Session 42
This session was an extra-long ten hour Saturday game to celebrate my forthcoming nuptials (next Saturday) in a uber-geeky version of a stag do. (Which also meant that the wives, girlfriends and partners of my players would allow them to play for that long, and on a Saturday too. Funny how that works, isn't it?)
I had been timing our sessions very carefully in the run-up to this 'stag session' to ensure that the RHC HQ encounter fell on this game, figuring it would be great to blast through it in one go, rather than split it over multiple three-hour sessions midweek.
But things never go according to plan do they? So despite skipping the Seal of Mavisha we were still in Ber, and needed to get the players back to Flint, run the audit encounter with Saxby, carry out some investigations and play through the Gala of the Ancients first.
I was also very concerned to make it appear that the Gala of the Ancients was the final fight. To that end, I souped it up, 'accidentally' referred to it as the last encounter, and made sure that the players felt that it was their actions which had helped Xambria take control of her body.
(Knowing the RHC HQ fights would be even more deadly once the players had blown their dailies, I made some changes there too, more of which later.)
Anyway, here's how things went:
Session 42
- The unit hadn't a moment to mourn Rumdoom's passing: the dwarf had bought them time, and they dared not squander it.
- Leaving the marines to hold Il Dracon de Mer they hitched a lift on The Impossible to Seobriga, where they arranged teleportation to Flint, paid for by salvage on Il Dracon.
- Back in Flint, a message from Stover Delft took them straight to the Museum where Hans Weber was preparing for the opening night of the Gala of the Ancients.
- Weber showed them a scribbled letter from Xambria, written in a rare lucid moment, claiming to be possessed by some thoughtform entity - a Gidim named Sijhen that had escpaed from the Ziggurat of Apet. She also claimed that Sijhen wanted to steal the golden Artifects of the Ancients the unit had recovered from Kaja Stewart (and which were now held under high security in Central Flint, only to be displayed on the opening night of the Gala). The note also mentioned a conspiracy called the Obscurati which the Gidim was very interested in.
- Weber asked the unit to provide security at the Gala.
- Delft then ordered the unit to a meeting with an impatient Lady Margaret Saxby, who had already sent a small contingent of officers to ensure their prompt arrival.
- An imperious Saxby took the unit through the audit conducted by Viscount Price-Hill, starting with their various misdemeanours, highlighting their association with criminal elements. She confiscated the jade idol from Leon (but made no mention of the messenger wind).
- When Lord Viscount Nigel Price-Hill arrived he was altogether more positive, commended the unit in large part and looked forward to their next meeting at the Peace Conference next spring.
- Price-Hill singled out Leon and took him aside to question him about rumours that he was linked to the Vekeshi Mystics. Leon managed to convince him that this was a cover story to bring the unit closer to Gale.
- Rumdoom's funeral ceremony switched venue at the last minute when Khaled Valchek learned that the unit had held the jade idol all along. At the ceremony the unit learned about the hit on Lorcan Kell that had been arranged for the same night as the Gala opening. Associates of the Family and Black Star Mining had collaborated to draw Kell out of hiding.
- Uru also overheard Khoomrung talking sadly about Rumdoom, and how he had never known what really happened to his sweetheart Moraga. While Rumdoom was away at war, Valchek had made his move, for he had always coveted the fair dwarf maiden. When Rumdoom returned, and she chose him over Valchek, Valchek became enraged. He invited Moraga to his home and forced himself upon her. Moraga feared what would happen if she told Rumdoom, and over the next few months, her spirit broken, she pined away and died. Rumdoom had never known the truth of why she sickened so, and always believed that the child she carried when she died was his...
- Reports of more strange murders - victims of some brain-eating serial killer (...) - began to filter into the headquarters. Investigating, the unit followed multiple planar trails, all fo which headed for the Stanfield Canal. They spent many days following these trails, and also stumbled upon a warehouse (rented by Caius Bergeron some weeks ago) where several guards had been murdered and the contents of a crate had been stolen. Convinced this was the apet seal, the unit concentrated their efforts on the river trail until, the day before the Gala, they came upon a barge piloted by a red-haired woman. They stormed aboard, only to find a middle-aged seamstress who had plied the canal these past five years. Hidden aboard her vessel was an amber jar of ichor collecetd from the thoughtform creatures, deliberately placed as a decoy.
- Thwarted, they turned their attention to the Gala, training the museum staff to herd the crowds to safety if Xambria showed up. (Many of their other suggestions were turned down by Weber and Delft.)
- On the night, they saw several faces they knew in the crowd: Geoff Masarde, designer of the Coaltongue, attended in the company of Nathn Jierre, while Prof. Lynn Kindleton was also there with Doctor Wolfgang von Recklinghausen, who enqured after Leon's arm. Rock Rackus was there too, in the company of local school children, having set up a new foundation, inspired by the teachings of the Grumbler (which he had been reading having encountered Krauss). He was very enthusiastic to see the unit, but kept swearing loudly in front of the kids.
- Xambria/Sijhen duly attacked after about an hour - crashing in through the skylight on a silk rope. She made a short speech, and then a beeline for the artifacts. Thoughform creatures - worm maws and impanters - followed in her wake.
- It was obvious that Xambria's words and actions were now entirely those of the entity possessing her. Malthusius, having already formed a strong bond with the young academic, used personal details he had learned during their conversations on the deck of the Impossible to reach Xambria's submerged consciousness.
- Aided by Rock Rackus, the rest of the unit set about defending the bystanders. Herding them outside turned out to be a bad idea as there were more implanters in the grounds.
- A crazed waiter dropped his tray of canapes and with a cry of 'For the Old Stag and the Fey' plunged a dagger into Rackus' flank. Rackus gave a groan and pistol-whipped the youth, whereupon the AG of Flint cried out in dismay and stepped forward to defend his errant son. The youth - one Tyler Starke - had to be restrained by museum guards, all the while casting curses and imprecations at both Rackus and Leon (whose 'failure to act' he was seeking to make up for). Leon was concerned that reports of this might reach Viscount Price-Hill...
- All of a sudden, Xambria was able to take control of herself. Aided by Malthusius, she submitted herself for arrest, and in fact turned her own mind against the thoughtforms.
- Leaving junior officers to restore order and aid the injured, the unit spirited Xambria directly to the anti-magic cells of RHC HQ.
- There Xambrias was able to tell the unit a great deal about Sijhen's desires and goals including the disturbing fact that Lady Saxby herself was somehow connected to Macbannin and now held something that the Gidim desperately needed in order to peform a ritual that would allow it to return home and perhaps return with an invasion force as it had first intended thousands of years ago..
- It was at that moment that Xambria realised that what Sijhen wanted was right here in RHC HQ. It had intended to be captured and the whole assault on the Gala was nothing but a ruse. No sooner had she revealed this than waves of Apet energy from some underground source flooded the headquarters. Time stopped and movement stopped and reality became transparent. The stunned unit could only watch in horror as Sijhen regained control of Xambria and caused her to clamber upwards out of her cell, making directly for the upper floors and the office of Lady Saxby.
- At the same time they saw a squad of black-clad murderers clambering in through an iron ring on the opposite side of the prison, and a multitude of thoughform creatures flying into the building through the walls.
- As they regained control of themselves, reality began to pulse from solid normality to translucent and back again. The raced upwards, as they saw 'Xambria' confront Saxby and force her to open a safe beneath her desk.
- On the way they dealt with crawling spikers and coloured orbs, before running into an Obscurati Kill Squad, formed in part by minions of their newest ally Lorcan Kell. (How they had come to be here, and gain access to the prison remained something of a mystery, but no doubt went some way to explain how the Obscurati were able to silence Kaja Stewart.)
- The Kill Squad were dealt with, at some cost to the unit, and they made it to the second floor, rescuing Stover Delft from a Worm Maw.
- Meanwhile, Xambria/Sijhen had what it wanted and turned invisible, but the unit headed for Saxby anyway, taking out more thoughtforms as they went.
- Delft's presence rallied the RHC staffers on the lower floors and they began a fightback against the alien invaders.
- Saxby had gathered the new Macbannin unit to her: Carlao, Serena and Dima. She had clearly filled their heads with lies, as Serena attacked Uru the moment he turned the corner. They ended up in a pitched battle with their boss and their colleagues. Saxby was a dangerous foe - her high office granting her the power of Risur itself.
- As the unit dropped Carlao and Serena, Saxby fled. Korrigan was able to convince Dima to give them the benefit of the doubt, and help them bring Saxby down.
- The sight of seven of his trusted officers in hot pursuit of Lady Saxby convinced Delft to join in and he prevented her from fleeing with a well-aimed pistol shot. Thanks to that, the unit were able to catch up with her, and a battle of attrition began in the rain-soaked gardens of the headquarters.
- The unit were keen to bring down Saxby alive, but a deadly shot from Uru caught her in the throat and she was killed instantly.
- While the rest of the thoughtforms were mopped up by Delft and the junior officers, the unit pinpointed the source of the Apet energy: a half-built subrail tunnel some fifty feet beneath the HQ.
- Unable to tackle Sijhen in their current state, they took a badly needed rest.
And so Sijhen at the Threshold awaits to be played out next session.
We houseruled a long time ago that even if players are trying to bring suspects in alive, if they score a critical on the blow that takes the enemy over 0hp, or deal enough damage to take them to bloodied in that final blow, then they would be accidentally killed. Funnily enough it happens with amusing regularity, and always at a suitably dramatic moment. Here, it happened in the attempt to stop Saxby from fleeing, although good old Malthusius was able to save the day with his spirit medium power.
This RHC HQ encounter (or should I say encounters) was fantastic. The players were totally blindsided when Sijhen sprang his trap, but were even more blown away by the highly original and cinematic nature of the encounter design.
The only major changes I made to the encounter was hand-waving the thoughform sections once Delft was rescued. Before that the players had already fought through implanters, eyes of madness and a worm maw, so further run-ins were unnecessary (and made up for the souped up Gala of the Ancients).
For anyone who was interested, I simply gave Xambria her full alotment of HP before 'fighting back', and added a second worm maw (which really scared the players - they refer to those things as a 'tooth anus' and don't like the idea of being 'shat out' by them...)
We've already run the final encounter as I write this and it was suitably melodramatic, as you will see from my next report.