I woke up at 2 am to a vision of Kianna, lying dead and bleeding on the floor. I ran screaming into the hallway, and found most-everyone. Once I told them what I'd seen, half of us took off to her apartment. Barton broke down the door while trying to lockpick, and then got us up to her apartment. He broke open the door, and we found Kianna on the floor in her kitchenette, just as I had seen her. There is broken glass next to her. Tristain tried to help her, and Koda was looking at her astrally. Barton figured out that she was poisoned, and we called Dana to come over. Dana got there, and said it was blowfish toxin, but DocWagon came before the antidote did. DocWagon then rushed her off to the hospital. Tristain and Dargo went off to the hospital, while Dana, Koda, Barton and I stayed at the apartment. I was crying. The BMP showed up, and took us all in to the police station. They kept Barton on charges of evading police and disobeying orders by an officer, but let everyone else go, so A' drove the van to pick the three of us up. Tristain and Dargo tried to get Kianna's body back, and got told to go away, but at noon the next day, Tristain got a call from DocWagon saying "come ID the body" *(Melody cries until she falls asleep, sleeps until she wakes, and cries again)xNdays* The party is all talking about what to do to me. They're calling me "Meleia"--they don't believe me! I'm Melody, just like I always was. Kianna saved me! Tom came in to talk to me, and brought me tea, but I was crying too much. He stayed with me, looking worried, until I drank some of his tea. Then he said "Given the way you are acting right now, I think we might want to call in a psychiatrist" < suddenly not crying> < very strongly> **"No!"** (They can't. A psychiatrist would want me to pretend I wasn't Melody, or might try pushing around in my head, or something, and it would hurt, and they might say I wasn't really... I *AM* Melody, no matter what they say, anyway, so I don't need to go to a psychiatrist. And Tom can't make me.) "This isn't helping Kianna any" "Kianna..." < back to crying> *(Melody cries until she falls asleep, sleeps until she wakes, and cries again)xNdays* Barton came in to my room, and I had a precog vision of him with a syringe. He tried to inject me with a syringe full of sedative. Since I knew it was coming, I tried to resist, but he grabbed my arm, kept me from hitting him, and injected me anyway. (There is an unconsious mind here. Everything is patterned, more so than normal people's mind are. There is some fur wrapped around some of the strings, holding them out of shape. This is some kind of mind-control spell. Koda backed out, and took a 90 minute nap. When she came back, she turned off all the lights, decorated the room with bat pictures and put a stuffed bat in her arms. She bounced off the antelope horn and rested for 20 minutes. Then, she forced her way in) The sequence of mind control spells * Melody is sustaining one on herself * I want to be Melody *I want to be Kianna's best friend *I want to maintain this spell *as a result of this, she is maintaining this wall she didn't build, and the shell outside is a result of the "want to be Melody" spell* Koda engaged the spell in Astral Combat, and takes it apart so that, Indiana Jones style, the antlers are falling all over the place, and there is an antler ball rolling after her. Koda escapes.) An hour later, Koda woke up and explained what happened, that things would be kinda traumatic for A'leia, etc. Four hours after Barton injected me with the sedative, I woke up with a monster headache and able to think clearly for the first time in weeks. I'd be angry at Kianna, but I miss her too much. Why did she think that was the right answer? *"Ow"* A' gathers people together and tries to get people to go over the Stuff we have: * Fetishes * Sword of Ninja Summoning * Ring of Menk * Skull-headed Staff (dream) * silvertech mannatech * SK Notebooks * cyberzombies The People: * Tirs * Worm-headed horror in armor * Peter * Seder-Krupp * Menk/team of Menk * Lemuria * Shadowrun team/threadweavers The Tasks: * Dana's thread * HQ reinforcing * Satisfy things for the Blackhearts * Record clearing and upkeeping * Learn more about dreams and netherworld, enemy, metaplain, true element, what is Thera now? * Disciplines * Kianna's Funeral * Jobs $$$$$ I told the party a story about the party of adventurers who went off and defeated the worm-headed horrors, saved the world, and became Heros, and used my Talent, Emotion Song, for the first time to make them "enthusiastic". It seemed to work. Me, Dana, Jonathan and Tom packed for a week to go off to look at the Miskatonic University library. I looked through my closet, going "What was I thinking when I bought these clothes? The black is alright, but the neon... Maybe for Haloween or something." I packed up the black jumpsuit, put my armor in the van, and packed up long skirts (velvet and wool) and matching shirts. Researching: fetishes, sword, horror, lemuria,gain clue We stopped in the first rest stop on the Mass Pike, heading out towards the library. There was a gang of Hell's Angels in the Roy Rogers who came over to hasssle me. I used first impression on them to be "Impresssive" and they made fun of Dana, asking if she'd had too much coffee. She decked the one who was teasing her, and he passed out. The others started pulling knives and chains, and one said "You bitch!" to Dana. She picked me up, vaulted over the counter with me, as I used mimic voice, and tried to improvise ventriloquism: mimic voice to hear him calling from the far door We got to the park, bought tickets, and looked in the library. There was a guard there who requested that we leave, and explained that the "library" was actually a park office. Instead, Tom took us to the MITSFS building at MIT. I asked a MITSFS member to tell me about the library, Lovecraft, horrors, worm headed horrors. I try to lead them around to Adepts, Troubadors--no luck. I try to leave, and they don't, so I use repetoire to get a good horror story, and used Emotion Song:disturbed to try and get them to leave me alone. It worked on one, but not on the other, who just wandered off looking as if I'd grown a third eye or something. I wander off to find Tom and Dana. Tom asked me if I'd mind charming an 80 year old man into letting us into the restricted section of the library. I agreed, but the Skinner was not in evidence, so Tom checked out some books, and we went back to HQ. (Tristain tried to follow the red ring's thread through the metaplanes. A man in a tri-cornered hat with an old-style musket came out from behind a tree after shooting twice and missing. "Strange place to go walking alone, redcoat" <looks down and discovers that he is wearing a Brit redcoat uniform&rt <points out that the American is impinging on his freedom&rt goes on to where he is in a knot in the thread, escape artist, continues to another right-hand turn into reality, where he finds Menk. Ritual space here. Tristain bows, and Menk mental blows. Tristain runs away.) (The party got attacked by an astral Mage, but Jonathan killed them before anyone could do anything about it, and then the cops came, just after most of the party left) I was at home, resting and meditating when the cops slammed open my door. They seemed angry, and asked me "Is there anyone else in the building?" "I don't know" The quiet cop reached out and slapped me. "Hey!" "Where is he?" "Whom?" "A mage" I didn't answer, because "a mage" could be just about anyone... "A mage with a sword" "I don't know" Jonathan. I wonder what happened They hit me again... but I really didn't know, so they took me, Koda, and Tom down to the police station. On the other side of town, Dana and Tristain are trying to do crowd control around the orks, Dargo and Barton are shooting grenades in the window of the room where they think Mank is. They go to dinner We get questioned. I ID the sword-weilding mage as Jonathan "No, I don't know his last name, I've been fighting of amnesia--that's part of why I was meditating when you got there" "Do you know how to contact them?" "Um... the Oracle central computer should be able to" "Call them." I don't know why they wouldn't want to call themselves, but I called 1-800 Alpha-Prime "Oracle Corporaton. How may I direct your call" "Jonathan's cell phone, please." Suddenly, the police pulled the phone out of my hand, and said, "This is the Boston Metro Police. Connect us immediately" "connecting..." Dargo picks up the phone "J&D Pizzaria" "Mr Smith? Mr Jonathan Smith? This is the Boston Metro Police" (BMP) "Hold on a moment (into the phone) (to Jonathan) It's the cops. I think they want your head." (Dargo) "I don't really want to give them my head now..." (Jonathan) "I'm sorry, he's fleeing the country right now...he'll get back you in a hundred years"(Dargo) Dargo hung up All the players were rolling on the floor laughing at this point "I'm afraid that I've lost contact with that phone. Can I connect you to something else?" (Alpha) "This is the Boston Metro Police Department"(BMP) "This is the Oracle central phone system. Can I connect you to something?"(Alpha) "We have a warrant out for his arrest. We require the location of his cell phone"(BMP) "Okay. I'll get back to you" (Alpha) A' got back to them, but Dargo had, by that point, shashed the phone and thrown the bits into the river. The next morning, however, Jonathan walked in to the BMP office and says, "Hello, my name is Jonathan Smith, I heard you wanted to talk to me?" They held Jonathan for questioning, and during the night, everyone except Dargo is brought in. There are now warrants out for all the members of the Oracle Corporation (wanted for questioning). This is not good. Jonathan explained that he's a licensed parahunter, explains what happened, and manages to (between improvising First Impression:good guy and being a "cop" or the next best thing) impressed the policeman. I still don't know what happened, as nobody wants to talk about it where the BMP could be listening. They released the party, and I had Barton explain what had happened. Alpha Prime has a conference: "You all remember about the dreams, when you saw the chips that made people mages? This guy was a SINless nobody, and his death was reported several minutes before he was killed. This was a setup--the chip-mages from the dream pulled this guy off the street and stuck a chip in him." Tom spent the afternoon running around the conference room, marking things on boards about Nexus cosmology, other cosmology, trying to tie all these things together with Passions, Loa, Shamanic spirits --I have no idea what it is, but it looks interesting. I thought for a moment, and realized that I know a great deal about Passions and Catholic Saints, but no stories about Worm-head horrors except the party's I asked A' about how to tell people stories, and then ask him to get me an entertainers' license, and to help me find a place to buy clothes. He gave me an online catalogue and 10,000 nuyen I ordered 12 dresses [Aleia Passion Dresses], but they may not be delivered for a while, because just as I did, Alpha prime informed us that **Mank is leading the Orkish revolt out in the streets** *Here we go... eek!*