having fun isn't hard when you've got...

In the margins was an email for one Dr. A., [email protected], who, from a quick google search, turned out to be one Dr. Caity Aikens, a professor at New Everwic College specializing in Scots-Gaelic and folklore. After a quick rendezvous with her and some research on local drownings, the gang determined that their culprit was a Minch Blue Man, who likely got tangled in an Atlantic trawl and bounced around North America's east coast for a while before it settled in the sound. They cause storms and keep pace with boats, leaping like dolphins, to shout lines of poetry to the ship owner as a challenge to complete the verse. If the task is failed the storm kelpie proceeds with capsizing and drowning.

It just so happens that they have a better option than a kayak available - it was Ana's 17th birthday this past weekend, and JJ acquired a boat from his friend Fizz, a mechanic and general getaway vehicle enthusiast, to celebrate.

They take this boat to the location pointed out by Petra and set off into the waters. It didn't take long for their quarry to appear; an unsurprisingly blue-skinned man who pelted them with riddles. After an unsuccessful physical attack (Esther has -1 to tough, resulting in Ana catching her cold-iron sword, being burned by it (this is normal and fine), and subsequently tossing it overboard by accident), the gang was able to successfully out-rhyme the blue man, who physically shrunk in size with each poetry defeat. When he became small enough, Esther trapped him in a jar to mail to her great-aunt to return him to his home in Scotland.

After this the gang ate some cake on the sodden deck to celebrate Ana's birthday. :)

When attempting to go to the location of the coordinates, however, some weird temporal shit started happening; they would re-drive past entire blocks before getting jumped backwards spatially, or to different locations entirely. Ana looked up each new place they got jumped to on maps and discovered the figure again, looking directly into the camera, slightly more distorted and corrupted with each new location. Ana realized that if you plot the coordinates of them looking weirdly into the camera, it roughly spells out HELP, with a final location at the southern end of Middle Park, where there is a small power management facility. Here, the figure was doing something different: pointing into a flower bed.

Upon arriving at the power station, they found someone else investigating: cryptocryptarch, another local forum-goer, who gets electrocuted and knocked out pretty fast. They also find the figure itself - it is rapidly morphing between two people, like that 4-dimensional centaur post, so at various points a various mishmash of body parts of alabaster stone is visible. It is mostly 3D but with a weird flattening glitch effect that flashes in and out. At this location, if they look at streetview again, they can see the weird fucked up 4D swiveling in every screenshot. It Looks At You.

Ana recovers two metal wings from the flower bed that look like they might click together, so she does. A metal staff telescopes out from the joining point, creating a caduceus. Weirdly, if anyone else tries to touch it, they get zapped - approximately on the same scale as if you accidentally brush a busted power socket, not debilitating but intensely uncomfortable. No one else can hold it except for Ana. The creature, uh, 'requests' that Ana give it the caduceus. She passes it over and a transformation occurs.

The figure resolves into two separate but identical people with Roman front-facing hair styles and long white robes, who are revealed to be Abeona and Adeona, twin minor Roman goddesses of outward journeys & safe returns, respectively. They were doing Random Travel God Shit when the caduceus they share - which contains their God Essence(tm) to manifest on Earth - was broken (on purpose, by Indigo, specifically to cause chaos, lol!). They got zapped into the grid and the internet, their code got combined and corrupted, and they need help getting out, which has been achieved! They offer Ana a boon, which she takes, and turns out to kinda suck: Ana will always be a little bit late to things, no matter what. Womp womp.

Game run 5/17/2021 on discord.

[x x]

The block has a number of stores on it; the chain Barterer Johns, along with a bodega, a Japanese grocery store, and a small boutique. Barterer Johns is closed, and the bodega looks empty - maybe the owner is in the back? - except for a number of cats lounging on the stoop, so they decide to talk to the cashier at the boutique. The boutique only sells scarves and head coverings and the cashier is very talkative and helpful, albeit smelling strongly of vinegar. She might have seen someone matching Victor's description going in to the Japanese grocery, but after catching sight of JJ she becomes suspicious of them and clams up.

Ana did some quick research on her forums: has anyone else gone missing in the area recently? Turns out yes, a bunch of men have gone missing in this area, and her posting friend king_drachma supplies information that implies that the culprit might be some sort of spider demon lady. Upon realizing that Ana was serious, he pulled a "wait. wait. wait. did you find one. like in real life. like you found a hot demon spider lady. come back. send addy."

They did a small breaking and entering to get into the Japanese grocery. The first floor is a very normal grocery store; in the back is a stairway to the second story. In that second story was … the munch zone. So many baby spiders. JJ gets tied up at once point, and quote, "jj doing a cool vampire roundhouse kick while his arms are tied is so fucking funny" -blue. This spider demon was a Jorogumo, a yokai that can turn into a beautiful women. Her MO was: capture & seduces human men, and when they're tied up, she kills and slorps them a bit before laying eggs in the corpse. The eggs hatch and devour the rest, leaving only bones behind. This spider brood disperses through the city over time and she can see through all their eyes. She'll frequently have a few backup victims tied up sedated and/or half dead. Victor is one of these backups, major case of wrong place wrong time. (I have written down "only men and not women bc she is full of respect women juice", sure?)

They are able to take her down and save Victor; in the process Ana cast more magic that grew vines from within the chitin of the demon. How strange! Anyways.

"do look gift horses in the mouth, IF they're trojan horses" - Esther

Game run 4/26/21, 5/03/21 on discord

Human form: girlmaker

Our trio descended into the sewers and encountered an imperfect chimera that kinda kicked everyone's ass! They were eventually able to kill it but not without a lot of fire and knocking Ana out - she did get to do her first magic though! They also meet a mysterious someone who introduces themselves as Indigo.

In short, Indigo has stolen a spellbook from a local coven that has details on building chimerae - true ones. He has been luring people into the sewers to use in chimerical experiments! Most are imperfect - something is 'wrong' - the creatures need the spellbook held within them like a golem to operate. Given enough time, they will perfect the process and ideally cause as much chaos as possible. It is revealed that Indigo is regarded as a zealot who serves the fae titan Sicharon, a god of anachronisity, patchwork, and broken pottery.

The group had a lot of questions for Indigo - including Hey What the Fuck, What Are You, etc. - and he agreed to meet them over burgers to answer questions. . . but only if Ana was left behind as collateral. For some reason, everyone was ultimately okay with this. (Except Esther. She was always against it and she would like that on the record.) Ana stayed with Indigo, Esther and JJ went to regroup, and Indigo offered Ana peanuts. She refused, and Indigo said, "you should have eaten a peanut." And the lights went out. This is probably fine and will never come up again!

Ultimately, Indigo agreed to back down; besides, they destroyed his special sauce, the book that was acting as the core of the imperfect chimera they fought earlier, and without that it really wasn't possible. Besides, they didn't think the recipe was quite right; or not the right type of human was put in? Either way, Indigo acquiesced, and JJ and Esther retrieved Ana without any issue.

Game run 3/17/21, 3/22/21, 3/29/21 on discord

Misc images:

That last tunnel accompanied by: "uh oh! it found the leftovers!"

Texts from Indigo to JJ and Ana with some banter responses: