The Slippery Bastard
| The Slippery Bastard | |||||||||
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| Part of The Crow of Seattle | |||||||||
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| Factions Involved | |||||||||
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ShadowHaven Mr. Herenight Wychking | Shedim | ||||||||
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Babylon Mojo Joe Broken-Hand | Hopper | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
| Mojo's body was almost snatched. | Hopper lost a lot of spare bodies | ||||||||
| Mojo's and Hallvall's lifestyle was changed. | |||||||||
Summary
The weird terrifying spirit that's haunted Mojo gets its comeuppance.
The Discovery
Mojo's been tracked and haunted by a peculiar spirit. He has tried to look for more intel about it. He recently gained temporary access to PRiSM's libraries regarding spirit knowledge and found out several details. Judging by the fact that the thing has a palpable physical presence, it can't be a demon. Demons often need to Inhabit specific bodies, and this one obviously has several. Demons are ruled out. It can't be a common Materialization spirit. The power Mojo felt personally when Assensing the creature's aura during his astral scouting has signs that hint towards Deathly Aura. Only a handful of spirits are known to have it and you narrow it down to three possibilities: Necro Spirits, Shedim and Great Form Blood Spirits. When the options are corpse-possessing spirits that started the New Islamic Jihad, spirits that come from the realm of the dead and literal blood magic, you know things aren't fun.
Great Form Blood Spirits do not have Realistic Form however and often just straight up Materialize. As a result, you can rule them out; this thing has managed to fool people into thinking it's a physical presence through and through. Necro Spirits last a period of days after which they tend to fall apart unless they're bound spirits. Free Necro Spirits are rare and tend to become somewhat solitary or wander graveyards and mass graves. If they leave a body, that body melts into shapeless, unusable broken down molecular biomatter. Shedim on the other hand can keep corpses intact for as long as they want. Shedim are the things that despise all life, are omnicidal, possess exclusively corpses or the bodies of people whose aura has left their body (like if a mage is projecting, their body is empty and a shedim can take it). In addition, it's hard for them to just come here. Master Shedim generally need to summon them from the deep and distant metaplane they originate from. The most well known one was in DC, but that portal was closed decades ago.
The two leave Saskatoon, AMC after the Norse Cowboy gives Mojo a spell formula for Sunbeam. They return to Seattle and get a knock on their door from a bleeding, snivelling Taco Temple employee. He appears to have explosives strapped to his chest and demands the team opens the door. After he gives his delivery, cutter nanites execute the courier which takes time to clean up. The two go on a ride to open the item and find it to be a spell formula containing a ward and obfuscating ward as well as a letter offering Mojo condolences with his spirit troubles. He suspects the sender is Charon, judging by the brand of a crow on the package. Wychking and Babylon are requested for aid but Wychking is too busy in Morocco, killing a Beetle Hive. Babylon projects over and checks the formula for safety - it appears to be dark mage material; Babylon confirms it's probably Charon who sent the ward, but her motives remain unclear. She also offers to help with the peculiar shedim.