Archive of Our Own ^beta

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        You’ve already seen all the data Shaun’s been able to dig up, what he’s sharing with you that is (just in case the warmongers are rifling through your desk again). But you come to me to be the interpreter, so I’m going to go to town.

        I’d like to say Desmond’s not a danger. He absolutely is. It’s not even just the physical abilities, though I’d say there he can keep up with some of our best (he kept up with Shaun, after all!) He got past my wards and the guards with some sort of stealth magic, he’s got the Third Eye, Shaun hasn’t been able to work out what kind of magic he’s got overall because it’s different than anything he’s ever seen (which should clue you in there), although admittedly we kind of got sidetracked by the whole world ending thing. For lack of a better explanation, he’s going somewhere between chaos magic and Zuberi’s...whatever he does, and that’s not even the biggest news. I’m pretty sure it’s his experience and knowledge. He’s just decided we’re not a target, yet.

        If I had to summon him up in a single pattern, it’s this. We’ve been an exception, maybe because of a premonition where he knew we’d be good people to approach, but everybody else he meets (and he’s really subtle about it; you have to know what you’re looking for to catch it) his first reaction is to evaluate them as a threat and look for weaknesses. He flat out admitted (okay, not directly, which is pretty Dragon of him) his family’s cult were training him to be an assassin, and given that violence comes as easy to him as breathing, I’m pretty sure that’s completely true. Even some stuff like the parkour, anything to be able to kill and slip into a crowd.

        He’s also absolutely got PTSD (or something like it; I’m not a psychologist), but he doesn’t tend to get violent in his outbursts, just goes to hide or zones out. I’d guess it’s partly triggered by mind control, so we gotta watch out for that from his cult, I guess. I’ve (carefully) looked him over, and he doesn’t seem to have a code word or magical conditioning or anything, so he’s probably not a sleeper agent.

        Shaun’s still looking for the cult of The Farm, but it’s almost certain that they used some kind of magic to cover their tracks because he hasn’t found anything yet. It’d help if Desmond had given us a name for his cultist dad, but nothing yet, and there’s nothing under ‘Miles’ anyway. And Desmond seemed pretty sincere about not knowing about magic, even though he obviously knew about gods (and seems to have a similar freakout reaction to them, so, uh, here’s a yikes moment, what if they’d been training him to assassinate gods?), so he probably hadn’t been told by the time he ran away.

        He’s also got a massive mutual crush on Shaun. I know you’re not much for gossip, but in this case it’s kind of important. He genuinely likes us. If he thought it was necessary, he probably still wouldn’t hesitate to take us out, but it’s a protection not all of the Templars have, and he doesn’t seem like he has an all-or-nothing attitude. He’s got a whole lot more faith in people than systems. So, I guess the way to put it is: we’re safer than, say, Dame Julia. I think he’d like Dame Julia. I also think that if he thought it would make the world a better place he wouldn’t hesitate to stab, say, Helwing.  If it were one of us, he’d try his best to find another way, if he could.

        He’s not telling us everything. Some of it is that he doesn’t know how to put it, some of it is that it genuinely doesn’t seem to occur to him to share it (maybe part of that is that I’m fairly sure he knows there’s tracking and a spell in the handler app, so he just assumes I know), and some of it is kept back for a reason. He’s worried of how we’re going to react, but I can’t decide if it’s because he’s worried about starting a war, doesn’t want us in danger, or is worried we’re going to think less of him or hate him. He’s definitely tried to push us out to keep us safe at least once.

        I’m pretty sure that Helwing already knows most of this and that’s why he pushed for his angry protégé to be deployed. He’s hoping Desmond dies in an ‘accident’. If he gets his war, even if we were at our peak, I wouldn’t bet on us.

        That being said, they’re overlooking something. No, this isn’t the kind of alliance overtures you’d expect from the Dragon, but they’re the Dragon. Fancy pens and contracts aren’t their thing.

        He could’ve not told us about Beaumont. That’d be standard operating procedure. Could’ve kept quiet about the sword until it was safely in Dragon hands. Hell, he was there for that bit where you talked about Third Age Artifacts. He’s been doing the opposite. Shared what he’d seen of the Filth. Is letting me track his movements using the camera network and his phone.  Let us know the Phoenicians are back.

        Something else that other people would ignore, which is why you turned to me? Shaun was talking to his old friend, Jin Jae-Hoon, trying to track the whereabouts of Excalibur. And apparently Desmond has Jin scared shitless. Not of him, like he’s going to get killed. He’d gotten the feeling that Desmond’s going to raze the whole thing to the goddamn ground.

        One other thing? I’ve had my ears to the ground, and the Mouth of the Dragon doesn’t seem to like Desmond, which can only mean one thing. She’s not the one pulling the strings, or she’d have him on a short leash. It’s an order from the Dragon himself.

        The second the Illuminati work it out (‘cause they will, just because they’re slower than me doesn’t mean they’re that much less intelligent or competent, just...mostly) they’ll want some of the pie. They’re the war profiteers. They’ll be able to turn a pretty penny out of it somehow. (Still not sure what you see in Geary, boss.)

        We’ve been getting all those prophecies and premonitions. Change is coming. I’m pretty sure they’re right, and I’m pretty sure Desmond’s going to be in the thick of it. The real question is, where are we gonna be standing when all this goes down?

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We both know that the Illuminati handler you’ve got a crush on is one of the more likely candidates; not that she’d be on-scene herself. It’d mess up her manicure. But Desmond managed to avoid being recruited under her watch, which doesn’t look good, and given what he’s gotten done so far, he’s probably also cost them money which is the only sin she really acknowledges. She’s already sent him a threat, just because we haven’t gotten the anchor to Agartha to work with a non-Bee yet doesn’t mean the Illuminati’s labs haven’t managed it (particularly with their resident mad scientist Zurn on payroll), and it’d be child’s play for them to blackmail some sap into going after a very, very competent Bee with a gun.

As for their angle...honestly, if that’s what they’re up to, they’ve already decided Desmond isn’t going to play ball, and the least they can do if there’s going to be a war is start it themselves so they can add it to their Outlook calendar and ramp up weapons production in response. Shaun’s fairly convinced they’re responsible, and it’s not impossible they’re just doing talks out of reach, but...I’d expect a lot more calls to presidents and prime ministers if they were actually the culprits and haven’t seen anything yet. Cassini might have just figured out my in again, though, and if that’s the case I’m going to have to cook up something else. Hacking is a cat-and-mouse game, after all.

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If we’re at all involved with the attacks on Desmond, it’s probably Helwing behind it, given that he’s one of the oldest of the Old Guard, and of course they wouldn’t get you or us involved. We’re the weird New Guard types, and don’t even have bloodlines or titles to our names. From what you’ve said, other than complaints and attempting to oppose us when pet projects come up for debate, he hasn’t really been too in our face about putting a stop to any of this. Maybe he saw this as his chance, and for the price of throwing us under the boss he can promote Javier while he’s at it. You’ve mentioned fighting for the soul of the Templars before, and while I thought you were kind of exaggerating things a bit, I don’t think so anymore. Guess I needed to get back into the field to see it. The Old Guard are resentful, but I get the feeling that we have to adapt to survive, only the Old Guard isn’t quite so adaptable. Then again, if the same old tricks work and you can cling on to power for just that little bit longer...why bother? Of course, most of this is based on what you’ve told me about him, boss. I’ve only run into him once, and while the ego took up the entire street, I didn’t get much more from him. The motive is totally there, but the means? We’ve been on the downslide for ages, guys like Helwing even more so, so if that’s the case I’d expect he’s gotten outside help from somewhere.

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If The Mouth of the Dragon is involved in this attempted murder thing, we’re all in trouble. Now, it’s possible we’re being fed false information again and her disliking Desmond is a ruse. It’s happened before, it’ll absolutely happen again. I believe this one, though—Bong Cha likes being in control and while Dragon Bees are generally left to their own devices, the complete lack of any specific instructions (as far as I can tell) is pretty unusual. Since she’s the handler and everything goes through her, anything that she doesn’t like has to have come from the Dragon. Still nothing about the person bearing the title, only a dozen different conflicting rumors that all lead to dead ends. But if they’re fighting, we’re all in trouble, because I can’t even begin to predict how an internal feud would go for the rest of us. If it’s happening, though, openly defying an order she doesn’t like by trying to have the loose agent she doesn’t approve of murdered would be the kind of ballsy opening strike I’d expect. And as for getting a hitman, that’d be no sweat, but what’s tripping me up is getting an Agartha anchor, given that they don’t do Artifacts pretty much at all. It’s possible they bought one pre-jailbroken on the black market...which has other really bad implications, because unless it’s for personal use you typically don’t just jailbreak one device. Or Artifact. I’m probably going to have to consult with Saïd again about that one—even if the Kingdom wasn’t involved, they might’ve heard of something.

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We’ve got definite proof they’re back, but not much on this. That being said, they’d definitely be capable, and since we’ve got bad blood, maybe that’s the reason. Desmond getting all buddy-buddy with us might have upset some of their delicate plans. The Council does like its truce, or maybe it’s got something to do with the whole black market artifacts trade thing they supposedly used to have going on (Saïd should have mentioned something, though, if he’d noticed...and the Kingdom is good, so he should have noticed).  They say they’re trying to recruit him according to the text they sent him, but they could be lying. It just might explain some of the unexplained traffic I’ve been seeing all over the place on the net, though.  No sign of New Carthage, and for all we know that’s just a myth, but there’s a lot of wild stuff that actually happens to be true.

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I probably shouldn’t have to say this, but if push comes to shove our veteran teaching in the Crucible will absolutely side with Helwing. Especially if Helwing gives him the chance to go after more demons, or more likely deploy more Templars against demons.

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Our legendary ‘last of the cowboys’ has popped up again, so we should definitely consider that some sort of omen. He’s plopped himself right outside the entrance to Solomon Island. Nobody saw him exit, so I think that’s pretty good proof that he has some sort of knowledge of Agartha’s back roads that nobody else has been able to find, and probably proof he’s at least older than he seems, even if record-keeping back in the old Wild West was honestly kind of shit, so even if he is completely legit we’ll never be able to prove it. (All rhymes are unintentional. Or are they? Just trying to get you to lighten up, boss, it’s bad enough around here without you adding to the doom and gloom.)

As omens go, this one speaks volumes. That stuff about him only showing up in the middle of the worst of the worst, like that thing in the Congo? We don’t really need to know if he really is a cowboy out of time to be able to read that one.

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Not too much on this guy, just that he used to be a janitor in the wrong place at the wrong time. Desmond attempted to save the guy and went into some kind of healing coma. I hadn’t known what to make of some of the readings I was getting at the time, but unfortunately, Boss, now I do.

It’s the Filth. The Filth is back. And we should probably pull all those agents who just gave us reports about him being a ‘special kind of zombie’ into a special lecture (probably not Gladstone, though I know he’s dealt with it before) about the Filth, because they really should get better about spotting the infection before they’re sporting goopy black tentacles as accessories. I guess plus side there is now I know what the signature looks like, so I can identify it if it pops back up (honestly, it probably will, because unless it’s been under Solomon Island this whole time it doesn’t seem like something lingering from past ages anymore; more like it’s spreading). We’d known about it in Egypt but figured the Council and their allies had it under control, so I haven’t made it a priority to try to get sensors, magical or technical, out there. He was infected, which means it’s there, on Solomon Island, which really means Javier and his minions really should be taking precautions if they weren’t just going to constantly ignore everything but the worst advice.

Reviewing the sensors taught me a little more about Desmond’s brand of magic, too. Shaun’s instinct was right, he’s tapping straight into Gaia and doesn’t even seem to realize it’s weird, though he’s not trained with it very well (which matches him saying that he hadn’t even believed in magic to start with). Unlike, say, Zuberi, or even other Bees, he’s not going through an intermediary. It’s fairly unique, which would help more if Shaun could match it to anything else.

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I was kind of looking forward to Desmond weirding out Andy, but no, other way around. Desmond didn’t go into a lot of detail in his text, so I don’t know what prompted it. I’m guessing it wasn’t him talking about the time his dad walked out on the family, since I think Desmond would be sympathetic, not dismissive. He might’ve just started talking about the time his dad drowned a bunch of kittens, or the witch house burning, or the serial killer in the family, or the occasional human sacrifice. Which...yeah, the relationship between the inhabitants of Solomon Island, especially Kingsmouth, to ‘normal’ is...kinda skewed. That being said Desmond didn’t avoid talking to him after that, so his instincts—that Andy means well, that he genuinely cares about the people he serves and isn’t just in it to throw his weight around or for Illuminati advancement or anything—are pretty good. (Okay, I’m not completely sure Desmond picked up all of that, but...he definitely picked up at least some of it.)

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After Gladstone, it only makes sense to talk about the Dragon’s captive historian and one of Shaun’s pen-pals. I’d say Jin’s much less cool with it, but that’d be a lie, because Gladstone isn’t too happy about it either (despite the free booze and the other entertainment that the twins provide). It’s just more that he didn’t really deserve to get caught up in all of this, not that that makes too much of a difference when you come to the attention of the wrong people. At least it wasn’t Orochi. He’d be stationed somewhere probably safe and out of the way and still wind up in an incident somehow.

I already covered most of the relevant stuff in the entry on Desmond, but Shaun off-handedly mentioned something he probably would’ve realized was more important if he wasn’t running off of fear, sleep deprivation, and fifteen gallons of caffeine. He said that from the way Jin was talking, it sounded like Desmond took Jin’s backstory personally, which is a helpful clue. For reference, just in case you don’t remember offhand, that’s the Dragon’s tactic of ‘make Jae-Hoon look like a lunatic for discovering classified stuff about the Secret World and attempt to write articles about it, humiliate and disgrace him to the point absolutely nobody would hire him and his fiancée left him, and then kidnap him to work on their own history of the Secret World to try to find some pattern in the data we’re all missing’.

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I’ve actually been tracking this guy for a while now, mostly because I’m a fan of his work. He spontaneously decided to walk out of an office job to go biking around the country, and even after taking care of a bunch of werewolves in New Orleans and a bunch of zombie alligators in the Illuminati’s backyard refused to join any faction but remained open to working with any of us to try to stop what’s coming. He could make an explosive out of anything (I’d love to ask him how he does it, because, well, sure I’m not using them much in the field anymore but someone could), and somehow everywhere he goes he both manages to find something wrong and solve it. (Unlike Gladstone, though, he definitely doesn’t seem to be causing the messes.) I’m also almost completely certain that he can both see and use the Agartha portals.  Basically, he has mad style and I want some tips.

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There’s two things I can fault Bannerman for: her taste in men and the fact that she gives up a lot sooner than I’d expect from a strong, independent woman. Not that she’s necessarily independent, given the former, but just saying my standards are higher. I guess someone told her she couldn’t fight city hall, and unlike me she listened.

Well, at least, that’s how it comes across on a first glance. I did some more digging, and it turns out she’s just really sneaky about it. Doesn’t know too much about security, but lucky for her Kingsmouth was more of a side project they were willing to leave to the local Lumie officials rather than an order from the Pyramidion. She’d never stopped her investigations, just the official ones, because she believed that those hurt deserved their answers. Went fairly well until her co-conspirator went and walked right into the sea. I’m not sharing names, though, just in case—they didn’t care about it then, but now that everything’s gone sideways they very well might care now.

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Not much new on Doctor Bannerman, the old perv (seriously Helen deserves better), though Desmond was actually finally able to get his hands on Bannerman’s notes and find that the ship, the Lady Margaret, was probably what brought both the zombie infection and the fog in after it. The zombie infection didn’t follow the known patterns: it started with paranoia and violence before any sort of decay. It’s also never been associated with fog or a location before. It does seem like he was actually concerned about his patients and trying to fix things but that’s all I’ll give him.

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Chelsea happens to have been one of the few Bees I know of that we recruited first, before she got empowered by Gaia. She’d actually been one of Brigadier Lethe’s favorites, though you might not have heard that yet—stubborn as an ox and twice as strong, but she hadn’t reached the point of field deployment (and, uh, last I heard, Lethe wasn’t actually training people by shooting them, just allowing you to go at the demons in the Crucible). One of her ancestors died protecting colonists in the demon incursion in Roanoke, and while only a few of her family have served since they’ve all been benefactors and passed down probably a lot of heroic stories...possibly with some exaggeration thrown in. So I’ve been seeing a lot of sentiment of ‘just order her back, she knows her duty’. She definitely has the flavor of Old Guard that’s less flexible, though I think hanging around with Desmond’s going to change that pretty quickly. No matter the relationship you’re in, the moment you make the demand ‘them or me’, it doesn’t tend to go well. Chelsea doesn’t see a reason why the two should be at odds. If we push it, Chelsea will choose Desmond first. She’s loyal enough if we leave it, but forcing her hand won’t go the way Helwing expects.

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Just your average Californian surfer dude up until college, at which point he went to Hawaii and basically fell off the map. Maybe that’s when he was recruited by the Dragon, but I have at least one lead that suggests he might’ve come into contact with the yakuza when he was in college. The Dragon have more than a few connections to organized crime, so it’s definitely a possible pipeline. He’s been directly appointed as Desmond’s Dragon Agent, but the question is, by who? The Dragon, or the Mouth? Specializes in magic, so aside from the fact that Shaun wouldn’t trust him and the whole laidback thing would probably infuriate him, they’d get along.

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The good pastor is only technically not an Illuminati; like anybody allowed to get a position on Solomon Island, he has Illuminati ties. He’s obviously not completely in the know and honestly might not even be aware that the Templars or Dragon even exist, but what he lacks in knowledge he makes up in enthusiasm. Shaun’s sparred with him a few times on the forums, but he honestly doesn’t even seem like he’s learned too much since the zombie invasion started, only gotten a little more practice with wards and his magnum.

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It’s not clear (mostly because the last time Desmond saw this guy, he kind of got mind controlled in the middle) whether Slater is still alive. The sailor is being transformed, but unlike most of the others he’s not turning into a zombie or a Filth-infected. No, he looked like he was becoming a Draug. Maybe that had something to do with being the person who found the sword artifact? I bet he would have a lot of useful stuff to say, but it’s probable his transformation has progressed since then, and he might not be up for questions. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to find him or get those questions answered.

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Lydia Darling is, yes, the granddaughter of Ligeia Darling. So far she doesn’t seem tempted to get into quite the same type of underworld shenanigans as her grandmother despite the long list of infractions (looks like it’s mostly shoplifting, trespassing, a little disorderly conduct), but she’s worth keeping an eye on. From everything I’ve been able to find, I think she got possessed while doing a séance with her local coven, who is now trying to keep the family from finding out. Normally since she’s living on her own now they wouldn’t be involved, but her mom in a completely different kind of rebellion than Lydia went full-swing evangelical Christian who actually talked about marrying her off to save her from the wicked ways of being goth, so I’m tempted to just let those infractions slide. I’m pretty sure Desmond is going to be a good influence, but I’m still keeping an eye on things.

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I’ve been keeping track of everybody contacting Desmond. Here’s one who scheduled a date in 20s lingo. I maybe have a hunch of who this could be, but haven’t actually met him and I have no way of proving it yet. I’ll keep you in the loop, boss.

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Familiars are weird, raven Familiars are weirder, and the mirror’s pretty sure that Rukh’s the absolute weirdest of them all. If Rukh isn’t part of some sort of myth or fairy tale or isn’t the ghost of a dead human reborn or a shapechanging spirit or the cousin of Huginn and Munin or something I’ll eat Shaun’s sweater. Probably one of his wool ones; I’ve read those are vaguely edible compared to synthetics, and I know you shouldn’t believe everything you read online but at the point you’re eating sweaters you’re kind of past the point of no return anyway.

Because we know they’re smart. I mean, they even sled in snow. They understand water displacement. They can learn to speak, and understand a lot more than they can say. They understand when people die and mourn their passing. If they liked them. They’re supposedly as smart as a human seven-year old. I mean, I know you know this, and I’m not going to apologize because those videos were more important than any of the meetings you had scheduled that day.

But I swear he was trying to learn the wards when I was practicing. What I can’t work out is...if he was trying to learn to cast them, or get through them.

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I hadn’t originally paid too much attention to her (you know, other than the fact that she is gorgeous and would probably be great in bed); con artists and ethnic misrepresentation are kind of squicks of mine, even if she has apparently hung out with some real Romani. That being said, she’s dropped most of that since the Fog rolled in and she actually got psychic powers, which is definitely hotter, and a lot of her visions have turned out to be pretty useful, so she’s worth keeping an eye on. For multiple reasons.

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You know I don’t tend to bother to keep track of Orochi agent names, just their actions, because of the fact that most of them tend to have the lifespans of fruit flies, basically. These two are an exception, and it’s a big deal that they’re in the field. If it’s a government joint action that means the president knows a whole of a hell lot more than I’d want her to. They could also be lying.  Unfortunately they keep most of their best tech out of the field which probably doesn’t help their survival ratings, but Radcliffe and Blake are exceptions that prove the rule. Specifically on competence and empathy.

Ann seems sympathetic, but that could always be the nice spy strat. Shaun’s managed to convince me that despite their apparent bumbling and not having a clue what’s going on with magic and such that that’s just a cover, too.

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Can’t lie, boss, I totally want to recruit this kid, and not just ‘cause Desmond shoved him at me like a weird kind of gift. He’s good enough Erudito took a break from the ‘pranking Orochi and Illuminati’ war to send him something, and if we don’t snap him up, somebody else will. Getting somebody with his electronic guts-deep knowledge on drones could help us get a serious edge on the Illuminati. And it’s not just his meme knowledge or his skating ability. That’s just a resume plus.

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The Kingdom are very much up to their old shenanigans, but I’m pretty sure Saïd and the rest of the Mummy Princes of the black market aren’t involved with the sword, specifically. I am a little hurt he didn’t tell me his rivals in purple were back, though. Only a little. I actually get the feeling Saïd thought I knew.

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It’s thanks to Desmond that we even know the newly hired mechanic happens to be Phoenician. He didn’t take off, though—said hi to Javier, and while he didn’t confirm he’s Phoenician didn’t actively deny anything, either. He’s almost certainly keeping an eye on the Orochi in the airport, which is interesting for two reasons: it confirms that the Phoenicians are back (if they ever even left) and that the Orochi have been involved in the Secret World long enough to make the Phoenicians wary. It’s not a new thing.

The only thing he got vaguely threatening about was when he asked about a note he’d supposedly left for the real Ellis Hill. Desmond’s people didn’t find one, which made him mad (and also means that somebody else found the body first? And then re-buried it?). He’d left it specifically so the real Ellis Hill “would have an explanation as to why he’d had to die”, as something owed a target, and gotten ticked off enough that “Ellis might miss it”. No clue what’s even going on there, but he calmed down when Javier offered to write another one before burning the body.

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Not much new here either; Edgar’s still as mean as ever and his dogs are as vicious as ever, though we do finally have confirmation that they are in fact eating zombies and Draug ‘alive’ without getting massively sick or infected. He did in fact get the scrapyard legitimately, rather than just moving in after the zombies started. The golem-creating spells appear to be affecting the scrapyard, too. He might have actually been one of the last ones to see Theodore Wicker, as a kid. And even though there’s some sort of time-distortion effect going on too, we can use Edgar’s plans to work out some kind of rough timeline. His escape plan was probably made shortly after everything started going down, but at that point the Orochi hadn’t yet moved in to block off the bridge, which means they weren’t on the island before the fog or zombies hit.

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It’d be easy to dismiss this hippie-styled dude, to say that he’s just using the Morninglight to get “power and wealth and control”. Funny thing there? That’s exactly what he said to Horal, apparently. He did manage not to get run through, but I think that has more to do with the fact that Javier Horal’s trying to be more of the noble knight that people cheer when he shows up than the idea that Che isn’t really, really insulting and condescending.

It’d be easy to dismiss him. It would also be wrong. He’s a true believer, boss, and I’ve turned up absolutely nothing to contradict that. He’s excited about the apocalypse—which he correctly identified as the apocalypse—not because it’s an opportunity for him to gain power but because he really thinks this is the opportunity humanity needs to grow. The only reason I even stumbled on any of this is because I ran into him trying to get something—anything—on Beaumont. Beaumont’s been at this longer than we thought, because he’s the one that recruited Hansson a good thirty years ago. Something about saving his life, though who knows how metaphorical he got with that description, there. How much cults can twist up your sense of reality, and that’s even without using memory-twisting magic. One of the agents also reported he’d remarked offhandedly that Beaumont knows Marquard himself. Yeah, the same Philip Marquard, leader of the Morninglight. So, no answers here, but maybe some leads, and if Hansson himself is just two steps down in this suspiciously pyramid-shaped scheme, then he’s worth keeping an eye on.

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Again, just like with Che, it would be easy to dismiss Cassie. I’ve actually managed to trace her family in Georgia, who has reported her missing, and it would follow the standard cult patterns, to listen to Shaun. Recruiting young women can serve a twofold purpose—for weirdo predatory leaders or weirdo predatory higher-ups, it means more ‘opportunities’ for them, and ‘sexy’ young female recruiters are simultaneously less likely to be taken as threatening or investigated and more likely to get certain types of people prone to that kind of persuasion to sign up. (Men and women, reportedly.) So, just a victim, right?

Except no. Her last known words made it seem like she was fully aware of how she was being used and going along with all of it for purposes of her own. She’s probably after the sword, though that’s not quite so clear, and she’d been acting to keep something out of the Morninglight’s hands (yeah, I’m convinced of Shaun’s little conspiracy theory at this point), so she’s not with them. Funny thing is, I can’t figure out who she’s with, and she’s vanished off the radar as thoroughly as Beaumont, which makes me kind of nervous, not going to lie here. My best guess is some internal faction (maybe?) or third party, maybe somebody that hasn’t been heard from in thousands of years, but this isn’t even the Phoenician M.O. They usually either stay behind the scenes entirely to the point you wouldn’t even know they’re there unless you’re a paranoid conspiracy theorist looking for patterns in data (the nearest one I can point you to is Shaun though he has a lot of them, if not on speed dial, in his contacts), or come out guns blazing. None of this in between wishy washy stuff. But Phoenicians aren’t the only lost ancient organization, and at this point we might want to have Gladstone combing through his history books or memories of astral projection. We’ll probably turn something up. The only question is if we’ll recognize it when we do.

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Usually, I wouldn’t bother including anything on our captive historian, but I figured I should give you a head’s up, because I’m pretty sure Helwing is going to try to use this against Desmond (and probably us), too.

The Stuart Twins caught him trying to leave the library. Twice. Not unusual at all (actually that’s lower than his weekly count—I have the wards set up to make automatic graphs that we can actually use when they bring this up). The entire reason we have them on detail watching him is the whole ‘attempted escape’ thing, but they’re probably going to argue that he’s attempting to go join Desmond and that’s evidence that Desmond has bewitched pretty much every Templar he’s ever met and some that he hasn’t. He’s also taken to interrogating Shaun about Desmond and specifically he’s taken a pretty big interest in Desmond’s cult, probably from his stint ‘undercover’, which as you might guess Shaun is not taking to very well. Especially as Shaun’s itching to look into it but is paying more attention to the apocalypse, and Gladstone is mostly just lending a hand as an excuse to interrogate Shaun some more.

The best defense I’d recommend is the truth: reminding everyone the whole reason he’s under house arrest is that the last time we left him to his own devices the world nearly ended, he’s consistently drunk because we won’t let him have harder drugs that let him astrally project, he’s banned from lecturing at Oxford because apparently even teaching about the forbidden play is enough for people to die, and it’s not Desmond he’d be chasing but the thrill of chaos and apocalypses. I don’t know how much it’s going to help, given that they’ve made their minds up that they want to interpret the evidence in a very specific way, but if they argue against it they’re essentially saying they want him roaming around the world barely stopping everything he’s started and then finally vanishing onto some ethereal plane leaving us to clean up his mess.

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I’m not going to go off on a rant like Shaun, but you know I’m not a fan of the media anymore. They’re all turning into ghouls, just wanting to write about human suffering for clicks rather than accountability, and Bach is the absolute worst of them all. Which some might say is normal for war reporters, but it shouldn’t be.

I don’t blame Des for not talking to the guy, but I can’t write him off, either. Because I’ve gone back through and there was a distinct change in his reporting style after Iraq, and now that he’s in Solomon Island, in the Overlook specifically? With all those disappearances at the motel before it closed down? And he’s looking for Theodore Wicker? Now? And portals from Hell popped up in the area? Yeah, maybe the people who said war is hell were onto something.

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This is a great name for an ak’ab and have I mentioned I really want to recruit this Danny kid, boss? Can I have permission already?

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Alice makes me nervous. Not because she’s clearly not human or any sort of Templar prejudice against reptilian species (honestly, given hints toward baby dragons, I wouldn’t be surprised if she was a Korean Imugi—basically a ‘lesser dragon’ or ‘giant serpent’ that has to earn status to become a full dragon, through living long enough or acquiring a dragon pearl). Because of what she represents. Because it’s just more implication of a Dragon civil war.

Now, when Desmond first met us, he said the ‘tiny child’ knew more than he did, and when he met Alice, he absolutely did not act like he’d never seen her before. It’s even possible that Desmond may have never talked to Bong Cha at all, and that also implies things.

I’ve never seen anything about her, and that’s generally only true of the kind of people that get kept under close wraps in Seoul. I’d almost say she’s out without permission, but given that a van with Silent Monks hasn’t just appeared on one of the roads to bring her back, she can’t be. But that’s also the kind of shift that even the chaotic Dragon don’t make—once an asset they’ve deemed worthy to keep close is taken, there’s no escape. I don’t like this shift. I’d almost say that she’s sticking close enough to Desmond to observe whatever experiment they’re doing with him, which would mean maybe they’d kept her isolated specifically for this, but most of my experience has not prepared me for giving any sort of estimate as to what they’re up to. The Dragon are usually predictably unpredictable, and I’m not a fan of this change.

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There’s a whole lot of people I feel bad for on Solomon Island, and Nicholas has to be pretty high up there. Poor guy was neglected by his father for most of his life, gets this bright idea to look at his inherited property before he sells it (which was clearly a trap to try to get him in here dealing with his true, terrible inheritance), and has the one actual father figure he had die when he got there. And I know I will say in a later report that Winter’s control was fairly limited, but there are exceptions, and I’m pretty sure if we got Nicholas in here right now we could trace a (now broken) magical tie to his birth father. I think mind control was used to nudge him down to Solomon Island and pretty much none of the spells cast by an awful father with powers on progeny are good ones. I hope he can escape it and go back to his old life (like, he’s even a responsible rich man’s kid who lives modestly, didn’t get most of the inheritance which might explain his retention of sympathy, kindness, and generosity), but once marked like that...yeah, that doesn’t tend to be a thing. There are cases where it happens. I’m rooting for him.

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Interestingly, smaller factions like the Druids of Avalon seem to be popping up. Unlike the Phoenicians, we knew they were still around, even popping up in Agartha when the Council was on whatever break they were on. Them being in the so-called New World in such numbers is a little less usual, not that you need me to tell you that, and Magorian’s leading them. A couple of the others, Chelsea included, theorized that maybe such a large threat to the natural and supernatural world that it actually necessitated them showing up in force, but I have a harder time believing that. I think they are looking for Excalibur again and maybe in most cases at least send out a familiar or two to check out any rumors of Third Age swords, but something about this time was a little more credible than most. I don’t think they’re entirely sure, though, just think that it’s a good lead.

The last time we saw The Reader, she was in the body of a 60-year old Scottish wizard, so, you know, just a little bit of a change there. Plus I think Dame Julia did a few assignments with her, so might want to catch up. She does seem to be leading the Druids of Avalon in a foray into Solomon Island, so she might be sticking around for a while this time.

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Francis lives up to a lot of the druid stereotypes, particularly the ones that suggest they’re more at home with nature than other human beings. This isn’t quite true, as he’s perfectly able to strike up a conversation about pets which is a safe topic for many people, and when it isn’t (such as when a pet is sick) he is able to step in and heal them. He’s generally a lot more level-headed than anyone other than Magorian, and is fully able to ‘rough it’, but it’s not like he’s a complete pacifist. Magorian actually has to actively keep him away from hunting areas, even if it’s done for the hunter to eat.

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I’m pretty sure I have no choice here: I have to admire anyone that would put “Professional Stormlord” on a resume. From afar, since I’d probably provoke his temper too. Subtle and quick to anger is only half a description that can be applied to Brann, according to what else I’ve read. (I’m guessing that it’s mainly the fact that they were distracted that prevented Desmond from doing provoking anything, since he’s not the most diplomatic and that’s when he’s trying. Not to say that Desmond is terrible at it, but he does sometimes say the exact wrong thing or get a little contrarian.) Anyone who can keep this lot in check (Magorian, in this case) has to have several lifetimes of experience telling them how to deal with it. Maybe by just constantly telling themselves that this is pretty temporary in the grand scheme of things.

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I am finding absolutely nothing on how the Druids managed to recruit a married Hindu lady, but I guess that proves they have pretty good diversity initiatives in the organization. Given the accent in this tape, she is British (I know, I know, English, you’re all so touchy about this!) so I’m guessing she’d probably run into them geographically at some event or something, but still. She is particularly gifted, so given the sparsity of data I’m going to guess she had a particularly impressive divination one day which impressed them. She can use several different methods of divination and tends to combine them to form a more complete picture, unlike most, which probably helps with the impressiveness part. She’s also a lot older than most of the rest (even, technically, her leader, given the whole ‘past lives’ thing) and doesn’t seem to get pulled into the rest of the shenanigans as much.

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He seems okay, but anyone actually playing Pied Piper with a flute and mice is worth keeping an eye on and maybe not fully trusting. Because I remember how that story ends. Particularly when he seems like a hothead, which, yeah, okay, means he’s probably not pulling off exactly that kind of stunt, because it takes planning, but still, not a power to be taken lightly. I have to hope Magorian doesn’t let him start any bar fights, because let me tell you, a ragged rhyme can wreck more havoc than a broken bottle in there.

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Laughing Jenny has, as always, a wicked sense of style, though I suppose if you’ve got thousands of years you figure out fashion. She’s probably Nuala’s oldest friend, very, very literally, though like most probable immortals she’s gotten pretty good at hiding it. She’s also absolutely trouble and her connection with Magorian is probably the only reason she hasn’t been kicked out yet (though I’m also pretty sure they get in epic fights now and then). Also, she probably hangs out with fay and may or may not actually have shown up in the 19^th century as a sorceress before. She’s like a slightly more unhinged red-headed version of Johanna Constantine, so that’s hot. I mean—sorry, boss, I probably shouldn’t tease you about your thing for Geary. At least she follows some rules. I don’t agree with any of her rules, but at least she follows them, unlike Laughing Jenny.

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I’m not sure how an Umbanda High Priestess ended up traveling with the Druids of Avalon, but I’m going to take a wild guess that one of her spirits warned her about what was going on in Solomon Island and thought the Druids might want to know. She had been acting as an apprentice for her grandmother for a while, but accelerated the process after the grandmother’s death. I don’t have a clue if she’d get along with Lydia or think she and Ligeia were a little too wild for her. (I do also suspect that given her age, the general community thought she was too young, so she might be trying to prove herself—which is another thing they have in common, but Tiana might not see it that way.)

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We’ve all heard the stories. There’s no shortage of warnings about the latest monument to hubris and messing around with magic we shouldn’t, but Henderson, the man who would rather blame his wife’s death on everybody other than himself, is kind of up there. The fact that he’s still punishing everyone else long after his death and the actual moving on of his spirit is the kind of useless petty bullshit that a lot of people can only aspire to. It is good to know after the fact that he’s not lingering around waiting to destroy us all, and that the only thing lingering is the magic.

It’s interesting to note that our magic can live on long after us. Also, speaking of useless petty bullshit, I’m needling whoever’s unlucky enough to be sent as the Lumie representative at the next meeting about this, the fact that Archie’s Legacy is a stain on their record and that it wasn’t even them that managed to clean up their own mess in the end, because they were too scared to stand up to him and all ran away like the chickens they were.  Someone has to push for accountability around here and if the Council won’t, I will.

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Good news for you to pass along to whatever remaining relatives of the House of Usher are in the field: Annabel is just fine. Kind of pissed about the whole situation (it sounds like a bunch of her students and coworkers died), but fine. Hopefully they’re finally coming to terms with the whole ‘teaching at an Illuminati school’ thing. I think Shaun is finally starting to forgive her too (mostly for ditching us; he thinks she could have been a lot of help bolstering the kind of changes we want to make, but Helwing and his Brigadier Lethe are mostly in charge of the training and they’d never have let her have the kind of freedom to shape the minds of the youth that she’d want).

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Montag is just as eccentric as ever, and I’m still fairly confident that he’s doing less damage as a headmaster than as a doctor. Fairly confident. Also, I’m pretty sure Shaun’s breathing a sigh of relief his favorite debate sparring buddy is still intact, even if he’d never admit it out loud. They may still run into communication issues, though, since it seems the man is still ‘the straight man’ in this whole dark humor scenario and still probably wouldn’t recognize sarcasm if it just straight up possessed him.

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As the Old Guard goes, at least he’s reliable and vaguely honorable even if he is a pompous jackass. I’m hoping seeing what Desmond can do served as a wakeup call. He kinda did seem a bit subdued the last time I saw him.  Maybe he’s finally rethinking all of his life choices. We could use some more introspection around here.  Okay, maybe not to Shaun’s level, but still.

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Something interesting and new here. I think Desmond’s attempting to send messages without communicating directly. He looked up the fate of “Chad the Chipmunk” (real name Steve Gardner), who escalated from drunk and disorderly to full on murder of multiple teenagers, but barely even looked at the results. I can nearly guarantee he knows I’ve got a surveillance program on his phone and was trying to tell me he was involved with the Park somehow (you know, other than having been the mascot). The thing is, Steve had died a couple of years ago in the mental hospital, so unless his ghost showed up, I’m at a loss. (Which, given how obsessed he’d been with the mascot and ice carving at the end, is exactly the sort of thing that would create a murderous ghost with unfinished business.)

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He also looked up Lorraine, but actually in earnest, and also asked Danny (who seems really good at this, I’ll point out for absolutely no underlying purpose) to look her up too and actually try to trace where she went, like he actually still thinks she’s out there. It’s possible, but she was on antidepressants and went missing after her son went missing like a couple of other children in the Park, so she’s been listed as ‘missing, presumed dead’ for years.

I’d really like to know what Desmond, Carter, and Alice saw when they went into the other plane of existence, but even my spells aren’t that good. (I’d also ask Rukh, but, being a really quiet raven aside, I don’t think he’s likely to tell me.)

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Interesting note about Carter—she’d actually been offered two full scholarships, one from Orochi’s Virgula Divina program and one from the Innsmouth Academy. Her parents decided to go with Innsmouth after a visit from Miss Usher. I don’t want to jump fully into Shaun’s conspiracy theories here—he can’t be right about absolutely everything, and tends to be a bit on the paranoid side—but Orochi giving offers to magically gifted students is the kind of thing that gives me some pause. Her ability to blow things up is also really cool, and we’ll probably have a little contact with her if when we recruit Danny, so explosions on demand. That seems like a win-win situation to me. She’d had the typical ‘afraid of her powers’ stuff with someone so strong, but Desmond might have given her some pointers about shielding or how to better control it, because she’s not as scared anymore.

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I’m still keeping an eye on things even if I’m not allowed to talk to Desmond directly, and it is utterly fascinating to learn that he’s managed to stumble on the actual fate of Nathaniel Winter and what the hell the business mogul was even trying to do with his bizarre theme park tycoon dreams.

(Side note: I would advise, if anyone asks, that nobody ever gives their kid the middle name of Harvey. That just seems to go bad places. It’s not great as a first name but it has a way better track record than as a middle name.)

For someone with absolutely no magical ability, he sure managed to make a big working happen, and that’s kind of really good to know—just because someone seems like a “normie” doesn’t mean we should write them off. In fact, that probably has implications for Desmond’s persistent if terrible assassin. We know the Lumies especially have been working on anima tech for a while now, to extract, store, and use, but either they’ve been working on this a whole lot longer than we thought or they’re basing that tech off of older tech. (If that’s the case, my money is on Alexandrians, seeing as a whole lot of their documentation got lost.)

It turns out he’d transformed himself into a Bogeyman, though I lost track of what was going on with all of that when Desmond and the others slipped into an alternate plane of existence. The haunting was different than usual, with limited reach (no closets and beds all around the island for him, only the Park) but greater control within his domain. Honestly, that limited reach might be part of why no one noticed for so long, but also demonstrates a sleeping threat. I’m not sure if it’s a side effect of everything else going on on the island or his own efforts, but an analysis of the data after the fact says the sphere of influence was spreading, and you know how these kinds of creatures are. They’re long-lived, patient, and so he could wait thousands of more years to engulf the entire island, further. Second thing, the obvious: more victims means more strength. Maybe he couldn’t have kept pushing it, but if he could, increasing the number of victims means that continuing to push the boundary is worth it mathematically. And we would not want a juiced up Bogeyman on our hands, so. We have to look out for this kind of thing, stop it in its tracks. What makes that worse is that while I can’t verify this on account of this iteration of the Bogeyman and the Park being wiped off the face of the map thanks to Desmond, but I got some readings indicating he could feed on atypical (for Bogeyman) emotions. Things like joy. Which would mean he had the potential to grow in strength at a much faster rate. Just in case there was any chance of you sleeping well at night.

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You probably haven’t heard of this one simply because he doesn’t tend to leave much of a record. His are more the quiet sorts of victories, you know, the ones that linger on the verge of our secret world where a family hires someone to deal with their ghost problem and never tells anyone else about it. From what little I’ve managed to gather, he’s one of the best non-affiliated exorcists around, mostly because he managed to live longer than the rest. It’s not that he’s the strongest around. I’d be lying if I claimed that was the truth, but I won’t and neither would he. It’s precisely that lack of magical strength that probably kept him alive this long.

See, if you’re good, you get cocky. There’s always something bigger, tougher, faster out there than you, and if you keep going, sooner or later you’re going to run into it. What keeps you alive is knowing when to call in help (in this case, it seems like that consists of another man we don’t have much on, Jack Boone), use artifacts to boost yourself, or retreat to fight another day. Common sense, in other words, and John Wolf has plenty of that.

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My surveillance isn’t quite as thorough without the help of Desmond’s actual reports, so anything I can tell you is spotty. I can tell you Desmond didn’t seem particularly impressed, which means he agrees with Shaun a bit there. (As you’ll remember, Krieg’s Massacre on the Mayflower was one of the works Shaun had read to try to prove his point about the original always being better than the movie and had grudgingly admitted that as bad as the movie was, it was still an improvement from the screenplay. I really don’t know what happened during filming but what I do hear it was a pretty wild time.)

That’s kind of the sideshow here, though. The real deal is that yes, the rumors are true. Krieg is somehow getting some sort of insight into the Secret World, and it is that someone is slipping him information, that fragment of an artifact he had his hands on was showing him something he shouldn’t have seen, or both. I recommend we not deal with this the old-fashioned way, if largely because doing so suddenly makes him sound like maybe he was onto something, but we have to figure out an approach soon because I can’t imagine the other factions are far behind and they might decide to deal with him in a way we wouldn’t like.

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It’s a good thing Desmond was able to run into Red. Not that he’s one of the people we’re too interested in, as callous as that sounds, but it means Ami’s probably okay, and seeing as she was the one that took up holding back the darkness on the island after the death of their grandfather, given the current circumstances her surviving is a really, really good thing. How much worse would it have gotten if she’d been one of the ones taken? I shudder to think.

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Again, not much on this lady, but while in the old days Phoenicians used to talk to Council members more in their whole ‘enforcing Council standards’ duties, even before they practically disappeared they’d been slowly ghosting us all. So the fact that she talked to Desmond? I’m keeping an eye on this. Two of them, even.