Sam: Who wants to start?
Nate: I will. Walter thanks his cabalmates for their help in dealing with the Voldemart threat. He also thanks the Garou and the Verbena for giving him the opportunity to push Voldemart's plans back even farther. When he returns to Edinburgh, he will thank Monsignor Argyle for his counsel and aid.
Bill (ooc): He'd also like to thank the Academy, God, and his parents for making this moment possible.
Nate (ooc): Pretty much. Walter knows full well he couldn't have done this without a lot of help, and he really doesn't have any way to repay all those favors.
Bill (ooc): At least not without breaking that vow of celebacy and becoming a professional Garou escort.
Nate (ooc): Somehow, I don't think that being a giggilo for women who turn into raging death beasts every month is a wise career move.
Bill (ooc): Come now. After a few months, you get used to the bite and claw marks. That howling is really hard on your ears, though. It's not easy being the pack's communal dildo.
Sam: I'd imagine not. Next!
Fanny: On that note, Christabel will thank her mentor for her help, hobnob with her fellow Verbena for a few days, and then head back to Edinburgh to comfort a widower.
Ed (ooc): A widower?
Bill: That would be Draw, unless I miss my guess. "Hoping that this aristocratic young mage will turn out better than the last, my dear?"
Fanny: "Let's just say I have expensive tastes and strange appetites."
Mary (ooc): Let's just say I have a weak stomach and a strange habit of hitting people with sticks when I am nauseated.
Bill: Draw will wait for Fanny before returning to his estate in the Highlands and renewing his connections to his Garou kin, especially now that they owe us a debt of gratitude. Of course, telling a Garou that he owes you one is a bad idea, but we know they know they owe us.
Sam: Time to go back to the family farm and raise pigeon-toed, redneck Garou.
Bill (ooc): Bah. Christabel has Correspondence, Life, and Mind 3. She can make lusty werewolf lovers think random passers-by look just like their siblings and cousins. She can curse metis spawners with impotence. She can even cross pollenate wild oats into kinfolk or worse. We'll get the Bene Garou breeding program back on track soon enough.
Fanny (ooc): And with one more dot of Correspondence, Draw can be a one man male escort service.
Mary (ooc): You do realize you both have a sick imagination.
Bill (ooc): Magic is the mother of invention, and according to observable laws of sociology, any new technology or addition to human experience will eventually be used for sex - and almost always sooner rather than later. Why should magic be any different?
Sam: Right. What are you others doing in the aftermath of Voldemart's most recent defeat?
John: "I must leave for the Americas. My destiny lies there, now."
Mary: "More people to kill, Homer?"
John: "I am nearly finished, now. I will join my beloved, soon. Five more must die by my hand, and I would rather die in Rome than in the New World."
Mary: "This sounds like quite the adventure, Homer. I will help you until the end."
Ed: "I will gladly join you in this quest, Homer. Now that I am the destroyer of all Britain's vampires, it is time for the American vampires to taste my fire and steel. My quest is as likely to end in my death as yours, but I would aid you in your journey before I resume my own."
John: "I can't let you do that. Your souls would be blackened by the deeds I must do. These four are not Nephandi monsters, I know. They are more akin to the elders I slew to save the hospital."
Mary: "You murdered them?!? But I was certain it was the Technocracy."
John: "I am a monster by fate, not by desire. Pity is not the mark of an assassin. Mercy would have been my undoing. I would only have condemned my love to greater and eternal suffering by disobeying."
Mary: "Why do you kill whom you kill? Who decides who dies and who lives?"
John: "I heed the voice of my beloved, and she is guided by the hand of Fate. Some of those I killed deserved death for what they had already done, but those were the ones for which I was delayed. Others are actively pursuing a course of action that will prove them villains. Those two were different, though, and the four I seek now are different still. I can only assume that I am to slay them before they can do terrible things or that their deaths will halt the mechanations of even greater evils. To believe otherwise is to drive myself mad with guilt. I do not want to be a slayer of the innocent, and neither do you."
Ed: "Why should I hesitate to help you, if these four are marked for death as punishment for what they soon will do?"
John: "Because I don't know, Allan. I do as I am commanded - kill those whom I am directed to kill. I murder for love."
Mary: "If you live in such regret, will your final end bring Mel to her final rest, or will you simply take her place in the underworld?"
John: "That is a strong possibility, Clara. I don't know, for sure. Perhaps I will fail, at the end, as she did, and pass this cursed existance to a friend who wishes to put my soul to rest. Or perhaps Mel's Awakened soul has always been my own Avatar. Perhaps she gained her Awakening from similar circumstances - receiving the Avatar from the one who was to kill her but failed."
Mary: "But wouldn't that mean that the number of victims would shrink with each passing of the soul?"
John: "Before she died, Mel confessed to me that she was saving me for last, and she was so very sad in those final days. Perhaps she did not die while stalking a victim. Perhaps she succeeded, and all remained was her and me. She said when she first returned to me that as punishment for her failure, more people would have to die. If she killed herself rather than kill me, it might be an eternal cycle."
Mary: "That's a lot of conjecture on not a lot of evidence, Homer."
John: "That's why you cannot join me. The curse will live on. I am certain of it. That is why I must leave now - tonight."
Ed: "What are you talking about, Homer?"
Mary: "How can you be so sure?"
John: Homer looks at Clara, his face a mask of torment. "Because I've been saving you for last." With that, he steps into a shadow and vanishes.
Mary (ooc): Thanks, John. I'm sure Clara will be delighted to play a part in your eternal curse.
Ed (ooc): And Allan is probably next.
John (ooc): Of course.
Mary: Clara turns to Allan. "I know little about vampires, but I do not doubt that hunting them in Europe will be an adventure."
Ed: "I would be glad for you to join me, though I cannot emphasize enough how dangerous it will be."
Mary: "Danger thrills me."
Ed: "Let's agree never to go to Rome, though."
Mary: "Even I will admit that is a danger I would not savor."
Sam: So, Draw and Christabel go on to help the Fianna replenish their depleted numbers while keeping the number of Metis to a minimum. Allan and Clara go to Europe to hunt vampires. Walter returns to Serenity Hospital. And Homer gets on a plane bound for America. It seems Fate will eventually draw Homer and Clara together on Rome, but those events do not enter this story. Homer, sitting in the window seat next to you on the plane is a familiar face.
John (ooc): Dammit. No. I have Arcane 3.
Sam: Yes. Fortunately, he doesn't seem to notice (much less recognize) you. He spends most of the long flight away from your cabal reading Terry Pratchett novels and staring out in silent thoughtfullness at the dark ocean far below. The sun seems frozen in the sky as you travel, but you eventually nod off. When you wake up, you're at the airport. Your final test awaits you. And that is where we'll end.
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