Dragonbane: Shadow Over Gloomshire 2: Halls of the Blood King

I had such a good time running Shadow Over Gloomshire for MK-RPG that I wasn't ready to let go of it, despite the party having completed the main adventure. I'd dropped enough hints about who was behind everything that went down in the graveyard that I was pretty sure I could continue the adventure for another 8 week block.

Which became a 7 week block when damn near everyone was ill on week 1, including me.

Mazikeen's player had to drop out, and so the mighty paladin was replaced by Luna Bane, wolfkin demon hunter and massive Viktor Drakos fangirl.

Week 1: Into The Mines

There were still a lot of ill people, but I was well enough to run and two players made it to the club so off we went. I decided that most of the party were incredibly hung over after celebrating their victory with Gloomshire ale, and only Kaine was well enough to get up and enjoy a breakfast of crow bacon. So he was the first person to get to meet Luna, and watch Viktor's desperate attempts to avoid her by hiding behind Maeve.

Then came the actual mission, based on one of the many handy hooks provided in the scenario - talk to the shopkeeper Greb and try to ease his troubles. Meaning Kaine and Luna got sent out to the silver mines to recover Greb's six dead friends and bring their bodies home for proper burial.

The two made good use of knowledge skills, meaning that they arrived in the mine covered in the entrails of the stygian wolves they'd killed on the way in, meaning the thralls merely shambled slowly towards them rather than immediately charging. By the end of the session they were back in Gloomshire with a cart full of dead dwarves.

Week 2: Rescue Mission

With most of the group now recovered, it was time for the main plot to start unfolding. Councilwoman Auda Voss, now convinced of the team's skills and courage, asked them for help recovering her son from the Van Walden mansion.

At this point I knew I was going to need a map. I'd previously asked around for suggestions for OSRish vampire mansion adventures, and Halls of the Blood King by Diogo Nogueira was the name that kept showing up. Reasonably priced at £5.95 and with cartography by the ever-reliable Glynn Seal I decided to give it a shot. While written for Old School Essentials, I was confident that I could swap out the monsters for Dragonbane creations. The plot would need a little tweaking to fit in with the scenario we were playing, but I knew what needed to change and how I was going to make it work.

The party arrived at the mansion and immediately ran into my absolute favourite NPC of the entire campaign: the gate. I absolutely loved playing that gate.

"I'm going to have to bite you now."
Luna jumps rapidly backwards, away from the gate.
"Curses! Foiled again."

Week 3: There might be a vampire

Auda Voss was delighted to have her son back and handed over the offered reward. But over a meal of turnips, he revealed that he thought there might be a vampire in the mansion. So Voss offered them another mission - dealing with the Van Waldens once and for all. This time the reward was a bit more concrete: if they could clear the mansion out, they could have it.

So back they went to the mansion, with a leg of pork for the gate, who chewed it up enthusiastically. This time rather than going straight to the basement they began a sweep of the ground floor, finding servants' quarters before unexpectedly running into some guests. Two vampires, an orc and a mallard, both looking for the dining room. It was becoming clear that there might be a few more vampires here than anticipated.

They next encountered Princess Cornelia, after some unexpectedly virtuoso piano playing from Grimduck opened the secret door to her room. A friendly chat revealed that she was also a vampire, and the guests were here to celebrate her being welcomed into the Van Walden family as a replacement for Konrad the disappointment. Except she was having second thoughts.

Week 4: The lay of the land

Luna's player was unavailable, so Luna remained deep in conversation with Princess Cornelia, while the others continued their search. Notable event included finding a very unpleasant chest of drawers lined with teeth, which they nevertheless made use of to make vampire disguises for the less toothy party members. They managed to unenthrall some of the guards and sent them home after getting a comprehensive list of the vampire guests present - besides those they'd already met there were a dwarf, a halfling, a human and a frog.

The adventure includes a list of vampire guests. They don't all work exactly as written for Dragonbane, but after I'd rolled a random selection of them and assigned them all different kin based on names and descriptions, we had a great cast of weird vampires ready for future encounters.

Week 5: There really are a lot of vampires

The six golden bathtubs in the bathroom were really selling the otherwise rather unpleasant mansion, but it wasn't long before Dr Crumb had something new to occupy his enormous mind: the different death animations of different vampire kin. None of that was in the adventure, but when shortly afterwards they staked the halfling vampire and I described him deflating like a punctured balloon, which then got interpreted as him zooming around the room, this became a whole thing.

With most of the human staff either dead or rescued, it was time to brave the dining room. And there they found Liss Van Walden, in conversation with two guests - the human and the frog.

The vampires from Shadow Over Gloomshire are terrifying opponents, so I decided to use the frog kin from the bestiary for the frog vampire, and drop ferocity to 1 for the two humans. Even so it was a very close fight. I rolled for Liss's seduction attempt rather than having it auto succeed, which added some comedy when I rolled a demon and Liss was instead smitten by the intense fluffiness of Felis the cat person. Which didn't stop him almost getting bitten to death.

This did provide more data for Dr Crumb. Human vampires disintegrated into dust; frog vampires exploded, showering everyone in frog bits.

The party decided to rest after that, and having just discovered the games room (and given the games master free choice as to what she wanted to play with them), this took the form of an entire shift playing Twilight Imperium.

Week 6: Sexy people

After noping out of the library at the sight of the blood red spider webs, the party was ready to head upstairs. But not before the return of Luna, who was now convinced that Princess Cornelia was absolutely wonderful and they should do anything she wanted.

The upper floor soon brought them to a room full of very attractive people of various kin, lounging on cushions and inviting the party to join them. Fortunately some of the party passed their will rolls, found their way past the illusory wall, and dragged the others with them. So they'd done some comprehensive looting before Ernst Van Walden showed up.

Ernst was very rapidly taken down before he could bite anyone, and his guards ultimately proved more of a challenge. Once again they managed to unenthrall one of them, and then moved on to the final confrontation: Konrad Van Walden. Who turned out not to be a vampire at all, but a demon summoner, who'd summoned his own pet blood demon with the intention of demonstrating to his parents just how much of a disappointment he really was.

Which was all happening in a room full of fabulously valuable porcelain dolls, which Grimduck was frantically attempting to remove from the room before any potentially damaging fighting kicked off.

Week 7: Finale

Konrad's monologuing didn't go exactly as planned, and being a fairly weak human rather than a powerful vampire, he didn't last long. His demon proved rather tougher, but a phenomenal display of magical power from Halvelda finished it off.

Now there was just a bit of tidying to do. A planetary display turned out to have the lock fitting the key they'd found in the basement earlier, which turned off the house's evil decor, allowing them to use the stairs as normal. The orc vampire confided in them that he was working for Princess Cornelia. An earlier attempt at poisoning the blood soup with holy water had finally paid off, taking out the dwarf vampire. And the mallard was convinced to leave. But as he stepped outside, they saw the first rays of the rising sun, heard a shout of "Oh quack!", and were now in possession of a rather nice statue.

Princess Cornelia rewarded them for rescuing her beloved porcelain dolls and went on her way, reminding them about the spiders in the basement. And so they finally went back to the library, pushed the webs aside, and descended into the court of the blood spiders. The party immediately decided they didn't want to fight them, and attempted to persuade them to leave. It took a few attempts, but they were eventually convinced to relocate to the old temple in the graveyard. So under cover of darkness and some very large skirts, the blood spiders were escorted to the graveyard to meet their new friend: Bones, the gravedigger and MVP of the previous adventure.

Finally the party were able to enjoy their new property. While now largely bare boards, they did still have the six gold bathtubs. And most importantly, the gate.

Conclusions

Translating an adventure from OSE to Dragonbane had its challenges, and took more effort than running the original Shadow Over Gloomshire adventure as I had to make a number of changes to fit in with the ongoing story. That said, it's a really solidly written location with a great map, meaning I only had to worry about details like the location of the major NPCs rather than everything about the story.

If, like me, you don't care for most OSR systems but would like to try some of the adventures, give them a shot with Dragonbane. This one in particular is well worth the effort. Levels aren't much of a concern as you'll be swapping out the monsters for similar creatures from the Dragonbane Bestiary. The one important thing to change is treasure - the gold amounts in Halls of the Blood King are wildly over the top for Dragonbane so I replaced them with random draws from the treasure deck, specific treasure deck items, and rolls on the Shadow Over Gloomshire treasure table.

I'm wrapping up the campaign for now, as we've managed to tie off all the loose ends from the previous block and I'm keen to run some Pathfinder 2, but I'm not ruling out a return to Gloomshire some day. The adventure includes enough hooks to potentially introduce more adventures. I've also spotted that  Robin Fjärem has published another adventure and that looks perfect for a short block. The campaign might be over, but I'm far from done with Dragonbane.

Dragonbane: Shadow Over Gloomshire

I pitched Shadow Over Gloomshire for a long block at MK-RPG and immediately saw an issue. This adventure supposedly lasts 3-4 sessions, and I'd pitched it for an 8 week long block. What was I going to do in the other four weeks?

As it turned out, that wasn't an issue. I'd booked a holiday for week 8, and week 3 was so incredible hot that half the group were too ill to play and we cancelled. Allowing one week for character creation, I'd only need one extra session of material.

Week 1: Character Creation

Character creation for Dragonbane isn't exactly complicated, but it does take a while. I gave people the standard kin options, plus cat people because I like them, and the standard profession options, plus paladin and demon hunter from the adventure. I suggested Mariner might not be the ideal profession here, given how little water was involved.

Rather than how it's described in the book, I had each player roll a set of stats, and then gave them the option to use any of the rolled sets of stats. This is because my husband has a tendency to roll unusually good stats. I've done this before with Pathfinder 1 games, to prevent the party from ending up as Husband and his Puny Minions. As predicted, he rolled some good stats, and while not everyone chose to use them, the party were fairly well balanced at the end.

The final party was:

• Dr Hovis Crumb, mallard scholar
• Grimduck McQuack, mallard hunter
• Lady Mazikeen (Maze), halfing paladin
• Felis Nightstabber, cat person thief
• Kaine Wolfram, wolfkin fighter
• Halvelda Greycape, human animist mage

Now I had to work out hooks. I decided the paladin could have an invitation from Minerva, and the scholar suggested a research trip. I still had to nail down some details, but I decided to go ahead with everyone meeting in a bar, with the other characters largely going along for mercenary reasons.

In keeping with the tropes of horror I decided to have a harbinger - a strange old man in the coaching inn who talked about how great Gloomshire ale was, but also how Gloomshire was a terrible place and nobody should ever go to Gloomshire. Naturally they began asking questions about exactly which coach they should not get on in order to not go to Gloomshire, and this might have continued for a while, but at this point the fire alarm went off and we had to evacuate.

Week 2: The Coach Trip

By now I'd managed to sort out a few details. Mazikeen got a handout in the shape of a letter from Minerva asking her to come to Gloomshire to help with the problem. Dr Crumb got a document from the University of Pondsburg, in which Professor Hugh Quackman was requesting research into the history of Gloomshire. With both saying not to travel alone, it made sense that they had a hunter, thief and fighter along with them, while Halvelda was there to learn about the unusual flora and fauna of the area.

We picked up at breakfast time in the smoking ruins of the coaching inn, where people were largely sitting exactly where they had been the night before. After a bit of chatter the coach arrived and they all climbed aboard.

The journey went smoothly until they had to stop due to a blockage in the road, in the form of a wrecked cart and a sobbing forest giant. Bertha the giant proved not to be hostile. She was crying because a group of harpies had stolen her pet pig, Sir Piglington.

While some of the party staged a rescue mission, others tracked down the cart driver, who was very scared and relieved to have company. He got in the coach. Meanwhile, the harpies were defeated and Sir Piglington returned to Bertha's arms. She thrust her hand in her pocket and handed over the first thing she found as a reward, which turned out to be a fabulously valuable gold bangle, and got to work clearing the road so they could continue.

They stopped off for the night at an inn, run by a halfling woman called Violeta. Maze, who despite calling herself a mightly paladin was only just old enough to be adventuring, got extremely drunk and passed out on the hearthrug. Everyone else did make it as far as the bedrooms.

They were awoken in the night by strange noises, and looked out to see a huge hairy creature standing over Mazikeen. Kaine, being something of an expert on large hairy wolf creatures, identified it straight away as a werewolf.

They elected to incapacitate the werewolf rather than killing it, realising that it was probably the landlady and that she likely had no idea that she was doing this. In the morning, once she'd changed back, Halvelda and Grimduck went out to find wolfsbane to make a cure for her, and the party continued on their way, arriving in Gloomshire that evening.

-----

None of this is in the adventure itself. These two encounters were inspired by entries in the Dragonbane bestiary. I used a battle map book from Tom Cartos that supplied the blocked road map and the inn map. This made for a simple, fairly linear session for the players to get to know their characters and the system before moving onto Gloomshire proper.

Week 3: Welcome to Gloomshire

Half the group were still unwell from heat, but we did pick up an extra person from another game that wasn't running at the club that night. They asked to observe, but I suggested they could play an NPC if they'd like to try it out properly, and brought along Victor Drakos, mallard demon hunter.

The present party members chatted with Victor, and with Maeve, a young human paladin who'd also had a letter from Minerva. She was quite relieved to meet Maze, as she'd been worried about whether she was really experienced enough for this job, but it was clearly just a mix up over their very similar names.

They headed off to visit Minerva, with Victor in tow, where they learned about the something nasty in the temple in the graveyard, but were interrupted by a dwarf running in carrying an injured elf. I'd described the travelling carnival setting up outside the gates with guards telling them not to as the party arrived, so this wasn't hugely surprising. Minerva offered to look after the two of them while the party went out to help fend off the horde of stygian wolves attacking outside.

With those dealt with, they went back to the tavern, where they learned that the missing party members had been helping out there due to the cook having turned into an undead monstrosity. The next morning they got up early and headed to the graveyard, having decided that going during the day was far more sensible than at night.

They took a cautious route around the inside edge, avoiding some of the more significant pitfalls along the way. They ran into Bones, who they took a bit of a liking to, despite his determination to sell them eyeballs. Maze bought a skeleton hand. Then on to the temple itself.

Week 4: The Temple

With Victor's player back with their regular group, and Maze's player also unavailable, I decided that the two of them were outside fighting a winged horror while the other two got inside, and then cut back to the other three party members waking up in the inn to discover that the others had gone on an adventure without them.

They had a less eventful trip through the graveyard (it was almost like four adventurers had recently passed that way and already had the encounters!) but still ran into Bones. They weren't quite as taken with him as the previous group, and also declined to buy any eyeballs.

With most of the team back together, they explored the temple. Kaine made sure to smash up all the skeletons before they could do anything annoying like come to life. They still had to fight one when it popped out of the font. A friendly chat with the one entirely non-hostile inhabitant netted them some extremely useful books which would certainly please Professor Quackman as well as providing valuable information for their search. They wanted to know why the ghostly priest's skeleton was chained to the bed, and he explained just how humiliating it was to see your own remains walking around without you. They sympathised, and agreed to his request to have his bones moved into a proper crypt - for which kindness he gave them the key they needed.

They opened up the door to the catacombs, and were immediately set upon by a skeletal snake, where they discovered that being eaten by a skeletal snake isn't exactly dangerous like being eaten by a live snake would be, but is nevertheless rather inconvenient. At some point in all this, Halvelda got a demon on a spellcasting roll, and unexpectedly aged significantly.

Week 5: Deeper Underground

With the whole party back together and not inside a skeletal snake, they descended into the catacombs. A quick stop off in the embalming room let them restock on bandages, and not long after that Halvelda spotted a concealed door. From then they explored the catacomb very much in reverse order, finding many doors that would have been locked if they'd come to them from the other side. Maze touched an obilisk and also unexpectedly aged significantly.

Some fighting later, they located Fiona, and decided to have a rest. This holy site kept the bad things out, so they could recover somewhat. Fiona also cleansed Halvelda and Maze of their unnatural aging, while apologising to Dr Crumb for not being able to reverse his entirely natural aging.

Week 6: Finale

It was time to take on the demon - after getting out of the catacombs, of course. More encountering of doors from the wrong side happened, and Dr Crumb finally found a use for the stone crow he'd been carrying around for several hours.

Suitably armed with Fiona's sword and a lot of other weaponry they'd picked up along the way, they prepared to face the demon. And face it they did! The demon was killed, the two blades were reunited, and the shadow over Gloomshire was lifted...

...For now.

Conclusions

This is an excellent adventure, with interesting new monsters, fun NPCs, a solid main quest and enough hooks that you could easily build a longer campaign around Gloomshire. The only caveat is that I had some trouble getting my head around the main plot - the big bad is encountered fairly early on in affairs, as is the demon blade, and it took me a lot of scrambling through the adventure to figure out that they couldn't just take the blade because the demon was still there. I found it in an introductory section.

I also had a bit of a struggle with the maps. This would be no issue on a VTT, but on a real table, the catacomb map is, shall we say, a little prone to colouring outside the lines? Copying the damn thing onto my Chessex Megamat was something of a challenge. And you do need a Chessex Megamat. The catacomb is huge, and filled the entire mat. The temple map is an easier draw, being largely along the grid lines. I drew that on my Ergon silicone mat, as I rapidly realised I was going to need to be swapping between maps pretty quickly.

But that aside, I had an absolute blast running this. And I realised that I'd dropped enough hints about a certain NPC's involvement in events that I could very easily run a second long block game as a sequel to this. So assuming players sign up, in a few weeks time they'll be heading off to the Van Walden mansion to find out what's really been going on in Gloomshire...

Wicker Valley, episode 39: Finale

We had a quick look around Uncle Dwyer's cabin. We found several PS5s - he always did enjoy scalping in every sense of the word. His bookshelves held several first edition copies of Mein Kampf, all of which strangely disintegrated the moment Elizabeth got there them, an autobiography of Donald Trump, and a pretty detailed book on skin removal, which I kept for future reading. Not that I plan on taking up the hobby, but it's always useful to know what my family are up to.

There was nothing else useful though, and we needed to get back to Wicker Valley and get a few hours of sleep before everything went down. Elizabeth had a message from her coven requiring her to meet up with them at lunchtime, which didn't exactly give us much time. On the way, Eddie had a vision, and it wasn't good. A giant gargoyle, perching on the roof of the church, protecting Wicker Valley while the rest of the world was going to ruin around it. Of course, Michael still had the coin of Phylaxis, and it seemed he was talking to both Michael and Eddie now.

I met the others at the museum the next morning, with a big flask of espresso. We needed to find Alabaster, and scrying with our new map of the town seemed like the fastest way. We soon tracked him down to what Michael and Eddie recognised as his mum's house. Time to pay a visit.

First though, Elizabeth's phone was buzzing with messages from her coven asking where she was, so I teleported us to the meeting place. Which was the entrance to the fae court, of course. Which did give me the chance to have a chat with Jeeves, and find out exactly what the terrible weapon the fairies had that was so scary it caused my Uncle Dwyer, not exactly a nervous skin-flaying demon, to allow himself to be possessed by the Darkness. It was Michael.

Of course it was Michael. Michael the chosen one, with his divine protector who'd been teaching him how to fight. I tried to convince Jeeves that the war didn't need to happen now, because we'd already dealt with the demon problem, but that didn't change anything for them. That just meant that they were going to win.

He wanted me to bring Michael over straight away, and made some pretty tempting offers, but as I reminded him, when it comes to temptation, I'm a pro. And I told him how they were being manipulated by the chaos orb, and none of this plan was under their control. He didn't seem to think this changed anything, as stopping the orb would require a child of Merlin to create the magical rings needed to bind it. I had no intention of telling the fae any more than I had already, and just said that I could be extremely resourceful when required. I negotiated us 24 hours to sort things out, and managed to get Elizabeth back as well.

We all met up again outside Alabaster's mum's house, and knocked and asked to see him, but she wouldn't let us in. So I teleported to him, and threw my arms around him, with the intention of teleporting him somewhere more useful to us, but that didn't work, as somehow we ended up right outside his house again, and a moment later he'd gone back inside. Without opening the door.

I wasn't sure what that was all about, but I did know something else. When I'd teleported to him, it wasn't to the house, but one of the old warehouses. We came up with an idea for a trap. I'd do the same thing again, this time taking Michael with me so that Alabaster wouldn't realise I was doing the same thing again, and Elizabeth would be waiting to spring a magical trap when he came back to the house.

Except that didn't happen. I lost Michael somewhere in the teleport and didn't land where I intended. So that plan was a loss. But we had a much better idea of where to actually find Alabaster now, so I texted the others and we met up at the warehouses.

Adam set up outside with his rifle - I think he was still excited about it from shooting those giant centipedes in the Darkness - and me, Elizabeth and Eddie went in. We had tasers, provided by Elizabeth, along with very specific instructions about what part of his anatomy we should aim for. Which I promptly forgot about, deploying my bag of demons instead. Kevin popped out in a little ball of fur, and while I'm not entirely sure what he did to Alabaster, he was certainly enjoying himself.

Meanwhile Elizabeth, who I'd expected to completely lose it at this point, threw herself at Alabaster with her knife. I thought she'd missed for a moment, but then realised she'd actually cut off a bag he had on his belt, which became visible once she'd taken it away from him.

Fortunately Eddie was on the ball and deployed his taser. And with Alabaster temporarily paralysed, I cast the same binding spell we'd been planning on using earlier. I put everything I had into it, and didn't just stop him moving, but managed to bind his nastier magical talents at the same time.

We also found Michael, who'd landed almost on target, in a cupboard. Elizabeth let him out, and I don't know why she felt the need to destroy the door with magical entropy rather than just opening it, but it did have an interesting result when some of the flakes of ash landed on Alabaster and made him scream.

I turned on my full Voice of Temptation and started asking questions. He didn't seem to think much of Elizabeth's requests regarding tasers, but I pointed out that was just what she wanted us to do, and that she had much bigger plans. Especially since I was pretty sure she was a lich now. It didn't take long to establish that a) the chaos orb was inside the bag Elizabeth had taken from Alabaster and b) there was no way to open that bag without being Alabaster. Which was a problem, but so were the horrifying wraiths that the orb was summoning up around us.

Not one of my finer moments. I ran in terror, completely forgetting everything else in that moment, just blindly trying to get away. But then there was the sound of running feet behind me, and a moment later Michael had caught up with me. He held me and kissed me, and suddenly all the fear melted away in the flames dancing in his eyes.

He told me he loved me, and all I could think of was a quote from some old movie. "Flash, I love you, but we only have fourteen hours to save the Earth!" And we were going to save the Earth, I realised. We ran back to the others, calling to Elizabeth to give me the bag. She threw it, I caught it, and teleported to the junk yard to shove it into the oubliette.

After that it was just a lot of cleaning up. By the time I got back to the others, the wraiths were already gone and Alabaster was looking defeated. Elizabeth used her entropy power to drain the magic out of him. We didn't know if that was going to be a permanent solution, and in any case we certainly couldn't trust him. But I did happen to know of a demon prison, and I couldn't help thinking Uncle Dwyer would be interested to meet the person at least partly responsible for his recent poor choices. This was not the time for a risky teleport though, so instead we had an extremely awkward drive out to the slate mine.

Then it was back to the fae court to make sure that they were calling off the war, and introduce them to Eddie who was going to be making the binding rings. And between his magical skills and the antimagic of Adam's oubliette, the orb was bound once more.

*****

So that was all five years ago, and a few things have changed around here. Adam's given up the junkyard and has moved into classic car restoration. He's got several projects on the go, and keeps assuring us that one day he will actually finish one. Michael's doing freelance work for him, giving the cars decorative paint jobs.

Elizabeth's moved into Wicker Valley properly at last, and has opened a shop on the high street selling crystals and other new age type stuff. We knew there was a market for it from a previous timeline when Aunty Agnes had a shop here, and she's doing well. Eddie's been travelling, learning as much as he can about his magical heritage, in between keeping the museum up and running. Compared to the demonic fire of my magic and the necromantic chill of Elizabeth's, it's extraordinary to see a talent so perfectly balanced. No wonder he made everything better.

Arthur still drops by to see us, although his family's kept him pretty busy. And talking of family, Robin also came by. Riding his bike, alongside his best friend, who never got killed in this timeline, and his partner and child. Of course he didn't know who any of us were, but it was good to see him happy.

Then of course there's the big change. Last year, after a lot of planning and working out contingencies for all kinds of supernatural mishaps, Michael and me got married. We got the museum licensed for weddings, and held it there. His mum wanted it to be at the church, of course, but I already knew I was inviting Rusty and it's not a good look at a wedding for the bride's brother to spontaneously combust. Elizabeth asked to be a bridesmaid, and wanted to wear a black dress. We compromised on purple.

And I've made one more change - my job. I knew I couldn't work at the Wicker Stop forever, so I've been training as a therapist. If there's one thing this town needs, it's someone who can help with trauma, especially the supernaturally induced kind. I'm told I have a remarkably soothing voice and a real talent for getting clients to open up to me, and should have my accreditation in no time.

But Wicker Valley is still Wicker Valley. We dealt with the chaos orb, but between fairies, demons, witches, and every other kind of what Adam still calls 'weird bollocks', strange things still happen here and people still need help. And when they do, our team is ready.

Wicker Valley, episode 38: Catching up with the uncles

With everything calming down again it was time to follow the problem to its source - my uncles. Michael had tracked down Uncle Dwyer to a remote cabin where you could supposedly book events, although no events seemed to ever take place there. It was an unsettling drive. Even though I don't seem to have any physical problems with the stuff any more, sitting in a van full of anti-demon supplies was still rather uncomfortable. It was quite a relief to arrive.

We scouted out the building, approaching from different sides to see what was going on. I saw my uncle Dwyer, busy about some kind of arcane practice with a magic circle and everything, while Uncle Mac was stuck to a wall and didn't seem to be enjoying it. We regrouped, reported back, and then I teleported into the kitchen to scout inside.

My wings were the now familiar swirl of feathers as I teleported out, but when I arrived inside they were back to the old leathery bat wings. Odd. I'd been warned of something snoring near the back door, and I could hear it inside as well. Two somethings, at least, maybe more. Definitely more, in fact, when I got closer. I had just enough time to take a photo and teleport out.

Hell hounds, we all agreed outside as we looked at the pictures. We were going to have to deal with them, preferably not in a confined space. And there was another issue. The place had been warded. A pretty hefty ward, meant to keep out everything except demons.

We lured the hell hounds outside for an absolutely brutal fight. By the end we were in serious need of patching up, and I even allowed Elizabeth to do some of her spicier healing magic on me, it was that bad. Hopefully that scar will give Eddie something to talk about at parties for years to come. We were also covered in hell hound bits, and we wondered if that would allow the non-demonic team members to bypass the wards.

It didn't. So I went in and dismantled the wards, knowing that this would absolutely alert Uncle Dwyer to our presence, but it had to be done.

You know, I'd never thought about it before, but it turns out that demons can be possessed. Especially if the demon in question is dumb enough to invite the possessing entity inside. Good thing I'd been reading up on banishments in alternate timeline me's grimoire. I kicked that thing right out of him. Uncle Mac made a run for it. I'm not sure what happened to Michael. Passing out and having weird visions isn't unheard of for him recently but this seemed a bit different.

Fortunately Elizabeth managed to locate the evil book that was responsible. My claws did nothing to it, and Michael's magic knife was equally useless. Then we realised that the problem was that we were all still inside the house, which was suppressing anything non-demonic. We all went outside and shredded that book.

So my idiot uncle's been stopped, and dropped off at one of the family's 'secure facilities' to think about what he's done. Which means there's hopefully just one other player left in this game: Alabaster.

Wicker Valley, episode 37: Bugs

We were a bit injured after the centipede fight. I don't what Adam and Elizabeth were up to as they attempted to heal each other, but there seemed to be some kind of argument involved. I ignored them, and called on my magic to heal Eddie.

It wasn't long after we convinced the centipede to leave that Michael showed up. I'm not entirely sure how, but I'm pretty sure he was holding a magic flower and wearing a chainmail shirt he definitely didn't have before. Apparently someone thought it was more important for him to show up to help us in the darkness than to keep him out of it. And now we were sure that the way the darkness siphoned power was at least partly through hurting people. We were going to have to protect as many of the villagers as we could.

The darkness was bigger than it had been on the previous incident, and was covering more of the town than we were expecting. We got into Vanessa and towed the floodlight into the middle of the village to try to lure the creatures away from the people with the lights. Then we had to go into the houses.

We couldn't rescue them all. Some of them were already dead. But some we managed to get to in time, and kill the creatures threatening them before getting them out of the mass of sticky web. I had Elizabeth enchant my claws before we went in and I'm glad she did.

Then Adam and Elizabeth came up with an idea. We were fighting giant bugs, which were attracted by light. Could we make a giant bug zapper?

Eddie, Elizabeth and me took Vanessa to the allotments and got out a lot of copper wire that Adam had in there for some reason. We set up a circle, connected it to the metal fence around the allotments, and began the ritual. Elizabeth acted as the focus, channelling her lightning magic into the fence, while I added my own power and Eddie balanced the flows. Once again nobody caught fire. At least, nobody we didn't want to catch fire. Once the bugs realised what we were doing, they attempted to disrupt things, but Eddie and me fought them off so that Elizabeth could hold her focus.

At last it was coming to an end, and instead of darkness above us we began to see stars. Michael and Adam came back from where they'd been continuing the rescue effort. I had to concentrate on helping Eddie recover from some nasty injuries, so it took me a while to notice that Michael was a bit subdued after the fight. When I did, I then spotted the hole in his chainmail where one of the centipede's stingers must have got through. Even as I was watching, a few more links disintegrated. I managed to convince him to lift up the shirt and let us have a look, and then called on my magic once again to purge the poison out of him. I'd seen some nasty things that day, but that had to be the worst.

Not the worst thing for Elizabeth though.That would be when Alabaster showed up and thanked us for dealing with some of his competition. He didn't stick around long, but it was long enough for Elizabeth to yell at him for killing her. Which Eddie didn't know about, I then realised, and I explained that that's why I keep calling her a lich.

So now we were going to end up having to deal with Alabaster as well as with Uncle Dwyer. We gave Eddie the brief run-down on Alabaster, since that had all happened in a different timeline. The funny thing is, looking back, Alabaster was actually a good influence on me. He really helped me work through some things. This timeline's version of him seems to have taken a different path though. I think we might actually have to kill him.

Wicker Valley, episode 36: Ley Lines

We had some idea what the darkness was now. Basically hoovering up power wherever it touched down. And we'd been tipped off by the fae that it would be a very bad idea if Michael were to end up in its path so he was temporarily relegated to research duty while the rest of us prepared to go in.

We had some idea where it was going to touch down next. A small village with a neighbouring caravan park. I suggested we book a holiday. But there was something else. There was a pattern to the thing's movement. It seemed to be following lines but not entirely straight lines. And it dawned on us that Rusty had been following up on ley lines running into Wicker Valley. It was time to pay my brother a visit.

Rusty was living in Manchester, so we piled into Vanessa and drove down. He'd picked a pretty rough area to live in, and the block of flats didn't smell too great. He had taken the trouble to draw an extra 6 on his front door so that it read 666, and frankly I was annoyed at how much that amused me. We knocked at the door, and got sucked into his real apartment, which was obviously a lot nicer. The others asked me why I didn't have one of those on my home. Honestly it seems a bit pretentious.

Rusty wasn't happy to see us. I think we'd interrupted something. He took us out again to a pub. I ordered what he was having. Thankfully nobody else thought that was a good idea. Demonic beverages can be pretty weird. He invited me to a party with a few of the family, coincidentally at around the time when Wicker Valley might be being engulfed by the darkness, and suggested that we shouldn't interfere if we enjoyed having skin.

That was actually pretty useful, as it narrowed things down to some of my more skin-removing focussed uncles, so I downed my drink, sneezed out a few snowflakes (like I said, demonic beverages can be weird), and we left him to whatever mayhem he was up to. Time to check in on my uncles. Fortunately it's pretty easy to find demons these days as they're all on the internet. Uncle Mac and Uncle Dwyer were both active on social media, posting all kinds of ridiculous conspiracy theories while claiming that only true friends would share them. Uncle Dwyer had gone unusually silent of late.

First though we had to deal with the imminent touchdown of the darkness in the village. Research had told us that magic weapons would be useful against the creatures within it, as would my own claws, and light would be a valuable defense. Adam got online and rented a portable spotlight, the kind used for late night sports games, while Elizabeth and me enchanted some weapons.

The caravan park was easy enough to deal with. Reporting a severe weather warning convinced the caretaker to get all the other residents off site. Nothing we could do about the village though. Adam set up the spotlight and got ready with a rifle. And down it came.

The spotlight worked well, as did the road flares Adam had brought along. But it did attract one of the creatures - some kind of enormous centipede that wrapped itself around the light. Fortunately with our enchanted weapons we were able to deal with it, although not before taking some significant injuries. That thing was poisonous.

Wicker Valley, episode 35: Darkness

Samara didn't hang about when it came to making her presence felt. Elizabeth put up a wall of ice, which slowed her down while she melted her way through it, which meant I had time to throw one of my tiny demons at her, which dug into her quite effectively. Eddie finished her off by hosing her down with one of the holy water supersoakers.

We needed another look at the house. Or rather, at the tree at the back of the house, which was bad enough. The whole area seemed to have a spooky aura, which was making everything very dark and cold. I was thinking about my next move when something happened to Michael. I couldn't see what was doing it, but something had him by the throat and was trying to choke him.

I ignored Elizabeth telling me to give him the kiss of life, and told the entity exactly what I thought of it in the infernal tongue. Not a permanent solution, but enough to make it go away for a bit. While the others looked around, I decided to try something riskier and look into the past to find out what really happened here.

I saw Ann Deltrose carrying a squirming cloth wrapped bundle, forcing it into a wooden box in a grave. Then flames erupting from the box, engulfing both of them. She'd never got the chance to use that rope. I let the vision go, but Samara had other ideas. It was a brief battle of will, and I managed to evict her pretty fast, but not fast enough to stop her using my claws to shred Michael's jacket. That could have been very nasty.

Michael had found the grave site. Adam got some shovels from the van, and we started digging. Burning the remains would have been our usual approach, but we were pretty sure it wouldn't help here. Salt and holy water was the way to go. We found Ann's bones first, and Michael spread out his ripped clothes to rest them on.

But unsurprisingly, Samara wasn't going to make this easy for us. Michael pulled out his weird knife. I threw another demon, then went in with my claws. But it was Eddie who finished her off, with some kind of magic I'd never seen before, which seemed to surprise him as much as everyone else.

We finished digging, and scattered salt and holy water over the remains, and gradually the spooky aura lifted and it was a bright sunny afternoon once more. The scouts were going to be able to have their bonfire after all.

We all needed some time off after that, which largely consisted of going to work, but that didn't mean things were peaceful. Tornadoes aren't exactly uncommon in the UK, but they're usually further south, pretty small, and don't usually do much beyond dislodging a few roof tiles, so having a whole bunch of them in the Lake District was definitely weird, especially when one destroyed a RoadChef services, and a bunch of people were injured. Between that and Eddie and Michael reporting on a lot of demonic portents, we were going to have to investigate.

Investigation wasn't easy though, as the police weren't our local police, and weren't letting anyone near the place. We had another option though. A woman called Martha had claimed to have been stabbed during the tornado and was in the hospital. I was pretty sure I could charm my way into getting us a chat with her.

I overdid it again, and now one of the nurses is my best friend and I'll be taking in a basket of scones for the staff to share. But we got in, and Martha was very happy to have someone believe her. She'd been plunged into darkness, and she hadn't been alone. It had lasted for hours - much longer than the time that had passed in the outside world.

We knew what we were dealing with now. It had happened before and it was called the Darkness. And not the fun kind.

Wicker Valley, episode 34: Firestarter

We needed to look in that house. Elizabeth cleared a path to the door through the greenery, using her lich powers, and we started the search. It wasn't a big place, but people had obviously lived here once. The skeletons of furniture remained. I headed upstairs. There was a bathroom, although it didn't have plumbing, just an old bath and a broken wash basin. And two bedrooms.

I looked in the master bedroom first. Not much there beyond the remains of the bed. If anything was hidden in there, I figured it would be under the bed. I was kind of right. There was a loose floorboard down there, and hidden under it was a diary with a name on it. Ann Deltrose. I only glanced at it for the moment, as there was the other bedroom to look at. Three beds, the remnants of old toys, and some odd black scorch marks above one of the bed.

I was almost down the stairs again, when Michael caught fire. I panicked, obviously, and tried to put the fire out with my hands and wings, which probably wasn't too pleasant for Michael. And I couldn't figure out why miss frosty lich hands was picking this moment to continue her aggressive shipping instead of using her magic to put the fire out, until the flames disappeared and I realised it had just been a vision. Something in this house really didn't want us to be here. There was a presence here with natural fire magic. Not taught like Elizabeth's magic, but something inherent. Like mine, except I'd certainly know if there was a demon in the house. As it was, it was Elizabeth who seemed the most aware of it.

Eddie had found a photograph of the family who used to live there, and between that and the diary, we decided we had enough for the moment and got out. We had a look around outside instead. There was a big tree at the back of the house, with the remains of what must have been a rope swing still tied to one branch. And one single rope.

I went up the tree to see if I could see anything interesting. I spotted the way into the cellar, which Elizabeth cleared away with a bit more necromancy. Sometimes I think she only does that when she wants a facelift. Anyway, the cellar didn't seem to like us much more than the rest of the house, and it was a long time since any of us had slept. Eddie, for one, seemed to be falling asleep on his feet. So we decided to give it up for the night, told the scout leaders to keep everyone away from that area due to sinkholes, and went home for some sleep.

The next morning, the photo and the diary got us some answers. The family in the photo were Jack and Ann Deltrose, their twin sons William and Arthur, their adopted daughter Samara, and a dog. I guess back then alarm bells didn't start ringing at the name Samara. Jack and Ann had married in the 1890s but struggled to have children, and eventually adopted Samara, who was the survivor of an orphanage fire, and I'm really starting to appreciate all the important lessons that horror movies have taught me. Much better than Doctor Who's approach to time travel, which wasn't helpful at all. And then had their two sons, about ten years later.

We went looking through town records, and much to our surprise, Jack and the two boys didn't die in a fire, but in a boating accident. We couldn't find graves for them in the cemetary, and it seemed pretty likely that those two crosses under the tree were grave markers. No record of what happened to Ann or Samara. We got Ann's maiden name, Welch, and as it happened there are still Welches living in Wicker Valley. We had a little chat with them, using the excuse of our museum, as of course we would want to feature the history of local families there.

But we still needed to figure out what was going on at the scout camp, so we packed up anti-ghost supplies and headed out. Things clearly weren't going well there, with several kids going home after unpleasant encounters. It was certainly sounding like ghosts. We decided to try the tree first. The spirits of the boys seemed a bit friendlier than Samara. There were some questions from the scout leaders about what exactly we were up to with all the candles and stuff, but between me and Adam we managed to convince them we were doing a geological survey to check for the release of underground gases, with the candles serving as a visual warning of carbon dioxide.

The boys were pretty sweet. One was pretty nervous and hung onto the dog, but the other talked to us. Their father was there too, which didn't surprise us as Michael had managed to find the third cross on the far side of the tree, although he stayed hidden. The dog was keeping people away from them. They were scared of Samara, which didn't surprise us. We asked about the boating accident, but it didn't seem to involve anything particularly suspicious like the boat catching fire.

We knew now what had happened to Ann. Sadly it came down to that single rope hanging from the tree. That poor family. And now we were going to have to go up against Samara. Ghost, firestarter, both. Either way, this was one battle that was definitely going to have theme music.

Wicker Valley, episode 33: Dogs and Ponies

It's all been a bit chaotic recently, starting from when we all got an invitation to dinner from Arthur's family. It all started out pretty normal, with Elizabeth and me getting taken to the conservatory for some girl talk, but then the storm started. The others had been taking Michael out to the stables, which I doubt he was too keen on, and then the storm in the shape of a horse with a glowing eye happened.

Most of us got out of there pretty quick, and after a bit of teleportation taxi services, so did Arthur, along with a mysterious box. The glowing eye in the cloud horse was supposedly some kind of chaos orb, and it needed finding, so Elizabeth and me set up the scrying circle. There were a few suggestions about what to use as a focus, but given our tendency to set things on fire, I didn't want to use anything important, and got out a My Little Pony with twinkle eyes.

Good thing too, since it caught fire. We didn't locate the orb, but I did have an exciting vision of some kind of wizard putting things in a cauldron.

Then, if things weren't complicated enough already, Rusty showed up, which meant explaining my jerk of a brother to Eddie. Chaos orb bad, we new that, but he did have a lead for us. One of my uncles had got hold of it at some point, and it had done bad things to him. So talking to him meant paying a visit to the slate mine.

I could see how creeped out everyone else was as we made our way down into the darkness, which is fair enough. My family are bad enough when they're in their right minds. It wasn't hard to find my uncle. We knew the orb made people's worst fears manifest, which reminded me a lot of last Halloween, so I wasn't surprised to find him shouting about angels. I couldn't remember if he'd ever known me as Scarlet so I introduced myself as Agnes, and he did know who I was. I wouldn't say we learned a lot, but it was a start.

We had other things to deal with though. Strange monsters being seen at the local scout camp. Arthur was staying with his family for the moment, but the rest of us loaded up Vanessa and went on our way. The only description we had was of a big dog, so we grabbed a few books to read along the way. We learned of two types of black dog sightings - malevolent ones like Black Shuck, and protective ones like church grims. Not very helpful so far.

At the campsite the scout leaders were doing their best to act normal while we took a look around. Michael found a pair of crosses concealed under grass at the base of a tree. A little further off we found an old cottage, almost completely covered in plant life. Then we had a collective vision, of two little boys, probably twins, running hand in hand. But Elizabeth saw something more. An older girl, with part of her face burnt.

Wicker Valley, episode 32: Big Magic

I got to work on the book with Arthur, but it wasn't long before another black car, like the one Great Aunt Gertie showed up in, pulled up next to the van and a bunch of people got out. Arthur assured me it was fine and went away with them. I was starting to get a handle on what we needed to do to close the portal, when I got a text from Michael telling me to bring the water feature.

I teleported in to find him fighting an absolutely massive spider, put down the water feature, and went right in with my claws. It didn't like that, and made a horrible screeching noise, which I ignored, then sank a fang into my shoulder, which was harder to ignore. Michael sliced some legs off it, which separated it from me, and then I'm not sure what happened as Elizabeth put up a wall of ice around me and Michael. I suggested to him that we should start trolling Elizabeth, but I didn't have any good ideas for how to do that.

Anyway, by the time I got out of the ice wall, the spiders had disappeared. Outside, Adam was patching up Eddie who'd had a rough time with the spiders before I arrived. Elsa added a little healing magic, and he looked a lot better.

Back at the junk yard we collected everything we needed for closing the portal. It was a mobile portal, I'd learned from the book, so first we needed to move it close to some water. Specifically, Wicker Lake, which oddly enough some people seemed to have forgotten the existence of. It was going to take three of us, and I was a bit worried about that, as that morning's curse-delaying aside, Elizabeth and me didn't have a great track record of working together, and Arthur was out of the picture. Elizabeth assessed the other three. Adam was a no-go, and Michael kept insisting he wasn't magical despite a certain amount of evidence to the contrary. But Eddie, she said, had talent.

I suggested he cover his hair, to make sure we didn't accidentally set it on fire, and helped Elizabeth set up the magic circle. Then the three of us held hands and began the chant, and soon had the portal relocated. Then it was mostly a matter of holding it open while all the various yokai were pulled back into it, although the fact that they were trying to stab us on the way past made it pretty uncomfortable.

Adam and Michael were kept busy fending things off, and Adam clearly wasn't ready to use his flamethrower again after the djinn incident. Unfortunately, Michael wasn't ready to use it at all. Fortunately being right by the lake there was plenty of water handy. Now we had to try to keep going while being bitten by spiders and that was much tougher, as we had to sit there and keep the magic going while they swarmed over us. But in the end we got there. Big spider back in the hole, the hole closed up, and nothing on fire except some of the grass nearby. Apparently Eddie was exactly what we needed to balance our magic.

Adam tried to patch up my spider wounds after that, which I wasn't keen on, and it's only because of my demonic nature that he didn't make things worse. So I took myself to the hospital, where a lot of staff were suddenly freed up as the unconscious people started waking up. Kenji got his mum back. Not his dad though. He woke up again, but the spider curse had hurt him too badly, and he died later that day.

I got another visit from Toby the definitely not a gargoyle while I was at the hospital. He told me that since I had continued to not do the thing I was supposed to be doing regarding Michael, that I was getting my armour confiscated. Which I wouldn't mind so much if whoever They are would stop being so bloody enigmatic and just tell me what I was supposed to be doing!

I got the answer that night, via a dream. Combat training. Teach him to fight with weapons other than a cricket bat. Well that I can do. I normally rely on my claws, but you don't grow up demonic without learning a few weapons along the way. The challenging part is going to be getting Michael on board. We're in a different timeline, but he's still been chosen by someone for something, and I know it's important, even if he's still in denial.

Once we were all out of hospital, we met up again and discovered that Eddie has quite a collection of interesting items from the history of Wicker Valley. We decided it was about time our town had a museum, and since there's that abandoned warehouse full of teeth and scorch marks that nobody wants, we managed to get a venue for a good price. Elizabeth still doesn't have a job, so she's going to run the place. And once we've installed the scrying map and the healing water feature, it should be very useful.

Wicker Valley, episode 31: Big Spiders

During the house search we'd found some kind of dimensional portal, which Arthur had temporarily disabled with one of his magical wards, but we knew that wasn't going to last. Up the ladder we went into the loft, where Arthur immediately got bitten by a giant spider.

There were a lot of spiders up there, and they were big ones, with human eyes which did this thing where blinks were rippling around the attic in a kind of Mexican wave of awful. Eddie made an attempt to communicate with them, and got bitten. They didn't seem to understand either English or his polite gestures. So I pulled up a translation spell from my grimoire.

Hive minds are the absolute worst to communicate with. Voices slightly out of sync, coming from different directions - it's enough to give me a headache. I couldn't persuade them to leave, but I did get out of them that they had a queen, who was going to be out and about pretty soon, and also that we were going to be in big trouble if we didn't leave ourselves pretty quick. The others did not seem to need to be told that. I asked if they were fae, given the mention of a queen, but clearly not. They were yokai.

Outside, Eddie spotted something - an old man with a gourd shaped head, slipping away towards next door. But first we had to deal with Arthur's spider bite. Eddie and Michael had both been bitten but it didn't look too bad. Arthur looked bad. I tried laying on hands, but all I got was a bit of magical curse backlash. Which did at least tell me it was a curse.

Adam took Arthur and Eddie back to the junkyard to do some research, while Michael, Elizabeth and me followed the mysterious figure. Michael recognised it as a Nurarihyon, which he'd seen in an anime before. It had got into the neighbour's house, despite it being locked. Fortunately I could see enough through the window to teleport inside and let the others in.

We found it soon enough, leaving cracker crumbs all over the floor and heading upstairs to use all the toilet paper. I asked it if it was the kid's grandfather, just in case, but no, just another yokai. Michael distracted it, and Elizabeth and me made use of that for a magical banishing.

I tried to teleport us back to the junkyard, but must have thought of Adam at just the wrong moment, and we ended up in a heap in the back of Vanessa, which was a bit of a surprise for everyone, especially Adam.

We had the right books and gear for the kind of curse breaking magic that Arthur needed, but neither I nor Elizabeth were feeling at our best magically, so Arthur called his great aunt Gertie for some magical assistance. Gertie arrived in a chauffeur driven car, wearing a hat with a full size vulture on it, which I'm sure looked at me. I offered to assist, and frankly I nailed my part of it. Shame Gertie didn't. She got hit by even more backlash than me, getting flung across the room.

Gertie left, leaving instructions that Arthur needed to be kept close to running water. Adam made him up a camp bed in the oubliette, and I put on a disguise and teleported to the garden centre to 'borrow' a water feature. This tracked with what the research team had dug up. They had a name for the queen spider: Tsuchigumo. And being near running water was the only way we'd be able to kill it.

The next morning Arthur wasn't better, but wasn't significantly worse, so Elizabeth and me had another shot at the curse breaking. I'd really got the feel for it by now. Elizabeth found it a bit tougher, but with some help from the mystical library we managed to de-curse him enough that he was going to live long enough for us to have a shot at taking out the big spider, which was going to be the only total cure.

One thing was clear. We needed to talk to the kid again. He'd mentioned a book, and that was probably going to have all the answers we needed in it. So we went to his aunt and uncle's house again, to deliver the Switch which we'd completely failed to hand over during the previous day's excitement, and offer to take Kenji to the park for a bit. The utterly exhausted looking uncle answered the door. His wife was at work - apparently the hospital was busy with more coma cases. He was only too happy for us to take Kenji away for a bit.

Kenji wanted to play hide and seek, and I don't think we've ever had such a united chorus of "No!" before. I suggested the assault course on the adventure playground, in the hope of tiring him out a bit. Nobody was particularly keen to talk to him. How we managed to assemble six people with absolutely no skill in talking to children, I don't know. Anyway, I was forced to use my demon voice, and ended up overdoing it a bit, and now I'm Kenji's new best friend.

He told us about the book, which had belonged to his grandfather, and which he was 'given' in very much the same way as I 'borrowed' that water feature, after his death. He didn't know Japanese well enough to read it properly, but he was able to read the words out loud. So it was pretty clear that his grandfather had been a bit of an expert on yokai, and had used the book to summon them to play pranks and stuff, but Kenji had no idea what he was doing and had just opened a random portal and all sorts of awful things were coming through.

I tried to discourage him from doing things like that, saying it might be dangerous, which he argued with, saying that I wasn't dangerous. Which didn't seem to be something I should argue about, despite it being very much not true. Then he mentioned my armour, which surprised me, since I didn't think I was wearing it. I wasn't wearing it.

But we knew where the book was now, so we delivered Kenji back to his uncle who looked much better after a shower and a coffee. We reunited the kid with his Switch, and peace reigned once more.

Back at Kenji's house, Arthur used his scrying knife to take a look at the book and check for spiders. There were spiders. Spiders that looked back at him, and for a moment I thought it was all going to go a bit The Ring, but he covered the knife up quickly. I teleported in to the room, but when I looked under the bed, the book had gone. I teleported back out quick.

Another scry, and Arthur said the book was now in the under stairs cupboard, but there were a lot of spiders. This time we went in as a group, Adam bringing his shotgun, which wasn't the best idea as he accidentally shot the book and then had to explain to our police friend why he was getting reports of gunshots from Eddie's mum.

One very unpleasant spider fight later, we had the book, but we also had a massive hole in the wall where Tsuchigumo had left before we got there.

I got back in the van with Arthur, who was still feeling pretty rough, and we got to work on the book. Opening the portal was a simple matter of reading some words. Of course. Closing it was going to be a bit more involved, but we could do it. Meanwhile, the others were pursuing the spider, with instructions to call if they needed us to teleport in.

Wicker Valley, episode 30: Jack in the box

A few weeks passed peacefully in Wicker Valley. I was kept busy at the Wicker Stop, while fully expecting some kind of Christmas fairy to show up and make December very complicated, but no. We actually got through Christmas quite peacefully. No, it was January, just as I was getting to the last of the cranberry scones I'd been keeping frozen for the Whisper Sisters, when things started happening again.

Two people taken out of their house in comas, leaving a young child to be cared for by his aunt, not long after the kid's grandmother had died. Not much to go on, but it was Eddie's neighbours. He thought it was worth a look, and his instincts for this kind of thing seem pretty solid. Also Michael was acting a bit weird, which usually means something's up.

Anyway, we had two lines of inquiry - the house, and the child. It was a while since I'd done any breaking and entering, but we decided on visiting the child first. Eddie had an in with the aunt and uncle based on being neighbours, so I packed up a nice cake from the café and off we went.

It was soon apparent that while not technically demon spawn, the kid would have been right at home in my family. To be fair, his love of pranks were a little less insect themed than Rusty's, but I could see why his aunt was so stressed. Then the kid started dropping bombshells. An invisible hand buzzer, or possibly just an imaginary one that still worked. Something that came out of a jack in the box. A big spider. And something about a yolk eye, which I didn't understand but hoped Adam would.

We got around the breaking and entering by offering to pick up the kid's Nintendo Switch, which was still at his house, since Eddie would be going that way anyway, and borrowed the keys. We found the Switch easily enough, but looking for the jack in the box was trickier. Notably, the kid's room absolutely did not look like the room of the hellspawn in all but name we'd just encountered. He had to have a separate play area.

Then Adam found a demonic lantern face thing in the under stairs cupboard, and that's where things got complicated. There was a snake, and something about Michael drawing a picture of a spider with human eyes, and naturally there was the usual coin toss between attic and basement, this time settling on attic as there was no basement.

Anyway, we found the jack in the box, and apparently it's spelled 'Yokai'.

Wicker Valley, episode 29: Dancing with Djinns

My new ex-cultist friend, whose name was George, helped me get the remaining injured cultists out of the building. Michael was trying to interrogate one of them and not getting very far, possibly because the guy didn't actually know very much based on how little George was able to tell me. He clearly didn't know what he was getting into. He'd been promised having wishes fulfilled but hadn't exactly believed in all this magic stuff. Well, he did now.

Adam and Elizabeth showed up in Vanessa, and I couldn't have been happier to see them. Arthur, who was proving quite talented at magic, set up a ward to keep the scarabs inside, and Adam incinerated the scarabs while Elizabeth set up an ice wall to make sure the building didn't catch fire.

Michael and me had both been a bit shot during the fight, and while neither of us were looking too bad, we did spend a few minutes bandaging while the others did a bit of scrying with dead scarabs, something that really put me in mind of a prank my brother played on me once. Then it was back in Vanessa and Arthur's car, along with George, as we followed the trail to a shepherd's hut holiday home. Definitely the right place. It was covered in scarabs. Arthur did a quick divination and confirmed that the leader was inside and in the middle of some magic.

We left George in the van, and Adam started hosing down scarabs while the rest of us went round the back to the door. It was magically locked as well as normally locked. Michael's cricket bat took care of the regular lock and I was starting to get a handle on alternate timeline me's grimoire enough to make use of it for a quick unbinding on the magical defenses. That gave me the confidence to try something else new - I enchanted Eddie's gun to give it a bit more oomph if necessary. Arthur put a ward around the building to stop the leader from leaving, and in we went.

Well the enchanted gun seemed to work out well for Eddie, who managed to both intimidate and slow the guy down considerably with a shot to the leg. Between that and Michael's cricket bat, they did separate him from the bottle and his magic book, and while he tried to teleport away, Arthur's ward meant he ended up slamming into the wall of the hut and getting knocked out.

Eddie relieved him of his collection of magic seeing in the dark stones, and we took everything back to the junkyard to put in the oubliette. We weren't done yet though. We still had a djinn to trap. I got to work reading the book. It was in some strange text that Google Lens told me was Semitic. That's the problem with Google Lens. It's handy for me, but does make it far too easy for regular people to stumble onto arcane secrets best left alone. Anyway, I found what we needed:

• At least three people to do an arcane chant.
• One person to dance with the djinn.
• A pair of flaming torches for the dancer to wave.
• Quite a lot of silver.
• A large mammal to sacrifice. A camel was suggested. We decided on a cow as significantly easier to obtain in Wicker Valley, and also we could eat it afterwards.

Eddie got on the cow issue, calling some friends to help out. Adam dug up the necessary material for flaming torches and silver and Michael slipped off somewhere, presumably to practice his dance moves. Then it was back into the van once more, and we drove to the warehouse, as that seemed like the place best set up for dealing with things without causing trouble elsewhere.

Then things went wrong when we got out of the van and a sudden wind picked up most of us and dumped us back at the junkyard, as apparently djinns are really petty. And when I say 'dumped' I mean some way up in the air so we all crashed into the ground. Elizabeth and me got to work magically repairing Arthur and Eddie until George showed up again to drive us there a second time. This time things went a little less dramatically and we all got inside.

Elizabeth, Arthur and me started the chant, Michael danced with the torches, Eddie and Adam stayed close at hand to deal with problems and apply the silver to the bottle when needed, and George handled the cow. Not the smoothest magical ritual we've ever done, and we almost caught fire a few times, but we got there. Michael ended up with tiny flames burning in his eyes, which I thought looked lovely, although other people seemed to find it unsettling. I'll have to find him some of my old dark glasses from before I got a proper handle on my human form.

Then we just had to clean up. The bottle went into the oubliette. George went on his way, and I asked him to keep in touch, since knowing a friendly antiques dealer could very well be useful. I butchered the cow, perhaps not very expertly as my training was in dismemberment, not so much this kind of thing, but it should keep us in burgers for quite a long time. We fired up the barbecue back at the junkyard, and while Adam seemed oddly less keen to be the grillmaster than usual, we all got a good meal.

Then we all sat down for a proper talk, the first chance we'd had since this all kicked off. Eddie talked about some of the strange experiences he'd had as a child. Michael told Eddie and Arthur about our time travel adventures, and Elizabeth told the story of how she became a witch. A lich. She's totally a lich. And I talked about growing up in a family of demons.

I think we're going to make a good team.

Wicker Valley, episode 28: Teamwork

We gathered at the junkyard again. There was a bit of trouble with the police after our antics to retrieve the lid of the djinn bottle, so Adam and Elizabeth went off to deal with that while the rest of us hit the books to try to work out what to do next. Michael suggested using the bottle lid as a focus to try to find the rest of the bottle, so I got out the map and candles.

Not the best scry I've ever done. I think all the time travel was causing me confusion between the way part of me thinks it should be done and all the things I wrote in my grimoire from a different timeline. Long story short, I knew roughly what area to look in, but I was going to need a new map. At least nothing caught fire this time.

Toby the definitely-not-a-gargoyle put in an appearance, and he was looking in a bad way. Apparently I was supposed to be training Michael in something. I asked for some guidance about exactly what I was supposed to be training him in, but didn't get much of a response. Hopefully he'll come back with some answers. In the mean time I offered him a hug because he really did look a mess. I didn't know creatures made of stone could get black eyes.

Meanwhile Eddie was showing off some serious research ability. He figured out we were dealing with a fire djinn, that our best option for hurting it was with holy things, and that djinns had a nasty habit of granting wishes in the worst possible way. A check of the police scanner (after a check to see if we actually had a police scanner) showed strange goings-on involving a swarm of insects at a farm not too far from the area I'd picked up from the bottle lid. We were definitely going to have to check that out.

First we needed transport though. Adam had taken Vanessa the bat-van. Arthur had a car, but it was still parked at the Wicker Stop. Of course I had a way of getting to it, but not exactly a subtle one. But Eddie and Arthur had both just seen me do a scrying ritual, so what was the point of pretending to be normal? I put my arms around Arthur, and teleported us both to the Wicker Stop. The swirl of wings was back to being leathery, not feathery. Maybe that was just a glitch and I hit a seagull mid-teleport last time?

Anyway, Arthur had to sit down for a moment after his first teleport, but soon had us back to the junkyard. Michael had been through Adam's costume cupboard, a thing he has now, and found a bunch of backpack style supersoakers labelled with little crosses. I don't know what happened to cause this timeline's Adam to have that much holy water on standby, but it was probably going to be very useful here.

We tooled up. Overalls as a bit of protection from bugs and general dirt, which had the added bonus of making us look a bit like the ghostbusters. Although Halloween was some time ago now, so perhaps wandering around in costumes would look a little weird? What time of year was it anyway? With all the time travel, I'd completely lost track. I was happy enough with my regular weapons, and Michael was sticking with his cricket bat for this one, but the other two brought out guns! Arthur had a sniper rifle and Eddie had a 9mm? How on earth had they managed that? I'd had to go on a course just to get my shotgun license. Not that I was complaining. With Adam and Elizabeth still tied up dealing with the police we were down quite a lot of firepower.

We got back in Arthur's car and drove out to the farm where things were happening. Ranger Tom was there, and was clearly pleased to see us, which was quite a relief. The farmer was furious though, so I went to have a chat with him using my best soothing voice to calm him down. While I defused the situation the others went to check out a mysterious cloud of smoke. When they got back, Michael looked OK but the others were a bit green. They'd found a homeless person who'd wished that he had wheels. It hadn't gone well for him, and he'd died when his new engine stopped firing. From what we were hearing from the police, he wasn't the only one in a bad way.

We were going to have to stop this before anyone else got hurt. Eddie, again proving himself absolutely invaluable, figured out straight away where the cloud of scarabs were heading. Arthur drove us to the old warehouse district where we'd previously dealt with the tooth monsters. Scarabs were crowding on the roof, and I teleported myself and Eddie up there to have a look around and see if we could deal with them. I saw nothing, as I was far too distracted by scarabs trying to bite me.

Arthur got himself set up with his rifle, and the rest of us snuck in around the back. Cultists. Not really surprising, as Michael had a strong hunch that's what we were going to find. Michael managed to surprise one of them and knock him out. Unfortunately I don't think Arthur has had proper training with his rifle yet, as his first shot hit me. Fortunately I'd already armoured up by then, so it was time to pop the claws and get down to business.

Absolute chaos, with people hiding, and a sudden cloud of black powder which Michael went running into, and more missed shots. I'd managed to rake one of the cultists pretty badly, but then I remembered the conversation we'd had right before we went in. Top priority was finding the djinn bottle. So I spoke to the cultist I'd just clawed, putting every bit of temptation I could muster into my voice, and told him if he wanted to live, he should help me find the bottle.

I might have overdone it a bit. I seemed to have a new best friend. But that's exactly what we needed right then. He gave me his magic stone that let him see in the dark and I followed Michael into the black cloud to try to retrieve the bottle. With what I can only call some really excellent teamwork, we took down the leader, dispersed the dark cloud, scared off the remaining cultists, and then realised that we hadn't actually found the djinn yet, the leader had teleported away with the bottle, and we were still surrounded by very angry scarabs.

Wicker Valley, episode 27: Back to the Present

We left the persuasion to Michael. He was the best at it, and I was getting terrified of turning completely into a spider. And he did it, and with some effort we all came back to the present day.

I was back in the Wicker Stop, in the basket room, in the middle of teaching a class. Could have been worse. Weaving felt very natural at that point, and I kept on top of any urge to eat flies. I got through the class without doing anything weird, and then it was time to figure out what state the world was in now.

I no longer owned the Wicker Stop, although I did seem to be a manager now, so that wasn't too bad. And Michael was still working there, although he seemed to just be bussing tables now, and there was a new guy, Eddie. I'd seen his face around town maybe a couple of times, and Michael seemed to know him.

Adam showed up on the team Whatsapp group saying that he had an apprentice now, to which the only thing I could say was 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣. We arranged to all meet up for coffee the next morning and catch up. It had been a long day.

Eddie brought us our coffees in the morning. Adam had brought his apprentice Arthur along with him. With both of them hanging around it was hard to properly talk about anything, although I did suggest that next time my brother suggested going on 'holiday' we should all say no. We did manage to establish that Adam was somehow still working for the Foundation, hence the sudden arrival of Arthur, and that life had turned out rather differently for Robin, who'd disappeared when he left the oubliette and was now on some kind of motorcycle tour of Britain. Michael was back living in his old place with his housemates and no longer had a car. Elizabeth...she was still Elizabeth.

Then the Whisper Sisters walked in.

Michael hugged them, and it was all I could do not to join in. I had to settle for making sure they were well supplied with coffee and scones. I never thought I'd be so happy to see them.

No time for getting properly settled back in though, as there was trouble out at the motorway services. We piled into Vanessa, which was getting increasingly crowded with six of us in there, as it was becoming rapidly apparent that Eddie in this timeline knew a lot more about goings on in Wicker Valley. At least Arthur seemed a bit more impressed with the interior of Vanessa than he had done with us. I guess we're not quite the professional outfit he was expecting from the Foundation.

I ordered KFC on the way, because if we were going to visit the services we might as well enjoy ourselves. While I picked up popcorn chicken for everyone, the local police officer escorted some of the group in to see the body. Between that, the CCTV, and Adam's extensive knowledge of such things, it seemed pretty certain we were dealing with a djinn. Not that I could pay any attention to that though, as something was wrong with Michael.

He'd had another one of his visions, and needed to get back to town urgently to check on his brother. Urgent in an 'ask me to teleport him there' kind of way. I think Elizabeth was telling Eddie and Arthur something about the hotel as we got out of the van, but I could deal with her weird shipping later. Michael needed me. And much to my relief, I got us both into his mum's back garden without anything going amiss.

Something was different though. I was used to the swirl of my wings each time I teleported, but my wings were different. Instead of being leathery, they were feathery.

By the time I'd got myself sorted out after that surprise, Michael had confirmed that his brother was fine, but he was still worried. So I built a ward around the house. Not a great one, given that I was short of time and feeling downright weird about the feathers, but I did manage to make it resistant to djinn, fairies and demons, while leaving my usual backdoor in case I needed to get in or out.

Then it was back to business. Causing distractions while retrieving bits of djinn bottle.

Wicker Valley, episode 26: Preventing A War

We regrouped at the junk yard for a sit down and a coffee, and to check on the current state of the various factions now the ward was down. Michael had a chat with the fae via his communication stone, and managed to convince them not to invade just now. Adam called James at the Foundation, with similar results. We had some breathing room, but not much.

I found myself checking for large open areas outside of town, just in case there did end up having to be a massive battle, in the hope that they could at least not have it on the Wicker Valley high street. Elizabeth said something about a scene in a movie, and I thought she meant the Battle of Five Armies from The Hobbit, but apparently it was something from Twilight. I wouldn't know. Some things are too much even for a demon.

After some careful consideration, and making sure that Robin was OK and well supplied with biscuits, we concluded that it would be a good idea if Agnes and Elsa were to retire to the south of France. A lot of people wanted Agnes dead, and for all we'd been through recently, I don't think any of us wanted that. She's still my aunt, after all.

So we met up with Mary for a nice friendly chat and to talk about what was going to happen next. We had some answers now. Mary was figuring out all the things she'd forgotten because of Agnes draining her, and it was now pretty clear that she was the one who'd called for a chosen one, resulting in the current state of Michael and me.

Mary had a less France-based suggestion though. One that would resolve our current problems, most of which were a result of Agnes' abnormally long lifespan. She could send us back into the past again, to undo repairing her heart.

We really didn't like that. Yet another death didn't sit right, especially one that we could - and did - prevent. But we had another idea. How about if instead of killing her, we did something to protect her from Agnes' magic, so that both of them would live out their natural lifespans?

It's amazing, just how big rats look when you're a spider, even when you're quite a big spider. It took me a while to get all my legs sorted out too, and as for producing silk, that was just downright weird. Still, we had a job to do, and that started with finding our way through a house full of magic doors based on a map that one of us had stored in their memory, since we couldn't bring anything back.

After some rather embarrassing efforts at silk production, or butt string as we all ended up calling it, we got out into the garden. Elizabeth located the herbs we needed, and having finally got my spinnarets under control, I wove them together into a charm. Then we had to find Mary, and convince her of what was going on, who we were, and so forth, which was all rather complicated, although simplified considerably when it turned out Mary could use magic to speak to rats.

It was looking like it might work. Just so long as we all managed to hold onto our own minds. I was getting dangerously close to fully embracing spiderhood.

Halcyon Calling, Episode 13: All Fall Down

Suddenly everything went quiet, and the video feeds in the control room changed to all show the same thing. It was Custodian Op'a'an. She wanted a report. I couldn't help there. It had to be Gary, pretending to still be a Peacekeeper, Billy, doing illusions to make things look normal, and Balae reading the consoles to feed them the info they needed to make it convincing. Although I was useful when Balae needed a console smashed up. Time to let the badger rage out again.

Op'a'an was dealt with for the moment and we needed to get down to the reactor room. There was an access tunnel, but it was awful. All mucusy on the inside, and pulsating slightly. I was doing OK until we came to the vertical drop though. I probably could have climbed down by myself, but after the disaster at the tower block I was a bit scared. I asked Carmilla if she could do the thing with the webs again, and she said yes, but she could only take one person that way, and of course that would have to be Gary. Balae could float herself down, and Billy had his climbing gear. So we ended up swapping roles, and Billy carried me. I think that made him appreciate all the times I carried him. Although I don't think it was as hard for me to carry him as the other way round.

We all got down in one piece, but there were a bunch of Peacekeepers in the reactor room, including one of those really big ones. Carmilla wanted to know if we were going in quiet or loud. I guess she didn't know we have our way of doing things. Quiet, until we have to get loud.

Balae went in first, after making herself very tiny, and then I couldn't see what she was doing but it was like there was an invisible angry cat in the room with things getting knocked over all over the place. Billy went in, and found himself face to face with the massive Peacekeeper, but I was ready for it and charged in to knock him out of the way before his fist could connect. It felt good to just let go for a little while.

Then the bombs were set, and I was ready to go and look in the secret room. Except Carmilla wasn't. I didn't know how we were going to convince her, but Balae had it all figured out. She told Carmilla everything, about the shadow, and what Harold Winfield and everyone else had done to stop it, and how the answer might be in that room. She had trouble believing it, but me and Billy told her it was all true, and she could trust Balae. Then Balae had some more to say. Stuff she'd figured out for herself, about how Faustus still had his powers, and how that meant he was in league with the shadow. And Carmilla believed that. It all made sense. That was why he wanted us to blow up this factory. Nothing about stopping the Asterions, or protecting people. He just wanted to take away our only shot at stopping the shadow.

For the first time I actually felt sorry for Carmilla. She ripped off that demon mask she was wearing, which must have reminded her of Faustus. And if that wasn't bad enough, her spider face opened up a bit, and Billy freaked out and ran away. I tried to warn him, but it wasn't enough. So now she was heartbroken on top of everything else. And she was looking at me.

So I did something I never thought I'd do, and gave her hug, while telling her that I had thought I was going to have to rip her face off for hurting Billy but it turned out it was the other way around. And she hugged me back, and I think she called me 'sister', which was a bit weird, but she seemed a bit happier. Enough to come with us down to the secret room anyway.

Billy was the first down, and Carmilla was the last, which seemed like the best way to handle it at that point. Carmilla lost her grip on the way down, but I managed to catch her. Then we had a look around, and the room was full of giant brains. They had to be running simulations, because every so often one would flash up a notifaction saying 'Simulation Terminated: Solution Requires Causality.' I didn't know what that meant, but Balae did, and together we worked it out.

The Asterions didn't know one specific thing about the shadow, and that was that the reason Harold Winfield and everyone had been able to change reality was because of the shadow making them stronger. And if they'd waited longer, and fought for longer, they would have got strong enough to change reality even more, and got rid of the shadow forever.

And the problem with that was that it had made all of them kind of messed up. I could see that was hitting the others really hard, and I was afraid they were all about to give up on the spot. Except that wasn't how I saw it. I reminded them that we'd all come in here knowing we might die, and we'd prepared for that. At least, I had, and when I said that I could see that I wasn't the only one. And we all knew that even if we didn't die, the shadow was coming and we were all going to die anyway. But now we actually had hope. There was a way to defeat the shadow, and it wasn't going to be easy, and it certainly wasn't going to be fun, but we knew we could do it. We could be heroes.

And I guess neither of my friends wanted to be heroes the way I did, but then they didn't start out where I did. What mattered is that they were still with me. And the five of us got out of there, and once we were clear of the factory, all five of us put our hands on the detonator and we pressed it together.

And then I went home and gave Tiffany her Peter Rabbit book back.

Since then we've all become a bit famous. There wasn't much government left once the Asterions left, so Billy and his dad are sort of leading while things get put back together. Balae doesn't have to hide being an alien any more, and a lot more space whales have shown up. It seems like everyone at the Gull is looking after one of them now. Carmilla didn't get back together with Billy, which is probably a good thing. I still see her quite often, but we don't really have much in common, besides our past.

I convinced Tiffany to introduce me to her parents, and I think they've kind of made me her unofficial big sister. So I've been spending some time with them. Besides that, I seem to be spending most of my time training. There's a big fight coming when the shadow arrives and I've got to be ready.

After that, I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know what I'll remember, or if I'll even still be me. But if I can keep hold of this journal at least I'll know that I wasn't a guard dog, or a victim, or a troubled youth. I was a hero.

Halcyon Calling, Episode 12: Disco

I was pretty nervous arriving at the disco. I was still pretty sore from the falls earlier, and now I was going to be in a room full of people I didn't know. It's a good thing I arrived with Balae. I don't know if I could have gone in otherwise. I heard some people say some mean things, like asking why there was a man in a dress. But there were people saying nice things about me too, and Balae looked really cute in her bow tie, so I held on tight and we went in.

Billy and Carmilla were already there. Carmilla looked amazing, of course. They'd got a table with Sanjit and Hugo, and I asked Balae not to leave me alone with Hugo. I'm not sure she understood why. Turns out Sanjit is smarter than he looks. He'd figured out that Balae is an extra-terrestrial, even though she's done really well at pretending to be human and even managed to fool an Asterion. She talked some more about classic cars, and I didn't understand a lot of it, except for the part about how you shouldn't dissect a horse, but it was fun.

Carmilla wanted to go to the loos, so I had to explain to Balae that the three of us had to go together, and it was because we were going to have a conversation there. Except we got stopped on the way by the headteacher, Dr Hart, who was going on about how Carmilla and me weren't students and that meant the insurance was invalid. I didn't think that was a problem because Billy and Balae invited us, but he seemed really worried and I couldn't let him kick us out. So I told him that I was there to be emotional support for Balae because she'd never been to a disco before, and that he should put us on the insurance as staff.

That seemed to be enough to calm him down, and he said something about his daughter and then left. Carmilla figured out that his daughter was Claire, who was being mean to Billy earlier. She said she was going to do something about it. I was a bit worried she might be going to eat her, but Balae was pretty sure she wasn't. All the same I did take Balae to the loos once Carmilla went off after Claire.

I don't know what Carmilla wanted to talk about, but I told Balae that we were establishing an alibi. She got that straight away. All those James Bond books have really paid off. I didn't have a briefcase, but I did have my clutch bag. We couldn't have a conversation about the boys we came with, since we were there with each other, but I got out my makeup so we could talk about that. Quite loudly, so that the other girls would hear and everyone would know that's where we were while Carmilla was doing whatever she was doing.

Except somehow we did end up talking about boys, because I told Balae all about that time in the pub when Hugo kept pointing all the things about me that make me look weird, and how that really upset me. She'd missed it all because she was getting drinks at the time. I felt a bit better after saying all that, and Balae told me she didn't think I look weird, but then Carmilla came back saying that Claire had had to go home and we should go and dance.

Carmilla was an amazing dancer, of course. I don't think I danced very well. I was a bit scared of accidentally punching someone, and I was a bit tired, and I wasn't used to wearing high heels. After a bit I went to have a sit down and drink some water. Sanjit had sneaked some vodka in but I didn't bother because there was no point.

Then Hugo came over and sat down next to me, and I looked for Balae but she was on the dance floor having fun, and I didn't want to interrupt. I figured I'd just have to put up with him for a bit. He actually apologised for upsetting me in the pub, which was nice. Then he said I was beautiful, and gave me a corsage, so I guess Billy was right and he does like me. And I didn't really know what to think about that, but it was a really nice white rose, and nobody's ever given me flowers before. So I said that I hoped his hand was OK, and he said it was and I hadn't broken it.

I kind of wished I hadn't said that, because I think he was going to leave, but after that he changed his mind and asked me to dance. And there was no way I was going to dance with just him, so I said we could go and dance with Balae and Carmilla, and then I had to stop him taking my hand on the way to the dance floor. But then I was back dancing with Balae, and I didn't care what Hugo or Carmilla or anyone else was doing because we were having fun.

It wasn't until after I got home that I realised I'd hardly seen Billy all evening. I expected him to be showing off Carmilla all evening.

The next morning my feet were a bit sore but the rest of me was feeling better. It wasn't the 48 hours the doctor had told me I should rest for, but I didn't have time for that. Today was the day we were going to attack the Asterion factory. I thought I should leave a note for Tiffany, just in case I didn't come back, but she was watching the door and saw me coming, and opened the door before I could leave.

I couldn't exactly tell her what I was doing, and I didn't know how to explain to a four year old that I might get killed and never come back. I tried, but she wasn't having it. She wanted me to promise I'd come back. And I didn't want to do that, because I didn't want to lie to her. And then she went and got her copy of Peter Rabbit, and gave it to me, and said I had to come back to bring it back. I didn't want to, but I couldn't say no either.

So if you're reading this because I'm dead, it would be nice if someone gave her her book back.

I met up with the others. Carmilla had brought the AV, Splinters had given us the semtex, and Billy had brought Gary, Ygirel's former host, to pretend to be a Peacekeeper. Getting into the place was easy enough. The Asterions didn't realise Gary wasn't Ygirel any more and we were soon on our way to the holding cells. Except we needed to be in the control room. We'd planned how we were going to hijack the transport vehicle. The signal to start was when I headbutted one of the guards, and the others took out the rest while I threw him over the side.

There was a hairy moment getting into the control room, when Gary almost lost his nerve, and we did get in but with a huge number of Peacekeepers. No way we could fight them all. But Balae spotted some kind of cable and used it to set off an alarm, and Billy made some illusions to hide us while we got into cover while the Asterions all ran around panicking.