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Dresden Files rpg: Dresden2Boston
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<blockquote data-quote="Ulfgeir" data-source="post: 7809298" data-attributes="member: 7015719"><p><strong>Book 8: The Eternal Sea</strong></p><p></p><p>As I had suspected, it took some time before things had calmed down in the Nevernever, but things slowly went back to normal again over the following seven months. I spent as much time I could with Isabella, but we were both quite busy with our own projects, so it was not quite as much as I would have wished for.</p><p></p><p>At the theatre, we ran a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, and it was a lot of work to make it stand out. We had great success with it though, and everyone had a good time. I would like to think that Shakespeare himself would have been pleased to see it.</p><p></p><p>I also spent quite a lot of time trying to help a young girl named Emma who was going through some big troubles in her life. I might not be a professional therapist or social worker, but I have some contacts, and I am very good at listening to people. Sometimes that is all that is needed, that someone sees them and actually listens. Eventually I could help her turn her life around, and help her find a job as a receptionist at a local firm. Being able to help someone like that is a real joy, and makes the effort I put in worth it. It is the kind of atonement I need to balance the unforgivable act I did earlier. Unfortunately, there were many that I could not help at all for various reasons or some who did not want my help. I still had to try though, but every time I failed, it hurt.</p><p></p><p>I was still an apprentice to Eibon, and I had to study hard. He was still as enigmatic as before, and had high standards that I had to reach to get his approval. I had come up with some interesting ways of practicing my divination-skills, that involved decks of cards and other things. I would shuffle the decks, and then trying to predict the order the cards came in, or putting cards in envelopes and then mix them and trying to locate a specific card. I knew that if I tried that stunt at a casino, I would get in real trouble. Casinos didn't take kindly to what they considered cheating, and their definition of cheating were strange and the consequences could be deadly. I had other ways of practising as well, like trying to scry on a certain location chosen at random from a map, or trying to follow a moving object.</p><p></p><p>I met some of the others now and then, but they all had their own things to do as well. Antonio were away training parkour, and participating in wrestling shows all over the country. I even saw one once. He is a very good performer. Star had come back but she was changed somehow and then spent lot of time away training for something. She wouldn't say what though, but she was somehow much more focused now than before. Well she was still quite crazy, but now she had a purpose, a goal. Mirou was busy with the aftermath of the events with the dragons, and Karl had his family to take care of. That meant that the one person I saw the most was Imogen as we both were often in Edinburgh for training and other White Council things. As far as I knew Zhujiang and Kuro had gone home to China again. They had been ordered to return about a month after the incident with the dragons.</p><p></p><p>The Presidential election had gone horribly wrong. How could such a monster as Trump win? Most of the other candidates had been really bad as well, the only one that had seemed decent were Sanders but he had been cheated out of the election. That Trump could win proved that someone had rigged the system, but who and why? I refused to believe that people could be so stupid and ignorant to not see what a fraud he was. How evil he was. I truly feared for what would happen in the coming years. I did not need my powers of divination to see that bad things would come. Speaking of which, I had actually managed many months now without any visions. Had I finally gained enough control to only get them when I wanted to see things? That would have been a blessing from the Goddess. It was not very likely though, but one could hope.</p><p></p><p>Imogen of course participated in the protest marches against Trump at his inauguration. Star had been usual self and not had a clue on who Trump was and why he was so much on TV. She thought he was an actor. Not sure it was a good thing explaining politics to a genie.</p><p></p><p>I then got a strange dream where I looked out over a wast sea with no land in sight. It was like looking through frosted glass or some kind of plastic, so that everything had a diffuse look. I could not see any sun, but yet there was light everywhere and the sea held all colours. I got a sense of peace and calm, and if only I could get a bit closer then I would find pure tranquillity. I had a sense that I had seen it before, but no recollection of where. The sea was just too perfect.</p><p></p><p>The day after on the 2nd of February, there were reports from the hospital Boston General, that newborn children had fallen asleep and could not be woken up again. As far as everyone could tell they were still alive ans responding to stimuli. All the children had been awake when they were born then fallen into this strange slumber. In the following days it became clear that the same phenomena had occurred all over the world.</p><p></p><p>We met up at Imogen's house, where we discussed the situation. Apparently there was some problems between the Summer court and the Brass court. Antonio and Star were trying to reduce those problems and stop an all out war. Star mentioned something about everyone of her court having become corrupt and that she was trying to purify them. I tell the others about my dream, and that I think there is a connection the situation with the children, but they don't believe me. I should have gotten used to that. It was still not very nice of Mirou to ridicule the dream in the way he did. He can be such a mean being sometimes, and other times very friendly.</p><p></p><p>As far as we could tell, there had been no large-scale rituals performed. The energy buildup for a ritual that had consequences all over the world would be so high that it would surely have been detected. We all agree that there must be something that has drawn the children into the dreamworld. The one person that would know the most of that were Listens-To-Winds, so Imogen contacted Lisa to see if she could contact him as he was difficult to get hold of.</p><p></p><p>While we waited we did some more research about what had happened. I asked around on the Paranet if anyone had heard anything, but did not find anything. Imogen searched the library for anything to do with dreams. We then saw on the news that now the same sleeping-phenomena that had affected the babies had happened to teenagers and old people who were receiving palliative care. Imogen managed to talk to the doctors investigating it but they had no theories at all. Hospitals were now full so they had to gather the affected people together in make-shift places like sports-arenas. I secretly talked to Isabella, she had looked at it as well, but was as clueless as the rest of us. I did however manage to find one detail regarding the new cases that no one else seemed to have noticed, and that was that none of the teenagers at least had been alone when they fell asleep. They had all been with someone.</p><p></p><p>Late that evening Lisa contacted us and said that me and Imogen had to accompany her to Edinburgh the day after. The White council had a crisis meeting regarding the situation. Star wanted to join, but it was made quite clear for her that she and Antonio could not join us. Once we made our way to Edinburgh, we arrived as a huge meeting took place. I had never seen so many members of the White Council be there at the same time. It appeared that even some wizards had succumbed to the sleeping phenomena. Listen-to-Winds was leading the meeting. He was talking about dreams and that some people could control their dreams.</p><p></p><p>The meeting was chaotic, as everyone wanted to speak and they all had such weird ideas. I talked to Eibon, about what I had found out and he was very impressed, and then signalled that he wanted to speak. Everyone went silent. He then told them what I had found out, which of course started everyone talking again. This was something that all of the others had failed to notice. Imogen and some other wizards tried creating a ritual that would allow them to enter the dreamworld through the mind of an animal. They would not be able to enter the mind of a human without becoming lawbreakers. I decide to spend my time trying to do divinations to try and decipher what has happened.</p><p></p><p>We spend a couple of days in Edinburgh. I try to find the source of the phenomena, but without any success. It seems that Imogen and her group are making progress in their attempts at creating a ritual. The first animal they try it on is a pig. They learn enough that to see that their ritual was flawed, but they learned enough to carry on . Meanwhile Antonio had been talking to his girlfriend, and tried to get her to use her network to find out what had been going on, and Star had talked to faeries. Unfortunately Star being Star, that was something that would come back and cause problems.</p><p></p><p>On the 9th of February I had another dream. I saw the same sea as before, still as if it was seen through frosted glass. but I then noticed that there appeared to be millions of humans floating near the surface, and as I watch more and more appear. I saw how something were sucked out of their bodies and trickled toward the place that I was watching from. And again I felt that if I could just come a bit closer to the sea I would gain eternal tranquility.</p><p></p><p>When I tried more divination magic to find more information about the mysterious place that I had dreamed about, all I could see is that there was something or someone missing at the centre. Something that there was no concept for, so I could not describe what I saw.</p><p></p><p>The White Council had sent out envoys to the faerie courts and other supernatural nations to seek answers to what was going on, but had not gotten any answers. I learned that Antonio had got the Summer court to start looking at it. Apparently his position in the court helped motivate them, even if they had no answers. Or at least no answers they were willing to give.</p><p></p><p>As I were doing more divinations, I suddenly felt as if there was a large concentration of something related to the sleepers near Imogen's house. I had to find her rather immediately. We made our way back home to Boston, and saw that something was wrong, and it was probably Star's fault. Outside her house lay some faeries in a food-coma and a ton of empty pizza-boxes. They had even built an equivalent of stonehenge out of them, the next thing we saw was a children's slide leading down into the underground dungeon where Star now lived. When we asked the fairies what was going on they said they had delivered children thee in exchange for pizza. We heard some strange sound from below. We called out to Star, but no answer. Imogen decided to run into the house and call for Antonio. I looked around for any clues, and could see that something heavy had been lying on the ground and thus disturbing the grass.</p><p></p><p>The only way down was not through the slide, as it took up the normal way. At the end was lots of pillows, and then everywhere were babies. Literary hundreds of them. We find star there trying to look after the children. Imogen asked her what in hell she was doing, and got the answer that Star had asked around for information from the faeries about the sleep phenomena, but there had been some kind of misunderstanding. It was never her intention to get them to deliver children to her. While I was looking around to see that all the children were alive and unhurt, I noticed that the children seemed to come from all over the world. Some had nametags from local hospitals, while others had nothing to identify them, or where they came from. While I was doing that Antonio came, and he had been looking around as there was a rumour among the supernaturals that someone wanted children. He had been trying to find out who. Now he knew and he was as horrified as Imogen and I were. He had been using his contacts with the Paranet to get them to try and ward every hospital around to protect them from the faeries coming in and taking children.</p><p></p><p>How in the name of the Goddess would we be able to return all the children to where they came from? Some of the children seemed to not be doing so well, so Antonio and I set out to create a ritual that would bring healing energy to them so they would be unharmed. Imogen came up with the idea that there was one being who could help return the children. Santa Claus could do it with his magical sleigh. And yes, he is real. She knew a member of the Winter court who might have some idea on how to get in touch with him, so she set off to do try and arrange a meeting.</p><p></p><p>After some time, she came back together with two men. One was a svartalf smith named Volund, and the other was Santa Claus. I had the sinking feeling that Santa Claus, or Kringle as he called himself was judging me and that I did not pass muster. Imogen did strike a deal though with Kringle to use his magical sleigh and deliver all the children home. The price was that Star would help him two nights every year for I don't know how many years. Possibly forever. Kringle said that normally he was bringing toys to children, this would be the first time he would transport children instead. He arranged the transport. Hopefully that would solve that problem, and that the more unsavory types of supernaturals had not taken advantage of Star's folly and stolen too many children.</p><p></p><p>After Kringle left with all the children, we had a discussion with Volund up in Imogen's house. It was a bit tense as he and Antonio had some differences in opinion due to them belonging to different courts. I went home to Isabella, and talked to her. She had not found out anything else about the sleeping phenomena, and she was totally flabbergasted by the mess that Star had caused and our solution to it.</p><p></p><p>I returned with Imogen to Edinburgh for more research. Imogen was doing another strange ritual and by what she told me later she had managed to transport her mind and soul to a strange African-styled mud-hut on an endless plane with no animals or vegetation and with a sun that never moved, where she talked to a man named Hastrim who had been imprisoned there by his apprentice Catryn D'Amour who had stolen some strange magial artifact that he had commissioned. He said he had been the last of the Shaol, a group who were tasked with protecting mankind. Once back she searched the archives and found that Catryn had been wanted for murder by the wardens back in 1709. The White Council had no record though of the group the Shaol or of the man named Hastrim. Could this have something to do with what we were experiencing now?</p><p></p><p>We realized that we needed more information, and went back to Boston, to ask some questions to Volund together with Antonio and Star. He was not very cooperative at first. He was familiar with the name Hastrim though. As we were talking to him, Imogen suddenly went quite and then her whole demeanor changed. Something was not right. She then asked Volund if he had met with Catryn recently and what she had asked him to construct.</p><p></p><p>Antonio started asking Imogen who she was. She claimed that she was her, but her personality did not match. I took a look at her with the sight, and saw that I saw pure darkness and evil emitting from her. I did not want to start a fight, but I was prepared to defend myself if she did anything. Antonio though picked up a flashlight and shone it right into her eyes, which caused her to instantly fall asleep. He certainly had more power in his magic than I had. His spell was similar to my sleep-spell, but more efficient.</p><p></p><p>Volund made a phone-call and told the other person that Hastrim was back, and shortly afterwards a strange-looking mulatto woman came to his workshop. She presented herself as Catryn. It was clear that they had a long history. Volund told her that he believed that Hastrim had taken over Imogen's body. Catryn confirmed that she had indeed imprisoned Hastrim, but that it was due to him having become totally evil and that he had betrayed and killed all the other members of the Shaol, except her, and a few others that had been in his group. And that it was due to him that the wardens had been after her. He had killed people in his experiments. She claimed that she had devised the spell that kept him imprisoned as a means of self-defence, knowing that he would kill her if she didn't. She had actually created a place which didn't exist in order to keep him trapped in a time-loop. That did not sound good at all. She confirmed that it was not Imogen who was in Imogen's body.</p><p></p><p>Catryn could break the spell, but that would mean that Hastrim would still be in Imogen's body, and vice versa. And Hastrim was a much more powerful wizard than she was. She would have no chance of capturing him again. The switch that had happened should not have been possible. She also gave us a quick rundown of the history of the group she had been in and what they had been doing. She had not has any contact with the other survivors for quite some time. They had been hiding in the islands of Abarat in Nevernever. As far as she knew the only other survivor except her was a man named Carrion. He had left the islands of Abarat, but she did not know when or where he was now. The others had died at the hands of wardens over the years. According to her the only thing now that remained of the Shaol were the ruins of a temple back in the west of Africa. It had apparently not been much to see even when she had been an apprentice.</p><p></p><p>We learned that Volund had built a strange artifact for Hastrim in the mid 1500's, and that the purpose had been to find something. Hastrim had been obsessed with things that there were no concept for. I ask Catryn about them, but it was so esotheric that it made my head spin. She knew nothing of the sea I had seen in my dreams. She suspected that Carrion had the strange device if it still existed, and that the object she had commissioned Volund to build was a new one, even though she was not sure exactly what it should find.</p><p></p><p>We discussed how we would be able to get Imogen back to her body. I could of course have asked Isabella, but that was a can of secrets best left unopened. Some of the suggestions were unsettling to say the least. I decide, that I should not be a part of that but I should go and do research on possession. Maybe I could find something there. Had to be careful though as that kind of research was questionable to say the least.</p><p></p><p>I later learned from Antonio that Star had created an idealized body that looked like her, and that Volund had created a crystal to capture a soul. They had then killed imogen, and then Catryn had dropped the spell, and Imogen's soul had been sucked into the crystal, and when it was fused with the glamour-construct that Star had done, she was brought back to life, but now as a fae, a member of the Brass court. I had no idea that such things could be done. Just how powerful was Star?</p><p></p><p>Apparently after Imogen had been brought back to life, she had contacted Lisa, who had talked to the others. I do not know what exactly had transpired there, but I have a feeling the outcome might be quite problematic.</p><p></p><p>I then had another dream about the strange sea. Many more bodies were floating in the water. This time I saw a black storm coming at the horizon, and it was getting closer. I could see writhing tentacles and strange shapes inside it. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that that was outsiders, and that it was much worse that they were where they were than if they were here on Earth. Something that would be horrible enough. I told Eibon about the dream, and I had shivers of outright fear the whole day afterwards.</p><p></p><p>The Antonio, Star, Volund and the resurrected Imogen as well as Catryn flew to Africa while I was away, not sure where they got the money for that. I learned later that they had gone to the Ivory coast to visit the Shaol temple. Not much was there except some rocks that formed some altar. The retelling I got was a bit weird, even if one had Star as a measuring-stick. I gather that they did some strange things there, and then continued on to Cairo to visit Hastrim's laboratory where they defeated Carrion. Antonio tried to explain to me later what they had done, but his explanation made my head hurt with strange metaphysics. I gathered that they had somehow switched some concepts around. No matter what they had done it had worked though as all the sleepers all over the world had woken up at the same time. Wonder what exactly I had seen in my dreams. It took a few day before the others came home.</p><p></p><p>When I were at home alone doing some research,there was an unexpected knock at the door. When I opened I was met by a young rich-looking woman who introduced herself as Margrave Cathaline de Este, and she said that her father wanted to meet with me, and that she was Isabella's cousin. She made it quite clear that I did not really have a choice in the matter. I knew how powerful Isabella was. There was no way I would be able to defeat her cousin if she was as powerful wizard as Isabella. She didn't threaten me as such, so I gathered that I should find out what they wanted. I thought I had managed to get them to back off from me earlier with the letter I had written where I threatened to give lots of information to the White council and expose them if anything happened to me. I wrote a quick note describing what had happened and left</p><p></p><p>Outside was a limousine and a huge bodyguard was standing beside it. His muscles had muscle. I though Carl was buffed, but this guy made him look small. The bodyguard motioned for me to get into the car. Inside was an Italian man in his 40's, impeccably dressed. He and Mirou would have bonded well over clothing.</p><p></p><p>Once I had gotten into the car, Cathaline also entered and sat down beside me. The bodyguard and the driver were up front. The man introduced himself as Azzo VI. He was Isabella's uncle, and said that they were curious about me, and that they had not seen her for a long time. I tried to not divulge anything about Isabella. They knew she was alive, but not where she was. They suggested we should go to a restaurant for further talk. I was not exactly in a position to tell them no. And as long as they weren't hostile I guess things were ok, but kept my guard up.</p><p></p><p>When we arrived at the restaurant, the bodyguard went in, and then he made all the customers inside leave. I was treated to very fine food while they conducted a bit of small-talk. During the talk, I accidentally had a soulgaze with Azzo. I had tried avoid it but he really pushed for it. I saw a man pruned down to the most basics. I could tell that he was willing to do anything for what he believed in. Behind him I saw lots of mannequins of sort. I guess those were his previous bodies. I could tell that he enjoyed playing games of power and manipulation with people, and that he was good at it. He was a man who lacked empathy, and had a pitch black soul. That should have frightened me a lot more than it did. The soulgaze was very intense, but I didn't suffer any ill effects after it, as so often were the case otherwise.</p><p></p><p>Once the dinner was finished, they offered me a ride home. I declined as we were only a few blocks away from home and I said I would walk. When they drove off, I saw a shimmering effect around the car, and then it exploded. The forcefield around it kept the shrapnel contained, but the shockwave still shattered every window along the street, and knocked me down. I as I rose up I saw Isabella coming walk towards me and she was pissed off. Not at me, but at her family. And now she had just killed her cousin and her uncle as well as the bodyguard and the driver. She dragged me away and we went to a safe-house she had nearby, which I did not know about. It was a barren apartment. She told me we had to wait there for a while before she could find out if anyone else from her family were coming to town, or if they would send in mercenaries like last time. We spent a day there. I really like being with her, but it was a bit awkward, and she had me scared that her family would come back. A group of wardens of course hit town later on to investigate the explosion. I was written off as a suspect from the beginning as they knew I did not have that kind of power.</p><p></p><p>While we were in the safe-house I did take the opportunity to ask Isabella a bit more about her family, and how her powers of taking over the body of someone else worked. It was things that I had thought of earlier, but kind of wanted to not know about. But I had to know what I could expect. I certainly had no plans to learn the techniques myself. As far as I gathered it had been Isabella's grandmother who had first learnt how to take over a body, and there was two ways they could do it; either through a ritual or a quick switch. A ritual would make the switch stick better, and if I understood it correctly allow her to use the other body better and maybe even access some of the hosts memories and skills. A quick switch could be done in the blink of an eye and would leave one or both persons involved somewhat disoriented. That was what Isabella used when she took over Yukimi's body during that fight on the roof where the Wiccan sorority at school performed their ritual to honour the dead. And she used a ritual when she took over her current body.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ulfgeir, post: 7809298, member: 7015719"] [B]Book 8: The Eternal Sea[/B] As I had suspected, it took some time before things had calmed down in the Nevernever, but things slowly went back to normal again over the following seven months. I spent as much time I could with Isabella, but we were both quite busy with our own projects, so it was not quite as much as I would have wished for. At the theatre, we ran a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, and it was a lot of work to make it stand out. We had great success with it though, and everyone had a good time. I would like to think that Shakespeare himself would have been pleased to see it. I also spent quite a lot of time trying to help a young girl named Emma who was going through some big troubles in her life. I might not be a professional therapist or social worker, but I have some contacts, and I am very good at listening to people. Sometimes that is all that is needed, that someone sees them and actually listens. Eventually I could help her turn her life around, and help her find a job as a receptionist at a local firm. Being able to help someone like that is a real joy, and makes the effort I put in worth it. It is the kind of atonement I need to balance the unforgivable act I did earlier. Unfortunately, there were many that I could not help at all for various reasons or some who did not want my help. I still had to try though, but every time I failed, it hurt. I was still an apprentice to Eibon, and I had to study hard. He was still as enigmatic as before, and had high standards that I had to reach to get his approval. I had come up with some interesting ways of practicing my divination-skills, that involved decks of cards and other things. I would shuffle the decks, and then trying to predict the order the cards came in, or putting cards in envelopes and then mix them and trying to locate a specific card. I knew that if I tried that stunt at a casino, I would get in real trouble. Casinos didn't take kindly to what they considered cheating, and their definition of cheating were strange and the consequences could be deadly. I had other ways of practising as well, like trying to scry on a certain location chosen at random from a map, or trying to follow a moving object. I met some of the others now and then, but they all had their own things to do as well. Antonio were away training parkour, and participating in wrestling shows all over the country. I even saw one once. He is a very good performer. Star had come back but she was changed somehow and then spent lot of time away training for something. She wouldn't say what though, but she was somehow much more focused now than before. Well she was still quite crazy, but now she had a purpose, a goal. Mirou was busy with the aftermath of the events with the dragons, and Karl had his family to take care of. That meant that the one person I saw the most was Imogen as we both were often in Edinburgh for training and other White Council things. As far as I knew Zhujiang and Kuro had gone home to China again. They had been ordered to return about a month after the incident with the dragons. The Presidential election had gone horribly wrong. How could such a monster as Trump win? Most of the other candidates had been really bad as well, the only one that had seemed decent were Sanders but he had been cheated out of the election. That Trump could win proved that someone had rigged the system, but who and why? I refused to believe that people could be so stupid and ignorant to not see what a fraud he was. How evil he was. I truly feared for what would happen in the coming years. I did not need my powers of divination to see that bad things would come. Speaking of which, I had actually managed many months now without any visions. Had I finally gained enough control to only get them when I wanted to see things? That would have been a blessing from the Goddess. It was not very likely though, but one could hope. Imogen of course participated in the protest marches against Trump at his inauguration. Star had been usual self and not had a clue on who Trump was and why he was so much on TV. She thought he was an actor. Not sure it was a good thing explaining politics to a genie. I then got a strange dream where I looked out over a wast sea with no land in sight. It was like looking through frosted glass or some kind of plastic, so that everything had a diffuse look. I could not see any sun, but yet there was light everywhere and the sea held all colours. I got a sense of peace and calm, and if only I could get a bit closer then I would find pure tranquillity. I had a sense that I had seen it before, but no recollection of where. The sea was just too perfect. The day after on the 2nd of February, there were reports from the hospital Boston General, that newborn children had fallen asleep and could not be woken up again. As far as everyone could tell they were still alive ans responding to stimuli. All the children had been awake when they were born then fallen into this strange slumber. In the following days it became clear that the same phenomena had occurred all over the world. We met up at Imogen's house, where we discussed the situation. Apparently there was some problems between the Summer court and the Brass court. Antonio and Star were trying to reduce those problems and stop an all out war. Star mentioned something about everyone of her court having become corrupt and that she was trying to purify them. I tell the others about my dream, and that I think there is a connection the situation with the children, but they don't believe me. I should have gotten used to that. It was still not very nice of Mirou to ridicule the dream in the way he did. He can be such a mean being sometimes, and other times very friendly. As far as we could tell, there had been no large-scale rituals performed. The energy buildup for a ritual that had consequences all over the world would be so high that it would surely have been detected. We all agree that there must be something that has drawn the children into the dreamworld. The one person that would know the most of that were Listens-To-Winds, so Imogen contacted Lisa to see if she could contact him as he was difficult to get hold of. While we waited we did some more research about what had happened. I asked around on the Paranet if anyone had heard anything, but did not find anything. Imogen searched the library for anything to do with dreams. We then saw on the news that now the same sleeping-phenomena that had affected the babies had happened to teenagers and old people who were receiving palliative care. Imogen managed to talk to the doctors investigating it but they had no theories at all. Hospitals were now full so they had to gather the affected people together in make-shift places like sports-arenas. I secretly talked to Isabella, she had looked at it as well, but was as clueless as the rest of us. I did however manage to find one detail regarding the new cases that no one else seemed to have noticed, and that was that none of the teenagers at least had been alone when they fell asleep. They had all been with someone. Late that evening Lisa contacted us and said that me and Imogen had to accompany her to Edinburgh the day after. The White council had a crisis meeting regarding the situation. Star wanted to join, but it was made quite clear for her that she and Antonio could not join us. Once we made our way to Edinburgh, we arrived as a huge meeting took place. I had never seen so many members of the White Council be there at the same time. It appeared that even some wizards had succumbed to the sleeping phenomena. Listen-to-Winds was leading the meeting. He was talking about dreams and that some people could control their dreams. The meeting was chaotic, as everyone wanted to speak and they all had such weird ideas. I talked to Eibon, about what I had found out and he was very impressed, and then signalled that he wanted to speak. Everyone went silent. He then told them what I had found out, which of course started everyone talking again. This was something that all of the others had failed to notice. Imogen and some other wizards tried creating a ritual that would allow them to enter the dreamworld through the mind of an animal. They would not be able to enter the mind of a human without becoming lawbreakers. I decide to spend my time trying to do divinations to try and decipher what has happened. We spend a couple of days in Edinburgh. I try to find the source of the phenomena, but without any success. It seems that Imogen and her group are making progress in their attempts at creating a ritual. The first animal they try it on is a pig. They learn enough that to see that their ritual was flawed, but they learned enough to carry on . Meanwhile Antonio had been talking to his girlfriend, and tried to get her to use her network to find out what had been going on, and Star had talked to faeries. Unfortunately Star being Star, that was something that would come back and cause problems. On the 9th of February I had another dream. I saw the same sea as before, still as if it was seen through frosted glass. but I then noticed that there appeared to be millions of humans floating near the surface, and as I watch more and more appear. I saw how something were sucked out of their bodies and trickled toward the place that I was watching from. And again I felt that if I could just come a bit closer to the sea I would gain eternal tranquility. When I tried more divination magic to find more information about the mysterious place that I had dreamed about, all I could see is that there was something or someone missing at the centre. Something that there was no concept for, so I could not describe what I saw. The White Council had sent out envoys to the faerie courts and other supernatural nations to seek answers to what was going on, but had not gotten any answers. I learned that Antonio had got the Summer court to start looking at it. Apparently his position in the court helped motivate them, even if they had no answers. Or at least no answers they were willing to give. As I were doing more divinations, I suddenly felt as if there was a large concentration of something related to the sleepers near Imogen's house. I had to find her rather immediately. We made our way back home to Boston, and saw that something was wrong, and it was probably Star's fault. Outside her house lay some faeries in a food-coma and a ton of empty pizza-boxes. They had even built an equivalent of stonehenge out of them, the next thing we saw was a children's slide leading down into the underground dungeon where Star now lived. When we asked the fairies what was going on they said they had delivered children thee in exchange for pizza. We heard some strange sound from below. We called out to Star, but no answer. Imogen decided to run into the house and call for Antonio. I looked around for any clues, and could see that something heavy had been lying on the ground and thus disturbing the grass. The only way down was not through the slide, as it took up the normal way. At the end was lots of pillows, and then everywhere were babies. Literary hundreds of them. We find star there trying to look after the children. Imogen asked her what in hell she was doing, and got the answer that Star had asked around for information from the faeries about the sleep phenomena, but there had been some kind of misunderstanding. It was never her intention to get them to deliver children to her. While I was looking around to see that all the children were alive and unhurt, I noticed that the children seemed to come from all over the world. Some had nametags from local hospitals, while others had nothing to identify them, or where they came from. While I was doing that Antonio came, and he had been looking around as there was a rumour among the supernaturals that someone wanted children. He had been trying to find out who. Now he knew and he was as horrified as Imogen and I were. He had been using his contacts with the Paranet to get them to try and ward every hospital around to protect them from the faeries coming in and taking children. How in the name of the Goddess would we be able to return all the children to where they came from? Some of the children seemed to not be doing so well, so Antonio and I set out to create a ritual that would bring healing energy to them so they would be unharmed. Imogen came up with the idea that there was one being who could help return the children. Santa Claus could do it with his magical sleigh. And yes, he is real. She knew a member of the Winter court who might have some idea on how to get in touch with him, so she set off to do try and arrange a meeting. After some time, she came back together with two men. One was a svartalf smith named Volund, and the other was Santa Claus. I had the sinking feeling that Santa Claus, or Kringle as he called himself was judging me and that I did not pass muster. Imogen did strike a deal though with Kringle to use his magical sleigh and deliver all the children home. The price was that Star would help him two nights every year for I don't know how many years. Possibly forever. Kringle said that normally he was bringing toys to children, this would be the first time he would transport children instead. He arranged the transport. Hopefully that would solve that problem, and that the more unsavory types of supernaturals had not taken advantage of Star's folly and stolen too many children. After Kringle left with all the children, we had a discussion with Volund up in Imogen's house. It was a bit tense as he and Antonio had some differences in opinion due to them belonging to different courts. I went home to Isabella, and talked to her. She had not found out anything else about the sleeping phenomena, and she was totally flabbergasted by the mess that Star had caused and our solution to it. I returned with Imogen to Edinburgh for more research. Imogen was doing another strange ritual and by what she told me later she had managed to transport her mind and soul to a strange African-styled mud-hut on an endless plane with no animals or vegetation and with a sun that never moved, where she talked to a man named Hastrim who had been imprisoned there by his apprentice Catryn D'Amour who had stolen some strange magial artifact that he had commissioned. He said he had been the last of the Shaol, a group who were tasked with protecting mankind. Once back she searched the archives and found that Catryn had been wanted for murder by the wardens back in 1709. The White Council had no record though of the group the Shaol or of the man named Hastrim. Could this have something to do with what we were experiencing now? We realized that we needed more information, and went back to Boston, to ask some questions to Volund together with Antonio and Star. He was not very cooperative at first. He was familiar with the name Hastrim though. As we were talking to him, Imogen suddenly went quite and then her whole demeanor changed. Something was not right. She then asked Volund if he had met with Catryn recently and what she had asked him to construct. Antonio started asking Imogen who she was. She claimed that she was her, but her personality did not match. I took a look at her with the sight, and saw that I saw pure darkness and evil emitting from her. I did not want to start a fight, but I was prepared to defend myself if she did anything. Antonio though picked up a flashlight and shone it right into her eyes, which caused her to instantly fall asleep. He certainly had more power in his magic than I had. His spell was similar to my sleep-spell, but more efficient. Volund made a phone-call and told the other person that Hastrim was back, and shortly afterwards a strange-looking mulatto woman came to his workshop. She presented herself as Catryn. It was clear that they had a long history. Volund told her that he believed that Hastrim had taken over Imogen's body. Catryn confirmed that she had indeed imprisoned Hastrim, but that it was due to him having become totally evil and that he had betrayed and killed all the other members of the Shaol, except her, and a few others that had been in his group. And that it was due to him that the wardens had been after her. He had killed people in his experiments. She claimed that she had devised the spell that kept him imprisoned as a means of self-defence, knowing that he would kill her if she didn't. She had actually created a place which didn't exist in order to keep him trapped in a time-loop. That did not sound good at all. She confirmed that it was not Imogen who was in Imogen's body. Catryn could break the spell, but that would mean that Hastrim would still be in Imogen's body, and vice versa. And Hastrim was a much more powerful wizard than she was. She would have no chance of capturing him again. The switch that had happened should not have been possible. She also gave us a quick rundown of the history of the group she had been in and what they had been doing. She had not has any contact with the other survivors for quite some time. They had been hiding in the islands of Abarat in Nevernever. As far as she knew the only other survivor except her was a man named Carrion. He had left the islands of Abarat, but she did not know when or where he was now. The others had died at the hands of wardens over the years. According to her the only thing now that remained of the Shaol were the ruins of a temple back in the west of Africa. It had apparently not been much to see even when she had been an apprentice. We learned that Volund had built a strange artifact for Hastrim in the mid 1500's, and that the purpose had been to find something. Hastrim had been obsessed with things that there were no concept for. I ask Catryn about them, but it was so esotheric that it made my head spin. She knew nothing of the sea I had seen in my dreams. She suspected that Carrion had the strange device if it still existed, and that the object she had commissioned Volund to build was a new one, even though she was not sure exactly what it should find. We discussed how we would be able to get Imogen back to her body. I could of course have asked Isabella, but that was a can of secrets best left unopened. Some of the suggestions were unsettling to say the least. I decide, that I should not be a part of that but I should go and do research on possession. Maybe I could find something there. Had to be careful though as that kind of research was questionable to say the least. I later learned from Antonio that Star had created an idealized body that looked like her, and that Volund had created a crystal to capture a soul. They had then killed imogen, and then Catryn had dropped the spell, and Imogen's soul had been sucked into the crystal, and when it was fused with the glamour-construct that Star had done, she was brought back to life, but now as a fae, a member of the Brass court. I had no idea that such things could be done. Just how powerful was Star? Apparently after Imogen had been brought back to life, she had contacted Lisa, who had talked to the others. I do not know what exactly had transpired there, but I have a feeling the outcome might be quite problematic. I then had another dream about the strange sea. Many more bodies were floating in the water. This time I saw a black storm coming at the horizon, and it was getting closer. I could see writhing tentacles and strange shapes inside it. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that that was outsiders, and that it was much worse that they were where they were than if they were here on Earth. Something that would be horrible enough. I told Eibon about the dream, and I had shivers of outright fear the whole day afterwards. The Antonio, Star, Volund and the resurrected Imogen as well as Catryn flew to Africa while I was away, not sure where they got the money for that. I learned later that they had gone to the Ivory coast to visit the Shaol temple. Not much was there except some rocks that formed some altar. The retelling I got was a bit weird, even if one had Star as a measuring-stick. I gather that they did some strange things there, and then continued on to Cairo to visit Hastrim's laboratory where they defeated Carrion. Antonio tried to explain to me later what they had done, but his explanation made my head hurt with strange metaphysics. I gathered that they had somehow switched some concepts around. No matter what they had done it had worked though as all the sleepers all over the world had woken up at the same time. Wonder what exactly I had seen in my dreams. It took a few day before the others came home. When I were at home alone doing some research,there was an unexpected knock at the door. When I opened I was met by a young rich-looking woman who introduced herself as Margrave Cathaline de Este, and she said that her father wanted to meet with me, and that she was Isabella's cousin. She made it quite clear that I did not really have a choice in the matter. I knew how powerful Isabella was. There was no way I would be able to defeat her cousin if she was as powerful wizard as Isabella. She didn't threaten me as such, so I gathered that I should find out what they wanted. I thought I had managed to get them to back off from me earlier with the letter I had written where I threatened to give lots of information to the White council and expose them if anything happened to me. I wrote a quick note describing what had happened and left Outside was a limousine and a huge bodyguard was standing beside it. His muscles had muscle. I though Carl was buffed, but this guy made him look small. The bodyguard motioned for me to get into the car. Inside was an Italian man in his 40's, impeccably dressed. He and Mirou would have bonded well over clothing. Once I had gotten into the car, Cathaline also entered and sat down beside me. The bodyguard and the driver were up front. The man introduced himself as Azzo VI. He was Isabella's uncle, and said that they were curious about me, and that they had not seen her for a long time. I tried to not divulge anything about Isabella. They knew she was alive, but not where she was. They suggested we should go to a restaurant for further talk. I was not exactly in a position to tell them no. And as long as they weren't hostile I guess things were ok, but kept my guard up. When we arrived at the restaurant, the bodyguard went in, and then he made all the customers inside leave. I was treated to very fine food while they conducted a bit of small-talk. During the talk, I accidentally had a soulgaze with Azzo. I had tried avoid it but he really pushed for it. I saw a man pruned down to the most basics. I could tell that he was willing to do anything for what he believed in. Behind him I saw lots of mannequins of sort. I guess those were his previous bodies. I could tell that he enjoyed playing games of power and manipulation with people, and that he was good at it. He was a man who lacked empathy, and had a pitch black soul. That should have frightened me a lot more than it did. The soulgaze was very intense, but I didn't suffer any ill effects after it, as so often were the case otherwise. Once the dinner was finished, they offered me a ride home. I declined as we were only a few blocks away from home and I said I would walk. When they drove off, I saw a shimmering effect around the car, and then it exploded. The forcefield around it kept the shrapnel contained, but the shockwave still shattered every window along the street, and knocked me down. I as I rose up I saw Isabella coming walk towards me and she was pissed off. Not at me, but at her family. And now she had just killed her cousin and her uncle as well as the bodyguard and the driver. She dragged me away and we went to a safe-house she had nearby, which I did not know about. It was a barren apartment. She told me we had to wait there for a while before she could find out if anyone else from her family were coming to town, or if they would send in mercenaries like last time. We spent a day there. I really like being with her, but it was a bit awkward, and she had me scared that her family would come back. A group of wardens of course hit town later on to investigate the explosion. I was written off as a suspect from the beginning as they knew I did not have that kind of power. While we were in the safe-house I did take the opportunity to ask Isabella a bit more about her family, and how her powers of taking over the body of someone else worked. It was things that I had thought of earlier, but kind of wanted to not know about. But I had to know what I could expect. I certainly had no plans to learn the techniques myself. As far as I gathered it had been Isabella's grandmother who had first learnt how to take over a body, and there was two ways they could do it; either through a ritual or a quick switch. A ritual would make the switch stick better, and if I understood it correctly allow her to use the other body better and maybe even access some of the hosts memories and skills. A quick switch could be done in the blink of an eye and would leave one or both persons involved somewhat disoriented. That was what Isabella used when she took over Yukimi's body during that fight on the roof where the Wiccan sorority at school performed their ritual to honour the dead. And she used a ritual when she took over her current body. [/QUOTE]
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