March, 2019

Helen has fulfilled her end of the bargain. We have Phil back from hell. Now comes the hard part. Now we must uphold our end.

Helen gave us a list of the things she needs to complete her escape into eternity. Some things were rather mundane, such as concrete or iron beams, and some were unusual, such as goats and dragon's blood. However, there really was only one ingridient that would pose any problem, and it would pose a considerable problem indeed. She wanted a minimum of one of Nilo's stones, preferably all. We had one week to het everthing.

We first considered looking for them at the last place we knew they were at: The Artificer's complex in Colorodo. That place, however, was being turned into a spa by some corporation and we found nothing. The lake leading to the depths of the earth was still there, but the complex was all gone and the entrance to the lab was covered by an utility shed. James then had an idea to use Phil to get the stones so we flew back to New York and commissioned Phil to paint them. Their description was taken from our memories and from everything the twins were able to dig up on them. It took Phil one week to paint the work during which time we got the rest of the ingredients ready at what we named "Ground Zero": a place in the deadlands of New Mexico. Helen could do her thing here without risking anyone who didn't have to be there.

Knowing that taking Nilo's stones from whomever had them was a highly risky and dangerous maneuver at best, we took the painting to Edmond's compound in Tennesse so that, again, no one who didn't have to be there would get hurt. Once there, I drew two of the stones from the painting, using my blood. As expected, this drew the attention of the party that had them, which we thought was Mara. Unfortunately, it wasn't she that possesed them, but Elegy and she came at me in a fury. After a short but violent battle in which Donegail was very helpful, we took all the four stones and made haste to escape. We piled into Lenore's minivan and drove as fast as we could to New Mexico. As fast as we could turned out to be quite speedy as Lenore accelerated the van setting off rocket fuel and explosives in stages. This was necessary as Elegy pursued us with a fighter jet. We escaped, though the arrival in New Mexico involved finding alternative means of slowing down. Using James as a body board on rocky terrain was the alternative means after the van disintegrated.

We arrived and brought the stones. Helen, preparing to leave this world forever, discarded anything she didn't need anymore. This included some items of power that we collected for our use. They were:
      •Monolith of Power (14'H x 3'W, teardrop shape)
      •Eye of Ahab
      •Astrolabe of the Stars
      •Fundamental hand guns — 6.5mm machine pistols
      •Fleshharrower the Soul Sword
      •Kwelnniya — a key that opens doors
      •Subtle Knife (given to Aurelius)
      •Cold Fusion (given to Lenore)
      •Money (3 x $20 bills) - The Root of All Evil

Helen then used the Gate to leave. Unfortunately while she crossed to eternity, something came here from eternity. It was a larger version of the beast that James fought in the lake on the artificial island. That time the "other" kissed him and caused him to always hear bells of insanity. James knew he had to fight this one as well. To do this, he used the Eye of Ahab, which allows the user to use the power of madness to his advantage. James ripped out one of his eyes and put in the Eye of Ahab. He then could hear what the "others" were saying behind the bells and knew how to fight them. I used the Astrolabe, as advised by the Man in Blue, to ensure that the stars were not aligned in the "other's" favor. The Astrolabe allows the user to control the "sky" — in other words the position of the stars and also things like the weather. I consequently used the device to hit the creature with a typhoon and lightning. The creature finally fell defeated.

At this point Van arrived and was lured by the power of the stones. Nilo's stones, as he explained, were used to destroy the last two worlds and were made for that purpose. They are so desired because using them would allow the power players (the demons and such) to rewrite the rules to be able to stay within the rules and still have ultimate power. James bet on Van staying true to his role in this world and offered him the stones to keep safe. At this point the representatives of the other houses of Wilno arrived and made a power play for the stones. Satre (as the old man with the dogs) and Alyssa were on one side. Van and Mandrake were on another. And Duncton and Mara were on the third. Palpable power was felt from the contest. At this point we knew that the House Du Carte had to stand with them, so Edmond stood against them on the fourth side. James, Varya, and Lenore stood with him and I stood with Lenore. Though Edmond had no power of his own, he used the Monolith of Power to contest with the other houses and Varya added her presense to the mix. With this move, the House Du Carte was re-established (ore or less) and a compromise was reached that each house would take possession of one of Nilo's stones. This was what Duncton proposed originally. Satre disliked this plan, but with the other three houses against him, did not make a fight of it.

We then returned to Edmond's penthouse where we held a conference on what to do. James formally joined Edmond's house, while Lenore and Varya allied themselves with him. Aurelius became Lenore's Master of Assassins while Varya assumed that position for the House Du Carte. James was given the position of Master of Dragons. We then decided, on Aurelius's suggestion, to go meet up with the Giants in the rocks below the earth. It took Phil two weeks to paint the necessary painting. I used this time to train and to get to know Lenore better. James used this time to date with Varya. I will not here, or anywhere, contemplate the physics of such an union. Two weeks later we were on our way to see the Giants.

Upon arrival in the city of the Giants (or dwarves, or Children of the Stone), we found them to be besieged by an uncountably large army of the Elves (fucking Elves). After fighting our way though them, we came upon an Elvsh siege of the remnants of the Giants and Aurelius's people. They made their last stand in the city's keep, with only a dead end cave to escape to. With the help of grenades, flash bangs, James's dragon form, and Fleshharrower the Soul Sword (which, being 18 feet long, was given to a Giant warrior), we broke the siege and entered the keep. There we learned that the Giants really hate weapons and would refuse to take up the Soul Sword (which is very evil, I'm sure) in any circumstances except the most dire, and even probably not then. The Giant that wielded the Sould Sword during the siege was terrified that he did so and threw the sword back to James. This, however, was not an immediate concern because it was obvious that the defenders couldn't hold out against another attack and they had to escape. Unfortunately, there was no place to go, so James decided to ask Edmond and Phil to help them. He had to leave the keep using Phil's sketch of the penthouse as a gate back. Neither I nor Lenore were expendable as only I could communicate with Aurelius's people and only she knew the Giants' Latin. James left.

It would take Phil sometime to be able to construct a portal that would allow the defenders to escape. In the meantime, we had to hold out. A few hours after James left, the Elves begun the attack. They stormed the keep with strange, horned 8 foot tall riders mounted on large running lizards. 30 of these broke through into the keep and started the slaughter. Between Aurelius and me, we managed to kill some of them, but tit was plain that the people and the Giants, who had no projectile weapons, couldn't defend themselves properly. They retreated into the cave behind the keep while Aurelius and I covered their retreat. We were also joined by another Giant who picked up the Soul Sword, for whatever reason. On a side note, during this battle I realized that the fundamental machine pistols would not run out of ammo while they were needed, as I shot many hundreds of thousands of bullets without reloading. There was a defense wall built in the cave where we held out for another few minutes until Phil, helped by the Gate kid, was able to construct a portal for us to escape. With James, Donegail, Aurelius, the Giant with the Soul Sword, and myself covering the escape, we managed to save a good number of Giants and Aurelius's people. These were transported by Phil to the uplands of Tennesse, where they would not be noticed. The guns clicked empty as I stepped back into the portal. Donegail closed it permanently behind us.

–Elan