If anyone thinks that this latest surge in world wide stock markets is the signal that the all is now well in our financial markets...then I have a brand-spanking new 223 million dollar bridge in this place called Alaska to sell you for pennies on the dollar...
Seriously, the fat cat bankers on Wall Street are heartened that the government that is using borrowed, leveraged money faster than they are is going to ride in to a socialist-style rescue by buying up all of their dumb-assed debt decisions is smoking more weed than Bill Maher.
Oh, have no doubt,the Bush Administration has no fucking problem spending your grandchildren's future taxes to save the hides of a few stupid multi-millionaires now, and they won't even be so rude as to even suggest that those overpaid executives have to repay all of those inflated stock options or those bonuses that those pigfuckers cashed in over the last couple of years when things were going well...because...that just isn't done in a capitalist system...
No, instead, let the bastards keep all of that ill-gotten wealth (that actually survived their own stupidity), but put the American taxpayer (or more accurately the Chinese and Russian dipshits who keep buying our IOU's) on the hook for rescuing those morons from themselves.
In another example of sheer sheopledom, take a quick look at the McCain pick for the VP slot on his ticket. The man had to look far and wide to find someone so unqualified that he couldn't find that person in the lower 48 states. I will admit that there simply aren't very many people who combine all of the worst traits of Bush and Cheney into one neat little package. And for a bonus, he got tits too!
Not only did he get a anti-choice, God-mongering, hunter to join his ticket, he gets to truck out a hot soon-to-be grandma young enough to be his daughter. Maybe he has dreams of getting a hummer in the White House or in Cheney's famous 'undisclosed location', but if he does, the old goober might need to himself fixed, that gal of his is still fertile enough to crank out their very own McPalin...
Someone please tell me that the real fucking people in this country will raise their heads from the stampeding flocks of Sheople and will actually vote for a candidate who represents hope and hard work, intelligence and integrity?
Please tell me that someone will step forward and let the criminals on Wall Street be accountable for their crimes and their stupidity? Make any executive of a failing financial company give back all of their earnings and options and bonuses before any bailout is even considered...let them actually pay for their greed and their decisions.
We may yet actually choose a real president this election cycle...but I have some serious fucking doubts that the fucking coyotes will actually guard the hen house...This market meltdown is only just beginning...these bailouts are only going to prolong the pain and make the final fall that much harder.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
No, It's Wabbit Season...
I moved in near silence from tree to tree, careful not betray my position by stepping on any stray sticks or other forest debris. The whispering wind covered what little sound I did make. It was moments like this that I was glad that breathing was purely optional for me. My body didn’t need oxygen or any other gas contained in the atmosphere to keep functioning, but I did need air to make my vocal chords work, so I kept a moderate supply of air in my lungs in case I needed to shout something out to surprise my foe.
The sound of a twig snapping to my left and rear stopped me short. I froze in place, focusing my attention on my hearing, trying to sort out the various normal sounds of the woods at night from that which didn’t belong. Unable to locate the culprit with my hearing, I shifted my vision in the Shadowland—one skill that I had retained, thankfully.
Scanning the woods around, the only forms I could make out were those of the normal critters of the night that often go unseen, if not unheard, by normal folks.
I unfocused my eyes and scanned the area all around very slowly. There, just beyond the large leaning pine tree to my far left was the blurry outline surrounding what can only be described as a void. Once I located the outline, I narrowed my focus to discern who or what the form was.
It was laying low, perhaps even stretched out on the ground, which is one reason that it had been so difficult to see on my first couple attempts to locate the form. Unsure as to whether the creature saw me, I swung around to face it full on and dropped into a cautionary crouch. It was maybe fifty feet away, but there were several trees scattered between us, some large, some small, but none preventing a direct line of sight between us.
The form shifted slightly, its movement accompanied by a soft, metallic click.
Sensing that the form did see me, I decided it was time to shift tactics, none too soon, either.
I leaped forward and upward into the air from my crouching position higher and farther than any Olympic-caliber athlete could hope to match and grabbed for a thick branch of the solid oak tree about a third of the way between us just as the first burst of projectiles sliced through the air where I had just been standing.
The bullets had a weird, glowing tracer effect in my current mode of vision that reminded me of my military days and learning how to shoot at night using tracer rounds with my M-16. Before the glow from the first burst had faded though, I was using the momentum of my leap to swing around in a slightly different direction to land no more than fifteen feet from the prone figure as it let loose another barrage at the branch I had been hanging from.
I landed in a crashing roll that made enough sound to wake the dead, but I added to it with a wild war hoop that I hoped would freeze or shock my nearly invisible foe as I leaped for the now visible rifle that it was trying to bring to bear on me.
Let me digress a little bit here on a subject about which I happen to know way too fucking much about:
Getting shot sucks.
Getting shot in the chest by a hi-powered rifle at really close range that you are leaping towards out of desperation only adds to the level of suckitude.
Getting shot in the chest by a hi-powered rifle at really close range that you are leaping towards out of desperation because you know that the bullets have been magickally enhanced to take down banes and other supernatural badasses (which you happen to consider yourself to be one of) raises the suckitude to almost mythic proportions.
The impact of the bullet threw me backwards into trunk of a smaller oak tree that shuddered under the impact of my rather significant bulk and the remaining momentum of the bullet slamming into my chest. I felt my head crack into the tree and then the scraping of the bark against my scalp as I slid down to my ass. The impact had knocked all of the remaining air from my lungs and had put a serious dent in the silver-coated chest plate that I had been wearing for just such an occasion.
It took a moment for me to get through the pain enough to draw in a breath to complain with.
“Fuck me, but that hurts! I don’t know why I ever agreed to this shit.”
The figure got up giggling. “Why, Daddy, you do it because you love me…and because you are our only renewable resource as a bad guy.”
I shock my head and felt around the chest plate for the impact point of the bullet. I found three serious dents all closely clustered around where my heart was—each one easily a half inch to an inch deep. “Yeah, but I thought you were going lower the power on those bullets of yours. If you missed the plate, I might not be so renewable anymore. There are limits even to my healing abilities.”
She giggled even louder through her helmet. “Don’t worry, Dad. Herne has said that I am the best natural shooter he has ever trained. He said I could probably have made the Olympic team if I wanted to.”
I shifted my vision back to normal mode in time to see a heavily camouflaged Jasmine rise from her prone firing position, her rifle in her left hand and her new helmet in the other. “So how does that new helmet work?”
She strode over to stand over me, tucking the helmet under her left armpit before reaching down to help me stand with her now free right hand. “Oh, it is so cool! I was able to see in the Shadowland just like you’ve talked about, I could see you sneaking through the woods a hundred yards away. I can’t wait to tell everyone how easy it is to use as well. Alora really outdid herself this time.”
Every bone in my body ached as I stood up and tried to ‘walk it off’ as every childhood sports coach I ever played under had told me to for every type of injury I had sustained in those games.
“And, for your information, Father, those bullets were only slightly charged. If they had been at full strength, I would have had to clean you off of that tree rather than help you up with a hand. We need to be able to take down a Doppelganger or a Bane with these things, and that’s not easy to do.”
I nodded as we began the long walk back down to the compound. “I’m sure Herne will be more than happy with your full strength batch, Jazz. Just do me a favor and make sure that you don’t grab any of those bullets for any of these practice sessions, OK?”
She wrapped her right arm around my waist and gave me a good, hard, and ever so painful squeeze. “Don’t worry, Daddy. I won’t let anything happen to you that you can’t handle.” I heard her sniffle just a little bit. “I miss Kenny so much!”
“So do I, Jazz, so do I.”
The sound of a twig snapping to my left and rear stopped me short. I froze in place, focusing my attention on my hearing, trying to sort out the various normal sounds of the woods at night from that which didn’t belong. Unable to locate the culprit with my hearing, I shifted my vision in the Shadowland—one skill that I had retained, thankfully.
Scanning the woods around, the only forms I could make out were those of the normal critters of the night that often go unseen, if not unheard, by normal folks.
I unfocused my eyes and scanned the area all around very slowly. There, just beyond the large leaning pine tree to my far left was the blurry outline surrounding what can only be described as a void. Once I located the outline, I narrowed my focus to discern who or what the form was.
It was laying low, perhaps even stretched out on the ground, which is one reason that it had been so difficult to see on my first couple attempts to locate the form. Unsure as to whether the creature saw me, I swung around to face it full on and dropped into a cautionary crouch. It was maybe fifty feet away, but there were several trees scattered between us, some large, some small, but none preventing a direct line of sight between us.
The form shifted slightly, its movement accompanied by a soft, metallic click.
Sensing that the form did see me, I decided it was time to shift tactics, none too soon, either.
I leaped forward and upward into the air from my crouching position higher and farther than any Olympic-caliber athlete could hope to match and grabbed for a thick branch of the solid oak tree about a third of the way between us just as the first burst of projectiles sliced through the air where I had just been standing.
The bullets had a weird, glowing tracer effect in my current mode of vision that reminded me of my military days and learning how to shoot at night using tracer rounds with my M-16. Before the glow from the first burst had faded though, I was using the momentum of my leap to swing around in a slightly different direction to land no more than fifteen feet from the prone figure as it let loose another barrage at the branch I had been hanging from.
I landed in a crashing roll that made enough sound to wake the dead, but I added to it with a wild war hoop that I hoped would freeze or shock my nearly invisible foe as I leaped for the now visible rifle that it was trying to bring to bear on me.
Let me digress a little bit here on a subject about which I happen to know way too fucking much about:
Getting shot sucks.
Getting shot in the chest by a hi-powered rifle at really close range that you are leaping towards out of desperation only adds to the level of suckitude.
Getting shot in the chest by a hi-powered rifle at really close range that you are leaping towards out of desperation because you know that the bullets have been magickally enhanced to take down banes and other supernatural badasses (which you happen to consider yourself to be one of) raises the suckitude to almost mythic proportions.
The impact of the bullet threw me backwards into trunk of a smaller oak tree that shuddered under the impact of my rather significant bulk and the remaining momentum of the bullet slamming into my chest. I felt my head crack into the tree and then the scraping of the bark against my scalp as I slid down to my ass. The impact had knocked all of the remaining air from my lungs and had put a serious dent in the silver-coated chest plate that I had been wearing for just such an occasion.
It took a moment for me to get through the pain enough to draw in a breath to complain with.
“Fuck me, but that hurts! I don’t know why I ever agreed to this shit.”
The figure got up giggling. “Why, Daddy, you do it because you love me…and because you are our only renewable resource as a bad guy.”
I shock my head and felt around the chest plate for the impact point of the bullet. I found three serious dents all closely clustered around where my heart was—each one easily a half inch to an inch deep. “Yeah, but I thought you were going lower the power on those bullets of yours. If you missed the plate, I might not be so renewable anymore. There are limits even to my healing abilities.”
She giggled even louder through her helmet. “Don’t worry, Dad. Herne has said that I am the best natural shooter he has ever trained. He said I could probably have made the Olympic team if I wanted to.”
I shifted my vision back to normal mode in time to see a heavily camouflaged Jasmine rise from her prone firing position, her rifle in her left hand and her new helmet in the other. “So how does that new helmet work?”
She strode over to stand over me, tucking the helmet under her left armpit before reaching down to help me stand with her now free right hand. “Oh, it is so cool! I was able to see in the Shadowland just like you’ve talked about, I could see you sneaking through the woods a hundred yards away. I can’t wait to tell everyone how easy it is to use as well. Alora really outdid herself this time.”
Every bone in my body ached as I stood up and tried to ‘walk it off’ as every childhood sports coach I ever played under had told me to for every type of injury I had sustained in those games.
“And, for your information, Father, those bullets were only slightly charged. If they had been at full strength, I would have had to clean you off of that tree rather than help you up with a hand. We need to be able to take down a Doppelganger or a Bane with these things, and that’s not easy to do.”
I nodded as we began the long walk back down to the compound. “I’m sure Herne will be more than happy with your full strength batch, Jazz. Just do me a favor and make sure that you don’t grab any of those bullets for any of these practice sessions, OK?”
She wrapped her right arm around my waist and gave me a good, hard, and ever so painful squeeze. “Don’t worry, Daddy. I won’t let anything happen to you that you can’t handle.” I heard her sniffle just a little bit. “I miss Kenny so much!”
“So do I, Jazz, so do I.”
Sunday, September 07, 2008
Duck Season...
The merest hint of a sliding footstep and the slight change in air pressure behind me was all the warning I had as I ducked down and rolled to my left to avoid the thunderous blow from my would be assailant. The staff of my attacker slammed into the small table I had been about to put my drink on. The table shattered in dozens of pieces as my cup went flying. I cursed as I saw the thick warm blood splatter all over the floor, but didn’t have much time to gather myself.
I used the rapidly approaching wall to shift my balance and spring back up with my batons in hand.
The staff whistled in for another crack at my head only to be caught in my crossed batons and redirected into the floor. I lashed out my right baton, aiming for the crippling bunch of nerves in the middle of the thigh of my attacker, but he anticipated the blow and twisted the staff down to deflect my counterattack.
My second blow, however, found its mark. My left baton thwacked solidly into my opponents right forearm with just enough pressure to cause him to release his grip on the staff with that hand in reflex as his fingers twitched in agony.
He grunted in pain and stepped back. He twirled the staff in his left hand deflecting my attempt at a finishing flurry of blows as he retreated.
I knew I didn’t have much time before he regained feeling in his right hand, so I stepped into the attack with the goal of finishing him off quickly. I lashed out towards the middle of the staff, where he had shifted his grip to, aiming for the knuckles with both batons in succession.
He practically threw the staff at me before my blows could land and pushed his heavy bulk inside the range of my attacks and crashing into me.
His weight threw me off balance enough to send the both of us tumbling to the ground with him top, at least initially.
I dropped my left baton and used that hand to give his forward momentum a push. I followed that up with a twisting roll that left me sitting astride his heaving chest.
“That was pretty good, Jim. I almost didn’t hear you come up behind me.”
Jim punched my thigh with his left hand. “Get up off of me you prick! You’re too damn heavy to sit on me. You’ll give me a heart attack.”
I laughed as I obliged his request by standing up. I tapped my remaining baton closed and holstered before reaching out my hand to help him up.
Jim reached up to pull his helmet off before wiping the sweat from his brow with his left sleeve.
“You don’t have to humor me, Rusty, I know that I still suck at fighting. I’m just hoping to get good enough to keep from being a liability out there. I’ve been pretty lucky so far, but I’ve never been a fan of trusting to chance.”
“Jim, you are getting a lot better at this. You really did take me by surprise. Considering all of that protective gear, you did a damn good job of sneaking up on me. Next time though, don’t hesitate to take your shot when you have one.”
He nodded. “I’m still leery. This new body of yours isn’t as impervious as your old one.”
I moved across the room to grab a towel from the shelving unit and went to wipe up the thick, viscous blood that had spilled from my cup.
“Yeah, I’m still adjusting to this whole thing too. If these training sessions are going to be of any real use though, you really have to throw caution to the wind. Trust me, there’s no real harm that you can do me that won’t heal up in a day or two. I’ve got the fresh scars to prove that it is almost impossible to do any lasting harm to this body.”
He shook his head as he bent down with a grunt to pick up his staff and my other baton. “I know that intellectually, but…” He shrugged as he stood back up to his full height. He was several inches taller than me.
I tossed the bloody towel into a nearby bin before walking over to collect my baton from him. “That’s why we need to keep up with these impromptu training sessions. When the time comes, you will need to be able to act without hesitation.” I clapped him on the shoulder as we walked out of the training studio. “Let’s go get some dinner.”
“I still can’t get used to you needing to eat.”
“Tell me about it…”
I used the rapidly approaching wall to shift my balance and spring back up with my batons in hand.
The staff whistled in for another crack at my head only to be caught in my crossed batons and redirected into the floor. I lashed out my right baton, aiming for the crippling bunch of nerves in the middle of the thigh of my attacker, but he anticipated the blow and twisted the staff down to deflect my counterattack.
My second blow, however, found its mark. My left baton thwacked solidly into my opponents right forearm with just enough pressure to cause him to release his grip on the staff with that hand in reflex as his fingers twitched in agony.
He grunted in pain and stepped back. He twirled the staff in his left hand deflecting my attempt at a finishing flurry of blows as he retreated.
I knew I didn’t have much time before he regained feeling in his right hand, so I stepped into the attack with the goal of finishing him off quickly. I lashed out towards the middle of the staff, where he had shifted his grip to, aiming for the knuckles with both batons in succession.
He practically threw the staff at me before my blows could land and pushed his heavy bulk inside the range of my attacks and crashing into me.
His weight threw me off balance enough to send the both of us tumbling to the ground with him top, at least initially.
I dropped my left baton and used that hand to give his forward momentum a push. I followed that up with a twisting roll that left me sitting astride his heaving chest.
“That was pretty good, Jim. I almost didn’t hear you come up behind me.”
Jim punched my thigh with his left hand. “Get up off of me you prick! You’re too damn heavy to sit on me. You’ll give me a heart attack.”
I laughed as I obliged his request by standing up. I tapped my remaining baton closed and holstered before reaching out my hand to help him up.
Jim reached up to pull his helmet off before wiping the sweat from his brow with his left sleeve.
“You don’t have to humor me, Rusty, I know that I still suck at fighting. I’m just hoping to get good enough to keep from being a liability out there. I’ve been pretty lucky so far, but I’ve never been a fan of trusting to chance.”
“Jim, you are getting a lot better at this. You really did take me by surprise. Considering all of that protective gear, you did a damn good job of sneaking up on me. Next time though, don’t hesitate to take your shot when you have one.”
He nodded. “I’m still leery. This new body of yours isn’t as impervious as your old one.”
I moved across the room to grab a towel from the shelving unit and went to wipe up the thick, viscous blood that had spilled from my cup.
“Yeah, I’m still adjusting to this whole thing too. If these training sessions are going to be of any real use though, you really have to throw caution to the wind. Trust me, there’s no real harm that you can do me that won’t heal up in a day or two. I’ve got the fresh scars to prove that it is almost impossible to do any lasting harm to this body.”
He shook his head as he bent down with a grunt to pick up his staff and my other baton. “I know that intellectually, but…” He shrugged as he stood back up to his full height. He was several inches taller than me.
I tossed the bloody towel into a nearby bin before walking over to collect my baton from him. “That’s why we need to keep up with these impromptu training sessions. When the time comes, you will need to be able to act without hesitation.” I clapped him on the shoulder as we walked out of the training studio. “Let’s go get some dinner.”
“I still can’t get used to you needing to eat.”
“Tell me about it…”
Monday, September 01, 2008
The Update Post
Is it me or is Hurricane Gustav trying to find the shortest path to the Twin Cities where the Republican Convention is about to kick-off?
Hey you Evangelical dipshits, God is gonna rain all over your parade. Hmmm…maybe He actually meant it when his Boy was talking all of that shit about turning the other cheek, helping the poor and destitute, and to be nice? Ach…what do I know? I’m just your local unbelieving dead man. It is your religion, not mine, but maybe you Christians should try reading that little book of yours a little closer. That are lots of little nuggets of wisdom allegedly uttered by that long-haired, sandal wearing, do-gooder of a pre-hippie dude that you claim to follow. If more of you actually did that, there would be a hell of a lot less misery in this world.
Ah well, enough of that, for the moment, anyway.
A lot has happened since I met Raxgar in the Alaskan wilderness, much of it worth telling about at some point, but I think it is time to catch the story up to the present day.
The battle in the Alaskan wilderness turned out to be somewhat of a watershed moment in the brewing conflict between the ORC’s and the An’girasii. While the ORC’s lost too many good people that day, including my son Kenny, the losses for the An’girasii were staggering. Three of their most powerful Banes and a dozen Doppelgangers were slain.
Banes aren’t killed very often. But when, on occasion, they are killed, their Spirit finds a new host body and begins the arduous process of modifying that body to suit their desires. That is what happened with the Bane that Drake killed on the tanker ship when he took over my body.
The three who died in that battle with us, however, didn’t just get killed. I absorbed their Spirits into myself, essentially destroying them. This was a crippling blow to the offensive forces of the An’girasii. To make matters worse for the An’girasii, El Diablito used the diversion created by my drawing the Banes and their followers into battle to betray his erstwhile masters. He and his minions snuck into a secret stronghold that the An’girasii had established and stole a large number of artifacts and weapons that the An’girasii had been gathering for their own servants. Among the things he took was an orb that can lead its bearer to where Alexa is being held.
I can’t reveal yet how I know all of this information, but I will tell it when doing so will no longer compromise valuable secrets.
El Diablito and his organization are now the focus of the rage of the An’girasii and their surviving minions which has taken considerable, if temporary, pressure off of the ORC’s.
This brief respite has allowed for the ORC’s to regroup and establish several new bases of operation. I am now back in a rural area just outside of Metro Detroit with my ex-wife and daughter and several of my oldest friends among the ORC’s—including Ravyn, the Frau, Cerrydwen, the Professor and Alora. We are safely tucked away on a large swath of property that the organization has owned and operated for quite some time under an alias that I won’t be divulging here. I will not reveal any more of the location for obvious reasons, other than to give you the name by which we are calling our new home base—the Den.
I use the place as a base of sorts, but spend more than half of my time away on various missions for the Bureau or the ORC’s. Supervisory Special Agent Jennifer Wilson was able to settle the situation with the Bureau so that I am now fully restored to my previous position as a Provisional Special Agent. More importantly, I have had my access to the various law enforcement systems restored. I am still free to take on cases as I see fit, but also have to be available on short notice at any time to help the Bureau out with one of their cases as well.
As the strange woman, Me’shwara, had warned, I no longer have easy access to the Shadowland. In the many months since I’ve been back, I’ve only managed to make two short-lived trips, each one consuming tremendous amounts of energy that is not really very easy to store up. I can only shake my head and marvel at how powerful I had become and how much I took that power for granted until I lost it. I now have to get around in more traditional ways. For the most part I travel by way of my black Ninja motorcycle.
Since my latest transition, I have found it easier to move about in society. I’m still the ugliest mug in any given room, by now my skin looks a lot more like skin, even if it is pasty white in color. But I can throw on a hat, some mirrored sun-glasses and a jacket and get by without too much trouble. I still avoid crowds of any sort when I can, but I can mingle freely when I have to.
As mentioned in a previous post, my new body has its full complement of senses. I can smell and taste again, although sometimes I wish I couldn’t taste the kinds of stuff I have to eat in order to build up my strength. In order to be as strong as I need to be, I have to consume a diet of raw meat.
In the last few months I have discovered a lot of information about my new body and how it works. For one, I have a new appreciation for how Drake was able to take on the strongest servants of the An’girasii. Like Drake, I can suffer wounds by weapons big and small, but also like Drake, I have the ability to control my body’s reaction to such attacks on an almost cellular level. In the last few months I have been shot, stabbed, and nearly crushed while investigating various cases. In each case, however, I have been able to absorb the wounds, redirect my energy and resources around the wounded area and keep on trucking. Once the immediate danger is over, I’m then able to heal the damage far quicker than the normal healing process would be if I were a normal person.
Even though I have lost most of my ability to manipulate the Shadow, I have discovered a number of new abilities that also mirror some of the things I watched Drake do. When I haven’t been engaged with cases, I’ve spent hour after hour training to hone the skills that I know that I will need for the coming battles.
In my next post, I will update you on the status of some of my comrades and go into more detail on some of the doings of the other ORC’s.
Hey you Evangelical dipshits, God is gonna rain all over your parade. Hmmm…maybe He actually meant it when his Boy was talking all of that shit about turning the other cheek, helping the poor and destitute, and to be nice? Ach…what do I know? I’m just your local unbelieving dead man. It is your religion, not mine, but maybe you Christians should try reading that little book of yours a little closer. That are lots of little nuggets of wisdom allegedly uttered by that long-haired, sandal wearing, do-gooder of a pre-hippie dude that you claim to follow. If more of you actually did that, there would be a hell of a lot less misery in this world.
Ah well, enough of that, for the moment, anyway.
A lot has happened since I met Raxgar in the Alaskan wilderness, much of it worth telling about at some point, but I think it is time to catch the story up to the present day.
The battle in the Alaskan wilderness turned out to be somewhat of a watershed moment in the brewing conflict between the ORC’s and the An’girasii. While the ORC’s lost too many good people that day, including my son Kenny, the losses for the An’girasii were staggering. Three of their most powerful Banes and a dozen Doppelgangers were slain.
Banes aren’t killed very often. But when, on occasion, they are killed, their Spirit finds a new host body and begins the arduous process of modifying that body to suit their desires. That is what happened with the Bane that Drake killed on the tanker ship when he took over my body.
The three who died in that battle with us, however, didn’t just get killed. I absorbed their Spirits into myself, essentially destroying them. This was a crippling blow to the offensive forces of the An’girasii. To make matters worse for the An’girasii, El Diablito used the diversion created by my drawing the Banes and their followers into battle to betray his erstwhile masters. He and his minions snuck into a secret stronghold that the An’girasii had established and stole a large number of artifacts and weapons that the An’girasii had been gathering for their own servants. Among the things he took was an orb that can lead its bearer to where Alexa is being held.
I can’t reveal yet how I know all of this information, but I will tell it when doing so will no longer compromise valuable secrets.
El Diablito and his organization are now the focus of the rage of the An’girasii and their surviving minions which has taken considerable, if temporary, pressure off of the ORC’s.
This brief respite has allowed for the ORC’s to regroup and establish several new bases of operation. I am now back in a rural area just outside of Metro Detroit with my ex-wife and daughter and several of my oldest friends among the ORC’s—including Ravyn, the Frau, Cerrydwen, the Professor and Alora. We are safely tucked away on a large swath of property that the organization has owned and operated for quite some time under an alias that I won’t be divulging here. I will not reveal any more of the location for obvious reasons, other than to give you the name by which we are calling our new home base—the Den.
I use the place as a base of sorts, but spend more than half of my time away on various missions for the Bureau or the ORC’s. Supervisory Special Agent Jennifer Wilson was able to settle the situation with the Bureau so that I am now fully restored to my previous position as a Provisional Special Agent. More importantly, I have had my access to the various law enforcement systems restored. I am still free to take on cases as I see fit, but also have to be available on short notice at any time to help the Bureau out with one of their cases as well.
As the strange woman, Me’shwara, had warned, I no longer have easy access to the Shadowland. In the many months since I’ve been back, I’ve only managed to make two short-lived trips, each one consuming tremendous amounts of energy that is not really very easy to store up. I can only shake my head and marvel at how powerful I had become and how much I took that power for granted until I lost it. I now have to get around in more traditional ways. For the most part I travel by way of my black Ninja motorcycle.
Since my latest transition, I have found it easier to move about in society. I’m still the ugliest mug in any given room, by now my skin looks a lot more like skin, even if it is pasty white in color. But I can throw on a hat, some mirrored sun-glasses and a jacket and get by without too much trouble. I still avoid crowds of any sort when I can, but I can mingle freely when I have to.
As mentioned in a previous post, my new body has its full complement of senses. I can smell and taste again, although sometimes I wish I couldn’t taste the kinds of stuff I have to eat in order to build up my strength. In order to be as strong as I need to be, I have to consume a diet of raw meat.
In the last few months I have discovered a lot of information about my new body and how it works. For one, I have a new appreciation for how Drake was able to take on the strongest servants of the An’girasii. Like Drake, I can suffer wounds by weapons big and small, but also like Drake, I have the ability to control my body’s reaction to such attacks on an almost cellular level. In the last few months I have been shot, stabbed, and nearly crushed while investigating various cases. In each case, however, I have been able to absorb the wounds, redirect my energy and resources around the wounded area and keep on trucking. Once the immediate danger is over, I’m then able to heal the damage far quicker than the normal healing process would be if I were a normal person.
Even though I have lost most of my ability to manipulate the Shadow, I have discovered a number of new abilities that also mirror some of the things I watched Drake do. When I haven’t been engaged with cases, I’ve spent hour after hour training to hone the skills that I know that I will need for the coming battles.
In my next post, I will update you on the status of some of my comrades and go into more detail on some of the doings of the other ORC’s.
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