The session begins with our heroes in the kitchen, ostensibly making drinks, while Panacea lounges at the table. They’re trying to plan what to do. Merlin keeps shooting drinks from his fingers and both Nora and Ursa are repulsed by it.
Sarolt comes over to ‘help’, and in doing so she shifts her face to Kojak’s and does a football huddle. He basically says that since they’re all institute employees, they have prophecies, right? What’s the likelihood that this situation could kill them? The bomb specifically?
Both Nora and Merlin are like ‘well, maybe?’ but Ursa is like ‘definitely, yes.’ Kojak tells them that, if they end up back at the institute, not to cause a panic and just come straight back and tackle this situation from the outside. He also states that he’s probably safe as his prophecy is dying ‘at the hand of a bird who’s flown the nest’.
She goes back to the table. Nora’s like, ‘is she telling us to run?’ as Merlin messages Alkahest to ask how far into Death he and his sister are from. It’s 49. So Merlin then messages Nora and Ursa and says ‘I’m just going to cast Banishment’.
So he does. His material component of an object that repels or disgusts the target was a stream of mojito and strawberry daiquiri from both index fingers. And it works! Panacea fucking vanishes.
In doing so, she drops the bombs and the deadman’s switch; neither of which were banished as she’d apparently picked them up locally. Ursa tries to catch the detonator, and Nora goes for the bomb itself… but they aren’t fast enough.
Ursa is fast enough, though, to drop herself on the bomb itself and try to lessen the blast with her own body. Merlin dives for cover and ends up in a cupboard, because if this thing goes off and breaks his concentration, Panacea is right back there with them.
And then Kojak is standing up, and a knife is sailing across the room. For a brief moment both Ursa and Nora see it, and think he’s going to cut the wires with expert precision… but the blade of the knife is aimed squarely at Ursa’s face.
It kills her instantly.
The bomb goes off.
In the explosion, Nora takes the worst of it, but Merlin is able to keep his spell going. Panacea’s fully-banished. In the aftermath, it seems that Imrus leapt to try and protect his daughter, and his right arm’s been blown clean off. Nora crawls through the wreckage and Lays on Hands, keeping him from bleeding out.
Nora, scrambled and shell-shocked, sees the gun Panacea dropped. She sees Kojak, and remembers him throwing a knife at her friend. She grabs the gun.
Ursa, though, is a reflection in the mirror beneath the Caliber Institute. Morta looks at her, and says ‘not quite yet,’ before reaching in and pulling her out.
Ursa, panicking, runs outside and phones Nora. She explains that she’s still alive, since it wasn’t Panacea that actually killed her, and Kojak, hearing this over speakerphone shifts back to Sarolt and just says ‘Thank god, it worked.’
Nora asks Ursa to call an ambulance or something. She keeps the gun trained at Sarolt. Ursa puts the phone down and does, along with trying to message Alkahest via her ring. all she gets back is ‘Ursa, thank god you’re okay! I got sent—‘ before the line is cut off. His phone is out of range, too.
Back in the flat, Nora’s trying to get an explanation. When Merlin tries to get her to chill, and calls her slow on the uptake, she points a second gun at him. Sarolt briefly says she had to do it so it wasn’t the prophecy that killed Ursa. Nora agrees to put the gun down, and the paramedics arrive.
‘Frankly, I’m just happy we’re all still alive,’ says Sarolt. The candles on either side of the door go from purple to green. Apparently Ursa passed! Wahooooo.
The paramedics carry Imrus out. The rest of the Carpenters go for medical attention too. Presumably they’ll have a lot to talk about with Sarolt later on. Ursa arrives, though, and hugs it out with her mum. Then Kojak is back, and explains about Morta copy-pasting still-living versions from other timelines.
Ursa’s asking what happened to Alkahest, though, and Merlin realises that since Alkahest and Panacea were ‘siblings’ from the same origin, there’s a very good chance they were both treated as the Banishment target.
Ursa gets a bit sarcastic with him, telling him that not only did his spell lead to the house exploding, it also led to Panacea getting exactly what she wanted. Merlin retorts that at least he did something, and that he was trying his best. But that whenever he tries to help he only gets shit for it, so he’ll just go.
Ursa tries to apologise, saying that they’re friends so she has to give him shit, that’s how it works. Remember when Nora threatened to sell her out to the Summer Court for wanting to smooch Alkahest? It’s what friends do!
Merlin begrudgingly agrees to stay, especially after Kojak offers additional thanks. He goes into a bit more detail about prophecy deaths, and states that he’s died in the line of duty seven times. Ursa asks if it’s dangerous for the two of them to see one another, what with the specifics of his prophecy, and Kojak laughs and says ‘I know you and Sarolt don’t always see eye to eye, but I can’t see it coming to blows.’
As for going after Alkahest… Sarolt doesn’t want her daughter in more danger, but Kojak trusts the three of them as professionals. And he also wouldn’t dream of say, bringing backup food to a Homecoming ritual, with an extra little nod to Merlin.
He says that rather than fucking about with a Parallel Drive car, they can go a more direct way, and makes a call. He opens the door to a subway line, and this leads fairly shortly to his office in the Lake District containment facility.
‘Is this how you commute to work?’ asks Ursa.
‘No, I have a car.’
He goes to a cupboard and unlocks it; opens it to reveal a veritable treasure trove of sweets and toffees. He gives Ursa four lollipops. He says they’re for travel; you think of home while you suck on them, then once they turn ruby red and start to taste like strawberry, you crunch them and they teleport you. Merlin tells them it’ll be 49 worlds into Death, and Kojak gives them some ‘Death Flavour’ fruit winders. They unravel with a tape measure on the paper, and if you eat 49cm of them, it’ll take you that many worlds down into Death.
‘You’re like Willy Wonka,’ says Ursa, and Kojak goes insane. He did NOT make all this, that was someone else. They’re called ‘the Chocolatier’. Don’t be ridiculous. If Kojak made edible spells, they’d be in pill form, or at least a protein bar.
Nora is worrying about the fact that she’s back in the building with the Morris Server in it, but there’s no longer a wire coming from her chest. She surmises that as long as she doesn’t do anything to attract its attention, it’s probably fine. Through the door of the office, down the stairs, to the left, down the corridor and down the lift, then down a sloped corridor to the right, then a left, then through a door on the left of that….. a mechanism in the Morris Server begins to tick. Nobody knows that though.
Of course, the Banishment will probably have taken Alkahest and Panacea to their point of origin, so: New York on the 49th death world from the Fulcrum. They need to figure out how to get there: whether that involves travelling on Fulcrum then planeshifting, or vice versa. They consider asking Cepheus if there are any international missions they could take perhaps, or if there’s a Caliber Institute jet like the X-Men have.
But that’s something to figure out next time!
Roll History 