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I know we hate these fucking portals, but there better be one because there is not a chance in the hells that both my fiance and sister disappeared right in front of me and it can't be fixed.

Added later:

No place better to start a list.

Gilmore
Adaine
Kellach
Kara
Keith
Shiro
Atreus
Kratos
Orym
Chetney
Kit
Cayden
Eli
Kaitlyn
Ronan
Matthew
Lan Xichen
Temeraire
Violet S
Henry
Sydney
Katou
El

That's it, I've decided: witchy powers are not for me. I lost my temper at some jerk at the dog park for a fraction of a second, and I set a bush on fire! But the worst part is that I couldn't even put it out because I couldn't figure out how!

Good thing Krypto still has freeze breath and was able to take care of it.

And now I really want a hot brownie with ice cream. Is this swappiness over yet? I'm tired.

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After figuring out explosives weren't the best route, the vacuum cleaner I rigged has contained the slime without them getting out and nobody has had to touch them.

Who do I send the containers to? I can incinerate them.

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Good morning, everyone. I know we've all been feeling tense as we wait for word from our volunteers who went through the portal. I know that brings with it an inherent feeling of helplessness; I'm sorry there isn't more we can do on that end at the moment. However, we do have news.

The DOA received a call from the Vallo Police Department early this morning. Late last night, Dahlia Argent, of Beketh coven, turned herself in as a party in the portal beasts incident back in November. Along with our people, her sister, Luciana, was taken by the portal, as well as some Vallo residents - the exact number is currently being investigated. DOA leadership was invited to come speak with Ms. Argent, and we've learned the following:

A group of Vallo natives have been working on ways to open a portal to send Outlanders either back to their world or out of Vallo permanently. The teleportation circle found by Sam Wilson in December, as well as a portal that opened on Geliara Academy's grounds and the theft of the Ashurbanipal amulet in November were all early, failed attempts at targeting Outlanders. The November 10th incident with the portal beasts was the closest they've come to success, but they didn't have the correct knowledge to close the portals without threatening the rest of Vallo.

This group has been using the teachings and research of the Guide of Existence, also known as Bronislavas of Beketh, whose body is on display in the Vallo Museum of Natural Magicks. They've made attempts to resurrect him for his assistance - if you remember, the museum was broken into back in August and that particular exhibit was temporarily closed; this was an attempt to take one of Bronislavas' bones for the resurrection process. This plan also failed.

After discussions with VPD and Beketh, they've agreed to let Outlanders take matters into our own hands. We've been granted permission to resurrect Bronislavas and, hopefully, both get more answers on this portal and his assistance in bringing the missing back home. If any of our community have the appropriate skills for this task, please let us know here, and the DOA will facilitate any way we can.

( I'm not saying I feel a crazy amount of vindication right now, but... )

I was downtown on a call with the station, when I came across part of a spaceship. Weird thing is that it looks like it crashed here? But awhile ago. I think we definitely would have noticed it being here though by now and I vaguely remember there being a boarded up building for rent around here before, but me and our station inspector can't find any evidence of it being under this beautiful hunk of junk. I called it into the city and the DOA (hi Shiro!) and I'm waiting to hear back something about that.

Weird Vallo thing probably?

The inside's wrecked, but the comms system looks like it might be salvageable. I'm not techy enough to work on this, but would love help figuring it out to see if we can maybe get some logs or security footage out of it. I was thinking about reaching out to Enki to see if Mei or anyone could lend us a hand if we don't have any Outlander brains on it.

ATTENTION ALL THOSE WHO HAVE COME ACROSS KITTENS WITH MOUTH TENTACLES!

Some of you might remember when I introduced my cat (Goose) about two years ago. Goose is an alien in the shape of a cat known as Flerken. All of the info on Thor's post is true of her species back home. Here in Vallo, Goose's more toxic elements - both the claws and more extreme uses of tentacles - have been dulled, presumably by whatever kind of magic Vallo likes to use to keep us here. I'm pretty confident the same will hold true for any of the kittens' toxic elements, too, and they should be ultimately harmless.

After rounding up the 39 begging for attention from Thor, I've picked out enough familiar patterns to say these ARE Goose's kittens. I don't know how many are here, but at last count, I'm seeing mention of 48 - that includes 39 from Thor, 4 from Atreus, 1 from Orym, 1 from Wanda, 1 from Darlington, and 2 from Ty. There could be up to 69 more running around Vallo.

If you've found one (or one has found you) and you feel comfortable holding onto them for the time being, great, but please drop a line here to let me know where you have them, just in case. If you don't feel comfortable, that's fine, too. Again, drop a line here, and I'll come by to pick them up. We have a safe space to keep them until we figure out what's going on.

Please don't attempt to kill them.

Finn got to hang out with Molly, our tortoise, this morning. The giggles when we helped them hand her some lettuce to snack on was easily one of the cutest sounds I've ever heard in my life. She's pretty cute for a reptile, too. Look at her.



Oh, and - Happy (late) New Year to everyone!

[Filtered to Ostyia Rabalska & Wanda Maximoff, posted in the evening]

There is a matter in the covens of which you should be aware. Today the Geliara and Prigany coven meetings were both interrupted by accusations of unethical necromancy. As you will recall, neither coven is typically in the habit of practicing necromancy of any kind.

In both cases, the accusations were made by members of the coven against other members of the coven, but vaguely so; no names were given. There was just enough evidence presented to compel both covens to end their meetings early and begin investigation of the matter.

I must note that it seems suspicious for two unrelated covens to be disrupted with the very same accusation at the very same time. I also cannot help but note that they are two of the covens known to be friendly to Outlanders.

Prigany and Geliara leadership have both assured me that they will notify us of their findings when their investigations are complete. Should you wish to conduct an investigation of your own, I will be happy to facilitate and schedule meetings with the relevant parties in the covens.
[/filter]

[Filtered to the DOA, after some conversation with Wanda and Ostyia]
Good evening. There is a matter which the Magic Division leadership would like to bring to the attention of the Department at large.

Today the Geliara and Prigany coven meetings were disrupted by accusations of unethical necromancy*. In both cases, the accusations were made by members of the coven** against other members of the coven, but vaguely so; no names were given. There was just enough evidence presented to compel both covens to end their meetings early and begin investigation of the matter.

Both covens' leadership have agreed to share the findings of their investigation with the DOA Magic Division. We are currently in the process of scheduling a meeting with them to obtain more details, and the Magic Division will also be making our own inquiries.


* Necromancy in Vallo is generally done only according to a set of regulations intended to prevent its abuse. These regulations were written by the Beketh coven (the coven which is typically the only one to practice necromancy) and agreed to by the other covens many years ago, and there has been no known attempt to circumvent these regulations in recent memory.

** Caralivia Elderwood (Prigany) and Gareth Vasiliev (Geliara). They are both established members of their covens, but not outstanding ones.
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[TEXT MESSAGES TO LENA LUTHOR]

» Hi sweetheart. ❤️
» So Kelex pinged me with an URGENT MESSAGE a little while ago from the Fortress because there was some sort of problem.
» And when I got there, well, there was a problem, but I promise it's all okay now!
» We're just going to have to do some superdog training!
» [ attached images: 1. fluffy Samoyed Krypto looking suspicious; 2. selfie of Kara cheesing, Krypto still suspicious, both looking slightly singed ]

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I'd say come to my house for trick-or-treat - I give away pints of ice cream and, yes, their containers are enchanted to keep them cold while you carry on - but penthouse life doesn't exactly attract trick-or-treaters.

Time travel is a delight. Look at all these infant faces. Wait until your children age you.

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Just a reminder that Mom's Lena's birthday is tomorrow! I made plans to take her out for a fancy dinner when it was meant to be just the two of us, but I called in and convinced them to add more seats. We've got a full house so I want to make sure everyone is available.

Theo, the restaurant I chose has vegetarian options! I'll send you the menu and you can let me know if it looks good. They have variety cuisine, so it should work for everyone! 💛

Last night we were able to track down the source of what caused all of our network problems and found absolutely no one at the end of it. Whoever they are is a fan if that Soups place from all the trash left behind. The only name we can associate with them is T3CHN0W1TCH13, which is an internet handle that is offensive to the eyes.

All the chain letter hiccups should have disappeared after we gained access to the terminal they were using. [...] I'm hoping that also includes the corpses of any of them slain before this.

Also, please note: 'password' should not be your actual password. Do better.

We're also working on improving network security measures across the board to prevent any actual outsider from hacking into things. I can't guarantee it'll put a stop to everything, but we're hoping it stops someone like T3CHN0W1TCH13 from trying to kill us with either monsters or anxiety.

Happy Belated Friday the 13th.

I don't know what happened to the morning. I meant to give an update earlier and it's - oof, it's been busy. Let's cut to the chase: we've got network issues.

We ran diagnostics on all the DOA equipment and there are no physical issues. The notifications list sent out yesterday was false - I believe everyone was accounted for (and is presumably still accounted for, please let me know otherwise). Scanning shows no standard viruses but there's something bleeding into the comms scrambling codes and throwing down firewalls. All this is strictly affecting Outlander communications, and while we've had issues with cybersecurity in the form of released history searches and faulty filters, we can all probably agree that yesterday's list felt like a personal attack.

We suspect the influx of chain letters received the other day is part of all this too. I'll be honest: I'm not sure they're supposed to be a joke, or an omen.

If you're experiencing any additional issues, please report them here. We're trying to track everything to find a source - and a potential culprit. Please be aware of any suspicious e-mails, messages, and links sent your way. If you're not sure about something, ask.

The tech division here at the DOA isn't what it used to be, so if anyone's got experience with online programming/security/hacking/literally anything beyond Googling, come see us. If anyone's got an in with techno-pagan covens, reach out. We don't want what happened yesterday to become a norm. The risk of cardiac arrest will sky-rocket.