51-100 Thread Synopsis

Thread 51 – 100 synopsis

After retreating from a failed makeout session with Wolfgang Crowther, Sierra awkwardly hangs with her friends for the rest of the evening.

The time skips to late December, where we catch Sierra in the middle of winter break. Her interest in guitar lured her new kind of parents to get her a guitar for Christmas, which she discovers she’s terrible at. After giving up again, she overhears Isaac going out to do marshal business.

Turns out he’s going to meet up with Waldric and discuss a certain problem with overactive hellborn who are robbing banks all over the place with their fancy illusions. She decides to take the rest of her vacation day off and come along, hoping that maybe she can help out her fellow half human, half demon brethren and make sure they don’t get smitten by the wrath of Isaac Hallow.

They drive over and meet with Waldric and Ranthix at the local Jack in the Box, and discuss various issues about the city. Waldric cites the situation as a reason for why he needs a full conclave of seven demons to help govern the sizable demon population of the Bay Area.

Isaac is suspicious of Waldric and his motives, and objects. Sierra helps to provide a compromise with Ranthix, suggesting that Waldric replace some of his picks with Ranthix’s picks. At Sierra’s prodding, Ranthix agrees to send for his niece and nephew, two thultal squires, Xanissil and Xathix. Waldric, meanwhile, sends for Ulam’uberatu, a Stygian cleric of Belititus, and his cousin, Orias, a cast-down from a noble family in Beleroth, a half-Infernus, half-Belphegoran.

Afterward, Sierra listens to Isaac tell war stories as she practices her driving with the jeep, and later meets up with Ranthix to do workout stuff. She brings along Mori and Rowan, and they generally make trouble at the gym. Ranthix almost accidentally breaks the world record for bench pressing, Ro and Mori geek out over fantasy novels, and Ro and Sierra team sparr against Ranthix.

Later, Sierra and Waldric meet up and talk about what she can do to help Waldric establish order over the demons of San Francisco Bay. The Baron wants to use her as a secret weapon, executing a couple high-profile assassinations of notable opponents to his rule to fan rumors that he has a Verwelken working for him. Sierra agrees, feeling guilty for not really helping out with her conclave duties.

Afterwards, Sierra and Isaac go to the police station to interrogate a friend of the hellborn bank robbers.  The police are still angry with Sierra for her antics the last time she was interred there, and she has a little fun rubbing her sanctioned presence in their faces. Isaac negotiates some time alone with the witness, and Sierra uses her emotion reading powers to clue Isaac in to how to most effectively grill the guy. They ascertain the address of the hellborn brothers, and roll out.

They meet up at the address with Waldric. Isaac stays on overwatch, while Sierra and Waldric head in, hopefully using their demon-ness to build rapport with the Gracies, their targets. Their objective is just to get them to obey the law so as to not attract unwanted demonbane attention from outside the city.

They break into the apartment after thwarting the illusions in place to protect it, but run into Zote, the robot companion of Frederick, the guy who was trying to steal Old Glory from goblins some time ago. After a brief standoff and inability to understand anything Zote says, the automaton launches a gas grenade into the hallway and books it.

Waldric and Sierra’s summons pursue, while Sierra herself uses her newfound ability to step through corners to rapidly ascend through the building and get to the roof, where the criminals are making their getaway. The Gracies are on the run, and Zote is, for some reason, with them.

Sierra manages to head them off, and stops them. They barely manage to convince them to stop running, which is fortunate, because Isaac waits to gun them down if they fail to cooperate. At this point, Frederick and the other Gracie brother appear, unhappy with the interference. Sierra explains the situation, with Waldric’s help, and Frederick relents. He did not realize the Gracies were stealing to help his war effort. Sierra arranges a meeting to ensure Frederick’s plan isn’t bad for the city, and lets the people go.

A few days later, Sierra goes to the forest to slack her thirst for blood. She brings Moriah along for the trip, hoping to spend some time with her. After a bloodlust fueled outburst, Sierra winds up breaking the truth to Moriah – or at least part of it – that she’s having serious trouble maintaining a sense of normalcy. She enjoys pain, she has to drink blood, and she has random blind rages that are dangerous. Moriah is very encouraging, though she is kept unaware of how many people Sierra has actually killed. Mori also determines that Sierra must be much more than half demon if she’s had so many issues from early ages. The likely explanation is that Sierra’s father is hellborn, perhaps half or a quarter Verwelken.

Moriah is a little disturbed by Sierra’s earlier unsettled state before she managed her bloodlust, but finds some interest in learning about Naturae magic from Borislav.

The next day, Sierra goes to the mall with the Hallows to meet with Frederick and determine whether he’s good or bad. It turns out he needs cash to hire mercenaries, so he can pull off a mission for his country that could save the war. Sierra figures he seems legit enough, and gives him a clear pass. Afterwards, she goes shopping with Harvey and drops a grand on upgrading her wardrobe, specifically buying nice workout stuff, casual stuff, and a leather bomber to mimic Isaac’s sweet vintage jacket.

When New Year’s comes around, Sierra goes with her family and her friends to watch fireworks at the piers. There’s general hanging out, with Sierra failing to explain how she can walk through walls. Moriah’s dad gets along with Isaac, and Maviel and Waldric chat up Cassandra. Sierra resolves to not freak out, and also to go on a sweet road trip at the end of the year. Fireworks explodes.

After school’s back in session, Baron asks Sierra to the Winter Formal dance, which Sierra agrees to. Who doesn’t want to get asked out to dances? Then she meets up with Waldric at his fancy new office, and gets the details of her first assassination target. There’s a human body shop that butchers illegal immigrants for their magical properties, run by Stygian/Nyphican scumbag named Iptaph. Sierra gets a charm enchanted by Crowther that can locate him, and sets off with Ranthix to get the job done.

Late at night Sierra arrives at the docks, dropped off by her Thultal and heading in on foot. She slides through buildings and scouts ahead with her imp, which she decides to name Monster for reasons. She kills a few demons on the way, but eventually locates a Nyphican looking demon, and goes for the kill. Unfortunately, it turns out it’s not the right demon, and she has to fight her way through several armed sentries. While in the middle of the compromising situation, a demonbane breaks in and starts shooting up the place, forcing her hasty retreat.

She gives chase to the real Iptaph, who is making a getaway in a truck. She takes a shortcut through a few walls to come out in the lead, and blows apart the engine with corrupted bullets. After some fighting against mirages, she eventually firewhips him to death and partakes of his blood. Ranthix arrives to cheer her on and give her a ride home.

The next day, Sierra begrudgingly goes to school. She boasts about her date to her friends, and later ends up going over to Moriah’s house to meet the new conclave members.

Ulam’uberatu is very polite for a giant crab thing, and even met Sierra’s mom once. Xath and Xan are panicky from not meeting Ranthix or the Imperiate on the other side of the portal, and are in the midst of a crisis, which Sierra defuses. She also meets Orias, who is a fish out of water in the mortal plane, and who also would rather be out in the wilderness hunting things. She also discovers the Crowthers’ collection of maviels, a black hell flower that grows in Hel’drath.

After discovering she can speak to shadows, Sierra decides to go back to the scene of Iptaph’s assassination to discover the identity of the demonbane and why their arrival was so timely. Moriah comes along to provide magical support.

They arrive at the building, which has burned down. Moriah leaves to distract the police watching the scene, and Sierra heads in and talks to the shadows. She learns it was Sattler who busted in, and she also learns she was operating on a tip that there was a Verwelken somewhere on the premises. It seems as if someone tried to get Sierra killed, or at least compromised. But who?

Days later, Sierra is surprised by a surprise birthday party for her 18th birthday, and gets cool gifts from her friends, and maybe one uncool gift. They go to the Cheesecake Factory to eat, and Sierra gets a call from Frederick asking her to use her landmastery power to help him on his upcoming operation. Sierra agrees for the cool sum of 20,000$.

Eventually Winter Formal rolls around, and National High does a Frozen themed dance over at the local Masonic Lodge. While partying with Baron and friends, Sierra breaks off to roam the place and see if there’s anything weird to see. She realizes she’s being followed, but turns the tables and finds Xanissil at her back. Xath and Xan are acting as her body guards, just in case. But it turns out Ranthix is also in the Masonic Lodge, doing some kind of heist. Sierra wants no part in it, and goes back to her dance for the rest of the evening.

Later, Sierra meets with Frederick and the Gracie brothers to hammer out the job details. It turns out the mercenary they were stealing money to hire is Ranthix. Sierra fails to mention that she’s the Imperiate, or the fact that Ranthix is utterly loyal to her. The job is to consist of them going to the Cerran plane, hiking some distance to a nearby landwell, and using her powers to unlock it so Frederick’s inter-planar d-day thing can work out.

Acting on an earlier plan, Sierra steals her friends off to Muir Woods, so she and Rowan can tell them about their non-mortal heritage. They wait until late night, and then break the news. After a couple humorous misunderstandings, Rowan reveals herself as a quarter angel.

Vikrama is delighted, and Baron is incredibly disturbed. Still, things look pretty good, so Sierra decides to reveal herself as... whatever exactly she is.

It does not go as well.

Baron runs off, and Vikrama’s fear is tangible. Sierra, wounded, leaves, shrugging off Rowan’s attempts to talk it out.

She broods for a while before confronting Baron, though she really is just making sure he’s not getting lost in the dark. After that, she decides to just take a walk and cool off on her own.

She wanders to the tree where her old family picture was taken, and decides to chat up the shadows there. She hears an old conversation with her family, and a Sir Spyridon who served her mother. Hearing the voice of her sister and her parents isn’t easy, but it’s something.

Later, Sierra returns, feeling somewhat better about things. The next day is spent in explanation, though Baron is still wary.

After getting home, Sierra gets a call from Ranthix telling her to meet Orias, who has something to talk about. On her regular run, Xathix appears from nowhere to tackle down a woman.

The woman is an Eclipse Knight, someone working against Frederick and Frederick’s plan. She offers compensation and support from the Eclipse Order if Sierra will betray Frederick. Sierra doesn’t like the feeling of the secret surprise meeting, and doesn’t agree to anything. She lets the knight go, and continues to Orias.

Orias affirms his loyalty toward the Imperiate, and asks to accompany Sierra on her journey to Cerra. Sierra shrugs and goes along with it.

The day of the operation comes around, and Sierra takes Ro and Reeber along for the ride, Rowan forcing her way in to be with Sierra on one of her secret missions.

Everybody meets up at a parking garage – the Gracies, Frederick, Zote, Ranthix, Orias, and team Sierra – and they teleport over into a wintery forest somewhere.

Sierra smells something burning, so she and Orias run ahead.

They encounter their first stop, the villiage of Baymoore, on fire and under attack by ferocious beetlemen. They run down to help, Sierra using her shadows and flames, and Orias using his incredibly powerful dragon gun to drive back the invaders.

After the town is secure, Sierra saves an orphaned teenager from a burning building. At camp later that night, the girl returns, understanding the enhanced protection the group of heavily armed travelers can provide. Sierra allows the girl to accompany them as far as the fortress of Pelheft, and is done with it.

They hike on under threat of beetlemen attacks, but are menaced by the Seraphis, a xenophobic order of knights who deem anything from outside the plane of Cerra a daemon deserving destruction. The orphan girl, Farren, manages to talk the knights away, and the group safely arrives in the next town.

Wading through refugees to find a place at an inn, Sierra, Rowan, and Farren talk into the night about stuff before heading out in the morning.

While travelling, Sierra interviews Frederick and his people just to make sure she’s really on the right side of history. She’s pleased with what she hears, and decides Freddy is a good guy, and that it’d be a jerk move to betray him.

Later, they run into a caravan, where Sierra meets a unicorn, gets a wish, and spots the goblin that helped out during the heist at the warren. She buys some random magical items and moves on with the party.

After successfully evading a full war party of Seraphis Knights, Farren is released to the fortress of Pelheft to find some kind of new life, and Sierra’s team rolls out to the hills in search of the landwell.

However, it turns out there’s a landmaster already in position at the well. The landmaster, Hugo, challenges Sierra to a duel for the well. However, during the duel, Sierra accidentally awakens an ancient golem or robot, and the duel is called off so everyone can run away.

Sierra claims the well, therefore accomplishing the mission, but when teleporting back home, the robot golem messes up the circle, and Sierra ends up somewhere with a lot of trees and a lot of snow.

She uses her survival skills to not freeze to death, and after getting a dead sheep from Reeber, feels strong enough to venture out. She eventually navigates out of the wild toward civilization, though is sidetracked by a landwell.

The landwell, however, is already claimed, so she moves on, wary of the local landmaster. At the nearby road, a truck rolls by and stops, and a powerful magic dude named Roger offers her a ride and a place to stay for the night, out of sight of the police. An American covered in blood, inexplicably in Canada, is not an easy story to sell.

Sierra’s okay with that, and sleeps over. Surpassingly, nothing weird or dangerous happens, and she even gets her clothes washed. In the morning she pokes around, and meets the tennet of Roger’s garage, a self-professed dragon named Nemo.

Whether Nemo is a dragon is up for debate, because Roger interferes before he can prove it one way or another.

Roger, who confirms that he is a landmaster, offers to teleport Sierra home via landwell. Sierra agrees, on the provision that he teach her how to do it.

They go back to the original well, Sierra unhappily walks out on an icy lake to get to it, and Roger sends her home.

After getting home, Sierra spends a week with Moriah while papa Crowther is out of town. They have a lot of fun doing things you shouldn’t do. Sierra gets a goth makeover, and learns of Crowther’s secret magic room nobody should enter. Wisely, she doesn’t bother with it.

The end of the week sees another meeting with the conclave, but more importantly, Wolfgang, Moriah’s older brother, asks Sierra out. Sierra readily agrees. Turns out Wolf’s ex cheated on him, and that demons are arguably more attractive than vanilla humans.

Anyway, their date goes pretty well, with underground music concerts, attempted muggings, and last minute kisses galore.

Time flashes forward once more, bringing us to present day. Sierra owns and operates a motorcycle, is fluent in two and three quarters of a language, and has just graduated high school. Road trips are imminent, as are wings.

Thus it is, and thus season two begins.