Kasee: 12/9/96 (11/1/96)
It's been a busy couple of days, and I've had little time to write and try to keep things straight, and Wolfie was almost killed by a vampire and it was scary, but he's OK now and then another vampire tried to eat me, but I ran away and it couldn't find me, and then we discovered Inspector Torres is a vampire, and they disassembled the weather machine and it rained and rained and rained and then rained some more, then it stopped, and now there are no clouds. Um, let me back up, I think I was going to start with the first of November. I got up late, around noon, because I had gone to bed around 4:30. Cab had left me some muffins, which I ate.
No one was really around, Eric was in the library, Cab was at work, Daedelus was somewhere, and I think the others were asleep. So of course I got bored and decided to go look for the tree no one could see the night before. When I got to the park, I found Betsy and the tree girl she had disappeared with lying next to the tree. Betsy is alive, and still has a funky aura that doesn't sparkle. Betsy's beret was crooked, and I noticed she had cat ears that she hid underneath it. Cool. I woke them up, and told Betsy to straighten her hat, and Betsy tells the tree girl to go down into the storm drain, so she kinda folded up and disappeared down the drain. Betsy and I then went to Jersey Mike's to get subs, because Betsy really didn't look to good, and I figured she probably needed food.
At about 2, I called the Chantry to tell them I found Betsy, and Renee told me Ogre was dead and his body had vanished. No wonder she was still asleep when I left, she had seen this when they had gone to get Mary. Anyway, Renee told me Ogre had been staked to the Bell Tower with a telephone pole and was on fire. Ouch, bet that hurt. I take Betsy outside and show her the Bell Tower and tell her what Renee said happened. The Bell Tower is cracked and scorched, and Betsy did not look happy, but then again, neither would I if I was looking at where my brother got killed, assuming I had a brother, which I don't. Anyway, Renee picked us up, and I heard Betsy mutters she is going to kill him, and I wondered who, since it couldn't be Ogre 'cause he was already dead. So I ask her who she means, and she tells me Sam, who is nine feet tall and has blazing eyes and she wants to kill him. Then Renee tells me they tried to go to Forteau's house, but a Werewolf attacked and then Mary evaporated it and she went blind. That worries me, the fact that this little kid can evaporate a werewolf. Actually, Renee said it just ceased to exist. Same difference. She also told me it had been a werewolf that had cause the accident I was in. Oh, NOW someone tells me.
We got back to the Chantry, and Mary said she had some way to track her friend, and we assume she means Ogre, because she was looking at him burn, but we found out we were wrong, but we found s the Weather Machine, so that's OK. Anyway, she said we would need lots of people, so I call Cab and fill her in on what happened, kinda the short version, and she threatens to break both my legs for leaving the Chantry, and we are going to pick her up at the Mall on our way to tracking Mary's friend. Daedelus asked me why I let the girl go, and I told him because we couldn't take her into Jersey Mike's because she looked funny and people would stare. He just rolled his eyes.
As we drive to pick up Cab, Renee tells me about Maxwell Blake who is coming for Mary I the morning, and how he is part of Internal Affairs, and it is his job to keep track of Orphans. I wonder if he is looking for me, but decide they probably forgot about me. We pick up Cab, and drive out toward Capital Boulevard. Cab and I talked with Betsy and we found out the girl is a swamp rat, and she is Betsy's sister from her mother, and her name is F'tah. But on Halloween she yelled Shama, wonder who she is? Anyway, we get to the flea market on Capital, and Daedelus, who has been programming again, tells us Ogre is under NC State. That's when we realized we were following something else.
We drove around back and parked the rental van, and Mary says we have to help her friend because he is stuck. Wolfie went Umbral and came back and told us there is a big emerald in the Umbra inside. He unlocks the door for us and we go inside. We find the Weather Machine sitting in an empty booth, and Mary points at it and says, "There he is!" It had the same aura it had before, and I could still feel the energy patterns around it. Mary says her friend is there and he wants out fast. Wolfie said there are spirits bound to it, Reuben said that it wasn't Shamanistic type stuff, it was different, and Cab says whatever is there is not quite sane. Wolfie wonders if Coyote is involved, one of the gods of his people. Eric called Master Porthos and told him we were staring right at the Weather Machine. Eric asked us what to do, so we tell him Forteau is indisposed, fighting himself in the Umbra, and Porthos said we needed to get the Machine to a strong node. Then Betsy whispered to me, "Do you hear footsteps?" Yup. Guys, shhhhh! "Who's there?" we heard. So Wolfie attacked him and knocked him out.
I hid, and Renee, Daedelus, and Eric try to move the Weather Machine. I followed footsteps down the hall, and I saw a guy dial the phone, say a few things, then hang up and head back toward the group. I also noticed he had a gun, so I follow from behind so as not to get shot. Then I see him run back past me and out the door. Wolfie scared him, it was pretty funny. I snuck up to see what was going on, and I see Wolfie and Eric carry the Weather Machine through empty space, so I realized Daedelus had opened a gate. Then Renee, Cab, Mary, and Betsy followed. Daedelus yelled for me, that they were leaving, going to MIT, and I needed to come now or they would leave me, but I decided I had a better chance of living if I stayed here. Who knew what kind of trouble they would get into with that thing, and besides, if it blew up again, I didn't want to be anywhere near it. Also, I wanted nothing to do with what they were going to do, that way Mr. Forteau couldn't get too mad at me. I tried after all, but no one listens to me. I also hadn't seen Reuben go through the portal, so I figured I would go find him and wait and see if everyone died or not.
I left the flea market and found Reuben and Dog in the van, so we leave, because I tell him the cops are on the way. We leave very slowly, since Reuben doesn't know how to drive, and he trusted me even less than he trusted himself to drive. We got a few blocks down Capital and see police heading the other way, and , and then we almost get run over, it is rush hour after all, so we pull into the parking lot of a Hardee's that is closed. I suggest it is safer to walk, it isn't that far. Reuben agreed, and we walked home and cooked dinner.
Around 8:30, it started to pour. And when I say pour, I mean it. This was a mega frog strangler. Reuben was watching the news, which forecasted sunny skies, turned to me and said, "We're fucked." I had to agree. Then he looked at Dog, who looked back with an expression dogs just shouldn't get when looking at people. I decided I was too young to want to know. Around 9, Daedelus walked out of my room, and the others walked out of Daedalus's room. Oh look, paradox. That's kinda cool, if a bit unnerving. Cab ordered pizza. Betsy asked where Ogre was. So Daedelus looked again, and said he was under NC State. Then, all of a sudden, the Chantry got dark. It was pretty weird, but I realized it was paradox being obnoxious, as only paradox can be.
Daedelus gave me the dried blood from Ogre so I could look at it, so I went into my room and turned the light on, but it got a lot darker in my room. So I switched the light off, and it got unbearably bright. So I squinted and went in and lit a candle, which made the room slightly darker, but bright enough to see well. I looked at the blood, and couldn't really tell much, it had been dead and drying for 12 hours, so it was getting pretty icky. I could sort of see a magic pattern, but it was falling apart, and I couldn't be sure, so I gave it back to Daedelus and asked for a pair of sunglasses, because it was too dark in the Chantry. I got some funny looks, walking around inside with sunglasses, but they brightened the place up, and once I explained this, everyone sort of nodded knowingly. Ah, the joys of paradox.
Everyone talked about what to do about Maxwell Blake. They decided to take her to Saratoga where Daedelus has a place to keep her safe. Mary gave Wolfie a Lego that would always try to find its other half, which she had. Betsy said she needed to find Ogre, so Daedelus took Renee to get the van, then picked up Betsy and took her to the Mall, and he came back so we can go to the steam tunnels. Daedelus told us he spent a lot of time in the tunnels and saw a weird green mist or fog once, and he didn't know what it was, but we probably didn't want to run into it again. Mary, Reuben, and Dog decided to stay behind, and Wolfie told us it was also raining in the Umbra. We left for the steam tunnels, Daedelus took his bike and the rest of us piled into the van. We met at the tunnel entrance near Pullen Park around 11pm, and it was really bright out, but Renee had a flashlight that dimmed it a bit. We pulled some boards away from the entrance, went through, and propped them back up again. We saw footprints, kinda like this was a traffic area and a lot of people went this way, and recently too. Interesting.
We walked for a ways then came to a cross, where I saw a trail of blood going across our path. They were footprints, and lead to the left. Wolfie smelled it too, so we followed them to a ladder going up to a manhole cover and a blank wall. We then turned around and followed them the other way, and saw less and less blood. The air was also getting moister and we were going down. We finally came to a large room where the pipes converged, and, since Wolfie and I were in front, we saw some battered furniture and a table with a body on it and a man leaning over the body, a small lantern nearby. The body looked like one of the swamp rats. I try looking at auras, but they are dim with no color, it is just too bright in the room for me to see. Actually, it is too dark in the room, but well, it was too bright. The guy straightened up, the threw the lantern at us. I ducked, and the lantern disappeared and reappeared behind us, where it bounced off of Eric. I saw the guy run away so I ran off after him. I get to a long bright tunnel, too bright for me to see well in, so I try the stuff Daedelus has been telling me about, and I expand my awareness to encompass a large area around me. It was really cool, but kinda disconcerting at first. I sense nothing down the hall, no passages, secret doors, people, nothing. Hmm, where did he go?
I ran down the hall and Wolfie followed and stopped behind me. I kept going, the hall turned right and I came to a bedroom of sorts. There was a burning lantern, a desk, and a bed. This is where the vampire almost ate me, but that didn't happen now, it happens later. Anyway, I could tell something was happening down the hall, and I heard a bone-chilling voice, and I look down the hall and see this creature has Daedelus by the neck, and Wolfie was watching, and Eric was too with the lantern he had picked up. I snuck my way down the tunnel, and then the vampire dropped Daedelus and went after Eric. He grabbed Eric and started dragging him back toward the big room. The creature was bald and ugly, which is how I knew the other guy was a vampire, because they looked similar, but not quite the same. Anyway, his aura is dim, but then again, everyone's auras look kinda dim and not quite right. Stupid annoying paradox. The ugly guy ran through Renee and Cab and then vanishes with Eric, Wolfie following. Wolfie hit it, and then they run down another tunnel. I saw darkness erupt in the tunnel, it was really cool looking, I figured something exploded, I just hoped it wasn't Eric. Renee and I ran down the hall, she handed me the flashlight and she pulled her gun. Wolfie and the vampire fought, and Eric crawled down the tunnel toward us, looking badly hurt, but alive. Suddenly, Wolfie goes nuts, and then so does the vampire. It wasn't a pretty sight, especially since Wolfie lost. I ran back down the hall at this point, because I didn't want to get eaten.
In the big room, I point the flashlight at the girl on the table, who gets up, then promptly falls on her face. Daedelus disappears down the hall Wolfie and the vampire were in, and drags Wolfie back out, pretty chewed up. I notice Betsy and 3 others have entered the tunnels, and are headed this way rather quickly, so I told the others. I suddenly occurs to me that I've seen Renee heal me enough that I could do it myself, so I do. Cool, I'm learning all kinds of stuff tonight! Cab flipped the body over and Betsy shows up with 3 tree girls. Betsy went to Cab and the three girls surrounded the one on the floor, and they sounded like they were hissing at each other. The girl on the floor had a different aura from the other three, probably because she was dead, but moving. Ick. Anyway, Betsy says the girl is Shama, because I can hear well with this expanded awareness, how cool! Shama was the girl she shouted for at the party. Ooops. One of the girls attacked the dead one, and Betsy interrupted, pulled out a knife, slit her arm, then, when the dead girl attacked her arm, she pummeled her in the face. Gee, that wasn't very nice, teasing the poor dead creatures. Betsy yelled at the others to make up their minds, and they hissed at her, grabbed the girl, and left. Betsy said there would be hell to pay for this, and we needed to leave now. She was shaking so Cab put an arm around her and led her out of the tunnels.
We left and got back to the Chantry around 12:30am. Betsy collapsed on the couch, so I studied her aura. It was iridescent and swirly and pulsing, kinda like Mary's. Wolfie reminded us Blake was supposed to show up in the morning, so everyone went to bed. I stayed up and meditated to get some quintessence back from the node first, then I went to sleep, too.
Speaking of sleep, I'm going to bed. I'll get to the part about the vampire trying to eat me later, and the ghost in the house, and Blake dead spider webbed to our door, and Renee dehydrating him and washing him down the tub. Goodnight.
Tom Brady <tabrady@mindspring.com>
Last modified: Fri March 7 13:27:00 1997 by tabrady