Ignition: Part I

Ignition: Part I is the first episode of the first serial of Nathaniel J. Nelson's Seventh Circle, as well as the first issue of season one and the first issue in general. It was released in early 2024 on Nelson's website,https://www.natjnelson.com/seventh-circle and officially released to Patreon subscribers on May 31, 2024.https://www.patreon.com/natejnelson/shop/seventh-circle-ep101-ignition-part-i-of-216679?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=productshare_creator&utm_content=join_link Ignition: Part I was followed by Ignition: Part II on June 7, 2024.https://www.patreon.com/natejnelson/shop/seventh-circle-ep102-ignition-part-ii-of-204069?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=productshare_creator&utm_content=join_link
==Intro==
October 2015 – A freak fire in Boston destroys the headquarters of the Seventh Circle Institute for Paranormal Research – a nonprofit organization that never quite caught the public eye. As the company and its employees fade into nothingness, a lone conspiracy theorist in South Boston wonders if there may have been greater forces at play behind the demise of SEVENTH CIRCLE…
==Plot==
In early 2017, Vinny Howell, a twenty-three-year-old bartender in South Boston, attends a weekly group of paranormal enthusiasts who meet in the Cambridge public library. Most of their information comes from a website called paraGhost: a forum for people undergoing paranormal experiences. Despite the concept of the group, most of their members appear unwilling to think outside the box – spending more time discussing current events, primarily the inauguration of Donald Trump – which frustrates Vinny. After the group, he talks to fellow member Sasha Belanger, who knows just as much as Vinny about the supernatural; he references Seventh Circle, a sub-par paranormal investigation agency that burned down a year earlier. Sasha reminds him that Seventh Circle never did anything worthwhile, and that he seems obsessive about the group. She is then picked up by her boyfriend. 
Vinny returns to his apartment and looks into Seventh Circle, deciding that Sasha was right about them, but that their logo and company name made them seem interesting. He also looks into Allegro, the mysterious and unidentified originator of paraGhost. Vinny starts a thread on paraGhost, asking if any of the other users want to start a paranormal investigation agency of their own.
A few days later, Vinny brings group member Jack to the site of the former Seventh Circle and suggests the possibility of forming a team. Jack is hesitant, citing his full-time job and concerns about taking advantage of vulnerable people, but Vinny seems upbeat about recruiting him.
The following Friday, Vinny is disappointed to receive a text from Jack saying that he will not be attending the group any more. Realizing Jack is not interested in starting a team, Vinny tries to stir up some enthusiasm in the other members, then leaves in frustration. Sasha follows him out of the library, and he reluctantly acknowledges the significance of this, though she is known as the skeptic of the group. Vinny brings up the idea of starting a team similar to Seventh Circle and invites her to walk to Harvard Square to discuss the possibility.
In October 2015, Kurt Bachman, founder of Seventh Circle, is interrogated by a mysterious man in sunglasses, having been kidnapped after the burning down of his building. Bachman doesn't know where he is, and the man in the sunglasses implies that he will be harshly interrogating him.
==Continuity==
*Ignition: Part I follows up on the arson of the Seventh Circle building, as depicted in Erogrendel. It is shown that the majority of Boston didn't notice the fire, or wrote it off as an accident (as the police did), while conspiracy theorists such as the users of paraGhost believe the organization may have been silenced.
**Ignition: Part I features several characters from Erogrendel, most notably Vinny Howell, who played a small role in the novel alongside Detective Isaac Parry. Ignition: Part I shows that, after hearing about Seventh Circle from Parry, Vinny immediately began planning to apply for a job, but missed his chance when the building burned down.
***Another returning character from Erogrendel is Kurt Bachman, the founder of the original Seventh Circle. He is seen in October, 2015, being interrogated by the Sunglasses Man – presumably Xavier Collin Potts, also a returning character – in a scene set halfway through Erogrendel. Bachman is frequently in Seventh Circle, though Vinny and his colleagues don't know what happened to him after the fire.
==References==
Category:Seventh Circle