Return to Alligator Mound
Michael
All right. How are the four of you going to reach out to, contact, and communicate with Underwater Panther? Here are my thoughts but obviously I want all of you to chime in as well if you have a different approach.
Direct contact
Roger: Medium with using Charley's headphones will do it. Roger can also bring Spirit Empathy to bear here as well as needed. He will be able to sense, communicate with, and empathize with Underwater Panther throughout as long as his Medium is activated.
Charley: Astral Travel. Presumably if and when Charley crosses over from the material plane to the Outer Astral and finally to the Inner Astral, the spiritual landscape around Alligator Mound will be revealed, including denizens like Underwater Panther. This does mean that she will be unconscious in the material realm while all this is going on, but Roger with Medium will be able to sense, hear, and communicate with her while she's there. Astral Travel will last 30 minutes.
Indirect contact
Jocasta: Last time, all it took was a tab of acid and exhaustion to allow Jo to reach out to Underwater Panther. Obviously the acid will be part of this, as will Meditation, and we shall see if Jo's former interaction with the Panther allows her to reach out to it here as well.
Mitch: It does make sense that Mitch, who like Jocasta does not have any psychic or technologically-aided powers to see the spirits, would follow Jo's lead with Meditation and dropping acid. But thanks Jeff for reminding me last night that Mitch also has Illuminated, and we haven't exactly seen how sentient memes respond to that Advantage yet in-game. Will it act the same as it does for Irruptors, History B cultists, fellow Illuminated, and other variably "clued-in" folks? Only time will tell I suppose. Should also mention that Mitch's 2 uses of Serendipity have refilled now that we're in an Intersession.
Before I assemble all the rolls for all these abilities (and for Jo's and Mitch's acid effects/hallucinations), any OOC or IC discussion on how we're going to proceed is welcomed!
Likewise, before we get down to it, any divination or information-gathering powers anyone wants to use at the mound is totally okay with me.
Leonard
Jocasta is feeling pretty confident, given that she was the Underwater Panther, that she can re-commune with it pretty easily, even if she doesn't really understand how it all went down. (She's very receptive to the unrational these days.) So yeah, her plan was just to meditate, fry her egg, and call out to it. Her only suggestion is that whatever each of us do, we do it all together, both for ease of communication and making a kind of show of unity if things get hairy.
Jeff
Mitch doesn't want to get out past his skis on the Underwater Panther, it's not a topic he's got a strong intuitive grasp of*, so he will indeed follow Jo's lead. Before that, though, he'll try to get an oracular read on the situation. This doesn't feel like a Tarot thing, more a lay-down-under-a-tree-and-stare-up-through-the-branches-at-the-sky thing, or a watch-the-clouds thing, or a pick-up-a-handful-of-dirt-and-throw-it-onto-the-pavement-and-read-the-pattern thing, depending on the weather etc.
Michael
Well, it is nighttime right now, and the moon is waning gibbous, and the weather is partly cloudy and October-crisp here in Granville, Ohio, so Mitch has plenty of natural omens to watch for. I will make a pair of Oracle rolls and roll those results out before we drop acid/begin the effort to contact UP.
Mitch sits under one of the trees growing on Alligator Mound and watches the high clouds pass by lazily in the upper atmosphere, the air at ground level largely still and quiet with an occasional breeze out of the west. The Hunter's Moon hasn't quite risen in the east yet; the Big Dipper scrapes the northern horizon, and Mitch, former Scout, follows its two stars to Polaris. The area around the Alligator Mound is lightly forested, and some nightbirds can be heard out there calling out beyond the circular round that marks the perimeter of the mound, but nothing Mitch immediately senses as ominous in the classical sense.
In other words, it's a peaceful, if chilly, night in Central Ohio. The skies are quiet and don't have much on offer oracularly. But what about the ground?
Sure, Mitch doesn't know Underwater Panther from any other nominally memetic cultural thoughtform existing out there in the noösphere. But he knows what Jocasta's found out about It. It's a denizen of the underground streams, the deep lakes and rushing rivers, the solidity of earth as opposed to the burning torchlike omens coming down out of the sky. Mitch walks the length of the effigy, starting at its tail and walking to its head. Mitch remembers what Archie, Marshall, and Morris noticed; the Alligator's head points west-southwest, towards Columbus and Dayton and Richmond, Indiana and eventually Cairo, Illinois. The UFO sightings playing out along that line last week, like an immune reaction or a scab forming over a wound. Standing at the Alligator's head, Mitch sees in the west-southwestern sky a single shooting star: a stray Orionid, perhaps.
Is the Underwater Panther our potential ally? Insofar as the Panther's existence inferentially eternally opposes any threatening sky-beings up there, sure. Let's say we get rid of the UFOs and the threat they pose to History A, with Its help. What will the Panther want from us— or from Jocasta—then? At the effigy's head, Mitch gets a sudden sense of how Big this all is. Not a sense of danger per se but one of wariness. Mitch isn't sure if it's his own lack of intuitive grasp of the situation that is bringing forth that wariness, but hey, isn't that needed boost of intuition amidst the unfamiliar exactly why Mitch reads the cards/signs?
Bill
Roger would want to make a ritual, if only as a good opening sign of respect. (Maybe a roll on his Renched anthropology to attempt to get a bonus offsetting going out of his speciality in Voudon? Maybe help from super-occultist Jo?)
Michael
Oh, Renched Anthropology (Mound Builders)-14 is great but before you roll, yeah, an assist from Jo at Occultism-19 (I gave her a +1 for past dealings with the Panther) would be awesome.
Leonard
>> SUCCESS by 6
Michael
Cool, that means Roger can roll Anthropology (Mound Builders)-15, Bill.
Mel
Charley is ready to travel to the realms of the astral at the appropriate moment. She take her cue from Roger.
Bill
>> SUCCESS by 6
Michael
Roger brings forth his renched "book" knowledge of the evolution of pre-Columbian Mound Builder belief in chthonic entities like the Great Serpent and the Underwater Panther and combines it with his own Vodou practices, all while consulting with Jocasta on her first experience with Underwater Panther last week. Roger would never dream of lifting any direct cultic forms or rituals from Native folks, but instead syncretizes the important symbolic elements he's "read" about: an offering of tobacco (not that different from Opening the Ways, I suppose, Roger thinks as he takes out a cigarette, wondering how many of these Native elements themselves ended up in his ancestors' own syncretized Louisiana Vodou) and a libation of water. Roger (and Jo) have now set the table.
Now Jocasta reaches into her own "medicine bag," tears off a piece of government LSD-25 blotter for herself and one for Mitch, and sends it down the hatch. Meanwhile, under Mitch's tree from earlier, Charley slumps against its trunk and presses "play" on her portable cassette player. Her headphones pump binaural beats into her ears; her cerebellum's superior olivary complex tries to process them, Charley's brain stem sending her deeper and deeper into a delta state and eventually into the Outer Astral.
Leonard and Jeff: Okay, let's begin with the effects of the acid on Jo and Mitch. Both of you need to roll HT minus 2 against this. For Jo with Fit that's HT-9 and for Mitch that's HT-8. If you succeed you can act normally throughout the trip. If you fail, you will hallucinate and we can cover the effects of that when the time comes (it may have an effect on your later Meditation and other skill rolls).
Mel: Charley will need to roll Astral Travel-13 to get into the Outer Astral (this will take 10 minutes and can happen while Jo and Mitch are dosing and meditating) and then it will be an Astral Crossing-13 roll to go into the Inner Astral. That's an instantaneous roll so it won't take any additional time.
Bill: And finally, Roger will have his Medium senses attuned and I will roll Spirit Empathy-13 secretly if and when we meet the Underwater Panther (or, who knows, any other spirits/ghosts/thoughtforms who might be in the vicinity). No rolls for Roger as of yet.
Jeff
>> FAILURE by 5
Michael
Five-hour trip for Mitchell.
Leonard
>> SUCCESS by 3
Michael
Oh wow, okay, Jo is NOT Hallucinating (in GURPS terms) but sadly Mitch is, for five hours:
Leonard
Remember that Jocasta has a minor calling to help people who are on psychedelic journeys, so she will do her best to shepherd Mitch through any rough patches.
Bill
Roger is certainly on watch, however many semi-comatose bodies we pile up. Come to think of it, we should take as read he did a little police tape/site closed set-up, even if it's night.
Michael
(Could even supplant the signage with a Project glyph if you wanted.)
Bill
Hmm, maybe best not to decorate the ritual site with the words of the Enemy, when trying to impress a free spirit.
Jeff
"Let's see if this works."
Will-14.
>> SUCCESS by 4
Meditation-15.
>> SUCCESS by 5
Michael
Jo can also give me her unmodified Meditation roll now as well.
Leonard
>> SUCCESS by 2
Well somebody's distracted
Oh wait LOL that's a success by 2
Michael
Still successful, on both your parts. Will wait for Mel’s astral roll and then we can move onward.
(I think the one thing that's going to be really fun about this scene is that with the successful Meditation rolls, Roger's Spirit Empathy, and Charley's Astral Travel, all four of you will be able to see each other and communicate with each other and presumably with any spirits, even though Charley will be on The Other Side. It's just that what Mitch sees is gonna be a little... extra.)
(And I don't mean "extra" in the sense of more or different data or information necessarily, I mean it in the colloquial sense )
Mitch and Jocasta sit across from each other at the head of the "alligator," both of them attempting to clear their minds and get into a meditative state. It's a little harder for Mitch than it is for Jocasta, but they both manage to get there as the acid begins having an effect on both of them.
For Jocasta, it's a similar feeling to the one in the Holiday Inn in Cape Girardeau last week; a sinking into the Earth—the real Earth this time, not the polyester bedspread in a cheap motel room. Here sitting around the crown and third eye of the effigy of Underwater Panther, Jo feels herself tied deep into the roots of the grasses and trees, and she can even sense the earth underneath the asphalt of the cul-de-sac that loops around the historic site. Jo's feeling of having doubled herself—of having been the Underwater Panther in her own past vision, reverberates through her now. She is not sure if she is going to embody the Panther tonight, like one of Roger's loa riding him, or if It's close by her. But It is close.
For Mitch, the aftereffect of his earlier attempt to read the signs in nature remains foremost in his mind. Instead of directing his attention to the ground, the first effects of the acid seem like they tug on him to remain preoccupied with the sky. The stars have shifted; thank goodness they still have the same constellations up there, unlike that night on the St. Francis roof. A few more shooting stars appear—in the east, this time, closer to rising Orion. Mitch blinks, and hot tears start to flow freely. Looking up, the tears well up in his eyes, making the night sky a dark, patternless blur.
Mitch swallows hard, and wonders why all these inchoate urges, both before taking the tab of acid and now, are making Mitch sympathize with the Thunderbird. It's not Thunderbird's fault that the Annunaki came from the skies (i.e., space) and that the secret government of America uses helicopters and rockets and missiles and high-tech aircraft to rule the heavens. Thunderbird's got an eternal role to play! Crops to rain upon, lightning to hurl, awe to inspire. Is it fair that one guy in the party has to be the guy always lighting things and people on fire, making burnt offerings up unto the sky lord? No, but sometimes... well, that's just how the cookie crumbles. A brief image of Wernher von Braun's face, resigned and anxious-looking, flashes behind Mitch's watery eyes.
"Who's saying this?" Mitch blurts out loud in response to his internal monologue, his calm meditative state unable to stop one momentary involuntary vocalization under the effects of the LSD.
Jeff
"Goddamn it, stop with the words in my mouth! I am so fucking tired of—" He breaks off abruptly.
(Can't win for losing.)
Leonard
"There's no you for the mouth to belong to, man," Jo says in a low voice. "No you to get tired. That's what the acid is for, to remind you of that. I forget myself, all the time. Other selves competing to be part of you. Sometimes you gotta let them, or..." She drifts off, following her own advice and letting whatever other aspect of her is trying to assert itself do its thing.
Jeff
ok
Mel
>> SUCCESS by 7
>> SUCCESS by 3
Michael
Very nice. For the first time in a long while, Charley shifts into the Astral effortlessly and goes straight into the Inner Astral after crossing over.
When Jo opens her eyes, she can see Charley's silvery Astral form—it's a faint ghost-Charley afterimage with wisps of silvery spectral ectoplasm trailing off of it. Charley is exploring the moundside and effigy in the Inner Astral and Jo sees her astral form move across the face of the mound.
Mitch under the influence of the acid can also see Charley suddenly; to Mitch's eyes, her astral presence takes the form of a pucker in reality, a bipedal humanoid distortion in the night air, shadows from the nearby streetlights falling wrongly across it. Mitch can also sense the edges of Charley's indigo aura around this spatial distortion; of course he can use Aura Reading if he wants to get more information on Charley's current state, with all Hallucinating penalties, of course.
And Roger can sense Charley too thanks to his Medium ability, and with Charley out of her body, Roger can also see and sense Maman Brigitte trotting behind her in black rooster form, keeping a wary eye on the effigy of the Alligator beneath her taloned feet.
Everyone's senses are working fine, Jocasta says to herself. We're all here, but where is the guest of honor? If It was me, is It still me somehow? At the head of the Alligator, Jocasta wonders what more she needs to, putting her hands on the earth at the lumpy earthen brow of the lizard shape.
"I thought we were quits," pipes a sinuous, burbling voice from the mound below, startling Jocasta and reverberating through Mitch's LSD-addled mind. We swoop into Charley's vision of this mound in the Inner Astral. There the effigy is taller, the features less eroded by time and vegetal growth. The mound is surmounted, right near the effigy's midsection, with a great roughly trapezoidal gray stone altar, about five feet high, scorched with burn marks. Curled around that altar is the Underwater Panther Itself, its iridescent spines and feathers and fur jutting off in all directions, its copper tail coiled back like a scorpion's. As Charley's eyes come upon it, Mitch, Jo, and Roger are suddenly able to sense it. It looks first at Charley, then moves toward the head of the effigy to peer at Jocasta and Mitch, and finally at Roger standing near to them.
"I enveloped you in earth, brought you wisdom and allowed you rushing passage through my domain to share that knowledge with your companions," the Panther says to Jocasta, "and you filled my gullet in exchange. A burnt offering, though." The lynx-chimera looks at Mitch and smiles. "He'd have been better drowned alive, thrashing unto death."
Roger's hackles are up, tentatively feeling out the presence of this spirit. It is a formidable force of nature, every bit of fear anyone in ancient America felt as they drowned offshore or in a lake or a rushing river. A keeper of secrets underground as well. Burials. The Dead. Ancient magic... and artifacts. It respects demonstrations of sacrifice, of bringing more victims to its dwelling-place. There is a sense of justice filling It, a brutish primitive insistence that each drowning or burial victim must be deserving of his or her fate... but the hunger, the hoarding is the primary, and primal, emotion Roger can sense with his Empathy.
"So we have dealt, yes? And you are satisfied with your end of the exchange, as am I. I don't want you to get any notions that you are my vessel or my servant or my shaman. Those secrets you are not to be privy to."
Jeff
listening
Leonard
"Hello again, Mishipeshu," Jocasta coos. "I am glad you enjoyed your meal, and I apologize for feeding you cooked meat. But quits? Surely not! You have not lived a thousand lifetimes without learning that sometimes, one deal leads to another." She smiles and gestures convivially to her friends, as if she's introducing people at a dinner party. "Each of us seeks more wisdom; we hunger for it just as you hunger for the lives you devour."
She looks at its 'face', half-expecting to see a reflection. "I am from the West, from the lands of the Miwok and the Tamal. From where the land yields to the sea, the great peaceful waters, the ohlohne ocean where the old ones fled the cold. And I can feed many more into those deep, dark waters to make their way to you, if you are still hungry. I know I am."
Bill
Roger keeps silent, respectful, and wary. Then, when Jo makes her offer, he whispers, “aiyee, of course. It is terrible, but it is where they thought to flee.” He turns to the central spot, where Charley’s vision sees the altar, goes to his knees, and raises his hands above his head, to the spirit. “Great One, I too seek wisdom, but I only offer to return to you what is yours, that the Enemy took and kept from you. We have stopped the river singing, and they may be lead to your embrace at last.”
Jeff
quiet
Mel
Charley continues to explore the area but stays within earshot.
Michael
To Jocasta: "Wisdom." The "zzz" sound from Underwater Panther's saying that word sets up a sympathetic rumbling inside Mitch's head; it feels like it's vibrating his teeth. Underwater Panther smiles. "There are many kinds of wisdom. There is the wisdom I am allowed to share with you, which is simplistic and blunt and rude. And there is the wisdom I can bestow upon those who created and nurtured me, a wisdom which is grand, and sublime, and life-saving. I know what kind of wisdom you want. Graverobber wisdom." Underwater Panther smiles slyly at Its repeated implication that Jo is just like all other despoilers of this continent, but then becomes conciliatory. "You have been respectful, though, and that does mean something. You have approached me, both times, in forms proper to your own hunger for wisdom. I am willing to listen." Upon hearing Roger's parallel entreaty, Underwater Panther then approaches the altar, where Roger has gone and where Charley's Astral form "stands," to speak with them.
To Roger: "The singing river. You mean the blessed People of the Bread? The ones who had been trapped, dreaming, punished for the gift of their tongue?" Underwater Panther susses out Roger, with his instinctive shaman's Empathy, and Charley, with her willingness to turn her mind and awareness off and travel to the land of the spirits. "This is... this is a great deed you have done. Their drowning was not my doing, even though the waters were used to effect it. They did not deserve their watery prison." Underwater Panther looks closely at Charley's Astral Form, and reaches out and touches her cheek with Its paw, and Charley can feel it, cold and metallic, smelling of copper blood. "You're real here," It says to her approvingly. "Brave."
Underwater Panther turns Its attention back to Roger, and in some capacity Jocasta as well. "They didn't just not deserve their fate, these People of the Bread. They were able to resist the blandishments of Thunderbird's servants—the insidious words they laid upon the vulnerable and weak-willed—because of their tongue. They were taught their language by a being far older than I. Legend has it that one of the Bread People traveled far to the west, to a mountain of plenty, where no man would need to labor for his bread for as long as he lived. The hero of the Bread People instead stayed for just a while for... wisdom," here Underwater Panther chuckles, "and left with the tongue, to stay the invaders' ideas, giving up a eternity in paradise in exchange for his people." Underwater Panther raises a quizzical eyebrow. "Of course their language ultimately wasn't enough. They still got massacred and drowned by their neighbors with better weapons."
To Roger once more: "But listen: these Bread People are not mine. The ones who dwell in my domain are those who proved themselves greedy: despoilers, cheaters, those who dig too deeply and fulsomely for copper and iron. These Bread People belong among their own people, advising and protecting their descendants. But who are the descendants of an extinct people?" Underwater Panther relishes Its own riddle. "Another puzzle for you to seek wisdom about."
Leonard
Jocasta dwells on the Panther's words, with the stretching and dilation of time that acid brings. The tune of "Big Rock Candy Mountain" careens recklessly in her head, but she tries to focus on its words: she does not have Roger's mastery of the loa, but she knows from her studies that requests of such beings must be phrased properly, because the devil is always in the details.
"Your judgment is long and deep, as befits the Lynx of the Rivers," she says. "So you know, too, that like deals, one puzzle often leads to another. I will dispense with the masks, in respect of your judgment.
"We are four. Each of us seeks a separate wisdom, towards a common goal. Here is our shaman," she says, gesturing at Roger. "He is wise in the way of spirits like you, and he will neither fool nor be fooled. Here is our seeker," moving her hand to Mitch. "He sees without seeing, and the veils between worlds are as empty sky to him. Here..." For a moment, her voice catches, with a sense of loss and sorrow that she can barely contain. "Here is the moon-child. I would wish that she not make a pact with you on your terms, for in my eyes she is an innocent. But the truth is, she is not like us. She is something new and strange beneath the sky, and she is on her own path. And you know me: I am what you say I am. A rooter among corpses. I will speak the terms of my covenant first, because you know what you may expect from me. I will not die in honor; I will not face the west. But I will deal with you honestly.
"I seek three words, and three words only. First, a word in the language of the people of this land that has been lost forever, that will be known to no one: a word of hope and promise, a pure word. Second, a word in the language of the people of this land that is from before the white man came, that would be known to the children of the people who still live but that is a mystery to all others, a word that I will be the first white to know. And third, a name in the language of the people of this land that has vanished, a lost name — a true name.
"It is much to ask, I know. True names are dear in every tongue. But what I offer you is three lives, one for each word. They will be given to you as meat, served raw in the waters, as you like it. They will be the lives of three white men. Three great and powerful men. Three despoilers, three diggers in the dirt, three who gambled the lives of all people to save their own stations. Three gravediggers, like myself. My fathers, in many ways. They will provide you with a meal fitting your greatness. This is my bargain."
Michael
Underwater Panther licks its chops, Its eyes glowing an eerie ghost-green. "I know what you have planned, gravedigger girl. Under any other circumstances, these sacrifices would be indeed a fair trade. But my responsibilities dictate, especially under current circumstances, a different type of sacrifice."
"When you awakened me and I brought you here, I could see in an instant the fate created by our meeting. The Thunderbird released His servants to harry me across many leagues; I had to go deep underground to avoid them, leaving a bit of myself in you for safe-keeping. Even now, they are converging on this place. My surfacing makes me a target for the little thunderbirds of the sky."
"When I first met you, I believed you were a servant of Thunderbird's. These 'powerful men' you have served... they do Thunderbird's bidding, share the skies with Him." Underwater Panther casts an eye at Roger and Charley before It says this next bit.
"The sacrifice I require for your price of three lost words is not three petty men you were going to kill anyway," Underwater Panther smiles its enigmatic lynx-y smile again, teasing Jocasta. "They mean nothing to me. What I require instead is that one of the thunderbirds that have been appearing in the skies over My land... be flung from the skies and cast into My waters. I know you have the machines to do this, the weapons, the capability to rule your own nation's skies. What happens to... the actual shell of the bird is immaterial to me. Your men of wisdom may dissect and disassemble it as they please. I require the bodies within. They do not belong in this world, and they vex me. With these bodies in my deep caverns, I might be able to discover..." and with this Underwater Panther looks back pointedly at Roger, "what has made my rival brother Thunderbird so sick in the centuries since this world changed."
"It is a world out of balance your people have created," the Underwater Panther says back to Jocasta, "and this will begin the process of bringing it back into balance. An infinitesimal effort, but a good start."
(And again, I want Roger and Charley to feel free to interject with Underwater Panther here. One thing I will say given Mitch's detachment is that Charley in the Astral is able to see is that Mitch is both here and somewhere else, like the acid has triggered his remote viewing ability. So for the record, Jeff, Mitch can hear and see and process what's happening here in Ohio simultaneously with what he's experiencing elsewhere right now under the effect of the acid.)
Mel
“I don’t know that, that is a good idea panther. You may discover what made your brother sick and then get sick yourself.”
Michael
Hidden Lore (Spirit Lore)-14, Mel.
Mel
>> SUCCESS by 5
Michael
Underwater Panther's spikes get raised at Charley's innocently-proffered theory, like a porcupine looking to ward off a predator. With narrowed eyes, the Panther looks at Charley and pads softly over to her. "I appreciate your concern, moon-child. You wish to witness what it means for me to be sickened, to be tainted? Then witness it." Underwater Panther swallows Charley whole. (Jo, Roger, and Mitch see this; Charley's Astral body remains intact inside Panther's gullet for a matter of 2-3 seconds, due to the difference in time dilation in the Astral, as the sequence below unfolds.)
[The following bit is only evident to Charley in the Inner Astral; the landscape of the Inner Astral, under Underwater Panther's control as a major spirit, changes according to the Panther's whims and is not visible (or audible) to the material members of the party.]
Charley's surroundings at the great Temple Mound of Underwater Panther in the Inner Astral whirl away as she enters the gullet of the Underwater Panther. She feels herself swirling away, like she's being sucked down the plughole of a bathtub draining, the dead memory of this earthen mound in its Adena Period heyday disappearing, becoming something else.
Charley surfaces, finding herself bobbing in the waters of a river, choked with dead fish, iridescent trails of petroleum and dun globs of human sewage surrounding her, rusted hulls of sunken ships and industrial waste littered across the river floor. On the horizon, Charley sees red-orange flames and huge plumes of black smoke: not from shore, but on the surface of the river itself. The skyline of the city is barely visible through the flames; the emotional energy of the scene is powerful, and makes Charley involuntarily cry.
"I could show you so much else, little one: poisons in the groundwater from your mines, sprays let loose from your aircraft to kill the little insects who only wanted their share of the earth's bounty, inhuman bombs crafted from your digging for sickly yellow ores that kill living things invisibly. All these maladies already affect my domain. I am already sick: deathly sick. Forgive me for being presumptuous to your expertise, but I will accept the risks you are so fearful of."
Underwater Panther vomits Charley back up again into the area of the Inner Astral containing the Alligator Mound. As mentioned, to the rest of the party, she was inside Underwater Panther only briefly.
(No Fright Check for Charley, because despite the scary and eerie nature of the vision given to her, Underwater Panther truly meant no harm.)
Mel
Charley, replies shakily, “Ah okay.” While taking a half-inch step back.
Jeff
"Are you okay, Charley? Or are we going to have to try to kill another god?"
Mel
“I’m okay… But are you? Mitch, you look like.. Well, you look superimposed.”
Leonard
Jo's mind is still hazy and divided despite being on top of the trip. Her internal monologue sprawls across her mind like falling stars on the canopy of the sky.
Every time I turn around, someone is trying to make me a Secret Master of the Universe, she thinks (or does she say it? It's hard to know sometimes, when the acid is good). Why can't I just be a person?
Because you're not good at it, comes an answer that's her own voice.
"Hold it together, Joey. You still have to help Mitch with his things." Wait, how do you know that? What time is it...? Don't go cosmic. Not right now, she reminds herself. Stick to reality, which is whether or not you should promise a swamp cat spirit that you'll shoot down a UFO.
"You are losing your mind."
So what? Marshall lost his, and he's fine.
"Is he?"
It's not puzzle time, Jocasta. It's decision time. Is that her father's voice? Marshall will understand. He'll approve. It's a good power move for us, a chance to flex our muscle and show we're really in charge. And having the tech that's in those things could be valuable.
"The truth is out there."
What? Look, focus up. It's a good idea. You should say yes. If Archie doesn't approve, you'll just have to hope for forgiveness. Just like dad wou...
"Great Mishipeshu, I agree to your terms. For these words, I will arrange to bring down one of the thunderbirds. Its body will be ours, but its riders will be yours."
Jeff
Uncontrollable Pyrokinesis check.
>> SUCCESS by 5
"Jeez, man. Just give me a second," Mitch mutters. "Okay, yeah. Sorry, guys." He raises his voice slightly, or what feels to him like 'slightly.' "I'm here, kinda! I got a thing happening! Anybody—yeah, anybody have any questions they want to ask Matt? But anyway, yeah! Okay, Jo, it's your call, URIEL will back you up on this, you don't need me to say that but I am anyway!"
Then Mitch tries not to throw up.
>> SUCCESS by 0
Mitch's HT-2 is 8 so I think he's okay.
Green around the gills, though, like the man said. In his own little world at the moment, probably.
"Did you...what was...?"
Michael
"My surfacing here will surely make Thunderbird react. Tomorrow night, if patterns hold. You should have a day to ready yourselves. I wish you all prowess and speed and success in your trial. If you should fail, I hope Thunderbird is merciful."
Leonard
"Yeah. Yeah. Time to get ready," Jo says dreamily, as the LSD starts to lift from around her mind like cold sweat drying on her skin. "I have to call Marshall. It's time to start acting like we own all this. Charley, you were right again." She glances at Roger. "Last chance, mi caballero sabio. I think this is what you'd call a limited-time-only kind of deal." Turning slowly and getting up off the loamy ground like a spool of audiotape running backward, she turns to Mitch. "You doing okay? Where were you and who were you talking to?"
Jeff
"I'm still there. I'm talking to Matt. He's giving me vague but dire warnings suggesting that if I don't go visit my mother I'll regret it down the line."
Leonard
"I dunno who Matt is, but yeah, moms like to say stuff like that. They're just trying to make you feel guilty for not doing what they want."
Jeff
"Do you know my mom?"
Leonard
"Never had the pleasure. Or maybe there's no pleasure to be had, I don't want to assume," Jocasta answers. "You should go see her if you want. You shouldn't if you don't. It's not that easy, just saying 'I'm in charge', not for most of us. But you can see the strings, Mitch. Maybe your'e just as tangled up in them as we are. But at least you can see what direction they're pulling you." She fishes around for a cigarette and can't find one. "Her too," she says, looking at Charley, that same distant and slightly sad look in her eyes. "We gotta get moving. I don't know much about what's happening but I do know the clock is back on the wall, and it's ticking. Whatever we want to do about —" she seems to gesture at everything — "whatever it we're doing, we don't have long to do it." Jocasta looks up. At the moon, at the faraway stars, for a UFO or a F-4 Phantom with a barely detectable glyph on the tail, towards God. "Do you know who tells you that it doesn't matter if you kill them because someone just as bad or worse will replace them? People who are trying to save their own asses."
Bill
Roger shrugs. “Your connection, your compact , your call, Jo. I don’t think I know half of what’s going on here, but ain’t that always the way.”
“And everyone’s trying to save their asses. You got an ass in this world, you gotta work on saving it. I just wish for once it was people telling us someone good or better was gonna replace someone.”
Mel
Charley has been LISTENING to Jo to Mitch to Matt to, to, to.. it all. Charley’s head is starting to hurt. She thinks, “Shit..shit. Something important is happening right..I need to review.” But then the LISTING is a thing. Is a word, a sound, a song and is all and the nothing to all of it. Charley’s astral form starts beam brighter as she dances about caught up in LISTENING and sings along to what is playing,
You can climb a mountain, you can swim the sea
You can jump into the fire but you'll never be free
You can shake me up or I can break you down
Oh, oh We can make each other happy
Oh, we can make each other happy
We can make each other happy
Oh, we can make each other happy
You can climb a mountain, you can swim the sea
You can jump into the fire but you'll never be free, no no
You can shake me up or I can break you down
Oh, oh We can make each other happy Oh, we can make each other happy Oh, we can make each other happy We can make each other happy, oh You can climb a mountain, you can swim the sea You can jump into the fire but you'll never be free, no no You can shake me up, I can break you down Oh, oh Oh, oh Oh, oh We can make each other happy We can make each other happy We can make each other happy We can make each other happy Aah…”
Jeff
"Jo. Jo, I'm sorry, I know you're busy. He's putting words in my mouth, Jo, he's making me say things. I need him to stop, Jo."
>> FAILURE by 7
Mitch throws up on his shirt.
Leonard
"Hey. Hey. It's all right, man. It's a rough ride sometimes, but you're gonna be okay. We're here with you. The Club is all behind you," she says, pulling out a bandana to help clean up and handing him her canteen. "Drink water. Hydration club, that's another good club." She puts her hand on his shoulder, a gesture of pure lower-case empathy more than any attempt to do any kind of a psionic read. "He can only put words in the mouth of that part of you. Never the part of you that's you, here, now. He can build the railroad and hand you a ticket but he can't make you ride."
Jeff
"He's a dick," Mitch mumbles. "And so whiny."