Episode Eight: Puppet Strings

Session One (8.6.11)

• About a month has passed since we rescued Tanya Clark and witnessed her Awakening.
• Tanya tells us that the angels she saw during her Awakening told her she could trust us. They also told her that “she is coming,” the same thing the Abyssal creature hissed at us as it died.
• We have an extended discussion about the best thing to do for Tanya. Autumn casts several spells to divine her future and sees that her best chance for a balanced, well-adjusted life is for our cabal to raise her while Aquinas oversees her magical training. We settle on that idea, at least for now. Since he's the most respectable of us, Rasayana will become her legal guardian, at least on paper.
• Autumn and Serafina get into an hours-long argument/debate about Tanya and their different opinions/methods of how to look out for her.
• Rasayana does a terrible job of picking out clothes for Tanya. Issa and Malachite fix that by using Matter to change the colors of the clothes. Tanya picks the new colors based on flowers and plants out in the garden. She, Malachite, and Issa have a blast doing that. Malachite has never had so much fun using magic.
• Malachite and Issa stay busy spoiling the hell out of Tanya, probably trying to make up for their own crappy childhoods. They take her shoe shopping and end up practically buying out a florist and a toy store, too. Danny also gets in on the game, planning out an elaborate play room for the kid.
• Rasayana ends up having to be the disciplinarian, setting up bedtimes and chores and other boundaries for Tanya.
• Serafina spends some time exploring the ley lines around Astoria.
• Autumn asks Issa to scry for his friend Pan, because he and Ms. Blacklace have taken too long to arrive. Issa can't locate him anywhere.
• Autumn asks Issa to take him to San Francisco so he can post-cog Pan and Ms. Blacklace and retrace their steps. He sees them opening a portal into the Underworld.
• Ms. Blacklace told Autumn about a group of her kind--Sin-Eaters--in New Orleans, so he gets Issa to send him there in hopes of getting in touch with them and asking for help.
• In New Orleans, Autumn sees several Prime sigils, one for the Garden District Consilium and one for the 9th Ward. There is apparently some rivalry there, as the 9th Ward has crossed out some of the Garden District's sigils and replaced them with their own.
• There are a number of strange, masked ghosts wandering around the Twilight of New Orleans. They watch Autumn intently, but do not molest him.
• Autumn catches a cab into the 9th Ward, and the driver warns him that he won't be able to catch a ride back.
• Issa has been scrying on Autumn the whole time. When he realizes that Autumn is heading into a dangerous part of town, he decides to join him.
• Following the instructions of the 9th Ward's sigils, Autumn and Issa find their way to an old church. They meet a Sleepwalker named Lynette Myers who tells them that there are some renegade mages in New Orleans who have dealings with the strange ghostly creatures wandering around the French Quarter. Naturally, that's exactly who Autumn wants to talk to.
• More Prime sigils lead them to the leader of the renegades, a mage called the Momus. He knows the Sin-Eaters as the Carnivale Moribund. He suggests that Autumn get a hotel room and wait for the Carnivale to contact him.
• Issa heads back to Astoria. He brings Malachite pralines and beignets.
• When the Carnivale fails to contact him, Autumn braves the French Quarter. He tells one of the masked ghosts that he's looking to get in contact with the Sin-Eaters of New Orleans because he needs some help for a friend. The ghosts direct him to a woman named Gypsy who promises to look into Ms. Blacklace's disappearance, though she doesn't want to have any dealings with Autumn other than that. She doesn't like mages.
• While Autumn is waiting for Issa to bring him home, he gets to watch the ghost of Marie Laveau possess the body of a young woman.