LogLondon Fog-Jason-2

Game log for the 2017/06/25 session of London Fog, as taken by Jason

Malachi has some bad visions of bad stuff happening to Shifty Eddie, his opium dealer. There's an operative for the Storm Court named Talifor in town. He's the one who hooked Malachi up with Shifty Eddie. Lord Throckmorton's faction, whose leaders are unknown to the street, have designs on the imperial scale. A Count Strad, from eastern Europe, is in town to clean house amongst the vampires. Seems that the local vamps are running a food bank / brothel out of the Bridewell Prison, which is London's womens' prison. According to one of Cleo's acquaintances, the Quakers are in town to cleanse the entire City of London. There's a werewolf turf war going on for hunting rights in the city parks.

Oscar goes to see Cleo to see what she knows about Lord Throckmorton's henchmen. She's just explained that she doesn't know but could be hired to find out, when a man in an oil cloth duster comes into the room. He's carrying his hat in his hands, but Oscar and Cleo can see the buckle. He says something about how the demon's harlot would lead them to the demonspawn, and Oscar immediately scales up to seven feet tall. The Quaker pulls a sword from under his coat and charges, while another comes in behind him and closes the door. One swipe of Oscar's demonclaw rends the first guy asunder, causing him to scream and drop his weapon. The second intruder pulls out a Bible and begins reading an incantation. Cleo goes lunging for the first Quaker's sword, but the remaining attacker puts his foot on the sword before it gets there, then grabs Cleo by the hair and hoists her up. She tries to punch her but he bashes her head against the wall to quell her. As Oscar tries to work around Cleo to find an avenue of attack, the Quaker's incantation begins to make skin grow around Oscar's demon form. Oscar does manage to find a lane, though, and rips through the man's stomach, tearing out his soul. Cleo and Oscar conclude that now is the ideal time to vacate the premises.

Judith manifests in the hallway and finds that orderlies are milling about. One has already tried the door and found it locked. As Cleo dresses, Oscar grabs the sword and bloodies it up, so as to provide some plausible way that the fight could have gone down. Judith moves further down the hall and tries to create a distraction by manifesting and terrifying a nun. It works like a charm, and the nun emits a bloodcurdling shriek. Oscar leaves the sword in the hand of one of the Quakers and darts out, with Cleo a few steps behind. When she starts to get too far behind, he grabs her and bodily pulls her along. As they're escaping, Oscar asks her to hold up a moment while he checks the stairwell, but she pushes past him so hard that he falls down the stairs. It's mid-afternoon as they make their way to Cleo's. Judith follows them, and the three of them converse as they go.

Gal knows that strange things are afoot with the Storm Court. A Fae named Talifor has been acting strangely, out of phase with the Court's movements, and lately even absent from Court functions entirely. Gal's been wondering about Talifore's behavior for a while now, and his faeries come to tell him that Talifore is holed up in a dive in Cheapside. Gal goes to the bar and immediately realizes that the bouncer is a Rakshasa. That makes this an opium den, since the Rakshasas control the opium trade. He asks the bouncer whether Talifore is inside, and bouncer says that the only question is, "how much, for how long?" Gal has none of that traffic and so he finds Talifore on his own. He gets to Tal's table and finds him getting high with Malachi. "Ho, two of my favorite people, having a time of themselves!" Talifore asks why he's here, and Gal professes not to know. Another man walks in, goes right to their corner of the den, and tells Gal to piss off, because "we don't want none of your Rasta ditchweed here." Shifty Eddie is quite the charmer, eh? Gal explains that this is just for entertainment, but Eddie's not impressed. Gal has to buy his opium or get out. Eddie asks Malachi what he's on about, Malachi says he doesn't know Galinar, and Talifore tells Eddie that they'd like Galinar to go. Galinar turns to go, but the bouncer doesn't feel inclined to let him to peacefully. Galinar distracts him with a little pixie dust and departs unmolested. As he's leaving, he sees three large eastern European vampires walking in. He decides to go find Cleo and loop her in on this vampire activity.

Malachi sees the vampires come in, and he wanders over to one and compliments him on the qualit of the drugs there, and then asks who his friend is. The vampire doesn't like junkies and tries to eat him. Malachi ducks away as another vampires goes for Shifty Eddie and the third attacks the Rakshasa bouncer. Malachi sees a cane belonging to a passed out old guy, breaks it, and tries to use it as a vampire-stabbing device. The vamps are a little too quick for him; his target grabs the cane before it gets close and tosses Malachi halfway across the room. He gathers himself and throws the cane-fragment at Eddie's attacker, distracting him long enough for Eddie to escape. Malachi also tries to escape in the confusion of this escalating brawl / vampire massacre. Eddie gets away but Malachi gets grabbed. The Oracle opens himself to the next world, grabs the vamp by the face, and shows him that if he tries to take Malachi's blood, he will die staked out in the sunlight. He lets Malachi go and tells him to leave. Malachi does that very thing. As he leaves, he sees the vampires and the Rakshasa going at it. He has no idea where Talifor has gone.

The three heroes get to Cleo's house, and shortly thereafter, Galinar appears as well. He asks if she's interested in vampires, which gets Judith's attention, and tells them all about the mayhem in the dope den. As they talk, the ghost feels a dark presence forming on her side of the veil. It's a shade, an almost completely corrupted ghost, and this type is usually used as a messenger. It gathers itself to manifest in Cleo's apartment. Judith cashes in a debt that Cleo owes her, warning her that the shade is coming, and asking for her help with the shade. She quickly assesses the threat and mentally plots her exit strategy. She says something about making tea, goes into the kitchen intending to slip out the door, but gets held up when she can't get the back door open.

The shade coalesces and speaks to Oscar. "Lord Throckmorton sends his regards. He would like to arrange a meeting, perhaps to contract your services. Your master has given his blessing to this endeavor." Oscar dares it to speak his master's name, and he says "Huzg." Oscar agrees to meet in Trafalgar Square at noon. Judith calmly manifests enough to touch and move objects, and starts making tea.

Oscar calls in the marker he picked up from helping Cleo escape, and asks her to look into Lord Throckmorton for him. She doesn't know much but she can look into it.

That night, Cleo talks to Lady Elsbeth Lincoln to ask about Lord Throckmorton. She finds that he's former naval officer, now in the Admiralty, possibly part of a secret society. She's heard that he has many mistresses. Put to the point directly, she refuses to say much about his secret society, although she speculates that it's an esoteric one, probably of the adjective-adjective-noun flavor. She'd be willing to arrange a meeting, if that's what Cleo wants. Cleo asks how meetings with the good Lord usually go. "Oh, they go," Elsbeth says, fluttering a hand near her breast. As Cleo leaves, she hears, through the wall, Elsbeth saying "Yes, Throckmorton Manor, please?"

Judith haunts Malachi and gives him grief about how he saved his drug dealer but not his landlady. Malachi retorts that Judith was not helpful when he needed her. He's also made no progress figuring out who killed Judith.

At noon, Oscar appears in Trafalgar Square. Judith turns up as well, and Galinar and Cleo put themselves in the crowd. Throckmorton's surrey appears, and the footman opens the door and waves Oscar in. Lord Throckmorton tells the driver to take a tour around the square. He then tells Oscar that he was intrigued to hear that hellspawn had eviscerated several of his men. The Lord did a little research and found Oscar's name. The Lord seeks a missing object of power, and would like it for himself. It is, of course, the Bromley book. To clear a debt with Huzg, Oscar must being Malachi to Throckmorton. Oscar seeks, and receives, assurances that no harm will come to Malachi if he cooperates. When Judith tries to eavesdrop through the walls of the surrey, she can't - it's warded.

Cleo hits the strees, looking to find Malachi. She fails but does run into some Scotland Yard detectives, who ask if she knows anyone who lived at the scene of a recent horrible murder. Luckily she knows one of them, Constable Collier Webb, so they don't make things hard for her. They do, however, make it clear that they want Malachi for homicide. The deceased was his landlady, and he was scene with gore up to his elbows, so it looks pretty bad. She tries to convince them that Malachi's a good guy and they misread the evidence, but Webb doesn't believe her. He's willing to allow her some leeway, because she's been useful to them in the past, but that doesn't mean she's out of the picture.

Back in Trafalgar Square, Oscar gets out of the surrey, and goes to find Malachi. Judith follows along, and Galinar meets up with them. When the three of them find Malachi, he's outside a stable, with some man repeatedly dunking him into the horse trough. Sir Reginald Bromley is trying to sober him up the old-fashioned way. When they appear, Bromley takes off, dumping Malachi on the stable yard. Oscar explains about Throckmorton's interest, and Malachi grudgingly accepts that his options are narrowing. Gal joins the conversation. After some discussion, Malachi determines that the best way to juggle his obligations would be to find the book right away and give it to Bromley. That way, when Throckmorton meets him, he can say that Bromley has the book, and that might get him out of this bind. Oscar says Malachi can crash at his place for a couple nights, though if it becomes a long term thing, Malachi's going to owe him. Malachi, meanwhile, asks Judith to pay back a favor and help him find the book.

Their search goes... OK. His crystal ball shows Malachi some visions, and he slowly hones in on what building that must be: the Masonic Temple.

Cleo goes looking for Judith, thinking she can lead her to Malachi. Judith eludes her. She has to go asking other ghosts where to find Judith, starting at a place in Hyde Park that she knows to be haunted. Unfortunately the locals aren't friendly. She finds a ghost leaning up against a statue, and as soon as he realizes she can see him, he says "I have need of you! Take me with you!" He tries to possess her body. She knows that with tools and experience, ghosts can be exorcised or bound, but she doesn't have those things on her just then, so she goes running for it, knocking over a woman with a child in a pram in her haste. She looks over her shoulder and sees the woman being possessed. Another proud moment for Cleo!

Malachi and Judith get to the Temple. He thinks the object is in a secret room on the second floor. Judith investigates the place and finds that it serves a dual function - it's a temple of Scotish Rite Freemasonry, of course, but there's also a sanctum within that's a true place of occult power. That inner sanctum is not warded, but it's occupied by a trio of Masons, carrying on a conversation in some unknown language. She can't understand but she can sense that the argument is becoming heated. As she tries to listen, one of the Masons, who has been periodically tapping things with his gavel, gets near her, says, "Excuse me, young lady," and taps twice on the wall. He then asks her to explain why she's there. She suddenly realizes that she's just been trapped in a ward. Galinar tries to go into the Temple but gets turned away at the door.

Judith tries to escape. She wriggles through the ward but it hurts a lot, and she deliberately escapes in a way that makes the ward snap back and hurt the gaveller. She could tell the book was in there, but she couldn't pin it down. Malachi decides to go talk to Bromley and fill him in, letting the Masons be his problem. He can tell that something bad happend to Judith in there. When he finds Bromley, he's at a pub called the Randy Thrush, keeping awfully low company for a man of his stature. He tells the good Sir that the book's in the inner sanctum on the second floor, behind a door that looks like it was meant to hold back an invading army. Bromley agrees that Malachi has done his part. They part ways with Bromley having acknowledged that Malachi has cleared his debts.

At that point Galinar sits down at Malachi's table and reminds him what a horrid day he's had. Galinar offers to help, Malachi declines, and then Galinar contrives to drink a few drinks at Malachi's expense before taking off.

Oscar goes to see Basil Newton to try to figure out how Throckmorton got onto him so quickly. Basil's dead. His soul is missing. There's a calling card of sorts burned into the wall, name of Vagrash.

Oscar returns to his apartment, and Malachi shows up shortly thereafter. They both head to Throckmorton Manor. They enter through the servants' entrance and meet with the Lord in the stables, while he brushes down his courser. It's odd that he's brushing his own stallion. As they enter, he explains that he won the horse playing baccarat. He also thanks Oscar for his work and allows him to choose whether to depart or remain. Throckmorton then discusses the book with Malachi, who explains that the book is in the Masonic Temple, specifically the sanctum. Throckmorton asks him if he'd swear to it, and when he receives an affirmative answer, he sends a servant to fetch him something. It's in a case, covered in straps and shackles, and turns out to look like a bear trap. "You are familiar with the Oathkeeper?" No, Malachi is not, but Throckmorton allows him to look at it... while Throckmorton watches him. Malachi senses that it was made in Spain during the 17th century, and it ensures that bad things will happen to anyone who puts their hand on it and lies. Throckmorton asks him "To the best of your knowledge, does the item I seek reside in the sanctum of the Masonic Temple?" "Yes, my lord, as of the mid-afternoon today." Malachi also tells him, under the oath, that he did tell Bromley where the book is. Throckmorton accepts that Malachi has honored the deal, and the fault in not beating Bromley to the punch was his.

Galinar goes back to the hotel and tries to pass some time with Lady Arwell, getting her to provide a little sexposition about human politics.