I've been busy, what do you want from me...
SO. Promised details about my little trip to College, and the things I found down there. To reiterate some shit, I knew about this college thanks to some dumbass student who became a runner a few years back. Found the blog, trolled him a little bit, found about Spinner and then I presume the kid fucking died or something.
That tends to happen.
ANYWAY, when planning a visit to a compound full of, presumably, people who wouldn't be terribly happy to see me, it is usually a good idea to take the subtle approach to things. Be SNEAKY. So I made sure I only went wandering around the place under cover of night. The underground... Temple thing... Could provide good shelter for when the students are up and about. Had a pretty good idea of where to find an entrance thanks to good old Jeremy there. Plan was to snoop around the ruins, then take a look inside Tommy Corvin's house.
It went... Okay. Arrived as expected, it was dark, the students were asleep, Campus Security was, as always, a joke. And then I noticed that not all the students were in bed. A few were creeping around the buildings, drawing shit on walls. You see this occasionally with Runners. That fever-pitch desire to put the shit floating around their brains onto something more permanent than thought. Makes them feel less crazy. Permanency is a calming concept, you know? Heheheheh. Idiots. Thing is, though, most of these morons looked like they were just drawing shit from memory, rather than active thought. Slower, more deliberate, pondering, trying to remember a detail here or there... These weren't runners. They weren't one of us, either. No, this is a fucking know-nothing Occultist Cult. The dead idiot kid mentioned them acting as a fraternity at the College, under Corvin's control. Pathetic. He even named them Timberwolves, to try and get the attention of the ACTUAL Timberwolves. Which... Considering those jackasses are probably the weakest overall true Cult, is not the worst play for someone trying to get involved in this shit. But, from what I can tell, no one is actually taking the bait here. Corvin is apparently so fucking uninteresting that not a single one of the Great Ones is bothering to go haunt him, no matter how hard he tries.
I love it. Isn't life so fucking FAIR? Heheheheheh. All these Runners out there who want NOTHING more than to be free to live their pathetic little lives in peace, who never asked to be hunted... And here we have a guy LOOKING to get haunted, but fucking can't. Fucking GOLDEN.
ANYHOO. So these idiots were plastering shit on the walls, and didn't really notice me up until the point that they did. Well. One did. Assumed I was a student out of bed, so he tried to start something. What he lacked for in judgment, he made up for in Taste. Boy must have had a rich diet. So after that, I made it to the Auditorium building, broke the lock, and strolled inside to find the passage downstairs.
Now I'm going to let you in on a little secret. The ruins beneath this school are old as dirt. Older than European Colonization of North America. But the Native Americans, especially around these parts, could NEVER make a structure like that with the tools they had available. So who built it? Ponder that for a while, and know that I do have the answer. But I'll never tell. Heheheheheh.
The darkness in that place is oppressive, really. Weighs down on you, like the entire weight of the ruins are trying to crush you into nothing. I don't have an actual pulse, but my heart was still racing in there... A rare sensation for me, these days. It was thrilling. Corvin's people have installed some lights here or there. Gotta give him credit here, he has a flair for the dramatic. Some of the lights are meant to mimic the appearance of torches, though with a colder light. Real easy to get lost, though, if you don't follow the lights. Don't know exactly how long that idiot has had access to the place, but he clearly hasn't explored it all yet. Heheheheh. God help him if he does. He may not like what he finds.
The lights provided a convenient method of figuring out where the useful areas, for my mission, were. So I wandered those crumbling, stone, tunnels until I found a nice little Ritual Room, beneath a statue of a giant spider thing. Now, that, I can't explain. No idea what it is, though I know of a few things it could be. I was hoping to find our stolen property down there, but no such luck. Based on some notes I found in a desk, (Which I will not be posting here, fuck you) I am pretty sure our property WAS there, at the very least. The translations weren't... Perfect, but I get the feeling those fuckers got the gist of some of the information, which is not good. Very bad, in fact. Especially for me, because they might know how to kill me now. Maybe. Assuming they didn't leave behind the final version of the translations, and have the talent to put 2 and 2 together... Still. It is one thing to know how to do it, and another entirely to actually do it.
I am not worried.
Still, knowing that our property wasn't likely there anymore, I figured I needed to get some advice on how to proceed. So I laid low until some fake Timberwolves showed up, and we had a nice chat beneath the spider statue. Loreid WAS there, and he did work Tommy Corvin. There was also a third person working with them, that they didn't know. And neither do I just based on physical descriptions... Male, dark hair, tall, strong build... Wears a lot of red. Which is never a color I like to see people wear, for obvious reasons. Its not HIM though. He's dead, his successor is dead, and Cordelia is... Not around anymore.
Probably just a fashion choice. Though I have sneaking suspicion this might be the fucker who helped Loreid get to our property to begin with. So he probably used to be one of us. Another goddamn Traitor. Phenomenal.
They apparently spent a few weeks trying to translate the damn thing, but the two chucklefucks I interrogated weren't sure EXACTLY how far the translating got, before Loreid and Mystery Man left, with Corvin leaving on "Vacation" shortly thereafter.
I made my frustration with this shit known to those two fine Cultists, and left them in the loving embrace of the Spider Statue.
I hate bad news.
So, the next step was checking our Corvin's big, fancy, fucking house. I really kinda HATE big fancy houses. Reminds me of my youth. So sterile, so hollow. But built, INEVITABLY on a foundation of filth, misery and pain. And the Master of the household always likes to have a room at the top, to overlook everything else like a God looks down on us lowly mortals. If Corvin was there, I would have chucked him out the highest window I could find, and watch him splat on the concrete below.
So I walked up to the manor, smashed the doorman's head into a wall, gutted the butler and threw the maid down a well. Didn't really feel I had the time to do anything more fun with them. Funny thing though, I did get shot in the face by a door shotgun, when I tried getting into the Study. Splattered my head all over the wall. It sucked. I hate getting shot in the face and splattered. Feels gross, you know? Regardless, I didn't fucking find much in the way of helpful information. Lots of little journals of Corvin's speculation about Father and his kin. He even had notes about some of the blogs that were on here, especially the scientific ones, and the idiot tests that were performed. As if Father was some scientific phenomena, instead of a God, unknowable and incomprehensible to sad little mortals. Hehehe. He wasn't even POSITIVE on the number of Father's kin, the idiot.
There was also this floor of the Manor set up like a Museum of shit that doesn't matter. I remember reading about Jeremy's visit, and what Corvin claimed this shit was. Based on my own little visit... Yeah. Yeah, the stuff is mostly what he said it was. Except for the Sarcophagus. Definitely not who he thinks it is inside that Sarcophagus.
So, I recovered the painting, the important books, and the mirror, and now have them hanging up in my office. NO WORRIES. Jimmy can't see the Mirror from where he is sitting. We take employee safety VERY seriously here, and I just can't risk losing even a worker as useless as him to the Mother.
Should help keep my office a little more secure, though.
ANYHOW. Somewhat concerned that Corvin knew to booby trap his study. Means they were expecting company. UGH. They probably know about me hunting them... Hopefully they haven't found THIS. Not like the blogs have been terribly active lately, so they really have no reason.
Not sure where to go next, but that isn't REALLY my job. That is Intelligence division's job. So. I've been waiting for them to provide me with my next lead. For over a month.
In the meantime, I've been hard at work training up a little squad that I am now... A Handler for, I guess. Probably shouldn't give details about them on here, until this Loreid business is finished, just in case. They are... Adequate, so far. Enthusiastic enough, but not so skilled I would send them after, for example, That Pack of Stray Dogs up north... Maybe when they've gotten a few more successes under their belts. We'll see.
Gonna try to get back to posting... Weekly-ish, on here. Assuming stuff happens worth talking about, that won't make my underlings less effective in the field. We'll see. We will see.
