Session 7: Shadows and Secrets

 July 1st, 2013 

At Eric's suggestion, the motley agreed to weekly lunches to catch up with each other and help keep tabs on each other, largely for protection, as with any motley activity among the Lost. The week following their rescue of Hannah, the group met for their first lunch session to share what had happened to them during their downtime.

Tia mentioned that she'd run into a girl in a park who could see through her Mask. Simon shared that he'd been contacted by Mr. Gone about finding information on a drug that can let any mortal do the same, though Tia didn't think the little girl she met had been drugged. Chiara then brought up a weird guy at a library who seemed dazed and was spending more time than was healthy browsing the computers, getting into trouble with both the library staff and his wife.

The group decided to do some investigation on the incidents, and came to the conclusion that the weird guy in the library was addicted to...LOLcats. They couldn't find much else as a group, so they split up to do some independent research before dinner. Eric and Simon both looked up more on the drugs, but Eric was only able to find information about a “pigment” fiasco in Texas some nine years ago.

Right after dinner, the group found a changeling in a nearby alley, apparently mad and mumbling about shadows and creepy crawly things and absolutely terrified of something that had attacked him. Most notably, he had no shadow. Chiara used a Contract to discern his fear, seeing a vision of a tall shadow with claws and glassy glowing eyes. They took the changeling—one Hopeless Jim—to the Summer Court for suggestions.

Red consulted some of her own contacts and recommended oneiromancy or Contracts of Omen to try to get a better idea of what was wrong, and gave the group a bit of history about Jim. He was a two-bit conman known in the freehold as someone to trust only so far as one could spit. He'd recently attempted to “gain closure” with his fetch by stalking the creature, even confronting it once, and the timing fits with the start of the group's sightings of people with holes in their shadows. The group made a quick dream-Pledge with Jim—with Red “helping” Jim to agree to the deal by making him nod his head—then took him to their Hollow and hopped into his dreams.

Eric tweaked things to make it into a memory dream, and the group analyzed things to find out what had happened. The dream indicated that Jim's shadow detached from him, turned into the monster of his fears—a demonic apparition with a mirror for a face and a body of deep blackness—and tore at his soul, after which it disappeared. They deduced that the shadow referred to his fetch and used the wonders of the internet—and asking mad dream-Jim for info—to track down James Fields, Jim's fetch. (Yay, Facebook stalking.)

 July 2nd, 2013 

They found his condo and approached him, and found a crazed fetch starting to fall apart and eating a shadow (which may or may not have been Hopeless Jim's). They confronted him about it, firing off a few shots after it attacked them, and he fled through a shadow. The group disappeared into the Hedge before the police could arrive on scene and headed back to their Hollow for lack of better leads. They decided to keep tabs on James' Facebook page, and lucked out when he posted a response to one of his drinking buddies agreeing to meet for drinks that evening (and presumably eat his shadow).

After a quick check-in with Jim, the group decided to stake out a coffee shop in the general area where James and his buddies liked to hit the bars, and waited for the aforementioned drinking buddy to update his Facebook status with a location. Eric, meanwhile, started a bar brawl in an effort to regain Glamour.

The group showed up at the location in time to spot James approaching from the other end of the street. Eric decided to distract the friend while the rest of the motley approached James, who seemed to notice them coming before he actually spotted them. James ducked down a side alley and the motley gave chase. James actually escaped into the Hedge after taking a bite out of Tia's shadow, the motley followed, and a fight ensued. James tried to escape back out into the mortal world when things took a turn for the worse for him, but the group managed to finish him off just in time, leaving a pile of twine, sticks, and two small mirrors where a body should be. They gathered his remains up in a box and went back to collect Eric, who'd spent the fight sitting in the bar “in case the fetch decided to use a back entrance.”

 July 4th, 2013 

Hopeless Jim, meanwhile seemed to begin recovering with the death of his fetch. Of course, he was also quite angry that the motley “stole his thunder” and brought his case before the Summer Court. The motley was called in to testify in their own defense, and ultimately the Summer Queen ruled in their favor, as Jim was in no condition to deal with his fetch himself and even endangered mortals in Providence with his reckless actions. Jim ended up owing the motley a favor that they had 89 days to call in, on the condition that they not speak of Jim's fetch during that time.

The Summer Court also offered commissions to the motley, and Tia, Francois, and Chiara accepted and became Summer Court lieutenants for the duration of the season.

NPCs Met
Hopeless Jim

Enemies
James Fields - Hopeless Jim's fetch.

Other Stuff
Eric's version

Session 6: The Camera

Session 8: Ghostly Dealings