Sam: Okay. I'm ready for this vision, now. Draw spends a couple hours playing Chopin badly. In fact, it sounds more like Chopsticks as the whiskey takes hold of him. As Hot Cross Buns fills the air, Draw, you see a small hamlet of a town in a grassy valley. The hills and low mountains around it are heavily populated with seemingly wild sheep. Henry and Dorothy Wordsworth walk toward a small lake at the opposite end of the valley, carrying fishing poles and a picnic basket. The path follows a be-waterfalled stream to their right, presenting a pretty view on this bright summer day. That is when you notice a larger mountain rising up to your right, its bald, rocky crag seeming to dwarf the surrounding countryside. Your consciousness separates from the Wordsworths, seemingly drawn toward that stony fang sticking out of the landscape. You rise high, until the town seems small and quaint behind you. When you reach the peak, you can see into another valley on the far side of the tall hills. The floor of the valley seems the wrong colour, like a gangrous wound in the land, and the scent of water-rotten vegetation rises up on the tiny breeze the surrounding hills allow to cross the valley. Even the wild sheep seem to avoid this place. You can just make out the foundation of a small, stone building, though it looks like its inhabitants abandoned it centuries ago. Suddenly, the sun sets, and as the full moon rises over the bald mountain, you see a collection of tents spring up from the water-logged earth. Strings of colored lights and hundreds of seemingly happy people connect the tents in lines and clusters. As you watch, a low chant fills the valley below. A shadow falls upon you, disturbing your musings. You turn to identify the source of the sudden darkness. That is when you realize the stony peak has unfolded it bat-like wings and is currently regarding you with eyes like glowing coals. You have the distinct sensation that it is smiling at you. "I'll see you soon," it says. That is when you wake to find yourself lying next to the piano bench.
John (ooc): No more Fantasia for you, Sam...
Bill (ooc): That was my vision when I was playing Chopin. I'd hate to see what would have happened if I had played Moussorgsky...
Sam (ooc): It would have been worse if you had played The Infernal Dance of King Keschei.
Bill (ooc): It would have been impressive, though. I'm a pianist, not an entire frickin' marching band.
Nate (ooc): That's a cool song, though.
Fanny (ooc): Overplayed, though, especially by marching bands full of barely talented teenagers.
Mary (ooc): I didn't know you played.
Fanny (ooc): I used to.
Mary (ooc): What instrument?
Fanny (ooc): Flute. Nothing is more painful than holding a steel rod with your bare hands when its snowing, not to mention the difficulty of actually trying to wiggle your fingers while doing so.
Mary (ooc): Chapped lips were a pain.
Fanny (ooc): What did you play?
Mary (ooc): Sousaphone.
Fanny (ooc): So, at least you got to wear gloves.
Mary (ooc): For all the good it did us, with that brass sucking the heat out of every part of our bodies. Then there were always the frozen valves, if you didn't constantly blow air through your instrument. Nothing was more fun than trying to play a song on the spur of the moment when half the brass section could only play every third note until the ice in their valves melted.
Bill: Draw will relay this information to the rest of the cabal.
Nate: Do any of us recognize the place he's describing?
Sam: Give me an Intelligence + Academics check, dif 8.
John (ooc): What is it with you and difficulty 8? I can shoot a lightning bolt out of my ass in front of Parliment at the same difficulty, and that's only if I'm not using my specialty focus!
Sam: Trying to place a geographic region with no more than a brief description is not exactly easy, John.
Fanny (ooc): You mentioned hills and sheep. It has to be somewhere in either the Lake District or Wales.
Sam: How do you know it's not somewhere in the Americas?
Nate (ooc): Because the Wordsworths don't take regular trips to the Appalacians...
Sam: Fine. Difficulty 7.
(They roll)
Bill: One.
Ed: Two.
Fanny: Three.
Mary: Four.
Nate: Five.
Sam (ooc): Come on, John. Go for six successes!
John (ooc): Small chance of that, with only five dice... (rolls) I should have rolled first. Botch.
Sam: Very well. Draw recogonizes it as somewhere in England. Allan recognizes it as the Lake District. Christabel recognizes it as the the south-central portion of the Lake District, somewhere near Ambleside. Clara recognizes it as an area near Grasmere. Walter recognizes the town as Grasmere and the mountain as Helm Crag and the valley on the other side as a water-logged hole in the ground generally not photographed by anyone trying to attract tourists to the area.
John (ooc): John recognizes it as the Storyteller's home town and a terrible cop-out...
Sam (smiling): Homer, however, recognizes it as a mountain out of the new Lord of the Rings trailer.
John (smirking): "If the Technocracy is trying to rewrite the past, the Nephandi must be trying to ruin any fantasy film franchise with great potential."
Mary: "They must have already dragged George Lucas through the Cauls, then, and Jar Jar Binks is his new familiar, sucking of the old man's new witch's teat."
Fanny: "Not all witches have three nipples."
Bill (ooc): Just the ones from Eroticon 6...
Mary: "Sorry, Christabel. I did not mean to slight your Tradition with the expression."
Nate: "That only proves that even a Nephandus wouldn't dare include a boy band in a Star Wars movie."
Bill: "Of course not. Geek fan boys have limits, and even Mr. Lucas doesn't want to end up getting his throat slit with an 'N Sync CD in some dark alley one night..."
Nate: "Now that we've indirectly established the reason why all fantasy film sequences suck, we really should buy a train ticket to Grasmere."
John: "I didn't know Grasmere had an international airport."
Sam: Actually, there aren't any trains to Grasmere. The closest goes to Windermere, and there's a bus route to Grasmere from there.
Nate: "Well, Windermere, actually."
John: "Is there an airport in Windermere?"
Nate: "No, but it doesn't need one. It has a bus station."
John: "Unless its the Magic School Bus, I don't think a bus is going to get us to New Zealand."
Nate: "We're not going to New Zealand. Our destination is Grasmere."
John: "What? Has Mel marked Sam and the Wordsworths for death or something?"
Nate: "No. The mountain Draw described is Helm Crag, which is within walking distance of Grasmere."
John: "It is?"
Mary: "Yes, it is."
Nate: "Now, let's get tickets..."
Sam: After a significant amount of time spent waiting in line and trying to figure out the fastest route to Windermere, you manage to buy a ticket for the 5:10pm train to Windermere, via Glasgow and Oxenholme, and it only costs you forty quid each.
John: "Damn the British rail system. Overpriced, inconvenient, overcrowded pieces of..." (ooc) Tell me the trains at least run on time.
Sam: Of course not. This is the British rail system, after all. Since you bought standard tickets, you at least get a guaranteed seat."
Mary: "You should be happy, Homer. I had to stand the entire way from Inverness to Edinburgh. Some Australian backpacker with no hygiene skills sat in my seat, and I was afraid to ask him to move."
Sam: While you're on the train, a young American backpacker carrying way too much luggage for his own good introduces himself and works very hard to talk your ears off during the course of the three hours you spend on the train. He tells you all about his travels in Poland, Germany, and France before going on to gush about Edinburgh Castle as though it is the greatest place in the world.
Fanny (ooc): Is he cute?
Sam: Actually, he's a rather short geek in his early twenties with brown hair and glasses. Having seen Inverness and the cairns in northern Scotland, he now feels more qualified to write fantasy novels. He's apparently been taking pictures of the moors, which he intends to use on his books' website, since one of his books apparently takes place in a wetland."
Mary (ooc): Is there any polite way to get him to shut up?
Sam (ooc): You'd have to get a word in edgewise, first. Give me a Perception + Alertness check, dif 5.
(They roll)
John: Two successes.
Nate: One success.
Bill: None, of course.
Mary: Two.
Fanny: Only one.
Ed: Seven.
Sam: Of course. If you got a success, you notice he has a BritRail Pass, which entitles him to unlimited travel for ten days within a one month period. The price at the bottom says it cost him $200.
John (ooc): Son of a bitch. Not only are the Americans trying to build a Wal-Mart in Edinburgh, they get a discount on train tickets.
Fanny (ooc): Isn't that what we paid for one ticket?
Sam (ooc): Pretty close.
John (ooc): Please say he's marked for death!
Sam: Nope. In fact, you get the impression that if you kill him, it will result in the whole cabal never having existed.
Mary (ooc): Is he a mage?
Sam: Hard to tell without any perception magicks. Want to make a Perception + Awareness check, dif 9 to try to find out?
Mary: Why not. (rolls) Nope.
Sam: You can't tell.
Bill (ooc): One wonders how this character is important to Sam's overall plot. He put a lot of work into this character for this kid to be irrelevant.
Sam: Actually, he's a cameo.
Bill (ooc): He looks nothing like you, Sam...
Sam: Nevermind. Maybe I'll tell you later.
Mary (ooc): We're on the train with this guy for three hours?
Sam: Yep.
Mary (ooc): And he never stops talking about his holiday the entire time?
Sam: Nope. He seems quite content to gush about how cool the moors in Scotland were, and how they were nothing like he imagined.
Fanny (ooc): I don't know about the rest of you guys, but Christabel is fed up with this kid.
John (ooc): Where does he say he's going?
Sam: Grasmere.
Fanny: We're not going to have a geeky little American backpacker following us around if I have anything to do about it. I'm going to give him a big spiel about how he should go to Dartsmouth if he wants to see even more wilderness and moors.
Sam: Give me a Manipulation + Expression, dif 3.
Fanny (giggles as she rolls): Willpower. That makes it seven successes.
Sam: He seems fascinated by your bullshit story about unspoiled wilderness and youth hostels miles from any signs of civilization. "I shall be sure to go there before I head to London. I would certainly love to see more moors. I need pictures for my website, you see."
John (ooc): I would have sent him to Wales, but Dartmouth is good, too. Maybe the ponies will eat him for us.
Fanny (ooc): Oo, good idea. With seven successes, can I convince him to go to Wales, too?
Sam: Sure. He's gullible enough. Unfortunately, he seems to have a reservation at a youth hostel in Grasmere tonight. When your train arrives, he straps on a backpack that is almost as big as he is and must weigh at least two stone.
Mary: "Quite a bit for a backpacker to be carrying, don't you think?"
Sam: He shrugs. "I've gotten used to it in the last six weeks." Then he grabs one of those suitcases with wheels, which must weight another ten kilos, and gets off the train.
Bill (ooc): He's been carrying around close to twenty-three kilos of luggage for six weeks? What kind of idiot...
Fanny (ooc): Keep in mind, John, he's an American.
Ed (ooc): I'm half his age, and I know better than that, and I'm an American, too.
Sam: It must be his first time abroad.
Bill (ooc): I'm still trying to figure out who this kid is. I know Sam better than to think he'd just throw a detailed NPC at us for no reason...
Sam: Unfortunately, you got to Windmere after the last bus to Grasmere has already left.
John: "It figures. What now? Any taxis?"
Bill (ooc): And how is the masochist kid getting to his hostel?
Sam: Mostly, he's staring at the cabal with puppy dog eyes.
Mary (ooc): Why doesn't this surprise me, either?
Nate (ooc): You know, he's probably some uber-agent of the Nephandi who is going to try to slit our throats while we sleep.
Mary: Matter 1. What is in those bags?
Sam: Nothing unusual, really - three weeks worth of clothes, toiletries, camera, film, sewing kit, first aid kit, extra shoes, a sweater, two empty bottles of spring water with labels written in French, refrigerator magnets, laundry soap, a ratty tour guide of Europe, receipts, ticket stubs...
Mary (ooc): I get the idea. The overwhelming question in my mind right now is "Why?"
Nate: I know we're going to regret this, but... "Hey, kid, we're headed to Grasmere, too. Want to split cab fare?"
Sam: "Sure. Thanks a lot. I'm not used to planning train trips. Even in the U.S., I live in the country, so I've never had to deal with public transportation until..."
John (ooc): It begins.
Sam: Actually, it never ended.
John (ooc): Right. So, do we get to Grasmere in one piece, or does the boy blunder shift into Chrinos and rip us apart?
Sam: Eric does nothing unusual. You end up taking two cabs, though. When you finally get to Grasmere, he thanks you profusely. It is almost as though he has a naive but ferverent faith that things will work out. He doesn't seem in the least bit surprised that you were there to offer help when he needed it.
Bill (ooc): I still don't trust him. He'll be back to haunt us later. Mark my words.
Mary: We find a hotel to stay in.
Sam: Do you?
Fanny (ooc): I don't know. Do we?
Sam: It's a weekend evening in the Lake District in the summertime, and you didn't make any reservations.
Mary: Clara has Resources 5. We buy our way into a hotel.
Sam: Okay, I suppose. Night is deep by the time you find an establishment willing to throw out a few honeymooning couples for the cash Clara is offering them.
Nate (ooc): Ew! Please say the sheets are still clean!
Sam: Nothing appears to be wrong with the sheets.
Nate: Walter is going to remove them anyway and sleep on the bare mattress.
Sam: Okay. And that's where we'll stop for the night.
Bill (ooc): So, what does that kid have to do with the plot, anyway?
Sam: Nothing. Like I said, he was just a cameo.
Bill (ooc): But a cameo of whom?
Sam just smiles.
ST (Sam) - Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Clara (Mary) - Mary Shelley
Christabel (Fanny) - Fanny Brawne
Draw (Bill) - William Blake
Homer (John) - John Keats
Walter (Nate) - Nathaniel Hawthorne
Allan (Ed) - Edgar Allan Poe