1.1.2 Discord, cont.

When Last We Met

After accepting the case to find their old acquaintance Briana Short, our crew followed her to Discord, an illicit fight club in the run-down district of Wildknock connected to a mob boss named Hades. Briana refused to leave with the group, but when her friend Wren unexpectedly showed up at the arena, she brokered a deal with our "heroes" — get Wren out, and she'd get us in the building. Chaos ensued, and we ended with John making a beeline for Wren to haul her out, Maeve incapacitated by a faceful of ghost, Kevin prepping a fiery distraction at the bar, and three mysterious women in the VIP box watching everything with glee as Brianna stepped into the ring in Wren's place.

In the Ring

Briana faces off against her opponent, a tall, imposing woman. The woman manifests some kind of inky black magical energy. Everyone in the crew (except Cillian) can see it, meaning the Mist here has thinned enough that if you are at all attuned to these things, you don't have to be actively looking to see what's happening. She launches the dark manifestation at Briana, who deflects the supernatural shove by slamming her fists together, causing it to dissipate. She counters with a roundhouse kick.

The match has begun.

Reaching Wren

John hustles over to where Wren is glaring daggers at Briana inside the cage, where she just usurped Wren's place on the bill.

He chats her up and she finds herself... unexpectedly willing to respond. She tells John that she needs enough cash to pay off a bank loan and this is the best way to get it. He challenges that, telling her she needs to understand that these matches are to the death – which she hadn't realized. He turns and walks away while Wren thinks that over. But she ultimately decides it's still worth the risk – she still thinks she can win this thing. She doesn't move from her ringside location.

Maeve is still overwhelmed by the ghost who is swarming her but she begs Cillian to go and find Wren while she deals with it. He drags her along, unwilling to leave her while she's still muttering and flailing around like she's out of her head.

Cillian threatens to arrest Wren, who calls his bluff. At that, John turns and rushes her, throwing her over his shoulder. He takes off for the door.

The Match Continues

Briana goes down hard on the floor of the arena. Her opponent smiles maliciously as she stalks forward.

Maeve regains control of her situation, commanding the ghost to stop the fighter in the cage with Briana. It rushes towards the two women.

The three beauties in the balcony don't look as happy as they were a few minutes ago, noting the fighter's distraction and John's sprint through the crowd. One of them suddenly teleports away, and the other two scatter from their viewing area.

Chaos Sown and Reaped

About that time, Kevin "accidentally" sets the bar – and himself – on fire. The crowd starts to splinter. Sensing that at this point the best way to get everyone out of here is to step up the confusion and encourage a mass exodus, Geoffrey calls on his "princess in a tower" tattoo, which emits an ear-shattering cry of distress. The room starts a panicked run for the exits. John builds on the panic using his sheer force of presence to get the crowd to follow him, and the run becomes a stampede.

As they sprint for the doors, they see the woman from the balcony who blinked away. She's blocking the exit with a giddy smirk on her face. As John barrels towards her, he's reminded of all the times he should have died. And knows, deep in his soul, that one of these days his luck will run out.

Feeling John's grip on her slacken just a bit, Wren uses his distraction to clip him in the temple, hard, causing him to drop her and stagger as he tries to find both his physical and psychological balance. She runs back towards the cage, where Briana is still facing off against her attacker.

Geoffrey: "I'm gonna try to 'nope' the heck out of here."

Geoffrey also takes off for the door. He attempts to diffuse the aura of fear that the woman is projecting by clowning around, but she locks eyes with him and he stops in his tracks. She swipes at him from 10 feet away with a set of clawed, spectral nails, and his shirt is shredded as blood starts pouring from wounds across his chest.

As the blood soaks what remains of his shirt, Geoffrey curls in on himself. All he can think is that he never deserved to get out, never deserved Daniel or to be living this life, and it's all on borrowed time.

Sekhmet Awakens

Briana's face shows signs of spectral decay where she was struck by the woman. Wren shoves her way into the cage and it locks behind her. Briana is still on the ground and her opponent is flailing at something in front of her face that Wren cannot see. She throws herself in front of Briana. The woman reaches out into the space between them, almost like she's grabbing someone by the face, and then refocuses on Wren and Briana. She lunges for Wren with a bloodthirsty grin and inhumanly fast reflexes. She grabs Wren by the throat, and Wren is overwhelmed with the smell of rot, the sensation of decay, the. cry of carrion crows, the writhing of worms.

Wren stumbles mentally, blinking, trying to understand how someone could move that fast. For the first time since stepping into the ring, real fear creeps in.

Then... Everything changes. Not the fight. Wren. Her breathing steadies. The panic evaporates.

The roar of the fleeing crowd fades until it's little more than background noise. All she can hear is the slow, steady rhythm of her own heartbeat.

She looks at her opponent again. This time she notices everything. The shift of their weight. The tension in a shoulder. The slight movement of a foot before the next strike. Without understanding how, she knows exactly what they're about to do.

A deep heat blooms beneath her skin. It starts in her chest and flows down her arms until her hands feel impossibly warm, like they've been resting against a running engine.

Instinctively, she glances down. Thin lines of gold move beneath the skin of her palms and wrists. Ancient Egyptian symbols spread across her palms and wrists like molten metal flowing through stone. They don't burn. She has never seen them before...

...and yet they feel strangely familiar.

For one impossible heartbeat, Wren simply stares. Then her body moves. Not faster. Not stronger. Just... Certain.

Every movement is deliberate. Every strike lands exactly where it needs to. Nothing is wasted.

She isn't angry. She isn't out of control. She isn't thinking. She simply knows.

She knows where to stand. She knows where to strike.And somehow...

...she knows when enough is enough.

She places her hands on each side of her opponent's head and twists her skull with precision and speed. She hears a snap. Horrified, she hears Briana cry out from behind her.

Briana: "Don't let it have you! Fight it! Fight it, Wren!"

Wren: "Fight the thing that just saved my life? That's the story of my life, Bri."

Cillian picks the lock on the cage and wrenches it open. Bri grabs both Cillian and Wren by the arm, dragging them back out into the chaotic viewing area.

Wren: "What about the purse?"

Cillian: "Are you fucking KIDDING me? Look around you, lady! The purse is gone! Bets are off."

Rolling with the Punches

As John and Geoffrey reel from the woman's psychic abuse, Wren faces the threat in the cage. As she fells her opponent, she looks up and notes Geoffrey's hunched posture, and it triggers a memory.

Flashback

Wren is 18 years old and working in her father's garage. There's a stocky little ginger-haired boy, 8 or 9, hunched over in fear where he's being targeted by bullies behind the auto shop. She didn't know the boy well, and can't remember his name, but she calls out, "Hey, kid! Do you need help?" She rounds the corner of the garage, slapping her wrench threateningly against her open palm while she eyes the brats. She looks to the boy.

Wren finds herself looking at Geoffrey and repeating herself aloud.

"Hey, kid! Do you need help?"

As soon as Wren calls out those words, Geoffrey locks eyes with her. And she knows that look. It's the same boy from that day at the garage. Wren continues their long-ago conversation.

"You gotta run, kid. I can't leave. But you gotta run."

With that, Geoffrey shakes off his survivor's guilt and makes for the exit.

Maeve decided to try her luck taking out the woman blocking the exits, intending to shoot her or otherwise mow her down, but she too is stopped in her tracks by the woman's malevolent aura. The woman looks at Maeve and suddenly, she is overwhelmed by another ghost – but this one is inside her mind, possessing her. It's the ghost of the fighter they just saw die. Rather that try to fight him off, Maeve takes a deep breath and opens herself up to the ghost, trying to understand his story. Together, they realize that these women are the power behind this whole horrific spectacle. They turn towards the woman, and with a bull rush that does the boxer inside her mind proud, she slams a shoulder into the woman and knocks her to the floor.

Kevin is bringing up the rear, having discarded his shirt after accidentally setting himself on fire. Whiro opens his eyes, enjoying the chaos and destruction. Kevin amps the crowd up one more notch, causing a full on stampede. The crowd swarms for the door crushing the mysterious woman under foot, and she laughs all the while.

Exit Strategy

Bursting out of the building, Geoffrey sees that the place is swarming with police. Having grown up in this area, he breaks for the sewers, catching and ultimately leaving his pants behind on the jagged path down into the darkness. Still bleeding, in his heart printed boxers, he starts sloshing through the human waste and grime that runs under the streets.

John sees the cops and immediately goes into triage mode, looking for a way to make a distraction. He opts for the classic approach – decks an innocent bystander, screams bloody murder, and draws the cops away from the exit.

Maeve, Wren and Briana emerge from a side door. They are surrounded by police. Maeve texts Cillian a warning, and he asks her for the precinct number. She tells him and after a heavy digital pause, he texts back – that's not a real unit. Those badges, cars, the whole thing – they're an elaborate fake.

Briana agrees to take a photo with Maeve, which she then texts to her father, though the whole thing clearly pisses her off. She takes a moment to warn both Wren and Maeve about their mythic powers. She pleads with them to resist their Rifts (though she does not call them that).

Be careful, and it's not— I know sometimes things can seem like a good idea. Blessings are not always blessings. They come with a cost that's not worth paying."

When asked what she remembers about the glass factory, Briana responds.

Something fucked with my memories. But what I do know is... it was them. The ones with the power, the freaks. They are the ones who did this to me. And you may think because they can do good things that it's a good thing all the time, but you have to understand it's not. And it's not— There's an agenda that you don't understand. There's a lot going on, and just because something seems like it's good doesn't mean it actually is.

Look at my father.

She announces she has to go. She warns the girls to get out of here before they're noticed. She emphasizes they should not let the police see them – they are not the police – and to definitely not let the ones wearing gray spot them. She also gives Maeve a name to look into to learn more – Rogelio Lopez.

There are quick hugs and cell numbers exchanged. Maeve hesitantly asks Bri if she can tell Obierika she's okay.

Tell him I wish him well, but I've moved on. I think he needs to hear that, whether or not it's true.

She leaves and she starts working her way through the crowd.

Maeve and Wren make for the gap in coverage that John has created, and then the two women part ways. Cillian checks in to make sure they are gone; he's not leaving until they do. Maeve thanks him, tells him to be careful, and tells him she owes him. Again.

Wren bumps into John on the way to her car and the two exchange numbers.

Maeve can still see Bri, and watches as she approaches one of the men in gray. She hands over her fighting gloves. Then, smiling, she pulls something from the neckline of her sports bra – a necklace or a locket, maybe? – and hands it over as well before she disappears into the crowd.

Under the City

Geoffrey, covered with blood and muck, stumbles through the darkness beneath the streets of Wildknock. He navigates with his knowledge of hobo signs – trail markers pointing toward dry spots, food sources, etc. It's been a while, and he's out of practice, but he manages to find a homeless encampment. Loopy and desperate, he gets darkly aggressive – a side of Geoffrey that we rarely see – and intimidates a resident into giving him a phone and some pants. The pants are functional but, uh, somebody didn't quite make it to the bathroom before unloading in them.

Cringing, he pulls them on and texts Maeve from the stranger's number, referencing her D&D character name so she knows it's him, and asks where to meet. She tells him to come to her apartment. They pick him up in Maeve's car on the way there.

Maeve's Apartment

Gladys (inspecting John): "He's handsome enough to be a celebrity. He's a little old though, isn't he? You're not supposed to be a celebrity if you're over the age of 27. Well, you know, I mean, I know they usually die by then, but sometimes there are exceptions. He does have a nice ass, though."

Maeve: "Gladys, I've told you before not to objectify my guests."

Gladys: "They can't hear me, darling. The only reason he knows I was objectifying him is because you told him."

Maeve's tiny studio apartment is colorful in both its decor and its residents. A ghost named Gladys lives with her, having hung herself in this room back during Prohibition (over what's now Maeve's bed, actually). She provides ongoing commentary about everyone while they get Geoffrey into the shower, John onto the bed with a first aid kit, and Irish Coffee – or just Irish or just Coffee – for everyone in the room. Annoyed with the non-stop ghost-speak, Maeve orders Gladys to go check on her downstairs neighbor Marco, Mr. April of "firefighter charity calendar" fame (who has a robust OnlyFans side hustle).

Maeve (offering John 60% Booker's in a plastic bottle): "Drink enough of this, and you might see Gladys yourself."

The group throws around theories about who the three women are and whether Hades is in fact a mob moniker or a real manifestation. Maeve's Lore Olympus fixation has her babbling about all the seeming Greek mythology swirling around. They eventually get her to stop spiraling into unconfirmed hypotheses. (Thanks, guys!)

In the wake of Wren's awakened powers, they all share a little bit about what they've learned about their own mythic abilities, revealing who they think, or know, they are each dealing with. It's a colorful crew.

Maeve: "One without pants and one without a shirt. Together you make a full outfit!"

Geoffrey: "Or together we're naked."

About that time Daniel sweeps in with eyes only for the injured Geoffrey, bundles him up, and swiftly removes him, taking him home to recover.

Maeve gets paid based on the photo Bri sent... but she doesn't feel great about it.