Saturday, December 31, 2022

New Year's Day

• We pick back up with Moira, Agnes, and Mick Donnelly trying to figure out what to do with the dead bodies of missing homeless people turned ice zombies and the realization that the cops will be here soon
  • They try and convince Mick and his people to hide the bodies
  • Moira helps set the story in people's minds before the Mists start rolling in that it was just some people shooting off guns and causing a ruckus, trying to disturb the church.
• Agnes contacts the woman from the FBI that tried to recruit her to the X-Files
  • She is going to try and help by preventing the local police from causing problems for her, but doesn't have any resources on the ground that could help
  • When the cops show up, Agnes talks to them and gets them to leave without any incident
• Mick and Lucas Grady talk to Moira and Agnes in private once the cops leave
  • They mention that the last time they'd heard anything about zombies like this was 20 years ago when a bunch of non-Church hunters showed up
  • He takes a card from Agnes and wants to talk more later
• They leave to check in on Christopher at the group home, and after that head to the Westin to check in with Aoife, and right as they arrive Agnes gets the text about the Malacoda having kidnapped a vampire

Strange things are afoot at the Sundial

• Blaze and I, fueled by Skycraft (and cocaine in Blaze's case) start running to the Westin from our party
• Agnes and Moira arrive before us and Moira notices one of the elevators has just gone up to the Sundial level
  • Moira confirms with the security guard who let them in that there isn't an event going on up there
• Clarissa and Nadira both follow Aoife to meet Agnes and Moira at the elevator
• Blaze and I get there and make our way up to the party floor just as the others are getting ready to head up to the Sundial
  • Agnes tells me when I'm recounting this story to make sure to include the Dame Rell and Elias (the two other sidhe at the party) refused the call to this adventure
• We get to the Sundial and see a male silhouette sort of floating in the darkness by the one of the eastern windows
  • A few of us click on the lights from phones and can see the man is hanging from the ceiling by some sort of thin wire
  • As we get closer Aoife recognizes him as Julian Stone, and he's strung up with a thick piece of piano wire, has a piece of wood in his chest, and it looks like his tongue has been removed
  • I post up at the elevators to cut off anyone that may still be up here
  • There is graffiti on one of the windows that says "the greatest fraud is pretending to be human when you're far from it"
  • It looks like it was a fairly rushed job, more than his usual crimes, as he was aware there were a lot of supernaturals near at hand
  • We suspect the killer has already fled, either we just missed him in the elevator, or if he took the fire stairs
• Moira and Agnes go to cut Stone down, but pause as Moira gets a bad feeling and Agnes notices that piano wire continues down from his neck and into his coat
  • Aoife comes over and gets a boost from Blaze to try and open his coat to see what is going on, before deciding that Agnes should try incase there is a trap or something
  • There is definitely a bomb vest strapped under the coat, and I notice it's rigged with a bunch of thermite (enough to probably melt an engine block, but not sure what it would do in this setup)
  • The piano wire is definitely a reverse pressure trigger, so if we cut it, it will go off
  • I come to take a closer look and have no idea how to disarm it; this definitely wasn't rigged by a professional, it's the work of someone who didn't know what they were doing
• Agnes texts Merit and he calls her and she tells him situation
  • He says he can make it so fire doesn't burn, and come up to help
  • They start inscribing symbols around and on Stone
    • …and botch the ritual roll, but they try again with help from Ashmore who are both definitely mages
  • They complete their ritual and I go to cut the wire…and it works!
  • Stone's body falls to the ground but there is no incendiary explosion
    • But Blaze does spray him and I both with a fire extinguisher the moment I cut the wire
• After getting the vest off him, we try and remove the stake but fail
  • It breaks off inside him when I try and pull it free
  • Agnes can't cut through his skin when she tries to cut it out
  • I finally use Metamorphosis to shrink the stake down, and Stone's chest rapidly begins to heal and after a moment his tongue starts to heal so he can talk
• He mentions needing to talk to the prince when he's told about his date being hit by the same stake that got him
  • I take this to mean that Prince is a vampire, but he won't say more
  • He didn't see who attacked him and hasn't noticed anything stranger than usual or seen anyone following him in recent days
• Agnes uses Chronos on the stake and sees back a week in time
  • There's a creepy garage or basement (lots of chains, some meat hooks) likely in a suburban house and a piece of hardwood being worked by a shadowed figure who says "these being are very strong, this must be stronger; but I know what to do now" as they craft the stake to a murderously sharp point
    • She realizes the words weren't spoken, and she's either picking up on a thought or an intention worked into the wood, so she can't pin down any identifying characteristics
• After Agnes scours the scene and takes the various pieces of evidence, she goes down to speak to the security guard
  • Her and Aoife browbeat him into showing them the security footage
  • She sees something going on like with Paddy, as the camera doesn't seem to pick them up, with the footage being glitched out and not present before the attack and then another shortly after Blaze and I show up, where an elevator opens but no one gets out and then the footage flickers out for a few moments
  • When questioned if he saw anyone come through after Blaze and I, he mentions some sort of gothy looking guy
• I use Willow Whisper on the circuit breaker for the floor where the party was
  • I chat it up, and it says the person that came in and turned the lights off was a stranger and looked like a person but felt like an animal
  • He was lurking in here, spying through the cracked door for a long while before shutting the lights off and going out
• Around 2:00 in the morning we head back to the freehold and call it a night