Scion – Petro Campaign – Session 33
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 Sep 7th 2008
So, for the first time in my life I’m in Washington State, visiting a small mill town and trying to resolve a potentially disastrous conflict between warring factions of the dead. Fortunately, I can really get behind this sort of political stuff (especially since it deals with the dead ^_^). But before I get into all of that, I should catch up on what happened after I got back from Japan and my adventures with Storm’s crew.
The biggest thing was my VACATION! ^_^ Echo and I took a couple weeks off to just relax and enjoy a late honeymoon. We left my other followers (sans Keiko, as I’ll explain below), and went to Greece. We traveled around a bit, seeing old sites that she was familiar with and meeting some of her supernatural friends. It was wonderful to get some time together with Echo, just the two of us. But it was also awesome to meet her friends. I met so many nymphs that I can’t really remember all their names! They were all very excited about our child and gave us their blessings. I also got some gossip on Ray and Cila. They seem to be doing quite well. ^_^ I’m a little jealous of Cila.
Anyway, I also gave Keiko a vacation. Honestly, her recent reunion with Oda seems to have reawakened her intense feelings for him, and so she used her vacation to go back to Japan and spend time with him. It’s so sweet. ♥ ^_^ ♥ I think it’s really helped her deal with some of the issues she’s been having, so it looks like we’ll all be better off from now on. And I’m just happy to see her happy. In fact, she’s so happy that she and Oda have decided to marry! ♥ ^_^ ♥ Of course I’m thrilled, but there’s a catch. I have to get permission for them to marry.
See, Keiko serves Izanami and Oda serves Izanagi. Izanagi and Izanami don’t exactly get along well…I mean, their own marriage ended pretty tragically, and Izanami did try to kill Izanagi when he came to visit her in Yomi (though really, he was a real jerk about it, reacting like he did just because she was dead and rotted). Anyway, it won’t be easy getting their permissions to let their respective servants marry. I get the feeling that’s one of the main reasons Keiko and Oda haven’t already been married. But I’ll do what I can, of course.
Anyway, once I’d been back from Greece for about a week, I had a really weird dream. I was in a room draped in red. T-Bone and Elisa were there with me, which seemed perfectly natural, and a very small man sat in the room with us. In fact, he pretty much introduced himself as “the Small Man.” I quickly realized that this wasn’t just a normal dream and that T-Bone and Elisa really were there with me, in a sense. The Small Man had brought us there, and explained that he needed our help, and had chosen us out of our group of friends because he felt our views of morality were closest to his own. Meanwhile, he explained, his counterpart, the Tall Man, was speaking to three of our friends (Ray, Anna, and Adam, as it turns out). Yeah, basically we got broken up into the good and evil groups. Elisa and I both were a little offended by that. >_< I don’t see myself as evil. I mean, I don’t see myself as good either. That’s the whole point. I can see how Elisa could come across as “bad” though maybe not evil. And T-Bone…well, he and I already discussed his situation.
He’s working in an asylum now, by the way. Good for him! ^_^ I’m glad that he’s found a way to reconnect with people after our conversation. It seems like it’s been quite fulfilling for him so far!
Anyway, that’s beside the point. I guess I’m actually pretty satisfied being chosen by the Small Man. I wouldn’t really have been any more pleased to be lumped into the Scions of Good group either, and at least my association with the Scions of Evil fits with my parentage and my taint. I am really surprised that Anna was in the “good” group. And she was awfully smug about it too. When we all met up to discuss things at my house on Red Mountain, she was openly bragging about it…to me. >_< Sometimes she’s so childish.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. The Small Man explained to T-Bone, Elisa and me the problem he and his counterpart faced. Basically, there exist two lodges, a White Lodge, aligned with goodness, and a Black Lodge, aligned with evil. These lodges are peopled by the spirits of the dead and are constantly at odds, though their cold war has, until recently, maintained a state of balance. And that’s good, because their existence helps to keep a fallen titan (named Crusher-of-Cities >_<) bound beneath the earth of Washington state near a place called Glastonbury. It seems that evil acts perpetrated in the area strengthen the titan but soothe it, keeping it dormant. Good acts weaken it, but they cause it to stir. So a delicate balance between good and evil must be maintained, and the lodges make sure this is the case.
Or at least they did. As far as we can tell based on what the Small Man told us, some titanspawn came along, posed as members of the Black Lodge, and started causing trouble and killing White Lodge members. The White Lodge retaliated in force, and things quickly spiraled out of control. Now, the Black Lodge’s champion is dead along with many of its members. The White Lodge is now much stronger than the Black Lodge, and so the balance has been upset. You know that goes against practically everything I stand for.
And the titan is stirring. Seismic activity in the area has hinted at that. The acts of good that the White Lodge is responsible for are waking the titan even as they are keeping it weak. But once it’s awakened, its weakness won’t matter much. Freed of the influence of the lodges, it will probably grow much stronger very quickly. The scary part is that the Small Man believes that at least some part of the titan has already been unearthed by recent tremors. If the titanspawn find it and provoke it into awakening…well, that would be bad.
Oh, and just to confuse the issue (‘cause why not? *sigh*) Everyone who comes to the town near the lodges spontaneously generates a pair of doppelgangers, one good, and one evil. They don’t have powers, but still, that could cause trouble. Fortunately, magic and divine senses can help us tell doppelgangers when we see them, and I was able summon the kami of my relic goggles and ask him enchant the lenses so that I can see doppelgangers too. You know, I wish I’d develop some divine perception like so many of the others. I feel like I miss out on a lot just because I don’t have their keen senses. >_<
T-Bone, Elisa, and I briefly discussed what to do. Among other things, it seemed pretty obvious that something needed to be done about the White Lodge’s champion, who seems to have gotten a little out of control. We agreed that killing him would go a long way toward restoring the balance…not that we could manage that on our own. But we ultimately decided that we should really get together with the others as well before planning anything. And so we did. As soon as I woke up, I called everyone (I think Ray did the same thing), and we all agreed to meet at Red Mountain.
Our discussion didn’t last long. Of course we agreed to go see what we could do to restore order in Glastonbury and between the White and Black Lodges. We needed to seek out the titanspawn that were causing the whole issue and deal with them. That was the first priority, but I was insistent that we couldn’t ignore the Lodges themselves either. The longer their fight went on, the greater the chances of the titan waking. So we needed to do what we could to restore peace between the lodges ASAP. That wasn’t going to be easy, though, since the White Lodge’s champion, Tyirel, was apparently on a rampage, killing every Black Lodge member he came across and refusing to listen to reason. And this guy’s supposed to be “good?” Could have fooled me.
Of course, Ray and Adam had done some research for us (they are so on top of things!), and told us more about the area we were going to investigate. The town itself is pretty small, and more-or-less centered around logging and the local sawmill. It seems like a pretty insular place, run by two families, one represented by Benjamin Horne (who pretty much owns everything in the town), and the other by Catherine Martel (who owns and runs the local sawmill). A railroad runs into town to pick up lumber. There’s a nice, big cemetery, a lake, power-generating windmills, and a nearby cavern that’s home to a lot of owls.
Actually, the cave is probably important. Adam had a vision that, among other things, suggested a strong owl motif for our fate, so we decided to visit the cave as soon as possible once we arrived in Glastonbury. Add that to our list of things to do.
Getting to Glastonbury was easy. We enjoyed our first flight on the sweet jet that Ray and I bought. That is definitely the way to travel. ^_^. Echo insisted on coming with me this time, and I was glad to have her along, so she’s here too. And Ray brought Cila, which is good. It’s nice to see Ray and Cila happy together, and to see Echo and Cila getting along again.
We drove to Glastonbury in rental cars. On the way in, Adam pointed out a fallen telephone pole that looked like it had been cut down with axe (or maybe bitten through by a ridiculously large beaver…but that sounds like something Anna would come up with, so I’m ignoring that thought). Adam predicted (correctly) that the phone lines supported by the pole were main lines, and that the town probably had no outside phone contact. That prompted me to check my cell phone, and sure enough, I wasn’t getting any reception. Fabulous. >_<
We checked into the town’s hotel, the Great Northwestern. It had definitely seen better days, but it wasn’t too bad. There was a kind of worn-out charm to the place. Our huge entourage took up almost an entire floor of the place, even with most of us (except for T-Bone, poor guy) doubling up in rooms. I made sure Dahlia roomed with Kaori and Steph to keep them out of trouble, while Quinn looked after Sophie and Emilie. Gotta keep Kaori and Emilie separate. Keiko and Juanita also shared a room. I think they get along pretty well since my girls trained with Ray. Keiko and Juanita seem to fill similar roles of leadership among our respective followers, after all.
While checking in, I took the time to talk to the hotel clerk, a talkative young woman named Lucy Moran. I quickly caught on to her tendency to gossip, and so with a few choice words, I got her to tell me as much as she could about the town. It turns out there’s a lot of drama going on in town. The town leaders, Benjamin Horne and Catherine Martel, are supposedly involved, as are Catherine and an older South African Man named Thomas Eckard (whom Lucy assured me was terribly hot for a man his age). Horne’s daughter, Audrey, has a criminal record to match her loose morals, and apparently fools around with a lot of guys. A P.I. named Philip Gerard was sent to watch her and got murdered, and I learned that he was buried in town (probably in Black Lake Cemetery). And another person was murdered the night before we arrived, a woman named Madelaine Ferguson, who might have been involved with Ben Horne and was almost certainly sleeping with Catherine Martel’s son Pete, who is also apparently involved with Audrey Horne (but then again, I got the impression that virtually every guy in town is).
See? Like I said. Drama. But if you ask me, this is as much the work of the Black Lodges as anything else. I mean, infidelity and murder are trademark acts of evil, and the lodges are supposed to operate by influencing the people near them. Kinda tragic, in a way.
After checking in, we decided to split up briefly to prepare for our investigations. We decided that our first task would be to check out the owl cave, and Ray and I discussed that idea of summoning the cave’s kami to ask it about what was going on in the area and what the significance of the cave and the owls was. Given the owl motif, we figured the kami would probably like an offering of mice or rats or, so Ray took his people out to catch some while I headed into town with Elisa to pick up other summoning supplies, like incense or candles. Meanwhile, Adam and Anna went to talk to the sheriff. And I think T-Bone headed out to a place called the Double-R diner.
You know, Ray probably sat meditating and just snatched up the rats as they scurried by him or something. He’s totally samurai. ^_^
While we were out, Elisa and I visited the Black Lake Cemetery, mostly because I wanted to look for Philip Gerard’s grave (the P.I. who was tailing Audrey before he was killed). We found it pretty easily, but before I could summon his ghost to ask him about the circumstances of his death, Elisa noticed a little girl watching us timidly from behind a tree. When I called out to her, she almost ran away, but as I stood and beckoned her closer, she was drawn to me and walked over to us. As she approached, Elisa whispered that she had a doppelganger’s tell-tale glazed eyes.
The girl introduced herself as Elsie. I asked her a few gentle questions…about herself and what she was doing in the graveyard, or why she was so curious about us. She lied to me every time she answered, so we didn’t get any real information from her. But I pretended like it was all good and let her go. Elisa then signaled that she’d follow her, and I nodded subtly as I began the preparations to summon Philip’s ghost.
When Elisa found me again, she confirmed that Elsie’s doppelganger had been lying. She’d followed the girl outside of town and into the forest to the north, where the lodges are supposed to be. I seems like Elsie is a doppelganger of the Black Lodge, or so we guess. In any event, she’s reported our presence by now. I’m afraid that the Black Lodge will think we’re here to support and White Lodge. And the last thing I want is for the Black Lodge to see us as enemies. We’re here to help both lodges (well, I am anyway), and so I think we need to make sure to approach the Black Lodge with offers to help as quickly as possible.
Of course, getting to either lodge isn’t simple. They don’t really exist fully in this world, so you can’t just walk up to them unless you have the right sort of moral fiber to do so. Ironically, as Adam explained it, I’ll probably have a hard time finding the Black Lodge at all, give my moral and ethical convictions. Anna, on there other hand, shouldn’t have trouble finding either, even without her psychopomp abilities. That thought brings smirk to my face, given the way she was bragging about being so “good” earlier. Really, though. I don’t mind Anna’s pride in being “good.” It’s nice to see her more positive and happy about something. ^_^
Anyway, while Elisa was away, I summoned Philip’s ghost. He was a bit crude, but he answered a few questions. He was apparently killed by a guy named Caleb, who (like every other guy in town) was apparently also doing Audrey. It turns out Philip was also doing Audrey (wouldn’t that have compromised his job of investigating her?). I guess that’s why Caleb killed him, though again, I think it has more to do with the Black Lodge trying to restore balance to things. I asked where we could find Caleb…but Philip told me he was dead already, killed by a P.I. hired by Ben Horne to investigate Philip’s murder. I might need to look for his grave too.
Can this be any more complicated?
Anyway, Philip’s ghost is now a member of the White Lodge. I asked him to try and encourage his companions to stop the madness and listen to reason. He seemed….doubtful…of his ability to influence anyone, but said he’s at least try to get them to keep an open mind about us if nothing else.
And that’s basically where we stand now. I’ve been using some of the time before we meet to go to the owl cave to compose this. Hopefully I’ll have more to report soon.
Oh, and Echo sends her love! ^_^