Season Nine

https://wikiawoo.queer.me.uk/index.php?title=Season_Nine&action=edit Summary of Events. Also Todo List

2023-03-27

(We gave the Wyrm Tainted Cinema Projector to The Weaver of Laws and Rituals, reunited Holly's Parents, Sunny scored a minor victory with The Chef at the Deli, talked to Old Crone Fleet who confirmed The Director was dead, Sunny attended Helen Mirren's funeral, Ariane gave a howl!, talked to The Guild and were told about a Dark Druid on the run to The Spire, found out that Liz was headed there too, Sam Aston gave us the file on the target, and started to make plans for how to deal with being in the Umbra so long)

Ariane and Jules head to Parliament to hand in the Wyrm Tainted Cinema Projector to The Weaver of Laws and Rituals, interestingly we note the Projector can move between the physical and the Umbra like a dedicated/spirit imbued item... We seem expected when we get there and The Weaver herself meets us in the Lobby and asks if we have "The Object", there's a lot of chittering noises, we are asked to put it on a specific floor spot and assure it The Director is either dead or out of commission.

Carlie and Holly take Holly's Dad home, on the way he's super fixated on her appearing in Crinos form and keeps asking her about it, she reassures him it feels very strong and powerful, and just about in control and he compares this to The Incredible Hulk. Holly's mother yells at everyone then invites them inside, Carlie bails to "do a few things" and Holly chats and plays up that her parents are now "in on it" as it were, she notes her mothers been stress tidying, her father breaks out the bourbon and she worries about the hit down the road on them psychologically and makes a note to keep more in touch.

Sunny meanwhile heads back to the Pack house to resume cooking, engaging her understanding of the charm of the dish (Rabbit A L'Orange) and takes the resultant meal to The Chef at the Deli. He says its at least not fit for the bin, can taste its full of her passion and love and the flavours are put together delicately so they sing in the mouth, not too intellectual, this dish has style! Then follows this up by saying if you can't taste the passion and style of a dish you're not fit to be a chef (and he only gives recipes to chefs!), she gets a pastrami and rye and feels she's made progress but he's rubbing it in, as she leaves she finds a recipe for pastrami in the bag, possibly he is laying down a challenge for her to make her own.

We get some hi-viz jackets and go to find Old Crone Fleet to chat about The Director, Jules initially pitches that he's at worst trapped in his realm, Ariane tells her about the Projector. Fleet confirms that he's very dead (Holly "Heh heh. Good") and she tells us we can ask 3 boons of her of the kind of scale of help we've given them (we moot ideas about paying our rent/maintaining the house/territory while we're away or possibly trying to protect us from deep umbral time shift)

Sunny attends Helen Mirren's funeral with the Boatmen in the Umbra. Its full of boatmen, true londoners, and a lot of other spirits, all with lanterns. Helen is escorted onto the boat waving proudly, its adorned with ribbons, lanterns, and pictures of her most famous roles and moments. She waves as she floats down the river and slowly fades out as the boat merges with the darkness, the lamps wink out one by one. It feels both celebratory and also solemn. Sunny heads back to the Pack House and tells people and Ariane of course takes notes.

Ariane gives a howl about: Defending our packmate legally! Investigating The Director and the death of Helen Mirren the Fae, slaying him and removing the source of corruption. Trading favours for fresh weapons and gifts to meet this challenge. And Ariane's appointment as Deputy Sheriff of London. (ooc: 3 successes, +1 glory all around)

Ariane makes contact with The Guild about the Quest to Spire and assures them we're on it and a week later she's contacted by Sir Robert Laffrey who has a proposal for us - the new Sheriff of London John Northbridge has a problem in that a Dark Druid who has evaded his "Vampiric claws" has headed into the Umbra, where of course he cannot chase, Sir Robert thinks he's headed to Spire and since we have the contract to go we may as well get two birds with one stone because there's a price on his head.

The target is Aiden "Morton" Jones, who has bonded with a spirit called Morton so is sometimes just called that. We learn he's formed a Pact with a dark and malevolent spirit of corruption and disease and was arrested 2 years ago for spreading chorea and typhoid, the Grandees of London arranged to extradite him to the US because MPD were preparing a case against him. He is probably going to Spire to form a pact with a larger spirit for the power to get revenge on Derek Watford and all Garou and that a courier will bring his file over and he wants him brought back to be extradited.

She goes downstairs, texts the pack telling them that there is peril and a long trip coming up, and we start to talk about potential issues like Sunny's Youtube Channel, Ariane and Jules University courses and Jules work for Giannis Valatos, and Carlie's job (possibly pitch it as "going travelling?"). We ask if this is a good idea now? Suspect having The Guild backing us will make it easier.

Jules gets phoned by Liz who squees at him that she'll be away and was just told that she's going to have to vanish to go on a long trip to Spire. We largely eyeroll at the potential cute and Jules mouths to tell us to get fucked.

There's a weird sharp crack! noise in the hallway and Sam Aston teleports in with a file, she notes that she's totally fine with us bringing the target back alive or dead and has no interest in Sir Robert playing power games with John Northbridge. She tells us she's been to Spire but won't tell us anything about it, we try and suggest as garou we may damage it, and she says "If we manage to destroy the place it deserved it, and bigger werewolves have tried", then with a click of her fingers she vanishes again.

We finish on a discussion of if Jules can make an anti-teleportation array (she can but it would have to literally contain the whole house) and with Holly asking her about leaving one of her Umbral pictures with them (and eventually making a custom one for them) of the inside of the Umbra.

2023-04-03

(There's a bit of a time skip, we plan a route (Earth → Apollo → Tranquility → Rising Stones → The Tower / Spire), Sirius comes back with Lydia, we gather up the last of our supplies and head to the Natural History Museum to find a piece of moon rock to portal to Apollo, we cross the moon, portal to Tranquillity which hits Liz hard and is a bit spooky, we quickly get from there to Rising Stones where we make camp, see a good sunrise and butterflies, hike to a second island, avoid the woods, and see an air ship)

There has been a 3-4 week time skip while we frantically arrange our cover stories and methods of getting out of town for a long Umbral deep dive. The Guild's financial arm has subcontracted Carlie for a long term deep cover op on a banking investigation, Jules and Ariane arrange intercalation, Lottie does a lot of collaborations with Sunny and helps manage her channel and release some stuff (along with cued up content from Sunny to be released later). Jules also now has 2 Anti Scrying Rings.

We make a plan that the best route is: Earth → Apollo → Tranquility → Rising Stones → Edge of Time → The Tower / Spire

However the only route we know of to Apollo is in the Smithsonian museum, we talk about moon bridges over the the US caerns, issues with getting back, maybe using Morton as a bargaining chip with MPD to buy our way back safely to the UK. We check in with alternative routes including:

• River of Stars - the entry is extensive, summary: a realm of always night and the major stars of its "milky way" are portals to various places. It's beautiful and theirs no danger, but you have to know what the constellations there mean and what each major star is a gateway too so its easy to get lost.
• Song of the Spheres - Ethereal and harmonic realm, all guidance is done by sound, he felt he could get trapped there listening, there is no light, nothing to see, just audio.

We get a knock on the door and Sirius (one of the Children of Gaia who took Lydia away) is there, Carlie brings him in, he beckons to Lydia to collect her stuff but we don't notice in the busyness of shoving a map under his nose and asking his advice. He tells us any piece of moon rock is a gateway to Apollo, and that there's a chunk in the National History Museum. Lydia then appears and tries to ask us carefully if we'll accept her back, everyone is happy to see her but also cautious of things going wrong in the future, explain we didn't know when she'd be back but that we're about to disappear on a deep Umbral mission. Around 1 month has passed for us, but a lot more months for her. When we tell her about Morton she is immediately in favour of killing the spirit instead of bringing it back, although Ariane points out she may be under some kind of compulsion with regards her magical contract/geas to try and bring him back alive for Sir Robert.

She catches up and hears there's been nothing from her family, Derek Watford has essentially disappeared, and a get well soon card from her colleagues in the NHS.

Lydia packs up James Sword to bring with her after consulting with the Bishop of Southwark about borrowing the Angels Sword and he hmms and ponders.

So the pack reunited heads to the Natural History Museum via the Umbra and in the Earth Hall Carlie finds the item with the portal attached, opens it and we head through arriving on the surface of Apollo!

We can breath, there's no scent, can see a luna lander module and a rover and the earth, Carlie suggests rider the rover but Sunny points out if this is the moon too many people on earth watch it closely so we may leave tracks. Carlie collects up a pocketful of sharp moon dust for later, Ariane appreciates the view of the earth, Holly talks about how the initial landing was the Sea of Tranquility, Ariane remembers that that was Apollo 11 and its south east of where we are (we're at Apollo 17 because of the rover). Here in the Umbral-moon of Apollo we see that Yangshi appears as a sort of Jellyfish/Manta Ray type creature more than a Dragon. Carlie and Jules go Hispo to ping off, with Liz riding on Jules back/shoulders, we ping and boing across the surface of the moon.

At the Apollo 11 site there's no US flag, no rover, a smaller lander and a camera on a tripod pointing at where the lander took off. Holly finds the flag blown down as it was positioned too close. We also find a plate inscribed with [Statio Tranquillitatis] (The state of Tranquillity, also the names of Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins), the plate is the gate and we step through.

In Tranquillity Jules almost gets hit by a wave of Umbral Travelling Sickness and feels tired and weird, we later notice Liz seems hit by this effect as well. Physically the place is a flat gray plane, we are on a small island surrounded by a silvery sea that is lapping at the shore silently. There are millions of stars above us in the night sky and it is absolutely dead silent. The only thing we can see is 6 stone arches, we have just stepped out of one inscribed with "Tranquillity". Ariane looks to Carlie and Holly and they look for the Rising Stones gateway, go to stand near it but the gate is already open and running, we form and orderly queue and Sunny who's bringing up the rear notices Liz isn't looking at the portal just staring out over the sea acting weird and gently shepherds her through the gate.

At Rising Stones we all get hit by fatigue, Lydia checks in on Liz who tells her that the last place was wonderful and she could sit on the beach all day and thinks about retiring there, Lydia does her best to talk her out of this idea.

We find ourselves on a rocky island, the sky above is inky, black, and full of stars and gently diffused lights. There's a rope bridge running up and to the right to another island and a tattered bridge heading down somewhere else. Looking off the edge reveals an eternal drop into the void and Ariane nopes, calls for a time out and some rest and sleep, then cooks us a few marshmallows over a tea light. Jules does first watch, Carlie second, Ariane does third and gets to see the sunrise - which is a band of light at a point of the horizon that explodes up and down as well as outwards in a rolling boiling essence that coalesces into a rising star/and sun, this is then followed by a second sun that burns a darker red, which turns the bright fire of the first sun into a warmer orange, it also rises upwards. Looking down over the side of the island now reveals a drop that goes off into clouds and fog with distance but less awful dark void. A flock of blue and purple butterflies comes down chasing the dawn from a higher rock to drink the dew from our camping gear and skin, then all of a sudden lift off to chase it to another island. Needless to say Ariane is useless as a watch during this whole sequence but luckily nothing kills us.

We make tea, grab some snack bars for breakfast and all feel better, Liz seems more normal and speculates on what the butterflies wanted, she says she tried to talk to them as spirits but they didn't talk back, seemed like normal physical butterflies almost, comments that whereas Apollo and Tranquillity didn't seem grounded and physically real this place feels more solid and coherent, Jules comments that we've never been here so is unsure if this is normal.

We harness ourselves together and put Jules and Carlie up front and head up the rope bridge towards Rock 2: This one is a dense jungle/forest, at least a few miles diameter, we talk about how we need some kind of symbolic exit so maybe we need to find the summit of this place as we're headed for The Tower (via Edge of Time). Jules chooses to lead us clockwise around the island (with the power of fate) and there's bird and animal noises coming out of the woods.

Ariane and Sunny see something and get binoculars out of their bags to take a look, and going between two islands we see an airship! A large balloon with a gondolier type body underneth it, with flapping wings at the sides. WE can't see anywhere its headed or a dock, but we count around 40 islands in our view so it could be anywhere.

2023-04-10

(The Pack boarded the AS Sarkaze, met a number of the crew, learnt about the Air Empire and Cerulean Ore and travelled to Port Royale where we chartered Captain McCallen to take us to the Great Eastern Pyramid Islands which we think is probably the route to Spire)

We watch the airship going by, can't identify a port and talk about are the islands still? Do they move? Talk about if we should ask the locals and how we find them. Sunny has brought her dog sled with a lot of gear and has 2 emergency flares, we use one and Jules waves down the airship, they start flicking a light to give us morse code and spell out something like AS SARKAZE SEE YOUR FLARE ON WAY, it takes a couple of hours before the AS Sarkaze floats up with about 8-10 crew visible, about the size of a large lake ferry, the gas bag has a rigid external frame and the material isn't patched but made of something largely one piece. Parks up broadside to the island and Captain Ashahe Hiramoto calls out "What ho Ladies!" and enquires if we're in distress, invites us aboard for tea and cake. We're introduced to Lt. Haru Mahakaze the first officier and serves us a tea on the poop deck that tastes a little like an Indian white tea, no milk but lemon (ooc: this is important worldbuilding and worth recording fite me) the tea is delicious and the lemon helps.

Turns out we're in the Wild East Windward Mountains and when Jules talks about heading deeper he suggests there are places called Jamaica and Cathay, we mention coming in from Tranquillity and he mentions that we're not from these parts and talks about how he's heard tales of where "the Earth is solid beneath your feet" and feels its a fantasy. He talks about fishing from clouds to help the population eat and Ariane latches onto this fascinating fantasy detail method of food production and goes to watch the crew doing it.

Everyone else hears that the AS Sarkaze came from Port Royale and is patrolling to ensure its peaceful, we're the most exciting thing they've seen, they look for sky pirates (very rare these days) and villages without water, or people stuck on islands mainly. The peace of the Air Empire makes all these things less common, but if needed they are "fleet of wing and will render assistance!" The small talk continues and Carlie asks about The Spire/The Tower and things like it nearby, is told that this sort of thing has been mentioned by the Union of Stargazers who have travelled here before. Sunny mentions she's heard of them, and the Captain says the Islands are surely plenty enough for anyone and having his feet on permanently solid ground would give him the wiggens. He calls his navigator and they talk suggesting the highest peak on the Great Eastern Pyramid Islands (GEPI) may be where they're looking for, the highest islands on his maps. It's technically inside imperial borders because its basically unclaimed, there's little there, just weird people and weird things, there is a govenor for the sector but he lives in Kyoto. Captain Hiramoto says he can take us as far as Port Royale then advises us to go to Kyoto and seek passage from there. Holly estimates the maps are 100km x 100km or so and the GEPI are off this map, 6 days to Port Royale, so a long trip ahead. Jules offers to help but told since we are travellers from afar its a free trip, except for the captain taking afternoon tea with us and swapping tales of the Earth!

Ariane meanwhile finds a lot of trailing lines out the windows at the back, watches a line go taught and people helping the crew member reeling in a fish with large wing/fins, but also gills, its longer than her arm. She notices the hooks have glowing bait and asks and finds its called Cerulean Ore wrapped in a small translucent package and each one will glow for 50-60 years, she chats about it and is introduced to the "Chief Stoker" Lt. Haruto who has glowing dust on their uniform, says that the ore is refined to a gas/liquid depending on temperature, generally stored in tanks as gas but comes out as liquid releasing a lot of energy, which they use to boil water, creating steam power. Capture the spent liquid and reprocess/recycle it back into gas, says the engine room is dangerous while afloot otherwise she could see it.

The First Officer shows us to a passengers cabin, says we'll get our meals delivered by the boatswain, its silver cloud fish with a bed of rice. We spend time catching up Lydia on recent events of London, play cards, sketch, Ariane attempts to learn to catch fish (they deflect her for 3 days before teaching her, its harder when moving). Sunny hits up the cook, learns a number of fish and sauce recipes, they're cooking with fish oil as well so she introduces them to deep frying battered fish. Carlie keeps an eye on Lydia's stress levels, Jules is mostly watching Liz and Lydia. Holly keeps herself fit and digests the Styles Journal keeping it private, the first officer tries to subtly spy on her and she insists she's just studying an old notebook from a relative, he tells her he's a 5th generation airship officer, years of history, she turns it around to mine him for information about his family and training (it starts young), then uses Jules as a get out of jail free card ("Oh I think I hear the alpha!").

Carlie and Ariane are the first to spot more inhabited islands, glittering paddy fields and people and animals pulling ploughs and carts, some smaller personal airships, and more rope bridges. We get the binoculars out and Jules spots a small town on and island with the biggest airship we've seen so far docked there (long, barrel shaped, 8 banks of oars, still no gun ports), this must be Port Royale. Carlie wonders how we'll pay for stuff, Holly says she has a few foreign coins, Ariane talks about teaching them to make black powder if we had a chemist and everyone smacks her down for talking about teaching weapon making to an empire. We think about it and we've seen no weapons, only kitchen knives.

We dock at Port Royale its an island with around 2000 people, boat to Kyoto leaves in around a week. It feels like a mix of Jamaica and Japan, wooden buildings, some cement, a lot of small scale fish processing industry, busy docks, smaller ships coming and going. We're at the Imperial dock and ask for directions, head to the North Dock looking for the dock master to enquire about directions/ships. We pass by the gate guard and... also no weapons.

At the North Docks we meet the Port Warden, ask about the Great Eastern Pyramid Islands, told there is nothing direct, we'd need to go via Kyoto and the AS Batou will dock in a week then its 2-3 weeks to Kyoto then another trip from there, we could maybe go via Port Alexander, or we could charter a fast picket messenger ship, which will take 3-4 weeks of rather rough clouds. Ariane pitches its outside the empire (kinda) so adventure! Research! And that she's heard of the great training of the Empires academies! Told there's a couple of fast pickets, one is heading on a medical mercy mission, the other is in repairs until tomorrow, we also hear that the Red Monks refuse to travel by airship. He doesn't seem to get the idea of trade and just says the Empire will loan us ships and teach us information about them (there is an implied trade for stories).

We get directed to Captain McCallen from the Caledonian Islands at number 21 dock. There we find an arrow shaped vessel, a guy laying on the top deck head in a hatch gently hammering something, light blue patina on the deck, clearly being painted/refreshed. Ariane spins a story about being on a research trip from a University and needing to do it in a rush or her Uncle will lose the family farm! He says we'd have to pitch in because we fill the boat. Carlie volunteers as stoker, learns about the regulator, how to fix the engine, and a number of procedures for safety. Sunny volunteers to cook and finds a hot plate attached to the engine and a store cupboard of fish, rice, apples, etc. She'll also be quarter master and needs to fill in requisition forms before dark. He tells us the ship is fast and it can make the something run in 5 days.

We get directed to the Airshipman's Woes a pub as it has the best drinks and stories. Its nice, warm, snug, and smells of sake. There's no coin, no barter anywhere to be seen inside Port Royale and the pub is no different. We get a room, drink sake, and tell stories in the evening.

We find out that food and drink is free here to members of the Empire (and its honoured guests), easy to do things because they have the free/abundant energy from Cerulean Ore so they just hand it out.

The pack wakes early when its still dark. Carlie heads out, sees a few other stokers on the streets with Cerulean dust on them gently glowing as she heads to the docks.