Some time ago, I did encounter creatures which could pass between worlds, and they would have a beef with Cybermancer. Those monsters, however, could not fit into a workshop without tearing the roof off of it first. Also, that was the other Cybermancer at the time. I apologize that I can not be more help in this case. If he requires a safe house when he is returned, then I can help. Until then, I offer my cheers.

Infernal law -- sooooo many lawyer jokes come to mind.

Thanks RAVEN. Hopefully a safe house won't be required.

Time to update this.

A little while ago, we learned who took Cybermancer and where. We still can't say who did it, but there's nothing stopping us from saying where he was taken. He was taken to the otherworld, underhill, the realm, the world of the fey.

What's been galling about this is that the kidnapper refused to offer us terms until after we made an attempt to rescue him. They wanted us to realize how futile trying to recover him on our own would be.

Futile or not, we had to try.

There is a compound we all know in the mid-west that has a strong connection to that other world. It's quite the road trip to get there, let me tell you. Ron doesn't fly you see, and we don't have papers for Cynthia yet. Which is fine, because I love any chance to take my car out and let the engine rev. Cleans out all the carbon, you see. If you have a fast car, make sure you ride her hard once in awhile.

We were met there by Mel, Jinx, Hannah, Matt's older sister Christina and his god-father, Austin. The plan was simple. Austin and Hannah would work together to create a way to cross over to the realm of the fey.

However, only Ron, Mel, Jinx and myself would be crossing over. Austin is too old for this sort of thing. Christina isn't as young as she used to be either and what's more, she's a wife and mother of young children. As for Hannah, well after a screaming match with her father that must have lasted two hours, she finally agreed that crossing over with us would only endanger the mission since our destination was one where Robin was known to have access to.

So it was just the three of us girls and Ron when we crossed over.

It was just as dark as I remembered it from last time. The trees had no leaves and the branches were knarled claws ready to swipe at us. The wind whipped through the woods, whistling a warning to us.

We were not there to be warned off so easily.

Jinx took the lead, pulling out a brass compass that belonged to Cybermancer. The man has a real thing for antiques. She used whatever mumbo-jumbo people like her do to get a 'bearing' on him and she started leading us down the trail.

In the distance there was the sound of wolves baying. Every few minutes, they seemed to be getting closer. “Did you hear that?” Ron would say, flashing his light into the woods.

For a moment, once or twice, two red eyes appeared in his beam of light but were gone before we could bring our weapons to bear.


“Creepy...” Mel muttered.

Ahead of us, Jinx had paused.

“What is it?” Ron hissed in a whisper.

She pointed off into the woods. “He's that way.”

“We're not supposed to step off the path.” Mel said with uncertainty.

“I just want to check something.” Diana took a step to our right... and was gone.

There was a hushed pause after Jinx vanished. We waited, hoping that the forest would spit her out as suddenly as it had swallowed her.

Nothing.

“Stay on the path or go after her? ” Nemesis asked. Normally she was quite decisive, but the unusual nature of a landscape that was itself so hostile was throwing us all for a bit of a loop.


Gotham Witch shook her head. “ We can’t go off the path, but we also can’t find Matt without Diana. ”

I peered into the darkness of the forest around us. I could see movement, but nothing stayed in place long enough for me to discern what it was.

“Without her the mission’s a scrub anyway and I don’t like leaving folks behind.” I took my rifle off safe. “Stay close.” And I stepped off the path at the spot where Jinx had disappeared.

…

Despite stepping out into what I thought was level terrain I immediately found myself tumbling down the side of a high steep embankment. I did my best to stabilize myself and keep a grip on my rifle, but ultimately I found myself in a muddy heap among the rotting leaf litter at the bottom, rifle nowhere to hand.

I quickly checked myself for injuries and finding nothing serious, I got into a crouch and looked around. Even with my goggles on the darkness was oppressive. Only the faint glow of fungus shed any light. I carefully called for the others.

No response.

Pulling my Piece and my Blade, I rose to my feet and began to sweep the area, looking for any signs of the others, or a gentler piece of the slope that would take me back up to the path.

I had only taken a couple of steps when I suddenly found myself in the midst of a raging snowstorm. A Gale force wind drove the snow with stinging force into my face and at several points almost off my feet. I tried to step back towards the forest, but it was gone. As if it never was.

Through the blinding snow I began to see shapes moving around me, circling. Howls and war whoops began to echo above the wind. Something was setting up for an attack.

I don’t like staying on the defensive. Picking the closest of the shapes I charged as best I could in the waist deep snow, letting my Piece bark its own battle cry and hoping that all the effort I had put into hammering iron cores for my bullets into shape had paid off.

In moments I was the center of a melee that swirled as fast as the snowstorm. Squad, misshapen creatures riding on wolves the size of ponies charged in and soon my world was nothing more than a blur of fang, fur, blade and bullet.

I was being overwhelmed, but I was making them pay for every moment of it. The question wasn’t if, it was when would they get to me.

Your welcome, Cyber.

I suppose I better get out what happened next so we can all see what Cyber was up to while we were all busting our chops.

"RON!" I called as he disappeared from our sight. I couldn't believe he could disappear so completely and so quickly. Stubborn, stupid male. Could have at least waited for me to grab onto him. Now there was no telling where he was.

I turned to face Gotham Witch, "I don't suppose you can sense either of them?" I tried to keep the distress out of my voice.

She shook her head, looking about as upset as I was.

Scanning up and down the path I asked, "any idea where this path leads, anyway?"
"That's... a good question. One we should have asked before we left." She frowned at our collective lack of foresight.

"I'll tell you where it doesn't go," I said, making a decision. "It doesn't go where ever Ron is."

Gotham Witch was starting to look panicked. "Stay here." I told her firmly. "Stay on the path and stay safe. Things will probably get a lot nicer here for you once I'm gone anyway."

Determined and with thoughts of Ron firmly in my mind, I stepped off the path.

And smack dab into a blizzard. The wind howled in my ears as the cold smacked my cheeks. This was a barren wasteland. A place where things went to die and death ruled supreme. I knew this place even though I'd never been here. I had sent many on their way here. Death itself was once summoned with a knife of mine. True story.

The snow came up past my hips, making any sort of progress forward a difficult prospect at best. Yet somehow the giant white wolves with their deformed humanoid riders charging me had no such difficulties. I started picking off riders, making every hard wrought round Ron had provided me count.

When finally the beasts bore down on me, I surprised one, grabbing hold of its shaggy fur and pulling myself upon its back where a rider had once been. Leaning forward, I whispered in its ear, "fight me and I'll kill you. Take me to the man and I'll let you go." The great beast made no response aside from lurching forward and away from the others of its kind and their riders.

Soon enough and despite the whiteout conditions, I soon made out a swirl of fur, blood and man that was Ron Caliburn making his last stand against a horde of ungainly shapes and despicable creatures. I opened up immediately, taking down opponent after opponent.

The beast I rode stopped short of the melee. It turned its head to look at me over its shoulder. It had fulfilled its part of the arrangement. I took the time to scratch it behind the ears. "Thank you, if we meet in battle, let the victor be swift." It seemed like the right thing to say at the time.

It shrugged after I dismounted and then lurched away from the scene, apparently having no appetite for more battle that day. That was quite all right as its brethren were more than keen for combat. I waded through snow and battle towards Ron. First I used pistols and then I pulled my knives when bullets ran out.

He saw me coming and so didn't gut me when I put my back against his. "Fancy meeting you here." I said with some dark humour.

Ron grunted a reply while stabbing an opponent. We fell into a rhythm of battle. Covering each others backs and holding the enemy at bay as well as we could. It wasn't about winning or even surviving. It was about delaying the inevitable and taking as many of them down with us as we possibly could.

"Ever think it would end like this?" He asked. The weight against my back told me that he was leaning on me as much for support to stay upright at this point as anything else.

Given the leaden weights that my limbs had become, leaning against him was all that was keeping me up as well. "Couldn't have pictured it any other way." I said grimly, yet oddly satisfied.

We prepared for one more push by the enemy.

Wait a minute—the two of you went to—relatively—the same place once you stepped off the path? Perhaps it’s just my lack of knowledge about that realm—but that surprises me. Unless you were being herded—or had a guardian, it just seems . . . strange.

You went under hill and to deal with the sidhee with out taking me, or even inviting me how could you?

*taps my foot glaring at hanna and mel*

point taken.... and the last thing I want to deal with is a possession

and I also under stand the need some times to keep the group small enough to be mobile rember my Grand father was OSS and latter MI

As I watched Darcy vanish off of the path, the forest became a bit more… gloomy. The trees became darker and creepier. The shadows became longer as ambient light became less defined. And to top it off, there were creepy animal noises somewhere nearby – I couldn’t place them, but they sounded like they were all around me.

A lot nicer, Darcy says. Yeah, right.

I clenched my shotgun tighter as I stood there, trying to calm myself down. The fact the trees and the animal noises all felt closer suggested it wasn’t working.

I took a deep breath as I calmed myself, letting all the tension and nervousness go as I exhaled. It was a trick I picked up from Ronin (thanks, by the way), and it worked to some extent here. After a few more breaths, the forest began to ‘back away’ so to speak, the path becoming less clustered and narrow and the creatures keeping their distance.

Everything still looked a bit gloomy and depressing though. Ah well.

I continued down the path, being a bit more focused as I glanced around. In place of the animal shapes through the darkness, I could see balls of light zipping around over what appeared to be marsh, zipping around and twirling in circles almost rhythmically.

It might have been my imagination, but as I watched them go about their confusing little pattern, I kind of felt like they were trying to tell me something.

…which was exactly what they wanted me to think, I realized as I shook my head and looked about… only to find myself in the middle of an eight-road crossroad, a bouncing will-o-the-wisp taunting me on each path as they floated in their little circles.

“Fantastic.” I murmured, circling about.

I grasped quickly they were trying to lead me astray – presumably to my doom. That’s what they do, after all. I wasn’t expecting them to be quite this clever though. Leading me into the swamp was one thing, but this was… really clever.

I glanced around slowly, trying to keep as many of them in my field of vision as possible as I thought of a way out. It seemed just as plausible one of the paths led to safety as none of them leading to safety – these were fey, and nothing here quite was what it seemed. Of course, it was possible they were harmless. But the fact they were slowly bouncing towards me in unison had me on edge.

Focusing a bit of power – and there was a lot of it around to work with – I murmured the words to a locating spell, focusing on Jinx.

As I finished the spell, my attention was drawn to a dried leaf, swooping lazily past my nose as it drifted off of the path, the spell lingering even as it vanished in the space between the roads.

I remembered Hannah mentioned things didn’t work in Fey like they did in life – times of year were places. That leaf – a red maple leaf you’d only see in autumn – was out of place in what was more or less a spring or summer time forest…

The balls of light were getting a bit close by this point – I had nary five feet of room to maneuver. Figuring I didn't have any other options, I leaped for it.

I landed with a thump in a pile of crisp, freshly fallen leaves, looking about as I landed in an autumn grove. The trees were brightly colored reds and yellows, with the air having a bit of chilly bite to it. The sky was an appropriate golden-orange shade in the distance, fading into a deep blue on the other side of the horizon.

“Hello up there!” a pleasant voice said to me from near my feet. I looked down, to see about half a dozen small old men in pointy hats waving up at me.

Gnomes. The first nice thing I’d ran into this entire trip.

“Hello there.” I said, waving down to them politely, a bit surprised. I swore they had not been there before.

“Why are you so sad?” Asked one on the right, with a blue hat.

I arched a brow, “What do you mean?”

“Look around you! You’re so gloomy!” Another one explained. I looked around me a moment – the leaves around me were darker and browner than the ones further out.

“I… look, that’s… just how I am, I guess.” I said with a sigh, waving my hand dismissively, “Say, you’re… gnomes, right?”

“As true as the ground we came from.” The one with a grey pointy hat said to me with a bushy smile.

“Well…” I reached into my bag, pulling out a bottle of Belgian tripel for them to see, “I would be willing to give you this if you answer whether you've seen a friend of mine..."

I watched their collective jaws drop as they stared at the bomber of abbey ale.

Before anyone asks, I do not carry beer around in my bag all the time. It was just mission prep. Really!

Regardless, I managed to have a very nice conversation with them, I thought – you know, before they got completely and utterly drunk.

I came upon Jinx wandering along some flower bushes, chasing after the glittering wings of pixies as they ducked amongst the bushes, playing an elaborate game of hide and go seek. A small camera she had brought along was in her hand, as she seemed to relish in the challenge of photographing the little fey.

Less adorable and fey-like was a certain redhead with goat legs. She was walking up behind Diana, a patient look on her freckled face as she moved to sneak up behind Jinx.

I wasn’t about to have any of that.

“Hello Maddie. What are you doing?” I asked in a calm, level tone as I simply walked up behind her.

"Be vawy, vawy quiet. I'm hunting Wabbit." She said, not even jumping in surprise.

I gave a slow, purposeful working of the pump on my shotgun in response, "I'm more in the mood for goat."

Maddie gave a big sigh as she turned about, asking me, "Does this mean we're not friends anymore?"

“When were we friends?” I asked, reaching into my bag as I kept my shotgun leveled at her.

"I wasn't going to hurt her... much. I just want that compass." She explained matter of factly.

“Fair enough.” I said with a shrug, before flinging something white and red in her general direction - peppermint candy.

"Free candy." I announced.

Almost instantly, the darting winged lights dancing around the grove made a sharp beeline towards the devil, zipping about her in a frantic buzz.

"Gah! Bitch! Get them off! Get them off!" Maddie swatted around her as hundreds of excited little bullets crashed into her, picking off every piece of peppermint they could.

I am not going to lie - after the mess the deevil put me through, that was satisfying.

I shouldered my shotgun with a smirk as I walked right by her, approaching a very confused looking Jinx, bewildered at the fact a redheaded devil was ruining her shot.

“Mel? What’s going on?” she asked.

“Just looking for you. We need to find the others.” I said with a grin, offering her a hand.

One down, two to go.

And the last bit from our end of the Fey.

Finding the other two wasn't nearly as tricky as finding Jinx - it just required the right mindset. Fortunately, sparing some details I had some insight on how Darcy thought.

I just wish their favored side of Fey was a bit less chilly.

We ended up on top of a snowy cliff, freezing wind and rather large snowflakes obscuring our vision. It took me a moment to orient myself before I got a chance to look around.

"You need to work on the accuracy a bit." Jinx noted.

"Still kind of new at this." I responded as I glanced down the hill.

Down below, I could see the movement of a very large pack of wolves crossing the snowy lowlands, riders of various shapes brandishing knives, spears, and other weapons as they charged on a fixed location. That fixed location were two humans I knew well fighting for their knives, surrounded by what I can describe as a mountain of supernatural corpses.

For all the brutality, I was rather impressed.

"Found them." I noted, frowning as I saw a pack of club wielding ogre-things shambling towards them - considering the two of them were mostly out of bullets, this was a problem.

"They're going to get flattened if we don't hurry." Jinx noted, watching the ogres approach beneath the cliff we were standing on, making their way through a not-narrow enough pass.

I tapped the ice shelf we were standing on, before Jinx and I gave each other an evil grin. We were going to win this - with physics.


An oversized ogre had knocked Darcy to the ground with a swung by the time we made our way down, using a bit of magic as a brake near the bottom as we approached. Her knife had embedded in its shaggy forearm as it reared up with both fists, ready to crush her.

Likely, it'd have missed, but I didn't take any chances as I took aim at its head and fired. The thing's head had just sort of vanished as the rest of it toppled to the ground, giving Darcy a chance to retrieve her knife and swing about, slicing another dire wolf and taking its rider out in one swipe.

"About time you showed up. I was getting worried. " She said, grinning at me as I landed next to her. I handed her a couple clips in response with a wink before beginning to lay down fire with my shotgun.

"Nice to see you too. We need to leave." I said as I said as I fired at one of the wolf riders coming from the other side, slaying its mount as he went flying into the snow. Jinx by this point had followed up behind me down the slope, unloading with controlled bursts of her carbine into the mob.

"I hope you have some ideas." Ron said between gritted teeth as Jinx tossed him some ammunition, taking maybe a fraction of a second to reload as he opened fire once more.

"Jinx." I signaled as I raised my hands, focusing some magical power.

"On it!" Jinx said with a grin as she pulled out a remote control, pressing a trigger as a pair of explosions happened atop the bluff, followed by a rumbling.

I finished my casting as the detonator was triggered as a large spherical barrier came up around us, focusing as much power as I could. Considering the fact we weren't in the real world, and that there were a lot of dead supernatural critters around me, that amount of energy was... well, a lot. I just hoped it was enough.

The snow ogres and the pack of wolf riders looked up at the hill as a wall of ice and snow roared down the hill, moving faster and with more force than a runaway train. As we watched, it was only took several seconds before the warbands on both sides were swept away and buried by the deluge, the avalanche landing on each side of us.

Thankfully, the shield held off the rest - though I might be understating how lucky it was that we didn't get directly hit by either wall of snow.

"That was insane." Darcy said, looking about with what I can only assume was admiration. Our position was mostly unburied - the same could not be said for our opponents.

"Grab my coat and hold on. We're getting out." I said as I let the shield fall, the wind blowing past us once again.

After everyone had made physical contact, I closed my eyes and focused on being back to where had just came from.

The next thing I knew, we were at the edge of the forest, as if we had never left.