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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Zubkavich" data-source="post: 847592" data-attributes="member: 8810">Session Fifteen: The Water WorksTaken aback by the letter from the Snapdragon Box, Karen hurriedly grabs the old letters from Miller and stuffs them into the box along with a hastily written note:I’m sending you all of the letters that have gone between Miller and I. Hopefully they will give you some idea about things. I will answer any questions you may have if I can, but to be honest Miller was usually the one answering my questions. Why did he die? How? How bad is the situation in your world? I am trying to prevent these Shadows from taking over mine.KarenClosing the lid, she’s stunned and angry at the same time. Without Miller’s valuable information, the group is virtually left out to dry in their quest to stop the encroaching Shadow-Borne.Checking the Snapdragon Box an hour later, she sees that her new letter has vanished but that the old ones are still folded up and sitting in the box. Remembering that she can only send one page at a time, she decides to paraphrase a bunch of the information for Kalay into a quick letter and send that on instead. Not knowing how long it will take before she hears back, she decides to check in with the others.Evan’s received the triangulation information for the signals sent to Tim and Jacob. As far as Evan and Sandra knew, they were in different parts of the city investigating things, but the coordinates he gets from the FBI says that their location is identical.“Why would they have teamed up on this without telling us?” wonders Evan.“They haven’t. They’ve probably been captured... or killed.” notes Karen.Sandra notes that they must both still be alive; she’s worked closely with them for years and would have felt something on a psychic level if either had been killed. With that assurance, the group gathers their equipment and heads to the north end of Manhattan to track down the location they received. After maneuvering through the heavy New York traffic, they come to the North River Wastewater Treatment Plant. The group quickly discusses how they plan to gain access to the plant and Sandra decides that she’ll try to use some of her old government ID to get past any security. It ends up being unnecessary; the front gate is closed and locked, but there doesn’t seem to be anyone around. The front security booth is empty and although they can hear the hum of machinery beyond, there’s no one to be seen.Not wanting to waste time, Karen instructs Setakawa to use his birds and destroy the security cameras pointed at the gate. Then, she scales over to the other side and opens it up from the security booth. Rolling the van inside, Karen starts to feel a strange, almost queasy sensation. Something is unnatural here, and she can knows it. Like watching the air warp from heat waves, she can make out a strong sensation of magic coming from inside the treatment plant. She leads the group inside the main facility, concentrating the whole way. As the group moves quietly past the empty front reception desk, they draw their weapons, knowing that things aren’t the way they should be.Following the flow of magical energies, the group carefully moves down several flights of stairs. The sounds of machines as well as the rush of water gets louder and they can make out walkways and huge pipes from the small windows that peer out to each floor as they pass by.The supernatural energy seems to be growing stronger on one of the floors and Karen stealthily takes a closer look while the others wait back at the stairwell. There’s movement in the room beyond and Karen can see men moving boxes back and forth while a women dressed in a business suit directs them. The magical aura extends over several of the people, but is strongest around the women. Telling the others, they decide not to take any chances.Bursting into the room with weapons drawn, the group rushes forward. Karen swiftly presses her gun up against the woman’s throat and smiles.“Alright, how about I ask some questions and you tell me everything I want to know?”The woman glares at her. Karen can see that her eyes are almost reptilian, glittering gold in the lights from the room.“I assume this is some sort of arrest? Have you got some identification I can see?” she says, trailing the S’s in her speech.Karen sarcastically parlays back and forth with her while telling the others to search the boxes. Evan opens up one of them and see bottles that look like they’re filled with chlorine.The woman looks unimpressed.“Unless you can prove yourselves or what this raid is all about, I’m afraid you don’t have any legal ground here.” she says with a scowl. Karen is confused. Why would something supernatural be moving normal chemicals? Are they working at the treatment plant?“Open it up, Evan. Take a sniff and make sure it’s chlorine.” says Karen, growing desperate.Evan prepares to open one of the bottles, but doesn’t get a chance. The woman’s eyes flash and combat breaks out. The thugs charge forward while the woman pulls back suddenly. Karen pulls the trigger, but only grazes the woman as she dodges backwards so fiercely that it looks like she should have broken her own spine. Setakawa’s birds scatter everywhere, pecking, scratching and distracting the thugs. Sandra and Evan grab the men nearest to them and try to keep them from flanking Karen. The woman sneers at Karen and a stream of acid shoots from her mouth, hitting Karen square in the chest. She screams out in surprise, but is able to minimize the amount touching her skin by throwing her arms up in time.Getting pushed back by the workers around her, Karen can’t stay near the woman with all the chaos and she backs away, flashing a wicked grin in Karen’s direction as she heads down a nearby ladder on the walkway.“You will not escape, demon!” yells Tupilak as he vaults over the men nearest him and runs towards the ladder. He doesn’t even use the rungs as he bellows a war cry and plummets down the hole after the woman.Finally breaking free of the scuffle, Karen heads down the ladder after Tupilak and the reptilian woman. She jumps the last few feet down onto a catwalk, looking around for any sign of them. Below the catwalk is a torrent of water, being piped back out into the Hudson River. With the noise of the water, she strains her ears to hear the clashing of metal and Tupilak’s yells. Running down the catwalk, she can see them slamming each other against the railing. Tupilak has burns on his body, but he ignores them and fights on.As Karen approaches, the woman curses in an unknown language and backs away. As Tupilak and Karen approach, her body suddenly undulates as she shrinks and warps before their eyes. In mere moments, the woman has become a snake and slithers quickly towards the edge of the catwalk. Karen dives to grab the snake, but it wriggles free of her grasp and plummets into the rushing water below.Heading back up the ladder, Karen and the others dump salt on the thugs and discover that several of them were possessed by Crimson Path. Speaking to one of the ones who wasn’t, Karen asks him about his employer.“I don’t want any more trouble.” He says, throwing his hands up in surrender. “We were hired by a guy to do some moving, not get shot up or nothin’!”“Who’s this guy?” Sandra asks.“I dunno his name. Some guy wit’ really red hair. Nice guy... up front wit’ da money and everythin’.”He explains that they had a van of boxes they were to transport to the water treatment plant. That’s all he claims to know. After Tupilak knocks the thug out, Sandra leaves an anonymous tip for the police. Grabbing the boxes from the van, the group quickly heads back to their own vehicle and drives away.Back at the bookstore, they’re not left with many leads. The woman had a purse that she left behind when she transformed, and inside they find Tim and Jacob’s cel phones. Sandra hopes that if they can track down some more of the Shadows, they may be able to find a lead on their whereabouts. The group agrees that they have to find the men quickly, before things get worse. Tupilak tore several of Conroy’s leg muscles when he jumped down the ladder and limps around the bookstore until Karen berates him for not taking better care of his host body. Begrudgingly, he agrees to go to Onan for healing.Sedrick does some quick tests on the “chlorine” and identifies it as some liquid form of Viperous. Based on his research, he believes that Viperous weakens the target’s mental defenses, leaving them feeling euphoric and giddy, but easy prey for mental or magical attacks.“In other words, this stuff makes people perfect subjects for possession by Crimson Path?” she asks.“Exactly. They want to ensure that their hosts do not reject them and waste their numbers.” he says grimly.Considering that the group wanted to put this liquid into the water treatment plant, Sedrick commends them on their victory. He believes that they’ve set back the Shadow-Borne substantially. It’s a positive note in an otherwise difficult time.As Karen goes to see if Onan is awake yet, Sandra stops her in the hallway. The Department-7 leader is pale faced and seems ill. She dizzily looks up at Karen with tears in her eyes.“It... it’s happened!” Sandra whispers.“What, what is it?” Karen asks.“One of them just died... I felt it. They... they killed Tim.”</blockquote>

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