Episode 2 - Scene 5 "Orders From The Sect"

When the Lionheart's sister arrived, with her teenage coterie, Joshua used the opportunity to make an urgent phone call. Thankfully, the telephone - mounted on a wall by the infirmary - was in view of the main hall, so he would be quickly alerted if something went down. He dialled the relevant number and a familiar voice called out, 'who is it?'

'A good shepherd,' he replied.

'Sorry, wrong number,' the old man groaned. Then, the phone clicked and he was sent through.

He could hear someone flipping through paper on the other end, as they found the relevant files. Neither of them spoke for quite a while, by design.

'So,' the woman's voice eventually began, 'Initiate Hill, what would you like to report?'

Josh hesitated for just a second. 'This morning, I witnessed the Lionheart bare his Beast.'

'I see,' she replied, carefully, 'then I suggest you focus on getting him under control.'

'I will,' he assured, happy to have been given such a broad direction. The Chosen One was stubborn and aggressive but he had no doubt that, in time, he could be shaped into a great warrior.

He was just about to hang up when she continued, 'I see here that your initial report mentioned your sexual attraction towards the Lionheart's sister.'

Joshua clenched his jaw and ground his teeth to suppress the rising heat in his cheeks. 'Yes,' he said in an uneven tone. The League demanded such details from its members and, whilst he understood why, it always felt like an invasion of his privacy.

'Get close to her,' his handler said, 'mix your true feelings in with your lies, it will make them more convincing. If you can get her on side, she is likely to be a useful tool in any effort you make to control him.'

He sighed, deeply, into the receiver. He hadn't even realised he'd done it until she responded.

'Initiate Hill? I need to hear you confirm that you understand the task I have assigned you.'

'I understand,' he said, trying to hide the frustration in his voice, 'you can count on me.'

'Good, keep us apprised. Goodbye, Initiate Hill,' she said, before abruptly ending the call.

He let out a second, much longer, sigh.

'Bad news?' Lydia asked, appearing from nowhere. He turned around to face her. She was gorgeous, with vibrant blue eyes and long, curly, blonde hair.

'The League commands, and I obey,' he said, ducking the question.

She made a face at that, a sort of ooh-la-la expression. 'Anyway, I wanted to talk to you.'

'Oh?'

'Yeah, you need to lay off my brother,' she said, her tone hard but not hostile, 'because you've, honestly, behaved like a gigantic asshole towards him.'

This was it, he realised, his way in. 'You're right,' he began, seeing a surprised smile cross her face, 'I've been way too overzealous. I'm his guard, not his guide. He should lead and I should follow.'

'That's,' she began, laughing a little, 'yeah, that's really good to hear. I guess you're not so bad after all.'

He smiled at that, not knowing how best to follow-up. Thankfully, he was saved from any awkwardness by the return of Valentine, Pri and Tanvi. Heading over, he sat amongst Lydia's friends. The three returnees then announced their findings. 'Right, we have a lead, another missing girl,' Tanvi said.

'Where's this lead come from?' Josh asked, 'what about the trail of energy that you followed?'

'We followed it to the home of a mage. He's a merchant, as much as anything, who loaned the golems to our target, the incubus Harnarax.'

'What could an incubus offer a mage? Paper money is worthless with those types, they can conjure it.' The notion of an incubus being the thing they were after disgusted, rather than startled, him.

'Semen,' Tanvi said, frankly, catching him off-guard. He sputtered as she continued, 'it's extraordinarily potent, used in various fertility rites and rituals. Plenty of mages, alchemists and apothecaries sell it pure, as well, just calling it a pregnancy potion.'

'Alright,' he said, trying to compose himself, 'so this mage just gave his client up, told you his name, that he'd taken another girl?'

'Yes, it's not much to go on but he said it would've happened this morning. We just have to wait for the news to pick up a missing person story.'

Lydia spoke up at that, exchanging looks with her peers, who all seemed to be having the same thought, 'it could be Stacey. She didn't come to school today. Her parents actually came looking for her. No one's seen her since she left home this morning.'

'Right,' Tanvi said, 'let's get going. We'll check her route to school. With any luck, there'll be traces of him. Judah, you and I will stay here with Hannah until the Society people arrive with her parents.' His brother nodded, solemnly. He was a good kid. 'Everyone else, get going.'

With that, they were off. He shot a final look back at Judah and the poor girl he was now tasked with looking after. Then, as they marched to the sight of Stacey's disappearance, Josh kept pace with Valentine and made sure that Lydia was in earshot before he spoke. 'Hey, I just wanted to apologise for my behaviour. I've been way too hard on you. I actually think you've shown a lot of restraint,' he offered, a half-truth at most.

'Apology accepted,' the Lionheart returned, without meeting his gaze, 'I do actually understand the necessity of keeping the Beast in check,' he said, giving Josh some pause, 'but I'm not going to handicap myself in a life-or-**** situation.' There was the Chosen One in all his glory, he thought, utterly naïve. The Beast could not be called on like a guard dog, it was either suppressed or it took over. Josh assured himself, if it came down to it, he would kill the Lionheart without a moment's hesitation. Hopefully, it wouldn't come to that.

They arrived, soon after, at their destination, the beginning of Stacey's route to school. Lydia spoke up immediately, having noticed something, 'hey, this is really close to where we live. Like, I actually took this exact route to school yesterday, when I had to walk.' Worried glances were exchanged, 'it could've been me. Maybe it was supposed to be me.' She directed her comments to her brother, 'you said this guy, like, knows you, right?'

'It could be a coincidence,' Valentine said, dispassionately, 'still, you could be right. It wouldn't hurt to check in with mom.' With that, the group diverted its course and walked up to the Moore family home. He realised, as they received stares from passers-by, that they looked quite strange, him most of all with his uniform, sword and breastplate. The first thing the group noticed upon arriving was that , apparently, Mister Moore's car was still in the driveway. That seemed to unsettle Valentine and his sister and, after knocking on the front door he called, 'mom? Dad?!'

Their worst fears vanished, however, when Mister Moore opened the door. He was wearing his dressing gown quite loosely and generally appeared to be in a jovial mood. 'Is everything alright?'

'Not necessarily,' the Lionheart said, 'why aren't you at work?'

'Oh,' the man laughed, 'I called in sick, wanted to spend some time with mom.' Josh could only imagine, though he'd rather not, exactly what kind of time he'd been spending with his wife. 'Anyway, come on in, all of you. Then you can tell us what's got you so worked up. My money's on werewolves.' If he knew the slightest thing about werewolves, Joshua thought grimly, he wouldn't joke about them.

It was obvious, when he finally got to see Missus Moore, where Lydia got her looks. He allowed himself to feel the tiniest twinge of envy, considering Mister Moore had apparently been banging her all day. She greeted her children before taking up a position next to her husband, with her arm around his waist. Valentine addressed them, 'we're on the trail of an incubus, a kind of seducer demon. We think he might be targeting me. Have any of you had any strange experiences lately or seen anything out of the ordinary.'

The couple exchanged an awkward look and Lydia immediately seemed to recognise something. 'Oh my God,' she said, 'please don't say ...'

'We had an encounter today,' her father said, before she could get the words out, 'a handsome man came to the door. It seemed perfectly reasonable at the time to just let this stranger into our home and,' he hesitated, just a little, 'well, we had sex. The three of us.'

Lydia squealed at that but Valentine remained stony-faced. It was quite admirable, Josh would have to admit. 'It must've been him. Pri, can you use this information in some way? If he was in this house, can we pick up his trail?'

'I, uh, yeah,' the short brown-skinned girl sputtered, 'there's a spell I can perform that might show me where he went.'

'Excellent,' Valentine said, making the girl blush, 'what do we need?'

'It'll only really require meditation but I could do with an anchor, someone to help me bear the load, so to speak.' She looked up, expectantly, at Valentine.

'Right, Lydia, you should help,' he said, disappointing her. Pri then took Lydia up to the master bedroom, leaving all the others alone with the happy couple. Whereas everyone else struggled to hide the awkwardness and embarrassment they felt, Joshua and Valentine remained calm and collected. He watched the Chosen One intently, trying to discern just how far along his attunement to magic was. A shiver seemed to grip him when the spell was presumably cast. That was good, it suggested that he would very soon be ready to wield the Sword of Kings.

Once the spell was over, the girls returned from upstairs. Pri looked mortified but Lydia looked weak and fatigued. Her parents and her boyfriend immediately went to fawn over her. Joshua did not much like the sight of that, so he joined the others, where their next moves were being discussed. 'Lydia will be fine,' Pri said, assuaging Valentine's fears, 'the spell worked quite well. I saw a few things I'd rather not have,' she said sheepishly. 'Most importantly, I was able to follow the incubus to his lair. I can take us there, whenever you're ready.'

'I'm ready,' he replied, instantly, and Joshua let a smile flash across his lips.

Notes:

For this scene, I rolled over the Chaos Factor, getting an 8, which allowed me to construct it entirely according to my "expectations." I knew that I wanted to have Joshua and Lydia interact but the precise details were less clear. Then, the image came to me of him getting off the phone, which is when I remembered that, just like with Valentine, I'd forgotten to roll something at the start of the "adventure" that I was meant to. So, I rolled Charm for him to contact his sect, getting a 5 and a 2, with minus 1, for 6. This was a miss, which I was kind of hoping for, since I intend for the Wolfsbane League to be a pain in the arse, and meant that they were going to ask him to do something dodgy. So, I marked experience for Josh, and came up with the ins and outs of the telephone call.

Then, I had Pri make another "Investigate A Mystery" move, rolling a 4 on both dice, adding a 2, to get 10. This gave me two holds that I spent on the questions, "What Happened Here?" and, "Where Did It Go?" That's when I came up with the idea of this missing girl and the notion that she was **** along the same route to school that Lydia had used the previous day. Then we get to another balls-up on my part. I'm never really sure how to roll "help" actions and this one was a doozy, with Lydia missing her "Help Out" move, with a 1 and a 3, plus 1, for a 5. Then, Pri made a "Use Magic" move, rolling, yet again, a 4 on both dice, plus 2, for a 10, meaning the "Help Out" move was pointless.

I decided to even things out by implying that Lydia actually did help but suffered for it, physically. I wrote the scene from Joshua's point of view, however, so I'm not sure how well that came across.

In the end, I decided that they'd made enough progress to lower the Chaos Factor back down to 6.