New Guy went down to Georgia (and thankfully there was no fiddling involved)

“You should get out of Houston,” Cora said.

“Come to Atlanta!” Cora said.

“It'll be a fun and fancy party!” Cora said.

I should've known better.

Against my better judgement (read: crippling paranoia), I listened to Cora, and I went to the fancy party in Atlanta. I just got back, and now I'm slowly working my way through a bottle of gas station whiskey because of what went down.

I bet you want details.

So, Cora, Brayker, and I all trucked out to Georgia for some big high-class schindig put on by the Samaritan Group. It was supposed to be an Accord social- a chance for people (to use the term loosely) from different cells to talk to each other and share notes and swap stories and all that good stuff. I actually ran into some folks I'd met before there- and I also got to put faces to a lot of names. I got to meet F13 (who doesn't look like a robot), Lilith (yes, THAT Lilith), Set (who you can tell he's ancient because he only buttons like two buttons to his shirt because they didn't invent shirts in ancient Egypt I guess), and Selma the Succubus (who looks exactly like what you're thinking. I know she's a demon and all, but still. Damn) and a bunch of other people. I even managed to piss off the Cell Leader of Cincinatti when I told him that I heard horrible time travel bullshit happens in his city, which he got a little pissy about, but then he didn't really help his case when he mentioned there was a giant cybernetic squid living at the bottom of a lake somewhere in town. So yeah. Don't go to Cincinnati.

And, because you can't get a bunch of vampires and werewolves and mummies and lord knows what else together without shit getting weird (well, weirder), no sooner had everyone gotten settled in and done their introductions, this super-old vampire dude with a skull-stick and a Mike Tyson face tattoo teleported in outta nowhere. Ancient Vampire Dude said he used to be a member of the High Council, but he left before they went big. So, yknow, a Fifth Beatle sort of thing, I guess?

The vampire wanted to recruit us to help him with some crazy-ass idea; he needed some magic doohickeys in order to perform a ritual that would summon the spirits (but not the ghosts, those are different?) of fallen Accordists in order to help us fight the Truth. Given how I've always been told the Truth eats your soul when you die...I was a little leery of the idea.

Somehow or another, people agree to this crazy-ass idea (partially because I think the sociopaths were getting bored and wanted to kill something), and split off into groups to go track the magic whatzits down. And somehow or another, I decided I wanted to see what the fuck was going on myself, so I fell in with one of the away teams. Lilith (yes, THAT Lilith) was leading this one, and I understood it was gonna be more of an investigative thing.

Once again, I was wrong.

So we truck down to some dank catacomb in the sub-sub-sub basement, and we wind up with two doors. One's got blood on it. The other one doesn't. All the magic-psychic-whatever people kept squinting at the damn doors, at which point I finally said, “Hey, why don't we go through the one that hasn't got blood on it?”

So they decide to go through the blood door.

And lo and behold, the blood door leads to a horrible torture dungeon where a giant hate face yelled lightning at us.

This is why you should listen to me.

There was a fight (and I contributed! I think. Hate face spirits aren't bulletproof, apparently), and we make it out of there relatively unscathed (or, uh, at least I did, and that's the important part). We finally made it back to the ballroom where all of this was going down- I think we were the last team back, because it took us longer because we weren't actually supposed to be a kill team, but I digress.

By the time we get back, Ancient Vampire Dude has got his crazy eyes on, and he started ranting about making history. Has this ever been a good thing? Ever?

And the gathered crowd still let him go through with his goddamn magic ritual. What the fuck? Did anyone at this point think it was a good idea? Anybody? Whatever.

Cora at least had the good sense to corral off a bunch of the less fighty people (so, y'know, me) in a side ballroom, so at least someone wouldn't get killed if Ancient Vampire Dude exploded everyone else.

The people in this picture all have common sense and healthy survival instincts. So if you ever meet them, LISTEN TO WHAT THEY HAVE TO SAY. Except for the dude in the top hat. He was weird and sparkly.

And indeed, lo and behold, shit got awful. I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.

Ancient Vampire Dude performs the ritual, and all of a sudden the whole top floor (with all of us in it) is teleported into the Dark Dimension- someone called it the Abyss, maybe? That's a thing? Anyway, Ancient Vampire Dude then yelled at everyone and scared the shit out of like half the people there and made them run away- but then the other half of the crowd who wasn't scared (including our very own Major Brayker, 'cause he's a badass) proceeded to kill the shit out of Ancient Vampire Dude until he melted into a pile of that Black Jello Metal that people have been finding. Someone opened up a portal back to the real world, thankfully, and we all went back to Atlanta without much fuss. 

And that was that.

Back in Houston now, and I'm rather glad for it. Because, horrible as it is, I...kind of like it here. I mean, at least here in Houston, I know who I'm dealing with, and what they can do, and people even sometimes listen to me when they feel like it. You're all still terrifying of course, but it's the terror you know, right? Meanwhile, in Atlanta, it was like 'oh hey here are more scary bullshit monsters that you've never seen before, have fun!'

I mean, seriously, you guys. If some weirdo showed up on our doorstep and started going on about his mad scientist plan, I bet we wouldn't put up with that shit. You're professionals, dammit. So, uh, keep up the good work, I guess.

See you Saturday.