LogLondon Fog-Jason-4

Game log for the 2017/07/23 session of London Fog, as taken by Jason

Rumors of the day:

• According to rumor that Malachi heard, Bromley is putting together a team to go after the book.

• According to a rumor that Oscar heard, Blackpool is not really a high and mighty wizard, he's an empty shirt. Nazagor has been acting as a go-between for Blackpool and someone more powerful - definitely more powerful than Nazagor, maybe more powerful than Blackpool. Blackpool may be negotiating to acquire a demon weapon.

• One of Judith's orphans has met with the ghost of one of the militarized Quakers who came to London. The Quaker seems to be a quick study, and he's sharing information with his friends. Thanks to Timmy the ghost, the Quakers know that Judith is the person to go to if you need to find a spirit.

• Cleo's heard that Malachi is no longer liked by some of the other members of Power - they just don't trust him no more. Sir Stanton Blake wants the Bromley book, and he's engaged Cleo to find out where Malachi is, so Malachi can lead him to the book.

• Gal's heard that the Quakers are starting a turf battle against the Rakshasa. The Raks were already fighting vampires for turf, but we never knew that the Quakers cared.

Gal's at home, waiting for his hangover to chillax, when some Quakers kick the door down. As the first two come through the door, he's thinking maybe it's time to fight, but these guys just keep coming, and at least one of them has a blunderbuss. Gal calls on the aid of his favorite wind elemental, at which point they blast him with a load of cold iron filings. Yeah, somehow they knew that only cold iron was going to get the job done, and that's not good. The elemental rips the blunderbuss out of the owner's hands and injures others, but then a crossbow bolt pegs Galinar to the wall. One of them walks up to him and presses a cross against his forehead. When nothing happens, he says, "This isn't the one." They have a short side conversation about whether to kill Galinar anyway, but the leader decides they'll wait, and then Gal offers to trade information for his life.

Gal asks for water, but the leader responds by having his minion Babcock reload his crossbow. They want information about "the demon." Galinar tells them about Huzg, and Nazagor, and Vagrash. He gives them the gutter pronunciation of Vagrash. Brother Silas stops and consults with someone who isn't there, although he insists that they don't deal with spirits. Apparently their own ghosts don't count as spirits, as far as they're concerned. Brother Martin tells Silas that Gal's sort never break oaths, and Silas decides to try to use that knowledge. He offers this bargain: if they let Galinar live, he will leave Londinium. Gal counteroffers that if they let him live, they'll have a fruitful conversation about demons. They don't seem interested, so Gal takes the only course he sees open, and he calls on the Jigsaw Man.

The Jigsaw Man promptly appears and accuses the Quakers of inconveniencing his friend. When one of them tries to talk back, the Pooka waves his hand, and suddenly the Quaker's mouth is stitched shut. The Jigsaw Man asks if Gal will cooperate fully with him in exchange for aid. As Gal accepts the bargain, he notices that everything around them has gone into slow motion. Gal accepts, and so the Jigsaw Man yanks the bolt out of Galinar's shoulder, jams it into a Quaker's eye, and tells our fae friend to go while the Dawn Court's enforcer takes care of business.

Galinar tries to make his escape by diving out the window, but the youngest Quaker boldly dives after him. Of course, if the rest of them knew about the Jigsaw Man, they'd probably all dive out the window.

Judith's ghost friend Knickers finds her and lets her know that the ghost with the tall hat is hurting her gay friend. She asks Knickers to take her to the place, which he does, and shortly they're in the fae section of town. Something horrible seems to be taking place in Gal's room, but she also sees Brother Martin showing one of the other Quakers which direction Galinar went. She goes after them, which attracts Martin's attention. He tries to bluster at her but she couldn't really care less about his nonsense. When she tries to blow past him, he blocks her. Judith flips right out, because she does not care to be touched, and unleashes her full power on him. She goes from being a dainty librarian-looking spirit to an angry mass of ectoplasmic hate, and Martin staggers back, allowing her to pass. That will learn the little wanker.

She finds a convenient alley and points it out to Galinar. He follows her direction, and then she manifests to the pursuing Quaker (in vision and touch) when he turns into the alley. He bumps right into her, and as he starts to apologize, he realizes that he stumbled right through her. Before he can react, she hooks his ankle with her parasol, sending him ass over teakettle. However, she doesn't get things all her way; something in this pocket hurts her as it passes through her. She asks why he's chasing her friend, and just as he spits something about a foul demon, Oscar comes around the corner. He sees her pulling a garotte out of her purse and kneel on his chest, allowing him to see her face. "That was rather rude. Where are you manners?" The Quaker fronts all tough-like, but it's clear that he just wants to kill Galinar because they're ignorant and lump the fae in with all the demons and witches and suchlike. She also realizes that he clearly thinks Brother Martin is like their secret weapon, but he's really just another ghost. She assures the Quaker that Martin is only still there because Brother Martin was already damned when he died. Oscar's just about to change into his worse self and scare the guy further when someone walks by and he chickens out. He blusters about sending demons to hell, Oscar tells him that mathematically, it's going the other way, and then Judith siphons the life out of him.

In the dead Quaker's pocket, Judith finds a very old and compact Bible. Oscar recognizes it as a demon weapon, and Judith gasps and steps back. Oscar sets the Bible on fire, as Judith freaks out. The Bible begins to bubble, and a pool of goo starts to seep out of it, and then pulsate upward. As it begins to mount upward, Oscar tries to figure out which demon it is. He backs further into the alley as the grotesque mass says, "At last..." Oscar identifies himself and his patron, and asks the ugly stain who it is. It's Tulok, and it wants to feed. "You have fun with that," Oscar says, and departs with no small haste.

Cleo's trying to figure out how to proceed with all this book-related trouble, and she's keeping an eye out for trouble as she does so. There's a knock on her door, and when she looks through the peephole, it's Sir Stanton Blake, and he's superciliously polite. She calls out that she needs a few minutes, and then crawls out the window. Laterz! But Blake searches her room and finds Malachi's address anyway.

He promptly shows up at Malachi's house, asking to arrange a séance. Malachi akss him to identify himself, and he does so, superciliously. As soon as Malachi unlocks the door, he barges right in. Malachi tries to chide the noble on his manners and gets a huffy "don't be crass" in response. Blake then goes right to asking about the book, and the oracle says that he's already helped Bromley and Throckmorton where the book is, so telling Blake won't give him a big leg up in finding it. When he hears that it's in the Masonic Temple, Blake initially disbelieves, but he's forced to admit that Malachi has no reason to lie, and has an honest reputation to boot. Blake then admits that he never wanted a séance at all, it was just a ruse, because he didn't expect Malachi to recognize him. Malachi makes a snide remark about how Stanton looks very old for his age.

Gal holes up at the Londinium Club. Judith arrives looking for him, but the doorman won't let her in. He staggers out to see her instead, though the doorman charges him a quid for the mess he makes on the carpets. She's verified that the Quakers think that he's a demon. She also tells him about the demon Quaker, and she seems shaken as she does so. He asks how he can help her, and she says she's not sure that's possible, but she'll ask for his help if she needs it. She then hands him the ring that the Jigsaw Man gave her. He asks her to be alert for anything that would explain how Quakers got into what should have been a safe, protected room. She agrees and tells him about how the Quakers had a "consecrated" Bible. She then phases out to go look for Malachi.

She arrives just as he's wrapping up her conversatin with Blake, who spots the ghost in the room immediately. The seer explains that she haunts him, and Blake implies that he's got some ghost issues himself. Judith starts making tea while ignoring the jerk in the room. Blake takes off right away anyhow. She recognizes him, and knows he's a member of the Arcane Order of the Cleft Stone. Said Order claims to be in possession of the stone from whence Arthur removed Excalibur, and that it was the stone that made Excalibur so mojo-tastic.

Anyway, Malachi asks about her day, Judith says that he doesn't care, Malachi agrees and says he just wishes people would stop asking about the book, and Judith shoves his teakettle off the cooktop. Judith doesn't care about the book, she wants Malachi to finish figuring out what happened to her. She threatens him, and he points out that he can't help her anymore if she kills him. He asks again what's bothering her, but instead of answering, she says, "Let's take care of this damn book" and tells the children to find Brother Martin for her. They can take her to him, but it's dangerous there, and he's making a lot of noise, down near the docks. She tells Malachi they're going to the docks.

As they walk to the docks, they see bodies, and not in small quantities, nor do they look like they were killed in any mormal way. Malachi tries to examine one of the dead bodies - a surrey driver whose head is on backwards - and all he gets for his trouble is a vivid impression of someone twisting his neck around, and a really brutal headache. It all just makes Judith impatient. When they arrive at the docks, they find three more dead bodies, eviscerated. Then they hear more screaming up ahead. There's a guy down on his knees, and some icky black tarry thing is pulling the victim's arm off. Judith recognizes the demon that Oscar freed earlier today. After the arm is off, the icky thing crushes the victim's skull, and seems to transfer something out of the corpse, because the demon becomes more of something. Malachi clears his throat, and the demon comes right for him. Judith tries to interpose herself, and her momentary distraction allows Malachi to run for it. He runs headlong into a paddy wagon full of bobbies.

The demon commands Judith to get out of its way, but as it tries to go past her, it swivels and says, "I have tasted your essence." It knows that "they" have used it against her, and suggests that they have common cause, so she should help it free. She offers a bargain, but then they both hear the bobbies' whistles. The bobbies are detaining Malachi on general principles, but he's trying to explain that there's some kind of horrible monster killing people on the docks. They buy it and go running right toward Tulok. Tulok likes bobbies! After it finishes its meal, Judith explains that if it keeps drawing attention to itself like this, it will eventually run into someone who can put it down. She starts leading it toward the Masonic Temple, but there's at least one major problem with her plan - Tulok can't change form. She's leading a giant pile of homicidal tar across London. As they talk, Tulok breaks off a corner of a brick building, and says, "Not stone. Much has changed." So yeah, it was in that Bible for more than a fortnight. She explains to Tulok that it could eat all the Quakers in Londinium, from whence it might gain nourishment and vengeance, amd she'll lead it to them if it will retrieve Bromley's book from the Masonic Temple. Tulok being ignorant of modern situations, she's able to deceive it into thinking she's being a big help here by luring the Quakers to it, once she has the book.

Oscar's just doing his longshoreman thing when he smells brimstone, and then he feels nature's call. He goes to a private section of the dock to do his business on the rocks, and Huzg appears out of the river. "Oscar, my friend, we have a problem." Seems Oscar should not have let Tulok free.

Oscar goes looking for his ol' buddy Tulok. He's only a quarter of a mile from the dock, and now there's a tenement on fire. Oscar relays the request from Huzg to dial things down a little bit. Tulok seems unimpressed, because Huzg is a weakling, and this world is for it to rule. However, it does fear being caught again while still weak, so it accepts Oscar's warning, and they go through the sewers to an old charnel house that has become a place of Wild power.

Cleo goes to a coffee shop to meet an acquaintance from the Throckmorton household. She's waiting for her buddy to show when Judith appears instead. Judith suggests they should go talk somewhere private, and Cleo is drawing attention by talking to someone who isn't there. Judith asks her to figure out where the Quakers might be, but Cleo's usual sources in the world of Mortality are a little preoccupied with a recent killing spree down by the docks. At some point she tries to make a little conversation about the killing spree, drops a little too much information, and gets Barton Cromwell'd. As their pointed interview begins, Judith spooks one of the police horses, and the horse takes off running, creating some local chaos. She tries to take off in the chaos, but they follow her, tackle her, and toss her in the paddy wagon.

Galinar drops back in at the Londinium and asks bartender Tavish to send for Lady Arwel and feed him strong drink. Tavish comes back with her, and she promptly says, "You will do anything to get back in my good graces, won't you?" He flirts with her and she tells him he both bores and excites her. She decides that she'll heal him, but wants to know what's in it for her. He tells her that the Quakers were able to make it inside the Hotel Avalon without anyone trying to stop them or alert him, which he thinks is payment enough, and also that the idiot mortal demon hunters think that the Fae are demons, and hunt them as such, and also that they have their own Quaker ghost spy in the spirit world. Arwel will accept that, and she works her healing mojo upon him. She also suggests that maybe he ought to associate with a better crowd, although of course her crowd wouldn't have him. She asks him to find for her a perfect flower, make a boutonniere out of it, and wear it when next they meet.

Judith returns to the Londinium Club, where Tavish expresses a willingness to throw Galinar out for her. She declines and asks him to take the message that she needs to talk to him. Tavish promptly goes to find Galinar and wakes him with a bucket of horse piss. They spar verbally before Tavish conveys Judith's message. He goes out to see her, and they go to a quiet alley to talk.

She asks him to lure out the Quakers, plain as day and bold as brass. Two bobbies come around the corner and start to ask who he's talking to, but the heinous reek of horse piss on him puts them off... at first. He tries to make the point clearer by puking on them, but one of them notices that he's wounded, and jumps to the conclusion that he might be a suspect in something. They move to subdue them, but Galinar lets it out, suddenly appearing to be huge, winged, glowing, and crackling with electricity. That brings them up short, and they run for it, though any sensible person would expect them to be back with reinforcements. They run off to a quieter and more secluded alley. They get back to negotiating, and he's willing to help draw out the Quakers to pay off the debt, so long as she's protecting him.

He goes back to the Avalon and makes himself presentable. He also sends to Ned Borthwick, inviting him to tea with Prince Galinar d'Jago, gambling that even without prior acquaintance, the title will draw Ned in.