High Fantasy Modern Storyhour - The Long Road (updated December 7)

2nd page already? My *bump* says no!

October 30, 2005
9:11 am

Robert rushes the man who looks like George Clooney, getting close enough to strike the man with his stun gun before the assassin can shoot him. As he struggles for his life, he remembers that the mechanic who had been repairing the bus at the Renaissance Festival had looked the same, and that something had been off with the man's accent. He curses himself for not having paid more attention at the time, because he could have stopped the bomb, saved people's lives, and not be grappling on the floor of his hotel room.

Several shots pop off from the assassin's silenced pistol as the two struggle on the floor. Robert is unable to get his stun gun close enough to strike the man, and he in turn can't get an angle to shoot Robert. Finally, as they roll and slam into the desk next to the bed, the assassin drops his pistol and grabs with both hands for Robert's stun gun. Sharp jerking pain courses through Robert's body, and he loses control of himself. When he next is coherent enough to take in his surroundings, he has a gun pressed to his chest.

"Right-o, chap," the assassin says in a chipper, near-Cockney accent. "You're not the kid, so tell me where that bloke is, and you might get out of this alive, alright?"


"Put a straight razor to his throat.
"He wouldn’t let him scream or holler
"Left him in a pile of blood,
"That killer Stakalee."



The man who looks like George Clooney has one knee planted on Robert's stomach, has a silenced Walther PPK pressed to Robert's chest over his heart, and is casually twiddling Robert's stun gun in his spare hand.

Robert fully intends to kill this man, so he sees no reason to keep up his act.

"I'll help you if you answer a few questions," Robert says. There's no fear in his voice. The assassin looks almost frightened by that.

"Roit, then," the assassin says. "You aren't going anywhere, now are you? Ask away, chap."

"Why are you trying to kill me and the others?"

"You're just collateral damage." The assassin grins. "We're just after your friend."

"Really? That's helpful. Which friend might that be?"

"The kid," the assassin says. "American nipper, twenty-something, went to a private school in Southampton. And before you ask, I don't know why he's a big deal. We're just doing a job, and you and yours got in the way. Which one is he?"

"You don't know?" Robert laughs. "You are the most incompetent assassin I've ever met. Of course, you're the only one I've ever met."

"Who's pointin' the gun at whose f*ckin' chest now, is he?" The assassin thumps Robert in the solar plexus with the barrel of his pistol. "Now, my dear negro friend, which one is he, and where is he?"

"I tell you that," Robert says, "you've got no reason to keep me alive. Let's cut a deal."

The assassin ponders this, rubbing his stubble with the same hand he's holding the stun gun in. He nods.

"Next question then," Robert says. "We had your boy as a hostage with us. Were you planning on blowing him up on the bus too?"

The assassin looks confused. "What boy?"

"You know, the witch guy, dressed in a suit."

"What the f*ck do you mean, a witch? I'm not playing along with your Halloween sh*t."

"No," Robert says, pretending to be flustered, "not a witch like a costume witch like the Wicked Witch of the West. No, I mean, y'know, the guy, who cast spells, had the black cat that turned into a panther."

When the assassin doesn't say anything, Robert looks closely at the man. The assassin's expression is quite confused. Robert groans.

"Great," he says. "Just great. It's not just one group of people trying to kill me. There's two of you, and you don't even know about magic yet. D*mmit. That's just frikkin' great."

"Hey," George Clooney says. "You gonna answer me f*ckin' questions any time soon?"

"Alright, alright," Robert says. He has the man distracted enough now. "You can have the guy, seriously. It's not worth dying over. You let me up, I call my friend, tell him to meet me some place of your choosing, and then you let me go, alright? Now let me get my cel phone."

The assassin is wary. "Where is it? You can make a phone call just fine on the f*ckin' floor."

Robert sighs and nods his head toward the bed. "My jacket on the bed."

The assassin turns his gaze away for just a second to glance at the bed, and Robert surges into motion. With one hand he tries to bat the gun away from his heart, while with the other he pulls his straight razor out of his pocket and flicks it open, going for the man's throat. The assassin fires off a shot in surprise, but the bullet strikes Robert in the right collar instead of his heart. Robert's slash with the straight razor lands true, and blood sprays across him from the assassin's jugular.

He shoves the assassin off him, grabbing for the stun gun while the British man struggles to staunch the gushing blood from his throat. A moment later, Robert wrests the stun gun free and slams its business end onto the assassin's temple. The man goes limp, but to be safe Robert gives him a few more jolts.

Sagging from the gunshot wound he's only now feeling, Robert picks up the assassin's pistol, considers if it's worth the trouble to try to interrogate him, and then fires two shots into the man's head.

Then, with practiced ease, he puts down the gun, goes to the bathroom, and looks for his forensic gloves.


The directions Terry got take them to Decatur Street in the French Quarter, inside a small bar, and then through a door into, amazingly, yet another bar.

"Is there an office upstairs?" Terry asks the bartender.

The man nods, not bothering to look up from his work. Alongside the rows of bottles behind the bar is a plaque, upon which is mounted a shotgun.

"This place rocks, Terry," Scarpedin says.

Terry follows a point from the bartender to an inconspicuous doorway. Behind the door is a short staircase up, stopping right in front of a door that looks like it's out of a 30s detective film. The frosted glass window reads, "Brief Marketing Management. 9:30 am to 1 pm."

Belladonna checks her cel phone, then shrugs. "We're early."

"I'm gonna get some whiskey," Scarpedin says.

John frowns. "Let's just go knock and get this over with."

"Why you gotta be a killjoy, man?" Scarpedin sighs. "You need to lighten up."

"Don't be so hard on him," Nathan says. "The man's obviously in denial about his angelic parentage."

Terry smiles and leads the way. The five of them crowd up the narrow stairs, and Terry knocks. A moment later a shadow falls across the window from inside, and a woman says, "Brief Marketing Management. I'm sorry, but we're closed today."

"I'm Terry Abrams," Terry says. "I called just a while ago."

A pause, then, "Just a second."

She walks away from the door, leaving them waiting on the landing. From downstairs in the bar they hear a phone ring, and then a moment later they can vaguely hear the woman asking over the phone about them.

John mutters, "She sounds flustered. Are you sure these people can help?"

Scarpedin laughs. "Of course they can help. They're the Men in Black. Dammit, I should've brought my black sunglasses."

"It's probably just a front," Terry says. "Keeps curious people away. I hope."

The door opens, and a red-haired woman in a black suit greets them. She's small and looks nervous, and is the only person in a rather large reception room. A pair of couches line the walls, along with a bookshelf of thick, droll-looking texts. Across from the couches is a fine desk, and behind it is a hallway. There are no windows, just an overhead fan with low-wattage bulbs.

Once they're all inside, she closes the door behind them, then sits behind the desk.

"Welcome to the Bureau for the Management of Magicks," she says. "How can I help you?"

October 30, 2005
9:17 am

Terry starts explaining what has happened to them. The red-headed Bureau agent, named Raine, listens intently for a minute, looking like this is business as usual to her. That is until Terry says that he plane shifted the group to Gaia to get them away from Rex and Hex.

“What did you say?” Raine asks. “You were able to plane shift? You’re not fey, are you?”

Terry shakes his head. “No. Um, we heard that there was a problem with plane shifting.”

Raine smiles and picks up the phone. “So hopefully you understand how important this is. You’re serious, you were able to go to Gaia, and then get back, and this was just a few days ago?”

“Yesterday,” Terry says.

Raine looks relieved, and she starts to dial a number.

Belladonna leans forward, and the rest of the group leans close too, whispering among themselves while Raine talks on the phone. Belladonna hopes they’re not in trouble, because she just wants things to get back to normal so they can all go to the Halloween party her uncle’s putting on tomorrow. Nathan is a little frustrated that Terry had not even managed to get to the point of the story where he shows up and helps save the day. Terry wonders why there’s only one person here. Scarpedin asks if anyone else thinks that Raine looks like Geena Davis.

John listens to Raine’s phone call.

When she hangs up, he asks, “Who’s Balthazaar?”

“A former agent,” Raine says. “If you’ll allow me, I’m sure you have some questions, and I have some information that will make things make more sense, I hope. Then I’ll listen to the rest of your story, and Balthazaar should hopefully get here by then.”

“Alright,” Terry says.

Raine takes a breath, bites her lip, and explains the situation. Just under two weeks ago, on October 17, the normal channels that the Bureau and everyone else uses to travel between Terra and Gaia stopped working. At that time, the majority of Bureau agents in every major North American office were on Gaia, responding to a rash of supernatural disturbances and attacks on the Gaian offices. Right now she is the only active agent in New Orleans, and the only other Bureau personnel in the city are analysts and techs. Thankfully there have been relatively few magical crimes these past two weeks, but with Halloween tomorrow, she’s expecting all hell to break loose.

There are three main methods of planar travel, she explains. The first are the keys, magical devices that are very expensive and difficult to create, which allow you to go between one pre-determined location on Terra and one on Gaia. The second are fey, powerful magical creatures who can innately travel between the two worlds. Third are humans, elves, and other sentients who have learned plane shifting magic. Few people bother, because the magic is difficult, and it is usually easier to just buy a key or pay for the use of one.

None of those three methods are working, Raine says, which is why Terry’s story is so interesting. At that, she adds hurriedly that of course she also cares that they were attacked, but that they should understand the important ramifications of what Terry is saying.

“We have over a dozen Bureau agents trapped on Gaia here in New Orleans,” she says. “They have supplies, food, and weapons, but the majority of our agents were in Gaian Savannah at the moment plane shifting stopped working, because there was some sort attack there.”

John asks, “Savannah is the main Bureau office?”

“In the States, yes,” Raine says. “The problem is, I’m almost certain that the office on Gaia here in New Orleans is understaffed, and there are people and creatures who are hostile to the Bureau. If they found out that there weren’t as many people guarding the office, they might have attacked. Either way, as bad as things are on Gaia, they’ll be worse here if I’m the only one around to keep order.”

“What about Savannah?” John asks. “Are you guys really this incompetent?”

Raine stammers a bit. “I’ve kept in touch with Jenny Windgrave, the ranking agent there on the Terra side. Details are sketchy, but around sunset on the seventeenth a large group attacked the office on Gaia in Savannah. We responded by sending all the personnel we could round up, leaving some to guard the office on Gaia here. I was on patrol that night, and didn’t get back in time. If this whole thing wasn’t a coincidence, and we don’t think it is, then someone went to a lot of trouble to get our people on Gaia.”

There’s a moment of quiet as the group thinks about what that could mean. Then John asks, “Patrolling for what?”

Raine shrugs like it’s not important. “The usual. Hotspots around New Orleans, graveyards and the docks and like that.”

Nathan smiles, “You mean like vampires.”

“Well, yes,” Raine says. “There are a few of those. More of them on Gaia.”

“Damned vampires,” Scarpedin says. “I thought we got rid of them. Glad there are still some around, actually.”

They look at him in confusion, and Terry asks what he’s talking about.

“I just wish I could get a chance to kill some vampires again,” Scarpedin says, wistful but still managing to sound tough. “Back in the good old days, me and Arthur and the rest of the knights would go out on vampire hunts. And, I mean, sh*t, back then we didn’t have movies. We didn’t know you could just kill them with a piece of wood and some garlic. All we knew was that they were damned fun because you could chop them up a lot and keep chopping them up. We’d spend all night, hacking at them to keep them from healing, waiting for the sun to come up.”

Raine cringes slightly, put off by the story. “What is he talking about?”

“Oh,” Nathan says, “he was one of King Arthur’s knights, from Camelot.”

Raine draws in a breath. “Please tell me this isn’t all just some sort of prank.”

Terry smiles in understanding. “Sadly no. Want me to continue my story?”

“Sure,” Raine says.


Ten minutes later there’s a knock at the door, and Raine lets in a man who looks like Kevin Kline, dressed in a brown trench coat, with a goattee. When he speaks, his deep, regal British accent surprises them all.

“Tell me the situation quickly.”

Raine ticks off points on her fingers. “Terry, the young man there, doesn’t have a ghost, but he’s able to use magic. A few days ago he was in Alaska, and a sniper shot and killed his girlfriend, and he escaped. Terry is able to plane shift to Gaia and back, which he did just yesterday when a group tried to abduct him and attack his companions. They have the group’s leader prisoner, polymorphed as a raven in that backpack. They think there’s a second group that wanted to kill them, not just abduct Terry. The bus that blew up last night was the bus they were supposed to be on. If not for this man, Nathaniel Beckford, offering them a ride, they would have been killed in the explosion.”

“Telepath?” Balthazaar asks.

“Precog,” Raine says.

“Let me guess,” Balthazaar chuckles. “You’ve never run across the Bureau before?”

“Not knowingly,” Nathan says. “I wasn’t aware that being psychic was a crime.”

Raine smiles. “The Bureau likes to keep tabs on people with your sort of power. Spellcasters too, but precognitives are hard to track down because they often instinctively avoid going places where we could find them. None of you are in trouble, though.”

“Good,” John says. “We’re the ones who were attacked.”

Balthazaar smiles despite John’s bad mood. To Terry he says, “How long have you had magical power?”

Terry shrugs. “A while. I didn’t get training until four years ago.”

“Do you know who your parents are?”

“Yeah. What the hell are you getting at?”

Balthazaar leans against Raine’s desk. “Just trying to make sure I understand the situation. The only people who can use magic without ghosts are those with magical blood, from an elvish parent perhaps, or those who train very hard in antiquated rituals. Right now you’re the only person who can plane shift, and I want to find out why.”

“Actually,” Belladonna says, “that’s not entirely true. That Japanese fella showed up on both Terra and Gaia, and the ghost of Ded Bob could see us, and so could the fey woman.”

Balthazaar tenses. “A fey?”

Terry holds up a hand and shakes his head. “Not a real fey. Just a nymph. Ah, Belladonna, you call them ‘fey’ only if they’re the really powerful ones.”

Belladonna smirks. “Alright then, hon. Fairy, then.”

John asks, “Why are you afraid of fey?”

Balthazaar says, “It’s just a good idea to be careful when fey are involved. The high fey only show themselves for two things. Incredibly important events, and completely pointless ones that interest them on whim.”

John scoffs.

Scarpedin says, “You’re a vampire hunter. You’re a f*ckin’ British Buffy.”

Balthazaar glares at Scarpedin for a moment, then turns back to Belladonna. “You said there was also a Japanese man, a ghost, and a nymph who were on both sides.”

“And Chandler,” Belladonna says. “Another ghost. My nana never told me about ‘Gaia,’ but I know a thing or two about ghosts.”

Balthazaar and Raine exchange a look, and Raine shrugs.

She says, “I’ll contact the Savannah office and get some research started. It might be possible that the Renaissance festival itself somehow allowed you to plane shift. It might have nothing to do with you, Terry.”

“I was able to get to Gaia in Alaska,” Terry says, “after Lin. . . .”

Balthazaar crosses his arms. “Terry, I understand you’ve gone through some very stressful situations these past few days, but I’m going to have to ask for your help. I and the Bureau will do everything in our power to make sure you are safe and that those who have tried to harm you are found and dealt with, but you’ve come in a time when the Bureau is not doing it’s best.

“Would you be willing to help?” Balthazaar asks. “We need to retrieve our agents here in New Orleans and others in Savannah from Gaia, at which point we’ll have more manpower to help you. You’re in the middle of something very strange and dangerous, and unfortunately you cannot simply look to us for protection. We must work together.”

Terry nods gravely. “Yeah.”

John says, “I’m going to help too.”

“Me too,” Scarpedin says. “Damn, it’s like the good old days.”

Nathan says, “This could be a good way for me to help out the folks in my visions, if I could have Bureau help.”

“Sh*t yeah,” Scarpedin says. “Balthazaar, can I be an agent?”

“I hope not,” Balthazaar answers.

Slowly, everyone turns to look at Belladonna.

“Terry,” Belladonna says.

She lets it hang in the air, and Terry nods.

“Yeah, I know. We’re in this together, I suppose. If you’re going to come along, I won’t object. Just be careful, alright?”

Raine stands. “How soon can you go?”

“Um. . . ,” Terry winces. “Last time I tried I was a little rushed, and things went poorly. I normally only try to plane shift after I’ve had a while to acclimate to an area’s energy. New Orleans is a pretty erratic place, so . . . I don’t know. Tomorrow morning, probably?”

“Oh,” Raine says. “Well, I suppose that will give us time to plan. Anything else?”

Balthazaar looks at John. “You have a prisoner.”

John nods, then opens the backpack. Balthazaar reaches in and pulls out the raven, pausing for a moment to examine the obviously broken wings.

“He resisted,” Terry says defensively.

“Understandable,” Balthazaar says, “but still illegal. You’re lucky I don’t work for the Bureau anymore.”

“Yeah,” Nathan starts, “about that-?”

Balthazaar interrupts him, looking the raven in its eyes and saying, “Morgan.”

The raven nods. “Balthazaar. Let’s talk about this in private, so these people cannot color your interrogation.”

Balthazaar shakes the bird slightly, and Morgan groans in pain.

“Do not try to use your magic on me,” Balthazaar growls. To the others he adds, “He is a witch, so be wary when he tries to look you in the eye. But do not avoid his gaze. Face it knowingly, and he will have less of a chance of controlling you.”

Raine asks, “Should I prepare a cell?”

Balthazaar nods. “And contact a healer if there’s one on this side. If he cooperates, he doesn’t need to stay in pain.”

John says, “You know this guy?”

“Morgan McCool,” Balthazaar says, “is one of the most prominent Knights of the Round in Texas. He works for a Mr. O from New York. Morgan, do you have anything to add that I haven’t already heard?”

“Yes,” Morgan says. “There was a misunderstanding. My men were more zealous than I’d expected, and they died for it, but I only acted in self defense.”

“There’s a spell on him?” Balthazaar asks.

Terry nods, and concentrates for a moment. There is a faint green glow on the raven, and then Balthazaar puts the injured bird down. As he steps away, where the bird was now appears Morgan, lying on his side, his suit crumpled and stinking, his forearms twisted from broken bones.

One by one, Morgan glares at them. They meet his eyes fearlessly, and the defiance in the witch fades slowly, until he finally looks like the broken man he is. Balthazaar picks up Morgan and helps the man stagger down the hallway, to a holding cell.

Just then, Scarpedin’s phone rings. He answers it.

“Hello? . . . What? . . . Sh*t man, call 911! . . . Oh, yeah. Yeah, I’m not stupid, Robert.”

Terry asks, “What is it?”

“We’ll be right there,” Scarpedin says. He hangs up and says, “Um. . . . Robert just killed a guy in our hotel. We probably ought to, y’know, go now.”

Now, some of you may be wondering about my sig, where I said I caught on fire last night. Well, at the Halloween party I was at last night, I was dressed as a Hawaiian fey. Hawaiian shirt, Hawaiian print swim trunks, sandals, green hair spray all over my face and hair, a coconut bra hanging from my belt, and a small fake Christmas tree draped over my shoulders.

One of my friends, Rob (who has not joined this campaign by the point I'm at now, but who will be joining later) was trying to explain that his hair is actually reddish-brown, not red, as some people were claiming. He gets irked about this easily, and so people joked about his 'flaming red hair' to rile him a bit. Then another friend, Lauryn (who was dressed as a sexy pirate, and upon whom I have quite the crush) commented that she had always wanted to be able to save someone's life by shouting "Stop, drop, and roll!" In response, the group began to talk about who they should set on fire, and inevitably my name came up.

Now mind you, I wasn't even involved in this conversation. I was in a different part of the house, where a group of my friends were watching a vampire adult movie. I personally wasn't interested in the movie, but I was there to chat with some of my friends. It was completely unbeknownst to me that my friends were discussing how best to set me alight.

There were candles all around the room to provide spooky lighting, and so I was standing a safe distance from the counter on which said candles were placed. Unfortunately, though, I was standing in the way of my friend Laura (who plays Bellaonna in this storyhour). Laura was dressed as the Jack Daniels Fairy -- along the lines of the tequila fairy or the vodka fairy -- so when she told me, "You're standing in the way of the porn," I of course did not want to offend the source of my alcohol. So I backed up.

A moment later, I began to feel hot, and I thought, "Oh, maybe I'm sitting on a computer. I think I'll move."

I excused myself, and then as I started to walk out people started shouting that I was on fire. Faster than I realized what I was doing, I had nearly half-stripped, dumping my Hawaiian shirt onto the floor and stamping it out. There was an uproar of shouts around the house as people in the party wondered what had happened. People around me were asking if I was alright.

And then Lauryn, the girl I have a crush on, arrives, and the first thing out of her mouth is, "Darn! You're not still on fire!"

*chokes, then gasps for air*
Well now... THAT is funny!

For Halloween this year, I just sat at home and played video games. I wish I could have caught fire at a party; that sounds like fun!

The best part is that you can claim your premeditating friends accidentally enacted some sort of ritual (check to see if they have any tradition feats ).

October 30, 2005
10:00 am

John walks alongside Balthazaar, smoking a cigarette as the two men hustle to the hotel. It's Sunday morning, and the stench of last night's beer and vomit mingles with the sweet smell of Creole cooking and fresh bignets, with just a hint of old rot that sometimes sweeps across the city after the hurricane.

"How do you keep spellcasters under control?" John asks.

Balthazaar frowns. "I don't. The Bureau does."

"You just tossed a witch into a holding cell. The bars are big enough for a raven to crawl out. What keeps him in."

"Morgan's ghost was bonded to a creature, his familiar. When not in the presence of his familiar, he cannot use his magic."

John looks off in dismay, then turns back to the knight. "That's it? What are you going to do with him?"

"You need to learn that, as a secret organization, the Bureau is not going to offer you all the answers you want. Normally this would have been handled much more smoothly, but as I said, the Bureau is not at its best now."

John laughs once. "Yeah, I couldn't tell."


Nathan took Scarpedin, Terry, and Belladonna in his car, but traffic is such that they arrive at the hotel at about the same time as Balthazaar and John. Together they all head up to the hotel room Robert is in, and they enter cautiously, Balthazaar taking the lead.

"Are you alright?" Balthazaar asks.

"Sh*t!" Robert says. "Another assassin."

It takes a moment to calm him down to the point that he can explain that the man who attacked him was British, and that Balthazaar's accent spooked him. Robert is a bloody mess, with a gunshot wound near his collar bone, and splatters of blood all across his face, chest, and hand. He's half-shaven, with some shaving cream still on his face.

On the floor, slumped against the wall, is the dead assassin, two gunshot wounds in his face.

Robert explains that man came upon him while he was shaving in the bathroom, and had started asking questions about 'the kid,' like he was looking for Terry but didn't know who Terry was. Robert says that he answered the guy's questions as best he could without giving too much away, but the British assassin had gotten impatient and tried to shoot him.

At this point in his story, Robert shudders at the memory, and he has a hard time remembering how things happened. He just remembers being shot, grappling with the man, and cutting the man's throat with his razor. He seems particularly revolted by that. Belladonna wonders why he shot the man in his face, but no one there really holds it against him.

Robert's wounds are thankfully non-fatal, and Terry slowly casts a healing spell on Robert, to help him recover. Balthazaar checks the body, finding a fake ID. John takes the assassin's pistol. Scarpedin and Belladonna go to the other rooms and find two others had been ransacked. As to the matter of the dead body in the hotel room and the copious blood on the carpet and bullet holes in the walls, Robert says that it shouldn't be a problem, since that's what the Bureau is supposed to handle, covering things up.

"Yeah," John says. "That's not gonna happen. They've only got two people in the city."

Robert stares. "What?"

"Apparently," John says, looking pained from even having to say it, "all their agents are on Gaia, and since Terry's the only person who can planeshift, we have to help them."

"Slow down," Robert says. "I-"

Balthazaar interrupts. "Two weeks ago there was an attack on the main Bureau headquarters in the United States, and most agents used magic to go to the headquarters' defense. Almost immediately thereafter the connection between the two worlds was severed, and until your group walked into our office, we had no way to get between the worlds. The best course of action is for you to assist us in retrieving our agents, both here and in Savannah, so that we'll have the necessary manpower to protect you and fix this problem."

Robert blinks, then turns to Terry. "You said that these guys were going to help. Dammit, I would have been better off hitch-hiking."

John shrugs. "I can't believe they need our help, but it's just Balthazaar the vampire hunter here, and a redheaded chick."

"Vampire hunter?" Robert says.

"By the way," Nathan says, "the woman, Raine, said that you were a former agent. What do you do for a living now?"

Balthazaar ignores the question. "We have to dispose of this body. Tomorrow evening, after we get back from Gaia, we should be able to send agents over to discreetly remove it, but we need to make sure a maid won't stumble across it and raise too many questions."

Belladonna says, "Why not stick it in the closet?"

"Okay," Robert says, holding up a hand, "morbid a little. Why can't we just go to the police, tell them these guys were the ones who blew up the bus, and do this legally?"

"Do we want to attract police attention?" Terry says. "Sure, we can explain this away, but what happens when a cop puts together that we were at the Ren Fest where there were mysterious shootings, and on the bus that blew up, and now here? They're going to start asking a lot of questions."

The group unhappily agrees. Belladonna provides yet another morbid suggestion: that they use healing magic to make the body look unharmed, so a coroner could not determine the cause of death. Their other option, dumping the body onto Gaia, will have to wait until tomorrow at least, and even then Terry is squeamish at dumping a body into what is an inhabited area on the other plane.

They clean the room as best they can, heal the body, and stick it in a closet. Belladonna pays to cover the cost of the rooms for another two days, then recommends they come to her own personal villa, on the east side of the French Quarter, since, if there are more assassins, they already know to look for them at this hotel.

Robert and John are disapproving of the Bureau, not trusting a group that appears so incompetent at its job, but they and the others agree to cooperate for now, since if nothing else they need the Bureau to clear them of suspicions of being terrorists. They relocate to Belladonna's villa, where they meet her Nana, a sweet black lady in her eighties who makes them delicious shrimp salad sandwiches before performing a voodoo ritual to protect the house from those who mean them ill.

John finds a pay phone and calls his father in New York, and Belladonna calls her father to make sure it'll be alright for her to bring additional guests to the Halloween party. She wants to go out costume shopping, but the rest of the group vetoes that, not wanting to go out until they know more about who they're after.

Nathan has actual business, however. He has had a vision, and he talks with Balthazaar about what it might mean. Nathan tries to concentrate to gain more information, and from the various images and flashes he gets, Balthazaar determines that something is going to happen in the Audobon Zoo that evening, something involving a gun fight and a key to a crypt. From the description of the tomb, both Balthazaar and Belladonna easily recognize it as the famous crypt of Marie LaVeau, the Voodoo Queen of New Orleans.

Back at the Renaissance festival, when Robert had played 'Scrabble' with the strange Japanese man, Wiji-wiji, the pieces he had received had spelled Marie LaVeau. The coincidence is too unusual, but though the group wants to look into it, they're hesitant about going into danger. Plus, because part of Nathan's vision was of Terry being shot by a French man, they want to keep away from French people.

So while Balthazaar takes the exuberant Scarpedin to the zoo for what will likely devolve into a gun fight, the rest of the group decides they're going to discreetly stake out the tomb of Marie LaVeau, hoping they can get some more information about the people who are after them.

Marie LaVeau's tomb is quite the tourist attraction, especially around Halloween, and there will be cops and tons of civilians around, so the group feels safe. Balthazaar takes Scarpedin away to give him a crash course on how to comport himself if he's going to work with the Bureau, a lesson the rest of the group is certain is doomed to failure. They're all still a little nervous around Scarpedin, though, so they're happy Balthazaar is taking him.

After Balthazaar leaves, Nathan gets the attention of the rest of the group.

"I don't think he was aware I was doing this," Nathan says, "but I read him, to see his past and see if we could trust him."

"And?" John says.

"And, until two weeks ago, Balthazaar was in prison. Raine, who is an ex-girlfriend of his, took it upon herself to get him out of the prison."

"I hate the Bureau," Robert says. "I've only met two of them, and I already hate them. We're working with a criminal?"

Belladonna says, "Hold on. Let's not be too judgmental boys. What did he do?"

"Officially, I have no idea," Nathan says. "But the reason the Bureau arrested him and put him away was because he murdered someone."

"Oh," Robert says, laughing mockingly, "is that all?"

"Well, to be fair," Terry says, "it's not like no one here has done that."

Robert frowns. "I did mention I was having a bad day, right? I'm sorry, but I'm a little uncomfortable with this whole 'killing people' thing. Now Belladonna, do you have some guns? We should probably be armed when we go to this graveyard tonight."

What sorts of other rules information would you be interested in, if anything? I could post NPCs, PCs, monster stats (though most of those are just copied and fudged from D&D and d20 modern), world information, sample spells, or even playtest information about how things went wrong and got revised as the rules went along. Let me know, and I'll post it.

Tell us more about Arthur, Merlin: Vampire-Slayahs (and their trusty light-sabers)! (Don' be hatin', Ranger Wicked! Don' be hatin'!)

I sadly don't have much mechanical information about Arthur . . . yet. I will say that, in a recent session, one PC recovered the scabbard Excalibur was kept in. He almost thought it was a waste of time, until he got it identified. As it was an artifact, I felt no need to actually stat out how it was created, but here's what it did:

Scabbard of Excalibur
You cannot die through hit point loss. Whenever you are reduced to less than 0 hit points, at the beginning of your next turn you heal up to 0 hit points. You can still be killed by a coup de grace, extreme fatal trauma (such as being crushed under a boulder), or death magic.

You cannot be disarmed against your will. Any sword you sheath in this scabbard for at least one minute is enhanced with life magic. For one minute after you draw it, the sword bypasses any damage reduction on undead, and can harm incorporeal undead as if it were a ghost touch weapon.



This came in handy in Saturday's game because . . . well, I'll just have to get there. I'm a bit behind in the timeline of the game, though, so let me post a bit to try to catch up. I'll have to condense a few things to get to the good parts.

Trying out some new attention-getters.


"A land that has no more legends," says the poet, "is condemned to die of cold." This may well be true. But a people without myths is already dead.


Elements of Magic - Mythic Earth
Making magic flavorful and fun again.

Update later tonight.