#was repeated possession of mei and removal of her agency throughout the course of the game

[toa-arania]

Quite possibly the most insane two sessions of a game I've ever had

God it's been a while since the last one of these. The game in which I play Val has been on Exam Hell Hiatus since the Werewolf Road Trip arc, and we came back to a bizarrely normal week of school. Levi (Werewolf) spent the week with his dad in the hospital after severely injuring him during a frenzy, and the rest of us just sort of got on with things.

At the beginning of the week, Aluber (Clown Fairy) was given a Fun New Toy: the ability to take over Val's will and force her to do things. Fun! He doesn't understand what it is at first, and Val tries very hard to keep it that way, but honestly it's a testament to the insane shit that's about to happen that the gang forcing Val to tell them that she sold herself to the Fae King to save Levi from fucking dying is just a footnote. Aluber promises he won't use it, and Val doesn't fucking trust him for a second, but he insists that since promises mean everything to him and the Fae, that promise is absolutely true and genuine. Sometimes foreshadowing is relatively obvious.

Since it's been a while since we last tried to do anything about the Murder Basement, Darcy (Hollow) suggests we have a sleepover there to properly study it. When we go in, we find that someone else has been in it and picked up the investigation. We don't know who, but we begin making further notes of our own. This is when it comes out properly that Aluber can control Val, and at Val's request they test some of the limits of it. Mei goes outside to check if anyone's messaged us, and then fucking vanishes. Aluber goes to check on her, realises she's gone, and without elaborating for a fucking moment says she's in trouble and goes to help her. Now something that hasn't really come up before is that we don't go into the Murder Basement by using the door normally. Mei uses her ghost powers to bring us through it one by one so we don't have to tamper with the lock. Aluber can pass through walls on his own by short-range teleport, but Darcy and Val cannot, so he fucking leaves us behind.

Fortunately, by a divine stroke of luck, Darcy's mimicry power happened to get her one use of Mei's power earlier that session, Val always carries a set of lockpicks on her, and Darcy is the one other character than Val who has established the ability to pick locks. She goes through the door and picks the lock to let Val out. Once again it is sheer dumb luck that allows us to figure out where they've gone, because Val for unrelated reasons happened to already have a token she could use to cast a spell on Mei. She uses Watching to go into her mind and see through her eyes, and wherever Mei is she's unable to move properly. She can move her eyes, but nothing else. Because she was guided to wherever she is by co-ordinates, she's able to look at the clock positions of each number in turn, which Val writes down so they can track her to a warehouse (it's always a fucking warehouse) where she's trapped in some kind of magic circle, and Wesley (another Witch, Val's friend with complicated history) is there, apparently responsible for it. It is important to note at this point that Wesley's magic was taken away from him by Aluber a little while back, and removing a Witch's magic fucks them up real bad.

Levi catches up with Aluber and Mei first, with Darcy and Val arriving shortly afterwards. Not only is Mei trapped within two layers of magic circle, but Aluber is trapped in a ring of wrought iron. Wesley is gone by this point, apparently going to speak to the Fae King, and Levi managed to get himself trapped in the magic circles too. Aluber is absolutely fucking furious at this point, since Wesley used Mei to lure him there and trap him, and wants to get out so he can fully kill Wesley for it. Since Levi trapped himself before being able to remove any of the iron, Aluber uses his new power to force Val to try to remove the poles (which she isn't strong enough to do). HEY REMEMBER WHAT I SAID ABOUT FORESH-

So after a little while of that, Val finally manages to tell Aluber that she could break Levi out of the circles and he could free Aluber. Well, sort of - she tactically avoids saying anything about freeing Aluber, and focuses on freeing Mei, the one Aluber is at this point self-destructing completely over, even trying to make Darcy pull him through the iron (which is literally killing him). Aluber takes enough damage to go Darkest Self, a thing in this game where your monster traits take over. In this state, Aluber is essentially in a mental frenzy with the need to balance the scales of justice and punish those he sees as breaking the rules. When Val disables the magic circles, the interior one explodes, causing Levi to take enough damage to go Darkest Self, going into his wolf form. Mei and Darcy race off to the Fae Forest while Val stays behind to make sure Levi and Aluber can't hurt anyone with a handy casting of her hex of binding.

Darcy and Mei make it into the Fae Forest in time to see Wesley extorting the Fae King to undo the removal of his magic in exchange for Aluber's safety and a guarantee the Fae won't harm him. Also Mei pulls a fucking glock. She absolutely whiffs her roll to shoot Wesley, and just grazes him before the Fae King sends him back to the warehouse to release Aluber. He reappears just as Levi is destroying the iron circle and helps remove the last bit. Aluber immediately disappears to the forest, leaving Wesley, Val, and Levi alone. While Levi is distracted by destroying more of the iron, Val goes to Wesley and asks what happened. Unlike literally everyone else, she's genuinely happy for him that he got his magic back. They hug, and then wolf Levi breaks out of Val's spell and swats them both across the room. Since injuring the people he cares about causes him to un-wolf, he turns back into himself and is Really Fucking Pissed. Then Mei gets back and tries to shoot Wesley again. She actually succeeds this time, shooting him twice in the arm before Val gets a spell in, showing Mei visions of dead bodies reminiscent of Mei's own, triggering her Darkest Self via trauma and causing her to begin fading out of existence. Levi destroys the gun so Darcy can't shoot Wesley and tells him to leave. Val turns to go with him, giving them the opportunity to stop her, but they don't. She leaves with Wesley and stays with him overnight while Levi and Darcy get Mei back.

It was at this point that we took a session break and decided we needed to have an above-table chat about where to go from here because jesus fuck this was a lot, and could permanently (or at least long term) destroy the party. Now at this point Val's headspace is that she's made her choice - she's sided with Wesley because she's the only one who understands the need to go to those lengths to get magic back. Val's magic was briefly sealed too, so she understands how much it hurts and why Wesley went so insane. They're the only ones who get it, and it's them against the world. On the other hand, Mei, Aluber (who is still in his Darkest Self), and Darcy form the Murder Squad because Wesley has been a consistent source of problems and issues and what he just demonstrated is that nothing short of death will ever stop him. Levi just doesn't want anyone to fucking die, which is a frankly reasonable perspective. Other than that, he is definitely pro punishing Wesley, which is also a very reasonable perspective, Wesley is an asshole (he and Val are perfect for each other <3)

The way the characters handle these conflicting viewpoints is to call a meeting to see if they can reconcile, which breaks down in fucking seconds because none of the Murder Squad were realistically willing to change course and Levi's turbo wolf senses pick up that Val hooked up with Wesley that night. Everything fucking collapses before anyone actually has a chance to make a point. Levi does convince Darcy that there has to be a way other than murder while Val listens in from a dark corner, and meanwhile Mei and Aluber are outside in the car actively plotting murder. Val is 100% sure they will not be talked down from murder, and she was (mostly) right.

The Murder Squad bring Levi (who has been told he doesn't have to be a part of the murder so long as he doesn't get in their way) to make a plan and hunt down Wesley, leaving Val behind. She calls him, and hears that he's in a car. He tells her he's planning to leave town, and that if it gets too dangerous to side with him that she should abandon him. Val refuses. Witches are abrasive people, but when they've decided they truly genuinely like someone they are fiercely loyal. Val refused to abandon Levi even when it meant selling herself to the Fae King, and she refuses to abandon Wesley even if it means the Murder Squad will target her too. She tells him to run like hell, and they say goodbye. Val just completely breaks down in broad daylight.

Murder Squad, meanwhile, have managed to track down where Wesley is going before leaving town, since Darcy was able to use her mimicry to give him a divine injury that can only be healed by celestial magic. I don't think it's come up before this but there's an angel trapped in a basement somewhere in town, and they correctly deduce that Wesley is going there to get healed. They intend to implement their plan to make him swear an Unbreakable Vow to never use magic again, with the alternative being that they shoot him dead then and there. The angel is Phanuel, the archangel of redemption, Seraph's dad (Seraph hasn't been around since before Aluber arrived because he got sent to angel boot camp), and he will not let them commit a murder in his presence. Murder Squad do the obvious thing and camp outside so they can murder Wesley without Phanuel having to see it. Levi and Wesley talk about what happened, because those two are also pretty close, and then after they say their goodbyes Levi goes to find Val.

Levi and Val just talk for a while. Val is, of course, distraught, but has cried out enough of her energy by the time Levi gets to her that she's just feeling empty. As they work through the misery, Val eventually tells Levi what she did for him to survive, and that she thinks it might have managed to exorcise Khorne from his mind. She decides that getting Khorne out of Levi's mind is, hopefully, worth the Fae King now being in hers. Around this time, they hear a psychic scream of rage from the Fae King and get a text from Mei saying that Wesley's judgement is about to be delivered.

Levi's player and I were in a separate voice channel for that scene, so I genuinely had no idea what to expect when I got back. What we saw was Darcy trapped outside because she had an argument with the angel, and Aluber just fully gone, presumably sent back to the Fae Forest. Val and Levi go in to see just Mei, Wesley, and Phanuel, and while Val isn't there to see the charges, she does see the punishment. Wesley is forced to feel all of the pain and fear that he's caused Mei, Darcy, and everyone else he's hurt, terrorised, and stripped the will of, all compressed into an agonising fifteen minutes. Then, his magic is cursed so that any time he uses it to harm someone, he will feel all of the harm that it causes. This curse (and an angelic protection to ensure his sentence is served) will remain until the day he learns his lesson, during which time he will be unable to flee town. Levi and a deeply satisfied Mei go back outside to retrieve Darcy, but Val stays with Wesley and Phanuel a little longer.

Val is not just terrified of Phanuel, but actively feels ill in his presence, and despite this she makes herself stay so that she can ask him if there is any way he can remove the Fae King from her mind. Unfortunately, there is no way to break the deal - only forging a new one in exchange for something greater, the same method Wesley used to get his magic back. He does tell her that the terms of the contract could be negotiated - perhaps Aluber's control over her could be removed. Before Val leaves, Phanuel gives her two warnings. Do not isolate her allies, and do not fall down the same hole Wesley did.