The other day, I was sitting at a bar,
about three beers in (so, y'know, “lunch”), when the guy a few
stools down started going on about how terrible the Astros are. He
was right (not that I cared, I'm more of a Cardinals fan than
anything), but the thing that struck me was just how passionate he
was about the whole thing. The fact that the local baseball team was
pretty terrible seemed to effect this dude on the personal level,
even though he knew things
probably weren't going to get better anytime soon.
And I couldn't help
but think to myself, “Y'know, it'd be really nice if all I had to
worry about was how shitty the local sports teams are, as opposed to
this whole 'otherworldly threat against all of reality' thing I've
gotten swept up into.” It's the kind of thought that makes the
pistol you've got hidden beneath your shirt suddenly seem a whole lot
heavier. And now I don't know what's worse; the fact I'm making
analogies about concealed weapons, or the fact that I fully expect
you readers to know exactly what the hell I'm talking about.
It's all about
perspective, I guess. 'cause no matter how bad things may be for you,
there's always going to be somebody having a shittier day than you
are. So, uh, more on that later.
Anyway! Brayker was
out doing more secret agent shit, which left me and/or Apophis in
charge. It's not a bad split, really, I can handle investigative and
logistical things, and Apophis can handle hitting things and/or stuff
that's screebly and horrifying.
I was
running a little late-ish, so apparently I missed the full recap of
whatever the shit happened in Nashville. Cora, Fr. Frank, and Mr.
Kendrick (and probably a few more who I'm missing) had gone. From
what I heard, there was some crazy-ass adventures through time and
space, in which Cora wore a sexy red dress, and then a bunch of
Accordists got split into random groups and met Satan and were forced
to fight the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Pretty sure that was a
game for Super Nintendo, but I digress. It's also worth noting that
Cavalry members got in the killing blows on at least two out of the
four horsemen. Maybe more. So, y'know, yay team.
We started with
some pretty simple Cell business- Fr. Frank gave a report on
Parliament (spoiler alert: they're not really accomplishing much).
The current issues up for discussion in Parliament are something
about minimum standards of combat competency (yay?) and also perhaps
the establishment of some kind of code duello so all the crazy-ass
killmonsters running around the Accord have designated rules with
which to murder each other after they start calling each other names
on the national mailing list (boo).
Dr. Watts brought
up a fairly interesting (if depressing) point, using me as an example
of...well, vague competency. In fact, by his assessment, I've already
surpassed the proposed guidelines for minimum fightiness in the
Accord. So, uh, hurray for low standards, I guess? This is actually
kind of worrying, as that means there are Accordians who have less of
an idea of what they're doing than I do. Also, as per Dr. Watts, the
Cavalry is unique in the fact that just about everyone knows some way
to hurt things? Maybe it's 'cause we live in Texas, I dunno. Now I
kind of want to get a cowboy hat and some hip-holsters if I ever go
to another big Operation, but that'd just be silly. I'd look terrible
in spurs.
In other cell
business, we had an election for a new Myrmidon, which Ash won. So
everyone congratulate her, and make sure she gets to have an easy job
of things by not trying to kill each other and all that.
So yeah. Penny
originally started putting a plan in motion in which we'd scope out
the chief of the local purist werewolves so we could see if they were
down with the CUT or not. But...we got a little sidetracked.
See, some kind of
vampire serial killer rolled into town, ate one of Penny's vampire
buddies, and then vampirized Penny. And since the dude ate Penny's
vampire buddy's soul, that means he leaned everything that the
vampire buddy knew, and...well, it ended up with the vampire serial
killer writing 'I BELIEVE' on the wall. In blood. Yeah.
A team set out
through the Hedge to intercept vampire serial killer guy, and
subsequently subdued him, so good job there. Right now, we have this
comatose vampire locked up in a box in one of our holding cells as we
figure out what to do with him. As I see it, we have three options:
- We get someone with crazy mind powers to scan him while he's still dormant, so we can figure out what his deal is.
- We wake the guy up one way or another (read: we invite some Lex vampires from out of town to do crazy vampire shit) and then interrogate him to figure out what his deal is.
- OR, Penny eats the dude's soul, which will allow him to know what the guy knows, which is a thing Penny can do because he's a full vampire instead of a half vampire. Also other vampires don't like this?
Thankfully,
comatose vampires keep for a long-ass time, so we don't have to make
a decision right away. I get the feeling we're going to need some
help on this one. Paging Dr. Helsing. Which makes me wonder now if
there's an actual Van Helsing family out there- I mean, Dracula
moderates our mailing list (which is a hilarious image if there ever
was one), so...uh, yeah.
As to be expected,
Penny isn't taking the whole 'vampire' thing very well. So, y'know,
someone's always having a shittier day than you are (unless you just
got turned into a vampire). Hopefully, thanks to the efforts of Ash,
we've gotten it handled. It's not like we haven't had vampires
hanging around before, right? Just as long as he doesn't go
around eating people or making more half-vampire bitches, I'm sure
Penny can continue to be a productive member of the Cavalry.
Meanwhile, Artemis
and Dr. Weylin and Mr. Kendrick went and played doctor- wait, no,
that sounds bad. They went and played House- wait, no, also bad. They
went and touched on their medical contacts and did some research,
confirming that the weird magic-flu thing going around is indeed
caused by The Truth, as they're using random people as 'cameras' to
observe on stuff. So, y'know, watch your ass around people with the
sniffles, guys. However, Weylin did bring up the idea of using known
infected people as means of delivering disinformation, which is a
really good idea. So yay for that.
Also, Mr. Kendrick
and one of the Sin Eaters whose name escapes me went and scoped out
the local puritan werewolf chief to see if he was in cahoots with the
CUT- and the test came back negative. So, y'know, when the local
werewolves are trying to kill us, now we know it's 'cause they're
assholes, and not 'cause they're in with the Truth. That's...kind of
good, I guess?
Oh, and we got
another new recruit. A woman named Ellen (or was it Ellie?) who's
some kind of changeling shark-mermaid, or something. 'cause that's a
thing.
Aaaanyway, next
month's October, which means we'll be having our second annual
official Accordist Monster Mash! I'll be posting a separate entry to
coordinate logistics and stuff shortly.
Of course, we're
also talking about getting a bit possee together to kick down the CUT
HQ's door in October, too- Dr. Watts is supposed to be organizing
that stuff right now, though he still needs to meet up with Brayker
to hack out the details.
So yeah. Gonna be a
busy night next month. Don't miss it.
