Scion – Petro Campaign – Session 16
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 Jan 7th 2008.
I’m so happy right now I could just die. Even the trip to Kaymakli and an expedition to the Underworld looming on the horizon can’t get me down right now (actually, I’m kinda looking forward to the Underworld, but I’ll get back to that). I’m sitting in bed typing this, and Mara’s sleeping peacefully beside me. She’s SOOO beautiful. *^_^* ♥
So, where did I leave off with my last entry? The last couple of days have been pretty distracting. Oh yeah, we were in New Orleans, and I’d stayed in town to do some shopping and arrange a meeting with Blade (I covered that last entry). Everyone else went out into the bayou to hunt down the key to the Eye of Chaos, which was supposed to be in the hands of “the Goatse Man,” an adopted scion of Pan.
Well, needless to say, they came back no worse for the wear and with the key to the Eye safely in hand. Later that evening, I hooked up with Adam and Elisa to visit Blade’s club. On the way they filled me in on what had happened in the swamp.
They “rented” a boat (for free, thanks to T-Bone’s smooth-talking) and cruised into the swamp. Things were pretty quiet, but they knew they were being watched, not just by a small flock of whip-or-wills (Adam thought they were somehow supernatural) but by something else too. It turns out Louis was following them, so T-Bone called out and told him to come out and join them, and the werewolf did! Wow. He’s really not such a bad guy. For a werewolf. Of course, Amy still mutters about eco-terrorism every time Louis gets mentioned… Ah, LARPers…
In short, they struck a truce with Louis for the duration of the mission. Louis wasn’t really interested in the Eye anyway…he was just supposed to keep an eye on my friends.
Eventually, they found a shack in the swamp. Adam and T-Bone’s magic told them that the shack had a lot of supernatural things in it. It turns out the place was surrounded with submerged zombies and had Macout zombies guarding it inside. Plus there were some satyrs (including Wilbur, whose name still cracks me up!), Papa Screech, and last but not least, the Goatse Man (god, his name cracks me up too, lol).
The fight was short and brutal. Adam and Elisa didn’t give me every detail, but Papa Screech, who had the key, did manage to summon some sort of Cthulu tentacle which tried to grab him and pull him out of the shack and take him somewhere safer (presumably, but you know how these elder gods are…). Adam took care of Screech, though. He shot the key (which is a round, eye-like gem of some sort) right out of Screech’s hands without harming Screech, and even caught the damn thing as it flew threw the air toward him. Talk about classy. Adam just keeps getting more and more badass. ♥
Meanwhile, Ray was kicking ass like usual, and ended up ending the fight once Adam had the gem by destroying the shack’s floor, dumping most of the enemies into the swamp while our team escaped back to the boat and made their getaway. The Goatse Man (lol) got away, Wilbur (lol) was killed, and no one’s sure what happened to Papa Screech. Last Adam saw, he disappeared underwater. We also came out of it with a few nice relics. ^_^
Since we had the key and the map and were pretty much ready to get out of town, the meeting with Blade may not have been all that important, but I didn’t know that when I scheduled it, and I wanted to make sure that we didn’t run into trouble next time we’re in New Orleans (for T-Bone’s sake, if nothing else). So Adam, Elisa, and I went to the club later that night. We agreed that T-Bone shouldn’t go since we thought his presence might cause problems. Elisa went with us for protection, but we didn’t take Ray or Anna since we didn’t want to appear to aggressive.
Actually, Anna wasn’t even available. She kinda disappeared at some point. I’m not clear on whether she thought she saw a clown in the bayou or what, but she ran off and didn’t reappear until we left New Orleans.
Blade’s club was a pretty nice place. A lot more chilled and loungey than the places I perform (I’m more of a techno-industrial girl ^_^), but it had a nice goth atmosphere. Deliciously dark.
Suchette, the gorgeous vampire we’d dealt with the previous night, was performing when we arrived. I made eye contact so she knew we were there, and then we found some seats and waited for her to finish her set. She’s really very good! Not my style of music, exactly, but I can definitely recognize quality when I hear it. Hmmm. I bet she’d sound good with T-Bone. Maybe I’ll have to work something out now that we’ve kinda smoothed over our earlier misunderstandings.
Anyway, while we were waiting, Adam and I both noticed that there were three dead goth girls sitting at a table across the club. They weren’t zombies, but they were still up and moving around. And starting to suffer the effects of rigor mortis. I could tell they’d died of food poisoning earlier that afternoon, but their souls hadn’t realized they were dead and so they were still stuck in their bodies. I guess the closing of the Underworld meant that their souls weren’t being called away like they should have. That’s been happening more and more recently…
I couldn’t just let the girls languish under the misconception that they were still alive, so as Suchette continued to sing, I went over to let them know, as gently as possible, that they were dead. They were a bit frightened and completely disoriented, but I convinced them of what had happened pretty quickly. Well, two of them anyway. When they finally accepted that they were dead, their bodies just keeled over and their ghosts stood there gaping at me, poor things. The third just wouldn’t believe it until a bit later, after the paramedics I called arrived. Just in case, I took something innocuous from each of the girls before I left them, just in case I needed to summon one of them later.
I had to leave them to talk to Suchette about then, but I caught up with them afterward in the parking lot. They were starting to figure out what it meant to be a ghost. One of them seemed like the Underworld was beginning to beckon her, but the others seemed completely lost. I gave them my cell number and told them to call me if they need help and could find a way to manipulate a cell phone (not easy for a ghost).
Anyway, back to Suchette. We had a…nice?…talk. It was civil, at least. I turns out she’s really the one in charge of the vampire scene in New Orleans (not Blade…yay Grrrl Power!). She didn’t really care about the key, map, or Eye (I don’t think she really knows what they were all about). She was trying to get them because she’d made a deal with the Goatse Man to do so. The main issue she had with us was all the disruption we’d caused. New Orleans is her city (or so she says), and she’s spent decades getting things just the way she likes them. She doesn’t like people moving in and making waves, but there’s been too much of that lately, largely because of scions like us.
I ignored the fact that we didn’t come into town to make waves. T-Bone kinda got pulled into things against his will, and then we couldn’t exactly leave things alone. Adam kinda mentioned it, but in general I tried to focus on the fact that we never meant to cause her any problems. I mean, even if Suchette was just as much to blame for the way things turned sour as we are, I didn’t think it was wise to argue that point since I was trying to make peace with her. So I assured her that in the future, we’d try to work through her if we had business in New Orleans, and that I’d try to spread the word to other scions if I could.
Hmmm…maybe I should start up a web-based network for scions with this kind of information. You know, warnings about things we should all know. Some of the noobs could certainly use it. I’ll have to work on that.
With things straightened out between us and Suchette, we promised that we’d be out of her hair the next day. Since we had the map and key, there wasn’t any reason for us to hang around in New Orleans, aside from the club scene and shopping, and really, we had bigger priorities. Though I really liked some of those boutiques. ^_^
Our next step was to head off to Turkey (which is where we’ll be heading tomorrow morning). But before that we had to head back to Boston. Mara called me again and said she had some visitors on Red Mountain: Persephone and a couple of others she didn’t recognize. She sounded a little out of sorts. Not exactly upset, but not exactly happy either. Apparently, Persephone and her friends wanted to meet with all of us…so we all flew up to Boston and met at me and Mara’s house on Red Mountain.
Persephone was there…and this time she’d cloaked herself in a mortal guise so I didn’t instantly fall into her arms, which was good. Though it would have been pretty amusing to see Ray succumb to her charms! ^o^
Her “friends” were T-Bone’s dad, Kalfu, and Elisa’s father, Tezcatlipoca. They were there to give us some guidance on how to handle the Eye of Chaos. Which is good…since we didn’t really have any idea what to do with it once we found it. In short, Persephone gave us scrolls that will help Anna and I perform a ritual that will open a path to the Underworld, and from there we’re going to find our way into Duat (the Egyptian Underworld), where we’ll hide the Eye safe and sound. The Eye should protect us from some of the challenges of traveling in Duat, and once we’ve hidden it, Anna and I will perform another ritual to contact Persephone and she’ll get us out of the Underworld.
Personally, I’m really excited about going to the Underworld. I’d rather be going to Yomi, of course, but just being able to experience any Underworld is exciting. It’s not going to be a cakewalk…but what is for people like us?
I was a little curious about why it had to be me and Anna who opened a gate to the Underworld, so I asked. Basically, it boils down to the fact that we both have Dodekatheon ichor in our veins, and in my case my hereditary connection to the Underworld will make it possible to open a way in an out. Plus, the scrolls are keyed to us, and I think that my familiarity with the purview of Death is pretty important too.
Wait, Dodekatheon essence? Me? I thought I was 100% Amatsukami. Not so, apparently. Mara thought it’s because Persephone probably used some of her divine ichor to bring me back to life after I died. Wow.
Speaking of which, Persephone apparently considers me one of her concubines now. At first, I thought that might be a good thing. I mean, won’t that help my legend grow? Now…I’m not so sure. I don’t want to be relegated to a secondary role like that. And besides, I’m devoted to Mara, not Persephone. Sure, Persephone’s my friend, but that’s all, isn’t it? Mara’s not happy about it at all. She’s not the jealous sort, so it really means something that she’s upset about Persephone “claiming” me like that.
Well, maybe I shouldn’t worry about it. After all, Persephone also gave her blessing to the union between Echo and me. And I’ve assured Echo that I don’t share Persephone’s feelings in this regard.
Echo? Yes, Echo. The famous nymph from Greek legend. That’s the secret Mara revealed to me so long ago, when we first became serious about our relationship. Mara isn’t really Mara. She’s really Echo. She fled to America and somehow got her voice back, and that’s where we met. She’s decided to stop hiding who she is so that our legends can intertwine and strengthen each other. We might have trouble from Pan or Hera in the future, but we couldn’t run from that forever.
I’m not going to dwell on those worries, though. I wanna talk about the good stuff! Echo and I are now officially…married? Well, that’s not exactly what it is, I guess, but we’ve been formally joined. Our union has been acknowledged by the gods. Persephone conducted a short ceremony for us, and Kalfu and Tezcatlipoca (plus all of our friends) witnessed. Yay! I’m soooooo happy! ♥♥ ^__^ ♥♥ We’re going to have a more elaborate ceremony once all this Eye of Chaos stuff is resolved, but for now, I’m so content I can’t stand it!
In fact, I think I’m going to wake Echo up with a kiss. ^_^ I’ll be back to finish this entry later!
♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
Okay, I’m back. ^_^ There’s still lots to talk about, so here goes. Most of it deals with what I’ve been up to in the day I’ve had at home before we head out to Red Mountain tomorrow. What I’ve been doing aside from spending as much time as possible with Echo, of course. ^_^
Let’s see, first off I decided it might be a good idea to keep up with Suchette in New Orleans. I mean, she didn’t seem to be interested in going after the Eye of Chaos, but she might have been hiding something, and who knows what the Goatse Man will tell her now? So I summoned the ghost of one of the dead girls I met in the club. She was really surprised. I imagine that being summoned can be pretty disorienting the first time it happens. Anyway, her name is Karen. I made sure she was okay, and then asked her to keep an eye on Suchette and Blade. Hopefully, they can’t really see ghosts, and if they can, I warned Karen to be careful. I hope she’ll be all right.
Anyway, I’ll summon her again once we get to Turkey to see if there’s been any unfortunate activity on Suchette’s end of things. Hopefully there won’t be.
Next, I summoned Oiwa. Echo didn’t like that; she and Oiwa don’t exactly get along. At least she understands how important Oiwa is to me, even if she does hate her. Anyway, I wanted to ask Oiwa what she could tell me about the Underworld in general and Duat in particular. I also wanted to know if I’d be able to summon her for help if we get in trouble.
Basically, she recommended against going to Duat. She says it’s a really dangerous place, and she won’t be able to get there to help us even if I summon her. And even if she could get there, it’s unlikely that she’d be able to do anything anyway. She did give me some advice about dealing with the Underworld outside of Duat, and she might be able to help us there. She’ll do what she can, anyway, if we need her. But in Duat, her hands are definitely tied.
Actually, Oiwa warned me that Persephone was probably trying to trick us. She feels that Persephone most likely wants the Eye so that she can give it to Dionysus to help him overthrow Zeus (there’s a lot of history to that). She thinks Persephone’s likely to maroon us in Duat. Echo got really angry at that and claimed that Persephone isn’t that kind of person and that she wouldn’t do that. The argument got out of hand really quickly, and when Echo called Oiwa a “frigid bitch” and Oiwa responded by calling Echo a “loose-loined man-toy” I interceded and stopped things.
The funny thing is, as much as they dislike each other, both Echo and Oiwa think of each other as family now. And like family, even if they don’t like each other, they know they’re pretty much stuck with each other. I wish they’d get along better, but I don’t suppose there’s much hope of that.
Though in many cases I’d trust Oiwa’s judgment, I do think she’s being a bit paranoid this time. I think Persephone has our best interests in mind, and I definitely don’t think she’s going to strand us in Duat. I’m not positive, and I know that even if her overtures of friendship are sincere, Persephone’s still likely to use me from time to time. But I’d like to think our friendship counts for more than that, anyway. Even so, I asked Oiwa to let my mother know what was going on and to keep an eye out for me in case something bad does go down.
The last of the day’s major events that I need to cover has to do with my shikome. See…Tabby’s been going on and on about her friend Robin, another girl about Tabby’s age who is apparently the only person on earth who cares that Amy and Tabby just disappeared. No, seriously. As far as the world is concerned, Amy and Tabby might as well never have existed. I don’t know why that’s the case. It’s not a shikome thing. Maybe mom or Miko is looking out for me. But Tabby and Amy do have graves, so they’re officially assumed dead. We actually went out to see them earlier today. We all got a kick out of that, and I have some great pictures of Tabby and Amy hanging out at their own tombstones. ^_^
Anyway, Robin’s been really worried, and kept trying to get the authorities to do more to find Tabby and Amy. Tabby was certain Robin knew they were alive (she’s been keeping tabs on Robin via MySpace). Plus, Tabby and Robin have been BFFs since childhood. Amy wasn’t so sure that Robin really believed they were still alive, and tried getting Tabby to forget about it. Personally, I think Amy’s just jealous. She’s kinda in love with Tabby, and now she basically has Tabby all to herself without Robin around to be Tabby’s best friend. But now Tabby wants Robin to join them, so Amy’s a little upset.
OMG. Talk about drama! *Sigh*
Regardless, Tabby kept insisting that she needed to turn Robin into a shikome. I thought about it, and realized that she might have a point. If only Robin is unaffected by the selective amnesia that seems to surround Tabby and Amy, then maybe there are some pretty strong strands of fate connecting her to us. I offered to turn her myself, but Tabby didn’t want that. She wanted to be the one that turned her best friend into a shikome.
So I decided I’d let her. In a way, it’s an experiment. Tabby and Amy have actually done a good job of behaving themselves, even if they have run Keiko a bit ragged. I’m willing to give Tabby a chance to show me how well she can handle a shikome of her own making. It’ll give me a better idea of how much I can rely on my handmaidens in the future. And I decided that I wouldn’t mind having another shikome, not if she’d likely be more-or-less willing to join her best friend.
So, Tabby got in touch with Robin and invited her to one of the clubs I frequent. I had someone bring her back to a private lounge. When she saw Tabby, she was ecstatic. Then she noticed Tabby’s amber eyes (they were blue before) and she realized something was wrong. She kinda freaked out…but I talked her down a bit. I didn’t know if Tabby would be able to control herself…she looked like she wanted to jump on her friend and bite her right away. But she managed to keep herself in check long enough to talk to Robin and explain a little about what had happened to Tabby and Amy. Tabby even threw in a few encouraging words. In end the end, I convinced Robin that she really did want to accept the “embrace.”
And Tabby bit her. So now I count a third shikome among my little coterie. ^_^ I let Tabby go over the rules with Robin, and she pretty much laid down the same ones I did, so that’s good. Robin seems like she understands and is willing to behave to the best of her ability. She follows Tabby around like Tabby follows me around. Amy’s not happy…which might cause problems. But from what I gather, both Robin and Amy are used to doing pretty much whatever Tabby tells them anyway. She was always at the top of their social clique. And since Tabby’s as loyal to me as a shikome can be, she makes a good leader for the trio.
Honestly, I think it’ll work out fine. And if it doesn’t, then I’ll deal with it.
Well, I’d better get some rest. It’s going to be a long flight tomorrow.