roll credits [attn: L'Ultimo Giorno peeps]

[errin]

[since this is now a couple days old, i'm just gonna power through a quickie recap-y thing for Sunday night's madness. if anyone would like to post in details of something or other, by all means, go for it!]

---

Sunday, 1/19/2014

Sunday night, a Chorister, a Verbena, a Hermetic and a Euthanatos enter a home near Aspen, CO. It sounds like the beginning of a joke, but there is nothing funny about what happens inside that mansion. Shots are fired, magic crackles through the air. Blood is spilled, and not all of that belonging to bad people.

When the chaos of combat ceases, three bodies litter Joshua Keller's screening room: Lucia Montanari, Joshua Keller himself, and some poor fool who was probably in the wrong place at the wrong time when someone found them and twisted them into something Other. All three have been freed from their misery and madness.

Kalen and Sid are covered in their own blood, but there are no wounds to match the drying wetness in their tattered clothes.

In the end, all that remains is to find the film. The Initiates take on that task while the Disciples, more able-bodied or more experienced with such matters, deal with the bodies and the bloodshed. Sid and Kalen split up in hopes of making quick work of their search. The mundane alarm system was tripped, and they don't have much time.

When the film is found, and hopefully it is found, the Mages need to decide what to do with it. Sid's vote, if she's even asked, is to destroy it by whatever means necessary so that no one will ever stumble across it again.

There's still the matter of whether destroying those three anchors will free Trent and Shoshannah from Thakinyan's attempts at possession, but first, four Mages have to get the hell out of Dodge.

[Samael]

[[Minor correction to Niko's post: Sid and Kalen were not bloody, unless they felt the need to roll around in dead filmmaker. The attacks that damaged them essentially drained their life forces, as opposed to causing physical damage. That, along with many other things, should have been made clearer in the scene and I apologize for that.]]

The home near Aspen that the four mages enter, carrying dark deeds in their mind toward a bright purpose, has a history of scandal. The home was built in 1994 by Fred Baron, the famous trial lawyer who served as John Edwards' campaign manager during his 2008 presidential run. The French country-style estate was designed and created by celebrated architect Robert A.M. Stern and is known in popular media as the hideaway for Edwards' mistress, Rielle Hunter, in 2008. That same year, Baron passed away and the house sat on the open market until 2012, when Joshua Keller--appreciating the home's luxurious style and its gossip-worthy reputation--picked it up for a hefty sum.

Now, the home has ghosts to go with the skeletons in the closet.

The large screening room in the downstairs area is a mess, with three cooling bodies located therein. They fell in quick succession: first was Lucia Montanari, the girl who thought to get karmic justice and found herself the pawn of an Umbrood. She was granted no mercy and in truth, if anyone had been able to ask her she would have said she expected none. Bullets ripped through her flesh and soul, leaving her life leaking out on the red-carpeted floor.

Next was Joshua Keller himself: arrogant and jaded, a bit of a chauvinist but no worse than most people might be with his money and in his business. Joshua got his start in the movie business as a true fan of genre films; he wanted to make something great and perhaps be the next Sam Raimi. He will remain well-regarded within the industry for his work restoring and delivering old, rare classics to audiences, but he was an entirely unwitting pawn in both Thakinyan and Lucia's plans, however different those plans may have been. Anyone who had taken a look at the man with even a cursory knowledge of medicine would have known that he would not have survived life after the Umbrood; his life force and mind had long been ripped asunder by the spirit. When Eleanor's gun roared and cut down the man, it was a mercy to him. His body doesn't even have blood left to give; once the spirit of madness is gone, what remains is dessicated like a corpse left in the desert for too long.

No one will ever know the name of the deformed giant who Thakinyan unleashed on the mages. There is no one to tell his story, that he was a member of Joshua's staff whose mind was slowly and tortuously warped by the Umbrood with his body following after. Much like Keller, it is a mercy that Eleanor and Kalen put him down. There would be no saving him; the mages can only take comfort in the idea that the deaths of these three have saved many more. Not the least of which was themselves.

As the bodies are dealt with, Sid and Kalen go searching for the film. They don't have to look far; the cannister is loaded into the projector in the small enclosed booth, as if it was awaiting them as an audience. Awakened individuals with whom Thankinyan could fully infect and then use to break free into their world. A cursory scan with Spirit, if anyone does so, will reveal that the Umbrood is trapped within the film. Whereas once the film had used (against its creator's will, it must be said) as a bridge from Thakinyan's Umbral realm to the material world, in leaping across to possess people long-term, the spirit has fallen prey to the trap. The quartet have the option of destroying the film--which will likely send Thakinyan back to his own Realm with little chance of a return, and at the very least absolutely no chance during any of their lifetimes--or seal the film away, thus taking the spirit off the board completely as long as it remains out of the hands of anyone who would try to use it to free him. The choice is theirs.

Whatever the case, Shoshannah and Trent find that they have had the specter of the Umbrood removed from them. The tendrils have been pulled free and they are completely themselves once more. Whichever way the Awakened choose, the important part is that the threat of Thakinyan is gone from Denver completely.

[[And thus ends the storyline! The mages can decide what to do with the film from here, but there is no wrong choice. I would like to take this moment to apologize for the story taking as long as it did to finally find its completion, and for the final scene in the story which I at least found lacking in certain aspects that had nothing to do with the players. And in one last apology, for taking so long to get this post up. It's been a month, is all I'll say about that. Thank you to everyone for participating in this one; everyone who did had some great moments and I think y'all for that.]]

[kai]

Lucia would say she deserved no mercy. Eleanor might say she received more than she deserved, particularly in the end. But Eleanor doesn't say anything for a long while, after those last words whispered over Lucia's body.

What happened to Keller, what happened to the twisted hulking man beside him: these were a tragedy. She takes that on herself, too. This is what it means to serve karma, or guard the Wheel, and walk under that burden. Eleanor doesn't lie to herself and say that any of the deaths that night were Good Deaths. She does not take much comfort in ending suffering, but to be fair: she doesn't look for it, either. It's not about what comforts her.

She excuses Pan, if he'll be excused, when it comes to dealing with the bodies. If he stays, she doesn't argue with him. She doesn't speak much while they dispose, inasmuch as they must, of the corpses. She does ask, before they do anything, if his weapon was registered. If the answer is no, there isn't much they need to do: let the authorities find the bodies as they are. If the answer is yes, she tells him not to fire it next time; she'll bring something for him, if he really needs it.

That's about all she has to say.

--

They destroy the film. Then and there, unless Sid or Kalen or Pan insist otherwise.

They drive back to Denver.

Eleanor checks the time. And sends a message to Italy through the same ones used before.

--

Montanari and Keller are dead. The umbrood is returned to its realm. Thank you for your assistance.

She does not include condolences. It's the polite thing to do.

If you believe that death is the end.

--

There is cleanup to do at home, after she's returned there. She puts her tools away. She washes herself. The rest of the night is spent in meditation, in yoga. She tries not to think about Richard, about how she'll explain this to him, how to teach him anything with this. She thinks about Lucia, and Keller, and the changed man. She thinks about their deaths. She thinks about their souls.

And if it could be called prayer,

she prays for them.





[I had a blast in that scene! Thank you for running this, Sam! :]]