Scion – Petro Campaign – Session 12
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 Nov 13th 2007.
Will this series of ridiculously eventful days ever end? This has to be a record for me: most updates within the span of three days. And all of them long, too. ^_^
My companions and I are still embroiled in our quest to foil Goto’s plans, but we uncovered a new wrinkle today. It’s one more thing we have to deal with, but if things go the way I hope they will, then this little wrinkle may be the deciding factor that convinces Goto’s misguided students that they are loyal to the wrong man. I hope we succeed. Goto’s students may be a little dysfunctional, but they’re really sweet when you get to know them.
But before I get into all that, I have to gush about how much I love Mara! I don’t think I’ve ever been in a relationship that makes me feel this way. She is simply the most wonderful thing to happen to me in a long time. And she is great in bed. Last night was simply the most incredible night of my life! Sex has never been so good before. I know the legends say that the love of a nymph can enchant even the most stout-hearted of heroes, and I absolutely believe it now. Consider me enchanted! ♥ ^_^ ♥
In case you can’t tell, Mara switched off her limiters last night (so to speak). She said she just couldn’t stand seeing me so down, what with Adam and the shikome thing and my self-doubt and everything else that’s been happening…and wow, did she ever cheer me up!
Okay, I’ll reign it in. I’m sure my audience wants to hear all about my sex life *sarcasm*. Actually, I bet quite a few of you actually do, but a girl’s got to have some privacy.
So then, back to the events of the day…
Since we dealt with Goto’s “pets” last night, we really didn’t have much direction aside from confronting Goto himself, which was not on my to-do list for the day. Fortunately, Antoine called (he’s one of Goto’s students, the Italian boxer). He wanted to get together and talk about how things were going on his end of the Goto investigation, so we agreed to meet at the park.
Antoine and Angela came and we introduced them to the rest of our group. Antoine has apparently brought Angela into the loop, but has left Hiro and Goto’s other two students, Crank and Clem, in the dark since he’s not sure how they’d react. He and Angela have been investigating Goto…but (poor Antoine!) they haven’t really found much. I can tell that Antoine and Angela believe us, or want to, but to their credit, they aren’t willing to just blindly accept what we tell them without some sort of proof. Unfortunately, that leaves the burden of proving Goto’s duplicity on our shoulders.
It was a stroke of luck, then, that Angela and Antoine had news that might just lead us to that proof. In short, they told us that Goto has given them a mission to investigate a mysterious series of supernatural events involving a hitchhiking nupperabo. See, there’s a lonely stretch of road on the outskirts of town called Wendt Street…the very same Wendt Street that’s been haunted by the ghost of a young hitchhiker named Grace since the twenties. That’s how I’m familiar with it, anyway. According to Antoine, another mysterious hitchhiker has appeared there recently, and unlike Grace, who just kind of spooks people (so charming! ^_^), this hitchhiker has been causing accidents that until last night were fatal. Then, last night, one of the victims survived.
But things aren’t well with the survivor. Apparently, he claims that the hitchhiker’s face disappeared, which scared him half to death and caused him to crash. But just before he crashed, she kissed him, and he thought it felt like she took something from him when she did so. The story doesn’t end there, though. The poor driver was rushed to the hospital, of course, but when he woke up, his own face was gone, and he badly frightened a pair of nurses, one of whom he actually attacked…or something…because she lost her face too. The remaining nurse was badly shaken and went home.
It was immediately obvious to all of us that we were dealing with nupperabo. But as far as I knew, nupperabo reproduced like anyone else. I mean, being a nupperabo isn’t something that can be inflicted upon someone else, right? They aren’t like shikome, after all. Well, that’s what I thought, so I called Keiko to ask her. She and Sera are both nupperabo themselves, so if anyone could tell us what was going on, it would be them.
Keiko was hesitant to speak on the phone, and she was also sensitive to the fact that we needed to be as open and honest as possible with Antoine and Angela, so she and Sera came to the park to tell us what they knew in person. According to them, under certain circumstances, it is possible for a person whose karma is way out of balance (toward the bad) to become a nupperabo…or some other form of youkai. And, by stealing another’s good karma (leaving them with a gross imbalance of bad karma), a nupperabo can turn someone else into one of their own. That must have been what happened when the hitchhiker kissed the driver…she stole his good karma.
I’ll admit, I was shocked. I had no idea. But…Keiko assures me that nupperabo look upon such “face stealing” as a terrible, ugly practice. Even those that have been corrupted by the titanspawn abhor it even though that act of stealing good karma is extremely pleasurable. So unless the hitchhiker was somehow mentally unbalanced, there had to be something else going on to make her do what she did. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with being a nupperabo, but stealing someone’s karma is one of the worst things I can think of. In the Christian tradition it would be like pouring a bunch of sin into a person’s soul…sin that they didn’t even commit and that can’t easily be forgiven by the grace of God.
And then there’s the issue of turning someone into something else against their will. That is just…wrong. I know, I know. Just a day or two ago I was just considering turning people into shikome. But even then I was only planning to turn those who wanted the transformation…and really it’s a moot point, because after what happened to that nurse today, I don’t think I could bring myself to turn another person into a psycho, even a psycho that I can control. It’s just too…horrid.
I never liked psycho-killer horror films anyway. Creepy supernatural stuff? Hell yeah! But slasher gorefest psycho horror just lacks that pleasant spine-tingling chill that the creepy atmospheric stuff does. And after today, it’s not just unpleasantly horrific…it’s depressing. But I’m getting ahead of myself. The point is, no shikome for me…not unless desperate times call for extremely desperate measures…
Anyway, that’s what we were dealing with. I asked Keiko if she knew of any nupperabo in the area, and after a little checking on her laptop (I seriously think she’s wired into some sort of youkai underground with that thing), she told us that there was a nupperabo in the area who secretly watches over a local family. That’s pretty normal for nupperabo and some other types of youkai. However, this particular nupperabo, a woman named Kazumi, had gone missing a week or two earlier.
That happens to be about when this mysterious hitchhiker showed up…so it’s a good bet that Kazumi’s our culprit. But why? According to Keiko, she’s always been a benevolent protector, not a vicious karma-stealing killer. What happened to change her?
We threw around a few theories, but our best guess is that Goto has somehow enlisted her aid in causing this whole series of events in order to keep his students busy or to try and prove to them how good and righteous he is. But unless she’s gone completely psycho or something, I doubt she’d be killing people or stealing their karma willingly. So we think Goto must be forcing her to do these things, maybe by threatening the family she protects or blackmailing her in some other way. In fact, one idea that came up was that she was actually trying to kill herself in the accidents so that she won’t have to do what she’s being forced to do.
Really, though, we didn’t have enough information to go on, so of course our theories are mostly conjecture. But the info did give us a lead. If we could prove that Goto was responsible for the whole nupperabo problem (assuming he is, of course), then we could show his true colors to Antoine, Angela, and the others. We agreed to work with them to investigate the issue. Hiro, Clem, and Crank were already on it, and Antoine and Angela were supposed to be looking into it as well, but since we suspected that the whole thing might be a ploy by Goto to distract his followers, we suggested that Antoine and Angela keep investigating their teacher while we followed up on the nupperabo lead. They agreed.
Oh! One other thing. Angela apparently has the ability to tell if people are related to one another. Mara came with me to the meeting, of course, and naturally Anna was there. Angela seemed to think that they were related somehow. Mara seems to think Anna is descended from one of her children. Wow. I still dislike Anna…but I guess I can’t begrudge Mara’s interest in their possible relationship.
With that, our course was pretty clear. We decided had to track down the driver-turned-nupperabo and find and protect the traumatized nurse (the one who hadn’t been turned into a nupperabo…she feared that the nupperabo would come for her too). We also needed to find out more about the hitchhiker, but that’ll come later. Adam is a pro at tracking people down with his magic (that’s why he’s such an awesome P.I.), and Ray is a pro at protecting people, so they were obvious fits for the individual tasks. We decided I should go with Ray since the nurse might be hysterical (or could become so), and I’m pretty good at calming people down (I mean, if I can calm down psychobitch…I mean Anna…like I did at Beaver Creek, then a hysterical nurse shouldn’t be a problem). T-Bone’s also a smooth-talker, so he came with us, and Pierre decided to join us too. That left Adam, Anna, and Elisa to track down the faceless driver.
T-Bone talked to the nurses on duty at the hospital while Adam pulled rank as a private investigator to find out what room the driver had been in and where the traumatized nurse lived. Adam and his group began following the mystical trail that led to the faceless driver, while Ray’s group, including me, headed to the nurse’s house.
Things at the nurse’s house were…bad. We knocked on her door, and a young woman opened it to greet us. Something wasn’t right about her. She wore a long white shirt, and there was something a bit frantic and guarded about the way her eyes moved. She kept one hand behind her back, and I thought she was hiding a weapon (which only made sense if she was scared a nupperabo was coming for her). Then I noticed the blood in her hair. She didn’t seem to be wounded…
When I asked about that, her features suddenly melted away, revealing the blank face of a nupperabo. Fortunately, none of us buckled under the supernatural fear that the sight caused. It’s just not something you ever really get used to! Adam would have freaked out. He hates nupperabo…poor Keiko and Sera. Anyway, the nupperabo nurse attacked us with the pair of long, sharp scissors that she’d been hiding. I staggered backward, trying not to get cut, and in a flash, my samurai in shining armor (Ray) stepped in front of me and grabbed the nurse, holding her immobile while we withdrew into the house.
The nupperabo started screaming about her friend, who was apparently the nurse we’d come to protect. She cried out that she’d made her friend just like her…by taking her face away too. And she was convinced that when her friend woke up, she’d be a nupperabo and they could be happy together as youkai…
As her voice echoed through the house, T-Bone and I explored the place and quickly found the other nurse in the bedroom. She was dead. The bed and pillow were covered with her blood, and her face had been lacerated and cut off and her eyes carved out. The bloody mess that had been her face stared up at the ceiling. It was one of the most ghastly sights I’ve ever seen.
The nurse-turned nupperabo just kept screaming about her friend. She was psychotic…and all because her good karma had been stolen, turning her into a deranged manifestation of dark karma. I looked at Pierre and asked if he thought there was any way to redeem her. He confirmed my suspicions. There wasn’t. Not really. She had been ruined. So, there was really only one thing we could do.
Ray and Pierre took her into the bedroom and shut the door so that I wouldn’t have to watch as they killed her. It was quick and painless, I know that much. T-Bone stayed with me, and I distinctly remember the comforting hand he laid on my shoulder. I’m glad he was there.
I’ve seen people die before. I’ve seem my friends kill titanspawn and the like on many occasions. But this…this was different. It wasn’t a battle. And that poor woman wasn’t a titanspawn. She didn’t ask for her fate. She was just a victim. Her death…it hit me hard.
So, I won’t be creating any shikome. Not if this is what I have to look forward to. The thought that I might be responsible for making Ray have to do this again, to a shikome of my making…just the thought of it fills me with remorse.
Anyway, just after we’d finished with that intensely depressing incident, there was a knock on the door. We were worried it might be the police, but it was just Clem and Crank, two of Goto’s student whom I hadn’t actually met yet. They’d come to the house for the same reasons we did.
I guess I should describe them a bit. Clem is…interesting. He’s nice enough, but none too bright, and awfully quick to make rather sexist comments. He fights with a pair of chainsaws…and he probably has the reddest neck I’ve ever seen. At least his heart seems to be in the right place. Crank, on the other hand, is a very handsome black man. He is seriously hot. Not really my type, though. He seemed pretty level headed, and I can see why Antoine paired him up with Clem…someone has to keep an eye on the wiry redneck.
About this point, we got word from the other group. They’d tracked down the nupperabo driver and cornered him in (you won’t believe this) the industrial park where we’d fought Bloody Mary. They’d managed to knock him out, and were planning to interrogate him, but wanted Antoine and Goto’s other students there when they did so.
So, my group took Clem and Crank to meet Adam and the others while I called Antoine and Angela and explained the situation to them. They agreed to contact Hiro and meet us at the industrial park. When we got there, I discovered that Adam hadn’t just knocked out the nupperabo, he’d almost killed him. The man’s throat was torn open (apparently from a particularly brutal stab with the pommel of Adam’s knife!), and it was only luck that had prevented his carotid artery from being severed. Anyway, I healed him enough to bring him back to consciousness, and the questioning commenced.
What we learned was that the info we had was accurate. The guy had picked up a nupperabo hitchhiker who scared him witless and caused him to crash. She took his good karma, turning him into a nupperabo. He then took the nurse’s good karma just because he felt compelled to do so (I mean, he felt that void inside him, and instinctively tried to fill it). He was apologetic and scared, so I don’t think he meant to do any evil. He was just confused. But the damage was done.
This confirms what our next step has to be. We need to track down the hitchhiking nupperabo (Kazumi, if that’s who she is) and find out why she’s been doing these horrible things. If Goto’s behind it…then hopefully Antoine and the others will see their master for what he really is. If not, then we’re back to square one, but at least we’ll have dealt with this dangerous hitchhiker.
I think most of Antoine’s group will come around when they see what Goto’s really up to. Hiro could be a problem, though. I’m not even sure if he’ll believe us if we offer him proof. So far we’ve kept him in the dark about what we’re really trying to do (discredit Goto, that is) because Antoine assures us he won’t respond well to any accusations leveled toward his teacher. And tiptoeing around that issue is challenging to say the least.
Oh, I almost forgot. One last thing happened before we left the industrial park with plans to meet later in the evening. Angela asked me if she could get together with Mara to talk about her mother, Persephone. Since she knows Mara’s my girlfriend, I guess she didn’t want to seem like she was butting into our relationship, so it was sweet of her to ask, but she really didn’t have to. Anyway, Mara knew Persephone on a personal basis long, long ago, and speaks pretty highly of her. That made an impression on Angela. I’m glad it did, since Angela has issues with her mother that I don’t think are entirely justified. Maybe Mara will help Angela become more comfortable with her divine heritage. It can’t hurt. I like Angela, and I’d like to see her become better adjusted.
So, all in all, it looks like things are coming together, and aside from the unpleasantness at the nurse’s house, I’m in a pretty good mood. I hope we can resolve this Goto thing tonight or tomorrow, because I have another gig tomorrow night, and I expect it to be a good one! ^_^