Once again, in the tradition of putting up logs where people can see them:
Blandly Titled: Confessions of a Conquerer.
Edited to include a summary, now that I've got one written.
Okay, this will be a little long, but probably not as long as reading a log and will at least be in semi-narrative form.
The first thing we did was RP Sorune's reaction to the letter he received from Zea, essentially summarizing the first RP. He headed straight over to Zea's house with Sher'khan to make sure everything was all right. Once there he took it upon himself to work on the security of her house with various Druid-magic tricks and things. He also agreed to meet her at work every morning and stay there as long as she was in public by herself.
I timelapsed forward a couple of weeks, and that became the routine for them. One day Solis and Sorune are at Zea's stand waiting for her to get there. It's still early, so it's no big deal. A guy shows up at the stand. He's a rather dapper-looking fellow arrives with closely-groomed black hair, black dress slacks and a white button-up shirt rolled back at the sleeves. He looks a bit like a bartender from a 20's gangster movie.
Solis finds a piece of paper in his pocket along with a pencil, neither of which did he put there. His hands, seemingly without his consent, draw a symbol he doesn't recognize on the paper.
The guy addresses the two men. As he speaks his voice has a nice warmth to it, but expression is totally blank. He seems to barely move his mouth when he talks. He asks if Zea is there. He calls them by name and, when they tell him they don't know where she is he smiles a little and replies, "Oh. ...I do."
The man literally blinked out of existence. It's not as if he teleported or moved too fast to be seen, it's as if the molecules holding him together decided to stop doing so.
Scene change, and James hears a rumor in the guardhouse about some bizarre noises and an influx of death energy over in the slums. He decides that Zea's been experimenting and decides to go over for a look. On the way, he comes across Sorune and Solis swearing to themselves because they know something's happened to Zea. James asks what their problem is, and they inform him that Zea's been kidnapped. James expresses his surprise and alarm, and while they wait for word from Sorune's animal sentries, the Druid takes a look at the symbol Solis drew. Sorune's seen it before. Zea uses it as her signature.
They rush to her house when no word comes, and they find that her house is radiating death energy, but from the first floor and not from her lab in the basement like you'd expect. It looks like all the hinges, nails, and latches in her gate just pulled themselves out.
In her front yard are more unsettling things. It looks like a cartload full of people were attempting to crawl up out of her garden and get in the house. However, many of them didn't even make it up out of the ground. They seem to have just... stopped.
When they get to the front door, they find that the hinges have pulled out of it as well. Inside, the nails in the floorboards inside have all exhibited similar behavior. The floor is still in place, but the nails are all sticking up as if in defiance of their lot in life. Her basement door is open, and all of the little baskets of herbs, brick dust, chalk, and dirt have been broken and strewn all over the damn place. The centers of the floors are covered in piles of brick dust. They head to her living room, the source of all the death energy.
They enter, and as soon as they turn the corner, the first thing they see is black. In fact, everything they see is black. The furniture, where it's been shoved against the wall, is black. The tables and lamp that have been knocked over... are black. The books, occasional articles of clothing thrown into corners... black. All of it. Everything's been tainted that color except for an extremely elaborate ritual circle drawn in the center of the floor. One side of it is badly smudged, which probably happened after it was used. It's the center of all this bullshitty energy and darkness and whatnot. As the group moves into the room, they notice that just about everything in there has been shoved aside to make room for the circle.
They hear a smooth gentleman's voice from the doorway behind them. The man addressing them is the fellow from the market. After some initial interrogation they come to realize that, yes, this man knows where Zea is. He's also a ghost. He introduces himself like so. "My name, as she gave it to me, is John. High John the Conquerer, if you want it in its full glory."
They move to the basement to talk, as there's actually less death energy there, and they find that on the stairs to the basement, it looks like a lot of horrible shit was trying to climb up all at once. Solis realizes why this is bad. These weren't zombies trying to escape. They were her zombies moving to defend her, and they all stopped before they could get to wherever she was.
John gives Solis the address to Nagesh's little group by forcing him to write it on that paper. Apparently he was the one who'd controlled his handwriting before as well. He said, "I want you to go there," and disappeared.
They went and found a small religious group dedicated to the revival of some ancient dead gods. They hear a whole long speech, which I won't reproduce here so you'll have to read the log for it. Sorune went in and found from their new leader, a Gregor Vincent by name, that there are plans for a fundraiser in two days to pay for the construction of a new ritual space.
James and Solis, going around the back, find the ritual space that Gregor had mentioned. As Sorune is walking about gathering what information he can, he finds John standing in a corner casually. John ignores several relevant questions, instead offering his opinions about the group. He also lets Sorune know that Gregor has not, as he believes, been hearing the voice of a god, but rather "another suitor for the girl's attentions." He mentions that the old gods are a lie perpetuated by this other suitor.
He also states, "As you can imagine, they have Zea." He doesn't qualify that further, telling Sorune, "I want you to go to the fundraiser."
He disappears, reappearing in the ritual room as James and Solis arrive there. When Sorune makes his way there, John informs them of what's been going on of late. He's not very good at being helpful, by his own admission. He's trying, though.
Nagesh believed she could contact the old gods, so his followers are keeping her. Zea is more useful to them in this respect with her aura unbound. Gregor likely knows this because of the information he has received from John's "rival." John told them, "This ceremony has likely already been performed while I was locating all of you, not that I could have stopped it."
"She is as she was when I first knew her. She will not know you now. It can be fixed if the second ceremony can be prevented."
Lithaladhwen: Eventually, the party wanted to know what the second ritual could be if the first essentially erased her individual identity. I mean, where do you go from there?
"The second ritual is the problem, and gains nothing for anyone, despite the beliefs of... Mr. Vincent's sources. The theory is that in order to use Zea as a conduit for the old gods, her aura must first be unbound. This has been done. She can hear the dead, but none are gods that I know of."
"The second step is to eliminate the last bit of interference between the old gods and this reality. This last resistance is, supposedly, Zea's aura itself. To channel the gods properly, her aura must more or less be dissolved to open the connection completely."
This is where people started to get really alarmed.
Solis remarked, "You realize with her aura unbound she's open to any THING that wants to get ahold of her, right? >.< The dead ain't always friendly." John grinned at him knowingly. "...wait, dissolved?"
The guys wanted to go get her right fucking now, wherever she is, but John stopped them with a helpful tip. "This ritual circle, when it is finished, will be perfectly good, not only for dissolving her aura, but rebinding it. If you wait for it to be finished, you can repair what has been done." They still wanted to go get her, ritual and fundraiser be damned. They didn't want to leave her with these people. "If you retrieve her now, she will not be herself. If you wait until the circle is finished to retrieve her, you kill anyone you like, fix what's been done, and then leave."
Solis expressed hope that "we come along BEFORE the ritual is actually finished, with Zea open to bad influence from all sides."
John replied, "Bad influences? Zea has always been influenced by the dead. I simply refuse to allow another to usurp what is mine. Therefore, it is important that you succeed." This possessive side of John made them vaguely uncomfortable after a while, especially considering his claims to have known her since she was a little girl. The implication was that John was only helping them because someone else is trying to take what John perceives to be his: Zea.
After his suggestion that they succeed, John disappears again.
The guys headed to Sorune's house to figure out what the hell they're going to do in two days when the fundraiser comes around and they have to not only stop the ritual that will kill Zea, but use the same ritual space to rebind her aura and return her to normal. <p>-------------------------
"It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes. But the half-wit remains a half-wit and the emperor remains an emperor." -- Sandman "The Kindly Ones" </p>
Edited by: Kai at: 3/30/06 0:34