Elissa paused on the way to see Joe "Hi Julie, Brendan. I'd say 'nice to see you but some serious shit is going down here. Can I suggest you get the hell out of dodge incase world war three starts. Because it just might. If I live, I'll see you in the canteen tomorrow?" she couldn't say much more because she had to see Joe, but she hoped the couple wouldn't get caught up in this.

As she got closer to Joe, she paused and waited: happy to let Ann take the lead.

Ann realises that she's met Joe before.  In fact she bummed a cigarette off him and she doesn't even smoke.  Joe does though and he offers her one as he pauses to light one for himself.  "I don't even want to be in Cambridge." he says,  "My brother does because he's growing to human sized and thinks he'll thrive here but what we just did... call it a proof of concept.  I was hoping to take out the Madb but there was nobody here but that Morgan Le Fey.  I suppose we'll have to ask her."

Ann took the cigarette with thanks, but held it by her side.

"So you're trying to kill gods and fey? Why do you want them dead? And what will you do if you manage to kill them all?"

Joe takes a deep drag and then lets out smoke rings that form into the letters AAD0DOO, which clearly don't spell anything but it seems to amuse him.  "Christopher and I were swapped as babies and dreadfully abused in both Tir Na n'Og and England.  We want Justice.  As for Herne, that was self-defence.  The Hunt is supposed to give up at a certain point but the Madb persuaded them to carry on after both of us escaped twice each. There's a..." But no.  He sounds like he's going to say something else but he drags furiously on his cigarette instead.

"Who abused you? If you're going after evil fey who've hurt you, that's one thing. But are innocent civilians going to get hurt? Because if so, that's where I have to draw the line and stop you. So why don't you explain exactly what's been going on, and your plans. Because justice is something I can get behind. Revenge hurting innocents? Not so much."

"Me... I don't give a toss about 'Justice'. There is no Justice there's Just Us. I can get behind 'Revenge' quite happily" Elissa said "But I can't get behind 'Revenge and I don't give a fuck about who else gets hurt'. See suppose you kill a hundred people in the process, and one of those is a kid. Or someone I care about... Or really just any person on the street... Then you become worse than the people that abused you. Nothing wrong with a nice bit of Revenge where you put the boot in, or twist the knife. Just keep it personal, man. You and them."

"Start moving to 'people they care about' or 'who cares about the others in the way' and then you are really fucked up, man. That's what we want to know. Are you really fucked up and going to hurt the people under our protection, or are you just going after the people that hurt you? Who got hurt when you assassinated Herne? Do you know? Do you care?"

"Anyway you're too late here. They've all left."

Joe smiles a smile which is both wicked and playful as he says, "Some of them are very close by, and those who have left are running toward Christopher. I would love to give you assurances but if I did that, I'd be bound as by oath and I'd hate to tie my hands if the Madb should be here."

Watching the insanity unravel around them, there was not much that really offered itself as a quick fix, or something that could use his power or touch to aid them.  Following along with the slayer and not quite slayer, he stood back and watched the back and forth, a bit disturbed by Elissa's rational on the matter of justice, but listening to this Joe the Goblin, he could not help but feel a mental knot forming that he could not process properly.

"So what?"  He asked a bit harsh and bluntly towards Joe over Elissa.  "Your goal is simply to make those that hurt you suffer and damn the fallout around those attacks. So what?"  His voice was growing a bit louder and more gravely. "Lets say you get it, what comes next?  What do you have after you get this destruction?  Do you plan to die doing this?  Do you seek to take power until someone you have harmed comes to get their revenge on you?  WHAT. IS. YOUR. END. GOAL?!?" He was practically screaming at the goblin, something he could not identify causing him such great anger at the moment.

Joe considers Goffery's question for a long and serious moment.  After thinking for a while, so long in fact that almost everyone would see the cogs literally whirring in his brain, he says, "My end goal, and I think Christopher's as well, is to stop the traditions of the Wild Hunt and the making of changelings.  On top of that, I would like to end feudalism in the Feylands but I can't see that happening."

"Why don't we get you discussing that with the fey? You've certainly got their attention. If they agree, nobody else need get hurt. And if not, maybe you can all go to a field somewhere far from anybody else and fight it out until one side is left standing."

"If the Fey who have lived for centuries are stupid enough to fall into your 'herding plan' then I will be extremely surprised" Elissa said "I mean sure... maybe they are brain dead... but if they were this brain dead they wouldn't have survived for centuries" It wasn't her problem anyway: this was a civil war not her war, and while she'd like to see the war stopped she had no reason to care who 'won'.

Just the Goffrey came in "Hey, man. Chill" she said looking worried. "Sticking your face into someone else's face like this is saying 'I want you to kick off something'. Don't loose your shit or you become part of the fucking problem, and it's a big enough problem as it is" her worry faded just a little as she saw Joe wasn't reacting violently. She probably would have if she was him...
This message was last edited by the player at 13:21, Fri 20 May 2022.

Joe paused and looked around for anything resembling a hedge but there is nothing like that anywhere on Parker's Piece so he whistles.  A new shadow crosses the moon but quickly disappears as a small winged creature looking like nothing on earth lands beside Joe.  He climbs upon its back and said, "Toodles folks."

The creature climbed into the air, looking like nothing so much as a dragon from a cartoon film and flew off in a vaguely Southward direction.  The checkpoint is still a weird looking tower and the line is covered with Travertine Marble but apart from that, everything is back to normal.  Even quiet.  It is two AM.  Perhaps an hour and a half before sunrise.

"That was a dragon, right? I didn't imagine a real-life dragon?"

She looked about her, then turned to Elissa.

"I'm not sure anything is going to happen here now. I think we should return to your werewolf friend before the vampires who live in that vault get back."

Julie jumped when Elissa appeared.

"Do you know what's going on?"

She didn't feel in danger. Confused, certainly. Everything seemed a bit like a dream, only too real. A thought crossed her mind that maybe someone had put something in her food.

Brendan frowned as Julie jumped.  "Are you okay, mo cushla?" then she asks Elissa what's going on and although Brendan has an idea or two about that, he has no idea where it's coming from so he very wisely makes no attempt to explain, hoping Elissa has a better explanation.

Elissa had to think hard about how to answer Julie's question. Really hard. Think about consequences. About what would happen if she said yes, what would happen if she said no. Her view of Julie was that saying 'no idea' would first be a lie and insulting, and secondly would just trigger Julie into doing her own research. Which might get her killed...

After a long pause "Actually yes Julie. But are you dead sure you want to know?" Elissa asked "'Cos girl this is a one way trip. At the end of the nightmare trip you find that magic is real, that fairies exist... oh and vampires do too. And walking statues" she gestured at Goffrey. "And right now one of our class mates has been turned into a werewolf."

"See girl, right now you can see Goffry. You can see the tower. You saw the dragon. But tomorrow if you want ... you can persuade yourself it was a dream. I'd fucking recommend that. It's not a 'one time offer', I'm not playing a game with you. You can say 'no' now and ask later if you want"

"But if you really want to know I can explain. At least the bit I know. Ann and I have to go help the werewolf" she nodded in acknowledgement of Ann's request "But if you really want, I can explain before we go. "

For a moment, Julie couldn't do more than gape. But she couldn't deny the strange things she'd seen... was seeing.

"It's like a dream, but too real. Is there anything I can do to help?"

"I think it's 'over' at least for now, girl" Elissa said looking at the others to see if they agreed "Short form: The Fey are child kidnappers and abusers. That generates hatred. Two of the kidnappees got pissed off and decided to stop it all by killing the Fey gods that are thousands of years old. To kill them they had to do stuff. Most of this shit you see is the backlash of that."

"According to Joe ... the ugly fucker who rode out of here on his dragon... he and his sort of brother beleive that the Fey gods are mindlessly stupid and will fall into their trap. Maybe he's right" Elissa's expression showed how unlikely she thought that was "Maybe wrong. In any event, girl, it's basically a civil war, and when people get caught up in a war... there are deaths. I'm a fan of keeping out of it"

"I'm sounding like I know it all, but actually I found out all of this tonight. It's been a long night ... "

"You asked about helping. You need to think about that. Both of you. Ann is basically Wonder Woman. She's Cambridge's ... maybe the world's ... protector against some of these horrors. I'm one of her sidekicks. She needs more help. But ... it's dangerous work. So you and Brendan should think long and hard on whether you just want to go to bed and wake up in the morning pretending this was a dream."

Brendan shakes his head.  "Whatever this is, it's not a dream.  It doesn't have dream logic.  I guess that for better or worse, our eyes have been opened and it looks as though enlightenment sucks huge blocks of limestone."

"Who's coming" Elissa had asked as she saw Ann prepare to leave for the Church. "Ann here used her 'Darth Vader' power and sensed that there are Vampires in a chuch. In that church we have a .. sort of friend of mine. Maybe a friend. She turned into a Werewolf for the first time tonight... and the second after the Eclipse. As the werewolf she is a fucking violent killing machine but still remembers something of herself. When she turned back into a human she was traumatized, scared and in pain. And we left her in the church... Because we didn't know what else to do with all the craziness going on here"

"I think she's safe until dawn. But we can't let her out until dawn because she'll probably try and eat anyone that isn't me. So Ann and I are going to babysit her. If you want you can come with us, and we can talk. There is a chance the Vampires will take exception to us... so this is volunteers only."

"My advice would be to forget about this. Go home. Pretend it's a dream. But if you want to get involved... Just be aware that if you get involved you might not be able to get out again. Or might die. This is some serious shit"

The explanation that the goblin gave was angering for him on a level that he just had to shut down somewhat.  Their answer was that they just wanted to destroy everything and hope that what comes next was much better.  Nothing to do with tradition, with honor, with duty, with anything beyond a child's petulant want to make those that hurt them to suffer and what comes next was unimportant.  Part of that made sense, but with all these others learning about what was going on, he was done with this as the night seemed to have come to if conclusion, and all were scrambling to recover the situation.

Looking at the navy haired talker, speaking so much to others, the stone statue looms closer to the group.  "Take. Care. Your choices will always have a consequence on what happens.  And sometimes death is not the end of your story." The statue said from an unmoving mouth, with its face shifting between the group as the featureless indentations of its eyes moved over those present around the indigo maned maiden. "As she said, for most, ignoring this nights as but a most unfortunate dream would grant you a chance for prolonged happiness, few have such luck when they find more than the mundane."  He then turned and made his way over to Sir John, and would leave with him to discuss what they must do now.

Julie sat down on the ground, deciding this was safer than trusting her legs at this moment. But apart from that, she took the shock of her reality being upended calmly.

"Are you kidding? Of course I want to be a part of something like this. I want to know how it all works."

Julie had long had an interest in science. Wanting to know how the world works was part of her.

"Then come with us, but know that forever more, when something goes bump in the night, you'll wonder if it was a cat or drunk in the alley, or a demon come to kill you. Then again, those creatures have always been there, and at least now you are choosing to be aware of them and deal with the danger."

She turned to lead the way to the church before turning back.

"But don't actually deal with them yourself. They really are dangerous. If you're part demon, a living statue, or the Chosen One, you might have a chance. But an ordinary human? Stay back and stay safe. There are other ways to help. Investigations, research, or just holding up a cross at the right time." She flashed a smile and held out her hand. "But it is good to have another member on the Five-O team. I'm Ann."

"For me, I was already involved in all of this before knowing it was not mere delusion. It might be nice to perhaps make use of this to help in some way. To have what I see, do something. Well something other than force me to hide away and numb things." And she begins to walk after Ann.

"Let's head to the church then" Elissa said "As Ann says be careful around the supernatural creatures... they are supervillain scary."

"The church has a crypt in it and Rhiannon is there. I hope she's sleepy. So when we go in, let's stay in the entry area... I'll go check she's OK. She recognises me... or did."

"We need a long term solution... But we've got to get through this week first. It's going to be full moon tomorrow and the next at least... so if any of you know a place we can keep her safe that would be great. And we'll need to worry about how to feed her. We killed a cow tonight... which is better than letting her kill a person, but we shouldn't do that again."