We Need to Talk About Cody is the fourth episode of season 7, The Unsleeping City: Chapter II.
Recap[]
Last we left them off, the champions of the Unsleeping City, heroes of New York had just fought a haunted Halloween subway car, filled to the brim with monsters, made from a horrifying intermingling of an otherworldly substance known as antipopuli which is basically antimatter, but made of the norms and customs of a given place, mixed with this strange ebbing of raw Umbral Arcana. This intermingling of sort of pure dream substance, being extruded out into the waking world, took over this subway car and our heroes found themselves foisted not into Nod, but into this bubble of dreaming that was physically present in the waking world. Fought their way out of the subway car, past various Halloween monsters that had taken over people breaching subway etiquette in very egregious ways, zapped some vampires, admonished a werewolf to sit down and calm down. We fought Frankenstein's monster on the roof of a 90 mile per hour express train and due to some careful reading of the city's safety ordinances, shut the train down and stopped the passengers and got them off safely. Again, civic safety coming to save the day from the forces of nightmare and the dreaming. With a carefully hasted Dalmatian, some wicked spell casting and turning of the undead and our dear friend, Cody, aging 20 years, that is now a 47 year old man. Our heroes saved Halloween in New York as the costumed passengers left.
Synopsis[]
Immediately after the battle in the subways, The Dream Team begins in a secret chamber in St Owen’s Hospital as they tend to their injuries. As they rest, Kingston restores Cody back to his correct age. The group begins to consider investigating the threat among them. Ricky calls Esther to come to the hospital. Sofia tells Pete about deep dreaming. Pete realizes that he can’t recall some of the final memories of past Vox Phantasmi like he normally can, but he does realize that some of the previous Vox Phantasmi have tried to go beyond Nod, the Sixth Borough, and go deeper into dreams. He recalls two of these previous Vox Phantasmi as Hans Fischer, a German mercenary from the colonial era and Josefina Gatsby, a wealthy heiress from 1920s New York. Pete and Sofia both begin telling the other members of the group everything they know.
Esther Sinclair enters with Ana and Amelia Ortiz, the granddaughters of Alejandro. Esther examines Iga’s box and explains that the box is heavily warded, but allows Ana and Amelia to look. Bazathrax offers the help of other demons to Cody, who relays that to the group. The group have a small meeting without Cody and decide that Pete must keep an eye on him.
Esther explains that she cannot identify the box without a powerful identify spell due to the wards on the box. The group agrees to try to visit Lowell to get him to use his abilities to identify the box. Kingston reaches out, but Lowell is unavailable for the next few days.
Knowing that they must wait for Lowell, the group begins to consider their next move. They bring up the idea of entering into the pocket dimension inside the box. Iga expands the box in size, revealing that it has changed once more to add on Pete and Kingston. Cody mentions that they should check out the mall to identify the source of Bazathrax. Ricky once more questions Cody’s commitment to the group, but decides that he’s probably harmless.
Iga brings Ana, Amelia, Sofia, Ricky, and Cody inside the box. As they enter, they see a magnificent castle buried deep inside of the woods. Ana and Amelia immediately split off to investigate. As the party enters the castle, Iga tells Sofia that Anastasia is not her real name. Ricky connects with Cody over swords. Iga confides in Sofia her frustrations with her pocket dimension and the world itself changing over a lovely cup of tea.
Back in the hospital room, Esther asks questions to the Vox’s of New York City. Kingston realizes the dangers of Antipopuli on himself as the Vox Populi, and that heavy doses of Antipopuli are only meant to exist in Nod. Pete tells the group that it seems like the Antipopuli are being pushed out of Nod by the raw Umbral Arcana. The three of them begin to decide whether they should go to Nod, the Monastery of the Midnight Sun, or the Gramercy Occult Society.
Back in the box, Ricky uses his Divine Sense ability on the mist, and sees Esther’s silhouette. Bazathrax tells Cody that he’s notified other devils of their problems. Ana and Amelia return and tell Iga that they’ve detected the Umbral Arcana in the box. Iga gives Cody a sword from her collection that used to belong to a German peasant. The six in the box leave the chest.
Ana and Amelia regroup with Esther, but the consensus seems to be that nobody really knows much until Lowell can identify it. This not knowing frustrates Esther, who gives Cody and Iga a cold attitude.
Over the next couple of weeks, much investigation occurs. Sofia goes back to the monastery to see golden nunchucks and a note from Dale. The note says that he wants her to be able to live and not think about him in heaven so much and that she should meet him at the cemetery. When she arrives at the cemetery, he is crying. She tells him that she wants him to be able to enjoy heaven. She asks him if she’s able to find magic to bring him back, if it would be okay. He tells her that it would be okay, but he doesn’t want her to hope too hard for it and go crazy. Sofia then goes to the Monastery of the Midnight Sun where she meets Jackson’s predecessor, former First Fist Tony Simos. Tony explains to her that he’s coming from the Monastery of the Iron Heart. Their numbers had dwindled to about a dozen when they got attacked by shadows, destroying the monastery. Sofia tells him that he’s welcome to stay with the Order of the Midnight Sun. Sofia asks Nadia if it would be okay for her to continue exploring deep dreams with the rest of the Dream Team, and she agrees. Sofia begins a friendship with Tony.
At the same time, Iga takes an inventory of the castle inside of her box. After she talks to her daughter about ingratiating her into the unsleeping city, it goes poorly, and when Iga enters the box some books of an old childhood fairy tale in the box seem to be missing. She calls Kingston to rush along the appointment with Lowell.
Ricky spends much of this downtime being a mentor to Cody, who is trying to find out the source of the book that brought Bazathrax into the waking world and the renegade demons that are on their way.
Kingston spends his downtime looking at real-estate development in his neighborhood area. In a meeting with a realtor, He discovers that people are buying property in the neighborhood, but not moving in, so that they can sell them for a profit. He angrily leaves. As he moves throughout the neighborhood, he is crushed to realize exactly how empty it is.
Pete chooses to spend his downtime getting acquainted with his new life. He goes to an NA meeting, and his battle with his sobriety seems to be going well.
Sofia spends a bit more time doing research with Esther. She also meets a new apprentice of Gramercy Occult Society: Joe “JJ” Jacobs. He explains to her that they’ve done a lot of research into physics surrounding time, and that he’s discovered a particle of time in New York City.
Bazathrax admits to Cody that he made a mistake and a powerful devil is on their way to New York. Back at Gramercy, the city’s defense alarms go off. Ricky and Cody look out the window and see the Jersey Devil and their posse entering the city in the dead of night.
Locations[]
- Lisowski Chest
- St. Owen's Hospital (New York)
- Monastery of the Midnight Sun
- New York Public Library - Gramercy Occult Society
- Greenwood Cemetery
Characters[]
The Dream Team[]
- Kingston Brown
- Pete Conlan
- Sofia Lee
- Ricky Matsui
- Iga Lisowski
- Cody Walsh
- Rowan Berry (mentioned)
- Kugrash (†) (mentioned)
New[]
Returning[]
- Esther Sinclair
- Ana and Amelia Ortiz
- Josefina Gatsby (†)
- Lowell Masters
- Dale Lee (†)
- Jessica Lisowski
- Dr. Lugash Primjitzski
- Bazathrax
- Misiek
Mentioned[]
- Subway Monsters
- Emiko Matsui
- Lowell Masters
- The Great Dragon of Bleecker Street (†)
- Orlando and Rovias
- Em
- Willy
- Nod
- Alejandro Ortiz (†)
- Marie Bicicleta
- Anthony Bicicleta
- Jackson Wei
Trivia[]
- The title of this episode mirrors episode 7 of the first season of The Unsleeping City, We Need to Talk About Pete.