The Bookstore

 

04/07/2009 

 

The party begins the three block walk back to the parked vehicles from the McCormic place.

Mostly, the streets are deserted this far away from standard parking.

Standing about half a block away are some men walking on the oposite sidewalk.

Without using any abilities, Steven can see their aura and can tell that they are possessed by demons. He is more shocked that he can see the aura without turning on any abilities than their presence.

Seeing the group, the three men start walking towards the group. They all have bladed weapons under their coats, and as they walk the unsheathed weapons are obvious.

"Everybody see those demons over there with the bladed weapons?" asks Gordon just to make certain nobody was caught off guard.

The group nods as Daniel makes the few innocent bystanders on the streets leave the area.

"So, how do we remove the demons without killing them?" asks Steven quietly.

The group stands there, unsure what to do as the three men walk up.

 

"So....you are the unmakers...."asks one of the demon possessed humans.

 

The group looks at each other, Carter shrugs, Gordon laughs.

"They are idiots..." says one of the demons in a snear, and the demons turn around in unison and walk away.

 

Carter tries to stop one by standing in front of him and says "Wait a minute, we are not idiots. We have just never heard that title before. Who are you looking for?"

"Are you sure you are not idiots? We just told you who we were looking for, and you are not them. Now let go of me..." he says, as Carter has put his arm out to stop the demon from going around him.

The figure twists himself to get out of Carters grip, and starts to walk away again.

Carter, frustrated, turns to stop the demon again by getting in front of him.

Michael tries to think about anything he might know related to "unmaker" and remembers there is a Sumerian myth about unmakers.

Just at that moment, the demons shimmer and vanish into thin air. Carter is standing there grasping at nothing where the figure used to be.

Again, unsure what to make of it, the group decides there is nothing to be done.

 

The group decides to check on the wolves left back at the mansion.

Arriving, the group can see that Doc is still working on one of the people there.

 

"Wow, eight years of school down the drain," says Steven

"Well, he's not a vet," answers Carter

Everyone bursts into laughter, except Michael, who is hopeful the pack didn't overhear.

 

The pack members are lounging around the house, all in pretty good shape as it was the human that the Doc was working on.

Jafar, the leader of the skyfire pack, asks "did everything go ok? Two of my people are downstairs watching the prisoners. They were tough to tie up with the demon blood. The first bonds we put on them they were able to burst their way out. But we came up with a solution." He grins, and Michael wonders if the method involved removing their limbs.

 

Steven goes downstairs to look over the prisoners. He can tell they used about an entire roll of duct tape to hold each prisoner. He turns on his supernal vision to look at them, and sees nothing special about them other than their demon blood. What he does see is the unnaturally beautiful, completely perfect woman with pointed ears standing in the center of the room. Immediately he things "Fey."

Steven walks back up and walks over to Daniel and points to his head, meaning to turn on the mental bond. Behind him, the woman follows. She is so graceful, she walks up the railing and leaps off landing in the center of the room. Once the link comes online, he tries to tell everyone what he saw. Unfortunately, he is having troubles talking coherently with his voice while using the mind meld. Daniel, realizing the problem, starts up a conversation with Doc as a distraction. The Fey, distracted by the new people, didn't notice his error.

She frowns at Carter and walks around where he is without getting close, and walks over to stare at Gordon. Michael activates two world eyes and Daniel activates his third eye. Both see her. She seems to get bored and quickly dances her way back downstairs.

 

Michael quickly says in wolf speak that a Fey just ran downstairs. 

Holly looks at the group and says "is it normally this strange here?" Michael just nods in reply as he shrugs.

Amelia says "wait a minute, an RPG couldn't' get through but a fey could?" She directs the question to Michael.

Not having the answer, he looks to Gordon.

"I don't know, the guards are still in place at the gauntlet?" asks Michael to Gordon

"Yes" he says, concerned about the question as he begins to look over the house wards.

 

Using the confusion to his advantage, Jafar quietly asks the room, "So do we get to have vengeance against the prisoners downstairs? They killed on of our own."

"Well, I'd like to ask them some questions. Although I don't have any now." says Steven absentmindedly.

"Fine, then we shall take them." finishes Jafar. The rest of his pack smile in reply to this, realizing he just got what he wanted without making any kind of deal whatsoever. Michael, realizing the prisoners are in for a very bad time, tries not to think about the moral implications, realizing the will of this pack is a strong one.

 

"We should confront her. Turn on the full wards so she can't leave first."

Steven tries, and can tell there are holes in the defenses, they do not come online fully.

"Uh-oh, they aren't working properly. There are gaps. The gaps look recent. More of in the past day, not the past hour." He motions over to Daniel and the two go to look at the wards together.

Everyone else just stands around uncomfortably, except Michael who seems to be taking the time to talk to the female werewolves present in the room.

 

As best they can tell, the wards aren't diminished in capacity unless it was from 3 different fronts. They could easily protect one or two fronts, not three or four. They quickly realize that they could be repaired in three or four hours and that they need to get to it.

 

Doc is finishing up on the last patient, noticing that the pack is waiting patiently for him to finish up before they can leave.

Going back downstairs, the Fey is no longer visible.

With that problem gone, the Sky-fire pack takes the prisoners and leave.

The wards are repaired in the lull in activity over the next few hours. Michael takes stock of the food eaten up by the pack, they must have been hungry.

Nothing much happens that night, so the group heads off to sleep, peaceful in the comfort the wards are back up and hopeful the main demon gone, that the rituals will stop as well.

 

A couple more days go by. Daniel uses that time to help look into the Sumerian link that has turned up. Michael helps him during this time and seems to have a better knack at finding obscure items that help. They find a Sumerian myth about a time when the world will be destroyed or erased when the gods are not sure what will happen. It turns out to be a common thread, because it sounds like Ragnarok as well. The two find several references to sacrifices to summon demons.  It's a long term thing that takes a month to complete and the final ritual will summon a demon lord. Suddenly, the two realize the summoning is probably not over, and the results are worse than they thought. Unfortunately, they have exhausted the resources of the library.

Suddenly paranoid, Michael uses his "two world eyes" to check on the gauntlet. At first, everything looks ok. But then, his vision bends and it looks as if there is bleed over from a third and fourth world! He staggers and just catches himself. He informs Daniel of what he just saw. Daniel's eyes get big as the implications take hold of his imagination. "Lets get the others"  (Jon Goranson: just an FYI)

Carter, Gordon, and Steven are downstairs chit-chatting about nothing important. It's raining outside as the weather has turned nasty. Suddenly, the phone rings. It's another sacrifice.  Julie asks if we want to look into it. It's already a couple of hours old. It's underneath in a tunnel, but there is some water running through the area, so a quarter of the area is already messed up. Steven relays the information and the group talks quickly. Daniel tells the group what they had found, and that he suggests we go to the occult bookstore for more information.

Steven tells Julie we will pass on investigating this crime scene, and instead will go follow up another lead....at a bookstore....because we are desperate. Well, he doesn't tell her that. Steven instead tells her that maybe we can find a pattern, as if the summoning are in the form of a demons glyph. A major summoning based on the summoning of a bunch of smaller demons.

As he hangs up the phone, Daniel says "um, guys. The mage society in Chicago know about us. I have been trying to keep our endeavors from being noticed by the general population, but even so, some of the mages don't like us. And the reason I say this, is that Martina and some others at the occult book store are mages. Although we are ok with them, but not some of the others around the town."

So the group arrives at the store. Martina greets them happily, Martin is staring off in the distance avoiding the group.

"Oh hi sweetie, how can I help you?"

"Well, we need some help, occult related. Sumerian demon summoning and such."

Steven pulls out the map as Daniel puts a small shell around the group.

 

"Ok, so here are some areas of summoning that have been happening. It appears it is in the shape of a glyph, we think it is in preparation for the summoning of a demon lord, that may be a precursor to setting off Ragnarok. And someone is looking for the "unmakers".

"Well, I think I know someone I can call, who might know more about this stuff than I am. He isn't comfortable with you guys, but with something this serious, I think he might help." she says uneasily as the phrases of Ragnarok and Demon Lord fall from Steven's lips without any kind of hesitation.

I'm sorry, what was his name?" asks Michael

Oh, yes, his name is Telisian"

 

"So, is there something we can do or that we are supposed to be doing so people are not made as us?

"So what tower are you from? Wait, what are you saying, you don't even know what I mean by towers? The towers are points that are used to grab power. To learn about magic, when you awakened, your mentor would have taken you on a journey. What you saw would have been specific to you, but wherever you ended, you would have signed your name on the structure there - it may have looked like a feather stylus or a hammer and chisel, however, when you did that, that is what awakened you and given you the control that you have. So when you say this, it is like a mechanic not knowing where the engine is. You had to do this. I've checked up on you, you were quite the mages."

 

"Listen, we had no mentors, our parents were killed, we just kind of were talking about this and signed our names in a book. There was no spirit walk or rite of passage, we just walked up in the attic and found a book there and signed it.  There was no spirit walk or dream that I remember."

"But you signed a book? What was it called?"

 

"Well, it said the Rayne Tower...." thinks Daniel internally.

The Rayne tower was a tower created by the Rayne family for their use. Each tower corresponds to one of the arcane forces, and this one is just theirs, and only the two of them have access to it.

 

If any mages find out, they will want the tower, as a fifth tower of power. This is huge.

Both of them suddenly realize this, and keep quite.

"So what tower do you belong to?" she asks again, determined to get an answer, and thinking they just figured out where it comes from.

"Well, I took it from a river once..." says Steven

"That was mine. So what tower?" she asks again.

"Well, probably the same as you then," Steven says, stammering, not knowing what to do and realizing he is getting in too deep.

Looking through the books, Michael is able to determine that not only does this bring the demon lord to this realm, it brings his physical body as well. He is not sure which of 3 demons come to the world, but it is one of three. The most obvious is Lucifer, with Methistopolies (lord of flies) and Baul (lord of destruction)

Telisian enters the bookstore, and he doesn't seem to happy. "So...have we decided to help them then?," he sighs, "Fine, what is the issue."

"Well, the basic gist is that we think we have determined a pattern with the death of murdered kids around town." Steven then describes one of the ceremonies that we had encountered.

"Wow, this sounds bad. We are going to have to go somewhere else. I called the council and they are sending some goons over."

"What? We haven't done anything to you?

"You stole mana form us?

"One time, and I didn't know it would be that big a deal

"Well your mentor should have told you that"

"Well he didn't. So if you don't want to go to the mansion where do you want to go?"

"I guess we can go upstairs," as the group moves upstairs.

Once there, Telisian says "so you haven't fought any hell-hounds have you?"

"Yes, we fought six of them that were being controlled by a woman."

"Wait, if all we want is somewhere private, why don't we go to the theatre. We can set up protections there and it is somewhat neutral ground. Plus, it is a power location, like the river, and I will share.

 

Just then, everyone started talking funny and stopped moving, then eveything went black. This went on for about 15 minutes of disjointed communication. Was it Ragnorok finally happening? Nope, internet problems.

 

Game canceled on account of bad internet on the Eastern Front ....

 

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