The post is written from the point of view of Broadback. The characters do not have all the information contained within, but they can reasonable infer some of it. The characters know the pack has something else going on, and that its related to Maw’s behavior. They also know that the Captain is especially concerned about this case.

Newark is a crucible for the young. It is the urban wilds where they prove themselves, or they die struggling to. It is one of the many reasons I love this city. I knew when I first saw Kara, Connor and Collin together that something special was happening. I have this palpable sense they were meant to do something, and Skolis-Ur has shown me their moons. Right now, they share our blood. Soon they will share our oath.

It started at Sunday supper, when I gather members of the pack to share a meal. I have them share stories of their week, of their work. It helps me understand my pack. The evening started off exciting when Stone Axe arrived early with news that Bloody Maw had roughed up a local dealer with a bit too much vigor. Intimidation, that is part of the hunt, but Bloody Maw took it too far. Dirty Z, Zeke Robinson, is the cousin of a Uratha in the Brick City Ghosts. He is Wolf Blooded, and he is Kamduis-Ur’s Blood. Stone Axe was right to be furious. Rory not only committed an act of violence against an allied pack, but he interrupted the Siskur-Dah. Dirty Z managed to complete his work, but the damage is done. Maw will have to face his imperfections

The Wolf Blooded spent some time speaking with Death Eater and Heart Seerer. Heart Seerer says that Kara would make an excellent Farsil Luhal. He thinks Kara would be best served as a member of the Farsil Luhal, but I think she was born to be a Iminir. The drive, the intention to improve and the firm sense of mission. Connor has some social issues. The tell has impeded his development in ways the rest of us can’t imagine, but there is no excuses. Our enemies will exploit that weakness. We have to show him how first. Heart Seerer also thinks he would be a good Farsil Luhal. I am beginning to sense a pattern in his analysis. Colin, well Death Eater knows his destiny. His fascination with the Hisil and Umia. The way puzzles attract him. His mother is going to kill me when he joins the children of Kamduis-Ur.

Dinner was eventful.Kara, damn her superiority, baited Bloody Maw. I know she meant well. The boy will never make detective if he keeps going like this, but she knew she was pissing him off. Connor and Collin have a good sense for how dangerousMaw is. The Urdur came too close to losing his cool.

I was still trying to sort it out when the murder happened a couple days later. Captain Williams told me later that she could feel how important this case was, and that she needed Kara and the boy on the case. It wasn’t just the weirdness factor, but the case’s relationship to Green gave her a sense of its importance. It was bad omen that when Kara and Connor arrived at the scene, that my Urdur nephew was already digging his nose into a new pile of shit.

Collin was able to pull him away, and Kara was able to distract the other officers. In the thrall of Wasu-Im, Bloody Maw almost made another mistake. Collin sent him to wait for Death Eater. They walked into an apparent murder suicide. They checked the bodies, and the physical evidence checked out. Kara went outside to start interviewing wits. Collin was distracted by a ghost of the dead. He calls them loopers. Dead stuck in a moment. Sometimes in their last moments, and sometimes caught in a moment of high emotion. The fact Collin is functional at all is a fucking testament to his mother’s abilities to rear. She should have been a Iminir.

Connor, in the meantime, did his crime scene prodigy thing. I was on the force for 30 fucking years, and I never met a Crime Scene Tech with his abilities. He found a book of spells, leather bound and old. Each chapter had titles like “Working of the Mind” and “Workings of the Soul”. He also found the ashes of a cigar, and the footprints of a 5’6” male that weighed about 200 lbs.

Kara got roughly the same info from the Wits. Danny Fine, Anton Gates and Lauren Jones all appear to be uninvolved. Danny has a juvie record, but it seems like the vic Vincent Halprin had taken him under his wing. Anton Gates apparently looked up to the couple. Lauren Jones is guilty of something, but it is peeking. Kara really has a fucking way with people. In the end though, they are hunting a fat Rick Moranis in his early 20’s. I wish I could have Death Eater and Bloody Maw help them

After Collin gave Bloody Maw permission to help, the boy ran to an urge. He crossed into the Hisil and he tried to run down the spirit. He chased it straight into the Brick City Ghosts territory. It is a good thing I can trust the three wolf blooded to take care of things themselves, because the rest of us are going to be occupied cleaning up the Bloody Maw’s mess.

One more altercation. That is all it will take. I was meeting with the rest of the pack to discuss the possibility that Bloody Maw would be punished when the call came in from the professor’s assistant. They were tipped off that the boys had stolen a personal effects of a classmate, Fujiko Mine. The school police officer Samuel Ming, a retired police officer, provides them with the classmates address as well as some information about the victims. They went to the student’s apartment to interview her. The worst case scenario happened while they wait. A spirit penetrated the gauntlet. The fleshy mass intruded into the twilight, and it was only pulled in by the call of the fight. The lust of battle that my nephew exudes was too much to resist.

It is in the heat of war that you are reminded of his greatness. He knows how to redefine Glory. The way he moves, the way he hunts. It is a glorious sight. The speed and efficiency of his strikes. The way he flows past the strikes of the enemy. In a battle of brute force, there are few that can best him. I wish I could show Kara the reason he deserves respect. I wish I could show Collin that knowledge is not enough. I wish could show Connor why we tolerate the grey area. We defeated the spirit. Bloody Maw bit deep into the heart of the creature, and its blood sprayed across the shadow. It drenched his fur, matting it to his side. He rended it, and the gore fell like hail. Our howls shook the World.

The Red Hand cornered two of the teenagers responsible. The gravity of their actions had not sunken in, because they did not believe in their own power. My three pups will find the sad truth to be that most of the world’s problems come from humans not believing in their own power. The two boys turned over the cigars, the source of this chaos, and then the red hand set out to discover the source of their power. Death Eater suggested they find a will worker, and that they hide in plain sight. They searched for weeks.

The crescent moon is in the sky, and Collin’s life has begun to twist. A lune sings in the distance as Collin’s life begins to twist.

A casual encounter with Green begins to test the bonds of his relationship with Karris. The woman, always a force of nature, turns her full intention on him. She pursues him like a snake pursuing its prey. Patient, wise and relentless.

The red hand found their mage. They found two. A pink wearing astrologist and her goth shop keep. Two stereotypes that blend in perfectly with the rest. They reveal to the red hand that human souls were used to make the cigars that have been causing so much chaos.

Date night with Kara, Tiffany, Connor and Karris reveals the cracks in their relationships. It reveals Karris’s need for the spiritual, something she cannot see but believes. Kara’s refusal to believe in something more despite knowing the supernatural exists is amusing to me, but the denial reveals Karris’s deepening faith in the things that give human meaning. God, the stars and the moon. I heard she was exhibiting weird behavior.

There is no preparing them for it. One minute you are human. The next the world is black. When you wake up, your life has been tinged with tragedy. The world is filled with thousand of more smells. The aches and pains leave your body. Your eyesight becomes perfect. You crave meat.

You have to face the reality that in the throws Basu-Im, you may have murdered your own loved ones. It is one of the most wonderful and horrible moments in life. The moment you are endowed with raw power, a new family and a truer understanding of the world. The moment the lines between right and wrong become blurred.

The first change is unique for all of us though, but the Auspice of a Uratha effects shapes it’s character. Being Ithaeur means a spirit was involved. It pierced the gauntlet, exerted its influence or even urged someone nearby. Whatever the truth of his change is, the consequences are his to deal with.

When Connor’s cousin Jamie came to the police station to ask for help finding Darla Johnson, Collin could not have predicted that the case would change his life forever.

It was a normal day up until that point. Connor had joined Collin and Kara for lunch. He returned to work on organizing the evidence for a case set go to trial next week. He instantly began driving his coworkers crazy, needling them with questions about a piece of evidence. He came up stairs to ask Collin and Kara if they knew where it was, only to find his cousin Jamie there. The two shared an awkward exchange as Jamie explains why she came.

Darla, a graphic designer, was living in a Enduring Peace women’s shelter that Jamie works with for six months when she went missing two weeks ago.Jamie suspects the boy friend is Rick Grimes a junior partner with Parnell, Strauss and King. The last people to see her were Jamie and a volunteer at the shelter Karris. The more Collin knew about the case, the more his gut began to wrench with a hunch that Karris was connected somehow.

Seeing an opportunity to get Connor out of their hair, Richard ask them to take Connor with them. Riviera volunteered to help due to the nature of the case. They split into two teams. Connor and Riviera went to the Premier Apartments where she lived. Collin and Kara went to the shelter.

Collin and Kara went to the shelter to investigate, and they ended up questioning Karris. She denied knowing any specific about the case, but she seemed off. This further raised Collin’s suspicions. Weirder still, for a split second, he thought he saw Karris’s Angel Statue out of the corner of his eye. When he looked though, the statue wasn’t there. The shelter is difficult for Collin to concentrate in.

At the same time, Connor and Riviera searched the her apartment in Premier Apartments. They had received information she was living with her abuser, but the door man claimed she lived alone. They found no forensic cases of anyone but her in the apartment, but they did find that someone removed electronic devices that were mounted in each room. In an unexpected turn of events, she lived on the same floor as Lawrence & Ryan. They claimed to have seen her walking down the hallway a week ago. The security guard provides them with video tape. He also lets them know that there has been an extremely high turnover of security guards in the last six months.

Unable to avoid it, Collin asks Karris to come into the station for an interview. Bonfanti and Riviera interview her to avoid charges of conflict of interest. Bonfanti was his usually douche self, but Riviera exercised an amazing sensitivity that was surprising considering his normal demeanor.

Through the interview, Collin finds out the truth about Karris. She is 36. She was orphaned at a young age, and she was sent to live with an abusive uncle. There she converted to catholicism. She became interested in the occult in her teens, and she began a relationship with Rick Grimes. They were highschool sweethearts. At first the relationship was good. It was warm and caring. Then she moved out, and he began to exhibit controlling behavior. He would grip her arm so hard it hurt. He would smother her. No one believed her though, because he was a rich white guy pursuing a law degree. He did not look the part, but she suffered. She was a victim of domestic violence, and Enduring Peace saved her. She sold many of her belongings to start over, and managed to make it as a business woman despite seeing her abuser on a regular basis.

After the interview, Captain Williams officially pulled Collin and Kara from the case. Collin went home, and he confronted Karris about keeping secrets from him. He did the thing so many men have done. He asked a question that he didn’t want the answer to. “Did you choose me because i was a cop to protect you, or that you thought i was too weak to hurt you?”

I cannot tell you truly what was in her heart or his heart in that moment. I can tell you that while her answer might have been meant to cut, she did not mean for it to change both their lives. Collin’s first time falling to Basu-Im, the hard rage, happened in the confines of their apartment. When he awoke, he was naked, alone and next to the bloodied carcas of a deer. He found himself overwhelmed by the onslaught of new smells. Despite that he could pick out one, the smell of Karris’s blood.

Collin will remember Jan. 27th, 2014 for the rest of the life. For when someone asks him the Auspice he was reborn under, he will say the crescent moon. He will say he is Ithaeur.

(I will be updating the adventure log for each first change. This post will get some additional info as well by Tuesday. Please complete your characters by then. If you get an email notifying you that I’ve updated this entry, then you have got some special content you’ll need to login to see.)

This entry is from the point of view of Erin “Stone Axe” O’Connor

When I changed, my world fell apart. The rules that i had played by for my entire life turned out be illusionary. The law, the thing I had the most faith in, turned out to be more imperfect than I could imagine. It took me months before I was truly ready to be back in the field. It delayed my rise to detective for a year at least, but it gave me a better appreciation for what it means to be a cop under personal duress. I think it made me a better Internal Affairs detective. It ironed out my greatest weakness. I can only help the change does the same thing for our new pups.

At 11:30 AM, Craig was ordered to “Standby to Keep the Peace” while child protective services does a review of a home. To “Standby to Keep the Peace” is to be present at an eviction, cps case or a peaceful protest. We never work for another agency, but we we present to keep them safe while they do their work. Standby. Keep Peace. It seems simple in practice, but it is emotionally trying. I can’t tell you the number of times it has led to me or another I.A. detective knocking on a cops door. When you see what some children have to endure to reach adulthood, you become amazed at how many survive. Unfortunately too many survive but are broken. These are our sociopaths, our psychopath and serial killers. Many people believe these individuals are just born, but please let me assure you that they are made. Made by people who like them suffered from child abuse or neglect.

When a cop sees this, sometimes they snap. They say things or do things which they wouldn’t normally do. They do something that gets them in trouble. For these cops, I seek leniency. Other times it embitters them to humanity, and it causes them to judge others by their racial or religious associations. It dehumanizes the individual, and it makes it easier to separate their own actions from theres. These cops I watch. These cops I hunt. It is why Heart Seer says I should have been a Iron Master. I see it as part of my duty as an Imnir. I will cull this weakness from the Newark Police Department.

According to Captain Williams, Craig Pearson and Irene Davis were just supposed to standby and watch as Arlington Williams did an inspection of the dwelling of Dina Fine. Dina Fine is a mother of two boys. Danny Fine, who was a witness to a case not long ago, and Damon Fine. All three live at 27 Parkview Terrace. Danny is 17, and he is only three months from turning 18. He has a record. Breaking and Entering, Vandalism, Petty Theft, Assault but he has been keeping his nose clean of trouble for the last two years, after he completed a stint in juvie. Difficult to do in the area which he lives. Damon is 7. A sweet kid by all accounts. Dina’s case file, I looked at it, it’s mostly neglect due to being a single mom. But there were some… instances of reported abuse they could never get the kids to corroborate. Dina is bipolar, but it was apparently untreated until just last year.

Arlington Behr, a tall thin man with dark brown skin and ashy patches on his joints was the CPS agent assigned to the case. He is a nice man. A true believer in what he is doing, and a defender of the system. I’ve always had a soft spot for him, and when I was a detective I always prayed he was the one called when CPS had to be brought in. He always smelt of wood smoke and brown sugar. He gave Pearson and Davis brief background on the case as they approached the house. I wasn’t there, but I can imagine he moved with that usual slow amble that frustrated so many cops. Truth is, its easier on his knees. He doesn’t like talking about it, but they bother him constantly. The three knocked. There was no response. So they entered.

Pearson caught Dina Fine running at them out of the corner of his eye. He also saw the children cowering in the corner, the older one bloodied. She lunged at Irene Davis with a blade, and she just barely dodge. Pearson attempted to grapple her, but she just barely managed to slip out. Davis pulled out her baton, but Pearson had the woman pinned before she could use it. In a blink. Just like that.

Davis brought Ms. Fine out to the car, while Pearson went on to do first aide on the younger brother. Danny had shielded his brother, and he got cut up. However it was Damon whose life was in danger. He had been stabbed in the gut by his mother. This is why good cops snap. Because of scenes like this. Pearson maintained control through. In the time it took for Kara and Colin to get to the scene, he had saved the boy’s life. The EMTs commended them in their report on the incident.

Collin and Kara did an initial search of the home, while Pearson was speaking with the EMT’s. The weapon was no where it would logically be. Kara went outside to speak Dina Fine, and to get Danny Fine’s statement. Danny remembered her name, and he reminded her of his role in the previous case. Danny tells her that the entire neighborhood has gotten worse since the death of Doc Halprin and Mrs. Green. He also states that his mother has been doing great lately, and that she is a good woman. He knows she is ill and does her best. Lately there has been food in the fridge, and the house has been clean. Kara told him that she didn’t think his mother would be home for a while, and that she would try to help get his brother released to him once he was 18. Danny informed her that it was only a few months away. She reassured him she would do what she could, and then she moved on.

Kara returned to the house, and then Collin went into the kitchen. Pearson watched the door while Collin pushed his senses into the shadow. He is instantly assaulted by a shadow filled with the sound of alarms. Large rumbling trucks chuck through the streets. There is a vague smell of decomposition and rot. The house looks… unclean in the shadow. The years of neglect still oblivious here. Gunshots echo continually, and there is just small motes of positive feelings floating around the room. Like emotion tinted fireflys of laughter, joy, peace and comfort. This home was not a safe haven, for the children or spirit whose remains were spread across the wall like blood. Collin, thinkly quickly, looked for the spirit of the scissors, and he spotted them walking across the lawn.

While this happened, Scythe showed up with Haverstraw. I find Haverstraw amusing. He is always chasing his next meal and his next woman. Spirits of lust and hunger find him from time to time for a meal, but his constant companion is a spirit of laziness that looks like a cat. Both gave the detectives and Pearson a hard time about losing the weapon. Haverstraw took some time to observe Collin being weird, and Scythe had difficulty pronouncing Pearson for some inexplicable reason. The two quickly looked through the room, and they found nothing. Kara sent Haverstraw outside to get rid of him, so that the other could talk.

Collin came back, and he explained what he saw. The pack deliberated for a few minutes before Haverstraw returned to let them know that Irene Davis has removed the scissors from the scene. The pack went outside. Kara approached Irene and she gently hinted that they knew she had them, and that she had to give them back. At first she was resistant, but once she was cornered she gave them up. Haverstraw agreed to keep his mouth shut in exchange for lunch.

The pack determined that the same spirit who had been responsible for the murder of Doc Halprin.

This Adventure Log is from the Point of View of Death Eater

The first months of the change are confusing. We are faced with things that we can’t possibly grasp, no matter how obsessed we were with the occult in life. I saw my first ghost when I was six. Like most, it was a relative. He was one that I was not particularly fond of. I was always a precocious child, so I understood that this was not something I could share with my mother. She believed apparitions of all kinds were the work of the devil. They are tricks the great enemy played to lure the faithful from the path of god, but even in death Tio Hugo’s evil was uniquely his.

The psychological impact of being able to see the invisible on children is similar to child abuse. We tend to react inappropriately in social situations. We can be fussy, withdrawn, afraid. We cope through drugs, sex or any other form of escape. We can see the long term impact in the behavior of Collin, Connor and myself. Yes, I know I am self aware enough to know I’m odd.

I was proud of the organized research the pups put together. Sitting at the Black Dog, the four of them put together a picture of what was happening. The neighborhood of Weequahic is a new neighborhood. It was formed in the early 20th century, and it became the home of Jewish immigrants. For years it prospered, and it produced many intellectuals. The downward decline in the sixties after a cabal of mages named the Gentiles. They manipulated the real estate market, crime and ley lines to set off a downward arch.

Manipulating the real estate market was a common tactic at the time. Greedy real estate agents would create a false sense of danger in neighborhoods, and they buy out properties from white owners at bargain prices. Then they would jack up interest rates and sell them to minorities. They would create the illusion of violence by minority youth, thereby causing fear in the majority. The result was an increased perception of young minority men as dangerous.

The result was the mass production of negative essence by the unwitting diabolical blockbusters and the occult inclined. Poverty, crime and desperation seized urban neighborhoods around the country. Weequahic was no different with the rise of crime impacting the overall success of the neighborhood. Since then it has been a steady source of cadavers, ghosts and dangerous spirit. It is that leak in your house that you can never fix.

When Dr. Vincent Halprin and Leslie Green wound up on my autopsy table, I did not expect that was going to set this series of events in motion. The spirit which that damn Urdur Bloody Maw let get away was responsible for several murders. The crimes had two things in common. First, the perpetrators acted suddenly. They seemed to completely lose control. Second, the perpetrators don’t remember doing it.

They all report having dreams afterwards of the devil. Three months ago, just after Halprin was murdered, a woman named Kilee Moss was overcome with jealousy. She threw her boyfriend Benjamin Lane down the stairs. This happened in the Brick City Ghost territory. Maybe Wiseman would have handled this spirit for us if he wasn’t too busy dealing with Maw. Two months ago, back in Weequahic, a gang member named Jeremia Halstand was beat to death by a homeless man named Ivan Arce with a lead pipe. Two Weeks ago, a Nixon Ramirez beat his brother Barron Ramirez to death over a girl named Lisa Klein.

This provided the pups with a firm location, and a way to identify the spirit’s activity. Kara and Craig’s research eliminated other possibilities. Then a call came in from Detective Riveria letting Kara know that he was actively investigating a crime fitting the M.O. that she was looking into, but that he thought this specific person was faking it. I’m still not sure what made him think it why it was important to tell her. I generally find Riviera to be lazy, but he surprises me from time to time.

The crime scene was at the Arms, and the pups went there in the shadow. The Arms is a bad place to be. A good number of its residents have come across my table. Most of the time it is people overdosing, but there have been a number of violent crimes. Behind the building there was a battle happening between a large demon and group of bale hounds. The demon was clearly winning. After observing it, the pups snuck off. Two of them got the sense they were being watched, and they took steps to ensure they weren’t followed.

Connor was able to identify the demon as being from some fantasy novel series, and the pups decided to pay a visit to the nerds. Luckily the one they needed, Jason Meegle, was home alone. He helped fill in the gaps for the rest of the pack. There is a novel series called Forgotten Realms that he loves. He was focusing, willing the jealousy that lay in his heart to push Leslie to do something to Professor Halprin. Thoughts of the demon Errtu from Forgotten Realms intruded into his thoughts. That was when the violence started. Using a combination of their gifts, Collin’s occult knowledge and Connor’s knowledge of the setting… the group figured out the likely ban and bane of the demon. A magic summoning circle would keep him in place. A holy weapon would kill him.

I have been living in this world a long time, and I have run into a few items that could be considered blessed. Most of these end up in the hands of hunters, as if their mission to destroy the supernatural leads them to items of holy power. These items are rarely weapons though, and there is usually consequences to using them. The pack decided to take two courses of action. First, they would ask for help from the Apostate mages Angel and Bleak. A course of action I would advise against, but Broadback has asked me to let them make their own mistakes. Second, they decided to seek out a person who participates in a Forgotten Realms LARP. It is my understanding that this person truly believes that he has the favor of a god.

So, my understanding of the universes complexities is more comprehensive than most. I know for example that believing in something hard enough, for long enough as a people can result in it truly existing someplace in the universe. That means, this Faerun place where this demon comes from, must exist in the vast complexities of the universe. Bleak explained this to the pups, and she promised she would get Angel on board to help. She also said she would deliver them a weapon.

I knew something like this was possible, but I have been unable to find an explanation that satisfies my curiosity. Maybe the magic used to bring this demon to life pulled it from there, or maybe the cigar those boys smoked filled a similar function to group belief. These are possibilities I will have to investigate. Whatever the truth, I have to admit I did not expect that the mages Bleak contracted with would produce the weapon itself.

The LARP person they contacted ended up being unneeded thanks to Bleak coming through, and the pack went about planning their ambush. Errtuu was to be drawn to an abandoned Baptist Church near the center of the neighborhood. Craig used Black Earth, Red Hunger to know when the demon Errtuu approached. Inside the church Angel set up her summoning circle, and she prepared for the ritual. Kara, Collin and Scythe readied themselves on the Loft to attack from above. Craig readied himself at Angel’s side.

The demon came through the door, breaking the frame around it. Crawling underneath the pack. They had laid the perfect trap for it. That didn’t make the battle less dangerous. The demon’s head was equal with the loft, and its pig like face was contorted with rage. It knew Angel was summoning it. As it stood, it lashed out at her with its steel beam like sword. The demon was there.

Craig positioned himself to intercept Errtuu from being able to advance on Angel’s position and bore the brunt of mammoth blade which Errtuu wielded as if it were as light as a common long sword. Kara charged from her position atop the loft leaping from it on to Errtuu himself, literally throwing herself in to battle with the demon. Connor, armed with the holy weapon obtained from Angel and Bleak began to rain bolts of lightning into the demon’s formidable hide. While powerful in their own right it was evident Kara and Craig would have a difficult time breaking through the demon’s exterior, whereas the arrows from the holy weapon seemed to slice through skin, muscle bone and sinew alike. Errtuu turned his attention to Scythe atop the loft, summoning bouts of fire, setting the young pup ablaze along with the church himself. Collin immediately tasked himself with ensuring Scythe and the church itself didn’t immediately turn into burnt kindling, summoning the assistance of water spirits to quell the blaze which Errtuu was casting forth.

Kara and Craig continued their skirmish with the Demon himself finding purchase with tooth and claw ripping asunder the demon all while Scythe continued to release arrows of lightning from the holy weapon and Collin kept the whole of them from turning to ash. Their plans and preparation along with whole hearted commitment and trust each member would adhere to the plan set forth paid dividends as before long the demon fell as Craig leapt forth, teeth clamping down on the demon’s throat a veritable font of blood and viscera cascaded from the gaping wound left behind as the demon fell to his knees before the pack.

It was a good battle. One that earned them much renown with the spirits and our kind. One unfortunately the mortals will never fully appreciate. In one way though, they are lucky, the spirit was not as powerful as it should have been. Limits were placed on it because of the nature of its creation. Let us hope they fare as well against true monsters, born completely of resonance and over time.

The Battle of Faerun was won, but the cost of their victory was the freedom of the Mage known as Bleak. She traded her service for the weapon which helped them defeat the creature. She traded her life so other might live. I hope Collin and Connor remember the cost of their wolf blooded nature, because she is about to embark on an equally costly journey.