Timeline

## Summary

A timeline of the events of the main ongoing Orpheus Protocol campaign being run by Rob, in chronological order of occurrence within the time frame of the story. Currently WIP.

## Timeline

### 1893

#### Out of Time

October 1893. Freya Benton and Granville Moore attend a party and seance hosted by Myron Sinclair, a London-based occult enthusiast. They cross paths with a Madam Araunya, a fortune teller that they suspect is a pickpocket and thief. Sir Alfred Spencer arrives with a book by a writer named H. Colfax that contains a ritual. The ritual space is prepared and the rites are done, and a mysterious woman appears out of thin air to crash onto the table being used: Kiera Jackson, bleeding heavily from the wound she'd suffered in the mission to eliminate Zachary Feynman in the future. The trio, accompanied by Sir Spencer, brave numerous dangers to find a way to send Kiera back into the future and are mostly successful, but at the cost of Granville's life.

#### Interregnum

November 1893. Freya mourns the loss of her dear friend. She teams up with Seamus Fenian and, under orders from Sir Alfred Spencer, begins her search for Excalibur. Freya and Seamus end up crossing paths with London's dark side; an aspiring crime boss and wendigo, Bella Atropa, a strange circus clown named Lars Keswick, Myron Sinclair, and Freya's old friend Granville Moore, now a vampire. The sword is recovered, Freya and Seamus survive the destruction of the Discovery Club, but from the ashes of the carnage, arises a new conspiracy. One that will set in motion calamitous events in not-too-distant future.

### 1969

#### The Shudder

Unspecified date in 1969. Koji Miyazaki, Dr. Caitlyn Danvers and Zachary Feynman are mobilised by ORPHEUS to investigate the cult called Prophecy's Children. The cult operates out of a special effects artist's mansion, the recently deceased Benjamin Weiss, and is led by the charismatic Isaiah. Koji has already infiltrated the cult as their go-to man for drugs, and helps to bring in Caitlyn and Zachary without arousing too much suspicion. A brief investigation follows, and grim discoveries are made. Zachary learns that Ben Weiss is alive, and worse; his very flesh and blood has been somehow spread through his entire mansion. In the Solarium, Caitlyn awakens from a brief reverie induced by drugs and strange otherworldly humming and finds herself in a nightmare, as Isaiah's consorts, now mutated monsters, consume the drugged partygoers. Zach realises that his blood can harm these foul, eldritch beings, and wades into the gore-soaked Astralarium to confront Isaiah, killing him by shoving his bleeding arm into the cult leader's mouth. Koji sets the mansion ablaze and the trio escape with their lives and sanity mostly intact, while an infection creeps up Zach's arm unnoticed.

### 2005

#### Fairchild Home for Children

December, 2005. In central Indiana, Kiera Jackson and her friend Samantha are hunkered down in the Fairchild Home for Children due to a massive ice storm, trapped in the girls' trailer along with a staff member, Grace Kepner. The children's home is then rocked by a series of otherworldly happenings; a teenager named Darren Feldman goes missing and one of the home's staff, Joachim Morales, goes to find him. Kiera and Samantha hear noises in the snow and have to escape to the main building as a falling tree demolishes the girls' trailer. Joachim tracks Darren into an abandoned wing of the home, where he finds stolen supplies and a highly disturbing film. The girls hear and see Joachim running away from the horror he witnessed and Grace goes to check on him. Joachim gathers his wits and goes outside to find Darren, but instead finds a split-second image of a red-haired girl. Before he freezes, Joachim shelters in the wrecked girls' trailer, but is ambushed by Darren and knocked out.

Samantha is escorted to the bathroom by Grace for a bout of stomach pain, and Kiera takes the opportunity to free a metal bar from the wall to use as a weapon. The same red-haired girl appears to Kiera in a vision, warning her that she is in danger because she has a gift, and Kiera recognises the girl as Jocelyn Fairchild, the wife of the home's founder, Ignatius Fairchild. As Grace escorts Samantha back from the bathroom, Kiera sees Jocelyn again, outside in the snow, doubled over and bleeding. Ignoring Grace's warnings, Kiera steps out onto the icy fire escape and climbs down to find Jocelyn, but is quickly overcome by the ice storm, saved only by the home's caretaker, Mike. Grace hears over the radio that Dr. Crane has found Darren and is bringing him back, so she steps out onto the fire escape to look for Kiera, but slips and hurts her knee.

Kiera wakes up in the basement with Mike and suddenly reads his mind, seeing a young Mike performing a bloody abortion on Jocelyn Fairchild before men in bull masks burst in and take her away. In a panic, Kiera attacks Mike but comes to her senses quickly. Mike reveals that the events of the bull men and Jocelyn are repeating themselves tonight and he intends to kill everyone in the home to prevent that from happening. Kiera charges Mike again but he knocks her unconscious.

Meanwhile, Grace finds Dr. Crane and he shows her something he found: Ignatius Fairchild's diary. Reading through the increasingly deranged writings, Grace loses her mind. Both Dr. Crane and Grace are killed by Mike and Grace gives herself over to the home, seeing its inner workings for the first time and taking the chance to attempt to control the goddess that is being born. Kiera wakes up again and rushes to find Samantha and is guided to the ISU by Grace's spirit within the walls of the home. Darren and Gabe, another teenage boy, burst in through windows and briefly tangle with Kiera. Darren wounds Kiera and Gabe manages to kidnap Samantha, but not before the Hecate reach through time and animate Kiera's blood, blood-cursing Darren and healing her. Kiera follows Gabe into the girls' trailer, where she finds Joachim, awake and tied to a chair. She impales Gabe's head with her iron bar but he continues on regardless, cutting open his own throat and drenching Samantha with his blood.

Then a monstrous being of flesh and blood, an amalgamation of Grace and Jocelyn, tears its way out of Samantha's body, consuming both Gabe, Samantha and Joachim. Kiera panics and flees into the snow, blacking out soon after. She regains consciousness in a car, wrapped in blankets, with a note from Darren saying that she owes him one the next time they meet.

### 2007

#### Overdue Book

June, 2007. Introduced are high school jock Mitchell Hook, his best friend Walter Marchand, and their two friends; devout Christian Samson Campbell, and goth girl Hailee Pennington. On the night before the last day of senior year, both Samson and Hailee experience strange phenomena in their homes; Samson wakes up in the middle of the night to find his grandfather muttering about a "tall friend" that went "pop pop pop", while strange long shadows creep across his bedroom. Hailee hears knocking noises from underneath her bed and finds that an old planchette she obtained from the Braddock House is moving by itself. She places the planchette on her ouija board and it spells a cryptic message without vowels: "FNDRLNDNG." After the encounter with the spirit, presumably Vivien Braddock, she sees a ragged woman at her window, licking the glass. Hailee panics and blacks out. The next day, Samson is delivering overdue book notices to students, including his bully: Jeremy Stockton. The book that Jeremy borrowed was a children's book called Long Legged Larry, but Samson is apprehensive about approaching his old bully. Together with Mitch and Hailee, Samson manages to get Jeremy to grudgingly take the book slip, and the bully leaves with his minions.

The four friends celebrate victory over sodas and Samson, Hailee and Walter all share the strange experiences they had the night before. The group share a sense of completeness, and Samson and Hailee realise that they have both helped Mitch and Walter battle supernatural evil before. Through a short talk, the four agree to head to the Braddock House to investigate the weird goings-on. Mitch heads home to prepare and finds his dad sitting on the porch, reminiscing about Mitch's grandfather and the baseball bat he had. Samson returns home and finds his grandfather strangely lucid, being able to complete a crossword puzzle correctly and able to recall a dream he had of Arthur Hook, Mitch's granddad. Samson finds a scrap of pinstripe cloth on their hearth and his mom tells him that ash has been falling from the fireplace from time to time. The young man packs various holy things to bring to the Braddock House. Meanwhile, in Hailee's room, she is busy packing various arcane objects into her bag when her planchette flies out of her hand and strikes her window hard enough to crack the glass, seemingly in the direction of the House.

Before she heads out, Hailee says goodbye to her parents that leave to watch a movie, and is then witness to the same strange, ragged lady she saw the night before enter the house. Hailee attempts to fend her off with a knife but accidentally kills her instead. Horrified, she leaves in a hurry and is the first to arrive at the Braddock House. Upon entering, she finds bottles of alcohol and junk food wrappers everywhere, along with a rat nailed to a wall on top of a page from a children's book, with arcane symbols written in blood below it. Even more upset, she sits on the stairs in the house and starts crying. Meanwhile, Samson and Mitch meet up on the street outside the Braddock House, and intercept a crazed man chasing Walter. Mitch kills the man with his lucky baseball bat and the trio move on to the house. Hailee hears her friends approaching but doesn't know who they are, and promptly attacks Mitch from the shadows as he enters first, but the youth is unhurt. The gang start investigating and find more dead animals pinned to Long Legged Larry pages, depicting a clown. Hailee deduces that the symbols are Sumerian black magic and are for a type of "jailbreak" spell, meant to break a force which, until then, managed to contain evil. The four realise that the message Hailee received from the spirit is to find the real ending of the book. More dead animals and pages follow, the last two of which seem to be identical to the rest, save for being printed on newer paper. Samson briefly loses his mind due to the uncanny familiarity of the scenarios depicted, like Long Legged Larry descending from a chimney. The gang then investigate the second floor, where Hailee finds a sapphire-colored brooch and hears the voice of Vivien Braddock in her mind. However, Jeremy Stockton and a bunch of escaped mental patients are right on their doorstep. Mitch barricades the door while Hailee and Samson manage to find the correct ending of the Long Legged Larry book, but Samson is shot through the barricade by Jeremy.

Vivien tells Hailee that she needs to replace the fake pages with the real ones she has. Mitch chases down Jeremy, fending off a thrown chair with his baseball bat, which breaks upon contact with the chair. Hailee, Walter and Samson head to the fireplace where Samson attempts to replace a page, but does so wrongly and is grabbed by a long, black, chitinous leg emerging from the chimney. Hailee and Walter pull him free, and Samson replaces the page correctly by placing the page on the wall, holding the animal on top, and then driving the spike through the two. The mental patients in the room begin screaming and panicking as the three move on to complete the correct ending. Hailee grabs the hand of one of the patients and substitutes it for a dead animal, pinning another correct page to a wall. The impromptu blood sacrifice imbues Hailee with knowledge and she blacks out, coming to in a lake where Vivien Braddock awaits her. They exchange words, and Hailee slowly sinks into the lake while Vivien rises to the surface. In the real world, Hailee is unconscious and stops breathing, but Samson hears the voice of Vivien in his head, encouraging him to use his faith to save Hailee, which he does after reciting a Bible verse out loud.

Outside, Jeremy and Mitch confront each other, circling around an old reflecting pool, but Mitch is without his weapon. He sees a vision within the pool and is drawn mentally into the lake, where he sees a version of himself that's older and scarred. Vivien rises from the surface of the lake and gives Mitch an old, great sword, but when he opens his eyes in the real world, in his hand is **Les Pinkham's P72 baseball bat**. He fends off Jeremy with ease using the bat, and then confronts the otherworldly entity that descends from the roof of the house. Leaving Walter to administer first aid to Hailee, Samson rushes to Mitch's aid. He leaps in front of the creature, Long Legged Larry, causing the corrupted clown form to shed and reveal a black, spider-like creature with unimaginable galaxies swirling in its eyes. Mitch uses Samson's distraction to charge at the monster, banishing it from reality with a powerful swing of his bat.

Jeremy Stockton isn't finished, and as Samson and Mitch catch their breath, the deranged youth charges at them. Hailee yells a warning, but Walter is too far away to intervene, extending an arm helplessly at his friends. Miraculously, fire wreathes his left arm and shoots forth from his hand, striking Jeremy down. With the crisis now over, the four friends retreat into the Braddock House to tend to their wounds while waiting for the 911 ambulance to arrive. In the days after, Mitch and Walter go back to batting practice, Hailee returns to the Braddock House to train with Vivien, and Samson resumes taking care of his noticably healthier grandfather.

### 2010s

#### Cleanup

Unspecified date, likely early 2010s. ORPHEUS agents Cynthia Thomas, Hank Gomez and Eva Whitlock are tasked to track down an Orpheus researcher named Dr. Mohindra, whose last known location was a remote island off the coast of Maryland. They find strange things within the house; a locked basement door, whose passcode is hidden behind sheet music. A strange glowing spider that turns into dust. An unmarked surveillance drone, rigged with explosives and a camera, and enchanted with strange anti-scrying magics. The cell are attacked by an unknown fireteam and Eva takes care of them, capturing one and killing the other. Cynthia reads them and learns that they work for a rival organisation that worship Dionysus, then contacts the spirit of Dr. Mohindra to find out more. The spirit shows them how he died, along with the work he was doing at the residence. Their captive commits suicide by cyanide capsule, but not before he gives them a "magic gun" and an SD card containing more instructions from the dead Dr. Mohindra. The cell follow the deceased doctor's drug regimen and end up in an extradimensional space, where they fight and defeat an enormous insect/bird/elephant creature that was consuming souls. After the trio reawaken, Hank commits himself to learning more about this rival organisation, while Cynthia seeks out this group instead, looking to play Orpheus and this mysterious other group against each other for her own ends.

### 2016

#### Missing Pieces

Unspecified date in 2016, some time before September. Cyborg soldier Mitchell Hook is introduced in a therapy session with Dr. Stewart, his therapist. Mitch recalls the last mission he had before waking up as a cyborg; entering an ancient tomb outside of Jerusalem, before being ambushed and stabbed by a flaming sword. Mitch reawakens, looming over Dr. Stewart, who calms down after Mitch regains control. Confused over his emotions, he returns to his room and pulls out his old high school yearbook, feeling an old sadness that he cannot explain or understand.

Undercover operative and occultist Pierce Keswick is introduced at his current station; as the 'court magician' for a suspected cult called the Congregation of the Gentle Hand. His mission was to provide his ORPHEUS handler, Muninn, with information about the Congregation, but in recent months, his handler stopped all communications and prevented Pierce from contacting ORPHEUS, seemingly abandoning him to his fate. Pierce is at a tent revival with the Congregation's leader, a man named Elijah, when a stranger accosts him and gives him a card, telling Pierce to meet at a biker bar called the "Wild Hog". Pierce makes an excuse to leave for a while and heads to the bar, where he is then met by his old teammate from Muninn's cell: Jack Kincaid.

Budding witch and psychic Kiera Jackson is introduced at a boxing ring and gym, watching her two friends Marcus and Ashleigh sparring. Beside her is her young charge, a girl named Ellie. Ellie draws predictions of the future in crayons, and shows Kiera two of her latest drawings: her and former training partner Mitch in a diner, and her and Mitch standing across from a Minotaur in chains attached to many posts. Kiera's friends finish their sparring match and Kiera takes Ellie back to the Chicago ORPHEUS facility, where they have a 'townhouse' of sorts that they live in.

In the dead of night, both Mitch and Kiera hear knocks on the doors of their residences in the Chicago facility. Both open their doors to find nothing except a slip of paper on the floor, with a set of GPS coordinates. Mitch searches up the coordinates on his computer and finds a strange app appear, before realising that it is merely his handler, Tiresias. At the same time, Kiera notices that the paper has also been marked by the same person. The coordinates lead both agents to a Denny's in the city, where they meet and greet each other outside before entering. The two agents enter the Denny's, where they spot Tiresias and take a seat with their handler. Meanwhile, Jack talks a bit with Pierce in the biker bar and warns him that their former cell-mate, Nadra al-Hashem, is alive and far more powerful than they'd imagined. As Pierce gets up to make a phone call to form a cover, the bikers in the bar draw weapons and attack them. The bartender is killed and Pierce is fatally wounded. However, Pierce uses occult magic to rewind himself back into the living world. He hides as Jack finishes off the last of the bikers and the duo split up, escaping the carnage.

Mitch and Kiera talk with Tiresias, who informs them that high command is to send them on a mission to recover Pierce Keswick, a deep cover Orpheus agent who was abandoned by his handler. Before this, the pair are to be sent to Sanctuary, a massive prison complex owned and run by Orpheus, to interrogate a prisoner who might have relevant information. Tiresias warns them that their higher-ups are going to withhold a lot of information about the mission during the official briefing, scheduled for the next day. He continues on to reveal the confidential information, including the fact that Pierce seemed to be abandoned by his handler. Furthermore, they learn that the prisoner they are to interrogate, Darren Feldman, somehow had recent information about Pierce's return. When asked how he got the information in such a high-security prison, Darren said he would only talk to Kiera specifically, although Kiera does not recognize him whatsoever.

The briefing rolls around and, not surprisingly, Tiresias' information is accurate: the woman who briefs them leaves out a lot of details of the mission. Despite this, Mitch and Kiera accept the mission and are swiftly transported to Santuary in Hearses. There, they go through a variety of safety briefings, are given a few charms and are escorted to Darren's prison cell. Darren himself has seen better days, being sickly and frail, but still manages to toy with Mitch and Kiera, but not before revealing two tidbits of information. First, Mitch's best friend from high school, Walter Marchand, was the one who killed him in Egypt. Second, Kiera is given the name Fairchild. The two agents finish their interrogation and leave Sanctuary, returning to the Chicago facility, where both Mitch and Kiera seek out memories and stories of these newfound names.

A few days later, Mitch and Kiera head to Naperville, Florida, to intercept a tent revival held by the Congregation of the Gentle Hand. At the tent revival, Pierce makes contact with Mitch, causing the three Orpheus agents to solidify their plans. Because Pierce was able to keep his cover, the operatives plan to get closer to the cult and figure out what they're up to. The trio attend a mass held by the cult's leader, Elijah, and discover that he is using a strange form of humming to hypnotise the attendees, if only briefly, alongside hallucinogens in the burning incense. Kiera is selected as a potential recruit to carry on with the next phase of entry into the cult and is ushered to a nearby farmhouse owned by a man named Trevor Norton. Mitch leaves Kiera and Pierce and takes up position in a swamp at the edge of the farm, where he sees three fan boats approach the property.

During the party, Kiera reads the mind of Elijah's partner, Esther, and realizes that she is suspicious of Pierce. Kiera intentionally chokes herself on a snack to get Pierce's attention, and the pair discuss their options in the kitchen. Without a concrete plan, Pierce is forced to make Kiera run for it and attempts to make it look like she hit him, but is interrupted before he can do so. Pierce gives "chase" to Kiera, intentionally running slower than her. The trio reunite in the swamp, where Mitch overturns one of the fan boats approaching the farmhouse and kills an alligator that attacks Pierce. The agents quickly regroup at their car to rearm, and Mitch sends a message back to Orpheus command about the current situation. The reply is that a containment team will be there soon and they are to prevent anyone from escaping.

The three agents fix the overturned boat and use it to approach the cult's main compound; an island of ramshackle sheds in the middle of the swamp. Pierce uses occult magic to slip through the swamp undetected and disables the remaining fan boats at the compound. A PA system on the island begins broadcasting music with the same humming from the tent revival, but louder, causing people to emerge from hiding places all over the island, singing along with the music. The trio plug their ears with whatever they can and advance inward. Kiera confronts a member of the Congregation that approaches her non-threateningly; she kicks him in the balls and tosses him into the swamp for the alligators to feast on. As Mitch moves closer to the center of the island, he notices that the people emerging from hiding all carry guns. And as he approaches one, the man lifts his gun to his own head and fires as Mitch moves past him. Others do the same as the cyborg soldier advances. Meanwhile, Pierce makes his way to the camp's generator and disables it, turning off the music as the sounds of crunching, chewing and screaming fill the air.

A hideous monstrosity bursts forth from the interior of the camp, with Elijah at its center and long tendrils of flesh at its edges. The beast is a roiling, surging mass of meat, body parts and internal organs that uses its tendrils to seek out more members of the Congregation to consume. Mitch and Kiera open fire on Elijah, determined to stop the monster that he is becoming, and Kiera is caught under the onslaught of meat. However, the beast dies before Kiera is consumed, splitting apart into numerous decaying sections as black goo and toxic smoke spew from Elijah's corpse. The trio of agents regroup and reestablish control of the camp; Mitch catches Trevor Norton attempting to flee with some form of containment device and cuts him down with his machete, while Pierce finds Elijah's journal among the carnage and takes samples of the fleshy beast's body. The occultist determines that Elijah was attempting to fuse all these bodies together to create a womb to gestate whatever eldritch entity he was summoning, and reads Elijah's journal to gain understanding into that process before ORPHEUS can confiscate it.

Mitch attempts to search for survivors, but finds none. He tries to console himself in the fact that death was a salvation for the victims of this massacre.

#### Reflections

September 2016, almost immediately after the events of Missing Pieces.

Mitch examines the containment unit he recovered from Trevor Norton, noting it is very cold to the touch.

Diana, a high-ranking member of ORPHEUS, touches down in a company helicopter an hour after the massacre, and she takes the containment unit, flesh samples and Elijah's journal off the cell's hands. Diana then asks Kiera to read Pierce's mind as she questions him about the events of his meeting with Jack. He does so, omitting the fact that Jack appeared to be some form of flesh-eating beast, and Kiera is convinced that he's telling the truth. Diana then asks him about the Congregation of the Gentle Hand and their goals, to which Pierce answers that Elijah wanted to father an otherworldly being and Pierce was to assist him. Pierce answers a question about Elijah's journal and hides the fact that he read it from both Diana and Kiera. Diana asks him about the containment unit and of Muninn's location and Pierce is unable to answer because he doesn't know what the unit is or where Muninn is. Diana surprises Pierce by revealing that Darren Feldman knew his location and the conversation ends.

Pierce and Kiera are taken to Sanctuary, where they are to talk with Darren again. Pierce feels pity for his old friend and the two exchange words, leading to Darren telling both of them to look up a lady named Hailee Pennington and a town called Chester in Illinois.

Meanwhile, Mitch is having another therapy session with Dr. Stewart. The soldier is distressed about the deaths he couldn't prevent and is disturbed by kindness being manipulated and used to do harm to innocent people. Dr. Stewart explores these newfound feelings with Mitch and then leads it into another hypnosis session, where Mitch ends up at the mirror lake. Mitch sees a young man standing on the lake, lit by a light so bright that he can't make out features. He also sees a regal woman and longs to join them. As he attempts to step out of the lake, something grabs him and pulls him deep into the cold lake. He awakens from the hypnosis screaming the name 'Hailee' but doesn't know why.

Mitch returns to his room and pulls out his yearbook again, finding Hailee Pennington's photo within. He falls asleep and dreams a vivid dream of his past, where the Overdue Book arc begins.

Some time later, Mitch, Pierce and Kiera convene in a conference room, where Tiresias declares the trio a provisional cell and gives them their next assignment: to head to Mitch's hometown of Chester, Illinois to seek out Hailee Pennington, as she was on an ORPHEUS watch-list and disappeared a few years ago. Their objective is to ascertain her location and determine her status. But before this, they are to be given 3 days of R&R, followed by a week of intensive training at an off-site location. Mitch and Pierce spend a day in a pizzeria/arcade, where Mitch goes through batting practice and the pair face off in a game of mini-golf. Kiera spends her free time looking up Darren and Pierce, and finds that Pierce paired with Darren to study his supernatural abilities. Disturbed by her findings, she goes home to Ellie and Magda, finds a new drawing from Ellie, and falls asleep with her charge.

Three days later, the cell are transported to Frank Church - River of No Return Wilderness in Idaho for their training. Diana is present as she will be overseeing the training regime for the cell. Kiera finds her friend Ashleigh there and the two are tasked with witch training for the week. Pierce is tasked to venture out into the wilderness and up a big hill to find his instructor. Mitch is given a sword and his training begins with a sparring match against Diana. During the match, Mitch's memories of his mission in Egypt surface, and he remembers that a mummy ran him through with a sword and his friend Walter came to his aid, but instead of helping him, Walter stabbed him in the heart, remembering that Walter told him 'he had to do it.'

Meanwhile, Pierce ventures up the big hill he was tasked to climb and finds himself navigating a strange, looping space that only dissipates when he meditates on it. He finds himself suddenly at the summit of the hill, facing an old, wizened man with a long-stemmed pipe that reveals himself as Koji Miyazaki. Pierce takes a hit off the offered pipe and realises that it's laced with scopolamine. Compelled to tell the truth, Pierce answers a few questions that Koji asks him and Koji tells Pierce that he needs to go on a new journey towards truth and traps him in a mental maze. Pierce spends a day and a half trapped in the maze, exploring the workings of the spell.

Kiera and Ashleigh are making witches' brews in a giant cauldron and talk about life. Ash confesses to her that she snooped in Ellie's room while she was gone and found a new drawing of a witch holding a severed bull's head, rubbing blood on herself, while Kiera was in a boiling cauldron and Pierce hung from a tree by his ankles. Kiera worries that Ellie's trust in her will lessen if she finds out and Ash is sworn to secrecy. Diana interrupts, asking for some brews for Mitch. Kiera follows her to the sand pit and is shocked to find Mitch and the extent of his injuries, treating him with a brew immediately. Mitch thanks Diana upon recovering and explains that Walter might have had to kill him because he had to, not because he wanted to.

Kiera and Ash then face off against each other in a duel, throwing blood curses at each other until forfeit. Kiera keeps winning and teases Ash about revealing her wins to Marcus, and Ash makes her swear it to secrecy. Diana gives Mitch leadership training as he will be in charge of the cell during their mission. Koji and Pierce return from the hill, Pierce ragged and Koji hungry.

The next few days are spent in recovery. Diana shares with the cell the story of Hailee Pennington and how she was a consultant for ORPHEUS and disappeared two years ago. Diana asks Mitch about the Braddock House and he tells her he believed that it used to be a good place. Mitch asks Diana about Samson and she reluctantly tells him that Samson did join ORPHEUS for a time, but isn't with the organisation any more. He also asks about Jeremy Stockton and she tells him that Jeremy is locked up in the Chester Mental Health Institute. Diana then clarifies the mission objectives to the cell: find Hailee, verify if she's alive, and if she is, determine if she's hostile and contain or eliminate her if she is. The cell travel to Chester shortly after.

Mitch decides that they should check out Hailee's old house first and find that a family by the name of the Parkers lives there, and that the father in the family is the town's sheriff. The cell then visit the police station and have conversations with both the deputy and the sheriff, during which they learn several things: a paranormal group called the Chester Paranormal Research Society, or CPRS, has set up shop in the Braddock House. Hailee ran away from home, and her parents sold the house and moved away, following which the sheriff bought the house for his family. After the sheriff goes to get a coffee, Pierce and Mitch tail him and Mitch listens in on one side of a phone conversation. The sheriff is very tense upon returning and the cell are soon forced to leave, but not before Kiera reads his mind and learns that a certain Dr. Howarth is looking for Mitch. Pierce contacts ORPHEUS and requests for call logs from the sheriff's office as Mitch drives the cell to a nearby park, where he shares with them his story of Long Legged Larry and his family's baseball bat.

Mitch takes the cell to the Braddock House, where they make contact with the CPRS; comprised of their leader, Chad Matthews, their tech expert Abbey Harshmann, cameraman Kevin Stevens and his wife, Nevaeh Stevens. They explore the house and find both the reflecting pool and the melted window from 2007, and Mitch flashbacks to when he was stabbed with the same fire. Leaving Mitch behind at the pool, Kiera and Pierce then follow the supposed psychic Nevaeh upstairs, where she uncovers the location of Vivien Braddock's brooch. Kiera touches the brooch and feels herself standing on a mirror lake, facing an old crone, just for a split second. The pool lights up and Mitch notices, but is tasered into unconsciousness before he can react. Kiera and Pierce go downstairs to find Mitch missing and see a sheriff's car speeding off. The pair commandeer the CPRS minivan and give chase with Chad in tow.

Kiera and Pierce manage to make a fake 911 call that causes a traffic accident in Chester, tricking the local police into believing that the sheriff was being kidnapped in a squad car. A black van also shows up at the accident scene and Mitch's unconscious body is bundled into it while masked soldiers hold Kiera and Pierce at bay. The witch and occultist fail to stop Mitch from being taken away, but they manage to incapacitate the sheriff and one of the masked men. They bring their captives to an ORPHEUS safehouse nearby and interrogate them, learning that a Dr. Howarth wanted to speak with Mitch before 'the witch' did.

At roughly the same time, Mitch wakes up strapped to a bed and is then loomed over by Jeremy Stockton, brandishing a blowtorch. But before the scarred, crazed man can hurt him, Dr. Howarth dismisses him. The doctor explains that they are on the same side, if they are both after Walter Marchand. He shows Mitch a folder containing pictures of a cruise liner called the Asherah and explains that Walter was dispatched on a mission to eliminate a cult using the ship as a base, burning them all alive with his fire. He then explains that he believes that there is a secret cabal within ORPHEUS that Walter is a part of and that they were responsible for the Asherah's burning. He lets Mitch leave freely and he does so, stopping at the front counter to inquire about his father and learning that he's staying at the exact same address he used to live in.

Mitch phones Kiera and Pierce and tells them that he's unhurt and at the mental health institute. The duo blindfold their captives, drop them off at the hospital, and go to pick up Mitch, before heading to the Braddock House once again. They tell Chad to forget everything that he saw and head for the reflecting pool. The pool lights up as they approach with the brooch, Mitch touches the surface and the trio fall upwards into the pool.

Mitch and Pierce wake up in the office of Pierce's father, Ambrose Keswick, who lays dead at his desk, bleeding from a slit throat. Pierce's sister, Tabitha, calls for him from under the locked door but Pierce denies knowing anything. He continues to deny knowing anything despite Mitch's questions and he tells the soldier to shut up. His father's corpse appears in front of him, a finger pointed accusingly at him, before everything vanishes and Pierce finds himself before Hailee Pennington. Pierce tells her that Mitch is also trapped in the lake and she dives down to go get him. Nadra al-Hashem then shows herself, apologising to Pierce for sending men to attack him in the biker bar. She believes that Muninn sent Jack to kill her because she found out that he was in a secret cabal within ORPHEUS. She then explains that she wants Pierce to help her spy on ORPHEUS and free Darren Feldman, engraving a spell sigil into Pierce's palm that will work on the one who put up the magical security on Sanctuary: Koji Miyazaki. To make sure the ploy works, Pierce asks Nadra to wipe his memories of their meeting in the lake but also implant a suggestion to touch Koji with the palm that bears the sigil and then return to the lake. She does so.

Kiera wakes up in a field; Ashleigh and Marcus on either side of her, Magda behind her. They are searching for Ellie who's gone missing. The others stay behind to rest while Kiera goes on ahead. She finds a thread from Ellie's dress and follows it to find the girl, who has been impaled on the horn of a monstrous bull. Kiera knows the bull to be Darren Feldman and it grabs her and tears her apart. She comes to on the surface of the mirror lake, facing Hailee. Hailee explains that she and Vivien Braddock are keepers of the pool; she works as the 'Lady of the Lake' while Vivien keeps the darker horrors in the depths of the lake at bay. Hailee offers to let Kiera join them, telling her that the brooch will always keep her in contact with both of them and the lake. Kiera worries about Ellie and Hailee agrees, before letting her go.

Mitch comes to in a baseball field at a game. He hits a perfect home run, allowing Walter to score from second base. Mitch has a feeling that they're supposed to be doing something different with their lives, to which Walter replies about a scholarship to college. Walter then stabs Mitch again and Mitch realises that Walter chose to kill him. He then wakes up on a huge mound of body parts and machinery, where a mechanical spider scans him and then creates a copy of him from the mound. The copy marches to the top of the mound where there is a door and it attempts to put its hand into a keyhole, even cutting up its hand to do so but collapsing from blood loss. Mitch looks around him and sees many hills and many copies trying to open many doors. He goes up to the door and tries to open it with his gun arm, but instead sees his P72 bat in his hand instead. He opens the door with the bat in the keyhole and comes to on the lake where Hailee greets him. The two friends exchange greetings and Hailee suggests that Mitch's death was "a needful step on a needful path" and that she, Mitch and Walter are sacrifices in a struggle against forgotten things that want to escape. Mitch simply replies that he might as well sacrifice and struggle because his original destiny is complete and Hailee weeps.

The cell comes to beside the lake in the real world and compare notes of their conversations with Hailee. Mitch believes his mission to be complete, Pierce is confused as to why ORPHEUS sent them there and Kiera suspects she has to become a part of the lake to protect it.

The cell drives to Mitch's parents' home and Mitch approaches the front door.

#### Agendas

September, 2016. Immediately after the ending of Reflections.

Mitch knocks on the door of his parents' home, surprising the both of them. He explains in vague terms that he was a soldier and his mother assumes he came home due to his injuries, to which he replies that he is still needed for other battles. Mitch hears a noise upstairs and rushes to find that it's the door to his room, exactly as he left it. He feels the connection to his old self grow stronger and opens his closet door to find Les Pinkham's P72 baseball bat, long thought lost**.** He picks it up and feels calm and whole again for a moment, before heading downstairs to embrace his family and cry.

Mitch heads back outside to find Kiera and Pierce. Kiera notes that Mitch is walking differently and that he's been crying. The cell head to the Chester safehouse and find Koji already there. He pulls Pierce aside and the two vanish behind a tree. Mitch and Kiera share their various worries about the situation before heading inside. Tiresias then calls, asking the pair to sweep the house for bugs, before asking them about what happened. Kiera lies about having touched the brooch and claims to have dropped it at the Braddock House and Mitch explains the situation he encountered at the mental health institute. Tiresias reveals that Dr. Howarth used to be an ORPHEUS operative and instructs the cell to infiltrate Howarth's organisation to learn more about them, while Koji tasks Pierce with another investigation. He then ends the call.

Mitch steps outside and Kiera touches the brooch, communicating with Hailee and agreeing to join them at the Braddock House that night. She then joins Mitch outside and the pair find a place where the ORPHEUS bugs won't reach them. The two share their mutual worries about Pierce's odd behaviour, Tiresias' statements and ORPHEUS' intentions but vow to be loyal and to protect each other to the end. Mitch then reveals that Dr. Howarth also told him that there is a cabal operating within ORPHEUS and Kiera shows Mitch the brooch.

Meanwhile, Koji debriefs Pierce and WIP

### 2017

#### Advent

Late 2017. A desperate raid on a Sol Invictus facility offers the last chance of stopping the Advent Project.

#### Diaspora

Sol Invictus operatives follow an escapee from Sanctuary to the small town of Pascal, Montana, revealing a new player in the cosmic struggle for power.

#### Sedition

An unlikely group brought together by a distrust of Muninn decends into violence when Tabitha Keswick betrays them to Muninn.

#### Selected Stories from the End of the World

Henry Colfax collects an anthology of scenes from the end of the contemporary era and the beginning of the Fecundity.

### Fecundity Era

#### Selected Stories from the End of the World

Freya Benton travels the land, helping the remnants of human civilization rebuild over millennia. Finally

#### A Strange Land

Mitch awakes in a strange place, among alien grass and an unfamiliar sky.

#### City of Fear

Mitch and the war band from Sycamore come across a black city of stone, home to what appears to be a kingdom ruled by Nightmares.

#### City on Fire

Mitch, with the help of the Resistance, reclaims the City of Fear from its Nightmare rulers and is set on the road towards the First and Darkest Tree.

#### The Thief's Tale

A story told by Kaelar during the caravan's journey to the Inviolate Stone.

#### The Supplicant's Tale

A story told by Torc whilst on the road towards the Inviolate Stone.

#### The Princess's Tale

A story told by 733 while the caravan is on its journey towards the Inviolate Stone. At the story's end, the caravan arrives at the Place of the Inviolate Stone.

#### Visitations

Mitch, 733, Torc and Kaelar reach the Place of the Inviolate Stone.