what

the meteorite

no

i'm gonna - gonna head over there and pick it up and then get right back to 

meet you there

"uh, Karen, there's an - emergency - a worse emergency - you can go after the zombie thing and I'll, meet you, shortly -"

" - OK, cool, I'll go get the thing and then - keep me posted - "

She's not really holding it together but Alex isn't either and that means that she really really needs to hold it together.

She gets a sword and a stake and a crossbow from her room and heads off over after the zombie thing and tries not to think very much about anything.

He tries to find that mind again, he lost it in the initial shock. No problem, they're still staring at it. Thinking about how beautiful it is, thinking they should take it to the mayor. 

The flock of crows is sitting on his car when he gets out. They're making loud, high, distressed calls - of course. There're bodies caught up in the rims. Dozens of them. But - but he didn't run any of them over - 

He looks down at his hand and he doesn't have the keys and he doesn't know where he set them down and - oh, of course, one of the crows has it, and it's sobbing hoarsely and it's flying away -

You're going to have to meet me here, Cáno, unless your car is as well equipped as mine. They're taking it to the mayor - course, might change their minds along the way -

As long as you know where it is. Do you - it can't be causing -

It can't be causing this. It started after this. But it might be - might be meant to distract us - so we get it back fast and we get back to work, I sent Karen off after the thing that killed her family - I think she can handle it - doesn't matter, I couldn't have gone with her -

If it's a distraction who sent it?

I would love to know.

She can do this.

She has to be able to do this.

She races after the zombie thing. It has a meat cleaver. She's crying, so her vision is messed up - she hits the thing in the jaw instead of the neck with her sword - but she beheads it fine. It slumps to the ground, dead.

It might be the proximal cause of Azalea's and Connor's deaths, but it's not the problem.

Zombie thing down. Burning building across the street. I'm just gonna - I was going to the hospital before so I'm gonna head in that direction and save people on the way if it's not gonna slow me down too much, I think? Unless you need any help with the other thing - 

Hospital's good. You're - I'm proud of you and I'm so sorry and we'll fix it, we'll fix it somehow - the other thing might help with that, if we can keep it out of the wrong hands -

On it. Updates every minute - honestly probably just constant updates -

Toddler in a burning building, woman covered in spiders, alligators poking out of the sewer. Not the cause, not the cause, not the cause. There has to be a cause. She's going to try the hospital because she remembers thinking that that was a good idea before she mostly lost the ability to think. If there's nothing useable there then she's going to try the demon bars. She usually avoids those but this is serious and she needs to figure it out now.

The hospital's a ways across town; it'll take her a while to make the run, even at top speed. Her top speed is faster than she thought it was.

Macalaure picks him up. They move the guns and explosives and arrows and grenades to Macalaurë's car. 

"Just, uh, sanity check, can you see dead crows?"

"Yeah."

"Can Maitimo see dead crows."

"Yeah. Also he says stop fucking around, please, before he has to bring in the army -"

"Mmhmm. Mayor's at - Mayor's that way -"

Hospital hospital hospital.

People are dying around her. It's hard to remember what she wanted to come here for. Information, right, she thought once upon a time that Laura Egler might have known something, or that maybe someone else had had a similar experiences that she could compare to it. It seems stupid now but it's the only thought she remembers having, other than alternate universe things and spells that she doesn't know how to undo. She thought it was a good idea during the talent show.

The talent show was so long ago. Twelve hours. Eternity.

She finds Laura's room on the roster; the nurse on duty is busy curling in a ball and sobbing. 

Made it to the hospital. Where are you guys? What even is your thing?

We're on our way to the mayor's.

There's - there are powerful magical artifacts called Silmarils. They are very old. It was believed they were all lost. It would have been better if they'd all been lost. One of them is here, somehow, and in the wrong hands it'll be a catastrophe and in the right hands it might be able to fix everything and we're magically bound to pursue them and we're going after it. The mayor has it. I don't know if he knows what it is but if he does there's no real limit to what he can do with it. 

They look like this -

He sends it. A gorgeous faceted gemstone maybe the size of her hand, producing light in complicatedly beautiful patterns that light up the whole room -

OK. So. Shiny rock is going to melt the world or something if it ends up in demon hands; Mayor's hands are demonic; need to keep the shiny rock away from him. Cool. Solid.

It's not the cause of the whatever-the-hell-is-happening, though, yeah, we still have to find the thing that caused this in the first place?

That's pretty much the shape of it. I don't know what caused this but the Silmaril arrived too late.