The Road Through Perdition: Notes Along the Way

The Sentinel -- September 13th: Bizarre Shootout in Club

BALDWIN HEIGHTS -- The owner of a club who wishes for himself and his establishment to remain nameless, reports that, as he was closing up for the night, he spotted a girl in her early twenties on the balcony of the downstairs area. "There's always a few stragglers, but this one was lurking around, typing something on what looked like an over-sized palmtop computer," the owner says. "I told her we were closed, she said she was on her way out." Moments later, he reports a group of "fit but slim young men wearing karate uniforms with long coats" had suddenly rushed in and attacked the girl, who proceeded to open fire on them. "I called the cops, but by the time they showed up, the girl was gone and so were the guys." No serious damage was reported, with the exception of a table and several chairs which were smashed and shot up in the melee. "I got a regular who prefers that particular spot," the owner adds. "Vic's gonna kill me if I don't have it fixed up soon."

© 2007 The Sentinel. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

The Sentinel -- September 30th: Mysterious death in Mara bank

"I don't understand who could have done this, and why," Remiel Stephens, manager of the Mara Five Cents Savings Bank, located just sound of the popular Polyvinyl Club, says, speaking of Sarah O'Connell, whose mangled body was found early this morning in a hallway of the small financial institution. The thirty-year old computer systems manager was working late last night, doing routine maintenance on the mainframe, when she was attacked. No motive can be deduced: the intruders left the bank vault intact, and Ms. O'Connell has no known enemies. "It looked like she'd been attacked by a large wild animal, but that's impossible, in the middle of the city," says E. D. Samuel-Baroni, the city's chief coroner.

No arrests have been made, but police are seeking two men seen in the vicinity of the bank late Saturday evening, both in their early to mid twenties, one with silver hair and a robust build, clad in a distinctive black trenchcoat with a military beret, the other with dark hair and a slender build, dressed in a green leather trenchcoat over a green suit.

© 2007 The Sentinel. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

The Sentinel -- October 1st: English teacher found brutally beaten to death

DANNAH HEIGHTS -- A maintenance worker at Hammerville High School reports that, as he arrived for work late last evening, he opened a classroom door to find the body of Emily Dickens, a recently hired 27 year old English teacher, beaten to death, aparantly with a desk, which was found near her body covered in blood.

The school has had a troubling history of violent incidents, including the suicide of a student whom Federal officials had approached for questioning three years ago, and a bombing last year by a local anarchist group.

October 2nd: Popular waitress attacked, slain

Gracy Heights -- "Marge was a living, breathing version of that old-fashioned friendly, flirty diner waitress you see in old movies," says Peg Bruschi, owner of Peg's, a local diner known for its hospitality in the middle of the troubled neighborhood. "Always had a kind word and a piece of apple pie for anyone who needed a pick-me-up." Yesterday morning, she arrived at work to find the body of Marjorie "Marge" Flutie, one of the diner's veteran employees, draped over a back countertop amidst a pile of broken dishes. Whoever attacked her also succeeded in driving large fragments of broken crockery into her skull, killing her. Medical examiners are perplexed at how this could have happened, but as Detective James Gardner, one of the officers who responded to the call, reports, "How this happened is a little less important than who and why."

A memorial fundraiser dinner will be held at the diner to help the family of the deceased raise funds for the funeral expenses.

October 3rd: Maintenance worker found mauled 

MORRELL -- Office workers at Metacortex were stunned to find the body of Lymon Zerga, a maintenance worker, in the corner of a hallway. His attackers somehow managed to jam the forty-seven year old immigrant's arm into his chest. City CSI and medical examiners are stymied as to how this could have been done. "I have seen a thousand different things that people can do to other people, but it's medically impossible for someone to do this without cutting into the body first," reports E. D. Samuel-Baroni, the city's chief coroner. "Whoever did this is inhumanly strong."

Mr. Zerga, a recent immigrant from Costa Rica of Latino and German descent, left no family living in the area, but relatives have been notified; he was reportedly within two weeks of becoming a naturalized citizen.

October 4th: Fight, double slaying near Club Sanguine

MORIAH PROJECTS -- Neighbors in the apartment buildings close to a popular goth club report seeing a man and two females, all in their twenties engaged in what seemed to be a fight. About the same time, a man clad in a black trenchcoat and a black military-style beret was spotted walking about nearby Moriah Plaza, with his hands behind his back, talking on a headset-style cellphone. The scrimmage broke up and the man was heard laughing as he continued walking away, still talking on his cellphone.

Three hours later, the landlord of one of the buildings, who wishes to remain nameless found two bodies behind his building's dumpster. Thirty-five year old Dwayne Mellen had had his neck snapped and a fourteen year old girl was shot through the temple. The two incidents appear to be related, but detectives working the case are still investigating how and why.

© 2007 The Sentinel. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

The Sentinel -- October 15th: Downtown culinary expert reports data robbery

PILLSEN -- "I can't understand what sort of person has the lack of taste to steal something that has taken so long to collect," says Umberto Falerno, a culinary master whose edible masterpieces have graced the tables of restaurants all over the city. Late last night, hackers broke into a mainframe belonging to the master chef and stole a database containing hundreds of recipes. Back-up tapes containing copies of the files were also physically stolen from a fire-proof box in an office downtown belonging to Mr. Falerno. Locals report spotting two dark-haired women in their early to mid-twenties exiting the building, one clad in a red trenchcoat with her hair pulled back, the second with a shock-mane of hair and crimson eyes set in a "ghastly pale" face, clad in a revealling black gown; the pair was accompanied by a tall, robust, heavily tattooed man in his early thirties, who walked with a pronounced limp. "It looked like the woman in the gown was dragging him along on a leash of some sort," says a taxi-driver present at the scene.

Mr. Falerno adds that the hackers delivered a ransom message, telling him all copies of his files would be returned if he complied with request of theirs which he does not wish to disclose at the present.

© 2007 The Sentinel. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

The Sentinel -- October 20th: Possible cult-related killings leave a trail of blood and destroyed families.

CAPITOL CITY -- Reports of whole families being slaughtered and messages being written in their blood on the walls and ceilings of the victims' homes have come from several districts across the Westview and Richland areas. Some of the messages read: "Seek the algorithm." "The darkness is coming", "I will be all that remains", along with strings of seemingly random numbers and letters that were deciphered to equal the same words, spelled out in Base-32 and Base-64 code.

So far four families have been murdered. According to local authorities, there seems to be no pattern to the killings. All races, all ages, all classes and any sex seem to be targeted. Raphael and Alicia Corteo, a plumber and his wife, and their four children Matteo, age 6, Marcel, age 4 1/2, Lucia age 3 and Juan-Jesus, age 18 months, of Lucero Point were found smothered, beheaded and disembowelled. A recently married same-sex couple, Cyril and Jacen Nightwolf, ages 30 and 29 respectively, graphic artists at an advertising firm in Lamar who lived in Camon Heights were found strangled and eviscerated. Virgil and Hermionique Washington, an African-American preacher and his wife, of Manssen Park whose congregation had been forced out of the Church of the Disciples due to strange activity in the church, were discovered dismembered at their dinner table along with Hermionique's sister Jarrica and her daughter Tonisha, age 13. Richard and Anne Whitehall of Tabor Park, along with their son Connor, age 17 and daughter Samantha, age 14 were beaten to death.

Several people living near by were interviewed by the police. One mentioned they heard the laughing of a madman followed by someone shouting, "Perfect! Such beauty!" or something like that. "This is really creepy," another, a neighbor of the Corteos said, "with it being so close to Halloween and all". Said a member of Pastor Washington's congregation, "I was helping Hermionique organize a Safe Trick or Treat for the kids in the neighborhood; this just shows how unsafe things are getting, even for the grown-ups this time of year." A young neighbor of the Whitehalls, who had stumbled upon the grisly scene when he went to bring back a video game he'd borrowed from Connor, said, "It made the vampire orgy in 'The Burlyman Chronicles: Hellgate City' anime look like a kids' show."

Initially, local authorities thought the killings might be gang-related or hate crimes given the fact that some of the victims were minority familys. But the brutality of the slayings and the similar killing of the Whitehalls, "Your typical white middle-class family," as reported by James Gardner, a detective covering the slayings as well as similar incidents, belies this theory. Given reports of some strange new cult known as "the Black Algorithim" which has arisen among members of the Redpill drug subculture, the killings come almost as no surprise, considering the violence among the young people caught up by it. However, the degree of violence is unusual and initially was thought to be the work of a large wild animal of some sort, but there have been no reports of anything of that nature or any escapes from the Capitol City Zoo.

© 2007 The Sentinel. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

EDITED to repair a misplaced censored tag on a properly used term.

The Sentinel -- October 21st: Operatic Baritone saved during home invasion 

AKASAKA: "I would not be able to continue sharing the gift of song that has been given to me if she hadn't intervened," says Rudolf Magnor, a Welsh-born German baritone, after this afternoon's premiere of "Das Licht und der Knaben" (The Light and the Knave), an operetta composed by a locally born composer. Last night, the singer and star performer of the fairy-tale light opera reports that three heavily armed men broke into his apartment and held him at gunpoint, one of them reportedly trying to force a caplet of the street drug known as "Red Pill" down his throat. The intruders would have succeeded, if a woman described as "short, about early twenties and clad entirely in black" had not kicked open the door and fired a warning shot into the ceiling with a pistol. The three men let go of Magnor and tried to attack the girl, but she quickly subdued them. However, she left before Mr. Magnor could find out her name or identity, and subsequently the singer is offering a reward for information leading to her whereabouts. "I want to properly thank her; she saved not only my life, she saved the production and my voice. I don't know which I value more," Mr. Magnor tells the Sentinel.

Break-in and rescue in surveyors' records office

UENO: Three pale men described as having "abnormally sharp, white teeth" reportedly stormed the offices of Kay, Hofka and Franzek, demanding access to the computer system and its files. A system maintenance worker who wishes to remain anonymous tells the Sentinel that a small woman in a black coat entered behind them and grabbing the office worker, pushed him into a closet and told him to stay there since "this situation is going to get really messy". He reports hearing "horrible screams and gunfire and whistling noises" that "might have been someone throwing knives", then the woman opened the closet at let him out. No trace of the intruders could be found except for four different sorts of bullets embedded in the walls of the office. Before the woman left, she requested access to a small portion of the firm's files, which the worker, in his shock and relief, unwisely let her access.

The firm is not pressing charges at this time, but will do so if further evidence is discovered. The incident may be connected to repeated requests for access to the system from a woman in Shinjuku going by the alias "Dame White".

© 2007 The Sentinel. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

The Sentinel -- October 30th: Westview family of four found slain 

GRACY HEIGHTS -- A family of four, the Freemans, was found dead in their home three days ago, including both parents, Sabrina age 45, and Michael, age 42, along with their two female childern, ages 15 and 20. The bodies of the four were dismembered and the parts were scattered throughout the house. A single message was writen in what appeared to be blood, across the walls of one room: "He has nothing left." The family had two childern go missing, both are reported to have disappeared into the gangs of the Redpill drug-culture and died some years ago. The oldest of the two missing was named Zack and the other was a girl named Mia. The family had no other childern or relatives living in the greater Capitol City, a situation which has greatly hampered investigators. "We'd be interviewing anyone close to the deceased, to determine if anyone had any motive to harm them," says homicide detective James Gardner, who has been covering cases of a similarly violent nature and with markedly similar MOs. "The problem is, no one seems to know the Freeman family well. It's like they were ghosts haunting this house." The next door neighbor, however, said this about them, "The Freemans were always such a nice family. The kids were a little wild and imaginative but good none the less."

© 2007 The Sentinel. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

The Sentinel -- October 31st: Possible Cryptozoological Sighting reported in Baldwin Heights

"At first I thought it was a very wierd Halloween display, but who puts one in the middle of a city square?" says Walt Padalecki, a graphic artist employed by Network Media. On emerging from his place of employment, Mr. Padalecki reports seeing something that, "looked like a seven-foot tall woman with the head of a black dog. I thought it was a costume at first, but the thing was stooping over the body of one of those wierd, hairy guys that seem to come out of the woodwork this time of year, and she was tearing into it with these claws like knife blades." He adds, "I didn't stick around to watch what it was, and neither did the thing. It looked up as I was walking away and she let out a yowl like a scalded cat, then took a flying leap into the darkness."

Local experts hint that this might be related to similar reported sightings in Creston Heights last year. Says one, Dr. Arnaut Carolis, an Egyptologist at Barron University, "The creature sounds markedly similar to Kebechet, the Egyptian goddess of decay and the daughter of Anubis, the god of the dead and the Kemetic answer to the grim reaper. It was either a very educated prank, or perhaps there may be some truth to allegations that the gods of Kemet were inspired by actual alien beings."

© 2007 The Sentinel. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

The Sentinel -- November 1st: Downtown monster sighting explained

BALDWIN HEIGHTS -- Following a strange sighting of what appeared to be a woman with the head of a black dog attacking an unusually hairy man, Joe and Bill Aronsky, creators of the "Burlyman" franchise of movies, anime and video games, have admitted that the display was an actor in a costume, hired to help promote their latest video game: "The Burlyman: Hellgate Chicago". Says Bill Aronsky, "The story unfolds in a post-apocalyptic Chicago, it's sky blackened and monsters from your worst nightmares roving the streets for prey. The actor in question was portraying one of the summonable NPCs, a god-like creature called a Daevas." Local officials, however, are penalizing the creative pair for failing to properly warn them of this display. No details are currently availiable on what that penalty will entail.

© 2007 The Sentinel. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

The Sentinel -- November 7th: Strange flashmob sighted in Dannah Heights

"I've seen some wacky things in this city, but I couldn't make heads or tails of this one," says Muriel Pratchett, speaking about a strange sight she, among more than a few other passersby, report sighting close to the bridge connecting the district to Sobra Shores on the opposite side of the river. A crowd of some twenty to thirty young people, possibly Redpill subculture members, were seen gathered there, clad in headless costumes. The locality is said, according to Father Jonas of First United Church in Sobra Shores, to have once been haunted by the ghost of a steelworker who was said to have been accidently decapitated during construction of the bridge. The haunting has reportedly stopped, but it seems the young folks may have been taking part in a bizarre late Hallloween prank.

© 2007 The Sentinel. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

The Sentinel -- January 12th: Killer cop brought to justice

BALDWIN HEIGHTS -- The body of Jesse Norment, a former Capitol City police officer discharged from service and who served a five year sentence for "grossly inappropriate use of lethal force", was found in a back office of the security company he now managed. Ten years ago, he was charged with fatally shooting a mentally challenged young woman while attempting to arrest her on false charges. Since his release from prison, Mr. Norment started his own security company, of somewhat questionable repute, given his background. A small woman dressed entirely in black was spotted in the area following the report by another tenant in the building that she had heard machine gunfire on the floor above.

Bizarre Ritual or Odd Roleplay Game gone wierd

SHINJUKU -- The owner of a small bookstore reports that he spotted two males and two females gathered on the roof of his establishment. Both females were clad in white, while one of the males was dressed entirely in black with what looked like red tattoos on his face, neck, and arms, and the other, a slight man with mussy brown hair. The shorter of the females seemed to be chanting something at the tattooed man, who then fell over as if dead. The store owner called the police to send the intruders away, but by the time officers arrived on the scene, the group had vanished. The only sign of the intruders was a cloth bag containing several red and white multi-sided dice. The police believe the incident was probably nothing more than a group of college students engaged in a roleplay gaming session.

© 2008 The Sentinel. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

The Sentinel -- January 29th: Missing Ballet Student Spotted

TABOR PARK -- A ballet student who was reported absent from her classes was spotted near a Blue Line subway entrance, in the company of a small woman dressed in black, known by the authorities to be in the employ of a French expatriate businessman of questionable repute. The woman in black appeared to be hurrying her companion along and kept scanning the area as if she expected they were being followed. The two apparently disembarked at the Sai Kung stop; a maintenance worker at an apartment building in Sai Kung Canton reports seeing a pair who matched the same description enter the back door of a local restaurant.

© 2008 The Sentinel. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Note from Sieges: I've been doing a little poking around in the extensive microfilm archives that Hypatia keeps, and I've been finding some interesting items from my early days as a Redpill. I've decided to throw them in, amongst the more recent pieces I regularly post, so if you see an odd date here and there, it's one of my finds

The Sentinel November 6th -- College Sophomore, Philosophy Student disappears

MARIBEAU -- "She would have called us by now if she could," says Merton Hannaford, Sr, a Medieval studies professor at Stratford Campus's Barron University and author of "The Bull of Heaven: The Mythos of the Merovingian Dynasty" , speaking of his daughter Mercedes Genevieve Hannaford, age 22. The bright young student is reported missing after leaving her job in a bookstore in the Historic District this afternoon. Her older brother Merrill Hannaford, a graphic design artist at Twiller and Jeeter Promotionals, an advertising firm in Chelsea, reports having talked with the literature major around three this afternoon, when she was on a coffee break. "She spoke with much animation of a philosophical discussion group she had but recently joined at the university," the second oldest of Professor Hannaford's five children went on to say, apparantly speaking of the Ontologists' Society, a group recently formed by Dr. Kent Emmanuelis, a professor of philosophy at Barron University. He went on to add, "This looked so like a good prospect for her, since she is painfully shy by nature." After the meeting scheduled for this evening, said to be in an undisclosed location in Baldwin Heights, Mercedes was supposed to return to the apartment she shares with her brother Merrill and his fiancee Casillda Roberts, where she was supposed to help with a fitting for her sister-in-law's wedding dress, but she never called or returned.

The young woman has no history of drug use or trouble with law enforcement. "She's scared (silly) of her own shadow," says her younger sister, seventeen year old Marina, a student at Hammerville High School. Mercedes is five feet two inches tall, and weighs about ninety-five pounds, with below-the-shoulder length dark brown hair usually worn held back with Japanese-style hair sticks, amber eyes and a peaches-and-cream complexion. She often wears eyeglasses except when reading. She was last seen wearing a white blouse, off-white cargo pants, a short, belted grey jacket and black high-top shoes. She was under treatment for manic-depressive tendencies and may make contact with a clinic in Chelsea or with her regular counsellor, Dr. Tranque Bourdeaux.


© 2005 The Sentinel. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

The Sentinel: February 26th -- Injured man sighted in local park

APPOLLYN -- A man in his early to mid twenties, with spiky scarlet hair and wearing a purple suit was seen running through the park, holding his side as if he were injured. A group of young women, two dressed in red, one an Asian girl with red braids, the other with short purple hair, a third clad in black with shoulder-length black hair who seemed the most distraught at the young man's condition. The three were seen half-carrying him in the direction of a bookstore frequented by a number of young people believed to be in the employ of an ex-patriate French businessman of questionable repute. It is not known who the young people in this group were, or how the young man in purple was injured, but given the activity of the 5 Points gang, he may have fallen victim to their violent activities.

© 2008 The Sentinel. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

The Sentinel: Marh 22nd -- Bizarre battle in local courtyard

MARA -- Residents of the Debir Court housing project report seeing a small dark-haired girl in a white hat and a black coat machine-gunning several men described as "Federal agents of some sort". This is but one of many reports throughout the city of members of the Redpill subculture fighting similar groups of strangely-dressed men. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has not been forthcoming on information about these occurances, but source have hinted it may be the work of rogue agents bent on taking the problem of the Redpill subculture into their own hands.

© 2008 The Sentinel. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

The Sentinel: March 25th -- Rogue Agents detected near ballfield

KAEDE -- Several people returning home from last night's game between the Kaede Kings and the Pillsen Pirates report seeing a young man with mussed brown hair, clad in a brown leather jacket running down an alleyway behind an apartment building, pursued by a group of men in dark suits. A woman in a black tee shirt and a white fedora was seen pursuing the group, with what looked like a throwing knife in her hahd. This appears to be another instance of rogue FBI agents attempting to take the problem of the Red Pill subculture into their own hands. Newly relocated resident Jane Steptoe, who lives in the apartment building behind which the incident took place, comments, "I moved here to find a quiet place to raise my son Connor. Now I'm starting to question that decision."

Residents near Eschean Park report drop in violence

ESCHEAN PROJECTS -- Residents of the apartments close by the park have reported fewer instance of the mysterious maulings that have occurred among members of the street gang which calls itself "the Death Merchants". Until fairly recently, local residents report finding bodies of the gang-members horribly torn apart, "like a giant cat had got at them", as the landlord of one block of apartments described it, or stabbed dozens of time. Often the bodies were found drained of their blood and with the internal organs removed, though no signs of surgical incisions were to be found. Some locals report, shortly before another grim discovery was made,  seeing a small, pale-skinned woman in a black gown, with dense black hair, accompanied by either or both a young man with scarlet hair, clad in a long purple leather coat or a tall man with facial piercings. Local law enforcement is unable to determine if these personages are in any way related to the crimes.

© 2008 The Sentinel. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

The Sentinel: April 1st -- Shootout near storefront grocery

GUINNESS LAKE -- At least half a dozen members of the Kings' Men, a street-gang on the payroll of the eldest son of Mr. Horatio Black, an enterprenuer living in Creston Heights, were spotted firing and throwing strange explosive that generated small clouds of reddish smoke at the street door leading to the apartments above a small grocery store in the eastern part of the district. A man with mussed brown hair and clad in a black leather jacket, wearing what appeared to be night-vision goggles was seen emerging from the doorway, throwing similar explosives at the mob, while another person opened fire on the gang members. Later, a small woman in black with long, unkempt black hair and pale skin was seen placing a call at a nearby phonebooth. It is not known if the woman was in anyway connected with the incident, but authorities are seeking the woman for questioning.

 © 2008 The Sentinel. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

(( I am woefully behind on these and I'll try to catch up as best as I can. I may wind up making multiple edits on this post for the sake of the sequence.))

The Sentinel: April 28th -- Sermon disrupted by possible pheremone leak

CAMON HEIGHTS -- An evening sermon on the duties of marriage and "the sanctity of the union of man and wife" was to be presented by contraversial local pastor and marriage counsellor Augustine Jansen at the Camon Heights Congregational Church, when a group of several young people, possibly of the Redpill subculture were seen approaching a woman dressed in a revealing red evening gown. The group, which included a young man in black with white-blond hair, a woman with aquamarine clothing and hair dyed to match, and a young man in a green leather trenchcoat was heard talking with the woman who seemed annoyed by their presence. The woman in red then proceeded to walk up the main aisle of the church and left out the back entrance, with the young man in green following her, calling out to her, apparently in some sort of distress. At some point, it appears she released a small pheromone bomb, of a sort the military has allegedely been testing as a form of "harmless" biological warfare, which affected the congregation. Paramedics were called in to assist the affected, many of whom had to be pulled off from other persons who were mutally affected and had succumbed to its effects. Dr. Kinsey Johnson, a physiologist at Stratford Campus's University of Medicine, remarks, "The substance used appears to enhance regions of the brain associated with emotions, particularly the amorous impulses, and affects the free will centers, lowering a person's inhibitions. It's a substance that needs to be carefully controlled."

May 6th: Disturbance on Lucero Point Street

Two men in military garb, the older in an officer's field uniform, the younger in fatigues, were spotted approaching a car with heavily tinted windows parked close by Lucero Courtyard. They spoke for a moment with the passengers in the vehicle before shots were fired by members of the Sparks gang and both men ran from the site. The incident appears to be gang-related, possibly a minor clash between rival factions.

May 15th: Shenanigans at Club Duality Annoy Club Owner

KEDEMOTH -- "I didn't mind hosting a party for those Redpills and those spook-wannabes," says Fabian "Argon" Argones, speaking of a party hosted at his club, Duality, located on top of an office tower in the heart of the district, "I mean, some of them are on my payroll, but they can be a rowdy lot if you don't keep an eye on them." He reports that one of them, a small woman in black with "witchy-looking black hair", by his description, is responsible for causing a small commotion among the passersby when she kept repeatedly jumping over a bonfire he had had lit to attract guests. Later the same woman damaged a chair, leaving long scratches in the upholstry. Mr. Argones is looking for any infomation leading to the identity of the woman. "She showed an ID at the door, but I doubt that was really who she was," the club owner remarks.

© 2008 The Sentinel. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

The Sentinel: May 25th -- Unusual break-in startles couple

KEDEMOTH -- "I asked my husband 'Who is this person? What's going on?'" says local resident Hazel Yeager; the thirty-two year old repair tech at Metro City Telephone asked the question innocently referring to an unexpected new character in last night's season finale of "Eternal Knight", the popular series featuring time-warped paladins in modern-day city. What she didn't expect was her husband to explain the presence of the young woman who had just entered the room. Says Gene Marin, a head stock clerk at a local grocery store, "I heard a knock at the door and went to investigate." The couple wasn't expecting visitors, but Mr. Marin reports he answered the door and found a small woman in her mid twenties clad entirely in black with a black fedora, who asked permission to use their phone, saying that "those darn Furies shot out my tires for fun and [she needed] to call [her] brother and get a ride home." Mr. Marin adds, "Those gangs can be quite nasty, and she looked pretty small and defenseless, so Hazel and I offered her something to eat and asked her to stay for the night, so she wouldn't get caught again." The girl, however, calmly turned down their offer, and went back out as suddenly as she had come.

Later, the couple reports finding five 1000-dollar bills tucked under the phone the girl had used. "Times are tough right now, but we feel funny accepting this, even if she meant it as an exchange for using the phone," Ms. Yeager says. The couple is looking for any information leading to the identity of the mysterious woman.

© 2008 The Sentinel. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

(( Slightly out of order...)) 

The Sentinel -- May 20th: Domestic dispute, shooting leaves mob wife dead

CRESTON HEIGHTS -- Tenents of a high-rise apartment were startled this morning by an altercation which occurred in the paved park in front of the building. One of the tenants, Jennifer Lope-Pegorino, was emerging to do some shopping, when her husband, Jimmy Pegorino, formerly an associate of Sammy "Lilac" Wien, a businessman with ties to organized crime in Lamar, accosted her. Mr. Pegorino has been recently incarcerated following a bust made on a money laundering exchange he had been running, but had been released on bail. Bystanders overheard him accusing her of cheating on him with a younger man, whose identity is unknown, though according to neighbors, Ms. Lope-Pegorino had been known to entertain some unfamiliar young male visitors during her husband's imprisonment. Ms. Lope-Pegorino insisted on her innocence, but in the heat of the dispute, Mr. Pegorino drew a gun from inside his vest and shot his wife through the chest before leaving the scene. Several members of the Neighborhood Watch, who have been looking out for Ms. Pegorino, tried to chase her attacker, but he disappeared before they could catch him.

May 21st: Gang war erupts near local night club

LAMAR -- Several members of the Neighborhood Watchers, a paramilitary group based in Creston Heights were seen storming into the courtyard in back of the Vault, an establishment owned and operated by Sammy Wien, known as "Liliac Sammy" to his business associates. The gang members opened fire on a group of Mr. Wien's personal guards, shouting "This is for Jenny!" and "Don't you *expletive* with our neighborhood, you dirty dogs!", and succeeding in killing several. The incident is believed to be related to a domestic dispute between Jimmy Pegorino, an associate of Mr. Wien, and his wife Jennifer Lope-Pegorino, which resulted in the shooting death of Ms. Lope-Pegorino.

Local real estate agents have reported that already several prospective clients have backed out of pending sales, discouraged by this spate of violence.


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Amber Alert: Kaede -- Connor Harold Steptoe

Age: 6 months old
Eyes: Blue
Hair: Brown
Last seen wearing: a white "onesie" shirt and blue overalls
The child was abducted from his mother's apartment in Kaede, while his caretaker was resting following an allergic reaction.

8.30 pm June 1st -- Capitol City Emergency Alert System

The Sentinal: June 16th -- Reward Offered for Return of Kidnapped Child

KAEDE -- "I'm already in debt for the procedure that brought him into the world, but I'll sell everything I have to get him back," vows Jane Steptoe, an accountant at Metacortex. The single mother has offered a reward of up to $100,000 for the safe return of her son, Connor Steptoe, age six months, who disappeared from her apartment after the nanny taking care of him suffered a bout of food poisoning while attending a Kaede Kings - Hampton Green G-Men game at Brown Field on June 2nd. Two female paramedics who treated the nanny are still persons of interest in this case. "This is the third tragedy to hit us in almost as many years," says Ms. Steptoe's maternal grandfather, Harold Hannaford, referring to the disappearance of his granddaughter Mercedes Hannaford in November of 2005 and the death of Mercedes's older brother Merrill in a terrorist attack on an office Downtown. "Seems like the universe has it in for this family, but we won't let it shake us." Mr. Hannaford has offered to mortgage his own home to help pay the reward.

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The Sentinal: June 18th -- TV Station Signal Hijacked by High-Tech Pranksters

BALDWIN HEIGHTS -- "We can't tell what the heck happened here," says Walter Brokaw, director of CCBS's Nightly News. "But it was an inappropriate gesture and an affront to the free transmission of ideas." Last night's broadcast of a debate among the candidates for this year's mayorial election was interrupted when the signal suddenly cut to static and a prank message began to scroll across the screens of monitors all over the station. Viewers found themselves staring at a message reading "Bring Home The Bacon", which was accompanied by a recording of what one expert found to be from a championship-level hog-calling contest.

System analysts aren't sure where the message came from, but redpill subculture members, many of whom are computer hackers may be to blame. A similar incident occured on KCFC, the Capitol City Family Channel, when a 24-hour looping broadcast of "Miracle on 34th Street" was interrupted with a hijacked broadcast of the action flick "Die Hard". Authorities aren't saying if any persons of interest have been identified, but they are looking into leads to the identities of four young persons, two males and two females, seen leaving an office in a building across the plaza from Network Media.

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The Sentinal: September 7th -- Odd gathering in and commotion near Yueng Park

MURASAKI -- A local Tai Chi practioner, Miss Misato Ryuuga, was teaching a small evening class in the local park, when she reports seeing a group congregating near the northern entrance. "A lot of them were dressed oddly, some in business suits and those long coats, but I spotted one girl in a yellow dress who looked like she was ready for a picnic," Miss Ryuuga reports. "Some of them fired on the gang members [that congregate in the park] and frightened them away, but it frightened my students and we had to retire to my studio."

Later that evening, a night watchman in a office building north of the park reports seeing hearing gunfire coming from an office on the eighth floor. The watchman and his partner went to investigate the disturbance, but found no one up there. "There must have been some sort of intruders," says the watchman, who wishes to remain nameless. "There were bullet holes in the floor and the dividers of the office cubicles, and there was one computer that was switched on as if someone had been using it to access the office mainframe."

It is unclear at this time if either of these events are related. Video from a surveillance camera identifies some of the members of the gathering in the park as bodyguards, assassins, couriers, and others known to work in the employ of an ex-patriate French billionaire.

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(It's really quite nice to see how the "awakened" community affects the lives of the bluepills, those still connected to the regular world and how they perceive those effects. Especially considering that a lot of the time, their opinions and the conclusions they draw from that can be just as intuitive and insightful as the redpills'. Kind of silly to think that simply because we've removed ourselves from that environment that we can see beyond it - further and more clearly than those who haven't.)

(( Mm, I've always wondered how the Blues react to some of the odd things that the Redpills trigger in the Matrix. Think of the reaction of the guy who gets his cellphone swiped from him by Neo during the footchase in the third act of the first movie. Even moreso: can you imagine a traffic reporter for a local radio or TV station reporting on the freeway chase in Reloaded?? Must have been going out of his mind. I like to think that while the Reds are more like an iceberg, that the majority of their undertakings goes largely unseen by the average Joe Blue on the street, but there's always that ten percent that they do see. It's fun to think of how their minds try and come up with logical explanations for the wierd things that go on: vampire and lupine Exiles are probably extremely wierd Goth types, and I think Andres Bonifaceo used to refer to the Reds as "drug subculture" types, back when Chadwick was still doing the Sentinel.

(( And as I said further up the thread: these are incredibly hard to write, for something so short and simple. The hard part is telling what happened by not telling all the details, and trying to describe it from an outsider's POV.))

The Sentinal: September 9th -- Handwriting on the wall in local churches

RICHLAND, WESTVIEW -- The caretakers at three local churches, Mara Congregational Church, Camon Heights Congregational Church, and First Unified Church in Sobra Shores, have reported finding handwriting on the walls of the vestibules in the respective houses of worship. The instigator may or may not have had something to do with an odd incident witnessed last evening in Mara Congregational Church. A local resident, Rita Rizzo, tells us, "I'd come in to pray the eighth day of a novena to St. Jude, when I saw a tall, bald man dressed in black with no shoes on com running into the church. Three other people, two women and a young man, came in as if they were following him." She could not make out much of the conversation, but the bald man seemed, "really upset or scared about something". 

She continues that she saw one of the women, "a young girl dressed all in white, with amber-colored eyes" run out the side door and come back sometime later, taking what looked like "one of those old-fashioned feather pens" out of her breast pocket. The bald man then scribbled something on the wall behind the confessionals, after which he seemed less agitated. He spoke at length with the three young people, then approached the girl in white, who then took off her coat. The bald man then proceeded to write something on the girl's shoulder, "almost like he was tattooing something on her". The girl gasped as if in pain, and the bald man left shortly afterward. "She didn't seem too phazed by what happened, but I called the police anyway to check on her," Ms. Rizzo tells us.

When authorities arrived shortly afterwards, they found no sign of the intruders, except for the odd handwriting on the wall.

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The Sentinal: September 13th -- Explosion destroys local drug dealers' den

LUCERO POINT -- A series of explosions rocked a neighborhood close to the Rogers Way line. Residents in a modestly upscale enclave report being awakened when a blast demolished a house known to be used by a strange gang who appeared to be trafficking in prescription drugs. Windows in the houses opposite the structure were smashed and damage was done to the facades, but few injuries are reported. "I can't say I'm not glad to see them gone," says Margarete Weiss-Wolff, the head of a local homeowners' association. "The people in that house were in and out all night, slamming car doors, revving motorcycles, playing loud music. I think they had some sort of wierd werewolf roleplaying game going on, since you'd hear howling and noises like dogs fighting, but it didn't sound quite right. My father used to run a dog-fighting ring, and I know what it sounds like."

Emergency crews have pulled the bodies of several persons from the wreckage. "Whoever did this knew what they were doing: they'd packed explosives around the center support pylong in the basement," says Michel Judge, a bomb expert with the police department. When asked if this could have been the work of terrorists, Mr. Judge replied, "Not likely. This may be the work of someone person with deep pockets higher up the food chain in whatever ring this group was involved in. The explosives used were military grade and the person who set them was probably ex-military themself."

A witness claims to have seen two men and one woman in military clothing running through a courtyard a half an hour before the blast, but no one has been able to identify them.

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The Sentinal: September 17th -- Bizarre, occult occurance in Casino

CAMON HEIGHTS -- "I'm trying to run a business here," Terrell Bernarde tells the Sentinel. Last evening, an investor whom he wishes not to identify, entered, accompanied by "two young-looking companions or bodyguards, one a young woman in white, the other young man in grey". The trio, along with a third young man who accompanied them but didn't seem part of the group, sat at the bar for a while, "just talking. The investor then went out, leaving the other three. A moment later, a "strange-looking, barefoot man in a grey tunic" entered and threw what looked like a brown powder on the young man in grey. The stranger then left, after which the young man started acting strangely, " Like he was on something." The woman in white then called someone on her cellphone; shortly afterward, a young man in white and a young man in black entered. They conferred in low voices, then the young woman in white asked the bartender to "clear everyone out". The bartender and Mr. Bernarde led several customers out of the bar area, whereupon the woman in white shut the doors leading from it to the main floor. "Something was going on in there," Mr. Bernarde reports. "I listened at the door and heard what sounded like someone chanting in a wierd foreign language, like they were having some kind of ritual going on. I can't have that sorr of thing happening in my buisness, but  I couldn't very well toss them out, in case our investor decided to withdraw his support."

Needless to say, the mysterious group later left the casino without further incident.

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The Sentinal: September 28th -- Odd antics at party in the Vault

LAMAR -- Several young persons known to work for an expatriate billionaire of questionable repute had gathered in the local hotspot when some odd activity started. A "rather good looking fellow dressed like a Fed of some sort" entered and one of the partygoers, "a girl with wild red hair and a red get-up" left rather quickly, reports one of the bartenders, Ms. Caroline Maas. "I think these people were Redpills, and the Feds don't take too well to their types, so it didn't surprise me. But man, the Feds are hiring lookers these days." Later, another, a young man in a blackish-green leather coat, at first appeard to have had too much to drink, but according to Ms. Maas, he'd hardly had anything.

Wierd killings point to possible ritual

FURIHATA -- Caretakers at the Pi Shan Ting luxury apartment tower arrived at work this morning to find several bodies laid out on the pavement. The bodies, identified as being those of several members of the Silver Dragon gang, were laid in a large circle and had been bent so that their toes were thrust into their open mouths, and yet none of the spinal bones had been broken. The coroner, Mr. E. D. Samuel-Baroni, reports this is "anatomically improbable, but the evidence is there". A local expert on the occult points out that the placement of the bodies suggested an ourobous, "an emblem signifying death and rebirth found in several cultures -- Asian, Celtic, Egyptian and Norse" -- consisting of a dragon biting its tail", and adds that "given the name of the gang, there may be some cultish significance, but at the present, it's hard to trace why and what system it belongs to."


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The Sentinal: October 14th -- Escaped wild animal in Creston Heights

Early yesterday morning, a groundskeeper at the Creston Heights Museum reports seeing a large animal running past the august institution. "Looked like the biggest black Labrador Retriever I'd ever seen, except the ears were wrong and the eyes were red as hot coals," says John Apfel. "Looked like she'd been in a bad fight: her coat was torn and she was running scared." The fifty-three year old immigrant from Germany reports that he contacted the Metro City Animal Control, but when the officials arrived, the dog could not be found anywhere. "But someone had dumped a bunch of papers into the plaza," Mr. Apfel adds. He and his crew reported that they tried to collect the papers, but that a high wind blew most of them away before they had much success.

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The Sentinal: October 15th -- Memorial service held near landmark

FURIHATA -- Relatives of the members of the Hirose School for Arts and Sciences who were killed in the blast that shook the area gathered near the Taipei Monument to pay their last respects to the deceased. Among the victims of this senseless act of terrorism were a group a high-school aged students out on an evening's expedition, visiting the various monuments throughout the district.

Three students in particular are being remembered, all from the same Tenth Grade class: Rei Miyazaki, a budding artist; Shinji Anno, son of Hiraki Anno, a head of research and development at MetaCortex's robotics division; and an exchange student from Germany, Mina Zepplin. "These kids had so much to hope for," reports their teacher, Misato Kaneda. "And their lives were cut short so senselessly by people who clearly set no value in human lives, but only in whatever bogus ideals they've been indoctrinated with. The most I can do right now is hope their souls are in a better place."

October 17th -- Break in at Museum

CRESTON HEIGHTS -- Two young men and a woman, all dressed in dark clothes, were seen fleeing the area late last night. Alarms failed to go off and a containment system was somehow bypassed, but museum officials are still trying to determine what was taken. A bystander claims to have seen the woman run past carrying "a large, thick leather book", but many of the rare books of that description had currently been taken out of the musuem's exhibit rotation and put in storage, pending cleaning and repairs.

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The Sentinal: November 6th -- Bizarre late Halloween display gone awry?

ZIA -- Groundskeepers at the Kalt Chemical Corporation were stunned to find what appeared to be several safes scattered about a plaza in front of the company's main branch in Richland, as well as what appeared to be several badly damaged Halloween props, mostly life-sized models of "demons, werewolves, skeletons in armor and vampires". There have been no reports of vandalized Hallowe'en displays and local costume stores reported no thefts of their merchandise.

Would-be broom flier takes nasty spill

SAI KUNG -- A bizarre parkour stunt seems to have gone awry in Sai Kung Canton. "Looked like someone who'd read the Harry Potter books a few times too many," says Ray Yao, a landlord of an apartment complex, who reports seeing a young man racing across a roof while straddling a broom. The young man then dove off the roof of the ten-story building and crash-landed in the branches of a tree. "I thought at first someone had left one of those crashed-witch decorations up there," says Susan Kwon, a resident of the building, who spotted the man as she was returning home from grocery shopping. "But I got closer and realised it was a person." Ms. Kwon ran inside to call for rescue workers, but by the time they arrived, the young man had vanished, leaving the broom still snagged in the tree. A trail of blood spatter ran from the foot of the tree, across the plaza to a phonebooth, then vanished.

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The Sentinal: November 18th -- Business News -- Sharpe Jewellers announces a change of hands

The local chain featuring the finest selection jewelry has announced that its twenty-three stores are now under the ownership of Josefina Bourdeaux, daughter of Dr. Tranque Bourdeaux, a businessman of somewhat questionable repute. Details of the transfer of ownership have not been disclosed to the public, and given Dr. Bourdeaux's secretive nature and his connections to an expatriate French billionaire, it is not likely to become availible.

The Sentinel: January 4th -- Car damaged in strange accident

ROGERS WAY -- "I swear on my mother's grave, I have no idea where that woman came from," says Maury Purcell, a worker at the Capitol City power plant, who reported a very bizarre accident last night. While he was driving home to his apartment in Appollyn, his car was nearly totalled when something fell onto the roof of the 1991 Honda Accord. Mr. Purcell claims he had seen "something flying through the air that looked like someone bungee jumping off that stairway monument". A rescue crew on the scene at first thought Mr. Purcell had suffered head trauma that affected his recall, but despite the damage to the car and despite the fact that the crew had to use the Jaws of Life to free him from the wreckage, Mr Purcell had only minor cuts ans bruises. A crewmember on the scene took note of two shoe-print-shaped dents in the center of the car's roof. How it could have gotten there, and how anyone jumping from that high could have survived the fall have police and rescue workers stymied.

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