The Nocturnum
Episode 20: A Return to Twilight, Part 2
Original Air Date: 8/28/2005This episode is an original work, which can be found Here. As with many of our recent episodes, the events herein are rather specific to this season and my cast, but should easily adapt to any group. Also, readers familiar with the WitchCraft cosmology will note references to the Twilight World. This is not to be confused with the Twilight Lands as described in the Mystery Codex; it is a different realm entirely; a Tainted mirror of Earth that is connected to Hod.
Special Guest Stars:
Omar Sharif as Dr. Armedt
Heath Ledger as Daniel
Marisa Tomei as Amara
Eric Balfour as the Shk'ryth Gary Augustine
Synopsis
Part Two:
The Cast awakens in a prison cell, each of them chained spread-eagled to the wall, a few feet off the floor, except for Anita, who lies unconscious and delirious on the floor, frothing at the mouth, convulsing, and crying out at whatever nameless horrors the poison coursing through her veins is causing her to see. They test their chains and discover that they are magical, designed to adapt to changing strength and shape. Cyan is gagged as well as bound, rendering her mostly incapable of spellcasting. The room is Tainted.
Eventually, the door opens and a pair of tainted cultists enter, flanking an unwelcome and familiar (to Cyan and Drake) face: the Sh'kryth Gary Augustine, who apparently survived his encounter with the Twilight Queen and fled here. He has set himself up as a god amongst the local cultists, and has brooded for years (remember, time passes differently here) waiting for his opportunity to avenge himself upon the Cast.
He is wearing the Night Rose as a boutonniere.
He mentions "friends on Earth" who informed him of the Cast's impending arrival, and orders the cultists take Cyan out of the room.
One by one, the Cast are taken from the room, tortured for hours, and brought back. It seems Augustine simply wants them to suffer, rather than to die; a "grave tactical error," as John phrases it later. Anita, for her part, is removed and not brought back. The Cast fears the worst.
Eventually, the Cast manages to free themselves of their shackles through a combination of brute strength and Cyan calling upon dark magics once again. They are visited by a member of the Mockers, who have infiltrated the cult. The Mocker advises the Cast to bide their time and wait for his signal, which he says they'll know when it happens.
Anita awakens in a hospital, and is visited by Augustine and four cultists. When she resists their orders to leave, Augustine calls upon shadowy magic to imprison her with tendrils of darkness; he carries her through the town she recognizes as the Twilight World version of Miner's Folly, and to the torture chamber. When she sees the torture table, Anita goes ballistic, managing to use Wishkill to free herself and escape into the town. She comes upon the same Mocker who visited the Cast, and he gives her clothes, then begins to argue with an imaginary friend while she gets dressed.
The town erupts into chaos as the Mockers attack in force. Anita rushes for the Sherriff's office, where the mysterious Mocker told her the rest of her companions were. She arrives in time to help the Cast dispatch two Hellions (Shadow Stalkers) and four cultists.
Together, the cast reasons that since Augustine has set himself up as a ruler, he may be living in the Mayor's chambers at City Hall. They fight their way through the town, to the building, where they discover their weapons locked in a file cabinet. In another room, they catch Augustine climbing out of a window. He cries for help, and four more Hellions walk in, along with a beautiful, black-skinned woman with feathery wings who Augustine introduces as his bodyguard, Mara. The Cast recognizes Mara for what she is: a Fallen Seraphim. Cyan once again calls upon dark magics, using a spell to steal the Night Rose right from Augustine's jacket! John, Cyan, and Drake then attack Mara while Klaus and Anita finish off the Hellions.
Mara fells Cyan and Drake. Klaus and Anita run past the angel and John, and dive out the window to give chase to Augustine. Together they defeat the Shk'ryth once and for all, just in time to save John, who has been holding his own but is fast weakening. Upon Augustine's defeat, Mara, realizing she is no longer bound to this dimension, flees to the skies.
The Cast emerge into the city to find the Mockers victorious. Their new allies point them to the location of another portal to Earth, in a cave complex nearby. The Cast gather there and re-cast the dimensional gate spell, which leaves them in the abandoned mines outside of Miner's Folly on Earth. They call upon an old Ally, John Stonehill, to aid them in getting transportation back to Pittsburgh, and return home with their prize.
Upon their return, they discover that the Rosicrucians have found Daniel. Unfortunately, the man is comatose, his soul trapped somewhere in Hod due to the malfunctioning of his Gateway Invocation, which he'd only recently learned. Until the Rosicrucians can awaken him, they have no way of knowing what, if anything, Daniel knows about Alan and his mysterious new ally...
Great Quotes:
John: That which does not kill me...has made a tactical error.
Anita: *foam, foam...twitch.*
Director: Cyan is gagged.
Director (to Cyan's player): So Cyan is probably a little turned on right now...
Drake: I second that motion.
(Gary Augustine enters)
Director: You all sense Cyan channeling Essence.
Klaus (re: Anita): Pretty tentacle rape target.
[DVD BLOOPER REEL OUTTTAKE]
(Cyan blasts Klaus's chains with a lightning bolt. Klaus falls face first on the ground.)
[DVD BLOOPER REEL OUTTAKE]
(Upon waking up and seeing Augustine and his cultists)
(The town erupts into chaos)
Director: Right, so Cyan is using Tainted magic again, John is down...
Anita (mad rantings): Be vewy vewy quiet. I'm hunting Shkwyth. Hahahahahahaahah....
(Augustine turns into a huge, black, scary crocodile)
John's Player (to Director): Okay, I know I've got enough Chi...if you'll let me pull this off.
(Upon stepping up to face Mara in single combat)
John's Player: Not the first time, won't be the last.
Anita's player: Oh, my God, I'm so glad I'm unconscious.
Klaus: Which? Ze killing or ze singing?
Drake: not the singing.
John: Is this going to be your bad soliloquy where you gloat about how we're all going to die?
Anita's Player: Except me. I sense a whole lot of tentacles.
Director: Do you go along willingly?
John's player: Fuck no, I gots me a plan!
Drake: Klaus? Didn't your mother ever teach you not to fall on your face?
Director: You all hear a key in the lock.
Klaus: Oh, shit on a stick!
Anita: Wow, you've an entourage now. You've grown a set since last I saw you.
John: Well...I'd take that as a signal, wouldn't you guys?
Klaus: And I just eviscerated ze proletariat!
Klaus: Why does everyone have to copy me?
John: Gee, I've never killed an angel before.
Great Moments:
Anita has horrific nightmare visions about Alan, with tentacles erupting from his face. We called him "Cthulhalan."
The cast meets an old enemy, Gary Augustine, again, and realizes he is somehow in league with Alan.
Cyan channels Taint to free the Cast from their bindings and help them save the world, at the risk of becoming magic addicted again. Through a series of Herculean efforts, she manages to maintain her self-control.
Once freed, Klaus uses brute strength to tear Drake's chains free. As the Cast make good their escape, a Mocker enters the cell, returning one of John's guns to him.
Anita manages to stun the Shk'ryth and four cultists long enough to escape from their clutches.
John engages a fallen angel in single combat...and survives.