Mystics

Zven and Sinead walk along the path in town headed towards the church, a light snow is falling, as it’s beginning to get dark. Overhead lamps are flickering to life. A few people are walking about.

“I just feel bad for leaving Raven to sit with Marcie.” Sinead opens.

She and Zven initially planned to wait until Marcie woke up, but decided to instead wait for Raven to arrive. Sinead felt bad for asking Raven to stay with Marcie while she and Zven go to fill Yinto in on the need to know stuff.

In understanding, Zven replies. “It’s like Raven said. She understands that we didn’t want to wake Marcie up, and even agreed with us, that Marcie more than deserves the time to rest, and with all that lies ahead of them, she doesn’t mind the bit of rest herself.”

Truthfully, Zven knows what it’s like to have a hard time talking about the past. It was Ivan and his nest that got him to open up, and Ivan as the prophet, even gave him sound advice for accepting the past for what it is and how it shaped him, not forgetting it, but not letting it drag him down either.

As they walk they enter a clearing in view of a gray brick staircase that leads up to a large church. As they walk up the steps Zven feels a nervousness wash over him. A wide number of scenario’s run through his head. As they reach the front door, Zven opens the door and follows Sinead through. The main chamber of the church is lined with four lines of seats that stretch the width of the main chamber say for the center of the room which has a carpet leading away from the door up to the podium. Yinto walks from a staircase in the churches tower, which leads up to the top of the tower as well as down into the catacombs.

With him is Leo, who is saying. “I have connections to the Sunset Movement, we can reach out to the Seekers through them for a private meeting with chosen Seeker ambassador.”

“Until we have the full story of what caused the Forest Outpost incident and pipeline explosion I don’t intend to give allies of the church a reason to distrust us.” Yinto replies.

Zven smirks, saying. “You sound like director Hannible.”

Turning the elder man opens. “I’m sorry I haven’t seen you before. Who might you be?”

With a nod, he answers. “Zven Raza, I understand that because Leo is a member of the church, that you have an understanding of the chaos.”

“We have an understanding of the chaos, but we do not know what caused it. We have no way of knowing if the explosion was an accident or someones genius plan.” Yinto replies.

Zven crosses his arms, saying. “It wasn’t an accident. I worked with one of your founders to create the explosion, damn near became cooked jerky in the process.”

“Wait, that was you?” Leo asks, a tone of understanding in his voice.

With a nod, the man answers. “Yeah. I was under the assumption that reinforcements were on their way, and when the Sunsets arrived, the place was a goddamn war zone.”

An explosion rings out sending the man stumbling onto his back as the concrete ahead of him is vaporized by an explosive of some kind. The ground he lays on tilts, falling away hitting another platform which crumbles, tilting to the side causing Zven to roll on the concrete. He scrambles to get a grip, the sharp cracks in the concrete cutting into his fingers and palms. But he finds a grip, just barely, with himself hanging with a good view of the lower platform.

“Hannible said something about the military referring to the Sunset Movement as terrorists, especially after the Forest Outpost attack.” Sinead says.

They enter into a hallway, and walk a short distance before entering a library with a large table in the center, with chairs set around the table. Yinto, and Leo sit on one side close to the center of the room, while Zven, and Sinead sit across from them.

Yinto looks at Zven, inquiring. “You mentioned working with one of our founders. What did you mean by that?”

“I was among a group of prisoners who arrived from the human trafficking vessel Havoc. The warden went on some rant about how when we were in that outpost we were property of the state. They shot some woman to make an example.” Zven explains. “I tried to take the warden as a hostage and ensure my escape, but I instead ended up a prisoner, and was tossed in with the founder, named Raven. After we talked we came up with a plan to ensure our escape. She used her powers to break open all the doors all over the facility.”

He goes on to explain that the chaos was what you would expect from a lot of very pissed off turned bloods who had been experimented on by the prison, then given their freedom. During the chaos the Sunset Movement was attacking looking for justifiable cause to attack the whole of the Shadows Bane. Originally Zven’s plan was for Raven to leave the Havoc damaged enough to leave behind evidence of the wrong doing, then create some kind of happening that the world or at the very least, the Seekers couldn’t ignore. That just so happened to be a pipeline explosion after the arrival platform collapsed during the battle. Whatever happened after that he doesn’t know, because from his perspective he and Raven and the person they met were trapped in a liminal space for a couple months which actually turned out to be three years from what Sinead said upon their ‘clipping’ back into reality.

Yinto becomes confused, and flashes a momentary anger, before recomposing himself, and asking. “Am I to understand that you are saying, that the Shadows Bane Military treated one of the founders, the very people responsible for the Shadows Bane’s very existence being treated as a prisoner?”

The moment Zven nods, Yinto looks around saying. “This is an outrage we cannot ignore. The experimentation is cause alone to start the rebellion. But imprisoning a founder only justifies our rebellion.”

“I guess reaching out to the Sunsets is off the table.” Leo says, a tone of regret in his voice.

A light bulb goes off in his head, and Zven replies. “Maybe not. I’ve only been here a day, so technically I’m not a member of the Shadows Bane, besides, it’s likely the Seekers have me listed MIA, which means the Sunsets would still view me as a member of the Seekers. If Leo and I approach Zeke Vandom by ourselves, he would have a member of the Seekers, and a member of the Shadows Bane telling him the same thing.”

“I agree. But I do not entirely agree with your suggestion to have Leo accompany you.” Yinto starts. “With the knowledge that the Sunset Movement was present the day of the battle of the Forest Outpost, if Zeke Vandom has an ally and a perceived enemy telling him the same thing from different perspectives, it should be something he can’t ignore.”

Leo crosses his arms, replying. “Zeke as the Sunset leader is primarily concerned with open representation for turned bloods. He’d only reach out to the Seekers on our behalf if we have something to offer in return in terms of the Sunsets reason for being a faction.”

“Cities like Crystal Falls, or towns like Akortha openly accept the existence of turned bloods and supernatural beings. Once open acceptance was realized the Sunsets stopped fighting in those locations. They maintain a presence to defend those locations. He might advocate for Sunset members to become part of the church or the Shadows Bane to ensure our intent is pure.” Sinead says.

Zven nods, replying. “It’ll probably take some doing just to facilitate the meeting. There’s a Sunset base in Akortha. We could start there and sort stuff out.”

Zeke might not be present, and his understanding of Karin is that she’s not exactly a fan of the Shadows Bane. But Karin knows Zven, and it’s the same situation. If she has an enemy and an ally telling her the same thing she’ll know there’s something in motion which is something she can’t ignore. That alone could be cause for her to get Zeke involved. The entire plan relies on Zeke being present and being willing to hear them out. Otherwise the whole rebellion burns out before it ever catches fire.

“Leo, and Sinead, I will be sending you to Akortha under the orders of following a lead on a church seal. You’re real orders are to do what you can to facilitate a meeting with the Seekers.” Yinto says.

Sinead looks to Zven, then to Yinto, saying. “Given the situation we’re not sure if the founder will choose to remain present or join us. I think it would be best if she joins us. Vandom might be more willing to support us if he knows why we’re trying to set things in motion.”

“If the founder decides to join you it is her wish. Since your orders are technically under CSP directives you will have to find your own transportation.” Yinto says.

Zven gives Sinead a smile, which makes her a bit nervous. While Sinead makes no secret about her ability to shroud, she’s never shrouded for that long, and never traveled that far, then again, Marcie can teleport, and Raven can also shroud. So travel will be easy for them. But in the lich’s experience, the Sunsets do have telepaths, and Raven made no secret about the fact that people who try to read her soul end up losing their minds. Likely an effect of trying to read energy so dark. Hell just trying to read her chaos mana left Sinead momentarily paralyzed.

But there’s so much she doesn’t know about any kind of cambion, let alone a cambion of Raven’s caliber. When she tried to kill Maxwell Raza, before she was chased off by Izume, she read Max’s energy. It was the brightest of light she’d ever seen. But Raven… she was something different… at first she thought that the cambions energy was the polar opposite of Max’s energy, but the more she thinks about it, the more she came to believe that Raven’s energy is actually so much darker. Which makes sense, considering the lore surrounding nephilim and cambion says that both grow to be far more powerful than the angel or demon that sired them. If Raven is indeed a descendant of Lilith, nothing gets darker than a devil.