Vesta: No need to worry about the level of Spirit magic, it's not an issue on this one. That was just for the Umbral quest. Unfortunately I don't think I'll be able to run scenes during the week of the 23rd, as that is the week of Thanksgiving here in the States. And as much as I personally dislike that holiday, my family would probably be pretty annoyed if I tried to opt out of visiting them.
I can be available the 2nd-6th, or the 30th through the 3rd of Dec (the 4th is my brother's birthday.) The week of the 15th - 21st is probably out because that's both my roommate's birthday and my birthday (if you're thinking to yourself 'that's a lot of birthdays,' there's also one for my mom at the end of October,) and I would rather not try for October because I was hoping to run some Halloween stuff this month. Latest case scenario, we could wait until December and do like the 7th-11th. After that I think we may be getting too close to Christmas. If any of those weeks (2nd-6th of Nov, 30th - 3rd of Dec or 7th-11th of Dec) work better for you, let me know.
My second question is, is Alex likely to get pulled into this SL by either Elijah or Kiara? I know he doesn't know Kiara too well yet, but I'm not sure what his relationship is like with Elijah. If neither of them are good hooks, we could get Kalen in first and then have Alex drawn in that way. Sasha is actually going to get involved at some point, so maybe she can help too. I think once I have a sense of how best to hook him in, I can figure out where to place him in the story.
Ix: same question about scheduling for you. *g* Do any of the above alternate weeks work better for you?
Nim: I unfortunately don't have any availability on Saturdays or Sundays right now, as I don't get home on either of those days until late (like midnight my time, typically.) I can do Fridays, but that's still only one day so I will need at least some weekday availability from players. These are pretty involved scenes, so the more time we have the better, even if I shorten things to like one major scene. I can handle that either by spreading things out over most of the week (and having sessions be shorter) or by having a couple long nights. Does that work for you, or do you need for things to be on weekends only?
If weekends are a requirement, I can add you to the wait-list and see what comes up. There can potentially be up to 9 quests in this SL (realistically I will probably have some of them solved by NPCs) so possibly things may sync up better down the road. I am also considering the possibility of inviting other Storytellers to ST some of the quests, since I know my schedule doesn't work for everyone and this particular SL can be pretty easily split up that way. If there's much call for alternate STs, I can put out feelers and see what happens.
Jacqui and Heather: I have more things planned for both of you.
Once I figure out exactly what's going down in the next chapter, I will let you know which of you I think will work best in that scenario.