Nomadic:Sessions:20180324
At 1:15pm the group is driving from Bridgeport to Mammoth Lake. Vincente has Marcus pull into the tourist center, where Vincente asks a bubbly young woman, "Anything strange happening around here?" "Well... it's rumored that Collin Media is bringing ghosts here from Bodie." She presses a sheaf of travel brochures into Vincente's hands before he leaves.
Marcus points out, "That Chevy Impala has passed us three times." He performs some driving maneuvers that verify the Chevy is following us. At Vincente's prompting, Rick vocalizes about energy readings, particularly "at a few isolated spots at hotels." Valerie suggests sending up a camera drone to search for Collin Media vans; her search for production studios for rent indicates several along Commercial Drive.
Vincente and Marcus check out a motel where Rick indicates a signal from the second floor. Carmella reports to Valerie that the room in question is not occupied. Marcus easily picks the lock. Vincente opens a suitcase which contains male clothing. Marcus opens the combination lock on a briefcase belonging to Scott Velasquez, a reality show producer for Collin Media. Inside is a "rack" holding two "filaments" with slots for three more; Vincente apports the rack out. Beneath is a manila file folder containing diagrams and specifications for the tiki torches; the "filaments" are elements of the torches. Rick says the rack is the source of the signal he's getting.
At another hotel, Rick says there's a very faint signal from the rear quarter of the third floor. Vincente tells Carmella to take a look. Carmella in turn asks Valerie, who exclaims, "Carmella, I don't think for you!" Nothing noteworthy is found in any of the five rooms.
At a fourth hotel, Rick says there's a weak signal from Room 136. Vincente casts Glass Wall and sees the room is unoccupied, but there are men's clothes strewn over the twin beds.
Valerie reports that a Collin Media van is parked alongside two sedans in front of a studio with a Commercial Drive address. Vincente notices the Impala pulling out from a gas station a quarter-mile behind the Navigator.
At the studio, Valerie positions herself on the hypercycle so she can see the front of the building, and Marcus sets up where he can look through the windows from a distance. Vincente casts Illusion Disguise to make himself look like Wade Miller, then crits on Missile Shield. Through a window he can see a man working at a laptop computer. Vincente walks in the front door. Glen Aguirre, the young man at the receptionist's desk, obviously recognizes "Wade" but does not greet him. Vincente: "Is Scott here?" "No, he's offsite at a meeting. However, Mr McCray is here filling in for him. What does this pertain to?" "Tiki torches."
Aguirre leads "Wade" back to the office. "Who shall I say is calling?" Vincente: "You know who I am." Aguirre taps at the door and says, "Mr Miller's here to see you."
McCray: "Have a seat." Vincente: "I've been sitting too long; I'll stand. Have you spoken to Diane lately?" McCray: "No, she was taken away by another task." Vincente: "I know you've been using tiki torches to summon ghosts. Why?" McCray: "It will be a ratings bonanza in a ghost town if we play it right." Vincente: "What were you doing with the capstone?" MacCray: "What are you talking about?" Vincente: "I took it. I have it. Do you want it back?" MacCray: "I'm busy. I don't have time. You're more dangerous than you look." Vincente: "We all are. Like the guy you put in the ground, with the bullets and runes." MacCray: "So you do work for Threepoint. Threepoint knows what those are. You're too much of a straight arrow to be part of the Collective. Why are you looking at bullets?" Vincente: "My one point is that I'm pointing this at you," meaning Diane's gun equipped with a silencer.
McCray makes aimless gestures with his right hand to try to cover for his left hand reaching beneath his desk. Marcus takes careful aim. Vincente: "These bullets have runes on them, too." MacCray: "I thought that was Diane's gun." Vincente: "I don't know what these bullets will do, but I'll bet you do." MacCray brings both hands up and out; something thumps onto the carpet. Vincente has him look out the window; McCray recognizes Marcus, who winks at him. Vincente: "Open the window." MacCray taps at a particular point on the windowframe, explaining that he is disabling an alarm. Vincente: "Now, go out the window." Vincente subvocalizes, "Valerie, we'll have a pickup shortly."
Once outside, Vincente tries to cast Sleep on MacCray but the spell does not work. Marcus zipties MacCray's hands, pats him down (removing a wallet, keycase, and zip drive), then knocks him unconscious and blindfolds him with his own necktie. Valerie comes and picks up MacCray and takes him to the Navigator; she and Rick load MacCray into the back. From the desk Vincente collects the laptop and a cell phone, learning incidentally that the desk is Lori Griffith's. He picks up the .22 automatic which had fallen on the carpet; its grip has a rune engraved on it.
Valerie returns to her lookout and sees that three people now occupy one of the sedans and are having an animated discussion. The man sitting in the front passenger seat is fiddling with the glove compartment. He exits the car gingerly holding what looks like a ring box between his thumb and forefinger and enters the building.
Marcus drives. Vincente searches the laptop (after Rick has removed a tracer) and finds data on Wade Miller, Maya Cobb, Tyler Investigations, a note about the missing capstone, photos of Vincente and Marcus, and brief notes such as Empowerment Collective? Threepoint? Powerful Mage.. Veritas Inception is bookmarked in his browser. There's also one encrypted, passworded folder. McCray had only arrived in town this morning.
Vincente finds Lori Griffith's number in McCray's phone and dials it. A female voice exclaims, "Jeremy! What do you need?" Vincente: "This isn't Jeremy. I'm your executive assistant." "Is he still alive? Your voice sounds familiar." "We've never met. Call me 'Don Johnson'. He's not worth a ransom, but he knew some things. He assumed I was with Threepoint. What are you doing with the souls?" "I am absolutely not going to tell you." "Am I going to have to come get you?" "You're playing 'hide and seek and kill'?" "There's no hiding. You're in a car. ... What does the rune on Jeremy McCray's gun mean?" "He's a good shot, but he likes accuracy, and he has dealt with the Collective quite a bit." "You consider the Collective nasty?" "I consider Threepoint nasty. I've read the list." "I'm not who you think I am." "You left a mess last night. You took the explosives but left the corpses. Tell Jeremy I said 'hi'." She hangs up.
According to Rick's descriptions, Lori Griffith is not in one of the three vehicles. Vincente tells Valerie to blow up the van. No alarms go off.
We have stopped at an isolated, deserted baseball field. Marcus and Vincente haul Jeremy McCray into the concession stand and tie him to a chair. Marcus slaps McCray awake, then announces, "You have a short window of time to prove your value to me." McCray seems about to speak; Marcus shoots him in the knee. McCray emits an ear-splitting scream; Marcus yanks open his mouth still further and with a pair of pliers extracts a false tooth. "That was a close one!" he says, tossing it to the ground and stepping on it. "Now's your chance." McCray babbles: "Threepoint Foundation... goody two-shoes... standing in our way for years... cell in L.A. ... Miller works for them... they're worldwide, like we are... Collective stands in our way... territory argument, both want the whole planet... gets messy... they might be in the area... they have a few mages... we thought you were Collective...." "Which one are you?" "We work for Veritas. Collin Media is a front."
"Have you heard of the List?" McCray doesn't answer. Marcus pulls out a pair of tin snips; "I learned this in Japan. I know you know what I'm talking about. Did she tell you about the List?" Abruptly, Marcus snips off McCray's index finger. McCray screams again, then stammers, "I don't know about a List!"
"Okay, let's start over," Marcus says. "Lori says 'hi'." McCray's eyes roll back and he goes into convulsions. Marcus punches him hard in the center of his chest and the convulsions stop. "Jeremy, you there? You guys are real crafty."
Vincente phones Lori Griffith. "That was very cruel of you. He almost had a heart attack." "He doesn't know about the List. But I could be lying. If you can Detect Truth over the phone, you should take over the world." "If you find my family, go ahead and kill them. If he doesn't know about the List, and you won't tell me what you're doing with the souls, then I'll talk to you tomorrow." "I want the capstone. It would make things simpler."
Marcus resumes interrogating McCray. "Why the runes? What are they supposed to kill?" "Spiritual constructs. Magnets to different spiritual energies. Jess Brendon Rogers made them. The capstone, I'm not sure... it's to focus spiritual energy to do something, I'm not cleared to know what. Gwendolyn Finch made it. ... The runes kill 'minders' and 'magickers'. Keeps them from dodging bullets. They take a long time to make. The Collective somehow finds more powerful minders and magickers than we do. High-level mages, bullets just don't hit them. I killed a mage once; he didn't move. ... I don't know why the spirits are being drawn in. Lori won't tell me what the energy is for. ... I can tell you where to find Collin Media's financials, their passwords..." (Rick: "They've probably already been changed.") "I'll give you $200,000 cash right now to let me go." Marcus flashes his own wad; "Not interested in your bribe." "Lori had me book tickets back to L.A. for tomorrow morning, but I didn't have a chance to do it. She was staying at Rockway Inn Wildwood. ... Milo Monteroi is an executive producer; Lori and Scott are producers. They met with two big shots from Veritas this afternoon."
Marcus: "If we let you go, what would Veritas do to you?" McCray: "Kill me, or make me dump everything you said. ... they'd use minders, equipment, and certain drugs..." Marcus: "If only they knew it only took a pistol, pliers, and snips." Vincente: "We can't take him in for medical treatment; that would put the hospital in danger. These people are out of control."
Marcus says solemnly, "Jeremy, I hope you know there's no hard feelings." "I understand," McCray says, closing his eyes. Marcus kills him with a shot to the head.
Valerie is tracking north on the Mammoth Scenic Loop. Carmella gets excited when she sees other ghosts, and indicates that there's a ghost attractor away from the road. Valerie secures the hypercycle and wends her way quietly through the woods. She comes upon a small clearing surrounded by tripwires and pressure plates. Drawn in the dirt is a pentagram; at each vertex is a tiki torch drawing in hundreds of ghosts. Seated in lotus position in the center is a man with his eyes closed in a meditative trance. One at a time, Valerie shoots out the filaments in three of the torches. At this point the man opens his eyes and his right hand reaches out and touches the ground in front of him. Valerie fires one shot through his right eye; his brains splatter everywhere.
All around Valerie ghosts scream, and Carmella presses up against her, wailing in pain. Valerie finds her center and lets the psychic agony wash over her. "I'm sorry you had to go through that," she says softly as she comforts Carmella.
Valerie searches the corpse. His black and platinum credit cards and his passport bear the name Lynwood Wilkes White of London, England. Among his possessions are a room key from the Los Angeles Hilton, and a ring with a black band set with three diamonds. Valerie cuts out an implant from the base of his skull. A ghost named Bryan O'Neal points at it and says "That's funky... some kind of mood crystal."
When Valerie communicates the short version of events, the group decides to rendezvous at Chili's. Further information about White is that he is eighty years old (though he doesn't look it), a international consultant for Veritas, and expert at finding lost artifacts, operates out of London, and had trained with the British SAS.
Vincente phones Lori Griffith. "Tell me about Lynwood." "Sh*t," she replies; "He was supposed to check in at sundown. How did you hear of him?" Abruptly she says "Hold please." Vincente hangs up, redials, gets her voice mail and leaves a message, "Call me at your convenience," and hangs up again.
Griffith calls back. "Is he dead?" Vincente: "It depends on how you define 'dead'." "He was looking for you." "He almost found me." "This is such an inconvenience... he was a rarity, a 'minder' and a 'magicker'... had a 90% success rate... he said he didn't need guards, blah blah... Now I have to go to Plan C...." Vincente: "What's the crystal for?" Griffith: "...I'm going to destroy your organization!" Vincente: "Don't blame him for this glitch. It was just his bad luck. Are you hungry? Can we meet you somewhere? ... I'm not going to discuss the size of my Johnson... I don't have a heart, I gave it away... Is Scott with you? Tell him we'll be seeing him next." Griffith: "Milo is deep into Plan C." Vincente: "You're throwing away lives." Griffith: "Success will re-enable everything!" (She reveals that she, too, has a poison tooth and a post-hypnotic phrase that will kill her.) Vincente: "I look forward to finding you." Griffith: "Our dance continues!" Vincente: "I'm going to have dinner, then find Milo. Then me and my Johnson are coming to meet you."
The group has a deep discussion over dinner that raises many questions with few answers.
Vincente calls Wade Miller, who claims, "Threepoints Foundation is a charitable organization that aids people who need encouragement through mind or body sickness. Yes, I am part of Threepoints." Vincente: "Someone who looked like you went to Collin Media and 'persuaded' an employee to leave with him. That employee has taken a vacation. But you weren't in Mammoth Lake. Veritas is very angry with you. I'd be careful if I were you."
A man and a woman have come in and are standing at the bar. The woman is about 30, medium height, conservative dress except for a rhinestone-covered clutch purse. The man is in his 40s, 6' tall, shoulder length blond hair going gray, and has a magic wand concealed beneath one arm. Valerie notices that the woman is reading Vincente's lips, and motions to him to cover his mouth. As soon as Vincente hangs up, Marcus is on his feet escorting them to the group's table, telling them "You're not who we expected." The couple gives the names Elma Allan and Pierre Barlow.
Vincente: "That's a nice purse you have, especially the powerstone." (Among the rhinestones is a genuine diamond, enchanted as a 10-point powerstone.) "And, sir, your wand is showing." Barlow (with a slight French accent): "Has Threepoints been feeding you propaganda? We're from the Empowerment Collective." Vincente: "Veritas says you have the same goal -- to take over the world. We hear you're a very nasty group." Barlow: "We're offering assistance in dealing with Veritas. A number of Veritas Inception's people are coming in to the area. Also, a very powerful mage passed away this afternoon." Vincente: "If I tell you a name, will you tell me another name? I had nothing to do with his death." Barlow: "Here is a name: Grace Lillian William." Vincente: "I'm not sure how we can pool our resources." Barlow: "We can summon many more." Vincente: "If we stop them, you would take over."
Vincente and Barlow study each other's auras. Barlow is older than he looks, +4 magery, danger sense and some other minor psionic ability; agitated; has touched spiritual energy so is aware of necromancy; self-interested; no demons or spirits attached to him. Vincente cannot determine whether Barlow is good or evil.
Vincente: "How did you find us" Allan: "Pierre detected the torches." Barlow: "Elma said we should just introduce ourselves."
Vincente: "Johnson, I'm confused. One group is scared of us. I am distrustful -- everyone says this is the devil, and they say they're good." Marcus: "I can't say I trust any of them."
Vincente puts his phone on speaker. "Lori, I have made contact with the devil." Elma recognizes Griffith's voice. Griffith: "They're here to win your trust and cut your throat." Vincente: "Can I convince you not to continue this project? The devil has resources just like you." Griffith: "I am going to continue whether you team with the Collective or not. Are you going to assist the devil?" Vincente:" Not particularly. My goal is to figure out what you're doing, stop it, and drive away. ... The deal is on the table until the morning... or until I find you tonight." Griffith: "I'll pass it up the chain." Vincente: "I'm letting you know things have changed. We work for a multi-agency, an interesting individual with a god complex. Our mission is to figure out what you're doing with the souls, and stop it."
Vincente shows a rune bullet to Barlow. Carmella warns Valerie that two ghosts are moving toward Barlow.
Marcus: "I don't know what you're trying to do, but we don't tolerate that in Chili's." Vincente: "Any aggressive moves will cause us to be hostile." Marcus: "You have principles, and so do we." Vincente: "And ours is Chili's."
Vincente to Griffith: "The devil wants to know if you've developed mediums." Griffith, failing to be funny: "No, we're very small. But we are interested in spirits to a large degree." Griffith boasts that she was once in charge of a Veritas Inception operation in Baltimore that did not end well for Empowerment Collective. "They lost a promising apprentice." Vincente: "You and Veritas are both ultra-violent, but when others push back with violence, you cry about it."
Vincente: "We've slowed Veritas down, pissed them off, they're bringing in an army to kill us, but I can't figure out what they're trying to do with the ghosts."
Elma Allan claims she's "very good at gathering information" and is "a good talker" (though she has been mostly silent so far). Vincente reads her as another +4 mage, no mind powers but iron-willed, neither good nor bad but 'doing the best she can'.
Allan asks for permission to read Marcus's aura; after a few moments she says, "Thank you, that was interesting." Vincente is aware that Allan had surreptitiously read a waitress' aura, and by the comparison now realizes that Marcus isn't from around here, but she won't admit doing that.
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