So at the point where we left off, the group came up with a (potentially terrible) plan to use Time magic to basically regress Derrick to a state shortly after his diablerie of the strix, in the hopes of being able to communicate with whatever bits of its mind and essence would have still been inside him.[0] And after deciding on said plan, as it was getting late for the more diurnal members of the group, they broke for the night.
The next day, Weaver puts in a few calls to Mysterium colleagues in Pittsburgh in an attempt to borrow something to help manage Derrick's memories. He's worried about regressing Derrick and leaving him in a state where he doesn't recognize the people around him, which comes with its own share of problems. He manages to borrow an Imbued Item, a Rubik's Cube infused with magic that should keep his memories stable enough.
Meanwhile, as Otis works his day job as a janitor at the hospital, Josh is operating under a secondary Cover as Dr. Alice Duval, doing 'free clinic' duties at the Kaufield Clinic[1] and trying to get in touch with local demon contact Euler, as well as reaching out to a local occultist (with an extensive library) named Jakob Cooke on Facebook. Euler texts back, saying he'll be in his office at Armstrong Hall at the downtown campus most of the day as graduation is wrapping up and he's got paperwork to do.[2]
So while Alice is on her lunch break, Josh pops by the office of Professor Frank Lucas, who has turned up before in this setting and is Josh's fellow Inquisitor, Euler. Josh tries to make some small talk about the students, asking whether or not Euler will miss them when they're gone for the summer (he won't, though Josh will). Josh explains what he found, where he found it, and with whom, and Euler realizes his mistake in not recognizing where the coordinates led. If he'd realized where he was sending Josh, he'd have sent a message ahead or something and smoothed over the inevitable awkward meeting with Derrick. (He also takes a quick second to fire off a text of apology to Derrick for that, knowing that Derrick won't be able to get back to him until later)
Josh also asks about Otis, and Euler comments that he doesn't know what Otis is, but he's pretty sure he's encountered something similar and they have an unspoken agreement to stay out of each others' way. Josh and Euler also have a conversation about the portal in the tunnels that also seems to have briefly existed at the club, and Josh asks Euler if he can get Jakob Cooke's email address from the WVU employee/student database (which he does). As Alice has to get back to work, Josh takes his leave of Euler and takes a moment to send an email to Jakob. He also fires off a message to Weaver, suggesting he has some means of doing some research later if he's up for it -- but he does it in this weird sort of tradecraft analogy speak (I seem to have not written down the exact metaphor used), which confuses the hell out of Weaver at first, but he eventually figures it out and they agree to talk more about it that evening.
So we hit sunset, and Otis, Weaver, and Josh head out to the bar to meet with Derrick. Otis sits off to the side, while the other two grab a drink at the bar. Leland shows up a half-hour after sunset, and when Derrick turns up a little later[3], Leland has a message for him from Howard, asking for an update on the whole 'question for the answer' thing, pointing out that if he doesn't have a good question in a couple of days he'll literally start hemorrhaging blood. He then points out to Derrick that his 'friends' are already there, just when Derrick was hoping to avoid them at first. Derrick sighs and asks Leland if he wants to be prince, just take his place and do all of it. Leland politely declines.
As he has the keys to the VIP area, Derrick takes the others upstairs and Weaver starts setting things up for the ritual. Derrick still isn't entirely keen on this plan, especially when he sees what's basically a magical puzzle box, but Weaver reassures him that the Rubik's Cube is meant to help protect his mind. So he uses the Cube to try and shield Derrick's memories against the ritual, and fucks it up, swiss-cheesing his own memories instead.[4] Otis automatically assumes that this was in fact some sort of hidden attack and tries to take the Rubik's Cube. Weaver reflexively says that 'they' will kill him if he loses it, but then isn't sure why he has that reaction. They fight over it and the two manage to pull the Cube apart and it falls apart into pieces.
Weaver freaks out and tries to gather up the pieces to put back together later, getting them all despite Otis' best attempt to pocket one. Derrick tries to drag him into the side office to lock him up, but can't quite pull it off. Weaver, panicking and not entirely sure where he is or who he's dealing with, wants to go home, and Josh argues that they should let him. Weaver looks at Josh and asks if he's human... and then asks himself why he asked that. But while he's doing so, Otis slips into his shadow so when Weaver heads home Otis is 'riding along.'
After Weaver leaves, Josh asks Derrick if he has people who work for him because he's in charge, and Derrick says it's not quite like that and just more that he's stuck with this 'three-ring circus.'
But back at Weaver's place, he goes through his notebook to get a better handle on where he is and gets his head on straight, and now he realizes he's definitely in trouble if he can't repair the Rubik's Cube and get it back to people in Pittsburgh. While he's agonizing over how much trouble he's in, Otis in his shadow just quietly whispers 'Loser' to mess with him. Weaver freaks out and doesn't realize there's someone in the room with him, assuming he might be hallucinating because of the broken Mind magic-infused Imbued Item. He sends Derrick a text apologizing for his behavior and saying he's on his way back. Derrick simply responds with a smiley emoji.
Weaver gets back to the club and heads upstairs to find that Derrick has apparently pinned Josh to the wall in his absence, crucifying him. Weaver, of course, freaks out and Derrick says he's just blowing off steam from the previous night and waves him inside with a big grin. Otis, having stepped out of Weaver's shadow, closes the door behind them. Weaver, still unaware of the fact that Otis was with him the entire time, asks if he had something to do with this and Otis truthfully says he did nothing to stop Derrick.
Weaver agonizes over the condition of the Rubik's Cube as Derrick makes a big show of pulling Josh down off the wall -- he's fine by the way, Derrick just wanted to mess with Weaver -- and Otis wants to know who the 'they' is that Weaver is worried about. Weaver name-drops the Mysterium and proceeds to give a quick explanation into what their deal is, which segues into what the Rubik's Cube was supposed to do, and then Weaver frustrates people by not being able to explain how it works because it's magic. At one point, we have this exchange:
Weaver: "Explaining it would be like..."
Otis, cutting him off: "You're going to say 'astrophysics to a child,' weren't you?"
Josh: "Hah, you got him!"
Weaver: "Well, I would have said 'trigonometry.'"
Weaver explains that part of the reason why he can't articulate how the Imbued Item works is because the others don't have an understanding of mana -- the same way, he points out, he doesn't have an understanding of whatever they use to make their powers go. But without the magic item, Derrick will temporarily lose the last year or so of his memories when regressed -- which will make it difficult to deal with him, given that he didn't know any of his current associates at that time.
Josh says that he could help with reassembling the cube, but rather than wait to see how long that could take (given that one has to be very careful about doing so without completely undoing the magic, that could be a while) he offers to work on that while Weaver goes ahead and performs the regression. But Weaver left the pieces at his home, and he wants to teleport them to the club to save time -- and despite Otis' concern about Weaver's frivolous use of magic he goes ahead and does so.
So Josh goes into the side office with the pieces and taps into his true nature to enhance his intelligence and hacks the universe to give himself a decent working knowledge of how to fix things with his hands, and spends an hour reassembling the cube -- though he's left a little off-balance by the strain the effort has put on his Cover.
But outside, in the rest of the vampires' private area, Weaver and Otis bring Leland upstairs since Derrick knew him a year ago and having him there might help keep him anchored. Leland is a little concerned about this but he agrees to be there for the moment. So Weaver casts the ritual, and it works, and Leland does his best to quickly vouch for the others when Derrick finds himself surrounded by strangers. Otis quickly explains that what he's going through is like on a TV show when someone gets hit on the head and forgets who they are for an episode. He's confused for now, but they assure him it'll pass.
And they explain that while they can't exactly talk to the strix he then-recently diablerized, they're hoping he could have some insight into it as they ask him questions. A quick and dirty list of what they manage to get out of it (with Leland getting more and more freaked out as they go):
- If the strix were around, it'd be pissed at having its plans thwarted, specifically because of what Humfrey did with the spike.
- What Humfrey did, specifically, was close one door and open another.
- Originally, the strix's plan was to open a door to the realm where all of its kind come from.
- The portal is now linked to Derrick because it's his blood stabilizing the spike.
- There's a journal with a bunch of information about the spike, including the configuration the strix wanted. (I had, I'll confess, forgotten about this but Zac remembered it.)
- When Humfrey deliberately configured the spike 'wrong,' he basically threw a train track switch, cutting off the opening the strix wanted and opening another instead... and there's a train coming down the newly-open track.
And the group finishes with asking about the 'train' that's coming, and Derrick says that they won't know until it gets here... as he gets up, one of his eyes turning black while the other looks like spiderweb-cracks in a mirror. He then draws his weapon and advances on Otis, and Weaver quickly cancels the spell and Derrick falls over, twitching. He quickly rouses himself and wants to know what just happened. Weaver tries to explain that they basically took a version of his older self and copy-pasted it onto his current self, and at that point Derrick realizes that a) he doesn't want to know that badly, and b) he's got a headache now.
Otis asks about the journal Derrick mentioned while he was 'under,' and Derrick says it's at his haven. Otis suggests that they get it, and that Weaver and Josh should try and study it. So they head back to Derrick's place to get past the safeguards he has protecting his stuff. Meanwhile, Josh and Bryan discuss plans to get in touch with Jakob Cooke and see what research they can do (and this winds up getting back into the conversation about mage/wizard nomenclature stuff).
And we leave off there.
[0]-- Debatably, there's a few reasons why it shouldn't work. But I can be all for insane and audacious plans when appropriate.
[1]-- The Kaufield Clinic is fictional, but is managed by a player-character from my old Hunter: The Vigil game, Jan Molson.
[2]-- Reminder: This game takes place in mid-May 2016, and I arbitrarily picked a date that just happened to line up with spring graduation that year.
[3]-- In response to Euler's text from earlier in the day, Derrick responds with "Asshole." Euler, in turn, replies with "Fair enough."
[4]-- For those of you following along at home, Bryan failed the roll -- and made it a dramatic failure for an Arcane Beat, and wound up with the Confused condition.
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