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Colin made arrangements to swing by Donnie's place after his visit with the PCD to look at the sword Donnie got in the mail.

Donnie has his spicy hunan pork with his dad, and they both talk about their days, sharing a plate of crab rangoons. There is much Donnie does not tell his father, but he does tell him that he had his first kiss, with the hawt cheerleader. Don chortles over it, proud that his son's first kiss was with a cheerleader.

They were already finished with X-Men III and halfway through the Omen (Donald D II thought ratings were for pansies) when there was a knock on the door. Donnie sayd "Oh, sorry dad, I forgot to mention Colin was coming over to get some research for a paper we are working on. He's on the newspaper staff with me."

He jogs to the door and lets in Chris and Colin, making introductions.

Soon the two boys bolt upstairs as Don II makes coffee.

"Nice to know you, Mr. Douglas." says Colin hurriedly, just before running upstairs with Donnie.

"Do you remember what we were talking about at the phone? Has this sword ever appeared in your stories? he whisper to his friend.

"Well a number of magic swords have appeared in my stories."  Donnie pulls the box out of his closte and opens it, unwrapping the paper and other packing materials and lays it out for Colin to see. "None of them ever came UPS woth no return addres though. I would have to check up on all of them to see if any appear in my stories, lemme think while you take a look at it with your Ghost Sight."

ooc: Has this specific sword appeared in my stories?

"No return address? That's weird. Do they even let you send a box with no return address these times? It sounds a bit dangerous."

Colin takes off his jacket and gloves and concentrates. He opens his eyes to the ghost light, and touches the box first, running his hand on it.

Then he takes out the sword and admires it. It's really beautiful but quite heavy. Its definitely too big for him. He takes the scabbard with both hands, then he grasps the hilt, and slowly unsheathes the blade. He keeps turning it in his hands to see everything of it.

OOC:With as many dragons as Donnie has written about I'm sure a sword like this would have come up.  Maybe not with the blade etchings, but a similar design certainly.


The sword gives off an erie light.  Imagine if it had a glow that was contained inside of it, but was leaking out like smoke from a fire.  When Colin looks at the charcters on the blade they have a bright white glow to them, like a flashlight through a keyhole.  As he spins the blade around and sees the dragon etching he sees that there is a ghost light replica of it, like a hologram standing on the blade in 3D.  As he gets the full site of it the ghost light dragon turns it's head to ook at Colin, a soft red gleam in it's eyes.

Colin looks at the dragon for a while, then he puts the sword back in the scabbard.

"Uhmm... interesting. I'm not sure though. Do you have any idea what the inscription means? And, please, wield it yourself this time. I want to see what happens when you keep it. Swing it around a couple times."

"So it's not, like, evil or something? That's good. I don't understand the inscription, but I can hit up the Miskatinic Library on a guest pass and query the database about the cuniforms."  At Colin's request, he does, motioning for Colin to back away as he heads to the center of the room. He gives it a few experimental swings, performing the X parry maneuver from Conan the Barbarian. He grins excitedly, a kid with a new toy. A shape, dangerous and deadly toy.

After a few swings, he looks to Colin. "So what did you see about it?"

When Donnie takes the sword Colin's ghost site sees the smoke-like energy of the sword pour over Donnie's hand and up his arm, forming a suit of armor like something from a fantasy novel.  The armor has a pair of enormous dragon wings on the back.

"Wow." Colin's eyes widen.

"Well, no. It doesn't seems evil. Actually, it looks incredibly cool. First, you don't realize how much that thing weighs, do you? I bet it even seems light to you. Second... no it's too cool. I gotta show you."

He gets a notebook out of his inseparable knapsack and starts drawing away. Once he's done a decent sketch of Donnie in dragon armor he shows it to his friend.

"That's what it makes you look like. I have no idea where it comes form, but it's obviously for you and you only. You gotta look for that inscription, because I have no other clues to give you."

"And you were feeling unheroic and emasculated! This thing... well it totally rocks. I think I am a little jealous." he says to his friend with a smile.

"Woah! That's totally awesome! How can this come to me? You're right, I need to translate these runes. And it does feel lightweight in my hand. I thought I'd barely be able to lift it but it feels right in my hand. Where the heck did this come from, anyway? Strange how it came with no return shipper information. UPS usually doesn't send things out without that information. Maybe if I searched online with the tracking number..." Donnie babbles..

"That's the next thing I was going to suggest. Though it's weird I can't pick anything about where it is from. If who sent it covered somewhat his tracks magically, I'm afraid going online won't be much more help. Try anyway."

Donnie hands Colin a set of printed matter. On it is the gross formula for his 'Do Unto Others' spell, a modification of the simple binding spell to keep a witch from harming themself or others. The last page explains how it is different from the normal kind of binding and also how he is going to need Colin's help in succeeding. This is the summary:

Basically, the binding spell is set up to act as a magically transferred 'disease', keyed specifically to those that have used the athame to draw blood, or had blood drawn by it. That was why he was so concerned about Colin being cut by it. The binding will 'jump' from one witch to another by close proximity, so if they al come together in a coven meeting, they will all get it. However, if the coven leader, the Oracle, has tapped into the Great Spirit, the binding will not stick with her, and she could likely break the bindings on the other girls. That's where Colin comes in. Somehow he needs to sever the bond, even temporarily, between the coven MAster and the Great Spirit, long enough for Donnie to bind her, metaphysically speaking, of course.

The others will fall like dominoes.

The bindings will not remove their powers, just force them to not utilize them against others in a harmful manner. Donnie thinks that even though this 'in a harmful manner' is kind of vague, the great balance of scales represented by the Great Spirit will see to it what exactly determines the limitations. Kharma, ying-yang, call it what you will, but magic will return to a balance. Right now the coven has swung the pendulum to their side, by manipulating others. Something will force the pendulum to swing back. Is Donnie kharma's tool? Is Colin? Philosophical questions for another day.

"Thanks for coming by, Colin. I need to do more research on this sword before I utilize it. If it is meant for me, then I need to learn how to use it as well. Maybe Jack can teach me swordsmanship.."

Colin reads carefully Donnie's plan. When he gets to the last page, he sees two flaws in it.
He puts down the spell notes and closes his eyes to concentrate. He goes back to the evening after he woke up in the school's basement. Matt had found the knife, but he's sure he did't cut himself with it. Then he touched it and had a vision. He saw the witches cutting themselves with it from their own point of view.
Now the question is: did all the witches use the athame? Because those who didn't wouldn't be affected by Donnie's spell. He thinks of the list Dave came up with, and tries to recall the vision in his mind. How many different girls did he see through? He hopes his memory doesn't fail him right now, since it's quite important for him to remember.

Then there's the 'sever the bond' problem.
"Donnie, this is what I wanted to talk you about. I cannot do this. If they invoke the spirit, I cannot revoke it. My powers don't work that way. But there's another way."

"What I think I can do, is invoking it too, within you. I don't know if this would disrupt their invocation or not, but I'm sure I can ask the spirits to help you, and this should at least put you on equal terms with her. Remember the circle thing Mitzi talked about? we probably could still do that, but to power you, not me. This matter requires your magic, not mine, but I can still use mine to help you any way you need."


"I'd be quite surprised if he couldn't. You're welcome, Donnie. Let me know when you figure it out, 'cause I'm really curious. And if you find yourself in danger before that, use it anyway. A spiritual armor is better than nothing."

"Hmmm. I never thought of that. I guess I will do some more research.."

Donnie wraps the sword back up and puts it in his closet.