Timeline 4.1

Series 4: Sally, Ginnie, Mattmatt, Jon

Start December 2008 - Finding out we'd been alive for five years without our memories. Being given another chance by... erm, the Karma Police? Also being given a camper van, a suitcase full of money and some ID.

- Bruin says our bodies are ten years old.

- Matt has been living in ZGverse; Ginnie in X-verse, Sal in Ussura.

We all come to New Forest for Christmas; Sally meets Chirrup, Ginnie meets Ananasa, Matt meets Balor and possibly Progenitor Wolf; Sally and Matt meet the Corwins, we all meet Mr Edwards the Obertus.

The Corax scouted us; there was the weather problem, Sally saving lots of high-flying ravens.

New Year 2009 Alexander-of-the-Tower is contacted; we end up in the Tower of London with Prince Harry for New Year.

Seraph - the Khan in Biers, rescuing him (admittedly, via Ussura...) and Seraph being Killed Off For Real in the air over Anglesey. Whatever happened to that Khan? He got handed off to Ash, as the closest thing to a Bastet on the island, and we're not too sure then.

Llyr and the SFS - Stellus Aurelianus dying heroically, us being temporarily dead for a few months.

The Moot - Max Schreier/Isamo Ito, the Fianna Civil War, rescuing lots of people from bondage (literally). To specify and expand; reality now says that we saved people from bondage by Ginnie possessing someone else in the room and working out from there rather than being more involved in the process.

Jon - arrival, car-collection, butterflies of light, Absalom/Babylon.

Jon is killed by Ginnie, after an accidental Psychic Assault incident. He is saved by Sally dragging him into a random world, pumping him full of energy and then teleporting back without bothering to check the exact  flavour  of energy she's pumping in. This counts as 'idiocy' on Sally's part. It appears, after some research, that Jon is part-Valheru thanks to this; Macross the Black thinks that she went and found one of the Valheru spirits in Midkemia and merged their souls together.

After this, Jon acquires a mystic circlet and sword which appears when he wants them. He is also invited to join the Knights of the Cross, who are an order from the Dresden-verse who also seem to be in this reality. As a note, I don't think this is the vanilla-ZG-verse at all and we may need to start re-assessing our assumptions.

We discover that Ryan is active in the ZG-verse, and is allied to Pentex and Wolfram & Hart, who also appear to have a presence here, despite Buffy also appearing on TV. This is peculiar, but not totally improbable I suppose. I mean, why shouldn't demonic corporate lawyers establish themselves here, TV series or not?

Easter 2009 Isamo Ito's corruption of the Ard Ri; the Battle of the Hilltop, Jon casting out the demon. Balor fighting alongside the Garou - well, on the same field with them. As an amendment to this - and the thing that is most notably altered - Ginnie cringed away from remembering the psychically assaulting the Ard Ri's champion against Bryn, and therefore it didn't happen. The duel went through as it should have, and the Ard Ri, upon his champion's loss, agreed to terms and was cleansed. The London Sept started the conflict that night, though; and while the High King didn't die, most of the rest still happened - with the London Sept now being Dodgy McEvilpeople versus the Rest Of The Garou, rather than a Fianna civil war.

We go on an epic quest to try and bring the High King back from death. Sally learns that Rainbow Serpent's realm is a bad place to try and breathe water. We pick up more chiminage than god, and come back laden down with debt. This never happened; we spent the time getting to know the sept and learning things instead.

Late April 2009 Sally gets engaged to Bryn and agrees to marry him. This apparently doesn't make everyone happy as we find out on the same day that a dodgy Euthanatos assassin has accepted a contract on her which has probably been taken out by Byrn's enemies who seem irrationally nervous about Bryn having a teleporting missus.

We all get attacked by the Blood of Glyndwr. It goes badly. Ginnie accidentally psychic assaults Delwyn whilst trying to summon help. Mattmatt and Ceryn both die. Matt keeps Ceryn from coming into the sight of the Lord of the Mound, preventing him from truly dying. Crom Cruach tells Matt that if he dies again, he stays dead. Meanwhile Sally manages to shove enough energy into the pair of them to bring them back. In this timeline, Ceryn doesn't die - it's the day after his Rite of Passage, and Esther manages to hurt him enough that he ran. The Blood then chased and captured him, presumably. Esther is captured when the Blood escape, and has since been quasi-reformed.

Dodgy Euthanatos Assassin shoots Sally with depleted uranium encased in magic bullets. Sally plans a strongly worded letter of complaint. She also has an amazing string of botches which leads to MattMatt being lost in Battlestar Galatica-verse (on Caprica just before the Cylons attack) and Jon being lost in a random WoD 'verse, somewhere around Siberia. Whilst wishing that Matt was there with him, Jon discovers he has the power to summon people to him across the universes. Sally and Ginnie end up stuck with Mattmatt's figurehead 7th Sea character in Star Wars 'verse. What can go wrong?

It turns out that what can go wrong is that Sally and Ginnie can bounce accidentally to Babylon 5 'verse, get picked up by psy corps, lose FigureheadMattmatt, accidentally drop a Narn freedom fighter on RealWorldRPEarth, bounce back into WodHomeVerse, realise that they would miss nearly 2 months and so bounce back out, managing to reunite the group in "ElfWorld".

Ginnie would like to note that when we get back we will have to avoid HomeWorld for about a minute at 4 pm on 5th July.

Elfwood turns out to be Elvandar on Midkemia, which is amazingly helpful to all of us as they not only know of the existence of other worlds, but are well-versed in the techniques of travelling to them via rifts. Sally acquires her staffs there, which she uses to link together the worlds of Midkemia, Ussura and Bryn's Sept in Anglesey, making travel between them much more regular. The Spellweavers of Elvandar inform Jon that he has some aspect of the Valheru within him. Over the course of several conversations between Jon and the warleader of Elvandar, Tomas warns Jon to "act with caution and wisdom", and to not underestimate either the alien nature or the power of the being that has come in some fashion to inhabit his body.

An attempt to return "FigureheadMatt" to his proper place succeeds, but at the cost of stranding Ginnie in northern Montaine with the rest of the group arriving back in Ussura as planned. Jon uses his new powers of people retrieval to attempt to bring back Ginnie, which results in Ginnie staying in northern Montaine and the rest of the gang being joined in Ussura by both a Psion Telepath from Trinity-verse and Jade Allen. Matt chases after the telepath and Sally stays to talk to Jade Allen. Matt explains the situation to the telepath and manages to pursuade her to return to the hut shortly. Meanwhile, Sally proves why she shouldn't be allowed to talk in a crisis, pointing out to Jade Allen that if it helps, Sally was formerly a ghoul before realising that no, that didn't really help at all. The situation goes from bad to worse as the telepath is joined by the rest of her wetworks team and Jade Allen is joined by Khalid. The situation goes from worse to awful as the leader of the wetworks team turns out to be both mentally unstable and capable of identifying the nature of two "haemovores". Matt talks very quickly, and the wetworks team retreat to fortify a position whilst the world-jumpers deal with the vampire threat.

The vampires, meanwhile, vanish off into the woods using Jade's "Unseen Storm" celerity. Matt tracks their passage, but whilst he is on their trail the vampires double back to the cabin. Remaining out of sight of Jon and Sally, Khalid manages to utilise the staff in some fashion to return himself and his companion back to their home dimension.

End April 2009 The dawn rendezvous with the psychic team goes ahead, and the team agree to cooperate to a fashion. With only a visualisation to work from, Sally manages to get the world-travellers plus half of the psychic team back to Trinity-verse, landing in an underground hangar. Managing to get a tenuous connection with the rock around them, Sally jumps the world-travellers, but misses Ussura and lands in an underground cavern. A second missed jump leaves Matt behind. Jon, Sally and Ginnie appear about half a mile in the air, and rapidly start falling.

Sally turns into a bird. Ginnie nearly turns into a pile of spiders. Jon turns into someone who commands dragons. Jon fights to regain control of his mind and body once he's got himself and Ginnie safely down; then we return to Matt.

The other half of the psychic team get taken back to their world with the inclusion of Bryn's pack for security and because the crazy team leader isn't there any more. NB: they were capable of getting to us in the first place because of a combi of teleportation and quantakinesis. Anyhow; we got them back, left Soph behind, then collected Soph (leaving Matt behind in Ussura for reasons of Aberrantness) and all ended up in Ussura, and with the last two party members cleansed.

We all returned to Anglesey, and Jon retreated to meditate for a while. Meantime, Sally had weddingAngst, Matt had boyfriend time and Ginnie got handed piles of remarkably unsuitable clothes by a lovely middle-aged woman who's probably a grandmother already in the village. Sometimes, you just can't win...

The BSDs have Esther. The BSDs, we think, are the Children of the Violation, working for a mysterious figure in the background. They want to negotiate with us, or they make Esther walk the Spiral. Sally reasonably points out that negotiating with her is like beating your head off granite. All agree that Sally doesn't negotiate with anyone. Bryn seems to want us to negotiate so we decide to go for it. The BSDs, in this world, have Ceryn. They've had him for the day we've been off doing stuff; the rest goes as per normal.

2 May 2009 This is Saturday. Sally and Ginnie accidentally turn themselves into fish. It doesn't help.

Matt & Ginnie go to village to get phone for calling CotV and Ginnie gets shot - same point she was hurt with Sally's magic bullet. Blood all congealed and filled with silver. Matt takes us north - then Sal brought us and bullet back. Matt emptied the contaminated blood out of Ginnie (ouch...) who then refilled on cow. Called CotV, agreed meeting on Tues lunchtime. Wedding tomorrow.

The night before the wedding after everyone has gone to sleep, Matt and Jon realise that no one has actually ever sorted out Jon's 'kinfolk' status, which could prove something of political suicide for Brynn when the Garou nation turns up for the moot. There is some running about and waking up of important people, and it's decided (via a long list of discarded options) that Jon may be a bastet kin, and the best way to check this out is with the court of the Tiger Lord of Lanka.

Getting there proved something of a trial. A slip whilst teleporting landed the group in world that drained their lifeforce. Connecting with the earth in order to attempt a teleportation out, Sally's lifeforce got drawn out of the connection and she slipped into unconsciousness. Revived long enough to emergency jump back to Ussura, Sally attempts to draw the necessary power from the rest of the party. She doesn't manage it, however the jump succeeds regardless, with the power coming from  somewhere else.

Sally's pupils now seem like tunnels to somewhere else, and peering into them shows a vision of a sacrificial pit, where people are being sacrificed to a hungry god. But she still has her connection to Matushka, so that's alright then.

The bag of earth that Ginnie picked up from the draining world retains that property. Not only is it damaging the world around it, but it seems to be approaching a critical mass, whereupon it will explode. Matt grabs the bag and flies off into the sky to allow the bag to explode in space, creating a void. Reaching a speed he has never attained before, Matt discovers that he can actually travel at super-luminal speed. As he attempts to navigate back to familiar ground, a chance comment from Jon causes Matt to shift into the Bleed, emerging in a random universe, in deep space.

Alone in deep space, Matt chooses to attempt to navigate the Bleed back to the right universe, since the alternative is to basically pick a random star and fly towards it in the hope it might turn out to be Sol. Navigating the Bleed however, appears to be on some level a matter of instinct, and although he doesn't quite hit the right universe, Matt does at least emerge out of the Bleed in orbit around Earth, quite close to a space station marked with three rather significant letters: a J, an L and an A.

After a slightly overwhelming meeting with a Russian Superman, Blitzen (Red Son universe's Flash) explains to Matt that each universe has its own vibrational frequency, and travelling through the worlds is done by changing one's frequency to match that of the universe one wants to travel to. Remaining in that universe means keeping one's being vibrating at the same frequency as the current universe; one can return to the home universe by relaxing and allowing one's frequency to return to normal. In order to demonstrate this, Blitzen knocks Matt unconscious.

The excitement that happened while Mattmatt was elsewhere ended up with Jon being abandoned and left in the Imperium of Man, in the 31st century. In the tender care of the Grey Knights on their creation. In the Warp. Getting gene-seeded.

Sunday 3 May 2009 In the meantime, in Ussura, Ginnie got a text from Matt Elliot.

After a little kerfuffle, Sally and Ginnie picked Matt up in the New Forest, and then... well. The most cogent bits of this section involve Sal hissing possible hatred as something that feels a bit like it could be the Madness Network hanging out in the white noise in the background of a possible SLAverse, the minor sideline into Nalini Singhverse and the kind of entertaining Trauma when Bryn mentioned that they want to put Jon on trial for claiming that the Ard Ri was a demon...

So. Since then, the party has done Things, and Stuff. These things included finding their way onto an Aberrant-verse which was ruled by a Zodiac comprising Divis Mal, Caestus Pax, Crisis, Antaeus and ... you know, some other random bods. Anyhow. After some consideration, some frenzying (Szantovitch-MattE energy-thefted and ate someone) and some patching up (Sal making Mister Awesome (name TBConfirmed...) alive and a nova and then grovelling at Antaeus) and some consideration (Ginnie: Well, if Scripture is letting us talk to Jon, then that could count as giving me access to a point-to-point link to his mind. ..So that didn't work then...) and some rapid evolution (...teleporting from the Warp to the Grey Knights ship. With Magnus the Red. Who killed everyone on the ship bar Jon, ME and Ginnie.), Sal hauled everyone to the same place at the same time, left a bit of Antaeus on Cadiz, and then came home, in time for tea.

This would be perfect, were it not for the fact that nine paragraphs back, we were _aiming_ to get Jon to Lanka, which we have as of yet failed to do. Experience suggests that maybe now is the best time to try that again. :)

Sunday. Now, let me tell you All About Sunday; because this was a day notable Even for Us.

So; it all starts at roughly 3pm on Sunday 3 May 2009; after we've got back to Anglesey.

Firstly, Sally takes Jon and Mattmatt to Sri Lanka. Sadly, she takes them into the caern directly, but this gets sorted out with the fast-talking skills of Mattmatt. Jon, says Jamal of the Khan, is possibly Kin - though Jamal is certain Jon's not _his_ son... But he can't offer any other help. He does say, though, that the Qualmi have a gift which might be helpful; 'No Hidden Thing'. Sal brings Mattmatt and Jon back; and then Mattmatt asks Alexander the Tower for advice on how to find NHT, rather than Sri Lankan people. Alexander the Tower suggests, discreetly, Professor Alexander Ojiofor of Kings College Oxford. Sally's brain grates slightly as she realises that, for some reason, there's a small Kings College where she was expecting Magdalen(e?). Never mind, eh? Anyhow; where else would an Elder Simba be?

A brief conversation with Ojiofor of the Endless Storm leads to him declaring that he accepts Jon as Khan kin; and that ME is actually a pre-change White Howler. We sigh, forlornly. Then we go back to Anglesey and tell Bryn and Celyn; and have a nice rest before the Moot.

Celyn, just post the start of the Moot (being late is apparently expected of the SuperRagabash!.) suggests that ME get over the first change thing sooner rather than later; so Jon hits ME, and lo, a frenzying white-haired crinos gets Calmed by Celyn. So that went well.

And then things get slightly awkward.

While we're waiting for our entrance, Mau-Mau comes along and starts whispering. Ginnie accidentally psychic assaults him To Death. Sally then rewinds the time stream By the Power of Blood - and rather overshoots the hour she was aiming for, getting us to May 3, 1979 and unravelling the following thirty years. We then do a Secretive Rite of Cleansing (with the Delwyn-in-my-head booming out 'You are not meant to Whisper, Miss Wynn-Jones; you are meant to Sing!') to tidy up the mess we made of the caern, and leave for the New Forest to think things through.

Mattmatt then demonstrated his Purest Genius of All Things, by saying 'This world that you're really good at getting to, Sal; there's this man there who can help you...'

Macross the Black turns out to be an Utterest of Angels - in the most part because it turns out that Jon's part-Valheru thing is just what he needs to work out how to tell himself how to make the other part-Valheru who'd talked to Jon and told him what he was and how things worked; and in other part because Sal demonstrated how to use the sticks that he was just then inventing to act as gateways between places. Time travel makes my brain ache...

MtheB then took us, after a couple days R&R, to the Place Between Worlds (as visualised as an infinitely long looping walkway with gates at various points on it) and then (after telling us how to find Trusty John's - between the underwater-ice-world and a blasted landscale, IIRC? Mattmatt to double check this point) he fast-forwarded us through Time by the power of Sally's magic. ME's sentientish computer gave us a date/time update while we were not-travelling (as it were) and then we realised we needed to rebuild the timeline with our interactions. So. being the person volunteered to do the remembering, I manage to (I _think_ rebuild reality mostly as I remember it - with one minor and one major difference. See italics above for details.

On the bright side, by the power of ME's computer and Jon's super powers, we get back into the time stream bang on when we want to; and lo, the moot itself goes quite well...

The only issue then is the London Sept. They leave, after Jon and MM confirm that they believe the sept to be infernally tainted, by a power that looks like Scythe's teleportation - and Jon sees Scythe in the background of wherever they're teleporting to...

ME, after having proven himself an Acceptable Groo to Griffin's Glory, has the Fastest Cubhood Evar and promptly (and slightly surprisingly) gets made a Silent Strider. And then we went to bed keep watch at the Caern for any enemies who might be incoming in a place where we can be kept an eye on. Apart from Sal, who went back to Bryn. :)