When we last left our team, things weren't looking so good. Most of the team was missing, unreachable or dead.
Before we talk about the adventure of tonight, here's an update on who we know is alive and kicking.
Mace Hunter & MikeSmith - sitting on the curb watching Headquarters burn
Dr Carter Byers - at home, having just been fired from the hospital
Nick Darter, Rossini - captured, sitting on a second floor cell of a disused oil derrick just off the coast.
Desdemona - also captured, also in the cell with Nick and Rossini, but also about halfway into the transformation to take her from mortal spy to immortal bloodsucker.
So that's where things stand. We begin Season 2: Tinker Tailor Vampire Die in the cell with Nick and Rossini.....
As always GM comments are in double parentheses and mechanics are in braces.
Nick didn't have much on him, but there was always the stake. [1 point Preparedness spend]. And sitting there in the cell, watching his would be executioner hunger and prepare to reach such an animalistic point that she'd
likely fly across the room faster than he could blink and tear out his throat, he remembered a conversation he had with Mace.
"Always keep a stake."
"In what?"
"No. I mean keep one close. It will mean the difference between life and death."
And that stake he kept in a dive knife sheath against his left calf, under a sock.
It was that stake, he knew, he'd have to drive into Desdemona's heart to keep her from killing him or Rossini.
Or both.
(([Staking a vampire won't kill them, it simply paralyzes them. Beheading, dissection or exposure to other material will destroy them. Staking a vampire is like pressing Pause. Removing the stake at any time depresses Pause.]))
Rossini held her down. It wasn't hard, she was in and out of consciousness at this point, so it was more a matter of just keeping away from her mouth. And Nick drove the stake into her. She squealed, a sick orgasmic sound he didn't want to have echoing in the cold room for very long. She twitched and sputtered, locking her face into a rictus somewhere between pleasure and terror. But she held, frozen, muscles tense, the buds of fangs just starting to break through the gumline.
(([Killing a teammate cost them each HALF their Stability]))
But it wasn't enough to leave her staked. If they slept, a guard, anyone could easily come in, remove the stake and they'd be toast. So, with a nod, they knew what had to be done.
There was a plate of food the guards had brought Nick earlier. He didn't eat it, but he kept the plate. He shattered it against the wall and gave Rossini a crescent sliver.
"You can't be serious." said the lunatic.
Nick sighed. "Either cut her or cut your wrists. Your choice. But I know what I'm doing."
Were this an op, they'd call Carter and have him talk them through dissection. Or they'd ship the body off to whatever lab he sequestered and leave him to his power tools and splatter shield and apron. But it was just them, and all they had was a broken plate for a knife.
The blood didn't splatter. Rossini thought it would, but the stake must have paused everything, so instead it was like cutting through flesh-with-a-gelatin-core. Messy. Smelly. Unbelievably intimate.
Desdemona died, though Rossini and Nick agreed that she likely died the moment she was infected, and all they were doing now was disposing of another fanged corpse. Part of Rossini, part not claimed by insanity, faux
insanity or some other part of his hardened criminal mind, wasn't sure if she died from the stake or when he took her head off. He hoped she didn't feel or remember it. He didn't want to think about it.
In a crude game of basketball, they lobbed the parts out the window, just in time for sunrise. They heard a few chunks catch fire like old logs in winter fireplaces as they tumbled out to the ocean. They wept as the sun rose.
MEANWHILE ((this is where we took a break and ate food))....
Mace and MikeSmith picked themselves up off the curb before the fire trucks arrived. Mace boosted a car [1 point Filch spend] and the two of them drove as far as they could on whatever gas was in the tank. Turns out, counting
the cash MikeSmith had in his pocket, they got all the way out of the state. They reached a small town in Vermont and found a truck stop.
Step one would be to contact the agents. At least that's what Tradecraft said. But Mace counted on the fact that everything he was doing was monitored, so it was time to cheat the system.
When your enemies know all your moves, the only smart thing to do is do everything they don't think you capable of.
So, from the counter of a greasy truck stop, Mace Hunter and MikeSmith launched a new operation - Operation Cuckoo.
Cuckoo would turn them from agents to criminals, from prey to predators and from food to hunters.
Mace gave the order to Mike to get them a new vehicle, by any means necessary. Mike "found" a set of truck keys in a guy's pocket when he went to the bathroom [1 point Filch spend]. They didn't even pay the tab on three cups of coffee and a piece of apple pie.
Via CB Mace left a message for Carter's ex-wife, who was a radio enthusiast and would get Carter a message without raising too many eyebrows. He told her to get Carter to Burlington Vermont, a place Mace chose because he once drove through there and hated it.
MikeSmith knew a church that would grant them a little leeway and asylum there. [3 point Network spend]. It wasn't much, but it had beds, showers and supplies. They were able to get cleaned up and even changed into new clothes before Carter arrived.
But Carter didn't come empty-handed. Although he had been fired from the Hospital on charges that he was smuggling drugs to local kids, he was able to walk out with boxes full of material from his desk. Boxes that security guards didn't really look too closely at. A trio of handguns, some flares, some silver ingots and a whole gallon of holy water all made Operation Cuckoo a little more comfortable.
They armed themselves, and honestly, didn't know what to do. They'd need money. They'd need resources. Mace's notebook laid out some possible targets - a church in Mexico, a shipping company in Seattle and this Adoption
agency all looked like good started points. Carter checked them out on the laptop and they started planning. [a 2 point Research spend] A route existed, and they could, if they planned to hit the Adoption Agency in California, could drive right down the coast and take them all out.
That's when the beeping started. Carter had GPS trackers running constantly on Agents, he used them to give data to Mace or Nick, whoever was running the Op. Each agent's tracker was pretty high-end, and Desdemona's flickered
on for just a second. The trackers run off body heat and pulse, but are built to give one last great burst of info when they go offline. And hers just went offline.
They'd need a boat.
Carter and MikeSmith became Tom Jacques and Jerry Cousteau, [2 point Cover and Disguise spends] two fisherman looking for the next big catch. Mace became Stephen Strange their navigator.
((Mace has ZERO navigation or piloting ability, so of course, he's going to set the course and steer it))
They left Vermont just after midnight and found a small Connecticut town with a boat for sale. Well, it wasn't so much for sale as it was poorly secured. [1 point Filch spend, 1 point Traffic Analysis spend, 1 point Preparedness spend]
And with the last of their cash they picked up two shotguns, sandwiches, a case of beer and a bottle of rum - all the things a good pirate needs. ((Arr.))
Carter's computer logged Desdemona's GPS tracker to an oil rig off the coast of NJ.
((Yeah I made it up, deal with it))
They stowed the boat and boarded the rig without so much as an "Avast" or "Ahoy there". The sun was rising at this point.
RE-MEANWHILE...
Nick and Rossini were frantically trying to wash the blood off their hands when they heard the engines of a boat approaching. Rossini was even certain he heard the racking of a shotgun. It was either a rescue or a death squad, and either way, they were ready to die.
RE-RE-MEANWHILE...one guard, half-asleep, staggered on deck to see what the ruckus was. Mace, without thinking, shot him. Yeah, Operation Cuckoo was now serious.
Shooting one guard invariably brings more. So MikeSmith put down another two while Carter got off the boat and began looking for a map or a sign [1 point Traffic Analysis spend, just to make sure]
Carter figured they'd keep prisoners in one of the storage rooms near the sickbay [1 point Human Terrain spend], so the team headed that way. All the while making pirate jokes.
They found Nick and Rossini. And MikeSmith took the door off its hinges.
It was good to see Nick again, thought Mace, but there was little time for reunion or satisfaction. The plan was
now to escape. Rossini explained to Carter all about the torture, and Mace explained to Nick what happened at home. No one talked about Desdemona.
Then genius fell on MikeSmith. Surrounded by sea water, baked in sunlight, what this party needed was fire. It wasn't hard to re-route the kitchen gas lines through the fire sprinklers [Mechanics 2 point spend, Explosive Devices 1 point spend] and fill the whole rig with a going away present.
The team boarded the boat and Mace let Nick fire the flare into the window of the cell that kept him.
The explosion and shockwave rocked the boat, and even as they sped off into the now noon-day sunny waters, they could see the flames and smoke as a sad tombstone for their fallen teammate.
Operation Cuckoo has the following team members:
Mace Hunter
Nick Darter
Rossini
Dr Carter Byers
MikeSmith
They also have nothing to lose.