Session Five (October 8th, 2016)


(The events listed below were recorded by Persephone Kouris)

 

April 8th, 2015

 

So it looks like, I Persephone, ex-queen of the wanna-be Underworld, am once again charged with the task of chronicling the misadventures of myself and the ragtag group of changelings I have found myself to be in an unholy alliance with. It's been quite the shit show. Let's get this started. 

 

We begin with having returned to our Hollow after having, once again, retrieved the box. There's chattering debate as to what to do with the damn thing when there's a knock on the door. With the aid of our advanced security that we got courtesy of Jacob (still not really sure HOW he installed all of this in so quickly. You might think it was magic or something) we find out visitor to be the little Pudu known as the Opener of Ways. I will refer to him (it?) as Way to make it a little easier on myself as I get this all down. Anyhoo, we don't see any obviouuuuuus signs of danger so we let the little critter in. They tell Ava that Leofric is willing to meet with her. I still don't know why she trusts that fae so much, to the point she's willing to get, what, tea and crumpets with him. Makes me kind of jealous in a way...

 

A nice tidbit we manage to wrestle out of Diego of who is bound to isn't just A person, but a NUMBER of persons. Which honestly makes it even more of an uncomfortable thought to give the box to him. Scrapping that off the table we're back to square one: what do we do with it? The first suggestion was to give it to the Winter Court for safe keeping but that was shot down as well. The plan we seem to settle on is that we'll get some concrete, encase the box in it, go out to the San Juan islands, and drop the block off in the deepest part of the Sound we can find. Then the Gentry, Saggy-Susan and whoever the fuck else can deal with orca's, tourists, and extremist environmentalists. 

 

It dawned on me that I probably... should step outside of the Hollow so I could get some cell reception. Pretty sure the moment I did that my phone nearly exploded from the amount of missed calls, texts and voice mails I got. I counted... 8 missed calls, ditto for the voice mails, and 27 texts. All from Dmitri. Note to self, probably shouldn't let the last message one leaves for their boyfriend be "Heya, we're going into enemy territory. May die. Come help if you don't hear from me? (: xoxoxoxo" Of course I call him immediately and with much reassurance that, no, I'm not dead, sweetie, I'm fine, and I'm sorry to have left you in a lurch like that. I do ask him if there's anything he or the rest of the pack could do with the box. ...The answer he gave me was less than thrilling so. Werewolves. Useful for many things. Hiding macguffins of power is not one. He tells me that I'm able to arrange a meeting with a vampire to let them know about the Orpheus situation. Thank God. Maybe I can finally get the fucker staked or beheaded or whatever it is I need to do to get him to leave me alone. 

 

Ava also makes a call too, to see how Benji is doing. Fortunately, he's awake. Buzzed the fuck out on pain killers and drugs, but ya know. Ava gives him the deets of the current situation with the box, part of which is 'so, you kinda fucked up in dealing with the box, so WE'RE gonna take care of it.' Which, come on. Sorry Benji, but ya did kinda done goofed. 

 

I guess while Ava and I were making calls, the rest of the crew were doing... experiments with the staff. Dipping it in booze, Mi-Ok drinking the booze, the Hollow slowly gaining a creepy ambiance due to the presence of the staff. (And they think *I* am irresponsible? Tch.) Jacob apparently had managed to get it to change shape, rather like a Transformer, with it even taking on the form of a scythe. Which... okay, that IS pretty sick. 

 

So Ava follows Way into the Hedge which with all intents and purposes any rational person would think was a trap. But this is Ava I am talking about, and bless her heart, she charges headlong into... everything. I like the girl, a lot. She speaks my language. But even I am well aware of when one should hold back or use some subtlety. Way guides her to this place called Olaf's Tavern, and the inside is like a magical faerie version of the Cantina bar from New Hope. ...Now I'm really jealous. Upstairs Ava is taken to a private sitting area where she meets with Leofric. Cue what is surely an important cutscene that delves deep into the inner workings of the plot we have found ourselves in. It's revealed that a number of the Gentry have formed an alliance in order to obtain the box with, unsurprisingly, Hades being a part of it. Also unsurprisingly is that Diego is their main agent in getting the box. Leo had wanted to make sure Ava wouldn't get caught in the crossfire and get into the situation of choosing her brother over us or any of that. The amount of empathy Leo seems to have for Ava is... disturbing. It's trap. It's a god damned trap I just know but I was not there to say soooo. (But once it comes out it was a trap oh I will say I told you so.) One piece of good news, if we can rely on it (but what choice do we have?) is that the True Fae are unable to track down the whereabouts of the box, via magic or anything else. But that may change depending on how close it is to Arcadia.

 

I certainly didn't need to be a part of spooky experiments with the staff in the Hollow that would probably lead to one getting cursed, I began to head back on to the houseboat when I had started to hear more guitar music. I am so fucking tired of that fucking weeb following me around with that cheesy garbage. I get up onto the roof of a building and sure enough, find him up top with the most creepily blissful look on his face. Ugh. He still claims that we were true lovers and that I promised him that I'd always love him. Bull-fucking-shit. I move to try and grab him but he's just... gone. Blink and you miss it gone, with another corpse in his place. When I get back to the houseboat I let Dmitri know that Orpheus is still at large, still being a creep. He tells me that in a few weeks he'll be leaving the state to finalize some... official werewolf business for a few days. Says it'll be fine but... I don't know. If TV Tropes has told me anything, that's going to be the time my life really goes to hell in a hand basket. I play some video games in an attempt to keep my mind off of it, with varying amounts of success. I've also been told that I got an appointment with a vampire representative to discuss with them about the problem that is my pain in the ass likely some kind of vampire stalker. I'm supposed to go to the Wild Rose by 10. ...How ironic. 

 

At the Hollow I guess they were still fucking around with the Staff. No one got the memo that evil isn't a toy? Have they not read or seen Lord of the Rings? The antics of one of the others is going to get us all killed or recaptured. It's around at this period of time Ava returns to the Hollow and gets an update from Diego of the shenanigans from the rest of the party. Apparently they have now gone inside of the box, which had been taken into a different room of the Hollow to do more experiments on it. Like I've said, one of them is gonna get us into some deep shit. Ava goes in and lets that part of the group know what Leo had told her, so they're clued in that maybe they should, you know, some fucking with some cosmically powerful tool of possible mass destruction? It should be noted that while Jacob has been holding onto the Staff that he has been having these psychic impressions to go someplace north. Creepy much? 

 

I eventually get a call from Mi-Ok to join up with her and the others and of this... absurd plan they have with the Staff. They're actually going to go with the psychic impressions Jacob is getting from holding the damn thing and see where it leads and what happens. Fucking Christ.

 

Once we've all met up we started heading north and wind up at Lakeview Cemetery. with a bit of meandering we're led to a grave marked David S. Maynard. Hmm, will need to try to remember to look that up later. May be important. When Jacob gets close to the grave, something rises up, presenting a keyhole, then using the Staff opens it up and a way down appears. Okay. It's #2spooky going down, enough to bring back some memories of my capture. Ways mentioned too that we entered into another dimension once down there. So... was this the REAL Underworld then? Huh. To give more evidence that this seemed like the Underworld, we came upon a dark river and at the bank was a boat with a figure that had to be, or at least seemed to be, the real Charon. He holds out his hand and I give him some quarters which he accepts. Convenient. We're taken across and come upon a large archway with a cobblestone road going along. There's some writing on the archway, but it's all in Latin and none of us can read it so, we press on. Walking on we go by cells carved into the stone walls with arms reaching out to us through the bars. Eventually, we even come across Cerberus, who is a bit different from the one I know of. When Jacob goes up, it bows his head and lets us pass, likely due to the Staff. Not far from Cerberus is the throne room. The throne itself is huge and there's long tables lined with food and... the strangest part being that there are naked people on the floor are wrapped together in a sort of orgy. Great. I notice that Jacob begins to make a beeline for the throne and again, being quite aware of the various tropes one sees in all sorts of media and fiction, I stop him. Cause hell nah boy, that is a fucking trap if I ever saw one. What's also strange though is that there's only one throne, not two... So one for Hades but not Persephone... I was getting suspicious. Jacob was still wriggling and trying to get to the throne so I wrestled the Staff away from him, and I found out why he was trying so hard to get to the throne. I was getting voices in my head to sit on the throne and become queen. To which... hey, I'll admit it, it was tempting. I mean, this could be my chance to finally get revenge on my Keeper... But I stood by, keeping my grip on the Staff and not going for the throne. I had observed more of the area and looked again to the people on the floor. It seemed like their motions were... repetitive, unnatural even.  At some point, a trap door had been found and they got it open. Going down they found a lot of machinery and began to fiddle with some levers and rods. One of them cause confetti to come down from the ceiling as well as banners unrolling that read stuff like "Congratulations!" and "Welcome new ruler of the Underworld!" 

 

So plot twist: the Underworld is the world's shittiest 60's era animatronic amusement park. It's both parts hilarious and fucking lame. After the banners has come down, a voice starts asking questions, like I'm on the phone with a representative from Comcast or shit. Like what's my name (I answered Inigo Montoya, cause like hell I'll give my real name), gender pronouns (least the place is progressive), where I'm from (answered Barcelona) and even asking me to rate my experience on a scale of 1 to 10. It was getting real fucking absurd. Eventually the voice cuts out, and I'm having to assume it was due to other peeps fucking around with the machinery down below. I'm a little disappointed, I kinda wanted to see how far I could take with bullshitting my answers here. But, anyway, Ways comes to bring me back with the rest of the group, who are still down below in the maintenance tunnel. We saw some creepy mechanical spiders scuttling along, back towards the throne room, likely to fix the mess the others caused. We decide there's no point in us sticking around, so Ways guides us back up and even across the river. Like we walk on the water, just like Jesus. Pretty cool. 

 

With that surprisingly albeit somewhat disappointing trek said and done, there's still the question of what to do with the Staff since everything and their mom is still after it. There was the small idea of just leaving it by the gravestone but... we concluded it'd be funnier if they had to really work at getting the key that unlocked their dull surprise. We get some cement and wooden planks and decide to go with Ava's earlier suggestion of having the damn thing dropped off around the San Juans. We have this done over at Meridian's, because he has the space for us to be able to encase the Staff in a good cement block, as well as able to move the thing afterwards.

 

Ava checks in on the Hollow and finds it even more spoopy than it was before, which was the work of the box apparently. So Ava took it out of the Hollow and problem was solved. To also help out with Diego's situation of him needing to deliver the box, we give it to him... but not before putting a box of Lucky Charms cereal in place of where the Staff was... without the marshmellows. Since hey, he just had to deliver the BOX to them, yes? He was acting on good faith that what his people are looking for was still INSIDE the box when he acquired it.

 

It was getting close to the time I needed to be at the Wild Rose. I had Dmitri come along (with the aforementioned warning that it IS a lesbian bar but hey, good to have some back up right?) and Ava decided to come along as well, since she heard there's karaoke, and that's always fun. The vampire in question I meet is named Liz Wickham (the look Dmitri gave at hearing her name was priceless, ha ha) and I begin to detail about my issue with Orpheus, how he's a creepy stalker and all when Ava interrupts to say he can go out during the day so he's GOT to be a Chupacabra instead, to which Liz agreed with. Sigh. Whether he is or not, he's still a problem, not just for me personally being a creepy stalker, but the fact that he's leaving a literal trails of corpses behind him and is clearly a danger to the public at large. While Liz isn't sure of how Orpheus is able to go out during the day, but commented that she is rather interested in the specifics, she gave me some contact info for a police sketch artist I can get in touch with. Cool. In the meanwhile, Ava had gone up to sing some karaoke and woo, she rocked it. Hard. All the ladies there were loving it, a good few giving her their number and everything. It was pretty rad. I know who I'll have as my champion for a rock off against Orpheus. As we head out, we encounter a very upset drag queen who has caught her boyfriend cheating on her. I advised her to punch the dickbag in the mouth, cause fuck that cheating horseshit. She got rather inspired by that and went off to do so. Glad I could give her some advice.

 

Meridian had his own odd issues whilst waiting for the cement to dry. Like water seeping in from under the garage door even though there wasn't anything of the sort on the other side. Something of gnomes too. One first appeared in the driveway and Meridian's instinct was to take a fucking shotgun and shoot it. Then another one appeared in the living room and Jacob threw it through a neighbor's window. I don't see Meridian's neighbor's happily putting up with his shit for much longer in the near future.

 

April 9th, Thursday

 

I had some weird dreams while I was asleep. Not just weird but like... these painfully cliche harlequin romance-esc dreams. I was in a garden that was... what's a good cheesy description? Oh, 'I was in an enchanted garden, darkness seeping at the corners as moonlight bathed down upon the exquisite flowers and me.' Ugh. Worse still was I heard me, myself, saying 'Orpheus I knew you would understand.' Oh fucking hell no. I know there's this whole thing of not remembering all the details of one's stay in Arcadia, but there ain't no way I said or did any of that shit. No and nope and nadda. Orpheus probably has some creepy mind altering powers too, just what I fucking need.

 

I guess if it gives me any consolation, I wasn't the only one having odd sleeping problems. Meridian had apparently woken up to a psychiatrist's office in his house and was asking about the garden gnomes. He exited from the room and came back in and boom, office gone, garage back in its place.

 

Enough of that. The cement block is dry, so we gather up the group to haul it off up to Anacortes. Although before I headed out, I had received some more fucking flowers. That douchebag really can't take a hint? Dmitri said though he'd get it cleaned up while I was away, which I was grateful for. Unfortunately, there was more bad news to be had when we got up to our destination. I saw a small group talking to an older man, and I realized one member of the group happened to be that fucking bitch Melody. It was so tempting to go and start a brawl with her, to get vengeance for what she did. But I couldn't. At least, not today and not yet. We get a boat, bring the cement block on board and toss it over the side. Saggy Susan, Hades and whoever the fuck else should have a fun time trying to get it now. Jacob went for a swim (for some reason, even though the water is fucking cold? He may be an ice elemental, but he is still, more or less, human) and eventually we do haul him out. 

 

When we come back to shore, Melody and her friends are gone, instead there are cops surrounding what is clearly a dead body underneath a tarp. Fuck. I call to let Dmitri know that I saw Melody again and they had clearly done something, and Ava had gotten a call from her Fetch saying that she can't find Diego. So we're all having a wide host of problems. Though, at least, the Staff is taken care of, and Ava calls to let Benji know of such. 

 

We all get home. Meridian finds a package at his place addressed to "whomever is emotionally responsible for Jacob". Inside are more police reports on Jacob's Fetch serial killer. Now he's in Seattle. When I come back home, I do let Dmitri know that we could... move into the Hollow. I mean, it's already pretty big and spacious, and with a bit more work will only get better. But he's... changed his mind about being a loner and that being in a "pack" isn't so bad. ...It seems odd that Dmitri would change his stance in only a couple of weeks. He had been so... adamant before about being on his own. Maybe I'm just being paranoid, but something seems off. I do get a voice mail from the sketch artist to organize a time to meet up, and I leave him a voice mail back of when I'm available and I'll stop by soon.

 

April 10th, Friday

 

More fucking dreams. They keep getting worse and even more cheesy. I'm back in that garden being comforted by Orpheus while I am crying about 'oh the world is so cruel.' What the fuck. That is not me. I do get upset, and I do cry, but not over such shit. Vampires have weird mind fucking powers right? Definitely what is happening here.

 

At Rowan's vet, Mi-Ok is woken up by knocking. Ava is the one to go open the door and it's a woman asking for someone named Margaret Jones. Before Mi-Ok can protest, Ava invites the woman in and starts to make some coffee, since well... I guess it was decided that Mi-Ok needed to confront this sooner rather than later. And, not so surprising a plot twist, the woman addresses Mi-Ok as mom when she steps out. And well... it's as awkward as can be when a changeling is talking to a family member who is not in the know. It ends with Mi-Ok dropping her Mask to show her daughter that what she is saying is true. It went as well as one can expect; daughter running out screaming bloody murder. That's when Mi-Ok gets the alcohol. Though, to be fair, it could... have been... worse? ...That leads me to think about my mom, and of her knowing the truth... I get in contact with Korey to propose the idea, since I don't want to do anything without her say. She seemed hesitant, but told me she'd think on it. I hope we can decide on a course of action on how to tell mom... I don't want to take Korey's life away, but I feel guilty not letting mom know the full extent of what's going on.

 

My last note on all of this is that Meridian had woken up to a stranger in his bed, with no idea how he got there or anything. Although I guess it happened like one would think it did: been at a bar, talked to Meridian, wound up at his place. But when Meridian checked the camera's, he found something similar with the "butler" situation. ...He really needs to rein in on his numerous copies of himself. He begins to work on the process of setting up a gallery with the various photo's he took of the Underworld.

 

That pretty much concludes what's happened in the last few days. We've got the issue with the Staff... mostly resolved, it seems like. Honestly though, this just seems like the closing of Act 1 of who knows how many more Acts. ...I'm afraid we still have a lot of shit to deal with.