Patrick (Michael Winters) knocks on the door and shouts, "I am here! I am here! Bow down and worship me as your God!" Chris (Titus Glossner) howls back, "Not a chance! By the way, did you know that 5% of Washington DC has AIDS? I read that!" Tim (Edward Miller) points out, "That must be because they're all Democrats. By the way, I watch a lot of Fox News." Chuck just looks alarmed and backs away. Bruce (Albert Ferrel) screams and shrinks into the corner. Paul looks to the skies and groans, "And now it's going to take just hours to get him back outta there." Patrick (Father Max) suggests, "Let's just not bother. I bet he's happy enough over there, in his own way." Georgina (Brighton Beach) asks, "Didn't all of this start out as an attempt to play a game? Why are we all just displaying our various mental eccentricities instead?"
It has been two days since the revenant Red Bride broke up the inter-supernatural congress at the airport. Titus Glossner spends the time investing the points the group has placed into Sanctum security by putting up locks and security cameras. He puts the dust he took from the Red Bride's body into a jar in the refrigerator, very carefully labeling it, "Daddy's Soul Dust. Do not smoke! Do not eat! No medicinal or dietary value!" Right next to it, he fills a jar with rat poison, which he also labels, "Daddy's Soul Dust" with no additional warnings.
Most of the mages invest their time by sitting around, collecting tass and Willpower.
Edward Miller shows up at the warehouse with a fax machine and an introductory letter from Mycroft. He claims that he's the newest member of the group.
Michael Winters suggests, "We have two days off! Let's go down to the docks and pick up streetwalkers!"
Father Marcus chirps up, "Count me in!"
Brighton Beach adds, "I have cash!"
It turns out that the characters are actually looking for information. Michael Winters stresses that he's got a Streetwise specialty of "rumors", which leads Titus Glossner to speculate wildly about what kind of rumors.
Brighton learns that quite a lot of prostitutes have been going missing, in strange ways. Five of them vanished all in a small area in one night; none of them were obviously connected to each other.
The three characters head back to the warehouse, depressed that they didn't learn anything useful. Albert Ferrel points out that he can go talk to the area rats and see what they know, amping up their intelligence if needed. Titus Glossner will lead another group of people to canvas the area.
Glossner's group learns that a lot of the area homeless people had been going to a new soup kitchen in a disused warehouse. It was only open for about two days, but some of the people who went there never came back. Titus speculates, "That must mean that they've got the most immense bowl of soup in there."
Max asks, "Do we think there's something suspicious about the soup kitchen?" Glossner looks at him strangely.
It turns out that Albert Ferrel would need Space 2 to actually summon rats, so that's out. But he is able to talk to a local stray cat spirit. In exchange for a promise to provide a can of tuna every day for the next thirty days, Ferrel learns that things have not been right ever since the prosititutes disappeared five days ago.
Ferrel thanks the spirit, then heads off to tell the others that he needs to buy thirty cans of tuna.
The characters approach the Warehouse. They find a U-Haul van and a sports care outside. Father Marcus attempts to deactivate the alarm; he succeeds, but manages to destroy Michael Winters' cellphone in the process. Brighton Beach checks out the sports car license plate and finds out that it is registered to Kyle Tibideaux. Edward Miller demonstrates that he is useful to the group by exclaiming, "He's Jean-Claude's younger brother!"
Brighton Beach finds some small ziplock baggies filled with white powder in the sports car glove compartment. He's sure that they must be nothing more troubling than sugar.
Edward Miller concentrates for a moment and reports that there are about a dozen people inside.
Michael Winters sneaks up to the U-Haul truck. He opens the padlock and looks inside. There's nothing inside except for a box of condoms.
Titus Glossner has Father Marcus use Forces magic to suppress the sound while he raises up the door next to the sports car. He sees five prostitutes, each caged. A dozen homeless guys, some armed with guns, guard the area. And a well-dressed man in a suit stands off in the background. Edward Miller reports, "This whole place has an aura of terror to it! This is a bad place!"
Titus Glossner reassures him, "Nice job, Counselor Troi."
Max curses several of the homeless guys. They don't seem to notice. Ferrel transforms himself to have the soft paws, sharp teeth, and keen eyes of a panther. Michael Winters heads on inside. And then someone yells out, "Hey! There's a guy sneaking into the building!"
This doesn't stop anyone from continuing into the building, even though Titus Glossner talks about the relative wisdom of just closing the door again and walking away. He decides instead to simply throw the door wide open.
Then the homeless guys attack. They are totally, totally ineffective.
Max runs into the room and gets a good view of the ritual circle in the center of the warehouse. He realizes that there is an OB/GYN examination chair in the center of the pattern, with Atlantean runes painted all over it. He quickly concludes that mages must be involved. Mages with very strange ideas about their social lives.
Unnoticed behind Max, Ferrel bites the bum who just attacked him. Ferrel theorizes that this would be the most surprising thing to ever happen to the bum, except for the fact that the guy is already in the warehouse. Max offers, "If you're a bum with a shotgun, every day is full of surprises."
Then five seven-foot things with webbed feet, taloned hands, and horrific fanged mouths step up out of the water.
Edward Miller asks, "Do I have line of sight? Because if I do I'm gonna piss myself and run."
One of the monsters starts to howl. Titus Glossner screams, "It's tearing my mind apart! Aiee!" He takes a level of bashing damage.
Albert Ferrel announces, "They're spirits! I can harm them!" Then he discovers that the spirits are actually abyssal spirits and have the ability to make Paradox worse. Bedlam Paradox lashes out. Albert screams, "Don't touch me! Don't touch me!"
Titus Glossner asks, "Hey, Max! Is there a spell you can use to make me faster?"
Max replies, "No way! Not after that little display of magic gone awry!"
The sound of a boat's engine thunders through the warehouse. Glossner shouts out, "Oh no! He's getting away! I guess we'll just have to fuck up his car!" The engine stops.
Edward Miller realizes that if he has a sympathetic link to Kyle Tibideaux, then he doesn't need to be able to see him to toast his mind. He runs for Tibideaux's sports car. Father Marcus realizes that he'd like to drive a sports car, so he joins Miller in the car. He uses his Forces to start the car, but finds that the steering wheel is still (mechanically) locked because there's no key in the ignition.
Then one of the abyssal spirits howls. All of the bums collapse. Likewise, the prostitutes fall to the floors of their cages. Ferrel and Max each lose five mana. Edward Miller loses three mana on the way to Tibideaux's car. Everyone else takes actual bashing damage.
Max staggers from loss of mana. He asks, "Can I pop my tass?" then breaks into helpless giggling. Then he actually does eat down enough mushrooms to keep him in the game.
Titus notices that the abyssal spirits have collected the caged prostitutes and are heading back towards the water. The characters abandon the whole "magic" concept and blaze away at the nearest one. It drops the cage and shatters into five slick-skinned things the size of a corgi. They glare at the characters and show their shark's teeth.
Titus Glossner mocks them in falsetto, "Oh no! We just turned into five smaller demons! And when you shoot us we'll become five even smaller demons, and so on and so on until we become invisible. And then when you sleep we'll sneak into your head and mine for gold."
Behind them, the other demons leap into the water with their caged prostitutes. Except for the one who had been drawing out the characters' mana. That demon rushes Titus and tears away pieces of intestines. Titus gasps, "Hey! I need those!" He swings back with his axe, then drops from his injuries.
Albert Ferrel realizes that there's only one abyssal spirit left. He flings Harm Spirit effects at it until he feels woozy and it feels irritated and jumps into the water.
Edward Miller struggles to get a fix on Kyle Tibideaux. He finally realizes that Kyle is lying unconscious on his boat, having also gotten a lot of quality time with the howling demon. He points out the direction to the boat to Father Marcus, who uses his powers to bring the boat back to shore. Then he fiddles with the stereo until the boat arrives. Miller picks through Tibideaux's wallet and cellphone. He comes up with $1000 cash, several prestige credit cards, and keys to Tibideaux's car and apartment.
Albert Ferrel suddenly realizes that Michael Winters, Titus Glossner and Brighton Beach are all badly wounded. Several applications of Life magic later, they're all completely healed. Ferrel does a paper-thin job of making his efforts seem coincidental by telling them things like, "You just got the wind knocked out of you. Just walk it off."
The characters haul Kyle Tibideaux off to be interrogated in a MacLucky's distribution center. No idea what happens after that, because it's time for Bruce to head off to an HOA board meeting.
Don't know any details about this, as I wasn't here for it.