Game was 2/13/21.

Josh swiftly realizes that being in the middle of a combat is not his forte, so he decides to try to find a vantage point to get an overview of what everything that is going on. He also realizes that the allies need help, so he manages to steal Mick's phone and then unlocks it by hitting Mick's thumb on the home button while Mick gesticulates wildly. Once Mick's phone is unlocked Josh falls back and notices all the games on the phone. He then uses voice command to call Director Templeton.

In the fight down in the athletic fields, Leta is driven by a primal need to recover that mage! She sees Chaplain being dragged by Father Jonah, so she charges that way! One of the other Scelesti¹⁾ intercepts her; Leta notes that this is a big, muscular man with skin shrunken to the skull, which is covered with white hair. The man wears the garb of a priest, but Leta does not slow down. She slams into him at full speed but unfortunately, he only stumbles back a few steps before casting a spell and quickly teleporting Leta away, back seventy feet! Leta howls in rage but her charge did distract this Scelesti long enough for Gothi to charge him and hit him in the face with a bone hammer!

William lands feet-first on Father Jonah²⁾ and as the two men tumble to the ground William realizes that Father Jonah recognizes him! He sees that Father Jonah is an emaciated figure with unruly white hair and beard and the same stretched skin as the other male Scelesti; William mentally compares Father Jonah to an evil hobo Santa Claus as the two men tumble to the ground in a mess of arms and legs! William starts to disentangle himself but then Father Jonah opens his mouth, which then splits down his chin and throat as a cluster of tentacles erupts from the hideous maw! Luckily, William avoids the tentacles, which are lashing wildly!

Meanwhile, back up at Sage Hall, Anita whips around in a violent spin and successfully cuts all the fingers off one of the Empty Men! The monster paws ineffectually at her and she just shoves it away as it keens in pain. Josh manages to reach the side of Sage Hall while Doctor Ranjip drags Mick over as well. Special agent Chelsea O'Malley answers the phone and Josh says quickly, "It's Josh, hi. I want to make you aware of what's happening here in case you have to clean it up in a few hours." Chelsea snaps, "Now what?" Josh replies, "There's a big mage fight at the Smith athletic fields!" Chelsea states, "Understood. On it. Stay safe!"

Doctor Ranjip calls out a warning as he realizes a few of the Empty Men have followed him and Mick to the side of the building, sensing easy prey. In desperation, Doctor Ranjip activates the Autumn Contract Mien of the Baba Yaga to try and scare the Empty Men away. To his surprise, that power affects the Empty Men, as these monsters only have their most primal of instincts left and fear is one of the oldest of those instincts! The handful of Empty Men immediately breaks and flees back into the larger melee, where the other members of the Smith Daughter's pack are guarding their alpha, Cain, as she is still in the throes of Kuruth - Death Rage!

Josh sees the Empty Men flee and then gets a crazy idea. He looks around quickly for a Smith Police cart and finds one sitting apparently empty in front of Tyler House a few dozen feet away. He runs over to claim it, but falters when he realizes that the police officer apparently saw the beginning of the fight and collapsed into a catatonic state! Lacking any better ideas, Josh picks up the man and then puts him in the back of the cart! He hops in the cart, starts it up, and quickly drives it back to Doctor Ranjip, who stares at him. Doctor Ranjip then shrugs and stuffs Mick in the back of the cart with the cop and then climbs in next to Josh.

Acting purely on instinct, Leta realizes that Gothi is keeping the Scelesti occupied, and that Father Jonah let go of Chaplain when William landed on him! She spots Chaplain unconscious several feet away from William and Father Jonah, lying on the grass unguarded, so she risks an all-out run. She loops around Gothi and her opponent, grabs Chaplain in her jaws, and then starts dragging her away from the fight! She emits a sad whine as she heads for the bridge to escape the athletic fields, until Veltis shapeshifts into his succubus form and hauls Chaplain up on Leta's back!

Horrified by lashing abyssal tongues, William manages to break free of the grapple with Father Jonah just as the mage lashes out with another tongue! Thankfully, the tongue only slides across the sole of William's left shoe, but he watches an absolute horror as that sole is simply unmade right in front of his eyes! Father Jonah shifts position to attack again but is caught off guard when TJ slams into him!

Having found an easier way to hit the Empty Men's weakness, Anita continues attacking with broad sweeping strokes of her blade-arms to lop off as many hands as she can! She successfully disarms a second Empty Men before it can hit her, and as she elbows the monster out of the way it takes another swing with its stump and accidentally gropes her butt!

Josh spins the police cart around and tells Doctor Ranjip, "Use that fear power again and let's try to corral the Empty Men!" He then starts singing The Ride of the Valkyries as he drives the cart into the larger melee as Doctor Ranjip howls, "Oh my fucking god!" Josh successfully steers the cart into the melee and breaks the Empty Men's cohesion, separating them into much smaller groups. Anita, Abby, and of the few of the mages stop and stare at the bizarre sight for a split-second until Doctor Ranjip activates Mien of the Baba Yaga a second time, right in the middle of everything!

The Empty Men are immediately struck with overwhelming fear and they break and flee in every direction! Unfortunately, Doctor Ranjip's power doesn't discriminate between friend and foe; Josh shudders slightly even though he knows what's happening, while Abby twitches and freezes in place. Worst of all, Anita is fully affected by the Contract; she separates from The Witch in blind panic³⁾ and flees with a large group of Empty Men running down Lower College Lane!

Leta flees across the bridge over the Mill River despite being hampered by the weight of one unconscious mage and one howling succubus! Unfortunately, her charge brings her directly into the path of the Empty Men's stampede and Leta dimly recognizes Anita in the press! She manages to push her way through the stampede to get back to the lawn and then she changes direction to run towards the police cart! She instinctively realizes that this mage is broken and that she needs a doctor! She comes to a mostly successful halt by the cart and lets out a demanding howl.⁴⁾ Josh takes their appearance in stride and asks, "Veltis my dude, what do you need?"

Back at the athletic fields, William sees Leta flee with Chaplain and decides that being in the middle of a wizard-war is the last place on Earth he currently wants to be! However, in that split-second, Father Jonah brutally overpowers TJ and starts to stand up! Defaulting to 'never leave a man behind,' William whips out his pistol and fires directly at Father Jonah, striking him in the shoulder!⁵⁾

Anita manages to regain control of herself and thinks, "Oh, that's what happened!" when she spots Doctor Ranjip. She manages to break free of the stampede and runs back to meet up with Josh, Leta, and the others. Josh turns in a seat to apologize to the unconscious cop and he states, "I'm really sorry you got caught up in this weird-ass LARP!" Josh hopes this comment will stick somewhere in the man's subconscious mind to help explain away the events he just witnessed!

Veltis calls out cheerfully, "We need the doctor's magic fingers… and I should have rephrased that." At this point, Abby separates from Petite⁶⁾ and staggers over to join them as well while the other werewolves try to calm Cain down and the mages eye the furry killing machines and wisely stay out of the way! Doctor Ranjip grabs Chaplain and lays her out on top of the hood of the police cart before he begins work.

William notes that Aislin and Gothi continue to battle the stocky Scelesti while Solomon challenges the third Scelesti, a painfully thin female⁷⁾ who also has white hair, all by himself! Johann and Atiyeh charge up to help against Father Jonah so William fires a second time, this time striking Father Jonah right in the chest!⁸⁾ The Accursed mage screams in pain and then vanishes from the battlefield! Aislin manages to strike the male Scelesti with thorny vines using Life magic before he uses a spell to vanish as well! A split-second after that, the female Scelesti also vanishes from the field, leaving the mages and William the victors!

With the Scelesti gone, William is suddenly very much aware that while he doesn't understand the various factions in mage society, he does realize that the Sword & Crescent cabal, Aislin, and Gothi are definitely not on the same side as Solomon!⁹⁾ He decides that's not important right now and rushes back to TJ. To his shock, William finds that while TJ is still breathing, parts of his body have been stripped down to the bone!

While TJ's breathing seems to be improving, William immediately administers what first aid he can, stabilizing TJ long enough for Aislin to reach them and start using her Life magic to heal him further! William looks up and sees the 'come get some' expression on Solomon/Rhiannon's face, an expression he's definitely seen before, so he calls out, "The battle is over, everyone go to your corners!" There's a heartbeat of silence as everything balances on a razor's edge, but then all of the mages back down.

As Anita and Abby recover from the fight, everyone realizes that Mick has fallen asleep in the back on the police cart. Josh looks around, confused and worried about the fact that the Empty Men scattered in many directions, some into the Smith campus proper! He mentally nicknames them the 'fingie-dudes' and he spots Solomon's undead as the remaining dozen gather on the far end of the bridge.

At this point it's just 8:30 PM and Josh pulls out his phone and calls Chief Alicia Vandernoot. Vandernoot picks up and instantly demands, "What did you do?" Josh chirps back, "Hi chief! We're trying to get someone fixed up, but here's the current situation at Smith College!" He then provides a quick breakdown of what happened and passes on what information he knows about the Empty Men that fled back into campus. He jokes, "Besides, there you're not missing anything good on TV, so this is something to do!"

Vandernoot sighs deeply and retorts, "One of these days, call me without a catastrophe!" Josh admits that he would love a little normal in his life but adds that there was gunfire in the fight! Vandernoot demands, "Officer McManus?" Josh concedes, "The gunfire was probably from my grandfather as Mick is out of it!" At this point Veltis jabs Josh inside and hisses, "The you-know-who is getting ready to hunt the-you-know-what, but if any cops stumble into the middle of their hunt she¹⁰⁾ will kill them!"

Josh realizes that Veltis is correct and tells Vandernoot, "Yeah, so maybe just set up a perimeter for a bit?" Vandernoot sighs deeply and asks, "Have you called our mutual friends?" Josh admits, "I spoke to them a few moments ago, but I'm going to call them back and fill them in." He ends the call with the chief and then calls Chelsea back to do just that.

William walks away from the mages, figuring at this point they'll sort their own shit out, and heads to the bridge. He tenses when he sees the dozen zombies standing there, but they part without a word and let him cross unmolested. Back at Sage Hall the hunters watch as the werewolves move to hunt the Empty Men on campus, with Cain mostly recovered from death rage and in her dire wolf form. Leta wishes for hands, and then she shifts back to her human form, naked, on all fours, and covered in blood! She gets to her feet self-consciously as the mage Februs reaches them and holds out her clothing, which seems undamaged! Leta grabs it and as Februs retreats to the Shadow Chorus, Leta figures he used his magic to repair her clothes. She slinks away to get dressed while succubus-Veltis works very hard to hold on to this memory.

Despite the environment and a lack of proper tools, Doctor Ranjip is exceptionally successful in healing Chaplain, and she sits bolt upright in fear! Magdalena drawls, "Hi Chaplain, Miss Mackenzie will be back shortly. This is Josh, who is the living ball of sunshine, and this is Doctor Ranjip; he fixed you up. Unfortunately, I don't know the names of the other people here." She then points to the golden succubus and says, "That's your patient, have fun with that."

William reaches them and stops next to Anita, who is feeling fragile and exhausted. He announces, "I took care of the other side and it's all set there." Leta comes back and exclaims, "You were there? Oh." William replies, "Yeah, and I saw you." The hunters note that the werewolves have vanished completely, and the four members of the Shadow Chorus are walking away, heading for the bridge to the athletic fields. William mutters, "Back to the status quo, I bet." Leta is the only member of the cell that sees a subtle flash of light; she calls out, "Hey, what was that?" The others look at her blankly until they realize that William and Anita have vanished!

William blinks in surprise as he feels the same sensation of dislocation as when he is dreaming, but he knows that he is not! Anita gasps beside him and they look around to find that they're both in a swanky hotel lobby! Off to their left is a large dining room filled with people eating and laughing, but both hunters detect a strained edge to that forced joviality. With the start, both hunters then realize that every member of the waitstaff is dead! The patrons are definitely alive, but sport clothing with strange unknown patterns and cuts. William realizes that despite some architectural differences, they are in the lobby of the Hotel Northampton just as the live violin screeches to a halt and an undead busboy catches sight of them and one of his eyeballs literally pops out of his head! The hapless busboy grabs the eyeball and shoves it back into his skull as every person in the dining room turns to stare at them, living and dead!

Anita jibes, "We are not meeting their dress code!" William snorts and asks, "Any ideas?" Anita shakes her head and replies, "Nope, where are we?" William explains, "We're in the Hotel Northampton. That at least I'm sure about." Anita retorts, "When are we?" as she eyes the unfamiliar fashions the patrons are wearing. William shrugs and admits, "I don't know. But something's definitely off." The busboy loses his eye again, and it rolls over to them; Anita reaches down to pluck it from the ground and then she tosses it back to him. William says half-jokingly, "We should talk to the concierge!" Then, behind them, a somehow familiar voice booms, "Miss Perez-Montoya! Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!"

Both hunters turn as William asks, "Is this your fault?" Anita doesn't reply as they look up to the speaker, who is standing on a second-floor balcony overlooking the lobby. William frowns as he realizes this isn't how the hotel is set up in the present. They get us far up the man as his chin but then both immediately look away when they realize this man's eyes are pits of smoldering black fire!

Anita asks hoarsely, "Who are you?" The man snorts in contempt and snaps, "You know exactly who I am, Miss Perez-Montoya. Meanwhile, breaking your word at dinner time is simply rude. Kef-ahmekh is strong, but you're both still in my hotel!" Anita turns and snaps at William, "Ha-ha! This is your fault!" The man mutters incredulously as William shrugs but then the color drains from Anita's face as she recognizes the man's voice is an older Ray Curran! As Anita turns whiter than William is, he sees her distress and asks, "What?" She croaks, "What year is it?" Startled, the man replies, "2045?" William's eyes widen in shock as he finally recognizes Ray's voice!

Anita murmurs, "I thought Evil-Josh was bad!" William nods numbly as Ray demands, "Wait, what?" He stares at them both but then asks hesitantly, "William?" William nods forlornly and Ray whispers, "You just time-hopped, but this time you brought her with you!" Anita grumbles, "It's usually your bullshit I get dragged into," as she glares at William. Ray starts descending the stairs to the main floor as he crows, "Oh my, oh my, oh my! It's actually you! Oh, this is rich, 'cause right now you're not driving the bus!" He insists that they stay and join him for dinner and dancing, and jokes to Anita, "No worries, you will learn to waltz!" Anita retorts, "I know!"

Ray - or the thing inhabiting Ray's body - reaches them and they both know that the former teenager now easily clears six feet. He declares, "Come, come, follow me! The meal tonight is filet mignon! I hope that's acceptable." Anita admits, "Actually, that sounds wonderful right now," but William does not reply as he spots movement out of the corner of his eye and spins around to see The Witch! Anita's geist flits back and forth freely but she seems as confused as William is!¹¹⁾

The Ray-thing leads them to the head table where the waitstaff quickly adds two more place settings. They settle in and note that the crowd is definitely not looking at William and Anita and conversation has resumed, but everyone knows that everyone else is listening to what's happening at the head table. The Ray-thing says cheerfully, "Pick your poison!" Anita replies, "Scotch!" William says, "Your call." The Ray-thing smirks and gives a hand signal to the waitstaff and a few moments later a bottle of 2023 Scotch appears at the table! Then the salad course arrives, and Anita immediately dives in.

As Anita eats, William asks bluntly, "So, you're controlling Ray. Who are you?" The Ray-thing shrugs and replies, "You can call me Duke if you like. Technically the formal title is the Duke of Silence." The entire dining room falls silent and William retorts, "Not so good at the silent part." The Duke shrugs again and replies, "No, unfortunately Ray tricked me when we made our deal. But for additional context, I am Leta's grandfather."

Anita whispers, "Oh shit," as the Duke turns back to William and asks, "Three years ago, Gothi's bone-citadel inexplicably collapsed. Was that you?" William nods silently in reply and the Duke exclaims, "Well done! Your actions saved Northampton by delaying her invasion. Oh, sidebar. Whatever Polly is now, she still owns your house! But you, you are not Kef-ahmekh yet." William insists, "I don't want to know," but the Duke muses, "See, this is a bit of a situation. I like this future, for the most part. I enjoy a comfortable life here, even if I am trapped in Ray's body. On the other hand, if I give you information and you change the past, you will potentially remove Kef-ahmekh as an adversary, and that pleases me."

William repeats, "I don't want to know," but the Duke ignores him and says bluntly, "Let me hit the highlights for you, as I have no idea how long you'll both be here. Those marks on your body are a way for Kef-ahmekh to return in your flesh, but in the process, he will destroy your soul." He then gestures to Anita and muses, "And right now you are one of the Twin Queens of Springfield." Anita stares at him blankly but asks, "What about Silas Black?" The Duke shrugs and replies, "You should just fuck and get it over with." Anita roars in outrage that Black is still apparently screwing up her life thirty-five years later, but the Duke frowns and says, "Wait, Silas was male in your time wasn't it? Well, Silas is female now, and the other Twin Queen; you two are still fighting over Springfield."

Anita demands to know when this occurs and the Duke replies, "About ten years ago, I think. Well, it's been ten years that Indian Orchard has been burning, thanks to your war." Anita glares at the Duke in seething outrage as the soup course arrives. As they enjoy the tomato bisque soup, the Duke asks, "For clarification, when are you two from?" Anita replies, "Do you remember the rabbit incident? That was yesterday by our reckoning." The Duke rears back in surprise but muses, "Well then, that means you haven't defeated Sethic yet. This means there is a chance to change things. Sethic's death was the second step in the collapse of the Veil." William demands, "What is this Veil?" The Duke replies, "I don't know if it had a formal name, that is something I will default to Anita here. It's the barrier between life and death, the mortal world and the Underworld. We call it the Veil, and it was torn asunder fifteen years ago."

Anita looks up in horror at the thought, but the Duke leans forward and steeples his fingers as he says, "OK, here are the highlights of what's to come. So, the breach into the Abyss, it's the first act that weakens the Veil. When you killed Sethic in 2011, that was the second act. To avoid it, you need to make sure he dies while he is fully in the mortal world. You killed him in a nexus point between the real world, the Underworld, and the Fae realm, and his death widened the cracks between the worlds. McManus died in that fight, and Josh died a few years later when Kef-ahmekh returned and consumed William. In the process of that, Polly vanished, and Abby was also killed. I think this was 2015.

"The next few years passed with the cell consisting of Anita here, the good Doctor Ranjip, my granddaughter and her familiar, Dean, and Gothi. Unfortunately, the cell eventually broke apart at the lack of Troys and while the members kept in contact and would assist each other if needed, the Troy cell was well and truly dead around 2020. Something happened in the interim, a third action, that further weakened the Veil. In 2030 the Veil collapsed completely, and the living dead swarmed the Earth. Gothi, like every other death mage, went insane and you saw the citadel that resulted."

William nods somberly as the Duke turns to Anita answers, "If you want to prevent your war with Silas Black, then just let Del join the damned mummy sex cult! Or else she will make a deal with Silas Black and become him! Also, stop belittling her." Anita glares at him and makes a comment about Obadiah Troy. The Duke shrugs and says, "Yeah, I think he's still running around somewhere." At this point the main course arrives, perfectly prepared filet mignon, whipped potatoes, and fresh grilled asparagus. Anita shamelessly digs in, and even William enjoys the food as he asks, "You referred to the Polly-thing?" The Duke nods and replies, "Yes, I'm not entirely sure what happened, but when Kef-ahmekh consumed you, he went on to destroy the werewolf pack. Polly somehow absorbed the power of the entire pack and vanished into the spirit realm for decades, until recently reemerging and claiming your old house. See, I control Northampton. As for Easthampton, my granddaughter and her familiar and Doctor Ranjip control that settlement. And we're just not gonna talk about what happened to Hadley."

William frowns but Anita asks, "What about Cummington?" The Duke explains, "Oh, it's still there. It and many of the other hill towns are now openly controlled by Merat-Su. I don't think she's active right now, but I believe she fought and somehow divorced Kef-ahmekh in the interim." He leans back and admits, "Like I said earlier, I'm not sure how long you'll be here, so I'm just trying to hit the highlights for you so you can change things. Also, I hope you can stay for dessert!"

Anita agrees without reservation, but William demands, "What happened to Mick?" The Duke says frankly, "Like I said, he died fighting Sethic, he sacrificed himself to save you all. I think the most important thing you can do when you get back is to go see Merat-Su or Hakeem as quickly as possible. Tell them Kef-ahmekh is going to come back corrupted, Merat-Su called it a 'shanks-on' or something like that." William files that away but offers nothing in return.

Anita demands, "And what is Silas Black?" The Duke retorts, "Don't ask me. You told me once, and I had a splitting headache for a year after." Anita grumbles in outrage but William jokes, "Look on the bright side, eventually you will find out!" Anita ignores him as she eye-bangs the dessert tray filled with plates of delicious looking raspberry mousse as it approaches. William lapses back into silence, but Anita asks offhandedly, "So what's this about his great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren?"

The Duke looks at her blankly for a second before saying, "Oh! I know what you mean now. That's Dean's daughter and granddaughter." William frowns as the undead waiter starts passing out the mousse. Anita lifts her spoon in anticipation as the Duke adds, "About that…" Then there is a subtle flash of light and Anita and William are back when they belong! Anita cries out in anger and stabs William with the spoon that she is still holding!