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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ulfgeir" data-source="post: 7809295" data-attributes="member: 7015719">Book 7: The call of the wildTwo years passed since the horrible events that had shaken Boston so badly. I had actually managed to finish my education and was now working full time with the theatre, and we were doing good, and had had a number of hit performances. I had moved in with Isabella. But to keep up the illusion, I had actually gone on a few dates with guys before we had officially met. And when we did meet, she seduced me again. Yes I am a sucker for romance, but I also love being ravished, something she did very well. I still had some nightmares, but the therapy was helping. To ease my conscience and atone for what I had done, I had started helping kids and youths that were in trouble. I knew all about suffering, and was quite good at helping them. I had of course made sure to make it clear to  Isabella, that if she ever returned to her former live of doing evil, then she had better make sure I was dead or I would do everything in my power to stop her. And I would find a way, even though she was so much more powerful than I were.A lot had happened in the two years. The FBI had had lots of troubles, and a lot of their management had been fired. Good riddance is all I can say. On the good side was that the police officer that Tim Dobson had known earlier, had now been promoted to police commissioner. He did seem to be quite capable, and had made good rapport with the general public. All gangs except one of the gangs in the Spanish parts of Boston had vanished from the city. Sure there were still some crime, but the gang seemed to actually care about the people in the neighbourhood. The wiccan sorority had dispersed, and another sorority now used the house. Some of the girls had been turned into vampires during that fatal attack, others had had mental breakdowns or just left town. I had tried to keep in touch with some of them, but they didn't seem to be interested. There were also rumours that some strange person haunting the cellars of the rebuilt campus. Some witnesses claimed to have seen some nerdy-looking man who looked quite sick. Could George have survived the vampire-attacks? No one had been able to find him.The White council had gotten some new members, but they had also lost others as they had done more investigation in the events. Apparently there had been 21 persones in the council that had been on Lucia and Kalevi's side,as well as 50 outside the council. Two of those were students of Francis Black. He was no longer actively hunted, but the council was still on edge. There had also been two more shards of Ibliss involved.As for my friends, Karl and Peggy had married during the summer, and it had been a very nice  outdoors wedding with almost 200 guests. Peggy had also given birth to a set of twins; a boy and a girl. They were named Ask and Embla. Karl had said something about that being mythological names. Ymer had really grown now, and now looked like he was twelve years old. Star had been travelling a lot. It seemed that whatever had happened to her, had made her lose all her skill and love for music. Now she was far more serious and wanted to learn how to fight. I must say that that scared me, as she had been dangerous before. Lisa had recovered fully from her injuries, and were now the operational boss for all wardens in the North-East US. I think Antonio had helped her with her recovery. I was a bit surprised but quite happy that Imogen and Lisa were now actually a couple, even if they didn't get to see each other so often. Antonio had moved out of Imogen's house and now lived with his sister, who had started studying at the university. As far as I gathered, Karl and Mirou had given her a stipend, in exchange for Antonio helping them out with some PR-stuff,and he was also very active with helping the poor in Boston.  Something I never had expected was that he had now settled down in a stable relationship with a woman named Catherine, who was a consultant as far as I gathered. Zhujiang and Kuro  had stuck around, but I hadn't seen them much. Apparently they were busy making diplomatic contacts between various supernatural organisations. Mirou had been busy with his company and done a lot of travel, he was still dating Nathalie.Antonio had held a fundraiser for the poor at the theatre. Mirou and Karl had helped. The other actors had been quite happy to help, but sadly we didn't do quite as well performance as last time. I think it was because everyone was still on the edge after the vampire-attacks and all the chaos and suffering that had happened. But we did good, and a lot of money were donated to a good cause.I liked the Christmas-party that Mirou organized earlier. A perfect place outside town, with fireplaces for warmth and lots of decorations. I think some of it was for the benefit of me and Imogen, but he claimed it was due to the children that were present. It was very charming though and quite idyllic. I got to meet Mirou's father. The feeling I got was that he was a man with a lot of wealth and power. Definitively not someone you would want to  make angry. I could tell that he was not a normal human, but I had no intention of trying to find out more. It would be rude. Besides, I already had some ideas.All the preparation for the presidential election were in full swing. Some of the candidates were real nut cases, to say the least. Hell, some of them made Star at her most confused look like a wonder of mental ability. And the worst ones based their ignorance and hatred on their misunderstandings of the bible. So much for treating others like you yourself wanted to be treated. The really scary part was that they had a lot of support. I feared for what would happen if any of them got elected. Isabella and I hadn't talked about marriage yet, even though we were certain we wanted to spend our lives together. Massachusetts was one of the few states that allowed two persons of the same gender to  marry. All of that could change though if the wrong person gained power. Even though a marriage might mean some protections, I had a feeling it would also make life a lot more complicated for both of us.The cold from the winter kept on, and spring hadn't really come until the beginning of May, that started with a day that had so thick fog that you hardly saw two yards ahead of you. I couldn't find out anything about the origins  of it or what it was for, but I had a feeling it came from the Queen of Mists, for some devious purpose. Some people reported having seen strange shapes moving inside the fog. I had a feeling a lot of people would end up vanishing without a trace if they ventured out in the fog. The day after, the fog had vanished without a trace, and we finally got the warmth of spring.At the end of the week, Karl invited us all to his house for a barbecue at his place. Mirou couldn't make it because he was away on an urgent meeting. When I talked to Karl, he said that apparently according to the old laws then Ymer owned all the land around Boston and that the three Faerie Queens that were bound to the sacrifice had some ties to him. Not sure I that was good or not. They had gone out in the forest where Ymer had spoken to the heralds, who had bowed to him, and then he had wanted to see the grave of the Troll King. I would have to ask Ymer about what exactly the old laws contained.During the party, we found out that Peggy was pregnant again. Big congratulations to Peggy and Karl. I could tell that Antonio was getting a bit uncomfortable with that though as his girlfriend Catherine, seemed to think that the idea of starting a family was a good idea. He had been caught, hook, line, sinker and all. Star was a bit put off that no one wanted to have sex with her. Oh Goddes how strange could one get? Yes, she is quite attractive, but then everyone at the party were already in a relationship. Catherine was quite shocked about Star's question for an orgy. Guess Antonio hadn't told her about how strange Star could be.During the afternoon, Nathalie came by, and wondered if Mirou was there. He had been supposed to come home the day before, and she hadn't been able to reach him. I offered to use my magic, to see if I could find him. After checking with Karl for a place I could use, I set up a circle and did a scrying. I saw a scene as if I were in a war-zone. Smoke and fire everywhere and the smell of burnt meat. I could hear bullets flying around. It was total chaos. As far as I could make out he was alive though. When I told Nathalie, she excused herself and immediately set off to New York. Karl put on the news when he heard about my vision. There had been a terrorist attack in New York the day before, with a lot of people injured or killed. The car of a diplomat had been blown up. Oh, heavens, what had Mirou done now?Naturally this put quite a bit of a damper on the party. We couldn't do anything with more information, so Karl started calling all the hospitals in New York. After a while he managed to find the right hospital, and learned that Mirou was indeed there and that he was not too badly hurt. He then called Nathalie and told her. I tried getting hold of the Paranet to learn anything about what was going on, but no one knew anything. We decided that Nathalie should see how bad the situation was, and if need be should we get down to New York. After a few hours Karl got a telegram, stating that Mirou would come by later on during the nigh. Why would he use a telegram instead of calling Karl? It wasn't as if didn't know the number.Mirou did indeed come by during the evening, together with Nathalie and two big muscular body guards. He had been hurt in the attack, but was feeling better now. He had been doing a job for his father in New York. The person he had been negotiating with had been killed, and he suspected that it was another family that lay behind it. He thought that they would be after us as well since we were his friends. Well, since he had helped defend Yukimi earlier, I had to help him. I unfortunately had nothing to use as symbolic links for my divination magic, so for now I could only wait.We decided though to talk about what we could do, to prepare in case someone would come after us, and to find out what was going on. Given the kind of weapons that had been used, according to the news and what Mirou said, we figured that it would take someone with a lot of resources. Karl apparently knew some people that might know more, so he contacted them. Zhujian would contact his organisation to see if they knew anything more about big international power players. Given the names of the parties involved, I decided to do some research and found out that Ashi-Dahaka was according to ancient myths, the dragon that would end the world as we knew it now and usher in a new era.Karl managed to find out that an attack-helicopter and other types of heavy weapons that were supposed to have been shipped to Iraq had been mysteriously diverted to New York a month and a half ago, and that also went for some of the independent contractors, or mercenaries, that the government employed. Zhujiang learned that there were even more dragons involved; Vritra, Ahi, Zygornich, Kulshedra, and Ferrovax. When I talked to Isabella afterwards, she most emphatically said to stay out of their business as each of these beings were incredible powerful and they had no concern for who would get hurt in their bid for power.I contacted the Paranet to see if anyone knew of any supernatural groups starting something here on the east coast, and also issued a warning to the people that if they heard anything about dragons, then they should get very afraid and keep well away. Other than reports of a dragon having been sighted in New York during the terror-attack, no one seemed to know anything. My continued research gave nothing further than old mythology about dragons. I think Imogen tried contacting Maria, her teacher to see if the White Council knew anything. Star went away to see her court if they knew anything.We had a few day where nothing more happened. So hopefully things were not as bad as we had first thought. During the Friday, Star came by the theatre, when we had a rehearsal. She wanted me to help her find the Troll-king's ring. I agreed to help her as she would otherwise get into some kind of trouble. Apparently she had gone and made a deal with the Queen of Mist. No idea why. I told her I could help her once the rehearsal was finished, and made sure we quit a bit earlier. Then Star tells me that last time she took a mortal down there, Imogen got attacked by a vampire, and that we maybe should have someone else with us. I told her that would be a really good idea. She called Karl, while I called Imogen to check up on her. She claimed to be fine, and that she would call me if she stated developing some strange thirst. I wasn't entirely satisfied with that, but not much I could do at the moment.  Karl agreed to join us. Mirou and Zhujiang would go and check on Imogen and protect her in case the vampire came back. Or protect the rest of us if she turned into a vampire.I was a bit surprised when Karl turned up together with Peggy and Ymer. But it was not my place to question their decision to come. I knew Peggy was tough, and well, I could sort of understand why Ymer was there. I was after all going to use his father's grave as a link in my magic. Karl turned into wolf-form in order to protect us better as we went down there. Everything looked different from last time I had been down in the subways. It felt desolate, and we could see was dead rats lying around. Once we got down to the main chamber, we saw the huge stone coffin. There were lots of ornamented writing on it in some obscure language I could not identify. After Karl had indicated that we were alone and that there was no threat down there, I started making a huge circle with magical symbols on the ground, and then made a quick prayer to the Goddess to grant me clarity to see, as I sat down inside my circle which was made both to create a link to what I sought but also to protect me from any backlash of my visions. Getting knocked out by those visions weren't any fun, and therefore I took plenty of precautions to let the circle ground out any excess power.A series of images flashed through my mind. First the hacienda down in Brazil, then a city that had to be Alba Lulia in Romania from the descriptions I had gotten. I saw echoes of what had transpired, but I wasn't sure where things happened. People screamed in horror, then blood flowing as someone made a ritual sacrifice by cutting out the heart of someone. I  saw chaos and panic, and fire. Once the vision had cleared,  I slowly rose to my feet again. One thing I realized was that for someone to be able to cut out the heart of the Troll king, they would have needed to be the same size as he was. And I thought I had seen the hand holding the huge knife. The tips of the fingers had been white, with the rest of the hand then turning into a reddish orange colour with wisps of steam coming from it. I was not sure how to tell the others this. I didn't want to upset Ymer, but I somehow just knew that he had seen the same vision that I had, and it seemed as if he pondered the meaning of the vision. As I erased my circle, I offered my condolences for what had happened, but Ymer didn't seem to care for that as he hadn't known his father.When we came up from the subway, Star called Imogen again. Apparently the vampire had been there but he had gotten away. Karl and Star set off to her place, while Peggy drove me home as this had taken longer than I had thought, and it was now relatively late in the evening.  I had just started relaxing, when I got a call. Apparently the vampire had been at Imogen's house, but  had been driven away after some of the tough guys that Mirou had brought with him had opened fired on it. So they figured that the vampire had been injured and gone back to its hiding place, which they though were a cellar on Campus. They needed help, because otherwise he would regain his strength,and we really didn't need another vampire outbreak. Reluctantly I agreed to join the others in the quest to find and put down the black court vampire. Imogen confirmed that it was indeed George.When we got to the campus, Imogen veiled herself, and Star cast a veil over her so she looked like Imogen. Karl took wolf-form, and Mirou turned into a small dragon. Good thing it was in the middle of the night so no one saw us. Down in the basement, it smelled of death,and we immediately found a dead woman, who had been totally drained of blood and then had her neck snapped. Mirou was in dragon-form too big to go in through the smaller passages, so he would hold the entrance. He did something just as we had gone in, as we could hear a ripping sound and smell a vile stench.A bit further in we found,what could most be described as a nest of parts to computers and other electronic stuff. Various body-parts lay scattered around and it smelled awful. We found what had been his sleeping-quarters in a closet. At first we found no traces of George though, then suddenly Karl jumped up against a shelf and dragged him down to the floor. Zhujiang also attacked him. What remained of George then turned into a mist trying to go away. I used an airblast to knock him towards on of the walls, and Imogen now cast a spell of her own at him. Before we could react though he got loose and flew out towards the exit. I then cast my hyper-awareness spell on Star who followed after him. Karl also sprinted after him. Apparently that had alerted Mirou who blasted a cone of fire in through the passage, which set fire to a bunch of the electronic scrap in the basement. I used another spell to stop the fire. No use risking the house burning down. Sadly it seemed that George got away in the night. If he wasn't dangerous before, he sure was now. Yes we should have planned that much better. I feared that we would pay for that later. I just prayed that no one else had to pay for it.The day afterwards we met up at Karl's place, as we had planned on going a quick trip to Transylvania and search for whatever made the link I saw during the ritual at the tomb of Ymer's father. Hopefully it would be his ring, which I gathered had some special symbolic meaning. We had arranged to go there through Nevernever with the help of the teenagers and the way they knew. So we went to a place near the cemetery where we met up with them. They offered to join us, which we thought was fine, as they could take care of themselves. We had to take a somewhat different road in Nevernever as a giant dragon named Jörmungandr had woken up and laid waste to some areas.We also learned that there had been an attack Beijing, and that the head of the White Lotus Society had been killed. Someone had blown him up with the help of a bunch of missiles. Many blocks had been utterly destroyed. I don't know where Austin had got his information from, but it was something we needed to investigate. Not that we could do much, but at least the attack in Beijing would be very important to Zhujiang and KuroWhen we came to Alba Lulia, there was something that felt wrong. Karl turned into wolf form to go and scout, while Star summoned a bicycle and set of to do likewise. The rest of us hid and waited. Austin now carried a huge sword and two pistols. Hannah had her wizard staff, while Joshua carried an automatic rifle. Megan was the strange one, she didn't speak but somehow the others seemed to know exactly what she wanted. Like me she was unarmed.After a while both Karl and Star came back, they could each report that the city was abandoned, and they hadn't seen anyone. As far a they could tell,the city had been abandoned maybe six months ago. It hadn't been a done in panic, but the inhabitants had left some of the bulkier pieces of furniture around. When we came up to the castle, we saw that the gates had been destroyed, and partially burned. Inside we could see more evidence of a fight. Some rooms were burned out, while others were untouched. The castle felt cold.We started looking around, and I could see how Mirou's eyes became full of greed. He wanted all the riches that was there. Not that I blamed him,but we we did have other priorities. The sun illuminated most of the rooms, but a we headed downstairs into the areas cut out of the very bedrock, it all became dark. Star lighted the torches and lamps that decorated the walls, and they burned with a strange colour. On the way down we passed several cells, and torture-chambers. I could tell that they had been in good use. Hopefully none of the others noticed that I got quite aroused by being near some of the devices in the torture-chambers. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I would regret it if I touched any of them as I would certainly experience all the suffering that they had caused, but I could so see myself being tied up and whipped. It was something I would have to talk to Isabella about later. We did have room for one or two such devices, but if anyone saw it they would start to wonder. I wished we had our own dungeon where I could get disciplined.After a couple of levels of cells and torture-chambers where strange experiments had taken place, we found the skeleton of a huge troll. We could tell that the troll had been tied down , and the chest cavity had been broken up with a lot of force. Didn't know you could do that. There was no sign of the ring there though, so we continued to search. In yet another sub-basement, we found a stack of things that had been collected from the unfortunate victims of the owner of the castle. All neatly arranged first sorted by year, and then by person after person. Finally we found the belongings of the troll. There were some jewellery, a ceremonial sword and a huge metal ring that had belonged to the trollking. Star gathered up the items as she was going to give them to Ymer later on. Not sure where Antonio had picked up that 17th century hat he was suddenly wearing.We were a bit surprised that we had not found any signs of where the vampiress, whom we had learned were named Rozanne Gutlek, had lived. After some searching, Karl found a secret door in the floor of one of the workrooms. When we looked around we found that it was warded with a ward that was extremely powerful. I performed a divination-ritual in order to see if we could find the password that was needed to enter. Surprisingly enough I succeeded, and found that the password was the name of Rozanne's twin brother that had died when he was two years old. I also got the sense of peace, quiet, and a feeling of security. This was her place of retreat. We entered a small room, which was furnished in a simple way. All we found was a coffin filled with dirt, a table with some candles and writing utensils on it, and a book case filled with diaries. All neatly arranged in order, year after year. We looked in some but could not rad them as they were written in a language we could not understand. It probably was Mediaeval Romanian. The oldest books looked very fragile, as if they would fall apart by just touching them. If anyone could read them, they would be a treasure for historians.We also found a few focus items in the room. There would be lots of uncomfortable questions if we were to hand them in to the white council, and they were too dangerous to leave. I sure as hell didn't want to suffer the same kind of trauma I had gotten from the staff that had belonged to Isabella's brother. We decided to destroy them, together with the Troll Kings skeleton. We couldn't exactly offer him a proper burial, but we could cremate the remains. Star managed to get the remains out on the courtyard, and then Mirou set fire to it with dragon fire.We did decide to look some more at the place. Imogen took down some paintings that she wanted to bring with her, while Mirou packed up some of the diaries and some other stuff. Joshua and Austin took some paintings and put in some kind summoned mist, and the paintings just disappeared. If that was what I think it was, then that was a very neat trick. I didn't take anything with me from the castle, but I did appreciate the beauty of the priceless paintings. In a way I hoped that the art could be saved for the future. Maybe someone should some anonymous tips to a major museum like the Tate gallery in London or the Metropolitan museum in New York. They would have the resources and skills to conserve the art. Of course they would need to send lots of security personnel as well.As we were investigating, I got a feeling that something was wrong and that we needed to head back immediately. Of course the others didn't believe me, but after some talking, we left for home. When we got home, it had passed a day a and a half since we left. We learned that there had been a huge explosion in the house where Mirou lived. A lot of people had died, and Nathalie was in hospital in a critical condition and she had lost a leg. I called Mirou who was at the hospital, and asked him if there was anything I could do. He said there wasn't anything at the moment. He had apparently called her family and they would take her to a private hospital as soon as she was stable enough to move her. Given her condition it would be bad if Imogen or I visited.I spent the next few days doing work both at the theatre, and the charity work I did as well as trying to search for clues about George's whereabouts. But even with my divination rituals, could I find any traces of him in the city. Which I guess is a good thing. Hopefully he wouldn't make lots of new vampires somewhere else. I did almost feel a bit sorry for him.I got a letter later from Mirou where he had had been talking to his father, and apparently there seemed to be something strange going on. The dragon that everyone though had been behind the trouble had together with his children, claimed to never having left Persia, and was quite surprised of what was going on. Not sure I believed it, but not much I could do. Those dragons played in a league far above me. So if that dragon was innocent, then who had orchestrated the attacks? Turned out that more attacks came, a Master Stoorworm who had the role of CEO of a large company in London were murdered as a skyscraper were blown up  Then a plane flying from Japan to China mysteriously vanished. We learned later that there had been a dragon named Kunisada onboard. I could not help but wonder just how many dragons were there. I thought St. George and other mythological heroes had killed most of them.Antonio accompanied Star on some trip, where she searching for something that was related to her court as far as I could understand. Karl asked me if I wanted to accompany him and Ymer to Nevernever to see Queen Mab. Apparently Ymer had inherited some kind of obligation to her, and wanted to find out what was going on. I was a bit sceptical as it might be very dangerous. I talked it over with Isabella. She had met Mab before, and said that it could be bad if Mab remembered you. I finally decided to join. Karl had after all helped me a lot and who knew if I could help a troll king with something that might be good for something later on. Given that the trip would be in a few days time, I did as much research as I could. I really did not wish to risk angering her by not behaving in a proper way.Some day before we left for Nevernever, everyone in Boston felt slight tremors as from an earthquake. We then learned that that had been felt all over the world at the same time. That could not possibly be good. When Karl,Ymer and I set of for Nevernever, Karl took wolf-form again and had told me to dress warmly. The trip to Mab's place of power, the Arctis Tor was quite uneventful. It was a beautiful winter landscape. The gates of Arctis Tor was guarded by two gigantic ice trolls, who bowed and paid much respect to Ymer. Inside, we were met by a servant who would take us to Mab. He took us through winding corridors to a large garden covered in ice. During the passage we had to stop as something made Karl resume human form, and he quickly needed to put on some clothes to handle the cold. Ymer had taken on a slightly more blueish appearance and looked more troll-like as he was affected by the cold.A lot of ice statues filled the garden, and in the centrer stood Mab herself. The servant bowed and left us there. We all bowed, or in my case curtseyed, to her. She was incredibly beautiful, and looked like I would expect a queen to look. She and Ymer had a long talk in a language I did not understand, where she explained the situation to him. He later gave us the short version of it. Apparently he had to let her have 60 percent of the warriors he commanded for some duty near some wall. The rest he could do with as he choose as long as nothing happened where she would need him and his warriors. It was quite clear that there was no way he could get out of those obligations without incurring her wrath, which was something best avoided. He also found out that he apparently had a kingdom in Nevernever.After Ymer had talked to Mab, he wanted to find out what had happened to the other trolls, so he talked to the two guards at the gate. They summoned a sleigh that would take us to his other kingdom. It was powered by a team of huge ice-blue troll-dogs. Each of the dogs were bigger than a horse. We passed through a lot of small villages on the way. Ymer somehow just knew when we passed the border to his realm. I guess the land was tied to him in I a magical way. Finally we reached a settlement where we were greeted by a number of huge trolls. They did look a bit surprised, but they all seemed to acknowledge him as their king. In a grand hall we met with the troll queens who were sitting in front of a giant throne. Ymer took over and demanded reports from them of what had happened. Again they spoke in a language that I did not understand. I could understand from the way the seven women acted though that they were worried about change, and suspicious as Ymer looked like a human. I could tell that they were not united and that there were lots of intrigue going on between them. Ymer found that a long time ago the trolls had been serving the three queens that now had a token presence in Boston, but that something had happened so they now served him. What exactly had happened were long lost in the mists of time.After a long council-meeting,Ymer said he would take around fifty of the warriors with him to Boston to maintain the outpost they had there. One of the younger troll-queens also follow with him. They would do trade, and act as a link between the mortal world and Nevernever The other troll-queens were given orders of what do to in Ymer's absence. I am not so sure they liked that.When we got back to Boston, we learned that Nathalie had awoken. She still had a long way to go to recover though. I knew that she was not a normal human, so she would probably recover much faster than a human would. We also learned from Mirou that a Welsh dragon named Y Ddraig Goch, or The Red Dragon, had done a hostile takeover of Stoorworm's company. The timing seemed to be more than a coincidence. A Russian dragon had started to act while a Hungarian dragon had started to fortify itself. A war between dragon would surely spill over and affect lots of innocents. We heard rumours of war in Nevernever, and also strange conflicts here on Earth with weird weather-patterns all over the world.After yet another few days the Police told Imogen that they were finished with the investigation around her house, and that they had found traces of a former student who they believed to be responsible for the dead body of a child that had been found on her property. She could now move back home again.Karl called all of us to be extra careful. Someone had planted a lot of explosives under his car. He had found it when he was going to do some repair of the car. Imogen asked me if I could trace who had handled it before I was a bit uneasy about doing that, but after Karl explained to me that C4 was so stable that you could actually put it in fire without anything happening to it, and only way it would detonate was with the help of a blasting cap, I agreed to do a try. I was chocked to see the amount of it. Karl said that it would have been enough to obliterate a city block. Someone really wanted him dead. Imogen helped me by setting up extra wards so that if anything happened it would not be an explosion, but rather just a blast of warm air, while I did my divination ritual on a small piece of the plastic explosive, as well as some of the residue of the explosive material found at the remains of Mirou's apartment. I managed to get the vision of a young man who looked like some kind of military personnel as well as his name, which was Tom McKenzy.  He had been involved in both attacks.Antonio did some searching on the net and found that Tom were some former military and had worked security but was now a mercenary. We had some debate on how to proceed with the information, as someone suggested that we should contact him for a fake job and thus capture him, but we decided against that, as it was likely that and any accomplices knew more about us than we did about him. He would not fall for such a simple trap. Instead we passed the information off to Nathalie's family who were very wealthy and powerful. A few days later we got a report back that they had captured both him and two other men. The other two had been found near Imogen's house. Then another 15 persons had been picked up. They had been involved in the attack in New York against Mirou as well as an attack on a military base earlier. Hopefully that was the end of that, but I somehow did not feel so safe any more.  Would be nice knowing who had been the person behind them though. Someone had to have given them finances and information.We later learned from Zhuijang that the dragon leading the White Lotus society had somehow survived, and that they had called in all their troops, with agents abroad being told that they were on their own. It made life more difficult for him and Kuro.On the Saturday afterwards, I was out eating lunch with Isabella, after having been at the theatre, and I suddenly got another vision. This time it was that a woman's wrath was behind all the recent problems and it would tear the world apart. I saw terrible storms and lots of open water. Something bad would come from the deep. It wouldn't start here though.The vision had been powerful enough to make me pass out, and I woke up looking at the ceiling fan, and some very concerned staff-members at the restaurant and Isabella who frantically had tried to wake me up. It took some time to clear my head. Why did all of these visions hit me so hard, and what did it mean? After leaving the restaurant I talked to Isabella about the vision, but she had no idea what it could be referring to. She was quite concerned because it did sound bad though.I was a bit surprised later on when there was a knock on the door, just after Isabella had gone out to buy some groceries. I was even more surprised when I opened the door and saw a gorgeous young Asian girl with flaming red hair, dressed as a Japanese schoolgirl in a black latex and leather uniform. She carried a small whip in her hand. Flirtingly, she lightly spanked me with it as she said that this was a spankogram, and that the message she had for me was that Mirou wanted us all to come to Imogen for a meeting. I must say I had never heard of spankograms before, so I was quite confused. And of course, Isabella came home just at that moment. I think the girl could thank her lucky stars that I was so surprised that I didn't know what to do or say. Isabella wasn't quite pleased, but she understood that I was not trying to cheat on her. The girl beat a hasty retreat. That had the possibility to go so very wrong, and I would definitely let him have an earful.I talked some with Isabella before setting off to Imogen's house to see what Mirou wanted. Once there, we learned that Mirou had gotten some information that there was a possibility of another cell of mercenaries here in Boston. We decided to check it out. They were supposed to be in the Spanish district, and according to Antonio, that was an alleged den of drug-dealers.I had some choice words with Mirou about the appropriateness of doing what he had done. He just laughed and said I should thank him for some nice make-up sex afterwards. When I told the others of my vision earlier that day, Mirou tried insinuating that I was pregnant. Oh, the nerve of that creature. Sure I would like to be a mother some day, but not now.After some debate on how to proceed, and confirming with Nathalies family when they would go after the other cells, we set off to the Spanish district. It would have been nice if Kuro had been with us, but she was apparently occupied somewhere else. We realized that if we didn't time it well enough, any remaining cells would go to ground, and then we would again be targets. Our plan was to quickly subdue the cell, so that way they could be questioned. Letting the police sort it out, would most likely have been a better idea, but if this cell was gunning for us, then we might have a chance that the police didn't. I just prayed to the Goddess that we wouldn't get hurt or killed.Once we got to the area, we parked nearby and Antonio set out to make some inquiries, as he knew the neighbourhood. We found out that it was an apartment facing an alley. I stayed on the ground in the alley together with Zhujiang, while Karl, Antonio and Imogen would go for the door of the apartment., and Mirou would in dragon-form crash through the windows at a determined time, while Star moved up along the fire-escape staircase. It started spectacularily as Mirou made a dragon-shaped hole through the window, as he flew down from the roof of the building on the other side of the street. Zhujiang decided to also go up the fire-escape, and he ran up it like he was starring in some kung fu film.After a few seconds I hear a lot of commotion, with gunfire and loud crashes inside the apartment, and then Mirou flies out again, this time carrying someone in his claws and just dropping the person on the ground. The dull thud, the body made as it hit the ground next to me told me that the person was already dead. He then crashed into the windows of another apartment. What the hell was he doing? Then suddenly a man jumped from the windows of the apartment that we were after, and landed on the fire-escape on the other side of the alley. Right about then, I could hear a woman screaming from inside the apartment that Mirou had crashed into. Bloody hell, what had he done now? I cast a sleep spell on the guy on the fire-escape. It wasn't enough to take him out, and I could see how he tried shaking the tiredness off. Then Zhujiang jumped after them man, who drew a gun and shot at him. Luckily he missed. I cast another sleep-spell, and then Zhujiang knocked him out with a quick flurry of blows.Just as that was ending, I spotted a man at the other end of the alley. He had a military look, and when he saw me, he dropped the sixpack he had been carrying and ran away. I shouted to Zhujiang that there was another guy as I set after him. I followed him into a parking-house, where I at first lost track of him. The slightest sound echoed between the concrete pillars, and there was flickering lights. I carefully made my way through the garage, as a car suddenly came at me with great speed. Instinctively I summoned an airblast to stop the car. It almost succeeded; The whole car swayed from side to side and the windscreen shattered. I threw myself to the left side, and having the car just touching my skirt as it sped by.After having dusted myself of, I headed back to the others. They had taken care of the people in the apartment, and found folders with info on us. After some time, Karl called Antonio on his phone. He had in wolf-form followed the car down to the harbour, and had now acquired a small boat that would take us out to a big yacht where the man who got away had fled to. Star really didn't want to go out in a boat.We carefully set out to make sure we were not hear nor seen. Antonio veiled us so no sound was heard. When we reached the yacht, we saw a guard on deck. I hit him with a sleep spell, and then Star flew up and punched him out. Sadly she dropped him into the water. Not nice, and not according to the plan. The man disappeared beneath the waves. We quickly got up on deck of the yacht.Once on deck, we saw a flash of light out at see, and a huge water cascade. Someone had set of a nuclear weapon. Dear Goddess, that scared us. We were afraid of a shockwave coming towards us, but nothing happened as far as we could see. Star just vanished though when she saw it. The others went below as we heard voices arguing, while I stayed on top to look for traces of the guard. Sadly I saw him, and he was floating face down in the water. That would come back to haunt us later. I was sure of it.The others managed to quickly overpower the people down below, and found even more material about us, as well as their previous plans and one terrorist act that hadn't happened yet, down in Dallas. As far as we could gather they took their orders from someone in Albania. Not even sure where that is. Who lived there, and what had we done to attract such wrath? We needed to leave the yacht quickly before the authorities came.Karl decided to take the yacht out to sea. Not sure that was such a good idea, but all authorities were probably on high alert right now after the nuclear explosion. Antonio and I set out to do a quick search of the ship to see if we could find more information, while Imogen went through what we had already found. Karl and Mirou then started questioning the mercenaries. I did my best not to notice the weird sounds from the cabin. I had a feeling that the questioning was quite aggressive, and I had no wish to find out.Most of the information we had found were about Mirou, but also a lot on Karl. Apparently someone had paid lots of money to find all that information. Zhujiang went up on deck as he said he had seen something. Then a shot while later the yacht lurched as something slammed into it hard, and we could hear a grinding noise. I lost my balance and fell down, while things from shelves and tables flew all over the place. After quickly having helped Imogen collect the documents again, I went up on deck to see what was going on. Once there, I saw Zhujiang and Star talking, how she had gotten back. And also a naked Mirou, and Karl all covered in blood. He claimed it was not his blood. Not that that made it any better. Mirou had apparently done something bad to the prisoners. I really didn't want to know such details. When I looked around, I saw what had caused the commotion, it was another boat that quickly sped away. Antonio also came up and he tried hitting it with one of his spells but it failed miserably. He only succeeded in taking out one of their lanterns. The small boat we had used to get to the yacht had been totally demolished. I looked over the railing to see how bad the damages was and there was a huge gap in the hull. I tried making the others aware of the situation, but Star apparently didn't want anyone else to see it, so she did some kind of magic. Mirou took a look and then promptly accused me of lying as the hull now looked whole. He would get his comeuppance sooner or later, and it would not be pretty.After some debating, we realized that we needed to go to Albania and try to stop the person behind it. However, the boat was probably not in such good shape that it would manage the trip across the Atlantic. It would of course also take too long. Flying was not really an option for me or Imogen.. We headed back to land, and then cleaned away any traces of us having been on board. After having packed the necessary stuff and fixing things like taking a vacation form work and saying good by to our respective partners we set out through Nevernever to get to Karl's home in Sweden and from there go by car. He had some special route that he uses to transport things. We had to take some special precautions whenever we passed any borders as most of us didn't have any passports.After a few days, we got to Dures in Albania, where we started asking around about an old cloister, which we knew that the mercenaries had used as a base. As far as everyone there knew it had been abandoned for a long time, but had housed almost a hundred monks when it was in use. The cloister itself was located in a small valley among the mountains, and there was only a small winding road leading up there. We parked the car a bit away so as to not draw attention to us.Outside the cloister was a large number of metal crates with Russian markings. We veiled ourselves and went up and investigated them. They turned out to be military ammunition boxes. From inside the building we could here voices. While we looked at the crates two men came, carrying another crate. Karl and Mirou quickly knocked them out. I grabbed a pistol as I thought it was something to give me some extra protection. Even though I hoped I wouldn't have to use it.Star first took the looks of one of the soldiers. We then still veiled sneaked inside the building, where we saw three more soldiers packing up stuff and then some old Chinese guy overseeing them. There was something weird about his appearance, he looked pale and had a clammy skin. Star came into the room an played the part of one of the soldiers, and managed to pull of indicating that his companion was outside smoking. Then quite suddenly she attacked the Chinese man, who didn't seem fazed at all. The soldiers started shooting at Star, who tried taking cover. Zhujiang, and then Mirou in dragon form and Karl  in Wolf form attacked the soldiers, and quickly neutralized two of them. Then what looked like coral glimpsed beneath the skin of the Chinese man, and he shifted form into a huge skeletal dragon with seaweed clinging to it, and he hit Star hard with a claw. I locked him down from moving with a spell, and Imogen and Antonio went all in with some kind of light-based magic. The remaining soldier took the chance to run away, quite terrified. I tried using my sleep-spell on the dragon, but it had no effect. I could see that Karl had more success with his attack though. Then the dragon made his next attack, and cast a spell of pure terror. Instinctively I veiled myself and ran out of the building the fastest I could.Once outside, I could start to calm down, and after a short while a dared to venture in again. I was still shaking, but I went in determined to shoot the dragon with the pistol I had taken earlier. As I emptied the clip at him without much success, I saw how Imogen was lying on the floor, and then how Antonio with a powerful spell managed to kill the dragon. As we went and checked on Imogen who was lying unconscious, and Antonio performed his healing-magic on her, we saw how a pool of crystal-clear blue liquid emerged beneath the body of the dragon. I recognized it as a portal. The question was to where.Mirou, as usual did something potentially stupid, and he jumped through the portal. We could see how he appeardd in some kind of crystal cave on the other side. As soon as Imogen had woken up, Antonio and her jumped after, as did Karl. I decided to do some divination magic on it first, as I wanted to know more about it. This was something unique. Unfortunately that was when the portal started to shrink, so I had to try to stabilize it instead. Then Zhujiang and Star jumped through it to join the others. I didn't want to be left alone in the middle of nowhere with at least one crazy soldier out there somewhere, so against my better judgement I followed after them.On the other side we saw a huge crystal cavern glowing with a bluish light, and a passageway. We followed that into another cavern where we were met by another old Chinese man and a young Chinese girl. They looked weird, just as the guy we had previously fought. The girl looked half decaying as if she had spent weeks lying in water. They were standing at the other end of the cave near some kind of pool and an altar. The pool gave off more of this bright blue light. I had no idea what it was for, but I could sense that it contained power. What first looked like a huge stone statue of a dragon turned out to be a real dragon who woke up. I just knew that we had gotten ourself into a lot of trouble, and that the dragon was Kulshedra.I then saw translucent chains wrapped around his body, and then another translucent chain going to the the young girl. Somehow she was controlling him. I don't think anyone else saw it. It was as if I saw the magical energies, without using my Sight. The walls in the cave were covered by some kind of heavy net or mesh made out of energy, and when I looked up, I felt a sense of vertigo, as if the walls appeared to continue up forever. It was like standing on top of a mountain and looking down. I could only guess that we were somehow down in a deep sea trench. I could see that there were holes in the mesh, and that black water leaked in and out through them, in some abstract glow of energy, and that the pool was for controlling this. I was not sure if this was a prison meant for the girl, or if it was her own lair.As I tried clearing my mind, I saw translucent images that seemed to be flashbacks of things that hap happened before. First I saw Kulshedra standing on some volcanic island, digging his claws down into the Lava. Somehow I knew he was performing a magical ritual, and the name he kept chanting over and over where Mazu. Then from beneath the waves of the ocean, the girl in front of us rose up, answering his summoning. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that this had been, what had caused that horrid vision I had back at Campus four years ago, when I saw beings trying to come through the concrete walls. I had wrongly thought that to be representing the three Faerie Queens that later came. Instead this was something older and more feral, and probably even more dangerous.The next flashback I got was that Kulsheda and Mazu awoke another dragon. He appeared as a huge skeleton covered in algae and corals. I knew that they were somewhere East of Japan. The new dragon slowly rose from beneath the ocean, and when he came up woke to some kind of unlife. After that I saw a scene filled with a thick mist, and then another dragon appeared , and then the fog just vanished. I somehow knew this had been when that strange fog had covered all of Boston earlier.My body were almost vibrating, and my skin tingled from just the remains of the the power involved in the events I had just witnessed. I then saw a scene where Kulshedra's two children had asked him to stop what he was doing. As they felt he was changing to something bad, and they did not want any part of it. I could tell that he was furious enough that he almost killed them right there on the spot. They were in human form, but I took it that they were like Mirou.I then got another flashback, and this time I saw how Mazu used magic to enthrall Kulshredra, and how she started attacks against other dragons and then arranged for Kulshedras children to be killed. Which explained what had happened in New York earlier.I also somehow knew that there had been a large group of Albanian mercenaries responsible for arranging all the transport of weapons and information that local teams had then used to carry out the attacks all over the world.I still saw the ghostly images of what had happened. But then Mazu used some magic on Carl, and I saw how a ghostly chain streamed from her towards him in an attempt to enthrall him. He seemed to shake it off and tried to attack her, but passed right through her as she was not physically there. Meanwhile Kulshedra attacked us. Imogen and Antonio held him off with magic while Mirou and Star went into close combat. I somehow knew that Star needed to use the sword she had got as a wedding gift from Ymer's father. There was something special with that sword. I called this out to her, and then they could slay Kulshedra.The older Chinese man had just looked us while this was going on, but he now changed into the form of a huge skeletal dragon and attacked, but we managed to beat him as well after some tense moments. Mazu now appeared again, and said something in Chinese. Imogen answered her, and they had some quick discussion. When exactly had she learned Chinese?  I really need to know what they said to each other.After that the cave started to quickly fill with water, and the next thing we knew, we were back inside the old monastery. Not entirely sure how that had happened. As we left the place, Karl took the time to dispose of all the weaponry there by rigging some explosives. Might be a good idea so it wouldn't fall in the wrong hands. We then drove back to Sweden and then  returned to Boston through the Nevernever.I had no doubt that Mirou would let Ferrovax know about what had transpired, and I had to talk to both Isabella and Eibon about what I had seen. Hopefully things would start to calm down again, but I doubted it.</blockquote>

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