daemon nest in one village, a huge orgy in another. "Dylan" (Fungus) has a flash! She starts to divine traces of a path o' Fungus and they start to follow it.

Rumbling.

Rumbling.

Some more Rumbling.

Lightning!

Lightning!

Lightning!

Oh frell... a Lightning strike out of the nearby clouds, deadly wounds all around for everybody, and suddenly the great huge Serpent is among them.

Orachi?

Amaciel!?!

The huge Serpent looks a lot like Amaciel to Dylan. Amacial is not to sure what they all are. He is also not very sure who he is either.

Dylan decides that it is time for some serious sacrifice. It shows Amaciel that it is part of his blood by exposing Amaciel's Soul shard within itself. [It takes a serious wound for this action.]

More discussion on what to do, but when the group mentions that they want Amaciel to come with them back to Adforari (the cemetery of Serpents), Amaciel freaks out and takes off -- Death is pimp-smacked by Amaciel's tail trying to slow him down and the group pursues as best they can. Sian Summons June from the Oyster Bar, hoping for some kind of help with stopping the thing.

June appears (a bit bewildered) with cup of tea in hand. The Chase is on. Death moves at mach 3 to keep up with him, while June formulates an impromptu plan.

[Insert plan here -- for the life of me, I can't remember how you guys stopped him.]

-New Orleans-

Macy, Donner, Mariska

The meeting continues in the Oyster Bar, once everyone calms down about June's abrupt departure (Mariska contacts Christofer and tells him to get in touch with June's Anchor's to find out what the heck just happened). Donner somehow ends up speaking on behalf of the Chancel, while Depa Vastri (Conspiracy) speaks for Nephys -- Regret and Justice remain very close at hand and look vaguely dangerous.

Conspiracy talks about the charges against the Chancel. They come to an agreement wherein Nephys will investigate some of the suspicions and possible evidence that the group has revealed, and Macy and Donner decide to give Conspiracy their flowers for summoning (so Mariska doesn't have to).

-Amaciel gone Wild-

Once calmed down, the group gets Amaciel to travel back to Adforari (they travel in his wake through the wildlands of mid-Tree). Gigantic 300 mile long mounds dot the floor of the Cemetery... and the group gathers at the Bay tree near Amaciel's false grave.

They plan to head back to the chancel, but they need the Bay tree, which seems to hold a portion of Amaciel's... self. But it is too large to transport.

June comes up with the idea of forcing the perspective on the tree so that is always small. Sian flies her away from the tree, everyone turns away from it except June (and Sian, who keeps her eyes closed), and as Sian flies back towards the tree, June (Reality) Changes the tree so that it remains the size that it appeared to be when she was far away from it. By the time they get back to the tree itself, it's the size of a Bonsai. The three of them carry the very portable bay tree back with them to the Chancel.

-Back at the Ranch-

Everybody gets back to the Chancel safely with the Bonsai Bay tree in hand.

-To the Heart-

Mariska leads everybody to the Heart of the Chancel (she is the only one besides Amaciel who can reach the Heart unaided). They place the Bonsai next to the fallen statue, but it is clear that not all of Amaciel's Self has been collected. A plan is devised by June to collect the essence of Amaciel that is currently scattered through over a dozen corn fields in Iowa. Donner locates more of his Imperator within the Spirit of a rolling Brown-out in Japan and captures it. Fungus realizes that she regained some of memory when she reformed herself from the fungus within one of her anchor's labs, and that it must have been Amaciel's presence within that fungus that caused it to happen, so she brings that back in. Mariska and June create/modify the memory ritual to tie it all together and...

...and...

...and something is going wrong. The rejoining of Amaciel occurs, but the Serpent himself seems to be hemorraging his quicksilver blood. Something is very wrong.

...meanwhile, Donner is prayed to urgently by Regret. He is under attack in Beijing and is seeking help -- the Bronzeman's troops pursue him, and he is injured badly. Donner sends Gwen to help get Regret back to the Chancel.

Prayers are coming into Mariska, June, and Macy. The Chancel is under attack. Mariska calls on the defenses of the Chancel and LOCKS DOWN all entrances and exits for the Chancel. Everyone else but Fungus and June leave the Heart to prepare to fight off the intruders (Death later regrets this, for reasons that will become more clear in the prelude to next session).

Amaciel comes to after the completion of the Ritual...and coughs out a huge amount of quick silver. He murmurs something about poison and collapses into some sort of coma.

Death talks to Knives (remembering his Oath and concerned that all members of Locus Nephys are under assault). Knives is at Locus Sanguinas and all is good.

Lust checks with Lost Things and discovers that Friendship has just arrived there(!) Her warning is just a bit too late.

Dylan talks to the Power of the Verdant about possible cures for Imperator-grade Poisons and is told about the Alatiri.

Amaciel tells all in the Chancel "MY CHILDREN, I REMEMBER THE MOMENTS THAT LEAD UP TO THIS. NOT ONLY THE CRIME BUT EVERYTHING THAT LEAD UP TO THIS. I CANNOT SAY THAT EVERYTHING I HAVE DONE HAS BEEN JUST, BUT IT HAS BEEN TRUE TO MY NATURE. IF I HAVE CAUSED YOU PAIN, I AM MOST HUMBLY SORRY." When he is done, he discharges a bit more quicksilver and lapses into half-consciousness again. June and Fungus administer to him as much as possible.

Gwen calls back to Donner to inform him that she's found Regret, he's BADLY beat up, winged hunters are closing in on her location and THE ENTRANCE TO THE CHANCEL ISN'T FRELLING WORKING!

Oh yeah, Mariska has to unlock the Chancel. Hmm. Someone (Sian?) requests that Haley go 'help Gwen out' as much as she can.

Death tries to 'check up' on Amaciel, but discovers he can't locate the Heart without Mariska. Darn.

Imagination 'retrieves' Gwen and Regret, bringing them back towards the Chancel, so Mariska finally opens up the Chancel entrances and Lust and Punishment suddenly find themselves defending the main Chancel entrance from the troops of the First Castle. As they fight, Imagination, Gwen, and an unconscious Regret come flying in through the entrance riding on a giant flying cocker spaniel.

Death heads over to Sanguinas which is under heavy attack. Ife (Friendship) is hovering in mid-air and everybody in the Chancel just LOOOOVES Ife (except for the Nobilis). Sacrifice is helping her fight even as he tries to get her to stop.

The members of the Chancel stave off the First Castle attack as well as they can and head to Locus Sanguinas as quickly as possible. Lust locates a nearly bifurcated Lost Things and has to stop to keep him alive. Death and Knives attack Ife, as do Loyalty, Eternity, Punishment.

Sacrifice finally turns on Ife, but she runs him through with the Sword and he is utterly destroyed. Just as things seem darkest, Jealousy uses a Word of Command to destroy Ife, calling on the Jealous nature of the World itself to pull all the mortal parts of Ife back into the soil from with she came, while Locus Sanguinas pulls all of the robbed power back from the Sword.

It's very very messy. Friendship dies. Sacrifice is dead. Knives is the last standing member of his chancel. Lost Things is barely alive and may not survive. Jealousy did herself major harm in destroying Ife. Regret is badly hurt.

Michel Tomas (Justice) shows up with Strife, et al. from Locus Abrolam (the third Inquisitor Chancel). The spoils of the event are split up between the two wronged parties and the two remaining Imperator Chancels. Reports are made to the Valde Bellum.

Later, after the dust settles, Lord Entropy decrees that Amaciel over-stepped his bounds, but that he did the correct thing. Sanguinous and Amaciel's Chancels are made into new Imperator Chancels to (a) replace the First Castle, which is being UnMade and (b) provide an additional Inquisitor Chancel.

• Cerny remains the Power of Knives and is 'adopted' by Locus Ambrolam (the chancel that already requested that Death spare him forever).
• The Estate of Friendship is added to those of Loyalty, Eternity, Lost Things, and Jealousy within Locus Sanguinas.
• The Estate of Sacrifice is subsumed within Locus Nephys alongside Conspiracy, Justice, and Regret.

And Locus Cathetel, the city of Storyville? Within that Chancel, Something Happens, and Things begin to Change.

Game Log - Session 5

(19 July 2003)

A reading from The Book of Chrysalis, Chapter 5, Verse 1 ...

Then did Macy, whose flower is jonquil, sit within the Chancel library, reading its contents in a short time, and so gaining knowledge, if not wisdom. And she used the wormwood she had gathered to speak unto the Spirit of Lost Things, averring her kinfolk acted in honesty and sought the truth.

She did learn in the library the Rite of Lost Trails, which then she did use to find which of the Fairy Rings did travel to the City of New York, in the east of the land.

Then did she speak unto her Anchor, Jessica, and confronted her for acting falsely. Jessica confessed that she had been ordered to be friend to Macy, but that their friendship had been, after that, an honest one. Macy was cold in her anger, though, and ordered her servant to Central Park, even though there were agents watching her.

Chapter 5, Verse 2

Donner saw that his household within the Chancel was intact, and so did seek out his Anchor, Gwen. He feared that the passages to the Chancel were being watched, and sought to learn by stealth if this were true. Gwen, a thief and crafty, volunteered.

So then did Donner seek any kin still within the Chancel. And so he came upon Mariska, Guilt, in whose charge the city was placed, being mighty in her Domain. They spoke of how to ensure that none could spy upon the Chancel. Though gargoyles did guard the entrances, there was no border guard, nor sentries. Donner advised that magic could ward the town, and so Mariska issued an order across the land that those who could cast such spells should gather together to do so.

Then did Donner wander the town, as befit a noble, until he grew bored and flew up into the clouds, learning of his powers, and the heavens did rumble and flash.

Chapter 5, Verse 3

June, Domina of Reality, did stand within a corn field in Iowa, and found there a crop circle, in the form of the letter "K" in the script of angels. About it, the corn spirits, fecund and gravid, seemed intoxicated as by strong wine.

She did travel then to the House on the Rock. No crop circles were there, but within, amongst the maniquin angels, she did meet with Penelope, of Blessed Memory.

Upon the television, when she left, she saw reports of other crop circles, forming many letters in the script of angels. She did note these, so as to decipher them.

Chapter 5, Verse 4

Sian, Terminus, and the Graf strode upon the World Tree, on their quest for the burial ground of Aaron's Serpents. Hours and days it seemed they traveled, branches the size of planetary orbits, aurorae in the spaceless space.

They did reach the bole of the tree, and chose the downward path. But before long, they felt a great trembling in the crevassed bark about them. It was another of the Serpents, kin to Amaciel their Imperator, hundreds of miles long. They fled to avoid being crushed, but it did speak to them, naming itself Orochi. It knew lost Amaciel, and said they should seek him out after they had grown in knowledge.

Further did they travel on their way, until, in a forest near the canyon they sought, they were set upon by flying arrow snakes. Punishment, Death and Fungus quickly dispatched their bestial attackers.

And yet, again, in traveling further, they did encounter at the mouth of the canyon, an angel named Sammael, who warned them of great dangers ahead, greatest of which was a roc. They took their leave, and journeyed onward.

Chapter 5, Verse 5

Macy did direct Jessica to a cave in Central Park, and so brought her through to the Chancel, destroying the path behind her. Accompanying was a fairy of the acquaintance of Fungus, Tinkerboy by name.

Macy brought Jessica to the house of her predecessor, but would not stay there herself, for she still was wroth with her Anchor's deception. Even so, she considered how she might restore Jessica's youth and beauty, for her anger and sadness was tempered by her love.

Chapter 5, Verse 6

A servant came to Mariska, and did inform her that a stranger awaited without, desiring an audience. It was Ife Hapura, Domina of Friendship, and Noble of the First Castle. Ife sought, she said, to reach an accord, and supposed that the innocence of Amaciel's nobles might be established, and so they could be fostered out to other Imperators.

But, lo, the tamerisk June had ensorcelled to bloom when near the sword which had harmed the Locus Sanguinus, did indeed flower with Ife in the room. And so did Mariska struggle mightily with Ife, calling for Donner to come to her aid. And the two did capture the one.

Captured, Ife cried out to her brother, the Bronze Man, who did echo her name in rage. So he come to the Chancel to rescue her, mighty in his wrath. He leapt across the sky of that city to rescue his sister, and so was seen by Macy, who beheld him in anger, and did seek to strike him down. They fought, and the puissance of the sword the Bronze Man bore was too much for Macy, leaving her bloodied and weakened. And the Bronze Man demanded Ife be released to him.

Chapter 5, Verse 7

June looked upon the message cast in the corn. "LOOK CORN HAHAHAHA," it said, and she was sore perplexed. And so she returned to the Chancel, to ponder these words, and where else the spirit of Amaciel might still dwell.

There did she hear the great cry of the Bronze Man, and the warning issued to all in the city by the magic of Donner, to fight or flee. In the distance she heard the sound of Macy's gun, and went toward it, finding at its source Macy, the Bronze Man, and Donner as well. Donner agreed to the Bronze Man's terms, even as the intruder and Macy did speak of their anger toward each other, in great righteousness and indignation.

June, though, told the Bronze Man of the tamarisk, part of which she bore, and which in his presence was abloom. He swore his innocence, but was troubled by her words, and swore to investigate. Ife was brought to the Bronze Man, and tender was their reunion.

Chapter 5, Verse 8

And so did Sian, Terminus and the Graf enter the valley of the Sepulchre Adforari, and scattered about them were many bones of others who had so intruded. And, lo, a great roc descended upon them, for to add their bodies to those littering the land. But Death's mighty foot caused the bones to rise up and strike the roc, while Punishment did leap upon its back and smote it with her spear, and Fungus attacked it with a cloud of spores, to choke its breath and fill its lungs. The roc was driven off, defeated.

And so they came to the graveyard itself, and amongst the burial mounds there did find a bay tree all aglow, a mound of moss and mold extending beyond it as the other mounds. But within lay only a great snake skin, which collapsed at their touch. Sian called out the name of their Imperator, but no response came back. They left, after Terminus paid his last respects.

After a time, they sought Orochi, and finding him, sought his guidance. The great Serpent told them that, along the Appian Way, past the Inquisitor Chancel of Locus Abrolam, they might find word of a Serpent which was disruptive of ordered ways. And, should they find this Serpent and speak to him, they might learn much.

And upon Orochi's departure, they did pray unto the flowers of their brethren, and so did come to speak with them, and all learned what strange things had passed amongst their kinfolk.

Thus endeth the lesson.

Session Four Game Log

Session 4 Game Log...July 5th, 2003

I. Worlds of our own

The family meets in a large common room to perform the Memory ritual after several days have passed. As the Memory ritual takes hold, each of the Nobilis retreat into their lost memories.

1. Re-vision--Electricity

Donner and Amaciel walk down a road in Ginza. Amaciel is guised as a human--although humans tend to view him as a tall, bald alien (if they are occultly inclined) or as "some kind of circus freak" (if not). Donner and Amaciel discuss the nature of Donner's domain: Donner sums up his power as energy. Amaciel debates this philosophically, adding that electricity can also be seen as beginnings, sparks, interactions, and “the electricity between people.” He encourages Donner to broaden his perspectives, but notes that Donner’s concept of his power isn’t in itself wrong.

Donner also remembers his anchor in the FBI named Skinner and his cat, Fishhook, whose fur had always crackled to the touch. He also remembers a similar conversation with Sisera Twice-Born: “You’ll learn to interpret your estate--of course, some people never do. But that’s fine. I’m sure you’ll be different.” Sisera gives him a Hollywood smile. (Sisera Twice-Born is so named because his original Imperator died, yet Sisera survived to be adopted by Amaciel.)

2. Big Truffle in Little China--Fungus

Amaciel watches the Graf set up a fairy-ring leading to a new strain of mold in the air ducts of a Silicon Valley office building. The Graf is able to form both sides of the ring on his own--otherwise an impossible job--by letting herself die and reforming himself at the other end. Amaciel, in the form of a world-serpent, questions her about the process of death and rebirth he experiences. He asks if she fears death and wonders if his lack of fear has detracted from Death itself. Has the Graf changed humanity with her casual attitude? The Graf answers that humanity’s views of death and what happens afterward depend on what humanity believes (not necessarily on how he lives and dies). Amaciel wonders that while she know what happens after death, no human knows. Amaciel supposes that what awaits him on death will be like shedding his skin and comments, “But for you? Your skin goes all the way down.” Graf counters that her body is not her essence. Amaciel leaves her with the comment: “I may consider doing something similar. I shudder to think what that would do to my constituents.”

3. How the game is played--Lust

Sisera Twice-Born sips brandy in his abode and details Macy’s next mission to her. He gives her the bare details and takes every opportunity to insult her. “Any more detail would confuse you. Go on.”

Macy’s memories switch perspective, and she’s looking through Sisera’s eyes at the same memory. The angel pushes for negative reactions from Macy deliberately. After Macy leaves, Amaciel appears and comments that Sisera has made a good choice with her, although his methods are harsh. Sisera adores Amaciel and laps up the praise. Amaciel cautions Sisera to consider that while he has made Macy a fine weapon, he should question what kind of person he’s turning her into. “I’ve made mistakes,” Amaciel says. “There are consequences.”

While on a job in New York for Sisera, Macy meets Jessica, a hooker and madam that later becomes her anchor. As their friendship progresses, they realize that they’re both anchors for a higher power--and even later realize that it's for the same power. Sisera apparently doesn’t know that the two of them know each other; he likes to keep his agents separate in “terrorist cells of lust.”

Macy switches to one of Sisera’s memories to a time before she’d ever met Jessica. Sisera gives Jessica Macy as an assignment. “What do you want me to do?” she asks. “Be her friend,” Sisera answers. Jessica isn’t used to such limited work: “That’s it?” Sisera has used his tone and words to set Jessica against him, and she’s very antagonistic. Sisera adds that Jessica is to conceal the nature of her assignment from Macy. “She can’t ever know this is coming from me.”

Finally Macy remembers a meeting with a tall, dark man. They make a deal: Sisera is to die soon, and Macy has to be present so she can take over as Noble. The dark man will provide the opportunity if Macy will swear her allegiance to him. “No names. That’s not part of the deal,” he says. He does reveal his face to her, however.

4. Purpose and Responsibility--Guilt

Amaciel asks Mariska to help him perform a rite to determine the guilt of a crime. “I have identified an act for which we must find a perpetrator,” he says. The crime has been going on for two years. After performing the ritual, Amaciel, in the form of a world-serpent, manages to look troubled--without frown lines or eyebrows. He asks Mariska how she views the chancel at present, and she comments that she can see room for improvement. Amaciel assures her, “You will find some kind of equilibrium. They will come to love you.”

Mariska remembers her anchors, including Christopher, her unworthy son-in-law, and a scene that Christopher saw just after she fled the chancel. The Bronze Man carried a massive sword, and Czerny, the Power of Friendship, and the Power of Loyalty, and the Power of Jealousy walked with him. The Bronze Man explains that the sword isolates the power of Imperators and draws it off. The Power of Loyalty comments that it’s appropriate to destroy Amaciel in the same fashion as Amaciel destroyed their chancel and wonders if such a sword could be used to destroy a chancel in the first place. “That is not its purpose,” the Bronze Man answers.

5. The taste--Punishment

Amaciel appears to Sian and asks her about killers and their motives. “Let’s say the authorities found someone they thought was guilty but was later found to be innocent, because the real killer didn’t stop killing. Why wouldn’t a killer in such a position stop killing?” Sian answers that she doesn’t normally delve into the motives of a murderer but supposes that killing might become a force of habit. Amaciel asks how long it would take to acquire this habit or taste--would two years be enough? Sian agrees. Amaciel asks what Sian did for amusement while still human. “I passed the time with others on the force...I played cards, enjoyed an occasional night out...I studied a great deal.” Amaciel comments that Sian has been an experiment for him, as he usually “hones” a person before bringing them into the fold, but has left Sian untampered (except for the small matter of his/her gender, of course). He sees the results as successful in many ways.

Sian recalls the flight out of the chancel. She fought a group of eyeless attackers--mannequins, actually--belonging to the Power of Lost Things. She used the exit back to London, but was followed by one of these constructs.

6. People, places, and things--Reality

June is shocked to discover that she, too, has lost memories. Just before the attack, she and Amaciel talk in a chancel courtyard. He loves to hear her tell stories about the people she’s met and the places she’s gone in the outside world--he finds it hard to evoke the same responses, being only able to pass as a kind of freak among humans at best. June tells him about the House on the Rock in Wisconsin, about cornfields in Minnesota, etc. Amaciel’s reactions to her stories are somewhat delayed; it sometimes takes him a couple of minutes to “get” them, and laughs at seeming random intervals in their conversation.

June remembers a time soon after she was ennobled when Amaciel brought her to the world tree itself. She wasn’t ready to know so much so soon.

Amaciel, during their conversation before the attack, asks her to hold everyone together in an upcoming time of crisis. “Keep them organized. They’re going to have problems; try to understand--” A huge crash shatters the sky into blue shards. “Run!” says Amaciel. June flees to the cornfield they’d been discussing moments before.

7. The place of skulls--Death

Amaciel asks Terminus if he can remember the first person he killed, and Terminus does, down to the last detail. Terminus can remember the details of every killing he’s done, and comments that he feels that molecules of the souls of every person that was killed remain with him. Amaciel then asks Terminus if he can remember why he killed anyone, but Terminus says he cannot. Amaciel says, “Nobody does anything for no reason. Don’t forget that once you were a man; a man is more complex than a Power.”

Terminus remembers Amaciel bringing him to the world tree, specifically to the place where Imperators’ bodies are brought to rest. Amaciel reveals details about this place, whose name is Sepulcrum Adforari, to Terminus, including the nature of its guardians.

II. Shared destinies

The family awakens from the ritual and shares their new knowledge. The general impression is that Amaciel knew that a crime had been committed, and either knew or suspected the identity of the perpetrator. He seemed to know that he would be blamed for the crime, and may have taken steps to preserve himself through a kind of rebirth. Several possibilities are discussed.

June, Mariska, and Sian perform the ritual of Guilt to determine who attacked Locus Sanguinus, the wronged chancel. The image of a sword--identical to the one the Bronze Man carried in Guilt’s chancel-memory--appears. June casts a ritual that will act as a kind of “geiger counter” whenever the flower comes near the sword in question. The Graf discovers that Amaciel's icon within the chancel's heart is covered in a mold... mystically connected to a giant fungus beyond Earth, and determines that he didn’t cause it to appear herself.

Three of the Imperator-killing swords are known to exist. One of them is with the "First Castle" Inquisitor’s chancel (i.e., the Bronze Man). The second sword is within the chancel Locus Ambrolam (another Inquisitor chancel). The third sword is with Lord Entropy himself, or his people. They were created, as the Bronze Man said, to kill Imperators. They were created by Meon, Desecration’s Regal.

The family turns over the Rite of Guilt to Locus Sanguinus to help persuade them that they are innocent (in the hopes that Lost Things will in turn give them the ritual they have recently used to detect if someone is siphoning off a Chancel's energy -- it seems that Locus Sanguinas is still under attack).

Death, Fungus, and Punishment leave Earth on a path to the Ash tree, intending to find Sepulcrum Adforari for Amaciel’s corpse, or locate the fungus/mold that is tied to the mold on Amaciel's chancel-icon.

Amaciel once said, “You people think the world tree is amazing. There’s nothing particularly amazing about size. Trees are amazing.”

Nevertheless, they’re awed.

Death says, “Adforari’s that way.”

Fungus can feel the tug of the spiritus within the icon-mold -- it lies in the same direction.

Road Trip, No Cookie

CHRYSALIS

Session 3 – Say It With Flowers

Our Heroes – Donner, June, Macy, Mariska, Sian and The Graf – lounged about the roof swilling booze and brainstorming, or at least braindrizzling. Further information and speculation were exchanged but no one came up with a viable plan for taking their “chancel” back. Macy pretended to sleep.

Donner brought up the fact that Lust – Macy – seemed to have killed the old one and taken his power. Also that, looking at the corpse, he hadn’t much cared, and that their enemies were sure as hell after her too. He contacted his other Anchor, the FBI guy, and arranged for guns to be given them tomorrow out of the local office.

Macy took off and acquired some money and new clothes from the Frederick’s of Hollywood Working Girl Collection. A local, rich 'entrepeneur' might walk normally again within two or three days, but the smile would take longer to fade.

Our other Hero, Terminus, fights Czerny, the Power of Knives, in hyperkinetic Noble buttkicker fashion all over the front steps and rooftop of his (our?) Chancel’s museum. Czerny had vanished Death’s favorite broadsword and Terminus' attempts to un-vanish it did not work. He had to get replacements, but when you're standing over the Ancient Cultures section of a museum, a pair of zweihanders are easy to find. He got to use them right away to block a veritable storm of knives hurled by Czerny.

After a bit of exchanged verbiage, Czerny kicks a couple of support columns down within the museum (some of the bits aimed at Terminus) and runs the other way as the west wing of the museum collapses.

A voice speaks out of the growing cloud of dust, offering to take Terminus to the other people he knew. Terminus accepts and shortly later walks out into a Chicago sewer. Goose, the Power of Evasion, filled Terminus in on the basic situation. By way of explanation of his involvement, he did this for the purest of motives, a desire to stick it to Lord Entropy, the leader of the forces arrayed against them (the leader of pretty much everything, apparently). Goose said he’d be hard to find or contact, later. Terminus said he’d try hard not to. Goose paused for a second and allowed that that might actually work. He also mentions that Terminus – that their kind – weren’t allowed to kill or madden mortals for no reason; and that they didn’t need more trouble than they had already.

June, Dame Reality, kept on trying to get some useful information out of Jealousy, but Jealousy won't answer her most important question, Did Amaciel do it? Wouldn’t even interrupt her rant.

June notices three more Nobles looking into the store and moving inside. She pockets the Altoids.

“It’s OK, dear.” June pats one of Jealousy's white-knuckled hands, steps away and massively increases and reinforces the reality of the Mazelike quality of the aisles, and the quality of Unfindability within the 'convenience' store. She called Hank.

Back in Chicago, Hank stiffens, pulls out a shot glass and poured whiskey into it. He sets the glass down saying, “This better be here when I get back!” and turns away. June is suddenly there, grabbing the shot glass and downing it. Coughed. June officially has the best summoning ritual.

Macy handed June a wad of money. She’d been looking for someone trustworthy, and the Graf wouldn’t take it – something about rotting the paper.

Donner, to June: “She’s the new Lust. The old one got killed in a wingback chair and his heart cut out. I hear you know more about what’s going on than the rest of us.”

Meanwhile, Terminus watches and listenes from a nearby rooftop, having been delivered there by the now-absent Goose.

Information exchange, yadda, yadda, yadda. Terminus launches himself over to the crowded roof and lands with two people, Sian and Macy, ready to rumble. They manage to not go all Marvel on each other and gradually settle down. More yadda. Interestingly, Amaciel was supposed to have attacked the other Chancel by casting parts of it into a timeless void and then drawing off the energy of the excised portion. Amaciel was not rich in Timeless Void type powers.

The Powers from the damaged ('wronged') Chancel are Lost Things, Eternity, Jealousy and Loyalty, which makes people wonder if Eternity is screwing his own people over somehow.

Terminus wants to find the 'demigod' of Truth. June points out that, sadly, Truth isn’t a concept with much interest in it, so it's possible there isn't even a power in charge of it at this time... certainly, she's never met them.

Sian flower-talks to Imagination for ideas. Maybe the Power of Conspiracy (one of the Inquisitors assigned to prosecute this case) is trying to look good?

Donner goes out for flowers. WAY out, to Los Angeles, just in case the local shops are monitored.

They settle upon the direct, brute force approach of Chancel Recovery. Pick up guns and go to New Orleans in the morning. Donner and the Graf knock themselves out with mega-miracles, electrocuting all the unfriendlies in the upper levels through Donner’s anchor Gwen and choking/poisoning all those in the lower levels through The Graf’s anchor. That would leave only enemy Anchors and Powers alive (in theory). Then Sian, Terminus and Macy would move in and finalize things in Aspect fashion. Guilt would direct the clean up and June would disapprove of all the violence.

They got cars, FBI-compatible clothing, the weapons and got to New Orleans an hour and a half later. High Aspect Driving Miracles are Scary.

Slaughterus Interruptus: the bad guys left before we arrive. The Bronze Man made a big Gate and everyone split. Mariska determines that they really had gone and not left any little presents behind like bombs or poison. Some of Our Heroes were very disappointed, but the Chancel is back in the right hands, so it's time for Stage Two: Getting Our Damn Memory Back.

Session 2 - Invitations to the Party

Note: this log is missing the second half of June Reality's turn, and all of Terminus Death's. There will be some GM additions to this once that stuff happens.

REALITY
June continues to travel with Vera, picking up on the fact that her problems with her husband are more based on Vera’s jealousy than her being away from home too much. Due to the fact that June feels as though she owes Vera for her help, she wants to do something to help out, but it’s a tricky thing – on the one hand, a soul can only take so much of one emotion or another, but on the other it can hold an infinite amount of feeling, provided a balance is worked out. (Also complicating this is the fact the June can tell that someone has, at some point, Preserved the woman’s Jealousy, so there’s a chance she’s going to draw attention to herself – she’s stepped on the toes of other Powers by ‘helping’ people before.)

June’s had bad experiences with ‘balancing’ bad things with good things before (“I’m now very devoted, but I’m still really Jealous, so if I can’t have him, no one can…”), so opts for the simpler, but more strenuous solution of wiping out some of Vera’s Jealousy.

[Lesser Destruction of the woman’s jealous attachments to her husband, rather than the easier but potentially back-firing encouragement to her other feelings for him to try to balance out the jealousy.]

They continue the drive to Chicago.

LUST
Senachiel grows/reveals wings and says something under his breath as he starts to fly away – something about ‘another of your allies’. Macy glide/jumps along building rooftops, moving after Senachiel towards the building with the dead angel. She enjoys this and it is fun for her. She decides to jump on the angel's (Senachiel’s to be specific) back as he is flying along. They come to a stop on the original brownstone’s rooftop and she stalls him from going into the building by asking several questions. He gives her a flower and tells her to call him with it. He finally is able to pull away and drops down to the front steps of the buildings. Macy runs down the side of the building and gets there first -- she tries to interposing herself between him and the door.

FUNGUS
Arrives on the slope of Mt. Baldie. IT finds a dirt path that leads to a road, but parallels in the undergrowth instead of walking on it directly. Fungus follows its instincts, walking down into a washout ditch beside the road. It gets like a magnetic north kind of pull that leads to a storm drain. The fungi in the sewer are singing and talking to Fungus by way of greeting. Fungus asks where it usually goes when it comes down here. They respond that it is normally to see the professor. Fungus heads further down the tunnel.

PUNISHMENT
She in the apartment across the street from her own, with her gun to the back of the head of the dude she caught watching her place. She interrogates him and finds out that he is watching on behalf of the Power of Imagination. Punishment asks if the guy thinks he is going to call for help. The spy tells her that he already did call for help. He suggests that maybe some nice tea would help her calm down, and she knocks him out. There is a knock on the door. The lady outside the door goes through a list of things she doesn't have with her (a very Imaginative list, har) and lets Punishment know she only wants to talk. Sian lets her enter. The girl looks friendly enough with dark blonde hair and a lot of smiles -- asks if Punishment wants some tea or scotch. Imagination offers to help Punishment and trys to explain things to her and the way Nobles work. Punishment is still holding a gun on her. Imagination tells her she (Sian) is a Noble in charge of Punishment… or Death, she “gets you two confused sometimes”.

ELECTRICITY
Goes elemental and spreads over everything that will burn in the room. Things start burning. The other man in the room squints and all of the flames halt – that is, completely stop moving, but are still there. Ball of lightning gives the guy the finger and exits through a light socket. Electricity exits to Alantic City, NJ, but decides he really needs more information and jumps back to the house, trying to lurk in the wires without a ton of success. Goes back into the room and the man is still there, as are the [Pause Button] flames. He asks the man if he couldn’t just leave and let Donner look around for awhile. Avrileros offers Electricity the chance to throw himself on the mercy of the court. The phone in the room rings.

Just that phone, though… the one closest to Donner. Weird.

Oh.

GUILT
The world gets tingly and phasey. She is now standing in an efficiency apartment in a low rent tenement; bedroom and bathroom. There is a man in the room dressed in a dirty white tank top, well-used boxers and a pair of dark socks who offers her a sip of whiskey. Guilt complains about her bleeding wound, but Hank isn’t terribly susceptible to Guilt-trips. June told him to bring her here. The man tells her she is one of those 'god people'. He tries in vague descriptions to tell her what is going on. He finishes with the story and when he is done she asks him to put on some pants. She asks about the Bronze Man, but he doesn't know about him. He says they are in Chicago. He runs through the list of people still to summon and invites Guilt to join him. They go up to the rooftop for the next one. There is a group of hippies who are stripping down for the ceremony. Guilt cradles her whiskey bottle and begins the slow chemically-aided detachment from current events.

LUST
Senachiel explains how to use the flower he gave her as a focus for communication. Meanwhile, she listens to hear what is going in the building (Donner’s attack blew all the glass out of the second story, so it’s quite easy.) She chats some more with Senachiel.

ELECTRICITY
Moves up a floor and to a back room through the electrical wires, waits for Gail’s call to catch up to his new location, and answers the phone. It's Gwen (of course) and she needs him and wants to know if he has gotten hold of anyone else. They talk about the dead angel, and she tells him that there might be a new Lust then – probably Must Be, considering that his heart’s missing. Electricity has been fighting Eternity – she knows that much about Avrileros, but not much else. She tells him to get closer to New Orleans. Gwen names everyone in his Familia and cautions being careful with Death (who was seen a little while back in the Chancel “he fought one of the Inquisitors; things fell down”).

LUST
Talks more with Lost Things. He says he is going in to talk with his brother, so she jumps into the third story of the building through a (until then unbroken) window. She walks through to the back to find Electricity

ELECTRICITY & LUST
Lust introduces herself as well as any amnesiac can and tells Electricity to meet her at a phone number she provides him, where she has to go (the woman who’s been calling her). Lust runs out the building towards the address of her caller. Senachiel and Avrileros are on the way up the stairs, and Electricity jumps into the phone lines.

FUNGUS
Emerges into a lab environment and is found by Professor Wirtz. He is a wiry balding gentleman. Professor is happy to see Fungus who informs him that it has lost its memory. Fungus believes there are people after it (yah think?). He asks after the rest of the Familia. Fungus looks confused. The Professor asks about reforming itself – he seems to think that if she changes her form (the ‘little death’ transferal of her essence), she might get some of her memory back. Same confused look. Professor explains to Fungus that it might want to rot itself and reform for the purpose of regaining memories. Fungus wills itself to reform and slowly this happens – she regrows out of the ‘study fungus’ in the next room.

PUNISHMENT
Still holds a gun on Imagination, who chides her for not using imagination more. Punishment asks how to get in touch with the others. Imagination asks if she has any flowers. Punishment finds out that her boss has been killed, and she thinks she might have lived because she is so focused – Imagination (“just call me Haley”) thinks it’s because she’s so stubborn. Imagination tells Punishment to look at her gun and imagine it is a spear. Punishment is able to focus on the gun and see it as the spear it ‘really’ is. When she looks up everything seems to be different (she’s shifted to mythic view). Imagination tells her to get some mushrooms from the kitchen and try and talk to Fungus. Punishment has a short conversation with an armchair about the owner of the apartment and decides she doesn’t like Mythic View very much. She describes the man she killed earlier and asks if Imagination knows who it was, but she doesn’t.

GUILT
The rain dance continues. Guilt is watching the ceremony. She is truly unimpressed. The light bulb hanging from the power pole that the group is using as a sort of ‘may pole’ blows up and lightning is everywhere and forms into a man. Hank gives Electricity the low down on the family (and some scotch) and Guilt is hiding just out of sight. She chides Hank for not warning her about the lightning. Electricity says he’ll be back, but says he was interrupted in transit and leaves to meet Lust. Guilt commends Hank on his stock of alcohol.

Hank then starts trying to “get” Punishment. Imagination sees Punishment fading out and tells her “pleasedon’tkillanyonewhodoesn'ttrytokillyourfirstok” before she vanishes. Punishment gets summoned, and points the gun at Hank, somehow very upset about this and sure that He is Not the Sort of Person who Gets to Summon Her. Guilt tells her that she is not going to feel good about killing Hank in the morning. Hank gives The Speech to Punishment (though the speech gets a more simplified and vague as the evening progresses), and gives her some alcohol. They discuss Fungus and that they should summon it, but Hank doesn’t have the stuff he needs for her – it’s not complicated, but not the sort of stuff you can get at a local Stuckey’s, either. Instead, they decide to have Sian try this flower-communication prayer-thing that Imagination told him about.

[Technically, they should be using Mugwort for a prayer-flower, but Sian’s been encouraged to use her imagination. :) ]

LUST is running (across rooftops, at a good clip) to meet Jessica. She runs and jumps to the top of the building where she wants to be. She runs down the fire stairs to the penthouse and finds someone inside who is not a threat (Jessica tries to hit her with a bat when she walks in and that doesn’t work well. Jessica is aging rapidly now that she’s not Sisera’s anchor anymore – they talk for a bit and Lust considers calling Lost Things to find out how to anchor someone, but Jessica remembers. Lust cuts her arm and feeds Jessica some blood just as someone steps into the door of the room. Macy ignores his order to cease immediately and gets smacked across the room.

[Now introducing The Bronze Man, Sacrifice's Regal, who takes a swing at Macy. Macy is anchoring Jessica and won’t stop doing so, so the attack just “happens”. The result is a deadly wound for Macy and a busted up sectional couch where she lands after he hits her in the back.]

Macy jumps back up, rushes him, ducks under his attack, picks him up and throws him out the patio door – hard. He sails through the glass, CLANGS through the patio railing, and head towards the cement many, many, many stories down.

[When he hits the ground, the Bronze Man takes two Deadly Wounds, even though he’s Durant – it’s a big fall and his Rite of Holy Fire protects him from almost no mundane damage.]

Macy pursues, jumping down the side of the building from balcony to balcony, watching the gaping hole in the street sixty stories down. About halfway down several patios collapse under her, flinging her into open space.

[I realized too late that I'm a little shaky on what exactly the Bronze Man can do with his Estate (REALLY shaky), but for the spur of the moment I went with Destruction to Serve a Goal – the irony being that in order to get what he wants he almost always has to destroy part of the Creation he’s supposed to be protecting. End result, minus the poetry: crumbly balconies.]

Somewhere around here, Donner shows up in the Penthouse and Jessica tells him what’s going on. Donner leaps out of the window and just falls to the ground below. He’s in elemental form, so the physical impact is not notable for him.

She gathers herself for the landing and spreads the impact through the ground (it cracks) with a crouching three-point landing.

[Even with Durant (which she doesn’t have), a 30-story uncontrolled fall = Deadly Wound. Macy spends an AMP for a level 6 Aspect miracle of ‘righting myself in mid-air with the wind resistance from my clothes and landing well enough not to get hurt’.]

The pavement crumbles beneath her and Lust falls through the sudden collapsing hole into the access tunnels beneath the street.

[Bronze Man does a Lesser Creation of Domain on the street, as the balconies above.]

The Bronze Man charges her. They exchange blows – his are more ponderous and very powerful, hers are quicker and deceptive. Electricity is standing at the top of the impact crater (not to be confused with the Sacrifice crater). Pedestrian and automotive gawkers line the street, but they can’t see the two duking it out and Prosaic Reality is trying to pass Donner off as a damaged and dangerously live electrical short caused by the two sinkholes in the street.

Combat rages. The Bronze Man causes a cabby to sacrifice his car by gunning it into the hole and straight at Macy, but it misses. Meanwhile, Donner hits the Bronze Man solidly, Macy does twice and take a shot in the breastbone for her troubles (another deadly wound). The crowd suddenly reacts as though Donner is some sort of superstar and tries to rush at him – he’s in elemental form, so this will kill them – he jumps into the hole to get away from them. TBM jumps out the hole and Lust jumps after him -- Electricity hits him with another bolt. Bronze man crushes into the hood of a car several blocks away and Macy sails past him to land atop a taxicab. Donner arcs through the electrical conduits beneath the street, leaps out into the open from a streetlight about two blocks back from both of them.

[Let’s just say this was the first real combat we’d played through and it wasn’t exactly… smooth. We’re still figuring out how the numbers flow during a fight. One thing is obvious, though: combat eats miracle points. Big time.]

FUNGUS
Talks with Punishment (using one of the familia-aligned flowers that the Professor has grown in a window box outside his office at her request). Fungus has him drop the bag of mushrooms so it can try and to locate where they are (it needs to be outside Punishment’s Auctoritas to be Divinable. Punishment tells Fungus they are in Chicago. Punishment throws the mushrooms near the pigeon coop and Fungus locates them and reconstitutes herself out of the… biological matter... in the area (eww). Hank scrambles to get Fungus some clothes at Fungus's request. He has some difficulty locating polyester for Fungus, however (cotton fabrics are right out for her -- she rots natural matter in a few hours). Fungus gives some special mushrooms to Hank for his rain dancing hippie friends so they don’t freak out too much at what’s going on, or at least can explain it as a bad trip later. Punishment asks about food and Hank provides her with some of the stuff June sent him to get.

LUST & ELECTRICITY
It’s a showdown. Suddenly, all the people within ten city blocks slump over unconscious. Cars coast to a stop. The Bronze Man shouts a protest as a large hole opens under him and he drops out of sight. A Voice tells Electricity and Lust that they should not be doing what they are doing in the middle of her city (“Don’t Freak Out the Mundies!”). She tells them to get into the phone booth (that just appeared) before TBM's friends get here. They step in and the booth sinks into the pavement. Minutes later it rises out of the rooftop of a specific apartment building in Chicago (where the other Nobles are).

ASSEMBLED GROUP
Punishment points a gun at them as they enter. Lust asks her not to point the weapon at her as she has had a bad day (and she’s suddenly feeling cocky about her god-fighting powah). Fungus asks Lust who she is and she tells her. June will be here in 3 hours. Lust needs sleep and Hank suggests his bed. She refuses, as she has a sudden very CLEAR vision of what’s been going on there, so Fungus grows her a soft bed of her Estate. Those folks with more info fill everyone else in on who is hunting them and some of what they are in trouble for. Electricity jumps into his anchor Gwen (in the Chancel) and finds out what is going on with her, and hears more about Death’s appearance – after that story, they decide not to summon him just yet. Fungus decides to contact her Herbalist anchor (also in the Chancel). She is in her house and has not been rounded up, though her business has been closed by the invader’s order. Fungus asks what herbs would be good for memory loss. The herbalist is not sure what to recommend because Nobles are not like normal people. She gives a few suggestions.

Meanwhile, Guilt's whiskey bottle is empty and she's officially written most of this off as a drunken nightmare.

REALITY
June and Vera have stopped at a KwikyMart on the outskirts of Chicago to pick up supplies. As June goes through the candy aisle looking for candy orange slices, she notices that everyone in the store has become fixated on different things to the exclusion noticing all others: the girl behind the counter is staring at the business woman leaving the store, who in turn is staring at the soccer mom outside loading three children into the mini-van, etc.

Just as suddenly, she realizes that there's a woman staring right at her from the next aisle over.

"You think you're sooo great, don't you?" The bitter sound cuts through the quiet of the store, even though the words are spoken softly. Turning, she sees the dark, narrow face of the woman glaring at her over the snack shelves. The air around her almost seems to bend with the intensity of the emotion she's directing at you, like heatwaves coming off a blacktop highway. "You've already taken everything from us," she continues, "but even when you run away you have to stop and try to take something else from me." He hand comes up and grips the top of the intervening half-wall of snack food. "Vera was mine, and you ruined it."

"Yes, dear," June says. "Sometimes you have to learn to share." The orange slices are so...orange. Oh, well. Little wedges of jellied sugar will keep. "Do you need something, young lady? What can I do for you?"

June opens her hands: they shimmer in the fluorescent light, full of
invisible offerings. Conucopias of the spirit. Perhaps even a monkey's
paw or two.

The woman's pale face twists downward as though she smells something foul-but-seductive... burning cigarettes wafting past an ex-smoker... her laugh is short and harsh, full of disbelief. "You can't offer me anything that I don't already have." She shakes her head, her (golden?) eyes still on June's open hands.

It's hard to tell if she is stating what she believes to be fact or forbidding June from trying.

June says nothing and waits, only trying to intensify her aura.

The woman seems lost for a moment in the light, but her unfocused gaze is on the past, not the wonders June offers. "We were a good Familia. We increased our Estates, watched out for each other, fought the War. Everything was good. I almost --" she cuts herself off, blinking and looking up at June. "It took us almost two years to notice that someone was siphoning away our strength -- bypassing the Heart of our Chancel -- but it didn't take us long after that to figure out who was responsible." Her hands grip the top of the rack that separates the two women even more tightly, her knuckles going white and the metal creaking slightly. "We never did anything to you!" She says through clenched teeth. "You were just... just Jealous of us and you're going to pay for it; the Inquisitors will make sure of it." Her eyes blaze with actual light, far past the simple flash of anger a mortal might manage.

June stops out of arm's reach; not the woman's arms, but her own. "If anything we did hurt you, I'm sorry. I don't know much about the business that was going on at home; I'm the kind of person that takes care of emergencies out in Reality. Sweetie, there are some things I can't fix, and the person who could fix them is gone now. There are a lot of things that nobody can fix. But there are a lot of things I can fix. Why don't you tell me about it?"

Her eyes narrow, "Oh that's right... Cathetel is such a loving, caring Imperator, he's so much better than everyone else. Except he's been killing off tiny sections of our Chancel's heart for two years; locking each piece in a timeless void and siphoning off the energy." Her eyes brighten again, even as they narrow. She looks suddenly triumphant. "Siphoning it off to you and the others. HE didn't have our Chancel's energy, which means YOU and the others must have gotten it." She glances out the large plate glass windows in the front of the store and smiles. "But they'll get it back for us."

June's gaze follows hers. Three people (two men -- one black and well-dressed, one white and disheveled -- and an east indian woman in traditional garb) are standing just outside the building and looking in through the window at June at the other woman. None of them are smiling.

[Annnnnnd THAT'S where we'll pick up on Saturday! :)]

Session 1

The official Log of the first session is now up. I've put in HG-commentary on certain parts of the game to explain what or how I did something -- I won't always do that, but I think it's important at the beginning for people to understand how the story fits in the game system -- helps everyone understand.

Also, I left in my original temporary notes from the first half-session, so we have a log of everything. If it makes the thing come off as uneven, blame me, not margie.

Guilt wakes up sitting near the door in a soup kitchen. She is wearing cords with a vest and polyester shirt. People occasionally look at her. She stands up and wanders over to the food line. [Digression on the gender of the group in general (MFFFFM and Fungus' “they”.] When she gets to the front the woman serving soup asks

“Do you need something?”

“No, but I think this broth could do with a little meat and vegetables.” Guilt replies

“Do you need a doctor? You are bleeding.”

Guilt notices a gaping wound in her side.

“Don’t worry about me dear.”

“Let me get you a chair back here and bring you some soup.”

[No domain miracles to twist the girl around her finger, other than her inherent gift with manipulating others.]

The assistant gets Guilt a chair in a back office and quiesces to the doctor being fetched. They ask Guilt her name and as she realizes that she doesn’t know a cold shiver runs down her spine.

As soon as the woman is out of the room, Mariska’s vision swims and a clenching discomfort washes over her.

[Nettle Rite: Chancel bond]

---

Punishment wakes up face down, on the cobblestones of a dirty alley. That, as her eyes blinked open, was the first thing she could bring into focus; grimy stones, bits of refuse settled against the juncture of a building's wall and the ground.

She rolls over. The alleyway is dank and old (which seems familiar) and thick with the stink of moldy trash. (That seemed familiar too, although somehow for a different reason.)

She sits up, resting her arms on her knees. She is wearing slacks, a jacket. Her knuckles were scraped and bruised. A taxicab drives by the mouth of the alley several dozen yards away and she realizes she’s in London.

She doesn’t know how she knows it’s was London, what or where London is, or why it fills her with a certain relief, but she knows that she knows and she knows she is not wrong.

Forcing herself to her feet, she takes stock of her surroundings. The dead body on the ground between her and the alley’s dead end catches her attention first.

Her reaction is not fear or revulsion but resignation, as though this is a familiar scene playing out for the hundredth time to no happy conclusion. She approaches the face down body (too much like her own earlier pose for comfort) and rolls it over.

A flash. A memory. Looking over the shoulder of a London bobby, looking down on a body lying in a very similar -- the same? -- alley. Blood everywhere. the poor woman's eyes wide with terror and death and the stink of blood and offal nearly overwhelming and --

Seven bullet entry points. Center mass. Also, his eyes are missing. It does not look as though he’d ever had them.

She remembered. He was striding straight towards her from the dead-end of the alley, half-smiling. She had had a pistol and he had been wearing sun glasses.

Looking around, she finds the gun against the wall and shortly thereafter finds a holster for it at the small of her back. She doesn’t see the sun glasses anywhere.

[At this point, I hadn’t realized Dave wanted a spear-thing, so I did the gun -- later, we just decided the gun WAS the spear, with the ability to Guise itself as appropriate weapons.]

She frowns. It didn’t feel right, having used a gun. There was something...

Something... off. Wrong weapon. Not the feeling that she wouldn’t have killed someone, but the feeling that it wouldn’t have been this way.

So something was wrong, but that wasn’t the real problem.

She’d been trying to remember her name since she’d first rolled over into the sun, and she couldn’t.

Sirens are coming closer. There is a door to one side and a fire escape to the other. Punishment checks the door and it gives to his touch and she enters the mud room of an industrial kitchen. The room holds a drain and slop bucket. There is a ladder to a trap door in the ceiling. The next room is the pantry. Further on is the kitchen proper. As she enters the pantry her nose notes that it an Indian restaurant. Her stomach rumbles - an uncommon, yet remotely familiar feeling. She waits for an opportunity to slip past the workers and continues through the restraint, raising only the slightest eyebrow from the hostess.

[Moving through the kitchen well enough to keep the two dishwashers and the assistant cook from looking up at the wrong time was a piece of cake -- Sian’s aspect is a 3, and what might have been a challenge for some ended up being a piece of cake for her.]

Out the front door, she flows with the pedestrian traffic looking casually at what the policy are doing. They eventually find the body in the alley. The call goes out. Punishment finds herself at a newsstand from which position she can still clearly hear the chatter of the police radios in the cruisers. She pauses to check out the headlines.

---

Lust wakes up on a psychiatrist couch. Taking her measure, she notices that she has an ornate but serviceable knife in her left hand -- both of which (hand and knife) are coated in blood that has long-since gone tacky; in her right hand is a cell-phone whose screen indicates she’s missed... ten calls. As soon as she registers that, the phone starts to ring.

She answers it, and sits up to look around the room, which looks like psychiatrist’s office: dark read leather and mahogany, heavy drapes over the windows. The female voice on the other end of the line is speaking somewhat loudly, her voice is strained. Macy is not tracking the words however, as her attention is on the angel sitting in the traditional psychiatrists wing-backed chair across the shadowy room.

He’s wearing the robes associated with angel imagery. Also, the big white wings hanging over the back of the chair is a give-away. He looks quite dead: his chest has been split open and Macy’s fairly sure even from across the room that his heart is missing. The voice on the other end of the phone is repeating a name over and over, as though trying to get her attention.

[For the record, I didn’t start out thinking “Red Tooth Rite” -- I just wanted to frame her for something nasty and realized later (after the half-session) that the angel was really her old boss and that she was a VERY new noble.]

The woman is calling her Macy. She seems upset and thinks that things are ‘going badly’ and ‘people are watching us’. She says she’s in New York and Macy realizes on looking out the front windows that she is as well. Macy says she’ll talk to her later and hangs up. She goes over, cuts the angel’s throat to ‘make sure’, then washes off the blood from the knife and the hand, wipes it down and sticks it in her belt until she can dump it. Then she leaves out the back of the building.

Macy exits the brownstone by way of the rear door. She quickly and very easily jumps the walls and fences separating various back yards and works her way to the next street over. A few blocks later Lust tosses the knife in a convenient bin and she feels a subtle shiver run down her neck. Someone behind her says

“Ah, there you are.”

[Senachiel is the Marquis of Lost Things. He’s been to the house (mere moments after Macy left), knows the heart was removed with a knife, and hopes that it’s going to get dumped somewhere... he’s maintaining a Lesser Divination and as soon as the knife hits the trash bin, he knows it, AMPs up his speed and flies right there. Jackie avers that the knife wasn't really "Lost", since she knew exactly where it was. I counter by pointing out that she's not the one defining the Domain, he is :)]

At the end of the street Lust notices that there are three muscle men gathering.

[It occurred to me later that since he didn’t teleport there, he wouldn’t have had backup, so... I ret conned in a Lesser Creation of discarded Mannequins next to the dress shop, then Lesser Change to Guise em and get them into combat readiness. DMPs flow like water, but Macy’s an unknown.]

“I guess that we are not playing nicely” Lust observes.

“I am just looking into matters that occurred down the street.”

“And you are….”

“I am Senachiel. Obviously you can help me out” He says as he pulls the knife out of the trash can. “What were you doing with Sisera?”

“You don’t look like police. Let me see your badge”

“I assure you that I have sufficient authority. I in no way seek to persecute. I am here as the agreived party, looking for Sisera. To round up people, not to mete out justice-”

Lust notices the three muscle men moving towards her from far up the street, though she isn’t looking their direction in any way.

“I thought we were playing nice?”

Senachiel motions them back with a slight surprise in his eyes.

She relaxes a bit. “What would you be interested in?”

“That looked like a Red Tooth Rite back in the angel’s house.”

“What is a Red Tooth Rite?”

“Come now, I can tell that you should know all about the Red Tooth Rite”

The pais a deux continues until Lust blurts out. “I don’t remember anything about that... or anything else.”

Senaciel searches her face. Finally: “My word, you ARE telling the truth.”

---

Electricty sprawls across a threadbare and badly sprung armchair. A light bulb socket hangs directly overhead, dangling from the ceiling on a cord and holding only the shattered remains of a blackened bulb. He is the Power of Electricty.

There is dust on the scarred wooden floor, the single windowsill, the radiator next too it, and on the misused armchair itself - all of which seems entirely undisturbed. The room is otherwise empty. Something in the chair is digging into the man’s back.

He is lithe and wiry; lean, with short blonde hair so pale it was almost white. He wears a fine pair of slacks that quite are quite obviously part of an expensive suit, a dark, form-fitting sleeveless shirt somewhere between silk and mesh, and no jacket. A shoulder holster hangs along his left side, empty. He, unlike the room, is not covered in dust.

He raises his other hand (instinct or habit) to take a drink and discovers he still holds the neck of a whiskey bottle between his fingers. He seems less surprised by the natural inclination of his hand to cling to a bottle even in unconsciousness than he is when he notices that the bottle ends in jagged shards about halfway down.

There is something dark and tacky on the jagged edges of the bottle, and he is not injured (barring the damage the chair is doing). The room does not smell of spilt whiskey, nor does he see broken glass or blood (or footprint… how did I get here?) on the floor as he sits up and looks around.

[Randy’s mentioned that this was a big telltale that something was off -- Donner’s a detective, and not seeing footprints was a big deal.]

He stands, wiping the bottle down to erase fingerprints and dropping it on the chair behind him as he looks over the room. Neither his jacket nor the presumably missing pistol are anywhere to be seen so the holster hanging at his side remains both conspicuous and useless. He slips it off, winds the straps around the holster itself and shoves it into a pants pocket where it bulged and ruins the line of his slacks, but does not draw as much attention.

His gaze moves to the bare window and the world beyond. Tenements. Projects. He is certainly not dressed to blend in but, searching his mind, he finds no particular concern about such things. His natural instincts tell him he is more than competent enough to handle the dangers of such places, though he has no idea how or why.

Of course, in searching his mind he finds precious little else in the way of information or memory, which does bother him. He is a well-dressed newborn delivered into an abandoned tenement in an unknown city. The room holds no further information for him beyond that.

Electricity leaves the tenement. Shirtless old men are playing Go in the shade of worn-out buildings. They give him a look and complain to each other that the power is out and the fans won’t run. Electricity realizes that he knows how to play Go and that the men are speaking Tagalong - Odd. He gets a phone book and flips through looking for something familiar. The phone rings and an angry voice calls out as he puts it to his ear.

“Where the Hell are you?” A women voice rings out

“Are you OK?” and then “It’s Gwen.” As a afterthought

“I’m OK but my memory is shot” Electricity answers into the phone that should not work.

“I’m trapped behind enemy lines, but I can still contact you this way.” Gwen replies. She says she can sort of phone him and whichever receiver was nearest me would ring, something he’d set up.

[I did this because I thought it was cool -- that, as the Power of Electricity, his anchor’s prayers come through as phone calls... just seemed to fit. There’s a few problems with that (like it basically allows him to teleport to any supplicant), but in general it works kind of neat -- in the grand scheme, I think I’ll have prayers work normally for him and just have a “special phone number to god” that a few of his servants know -- it’s sort of like a weak version of “summonable” that isn’t worth any points due to balance bad and good points.]

Gwen then tries to explain what/who Electricity is and what the chancel is and what had happened. She gives Electricity the phone number for ‘The Angel’ and describes the other ‘members’ of the chancel, then hangs up. The phone goes dead, cuz there’s still a power outage.

He pushes the next call through the power outage

[Lesser Creation of electricity.]

and the call goes all the way to... New York, it feels like... east coast, certainly. A phone rings.

A man with a deep, gravelly voice picks up. He said the Angel was in the shower. Wants to know where Donner is. Meanwhile, several street thugs approach the phone booth, attracted by his swanky duds.

---

Fungus
A wooded copse looks down over an open expanse of grass. Faeries flit from shadow to shadow in the gloaming beneath the trees, occasionally circling the head of the creature that stands at the border of darkness and light. The creature is not human, but seems to give the impression of a humanoid form, if that form were composed of the firm but pliable substance of a mushroom, it’s skin the durable ‘leather’ of a puffball. It’s toes dig into the earth beneath it and flat black ‘eyes’ take in the world beyond the trees.

The strange shadows of a city loom all about this small patch of tamed wilderness - the place were she stands is a temporary refuge at best.

Why the creature thinks it needs a refuge is unclear even to it, but somehow it knows.

She feels a strong painful stitch in her side.

[Again, a Nettle Rite on her Chancel Bond.]

Fungus is in a park in the middle of a city. The hamadryads were grumbling about the nasty air. A deep shiver runs through Fungus, a sense of wrongness. A pixie spirit flits by his face/front

“What are you doing here? It has been like forever since you’ve been here, or at least you weren’t here yesterday.” Tinkerboy continues without pause.
Fungus tries to discern the direction or location of the wrongness. He follows it to a nearby copse of trees. There is a faerie ring of mushrooms in a cave. The fungus chatter and gab, then settle into a chant.

“Are you going to do that thing again like you did before with the ring y’know - whoosh”

“What thing?

“You went there and then you went somewhere else. I don’t know where.”

The ring is where the wrongness is -- or it leads to that place... or... something. Fungus steps into the circle of toadstools and nothing happens. S/He relaxes and the chanting of the little mushroom spirits increases. The power rises up out of the ring and flows through Fungus. It feels good.

“Bye! See you soon. Have a nice trip. Whoosh! Zoom!” Tinkerboy calls as Fungus sinks into the ground.

S/He is in a large cave filled with giant mushrooms and fungi.

“There it is! Get it!” A voice calls out, followed by the sound of many feet pounding towards Fungus.

[At this point, we’ve established by process of elimination that the as-yet-not-built Chancel has “Convenient”. It’s also “important” in a bad way, has an Enemy Gate, a couple banes, and all sorts of magical inhabitants. Fun place. Too bad we don’t know what it looks like.]

---

Death wakes up in a morgue, on a cold tray. He automatically pushes open the door and slides out, as though he’s done this sort of thing many times before. Something is not quite right. This isn’t my morgue. There is a familiar tang in the air, though. A morgue worker squeaks at his appearance.

“No one was supposed to be in there, so... You’re free to go.”

Death notes his face for future reference.

“Why am I here?”

“I don’t know. Did somebody drug you?”

Death pushes past him, and the poor soul faints. Death wanders through some wards on his way out, twisting dials and pushing buttons. A few deserving souls meet their end.

[I sort of forgot about the Code Fideli-whatever that forbid harming those who have done none -- in retrospect it works just find -- Death doesn’t remember it, so he’s basically responding to his basic nature -- he is, after all, a Pawn of his Estate. That said, and excuse like that only works when you’ve got amnesia. Instictively, he’d be focusing on the ‘right’ people to work on, anyway.]

A wall of heat hits Death as he exits the hospital. It has to be Houston. Death looms tall over passerby and looks a bit less genteel than Death-warmed-over. He feels the constant hum of people wishing others dead. He tunes out the prayers to Death and feels a stronger, different tug on his spirit.

---

Reality looks over her shoulder and shudders deeply. [She remembers everything about what’s happened, as opposed to everyone else, who remember nothing.] She flees through one of the lesser gates of the chancel. She thinks that everyone got away in one way or another. It is clear that they got to the imperator and executed him. It should have killed Reality. It should have killed them all. She saw Fungus die, but who hasn’t seen that. Punishment killed her way out and Electricity exited the way he always does. She did not even bother to worry about Death. Lust hadn’t been around.

They must know that we are all summonable, eventually they'll catch us all.

Reality arrives in a corn field in Minnesota. Got to find someone helpful she thinks as she heads for the highway and flags a Good Samaritan that she knew would be driving by.

[De’s definition of Reality is (paraphrased, and filtered through HG’s sketchy understanding) the strength of cosmic purpose that a thing has by virtue of belief in itself or other’s belief in it... and the ties that give a thing substance and connect it to the rest of the world. In this sense, losing “reality” is what made the Invisible Girl invisible in the first season of Buffy. Using that definition, when she says she wants someone who’ll help, I’m having her use a Lesser Divination to find someone who thinks of themselves as a Good Samaritan, then doing a Lesser Preservation on that person to reinforce their instinct to stop. De very helpfully bought a nice high domain so she really doesn’t have to sweat the miracle levels on little stuff and let me figure out if she needed MPs for whatever she was doing. It worked well.]

“How did you get here?” The Samaritan asks. “Is there a Home where you should be?”

“I need to get to my daughter’s house.” Reality drawls.

“Well, we’ll try and find it. Do you have her number?”

“Why I do! Do you have a phone?”

The Samaritan digs into large (read: enormous) purse (read: macramé bag) and retrieves an older cellular phone. Reality calls her anchor in Chicago.

“Yeah!”

“Hello”

“Oh! Her nibs.”

“Boss is dead.”

“You said that we would all kick the bucket if that happened. Are you still on this side of reality?”

“Yes and No. I need a rain-dance and some other things.”

“I can do that.”

---

Guilt knows that something is wrong. It pulls at her. She gets a flash of people who are not familiar in rooms that are familiar. They are looking through closets and rummaging among the papers. Guilt notes a badge worn by most of these folks. The scene shifts to people being herded into buildings. Some are being beaten. Others are standing by looking severe and pious. Guilt knows that this place (her home?) is in danger and she wants to do something about it.

“Honey, do you have some paper and a pen?” Guilt asks the staff member.

“The doctor is on the way. You won’t need a will.” She says as she hands guilt the requested items.

Guilt draws the design from the badge and asks the staff member if it means anything to her. She doesn’t recognize it and leaves Guilt alone so she can intercept the doctor.

“Who calls the inquisitor?” A male voice rings out. The rune/symbol/image on the paper glows.

“Sorry, can’t help you.” Guild replies as she feels the air go heavy around ehr with a scrying.

“You are speaking to The Bronze Man. Who are you?”

“Sorry, I don’t know you…” and Guilt tears the paper in half.

The paper resists at the sigil, but gives with some effort. The staff returns with the doctor.

“Are you OK? The doctor is here.”

Guilt feels that she should not stay here long.

---

Punishment browses the headline - “Power Outage in Malaysia.” “Rave Fire Kills Hundreds in Chicago.” “Knightsbridge Gun-Battle.” She listens to the walkie-talkies of the near-by and not-so-near-by police. They have made no progress on the murder scene. The experts have arrived. No suspects have been found in the area. No suspects seen by the neighbors.

[Sian’s aspect is more than high enough to clearly hear (and more importantly, understand) the police chatter over the radios in the Metro cars -- actually, if it came right down to it and she were close enough, she could eavesdrop on inserted radio ear buds.]

Punishment checks her pockets - twenty two pounds and an ID card/Drivers License (name of Sîân Ewig) and a local address in Whitechapel. She picks up a tourist map and memorizes the city that she feels she should already know. She cautiously heads towards the address on an oblique route, watches the area, and spots a guy who is not moving with the traffic. He is sitting on the stoop on the building across the street from ‘her’ address, reading a paper. Well, not really reading a paper, but doing a good job of pretending. He’s not turning the pages often enough.

Sîân She moves back a block, enters the building the guy is sitting on the front steps of from the back, figures out which front apartment is ‘clear’, picks the lock using the lock-picks in her vest. (Hmm, lock-picks in the vest.), and ghosts inside.

The watcher is still watching and Sîân doesn’t spot another. When the street is clear, she steps out and, putting a gun to the back of the watcher’s neck, and pulls him into the vacant apartment.

---

Lust continues her conversation with Senachiel.

“Well, this is a puzzlement! Normally, it is impossible to empower a Noble when the Imperator is dead.”

Senachiel continues to puzzle over Lust. He says he can’t tell if Macy’s actually ‘the new Power’ and decides to test her hearing by having a lady carrying paper grocery bags (two) three blocks away stop and whisper that Macy should tell him everything she knows.

[She’s one of Senachiel’s anchors, a Bag Lady (and not inconsequentially a Human embodiment of his Estate) -- he can’t just randomly take over nearby mortals.]

Macy hides that she can hear that well or that far away; he doesn’t notice her cover up.

It is obvious that he likes her. Lust makes an offer that he declines.

“I am not... this is an awkward time for that suggestion.”

“You’re gay?”

“No, use your vision. Look!”

With some work the view ripples and he is revealed as a winged... angel... like the other dead guy, basically. He has large feathered wings and a glow about him; an aura that reflects the afterimages of things like coins, papers, toys, golf balls, socks, and something that Lust somehow associates with innocence.

“I am the Marquis of Lost Things. I am faced with a quandary. Your Imperator is dead. Killed for his treason, but you came after his execution and had nothing to do with what he has done.” Senachiel continues to try and convince Lust to come with him to the Inquisitors’ Chancel and get this all straightened out. Lust finally agrees to go with him and let him speak for her.

“I am a bit of a loss,” he admits. “Everybody is at your chancel. Can you help me get there?”

“Oh sure, what’s a chancel?” Lust replies as her cell phone rings.

Lust answers it, and holds forth without attempting to exclude Senachiel.

“What’s going on?” Jessica wails.

“I’ve been detained”

“They are hunting everyone and killing them.”

“I have to go to the Inquisitor and talk to them.”

“Are you crazy? With everything you’ve done, we’ve done. They will kill you.”

“Then I’ll have to politely decline.”

“Politely decline? What do you think they’ll do? Send you flowers?”

Before Macy can decide for certain, the lights on the street dim and the sidewalk vibrates.

[This is the Manifestation of Donner's Major Creation back at the house.]

When Lust turns around, Senachiel has already drawn his weapon.

---

Electricity is interrupted by someone tapping on the metal side of the booth. A grinning punk and five of his street-tough buddies are tapping clubs to palms, playing with butterfly knives, cracking knuckles. He tells Gravel Voice to hang on, puts the receiver down and turns to the lead gang member. He makes his fingers (and eyes, apparently) to the Electric Slide. Five run. One wets himself and then runs.

Donner picks the phone back up and reaches out to the other phones and power outlets around the guy he’s talking to. The call feels like the East Coast, a major metropolitan area, New York, Atlanta, or Miami. He’s thinking about waking up in a chair under a broken light fixture in a dusty, trackless room -- he gets an idea. He thinks positively about being in the room next to the guy... his body changes to pure electricity and about 35ms later, he’s there. Very tingly. He’s 18 feet away in the next room. The voice has already stopped talking to the phone and turned to face the Donner would have to come though to get to him. Electricity enters the room and knows he may be in a bit of trouble. The man looks dangerous.

“Are you going to come quietly?”

“Where is the Angel?”

Avrileros points with his chin to the cleft Angel.

“Not from us. He was found that way. We are here as the wronged party.”

Electricity tries to bullshit for some information, and then decides to just punch him with electricity -- everything he has.

[In game terms, Donner took his default Domain 4, DMP’d it up to a 7 (Major Creation), then tossed his last two DMP’s onto the thing for penetration, just in case. Avrileros is Durant, so a level 7 miracle means a Deadly Wound. He deals with it, but isn’t happy. Takes a swing at Donner, but only manages a Serious-level Wound. Donner still has Deadly wounds left, so it doesn’t do much but ruin his shirt.]

Avrileros soaks it, though he is not unharmed. His knife flashes out along Donner’s side.

[And thus we have my ubiquitous inclusion of Michael Wincott into the game -- at least I didn't call him Kethos.]

---

Fungus

“There she is! Kill him!”

A wall of fungus appears across the cave, and choking pores fill the air.

[Lesser Creations/Attack]

Fungus works without thought. Bullets impact the temporary wall. The pursuers cough at the spores and more bullets fly. Some of them pierce the fungus wall and Fungus, but she is unharmed. Quickly searching around, Fungus finds several other Faerie Rings. S/he spies one that makes him smile. A perfect circle of morel mushrooms - earthy and spongy. Fungus puts a scuff neat a ring of little death-caps and fills the cave with blinding spores. S/he leaps for the morel ring. Fungus’ companions in the fairie ring sing out and raise their voices in a magical chant. Fungus drops through to a shaded spot by a mountain spring. There is a tang of pollution in the air and a condom by the river. He hears a car pass by not too far away. A dirt path leads to a fire-break road. “Best get on my way,” Fungus thinks as s/he heads down Mt. Baldy in Southern California.

---

Death
The summoning feeling pulls him to an open marble square with a large fountain in the middle complete with very tall ornate central statuary. Greek-style pillars front the building that borders the square. He’s confronted by a Romanian named Cerny, introduced also as the Baron of Knives, who’s been sent to take him in/down/whatever.

"Now, Let us start again. You are here for execution.”

"And you are? "” Death asks.

"I am Cerny Krizova- Baron of Knives. We have already met several times."

"Now that we have established who you are, who am I?"”

"You must be joking. You are Terminus - Baron of Death. We have worked together often. It saddens me to have to execute you, moreso because you do not seem to remember why it must be."

The Baron of Knives continues to discuss the failings and crimes of Terminus’ “Imperator”. How he committed grievances against another chancel.

As his oration continues, Death opines that Cerny is insane and turns to leave.
Cerny moves to attack with a long knife. They do a couple passes that are too fast for anyone to really track (fighting in full-speed Matrix bullet-time), and Death has a slight edge using his big sword, but only a slight edge, because the Baron is also GOOD.

Cerny steps back for a moment, waves a hand and the blade of the zweihander disappears. This puts Death on the defensive and, noticing already during the fight that he can leap around like a wire-fu grasshopper, heads for the rooftop of the pillared museum that surrounds the square on three sides. Cerny follows.

[Cerny's aspect is very high, much like Death's, but I'm using a variation on the 'staging' rules from Game of Powers, so Death's sword give him a slight edge. Cerny plays a little loose with his Domain (he's been doing this gig awhile) and does a Lesser Destruction on the Blade of the sword. He blows all his DMP's on this to both achieve the affect and deal with any auctoritas, but does even the fight up, since Death's left with just a big hilt and crosspiece to block with.]

---

Reality rides along with Vera the Samaritan. At one point they stop and she buys Reality some lunch at Big Daddy’s Cafe. After some thought, Reality calls her anchor back and describes all of the summoning rituals for the nobles of her chancel.

“But first go out and get some good liquor. They may be cranky when they get there.”

“Do I need any chickens or anything?”

“Only for Death, and a pigeon would do better than the other alternative.”

“I can get a few pigeons. The booze and the girls will be easy. You’ve seen my bathroom so mold is no problem.”

Hank goes out and spends way too much good money on booze and then calls in a favor for the pigeons. Some of the girls show up so he wastes no time in performing the proper tantric ritual to summon Lust, but nothing happens - well, Lust doesn’t show up, anyway. He starts in on Guilt while he waits for the people he needs for the Electricty rain-dance to show up.

June is still hours away.

The beginning idea

As should be evident by now, there is a HELL of a lot of stuff to process just in the background for Nobilis -- the book is 300 pages and maybe 10 of it is hard rules... the rest are examples and and examples and great great great fiction and more examples.

For a test game, I needed to simplify the background.

That usually means I start killing people.

The idea is simple: character generation is more than involved enough without having to frell with designing Chancels (the players job) and their Imperator (also the player's job, and both come AFTER character creation for a number of reasons.)

So, the premise: The characters are Nobilis whose Imperator is accused of Treason against Creation and the Valde Bellum... it (the Imperator) is found guilty and destroyed.

Usually, that's the end of it: destroying the Imperator means the Chancel breaks apart and/or returns to what it used to be as part of the Prosaic Earth and the Nobilis die from the shock of having a god's soul ripped out of their body.

Didn't happen. Therefore, the treasonous (and they MUST be treasonous if their Imperator was, right?) Nobilis must be hunted down and likewise destroyed. That's the seed of the plot.

But wait, there's more
Just because the destruction of their Boss didn't kill them doesn't mean there aren't downsides: the PC's start out the story separated from each other, away from their Chancel (just as well, as it's currently occupied by hostile forces), and utterly Amnesiac from the psychic shock of what's just happened.

(Cool, but also a key game-thing: since the players have amnesia, the PLAYERS don't have to keep track of all the background stuff -- they don't even have to remember the game rules... as they slowly remember who and what they are, I can phase in their introduction to the rules and background: one player has an Aspect confrontation... another works with her Domain... another with her Gifts while a fourth is contacted by a Nobilis that wants to help them avoid the forces sent by Lord Entropy.)

When they wake up, each encounters evidence that Things Aren't All Right, and that they've recently been involved in either Fight or Flight. Flashes of memory both help and hinder them at this point. One finds herself in an alleyway in London. Next to her lies the body of a dead man with no eyes, and she remembers (in a sudden flash) shooting him.

Except... she doesn't particularly like guns, and she has a distinct feeling that there is another, better, more appropriate weapon she would have been using...

They don't know who they are, why they can't remember themselves, or what's going on, but they've got a really bad feeling about this.

More (A sort of log of the first session) later.