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<Crion> CHRISTMAS EVE, 2019, 11:00 PM
<Crion> ATOP THE BALTIMORE BASILICA
<Crion> Father Jesse steps out of the roof access into late December air that's still not crisp enough. Sometimes that's being dead; more often, though, and almost every night this winter...Maryland's getting too damn warm. Used to be swamp summers and blizzard winters. The summers are getting worse; the winters...
<Crion> Should be all the same to him, though, right? He doesn't have a flock anymore.
<Crion> He's carrying a cooler.
<Crion> One of the men he's here to meet is already sitting in a lawn chair, looking out over the intersection. The Basilica sits in the very heart of downtown, where Orleans Street breaks into Mulberry and Franklin; as they stand on the roof looking looking east down Orleans, they've got St. Ignatious Church to their left -- to the north -- along with Baltimore's version of the Washington Monument;
<Crion> another ivory tower, but more modest and less of an obelisk. Old and powerful rituals were used to design Washington, D.C. That's why all the roads have 45 degree angles.
<Crion> To the south, on their right: Mercy Medical Center and the city courthouse. Behind them -- south by west -- is Lexington Market, which has become...interesting, lately, for a number of reasons neither of them expected. Past that is the "grave" of Edgar Allen Poe. Ha! Fitting proximity though, maybe.
<Crion> The other man's chair is facing north up Calvert and Light Street, and he's sipping a glass of white wine. "Good evening, Father Jesse," says the willworker known as Jesuit.
<Crion> Father Jesse grins and his face flushes -- not from embarrassment or arousal or any human emotion; just from getting the blood pumping again. There are two other lawn chairs sitting folded up next to the willworker; he takes one and flicks his wrist to shake it out. Slumping down next to him, the vampire pulls a custom-made Bloody Mary from his cooler, and pokes a straw in through the plastic
<Crion> wrap he rubberbanded over the glass.
<Crion> "We could meet at St. Ignatius instead, if you want," says Father Jesse. "Breaking into the Basilica every year seems...I don't know."
<Crion> Jesuit: "Overwrought?"
<Crion> Father Jesse: "Predictable."
<Crion> Jesuit: "It creates sympathy. I care less about the Basilica than I do St. Ignatius; I certainly care less about the people inside the Basilica than I do the people inside St. Ignatius. And so I am content to watch that church from this one." He sips his wine. "How have you been?"
<Crion> Father Jesse sighs. "Busy. We had another itinerant slip in from Flagstaff or Phoenix or wherever that fucker is setting up these days."
<Crion> Jesuit: "Up in Colorado, last I heard. They're running him like a dog."
<Crion> Father Jesse: "Yeah, well. The Prince got involved personally this time."
<Crion> Jesuit: "Oh? How is the little tyke?"
<Crion> Father Jesse: "He hasn't lost a step. Pastor Bleaker is Final Dead."
<Crion> Jesuit sips. "Apologies; that was too flippant. Obviously the prosperity heretic is dead; I was actually asking about the Prince. How is Lister doing? He still has to put up a front around me, but...I'm concerned."
<Crion> The vampire priest sighs and leans back. "He's still depressed. He's still basically a child who can't stop being...well, you know. The video games are helping. The contact with the rowdy boys and the Hedge kids is helping. He needs to be around that level of youth, I think." He takes another sip through his straw. "We just get so old."
<Crion> Jesuit: "Indeed."
<Crion> Father Jesse: "I was including you in that."
<Crion> Jesuit: "I wasn't objecting."
<Crion> Father Jesse: "...Other than that, more or less the usual. Some activity on the Hopkins campus, some activity around it, but nothing big since we took care of that shirtless idiot loser with the Dodger cap. Me and the kid the from the Freehold, that is."
<Crion> Jesuit: "Stewart."
<Crion> Father Jesse: "Yeah, I thought you might know him."
<Crion> Jesuit: "He has a room reserved in our library. Interesting boy. Interesting...what do they call them. 'Motley.' Interesting motley."
<Crion> Father Jesse: "Just interesting?"
<Crion> Jesuit: "It's the word you use when you either don't know or don't want to say something more descriptive and more accurate." He sips again. "Do you think the Doctor of Sciences is involved? Up at Hopkins."
<Crion> Father Jesse: "Given that I'm not a fucking idiot, yes. But he's kept his hands clean ever since that thing with Best. Which isn't like him. Speaking of, where is--"
<Crion> The roof access door bangs open and Benjamin Best steps out onto the rooftop with a twelve pack of Natty Bo. "Hey."
<Crion> Father Jesse: "Hey!"
<Crion> Jesuit: "Benjamin."
<Crion> He's wearing khakis and an adorably ugly Christmas sweater, his normal winter coat already discarded in the car. "Took me awhile to get away from Tara's family but I said I'd be here, so." He sets up his chair and sits down next to Father Jesse as the vampire finishes his Bloody Mary.
<Crion> Benjamin rips open the twelve pack. "Ey, make some space in there." A Natty Bo goes into Father Jesse's cooler where that Bloody Mary used to be. Ben looks up at the vampire. "So are you, ah, doing that whole..." He sorts of gestures to his face. "Yeah, you gotta be. Have a damn beer."
<Crion> Father Jesse: "The Blush of Life is--"
<Crion> Ben: "Have a damn beer! You're already gonna be pissing ash from the vegetable juice or whatever."
<Crion> Father Jesse sighs and cracks a cold one.
<Crion> The sin-eater leans over. "You're welcome to one too, Jesuit, but I see you've got your wine."
<Crion> Jesuit: "I do."
<Crion> Ben: "What'd I miss?"
<Crion> Father Jesse: "We were actually just talking about the incident up at Johns Hopkins over the summer."
<Crion> Ben: "Yeah? You're still not doing anything about that Doctor guy, are you?"
<Crion> Father Jesse grimaces.
<Crion> Jesuit: "The belief is that containment is preferable to another incident."
<Crion> Ben, after a chug of beer: "Well I'd say one day he'll go too far but in my professional opinion, that guy already went too far. And you agree with me, Jess, because otherwise you wouldn't have called me in."
<Crion> Father Jesse, after a liberal sip of Natty Bo: "It was Jesuit who called you in, technically, and it was to deal with a willworker problem."
<Crion> Ben: "Yeah. The problem was your insane Nazi vampire made friends with an insane Nazi willworker."
<Crion> Jesuit: "I don't think Unilateralis had so much ideology."
<Crion> Ben: "Maybe if his name was Steve."
<Crion> Jesuit: "We don't name ourselves things like St--"
<Crion> Ben: "But instead he named himself after the ant parasite Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, more commonly known as zombie fungus. Which is a very evocative name. So clearly he had some ideas about what was going on there, with his whole..."
<Crion> Father Jesse: "His whole thing."
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<Crion> Jesuit: "That's fair. Still...there is a certain kind of willworker who will just choose some Latin formulation for the hell of it. You can usually tell what kind of people they are from that."
<Crion> Father Jesse: "Assholes?"
<Crion> Jesuit: "I did not say that."
<Crion> Ben: "You implied it."
<Crion> Father Jesse: "Evil assholes?"
<Crion> Jesuit: "You're talking to someone who has given Mass in Latin. Careful with the moral valence."
<Crion> Father Jesse: "Fuckin' Catholics."
<Crion> Jesuit: "Do you want to have another conversation about Evangelical Christianity? Really? After we just got done with Pastor Bleaker?"
<Crion> Ben: "Pastor Bleaker?"
<Crion> Father Jesse: "Another TV preacher rolled into town, don't worry about."
<Crion> Ben: "Now 'Pastor Bleaker' is an incredibly evil name."
<Crion> Jesuit: "This is true."
<Crion> Father Jesse: "Okay fine. Unilateralis. It just meant he was a dork. A really scary dork."
<Crion> Ben crushes his first beer can and sets it aside. "He talked too much. But that seems to be, like, the thing with this line of work."
<Crion> Jesuit: "The good news is, we confirmed he wasn't working with the Baltimore Pylon."
<Crion> Father Jesse finishes his beer as well, and then grabs his second packed Bloody Mary. Ben takes the opportunity to shove another Natty Bo into the ice. "'He' being Unilateralis, or the Doctor?"
<Crion> Jesuit: "The former, but I think that implies the latter too. At the very least we've found no other evidence of collaboration, and there was no link between this...thing...and the local Seers."
<Crion> Ben, already halfway into his next beer: "You promised me an explanation of what the fuck that was all about, Jes."
<Crion> Father Jesse: "No I didn't."
<Crion> Ben: "No, Jes. Jesuit."
<Crion> Father Jesse: "You can't call us both Jess."
<Crion> Ben: "I didn't--"
<Crion> Father Jesse: "You did!"
<Crion> Ben: "There was clearly more of a Z sound on Jes, and more of a second-syllable emphasis on Jess!"
<Crion> Father Jesse: "Those sound the same."
<Crion> Ben: "No!"
<Crion> Father Jesse: "They sound the same!"
<Crion> Behind Father Jesse's back, Jesuit sort of half-shrugs at Ben. Just let him have it.
<Crion> Ben: "Okay, fine. Jesuit. Who understands me. I'm calling in my mark on that."
<Crion> Jesuit: "Yes. So. We...don't quite know what Unilateralis was. Yet."
<Crion> Ben snorts and takes another chug, while Father Jesse sips his Bloody Mary.
<Crion> Jesuit: "That is actually somewhat scary in and of itself. Gives off notes of...Abyssal tannins, and the fruits of forbidden lore. I need more wine." He pours himself another glass.
<Crion> Father Jesse: "You know, there's this great Malbec I could set you up with, it's--"
<Crion> Jesuit doesn't quite whirl on him, but his voice is very firm: "You know I do not drink red wine, Jesse." Then he sees the grin on the vampire's face. "Right. You're fucking with me. What was the joke? It was the Enrique Iglesias joke, wasn't it."
<Crion> Father Jesse: "I was going to go with Julio Iglesias this time."
<Crion> Jesuit, sipping his white wine decisively: "You cannot build an entire genre of joke around Spanish men who love wine whose last name HAPPENS to translate to 'church.'"
<Crion> Father Jesse: "I mean..." He spreads his arms and almost hits Ben in the face with a Bloody Mary. "Whoops, sorry."
<Crion> Jesuit: "But yes, Benjamin. You called him a--"
<Crion> Ben: "A soul vampire."
<Crion> Jesuit: "Yes. I don't think that's technically accurate."
<Crion> Father Jesse: "And we aaaaare off the hook."
<Crion> "What?" Jesuit frowns at the vampire. "No you're not. How are you -- your man hosted him!"
<Crion> Father Jesse: "Off the hook for Unilateralis, I mean. If he's not a vampire--"
<Crion> Jesuit: "Again: he invited him to the city!"
<Crion> A theatrical sigh from the vampire. "And now, once again, we vampires get to hear all this regressive stuff about invitations."
<Crion> Jesuit: "Oh fuck you." While Father Jesse cackles: "So. There is literature about Leeches -- left-hand legacies which try to merge the Curse with the Awakening to incredibly mixed results. There's a level of debasement put forth in the literature that this Unilateralis didn't seem to have; an accentuation of the Curse. This man appeared repeatedly in daylight and, indeed, we killed him in
<Crion> his hotel room just after noon. Perhaps -- PERHAPS -- he was stealing souls, yes, but the mechanism by which he kept them would have had to be purely Supernal. And the mechanisms for that are extremely difficult; soul jars are no easily-summoned, easily-maintained thing."
<Crion> Ben: "Nah, he was stealing souls."
<Crion> Jesuit: "You've said that before, but I don't see how--"
<Crion> Ben, on his third beer: "He tried to steal mine. You know, in that hotel suite, while you were holding him down. Thought he'd take me because I was just some dude, then use my power to take you and Everclear."
<Crion> Jesuit: "Everafter."
<Crion> Ben: "Right, that's what I said. 'Servant, you will serve me,' were literally the words that came out of his...Twilight mouth, I guess. Not his actual mouth."
<Crion> Jesuit: "...No, they came out of his actual mouth too."
<Crion> Ben: "And then he tried to take my soul. I could feel him reach in with his ghostly hand and pull at where it used to be..." He stops to take a sip of beer, then starts chuckling, then outright laughing. "But it wasn't fuckin' there, boys! My soul had already left the building!"
<Crion> Crushing his third beer can: "And all our boy Uni found was a lady who gets real, real fucking mad when you kill co-eds."
<Crion> Father Jesse: "Kind of sad I missed it."
<Crion> Ben: "Don't be. You know how ghost fights are. I look like I'm pretending to be a Jedi on Youtube."
<Crion> Jesuit: "It was quite amusing."
<Crion> Ben: "But you still owe me more, Jesuit. I already knew he was a weird mage."
<Crion> Jesuit: "Yes, yes. We'll continue to look into it. ...How is Tara?"
<Crion> Ben smiles. "You know, she's doing alright."
<Crion> For another half-hour, the three men discuss personal matters, drink, crack jokes, and even watch a video on Ben's phone. Then the bells ring midnight.
<Crion> Ben: "Merry Christmas, boys."
<Crion> Father Jesse: "Merry Christmas."
<Crion> Jesuit: "Merry Christmas."
<Crion> Below, three cop cars tear by, sirens blazing. Ben takes the beer he had chilling in Father Jesse's cooler and puts it back into his twelve pack; it's about time to go.
<Crion> Jesuit: "...One more thing."
<Crion> Ben's already stood up. Father Jesse: "Yeah?"
<Crion> Jesuit: "There's something wrong in this city. Something coming, or something already here. We don't know what it is yet. We probably won't know what it is until it's too late. But it's been building. Steeping in the crucible at the center of our joint franchise, ever since..."
<Crion> Father Jesse's face has gone dark: "Halloween."
<Crion> "No," says Jesuit. "No. Not quite."
<Crion> Into the silence across the roof: "But only just."
<Crion> After a moment, Ben: "Am I...supposed to do something with this information?"
<Crion> Jesuit: "Wait."
<Crion> Ben: "For what?"
<Crion> Jesuit: "You'll know."
<Crion> Ben: "Christ, I hate--"
<Crion> Father Jesse and Jesuit: "Hey!"
<Crion> Ben: "...Jeez, I hate mages. Is that fine? Is Jeez still fine, Jess and Jez?"
<Crion> Father Jesse throws an empty beer can at him. Jesuit follows suit. Ben, as he retreats: "Hah! Okay! Nice seeing you too! Make sure to pick those up!"
<Crion> Father Jesse: "See you when I see you."
<Crion> Jesuit: "Good night, Benjamin."
<Crion> When the sin-eater is gone, Father Jesse says, "You know, he's been a lot more reliable than we were led to believe about those guys."
<Crion> Jesuit: "That's because he's a good man." He kills the last of the wine. "We've been blessed with more than the usual number."
<Crion> Father Jesse: "How many is that?"
<Crion> Jesuit: "More than a dozen, city-wide."
<Crion> They share one last laugh at that. Then, the Hierophant of Baltimore grimaces. "I wasn't kidding with Benjamin. You need to brace for impact. Something's coming, and it's probably coming out of my shop, and it fucks me up that I don't know what it is yet."
<Crion> Father Jesse picks up his cooler. "I know the feeling. Good luck."
<Crion> Jesuit stares out over the Baltimore skyline. "Good luck. And Merry Christmas."
<Crion> "Merry Christmas." The vampire heads for the door.
<Crion> The wind picks up a bit, and Jesuit stares north, up Calvert Street at St. Ignatius. It has been quite some time. "Some day, I will return," he murmurs. "Some day we will all return."
<Crion> When the wind picks up again, the roof of the Baltimore Basilica is empty.
<Crion> --fin
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<Crion> The ectoplasm recedes in the warehouse out in Glen Burnie, MD, and the emergency lighting kicks back in over the ruins of Capra's death and, apparently, some sort of gunfight.
<Crion> Ben, muttering to himself: "Well. That's fucking weird."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart's fully collided with the spot where Capra fell before he realizes it's not there anymore. "They're literally-- robbing Peter to pay Paul."
<Crion> He kicks the chair over, stands it back up, waits, shakes his head and kicks it over again. "Fucking weird!"
<Crion> "Not only don't we get the other half of the ghost--not your fault, fella," he says to the air next to him. "But we don't even get the whole story."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "So we've got to let the Freehold know that Winter's still active and coherent, that they're running an insurgency against a Loyalist and some Seers, one of whom sits inside their own personal memory hole."
<Crion> Ben: "Might be worse than just memory hole."
<CBN> Tony: "How's worse?"
<VoxPVoxD> "Like a burning negation, you mean? Rips a hole right in the film?"
<Crion> "Like I said, what we just did was called Dénouement. If you remember your high school English, that's the part of the story that happens after the climax -- the wrapping up of things, the putting in order of affairs. Point being, we're not supposed to just get cut off at the moment of death. We get to see both sides. Or should get to."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "No room for cliffhangers?"
<Crion> "Not to completely shift metaphors from lit over to aviation safety, but memory-hole man is strong enough to fuck with the black box of Death."
<Crion> Ben: "We're not big on sequels. Maybe on Springsteen, though."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart snorts. "So that was 'Gary', which is a name we know from the Baltimore Pylon - those are the bad willworkers, or at least the worse ones. We don't know much more *than* a name, though..."
<Crion> Best closes the lid of the freezer gently. "Your people can do whatever rites they find appropriate for the body, now. Capra's ghost -- what we have -- can't be sent on or made to find peace, not like this. But proper funereal rites will be a solace."
<VoxPVoxD> "Alright." Stewart wonders if he was as religion as his song was.
<VoxPVoxD> *as religious
<Crion> Ben: "...So whoever had the shootout at the O.K. Corral here, both sides, has a two-day start on you. Three if you wait until tomorrow morning, I guess."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "We should probably get a move on, then."
<Crion> Ben: "If you've need of my services..."
<Crion> "Well."
<Crion> "I've taken a professional interest in this case, I can't deny that."
<trenchfoot> Nels, faintly: "Yes."
<Crion> He shrugs. "But if you're good at something, never do it for free."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "I think, given the, uh, circumstances, that Accounts Payable will understand."
<Crion> "Sounds good to me."
<Crion> He looks around. "...We're going back through the woods, aren't we."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Probably not safe to back the truck up to the door."
<CBN> Tony: "Probably fewer questions than walking out the front, and the car's on the other side of the woods anyway."
<Crion> Ben sighs. "Yeah..."
<CBN> Tony: "Good news is, then you've got the rest of your night back, while we go do more with what we've got? Glass half full?"
<Crion> He frowns. "So the PITT OHIO guys have to know there was a shootout here. I don't see any shell casings, and a guy out front toting a wingnut carbine isn't usual business for a truck depot, right?"
<Crion> "But no police tape?"
<Crion> "I bet no 9-1-1 call, either."
<dammitwho> Maggie: "Hoorm. Who really owns this place?"
<banana> Melanie puts away her phone; nobody's going to pick up. "Someone vulnerable to one of several kinds of concealment and control magic from, um, entirely different paradigms. Doesn't really matter."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Yeah I doubt you get the name of anyone who matters on a piece of paper anywhere."
<VoxPVoxD> "But as far as people you want to squeeze, you don't want the trucking company, you want the landlord."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart, thumbs blazing: "I'll get a list of landlords and sublettors from Ravens."
<banana> Melanie: "The things we most need to trace - the current status of these motherfuckers is as important as their identities, right? If all we knew is where they are, it wouldn't necessarily be useful to simply visit. They're a bit too far above the curve."
<banana> Melanie says 'motherfuckers' like she's picked it up from being Around, which she has, but it flows more smoothly into the sentence than interpersonal attempts.
<trenchfoot> Nels: "They can't be that... okay, no, they very much can. Sorry." Sometimes you need to re-think something partway through saying it.
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart just grunts in assent while typing.
<CBN> Tony, encouragingly, offered to the group at large given the mood: "Well, at least we have wizards of our own?"
<CBN> Tony: "Or at least wizards who already don't like the other wizards?"
<Crion> Ben chuckles. "Well, Jesuit's group are more the they-call-you type."
<Crion> "...At least, they are with me."
<trenchfoot> That's something Nels had previously not considered. What are wizards' feelings on candlelit dinners? Something to ponder for less... urgent days.
<banana> Melanie: "We'll assume this is a special case. Ehh. The portal inward, the one we hope was Winter.. shall we reopen it? Go where they went Hedgeward?"
<banana> "We'd need to leave a sentry or protections. Ripping a portal back open like that wouldn't be one-way."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Yeah, letting the guards walk in past us is bad both ways."
<VoxPVoxD> "How would we do it?"
<banana> Melanie: "Scour."
<banana> Her eyes, as they are temporarily perceivable, open wide. "If you have subtler means I'm ALL for it!"
<Crion> Ben: "Sorry. What are we discussing doing, here?"
<CBN> Tony: "Would they want us following them though? Even if the trail's a day or two cold, they're probably going to ground and staying there to avoid drawing too much attention."
<banana> To Best: "We can probably follow the attackers, or the fleeing killers, into the.. it's another otherworld. Less dead, more malign."
<VoxPVoxD> "I don't. Not anything mortal-proof, anyway." To Ben: "You know how people jumped in from offscreen at the end there? We're talking about following them offscreen. Into the 'Hedge'."
<CBN> Tony: "Oh! Opening up the portal to the Hedge that was opened through that door back there before, and seeing what's there. Reopening the same door always usually goes to the same place, so."
<Crion> Ben nods like he understands. "Okay. That sounds mostly nuts for me to have any part in."
<trenchfoot> Nels: "A lot of things we do sounds like that."
<CBN> Tony: "Yeah no offense but if there's a lot of dead stuff on the other side we're fucked with or without you, and it's probably better for you not to have to deal with it."
<Crion> "I assume the Oracle would protect me if I had to step over, but."
<banana> Maybe.
<trenchfoot> "Best not to chance it."
<Crion> He raises his hands up. "Ah! Okay, 'assume' was a bad word!"
<Crion> Presumably the Oracle didn't like the phrasing.
<CBN> Tony: "Plus, and I think everyone else can agree with me on this, Hedge stuff gets weird in a way that anyone who isn't us, is probably going to get weirded out by. Even by your standards."
<trenchfoot> Nels: "It gets weird for us. I wouldn't wish it on anyone else."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "We shouldn't oversell it, most of the time it's *just* weird. It's just that it's existentially terrifying at random and there's no way to reliably prevent it, which is the fact that forces us all together."
<VoxPVoxD> "But like, if you're a gambling man,"
<VoxPVoxD> "I don't know if that's unethical for a horse doctor."
<VoxPVoxD> Yammering, he's yammering.
<Crion> Ben: "I mean, I'm not gonna let you leave me here just to take the body back to the truck."
<banana> Right now, time is passing. We're running on less information than we could have and there's no specific reason for delay... "We might have to split up, depends what's on the other side. I'll just step outside, um.. Mr. Best, please look away from the door?"
<Crion> "Sure." He turns around. "I could have a ghost spying on you the entire time, you know."
<Crion> "You'd never see it."
<Crion> "Spooky!"
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Are we gonna... leave the body here when we go?"
<VoxPVoxD> "Cause we might not be leaving the same place we come back."
<Crion> Ben: "Then we'd better have a plan for our cars, too."
<VoxPVoxD> "Cars don't decompose, at least."
<banana> Melanie pauses at the garage entrance. "No, I mean splitting up like only some of us will go in!"
<banana> "Maybe we should sort that out first though. Sorry."
<trenchfoot> Nels: "No I'm pretty sure they do. Decompose. Time is not kind to - not your point."
<CBN> Tony: "It's probably not the ideal use of our time or effort but what if one of us just...pops their head in to look around on the other side, then we take the body back, go to our cars, figure it out from there?"
<dammitwho> Maggie: "I can haul anything that needs hauling, if we're clearing things out of here."
<CBN> Tony: "Beats doing nothing altogether and it minimizes the amount of time we spend sitting in a warehouse we broke into next to a dead body in a fridge."
<Crion> Ben: "Sounds good to me."
<banana> Melanie: "Okay." She resumes her journey, and if there's a ghost watching... perversions are unpredictable.
<banana> Hopefully-nobody in the woods outside sees the young woman raise her arms straight vertical and her flesh and clothes peel off in great strips, like bark, all one thing. Nobody should see the discarded human flesh go protean and shadowy, cling to the ground as if hiding from the sun, frittered away from exposed leaves.
<VoxPVoxD> Why not, it's cool as hell.
<banana> Because they'd gain the Spooked condition, and because it's embarassing!
<Crion> Ben will turn around after the flourish is complete and blink. "Wow, so that's...the tree thing wasn't a metaphor? That's literal?"
<Crion> "Or was it a metaphor made literal now?"
<Crion> "Huh."
<Crion> "Cool."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart's face is carefully blank.
<banana> Melanie's just kind of standing on the edge of the woods, blending into them, beside a subtle tear in reality, a door to places-doors-go. She doesn't want to answer Best's question, but she says: "Thanks."
<Crion> It's fine, he was mostly talking to himself anyway. Probably to the Oracle, actually. Speaking to people that aren't there might be a habit these guys develop.
<trenchfoot> There are... worse things.
<VoxPVoxD> Be rude not to, honestly.
<banana> Without the veneer of the Mask, Melanie typically looks less restive. She stands still a lot of the time anyway, but now she looks like someone who's okay with that.
<banana> What are we seeing Gatewise?
<Crion> There are in fact two gateways leading out(?) of this building. One is on the interior side, opening into the Hedge as you "leave" the building from inside the warehouse, while the other is the Gateway on the exterior of the building, opening out into the exterior warehouse lot as if the Hedge were "inside" the warehouse. This is a bit of a formalist's distinction, but it lines up with what
<Crion> you know happened; the Winter Courtiers exited the Hedge from the latter Gateway to the exterior of the warehouse, then set up in wait before storming the building, while someone else -- likely the Kit? and Jameson?/Tony? and Maggie? -- opened a gateway inside the warehouse to flee it, into the Hedge.
<Crion> Ben can see them both too -- if there were mortals here, they'd like be able to as well, if they weren't freaking out about the whole tree-lady-sheds-her-bark thing -- and he's walking over to the latter.
<Crion> "Same stink on this one as at your strip club."
<Crion> "Sorry. Dance...establishment."
<banana> "Murder scene."
<trenchfoot> Nels makes a face.
<VoxPVoxD> "Naming a strip club run by faeries the 'Oberon' seems like a concerted effort to get out in front of the nicknames."
<Crion> Ben: "Mmmm...no, technically, this was the murder scene. It was a crime scene but -- but you're not interested, right. Okay!"
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart smiles at that.
<banana> Melanie doesn't actually dislike Best, nor does she particularly like the way she's been acting herself through this whole thing. But: he thinks he's funny. You've got to be right about that.
<Crion> You have no idea how many ghosts are laughing, just off of kirlian camera.
<dammitwho> That's true. Maybe ghosts have a weird sense of humor.
<banana> "So this whole place has been a corridor.. let's check the outward gate first. We don't want to inadvertently leave some connection from a Winter sanctuary to Trap Hell."
<trenchfoot> Being 'away' for a while has that effect.
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "So the Denouement needs you to be where the death actually happened? How exact does it need to be?"
<Crion> Ben: "Less accuracy, more...so it's like, filling a container. It's quite literally filling a container, I called up a hell of a lot of ectoplasm to fill this room and basically act as our oracular medium. To figure out if you're in the right 'container,' you need to ask the ghost, which was a bit difficult with poor Capra, but there was a lot of will there. He was probably a real good kid.
<Crion> I'm kind of a bit angry at what's been done to his ghost. Maybe more than a little bit."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "He is, too."
<Crion> "...Anyway, so, the reason for all of this is that place is the primary association ghosts make with the circumstances of their death. This is why this being the murder scene matters. No offense, but Capra's ghost doesn't much care what happens Capra's body so long as you don't engage in specific ritual taboos to hurt his ghost. The ghost doesn't think of it like that. This is the place
<Crion> that's important."
<Crion> "And so sometimes it's one room you're filling up, sometimes it's a cafeteria, and sometimes..." He sighs. "Sometimes it's the wing of a hospital, but you try not to do that too much."
<trenchfoot> Nels: "I. That's a lot to take in."
<VoxPVoxD> "How long have... you guys been working together?"
<Crion> Ben: "I was killed by a drunk driver in 1998. So it's been a bit over 20 years now."
<banana> Melanie listens to the description of ghosts' preferences, face thankfully unreadable.
<trenchfoot> The concept of the year 1998 is still baffling.
<trenchfoot> She says nothing.
<Crion> "I was drunk too, but, you know. I was on the sidewalk walking to a bus stop. So."
<CBN> Tony: "Doesn't count when you're walking."
<banana> "Death as forcible alienation..."
<Crion> "The Oracle told me, when we were...remade together...that she was looking for an innocent man without a love for violence. And that she was willing instead to settle for me."
<Crion> "She sees the future of children killed before their time. She said she needed...tempering."
<Crion> "'Said.'" He makes a gesture at his head. "Communicated. You know. It's weird."
<trenchfoot> Nels: "Um. If you don't mind me saying? There are several things that are weird."
<trenchfoot> "I really don't mean to pry."
<banana> nels wtf
<banana> No, cancel that wtf. This is better than awkwardly nodding, right?
<Crion> Ben: "I thought the hardest thing would be not turning into a comic book vigilante, you know? Going out and killing evildoers who threaten kids by night. That doesn't work; it doesn't respect the dead. And I suppose that is difficult, but I've never really had a problem with not hurting people. The hardest thing is, you know. Not just giving in and doing nothing."
<Crion> To Nels: "Yeah?"
<VoxPVoxD> Most of Melanie's alienees are too different and too deeply-themselves to lend themselves to the sort of agnostic etiquette a Lord Sage ought to have, but if there *are* rules for this, the first one has to be: everyone gets a chance to tell you their backstory.
<trenchfoot> Nels: "The children before their time thing, I. She exhales. "When I disappeared there was still prescriptions for heroin. So. A lot of things are weird for me."
<trenchfoot> Nels: "I didn't mean to interrupt. It was rude. But wow this sucks, dude."
<Crion> Ben: "Thankfully we don't get the drug overdoses, not unless they're drugged by someone else. But lots of neglect. Lots of murder. Lots of the bad stuff that happens before a murder. Anger can only sustain you for so long. Eventually you just have to become a steward to the hereafter."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "To be clear, there are still prescriptions for heroin. It's just, you know, lab-made super-heroin."
<Crion> Ben: "...That said. This man Gary ripping ghosts in half ups the ante significantly. We've graduated from vigilantism to a possible threat to the metafabric of reality. And I very much do not like how these guys keep mixing and matching flavors of supernatural."
<VoxPVoxD> "Have you ever seen that before?"
<banana> Melanie: "Well, that's- it doesn't have to be limited to a league of villians. You may be helping us for appropriate compensation but being even willing to reveal your existence is generous. Jesuit's people - we can call them, if we have to, and some others. Not sure they'd want to call us but they can. We can work together weird and, hopefully, do something about this."
<Crion> "No. I've seen mages that fucked with souls -- which are taxonomically distinct, but very similar to, ghosts -- but I've never seen anything split one like that and end up with half a ghost."
<Crion> Ben: "I agree, Melanie. About that, though."
<Crion> "Barring new information or context, this thing he's doing...this is a situation that requires a permanent resolution."
<Crion> "I intend, with the full power and weight of my office, for us to drag that man to hell."
<Crion> Ben looks around. "I need to know the degree to which that'll be a problem."
<CBN> Tony shrugs: "You say it's a serious death-stuff crime, I'm not gonna argue with you. And you're not gonna get any argument from me about people who framed me for a murder, getting what's theirs."
<dammitwho> Maggie almost had a hold on this, but then it turned out that souls and ghosts aren't the same thing.
<banana> Melanie: "To no degree."
<trenchfoot> Nels: "Actual Hell? Because that is worryingly close to being a real thing, and..."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "I mean, if we were gonna balk at killing the guy, the time to back out was like... barely three months ago? Jesus."
<Crion> Ben: "No. Not actual Hell. Just an expression based on a movie title. Best I can do is the Underworld and frankly, if Hell was real, I wouldn't drag anyone there on principle."
<trenchfoot> Nels lets out a sigh she wasn't aware she was holding.
<dammitwho> Maggie turns to Stewart, gloomily. "Souls and ghosts are different...?"
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Sure, you know, like, the electrical charge that runs the computer and the data pressed into a drive."
<banana> "Toward some Hell, then." Melanie steps back *into* the building, opens the side door Outwards and holds a bough protectively in front of her trunk as she steps through.
<trenchfoot> Nels does not know that. Something to look up later.
<dammitwho> "Hoom. So a wizard - I mean, not a real wizard, you know what I mean - they could get three dread servants from one person?"
<CBN> Tony looks at Maggie: "Three?"
<dammitwho> Maggie: "A soul-ghost, a ghost-ghost, and a zombie."
<Crion> Ben's over checking out the gate during this conversation.
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "I dunno if the soul is usable like that, you get the sense that 'souls' are sort of... for the living."
<dammitwho> Maggie will amble over to the gate, then. Will she be carrying anything?
<CBN> Tony: "There's also Hedge ghosts but those are probably overlapping with one of the first two. If you don't know what they are, pretend I didn't say anything."
<trenchfoot> Nels: "I know what they are but I'm still going to pretend."
<Crion> Stewart's phone bings or beeps or what have you. Ravens returns the search results he was looking for: PITT OHIO rents space on this property from one T&T Ltd Holdings LLC; the rental listings, however, seem to exclude a warehouse at the back of the property from PITT OHIO's lease. Ravens is somewhat frustrated -- this information was difficult to turn up, even from paper records. Something
<Crion> was obviously impeding them. They advise, uh, breaking into the County Register's office. Located in the Circuit Court for Baltimore County.
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Do you guys want to break in to the County Register's office? It's after hours on a holiday, our odds will never be better."
<Crion> That's if you want a listing of T&T's other holdings in the county, of course.
<VoxPVoxD> "That's what we have to do to get the other properties linked to the people who own this warehouse."
<CBN> Tony: "It's probably gonna be easier than this one was, right?"
<CBN> Tony: "And we already did this, so..."
<trenchfoot> Nels: "I mean. I can't say no."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Unless their idea of a public-private partnership includes the wizard mafia, yeah, it'll be easier."
<Crion> If you can get your phone on-site, Stewart, Ravens can assist through the secure court app.
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "We'll have backup from Ravens, too, so yeah, it's a plan. What'd we learn from the Hedge?"
<CBN> Tony: "So do we want to poke around a little here, head out, do some minor---they aren't felonies right, it's the other one still?---and get rolling with the night?"
<Crion> Ben: "Breaking into a courthouse will probably get bumped up to a felony, yeah."
<Crion> "But hey."
<Crion> "You're only in trouble if you get caught."
<CBN> Tony: "That's the spirit."
<trenchfoot> Nels: "So don't get caught. We can manage that, right?"
<trenchfoot> She is looking at the rest of the group.
<CBN> Tony starts poking around, looking askance at the at the currently-visible gates, seeing what he can see, and very much hoping nothing sees him back.
<dammitwho> Maggie: "We're pretty good at not getting caught, at this point." It would be rude to knock on Melanie.
<VoxPVoxD> Melanie is unparalleled at getting caught, which is also a valuable skill.
<CBN> Tony paces a little bit then comes back to where the group is milling about, looking a little shaken.
<CBN> Tony: "Hey so uhh, good news and, I think bad? Maybe? Bad news?"
<CBN> Tony: "On the one hand, only one of the Winter Court folks got hit in the firefight, that I could tell, at least bad enough they needed help. And I have a decent idea of where they were headed. So that's the good news."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart frowns. "What's the bad news?"
<CBN> Tony: "The other news, no fucking clue at all what the other folks did. Nothing that makes sense anyway. They just...didn't show up in the Hedge when they went through the gate. Or they didn't leave any trace."
<CBN> Tony: "Which means, maybe two things. Either---this is the good one, let's hope for this one---they can 'just' connect doorways directly without setting foot in the Hedge, which is a terrible thing for security but hey, at least understandable."
<CBN> Tony: "Not that I have any idea how you would even do that."
<CBN> Tony:"And the other one, which I'm just throwing out here for a worst-case-scenario we can ask the wizards about later, is, what if they made a Hedge door that can go somewhere else and just looks like it went to the Hedge? So I'm not gonna fuck with that one or think about it too hard."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Well it's very bad even if all they could do is undetectably follow Winter's tracks back to their hideout, and gets worse from there."
<CBN> Tony: "So!"He claps his hands together. "There's not a whole lot we can do about either one from here. For the Winter folks, we head back towards the city, they were headed towards a trod there."
<CBN> Tony: "And for the other one, sorry but fuck if I know, get some guns, let's get out before things get weirder or worse."
<CBN> Tony: "And it's all, very spooky woods over there, no offense Melanie. So let's uh. Let's not dwell on the Hedge around here too much, what with having to hike back through the regular woods, at night, now."
<Crion> The Hedgerows this far out into the County are overbearing and spooky (classical sense; old aesthetic). Very Germanic; very Black Forest-y. Hansel and Gretel and the like. The walls are enforced by heavy treeline, and while in Spring and Summer the Thorns seem to make themselves known via razor-sharp poison ivy and oak -- at least judging by some of these fronds -- in Winter they're forced
<Crion> to resort to boring old brambles. A lot more pines in these woods than you'd likely see in those months, too.
<Crion> Everything enforces isolation and the idea of some great, neverending forest in every direction.
<Crion> Glen Burnie clearly doesn't rate an urban biome map.
<Crion> Stepping out of the Winter gateway brings you upon a clearing where some sliding about and splinting has clearly taken place; the other door...just a run of Hedgerow off into the dark.
<banana> Melanie returns after a few moments. Lingering after scouring isn't a good idea. "As Tony says - no sign anyone was there at all."
<VoxPVoxD> "I don't like that."
<trenchfoot> Nels: "That's. Um. Bad? I think that's bad."
<CBN> Tony: "Yes! Thank you."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Yeah. We gotta get back to the city."
<Crion> Ben: "Lead the way. Hopefully no one's out here ticket."
<Crion> ticketing
<CBN> Tony: "Melanie, do you have the fridge again, or do you want me and Maggie to take it up this time?"
<dammitwho> Maggie cracks her knuckles.
<banana> Melanie: "You look like you're looking forward to it, Maggie."
<banana> She doesn't mind not carrying Capra's remains, and in this form it's a bit.. too obvious. Too rock-a-bye baby.
<dammitwho> Maggie: "Well... I haven't been so useful for this part."
<Crion> The hike back is uneventful. If you check on the guards, they're still paranoid at the front gates.
<VoxPVoxD> Good. That's a relief.
<Crion> The ride back into Baltimore is through a mild January night -- meaning high 40s -- with good music on your radios (unless you like bad music). The Oberon will steward Capra's body moving forward. And the Baltimore County Courthouse awaits...next week.