It was a good Christmas. The ball was fun. After the ball was more fun, especially for someone else who decided to finally wear the goggles. I was awoken by Ohm in the late afternoon, he said we were needed at the autumn court theatre. Apparently the lady of autumn sorrows has been killed. As we head over to meet the others I am filled with mixed emotions. On one hand I am relieved that this creature of malice has finally been judged and her sentence handed down. This is the first step in Thomas's recovery, the removal of the cancer. On the other hand I feel for Thomas. While his love for this wraith was due to the emotional scarring, to him it was still love. This will still be the proverbial dagger through the heart and he will be in pain, but that which does not kill us only makes us stronger. Eventually the pain will subside and he will use the memory of it to drive him forward. I sense he will reclaim his true calling and he will wear the cassock once more. The pain will remind him of the many who will suffer much more if we do not complete our mission. He will remember first and foremost he is the lord's shepard and one of the four. With help he will become The Padre once again.
We arrive on the scene. Danno is present via Brian and has already done a thorough investigation. He will not be able to use his insight into death until he can get here in the person as soon as the sun sets. Ohm and I do our various magical investigations and find nothing. Whoever did this was extremely good at what they do, they left nothing. Even looking back to the time of the death didn't reveal anything, just a haze. Soon Kraven showed up in his official capacity. His investigation revealed the same as ours, nothing. As we waited for Danno to show so he could "talk" to the deceased we talked over who the possible suspects could be. Unfortunately the list was long. Just about any changeling would have taken the chance, the winter court was high on that list. The other high up on the list suspect was Janus. I tuned out most of the discussion of possible suspects, I was more concerned about Thomas. He was doing a remarkable job of controlling his emotions all though it was only a matter of time before the pressure cooker reached it's limit. Eventually Danno showed up and tried his death trick. He wasn't able to talk to her, he needed the power of a third mote. He did get a vision of fire, shadow and fear. It did kinda fit the profile of Janus. We had exhausted our abilities and still didn't have an answer as to who did this. We all agreed that there wasn't anything more we could do here. Thomas needed a drink and we needed to plan our next move so we headed to the bar.
We had a few things to check out. We finally decided on checking out a hit from the spider. Some reports of strange creatures in the woods and some missing people down in Mexico. A little warmth would do some of us good.
An hour later we step out from some woods at the edge of this little farming village in northeast Mexico, not that far from the border. We take a short walk towards the center of the town looking for a bar. Seems to always be a good source of information. Red senses that their is something in the woods and it has claimed the woods as it's territory. He didn't pick up any scents of other Uratha so we weren't sure what was in there just yet. We continue onto the bar. As usual we get some strange looks as we walk in. Ohm listens in on the various conversations. Seems to be a general feeling of people wanting to leave this place and head on over to the big city. Thomas pretends to be a reporter and tries talking to one group of people. They confirm that a few people have gone missing in t he past few days. They don't know much else and keep referring us to the police. Not getting much from here so we decide to go check the woods.
As we investigate the woods Red informs us that the gauntlet is weaker here. Ohm detects 3 lifeforms and I determine they are of animal level intelligence. Red finally catches a glimpse of something that is bipedal but kinda looks like a rat. He remembers hearing something about these rat like things that live in the shadow and eat away the gauntlet. Once they get a nice soft spot they come through and take over hosts. Probably explains our missing people. I peer through the gauntlet where we are standing and see at least a hundred of these things waiting on the other side. Not really sure what we are going to do. But there are a few already through and Thomas needs to hit something so we decide Red will head into the center and drag a couple back towards us. A few minutes later he comes running towards us with one attached to his leg and the other on his heels. We were all ready and with the sniper rifle, my dagger and Ohm's sword we dispatch of the two real quick. Unfortunately Thomas didn't get a chance to hit one but we remind him there are a hundred more to take down.
Thomas goes back to town to get a drink. Ohm and Red go borrow a car to drive to the big city and try to find any traces of werewolves in the area. Danno and I head into the forest to the locus. I'm going to try to taint it, make those who feed from it a little sick. Hopefully this will get the rat things to leave. A few step on over to curious as to what I am doing. I convince them to step back and they comply. We hang out for a bit to make sure it worked and then go get some drinks ourselves. Few hours later Ohm and Red show up. They found some traces of some wolves but they have been gone for awhile. Still don't have our army but we decide we might as well try something and head back to the forest to try to capture one of the rat things and try to get some information out of it. I forcibly call one of the rat things to me and it comes but brings several of his friends. I am able to command that one to stay in place while the rest attack. They seem to fight better in numbers. When we fought the two earlier they went down with out much of an effort but now that we were facing 10 they were beating on us pretty good. These things even apparently had the ability to heal themselves pretty well and kept getting back up after we dropped them. We held out though in the end. Taking several hard hits and even poor Thomas went down for the count but he did a damn good job of holding off two on his own. A few got away as they side stepped back into the shadow. Red did not recall these things normally being able to heal and they shouldn't be able to side step that quickly either. Something else was here helping them and I was going to try to get this rat thing to tell us.
Talking to the rat thing was quite difficult as it barely possessed an intelligence above that of an animal. I did manage to get out of it that they have been here for about 3 moons and that the forest called them here. The 3 moons was quite interesting as that would put the time to Halloween. Halloween was a normally occurring weakness in the gauntlet but it was also the day the motes were released. Could be a coincidence but still important. I was also able to determine that the "forest" was something that resided on the shadow side and was apparently pretty powerful and was most likely the entity giving them this extra power. With dawn fast approaching we decide that we should head back to Chicago and see if we can find out some things about this "forest". We also think that if Red can side step somewhere not in the middle of the rats that he can sneak about and get a look at this "forest" thing. We figure we can do this using the locus back in Chicago since it was very safe and I could try to portal us back to the Mexico locus while in the shadow. Theoretically this should be possible but I've never actually tried using magic in the shadow before. It was worth some testing anyways.
As the sun is rising Red and I head over to the bar. I want to run our plan by Kat. She is no stranger to the shadow and with her unique insight into awakened magic she will be a good resource. On our way we notice some hooded guy in black perched on a rooftop. It's our old friend Janus/Stephen who we will now refer to as Stanus to make it easier. It wants to have a talk and I inform it I rather kill it and be on my way instead. Stanus wants to know who killed the lady of amber sorrows. I tell it we are pretty sure it was you. It claims it didn't have anything to do with it. (suffice to say it is the word the knights who say nee can not say). I ask Stanus why it is asking us and it was hoping for a freebie (boy was it wrong) as it didn't want to pay the price of the leading information broker. It could only be talking about Dante. We trade a few jibes and Stanus finally leaves. We continue to the bar.
We start talking with Kat informing of what happened with these rat things and their being called by the "forest". The shaman is nearby and the talk of the "forest" peaks his interest and he joins us. He says he remembers mention of some ancient spirit called Ezukamada and is sometimes know as the "forest". He doesn't know much else about it other than it is old and powerful and probably bound to that location. I ask him if this thing would have a ban like most spirits and he said it would but he doesn't know what it is and there isn't any guarantee it would be useful. It is still worth a shot so we decide it's time to get some sleep and tonight we can hit the Palace library and do some research.
Cygin
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It feels wrong to be happy about another's creature demise regardless of how much you feel they deserved it. Perhaps happy is not the right word, more like relieved. Relieved that Thomas's lady will no longer have control over him. This has the potential to push him in either direction but at least it will bring a closure to this drama. I hope I can help push him in the right direction but I guess only time will tell. He will be hell bent on finding out who killed her and all though I have some information that would help him in that regards I will keep it secret. The others and I already feel he has lost focus and this will be another distraction. Janus is a prime suspect and we will keep it at that.
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