Robert Grimm Journal

Journal entries for Robert Grimm, Chosen of Luna. Robert is one of the seven main characters in the chronical Alpha & Omega

Entry 1

Introduction

I am not normally in the habit of keeping journals, but tonight has been too incredible (in every sense of the word) not to commit to paper. I’m also hoping that it will help me sort my thoughts on what has happened out. A written record may also help future generations understand what has happened tonight, I think the ramifications will be long lasting.

I’ll get some exposition out of the way first, since this is the first entry of this journal. I am Robert Grimm, Chosen of Luna. I am 21 years old and, essentially, a professional poker player. Though just about anyone reading this will probably believe me to be crazy (and I couldn’t blame them), I am in full control of my faculties (or, if I am wrong – and I am crazy – I at least believe myself not to be).

Weirdness

Tonight was supposed to consist of several hours at the poker table followed by a few more hours of pleasant drinking before I hit the sack. As you are probably aware if you’re reading this, things did not go as planned. Several different events have conspired to make this probably the second most enlightening night of my life – the first being the night I actually met my goddess.

Things sort of started when I entered the Lucky Stars Casino. The bouncer that night, a man I later learned to be named Xander Shadoweyes, “smelt” funny to me. My sense of smell is somewhat different than it used to be. I didn’t quite know how to interpret the sensation at the time, so I settled for keeping a wary eye on him. I would later learn that it wasn’t really him I needed to look out for. I sat at one of the poker tables and greeted the dealer, Hank, who had dealt for me many times. Next to me sat Jonny Wu – though I didn’t know it at the time. He was just some asian kid. We played normally for a while until the dealer was switched. The new dealer’s name was “Mal”. This was apparently short for Malevolant Fate. I still don’t know exactly who he was, but he was essentially the person that brought me into the understanding the Wu and several others in the casino that night were more than simply human.

Ah, the others in the casino – there’s another important point. There are seven of us in all. The Garou elders call us Shining Ones. Five seem to be blessed by the sun, whom the elders name Helios. I, as I have said, am blessed by Luna – the moon. Wu seems to instead have been Chosen by the wind. I don’t think any of us yet really understand the extent of our power, or really why we have been given such fantastic power. We are starting to understand what we need to do with it, though. More on that later.

Cassidy

So while I’m playing poker and trying to figure out who this Mal guy is, the stage show starts. That was the first time I saw Cassidy. I don’t really have the words to describe what that was like. My reader will probably bring to mind things like “love at first sight” or simple infatuation – but it isn’t like that. I felt a… a bond to her that is so strong that there really isn’t a way to adequately express it. In that moment I knew that I was committed to her in a way that I’d never imagined possible. It sounds almost creepy – even I think so – but there it is. I know now that I will fight and die for her; I’ll do anything to help her that I can. I don’t know why. I just know I will.

The Shit Hits the Fan

Anyway, so we’re playing poker and I’m trying to play it cool and keep from staring at the stage. Suddenly only Wu and I are left at the table. Mal leans over all secret-like and tells us what was about to happen – accurately as it turned out. Some guy, a vampire as it was, comes over and starts harassing Johnny. Shadoweyes comes up behind the guy and picks a fight. That’s about when all hell broke loose for about the next two minutes. Shadoweyes turned out to be a Garou – a werewolf – and so did all his friends. They ripped the vampire and his friends apart. I helped some, but they were all over the bloodsuckers before I got much of a chance.

We just about start talking to the Garou for the first time when Rev. Todd Brown made his appearance. His power is… well the term “black as sin” comes to mind. He is the antithesis to everything the rest of us seem to be. That was really the first time I noticed most of the others. They were already fighting him. He managed to avoid being hit pretty well and then – craziest thing (well… not really) he starts ripping a hole in space/reality/something. It was terrible really. It sucked in everything that wasn’t tied down, including us. That was the first time I saved Cassidy – she wasn’t near anything she could grab onto and started getting sucked into the void. I bounced off the walls of the stairwell and caught her before she got to the… portal… thing… that he’d made. He disappeared, leaving the rest of us to clean his mess up.

Cleaning up the Mess

His mess ended up being a number of biological weapons that he’d set all over the city. After a brief Bomb Squad 101 lesson and a quick exchange of phone numbers we all split up to take care of the bombs and also to case the church that our good reverend had made his lair. I went with Cassidy and Liz – Liz is another of the Sun Chosen, killer in a fight too – to the church. I have never seen a place more desecrated than the inside of that building. They kept people – women – in cages to use as living blood bags. We found more vampires in side. After knocking them around and finally locking one into a cage, we managed to drag some information out of them. The church was the lair of some ancient evil vampire queen named Troyal or something. They worshiped her like some sort of god. Luckily for us, she was out at the time. About the time we’d finished our interrogation the others had arrived, having disabled the bio-bombs. We got a magically sealed oath out of the vampire (a series of words I could never have predicted that I would write in all seriousness) stuffed her into the back of the van the others had arrived in and got the hell out of Dodge.

Visit to the Red Mountain Sept

We ended up dumping the leech at some gas station before meeting back up with Xander and his pack who took us to their kayrne? I don’t know the word – that’s what it sounds like. The Red Mountain Kayrne, which is where I am writing this. We met their elders who told us a long tale about the Worm, some cosmic destructive force, and its fight with the forces of order and chaos. I’ll probably have to write most of that down separately. The highlights can roughly be summed up in the following sentence: I am destined to destroy the ultimate force of destruction in the universe. I’m still not sure I buy into it. They say I am fated to kill this Worm of theirs. I’ve got some pretty nasty gouges in my back from a vampire that say I’m not really ready for that.

Anyway, not long after that story Cassidy gets it into her head that she wants to sing. Lo and behold, she ends up summoning the ancient spirit that protects the place. She calls herself the Ringbearer, which isn’t very accurate anymore since she gave me the ring. Its made of the most amazing metal. Its like gold, but shinier, brighter, and generally golder than gold. She gives us another story about how she’s always been waiting for us and turns the place over to Cassidy. Apparently she’d actually been holding a different ring for the majority of the time until they got switched a few weeks ago. The other is apparently silver – I suspect it’s a lot like my claws. They were switched when the Red Mountain Sept was attacked by some sort of god-monster thing. They think it was a vampire king. They were warned by “the Morning Star” which is apparently an avatar of the red star that they’d been seeing in the sky for a while. The whole story is a little more than crazy and probably something else that I’ll have to write down separately. Long story short: this vampire king killed most of the Garou, took a stockpile of ancient magical weapons they were planning on giving to us, and generally wrecked the place before leaving.

Now they’re trying to give us all their spirit-imbued possessions to help us. Cassidy and I have learned that we may have been married – or more – in a past life. We’re all very tired and confused. The trail seems to lead to LA – that’s where the vampire king apparently took all our stuff. I can’t say for certain, but I think we’re going to go get it back.