Session 16

← Session 15 | Session 17 →

The New Years Gala continues, gunshots and all.

## Characters

* The Party
* Legacy Byrnes
* Lyric Uaithne
* Quillan Astra
* Elsie Montcroix
* Rain Caudell
* Fiorella Fells
* Pax Furyk
* Benjamin Richards
* Clovis Alcott
* 0-771534

## Summary

### **Die Hard**

It's almost midnight on New Years Eve. Downstairs, the cycle of musicians leads to Lyric, whose music is entrancing. Kuno and Asa, along with the rest of the attendees, are drawn onto the dance floor.

##### **Friday, January 1st, 543:**

Upstairs, the lights cut out and everyone starts panicking. As this happens, Nyx hears a few notes played on a violin, from an unidentifiable source. The lights come back up and start strobing in a sickening way, an affect that Nyx doesn't really notice. The violin picks up, and continues, though it is only audible to Nyx. The corner of the room that Colby is in explodes, throwing Colby and raining glass on the attendees, as well as throwing up a faint fog of dust. Nyx's vision is unhindered by this haze, as she can see shapes in something resembling infrared vision.

Rappelling down through the hole in the ceiling are nine people in mismatched Kevlar and gas masks, one of whom is obviously the leader. The figures land, and start fanning out into the room. The leader throws up a drone, which starts circling and recording, before he fires a few shots into the ceiling and tells everyone to quiet down, his voice echoing through the room's sound system. This sound system access is an impressive piece of hacking, since it's Astra-designed and the Gala building is one of the most secure in the City. The leader has to repeat his command before everyone notices and cedes him the floor.

He starts monologuing about the state of the City, with the rich throwing a feast while the poor starve in the streets, saying they could at least have invited him, with everything he does to provide food to people who need it. With this said, he asks for Montcroix, saying that everyone can leave if they just hand her over. Otherwise, he's going to start killing random folk until she's located. The other armored figures start combing the crowd, looking for Montcroix, and keeping everyone in line.

Colby, in the corner he was thrown to, was jolted out of being drunk when the explosion went off. He is a bit battered, but none too much the worse for wear. A man standing next to him, dressed all in white, is assembling a gun. The man turns to him and asks if Colby knows how to use a gun, and when Colby waffles over a response sighs and asks if he knows how to pull a trigger, which Colby admits to knowledge of. The man says he is not allowed to shoot people, and mentions something about this being all his "watch." He gives the gun to Colby, and explains that he knows of an escape hatch that they can use to get to the security booth. Colby recognizes this man as Quillan Astra, and follows him to a very well-hidden hatch in the floor, which the two drop down through.

### **It's Hard to Beat the Bard**

At the rave, Kuno and Asa manage to peel their way out of the music's thrall. Asa notices the haze hanging in the air, and recognizes it as some sort of magic. Kuno realizes that if there isn't any immediate danger to the people in this area, there must be something happening upstairs, and that this is a distraction. He hands his cane to Asa before going to try and make his way through the doors.

Kuno, doing his best imitation of a drunk person, manages to make his way past the guards on the doors to a hallway beyond it. Asa, seeing that Kuno succeeded, tries to go through the doors as well. He is stopped by the guards on the doors, one of whom sends Asa back into the crowd and the other of which goes through the doors in search of Kuno. This guard quickly finds Kuno, who can't resist being taken back to the rave. This course of action having been foiled, Asa and Kuno attempt their plan from before, and make their way in the direction of the backstage doors. However, they are distracted on the way by the music's thrall, and rejoin the dancing horde.

### **Jeff Bezos Take the Wheel**

Back upstairs, Nyx realizes that the mask she received from MacLaughagan is what's keeping her from being affected by the strobing lights. She is still hearing the violin music, and can't tell if that is also from the mask. Notably, MacLaughagan is nowhere to be found. Nyx collects Sam, who has acquired his knife but is also staying low and not drawing attention to himself.

The two look around for Colby, who is nowhere to be seen. Nyx mentions the strobing lights to Sam, who is impressed to learn they aren't affecting her. Nyx tries to call Asa, but he doesn't pick up. She does get an answer from Kuno, and tells him there's a terrorist attack on. Kuno in return explains that there's some kind of hypnosis effect downstairs, and tells her to take care of herself. With that, Nyx and Sam turn their attention to the situation. Nyx has a vision of Montcroix, who is hiding in a group of cowering elderly women. The two have a whispered conversation, trying to figure out what they can do.

Colby and Astra make their way to an elevator, where Astra uses the floor numbers like a keypad, entering a code of some kind, and the elevator starts to descend. The whole time, Astra is muttering about how this is a P.R. nightmare, and on his head if anything gets out. Eventually, they make it to a hallway. One of the doors has obvious signs of a forced entry, and according to Astra this is the door that leads to the security room.

### **Grandpa Kuno Rides Again**

Kuno, having been jostled out of the music's thrall by Nyx's call, pulls Asa back to reality. The two head to the backstage area, Kuno again claiming to be a celebrity's grandfather. Backstage, there is almost no one. The notable exception to that is the fey woman they saw before, who is currently glamoured to appear human. She encourages the two of them to leave, but Kuno pushes forward with his ruse. The fey says all the celebrities are in the green room, and offers to lead them there, which Kuno accepts. After being led to the green room, where all the backstage folk are watching Lyric's performance on a large LCD display.

Kuno is drawn back under the thrall and joins the group in the green room, while Asa stays outside and asks the fey what's going on. He mentions the haze, and she grabs his arm. Asa finds himself very calm, which is an unusual state for him. The fey says she is holding down the fort while other people are doing things. Asa brings up the terrorist attack, and she says that's part of it. She takes Asa into a dressing room, claiming she has something to show him, and hits him over the head, knocking him unconscious.

### **Things Go Wrong Speedrun**

Upstairs, one of the armored figures tells Sam and Nyx to quiet down, and then moves on. The two have come up with something resembling a plan, though Sam is a bit reluctant. Nyx declares that she had a vision of them getting noticed in the near future, so the two have some idea how to avoid that.

Sam grabs the armored figure who had moved on, grabbing them and dragging them into a corner behind some furniture. Nyx tries to read their mind, fails, getting only a burst of painful psychic energy. The figure flips Sam off of them, leaving him at gunpoint. Sam lunges at them, managing to knock them out, but at this point the altercation has been very noticed. Two more figures head in their direction, one of which Sam tries to disable (and gets shot in the process), but they drag Sam and Nyx into the middle of the room and pin them down. The leader announces that he had better get Montcroix in the next two minutes, or Sam and Nyx will be the first to die.

Astra sends Colby into the security room first, and when there is no obvious intruder Astra gets to work on the security system. He tells Colby to leave the gun, and to get himself out. Colby sees Sam and Nyx getting dragged into the center of the room on the security feed, as well as Fiorella Fells praying. There is no audio on the feed, but Colby can tell she is praying to him. He heads out of the security room, and makes his way back to the ballroom, moving as fast as he can.

Colby reenters the ballroom through the hatch Astra showed him, which draws all eyes to him. The ladies from his church are relieved to see him. Sam takes this distraction as an opportunity to break free of the person holding him down, and is able to make his way to his feet--but ends up with the leader holding a gun to his head. Nyx also escapes, and stands, watching things go down. Sam grabs the leader's other gun and uses it to knock the gun pointed at his head out of the leader's hand, sending it clattering to the floor. He aims at the leader's head, and tells the armored folk to stand down or their leader dies. None of them even flinch at this declaration.

Backstage, Kuno peels himself out of the thrall again. He leaves the green room and starts looking for tech that would run the sound system. He finds a door that leads to an area under the stage, but it's tightly locked.

### **Nyx Sells Out**

Back upstairs, Colby joins the group in the center of the room. Nyx announces that she knows where Montcroix is, and is willing to hand her over in exchange for the party going free. The leader of the armored figures takes back his guns from Sam, and tells Nyx that was the plan from the beginning: they get Montcroix, and everyone walks free. He then asks Nyx to produce Montcroix. Nyx, chastised, looks around the room, finding Montcroix in the collection of ladies from Colby's church. Montcroix is dragged into the middle of the room by Nyx and one of the armored figures, and deposited at the leader's feet. She is inconsolable, and starts begging Colby for her life. Colby steps between the leader and Montcroix, taking a bullet in the process.

Having no way to open the under-stage door, Kuno starts looking around for any sign of what happened to Asa. He notices his cane dropped in the hallway, which is a bad sign, indicating something happened to Asa and he didn't just head back to the rave. Kuno starts trying doors, most of which are locked. He is more or less out of leads, and to make matters worse he is drawn back into the thrall of the music, getting lost in the crowd.

### **Are Billionaires *Really* Innocent Though?**

Colby, between the pleading of his church ladies and the injustice of killing an unarmed old woman, is starting to get desperate. Without fully realizing it, he calls on his holy power, sending white energy crackling up his arms and around his eyes.

This show intimidates and awes the entire room, who have never seen the like. Colby asks everyone to just calm down, and while the leader acknowledges Colby is very intimidating, he argues that Montcroix doesn't deserve to live, asking Colby to get out of the way. Colby refuses, saying he won't let them kill Montcroix. With this declaration, the other armored figures advance, in an effort to drag Colby (as well as Sam) out of the way. Sam lunges at one of them, punching them in the bulletproof helmet hard enough to knock them down. His hand and wrist make a series of very bad crunches, and between the broken hand and the blood loss Sam is mostly out of the picture. Colby doesn't try to fight back, and he is restrained. Nyx pulls a semi-conscious Sam out of the direct line of fire.

A thick white fog starts rolling into the room from the vents, throughout the entire building. People start collapsing, and the last thing anyone can hear is a single gunshot.

Everyone who was in the building has to spend a few weeks in the hospital, and they are only released upon signing a very pointed NDA. No questions are asked about Sam's scar, and the implication is that the hospital staff were bribed and/or threatened by someone powerful (presumably MacLaughagan) to keep quiet.

### **Have Fun Cleaning Up That Mess**

##### **Friday, January 8th, 543:**

When Nyx gets back to her apartment, everything seems more or less as she left it. The notable exception is the bathroom, which is covered in congealed blood, and one of her kitchen knives is in the sink. Nyx finds Pax, hospital gown drenched in dried blood, curled up asleep in her bed. His gaping shoulder wound has scabbed over, but still looks bad. Nyx reads Pax's mind, and while she isn't able to get much because he is asleep she does find a sense of visceral racing terror--which is different to the static she felt before.

She wakes him up, and he takes a second to orient himself. Nyx asks what happened, and Pax says he is about 30% sure he drowned in a sensory deprivation tank. He insists he would have been fine, and when Nyx mentions it looks like he's been enjoying her apartment for the past few weeks he says he's only been conscious for about three days. Everything is hazy, which he chalks up to the brain damage. Nyx asks how his confrontation with Devereaux at the university went, and he stiffens up before saying he's pursuing other leads. He tells Nyx not to look in her bathroom, to which she responds that it's too late, and that he owes her a bathroom. Pax goes to leave, which Nyx lets him do after giving him her oldest hoodie and telling him he owes her answers and a bathroom.

##### **Wednesday, January 13th, 543:**

When Sam gets back to Ben's apartment after his time in the hospital, his broken hand still in a sling, he notices that there's a new doorknob. He is surprised to find his key still works, and even more so to find the apartment is torn apart as if there has been a fight. There are scorch marks on a rug, and anything that can be broken is. It has been more or less cleaned up, but obviously destroyed.

Sam doesn't have to go far before Ben emerges from the bedroom hallway, limping on a crutch. One of Ben's legs is in a cast, his wrist is splinted, and he has a healing split lip as well as a sutured cut across one of his cheekbones. Ben asks where Sam has been, to which Sam says he's mostly been in the hospital, and asks what happened to Ben. Ben explains that a group of people lead by a woman with lead pipe came by asking for Sam, and wouldn't accept that Ben didn't know where he was.

Astonished, Ben asks why Sam was in the hospital, and Sam tries to stumble through some answer before breaking down and telling Ben there was an incident at the Gala. Ben tells Sam to stop lying to him, to which Sam promises he isn't, and asks what Ben has heard about what happened at the Gala. Ben replies that nothing happened at the Gala, and starts pushing Sam on the fact that he's come home covered in blood, and that he's been mostly absent, citing the fact that they haven't had a date night in months. Sam, devastated, says that he thought if he kept Ben out of everything he would be safe--he knows how that sounds, he says, and promises that he can explain everything, while apologizing profusely.

Ben mentions that he's started looking for a new apartment, and Sam offers to help him move. Ben accepts, saying he won't be much use with his tibia in several pieces. Sam, in an effort to break the tension, says he doesn't know how much help he will be either, indicating his sling and broken hand, but gets only an incredulous look in return.

### **Asa Makes Even More Friends**

##### **Saturday, January 2nd, 543:**

Asa wakes up, zip-tied to a chair and facing a corner, with a headache and some dizziness. There is the faint sound of conversation in another room, which cuts off when Asa turns his chair to face the rest of the room, causing the screech of a metal chair grinding against the floor.

A man enters the room, and asks how likely it is that Asa would start fighting if he's cut loose. The man mentions that they didn't mean to end up with a hostage, but that Rain was panicking and said Asa wasn't where he was supposed to be. He regrets tying Asa to a chair, especially with his concussion, but they don't have a lot of resources, and thus can't do much more than first aid. He asks again if he can cut Asa loose, since it's very awkward talking to someone zip-tied to a chair, and Asa agrees.

He is willing to let Asa leave, and doesn't recommend he says anything about what happened at the Gala but that it's unlikely anyone would believe him anyway. Asa says he doesn't know what happened, only that he heard something from his friends about a terrorist attack. The man explains that Asa's friends should be fine, since there was only one casualty, as long as they didn't start trying to talk. He gives Asa a choice between walking free, or explains that the group he's a part of could always use more people. He says they're doing some vigilante work, as part of a loose organization working to not starve to death.

This rambling explanation is cut off when he hears something over his comms, and then looks up to offer Asa some magical healing, which Lyric has offered. Asa accepts this, mentioning that he has some experience with it, and when the man hears this he says he ought to do his pitch better. The man says over his comms that Asa is willing to be healed, and tries to explain what Asa said about having experience with magic before just telling the person on the other side to see for himself.

Two more figures enter the room, both of which Asa recognizes: Lyric, and the fey from backstage who had been referred to as Rain. These two are obviously very tired looking faeries, having dropped the human glamour used at the Gala. Lyric heals Asa' concussion. The man who untied him mentions that Asa said something about magic, and the two fey are confused, so he asks Asa to explain.

Asa says that he can do fey magic, and Rain is impressed. She says they're the only ones they knew who could do magic outside of a Ring, and asks if Asa's family could. He says they did, but that they weren't particularly close to other fey. They want to know what Asa can do, and when he mentions fire the man who untied him is very excited about the possibilities. Rain cuts him off, saying that Asa hasn't said anything about joining yet, but when asked again Asa agrees.

With this, the man introduces himself as Legacy Byrnes, and starts showing Asa around. Apparently not many people are around at the moment, and Legacy laments Giles's absence in particular. Asa is introduced to Clovis Alcott, who is ambivalent as to his presence, and Legacy explains that while Clovis is technically in charge he does more of the planning while Legacy is the face of the operation. Legacy says he has one more person he can introduce Asa to, and leads him through a door to a room that Asa recognizes. A figure in a swivel chair looks up from a computer and turns around when Legacy opens the door and calls a greeting, one that Asa recognizes as Ollie.

## Quotes

**Abby**: "I never know what’s going on." | **Kellen**: "You might want to fix that, cause I need you."

**Kellen**: "Welcome to hell. The dice decide if we get to play the game."

**Kai**: "Samuel Fischer has never had a brain cell in his life." | **Kellen**: "I’m going to blow your mind, I knew that about him."

**James**: "Colby gets peer-pressured into being Jesus."

**Kellen**: "But that’s fine, we’re vibing." | **Kai**: "I’m not. I’m anti-vibing."

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