Oh. Great

Upon our return to the lodge, after a long walk that, surprisingly, didn't wind me like the run did (heck, I'm not even hungry or sleepy), my dad happened to be waiting for us. Fun. Turns out, dad has us on this little mission to investigate disappearing towns (how he managed to get the Tuatha and Amatsukami to send their kids along is beyond me).

I also learned some disturbing facts... he and Moira used to... yeah...

This whole adventure has been one long assault on my psyche. I may be driven mad before this is over.

Anyway, we got to examining the papers and it was all in Japanese. Dad... Loki, translated them. He said something about psychopomp and terra incognita. Words I don't know. I made perfect copies of the papers before Loki took them back to the rest of the Aesir.

Our next stop is in New York state. We have to go to a conference about the Kensington Stone and hope we run into another god so we can find out where the next disappearance is going to occur. While we're there, Loki wants us to keep up the Kensington Stone's controversy. I guess its all a big prank. Between Moira and myself, this should be child's play. I'd rather we pull it off with some finesse, though rather than ruin the poor scholar's career or anything.

Shadow and Flame

You know, being an orphan who spent more time studying than fighting, I find myself totally unprepared for this new life as an agent of the Gods. I'm not a fighter, like I said last time. Though I think that's going to change, whether I want to or not. I think once this is dealt with, the girls are going to drag me off to put me through a warrior's training program or something.

We snuck into the cave and the girls dispatched a pair of guards with ruthless efficiency. We moved deeper into the mountain and it was pretty clear this place was used as a formal base. We found our way into a mess hall and wouldn't you know it? Alanna decided to make herself a bowl of ramen in the nearby kitchen.

I sometimes wonder if that girl is bipolar.

Going deeper in still, we stumbled upon a bedroom with  a large guard dog. We quickly shut it in and made for a room across the hall. There we ran into Hideki and his Shinobi. The girls, once again, became a whirlwind of death and took down Hideki. During the fight, some of the Shinobi grabbed a bunch of papers and set fire to the other. I'm not sure what I did, but I did something to make sure I'd be okay and used that to snag some papers from the inferno.

Being underground with a burning room isn't very healthy, so we made for the exit while the underground lair got smoked out.

We haven't had a chance to go over what we grabbed, but I'm too busy trying to purge the mental images Moira and Alanna have put in my head. I mean... cat-men... with barbs... EUUGGHHHH!

The People Around Me

You all know me, but I haven't said much about the people I'm with, outside what they're doing. It occurs to me that I should talk about them and get my thoughts on them. I will say that, compared to them, I'm a complete newbie.

Alanna Morgan: Alanna is.... intense. She's the type of girl who doesn't put up with anyone's guff. If she's a cop like she says, then she's something like out of those Hard-Boiled dramas, where the cop smacks around the suspect and antagonizes his superiors. She also scares me a little. She's really confrontational and angry. Violence is her first answer to the situations we've encountered so far, though she's hardly the only one who seems that way. I'm in a group of warriors, so I shouldn't be surprised, I guess. She seems to have some more experience at this whole "being a Scion" thing than me, so she's probably better prepared than I am.

Moira Daegr: She tells me she's a well renowned author. I've never read her books, but then, life at the orphanage didn't leave a lot of leisure reading time. Like Alanna, she's been at this Scion thing longer than me and seems to understand the lay of the land much better. While she's more composed than Alanna, she still has this "don't fuck with me" edge (maybe its something that all Irish Scions have?). She definitely wears the pants in her and Alanna's relationship. A word or two seems to placate the firey red-head or get her to do what Moira wants. She also takes pride in being prepared for everything (though that doesn't seem to extend to her choice of wardrobe). Though I still can't figure out if her relationship with Alanna is a fling or more serious.

Hosho Tetsuko: She's probably the biggest mystery to me, right now. She's quiet, keeps to herself, polite, and yet... she seems to act like she's from a different time. She carries herself like a stoic warrior from Japan's samurai era and wields her naginata with deadly effieciency. What did she do before coming to Montana? She can't have been just an average modern, Japanese girl... could she? I hope she becomes comfortable enough to open up to us. Actually, I did catch her trying not to laugh during the interrogation, so she's not all-stoic all-the-time.

Godly Bullshitting

We did a bit of cosmetic repairs to the lodge, but it's going to get real cold in here unless we can get the doors fixed.

Anyway, I just want to point out that the things we can do, or are capable of are... kinda scary. Reading portents from runes is one thing, but to make someone believe the unbelievable... its unsettling.

I was given the task of talking to Kelly, the Bright One leader. She was difficult, but I managed to nudge her into giving up a few tidbits of information through conversation. Like I used to do all the time. Then Moira shocked my pants off (not literally, perves). She took the little bit I learned, walked over to Kelly, and made her believe that we were agents working for her boss, that we were undercover, and needed to know what she did so we didn't wreck his plans.

I was stunned. I mean... I'm capable of getting people to believe things, but I work in half-truths and white-lies. People are more ready to believe things like that. But to be able to tell someone an obvious lie and they buy it whole-heartedly.... that scares me.

Moria shook me out of my daze and put me back to questioning Kelly. We'd learned she was working for a guy named Hideki and that he was responsible for the town disappearing. No idea how, yet. He'd sent the formorians in to make sure everything was gone and that he was hiding out in a cave in the mountains. We even got directions.

So, we hopped on some 4-wheelers that the other formorians had used to get to the lodge and took off to the mountains, Kelly leading the way. Well, we got a good way up the trail (oh, and I loaned my coat to Moira since her dress didn't look like it could protect her from the cold and the temperatures really weren't bothering me) when these creatures made out of shadow called Shinobi slipped out and killed Kelly with black shurikens.

Alanna kept her 4-wheeler from losing control and the rest of us came to a halt. The Shinobi didn't attack us, though. Moira was able to spot them heading away, so we opted to travel on foot the rest of the way. We reached the barrier that protected the cave and passed through it with the help of Kelly's necklace (all info gained from questioning her).

Bravely Hiding

So, we (Alanna) stormed the house when we got back to the lodge.
Oh, Moira was okay, just a couple of bruises.
Tetsuko stood guard at the front door, making sure no one came out that way and Alanna triggered some sort of explosive when she charged in the back. Don't worry she's okay. Moira came running to the back door when the explosive went off.

Me? I hid in the bushes.

Seriously, what was I supposed to do? Alanna gave me her gun but I've never fired one in my life and I only have enough self-defense training to get free of my attacker to run some more (makes me wonder why the hell I was given this knife-sword).

At one point, though, Alanna yelled for me to find some rope. So, I went to the 4x4 and did some rooting around. My suspicions were confirmed, Moira DID pack everything. Good to know they weren't joking. I found some rope and chain, then headed into the lodge.

It was... nasty... there were two tore up... formorians (I think that's what the Irish girls were calling them) in the living room and Moira was pinning the Bright one down, her fingernails were claws! (neat trick).

So, we got to tying the girl up (kinky) and cleaning the place up. I'm waiting for her to wake up so I can do the questioning. I think I'll be a little better at it than the others, though Moira might be able to back me up a bit.

One-Eyed Jane

A spear, way bigger than any human could use, smashed through the windshield of the 4x4. Some ugly, deformed, giants crawled out of an empty foundation to attack the group. What did I do? I did what any sane, squishy-person would do in that situation: ran and hid!

I ducked into another empty foundation nearby and let the fighter-y types handle it. Alanna is a cop and Tetsuko had a big bladed spear. I figured they could handle it.

Once the sounds of battle died down and I heard calm (mostly) voices chattering, I got myself out of the pit and came over to see what was going on. Nobody seemed upset with me for ducking and hiding, thankfully. They found a girl who'd had her eye punctured by the giants. We debated about how to help her. It wasn't easy because we're out in the middle of nowhere, it's a long drive to a place with an ER.

I suggested she stay at the lodge, with us, and we clean and dress the wound, at the very least. Mora opted to drive back with her and get her settled. The way Mora and Alanna banter... its like an old married couple (I can't tell if they really are sleeping together or if it's just teasing). I ended up kicking myself, later, though.

See, it didn't dawn on me that this girl was taking the wound to her eye extremely well. She should have been going into shock or something like that, but she was... calm... collected. Alanna and Mora kept chatting over walkie-talkies and apparently they had a code for "trouble". Something about "lupus"... I don't get it.

We had to run, on foot, back to the lodge (Alanna had to piggy-back my scrawny butt, because I just couldn't keep the pace for that long) and Alanna explained that there was another type of those giants called "Bright Ones" that look normal and are much smarter.

Just as we got back to the lodge, we could tell that things were bad. The door was busted down. Then, suddenly, Mora came crashing out of an upstairs window, and not in the action-movie-hero sort of way, either.

Wierdness All Around Me

<<This unassuming notebook contains the collected writings of one Aren Alsgaard. Born in Oslo, Norway to an unknown woman. Raised in an orphanage. During her 19th year, her heritage as a daughter of Loki Lie-Smith. These pages are filled with her version of the events of her life>>

So, here I am, on a plane to America.

If you'd told me I was the daughter of a Norse God, I'd have laughed at you. In fact, I did laugh, when my estranged father showed up on the streets and stole my purse. It wasn't until he did some fancy tricks with an illusion of a dwarf that it finally began to sink in.

What do you say to that? This is all very overwhelming. I don't even know what I'm doing. I just barely caught this plane in time, and now I'm on this long overseas flight. I'll have to change planes in New York and fly the rest of the way to Montana.

I'm supposed to meet a bunch of other Scions (children of the Gods) like me and investigate some weird stuff. Towns going missing and stuff. We'll see what happens when I get there.

-------

All girls. We're all frikken girls! Of COURSE I suspected there'd be some sort of perverted spy camera hidden in the lodge, and I thought I found one. But... it was just a smudge on he metal. That was embarrassing. I made a bit of a fool of myself in front of these people. I probably didn't make a good first impression.

Well, two of them seemed to know each other and bicker like an old married couple. A couple of Irish red-heads. There's also this reserved Japanese girl, too.

I tried to get us in the right direction and used the Casting Runes my father gave me. I got a weird set of words:  "Malformed Giants", "to a Place that Isn't", "Bright One",  "Keyed Ward" , and "All-Father of Darkness."
I don't know what any of that means, but I'm sure I'll find out.

We headed down towards the town from the lodge we're staying in and found that it was already missing. A bit of bickering from the Irish girls followed and we started following some tracks with the 4x4 one of them brought (I caught a taxi). You know, if the bickering is this bad now, I dread when nature steps in and makes our periods synchronize. Won't that be fun?

Then, all of a sudden: Giant Attack