(CW: Racial slurs used by an NPC.)

Tuesday, October 2nd, 2018

Bristlecone Lane

Did Liz just kick off the end of the world? For a moment, no one is really sure. Liz and Anthony let out simultaneous “What the fuck?”’s while Levi spices it up with a “Holy shit!”. Graham doesn’t say anything but takes a few steps back to keep everything in frame in case he needs a picture. Irina yells “Pace, pace” (paah-kay, the Latin one), and this seems to be a signal that some of the assembled people recognize. The Indian woman from before is running up with some medical supplies, and Irina is trying to force Liz to the ground and take her axe. Liz refuses to drop the axe, but she does let Irina guide her into an awkward crouch and move her away from Jinx (who, to her credit, is holding her composure despite having been cut open with an axe). Marcus and Dewey take up flanking positions around Anthony, who is touched by their loyalty.

It’s a tense situation, and Liz has totally clammed up and won’t answer questions from Irina or anyone else. Eventually, Irina gets her sledgehammer and gives her an ultimatum, which is enough to make Liz drop her weapon. Anthony, thinking fast, decides to intervene with a sob story about how Liz isn’t all mentally there, and is having a breakdown. (Is it even a lie, he wonders?) Irina goes from anger to profound disappointment – apparently she had high hopes for her ‘squire’ -but it’s enough to lower the emotional temperature of the party. The colonial looking prick throws in a quick comment about how “it makes sense for a chink to be crazy”, which the gang decides not to address, given the circumstances.

The Indian woman patched up Jinx, who asks Liz for a private word as a cop car pulls up just on the other side of the barricades put up for the block party. The cabal can’t hear exactly what’s said, but whatever it was, it gets Liz to hand Jinx the axe and walk calmly to the police car with Butch and Spot. They leave, and now the Cabal is facing the end of the world without the roughest member of their group.

But at least for short-fused violence there’s still Alison, who pulls Graham aside for one last prep meeting. They’ve identified the four heavy hitters: Irina, their old friend with the sledgehammer; Seth, the tall and silent one (who had an aura of unsettling calm about him in the aftermath of Liz’s attack); Anaya Maj, the woman who treated Jinx’s wounds, and Trep Murrinal, the racist boy explorer lookin fucker. They want Graham’s opinion on who would be the best one to win. Graham had sort of forgotten about that aspect of his mission, but he figures that Anaya is the best one – surely having your first instinct be healing is a good thing? Alison goes over and talks to her, offering her services as squire.

While this is going down, Levi feels a tap on his shoulder and hears a chirpy “Oh, hi Levi!” He turns around with an exaggerated slowness – this has not really been a good day on the “surprising things” front – but it’s a good surprise for once: Mick Cavverae from It’s A Living, in the flesh. They say that they’re here to watch Ragnarök, and that they only just arrived – “It’s a Messenger thing. I’m just happy I got a few minutes early to grab a hot dog.” Levi notes that their outfit – jean shorts and a tank top – is very unfitting the brisk climate (and getting brisker – there’s a chilly wind that he swore wasn’t there a moment ago) and offers to see if he has anything warmer in the car. Mick happily agrees, and notes that while driving to Ragnarök isn’t normally possible, it should be for Levi.

Irina, who has no squire, decides to approach Anthony – maybe because of his composure when Liz attacked? But he’s not a fighter and that’s gonna be a big fat N from him. In fact, he decides it’s probably about time to make like a chip’s best friend and dip. But as he (flanked still by Marcus and Dewey) starts walking out, he comes with Levi who mentions that he’s gonna try driving in to it. That sounds safer! Levi ends up not having a spare hoodie or anything in the car, but Mick’s happy for the ride anyway.

Graham is told to wait behind with Dr. Kimslep and be on standby in case the wrong person wins and there’s subsequent trouble to deal with, “like what happened with Erik”. At first, he’s more than happy to abide by this and just hide in safety. But he starts to get antsy pretty quickly – what if the world ends, and he’s not the one to get that last photograph? If that happens, he might actually die from the world ending! And the entrance to the main show doesn’t look so bad, all things considered. It just appears as a sudden gust of snow obscuring the end of the street. It’s easy to just walk in it, and Graham huddles his coat to himself and trudges onward into the gale.

Levi, meanwhile, travels in style. Happy to throw his mojo around a bit after being on the back foot so long, he uses his powers to bring his car into the ghost roads. The barricade blocking the street is still up, but they drive through it – as well as through the people milling around. (Apparently, the bitter cold coming from the entrance is enough to keep out the normies, most of whom are finding excuses to scuttle inside.) While Mick seems to have been basically expecting this outcome, it doesn’t stop them from frantically taking notes on their legal pad hanging off of their keychain (alongside a few dozen keys, a multitool, and a Tamagotchi – there’s probably some sort of magick involved with that mess fitting in their pocket). Anthony, seeing this, decides to break the ice with a “Nice pokemon”. Mick responded with a terse “His name is Fredrico and he is a Tamagotchi and he is my best friend. End of discussion.” Anthony counters with “Cool I have a Pikachu.”

At that point, the conversation turns a bit to sullen silence, but everyone’s still enjoying the smooth ride and creature comforts as they drive through the snow – until Levi suddenly feels the pressure of the ground beneath him. Turns out ghost roads in real world equals read roads in ghost world, and now Levi’s gotta drive on snow. Well, it’s not like he’s a stranger to that. He’s able to steady the car without much thought, giving him time to take in—

The battlefield.

There are corpses as far as he can see, as well as sundered weapons and armor littering the ground like fallen leaves from the world’s meanest tree. Their clothing and armaments were from time periods present, past, and undistinguishable. The one commonality is that, no matter how old the clothing, the wounds always look fresh, as though they had just fallen a second ago.

Everyone in the car but Mick freezes up. They weren’t ready for this. Mick tries to talk the others into composure, but everyone’s too busy being freaked the fuck out. Eventually, Mick just shrugs and gets out – they have a job to do and history to witness. The opportunity for a back seat boy to upgrade to shotgun is taken away by Graham, who had pretty much the same reaction seeing the battlefield and is just delighted to see the car. Levi pull a U-turn and gets out before his ghost-car magick wears off. And so it goes that the Cabal missed watching the end of the world because most of them are cowards and the only one who isn’t just went ahead and cut a cop open with an entire axe.

Back in reality, Levi is feeling pretty guilty about ditching Mick and texts:

Levi Your ride kinda left. I got a full car and had to go. Mick Figured. Might be nice to have a getaway car in case the winner is an asshole, if you’re feeling like making it up to me. ;P Levi I don’t know if the magic will last long. And I don’t like it there. Does it look like they’ll be done soon? Mick Probably not. But I’m actually safer in it than out of it. They can’t kill non-participants in that space. Would just need the ride in case we get an Erik-repeat of “kill all the non-men you see outside.” Meet me on the far side of the cones? Levi Can do. Come back safe. Mick :thumbsup:

He kicks Graham out to make sure Mick will have a seat – not that Graham minds, since he’s already looking to get a good picture of the winner’s exit in lieu of seeing the event itself. (There’s nothing like good old fashioned greed for charges to make an Adept snap out of short term trauma.) Levi then decides to play good host by passing a bong around and trying to set everyone back on an even keel. It actually works for Anthony, who decides that he’s probably going to need to get used to this kind of violence if he’s going to keep fighting to get Adam’s shadow back. Marcus and Dewey are still kind of a mess, but hey, at least Anthony kept them from being squires.

Irinia is the first to leave. She’s carrying Alison’s corpse and her face is screwed up with grief. Seth is holding Ananya’s, taciturn as always. And then there’s Trep, with a ghoulishly wide smile and a spring in his step. Behind the warriors is Mick, who is trying to do that walk-away-really-fast-without-looking-like-you’re-running shuffle.

Two cries of grief spring forth simultaneously. Another Indian woman, who had arrived with Ananya but evidently not attended Ragnarök , is running up to take Ananya’s corpse from Seth. And Dr. Kimslep is here for Alison, while sobbing to a degree that seems totally unthinkable against his earlier cold-hearted threats and posturing. It’s hard to feel too sorry for him after what he does next, though – he gently lowers Alison to the ground and then starts licking her eyeballs. No one really knows how to react to this, but after about thirty seconds of it, Kimslep is the one to break the silence – he stops licking (thank Christ), points his finger at Trep, and growls “You did this.”

Trep grins even more and says “Yep! Now someone go get that crazy chink from earlier. She’s next.” He then casts his eyes over towards the car where Levi and the gang are idling, and Levi suddenly realizes with a sinking feeling in his stomach that Trep knows that Anthony knows Liz, and can probably infer that holding the people of the car hostage will get him what he wants. Trep begins to sprint towards the car, and Mick abandons any pretense of stealth and runs for it too, trying to beat him so they can get out.

Graham tries to offer fire support by hitting Trep with some powerful photo magick – tear up a picture of him, do the same to his body. But somehow, seeing this kind of upbeat, hyperactive evil right in front of him is just too much for Graham to keep his cool, and he fumbles the spell. Levi tries his best to angle the car towards Mick and not Trep, and they manage to get Mick in before Trep gets there – but as he tries to accelerate away, Trep smashes the window with his machete. (Anthony screams.) Levi goes hard on the accelerator trying to get out, while Trep is lunging in trying to drag a victim out – and then he slips, and goes under the car tire with a sickening snap. Levi gets about a block away, and sees that Trep isn’t getting up – apparently his foot got messed up beyond repair. But far from screaming in pain, he’s just calling after Levi to “bring the chink to him”.

Now it’s Levi’s turn to work some mojo. He uses his connection to the roads and asks a car, any car, to come hit Trep. Even with the bastard’s leg out of commission, Levi can’t be comfortable leaving him there. The spell completes – and there, suddenly, is the cop car Liz got in, hurtling around the corner and running straight over Trep. Levi is relieved, but only for a second: as it squeals to a stop, Trep looks distressingly unharmed by it. Harvey, the driver, gets out first and asks Trep if he’s okay. Trep’s response is just to laugh and taunt him, saying that no car driven by a “darkie” could ever hurt him. (He maybe used a worse word than that.) Harvey, no stranger to putting up with that kind of language, walks over to check Trep’s vitals – and Trep simply grabs Harvey’s neck and slam him to the ground. Whether through magick or grip strength or sheer dumb luck, Trep crushes his throat and kills Harvey in an instant, before anyone can even think to try and intervene. He sees Liz in the back of the cop car and crows “One down. Now the chink!”

Liz doesn’t have her axe – it’s in the trunk. But she doesn’t need it. Because Spot is wagging his tail with the same excitement he had when his shadow was threatening Irnia, and she knows what she needs to do. Graham, noticing the same thing through Le Chien Est Inquiet, gets his camera at the ready (not that it ever wasn’t).

Liz and Spot come out together. Anthony hops out of Levi’s car and says “Liz, you’re okay!”, with Marcus and Dewey following as always. Trep begins to crawl over to her, hate in his eyes. But neither of them make it to her before Spot makes it to Trep, his shadow outpacing his little doggy body. When Spot’s shadow reaches Trep’s, it bites in and tugs. And Trep Murrinal – who took his foot being crushed in stride, who had a car hit him with no repercussions, who evidently got the better of Irina, Seth, and Anaya – begins to howl in senseless pain. Even when happening to someone like Trep, it’s still hard for Levi to watch, with his own shadow-related attack weighing on his conscience, and he peels away for good. The rest of the onlookers just bear witness as Spot’s shadow devours Trep’s before walking back contentedly to its body. Probably Trep could have used fewer racial slurs if he wanted people to feel sorry for him when he was murdered by magick.

There’s not really time to celebrate his death, though – Seth and Irinia are walking over, and Liz suddenly remembers Dr. Kimslep’s warnings. They want to kill Erik’s killer – and, well, they probably have a pretty good guess who did it now. But Liz is ready. After everything’s that’s happened, she knows – knows, down to her core – that she has to be ready to fight for what she holds dear.

Irina and Seth notice, and Dr. Kimslep notices too. This was a place where Warriors, capital-W, converged to fight for their ideals, and Liz fit in just a little too easily. She’s filled the archetypal spot, and she’s a Warrior, too. A newbie Warrior who doesn’t know the rules, but a Warrior. (And probably more of one than Marcus and Dewey.) And weirdly enough, it’s actually Dr. Kimslep who intervenes on her behalf. Apparently there’s some precedent for non-Warriors such as herself entering the ring by killing the top contender and becoming Warriors in the process. The title of Greatest Among Warriors will be held jointly by Seth and Irina, and Liz will get a chance to grow into her status. At some point, the end of the world will come again, and Liz will be called. It’s a compromise that leaves her with more questions than answers, but at least no one is trying to kill her or Spot today.

With that, the assembled people begin peeling off. Mick says to tell Levi that they get the honor of writing up what happened after Levi “pussed out”, and keeps a wide berth from Spot on their way out. Irinia gives Liz her phone number and promises to do her best to help with any Avatar-related questions. Seth, clearly unhappy with the state of affairs, mentions that he expects Liz to surrender in their next fight, and to “remember that it was my people who invented the art of shadowbinding.” No one knows what that word means, but hearing it as a formal term makes Anthony connect the dots. Adam lost his shadow and didn’t die – Trep and Erik lost their shadows and did. Apparently, being an Avatar seems to be part of what makes people vulnerable to Spot.

Milestone achieved: Watched Spot steal a shadow and made the connection that being at risk has something to do with being an Avatar. +15%

Eventually they leave, the winds of Ragnarök subside, and at last the end of the world is over. For anyone who’s nostalgic for the mountain of corpses, there’s at least three here. (The woman who came with Ananya took hers away, but someone ought to do something about the others.)

Objective: Learn what it takes to be safe from Spot (local)

Progress: 46%

Experience Checks:

Sharp-Eyed (Anthony): 49% → 51%

Rideshare Driver (Levi): 53% → 56%

Unethical Photographer (Graham): 48% → 52%

Cameraturge (Graham): 41% → 42%

Avatar: Warrior (Liz, New Identity): 20%