Chicago

So, as a catch-up note, I guess I should mention that the Morrigan also put us in charge of sealing up Balor's Eye. By "put us in charge" I mean that she bound us to the task through magic. It's not like we wouldn't have done it anyways. Still, I nearly had to beat up a customs agent to get the damn three hundred pound rock from Ireland to the states.

In any case though, three of us, Jack, Laurel, and I, were high-tailing it back to my home-town of Chicago to rescue my mom from Victor. The other three, Nate, Brendan, and Camilla, were heading to Berkeley to find out what was wrong with the kids that have been crashing at Laurel's house--which includes her half-sister and her adopted son among others.

I havn't heard from those that headed to California yet, but I'm hoping they found things in good order. We certainly didn't here in Chicago.

When I landed I tried to give Victor a call to make sure he didn't start doing anything particularly stupid, but he didn't pick up. So I left him a voicemail. When I got on to my mom's street I tried calling him again. Nothing. When I opened up the front door of her house I found out one reason he might not be picking up the phone. My mom was right inside, bound and gagged on a chair, each leg of which was sitting on the activation pin for a different military-grade land mine. My mom, of course, starts trying to yell something through her gag. "It's a trap" I imagine her saying, so I don't bother ungagging her immediately. We knew it was a trap. First Jack checked the house, but no one else was there. So I ungagged her.

"I'm not your mother!" I hear a slimy bastard in the form of my mother say. That slimy bastard is Sylvester, or Sly. He's Loki's kid. I don't trust him as far as I can throw him. ...Okay that's a poor expression to use because he's pretty light and I've got a good arm, but the idea's there.

"Where's my mother?"
"I don't know. Victor kidnapped her, then he beat me up, tied me to this chair, made me look like your mom, then set me up on some landmines."
Laurel used some powers she has to ensure that if the mines went off Sly and I would be a bit less likely to be blown completely to kingdom-come.
"Alright, Sly, I'm going to try to defuse the mines." Jack and Laurel waited outside--Laurel very reluctantly. Jack actually let me wear the Armor of Achilles while I was at it, too. Every once in a while he does things that actually make him seem less like an asshole.

I nearly botched the first mine, but turns out it really is the red wire. I did the other three the same way, and we were free to breath again. So then we started looking around the house for clues about where my mom had been taken. The place was a mess--signs of struggle everywhere like a path of destruction from the kitchen to the front door. I couldn't get where they'd gone once they were out of the house though. Luckily Nevermore could. He tracked them straight across the street to a neighbor's house.

Like I said, Victor's pretty fucking dumb.

So I decide to knock on the neighbor's door. I can hear voices inside, but can't tell what they're saying. I knock some more, and still hear talking. I knock more, still no one opens the door. So I open the door. And what I found really pissed me off.

First thing I notice is the dozen corpses. At first they looked like homeless people, but then I realized that was just the clothes. These were werewolves. In their midst was Victor. His arms were missing. So were his possessions. And in his chest there was a big I carved. Yeah. Carved.

Sitting in the middle of this room on four chairs were my mom and three Dwarves. I'm not talking mini-me type of dwarves, I'm talking about the kind of Dwarves that can drink you under the table, beat up your dad, and then personally forge an axe to finish you off with if they really want to. They're on our side though. Always good to know.

The four of them were hostages, so we went to untie them. My mother, of course, exploded in tears and Spanish. She had no idea what was going on, she was scared, she had been trapped in this room with a trio of very intimidating fellow hostages surrounded by corpses for three days... she was beyond my ability to help. I was going to appeal to Laurel when Jack stepped in and went super-powered school counselor on us. He took her to the kitchen and within the minute I could hear her talking to him calmly. Freaking amazing. Anyways, I asked the Dwarves what really happened. They told me that a guy wearing a coat made of human flesh and followed by a group of mechanical wolves busted in here not long after Victor set up his little trap, and they killed him and his werewolf lackeys. Then the guy looted him, carved the I in his chest, and just ripped his arms off with a comment like "I can't wait do add these."

Wonderful. We're pretty sure this is probably the same person who has been responsible for the MENSA murders, and for the hacking of Watson, the computer A.I. in California. We don't know what's going on with this guy, but we know it's gotta be bad. Laurel has a theory involving golems. I don't really like the sound of that, myself.

All of this crap frustrated me enough that I went on and shot Victor in the head after all. Such massive incompetence should really be punishable by death. ...Come to think of it, I guess it is.