Scion – Petro Campaign – Session 9
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 Oct 3rd. 2007.
Well, things are getting interesting again. And a little depressing, for me at least. But I guess that’s life. Adam, Ray, and the rest of my “troubleshooting” friends have managed to find another problem that needs solving, and this one sounds like it’s right up my alley. I only just found out about it all since I wasn’t with them tonight. I’ve been deejaying a club called Catharsis (in Chicago) all night. It’s one of the places Keiko and Sera lined up for me.
But I should really start before that. I’ve been in Chicago for about a week now, and I’ve met with the others (mostly Adam) a time or two. Ray and his gang have moved into Adam’s place…though I actually think they’re gone now. Even so, Adam’s apartment has become a sort of base of operations. I feel sorry for Adam, having all those uninvited guests crowding him out. What’s more, until today I hadn’t seen Dahlia in the past few weeks because she’s been staying with T-Bone. I’m going to need her to record vocals for some new tracks soon, though, so she’ll have to go back to Boston with me when I’m done here in Chicago. Mara’s here with me, which is great. It’s been a lot of fun showing her around Chicago, and I’ve really enjoyed having her with me at the clubs. She goths up really well!
This past afternoon I went out shopping with Mara and bought some new clothes, including this incredible club outfit. According to Mara, I look great in it. And we got her some outstanding clothes too. They make her even more eye-catching than usual, especially with some chains and other jewelry added on. I got some great pictures of her.
Sigh. Unfortunately, that’s where things went from happy to sad. Not with Mara, of course. She and I are still a happy couple. See…I called Adam up to see if he wanted to go out for dinner before my show tonight. He said yes, and said that there was something he wanted to talk to me about. I could tell from the sound of his voice that it probably wouldn’t be good news, and it wasn’t.
We met, and we talked. He kind took his time getting to his point, but the upshot is that he’s not interested in dating me. Sigh. He confessed that he is interested in me, but that Anna complicates things. He says he didn’t mean to lead me on, he’s just been confused about his feelings. Coming from some men, I’d think that was just an excuse, but I could tell that Adam was being honest and sincere. He didn’t want to hurt me any more than necessary, so he decided to go ahead and be upfront and honest about it now that he’s sorted things out.
He feels that I am a part of his “legend”, but that Anna is an even bigger part. And even though their breakup was unpleasant, they still have deep feelings for one another. If they can resolve their issues, Adam hopes they can get back together, and it’s obvious that Anna feels possessive of Adam. From my perspective, the issues look like they all belong to Anna, but I’m trying to be nice about this.
So anyway, Adam and I aren’t an item, and aren’t likely to be. I’m still pretty disappointed…but I’m also embarrassed. I mean, I feel like I probably got ahead of myself in this one. Maybe I assumed too much about Adam’s feelings, or maybe I just got carried away…I don’t know. Anyway, I’m not upset with Adam. In fact, his honesty about all this really impressed me. I actually think I like him more now. Ironic, huh? As for Anna…well, I don’t want to go there.
Maybe this is fate’s way of telling me not to be greedy with my relationships. After all, I have Mara, and she’s wonderful. She’s really understanding, and she been really sweet to me since I told her about Adam.
Fortunately, I was able to drown my sorrows over losing Adam in a flood of music at Catharsis. I wore my new clubbing dress, of course. And I chose a lot of darker tracks (both my own and those from other groups). That was partly because of my mood and partly because of the club. It was a pretty hard-edged place, so it was a lot of fun to play. There was a pretty even mix of cybergoths and industrial goths there; I think Brand would really like the place. I saw some insane club gear. In fact, I made a few contacts with people who custom-design clothes, goggles, and jewelry. They do excellent work.
There was also another big name in the genre there, guys from the group Ruins of Bliss. We’re both very familiar with each others’ work, and have a lot of respect for one another. We talked about doing some remixes, so hopefully they’ll be remixing a track or two of mine for a single release, and I’ll do the same for them. I’m really looking forward to it.
Anyway, I eventually broke away from the floor around 2:00 to get some lounge time, when suddenly Dahlia showed up. Quinn and Kimiyo gave her a hard time for missing all the fun, but she had news for me. T-Bone told her about what the others have been up to tonight, and so she told me. That’s how I found out about the trouble we’re getting into.
Here’s the story, as I heard it from Dahlia.
The group went to meet some dwarves, a guy named Nolrim and his daughter, Eve, in order to get the Nemean bear skin and claws and the harpy talons made into weapons and armor. Apparently, in order to compensate the dwarves for their work, Adam and the others agreed to do a favor for them. The dwarves wanted us to look into a series of murders that have hit the area recently. One of the victims was Eve’s co-worker, so she had a vested interest in finding and stopping the killer. The murders have been especially grisly, with victim’s faces slashed up. *shudder* That might possibly be one of the worst ways to die that I can think of…
So, the gang agreed to investigate. Anna and Adam went to talk to the cops, while the rest went to check something out on Ray’s behalf. According to Dahlia, Ray learned about a dojo run by an old enemy of his, so he, T-Bone, Pierre, and Elisa went to see what there was to see. They didn’t run into Ray’s enemy (a guy named Goto, I believe), but they did find that the little shopfront martial arts school is apparently the base of operations for another group of people with divine blood like us. T-Bone told Dahlia that there was an Italian boxer, a very handsome, very nude black boxer, a pretty, punked-out girl, an older guy with a receding hairline who was wielding two chainsaws (!!), and meditating Japanese guy with a katana. Talk about a comic-book line-up! Seriously, though, they seemed dangerous. I mean, I know what Ray and Adam and Elisa are capable of in combat, and if these guys are half as badass…
Like I said, though, Goto wasn’t there, so Ray made an appointment to come back the next day. I’m worried about what’ll happen then…but I suppose I can trust Ray to take care of himself. After all, he takes care of me and the others pretty well. Even so, maybe I should go with him. If things take a turn for the worst, a few well-placed words might do a lot more to defuse the situation than swords and fists. Ray would probably prefer the swords and fists, though.
Meanwhile, Adam and Anna managed to learn about the serial killer’s victims at the police station. The first victims were a group of five girls at a slumber party. Long, thin knives were used to slice up their faces. Poor girls. The other victims were pretty random – no common trends or connections between them that Adam could identify.
So, everyone got back together and discussed the situation. They came up with a theory about ghosts, and after a bit more investigation, they pretty much zeroed in on that idea. In fact, they began to suspect that it was the legendary ghost Bloody Mary! Dahlia thought that may have been T-Bone’s suggestion. Over Pierre’ protests, they investigated a cemetery and a funeral parlor looking for leads. Unfortunately, the only thing they really found was the body of one victim at the mortuary…no ghosts. Having a look at the corpse did give Adam a better idea of the type of weapon used, though. It seemed like the face-slashing was done with long, bladed knitting needles, or something like that. According to Elisa, they weren’t ceremonial. That’s comforting. Ceremonial bladed knitting needles would just be wrong.
After that, they went to the house where the five girls were killed. Adam, T-Bone, and Elisa snuck inside while the others kept watch outside. They crept into the bathroom, and found that a candle had been used there, and that the mirror had been subjected to intense cold…quite weird, right? Adam used his ability to sense magic and discovered that the mirror had briefly been a portal of some sort…so it seems that the killer, whatever it was, came out of the mirror. Creepy. I mean, mirrors are so intimate…it’s terrifying to think that something horrible could come out of one. That’s the best kind of horror, really: the creepy, get-under-your-skin type. Of course, now that I think about it, this particular situation also has some pretty nasty slasher elements too, what with all the face-slashing.
Anyway, Adam lit a candle in the room, and when he did, he could faintly see an empty rocking chair in the mirror. Given that the supernatural was involved, Elisa decided to seek guidance from her father, Tezcatlipoca, and he granted her a vision…but according to T-Bone, it didn’t seem to have a lot to do with the current situation. I’m not clear on the details, but I think it had to do with a band of impressive-looking warriors following a powerful crow-like person. Hmmm. Crow-like person? That sounds like a tengu to me. I wonder if Ray had that thought too. It seems awfully convenient for this vision to come after encountering that group at the dojo… Is Ray’s enemy a tengu? If so, things could be worse than I thought.
Since the group still hadn’t found the answers they were looking for, they headed to the house of another victim, this one quite wealthy (Dahlia thought he was the vice-chairman of some company). The house was in a gated community, but T-bone got them in by fast-talking the guard. This time there was no mirror in the room where the murder occurred. That’s bad news, because it probably means the murderer is now roaming about and isn’t just bound to mirrors anymore.
By this point, T-Bone was pretty tired, so the group returned to Adam’s place to rest up. T-Bone took a nap while the others hung out and Adam invoked the wisdom of his father to answer the mystery surrounding the murders. That’s a fantastic trick. I wish my mother would talk to me half as much as Adam’s father talks to him. It amazes me how little Adam seems to value his relationship with his father. I guess things just seem more valuable when you don’t have them.
Sigh. I should stop thinking about Adam…it’s just depressing me. Get over it, Erika.
Anyway, Adam learned that the murderer was Bloody Mary. You know, Ray is astoundingly intuitive! The current theory is that she has finally been able to escape her mirrors thanks to the increase in the ambient level of supernatural activity in the world. Adam thinks he can track her, so that’s the next step.
So, I’m heading out as soon as I finish this entry. I was going to hang out at the club longer, but I feel that I should really help the others out with this one. Okay, maybe they don’t need my help, but this is Bloody Mary! I am not going to miss seeing one of the most famous ghosts ever. I mean, I’ve already made peace with Oiwa. I don’t feel the same sympathy for Bloody Mary, but who knows what’ll happen when we find her?
The girls (Quinn, Dahlia, Kimiyo, Sera, and Keiko) want to stay at the club for bit longer, but Mara’s coming with me to meet the others. I’ll let you know how things turn out in my next entry.