We rejoin the party as they realize (at Elven gunpoint) they aren't in Kansas anymore... in fact, they are probably in Ireland Tristain was rattling on nonsensically about Pirates and mist and France to the commander of the Elven legion. "You see?"
"You folks have had a more interesting trip than I had thought"
Tristian told them "It's very nice to meet you. We'd eventally like to make it back to the UCAS, but We are at your disposal, sir." "You're likely to be seeing me a lot for the next few days. My name is ____ Baltara. You are not formally under arrest (though if you'd like us to formally arrest you, that could be arranged.) For now you are being given the official status of "<sperethial word that sounds kinda like hero>" ... <blank stares from the party> er... Visiting Dignitaries... though that status is entirely fictional, and we will be happy to ignore it if you abuse that. " We get on a van, which runs on internal combustion (weird) and are taken to what looks like a youth hostel, which very much looks like it had youth in it until very recently. We're escorted into a room and told that we can wash up and rest a bit here... I told Tom and Tristian a story about "Well, it could have been worse... once, I was stuck in a van going 600 MPH..." and got some Karma from it. *We washed up, some people tried to wash clothes, and Koda lay down to sleep.* About noon, there is a knock on the door, which immediately opened. It's Baltara and 3 guys with drawn guns. "Time for you folks to get your hearing, such as it is" "What is our hearing on? "Let's see... Who the hell are you, what the hell are you doing here, how is our good friend in Boston doing, do you want to be applying for immigration visas, tourist visas, asylum, and should we treat you as an invading army or just illegal immigrants?" Koda: "We're going to get our show hearing, and then we're going to be killed" Baltara: "Yeah, that's about right" We talked for a second, and decided we wanted tourist visas, and that Tristian was going to be our designated negotiator. *We get back into the back of the van (no windows) and head somewhere. ~20 minutes later, the van stops, the doors open and there is Baltara. We are in an underground garage--cement and concrete, with sporatic lighting that is incandescent, except it appears to be hissing* Arlix: What year is it, anyway? Baltara: 2060, as far as I know. a: "Those are neat lamps..." b: "Yes, apparently some people find them... homey." *We head up the ramp, and ask whom we are meeting* "I think she wants to introduce yourself. She has kind-of a thing for grand entrances" * We go down an elevator, to a nice-but-industrial hallway. (still gas lamps). We start noticing most of the rooms have numbers, but some have names. Most are "flowername ballroom" or "flowername hall" and all the rooms are in the 500s. We stop in front of a room with the nameplate just past the door. There is a conference table with 10 chairs, and a bar at the back of the room.* "Have a seat folks, and I wouldn't go through these doors if I were you" *Baltara leaves, and we begin to putter about who is sitting where, and whether we should make someone sit at the head or foot, and which is which.* *An authorative voice comes from the back of the room.* "Sit Down Please" *There is an elven woman, of indeterminate age, wearing a nice suit though with an archaic feel to it, and a blood red rose pinned to her shoulder. She went over to the bar and poured a glass of green "wine" and offered us some. We refused.* "Welcome To Tir-na Nogth. I am a councellor to the high court. You might call me... councellor is probably closest... a professional diplomat, I suppose you could say a lawyer, civil servant, something equivalent to a minister or a secretary in older governments. My government needs to know who you are, and what you are doing here. There has been exidence presented from our intelligence network that you are loyal to Tir Tangire. I would be very surprised if that were the case. " "We are actually here by accident. I don't know how much you know about certain netherworld pirate communities, but we were ..." She walks out the back door, into what looks like it might have been a kitchen. There is something that sounds like chanting of some sort, and then a <tomp> She walks back in, without the green wine, and appears to be holding a beer. "Damnit, I tried to do the nice, calm diplomat thing, but I don't have time for this, and I don't think you do, either. I am at the bottum rung of the highest ladder of elven society. This is a society ruled by people older than everyone at this table put together. I burned a hell of a lot of favors getting this interview, and this is going to be my chance. And, it's going to be your chance, because standing orders are to shoot you all on sight. If that means we have to wait a little longer to fulfil some old prophecies, fine. I do not think you are getting as good a deal as you think you are from Tir Tangire, and if you can offer me evidence that you are no longer working for them, perhaps we can work something out." "You were meeting with one of their ambassadors. He's a fraud. No, not that kind of fraud. He does, in fact work for Tir Tangiere. He runs around claiming to be a sage still, yes? He wouldn't know a thread if he sat on one" <Dana starts laughing> "Something funny? " -- "I'm sitting on one." <pause> "A thread." We can offer you status as <same word> I ask her (in Sperethial) what that word means. "In English please". She is searching for a good translation. Tristain: "Licensed Private Hero"? "Yes, I like that!" I wish they'd given me a white board in here. I was supposed to be magically interrogating you and then having you killed, not analyzing a complex What I expect to get out of this... let's start more simply. What I expect my nation to get out of this (and do not forget I am a patriot)? Would it be too cliche to say World Domination? My nation is entirely unconcerned with the other races. We are not suggesting genocide, or that you all move to the moon. What we can offer you is access to the fragments of prophesy we've seen, and ... membership in society? Like a green card to our society. We know your public history. <Arlix shifts to a bright red suit.> "It appears that Tir Tangire has some of your property. Some of it is... priceless? yes? I would say that recovering that, in a suitably dramatic method, would be a good stap toward proving you aren't their spies. The biggest thing we can offer you is... you are possibly the dreamers. You had dreams, and you aren't anymore. We can help you find a way to dream again. The nation of Tir Na Nogth does not endorse terrorism and grand larceny. Personally? sure, whatever." **Someone asked her if she knew how the Sedar-Krupp people found us, and what happened there** Some 5, 10 years ago, there was going to be a demonstration. Sedar-Krupp thought they had rediscovered threadweaving, and were going to do some demonstrations and summon the dreamers of the 4th age. All of a sudden, one of their testing centers gets blown up, and then the building explodes. All they can find out about it is this one thread running into the netherworld. All their secret warriors were in the building, so they hired some and found out that the people responsable would be on a beach in France at the time. Koda: "They summoned us on a typo!" Talshara: "Something like that" We can offer to give you some assistance in reconnecting to the 4th age, as much of a clue as we have about the prophecies... Training as adepts? We can see what we can do about ghostmasters, or ... maybe. There are some other potential dreamers, but I think all of you are going to end up on one side. It's more a matter of who is on your side... The great enemy is coming back, the scourge is beginning much earlier, at the latest we'd need caers built in 20 years. If I leave this room without your heads, or an interrogation report, I'll be on the other side of this table soon. What I want from you? Well, it'd be nice to have you say "we're not really working for Tir Taingire, they were the only people who would give us the time of day, we needed help, but they've been screwing us over, so we want a new partner. "What deal did you have with Boston" "Adept training and almost no information for us, and we do a few "errands" for them. " "I'd be surprised if they could actually offer you training. There are less than 200 adepts on the surface of the earth today." I don't actually need Interrogation Reports from you. I called in a few favors and already have them written up. What I can offer you is a ... patron in the Tir-na-nogth government. I understand that you are Shadowrunners, so maybe I can offer you some thing in that vein, and I can look into Adept training--which is hard, but I don't think there's anyone else on Earth who can offer you a better chance. There is a war brewing among the Great Dragons. I plan to be very far away. It seems likely that you folks will get involved. Lothair is very pissed... What I get out of this is the prestige of being associated with you, and eventually, when you are presented at court, the prestige of being Right. We can offer you protected residential space in Boston... Me: Perhaps I missed it, but what is your name? Her: At court I am most often called Talshara. We ask her to go out of the room, and discuss briefly. Everyone but Jonathan seems to be okay with taking her deal, Jonathan is not willing to negotiate with people on threat of his life. Arlix came back in from the kitchen. "We only have to make sure we are not allied with Tir Taingire. We are to leave three drops each of our blood, mixed, in a vial. If we get to neutral territory and don't immediately run to the Tir Tangerines, they'll send us back the vial." We invited her back in. "I want to make what I told him clear to you. I'm not threatening to have you killed. You were on your way from that beach to a rather unpleasant prison, to the headsman's block. I jumped in the way. However, I'm not willing to help people who are going to turn on me. If you can establish yourself as a neutral force of shadow warriors (and you're pretty close to that already) I'll mail back the link. If you've established that you are independant, Tir Tangiere won't want you anymore. Take out a classified ad in the London Times. Address it Crimson Spire: -XT There is a historical location called the Crimson Spire--the fortress of dream. There are people whose jobs are to scan the classified ads of every daily paper on the globe. I hate for them to be bored... She goes into the kitchen, water is running, and comes back with a knife and the bottle. "I think you're supposed to use a wine bottle for something like this, but, this is what I've got" Tom tries to cut himself and fails to slice across his hand, and can't seem to cut himself. "Oh, did you drink that?" She describes that it is a potion that essentially gives you more hit points. (mentions things like blood of dragons, etc) We put our three drops of blood into the bottle, she pours three drops of the green stuff into the bottle, labels it "Do Not Drink" and puts it in the fridge. We are handed over to the warders, put in a seaplane, and many hours later we are hovering over the water. "We can't land here, these are UCAS waters." "We're going to get as close as we can, and drop you off in the raft. " I jump off "Always wanted to learn to fly" . We end up on the beach, where, surprisingly, nobody is waiting. Koda and I pull the boat in, as Tom goes up to look at the sign. "Where are we?" "Dunwich Public Beach" Tom appears very disturbed... "Have you ever heard of H.P. Lovecraft?" Tristian: "No" Tom: blah blah blah Tristian: "There is something in a fiction book called the Dunwich Horror. Okay, let's just leave... We don't want to stay here anyway." Dargo and I drag off the raft a ways and deflate it a bit, There are people all who seem to look alike... weird. We walk down the road, until we get to a gate labelled "Miskatonic University". Tom is freaking, and he and Tristian try to explain to me about these stories, but I'm really not getting it. There is a whole escapade with Arlix turning into one of the all identical little-old men, and Tom choking it, but actually choking the man who opened the door. We apologised, and walked to the bus station. We get on a bus with a huge black ork driving. We're the only ones on the bus. We get to Harvard Square with no problems. "Yay! Home!... where's my apartment? I know I have one..." We decide to go to a hotel, and figure out what to do...