Those of you who are just coming into the story of Triangle Ascension may be put off by the large amount of information to be found on these web pages. These files are intended to be a short summary of the action up to this point, and will be updated every week or two.

The Setting

Our story takes place in the Research Triangle area of North Carolina, USA, including Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill. With few exceptions, all geographic places mentioned actually exist. Our group began gaming in September of 1996; this Interlude begins on November 1, 1996.

You can read more about the individual characters by clicking on their names. Briefly, we have:

Daedelus, Virtual Adept

Kasee, Orphan

Renee Smith, Verbena

Reuben Cabot, Dreamspeaker

Nathaniel, Son of Ether

John Walker (aka Walks All Paths), Silent Strider Garou

Eric Muller, Order of Hermes

Cab, Dreamspeaker

Kevin Ravenswing, Verbena

Mr. Forteau, enigmatic Master Dreamspeaker. Reuben is his pupil.

Master Porthos, a Master of the Order of Hermes

Betsy, a possible mage with some really odd friends

Ogre, Betsy's brother and no slouch as a mage, either

Mary, Walks All Path's ward and budding willworker (or Oracle. One of the two.)

Dog, Reuben's familiar

Stephanie, Tiffany, and Nicole (know collectively as STaN), a Verbena trio who may not be as airheaded as they seem

Ray, a sympathetic sleeper, police officer for the City of Raleigh

Raoul, a corax (were-raven) friend of John's

Maxwell Blake, representative of the shadowy "Internal Affairs"

Inspector Torres, police officer and vampire

Swamp Rats, possibly human, possibly not group of Betsy's friends

That night, everyone except for Reuben goes to find Ogre in the steam tunnels under NCSU. They don't find Ogre, but they do find a vampire. The vampire tries to run away, but the garou gives chase, and in the ensuing melee, Daedelus relocates to the daylight of Mount Fuji (trying, but failing, to take the vampire with him), and Eric nearly has his throat ripped out. The vampire and werewolf attack, and the vampire is driven to frenzy while the werewolf consciously holds his frenzy in check. The werewolf is sorely wounded, and the vampire escapes.

The next day (November 2, for those keeping track), it is still raining, hurricane-force. Cab and Daedelus take Mary to Daedelus' hideout in upper New York State. Kasee finds some old letters dating from World War II behind the mailbox. Upon reading them, the reader feels a momentary surge of power which, if unused, quickly dissipates. She has found the tass for the Chantry's node. Meanwhile, while the group is poking around the Chantry, preparing for Maxwell Blake's visit, Betsy, who returned t the Chantry with the group the previous night, slips away. Kasee follows her into the rain, and is gone for two hours. She returns with the story that she followed Betsy back into the steam tunnels and saw her meet with a vampire "defector" named Yarkis. Oh, and she saw Ogre and he appeared to be quite dead.

Maxwell Blake never shows up that day. At 8:15, there is a knock at the door, and an Inspector Torres asked to speak to Eric or Daedelus. He interviews Eric and Renee about the three dead policemen found in Pullen Park on the evening of Halloween, and leaves when the power goes out. Reuben, hiding in the basement with Kasee, notes that it is starting to flood. After Torres leaves, it is also noted that the roof is starting to leak, and the power goes out. Reuben and John step sideways and try to convince the water elementals to stop raining on the Chantry. John grossly miscommunicates their intentions and the elementals rain *harder* on the chantry. Just as the roof is about to collapse, Eric erects a force shield of the weakest part of the roof. The worst of the damage taken care of, the group goes to bed.

The next day, there is two feet of water in the basement and the phones are out. All of Raleigh is massively flooded. John opens the front door to look at the weather, and finds the corpse of Maxwell Blake suspended in the doorway by spiderwebs, dead and drained of blood. The only injury is a fist-sized bite taken out of his back. After debating about how to dispose of his body, Renee takes him to the bathroom, puts him in the bathtub, removes all of the water in his body, and flushes away the remaining powder. There are many questions about what killed Blake, but no answers to be found. In his pockets are some of his business cards, a set of car keys, and a small computer. After deciding to let Daedelus deal with the computer, the group putters about the chantry for the rest of the evening, and goes to bed.

The morning of November 4, Daedelus returns to the Chantry to check in. He checks the satellite picture of the weather and sees that the entire East Coast is covered with rainclouds - except for a small circle centered directly on Saratoga, New York, where Mary and Cab are. Reuben suggests strongly that Daedelus bring Cab and Mary back to Raleigh. At this point, they notice that the Chantry has begun to flood, and that the river in front of the house is now six inches above the bottom of the front door.

Daedelus brings Mary and Cab back from New York. Mary looks at the continuing torrential downpour and throws a tantrum because she's tired of rain. The rain immediately stops. Daedelus looks at a satellite map and sees that there are NO clouds anywhere on Earth.

After dinner that night, Renee, Daedelus, Kasee, and Reuben go through a portal to Forteau's house. They find him face down on the floor next to the bed where Reuben had left him, in shock. Renee and Reuben cooperate to bring him back to health. He is revived and asks to be brought up to date on what has happened. He is clearly upset that Porthos has dismantled the Weather Machine. He asks some basic questions that he suggests the group find answers for: Who killed Ogre? Who was the mysterious second buyer for the Weather Machine? And who is "Yarkis"?

Forteau dismisses his visitors, and they return to the Chantry via a portal created by Daedelus. Everyone beds down for the night.

The next day is November 5. While everyone else is studying in the library or meditating, Reuben attempts to contact the Chantry spirit. He contacts the spirit, Angela DePue, but she is reluctant to cooperate. She reveals that the tass Kasee found earlier are letters which are important to her. Reuben promises he will do what he can to be sure that she continues to receive her letters intact.

Later that morning, everyone is startled by a loud explosion from Daedelus' room. They rush in to find his bed on fire and Daedelus himself a charred mess. In trying to dispose of the napalm he created the night before Halloween by exploding it in a pocket realm, he accidentally vented the force of the blast into reality, through himself. While Eric and Kasee extinguish his bed, Reuben and Renee heal Daedelus, then put him to bed in one of the spare bedrooms. The afternoon is spent in more study and meditation all around.

That evening, as he is fixing dinner in the kitchen, Reuben looks up as Cab walks into the room and says, "The soul eater hungers for you." He doesn't know why or what it means, though. Cab decides she will skip the dinner Reuben is making and have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich instead.

The next morning, the group finds that even though Raleigh is still half-flooded, power is starting to be restored to major arteries. Cab and Daedelus go to NCSU for a shower, while Reuben and Kasee walk over to the NCSU library. Daedelus goes to work assisting the reconstruction of the Digital Web, major parts of which have been wiped out with all telecommunications on the Eastern Seaboard; Cab joins Reuben and Kasee at the library, which is closed, and they walk downtown to the Registrar of Deeds.

In researching the history of the Chantry, they trace the history of the property up to 1962, when it was purchased by one F. Lawrence, who still holds the title. Looking at birth records, they find that Angela DePue died on March 3, 1945 of natural causes. They also find a birth certificate for Michael Lawrence DePue, born on January 2, 1945 - one year after John DePue was drafted. There is speculation that F. Lawrence and Michael Lawrence DePue might be one in the same, and possibly this might be Mr. Forteau. Finding no more new information, the group returns to the Chantry for the evening.

Continued in Chapter Two: My Spirit Went to the Shadowlands, and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt

© 1997 by Tom Brady and Beth Miller