Day 25: retroactive parts of 17 and 18 that I need in there before continuing with section 19

[Moone tracks Cloud down somehow.]

Moone stepped into Cloud's bubble of night; Cloud, sensing something, turned around and saw Moone, her eyes expressionless. They were the same eyes that had seen him in the Pentagram, and Cloud hadn't reported Moone there; perhaps she hadn't even mentioned his passing through the portals. Moone felt safe in this bubble, underneath these eyes.

The auction continued on without them and about them, but to Moone and Cloud, here, the world stopped.

"Oh, hey," said Cloud.

"Hey...?"

"I know you. Moone, right?"

"Wh...?" Moone bit the bottom of his lip and cocked an eyebrow at Cloud. It was possible that death had changed her, but... this would explain why she hadn't judged him back at the summit, and allowed her to get him away. "Cloud. Mushroom. Yes, I'm Moone, but... surely you know me better than that."

"Oh," said Cloud, with something of an apologetic tone. "Oh! I do know you then, and you apparently know me, that way. Yes. We know each other."

Moone regarded Cloud with a haunted expression. Was it this bad? If she couldn't remember him, would the contract between them hold true, if she could even remember it? Coming all this way, relying so much on the idea that he'd be able to get into the agency's graces again through his connection to Cloud, only to discover that it was possible that the contract was now void after Cloud's death, that the terms of the contract had only extended to the first time she died. The phrasing of these things was very important, but Moone didn't think that Cloud technically dying a few months back would have ended the contract's terms.

Moone opened his mouth, words forming on the tip of his tongue, as he pondered what to say. He noticed something curious, though- the words forming in his mouth, he felt as though they could be anything. Anything, not just the truth, as what should have been under the contract. Moone glanced up to [the auction scoreboard; the bid was advancing and stuff.]

"We had... we had a contract. Does that... still hold, after your death?"

Cloud made a face like it didn't sound familiar. "What sort of contract now?"

"That I wouldn't be able to lie to you. [etc.]"

"And you had this contract with Cloud?"

Moone nodded slowly, feeling light-headed. With Cloud?

"I hadn't been going to bring this up. I'm not... I'm not Cloud. Cloud's dead, darling. Cloud's dead."

Not Cloud? Cloud dead. Not Cloud. Cloud hadn't been Cloud at all. This whole time, the one he'd been trying to track down here on the run. Moone felt something buzzing behind his face. Cloud hadn't been Cloud at all.

"I'd been trying to get into Gef and Lovecraft's graces..."

"And I'm a different person. You never made that contract with me. Gef, Lovecraft, it doesn't look like any of them will start trusting you now. Not through me anyway."

"No... you're..."

"A shapeshifter. I'm just... I'm a shapeshifter, in the form of your friend. The real Cloud really is dead, and you really did kill her. It's all your fault, and she wasn't brought back, and she can't be brought back now, and so there's no way to prove that you're telling the truth. I'm sorry."

Cloud's death being Moone's fault was a far cry from Moone having killed her himself, though it could have been easily interpreted like that. Moone wondered what this Not-Cloud had been told. If Not-Cloud was the same, had the same aura, bestowed with the same identity, everything else should have been the same. The memories? The contract? Tears of exhaustion and frustration welled in Moone's eyes. This wasn't how it worked.

"Your aura, your aura should be the same. And the contract doesn't, carry over?"

Not-Cloud shrugged. "I shapeshifted my aura to match Cloud's. That doesn't make me Cloud myself. We shapeshifters we're found in the folklore systems of every ethnic group on the planet. And I'm one of all of them, you could say. Changing my body, changing my mind, changing my soul. Identity is a brittle concept, isn't it, me remaining myself throughout all this."

In that moment, whether literally or figuratively Moone wasn't sure, Moone saw the Cloud figure open up, peel back its skin and mind and soul, and reveal something truly, breathtakingly ancient. It was as if a tree revealed all its thousand layers at once, and silently pleaded for forgiveness.

Moone stood, shocked, breathless and panting. "Do... do they know?"

"Do who, Gef, Lovecraft? MacBeth? The agency? Some of them know. It's... those who need to know, know. I'm truly sorry, though. Your friend seems nice. And you seem nice."

Moone cackled, half-mad, no longer trusting anything he saw or heard. Funny how the truth could induce disbelief like that. The truth came gushing out of him, fueled by frustration and inertia more than anything else. "I'd, been going, to tell you, that I'm innocent. I didn't kill the Secretary, I didn't steal the NOC list, I'm not the one having it auctioned off right now. It was MacBeth. You should know him, right? MacBeth is the one behind it all."

The Cloud figure straightened, realizing that even though there wasn't a contract between it and Moone, the very reason Moone had wanted to talk to Cloud was to tell the truth, and now it was up to Not-Cloud to decide whether to trust Moone.

"I like you. Ever since seeing you see me, and stumble, I've liked you. And now you lay a heavy burden on my doorstep, which I must now decide whether to shoulder, or reject as being too great a task to bear." Not-Cloud considered its next words carefully. "I can... I can vouch for you if you want. It would be a lie, technically. It would be a lie on the inside, and on the outside, because we would know, and Providence would know. But it would be the only truth, on an outside inside of the outside. I am Cloud, although I am not. It would be a lie to them, because I am already whom they believe me to be. They believe I am whom they believe, and that makes me me. Because what else is there? So I can tell the truth for you, although it would be a lie. It would not be a lie, because you are truthful, and this would make them see that."

Moone still felt drained, but now it was a glowing drain, the drain of a body beginning to mend. It wasn't Cloud, but this promise was in a sense more honest than any Cloud could have given, because it was true out of choice rather than necessity.

"Can I ask you a question, now?" the shapeshifter asked. Moone looked up. "How did you get past the, aural detector, with the, with the NOC list like that? It can be bluffed, after all, and I find that fascinating. So much hassle, so much, this" gesturing to the grand hall and the scores of people around them "all over, something that's in the end just as fallible as any of us." Not-Cloud looked up to the list, on display at the front, and walked toward the edge of the circle of the glamour of night, almost poking its fingers through as if pressing its hand against a window. "You just, walked right past it like it was nothing. You're not even the kind of thing I am. I'd be able to do that offhand, but for you... I'm truly baffled."

Moone grinned a wary smile. "Maybe later."

The shapeshifter waved a hand. "Alright."

Moone turned to go, but turned back around right before reaching the edge of the night bubble, as he remembered something. "Oh! Uh, now that we're on the same side, and you can vouch for me, could we, possibly, merge our two groups? I'm with, Team Mothman, over there, if it's not too late..."

The shapeshifter turned back to the direction of the NOC list, and looked back at Moone, face gnarled in a hauntingly classic Cloud expression, that of apology. "You know what, it might be..."

Moone frowned as he looked up at the scoreboard and realized that it was true. [auction stuff, etc, looks like Team Punch underbid, and is no longer part of the auction, or however this jazz all goes. perhaps team punch can still back team mothman financially, or is prohibited from that or something.]

section 18 (day 24)

Perhaps the gifted boon did have a bane after all. Boons when granted as external gifts had their corresponding banes covered by the giver, but there was a downside to the speed gift endowed on Team Mothman by the Tooth Fairy. It did allow them to think on their feet, and use the same amount of time to accomplish more-- but at the same time, it also increased the perceived time the team had to wait for the auction to begin. They had time to establish a plan of attack for the auction, knowing the psychology and bidding strategy of the major players around them; Unwin, in his role as the Mothman, would cover that aspect. But the ability to wait so long left Moone alone with his own thoughts for an uncomfortable period of time, looking toward Gef's table halfway across the floor of the large auction hall.

Moone had plenty of time to talk to Cloud; maybe even time to ally the two rival bidding factions if he got in soon enough. The elongated period of wait before the auction proper began also gave Moone the opportunity to enact his part of the plan, to try to approach Cloud, and see if he could talk to her, but... Moone held back from approaching the table which belonged to the group that was known to the world as Team Punch, and sat at his own table a little longer, thinking through the situation he found himself in.

What would the practical effect be, of getting back in Gef's and the agency's graces, by this point? Here in a team with Unwin and the Pontifex, Moone felt secure, and at home. As volatile as his relationship with the Pontifex was, neither really feeling they could trust themselves around the other, it was still a life far more secure for himself than he'd ever had at Tetragrammaton.

But a life of espionage was the life that Unwin preferred. Not having to be on the run. Moone owed it to him, at least, to clear his own name and Unwin's through him.

He also, Moone grudgingly admitted, owed it to the agency. For all they knew, Moone was the mastermind behind this whole thing, and it went so much deeper than they could even expect. Those, alien forces, MacBeth had been working with. The world and its secrets went far deeper than anyone could fathom, and some of those ancient and eldritch beings, like Smith, even worked for the agency. But here was a direct threat against worlds both mundane and profound, prolapsing into where it didn't belong and bleeding [its darkness and secrets into the light.] Moone and Unwin were the only ones, the only ones, with direct evidence against that world and that unspeakable horror. It wasn't just [decency] but their moral duty to throw light onto MacBeth and his forces.

He'd need to go through Gef to do so, though. Gef, who was specifically here, and who would be specifically trying to track him down, thinking him to be the seller behind the NOC list. That would go well... right?

The lighting changed, and the room hushed in preparation for the auction to begin. Time to get started.

Moone sucked a deep breath in between clenched teeth, bracing himself for what came next, and bestowed a great chunk of his aura upon Unwin. [establish during hovercraft action scene that you can bestow Pontifex's gift off onto others if you have it; it won't take your own enhancement with it, so it will just be Pontifex's naked enhancement, of course. Pontifex had to take his aura back because Moone didn't want to part with it, though he could have gifted it himself.] Moone held onto some small part of the aura for himself, but his own enhancement shrunk to the minimum, his boon barely overshadowing his bane. All that mattered at this point were the recovering of the NOC list, and being able to uncover the conspiracy MacBeth was a part of. Moone's own life was... well, it was a tool to be thrown away if it meant the greater good, just like the Pontifex had described it. Right now, Unwin needed the enhancement more than Moone did.

With most of the enhancement off, Moone still wouldn't get attacked, intrinsically would have an aura that exerted no force upon the outside world so that no passersby would want to attack him; if he were to get attacked, however, he wouldn't have enough boon free to dodge it. The idea was, at least, that he'd make himself as non-threatening as possible, in approaching Cloud. Hopefully Gef wouldn't present too great a threat, trying to talk him down before engaging in physical confrontation as he'd done before after the assassination of the Secretary.

And by then... well, either Moone would have gotten his piece in with Cloud, or he wouldn't have. Even if Moone were taken into custody, or even killed somehow, hopefully Team Punch would have a strategy for locking down the NOC list. Team Mothman certainly did, if the two couldn't combine forces. Either way, the list was presumably safe. All Moone had to do was be on his toes, and make sure his own neck was, too.

Moone set off in Team Punch's direction, doing his best not to call any attention to himself and aided by the fact that from an outside perspective the force of his tides were still average and forgettable. Meanwhile, behind him, Unwin began phase one of his own plan, with his Pontifex-endowed, enhanced magical powers. In a sense, the plan had already been set rolling [an hour and a half] ago, when Unwin and the Tooth Fairy had slipped off to talk shop together.

The Tooth Fairy had many gifts, many of which he'd bestowed upon various factions and independent parties here. Team Mothman had received quick speed, one of the Tooth Fairy's more obvious secondary powers-- but most precious and well-known of all the Tooth Fairy's gifts was his vast wealth. It was ostensibly funded by such auctions as the one that was beginning; he hadn't bestowed any of this gift upon any factions here. But he easily might have, fueling the fire of the rivalry between those here, and Unwin used this fact in his plan.

Unwin's enhanced access of his own past allowed him to reach back and affect [probability], so that the Tooth Fairy's gift became a steady stream of income for each of the eight members of Team Mothman. At the moment he altered his own tides, the stream of the gift of speed simply retroactively became a small stream of income, starting when he made it so and acting like it had always been that way. Unwin could track the combined total of the boon via another one of the [macguffins] he had on him, which he'd cloned so that each team member could have one, monitoring each own contribution to the money pool. It would allow them to fake the [fortune signature]; normally it wouldn't matter if they actually had the money on them when they bid, as long as they would have the money when it was time to pay, but the rules to this auction were slightly more complex.

Hopefully, even after the auction ended they'd be able to squeeze the last few drops from their skim of the tooth fairy's funds, but it wasn't clear if the tooth fairy would decide to drop his enchantment of his boon on any one group or even the whole thing. Maybe be'd cease his enhancements as soon as the auction began. If that were to happen, Unwin was already on tracing the money back to locate the Tooth Fairy's coffers. After that, it was a matter of holding one's breath and hoping that nobody would notice the breach in security. [Unwin, or someone on his team, is a hacker, or some magical equivalent. Establish with them tracing Moone's location via his IP address thing.]

In a world full of immortals who didn't need to work to eat, dwarves who mined the center of the plutonic earth like maggots scavenging every last drop from a carcass, and alchemical powers that could transmute lead to gold and press carbon into precious diamonds, money, as the sleeping world knew it, was obsolete. The theory behind economy remained much the same, but instead of there being a gold standard or a silver standard in which bills could theoretically be exchanged for these precious metals, here in Babel they had an astrological standard. The intrinsic value acting as a point of value by which other currencies could be gauged was the value of slices of time, particular astrological sections of space-time having particular zodiacal effect. This was the origin of the idea of the word "fortune" meaning money; they used the word here not in some metaphorical sense, but still quite in a literal.

Behind Moone, the astrological signs appeared high in the air up near the front of the room, as if stock market symbols displayed against a giant invisible ticker board; the NecrOnomiCon was raised up on a pedestal below it, its image also displayed in the air as if on the same giant screen.

Moone approached earshot of Team Punch's table, and the auction began.

***

Aside from Team Punch and Team Mothman, who were on the same side, there were sixteen or seventeen other factions here vying for the list, including Himsters Keepses, who played for himself. Moone, hopefully through Cloud, had to signal to Team Punch his intention, and form an alliance between the two bidders who were still as yet rivals against each other.

Moone knew that they would instantly recognize him and the Pontifex, but wasn't sure about whether they'd recognize Unwin or any of his men. Slice Slit and Slash had seen them together, and whoever had hired them would know their allegiance. Moone suspected that the assassin Slash had been working directly for MacBeth, and that it would have been safest for Unwin to make the cold approach, but Unwin was representing the head of Team Mothman, and so actually couldn't directly approach Team Punch-- certainly not at this juncture, with the Tooth Fairy beaming and explaining the rules and stakes of the auction; the heads of all parties were expected to be seated at their tables now and patiently paying attention. Perhaps one of Unwin's men, but Moone still had that direct connection to Cloud, and so was the quickest easiest way of gaining Team Punch's trust.

Moone looked around and saw that he wasn't the only one running from table to table; almost all of the factions here were sending out runners to eavesdrop on the other tables as they discussed bidding strategy amongst each other, the team leaders and their collection of mathematicians and strategists. Keepses, the lone wolf, would have something of an upper hand in this part of the game, sharing his strategy with no one. In this covert game of open information, everyone knowing everyone else's secrets, Keepses's secrets were a locked trap; still, playing for himself meant that he had no runners of his own and wouldn't know anyone else's strategies. He would probably use brute force, rather than finesse, as his strategy; he was, after all, one of the richest most enigmatic figures in the room.

Team Punch being able to recognize him, Moone hung back, orbiting and observing Gef's team's bidding strategy from a distance. Moone, Unwin, and the Pontifex had assembled a pool of the probable bidding strategies that the factions here would employ, based on what was known about each particular player and what gift the Tooth Fairy had endowed each with. It was something of a game, with the NOC list going to the winner, and there was a trick in playing the game underneath the game. Moone already knew something of the strategy that Team Punch would employ.

Gef had one particular personality, but his Mr Punch persona was very precise. It was in his handwriting. [talk about the bid strategy he'd employ.]

Moone tried to find his opening with Cloud-- and found her nowhere at the table. Well, great, he thought, standing up straight and spinning, taking in the whole room. He'd known that it couldn't have been that easy. If Cloud was gone, she would probably be Team Punch's runner, and that fact had its upsides and its downsides. If Moone did find Cloud, at least he'd find her alone, away from Lovecraft and Gef, and he wouldn't have to be as careful in approaching her, as long as he invoked the contract between them in time. But where would she be? Which tables would Team Punch be most interested in scouting the secrets of?

And if he managed to puzzle that out, would Moone even be able to find her there? Moone thought about Team Punch's Tooth Fairy-endowed boon; it had been the Pontifex who had scouted out this section of the room, but the intel on Team Punch would have been someone Moone would remember intrinsically, not like any of the minor orisha warlords here or anything. Moone was fairly confident that the boon endowed upon Team Punch had been, the Gift of Night.

Moone grimaced and thought "well great" to himself again. Cloud could be invisible right now for all Moone knew. Perhaps still sitting at the table, even. Which meant that it was the first place he would have to scout... and it would be the one most perilous to approach.

Or one of the most perilous, at least. Moone was fairly confident that Keepses would recognize the man who had executed him, as well. Going anywhere near Keepses would also be fairly perilous.

Moone sucked in a breath, pulled up his collar to obscure his face, and did a pass-by of a seemingly empty chair at Team Punch's table. It scooted in as he bumped against it, empty, and Moone could see out of his peripheral vision behind him Lovecraft frown and check the chair for bugs. Not bad. They had noticed him, but they had misinterpreted his action as the covert planting of a listening device, and they hadn't seemed to recognize him even with his passing by so close.

There were two or three more chairs seemingly unoccupied, but Moone didn't need to check those ones, apparently. He'd passed right into their local bubble of the Gift of Night, and hadn't seen anyone there disguising themselves invisibly, Cloud or otherwise. Moone set his jaw and once more did a survey of the spacious room. They had sent her out as a spy, then, and it was possible to circumvent the cloak of night via close enough proximity. So where would Gef and/or Lovecraft be most anxious to receive word from?

[Moone thinks it through, attempts to track Cloud down, auction continuing meanwhile.]

The auction took place in [five] stages; it was a silent auction, with a hybrid tiered system and a steep entry price. After each round of bidding, the available funds would be checked against the number bid, and the top bidders would advance to the next round [or something.]

Moone checked his own wooden, bone-shaped [macguffin piece] hooked up to the team's Tooth Fairy-funded boon bubble. The income was still trickling in, the number going up steadily as Moone watched, but Moone could also apparently use the [macguffin] to monitor Unwin's progress through the back doors of the coffers of Babel, digging his way to the source of the income stream and digging the hole open a little wider for himself.

[research unusual auction systems and bidding-type games. make it complex enough to justify all the cloak-and-dagger surrounding the use of strategy. Think of it like a big old game of Diplomacy, but as an auction.]

[bid continues, pool narrows down I guess, pressure grows more intense, Team Punch eliminated in penultimate round leaving Team Mothman alone against Keepses and Moone's quest rather pointless. Auction wraps up, tallies are in...]

The winning bidder... was Himsters Keepses.

Having it over one way or the other, finally, felt like a big release... but Moone's head swam as he remembered what the defeat meant. "Well, we lost," shrugged Unwin, next to him.

Moone, light-headed and sick to his stomach, looked back over his shoulder at the Pontifex, who was sitting quietly at an edge table. Unwin didn't know, not really; they'd only briefed him on the plan they'd come up with while he was gone, and glossed over what the contingency was.

He would give the word, then. Bring the whole thing down. Destroy the Tower of Babel, scatter to the corners of the earth the wicked in it. He'd agreed. But Moone realized that he'd agreed when it was only his and Unwin and Unwin's men's lives also at stake. The last remaining noble members of his old team were here as well. How many righteous souls indeed, would it take to spare the wrath of God from smiting the earth?

"Of course, though," added Unwin who was still sitting in his seat unemotionally at the loss, "winning wasn't really our plan in the first place." He broke out into a sudden grin, and pulled out [the macguffin, now fully downloaded.] Traced through it, triangulated through the coffers' location and the [IP address stuff] of [the NOC list information he'd gained,] Unwin had the information he'd wanted to gather.

The location of the NOC list's holding room.

Section 17 (days 23/24)

The dinner before the auction was officially beginning, with scarlet-clad servers bringing out walnutty dishes as a first course, as Unwin arrived at the table and the Pontifex briefed him on the plan. "You've got an in with the head of the auction," he concluded. "Is there any way you can leverage that into learning more about where the list is being held or something?"

"Well, I don't know," Unwin said, looking around and scooting his chair out so he could slide into it. "I just got back from speaking to him; it would look a mite suspicious if I were to go back again there now."

"I see," said the Pontifex. "That makes sense."

"So what did you learn there?" asked one of Unwin's men, the one sitting to Unwin's right. They were generally quiet, but when they spoke they got right to the point-- probably an effect of working with such a mastermind strategist and communicator.

Unwin shook his head, and held up a [physical, magical macguffin representing like computer data analogue, and he's somehow hacking the information.] [he explains what it is, and what he knows.

Unwin just having sat down, Moone's suggested that he and the Pontifex would scout around alone for a bit, before Unwin rejoined with the Tooth Fairy's group with some excuse to do so. Pontifex and Moone scooted their seats out gently from the table, excused themselves, and began scouting around, with Unwin staying behind at the table and getting started on the first course (at the start of the second course, he'd reapproach the Tooth Fairy's group and be welcomed no doubt with open arms.)

Moone peeled off. Dropping in on some conversations, eavesdropping on others, to see if there were any other angles they could [achieve] or ways they could game the system. Even with the Tooth Fairy's hidden boon at their backs, being able to cover multiple [angles] in very short time, Moone realized how little time they had to complete the task ahead them. Right now, it looked like Unwin's legend as the Mothman was the best [angle]; actually entering the auction and attempting to win, against some of these government and superpower-backed bidders, would be a last-ditch effort. Or at least, the last ditch before, collapsing the ditch.

Still, every item of intelligence they could gather [was very important.] For example: it became clear after prodding around a bit that Mothman's team wasn't the only one so favored by the Tooth Fairy. Not everyone had boons of speed placed upon them, and of the sped-up groups the Tooth Fairy's magic for the Mothman still seemed most powerful, but Moone noticed tiny hints here and there that the Tooth Fairy had given away other of his magicks, bestowing boons here and there out of his arsenal, to give teams and factions slight edges over each other. He wanted each to think themselves special, and he wanted a lot of infighting it seemed. Even the dinner before the auction seemed a powerplay of his, come to think of it.

Moone was thinking about this, when he caught a glimpse of someone familiar, but impossibly so.

Himsters Keepses. Billionaire racketeer, profiteer, international financier of mob activity. None of this resume was that surprising, given the environs and the nature of the item being auctioned off; Himsters Keepses was far from being the nastiest criminal here. Still, seeing him out of all people here gave Moone great pause, for one very simple reason.

Himsters Keepses was dead.

Moone had executed him himself.

They were in the past here, true, but that was not how this time travel worked. Just as assassin Messr Slash was dead, permanently, and causality would prevent them running into him again even along his past, Keepses was even more dead; Babel's present existed in the present as well, one that only happened to take place in the past. The timeline was left untangled by the low form of time travel; there was simply no way that Keepses could have been here. [maybe make running into dead time traveler, a theoretical impossibility, a magical danger Moone has to face at one point.]

And yet... Cloud had been alive. Was something going on, to bring those deceased back to life? Maybe those deceased specifically by Moone's doing, whether direct or indirect? That was one denominator both Keepses and Cloud had between them.

Or was Moone simply going insane? He had been the only one to see Cloud, having gone in alone, and her turning up only at the end, on an otherwise empty floor. He could have simply been seeing her, and seeing Keepses here now too.

What was the explanation here? Was it a product of the Pontifex's aura? Or some psychic attack so insidious it could slip underneath the aura? Perhaps it had even been set up from the very beginning-- Moone could trust the Pontifex, right? [establish at one point some solid scene of the Pontifex actually having to fight himself to keep himself from destroying Moone.]

Moone tracked Keepses's movement for fifteen or so minutes, relative time, which was only around five minutes for the outside world. He did so covertly of course, he scoped out others but being sure to keep Keepses in the corner of his eye.

He couldn't believe it, not really. Keepses did seem to be interacting with those around him. Something was going on here. Whatonearth whatonearth whatonearth whatonearth...

Keepses stood from his table and ducked out politely for a spell. Moone kept surveying, but aside from the fact that the Tooth Fairy was apparently playing the factions here against each other, Keepses was the only thing out of the ordinary.

Moone went back to the others at the designated time, and they debriefed each other, Moone going first, mentioning the things that had stood out to him. The Pontifex looked up curiously at the mention of Keepses, but kept his mouth shut as Unwin took his turn briefing them on his progress within the inner echelons of the Tooth Fairy's entourage. He had pieced together a bit more on the standard delivery process auctioned items underwent, and there were hints that the NOC list in particular was under quite a bit more security than with the standard enchanted valuables that were usually auctioned off here. [bring macguffin hacking object up again.]

The Pontifex went last. He reported that he also immediately noticed that they weren't the only group enchanted with Tooth Fairy magic... and that he had also spotted someone familiar. He refused to say who, but rather gestured Moone's line of sight over to a very specific table, where even now there was a slight, dark-haired woman sitting herself down, a woman whom Moone recognized instantly, even across the room.

Mushroom Cloud.

Moone gaped, going white. No. No way. She's here. How could she be here? She was still alive, at least. But here?

Moone looked back to those at his table, and thought about it as he surveyed the faces of the eyes [peeled] in Cloud's direction. It gave him some modicum of comfort to know that at least it proved that he wasn't the only one seeing these phantasms-- perhaps he would have suspected it to be somehow linked still to the Pontifex's aura, since the both of them had either had it bestowed upon them or lived with it, but Unwin's men also saw her, though they didn't know who she was or why she was significant. She was definitely real, then, and not any sort of hex placed on Moone's eyes or sanity. This grounded Moone, and he slowed his breathing.

The confirmation of Cloud's life and reality only served to raise further questions, and also cement those that had already been raised. A lot of them overlapped with the questions Moone had had about Keepses's being here, but the most troubling of all the questions was a new one.

Why is Cloud here? Moone's own presence meant that mere attendance of this gala and auction did not make one guilty or an enemy of the state, regardless of what Pontifex thought was best. It was too worrying, though, to see her here, especially after he'd thought her dead and dealt with those emotions. New emotions dealing with her living were dredged up afresh, as [fresh] as the moment seeing her alive again for the first time [time] ago, on the seventh floor of the Pentagram. Perhaps she was part of MacBeth's [cavalcade] now; perhaps she'd always been, and her death truly had been faked.

But as soon as Moone thought it, he realized how ridiculous the idea was: MacBeth was the one selling the NOC list. If Cloud was truly villainous, she would be working for her own side; as it was, it was most likely that she was here like how Moone himself was here: undercover, attempting to get the list back before it fell into the wrong hands.

It was then that Moone noticed who sat in the equivalent of Unwin's seat, at the big round table. Someone sitting at a specially designed miniature dais. The leader of the faction Cloud appeared to be working for was, an apparently animated Punch puppet, from the Punch and Judy show, though of course Moone recognized the cover immediately.

The head of the table was Gef the Talking Mongoose. Cloud's table also housed Gef, and, Moone could see sitting to Gef's right, Lovecraft. All undercover, but all recognizable if one was familiar with these agents' handwriting the way Moone was. Gef would occasionally go undercover as Pulcinella himself, simply by wriggling his slender body into a Mr Punch puppet head and walking around thusly. He brandished his slapstick, whacking people with it and cackling, and didn't even need to disguise his voice for the part: Punch and Gef both spoke with the same high-pitched nasally squeak.

It was telling that Lovecraft's left hand was on such occasions always stuck down the neck of a Pretty Polly puppet, instead of her brandishing a puppet of Punch's shrew of a wife, Judy.

Gef. Lovecraft. Here. It appeared that the agency did indeed know about the auction here in ancient Babel. That is, if they weren't working for themselves, but of course Moone severely doubted that. Gef may have been a mischievous little sprite, but he was a straight shooter, and reliable in a pinch.

Gef was also still the head of the task force attempting to track Moone down, which was probably why he was here in the first place. If Moone were to attempt to contact Cloud again-- and it looked like he and the Pontifex hadn't needed to track down the Fountain of Youth after all-- he would once again need to be careful, wait for an opening, and go behind Gef's back, until he could activate his and Cloud's contract and convince her [plentifully.]

Day 23, Section 16

The Tooth Fairy was dressed in blue suede with white sable trimming; his skin was richly olive and his hair was flamboyant white. He strolled up to within a few feet of where Moone was standing, and continued speaking. "And whom do I have the pleasure of addressing now?"

"Oh, um... I'm just, here with the Mothman, one of his manservants." He gestured back to Unwin, who had struck a dramatic and dignified pose, looking stately in his emerald green silk cape.

"Ah, yes, the Mothman! Big fan of his. Flying around, scaring local yokels. An all-time classic. But, uh, does he not brush any of his servants up on their [magicstuffology]?"

"He's a fresh recruit, your dentistry," Unwin said, approaching the Tooth Fairy and kissing a proffered ring, which was of course the golden color of dental fillings. "Not even from our world. Grew up hearing stories of you, but figuring you were his parents."

The Tooth Fairy cocked an ivory-white eyebrow at Moone, but looked back toward Unwin and continued chatting amiably with him. "Well, I may be the boy's father, you know. Like the milkman am I. But I don't think that's quite what you mean by parents, right?" He laughed at his own joke, but to Unwin's credit, he laughed along, just loudly enough to have it be mere polite laughter, but just softly enough to keep it from being boorish.

"Well, anyway, welcome, welcome," the Tooth Fairy continued. "Welcome to our little auction here. We're used to [the sale of] high-profile items, but this is one of the most exciting high-profile items to [cross our boarders] in... several millenia. I'm glad it's high enough profile to draw the attention of a legend as eminent as yourself to our humble little tower here." So he was the one who was offering up the NOC list. Not just the architect of the place, but seemingly a proprietor in charge of the auction, the third-party intermediary, so as to keep MacBeth's [position] anonymous. MacBeth, he was probably back at the Pentagram right now. Did the agency even know that this auction was going on?

"The pleasure is all mine," Unwin beamed, the Tooth Fairy growing noticeably excited looking into the man's mouth. "You're doing yourself a disfavor with this false humility. I for one am also a huge fan of yours. Living in the, mortal world as we do. My children are huge fans. Could I get your... autograph?"

"An autograph, Mothman? Who's doing himself a disservice now? Clearly we're both admirers of each others' works. You want to slip somewhere more exclusive and talk shop?"

The Tooth Fairy left with Unwin, leaving Moone absolutely baffled, and somewhat shaken over the nature of reality. "Well, that was suspiciously easy. We may have our entry in." He turned to the Pontifex. "He really a fairy?" Moone asked.

"Well, that has multiple meanings. He could be considered a fairy in a sense because he does live in Babel, which is a sort of fairyland based on how it interacts with the normal timestream... but it isn't a traditional fairyland, though it could definitely be considered a court, albeit one completely unaligned with the courts seelie and unseelie. Um... Probably he'd be considered Anunnaki, one of the sons or descendants of Anu... specifically maybe an Igigi Anunnaki, who were the sons of those sons, serving their will before ultimately rebelling against the generation of gods that preceded them? That would make sense if he truly is the grand architect of the Tower of Babel, commissioned by King Nimrod the Great as a sort of rebellion against Elohim... I mean, there's the, titanomachy, deal, right there, but I'm not sure how much sense that makes. The, the admixture of Babylonian and Hebrew mythology in this place is really quite baffling."

Moone grimaced. "I think it's all Hebrew. Hebrew with fairies."

"Well..." the Pontifex began, but trailed off and cleared his throat. "You're probably right. Babylonian mythology does have cyclical tales and etiological cycles, often taking place in stately palaces and grand settings, but no real example of such courts being thrown down as an etiology for anything that happens within the world of man. Weather cycles, though, if I recall correctly. The whole, fertile crescent, pattern being based off of cycles of flood and drought."

Moone narrowed his eyebrows and gave the Pontifex a blank stare.

"Am I, am I boring you? [give the pontifex more lengthy lectures on mythology as part of his character.] Mr., tooth-in-a-mousehole?"

"Well I--"

The Pontifex tried to begin to explain all the areas where Moone had gotten the origins of the practice wrong, but stopped speaking when one of the Tooth Fairy's servants nearby approached the group, and tossed a glittery powder over them apparently upon receiving orders to do so via earwig. There was a boon being added to each member of the group- a boon that, like the Pontifex's bestowal of his own aura, had no corresponding bane placed upon the recipient, a sheer gift of good will. Some of the Tooth Fairy's finest personal magic, a magic usually reserved for the likes of him, the Sandman, and the members of the Christmas Host.

The Tooth Fairy's personal fondness for the Mothman had apparently led him to place an enchantment of movement speed over the Mothman and his whole entourage. Nobody ever said that magical beings don't play favorites, or play fair, thought Moone; Unwin's Mothman persona was really paying its dividends. This bubble allowed everyone in it to be able to think, move, and act slightly, subtly faster than everyone else around them, like the world was in slight slow motion, and they could move freely among it.

The servant took their head and gently led them through the bone-white twisting hallways of the Tower, through wide white double-doors, and into the main room.

...

The auction took place in a grand hall, everyone seated at great tables, round and draped with shimmering white tablecloth. Moone and the Pontifex were led to Unwin's assigned table, along with the five member's of Unwin's core gang. There were placesettings set out, peaked folded tablecloths floating via magical forces above white plates of finest porcelain; wicker baskets of flaky spiral-shaped rolls and small bowls of ghee and honey butter besides. The auction would occur in an hour and a half; before then, a dinner, with servants rushing in and bringing in the plates, was to be served.

Moone and the Pontifex sat side-by-side at the table, Moone with his napkin tucked into the front of his shirt, swirling some sort of white-colored beverage with a high alcoholic content and poking at the dinner roll he'd helped himself to. To his left sat one of Unwin's men, the hogfaced one, whose name was [Name.] To his right sat the Pontifex, and to the Pontifex's right was the still-empty seat reserved for the Mothman, who was, Moone could see, winding down his schmooze with the Tooth Fairy near the head of the hall, preparing to head back and take his place at his own table.

"You're right, by the way," the Pontifex spoke suddenly. "This place, it's 100% the Hebrew telling of things. Not even a little Babylonian leaking in. Maybe this is historically accurate, maybe it isn't, but this is still the mythological past. We're in Dreamtime, or at least partially. Not the whole thing, not like what my powers can access if compounded on themselves, but this place is part of the dreaming."

"You're in one of your moods again. What's going on?"

"Nothing, just..." He sighed. "Look at all these people. They're the scum of the earth, and they all want their hands on the list. It would be better the list be destroyed than it fall into the wrong hands. I don't think this is about the NOC list any more. This could be the time to use my power, and be consumed at last. This could be time for my aura's ultimate purpose."

Moone's head swam as he considered what the Pontifex was offering. "B-but... this is ancient Babylon. Hebrew dreaming. You access the Dreamtime here, the mythological past version of events, and..." Moone thought about their situation. [has it been established that dreaming is geographically based, depending on local folklore and religion?]"We're in a Hebrew origin myth. In ancient Babylon. The Babylonian myth is going to leak through the portal- the myths will clash..."

"And cancel each other out," said the Pontifex, eyes closed in peace, as if he'd already considered the outcome. "Accessing the dreamtime in a geographically inaccurate location for the myth, during this time of already dreaming... the dreamspace will loop, feedback, and collapse in on itself."

"And that would be, catastrophic."

"So catastrophic it would bring the tower down, and all in it. Yes."

"You... I mean, would that... you can't do this."

"And what if I have already done this? What if I'm foretold to sacrifice myself in this way because this is how it ends? The Tower of Babel was cast down, will be cast down, unavoidably. The fact that it's still here in this time, accessible, is just further proof of man's hubris, extending out an abomination past its due date. This tower is falling one way or another. The Bible says by the wrath God, but God works through intermediaries frequently. What if I am that wrath? This edifice has to be cast down, sometime, ever."

"That's..." Moone paused. That was in a sense how time travel worked. This bubble of time as space wouldn't be able to last forever. So what if the tower were to fall? The Pontifex was right, of course. It would be the greater good.

Who was Moone to fight against this force of nature? Still, he knew there must have been another way. It wasn't just Unwin and his men in danger, it was Moone himself, which meant there was a way out. The puzzle was to find the angle.

"Think about it, Pontifex. I'm here. Unwin and his men are here. Ninevah was spared for the people and the cattle. Sodom would have been spared for the sake of ten righteous individuals. You may eliminate a lot of evil from this world going through with your plan, but you'd kill us innocents too." Moone took a deep shaky breath in through his mouth, and then a resigned one through his nose. "At least give us a chance to try to win this thing square for ourselves, eh?"

"Ten righteous, and innocents. If you weren't here now, would you fight against this? You signed up for this life, you signed up for this death. You're all spies. Soldiers. Who live to serve, and die if it serves something greater. Death is inevitable- I know how I'll die. I'm resigned to it. I've known I'd die sacrificing myself, and it feels... wonderful, and, important. And you... this is important. And you could all share in it."

"And maybe there will be some even greater sacrifice that needs to be made in the future."

"We can never know these things. This, as of right now, seems the greatest use of my sacrifice. I don't need your permission to do what I believe to be the greatest good."

Moone was staring up at the ceiling, looking past the glimmering chandeliers and stalactites of teeth. And saw his way in. "And are you sure it isn't just your own hubris, wanting your sacrifice to be part of something that goes down in history, as an act of God itself?"

The Pontifex shut his eyes, and flicked his tongue between his teeth, biting it there in a grimace. "I'm... I'm not sure. But I... I do want my sacrifice to mean something. And if it's this... it would be like, like my sacrifice has the approval of God."

Moone paused. He hadn't known the Pontifex to be so religious... but of course, the man's title was that of a priest. "God doesn't have to give up his life for this one. Not this time, anyway. If it's necessary- if it's really, truly necessary- then, well I don't claim to know God's will. But you'll have my approval, at least. Just let me give it to you, if I feel it's truly needed." Moone dabbed his mouth with the napkin still tucked into the front of his shirt. "And until then... let's at least work other angles first."

The Pontifex nodded slowly, and Moone exhaled. "Very well then. Very well."

And Unwin returned.

11/23/2017 12:00 - 1:00 am-- schedule slippage stuff, and new character name announcement and explanation

Writing ahead a bit, maybe I'll get in a few sections on, Friday? Saturday? Saturday sounds good. Didn't get as much writing in in the car as I'd hoped; just forcing it like that made me kind of sick of writing, and I'm working hard to reverse that. It's clear that I can't force myself, or even force the story; trying to write ahead, sections I've outlined but haven't written the section preceding, I just can't write. Not even like writer's block can't write, just like, seriously, cannot write. So yeah like writer's block.

One week left of NaNoWriMo and I'm about 30,000 words in. That's a little over 28,000 words needing written per day to get my 50,000 in by the end of the month. Don't think I'll get in any writing on Thanksgiving, which leaves 6 days to write 20,000 words, or about 33,333 words a day, which divides a lot more evenly into, about 2 days' worth of output per day. Doable.

introspective birthday interlude

It's my birthday, and my gift to myself is, not needing to write right now. Liek srsly, the only gift I'm getting today- no surprise parties or anything. I just, stayed in and watched Parks and Rec, and then they showed Beyond Thunderdome on Syfy. My own failure of getting a post up seems correlated to how much television I watch that day- but there can't be any causation there, not at all.

More writing I'll need to do in the car on the way home for Thanksgiving. Expect, a couple of posts, maybe even three, that day.

Feeling kind of weird on my birthday. Figured I would have done more by this point in my life. I guess that's how even accomplished people feel. Not having a party or anything just left the day naked, and its uncomfortable privates, that terrible secret, was left bare for me to examine. (I did get $49.95 in money, to buy myself a gift. My brother wrote on his blog about Reuel's birthday, but not mine. They sang happy birthday to me only when I brought it up, at my family home evening group thanksgiving party.)

But it's Nanowrimo, and that's forcing me to get things accomplished. I wrote a lot about this in my diary, a private Google Doc that started out as notes for a project, which gradually dragged more aspects into my life until now it's just a straight-up diary. I post about once a month, when I've got deep feelings to personal to share on my other blog. And I wrote today some.

But the power went out as I was wrapping up, on my laptop randomly, and that's partly why I'm not writing a true Nanowrimo entry today, because that outage left me without enough time to get in my wordcount today anyway so whatever.

I went out to go take a walk, and I thought about Dead Alligator Lizard. I thought a lot about my mission today, as I explain in my regular blog, and Dead Alligator Lizard is an awesome awesome book that happens to have been written by the father of a companion of mine. I spoke to him on the phone once, briefly, and he seemed nice, and, busy I guess, kind of out-of-breath when I spoke to him. The phone call was about maybe adapting the book for another medium, illustrating it or turning it into a comic or something, but he said they didn't really have the money to pay me - he knows that artists need payment for their work, because apparently he's been underpaid before.

And so I realized, I'm shaping up to be a lot like Karl G Rose, thumb in so many pies, always on some new project or another. He couldn't pay me at that time because they'd just gotten a new, quiltmaking machine I think, going into some quiltmaking business, something like that. How much is that like me!

And Nanowrimo's giving me focus. Forcing me onto this one project. In my diary I write about, I need a wife like that, but anyway. That was a way helpful walk. This is a way helpful month.

Tooth fairy stuff tomorrow.

Section 15: NaNoWriMo 19

[PART 5.]

[MAYBE ANOTHER INTERLUDE IN HERE.]

After the ritual, the eight of them found themselves in the Ancient Plains of Shinar, on the edge of a sprawling city, with a certain staggeringly, almost incomprehensibly tall tower gleaming white in the sun. Moone oriented awkwardly toward the edifice and took it in; he had to crane his neck even at this distance to see the top of the tower.

Moone hadn't known where they'd been going, but that landmark's presence made it almost cartoonishly clear. "Ah," Moone said. "...

Gotham. Never actually been to the Big Apple before; it's everything they said it would be and more."

Keepses ignored him, but one of his men, [name and personality,] actually seemed to almost crack up at this.

[also give opportunity earlier on to maybe meet them the first encounter with Keepses, as well as more interactions in these scenes.]

"The Babylonian black market," Keepses said, brandishing a piece of toast and flipping up the hood on the tunic he was wearing. He guided them deeper into the city, toward a marketplace. The Ancient Babylonian black market, the central hub for the world's magical underground trade.

Keepses had reckoned, and his suspicions confirmed via surgical intelligence gathering, that MacBeth would be in no position to use the NOC list he'd taken off with for himself, but would instead fence it off here. There was to be a sale later on this evening, the list out in the open, apparently here in the city of ancient antediluvian Babylon, frozen in time and existing now more as a place to be visited freely than a time set in stone. Moone had heard something of how this worked. Travelers could come from all over the world, from every time period in history, in a one-way trip, and exit back to where and when they'd gone in once their trip was completed.

If they lost the NOC list here, it would truly be blowing in the wind, being anywhere in the world or anywhen in its timeline. Those most interested in using the NOC list for themselves would still most likely come from around the late 20th century, but such a mismatch in timelines would still render the list permanently lost if taken off with- and the intelligence from the list would be useable at any point after the list was broken away from its seal, that afternoon at the summit which to Moone was a few weekends ago, but in the space of the world's reckoning would not yet occur for another 5,000 years or more.

Keepses had explained his reasoning, attempting to track down MacBeth via the Necronomicon. The fact that he had a personal stake in the safety of the NOC list was, as far as Keepses was concerned, killing two birds with one stone. Retrieving the NOC and ensuring its safety would keep his own legend secure, but the seller being exposed would clear Moone's name and thus Keepses's along with it.

Moone wasn't sure how much he trusted the idea. MacBeth hadn't been working alone; he wouldn't have been able to abscond with the NOC list by himself. There had been that alien presence, ostensibly a whole organization of them, MacBeth had been working for. They could have made excellent use of the NOC list, without needing to fence it. Had Moone's interference thrown them off that badly?

If Slice, Slit and Slash were working for MacBeth's organization, and they now knew that Keepses was working with Moone, wouldn't the organization know that Keepses would be able to figure out the location of the sale. Of course, the sale had been going to go on before they knew that Moone was working with Keepses, but now that they knew, would they still go through with it? Would there be another backup plan, if indeed fencing the NOC list on the black market had been a backup plan to begin with?

Maybe the sale, occurring in the past, already happened, and so they had no choice but to-- no, that wasn't how this worked. This was a low form of time travel, even lesser than how the assassins navigated through time; no causality was actually being violated, just because the city of Babylon had a timeline a few hundred or even a few thousand years longer on the inside than the time that passed on the outside.

What was the goal here, then? MacBeth must have been acting alone in this, Moone [reckoned]-- perhaps the NOC list wasn't the end game, or at least, not for the organization. Were they working at cross-purposes?

"You sure that the, uh, list is going to be somewhere around here?" Moone asked Keepses, walking close enough to whisper in his ear.

"Yes. No. Yes. But no. 'Somewhere around here.' For sure, right. You really think that it's going to be fenced at, one of these booths, like some common fae whore? No, no," Keepses said. "The Necronomicon is going to be auctioned off. A classy event, black-tie, gala, highest bidder, super-rich. At, the big one." He gestured toward the city's most prominent feature.

The Tower of Babel. The tower, built too steeply to truly be called a ziggurat, stretched out up into the atmosphere, an artificial mountain. It probably wouldn't have been capable of actually reaching heaven, like the familiar account nonetheless suggested, but the mountain was the idea, Moone realized. It was what the Pontifex had been saying about Axes Mundi. Mountains are pillars of the earth, a liminal zone between earth and the under- and over- worlds. Man-made mountain, artificial heaven. A temple built to no god but to the strength of Man's hand.

And here they were, in a time before man's hubris was punished. As exotic as the sights and scents around him were, people of all skin colors and body types, wearing clothing of every stripe and hue, Moone realized that the voices around him weren't speaking diverse languages as would be expected of any other market in the world.

No, of course not. The people's language had not yet been corrupted. The tongue here was strange, but Moone found that he could understand it without a single degree of difficulty-- this was the universal language, the language that all languages have in common. He slipped into it, and speaking to his companions found that they all did the same.

"So we speak the, uh, Primordial Language, thing, now?"

"Some of us better than others it seems." Keepses shrugged. "Only insofar as we remain here in Babel; if we go back to a time after the scattering of languages [something about speaking in tongues.]"

"When we cease the ritual, at, back where we came from, we're just going to get pooped back out at the moment we got in here?"

"That's the idea. I've been here a few times, know my way around, and, honestly, it's kind of comforting how limited the ability is. Otherwise there's no such thing as, time, at all. Everything would collapse. People speak of wanting to be able to erase mistakes, but, continuity is our friend. Truly. Stick close, now. We're getting to the gate."

[they make their way in, and after some more travelling finally make it into the Tower, where Moone has the opportunity to examine in closer detail the white stone-like substance that the tower is comprised of.]

The uncomfortable realization thumped against Moone as sharply and suddenly as a cat jumping onto his head with its claws out. "Human teeth. The whole building is made out of... human teeth."

Keepses tilted his head to the side, eyes closed and brows raised, in a gesture that was halfway shrug, halfway nod. "Strongest material known to man. Or something."

Moone narrowed his eyes. "Diamonds?"

"Diamonds are the hardest. You know what hard means, hard means brittle, hard means breakable. These teeth..."

"They're disconcerting is what they are."

"Only material capable of building an edifice this size. Um, only, non crazy space-age alloy, that is. Babylonian level technology. Babylonian level technology."

"Where do they get all these... oh. Oh, no." The rest of the group, the Pontifex included, seemed very amused as Moone made all the connections as he pieced the truth together. "The tooth fairy is real, isn't it?" The group tittered like maniacs at this. Not being raised into the supernatural world, but still being adopted into it, Moone generally thought he had a pretty good handle on the true nature of magic. Curveballs were by this point relatively rare.

But they still happened.

"Come on, you've got to be... that's just a story. Not even a universal story. It's just an American adaptation of a Norwegian tradition, putting discarded baby teeth into mouse holes in the hopes that the adult teeth that grow in will be as strong as rodents'." Moone, working from memory, hoped that his provenance of the folklore was correct. "I mean, I know that certain beliefs and superstitions retroactively alter reality to turn the magic true, but... really, the tooth fairy? That's... that's even more of the parents than the Easter Bunny. The real teeth, they just go into, drawers and jars and stuff."

"And there's a monetary transaction, which acts as a contract," Pontifex said gently. "The metaphysical essence of the teeth, of all fallen baby teeth throughout time, come here. Like how the body of Christ is literally the Eucharist."

"I'm a Protestant!" Moone nearly shouted, growing flustered. "You're a Jew! I think. None of this... none of this makes sense. You just invented that medium."

The Pontifex pursed his lips. "Well, not the medium. Maybe the application, I'm overextending, but the literalism of the Biblical statement does act as a sort of superstition, so I'm not sure. What matters is belief, at least... and that is how contracts work."

Moone felt chided at this, as he realized that the Pontifex was correct. "So, so, what. The tooth fairy. Is she-- he-- is the tooth fairy here?"

"I am," came a male voice from behind Moone.

Well, this isn't the oddest situation I've gotten myself into, Moone thought, and turned around.