The session opens with Ariona Cassyon, Nikolai, Zee, Meechum, Ian Thorpe, and the ghost wandering into an arboretum. The first of the “great forests” to be completed, it is actually a true, magically-grown forest on the Moon. The strange group is still in hot pursuit of the mysterious woman who is the apparent cause of the disappearance of Rudolph Bernstein.
Nikolai continues to track the woman along some paths, and eventually off into the brush. Just as he begins to feel the trail move further away from him again, Ariona spots something moving off to the left, behind a tree. She begins to run after it, and Nikolai and Meechum join her. Thorpe, pushing a near-weightless Zee, and the ghost trail after them, stopping in astonishment as the three in the lead vanish without a trace.
The still-extant group discovers that the first trio’s tracks end at the point at which they disappeared; however, Zee gets pushed through the area by Thorpe and nothing happens to him. At this point, the scrawny kid wanders up, conferring with the ghost on what exactly is going on.
Zee says, “Look! I can do pull-ups now!” and begins to chin himself on a branch while everyone else tries to figure out what’s going on. Suddenly, Nikolai reappears holding onto an unconscious Ariona and Meechum. The ghost slaps Ariona awake, and she groggily attempts to piece together what happened. Ariona asks the scrawny boy for a name, and he introduces himself as Bryce, a student at the university.
Nikolai starts moving off again, with the rest of the group trailing, and the ghost spots the woman. He goes straight through the trees to catch her. After her plasma shots fail to do anything other than pass straight through him, she is sufficiently intimidated to start spilling the beans. Somehow the ghost gives her the impression that he’s the boss of the people who hired her, trying to find out who’s going behind his back.
She identifies her contact as Ron Davis, known by some of the party to be a mystic consultant for StratCo. She continues to explain that the plan was to kidnap Bernstein and his research, and then lay the blame on Magitech. Ariona reacts with great surprise when the woman says her contact at Magitech was Astarte Cassenti.
She tosses the data crystal to the ground, after the ghost presses her into admitting that she has it, and continues with her explanation. Apparently, the goons were hired by Davis to kill her after she dropped Bernstein off at the clinic. (No, Zee, we’re not going back to the clinic. Calm down.) The ghost then intimidates her into leaving, but Bryce calls her back. He asks her some more questions, and then she leaves again, giving him her contact info as she does so.
The party settles down to discuss “What now?” essentially. There is some various personal information exchanged, a bit anyway, and eventually a comment about Zee being hungry prompts Ariona to suggest that everyone come back to her apartment to discuss what to do next. (Nikolai suggests just teleporting in and taking him back, but Ariona points out that this is a problem because we don’t actually know where he is.)
Everyone trudges out of the arboretum, and piles into Thorpe’s car and the cab that unbelievably pulls up just as they exit. They end up at Ariona’s, and she attempts to find food for the seven of them even though she hasn’t actually been home in two weeks.
A LOT of private conversations happen now, so there’s not much to report on here. Nikolai takes over the kitchen for an hour or so trying to make more ioun stones, with various not-quite-right effects, and Meechum tries to analyze DNA.
Finally, in the middle of a conversation explaining to Zee who it is they’re looking for and why, Zee suddenly blurts out that Bernstein is being held in a secret facility deep underground beneath Glacialis, the city in Antarctica founded by StratCo. This engenders a lot of stares, but oddly enough no one seems to doubt that he knows what he’s talking about.
Bryce seems to think it’d be a better idea to go home for the night, but the ghost strenuously objects to this. Eventually, Bryce is talked into making a quick stop at his dorm and then staying at Ariona’s, because there’s safety in numbers. Thorpe says he needs to go talk to his "contact", who has gotten ahold of him again since Ariona talked to him. Bryce calls another priority cab, and they all set out.
They stop at the dorm, and Bryce comes out with a little robo-dog. Then everyone heads back to the Great Forest. Bryce attempts to work some techno-wizardry to keep them concealed on their way there, as it’s imperative that they are not followed. It seems to work, so they begin their circuitous route through the arboretum.
Thorpe activates Willam Moss’s hidden portal, and they all file into a round, natural-looking chamber of wood with two chairs, both occupied. One is a rumpled-looking brown-haired man, and the other is a pale woman in a long black dress, wearing heavy black makeup.
Moss appears startled, and stands to meet them. “That’ll be all for now, Angelique,” he says, and the woman disappears. Moss refuses to answer the ghost’s questions about who and/or what the woman is.
Moss tells them that he’s extremely involved in his research, but he was able to find out a bit more. They move into a discussion of what’s going on with Bernstein, and Moss reiterates that he believes a powerful mystic has Bernstein warded. Ariona explains that Zee was able to tell them more details about his location, and Moss is exceedingly interested in Zee’s abilities. He frightened Zee at first, but eventually he was able to calm Zee somewhat. Moss invites Zee to stay with him and help with his research, but Zee is not looking like he is interested. Moss suggests that his hideaway is safer than anyone else . . . and promptly gets hit in the neck with a tiny dart.
The invisible creature is spotted, briefly, by the ghost and later Ariona, but no one can catch her(?) before she ports away. Moss grumbles about the party being followed, and bows his head and puts his hands together as if praying. He then claims that he has moved the place, and it is once again safe, for it is impossible to teleport into this place without knowing where it and the portal entrance is.
Bryce shows far more knowledge about the lab than he should be able to. Ariona shows a great deal of suspicion about this, and states that there were no cameras in the main lab. “You can’t break into a bank if you don’t know where the guards are,” the ghost offers, and then looked extremely puzzled.
The upshot of the conversation is, Moss can’t do much right now because there’s powerful mystics on the other side, and when he finds out about Percepi, he basically throws them all out to continue his research – except Zee, who he invites to stay again. Zee finally decides to stay when he realizes that he can access the outside world with his neural jack – and Ariona gives him her contact information, and offers to come immediately if he ever needs help.
The party leaves, and 6 days pass – There’s a news explosion about Percepi, and some people saying that it’s just like what happened to Mercury, and others saying it’s nothing like what happened with Mercury. This means that we discover that a month ago Mercury colony disappeared, all contact with them was broken off, and no one expects any survivors there. Mercury, however, seems to still be in the sky, and more reflective that before. The disappearance of Percepi, however, seems to be related to a stray planet that skipped into the system at FTL speeds, and skipped out again within a minute or so of Percepi’s disappearance.
Thorpe is thankfully talked out of his crazy plan to break into StratCo’s headquarters.
Moss contacts Ian and Ariona to tell them he’d like to see them and all their companions as soon as possible. They gather everyone, and go to Moss’s new location. They’re pretty sure…again…that no one followed them. Inside is Moss holding a metal hand, an unconscious man, a creepy droid, but no Zee. The ghost stares at the unconscious man, yells, “You bastard!” and gathers his energies to attack.
THE END