Scion – Petro Campaign – Session 51
This account was originally found on Livejournal, I am not the original author—I am just a fan of the journal and have found reading it on livejournal clunky to navigate and rife with errors/instability (such as having to refresh multiple times due to the page in questions becoming unavailable often requiring multiple refreshes. The original post can be found here, published by DJ-Yomi, and was published on May 17th 2009
Wow, what a night. I’m not really physically fatigued—my divine stamina sees to that—but I am mentally exhausted. And this is only the first night of our latest escapade! Yep, our sanctified band of scions has a new task to complete, and this one looks to be a lot more touch-and-go than the last one. Sure, defeating Pika Don was hard as hell, but at least we had a plan and knew what steps to take toward completing it. This time…we can only plan so far ahead.
So here’s the deal. Adam called us up and asked us to meet him in Reykjavik. He’d been asked by a “secret patron” to keep the god Hod out of this competition that’s going on between the Dodekatheon and the Aesir. You know, the one those young scions on Hashima Island were training for. And why did Adam’s mysterious contact want to keep Hod out of it? Because Baldur is there and really wanted Hod to come, but of course Hod is the one who is supposed to accidentally kill Baldur and start Ragnarok, and no one wants that to happen. >_< So it’s best to keep the two separated, especially when any sort of competition (like throwing things at Baldur) might be involved.
So our job is to intercept Hod when he arrives in a hotel in Reykjavik to meet Demeter and Persephone. At least, we think they’re the ones he’s supposed to meet thanks to Ray, who asked Cila and Lucas Carroll about it. By the way, did you know that Lucas Carroll is Cila’s father? Wow!). Anyway, we’re pretty sure that Persephone and Demeter are going to convey Hod to the site of the competition (it’s on Cyprus, I think…). Of course, the gods won’t be happy when Hod doesn’t arrive and are likely to look for him, but that just makes our job more challenging. Somehow we have to not only convince Hod to stick with us, but we have to keep the other gods from turning over heaven and earth looking for him.
So our current plan is to pick Hod up, and get him out of Reykjavik before Persephone and Demeter arrive. I’ll stay behind to greet them and explain what we’re doing and why Hod isn’t there. I’ll also try to get them to help us out by covering for us somehow in Cyprus. Aside from that, I’ll play it my ear. Fortunately, I get along with Persephone and Demeter. I’m looking forward to seeing them again, in fact. ^_^
But that’s not all that’s going on. See, after we arrived, T-Bone scoped out Hod’s hotel room (Hod’s not actually here yet). He discovered that some weird distortion had left an echo on the room’s corners. He described it as though time and space had been folded in some way, leaving things not quite right in the room, though only his chaotic inclinations let him see it (I sure didn’t). Adam called me and Ray up about that time, thinking (wisely) that the room’s kami might be able to tell us something.
I got there shortly before Ray and summoned the phone’s kami. It said that some strange hound-like creatures had warped into the room, looked around, and then disappeared. At first Adam didn’t really know what they might be, so I summoned the TV’s kami as well and asked it to show us what the beasts looked like. They were not natural, that’s for sure. And really ugly. Seeing them let Adam make a series of connections, and he pulled the following theory out of the bottomless well of his knowledge:
The hounds, he thinks, are servants of a dark earth god. This god used to be the patron of an ancient city called Iram of the Great Pillars (which probably stood in what is now the vast Empty Quarter of Saudi Arabia), and time-warping hounds were supposed to be this god’s servants. At one time, a blind prophet named Hud appeared and foretold the city’s doom, and shortly thereafter, rain of fire wiped the city out. I guess the dark earth god was pretty annoyed with that.
Anyway, we believe that the blind prophet Hud was actually the blind oracle-god Hod—the guy we’re trying to protect. And the dark god—or rather, the dark earth titan—is now out for revenge. Great. That means that not only do we have to keep Hod away from the good guys, he’s being hunted by a titan too. Oh well. If things didn’t stay challenging for us, our legends would never grow, would they? ^_^
But who is this dark earth titan? Well, events conspired to reveal that to us a bit later.
I asked the phone kami to call me if anything else weird showed up or happened in the room. I also asked the TV to turn on in the middle of the night and do The Ring thing whenever anyone stays in the room (that was just for fun, though ^_^).
Adam downloaded the hotel’s database and changed Hod’s reservation to a different room, hoping that doing so would throw the hounds off the scent. A futile hope, sadly, since they track through time, not in any temporal, physical sense. It’s a good thing their ability to pinpoint the time a person will be somewhere isn’t completely precise. I also tasked the phone kami in that room to call me if it noticed anything odd. Then, with nothing else to do we went out clubbing. I was going to take my girls out anyway, and managed to cajole the others into joining us. Ray even brought Cila! It was a lot of fun to go out on the town with my friends like that. I know Pierre and T-Bone enjoyed themselves, and I think even Ray and Adam had a good time! ^_^ ♥
Anyway, we’d been there only an hour or so when Adam ad Ray apparently noticed our kelpie friend Tanith from Ireland (Aife and Siobhan’s friend). She ducked into the club, had a look around, and then left without even saying hi! Kinda rude >_<, but she was pretty pissed off about her lot in life, so I suppose I can’t blame her. Ray and Adam got my attention and the three of us left the club to look for Tanith while Pierre, Elisa, and T-Bone stayed behind.
We found her, and though she was characteristically reticent, she talked to us. She was apparently in Iceland looking for signs of Crom Cruach’s minions. She’d been sent by the Tuatha to check things out without any real idea of what she was looking for or why. Tanith felt that they were just trying to get rid of her, and I’ll be honest, it seemed that way to me too at first. Even if she did unearth some of the titan’s minions, she’s not exactly well equipped to deal with them on her own!
Tanith thinks they’re angry with her because she forgot herself, let her old titanspawn habits get the best of her, and accidentally drowned someone. She says the Tuatha (and, notably, Aife’s sister Scathach) want her to perish. Aife herself is pretty angry with Tanith, and refuses to talk to her know, which I know must hurt. It’s not easy when your best friend’s angry with you. But we did our best to encourage her. I assured her that running into us wasn’t an accident. Fate wants us to help her out, and if she can succeed in her mission, then it will go a long way to proving herself to the Tuatha.
Tanith’s presence also made the final connection we needed to figure out just who the dark earth titan hunting Hod is: Crom Cruach. It seems fate really does have more in store for Tanith than it seemed at first. Do the Tuatha know this? Is there a method to the madness of sending Tanith here on her own?
Well, Tanith didn’t exactly come alone. They sent a piglet with her. ^_^ He’s an intelligent, enchanted piglet named Merlin, and he’s so cute! He may be a bit of a perv, and Tanith hates him, but I think she’s just bitter about her mission. And the fact that the pig spies on her in the shower. But what really make the pig remarkable is his ability to sniff out the minions and magicks of Crom Crauch. Pretty damn useful given our current worries.
We got Pierre, Elisa, T-Bone, and Tabby, and I told Sera where I was off to so that she could shepherd Dahlia, Ophelia, Mercy, and Sadako back to the hotel whenever they were done at the club. Speaking of Dahlia, by the way, she and T-Bone seem to have made up. They aren’t dating again, but at least she’s not actively hating him anymore.
Tanith took us by her hotel to pick up Merlin, and then we took the two of them to our hotel (the 101 Hotel, which is pretty much the nicest in Reykjavik. I gotta travel in style, you know? ^_^). When we got back to the hotel, though, we discovered that one of the housekeeping staff had been half-eaten by one of the titanspawned hounds. >_<
I talked to the police and kept them occupied while the others checked out our rooms and let Merlin investigate the scene of the crime. It turns out one of the police is a big fan! ^_^ I love running into my fans. The others were more than happy to chat while my friends were checking things out. The police did have a few words to say about Tanith’s clothing (which was very revealing), so I also took her and dressed her in one of my outfits (I bring a few extra just in case, but it’s nice to be able to travel light now that I can just change my clothes magically on a whim. ^_^). I gotta tell ya, Tanith looks pretty good in the Catholic schoolgirl getup. ^_^
Merlin confirmed that the time-spurning hounds were indeed Crom Cruach’s servants, and as the police were finishing their investigation, he suddenly sensed something from the new room Adam reserved for Hod. At that moment, my phone rang. It was the kami of the room’s phone, who said that there were two hounds there.
Ray was on it in a flash. He scooped up Merlin, leapt out one window, and flew into the room from its balcony. Merlin began…growling, and as Ray dashed toward one hound to attack it, it was forcibly repelled and ended up disappearing, warping out, I guess. The other hound also disappeared, choosing to retreat rather than face Ray and Merlin alone.
We learned from this that Merlin can repel Crom Cruach’s servants. Excellent news. Looks like we’ll be keeping him close to Hod! ^_^
With the hounds gone, we were again left with nothing to do but wait for Hod’s arrival the next afternoon, so we retired to our rooms. Merlin really likes Adam and Ray, but decided to stay with Adam for the time being. Tanith chose to share the suite with Tabby and me, citing the fact that she appreciated how nice and encouraging I’ve been to her. So I put her in Tabby’s room and Tabby moved into mine. Before going to bed, though, I talked to Tanith more and tried to help encourage her more. She told me more specifically what happened that caused her to kill someone, and it really was just a case of her forgetting herself and doing what kelpies do (in the legends, at least). There wasn’t any real malice in it. I think Tanith will be fine in time. She just needs her fellow Tuatha to have some faith in her. Because as it is, they’re not really giving her much reason to be content with her decision to redeem herself.
Anyway, while we talked, I offered to help brush her hair out. She really liked that. ^_^ And it really helped set her at ease.
However, bringing Tabby into my bed had some unforeseen consequences. Tabby’s sort of a mistress to Echo and me, so sleeping with her is nothing new. But I haven’t been intimate with her since Miko’s redemption. And as we began to make out, Tabby suddenly became extremely predatory. She bit me hard (which she likes to do anyway), and I could feel the shikome inside me stirring. It felt a little like it did when Miko first turned me. I admit being a bit scared, so I pushed her away. It wasn’t easy…she’s a lot stronger than I am, but she backed off, sensitive to my desires.
She still wanted to take me, though. There was a predatory look in her eyes that I’ve rarely seen before. I asked what was happening and she said that she could feel it…could feel that she had the potential to “turn” me again, to reawaken the shikome inside me and become my “sire” like Miko had been. She said that it would be perfect. I would be her sire, and she would be mine in an impossible closed cycle of intimacy. I knew these feelings weren’t anything new for her. Tabby’s always had a desire to express her love for me like that. But Miko was the one who turned me. Now that Miko’s been redeemed, I guess it left a sort of mystical vacuum in that part of me, and Tabby’s shikome taint was compelling her to fill it.
I could have stopped Tabby. All it would have taken was for me to enchant her, or even exert a little of my divine will to calm her down. I had time, even though I could tell she was only moments away from completely losing it and taking me by force. But Tabby’s not just my servant and lover, she’s my friend. And if I stopped her, it would just put a wall up between us that would be difficult for us both to bear. It would have made it very difficult to work together, because I would always be watching to make sure she didn’t lose control now that she knew she could fulfill one of her dearest dreams. And she would worry about it a lot too, not wanting to displease me yet compelled to follow her instinct. And besides, having Tabby as a sire wouldn’t be any different or demanding that having Miko as one. In fact, it would be much better since, unlike Miko, Tabby isn’t horribly evil, doesn’t carry the shikome-goddess taint, and doesn’t have Amaterasu’s eventual corruption in mind. All Tabby wanted was to deepen her connection to me. And if Miko never really exerted and real control over me, then Tabby sure as hell wasn’t going to.
The only problem was that once she bit me, I was going to lose myself to my shikome side until I bit someone and turned them, and that was a bad thing in a hotel full of guests. Fortunately, I had Ophelia, Mercy, and Sadako in the suite next door…
All of that passed through my mind in a fraction of a second before Tabby pounced on me and bit me by force. And when the moment came to either entrance her or let her do what she wanted, I decided to let her bite me. I don’t know exactly what happened, but she somehow turned me again. I lost myself to my baser shikome urges, and Tabby and I had a pretty wild time. She drank a lot of my blood; I actually had to exert some of my divine power to regenerate a bit. And while I was a shikome, she really did exert some degree of control over me, though she didn’t abuse it in any way. Actually, I enjoyed it. There was something very liberating about just…submitting for a change. It was a while before we calmed down enough for me to start thinking about turning someone else. I sent Tabby to get Ophelia. I hadn’t been planning to turn the others quite yet, but better Ophelia than an innocent guest. And it’s not like Ophelia, Sadako, and Mercy aren’t aware that they have the potential to become shikome eventually. I’ve been pretty open and honest with them about that.
So Tabby fetched Ophelia and I turned her. The rest of the night was spent with Ophelia freaking out like all shikome do at first before I could get her to calm down a bit. She broke into Tanith’s room and tried to turn Tanith, who scared her off by turning into a horse (and she couldn’t have turned Tanith anyway). And once Ophelia calmed down and I was able to explain all the shikome ground rules to her and enforce them with both the power of the taint and my will, she turned out to be pretty well behaved. I mean, it’s still going to be dangerous for Mercy and Sadako to be around her for the time being…but I’m putting them on a flight back to Boston today anyway (more on that below).
Like all the shikome, Ophelia seems to have a sort of obsession. Kaori wants to turn others, Emilie likes messing with people, Sophie likes to eat people, Steph loves to dance and drink cranberry juice. It turns out Ophelia loves grooming herself and others. Brushing hair, fussing with wigs and dreadfalls, applying make-up such. In other words, her habit of always dressing in extreme goth and cybergoth fashions before she was a shikome has become a defining feature now. Having her brush my hair out for awhile once I’d calmed her down was really nice, and she even managed to make up with Tanith by doing the same for her.
Anyway, when dawn arrived, I called Echo. I told her I was sending Sadako and Mercy back to Boston on the next flight out, and explained why. She agrees that I made the right choice. I mean, she enjoys Tabby and values her friendship as much as I do.
Echo also warned me that I should probably put either her or Miko on a flight to Iceland just to separate them. It’s not that they’re not getting along. Quite the opposite. They’re finding it harder and harder to resist each other’s charms while I’m not there, and Echo’s afraid she’s going to end up sleeping with Miko, which would upset me greatly. I confess wanting to enjoy that sort of intimacy with Miko myself, and it’s obvious Miko is still a very sexual person and wants Echo and me. But like I said before, I don’t want to taint her, and I since she’s a part of me, I can’t stand the thought of Echo having her before I do anyway. Messed up? Yeah, I guess. But since when are the gods completely sane? ^_^
Anyway, it’s been awhile since Echo’s come along on an excursion with us, what with Rose and all. So I’m flying her in, and she should arrive sometime this evening. Sera, Dahlia, Tabby, and Ophelia are staying with me, and I’m sending Sadako and Mercy back to look after Rose (Miko and Quinn are keeping her and Alandra in the meantime, and I really hired Mercy as something a nanny anyway, at least until I turn her, assuming that happens).
So that’s where we stand. I guess I should check on the others and make sure nothing crazy happened to anyone else last night.