High Fantasy Modern Storyhour - The Long Road (updated December 7)
Darmanicus
I'm Ray...of Enfeeblement
I've just finished reading this SH and I'd just like to say it's awesome so far. Scarpedin and Wijji-Wijji.......very cool characters!
RangerWickett
Legend
I hope to update some time in the next few days. Thanks for the nudge.
RangerWickett
Legend
Chapter Twelve, Part Six
Rather than return to the Bureau, or going to the ambush they expect, the group heads back to their hotel. Bonnie has been chatting up Nathan, often mentioning how much she used to hate the British government, or how Terry is the nicest ghost she’s ever met, or that a skinny man like Nathan should learn to build up is alcohol tolerance.
When they get to the hotel, Robert, Nathan, and Scarpedin get packed and ready to leave in case the Bureau botches this case. John has nothing but what he carries, so he stays outside and smokes in the early November humidity.
“I know you have a problem with the Bureau,” Jenny says. “Several, probably.”
She walks out of the hotel lobby and stands beside him. John doesn’t look over. He draws on his cigarette, then exhales. The air is thick and dead, and the smoke floats around him.
“Which is it?” Jenny asks. “The secrecy, or the power?”
John bites in irritation, then pulls out his cigarette.
“I wouldn’t have a problem if you knew what you were doing,” he says. “How long have you been in this job?”
“A little over five years,” Jenny says.
“And, when your Chief was gone, you were in charge of the main office for coordinating a worldwide conspiracy to conceal the existence of magic?”
Jenny smiles. “I interview well. Actually, I’m one of the top-ranking field agents, for monster handling and such. Most of the logistical crew was on Gaia. But I’m not the problem, John. When I first was exposed to all of this, it was a shock to me too. The two main worries I had were the secrecy, and the power. I didn’t know if it was right to actively hide the truth from people, and I was worried that the Bureau might abuse its power since people can’t defend themselves.”
John drops his cigarette and stamps it out.
He chuckles. “I’m not worried about you abusing power. If you were smart, you’d have arrested Robert and just taken Terry.”
He turns to head inside, and Jenny leans back to get the last word.
“I’ll let the Chief know that you wanted us to screw you over. I’m sure he’ll oblige.”
John says nothing as he heads back into the hotel lobby. Jenny is left in the still-lingering smoke.
“There’s a package for me?”
Nathan is surprised and worried. The hotel desk clerk hands over a small package, slightly bigger than a pocketbook, and Nathan accepts it gingerly.
Bonnie, who is still tagging along, asks, “Why so worried?”
He sends out his senses to see if there’s a bomb inside it, and he finds nothing.
“I’m not worried,” Nathan says.
He thanks the clerk and goes to see what he has just received, wondering how he can manage to shake the Irish bouncer woman. He sits down at a lobby desk which has no other nearby seats, and Bonnie seems to get the point, turning away to give him some privacy.
Inside the package is a cell phone. Remembering The Matrix, Nathan waits for it to ring on its own, but after a moment he shrugs, opens the phone, and looks through the contacts. There is only one listed – “Virgin, Savannah.”
He hits Send.
“Bring Scrabburu,” Wiji-wiji says to Scarpedin.
Scarpedin, in a rare introspective moment, nods quietly. He is facing out the balcony window of his hotel room, toward the trees that dot Savannah and beyond them the wide river, but he is not watching those. He is watching the reflection of the TV screen. Monty Python’s The Holy Grail is showing, and memory flickers in the back of Scarpedin’s mind.
He wants to get his motorcycle and ride, but he doesn’t know to where. Where does a knight go when he fails to protect his charge?
A knock comes at the door, and Robert peeks his head in.
“Hey, um, Scarpedin,” he says, “Terry had a question to ask you. It’s about magic.”
Scarpedin grins at the distasteful look on Robert’s face. But then Scarpedin shakes his head.
“Not in the mood for it right now, Robot.”
He turns off the TV, grabs the Scrabble game box, and heads out the room. Robert frowns at him as he leaves, but Scarpedin’s attention is focused on figuring out how to best track down the people who wanted Terry dead.
Robert and Wiji-wiji follow Scarpedin to the elevator. Ian, who Jenny had set to watch the hall for trouble, falls in with them, and chatter surrounds Scarpedin as he descends to the ground floor. He makes a note to figure out how to create a boom box with magic so he can have a dramatic soundtrack for moments like this.
The elevator opens to the lobby, and Scarpedin strides out, concealed firearm in his coat, mapcase with concealed sword slung across his back, cell phone and credit cards in his pocket. He takes a detour to the gift shop to buy sunglasses so he can finish the look. Robert, Wiji-wiji, and Ian head off to talk to the others, and Scarpedin takes the moment to himself to nod his head a few times, getting in the mood to kick ass.
He leaves the gift shop and head for the lobby exit. The others in his group – Robert, John, Jenny, Bonnie, Ian, and Nathan – stand between him and the exit.
As he tries to press through, Robert smiles and says, “What’s with the sudden bad-ass kick?”
“I don’t trust the Bureau,” Scarpedin says, “but I don’t want them to f*ck up capturing the guys who wanted Terry dead. I’m gonna go kick ass and shovel snow.”
Jenny frowns. “There’s no snow in Savannah.”
Scarpedin half-nods his head. “Oh well. Make way.”
“Scarpedin,” Jenny says, “hold on just a minute.”
“Yeah? Oh yeah, a lady’s favor. I get it.” He holds out his hand to receive her endorsement on his quest.
The group sighs. Scarpedin maintains his composure, not letting them sense his confusion.
“Scarpedin,” Robert says, “Jenny just got a phone call. They got the guy.”
Scarpedin stands still for a moment, looking at the hotel exit through his cool new sunglasses. He cocks his head slightly to Robert and drops his voice, as if it’s an aside.
“They didn’t screw it up?”
“I know,” Robert laughs. “It surprised me too.”
Jenny interrupts. “We captured the man and his sniper accomplice. They’re being taken to the Bureau offices now for interrogation.”
“No casualties?” Scarpedin asks, a hint of disappointment in his voice.
“No,” Jenny says sternly.
A moment passes.
“Alright then,” Scarpedin says. “Terry, we-. Robert, ask Terry if he wants us to go rough up this guy for him.”
Robert says, “I assume you mean, ‘interrogate personally, with the Bureau’s blessing.’”
“Whatever,” Scarpedin says.
John says to Jenny, “Will they let us do that?”
Jenny says, “You don’t actually intend to rough the guy up, do you?”
Robert takes on the burden of lying. “What do you take us for, Jenny? We just want a chance to look at this guy face to face, and we don’t want your ‘Chief’ or any of his cub scouts around to coddle this *sshole. He might’ve been responsible for killing Terry. We deserve a chance to look him in the eye and find out why.”
Jenny considers Robert for a short moment, then sighs and nods. “I’ll call ahead and see what I can do. Just the four of you?”
Robert glances at Scarpedin, John, and Nathan. “We’re taking Ian with us too.”
Jenny leans in disapprovingly. “Mind control and enchantment magic is not allowed.”
“Sure thing,” Robert says. “I just need an extra set of eyes or ears or whatever telepaths use.”
Nathan grimaces slightly, his hand to his brow as if he has a head-ache.
“I think I’ll bow out. I have some other business to attend to. Bonnie, will you go in my place?”
“Did you have a vision?” she asks.
“Of sorts,” Nathan says. “I just sense it would be bad for me to be with the group at this time.”
He stands up and nods politely to the group.
“When you get back,” he says, “check your voicemail. Jenny, a pleasure.”
Jenny smiles to him as he departs. She even manages to keep the smile and her good cheer when she turns back to Robert.
“I’ll get you your private time with the man,” she says, “but we still have due process. I know you might think the man deserves it, but if you do anything improper to him-”
“It’s okay, Jenny,” Robert says. “Don’t worry. You know me. The last thing I want to do is hurt anybody.”
“C’mon,” Scarpedin says. “We oughta get going.”
Robert starts to call a cab, and Jenny starts to call the Bureau. While the rest of the group are out of earshot, Robert leans in close to Jenny.
Grudgingly he says, “Tell the ‘Chief’ I’m proud of him.”
Jenny puts a hand on Robert’s cheek and shakes her head with amusement. Then she steps away to get back to business. Robert honestly feels a little bad about lying to her, because he’s fairly confident they’re going to kick the ever-loving sh*t out of this man.
Rather than return to the Bureau, or going to the ambush they expect, the group heads back to their hotel. Bonnie has been chatting up Nathan, often mentioning how much she used to hate the British government, or how Terry is the nicest ghost she’s ever met, or that a skinny man like Nathan should learn to build up is alcohol tolerance.
When they get to the hotel, Robert, Nathan, and Scarpedin get packed and ready to leave in case the Bureau botches this case. John has nothing but what he carries, so he stays outside and smokes in the early November humidity.
“I know you have a problem with the Bureau,” Jenny says. “Several, probably.”
She walks out of the hotel lobby and stands beside him. John doesn’t look over. He draws on his cigarette, then exhales. The air is thick and dead, and the smoke floats around him.
“Which is it?” Jenny asks. “The secrecy, or the power?”
John bites in irritation, then pulls out his cigarette.
“I wouldn’t have a problem if you knew what you were doing,” he says. “How long have you been in this job?”
“A little over five years,” Jenny says.
“And, when your Chief was gone, you were in charge of the main office for coordinating a worldwide conspiracy to conceal the existence of magic?”
Jenny smiles. “I interview well. Actually, I’m one of the top-ranking field agents, for monster handling and such. Most of the logistical crew was on Gaia. But I’m not the problem, John. When I first was exposed to all of this, it was a shock to me too. The two main worries I had were the secrecy, and the power. I didn’t know if it was right to actively hide the truth from people, and I was worried that the Bureau might abuse its power since people can’t defend themselves.”
John drops his cigarette and stamps it out.
He chuckles. “I’m not worried about you abusing power. If you were smart, you’d have arrested Robert and just taken Terry.”
He turns to head inside, and Jenny leans back to get the last word.
“I’ll let the Chief know that you wanted us to screw you over. I’m sure he’ll oblige.”
John says nothing as he heads back into the hotel lobby. Jenny is left in the still-lingering smoke.
* * *
“There’s a package for me?”
Nathan is surprised and worried. The hotel desk clerk hands over a small package, slightly bigger than a pocketbook, and Nathan accepts it gingerly.
Bonnie, who is still tagging along, asks, “Why so worried?”
He sends out his senses to see if there’s a bomb inside it, and he finds nothing.
“I’m not worried,” Nathan says.
He thanks the clerk and goes to see what he has just received, wondering how he can manage to shake the Irish bouncer woman. He sits down at a lobby desk which has no other nearby seats, and Bonnie seems to get the point, turning away to give him some privacy.
Inside the package is a cell phone. Remembering The Matrix, Nathan waits for it to ring on its own, but after a moment he shrugs, opens the phone, and looks through the contacts. There is only one listed – “Virgin, Savannah.”
He hits Send.
* * *
“Bring Scrabburu,” Wiji-wiji says to Scarpedin.
Scarpedin, in a rare introspective moment, nods quietly. He is facing out the balcony window of his hotel room, toward the trees that dot Savannah and beyond them the wide river, but he is not watching those. He is watching the reflection of the TV screen. Monty Python’s The Holy Grail is showing, and memory flickers in the back of Scarpedin’s mind.
He wants to get his motorcycle and ride, but he doesn’t know to where. Where does a knight go when he fails to protect his charge?
A knock comes at the door, and Robert peeks his head in.
“Hey, um, Scarpedin,” he says, “Terry had a question to ask you. It’s about magic.”
Scarpedin grins at the distasteful look on Robert’s face. But then Scarpedin shakes his head.
“Not in the mood for it right now, Robot.”
He turns off the TV, grabs the Scrabble game box, and heads out the room. Robert frowns at him as he leaves, but Scarpedin’s attention is focused on figuring out how to best track down the people who wanted Terry dead.
Robert and Wiji-wiji follow Scarpedin to the elevator. Ian, who Jenny had set to watch the hall for trouble, falls in with them, and chatter surrounds Scarpedin as he descends to the ground floor. He makes a note to figure out how to create a boom box with magic so he can have a dramatic soundtrack for moments like this.
The elevator opens to the lobby, and Scarpedin strides out, concealed firearm in his coat, mapcase with concealed sword slung across his back, cell phone and credit cards in his pocket. He takes a detour to the gift shop to buy sunglasses so he can finish the look. Robert, Wiji-wiji, and Ian head off to talk to the others, and Scarpedin takes the moment to himself to nod his head a few times, getting in the mood to kick ass.
He leaves the gift shop and head for the lobby exit. The others in his group – Robert, John, Jenny, Bonnie, Ian, and Nathan – stand between him and the exit.
As he tries to press through, Robert smiles and says, “What’s with the sudden bad-ass kick?”
“I don’t trust the Bureau,” Scarpedin says, “but I don’t want them to f*ck up capturing the guys who wanted Terry dead. I’m gonna go kick ass and shovel snow.”
Jenny frowns. “There’s no snow in Savannah.”
Scarpedin half-nods his head. “Oh well. Make way.”
“Scarpedin,” Jenny says, “hold on just a minute.”
“Yeah? Oh yeah, a lady’s favor. I get it.” He holds out his hand to receive her endorsement on his quest.
The group sighs. Scarpedin maintains his composure, not letting them sense his confusion.
“Scarpedin,” Robert says, “Jenny just got a phone call. They got the guy.”
Scarpedin stands still for a moment, looking at the hotel exit through his cool new sunglasses. He cocks his head slightly to Robert and drops his voice, as if it’s an aside.
“They didn’t screw it up?”
“I know,” Robert laughs. “It surprised me too.”
Jenny interrupts. “We captured the man and his sniper accomplice. They’re being taken to the Bureau offices now for interrogation.”
“No casualties?” Scarpedin asks, a hint of disappointment in his voice.
“No,” Jenny says sternly.
A moment passes.
“Alright then,” Scarpedin says. “Terry, we-. Robert, ask Terry if he wants us to go rough up this guy for him.”
Robert says, “I assume you mean, ‘interrogate personally, with the Bureau’s blessing.’”
“Whatever,” Scarpedin says.
John says to Jenny, “Will they let us do that?”
Jenny says, “You don’t actually intend to rough the guy up, do you?”
Robert takes on the burden of lying. “What do you take us for, Jenny? We just want a chance to look at this guy face to face, and we don’t want your ‘Chief’ or any of his cub scouts around to coddle this *sshole. He might’ve been responsible for killing Terry. We deserve a chance to look him in the eye and find out why.”
Jenny considers Robert for a short moment, then sighs and nods. “I’ll call ahead and see what I can do. Just the four of you?”
Robert glances at Scarpedin, John, and Nathan. “We’re taking Ian with us too.”
Jenny leans in disapprovingly. “Mind control and enchantment magic is not allowed.”
“Sure thing,” Robert says. “I just need an extra set of eyes or ears or whatever telepaths use.”
Nathan grimaces slightly, his hand to his brow as if he has a head-ache.
“I think I’ll bow out. I have some other business to attend to. Bonnie, will you go in my place?”
“Did you have a vision?” she asks.
“Of sorts,” Nathan says. “I just sense it would be bad for me to be with the group at this time.”
He stands up and nods politely to the group.
“When you get back,” he says, “check your voicemail. Jenny, a pleasure.”
Jenny smiles to him as he departs. She even manages to keep the smile and her good cheer when she turns back to Robert.
“I’ll get you your private time with the man,” she says, “but we still have due process. I know you might think the man deserves it, but if you do anything improper to him-”
“It’s okay, Jenny,” Robert says. “Don’t worry. You know me. The last thing I want to do is hurt anybody.”
“C’mon,” Scarpedin says. “We oughta get going.”
Robert starts to call a cab, and Jenny starts to call the Bureau. While the rest of the group are out of earshot, Robert leans in close to Jenny.
Grudgingly he says, “Tell the ‘Chief’ I’m proud of him.”
Jenny puts a hand on Robert’s cheek and shakes her head with amusement. Then she steps away to get back to business. Robert honestly feels a little bad about lying to her, because he’s fairly confident they’re going to kick the ever-loving sh*t out of this man.
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RangerWickett
Legend
Session Twelve, part seven
The group comes off the elevator onto the jail level in a hurry. The office is reminiscent of a police station, but with fewer guards. Which is fine, because they only have three prisoners in custody now – Shanon Mercer the relic dealer, and these two new captives.
A heavy metal door separates the entry room from the hall with the cells, and two men in black suits guard the door, standing beside what looks like a modified metal detector. Tagin, the Bureau computer expert, is checking security camera feeds and other technical things. He sits bolt up when he spots Jenny and the others.
“Jenny,” Tagin says, “the Chief wants to see you. I don’t know if he’s happy about this arrangement you’ve made.”
Robert glances at Jenny. “Oh come on. Tell your boss to-”
Jenny shakes her head. “Don’t worry. I’ll handle it and be back in a minute. I think it’s best if you don’t tag along for this. Sean, where’s the Chief?”
“Tagin,” he replies, bitter. “Chief’s in A&D, trying to pin down who this guy is. Get this, his driver’s license says he’s ‘Chuck Norris.’”
No one in the group chuckles except Ian. Wiji-wiji actually bows and mutters something about Mr. Norris being a great hero.
“I’m sorry about this,” Jenny says, “but the Bureau and bureaucracy go hand in hand.”
“Thanks,” Robert says.
Jenny goes to the elevator and leaves, and the group as a whole adopts the posture of people in a doctor’s waiting room.
Tagin clears his throat and walks up to them, his voice low so the two guards at the metal detector won’t hear.
“You guys gonna go in, or what?”
“We can do that?” John asks.
Robert says, “Of course we can. Thanks, ‘Sean.’”
“Tagin,” Tagin replies.
“Hey,” Scarpedin says, “what is it with the Bureau and not wanting to use their real name?”
“You mean ‘the Chief’?” Tagin says with a chuckle. “I don’t know what his problem is. Me, I just hate my parents, so I don’t want to use my given name.”
“So what,” Scarpedin says, “is ‘Tagin’ your ‘hacker name’ or something?”
Wiji-wiji grins. “Douburu negative, ne? Werry interesting gamu.”
Tagin clears this throat again. “Jenny won’t be gone too long. You might want to head in.”
Bonnie says, “Ye’re not breaking any rules, are ye?”
Tagin puts his pinky finger to the corner of his mouth like Doctor Evil. “You’ll find ‘Chuck’ in cell six.”
One by one, the group files through the security door into the jail. The metal detector does not go off, despite a shotgun, several handguns, a sword, and other sundry weapons concealed among them. There are no guards inside, just a bevy of security cameras.
Robert says, “I don’t think Jenny set this up.”
Ian laughs. “Pocahontas, have a problem with you guys torturing a prisoner? Whatever gave you that idea? Oh, and for the record y’all, George suggests we burn the murdering witch with the fires of heaven until he talks.”
“Let’s just do this,” John says.
“Do what, precisely?” Robert asks. “I told Jenny I wasn’t going to let you guys kill him.”
“I’m going to get answers out of him,” John says.
Terry, silent and unseen, feels a chill when John says this. What worries him is that he doesn’t disagree.
They reach the door to cell six and have a brief powwow. Ian casts a spell to let him listen to surface thoughts, and John assures them that he can heal any wounds he has to inflict, as long as they don’t cut anything off. At this pronouncement, Bonnie decides that she’ll stay outside, claiming that she’ll guard the door, and be there to let them out when they’re done. Wiji-wiji says he wants to stays with her.
With that squared away, they head inside.
The room has no windows, just the classic mirrored wall, a long metal table, and chairs. The prisoner – tall, black, with a long face that makes him look like Charlie Murphy (Eddie Murphy’s brother) – is dressed in a fine business suit. He sits hand-cuffed, his feet cuffed to the chair legs. A metal collar sits on his neck. They recognize it as one of the magic-nullifying collars the Bureau uses.
Terry sees a ghost hovering beside the man. If the collar is working right, the ghost will be unable to use its bond to the man to let him cast any magic.
“He has a ghost,” Terry says to Robert. “But the collar should keep us safe.”
Robert repeats that to the group.
At the sound of Robert’s voice, the prisoner looks up and smiles cockily.
“Are you here to break me out and take my offer?”
Scarpedin laughs. “We’re here to break something.”
John walks up to the man, grabs his forearm, and braces it against the edge of table, then glances at Robert.
“First question?”
Robert nods and says, “Look, I don’t like having to use violence, so please just answer our questions. What’s your name?”
The prisoner frowns. “I offered you a deal, and now you’re gonna try to strongarm a n*gga?”
Robert rubs his face. “I’m tired, and I’ve been having a lot of trouble with people not telling me their names. Now you don’t want John here to break your arm, do you?”
“Dick,” the prisoner says. “Dick Thevenot.”
“Dick,” Robert says. “Appropriate. Okay, dick, who do you work for?”
Dick says, “Sh*t, man, if you’re not going to accept my offer, I got no reason to talk to you.”
“We’re still considering,” Robert says. “If you’re better than the Bureau, you’ll answer some of our questions, and you’d better hurry up, because we don’t have much time to ourselves in here.”
“Okay, alright.” Dick Thevenot works his mouth like he’s trying to figure out how to say what he wants. “I work for some people who don’t like the Bureau.”
“That doesn’t narrow it down much,” Scarpedin says.
Dick shrugs. “Can’t say much else about them. Ask me something else.”
“Why’d you want to kill Terry?” Robert asks.
“Y’know,” Dick says to Scarpedin, “I didn’t send that order, but I heard that my bosses, they thought your planeshift magic would be a problem. I mean, if you’re trying to make sure no one can planeshift, it’s easier to kill people who are trouble than to try to recruit them and have them talk to everybody and sh*t, y’know? But, hey, I’m sorry man. We got nothing against you now.”
Scarpedin blinks. “What do you mean?”
Robert bites his lip. “He’s saying, Terry, that he’s sorry his people tried to kill you, but he wants to move on now.”
“Yeah, well,” Scarpedin shrugs, “I don’t like it when people kill my friends.”
John groans, and Robert suppresses a sigh. Apparently Scarpedin has forgotten that he was pretending to be Terry.
“Wait a sec,” Dick says. “This ain’t Terry Abrams. You saying we actually did kill him?”
John puts Dick into a joint lock for his hand. “We’re the ones asking the questions here, not you.”
Dick grimaces, but keeps talking. “So how the hell are you all getting over to Gaia if the kid’s dead? Look, this is new sh*t, and my bosses will pay well to know what’s up.”
“Shut up,” Robert says casually. He turns to Scarpedin and says, “Good job,” then turns back to Thevenot.
“So, dick, why did you want to separate the two worlds?”
Dick shakes his head. “I’m done talking.”
John shrugs and presses down with full force on the man’s wrist and lower forearm, using the edge of the table as a lever to snap Dick Thevenot’s arm, breaking both bones in the forearm. Thevenot screams, and the rest of the group gasps in shock.
A half-second too late, Robert remembers he needs to pretend that he’s shocked too. “No, wait,” he says, half-heartedly.
Dick reels for a bit, then spits at John. John keeps a firm grip on the back of Dick’s neck, keeping him immobile as he adjust position to the opposite arm.
“Holy sh*t, man,” Ian is shouting. “You just broke the motherf*cker’s arm! I . . . I want to go on record as saying I did not actually want to endorse my ghost’s suggestion. Holy sh*t.”
“Now he knows not to withhold information,” John says.
“Whoa, calm down,” Robert says. “Let’s not cry over split bones. We’ve still got some questions to ask. So, dick, what are you and your group up to?”
“Screw you,” Dick growls.
John snaps the other arm, and now even Scarpedin winces with some revulsion. The man’s groans are horrible, and Bonnie calls in through the doors to ask what’s going on. Robert yells back for her not to worry.
“Okay John,” Robert says, “that was pretty horrible.”
Scarpedin shrugs. “Hey, you missed what he did to Morgan. Broke the guy like a wishbone.”
“Hey,” John says, “this guy’s been trying to kill us! Don’t go getting squeamish now. Keep asking him questions.”
“I ain’t telling you nothing,” Dick says.
John breaks one of Dick’s fingers, which elicits only a pained grunt.
“Look,” Robert says, pointing at the man. “He didn’t even feel that. He’s going into shock. Just . . . just heal the guy.”
“Yes,” Ian says. “For the goddess’s sake, can we not break any more bones?”
John sighs. “Fine. I won’t break any more bones. I can heal these ones up a few times and just keep snapping them.”
John slaps the man’s face to get his attention. “Hey. Answer one of our questions and we’ll heal your broken bones. If you don’t, I’ll shatter the bones in your fingers, which I’m pretty sure I can’t fix.”
Robert watches as Dick glares at the group one by one. Something’s odd about the way his eyes skim across them, from head to toe, like he’s sizing them up, or looking for something. Not quite certain what it means, Robert tries a new question.
“Were you the one who killed the cop last night?”
“Not me,” Dick says. “I have a hired sniper. He did it.”
“Okay,” Robert says. “Heal him.”
John reluctantly concentrates and casts three spells to fix the prisoner’s arms and fingers.
“Thanks a lot, b*tch,” says Thevenot when he’s healed up.
John laughs once, then puts Thevenot’s hand palm down on the table and drives the heel of his own palm down onto the bridge of the hand, shattering the bones.
“Don’t give us a hard-,” John starts, but Thevenot interrupts.
Finally the man seems truly incensed. He screams at John and tries to lunge out of his chair. He curses at John for several seconds, and John backs off. When the man’s outburst ends, Thevenot ends up cradling his shattered hand.
“This isn’t working,” John says. “If he just now is snapping, that means it’s gonna be a long time before he decides to fess up.”
Robert says, “Ian, you got anything with your spell thing?”
“The mojo works,” Ian says, “but Buc Nasty here’s got a pretty strong will.”
John says, “I think a lot more is going on here than we know. I mean, this guy is some kind of bad-ass, and we just went and told him Terry was dead. Ian, can you and your ghost talk to the dead?”
“Dah!” Robert says. “Slow down.”
Scarpedin mutters, “Maybe we didn’t break enough bones. I mean, he’s got more.”
The four of them are absorbed in their own discussion, and so they do not notice that Dick Thevenot has closed his eyes and is concentrating as if on a spell. They all assume that the bonded ghost is what gives the man his power, and that the collar he wears thus keeps him from using his magic.
Terry is the only one to notice anything. To him, the room seems to darken as Thevenot draws power from the injuries to his body, channeling the pain into magic. The man looks up from under his brow and smiles, directly at Terry.
“Look out!” Terry shouts, but only Robert hears him.
Black tendrils, invisible to the living, reach out and stab at the hearts and limbs of Scarpedin, John, and Ian. They begin to go into seizures of pain, and they fall to the ground. Robert reacts quickly, pulling out stun gun and straight razor and advancing on the prisoner.
Thevenot growls and pulls at his bonds, which fall apart, magically unlocked. Robert slashes at the man’s throat, but Thevenot blocks with his forearm, not even wincing as the blade cuts to sinew. He stands and slams a fist into Robert’s chest. The blow crackles with magic, and Robert’s heart stops. He staggers back and falls to the floor, but as he falls back Thevenot reaches out, grabs Robert’s wrist, and pulls off the bracelet Terry is bonded to.
Terry is shouting, calling for help, but his voice is cut off as the bracelet is yanked off. Robert falls to the floor, coughing and clutching his chest.
John has managed to fight through the pain, and he gets to his knees. He sees Robert fall and Thevenot ready to make a break with Terry’s bracelet.
“Bonnie!” he shouts. “Get in here!”
Thevenot smiles his cocky smirk, and as John forces himself to his feet and prepares to attack, the mage simply clenches his fist and vanishes. John curses and leaps, swinging a wide kick through the space Thevenot just occupied, assuming the man has turned invisible, but he hits nothing.
Bonnie opens the door, and she and Wiji-wiji step in. John shouts for her to close the door because the prisoner’s invisible, but Wiji-wiji shakes his head.
“He prane shift,” the Japanese fey says. “To Gaia. Quick, herupu Robato-san.”
“Dammit,” John says.
He kneels beside Robert and uses magic to restart his heart, then moves on to Ian and Scarpedin.
“Sh*t!” Robert screams. “He stole Terry! How the hell did he-?”
“Robato-san!” Wiji-wiji pulls Robert to his feet and leans close, grabbing both his shoulders. “We can forrow. Do you trust me?”
“What?” Robert shakes his head, confused.
He notices that where Thevenot had stood, a small glass sphere lies cracked on the ground. It looks just like the soul gems the relic dealer Shanon Mercer had used to trap ghosts.
“The ghost was a fake,” Ian says once John has cured the pain wracking him. “Dammit, sorry, I should’ve seen it.”
Bonnie glances out the door, worried. “The Bureau are coming! Even Tommy Lee Jones.”
Wiji-wiji shakes Robert. “Do you trust me? Zhere is no time!”
Robert looks around, seeing them all alive but helpless to do anything to stop the bastard that just escaped. He doesn’t know what it will cost him, but Robert nods.
“Quickry!” Wiji-wiji shouts. “Come to me.”
Shouts are coming down the hall, and everyone scrambles to get close to the Japanese man. Robert watches the door.
The Chief rounds the corner, a gun in hand. He holds it out, aimed at the group, and he opens his mouth to shout something, but just then the world grows more vivid, and the interrogation room vanishes as they blindly travel to Gaia.
End of Twelfth Session. To be continued. . . .
The group comes off the elevator onto the jail level in a hurry. The office is reminiscent of a police station, but with fewer guards. Which is fine, because they only have three prisoners in custody now – Shanon Mercer the relic dealer, and these two new captives.
A heavy metal door separates the entry room from the hall with the cells, and two men in black suits guard the door, standing beside what looks like a modified metal detector. Tagin, the Bureau computer expert, is checking security camera feeds and other technical things. He sits bolt up when he spots Jenny and the others.
“Jenny,” Tagin says, “the Chief wants to see you. I don’t know if he’s happy about this arrangement you’ve made.”
Robert glances at Jenny. “Oh come on. Tell your boss to-”
Jenny shakes her head. “Don’t worry. I’ll handle it and be back in a minute. I think it’s best if you don’t tag along for this. Sean, where’s the Chief?”
“Tagin,” he replies, bitter. “Chief’s in A&D, trying to pin down who this guy is. Get this, his driver’s license says he’s ‘Chuck Norris.’”
No one in the group chuckles except Ian. Wiji-wiji actually bows and mutters something about Mr. Norris being a great hero.
“I’m sorry about this,” Jenny says, “but the Bureau and bureaucracy go hand in hand.”
“Thanks,” Robert says.
Jenny goes to the elevator and leaves, and the group as a whole adopts the posture of people in a doctor’s waiting room.
Tagin clears his throat and walks up to them, his voice low so the two guards at the metal detector won’t hear.
“You guys gonna go in, or what?”
“We can do that?” John asks.
Robert says, “Of course we can. Thanks, ‘Sean.’”
“Tagin,” Tagin replies.
“Hey,” Scarpedin says, “what is it with the Bureau and not wanting to use their real name?”
“You mean ‘the Chief’?” Tagin says with a chuckle. “I don’t know what his problem is. Me, I just hate my parents, so I don’t want to use my given name.”
“So what,” Scarpedin says, “is ‘Tagin’ your ‘hacker name’ or something?”
Wiji-wiji grins. “Douburu negative, ne? Werry interesting gamu.”
Tagin clears this throat again. “Jenny won’t be gone too long. You might want to head in.”
Bonnie says, “Ye’re not breaking any rules, are ye?”
Tagin puts his pinky finger to the corner of his mouth like Doctor Evil. “You’ll find ‘Chuck’ in cell six.”
One by one, the group files through the security door into the jail. The metal detector does not go off, despite a shotgun, several handguns, a sword, and other sundry weapons concealed among them. There are no guards inside, just a bevy of security cameras.
Robert says, “I don’t think Jenny set this up.”
Ian laughs. “Pocahontas, have a problem with you guys torturing a prisoner? Whatever gave you that idea? Oh, and for the record y’all, George suggests we burn the murdering witch with the fires of heaven until he talks.”
“Let’s just do this,” John says.
“Do what, precisely?” Robert asks. “I told Jenny I wasn’t going to let you guys kill him.”
“I’m going to get answers out of him,” John says.
Terry, silent and unseen, feels a chill when John says this. What worries him is that he doesn’t disagree.
They reach the door to cell six and have a brief powwow. Ian casts a spell to let him listen to surface thoughts, and John assures them that he can heal any wounds he has to inflict, as long as they don’t cut anything off. At this pronouncement, Bonnie decides that she’ll stay outside, claiming that she’ll guard the door, and be there to let them out when they’re done. Wiji-wiji says he wants to stays with her.
With that squared away, they head inside.
The room has no windows, just the classic mirrored wall, a long metal table, and chairs. The prisoner – tall, black, with a long face that makes him look like Charlie Murphy (Eddie Murphy’s brother) – is dressed in a fine business suit. He sits hand-cuffed, his feet cuffed to the chair legs. A metal collar sits on his neck. They recognize it as one of the magic-nullifying collars the Bureau uses.
Terry sees a ghost hovering beside the man. If the collar is working right, the ghost will be unable to use its bond to the man to let him cast any magic.
“He has a ghost,” Terry says to Robert. “But the collar should keep us safe.”
Robert repeats that to the group.
At the sound of Robert’s voice, the prisoner looks up and smiles cockily.
“Are you here to break me out and take my offer?”
Scarpedin laughs. “We’re here to break something.”
John walks up to the man, grabs his forearm, and braces it against the edge of table, then glances at Robert.
“First question?”
Robert nods and says, “Look, I don’t like having to use violence, so please just answer our questions. What’s your name?”
The prisoner frowns. “I offered you a deal, and now you’re gonna try to strongarm a n*gga?”
Robert rubs his face. “I’m tired, and I’ve been having a lot of trouble with people not telling me their names. Now you don’t want John here to break your arm, do you?”
“Dick,” the prisoner says. “Dick Thevenot.”
“Dick,” Robert says. “Appropriate. Okay, dick, who do you work for?”
Dick says, “Sh*t, man, if you’re not going to accept my offer, I got no reason to talk to you.”
“We’re still considering,” Robert says. “If you’re better than the Bureau, you’ll answer some of our questions, and you’d better hurry up, because we don’t have much time to ourselves in here.”
“Okay, alright.” Dick Thevenot works his mouth like he’s trying to figure out how to say what he wants. “I work for some people who don’t like the Bureau.”
“That doesn’t narrow it down much,” Scarpedin says.
Dick shrugs. “Can’t say much else about them. Ask me something else.”
“Why’d you want to kill Terry?” Robert asks.
“Y’know,” Dick says to Scarpedin, “I didn’t send that order, but I heard that my bosses, they thought your planeshift magic would be a problem. I mean, if you’re trying to make sure no one can planeshift, it’s easier to kill people who are trouble than to try to recruit them and have them talk to everybody and sh*t, y’know? But, hey, I’m sorry man. We got nothing against you now.”
Scarpedin blinks. “What do you mean?”
Robert bites his lip. “He’s saying, Terry, that he’s sorry his people tried to kill you, but he wants to move on now.”
“Yeah, well,” Scarpedin shrugs, “I don’t like it when people kill my friends.”
John groans, and Robert suppresses a sigh. Apparently Scarpedin has forgotten that he was pretending to be Terry.
“Wait a sec,” Dick says. “This ain’t Terry Abrams. You saying we actually did kill him?”
John puts Dick into a joint lock for his hand. “We’re the ones asking the questions here, not you.”
Dick grimaces, but keeps talking. “So how the hell are you all getting over to Gaia if the kid’s dead? Look, this is new sh*t, and my bosses will pay well to know what’s up.”
“Shut up,” Robert says casually. He turns to Scarpedin and says, “Good job,” then turns back to Thevenot.
“So, dick, why did you want to separate the two worlds?”
Dick shakes his head. “I’m done talking.”
John shrugs and presses down with full force on the man’s wrist and lower forearm, using the edge of the table as a lever to snap Dick Thevenot’s arm, breaking both bones in the forearm. Thevenot screams, and the rest of the group gasps in shock.
A half-second too late, Robert remembers he needs to pretend that he’s shocked too. “No, wait,” he says, half-heartedly.
Dick reels for a bit, then spits at John. John keeps a firm grip on the back of Dick’s neck, keeping him immobile as he adjust position to the opposite arm.
“Holy sh*t, man,” Ian is shouting. “You just broke the motherf*cker’s arm! I . . . I want to go on record as saying I did not actually want to endorse my ghost’s suggestion. Holy sh*t.”
“Now he knows not to withhold information,” John says.
“Whoa, calm down,” Robert says. “Let’s not cry over split bones. We’ve still got some questions to ask. So, dick, what are you and your group up to?”
“Screw you,” Dick growls.
John snaps the other arm, and now even Scarpedin winces with some revulsion. The man’s groans are horrible, and Bonnie calls in through the doors to ask what’s going on. Robert yells back for her not to worry.
“Okay John,” Robert says, “that was pretty horrible.”
Scarpedin shrugs. “Hey, you missed what he did to Morgan. Broke the guy like a wishbone.”
“Hey,” John says, “this guy’s been trying to kill us! Don’t go getting squeamish now. Keep asking him questions.”
“I ain’t telling you nothing,” Dick says.
John breaks one of Dick’s fingers, which elicits only a pained grunt.
“Look,” Robert says, pointing at the man. “He didn’t even feel that. He’s going into shock. Just . . . just heal the guy.”
“Yes,” Ian says. “For the goddess’s sake, can we not break any more bones?”
John sighs. “Fine. I won’t break any more bones. I can heal these ones up a few times and just keep snapping them.”
John slaps the man’s face to get his attention. “Hey. Answer one of our questions and we’ll heal your broken bones. If you don’t, I’ll shatter the bones in your fingers, which I’m pretty sure I can’t fix.”
Robert watches as Dick glares at the group one by one. Something’s odd about the way his eyes skim across them, from head to toe, like he’s sizing them up, or looking for something. Not quite certain what it means, Robert tries a new question.
“Were you the one who killed the cop last night?”
“Not me,” Dick says. “I have a hired sniper. He did it.”
“Okay,” Robert says. “Heal him.”
John reluctantly concentrates and casts three spells to fix the prisoner’s arms and fingers.
“Thanks a lot, b*tch,” says Thevenot when he’s healed up.
John laughs once, then puts Thevenot’s hand palm down on the table and drives the heel of his own palm down onto the bridge of the hand, shattering the bones.
“Don’t give us a hard-,” John starts, but Thevenot interrupts.
Finally the man seems truly incensed. He screams at John and tries to lunge out of his chair. He curses at John for several seconds, and John backs off. When the man’s outburst ends, Thevenot ends up cradling his shattered hand.
“This isn’t working,” John says. “If he just now is snapping, that means it’s gonna be a long time before he decides to fess up.”
Robert says, “Ian, you got anything with your spell thing?”
“The mojo works,” Ian says, “but Buc Nasty here’s got a pretty strong will.”
John says, “I think a lot more is going on here than we know. I mean, this guy is some kind of bad-ass, and we just went and told him Terry was dead. Ian, can you and your ghost talk to the dead?”
“Dah!” Robert says. “Slow down.”
Scarpedin mutters, “Maybe we didn’t break enough bones. I mean, he’s got more.”
The four of them are absorbed in their own discussion, and so they do not notice that Dick Thevenot has closed his eyes and is concentrating as if on a spell. They all assume that the bonded ghost is what gives the man his power, and that the collar he wears thus keeps him from using his magic.
Terry is the only one to notice anything. To him, the room seems to darken as Thevenot draws power from the injuries to his body, channeling the pain into magic. The man looks up from under his brow and smiles, directly at Terry.
“Look out!” Terry shouts, but only Robert hears him.
Black tendrils, invisible to the living, reach out and stab at the hearts and limbs of Scarpedin, John, and Ian. They begin to go into seizures of pain, and they fall to the ground. Robert reacts quickly, pulling out stun gun and straight razor and advancing on the prisoner.
Thevenot growls and pulls at his bonds, which fall apart, magically unlocked. Robert slashes at the man’s throat, but Thevenot blocks with his forearm, not even wincing as the blade cuts to sinew. He stands and slams a fist into Robert’s chest. The blow crackles with magic, and Robert’s heart stops. He staggers back and falls to the floor, but as he falls back Thevenot reaches out, grabs Robert’s wrist, and pulls off the bracelet Terry is bonded to.
Terry is shouting, calling for help, but his voice is cut off as the bracelet is yanked off. Robert falls to the floor, coughing and clutching his chest.
John has managed to fight through the pain, and he gets to his knees. He sees Robert fall and Thevenot ready to make a break with Terry’s bracelet.
“Bonnie!” he shouts. “Get in here!”
Thevenot smiles his cocky smirk, and as John forces himself to his feet and prepares to attack, the mage simply clenches his fist and vanishes. John curses and leaps, swinging a wide kick through the space Thevenot just occupied, assuming the man has turned invisible, but he hits nothing.
Bonnie opens the door, and she and Wiji-wiji step in. John shouts for her to close the door because the prisoner’s invisible, but Wiji-wiji shakes his head.
“He prane shift,” the Japanese fey says. “To Gaia. Quick, herupu Robato-san.”
“Dammit,” John says.
He kneels beside Robert and uses magic to restart his heart, then moves on to Ian and Scarpedin.
“Sh*t!” Robert screams. “He stole Terry! How the hell did he-?”
“Robato-san!” Wiji-wiji pulls Robert to his feet and leans close, grabbing both his shoulders. “We can forrow. Do you trust me?”
“What?” Robert shakes his head, confused.
He notices that where Thevenot had stood, a small glass sphere lies cracked on the ground. It looks just like the soul gems the relic dealer Shanon Mercer had used to trap ghosts.
“The ghost was a fake,” Ian says once John has cured the pain wracking him. “Dammit, sorry, I should’ve seen it.”
Bonnie glances out the door, worried. “The Bureau are coming! Even Tommy Lee Jones.”
Wiji-wiji shakes Robert. “Do you trust me? Zhere is no time!”
Robert looks around, seeing them all alive but helpless to do anything to stop the bastard that just escaped. He doesn’t know what it will cost him, but Robert nods.
“Quickry!” Wiji-wiji shouts. “Come to me.”
Shouts are coming down the hall, and everyone scrambles to get close to the Japanese man. Robert watches the door.
The Chief rounds the corner, a gun in hand. He holds it out, aimed at the group, and he opens his mouth to shout something, but just then the world grows more vivid, and the interrogation room vanishes as they blindly travel to Gaia.
End of Twelfth Session. To be continued. . . .
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.
RangerWickett
Legend
Session Thirteen, part one
Having just left the hotel, having left behind the others because he has seen what they will do to the man and he knows he cannot walk beside them now, Nathan heads for his car in the parking garage. He casually checks it for bombs on the undercarriage, then gets inside and sits. He closes his eyes and takes a breath.
The road splits into three paths, he sees, one through city, one through sea, and one between. The road of glass and light ends in a mirrored room filled with only one man. At the end of the whale road, a man holds a beam of sunlight in his hands.
The long road, however, has no torches of its own. If opportunity and chance fall into the proper holes, the way will be lit at middle and end, but Nathan fears that the travelers will lose their way just as they begin.
A massive scaled fire stalks out of sight at the fork in the road, holding forth a golden hand.
Nathan slides out of the vision and frowns in consternation.
He cannot travel with Robert, John, and the others, but that does not mean he hopes they fail. He takes out his cell phone, and makes a call that will light the way. A man answers at the other end of the line.
“Hello,” Nathan says. “My name is Nathaniel Beckford. I’m calling in response to the package you sent.”
Those who have seen the needles eye, now tread,
Like a husk, from which all that was now has fled,
And the masks, that the monsters wear,
To feed, upon their prey.
They were on the fourth floor of a building when they planeshifted. On Gaia there is no building, just the branches of a huge tree, cracking and snapping around the group as they fall to the ground thirty feet below.
John feels no fear as he falls, and in the back of his mind he thinks that he has had much worse before. He catches onto a branch, steadies himself, then drops and rolls. He lands a half second after the rest of the group, but he is the only one able to walk right away. The rest are groaning, except Wiji-wiji, who simply looks exhausted.
The air is sparkling, chittering with voices hidden in the woods around them, sounding like a choir trying to lend drama to the chase. John needs only a moment to get his bearings, and then he spots the escaped prisoner a hundred feet away, fleeing through the woods. With supernatural speed, John sprints after Dick Thevenot, gun in hand. He is on the hunt, and he knows his prey won’t escape.
Thevenot glances over his shoulder, but doesn’t stop running.
“How the hell’d you follow me?” he shouts.
Beside Thevenot floats Terry, his form wispy and desperate. He is shouting for help, but his voice is faint, suppressed by some spell of Thevenot’s. John sees the bracelet clutched in Thevenot’s hand, and he knows that he cannot allow the man to get away with it. Without slowing down, John fires off several shots, hoping to distract his prey, not hit him.
Thevenot whips his head backward to try to dodge the shots, and he stumbles over a mass of brush. John closes in, leaping clear over the brush and landing like a raptor upon Thevenot. His foot drives into the back of the man's leg, staggering him and knocking him off balance. The mage falls against a tree and spins, sneering at John. He thrusts out a hand, and a burst of force knocks the gun out of John’s grasp.
“Just one of you, b*tch,” he laughs.
John expressionlessly steps in and swings a fist downward into Thevenot’s face, then grabs the mage's shoulders and drives a knee into his stomach. Amazingly, Thevenot barely flinches, and he begins to chant a spell, which John somehow recognizes as Aztec though he cannot understand it. John tries to punch him to disrupt his concentration, but Thevenot deflects the blow with an incredible strength, and the blow misses. Energy crackles around the mage’s hands, and he draws back as if to strike into John’s heart.
But then, just as the spell's last syllable passes Thevenot’s lips, his eyes widen like he has just heard the voice of God judging him, and he gasps. He staggers forward and John steps out of reach. Thevenot falls to his knees and accidentally touches his own chest with one of his hands. A scream tears out of him and pierces the fey forest as his spell shatters his ribs. He slumps to the grass and dirt, a river of blood leaking out of his mouth.
John frowns, more than a little surprised.
“Did you do that?” Terry asks.
John blinks, then shakes his head. “He just got overeager, I guess.”
He doesn’t believe it himself, but he has no better explanation.
John returns to the group a few minutes later, the unconscious, broken body of Dick Thevenot over his shoulder, and Terry’s ghost by his side. The group is excited to see they’re safe. Terry smiles in embarrassment.
“Sorry for letting myself get kidnapped,” he says. “I should’ve seen that coming. I’m a damsel in distress, aren’t I?”
“Why didn’t any of you come with me?” John asks.
Bonnie is the first to raise her hand. “John, d’ye realize that ye run about as fast as a horse?”
John says, “Yeah, so?”
“So, Prince Charming,” Ian laughs in his gruff southern accent, “that ain’t natural. We’re natural sort of people, and the only thing I do like a racehorse is piss.”
Scarpedin says, “I heard the dude screaming, so I figured you had it under control.”
“John,” Bonnie says, “I was just gonna mention that I have a broken leg so I couldn’t follow, and could ye please fix it for me?”
John carefully lowers the captive’s body to the ground, says, “We’re going to interrogate him right this time,” then moves over to help Bonnie. He glances at Robert, waiting for his explanation.
Robert is lying on his back at the base of the tree, Wiji-wiji sitting Japanese style beside him.
“Hey, I wanted to kill the guy too,” Robert says, “but I think I had just suffered a heart attack before we teleported.”
Wiji-wiji grins. “Robato-san is werry smart. He used many branches to break his farru.”
“Thanks,” Robert says. “Hey John?”
John nods. He has a lot of people to heal, and having a responsibility to them leaves an ashen taste in his mouth. John expects he’ll wear himself out using healing magic, but everyone needs to be able to move.
Scarpedin and Ian gag and bind the prisoner, with Ian having to repeatedly tell his ghost Giovanni that they obviously don’t need his advice on how to interrogate the man. As John makes his rounds healing the group from their fall, they discuss the current dilemma.
Wiji-wiji explains that the man they captured was like Terry, in that the area nearby him – maybe a hundred-foot radius – made the connection between Terra and Gaia close. Nearby either of them, Wiji-wiji could cross between the two worlds. The group asks if this is because Wiji-wiji is fey, and Wiji-wiji replies, a bit obliquely, that he’s not entirely fey. The way he explains it, it sounds like he’s the opposite of a changeling. Instead of being a creature left in place of a human baby, he was the human baby, raised by the fey of Japan, and given some of their powers. When asked for more information about himself, Wiji-wiji declines, claiming his Engrish isn’t werry good.
The group begins to whine among themselves about how the Bureau was incompetent not to have foreseen Thevenot’s trick, which they have now figured out. Thevenot might be something like Terry, a possible ‘world mage,’ and so he does not need a ghost to use magic. However, he had Shanon Mercer acquire a ghost for him, so that when he was captured the Bureau would put up protections to stop the magic the ghost could provide, not even considering that the man might have other powers.
This complicates things. Obviously the people behind the separation of the two worlds are not themselves limited from planeshifting, which would explain why killing Terry was so necessary for them. Right now Thevenot is their only lead to who is behind the whole situation, and how to fix it.
“We need a place to interrogate him,” John says. “Out here, in the woods with the fey, it’s not safe, and I don’t want him trying to escape again. I think we need to go to the Bureau.”
“What?” Robert says. “No, not a chance in hell. They’re the ones who screwed this up in the first place, and they probably would just arrest us if we went back to them. In fact, the next time I see ‘the Chief,’” he waves his hands in the air mockingly, “ might have to. . . .”
He trails off.
“Have to what?” Bonnie asks.
“Be rude,” Robert says. “Anyway, we’re not taking this guy to the Bureau. They’ll just screw it up again.”
“Not the one on Terra,” John says. He cocks his head in the direction of distant buildings, visible through the fey woods. “The one here.”
“Oh,” Robert says. “Well okay then.”
“Pardon a stupid question,” Ian says, “but I saw you break both his arms, and he didn’t talk. How are we going to make him say anything?”
The air is disturbed with the rattlesnake trill of a deck of cards being shuffled. The group turns to look at Wiji-wiji, who holds out the deck for Bonnie to cut.
“Pray gamu?” he asks.
Having just left the hotel, having left behind the others because he has seen what they will do to the man and he knows he cannot walk beside them now, Nathan heads for his car in the parking garage. He casually checks it for bombs on the undercarriage, then gets inside and sits. He closes his eyes and takes a breath.
The road splits into three paths, he sees, one through city, one through sea, and one between. The road of glass and light ends in a mirrored room filled with only one man. At the end of the whale road, a man holds a beam of sunlight in his hands.
The long road, however, has no torches of its own. If opportunity and chance fall into the proper holes, the way will be lit at middle and end, but Nathan fears that the travelers will lose their way just as they begin.
A massive scaled fire stalks out of sight at the fork in the road, holding forth a golden hand.
Nathan slides out of the vision and frowns in consternation.
He cannot travel with Robert, John, and the others, but that does not mean he hopes they fail. He takes out his cell phone, and makes a call that will light the way. A man answers at the other end of the line.
“Hello,” Nathan says. “My name is Nathaniel Beckford. I’m calling in response to the package you sent.”
Those who have seen the needles eye, now tread,
Like a husk, from which all that was now has fled,
And the masks, that the monsters wear,
To feed, upon their prey.
”Wandering Star” – Portishead
* * *
They were on the fourth floor of a building when they planeshifted. On Gaia there is no building, just the branches of a huge tree, cracking and snapping around the group as they fall to the ground thirty feet below.
John feels no fear as he falls, and in the back of his mind he thinks that he has had much worse before. He catches onto a branch, steadies himself, then drops and rolls. He lands a half second after the rest of the group, but he is the only one able to walk right away. The rest are groaning, except Wiji-wiji, who simply looks exhausted.
The air is sparkling, chittering with voices hidden in the woods around them, sounding like a choir trying to lend drama to the chase. John needs only a moment to get his bearings, and then he spots the escaped prisoner a hundred feet away, fleeing through the woods. With supernatural speed, John sprints after Dick Thevenot, gun in hand. He is on the hunt, and he knows his prey won’t escape.
Thevenot glances over his shoulder, but doesn’t stop running.
“How the hell’d you follow me?” he shouts.
Beside Thevenot floats Terry, his form wispy and desperate. He is shouting for help, but his voice is faint, suppressed by some spell of Thevenot’s. John sees the bracelet clutched in Thevenot’s hand, and he knows that he cannot allow the man to get away with it. Without slowing down, John fires off several shots, hoping to distract his prey, not hit him.
Thevenot whips his head backward to try to dodge the shots, and he stumbles over a mass of brush. John closes in, leaping clear over the brush and landing like a raptor upon Thevenot. His foot drives into the back of the man's leg, staggering him and knocking him off balance. The mage falls against a tree and spins, sneering at John. He thrusts out a hand, and a burst of force knocks the gun out of John’s grasp.
“Just one of you, b*tch,” he laughs.
John expressionlessly steps in and swings a fist downward into Thevenot’s face, then grabs the mage's shoulders and drives a knee into his stomach. Amazingly, Thevenot barely flinches, and he begins to chant a spell, which John somehow recognizes as Aztec though he cannot understand it. John tries to punch him to disrupt his concentration, but Thevenot deflects the blow with an incredible strength, and the blow misses. Energy crackles around the mage’s hands, and he draws back as if to strike into John’s heart.
But then, just as the spell's last syllable passes Thevenot’s lips, his eyes widen like he has just heard the voice of God judging him, and he gasps. He staggers forward and John steps out of reach. Thevenot falls to his knees and accidentally touches his own chest with one of his hands. A scream tears out of him and pierces the fey forest as his spell shatters his ribs. He slumps to the grass and dirt, a river of blood leaking out of his mouth.
John frowns, more than a little surprised.
“Did you do that?” Terry asks.
John blinks, then shakes his head. “He just got overeager, I guess.”
He doesn’t believe it himself, but he has no better explanation.
* * *
John returns to the group a few minutes later, the unconscious, broken body of Dick Thevenot over his shoulder, and Terry’s ghost by his side. The group is excited to see they’re safe. Terry smiles in embarrassment.
“Sorry for letting myself get kidnapped,” he says. “I should’ve seen that coming. I’m a damsel in distress, aren’t I?”
“Why didn’t any of you come with me?” John asks.
Bonnie is the first to raise her hand. “John, d’ye realize that ye run about as fast as a horse?”
John says, “Yeah, so?”
“So, Prince Charming,” Ian laughs in his gruff southern accent, “that ain’t natural. We’re natural sort of people, and the only thing I do like a racehorse is piss.”
Scarpedin says, “I heard the dude screaming, so I figured you had it under control.”
“John,” Bonnie says, “I was just gonna mention that I have a broken leg so I couldn’t follow, and could ye please fix it for me?”
John carefully lowers the captive’s body to the ground, says, “We’re going to interrogate him right this time,” then moves over to help Bonnie. He glances at Robert, waiting for his explanation.
Robert is lying on his back at the base of the tree, Wiji-wiji sitting Japanese style beside him.
“Hey, I wanted to kill the guy too,” Robert says, “but I think I had just suffered a heart attack before we teleported.”
Wiji-wiji grins. “Robato-san is werry smart. He used many branches to break his farru.”
“Thanks,” Robert says. “Hey John?”
John nods. He has a lot of people to heal, and having a responsibility to them leaves an ashen taste in his mouth. John expects he’ll wear himself out using healing magic, but everyone needs to be able to move.
Scarpedin and Ian gag and bind the prisoner, with Ian having to repeatedly tell his ghost Giovanni that they obviously don’t need his advice on how to interrogate the man. As John makes his rounds healing the group from their fall, they discuss the current dilemma.
Wiji-wiji explains that the man they captured was like Terry, in that the area nearby him – maybe a hundred-foot radius – made the connection between Terra and Gaia close. Nearby either of them, Wiji-wiji could cross between the two worlds. The group asks if this is because Wiji-wiji is fey, and Wiji-wiji replies, a bit obliquely, that he’s not entirely fey. The way he explains it, it sounds like he’s the opposite of a changeling. Instead of being a creature left in place of a human baby, he was the human baby, raised by the fey of Japan, and given some of their powers. When asked for more information about himself, Wiji-wiji declines, claiming his Engrish isn’t werry good.
The group begins to whine among themselves about how the Bureau was incompetent not to have foreseen Thevenot’s trick, which they have now figured out. Thevenot might be something like Terry, a possible ‘world mage,’ and so he does not need a ghost to use magic. However, he had Shanon Mercer acquire a ghost for him, so that when he was captured the Bureau would put up protections to stop the magic the ghost could provide, not even considering that the man might have other powers.
This complicates things. Obviously the people behind the separation of the two worlds are not themselves limited from planeshifting, which would explain why killing Terry was so necessary for them. Right now Thevenot is their only lead to who is behind the whole situation, and how to fix it.
“We need a place to interrogate him,” John says. “Out here, in the woods with the fey, it’s not safe, and I don’t want him trying to escape again. I think we need to go to the Bureau.”
“What?” Robert says. “No, not a chance in hell. They’re the ones who screwed this up in the first place, and they probably would just arrest us if we went back to them. In fact, the next time I see ‘the Chief,’” he waves his hands in the air mockingly, “ might have to. . . .”
He trails off.
“Have to what?” Bonnie asks.
“Be rude,” Robert says. “Anyway, we’re not taking this guy to the Bureau. They’ll just screw it up again.”
“Not the one on Terra,” John says. He cocks his head in the direction of distant buildings, visible through the fey woods. “The one here.”
“Oh,” Robert says. “Well okay then.”
“Pardon a stupid question,” Ian says, “but I saw you break both his arms, and he didn’t talk. How are we going to make him say anything?”
The air is disturbed with the rattlesnake trill of a deck of cards being shuffled. The group turns to look at Wiji-wiji, who holds out the deck for Bonnie to cut.
“Pray gamu?” he asks.
RangerWickett
Legend
I don't know if I'll get a chance to update this before Gen Con, but once I get back I'll plan to update regularly.
Brief aside:
Due to my recent fascination with the show 24, I've realized that, with a bit of reworking, I could probably fit in a few more plot threads and take the New Orleans set of adventures and stretch them into 24 separate episodes.
You have five main groups. The PCs, the Bureau, the Lee family, the Canadian terrorists (heheh), and the Rastafarian voodoo folks. I have to shift the time a bit to make things work out, and I have to add a new section so that the whole story could be contained in 24 hours, instead of spanning weeks like it does in the game. My main difficulty here is that I want to include the Renaissance Festival, so I can have some of the build-up to the main plot, and so I can have Wiji-wiji. I think I might have to drop him for this shortened version, though.
2pm to 3pm. Bureau agent Raine is watching the news about a terrorist bombing of the Neches River Bridge in Texas overnight. Meanwhile, unlikely heroes (the PCs) are coming into town, Nathan driving with the rest of the group sleeping in the car. Get to a hotel, rest for a bit and recuperate. Get a hot shower scene with Belladonna. Meanwhile, Raine is coordinating with the Savannah Bureau, learning that there's still no word on why the two worlds are separate, but that there's a lead from some odd reports coming out of Texas.
We have a phone call between Belladonna and her father, and then show Adrien Lee and Maurice Boudreaux preparing for the party. PCs call the Bureau, and just as they're about to leave, Robert arrives, tired. We cut to Balthazaar while he's in the middle of a fight with a vampire, but vampire gets away. PCs meet the Bureau, and Balthazaar shows up. Then we cut back to the hotel, where Robert fends off the Canadian George Clooney assassin.
3pm to 4pm. PCs get report that Robert's wounded. Fill rest of episode with Bureau trying to track down assassin's accomplice. Eventually they get a suspect with information about some sort of deal going down later this afternoon, at the zoo. Meanwhile, PCs move into Belladonna's place, then go and visit a magical bookstore for John's sake. While shopping for costumes Nathan has a vision of the zoo. Before they can react, Canadian terrorists attack and attempt to kill Terry, and we have an escape in a car. This is a new scene, which I need so I can establish Terry is the primary target.
4pm to 5pm. Scarpedin goes to the zoo while everyone else tries to avoid the Canadians. I invent a subplot with Adrien Lee and Maurice Boudreaux, something that displays their friendship but a potential for a rift. End with afternoon shoot-out and battle at the big cat section of the Audubon Zoo.
5pm to 6pm. Graveyard events. Learn something (which wasn't in the actual adventure, but which is needed to keep the tension up) about that there's going to be danger on Gaia, and that the Bureau agents trapped there will die if they're not freed before midnight.
6pm to 7pm. Work in a new quest. The PCs need to get some sort of special item to help Terry focus his plane shift power. This involves chasing down some bad guys who aren't related to the main plot much. Cops get involved and try to chase the PCs, and they escape with the aid of Balthazaar, getting to Belladonna's house and planeshifting right at the last minute (because everything in 24 has to be Awesome).
7pm to 8pm. Go over to Gaia, and have some hard times. Not sure what, but they run across the secret keeper.
8pm to 9pm. Get to Bureau office on Gaia. Kill guard vampires, then have to get a spell to free the agents from magical control so they can defend themselves. Realize more vamps are on the way, and they won't be able to escape before the vampire's attack.
9pm to 10pm. Set up defenses against vampires, fight them off, rescue Bureau agents.
10pm to 11pm. Get back from Gaia, celebrate. Visions involving vampires, and a vision that meta-comments on the style -- the vision starts with "the following takes place between 1am and 2am," and then briefly flashes events from later that evening. While the PCs are partying, follow the Bureau folks debriefing, figuring out a hint of what's up, and prepping to protect Terry. Belladonna talks to her dad, then tries to keep Terry from going to the party. End with a revelation that Maurice is working with the badguys; he demands to be more involved in the plan, in exchange for the favor he's granting.
11pm to 12am. A mostly Terry-Robert episode, leading up to the start of the Halloween party, a few sneaky events going on there as John and Nathan try to figure out what's up. Meanwhile the vampire that Balthazaar failed to kill earlier in the day is stalking women in the French Quarter, and he kills the woman Nathan was flirting with earlier at the bar, and collects her blood. Balthazaar looks into this, and finds out that the vampires are gathering rare components for a powerful ritual the Rastafarian neo-Voodooists are preparing. Balthazaar gets into a fight and has to run, and Mr. Lee meets with Robert.
12am to 1am. Balthazaar on the run, Robert talking to and then tailing Mr. Lee, Terry being convinced to go along to the party. Robert nearly gets picked up by cops on account of the man he murdered on the road, but he gets away, goes into hiding, and eventually gets a ride from Whitey to the party. The Canadians show up at the party.
1am to 2am. Before the big action begins, John and Yuko the Bureau agent try to tail one of the Canadians, to find out what he's up to, and possibly disarm the bomb. That fails, so we go to car chase, gunfight, avoidance of bombs. Robert shows up at the party, gets pulled into the secure room, and then leaves just before Mr. Lee kills Terry.
2am to 3am. Group links back up, disposes of detonators, and tries to make plans for vengeance. To keep the party from being able to go for help, we have the Bureau get wind of the cops reporting that Robert is a criminal, so they have to go on the run. Robert and Scarpedin head to the French Quarter to talk to Terry's ghost, and get contacted by Marie LaVeau, who helps them escape the cops and Bureau.
3am to 4am. In an attempt to bring Terry back from the dead, Scarpedin and Whitey go to get the bike, Robert gets his guns. The Bureau with John's help looks for their missing agent Yuko, and tries to track the Canadians. Here I have to take a major departure so that, by 10 in the morning, we can resolve who's behind the whole thing. So at this point I'd bring a few new bad guys from the main group, including the main leader (who will not make an appearance in the storyhour for a long while). Bad guys talk to Canadians over cell phone about /why/ they need Terry's heart, and we end with Robert and Scarpedin coming to the hotel and realizing people are already there.
4am to 5am. Fight at the hospital, chase, bringing Terry back as a ghost.
5am to 6am. Focus shifts to Adrien Lee's attempts to find out what's going on, and the Bureau tracking these newly-arrived badguys.
6am to 7am. Robert and Scarpedin get a call from Mr. Lee, arrange Starbucks events. We have a bit more of the 'main villains' plot arc, but the bad guys are good at avoiding scrutiny, so the focus is on finding out through Adrien Lee what is really going on. As the sun comes up, Marie says goodbye, and we find out that the telepath has taken control of Mr. Lee and Belladonna.
7am to 8am. Starbucks fight, the trip through Gaia with the thought eater, negotiating with Adrien Lee, Scarpedin and Whitey's antics. End with Bureau folks from Savannah arriving at the New Orleans airport. Then, moments after they get off the plane, Dick Thevenot gets off the plane too, and he puts in a call to his boss, saying something ominous.
8am to 2pm would resolve the end of the conflict. We'd have the seance, but we'd skip the vision of the doomed cities because this version would not involve world travel. Of course, in the real game it didn't happen that way, so it's kinda silly for me to be considering this.
Brief aside:
Due to my recent fascination with the show 24, I've realized that, with a bit of reworking, I could probably fit in a few more plot threads and take the New Orleans set of adventures and stretch them into 24 separate episodes.
You have five main groups. The PCs, the Bureau, the Lee family, the Canadian terrorists (heheh), and the Rastafarian voodoo folks. I have to shift the time a bit to make things work out, and I have to add a new section so that the whole story could be contained in 24 hours, instead of spanning weeks like it does in the game. My main difficulty here is that I want to include the Renaissance Festival, so I can have some of the build-up to the main plot, and so I can have Wiji-wiji. I think I might have to drop him for this shortened version, though.
2pm to 3pm. Bureau agent Raine is watching the news about a terrorist bombing of the Neches River Bridge in Texas overnight. Meanwhile, unlikely heroes (the PCs) are coming into town, Nathan driving with the rest of the group sleeping in the car. Get to a hotel, rest for a bit and recuperate. Get a hot shower scene with Belladonna. Meanwhile, Raine is coordinating with the Savannah Bureau, learning that there's still no word on why the two worlds are separate, but that there's a lead from some odd reports coming out of Texas.
We have a phone call between Belladonna and her father, and then show Adrien Lee and Maurice Boudreaux preparing for the party. PCs call the Bureau, and just as they're about to leave, Robert arrives, tired. We cut to Balthazaar while he's in the middle of a fight with a vampire, but vampire gets away. PCs meet the Bureau, and Balthazaar shows up. Then we cut back to the hotel, where Robert fends off the Canadian George Clooney assassin.
3pm to 4pm. PCs get report that Robert's wounded. Fill rest of episode with Bureau trying to track down assassin's accomplice. Eventually they get a suspect with information about some sort of deal going down later this afternoon, at the zoo. Meanwhile, PCs move into Belladonna's place, then go and visit a magical bookstore for John's sake. While shopping for costumes Nathan has a vision of the zoo. Before they can react, Canadian terrorists attack and attempt to kill Terry, and we have an escape in a car. This is a new scene, which I need so I can establish Terry is the primary target.
4pm to 5pm. Scarpedin goes to the zoo while everyone else tries to avoid the Canadians. I invent a subplot with Adrien Lee and Maurice Boudreaux, something that displays their friendship but a potential for a rift. End with afternoon shoot-out and battle at the big cat section of the Audubon Zoo.
5pm to 6pm. Graveyard events. Learn something (which wasn't in the actual adventure, but which is needed to keep the tension up) about that there's going to be danger on Gaia, and that the Bureau agents trapped there will die if they're not freed before midnight.
6pm to 7pm. Work in a new quest. The PCs need to get some sort of special item to help Terry focus his plane shift power. This involves chasing down some bad guys who aren't related to the main plot much. Cops get involved and try to chase the PCs, and they escape with the aid of Balthazaar, getting to Belladonna's house and planeshifting right at the last minute (because everything in 24 has to be Awesome).
7pm to 8pm. Go over to Gaia, and have some hard times. Not sure what, but they run across the secret keeper.
8pm to 9pm. Get to Bureau office on Gaia. Kill guard vampires, then have to get a spell to free the agents from magical control so they can defend themselves. Realize more vamps are on the way, and they won't be able to escape before the vampire's attack.
9pm to 10pm. Set up defenses against vampires, fight them off, rescue Bureau agents.
10pm to 11pm. Get back from Gaia, celebrate. Visions involving vampires, and a vision that meta-comments on the style -- the vision starts with "the following takes place between 1am and 2am," and then briefly flashes events from later that evening. While the PCs are partying, follow the Bureau folks debriefing, figuring out a hint of what's up, and prepping to protect Terry. Belladonna talks to her dad, then tries to keep Terry from going to the party. End with a revelation that Maurice is working with the badguys; he demands to be more involved in the plan, in exchange for the favor he's granting.
11pm to 12am. A mostly Terry-Robert episode, leading up to the start of the Halloween party, a few sneaky events going on there as John and Nathan try to figure out what's up. Meanwhile the vampire that Balthazaar failed to kill earlier in the day is stalking women in the French Quarter, and he kills the woman Nathan was flirting with earlier at the bar, and collects her blood. Balthazaar looks into this, and finds out that the vampires are gathering rare components for a powerful ritual the Rastafarian neo-Voodooists are preparing. Balthazaar gets into a fight and has to run, and Mr. Lee meets with Robert.
12am to 1am. Balthazaar on the run, Robert talking to and then tailing Mr. Lee, Terry being convinced to go along to the party. Robert nearly gets picked up by cops on account of the man he murdered on the road, but he gets away, goes into hiding, and eventually gets a ride from Whitey to the party. The Canadians show up at the party.
1am to 2am. Before the big action begins, John and Yuko the Bureau agent try to tail one of the Canadians, to find out what he's up to, and possibly disarm the bomb. That fails, so we go to car chase, gunfight, avoidance of bombs. Robert shows up at the party, gets pulled into the secure room, and then leaves just before Mr. Lee kills Terry.
2am to 3am. Group links back up, disposes of detonators, and tries to make plans for vengeance. To keep the party from being able to go for help, we have the Bureau get wind of the cops reporting that Robert is a criminal, so they have to go on the run. Robert and Scarpedin head to the French Quarter to talk to Terry's ghost, and get contacted by Marie LaVeau, who helps them escape the cops and Bureau.
3am to 4am. In an attempt to bring Terry back from the dead, Scarpedin and Whitey go to get the bike, Robert gets his guns. The Bureau with John's help looks for their missing agent Yuko, and tries to track the Canadians. Here I have to take a major departure so that, by 10 in the morning, we can resolve who's behind the whole thing. So at this point I'd bring a few new bad guys from the main group, including the main leader (who will not make an appearance in the storyhour for a long while). Bad guys talk to Canadians over cell phone about /why/ they need Terry's heart, and we end with Robert and Scarpedin coming to the hotel and realizing people are already there.
4am to 5am. Fight at the hospital, chase, bringing Terry back as a ghost.
5am to 6am. Focus shifts to Adrien Lee's attempts to find out what's going on, and the Bureau tracking these newly-arrived badguys.
6am to 7am. Robert and Scarpedin get a call from Mr. Lee, arrange Starbucks events. We have a bit more of the 'main villains' plot arc, but the bad guys are good at avoiding scrutiny, so the focus is on finding out through Adrien Lee what is really going on. As the sun comes up, Marie says goodbye, and we find out that the telepath has taken control of Mr. Lee and Belladonna.
7am to 8am. Starbucks fight, the trip through Gaia with the thought eater, negotiating with Adrien Lee, Scarpedin and Whitey's antics. End with Bureau folks from Savannah arriving at the New Orleans airport. Then, moments after they get off the plane, Dick Thevenot gets off the plane too, and he puts in a call to his boss, saying something ominous.
8am to 2pm would resolve the end of the conflict. We'd have the seance, but we'd skip the vision of the doomed cities because this version would not involve world travel. Of course, in the real game it didn't happen that way, so it's kinda silly for me to be considering this.
