Session 5
This session was played on 2025-08-02. Kort has paused the Hunt, and in the resulting mess, Maelle requests Iorena's help to retrieve the frozen body of Zach before it's handed to the Paranormal Foundation, and gets Clark and Gaia mixed up in the mess.
Plot
One night in the Hunter Guildhouse, Gaia relates to Iorena the events of Session 4, and when she reaches the point where she had to kill a rigasian soldier, she breaks down. They spend the rest of the night telling stories about Iorena's past until Gaia falls asleep.
Maelle learns that the Paranormal Foundation is trying to acquire the frozen body of Zach and tries to get some of her contacts to help; they can't do much because most of them are in a state of alert since Zhongguo got their own Bomb, but they refer to her to a local that has managed to extract people wanted by Rigasia: Iorena herself.
In the Staging Grounds, Kort announces that the Hunt is being paused until they can review their procedures and ensure that no further issues like the lake poisoning and the fugitive terrorist can happen.
Maelle contacts Iorena to request her help; Iorena is understandably paranoid, though, and interrogates Maelle at gunpoint. Only when she is satisfied does she ask Gaia to bring Clark so they can talk about the frozen body situation.
Despite misgivings Clark offers his help and they hash out the situation in the Hunter Guildhouse, revealing to Iorena and Maelle the existence of the Glove. Which they proceed to do some basic experimentation, during which Clark keeps trying to convince everyone that “he's not a freak” and “can't freeze things”.
They discover that the glove does not work for anyone other than Gaia or Clark, but also that when wearing it, Gaia does not only “zone out” but also get a line to something that can give her knowledge. In fact one of the lines from drug-trip world-encompassing Amanda (“Tell the Ice Child that the Temple is not a place”) causes Clark to have a panic attack.
In spite of the revelations, they decide to steal Zach's body before it can be taken by the Paranormal Foundation:
Step one: they cause a bureaucratic mess where the possession of the body comes into question as part of the investigation being run by Kort.
Step two: Under pretenses of clearing up the bureaucratic bullshit, Maelle comes back into the field lab and proceeds to make Halkin so furious that he doesn't notice she opening a window
Step three: Maelle, Clark and Gaia enter the lab to steal the body; there are some missteps, the worst of which is Gaia burning her hands in the superfrozen body that Clark can apparently touch without problem, but they manage to get it out and drive to safety.
Cast
- Boisterous Hunter
Quotes
- Iorena: Please tell me you haven't been in the deep zone.
- Gaia: What's considered deep zone? Like, how deep is actually deep?
- Gaia: There was that unga-bunga person, she went there.
- Iorena: Unga… bunga… person? please tell me this was not a black person, Gaia.
- Gaia keeps going around the events on the zone, and as the night goes on iorena slowly keeps getting the rest of the story out of her. First she learns of the rigasian patrol there, and how Gaia had no idea where they came from because she had been tied; and then she was free but under attack, and she is trying to be brave and a little boasty about how she managed to put a couple soldiers down.
- And then she notices she's crying.
- And she has no idea why.
- And then Iorena is hugging her very hard.
- Kort: Since I came here and my helicopter crashed right after a very suspicious explosion we've had people deploying illegal pesticides that are killing your families downstream, some terrorist has been walking inside the zone as if there was not a guard, and we've had aberrant events that we have no idea where came from, just to list some
- Kort: If you keep doing things like this your families are not going to need any money, because they will be poisoned and dead, or all the money will be gone on hospital bills, is that what you want?
- Kort: We're not stopping the hunt, we're making a pause while we sort all the bullshit that's been happening, and ensure it doesn't happen again. most of you already got enough money to last until we resume so just let me do my job so you can have a family to give that money to.
- Iorena: Okay, that makes a lot more sense, but look down here
- Maelle looks down, and sees that Iorena is pointing a gun at her.
- Iorena: Now, don't make any sudden movements.
- Maelle: Okay
- Iorena: I have no idea who told you what about me, but I have not survived this long by allowing random accusations to go unanswered. So please, start againt from the beginning and make it convincing.
- Clark is in the forest area when he does hear the “Orange, Banana, Pineapple” call; and it's at that point that he knows that peace is merely an illusion, there's only Gaia.
- Less then ten minutes after that gaia pops her head on his hiding place; there are squirrels on her hair.
- Gaia: Iorena wants you… to come.
- Clark: What? Look, I'm charmed she think of me like that, but I'm not interested.
- Clark, you have no idea how, but you know that the squirrels are judging you.
- Gaia: (with helpful tone) You barely look any better than Ferret.
- Clark: Gaia, do you still have that glove? That's the thing that froze her, so we might need it.
- Iorena: Allow me to invite you to pass the night; we have a couple free rooms… what glove?
- Clark: Oh, sorry, I assumed Gaia told you everything.
- Iorena: She apparently skipped everything about some glove.
- Clark: So, I'm gonna sleep in an actual bedroom… Is that what being rich feels like?
- Iorena: Are you telling me that Victor Vituska almost got his hands on a glove that allows you to freeze things?
- Iorena walks up to an old grandfather clock, opens it, rummages inside, and gets a bottle and glasses out.
- Iorena: Little known tidbit about our mutual aquaintance Vituska. The thing he does where he shreds stuff with wind? It was not originally his gift. It was someone else's. I don't know what happened, but that person is now dead, and the gift is in Vituska's hands.
- AMANDA: TELL THE ICE CHILD THAT THE TEMPLE IS NOT A PLACE.
- Gaia: Tell the Ice Child that the Temple is not a place.
- Clark proceeds to have a panic attack.
- Iorena: Okay, Gaia, so you clearly saw something there. You did not become an ant though; I think it's all in your… head… like the squirrels… oh fuck.
- Iorena: Clark? Can you hear me? There's one thing that you need to understand, okay? I don't know how many people have told you otherwise, but you. are. not. a. freak.
- Gaia: Amanda, how old are you?
- Amanda tries to raise her paws to show but results are inconclusive. You don't think squirrels can count that well.
- Iorena: There's a young woman that is going to be taken to Rigasia against her wishes, so I propose that we steal a body.
- Iorena: We can create a security hole to get a chance at taking the body by using one of the most dangerous skills in our arsenal: paperwork.
- Gaia: Nooo!
- Halkin: Initial analysis is that this was a human body brought in from the zone, affected with an aberrant effect of some kind. Then we started measuring and noticed that there doesn't seem any reality variance on the body itself, which makes this something else, that instead might be under the purview of the Paranormal Foundation. And then I have here some utter bullshit that says that this could be considered an aberrant human, but I have no patience for that one.
- Maelle: What if it is an aberrant human?
- Halkin proceeds to lose his cool in almost every conceivable way.
Trivia
Error 404: Rose not found.
The first man Iorena had to kill was a blackcap officer who was getting very pushy with her fourteen-year-old sister; she bashed his head in with a shovel, then she used it to bury him, and finally proceeded to vomit everything she had eaten that week.
Valtshorans drink their tea with butter in it. Also, Aqvavit