the ground could open, he could still say please

[slavophile]

Comments

[notjustamom]

["Uh, Mom, this is Caroline and Ryan, they're friends of Elena's." Sam quickly runs through the introductions before getting to the meat of things. "You know what the Gauntlet is?"

Mary shrugs, because knowing is relative.]

I mean, I haven't ever seen one, but it's basically like a big witch Battle Royale. But there hasn't been one in my lifetime - in fact, the last one I heard of was the witch trials in the sixteen hundreds.

[Caroline squints. "Weren't the witch trials -- ?"]

Run by witch hunters? No. I've seen the family records.

[Campbells came over on the Mayflower after all.]

According to the first-person accounts from hunters on the ground, a lot of the fingers pointed were pointed by actual witches, and the frenzy that people were in at the time handled the rest.

[cholesterol]

So, they served up their own in a bid for the most witch power?

( That's kind of genius, but very twisted.

"Is that what's been... thrown?" Ryan asks, knowing the normal definition of the Gauntlet. (7) )

So, it wasn't the Devil with Goody Hypocrite.

[notjustamom]

Not exactly, no.

[Mary shrugs at Ryan's question.]

No one really knows what started it. My ancestors weren't exactly concerned when the witches started taking themselves out. But ... it could be a big mess.

[cholesterol]

Yeah, I can see why American Horror Story: Jonestown Salem wasn't frowned upon.

( It's a little too dog eat dog for him. Every war was like that, even the war for Hell and for Heaven. It's taking friendly fire to a whole new level. )

So - do witches have to go back into their... cauldrons?

[vampireboulevard]

They definitely seem to be shoring up their power sources. The ritual that the B&B crew was doing was heavy duty.

[Her nose wrinkles at the smell of burning flesh from the witches who got thrown in.]

Maybe Bonnie's friend knows more of the details from the witch end?

[cholesterol]

Great timing.

( So now they wait? )

Should witches lay low? This sounds like it only ends one way.

[vampireboulevard]

[Caroline shrugs.]

I don't know. I guess we'll have to see how bad things are going to get.

[Mary shrugs as well. "I think we should be prepared either way. I doubt there's going to be no collateral damage, and I think we should try and help avoid any innocent people getting hurt that we can."]

[cholesterol]

So, it's hunter-gate 2.0 but witches are the hunters. And the gatherers. Just - great.

( He needs a beer.

"We don't know that the Gauntlet has started," Ryan says "Only that the witches at the Bed and Breakfast were preparing, trying to stockpile magic. They raised a golem." (14) for that recognition.

Well Dean and Sam have experience with that.)

Was a Jewish guy named Aaron Bass there? ( To Sam. ) You remember my gay thing?

[imnot_likeyou]

[Caroline's eyes swing over to Dean at that statement, eyebrows raising. "I really don't know what to make of you sometimes." It's unclear on whether that's a compliment or not.

Sam, on the other hand, sighs.]

Yeah, I remember. And if this is going to be bad, I should probably go update Allison. Excuse me.

[And he'll leave Dean to tell the golem story, if he wants.]

[cholesterol]

He, Aaron was full-on coming onto me, we were FBI on this college campus and he threw himself at me. ( This happened! Maybe it was a source of pride at one time, it even flustered him. But Aaron dropped the whole gay act once he realized Sam and Dean were the good guys. ) Turns out, he was working for the Jewish mafia, he had a golem. There were Nazi necromancers. Were your witches Aryan dead-lovers?

[vampireboulevard]

[She makes a face because really, can't Nazis just go away already.]

The last resurfaced Nazis I heard about were a bunch of vampires who all got dead because they tried to bind the abilities of Klaus Mikaelson's daughter.

[These witches didn't have the same vibe.]

I mean, I'm not saying there likely isn't some casual eighties racism involved, but I don't think they were the Mein Kampf types.

[cholesterol]

Just humans who sold their souls and offed a bunch of people for their own good.

( Somehow just as bad. (Not Holocaust bad, mind you.) But, mindless, selfish killing? Still bad. )

On a scale of trying to resurrect Hitler, how bad is this Gauntlet?

( Did he say he killed Hitler? )

[notjustamom]

[Mary shrugs.]

Two-hundred people were involved in the North American witch trials. Not all of them were executed for witch craft but they all died one way or another. And that was just in North America. In Europe it was an even bigger hysteria - those trials maxed out at around fifty-thousand executed.

[So yeah. This could be a real big problem.]

[cholesterol]

I thought the Gauntlet is internal. Who's who of -- who. So, anyone can usurp.

( He just needs to get it straight. )

[notjustamom]

That, I don't know. Might be a good question for your witch friend when she gets here.

[All she knows is what the journals have told her, and they're all from a hunter perspective.]

[shreds]

Where do hunters fit into all of this?

( And how does Mary Winchester know about witch business? )

[notjustamom]

Put out the fires wherever they happen to pop up?

[That's really the only choice they have. They're the clean up crew, not the front line fighters.]

I think that unless we know more, it's the only thing we can do.

[shreds]

Oh how I love to be behind the 8-ball.

( She does take after other hunters. Her vernacular has definitely grown. But, she doesn't like the sound of this. )

Say this includes every witch. Where does Bonnie fall? Could she take up the mantle of witchy badass head of this or that coven?

[notjustamom]

Sure. If she wants to kill all her competition.

[Caroline's eyes widen. "So this really is the witch Hunger Games?"]

Not sure I get that reference, but if that's a big battle royale where only one person walks out alive then yes.

[shreds]

( "Literally Battle Royale," Ryan says, remembering the movie Seth forced him to sit through. And yes, Hunger Games. )

If it's kill or be killed...

( "Only if she takes up the cause. She doesn't, Bonnie's safe?" Dean asks, pointing. )

[notjustamom]

[She nods, because at least those were the rules as she understood them.]

Not saying that she couldn't be mistaken for being involved if she's in the wrong place at the wrong time, but in theory, the only people in danger of being dead are the ones vying for the throne.

[widenecked]

What happens to the victor?

( He's guessing they become all-powerful, something they probably want to prevent. Unless the coven's business is not... their business. )

[notjustamom]

[She shakes her head.]

Don't know. The journals ever said. I don't think the people writing them ever met the victor.

[cholesterol]

Maybe the people writing them were found.

( He doesn't like any of it. )

[notjustamom]

[Neither does she. She tips her head back towards the library.]

Maybe the Men of Letters know more than we did. Since we're all hanging out down here - plenty of research hands to go around.