Turns out that landing a plane with a hole in it, while piloted by someone who says they don't know how to fly it, will cause both the paramedics and Homeland Security to show up to see what's going on. Who woulda guessed? (Leander, Leander saw this coming.) DHS looked past Leander and Lha-mo and zeroed in on the rest of the band, in particular William, who they quickly racially profiled and ordered to surrender. Brock started to offer an explaination, but Nick, thinking quickly, stepped right in.
Thinking quickly, but not carefully. Nick told the DHS officer that he worked for Interpol and that he'd caught Rivkah, William, and Brock as terrorists (and Serafiia, too, but less notably since her player was absent). The DHS guys recognized Brock as they were zip-tying his hands and asked for autographs. Brock, however, was growing displeased. Which he told Leander, who had come over to escort Brock in hopes that no actual DHS person would do it.
DHS seemed initially ready to see through the ruse, but Nick managed to use his illusionary powers to fake a confirmation of Nick's story. Luckily, the fact that DHS was assuming Leander and Lha-mo were with them meant that all the Scions were able to get into the same SUV, which they took no where near the army base DHS intended them to go to.
Instead, they ditched the SUV after a few blocks and made their way to a helicopter tours office. Along the way, they discovered that the area around the caldera of Kilauea had been declared a no-fly zone after the volcano had gone quiet mysteriously three and a half days earlier, which the band realized coincided with Pele's disappearance. Leander also suggested that Pele may have been taken while working through an avatar and therefore at a less powerful state. Brock paid the pilot of the helicopter 10 grand for use of the chopper and the group headed up the volcano, landing near the science station at the top.
Of course, Rivkah was given no answer as to where to land, so landed the chopper in plain view of the research station and the scientists saw the Scions emerge. Nick even waved to them. The group quickly snuck away, though, and circled back. Unfortunately, they had a slight problem. Brock's agent called, informing Brock that he was now an escaped suspected terrorist and that Nick's ruse had been discovered. Worse, when Brock demanded the agent get him out of the mess, the agent wasn't quite sure how to proceed. Brock fired his agent, casting Leander in the role of replacement agent, and handed Lee the phone. Lee found out that the phone was being tracked, so Brock chucked it into the volcano. But it was too late. DHS was nearly there.
The Scions headed back into the science station and DHS arrived moments later. Again, they assumed Lha-mo and Leander were part of their team, but this time everyone else, including Nick, was taken into custody. Lha-mo got into the DHS transports with the team, but Leander faded into the background and stayed at the research camp.
The other Scions were taken to a nearby military base and separated. William had come up with a story that stated that Brock was intending to strike out on his own as an actor/producer and that Nick was a hired assistant who'd thought that DHS was part of a movie script they were testing. They cast William as a consultant and Rivkah as a driver. Unfortunately, no one told Rivkah this.
Back at the science station, Leander used the assumption that he was with DHS to ask questions, determining that there were no signs of imminent eruption before the volcano went silent and no other geological oddities. He asked a few questions framed as potential motives for terrorism, which helped him discover that a woman had been kidnapped nearby. He was also told a detective named Kei was working on that case. Leander headed to talk to the detective.
During the interrogations, Rivkah was confronted with the idea that her mother would disavow her. But the offer was also placed before her that she could become an informant on her bandmates in order to receive reduced charges. She told the story, leaving out the supernatural bits, but it was the truth and not the one William and Brock had cooked up. William and Brock stuck to that story, and Nick mostly did... Until he managed to use his divine charm to convince the investigator, and those watching from the other room, that he was fully innocent, leaving William and Brock as the most likely to take the fall. Lah-mo drank coffee.
Leander met with the detective, probing with a few questions about Brock and the volcano in relation to the kidnapped woman. The detective refused to see a connection between the two, but as he was about to leave, Leander indulged curiosity and used his divine perception to check the detective for divine ichor. Lee discovered the detective was a member of the Atua pantheon, but offers of help were again rebuffed with "family will handle this." Leander decided to head to the bank.
Back at the base, the investigators broke to discuss things. They decided they needed a drink. Lah-mo had Irish coffee. The yeti overheard them saying Brock was bound to be arrested at the ringleader of the terrorists, but there wasn't much she could do. Fortunately, or unfortunately, that's when Rivkah got a visitor. Clay began to seep under her door, slowly forming up into a muddy clay giant. It made to attack Rivkah, but was stopped by the appearance of shadowy ninjas (zinjas?) who sliced the giant up. They were joined by a man who introduced himself as Kane Taoka.
Leander arrived at the base and quickly found himself a computer in a break room with internet access. He discovered some information on Hawaiian giants called Nawua. He also began looking into the detective and the other goings on. He also followed up on a report he'd overheard earlier that a hollowed out dolphin had washed up on the beach and discovered it had been hollowed out from the inside. He had a sinking feeling he knew why.
Taoka spoke to Rivkah of the Titan War and the efforts of Muspelheim. He went on to tell Rivkah "the enemy of my enemy is..." and told her he'd free her if she'd continue to harass the fire giants so that his master could have an equal shot at plunging the world into darkness. Eventually, he did free her and the other Scions and on his way out, he was vigil branded by Lha-mo. They departed, heading to a hotel and Nick called Leander. Leander hinted that the spider-lady wasn't dead and Rivkah took the phone from Nick to run over the conversation with Taoka. Leander, Brock, and William pushed for the conversation to happen in private.
Brock, now cleared, rented out the penthouse of a fancy hotel and the Scions settled in. Leander, once he arrived, set about duct taping all the openings into the room, so as to prevent spiders from entering. William began questioning Rivkah in the shower and eventually everyone joined the conversation.
Leander began to lay out the suspicions he'd had brewing for a while. He caught some of the Scions up on the major issues of the Titan War. The Titans, now free, each desired to drown the world in themselves. Muspelheim would be fire, but if it was Gaia, it would be vegetation and animals. Worse, should the Titans die, as had happened to Ymir, the world would be briefly (for a few hundred thousand years) plunged into the effects of the Titan's power. The group then realized the need for the Titan's prison. Leander theorized that the Titan's goal in kidnapping a fire goddess, and potentially other fire gods, might be to create some of that effect, ritually linking their powers and killing them to create a similar imbalance to the death of a Titan, which would empower Muspelheim and allow it to win the Titan War. Alternately, Leander worried that an avatar-form of a god might be subject to the same danger as the Scions; namely, they might be able to be controlled by the chains that had almost been used on Brock and Rivkah. He surmised that this may have been the way that some of the gods had been convinced to join the Titan's cause. There was also a brief divergence on to the idea that Loki, or some other Aesir, may have been trying to short-circuit Ragnarok by helping Muspelheim.
And with that set of unsettling ideas, the Scion settled in for a time. Rivkah headed down to the bar and was approached by a man who called himself Tain, who offered her a job helping him transport weapons and threatening harm to the Scions if they didn't abandon their cause...
Of course, Rivkah was given no answer as to where to land, so landed the chopper in plain view of the research station and the scientists saw the Scions emerge. Nick even waved to them. The group quickly snuck away, though, and circled back. Unfortunately, they had a slight problem. Brock's agent called, informing Brock that he was now an escaped suspected terrorist and that Nick's ruse had been discovered. Worse, when Brock demanded the agent get him out of the mess, the agent wasn't quite sure how to proceed. Brock fired his agent, casting Leander in the role of replacement agent, and handed Lee the phone. Lee found out that the phone was being tracked, so Brock chucked it into the volcano. But it was too late. DHS was nearly there.
The Scions headed back into the science station and DHS arrived moments later. Again, they assumed Lha-mo and Leander were part of their team, but this time everyone else, including Nick, was taken into custody. Lha-mo got into the DHS transports with the team, but Leander faded into the background and stayed at the research camp.
The other Scions were taken to a nearby military base and separated. William had come up with a story that stated that Brock was intending to strike out on his own as an actor/producer and that Nick was a hired assistant who'd thought that DHS was part of a movie script they were testing. They cast William as a consultant and Rivkah as a driver. Unfortunately, no one told Rivkah this.
Back at the science station, Leander used the assumption that he was with DHS to ask questions, determining that there were no signs of imminent eruption before the volcano went silent and no other geological oddities. He asked a few questions framed as potential motives for terrorism, which helped him discover that a woman had been kidnapped nearby. He was also told a detective named Kei was working on that case. Leander headed to talk to the detective.
During the interrogations, Rivkah was confronted with the idea that her mother would disavow her. But the offer was also placed before her that she could become an informant on her bandmates in order to receive reduced charges. She told the story, leaving out the supernatural bits, but it was the truth and not the one William and Brock had cooked up. William and Brock stuck to that story, and Nick mostly did... Until he managed to use his divine charm to convince the investigator, and those watching from the other room, that he was fully innocent, leaving William and Brock as the most likely to take the fall. Lah-mo drank coffee.
Leander met with the detective, probing with a few questions about Brock and the volcano in relation to the kidnapped woman. The detective refused to see a connection between the two, but as he was about to leave, Leander indulged curiosity and used his divine perception to check the detective for divine ichor. Lee discovered the detective was a member of the Atua pantheon, but offers of help were again rebuffed with "family will handle this." Leander decided to head to the bank.
Back at the base, the investigators broke to discuss things. They decided they needed a drink. Lah-mo had Irish coffee. The yeti overheard them saying Brock was bound to be arrested at the ringleader of the terrorists, but there wasn't much she could do. Fortunately, or unfortunately, that's when Rivkah got a visitor. Clay began to seep under her door, slowly forming up into a muddy clay giant. It made to attack Rivkah, but was stopped by the appearance of shadowy ninjas (zinjas?) who sliced the giant up. They were joined by a man who introduced himself as Kane Taoka.
Leander arrived at the base and quickly found himself a computer in a break room with internet access. He discovered some information on Hawaiian giants called Nawua. He also began looking into the detective and the other goings on. He also followed up on a report he'd overheard earlier that a hollowed out dolphin had washed up on the beach and discovered it had been hollowed out from the inside. He had a sinking feeling he knew why.
Taoka spoke to Rivkah of the Titan War and the efforts of Muspelheim. He went on to tell Rivkah "the enemy of my enemy is..." and told her he'd free her if she'd continue to harass the fire giants so that his master could have an equal shot at plunging the world into darkness. Eventually, he did free her and the other Scions and on his way out, he was vigil branded by Lha-mo. They departed, heading to a hotel and Nick called Leander. Leander hinted that the spider-lady wasn't dead and Rivkah took the phone from Nick to run over the conversation with Taoka. Leander, Brock, and William pushed for the conversation to happen in private.
Brock, now cleared, rented out the penthouse of a fancy hotel and the Scions settled in. Leander, once he arrived, set about duct taping all the openings into the room, so as to prevent spiders from entering. William began questioning Rivkah in the shower and eventually everyone joined the conversation.
Leander began to lay out the suspicions he'd had brewing for a while. He caught some of the Scions up on the major issues of the Titan War. The Titans, now free, each desired to drown the world in themselves. Muspelheim would be fire, but if it was Gaia, it would be vegetation and animals. Worse, should the Titans die, as had happened to Ymir, the world would be briefly (for a few hundred thousand years) plunged into the effects of the Titan's power. The group then realized the need for the Titan's prison. Leander theorized that the Titan's goal in kidnapping a fire goddess, and potentially other fire gods, might be to create some of that effect, ritually linking their powers and killing them to create a similar imbalance to the death of a Titan, which would empower Muspelheim and allow it to win the Titan War. Alternately, Leander worried that an avatar-form of a god might be subject to the same danger as the Scions; namely, they might be able to be controlled by the chains that had almost been used on Brock and Rivkah. He surmised that this may have been the way that some of the gods had been convinced to join the Titan's cause. There was also a brief divergence on to the idea that Loki, or some other Aesir, may have been trying to short-circuit Ragnarok by helping Muspelheim.
And with that set of unsettling ideas, the Scion settled in for a time. Rivkah headed down to the bar and was approached by a man who called himself Tain, who offered her a job helping him transport weapons and threatening harm to the Scions if they didn't abandon their cause...
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