I don't know entirely what's going on, but about half an hour ago, I was awoken by the feeling that my wards were being threatened. I immediately started trying to put them on the mend, and one of my guardian spirits told me someone was outside. I looked out my bedroom window, and sure enough, there was a humanoid standing at our front door, his hands on the door itself, whittling down my wards through sheer will.

He saw me, too. We contested for about ten minutes, then he turned around and walked away. I've spent the rest of my time until now repairing and reinforcing, but if I reinforce much further than what they are, the maintenance alone is going to have me too drained to be effective in a real fight.

I don't know who (or what) that person was. It was too dark to see clearly... All I know is that my family is potentially in danger. He may just be waiting for me to leave for work, if he's not a vamp. He may actually be weaker than me, and his walking away was actually him giving up, but I'm not putting money on that one.

Willie, anyone else, could I get a hand, please? I need someone to watch my home for me while I'm away...

I'm almost back up to 100% now and I'd be more than happy to come and help. Just remember, I don't use magic like you. I rely on more mundane means of protection. If that's ok or you're desperate enough that you think your wife will overlook it, shoot me a PM.

Kon, I can do what I can to reinforce your place. While I'm not an expert in magic, I do have some experience with it, but I can also augment it with my own psychic abilities. (I know, some people are probably saying "but wouldn't you have to be present for that?" Not really.) I also have a circle of people where I'm at that can help if need be.

Razor, I appreciate the offer, but I can't ask you to come all the way up here from Texas just for me...

Bert...I don't know where you are, but I couldn't ask your help, either, if you can't get here within the next 10 hours, or so... I'll PM you just in case, and you can get back to me, but I'm gonna keep trying to get ahold of some of the locals.

Ron, completely understandable, though I do want you over for Thanksgiving, provided all these messes are cleaned up by then.

Still trying to get ahold of Adama and Willie...

You could have left me a message on MSN, I was home sick from work this morning, and could have done some remote support.

I'm at home now, and just checked up on Lazlo. You need anything at all, you tell me immeditately. Noone's hurting my friends if I can help it.

Thanks, Adama. Unfortunately, when I checked MSN, you weren't on for some reason... I might ask you to come over tomorrow to help watch the house and the family while I'm at work.

As it worked out, today, I had no work, myself, so I'm at home watching things, myself...

KonThaak wrote:Still trying to get ahold of Adama and Willie...

And so you have. My posse and I can spot you tonight and tomorrow. PM me the details and we'll roll.

Excellent. Thanks, guys... At least I know everything'll be fine when I go to work, tomorrow.

Heh, Willie and his guys are here. Always pictured Willie as one of those smaller, unobtrusive-looking street-punks, who if you messed with him he'd lay you flat.

Nah, he looks exactly like what he is: a brick shithouse. XD He'll be here a short while, Adama's getting here in the morning, Bert's getting here sometime tomorrow (though I imagine he'll want to take a rest before doing any major guard-duty, after the amount of travelling he's gonna be doing tonight and tomorrow morning)... This little townhouse is gonna be the most well-protected place for miles around.

Just wanted to publically say thanks to everyone for responding... I'm lucky and proud to be a part of this group.

My team and I are in the area we can and will lend support. PM me and we can be there in a few hours good luck.

I think I'm set. Go see if you can help Ron at all. If you can't help him, then PM me and I'll get back to you.

Gotta get to work, for right now. Thanks for the offer.

Gods, this day is taking forever... Still have some 70 deliveries to make, but they're all residential, so they should come off my truck fast.

Please tell me that no news is good news...? Adama? Willie? Bert? How're things going at my home? Quiet? Call me when you get this, please, and forgive my paranoid worries.

I'm gonna try to be home by 7:30 if I can... Just taking a short break, posting from my phone, right now...

I'll repeat it here for those whom are following the situation on the boards:

Well, I didn't arrive til after noon and I was pretty zonked out from driving all night. Woulda arrived about 30 minutes sooner but I stopped in a small town today to get some breakfast/lunch and send a package to Ron. I haven't seen anything unusual yet though.

Things are still fine here, Kon-Tiki...

Ended up later than I wanted to be, because I got sick before work, and had to miss my shift. Woke up at about nine and drive right over to your house. Set up some of my little tricks to help the defenses around the place, and have just been sitting around since, either napping or reading.

Interesting to finaly meet some of the others from the board tho... Then again, as usual, I'm not the talkative type. Don't know what they think of me.

I didn't tell you this morning KT, but the first crisis hit shortly after we got settled in last night.

We were watching Jerry Springer when Frog suddenly said, "I'm hongry. There somthin' to eat around here? Lemme check the fridge."

I leapt to my feet, told him, "Christ no, Frog, you are not raiding my pal's kitchen."

"But I'm HONGRY!"

Red chimed in, "I'm feeling a mite peckish myself."

Frog and I stared at him for a moment.

Turning back to Frog, I asked him, "Are you trippin'? Only two people live here, there ain't enough food in there for your midnight snack." As he meditated on the wisdom of that, I went on, "Look, we passed a Taco Bell on the way in, about ten minutes away. Make a run for the border, yo."

Frog left and I sat down with Red to watch the rest of Springer. "Peckish?"

Eventually Frog came in with four bags of tacos. By this time, it was so late that you could turn on the TV and watch white guys playing basketball. "Where you been, Jack?"

"I got pulled over by a cop. DWB. But he wasn't a 'neck, just jumpy, so we was cool after I flashed him my badge."

***

Except for my boss' bitching, today's gone fine, KT. Between me, Adama, and Bert, anything that shows up is going to wish it hadn't.

Frog and Red are still around, too, helping Mrs. KT. Frog's givin' pointers, since he got six tadpoles of his own, and Red is running errands.

If Danger shows up I'll blow its head off.

"A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is
looking the other way, shoot it in the head."

I got home later than originally anticipated (good gods, this day did take forever), got home, and fraternized. I saw most of those posts before I finished the day, and though I said thanks in person, thanks again for everything, guys.

I'm exhausted, right now. After a full day of work, I got out to my car to find a warning taped to my windshield... "Samhuin is coming, cousin. I tried to draw you out of your shell to warn you, but you didn't follow me."

So whoever was at my house yesterday morning knew my car well enough to get that note to me. For those who may not know, Samhuin is the original holiday celebrated by the old Celts on October 31st. From what I gather, they believed that the Gates to the Realm of Death openned up, and let the spirits of the deceased who could not (or would not) be reincarnated out into the world. They brought with them the chill of death, and those who didn't dress like them faced potentially being dragged into the Realm of Death by jealous spirits. Hence, dressing up as ghouls and goblins on October 31st. (When the Christians moved in next to the Celts, they saw this behavior, and started creating rituals to summon all of their saints to walk the world on November 1st, and clean up the demons that the Celts were "obviously" summoning. Thus, to the Christians, October 31st became the "Eve of All Hallows".)

Anyway, I showed everyone, and we were standing around outside talking about it, and about other stuff, and generally just shooting the breeze. I seriously figured that with the warning, we were safe for a few more days.

I guess that's what I get for assuming shit... We were attacked, tonight. I'll post details later, but what I will say is that we were up against a vampire and several ghouls...and undead fighting a druid isn't very wise in the first place, but doing so at his house is generally what we call "suicide". They showed up at our driveway... I live in a townhouse, sharing a driveway with three other homes, and there're easily another 6 or 7 within eyesight. There was little chance of us not getting spotted if we took the fight outside, but there was no way any of us were letting those guys take advantage of the number of innocents around.

I left the others to start the fight while I ran to get Claw and make sure my wife didn't do anything too rash. Fortunately, she stayed with the baby and seemed to understand the importance of doing that, so I wasn't even half a minute before I rejoined the fight...

I'll let the others explain what happened during that time, and in the meantime, I'm crashing for the night.

This is gettin' ridiculous. More dead guys kickin' up shit. Use'd to be the only thing dead people did in Chicago was vote.

***

We lucked out. The responding officer was the same cop who pulled Frog over last night, and he bought our story of what happened, said it sounded like the other calls they've gotten recently.

According to him, they been gettin' lotsa strange calls. People are finding mutilated squirrels, reporting prowlers who "vanish" before the fuzz arrives, shit like that.

The RO told me one caller claimed she was hearing screams coming out of a hole in the ground. He was the responder on that one, and confided that when he arrived, he'd heard them, too. He got a shovel and dug up the hole, but there was nothing in there.

And the screams continued for thirteen more minutes.

***
The worst thing is, my posse and I gotta leave tomorrow. The office got a lead on this French guy, and if we don't catch him soon, my boss is out $200,000.

You'll be in good hands with the other Society members here, but I'd take Shadowstalker up on his offer.

I'm up for a feeding, so I might as well briefly detail the fight.

While I was up grabbing Claw, Adama's magic repelled most of the ghouls. What he didn't repel were pretty easily handled by Willie and his posse.

Bert went to tango with the vampire, and I went to join him once Claw was safely in hand. He couldn't very well booby trap the area ahead of time, because there were too many innocents (especially kids) in the area that could've set off any form of traps...and in the heat of battle, he knew that heavy arms were a bad idea, for how tightly packed together all the cute little townhouses were.

He was wielding some kinda weird-looking knife. When I arrived with Claw, the vamp was already getting some pretty nasty cuts, and had only landed a few minor scratches on Bert. Nothing a quick spell later didn't heal.

Between the two of us, we had it subdued PDQ, and when that sucker saw 350 pounds of Willie charging at it, it misted and vanished. I wished I could track it, but at the time, it was kinda impossible...

That was about the time the cop arrived. Thank all that's holy for Willie and his group, covering for all of our weapons...

And it looks like Shadowstalker's team is already setting up to help Ron with his troubles. It's alright, though. Even if Willie's gotta jet when he and his mini-posse have to jet, we should be alright.

KT offer still stands I my not be able to be there myself if Ron takes me up on my offer but some of my team can, let me know what you need and we can take care of it.

Shadow, we had a vampire at my front door last night. It could show back up again at any point in time, and Willie and his posse have to leave here to chase some bounty. When the 'sucker returns, it may bring more friends than just a handful of ghouls, though the fact that it did so leads me to believe it was working for somebody else.

At this point, I think I could use all the help I can get, so I will gladly take you up on your offer, now. Things are far more out of hand than I originally believed.

Yeah, that knife's blade is wooden, the edge is silver, and the handle is bone. Its pretty much only good for fighting vampires, it'd break if I used it against anything that wasn't weak to wood and silver. I kept trying to pierce its heart but I couldn't pierce its defense. I almost took its hand off at the wrist at one point but it regenerated before I could get another good thrust on him.

While the battle was starting up I was looking for a garden hose in front of your home. Do you have a hookup out there for one?

Showed Bert where the hose hookup is; I didn't know it was there, myself, for several months after we moved in. Problem is, we don't use the front area they give us for flowers and stuff, so we don't have a hose. Didn't really surprise me to find that Bert did have one... I shoulda thought to show him where it was first, but I wasn't expecting a vampire at our doorstep...

$80 and a trip to the hardware store later and I return with a small electric powerwasher to hook up to the frontyard garden hose. Its not a terribly powerful power washer, but it'll inflict pain on normal person if they're blasted by it. I can't wait to see what it'll do to a Vampire.

Will be there shortly with some toys you may like.Fun thing about halloween is we can pull out some of the more strange toys and nobody looks twice.See you soon.

Well, time for an update... Willie left late this afternoon, shortly after Shadow's team showed up. I think we'll be alright. Willie got a lot of paperwork for them, making them here on legit reasons.

It's after 9, tonight, and still nothing. Both of my dragon spirits are on high alert, so we should be well warned if/when anything shows up, tonight.

Adama and Bert are staying the night in our living room. I think they're drawing straws for the couch. Shadow's team is apparently sleeping in shifts, living out of the vehicle they came in.

I'm gonna try and get some sleep, tonight, but it's my turn to take care of the baby. We'll see how much sleep I get. (And before anyone says that my wife should be taking care of the baby through all this--you don't know my wife. She's technically an innocent, in that she doesn't get involved, and she's not a skilled fighter. She is, however, capable of defending herself and our baby, and on top of that, needs sleep for her own health, too.)

If anything comes up tonight, one of us here will let everyone know.

And again, though I said thanks in person, thanks to everyone who's come through for me. For us.

Well, I was awake last night until late. Mostly because I drew the short straw and ended up sleeping on the floor on an air matress, but I was also thinking.

"Was the attack tied into the business before with the ghouls and what happened with KT and Ron?"

"Why did they attack KT's home?"

"Do they read the boards here, because if they do they'd know what they attacked with wouldn't be anywhere near enough to stop everyone who rallied to KT's side? If they do what was the point of the attack? To test us? Give us a false sense of security? To make sure they we must divide our numbers between Attack and Defense?"

"If they attacked in ignorance then what would their plan be now?"

Too many questions. Now I didn't notice anything going on last night but I haven't checked in with Shadow or his team yet. I haven't even had my morning Mt. Dew yet.