August 23rd, 2025 – Detroit

Cole wakes up the rest of the party before going out to meet the woman outside the train. She tells him that she’s got some information and an offer for the group, so he escorts her inside. She takes a moment to apologize for what happened to his friends in Afghanistan. After she enters the train car and several drinks are passed around, a conversation ensues while Mike monitors for signs of lying or ill-will. The woman reveals quite a bit:

• With Teddy’s help, Emily finds some records identifying the woman as Samantha Alhadi, a Lebanese woman raised in South Africa who went off the grid several years prior.
• Sam explains a bit about Jones to the group. She describes him as a man “trying to pick a lock with a quadrillion tumblers blindfolded”. Roughly ten years prior, Jones began to get visions of a future apocalypse where the veil between the worlds came down and humanity was enslaved by the fae. He realized as he manipulated these events that the ultimate outcome would change, and ever since has been working to create a very specific set of circumstances that will prevent the invasion.
• Jones convinced The Division (and Sam as well) that his visions were genuine and enlisted their help to bring together a very specific set of individuals and talent (the party). And then, unbeknownst to The Division, facilitate their escape so they can accomplish what he sees as their destiny. Sam says the party managed to almost escape twice, the first Mike’s leg was severely broken and the second the tenth member of their party was slain. Each time, a serum provided by the Division was used to wipe the party’s memories.
• Again with Teddy’s help, Emily finds corroborating information about a Michael Dennis Jones, a talented special forces operator who was eventually discharged for “having visions about the end of the world” and who fell off the radar shortly thereafter.
• Sam acknowledges that Jones and John spent a lot of time discussing his visions during John’s captivity. She doesn’t know where John was.
• Sam admits to the party that Jones doesn’t know she’s approaching them (or, rather, she didn’t tell him, it’s hard to tell with someone who’s trying to manipulate the future). She says after the party’s “death” he’d been in a bit of a half-fugue/half-coma attempting to understand the permutations.
• Sam tells the party that the vampires just want the whole problem to go away, and the party is likely destined for a very comfortable prison in Chicago. She mentions they could also follow Jamie’s breadcrumbs to Toronto, which is almost certainly a Division trap. Then she offers up the option to join her and go to Cleveland, where she has found record of a Division facility that might provide some information. She’s arranged for a van a few miles down the tracks as transportation.
• Sam (and Jones) suspect that there are focal points where the veil between the fae and the mortal world is maintained, and those are being assaulted. Jones’ current plan is to get the party to one of these points, where he has a fair certainty that Daphne will be able to restore the veil. The specifics of how this is supposed to happen are unknown.
• In his research, Teddy encounters information about the party, who are starting to gain some bit of fame and infamy in arcane circles – having taken on the Division, shot their way out of Dubai, sunk several naval vessels, brought a dragon down on their pursuers, became guests of the most renown sanctuary in the world, seemingly died, killed the Summer Knight, seemingly returned from the dead, and on.

The party tells Sam they’ll think about it and send her on her way, then almost immediately decide to try Cleveland. Some of them leave their electronic devices behind out of an abundance of caution, and Cole makes the train car appear like a battle occurred. The party makes their way to the van, drive a few miles, and use Emily’s talents to get some spending cash from an ATM before heading around the lake. On the drive, Emily attempts to mock up false video surveillance evidence showing the party being captured and transported north across the border.

The session ends with the sun rising over the highway as the party approaches Cleveland.