Noah clapped hard as the human disguise burned away. "Talion! Vampires are not dumb enough to draw the hellfire that is your wrath upon their home. If the bodies are here it is because it's bait."

"I'm heading in, please sir. Let another spring the trap. You're far better at handling things when you have a view from the external." Noah walked up and glance checked the door for traps, popped the lock, and strode inside. His passive magic resistance failed him, for the first time. So he ripped the spell apart and kept going in. "Hell and high water this is gonna be big."

He clapped his hands and cast a spell to claim the gauntlet. His brain was screaming at him that the goddess in the land of the dead could just keep Carmilla as a shade. He was racing as fast as he could, popping the traps and locks. Mistral was faster but he was a giant of a problem and a distraction for anyone who would screw with Mistral's space magic.

Arriving uncomfortably, Hrafen again felt pulled by forces larger than himself... which was ironically unfamiliar to a man of his size.

Hearing Nefertiti's words, Hrafen growled in response, almost more annoyed than angry,

"I am all too familiar with that particular Circle." he said grumpily, "If we are not careful, this man Talion is going to strike angrily at the wrong victims." he said, turning his head towards Noah as he spoke to try and prevent exactly this.

Turning, he waved over Michael, once he arrives, and he brings him into their conversation,

"This is a... place where innocent, at least in this regard vampires reside. We need to maintain neutrality, and avoid innocent life being lost, yes?" he paused to ensure they were all on board before continuing, "We need to find the true mastermind behind this plot." he said, but beyond that he didn't have anything else to offer.

Sal strode forward alongside Noah, and said, "Noah! Don't for a second think you're walking into an obvious trap without me! Besides, if the Circle have done nothing wrong, we can't just go barging in there." He looked Noah in the eye, nodded, and knocked loudly on the door (unless there was a doorbell, then he rang it.)

 Talion paused. The statues paused as well. It was clear from the clenched fists and wild eyes that he would not wait long though.

 Sal knocked loudly on the door but there was no answer. Noah took that opportunity to pick the lock and bust in, only to get hit (and affected) by a spell that would have normally locked him within a maze inside the chantry... IF he hadn't immediately dispelled it, heading forward through door after door, dispelling and lockpicking the doors as they reached them.

 However, what Sal and Noah saw within was something to make one's blood run cold. The members of the circle were gone, leaving behind only a single man. The children lay out on an altar in front of him wrapped like mummies. A large number of canopic jars sat at the wall behind them. As Noah burst through, the lone man turned and pointed at Noah and Sal. "Kill them."

 And the tiny bodies of the children began to rise.

Michael was through the portal and took in the situation. The Sleepers with the cameras would cause a lot of problems if not dealt with immediately. At the same time, the issue with the children needed to be done with before Talion went off. He nodded to Hank. “The ‘innocence’ of those inside are still to be determined. But I do agree that the situation requires arbitration. I will make my way inside to pursue the one responsible. Hank and Nefertiti, can you two handle the Sleepers and phones outside and join us inside once that is taken care of? With all the magic about to go down, we don’t need a paradox erupting here.”

The priest then used his inhuman speed to race after Sal and Noah. When he saw the sight before him, he knew that the children had to be stopped without hurting them and angering Talion. His mind went back to his Hunter days when his cell had to deal with a pack of vampires in their nest. He knew what he had to do. Pulling out one of the Seven Nails from its tube container, he made a six square yard circle with the nail in the floor around the man and altar with the children. Right as the circle completed, he made the sign of the cross and rebuked those within. “Kneel before the Lord!”The ward flared to life in a radiant glow bringing the weight of God upon the shoulders of the children and the mystery man.

12:33, Today: Michael rolled 2 successes using 6d10 with the World of Darkness nWoD system with a target of 8, rerolling 10s with rolls of 6,4,7,9,10(+7),7.  Using one use of luck for rote quality.

12:28, Today: Michael rolled 4 successes using 8d10 with the World of Darkness nWoD system with a target of 8, rerolling 10s with rolls of 3,1,10(+10,6),3,1,10(+8),3,7.  Blessing of Saint Agrippina +1 from priest -1 from desecrated ground.

The blessing has a Strength rating 6 that measures its ability to keep out Satan’s spawn. This score is subtracted from the Presence (or Power, for a ghost or spirit) of any affected monster that is in the area. If the entity’s Presence or Power would be reduced to zero, it cannot exit the blessed area. Otherwise, the creature can exit, but all of its Power Attributes (Strength, Intelligence and Presence) are reduced by the Strength of the blessing for the entire time the entity remains in the area. If any of these Attributes is reduced to 0, the monster cannot use any actions that rely on that Attribute. Monsters outside the blessed area that attempt to use supernatural powers to affect anyone or anything inside the blessed area are still subject to the blessing’s Strength.

Ongoing Effects: -Forge Godsend (Duration: 12 Hours, -6 damage dealt to Michael)

-Forge Destiny (Duration: 12 hours, +2 on rolls to fulfill destiny, -2 on rolls to make Michael not fulfill destiny, protect those who wish to remain neutral during conflicts)

-Probable Cause combined with the Sybil’s Sight (Duration: 24 hours, 2 future rolls gain rote quality)

-Lucky Coin combined with Fortune’s Protection (Duration: 24 hours, 5 Armor, +5 equipment bonus on Excalibur)

-Sworn Oath (Protect those who wish to remain neutral in the conflict, gives chances to resist effects that would make Michael go against this oath)

-Fortitude of Saint George (+1 Stamina)

-True Sight of Saint Abel (See supernatural effects and auras)

-Protection of St. Agrippina (6 square yard area in pyramid has strength 6 ward around man and altar)

Willpower 4/7
Essence of Mage breaker 3/13
Essence of Lantern 5/5
Michael’s Essence 13/13

Noah nodded, "Sorry Sal." When the last door was open he stopped and then reached over to latch onto the wall as he dropped a box of ear plugs. "If you guys handle the necromancer, I will try to keep the kids back. May want to plug your ears for just a moment." He was not reacting to the fact the kids animated but was treating it like a Tuesday at work.

The last time he used his roar was in never never land. One should never say never.

5 successes on the force spell, oppressive roar. - Hole in the middle to protect Sal and Michael so long as they stay together.

There was a folding of space and Sariel stepped out of a web way door from the graveyard. The red and white scythe was out and orbiting him slowly as he stood next to Talion. He stood there next to Talion without speaking a word. He was there for whatever Talion needed and no less.

The only thing he did outside of just being there was to spread his influence. Making it an effort to remember what was going on here for anyone not directly acting in the situation.

Hrafen nodded towards Michael, and agreed with his ideas,

"Alright. It is not my specialty, but I will ensure that I succeed, one way or another." he said, turning towards Nefertiti, "I will likely need your particular talents in this endeavor. I imagine a mortal that can resist your words would be quite rare indeed." he said, turning towards the "sleepers" outside, which Hrafen took simply to mean literally any human that wasn't a supernatural.

Stepping outside, Hrafen puffed up his chest, and raised his arms before those with cameras,

"It is time to move on." he said flatly, his voice booming, "Please... I am a polite man, and I do not wish for things to be... difficult." he said, his tone indicating all too well that he would be perfectly comfortable throwing every single person here out physically if it came to that.



I actually got a success, go me!

19:07, Today: Hank rolled 1 success using 2d10 with the World of Darkness nWoD system with a target of 8, rerolling 10s with rolls of 9,6.  intimidation + presence (oh god).

Not long after Sal, Michael and Noah breached the inner sanctum, every spatial replica of Mistral hissed with shock and dismay at the scene unfolding within.  The Mistral outside the pyramid quickly approached Talion and spoke quickly, "Talion.  I intend to remove the children to a secure location while matters are dealt with here.  I would ask for the guardian statues to be instructed that their charges will be safe there until we can arrange a return to their proper resting place."

Those inside the chantry would hear Mistral's icy-calm voice over comms, "I will remove the children to a safe localisation, on my mark."  A few moments passed to give time for any preparations needed, then she said, "Mark."  Unless something prevents it, both the mummified children and the collection of canopic jars were spirited away from the chantry upon a gentle supernal mist.

Sal rushes past the children, and in one smooth motion drew, ignited, and struck the necromancer with everything he had.

 The group of humans, upon slightly closer inspection, were not teenagers but actual adults. They did not stop filming. "No way, man. Things are just getting good!"

 Meanwhile, inside the sanctum, Noah hit the ceiling and let out a roar, forching the mummified children backwards and the necromancer off his feet as Michael used his super speed to encircle the sanctum with the nail of the true cross.

 As Sal rushed forward, he felt the strength leaving his body. The blade became heavy in his hands and refused to swing as the power of the circle Michael had drawn began to force him to the ground.


 Meanwhile, Mistral made her attempt to whisk the children away and felt her spell waver and almost begin to unravel within the circle Michael had drawn. However, she possessed just enough control to whisk them away.

 However, despite not being slashed, the necromancer had begun convulsing on the ground, foaming at the mouth.
--------------

 Outside, hearing the commotion within, Talion turned to Mistral. She could still see the unbridled rage on his face but he made an attempt to temper himself when speaking to her. "What is happening in there?"

 As the statues turned away from the chantry, Talion raised his hand, causing them to stop. "What has happened to my little ones?!"

 His eyes grew misty and red. His chin quivered. While still there, knowing Mistral had taken them away had blunted his anger and now it grief threatened to overtake the rage.

The oppressive roar stopped. "Michael, mind the auras big homie. Kids are poofed so we are solid. We gotta figure out how to make holes in your circles." and now the damn cultists went all black pill.

Like a geko Noah raced over pulling a chain out. He had the chain laced in a claw as he skittered, if someone his size could skitter, to latch onto the cultists with the tarturian chain. "Poison or no, you're not going to see your God until the father of the kids gets to have a word with you. If your body dies, your soul comes with me cultist."

He would have pulled the poison like he pulled  Carmilla's blood out of Nef. But he wanted to secure the cultist first. And there are much better healers than he around at the moment.

4 successes on 8 dice, not a dramatic success though =/
This message was last edited by the player at 16:10, Thu 13 Oct 2022.

“If the kids weren’t here, it would have been isolated to just the cultist. Had to incapacitate the kids first.” The ward was dropped once the kids were gone. Excalibur was drawn with the point pointed at the throat of the cultist just in case he tried to pull something once the ward was gone.

OOC: Ward has been dispersed

Mistral was marginally relieved to have successfully secreted the mummified children away to safety, although she knew that there was much more to be done.  It was curious how paltry the defenses were for the targets of this elaborately-orchestrated atrocity.  How all of it was left to a single man.  It didn't add up.  The woman in the black veil approached as Noah and Michael apprehended the necromancer.  She looked at the man with disgust, then said flatly, "Do not harm him, yet.  This one is a scapegoat."

A memory came to mind of the night of the great storm, when she hunted a kidnapper through hidden byways between places.  She found her target and carved out his throat, only to discover she'd murdered an innocent vagrant made to look like her enemy.  She very much doubted this lone necromancer was innocent, but he was almost certainly a patsy.  No mastermind would stay behind to meet the apocalypse.


The anguish in Talion's voice was palpable, and Mistral was stunned by the realization that he hadn't looked within.  He hadn't yet seen the profane misuse of his children's remains.  Talion did not know, and now she must be the one to tell him.

Mistral struggled to form the words as tears rolled freely down her cheeks, and those of each of her spatial replicas, "There is no kind way to tell it, mon ami.  The little ones have been... reanimated.  They are in a safe place now, to await an undoing of this atrocity."  She added in a hollow voice, "One man remained to oversee.  A scapegoat, but I suspect not an innocent one.  We have him, within."

"I get it Michael. I've got a rote that is in the same boat. Yah know I won't be mad at you. Billy bad ass like you is absolutely going to cover all his bases."

Noah held on tight to the cultist. "Aye mam. The cultist here in the process of dieing. The two most important nuggets of info here.. Most critical is that the kids have promethian fire in them. So they are alive so to speak. Like Amy, not human but very not dead."

"The second critical bit is I've got T man's chain hooked into this guy. The seizure and foaming at the mouth makes me think he's dieing but his soul is staying here."

"And while my ADHD is in overdrive... wraith was left back at the grave yard but the shield spell I gave to the Mayor won't last much longer. Can we afford an evac?"
This message was last edited by the player at 00:17, Fri 14 Oct 2022.

Hearing Mistral tell Talion that his children were reanimated, if Hrafen's expression wasn't so stoic, he would have shown horror. Telling a parent anything like that was never the move. Granted: it would've been the exact move he'd chosen, but that was part of the reason he knew it was wrong.

Now, they could expect the necromancer to be destroyed, no matter how much of a patsy he was. The odds that Talion would control himself to get more information, rather than destroying him now that the ward was gone was slim to none.

Still, Hrafen recognized being a very small fish in a big pond. A big pond that had no benefits to him at the current moment. Instead, he and Nefertiti needed to accomplish smaller tasks.

Approaching her he whispered quietly,

 Talion hung his head and his shoulders slumped as all of the tension, grief, and rage drained from him. "Reanimated."

 He repeated the word and covered his face with his hand...

...

...

... then he began to laugh. At first, it was just a simple shaking of his shoulders, easy enough to mistake for a sob, then a chuckle, and then he removed his hand. His eyes were clenched shut and he was wheeze-laughing from deep in his lungs as he tilted his head toward the sky and began to laugh out loud.

 A moment passed and the laughter stopped... but he was still smiling. "I'm going to kill them all. All of them. Every initiate, every book, every relic, and every pet. They're all going to die. Excuse me."

 Talion turned from Mistral and walked through the wall, leaving a Talion-shaped hole inside. One of the wards popped but an electrical bolt lashed out, blowing all of the lights in the building as he continued in a straight line toward the inner sanctum where Noah was holding the cultist's soul. The body had finally stopped floundering.

 He looked at the ghost on the other end of the chain. When he spoke, his voice was deadly calm. "I am going to write a novel with your screams and I'm going to use the book to find everyone responsible for this... then I will repeat the process until I have a library of suffering composed of every associate you have."

 He reached into a pocked and pulled out a gemstone. When he touched it to the ghost, it was dragged within. He nodded at Noah, Sal, and Michael as he returned to Mistral. "Take me to them, please."

Mistral believed that the hard truth was most often better than a comforting lie, but the sight of Talion cackling to the sky offered a strong argument to the contrary.  Now all of reality was bound to suffer for her failure of tact.  She had corrected the archmagi who called him Calamity, but no better word came to mind for what was to come.

The Mistral who had served as messenger bowed her head and melded away into the background of reality as Talion stalked inexorably toward his goal.  Within the cursed inner sanctum another of her could only look on in mute horror at the frightening display of wrath.  The spatial rift back to the graveyard outside New York remained open and visible to those who sought to return there.


Mistral hesitated when faced with the bereft father in his cold wrath.  She glanced to Noah, Sal, and Michael, then answered carefully, "Before I do so, I would know your intent..."

With the necromancer dealt with, Michael zipped outside and slapped the phones out of the hands of the Sleepers and smashed them under his boot. He needed to control as much of the collateral damage as possible. He looked to Hank and Nef. “Let’s go unless you can do something about them.”He motioned to the Sleepers behind him.

Noah coiled up the chain when the fish on the line was well in hand. "The children have Promethian fire within them. Amy, Nef, and the people at Frank's place; they are all kin. Memory intact... I wasn't far off the same condition."

"We must check the kids for any second layer traps but we may be able to turn this around." Noah and his never say die, never say stop mentality. Come hell or high water he was going to keep working on fixing the problem. "Yea, we can get Frank on the horn once we get the kids sorted. He will have contact with many who are in a similar state."

Thinking carefully, Hrafen shook his head and glanced at the humans, seeming unsurprised or unperturbed by the fact that they hadn't cared about his intimidation earlier,

"Nothing I would do would be something you would want done. Let us move on." he said, fully prepared to take off after Michael as soon as the man left.

Turning his face towards Mistral, who had addressed Michael as they were leaving, he spoke somberly,

"You did your best."

And after an awkward silence, yes: everybody realized that was Hrafen's best attempt at being comforting. He seemed quite pleased with himself, as if he'd just made a life-altering speech to calm and make those around him happy. As far as he was concerned, this was about as close at it could get.

 Talion paused and took a deep breath. When he spoke, he was calm once more. "I need to see their condition for myself. If they are in a state worth saving, then I will do that... but I somehow doubt that is the case. If they are mindless or in a state of misery, then I..."

 His chin quivered for a moment as he took another breath to calm himself. "... then I will need to return them to rest."


 The gathered sleepers objected loudly as Michael smashed their phones. However, there was very little they were able to do.

-------------------------------------------

 What they found on the other side were the children shaking themselves out of a stupor. They immediately began removing the bandages, only to look in horror at each other and what they had become. The wounds that had slain them were not healed. Most had fallen to their knees as the portal opened and Talion emerged.

 Daddy!

 It was Jenny. She ran up to him and hugged him. She wasn't crying but her voice held tears. "It hurts! Please make it stop!"

 There were a chorus of voices in agreement from the other children. Voices of despair and worry as Talion fell to his knees and embraced Jenny.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzBQvKHsfXU

 Talion took a deep breath. "It's alright, all of you. Come here. I promise the pain will end soon."

 They gathered around him and he embraced each child in turn, one after another as tears flowed freely from his eyes, dropping and forming into crystals as they struck the ground. The children were sobbing as well but they could not cry as he explained what had happened to them. He offered each the choice to remain as they are now or return to rest. Each gave the same description of a wonderful place beyond this that they wished to return to and so Talion forced a smile.

 He kissed each upon the forehead and they closed their eyes, laying down as the fire that animated them was blown out. Each body began to glow and each turned to dust. He gathered each pile of ashes separately into its own container and remained on his knees for several minutes thereafter, shoulders slumped and unmoving.

Noah nodded once, some what sure that Talion disconnected from the body. He walked up and sat down right next to Talion. He opened his bag and started building a device. "I am sorry Talion. I am sure you want to be alone to mourn, but even as far as your mind wants you're still part of my family. As are the littleones."

"I am going to break purgatory. Crack it in half. And I know she is listening. There won't be anything she can do to stop what is comming."

"I won't quit, I won't give up. Not on making it right. And not on you." He kept assembling his bomb. One that would level state if needed.

He would need to call Poe, set it so Greys bakery would be looked after, and ensure Amy was ready for years to come.
This message was last edited by the player at 22:43, Tue 18 Oct 2022.

Nefertiti looked at all that was happening and there was very little she could do to the Sleepers without causing them a bit of pain.  There was a slight smirk as she thought about how Noah spoke and wanting to go after that bitch goddess.  Even she wished to do something to her for her betrayal upon her.  But they also got to keep in mind that they are already having issues with one other that is soon to become a God.  Do they really wish to deal with two of them at the same time.

She didn't know what to say to Talion but she did watch as he gave those that were there their final rest.  Sending them to the land where they felt happy and safe.

Taking a moment to look at Sariel for it was his mother who was doing all this.  Was he really ready to fight against her.  That was something she was looking forward to seeing as well.  But she also wanted to absorb some of the Goddess's essence to further empower herself.  That might be very risky cause there was too many wanting to kill her and Nefertiti might not get that final blow.

Her head turned to Hank " she gazed over at Talion.

Sariel was off to one side and was silent. He was processing something, but he was not going to act as he was asked not to.