Approaching the Apocalypse… Again

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In the morning, we all round up to check on Remy and discuss. He’s awake, but moving slow. He says he did gain knowledge of his past lives, including golemancy and how to give Alock a body. Folk go off about constructs for a short bit before getting back on track. He says he lost the memories of his first two lives and how they won the war against the fae. Then we digressed into a discussio of the breaking and the war and how they were related, but we don’t have any answers, so we bounce back. Remy thinks he can also give the Etherion voice a body, but that’s a whole other can of worms that needs Rictus’ input. Remy also says that our connection to the gods is what kept us from dying, not just that one time we went to the fae world.

Nat then tells us that she Dreamed last night. She says the positive outcome of the deliberative is fading fast. The other three options are all pretty bad. She saw the room of the deliberative, with the Prime Evoker and Conjurer’s chairs cracked, and Prime Rictus’ chair completely broken, and all the mages were frozen in mid-discussion. But then there were three options. One the chamber emptied and all the chairs broken. One with half the room destroyed. And the last with only one, larger Prime seat remaining. Worried about Rictus’ broken chair, Dalish sends to him, but he says he’s fine and will see us before the Deliberative.

Remy mentions wanting to scribe some spells into his book, including Ressurection. Maribeth says he should just let her go if she dies. We all disagree, vigorously. She thinks she’s going to Hell no matter what, but we try to convince her she’s not anymore. The contract is gone. But she believes she’s done too much bad in her life. I don’t know what that has to do with it, but she’s pretty convinced. We tell her too bad, we’re saving her no matter whether she wants it or not.

Now, what about the Black Knight? And the Red Knight? Aranea? The Church? What about using the Renaud ring to locate Daniel. Remy wants to go look at the secret room in his house. So, we head over there, and on the way, show him all the things we took from it already. We don’t find anything new, but we do learn that the house has been sold to the Prime Illusionist.

We have to find Hector and/or Daniel. Nat starts scrying. Starting with Hector, who we’re sure is dead. She sees the ruins of the Royal Palace. A hallway in front of a shadowed window. There is no sound in the hall. Then Nat scries on Daniel, but it fails to resolve. So, we decide to head to the palace up in the Bronx. We find the spot, it’s all rubble and ashes in an old receiving room. The boys find transmutation magic. Possible disintegration, and the ashes are Hector. Well, there we go then.

Nat takes a look at the pattern of the weave to look back at what this place was. She says it was glorious and beautiful. She looks around and finds something behind the throne. We move some rubble out of the way for her, and find a tunnel entrance. Nat finds the catch to open the door, it’s pushing a few stones in the right order. Heading downstairs, we find the color starting to drain, and it seems to look strange to our magic boys’ eyes. Anti-magic? We go back up, leave Dalish behind after his toe falls off. We light some torches and head back down.

Everything is black and grey as we head down into a bedroom chamber. There’s a stone archway at one end with a door. No. The Door. Oh Dawnmother! Oh Green Witch! The DOOR! I want to. Oh man! I want to touch it.

Remy moves forward. Remy wasn’t in the fae world. No! Remy Stop! It’s the Door, Remy. It’s dangerous. He just wants to look. But touching it. What if one of us opens it accidentally. We can’t do this now. We have to survive the Deliberative first. We can only have one apocalypse at a time. I really want to touch it, too. Look with your eyes, Remy, not your hands. We have to leave. We have to leave now and come back later. We have to.

So, we go back upstairs and seal the door again, and tell Dalish what we found. Then we head home. It’s weird that my house is home for almost everyone in the group now. It’s a closer family than I ever had. Remy works on scribing spells and how to build bodies. Gerhardt goes back to refining Mana. Nat pays a visit to Poissant. She prepares tea to dream about the door. We both really want to open it and keep our promise and get Alock back home before Remy puts him in some unnatural body. But we can’t, not until after Friday.

I decide to check in on all our friends. Xin Yue does not reply. Cirena says she’s doing alright, she made a deal about the Beast for her safety, but it’s still after us. Hank says we can come down to South America any time we want to. When I try to message my mom, all I get is weird island music. Stephen says everything is fine, but he was busy. I tell Gerald about the odd response from Mom, he says he’ll look into it.

Secrets

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Everyone split up at that point, trying to find information without giving up stories at the entrance. Which I thought was against the rules, but follow Nat anyway. She goes looking for information on Prime Etherion off in some other tower and finds a diary of sorts, describing his rise to Prime, and only a very short time after the war. Nothing useful, though. So, we meet up and head back to the entrance. Where we find Remy lying in a pool of blood.

There is a rather large hole in the back of his head, though really, any hole in the back of one’s head is bad. I drop down beside him and stabalize him immediately. Then I send up a longer prayer to the Dawn Mother to heal him up a bit while Dalish takes a look. He says part of Remy’s brain is missing. His Brain! We pick him up and take him back out of the library and find him a bed. I keep praying for him, and Nat starts digging into his head.

I’m not sure what happened then, but it might have been a mind palace, I was praying so hard I wasn’t really paying attention. We may not get along, but he’s Not Allowed to Die. But anyway, I heard them all talking to Alock about there being too many voices in Remy’s head. And that Remy’s voice was missing. Nat digs in and convinces them all to quiet down as I finish praying, and we back off and let him rest.

With him out of comission for a while, we decide to head to his old house for answers. We can hit up his Dad if we come up blank there. There’s still a bank sign out front, no one has picked it up. So we climb over the wall and head up to the house. The grounds are being maintained, but no one appears to be around. Nat takes a couple tries to open the door and we head inside.

Everything is gone. No furniture, decorations, paintings. Nothing. We all start searching around the place, but I’m too worried about the hole in Remy’s head and everything else to be of much help. They’re all disappearing into walls and through chimneys. Eventually, Klyce calls us all into a study that he thinks has a strange fireplace. Turns out, it doesn’t have a chimney up top.

Klyce pops into spider form and heads in and up. When he comes back, he gets Nat and Dalish to go back up with him. Apparently there are some runes up there. They all come back out and Nat starts a fire in the fireplace. HeyHey goes to take a lok and finds the runic barrier gone. Nat, Klyce, and Dalish go look, the rest of us stay to make sure the fire doesn’t go out and trap them. When they come back, they’re dragging a full set of Royal plate, a set of weights, and a large collection of nearly disintigrated books. Maribeth wants to check the grounds, so we head back outside, but everything is empty and quiet.

We head back home. Nat identifies the fancy armor and we clean up the books and mend them so they’re readable. They turn out to simply be geneaologies of the noble families. Remy’s says that his dad had two brothers: Daniel and Hector. They are both marked as Dead. Remy and his Dad are both marked as Traitors. Well, that’s lovely, but it does mean someone else was alive to make the marks. I wonder who.

Nat does another spell on the armor and says that it is indeed the “Uniform of the Guardian of the King, Forged by Hadreas of Kingdom Founding. And every person who has worn it has died in defense of the King.” So, if Hector wore it, then he had to have died that day. But what does that Mean??? Everyone starts tossing out theories of betrayal and resurrection. We have to talk to Mr. Renaud.

So, I gather up Dalish, Maribeth, and Nat to go have a talk with Remy’s dad, because Remy still hasn’t woken up. Everyone is quite surprised that we’re back, again, already. I feel kinda bad, but Nat’s parents don’t seem to mind all that much. At dinner there is talk of hunting and other such normalcy. After dinner, we take Mr. Renaud off to a sitting room to have a chat. A chat he really doesn’t want to have.

We try to convince him that we’re just trying to help his brother, but it’s messy. We ask about the politics of the coup and his brothers. Where they might be now? He has no knowledge of his whereabouts, he didn’t even know he was alive. So, we ask him about their deaths. And we give him alcohol to ease the telling. Hector was the Captain, and Daniel was just one of the regular guards. Hector died in the coup, but Daniel was sent to the mines. He received notice that Daniel was dead two years later. So, we ask him to describe his brother, and it seems more and more like Daniel, not Hector, is our Knight. Nat asks to see the family ring, so she can locate one just like it later. Maribeth asks for memories from his childhood. He tells us of training with Hector, always training. But Daniel and he went to a Virginia beach and had a lovely time relaxing before Daniel joined the guard.

Preparation

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I teleport up to Bangoria with Nat, Maribeth and her mom, and Remy and his dad. I bring us to edge of town so we can have a nice walk up to the castle. Give everyone a few minutes to settle into the new area, especially the ones who’ve never been here. Nat sends for her parents and we go small receiving hall to wait. Her parents greet us warmly, if slightly confused by our sudden return. Nat explains our presence, and our need for sanctuary for our friends’ parents and they are happy to oblidge. I’m sure the townsfolk will be all the talk about Remy’s dad coming to visit, but I don’t remind Nat. Mr. Rathbone is excited to take Mr. Renaud hunting the next morning. Natty gives everyone a tour of the castle, and I’m reminded of when it was Vlad’s castle instead. I still wonder if my boon was used up by all the things we stole before he took it back home.

When the tour is done, we sit down to a nice dinner with the whole family. There is pleasant chat, and I remind Nat to ask about Mana. Mr Rathbone says it should be alright, but we’ll have to ask Great Grandfather to make sure we don’t take too much. Remy stays with his dad as Nat, Maribeth, and I go down to talk to the old skull. A lot of the zombies now were prisoners we fought last time we were here. He says the mine is back to full production and we’re welcome to take what we want, but no more than 500 kilograms of the stuff. We do some quick math and decide that 200 kilograms should be enough. Remy and I will have to flip for who transports the mana and who transports the group in the morning.

So, we head up to bed, sharing a room with Maribeth’s mom for one last night. After a nice breakfast, sans the older men, we make our goodbyes. Remy agrees to transport the mana, and I take the group home in time for breakfast at my house to just be finishing. Everyone is gathered up to discuss what comes next We have a lot to do over the next week or so.

Work on the Soup Kitchen/anti-mage rhetoric. Transmuting mana. Figuring out what we’re going to say at the deliberative. Coordinating with our various political parties. Scribing Spells. Checking out the One God church. And I have to speak to the families of my dead household staff.

We have to get the mages to see that the anti-mage sentiment is only going to get worse if they don’t reinvest back into the city instead of hording wealth in the petals. Places like the One God Church are only going to get bigger and worse.

Who is up for the Prime seats? Anyone beside the two people we met and our professor? Do we even know anything about any of them?

Nat ponders contacting another plane to ask questions. But she doesn’t even know who will answer, and that just seems super dangerous right now.

Maribeth suggests we head into her library and do some research.

Maybe I should check in with our friends around the world and see if everyone is still safe: Italy, Asia, and South America.

So much to do, where to start?

Everyone decides to take a day. They are just going to sit and scribe their new spells. I take this chance to grab Gerald to go deliver ashes, and money, to the families of the deceased. Crystal tries to go with us “to help,” but I insist she stay out of it since her people caused this problem in the first place.

Back together again the next day, we go over what we know about the Deliberative coming up. The Prime candidates. Professor Wiest is hot tempered and seems to be the likely successor to her father. Satiel was an apprentice of Rictus, and a powerful evoker. Neither one of them has officially declared for the post. There are no clear candidates for the Prime Conjurer, but Pendleton of the Conservative party is well regarded,. Namira is another possibiity, she was also an apprentice of Rictus, and I’m not super happy with where that is all going. The Deliberative itself is likely to cover budgetary concerns, Dalish’s report on the planes, the elections, and new laws to increase prisoners for the mines here and out west.

We have to figure out a better way to mine. We test Crystal, but she has no adverse effects to being exposed to mana. So, demons, maybe, but that’s resource and blood sacrifice intensive. Undead like Nat’s mine are just too hard to control in that quantity for most people. Constructs don’t survive the mana, either.

Then Remy runs off on a tangent about mana allergies, and why people didn’t have this problem in the before times. And it goes all overy the place, including Philomena poppig in to suggest that mana wasn’t a physical resource before the realms were split. Klyce got over his allergy by learning to convert the mana, basically a self-taught mage. There’s a lot of arguing and sniping for a while and Klyce says he isn’t going to let them take me or him into a research facility again. Philomena tries to settle everything down by suggesting Remy get Dalish and Gerhardt to help him research solutions. Dalish pipes up about fixing it by unbreaking the world, and then the door comes up and the arguments start again. Until someone remembers the library.

Maribeth reminds us all that we have to give a story to get the information we seek. She also reminds us that information about the breaking is behind the tentacle monsters, and they were not happy to see them last time. I try to get everyone to agree on a question before we go, but it seems like Remy has his own ideas, as usual. There’s a bit more sniping, until Maribeth opens the doorway.

We all write in our books and think of our questions. I write abou the lives of the household staff that have finally been fully laid to rest, and ask about the day the King fell. Most of us head off together, but Remy goes the opposite way. We eventually enter a tower full of histories and biographies, and up to a floor where we split into two groups. Klyce finds pulp novels from ten years ago about the two knights. The rest of us are drawn to a set of history books. The first is the History of the Royal Family. There is a claim here that they are descendants of the Green Witch herself. The second is The Life of King Barran. He had no heir, no wife, and was an only child. It gives detail on the politics of the time of the overthrow. Royal control over the mana supply was a large factor. He sent far fewer people to the mies, so there was always a shortage. There isn’t much on the coup itself, though it does mention Rictus killing him, and all the royal guard, including Captain Hector Renaud. Well, Remy has some questions to answer! Nat finds a page with invisible ink that simply says: King Barran Lives.

We spend a few hours looking around this tower for more information. Dalish finds a log book of the royal guards, it shows the visitor log for that morning. Declan Wiest signed in. He cannot find a listing for a squire of Hector, but the timing is off. According to the Pulps, the Red Knight would have been and infant at the time of the coup. Nat looks for the Greeen Witch’s genalogy, but finds only that the two old country noble lines died off centuries ago. Klyce posits that the Red Knight was a son of a mage, stolen and trained. I’m not so sure he had to be stolen, he could just be the Black Knight’s son. We wonder if Porter’s spell can help us find the King, or if it really is Hector, if Remy’s blood can lead us to the Black Knight.

Family Reunions

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I headed out back with Klyce and Orrin, and watched him make quick work of the burial. Then I asked about my brother. He tells me that he let the succubus take him, and they’ll be back by tomorrow, after Phil is gone. He really believes she’ll do it, and that she loves him. UGH! They’ve only known each other for a couple of Days! He does agree we can hunt her down if they don’t show up.

Then the conversation turns to demons and the Machines, as Klyce wonders about feeding them into it for Mana. He’d rather that then all the human suffering of the mines, or the fae suffering in the current machines. I’d rather it just be undead in the mines and not have to deal with demons anymore. But that’s all long term, how are we getting Mana for the group now? 

He says he’s going to be talking to the Magia soon. I ask him to be careful, but he isn’t worried about them anymore. Not after everything we’ve gone through. I mention his family could be in danger, and the look in his eyes, as he said he would take them All Down… I tell him I’d help, my family’s all gone. He reminds me that I still have Gerald, and he’ll be back tomorrow. Then… Klyce gave me a hug… and went to take his family home. I wish he’d been my big brother instead of Gerald.

I stay outside for a long time after that. Looking at the graves of all the household staff. The people who had been my real family, when my parents and brother had been cruel to me. These people who had cared for me my whole life. Gone in one afternoon, to Demons! I still had to tell their families. I’m not sure how I’m going to do that. It’s all my fault they’re dead. I shouldn’t have brought this trouble home. I sit there, and I cry, finally, for all of them.

The sky is starting to get dark by the time I look up. Nat is laying on Orrin’s grave and Dalish is floating above it. I… I can’t deal with that, too. I head back inside, and find Maribeth and Remy drinking in the lounge. I stop to tell them that they and their families are welcome to stay here as long as they need. She asks what happened, and Remy and I tell her the story of the fleshy mansion and the ritual of Hell. I ask about how it affected Grandfather, and she said he was awful the whole time, but we did make him sweat so much she had to prove she was really there.

I head up to bed, and send to my brother. Tell me you’re alive. I expect to see you tomorrow. He replies that he’s alright, and with Crystal, and he will see us tomorrow. Ugh!!!

In the morning, Remy goes to fetch fresh food, Klyce brings over baked goods, and even Philomena comes to breakfast, though she doesn’t eat. I fetch Nat and Dalish from the grave, and we have a meal. They immediately go into a debate over spell scribing and mana, so I just enjoy the fresh bread. Ethereion’s Machine comes up, and then the voice’s desire for a body. We really shouldn’t let a spell free to roam, but they discuss it for awhile.

Then it turns into a discussion of mana versus genocide. Porter chimes in that demon machines would be far more difficult and dangerous, with less return. Plus, summoning demons usually requires murder in the first place. Klyce wonders about mechanical solutions to mana mining, but mana would rust out machines faster than it does people. Julian offers to get them a good deal from his father, and I tease him a little about the theft ring from school. A suggestion is made to check with Rictus, but Dalish doesn’t think we have enough new evidence for more mana.

What else is on our plate? The Church of the One God seems super sketchy, and we should probably do something there, but what? Nat wants to start by countering their anti-mage campaign with our own soup kitchens. Klyce suggests we use the Dawnmother’s church, since it is close to the One God church. We have the Deliberative coming up, where we have to vote on new primes and campaign against the Machines. We still have the Black Knight on the loose, not to mention Hank and friends who we have to meet up with again “when the time is right.” Nat wants to buy up some property somewhere, and Dalish has to write a report on the planes for the Deliberative.

Philomena then asks if we have plans for Remy’s Dad and Philomena’s Mom. They’re okay here temporarily, but there was a big financial hullabaloo, and we’re not exactly safe to be around in times of upheaval. Remy says he wants to send his Dad to join up with the rest of their Royalist family, just teleport him away south. But that’s tricky, so he suggests they both go live with the Rathbone family for a while, to get away from the city politics. I can take them in the afternoon, and we can get some raw mana for Gerhardt to refine while we’re there. Dalish and Gerhardt are going to set up an alchemy lab in my house for that.

Porter says he has to hash things out with Rictus, and then take care of things in the south. He allows that we can contact him through Dreams, but not with anything traceable. Klyce suggests they go check on his hideout first, make sure everything useful is cleared out of there before anyone else finds it. He agrees, and he, Klyce, and Philomena plan to do that in the afternoon, after Klyce fabricates me a new wall where the demons exploded part of my house and starts cooking up stew for the soup kitchen.

So, we break for the morning. Dalish goes shopping for scribing and alchemy lab materials. Remy goes to Etherion’s to get the last of the mana from his Machine. Maribeth, her mom, Nat, and I head down to the Dawnmother’s church. Maribeth takes the chance to talk to her mom about heading up to Bangoria in the afternoon, and she seems agreeable, though sad that she will be away from her children.

We arrive at the chuch in time for morning services, and it’s nice and relaxing to sit in worship. I’ve said my prayers, but hurriedly of late. After service, I have a chat about our soup kitchen idea. He’s happy to help easily listing off all the contacts and resources we’ll need. I let him know that Klyce will be helping on the food side of things. He says what the people really need is economic activity. Since the Petals were completed, a lot of mage business has left Brooklyn, and they are all hurting. I check my purse, and hand him all my money, about 500 gold, to get started with whatever he thinks is needed for the soup kitchen. Hire people to clean up the church, build an extension, whatever he thinks best. Nat adds on another 100g as well, leaving him astounded and eager to get to work.

Gathering back up for lunch after a productive morning, Remy explains to us that taking all the mana from Etherion’s place would collapse the mansion, killing the voice. That might not be a bad idea, and Porter and Klyce both agree. We might want to at least bring Rictus in on the decision, this is above our pay grade. Dalish ponders giving the voice a body still, but will talk to Rictus this evening about it. He was able to get 40 spell levels worth of materials, and discussion quickly falls into who gets what supplies.

Then the door opens, and Gerald arrives with Crystal. My heart is pounding in my ears, I’m so mad at him. I barely hear when he tells me they’re in love, and he’s sorry. She says she was just trying not to die, and that she was summoned here against here will. But she likes it here a lot better than Hell. They’ve even brought a picnic basket of food. I snipe a bit more about the murder and death, but we all head out to the front veranda for lunch. Klyce suggests they stay here for now, and Crystal asks me if that’s okay. I tell her sure, I have friends that can banish her if she doesn’t behave. Dalish takes this awkward silence and starts grilling her on Demon society and the history of the Towers. I just glare at my idiot brother for a bit, and then tune out, concentrating on images of the Rathbone residence for my spell this afternoon.

The Battle for Maribeth’s Soul

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We weren’t there for the real battle, happening over in Hell with all the Demon Lords and her Grandfather. But what we did in that hellish mansion tipped the balance and saved my dearest friend, and her family.

We could see the ritual through the door, but when we tried to enter, an invisible force held us at bay. The wizard boys do what they do, and figured out that it was something called a forbiddance, and only Pumbleby blood was allowed to enter or give permission to enter. Okay, Porter, who about you invite us all in? I asked and the others agreed. So, he and Gerhardt set to work figuring out how to get us all inside. Without the two, not actually Maribeth nor Grandfathers on the other end just kicking us back out again.

While they pull together a ritual, two minotaurish demons took up position on either side of the door. The claw demon on the far end started pulling up darkness throughout the room. The cultists danced around an altar containing my brother and a succubus. Klyce, Remy, and Nat took a look at the ritual in progress, deciding that killing the cultists would only slow it down at this point, not stop it. They noted my brother magically chained to the altar, it would be more complicated than teleporting him out of there. I had my bands of balero to Klyce, in case he got close to one of the Maribeths, and Philomena cast protection spells on him. We’re going to have Gerhardt do some walls of force again. The two Maribeths stood laughing. Right up until the point where we walked through the door.

Someone put a globe of force around the cultists and the altar, Gerhardt put a globe around one of the minotaur demons. Remy slips into the center globe, and I take Klyce in after him. The succubus almost immediately surrenders, offering to help save Gerald. Klyce says she can come with us, and then turns Gerald into a cat and picks him up off the altar. I toss up my storm, careful to exclude everyone in the bubble, including the succubus. Spells, bullets, and swords start flying. Remy calls my name, but it sounds odd. I look up and he shoots me down. Again.

I wake up to Julian standing over me with an empty potion bottle. I start throwing shocking grasps, and the succubus teleports out with Gerald. Before I can start cursing, Klyce says he’ll explain after we’re through. I look up in time to see Philomena disintigrate the claw demon. Remy dimension doors out of the bubble with me, and we start attacking the Maribeths. They shoot out some black awfulness at Philomena and Nat, but I still have my Healing Word to get them back up. Porter banishes one of the Maribeths and Remy shoots the other one down. But Porter gets knocked unconscious and the first one comes back. Nat puts down the minotaur demon. Unfortunately, the Maribeth lets the other one free, and now have to put them both down. Which we manage with some more magic, bullets, and swords.

The ritual seemed to have gotten far enough, though. There was a big dark shadow growing more solid by the moment. Porter circles us all up to put it back. It’s slippery and strange. We can hear him, too. Trying to convince us that he’s the least of our worries. That we wouldn’t even know he was in our world. Then he tried bribery, offering us anything we could ever want. It would be so easy for us to just let him in and then deal with him. Wouldn’t it? Nat pushes us all harder, and we manage to focus down and seal him back in his Tower.

Time never ends. I am patient.

The mansion starts shaking and we take off, running out and up into the street. Time to head home and tell everyone that the demon threat is over. Maribeth and Dalish meet up with us just a little while later and we have a happy reunion. But Where Is My Brother???