Sonofva....

I had it. In my hand. I almost got out. Then things happened.

The alarm trick worked like a charm and caused the distraction I needed to palm the artifact and shadow it with my illusion powers. I tried to excuse myself, but the svartalfar decided he wanted some companionship... I knew I should have disguised myself as a guy... but then, I'm not sure that would have stopped him either.

I did EVERYTHING I could think of to excuse myself. Ever girl-trick in the book. Getting food, freshening up, getting prepared for his desires... I even kneed him in the crotch. Nothing worked.

I knew the girls were on the way, I'd managed to tip them with a textless text message as our signal that I was in trouble. Well... there was no harm in enjoying myself, right? And... he was quite good....

Though, when they showed up, Tetsuko seemed quite agitated. What the hell was I supposed to do? Blow my cover and get killed?

A scuffle ensued and the svartalfar got the orb away from me (after I'd attempted to get a strike in on him during the fight). That pissed me off, all that work... for nothing. He completed whatever he was chanting and everything went black.

When vision returned, we were in the same place, but no furnishings and it was just us.

Crap.

Tetsuko's still giving me the evil eye... great... is everyone in this group going to be on my case?

Disguises and Distractions

So we sat down and did some figuring. I rolled the bones and got some hints about where we needed to go and what we would be up against. A mountain to the west and there would be bad guys and the relic being used to abduct towns. Though Moira was able to get more exact details than I was, at least my prophesying was able to give her a direction to start with.

The real trick was getting in and getting what we needed and getting out. Of course, there were calls for storming the enemy base, but we didn't have exact directions, nor was I up for another raid that could get someone hurt or killed. So, I convinced them to let me use some subterfuge to get what we needed.

Moira had learned there would be svartalfar in the mountain, as well as your usual fair of big, dumb, giants, as well as some Tengu. So, that meant the svartalfar would be in charge. Using some new abilities to control my appearance, I made myself look like a svartalfar. Kinda crazy, right?

I tricked some giants along the way into showing me to the cave, using the explosion in town as my cover story. It took a while to get there and when I got to the cave in the mountain, I strode in like I was on a mission (because I was). I got in to the boss, another svartalfar, and sitting next to him was a small dark globe, the artifact we needed.

With the girls waiting outside, I needed a distraction to make a commotion in order to make a grab for it. So, I used my connection to the forces of chaos to get a bit of inspiration and shield myself from the mayhem I was about to cause. I "tripped" and hit an alarm on the wall (what a mountain hideout is doing with an intruder alarm on the wall, I have no idea).

Now I just gotta get the globe away from him...

Arguments and Explosions

Sometimes, I wonder why I'm even here.

For all that talking we did at the table, it was ultimately decided to ignore the task of retrieving a book from the catskills and head off to the next target. Moira did some sort of ritual that gave her some insight into events deeper than my bone-rolling could offer and lets us know where the next town to be targeted was.

Alanna wanted to set out right away and not bother with the job Loki gave us. She and I got into it. Her solution was to just kill the professor and not waste time. I'm sorry, but what the hell? Outright murder someone? Is this woman completely amoral? According to Moira, it's all the Morrigan's "rearing methods" fault. My arguments that pissing off the Norse trickster God would be a bad idea also seemed to fall on deaf ears. Finally I managed to let Alanna give me a few minutes to convince the professor he was wrong and we could be on our way.

It was a simple matter to convince the professor that I was a fellow scholar and convince him his results with the Kensington Stone were wrong and set him on his quest for answers all over again.

We drove to the town and we stopped at a seedy hotel where Alanna had some personal business to take care of . She was out to off her grandfather who'd killed her father. Yes, I'm a little annoyed. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind that she's getting revenge for murder with murder, but it's okay for her to do her mother's personal errand but not my dad's? I think she just wants to spite Loki, regardless of the consequences.

So, I sat in the car where Moira and chatted about how messed up Alanna is. Alanna seemed to think I needed a talking to about "necessary evils". Did line's get crossed somewhere? Even Moira seemed to think I was mad about her wanting to kill her grandfather, but it was the willingness to murder the professor that had me angry.

Anyway, Alanna and Tetsuko came back after a couple of minutes, telling us to evacuate the hotel. So, Moira and I got people running off and we drove away. Then the upper floor of the hotel exploded. Just what the hell happened up there?

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).