notanautomaton
I've got 99 quests, I've finished one
Implied to be an Incarna or Celestine. Saturn specifically.
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Panopticon: A Game of Posthumans, Perniciousness, Paranoia, Politics, and Plasmaguns
Well yes, holding it down and punching an Incarna repeatedly in the face with a DSci 3 fist also is effective. A bit slower, sure.
But the point is that scale matters, and killing an actual god is hard. Rose can wound one pretty significantly, and clearly can kill their corporeal bodies and kick them back into the Umbra, but she's not equipped with the scale needed to murder gods.
It's basically more like the man in white was a hand that Control stuck into the ocean and Rose is a shark that bit off the hand.
- Location
- in the trash
We were told that if we had tried to brute force killing Al Saud, we would have needed to overwhelm his bandwith with a VE spirit nuke (>100 HLs). Basically there are two conditions to killing a spirit--you need to deal enough damage to reduce them to 0 HLs, and then you need to have DSci 3 to make sure it sticks; otherwise the spirit is merely kicked out into the Umbra where they can rest and recuperate.
Al Saud didn't actually have a lot of HLs once we stripped him of his Damage Transfer power.
(Also not all incarnae are equal, and as a corrupter type spirit Al Saud probably wouldn't have been that strong in fite even if he had ascended, but would have had even more bullshit social)
In the Control avatar's case, Rose was only able to attack a very small portion of its corpus. It's like trying to cripple a person by biting off their toe. That, and presumably the Control incarna has a lot of HLs and at that point you're looking at something like Apocalypse Canceller or a VE battleship if you want to do appreciable damage.
- Location
- Outside the Box
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I guess the more relevant question is if the hand in this metaphor will grow back anytime soon, if at all.
Janice XXVII - Epilogue II: Winter Tears
Janice XXVII - Epilogue II: Winter Tears
For once, Francesco is not driving his battered yellow taxi and he's not in his home warren of New York streets. No, he's in Idaho, in a neat black suit driving a neat black rented car. He's the very image of sober respectability.
He drives into a tired little city of maybe five thousand souls. A third of the shops on the high street are boarded up; the factory is a burned-out husk; many snow-covered front yards have Republican-red boards already up for the election later this year. He pulls to a stop in the outskirts of the city, in one of the better-fairing areas, and checks his appearance in the mirror. Everything is in order once he puts on an unneeded pair of reading glasses. Taking his briefcase, he climbs out of the warmth of the car, and shivers his way up the path to his destination.
It's a two storey house, sitting on the edge of a small copse, with a power line running over the roof. The snow is stepped high, and the path is surrounded by waist high snow on both sides. Among all the white, he is a solitary black shape. Crows settle on the bare trees and on the scarlet "Roth 2016" sign.
He rings the bell. There's a muffled "Get it, Donald!" then a boy's muffled retort. Eventually a clatter of feet approaches, and the outer door swings open. It's a woman; plump, grey at the roots, face lined and with the signs of too many worrying nights. She looks at the serious looking man with the briefcase and the black clothing, and her lines double. There's the sound of some kind of video game drifting through the open door from upstairs, with muffled explosions.
"Can I help you?"
"Are you Mrs Mary Thursson?"
"That's right." She looks around, peering at the official-looking black car behind the man.
"I'm Francesco Amatari. I'm here about your daughter Amber. I have some bad news. May I come in?"
The woman's lips suddenly purse. "Oh," she says, leaning against the doorframe. "Oh, all right. Let me just…" She moves like a robot, her movements mechanical as she leads him into the kitchen. The room has seen better days, and there's still breakfast soaking in the sink. She half-collapses into one of the kitchen chairs. Francesco has seen many, many people act like this. He knows the script. "Pl-please close the door," she says weakly.
He does, and takes another seat, resting his briefcase. "Thank you. Now…"
"Is she…" Mary swallows. "Is she dead?"
He nods. "I'm afraid so."
"Oh. Oh." The woman's eyes well-up with tears, and she blindly reaches for a well-used box of tissues.
"I'm sorry for your loss," he says, and means it. He'd wanted to talk to Janice. He'd always known she had an ill fate hanging over her, but in her last days she'd done something to redouble it and there were too many unanswered questions he had. Perhaps that was some of the reason he was here in the first place. He wanted to find out what had happened and a little of what led her down this road.
Her mother knows nothing of the thoughts running through his head. She takes several deep, shuddering breaths. "H-how? When?"
"If you've seen the news, four days ago there was a mass shooting in the Massachusetts town of New Salem. Amber was unfortunately one of the victims."
Mary sways. "I… I saw that in the news, yes. I was worried, but then I realised that she was in New York and… and…" She blows her nose.
"She was visiting friends who live there," Francesco says, truthfully but not honestly. "It was just a question of being in the wrong place at the wrong time."
"Oh. Of… of all the stupid, stupid…"
Another mass shooting. That's the cover story the Technocracy has put out. A trucker with mental health problems undergoing a bad divorce drove into the town and started shooting people. No mention of witches, brainwashed cyborgs, or the intervention of an actual goddess. The levelled forest had been a bomb he'd set in a fuel truck.
Mystics all around the north east felt it, though. It's January and the lilacs are blooming in Massachusetts. Five consors in New Salem have Awakened. Selene went into labour months early and gave birth to a violet-eyed daughter, the first child in her bloodline in generations to not look identical to her mother. Even the Technocracy seems cautious and apologetic about the incident, and back alley talks mention they've recalled their other ATLASes - almost like this one went rogue. It's probably just them deflecting about an unauthorised operation by their own militants, but… what if it's not?
Thoughts for later.
He clears her throat. "Mrs Thursson, I'm her estate lawyer, here to resolve her affairs. You and your grandson are the major beneficiaries of her will. Including a sizable life insurance policy."
"I… I see." Mary reaches for the box of tissues, and takes the last ones. "Sorry, sorry, look at me. I just… I need to clean myself up. I'll g-g-get the paperwork wet and… and…"
"Please, take your time," he says. "You have time to grieve before we talk about the life insurance."
Janice hadn't had life insurance. Only a fool lets the Syndicate-controlled financial system put a price on your death. You might as well place a gun to your head and ask them to kill you. But the Euthanatoi believe in karma and the value of a life freely given. Westin had insisted on it. Even if she hadn't died to stop the horrors that the Disciples and Roth had planned for New York, and even if they hadn't read how Roth's fate had been changed, anyone willing to sacrifice themselves like that to free the soul trapped in an ATLAS deserved such respect.
"In fact," he adds, "I'm sorry, but it was a long drive. Where's your bathroom?"
She blinks. "Oh, right at the top of the stairs. Th-that is, take a right, right at the top of the stairs"
"Thank you very much," he says. "Don't feel obliged to rush on my account."
He gifts her catharsis, and heads off to the bathroom. He finishes what he was to do, and while he's washing his hands peers in the mirror. He whispers a few words, and his mind steps into it, his body staying at the sink while his sense of self wanders through the reflection of the house.
Mary is downstairs where he left her, rainclouds wreathing her head. No mother should have to bury their child; that's what they like to say, but Francesco knows that's only ever been an expression of wishes. And she isn't what he's looking for.
The boy Donald is up in his room. He's maybe ten, maybe a little older; plump, sandy blond, pale, with his mother's eyes but little else in common with her. He's sprawled out on his bed, controller in hand. The television beams the violence of the video game into his head. He's the hero of an imaginary world, a supersoldier killing anyone who opposes him. The walls are covered in posters of bands; the shelves are half-full of books. He sits on the threshold of adolescence. Fransesco can see that he isn't a witch. It's hardly surprising. Janice clearly isn't from a line of witches, and she didn't raise him. He's just another child.
And yet there's magic in the room. A braided bookmark stuck casually into a book that's woven in a Verbena style to 'save up' luck. A number of well-chosen crystals on a shelf with mystical properties; good health, protection from illness, clear thought and protection from malign spirits. And a pattern of repeating symbols carved into the top of the skirting boards that look just like stylised shapes, but which Francesco can recognise as Janice's handiwork from the incoherent way that they blend secrets she's stolen from the Hermetics and other Traditions.
He shakes his head. These things won't hold their power long without Janice to renew the wards few years. The intention was clear though; things to keep him safe when she can't be there.
There's no sign of anyone else present in the house, but from the way the pictures of an older man are still up and a thousand little other details Francesco can tell that Janice's father is dead, and has been for a few years. Enough time for Mary's grief to have faded, but not so long that the news of her daughter's death hasn't brought things back.
And there's one last room, and it's the one he suspected existed. Amber's room; Janice's old room. She's Janice to him, because she chose to shed her own name and live with another. After all, 'Francesco' isn't his name - a wise precaution when Hermetics might hold a grudge. But in this room, the surfaces are dusty and it's unaired. It's obvious that Janice left it as a young woman and hasn't been back much. But she has been back. Stalking through the reflection of the room, Francesco can feel the protective wards layered particularly thick on the bottom of the wardrobe. Lesser minds wouldn't see the drawer there and would just see wood.
It'll be an emergency cache of magical tools and supplies. She's too much a street witch to not keep something close to hand.
He pauses. Maybe he should find an excuse to dispose of them. They should go to the Verbena, not be left around where they could be found by others. At the very least he'll need to tell the Verbena so they can decide how to treat such things.
And with that thought, he returns to his body.
Mary has calmed down a little, and it's time for the grey talk about money and arrangements. He is professional, but compassionate. He's done this before. He prefers to be a yellow taxi driver because it suits him. He gets to go where he wants and see the city from the ground, and he always has an excuse to be where Fate wants him to be. But he's served other roles and done other things for the Chalice.
No, he tells Mary, following the instructions in her will, Amber has already been cremated and her ashes scattered. She understands, especially when he makes clear that it was justified for environmental reasons.
"That's what she would have wanted," Mary says.
It's just as well. It's true that Janice had been cremated. There wasn't a body. Just a smashed bridge, a river with a new bend in it, a levelled kilometre of forest, and primium droplets smeared across the landscape. The forces she had unleashed had been enough to vaporise an ATLAS. Mere flesh and blood wouldn't leave a trace.
He clears his voice. One question out of curiosity, masked as professional duty. "Do you know if there's a way to contact the boy's father?" Francesco says. His tone is gentle. "She didn't provide any contact details."
Mary shakes her head. "He's… not around," she says, voice lowered. The man's expression invites more explanation, and she shakes her head. "She… I never got the full story from her, but from what I've picked up he just vanished from her life one day and she thought he was dead. But then she found he'd left her." She takes a shuddery breath. "Amber… Amber sort of went off the rails. When she was younger. She dropped out of med school, dyed her hair, and I'm sure she had a drug problem and hung around with… unsuitable people. We didn't raise her to do that, but…" she spread her hands helplessly.
"There there," Francesco says. "I'm sure you did your best."
"Since then she… she got her life back on track, but when Donald was born, she wasn't in a good place. He was… four months old when she showed up saying she couldn't cope. She visits… visited when she could and sends money but she's never really been there. He's been like a son to me. And… God, what am I going to tell him?"
"It can't be easy."
"It's not just that. He… he's been angry because she missed Christmas and she always usually tries to get back but we didn't even get a phone call and I thought something had happened to her and we never know how to contact her." Mary wrings her hands together. "And he hasn't found it easy," she says, and in her tone are echoes of her grandson's rants and resentment. And her own helpless anger at her daughter, now denied an outlook. Death forgives many sins, but scars remain in the living.
"No doubt," he says sadly. He won't - can't - tell her the truth. A settled, stable witch like Selene has room for a family, but Janice - casually leaving her body behind for astral exploration and living out of the radar in the Technocracy's strongholds - didn't. Not really. Children can't move at a moment's notice; children wind up in the school system and are a weak spot for Technocracy harassment under the guise of child services.
Mages - so often they're bad parents. Too consumed with the search for enlightenment. The ones who realise their own flaws often find someone they can trust to raise the child. He's all too familiar with that himself. Her situation was even more complicated. He can read the signs, that she must have been hiding her son from her ex. She put a lot of work into her false identity so if something took her down, they wouldn't make the link.
Francesco concludes his business here and Mary is two million dollars richer. Well, life will go on for them. That's what it does. He wonders how their fate will unfold. Money doesn't buy happiness, but it can certainly avoid misery.
He leaves them, before the boy Donald can be told of his mother's death. He doesn't need to witness more unhappiness. Wrapping his coat tighter around him, he back to his cold car. On the drive out he pauses to take a look around this sick town.
This is a place which could have done with a witch. A city like this is forgotten about by the Technocracy, and left to slowly moulder. Janice had been all over the world and sent her mind travelling deep into the umbra, but she'd fled from this place that desperately needed someone like her.
He shakes his head sadly, breath steaming in the cold. She hadn't wanted to be a small town witch. She'd rather live under the nose of the Technocracy with a false name she bought from the Virtual Adepts and didn't even tell her coven her real name, weaving new things from fusing things from many Traditions together. If she had been willing to take a place like this and cultivate it, she'd probably still be alive and this would be a happier place. But that had been her choice, and he wouldn't deny her the right to make it, even if he could have. He wasn't blind and he could see all the repressed tensions with her parents. She'd wanted out of this town. And from what he'd seen of the shape of Janice's soul, she hadn't ever been the sort who could sit quietly and slowly mend a place like this.
Well, wherever she is now, he prays that last sacrifice balanced out her dark fate. Francesco looks around the snowy landscape, and shivers. If she grew up here and left to never come back, maybe she'll be reborn somewhere warm. And maybe she'll remember enough of who she was that they'll meet again some day.
"You still owe me answers, Janice," he says, climbing back into his hired car. He turns the heat up to full before he begins his long drive back to the airport.
For once, Francesco is not driving his battered yellow taxi and he's not in his home warren of New York streets. No, he's in Idaho, in a neat black suit driving a neat black rented car. He's the very image of sober respectability.
He drives into a tired little city of maybe five thousand souls. A third of the shops on the high street are boarded up; the factory is a burned-out husk; many snow-covered front yards have Republican-red boards already up for the election later this year. He pulls to a stop in the outskirts of the city, in one of the better-fairing areas, and checks his appearance in the mirror. Everything is in order once he puts on an unneeded pair of reading glasses. Taking his briefcase, he climbs out of the warmth of the car, and shivers his way up the path to his destination.
It's a two storey house, sitting on the edge of a small copse, with a power line running over the roof. The snow is stepped high, and the path is surrounded by waist high snow on both sides. Among all the white, he is a solitary black shape. Crows settle on the bare trees and on the scarlet "Roth 2016" sign.
He rings the bell. There's a muffled "Get it, Donald!" then a boy's muffled retort. Eventually a clatter of feet approaches, and the outer door swings open. It's a woman; plump, grey at the roots, face lined and with the signs of too many worrying nights. She looks at the serious looking man with the briefcase and the black clothing, and her lines double. There's the sound of some kind of video game drifting through the open door from upstairs, with muffled explosions.
"Can I help you?"
"Are you Mrs Mary Thursson?"
"That's right." She looks around, peering at the official-looking black car behind the man.
"I'm Francesco Amatari. I'm here about your daughter Amber. I have some bad news. May I come in?"
The woman's lips suddenly purse. "Oh," she says, leaning against the doorframe. "Oh, all right. Let me just…" She moves like a robot, her movements mechanical as she leads him into the kitchen. The room has seen better days, and there's still breakfast soaking in the sink. She half-collapses into one of the kitchen chairs. Francesco has seen many, many people act like this. He knows the script. "Pl-please close the door," she says weakly.
He does, and takes another seat, resting his briefcase. "Thank you. Now…"
"Is she…" Mary swallows. "Is she dead?"
He nods. "I'm afraid so."
"Oh. Oh." The woman's eyes well-up with tears, and she blindly reaches for a well-used box of tissues.
"I'm sorry for your loss," he says, and means it. He'd wanted to talk to Janice. He'd always known she had an ill fate hanging over her, but in her last days she'd done something to redouble it and there were too many unanswered questions he had. Perhaps that was some of the reason he was here in the first place. He wanted to find out what had happened and a little of what led her down this road.
Her mother knows nothing of the thoughts running through his head. She takes several deep, shuddering breaths. "H-how? When?"
"If you've seen the news, four days ago there was a mass shooting in the Massachusetts town of New Salem. Amber was unfortunately one of the victims."
Mary sways. "I… I saw that in the news, yes. I was worried, but then I realised that she was in New York and… and…" She blows her nose.
"She was visiting friends who live there," Francesco says, truthfully but not honestly. "It was just a question of being in the wrong place at the wrong time."
"Oh. Of… of all the stupid, stupid…"
Another mass shooting. That's the cover story the Technocracy has put out. A trucker with mental health problems undergoing a bad divorce drove into the town and started shooting people. No mention of witches, brainwashed cyborgs, or the intervention of an actual goddess. The levelled forest had been a bomb he'd set in a fuel truck.
Mystics all around the north east felt it, though. It's January and the lilacs are blooming in Massachusetts. Five consors in New Salem have Awakened. Selene went into labour months early and gave birth to a violet-eyed daughter, the first child in her bloodline in generations to not look identical to her mother. Even the Technocracy seems cautious and apologetic about the incident, and back alley talks mention they've recalled their other ATLASes - almost like this one went rogue. It's probably just them deflecting about an unauthorised operation by their own militants, but… what if it's not?
Thoughts for later.
He clears her throat. "Mrs Thursson, I'm her estate lawyer, here to resolve her affairs. You and your grandson are the major beneficiaries of her will. Including a sizable life insurance policy."
"I… I see." Mary reaches for the box of tissues, and takes the last ones. "Sorry, sorry, look at me. I just… I need to clean myself up. I'll g-g-get the paperwork wet and… and…"
"Please, take your time," he says. "You have time to grieve before we talk about the life insurance."
Janice hadn't had life insurance. Only a fool lets the Syndicate-controlled financial system put a price on your death. You might as well place a gun to your head and ask them to kill you. But the Euthanatoi believe in karma and the value of a life freely given. Westin had insisted on it. Even if she hadn't died to stop the horrors that the Disciples and Roth had planned for New York, and even if they hadn't read how Roth's fate had been changed, anyone willing to sacrifice themselves like that to free the soul trapped in an ATLAS deserved such respect.
"In fact," he adds, "I'm sorry, but it was a long drive. Where's your bathroom?"
She blinks. "Oh, right at the top of the stairs. Th-that is, take a right, right at the top of the stairs"
"Thank you very much," he says. "Don't feel obliged to rush on my account."
He gifts her catharsis, and heads off to the bathroom. He finishes what he was to do, and while he's washing his hands peers in the mirror. He whispers a few words, and his mind steps into it, his body staying at the sink while his sense of self wanders through the reflection of the house.
Mary is downstairs where he left her, rainclouds wreathing her head. No mother should have to bury their child; that's what they like to say, but Francesco knows that's only ever been an expression of wishes. And she isn't what he's looking for.
The boy Donald is up in his room. He's maybe ten, maybe a little older; plump, sandy blond, pale, with his mother's eyes but little else in common with her. He's sprawled out on his bed, controller in hand. The television beams the violence of the video game into his head. He's the hero of an imaginary world, a supersoldier killing anyone who opposes him. The walls are covered in posters of bands; the shelves are half-full of books. He sits on the threshold of adolescence. Fransesco can see that he isn't a witch. It's hardly surprising. Janice clearly isn't from a line of witches, and she didn't raise him. He's just another child.
And yet there's magic in the room. A braided bookmark stuck casually into a book that's woven in a Verbena style to 'save up' luck. A number of well-chosen crystals on a shelf with mystical properties; good health, protection from illness, clear thought and protection from malign spirits. And a pattern of repeating symbols carved into the top of the skirting boards that look just like stylised shapes, but which Francesco can recognise as Janice's handiwork from the incoherent way that they blend secrets she's stolen from the Hermetics and other Traditions.
He shakes his head. These things won't hold their power long without Janice to renew the wards few years. The intention was clear though; things to keep him safe when she can't be there.
There's no sign of anyone else present in the house, but from the way the pictures of an older man are still up and a thousand little other details Francesco can tell that Janice's father is dead, and has been for a few years. Enough time for Mary's grief to have faded, but not so long that the news of her daughter's death hasn't brought things back.
And there's one last room, and it's the one he suspected existed. Amber's room; Janice's old room. She's Janice to him, because she chose to shed her own name and live with another. After all, 'Francesco' isn't his name - a wise precaution when Hermetics might hold a grudge. But in this room, the surfaces are dusty and it's unaired. It's obvious that Janice left it as a young woman and hasn't been back much. But she has been back. Stalking through the reflection of the room, Francesco can feel the protective wards layered particularly thick on the bottom of the wardrobe. Lesser minds wouldn't see the drawer there and would just see wood.
It'll be an emergency cache of magical tools and supplies. She's too much a street witch to not keep something close to hand.
He pauses. Maybe he should find an excuse to dispose of them. They should go to the Verbena, not be left around where they could be found by others. At the very least he'll need to tell the Verbena so they can decide how to treat such things.
And with that thought, he returns to his body.
Mary has calmed down a little, and it's time for the grey talk about money and arrangements. He is professional, but compassionate. He's done this before. He prefers to be a yellow taxi driver because it suits him. He gets to go where he wants and see the city from the ground, and he always has an excuse to be where Fate wants him to be. But he's served other roles and done other things for the Chalice.
No, he tells Mary, following the instructions in her will, Amber has already been cremated and her ashes scattered. She understands, especially when he makes clear that it was justified for environmental reasons.
"That's what she would have wanted," Mary says.
It's just as well. It's true that Janice had been cremated. There wasn't a body. Just a smashed bridge, a river with a new bend in it, a levelled kilometre of forest, and primium droplets smeared across the landscape. The forces she had unleashed had been enough to vaporise an ATLAS. Mere flesh and blood wouldn't leave a trace.
He clears his voice. One question out of curiosity, masked as professional duty. "Do you know if there's a way to contact the boy's father?" Francesco says. His tone is gentle. "She didn't provide any contact details."
Mary shakes her head. "He's… not around," she says, voice lowered. The man's expression invites more explanation, and she shakes her head. "She… I never got the full story from her, but from what I've picked up he just vanished from her life one day and she thought he was dead. But then she found he'd left her." She takes a shuddery breath. "Amber… Amber sort of went off the rails. When she was younger. She dropped out of med school, dyed her hair, and I'm sure she had a drug problem and hung around with… unsuitable people. We didn't raise her to do that, but…" she spread her hands helplessly.
"There there," Francesco says. "I'm sure you did your best."
"Since then she… she got her life back on track, but when Donald was born, she wasn't in a good place. He was… four months old when she showed up saying she couldn't cope. She visits… visited when she could and sends money but she's never really been there. He's been like a son to me. And… God, what am I going to tell him?"
"It can't be easy."
"It's not just that. He… he's been angry because she missed Christmas and she always usually tries to get back but we didn't even get a phone call and I thought something had happened to her and we never know how to contact her." Mary wrings her hands together. "And he hasn't found it easy," she says, and in her tone are echoes of her grandson's rants and resentment. And her own helpless anger at her daughter, now denied an outlook. Death forgives many sins, but scars remain in the living.
"No doubt," he says sadly. He won't - can't - tell her the truth. A settled, stable witch like Selene has room for a family, but Janice - casually leaving her body behind for astral exploration and living out of the radar in the Technocracy's strongholds - didn't. Not really. Children can't move at a moment's notice; children wind up in the school system and are a weak spot for Technocracy harassment under the guise of child services.
Mages - so often they're bad parents. Too consumed with the search for enlightenment. The ones who realise their own flaws often find someone they can trust to raise the child. He's all too familiar with that himself. Her situation was even more complicated. He can read the signs, that she must have been hiding her son from her ex. She put a lot of work into her false identity so if something took her down, they wouldn't make the link.
Francesco concludes his business here and Mary is two million dollars richer. Well, life will go on for them. That's what it does. He wonders how their fate will unfold. Money doesn't buy happiness, but it can certainly avoid misery.
He leaves them, before the boy Donald can be told of his mother's death. He doesn't need to witness more unhappiness. Wrapping his coat tighter around him, he back to his cold car. On the drive out he pauses to take a look around this sick town.
This is a place which could have done with a witch. A city like this is forgotten about by the Technocracy, and left to slowly moulder. Janice had been all over the world and sent her mind travelling deep into the umbra, but she'd fled from this place that desperately needed someone like her.
He shakes his head sadly, breath steaming in the cold. She hadn't wanted to be a small town witch. She'd rather live under the nose of the Technocracy with a false name she bought from the Virtual Adepts and didn't even tell her coven her real name, weaving new things from fusing things from many Traditions together. If she had been willing to take a place like this and cultivate it, she'd probably still be alive and this would be a happier place. But that had been her choice, and he wouldn't deny her the right to make it, even if he could have. He wasn't blind and he could see all the repressed tensions with her parents. She'd wanted out of this town. And from what he'd seen of the shape of Janice's soul, she hadn't ever been the sort who could sit quietly and slowly mend a place like this.
Well, wherever she is now, he prays that last sacrifice balanced out her dark fate. Francesco looks around the snowy landscape, and shivers. If she grew up here and left to never come back, maybe she'll be reborn somewhere warm. And maybe she'll remember enough of who she was that they'll meet again some day.
"You still owe me answers, Janice," he says, climbing back into his hired car. He turns the heat up to full before he begins his long drive back to the airport.
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Much like Jazmin, Janice was a terrible parent. Then again, most mages are. Serafina is probably on the shortlist of "actually decent parents" and she gets the advantage of being a highly situated Progenitor whose surrogate child is already capable of acting like an adult when she has to.
Also a blond-haired kid named "Donald." How suspicious a name and appearance.
Also a blond-haired kid named "Donald." How suspicious a name and appearance.
Sentence just cuts off here.
I really wanted to see Janice and Francesco having a final talk too.
... In fact, I hope we do get to see that, as some form of epilogue or flash-forward to the future.Or that Janice had left a brief ghost behind that he could talk to? (... Then again, maybe it wouldn't be a good thing for a person like her, in her position, to also end up with a ghost behind.) Or an oracle or séance to contact her? I dunno.
Deadly Snark
Tryhard As Fuck
I am sure it's nothing.
Donaldfaces are the Saberfaces of PQ. Donald himself has no idea why so many random people look like him.
Deadly Snark
Tryhard As Fuck
Donald: "Pro-protection? Is that some sort of new street drug?"
Origami Clock
Right twice a day
- Location
- Brighton, UK
Now we know why he joined the Syndicate. It was the only way he'd ever be able to afford all of his child support payments.
I do hope that he gets a mention in Janice's will, if only so that he doesn't get to escape the traumatic character development fairy's pixie dust. Though I might just be in for it to see Rose's cooing over the adorablely awkward attempts at Father-Son bonding, especially with him being Captain Loadsamoney in I-Can't-Believe-it's-Not-MAGAville.
Well I guess Janice derailed the fuck out of THAT Presidential bid.
Janice didn't have a will of this sort. Westin gave Janice's family 2 million dollars of mercenary blood money because her family deserved something for her sacrifice, which was made for all mankind.
Also as far as presidential elections go...
Well see above.
It's just as well, really.
A lot of video game plots wouldn't work when it's the President kidnapping some ninjas and are you a bad enough dude to rescue the ninjas?
Roth did in fact play college ball.
Origami Clock
Right twice a day
- Location
- Brighton, UK
Does ITX have a spidertank in a hanger beneath Manhattan, out of interest?
- Location
- NY
It's ItX, why would they NOT have a spidertank in a hanger beneath one of the greatest monuments to the Technoparadigm in the world?
Yet the new improved Roth whose got a burning new crusade of Kill All Vampires is in place to to enact sweeping positive changes.
Police reforms (to root out all vampire influence), changes to food and drug laws (burning vamps out once again), dealing crushing blows to organizedvampire crime.
Heck he might even do some business reform (again to defeat vampires financial power)
Police reforms (to root out all vampire influence), changes to food and drug laws (burning vamps out once again), dealing crushing blows to organized
Heck he might even do some business reform (again to defeat vampires financial power)
Shard
One and Many
- Location
- Malaysia
I understand Christos also left a ghost behind for Alice to talk to, for a moment. Before proceeding to the afterlife.I really wanted to see Janice and Francesco having a final talk too.
Or that Janice had left a brief ghost behind that he could talk to? (... Then again, maybe it wouldn't be a good thing for a person like her, in her position, to also end up with a ghost behind.) Or an oracle or séance to contact her? I dunno.
- Location
- in the trash
Contraception is a tool of the Technocracy!
Though Didn't Janice say Seraphina's use of it was one of her few virtues (on Seraphina's TradWiki Dosier)?
Given it's the traditions I'm betting theres some fairly massive divides on that issue.
With jerks like mraa who would no doubt reply that Janices a sellout to the TU for pushing contraceptives.
Or Verbena witches who lament the final loss of the ancient contraceptive plant silphium with the dimensional anomoly
Sirrocco
Pedantic
- Pronouns
- He/Him
She'd had a learning experience, after all.
She also has two people to carry that burden? Sort of?
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