Case File 2017.10.17
Once upon a time, in a far off land, lived a young princess and her father. A King loved by his people, always kind and fair. Seeing a need to provide more for his daughter, he took a wife. Shortly after the weeding the King fell ill and disappeared from the kingdom. The Princess knew her evil stepmother was behind it, using her father to gain power before discarding him. The kingdom began to fall into despair under the rule of the Evil Queen. It was many years before the Princess found a way to free herself from the prison of her home and set out to find her father. She had rarely traveled alone or even outside of her kingdom, in time she found herself getting lost within a forest...but by chance she'd stumbled across an old wood cottage.
An old woman greeted Gwen at the door, inviting her in for food and tea...a chance to rest her weary body from travel. Grateful for having a chance to rest after getting lost, she accepted the old woman's invitation and settled in at the table while the woman served up some stew and tea for them both. Gwen answered the old woman's question about where she was going after managing to get lost-- she was headed to some long abandoned castle said to be guarded by a dragon to find her father. The old woman listened as her guest got comfortable...and then the interior of the cottage shifted, revealing its true nature. Bones littering the floor, the scent of rot filled the area of the decrepit room-- a slab of wood on the back where the remains of the witch's most recent victim lay lifeless. The form of the old woman also changed before Gwen's eyes...the age melting away from Rhea's form to reveal the young witch. The shock of the sudden change in the world around her gave the witch a moment to use her powers to slam Gwen back into the wall, in her unexpected flight she'd managed to kick some of the scalding hot tea from the table onto the other woman. Granting her a moment to distract Rhea and shove her into the hearth, running away as the cottage and the witch inside burned.
Gwen found her horse she'd left outside the cottage and hurried away further into the woods. She could hear the sounds of wolves in the distance and pushed as far she could as they hunted her, when her steed's strength finally gave way, she'd found her leg pinned beneath and surely to become a feast for the four legged predators. Or she would have if not for the chance encounter of a woodsman finding her in time, driving back the wolves and getting her to shelter. He offered her shelter, stating by morning she would be able to travel more safely. The wolves always hunted before the full moon...because during the full moon itself a more terrible fiend would take to hunting. The exhaustion of recent events had Gwen sleeping the rest of the night, through the day and only waking a short time after darkness had fallen once more. She'd heard sounds outside the cabin, thinking it was the woodsman she went to investigate...instead she found a large beast, a mix of something between wolf and bear in form, as it noticed her and gave chase. She'd found the woodsman's axe stuck in a log and spun around to strike back at it as she worked to escape through the forest and make it out to the other side. It continued to give chase until she'd broken free to the other side just as day broke-- that once inhuman sound of howling subsided into a groan as something crashed to the earth behind her. The once beast would change back to Liam, the woodsman, before her eyes. She realized he had no idea he'd taken on the curse as he looked up and asked her what had happened. Gwen explained this to him as she took Liam back to his cabin to tend to his wounds before leaving him and continuing on her own journey.
Eventually she found herself in front of a castle surrounded by a wall of thorns, the dragon looming in her sights. The sounds of hooves came from behind as a man in polished silver armor seated on a white horse approached. As the young Knight Alex noticed the Princess he offered to personally escort her back to safety. She declined as her journey's end lay ahead towards that very same castle, one that was the Knight's quest to slay the beast. Instead of escorting her back to safety, he would accompany Gwen into the castle. Upon entering the courtyard, she would see the truth beyond the illusions of that dragon...to the archway that was really an old doorway to an abandoned hospital where her father lay. The remains of the fairy tale world faded away as she charged with her satchel to remove the small vial of water from the Fount, giving it to the man trapped in endless sleep with arms resting over a leather bound book and barely older than Gwen herself. As the Fount water filled him, the air stirred with power and found both Gwen and her father seated on the porch of an old cottage she remembered in Hesse as a landscape of stories surrounded it from all manner of fairy tale worlds.
It was a bittersweet reunion. He'd been cursed for so long, trapped to write story after story with no end. Gwen's mother had kept her away from him for so long, kept her from finding a way to bring him back. Her father, Jacob Grimm, handed her the quill pen to help write an ending...and finally break this curse. A parting exchange was all there was time for before her father's last breath. In the doorway behind, with the spell around this place broken, Liam stood having caught up to Gwen. He'd found Alex and Rhea still out but no longer under the influence of the magic around this place. This was the reason for all the chaos brought on by Gwen...he'd seen a bit of this place in his Soul Gaze with her...and was fitting the last pieces together. Mab was Gwen's mother, and Jacob Grimm had crossed her trying to take her away from the life of the Unseelie Court and as a result ended up being cursed. Gwen had taken a lot of effort to secure a way to break the curse in order to give her father final peace. Liam stated it was time to end this, she needed to give back what she'd taken and she could go... That didn't sit well with her, Gwen thew the bag with Liam's remaining coins to him, but nothing more. She took up her father's body and as Corvus' ship tore into the wall, it scooped her up as she stated it wasn't over and she was going to bury her father.
Alex and Rhea finally woke and found their way upstairs to Liam. The three would finally be going home. Liam had is power back, but...not quite-- it hadn't actually been restored to him upon collecting the complete set. Over the months since their return from this long road trip to Chicago, he'd figured out that because the loss came from a bargain of Kismet's Table...it would have to be restored in a similar manner. Seeing as the Table has been destroyed during the initial start of this adventure...it wouldn't be restored by that method now. Liam would keep watch for Gwen, she still had his mother's sword as well as the Anchor-- knowing what Corvus was now, it didn't do well to leave her access to such a weapon of mass destruction. No word from the Council reached him though...it was oddly quiet regarding that matter. Not even the growing group of folks within the supernatural world with limited abilities that could still use technology to a degree had heard anything. Chicago for the most part was relatively the same or normal as it could be... The Reds stayed on the fringes of town for the most part and the Fomor had become quieter with knowledge of a Senior Councilor in town. Even without his power, Liam kept the secret well enough...unable to go out at night as Wanderland's Lost were still on the hunt for him-- his new home was now The Castle.
