The First Wave

GM: James
Transcribed by: James
Date: July 12, 2020
In Game date: April 19, 2012
Episode: 32

Part 01: David Clay

Fergus Mac Cormaic was able to convince the dryad, Máire, whom we had rescued from the dark fae Woman in Whiteand brought back from the Nevernever, to help us deal with the demon, Sebassis. The demon of strife had been held on this plain of existence by Trevor Radcliffe, leader of The Peter Kirk Syndicate. The business mongol had used the demon’s supernatural influence to gain a vast amount of wealth and power over the last few years before Fergus and I defeated the demon in combat and destroyed the lab it was being held in.

Unfortunately, the demon had been controlled by siphoning off much of its power using the comatose outsider, The Un-Man. When we had banished the demon back to hell that power had remained inside the Un-Man until Jack Youngblood and Fergus Mac Cormaic had done a ritual that cleansed the Un-Man’s Outsider influence from him. The side-effects of that had released all the power that the Un-Man had drained over the years. Jack himself regained the Wizardly power that the monster had drained from him. But he wasn’t the only one.

Casimir Sokolov, the former head of The Sokolov Bratva, had been drained of his power as well and when the Un-man was unmade he regained his full strength. We had only just managed to defeat him the other night, after he had kidnapped Fergus’s college friend, Dušan Branislav.

All the power that the Un-Man had been draining from Sebassis over the course of several years was also released. That power had resulted in an escalation in strife and violence throughout the region as the demon’s influence drove many people mad, causing murderous outbursts. Many in the city had identified the cause of that violence and a race had begun to find a way to harness Sebassis’s unfettered Power. This had caused open warfare between an alliance of The Fomor, The Sokolov Bratva, and individuals like The Patient One versus The Peter Kirk Syndicate.

Lorcan Rourke, a Scion of the Fomorian Balor, had lead the attack on Radcliffe and the PKS using arson and bombings. We had barely survived the bombing of the Radcliffe Clinic on Capitol Hill and had been steadily pursuing a way to rid the city of Sebassis’s Mantle of Power by banishing it back to Hell where it belonged, keeping it out of the hands of our enemies.

Craig Big Eagle, Abigail Youngblood, Jack Youngblood and Máire had come up with a plan to send the corrupting Mantle of Power back to Hell. The demon’s power had originally been released in the mystically constructed demesne created by Artemis Miller where Jack had done ritual to unravel the Un-Man, causing this crisis to begin with. Sebassis would be summoned to that demesne (which had been reconstituted through the efforts of Fergus and Jack) and all the Mantle’s power would gravitate to him. Then we would have to banish him back to Hell.

We knew that the ritual would resonate throughout the region and we would need to defend the demesne from any who would interfere. To that end, Fergus and I were to guard the physical entrance to the demesne in the real world, located at a collapsed cave that used to house the Wizard, Miller’s old lab, while Jack and Craig did the ritual to put an end to all of this. Luckily for us we weren’t alone. We were joined by several members of The Pack headed by their enforcer, Ash. Our goal was to prevent anyone or anything from entering the demesne through the gate we guarded. We would succeed no matter the cost.

Part 02: Fergus Mac Cormaic

Fuck. I couldn’t sit still. My blood coursed though my ears leaving my head ringing. I was trying to stay focused but it just kept playing back through my mind over and over and over again. I kept seeing Anna Maria Avila and our child lying dead at my feat, victims of my Wylde rage. That Bean-Nighe had hurt me. Hurt me much more than any fucking sword ever had. I was pacing back and forth when I realized that I was surrounded. By The Pack.

There were four werewolves I could see right in front of me but I instinctively knew others lurked in the woods nearby. The mountain air around Mt. Rainier quickly cooled the sweat on my brow and I, not wanting to show weakness, suppressed a shiver. One of the wolves, obviously the alpha of the group slid forward and barred his fangs in a silent snarl, seeking to establish his position over me by making me cow to his threat.

The Wylde flared in me with a green flash. My eyes glowed a green color, motes of power leaking from them while the tattoos on my arm thrashed and whipped around. A wind blew up out of nowhere and I was framed in the Green power of the Guardian of the Seventh Gate as I wrestled to control the rage that had grown within me. I met the wolf’s eyes not backing down an inch and begged him to give me an excuse. I was disappointed when the wolf’s haunches dropped his belly to the ground and his eyes flinched away and he showed me his throat. “Good dog!” I leered at him before contemptuously showing him my back. Not that we had gotten that out of the way I looked forward to kicking someone’s ass.

Part 03: David Clay

I heard Fergus and the wolves in the brush having a confrontation when Ash, put a gentle hand on my arm.

“Ah reckin’ dey goin’ ta need ta work dis out fer demselves,” he said softly in his Southern Accent. “We need ta get ready. Ah s’spect we gonna hafta defend this place.”

I began to clear out some brush laying out clear lanes of fire and making sure there was only one approach to the door to the demesne. Ash worked quietly alongside me, making suggestions as we worked to establish our defenses. I wasn’t too surprised to notice he had Marine Corps tattoos given his insightful tactical advice. I was glad to have him at my side. The Pack had a deserved reputation in the area and I knew they would be a huge help in the struggle to come. Our preparations came to an abrupt end when we heard a quick warning “yip!” from a wolf in the woods ahead of us. Emerging through the trees came a small army of men armed to the teeth with assault rifles.

Ash and I hunkered down, taking cover in our newly prepared defenses.

Part 04: Fergus Mac Cormaic

It sounded like World War Three over at the mouth of the demesne. Over two dozen soldiers had opened fire with their assault rifles, all of them trained on my good friend David Clay. His clothing was quickly shredded under the onslaught as hundreds of rounds slammed into his clay form, ricocheting all around him. The nearby stand of trees was decimated by the attack but, amazingly, the Golem stood firm. It was like watching something out of a superhero movie.

After picking my jaw up from the ground at the spectacle, I circled around the dozens of black garbed commandos and ambushed them from behind. I was able to club one of the soldiers down with a heavy blow to the temple with the shillelagh I had manifested from my tattoos. I remained undetected as the leader screamed for his men to keep firing. That was when the Pack attacked.

There was a flash of movement on the commando’s right flank but the soldiers were fast to respond. They turned their weapons on the wolves that charged them, blunting their assault. The wolves were dispersed, ducking and dodging gunfire, unable to press their attack. One wolf, clearly larger than the others, jumped over his retreating brethren, ripping the throat out of one of the men.

David, taking advantage of the soldier’s split gunfire, charged forward yelling something about “Smashing!” and a few of the soldiers lost their nerve and fled. He bowled into the thick of them knocking several of them around, slamming one of them through a stand of trees with a sickening thump.

The commandos gunfire intensified on the other flank as the Pack charged in again. Unfortunately for them the soldiers were prepared for the assault. Four of the eight wolves were chopped down by focused gunfire, two of them most definitely dead. Ash, the larger wolf, went berserk at that and ripped into the men tearing several of them limb from limb.

The Pack was in trouble. They would not be able to escape the gunfire unless they had help. I charged forward, dropping the veil that concealed me, and dazzled the men with a flare of green Wylde Fire. The distracted troopers were torn asunder by Ash as he continued in his rage fueled assault on his pack’s tormentors. David incapacitated several more with massive blows from his clay limbs. The commando’s were surely doomed but a second force opened fire from the treeline giving the original force enough cover to retreat from the battle.

I was screaming in triumph at their retreat and decided to raise my veil again and followed them into the trees. I was able to get close enough to them to overhear Trevor Radcliffe himself demand they continue their attack immediately.

“I must regain the demons power! Everything depends on it!”

The officer in charge was calm in the face of Radcliffe’s unhinged demands and he ignored a long stream of insults hurled at him. When Radcliffe was done the officer stated he would need reinforcements to continue the assault. I was planning on moving closer to them to see if I could learn more of their plans when I felt it.

Something cold and powerful shuddered through the Nevernever reverberating through my whole body. The Demesne was under assault! I had to get their now! I made my way to David and told him what I had heard and then I used my connection to the Wylde to open a passage to the demesne and, screaming at David to “Hold the line!”, leaped through it.

END OF CHAPTER ELEVEN

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