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This is a summary of part 6 of the Miracle Season game from Gencon this year. (Sorry it's so late. It's been an interesting couple weeks, I meant to get this up within a day or two of the part 5 summary. Oops!) A summary of part 5 is here.
Miracle Season is an ongoing game run at Gencon and possibly other cons (I don't know). If you hope/plan to play in it and are at all worried about spoilers, don't read this because it is quite detailed. A lot of it does not constitute spoilers. The joy of Miracle Season lies in the story, and that depends on both characters and the luck of the draw. But certain elements are consistent, else it wouldn't be an ongoing game where you could 'weave in' PCs who were in different sessions for earlier parts. And those elements will be spoilered if you read this.
Most of the fun isn't in "getting it right" though - it's in the tale of how you got there, how your stories wove into it, how you came to get it right (or wrong, for that matter). In that sense I'm not sure this game can be spoilered - that is, knowing the stuff still leaves you poised for fun. But yes, there's an "oo what's THAT?" factor that can be lost if you read past this sentence.
Cast (same as part 5):
So, everyone has passed out from the drugged soup. Helena gets up and heads for the kitchen, so our characters (who didn't eat any soup, you may recall) trail her. (I have this mental image of chicks, just wandering after her because she's there.) Elizahn is also still awake since she didn't eat, but she doesn't follow them, or react (that they notice). In the kitchen, Helena's conspirators (who had somehow gone missing from the tables before the soup course) are all gathered, as is the six-year-old prince.
Helena kneels with the prince and asks if he is pleased with her; he says something amounting to yes. There's a back-and-forth suggesting that (despite being 6) he is somehow in charge here (at least ostensibly). Then, between the conspirators and Helena, a conversation revolving around what Terrance, Jake, and Cecilia are doing with Helena. And then the conspirators, and then Helena, go off to do their tasks. Helena takes the trio with her.
They go up and down, mostly up, arriving at a door with a large iron lock (eventually). Helena stares at the lcok; it snaps in half, and the door is opened to reveal a spiral staircase leading down. And down. And...you get the idea. At the bottom, a dungeon with twelve cells. Helena heads straight for the last door on the left, which has two padlocks on it. Inside is a red-haired man, 23 or 24, with a short beard. He's wearing modernized versions of the local clothes and sitting calmly.
Helena says that her trick works only once, and tells the three to "Deal with this." A little looking at each other; Terrance's skills don't turn this way, and Jake lacks anything to carve, so Cecilia steps up. She pulls a few oil pastels from her purse, and draws on the padlocks themselves. First she draws a silvery key, pledging (since she wants to open a lock) to at some point take a key that is still useful and opens a lock she would care about, and throw it away. (Why do I have the feeling this may some day result in an irritated landlady having to rekey the doors?) Then she draws the grey pastel itself, with itself, but snapped in half. Then she draws a drop of blood, her pledge to offer blood of herself to the land. Then she uses a reddish brown pastel to draw rust all over the locks. And the rust appears to become the reality. She grabs the two locks and yanks down, and they snap almost immediately.
Helena starts a rapid-fire conversation with the man who was freed, telling him that the three are travelers who depend on luck, and since they need to get him away, this seems useful; that "Ananke" (sp?) hasn't realized yet what he's done. Somewhere in there, she calls the man by his name - Ryan.
They return upstairs and then to the kitchen. Jake goes to the dining area to get his bunny, left behind earlier, and says that Elizahn is gone. Ryan is concerned when he hears this (mostly concerned that she was ever present, I believe). He controls that concern (or appears to), since there's not much to be done about it. He throws the prince (the six-year-old) over his shoulder and says, "All right, little prince, let's put you on a throne." He leads the way back out of the kitchen; the guards don't appear to notice Ryan with the prince. They get to what appears to be a throne room, with two larger thrones and a smaller one. The three people (two men and a women) from the basement in part 5 show up then.
The three knock out Helena. (My notes don't say how, but my memory believes she was actually incapacitated mind-to-mind. That is, she wasn't struck, and I don't believe she was truly unconscious, just collapsed and useless - same difference either way.) They try to tell Ryan to give up the prince; then Elizahn appears and begins speaking, largely trying to bargain with the PCs to work for her. There's some back-and-forth about their quest and how they got their power and so on, and she says it's obvious it isn't theirs (but she doesn't say it in a way that suggests she feels the need to do anything about it, that they could tell). She threatens Ryan (I didn't write down the details, unfortunately) and ices the room - frost starts to form - but at that point the trio from the basement intervene and deice it, reminding her that while she is a power, this is not her land, her castle, and she hasn't got the degree of power and rights she would in her own place.
Ryan sets the prince down, pushing him toward the PCs, and runs, taking off out another door from the room. At this point, Jake attempts to wake Helena; he succeeds, but Helena refuses to talk to Elizahn (who has been saying she wishes she knew what Helena was thinking/planning). Elizahn tries to convince the PCs to enter her service, and when she fails, she leaves them alone with the three from the basement, Helena, and the prince. Helena gives Cece instructions to go after Ryan, that he will know what to do.
Then Helena begins an argument with the three from the basement, trying to face them down and saying she outpowers them, especially with Jake and Terrance on her side - she has grabbed their hands now. But the leader of the three (trenchcoat man) points out that though she does outpower them, they report to her mother, and that she might not like the results if they tell her mother what's going on and she gets yanked home and stuck in a little room to sit and stew. Cecilia, meanwhile, has edged a couple steps toward the door Ryan used, and then stopped. She isn't sure what's right any more, and she can't bring herself to leave the few people she still knows, who still know what she means if she says "San Keros", to go after Ryan - especially since he fled, and left them with the prince.
The threat of her mother causes Helena to back down, and apologize to the three PCs for leaving them in the lurch. She leaves them with the prince, to figure out what to do with him, telling them that if they choose to support her, she'll be grateful but that, as she's just had brought home to her, she can't guarantee her ability to get anyone who supports her out of the resultant trouble.
Cecilia, Jake, and Terrance hesitate, trying to decide, but the only way the three figures are going to let the prince out of their sight is if there's a fight, it looks like. Finally, they leave the prince there, and return to the dining hall to see if Elizahn is there. She is, and they bargain with her. She keeps wanting to give them self-knowledge, but want they want is to know the right choices and path - both in their personal quest and in the immediate question of the prince (never mind that he is now out of their immediate presence and quite possibly out of their reach). What they finally get is self-knowledge, and what they know about those two areas drawn clear in their minds - no extra information, just a clearer memory and perhaps some hints about what they already know.
The prices vary from person to person, depending on how much work and how much knowledge is involved. Cecilia is asked to sit for a painting for Elizahn, at some future time to be mutually agreed upon. Terrance is asked to be her accountant...a client he won't be able to put on his usual books, of course. Jake was asked to deliver a package.
They agree. Cecilia is the first one; Elizahn takes her hands, and enters her mind.
Terrance is next. (Section below is from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
terram's notes and with his permission; I hope he will correct me if I've made any errors.)
Jake is next; I don't know all the details of what he experienced, and neither do I know if his player would want them shared, so I omit. Unlike Terrance (and more like Cecilia), he did not share much (in character) with the others of what he learned. He is given a package to deliver to Thaddeus (the bear) the next day at their 9 am meeting (his price).
Terrance shares the insights he gained into their quest with the other two, quickly. (Including that the 'tree' reference may mean both a family tree and a literal tree.) The three leave the dining area and go looking for the prince. They find his room; the woman from the basement trio is outside. They explain to her and then to the other two (who come out) the prince's interaction iwth Helena. They believe, but still won't let the prince be taken out. They point out (quite rightly) that he is a boy, and who put that idea in his head, for he surely didn't think of it on his own. The PCs leave. In the hallways, as they went to and from the prince's chambers, there were people moving purposefully from room to room - the conspirators, doing whatever tasks had been set them during this time.
They race back downstairs to the dining area, knowing the sleep will soon wear off. They want to put folks back to sleep, and two separate attempts are made at the same time (intended to bolster each other). Cecilia attempts to draw a sleep over the whole castle, with the three of them awake (using a napkin as her 'paper'). Jake attempts a shamanistic sort of ritual to link himself with Terrance - the goal being that Jake's lifethief abilities will meld with Terrance's mindcasting and let Jake drain his targets (everyone in the dining room, and the three upstairs) enough to keep them out (or in the case of the three, knock them out). Both fail; Cecilia fails spectacularly, her hands cramping up into claws such that she can't ease them. She asks for someone to rinse the napkin so the image she attempted is lost, and one of the other two (I forget which) does so. Jake and Terrance attempt their work again (Cecilia can't, given that she could no longer hold the pen), and this time they...kind of succeed. They don't realize this at first: nothing changes in the dining hall, and they race out again, intending to go back upstairs (and at least they won't be in the dining hall when everyone there wakes up). Arriving upstairs, they find the conspirators passed out on the floor in a straight line - they had apparently had their exit timed to a nicety and had all been running in a neat row for the way out when the spell...hit them. There's really not much to be done for them, so the three continue to the prince's chambers, where they find his guardians are also now passed out.
They grab the prince (who is also out cold, but then, he was asleep the first time they came by, so who knows if he was dosed) and run for the exit. Cecilia is the last one, and as they go down the steps, the other two have made it clear, but Eryk catches up with her at the palace door. He addresses her, and she turns to talk to him rather than fleeing - knowing that Jake holds the prince and needs to make it to Ryan's house, she hopes to buy him time.
Eryk tries to convince Cece that they've made the wrong choice; he says he doesn't know who's right and wrong, but he knows the prince is a little boy and belongs with his parents. He also tells her that he knows people who could help her learn and deal with her power, and to come to him when she's stopped running away. She tries to say she isn't, which he's not listening to (for understandable reasons, though it chances to be true, both literally and figuratively, at that particular moment). She does accept the card from him - and he lets her go.
She goes to Helena's house, both for fear that she's being followed, and because she really wants her own stuff - her tools, her clothes, and, well, Terrance's checkbook which is in her purse. Helena's guardian lets her in, and goes back to her reading, leaving Cece to manage her stuff on her own. She considers it, then just gathers it up and carries it down the street. It seems clear, so she heads for Ryan's house.
Jake and Terrance are there ahead of her; they have turned the prince over to Ryan and those with him. Cecilia is able to get help from one of the women changing back into her own clothes, and she returns Terrance's checkbook to him. Then the three of them depart, leaving the prince with Ryan and hoping they've made the right choice. Staying doesn't seem like a good option - getting out of town as fast as possible after the delivery in the morning is the plan of the day. If they can pull it off, anyway.
They go back to the basement bolthole where they first met Helena's conspiracy and saw the bowls; Helena arrives, and gives them a token to take them home, and leads them to a hiding place she knows near the bear's place (but not too near) since they will need to hide overnight. She goes away, promising to be back in the morning to lead them there. Terrance shields the place (mentally) all night. They awake the next morning, but Helena doesn't arrive. When they think it's near time, they head out on their own, with Terrance cloaking them by making them 'uninteresting' (others notice them, but don't recognize them as important or anything). When they arrive, they find Thaddeus in bad shape, spazzing out and twitching and so on - cookie withdrawal. As Jake realized during the dinner, the bear is indeed a cookie junkie.
He is showing them his lab (think gaslight/steampunk - some modern-like stuff such as microwaves, but powered by steampunkish tech) when a clock shows 9 - the time for the package delivery. Jake gives him the amulet (puts it on him, literally) during a bad moment, and it heals him (gold light, etc. - I didn't take good enough notes here!). He had been about to use a device, except he hadn't been able to do so. Terrance asks for permission to do it instead, and writes Thaddeus a $100 check from his checkbook for the privilege (his choice to pay, not a request made of him). Since he doesn't know the date system here, he dates it as "Fourth day in". He hands back the pen he had borrowed, and as he does so, a spark arcs from the pen to the equipment, and then from there to the transport disc that Helena had given to them.
[Also, at a couple points in the palace, people view the three as if they are mad or just avoid them a little, because, aspaeryn put it, they willingly let Elizahn into their minds.]
The world changes. They are standing on a cliff, facing an ocean. They turn, and behind them is a valley; beyond it, a city of crystal, with impossible angles and spires. Seeing it, they know they are home - not what they would have named as their home, but home all the same. Cecilia (but not the others) feels "something move in her chest". (Her hands are still crabbed. A couple people, including Helena, made attempt to ease them but it failed, so for the moment she is trying to cope with life when her hands don't work. She hasn't had a lot of time to think about it yet - the night they spent in hiding, she slept, exhausted. It's just as well, considering what her hands mean to her, as an artist.)
And that is the end (for these characters, at least) of the first arc of Miracle Season. I am so eager for the next part of this! :)
Miracle Season is an ongoing game run at Gencon and possibly other cons (I don't know). If you hope/plan to play in it and are at all worried about spoilers, don't read this because it is quite detailed. A lot of it does not constitute spoilers. The joy of Miracle Season lies in the story, and that depends on both characters and the luck of the draw. But certain elements are consistent, else it wouldn't be an ongoing game where you could 'weave in' PCs who were in different sessions for earlier parts. And those elements will be spoilered if you read this.
Most of the fun isn't in "getting it right" though - it's in the tale of how you got there, how your stories wove into it, how you came to get it right (or wrong, for that matter). In that sense I'm not sure this game can be spoilered - that is, knowing the stuff still leaves you poised for fun. But yes, there's an "oo what's THAT?" factor that can be lost if you read past this sentence.
Cast (same as part 5):
- Cecilia Durham (my character, an artist with faerie wishcraft all tied up with her drawing/painting, and an impulsive streak in that regard that dominates her personality)
- Terrance Smith (an actuary who also happens to journey to the faerie realms via his online games)
- Jake Miller (looked like a down-on-his-luck trucker, but his wood carvings would sometimes come to life and do more, sorta like Cece's art only not)
So, everyone has passed out from the drugged soup. Helena gets up and heads for the kitchen, so our characters (who didn't eat any soup, you may recall) trail her. (I have this mental image of chicks, just wandering after her because she's there.) Elizahn is also still awake since she didn't eat, but she doesn't follow them, or react (that they notice). In the kitchen, Helena's conspirators (who had somehow gone missing from the tables before the soup course) are all gathered, as is the six-year-old prince.
Helena kneels with the prince and asks if he is pleased with her; he says something amounting to yes. There's a back-and-forth suggesting that (despite being 6) he is somehow in charge here (at least ostensibly). Then, between the conspirators and Helena, a conversation revolving around what Terrance, Jake, and Cecilia are doing with Helena. And then the conspirators, and then Helena, go off to do their tasks. Helena takes the trio with her.
They go up and down, mostly up, arriving at a door with a large iron lock (eventually). Helena stares at the lcok; it snaps in half, and the door is opened to reveal a spiral staircase leading down. And down. And...you get the idea. At the bottom, a dungeon with twelve cells. Helena heads straight for the last door on the left, which has two padlocks on it. Inside is a red-haired man, 23 or 24, with a short beard. He's wearing modernized versions of the local clothes and sitting calmly.
Helena says that her trick works only once, and tells the three to "Deal with this." A little looking at each other; Terrance's skills don't turn this way, and Jake lacks anything to carve, so Cecilia steps up. She pulls a few oil pastels from her purse, and draws on the padlocks themselves. First she draws a silvery key, pledging (since she wants to open a lock) to at some point take a key that is still useful and opens a lock she would care about, and throw it away. (Why do I have the feeling this may some day result in an irritated landlady having to rekey the doors?) Then she draws the grey pastel itself, with itself, but snapped in half. Then she draws a drop of blood, her pledge to offer blood of herself to the land. Then she uses a reddish brown pastel to draw rust all over the locks. And the rust appears to become the reality. She grabs the two locks and yanks down, and they snap almost immediately.
Helena starts a rapid-fire conversation with the man who was freed, telling him that the three are travelers who depend on luck, and since they need to get him away, this seems useful; that "Ananke" (sp?) hasn't realized yet what he's done. Somewhere in there, she calls the man by his name - Ryan.
They return upstairs and then to the kitchen. Jake goes to the dining area to get his bunny, left behind earlier, and says that Elizahn is gone. Ryan is concerned when he hears this (mostly concerned that she was ever present, I believe). He controls that concern (or appears to), since there's not much to be done about it. He throws the prince (the six-year-old) over his shoulder and says, "All right, little prince, let's put you on a throne." He leads the way back out of the kitchen; the guards don't appear to notice Ryan with the prince. They get to what appears to be a throne room, with two larger thrones and a smaller one. The three people (two men and a women) from the basement in part 5 show up then.
The three knock out Helena. (My notes don't say how, but my memory believes she was actually incapacitated mind-to-mind. That is, she wasn't struck, and I don't believe she was truly unconscious, just collapsed and useless - same difference either way.) They try to tell Ryan to give up the prince; then Elizahn appears and begins speaking, largely trying to bargain with the PCs to work for her. There's some back-and-forth about their quest and how they got their power and so on, and she says it's obvious it isn't theirs (but she doesn't say it in a way that suggests she feels the need to do anything about it, that they could tell). She threatens Ryan (I didn't write down the details, unfortunately) and ices the room - frost starts to form - but at that point the trio from the basement intervene and deice it, reminding her that while she is a power, this is not her land, her castle, and she hasn't got the degree of power and rights she would in her own place.
Ryan sets the prince down, pushing him toward the PCs, and runs, taking off out another door from the room. At this point, Jake attempts to wake Helena; he succeeds, but Helena refuses to talk to Elizahn (who has been saying she wishes she knew what Helena was thinking/planning). Elizahn tries to convince the PCs to enter her service, and when she fails, she leaves them alone with the three from the basement, Helena, and the prince. Helena gives Cece instructions to go after Ryan, that he will know what to do.
Then Helena begins an argument with the three from the basement, trying to face them down and saying she outpowers them, especially with Jake and Terrance on her side - she has grabbed their hands now. But the leader of the three (trenchcoat man) points out that though she does outpower them, they report to her mother, and that she might not like the results if they tell her mother what's going on and she gets yanked home and stuck in a little room to sit and stew. Cecilia, meanwhile, has edged a couple steps toward the door Ryan used, and then stopped. She isn't sure what's right any more, and she can't bring herself to leave the few people she still knows, who still know what she means if she says "San Keros", to go after Ryan - especially since he fled, and left them with the prince.
The threat of her mother causes Helena to back down, and apologize to the three PCs for leaving them in the lurch. She leaves them with the prince, to figure out what to do with him, telling them that if they choose to support her, she'll be grateful but that, as she's just had brought home to her, she can't guarantee her ability to get anyone who supports her out of the resultant trouble.
Cecilia, Jake, and Terrance hesitate, trying to decide, but the only way the three figures are going to let the prince out of their sight is if there's a fight, it looks like. Finally, they leave the prince there, and return to the dining hall to see if Elizahn is there. She is, and they bargain with her. She keeps wanting to give them self-knowledge, but want they want is to know the right choices and path - both in their personal quest and in the immediate question of the prince (never mind that he is now out of their immediate presence and quite possibly out of their reach). What they finally get is self-knowledge, and what they know about those two areas drawn clear in their minds - no extra information, just a clearer memory and perhaps some hints about what they already know.
The prices vary from person to person, depending on how much work and how much knowledge is involved. Cecilia is asked to sit for a painting for Elizahn, at some future time to be mutually agreed upon. Terrance is asked to be her accountant...a client he won't be able to put on his usual books, of course. Jake was asked to deliver a package.
They agree. Cecilia is the first one; Elizahn takes her hands, and enters her mind.
The images of each of the drawings Cece has done, that actually had power behind them or involved, are rehashed in her mind. The failed magic on the check, where the cat ate the magic, is touched on, and the cat's image recurs through most of the others, coming in at the end of most of the sequences as if trying to tell her something. She also gets a strong sense of how her magic really works, more than the quick/shallow knowledge she's had - the cost of her magic, the consequences, the power, the meaning. And what it will mean if they fail, and the Scions take that away.
She understands. More than that, she feels the responsibility it places on her. To think, to consider, to use this power rather deliberately rather than blindly and impulsively. And she gets sequences from their arrival in this dominion up until the present time, including a flash on her image of charity (bowls to feed the poor) dovetailed with the bowls in the basement with the sleep potion going into them, the bowls that became the soup bowls at dinner, and the people passing out; but she gets the sense that Elizahn approves, rather than this being a moralization. The image of Kevin, dead and limp after they tried to rescue him, comes back. The image of her standing against the Scions, pledging to stand against the Scions.
Terrance is next. (Section below is from
terram's notes and with his permission; I hope he will correct me if I've made any errors.) First, Elizahn takes him on a look at his own nature. His behavior under the influence of 'liquid courage' (Miracle Season, part 1) versus his recent (often courageous) actions. A computer screen, split, with his character from the MMORPG he plays in on one side, and himself and his acts from the last days on the other. A view of his family life, and being bullied at work, on one half of a scale. On the other half, again, himself in the last few days - a person trusting in hope (and only hope) and relying on his own ideals. He is invited to see that the person he has been in the last four days is the real hero, and has taken the actual risks.
His memory is good, but now he has complete recall of his prior talk with the Scions and both sides of the talk with the Captain in his grave in the previous dominion. He also heard what the three guards (the folks from the basement) were mindcasting just a bit before. He knows enough to realize Ryan is or was the head of the secret police, and is also called 'The Cat'. He knows by the feel of their minds that Elizahn is on par with the Scions for power, and based on what Elizahn knows, Helena's mother also is. Helena has not yet come into her own (as has been said a couple times by various people) and is not on the same power level. (He also picks up names: except for Eryk, who is the guy in the blue trenchcoat, I can't read them. I'll edit this when I have the other two names.)
Jake is next; I don't know all the details of what he experienced, and neither do I know if his player would want them shared, so I omit. Unlike Terrance (and more like Cecilia), he did not share much (in character) with the others of what he learned. He is given a package to deliver to Thaddeus (the bear) the next day at their 9 am meeting (his price).
Terrance shares the insights he gained into their quest with the other two, quickly. (Including that the 'tree' reference may mean both a family tree and a literal tree.) The three leave the dining area and go looking for the prince. They find his room; the woman from the basement trio is outside. They explain to her and then to the other two (who come out) the prince's interaction iwth Helena. They believe, but still won't let the prince be taken out. They point out (quite rightly) that he is a boy, and who put that idea in his head, for he surely didn't think of it on his own. The PCs leave. In the hallways, as they went to and from the prince's chambers, there were people moving purposefully from room to room - the conspirators, doing whatever tasks had been set them during this time.
They race back downstairs to the dining area, knowing the sleep will soon wear off. They want to put folks back to sleep, and two separate attempts are made at the same time (intended to bolster each other). Cecilia attempts to draw a sleep over the whole castle, with the three of them awake (using a napkin as her 'paper'). Jake attempts a shamanistic sort of ritual to link himself with Terrance - the goal being that Jake's lifethief abilities will meld with Terrance's mindcasting and let Jake drain his targets (everyone in the dining room, and the three upstairs) enough to keep them out (or in the case of the three, knock them out). Both fail; Cecilia fails spectacularly, her hands cramping up into claws such that she can't ease them. She asks for someone to rinse the napkin so the image she attempted is lost, and one of the other two (I forget which) does so. Jake and Terrance attempt their work again (Cecilia can't, given that she could no longer hold the pen), and this time they...kind of succeed. They don't realize this at first: nothing changes in the dining hall, and they race out again, intending to go back upstairs (and at least they won't be in the dining hall when everyone there wakes up). Arriving upstairs, they find the conspirators passed out on the floor in a straight line - they had apparently had their exit timed to a nicety and had all been running in a neat row for the way out when the spell...hit them. There's really not much to be done for them, so the three continue to the prince's chambers, where they find his guardians are also now passed out.
They grab the prince (who is also out cold, but then, he was asleep the first time they came by, so who knows if he was dosed) and run for the exit. Cecilia is the last one, and as they go down the steps, the other two have made it clear, but Eryk catches up with her at the palace door. He addresses her, and she turns to talk to him rather than fleeing - knowing that Jake holds the prince and needs to make it to Ryan's house, she hopes to buy him time.
Eryk tries to convince Cece that they've made the wrong choice; he says he doesn't know who's right and wrong, but he knows the prince is a little boy and belongs with his parents. He also tells her that he knows people who could help her learn and deal with her power, and to come to him when she's stopped running away. She tries to say she isn't, which he's not listening to (for understandable reasons, though it chances to be true, both literally and figuratively, at that particular moment). She does accept the card from him - and he lets her go.
She goes to Helena's house, both for fear that she's being followed, and because she really wants her own stuff - her tools, her clothes, and, well, Terrance's checkbook which is in her purse. Helena's guardian lets her in, and goes back to her reading, leaving Cece to manage her stuff on her own. She considers it, then just gathers it up and carries it down the street. It seems clear, so she heads for Ryan's house.
Jake and Terrance are there ahead of her; they have turned the prince over to Ryan and those with him. Cecilia is able to get help from one of the women changing back into her own clothes, and she returns Terrance's checkbook to him. Then the three of them depart, leaving the prince with Ryan and hoping they've made the right choice. Staying doesn't seem like a good option - getting out of town as fast as possible after the delivery in the morning is the plan of the day. If they can pull it off, anyway.
They go back to the basement bolthole where they first met Helena's conspiracy and saw the bowls; Helena arrives, and gives them a token to take them home, and leads them to a hiding place she knows near the bear's place (but not too near) since they will need to hide overnight. She goes away, promising to be back in the morning to lead them there. Terrance shields the place (mentally) all night. They awake the next morning, but Helena doesn't arrive. When they think it's near time, they head out on their own, with Terrance cloaking them by making them 'uninteresting' (others notice them, but don't recognize them as important or anything). When they arrive, they find Thaddeus in bad shape, spazzing out and twitching and so on - cookie withdrawal. As Jake realized during the dinner, the bear is indeed a cookie junkie.
He is showing them his lab (think gaslight/steampunk - some modern-like stuff such as microwaves, but powered by steampunkish tech) when a clock shows 9 - the time for the package delivery. Jake gives him the amulet (puts it on him, literally) during a bad moment, and it heals him (gold light, etc. - I didn't take good enough notes here!). He had been about to use a device, except he hadn't been able to do so. Terrance asks for permission to do it instead, and writes Thaddeus a $100 check from his checkbook for the privilege (his choice to pay, not a request made of him). Since he doesn't know the date system here, he dates it as "Fourth day in". He hands back the pen he had borrowed, and as he does so, a spark arcs from the pen to the equipment, and then from there to the transport disc that Helena had given to them.
[Also, at a couple points in the palace, people view the three as if they are mad or just avoid them a little, because, as
paeryn put it, they willingly let Elizahn into their minds.]The world changes. They are standing on a cliff, facing an ocean. They turn, and behind them is a valley; beyond it, a city of crystal, with impossible angles and spires. Seeing it, they know they are home - not what they would have named as their home, but home all the same. Cecilia (but not the others) feels "something move in her chest". (Her hands are still crabbed. A couple people, including Helena, made attempt to ease them but it failed, so for the moment she is trying to cope with life when her hands don't work. She hasn't had a lot of time to think about it yet - the night they spent in hiding, she slept, exhausted. It's just as well, considering what her hands mean to her, as an artist.)
And that is the end (for these characters, at least) of the first arc of Miracle Season. I am so eager for the next part of this! :)
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