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Old 03-15-2015, 04:58 PM   #19
tshiggins
 
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Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Denver, Colorado
Default Re: Campaign: Facets

At about that time, the rest of the group reached the northern entrance to the box canyon, and immediately heard the yelp of a canine in pain, followed by loud barking and growling that immediately caused the horses to snort and paw the ground, nervously. Arthur crept forward, followed a few yard behind by Beatrice, Doc Bascher and Henrietta, while Jeb remained behind to mind the animals and watch over the wounded. Arthur went low and poked his head around a bend in the canyon, and saw Aurelia hanging from the top of the canyon wall by her fingertips, with seven wolves circling below, and an eighth trying to reach the arrow sticking out of its back.

Quickly recovering from his amazement, Arthur and the rest of the group settled in and took aim, as Aurelia smoothly recovered and hauled herself up on the ledge. A fast little fight followed, in which six of the wolves wound up dead, and two others (despite their near-panic at even getting close to the entrance) fled down the canyon to the east, through the portal mist.

The group, now united with their final member, detached Randy's travois-cart, and led the nervous horses toward the portal canyon. The animals stopped about 10 yards from it and refused to go further, digging in their hooves, tossing their heads and showing the whites of their eyes.

Bascher and Henrietta realized it would take extraordinary measures to get them down the canyon, and the veterinarian decided to try to panic them enough to flee down along the passage. Henrietta held the leads as the veterinarian pulled out her tranquilizer rifle, loaded an empty dart, took aim, missed the haunch of the horse, and instead shot the archaeologist in the thigh. With a curse, Henrietta grabbed reflexively at the dart and the two horses wheeled around and galloped in a panic back up the box canyon, where they escaped to the north.

After tossing her rifle to the ground in frustration, and yelling back and forth with Henrietta for a few minutes, Doc Bascher hooked the handles of the travois to Master Oink's pack straps. The group then proceeded down the canyon, exited into the wilderness area, and heard their cell-phones chime to tell them of incoming text messages. They then used the satellite phones (not enough bars on their cellphones to achieve a reliable connection), and called for help. As they did so, Don Reyes told them to travel to Grand Junction, and find JoBeth Catherine McShane, the owner of the Nova Nepenthe occult shop, who would be able to help.

As the sounds of the helicopter rotors grew louder, Jeb and Aurelia decided they had no interest in debriefing by the federal agents, and told the group to meet them in Grand Junction. With that, they scampered to the north, deeper into the canyon, to take the steep path back out.

The rest of the group loaded the wounded on the Flight-for-Life chopper, and took an easier path out. They then spent the next several hours being debriefed by a distressed pair of federal agents, but all of the party members managed to keep their simple story straight (They reached the suspect's camp, observed him in an altercation with two people already there, and a fight had broken out. They rushed forward to help as the suspect got shot, got in a brief gunfight with the two assailants, received their wounds, and then the pair had fled. The group didn't try to follow and, no, they didn't have good descriptions.)

With that, the increasingly weary group were released, learned that Deputy Torres would be placed on a 60-day paid administrative leave pending the results of a shooting-incident investigation by a team from the Utah State Patrol, and had been taken to the hospital, along with Randy and Reyes.

The ambulatory members of the group trudged to their cars, made the two-hour drive to Grand Junction, and used their smartphones to find the address of Nova Nepenthe. They drove to that address, and saw Jeb's truck parked down the street. They locked all their firearms in the trunks of their cars, and met up with Aurelia and Jeb. The weirded-out survivalist chose to stay in the car and only come in when he knew it was safe.

The rest of the group walked into the occult shop, and discovered it filled with more than a dozen pagans of various stripes, all speaking very seriously about the deep religious experiences they'd had during the previous day's Midsummer bonfire ceremonies, and purchasing replacements for the incense and other items used during those rituals. After a quiet inquiry, one of the employees brought the "High Priestess" JoCat Nightshade out to talk to them ("Which high priestess did you need, exactly?").

"JoCat Nightshade" took them into a ritual chamber (which she'd apparently been sweeping), heard their story, and promptly went over and locked the door. After dropping her high priestess persona, McShane questioned them closely, growing ever more distressed as she learned who had sent them, and the circumstances of their visit. When they told her of the nightmares, McShane became deadly serious, and advised them that she needed to cast a ritual of peaceful sleep in the room, and they'd have to sleep there for the night. They'd have to return there, every night, until she taught them the proper meditation techniques, so as to allow them to order their minds and prevent the nightmares.

McShane then told them that the passage through the portals had acted as a form of initiation. She said that, while the world truly did follow the scientific laws they'd all been taught, it also consisted of a set of "Decanic Forces" that combined in a very finely-grained way to create the structure of reality. When they had passed through the portal from one world to another, however, their minds -- or perhaps their souls -- had become "faceted." Now, they had the ability to perceive the various types of Decanic forces, as if viewing a white light refracted through a clouded prism.

With proper training, McShane explained, not only would they be able to sleep peacefully, again, they'd also gain the ability to alter reality by force of will. They could become "Magi," practitioners of thaumotology, and able to perform magic.

However, those lessons would not come without a price. McShane said that, while she felt somewhat obligated to teach them to order their minds so as to prevent madness, that sensibility did not extend to the greater lessons. If they wished to learn what she had to teach about magic, she would require them to remain silent, share with her any magic they learned from any other source, and obey any command she gave them, as a duty owed to a master by an apprentice.

After some close questioning that evoked some disturbing responses ("I don't think I'd be willing to break the law." "This power will place you above the law."), and a demonstration of the reality of the power offered, the group -- reluctantly, in a couple of cases, but enthusiastically by Jeb ("Above the law?! Hell, yes!") -- took the offer.

At that point, McShane produced two amulets, which she said had smaller versions of the ritual. Those would allow their wounded companions to sleep, as well, as long as they kept the amulets on their persons.

Aurelia took the two amulets and, after a quick shopping trip for some fresh clothes, drove back to the hospital in Moab. She slipped into a locker room, jimmied a lock, donned scrubs, grabbed a clipboard and kept her head down as she worked her way past the sheriff's deputies milling around the hospital hallways. Aurelia stayed away from Don Reyes' room, slipped into Randy's and hid the amulet underneath him. She then moved to Torres' room and found the deputy determined to remain awake. She told him about the amulet, and convinced him it would help.

After that, Aurelia left the room and encountered one of the deputies, who had finally recognized her. She talked him out of reporting her presence, at least for awhile, and then left the hospital and drove back to Grand Junction. Upon arrival, JoBeth was finishing up the ritual, so Aurelia took a shower. She returned to the ritual room, which now resembled a slumber-party, crawled into her sleeping bag, and passed out.

----

Funny quotes

Henrietta: I don't know if you've noted that, but we're in 1918.
Aurelia: No, I didn't know that.
Arthur: Oh, and it's an alternate reality.
Aurelia: Of course it is. Can we go back, now?

Seņor Reyes <upon seeing the dead bodies of wolves and ogres splashed around the canyon>: Oh. This is a mess.
Doc Basher: Ya think?

Aurelia<hearing about the gunfight>: A ginger Apache?

G&AINC (OOC): Look on the bright side. There's no way the Feds send us after a fugitive, again.

Henrietta: <swearing loudly and in graphic detail, after she was accidentally shot with the tranquilizer dart>
Doc Bascher<who shot her>: Want me to put some lidocaine on it?

[The group spends about an hour carefully crafting an elaborate cover story for the shootout while Randy is knocked out, and can't participate.]

[Time passes; Randy wakes up in the hospital surrounded by cops]

THE COPS: So what happened?
RANDY: [BLITHELY SPILLS THE BEANS ON EVERYTHING, so far as he kinda-sorta understood it]

RANDY: Wait, Nurse? I've got one more question...
NURSE: Yes?
RANDY: Are my tattoos okay?
NURSE: Well, there's some damage to one...
RANDY: ^#%$#$%! I get all my work done by this guy in Boulder who has a six month waiting list! This is the worst day ever.

RANDY: [upon waking up in the hospital again later and discovering a paper-wrapped rock shoved into a particularly sensitive spot of his anatomy]
RANDY: [unwraps the paper, grimacing, and reads out loud] Randy: Put the rock back in your @$$. It's the only thing that will stop the nightmares. I'll explain later. -XORLYA
RANDY: What the!? What even... [exhausted sigh] Aurelia...
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"Some days, I just don't know what to think." -Daryl Dixon.

Last edited by tshiggins; 03-16-2015 at 06:35 AM. Reason: Edits made to remove embarrassing grammatical errors
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