Gathering War Stories
7th of February 2007 A.D.
"Our thanks ancient one, we will return to the world of form that we might learn more of the nameless isle and that which guards it." Bowing while flying is one of those things that will never escape being at least a little silly, but it's a small price to pay for leaving here not just unburnt but enlightened.
On the way back you fix Harry in your sight and wonder:
What does the White Council know of the Nameless Island?
Its place, its purpose, the name of its Maker.
Lost 1 Essence -> Now at 11/18
"Huh... that last M tastes strange." You only realize you're speaking aloud when Harry gives you an amused look, but you are too caught up in the mystery to do more than scowl at him.
The answer to the riddle was 'M' as well... "Harry when did Merlin die, the original I mean?"
There's a brief embarrassed silence. "I never thought to ask, it's not the kind of thing that feels relevant, has to have been a long time ago for the name to have become a title. Long before the White Council got to Chicago that's for sure."
"Why?" you wave your hand at the air below you. "What's to stop a wizard from flying over the Atlantic even before Columbus, before the vikings even?"
"Flying's hard," he snorts. "You're basically throwing yourself up by your own bootstraps and you have to catch every time."
"OK? So make a magic broom, heck make a magic boat that always has just the right wind in its sails. One of the greatest wizards to have ever lived could have done that right?"
Harry does not seem convinced. "Maybe but why would he? As far as he knew the ocean to the west was all open water until you hit China and Japan around the other side. Making a boat that can go against wind and wave? Doable. Making that boat and some kind of magic stew bowl that can feed you for months? That doesn't sit as well, in the stomach. "
You keep looking at him in silence as though that joke didn't make you want to groan.
Seeing as he's not getting a rise out of you Harry continues: "And then getting all the way up to the Chicago portage. Sometimes an M is just an M. I think finding those knights just has you seeing Camelot all over the place."
A reasonable enough point, but it can't quite erode the certainty in your gut.
***
Either way you ask both your dad and Tiffany about Eschtamidel and what he might have been doing one hundred and thirty six years ago around Chicago. What you find is not a little alarming. According to Tiffany Eschtamidel is one of the more cooperative Denarians, giving his hosts a long lead, but only because he is a genuine believer in the capacity of mortal ingenuity to immolate itself, thus his affinity with fire. This reflection of a dark Promethean inclination sees him choose hosts of particularly sharp intellect who though circumstances or the machinations of their peers have been denied their chance to burn bright. He is distasteful of Nicodemus' preferred tongueless servants, seeing them as a waste of potential human resources. The particulars of his past hosts, much less when he might have lost them are however beyond her knowledge which leads you to Dad.
Samuel Maskelyne was a stage magician, inventor and alienist obsessed with the concept of biological evolution, not in the way you first guess given the eugenics was growing all the more popular at the time. No, from what Dad recalls old Samuel wanted to 'accelerate human evolution', improve upon man and wipe away his blemishes and imperfections, the needs and frailties of mortality. The whole thing reminds you far too much of Pathfinder Pharmaceuticals. That the drive might have been sincere, on the part of the warlock at least if not his Fallen companion does not make you any less worried. A passionate madman is worth more than any number of self-interested slave-makers. The Knights had clashed with him in Spain before he had vanished, later discovered to have taken ship to America after he had blown himself and a good part of the City of Chicago up.
The church might have some more records on Eschtamidel's later appearances, but he had just phoned his contacts to get more general information on the Denarians, calling back to ask for one in particular would probably just slow things down with checks over this odd behavior. Thankfully Dad isn't your only contact when it comes to the Church. There's always father Forthill. But how much to tell him about the ancient hungering flame thing just under the skin of West Chicago that you are hoping to
complete?
[] Tell him some of the truth (Charima+Subterfuge DC 6 opposed roll)
-[] Just say you need information about a Denarian incursion into the city in 1871
-[] Explain that you need it to give peace to a restless spiirt
[] Tell the whole truth, complex and ocasionally terrifying as it may be
[] Write in
OOC: When Harry brings up the Original Merlin in Changes it's to ask about his fate of Ebenezer so he would not know anything at this point
