Herein are carried over the adventures run previously involving the original group of agents, commonly known as the Raiders.

In reply to The GM (msg # 1):

Post 49:  The Harrowing Pt 2

Washington, DC and the Midwest
-----------------
-----Jack, Irina, Cameron, et alia-------
Jack considered the wand, already very aware that it was dangerous, and that getting rid of it was going to be difficult.  The immense feeling of power that it conferred when a spell was cast felt addictive; he could not help but muse about what to do next, before resolutely dragging his thoughts back to the task at hand.  Irina had climbed into the German's red plane and they had quickly taken off, the plane leaping into the air despite a good payload of chemicals.  It was getting easier to consider Gruber's obsession with the aircraft and his insistence that it was alive.
----------
Jack headed back to the truck, the wand a heavy weight in his jacket, and saw the mists roil a little around the truck.  It was disconcerting to walk into them, but he found the vehicle all right - with an open back gate, Angus sprawled on the floor clutching a bloody nose and swearing, and no sign of Ellison.   The floorboards were drenched with coffee but the steel percolator was not harmed.  "Bastard got the drop on me," Angus said, muffled, handkerchief held to his face.  "Broke my nose. Ranting about monsters."  Apparently Angus had been distracted with making more coffee and Ellison had attacked him - enough for the drunkard to get away to wherever he'd gone.
-------------
--------------
----Spider, Michaela, et alia-------
--------
 "By the way, Leonhard Seppala responded to our request for training dog teams and sled racing," Thorne reported, as Fritz handed off a rifle to Spider.  "He can train us this autumn.   We won't find a better man for the job."  The news had been all about the Diphtheria serum run to Nome, Alaska, in January - and Seppala had taken the medicine across country for more than 260 miles in a raging blizzard. "Fur coats all round !"
"We sight these in before we go find this girl," Fritz told Spider. "A soldier does not battle with an untested weapon."
"Fur coats," Thorne said again, somewhat miffed.
"Yes, yes, more fur coats," sighed Fritz, giving Spider a fistful of rifle rounds. "These are similar to two of the poisoned loads, should be good enough for you to sight the rifle.  We have targets in field, out back by the pines."
"Are you still set on kidnapping this poor girl ?"  Miss Black asked.
"Protective custody,"  Thorne said. "Let the two agents talk her into it while we set up the perimeter.  Easy peasy."


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GM:  I crossposted this to rpol.net, so reply here or there, at your convenience, before Saturday, 11 January, next post is Sunday.

“What?!” Jack sputters in surprise when he sees the state of Angus and the truck. “Are you all right?” He quickly soaks a dishtowel in cold water and makes a compress for Angus, then leaps back out of the truck to look for Ellison.
“Ellison!” Jack yells into the darkness as he looks for signs of the drunk aviator’s passage. “I warned you about keeping it together! Get back here, or so help me you’ll wish you were back in jail! We have lives to save!”

Post 50:  The Harrowing pt 3

DC and the Midwest, March, 1925

--------Jack, Irina, and Cameron----
Jack found a towel for Angus, who waved him off to go chase Ellison.  "Not the first time it's been broken," the older man said, voice muffled by the compress.  "Be wary, he's screwball !"
---------
Jack hurried into the fog, realised his hand was already reaching for the wand, and then forced himself to ignore it.  The fog muffled sounds but he could hear the footsteps of someone else in it, staggering more than walking.    Lurching from the shrouds of fog, a human form can be seen, with no apparent destination.  Something about the way the person was moving made Jack's skin crawl and his hand twitch towards the wand again.
-----------------
------------------
--Spider and Mikaela-------
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Spider checked the rifle that he'd been handed; it was not a standard issue rifle but had been extensively fine tuned, with a German scope on it.  Miss Black took herself off to go enchant some more bullets.  "I can talk to them," Thorne agreed readily.  "So long as you listen to Fritzi's advice on the tactics."
"He is good man in a fight," Fritz spoke up on Spider's behalf.  "We go to sight in rifle; back in one hour, and you will convince young lady."
"We gotta plan," said Thorne.   Spider had sighted the rifle in using the impromptu firing range, and was confident about using it against the creature - though how effective the special ammunition might be was an unknown.  In short order, the agents were headed into DC, Spider following the Auburn in one of the motor pool's Model T's.   The butler allowed Thorne into the parlour first, and deigned to provide coffee while Miss Lockwood prepared to come downstairs.  It took her a while, given her leg brace, but she seemed surprised more than distressed to see the agents.  "Mr. Thorne," she said, "I have heard your name spoken by my Uncle's friends.  I didn't know you worked in the same office as Dr. Weintraub and Mr. Mallory."
"I'm a consultant on important cases such as yours," Thorne said smoothly. "We have a deep and abiding concern that your troubles may not be over yet, and we wish to provide you with every security at our command to ensure your safety.  But, as this is your Uncle's house, we'll have to speak to him as well.  I can't imagine he would deny you anything."  The charming words brought a blush to Miss Lockwood's face.   Fritz had disappeared from the room, presumably getting the lay of the land and building.
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GM:  Please respond with actions, etc, by Saturday, 18 January, next post Sunday, I will carry on with dual posts here and at rpol.net.  I'm not entirely happy about the change either, just not certain anymore about the duration of Yahoogroups.
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Jack forces his hand to stop moving toward the wand. He starts to go for his trusty .45, then changes his mind.
“I knew magic before I ever saw that wand,” he says defiantly to no one in particular, and unleashes a Fist spell at the shambling figure, whether it be Ellison or no. Then he draws his .45, and walks quietly to where he hopes the figure fell, being careful not to get too close.
“Identify yourself, unless you want another taste,” he says in a steady voice.

Irina will try to direct Gruber as best she can - presumably this involves a lot of shouting over the noise of the wind.
While she is airborne, she will try to get some kind of sense of the extent of the contagion and the surrounding area.

OOC: Sorry for dropping out - a combination of work, trying to develop the habit of checking RPOL, and general uselessness.

Post 51: The Harrowing pt 4

Washington, DC and the Midwest, March 1925, evening
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Jack unleashed the Fist spell on the staggering form, the magic drain enough to send him to his knees; the person was catapulted into the air and the ground shook from the impact on his return, the mists roiling.  From the corner of his eye Jack caught a movement; an owl silently soaring past him, in the direction of the impact.  It took him a moment to gather his strength to go look at the damage.  Ellison was sprawled across the barren ground, unconscious, with an arm that looked broken and plenty of scrapes and bruises.  Even in the dim light reflected from the fog, the pilot's complexion was ashen grey.  The owl reappeared, landing lightly on the ground in front of Jack, and raised its wings as if to prevent him from approaching Ellison.  It was a large owl, brown with pronounced ear tufts and huge yellow eyes.  "WoooooOOO." it said, blinking.   A voice seemed to drift from the fog, straight into his ear, the voice of a calm woman.  "Go back to the seer, young mage.  I will keep watch over the fallen."
-----------
Irina looked out at the dark landscape, unable to see what Gruber was pointing out to her.  "What ?  Use witch stone to see," was his mysterious advice, miming holding some kind of object to her eye.  With a few moments to think on it, she took the silver pendant and looked through it, as Gruber banked the plane and they dipped lower.  Down below, a million malignantly glowing dots burned, some drifting towards them, others dug into the dirt.
"Pull ! " Gruber yelled, over the noise of the engines, leveling out low over the land.   The chemical rattled out of the hoppers on the fuselage, sending a cloud of grey dust down onto the glowing dots, obscuring them from view.   As soon as he could, he pulled Elise up, the engines roaring in a maneuver that would stall out a lesser plane.  "Looks better.  We go for more chemical, make another pass.  Then I need fuel !"   He seemed rather more cheerful, and the hostile glow seemed diminished already.  Soon they were back on the ground, and hurrying to reload.  Two lumpy grey creatures the size of rats, with large, spidery fingers, actually helped hold the funnel steady as Gruber poured a huge drum of chemical into the hopper, by himself.  "Gremlins," was the only explanation.  "Danke shoen, Kobolde !"   Of course, by the end of the second run they were tired, dirty, and Irina's ears were ringing from the noise of the cockpit.  Elise touched down perfectly and Gruber threw a few more handfuls of the chemical around her in a careful pattern, patting the plane after he was done.  "Good work," he said to the plane.   "Now, food for Elise, food for me, and a good sleep."
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GM: Please respond with actions, etc for the next half hour of gametime, by Saturday 25 January, next post Sunday, I will continue to crosspost by email and here at rpol for the time being.
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Jack looks at Ellison’s inert form, his gun pointed at the ground in front of him, shaking his head ruefully at the way things have transpired.
Then he looks curiously at the owl and listens to the voice in his head. He remembers the native shaman they befriended who seemed to communicate through animals and perhaps become one. The owl seems helpful and stereotypically wise, and the creepy feeling he got from seeing Ellison has faded.
“I feel I can trust you,” he says out loud, finally. “He may need more than just watching. I didn’t mean to break his arm, but he didn’t seem himself. Perhaps you can help him, or else we’ll patch him up in the morning.”
Jack hesitates, then asks, “Whom do I have the honor of addressing?”
Whatever answer he gets, he will say “Jack Sterling, at your service,” and go back to the truck to help Angus.

In reply to The GM (msg # 7):

Irina feels slightly better after her and Gruber's work that day, raising only a single eyebrow at the gremlins that are helping him. She will try to assess how much damage they may have done to the entity, and whether more sorties are needed.
SHe will also report back to Washington, if there is a working phone nearby.

Finally she will head back to the other Raiders to see what has been happening and get some sleep herself.

Post 51: The Harrowing Pt 5
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The Midwest: Jack, Irina, Cameron
--------------
Jack looks at the grey shape that is Ellison, past the owl, which blinks at him, and speaks to the voice.  " I am called ta theia noousa," the woman's voice said, again so close he could swear she was at his ear.  "We will speak again, mage."  He carefully made his way through the drifts of fog to find the truck again, where Angus was shakily laying out some scruffy, hand-tinted cards on one of the folding tables, his swollen nose padded with some cotton and the dark circles already starting under his eyes, promising stellar black eyes come the morrow.
The Scot laid out another card, shaking his head; it depicted a winged, devilish creatures with two arrows in its hands.   He set the rest of the cards down and looked up at Jack.  "Something bad back home," Angus said dolefully.
----------------------------------------------------------
Hans Gruber quickly led Irina back to the town, striding through the heavy mists as if they were nothing to him.  "You Raiders usually have food," he said, which meant he planned on raiding the cupboards.   The telephone at the municiple office was available, so she was able to get a call routed long-distance to Washington.  Edith answered it.   "I'm so glad you were able to get Mr. Gruber there," she said.  "I had a feeling that other fellow wouldn't amount to much.  There's some kind of creature that might be after a young lady here in DC, and most of the agents are on some kind of watch at her Uncle's house in town.  I'm sure Ben will want you to head home soon."
---------------
As the pair headed towards the mist-camoflaged truck, Gruber paused, waving at Irina to do the same.  "Something there," he said, watching the roiling fog carefully.   He edged around whatever it was but unfailingly led Irina to the truck, where Jack and Angus were looking at some kind of fortune-telling cards; Angus had a swollen nose packed with cotton and a magnificent start of black eyes.    The Scot picks up another card and slaps it down, revealing a dagger dripping blood.

----------
Back in DC; Spider, Mikaela
-----------
Spider and Mikaela were on site at the opulent mansion, noting that the staff was aware of their presence.  The Senator was on a trip to Florida for some reason or other and would not be home, but had at least given his permission to protect his niece.  That left the driver, who was polishing one of the cars, the butler, who was locking up the silver rather pointedly, the two maids, who were more than happy to play gin rummy with Miss Lockwood, and the Cook, who reluctantly turned out a simple dinner for the agents, chicken stew with dumplings.  The gardener had gone to the countryside to visit his family.  Thorne had scouted every room and decided that the room with the best line of sight for combat was the parlour, with a second best being the corridor outside it.  Fritz was stationed in the corridor and had rigged tripwires with bells attached to give warning, throughout the mansion and grounds.  "Look !"  Thorne said, popping open the huge globe on a stand in the parlour to reveal a set of liquor bottles and some glasses.  "Good to know where the supplies are kept."
"My goodness !"  Miss Lockwood said, shocked.
"This must be the safe," Thorne said next, swinging a portrait aside from the wall it was stationed, to reveal a wall safe.  "My goodness indeed, Miss Lockwood; perhaps your uncle could benefit from a consultation on home security."  He pushed the painting back in place and smiled with professional grace.   Then he lost the smile, as a ringing of bells came from the back half of the house, where the kitchen and pantry were - and the corresponding sudden scream of the Cook.
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GM:  Actions, etc, please, by Saturday 1 February, next post Sunday
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In reply to The GM (msg # 10):

Irina felt immediately better hearing Edith's voice, and her news was even more welcome.

"That's good to know, Edith - I feel bad about leaving this place, and these people, but I don't know if there's much more we can do until we have some way of severing this creature's connection to our world. Do you really think we should be getting back?"

She looks warily at the mist as Gruber leads her past it, and tries to stare into it to see what might be there, wondering if the Witch Stone might help.
"What did you see?" she asks him.

Back at base, she repeats Edith's conversation to the others.

"What happened to Angus? Don't tell me - Ellison? Useless swine. Where is he?"

If there is nothing else going on, she is content to turn in for the night.

Jack sits with Angus quietly, but does not interrupt.
“What sort of trouble?” he asks, once the man speaks.
Then he adds, “I saw something shuffling around in the dark in an unnatural way. I thought it might be a walking corpse, so I hit it with a Fist spell. I didn’t use the wand. Anyway, it turned out to be Ellison. The spell knocked him out and broke his arm. Then a big owl flew down out of nowhere and got between us. Very expressive, like a person. And I ... I heard a woman’s voice in my head, kind of reassuring. She said she would watch over him and I should come back inside here. She called me ‘young mage’ and called herself ‘ta theia noousa.’ If my Latin has held up, it means ‘she who knows divine things.’ Someone important. She said we would talk again. I told her we’d patch Ellison up in the morning.”
When Irina and Gruber get back, he will give her a relieved hug and then tell them everything that happened, including what Angus said about Ellison talking about monsters. “Maybe he was under a charm of some kind, and saw us as monsters.”

Post 52:  The Harrowing, pt 5, March, 1925

-----DC-------
Spider went to intercept whatever was causing the trouble, moving into the corridor, his rifle loaded with special bullets.  He saw Fritz in the hallway, gesturing to 'move onward' with a simple hand signal until they were closer to the kitchen; the cook's scream had been abruptly cut off.  A thick whiff of fog drifted from beneath the doorway to the kitchens, and then the door burst open.  Leaping through it was a creature from nightmares - a cadaverous, massive houndlike monster with blue slobber dripping from unnaturally long fangs, a long blue tongue whipping forth from its mouth.  There were no discernable eyes and a suggestion of armour plating, but it moved so swiftly at the two men there was little time to judge it better.   The sight of it was enough to freeze both men in their tracks; Fritz' first bullet missed, he was so shocked, but the second one struck it in the shoulder as Spider aimed at its head.   Spider's shot knocked it back, though the bullet just glanced off its thick hide; Fritz' bullet sunk home and the thing screeched, a howl that rang in their ears.   Then it leapt, bounding towards them with a snakelike undulation, whiplike tail lashing - it was now in range for close combat !
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Meanwhile, Thorne and Mikaela stood ready to defend Miss Lockwood and the two maids, who were worried; they'd pulled Miss Lockwood behind the settee and were cowering there while the two agents readied their firearms.
---------------------------------
-------The Midwest-------------------
---Irina-------
Edith paused a moment.  "I'll call Ben to let him know you're all right, and see if he wants you to stay any longer," she said. "A lot of calls have come in the last two days, so we've been busy.   Telephone tomorrow morning and he'll have an answer for you.  And Tom says something big is brewing."
--------------
Irina used the silver pendant, noting the fog had vanished from view; there was a human shape laying on the ground, with an owl solemnly sitting on the ground next to it.  The owl had a brilliant white aura around it and did not seem to mean the human any harm.  And Gruber was ignoring it, though who knew what he could see.   The German was more than happy to go to the Raider's truck; after a brief greeting he immediately went looking in cupboards for food.
------Jack-------
Jack spoke to Angus.  "I dinna ken," the Scot said, obviously concentrating more on the cards than on Jack.  Once Jack spoke about Ellison, though, he got more attention.  "A woman, this one," Angus said, pointing to a card depicting a bouquet of roses, right next to a shield.  "One with power.  Tread carefully."   Then a German they knew barged in and started looting the food cupboard, immediately finding a tin of shortbread.  "Hey !"  Angus protested, but Gruber had the lid off already.  Irina was much nicer to greet.   Cameron was still sleeping peacefully in a fold-down cot, the Djinn curled up on the pillow beside him in his handkerchief.
Gruber sat down in Angus' chair, handing him the empty tin, to the Scot's consternation.  "Got any milk ?"  the German asked.  "It is traditional !"
"For what, great bloody greedy -"  Angus squinted at Gruber as the pilot began riffling through the rest of the fortune-telling deck. "You're a Fae !"
"Yes, and no," said Gruber, looking at the cards with curiousity.  "I work, sometimes, for Raiders.  Always trouble.  But food, and money.  Money is needed in this world."  He handed a stunned Angus the cards, then found a tin of condensed milk and got out his pocketknife to cut it open.
"Elise will need fuel in the morning," Gruber said, having drained the tin. "We go to California soon.  You have all your crop-dusting done ?"
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GM:   Responses, please, by Saturday, 8 February, next post Sunday
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In reply to The GM (msg # 13):

Irina will check out the person lying on the ground, assuming that the owl doesn't try to prevent her. If the owl doesn't stop her, however, she'll examine the person, check they're okay, or whether they're alive.
If they can be helped towards the truck she'll do so, but if they are too much of a deadweight (or the owl intervenes), she will go inside and report on what she has seen, and ask if anyone knows who it is and what is going on.

In answer to Gruber's question as to whether they are done, she'll fill everyone in on the telephone conversation with Edith.
"I'll call again tomorrow and Ben will let us know," she tells Gruber.

Jack tries to play diplomat between Angus and Gruber.
“It’s always like this with Herr Gruber,” he says to Angus. “He’s a valued ally, but he’s not... familiar with every detail of the social niceties. We make allowances,” he finishes with a shrug.
To Gruber, he says, “California?” He will also check with Gruber with one of the maps so he can mark as accurately as possible where the chemicals were dumped.
After everyone exchanges information, and if there are no more interruptions, he is all for some shuteye.

Post 53:  Hounds and Hares pt 1
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-----The DC team---Spider and Mikaela-------
Spider chambered a fresh round, moving toward the houndlike thing, forcing himself to go closer to it as it surged forward, the tongue extending like a horrible tentacle towards him.  It latched onto his rifle and pulled hard, nearly wrenching it from his grasp, but he was able to reflexively snap the trigger.  The result was equally horrifying, as the hound screeched and knocked him back, sending him crashing into the wood panelling of the corridor.   As he tried to get air back into his lungs he heard three more shots, fired very fast, and then a rattling, wet sound, suddenly cut off.  Drenched in blue slobber, Fritz was sprawled over the body of the creature, holding the grip of one of the deadly knives he carried.  The blade was buried deep in the monster's chest.  "Got it," the German said;  then the body began to smoke, and suddenly diffused into a cloud of oily vapour.   Fritz fell to the ruined carpet, swearing and coughing, covered in blue gore and once again denied a trophy.  Thorne ran into the corridor, the Le Mat ready to fire, and skidded to a stop at the sight.   He stuck out a hand to help Spider to his feet and struggled hard not to laugh at Fritz, who was sullenly dripping goo onto the Turkish carpet.   "His shot," Fritz added, nodding to Spider.  "Third batch; most effective.  The hole it made, I made bigger, but -" he made a disappointed wave at the mess.
"That's not fair," Thorne said, uncocking the Le Mat and stowing it in his shoulder harness.  "I had a place on the wall all picked out for the trophy.  What did it look like ?"
"Big," Fritz said, "Big, with hide like a rhino.  No eyes.  Big blue tongue.  Sharp long teeth."  He looked at the knife blade, which was visibly rusting in front of them.  "I need wash !"
Several dousings with water and soap later, the Raiders were able to figure out what happened.  The monster had manifested in the kitchen; the cook had been killed by those long, sharp teeth.   Miss Lockwood was horrified by the death, but it could have been much worse.   Thorne of course knew a cleanup crew that would work for No Questions Asked Provided the Cash Was There, and soon the Raiders were headed back to the office.   A middle-aged man was puttering around in one of the labs with several boxes of electronic equipment, some of which looked like a movie projector in part.  "Mr. Jenkins has graciously come in to give us a hand with our communication system,"  Edith said.  "He's applying for a patent for his new device, a radiovision machine."
"We got funding for him through a government grant," Ben said.   "If we get this to work right, we could see what is going on miles away."

-----------------------------------------------------------
--The Midwest Team---Jack, Irina and Cameron-----
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Irina went near to the man on the ground, pausing as the owl peered at her with huge yellow eyes and opened up its wings.  The man seemed to be Ellison, and while he didn't look completely healthy, he seemed to be all right to leave alone.  His skin was greyish but he was breathing steadily.  Angus is more than happy to leave the annoying pilot on the ground outside all night, as his nose was broken by selfsame individual and he's holding a grudge.
---------
Jack tried to smooth things over with Angus as Gruber shamelessly raids their cupboards.   "Jah, air show, quick money," the German responded to Jack's query.  He is easily able to show Jack where the chemicals were dispersed on the maps, as he pockets a jar of peanut butter, a tin of beans and some beef jerky.  He also shrugs at Irina's information on whether he can go or not.  "If that is all, then, I will go back to Elise," he said, and sauntered off into the drifting mists.
Angus glared, then relented.  "That one has a story worth waiting to hear," the Scot said.  He shuffled the cards, split the deck and looked at the card revealed; a forest.   "A secret hidden in the forest.  And - our work today -" the next card was the Sun.  "The best of omens.  I may have had my claret tapped today, but I met one of the Fair Folk."
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The next morning dawned well enough, with the Raiders breakfasting on oatmeal, one of the few things Gruber hadn't walked off with last night.  Outside, a sick-looking Ellison is sitting up, blinking resentfully at the sunlight; the owl is gone.  Ellison seems almost sorry for once, too; he allows himself to be shuffled off to the medical tent, though his affliction does not seem to be dangerous.   The Raiders ring up Washington DC and get Edith on the line.  "He's just getting coffee....here he is.  Ben, the Midwest team," and they heard Ben's voice.  "We're doing cleanup today in town, and getting some new equipment for field use," he said.  "You'll hear about it when you get back, but everyone's all right.  We need you back here, there's been a rise in the caseload."
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The return to Washington DC
-----------------
After a few days of driving, the storm-shattered Midwest has been left behind and all the agents are again in DC, in the Grey Building.   Edith hands out folders of new cases.  "We have a report of a howling wolfman in Maryland," she said, "A horned monster in the Shenandoah valley, several reported hauntings in New York, New Jersey, and Rhode Island, a tree monster in Pennsylvania, strange lights in the sky in North Carolina, walking sharks in California.  Everything came in all at once.   There are four people missing and one confirmed dead in California, two dead in Pennsylvania, a child mauled in Maryland by the wolfman.   Any preferences ?"
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GM:  State your preferences and any follow-up actions, please respond by 15 February, Saturday, next post Sunday.  Will continue to cross-post as not everyone is getting on with new site
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OOC: Sorry to disappear. Jumping back in :)

IC:

"Jack," Cameron asks his friend. "Didn't you say Gruber mentioned going out to California? Maybe some of us can hitch a ride out there? Walking sharks," he shuddered at the thought. "Sounds grim, but we might be able to save people if they're 'missing'. I'm up for that, or Pennsylvania." He looked to the djinn for any preference. "That's certainly closer and just as deadly by the sound of it."

“Gruber is most likely already on his way to California, or even done by now,” Jack replies to Cameron.
“A child?” Jack interjects as a Edith is listing the casualties. “I’m from Maryland. I’ll take the werewolf. I’ll need some of Fritz’s special silver bullets.”