21:08 <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. 21:08 <Crion> Ben, muttering to himself: "Well. That's fucking weird." 21:14 <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." 21:14 <Crion> He kicks the chair over, stands it back up, waits, shakes his head and kicks it over again. "Fucking weird!" 21:15 <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." 21:15 <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." 21:16 <Crion> Ben: "Might be worse than just memory hole." 21:16 <CBN> Tony: "How's worse?" 21:16 <VoxPVoxD> "Like a burning negation, you mean? Rips a hole right in the film?" 21:17 <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." 21:18 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "No room for cliffhangers?" 21:18 <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." 21:18 <Crion> Ben: "We're not big on sequels. Maybe on Springsteen, though." 21:19 <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..." 21:20 <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." 21:21 <VoxPVoxD> "Alright." Stewart wonders if he was as religion as his song was. 21:22 <VoxPVoxD> *as religious 21:22 <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." 21:25 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "We should probably get a move on, then." 21:26 <Crion> Ben: "If you've need of my services..." 21:26 <Crion> "Well." 21:26 <Crion> "I've taken a professional interest in this case, I can't deny that." 21:26 <trenchfoot> Nels, faintly: "Yes." 21:27 <Crion> He shrugs. "But if you're good at something, never do it for free." 21:27 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "I think, given the, uh, circumstances, that Accounts Payable will understand." 21:27 <Crion> "Sounds good to me." 21:27 <Crion> He looks around. "...We're going back through the woods, aren't we." 21:29 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Probably not safe to back the truck up to the door." 21:29 <CBN> Tony: "Probably fewer questions than walking out the front, and the car's on the other side of the woods anyway." 21:29 <Crion> Ben sighs. "Yeah..." 21:31 <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?" 21:33 <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?" 21:33 <Crion> "But no police tape?" 21:33 <Crion> "I bet no 9-1-1 call, either." 21:33 <dammitwho> Maggie: "Hoorm. Who really owns this place?" 21:34 <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." 21:35 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Yeah I doubt you get the name of anyone who matters on a piece of paper anywhere." 21:35 <VoxPVoxD> "But as far as people you want to squeeze, you don't want the trucking company, you want the landlord." 21:38 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart, thumbs blazing: "I'll get a list of landlords and sublettors from Ravens." 21:41 <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." 21:42 <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. 21:43 <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. 21:44 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart just grunts in assent while typing. 21:44 <CBN> Tony, encouragingly, offered to the group at large given the mood: "Well, at least we have wizards of our own?" 21:44 <CBN> Tony: "Or at least wizards who already don't like the other wizards?" 21:45 <Crion> Ben chuckles. "Well, Jesuit's group are more the they-call-you type." 21:45 <Crion> "...At least, they are with me." 21:46 <trenchfoot> That's something Nels had previously not considered. What are wizards' feelings on candlelit dinners? Something to ponder for less... urgent days. 21:47 <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?" 21:47 <banana> "We'd need to leave a sentry or protections. Ripping a portal back open like that wouldn't be one-way." 21:48 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Yeah, letting the guards walk in past us is bad both ways." 21:49 <VoxPVoxD> "How would we do it?" 21:49 <banana> Melanie: "Scour." 21:50 <banana> Her eyes, as they are temporarily perceivable, open wide. "If you have subtler means I'm ALL for it!" 21:51 <Crion> Ben: "Sorry. What are we discussing doing, here?" 21:51 <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." 21:51 <banana> To Best: "We can probably follow the attackers, or the fleeing killers, into the.. it's another otherworld. Less dead, more malign." 21:51 <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'." 21:52 <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." 21:54 <Crion> Ben nods like he understands. "Okay. That sounds mostly nuts for me to have any part in." 21:54 <trenchfoot> Nels: "A lot of things we do sounds like that." 21:54 <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." 21:54 <Crion> "I assume the Oracle would protect me if I had to step over, but." 21:54 <banana> Maybe. 21:55 <trenchfoot> "Best not to chance it." 21:55 <Crion> He raises his hands up. "Ah! Okay, 'assume' was a bad word!" 21:55 <Crion> Presumably the Oracle didn't like the phrasing. 21:55 <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." 21:55 <trenchfoot> Nels: "It gets weird for us. I wouldn't wish it on anyone else." 21:56 <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." 21:56 <VoxPVoxD> "But like, if you're a gambling man," 21:57 <VoxPVoxD> "I don't know if that's unethical for a horse doctor." 21:57 <VoxPVoxD> Yammering, he's yammering. 21:57 <Crion> Ben: "I mean, I'm not gonna let you leave me here just to take the body back to the truck." 21:58 <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?" 21:58 <Crion> "Sure." He turns around. "I could have a ghost spying on you the entire time, you know." 21:58 <Crion> "You'd never see it." 21:58 <Crion> "Spooky!" 21:59 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Are we gonna... leave the body here when we go?" 21:59 <VoxPVoxD> "Cause we might not be leaving the same place we come back." 21:59 <Crion> Ben: "Then we'd better have a plan for our cars, too." 21:59 <VoxPVoxD> "Cars don't decompose, at least." 21:59 <banana> Melanie pauses at the garage entrance. "No, I mean splitting up like only some of us will go in!" 21:59 <banana> "Maybe we should sort that out first though. Sorry." 22:00 <trenchfoot> Nels: "No I'm pretty sure they do. Decompose. Time is not kind to - not your point." 22:01 <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?" 22:01 <dammitwho> Maggie: "I can haul anything that needs hauling, if we're clearing things out of here." 22:02 <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." 22:02 <Crion> Ben: "Sounds good to me." 22:04 <banana> Melanie: "Okay." She resumes her journey, and if there's a ghost watching... perversions are unpredictable. 22:06 <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. 22:06 <VoxPVoxD> Why not, it's cool as hell. 22:07 <banana> Because they'd gain the Spooked condition, and because it's embarassing! 22:13 <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?" 22:13 <Crion> "Or was it a metaphor made literal now?" 22:13 <Crion> "Huh." 22:13 <Crion> "Cool." 22:14 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart's face is carefully blank. 22:15 <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." 22:16 <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. 22:17 <trenchfoot> There are... worse things. 22:17 <VoxPVoxD> Be rude not to, honestly. 22:18 <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. 22:18 <banana> What are we seeing Gatewise? 22:22 <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 22:22 <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. 22:23 <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. 22:23 <Crion> "Same stink on this one as at your strip club." 22:24 <Crion> "Sorry. Dance...establishment." 22:24 <banana> "Murder scene." 22:24 <trenchfoot> Nels makes a face. 22:25 <VoxPVoxD> "Naming a strip club run by faeries the 'Oberon' seems like a concerted effort to get out in front of the nicknames." 22:25 <Crion> Ben: "Mmmm...no, technically, this was the murder scene. It was a crime scene but -- but you're not interested, right. Okay!" 22:26 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart smiles at that. 22:26 <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. 22:27 <Crion> You have no idea how many ghosts are laughing, just off of kirlian camera. 22:28 <dammitwho> That's true. Maybe ghosts have a weird sense of humor. 22:28 <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." 22:29 <trenchfoot> Being 'away' for a while has that effect. 22:36 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "So the Denouement needs you to be where the death actually happened? How exact does it need to be?" 22:39 <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. 22:39 <Crion> I'm kind of a bit angry at what's been done to his ghost. Maybe more than a little bit." 22:40 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "He is, too." 22:41 <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 22:41 <Crion> that's important." 22:41 <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." 22:42 <trenchfoot> Nels: "I. That's a lot to take in." 22:44 <VoxPVoxD> "How long have... you guys been working together?" 22:45 <Crion> Ben: "I was killed by a drunk driver in 1998. So it's been a bit over 20 years now." 22:45 <banana> Melanie listens to the description of ghosts' preferences, face thankfully unreadable. 22:46 <trenchfoot> The concept of the year 1998 is still baffling. 22:46 <trenchfoot> She says nothing. 22:46 <Crion> "I was drunk too, but, you know. I was on the sidewalk walking to a bus stop. So." 22:46 <CBN> Tony: "Doesn't count when you're walking." 22:47 <banana> "Death as forcible alienation..." 22:48 <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." 22:49 <Crion> "She sees the future of children killed before their time. She said she needed...tempering." 22:49 <Crion> "'Said.'" He makes a gesture at his head. "Communicated. You know. It's weird." 22:50 <trenchfoot> Nels: "Um. If you don't mind me saying? There are several things that are weird." 22:50 <trenchfoot> "I really don't mean to pry." 22:51 <banana> nels wtf 22:51 <banana> No, cancel that wtf. This is better than awkwardly nodding, right? 22:51 <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." 22:51 <Crion> To Nels: "Yeah?" 22:54 <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. 22:56 <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." 22:56 <trenchfoot> Nels: "I didn't mean to interrupt. It was rude. But wow this sucks, dude." 22:58 <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." 22:58 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "To be clear, there are still prescriptions for heroin. It's just, you know, lab-made super-heroin." 22:59 <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." 23:00 <VoxPVoxD> "Have you ever seen that before?" 23:00 <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." 23:01 <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." 23:01 <Crion> Ben: "I agree, Melanie. About that, though." 23:02 <Crion> "Barring new information or context, this thing he's doing...this is a situation that requires a permanent resolution." 23:02 <Crion> "I intend, with the full power and weight of my office, for us to drag that man to hell." 23:03 <Crion> Ben looks around. "I need to know the degree to which that'll be a problem." 23:04 <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." 23:04 <dammitwho> Maggie almost had a hold on this, but then it turned out that souls and ghosts aren't the same thing. 23:04 <banana> Melanie: "To no degree." 23:04 <trenchfoot> Nels: "Actual Hell? Because that is worryingly close to being a real thing, and..." 23:04 <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." 23:05 <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." 23:07 <trenchfoot> Nels lets out a sigh she wasn't aware she was holding. 23:15 <dammitwho> Maggie turns to Stewart, gloomily. "Souls and ghosts are different...?" 23:15 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Sure, you know, like, the electrical charge that runs the computer and the data pressed into a drive." 23:15 <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. 23:16 <trenchfoot> Nels does not know that. Something to look up later. 23:16 <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?" 23:17 <CBN> Tony looks at Maggie: "Three?" 23:17 <dammitwho> Maggie: "A soul-ghost, a ghost-ghost, and a zombie." 23:19 <Crion> Ben's over checking out the gate during this conversation. 23:19 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "I dunno if the soul is usable like that, you get the sense that 'souls' are sort of... for the living." 23:20 <dammitwho> Maggie will amble over to the gate, then. Will she be carrying anything? 23:20 <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." 23:25 <trenchfoot> Nels: "I know what they are but I'm still going to pretend." 23:29 <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 23:29 <Crion> was obviously impeding them. They advise, uh, breaking into the County Register's office. Located in the Circuit Court for Baltimore County. 23:30 <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." 23:30 <Crion> That's if you want a listing of T&T's other holdings in the county, of course. 23:30 <VoxPVoxD> "That's what we have to do to get the other properties linked to the people who own this warehouse." 23:30 <CBN> Tony: "It's probably gonna be easier than this one was, right?" 23:31 <CBN> Tony: "And we already did this, so..." 23:31 <trenchfoot> Nels: "I mean. I can't say no." 23:31 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Unless their idea of a public-private partnership includes the wizard mafia, yeah, it'll be easier." 23:32 <Crion> If you can get your phone on-site, Stewart, Ravens can assist through the secure court app. 23:33 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "We'll have backup from Ravens, too, so yeah, it's a plan. What'd we learn from the Hedge?" 23:34 <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?" 23:35 <Crion> Ben: "Breaking into a courthouse will probably get bumped up to a felony, yeah." 23:35 <Crion> "But hey." 23:35 <Crion> "You're only in trouble if you get caught." 23:35 <CBN> Tony: "That's the spirit." 23:36 <trenchfoot> Nels: "So don't get caught. We can manage that, right?" 23:36 <trenchfoot> She is looking at the rest of the group. 23:39 <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. 23:40 <dammitwho> Maggie: "We're pretty good at not getting caught, at this point." It would be rude to knock on Melanie. 23:42 <VoxPVoxD> Melanie is unparalleled at getting caught, which is also a valuable skill. 23:43 <CBN> Tony paces a little bit then comes back to where the group is milling about, looking a little shaken. 23:43 <CBN> Tony: "Hey so uhh, good news and, I think bad? Maybe? Bad news?" 23:44 <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." 23:45 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart frowns. "What's the bad news?" 23:45 <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." 23:46 <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." 23:46 <CBN> Tony: "Not that I have any idea how you would even do that." 23:47 <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." 23:48 <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." 23:48 <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." 23:49 <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." 23:51 <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." 23:54 <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 23:54 <Crion> to resort to boring old brambles. A lot more pines in these woods than you'd likely see in those months, too. 23:54 <Crion> Everything enforces isolation and the idea of some great, neverending forest in every direction. 23:54 <Crion> Glen Burnie clearly doesn't rate an urban biome map. 23:56 <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. 23:58 <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." 23:58 <VoxPVoxD> "I don't like that." 23:59 <trenchfoot> Nels: "That's. Um. Bad? I think that's bad." 00:00 <CBN> Tony: "Yes! Thank you." 00:04 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Yeah. We gotta get back to the city." 00:07 <Crion> Ben: "Lead the way. Hopefully no one's out here ticket." 00:07 <Crion> ticketing 00:08 <CBN> Tony: "Melanie, do you have the fridge again, or do you want me and Maggie to take it up this time?" 00:09 <dammitwho> Maggie cracks her knuckles. 00:15 <banana> Melanie: "You look like you're looking forward to it, Maggie." 00:16 <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. 00:16 <dammitwho> Maggie: "Well... I haven't been so useful for this part." 00:16 <Crion> The hike back is uneventful. If you check on the guards, they're still paranoid at the front gates. 00:18 <VoxPVoxD> Good. That's a relief. 00:23 <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.