The Pandemonium

LUNA

2010-03-16T09:27:00.000-05:00

Let me lie upon a cool patch of ground,
with the sun upon me and a cool breeze to caress
my body.

Allow me the shade of a tree,
and to play with the shadows
as the branches dance with the wind

Let leaves be overhead,
to trickle water from rains
and protect from storms
and shelter
my body.

Let my claws sharpen on the wood of the tree
and stretch, enjoying the power of life
course joyously through me

Let the sun set upon me,
and let my eyes close
give me a small patch of
cool ground to curl upon and rest
my body
and cradle me
until I pass to new meadows.

Lloyd Thorndyke ( 15 March 2010 )

Luna 1993 - 2010

Epic Phail?

2008-11-29T17:57:00.002-06:00

Flarelight drew back around the corner of the hallway and deactivated her invisibility device. the fragile-looking hodge-podge of small pieces and button batteries sputtered and sparked, then went quiescent, the slight background hum disappearing with Flarelight's reappearance. “I've not seen dem before, and someone yelling “Nemesis”? You think dese guys what they talkin' 'bout?” Her english was a confusing flow from Spanish to German to Portugese accenting seemingly at random. The other three women waiting for her though, had enough experience talking with the hot-tempered hero to understand what the was talking about.

One woman took a longstep to the edge of the corner, and did a quick pee-and-back around the corner. Her red hair fluttering in the wind raised by her large angelic-looking wings as she used them to balance her movements. Her Katana and Wakizashi held at the ready she spun to face the corner in case there she had been spotted, then relaxed as no cries of warning were raised. They were still undiscovered. “They look like a marching band from hayall” she said quietly to the others behind her. Atlas Angel smiled at the giggles her description brought from the other women, but never relaxed her vigilance. She had found out early that the more ridiculous and fantastic something looked, the more it was likely to be dangerous, and these men looked VERY ridiculous in their red uniforms and gold marching band hats. The large, odd-shaped rifles that were carried seemed archaic and menacing at the same time.

“Y'all ready?” Atlas Angel glanced over her shoulder at the other three women. Flarelight nodded tersely and there was a slight pop and hint of ozone, then the object on her waist began emitting a low hum, and she disappeared from sight. The tall woman next to the now-invisible Flarelight nodded her head and said quietly, “Ready.” The last woman pulled a Katana similar to Atlas Angel's own, but gripped it in a balanced two-handed style the spoke of powerful cuts. Morgnan Keira nodded and stepped around the corner and started to charge.

Unfortunately, the opponents were alert and the girls quiet talk had been heard, so instead of rushing into a group of surprised men unaware of their presence, the quartet stepped into a hail of lead and gas. Flarelight coughed and saw the red soldiers had formed two ranks, front kneeling, rear standing. The hellish fusillade drove the women back around the corner confused and choking from the caustic gas grenades that had been thrown their direction. Flarelight turned to drop a trip mine, and had just placed it prior to arming it, when a foo came down on top of the mine. She looked up at a rifle butt that smashed her in the face.

The dim hum of the emergency transporter whisked her away to the hospital, along with the others. A few minutes later, all four had been revived and healed by the emergency room meta-healers. Atlas sat down on the bench outside, being the first one revived. As the red-haired white-winged woman waited for the others, she tried to figure out what she could do to close ground on an enemy waiting for them. Flarelight came out next and stood next to Atlas Angel for a moment, her dark black and white suit a close match and proclaimed both members of Next Gen, Inc. “Those locos blew holes in my uniform Heaths, now I gotta get another one? I think I want take der Koste offa diesen hides.” “Wayall, ya wanna do that sis, ya have ta catch 'em first”, Atlas said with a smile. The two women waited for the other two and then sped off in a group back the office building in Perez Park.

Once inside the women carefully sped to the location where the “marching band from hell”, as Atlas Angel had so succinctly put it, had devastated them. Flarelight turned on her invisibility device, which sputtered momentarily before settling into a slight hum, and she disappeared from view. A quick step around the corner brought her a fusillade from the archaic weapons, and the strange ammunition spread a choking, acidic gas which shorted out her device's light-bending capability. The battle was immediately joined as the three women rushed to aid their fourth. Screams and the metallic clash of metal-on-metal echoed in the hallway, and a final volley dropped the heroes, and the emergency teleporter once again deposited them in the immediate emergency room for meta-humans.

“Next tahm sis, make sure'n they cain't hear you either” Atlas Angel said to Flarelight with a touch of dry humor. Morgana Keira, nodded, and added “we should also maybe study them more before taking them out?” “Yeah right, like I'm gonna study anyone when they shoot at me” said Flarelight irritably. “I'm serious about that” said the white-skinned black-haired woman. “We need to know what they are and why they are here.” “I'm agreeing with Morgana, we should be checking things out before going in” said Dark-Stryke. “We check out as we shoot... recon by fire” said Flarelight, who was clearly angry about being shot.

To Be Continued....

EEEEEEEKK!

2008-09-12T11:52:00.003-05:00

We are having LOTS of rain, and if you look at the weather satellite, you can see it is a part of hurricane Ike, which is down in the gulf right now and appearing to be drawing a bullseye on Houston, Texas. The people that owned the house before us put in all sorts of small gardens around the house, and a small cement retaining wall to border the gardens. This landscaping was done without any effort at all to make sure water flows away from the house, nor were any of the downspouts extended beyond the wall. The result is that water drains towards the house and we have 4-6" of water standing against the foundation. The sump pump is working overtime to drain, flipping on every 30 seconds or so. Lloyd is beside himself trying to move furniture to 'high ground' in case the pump gives out. He is frustrated too, that he didn't recognize these problems sooner. The thing is, we haven't had rain like this ever before, so I can't say either of us were cognizant of the problems until they became apparent with this heavy, heavy rain. I'm crossing my fingers the sump pump holds out, that's the only thing between us and a waist-high flood in the lower port of this split-level place.

Mocha

2008-07-26T19:37:00.002-05:00

2008-06-28T11:50:00.000-05:00

The beginnings

2008-06-18T21:09:00.001-05:00

Equilibrium? In nature? Forget it. The only “thing” that ever is in equilibrium is nothing. I can't point definitively to our world heating up due to anthropomorphic changes, changes like this have happened in the past. But to give you a feel of how things “happened”, we have to look at global warming, and we have to look off-planet for the reason.

The following are excerpts from a hand-printed manuscript found thirty years ago, and what were written approximately fifty years ago, just prior to the upheaval that changed our world....

A word of warning people, I am not a straight thinker, I am shotgun and all over, so bear that in mind as you follow this. We have a number of interlocking causes, and while you may be comfortable trying to delineate one cause and then the next in nice neat descriptions and chapters, it ain't a gonna happen here. Each reinforces the other and we'll be bouncing back and for hither and yon as we look at them and the causes of our society's crash. Nothing ever happens in a straight line. So hang onto your butts, let's ride.

- According to our government, there was one cause for all our problems, global wamring caused by man spewing millions of tons of Carbon into the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide is a 'greenhouse gas', one that traps energy radiating from the earth and doesn't allow it to dissipate into space. So the earth warmed up, and the ice caps melted and we flooded ourselves out of house and home. But that's only part of the story.

Global warming did happen, and we did flood out of house and home anything that was below two hundred feet or less above mean sea level of 1980. We lost a LOT of land, approximately 4% of our land surface, that doesn't sound like much, but most of that was prime farming grounds and major seaports. We lost two states too, Louisiana and Florida, both are now mostly one hundred feet under water, with only a bare section of each still dry.... relatively. The coasts moved inland up to two hundred miles in the case of the Mississippi river, and Dallas is now a near-coastal town.

Everything happened a lot faster than people thought, and that's because of positive feedback. Watch an ice cube melt some time. At first it barely looks to be affected, but as the ice melts there is less of it to maintain itself and it falls apart ever faster until it finally disappears. Same thing happened to the ice caps, once they reach a certain point, that was all she wrote and in twenty years they were gone.

Temperature at this time rose about ten degrees on the average in the area beyond sixty degrees north and south latitude. Temperature increases were lower closer to the equator, about three to four degrees celsius, but that's simply because they were already warm, and heat affects the coldest spots the most. This change created the huge superstorms that devastated much of Europe and Asia, causing food shortages in a world already populated beyond what the earth could sustain.

Wars broke out over food, and the world population thinned itself some that way. This disruption in people caused further troubles as it gave disease a foothold, and we had a tremendous series of pandemics that swept over the world, illnesses that did not respond to the antibiotics available. The first pandemic, “Milton's plague”, killed four percent of the world population in eight months, a testament to the virulent airborne pathogen. It's extreme mutability was mankind's savior, as it disappeared as quickly as it appeared, evolving back into a virus that affected only birds. However the high death rate in some areas allowed 'old friends' like cholera to reappear and rage in pockets of humanity.

Takeover!

2008-06-12T21:05:00.002-05:00

Hi, the next few posts are going to be Lloyd. He made a statement about a future that sees a retrograde development of technology, and will be putting up some posts here on the climactic and industrial changes that created the situation.

Stay tuned.....

Statesman Total Freakout

2008-06-07T08:51:00.003-05:00

Back about 3-4 weeks ago, Sedated Alice had a really ambitious idea to explain a change she wanted to use to explain an evolution in her character Aestas. the idea was to put together a statesman task force with her friends and see what would happen. She had a goal in mind and the hopes that as the team leader, she could develop the story within and along the task force storyline.

It lasted about 10 seconds, as when E.VAC and Fyre Hex showed up, it was anger and accusation directed at Kill Favored's character Masonry. The bickering and anger spilled over to the rest of us and killed a good idea and turned it into a test of will, and a 'death-march' that left all of us upset, pointing fingers, and hurt. I got upset that Fyre and E both blasted the chance for a story by sabotaging it with IC angst and anger. In turn both of them were upset at what they felt was IC stuff that became for them, direct attacks upon themselves.

Aestas suffered the most, for it was her idea that was blown apart and the chance for a neat story flushed away. The TF went forward at a reasonable pace but the tension between people and their attitudes, mine included continued to fray and reduced the fun to a epehmeral thing that would die as soon as it appeared. StarWyng (my character) hit 50, and I've never felt closer to deleting a character than I did those moments before she reached that magic milestone. There was no camraderie, no feeling of something precious shared with others. Everyone was wrapped tight in their own REAL angst and misery by that time, and I am certain that friendships have been permanently strained, if not broken completely.

Why? Each one of us was selfish, and didn't look to the big picture. I've read everyone's post (except for Cryocasm), and see the same 'oh I know this was stupid, poor me, I'm the true victim' in each of the posts. I have to brush myself there too as I was selfish afterwards and hurt that people would not try to put aside things and actually TRY to build an IC reason to help each other. That does NOT show good RP skills, that just shows selfishness and a 'me I've got to have the spotlight diva' mentality.

I really wish Aestas could have had the mission she wanted. I think it was a good idea and the team was reasonably put together. We may not have won, but at least we would have had fun, and not be still feeling hurt.

58-3

2008-06-04T07:52:00.003-05:00

Well, the polls are in, and with 58 'chapters' down and 3 (count'em 3) comments, I can safely say that there was little to no interest in the story. I realize it was a very rough draft from National Novel Writing month, but the idea was to see if there was any interest at all in the style of the story, the characters, and the setting. If there is, I didn't see it, so I have to conclude that things suck. Either the rough draft was too rough for comfortable reading, or the writer really needs to quit, or drastically sharpen her skills. I really hope it's the former, but with the way I've been 180 on everything all the time, I just don't know.

The 180

2008-06-01T22:45:00.002-05:00

It's well known to my friends by now that A) I'm neurotic like a bad Woody Allen movie, and B) beating a dead horse is a way of life. That being said, the 180 is the glue gthat holds them together.

The 180 is my singular ability to suffer through angst and uncertainty, and when I do need to talk, everything shifts 180 to what is was before, and I'm moaning about nothing, or something completely different. That's happened a lot lately, and I'm wondering maybe if it isn't some kind of judgemnet from a Higher power trying to tell me to shut up and live with it, or talk about things sooner than I do?

Hell if I know. All it seems to do is screw up my friends and I'm sure no on wants to hear me whine. read maybe, but certainly not hear. That and the fact compunded like we are all drifting apart. One friend is hardly on, on has got three other friends and they play togehter all the time, and I'm left wondering where everyone went to.

Anyways, I'd like to RP and do mission with them, but neurotic doesn't do RP well, or if I ever did. I know some people's opinion already. You like someone you find a way to include them, that's the bottom line.

Thank you

2008-05-29T12:37:00.002-05:00

To all of you who followed this through to the end, thank you, I appreciate the interest you have shown. Any comments are very welcome! -JD

58

2008-05-29T12:36:00.000-05:00

“Why should we go look at something?” asked Kent, and I heard a nervous waver to his voice. Something was hitting him harder than the rest of us. He was the most steady of us, and his reaction made me wonder what the rest of us were missing. Kevin turned back and looked at Kent, who gave Kevin a sideways glance, and a slight nod, and the two of them went from magicker to cop in an eyeblink. “Fern, we're going back across the bridge now. You and Cobb are coming with us” Kevin said in a flat voice the brooked no argument.
He looked at Kent. “How bad?” he asked. “Real bad Lovey-boy, real bad, we should be moving.” Kent said, and his eyes and head were suddenly on a swivel, looking everywhere for something, anything that might clue him in to what he was feeling. Kent pulled the dagger he had carried and was holding it point back along his forearm, in a martial art style fighting grip. Kevin was clumsily trying to string the bow Cobb had given him and after a wuick moment, gave up and grabbed it like a club, and moved shoulder to shoulder with Kent, who had placed himself between me and the shore.
“Move you two, now!” Kent growled. I could see his teeth bared as he looked back towards the shore. “How fast would it take to knock this spell down if we have to?” Kent asked Kevin, Cobb and I forgotten in the tension they were projecting. “Don't know if we can” said Kevin. “Think the car would do it?” “I don't know Nixy, all fae-boy said was that it would screw the pooch on his glamour, Fernie put the bridge up, not him.” We were all trotting by now, and fighting the urge to run in a blind panic towards the shore. Kent and Kevin were close behind Cobb and I, and Cobb ran to the edge
Kent grabbed him as he tried to stand his ground. “Damn fool, move your punk fairy ass!” Kevin shouted. I looked back beyond them, and saw a kind of sluggish, gelatinous fog roil slowly up the bridge. The sight of it sent a tingle of fear down my back, and I knew that fog was what had so badly rattled Kent. He could feel it. “No, we have to fight here!” snarled Kent. “We can't beat it to the other side. We gotta fight here.”
“Can we make the portal?” I asked. I didn't wait for an answer, but took off as fast as I could run. “The portal's the answer Nixy, we clobber the ring, it can't get through! I made the damn thing I can bring it down!” All three men pounded after me and we raced as fast as we could across the bridge towards the portal through the barrier. The fog moved faster than we did, but we had a long lead, and stumbled past the portal gasping for breath. Kevin turned and began chanting, and Kent started the same chant with him. I didn't know what else to do so I started in as soon as I could follow the cadence, and we called and channeled power to the portal.
The circle started to glow, and We could feel the rigidity of the circle start to fray. I looked up and saw the fog was about twenty yards away, and I could sense a hunger in it that frightened me to my core. It felt like nothing that belonged here on this earth. I chanted louder, and backed slowly away from the hole as I did so. Kent and Kevin were doing the same thing when the fog got to the portal edge and struck. A flash of sparkling mist burst from it like a breath on a cold day and enveloped Nix, and he screamed in agony, and aged before our eyes and crumbled to rotted skin and bones. The mist recoiled to the fog and gathered and as it shot forward the circle collapsed, snapping the barrier into place over the bridge.
The bridge shook as the spell was attack by the barrier, and we could see just through the brittle grey the bridge to the island collapse upon itself and dissolve away. The fog or whatever it was, dropped through the insubstantial bridge and hit the water with a bare ripple, and it was gone. Kevin grabbed me by the arms and yelled “brace it Fernie! It's collapsing, brace it!” I started in on the chant I had used to power the bridge, calling on my own resources to hold it in place.
There was a draining sensation as the spell grabbed me and started draining off my life to stabilize itself. Then there was a strange sensation like when your ear pops from an altitude change, and I was pulling power from some other source. The bridge stabilized and locked down again, and we stood, looking back at the barrier a mere four meters from us. “What the hell was that?” Kevin asked us. I had no answer, and apparently neither had Cobb. Kevin emptied his backpack and gently gathered up Kent's remains, leaving everything on the bridge. Cobb gathered up those belongings and carried them back across to my car. I got the shakes as we crossed onto solid ground, and collapsed on the grass and earth, and clutched it until the shaking passed.
Kevin called Halifax and told them what had happened, and that we would be back in a day with the remains. Cobb had left us as soon as we had packed to go back to Pictou, saying that he would contact me again soon, and that we would discuss the service. I had resisted the urge to punch him in the face, and settled for just leaving him there on the shore near the bridge. Kevin and I rode in silence back to Halifax, and on Tuesday, we attended Kent Nix's funeral.
It was a full affair, for an officer who fell in the line of duty, and I was numb through most of it. It was the vision of him being aged to death that haunted me in my dreams for the next week, and it still does some. Cobb has yet to contact me and Kevin has taken a month's leave from the department. The bridge is still there too. Cobb's glamour was destroyed when the portal collapsed and the bridge is visible, leading right up to th barrier. We're alive, which is something, but so is that thing, whatever it is, and if there's anyone still alive on Prince Edward Island, they have my sympathy. I'm never going back there again. I'm not even sure a mandate from God himself could make me go.
I have other, more joyous and human things to celebrate. Fawn's starting to show, and we have a baby shower tomorrow for her. Since I don't know whether it's going to be a boy or a girl, I did the sensible thing and got Fawn a trip to the local spa for a massage.

57

2008-05-28T22:43:00.000-05:00

“Uh, yeah, she's right, let's get hello outta here” ,said Kent. Cobb looked at the two of them, and ignored me. “How long does it take to do psychometry on an object? And does it being where the incident occurred help with the casting?” he asked in a eager voice. Kent and Kevin started to get up and check their packs and the items they got from Cobb. “Takes about an hour regardless,” said Kevin. “All the site does for the caster is how far back you can read, detail and intensity of the information.” “Can we try it here?” said Cobb very intensely. “I have something that I need to know now that we're here, and this would be a start if we could read what happened here.”
I can tell you what happened you idiot. A dragon happened. Most of the stuff around here you'd find would be pieces of cars and trucks. Dragons breathe fire Cobb, or did you forget that. They tend to like things extra-crispy, and I have no intention of sticking around to see how well-done my tan could get when he finds us.” I said angrily. “I am leaving now, and I'll walk the bridge alone if I have to . This place is creeping me out. Why aren't you guys feeling it any.....Cobb!” I turned on him, angry. “Take the glamour off them now! You're endangering all of us with these stupid stunts!”
Cobb looked at me angrily. “I need to find out what is here!” he said. “No, you don't. WE need to get back across the bridge, now. It's going to be dark soon. I do NOT want to be over here when it gets dark.” I said, glaring back at him. “We are leaving now, and if you want to come back tomorrow, go right ahead.” I didn't wait but turned and headed for the bridge and the way back to home. I'd had enough of mysterious manipulations, damn services that screwed up lives, and mind-altering glamours. It was time to go home and call the service done.
Kent and Kevin caught me at the base of the bridge. “Nice catch on that glamour” said Kevin. “It was simple, you two had been feeling the bad vibes right up until he'd pulled the piece of glass out of the ground and you two looked at it.” I told him. After that you were acting like you wanted to stay. That made it easy to spot.” I took a breath and started up the ramp to the bridge. “What about Cobb?” asked Kent. “The guy's been an asshole, but do we really want to leave him alone there?” “At this point I don't care, he's crewed with this service one too many times and I am sick of it. I am crossing, and I' leaving his dagger there, and I am going home and taking a hot bath, drinking cocoa, and sleeping for two days.”
“Sounds good to me,” Kent replied. “I could look forward to a few days off after this little action. This has been one heck of a lot more strenuous than the police work has been.” “I think my girlfriend would like to see more of me for about a week,” Kevin laughed. “I've got some vacation built up, this seems like a good time to take it.” “Less talk, more walk,” said Kent and he started up the ramp. “Don't you mean wok, Nix?” Kevin quipped. “When you going to do that stir-fry salmon again?” Kevin adjusted his fedora to help shad his eyes as we got up on top and started across the bridge.
As we stepped out onto the bridge, we all heard pounding feet rapidly approach from behind us. We turned together and saw Cobb running hard up the ramp and waving his sword and shield. We waited to hear what he wanted but he continued to run at us and make a motion to have us come back down the ramp to him. “What do you think he wants?” Kent said to Kevin and I. “I think he wants us to go back down. Fat chance of that, eh?” Kevin said. “Yeah, but let's wait to see what he's got to say.” I said, suddenly uneasy for no reason that I could figure.
We waited and Cobb came pounding up to us. “Please, you have to come back down and look at what I've found. I think it's very important you see it” he said between gasping for air. He was looking back down the ramp towards the brittle meadow we had explored a short while ago. Either he was a tremendous actor or something he had found shook him very badly. Either way, I felt very uneasy about going back sown there.
“I think we should come back tomorrow if it's that important. Staying would have us out on that bridge after dark, and I don't want to be on it when I can't see in front of me” I said, and I think my own unease was echoed in Kent and Kevin, as Kevin had turned and was looking out over the strait back towards home. This place clearly had affected all of us in one way or another, and now Cobb was trying to get us to go back, and look at something for what reason?

56

2008-05-24T09:20:00.001-05:00

Again I was struck by the absence of birdsong, and what we'd come to think of as 'normal' background noise, frogs, crickets, bugs. All were missing from the noise, and you'd think we were in church, although I think mausoleum would be like this. Dead and dusty grey. The grass was green, as were the pine, but the color was brittle in appearance, like paint that had been weathered too long. I was more than a little spooked by it all, and I think the others were nervous also.
“So, we're here, now all we have to do is get back, and this service of yours is done Fern” said Kevin, looking over at Cobb, who himself was picking up a handful of dirt and letting it sift through his other hand. It looked like normal dirt, but had that brittle texture to it as well. It bothered me to see that stuff disturbed for some reason. I shook of the feeling as best I could and looked around. We were at the base of a low hill that rose going inland.
Cobb was sifting more energetically now through the dusty earth, as if he was searching for something, and as we approached to get him to start back with us, he pulled a lump of metal from the earth. He looked at it for a moment and then looked to the three of us. “Are any of you psychometric, or able to build a spell of psychometry? I am unable to do such things with fae magic.
“If we can, do we have tro stay here to do it?” Kent asked him in a very quiet, and direct tone to his voice. I agreed with him. I didn't want to stay on this ground any more than I had to, there was something very inimical to us, and it was raising the hairs on my neck. “Let's take it with us” I said to the others, “we can do the psychomecrap when we get back to the car. This place is beginning to creep me out big-time.” Kent was already stepping back towards the bridge, when Cobb said suddenly,”wait.”
“Wait?” argued Kevin. “Why wait, I agree with Fern, this place is got a bad vibe to it, I don't like it, it's creeping Fern out, to quote her, and you want to wait? What the hell for?” “Because” said Cobb with a weird, intense tremor to his voice. “Psychometry is done best where an object is collected from. Those impressions or echoes are strongest and easiest to read at the location where you find an object. We go back, and we lose the detail that might be important.”
Kent had stopped by the road that linked to the bridge. “What are you waiting for, we were here, now we go back. Get a move on you youngsters.” He sounded impatient, and I was getting that way too. Cobb was suddenly wanting to do a past life spell on a piece of metal? I got that manipulated feeling again. Cobb had played, or was playing us right now, and I had had enough. I stalked over to him and said, very politely “May I see what you have there?” He looked at me curiously for a moment,then handed the lump to me, and I turned and threw it as far as I could into the thickest dead bunch of brittle looking brush I could see.
Cobb looked at me, his jaw muscles twitching as he kept from yelling. He turned and took a deep breath, then a second one. He then said to no one in particular. “I suppose it si good that there is one less piece here, there are so many in the ground here they would be a hazard if more were exposed like that piece.” With that, I looked hard around the area, expecting to see little things here and there that were poking through the soil, that we missed when we looked the area over earlier. Nothing of the sort could be seen. Cobb kneeled down and dug about a finger's length into the dry soil and pulled up a lump of something, which looked crisped and charred.
Kent and Kevin walked over to Cobb to take a quick look. “What do you think this is gentlemen?” Cobb asked them as I fumed a short distance away. I was about ready to head back on my own and to blazes with them here. This place was just plain creepy, and Cobb pulling those pieces out of the ground didn't do anything to settle my nerves down. “Looks like a piece of safety glass, here, see this, you can see the layer of plastic between the two glass layers.” I walked over to the three of them and slapped the thing out of Cobb's hands. “Can. We. Go. Now?” I said through gritted teeth.

55

2008-05-23T08:32:00.001-05:00

“Well, it's going to be a twelve kilo walk, which is about three hours there and three hours back. I'd like to get back before it gets dark” I said. “I'd love to use the car” Kent said wistfully, “but that much moving metal is too easy to spot, and Cobb's glamour might not be able to take its touch.” Damn, I hadn't thought of that. It meant before we could go across, we had to shuck any cold iron we had or the glamour might go poof. I really didn't want to try the bridge in the open. “Okay, let's shuck metal and get this done.” I said irritably. About the only thing I'd have for protection would be my feet and a few quick-and-dirty weak spells to blind or confuse aim, and I don't think they'd affect a dragon.
Cobb said, “Can you wait a moment?” He went over to his pack that he had lugged around since we got here and pulled a longbow and a quiver of silver arrows out, and laid them on the ground. A sword and two daggers were also produced from the sack, and a small silver shield the size of a dinner plate. “It si not much, but each of you may use what is here, I will carry the shield and sword. My accuracy with this,” and he motioned to the bow, “is at best poor, so if any of you can draw the bow, please carry it.”
“But won't this amount of metal be just as bad as the car?” Kent asked. “No, as was said before, the silver will not disrupt the glamour on the bridge, and we shall be able to cross without endangering any of the spells” Cobb replied evenly. “Well, then, can we get going please? I really don't like the idea of crossing this thing at night.” said Kevin irritably. We gathered up the equipment, Cobb taking the sword and the shield, I took a dagger, and felt ridiculously like I was in a fantasy movie doing it. Kent grabbed the other dagger, leaving Kevin the bow, which he picked up reluctantly. So equipped, our 'party' ventured out onto the bridge and towards the barrier.
The trip to the barrier was very uneventful, just listening to the waves roll underneath us as we traversed the bridge. The eerie quiet did nothing to relax any of us and when we reached the edge of the barrier, we all stopped just short and listened, trying to hear any sound from the other side of the opening. Nothing, except for the rolling of the waves, was heard by anyone. “Want to do the honors Fern?” said Kent. I took a deep breath, and Cobb stepped in front of me. Then Kent stepped past the barrier, while we all looked at him. He grinned back and said “I'm too old to run away fast. This way I get my choice of how I go first.” Morbid, definitely a morbid sense of humor there. We crossed the barrier, and nothing really changed except our knowledge we were on the opposite side of a barrier that no one had penetrated for sixty-odd years, and some of the early best had tried.
It made me wonder, really wonder, why we were able to do so when so many others who were probably as good or better, did not. I put it down to looking at the obvious and not trying to go head-on which a lot of wizards seem want to do. You may win big a flashy going head-to-head with a spell, summoning, or another magickar, but you also tend to lose very big when you do fail. Quite often it is the permanent, fatal kind of lose.
So maybe we were the first to apply sneaky or a sideways thought to the problem, but I doubt that too. There was an answer why, and it bugged me that I couldn't quite figure it out. We stopped about a hundred yards past the barrier and looked down. The waves here still rolled with the wind, and the noise sounded the same, but everything here felt more sterile, less life and more decay. The wind itself hadn't changed, but it felt greasy as it slid over my clothes and ruffled my hair. There was a general unwholesomeness that permeated everything around us.
We hurried our pace slightly and got to the shore of Prince Edward Island, and again we stopped to look around and record in our minds the place all our efforts had now led to. In a very real and eerie sense, this reminded me of Ahiah's vale, where my parents and uncle had died, and where we'd managed to break that glass bottle that Ahiah had made and used to such horror on people. Everything had the same feel. Grey, dusty, lifeless things that had been sucked dry of their essence by some unclean thing.

54

2008-05-21T14:00:00.000-05:00

I awoke to feeling a pressure working its way around my hand. When I could get my eyes to focus, I could see Kent wrapping my left hand in gauze. The right had been wrapped to the elbow and I could fuzzily make out the same on the hand Kent was wrapping. “Hey, welcome back to the Great White North kiddo.” Kevin said cheerily. “Next time you want to do something like that, please let us kick your butt around the block first? I do not like thinking about what Fawn would do to us if you were to die on us.”
He looked over at Kent, who was putting the first bit of tape on to hold the bandage in place. “What part of cop siberia would she put us in you think?” Kent looked at Kevin and gave a slight smile. “Parking meters.” He said. “That or cleaning the K-9 kennels.” Kevin thought about the choices and theatrically shuddered, and said “Oh my god I forgot about the kennels, a fate worse than eternal traffic tickets.” I managed a woozy pained smile. “Gee your thought to my safety has me so underwhelmed, I just don't know what to s... ow!” I yelped as Kent stabbed me with a dull needle and gave me a shot of Darvon to ease the pain.
The world went pleasantly fuzzy for the next few hours as we went back to the local clinic, and the doctor on duty was the same one that worked on Kevin the night before. He saw us, I'm sure, and I wish I could have made out what he said, as I heard both Kent and Kevin laugh, but I was too muzzy from the Darvon to do anything but nod and smile along. Better living through chemistry.
Kent said I was five hours in the emergency surgery and magickal healing due to the massive nerve damage to my hands from Cobb stabbing me and the backlash from the ley line. But I woke back at the Northumberland Inn, laying on a bed with Kent and Kevin playing whist at the small table in the room. “Hey Kent, look, it lives.” Kevin said with a smile on his face and in his voice. They had spent all their time here making sure I was all right. “How are you feeling now?” Kent asked me as I slowly tried to sit up. “Lousy,” I told him and my head throbbed. “No talky, or I get mean,” I whispered to them.
They looked over at me and both stood up, and gave me a thumbs up, and left the room quietly. They knew how to make an exit, and I passed blissfully out and slept until eight the next morning. I awoke to the door rattling as Kevin knocked energetically on it. “Fern, wake up, time to get food and head out!” he said loudly through the door. “All right, I hear you! Stop the noise and I'll be right out after a shower!” “Okay, Kent and I'll head out then, what should we bring you back?” “Sausage and toast, and some coffee,” I shouted through the door. “Got it, see you when we get back.”
I unwrapped my arms and saw the loose skin peeling off. The skin had been regrown overnight by the doctor, and now the blistered and burned skin was being sloughed off. I scrubbed vigorously in the shower and got most of it to loosen and drop away. I'd finished and just gotten dressed when Kevin was pounding on the door again. “Here's breakfast.” He said. I opened the door and took the food over to the postage stamp sized table and tucked in while Kent and Kevin grabbed my pack and gear and put them in the trunk.
Kent drove us back out to the site, and as before, Cobb was on site waiting for us to show. He stalked over to the car as we started to get out. “You three, I have words for you!” he said loudly as he approached the car. I stood my ground, and saw Kent and Kevin ease to the sides and unobtrusively ready themselves for trouble. Cobb sounded agitated and I really didn't want to fight with him. I looked him in the eye as he approached and he slowed to a stop about ten feet from us.
“Good morning to you to Cobb, now what's the problem?” I said acerbically. “The bridge up in the wrong place?” He watched us for a moment and relaxed slightly. “No, I finished the concealment after you three left for Pictou, and stayed on watch here through the night to see if Anolyn would show. He has not, and that worries me.” He looked at the three of us again, and then said in a faltering voice loaded with emotion. “I....also wanted...to thank you for your work in this. In truth I had not....expected that Fern could have done this. So I apologize for my ill manners and the trials I have put you through to date.”
“Well, a late apology is better than none,” Kent said, “but we're not done yet I do believe. I seem to remember that we must cross to the island and re-cross back to here to finish the service?” Cobb quirked a smile. “Yes, that is part of the terms of the service. But I do recommend caution. I would have preferred Anolyn to show rather than not. At least them we would know that he had sensed and decided to investigate. His not showing makes me think that a trap is being set.” Cobb sounded strained from being up and alert all night, but I kind of felt that way too. i think most of us prefer to see and know the enemy, rather than not see him and scare ourselves half-witless with possibilities.

53

2008-05-20T05:27:00.002-05:00

I was in a hurry relative to the others though, so I took a few shortcuts and pulled the power from a different source. It was easier to do once Kent and Kevin finished the building of their spells and just let me maintain them. I focused and mentally viewed myself reaching deep into the ground and putting my hands in the ley line that ran through this area, and pulled a thread from the line to me. This shortcut could kill if not carefully handled. The thread from the line would continually feed me magick, allowing me to build up a store rapidly for use. The downside was it would keep feeding into me whether I wanted it to or not, and if I didn't cut the link after a certain point, the link would grow too strong to cut and feed so much into me that I'd burn up like paper in a flame from trying to hold too much magick.
I kept the chant up to bleed some magick off and to prime the echo for the power I was going to feed into it. The magick kept increasing its flow and the power started to raise the hairs on my arms and neck, and it skittered along my arm like a live electric current. I looked out at the echo of the bridge and started feeding the power into it. The slight yellowish vapor that made the echo began to solidify, turning an opaque grey-white as the power rebuilt the bridge bit by bit, and soon the first section extended beyond where I sat out into the strait. The filling-in and solidifying accelerated and continued as I poured more power into the echo, and in minutes, the bridge solidified up to the barrier.
The bridge continued to settle and become more solid as the power kept pouring in, and I could feel the link thicken and strengthen as I pulled from the line. I wanted to finish soon as I was now bleeding a slight amount of power into me from the spell, and that signaled I was at the limit of my ability to channel the power. From now on I'd be absorbing more power as the link strengthened. The bridge built quickly past the barrier, but it was another ten minutes before I could feel the end step back to land from the sea. I'd finished the echo, now I had to finish the opening.
The power was becoming more than a trickle, and I started to push my will around the link to choke it off, and I began to feel the first stirrings of panic as it resisted me closing it off. I was at a point where there were two choices to be had. One, I could forget about keeping the barrier open and focus on choking the link. If I did that the barrier would close on the echo and destroy it, and we'd be back to square one, but Anolyn would know what we were up to. Two, I could use the power to finish the locking the opening, and then fight the link. If Kevin and Kent were still in the spell with me, they would be able to sense the problem and maybe help a small extent, but in truth it would be me against the link, and every moment pushed the odds closer to me burning to a crisp.
Call it stubbornness, I went with plane two. The power surged into the opening Kevin had crafted and reinforced the opening. I felt Kevin break his link and leave the spell to me, and I felt the whole barrier try to snap down on my opening. I aimed the wild torrent of power into the barrier and it solidified and held, now I could work on saving me. I cut the power and the two spells remained rock-steady, ready to use. I tried to choke off the power, and could barely slow the flow down. I could feel the electric itching increase to painful levels and I tried to scream, but the power held me rigid, like being electrocuted.
Cobb stepped in front of me and was murmuring something. He pulled his sword and looked at me, then raised it to strike. There was no way I could dodge, or even use some of this massive power to protect myself, I'd gotten caught in the current and was being pulled apart from the inside out. My hands felt molten as the ley line swallowed them and built larger and began filling me up in earnest. Cobb was shouting now and I felt dim vibrations through the ground. He looked up and back at me, stepped to the side and lowered himself to one knee, then thrust right through my hands.
The cold pain of the silver blade cutting through my hands was minor to the blast of power that the line burst with when Cobb cut it with the sword. My hands and arms blistered from the heated backlash and my whole body was shocked violently rigid as the power blew out from me. I don't remember passing out.

52

2008-05-17T17:29:00.002-05:00

Kevin and Kent began their chant, and it would be a couple of hours before my part was due, but mine was going to need the most power to set its effect, so I sat back, relaxed, and watched the waters of the strait and the barrier for a moment before beginning. The sun was up just barely and its reddish glow gave the waters the appearance of liquid fire dancing to the flow of the wind. The barrier hung midway into the strait, a grey reddish sparkling barrier that appeared to be fog, but at the same time had a harder, almost crystalline sparkle in the early morning sun.
It looked magickal, and it was, but a hard, harsh kind. There were few birds here, most of the fish and water creatures had died when they came in contact with the barrier, and over the first few years the barrier was up, the whole strait reeked of the dead and decaying animals it had killed. Now it looked placid, and beautiful, but the disguised the sterility of the waters and the lack of birds and other life. That became more apparent when you tried to listen for birdsong, and there was none.
I wasn't certain at all what might have survived on the island, with all such things dying around it. Prince Edward Island is small, and as provinces go, it's the smallest one in Canada. It made up for that in the past with scenic beauty and a smart local government that looked forward and forward in balance with the past. All that was long dead since the barrier went up. That people had survived at all was one of those things that kept reminding humanity of how tenacious we are as a species, and how adaptable.
I began my chant and heard both Kent and Kevin's adjust slightly as I began building power along with them. We were drawing power from pretty much the same source and area, but with the three of us, we overlapped in intended use and we actually were able to coax the power up easier together than we would if separate. It was one of the side-effects of group ritual magick. You felt the others and were comforted by them in a way I have yet to be able to hear explained in any way close to the true sensation. It was glorious.
Cobb had remained by the car since we had arrived and set up, conspicuously staying away from us 'murderous' humans. Truthfully, I was glad for the reprieve, he had worn out his welcome and the only reason now to have him here was his concealment spell, and the trip back and forth across the way to prove it was open.
Kevin and Kent's chanting filled my ears and I watched as the echo of the bridge began to take shape, reaching out across the strait towards Prince Edward Island. The echo started from the edge of the bridge where I sat, and formed like mist outwards towards the barrier. The barrier sat out there, a hard, grey shimmer that was harder than the fog it resembled. The echo reached the barrier and stopped, it had reached the end of its range until the barrier was penetrated. Kevin now increased the pace of his chant, and I felt a pressure build as his chant built.
Cobb was suddenly beside me, I could see his shoes just at the edge of my peripheral vision. I was focusing outward and didn't have the time to be distracted. Then Kevin pierced the barrier, the pressure flowed away from us and we could see the barrier dilate like an iris. The circular opening grew in size rapidly until the echo was able to continue through. I heard Kevin slow the chant and hold it at it's present size. Kent continued to pour power into the chant and the echo grew and extended to the limits that I could discern.
“It's almost to shore,” Cobb said loudly, and I think that was the first thing he'd actually done to help us. Kent continued and then his tenor changed, I believe he felt the connection to the other side. Both were handing the completed spells to me, and now it was up to me to hold the two spells, while Kevin and Kent tapped that dark power in me so they could pour power into the echo and the hole to solidify them both, then there would be locking the spell, and concealing it.
Ritual magick is great for slow projects that are intricate, you can coax power to do your desire, and given time you can really build powerful spells. That was what I was doing while the others built their parts. I would be the one working the most power into the spell to anchor it and create a permanency where there was just the barest existence built. It wasn't delicate or difficult, just a lot of time and power needed. I didn't really have the time at the moment, however the power was all around if one cared to get a little reckless.

51

2008-05-15T15:46:00.001-05:00

As I finished closing the trunk, Kevin appeared lugging his duffel towards us. I opened the trunk and he threw his in and closed it for me. “I'm ready, let's chow.” he said and hopped in the passenger seat. We drove a short way over to Keneally's, a nice small hole-in-the-wall diner, that has some of the best sausage and gravy that I've had in a long time. We all tucked in and soon we had finished and Kevin eyed me as I grabbed the check.
“Is Cobb going to be there today?” he asked me in a carefully neutral voice. “Probably, though I'm not certain. He volunteered for this, and since he wants this done I'd expect him to show” I said equally neutrally. “Is there a problem with him and you that I don't know about?” He shrugged slightly, and then shook his head. “I just don't know for certain.” He shrugged again. I got the feeling whatever he was going to talk about had given him troubles for a while.
“The Doc said that my wound was from a large rock chip, not claws. I think I got that when you shot the ground near it. When it dropped on me, all I could think on was how you said it was so lethal, and that I was going to die. But all it did was drop on me. It took me all night to think through what bothered me about that fight. It just laid on me.” He shrugged yet again and looked first at Kent, then at me. “I just thought you two should know about that.”
“Well, that is very interesting, you think we should brace our associate up about the creature when we see him again?” I thought hard about that question. “No, if he's running some kind of scam or game on us, it's better that he doesn't know we've gotten wind of it. He might try something else. This way we can watch and maybe see what he's trying to hide or keep our attention away from.”
Kent had sat there and listened intently to Kevin's story. “You know Fern, you might be looking at this backwards. He may not have an agenda.” He held up his hands in mock surrender when I started choking on my tea. “Hey, I know he's a manipulative son of a bitch, but what I'm saying is maybe you're not looking at things from the proper line.” He stopped for a moment, and let his words sink in. He then launched in again. “What if that creature had been trying to do something else, like warn us or protect Kevin from something? Not saying that's what is was doing, just saying what it did do doesn't fit with what I'd expect from a hostile.”
They had me there. Looking back, I have to agree, it never mad a threatening move at me, just tried to stagger away towards Cobb at the end, when I'd shot it. At the time I was really keyed up from the previous attacks, that I didn't want to give it another chance at me or anyone with me. Maybe the creature was not an enemy, and maybe it might be, just not the way we think. Cobb, no matter how I looked at it, was an enemy. He just happened to be on our side. But he was an enemy. Until this service I owed was done, I couldn't afford the luxury of thinking he might be something else, too much had gone on.
We got up from the table and I left a ten dollar tip. Once out to the car, Kent grabbed the front seat and Kevin got in the back. We got out to the bridge, and Cobb was waiting for us there, just at the same place near Kent and Kevin had set their wards the previous day. The wind was blowing fiercely today and whitecaps danced in the strait. The wet wind cut through my clothes and chilled me almost as soon as I was out of the car.
“So we gonna do this Fern?” asked Kent. I looked out again at the strait. The wind was going to make things difficult, and being cold and having to stay out in the open was going to chill us all pretty thoroughly, but if we got the casting done, we wouldn't have to come back again. “Yeah, we're going to do it.” I glared at Cobb, who was happy to glare back at me. “Faster started, faster done with this bloody thing.” Kent and Kevin went back out to the spit of land and used some brushes to clean the old septacles away and ready the ground for the new wards.
I hiked back up the bridge to the edge and used a steel welding brush to clear away my own septacle and clean the ground for the new one. Cobb, just sat and watched the preparations. He saw me watching him and gave me a insolent grin and turned slightly to look out over the strait. I sat down to wait my start, which would coincide with Kevin opening a quiet hole in the barrier. I couldn't figure in all this time why someone hadn't tried to do this before, it seemed that someone would have thought of it long ago. BUt then again, we were trying to go to the island, not come from it, and it had been a long time since anyone had tried to breach the barrier magickally, angry dragons tend to discourage that.

50

2008-05-14T13:02:00.001-05:00

I went over to the Northumberland Inn and got four rooms, and paid cash, then I left Cobb at the motel and went and got Kevin and Kent, who'd gotten out of surgery. I gave them their room keys and drove them back out to the motel. The night was spectacular with the northern lights in their full glory, a luminous greenish curtain across the sky that undulated like waves lapping against a shoreline. That's one thing the magick did right. WIth less light, you could see more stars at night, and I never got tired of them.
As I was standing there, Cobb walked over from the small field behind the motel. “Having trouble sleeping, or still upset about us not doing it your way Cobb. How about you do this. Stay out of the way and let us do what we're here for and then you do what you volunteered to do.” He glared at me but made no comment and walked over to where I was and looked up at the sky momentarily, and then back over to me. “Is that all it takes to distract you? No wonder this has been such a tedium. If humans could focus, this would have been over and done days ago.”
“You are fucking kidding me!” I screamed at him. “Focus? You wouldn't know what the word means Cobb, you've been wating for us to finish this, and did you ever bother to think it might be good to help out? No. All I got from you was an atempt to walk in and take the job over when the work was done! What's the matter, no answer for that?” I snarled in his face and he took an involuntary step back. I followed, angry and poked a finger in his chest. “You have been trying to get me thrown off this service ever since I accepted it! You wanted Larry Potter? You ever thought to ASK for his help rather than trying to use me to trap him into it? That pretty well guarantees you're not going to get no matter what now.” I glared at him again, and waited.
Cobb looked at me, and I watched all emotions get dragged away from his face and all I saw after a moment was a face made of wax. “You do not understand, and you never will” he said in a flat, unemotional voice. “You do not have the intellect, nor the maturity.” “Why you pompous, idiotic cretin of a fae!” I clamped my mouth shut. He was goading me into this arguement. Why?
The easy answer was he was trying to get me to say something in a heat of moment he could lever me with. I'd had enough and turned and stalked angrily back to my room. I heard Cobb say something, but I was focusing only on getting to my room without going back and trying to rip him apart verbally. The slamming door was like an opening bell in a boxing match, and I went and beat on the bed and the pillows for I don't know how long cursing and snarling ant them until I was near collapsed from the anger and the activity. I had no clue why Cobb wanted to work me up so badly, but I was certain it had to do with the service. He was hiding something and I wanted to know what it was.

#

The next morning I put my pack in the car and knocked on Kevin's door. He answered sleepily and opened it as far as the security chain would allow. “Fern, what's up?” he said sleepily. “How's your arm Kevin?” He disappeared behind the door for a moment, and I heard him tear something. “Huh” I heard, and he re-appeared in the chained doorway. “It's sealed over and there's no pain. Doc did a good job.” He closed the door, and I heard some things being moved around. “I think I'm ready to go Fern, let's hit it after breakfast.” “Okay, see you then.” I stepped a few paces to my right and started to knock on Kent's door when it pulled open and Kent was there, dressed and ready to go.
“I'll just throw this in the trunk then and we'll be off to breakfast.” he said with a smile. He carried his duffel over to the car and waited for me to open the trunk, and flipped it in just beside mine. “You think they have espresso out here?” I shuddered theatrically. “Ugh, barbarian, you're trying to eat your stomach away?” He chuckled and said, smiling, “I'll have you know that espresso is the penultimate civilized drink. All the caffeine that you'll need for a day in one four ounce cup. Saves time and water.” “I stick with my beliefs, you won't see me touch that vile concoction.” I told him.

49

2008-05-08T15:44:00.001-05:00

I didn't care where I hit the thing, so long as I hurt it. I aimed at the center of the rising creature, and pulled the trigger. The recoil brought the gun up in front of my face and I turned sideways to ready a kick as I worked the bolt again. The RedCap was bleeding heavily and got up slowly as I readied the pistol. “Stop!” Yelled Cobb as he ran towards me. “Stop!” “Why?” I yelled back at him. The creature reacted to Cobb's voice and turned, lurching into motion at a staggering lope. I didn't hesitate and shot it in chest. The creature tried to scream but only a wet gurgle came out and it collapsed in a wet, mucousy heap.
Cobb ran to the creature, anguish on his face, and then it closed, and when he looked at me I could see the cold anger underneath the calm face as he straightened up. “You bloody-minded mortal excrement”, Cobb said through gritted teeth. “That was our best chance to find out what was happening here.” “Cobb, I think keeping myself in one piece is more important! You don't like it, tough, you got me for this service, so you're stuck with me!” I shot back heatedly. If he was wanting a confrontation, I was more than ready. I'd reloaded the pistol and I had it hanging next to my hip. At this close range, if he tried any magic, I'd put a bullet in him before he even had the spell started.
He stared at me as if trying to force me to wilt, and I just glared back at him. From down below us, Kent yelled up. “Hey Fernie, can you get the first aid kit in the trunk? Kevin got a slash along his arm and I'd like to clean it and get it bandaged if you two are through yelling at each other.” “Okay, I'll be right down” I shouted back. I walked past Cobb and went down to the car and opened the trunk, and got the kit out. When I got to the two men, Kent had a blood soaked shirt wrapped around Kevin's arm, and Kevin was looking pale and pained. I handed Kent the first aid kit and watched as he pulled the shirt off and used the tape to hold the wound together, then wrapped it in gauze to hold the tape in place.
“I don't think we're going to throw spells today Fern. He needs a doctor to look at that arm.” I ground my teeth and although I wanted to finish this, he was right. “Okay, we can go over to Pictou and have him looked at there.” Kevin was able to get up and walk to the car, which was good, he hadn't gone into shock from the attack. He didn't complain of any burning or itching, so I didn't think there was any poison in him. Cobb did not come down to join us for the trip and I didn't going to wait for him.
We pulled into the local clinic, where the staff quickly looked Kevin over and they prepped him for surgery. He'd had a number of larger blood vessels cut along with nerve damage, so the doctors wanted to get those re-attached as quickly as possible. There was a staff magician on duty and he would help in binding the wound up and encouraging healing. Magick is great but major changes take major amounts. and rebuilding an arm is not as trivial as it sounds.
Kent came over to me while we were waiting for Kevin to get out of the surgery. “You want to get get him or should I?” he said to me as he sat down and stretched. “I'll go” I told Kent. “I asked him along and no telling what's gone on since we left him there. I'll pick him up and get us a room for the evening. No sense in driving home today.” “You mean he's going to stay with us?” Kent looked at me and his eyes asked the question 'are you sure that's a good idea?' “He's part of this now, and I still want him where I can watch him. Now more than ever.”
I drove back out to the bridge, and arrived at near sundown. Cobb was waiting for me at the spot where Kent and Kevin had set up their septacles. He had obliterated each one. That was a good idea actually, as they had been casting when interrupted, and no telling if any residual magick had been caught in them. He didn't move as I pulled up, and only after I had stopped the car, did he rise and approach. “Come to retrieve your things Fatelli?” He asked with a slight sneer to his voice. “Actually yes, though seeing you again made me wonder why I didn't wait until tomorrow.” “You would leave me out here, human?” he growled angrily. “Just what I'd expect.”
“You expect to be left here?” I said very sweetly, and started the car back up. “You can stay if you want, I'm going back to Pictou.” He got in the passenger seat without a word and said nothing, but just stared straight ahead as if he was a statue. I think it was his way of trying to make me nervous, but in truth I found it pretty funny, him staring like some gargoyle.

48

2008-05-07T15:00:00.003-05:00

I set up at the remaining end of the bridge. I had to link my spell to the echoes that Kent was going to call up. I built my septacle, my seven-pointed star, in sand, and used chalk to scratch the symbols for concentrating the magic. Kent set up at the base of the bridge on the last spit of land. Once he had set his septacle, he began the steady work of calling up the echoes of the bridge. Kevin was next to go, he worked his septacle alongside Kent's, and technically, he had to finish up first. Kent's spell would only stretch to the barrier unless there was a way through. This was a twelve kilometer long bridge, and we'd be really pushing our limits to get these spells to work.
Once the hole and the echoes were set, I would cast the linking spell and both Kevin and Kent would tap the power in me I couldn't touch, and pour the magick into their spells to create a solid 'ghost' of the original bridge. Cobb was supposed to create a glamour to hide the ghost and obscure any magickal trace. The coordination was a little tricky, but Kevin and Kent had worked together for years which helped immensely. My job would start when Kevin and Kent finished. Cobb would be last, assuming we all got our parts done and nothing interfered.
I listened to Kevin and Kent's chanting, and scanned the area with binoculars to see if I could see the creature before it got close enough to effect us with the fear aura it projected. A scan of the are over the water and back landward showed nothing around us, and a scan of the sky showed nothing flying around us either. Cobb was fiddling with something back at the car and I looked through the binoculars to see what he was doing. He pulled his duffel-bag from the car and was hauling it away from the car into some heavy brush along the remains of the bridge.
I got out my father's old T/C contender. It's a little bolt action pistol that came in many calibers, and my dad liked the heavier ones for target shooting. WIth a scope on it was close to a rifle in accuracy. I got out four bullets and put the first of the 7.62mm rounds into the chamber and closed the action. I set the other three about an arm's reach from my knee and upright so they would be easy to spot and pick up. I may not like guns but I grew up around them and know how to use them as well, as did a lot of kids after the magick came back and society was forced to rediscover some old skills in order to survive. In Halifax you'd be hard put to find someone who hadn't seen any practice with a rifle or shotgun.
There was a sudden flapping nearby and a dark blur skimmed past me and dropped on Kevin. He grunted under the impact and then I heard screams and a snapping bone. I ran to the edge of the bridge that overlooked where the two of them were set up and I braced against the edge and aimed downwards, seeking a target to shoot. Cobb came running and had a sword in hand as he leapt to the policemen's aid. The fear suddenly rolled out of the creature and Kent wailed like a lost soul and dove away from Kevin. I saw Cobb stagger into view and he kept trying to go towards the creature. I grabbed the pistol more firmly and the spell that I had put on the pistol to banish fear steadied me, and I lined up on the creature, looking for an open shot.
Kevin was still screaming and I pulled the trigger to scare the thing off him. The bullet hit the concrete near it ans spalled cement chips into the air, peppering the thing, surprising it and causing it to leap airborne and look my direction as it heard the roar from the T/C pistol. I loaded up another bullet and just finished closing the chamber when the creature flew up over the ragged, broken lip of the bridge and arrowed straight for me. There was no time to aim and I punched with the pistol, and pulled the trigger when I felt the muzzle impact something.
The roar of the pistol was almost drowned out by the scream of the creature as the bullet plowed through it. It staggered sideways and smashed into me as I tried to relax and roll with the impact. Its momentum carried it past me and I scrambled up, covered in a sticky, bloody mucus, and looked back to where the remaining two shells might be. By a bit of luck, they were untouched and still upright. I Picked them both up and worked the bolt action, the spent casing flipping out over my knuckles and away. I dropped a round into the pistol and slammed the bolt home and slapped it down as I simultaneously brought the weapon up and aimed at the creature.

47

2008-04-30T14:46:00.001-05:00

Next morning I went back over to the office and settled in to do a little answering of the mail, pay bills, and wait for Larry to call. I wanted to do this alone, but the speed needed between the spells to keep the chance of discovery to a minimum dictated at least three magickers working in tandem. I'd talked to the ones at the police station, and had asked Fawn if it was all right to request them for the job. I'd seen them work and had been impressed with how they handled the books. Fawn assured me that if they decided to work with me, they'd get paid leave to do so. I offered them each 3 months salary to work with me, and two of them agreed, so I had my trio.
Kent Nix was the first one to sign on. He was the oldest wizard employed by the Halifax police, being a nimble sixty two years old, and with a shock of grey hair atop a lanky six foot frame he looked the part of a wizard in a business suit. He was a solid magicker from what I'd seen of him. His partner was Kevin Love.
Kevin was about forty, and had the lean muscled frame that one gets from regular workouts at the corner gym. A balding wisp of blonde hair ringed his head just above his ears, and I almost never saw him without his Fedora. He considered it a good luck charm. Where Kent was solid, Kevin was brilliant. He'd powered through the magus tests and passed them easily. He could take any spell and break it down and identify it. His memory was purportedly eidetic, and if so, it made sense that he was able to operate magick so precisely. Together the two of them were a real asset to the police. I expected they'd be the same for me.
Cobb was still going to be coming along also, and I sat down and talked with the Kent and Kevin at my house before we were to meet him. “I want you two to know that Cobb is not our friend. He's maneuvered me into this 'service' and has been trying to manipulate how I work and who I work with. He's with us so I can keep an eye on him. There's some kind of creature he has communication with and it has attacked me three times now, so be on your toes. It produces a tremendous fear as it approaches, so my best guess is a RedCap. If you can beat the fear, you can hurt it, as anything solid will work against it, including bullets.”
“Now that you warned us, what's this fae supposed to do?” Nix asked. “His job is to conceal the way once we have it created. I'm hoping he'll do that. If he doesn't, we can try to do the job, but realize Anolyn will probably sense the barrier being messed with and he'll come looking for who's breaching the barrier. I don't think any of us want to find out what an angry dragon can do.” Kevin shook his head and chuckled, “Thank you no, I like my life just fine. No need to complicate it.”
Kent murmured an agreement and raised his head and looked towards the door. “See something?” I said as I turned to look. “No, just was thinking about what you said about this Cobb fellow. I don't like having an enemy in the camp, to borrow an adage. You're certain he has to come along?” That kind of ploy reminds me of your sister.” “Well it was Fawn's suggestion, and I agree with her. I want him where I can see him at all times.”

#

After getting our supplies and some weapons in case the creature showed, I drove over to the market land to pick up Cobb. He was waiting as usual at the entrance to Underhill. “Are you ready?” I asked him. He looked at the two magickers in the car and then turned his attention to a duffle-like bag the he picked up and carried over to the car. “This goes in the trunk, it should help us if the creature shows.” Yeah right, I thought. More likely it was a homing device for the creature. Paranoia is a good thing for keeping your skin whole. Don't knock it.
The trip to the bridge was absolutely uneventful. Cobb didn't venture any conversation, and Kent and Kevin fell asleep in the back almost as soon as we left Halifax, so I had a quiet drive. Once we got to the bridge, preparations began and each of us had a job to do. Mine was to create the bridge, Kent was the who had to activate the remains so it could be linked to my spell. Kevin, with his skill at unraveling spells had the job of creating a hole in the barrier, and Cobb was supposed to conceal it once we finished our parts. The one thing we didn't know was what Anolyn's reaction would be, and how soon we'd see it.

46

2008-04-26T23:26:00.000-05:00

He paused for a moment and then said, “You sure about that creature Fernie? If it is a RedCap, that means we can do something about it.” “I'm really not Sure Larry, that was the most dangerous thing that I could think of that could handle touching iron or steel, so I was working from a worst-case situation.” “Hmm, that does give us something to go on, and with a little reading and research, we should come up with a list and narrow it down from there. I can take care of that. Just give me half a day, it shouldn't be too difficult.” He leaned back slightly in the chair and looked at Fawn for a moment.
I remembered what else I came to do, and this was going to be hard. I looked at Fawn, and then at Larry. I knew Fawn would back me on this. “Larry, there's something else we need to discuss now” I said to him. “You need to distance yourself from all this. The research is fine, but you can't go with me, and I really want the others to stay out of it as well. This is dangerous and I think Cobb has been manipulating things so that I have to rely on your and your contacts to do the job. You're not going with me up there. You're staying here with Fawn.”
Larry looked at me without expression as I said my piece. The salt-shaker stopped moving and Fawn stiffened slightly. She knew he was upset, and I knew it because she was upset. Larry focused on me, and laid both of his hands flat on the table and stood up. “Fern, I'll agree not to go along with you, but in return, you have to take someone along to watch your back. If you don't want me, you don't want Fawn for the same reason. I'd say go find that Troykin and hire him again. But understand I am NOT happy. You're family, and if anything happens because you get stupid and heroic, I'm going to be really unhappy.”
I held up my hands placatingly. “I hear you, no stupidly heroic anything. Cast the spell, hide the spell, test it both ways, and get the hell out.” “Make sure you know where Cobb is all the time” Larry told me. “That fae is playing something really close to his chest, and not knowing what it is can get you all in between a rock and a hard place.” “I'll stick a ring in his nose if you want. I don't trust him at all at this point. I'll be very careful promise you that.”
It had been a lot easier than I expected. Although Larry is such a good reader of body language I doubted it came as a surprise to him. It made me wonder why he hadn't laid things out for me like he usually did. It wasn't something to worry about at the moment. What was to worry about was that creature. I was guessing it would show when I started the spell, so I needed to figure out what precautions and bits of trickery I could come up with for just such an emergency. I just couldn't figure what Cobb was after, or why he had made that apparent deal with that creature. I hoped Larry found something tomorrow that I could use.
I went back to my house, rather than my office. The thought of having to talk to the Darkness again just wearied and depressed me. The house is a little thing, barely one living room, one bedroom, and kitchen and a bathroom. No basement. I'd gotten it when I was still in the Halifax police, before I found out how much I could be making as a private investigator. I never had the heart to sell it, and I came by once in a while to make sure everything was kept clean and repaired. I didn't bother to go into the bedroom but just turned the heat up and flopped down on the couch and went to sleep, and for the first time in a while I wasn't disturbed by anyone coming by to ask questions or wake me at ungodly hours of the night.

45

2008-04-16T02:10:00.000-05:00

I ended up going to my chair, and, wrapped in the blanket from the bed, did a lot of staring out my window onto the street below it and watched the sporadic traffic. The Darkness had let me see Megan's fear, and was probably tormenting her with the thought of continued servitude as a conduit, and that ate at my heart and my soul like acid poured on skin. There had to be a way to help her, but for the life of me I couldn't find a way. Plus in two days we would be going to the Northumberland strait to start re-opening the Anolyn Way.
One thing we could do was prepare, and I wanted an ace up my sleeve against that monster that had hunted me three times now. It was time to do a little hunting of my own. As a investigator, I have found location spells to be very useful, and I now wanted to find this creature and learn how to either banish or kill it. I didn't care which so long as it would be gone. To do that, if I could find it's lair, or find where it preferred to operate, that might give me a clue to use. That being said, I gathered up the one thing that I had that the creature had touched, Lary and Fawn's front door.
This was easier to set up than you might think. All I had to do was drag the door back to Larry's workshop from the trash heap, and use his circle to contain the spell. Ten minutes after dragging the door into place in the center of the circle I was ready to cast the spell. A magnifying glass on one point, compass on another, flashlight on a third, a fingerprint pad on the fourth. A DNA strip on the fifth, and a pencil on the sixth. I sat on the seventh point. I began the chant to focus myself and the magick I was calling to my aid.
The spell flowed easily and almost immediate was the sense of a direction and distance. I had tapped in very quickly. I decided on the fly to try and modify the spell from search to scry, and tilted the chant slightly to build the effect. Normally doing something like this takes a long time if you're able to do it at all, but I'd tried it and found that like anything, it got easier with practice. The big worry with a scrying is that if you see the person, if it has a sense of the spell he/she/it can look back at you and get a distance and direction as well. That's one of the reasons scrying wasn't done very often by me. It could blow up in my face and show the target who was looking for it, along with handy directions to my location.
The spell shifted with the chant and strengthened and began to clear after a few minutes of concentration. I couldn't quite make out the creature, and there were two things in the scrying rather than just the one creature. This gave me a bad case of butterflies, there was more than one? I dismissed that idea as the two were not identical in size, so since the creature had been identical in the attacks I experienced, that made sense then that it was one creature, or a pair of identical ones.
That the two did not match in height, and that made my 'twins' theory blow apart. I shifted the view line of the scry clockwise around the two, hoping to get a good angle on the faces. If I could see enough to identify this larger creature, I might have a clue on what I was dealing with. The larger of the two creatures straightened and I gasped. The face was Cobb's. He was talking to the creature. I saw the thing's face illuminated by light as Cobb stepped away from it. My mind reeled.
Why would Cobb want to send a creature at us when we were trying to open the Way again as he demanded in the details of the service? I just did not make sense. As I watched Cobb continued to speak at the creature, and it appeared to listen and understand. My best guess at the moment is that Cobb was either warning the creature off, or he was giving it instructions. Either way, I was going to find out the next time I saw him.
The two finished talking and with a short, ungainly hop, the creature unfurled its wings and rose off the ground and out of view. I tried to lock onto Cob, by shifting the intent of the spell, but I did it too fast and the spell collapsed, noisily. Fortunately, the collapse also kept Cobb from knowing who had cast the spell, and that would give me some advantage in our little dance.
I sat in the workshop, and contemplated re-casting the spell to follow Cobb, but dismissed the idea as a bad one. He'd heard the spell collapse and would be on his guard I was certain. I tried the creature again, and again it was easy to slip into the spell, and follow it into Underhill. I wasn't certain what exactly it was, but since it lived in Underhill, it had to be fae, and had to be vulnerable to cold iron. The trouble was, my car was loaded with iron and steel, and it still tore it apart with no apparent ill effects.
I remembered that there were a few creatures of Underhill that actually were not harmed by touching cold iron. The one that was the strongest and most dangerous were RedCaps. They were a race of fae that were able to stand the touch of cold iron, and actually preferred to make their weapons from it, when they could get their hands on cold iron. They were from the Unseelie court, and hated humanity. I canceled the spell and thought about the RedCap. It was vulnerable to anything like a human is, so if we could find a way to get around that horrible fear, we could take it out.
I went over to Fawn's and was greeted at the door by Larry as Fawn was pulling her turn in the kitchen. Fawn is a great cop and a great sister, but I was not going to plan on staying to get poisoned. She had a deservedly lousy reputation as a cook. Larry I guess, was a glutton for culinary torture. Either that or he knew when to compromise about cooking.
“So what's the house call for Fernie? Something new?” Larry said as he sat down at the circular table he and Fawn had in the kitchen. He reached out and idly slid the salt-shaker between his hands as he listened to me. I'd found that irritating before, but he always had his hands doing something when he talked or listened, so I'd gotten used to something going on besides talking. So as the salt-shaker slid back and forth on the table, I outlined what I'd discovered. Fawn came over as I talked, and when I got to the part about Cobb, and the RedCap being partners in some manner, she was ready to go call him in and have a little 'cop' chat with him.
Larry convinced both of us that putting Cobb on guard was the last thing we wanted to do if we wanted to find out what was really going on. “Cobb has gone through some pretty great lengths to set something up, and if either of you start getting smart and asking questions, he might pull something more dangerous than he already has. Lay back and watch his ass. I agree with Fawn, keep him close. That way you can see what he's doing” he finished up.

44

2008-04-09T10:44:00.000-05:00

Just to be sure I had some kind of warning should any bad things try to get into the office, I took the time to put wards on the windows and the thresholds of the office. They might not stop a creature, but the spells would hurt it and slow it down, giving me time to either fight or run. I was a big fan of running. You don't get hurt if you're not around to be hurt. Once the wards were finished I went to bed to catch up on some much-needed sleep.
I was awakened by an insistent knocking on my office door. I blearily turned over in bed and checked the time. 12:02 a.m. What kind of sadistic person knocks at midnight? One that was going to knock until doomsday, I turned over in bed and covered my ears with the pillow, which muffled the sound nicely. I burrowed under the blanket into its comforting warmth and darkness. “Good Morning Ms...” which came from under the sheets with me. I was awake and all the way across the room in one long, adrenalin-laced leap from the bed. I looked back at the bed to see Megan/The Darkness sitting upon it.
“... Fatelli, it is nice to see you so awake and chipper this morning” the Darkness finished, and gave me a smile that would have melted butter if the eyes could have matched it. It made my skin crawl. Megan/Darkness got off the bed and sidled over to the desk, and seated it/herself in the near chair. “You had said we should talk on the morrow, so here we are. It is the morrow after all.” the Darkness smirked at me.
“I had hoped to get in some sleep before we talked. “ “You can't have everything Ms Fatelli, where would you put it?” “Very funny, now would you mind telling me what was all so important that when I said we would talk tomorrow, you had to show up two minutes past the hour?” The Darkness/Megan smiled again, and said “all is not what it seems, you should know how appearances deceive so thoroughly, Ms Fatelli.”
I about lost it. It comes here at two past midnight to spout cliche's? I itched to grab it and throw it out the window, minus Megan. “I can assure a complete situation of truth for you Ms Fatelli. We conclude our negotiations, Megan goes free, and I get you as a conduit, as we have tentatively developed as an agreement..” I glared at the creature. “I said no before, and say no again. The deal is not going to be made, so remove yourself and let me get some sleep.” Megan/Darkness smiled, showing teeth like a predator. “I shall go and we will visit again, later today, after you have had time to rest. I look forward to concluding our bargain.” Megan stepped into a shadow and melted away like a black mist. I tried to go back to sleep and saw Megan's terror every time I closed my eyes.

43

2008-04-08T12:51:00.001-05:00

I called Larry to make sure he had enough time to gather materials and to coordinate the others. I thought about how much Cobb had wanted Larry doing the work, and now in way he'd conned me into getting him to sign on and help out. I know he'd do it as we're family, but I really started feeling guilty, and manipulated as I got further into the preparations. Larry needed to be cut out of the situation, before Cobb figured out how to manipulate us more for his ends.
Just how I was going to do this was the big question at the moment, and I spent most of the day trying to figure out exactly each of my and Cobb's steps in this little dance we were in. I was still trying to chart it on paper when Cobb knocked on the door. I was not going to take any chances, so I put some iron nails in my pocket and Iron filings around my desk to lessen the impact of any fae spells. Once I had finished, I walked over to the door and opened it and stepped back. Cobb entered and once past the threshold, he seemed to deflate slightly as his magick encountered the cold iron.
He saw the filings on the floor and stopped dead in his tracks in the outer office. I stepped into the room and turned towards him, I leaned back on the edge of my desk and put my hands on either side, my left near a pouch of filings and my right near a heavy paperweight that I could throw if need be. After the performance earlier today, I was in no mood to trust or forgive and forget. I may have to work with him, but I don't have to be nice or fake being polite any more.
“You're here, now what do you want to say before I tell you how this is going to work?” His face hardened, and his shoulders hunched over like he was getting ready to attack, and I moved my hand over to the pouch, ready to fling it in his face. He suddenly let go of the anger and stood there watching me. “I believe I said that I am sorry and that my actions would never happen again” he said to me, then he tried to give me a sincere, disarming smile, which only ended up looking to me like a sour grimace.
“Yes you did, but I don't trust you. I have to work with you, and I will to get the job done, but I don't have to like working with you or like you. So we work, we get this done, we go our separate ways.” I will have to say that he didn't get mad or pout like I expected. he considered the words and kept his temper in check. “Very well” he said at last. “I will listen to your directions and I will not have any rancor for you in this. I understand and accept.”
That went a lot better than I'd hoped it would, so one thing down. Th e next job was to make sure that Cobb was willing and able to create the effect we needed. The last was to ask him how he stopped the creature when it attacked the house. Cobb got evasive no this. “I will deal with it if it does show again. I promise you that, Ms Fatelli. The pain I gave it the last time will no doubt cause it to stay well away from any group I am with.”
“Maybe so”, I countered, “but you can't be everywhere at once.” He smiled. “I don't have to, I can glamour one or more of the other wizards with my countenance, that should convince the creature to stay clear. My skill can make sure that every nuance of myself is duplicated on another. The creature will not be able to tell the difference.” I didn't like the idea actually, but it did make sense, and if it worked that was great. “What if it does, how will the others defend themselves from it? You may be willing to put trust in an illusion, but I'm not. That creature is strong enough to rip someone in half, and I don't want anyone dying because we didn't think things through. Why all the secrecy?”
He pulled himself up and stood straight and stared at me. “Those matters are of the fae, and rest assured I will deal with the creature myself. If it should penetrate the glamour, I will confront it directly” he said in a tone that said I was not going to get another word out of him about it. I was upset, but figured I'd better let it go and then come back to it when we both weren't so irritated.
I told him when and where to meet us for a ride up to the bridge, but he refused saying that he would be there directly through the faery paths. So long as he was there on time, that's all that mattered. I used the spare time I had to go through telephone calls that had backed up and a little cleaning of my office. It was still dingy, and looked like a down-on-the-luck 1930's film noir of a private investigator's office, but it's a tasteful dingy.

42

2008-04-01T22:10:00.001-05:00

I slammed the door shut hard enough to rattle the glass. Cobb kicked the door back open. I should have realized what kind of power he had back when we got his daughter out of the place she was held by the kidnappers. The door bounced crazily and the glass shattered. I beat feet back deep into the room. I did NOT want to be around when the glass reset itself. Cobb followed me in, more intent on catching me than avoiding the danger. He caught up with me and I used what Fawn taught me at the gym.
He'd come in here uninvited and tried to lay hands on me. I stepped inside his reaching hands and planted a flat-footed side-kick in his stomach. His head came down and my knee came up with a sharp crack, and Cobb fell sideways, his nose gushing a thick red blood. I placed a second front kick on the side of his head and he went down and stayed down. I got a better look at what I'd done after the adrenalin wore off, and left me shaking.
Cobb's nose was going to need re-setting, and his ear would be tender until the swelling went down. I flashed a light in his eyes and the pupils both contracted the same amount, so I hadn't given him a concussion. He'd survive. I went to the Murphy bed and pulled it partway open and got the pillow for him. I went back over and placed the pillow under his head, and covered him up with the blanket, and settled down to wait for him to wake up. I was in no hurry.
Surprisingly, when he'd fallen, he'd missed my desk, mt files, and the breakable pieces of my authentic 1930's Private Investigator's office. Yes, I'm proud of the place. I love it and I spend more time in it than I ever do in the small house I own. The house is like free storage space. That's about all I use it for.
After some fifteen minutes, Cobb moaned slightly, then surged to his feet and spun to face me. “You dare strike me!” he roared in outrage. “When someone kicks my door open, comes into my home uninvited, and attempts to lay hands on me without my permission, you bet I do! Try it again Cobb! You spend time in jail behind IRON bars, or did you forget who my sister is!”
That sank in and I could see him think it through. He looked at me with a very sour face, then composed himself and straightened his clothes. “I do sincerely apologize for my behavior Ms Fatelli. It was a mistake and I shall not repeat it. Now do you wish to call your authorities?” “No,” I told him. “I want you out of my home, don't come back. I'll work for you, I don't have any choice there, and I'll accept your offer to help, but I draw the line at taking your orders on things you haven't even bothered to learn anything about.” I motioned towards the door. “Leave now please. I will see you tonight.”
He looked at me as if the fight had given him a new look at me. I'm not sure I liked his contemplative glances, but I wanted him out of the office more than I wanted to be offended by the way he looked at me. He left in a dignified, slow pace, almost like he was trying to defy me or my desire to see him gone. Weird. Why did he hunt trouble like that? It reminded me of a kid trying to prove he was an adult, when all he really showed was how much of a child he still was.
I'd given that enough thought, it was time to work on the real problems of the day. Namely getting the preparations set for the spell. We'd need a way to run the spell throughtthe barrier to the shore and protect and conceal the spell from Anolyn and as many potential threats as we could figure out. Ideally I could find a way through and cast part of the spell from the island, but that was not too likely.
Fawn had called for volunteers to help with the casting, and we'd gotten five police magickers to help out, and Larry had gotten four local magickers to join in, so including me and Larry, and Cobb, we had twelve. I wasn't sure how Cobb would help, as Fae magick had a number of differences with human magick, but in retrospect, and considering the effectiveness of fae glamour, his would be invaluable for the concealment of the finished spell. Now we just needed to get in place and avoid that flying dead thing.

41

2008-03-28T08:11:00.001-05:00

“Let's talk then”, I said to it, and I was half-proud of myself that my voice didn't waver or crack. “My offer is three weeks as your conduit, and you then leave back to your own realm and no longer lay claim to anyone here ever again that has held a contract with you. You release them completely. In return you will be allowed to ride me while I work the spell and confront the dragon if it shows.”
“Oh, my, hardball I believe it is called, this will add spice to our negotiations. I will enjoy you as conduit Ms Fatelli. I will not relinquish control, but borrow your body under my full control for the next nine years, or time being considered sufficient to me desires.” it countered with a a unconcealed joy. Great, it loved haggling. It should have been a fishwife, or got a contract with one.
We offered and counter-offered for the better part of three hours, way past when I was supposed to see Cobb at Underhill. We were deadlocked, unwilling to move on the final part of the contract. The concessions that I'd managed to get were thus, it would release Megan and hold no control afterwards over her, that I would be the conduit but it would have control for half of my day each day. The downside was that Megan's contract would remain in effect until the end of my three year stint as a conduit, then it would relinquish Megan and declare Megan's contract null and void. She'd be free again. And I'd be stuck with the Darkness.
“No, this doesn't work, it won't work, and I'm not going to try and make it work any more.” The Darkness watched me and I felt the pressure of the gaze. “Why not, you argued quite decisively Ms Fatelli, I find I have enjoyed this mental sparring much more than the terror I've invoked the past three years with this young human. You will be an excellent conduit.” The confidence that it oozed from its voice was disconcerting, and I felt it trying to stroke my hopelessness, trying to convince me to give up, to let go, and agree as is. Lose my identity to the Darkness, I was going to do it anyways, everything dies and enters the dark.
I shook my head violently to stop the thoughts. This thing was insidious, and it wanted me as a conduit badly. Just how badly though was the question. It would have to wait. Maybe a delay would make it careless. Not damn likely, but I wanted to delay things some. At least give me time to think.
“I'll talk with you tomorrow, right now I'm late for another appointment. You know where I live here, so drop by tomorrow and we'll pick this up again.” “Agreed, I am savoring her hope and terror, Ms Fatelli, this has been most entertaining. Tomorrow, the same time.” The darkness roiled out from Megan and I saw tears on her cheeks as the Darkness commanded her body to do. The darkness filled the room and then receded, flowing away like water receding off a shore. The door was a black, square hole for a moment and then the darkness lightened to a grey and the door solidified and I was back in my office alone, and I sat down and pulled a bottle of scotch from the bottom drawer of my desk. I didn't indulge very often, but I wanted a drink badly. The liquid searing down my throat helped focus me, and I put the bottle back down for the next 'emergency'.
I got the blanket out of the Murphy bed and wrapped myself in it and sat at the desk. I knew Cobb would be waiting impatiently for me, but I didn't want to go yet. I needed time to get myself composed and ready to face him. It was about a half hour later that the door rattled angrily, and I heard Cobb's voice. “Ms Fatelli, answer me this moment! We had a meeting to update our situation, and I will not tolerate being snubbed in such a manner!” I stayed in the blanket and shivered.
“I can feel you in there Ms Fatelli, either come answer this door or I shall break it in!” Let him try was all I could think when he said that. I knew the door would hold against most human spellcasters, and nearly all human thugs. Then I was up and unbolting the door before he could smash the glass. I don't care how apathetic I was at the time, having someone you owe things to lose fingers or an arm to cutting glass is not a good idea. It sours a relationship.
Cobb stood on the other side of the door, haughtily looking down on me from his near seven foot height. “You did not show at the time designated Ms Fatelli, this cannot continue if I am to lend my assistance. I need to know everything so that I can”, he paused a moment, and I could hear the shift in his words, “assist in an effective manner.” “Mr Cobb, or what the hell your name is, this is a very bad time to be trying to tell me what to do or how to do it. In fact it is a very bad time to visit, and right now I want you to leave. I will talk with you tonight. Good day.”

40

2008-03-26T14:02:00.001-05:00

“Don't you see? He's doing it deliberately. You came here to us when he put pressure on you, and you came over again when you needed those books rendered harmless. And again when he started asking fore 'regular' reports on progress. He's using you, making you jump to his tune and go where he wants. He wanted Larry, and he's got him through you.” She paused to let that sink in then hit it again. I think he's hoping you will use Larry again as your 'expert' to cast the spell, just like he wants. I say make him do it. He wants in, bring him in all the way! Make him earn that, and use his power to make the spell. i don't know that much about fae magick, but it can't be any more noticeable than human magick when a spell's cast, especially one that big.
Let him help, he's expecting to watch you run off the opposite direction. You want to screw him, take that offer, and make him hold his end up. I for one would love to see his face when you say yes, and then expect him to help.” Fawn was right, and it would keep Cobb where we all could see what he was up to. I still had reservations aas I was never sure what Cobb was after. Sometimes I'm not sure he did either. But Fawn was right. Keep him close, and make him work for us since he volunteered so nicely. Maybe tomorrow would be worth getting out of bed for after all.
I smiled at the notion and went back to my office to get some sleep and see the Darkness. I planned to withdraw the offer and see what would happen. Gods and magick willing, it would just go away, or crater completely and let me dictate terms. I didn't think I would get either situation, but there had to be something in-between the two extremes that could be helpful. I started to go through what I thought we still needed to do for the bridge spell when my office door disappeared in a blot of darkness.
“I'm glad to see you had no trouble finding the place” I said to it as the darkness receded enough for me to see Megan. “I am here, and I am given over to listen further to your proposal Ms Fatelli. So please, remind me of the current offer.” it said with a smug, mocking sound to it's voice. Time to spring the surprise. “I don't think we'll need you to do this, and you've undoubtedly ruined that child's mind long before now, so thanks but no thanks, you had a chance last night. In the light of today, forget it.”
The darkness expanded and enveloped the room, except for me and the the small circle of light the Darkness left around me. In spite of the fan still running in the background, I felt half-frozen with such absolute dark around me. I tried to steady myself mentally as it spoke.
“So you choose to withdraw the offer? Think carefully on your answer, Ms Fatelli, think very carefully indeed.” The threat hung in the air, and I could feel the pressure of the darkness start to creep towards me, like a vise squeezing down on an object. “I really mean it! We don't need you for this, I had another volunteer to help, he has enough power to do what I want without having to strike a bargain.”
The dark paused in it's advance. As if considering something. Then it was gone in an eye blink, and all that stood before me was Megan. Her eyes were pure black and still conveyed a haunted desperation. I felt, rather than heard, the Darkness chuckle possessively. “She is mine to do with what I will. The contract was flawed, and she is mine until I relinquish her. Quite and amusing situation do you think, Ms Fatelli?” I tweaked my weak spots like the expert it was. That frightened me it could find them so easily.
I stared, horrified, at the casual cruelty that I heard in the Darkness's voice. My imagination started to run away with the possibilities of what it put Megan through during the time it had her as a conduit, and I focused to quit thinking of that and focus on now. It meant to do this, it would crush Megan if I didn't acquiesce. Even if I did, I had to do the wording precisely correct or it would find a loophole to create some kind of misery to me or to those around me. The thought of that thing riding me like it did Megan boiled up in me again like a monstrous fever, I was terrified. But there was only one way to stop her torment, and that was to invite the Darkness as a conduit through my body.
I forced myself once again to try and ignore Megan. I had to do this right or I and Megan would get screwed over badly in retaliation for what I wanted to try.

39

2008-03-25T06:43:00.001-05:00

I wanted it to feel pressure to make the decision right away. The more chance it got to think the more it could negotiate for. I didn't want it to feel the advantage, I wanted it careless. But unfortunately, you don't get an entity being careless very often. Such was the case here. “Ms Fatelli, I do believe you are looking to sway my decision unduly. I do believe I need time to ponder all the ramifications of the options and the information you have provided me. I will contact you this time tomorrow at your office. I will see you then. Watch your step on the way down, as there's loose material all around.”
I went back down to my car and by a small miracle didn't find it up on blocks and stripped down to a skeleton. Probably the electric shock someone would get without the proper magickal talisman in their pocket. I got back in and drove back over to Larry and Fawn's house to talk a little more about having an entity on our side to cast the spell. I thought it a good idea, I just needed Larry and Fawn to agree with me.
“Are you nuts?!” Larry said to me after I laid out trying to get the Darkness to take me as a conduit. “It will agree and screw you four ways to Sunday. That is just NOT a good idea. It may like the challenge, but if you die, it just goes back to its own world and temporarily loses a conduit to this one, until the next idiot that comes along thinks it's a good idea to play with a power like the Darkness!”
“I'm not playing, I'm trying to correct an accident that happened. I'm responsible!” I shot back at Larry. “No, you're not responsible. That girl made her own deal, and the only thing you did was try to help when no one wanted you to.” Fawn came in at that moment, and looked at the two of us. “Fernie, sit. Larry, go to the work room and play with your toys back there, I'll handle the midget from the black lagoon here.”
I glared at my amazonian sister. Six foot plus of buxom raven-haired womanhood, and in shape enough to turn heads even in a dumpy pair of sweats, which she was in. “You quit riding yourself sis, I mean it. You no more could have stopped her from trying that you could make water run uphill. The only thing here was that she did it under your cute little button nose, and you're upset that she got away with it.” I glared at her and thought about it.
She was right to a point. Megan did make the attempt and made the bargain by her own self. The trouble for me was that I'd shown her how to do it by calling the entity up in the first place. She used the same technique to call it up herself. That was my problem. “Listen up shorty, you keep dwelling on that and you'll pull something really stupid like actually taking that girl's place. You think you need that? I sure as hell don't. We can pull it off. Hell, if you want to ask for help, ask that Cobb. He's really falling all over himself to help.”
“I'm not going to ask Cobb for anything. He's not interested in me, he's interested in something else, and whatever it is I don't want to find out. Something about him has started to really creep me out. He's hungry for something, and maybe it's something to do with me, but after seeing his face, I do not want him to be doing anything for me. He can take his help and walk it of the short end of a high pier!”
Remember what I sad a long time ago about magick and coincidence? Well, I'll say it again. With magick, there are some mighty long coincidences that are not really coincidence. I was telling all about how Cobb creeped me out the last time I saw him, and we got a knock on the front door. Both Fawn and I jumped at the noise. Fawn got up and went over to the kitchen archway. I went to the door. As I reached for the doorknob the knocking started again, and I jerked the door open quickly and Cobb stumbled in surprise.
He composed himself quickly and I saw Fawn put something away out of the corner of my eye. “Ms Fatelli, it has occurred to me that since I am asking you to do this, I should be remiss if I did not lend my abilities to their fullest. So I have decided that I will take part in this endeavor. You can come see me at the usual location tomorrow. I will be expecting a full report of your progress.”
I stood there flabbergasted. He was stepping in to take charge of the whole thing after I had gotten us to a point where it would succeed? He took the silence to be acquiescence, and swept back out the door and into the night. I ran out to to catch him and tear a verbal strip off his back. He was gone before I could take three steps, a slight vacuum was the only thing left behind as he disappeared.
I stormed back into the house. “God damn his little power plays and manipulations, I am NOT going to have that high-handed bastard messing up anything! He is a fuckin' moronic idiotic miserable pompous egomaniac and anything he....” “Fernie STOP!”, Fawn shouted. My rant died in mid voice, and I looked back over at Fawn, and I heard, rather than saw, Larry come out of the work room.

38

2008-03-23T14:40:00.001-05:00

I got an address from Anne where Megan might be found. She told me Megan had changed locations often due to the entity, and this was the most recent address for her. But the implication was that she might no longer nbe there. Only way to find out was check it out.
I went down to an old section of Halifax near the dock area. The buildings here had been partly rebuilt, and then left to rot when whatever project that got started lost it's funding. There were squatters all over, most, but not all of them human. I'd come down here to find Megan, so that's what I was going to do. It didn't stop me from wishing I had Zik'k along, this would have been exactly the place that would be great for having a bodyguard to watch your back. Unfortunately I didn't.
I walked into the semi-converted building that I think may have been an attempt to create a loft apartment. The steps led me up to the sixth floor, and the second door in from the stairs. I looked out over the street, and felt the wind come through the steel mesh that enclose the long balcony-like walkway in front of the apartment doors. I screwed up my courage and raised my hand to knock, when I heard the lock turn on the door and I saw the door knob rotate. The door pulled open and disappeared into black, not just shadow, I mean black, the kind of absolute block you can only feel properly in a cavern.
I wanted to run back down the stairs and leave. The Darkness was absolute, no light in and none out, something no sane person would ever enter voluntarily. I called out, “Megan? I'm Fern Fatelli, do you remember me?” The voice I heard never was meant to come from a human throat. “Ms Fatelli, it is a surprise to see you here, and wanting to talk. Have you fared well since our last meeting?” “Well enough, but I didn't come to talk of past happenings, I came to talk about opportunities and situations.”
“Intriguing Ms Fatelli, but I sense there is much of each that needs a more direct explanation. So please elucidate your opportunities, and describe your situations.”

#

“What the opportunity is, is a new body to act as a conduit, and the chance to challenge an established power on earth. One that may even be a true challenge to your ability.” “An interesting and intriguing proposal, but vague,” the Darkness mused from inside the room. I heard Megan's breathing, loud, steady, and very slow. The power in each breath seemed like a drum, and my body felt pressure with every exhalation. “What would be the terms of this 'proposal' Ms. Fatelli? I wonder about the details.”
I took a deep breath. You know how I jumped right into this idea of letting it use me as a conduit? Think that was fast? Wrong-o. I'd been thinking about this since Megan got taken years ago, but I only had very recently decided to propose it. I'm likely to be taking on a big, evil dragon in a short while, and I'd need all the juice I could get on my side of the fight. You have to survive to deal with the consequences, and I wasn't sure that even with the entity on my side, I'd survive it.
I really really did not want to do this, but it was a chance at some redemption for some past screw-ups, and scared as I was with this, I needed that redemption more. “I'll take Megan's place as your conduit for three months, and in return, you help me open up the Anoylyn Way. “A very interesting proposal, Ms Fatelli, very much interesting indeed. I have not pitted my abilities against a dragon, especially while in a form that has such.....limitations upon it.” The Darkness paused and I felt Megan shift slightly through the dark that enveloped her room. when she shifted the dark shifted slightly with her. It was very creepy to watch.
I stepped back involuntarily, and gave the darkness a bit more room. Something about that patch of black made me want to avoid being touched. My skin shrank away almost physically from the darkness in that room. “I would know more about the limitations you propose Ms Fatelli. After all, a smart human wouldn't leave me free to wander in a conduit for so long would they now?” I felt it's gaze like a heavy weight on my shoulders. “Feeling guilty are we Ms Fatelli? That such a young child should be so..... ill-used by one such as myself? Is that what you're thinking Ms Fatelli?”
That had been exactly what I'd been thinking, and that the entity knew my thoughts made the whole bargaining a lot more hazardous in my mind. I needed it's power a lot more than it needed me as a conduit. Unless I could think of a compelling reason that would sway it, I was likely to condemn Megan to further manipulations by The Darkness. The one thing I did have was a little time, and if I played that advantage correctly, I might get it to relinquish Megan.
“Yeah, I was thinking that actually, and how easy it must have been to lead the girl the way you wanted. I hope she's still sane enough to make her own mind when you let her. 'cause if she's gone round the bend, she's of no use to me to negotiate for her release. And yes, I want redemption. I want to make things right here between me and Megan, and me and you. You have a stake in this too. If we can find a mutually agreeable setup, we can all benefit. That's what I'm after.”
I spoke the words strongly and with as much conviction as I could project. I had to make the Darkness believe that I was working for my own interest and it's interest as well. If I did that bit of acting good enough, it might deal with me a little more fairly. Or at least less hostilely.
“I am intrigued by your bluntness Ms Fatelli. So few of you humans are willing to be blunt, it is refreshing to encounter it on occasion. What are the specifics of the proposal, beyond the three months as yourself as a conduit? What would I get beyond just the chance to operate through you Ms Fatelli?” “A chance at a different perspective from me and a different identity. Plus I'm not as likely to go crazy with you riding me. I'd think Megan is pretty close to the end of her ability to handle things realistically, and like I said earlier, if she's gone mad while you've been inhabiting her, there's no deal. She'd be of no use to me damaged like that. So what's it going to be, yes or no?”

37

2008-03-21T13:51:00.001-05:00

The Darkness, that supreme enitity of the essence of dark, had inhabited a young, angry girl seven years ago, and had tricked her into allowing it to remain with her after our deal had finished. The girl had been close to being driven mad and I lost track after her mother had cut off contact, angry at what had happened, and I couldn't blame her in the slightest. Now I had to find her, so that I could find the entity and ask it a favor. I'm afraid I knew what it would ask for in return. Another conduit to this world, this time mine. I shuddered at the thought. I think I'd almost rather take my chances with Anolyn's barrier.
I went over to where Anne Maystack resided. For a while she stayed well hidden, fearing reprisals from those that her husband turned evidence against. Her husband, before he went to the state with the evidence of the smuggling, had hire myself and Zhirk, a troll, to kidnap his wife and daughter, and keep them safe when all hell broke loose. We managed to do that, but it took calling the entity of darkness and borrowing some of it's power for a while to do it. Once the ringleaders had been caught and the smuggling operation dismantled, she was able to come out of hiding. But her daughter had made her own pact with the Darkness, and she wasn't do careful and it took her over.
I tried to find out the details after we'd stopped Ahiah, but the mother refused to talk to me then, and she and her daughter disappeared for four years, when she surfaced again and got a small house near Dayning. I'd heard through the professional grapevine that she'd hired a investigator to find her daughter, who was supposedly here in Dayning somewhere. She was, and mother and daughter were reunited, but I'd heard the daughter had been changed by the Darkness, and not for the better. I wasn't sure what I'd find, but in lieu of calling the entity up, I decided to talk to Megan. But first I had to find her.
I went to talk to Anne. She opened the door when I rang, and I saw her eyes go flat and ugly when she saw me. This didn't seem all that promising. “Mrs Maystack, I'm Fern” I started to say but she interrupted me. “ I know who you are, now leave or I'll call the police.” “Mrs Maystack, I need to talk to Megan, could you tell me where she is.” The statement made her even more hostile. “You do not need to talk to my daughter, you do need leave right now however.” She shut the door in my face and I heard her loudly start talking. “Mrs Maystack please, I need to talk to Megan. It's very important.” I paused. “I know of a way to get rid of the entity.”
The door jerked open and she was there, angry eyes flashing. “I'm listening. Explain to me how you're going to do that, get rid of that darkness in her.” “I'll take it. I'll offer myself in trade to the entity to make it let her go.” I spoke the words and knew that there was no other way. The entity wanted it's time on earth and Megan, the angry child she was, was a perfect choice for the entity. The one thing I had over Megan was experience, and the huge magick that had been linked to me. The creature wanted me the last time because it thought it could tap that magick. Why I didn't, and probably didn't want to, know.
Why offer myself? For starters, Megan was under my protection when she was possessed, and I felt responsible for what happened. I know that she made her own choice, but still, it was a uninformed one and she had paid for it for a long time now. Plus, with Cobb and trying to open the Way, I wanted something big in my corner so that if push came shove, I had serious firepower. But mostly it was because she had been hurt when I was supposed to be protecting her. That darn maternal instinct. What else can I say?
I got an address from Anne where Megan might be found. She told me Megan had changed locations often due to the entity, and this was the most recent address for her. But the implication was that she might no longer be there. Only way to find out was check it out.

36

2008-03-19T10:09:00.001-05:00

I went to Underhill next morning at sunrise, and Cobb was waiting for me. He took me back to his territory in a sullen silence. Apparently he was still angry with me about the conversation last night. Once he had gotten me to his place and into the phone booth room, I stopped and waited until he turned to face me. He started to speak, but I started first. “I know we should have said it last night, but everything was still too unsettled for any of us to think clearly, so I want to say, “thanks for helping us out with that creature.”
Cobb looked at me and I smelled a satisfaction come from him like pine. “You are quite welcome Ms Fatelli, now if you would please update me on your progress, I would be most interested as what you have found so far.” He said with a smile and a slight bow to me. Well, if he was going to be so accommodating, I suppose I could live with the situation until the job was done. “Thanks, now let me start with what we found in the books.....”
For about fifteen minutes I gave him a detailed outline of the data we found and how the aging spell was found and counter-spell ed by Fawn's on-staff wizards. He listened with apparent interest, even asking a few questions about the spell and a little more on how it was extracted. I didn't know the details but told him I'd ask Fawn about it, and she would ask the wizards, and get back to me.
He leaned back against the wall he been standing next to as I detailed the information for him, and crossed his arms. “Very interesting report Ms. Fatelli”, he said when I finished. “Now, do you have any idea of the creature that attacked you?” “None at all”, I answered him. The memory of the fear it generated around itself made me rub my arms for comfort. “Do you wish help in driving it away?” He said that in a peculiar way, as if there was something of a ritual in asking. I looked sharply at him, and saw the hunger in his eyes for a moment, and I went cold.
Fawn had seen something, but she got it wrong. I could feel his eyes boring into me, almost willing me to say yes so that he could claim something he wanted. And he wanted it so very much. I could smell the need coming off of him like a thick wave of musk. How had he kept this consuming hunger under iron control before? Or was it something that was new? Something he just had discovered? Regardless, he wanted an answer now.
“I can manage the creature, I'm certain, and I have to finish the service you so neatly maneuvered me into, so no I do not desire help in dealing with the creature.” I told him. He reacted with an enigmatic look, and he accepted the answer with a quiet, stiff bow. “Very well, Ms Fatelli, I will leave you to your work. Please keep me accurately apprised of your progress.” he said with almost no inflection at all. Whatever he was feeling and thinking, he buried deep suddenly.
“Yes, I shall do so”, I said, and suddenly I wanted out of Underhill very badly. The place now had the feel of a prison rather than a place to visit. Cobb smelled like dust, and death. I caught a very faint whiff of rotting meat under the dust, and this change caused me to think of Cobb as dangerous to me. I had thought him manipulative and petty, but not truly dangerous, not until I smelled him this time.
I kept myself firmly under control until I got back to my car and then I threw it open and scrambled in and drove wildly away. Cobb had scared me at the end, and I needed time to sort out what had changed, and try to figure out why. I didn't need this. I was going to take on a very dangerous spell soon, and that needed all the concentration I could give it. We had to be subtle, and the power of the spell would be anything but if we didn't control it absolutely.
“It isn't going to work.” Larry shouted, then threw his fistful of papers at the wall in his work room. They splashed against it, and scattered, then drifted down like large white snowflakes. Larry muttered something unintelligible, and then started picking them up. “Why not? We know how to do the spell, we've got the echo of what was there before, and we've got enough wizards signed on that we can do the work in shifts like you suggested. So why isn't it going to work?”
“Because no matter how slow we go with it, a spell that big is going to be noticed. We need a powerful spell to hide the effects and I don't know of anyone here in Halifax that has any idea of how to quiet a spell with a spell. Hell, I don't know how, and until we can, there's no way I'm going to let anyone risk casting it.”
I grimaced in frustration. We had a solution, but without a solution to keeping the spell quiet, we were no better off than when I first was forced into service. I didn't want to talk to Cobb about it, knowing he would offer help again, but I didn't wan his help. There was a feeling there of knowing that accepting his help would come with expectations and consequences. I hated the first and was worried what the second might be. I had resolved never to find out if I could help it.
Cobb had gone from irritating to downright scary over the last week as we got the materials together. His demands for updates to the situation were now daily, and his eagerness was very unsettling. More I was thinking past the service when I could get away rather than focusing on surviving. That could be lethal, especially with the spell we were trying to cast. There had to be a way to silence the spell. There was, but it meant looking up something that had haunted me for years. I could try finding the entity of the dark. Really, it was one of the last things I wanted to do in this lifetime. However, those things are precisely the things that find you when you least want them to.

35

2008-03-16T19:16:00.001-05:00

He relaxed as he got a good look, and lowered his hands to his side, and Larry, after a quick spell to spot illusions, dropped the barrier. Cobb started forward, a half-smile on his face, and then pulled up short and straightened, becoming once again the tall, odd, fae. “I came Ms Fatelli, to determine your progress on re-opening the way.” “I think we may have an idea, but it still needs the details hammered out yet” I said to him. Larry added quickly, “Thanks for driving that creature away, how'd you do it anyways? That thing is seriously bad news.”
“Fae are privy to some powers more effective than yours against such a creature”, Cobb said haughtily, and made a dismissve motion with his hand. “Yes, I understand that sir”, said Larry, “but if you could tell me, I'd like to at least try as Fernie, er, Ms Fatelli, has been attacked twice before by that creature or one like it.” “I said, Mr. Potter, that my magick is more effective against it. Your type of magick would at best create a stalemate. There is no more to discuss”, and he made that dismissing hand gesture again. Larry looked at Cobb for a moment, and let the conversation go, though he clearly wasn't satisfied with Cobb's answer.
Cobb walked over to me after the last of the spell dissipated. “Ms Fatelli, I would like to know what this solution you hinted at consists of.” I looked at him, and decided just to be ornery. “When we get the details figured out you'll be the first to know, I promise you.” I turned to look at Fawn, and she was watching both Cobb and I with that 'cop look'. She had sensed something and was looking for clues to what it was. Cobb decided to get surly at that moment, as his whole demeanor changed. He stood straighter, and a haughty sneer formed on his face.
“I do not care for human promises, I care about the Way being re-opened Ms Fatelli. That is your service. And that is all I care about.” the words grated out at odds with his bearing. What was he mad about? I'd think that we actually had an idea might have made him happy, yet here he was berating me because of something, and I had no clue what it was. “Thank you very much for showing up to yell at me, now could you go back to Underhill and get out of my hair? I'm working on the Way, tough if you don't like it. I'm getting the job done, that's what the bottom line is.”
We glared at each other for a few moments, and I caught Fawn smiling out of the corner of my eye. I started to turn to snap at her, but Cobb snarled, “Ms Fatelli, I expect to be kept abreast of developments, do so. I expect a report first thing tomorrow morning”, and he stepped out of the room and stalked to the front door. I started to go after him but Fawn grabbed my arm and held me back. I turned on her and pulled my arm free.
“What the hell are you doing? I'm going to go rip his face off!” “Ease up Fernie”, Fawn said, almost chuckling, but she grabbed my arm again, and this time held on hard enough that I couldn't get free. “Oooh, has he got it bad” she said with a laugh. “What are you talking about? What's he got bad? Oh I know, he's got a attitude that badly needs someone to smack around the block it a few times” I snarled at her.
“No Fern, what I mean is that he's got a crush on you! I'd never believe it if I hadn't seen it. A fae mooning over my sister.” I stared at her, slack jawed. Cobb infatuated with me? What the hell for? “You have got to be kidding me, that guy hates my guts. He backed me in a corner so I had to take the service, or he'd have made you do it!” “I know shorty, I know, you told us that already. But he is definitely after you Fern. I think you ought to talk to him some more. Maybe you can get him to help with that plan of yours.” My sister the matchmaker.
“Don't even think it Fawn, that guy is an arrogant prick that needs his ego shrunk seriously before I even think about something like that. And just where do you get off telling me that anyways, we just about got ourselves killed here if not for that idiot....” and that brought me up short. We did probably owe our lives to Cobb showing up here. I kind of felt bad about the fight now looking at it from that point, but what'd he expect us to do? Thank him? Yeah, that's exactly what he'd expected. And he got miffed when we didn't. I did owe the thanks, but it left a sour taste in my mouth. You don't expect thanks, you just enjoy it when you get it.
This was going to make working with him harder than ever. Now I had to do the job and not lead him on in any way. Everything I did would be magnified according to what he thought I meant. Gods what a stupid thing to happen. I just did my best to put it out of my mind and started helping Fawn and Larry clean up the mess in the front room. As soon as we finished, Larry cast a barrier over the door to keep the cold and unwanted visitors out until he could get a new door. I went back to my office to get some sleep before I went to see Cobb.

34

2008-03-14T08:31:00.001-05:00

I went back over to the Troykin section of Dayning again, and found Zik'k. “Hey Fernie, who's rich uncle did you catch being naughty?” He smiled, and walked over to the Hummer. “Needin' body guarding again?” “Not this time, I want to ask you about that creature that trashed the car. I hadn't done that when I had the chance earlier, and I want to know more about it.”
“That thing? I've never seen something like that, and I sure as hell don't want to have to again. It tore your car apart like tissue paper. The only reason it didn't catch me I think is that its pretty stupid. It tore the car into tiny chunks looking for me in it, and the fear it generated kept me running for an hour at least.” He got a serious look on his face. “That thing was definitely an outsider, I could feel it in my blood. I think it could feel me too, bub onbce ib los me ib coubn't find me again, so i don't think it can scent anyone.”
“Well, the biggest question is what did it look like? Maybe Larry and I can put our heads together and figure out what it is so we can do something about it next time it shows.” “I hobe you cab, I dob not want to fabe ib at all, but if Ib hab to, I want sobeting ob my sibe” Zik'k said. He sneezed and stepped back a ways to clear the zone of magic that was around me. “That's better” he sighed. “What it looked like was a flying zombie. Flesh was falling off of it, and it's wings looked like large flaps of wet skin. I don't remember much more as I was too busy running away to care.”
That sounded pretty descriptive to me. I thought we might be able to figure out what it was with that information. I know I never wanted to face it straight up. Now the thing I needed to figure out was how much my idea was feasible.

#

“You want the good news or the bad news first Fernie?” Larry asked me after I'd outlined my idea. “Just skip the good news bad news shtick and spell it out.” Larry gave me a irritated look, then sighed and explained it to me. “First off it's a good idea. Sympathetic magic makes things like making the tunnel along the bridge route feasible, the downside is the huge amount of magic needed to do it. You cast that spell, and everything within five hundred miles will know something BIG is happening. Anolyn would be certain to know where it was happening, you can't hide that.”
Larry plowed on before I could break in. “That doesn't mean it can't be done. We may be able to do the spell a little at a time, and with some manual labor, we could do the job.” “But what about that creature, both times I was up at along the strait, it came right at me. You think Anolyn knows somehow about the Way maybe re-opening?” Fawn snorted. “How could that overgrown lizard know anything? He's kept that island isolated and the curatin is death to anything trying to cross....wait....you said that thing Zik'k saw looked like a flying zombie?”
“Yeah, that's how he described it. A flying zombie.” I replied. “Okay, assume he knows something is going on and sent a dead thing through the barrier.” “Not so fast”, Larry said quickly. “That barrier clobbers anything going through it, and zombies would de-animate when they hit the barrier, so it has to be something someone conjured up on this side of the barrier.” “Or”, said Fawn, “maybe Anolyn has a secret way through his barrier?”
Larry stopped and stared at his wife. “Fawn, baby, I think you may have something there. Trouble is, that barrier is huge, and finding the hole in it would be like a search in a haystack for a needle. We could spend years looking.” “I don't think the service is supposed to take years. Anyhow, we need a better answer. Even if we found Anolyn's secret way, he'd have that guarded. Best thing to do is make our own”, Larry finished.
“So back to the question, how do we do that?” I said grumpily. “I mean the shortest distance is the bridge, and making a walkway would re-open the way the quickest. And making it and the people on it invisible would keep them from being discovered easily. It's the best all-round solution.” I finished speaking, and in that moment of quiet, we all heard a heavy, wet flapping sound, and I just about crawled out of my skin I was so very frightened. Larry and Fawn looked at me oddly and then a moment later, both of them felt the fear, and Larry grabbed Fawn and dashed into his work room. I followed hot on their heels.
Larry got Fawn into a silver circle that he used for his experiments there, and muttered a quick activating spell. I felt the spell go up just as the front door was ripped loose from the frame. That same unearthly roar that I'd heard before blasted through the house and the sound seemed to press on the barrier physically. Then there was a pulse of light and we felt heat waft over us and a scream came from the front room. I heard a familiar voice, Cobb, chant harshly and another waft of heat and light sprang to life with a roar in the front room, eliciting another roar of pain from the creature.
There was a heavy flapping, and silence fell around us. I heard a footstep crunch some glass, I think, and then we heard “Ms Fatelli? Is anyone here?” Cobb. Cobb had shown up here? “Hang on Fernie”, Larry whispered, “we don't know, wait.” We heard a shuffling in the front room and then the steps became louder, and Cobb stepped into the work room. He startled at seeing us, bringing his hands up and Larry chanted strengthening the barrier as he watched Cobb.

33

2008-03-13T09:24:00.001-05:00

Miserable was a good word. I started shivering around three o'clock and spent the rest of the night doing my best to stay warm. I didn't dare light a fire, I was afraid that the creature was still around, and a light at night would draw him from miles away. So I laid low, shivered and cursed silently the whole situation.
About four in the morning I heard a rustle in the bushes and tensed. Had it come back? not likely, I wasn't trying to piss myself and whatever that thing was, the fear it generated around itself was impossible to miss. So this was something else. I scrambled up the first tree I could, going as high as the branches would support me. Last thing in this woods I want ed to meet was one of the Black bears that populated the area. They may be a 'small' bear, but they're still bigger than me, so up I went.
I perched precariously on the upper branches and considered the situation. Zik'k was still out there somewhere and hopefully not having as bad a night. “Fern” came the harsh whisper from below me, “come on down.” “Zik'k, dammit, you scared the hell out of me just now.” I answered back with an angry whisper of my own. “Don't worry, I only saw one big bear and one little one together.” he whispered back up. I climbed back down slowly. Going up in the dark is pretty easy in a pine tree, even in the dark, coming down is a tad harder.
I joined Zik'k by the pine and he gave me the short version of his night. “Thing scared the hello out of me. I couldn't stop running after it got so close. All that mattered was gettin' away frub da ting... WAACHOO!... Ub Ferbie, Iba goad ober her abnd tabe a nab. Kib muh ib you iv you hear subding.” He walked a short distance away and curled up next to a pine, and actually drew the needles up and around him like a small nest, and passed out. I stayed awake and a short ways away so he wouldn't start sneezing. Next morning we got going at sunup and found the road by heading north and then orienting on the bridge, which was the tallest thing for that jutted out over the water. It took us another hour to walk into town.
I went over to the first public telephone I could find and dialed Fawn. She answered on the second ring. “Hello?” “Hi Amazon, it's me, can you pick me up at the bus station tomorrow? Something messed up my new car and bus doesn't run until tomorrow morning.” “Oh, gods Fernie, again? Sure, I can ask Larry to get you. Same time as yesterday?” “Yes” I said and hung up before my shakes got real bad. It had been bad and now that I felt safe, my body was reacting again. We managed to book two rooms, the manager was one of those folks that didn't care what you were so long as you paid for the room and didn't try to trash it out.
We caught the bus then next morning and Zik'k rode in the back so that he wouldn't go into paroxysms of sneezing while we rode back to Halifax. Larry met us at the depot and together we drove a suffering Zik'k back to his home, and then Larry and I went back to the house.
“So what is this thing that trashed two cars of yours in the last four days?” Larry asked me as he got me a cup of coffee. “I don't know. All I know is it has wings and that it scares the hell out of me as it gets closer to me. You should have asked Zik'k when you had the chance, he was the one who kept me from getting killed. He told me to run and then drew it's attention.” I shuddered. “I don't know how he handled being so close to that thing.” I told him.
“Troykin have got that touch of outsider to them, they can handle magick a lot better than most people realize. If he took off running like you said, then it was a pretty nasty piece of work sent after you. you're right, I should have talked to him.” He looked at me and favored me with his lopsided smile. “I just couldn't help but feel for him with the two of us in the car with him. Thank god I left the windows open, otherwise he'd have never got his head out in time.” I winced at remembering Zik'k, hanging half out the window and trying to get rind of last night's meal while we drove. Yeah, I had to feel for the guy too.
After buying another car, this time I got a little bigger car, and had spent a small fortune in getting a surplus Hummer. It had the removable roof and canvas replacements, which I threw in the back. The stand-up hatch was in place, and although the swivel had been pulled, it would be easy enough to stand up in and free hold a weapon if need be. I hoped that it was never used, but considering the last two cars, it probably would be.

32

2008-03-11T11:21:00.000-05:00

I walked to the bus depot the next morning and four hors later I was in Halifax, where Fawn picked me up. “Fernie, you okay then?” she asked me as I settled into the passenger seat. “I guess, I'm going to need a new car though. Whatever hit the car tore it in half.” I looked over at her, and she flicked her eyes between me and the road as she drove. I must have looked like a mess. I pulled the sunshade down and opened the mirror and took a look at myself.
Last night there had been no real visible bruises, but I now sported a growing splotch on my cheekbone. It didn't hurt, but it did feel hot and the skin felt taut over the bruise. “I got some bruises, but I don't have any broken bones, so that's something to be thankful for.” “I go with that”, she told me, and I could hear some of the tension in her voice leak away. I smiled at her and put a hand on her forearm. She smiled and relaxed a bit more and we drove in a comfortable silence back to my office.
Once there, I went to my small washroom and had a quick, cold shower, and got a change of clothes. I had thought abut the Anolyn Way for a good while on the trip back from Pictou. I'd looked at the ferry but there was a bridge that used to lead to the Island, but it had been devastated by Anolyn as his first attack at isolating Prince Edward Island. The bridge had been burned and melted all the way to rock. I wanted to go up to the site to look at where the bridge was and test an idea that Cobb's books had given me.
I'd noticed that the book had changed when the magick had been slowly teased out of it, but that some still remained. An echo of the bridge for lack of a better description. Maybe that echo could be strengthened in some way to make a way passable onto the Island. I went back to the Troykin and asked if I could hire Zik'k again for a short while. Again, the opportunity to get some good points with Larry helped me immensely and Zik'k was soon with me heading west towards the remains of the Confederation Bridge.
It had been built between New Brunswick and Port Borden on the Island. Twelve kilometers of concrete and steel. Anolyn had made sure it could never be used again. I was hoping that he had.

#

“Why'd you brig meeb adlong for dhis trib Ms Fatelli?” Zik'k asked me as we got in the car. “Something destroyed my other car and just about killed me if not for some blind luck. You're help in case something unpleasant shows its face.” “Bobdyguad.” He said past his allergies, but I caught the spark of interest in his eye. “Yeah, bodyguard.” “I cab do dhat.” he said and lay the seat all the way and sliding as far into the rear seat as he could to get away from my magick. I felt for him but I felt for me more.
Four hours later Zik'k and I stood on the point where the bridge once leapt over the water towards the Island. The remains of the bridge faced to the northeast. I grabbed my backpack and walked over to the bridge. I searched until I found a piece of concrete that had been cracked loose from the bridge, and put that in the pack. We then ascended the bridge to its ruined end, about twenty meters above the ground. I got out the piece of cement and scratched a circle with it on the roadway and placed the cement on the southwest, inside the circle. I then drew a charcoal ring around the first ring and scribed two runes on the northeast and southwest of the circle, roughly in line with the direction the bridge had extended.
I set up a slow chant like the wizards at the police station used, trying to pull anything up that might still hold a resonance of the bridge. It was really slow work and the sun had started to go down as the spell finally produced a result. A wispy shadowy form could be seen barely with my mage sight. There was an echo left of the magick. I laughed as I realized that there would have been nothing to pull if Anolyn hadn't been so intent on destroying the bridge completely that he'd used magick to create the complete devastation.
There was an echo. Now all I had to do was get a huge amount of luck and maybe we had the Way open. I had a few thoughts about that, and wanted to talk with Larry. Truth be known I was expecting something to try and hurt me again. That nothing had happened made me even a little more paranoid. Anticipation is always worse than the situation I'm convinced.
We got back to the car and the sun had almost set, a glowing hemisphere of brilliant orange-red that painted the sky a spectacular orange, and painting the clouds a bold orange and violet that about took my breath away. I stared for a moment, and caught a motion just on the edge of the sun, and that fear I felt came back. Zik'k had stiffened and looked at me. He'd felt it too.
“Trees. Now. Run.” he told me in a strong voice that took no argument. I bolted for the pines as fast as I could go. I suddenly heard Zik'k bellow and heard a car door open and slam shut, theh I heard the car door open and close again. I didn't look back but hit the trees and kept going in. I was scared almost witless by whatever was coming. There was a metallic tearing crash, and I heard someone's footsteps pounding along the earth. I saw a patch of dense brush and dove straight in, not worrying about any thorns. I huddle deep in the brush and the footsteps pounded by, and receded into the distance.
There was an inhuman scream that came from back up the hill, and I tried to burrow deeper into the brush, and then I stilled again, like a rabbit trying not to be seen. There was a slow, heavy feel to the steps I heard, and a harsh snuffling sound. A roar almost made me bolt from cover, but the desire to freeze overrode it and I stayed put but just barely. The creature roared again and then took flight with a heavy, wet-sounding flapping. As it receded, so did the fear, and after a few minutes, I finally dared move out of the bushes and remember that I had come with someone.
I tried to remember which direction that the footsteps went in. I turned to my right and began walking. After a few minutes I stopped and decided to wait. The sun had gone down and I wasn't sure which way the road was. The panic was so great that all both of us did was run. Things would look better in the morning, I just had to spend a cold night. Out here. In the dark. With something that wants to kill me. Life's a bitch.

31

2008-03-10T12:38:00.001-05:00

The last one really was an extension on our fact number 6.
6a. Dragons prefer magickal intelligent prey, as like certain creatures, dragons can absorb the magick that the creature holds and add it to their own, increasing their own reserve of magickal power. Dragons are known to actively hunt intelligent prey because of the magick inherent in them. I had a HUGE mass of magick attached to me from Ahiah. I would be a mother-lode for a dragon. This was definitely not something that was fun to know. Don't get me wrong, I'm really, really glad I knew it, I just didn't like that I had to know it.
I spent the rest of the week bringing books to the police station, and those three wizards, bless them, never complained about the job at all. Fawn told me later that it was a break from their normal routine and they had really got into working the job. I wasn't sure what I could do to thank them properly, but Fawn smiled and told me not to worry about that until after I'd gotten the way open and avoided begin dragon hor' douerves.
Which brought up the next order of business. How the heck to open the way in the first place. Anolyn had made the barrier not so much as impregnable as absolute death to cross. You could go through it any time you wanted, you just were dead when you got through it, regardless of what you went through in. Anolyn had set the barrier to kill anything that wasn't the rock the barrier rested on. That was why the clamshell rock boat had worked, it was made of the same rock the spell was on.
The knowledge of the clamshell rock boat and it's last resting place were lost to us, so that meant starting from scratch. I really don't like re-inventing anything, especially when it has a chance to so seriously kill me if I screw it up. The next thing to do would be to look at the barrier.
I drove to the coast town of Pictou, which had been at one time the Nova Scotia terminus for the ferry that ran between it and Wood Islands on Prince Edward Island before it had been walled in by Anolyn. The barrier could be seen, a whitish curtain that went up and arced back over the island, creating an irregular dome over the whole of the island. Nothing went in alive. Nothing came out alive. It got me to wondering why would such a creature like Anolyn want such protection?
I thought about that for a moment and threw it away. My job was to re-open the Anolyn way and beyond that, I had no reason to think of anything else. If I got this done, and if I lived, then I had things to think about. That's me, just little sweet sunshine.

#

Things were progressing quietly well, which considering my “real” job as a “sting” provider and a private investigator of some ill repute. Those tended to be quiet to a point then usually all hell would bust out as, well, I'm sure it's the magick Fawn and I both carry. A late friend pointed out that both of us had all this magick, and that magick itself saw that as a kind of imbalance, so to 'balance' things, weird stuff kept happening around us.
I really hated that explanation, but it made sense. I had to other acquaintances in the business, and neither of those two women ever had to contend with all the weird stuff that went on in my jobs. You'd think that with that kind of reputation, I'd have gone broke long ago because people generally are scared off by weird and unusual. Not the case with me. I always had a backlog, of better-off-than-average clients. Blame that on the magick too I guess.
I was driving back to Halifax when the attack happened. It was so fast and powerful that I didn't recognize it for an attack until I had a moment or two to think. I was on a gentle curve when a deer flashed in front of me. I instinctively swerved the car to miss the deer. I think that's what saved my life. There was a blow to the car that lifted it off the road and threw it into some pine. I felt a cold draft hit me and a tearing sound from behind the driver's eat somewhere. I had my seat belt on and so I wasn't thrown from the wreckage, but ended up being thrown about like a rag doll in the car before it fell through the trees and hit and rolled down next to a stream.
The car stopped in mid-stream, hitting a rock and coming to a sudden rest. I sat in the car for a long time, I'm not sure just how long. Something told me that I needed to stay absolutely still, and for a wonder, I did actually listen to my instinct. Fear helped a lot. You don't know what you can do until something scares you bad enough or threatens you badly enough that you act. My act was to play dead.
Later, when my fear went away, I pulled myself out of the car and looked at it before walking to the road. The rear half of the car had been torn off by something big, and was back up the hill a ways. The front end looked like a metallic ball that something chewed up and spit out. In all that metallic carnage, I did not sustain a single scratch. A hell of a lot of bruises though, and I ached on the walk back to Pictou to call Fawn and Larry and ask them if they could pick me up at the bus station the next day.

30

2008-03-08T07:40:00.001-06:00

This display of recklessness and high emotion coming from Cobb had me more than a little worried. Was this going to be another maneuver on his part to get me to hand off the service? He turned and walked off a short distance and stood, as if he was contemplating something. There was such a tension in the air, it almost smothered me with smell like burning paper. He straightened and the smell spiked. Then it cut off like it never existed. “My apology Ms Fatelli, for being so abrupt. Continue your service, you may take the books you choose back to your world.” He turned on me and I could smell a desperate anger, like burning pine, and a hint of lemon...desire?
“You only get to keep them for one day, then they must be back in the library.” He quirked a smile. “You can, always take them out the next day, but they will be back in the library by sundown on your world.” He turned on me and I smelled something dry and dusty like chalk. He'd walled himself up emotionally. That saddened me for some reason, and then I got angry with myself and shook the mood off. “Deal, we'll try it for a few days, but I may need a book longer than that.”
“Only for the day, Ms Fatelli. And only in your possession. That is the deal.” He walked off and was gone before I could gt a word in to argue. I wondered if a skill like that could be learned. I snarled irritably and put the glasses on, and went into the library. The glasses worked all right. EVERYTHING in the library had magick on it. But there was a little difference in some magicks and I could pick faint shades of difference. I mean it looked all pale yellow, but some of the yellow graded more towards ivory, and the shelves glowed with a richer almost saffron yellow.
I took a shelf of twelve books and laid them on the floor, much like Larry did to show me how the glasses worked. The books all glowed, but one near the left of the line seemed to glow oddly compared to the others. I chose that one and two others that seemed a different glow than the background. Whether it meant anything I'd figure out when I got them to Fawn. I think that 'only in your possession' meant that I couldn't leave them out of sight, which was fine by me. I wanted to see how they, meaning Fawn's hired wizards, would study these books. It was the perfect excuse to tag along.
I left Underhill and drove back to Halifax, and met Fawn at the police station. I was way earlier than anyone expected so I had to wait for about three hours with the books before they could set up a room the way the wizards wanted it. I walked into one of the interrogation rooms, and there was iron mesh along all the walls, and each wizard had a machete's like mine, plated with silver. There were two large tables pushed together and a piece of black paper covered the tables. Ont the paper was drawn like I did, a salt circle, and then a chalk one with the protective sigils in between the two.
One book was placed in the center of this circle and the other two were, at my insistence, placed in a second small circle in one corner away from the main circle. The wizards then began a low, slow chant. From the few words I caught, and Fawn later confirmed, they were trying to slow the magic down and unravel it whole from the book so it could be understood. As they got further into the spell, I put the glasses that Larry made back on to better see what was happening.
The spell, or magick was slowly coalescing slightly above the book, which had started to suddenly get a worn, tired look as if years of time had finally started to wear it away. As the spell extraction progressed, the book aged before my eyes, and everyone else's. There was like an echo of what the book was, and what it was becoming as the magic was pulled away from it. Fawn called a stop before the magic was completely pulled from the book, and it snapped back into place like a rubber-band, and the book looked clean and well-cared for once more.
The wizards looke at the two books, and I did with my wizard sight. The top book of the two seemed to have a slightly whiter glow to it than the other, and the wizards chose that one next to try and tease apart. The circles were checked before the the book was placed, and once the three wizards were satisfied, they began the chanting again. My magick sight I left up as it was a lot more sensitive than the glasses, and I watched as the whitish magick was slowly teased out from the book.
In Japan, I read that for their culture, white is the color of death, and looking at the whitish glow of magick in front of me, I got a very frightened chill that made me agree with that idea. If ever a spell looked lethal, it was this one. The white color pulsed as if it was pulling things in and bleaching everything it touched into a dry brittle color that would powder away into nothing.
The wizards also saw this and their cadence slowed, and each word was pronounced with more clarity and care from an already careful trio of wizards. This was one spell I instinctively never wanted to see activated. After about fourty minutes of careful teasing of the spell, it was finally free of the book and the wizards aggressively unraveled it. I understood, as everyone in the room did, that the spell would have aged the opener of the book to powder. Score one for the good guys.
The last book was like the first one, a spell to keep the book intact and clean. So of the three I believed the one with the spell on it was the one we wanted to look at as soon as possible. I thanked the wizards and gave Fawn a sisterly hug, and went back over to the entrance to Underhill and back to Cobb's library. I placed the book on the desk and began to study the pages inside. After finsihing the book I could add two more pieces of information to our list about dragons.
9. Dragons have inherent shape-shifting ability, being able to mimic anything from a large dog to another dragon. They could never go bigger than they are, but they could go obviously quite a bit smaller. Plus, while shifted, they were as vulnerable as the creature the creature they mimicked was to damage of any kind. Which meant to me that dragons didn't shift unless there was a real reason to do so. That reason was so that they could cast external spells. Dragons were magickal in their own body so magick could not be cast from them. A dragon had to change shape to make a casting like the one Anolyn did. Something really to keep in mind.

29

2008-03-07T10:16:00.000-06:00

Yeah, big time powerful. The advantage is that, well dragon magic had all the advantages. I wondered how the hell I was supposed to beat that. The only way I could think of was by being sneakier, or getting lucky and stumbling onto something Anolyn overlooked when he made the barrier. Our research said that dragons used internal magic exclusively, meaning they never tried to make bargains with outsiders, nor did they borrow from the world itself.
Might be something else we could use. What bothered me was how did those shades get placed on two books that both dealt with some specific dragon information and could be used against dragons if it was known. All I could think was that someone working for a dragon must have done the job as dragons don't get that small. Which brought the question to mind, 'or do they?'
I grabbed Larry and Fawn and pulled them back into the living room, and explained about the shade and the second one and how the books were scorched when they were beaten and banished. “What if, dragons can change form? I mean you're already saying that their magick is mostly internal already. What if that's another skill they have?
Larry and Fawn looked at each other. Fawn finally asked, “Can you try and find some more books that have been warded? I think we can remove the shades or whatever the ward is if we can deal with it out here.” “I'm not sure, but I'll ask. Cobb was cut up pretty bad, and I haven't seen him since we banished the shades, so I'll start with the others that he had talked with about using their libraries.”
Larry spoke after Fawn was done. “Short stuff, I'm going to make a magic finder. I wish I'd have thought of this sooner, then you wouldn't have had to fight those two shades. But I can set it up to show you if there's magick on an item, which means we may get a lot of false alarms. I remember some of the fae I talked to made mention of having some books preserved magically.”
“It beats having to open each book and see if I get attacked again. I can put up with false alarms” I told him. “Okay, it will be a day or so. I'll see you then Fernie.” “Okay Larr. See you later.” I drove on back home, in a better mood than in a long time. We'd made some solid progress, identified some possibilities, and maybe got a device that would keep me from getting bit by magick. I sure hoped so.

#

I drove back over to Fawn and Larry's the next day after Larry called and said he wanted to have me test the new magick finder. Larry laid out four books, then handed me a pair of reading glasses with plain glass put in them instead of the magnifying lenses that normally were there. “Put 'em on and tell me what you see?” I did as he asked and looked at the four books. The one on the end to my left had a slight yellowish glow to it. “That one has a yellow glow” I pointed out to him.
“Good that's one of mine I put a screamer on. Not a big piece of magick, but a loud one” he said with a grin. He rubbed his hands together. That test worked so why don't you go back to Cobb's and see if there are any texts that have some magick on them that didn't fry in your little shady fight.” I just about punched him for the bad pun.
I went back to the Underhill entrance, and Cobb was there, waiting for me. “How'd you know I'd be coming?” I asked him as I got out of my car and shouldered my backpack. “I knew that it was time for something here, but I didn't know it would be you.” Fae, cryptic as secret codes. I really didn't like that, magick makes all sorts of wild coincidences possible, and with Cobb being here at teh exact time I should be showing up to go back to Underhill? I didn't think it was much of a coincidence. The three choices I had was a) he had me followed. b) he got lucky, or c) something got him here. I was betting it was that last choice.
Now I really didn't want to go back to Underhill. Things got messy every time magick began throwing out coincidences and portents. It hadn't been up to now, so it made me wonder why the sudden coincidence causing? I hadn't done anything except get Larry to make the glasses, which suddenly made a little more sense as I thought about it. Cobb just watched me as I stood there trying to puzzle out something that was bothering me.
“Hey Cobb, you believe in coincidence? Please say yes,” I told him. “I need a good laugh right now and that would do it for me.” He frowned as if he was trying to puzzle it out, bu after a few moments he gave up and led me back to his room with the booths.
“Any chance you'll let me take a few books back to my world for reference? It would help me a lot.” He frowned at me and said with a touch of sarcasm, “I know you remember? You can't read the texts without the desk to read them on. Cease this lying and ask me straight out what you want. It will save us both time, unless you want me to say no now and we can forget about whatever it is your lying to me about.”
Directness from a fae, well wow. “I want the books so I can have them checked to see if others have shades on them or some kind of magical trap. I want to do it out here where people I know have better skills than I do and can maybe not have the book blow up in my face or get another shade trying to do me fatally like our last little dispelling did.” He got me wound up again, how one question can do that I don't know, but I was upset with him. “Besides, how the hell did those books get in a library like yours without a spell caster such as yourself knowing about the damn things?”
“Spell caster such as myself? Great gods woman, that thing surprised me as badly as it did you! I had no knowledge of it, or the other, until you brought it to my attention!” “Why is that?” I shouted angrily back. “Don't you even know ...” and I saw pain in his eyes. It was a kind of pain that just isn't, and cannot be faked. He didn't know. He really didn't know about the shades. He started to speak, then changed his mind and ushered me into Underhill. We moved at a speed and recklessness that he had never used before, and in mere seconds we were inside his halls.

28

2008-03-05T08:13:00.001-06:00

The two pressed Cobb down on the bed gently, removed their hands and filed out of the room, pausing to escort me back out of the doorway and into the main room again. “Will he be all right?” I felt a twinge of concern. The guy did after all put his butt on the line with me, that had to count for something. Unless it was supposed to go down that way, it was quite a coincidence having a second shade hiding in the room guarding a second book. I shook my head and threw the thought away. Cobb had things so swirled up that I was getting overly paranoid.
I walked back into the library and looked at the book in the circle. I t had been scorched, and some of the pages burned from the book. I guess someone didn't want the book read by prying eyes like mine. I looked to the shelves for a similar scorch mark, figuring if the shade WAS actually guarding a book, I might see the same result when it was destroyed by Cobb. A quick scan of the room showed no scorch marks. Maybe it was my magic spell that caused it to burn? No telling at this point. Best thing that I could do was to keep researching.
I went back to the books, lacking anything else productive to do. For the next week, I went over the books, reading legends from the dim past, observations, both recent and ancient. Speculation on speculation. I have to admit, the fae have a love of forming opinions and recording them in the most long-winded, obscure, and sideways manner. I had to take breaks every ten to twenty minutes to keep my head from aching with frustration as the writers slowly approached their subject amidst flowery phrases and foggy passages.
I suppose if you wanted to say that was how they protected their information, making it so hard to read that no one would want to, maybe you might be right. I was certainly getting closer to that opinion with every book I read that fae had dictated or copied. After each day Larry, Fawn and I would go over to the police gym to do self defense with Fawn and her team, and push weights to decompress. Then it was over to Larry and Fawn's to put all our heads together and see what we had.
After four weeks of research, reading, referencing and more reading, we got what we thought was the best picture about dragons and their magick.
1. Dragons are very long-lived, possibly immortal unless felled by illness or violence.
2. Dragons are highly intelligent, and coupling this with their lifespan, they could very well be way past human genius.
3. Dragons are easy to damage and extremely hard to kill. This is because of their ability to hide the essence of their existence in concentrated somewhere in their bodies. Unless you hit the right spot, you could theoretically blow them half to pieces and they'd grow back in a matter of moments, which I'm sure is very painful, and would give the dragon a real motivation to doing unto the author of their hurt. They have scales like lizards, and in large dragons these get tough to penetrate. Bullets will do the job, but also garner the shooter a LOT of unhealthy attention.
4. Dragons have many dangerous natural weapons. Don't laugh, claws as big as your thigh in the rally big dragons, teeth straight and needle like, and long as your forearm. And, yes, they breathe fire. Their mouths are set up like a natural combustion chamber. Three chemicals come together in the mouth, fuel, oxidizer, and one that jells the mix together. and whoosh, napalm barbeque at two hundred yards.
5. Dragons are inherently magickal.. They not only can concentrate their essence, but they can work spells. The three we cataloged are mostly body control, such as hardening of their scales, and giving their teeth and claws razor sharpness. The 'fireball' magic is the scary one. The dragon works up a mouthful of two of the three chemicals, casts a squeezing and aiming spell on the material, and adds the third chemical. Reports of one-thousand yard shots of exploding dragonfire we found throughout the personal accounts.
A few modern records of Anolyn's fight with four Canadian CF-18 Hornets, resulting in a wounded pissed off dragon and four obliterated Hornets. The report went that Anolyn attacked Prince Edward island, and the Four Hornets were scrambled from Bagotville to intercept, the aircraft broke into two flights and one circled while the other attacked. Because of his lack of heat and maneuverability, the sidewinders failed to get a hit, and the Hornets went to guns and the first burst hurt Anolyn.
The dragon recovered before hitting the ground and a fireball engulfed the Hornets and obliterated one, and the other crashed when the heat caused the engine to flame out. The other two had the same difficulty with their missles, and Anolyn's fireballs tracked the maneuverable CF-18's and blew them out of the sky.
6. Dragons seem to prefer intelligent prey, and more than one ancient scholar stated that this was because the dragon saw intelligence as a threat to it, and thus killed anything showing any kind of problem-solving ability in it's territory. Others thought it was just that dragons saw intelligent creatures as more sporting to hunt.
And this is the thing's territory I was going to invade, and try to set up an underground railroad out of without turning into a burnt and crispy snack.
7. Dragons are sensitive to magick, and magickal weaponry can kill them without having to strike their essence. This was the information out of the two scorched books that the Halifax police were able to pull from the scorched and burned pages. They'd copied each page faithfully in the language it was written, and I took the pages back to Cobb's library where the desk translated them for us.
8. Dragon magic is subject to different rules than fae magic, and also from human magic. This meant that my magic might not be able to affect Anolyn's effectively unless we were able to find a way that wouldn't have me going straight at it. The plus side is that human magic affects, and is unfortunately affected by every other magic. It's kind of like human magic is the base or origin for the others. Just a guess on my part, but that turned out to be a useful observation later, who knew?
Basically, Dragon magic came from the dragon itself, and dragons had a BIG mess of magic to call from. Their spells were both devious and extremely powerful. The fae noted that taking down a spell from one dragon that had put a bubble over five fae wizards remained in place until three more fae wizards were able to join the other five in the dispelling.

27

2008-03-04T09:39:00.001-06:00

He looked like he was ready to continue to argue, but instead he stepped back and stood there, looking at me for a moment. “All right, I will allow this once, but I assist in the preparations, and the spell, or you will not enter Underhill.” He started talking again before I could voice any objections. “This is MY house Ms Fatelli, and you work for me, not the other way around. You owe me the service, and YOU will perform it. I will not have you renege now.”
I got mad, no build up at all. Just incandescent fuckity-mad. He'd hit every attitude button dead-on. “You want it done, I'll do it, but I don't HAVE to do it your way. I just have to get the service done and fuck-all if it isn't the way you want it. Now either let me back there or call the judge and explain to him why I'm not finishing your so-fucking-precious-god-damned service!” He looked at me like one would look at a particularly disgusting piece of trash. I started to wind right up again, but he held up a hand.
“All right, I have already said that you can perform this one spell, this one, and no others. I will assist and I will be part of the spell, start to finish. It is MY house, and you will abide by the rules therein.” That was fine by me, in fact better than fine. I got to keep my eye on him and if he pulled anything devious, it would be where I had a chance to spot it before I got surprised.

#

It took us a few minutes to get set up. Cobb was all over everything, and the book was placed unopened on the floor beyond the new circle of protection that just circled the desk. Cobb finished the salt circle, and drew the chalk one about a handspan's width out side it, then scrawled the proper marks inside the ring the two circles made. I set the candles, one black, one white on the north and south axis of the circle.
I lit the white one and left the black one unlit, and started the chant. It was in Latin so I have no idea what I was saying, but I have a good memory and Larry had made me memorize the spell before he let me pack off back here. As the chant built, The shade wisped from between the pages of the book and solidified in the circle . It tore at the barrier, but could not harm it, or escape.
As we got to the midway point of the spell, the shade started frantically throwing itself against the walls of the barrier, and pieces started breaking off of it and dissipating like smoke. We reached the midway point and the shade was throwing itself madly and powerfully at the barrier, which had taken to flaring a whitish black color as the shade attacked it. There was a sudden flare to one side of our protection circle, and Cobb swore as we saw a second shade, this one outside the circle, flicker into view momentarily, then disappear into the shelves. I did not falter, but two shades was a surprise and our situation had changed.
If I had followed through on going alone on this, I'd have been up to my eyeballs in trouble. As It was, both Cobb and I were in trouble, but only about chest high in trouble. I kept the chant up, and the trapped shade began unraveling faster, pieces drifting away like smoke. he other shade, whom the spell was also affecting, redoubled it's efforts to breach our protective circle. It's efforts were starting to show some effect.
There were areas where what looked like wind had partly blown on the chalk outer circle of our barrier. The shade had been worrying that point consistently, and the circle was weakening. You can fight a shade, and come out on top if you're prepared to do it, but my experience made me think even if you were prepared, you're still going to get hurt badly beating one.
“Do not stop the chant”, Cobb growled at me, watching the second shade attack the barrier again. “I can deal with this. Just make sure you finish that chant or we're fighting both of these creatures, not just the one.” I heard him start up a chant of his own and I kept at mine. The shade in the circle was weakening rapidly, and would soon be gone, but I almost faltered when Cobb cursed in fae, and I felt the barrier go down.
One thing about spells like the one I was casting. They take time, and they take time because you have to get the pacing right so that the magick works effectively. Too fast and it starts expending itself before you have it focused. Too slow and it doesn't build up properly and begins to dissipate before you're finished. So I had to keep cadence exact or the spell would unravel.
I saw Cobb step out of the circle in the corner of my eye, and turn away from me to face something. It had to be the shade. Since it was in the room, it was being affected by the spell also. What was being done to the trapped shade I couldn't do to the other shade, but the spell could, and was affecting it. Hopefully wakening it and hurting it.
As I chanted, I caught quick glimpses of the fight. Cobb braced up and threw himself at smoke, mumbling some chant as he did. I saw the flicker freeze for a moment and Cobb slashed a silver sword through some thing that gave off a scream that I couldn't hear, but feel. I felt blind, hungry rage. They disappeared out of view, which for me was worse than if Cobb had stayed in it, as I didn't know at all who was winning that fight.
I finished the chant with the proper flourish and the last of the the trapped shade sublimated away. As I finished, I heard a muttered curse and a thud as something solid hit the floor. I turned around, rising to a half-crouch and ready to dodge if the shade came at me. I saw Cobb, on his knees dripping blood from deep cuts all over him. I scrambled over to him and looked for the shade.
Cobb caught my look and mumbled “Don' worry, it's.... gone back where was call from....”, and he fell forward, smacking the floor and not moving, and no sound except for the irregular wheezing breaths. I tried to drag Cobb out into the main room, but I couldn't budge him.
I stepped into the main room and yelled for assistance, and two fae came and had me help bandage the worst of Cobb's wounds. Then the two of them joined one pair of hands while standing on either side of Cobb and touched him with their others. Cobb lifted off the ground like he weighed nothing and they moved him out into the hall and down to another phone booth. I followed and found myself back in the long hallway that led to the hexagonal infirmary/bedroom.

26

2008-03-03T05:10:00.003-06:00

She shrugged her shoulders and looked at the kitchen archway, from which some savory odors had started to waft out of. She turned back to me and said “It's not much of a stretch to think you were specifically targeted with the shade by someone. But I don't see why.” “You think he tried to put a hurt on me to get to you and Larry? That would really be the pits Fawn.”
She looked off into thin air momentarily as she thought about that. After a moment she shook her head. “I don't think so short stuff, if you are hurt or killed while on his grounds, he is responsible for your death, and if I'm remembering right, he would owe Larry and I something for your dying” she finished. “So I die he gets screwed?” I mused. A situation like that sure didn't make Cobb a very like person to have called up the shade. If I had been a bit slower to the door, it would have gutted me.
“Comes back to the question, why? What's the motive? who would want the whole service screwed up?” That made me think back to Judge Kaddas and his little conversation - I do not like ..... Mr. Cobb. We have crossed in the past, and now I find I have an opportunity to ruin a plan of his. Your knowing changes the situation beyond his ability to control, and he hates losing control of anything.”
Pretty thin to my thinking, but I told Fawn about it and she decided to look in on the Judge. Me, I got to go back to the books, but with a little equalizer. I can do spells of my own and one I do know is the circle of protection. I don't like casting spells as it takes me a long time to set up and invoke them, but now the time was worthwhile as I did not want another set of razor cuts along my back.
I ran a circuit of salt around the whole edge of the room, and then sat to focus and invoke. For charms I had a small piece of glass and a flashlight. My ability to concentrate was crap so it took me about thirty minutes to do a five minute spell. But once I was done, I felt the fuzzy hum of the spell. I went back to my books and started in on the one I had opened just before I got attacked.
I took a deep breath and placed the book back on the desk, and waited a moment. Nothing happened and I let my breath go. I had thought the shade might have been with the book, and if it had, my picking it up ought to have called it forth. The book was on dragon life-cycles, and some of the things I had read had been paraphrased from this text.
Dragons, it began, were conceived outside of the magic, and yet part of it. Zagyg speculated that dragons were the source, but later experiments.. and my ward suddenly pressed on me as the shade tried to get through. It's source was the book and when it materialized, the ward thrust it bodily out of the protected area, pushing it into the bookshelves. The shade struggled and pressed against the ward, but could not work its way to me, and if I left the circle or someone stepped in, it would break the enchantment and the shade would be free again in the room.
I sat for a moment and tried to decide what to do at this point. It couldn't get to me, so I took a moment to figure what to do. Running out into the room would break the enchantment and leave the shade free to continue guarding the book. Taking the book with me and reading it out in the main room was out of the question, and the shade would probably follow the book. Dispelling the shade would be the best solution, and although it would take time, I had time to use. I closed the book and threw it flat like a flying disc. It rotated and landed on the floor and skidded towards the corner furthest away from the room. The shade started for the book and I bolted for the door. I dove through the entrance and came up shaking, the shade was at the doorway, and I could feel it's focused gaze upon me. Then, like before, it vanished into the shadows.
I went and talked to Larry about dispelling the shade, and he showed me how to set the circle around the book, the incantations, and the finish. “You sure you want to do that alone short stuff? I'd be more than glad to help you, and shades can be pretty tough to handle alone, even when you know what you're doing.” “You saying that I don't Larry?” I asked him. He held up his hands in mock-surrender. “Okay, okay, I won't go with you. Just please be careful Fernie, I want you around to watch your niece or nephew grow up.”
I went and got the items I needed and went back to the Underhill entrance. Cobb was waiting for me again at the entrance and when he saw what I had in the backpack this time, his eyebrows went up and said “No, this will not be allowed.” “What won't be allowed?”, I asked him. He gestured at my backpack. “This, all of your items in where will not be allowed in. I will not have you casting human spells in my house.” “I already did that Cobb, and I plan on doing it again to get rid of that damned shade.”

25

2008-02-28T07:43:00.001-06:00

“Thanks ever so much for your concern” I said acidly. “Now how about you tell me what that place was you had me in?” He looked at me with a very neutral expression, apparently trying to decide whether I had really just tried to insult him. “It was a bedroom. Nothing more, nothing less. Was there something wrong with it?”
I ignored his question and threw out another of my own. “What was that silver floating ball?” He looked at me for a moment, and I smelled something that my brain recognized as speculation. “That is a monitor, easily given simple commands to perform, such as waking one up at a certain time.” “So why was it hovering next to the bed I was in?” “It was there to alert my servants that you were awake and to place your” his lip curled slightly as he looked by sweat clothes over, “garments on the bed so you could clothe yourself.”
“So how long has it been since I got hurt?” Keep firing questions, maybe I could sneak one in that would give me an idea what he was planning next. “It has been four days, quite a fast time to recover from a nearly fatal attack.” “Nearly Fatal?” “Yes, the doctor said the attack slashed between your ribs and nicked your aorta. It took all his magick to repair it and hours of work to stitch everything back into place before he was ready to have his assistant encourage healing.”
I guess I did get lucky. “Must have been a good doctor to get me up and ready to go so fast.” He looked at me. I mean REALLY looked at me like a parent would to an idiot savant. It smelled like desire, and contempt, and fear all rolled together. It made me wonder if he smelled me here. He said carefully, “The doctor said that your wounds would take weeks to heal properly. That it took only four days is interesting.”
“Meaning what?” He was making me nervous with that unblinking stare he gave me. “Meaning nothing at the moment. Maybe something later.” He turned and went back into the booth he'd appeared from. I tried to follow but ran into a solid wall when wouldn't let me past. So much for continuing my argument. I hadn't even gotten to asking about what attacked me, which made me think that Cobb didn't want me asking that question. I decided to go talk with Larry and see if he'd figured anything new out about dragons, and if he got lucky, maybe Anolyn.
“Nothing much new here so far, but I'm only about halfway through all the books I pulled, so we might find something out still.” Larry and Fawn had been very happy to see me up and about so quick, and Fawn suggested I come back out to the gym to practice my self-defense in case I really needed it. It was a good idea, and I promised Fawn I'd see her after I was cleared by the doctor for that kind of activity. No sense in pushing things too much.
Fawn shooed Larry off to start dinner and she and I sat down to discuss what might have attacked me. She asked me to turn around and when I did she lifted my shirt to look at the scar. “Uh, Fern, I can barely see the scars, they must have used some pretty potent magick to fix you up.” “Honestly Fawn, I'm not sure. That Cobb guy acted surprised that I was up and about so soon.” “Well, I can't tell what attacked you from the scars, but whatever it was happened to be very sharp. I don't see any tug marks at all.”
“Maybe that's why some of it healed faster, no tears or rips” I said. “Maybe, but it doesn't answer why you were attacked, just what did it if we can even figure that out.” Fawn answered me. She had shifted into cop mode, and had picked up a piece of paper and was tracing the scars on my back while we talked. She had finished the first, uppermost one and was working on the next one. “You said it was flickering? Was that because of the lighting, or was that the creature itself that was flickering?” “I think it was the light, though when I looked at it when it was in the archway, it seemed to flicker with the torches.”
“Best guess without seeing would be some kind of shade then, which would also make sense as it needs shadows to exist and move about. No shadows, no shade. You said it felt like cobwebs when you passed through it?” “Yeah, it was like running into a dense bunch of spiderwebs.” Fawn finished the last scar, straightened and stretched her back, and let me see her drawing.
Three thin cuts ran parallel to my ribs, right in between them. Who or whatever did the cutting knew how to aim or was just lucky. I figured the former. Always figure skill over luck. “So if it's a shade like you say, what can I do to protect myself against it?” “Holy water works best on shades I remember. We've dealt with one or two, but they're fairly rare. But usually they don't attack so much as try to frighten people away from whatever they left behind, or I remember one case where a shade was forced to guard a wooden box for a magician.”

24

2008-02-26T16:07:00.001-06:00

I woke up a little later to an argument going on nearby. “She is incapable of performing the service, and the ebt remains. Either her sister picks up the service, or a volunteer. Or I have my choice of compensation!” I heard Cobb snarl out. “She was attacked on your premises, wounded in your house, and under your so-called protection when the attack occurred. It seems to me that the judge may see that as not fulfilling your end of the agreement, even to the point of deliberately allowing her to be attacked so that you could coerce someone else into accepting the service.” said a familiar voice I recognized as Larry's after a few groggy moments.
“Who's imacabipple of tahrner?” My mouth was obviously not on the same channel as my brain was. It took a few more moments for everything to start working together. “Who's not capable?” I said much more clearly, and the argument outside my room ceased like a light switch being flipped. Larry stepped through the open doorway and walked to the side of the bed. “Hey short stuff, you must be feeling better, I can hear the delicate contrariness in your voice.” He smiled as he talked, and I smiled back, or I think I did.
“Do you remember what happened Fernie?” I went through there myself and couldn't find a trace of anything except your blood starting at the doorway.” I sat up groggily, and despite a pounding headache, told Larry the details of what I remembered, diving through the legs that felt like cobwebs, the flickering of the shadow as the attacker moved around. and the shadow at the doorway after I escaped the library and got back into the main room.
“What I want to know is what the hell it was, and why it attacked me. That doesn't make sense to me at all. What am I digging into that's got somebody so nervous?” I said woozily. It was hard to focus with the headache driving a nail in my skull with every heartbeat. I wanted to go back to sleep, but some stubborn part of me wanted to stay awake just to hear what Cobb was going to say, so I could try and figure out what he was planning next. Even stubbornness though, doesn't trump medications, and I relly don't remember passing back into sleep.
I woke again a few hours later and levered myself back upright in the bed. The room was hexagonal in shape and ornate columns that looked of carved marble stood at each corner. I didn't know any human hospitals that looked like this, so I had to still be in Underhill. There was a small sphere hovering just next to my pillow as I looked to my left. It was silvery and emitted a warming hum as I observed it. When I moved to get out of bed, it rose away from the bed and floated out the archway, and I felt the breeze of it's movement as a brush along my entire body, which is how I came to realize I was completely naked in the bed.
I levered myself off the raised bed and looked for the bathroom. I went in to look for mu clothes or some kind of robe to put on, but I didn't find anything other than a towel, which I quickly wrapped around me. I came back into the bedroom again and found that my sweat suit had been repaired and laid out on the bed for me. No one had come in that I know of. I shrugged and put it down to magick. Underhill is full of it I suppose.
All this time I kept listening for other voices or some kind of activity, but I heard absolutely nothing. I heard my own breathing and my own heart beat. It bothered me that it was so quiet. I walked out into a grayish hall. It was well-lit, but everything had a wispy quality to it, as if the first strong wind would tear it all asunder. My room was at the end of the hallway, so I went down the hall towards what I hoped was the exit.
There was an opaque curtain over the exit , and I brushed it aside and entered.... out of a phone booth and back into Cobb's main hall of booths. Cobb emerged from another phone booth next to the one I had exited and faltered slightly as he recovered from his surprise. “I didn't expect to see you active so soon after being wounded as you were. The human doctor indicated that you would need a lot of rest to heal properly.”

23

2008-02-25T06:38:00.001-06:00

So I haunted the other white phone booth, and found that all of the books there were illegible. I got frustrated and brought one book back with me to see if I could find anything that I might match up with one of the English books. I found one that had the same type of covering and the same embossed sigil on the front, which meant to me this one was probably identical in content to the other, just translated to English from the original.
I put the book down on the reading table and turned to the front page, and two identical translated pages sat in front of me. I blinked and about feel out of the chair in surprise. I could have sworn it not translated. I went over to the shelf and pulled a book at random, and looked at it. It was complete gibberish. I took it over to the desk and laid it down and opened it. It was in English. The circle must hold a spell that translated the books to English, or maybe to the main language of the reader as long as she was inside the circle.
I decided to go against my instinct and looked with my wizard sight, and just about went blind. Everything glowed, and glowed fiercely to my sight. It hurt like looking at Cobb had hurt. Everything seemed to have magic pouring out, forming a glowing haze that surrounded me like a bright, blinding fog. I shut my eyes and waited for the after flashes to go away. I hate it when my instinct is right and I ignore it. When my eyes cleared I went back to the book and looked it over.
The book I had pulled was one on romantic poetry. I began checking the shelves to see where the books had resided before being placed in that pile by the desk. I found all eighteen locations, and they were clustered on three shelves, which made me think the shelves were organized in some way. I took all the books down from those shelves, and set them by the desk.
As I got ready to look through the first of the books, Cobb came in and looked around. “Are you done yet?” he said, and I had to bite my tongue to keep from tearing into him. “Why didn't you tell me this translated the books? I could have gone through them rather than trying to fine English copies.” I snarled at him testily. I had been reading and making notes that I forgot to eat, and my temper and stomach were both at me to go find something to eat.
Then I smelled something different from him. Chagrin. He actually felt embarrassed that he had forgotten to tell me about the desk. He gave me an explanation sounding like he was bored, but there was a definite odor of embarrasment. “To use the table you just place the book on the table and it changes the script to what you are used to reading. You can ask the table to collect particular books by saying out loud the information you want” he finished saying, and left hurriedly.
That was way out of character for Cobb, and it bothered me to think he might be trying to manipulate me even now that I was working on this service he'd tricked me into. I set aside the books and exited the room and went back home to get some food. I decided to stop by Larry and Fawn's to see how his luck researching things had gone. We had arranged to meet at a small restaurant called “Hole in the Wall” near his shop. We sat down, ordered our food and then got to talking business.
“Dragons are a serious piece of bad news Fernie. I have everything I could find out so far here” he said as he handed me a spiral notebook. It was about a third full of notes. “You can look through it but most of the stuff isn't in any kind of order so it may not make sense. I think I'll need about four to five more days to go through the basic stuff. Probably another month to track down all the esoteric entries and collate my notes into a readable report. How about we set up a time each day to compare notes we have?”
I looked over at my brother-in-law. The thought of Cobb using him to open the Way back up really angered me. That I was used to try and make that happen angered me more, and that helped keep me focused. I shoved those thoughts aside and got a smile to my face and said, “sounds good. I'll bring mine tomorrow. Meet at the downtown library?”
“Yeah, that's great Fernie, I can work until you get there. I have a few friends watching the shop for me while I'm doing this, so I'm not losing any business.” He chuckled and looked at me with his lopsided smile. “I'd forgotten how much fun it is just to do research. Thanks Fernie.” “Thank you Larry, without you, this would be a real pain to do.” I told him. the water brought our meals and we tucked in to a good dinner. I beat Larry to the check. I'd hired him after all, and it was fun to see him grump about me paying.
I went back the next morning and Cobb again escorted me to Underhill, and to his mansion. He didn't say one word to me the whole time, which didn't bother me at all. Talking meant he was trying to manipulate me, so I enjoyed the silence. I went back to the first white phone booth and stepped through. the books had been stacked neatly next to the table, and the torches flickered and the shadows danced on the wall shelves as I walked to the desk and set my backpack down.
As I straightened, i caught a glimpse of something that flickered and sped towards me. Instead of bracing for an impact I pulled the same trick I had used before, dive into the legs. I passed tough some thing that felt dry cold, and cobwebby, and something fell in front of me in complete silence. I rolled to my feet and took a step towards my backpack, and then sprinted for the doorway. I exited into the room just as something shredded the back of my sweatshirt.
I felt a cold impact that had no force and then felt a wet trickle down my back. Then the pain hit, and I screamed in agony and managed to stagger away from the phone booth. I looked behind me and there was a thick, glistening blood trail from the door leading from me to the door, and a vague outline of blackness in the door. It hovered for a moment, then it flicked back into the room and disappeared from view. I tried to stagger back towards the entrance and felt my body go numb as I moved. My arms and legs got hard to move and th wounds felt like fire. I tried to scream for help, but the room spun and tilted crazily, and I lost consciousness.

22

2008-02-22T19:22:00.000-06:00

There was a disorienting feel as I stepped over the threshold and I entered into a large, dimly lit room that looked like any number of cliche'd dungeon studies. The bricks were a dark red and brown, and oil lights set on brass poles just above my eye level. In the center of the room was a circular dark-colored rug with a reading desk and chair on it. Along the floor just off the edge of the rung was a double circle with a series of unfamiliar designs resting between the inner and outer circle.
There were two three-step ladders for reaching the upper shelves of the book cases that started on the left side of the entrance, and went all the way around the walls to the right side of the entrance. The bookshelves weren't totally packed, but there were a LOT of books, and there was a stack by the desk that someone had left out apparently. Knowing Cobb, the books would be on Anolyn.
I didn't dive into the stack, but went around the room looking at the titles. Most of the books were in languages that I had no idea what they were. I took one off a shelf at random and leafed through it. The writing was done by someone with a very spidery hand, the characters were tall and thin, and completely illegible.
Frustrated, I went back to the desk and picked up the top book n the stack and opened it. It was in perfectly legible English. I went through the books, and all the others in the stack over the next two days. All of them had some account about dragons and some specific about anolyn, but nothing that was fact, all were presented as stories and the few that had facts were about dragons about three thousand years ago, the height of the previous magical period.
What I gleaned from all of this was what you probably know yourself from playing those table top games. Dragons are big, bad, extremely magickal, highly intelligent, utterly ruthless. Not much for two days? Well consider that along with this, dragons have weaknesses. Any silver weapon will cut their hide, any weapon for that matter will. You just have to survive to get close enough to do it. Bullets will penetrate, bullets will kill a dragon IF you hit them in the right place.
Trouble is the right place is different for each dragon. Remember magick? Dragons are, according to the few ancient texts, born with the ability to focus their whole life force into one or more places in their body. The adults help the young practice this ability. What it means is that if you have the world's greatest sniper with the biggest baddest rifle around, he may blow the dragon's head half-off with a shot into the eye. But everything will just grow back in mere seconds and you will have a VERY pissed off dragon coming for you.
That is one thing I never want to have happen to me. Dragons are also apparently very creatively vindictive to people that upset them. One story had one taking a man apart, de-boning him over a period of four days before eating him. No, I really did not want that to happen to me. If I was going to do this, I needed a way to bypass the purported alarms that Anolyn had up, and find some way to hide from him so the way could start running people back off of Prince Edward Island.
I had to get in without being discovered, get back out again, go in and find someone who wanted to escape, and help them escape. It wasn't enough to get in and out, it had to be repeatable. Once I could do that, and prove it to Cobb, my service would be done. The smart thing however, is to make sure you've found everything you can before trying something this crazy.

21

2008-02-21T12:10:00.001-06:00

We decided that I'd check in with Cobb the next morning, and get to work on the fae records, if they had any, and let Larry and Fawn work without letting Cobb know they were helping. I got the feeling if he knew, there' d be something he'd try to pull that would lock Larry and Fawn into the service, so I sat down that evening and wrote out a simple contract saying that Larry was assisting me locating books and reference materials, and that it was the only thing he was doing, and that I was paying him to do so. I wanted to make sure that Cobb couldn't get them with some kind of 'volunteer' meaning volunteer to do the service.
I went back home and packed a few items in a backpack, and made sure that I had no iron or steel when I went to see Cobb the next morning. I went with sweat pants and and canvas sneakers, half because they were comfortable, and half because I knew Cobb didn't like me looking 'tacky' on his time. Petty, but what do you expect? I'm not a saint and I sure as hell don't like being tricked into being a pawn for some grandiose asshole.
Cobb was waiting when I drove up. He gave my wardrobe a sour glance as I got out of the car. I pulled the backpack out, and that caught his attention. “No iron, you know that.” I smiled sweetly. “I know that Cobb, I just brought along a few other things to help me out.” I set the backpack down. “You want to check it over?” He didn't say anything, but picked up the pack and rummaged through it.
I had a bottle of salt, some blessed water from a catholic church. Four notebooks and ten pencils with the metal eraser holder removed, three pink erasers, my mothers ceramic paring knife to sharpen the pencils with, a silver letter opener, and five candles, a box of beads, another box of modeling clay, and two changes of clothes, one pair of sweats, and a black tube dress, just in case some kind of social event were to happen. Sounds like deus ex machina there? Remember, Cobb is an asshole with an ego and Fae like social events to practice their politicking.
Plus, although I wanted to piss Cobb off, I didn't want to do so to other fae, and if being polite and playing dress-up helped get information, then I'd play dress-up and trot out my best social manners. The tube dress was just a tad slinky and a little 'slink' might be useful.
He finished looking through the bag, and placed everything back in it before handing it back to me, and then taking me on that disorienting trip to Underhill. Time to start hitting the books. “Where to first, you have a library or something?” I tried to sound flippant, but all I got was snappish. He took me back up to phone booth central and pointed out three booths that had been colored green.
“Those are archives that I keep here. The two booths on the end that are white will take you to others that also have references to Anolyn, and are willing to allow you to peruse them. I do not know if they are duplicates of what is here, you'll just have to look through their archives yourself.”
He didn't wait for an acknowledgment, but turned away quickly and stepped into one of the phone booths and disppeared. Oh, yeah, a classy way to make a girl feel welcome. Run off and leave her. I shrugged and walked to the white booth on the left to start. I tightened my grip on my backpack, took a deep breath and stepped into the booth.

20

2008-02-20T09:43:00.001-06:00

He looked over at Cobb, who was acting as if the judge did not exist. Petty, but I found I enjoyed his attitude. It made it easier to dislike him. The judge caught my attention with a slight wave of his hand in front of my face. “You do have to work at the service. Delaying can be seen as avoiding. And that interpretation is up to the holder of the service. But, you must have some time to properly prepare for the service, Mr Cobb cannot just call you refusing it for taking a few days to prepare. So before I leave to go back to eat my dinner, how long do you consider necessary to prepare before you start this service?”
The judge had given me a breathing space and I took it. “I should need about a day to get started, but it may take a while to be able to finish. I will probably spend a while, maybe a month or more, trying to find out about the Anolyn Way and try to uncover any extra information that might help.” The judge nodded. So you will begin your research in one day's time, and will present a overview of your research at weekly intervals to Mr. Cobb. Once you have exhausted your resources for all pertinent information, you will attempt to get the Way operating.”
He smiled again, and I could smell the satisfaction flowing off of him like Honeysuckle. “I believe that covers the situation quite nicely. Please call upon me Ms. Fatelli if you should have need. I must say I am interested in this. Good day Ms Fatelli. He bowed and turned to Cobb. “Good day.” A perfunctory bow and hew was gone the same way he came in.
I turned to Cobb. “I want to rest at my home. I'll drop by the library tomorrow and see what books there are on Anolyn and the Anolyn Way.” That raised a thought. “Do you have any reference materials on Anolyn or the Way? Anything that you have, I want access to.” I smiled and smelled my own satisfaction with tweaking this manipulative jerk. “After all, you wanted service, how can I perform the service if I can't learn about the problem?”
After Cobb magicked me in front of the building that housed my office, he said a curt good bye and vanished. I didn't go inside immediately, but dial up Larry and Fawn on my Cell-phone. “Hey short stuff, how's the private entrapment business going?” “I love you too sis, told Larry about the little bun you're baking in the oven?” “Yes, as a matter of fact, she did tell me, about five minutes ago Fernie, now enough jabbering and let's go celebrate!” I could feel Larry's grin through the cell-phone. It felt really good to smile and laugh after the last two days I'd had.
Larry had me meet them at the Calcutta Wharf, a wonderful restaurant that, in spite of the name, served wonderful asian food. I'd asked about the name once, and the story came back that the owner had bought the place from the original owner, and had been too cheap to change the sign. After a while, he just left it up because people associated the sign with the restaraunt.
As we ate our dinner, Larry asked “So Fernie, did that spell work proper?” I put my utensils down, and took a deep breath. “About that Larry, it worked fine, it was the other stuff afterwards that was really the shredded pain.” I outlined everything that went on after I got back from finding and 'rescuing' Mr. Cobb's daughter, and included the trial this morning and the discussion I had with Cobb, and what I was supposed to do.
The mood went right down the drain, and I felt bad, really bad about the kind of stuff we were discussing. This should have been a celebration, and instead we're talking about how short stuff Fernie got screwed over by the big bad fae Mr. Cobb. Larry sat and just picked at the food as I wound the story down. Fawn looked pale and angry, part at me, and part at Larry because she knew he'd try to help, and a BIG part at Cobb, the author of the whole mess.
“So, what do you think we should do?” Fawn surprised us both by being the one to hint that working together would be a good idea. She looked at our faces and chuckled. “I know that's what it's going to take short stuff. I have to make decisions I don't like all the time as a cop. How's this one any different?” Got me there.

19

2008-02-19T06:37:00.000-06:00

“You already know the story so I don't have to outline that for you, but yes, there are, or were, fae on the island when Anolyn erected the barrier. He did such a thorough job that Underhill was cut off as well. My family is on the other side of that barrier, and has been for the last fifty years. I want them free. You have the power to open the barrier. You and your sister.” “My sister?”
It clicked into place all at once. He was talking about the residual magick from our parents original spell. Both of us were used as magical storage batteries for our parents, and because the spell never finished, we both still had this huge reserve of magical energy in and around us. We couldn't touch it in our own magicks, what small things we did, like run a vacuum, or heat a cold cup of coffee. But to anyone who knew how to extract the magic, we'd be their very own nuclear power source, and one that wouldn't go away for a long time.
I started to get angry all over again. “Is all we are just a battery for you!” I said loudly. “You plan on using me for that barrier to knock it down?” “Yes” Cobb said. Then he stepped right up to me and stared down from his six foot plus height. “I am planning on using you. You owe a service, this is the service.” He finished speaking and his look dared me to contradict fact.
“Listen you pompous idiot, I owe a service. What if I refuse it. I don't see you have any way of stopping me from leaving.” He straightened and finally looked triumphant. He smelled gleeful, like he wanted me to refuse. “Kaddus! Judge Kaddus! I have need of you!” He roared the name, and a blue nimbus appeared by the fireplace, enlarging and solidifying in moments into the judge that oversaw the trial.
“What now?” he said very grumpily. “I have a dinner waiting for me. Why are you calling me here?” He saw me, and understanding wafted from him like wind across a desert. “She is refusing the service? Smarter than you then.” He turned and faced me full-on. “Ms Fatelli, I understand and sympathize completely with your situation and wanting to refuse the service Mr....... Cobb wants you to perform.”
He smelled of regret, and of resignation. And suddenly he smelled angry and he straightened and spoke sharply to Cobb. “I have had enough of these manipulations! She is going to hear the truth and YOU will not interfere!” Cobb triumphant smell smoldered quickly to a burnt wood angry smell. I still couldn't get used to smelling emotions.
Judge Kaddus faced me and said, “If you refuse the service, someone else will have to take your place. The laws of Underhill state that it would be immediate family that would have to fulfill the service. Cobb wants you to refuse so that he could entrap your brother and sister to perform this service.”
I was confused suddenly. Mad mind you, but confused why the judge would be so up front about Cobb's manipulations. “Why tell me all this?” I asked him. “For two reasons Ms. Fatelli. One, Larry Potter has been a voice of reason the last five years, and many of the fae respect what he has done. I believe, like Mr. Potter, that honest dealings with other races make for better neighbors and allies should necessity arise.”
He stopped and smiled ferally, and I caught a smell of malice from him. “The second reason is I do not like ..... Mr. Cobb. He wants fae to not be so accommodating to humans. We have crossed in the past, and now I find I have an opportunity to ruin a plan of his. Your knowing changes the situation beyond his ability to control, and,” He looked positively gleeful, and smelled it too, “he hates losing control of anything.” Cobb ground his teeth and I could smell hate rolling off of him like a suffocating fog.
I smiled too. Beyond screwing the manipulative Cobb over, family is very big with me considering the only family I have left is Fawn and Larry. I knew too, from talking with Fawn a week ago, that she was pregnant. Which meant if Fawn had to take the service, Larry would jump all over it to protect her and the baby.
What it meant was still a very difficult situation. I most certainly did NOT want to try and do the service. Dragon magic is powerful. Very powerful from all the stories that have been told. But if I didn't take the service, Cobb was free to force Fawn, which would then have Larry volunteering to do it. A classic rock and hard-place.
“I'll take the service, I'll perform it, but I want to know what options I have for this service. Can I hire help or do I have to go this alone?” “You have the service you have to perform it.” spoke Cobb pompously. Judge Kaddus spoke up and said “there are no stipulations in the laws on how the service is handled, only that you perform it. It doesn't say alone, or, how swiftly the service needs be done.”

18

2008-02-18T11:30:00.001-06:00

He smiled and gestured once more, and a chair with a beautiful pantsuit and silk shirt appeared from the polar bear. “please take them, they look better than your sweat suit.” “No, dammit, don't you understand what no means!?” He smiled, and gestured and I felt something shift. “That was three refusals, I no longer have to try and catch you Ms. Fatelli, this little game is over. I tell you that all here now are gifts freely given and that you may take without any payment.”
He relaxed visibly. “And thank you for refusing. I do not like some of our games, but the king has decreed them, and so we all must obey.” He took a drink from his chocolate and continued. “Now that you and I have done our duties, would you like to know the extent of your service?”
“Yeah, I want to know, and I hope it's a quick one, I wnat to get out of here and honestly, I don't want to see you ever again after this is done” I said to him. I was tired, and irritable, and still smarting from being trapped so easily by legal mechanizations. that I started trying to push his buttons. All in all, not very smart, I admit it, but that's life, you're never perfect and seldom good, and obnoxious is easy compared to the other two.
To his credit, Cobb didn't bat an eye, nor did I see any tensing of any muscle. He just stared at me like he was sad about something. Sad like a general is sad about sending men to die. That got me. Emotions here in Underhill manifest as smell along with visual cues. It makes it real hard to fool people. Maybe it's one of the reasons the fae don't try to lie.
“If you're done trying to irritate me, we'll get started. I'll ask you a question then. What do you know of the Anolyn way?” He leaned forward as he spoke, and suddenly I was the center of ALL his attention. The answer I gave was what Zhirk had told me years ago.
“The Anolyn Way was a way through the barrier around the island, and a way past all the magickal alarms that Anolyn had set to stop emigrants. There were a series of safe-houses on the island and escapees traveled from house to house to avoid Anolyn's troops. There were a series of safe-houses on the island and escapees traveled from house to house to avoid Anolyn's troops. The final stop was a cave on the island shore at the closest point that the barrier came to shore. The way through the barrier was by boat.”
One wizard got the wild idea to make a giant clamshell made of rock. Once this was done, he rowed the boat out to the barrier, and closed the clamshell. He drifted through the magical alarms and the barrier without incident. Anolyn was enraged by the rock boats, but couldn't alter his barrier spell. It took weeks of preparation on Anolyn's part to cast the barrier the first time, and he didn't dare take it down as the enemies he made would be certain to attack before he could get the barrier back up. So he did the next best thing and patrolled the water himself, burning and sinking any boat he found.
A boat survived Anolyn's attacks and was found by some of the emigrants who took shelter in the cave where the boat was hidden. They had a wizard who was able to spell the clam-boat to be able to swim under water and get through the barrier. It worked, but he was killed before he could teach others how he modified the spell to swim rock boat underwater. This single clam-boat became the Anolyn Way. It ran in secret for years, until the patrols apparently found it and destroyed it” I told him.
He looked at me in surprise. “I'm impressed Ms. Fatelli. Very few humans have recounted the story with that kind of accuracy. Whoever taught it to you is someone I would like to meet.” I went cold inside and my heart clenched at remembering Zhirk as he told that story to me. “You can't he's dead, and his soul devoured by that damn bottle you showed me when you hired me to help you” I spat the words at him like venom.
Zhirk was the best friend I have ever known and knowing that his soul had gone to feed that monster Ahiah, and now to find that the bottle had been re-created really had me angry. “You tell me how you know about that bottle and who the miserable piece of garbage is that made it. When this is all over I want to use that bottle on the damned idiot that made that abomination!”
He actually dared smile at that, and my anger went incandescent. “What the fuck are you smiling about you miserable waste! Tell me who made that damn bottle!” “There is no bottle, I had chatted with you brother-in-law Lawrence Potter, and got the story from him. I used that to get you to agree to take the job I wanted you for.”
I sat down on the rug in shock and relief. No bottle. But I went ballistic again and tore into Cobb verbally for five minutes while he sat there and waited for me to run down. When I finally pulled myself back together, he told me what I was going to do. “I want you to re-open the Anolyn Way.” I blinked. Surely he was joking on this. “You want me to re-open the Anolyn way? Why the hell for? You got a long lost love in there or something?” “Yes” was what he said.

17

2008-02-17T18:08:00.001-06:00

The swirling power and buffets of wind disoriented me, and felt like they continued for hours, then it was over so suddenly, I fell to my hands and knees completely disoriented and thankful the ride was over. The first thing I noticed was the clean, earthy smell of the ground. Everything seemed brighter and more, exuberant. Hell, even the earth seemed to feel content and happy. There was a kind of sadness too. It was strange, smelling emotions and not feeling them.
There was no sun but light seemed to come from the very air, and as I pushed myself upright, I noticed that no one cast a shadow here. “Come this way”, said Cobb, “We will see to your comfort, and then we will discuss your service.” He led me along a footpath that led into a gully. As we entered, there was another disorienting surge of magic and I entered into a tremendous foyer.
There was a large circular stand to my left that held wraps and cloaks of many different sizes and all different bright colors. Just behind the rack stood a large wooden box set on its short end and bolted to the wall. Grooves in the box held swords, a mace, and a brass hand-cannon of some kind.
To my immediate right was a huge clay statue that held a gleaming silver sword in one hand, and a weapon that looked like a maltese cross made out of silver. Curiosity would have to wait though, as Cobb merely removed his trench coat and negligently threw it at the circular rack, which extended a hangar and neatly caught the coat and set it to the rack in an open slot. I kept my sweatshirt, it was much cooler in here than it had been in the open air outside.
In front of us was a huge wooden stairway which looked twenty foot across, and curled clockwise around a wide latticed pillar. As I got closer, the lattice revealed itself to be a plant or plants grown together, and the steps were molded from branches I believed. We mounted the stairs and he led me to a second floor that was like a ballroom. The room seemed about a hundred feet across and was barren of any furniture except for three rows of, and I kid you not, red British phone booths.
I decided to keep my mouth shut and see what Cobb would do. He had stopped, as if waiting for a question. When I didn't ask, he walked over to the fourth booth in from the end of the second row, and entered. I followed him in and entered into a large study. Directly opposite the doorway was a fireplace with a cheery crackling fire, a large white polar bear rug lay on the floor in front of the fireplace. To the right of the polar bear rug was a large desk with a glass top. On the desk was a flat panel computer. “I thought you said steel and iron couldn't be here.” I said to Cobb. He smiled and said “special order, all wiring is gold, and any screws are plastic. Not as durable, but it doesn't have to be.”
He gestured over to the other side of the room, where I saw a sofa aimed at a wall with a three-foot by five-foot black rectangle mounted on it. “That's a television? what's THAT doing here? On second thought, let me guess, custom built-no-steel just gold and plastic along with the circuitry.” I said sarcastically. You think you'd see nice natural tings like grown wood statues or beautiful carvings, but this was a real surprise to me. Another example of don't assume anything.
Cobb gestured and a silver service tray with two cups of hot cocoa rose up out of the desk and settled on it. He picked one up and handed it to me. “I claim visitor rights.” I told him coldly. Fae were notorious for offering something and that something NOT being a gift, but an item requiring recompense. That's how some humans get trapped in Underhill. You accept something, you are obligated to pay for it one way or another. I wasn't going to have another debt placed on me.
Vistor's rights mean that you ARE a visitor and cannot be coerced into staying with tricks. It's weird, but the fae are like that, weird little, or weird nasty laws that bite you if you don't know about them. Fae cannot lie, but that doens't mean they have to tell you all of the truth. He sighed, “You are perceptive, I didn't think that it would work, but we do have to play the game Ms.Fatelli.”
“Play it without me, and let's get this service done with Cobb, or whatever your name is, I don't like being here.” “Fair enough, but first let's sit and relax a moment.” He smiled, a real, genuine, smile that almost melted my knees. This guy could turn on the charm! I shook my head to clear the charm. “Quit that! You already have a service, quit trying to get more out of me!”

16

2008-02-15T15:21:00.001-06:00

The judge looked over at me. “Was this being in your hire before these events took place?” he said curtly. “No sir, I hired him just before I came here as a second if things came to a duel.” I told him. The judeged waved his hand at Zik'k and said “No, you are not bound by the judgement here. and don't ask me to adjudicate your arrangement, I had quite enough manipulations for one day.”
Zik'k sagged in relief and then stared guiltily over at me. I knew he didn't want any part of what I was going to have to be doing for the fae, and knowing the fae, I wouldn't quite be certain what kind of trouble I would be in until I was hip-deep in it. With fae, nothing is ever as it looks. I know I said that before, but it really, really bears repeating. hey may be one of the 'good guys', but even good guys can be a royal pain in the ass.
I waved at Zik'k and motioned him to come over. He trundled warily to me. “Sooooo, what's next?” he asked with a nevous innocence. “I get to work for the fae, and you get to go home. You finished the job Zik'k. You were here if I needed help, and thank gods and grandfathers we didn't have to do anything.” I told him morosely. I was in a funk, and being the drama-queen I am at times, I didn't care who knew it.
“Uh, yeah, so how do I get back home then?” He looked at the road. “Walk?” I shrugged “Walk, that's a good idea Zik'k. See you later.” “Ms. Fatelli, come over here please, we need to go to Underhill to prepare you for your service to me” Cobb said happily. I noted that he was about the only one that was happy about the situation. I wondered why.
I gave a mental shrug , told my idiot self to shut up, and looked back towards the road. Zik'k had wasted no time at all and was already jogging back towards town. I turned back to Cobb, and walked over next to him. He looked down at me. “Leave anything of iron or steel here, Ms. Fatelli. I promise to bring you back here, and until then I will have my daughter watch over your vehicle and things until we return.” I glared back at him, then slid my stare over to his daughter. “Fine, let's get this charade over with, okay?” I growled at him. I shucked my my shoes , my belt, earrings, and pendant.
He quirked an eye at me. Oh, yeah I thought sourly, the jeans have steel buttons. I slid out of my jeans and he handed me a dress to wear. I batted it away and stalked over to my car. “no, I am not accepting gifts! I'm not being fooled again!” I dug in the back and pulled out a piar of sweat pants and a sweatshirt, and put them on. I then reached behind and took off my bra, the wires were steel, so a no-no. I checked myself over. No steel or iron anywhere. I walked back to Cobb, and he gestured, and opened the way into Underhill.

15

2008-02-13T08:13:00.001-06:00

If you win, the fae in question owes you service, if you lose, same for you. The penalty keeps most humans and fae from trying to call for it. Plus, the court is always on the homeland of the defendant, so you have to have moxie, or a real grievance to get yourself to go into the opposition's home to accuse them.
The others settled when the judge bade everyone be still. “Present you case.” he said to me, dour-faced. He didn't like something, maybe I interrupted his nap before bedtime. I outlined my association with Mr.Cobb, what I was contracted for, and the results of the activity. Then I described the situation when I got back to my office, what happened, my actions , the results of my actions, the possible repercussions. That I had never left my office building in all of these actions, that although materials had been moved, I could easily have done something unexpected and hurt myself or others while under the glamour. I laid it all out. The only thing I didn't do was accuse Cobb of doing it.
I wanted the drama of pointing him out when the judge asked me who was responsible. Let this be a lesson to all of you. Don't get pissed to get even, think it through and REALLY get even. I didn't think things through. If I had, the judge's reluctance for this trial I'd have understood better. He smelled trouble from the get-go, and had tried to let me know without saying so. Toruble was, I was so thoroughly upset I wasn't listening to anyone but my own little internal dialog. The result of which you might see coming now.
The judge had a very sour face when he asked me, “Do you accuse someone of this manipulation?” “Yes, sir, I accuse... “ and I paused for the dramatic effect, which shows how stupid and overly dramatic we humans can get, and pointed at Cobb, “him.” “Are you certain of this, that you accuse him?” the judge asked. “I am certain that it was him, Cobb, as he presented himself to me.” See the dramatic wording? I still wince when I think about how full of myself I was at that moment. I was so certain, which only proves never trust ANYTHING involving fae that what you see is what you're getting.
“I ask for the third time, is this”, and he indicated Cobb, “the one you accuse of this crime?” “For the third and final time yes.” “then I am unjustly accused, and demand redress!” said Cobb angrily, a triumphant smile on his face that belied the angry words. The fact that I might have been snookered started to seep in. “How so are you falsely accused then?” “I had no part in the casting of the glamour, that was the work of another!” he said loudly, and sweeping his arm in front of him in a calculated, dramatic fashion. Humans aren't the only ones that go for drama.
“Can you prove this?”, the judge asked Cobb in a resigned way. He didn't like how I had been tricked, but laws being what they are, are notoriously unbending, and if you fall in the black and white, no matter how you get there, you are considered responsible under the law, circumstances be damned.
Cobb's daughter stepped forward. “I confess sir that it was I who cast the glamour on this human, of my own free will and through no coercion from anyone.” Oh, crap. “She's lying!” I practically screamed at the judge, but fae can't really lie, it's something to do with how they use their magic Larry told me. They just can't lie.
I was well and truly caught by the legal definitions of the agreement between fae and humans. I accused the wrong fae. Whether I had been hit with a glamour or not didn't make any difference. I made a false accusation and I was guilty in the court's eye of trying to illegally coerce another being into servitude. The punishment was to perform a service for the one I unjustly accused.
I looked over at Zik'k and he looked at me like I was a rabid escaped loony. He just stood there gaping at me like all his brains had just leaked out both ears. He stared for a good five seconds, then shook his head and looked over at the judge. “Sir? I don't mean to be rude, but she hired me a short while ago.” The judge straightened and looked at the Troykin with irritation. Zik'k continued, his voice quavering under the judge's stare. “With her being guilty and all, do I have to serve with her? I mean I didn't know anything about this I swear to you sir....”

14

2008-02-10T20:36:00.000-06:00

The Troykin got a slightly panicked look on their faces and assured me hurriedly that there would be no problem at all for Larry's mate-sister. “Yah, talk all yah want abrt it, ah'm the onet hasta go wit her.”, Zik'k said to the others bad-temperedly. “Look, I'm sorry, I didn't want to impose so if you don't want....” “No no no no! Nod dat at ahll, Magick madeb mah nodse clug up.” He took a deep breath through his mouth. “I'db beh fine inna libble bit.”
I looked Zik'k over and then at the others. “You all have this problem too?” I asked, half-amused and half-frustrated with the whole situation. The ther Troykin had watched our conversation, and the leader said to me. “I don't know dab edb dose.” He rubbed the side of his face, then smiled sheepishly. “I gebb we'db do gob de probbem too. You got lotsa mabjick. Idb tink dab's it.” His speech was almost inarticulate.
He backed up about ten feet to where the other three were standing and suddenly looked better. “Ah, yes, that feels so much better. Well, good day, and say hello to Mr. Larry for us.” They whirled and all but ran away, before I could ask any more questions.
I turned to the red-faced Troykin who backed up and got out of the range. “Gah, girl, that is the worst feeling.” He looked at the car, and his face fell to around his knees. “He looked at me and jerked a thumb at the car. “I gotta ride with you all the way back now don't I?” “Yep”, I said brightly, just to dig it in a little. “Just you and me for twenty minutes all the way back, and then we get to talk to another wizard.” I'd never seen a face drag along the ground before, but his tried very hard as we got in the car.
Along the way back to my office, Zik'k alternated between holding his nose while breathing though his mouth, and rolling down the window to stick his face out of the car like a dog, nose into the wind, presumably to clear his head of my magical odor. But he never made one noise of complaint, just a whole lot of body language. Once there I packed up my possibles bag, and filled two extra hand-sized sacks with iron filings, and added them to it.
As I threw the bag in the back seat, Zik'k asked me, “So why dib yuh azk for ub?” “Because you guys are tough to touch with magic, and you have a good reputation as being trustworthy.” I answered. I started the car and we drove to a location I knew of where the fae had a presence. If I wanted to talk with “Mr. Cobb”, that would be the place.
We drove through Halifax to the northwest and just outside of Lower Sackville, I pulled off the road and parked the car. Just off the road was a small trail that led to the edge of a small pond near a low hill, and one of the more beautiful places I'd seen in a while. Peace and a sense of wonder permeated the area. Now before you go wondering about how I knew about this place, it wasn't exactly a secret. A number of merchants used the location to trade with the fae for a number of years, so nothing mysterious about it. It was however, the off-season for trading, so we were the only ones here.
Zik'k trailed me by about twenty feet, that allowed him to watch my back and not have an attack of magical sneezes. I didn't expect any real trouble yet, that might happen when I accused “Mr. Cobb” of casting a glamour or three at, and on, me. The path ended between the pond and the hill. Showtime. “All right!”, I shouted to the empty space, “I have a grievance with the fae and demand justice!”
I really didn't like this whole thing much at all, I don't mind telling you. Things had piled up fast and I was feeling somewhat frazzled with a job, a glamour, hiring backup, and now bracing a fae about magic. I was not enjoying this one bit, and it felt like I was missing something in the whole mix. I just wasn't able to think of what it was.
A few moments after I had shouted to the world I was pissed, the fae showed. Mr. Cobb was there, so was his daughter, and six other fae I didn't know by sight. The oldest looking one wore brilliant sapphire blue robes that resembled a monk's habit. He was the judge, and in this instance, once we got started, his decision would be binding on us all. You call for faery justice, you accept the ruling. Period.
“Why have you called for justice, human. Surely you know the penalty for false accusation.” he said with a VERY serious touch to his voice. He clearly didn't like this, but I was already committed in my mind. In for a penny and all that. “I'm here because one of the fae cast a glamour on me without my knowledge or consent, that caused me near grievous bodily harm, and to others I may have contacted while under the glamour.”
Doesn't sound like much? It is. Long ago when fae had the upper hand with magick, such a thing was considered their right as long as they weren't caught doing it. Power with no consequence. That changed when humans made the first contact with the revived magic. we're on an equal footing now, and the fae found that difficult and hazardous to their well-being, so about twenty or so years ago, this form of legalese was concocted to address the problems between fae and human.

13

2008-02-08T08:19:00.001-06:00

The idea to negotiate with Troykin was to get them stirred up some, and then you could get them to agree to most anything. Plus, losing face was a big thing to Troykin, so what they agreed to they'd stick with, however they agreed to it. I had asked Fawn about the Troykin up here, and she had told me that they were generally willing to work with humans.
Larry Potter was a name known up here, as his shop catered to all races, and considering a lot of the wild racist xenophobia practiced by humans and the non-human on each other, Larry was considered a good man to know and helping his sister-in-law could be seen as getting a big discount on something. All told it was a good thing to be Larry's sister-in-law.
The Troykin almost fell over themselves when I told them who I was. They didn't believe it for a moment. I sighed to myself. “Okay, what will prove who I am?” I asked the supposed leader of the bunch. “We know of the name of the Ne...pilim you fought, what was the name you called that creature?” The name I called him. “That piece of filth was called Ahiah, but I called him 'Baldy'.” It was the right answer. What did I tell you about magic and coincidences? How likely do you think that the bottle and the name of the Nephelim would come up on the same day, and linked to each other? Really? You're a bigger believer in coincidence than I am, that's for certain.
“Now you are free to ask one of us to help you, but I recommend Zik'k. His family owes Mr. Larry very much for his kindnesses, and has the largest honor-debt.” A lean, scarred-up Troykin stepped forward, then put his hand over his face and bowed. Hmm, some kind of ritual greeting? “No need to be formal, Zik'k, we'll work better if you just call me Fern.” I said. Zik'k straightened and held his nose. “Peeee-eew, human, what kind of magic have you been rolling in? Gah, the smell's awful!” I blinked in surprise.
Troykin could smell magic? “You can smell magic?” I blurted out. All five heads on five Troykin nodded. The leader who'd suggested Zik'k said “That we can, but it's not something we advertise much. You have to be a pretty powerful wizard to have a smell on you, and yours is,” I watched his face screw up in concentration as he hunted for a suitably diplomatic word, “pungent.” “Are you going to get all huffy about it?”, I asked, getting huffy about it myself. Hey, it's a girl's privilege to be huffy when called pungent.

12

2008-02-06T07:21:00.000-06:00

For the life of me I couldn't see any connection other than the one “Mr. Cobb” had pointed out. Someone wanted to use it to increase their personal power. Pardon, some fucking lunatic was power-mad and somehow figured out how to remake the damn soul bottle. But the big reason is why? Just making the bottle was horrific, but no one I could imagine would just make that kind of bottle for no reason at all. It was a huge magick battery, which meant huge powerful spells.
I rubbed the nub of my little finger, where it had been torn off by Ahiah, the Nephelim. I had the last joint still but just the thought of that bottle being around made it ache badly. Okay, who knew about the bottle? I went though and tried to remember each person that had contact of knowledge of that bottle. Fawn, her team, me, Larry, Rynun, Uncle Todd, and Ahiah. I couldn't think of any others, but for that bottle to be around, someone must know of it, and of me and Fawn.
Our folks had been a full-bubble-off-level crazy, and had made of Fawn and I huge storage batteries of magic. We couldn't touch it, but it stayed with us. I don't know how much was there, but Larry said it was a LOT of magic. No one that I knew really wanted to touch it either. Magic like that draws other magic like a magnet draws iron filings. We both are a magnet for weird coincidence.
The bottle showing up after seven years was just another one of those coincidences that really weren't. Right now, the bottle concerned me most and who was casting spells on me. Both seemed very connected, and the only person that had both was “Mr.Cobb”. So the question became why did he ask me to help him and warn me about the bottle? I'd have to ask him when I found him. But with something like this I needed back up. Good, reliable, backup.

#

Dayning is that part of Halifax that grew up after the magic cam back with a huge bang almost sixty years ago now. It is mostly the non-human section. Most all of them have their own enclave here in one or more places. I came down here because I preferred a non-human partner for this. Humans like myself are good at most anything. We're nature's great generalist. But if you want a specialist species, Dayning is the place you'd come to find one.
What I wanted was smart and tough. There were a lot of races like that, Trolls were the biggest example. But I hadn't felt right about hiring trolls since Zhirk died. Call it stupid, maudlin, prejudice, or superstitious, I just never wanted to hire a troll again. There were other races beyond them. What I wanted was one who stood a chance against fae magick, and there was only one that had any kind of resistance that I knew were the Troykin.
Troykin are bad news. They have outsider blood in their veins. Most spells will just blow apart unless you prepare the spell carefully, or are hideously powerful. The other side of things is that they are affected by silver and the merest touch causes gaping wounds as their skin dissolves. Salt hurts them, and repels them but doesn't do much more than that, and a determined Troykin has been known to resist being repelled by salt on occasion.
They are also unstable, which may be due to the outsider blood. They are not quite hair-trigger on the emotions, but the next closest thing to it. It generally made them a poor choice, but considering the opposition, I was willing to have one with me, as it would make “Mr. Cobb” at least have to work at doing us in. I was more guessing he wanted something from me, otherwise why the elaborate illusion?
Too much speculation would start to hurt, so I backed off and concentrated on the problem at hand, negotiating with one of the local Troykin gangs to get my help. I parked my car and stepped out, all five foot nothing, ready to brace five six foot plus tall Troykin. I had the advantage that I was human, and a human seen this far into Dayning was generally considered crazy and/or dangerous. I figured crazy worked well.

11

2008-02-04T07:35:00.001-06:00

I picked up some of the salt, some of the iron, and placed them under my tongue. the reason for that is that although contact with iron will dissipate a spell, residual traces of magic remain and will still react to cold iron. A human's fingers are not sensitive enough to feel the reaction, so the lips and tongue are used.
There was a scalding 'zing' that made me yelp, and I spit the iron filings out. Ow, yeah, fae spell. I looked around, everything in the room had been pushed up against the wall for the most open space possible. There were scuffs on the floor and chops in the wood it looked like someone had attacked the floor. My possibles bag peeked out from under the secretary's desk in the small outer office, along with any other steel and iron object I owned. All I had on were my clothes, even my belt and shoes had been removed.
As the last residual effects of the glamour faded, I came to realize I had never actually left my office. Everything had happened here, there had been no monster. All of it had been under the control of Mr. Cobb. I did a very quick burn from puzzled to royally upset, and the only thing I could think was to find Cobb and rip an explanation out of him. A more rational part of me however, smothered the anger after a few minutes and I sat down to puzzle a few things out.
The big question was why he took the time to do this. An even bigger question was where and how did that damn soul bottle fit in all this? The bottle scared the crap out of me. It had been the cause of my parents' deaths, and almost mine and Fawn's as well. It was the kind of magic that only crazed, powerful, and/or really stupid magickans got close to.

10

2008-02-01T05:13:00.000-06:00

I looked at him and brought my sight up. Art remained Art. “Umm, Art, did you notice anything weird like lights going out and loud noises from my room?” Art got an alarmed look on his face and his eyes darted towards the door. “Should I have heard something?” he asked nervously. “Yeah, I fired four rounds at something in my office, you darn well should have heard something.” I said tersely. “That, and the lights went out all over.” “Lights went out?”, he said to me as he put his coffee cup down on his desk. Maybe you blew a local breaker Fern, 'cause I haven't lost any lights”
It took a moment to sink in and I returned quickly to my office. Art followed me out of his office and back to mine. “Fern, what are you doing?” he asked me. “I'm going to find out what kind of magic someone used on me.” I as certain that SOME kind of magic was used. I just didn't understand why yet. “Can I watch if I don't get in the way?” Art asked, as he looked in on my office. He seemed surprised at its dingy condition and the clutter. He looked at me again. “When was that last time you cleaned up?” he said curiously to me.
I flipped the wall switch, and the lights came on with no problem at all. I flipped them off and on twice more to make sure I wasn't just imagining the lights. Finally, I went back over to my possibles bag, and pulled out my machete' and an iron nail. I put the nail in my pocket and pulled out a bag of salt and a second bag of iron filings.
I chose an open part of the floor, and laid the machete' down by my feet, then at arm's reach, made a salt circle around me, then a iron circle inside the salt. I tossed the bags back next to the possibles bag, and picked up my machete', then I unsheathed it and laid the blade edge-on in my palm and wrapped my fingers around the blade, and tugged it sharply, cutting my hand slightly. I dropped blood inside of the other two circles, South, North, West, East. Then I made a third circle by dragging the tip of the machete' through the blood drops in a clockwise manner. Art watched all the preparations with fascination. I stepped carefully over the circles, and got some toilet paper from the bathroom to cover the cut on my hand with.
“This is where it gets tricky” I told him. The creature I'm going to call up will be outside the circle and won't be happy, you sure you want to stay?” “Uh, thanks, but I'm not that curious” Art told me, and hurried back to his office and I head a door slam. Heh. I wasn't going to call up a creature, but I did want him somewhere else. The circles were made and I was ready.
I sheathed the machete' ,pulled the iron nail, and focused my will. “Truth in salt, truth in iron, truth in blood.” I said as I turned in place. Once I finished a complete rotation, I dropped the nail to my feet. It sped to the ground like a released arrow and buried itself halfway into the floor. My office remained the same, dingy AUTHENTIC 1930's style gumshoe office. That ruled out external glamour. The room did not have the illusion on it, I had it on me.
I could deal with that too, but I might have already. The magic I'd most likely been around was fae, since “Mr. Cobb” had been my client today, and he was most definitely fae. The iron nail and the filings could have inadvertently disrupted any fae spell cast on me, but would leave some kind of trace that could be spotted by a good, meaning expert, wizard. There were other ways too, one that a simpleton magically could use, but they were liable to hurt the caster.

9

2008-01-29T13:59:00.000-06:00

I went along the bracing, groping in front of me for the next wire or the wall, and presently, my fingertips brushed cement, I raised one foot and stomped on the panel, breaking it and letting me see down into the room below. The panel broke into three irregular pieces and fell into the room, bouncing off the edge of a large desk. I stopped momentarily to listen for screams or the creature, but didn't hear either.
I could see the large, ornate wooden desk below me. An antique laptop was on the corner while a modern flat-touch was recessed into the surface. It was on and operating. A replica green-shaded banker's lamp had been knocked over by the falling panel, and it lay on it's back.
Light streamed in the opening allowing me to see the conduit I was holding onto for balance. I listened again and when I heard no loud or odd noises, I dropped lightly onto the desk. There was a chair pushed against the wall to my left, and to the right was a pair of chairs facing the desk, with a couch and coffee table just beyond them. Looking behind me I saw the door into the room, and it was open.
I heard footsteps in the hall getting louder, I quietly stepped off the desk and crouched behind it. I peeked at the door from the side of the desk and saw my neighbor Art Uhlan come back in with a cup of coffee in his right hand. He stepped in the room, and then froze in surprise, and stared at the broken panel. “What the fuck!” he exclaimed, and then saw me, and his gaze turned to confusion. “Fern? Are you okay? What are you doing in here?” He glanced around the room again, and rerturned to looking at me, and the broken panel on the floor by the desk.
I stood up and abesent-mindedly brushed the dust and cobwebs that clung to me after my time in the ceiling. He looked more closely and an angry smile quirked his lips. “Fern, if you wanted to come see me you could have used the door. Now would you tell me what the hell is going on?”

8

2008-01-28T12:09:00.001-06:00

I ran to the bathroom and groped around for a few precious seconds in the dark before I found the sink. I quickly climbed up on the sink and was able to reach the ceiling and push a panel out of it's cradle and get up into the ceiling and, working by feel, I replaced the tile. My office door shattered, the sound being muffled by the closed bathroom door.
I felt carefully along the support frame as I moved away from my entry point. I wasn't sure what all the creature could do, but scent would be a likely way to follow me, assuming the place it came from was as dark as the slit was when it started to come through. Sound was the other way that I could think of. I heard the fire door open and close. that made me think scent more than hearing since I had gone there first. Amazing how analytical your brain can get when it's trying hard not to be terrified.
Trouble is, the ceiling was just another trap. There were limits to where I could go. Which means if the creature decided to tear the ceiling apart, it would find me. I needed to be someplace else when it figured that out. The load-bearing walls had access holes for the wiring, plumbing and ventilation to get between rooms and floors.
If I could slip through there, it would be even harder for the creature to find me. I realized right after that I had a bigger problem. I'm not the only one in the building..I'm on the fourth floor, which I share with six other businesses, and there are three floors below me with more people and businesses in them. If the creature ran into any one of them, they'd be slaughtered, and I'd have been the one to let them get killed. The creature was sent after me. I had to get near a window, my cell-phone wouldn't work this deep in the building.
The trouble is, I didn't know exactly where I was in relation to any of the rooms here. I'd gone here to hide and done a good job of moving in the dark away from the bathroom, but in the dark, it's hard to tell distance. Direction I had as I'm on the hanging frame, and that's oriented square to the halls and rooms. I had gone the same direction away from the bathroom, which put offices to my left.
All I had to do was turn left and go until I hit a wall, then drop through the ceiling and call the police. Fawn, my sister and wonder-woman look-alike, was head of the magical response squad (MaRS) and she and her group were very good at what they did, which was take down supernatural threats. Having them here would do a lot for getting me and the others in here out alive and in one piece.

7

2008-01-24T10:57:00.000-06:00

All told, this was one of the fastest jobs I'd ever pulled and I was feeling pretty happy with myself for some good planning. This is where you expect the other show to drop, and it did, just not where we could hear it right away. What I was thinking about was the fee I'd get and how the hell anyone would, or could, make another soul bottle. That part bothered me. A lot.
After seeing to my fee, Mr. Cobb and his daughter left, and left me free to do a little re-arranging of all the stuff I have in the office. I couldn't shake the feeling that something was waiting for just the right moment to spring itself into my life. Magic does things like that. It's hard to believe in coincidence with magick around, coincidence can get pretty unbelievable. Kind of like having a cloud solidify over your house and drop on you suddenly coincidental.
I had been hard at thinking of getting another file cabinet to go with the other two when the lights in the building went out. The air-conditioning fans stopped also, and the building became very still. Unnaturally still. My windows let in enough of the noontime light to allow me to easily gather up my possibles bag and put on my pistol, machete, and chicken plate. After arming myself, I went into the outer office.
As I did so, a low roaring sound began back in my main office. I stepped back into the office with my machete in hand to see a inky sliver appear and lengthen, growing into a floor-to-ceiling gash in the air. Then two clawed hands thrust their way through the slit and began to widen it. I didn't wait, but dropped the machete' and pulled the pistol and fired four rounds right into the enlarging hole to no visible effect. Bullets didn't work and I had serious doubts about the machete' being any more effective, so I ran out of my office into the hallway.
The hall didn't have any window to the outside, so it was dark except for the slight glow of light coming through the frosted glass window of my door. The window still had the rebuilding spell on it, and no one had tried throwing someone through it or jumping through since Rynun did that to me. I strode quickly towards the fire stairs, figuring if the power was out, the elevators wouldn't be working either.
I heard a sound like fingernails being scraped on a slate chalkboard, only a lot louder. It spiked my ears with a sharp pain as I pulled the door open. Call me stupid but I ran for the bathroom. My thoughts here were that if it followed me into the stairwell, I was trapped in a large tube with no way out until I reached the bottom floor. We were four floors up and I think in a footrace to the bottom I'd probably lose.
I could however, change the terrain. The building had a hanging ceiling to cover up the unsightly ventilation tubing and electrical conduits, and many a time the repairmen would have to go up into the ceiling to fix a problem. Being a small woman gave me an advantage against a larger creature. Plus, if it was heavy the ceiling wouldn't support it if it tried to walk on the tiles.

6

2008-01-20T20:03:00.000-06:00

Glass shattered behind me as Cobb blew a hole big enough for him to get through. He moved almost faster than I could follow, and hit the door like a runaway freight train. The door crumpled and the lintel tore loose from the sheet rock it was anchored to. The wood veneer all but exploded off the door, and Cobb screamed in agony as his body came in contact with the steel.
I ran through the door and dodged to the right in a clumsy baseball slide. I slid almost to the wall and looked around. The door was a good ten feet into the room and looked like a steel banana. Cobb lay just inside the door, his flesh smoking slightly from contact with the steel. He moaned in pain but was starting to get up.
The interior room was large, probably at least forty feet to a side. Two Inside the room was a square six foot by six foot cage. In the cage on a hammock sat a small girl, crying and unmoving. Cobb's daughter probably. Something slithered out of the floor and solidified. It turned its tubular body towards me quickly on six legs and aimed itself, scrunching up like a coiled spring, and opening it's lamprey-like mouth wide. Oh Gods, a wurmling! Two others slipped up through the floor as I watched the first one, and oriented on Cobb.
I thought about the pistol, but as small as the creature was, it was fast and I'm not that good a shot. I pulled the silver machete' as it readied itself to attack. Then it was on me, almost faster than I could react. I swung the blade and got lucky, hitting it solidly and slicing it in half lengthwise. The pieces fell to the ground and started dissolving away. My follow-through rang the blade off the cement floor and, unfortunately, got the attention of the two other wurmlings.
The two creatures hissed and began scuttling into launching range. Cobb was still dazed and in pain, so I was on my own. The wurmlings recognized the silver blade and moved apart, instinctively working to flank me. I backed up into the corner quickly and got to my feet as they closed with me. Now they were restricted to a ninety degree arc that was a lot easier to protect.
The two wurmlings scuttled within launching range, and scrunched up. I debated trying to get my pistol, and then there was a pulse of heat as a small fireball slammed into the wurmling to my left. The other executed a startled leap towards me, but there was no power behind it and it landed three foot short. I took a quick step forward and cut down with the machete' before it had a chance to recover, and cut it in half.
Cobb looked at me from the ground and put his hand down to help push himself off the floor. I approached the cage and returned the machete to its sheath. The cage had a lock on the front. I pulled my pistol. “Sweetie get as far back as you can, okay?” The girl nodded and moved to perch precariously on the far edge of the hammock from me. I aimed the pistol at the hasp of the lock and pulled the trigger.
The nine millimeter slug hit dead on and cracked the hasp. A second shot parted it. I knocked the lock away and pulled the door open, and the girl darted past me and clutched her father in a tight hug. Cobb spoke gently to the child and rested his hands on her shoulders as she shuddered and stifled only partially the sobs of relief.
“We should be leaving Ms. Fatelli. Whomever did this knows we are here.” Cobb stopped speak and tilted his head towards me. The he gave me an almost smile and said, “unless of course, you want to stay and fight the person who can draw upon the power already stored in that bottle.” I shuddered involuntarily. No way I wanted to stick around for that.
“All right,” I said briskly. “Let's get out of here.” we exited back out the way we came in and jumped into my car, and pulled away. I watched as a couple of Hamref watched us leave. They probably had a good look at all of us and there was no reason for them not to offer the information up. Which meant if someone talked to them I might get some guests later.
Paranoia, yes I know, but if that guy DID make himself a soul bottle like the other one, odds are that he knew about my involvement with the gods bedamned thing. That and my sister's. Oh yeah, a lot of paranoia running around. Mr. Cobb and daughter were jabbering away in some language that I couldn't identify as we drove back to my office.

5

2008-01-19T20:04:00.000-06:00

I knocked his hand away and turned on him. “Got a reason for that?” I said angrily. He walked over to a point about ten feet from the door and pointed at the ground. I looked closely but didn't see anything. As if he could read my mind, he said, “Use your sight, Ms. Fatelli.” I gritted my teeth and focused. A shimmering half-bubble came into view around the door. “An alarm. Break the the shell, and they know you are here.” he said in a neutral tone, like a schoolteacher lecturing a especially dense student.
I looked the door over and saw the focus was a largish nail driven into the door, with mistletoe wrapped around it. It wasn't a faerie spell then, but that left a lot of choices. I abandoned the idea of a back entrance, and held my sight up as we walked around the outside of the building. All the first floor windows were covered the same way, yellowish hemispheres around the mistletoe wrapped iron nails. The only location not covered was the glass front door.
Most likely it wasn't warded the same way as there was no wood to drive a nail into. Cobb stayed back from the door, like before. “This seems the only way in, what you want to be there's something nasty inside?” I snarled rhetorically. I was nervous and impatient. Cobb shrugged elaborately and waited to see what I would do. I waited for a moment and looked around. “I don't like waiting, and if we're going in, we might as well announce it”
I went back to my car and got out the possibles bag. I got my pistol out and put it on, then put on the chicken plate. I strapped the machete to my hip, picked up the baseball bat, and then went back to the door. I picked up a rock and threw it at the front door, cracking the painted over glass. Cobb lost his composure and snarled viciously at me. “My daughter is in there human!” “So go get her!" I yelled back as I used the baseball bat to hammer at the glass. Two quick swings opened up a jagged hole that I could slip through.
I didn't wait for Cobb, speed was more important to me now. I looked down the short, narrow hallway with my sight to spot any traps. There was some greenish glow about 10 feet ahead of me hovering near the center of the hallway. I threw the bat at it, and flattened myself against the wall, anticipating some kind of effect. The bat flew through the cloud and there was a blistering pulse of heat, and the bat landed on the other side of the cloud badly charred.
The cloud had dissipated almost to nothing, so I charged through it, and got singed as it pulsed with heat but nowhere near what the bat had taken. I heard someone crying further in. Cobb's daughter most likely. I scanned my surroundings. The hallway ended twenty feet further on at an interior door. Bathroom doors were on the left side of the hall just before the end door. I left the smoking baseball bat and charged the door, hoping I had enough momentum to pop the door open, and just about dislocated my shoulder when I hit it. It was a metal door with a wood veneer.

New Year's resolutions

2008-01-17T20:27:00.000-06:00

Well, we'll see how these go.

1. Write a page a day.
2. Find a regular job. School isn't working.
3. Offer my opinions more. I need to let people know what I'm thinking.
4. write one novel length story outside of NaNoWriMo.
5. Get back into shape. Life's more fun without the extra around my hips and tummy.

We'll see how that goes.

4

2008-01-17T12:32:00.000-06:00

He went over to the plastic rod and handed it to Mr. Cobb. “Hold it and turn slowly” Larry said. “When you are pointing in your daughter's direction, the light will move to the end of the rod towards her. Once your done with it, break the stick and the spell will break.” He held up a hand before either of us could speak. “This has an effective range of about a mile, so you'll have to do a lot of moving around. There is no price, but just think well of me and mine. That will be enough.” I was so startled I gaped at him. Larry was a good guy and all but I've never seen where he'd do a spell for free. Mr. Cobb said “I always remember my friends, and my friends will never stand alone.”
That made sense suddenly. Larry just got a favor from the fae, and that probably is worth more than money. I smiled. Larry could have been a con-man and a good one. He ushered us out and began to clean up the room so no residual magics could cause problems. Mr. Cobb and I went back to my little car, and took off into the Dayning suburb of Halifax. Mr. Cobb held the wand out and swept it in a one hundred eighty degree arc to our front, hoping to capture a glimmer that told us which direction she might be.
We had been driving for an hour when we got a glimmer of movement from the mote of light in the rod. Cobb extended the rod past my face in the direction had flickered. “That way! She's That way!” he practically screamed in my ear. His face was transformed by hope, and the change was amazing. I had to tear my eyes away from him to make the turn and head more or less in the direction we wanted to go.
We followed in the general direction the wand indicated, which took us deep into Dayning. It led us into a area populated by Hamref. Hamref are about five feet tall, and look like a stiff breeze would break them in two, they're so emaciated looking. They are put together pretty much like a humanoid biped, two legs, two arms one head. But the differences are eerie. For starter's their nostrils are at the edge of each cheek, just about an inch below their eyes. Their eyes are huge, which one would expect from a night-loving species.
You'd be wrong. Their eyesight is just fine, day or night. In fact, they're supposed to have the equivalent of 6-power binocular vision. Their bodies were hard skinned, Fawn had talked about having watched 9mm pistol rounds ricochet off of them. Their hands were four-fingered claws. The one thing though that bothered me most was that every joint of theirs was almost three hundred sixty degrees of movement. They were incredibly flexible and able to contort though openings that an escape-artist could only envy.
They were predators, but weak ones. Any human could easily best one. Trouble is they attacked in groups. I may have felt nervous about being out amongst all the Hamrefs, but that was mine own human prejudice about so odd-looking a creature. Hamref were scrupulously honest.
I drove us up to an old post office building and parked the car. The street was empty except for a few cars that drove by as we exited mine. The building stood at the corner, a whitewashed bygone of earlier times. Windows were boarded over and painted with the same whitewash. I spotted a narrow alley to our left as we faced the building. It separated the post office and the adjoining building. We walked up to the front door. It was a typical glass door that had the glass painted over, and which had been padlocked. The chain and lock were both old and rusted, but still strong as a quick tug told me.
Cobb stayed a good ten feet away as I tested the chains, Fae and iron don't play well together. Failing to open the door, we walked down the alley to the back side of the building to see if there might be another way in. As we moved, Cobb checked the wand, and it indicated that his daughter was inside. I spotted another door in the back, and moved towards it. As I did Cobb hissed and suddenly grabbed me and dragged me back a few feet.

3

2008-01-11T09:55:00.000-06:00

My possibilities bag included kevlar chicken-plate armor for my torso, cold-iron nails, a fully charged paintball gun, a silver-plated machete, various pieces of rope, glass, and aluminum, a couple of small dolls, sprigs of oak and mistletoe, some charged pebbles, wooden stakes, and an ash baseball bat. Don't laugh, a wooden bat will hurt most anything magical, and I had training in its use as a defensive weapon from my sister Fawn. I added a bottle of water consecrated at a local catholic church, and some snack bars and chips in case I didn't get a chance to eat for some reason, like being carted away to Underhill.
Mr. Cobb watched all of this in imperturbable silence, reacting only slightly to the iron nails. His lack reaction let me know again that he was a powerful fae, and not to let my guard down just because his daughter was in danger. Fae are not human, and don't react to things like humans do. I would do well to remember that.
I called ahead to Larry and Fawn, and Larry picked the telephone up on the second ring. “Potter Emporium” he said cheerfully. “Hi Larry, how are you two?” “Pretty good Ferny, you wanting a locater spell?” I just sighted and shook my head. Larry was extremely astute and talking with him sometimes is like a chat with Sherlock Holmes, always a step behind even though it's your conversation.
“Yeah, a locater spell, but it's going to be a different sort. I want it to track down a rabbit.” There was a long silence, then Larry chuckled. “So it's going to have to be pretty specific then, only about 90 gazillion rabbits around Halifax, let alone the whole of Nova Scotia. This a person changed into a rabbit is why you want it.” It wasn't a question.
“That's the reason, and no I don't have any personal items for you to use, but her father is here with me and should be willing to help.” “So he's fae. Christ Ferny, they know how to pick you.” Like I said, a step behind even when it is your conversation. I didn't even bother to ask how he knew, I'd just feel sillier after he explained everything to me.
The trip over to Larry's place of business was quiet. Literally. Mr. Cobb just sat in the car, a statue except for the slight rise and fall of his chest. He didn't offer any conversation, and after two tries to talk with him, I gave up and stewed in silence. I hate silence. We pulled into the small parking lot in front of Larry's “new” place. About a year ago someone had firebombed his old one. A police investigation never caught the perpetrator, nor could anyone find a reason why. Larry, being Larry just shrugged and found a new place in a few months.
Larry came out of the Emporium as we drove up. He had his smock on over his robes, which probably meant he'd been laying down a magick circle, or some such thing as we were driving over. “Hey sis” he said. “You gotta come over more, you bring interesting company.” He looked at Mr. Cobb, and performed a slight bow, hand to forehead, and eyes downcast. “A pleasure sir, please be welcome and freely enter.” Mr.Cobb cracked a slight smile and returned the bow, bending slightly at the waist.
We all went inside and Larry led us back to his 'work' room. This was a twenty by twenty room. Larry had a silver four pointed star-and-circle cut into the wood floor. Outside of the circle and at each star point, there were a series of runes or sigils, I'm not sure which. Larry laid at the western point of the star a plastic rod with a string attached to it. He bade Mr. Cobb stand at the eastern point of the star. Larry stood at the North point, and asked me to stand at the south.
Once we were in position, Larry spoke in a tongue that I had heard before. Rynun, the Geowludmosiseg had uttered a few of them once. A wind sprang up in the closed room, running from Mr. Cobb to the plastic rod. A pale yellowish mist arose from the fae's skin and wafted to the rod. The rod began to glow light a lightstick, a greenish yellow, and brightened. The light pulsed once as Larry chanted, and then collapsed into the rod, reducing to a tiny pinpoint of light. Larry finished the last few words and the wind ceased.

2

2008-01-10T05:43:00.001-06:00

Norman Cobb turned around slowly, tears leaking down his cheeks, and stood there, halfway to the door, and looked at me with the most intense anguish radiating from him. “Please, Ms. Fratelli, I'm....... sorry, I need you not the magickan. The rabbit, that's my daughter. She's been changed. Somehow, something changed her. She was playing in the yard and I heard her scream, and I got to the door and saw her shrink into a rabbit and run off. Now she's missing. Halloween is tomorrow and I'm afraid someone's going to catch her and keep her or take her to the pound, and I'll lose her. I know a magicker could do it easier, and cheaper, but I can't go that way Ms. Fratelli, I.... just can't.”
I sat back down and looked, really looked Norman Cobb over. He gave every semblance of a man broken by a need so desperate, that he'd do anything to fill that need. Hard-core Crack addicts look less strung out. This made no sense and it bothers me when things make no sense. Why would a person come to me to find a magickally changed girl and refuse to go to the people who could help him most? I decided to take a chance and look at him with my mage-vision.
Everyone has mage-vision, well theoretically at least. It's that even in a world where magic has been shown to exist, most people will run from it in a heartbeat. And of the other 10% who don't, maybe 1 in ten of those actually sits down to study it, and of those, only about one in fifty actually have the perseverance to become really good. What this means is that magickers, people who REALLY know magic are few and far bewteen.
When I looked at him, I just about went blind as the bright essence of him assualted my eyes. Looking at a faery can do that to you, especially it the fae in question is strong. All fae are strong in magic, much more so than humans generally. So they tend to glow when viewed with mage sight. Mr. Cobb glowed like a blast furnace. I was slammed out of my sight and the recoil stabbed through my eyes like a knife. I jammed my hands onto my eyes to lessen the pain.
'Mr. Cobb' straightened and threw off the glamour that shrouded him. His whole image changed. Instead of a rumpled grey business suit, he wore a deep violet shirt that looked like silk. Tights of deep green, and a leather vest that was a deep rich brown. A short, nasty-looking sword about as long as my forearm hung off of his left hip. HE gained in height as well, standing just a shade under seven feet tall, and rail thin.
“Ms. Fatelli, do you understand why it is so important to find my daughter?” “Well, for starters, because she's your daughter?” I said, deadpan. That's me, life of the party. I swear he growled slightly at that, and then took a deep breath. “My daughter has been turned into a rabbit by another mage. I need to find her before her assailant does. I am also certain that you have experience with this kind of magic also. That is why I have come to you.”
“Mr. Cobb, or whatever you're called,” I said. “I have no idea what you're talking about. What kind of magic are you talking about?” He straightened, and extended one arm. Just out from the tip of the arm an object faded into view, hanging suspended in the air, and I saw what it was and my stomach flipped over and I almost started whimpering. He was showing me a glass bottle. The same glass bottle that I had seen destroyed seven years ago during the biggest lviing nightmare of my life. Oh. Shit.
Mr. Cobb stared at me like a starving wolf stares at a crippled sheep. “Ms. Fatelli, you have seen this before, haven't you. The human who changed my daughter was attempting to use this on her.” “How the hell did the guy get that thing, and why are you sure he's human? If he was, why didn't your daughter just change back after she got away?” I almost yelled. I was angry and scared at the same time. I think that's a standard reaction when you have the absolute crap scared out of you like I did.
He didn't bat an eye, nor show any reaction to my outburst. He just waited, absolutely, completely, nerve-wrackingly still. He watched me a moment more and replied with a maddeningly neutral voice. “I believe that he had made a mistake in the spell, that the rabbit was not what he wanted. My daughter may have shifted before he could complete the spell, and he bound her to the form since his spell was tailored for a human, not a rabbit.” He shuddered slightly, and if he had not been so still prior to that, I would not have caught it.
He continued to look at me and said in that strange, neutral voice, “He had used cold iron in the spell.” Cold iron. Anathema to the fae. I'm not sure why, but cold iron is about the worst thing that a fae would face, and most of them would bolt away if given a chance. It's their poison, a single nail made of cold iron is enough to seriously weaken the most powerful of fae spells, and any weaker one is blown away like dust.
I wasn't sure what that did in this case, but it probably had something to do with why this child was still a rabbit. Maybe it locked spells like shapeshifting. Who knows? I sure didn't. But the bottle, the fucking bottle scared the crap out of me. I'd never thought to see it again after the huge implosion at the cabin. But god, or in this case magic, has got a real warped sense of humor. I hate warped senses of humor, especially when I'm involved in the humor part.
But I had to admit one thing, I sure as hell had more experience with that damned bottle than the rest of the world. I wish I didn't. That bottle sucks your whole self, soul and all, out of you, and converts the soul and anything that you were or might have been into magical energy. You're gone, nothing's left. No soul to reincarnate, or go to heaven, or hell, or wherever you believe souls go. It's a complete destruction of you. The holder can get one huge boost of power, but to keep at high levels, the use has to keep putting more people in the bottle.
As far as I know, since this one was crafted by a fallen angel, it would probably work on anyone or anything here. Which meant that a fae sucked up would turbo-charge anyone who had the bottle . Seriously turbo-charge. If the holder was skillful she might be able to lay waste to all of Halifax, and the surrounding countryside. I looked back again at 'Mr. Cobb'. “All right, I'll help you find your daughter, but I'm going to get full discretion on who r what's used to do the job, or we can part ways right now.” 'Mr. Cobb smiled and said “done.”
The first thing I did was pack up and head over to Larry so that I could get a locater spell. I was guessing that the other wizard was doing the same thing now that I had more understanding of what was going on. I also packed a few items in a 'possibilities' bag. I had a pistol but didn't trust it. Pistols don't always stop things coming after you, and they give ignorant people a misguided sense of confidence that got them killed a lot of times when running or a little thought would have saved their lives.

1

2007-12-04T08:48:00.000-06:00

I suppose I should tell you where I was when this all started. I was in my AUTHENTIC 1930's style office that has a lot of original 1930's stuff in it to create the proper atmosphere. I have a small, square desk in the middle of the floor. On my desk are a paperweight, a candlestick telephone, a desk pad to protect the wood. an “in” box with nothing in it, an “out” box on top of the “in” filled with files that really should put in the file cabinet, a laptop computer that is my only nod to modern help, two file cabinets, one that is badly dented and opens with difficulty, the other a old army 4-drawer with a locking bar on the front.

One wall has a Murphy bed in it that I have as I like the ambiance, and because there are times when I cannot and/or will not get home to sleep. I sleep here more than at my apartment. Next to the desk is a small refrigerator that comes flush to the desktop. On top of it are a one element burner and a 10-cup coffee maker for a little pick-me-up when I need to be alert.

The walls are a ivory with some small cracks tastefully built into the surface to give it that Philip Marlowe feel, and to attract attention away from the slight bow in the wall where some raging troll wadded up a dictionary and broke the wall that he threw it against. Finally there is a set of two seven foot tall book cases that hold old paperback novels and where my folded clothes are put. Through the inner door is a small alcove which holds a desk and another candlestick telephone. That is the secretary's office, which is currently gathering dust as I haven't really tried to get a new partner/secretary since Zhirk died.

Two wooden arm chairs stood in front of my desk. One of them heId my latest client, a Mr, Norman Cobb who was regaling me with his tale of woe. Seems that with all the strange activity going on as Halloween approached, someone had taken his black cat, Cocoa by name, and he was frantic to get poor Cocoa back before midnight. This was the third time he'd gone through the story, and I was getting the feeling I'd be hearing it again, as he didn't seem to understand subtle hints that I couldn't help him find a cat in that short a time. I had been trying to send him to my brother-in-law Larry Potter, for the last ten minutes. But Mr. Cobb wouldn't have any of it. Obtuse would be a good word if I thought he'd actually understand it.

“Mr. Cobb,” I said, “I'm not really able to handle this kind of job very easily. Now if you'd take this problem to Larry Potter, he may well be able to find your cat without the huge charge you'd get from me.” “You're the one I need, not some wanna-be jerkface pimple on a goat's ass. I gotta find my rabbit, and I gotta have you find her.” he said, with a petulant note to his voice. I am not the most patient person in the world, and he hit my limit. I grit my teeth and tried very hard to be polite. “Mr. Cobb, I don't find lost animals. I don't use magic. You need a magickian to find a lost rabbit, there's no way I'd even know where to look and to be honest, I'm not interested in looking. So tell you what, you get your lazy butt up out of my guest chair, go out the door, and go hire a magickian. He can whip up a spell to find your little hairball pretty quickly. Good day.”

Mr. Norman Cobb got up very slowly from the chair, and tried to go for intimidating. He stepped over to the edge of the desk, placed both hands on it and leaned forward, trying to get into my face and force me to back up. This really started to piss me off. “Ms. Fatelli, I said before, I don't want no fuckin' magickan, I want you to find my rabbit! Now either you start trying to locate my rabbit or...” I respond even less well to threats, and grabbed the paperweight.

He saw the motion and came around the side of the desk to stop me from throwing it, and probably to try and intimidate me further. I spun my chair to face him and as he cleared the edge of the table, I planted my stiletto heel in between his legs and into the groin area, making contact with those soft and extremely tender testicles. He gasped and screamed at the same time, and ended up sounding more like a duck than a man. He fell to his knees, then toppled onto his side moaning, and curling about the injured area like a fetus.

I stood up out of the chair, all five foot nothing of me. “Mr. Cobb,” I said to him, “I don't find lost animals, I don't like threats, and I don't like your attitude. When you can walk, get out. Oh, and if you want to file assault, I have a camera that records all my talks in here, just in case someone tries to pull stunts like yours.” I sat back down in my chair and waited until Mr. Cobb could get back up off the ground. He staggered towards the door, then stopped and I saw his shoulders tighten. I stood up quickly, when someone does that they're usually getting a good mad up just before they try to take your head off. Then his whole body started shuddering, and I heard him whine like a wounded animal. What the hell?

Glass Bottles 2 "Hassenpfeffer"

2007-12-04T08:44:00.000-06:00

I am going to post up the NaNoWriMo novel here as parts over the next three months. I'm using this venue to afford myself the opportunity to re-write parts of the novel and (hopefully) garner criticism and commentary so that I can understand in my writing what worked, what didn't work, and why. The only way you learn is to let people see your stuff and get feedback. So here we go. Thanks in advance to any who comment. I appreciate any and all. :)

A good article

2007-11-09T06:32:00.000-06:00

I found this on a city of heroes game forum, and thought it was worth placing here.

Pretendy fun and Games

30 days of Night (review)

2007-10-30T08:16:00.000-05:00

Stuck at Barrow Alaska for 30 days before the sun comes up again. Vampires come to town and take over, massacring the populace.

I liked this movie, it was well-paced and gave me a wonderful view of the carnage that was to come. The vampires were intelligent, and carefully eliminated contact between Barrow and the rest of the world, by destroying cell-phones, satellite link, and any vehicle capable of communication with the nearest town. This built the suspense for me quite nicely. It was good to see creatures written and played with some intelligence for once.

Once the vampires seal off the town, they go after the people, indulging their bloodlust and slaughtering the town. As the lead vampire said "we should have thought of this long ago." Once the initial attack is over ( and the smart townies go to ground early ), the vampires begin a systematic search of the town for the survivors they know are there, but the extreme conditions mask from them. The show loses a little of its early logic here for the sake of the story, so my criticism is more a nit than anything. The vampires go as far as to send a helpless victim they have kept alive, down the main street crying for help to lure out any good Samaritans.

The surviving townies do make a reasonable guess that the vampires hate sunlight for some reason, and test this theory by taking a big chance that lights in a hydroponic garden put out the proper light to injure the vampires. The guess proves correct and one vampire is badly fried by the exposure. The vampire-and-human chase continues for the entire 30 days, with the humans taking refuge in the attic of one home and then moving to a more defensible location.

The downside to the movie is that only the lead vampire seems capable of putting two and two together in an intelligent fashion, but his appearance always portrayed a shift in the situation, and the actor did a very good job in my mind of showing the vampire's inhuman, intelligent side. Again, a nit, but slightly bigger than the earlier one.

At the end, the vampires decide to burn the town and everything in it to preserve their anonymity. I'll leave the review off here to save the suspense.

I have been very vague with the review as the newspapers have already dissected the movie quite thoroughly, and because I wanted to leave you with a taste and not the whole plate. This review is to pique your interest, and if you do enjoy the vampire genre, this will be well worth your money in my opinion.

Sufficient to the day is the Weirdness contained therein

2007-10-29T09:35:00.000-05:00

The title says it all in this instance. Why, oh why would anyone want to steal a full trashcan from our yard. You would think that if someone wanted the trash bin, they'd just dump the trash and take it, or if they wanted checking account numbers or credit card numbers they'd just grab a bag of trash. But, noooooo! They take the whole da** kit and kaboodle!

Lloyd has been wandering the neighborhood to see if he can spot the bin, and it shouldn't be hard to locate, being the only bright blue bin in a neighborhood of black. However, the two-day search to date has turned up nothing, and the bin wasn't grabbed by kids and taken into the woods, as though there are woods, they are too thin to hide a trash bin. We're going to chalk it up to 'the season' and let it go. But it is just da** weird.

NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) starts in a couple of days and I'm already clenching my teeth to keep from jumping the gun. I think I have a good layout for the next attempt at a 50,000+ word story. We'll see what happens though.

Also, to all of you who have taken the time to read this extremely erratic blog, thank you very much, I appreciate all the comments, as they do help me see things from a differenr perspective, and they do help me refine my writing. I can't tell you enough how much that means to me. Thank you.

Dead Air

2007-10-28T15:37:00.000-05:00

In a previous post, Lloyd helped set down his ideas on how to build a character personality. Over the last few days with the City of Heroes Halloween Event going, I've had opportunity to team with some good teams. One ting I have found interesting though, is how each team, or more properly, members on the team handle long silences, or 'dead air'.

As a player I do not mind dead air at all. If I am in the middle of a fight, answering someone is not my top priority. Outside of action, there is time for conversation, which does not always happen. There are a few players that HAVE to fill that silence with a comment, a /tell, something so that the silence feels not so long and/or uncomfortable. Others, possibly because of shyness, or natural/character reticence, do nothing to fill that empty space.

You don't have to fill the 'dead air' with conversation, but you can do little things like ::looks around:: or some other small non-verbal activity. This doesn't have to happen all the time, nor should it. The idea is that if you are uncomfortable with long silences, this is a way to relieve that pressure and add to the game in some way for your teammates, that doesn't require a response from them. Odds are you might get one though. People are curious, and nothing piques curiosity like :: picks something up off the ground:: . My two cents.

Relative Sensitivity

2007-10-25T08:33:00.000-05:00

This post is going to be somewhat personal to myself and friends, and I will say I am not trying to single anyone out or target anyone deliberately. This is my own thoughts on a subject that has been in my mind for a while. I as a person am relativey thin-skinned, and have trouble handling constructive criticism.

My goal is to be a professional writer, and that means dealing with criticism, and learning from it. I want people to tell me what works, and especially what doesn't. If I don't know I can't learn. But at the same time, it is very hard to handle any kind of disapproval, well-intentioned or not. This is a personal challenge. So, how to handle it? One method is to just take it, and let it be waht it is, constructive criticism. That is very hard to do for yours truly.

A second method, one that is really unhealthy, is to take it as a personal attack, and seethe in the unfairness of it all. 99.9% of the time this is NOT the intent of the critiquer, but the interpretation of the thin-skinned person who was expecting perfection out of the gate and got told that she fell short. This can keep one wound up for days and cause all sorts of angst and anguish, which also affects any writing.

A third is to use an alias and allow a half-step of removal (mentally) from the critique. In an example, writer-wanna-be uses the name 'Bits' as a ID, and gets a less than glowing critique about a post in her blog. Here the person can say "That was for Bits, so let's see how we can help her do better with this." That way you are helping your friend 'Bits' hammer out the perceived weaknesses in the writing, and it's easier to re-write and modify.

A fourth is to ignore the critique completely, dismissing it as purest idiocy on the critiquer's part.

Pesonally, I use 3) fairly often at times, but not exclusively. I'm learning to see that the critiquer is not someone who wants to hurt me, but that they liked the story or article enough to comment on it in one form or another. I'm still hoping to get to 1) much more consistently, but that I get there is a triumph in my mind.

On rare occasion, I will get a blistering commentary, and then I will sit and mope, probably a few days before I go back to it again. But the challenge there is to throw away ad hominem attacks and see the rest of the critique. Not easy, and if one is thin-skinned like myself, it is difficult to go back to that source for another critique, but it comes down to which do I want more, not to be possibly hurt by someone's comment, or improve my writing so I can share ideas and fun with others more effectively. I know which side I want to come down on, but only time will tell for certain. How about you?

How to tell Truth from Lies

2007-10-24T06:59:00.000-05:00

This is mostly a copy from an article in Entrepeneur.com, but does show some things that might be useful in role-play in CoH. I've had some difficulty in making sure I communicate with friends/teammembers, and using some of these 'cues' for teammembers to see may very well provide something to play off of beyond just a chat line.

Entrepreneur.com
Are They Lying to You?
Thursday October 18, 3:00 am ET
By Ken Osborn How many times has your business suffered because you trusted the wrong person? If you're like most people, you've been lied to thousands of times.

Deception hurts in many ways. There's the emotional stress from being betrayed, the loss of self-confidence and the increased suspicion or even paranoia. Not to mention the financial cost.

A deceptive supplier may promise that a shipment will arrive by your deadline, all the while knowing that delivery by the promised date is impossible. Trusting this supplier could cost your company thousands of dollars or more. Deceptions like this can be deadly to a growing business.

But you don't have to be a victim. Here are seven subtle cues that often mean a person isn't being completely honest with you.

1. Nose touch: We have erectile tissues in our noses, which engorge with blood when we lie. This causes a tingling or itching sensation that requires a nose touch to satisfy. The absence of a nose touch doesn't guarantee truth, but the presence of a nose touch often means deception. Of course, sometimes a person will touch his or her nose because of a non-deceptive cause, such as a cold. With some practice, you can quickly learn to distinguish a deceptive nose touch from something innocent.

2. Speech disturbances: When we lie, we force our brain to pretend that the lie is true, that the truth is a lie and simultaneously remember that the real truth is that each is the other. Are you confused? So is your brain when you lie. The process of deception taxes our cognitive ability to think efficiently. So when we lie, we pause longer and speak slower than normal and often experience speech disturbances that serve as gap fillers, such as "um," "er" and "ah." Train yourself to look for deception when you hear this kind of verbal cue.

3. Incongruent behavior: When our words and our body language don't agree, our communication is incongruent. Imagine that you ask a salesman if he can assure your delivery will be on time. If he explains how certain he is about it being on time while also shaking his head--as if non-verbally saying "no"--he is incongruent. When this sort of incongruence occurs, you would do well to believe the person's body over his words.

4. Neck rub: We rub our necks because of the stress we experience when we feel that an obstacle may be insurmountable. Let's say you're interviewing a potential employee for a key leadership position and the prospective employee verbally emphasizes his interest in the job. However he also begins to rub his neck when you explain the expected duties. This probably means he doesn't feel he'll be able to accomplish the duties. He might be wrong, but if we know anything about human psychology, it's that if someone believes that they can or can't do something, they're probably right.

5. Eye rub: An eye rub is an indicator of disbelief. Let's say you have an important computer keystroke sequence to teach a new employee. The employee begins to rub her eyes even while verbally affirming your statements. This probably means that she doesn't believe you or disagrees with your instruction. It would be wise to stop and ask a question to allow the employee to verbally object. Many subordinates feel uneasy about disagreeing with the boss, but their bodies don't hesitate. Perceiving a potential problem and dealing with it early can be the difference between a simple misunderstanding and a business disaster.

6. Upward inflections: We upwardly inflect our words when asking a question. You may have noticed that some salespeople will upwardly inflect certain statements of fact. This is a red flag that should alert you to potential deception. The salesman might say, "Your competitors have seen their profit margins increase by 30 percent by using our product." If you notice that he upwardly inflected the words, "30 percent," you should disregard this statistic and be suspicious of him altogether.

7. Stabbed hollows: In the study of graphology--or handwriting analysis--hollow letters represent honesty. Anything that disrupts a hollow letter could indicate deception. Let's pretend you enter your office to find a note from your top salesman on your desk. His note indicates that he had to go out of town to visit his sick mother and won't be able to go to the annual trade show. You notice that every "o" in his note has some sort of mark interjected into the hollow space of each letter. You would be right to be suspicious of the facts in the note and a phone call or meeting would likely expose some sort of deception.

With some practice, these new awareness tools will give you greater confidence in your perceptive ability and new peace of mind when deciding to trust others.

Ken Osborn is the founder and executive director of The CIA Institute in Corona, California. He has taught hundreds of deception awareness seminars and workshops including the popular Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire!!! Workshop and is the author of A Pack of Lies, a flash card system designed to teach someone to instantly recognize 50 common deceptive cues. He may be reached at getcia@aol.com

How is this useful? Well, if someone knows that your character is uncomfortable, or displays one of these cues, he or she may be hiding something, and this creates curiosity and the desire to find out what is so important/embarassing to the character that they must deceive another. I could be talking and enter ::rubs neck:: into the chat before talking about something, there is a cue to be read onn-verbally. Practice with this expands one's ability to communicate and share opportunities far more than just typing in my opinion, one that I have been remiss in using, and am determined to correct. There's today's two cents.

A story from a story

2007-10-19T09:38:00.000-05:00

The title implies a bit of 'nesting', and you suppose correctly here. One thing that does bother me some about City of Heroes, is that once you've gone through their storylines, stepping through them again loses some of the sense of wonder and anticipation that accompanied the first time. The game loses a touch of it's mystique, and the game tends to repeat itself.

One way I've found to help myself with the sense of wonder is to look at the story arcs and try to modify them to fit a derivation of the story as is. For me this means mentally tweaking the clues and the information of the contacts, or finding a potential new connection between villain groups. Thus the story idea in the previous post, which in part was motivated by some in-game role-playing between StarWyng and Red Pulsarion. A good story as such branches readily, but you can always see the core, or trunk if you will, story supporting the branches.

Ideas for stories come from all over. In the above example, Red was slowly building to an explosion, and in the player's mind, Red was going to be transported to the rikti homeworld to detonate and cause as much damage as possible. StarWyng was appalled, and argued against the idea. Masonry, who in this discussion played a great Iago to StarWyng's Othello, suggested she go there and see the enemy truly for what they were.

To everyone's surprise Star did that, and came back with a nemesis stealth robot that had been acting as a block leader (think SS in the 1930's-40's, the Khmer Rouge in the 1970's-80's-90s' in Cambodia under Pol Pot, or Stalinist Russia ). A firefight ensued and Star noticed that the "leader" was steaming. A closer look revealed the truth of the matter, and she took the machine as evidence of what she found. Now Rusty Gears and Equilibria ("Kit" to her friends) are scrambling to develop a radiation suit to protect Red. SapphireKnight is starting to plan on running down something that is bothering him about the group that oversees Red's activities, the FBSA (Federal Bureau of Super-powered Affairs). The story has started growing on its own.

The upshot of everything is that you can breathe new life into the storylines with just a tweak of your own imagination and a willingness to look beyond exactly what is written. And the best part is if you have friends willing to go on the ride with you and share their imaginations. Thanks, guys.

Idea for Storyline

2007-10-17T05:33:00.001-05:00

StarWyng had been observing the inhabitants for days, how they lived, their interactions with each other, with their leaders, and how their leaders treated the population. What she had seen upset her to her core. She had never seen the government of China brutalize its population during the cultural revolution, Berlin and the Nazi movement, or observed Cambodia under Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. If she had, she would have recognized in the actions of the Rikti leaders, the kinship this government had with them. The constant exhortation to something, the large banners of leaders, and the police who did most of their work at night, taking one member of a family away or ripping a child from its family to be placed in a creche for proper stateist education.

What she did see was the fear of the people of their own kind. Fear of the visits in the dark, the iron hand. She decided to watch one the leaders more closely, and enhanced her stealth to allow for close observation. She chose one of the local leaders, and followed him back to his office to observe how he operated day-to-day. As she approached him, the leader surprised her by looking right at her, and then pulling a weapon and firing, hit her and disrupted her invisibility field. She suddenly became visible to the populace, a white winged creature out of thin air. The leader and his two bodyguards engaged StarWyng, and random shots sliced past her into the street and a coughing scream told her that someone had been hit.

Her instinct took over and she charged the three Rikti leaders, and in the close combat disabled the three in short order. As she stopped to catch her breath, she noticed that the leader was ... steaming? She ripped open his uniform and found metal underneath. She had seen nemesis stealth bots before, and could recognize them. Quickly she grabbed the machine and bolted into the air. She had proof that something was not what it seemed. She only hoped she shared the information with would come to that same conclusion .

Who are you? Why are you here? Where are you going? What do you want?

2007-09-17T13:59:00.000-05:00

These three questions have been brought home very much to me over the last few days. Not in a bad or tragic real life way, but in an entertainment way that gave me some insights into these questions and character evolution.

My boyfriend Lloyd borrowed the first two season boxed-sets of "Babylon 5" to watch, and I can see why he loves the show so much. There is a definite sense of continuity and each episode feels like it is supposed to follow the previous one, and at the same time, lay groundwork for following episodes. Not even "Firefly" can make that claim as completely and thoroughly as "Babylon 5".

The signal episode, which is on disc 4 of the second season, "In the shadow of Z'Ha'Dum" brought these questions home to me. In this episode, Morden, who is in the employ of the Shadows (( read the BAD guys, and believe me, you need the capitals )) asks Vir Kotto (( wonderfully played by Stepehn Furst )) "what do you want?" Vir uses the question to challenge Morden, to grow into himself, and to point out that although the Centauri are building their empire again, some people question the price of empire, and the cost of secrets. This leads back for me to character development and evolution.

The best development of a character is with a rich tapestry and carefully paced revelation and background development. This can be presented in any way that feels right, but you must also be willing to take a few chances along the way. For my example here, we go back to StarWyng again. I like the character, a lot. In a way I identify with her and her problems with not knowing where she came from or what is changing in her. Her personality has shifted as we have gamed, and those that have put up with my experimentations with her I cannot thank enough for sticking with me as I try and explore who/why/what StarWyng is.

Pacing and revelation are the two important points I pulled from watching B-5. Allow things to flow and let the current dictate where the revelations come, and lt your friends share and enjoy them with you. You don't force them to experience, you let them choose to share, and that is what truly makes the magic in character growth. Be sure too, when you grow, leave room for the others to grow with you, as when their characters have these changes and revelations, they are sharing some precious part of themselves with you, because they trust you to share it, support it, and have fun with them.

But back to our original line of thought. Revelation and pacing is a two-headed beast. Writing out signal points in the development, like making a skeleton for a story, is a good thing to do in my mind. It keeps you focused on the character and keeps you within them, and part of the process. At the same time, spontaneity and improvisation are essential, as someone or some situation may hand you a true epiphany and if you are not willing to think on your feet and seize these opportunities, you may lose a wonderful chance to see your character grow in ways you never dreamed.

This is all very vague, as there is no ONE formula that works for everyone. It is a matter of experimentation and improvisation, and continual change. What might be a good idea early on may become unworkable as an idea as the character grows, so flexibility is essential. This is a story, one that is acted out as the character grows, rather than being written down. The result is the same though.

Role-Playing Environments

2007-09-13T09:17:00.000-05:00

Up to about an hour ago, i was looking forward to getting on-line eventually and taking part in the upcoming Marvel superhero MMORPG. I wanted to be a part of that well-built and distinct 'universe' that comprises Marvel and its creations. But now, an hour later, I am thinking I will probably look at it, but remain with City of Heroes. Why the change of apparent heart?

It comes down to that marvelously rich and distinct 'universe' that comprises Marvel and its creations. The world is so definitively crafted, that instead of being part, and feeling like a major part in the ongoing storylines, I cannot see myself as being anything other than a background for the established Marvel superheros and villains. The world is already so well established that although Marvel may make room for me, I am not certain that I would ever feel a part of anything within their game other than a background piece.

City of Heroes on the other hand, is a very loosely defined place where the heroes, at least to this point, are what makes the tapestry, not the established heroes. Those heroes that are here are well hidden away from the me that I feel as if my actions do constitute a lynch-pin on which certain adventures swivel on. Here, because of the vagueness of the world, I do feel as part of the front line.

I am uncertain how Marvel can address this, but we will see when their universe goes on-line.

And the World changed

2007-09-12T14:04:00.000-05:00

September 11, 2001 is one of those days that everyone whom it touched will remember exactly where they were when they got word about what happened. I had just come out of the shower and flipped on the radio, when the news sounded out from it. I think I stood there for a good 30 seconds trying to imagine what was going on before I dressed quickly and went to turn on the television, and saw the twin towers on fire, and their eventual collapse.

That collapse also brought down the notion that security was an individual choice. In rapid and, to my mind at least, hysterical reaction to the tragedy, the Patriot act was passed and the office of Homeland Security established. We declared war on Al-Qaiada, and invaded their stronghold in afghanistan, and righteously kicked ass and took names. It seemed the war against Al-Qaiada was working. Then Iraq became a target, based upon the sketchy evidence that Iraq had nukes and there was the impression that they were willing to use them, or, sell them to Al-Qaiada who would use them on us.

So that you can make your own informed opinion, here is a site weighing pros and cons.

patriot act - pros and cons

We went to war with Iraq and again righteously kicked ass. But what abou Afghanistan? We were still there, but now the supplies needed were split between two objectives, seemingly a two-front war. If Hitler taught us anything, it is that you fight one war at at time, and FINISH IT. There has to be a priority, and now the question to me became, was Iraq a legitimate step in that war, or Bush Jr. wanting to fix Bush Sr. mistake in Iraq. and save family face at the expense of the war against terrorism? I honestly think it was the latter, and our war became a personal vendetta vs. a true attempt at finishing Al-Qaiada. The war needs to be done. No other option in my mind. You kill civilians, you ARE a terrorist, and you should be hunted down like a rabid animal and put down with extreme prejudice. That is what needs to be done. However, we have committed to this two-front situation, and they are needed to be resolved.

I think Bush was truly either an idiot for steping into Iraq BEFORE finishing Afghanistan, or terribly misinformed and his cabinet then blew the call with their terribly mistaken judgment. But we are there now and second-guessing does not change the world back to the way it was. Here in America, the office of homeland security is constantly monitoring internet traffic trying to catch terrorists before they can cause more pain. The patriot act gives the government more ability to tell us what's good for us, whether we like it or not, and slowly I am seeing a police-state mentality beginning to form where honest discourse and argument is treated as a threat to the government.

This is something that Al-Qaiada has given us, and this, in my mind is the worst thing. America was founded on the idea of democracy and that the individual was responsible for his own welfare. We support the government as our collective voice, but we are more and more it seems, being told what to say and how to say it. I may be wrong, and I will gladly apologize for my stand if there is evidence and data proffered that proves my suspicions and accusations false. But until then, I have said what I feel and what I believe.

Personalities in writing

2007-09-04T07:03:00.000-05:00

Personalities are important to any character in any game, genre, book, magazine, written and/or acted material you find. The personality can either be the writer's as he/she posits a question or how they run the discourse of the material, such as I'm doing here. But to get down to specifics, so we can concentrate the thoughts better, I'm going to go to character's personality creation in City of Heroes, which for me, is a haphazard situation with no real set-in-stone rules.

Earlier I discussed the way I put characters together, and how I get the story from that process. The process isn't done completely by that process, but oft times it does create a rudimentary personality for th character, and I find that very intriguing. Just how does the personality come about? Part or all of it can be suggested by the background writeup, and how much of their life is linked to their goals. Other times, the personality may be absent completely, requiring a number of false starts in role-playing before the personality emerges. What I am saying here is there is no set-in-stone method I use to create a personality.

Let's take a look at some of the characters and I'll describe how their personalties came about.

LaFleur - Literally, LaFleur came out of the mists with her personality fully formed. It was like she had this strong, quiet, wry humor that just FIT. What solidified her was the first time I ever played her in a group, and died three times in quick succession. "I guess I am too popular today" was the line that she uttered, and the response from the others in /tell was "lol, so true!", and that sealed the personality.

Wirraway - She, like LaFleur staggered out of the mists of creation with some part of her personality already built. But unlike LaFleur, she needed polishing, which came from a series of old Foster's Lager commercials. The "more American than the Americans" line from somewhere was how she eventually developed her personality. Loud, proud, eccentric, gregarious. She talked the talk and walked the walk. Foster's gave me the accent style, the "american" line gave me the force of the personality.

StarWyng - Her personality I had to re-build four times I think before I had an epiphany (well, not so much an epiphany as serendipity.) Lloyd was watching "Alien Nation" and the visitors diffculties in fitting into society, and their penchant for taking every part of human life to it's extreme finally gave me someting that fit the winged alien. Hers is an unfinished personality and deliberately left unfinished. Her perspective is not human and that is the most difficult to portray for me, but it is a fun challenge. She is intensely passionate and is a heartbeat from emotional extremism continually, which is a fascinating and difficult place to be, as it wears on her teammates and causes friction and hard feelings at times. But I wouldn't trade her personality at all. It fits, and she has enough good points that I think the others let her slide over the rough spots.

When one learns to fit in a society, one tends to be either very hidden or on the edge due to not understanding the nuances of interaction. That is StarWyng. WIth all heroes, there is a pttern of similarity in me, and that is because of a personal view of heroes in spandex going around fighting crime. The personality is intense, always. Looking at it from a psychological view, what kind of personality does it take to do these things? One that is certainly beyond the norm, I couldn't do what the heroes in books do, I'm not willing to be out in the spotlight that way, not willing to confront, and brother is superheroeing all about confrontation! So to my understanding, heroes will be extreme in personality. Not bad, just out there.

Paying it Forward

2007-08-25T13:28:00.000-05:00

'Radfront' looked out over Steel Canyon from atop the Saharov building. He wished for the fifth time this evening that he could scratch himself, as the new armored fir a bit too snugly and more than a few locations had started to itch as the internal environment compensators were not operating optimally. He sighed in the suit and tried to find a more comfortable position to wait.

Outside the suit, Barry Vaaler was a stocky, brutal-looking man with swarthy skin and thick short-cropped black hair. His eyes were dark brown, almost black and they were the only gentle feature. His face was a series of defined angles made of heavy bone which made his face seem unfinished, as if a sculptor, after making the initial form to a bust, lost interest. Barry's hands were over-large for his five foot-eight inch frame. In fact, Barry could palm a basketball quite easily. Massive muscle bulked along his shoulders and thighs, as if he was supposed to have been taller, but was scrunched into his present form.

The armored Radfront suit was everything Barry was not. It gleamed a rich copper color, with a silvered faceplate, and while stocky, the suit had the lines of an elegant thoroughbred, made to move swiftly and cleanly while performing its tasks. It was, however, Barry thought wryly, a pure pain to wear.

Sokherov Trading, limited, had built this new thirty-story glass and concrete structure on the edge of Steel Canyon's storied financial district, and had started to offer the poor with 'microcredit' financing, an idea based on the fact that the poor would be able to lift themselves out of poverty with a small amount of cash for schooling or business startups, or even for a new set of clothes with which to look for a job.

The Tsoo and the Outcasts both saw this as a simultaneous threat to their established controls in Steel Canyon, and as a new opportunity to extort operating expenses from the company and the community. The attacks on company employees and those who received a loan were vicious enough to have drawn a number of heroes's attention, 'Radfront' being one. By Barry's own count, he had rescued twelve citizens from brutal beatings by the Outcasts.

One of the last Outcasts he had caught had offered to share information to avoid a beating and going to jail, and had told Barry about a job that was going to occur at the Sokherov building. A volt named 'Zach' would be leading the posse, but the thug hadn't know the details other than the location and a vague idea of when the job would be.

Radfront stretched again, and settled back to waiting. After the brutal beatings the Outcasts had been doing to locals, Barry was looking forward to 'paying forward' to the Outcasts. He got up and stretched again, trying to get the suit to fit a little more comfortably, and then checked the other side of the building. He spotted movement below, and hopped off the building, allowing gravity to pull him free-fall until halfway down when he turned on his jet pack and dropped behind three huge dumpsters near the loading dock.

The dumpsters were loaded to overflowing with debris, and the smell of rotting food and refuse permeated the air. As Radfront stepped to the edge of the nearest dumpster, the murmur of voices were picked up by Radfront's helmet microphones. He silently stepped along the wall-side of the dumpster and waited for the intruders to reveal themselves.

“All right my brothers, this is how you open a door,” said a harsh crackling voice. Radfront's suit sensors registered a large increase in electrical potential. There was a sudden spike of power and the tearing sounds of metal, and a crash as something clattered. Radfront's sensors registered ozone production, and a drop in electrical potential. Showtime. He stepped out from behind the dumpsters and onto the loading dock behind the Outcasts. He opened the palms of the suit that connected back to the small fusion reactor under the jet pack, and a debilitating dose of 'soft' radiation staggered the Outcasts. Simultaneously, he cranked the speakers in the suit to full output. “SURRENDER NOW AND I WON'T HURT YOU, MUCH.” The speakers shook dust from the floor of the landing and a few Outcasts covered their ears in pain.

“Freaking cape!”, screamed the blue-skinned leader, and Radfront's suit picked up another increase in electrical potential. Radfront pulsed the Volt with a burst of 'hard' radiation and watched as it sliced through his body, weakening him and causing him to stumble slightly. There was a heavy impact on his right side, and the suit registered an impact that was within ten percent of breaching the armor. Barry turned towards the author of his pain and in a rage, pummled the Outcast with a flurry of angry blows that dropped the villain in his tracks.

The blue-skinned leader had taken the moment to recover himself and a corona of static electricity danced across his body and bathed the area. Radfront's suit beeped a warning that fifty percent of it's reserve power had suddenly been drained away, and the gyro-stabilizer had shorted out. The electrical blast that enveloped the suit drove the wind out of Barry, and another warning beeped at him, indicating the suit's integrity had been breached and that the force-field generator had overloaded and failed attempting to compensate for the attack.

Barry cursed and stepped back of the landing, trying to get distance between himself and the Volt. The suit began recycling to try and bring on-line the compromised systems via secondary pathways, good news but re-booting took time, and time was scarce. A quick, light warble indicated the jet pack was operational again, and Radfront reviewed his options quickly. Stay and fight, or run. There was only one good choice really. Only one opponent was down, and the Volt, backed by eight others made this a no-win. Radfront triggered his jet-pack and fired a burst of radiation over a cone in front of him, attempting to slow pursuit. He had gotten maybe ten feet from the ground when a massive burst of electricity hit the suit, and fried the CPU feedback system, shutting the suit down completely.

The viewscreen showed the ground rushing to meet him, and a bone-snapping impact drove the wind from his lungs, and darkness descended. As consciousness faded, Barry felt a tingling sensation that he recognized as the emergency medical teleport system. Barry awoke on the operating table, and watched groggily as his wounds closed in a matter of moments, healed by one of the resident meta-phsyicians. The 'doctor' enveloped Barry in healing energies and when finished, nodded to the nurse to wheel the gurney out to make room for the next wounded hero.

Barry had only been in that room once before, and had been close to brain-dead when he had arrived. To 'pay off' this life-saving effort would require a large amount of 'active service' to the community, which meant his own investigations and missions would have to wait, as he 'payed forward' the help he received by performing 'active service' to the community. With an inward sigh he downloaded the missions he was 'requested' to participate in to work off this latest 'debt' to the hospital and community.....

2007-08-20T08:06:00.001-05:00

This is going to be a more self-centered post than I'm usually comfortable with, as I dislike intensely talking about myself. As some or many of you know, I am diagnosed as having depressive episodes, and these do affect me and my style of game-play. I hate 'poor me' stuff but like anyone who is depressed, I like sympathy and the feeling that people care. To get a handle on things I will usually start soloing a lot and pretty much cut myself off as I don't want to be feeling like a burden or a downer to the other people I game with.

Selfish, yes I know it's selfish. I don't like making people worry or feel like they have to go out of their way to make sure I'm doing all right since I'm not my usual self. At the same time it is comforting to have that support and I admit to craving it even as I'm trying to avoid it. I cannot speak for anyone else about their situation with depression, bi-polar, or any of the myriad other conditions, physical or psychological that manifest. I can only describe personal observations, personal thoughts and guesses on the matter, and hope that these small things may in some way help others make sense of their own unique situations.

So on to the expose'. In my case the depressive episode seems to build over a few days, I notice a tension, but no real other symptoms. The trigger, and that's the best word I can come to, seems to be a situation that creates a feel of exclusion, either real or imagined. It could be something as small as my cat not wanting me to pick her up. Then the episode hits, and I spiral in fast, usually in an hour or so I'm deep into the episode and everything up to that point quits mattering as it feels so useless to try and work on things as all I can think of is how I will mess things up. The episodes last anywhere from about 4 days to 4-5 months. I'm not sure why some last for so long, but it does seem as I have gotten older, the episodes have lasted longer although they do not seem to increase in frequency.

In my experience, the medications I have been prescribed, phenobarbitol, methylphenidate, fluoxitine, etc, have not so much dispelled the symptoms and the results so much as dampened them to the point of tolerance. And with constant usage, three situations have resulted in diminished effectiveness, chemical tolerance, side-effects, and allergic reaction. It is at this last that I have gone off medication as the side-effects to me are more detrimental than the cause for the medication, and that increased dosages also create increased dangers to my overall health.

The cat's out of the bag now, and something like this always changes a dynamic or a relationship. It can't help but do so. This is perhaps the biggest fear I have. That such a 'confession' will diminish me in some manner in the eyes of my friends, and that close friendships will unravel. That happens anyway, people drift according to their own interests and changes in their lives, or because of a new perspective on someone they thought they knew. That is natural, it happens. Life happens.

Beyond this however, is an apology for not participating with my friends as often as I should. I love getting a chance to play with you all, but please forgive me the times when I feel the need to isolate myself until I can feel like I function without causing any distress.

Sharing an old friend

2007-08-16T10:45:00.000-05:00

I do not know how many of you have seen this website, but I have enjoyed it's satire for years.

//www.dhmo.org/

Enjoy.

Background and Gameplay

2007-08-14T09:47:00.000-05:00

I discussed in a very abbreviated sense the points I felt necessary to create a good background. I want to take this a bit further here, and ask those of you who read this blog the following question.

"Do you see the background you create for a character as actually influencing the way you play the game when you run the character?"

For me the answer is kind of a waffle - yes and no.

Here's why.

The 'NO' side first. With any online game there are limited choices as to reactions allowed in-game. No offense intended, that is just plain truth. You have limited targets, they have limited responses, and the consequences are limtied by the complexity of the program and the capability of the machine/computers running them. So I do see that my characters do have a limited range and thus the background, however detailed, runs up against these limitations.

Now to the 'YES' side. I find that even within these limitations there can be a humongously WIDE range of latitude if I am willing to be a little thoughtful. Like not fighting certain beasts/gangs as a way of stepping beyond basic game mechanics. Another is how I prepare for combat. Let me take two blasters I have built as examples, and some of you may know one or both, and have played in a group with them - La Fleur and Yellowjakket. La Fleur got her powers from an accident with a particle accelerator as a graduate student in Toronto, Yellowjakket was born with hers and started using them after her parents were attacked an nearly killed.

With the backgrounds created, I found that La Fleur would only give a cursory glance to layout and begin sniping from long-range, usually so far away that she seldom drew an aggro that made it to her, and on teams she is always careful to choose her targets. She takes, it seems a rapid and cursory calculation of the situation, and then calmly starts picking things apart methodically.

Yellowjakket, is diametric to this, she will very carefully scout the situation, lay trip mines and pop inpiriations, then all holy hell breaks loose and she is in and amongst her oponents like a crapper, then drags them back into the mines. Then it's caltrops and hand-to-hand, and electrical blasts, and darn little thought as to any tactics, just hit 'em until hey go down or she does.

Yellowjakket carries a lot of anger in her and La Fleur is still in some ways a researcher, and I find that these backgrounds do seem to influence me when I am running them, up to the point that computer limitations allow.

Any of you have observatons pro- or con- ?

Character Backgrounding

2007-08-11T18:00:00.000-05:00

What separates a good background from a adequate one, and what makes a great background?

I see a background as needing to answer three questions when I make one. Does a background create a motivation, an intent, and a history (MIH for short).

Motivation - what the character wants for the future. These are the long-range wants/desires.

Intent – How is the character planning on getting what they want/need/desire. How does the character react when trying to get wht they want, or get what motivates them.

History – the character's own little biography.

We'll take a look at each of these in reverse order.

For me, history is the ground that everything else is built on/around. This is how the character grew up, what were his or her earliest influences in life. Was he raised by wolves, was her family already superheroes or supervillains, or was the background just vanilla-normal? Every little thing here has an influence.

Intent is, for me, the most difficult to explain. Intent is what the character wants at the time he or she is in-game. This often is NOT what motivates the character. As an example, when StarWyng faced off with Masonry, her intent was to KILL him. Nothing else. That was her intent. When Dead-Bang goaded Notion and Soldier Futura, his intent was to get into a fight with one of them. It is the short-term wants/needs that the character has in that moment, and how this helps the character get their motivation. With Dead-Bang, the intent to fight was also a way to defuse tensions, and thus in a way bond slightly so that he is not alone in trying to reach his motivation.

Motivation – the big nebulous drive. What the character wants or is trying to get. Dead-Bang's motivation is to find the man that killed his girlfriend and kill him with his bare hands. He may not act like that is anything he is thinking about, but it IS the filter that everything is touched by, for good or ill, as, for example, his intent described above.

So now that we have a cursory look at these, let's take a look at some histories.

Yellowjakket - “You don't need to know my name or my life. All you need to know is I will do anything to stop crime in my city.”

This is about the shortest one I ever wrote, and you can infer a lot from it. 1) the character is very defensive and secretive, 2) she says she is ready to do “anything”, which might mean she is willing to kill if the situation warrants. This also gives us a glimpse at her history. Something has made her this focused and secretive in her past. She very obviously is a loner. Her obvious motivation is in the last sentence – stop crime. So although short, it does give us a glimpse at her personality and motivation, and hints at some possible traumatic event that focused her on this path.

Here's another -

StarWyng - “I was thrown here long before I knew what I was or even where I was from. I wanted a friend, and the darkness answered with a light, and a kindly voice asked if I would allow her to join me. I said yes and we were born. I do not know my past, it is broken and beyond N'shta and myself to recover in whole, but pieces may be possible. I know.... I am an Aerian, I am a Protector, I am a Pathfinder. I was trained to protect any who could not protect themselves, and to find Nictus, hunt Nictus, stop them. I hate them beyond my understanding. I don't know why. Maybe a piece of my memory will someday tell me....”

This one missed being good I think, and is only an adequate background. It is nebulous, but there is no real feel for anything other than “I hate Nictus”. The Protector and Pathfinder do give clues as to what the motivation might be, but in all I think this one could be re-written much tighter than it is a present.

and finally, here's one that really works in my opinion.

Morrow Project – “Started by Thaddeus Orson Morrow, the Morrow Project was initiated in 2025. James Gunn was chosen as the lead member of the project, whose mission is to re-write history and to prevent the destruction of the United States by stopping the rapidly escalating gang problem. If he can reverse the fall of Paragon City to the Council, the history of the United States may be re-written, and a whole civilization may not have to suffer palgues, famine, and strife.”

This works because we see the history (the project, the military background), the Motivation (re-write history ) and there is a definite intent for each mission Morrow goes on – is this helping the mission as a whole. Are these effects ones that will change history? There is so much here I can't begin to give it all word space.

You don't have to start any particular place with this, I am saying that for me, a good background needs these three pieces well thought out. This for Role-Playing purposes. The better the background, the more 'real' the character becomes.

Pictures

2007-08-05T15:48:00.001-05:00

StarWyng and Masonry got a little 'enthusiastic about re-decorating!

Oh no! I hope Kit isn't too mad that the workshop is messed up!

whoa!

2007-08-05T12:47:00.001-05:00

There are nights when everything is fine, you have a good time with what you are doing, maybe a few rough spots but that's all right, you can deal with that. But when the evening falls into place with an audible 'click' and no matter what you seem to do works like it was pre-ordained, THAT is when the little mind-bugs come out and screw with you, because it is going so perfectly, and usually that is when it all goes to hell. Last night was one of those nights where you hear the 'click'. It was so real I could taste the tension, and the dust thrown up by the conflict.

The background to this conflict was set months ago, when Masonry wa joined with a legendary status peacebringer by the name of Lodestar, who had been on earth since the rise and unitifcation of Eqypt. Masonry had been given the choice of being killed or a chance to redeem himself by being bonded. He chose the latter. Lodestar was a passive rider, only occasionally stepping into the light when Masonry started to lose himself in his rage. But what Lodestar found, and Nathan did eventually, was that Lodestar could not truly control Masonry. As Masonry learned this his violent tendencies started to come back to the fore. He would go to the rogue isles, draw disaffected youth to him and go on a spree of destruction, and occasionally, murder.

Months prior to this, when Lodestar realized that Masonry could mentally lock him away, he made StarWyng, an aerian "Protector", promise to kill Masonry, and by default Lodestar, if he returned to his murderous ways. She reluctantly promised to do so. Masonry's forays to the isles increased in frequency until he came back one evening and was confronted by StarWyng, who smelled the blood on him and bluffed that she could smell the Rogue isles on him. Masonry believed her, and started to try and say why, and StarWyng attacked. The players took the conflict to the arena at this point, and played the fight out.

StarWyng and Masonry were in a literal fight-to-the-death-last-one-standing. Star was a level 41 peacebringer, Masonry a level 50 peacebringer. It could have been a wipeout, but Star had an ace up her sleeve, two actually that equalized the conflict. The first was her Flash/disorientation attack. That could make Mase drop toggles (I think) and leave him vulnerable for a few moments. he second was invisibility, which gave Star the advantage of when and how the fight would start.

The setup was a first to five wins with no time limit, which worked ultimately in Star's favor. The fight was very evenly matched, with the two characters going 4 to 4. The player running Maonry, however was magnificient. The range of emotions and patterns of dialog throughout the fight was Role-Play at it's finest and I feel very lucky to have been part of it. The vision of Masonry screaming "no more, don't kill me" as he was pounding the heck out of StarWyng was wonderful. It was like the player had channeled Clint Walker's character from the movie - "the Dirty Dozen" (I don't like to be PUSHED!) I got chills. Another player signed on and the two of us wanted the drama to continue, so we took it back to the SG base where the third character Hope's Fury, found the two fighting hard.

Hope's Fury took command of the situation, and listened to an accounting of what transpired. We all at this point thought that debris ( rubble and dirt pieces ) would make a good look to the base to show the damage. (It looked wonderful to me and I'll try to get pictures up) Both charcters were beaten, bruised and bloody from the fight. Hope's Fury heard the main story from Masonry while Star hovered in the hopes of finishing the fight permanently. Star got called away as things were quieting down and after Hope's Fury extracted a promise that Star would wait on pursuing the fight until after Masonry had been heard out by the others in the super-group.

Star was called back after the others came to the base and was informed that there would be NO repeat of the fight for ANY reason. (( I have to apologize here to the base architect, we put a lot of stuff in the base, and although we did not move anything or delete/change any placements, it was still screwing with the base without permission or prior statement of intent. Sorry about that Kit )) Star and Msonry were placed in charge of cleanup, and that is where it all rests, for now.

The RP of the others discovering the damage was a lot of fun to hear about. I didn't get a chance to see it except at the end where StarWyng made her appearance, but the little I got to participate in was a lot of fun! Notion, Kit, Soldier Futura, newcomer Margatti, and Keen Frost all helped to make it very memorable and fun! Thanks guys! I hope you all had fun with things like I did

Writer's Funk

2007-08-03T05:04:00.000-05:00

I think all of us have gone through periods wherein nothing that seems to flow onto paper or into coherent ideas worth pursuing creatively. I've been at that precipice for a while now, going on three weeks by my last guess when I felt solid about something I put together. Which brings us to today's post. My b/f said to me that if I can't get figure this out myself, ask for commentary from my friends/blog readers. How do any of you deal with that frustrating point in writing where nothing seems to make sense or feels creative?

I know too, that mood has a lot to do with the creative aspect, some people do best when angst is heavy upon them, others when they have a completely serene focus. Which brings up a second question - what mood do you see as your most creative? Do you focus yourself to get there or does it have to build up on its own? This inquiring mind would like to know. Thanks in advance.

What a pain!

2007-08-01T00:10:00.000-05:00

I stumbled across this a while back, and thinking of how badly I go smacked tonight while finishing a story-arc mission, this came to mind. Enjoy.

The Schmidt Sting Pain Index or The Justin O. Schmidt Pain Index is a scale rating the relative pain caused by different Hymenopteran stings. It is mainly the work of Justin O. Schmidt, an entomologist for whom the index is named. Schmidt has published a number of papers on the subject and claims to have been stung by the majority of stinging Hymenoptera.

His original paper in 1984 was an attempt to systematise and compare the hemolytic properties of insect venoms. The index contained in the paper started from 0 for stings that are completely ineffective against humans, progressed through 2, a familiar pain such as a common bee or wasp sting, and finished at 4 for the most painful stings. In the conclusion, some descriptions of the most painful examples were given, e.g.: "Paraponera clavata stings induced immediate, excruciating pain and numbness to pencil-point pressure, as well as trembling in the form of a totally uncontrollable urge to shake the affected part."

Subsequently, Schmidt has refined his scale, culminating in a paper published in 1990 which classifies the stings of 78 species and 41 genera of Hymenoptera. Notably, Schmidt described some of the experiences in vivid and colorful detail:

1.0 Sweat bee: Light, ephemeral, almost fruity. A tiny spark has singed a single hair on your arm.
1.2 Fire ant: Sharp, sudden, mildly alarming. Like walking across a shag carpet & reaching for the light switch.
1.8 Bullhorn acacia ant: A rare, piercing, elevated sort of pain. Someone has fired a staple into your cheek.
2.0 Bald-faced hornet: Rich, hearty, slightly crunchy. Similar to getting your hand mashed in a revolving door.
2.0 Yellowjacket: Hot and smoky, almost irreverent. Imagine WC Fields extinguishing a cigar on your tongue.
2.x Honey bee and European hornet: Like a matchhead that flips off and burns on your skin.
3.0 Red harvester ant: Bold and unrelenting. Somebody is using a drill to excavate your ingrown toenail.
3.0 Paper wasp: Caustic & burning. Distinctly bitter aftertaste. Like spilling a beaker of Hydrochloric acid on a paper cut.
4.0 Pepsis wasp: Blinding, fierce, shockingly electric. A running hair drier has been dropped into your bubble bath (if you get stung by one you might as well lie down and scream).
4.0+ Bullet ant: Pure, intense, brilliant pain. Like walking over flaming charcoal with a 3-inch nail in your heel.

"Customizing" City of Heroes/Villains - and Proportional villains

2007-07-31T11:09:00.001-05:00

One of the things I like about CoX are the detailed storylines. I love writing and reading stories, and it occurred to me, and probably to a bunch of others, that a little creative activity on one's part could customize a story arc. To that end I am now wondering if a more comprehensive customization might be possible. One possibility would be if CoX villain comments in-game are set up in their own files. If so, knowing the file name and format, one would write up their own dialog and overlay or substitute it for the generic dialog in a story are. This would allow for individual customization and a more 'personal story arc. A further possibility would be if the villain group/organization was a choosable option. Have an arc containing Malta rather than Council in a mission comes to mind as an example.

Another idea that I am really enamored with is the 'propotional enemy' that we are seeing in the Rikti during the invasion sequences. With the enemy being coded as a certain level to everyone and damage proportioned similarly, Level-1 characters can now team with level-50 and not be powerleveled, or left to feel helpless as the enemies are all the same level for eveyone. I am hoping personally that this is a trend that CoH is moving towards. The security levels I would keep, as enemies could have more and varied attacks as one gets higher in levels, much like the heroes, and the challenge would not be lost in the proportioning. This would also have a effect on lower levels, which could challenge the more 'experienced' villains, but would be at a disadvantage because of the villains ability to use a greater variance of attacks against the hero, making low security heroes at a distinct disadvantage against high security level villains.

Relationships in an RP setting

2007-07-25T12:59:00.000-05:00

Relationships are tricky things that are fraught with pitfalls, rough spots and numerous crises, which is why cinema is so enamored of them for movies - relationships come in endless forms, from buddy pictures like the 'Lethal Weapon' series to much more intimate and romantic movies like "The Frensh Lieutenant's Woman". What I want to try and discuss (and generate a few comments from readers) is RP'ing a romantic relationship in CoX.

This kind of thing is not something I am very familiar with, and my experience is limited at the moment, but here we go. I see this as a great way to explore characters outside of the missions, it provides a very different perspective on the character and allows a different line of character growth. When RP'ed well, it can affect how situations are handled in missions, without endangering the other members of the team. This involvement also can provide others with tension and entertainment, and hopefully give them something to develop more background for their characters.

The downside, and a big one in my mind, is keeping it in perspective. The romance really does characters well, but the big pitfall is taking it personally. There has to be a level of disconnect, or things may spiral out of control and not only hurt the two involved in the in-game romance, but cause unwanted and unneeded distress in the players on the periphery of the relationship. Communication is tantamount here with all this, keep your relationship in perspective. They are, I'm finding out, a lot of fun, and they really allow some good role-play and character development, but that closeness also makes both people in it vulnerable. Make sure you both know that it is just a game and keep it that way. That doesn't mean make it shallow, what it means is have that level of disconnect so you can let it go.

Team work

2007-07-25T11:28:00.000-05:00

Rant function on.

Something that we have all talked about at one time or another is how well a group has worked together towards a common goal. Teamwork. Teamwork is defined as: the concept of people working together cooperatively.

Aside from any required technical proficiency, a wide variety of social skills are desirable for successful teamwork, including:

Listening - it is important to listen to other people's ideas. When people are allowed to freely express their ideas, these initial ideas will produce other ideas.
Questioning - it is important to ask questions, interact, and discuss the objectives of the team.
Persuading - individuals are encouraged to exchange, defend, and then to ultimately rethink their ideas.
Respecting - it is important to treat others with respect and to support their ideas.
Helping - it is crucial to help one's coworkers, which is the general theme of teamwork.
Sharing - it is important to share with the team to create an environment of teamwork.
Participating - all members of the team are encouraged to participate in the team.
Communication - For a team to work effectively it is essential team members acquire communication skills and use effective communication channels between one another e.g. using email, viral communcation, group meetings and so on. This will enable team members of the group to work together and achieve the teams purpose and goals.

Obviously as players in a game, we do not need to carry teamwork to this level of depth and complexity, but we do need, at least in my mind, to listen, respect, communicate, and participate. The biggest bit of difficulty with me and others comes in when there is an apparent disparity between the experience of some members versus others. Newer characters often have not had the experience of how to work well togther in a team, and at times this shows with rushing an enemy or enemy group, and precipitating a disaster. I have been on both sides of the equation, and profess to feeling jealous and intimidated when someone tries to impart wisdom by, "just do this." I want to know why I should "just do this", and reasoning to the effect "because it works" doesn't sit well with me. I want to know why I shuld just do a certain thing when I have the possibility of six or seven things that I might do.

This is a hard situation to be in for both sides. Trying to explain one's experience from the other side is difficult, as at times you find one style of operatino that works very well, and one may get trapped into using that in all situations as the standard attack, as an example, Keen Frost, a very good tanker in CoH in my opinion. His preferred tactic is to set a point where he will bring back all his enemies he can gather up (herd). then he will lay down an ice patch and keep them all in one place as best as possible. It works, and works very well. But my problem with it is that it is hard to feel like I'm holding up my end of the team. I have almost no input as to how the activity goes, and also no opportunity to develop supplemental tactics that might benefit the team. And in my impatience to at least try to have some effect or feeling of worth, I was one of those who leapt in without looking in hopes of showing that I could handle things and precipitated more than a few team disasters. (( Belated apologies to those I accumulated debt for ))

There may be a myriad of possibilities, but only through experimentation and talking with your team members might you uncover other methods. This can cause problems, as experimentation quite often does not work well, which reinforces the "one-way" method of handling the problem. "Don't fix it if it ain't broke." I can't argue that that style is wrong. It isn't, it works. I just believe there are more ways and I believe there is always another way to approach a problem.

A caveat here is if you're after experience fast, find that one way that works best and go for it. A solid method that you know and use often really speeds up experience accumulation. The downside is that when it doesn't work - teamwipe and debt.

Rant function off.

Rough Cut, writing origin

2007-07-23T07:46:00.000-05:00

I broke this post into two so it would be easier to work. The previous is an origin idea that developed for a character in City of Heroes. The idea here was to be vague as there were only vague notions as to why things were happening. Too, the second reason was to give space as the character itself was still very unformed as an idea, and this 'fudging' of the origin allows for flexibility as the character personality becomes more defined. The downside is that it is nebulous and this can create problems also as the character could deviate quite a bit from any origin idea and lose itself in a confusion of only loosely tied pieces, rather than a coherent story.

But the point is that ideas do not have to be completely formed to be used. A fully formed and well-grounded idea makes the writing process much easier as the roadmap is straightforward. Vague ideas make the trip a lot harder, but it's like taking the road less traveled, no telling what might be found along the road.

Origin - rough cut 1

2007-07-23T06:42:00.000-05:00

Btsy 'Bits' Raynes tried to scream, but only gaped like a fish as her diaphragm was sliced away. She pulled futiley against the straps that held her to the cot and all the while she felt Dreadstrike's hands inside her chest, moving she gasped as they collapsed a lung and then there was the coldest sensation and horrid feeling of loss.

I'm dying, I can feel it. Her eyes began dimming and she felt so tired. The darkness pulled her away from the pain and violation, and it was so sweet to feel the comforting blackness. She fought back up through the dark to see Dreadstrike raise his blood-soaked armored hand that held her own heart, to her eyes. She felt a light tapping on her cheek as the blood dripped from severed arteries. "Like your heart bitch?" said Dreadstrike in a lust-and-hate filled voice, "I do too, I'm going to keep it in a jar under my bed." She tried to scream in rage, but there was no power to work her body, and the darkness closed over her eyes like a curtain, and she fell back again into oblivion's embrace.

Betsy awoke with the smell of gasoline in her nostrils and voices nearby. "Hey, lookit here, Jokey, a set of spandex!" A toe nudged her hip and she focused her willpower to keep from reacting. Ordinarily she'd be up with the touch and attacking in a blind rage, but something kept her from doing so.

You will disguise yourself, your reactions, and your very personality, or the spell will unravel, and you will come back to me. Think of it as a fairy tale, and you're Rumpelstiltskin Betsy. Names have power and the mention of your name in recognition of you in your presence WILL banish you back here, and I won't like that. I have put years into your preparation, and if anything at all happens and you end up back here, I will be most displeased, and you will learn fear! And when you have learned true fear, you will learn TRUE oblivion!

She gasped as the memory flashed through her, and she knew she would do anything at this moment to avoid going back. So she waited, and once the hands started to roll over she reacted, flashing a hand up and grasping the homeless man by the throat and her other gathered darkness and blasted it into his unshaven, scraggly-bearded face. He didn't manage a scream before he fell to the pavement unmoving. There was a shudder to the body as if it was trying to lunge away from something, then it calmed to small twitches and then rolled over. The body issued a groan of purest pain and violation, and Betsy shuddered as the man's eyes opened, and the unfocused gaze centered on her. "Good job for a first try my little street raven. You use the power instinctively and I won't have to take the time to teach it to you. You've started your part, now go, and find me more."

Street Raven huh? A good name as any, and Betsy wouldn't choose one like that, she thought to herself. A predator, scavenger, and all-round opportunist, was a raven. She looked down and saw the crimson leather tha covered her body and felt the two-piece face mask. Okay, Street Raven it is. Hey, this is Galaxy City, I recognize Galaxy Girl's statue! Shock dropped her in a crouch and something light and hard dropped into her hand. A bow?! A fucking bow?! What kind of... she stopped the thought immediately. Accept and don't question. She didn't want to go back wherever she had been. Taking a deep breath she stepped out from the alleyway and into the twilight of sundown.