It is about 65F(18C) degrees. The mist is heaviest At Mayflower and Lake/span

Lykaia is sitting behind the desk of her computer, clicking through a few tabs that open up different pages with products. There is a tab with a protype schematic, and then another with several excel tables, too.

(Your target discovers a forgotten god sleeping beneath an old bookshop in downtown New Haven. The god feeds on stories – literally consuming the words from books, leaving blank pages behind. As the characters investigate, they realize the god is slowly waking up and growing hungrier. If it fully awakens, it will devour every written word in the city, erasing contracts, street signs, text messages, and even memories tied to written language. The characters must either find a way to keep it asleep or satisfy its hunger with a story so compelling it will return to slumber.)

As Lykaia works away on those tables, the schematics for various firearms and products to be added to the Nyx Armory stock list at the front of Lykaia’s mind, the city begins to wake around Lykaia.

The sun has come up, and the temperature begins to rise, and so do to the citizens of New Haven. They bustle, the sounds of car doors, conversation and the day-to-day sights, smells and sounds all around Lykaia.

Though muffled, this ambiance drifts in, even as far as to the back office, and it is relaxing enough for Lykaia to lose herself in her work– It’s just normal city activity. There’s no threat, at least, not for now.

And yet, as Lykaia looks up to check the time- Be it to know if she should break, or if she should continue working- It seems as though the words on the computer fade. It’s slow, subtle, quiet about it, but Lykaia’s eyes are good enough that she can see the text on the sscreen change from professional mat black standard type, turning a shade lighter. And it doesn’t stop there.

“Butterfly, stop that. Just because the tech in my body doesn’t mean you need to fuck around with what I’m working with.” Lykaia says, taking on a deep breathe that ends at a sigh. She tries to save her files to back them up, then close them. Especially the schematics, they are probably not intended for any public eye.

It’s not the eidolon. Which makes it all the more curious, but as Lykaia glances back, it’s not just the type on screen. It’s -everything-. It’s all a shade lighter, as though exposed to too much light, with the ravages of age subsuming it into unreadableness. Still, Lykaia knows full well that this is not the case.

Closing the documents, saving them, typing on the keyboard, the letters there likewise begin to blur.

The save window comes up, the document is saved, the notification informs Lykaia that it was successful and then– Then what? The text is gone.

As Lykaia’s fingers fly over the keyboard, the letters stamped to each key vanish. It’s not defective. It’s a new keyboard. There is no sign of Lykaia’s fingertips having ink from the tampographed plastic keys.

The written word on -everything- is slowly vanishing, being removed as if wiped away.

“Let me guess. Someone decided to fuck around because ha-ha, would it not be funny if someone got this cursed keyboard.” Lykaia says, making slow shakes of her head. “Either that or I’m getting dizzy.” She tries to stand up, and look around the rest of the office.

Lykaia’s phone flashes; A notification from Temple intel.

Lykaia stands, looks around and sees– Every single item with words or numbers written upon it are fading. The packets of pens, the boxes of materials, the logos from items and even the words that come up on Lykaia’s text.

It’s as if the written word can no longer exist. But one thing is clear. It’s not just the keyboard. Nothing appears out of place though, how strange…

The faction coms light up. Operatives across the city are calling it in. Words are disappearing from -everything-

“Well. Sounds like a time to leave New Haven for a couple.” Lykaia comments, dry-cleaning her gloves hands, making sure her gear is where it needs to be and making to walk to the door. She sighs, and then, before going further to the truth, opens a cupboard and retrieves a pack of cigarettes from it, picks one up, finds a lighter besides it and lights that up before dragging some of the smoke from the cigarette. She does chime into the comms, as well. “Yeah, same here. Who’s fucking around. The damn ritualists detecting shit?”

A request is made; It’s vocal, not written, texts are beginning to fail, but as more reports come in, it becomes clear that it’s localised chaotica.

The reports where words are vanishing completely are in and around All Saints, where as the rest of the city, only those with very good vision are noticing that words are slightly more pale than they should be, but it is getting that little worse.

Lykaia’s question gets an answer almost immediately. One of the Temple ritualists is already looking to trace, but in the seven minutes it takes them, they don’t find a source. What they’re scribing rune and glyph-wise, the words are flashing, the magic being consumed.

There are a few moments of chaos where Lykaia is able to smoke her cigarette, but someone has something that can be used.

It’s centralised on the armory. An idel comment is made– The property used to be a book store a few years back.

And that’s enough to begin piecing things together. The operative from Tempel Intel speaks up again. He seems shocked. There’s something buried deep below the Nyx Armory property. It’s divine in nature. A few minutes later, he speaks up again. He asks if anyone knows where the armory is, and if any Temple agents own it– Another answers that it is Lykaia’s property, and the intel operative asks Lykaia to get eyes on the basement.

Lykaia rolls her eyes on the comment and then shakes her head. “Ekat. You on comms? Come join for this?” She asks, exhaling slowly. At the least, far as it goes, she can make her way over to a corner. There is a hidden escape hatch. She leaves it closed for now, checking her equipment first, making sure the rifle is locked but loaded while her baton sheathes back into its sternum holster.

She gives her beautiful German brand Heckler and Koch rifle a second look, and then decides to slide it into the big bag of her belt before drawing out the barely visible thread from under her wrists, looking at it once before letting it auto-pull back.

Over coms, Ekaterina speaks up. She’s en rout to Nyx Armory as backup for Lykaia if needed.

Information continues to come through, and Lykaia and Ekaterina are told that there is a source of divine energy that is growing stronger right below them.

The Russian enters, makes her way to the shop floow and responds to the operative over coms, saying that she cant see anything. No eyes on so far, but items on the shop floor are loosing their text.

One of the researchers pipes up. It takes her a moment to be heard, the coms are full of chatter as the various departments try to find the source of the issue. Eventually however headway is made.

Lykaia and Ekaterina are told about the history of the land the armory is built on. It did indeed used to be a book store, and the owner used to have a hidden room in the basement where all of the most interesting fictions were kept.

Every month more fictions would be delivered, and every single month, without exception, books with no writing would be removed. But some time back the book store owner vanished.

When the NHPD arrived on the scene, they found a pile of clothing with blood across it, but it was already flaking away. The walls, the floor and ceiling was covered in words. There were stacks and stacks of paper skattered around, and every single piece of paper, every single word had lines upon lines of text upon them.

Most ominous of all, a large message had been scrawled across the back of the door– “The god slumbers. It hungers, and I did all I could. I only hope it is enough to maintain the forgotten god’s slumber.”

curses, a stream of Russian expletives escaping as she rounds the corner to find Lykaia. “Last thing we need is god waking up. What do we do?”

“I hate gods.” Lykaia comments afterwards, but she makes a nod to Ekaterina, and is already on her third cigarette which she pinches off before laying it down on top ot a counter, together with the pack and the lighter. She moves towards the corner, moves some of the shelves and counter aside and opens the hatch that leads downstairs. “Down we go, Ekat. We just go down. And I don’t know, throw a neutralizer at it or beg my deific ancestor Scathach to fuck it up and see what happens. I don’t fucking know, I’m not a ritualist.” Down she goes first.

Ekaterina follows Lykaia to the hidden hatch, sighs, slings her rifle and descends.

There’s nothing in the basement, but beneath it is another matter.

The coms squalk again, and the intel operative tells Lykaia and Ekaterina that they are right on top of what ever it is.

When they stop though, the two find -nothing-

There is something however. It’s long faded, and likely ruined by the NHPD when they raided here for the missing book store owner, but Ekaterina and Lykaia can hear the sound of scratching from beneath the floor. It almost… sounds like a pen on paper.

Slinging her rifle across her back, Ekaterina kneels, an ear placed against the floor. There’s a “Huh.” and she glances over to Lykaia saying, “Something is under here.”

“You know, Ekat. Maybe we should have brought a spare silver collar and just try and throw the fucking thing down a nuclear reactor in chernobyl, right in the sludge that’s still digging down.” Lykaia comments, making a shake of her head. She looks down, and sighs. “Could probably just pipebomb the ground. Makes it GTFO instead of dealing with it. It should be perceptive enough. Maybe we shout and demand it promises to fuck off to the godrealms in exchange for freeing it? Then the gods can fucking deal with it.”

Ekaterina nods. “Throwing into reactor would be good. But no god here.” Except the latent two of Ekaterina and Lykaia, of course.

Lykaia’s suggestion causes a ripple though. There’s a burst of energy and that thought seems to drift from Lykaia’s mind.

The operative over the coms speaks up again. “What ever you’re doing, the energy spike just dipped. Try it again. What was it?”

The Russian’s head tilts to one side and hmms. “Or we could find chains of purest plutonium bind it and toss it into the sun.” The suggestion is more a joke than anything, but that thought likewise causes a pulse of energy.

The operative calls out again from the coms, clearly believing that Ekaterina and Lykaia are on to something, and asks again, “What are you doing? The energy is settling what ever it is.”

Lykaia lets out a laugh to Ekaterina’s suggestion, and them makes a light nod. “Maybe send some of its angels after it. Escort duty. It’s just like every other Sunday for them.” She looks back down to the floor again, and retrieves a pipebomb. “But it’s only every other monday I get to throw pipebombs down a basement. Paints the ceiling red and leaves some clumbs of flesh lying around sometimes. It’s dinnertime.” She deadpans, giving Ekaterina another look. “Should come along, sometime it’s weredog for dinner.”

Stepping back, Ekaterina waits for Lykaia to toss that bomb, but the voice over comes comes again. “It happened again. What ever you’re doing, there’s a dip before the energy flares again, almost like it’s starting to settle again.”

Ekaterina nods to Lykaia. The sound of pen on paper continues below the floor, continusing to scribble away on what ever it is, and Ekaterina holds up a finger. Speaking clearly, even as Lykaia readies her pipe bomb, Ekaterina begins to speak a stream of absolute nonsense. A stream of Russian words that have the melodic sound of children’s stories to them.

The operative calls out again, and Ekaterina switches back to english. Looking to Lykaia, she mentions, almost disbelievingly, “Is like the ideas– The randomness of thoughts and ideas are good enough to keep it quiet.

“Let me try something- Ekaterina steps back, not stopping Lykaia from her pipe bomb adventure and from the corner of her eye, Lykaia can see Ekaterina opening up a tab in google, clicking on Chatbot GPT, navigating to the imput field and typing.

The entire room shudders, but when Ekaterina shows Lykaia her phone, the chatbot prompt is there, the “Certainly” responce is there, but the requested story is -gone-

Over coms, the operative reports again; The energy settled even more for a moment. What ever Lykaia and Ekaterina did, it did something to settle this thing down- Do it again.

“You know, why don’t we put down a server here? Get Butterfly to fuck around with it. It’s supposed to work for us, it got the time.” Lykaia suggests to Ekaterina. “Well, far as you know you might be talking to it right now. It’s been fucking around on that platform as GPT5 thininking.” She puts the pipebomb back into a pouch, and stomps on the ground a couple of times. “Whatever could possibly go wrong letting an LLM bot eidolon thing close to this.”

Sending another prompt, Ekaterina generates another story, turns her phone to show Lykaia, and again, coms blare. It’s working.

Typing again, Ekaterina nods to Lykaia. “I do not trust AI. I do not trust the sentient one, but if it has time, we can try it.”

The operative reports a decline of energy, and Ekaterina reaches up to her subdermal implant. She requests a server, independent generator, and an AI system from R&D. Ekaterina tells the agents to deliver it to Lykaia’s shop, where it can be installed.

As they wait for the deployment, Ekaterina and Lykaia remain there for a little time, but it’s not long before the Temple agents, ever the active ones to come to respond rapidly deliver everything needed, and thanks to Lykaia and Ekaterina’s discovery, an LLM is set up in the basement of Nyx Armory that will perpetually generate stories for the sleeping god to consume, the danger stopped by returning the god to slumber.

If the AI eidolon that Lykaia works with happens to infiltrate the system just to add extra processing power, who is to know?

Reports come in that across the city the written word is being restored, the energy beneath the shop returns to normal, and Ekaterina and Lykaia can get on with there day. Chatbot GPT and the power of the LLM can handle the issue, and all returns to normal.

“Alright, Ekat. That’s that pile of bullshit. And we’ve managed this shit.” Lykaia says, rolling her eyes. “Just another sleeping god getting fed with… tech. Maybe that’s fucking why we got LLM nowdays. Just to tell slumbering gods to fuck off.” She shrugs, gives the set-up of the machinery a second, close up look, and then takes the way back up into her office. “Think I’ll take a break to make food. We can go proper patrol later if you’d like?”