If Abe's curiosity were piqued before, now it was nearing a boil. "My father has?  I still know just nearly nothing about him.  What are you talking about, and what is he like?"

"Your father is one of the more magically powerful Fae around. He has a deep talent for it. And had the best tutors money can buy. He has learned how to control the mind and see the future. The latter is unreliable and I've never needed the former. But the world is controlled by men and there are other ways to get what you want."

"As for what he's like. Like many of us Fae he has an appetite, your mother was neither the first nor the last. He is carefree and loves to laugh out loud. He is wise, fair, just, merciful, and prudent. But he is also unpredictable and easily angered. And he jealously guards his wife's virtue."

"He is very handsome, tall, and strong. He has curly hair and prefers his beard short."

Abe nodded in understanding of much of what Sparrow had said or implied.  "Thank you, Sparrow.  That does reinforce that no one can know whose son I am."  He confirmed.  "How different are Fae from half-Fae, anyway?"

"As far as I understand," Sparrow starts with a caveat, "half-Fae start less than Fae, but they can learn whatever we can learn. I haven't met any that are as good looking as the best of us or any that live as long as we do. Nor anyone who has a sense of humor as spectacular as we do. But other than that, you are like we are."

Abe chuckled.  "Well, I'll have to keep my eye out for any info I can get myself... since at least part of what you said sounds biased at best."

He talked with Sparrow for a little longer, then went back to working on his teleportation practice.


<later>

When the Baron texted, Abe replied with "On my way."  He set out immediately.

When Abe arrived at the Arcane Lux, you were quickly led to the Baron's office. There were two others in the office, both of them vampires. One of them was Dean's master and the other, the vampire that had tried to approach your sister the other day. There was no small talk.

"We use a number of methods to find new additions to my herd," the Baron says. "One of them is giving out tickets to the club as random rewards on airlines. Recently two such tickets were won by this woman." An image of your sister taken from within the club was shown on a large TV screen.

"She brought this man," the image was replaced by an image of Thomas, also taken within the club.

"During the evening several of my people tried to approach them, but they couldn't. When they came too close they were filled by a dread that compelled them to stay away. This is something we have never encountered before. So we investigated." The image of your sister returned to the screen.

"Based on the information we received from the airline on who the winner of our prize was, we quickly discovered that she is your sister. If we had known that beforehand, she would not have been approached. But this way we stumbled on a secret the Fae has kept from us. And we want it! How do you do this?"
This message was last edited by the GM at 06:26, Sat 08 Feb 2020.

Abe answered the Baron carefully.  "I am in your debt for helping my two of my friends and for letting a third live.  And I've given my word to be of service to you while I'm in town.  But there are some things that I will still not divulge before all ears - only for the absolutely most trustworthy."  He glanced pointedly at the other vampires in the room.

He continued, "Even if I were to be assured of the trustworthiness of those here, I still would need an oath that I could trust: that the information I share here would be kept secret and would not be used against myself, my family, or my friends.  Otherwise, I would feel obligated to destroy myself to avoid reneging on a debt, as well as the deaths of others... and if you were to pursue this course of investigation without knowing what I know, I would expect that you would pay a very disproportionate price to learn it, as the answer is definitely not what you are expecting."

With a wave of the hand, the Baron dismisses the two other vampires and they leave the office. "So, what is the secret?"

Abe nodded to the Baron.  "Thank you.  The secret is that I am the only Fae in the family that raised me, and none of them are fully aware of what I am.  I've been away from them for a long while, so I sold my recent change in appearance as being part of living healthy instead of living enlisted.  And for my sister, who's seen me more recently, I sold it as a genetic experiment relating to my bio family.  Not even that implausible since I could probably start it myself with CRISPR.  Besides the whole "first rule of Shadowland" issues, I know who at least one of my biological parents are, and he would take my very existence and knowledge of him as an affront and has the power to make other people share his pain.  So, I'd rather people not go digging into my past.  I don't know if or how closely he's watching."

He looked back from the Baron to the picture of his sister.  "I wasn't sure it was a herd thing she had won, and since they're allegedly mortal I couldn't tell them to stay away from here or she'd have gotten suspicious.  So, I came and kept an eye on things to make sure nothing awkward happened.  I noted your vampire and a few of Carson's people coming near my sister and her date and veering off, and I've started investigating.  What I've got so far is that she or the man with her - an acquaintance of mine - is precognitive, possibly telepathic, knew what was going on here, is capable of deterring your people, and can fool a Hunter's senses.  Sparrow said that for a Fae to have learned to fake or use those abilities they'd have to be fantastically wealthy, skilled, and practiced."

"I very much doubt it was my sister, so I'm going to go ask after the other guy.  Anything you can tell me about different kinds of supernaturals so I can identify what he is, if he is something other than a human?"  He concluded and asked.

"You already know about vampires, werewolves, fae, and hunters," the Baron says. "In addition to those, there are angels and demons. Both can teleport. Other than that angels are healers and caregivers. While demons, and they are what you think they are. But there are many kinds of demons with various powers. I don't know if they register to a hunter. We could sneak up on some demons to find out, but they wouldn't be happy if we did that. And if they are unhappy with us, we are in deep trouble."
This message was last edited by the GM at 21:40, Wed 12 Feb 2020.

Abe nodded as the Baron spoke, at least tangentially understanding.  Angels and Demons were also actual options... so maybe he was right about Daiyu.  And perhaps the goodly vibe he got from Thomas was part of his supernatural nature.

"Well, I'll probably look into things at my own risk to satisfy my curiousity.  That said, I've got no intentions of trying to find a demon to test anything."

"Staying away from demons is always a good idea," the Baron says.

"We will also continue to investigate this. If someone has this kind of control over us, we need to know. If you find out anything please let us know."


[OOC: I made a post Thursday, but apparently it didn't take.]

Abe nodded.  "I will do what I can."  Abe wasn't sure what he'd learn, or whether there'd be betrayal of friend or family, or a death threat if he shared what he learned, so he left it at that.
This message was last edited by the player at 21:04, Wed 19 Feb 2020.

"Good," the Baron says. The conversation is over and you are dismissed.

[OOC: You mentioned contacting Thomas earlier. Do you want to do that or do you have other plans?]

Once he was well away from the Lux, Abe texted Thomas:  When and where's good for a coffee and talk?

Thomas returned your text.

I don't drink coffee, but some OJ and talk works for me. What about tomorrow? You can pick the place.
This message was last edited by the GM at 18:00, Fri 21 Feb 2020.

OJ sounds great.  Abe texted.  How about Denny's at 2?  He aimed for a place and time that would have plenty of room for privacy, but not many customers.

The returning text had only one word: Perfect.


[OOC Anything you want to do before then?]

(A couple of things now that I think about it.)

Text to Jayne: How was the date at the Lux?

Text to Tom, Jack, & Dean: Feeling out Thomas tomorrow - he might be something like us.  Might need clean-up at night if things go poorly.

Text to Sparrow: Know anything about demons or angels, or anything we can do to learn things without talking to people?

It took some time before Jayne replied to the text. Most of her response was about how awesome the Lux was. She described the place as if talking to someone that hadn't been there. Her voucher had provided more alcohol than she had felt the need to drink. Thomas had paid for everything else and even made sure that she had gotten home, as he hadn't drunk a single drop of alcohol.

Sparrow texted a short question in reply: "Was there something specific you needed to know?"

Jack texted "Let me know if there is something I can do."



[OOC Posts that don't stick are so anoying.]

Jayne: Glad you had fun and had Thomas there to look out for you.

Sparrow: Hoping to learn to search out any kind of information I could, in this case it's about what's probably an angel, but it's something I'm generally interested in as well.

Jack: Will do.

Sparrow texted: Angels are healers, protectors, and messengers. And they have the powers they need to do those things. If this is about your earlier mystery, as far as I know, angels don't control people. They're big on free will.

Abe was excited at the confirmation, and texted back: But what if that control was exerted strictly to nonviolently deter a vampire or his emissaries from the person the angel was protecting? I think we've got it. (Big grin Emoji)

---

Abe went to the meet-up with Thomas a few minutes early.  After all, "Early is on time, on time is late, and late is unacceptable."

Sparrow returned Abe's text: I'm not sure. You would have to ask an angel about that.

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

Thomas was exactly on time and greeted Abe. "Hey. How are you doing?"

Abe stood up to meet Thomas and shook his hand.  A pair of orange juices already sat on the table.  "Thanks for coming out, Thomas.  Can I get you anything else?"

Once they were seated, he said, "I'd like to beat around the bush with friendly chat for a few minutes, but I don't like the suspense.  Were you born an angel, or did you become one afterward somehow?  Knowing about the trouble that night and trying to warn us, staying off caffiene and alcohol, watching out for Jayne in the Valley of the Shadow of Death yesterday..."  He trailed off and waited for the other's reply.