Flashing back to their flight up to the roof, the party discusses options. Merlin suggests as a last resort, he could connect himself with Morris to draw on his abilities and magic. She thinks it’s possibly a risky idea and that he should go for it – after she asks if Morris is ok with it – but be really careful. When agreeing, Morris’ voice is all weird and has the bad vibes.

Their game plan besides that is to 1: try to get through to Ella, 2: take out her target and then revive it, so the mantle may pass, 3: the Merlin Morris plan, and failing that, 4: try to incapacitate Ella.

Nora splits hem into pairs. She says ‘Ursa and Alkahest, you’re together.’

Alkahest says ‘Yes we are. It means a lot that we have your blessing.’

(Actually Ursa and Alkahest are on support and she and Merlin are on offense/Morris plan)

They get to the roof and immediately the Auditor goes to attack Pyrite. He uses the Beholder’s true name and has it interpose itself, but the Auditor still cuts through it and removes Pyrite’s head. He glitches and is fine, and we see in Paris, France, a workplace accident leading to the same injury killing a random construction worker. Again, the auditor punches a hole in his stomach, and the injury is transferred to someone in America being shot in a mugging.

Carinae freaks out and assumes the party is all after him, shifts to his draconic form, and chomps Merlin in a big way. In response, Merlin Witch Bolts his esophagus. Nora shoots him with her new gun, making him drop the gnome, and Ursa Charms Monster to ask Carinae to chill the fuck out. Carinae insists Merlin will be fine, and goes to inspect some eyes.

Meanwhile, Pyrite can’t seem to get a solid hit in on the auditor. He flings her away to another roof, and the party uses that time to plan further. Merlin has figured out Pyrite’s defense; how attacks against him are transferred to someone else with the Human Genome. Ursa is extremely pissed, but then is like ‘wait shit that means our original plan of killing Pyrite won’t work!!’

The Auditor leaps back to their rooftop, and just goes to town. Pyrite says he’s going to strike back as soon as he has an opening, and so the clock is ticking. Nora gives Merlin her watch.

Merlin puts it on and is confronted with a vision of the Morris Worm himself. He asks if Merlin swears to cooperate, and Merlin says he does if Morris promises not to cause any harm to him. ‘We’re both trying to help Nora. She’s our friend,’ says Merlin.

‘Of course she’s our friend,’ says Morris. ‘In fact, she probably cares even more about you than she does about me.’ He promises not to cause any bodily harm to Merlin in particular, and proceeds to try and pull out every volt of magic from Merlin’s soul.

Merlin has 9 of Order’s spell slots left, but when Adam rolls he gets a 10 – the Worm tries to pull more magic that he has, and Merlin is dropped unconscious.

After this, Nora tries to get the Auditor’s attention with a shot to the leg. It turns and begins advancing on her. Nothing she says seems to be reaching it. Alkahest steps in to try and buy time, but just gets his head kicked in.

Ursa pulls him to safety but before she can heal everyone, sees Pyrite sneaking up. She charges up to stop him, but he Sapping Breaths her unconscious. Semi-delirious Alkahest sees this, roars, and tackles the dragon off the edge of the building.

Ella has reached Nora, who, tears building, goes to fire her gun point blank… but it vanishes, along with the internal well of power she pulled it from. She can’t bring herself to hurt her sister.

‘Fine,’ she says. ‘Fine. You can kill me. You just have to fight it.’

Ella’s face comes back, slowly. She’s in a dreamy state, thinking she’s in some coma, hallucinating. She says ‘Nora… don’t just offer yourself up like that. You’re worth more than that.”

‘Then fight!!’

‘I am. Why do you think I’m imagining you’re here? You were always the tough one, ha.’

The Auditor’s grip on Nora’s shoulders grows painful. Ella is crying.

‘I don’t know what to do for you!’ shouts Nora. ‘But tell me what it is and I’ll do it! You’re my sister, we can fight it together!!’

‘I don’t know how to wake up,’ says Ella. Her face is fading back to its audit-smooth state.

There’s a thrumming and a heat. Suddenly the gun is back in Nora’s hand. The wire is very visible in her chest.

Morris’ voice is in her head. ‘Nora,’ he says. ‘I can Wish this away, Nora. I know we used it recently, but all I need is some magic to get the motors running again. Fuel for the furnace. And I’m already connected to Merlin. I’d never do anything like that without your permission, but just say the word and —‘

‘Get out of my sister.’

‘…what?’

‘Get. Out. Of my sister.’

The Morris Worm is confused. ‘But… the program is all that’s keeping her together…’

‘Out!! Out of her, and out of Merlin!!’

‘…….fine.’

Merlin wakes up, and the watch is burning his wrist. He whispers ‘you’re going to regret this’ and tosses it aside.

Having refused Morris’ offer, and feeling his program terminate, Nora stares into Ella’s eyes, and hefts the weight of the gun in her hand… and brings the butt down on Ella’s head. It bursts, and Ella slumps down unconscious.

Her face looks normal. And slowly, the colours are fading back into her clothes. She snorts, and coughs up an SD card, which Nora chucks to Merlin, telling him to destroy it. She also asks if there’s any trace of Morris in Merlin?

He probes his soul with arcane senses, and all he can think of is the word ‘Malware’. He tells her ‘It’s fine.’

She marches over to the watch and stamps on it, grinding it beneath her heel. There’s a burning as the silver wire in her chest burns up, disappearing. There’s also a memory in her head, of her prophecy with Morta when she first joined the institute: ‘you’ll die after a suspicious malfunction’.

Her phone vibrates. There’s a popup on it.

Ella is waking up. She looks up at Nora blearily, and asks ‘did I get the job?’

Nora phones Ella, but the call seems to be redirected. On the other end, Ella is chipper and cheerful, saying that she’s fine and actually is leaving the country for a while. When Nora questions her, it falls apart a bit and she realises it’s Morris, imitating Ella in a misguided attempt to ‘protect her feelings’. She hangs up, feeling helpless and angry and overwhelmed. There’s a heat in her chest.

Inside Neutral Grounds, Ursa first goes to speak with Erabu, a demon she’s met previously with Alkahest. Erabu’s eating a meat pie floater, which is a bit offputting. She didn’t see all that much, but mentions that the Infernal Crowning Tournament will be arranged by committee soon, and to tell Alkahest.

Ursa learns from Stiletto Benevolent that Ella came in, shifted back to a regular human, and seemed to be speaking with the Auditor mantle, saying she ‘can’t assassinate someone she’s never seen before, it doesn’t matter how high up they are’.

Ursa also learns from Facula—a dragon who was at the convention they robbed—that Mr. Pyrite is now the 3rd most powerful Dragon in their society. Draconic power is based on the hoard hierarchy, rather than vice versa. And that when Ellauditor left, she seemed to be looking towards a certain direction.

Merlin phones Penelope, asking her to cast a CCTV net. Penny says she’s already on with it, and that she’ll send him the results. Alkahest also reunites with them at this point, making a passing comment about Auditors travelling in straight lines.

Merlin plots out Ella’s known course on a map of the city, looking up who owns the building she seems to be heading for. Said owner is named Portia, who Alkahest later tells them is a fairly powerful Fae running with the ‘Don’ archetype. She always says it’s the day of her daughter’s wedding. She doesn’t have a daughter. She’s very connected to the criminal underworld of the city, though.

Merlin gets a hunch and texts the Lopodite number, asking ‘What are you doing?’ Lopodite actually replies, though just with ‘nm, hbu?’ Merlin sends ‘-_-‘ and gets ‘aw don’t be like that bb’.

Confirming their course, Penelope sends distorted footage of Ella arriving at the block of flats and businesses (named Sunny Flights). Having a heading and finally some sense of what to do, Nora suddenly doubles over with burning in her chest. The silver thread tying her to Morris flickers and disappears, and she clutches at her chest… and pulls out a gun. It’s powerful magic, but there’s no time to speculate.

They go in pursuit. Alkahest comes along, Raoul having gone to the copier place. Ursa mentions the tournament on the horizon. Alkahest is concerned, but Nora and her sister are more important right now.

Arriving at the place there are a few Outsider-centric businesses, including a grocers that Alkahest wanders to (he buys some apples). The three players question a goblin at the security desk, and find that the cameras are all fuzzy except the bottom floors, implying that the auditor is in ascent. They move to pursue, persuading a few goons on the stairs that they’re here to help. The goons mention the security being on because there’s a guest on the roof, and that said security is a magical construct Sphinx. And someone named Nichols is on the top floor guarding the boss personally, and he ‘squicks them out’.

The four head up and encounter the Sphinx, who is friendly enough but does repeatedly say it’ll bite off their heads. It can’t be bribed though, being a magical construct. It asks them four riddles, none of which are very good.

On the next floor they get a glimpse of Ella, who pulls a fire alarm, flooding the landing with people. Merlin breaks a Reality Marble and sets the terms as ‘whoever navigates the floor most efficiently wins a meatball sub’ and so they don’t get swept out with the crowd. Ursa wins the sub, but gives it to Alkahest. He eats it immediately.

On the floor before the roof, there are a few more unconscious or dead goons, and a closing door that leads up to the roof itself. A guard—Odeon Nichols—says it can’t let them reach the boss. When they argue that he already let someone reach the boss, he says that 1, an Auditor is extenuating circumstances, and 2, it wasn’t going for the boss, it was going for the roof. They persuade him that they aren’t after the boss either, but he puts a gelatinous cube over the boss’ door just in case.

However the boss, Portia, immediately emerges, making him move it. She says it’s terrible that there’s all this noise on this, the day of her daughter’s wedding. Nora has the idea to play along with the archetype, and says they’re actually following someone trying to crash the wedding. It works; Portia gives them permission to proceed. Nichols puts his ooze away and leaves, not revealing his true form.

They go up to the roof to see Auditella advancing on three figures, one a Beholder, panicking and breaking out of its human suit, another Eta Carinae, looking more affronted than anything, and the third Mr. Pyrite, ready to do something.

Nora shouts ‘Ella!’

The DM explains a bit how Carinae, introduced to Pyrite by his latest investment Nora, wants to accrue some connections. Pyrite knows a Beholder looking to do the same thing, so contacts his friend Portia to use her building as a meeting spot. Carinae is bad at socialising (“Norman Gorman cannot be your real name.” “My real name is unpronounceable in your language”. “Say it anyway”. “It is also unpronounceable in my language”), focusing more on the possibility of Eyes for his hoard than of allies. But they’re interrupted when the door slams open and an Auditor is coming right towards them, followed closely by the aforementioned new investment, shouting “Ella!”

The three drive towards Magical Masonry, debating how they can approach saving Ella. Merlin rings Brynner to tell him WHO the Auditor is and ask if he has any advice, and all the Director really says is there’s no precedent for this and to temper their expectations. There’s a very real chance Ella is dead already. Merlin asks about other mantles, and the Director mentions it being possible to tip those away from their alignment… but doing that to an Auditor would just leave the body dead. Merlin asks if there’s any precedent for that specifically, and the Director admits there isn’t.

Ursa, meanwhile, would rather try to have Nora get through to Ella specifically, like she did back at Open Sky. Nora herself posits that Morris is keeping her alive, so they just need to get the mantle off her, right?

They arrive to find two bodies at Magical Masonry, after passing by an old teammate of Nora’s. There’s Dr. Park Ji-Young there too; the Institute’s top authority on Auditors. She’s an asshole and doesn’t want them ‘contaminating her crime scene’.

Ursa sneaks off to interview the surviving apprentice, who tells her about the Auditor sparing him and apologising all the while it was attacking. Merlin hacks into the cameras and sees Ella arrive and leave, though in very fuzzy footage. They go after her, following the camera trail, but not before Merlin tells Park to grow up. Ursa explains what she learned from the apprentice about Ella still being “in there” on the way. Nora is quiet and teary.

They arrive at another business with a broken door, a café named Neutral Grounds.

Alkahest and Raoul turn up, before they can get inside. They’re very cheery. They’re giving out badly home-made flyers for a chilli cook-off. Ursa takes Alkahest to one side and explains the situation, and he’s like ‘oh fuck my energy is all wrong’. Nora asks him to keep an eye out at the front.

Inside Neutral Grounds, they speak to a couple of the staff—a demon and an angel—but they’re all cagey when told it’s Caliber Institute business. They admit they saw the Auditor come through, but that our party may have more luck talking with the patrons who stayed to finish their orders. Well, apart from that one guy who hasn’t actually ordered yet.

She points to Stiletto Benevolent, at a table by himself. There are two other patrons.

Merlin hacks into the cameras, finding there’s a conjurewall. He’s approached by a Draconic staff member, who asks what the fuck he’s doing. Merlin ignores him and keeps hacking, despite being cuffed on the back of the head. He gets footage of the Auditor going through the back door and leaping over the delivery yard wall.

Roche, the Dragon, tells him he’s barred for that and escorts him out the front. Nora goes too, and Ursa tries to smooth things over a bit but stays with the group.

They head to the back of the café, but the trail has gone cold. They decide Ursa will head back in and see if Stiletto saw anything (or if the other patrons have anything useful). Merlin will call Penelope and try to do the wide-net CCTV search they used before to find Adagio. Nora decides she’s going to try Ella’s phone.

So they get back to Fulcrum via that portal cinema from before, and Morris sends a prompt that they have less than an hour to get to Open Sky if Nora wants to deliver her protective charm to Ella. It’s a bit slap-dash, though; Morris laments that there wasn’t more time to work on it what with being trapped in a labyrinth for a while. It’s on a microSD in her pocket.

And she does need to get Ella to eat it.

Merlin calls an Uber and complains about his arcane headache. Alkahest offers snausages and aspirin, taking Ursa to one side when Merlin refuses.

“I’m trying real hard here, I mean, the pie went down real well with your folks but…”

“It’s fine, Alkahest, they’re already coming round on you!”

And Merlin does actually apologise. Ursa runs to find something baked when Nora asks, but she only finds prepackaged twinkies.

The uber arrives and whisks them to the cafe near Open Sky. On the way Merlin gets a call from his Mum, and she says they’ll talk about things when he visits tomorrow for lasagna. She’s glad he’s safe.

Arriving near Open Sky, Nora runs into the coffee shop and searches for a baked good to sneak the microchip into. She settles on a flapjack, and a coffee each for her and her sister. Ursa and Alkahest follow, but Nora runs outside as they’re still ordering. Merlin has left the scene, heading home in the uber to sleep.

Nora pauses at the door. She doubles back and asks, “hey, do you want to meet my sister?”

Ursa squees. Outside, in the bus stop where she first met Raoul, Nora actually explains the situation. Honestly. She’s hoping that Ursa will be able to get Ella talking, and if she chokes a bit on a microchip she’s more likely to swallow it to save face if there are strangers present. You know how it is.

Alkahest talks a bit about how there’s no rule against hiring un-snapped vanilla humans in Outsider businesses, but it’s frowned upon. That said, who’s going to tell Laniakea otherwise? Though the Institute might be involved already, in that case, ‘cause it’s part of the Accords.

Nora nods and says she just doesn’t want anything to happen to her sister.

Ursa’s like “Yeah I don’t get on with my sister but I wouldn’t want her to die!!”

Alkahest is like “Mine, actually…?” and trails off.

Nora spots Ella arriving for her interview. She’s early, like a good PA would be.

Meanwhile, Merlin has arrived at his flat. In the lobby though, is a large now-humanoid hellhound – the one Nora befriended previously. Raoul. He says he thought he had followed Nora’s scent here but instead it is the small one. Very well, they will find her together. They will walk.

Merlin’s like “What do you mean we’ll walk?”

And the hound is like “Ah you said the word of power!!”

Merlin sighs and agrees to walk to the cafe where Nora was last, but goes to have a shower first.

Ella is surprised to see Nora, but accepts her offering of coffee and flapjack, even if it’s a bit too hot. Ursa introduces herself and mentions that surely Ella doesn’t want to have a stomach rumble in an interview, that’s the worst! Ella eats some microSD flapjack, chokes a bit, but washes it down with coffee. She’s like ‘look I should head—‘

Laniakea appears. She has a hangover after the Conference. She welcomes Ella, and says “the gang is all here I see”. They look up the street to see Merlin with a large biker guy, rapidly approaching. When the hellhound spots Nora it picks up Merlin and begins sprinting.

Ella’s very confused. As a sort of apology for the hangover, Nora offers the Dragon her coffee. Laniakea says she loves coffee. She then spits it on the floor, saying ‘this is not coffee. Coffee is sweet and has caramel. Adagio brings it.’

Ursa offers hers, as it’s a frappe.

Laniakea spits this on the floor too, because coffee should be hot. She says she’ll show them the canteen, where the coffee is better.

Alkahest stays behind with the hellhound. “Did you only just anthropomorphise, my guy? Look, we’ll head to the park and we can figure some things out for you. There’ll be ducks, eh?”

Inside, Laniakea intends to sit them in the canteen while the initiation takes place. Nora however persuades her to let them shadow the interview process, and Laniakea agrees before going with them to the canteen. Ella, understandably confused at what her interview has become, mouths ‘what the fuck are you doing’ and Nora mouths ‘just trust me’.

In the canteen, Merlin spots Rembra. Apparently she’s still got her job here.

Immediately he goes to tell her off, and she laughs at him for a minute before asking ‘what about Benzene?’

Merlin’s like ‘I dealt with him’.

Rembra is genuinely intimidated; “Look, Merlin I’m just here to get my things from my desk. And the coffee’s a miracle, she steeped the machine in her hoard and now it’s magic. Seriously.”

(It’s long rest coffee. Drink it to get the benefits of a long rest. Helps employees be productive.)

Ursa brings a couple cups and attempts to keep Merlin from losing his shit, and Rembra bolts. Meanwhile, Nora pulls Ella to one side and tells her ‘Look, I know this is really weird but I’m here to help however I can, and if anything starts to feel… unsafe? I’ll get you out.’

‘Is… is this a prank? You can tell me if it is,’ asks Ella.

‘God, I wish it was.’

Cut to the interview itself, in the interrogation room the party had set up in the past, after the theft of the Infernomicon. There’s even a one way mirror, which the three of them stand behind. The interview itself is Laniakea, Ella, and a Dr. Byrne from the Institute. Laniakea begins to explain about the process, which will involve a rock. Dr. Byrne talks a bit about symptoms to mention.

In the viewing room, Merlin is like ‘Nora, what the hell are we doing here?’

Nora explains that it’s her sister, being hired by Laniakea. Merlin laughs.

‘She’s a vanilla human, Merlin.’

Merlin stops laughing. ‘…Fuck,’ he says.

In the interview itself, Ella has been asked to look at a stone which has been carved with arcane, non-euclidean designs. She keeps questioning if it’s like a Rorschach test as the DM keeps rolling to see if she Snaps or gets Audited.

Suddenly she freezes up and goes pale. A tap on the wrist from Morris tells Nora that the program has begun running. Ella looks very afraid, suddenly seeing Laniakea’s scales.

‘The program is pulling a lot more computational power than I’d hoped,’ says Morris.

Merlin tells Nora to get in there, and she goes, after Mage Handing the latch on the door’s other side.

Inside, Ella gets up, relieved to see her sister. But she stumbles, and as Nora goes and catches her, that’s when the mantle fully descends. Her clothes fade to static grey. Her face disappears.

Nora turns to Laniakea. ‘You have to make this stop.’

Laniakea flexes a claw. ‘I can only end it one way. If the mantle has not fully descended, that is.’

‘No. That’s not good enough.’

Auditor-Ella slams Nora to one side, and smashes the rock that sparked this with a hammering fist. Usually, with the triggering magic destroyed, the mantle would pass at this point—leaving its bearer dead. However, with Morris’ program running, things are more complex. The auditor makes to leave. Its arm stretches out and floors Laniakea.

Ursa tries to Hold Person but the magic fizzles, the Auditor immune. Merlin breaks a Reality Marble (taken from the footwell of Alkahest’s car) and challenges Ella—not the Auditor—to take back control. The Auditor pauses, and looks back, but is unfazed. This however gives Nora time to reach it, risking another assault.

‘Ella, Ella, I know you’re in there, you can fight this. I’m here, don’t worry, you’ve just got to… hey, remember the bad wine from the other month!? Or, or, remember when we tried to make scrambled eggs for the first time and we burned them, but we ate them anyway because we didn’t know what burnt scrambled eggs tasted like? Remember that time when we were teens and I’d drank all that red wine ‘cause I thought it was berry juice, and you held my hair the whole time I was puking?! Or, uh, when—‘

There are tears rolling down the Auditor’s cheeks, even without eyes. And then it’s Ella again, though still wearing the grey-static suit. ‘I’m scared, Nora. I can hear that you’re there, but it’s all so bright and so loud…’

‘It’s ok. Nothing here is going to hurt you, not with me here.’

‘It’s not them I’m worried about. It’s ME. It wants me to kill someone.’

‘What?’ says Nora, alarmed. ‘Who?’

‘I don’t know! There’s just this line leading to him I have to follow.’

Her face blanks again, and the Auditor rips open the lift doors and leaps down. Nora leaps down after her, Merlin only just getting a Featherfall on her in time. Ursa follows too, though via the stairs.

In the lobby, it seems the Auditor has severely wounded the security guards. Nora passes them without checking to see if they’re alive. Ursa stops, though.

Upstairs, Dr. Byrne finds Merlin trying to track them out of the window. ‘What a mess,’ she says. ‘Usually an Auditor leaves its host and dies when the source of its triggering incident is destroyed. If the mantle is evolving? That’s a REAL mess. I’ll let the Institute know… but I think I’m needed downstairs.’

Merlin doesn’t mention anything about Morris’ involvement.

He breaks the window and leaps out, with Featherfall and Invisibility.

Ursa is joined by Dr. Byrne who’s like ‘I’ll look over these two. Hold this.’ She hands Ursa her head. Ursa freaks out a bit, not knowing before this second that the Doc is a Dullahan. She sort of stammers that they’re Institute too, and they’ll get in pursuit. Byrne is grumpy about it but agrees.

Outside Nora has lost track of the Auditor, even after firing her gun up to clear the crowd. She goes to try and hotwire a car. Laniakea has gotten up and joined them.

‘Fffffffiddle-di-dee,’ she says, before seeing the looks. ‘Oh. Adagio says I should curse less.’

‘Now’s not the time for that,’ says Ursa.

‘Yeah, swearing is very appropriate here!’ says Merlin, popping into visibility.

‘Fuck!’ says Laniakea.

‘What was even your plan here?’ Merlin asks her. ‘What were you expecting?’

Laniakea watches as Nora works on the car door, despite the crowd of gawkers. ‘Well, I assumed she would acclimatise without issue. If she was of sufficient quality of—‘

Nora casts Eldritch Blast on Laniakea, who is taken aback. One member of the crowd seeing the magic gets Audited, and advances.

Nora sees and swears, getting in the car. ‘Let’s GO,’ she says.

The auditor’s arms stretches to catch the car’s wing mirror, but it snaps off as they drive away. It pursues slowly and implacably.

Laniakea sighs and dusts herself off, before calling Adagio to cast her shroud. She blasts the Auditor with her breath weapon when successfully invisible, holding it in place long enough for the mantle to wear off.

After some detective work on where one might get a magical stone for an interview, Nora and the other two drive towards a stoneworker’s named ‘Magical Masonry’ which was on BlinkedIn, in the Little Outside district.