TheStarsAreRight:Bailey Notes - Nov 12, 2011

Bailey Session Notes: August 6 - 14th, 1932

(Session on Nov 12, 2011) (Only John and Robbie present - playing Henrik and Jack, though Steve playing Theo dropped by briefly. Original notes from John.)

Regarding Lawrence Eveling

• Jack had him killed by the Fae on the night of August 5th.
• Laurence Eveling had prepared his daughter to be a vessel for an Outsider.
• The French contingent stopped this plan, but she died.

Planning

• Supposed to go to Alan St. Mar roughly Aug 15-20th.
  • Theo said that we could potentially use airship to plug up the most major incursion hole during the
• Henrik needs to learn general skills.

Meeting with Theo

Meet up with Theo on Aug 14th in New York.

• He is fresh back from redoubts - all three (Tibet, South America, mid-Pacific) are all active. No new gates are open, but they are active. Half a dozen are tuned to places not of this world. One was sealed by Li Feng that goes to a bad place. There is one in Chico, California.
• He provides a complete map of redoubt gates, which are all safe now. Each also has a cache of weapons, transportation, and other gear. There is a non-redoubt gate in Boston; and a redoubt gate just over the NY/Canada border.
• He encourages going to the South America redoubt, where there is a stone labyrinth (a pattern to walk) that will help focus your abilities. The main function of this is a device that helps power soldiers, if they attune to it.
• There is also a small redoubt on Pitt Island in the south Pacific, which is well-defended with many booby traps. They are not currently live, but should learn about them - some are physical and some are magical.
• Redoubts gates to Spain need keys. He gives us (out-of-game unspecified) passwords and/or other info to get through.
• He suggests Alan St. Mar should not be told about the possible plan for using the airship to plug the hole. We say that we were going find out his plans and how compatible they are with the hole-plugging. He wants to know what the Mi-Go are doing there - concerned about people who might misuse their technology. They are down in the mines there.
• Dealing with principals - no new developments. Training;

• Theo says that his inclination regarding Pentheus is to leave them alone unless they get in the way. He says they have been experimenting with their version of life weapons on the Unseelie.
• He suggests that the Brotherhood of the Beast in Kluj should be low on priorities. He has someone who is working to take care of it - Chandler is going to wipe them out.
• He wants to talk to Jack after he gets back from Nevada about a particular project. It has to do with the Whitetree people - another society/cult that has its ancestral roots in the priesthood that used to serve the kings. They are a cadre of knowledgeable people with resources to help rebuild the world.
• He wants especially to talk about Alan St Mar and effectively hijacking his flight _after_ our trip to Bodi, Nevada.
• He says they are firm allies with the Seelie, and neutral with the Unseelie - mostly business relationships with them. They are trying to broker a truce between these two, which is mostly successful.
• Jack says that the "children" of Principal of Aspiration should be people in the vicinity of New York - secondhand from Carl, thinks that Donal may be the instrument of change. Theo says that the tablets are unreliable, but the library in Tibet is good for information.
• Theo advises against having anything to do with Li Mei - that all her statements were distortions, and that she and her people are entirely untrustworthy. They might pull out some vital "psychic organs" in the process of the operation from Auda and/or Henrik.
• He says that there will be some down time after the October incursion, and he would prefer not to risk Auda, Henrik, and Rebecca before then.

More Planning

Go back in time to Saturday, Aug 6. (Jack had talked to Maxine in the early morning, then met with Henrik for a late-ish breakfast. Henrik warns Jack not to upset Rebecca by talking bad about Carl or his plans.)

• Tony and others are in New York from July 25th (just after gathering) to Aug 15th, briefly leave, then return to New York on 19th.
• Jack has a Donal-related meeting scheduled via Pentheus for around the 12th.

Unseelie Court

Henrik, Rebecca, and Jack go to the Unseelie Court on the afternoon off the 6th. Jack must bleed to get there.

• Talk to Reynard about Pentheus (and Dr. Parkhurst). Meet her at the meeting-house. She says certain factions within the Seelie have allied themselves with Pentheus. Pentheus was able to breach defenses and send people into the court, which situation they have resolved.
• She suggested that some of the Seelie might be interested, and that this would not impair their relations. Jack says that he was involved with a woman there and was uncomfortable going back (because she had rejected him).
• Henrik and Rebecca start to set up a house there, which is fairly bare but with plenty of room. Jack plans on seeing Meridan Caine about the whereabouts of Dr. Parkhurst.
• Jack has a few skills, including two symbols he can draw (Haze-Waite ward + aversion symbol), healing, brainwave radio, and transfering energy.

Talk with Meridon Caine

Information that Jack gets from Meridon Caine.

• Parkhurst created thing that you don't have to drink blood as a fae, but it means that you can never drink blood again. When Andrew chose not to stay, Medea wanted to take his formula - but he refused to give it to her. A bunch of the Seelie roughed up Parkhurst, but he still refused. Usher stepped in, executed those who had beaten up Parkhurst, went to Andrew Scott - and turned Parkhurst over to him. Shortly thereafter, all the Seelie went to the Seelie Court in New Jersey.
• Parkhurst gave the formula to a fortune-telling girl who was part of Debonavault's household and occasionally his mistress. Debonavault was the guy who had crazy stalker trunk full of Hannah's stuff. He had done something terrible to Hannah. She had been locked up for a while, and much later Parkhurst gave it to her and she fled with it.
• Parkhurst has been re-admitted among the Seelie, made a Seelie by Hannah/Medea, and made regent-in-waiting until Usher's daughter Nicoletta comes of age. (Tony will be marrying Nicoletta in a month or so. Usher and Hannah married, but Hannah never had children. Nicoletta is Usher's adopted daughter. Usher was killed by a bunch of elders just before the Gathering a month ago.)

Extended Time in Unseelie Court

Tony works with Henrik and Rebecca.

• H&R nest some at the house in the Unseelie Court. Henrik has drawn/painted all over, and fixed up some chains and such. At some point, Reynard invites Henrik to more fully experience the Unseelie.
• Jack wants to visit for a bit and learn about fighting. Henrik trains him some and works out on his dirty fighting.

Meeting with Donal (Aug 12th)

On the 12th, come out and have a meeting in the Pentheus building with Donal. Our plan: (1) ask him about what he intended with regard to Laura; (2) does he know anything about Aspiration or other principals; (3) what kind of thing is he. Laura and John Elwar gave separate descriptions of Donal/Joc that matched up.

• Wait a few minutes, then the man comes in matching description though in a medium-cost corporate suit.
• "Was an unfortunate necessity" to stop talking to her,
• I know you have had talks with higher-level officers...
• Why interested? "She is an important and significant person." He was not sure about how or why she was significant. (about his sources) "It has a core in science, but has effects that are not recognized in science." Henrik shows him the diagram of the 6 principals and 3 kings+powers.
• He had known her parents, and set himself up as her acting godfather. He says that there are factions in the company that should not learn where she is. "Anything that I see or perceive, they have a possibility of knowing." "Pentheus stretched out its interest and convinced me to work with them." He had a Russian collegue, and was into alchemy.
• Why did you join Pentheus? "It was not entirely my decision." When you were with the other Donals, was that before joining Pentheus? Pentheus' factions take technology from many sources and expand on it. They are well-developed in building dopplegangers - they made the other Donals.
• He believes that his staying here is continuing to buy Laura's safety. He is not continuing to pursue his alchemical studies, despite their encouragement.
• Donal writes a quick reassuring note to Laura.
• Laura being at the asylum was paid well to maintain the fiction that she was living in another century - accomodating of her delusion. Donal had done that to her to keep her safe, which kept other people from identifying her.
• Do you know what happened to her parents? They were killed by a faction of the alchemists from Turkey. They had worked for a sorcerous warlord named Avala, now gone for many years though a few fragments of his organization survive.
• What researches are you doing now? Working on future prediction. (...) We can use tools to find significant people.
• Jack: To help with Aspiration, need to locate various people - an Outsider - and some specific people. (The Outsider that is bound to Aspiration is deeply connected to the Earth.) You have the Principal, Power, Place, Paladin, Priest, and Instrument of Change.
• Donal says he would need specific information about the tablets to find these. He says you need to talk to the other principals to find that. He recommends strongly against trying to short-circuit or speed up the process, and that we should wait for 6/19 in many months.
• The faction after Laura are straightforward alchemists who are ruthless in pursuing their alchemical projects (enlightenment, etc.).
• He is prepared to recommend two men in New Orleans who would know about making dopplegangers / homonculi - Mr. Fisher and Mr. Lloyd. They would need to take pattern from someone with appropriate knowlege - i.e. who can pilot an aircraft.
• Henrik trades some alchemical ideas and questions with Donal. Alchemy is a learned skill, but the learning of the skill and grasping principles relies on a level of commitment. Jack asks Donal if he knows anyone looking to become an apprentice alchemical prospector (to Milo).

From 12th to 14th

• Henrik and Rebecca go down to Greenwich Village as a break from the rustic life they had been living.
• Henrik and Rebecca invite Jack to stay with them for a few weeks (i.e. a day) at their house in the Unseelie Court.
• Jack had already gone to see Parkhurst at the Seelie Court in New Jersey.
  • Parkhurst has many medical notes on the fae (both Seelie and Unseelie) that he is happy to share. Biologically, what happens is icky - called the Nightsiders in his notes - a virus-like infection that comes through saliva, called the necrophage, also through blood-to-blood contact. The body's immune system can fight off a small infection by itself. Soldiers are immune because of their blood, able to remove all infection in 24 hours. There is a stable state that can be reached when you are infected but not dead. If die while infected and not in this stable state, become an animalistic beast state. If die when in stable state, the necrophage begins to replicate the body.
  • October 1929, Medea changed "Nightsiders" into the fae who were connected to the World Soul. Seelie and Unseelie are the same physically, just a recent political division. Earlier, when someone became 100% necrophage they would become creatures of pure energy called Elders.
  • They have differing senses, but also ponic awareness that mixes with their human senses. This makes it difficult for them to go into places of high ambient (i.e. magical flux). Thus, they don't like strong sensation like sunlight or strong smell like garlic, pepper, or ammonia - also silver dust.
• According to people among the Seelie, none of them had ever worked with Pentheus.
• According to people in Pentheus, the people who had raided the Unseelie were a rogue faction who are now dead - of unclear causes.

• Jack is visiting for roughly 10 days, and then another 10 days later on.
  • He and Henrik have arguments over alchemy, which he attempts to learn.