Place: University of Miami, Main Campus
Time: Lunchtime to Mid-afternoon

After their draw with The Kindly Ones, the Brotherhood of the Willow heads back to friendly territory, towards the University of Miami, in search of safety and Glamour.

Officer Stallone is the first Autumn courtier they run into, and he asks what happened to them.

Stallone: “Mother of God! What happened to youse guys?”
Jim: “We picked a fight.”
Stallone: “With what, a corn-thresher?”

Stallone recommends that they go to see Johnny Shanks, who has become the Autumn Court’s medical go-to guy, following the death of Prof. Goldstein.

They go to see Shanks at his office in Rm. 229 of the Rackham Building. A whip-thin black man with ashy skin, Johnny Shanks greets them politely if not warmly. The members of the Brotherhood recall that they’ve heard he’s a Leechfinger, and a Darkling. He has small, uneven horns curling back from the sides of his head, a neck which seems able to swivel much too far, and other minor freakish features.

First, Shanks asks the members of the Brotherhood to take off their shoes while they’re in his office, to keep the place as clean as possible. Jim is barefoot. “Not a fan,” he says curtly. Shanks asks if Jim could go shower then, since in his current state he’s clearly not fit for doing anything clinical. After some haggling, Jim complies, heading for the showers in the nearby Rec Building. After showering, Jim scratches himself compulsively: he’s not used feeling clean.

Alex asks nervously about the cost of the services which Shanks is about to render. He admits that he’s behind in the rent for Old Ti, and doesn’t want them to mention it to the old man until they’re sure about the bill.

Shanks asks Jack and Jim to help out with the first aid, since he’s not the best with primary care, honestly. He just filled in when Preston was too busy. Jack does most of the medical stuff, while Jim does the lifting, carrying, standing guard, etc. After about an hour of healing, they’ve done all they can. It’s time for Caden and Alex to rest.

“So, who attacked you?” Shanks asks them. Jack and Jim tell him of their encounter with the Kindly Ones, and Shanks looks worried. Jack asks if Shanks could study him while he sleeps, in an attempt to unearth some of the old memories which were disturbed by hearing the old nursery rhyme. Shanks says that he really focuses more on nightmares than memory-recovery, but Jack might try to contact, and see about buying one of the old man’s dream-catchers? Old Ti’s dream-catchers are said to be the finest to be found in all of Miami.

Jim mentions that he’d like to spend some time at his Hollow to heal up, but Shanks insists that’s a very bad idea. Jim shouldn’t be going anywhere near the Hedge while his wounds heal. “Aren’t there some spare beds with the Spring courtiers?” Shanks asks. After a moment, it clicks in Jim’s brain that this would get him closer the Queen Espina, and he decides that he likes the idea.

On his way over to the Spring courtiers’ housing, Jim picks some flowers from some random person’s front-yard garden, and presents the bouquet to the queen upon his arrival. “For me? You shouln’t have, James!” she says, batting her eyelashes ever so slightly.

After hearing his plea for a room, the queen tells Jim that for now, he can have Rosita’s old room. All that she asks is that he make a Pledge not to reveal any Spring Court secrets he might overhear, and another to do Espina a favor, to be determined at a later date.

After cleaning his wounds and stocking up on Glamour, Jack decides that he wants to do research in the library, on various subjects: about dreams and memories, memory recovery, Mages, and the acquisition of familiars. He’s thinking of a raven or something. He also heads to the Psych section for more info on PTSD. (It’s getting on towards the really hot part of the day, around 2pm.)

At some point, Naamah meets him in the library. “You look a little worse for the wear.” Jack tells her about the fight they had with the Kindly Ones, but he doesn’t tell her everything. He’s trying to tell her enough to satisfy her curiosity, without giving away enough that she sends Slendy where the kids are.

Naamah doesn’t like how bold Summer has been lately, or that they beat back a motley of her courtiers in a (more-or-less) fair fight. “There’s a storm coming, Jack. Make no mistake about it.”

Just as Naamah says the words, Jack feels something jangle inside him, like a guitar-string breaking. He knows instantly that somewhere, somehow, The Pledge of the Frost-Branded Traitor has been broken. John St. Elmo has turned on them, and broken his oath. Jack informs Naamah instantly, and she says that Grandfather Thunder usually holds Court at about this time, when the day is hottest, so John St. Elmo probably just turned on them, in a public display at Court, designed to maximize his chances of staying alive. Naamah mentions that if this theory is true, then Thunder is aware of members of the Brotherhood by name now.

Jim, feeling the same twangle in his soul, is glad that it’s out in the open now. It’s not so cloak-and-dagger anymore.

Naamah suggests that they collect the motley together. Anyway, she needs to discuss this development with Espina.

As Jack and Naamah walk through the student housing section, a young Hispanic man in a wife-beater and shorts, shouts at them from his front porch. He storms from his porch to the sidewalk, and begins shouting irrationally, confronting Naamah about fucking his brother, and his best friend, all behind his back, and how could she do that to him anyway, who the fuck does she think she is? Naamah has never seen him before. As he’s shouting at her, something appears to snap in the guy’s head, and he doesn’t just charge the girl, he actually leaps on top of her, with a roar that Jim can hear from the Spring House. He hurries out the door, drawing his machete and running towards the source of the screaming.

Jack clubs the young man across the back with a sturdy rod of oak, and he doesn’t seem to notice. “Oh dear,” Jack says, knowing that this is generally a bad sign. Jack uses the staff to attempt to choke-hold the guy from behind and pull him off Naamah. People are yelling to call the cops, but understandably nobody’s eager to help.

Naamah invokes Fleeting Autumn, and directs the full force of her Wyrd against the young man’s mind, attempting to flood him utterly with fear. The attack fizzles against the burning intensity of the young man’s pure, unadulterated rage.

Jack pulls the guy off Naamah, and once the guy’s main target is out of range, he goes for Jack instead. After a few rounds, Jim arrives on the scene, and swings his machete into the side of the young man’s neck. Blood spurts everywhere, but he seems not to notice. “Shit,” Jim says laconically.

Jack decides to up the ante, witnesses be damned, and invokes Crone’s Fire, catching the man full in the face with the blast. His face catches on fire, but the blood is putting it out a little, and in any case it doesn’t seem to make a big difference to the young man attacking them.

Jim swings again, two-handed this time, and the guy’s head comes completely off. It rolls across the sidewalk, but it’s still gnashing its teeth and glaring even as its eyes glaze over in death. Jim kicks it a bit to make it stop looking at him.

They take Naamah, who is understandably shaken by the whole experience, into Spring House, just as the sirens start arriving. It’s clear that they’re going to be questioned by the police, but they’re all too drained to do anything about it.

“I said a storm was coming,” Naamah says. “I think we just heard the first peal of Thunder.”

Place: West Little Havana, Miami, Florida
Time: December 10, midmorning

As he hears the old nursery rhyme being sung by the children, Jack becomes paralyzed, staring off into the middle distance. “Jill,” he mutters. “Fell down… Broke… his crown?” His fellows are unable to get any form of response from him; Jack is totally lost in recollection. Unsure what to do with him, but not willing to take him into a potentially dangerous confrontation with one of the Kindly Ones, Jim and the rest of the Brotherhood of the Willow decides to hide Jack under some boxes in an alleyway. (Jack-in-the box! Get it? Har dee har har!)

For a change, Jim the Wildman is temporarily forced into a position of leadership. He walks over by the fence which surrounds the daycare center, hoping to get the lay of the land. As soon as the strangers approach, a large German Shepherd, which until now has been sitting calmly at Samantha‘s feet, dashes over and begins angrily barking at them. Samantha tells the kids it’s time for snacks, and sends them all inside.

Without preamble, Samantha tells them to get out of her neighborhood and away from her kids. Jim says that if she didn’t want trouble, she shouldn’t have attacked Queen Espina. “She was in our turf,” she says simply. “What would you do if one of the Gentry was having lunch on your doorstep? Would you wait for them to do something to you, or would you seize initiative and make the first move?”

Pointing to his cold iron knife, Jim says to her “I killed a Keeper with this knife. You ever fight a True Fae? I have. Blue Jenny doesn’t need to worry about her anymore. We get shit done, by friends and me. And we don’t like it when our friends get jumped by cowards who don’t even fight in the open. I didn’t realize that’s how Summer does stuff nowadays.”

“You pick a place," Jim tells her. "Come out and meet us there. We’ll settle this once and for all.”

After a moment’s consideration, Samantha agrees to Jim’s terms. She tells him that there’s a semi-deserted parking lot a few blocks away. She offers to meet them there in about 20 minutes, after she’s finished a few things around the daycare center. Jim leaves a message for Jack, so he knows where they went when he wakes up. Then they head for the dueling-ground.

The parking lot, just three blocks south, is very sunny and hot, full of so many weeds that it more closely resembles a meadow with abandoned cars than an urban parking lot. There are hazards scattered beneath the cover of the tall grass and ragged flowers: broken bottles, scrap metal, car parts, abandoned children’s toys, and loose chunks of asphalt and cinder-blocks.

Samantha arrives more or less on time, and she’s got the German Shepherd with her, straining at her leash. She says that “Susie” is a rescue dog, and they’re not sure what was done to her before they got her, but the dog really, really doesn’t like men. Jim calls for the two sides to “throw down and settle this”, but as he does, Samantha whistles sharply, and Pearl and Letitia burst from behind an abandoned Buick.

At about the same time as Samantha arrives, Jack wakes up with a pounding headache, and a dim memory of a woman named Jill, whom he’s sure he once knew very well. Then he notices there’s a sign on the wall saying “3 BLOKS THAT WAY →”
“Oh dear,” Jack says, and hurries off to prevent whatever Jim has planned.

Samantha slips her arms around Jim’s torso in a mighty bear-hug, and tries to throw him to the ground, while Pearl lays into Caden and Alexanre, under cover-fire from Letitia to keep the two men from getting too far from Pearl’s cold-iron poker.

A few moments into the fight, Jack arrives. Seeing that it’s gone well beyond talking, he throws himself into the fray. His first move is to try to prevent unneccesary death (and the accompanying Clarity loss) by frightening off the German Shepherd with the fear-inducing power of his staff.

After a few more rounds, Jack, seeing that the Brotherhood of the Willow is outgunned and on unfamiliar turf, screams at the top of his lungs, bringing the fight to a momentary standstill with the shocking, glamour-infused majesty of his voice. “ENOUGH!" he roars, “What were you guys thinking, picking a fight with an unfamiliar motley in their own territory? And you three! Your children are alone and unguarded while you fight strangers in broad daylight!”

Stunned out of the heat of battle, and forced to acknowledge the truth of the Fairest’s words, both motleys agree to simply “call it a draw and walk away”.

Pearl seems genuinely surprised that Jack would offer to walk away, and Alexandre’s suggestion that “We could all end this whole war today.”

Jim is pissed. He didn’t get to kill anything. AGAIN!

Place: Northern Coral Gables / West Little Havana
Time: December 10, morning

After sleeping (since they’ve been awake for almost thirty hours), the Brotherhood of the Willow piles into Jack’s car to visit the restaurant where the attack on Queen Espina occurred.

The scene: Banditos Bar & Grill, in northern Coral Gables, near the western end of Little Havana. According to sources within True Spring, Isabel Espina used to go there semi-regularly before her exile, even though it was out of her way, for their chimichangas with molé sauce. The first thing they notice about the storefront is the stickers for local businesses and causes which have been stuck to the front window, seemingly at random. Once inside, they can see that they’re being used to cover up bullet-holes. It’s cheaper than replacing the glass ever time the odd stray bullet comes their way.

While waiting for their food, they realize that the stickers are slightly foxed at the edges, indicating that they’re not recent. This would suggest that the attack did not involve gunfire, which is very odd, especially for members of the Summer Court.

The Brotherhood realizes that they need to find out if a server actually saw the attack, and if the Brotherhood can talk to him/her, without sounding really suspicious or scaring him/her off. First, they catch some easy Glamour by spooking a young woman on a date with her boyfriend with off-handed-but-clearly-audible speculation about the bullet holes in the front window. Then Jack, claiming to be a reporter, interviews their server, Carlos, for more details about the shooting. Carlos saw the whole thing happen.

According to Carlos, a pretty lady (Espina) and a few others (Ray, Selena) came in for the lunch special (chimichangas with molé sauce and Spanish rice) and sat down to eat like normal. were all in attendance. They were discussing something that involved a lot of what he assumed were codenames, like Abuelo Trueno and “Vichy Spring”, so he thought they were involved in the drug trade or something.

They were talking about a party, but they seemed to be throwing one for people they didn’t really like, which seems like a sure recipe for a bad party. Anyway, some weird-looking women, three of them, jumped the three of them as they were leaving the restaurant. (Most gang-related attacks are carried out by men, so that was odd, but not unheard-of.) One of the attacking women, the big one with the dark hair, hit the pretty one with a fireplace poker. The big husky one, she rushed up and grabbed the thin one from behind in a bear-hug and started crushing her. The older guy started running down the street yelling really loud. It looked like he was trying to draw their fire, but he did it a little too well: the Asian lady shot him before he rounded the corner, and he went down, though it didn’t look like it was a really bad wound.

That was when the cops started showing up. The attacking women appeared to flee on foot, which suggests that they must’ve been coming from pretty nearby. If they had any significant distance to go, they’d just drive. The motley thanked Carlos for his information, and Jack slipped him a twenty, and said that he’d offer the same if Carlos ever wanted to do another “interview”.

The Brotherhood pays for their food and leaves, and starts asking people if they’ve seen a group of women matching the description they’ve been given. After an hour-and-a-half of searching and asking directions from the right people, they find a ghetto-looking daycare center, with not-quite-copyright cartoon characters painted in a colorful if inexpertly-painted mural on the cinder-block wall. There’s a small playground full of rusty but well-used play equipment, surrounded by a high chain-link fence that’s clearly designed to keep people out as much as to keep the kids in. The flickering neon sign over the door reads “Maybright Daycare Center”.

As the Brotherhood of the Willow draws close to the fence, they hear a gaggle of off-key children’s voices singing a nursery rhyme:

Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water.
Jack fell down and broke his crown and Jill came tumbling after.

As he hears the old song, Jack freezes in his tracks, seemingly paralyzed by some unseen force.

Time: December 9
Location: University of Miami main campus

On the last helicopter out from the hospital, the Brotherhood of the Willow discusses what to do with their unconscious prisoners, John St. Elmo and George Zimmerman. Jack, in a seemingly calm, flat voice, says that he favors “spending the crowd’s rage” by beating the shit out of Zimmerman and/or killing him. Alexandre agrees that Zimmerman has to die, but the question is, how? They can’t just shove him out the door of the helicopter. The idea of dumping the body in the Hedge for the Hobgoblins to find is briefly entertained, but Caden counsels against killing the man: he’s never done them any harm, and besides, that way lies madness.

Officer Rico Stallone greets them upon landing with a small squad of ensorcelled security officers, takes Zimmerman away to be quartered somewhere on campus. He also takes Preston’s body away for burial, to avoid inconvenient questions about why a dead body was moved from the scene.

The Brotherhood then delivers the sad news to Naamah, who takes it surprisingly badly. Preston was always kind to her, and as the tears begin flowing, Jim ducks out, feeling very uncomfortable. He decides to talk to Espina about the recent attempt on her life. Selena tells him The Kindly Ones attacked the Queen and some of her followers at a planning-session for the Yuletide party. Ray was shot, and is still in the shop for repairs. The queen was just grazed.

Jim: Well, there’s another group for the list.
Selena: [smiling] “You know, sometimes you and I see eye to eye.”

Jack is in a decidedly non-forgiving mood, and decides to vent some of his spleen upon John St. Elmo. Jack gets himself some “tools” from the science department: pliers, hammer, liquid nitrogen, and protective gear. Rico Stallone requires that before they begin this interrogation, they must Pledge to not intentionally kill John St. Elmo.

The first thing they do is remove John’s signature sunglasses, and discover to their genuine surprise that behind them are a pair of perfectly normal eyes, in every respect. What’s more, they’re the kind that get darker in sunlight and lighter at night, so they don’t actually impede his night-vision any more than a normal pair of glasses would. Apparently, he just wears them to enhance his own mythos.

They begin playing around with the pliers and tools, and probing his mind for fears with Fleeting Autumn (he’s apparently afraid of eels). Jim starts flicking droplets of water onto St. Elmo’s face, where they sizzle like water on a hot skillet. Suddenly, John invokes Ogre’s Rending Grasp, and breaks the chair out from under himself, and smashes Jim across the face with the remainder of it. He fights well, but Jim and Alex manage to subdue him ad re-bind him.

The Brotherhood makes John swear a Pledge to be their spy in the Summer Court:

The Pledge of the Frost-Branded Traitor
Task: Alliance, Medial (-2) – John will report to them about Summer’s movements, and Ban, lesser (-1) John will keep the pledge secret from Grandfather Thunder and the rest of the Summer Court (except for the other members of the Apostolic Knights).
Boon: Favor, Medial (2) – the Brotherhood of the Willow will protect him from any harm with which Summer threatens him, or his motley (1).
Sanction: Curse, Medial (-2) – only 9s or 10s count as successes.
Duration: Season (+2) – 89 days (ends in late February)

As a final question, Jim asks John St. Elmo what would really, really get Deathless Ivan’s goat. Since there’s no love lost between the enforcer and the Sheriff, John agrees to throw Jim a bone: Grandfather Thunder insists on decorum at all formal gatherings, and he compels Deathless Ivan to wear a custom-made tuxedo to every official Summer Court function that the giant attends.

The Brotherhood reasons that since he’s more than eight feet tall, Ivan can’t just go to a store and rent another; if that tuxedo were to be stolen just before a major social event, Ivan would be forced to follow wherever they led, in order to retrieve it, or risk Thunder’s wrath.

John’s story will be that he chased the Brotherhood’s helicopter from the hospital, but lost them after a while. Their story will be that they were transporting him to The Green Man’s Hollow when he overpowered them and escaped. The discrepancy between them will (hopefully) be accounted as the difference of the rumor mill.

John: “At least I’ll be where I can’t smell you anymore.”
Jim: “Yuk it up.”

Rico Stallone informs the Brotherhood that Naamah has called an emergency Court in the Arboretum, and all Autumn courtiers available are obliged to attend. Since the hospital is under siege, the Queen is collecting volunteers for a mission to rescue Preston, who may not even realize the danger he’s in; likely owing to the enormous volume of patients and the rioters outside, he’s not responding to Autumn’s attempts to contact him. Since it’s only one person, no matter how valuable his skills, Naamah’s not willing to risk more than one motley for the mission, but she’s been able to pull some strings in the University to get a helicopter for their evac.

The Brotherhood of the Willow volunteers for the job. To avoid notice by rioters, they take the monorail part of the way, so they don’t need to leave Jack’s car lying around in the middle of a riot. Upon disembarking, they see a Latino man being beaten up by a knot of rioters. Jim scares the assailants off with a roar, and then sets the man’s broken nose with a single, clean jerk. “You’ll thank me later,” the giant reassures him over the sound of his protests.

As they finish up, the Brotherhood and Quiet Luke both see each other. Quiet Luke bolts, and the Brotherhood decides to let him go; they’ve got bigger fish to fry. The security guards recognize Caden, who works at the hospital, and let the Brotherhood pass through. They head for Preston’s office and the ER, but are unable to find him. The rioters outside are getting restless, and they overhear a nurse saying that they’ve begun to triage and move patients to a safer location, because the rioters are now actively seeking to break down the hospital’s doors in their hunt for George Zimmerman.

Jack has a bright idea (har de har har) and heads for the Communications room, where he pages Preston over the PA system, asking him to report to the western stairway. On their way to meet them, a door bursts open, and who should step through but the Apostolic Knights! Quiet Luke, for some reason, is not with them. The two motleys engage in melee, forsaking firearms to avoid drawing undue attention, and to prevent deafening both sides in an enclosed space.

John and Matthew charge the Brotherhood, but they are repulsed by the Autumn motley’s newly-improved firepower and weaponry. Mark shields his fellows while beating his chest and boasting that here, in the heart of a riot, the Apostolic Knights are invincible thanks to an unlimited supply of wrathful Glamour (they don’t even need to take time to harvest it!) Jack, after a few moments of thought, comes up with a very simple way to throw a wet blanket over their Glamour-supply: he pulls the fire-alarm, setting off sprinklers and soaking everything as klaxons blare and patients scramble to escape the hospital. Enraged at the loss of their easy Glamour, the Apostolic Knights redouble their efforts.

Rather than allow the Knights to distract them, the Brotherhood decides to split up and find Preston as soon as they can: Jim and Alexandre stay to fight, while Caden and Jack make a beeline for the west stairway, fighting against the fleeing mass of humanity to reach the wayward Chirurgeon.

Two muffled gunshots go off, and to their horror, Jack and Caden arrive to find Preston lying at the bottom of the stairs in a pool of his own blood, and Quiet Luke readying his snub-nosed revolver for another shot. Seeing them, he redirects his fire, but Jack manages to distract him with a blast of Crone’s Fire. Caden picks up the fallen Wizened, and tries to carry him to safety, but a lucky shot from Quiet Luke passes right through the old man’s neck, killing him instantly.

Luke tries to flee the scene, but Caden, using his training in parkour, leaps several railings in a series of lightning-fast leaps, blocking the fleeing Oracle’s escape with a stare as cold and pitiless as ice. Jack, in contrast, seems utterly consumed by burning rage, and releases barrage after barrage of Crone’s Fire against Luke, heedless of the cost. Luke leaps sideways over the railing, attempting to flee downwards, but Jack catches him from behind with a vicious blast, and Quiet Luke is dead before he hits the linoleum.

Meanwhile, Jim and Alex take on Mark Stalwart while the other Knights lick their wounds. Mark manages only a few body-blows before Jim brings the Stonebones to his knees with a well-placed stab of his skinning-knife. Mark draws a magnum in a last-ditch effort to turn the tide, but Alex parries the gun right out of its owner’s hand, knocking it into a puddle and rendering the firearm useless.

Howling with rage, Strong Matthew hurls his sledgehammer at Jim’s shoulder and charges, sidearm forgotten, ready to tear the Farwalker’s throat out with his bare teeth. Jim manages to break the hold before the Gristlegrinder can take a bite, and another well-placed stab, this time from Alexandre, brings down the other Ogre. Badly wounded, all his comrades-in-arms missing or gravely injured, John St. Elmo is forced to surrender to the Brotherhood of the Willow. He asks only that they lead Mark and Matthew unmolested, so the hospital staff have a chance to save them. Alexandre binds the Elemental’s hands with his leather belt, and they lead him off to the west stairway.

When they see Preston’s body, the arriving members of the Brotherhood are horrified, and John is enraged at the murder of his companion. Jim is forced to knock him out to quiet him. Jack is prepared to kill St. Elmo on the spot (“an eye for an eye”), but surprisingly, Alexandre acts as the voice of reason, urging Jack to not “let himself go”, and to “remember what brought you back [from Arcadia].”

Once they arrive at the roof, the Brotherhood is greeted by the promised helicopter, but a team or nurses arrives on the roof and urges them to take another patient with them: George Zimmerman! Management has decided that Zimmerman needs to leave the hospital, and the fastest way for them to do that is by helicopter. The hope is that once the rioters learn that Zimmerman is no longer in the building, they will disperse.

The Brotherhood is now faced with a difficult choice: Should they kill a man who’s never harmed them, to cut off Summer’s supply of easy Glamour? Or should they let him live to save their Clarity, and possibly make the University of Miami the new target of the irae populi?

Time:
Place:

After the battle with the Stimmies, Captain Mollymawk brings the Brotherhood of the Willow to safe anchor in the marina at Dinner Key, in the shadow of Miami City Hall, not far from the University. Officer Rico Stallone (a handsome Autumn courtier who they’ve seen but never introduced themselves to) arrives to pick them up in his squad car. Taking them back to campus, he tells them that the war isn’t going as well, after the Trayvon Martin case. The city is being throwing off wrathful glamour in the wake of the shooting, giving the Court of Wrath an unforeseen edge in the conflict.

Rico says that thanks to the fistfights and petty assaults which have gripped Miami in the shooting’s wake, Prof. Goldstein is now too busy at the hospital to treat even members of his own Court. They’re swamped with injuries of all stripes. Instead, Jack is rushed to the University, where he’s treated by Granny Smythe, using a poultice developed from various Goblin Fruits by a young Autumn courtier named Donna Bellagio. While she’s treating Jack’s wounds, Jim shows her the corpse of a Stimmie he kept in his jacket; she comments that Stimmies were driven ashore back in ’28, just before the Big Blow.

While he’s under sedation, Jack receives a dream visit from Dame Dob, telling him that she has some mystical training for him. Surprisingly, she says that she’s also got some instruction for Jim, if he wants to come along. She says that she’s doing it “as a favor to Morrigan”, but won’t elaborate on who Morrigan is. (She also says that Alex and Caden can come too if they like.) When Jack wakes, Granny is stuffing the other members of the Brotherhood with Crawfish étouffée. Alex is busy reading up on the Trayvon Martin case. He doesn’t like what he sees. “This could explode all over us,” he observes.

Before heading to the Everglades for their meeting with Dame Dob, the Brotherhood stops by True Spring, to tell Espina about the meeting they arranged with Admiral Finn. On the way, they run into Naamah in conference with Rico Stallone and Donna Bellagio. They tell her about the meeting with the Admiral. Naamah says that Mollymawk’s excuse for taking them through the Deep, saying that the harbor was full of glamour-mines, is the dumbest idea she’s ever heard. “There’s no such thing as Glamour-mines,” she claims, but she still agrees to meet with Finn (if for no other reason than the Neptune Society will make good meat-shields when the storm comes in from the sea.) Naamah assents to the meeting but reminds them that “You’ve still got Espina to convince.” “That’s what Jim is for,” says Jack, patting the giant’s arm.

They proceed to check on the progress of the Yuletide celebration. Not well, as it turns out: Queen Espina is somewhere between put-out and frustrated: True Spring is badly out of practice with throwing parties. They’ve been living hand-to-mouth in the ’Glades for several years. They’re arguing about waste and cost and secrecy and security for the party, and nothing can be agreed on. Selena points out that, as immature as they are, Shimmering Spring (a.k.a. Vichy Spring) does have more experience throwing parties. “She always loved her mother’s parties," she observes to no-one in particular.

Finally, the Brotherhood makes their way to the Aboretum, and Jim’s Hollow. There’s just one problem: the entrance has moved! Jim is, naturally, quite upset, but manages to find the entrance only a few yards away from where he left it. They pass into his Hollow, only to find Dame Dob waiting for them! She laughs at their surprise, and counsels Jim to double-check his security: the Ward he placed involved killing a turtle, and as such it will admit Beasts. The entrance, mole-like, will continue to burrow around, moving the entrance to his Hollow in an unpredictable fashion. Jim vows to discuss it with the Widow Mactan.

Jack introduces her and explains how he came to meet her, and Caden makes a surprising revelation: he met a similar woman during his escape from Arcadia, though he met a White Lady, not a Crone like Jack. After this, Jim reveals that he, too, met a mysterious lady on his return, a warrior-woman who called herself Mother Morrigan, and taught him how to be human again. (Alex looks at them all a little mistrustfully, saying that he never met anyone like they’re describing.)

Dame Dob offers to teach them “bits and pieces” of stronger magic and lore, which could save their hides in a fight. She offers to teach Jack “Contracts of Light,” and Jim “Contracts of the Stalking Cat.” It takes two days, but the Brotherhood of the Willing learns well under her tutelage, and return to the Trident stronger (and more tired) then when they left it.

Epilogue: As they walk out of the Arboretum, Officer Stallone stumbles across them, and has his sidearm half-drawn before he realizes it’s them. While they’ve been gone, the city has exploded: there’s been another attempt on Queen Espina’s life, and George Zimmerman has been shot by protesters on his way to his bail hearing. He’s been taken to University of Miami Hospital, which rioters have surrounded. Even now, they’re beating down the gates, baying for his blood, being whipped into a frenzy by Summer’s courtiers.

Place: Hensteeth (Miami Beach, FL)
Time: December 6

After Nibbles’ unexpected revelation that The Court of Wrath has begun posting its own guards to the JFK Causeway, effectively sealing the Brotherhood of the Willow off from support, Jeremiah Sleet apologizes to the Brotherhood. He says that while he won’t turn them out on the street, he has to put his own Court first. Winter can move around on their own to get past Grandfather Thunder‘s guards if necessary, but they can’t afford to compromise the secrecy of their movements. However, since they are his guests, he points them in the direction of assistance: The Neptune Society maintains much of its fleet at the Miami Beach Marina at the southern end of the island, and if the Brotherhood can make them an offer, they might be able to get a lift back to Autumn territory. Sleet tells Nibbles to escort them, unseen, to the marina. Sleet sets to making preparations to move Hensteeth to a new, more secure location.

Nibbles leads them an uneventful few blocks to the marina, where they see a breathtakingly-beautiful mer-woman climbing out of the water. (Alexandre‘s reaction is typical; he lays it on thick, even going so far as to actually kiss her hand. She does not seem to accept his advances.) She sees them as well, and introduces herself as Melissa, a member of Maria Espina’s retinue. She observes (correctly) that they are quite far from home, and she knows that Summer has posted guards to all the land-routes in or out of Miami Beach. Assuming (again, correctly) that they’re here to get a ride from the Neptune Society, she urges them to reconsider: the Society is weak in Freehold politics, and unpopular with Shimmering Spring (a.k.a. Vichy Spring) in particular. Associating themselves (and by extension, the Autumn Court) with the Neptune Society would be “social suicide”.

Melissa offers them the support of Shimmering Spring, but admits that they don’t really have a way to get them home right away, though “anything would be better than hanging out with those losers, right?” Jack thanks her kindly, and manages to change the subject to Isabel Espina’s upcoming Yuletide celebration, which puts Melissa on the defensive, since she is, of course, “better-informed than anyone” about Miami’s social calendar. The mermaid’s interest is piqued, but the Brotherhood excuses itself, leaving the Shimmering Spring courtier quite put-out.

The Brotherhood makes its way to the harbormaster’s office, where they meet Captain Larus Mollymawk, master and commander of the S.S. Gossamer, and a ranking officer in the Neptune Society for more than four decades. He is gruff and mistrustful of them at first, but upon perceiving the attention they could bring him, he explains the situation more fully to them.

The Neptune Society is part of the Freehold of Miami, but not part of any Court: they serve the Freehold, not any particular ruler. This has, understandably, made them unpopular with many rulers, but especially with Grandfather Thunder. This lack of official support has cost them much of their funding and other resources. Much of the fleet is in disrepair, and the Neptune Society has difficulty even making the basic patrols necessary to keep the Trident safe from the horrors of The Deep. Mollmawk is willing to cut a deal with them: he will provide them safe passage, free of charge (a rare offer indeed!), in exchange for their Pledge to set up a meeting between the Neptune Society’s senior officers and the Queens of Autumn and Spring, to discussed increased funding and support for the Society’s operational budget. Seeing little choice otherwise, the Brotherhood agrees.

Captain Mollymawk takes them to his ship, the S.S. Gossamer, and introduces her crew: Big Bertha, the quartermaster; Willard Seacrest, the Engineman; and Monique Washington, Master-at-Arms. Mollymawk gives the order to cast off, and soon they are under way. The captain explains the because Summer has recently mined the harbor, it will be necessary to take them home by way of The Deep. About midway through the voyage, the Gossamer is boarded by a sharklike monstrosity which (after nearly attacking it), they are told is actually a member of the Gossamer’s crew: Bruce, their Special Reconaissance Operative.

Bertha spots a strange cloud off the port stern. Monique takes a closer look, shouts in dismay, and disappears to warn the captain. The cloud is not a cloud at all, but a massive, shrieking flock of bronze-feathered Hobgoblins called Stimmies, and they’re getting closer. Willard throws everything he can into the engines, but the flock overtakes them. A fierce battle ensues, leaving Jack seasick, heavily wounded, and slightly shotgunned, but the crew manages to pull through and drive off the flock, and bring their passengers safely to shore, in accordance with their end of the bargain.

Time: December 6th
Place: The University of Miami

The Brotherhood of the Willow emerges from the therapy room and discusses their findings with Naamah, who is leaning against the wall just outside the door. “What’s the stick up Espina’s butt?” she asks. They tell her that Rosita “told Winter everything”; Naamah is pissed about this, of course, but impressed that such a young girl managed to get so deeply under Espina’s skin. “Maybe she could give me lessons,” she muses.

Naamah agrees with Espina’s decision that Rosita remain at the University, but for different reasons: they need time to assess exactly what Rosita told the Silent Arrow about True Spring (and Autumn too, for that matter), and if they were to bring Rosita to their meeting with Hensteeth, there would be no bargaining chip to encourage future negotiations with the Onyx Court. They could just “liberate” their wayward courtier on the spot, and there would be little the Brotherhood of the Willow could do to prevent that, on Winter’s home-turf.

In an attempt to make peace with the still-angry Queen of Spring, the Brotherhood goes to the student housing section, where they make an offer they’re sure will cheer her up: “Thunder has a free hand with festivals. Why not upstage him with a festival of our own?” Jack offers. A traditional Yuletide celebration, more akin to Mardi Gras than Christmas, would be just the thing to but a bee in Thunder’s bonnet. Especially if “something unfortunate” were to happen to his own festivities. Espina loves the idea, and immediately begins to set plans in motion to show Grandfather Thunder what Spring can really do.

Time: December 6th
Place: Miami Beach Holocaust Memorial

The Brotherhood then makes their circuitous way to Liberty City, where they meet up with Blue Jenny in the food court of a ramshackle shopping mall. She is testy and resentful, but a few reminders of the debt she owes them makes her less unpleasant to speak with. She then drives them across the JFK Causeway to Miami Beach, for their rendezvous with the King of Winter at Hensteeth, the mobile headquarters of the Onyx court.

They park their cars and walk the few blocks to the Holocaust Memorial in South Beach. In deserted alleyway, they bump into a gang of Latino youths. The leader of the gang accuses Jim of stepping on his new white shoes, and begins (somewhat unwisely) to threaten the giant man with physical violence, demanding that Jim replace his shoes. Jim, predictably, does not take kindly to this, and after trying to warn the kid off, resolves the issue by pinning the youth against a wall, several inches above the ground, and calmly placing a machete against his throat.

The gang members immediately draw their pieces and cock them, but don’t fire, for fear of hitting their leader or drawing the police. Jack, beginning a Tale of the Baba Yaga, says “Now Boggy, I’m sure that this is all a big misunderstanding. Oh, what’s that boys? Haven’t you heard about my friend here? You’re not familiar with the Legend of Boggy Creek?” A few moments of tale-spinning, plus a bit of judicious muscle-flexing from Jim, sends the youths running for safety, but not before warning the Brotherhood to “watch out for the Aces High, ese!”

Jenny, emerging from the empty doorway where she’d been hiding, congratulates them, and hurries them along to an abandoned Art Deco hotel called “The Astro”, which is the current site of Hensteeth, only a few blocks from the Holocaust Memorial. (Along the way, Jack botches his Streetwise roll, and briefly attracts the unwanted attentions of a homeless woman.)

Security is tight, and right off the bat they’re confronted by two unpleasant looking men: Enrique Ironsides, an Ogre with a sour disposition and too many teeth, and Molorus the Strangler, whom they later learn is Marie Saint-Saens’ pimp. The big men frisk all five of them and take their weapons, but Jack manages to hold onto his staff, and Alexandre conceals the true nature of his sword-cane from them.

They are ushered through the building by an acne-scarred youth in a hoodie, and brought to an antechanmber of sorts, where they wait a few minutes for their audience to begin. During their conversation, Caden points out that they’ve got a deadline for convincing Sleet to join Naamah’s uprising: it’s only 19 days until the Winter Solstice, the time of year when Sleet will most keenly feel the pinch of not ruling the Freehold. After that point, he will become progressively more amenable to Thunder’s continued rule.

A small man with a large backpack ushers the Brotherhood into an office where Jeremiah Sleet is waiting for them. Jack dances around from argument to argument, but each thrust is met with a graceful rhetorical parry from the King of Winter. Eventually, Jim gets fed up with the indirectness of it all, and lays all their cards on the table: Grandfather Thunder trusts Sleet not to interfere, which puts Sleet in a very advantageous position over the Court of Wrath. If he chose to, he could slip a knife into Thunder’s ribs, making the Court of Sorrow into the new favorites of the Trident, catapulting Winter into the position of respect and power that has historically been denied to them.

Sleet chews on Jim’s words for a moment, then smiles subtly. “Tempting,” the King of Winter admits, “Very tempting.”

Nibbles enters the meeting room with a tray of drinks, and news for his King. Summer has just posted a watch on the JFK Causeway, to monitor the one bridge to Miami Beach that’s not directly under their control. Slowly, the Brotherhood realizes that this means that, for the moment, they’re trapped in Miami Beach!

Time: December 1st
Place: UofM Psychology Bldg.

Once they arrive safely back at the University of Miami’s main campus, the Brotherhood of the Willow makes a beeline for the Linda Ray Intervention Center, where Jack, posing as a staff member, requests a session-room for a few hours (“for treatment of a hysterical adolescent patient”.) They take Rosita in through a delivery door in back, to reduce the likelihood of being seen.

Selena checks her cell phone and tells them that the queens are on the way. Jack buys candy and pop from a vending machine downstairs, and bumps into Isabel Espina as she arrives. Jim, while guarding Rosita, lets Naamah and Cerastes into the session-room. Once both queens are there, they immediately come to loggerheads about who gets to be present for the actual interrogation. Naamah says that if Selena can stay, then so can Cerastes. Espina counters that she only has one of her courtiers in the room, while Naamah already has four. Eventually they compromise, asking Alex, Caden, and Cerastes to leave.

Of course, Jack and Jim don’t use any “intensive interrogation techniques” on Rosita, but they do play “Good Cop, Bad Cop” respectively. Jack offers Rosita a bar of chocolate and a bottle of water, which she (of course) refuses. Jim glowers and grumbles, seemingly ready to burst forth with a torrent of rage. “This is a waste of time,” he shouts, “Let’s get some answers already!”

Rosita remains boldly defiant. She hurls invective at the older changelings: how they failed to save her, how they never helped her learn to take care of herself like her new friends have. How they bicker and argue even as they take on the full might of Summer, and fail to present a unified front against him: resistance is pointless, only by remaining hidden can they hope to brave the storm of Thunder’s wrath. She calls them names, she threatens, she belittles, she rages, she even weeps occasionally, but Jim and Jack continue to slowly-but-surely wear down her defenses.

With time, they obtain useful information: Rosita is a new convert to the Onyx Court, so she’s an unlikely source of the leak that’s been plaguing Autumn and True Spring; Rosita was taken in by Winter after her partner Cedric was killed by Summer enforcers; and in gratitude for their “kindness” Rosita told them absolutely everything she knows about both Spring and Autumn.

At this news, Queen Isabel bursts into a rage, calling the girl “a traitor of the worst sort” (and many unkinder names as well). The Antler Crown vows that she will not allow the girl to go free to be killed and/or captured by the Iron Spear, or even some of the more unscrupulous members of Vichy Spring. Jim steps between the girl and her queen, and Jack tries to calm her down, saying that keeping Rosita against her will makes them “no better than the Gentry.”

Espina gives a noncommittal “We’ll discuss this later,” and storms out, leaving Selena to watch the girl until she can be moved to a more secure location within the University.

Seeing that Rosita’s alliances have shifted (or been revealed), the Brotherhood of the Willow decides to return her to the Court of Spring, for her own good, and for the protection of Courtly secrets. Jack and Caden drive off to the University, taking a circuitous route to avoid Summer-controlled districts. Jim and Alex remain behind to keep watch over their quarry, lest they flee. The giant and the mute set up a stake-out in the diner across the street.

Jack and Caden arrive in Coral Gables without incident, and rush to the student housing area, seeking Queen Isabel. They find her painting and cleaning, alongside her courtiers. Jack and Caden come up to her and say simply “We’ve found her.”

CUT TO: Little Haiti
After a few minutes, Rosita and Marie leave the apartment, carrying laundry baskets full of dirty clothes. Jim and Caden follow, managing not to be seen by the two women. They walk to a nearby laundromat, and begin, strangely enough, doing laundry. Like it’s totally normal or something. Jim and Alex shift their outpost to a Creole-style diner across the street from the laundromat, and order tassot sandwiches while they wait.

CUT TO: UofM student housing
Jack explains the situation and the circumstances through which they found the girl, while Caden takes text messages from Alex letting him know what’s going on. Espina decides that the girl knows too much, and must be returned home. She tells the Brotherhood to bring Rosita back, and sends her bodyguard Selena to accompany them. During the ride to Little Haiti, Selena states simply that she doesn’t like the situation, and feels like it was too easy to find the girl.

CUT TO: Little Haiti
Officer Larouche walks into the diner, asking Jim and Alex if they had any luck finding Marie Saint-Saens. They say they didn’t and were just sitting down for a bite before they continue looking. Larouche offers to have his fellow courtiers put out a search for the girl, but Jim and Alex politely decline. Jim notices that Rosita and Marie are leaving the laundromat, and are heading across the street, straight for their diner. Jim excuses himself to the bathroom, fearing that the sight of him would spook the girl. Larouche recognizes the two women and greets them, saying that “these guys have been looking for you two.”

At the sight of Alexandre, Rosita freezes, and Alex gives Jim the signal (a dropped fork), that things are about to go south. Rosita bolts out the door and into the parking lot, just in time to see Jack and Co. get out of their car. Rosita, truly panicking now, runs away from both groups. Maria draws a switchblade and stands up to Jim, to give the girl more time, but Jim simply shoves the woman aside and leaps over her. Selena is upon the girl almost immediately, but Rosita slips from her grip. Throwing caution to the winds, Jim tackles the wayward girl to the pavement, while Jack goes into damage-control mode, invoking the Mask of Superiority to make himself appear a white-labcoat-wearing psychologist who’s just taking a hysterical girl back to the psych ward where she belongs.

They drag Rosita into the car and drive away, and make Clarity rolls for kidnapping. Jim and Jack both lose Clarity but do not gain derangements; the rest of them succeed on their Clarity rolls.)

Naamah tells the Brotherhood of the Willow that Isabel Espina is “being impossible”; the queen is holding up the entire operation and making Naamah’s life very difficult by holding up the entire operation with a search for “some lost chit of a girl who didn’t make it to the rendezvous-point. Name’s ‘Rose’ or something.”

The members of True Spring who are still at the University are making their dwellings ready for habitation. Isabel Espina is their too, with Selena, and much of her entourage. She tells them that Rosita hasn’t been seen since the firefight at Mariposa’s. The other half of her two-man-cell, Cedric the Satyr, turned up at the City Morgue, but they don’t have any leads on Rosita’s wherabouts. All they know is that the route they were taking would probably have brought them through Little Haiti.

The Brotherhood piles into Jack’s car and head’s for Little Haiti, where Alexandre introduces them to Old Ti, the aged, nearsighted, Ensorcelled vodouisant with whom Alex has been staying for the past months. Ti doesn’t remember seeing anyone matching Rosita’s description (not that that proves much), but he tells them Ludovic Larouche, the Winter Court police officer whose beat is Little Haiti, might have a better idea.

Officer Larouche has a vague recollection, but says that Marie St. Saens, an Ensorcelled mortal hooker has a fondness for runaways, so the Brotherhood decides to knock on her door. They wind up running into her while she’s out getting groceries, and they ask her about Rosita. Marie is not forthcoming with information, and she clams up a little too quickly for Jack’s liking. Jim stalks her to her house to see if there’s anything funny going on, and when she knocks on the door of her apartment, it’s answered by none other than Rosita! The girl appears to be unharmed, and she’s sporting flip-flops, jean-shorts, a t-shirt… and a touch of hoarfrost on her curly, vine-like hair.

Act 1: On the Mend

Jim, the only one with serious injuries, is taken to Prof. Goldstein’s office at the University of Miami hospital, where he is treated in secret by the vernerable surgeon. Once Jim is on the mend, Jack and Alexandre make a trip to Miami Memorial Park Cemetery, to see if they can contact the restless spirit of Tom Hood.

Upon arriving at the military cemetery, they bypass the guard and make their way to the black obelisk which marks the final resting place of Hood’s earthly remains. They are confronted by four ghostly soldiers: their tags identify them as Maj. Forbes, Lt. Cmdr. Gardner, Lt. Wilson, and Lt. McCallister. They claim to be compatriots of the late Commander Hood, though Alexandre’s analysis claims they’re only partly-revenant; much of their ectoplasmic structure is shaped by the expectations of visitors to the graveyard. In effect, they’re partly the memories of soldiers buried here, and partly the memories of loved ones coming to pay their respects.

Alexandre makes them an offering of rum and tobacco, and the soldiers agree to truthfully answer one question apiece. They say that 1) Ivan’s curious ability is Glamour-fueled, 2) that Tom Hood’s ghost does not walk the earth, 3) that Tom learned much of his lore from “The Book of Crows”, which he brought back from Faeire when he escaped from his Keeper in the Bastigone region of France, and 4) that The Book of Crows was stolen by La Llorona, and is currently in the hands of Jeremiah Sleet. Jack and Alex make the proper obsequies to the restless dead, and make a judicious exit from the cemetery.

Act 2: Small Business Saturday

Once Jim has had a couple of days to heal, the Brotherhood makes its way to the Bayside Marketplace, to join in the busiest shopping weekend of the year. They encounter several Hobgoblins, including the Widow Mactan. Jim needs to make some improvements to his Hollow, so he purchases two things from the Widow: a mole which will dig another entrance through the Hedge, and a turtle which Jim can smash on his threshold to increase the power of its Wards.

Jim also conducts some business with Estevan: Jim offers the hyena-faced merchant a used machete coated with with Deathless Ivan’s blood, a stabbed alligator-hide jacket splattered with Jim’s own blood, and a flak jacket. In exchange, Estevan prodces a 3-dot suit of Hedgespun made from the hide of a Blackgator, which counts as armor (and gives a Stealth bonus when the wearer is standing still in a natural setting), and a pistol holster that will conceal an entire shotgun.

Thanksgiving Day is here, and that can only mean one thing: feasting! But there are many ways to feast, and for the Lost of Miami, their preferred course is the bumper-crop of Glamour produced in the bleachers of Sun Life Stadium. Every vice, every virtue, and every flavor of emotion can be sampled or indulged at this annual tradition, and this year the spread promises to be especially rich, as the Hurricanes are hosting their traditional rivals, the Georgia State Panthers. Grandfather Thunder promises that the ancient pacts of sanctuary will hold true, even in this time of war: he personally guarantees the safety of every changeling who chooses to attend, as long as they do not attract too much attention from the Muggles.

At first, it sounds like an obvious trap, or else terrible hubris on Thunder’s part, but Naamah thinks he means what he says. It’s in no one’s interest for him to have killing at the stadium; it’s a powerful tool for keeping his subjects happy, and far too valuable in the long term for him to throw it all away on killing a few random revolutionaries. Second, by throwing a party in the midst of a war, he’s showing off the Iron Spear’s confidence and strength, to its friends and its enemies. Finally, Thunder couldn’t cancel the event even if he wanted to: every changeling in the Trident has been looking forward to the game all year long, and especially since two weeks ago when the Dolphins trounced the Patriots and the matchup was announced.

The Brotherhood agrees to attend, and to harvest some extra Glamour on the Autumn Court’s behalf. The stadium is absolutely packed with people, both Muggles and changelings alike. They meet up with several personalities, some new, like Bruno, some already well-known to the Brotherhood, such as Blue Jenny. Jenny owes them a favor, and after a little “cajoling,” she agrees to take them to Hensteeth itself for a rare audience with Jeremiah Sleet, the King of Winter.

The Brotherhood of the Willow even manages to catch a glimpse of Grandfather Thunder himself, seeing him in person for the first time. He takes no notice of them, but his bodyguard Deathless Ivan takes brief notice of them in his continual scanning of the crowd for signs of danger.

To avoid the rush, the Brotherhood leaves a little early, and heads back to the University in Jack’s car. They stop by to check on one of the houses which is being vacated for the Court of True Spring, when a very large person approaches them on the sidewalk: Deathless Ivan. Ivan hands Jack a letter which he claims comes from Thunder himself, but suddenly lashes out and decks Jack in the face, setting off a vicious street brawl. Jim holds his own against the other giant, but is seriously injured by Ivan’s brutal war-axe. In the course of the battle, they learn three important facts about Ivan: first, he’s here without Thunder’s knowlege or permission; second, he knows that Thanksgiving Day is a day of truce, and he doesn’t care; third, Ivan apparently has the ability to force his own wounds to knit and heal instantaneously. How he does this is not immediately clear.

As the battle begins to look bad for Jim and the other combatants, the Slender Man arrives on the scene, no doubt at Naamah’s order. Ivan, seeing what he believes to be a True Fae appear in the heart of Miami, decides discretion really is the better part of valor, leaving the Brotherhood of the Willow to escape on their own from the many-armed monster.

For the sake of verisimilitude, they flee as well.

True Spring and representatives of Autumn (Preston, Hannibal, and Cerastes) meet for negotiations at Mariposa’s Grill, a small establishment on the western edge of the city, run by an ensorcelled mortal and her changeling husband. Naamah and Isabel Espina come to loggerheads almost immediately: Naamah didn’t expect such a large turnout, and isn’t sure the University can house them all together without attracting unwanted attention from the Muggles. Espina refuses to have her Court broken up, and accuses Naamah of trying to keep then divided. Naamah insists that it’s a logistical problem, and they’ll have to bunk separately, in private residences.

The Brotherhood of the Willow suggests that perhaps some of the houses in the student-ghetto around the University could be “haunted” and emptied out. Members of True Spring could then pose as students and live mostly together, while still remaining near the University.

In the midst of the negotiations, Summer courtiers arrive on the scene, and a firefight breaks out. While True Spring is larger than the attacking force, they lack long-range weaponry to properly counter the attack. Ray and Isabel Espina both take wounds from the three female Summer courtiers who seem to be leading the charge: a tall woman in a black leather jacket and matching biker-helmet, with wild orange hair spilling out from beneath it; a thin Asian woman with deadly aim; and a husky woman covered in thick brown fur. Cerastes identifies them as The Kindly Ones, a relatively-new Summer motley renowned for their ferocity.

Thanks to some quick thinking and the Tale of the Baba-Yaga, Jack manages to turn the attack into a brief retreat, during which the True Spring courtiers scatter to their vehicles and head separately into the city. Riding in their vehicle with a shaken Cerastes and a furious Naamah, the Queen points out that Mariposa’s Grill is far outside of Thunder’s jurisdiction, and their meeting place was not agreed-upon until just before True Spring left the Everglades.

Someone, from either Spring or Autumn, told Thunder exactly where and when they could be found.

The Court of True Spring is making ready to send their Queen on her journey to the Trident, and all is going well, though all the change and activity has some courtiers on-edge. As the sun begins to set, the Brotherhood notices a commotion at the far end of the camp. Following the noise, they see Lafayette returning, carrying an unresponsive Rosita in his arms. She is wearing Lafayette’s jacket. And nothing else.

Lafayette says that he and the girl were both out in the Hedge (he was hunting, she was gathering Goblin Fruit), when the Hedge suddenly began to get dark, much more quickly than any natural sunset. The little swamp-noises went totally silent, and he felt… something evil and clammy passing by. He never saw it, and it had covered its tracks and scent with Nevertread, but whatever it was, Lafayette could feel its Wyrd from pretty far off, warping the Hedge to match its dark and silent mien. As soon as Rosita is out of his arms, Lafayette begins taking deep pulls on a bottle of moonshine, in order to block out the crawling sensation of being watched.

Rosita is taken to Granny Smythe’s hut, where medical diagnosis confirms their worst fears: the girl has been raped. Her bruises show that she fought, and the cuts on her skin show that she ran. Lafayette’s description seems to implicate the Slender Man, but to their knowledge, El Pallido has never raped anyone before. Caden soothes her sorrow away, and they ask her who did it, but Rosita is unable to answer. She can speak just fine, but an examination of her Wyrd reveals that she has been bound into a Pledge of silence: she will likely never be able to tell them the identity of the one who raped her, or anything about how it happened.

Jack and Caden go to break the news of their discovery to the Queen. Jim and Alexandre set off to track the monster through the Hedge, but Swamp Thing tells them not to bother; there are dark things in the Hedge at night, and the trail will be long-cold by the time they find it. If they find it. He counsels them to remain in the Hollow on patrol, and make sure that whatever did this to Rosita doesn’t come back.

The Queen is furious, of course, and cancels her return to the Trident indefinitely. She cannot leave her subjects alone in the Hedge while this thing may still return and harm them. She orders that the watch be tripled tonight, and an additional guard be set around Granny Smythe’s hut, in addition to the protection offered by the Brotherhood of the Willow.

Just as the Brotherhood begins to feel powerless, Granny Smythe makes a suggestion. Rosita is prevented from telling them what happened, but by examining her dreams, they may be able to learn some clues about who (or what) raped her. As outsiders, the Brotherhood would be unbiased observers, and would be more likely pick out the significant clues that her subconscious would bring up, without imposing their own preconceived notions about Rosita onto her dreamscape. The motley eagerly agrees: Jim and Jack will dive into her dreams; Caden and Alexandre will stand watch; Granny Smythe will observe their progress from outside the dream.

The dream begins at a quinceñera for Rosita. A lot of girls and boys her own age are there, as are her parents. But the cake that’s brought out looks just like Rosita’s naked body, and when the first slice is cut, blood gushes from the cut, and it begins to scream. Horrified, Rosita rushes from the scene, fleeing deeper into her subconscious, tearing her lacy red formal dress on the sawgrass Thorns of the Hedge that surrounds her Hollow. She finds a raft and begins to pole away from the shore, only to be attacked by rotting waterlogged hands that reach out from the depths of the black water. Jim becomes an enormous, protective dog, and leaps onto the boat; Jack lights up his eye, and by the time the light hits the raft, he’s already there. The hands are beaten back, and the raft makes it ashore, but a low, angry growl is sounding from the woods ahead of them.

They catch a glimpse of golden fur before an enormous beast lunges out of the verdure: a mammoth golden-retriever, with a fresh-groomed coat and a playful bandanna around its neck, offset by the foam on its lips and the blood on its muzzle. This is clearly a family-dog, but it is a family-animal no more. A fierce battle ensues, and eventually they bring the beast down. Cutting open its belly reveals a human body inside: it’s Rosita, wearing a red, hooded cape.

“Looks like we’ve got a big bad wolf in the fold,” says Jack, recognizing the obvious symbolism.

Jim and Jack return to the Hedge and make a beeline for Lafayette. Jim takes him easily, without ever being noticed by the still-inebriated woodsman, until Jim’s meaty hands clasp firmly around his snout. As the coming dawn begins to lighten the camp, the Court of True Spring is roused by the commotion, just in time to see Queen Isabel question Lafayette, confirm his guilt, and personally execute him with Jim’s cold iron knife.

She turns to her subjects and announces that the plan has changed again: they have all spent too long in the Hedge, and their sense of right and wrong, their sanity, their Clarity, have all suffered in their long absence from human contact. Lafayette was a warning to leave the Hedge, to return to the world of the mortals and see just where they stand in terms of their sanity.

“The season has been long and hard,” she tells them, “And my people have grown starved and lean. But it the lean season is finally at an end; Spring is returning to Miami.”

The figure who stepped out of the undergrowth is a large, powerful man. Not a giant like Jim, but broad and stout, with enormous shoulders and long, swinging arms. He seems composed almost entirely of plant-matter, from his dripping, root-laced torso to eyes like blood-poppies floating in bottomless pools. All around him, the swamp seems to come to spring to life. New growth springs up in his wake, even as the old life dies and decays and is consumed by other life. One thing about him is certain: whether he is one of the Gentry or one of the Lost, his Wyrd is the most potent the Brotherhood of the Willow has yet encountered.

The figure asks what the motley is doing in his swamp. They explain that Ray brought them out here, and they hastily produce Naamah’s letter of marque, claiming sanctuary in their roles as messengers. Alexandre keeps his sword-cane drawn, and Jim tries to look tough, but the figure seems strangely un-affected by their veiled threats. He’s plainly not scared of them.

He reads the letter, tests the Glamour on the seal, and verifies that it has indeed come from the Ashen Crown itself. “You can come out now, Lafayette,” he rumbles, and a woodsman with the features of a wolf steps out from behind a large cypress tree, lowering his rifle. The two of them proceed to escort the Brotherhood to a large Hollow, filled with changelings moving about with the necessities of daily life in the Hedge: cleaning game, tending crops, hanging up laundry, and so on. A young teenager with pretty features drops her hoe in surprise at the sight of the approaching strangers, and jogs off to a small hut not far from the Goblin Fruit orchards.

Others soon notice that the figure (who they call “Swamp Thing”) and Lafayette have returned, bringing strangers. The Brotherhood tells them they are on a mission from the Leaden Mirror, and they seek to parley with the Queen. Before this surprising news can stir up the camp, the girl from before reappears, assisting a tiny, shriveled old woman who introduces herself as Granny Smythe, and her assistant as Rosita. She welcomes them warmly to the Court of True Spring, and says “Y’all must be hungry, walkin’ through the swamp all day like that. Why don’t y’all siddown an’ have some jambalaya?”

Granny asks them all polite questions as she spoons them bowl after bowl of jambalaya, making sure that they all have a chance to feel included in the conversation. The minutes roll on, and the jambalaya continues to flow; eventually, the Broherhood is forced to excuse itself, being physically unable to eat any more. At this time, a messenger arrives and takes them, waddling, to the Queen’s quarters, built into the living boughs of a cypress tree at the far end of camp.

After a difficult climb, they find themselves in a large-ish reception chamber, with only two female figures: a dark woman with long black hair and eyes that take in every detail, and a radiantly beautiful older woman whose arms are wreathed in living thorn-branches, and on whose brow rests a glorious crown of twined roses chased with silver and glass: the Antler Crown itself. (Jim, struck by her radiant beauty, is instantly smitten with Queen Isabel, and makes slightly-goofy interjections throughout their audience, in an attempt to impress her.)

Queen Isabel asks them probing questions about their experience and qualifications, including their alleged defeat of Blue Jenny’s Keeper. Jim eagerly shows her the cold iron knife which he used in the fight, and the dark woman leaps into action, handily knocking the knife from his hand. She stares at him levelly, almost daring Jim to make the next move. For the second time in a day, Jim has encountered someone not intimidated by his forbidding build. He finds this slightly jarring.

Once Selena has been convinced that they mean the Queen no harm, their audience with her continues. Jack makes entreaties for her to consider making peace with her daughter: Autumn is doing well against Summer, but Vichy Spring is too weak to make a valuable ally. The Courts, all of the Courts, must stand united against summer if they hope to make the seasons turn once more.

Finally, it is the thought of her daughter being made to stand alone against Thunder’s wrath that convinces the reticent monarch to make her move. Isabel Espina agrees to return to the Trident, with a s company of bodyguards, to speak with Queen Naamah about the possibility of an alliance between their Courts.

Queen Isabel delivers the news to her subjects herself, and a great cheer goes up from the assembled crowd. Whatever happens, the new growth of Spring has come once more.

The war has begun. Chaos rules the streets of Miami. Mortals call it gang violence, or rowdy hoods who just can’t get Halloween out of their systems. In truth the invisible war is barely noticed by Miami’s mortal residents, against the backdrop of murder and mayhem which is daily life for Miamians.

Naamah calls the Brotherhood of the Willow together. She says that Autumn has begun the war, and with the influx of Glamour from the Slender Man’s activities, all is going as well as could be expected. But Autumn cannot stand alone forever. They will need both factions of Spring, and possibly Winter as well, if they hope to survive against the onslaught. She needs envoys to both Courts, and wants to know which Court the Brotherhood thinks they could deal with most effectively. The Brotherhood confers, and decides that the Court of True Spring will be the most valuable, as Isabel Espina will lend weight and legitimacy to their cause, as she is one of the oldest and most powerful changelings in Dade County. With the Queen of True Spring on their side, it will be easier for them to gain the cooperation of Winter and Vichy Spring.

Naamah confesses that even she does not know where exactly the Court of True Spring is camped out in the Everglades, and that searching for them without a guide would likely be suicidal. She recommends getting in touch with Maria Espina, the Duchess of Spring, to see if she would be willing to tell them anything about her mother’s whereabouts. Before they go, Naamah gives the Brotherhood a letter of marque and reprisal:

The bearer acts with my knowledge and support. Obey, and keep silent.
Naamah, Queen of the Leaden Mirror
Wearer of the Ashen Crown
Mistress of the Shuddersome Throne

The Brotherhood hops on a bus to Miami Beach (avoiding downtown, the seat of Summer’s power), and looks for Kim’s of South Beach. Even in the late afternoon the place is packed with mortals and Lost alike (Alex botches the Socialize roll to locate Maria, and gets lost in the crowd). The Brotherhood spies Maria Espina and her entourage, and makes a beeline for her. Also in attendance is Maria’s current lover, Nat “Zippy” Moore, star running-back of the U of Miami Gators.

Maria recognizes Caden, remembering how well he danced with her the last time they met, and greets them by name (a rarity for her). The Brotherhood performs the formalities for meeting with the Duchess of Spring, and tells her that they are acting as emissaries from the Leaden Mirror, and that they would like to speak with her in private. It’s about her mother. After checking the legitimacy of their letter of marque, she sends her entourage away, despite protests from Zippy.

Jack pleads their case to Maria, asking her to tell them how to reach her mother, and where True Spring is located. She eventually relents, telling them that she doesn’t know for certain, but she knows that Ray, a Mechanical who owns a fan-boat repair shop out in the Everglades, is a loyal courtier, and often buys supplies for True Spring. When asked if there is any message she would like to have delivered to her mother, she simply shakes her head and utters a hoarse “No.” They decide to make a speedy exit: “Never watch the queen bee cry,” Jack observes.

Once they get back to the main dance-floor, they see Alex getting the crap kicked out of him by a burly bear of a man, and his girlfriend (who they now notice has a surprisingly wide stance and very broad shoulders).

The Brotherhood takes Alligator Alley out into the ‘Glades, and they arrive at "Ray’s Fanboat and Marine Repair Service". Ray asserts that he is “a loyal Queen’s man through and through,” and does not seem at all interested in helping them find the Court of True Spring. Producing Naamah’s letter, as well as mentioning Maria, softens his heart towards them. He takes them in a fanboat out into the swamp, and sets them down at a hammock which contains a safe entrance to a part of the Hedge that’s not too far from the True Spring camp.

The four of them set off into the Hedge, but it’s not long before the Hedge starts to change. The shadows are getting darker and deeper, and the insencts and plants seem more vital, more active than before. A large figure emerges from the undergrowth, and rumbles “You should not have come here.”

Note: This session took place a full year after the one in the previous entry.

Sitting in the kitchen of Naamah’s little Hollow, with the Slender Man standing silently in the corner, the motley and Naamah begin to hash out the details of their Pledge.

The first thing they need is a name for the motley, in order to have something by which to swear. Brainstorming turns up nothing, until Naamah mentions that willow-bark is used to break fevers… much like the motley will break the fever that is Summer. The motley likes the idea, and so they name themselves The Brotherhood of the Willow.

Next, the terms of their Pledge are spelled out: [I need to look this up in my notes. I can’t remember them off the top of my head.]

The negotiations concluded, Naamah decides that they’ve all had enough excitement for one night. The Brotherhood is surely tired, and she has matters of Court to attend. Now that they’re all bound up in this together with a Pledge, she feels she can trust them not to got running off to tell the world.

The motley does a little cleanup and Glamour-harvesting, and then retires for the night.

The first and most obvious question the motley asks of Naamah is, of course, “Why?”

She tells them that fear is a strong medicine: a purgative, to be exact. It brings everything to the surface, where things can be dealt with easily, out in the open. Fear is a medicine, and the Trident is deathly ill with a burning fever. It must be broken if the freehold is to face the trials that lay ahead of it.

Naamah has been examining Wyrd through the prophetic dreams of dozens of mortals and changelings, and she has seen terrible portents in Miami’s near future: a storm as black as midnight’s shadow, blotting out the sun and moon, fierce winds tearing across all of Florida, ripping up buildings, trees, and human lives like straw in the teeth of the gale. But this is no ordinary mortal storm; just like in the days of the Big Blow, the Gentry will ride the skies on steeds of thunder and smoke, killing and taking as they fancy, both humans and their former servants alike. In short, the Others are planning the largest Fae raiding-party on record, and it will likely carry-off or kill every sentient being in all of southern Florida.

Their second question is one with more immediate ramifications: “What are you going to do with us, now that we know?”

Naamah says that they are trespassing in her Hollow, and they know her secret, which makes them too dangerous to be allowed to live. But Jack interjects that in order to get here, they’ve proven themselves unusually skilled investigators, which makes them highly valuable to her. Naamah chews on this thoughtfully for a few moments, before allowing Jack to go on.

What follows is a tense negotiation, largely between Jack and the young Queen, with Jim and Alex chipping in from time to time with rhetorical assistance. Slowly, despite all odds, Naamah’s cold, ashen heart begins to warm to the idea of having her own little team of indebted servants who can act as her envoys, spies, and leg-breakers in the Freehold.

All is going well, until Jack brings up the subject of the Slender Man, and whether or not she should continue to enlist his services in her imminent war against the Iron Spear. Naamah flatly rejects the idea. She produces a small black ring, saying “It was hard enough getting this out; imagine trying to get it back in.”

At the sight of the ring, Alexandre flies into a rage, calling her a “monstrous ghoul”, and several unpleasant French curses. He rushes at Naamah, his cane forgotten, apparently ready to tear her apart with his bare hands. Jim, seeing that the mad Darkling might undo all that Jack had built, restrained him… just barely. After he could speak, Alexandre explained the ring’s true nature… and the power it held over his former colleague.

Realizing how pointless (and dangerous) his resistance at this point would be, Alexandre ceased struggling, and asked what sort of Pledge Naamah was going to force them to accept.

“Oh, I think we can work that out in the kitchen, over coffee. I’ll start the water boiling,” she said coyly, leading the way out of the library/bedroom, the Slender Man trailing in her wake like a monstrous hound.

Traveling neglected back-roads and rickety bridges, the motley made its way out of town, pushing far out into the ’Glades, looking for the last known dwelling of the young man who was Ezekiel Longfeather. After many hours of trekking, they motley reached the shack, with plenty of time to go before sunset. Investigating the ruined structure, they found it to be a dangerous pile of broken wood and sheet metal, barely fit for human habitation, containing nothing remarkable or magical.

The nearby Hedge, however, contained an interesting feature: a little path, leading away into the wilderness, of a type commonly used to facilitate travel between two fixed locations within the Hedge, sort of like a miniature Trod. Lacking any other leads, the motley decided to follow the path and see where it led them.

A few hours later, darkness was beginning to fall, and the night-sounds increase, when the motley emerged into a clearing, and spotted a little Hollow all by itself. A little log cabin, built in the Southeastern U.S. Vernacular style (according to Jack), with a dog-trot, a little wood-pile and water-pump in the back, and darkened windows.

Inside, they found a simple dwelling with a kitchen/dining room with a table for four, a well-stocked pantry, a small bedroom, and two large-ish rooms packed floor-to-ceiling with books of every variety. As they examined the dwelling, a subtle change begins to steal over the ambient Hedge outside it; the little creatures were falling silent, and the shadows were getting darker than even the rapidly-setting sun should allow. Someone, or some thing, with a relatively high Wyrd, was coming closer.

The motley scrambled into the smaller of the two big rooms, a combination library/bedroom, containing a bed, a stack of books, a computer (!), and a dresser full of what turned out to be women’s clothing. Looking out the windows, they saw the Slender Man emerge from the woods, accompanied by a cadre of men in white masks just like the ones Jim had seen the Seminole boys wearing when the attacked the casino. They quickly encircled the house, and pressed in, but did not attack immediately.

After some time, they could hear movement outside, and the turning of a key in a lock. Their barricade of the bedroom door held, but a few minutes later, a hitherto unnoticed passage opened up in the wall, and in stepped the Slender Man himself, followed a very smug-but-impressed-looking Naamah.

“You guys are good,” she said, clapping slowly while shaking her head. “I’m quite impressed. Well done, well done.”

Stunned by the realization that the Autumn Queen is working with the Slender Man, the motley simply stares for several seconds, glancing uneasily from Naamah to the Slender Man and back again. The first and most obvious question is, of course, “Why?”

“Because he makes a very effective tool, in the right hands. Make no mistake, fear is a weapon, and one I intend to turn against Grandfather Thunder. For too long, the wheel of the seasons has not turned, and the old Pledges which guard our Freehold are weakened as long as we do not give each season its’ due. The harvest moon hangs high, and the winds of All-Hallows’ Eve are nipping at Summer’s heels. Ezekiel has proven invaluable to me; he’s not only turned public opinion against a ruler who cannot stop the depredations of this mad Fae, he’s given us a bumper-crop of fearful Glamour to fuel an uprising against the Bloody Spear.”

Second, what is Naamah going to do with them now that they know her secret?

Place: The Seminole Reservation
Time: About ten years ago.

When Ezekiel was in his middle-teens, he was an angry young man, upset with what he saw as the tribe’s “backwards” ways, and eager to leave the Rez for good as soon as he came of age. His father, Chief Joseph Longfeather, asked his eldest brother, Black Rabbit, to give the boy lessons in the history and culture of their tribe, to make him see there was something of value in the old ways. As part of this training, Black Rabbit took Ezekiel into the Everglades when he turned sixteen, to guide him on a vision-quest.

They paddled their dugout canoe deep into the most distant and secluded portions of the swamps, set up camp in one of the dry hummocks, and began to fast. For three days they waited, while fasting and chanting. On the third night, Black Rabbit threw some of his medicine-herbs on the fire, and began a new chant. The youth and the old man felt themselves leave their bodies, and begin a journey into the spirit-world.

In the wee hours of the following morning, Black Rabbit returned to the Reservation with Ezekiel’s bloody, unconscious body lying in the bottom of their dugout canoe. The boy appeared to be dreaming fitfully, crying out at times, but he could not be awakened. His body was covered in dozens of bites and scratches, but none of the teeth-marks belonged to any animals with which the Seminoles were familiar.

Black Rabbit said little of the actual cause of the incident, save that they “must’ve gone fishing in the deep end of the pond.” Despite the fact that the old man blamed himself for whatever happened, no foul play was suspected, and life went on in the Rez much as it always had. But from that point onward, Ezekiel became increasingly antisocial and withdrawn. He did not leave the reservation, as his father feared he might, but he lived a life of such seclusion that he might as well have left. He remained in seclusion, only coming into town once a month for supplies, until a few months ago, when he stopped coming into town altogether.

…

Once Black Rabbit had concluded his tale, he told them the location of Ezekiel’s lonely shack out in the ’Glades, and told them wished them good luck, whatever they chose to do.

Place: The Seminole Reservation
Time: Devils’ Night (the night before Halloween)

Disclaimer: In reality, the Seminole Nation is actually a financially solvent Native American tribe, and not at all suffering from poverty or self-imposed isolation. Any misrepresentation of them that is made herein is purely fictitious, and for entertainment purposes only.

The Seminole Reservation is a land of bad roads, poverty, isolation, government-issue cheese, and despite it all, an intense self-pride and a deep-seated mistrust of outsiders. Seeing that the proverbial welcome-wagon has not been rolled out for them, Jim, Jack, Alexandre, and William decide to do some preliminary investigation. Caden and Jack check out the tiny, desperately underfunded Reservation Library, while Alexandre, Jim, and William pound the pavement.

While looking for what he believes to be a hidden file in the library’s only computer, Caden (uncharacteristically) rewrites the boot section of the PC’s hard drive, causing the two men to be driven from the library, even more unwelcome than they were initially. Meanwhile, Alexandre, Jim, and William happen across a drunk man sitting in back of the general store. After initially lashing out at the strangers on the Rez, the bum, whose name is Jonah, becomes more talkative after being gifted with some of William’s “special reserve”.

The trio asks if the man knows anything about someone named “Ezekiel”. Jonah replies: “Oh, y’mean Crazy Zeke? Used to live in that shack out in the ‘Glades. Weird guy. Never came into town but once a month or so fer supplies. Not many of us liked the guy. Thought he was a disgrace t’ the tribe, see? But, bein’ the Chief’s son and ”/campaigns/39872/characters/black-rabbit" class=“wiki-content-link”>Black Rabbit‘s nephew, most folks didn’t have the stones to kick him outta anywhere, right? They just let him go about his business and didn’t say too much about him where the elders could hear."

Leaving William with Jonah to continue pumping the man for information, Alexandre and Jim head back and meet up with Caden and Jack, just as they’re being kicked out of the library. The group decides to seek out Black Rabbit, whoever that may be. Their search takes them to the edge of town, where Black Rabbit lives alone in his ramshackle two-story house.

They knock on the door, and an old man with a slow tread and a deeply-lined face answers the door. Taking the initiative, Jack steps forward, presenting himself as the face of their motley crew, and asks if they might come inside and speak with him about his nephew Ezekiel.

Without a word, Black Rabbit slams the door in their faces.

They can hear him shuffling and stomping about inside, so Jack persists, shouting through the window. Finally, fed up with being ignored by an old man afraid of the past, Jack shouts, “When did the Seminoles becomes as big a pack of cowards as the Miccosukees?” The comment gets under Black Rabbit’s skin, and with a weary shaking of his head, the old man opens the door for them. Once the motley is sitting in Black Rabbit’s sitting-room, he pours himself a mug of coffee and unfolds the tale of his unfortunate nephew, Ezekiel.

Place: Deep in the ’Glades
Time: Roughly contemporary with Chapters 6 and 7

While out hunting one day, Jim hears a pair of fan-boats patrolling the ’Glades near the entrance to his Hollow. Jim watches from a distance for a long time, and determines that the men are members of the Miccosukee tribe. Jim is on polite if not friendly terms with both the Seminoles and the Miccosukees, who respect him for his hunting and survival abilities, even if he is “a crazy ghost-face sumbitch”.

It turns out they’re a delegation from the Miccosukee tribe, and they’re looking to Jim for help. A gang of masked hoodlums, likely bored teens from the Seminole reservation, have been vandalizing the Miccosukee Resort and Casino with strange markings. They’ve never been caught, and the Miccosukees don’t want to use their own security to capture the kids: relations between the two tribes are already strained. If they capture the kids by force, it will push things past the boiling point. They want Jim, a neutral third party who is respected by both tribes, to step in and expose the kids in the act, forcing their elders to take responsibility for their kids’ actions. Feeling generous that day, Jim agrees to help them.

Jim waits outside the parking-lot of the Resort and Casino until well after dark, when he hears the unmistakable sound of a dugout canoe scraping against the shallows. A group of four teenage boys, all wearing distinctive white masks, climb out of the canoe, and make their way to the casino, bags clanking with the sound of spray-paint cans. They paint strange sigils on the walls of the casino, making sure to stay away from or disable the cameras, and then head back to their boat. Jim follows them at a healthy distance.

Up ahead, Jim hears frantic, whispered arguing. The kids can’t find their dugout canoe in the dark, and won’t risk turning on their flashlights to look for it. Jim notices that their canoe hasn’t gone very far; it’s in a tree, thirty feet above their heads. Figuring that they’re already more than a little spooked, Jim chooses this moment to step out of the brush and rumbles “Going somewhere, boys?”

The boys turn their eyes upwards to Jim’s face in fright, but their eyes keep moving upwards and upwards, well past even Jim’s seven feet of height. Jim spins around, and is confronted with the sight of the Slender Man towering above him in the darkness, his many tentacled limbs already writhing towards him. Screaming for the boys to get behind him, Jim draws his cold iron knife and charges the monster.

After a brief-but-fierce battle, the Slender Man succumbs to Jim’s knife and withdraws, leaving the ogre alone in the night with four shell-shocked teenagers and a tree-bound dugout canoe. Jim tells them to follow him back to the casino, and they comply without protest.

Place: Jay’s apartment
Time: Same

The Darkling who stepped out of the shadows introduces himself as Alexandre Corbeau, a fellow member of the Autumn Court, and a Scarecrow Minister. He apologizes for jumping out at them like he did; being caught alone in the basement was not an option, since he didn’t know who they were at first.

Alexandre says that he has been in Miami for a few weeks now, investigating the actions of the Slender Man on behalf of the Ministry. The Slender Man’s physical description is very similar to that of a reclusive Minister named Ezekiel, whom Alexandre knew from his days in “seminary”. Ezekiel was one of Alexandre’s few friends, though they grew apart after graduation. Alexandre wants to know if the thing people call the Slender Man is truly Ezekiel, and whether Ezekiel still lives.

Caden and Jack agree to take him with them, since he has valuable knowledge about the Ministry, which may help their investigation of the Bugbear’s Mask which was found on the fetch’s body. At this point, they hear the tread of several feet on the stairs, and turn to see the Apostolic Knights being led down the stairs by John St. Elmo, who summarily places them all under arrest and informs them that they will be taken before Grandfather Thunder for their involvement with this murder.

Jack, Caden, and Alexandre, being outnumbered, flee out the cellar door, as the Apostolic Knights enter the fray and John opens fire. Bursting out into the night, Jack reactivates his Contract of Vainglory, shouts “Shots fired! Officer down!”, and the three changelings continue running as police pour into the apartment.

Place: Dolphin Mall
Time: The following afternoon

Unexpected, conflicting obligations prevent most of the motley from attending the rendezvous, so Caden and Jack show up on their own in the courtyard of Dolphin Mall in western Miami. They lounge around the food court for a while, waiting for Jay to get out of his classes and come to meet them. Hours pass, and still no word from Jay. Caden’s not getting any calls, and calls to Jay go straight to voicemail.

After a while, the two of them notice a small knot of people gathered around the window of an electronics shop, watching something on the news. Caden and Jack walk over to investigate, and see that the Slender Man has struck again: a young man has been found dead in his basement apartment in Hialeah. When his picture flashes on the screen, both changelings recognize him instantly as Jay, from his appearances in the Marble Hornets videos. Copying down the address from the news report, they catch a bus to Hialeah.

A few hours later they arrive at Jay’s house, and find it swarming with police officers and cordoned off with yellow tape. Jack makes use of his first Contract of Vainglory to convince the officers that he is a police investigator, and he and Caden slip through without incident.

They walk down into Jay’s basement apartment, and find a dank, unfinished, mildew-infested hole, where no person in their right mind would live, if they had a choice, and any intention of remaining in the area for long. (Furthermore, basements are not a good idea in a city where the water-table is mere inches below the ground. There’s a reason the rent here was so cheap.) The signs of a struggle are evident, though the body has been removed. By this time, the sun has started to go down, and none of the lights work (the power lines have been cut), so Jack uses his Goblin Illumination to light their way.

Caden and Jack search the basement, and recover several pages of a journal which jay had been keeping for some time. The pages are hidden away in all kinds of crevices and disguised locations, and each one reveals a different observation on the Slender Man, his habits, and his abilities.

From the information in the shredded journal, they realize that the Slender Man is not a True Fae at all, but a changeling, and a member of the Autumn Court as well! As they prepare to leave the basement, a dark figure steps out of the shadows, bows to them, and says “It would appear zat we are on ze same side, n’est pas?”

Time: Mid-October
Place: The University of Miami

The motley makes the ruins of the Slender Man‘s face, as well as some of the vegetation which composed the fetch’s body, to Prof. Hannibal “the Lecturer” Braxton, of the University of Miami. He agrees to do some research on the plants, but he can tell them right off the bat that the Slender Man’s face is actually a Bugbear’s Mask, a Token used by members of the elusive organization known as the Scarecrow Ministry. He recommends that they petition their issue with Queen Naamah, while he performs his research.

They gain an audience with the Autumn Queen, and she politely but firmly refuses their petition for declaration of a formal Ash Run. They lack concrete evidence, and are unwilling to produce the target of the Slender Man’s depredations (fearing to expose the fact that José possesses the True Sight to the entire freehold). Naamah tells them that Summer has become belligerent of late, and she cannot devote the resources necessary to the Ash Run, especially when Summer may interpret such a move as an act of war. The motley makes similar overtures to Winter and Vichy Spring, with similar results.

After their meeting with Maria Espina, Caden gets a text message from an unrecognized number. The messages say they’re from someone named Jay, a twentysomething film student who says he’s Jose’s after-school mentor. José told Jay about his bad dreams recently, and Jay suspects that he himself s the reason why the Slender Man has been targeting José; Jay was the Slender Man’s first target.

Jay sends Caden a link to a YouTube channel called Marble Hornets, which documents over the course of 26 entries (and several video responses by an unknown entity called “totheark”) his friend Alex’ run-ins with the Slender Man, and later, Jay’s own run-ins. Jay asks that they watch the videos (“They’ll explain everything better than I can,”) and asks if the motley could meet up with him in person. He suggests a neutral, highly public area: the food court at the local mall. The motley agrees to the location, and sets a meeting for the next day, around 4pm.

Place: the barrio
Time: the following night

As darkness falls, Miguel’s gang contacts patrol the streets, on foot and by car, watching for any suspicious activity, and reporting back to Miguel by cellphone. Meanwhile, the motley prepares the Iglesia residence for defense, and conducts patrols of their own. In a few hours, the Slender Man makes his appearance, moving slowly, silently, down the curiously deserted streets of the barrio, making a beeline for Jose’s house.

The motley puts up a great struggle, and manages to keep Jose’s parents safe from harm, if not completely in the dark. The Slender Man makes it all the way up the front steps and into the porch before one of Miguel’s bullets finally brings him down. As the bullet passes through, his face begins to crack and fall away, even as the body crumbles into a pile of sticks, leaves and bits of string.

The thing that just attacked them was not a True Fae, or even a changeling at all, but a fetch.

Place: A small restaurant in the barrio
Time: Early October

The motley (still nameless) meets with an Autumn courtier, Miguél Iglesia, who has gotten in touch with them through Jack. His cousin, Jose, has been tormented for weeks by dreams of a horrifying entity known as El Pallido (“The Pale One”, or “The White One”), whose description matches the mysterious True Fae known as The Slender Man, who has been attacking both muggles and changelings all over Miami-Dade County. The victims are stalked for a few days or weeks, in the dreamscape and the real world, and disappear suddenly, only to turn up days later, with all their internal organs contained in ziploc baggies inside their chest cavities. No motive or pattern in the killings has been established, and both fae and mundane law-enforcement are baffled.

Jose’s parents are deeply concerned about their son’s nightmares, but are unable to take him to a psychologist or the police, due to their status as illegal immigrants. Miguel asks for the motley’s help, but also their secrecy, because Jose is gifted with the rarest of supernatural gifts: the True Sight. Jose is able to see through all manner of magical concealment, disguise, and misdirection. Such an ability would make the boy an instant target for any number of people, if it were widely known he possessed it, a situation which Miguél would like to avoid at all costs.

After some deliberation, the motley agrees to keep the secret, and help Miguél and his cousin.

Miguél takes them to his uncle’s house near Orange Bowl Stadium, where he introduces his associates to the ten-year-old Jose Iglesia. Three things are immediately clear: one, the boy can see right through their Masks; two, he is deeply disturbed by the nightly assaults on his dreamscape; and three, he is a complete Star Wars nerd.

A search of Jose’s bedroom reveals a tiny, faceless white doll, which El Pallido has been using to facilitate access to Jose’s dreamscape. The motley decides to destroy the doll, and confront the creature in dream-combat. Sure enough, El Pallido appears in Jose’s dreams that very night, taking the form of Darth Nihilus. The motley adopt personae from the Star Wars Expanded Universe, and participate in one of the most epic instances of Oneiromachy ever witnessed in the Trident. Eventually, El Pallido‘s will is exhausted, and he is forcibly ejected from Jose’s dreamscape. Having acted in line with their Virtues by defending Jose, each member of the motley feels deeply-fulfilled (though exhausted), and ready to face the inevitable sequel: El Pallido Strikes Back!

Act One
Time: Friday night, late August
Place: Miami, Florida

The story begins (as is often the case with stories) at a gathering. Not a formal gathering, nor even a very special gathering to those being gathered, but an important one nonetheless.

A motley consisting of five changelings arrives at the Miami nightclub known as Kim’s of South Beach. They gain admittance, and wait for the mortals to clear out and Rollo, their contact, to show up. After a while, he does, and leads them down a dark hallway and into the Hedge. From there, he leads them to a Hollow which belongs to Blue Jenny, who has invited the motley to join her underground revolution to overthrow the City of Endless Summer.

Jenny welcomes them in, and gets right down to business. She regrets making her guests swear an Oath on their Keepers, an Oath not to reveal their involvement with Jenny or her coup, before even seeing them for the first time, but such a drastic measure is necessary for the protection of the other cells. If the motley were to be captured, the Oath would prevent them from betraying Jenny or the other cells to Grandfather Thunder.

Before she can explain the nature of her coup, a visitor arrives: John St. Elmo, an enforcer for the Summer Court. he interrogates Jenny and the motley as the the exact nature of their late-night rendezvous, but Jenny and her new allies remain tight-lipped. Jenny apologizes to the motley for the interruption, gives them directions back to Kim’s, and asks them to leave John and her alone.

On the way back to Kim’s the motley finds their path blocked by two Ogres: Strong Matthew and Mark Stalwart, who are members of John’s motley, The Apostolic Knights. John catches up with them from behind, and begins to grill them for information, when the changelings are ambushed by Blackgators. A battle ensues, during which Mark Stalwart is wounded. The Knights make a tactical withdrawal after the fight, letting the motley off with a warning to “watch their backs.”

Act Two: Prophecy and Lies
Time: A few days later
Place: Miami, Florida

The motley was contacted by Rollo, who told them he had a mission from Jenny for them. They met him at his base of operations, a cramped office in a dive bar in Miami Beach, called Mustang Sally’s Bar & Grille. Rollo tells the motley that Quiet Luke of the Apostolic Knights has in his possession a powerful Token: a diary which tells the future. It is vital that the Resistance have it. The motley must acquire it by any means. Rollo makes them promise not to read it, but does not force them to make a Pledge, saying he is bound by as many Pledges as his Wyrd can support.

The motley follows Luke to his apartment, breaks in while he’s running an errand, steals the diary, and brings it back to Rollo within a matter of hours.

Act Three: Truth and Betrayal
Time: Late
Place: Blue Jenny’s Hollow

Once they arrive at her Hollow, Jenny eagerly grabs the book out of Jack’s hands without waiting for an explanation. Smiling with triumphant glee, she thanks the motley for returning her diary, and apologizes for misleading them: there are no other cells. There isn’t even a revolution. It was all a ploy to get them to return her diary before one of her enemies realized what it was. Suddenly, the motley feels the weight of her betrayal suck all the strength from their bodies; it’s as if Jenny has cored their hearts in their chests. Their souls fill with sorrow, their strength deserts them, and they find it difficult to even shout at Jenny, who pulls off her veil to reveal glittering tears frozen to her cheeks, marking her asa Duchess of the Icebound Heart.

Through the fog of misery and sorrow, Jack asks who Hannah-Jane Wells is, and Jenny’s face goes white. Trembling, she begs him not to say the name again. Jim repeats the name, and she drops to her knees, pleading for mercy, offering them rewards which are clearly beyond her power to provide (such as making
Jack King of the Autumn Court). The motley agrees not to say her name again, and make a bargain with her,
but Rollo (who has been watching from the shadows) speaks the name a third time.

Immediately, all the lights in the mansion are blown out, and all of Jenny’s mirrors begin to shatter
one-by-one, until the last mirror left intact begins to bulge and distend, disgorging a hideous woman
with long, steely claws and clad in strips of bloody rags: it’s none other than Blue Jenny’s Keeper. At
the sight of her, Rollo goes mad and flees into the Hedge, and Blue Jenny attempts to do likewise.

With a single swipe of her claws, the True Fae strikes Jenny unconscious. The True Fae addresses the
motley, and thanks them for finding the diary and leading her to “my dear, long-lost Hannah.” She tells
them to flee at once; she can only carry one changeling back to Arcadia at a time, but she’s not opposed
to making mutliple trips.

Rather than allow a fellow changeling to be re-taken by the Gentry (even one as despicable as Jenny), the
motley engages the Fae in combat, cutting off her retreat into the mirror, and striking a deadly blow
against her with a knife of cold iron.

As the motley emerges from Jenny’s mansion, carrying the unconscious form of Blue Jenny, they realize that
their initial motivation for joining with Jenny’s cause, to gain the respect and notice of the Freehold,
has been realized.

For good or for ill, they’re going to attract a lot of attention from now on.

Every campaign gets an Adventure Log, a blog for your adventures!

While the wiki is great for organizing your campaign world, it’s not the best way to chronicle your adventures. For that purpose, you need a blog!

The Adventure Log will allow you to chronologically order the happenings of your campaign. It serves as the record of what has passed. After each gaming session, come to the Adventure Log and write up what happened. In time, it will grow into a great story!

Best of all, each Adventure Log post is also a wiki page! You can link back and forth with your wiki, characters, and so forth as you wish.

One final tip: Before you jump in and try to write up the entire history for your campaign, take a deep breath. Rather than spending days writing and getting exhausted, I would suggest writing a quick “Story So Far” with only a summary. Then, get back to gaming! Grow your Adventure Log over time, rather than all at once.