We leave New York tomorrow. Might as well check back in St. Louis, see if the Crusade has turned up anything yet.
Mab had a very tense conversation with her father, while the rest of the paladins had me at gunpoint. She explained that I had saved her, and that if he had any common sense he would have found and taken care of those Ebon Widow cultists ages ago. She also said that we were married now, and that we were going to go off and have adventures. And then she said "so there". Like, actually said it.
The Knight Captain then pulled me aside. We had a very long conversation, that went something like:
"She's dragging you into this."
"Yes sir."
"Not a question. Good luck."
"...you're just going to--"
"You've known her for at least the past few hours. Do you think I'm going to convince her otherwise?"
So I guess we have his blessing?
I really have no idea how much of a "marriage" this is. She hasn't...tried anything. I'm not even sure if she's...like me at all. Mostly she seems to think that getting married involves roaming the countryside, righting wrongs and battling evil. Which I guess is kind of true, if I'm your wife?
Don't get me wrong, she's kind of cute, if you like the Paladin aesthetic--shaved head, kind of muscular, body armor. But...I'm not really looking for anyone at the moment, at least, not in that way. I haven't really given any thought to having a significant other. Much less a young, wanderlust-filled, idealistic demon hunter.
I dunno, though. Katrina's been my only company for..years now. Maybe it'll be good to finally have some company. Someone at my side on my long, ravaged road.
Alright. Getting reading to head out. Mab has everything she says she needs, but I'll believe that when I see it.
Wish me luck.
~~Destiny
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Saturday, February 18, 2012
This is Why I Never Plan Anything
ANYTHING.
I'm just glad I'd known where they were, from scouting earlier.
Which I would have told you about, if I wasn't terrible at planning. And spider cults. And time zones.
Anyway.
The spider cult had this big altar, under the city, in one of the old subway tunnels. It was blocked off because of a demon infestation the Paladins hadn't gotten to yet, but I think that the infestation got a demon spider infestation of itself.
I hate spider cults. Even the nice ones.
I hate them even more now, but...I'm kind of an arachnophobe. Or I was before the Cacophony, anyway. Before dark gods and mile long snakes and spider cults became an everyday occurrence. It's kind of stuck around, though, whenever I'm around a bunch of giant demonic spiders and their pet humans.
Luckily, most of these were the Widow's Mates. I mean, they were still as big as a small car, but compared to the Widow herself, or her Daughters, nothing major.
She wasn't there, thank the Song--that's probably what I interrupted, an attempt to get Her Hugeness into this reality.. Her little girls were, though. Just two of them, but both of them were a whole lot bigger than their daddies were. Fortunately, they were more interested in whittling down their potential pool of father/suitors than they were anything else, for most of the ceremony.
I'd describe the ceremony, but it really wasn't anything special. Lots of black candles, chanting, and some idiot on a guitar trying to harmonize with whatever web-filled hell the Ebon Widow calls home. The standard stuff, really. The guy wasn't even a captial B bard, just some schlub with a half-assed score the Widow's probably been singing into his dreams.
But, they had sacrifices, and a deliberate, planned and executed death disrupts the Song more than anything else. It would've made up for all that terrible singing and clumsy guitar playing, especially if he broke a channel for the Song at the same time.
There were two dozen of them, about half that in Widow's Mates, and a pair of very hungry Widow's Daughters. Not really out of my favor...but without Katrina I was nowhere near as effective as I could have been.
So, I took out my oboe, casually walked down the stairs, and I started playing the Tarantula Hawk's Warcry, which sounds retarded on a woodwind, especially an oboe, but it did its job well. The spider demons shrieked in terror and ran as fast as their eight little massive legs could carry them down, deeper into the subway tunnels, as I could feel the Infinite Song humming, buzzing around me.
The cultists realized what I was doing. They should have been trying to stop me--they might have succeeded if they'd tried to stop me, but instead, they went back to the ritual, trying to chant and play as quickly as possible.
And then the air was full of wasps.
Did you know the tarantula hawk has one of the most painful stings in the world? Well, now those cultists do, too.
When I got to the altar, my...wife (I am so not used to calling her that) was already cutting herself free with a knife she's managed to hide on herself. I grabbed Katrina and tried to get her out of there, because without a string instrument the Warcry would only last so long, but noooo, she insisted that she had to get her "swords" first. Why would someone charge into danger just for some dumb weapons, anyway?
Of course, I understood a bit better when I saw one of her "swords" was an assault rifle. A blessed assault rifle, I might add, with a unique place in the Song. She even named it. "Ferocity". Who does that?
She also had a normal sword, which she named "Devotion", but seriously, I'm still hung up on the whole naming her weapons thing.
Anyway, she speared the leader of the cult--or at least, the one who was about to sacrifice her, before we left, and then we hightailed it just as the Warcry started to fade, and the Widow's Mates and their hungry little girls started coming back up the tunnel.
We ran and ran, and then my wife, Knight Lieutenant Mab, laughed and said that if this is what our honeymoon was like, she'll be excited for our first anniversary.
I tried to explain to her that it was Shadow Destiny that married her, and not me, but she won't hear it. She wants to travel with me, and she won't take no for an answer...
...so I guess I'm traveling with my..um...wife now. And Shadow Destiny, because I know she's still able to exert at least a little influence over me--or, at least, I'm assuming she can until I have proof otherwise.
I really have no idea how stuff like this keeps happening to me.
~~Destiny
I'm just glad I'd known where they were, from scouting earlier.
Which I would have told you about, if I wasn't terrible at planning. And spider cults. And time zones.
Anyway.
The spider cult had this big altar, under the city, in one of the old subway tunnels. It was blocked off because of a demon infestation the Paladins hadn't gotten to yet, but I think that the infestation got a demon spider infestation of itself.
I hate spider cults. Even the nice ones.
I hate them even more now, but...I'm kind of an arachnophobe. Or I was before the Cacophony, anyway. Before dark gods and mile long snakes and spider cults became an everyday occurrence. It's kind of stuck around, though, whenever I'm around a bunch of giant demonic spiders and their pet humans.
Luckily, most of these were the Widow's Mates. I mean, they were still as big as a small car, but compared to the Widow herself, or her Daughters, nothing major.
She wasn't there, thank the Song--that's probably what I interrupted, an attempt to get Her Hugeness into this reality.. Her little girls were, though. Just two of them, but both of them were a whole lot bigger than their daddies were. Fortunately, they were more interested in whittling down their potential pool of father/suitors than they were anything else, for most of the ceremony.
I'd describe the ceremony, but it really wasn't anything special. Lots of black candles, chanting, and some idiot on a guitar trying to harmonize with whatever web-filled hell the Ebon Widow calls home. The standard stuff, really. The guy wasn't even a captial B bard, just some schlub with a half-assed score the Widow's probably been singing into his dreams.
But, they had sacrifices, and a deliberate, planned and executed death disrupts the Song more than anything else. It would've made up for all that terrible singing and clumsy guitar playing, especially if he broke a channel for the Song at the same time.
There were two dozen of them, about half that in Widow's Mates, and a pair of very hungry Widow's Daughters. Not really out of my favor...but without Katrina I was nowhere near as effective as I could have been.
So, I took out my oboe, casually walked down the stairs, and I started playing the Tarantula Hawk's Warcry, which sounds retarded on a woodwind, especially an oboe, but it did its job well. The spider demons shrieked in terror and ran as fast as their eight little massive legs could carry them down, deeper into the subway tunnels, as I could feel the Infinite Song humming, buzzing around me.
The cultists realized what I was doing. They should have been trying to stop me--they might have succeeded if they'd tried to stop me, but instead, they went back to the ritual, trying to chant and play as quickly as possible.
And then the air was full of wasps.
Did you know the tarantula hawk has one of the most painful stings in the world? Well, now those cultists do, too.
When I got to the altar, my...wife (I am so not used to calling her that) was already cutting herself free with a knife she's managed to hide on herself. I grabbed Katrina and tried to get her out of there, because without a string instrument the Warcry would only last so long, but noooo, she insisted that she had to get her "swords" first. Why would someone charge into danger just for some dumb weapons, anyway?
Of course, I understood a bit better when I saw one of her "swords" was an assault rifle. A blessed assault rifle, I might add, with a unique place in the Song. She even named it. "Ferocity". Who does that?
She also had a normal sword, which she named "Devotion", but seriously, I'm still hung up on the whole naming her weapons thing.
Anyway, she speared the leader of the cult--or at least, the one who was about to sacrifice her, before we left, and then we hightailed it just as the Warcry started to fade, and the Widow's Mates and their hungry little girls started coming back up the tunnel.
We ran and ran, and then my wife, Knight Lieutenant Mab, laughed and said that if this is what our honeymoon was like, she'll be excited for our first anniversary.
I tried to explain to her that it was Shadow Destiny that married her, and not me, but she won't hear it. She wants to travel with me, and she won't take no for an answer...
...so I guess I'm traveling with my..um...wife now. And Shadow Destiny, because I know she's still able to exert at least a little influence over me--or, at least, I'm assuming she can until I have proof otherwise.
I really have no idea how stuff like this keeps happening to me.
~~Destiny
Friday, February 17, 2012
Game Time
Okay. I think I have a plan. It's not the greatest plan, but screw it, it'll have to do.
I'll have to rely on an oboe to rescue my ...wife, I guess. Also, my bass. I hope they haven't done anything to her. Katrina, I mean. If I know my evil cults--and I do--they're probably waiting for midnight or something. That'll give me plenty of time to
Oh fuck.
Spider cult.
They're probably doing it at Eight.
...and it's 7:30 Eastern.
SHIT.
GOTTA RUN.
I'll have to rely on an oboe to rescue my ...wife, I guess. Also, my bass. I hope they haven't done anything to her. Katrina, I mean. If I know my evil cults--and I do--they're probably waiting for midnight or something. That'll give me plenty of time to
Oh fuck.
Spider cult.
They're probably doing it at Eight.
...and it's 7:30 Eastern.
SHIT.
GOTTA RUN.
Thursday, February 16, 2012
From The Vault/3
I hate my little brother sometimes.
I am so mad I could scream at him if I wasn't too busy crying.
Basically? My parents know about the time I asked Katrina out now. I was teasing him, and he was taunting me back, and then he said, "Yeah, well, you're so ugly you have to ask girls out, cause the boys won't date you!"
And it would have been fine, just another taunt, if my parents hadn't been all, "Okay kids, that's enough."
But then he took it a step farther and was all, "I'm serious, I saw! She tried to kiss Katrina and everything!"
And then they got really quiet, and I got sent to my room, and apparently they talked to her on the phone, and now we're not allowed to have sleepovers or anything anymore.
I was going to tell them. I thought they'd be cool with it! They've been cool in the past about stuff like that. And it's not like she was, you know, interested.who would be
And the absolute worst part about all of this? Katrina didn't care! No one cared until that little twerp fucking brought it up! I don't know if my parents are mad or not. Maybe they just don't know how to react. I don't think they've had to deal with this before. I don't think they know what to do.
I swear, sometimes, I wish my little brother would just...disappear without a trace. Maybe I'll write a song about it, sing it in front of him. Ha!
I think I'll do just that.
~~Destiny
I am so mad I could scream at him if I wasn't too busy crying.
Basically? My parents know about the time I asked Katrina out now. I was teasing him, and he was taunting me back, and then he said, "Yeah, well, you're so ugly you have to ask girls out, cause the boys won't date you!"
And it would have been fine, just another taunt, if my parents hadn't been all, "Okay kids, that's enough."
But then he took it a step farther and was all, "I'm serious, I saw! She tried to kiss Katrina and everything!"
And then they got really quiet, and I got sent to my room, and apparently they talked to her on the phone, and now we're not allowed to have sleepovers or anything anymore.
I was going to tell them. I thought they'd be cool with it! They've been cool in the past about stuff like that. And it's not like she was, you know, interested.
And the absolute worst part about all of this? Katrina didn't care! No one cared until that little twerp fucking brought it up! I don't know if my parents are mad or not. Maybe they just don't know how to react. I don't think they've had to deal with this before. I don't think they know what to do.
I swear, sometimes, I wish my little brother would just...disappear without a trace. Maybe I'll write a song about it, sing it in front of him. Ha!
I think I'll do just that.
~~Destiny
I Hate Shadow Destiny
Ugh! I was pissed at her before, but now? Least favorite shadow archetype by far. I have to write this goddamn thing with an oboe. Fuuuuck.
Basically, before I took over, she'd managed to reach a town in the desert and just hamelined it--you know, lead the people around. Put them in compromising positions. Taunted me whenever she saw her reflection. Threatened to lead everyone in town off the edge of a cliff. The usual stuff.
But now? I don't even want to talk about it. I guess I'm typing it though, so here goes.
One day, she was leading people around, making them walk into things, when she just...gave up. Let me have my body again. And I thought, sweet, I get to be me again.
So I took over and maybe erased the whole hamelining from their minds and replaced it with boring memories. What? It's not that bad. Besides, they're better off not remembering. Trust me.
So I went along my normal business, right? Going back to the search, which led me to the Ash Crusade in St. Louis. Like I said, they owed me a favor for banishing an Eternal Jester a while back. Long story short, they said they'd keep an eye out, but they haven't seen him yet either.
I lost some time there, but I figured it was just lack of sleep. I've kind of been pushing myself lately. I really want to find him. I was hoping I'd figure out where he was before anything else happened...and then the Second Cacophony happened, and his trail just...vanished.
Now I'm wondering what I did. See, Shadow Destiny never actually let me have control. She's just been content with partial control of me, letting me believe she was just contained in my shadow again. I have no clue how to make her stop, but there seems to be a time limit on how long she can control me? I'm not sure. She's not saying.
What she is saying, in intricate detail, is how screwed I am.
I started heading back west again. I figured I'd try some more northern states, see if I couldn't find a trail in the Dakotas or Washington. I remember getting to, like, Idaho.
And then, I woke up, and it was Febuary, and I was in New York. Wearing a pink dress. Without a bladed electric bass with my best friend's soul in it. Also, Paladins were shooting at me. That's right, actually wasting bullets.
According to Shadow Destiny, the Paladins think I've kidnapped the Knight Captain's daughter, and am holding her for ransom.
However, as she tells me with sadistic glee, I didn't kidnap her. I eloped with her. Apparently she was tired of being trained to murder demons and wanted to go on an adventure? So I married her?
This is apparently the dress I got married in. It looks like the bridesmaid dress that all the other bridesmaid dresses make fun of.
And to top it all off? Some cultists of the Ebon Widow captured her, AND Katrina, AND they're going to sacrifice both of them. And because Shadow Me was a tremendous jerk, the Paladins don't believe me when I tell them this.
And now I've got to save her, by myself, with some woodwinds. WOODWINDS. I know they're, like, the second best vessels for the Infinite Song...but I'm so much more used to Katrina. Plus, these don't even have souls in them. I can't even put a soul in the oboes, because they're soulless abominations. They'll just eat it, and even if I could, I don't have any convenient dying family members or friends to stuff in them anyway. Plus, you can't even sing with a woodwind!
Well, maybe I could set up a song of me singing in advance, and then replay it while I sing by transferring that part of the Song...gah, I don't know. That'd lock me into a single song...don't know if I'm confident enough to do that.
I don't even know this girl! I'm too young and incredible to get married!
This is going to take some thinking. And some planning. And I am really, really terrible at planning.
Ug. Spider cultists. Why did it have to be spider cultists?
~~Destiny
Basically, before I took over, she'd managed to reach a town in the desert and just hamelined it--you know, lead the people around. Put them in compromising positions. Taunted me whenever she saw her reflection. Threatened to lead everyone in town off the edge of a cliff. The usual stuff.
But now? I don't even want to talk about it. I guess I'm typing it though, so here goes.
One day, she was leading people around, making them walk into things, when she just...gave up. Let me have my body again. And I thought, sweet, I get to be me again.
So I took over and maybe erased the whole hamelining from their minds and replaced it with boring memories. What? It's not that bad. Besides, they're better off not remembering. Trust me.
So I went along my normal business, right? Going back to the search, which led me to the Ash Crusade in St. Louis. Like I said, they owed me a favor for banishing an Eternal Jester a while back. Long story short, they said they'd keep an eye out, but they haven't seen him yet either.
I lost some time there, but I figured it was just lack of sleep. I've kind of been pushing myself lately. I really want to find him. I was hoping I'd figure out where he was before anything else happened...and then the Second Cacophony happened, and his trail just...vanished.
Now I'm wondering what I did. See, Shadow Destiny never actually let me have control. She's just been content with partial control of me, letting me believe she was just contained in my shadow again. I have no clue how to make her stop, but there seems to be a time limit on how long she can control me? I'm not sure. She's not saying.
What she is saying, in intricate detail, is how screwed I am.
I started heading back west again. I figured I'd try some more northern states, see if I couldn't find a trail in the Dakotas or Washington. I remember getting to, like, Idaho.
And then, I woke up, and it was Febuary, and I was in New York. Wearing a pink dress. Without a bladed electric bass with my best friend's soul in it. Also, Paladins were shooting at me. That's right, actually wasting bullets.
According to Shadow Destiny, the Paladins think I've kidnapped the Knight Captain's daughter, and am holding her for ransom.
However, as she tells me with sadistic glee, I didn't kidnap her. I eloped with her. Apparently she was tired of being trained to murder demons and wanted to go on an adventure? So I married her?
This is apparently the dress I got married in. It looks like the bridesmaid dress that all the other bridesmaid dresses make fun of.
And to top it all off? Some cultists of the Ebon Widow captured her, AND Katrina, AND they're going to sacrifice both of them. And because Shadow Me was a tremendous jerk, the Paladins don't believe me when I tell them this.
And now I've got to save her, by myself, with some woodwinds. WOODWINDS. I know they're, like, the second best vessels for the Infinite Song...but I'm so much more used to Katrina. Plus, these don't even have souls in them. I can't even put a soul in the oboes, because they're soulless abominations. They'll just eat it, and even if I could, I don't have any convenient dying family members or friends to stuff in them anyway. Plus, you can't even sing with a woodwind!
Well, maybe I could set up a song of me singing in advance, and then replay it while I sing by transferring that part of the Song...gah, I don't know. That'd lock me into a single song...don't know if I'm confident enough to do that.
I don't even know this girl! I'm too young and incredible to get married!
This is going to take some thinking. And some planning. And I am really, really terrible at planning.
Ug. Spider cultists. Why did it have to be spider cultists?
~~Destiny
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
what
why am i in new york?
why are paladins shooting at me?
why am i wearing a frilly pink dress?
where the fuck is katrina?
why are paladins shooting at me?
why am i wearing a frilly pink dress?
where the fuck is katrina?
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