Liminal: The Mitchester Arms, episode 10: Catching Up With Amelia

I got myself cleaned up, which didn't take too long. One of the benefits of being shapeshifted was not getting blood on my clothes when fighting. My phone was full of messages, mostly from Amelia. I sent a reply, apologising for being incredibly late, then gave her a call. I wasn't really in the best condition to deal with her, and I think my explanation of having been on a rescue mission came out a bit garbled, but I got through that there was a reason for my absence and promised to get on the bus right away. I would have driven, but there was no sign of Topher and Vanessa.

The bus journey was worse than usual. It seemed like the whole of Bristol was out on the streets, and the first bus was so full it went straight past me. When I finally did get on a bus, some girl accused me of staring at her man. I wasn't in the mood for an argument, so I just pushed my sunglasses up my nose to make sure I wasn't accidentally showing my eyes and muttered something about not looking at anyone.

It was a relief to get off and out of the crowds, but then I had to deal with the Council of Merlin's doorman, in his sash, white gloves and ridiculous beard, who clearly didn't think much of my clothes or appearance. He refused to let me in, and in the end I had to resort to pulling out the signet ring to show him. I didn't put it on, and I hated having to show it at all, but it got me through the door. The doorman was practically falling over himself to apologise once he realised I was connected to Percy. Maybe at a different time I'd have reassured him, or had a word about judging by appearances, but this time all I could do was laugh.

I made my way through the Halls of Merlin. I didn't get as far inside last time, with Percy dragging me off to look at that vault. This time I got to see the council chamber, with a massive wooden table made of a single slab of oak. A nice place for them all to sit down and pretend they're all equal. I didn't stick around in there. I gave the floating crystal chandeliers a brief glance and moved on.

I found Amelia in a reading nook, still wearing those earrings I gave her. That was reassuring. She asked where I'd been, and I gave her a longer and slightly more coherent account of our fight through the vampire mansion. I tried to make light of things, and not leave her asking questions like why wasn't I in a hospital right now, but failed. All the same, she did accept that I was telling the truth and had a good reason for not joining her in the morning.

She talked me through what she'd found so far. She'd been reading up on Celtic mythology, and had come to the conclusion that a lot of it seemed to have sprung up overnight, a couple of millennia ago. We went through some of the books together, and she was right. There were no proto-forms of deities. It was like older versions of these myths had been deleted. And more questions arose, given that this was all Welsh stuff and we were in Bristol. What was a vault covered in carvings of the Tuatha doing here? The conclusion we were coming to was that the Tuatha and the Djinn had been affected by the same thing.

It was getting late. I invited Amelia to the pub for dinner so we could talk somewhere more comfortable, but then Rose Spencer Howard showed up along with Priti, neither of whom looked any friendlier than when I last saw them. Rose insulted me at length, which might have hurt if I didn't care even less about her opinion of me than Percy's. I apologised for raising the tone of the establishment, but that didn't phase her. She added a few more insults regarding my parentage, which I let go because Amelia was obviously upset and I didn't want to make things any worse for her.

Rose went on her way but Priti stuck around to talk to me. Alone. And I figured out she was a djinn even before her eyes turned to black coals. She wanted to know how I did it. Did what, she didn't say, and I was far too tired to deal with people being vague. Still, there was a bruise on her face and she knew about what we did in the mansion and what happened to Carolina. I didn't feel the need to elaborate. Especially not to someone who was telling me they were going to meet me outside in fifteen minutes and kill me.

Leaving via a different exit seemed like a good option at this point. I found Amelia again, and told her that Priti was going to kill me in fifteen minutes, which she didn't believe as Priti isn't exactly a fighter. So I told her Priti had been possessed, which wasn't quite true but seemed like an explanation that would get through quicker than trying to explain that she was a shapeshifter who couldn't be detected even with the Sight. And she believed me, thank god. She knew another way out of the observatory, so I followed her. I'd have felt better about it if Priti hadn't spotted us passing by.

Of course the other way out had to involve narrow passages carved into the rock. I could feel panic setting in, but pushed it down, trying very hard not to think about the massive weight of rock around me. And Priti was following us, taunting me. Taunts weren't going to hurt me. So she moved on to what could hurt me.

Amelia told me she could feel Priti pressing on her mind. I knew what would come next, and told her to fight back. And I did my best to encourage her. She'd managed to handle this bunch of stuck up arseholes at the Council for way longer than I had. She was stronger than me. She could do this. And she did.

We'd made it out of the tunnels and into a natural cavern on the edge of the river when Priti caught up with us. She wanted me to fight her, and if I'd had Topher at my side I'd have done it, but here with nobody but Amelia and nothing left in me, it wasn't going to happen. She breathed a huge gout of flame at us, and I flung myself and Amelia into the water as the flames singed my back.

I ignored the pain and swam out into the gorge. Amelia was alongside me, and I dragged us both out onto the bank. Cold, wet and bedraggled, but at the same time I felt better. I was out in nature and I was in my element. But Priti was out too, walking across the water with it boiling under her feet. I concentrated on my surroundings, and called up a mere shred of power. But it was enough to reach up into the sky and feel the energy in the clouds. I called for lightning, and with my hair standing on end and my eyes full of electricity, I brought it down on Priti.

Except I'd made a mistake, I realised, as electricity crackled and forked around the three of us, and my vision turned white.

As I drifted in and out of consciousness, I was vaguely aware of a red sun rising over the city, and fires burning. Bristol was doing what it does best. Rioting.

Learning Starforged: The Search Begins

Right now Spider had one solid piece of information. Kaisa had been taken by raiders from Wellspring so either she was there, or someone there would know where she was. Hopefully some of the Paxton locals would be able to clue her in on what she was likely to find there.

Gather information: roll +wits
Weak hit
New insight but a complication. +1 momentum

Random rolled stuff for the Wellspring settlement:

• Lawless
• Built within terrain or asteroid
• Prominant emblems or signage
• Medical, environmentalism
• Mounting debt

It was easy enough to get people talking in the bar. Getting them to tell her useful things was more of a challenge, but soon she was starting to put together a coherent picture of Wellspring. Folks out in the rim didn't like being told what to do but this lot took it to extremes. They were a collective who'd declared independence not just from the Alliance but from their own planet. Their compound was inside a set of natural caves, surrounded by signposts warning visitors that they were about to step outside planetary jurisdiction.

Not that they were fully independent, of course. They still traded with the rest of the world, mostly pharmaceuticals from their underground mushroom farms. And that was the source of their ongoing conflict with Evenfall. Failure to meet the terms of their trading agreement.

And there Spider saw one small ray of hope. What if there was no ransom demand because the Wellspring raiders had mistaken Kaisa for someone from Evenfall and sent it to the wrong town? Maybe she could negotiage something with them?

That would mean getting into the place first though. Spider's bounty hunter license granted her access to a lot of places, but there was no way Wellspring was going to respect that. The barflies were quick to tell her what kind of people they were: paranoid, violent, off their heads on their own pharmaceuticals.

The Manta was far too conspicuous to take anywhere near the place. Spider mounted her hoverbike. Within an hour she was close enough to get the lie of the land. After that she'd have to continue on foot, but first she wanted to take a look at the place.

Check your gear: roll +supply
Strong hit
Spider has the long range scope she needs to check out this place from a distance.
+1 momentum

Secure an advantage: roll +wits
Miss
Pay the price

Spider watched the entrance through her scope. There seemed to be a lot of coming and going. No sign of Kaisa, but then she'd hardly expected that. She'd be locked up somewhere deep in the caves, most likely. Spider watched for a pattern in movement that would give her an opportunity to get inside unnoticed. She didn't notice the quiet footsteps behind her until it was too late, and the stun gun shocked her into unconciousness.

Endure harm: lose 1 health and roll +health
Strong hit
Take 1 health

When Spider woke up she was in near darkness, stripped of armour and weapons. What little light there was came through a makeshift set of bars that had been used to turn a small part of the cave into a cell. When her eyes adjusted to the gloom she realised she wasn't alone. Someone was lying close to her on a heap of straw.

"Kaisa?" It was hard to make out the woman's face in the dim light, but who else was it going to be?

"No...leave me alone...wait. You're not one of them. But I know your voice."

"It's Spider. We met in a bar..." But she didn't have to explain any further, as Kaisa had already thrown her arms around her.

"Oh thank god. Mother sent you, didn't she? I'm going to be OK! We're getting out of here and..." Then it seemed like reality was catching up with her and she stepped back again. "Except you're in here with me and I don't see any guns, which means they caught you too."

Kaisa sat back down on the straw and began quietly to cry. Spider sat down beside her.

"Kaisa, listen to me. I promised your mother I'd bring you home, and that's what I'm going to do. I know it looks bad right now, but I need you to trust me. Can you do that?"

Make a connection: roll +heart
Weak hit
Create a connection but it comes with a complication or cost.
Rank troublesome.

Kaisa shook her head. "That's not good enough! You could be working for Wellspring for all I know. Swear to me! Promise me you'll bring me home."

All her other gear was gone, but the poker chip in its hidden pocket was still there. Spider wrapped her fingers around it. "Kaisa, I swear I will bring you back to your mother."

Swear an iron vow: roll +heart +1 because she's swearing to a connection.
Weak hit. Right now there are more questions than answers. +1 Momentum
Not sure how to rank this as it's really just the same vow sworn to a different person.

[Mark Progress: Rescue Kaisa :2 boxes]

Learning Starforged: Prologue and the Iron Vow.

On the advice of more experienced players, I've upped each of Spider's stats by 1, which I'm told should give her a chance of surviving more than five minutes in solo play.

I'm using the Stargazer app to keep track of things.

The comms module on the Manta made its familiar irritating beep. A wave from Vesper Frost. Spider pressed the button to accept and Vesper's familiar steely features appeared.

"Hi, Vesper." Spider only said this to wind her up, but for once, there was no demand to refer to her properly as Mayor Frost.

"Skip the nicities, this isn't a social call. I'm hiring you."

Spider's eyebrows shot up. "Huh. Who do you need finding?"

"Kaisa. She's been taken."

It had been two days earlier that Spider had been sat in a spaceport bar drinking cheap liquor and discovering that the spacer she was talking to was actually Vesper Frost's daughter. She hadn't even known Vesper Frost had a daughter. That was because Kaisa hadn't been home in so many years, she wasn't even sure her mother would want to see her any more. Spider disagreed. Only a terrible mother wouldn't want to see her child, and Kaisa was quick to confirm that that wasn't the case.

And now something terrible had happened.

A cloud of dust blew up from under the Manta as Spider landed in the field that passed for a landing strip on the edge of Paxton.  She was expected. The gates opened as she approached them, and Vesper herself was waiting outside.

"Mayor Frost."

"Spider."

Vesper ran through the details in her office. A raiding party from Wellspring had been sighted and the usual security protocols put in place. Except Kaisa wasn't accounted for, and didn't know the signals, and when the raiders had arrived she was still outside. She'd been carried off alive, but if they'd planned to keep her that way, Vesper would have expected a ransom demand by now. There had been nothing.

Spider clutched her poker chip tightly in her hand. "Mayor Frost, I will find her. And I will bring her back to you."

Swear an iron vow: roll +heart +1 because she's swearing to a connection.

Strong hit! It's clear what to do. +2 Momentum

Rank of Dangerous.

Learning Starforged: Getting Started

I've played Starforged once and enjoyed it, but only recently picked up a copy myself. Chapter 2 -  Basics - seemed pretty complicated on a first read, but I remember that playing it felt pretty smooth. So clearly the way to go on this is to play a solo game and see how it goes. I'm going to work through this in blog form. So on to Chapter 2: launching your campaign.

First up is defining your campaign setting. This is a fairly large section with fourteen categories to define aspects of the setting. After a quick browse through these I've concluded this would be a lot more fun to do with a group. For my solo game I'm going to base things on a tried and tested setting that I've used in multiple game systems and always enjoy playing with: the Firefly Verse.

Character Creation

Now to make a character. I've got the asset cards ready, so I need to choose two paths. There's a table with some inspiration, and rather than roll, I've let my eyes be drawn to something that looks interesting. Fugutive hunter. That gets me the assets Armoured and Bounty Hunter.

Well I guess I'm playing the Mandalorian. That's cool.

Next is a backstory. Again there's a table of prompts. Rather than roll I've had a read, and several of them have sort of mashed together in my head. My character's family ran a successful business. I initially thought restaurant, but let's go upscale a bit and make it a casino. Then organised crime got involved, in the shape of Niska, and when her family refused to pay protection money, there was an attack. She escaped, but her family were killed and Niska now runs the casino. Her hatred of criminals lead her down the road of fugitive hunting.

And that leads me nicely onto the next step of writing her background vow. It's her primary motivation. I'll keep it simple. Destroy Niska.

Now I need a spaceship. I need a history for it, and one option in the table is stealing it from a notorious crime boss. So that was one of her early attacks on Niska's organisation, more a minor snub than actual harm, but it gives her satisfaction to know she's taken something from him. There's another table to give it some unique features, and this time I will roll. 39. It looks defenseless, but exterior panels open to reveal weapons. Perfect. Another roll. 16. Gravity generator is notoriously fickle. Yes, those weapons are an after-market add-on and whoever fitted them did a shoddy job with the wiring, meaning they keep pulling power from the gravity generator. A roll on the starship name generator gives me a name for it: Manta.

Now I need one more asset, and I'm going to go for a support vehicle so she can get around planetside. The hoverbike seems like a good choice for a solo bounty hunter.

Stats are next, and by now I think I know what sort of person she is, so here goes:

• Edge 2
• Heart 1
• Iron 2
• Shadow 1
• Wits 3

Just a few more details to add now. She's female but androgenous looking with short cropped hair, not that most people can tell that as she keeps her armour on most of the time. She acts aloof but that's got more to do with a fear of getting close to people in case they get hurt - or she has to hurt them. Rolling on the name generator gives me Yelena Pearson, callsign Spider. She prefers to use the callsign at all times, as her regular name reminds her too much of her past.

And finally, equipment. I don't have to go shopping! Wonderful. Yelena has all the normal weapons and stuff a bounty hunter would carry, and a small toolkit for hoverbike repairs. She needs an item for swearing iron vows upon, and obviously that has to be a poker chip with the name of her parents' casino.

Starting Sector

The book says this part can be skipped for a more freeform galaxy, but I want to engage with this a bit. I'm keeping it simple for now and just creating one settlement on a planet whose details I've made up myself. I'm going for a mix of rolling dice and picking interesting options.

Paxton is a small settlement engaged in agriculture and hunting. It would look like a rustic idyll, were it not for its defenses - the pallisade wall and watchtower are an intimidating sight as you approach the town. The town mayor keeps a firm grip on everything that goes on in town. Paxton is between two larger settlements that are constantly feuding, and is often caught in the crossfire. With that in mind, the defenses make more sense.

Now Spider needs a local connection. Leader is an option for their role, so let's make it the mayor. Vesper Frost is easy to underestimate at first sight, but she rules Paxton with an iron fist and is as ice cold as her name suggests. She's got enough power to make her dangerous.

Finally, a roll on the sector trouble table gives me a raider clan emerging as a dominant threat under a new leader.

Begin The Adventure

And so it's time to choose an inciting incident and set out on a sworn quest. I have something in mind now, based on what I've got so far. Paxton has once again found itself caught in the crossfire, but this time someone's been taken. Vesper has reached out to Spider for help bringing them back. But for this to be worth swearing an iron vow, it needs to be personal. The missing person is Vesper's daughter Kaisa. She's a spacer and hasn't been back to Paxton in years. Spider was the one who persuaded her she should visit her mother.

And with that, I'm ready to begin.

Revelation 2023

It was a bit nerve wracking going back to the Garrison, as the last time I was there, five of us caught covid. Somehow this manifested in an unusually high level of organisation, and I managed to leave early enough on Friday to beat the rush hour and was in the bar shortly after 5pm. Unfortunately, nobody else was. It wasn't until 9.30pm that a few more people arrived and the socialising began.

Normality resumed on Saturday morning though, as even with a few illness-related drop-outs we had a good crowd in the jailhouse ready to play.

Game 1: Kult

Having made these cool handouts for my scenario, A Walk In The Park, I had to run it a few times. I had three players booked, and had modified the scenario to run with three players instead of four, but with the last minute drop-outs I figured I should be ready in case there was someone in need of a game, and printed the fourth character as well. And there was indeed someone in need of a game, so things ran with the normal four players.

This game gets a bit of a tweak each time I run it, which in this case meant I'd added back in some of the characters' disadvantages. This makes a bit more work for me, but things tend to run faster offline than online, so it's doable, and I think it adds a little more depth to the characters. I still might tweak them further, but I'm really happy with how things went.

I also did a bunch of laminating this time. Laminated character sheets worked out well for this, as marking stability and conditions with dry wipe pens made it a lot easier to erase things as they changed. I might need a slightly finer pen for writing in wounds, but otherwise this is working really well and should save me a lot of printing for scenarios I run multiple times.

Game 2: Apocalypse World

I loved the TV show Blood Drive and it's a great fit for Apocalypse World, so I was pretty damn excited about this one.

I've played with the same GM before, and played a Brainer both times, but since we were going for a different setting this time, I decided it was time to branch out a bit. Inspired a little by the character of Grace in the TV show, I picked up the Battlebabe. One of the playbook moves for the Battlebabe is having such great reflexes that you're considered to have 2 armour providing you're naked or nearly naked, so I decided she was dressed in wedding lingerie with a tiara and veil. Continuing that theme, I picked two custom weapons, a massive handgun and a bladed chain, and named them the Best Man and the Maid of Honour.

Then we had to decide if any of us were teaming up in the race and sharing a car. One player, who'd picked up the Brainer, had described his character wearing a leather tuxedo, and that just felt like fate. So Sunset and Scratch in their luxurious Rolls Royce with added spikes, were racing against Mustang the Driver and Barbarossa the Gunlugger in their armoured coupe.

The race route was unveiled, and the GM asked us what was so bad about the town we were going to have to drive through. Cannibals, one of the players said, and thus we created Hungry Bowel Town, where every building looked like a pizza hut, where trenches filled with dips and dressings bordered the roads, and a moat of burning barbecue charcoal surrounded the outside edge.

As expected, we were forced to stop off in Hungry Bowel Town when our engines stopped working. Scratch and Sunset went into a basement, as Scratch was sure the problem was coming from beneath us, while Mustang and Barbarossa went into the town centre where they found a statue of a giant chicken. And suddenly everything started making a horrible sense. This place had been built by a fast food company, and had been called Hungry Fowl Town, until the weirdness from the Scar had made everything go wrong.

Anyway, the statue was actually a mask for a giant chicken man, and once Scratch had killed him with mind powers we were able to leave. The other car had drawn ahead, and tried to stop us. There was a bit of an incident with a grenade launcher, resulting in both Barbarossa and Scratch exploding. Mustang got into the Rolls and entirely failed to convince me to drive away, so I put the Best Man to his head and told him to get out, then drove away and won the race.

Fortunately both Scratch and Barbarossa had recovered from exploding, so I was able to spend my prize money on a wedding dress so we could finally have a proper wedding.

Game 3: Kult

Unfortunately the GM for the Saturday evening game of Kult had to pull out, so I offered a second run of A Walk In The Park. Again I picked up another player from another cancelled game, which was lucky as one of the original players also had to drop, so I ended up with three players for this round.

Another entertaining run, with a different ending to the morning game. There are two general directions the end can take on this one, and it was good to get both of them in one day.

Game 4: Thirsty Sword Lesbians

This was me GMing again. Only my second time running this game (with the first being the practice run for this scenario), but I was pretty excited to see how it was going to go. It feels strange going into a session without much in the way of pre-written material, but it really works for this one.

My pitch was Robyn Hood and her Merry Maids, and I'd picked six suitable playbooks for feminised versions of the most popular characters from various versions of Robin Hood. With four players, this meant plenty of choice even for whoever picked last, plus two characters who could be NPCs for the game.

By way of plot I had six situations for the players to choose from, and they ultimately combined two. Robyn Hood and Alanna Dale had been captured and were imprisoned in Nottingham Castle, where there was also a high society wedding happening. They went in to do a rescue mission, but decided that they had to do something about the wedding as well.

By the end of the session, the Merry Maids had got away with both the brides from the wedding, two guardswomen, a lot of jewellery and a dog. Highlights included Briar Tuck managing to marry two people simultaneously, then swing on a chandelier through a stained glass window and landing on a horse outside, Jill Scarlet sliding down a curtain using a knife to slow her fall and using the remains to make a new dress for Lady Marian, Dutch the Miller's Daughter taking out half the castle by smashing a lantern to set the dungeon on fire and sending flaming rats in all directions, and Little Joan managing to so thoroughly humiliate the Sherriff of Nottingham that he was forced to let them all escape.

I could use a little more practice running this system, as I'm still getting used to the GM moves, but overall this was exactly the kind of swashbuckling romance I was hoping for. I hope to offer this one again at future conventions.

Game 5: Apocalypse World

This was supposed to be A|State, but we'd lost enough players by then that it wasn't really viable. Fortunately the GM for an Apocalypse World game based on Metro 2033 had brought enough playbooks to take on an extra player so I joined that instead.

I picked up the Gunlugger this time, as I was getting a bit tired and figured that would be reasonably uncomplicated. That turned out to be a good choice. I inadventently caused early chaos by shooting someone I really shouldn't have, but later managed to punch another character back to life after an encounter with a supernatural smoke cloud.

The playbooks we were using for this were the ones from 1st edition, which had significantly more complicated rules for determining Hx with the other PCs. After some confusion, particularly for people like me who've only ever seen the 2nd edition playbooks before, we abandoned that and used the 2nd edition version to sort out the numbers. While a lot for my tired brain to deal with at the time, it was very interesting to see how the game had evolved between versions.

Reflections

Covid has done a number on my stamina. Normally five games in two days would be no trouble at all and I'd still be full of keen by the end of game 5. This time not so much. I had enough energy left for the two hour drive home, thankfully, but after that I was completely wiped out. Fortunately I find running games to be energising, so I should do OK at Seven Hills where my games are currently scheduled for the final slot of each day, and Concrete Cow where I'm planning to GM in the evening slot. But the prospect of having to pace myself at conventions is not an encouraging one. I have to hope this is only temporary.

Liminal: The Mitchester Arms, episode 9: The Vampire Mansion

Round the back of Carolina's mansion, Damian smoothly opened one lock and broke his picks on the second. Topher squeezed it until it opened. Beyond the door was an ornamental garden full of statues, which I didn't trust at all, not least because I could feel a magical energy coming from the garden. Damian threw a stick into the garden, one of the statues moved, and the stick exploded.

There had to be some way to either get across safely or turn it off. I used the Blackberry to ask Damian to throw a stick higher up. It did have a height range, so no barrier to me, and Topher seemed pretty sure he could run fast enough to dodge it, but that was no use to Fiona and Damian. I flew up higher to see if I could see a pattern in the garden's layout. I couldn't, but I did spot the marble control pillar on the roof. Of course, that's what the romantically entangled vampires were guarding.

Taking them both on by myself would likely have gone badly. Instead I caused a distraction, flying between them as they were about to kiss, so they were too busy worrying about almost getting a mouthful of feathers to notice Topher sprinting across the garden and climbing a drainpipe. He smashed their heads together, and while they were stunned, Topher stabbed one while I drove my silvered claws into the other's scalp. His flesh melted like butter under my claws, and then both of them turned to dust.

I stole their designer jeans, and rejoined the others. Topher smashed the pillar, and the hum faded. I gave the others the heads up, and once Damian had tested with another thrown stick, in we went.

Fiona disabled the alarm and soon we were in the kitchen. Everything here looked ancient, like nothing had been updated since the 80s, including the spice rack full of dusty jars of expired herbs. Appalling. The only exception was the jar of garlic powder, which was large, new, and had a fill line on it. Used for pranking other vampires, no doubt.

Fiona gave us a run down on vampire societal structure. Given the number of cars outside there could be as many as seven vampire lords here, and at least twelve fledgelings, probably a lot more. At least the mid level vamps would be asleep. There were also human guards to worry about, although Topher had hit up some horse owning acquaintance to get tranquilisers to deal with them.

We made our way quietly past a mostly empty larder and up the stairs into a ridiculously opulent dining room, fitted out like we were in the palace of Versailles. On the table were the remains of a meal. They'd actually turned blood into haute cuisine. I could see the remains of jellies and foams and actual flecks of gold leaf. Disgusting. I was almost impressed. Almost.

The next room was the kitchen full of the molecular gastronomy stuff needed to make a meal like that, where Damian thought we would find the secret entrance we were looking for. Topher went in first, disturbing a naked young woman who sounded an alarm, waking up two guards with machine guns, and grabbed a kitchen knife. So that could have gone better.

Topher knocked out one guard. I tried to disarm the other, but missed, and took a spray of bullets for my trouble which almost drove me into the path of the naked woman's knife. Fiona had her own problems with a fledgeling showing up to try to strangle her. She dealt with it, but at the cost of a cracked wheelchair axle.

Once Topher had finished throwing people out of the window, we got the alarm switched off, but a call came through a radio asking what was going on. Fiona dealt with it. I was still trying to deal with the amount of pain I was in after that fight. Or rather, deal with the fact that the pain was fading faster than it should have done. I had a cautious stretch, and I could feel things already starting to knit back together.

The pain was fading, but still present, so Fiona spent some time patching us both up. We still had to find the secret entrance. Fiona and Damian found the trapdoor under a kitchen island. I found the tile that opened it, and hopped up and down on it until I could get someone to come and step on it. The entrance opened, and a stench of gore rose up from the staircase. Everything was quiet.

The room at the bottom was a mess. Dead bodies everywhere. So much gore. It wasn't so much the innards that bothered me, especially in falcon shape. It was what was left of the outsides. What there wasn't, as Damian pointed out, was any vampires.

Topher opened one of the side doors. There was a man in there, old but fit looking, and asleep. Possibly the head of security. Definitely the kind of person who'd be trouble if he woke up. Topher went in to deliver a sedative but I guess horse tranquilisers are kind of bad for using on humans as he didn't react well, and then another fledgeling dropped from the ceiling. I dealt with the vampire with the increasingly familiar talons to the face approach, while Fiona made sure the man didn't die. I was worried for a moment. These people aren't monsters, just humans who made bad choices, and I know all about that.

While we were dealing with that, Damian had spotted that some of the bodies on the floor looked a bit more intact than most. I went in to investigate. Vampires aren't the easiest thing to identify through the Sight, especially when in their case it's more of a smell and I was already overwhelmed with the smell of death in there, but I did find eleven of them. Topher sprinted around the room applying silver zip ties. They started to scream, and we had to stop ignoring the pair of big double doors at the end of the room.

I didn't even bother counting the number of vampires in there. Too many. The one that mattered was Carolina, sitting on a white marble throne with two vampires sitting at her feet chained to the throne. The other thing that mattered was Celia, covered in lacerations and lying on a dais in the middle of the room. Grabbing her and running was out of the question. We wouldn't even make it to the dais. And we'd just walked into a nest of vampire lords. None of us were getting out of this alive.

Except Carolina hadn't actually called for our deaths. She was in full villain monologue mode, making a big show for the other lords about how they were going to take over the city now they controlled the Sibyl. And I realised that was what it was. A show. Because incredible as it seemed, she was actually scared of us. Killing us would have implications. I might not have wanted the job of Seneschal of the Steamwheel Court, but it wouldn't be good for vampire/fae relations to take me out. Killing Topher might well antagonise his father, and I have a feeling Fiona would make a very nasty ghost.

Anyway, I couldn't say any of that while in bird form, so I hopped over to the Blackberry and entered 🧛🐔👆 a couple of times and hoped the others got the message. Fiona did, and started taunting her, until we ended up with an agreement. We would fight, her against all of us.

It was a tough fight. She was fast and deadly, but we had the right gear. We took her down, and Topher threw her at the feet of one of the oldest looking vampire lords who looked like she'd been around since Viking times. That one demanded that we kill Carolina in exchange for our freedom. Topher looked hesitant. I would have done it, but Fiona had already fired her crossbow.

We got a bit more than anticipated. There was another young woman they'd picked up along with Celia, and both of them were handed over. I didn't recognise her, but Topher obviously did. He picked them both up and we got out of there.

It was a scary drive to A&E and I found myself wishing I'd not shifted back to human for the drive, but I was far too tired for another shift by then. We took both women in. Celia was in a bad way, and the other woman didn't look much better. I sat down with Topher in the waiting room. He looked even more stressed than I was, which wasn't easy. There was some reassurance to having him there though, and I hoped he felt the same. Fiona was no help, off calling wheelchair repair companies.

Finally the doctor came out. Both of them had lost a lot of blood. Celia was still unconscious. But Genevieve Blogg-Herald was awake and wanted to see her brother. That explained a few things, while raising a lot more questions, like what she'd been doing in the car with Celia in the first place. But there was nothing else I could do at the hospital and I was exhausted. Fiona had called for a wheelchair taxi, so together we went back to the pub.