Return to Seattle

We're fucking doing it. For... some reason. I guess the fine folks in the upper echelons of AMU genuinely believe that we can do something to deal with the Forest, even now. Or maybe they just know that if we don't go here, the alternative is that we end up consumed by the Forest anyways.

So we're at Seattle.

(What a way to spend Thanksgiving. Jesus. And last year this time I was trying not to get shot to death by ARC guards for making it obvious that I wanted my friend out of paramilitary confinement.)

Somehow, even now, it still manages to surprise me when I'm directly involved with these things instead of waiting on the sidelines. Even after a year of chasing and being chased by eldritch horrors and their servants (and, when push comes to shove, their enemies), it still manages to catch me off-guard. A deep part of me still says that this isn't right, I'm a college student, not an agent of an anti-anomaly organization turned agent for a pro-anomaly organization.

Oh, Jesus, I think the Forest cultists are here.

Let me back up. I've been a little busy, between making updates about my own experiences, dealing with paperwork, and trying not to get murdered by elder gods, but there are people who have decided to fucking worship the evil Forest that turns people into cannibal cavemen with plant matter for brains. They call themselves the White Comet, and they're working with KRAKEN.

The leader of the White Comet is a servant of the anomaly known as the Ivory Woman, a chalk outline of a woman whose presence brings only destruction and pain, with no clear motive or meaning beyond that. Said servant's name is Moira.

And now Moira is explaining what happened to her to make her join the White Comet. She doesn't seem to want to, though. She seems to be... in pain.

I think it's Avie. They're somehow ripping the secrets out of her.

This is fucked up.

OK. Things feel tense. Signing off now.

Captured, uncovered, wounded

They did it. They actually fucking did it.

The fine folks here at the Archive kidnapped two ARC field researchers who were out looking for information- I don't know the specifics of where they found them, how they knew they worked for ARC, how they got away with it, anything like that.

The agents didn't want to divulge any information at first. Obviously. But they did once it became clear what the alternative was.

I don't want to go into the details here. Suffice it to say it would've been quite unpleasant if they hadn't complied.

So we- yes, I'm including myself here- we went to ARC West headquarters, here in Washington, and we cut off the serpent's head. 

There were some survivors. They seem to have fled to the Midwest Branch. We're not interested in following them, though. The important thing is that they can't bother us here anymore.

Or near the Forest. 

Hope

I'm tired of hopelessness. I'm tired of scrambling through the dark like a scared animal. I'm tired of feeling like I'm just a tiny cog in something so huge I can't even understand it.

I need to remind myself why I keep fighting. There is light in my life, even with all the darkness around me.

When I look at Jenn, I think of how much she trusts me. She gave up so much when she turned against ARC. She didn't even trust the Archive- still doesn't- and yet she believes in me.

When I look at Leo, I remember how long we've been friends, how he's never steered me wrong, how he told me exactly what I needed to know when he knew I was getting in over my head after ARC first contacted me.

When I look at Robin, I think of how much she means to me. Of course it's awful that AMU is trying to turn her into a weapon, but Leo and Jenn and I, we saved her from ARC. We saved her from questionably-legal imprisonment by a shady and utilitarian paragovernmental organization. We saved her from that, and we aren't going to give up on her now.

The past was flawed, and the present is painful, but we can make the future better as long as we remember who we're doing it for.

The Screaming Tower

It was a sunny day out in the courtyard. Robin, Jenn, and I were all sitting together, nothing better to do.

"Well?" Jenn asked.

Robin looked up from her book. 

"What happened at the Screaming Tower?"

"I don't know-" Robin began. She sighed and lowered her head. "It wasn't good."

I took her hand. "You don't have to talk about it."

"No, I... I want to," Robin said. She looked up at me. "I have to let it out.

"It wasn't my idea. Of course it wasn't. I knew it wouldn't end well. But they wouldn't hear it. They knew how bad it would be if we let Tower TV stick around. So they sent me and four Martyrs to the Screaming Tower.

"They baited the Wooden Girl with an artifact, this ratty old puppet with buttons for eyes. It was hers, of course, but they had it in storage somewhere. This was the first time they'd touched it in a long time.

"So they talked to this guy, a new recruit I think, and they told him to use it. Went crazy with power pretty quick, and pretty quick the Wooden Girl showed up to see what happened to her old toy. We somehow got into the Screaming Tower while she was there. I think..." She trailed off, eyes wide. "I think she tore the guy's guts out and filled him with cotton while the Martyrs and I were going in.

"I don't even want to know how this idea made sense to them. Guess it doesn't matter now, though.

"So we got into the Screaming Tower. It was... it was awful. It was exactly what it sounded like, this giant tower filled with people being tortured by human puppets. 

"Only two of us got out. Me and one of the other Martyrs. One got turned into a Puppet by one of the Willing Dolls..." She was shaking all over by this point. "One got killed by the Puppets. They put wires in him and... and pulled.

"I wouldn't have made it either. I know that for sure. But this giant stone door just showed up in the middle of the wall, and I remembered it from when you guys saved me from ARC. So I went through the door and into the Catacombs."

"Blind Man playing favorites, huh?" Jenn asked.

"That's your takeaway?" I asked.

"I was just wondering. Seems weird for him to do that. Plenty of Martyrs..." She shook her head. "Well, never mind."

We sat in silence like that for a little longer, none of us really sure what to say.

I have to wonder.

The Wooden Girl doesn't have to use the Screaming Tower to enter a place. She can move the same way as any of the rest of them, unconstrained by spacetime as we know it.

So why did she bring it with her this time? Did she know what AMU was attempting?

Did AMU even have that idea of their own free will, or did one of them come across that puppet and have the idea to confront her in the Screaming Tower without even realizing the idea wasn't their own?

Puppets

Robin wasn't around for a while there.

 

The day before yesterday, Magnus mentioned that he heard word from the higher-ups that there were plans to shut down Tower TV.

You do the math.

Yesterday, there was a knock on the door of my quarters. I knew who it would be before I answered the door.

"Hi, Addie," Robin said as she walked into the room. She gave me a relieved expression, followed by a hug.

"Hi, Robin," I said.

"...What's wrong?" she asked.

I sighed. "That obvious, huh?" I shook my head and pulled away. "I wanted to know... what have you been doing the past few days?"

The color drained from her face. "I... I can't talk about that."

"Okay. Okay," I said, walking to the window and staring out at the courtyard. Finally, I turned around. "What are we going to do, Robin?"

"What do you mean?"

"We can't go back to normal. Not anymore. I don't even know if normal worked, if something like this was able to happen. So what do we do instead?"

"I don't- I don't know."

I laughed. "I don't either."

Storm brewing

We knew there would be ARC agents stationed all along the Forest's perimeter, trying to contain the Convocation. We knew sending Martyrs there would be suicidal now that ARC has ordered its agents to kill ours on sight.

 

I tried to tell Magnus to call them off. To pull some strings somehow. But he didn't listen. He let the higher-ups of AMU send the Martyrs to the edges of the Forest. He told me that Martyrs are meant to be expendable. He seemed more comfortable with this than I liked.

I knew how it would end. I knew far fewer of the Martyrs would return than they sent out.

 

But it didn't matter.

 

Of the returning Martyrs, only one was willing to speak about what happened.

 

It was a massacre, just like I knew it would be.

 

It was horrible. Bloody. Preventable.
 

We don't know where ARC's West Branch is currently stationed. Their old base now looks like an abandoned but ordinary office building.

 

We want to cut off the serpent's head. We want to leave the agents stationed around the Forest without intelligence or decision-making.

The higher-ups do, anyways.

So that's the plan. Find members of ARC in the wild, kidnap them, and get the necessary information out of them.

The reliance on coincidence just doesn't make sense to me. I think the higher-ups here at AMU are getting reckless, losing their nerve, going to last resorts first. 

 

They are only human.

Tower TV

A channel called Tower TV has started broadcasting on cable television across the US. Nobody seems to know who runs it or why it's there.

The people who watch it start acting very strangely, though the exact nature of their odd behavior appears to depend on what they've seen. For instance, those who watch films made by a mysterious company called Horma Studios enter an anxious or paranoid state related to the contents of the film.

 

The show I've read of the most out of all the Tower TV shows is called Playtime with Mikey. Playtime with Mikey features the titular Mikey, a man dressed in a monkey costume, who plays games with preschool-age children- the same age, presumably, as the target audience- and teaches them about basic math, science, and art, as well as concepts like sharing and personal space.

So far, so innocuous. The troublesome part is the people who watch Playtime with Mikey. They often end up detached, in a haze of sorts. All of them recall having watched the show as children, though I can't find records of Tower TV or Playtime with Mikey existing before the past few weeks, and all of them seem caught on the feelings of nostalgia it invokes in them. Conversation with those who watch it is fragmented in nature, as the aforementioned viewers always start talking about their childhood memories before they can actually express any original thoughts.

 

The thing that scares me most is that, occasionally, they have flashes of lucidity where they act normally again, or, much worse, moments of fear or anger, seeming scared or upset about "she," "they," or "it."

 

Allow me to state what you may have already put together yourself. "It" is the show, "they" are the people behind Tower TV, and "she" is the Wooden Girl, who rules over the Screaming Tower and whose strings are beginning to reach ever further.

I want to be clear on one thing. Aside from my own conclusions on the nature of Tower TV, I'm not getting any of this information from the Archive, though we're all well aware of it. I'm getting it from the news.

The coming storm

There's something at the edges of the Forest that used to be Seattle.

There are strange black shapes covering the trees.

There are countless crows and ravens and blackbirds massed together at the edges of the Forest. Watching, waiting, and defending the Forest against anyone who comes too close with claw and beak and lightning.

 

The Fears are showing themselves to the world. They don't need to hide anymore, and they know it. 

 

There is a storm brewing.

One year

It's been one year since the Newborn died and the Forest took its place. One year since the events that led Robin to become a weapon for the Archive to wield. One year since I failed the world.

I know that's not true. I mean, I look at Robin and Leo and I know that they don't blame me for what happened. They blame themselves.

Maybe it would be for the best if I just acknowledged the truth. It wasn't my fault, and it wasn't theirs. It was KRAKEN's fault. Of course it was.

It's so strange to think how powerless they are now. Sure, they're still around, but they've gained no real power. They're still just incompetent fools guided by hatred.

It's almost comforting.

Weapon

Robin told us something when we got home the other week. She told us that the Archivists want to train her. They want to use her to hunt down rival Fears, because however she killed the Manufactured Newborn, the Archivists seem convinced that it had more to do with her than that dagger.

That's why they've taken her from us. So they can turn her into a weapon.

But the Archivists are the only thing shielding us from our former employers.

So I don't know what I can do about it.

Robin's birthday

Robin's birthday was today. Leo and I took her to her favorite restaurant, Italia Trattoria, and got her a present. A new set of knives, specifically; she's into those.

(We waited to give her those until we got home. Neither Leo nor myself thought it would be a good idea to pull out a bunch of knives in the middle of a restaurant, gift or no.)

I think she needed a break from work, and I'm glad we were able to do that for her. She seemed a lot happier than she has been over the past few months. It felt really nice seeing her look like herself again.

She was still a little drunk when we got home. She's asleep on the couch right now.

ARC and the Archive

Being hounded by an organization that specializes in secrecy and anonymity is difficult even when you're familiar with them. ARC has switched things up a bit since we went rogue- updated passwords, decommissioned old pseudonyms, the works. 

Strange, isn't it? ARC is so much more mundane than many other groups that deal with the Fears. They don't seem to have any occult rituals, any hidden ties to the Fears, any real investment in the paranormal beyond making sure it doesn't hurt anyone. In a way, it makes sense. Deal with beings made of fear by refusing to show emotion.

But hiding your fear isn't the same thing as overcoming it. ARC knows that, even if they don't advertise it. They're all terrified. And who can blame them? We're in a game of cat and mouse where nobody knows which is which.

Magnus

Working as an Archivist has been a peculiar experience.

Leo, Robin, Jenn, Samuel, and I were introduced to the job by a man named Jonathan Magnus who wore glasses and a tweed suit, which, to be honest, conjured some unpleasant memories of the KRAKEN agent ARC has had in security for some time now thanks to Robin.

Magnus says he had been Gifted someone else's memories after the Blind Man stole his. The memories he has now are those of the person originally called Jonathan Magnus- he doesn't know the name he was given at birth, so he uses the one the Blind Man gave him.

He seemed less concerned about this than he might be.

As Magnus told me and the other new Archivists, being Gifted has its benefits, namely that other Archivists treat them with respect. I wondered if this was a hint to myself and my companions, but I didn't voice the question.

To summarize the explanation Magnus gave of AMU and the Archive, AMU is a branch of the Archive- not so much a front, since that implies an attempt at secrecy. The Archive as a whole is devoted to the Blind Man, a Fear who walks libraries and collects the memories of those within. Those memories are stored in the books in his Catacombs. I already knew all this, as it's relatively basic information on the group, but I think it's important to refresh the memories of anyone who might have forgotten over the duration of my hiatus. (Sorry about that.)

I haven't seen Magnus much since then. He's high in the ranks of the Archivists, so the circles he runs in rarely overlap with mine. From what I gather, he chooses to introduce people to the group because he genuinely enjoys it, not because he's a no-name tasked to do so by the powers that be.

Speaking of ghosts, Robin hasn't been around lately. I think the Archivists are trying to use her for something, but she's cagey about what.

Leo and I did so much to get her back, and she's gone again.

Still better than her being imprisoned. From her perspective, this is certainly an improvement.

It still hurts, though. Is that selfish?

The Catacombs

Avie and Tviblindi accompanied our group to the AMU campus after our meeting at Murphy's. Once we got there, Tviblindi whispered something to Avie, and Avie said their goodbyes, that creepy smile still on their face.

Courtesy of Tviblindi, we were supplied with additional firepower and had escape vehicles set up outside of ARC headquarters. We were also accompanied by several Martyrs, the Archive equivalent to soldiers. Frankly, I was starting to get paranoid that the whole thing was a setup and they'd turn on us, given that there were a few more of them than there were of us.
 
I won't describe the person who opened the door to the Catacombs for us, as per her request.

Other than the possibility of betrayal and death, our group entered without issue.

The Catacombs are difficult to describe. They're not really supposed to be... seen, I don't think, at least not by humans. It makes me think of the Newborn's true form back at Seattle. It was impossible to really parse.

(Maybe that was just me, though. Nobody else seems to have said anything like that, including the other members of our group.)

The closest my brain could really figure out to a descriptor for the Catacombs is that they looked like a seemingly-infinite maze of tunnels, bookshelves lining the walls. Given how cold and damp it was in there, I assumed the fact that I didn't see any books that were even slightly damaged was a result of the Catacombs' true nature, i.e., hellish and wrong.

There were... spiders there. Not quite spiders, really. They had too many legs even for spiders, and their many eyes were placed irregularly around their heads. They were white as bone, and they covered nearly everything that wasn't being walked on, crawling about on their too-many legs.

In short, they looked like what I imagine arachnophobes see when they think about spiders.

They all moved in one direction. According to the Martyrs accompanying us, that was the Archive's patron Fear the Blind Man guiding our way. We followed the bone spiders, and we made it through the Catacombs.

Eventually, we came to a massive door made of dark wood. The doorway was made of bone, or at least, I thought so at first. As I moved closer, I realized that it was actually made of countless bone spiders pressed tight against one another. I couldn't say whether they were dead or just very still, if concepts like death even apply to them.

I moved past the rest of the group to open the door. With that, we stepped out of the Catacombs and into Robin's cell.

Most of what happened immediately after that was a blur, if I'm being honest, but I remember bits and pieces: Robin hugging me, me having to pull away from her and try to explain what was going on, Jameson cutting through several of the bars with a circular saw, Samuel shooting several guards' legs out to incapacitate them, Jameson picking the lock from the inside and opening the door, all of us leaving the cell with a now-terrified Robin in tow.

We fled the cell block, but there were a number of guards stationed at different points. We tried not to hurt any of them and focus on just getting out before we were trapped, but there were points where we had to.

The problem with not killing the people who want to kill you is that they can still try to kill you.

As we ran out of the cellblock and into the meeting room, we were followed by two guards we hadn't already injured or... neutralized. One named Ivan- nice guy, brought in doughnuts once- shot Jameson in the chest twice. A Martyr named Merel shot Ivan in the head. He collapsed to the ground, blood flowing from his temple. Ivan's partner George knelt down beside him, about to... I don't know, check his vitals or something, but Merel shot him too.

I was starting to feel sick to my stomach.

But there was no time to grieve. We kept running even as we were being shot at, even as more guards were called in from other rooms, even as they killed all but four of the Martyrs. We kept running even as we fired back at the people who had once been my friends, who probably would have agreed that Robin didn't deserve to be imprisoned but just couldn't be trusted to keep a secret and had to die for it.

If you couldn't tell, I'm still processing what happened that day.

We ran out of the meeting room and into the hallway. There was a staircase leading up to a door I knew said "Staff Only" on the other side. I pushed the door open and held it as Leo, Jenn, Samuel, Merel, and the surviving Martyrs ran through.

Robin looked into my eyes as she saw what I was doing. For some reason, I thought for half a second that she would refuse to go through, but just like the rest of us, she entered the door to the upstairs hallway. Just like the rest of us, she shot and killed the guards stationed there as we made our way to the office, and from there to the reception room, even though she didn't really know why any of this was happening. Just like the rest of us, she left the building and got in one of the escape vehicles Tviblindi and his people had provided us, even though she didn't recognize anyone there but us.

What kind of person am I that Robin didn't question any of this from me? Or does that say more about what being imprisoned for so long has done for her?

It doesn't matter. All of us are either free or dead. I didn't even know the ones who died that well.

That probably sounds cynical. I don't really care. Robin is safe, and she's with us.

She's just such a different person than she used to be. She's like us now: scared, exhausted, and ashamed. Or maybe she was always like that, and she's just lost practice at hiding it. It's hard to say.

I'll update more later. For now, I just want to get some rest.

Avie

So, Avie has a blog here and recapped their end of things here, and since they seem to have a better memory than I do... well, it's not plagiarism if it's just repeating things people said in the first place.

Now, onto the meeting itself.

 Leo, Jenn, and I were at a shady bar called Murphy's, accompanied by Samuel and Jameson, from what had once been Locke's team. Avie didn't show up somewhere from five to ten minutes past the time we'd set. I was starting to get a little bored, just staring at this weird poster of an orange toad that was hanging up. It was just about the only thing that was actually well-lit, and I sure as hell hadn't brought a phone to occupy myself in the meantime- Jenn's instilled far too much paranoia in me for that.

"Apologies for being late! I forgot how long the forest path gets sometimes," Avie said as they finally entered. I wasn't sure what I envisioned Leo's AMU contact as looking like, but "short, smiling person in a button-up shirt and nail polish" wasn't it.

"Yeah, you really need the patience of a saint around here," Leo said, nodding and motioning to a vacant chair. "So, uh..." He nervously drank some of his root beer. "So, what exactly were you thinking as to the deal? On either end, I mean."

"Well, I was thinking we could give you some Martyr backup and some guns." They called over the barkeep to order something, then went on, "In return, you give us some information about the inner workings of ARC. How does that sound?"

Jenn laughed.

Leo glanced at her, then looked back at Avie. "Works for me. I mean, they're the ones keeping Robin captive, and I only joined them in the first place because I thought they could help me. Obviously they didn't."

He looked over at me. I nodded.

He shrugged. "Guess that's a yes. Anything in particular you're wondering about?"

"There is one thing I was curious about: do you have a plan to pull this off?"

"Eh... sort of. Thing is, the people who designed ARC headquarters made sure to put the highest-security cells in the corner."

Jenn nodded. "Time-out."

Leo ignored this comment. "Point is, they're harder to reach and harder to get out of. Jenn," he said, nodding in her direction, "is bringing Samuel and Jameson. They're good fighters." He suddenly went pale. "...They may or may not have been involved in the ARC raid on Solville where we took those AMU books, actually... anyways, we're thinking between them and whoever you can provide, we should be able to fight our way there. If we can clear things out on the way to the cell, we won't need to do any more work once we've broken out Robin. As to actually getting the cell open, we're thinking of using a cordless circular saw, but that might take a while."

Avie nodded along, listening quietly. When Leo finished explaining, they took a few seconds before responding. "That sounds like a dangerous plan. Maybe talking it over with our Martyrs would be a good idea, and together you could form a plan with fewer... risks?"

Leo glanced at Jenn.

She sighed. "Yes, the fighting was mostly my idea. Yes, it was probably a bad idea."

Leo nodded. "So, the Martyrs would be at AMU, right?"

"Yes, we still have a few Martyr squads currently stationed at our campus," Avie said, nodding.

"It would seem that's the best place to head from here, in that case," I said. "Remind me, is that also where you have the gate to the anomalous location that Stetson fellow mentioned on his blog? The... Catacombs, I think it was called?"

Avie was visibly surprised that I'd finally spoken up, as well as at what I'd said. "The Catacombs? To be honest, I am not sure. I myself have not had the honor of passing through them. Were you planning on using them to reach the ARC prison?"

I shrugged. "I didn't think that would necessarily be the case, but if we are already working with the Archive, it may not be a bad idea." I paused. "I suppose you would want extra payment of some sort. I don't know what these four think of the idea, but I suppose it depends on the price you name, assuming it would even be viable."

"I see. I would have to ask around. Hopefully there's someone on campus that can help you with that."

"There most certainly is." A man in sunglasses stepped out of the shadows and tipped his hat at the five of us.

"Who the fuck-" Jenn began, startled by his sudden appearance. She cleared her throat awkwardly as she noticed the rest of us looking at her.

"...Cimbrius Tviblindi," I said. "You are, aren't you?"

Cimbrius Tviblindi, for background, is the unofficial head of AMU staff. Officially speaking, he's a member of the board of directors, but when he speaks, the rest of them listen. I don't know if he's pulled strings to get to that point, or if it's just because of his air of importance, or what, but whatever it is, it works for him.

Avie stood up and bowed, saying, "Mr. Tviblindi. I wasn't aware you were here."

Tviblindi nodded at Avie and motioned for them to sit back down. "You are correct, Addison, I am he." He smirked. "I didn't intend to eavesdrop. However, when I heard the Catacombs being mentioned, I could not resist."

I nodded slowly. "I see. You have some sort of connection to the Catacombs, then? Not surprising, I suppose, given your involvement with Subject 16- I mean, the Blind Man."

He shook his head softly. "Not really. I merely have what some would call an unhealthy interest in the place. I do, however, know of someone who can guide you there."

"Is that so? Well, then, I suppose our next move should be contacting them." I paused. "If you don't mind my asking, what interest do you have in this? I always thought you had people like them-" I nodded at Avie- "collect information while you managed things behind the scenes. I assumed as much, at least."

"You assumed correctly. I prefer staying in the background. However, sometimes things need a... push in the right direction." He smirked again. "As for my interest in this particular thing, well, I believe Robin has some critical information we need to stop that forest. It'd be quite a shame if her rescue attempt went badly."

"That's a fair enough goal, but... I honestly assumed it was the dagger. I don't remember Seattle that clearly, everything is honestly kind of a blur, but weren't the Martyrs trying to get it to the Newborn when Robin picked it up and used it?"

"Correct. Robin was the one who struck the killing blow, however. She could know some small details everyone else overlooked. Even just the feeling she felt when the dagger went into the tower could be helpful for us to analyze."

"...I see." I wasn't convinced, but I wasn't about to push it. "Now, the person you were talking about who could give us access to the Catacombs, are they on the AMU campus, or...?"

He nodded. "They happen to be on campus right now. Would you like to go see them now?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. "Ah, before I forget. You did mention the possibility of extra payment. I can confirm that usage of the Catacombs will require that."

I glanced at Leo and Jenn.

"I've got nothing better to do," Jenn said, shrugging. "I'm just curious what you're asking in return."

Tviblindi grinned when he heard this. "All I ask in return is that you join our university as official staff. This might be a steep price at first glance. On the other hand, where else would you go after saving Robin?"

 

We were all silent for several moments.

Leo was the one to speak up first. "Really? I won't complain if it pays well, I suppose, but... I wasn't even a particularly good student. I tried, but I just could not get through Wordsworth." He paused. "Joking."

I muttered something under my breath at the Wordsworth comment, then said aloud, "I'm afraid I don't understand either. I understand we have inside information on ARC and on ARC findings, but is there any particular reason we couldn't do that as free agents? ...Our own safety aside, anyways..."

"You see, our university is very busy at the moment, with the world ending and all that." Tviblindi paused as he sipped from a dark glass he definitely hadn't been holding a second before. "We really need all the extra hands we can get. While we get many applicants, it's hard finding anyone with a proper understanding of our real work. Your experience at ARC gives you knowledge that is hard to find. Everyone else with your knowledge is already working for someone else or... dead." He smirked and set down his glass on a nearby table.

"Understandable," I said, feeling slightly shaken by the reminder that we were only there in the first place because of the apocalypse. "So, you give us supplies and take us to whoever it is that can access the Catacombs, and in exchange, we join you and give you whatever information you might need."

"Exactly. Don't forget we're also sending some Martyrs along with you for the extra firepower." He paused and gave Avie a nod.

Avie nodded back and stood up. "Shall we get going, then?" they asked, their smile never having left their face.

I'll recap the rest when I'm up for it. Right now, I think I'm going to have a drink. Whether Leo and Jenn join me is up to them.

A friend of Leo's

Jenn and I were having another meeting in her office, this one a good deal more recent than the last, when there was a knock at the door. Jenn answered it. It was Leo.

"Volkov," Jenn said as she closed the door behind him. "You're late."
"Sorry," he said. "I was arranging a meeting."
"That so?" Jenn said, pouring him a drink.
He took off his coat and sat down across from myself.
"Yeah. An acquaintance of mine from a while back named Avie."
Jenn set her glass down and stared right into his soul. "You don't mean the AMU employee."
Leo nodded.
Jenn shook her head. "Oh, this just keeps getting better. You know, kid, sometimes I think you've got secrets where your brains should be."

I'll post when we meet up with them.

(Singular them. Avie's coming alone- apparently Leo managed to instill a lot of trust in them whenever it was he knew them, considering that makes it myself, Jenn, Leo, Samuel, and Jameson meeting up with them at a shady bar called Murphy's. Just seems like kind of a dangerous situation to put yourself in, if you ask me.

 

 Whatever. Not my business anyways.)