⇨ The Tourist Trap: WEEK 3

[ringleaders]

Who: Anyone, anywhere in Portland.
When: October 15st - 22th, 2017
Where: Still in Portland
What: As all sides of the struggle gradually become informed, and the awareness of outsiders begins to spread, Portland faces a critical question - what should be done with them? And who gets to decide?
Warnings: Individually marked!

THE WOLVES AMONG US↴ ► WHEN SEPTEMBER ENDS: It's fairly common knowledge that October is a special month - Halloween has always been an excitable time in the supernatural community, because its during this month that the magical energies of Earth seem to disproportionately swell in power. This peeks on the 31st, and has every year for as long as anyone can remember. The holiday of Halloween is a byproduct of this, because the magical phenomenon has gone on for ages past. It's also a pretty common time for wizards to attempt bullshit shenanigans, and also when the Severing first came into effect. ► TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL: Towards the end of the week, Prudence Jaeger will be asking her angelic contacts for a pretty huge favour - she wants them to help her and some of her associates break into the Circle stronghold that the visiting Council members are staying at. It seems that they have some kind of macguffin item that will be needed to crack the barrier cutting off the Earth from the cosmos - and, to that end, allow the angels and mysterious outsiders to return to wherever they call home. ► THE PATH TO HELL: Perhaps unsurprisingly, Team Heaven isn't the only group to clue into the fact that the Circle has what they need. On the same night that the angels go in, so will Anath's army, as the arch demon finally arrives in the city just in time to join the party. Whether the angels and demons fight each other all the way or cooperate to achieve a mutual goal is up to them. ► WITH GOOD INTENTIONS: The Circle and Torchlight aren't all bad, okay? It's entirely possible that they are just acting in the best interest of humanity - unfortunately, that has resulted in them being pretty massive pricks recently, and now the payback for that is arriving on their doorstep. If you're a member of the Circle, you may or may not realize that anything is coming in time for you to prepare. (That will depend on your threads up to the end of the week.) However, once the fight starts, you'll be charge with defending the Councillors whether you like it or not, and Torchlight is getting pulled in as an unexpected ally to ensure their safety as well. Are you going to heed their call? Or is it time to split from the pack? ► BLOOD OF ICE AND FIRE: It's been made no secret that the Rose Queen isn't the only fae trying to pull back her lost changelings - now the Winter Court appears to be doing it, as well. More than a handful of changelings have gone missing over the last couple weeks, lost to both the thorns and agents of the Count. Whatever they're doing, it's also in competition with each other - Winter and Summer will be biting at each other's heels far more than normal, to the degree that it becomes clear they must have some competing objective in mind. Unfortunately for everyone else, that objective happens to conflict with the desires of just about everyone else. Fae are, by nature, opportunists. - ✪ - These are the major conflicts that will be coming to a head towards the end of Week 3. In the meantime, your actions will decide how certain elements are set up, and what the likelihood of success is for each group. Dice rolling handily won the opinion poll where we asked for the preferred method of conflict resolution, so that will be coming into effect a bit later on to determine who actually wins and loses, with advantages based on the choices made.

Comments

[ringleaders]

She's a little disappointed that he wasn't capable of being more subtle, but that's fine. Hearing that he's firmly on the side of getting rid of the Severing is good. That much she can help with. As such, she's going to reveal a bit more information.

She'll say that the Summer Court has plans to bypass the barrier... but that it depends on having a sympathetic link to the universe outside. What has changed circumstances at the moment is that 1) it seems that the barrier was put under a great amount of stress from large number of individuals passing through, and 2) it's theoretically possible to use the spiritual link those individual's souls still have to the outside to break through the barrier's spell.

The complication is that the outsider being used to to form this connection would have to have a powerful connection, like a blood relation, to the being powerful enough to cast the spell in the first place. So, essentially, the Rose Queen is prepared to break the spell on Halloween, except she still needs an artifact the Circle is holding, as well as a catalyst in the form of an outside that has been converted into one of her children.

Fortunately for her, a being like this already exists - she believes that her recently escaped changeling son could be used for this purpose. It's just a matter of finding him and bringing him back. At which point, they could all go free, of course.

[kingsroads]

Man, Strange is just going to be all of two minds about finding Steven because look, gotta get the Severing removed and everything shoved back to the way it should be but why does he get a weird feeling about the concept of stealing people into faerie all of a sudden.

TIME TO BOTTLE DOWN THOSE FEELINGS AND GET THE JOB DONE ANYWAY because he's not fae in the slightest, he can do things like 'enter the Sanctuary' and 'hit the pavement.' He'll thank Nightshade for the information and try to do better this time! (He probably won't do better this time, Team Summer Court really needs a more competent ally.)

[ringleaders]

Nut up and kidnap that child, Strange!

That's just her opinion, though.