High Fantasy - Route 66 [update 12-16]
Acquana
First Post
*gasp!* The DM speaks!
Hi everyone. I'm JL Jones. For your pleasure I have decided to actually try my hand at this story hour thing and write up the games I've been running for nearly three years now!
I'm going to continue where RangerWickett left off, and hopefully I'll find a schedule that suits me. Click on links for images drawn by the Route 66 players I now have in a special gallery. ^_^
Hi everyone. I'm JL Jones. For your pleasure I have decided to actually try my hand at this story hour thing and write up the games I've been running for nearly three years now!
I'm going to continue where RangerWickett left off, and hopefully I'll find a schedule that suits me. Click on links for images drawn by the Route 66 players I now have in a special gallery. ^_^
Last edited:
Acquana
First Post
Independence Day, Part II
And so a brawl begins in the middle of a movie theater. Most of the other movie-goers close to Jared panic at the sight of the horrific, decaying woman. In the midst of people running everywhere, no one notices how . . . collected Jared Belmont is. He’s highly unnerved, but not incapable of defending himself. As the zombie attempts to lunge for him, a silvery second shadow appears beside Jared. Tall, muscled, and stoic, this second image raises a fist, and follows Jared’s mental command. Jared’s psychic manifestation strikes the zombie, throwing her off her feet onto the cold floor.
“No! Sandra, you’re fine! No one is going to take you away from me!” The wizard lifts a hand, and as it glows Jared tries to explain he was only defending himself.
Delria finally makes it close enough to the wizard to grab a discarded soda and chuck it at him. His lightning bolt spell is thrown completely off and it arcs straight over the aisles and into the back exit.
Watanabe ducks as rubble from the ceiling collapses directly in the path of the door. She grits her teeth angrily, glaring past the screaming crowds around her at the fight in the middle of the room.
Twilight, among those trying to get out through the entrance back into the lobby, has now been blocked. For a moment she is about to follow the crowds as they change direction for the emergency exit, until she again hears a small voice. No, she doesn’t actually hear it . . . she is simply “aware” that a male, distinctly Russian voice is speaking to her. She opens her purse and cries out in shock as she looks down a fruit bat. How she knows this is what was speaking her she doesn’t know. Her first, instinctive reaction is the fling the purse as far away from herself as possible, which she does.
Meanwhile others are reacting to the lightning bolt. Jared is nearly thrown off his feet in surprise, and quickly pulls out a concealed handgun. “I know you’re not a psion, so I don’t know how you just did that! Just don’t do it again!”
A resounding cry of “He’s got a gun!” sweep through the panicking crowds running by Jared.
“We were just going to a movie!” the man snaps as the zombie very slowly pulls herself back to her feet.
Delria tries her best to calm the necromancer and the young mundane with a gun. She tries to explain to the magic-user that her presence there was purely coincidental. However, before she gets much farther Delria ducks a purse that has flown from nowhere and lands nearby her.
Trudi has noticed all the commotion by now and angrily storms up to the fight, leaving a trail of popcorn that flutters from the hefty bucket still in her arms. “Hey! I was trying to watch the movie too! Now the back of the theater is messed up and there’s people screaming and stuff!”
Jared tries to stop Trudi from getting any closer, but it’s too late. The zombie pushes past her husband and swings at the young woman. Trudi manages to avoid her, but the zombie knocks the popcorn bucket out of Trudi’s arms. Trudi stares at the popcorn now her feet with the look of a hurt child.
“You . . . YOU SPILLED MY POPCORN!”
With that Trudi takes a massive swing and punches the shambling woman directly in the face. The zombie falls into the mage, who had been shooting spells at Delria. Trudi then pulls out a set of nunchucks she rarely leaves the dorm without, and frowns hard at the two.
Jared is left speechless, but decides to take this opportunity to leap over the seats and get around to the mage’s other side. At the same time Delria has been having to avoid spells from the mage and is currently kneeling behind the seats. She takes a moment to see what is struggling in the purse that is near her. Inside a small fox-faced bat looks up at her. She lowers an eyebrow, unsure of why it’s there, but simply shrugs and gives it a gentle lift to give it an easier time of taking off.
The bat flies straight for Twilight, still trapped in crowds. She hears the voice again and looks up at the bat. A moment passes as the two of them stare eye to eye, and she suddenly realizes that she had nothing to fear from this creature. She realizes more and more the longer she stares at the bat. Twilight readjusts the strap to her camera, and thinks of her older sister.
Jared has moved to the other side of the mage, and diverts the attention of the mage away from the very short woman a row away. He warns the man to stay still or he’ll shoot, the man responds by grabbing Jared’s wrist. A horrible, searing cold whips through Jared’s arm and as he flinches the gun goes off. The mage cries out and grabs his wounded shoulder. Then Jared strikes the man with the butt of the pistol. He didn’t realize quite how hard he’d done it. The man is thrown to the floor, bleeding heavily from the top of his head. Jared pales in horror at what he’s just done.
Trudi is having a hard time with the zombie, not understanding how someone who looks so sick is so strong. The smell of blood makes the zombie turn and face Jared. Jared looks dumbfounded and tries to pull the body of the mage away from the growling corpse.
The zombie starts to lunge at the two, when a magic missile flies through the air and strikes the zombie. Jared, Delria, and Trudi turn to the woman with blonde hair standing nearby now. Twilight smiles and pulls out her camera.
“Okay, now beat it up! I wanna get this on film!” she calls as the bat on her shoulder seems to grin.
Watanabe has taken to the emergency exit and is trying to direct the waning crowds. She notices the large number of cars pulling up around the parking lot, but makes no more note of it than that.
Jared smiles to Twilight and once again his metallic shadow appears. As Trudi swings her nunchucks, Jared and his imprint both raise their hands; from the copy’s hand a psionic bullet drills into the zombie as it shudders from Trudi’s attacks.
Satisfied that the crowds are getting out safely, Watanabe faces the conflict again. Soon all of the PCs are trying to knock down the zombie, including a black dog that Twilight summoned. Jared finally gets the proper shot, which blows more than half of the corpse’s head off. As she zombie falls to its knees and then to the floor, Jared takes deep breaths and mourns the fact that all the zombie movies he’s seen didn’t show this sort of thing being nearly difficult enough.
The four mundanes stand in silence, all watching as Delria kneels beside the necromancer and heals his wounds. The mage groans, but doesn’t awaken. However he does begin muttering “Sandra . . . Sandra . . . Nothing will keep us apart . . .”
Delria shutters, Jared blanches again. Trudi looks down at Sandra’s body as though for the first time. “Woah! Is she okay?!”
Delria looks up at Trudi and sighs. “She’s been dead for weeks.” Delria is forced to explain that the man at her feet is a mage capable of reanimating the dead. As she speaks, Watanabe shakes her head.
“Look, I don’t believe a word of this. I’m going to make sure no one was buried under the rubble near the lobby.”
Twilight only smiles and focuses her still recording camera in on Delria’s face. “I believe you.”
“Hey, that thing you did!” Trudi says to Jared, “That was cool!”
“Uh . . . thanks. It sorta . . . runs in my family,” Jared replies sheepishly.
Delria follows Watanabe to the blocked exit. Watanabe begins sifting through it, trying to heave large chunks despite her size. She calls to anyone who might be there, telling them to remain calm. However as she tries to shove aside one bit that would have taken two men twice her size, the rubble begins to rumble. As though it has a mind of its own, the rubble moves aside. Watanabe sees no one trapped there, but instead is met with a warm smile.
A strange-looking man with olive skin stands at the now clear door to the lobby. Beside him are five men, holding their hands up in the same sort of gesture that the mage had been using. Jared’s jaw drops as he studies them. He knows enough about the paranormal to recognize a Man In Black when he sees one. He tries to turn and bolt out of the other door, now even more confused than before, but stops in mid-stride when he sees even more men in black suits entering from the other exit.
Delria lets out a sigh of relief. “What took you all so long?”
“If you’d actually made a call we would’ve known sooner,” the olive-skinned man replies. “Y’alright, Del?”
“Yeah.”
Jared steps back as a man in a suit with platinum blonde hair steps up to him. “Well then. You’re a psion, aren’t you?”
Jared can’t bring himself to do anything else but nod.
Distantly the man nods as well. “I’ll have to let J’qwuan know about this.”
The Bureau agent speaking to Delria allows his fellow clean-up crewmen to move past him. He holds out a bag. “Ya like Raisinettes?”
“Not really,” Delria shrugs.
“So hey everybody,” the man says, seeing the demanding look on their faces. “I’m Alex, and we’re gonna have to escort the lot of you outside. Kay?”
“Tell them everything then,” the blonde man beside Jared snaps.
“They already know, Terrence. By the way, I’d suggest you do your job before some other mundane kicks the living
out you.”
The agent named Terrence glares knives at Alex, then turns and stalks off. Some of the agents clearing rubble snicker at Alex’s comment. Alex shifts his weight and continues eating movie snacks.
A third agent steps up the PCs. “Delria, will you please help me escort the mundanes outside?”
“I wouldn’t call them mundanes,” Delria says with a smile to the group.
“Then that’ll make this even more interesting.”
And so a brawl begins in the middle of a movie theater. Most of the other movie-goers close to Jared panic at the sight of the horrific, decaying woman. In the midst of people running everywhere, no one notices how . . . collected Jared Belmont is. He’s highly unnerved, but not incapable of defending himself. As the zombie attempts to lunge for him, a silvery second shadow appears beside Jared. Tall, muscled, and stoic, this second image raises a fist, and follows Jared’s mental command. Jared’s psychic manifestation strikes the zombie, throwing her off her feet onto the cold floor.
“No! Sandra, you’re fine! No one is going to take you away from me!” The wizard lifts a hand, and as it glows Jared tries to explain he was only defending himself.
Delria finally makes it close enough to the wizard to grab a discarded soda and chuck it at him. His lightning bolt spell is thrown completely off and it arcs straight over the aisles and into the back exit.
Watanabe ducks as rubble from the ceiling collapses directly in the path of the door. She grits her teeth angrily, glaring past the screaming crowds around her at the fight in the middle of the room.
Twilight, among those trying to get out through the entrance back into the lobby, has now been blocked. For a moment she is about to follow the crowds as they change direction for the emergency exit, until she again hears a small voice. No, she doesn’t actually hear it . . . she is simply “aware” that a male, distinctly Russian voice is speaking to her. She opens her purse and cries out in shock as she looks down a fruit bat. How she knows this is what was speaking her she doesn’t know. Her first, instinctive reaction is the fling the purse as far away from herself as possible, which she does.
Meanwhile others are reacting to the lightning bolt. Jared is nearly thrown off his feet in surprise, and quickly pulls out a concealed handgun. “I know you’re not a psion, so I don’t know how you just did that! Just don’t do it again!”
A resounding cry of “He’s got a gun!” sweep through the panicking crowds running by Jared.
“We were just going to a movie!” the man snaps as the zombie very slowly pulls herself back to her feet.
Delria tries her best to calm the necromancer and the young mundane with a gun. She tries to explain to the magic-user that her presence there was purely coincidental. However, before she gets much farther Delria ducks a purse that has flown from nowhere and lands nearby her.
Trudi has noticed all the commotion by now and angrily storms up to the fight, leaving a trail of popcorn that flutters from the hefty bucket still in her arms. “Hey! I was trying to watch the movie too! Now the back of the theater is messed up and there’s people screaming and stuff!”
Jared tries to stop Trudi from getting any closer, but it’s too late. The zombie pushes past her husband and swings at the young woman. Trudi manages to avoid her, but the zombie knocks the popcorn bucket out of Trudi’s arms. Trudi stares at the popcorn now her feet with the look of a hurt child.
“You . . . YOU SPILLED MY POPCORN!”
With that Trudi takes a massive swing and punches the shambling woman directly in the face. The zombie falls into the mage, who had been shooting spells at Delria. Trudi then pulls out a set of nunchucks she rarely leaves the dorm without, and frowns hard at the two.
Jared is left speechless, but decides to take this opportunity to leap over the seats and get around to the mage’s other side. At the same time Delria has been having to avoid spells from the mage and is currently kneeling behind the seats. She takes a moment to see what is struggling in the purse that is near her. Inside a small fox-faced bat looks up at her. She lowers an eyebrow, unsure of why it’s there, but simply shrugs and gives it a gentle lift to give it an easier time of taking off.
The bat flies straight for Twilight, still trapped in crowds. She hears the voice again and looks up at the bat. A moment passes as the two of them stare eye to eye, and she suddenly realizes that she had nothing to fear from this creature. She realizes more and more the longer she stares at the bat. Twilight readjusts the strap to her camera, and thinks of her older sister.
Jared has moved to the other side of the mage, and diverts the attention of the mage away from the very short woman a row away. He warns the man to stay still or he’ll shoot, the man responds by grabbing Jared’s wrist. A horrible, searing cold whips through Jared’s arm and as he flinches the gun goes off. The mage cries out and grabs his wounded shoulder. Then Jared strikes the man with the butt of the pistol. He didn’t realize quite how hard he’d done it. The man is thrown to the floor, bleeding heavily from the top of his head. Jared pales in horror at what he’s just done.
Trudi is having a hard time with the zombie, not understanding how someone who looks so sick is so strong. The smell of blood makes the zombie turn and face Jared. Jared looks dumbfounded and tries to pull the body of the mage away from the growling corpse.
The zombie starts to lunge at the two, when a magic missile flies through the air and strikes the zombie. Jared, Delria, and Trudi turn to the woman with blonde hair standing nearby now. Twilight smiles and pulls out her camera.
“Okay, now beat it up! I wanna get this on film!” she calls as the bat on her shoulder seems to grin.
Watanabe has taken to the emergency exit and is trying to direct the waning crowds. She notices the large number of cars pulling up around the parking lot, but makes no more note of it than that.
Jared smiles to Twilight and once again his metallic shadow appears. As Trudi swings her nunchucks, Jared and his imprint both raise their hands; from the copy’s hand a psionic bullet drills into the zombie as it shudders from Trudi’s attacks.
Satisfied that the crowds are getting out safely, Watanabe faces the conflict again. Soon all of the PCs are trying to knock down the zombie, including a black dog that Twilight summoned. Jared finally gets the proper shot, which blows more than half of the corpse’s head off. As she zombie falls to its knees and then to the floor, Jared takes deep breaths and mourns the fact that all the zombie movies he’s seen didn’t show this sort of thing being nearly difficult enough.
The four mundanes stand in silence, all watching as Delria kneels beside the necromancer and heals his wounds. The mage groans, but doesn’t awaken. However he does begin muttering “Sandra . . . Sandra . . . Nothing will keep us apart . . .”
Delria shutters, Jared blanches again. Trudi looks down at Sandra’s body as though for the first time. “Woah! Is she okay?!”
Delria looks up at Trudi and sighs. “She’s been dead for weeks.” Delria is forced to explain that the man at her feet is a mage capable of reanimating the dead. As she speaks, Watanabe shakes her head.
“Look, I don’t believe a word of this. I’m going to make sure no one was buried under the rubble near the lobby.”
Twilight only smiles and focuses her still recording camera in on Delria’s face. “I believe you.”
“Hey, that thing you did!” Trudi says to Jared, “That was cool!”
“Uh . . . thanks. It sorta . . . runs in my family,” Jared replies sheepishly.
Delria follows Watanabe to the blocked exit. Watanabe begins sifting through it, trying to heave large chunks despite her size. She calls to anyone who might be there, telling them to remain calm. However as she tries to shove aside one bit that would have taken two men twice her size, the rubble begins to rumble. As though it has a mind of its own, the rubble moves aside. Watanabe sees no one trapped there, but instead is met with a warm smile.
A strange-looking man with olive skin stands at the now clear door to the lobby. Beside him are five men, holding their hands up in the same sort of gesture that the mage had been using. Jared’s jaw drops as he studies them. He knows enough about the paranormal to recognize a Man In Black when he sees one. He tries to turn and bolt out of the other door, now even more confused than before, but stops in mid-stride when he sees even more men in black suits entering from the other exit.
Delria lets out a sigh of relief. “What took you all so long?”
“If you’d actually made a call we would’ve known sooner,” the olive-skinned man replies. “Y’alright, Del?”
“Yeah.”
Jared steps back as a man in a suit with platinum blonde hair steps up to him. “Well then. You’re a psion, aren’t you?”
Jared can’t bring himself to do anything else but nod.
Distantly the man nods as well. “I’ll have to let J’qwuan know about this.”
The Bureau agent speaking to Delria allows his fellow clean-up crewmen to move past him. He holds out a bag. “Ya like Raisinettes?”
“Not really,” Delria shrugs.
“So hey everybody,” the man says, seeing the demanding look on their faces. “I’m Alex, and we’re gonna have to escort the lot of you outside. Kay?”
“Tell them everything then,” the blonde man beside Jared snaps.
“They already know, Terrence. By the way, I’d suggest you do your job before some other mundane kicks the living
out you.”The agent named Terrence glares knives at Alex, then turns and stalks off. Some of the agents clearing rubble snicker at Alex’s comment. Alex shifts his weight and continues eating movie snacks.
A third agent steps up the PCs. “Delria, will you please help me escort the mundanes outside?”
“I wouldn’t call them mundanes,” Delria says with a smile to the group.
“Then that’ll make this even more interesting.”
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Acquana
First Post
Before we move on . . .
Before I move on story-wise, I first want to thank everyone who’s read the thread thus far. Since there ain’t much, I’m shocked to see how many views we got. But anyway, thank you.
Also I’d like to provide a bit of metagame to help understand the folks playing, along with artwork of the characters, all by their actual players. Since we all go to art school, most of us draw in one form or another. Just keep in mind that most of these are like two or three years old now.
Jared Belmont-- Highly inspired by JoJo’s Bizarre Adventures, named after Simon Belmont of Castlevania. Jared’s a 26 year-old game designer who works at *ahem* Black Dog Publishing. He’s a psion who has a knack of running into fights head-on, and whose powers manifest as an extremely tall, mystical figure Jared calls “Platinum.” His family has had experience with psionics for three generations now, and Jared has grown up with a strong belief in the paranormal. Magic on the other hand, is completely new to him . . .
Jared’s player is Marlon. He’s a sequential art major much like me and several of the other players. Makes the most fantastic “Holy crap!” faces, and anime drawings of the characters. His art style has changed so much since then . . .
Trudi Schnieder-- Big, cute, and mad. Trudi is full of child-like innocence and undoubtedly has some form of learning disorder. However, she’s managed to make up for this in art school with her wild, sixties-inspired clothing designs. She loves to make costumes for everyone she grows close to and thinks of money as very little since her family has so much. She does however have a mean temper, but generally all of it is focused on anyone who’s mean to her friends, and hackers. Her account was hacked while she was in high school and she’s never gotten over it.
Trudi’s player is another comic artist named Sooz. Sooz loves playing Trudi, even though the poor dear was made for a more combat-oriented campaign than mine turned out to be. ^_^; She’s done costume designs for all the other PCs (as done by Trudi), and everyone loves her portrayal of Trudi.
Delria-- The oldest of the group. Del’s experience on normal Earth (known as Terra) is extremely limited. She matured while in a druid’s grove on Gaia (the fairy realm) and keeps much of her past a secret. Her half-Unseen heritage gains her more respect than the average brownie, and has helped out the PCs many times.
Del’s player is Wendy. Wendy is well-known as the foulest mouth in the group, and yet is the cutest player we’ve got. Her specialty is cartoon comics, and loves drawing animals--and the most horrific monsters. It’s amazing. She draws cute really well, and disturbing really well. It’s everything in-between that gives her trouble.
Twilight Lokya-- Twilight is best known for her camera. She’s never parted with her camcorder, and her habit of taping nearly every last thing the PCs do has given them a lot of help in their investigations. Quiet and calm, she only speaks when it’s really necessary, but when she does it’s usually a gem. She’s the group’s sorcerer, with a bat familiar.
Millicent is Twilight’s player, and is considered very much like her character. Her words are few, but is invaluable as a teammate. Her memory is sharp, and has provided a lush backstory for her character--most of it inspired by cartoons. She’s a video and film major with a love for monster movies and puppetry.
Watanabe-- Stoic many times, but not wholly unemotional. This half-Elven ranger’s real moral instinct lies in protecting animal life. Her opinions on morality are harsh and rigid. She believes that humans who do wrong deserve whatever they get since anything above animal intelligence can chose between right and wrong. Those who chose to do wrong suffer her wrath. She gains a love for shotguns later in the campaign. However, Watanabe isn’t unfeeling or in any way hateful. Once she loosens up she actually is rather perky and very devoted to those she loves.
Liz is just about as opinionated as Watanabe, but a million times cheerier. She’s full of laughter and loves eating. Which is amazing since she’s such a tiny little thing. Liz was a newbie roleplayer, but caught on quickly. During the first half of the campaign, however, she becomes well known for falling asleep during games. While she was a fashion major at first (she didn't draw that pic of Watanabe, I did), she’s left SCAD to be with her husband and hopes to return to school and instead major in sequential someday.
So with that brief overview, on we go . . .
Before I move on story-wise, I first want to thank everyone who’s read the thread thus far. Since there ain’t much, I’m shocked to see how many views we got. But anyway, thank you.
Also I’d like to provide a bit of metagame to help understand the folks playing, along with artwork of the characters, all by their actual players. Since we all go to art school, most of us draw in one form or another. Just keep in mind that most of these are like two or three years old now.
Jared Belmont-- Highly inspired by JoJo’s Bizarre Adventures, named after Simon Belmont of Castlevania. Jared’s a 26 year-old game designer who works at *ahem* Black Dog Publishing. He’s a psion who has a knack of running into fights head-on, and whose powers manifest as an extremely tall, mystical figure Jared calls “Platinum.” His family has had experience with psionics for three generations now, and Jared has grown up with a strong belief in the paranormal. Magic on the other hand, is completely new to him . . .
Jared’s player is Marlon. He’s a sequential art major much like me and several of the other players. Makes the most fantastic “Holy crap!” faces, and anime drawings of the characters. His art style has changed so much since then . . .
Trudi Schnieder-- Big, cute, and mad. Trudi is full of child-like innocence and undoubtedly has some form of learning disorder. However, she’s managed to make up for this in art school with her wild, sixties-inspired clothing designs. She loves to make costumes for everyone she grows close to and thinks of money as very little since her family has so much. She does however have a mean temper, but generally all of it is focused on anyone who’s mean to her friends, and hackers. Her account was hacked while she was in high school and she’s never gotten over it.
Trudi’s player is another comic artist named Sooz. Sooz loves playing Trudi, even though the poor dear was made for a more combat-oriented campaign than mine turned out to be. ^_^; She’s done costume designs for all the other PCs (as done by Trudi), and everyone loves her portrayal of Trudi.
Delria-- The oldest of the group. Del’s experience on normal Earth (known as Terra) is extremely limited. She matured while in a druid’s grove on Gaia (the fairy realm) and keeps much of her past a secret. Her half-Unseen heritage gains her more respect than the average brownie, and has helped out the PCs many times.
Del’s player is Wendy. Wendy is well-known as the foulest mouth in the group, and yet is the cutest player we’ve got. Her specialty is cartoon comics, and loves drawing animals--and the most horrific monsters. It’s amazing. She draws cute really well, and disturbing really well. It’s everything in-between that gives her trouble.
Twilight Lokya-- Twilight is best known for her camera. She’s never parted with her camcorder, and her habit of taping nearly every last thing the PCs do has given them a lot of help in their investigations. Quiet and calm, she only speaks when it’s really necessary, but when she does it’s usually a gem. She’s the group’s sorcerer, with a bat familiar.
Millicent is Twilight’s player, and is considered very much like her character. Her words are few, but is invaluable as a teammate. Her memory is sharp, and has provided a lush backstory for her character--most of it inspired by cartoons. She’s a video and film major with a love for monster movies and puppetry.
Watanabe-- Stoic many times, but not wholly unemotional. This half-Elven ranger’s real moral instinct lies in protecting animal life. Her opinions on morality are harsh and rigid. She believes that humans who do wrong deserve whatever they get since anything above animal intelligence can chose between right and wrong. Those who chose to do wrong suffer her wrath. She gains a love for shotguns later in the campaign. However, Watanabe isn’t unfeeling or in any way hateful. Once she loosens up she actually is rather perky and very devoted to those she loves.
Liz is just about as opinionated as Watanabe, but a million times cheerier. She’s full of laughter and loves eating. Which is amazing since she’s such a tiny little thing. Liz was a newbie roleplayer, but caught on quickly. During the first half of the campaign, however, she becomes well known for falling asleep during games. While she was a fashion major at first (she didn't draw that pic of Watanabe, I did), she’s left SCAD to be with her husband and hopes to return to school and instead major in sequential someday.
So with that brief overview, on we go . . .
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RangerWickett
Legend
*bump*
Knight Otu
First Post
*subscribe*
Acquana
First Post
Chapter 2: Japanese Cartoons are Weird, Man ...
A handful of agents and Delria lead Trudi Schneider, Jared Belmont, Twilight Lokya, and Watanabe out of the back exit of the movie theater. They are moved through the ordered chaos of the Bureau clean-up crew’s work. Trudi tries to wave to her friends among those being made to forget precisely what they saw that night.
One of the men in black with a small, metal-capped crystal in hand stops behind the agent’s black vans. “When you step through the door, hold your breath. It makes it easier.” With this cryptic statement, he places the crystal in mid-air, it sinks into what looks like an invisible lock. A short click follows and a door of light appears in front of the PCs. Delria is the first to step in, adding a reassuring look to the others before she does. One by one the PCs glance at each other, hold their breath, and step into the portal into a different world.
The PCs find themselves in what looks like an office building. Delria awaits them on the other side, and the agents follow behind them.
“Welcome to the Bureau for the Management of Magicks. Might as well get comfortable.” Delria smiles, and for the first time allows them to all see what she really looks like. She no longer looks like a young, human girl, but instead a three-foot tall woman with light blue hair. Specks of silver line the edges of her face, orange and black wings sprout from her back.
“WHOA! Cool!” Trudi shouts.
While Jared takes a short jump away from Delria in surprise, Watanabe’s eyes only grow slightly wider, and Twilight seems unsurprised. One of the agents asks for Twilight to turn off her camera at least until the PCs are escorted into an office room, and reluctantly she agrees.
Delria chats amiably with the PCs to calm them, especially Jared--who looks about ready to faint at any moment--as she and the agents escort through the main lobby of the office building. Jared knows enough about fantasy to recognize the inhuman looks of most of those they pass by as walk: orcs, Elves, things that look like Kender, even a dwarf; though most of the office people look like everyday joes at work.
Delria stops short in her casual conversation with the agents and PCs only once: As they pass by a large group near a set of desks a sharp chill goes over the magic-users in the group. Watanabe, Twilight, and Del look to the strong aura to see a woman. A tall, powerful-looking woman talking coarsely with a group of agents, beside her a small girl with short, blonde hair. The twelve-year old looks at Del and waves with a smile. Del waves back in awe. She’s never seen polymorphed dragons before.
“Erina’arad,” one of the agents whispers. “She’s been here with her daughter four times in the last two weeks.”
“Why?” Del asks.
“She says the Bureau keeps calling her in. No one has.”
“Huh.”
Eventually all the agents save one break off from the group, and he leads the PCs to an office room. The room is empty and uninspiring; all it really has room for is a large table. The PCs are told by the agent to wait, his commander is very interested in speaking with them. Del remains in the room to ease the other PCs. The five talk, save for Twilight who simply listens intently and occasionally fidgets with her camera. Watanabe has taken to the fruit bat, whom Twilight has named “Sokar.” Watanabe loves animals, yet rarely has a chance to play with exotic ones.
After a few minutes, a middle-aged man in all black enters the room. He looks tired, the lines in his face seem carved from many hardships. He introduces himself as Marshall Whitman, a commander in the police force of the BMM. “This whole thing is more than likely put a bit of a shock on your system,” he says.
Making himself comfortable at the head of the table and laying open a folder, he continues. “The man you fought tonight, as you already know, was a mage; a former employee, I’m afraid. He didn’t take his wife’s death well at all. I’m sorry that you were forced to see him in this state, or at all, truthfully. But now that you have and you lived with minor injuries, this only means that the Bureau may have a use for you. I apologize if I have to be vague.”
It is as he finishes saying this that a hard, concerned expression appears on his face. Before Delria can ask, a strange chill falls over those in his room. The lights dim, and in steps a horrific figure. A mind flayer, though the only PC who would know this is Delria. Jared nearly falls out of his chair.
“Well then,” Whitman grumbles. “I thought that you didn’t like dealing with humanity in large groups, J’qwuan.”
The tentacled creature turns to Jared. The voice that follows is a cold, piercing one--it echoes through the PCs’s heads rather than through the air. “I was told there was something here that needed my attention. And you ought to know by now that any snide comments you wish to make to me don’t need to be said.”
With that the mind flayer introduces himself properly as Yondo J’qwuan. He then proceeds to explain to the more mundane listeners the secrecy of the world of magic. The fact that two worlds exist side by side, Terra and Gaia. Mundane matters occur on Terra, yet many magi--magic races such as Elves, Orcs, and dwarves--prefer to live out their lives on Terra. Thus the Bureau was founded to ensure that magic and mundane may never go to war as they once did millennia ago. To maintain peace, to regulate the usage of sorcery around mundanes--those who don’t know about magic--and occasionally to police the misusage of such magicks … Such as the necromancer the PCs had run into that night.
As the mind flayer finishes, Whitman clears his throat. “So there you have it.” He then proceeds to make an offer. He opens the files and begins filling out a bit of paperwork as he speaks. Whitman says he wants to give the group the chance to continue doing what they did that night: Protect innocent mundanes and stop those who make themselves a threat to the already all-too-fragile peace. If they prefer not to, then J’qwuan would simply have to make them forget what had happened that night.
Del is thrilled, she’s been wanting a position as an actual Bureau field agent for months. Trudi is also thrilled, though she does seem unnerved at the thought of being brainwashed by the squid-face-man. Twilight agrees, so long as she can videotape everything, to which Whitman replies that there is indeed a department which would be interested in letting her. Jared is uneasy and begins to refuse, until he hears a voice in his head:
I’m afraid you have no choice in this matter, Mr. Belmont.
Jared faces J’qwuan with wide eyes. Somehow he guesses that no one else could hear that.
I am the head telepath here. Commander Whitman would not be your leader, I would. It is sad that right now is not the best time to explain why I cannot allow psions to be unmonitored by the Bureau. You are quite powerful, and your talents not being used properly would be a waste.
As Trudi waves a hand in front of Jared’s face to guess why he’s staring off into space, Whitman turns to Watanabe. “Are you uninterested?” the commander asks her.
Watanabe only stares at the table silently.
“I believe you’re half-Elven,” he says softly, studying her face. “How old are you? Twenty? Thirty? Have you never wondered why you always look younger than your peers?”
Watanabe’s eyes show acknowledgement of this.
“You deserve to know something about your blood, don’t you?” When Watanabe doesn’t respond, Whitman pulls a set of papers out of the folder. “As soon as the clean-up crew ran into you our agents decided to find some information on you.” He tosses a set of papers in front of her.
Twilight and Trudi lean to see it, but Watanabe shows extreme emotion for the first time when she gasps and snatches the papers off the table. She clutches it to her chest and glares at Whitman. “How could anyone find out about me so fast?”
“Become an agent and your past will be all but erased,” Whitman replies. “If there’s no other benefit I can offer you, maybe shredding those files will tempt you?”
Watanabe agrees.
__________________
The PCs are now part of the BMM, some more reluctant than others. Jared’s new boss exits with nothing else to say to the PCs, Twilight has been referred to a department which specializes in perpetuating the idea that magic is fantasy (they have their hands in much of the media), and Trudi, Watanabe, and Delria fill out paperwork to begin their initiation in the Knights. Whitman is in charge of the process and says he hopes to become their new commander.
While all this is happening, Del runs into an acquaintance: Alexander P’tarr. The clean-up crew agent she had spoken to in the theater is happy to see her again. “Hey, Del! Great news, I’m gettin' a promotion!”
“Great, congratulations. What’s goin’ on?”
“Not sure. I was told to talk to Whitman after you guys are done.”
“Well, hey, good luck!”
Trudi watches him intently, then as he leaves, leans closer to Delria. “So uh ... What is he?”
“Half-Elven. Well, half-Elven, quarter orc, and quarter human.”
“Cool!”
Del grins. “You’re the only person I’ve heard of to consider that ‘cool.’ Most folks don’t know what to think.”
“It’s not his fault ... I think he looks fine.”
“There’s a first for everything.”
The PCs eventually regather in the meeting room, Jared tells the others how relieved he was to not have to speak to the head psion again. He instead had been interviewed by an Elven woman named Autumn Yieotanna. Twilight is again rather silent, but now beaming: she’s been given permission to videotape again. Sokar the bat flies to Watanabe again, and Watanabe shows a genuine smile as she pets him.
The PCs are now given the last of the meetings they are to have that night. They are taken deep into the Bureau, and quickly the former mundanes understand how little they know about Gaia (the magic realm). The further they go, the more the architecture in the office building shifts. It changes from a very familiar office space, to a strange material; roots seem to grow through the walls. Whitman informs the mundanes that half of the Savannah, Georgia BMM office is built into an Elven tree; a huge, magically grown tree that can be seen towering over the tree-tops from Gaia’s side of Savannah.
Finally the PCs are led into a room that’s dark and organic. Plant life grows all around, and the only lights glow from dozens of pools around the room. An ancient Elf in fantasy-like robes stands over one pool, then walks over to shake Whitman’s hand. He introduces himself as Kenji’rogardi, a spirit speaker. When the PCs ask what this means, he motions for Sokar. The bat obeys and lands in the Elf’s hands. Kenji’rogardi then walks to what appears to be a mirror, but upon closer observation is a tall pool of water suspended against the wall. When Kenji’rogardi places Sokar down in front of the reflecting pool, all see another reflection take shape.
A man nearing forty stands beside Sokar, tall and dark. He wears a stern expression, and Trudi recognizes that the suit he wears looks like it was made in the sixties. Kenji’rogardi takes out a pouch and tosses a fine silvery powder onto the pool, which somehow allows all those in the room to hear this new figure speak.
“Twilight Lokya,” he says in a deep voice, dipped in a fine, Russian accent. “I have bonded to you. My name is Dimitri Sashenka.”
Kenji’rogardi informs them of the details regarding human magic: those of full-human blood cannot cast magic. However, a spirit may bond with a human, and with this added spiritual power a human may learn.
Twilight again seems unsurprised. “I know. Thanks for letting me cast earlier.”
Twilight and Dimitri have a terse conversation, Dimitri doing the majority of the talking there is.
Watanabe seems stunned. “Wait, wait. You’re human?”
“I have possessed this animal,” Dimitri replies.
“I held you to my chest!” Watanabe cries.
Dimitri grins. “I’m grateful. It’s been a while since I’ve had a body.”
While Watanabe turns red, Twilight asks why Dimitri chose her. “You look like the woman who murdered me,” he replies in a low tone.
As Sokar is returned to Twilight, Watanabe seems disappointed the figure in the mirror is gone. She remembers how much Russian guys turn her on.
Kenji’rogardi then motions for Trudi. “I’m ... not exactly sure if I’m correct ... Can you cast?” he asks her.
Trudi looks confused. “No?”
“Something is odd ...” He takes Trudi’s shoulder and leads her to the mirror. Everyone has to look very closely, but indeed there is another form in the mirror beside Trudi. His features are difficult to make out, but they get the general idea that a middle-aged man wearing casual dress is beside her.
“WHOA!”
Again Kenji’rogardi tosses the silvery powder, again a voice begins to speak.
“I ... You know I’m here?” a man’s voice begins.
“Yes,” Kenji’rogardi urges the ghost. “Who are you?”
“Trudi ... YOU IDIOT!” The ghost’s confidence in speaking grows exponentially, and he proceeds to rip Trudi a new one. He shouts in years and years of pent-up frustration about how much he’d loved her mother as her professor, and how much of a disappointment Trudi was. Oh, the indignity of trying to bond with her to help her and never bonding correctly. From all this the PCs end up gathering the ghost’s name is Charles, and that something in Trudi had prevented Charles from bonding with her. Trudi does a fine job of totally ignoring any of the insults her ghost has thrown at her, more interested in the fact that she has a ghost.
“I’ve heard of this sort of thing happening,” Kenji’rogardi whispers, “but in all my years I never thought I’d see it. Amazing.”
“And as soon as this spell ends I’ll never to be able to speak again!” Charles snaps angrily.
“Have you ever tried to touch anything?” Whitman offers. He explains that while the spell is in effect, perhaps it’d be easier for Charles to try holding something. To demonstrate, Whitman takes out a pad and pen.
Gingerly Charles reaches for them and everyone is silent as he places his incorporeal fingers around them. When Whitman lets go, an awed gasp escapes Charles: he is still holding the pad and pen. The spell ends and Charles proceeds to nag Trudi via pen, writing bitter and snide comments, but Trudi is thrilled.
_________________________________________
Within the next few days, the PCs make several trips back to the BMM. They grow used to the idea of working there; Watanabe, Jared, Trudi, and Twilight grow used to the idea of telling no one about their new jobs. They are all officially Bureau Knights, and their team leader is Alex P’tarr. The Elf/orc/human has been a member of the Bureau for nearly twenty years, but has never had a position of leadership. He’s been in the clean-up crew for about six years.
During training over the next few weeks the PCs get to know each other well enough, and especially Alex. He wears his heart on his sleeve, but is fairly mellow. Or at least he’s rather ... relaxed. While he does wear the BMM standard uniform (the MIB suit), he always manages to make it look like it’s spent a week on the floor. He keeps his tie loose, the jacket open, the shirt untucked. Trudi is happy to be a “secret agent,” and during training spends all her breaks designing costumes for the group.
July 26, 1996
Training comes to a close, rather fast Alex notes, and the PCs are given their first field mission. Supposedly its a rather routine mission. The PCs are to go to Atlanta, where the BMM has had it’s hands full with monitoring the Atlanta Olympic Games. With so many people coming in from all over the world--mundane and magi alike--the Bureau has been forced to devote all of its efforts in and around Atlanta to the Olympics. So the PCs will be helping other agents from Savannah perform a few routine tasks, namely ridding the sewers of a large number of pest-like lizard creatures known commonly as “sewer demons.” They have animal-like intelligence, vicious appetites and deadly claws--and have been gathering around downtown Atlanta because of the growing concentration of magi. Delria and Watanabe are both iffy on an extermination run of things close to animals, but are given the okay to capture the sewer demons if they can.
The group heads to Atlanta and is directed by the management there to head into the sewers off of Dr. Martin Luther King Dr. They begin their search of where the nest is supposedly located, but are greeted with a much more gruesome sight than they expected. Blood stains the water, and dozens upon dozens of sewer demons bodies litter the tunnels. Not a single one has been left alive, signs of combat stain the walls.
Watanabe notes that traces white fur can be found on some of the sewer demon bodies, ones with wide claw marks left in them. After a search of the nests, the PCs are unsure what’s happened. Alex is distant, thinking. He finally pulls out his cel and calls in to the Atlanta temporary headquarters. He informs HQ of the situation, and the fact that he suspects that the Knights of the Round got to the sewer demons before the PCs did. Delria is aware of what that means, though the other PCs only glance at one another.
While Alex continues to speak on the phone, Del explains. The Knights of the Round have existed since the last and greatest war between mundane and magi. The magi lost that war and were ordered to leave to Gaia. Most did, some didn’t. As a reaction to this, a group of humans who called themselves Knights of the Round, in honor of their dead king Arthur, formed. In the millennia since then, the KotR are known more as a terrorist group. They have no organization, they are instead just thousands of small groups of humans and part-humans who happen to carry the same title. They claim to wish only to protect humanity, yet are well-known for their zeal and often violent ways of defending mundanes. Murdering magi is not below them, and many KotR groups have no qualms with violently killing magi to maintain their idea of peace.
Alex allows Del to finish, then informs the PCs that they’ve been ordered to find out if his suspicions are true. They are to discover whether the KotR are indeed responsible, and if so, arrest them.
---
The PCs find a trail of drips of blood, and track it to a set of apartment complexes just outside of downtown. Watanabe claims whoever was wearing the white fur should live there. They end up breaking into a single-bedroom apartment, although it’s empty. Jared is amused as he searches the apartment, seeing rows and rows of Japanese animated tapes in the resident’s collection. The PCs also find a large amount of blood staining the sink in the bathroom. Confident that they have the right apartment, the PCs begin to look for clues as to who this is. Trudi finds costumes in the closet, and proceeds to make copies of the patterns instead of helping. Alex finds there are three messages on the answering machine:
*“Hey, Roy. You’re coming to the con, right? Call me back, it’s Shin.”
*“Zel here. We got sewer demons. Call my cel.”
*“Hello? Oh, please have made it home, Roy. Please, please pick up.”
“Yes, I’m here.”
“You’re okay! Thank you! Are you gonna be able to make it?”
“I’m not missing the con, no way. I’m not that hurt.”
“Alright! We’ll meet you there!”
“Yeah, bye.”
Jared snaps his fingers, he knows where they must have been going. There is a minor Japanese animation convention happening in a hotel downtown. Trudi finds clues as to what this “Roy” may look like when the PCs get there: among the costuming are bits of an orange wig, and black make-up lying on the bed.
So the PCs know at least a few things. This Roy is a KotR with at least three others: a young man named Shin, another slightly older man named Zel, and a very young woman with a perky voice. Watanabe also assumes that Roy must be a “furry.”
-----
The PCs arrive at the hotel and get tickets to enter the con. They split up and begin their search. For a while nothing seems suspicious, and Trudi is excited by all the “cosplayers” (fans dressed as anime characters). She sees a particularly well-made costume on a Sailor Mars, from “Sailor Moon,” and talks to her. The Asian woman is a good deal older than most of the other cosplayers, at least thirty, but is happy to talk with Trudi about fashion. Watanabe is frustrated by the diversion and is about to walk off when she sees someone staring at her, someone who looks aware of her half-Elven heritage. He’s a man in his mid-thirties, brown hair hanging limply over the left side of his face in an attempt to hide the scars that cover it. The sword at his side looks real.
At the same time, Jared and Del are walking around, with Jared looking more at a set of game booths nearby than the crowds. Del senses magi near, and looks up. Her eyes grow wide when she gets a good look at the massive man all in orange. When she points him out, Jared says the guy is dressed as Tora from “Ushio to Tora.” Del says that’s not what she meant: much of his costume is not costume.
Not too far away, Watanabe tries not to look like she’s watching the man with sword, even as a younger man, an Asian who looks no older than nineteen, walks up to him and they whisper between each other. The two split up and the younger man comes up to Sailor Mars and tells her and Trudi to wrap it up. She obliges and says goodbye to Trudi, she and the young man walk off whispering.
Twilight and Alex meet up with Watanabe and Trudi, and decide to find a discreet way of following them. Alex tells Trudi to find Delria and Jared, and finds this is a mistake as the young woman walks off: “DELRIA! HEY, DEL! WHERE’D YOU GO?!”
Eventually Del hears Trudi calling and tells Jared to follow “Tora.” Jared agrees. While the rest of the PCs regather, Jared notes that a heavily scarred man with brown hair speaks to Tora for a moment, then leaves quickly. Tora then walks down the hall at a hurried pace. Jared hopes he hasn’t been spotted, and follows Tora anyway. Tora leaves the main part of the con, going into the stairwell and eventually heading into an “Employees Only” area. Jared does his best to remain out of sight, slinking behind Tora as he heads through a series of supply rooms.
Tora stops abruptly and turns. In a throaty, guttural voice he growls, “You’re Bureau, aren’t you?”
Jared stops in place, turning pale. “Uh ...”
“Bad enough we have to do your job for you, but you think you have the right to follow us around.”
A second voice, the young female one from the answering machine, calls from behind Jared, “Not for much longer.”
Jared spins to face the young girl--eighteen? Nineteen?--next to an Asian man of the same age. He thinks he’s surrounded for only a moment, but the door behind them opens and the rest of the PCs step in.
“We don’t want a fight,” Del begins.
“But we are going to have to arrest you,” Alex cuts in.
Tora says nothing more, and instead leaps at the Bureau Knights. Combat begins, the young man pulling out a sword hilt--a glowing blade forms. Three more KotR come in, Sailor Mars, the scarred man, and a third man wielding a long, two-pronged lance. Tora shows the PCs how little on him is actually a costume as he throws off his wig and turns into the hybrid form of a were-tiger.
Watanabe gets out of the fight to guard the door to the main hall and ensure that no one else can get in [her player fell asleep]. Jared calls upon his psychic manifestation Platinum to ram Tora into a shelf; Alex pulls out a double-bladed sword and for the first time the PCs get to see their commander in action. Twilight summons a dog to help fight the were-tiger.
The fight continues, Trudi knocks down the young Asian guy. In response the teenage girl screams in fury: “No! Masaki! How dare you hurt him, I love him!” As she starts swinging at Trudi with a set of brass knuckles, the scarred man is thrown into the wall by Platinum.
Amazingly, the were-tiger is slowing down from Jared, Alex, Del, and Twilight’s attacks. Tora manages to kill the dog Twilight summoned, only for Alex to nearly sever his leg just above the knee. Howling and screaming, the were-tiger hits the floor.
Sailor Mars (a fire mage) is having trouble hitting Del with her spells, and in frustration calls for the man with the lance to run and get help somehow. As soon as she says this, the man with the lance stops, his face tensing.
“Run away? No ... I mustn’t run away ... I mustn’t run away ... I mustn’t run away!” He lets out a cry of rage and bull rushes Jared. Jared manages to defend himself and stop the berserker’s advances, while Trudi finally beats down the girl.
Seeing she’s the only one left standing, the fire mage turns and runs for the adjoining supply rooms. With a burst of speed, Jared follows behind, hoping that Sailor Mars will give herself up when trapped between himself and Watanabe. As he gets into the next room, however, he makes it in time to watch Sailor Mars hit the floor. A dark figure stands over her body, a long slash gutting the body from neck to belly. The woman-shaped form clothed in darkness smiles at Jared, and slowly places a finger to her lips. While Jared stands in horror, the woman slinks magically into the shadows and disappears.
---
The surviving KotR are taken into custody by Atlanta BMM Knights. The PCs are congratulated for a job well done; and Jared finally tells the others what happened to Sailor Mars once the clean-up crews are fully engrossed in their work. The group listens to him describe the “dark lady,” and are concerned, but unable to do more at that time.
Alex tries to cheer everyone up by offering the new Knight team a dinner at the Cheesecake Factory the next night. Everyone agrees, and with the day’s events heavy on their minds, they take the rest of the day off.
A handful of agents and Delria lead Trudi Schneider, Jared Belmont, Twilight Lokya, and Watanabe out of the back exit of the movie theater. They are moved through the ordered chaos of the Bureau clean-up crew’s work. Trudi tries to wave to her friends among those being made to forget precisely what they saw that night.
One of the men in black with a small, metal-capped crystal in hand stops behind the agent’s black vans. “When you step through the door, hold your breath. It makes it easier.” With this cryptic statement, he places the crystal in mid-air, it sinks into what looks like an invisible lock. A short click follows and a door of light appears in front of the PCs. Delria is the first to step in, adding a reassuring look to the others before she does. One by one the PCs glance at each other, hold their breath, and step into the portal into a different world.
The PCs find themselves in what looks like an office building. Delria awaits them on the other side, and the agents follow behind them.
“Welcome to the Bureau for the Management of Magicks. Might as well get comfortable.” Delria smiles, and for the first time allows them to all see what she really looks like. She no longer looks like a young, human girl, but instead a three-foot tall woman with light blue hair. Specks of silver line the edges of her face, orange and black wings sprout from her back.
“WHOA! Cool!” Trudi shouts.
While Jared takes a short jump away from Delria in surprise, Watanabe’s eyes only grow slightly wider, and Twilight seems unsurprised. One of the agents asks for Twilight to turn off her camera at least until the PCs are escorted into an office room, and reluctantly she agrees.
Delria chats amiably with the PCs to calm them, especially Jared--who looks about ready to faint at any moment--as she and the agents escort through the main lobby of the office building. Jared knows enough about fantasy to recognize the inhuman looks of most of those they pass by as walk: orcs, Elves, things that look like Kender, even a dwarf; though most of the office people look like everyday joes at work.
Delria stops short in her casual conversation with the agents and PCs only once: As they pass by a large group near a set of desks a sharp chill goes over the magic-users in the group. Watanabe, Twilight, and Del look to the strong aura to see a woman. A tall, powerful-looking woman talking coarsely with a group of agents, beside her a small girl with short, blonde hair. The twelve-year old looks at Del and waves with a smile. Del waves back in awe. She’s never seen polymorphed dragons before.
“Erina’arad,” one of the agents whispers. “She’s been here with her daughter four times in the last two weeks.”
“Why?” Del asks.
“She says the Bureau keeps calling her in. No one has.”
“Huh.”
Eventually all the agents save one break off from the group, and he leads the PCs to an office room. The room is empty and uninspiring; all it really has room for is a large table. The PCs are told by the agent to wait, his commander is very interested in speaking with them. Del remains in the room to ease the other PCs. The five talk, save for Twilight who simply listens intently and occasionally fidgets with her camera. Watanabe has taken to the fruit bat, whom Twilight has named “Sokar.” Watanabe loves animals, yet rarely has a chance to play with exotic ones.
After a few minutes, a middle-aged man in all black enters the room. He looks tired, the lines in his face seem carved from many hardships. He introduces himself as Marshall Whitman, a commander in the police force of the BMM. “This whole thing is more than likely put a bit of a shock on your system,” he says.
Making himself comfortable at the head of the table and laying open a folder, he continues. “The man you fought tonight, as you already know, was a mage; a former employee, I’m afraid. He didn’t take his wife’s death well at all. I’m sorry that you were forced to see him in this state, or at all, truthfully. But now that you have and you lived with minor injuries, this only means that the Bureau may have a use for you. I apologize if I have to be vague.”
It is as he finishes saying this that a hard, concerned expression appears on his face. Before Delria can ask, a strange chill falls over those in his room. The lights dim, and in steps a horrific figure. A mind flayer, though the only PC who would know this is Delria. Jared nearly falls out of his chair.
“Well then,” Whitman grumbles. “I thought that you didn’t like dealing with humanity in large groups, J’qwuan.”
The tentacled creature turns to Jared. The voice that follows is a cold, piercing one--it echoes through the PCs’s heads rather than through the air. “I was told there was something here that needed my attention. And you ought to know by now that any snide comments you wish to make to me don’t need to be said.”
With that the mind flayer introduces himself properly as Yondo J’qwuan. He then proceeds to explain to the more mundane listeners the secrecy of the world of magic. The fact that two worlds exist side by side, Terra and Gaia. Mundane matters occur on Terra, yet many magi--magic races such as Elves, Orcs, and dwarves--prefer to live out their lives on Terra. Thus the Bureau was founded to ensure that magic and mundane may never go to war as they once did millennia ago. To maintain peace, to regulate the usage of sorcery around mundanes--those who don’t know about magic--and occasionally to police the misusage of such magicks … Such as the necromancer the PCs had run into that night.
As the mind flayer finishes, Whitman clears his throat. “So there you have it.” He then proceeds to make an offer. He opens the files and begins filling out a bit of paperwork as he speaks. Whitman says he wants to give the group the chance to continue doing what they did that night: Protect innocent mundanes and stop those who make themselves a threat to the already all-too-fragile peace. If they prefer not to, then J’qwuan would simply have to make them forget what had happened that night.
Del is thrilled, she’s been wanting a position as an actual Bureau field agent for months. Trudi is also thrilled, though she does seem unnerved at the thought of being brainwashed by the squid-face-man. Twilight agrees, so long as she can videotape everything, to which Whitman replies that there is indeed a department which would be interested in letting her. Jared is uneasy and begins to refuse, until he hears a voice in his head:
I’m afraid you have no choice in this matter, Mr. Belmont.
Jared faces J’qwuan with wide eyes. Somehow he guesses that no one else could hear that.
I am the head telepath here. Commander Whitman would not be your leader, I would. It is sad that right now is not the best time to explain why I cannot allow psions to be unmonitored by the Bureau. You are quite powerful, and your talents not being used properly would be a waste.
As Trudi waves a hand in front of Jared’s face to guess why he’s staring off into space, Whitman turns to Watanabe. “Are you uninterested?” the commander asks her.
Watanabe only stares at the table silently.
“I believe you’re half-Elven,” he says softly, studying her face. “How old are you? Twenty? Thirty? Have you never wondered why you always look younger than your peers?”
Watanabe’s eyes show acknowledgement of this.
“You deserve to know something about your blood, don’t you?” When Watanabe doesn’t respond, Whitman pulls a set of papers out of the folder. “As soon as the clean-up crew ran into you our agents decided to find some information on you.” He tosses a set of papers in front of her.
Twilight and Trudi lean to see it, but Watanabe shows extreme emotion for the first time when she gasps and snatches the papers off the table. She clutches it to her chest and glares at Whitman. “How could anyone find out about me so fast?”
“Become an agent and your past will be all but erased,” Whitman replies. “If there’s no other benefit I can offer you, maybe shredding those files will tempt you?”
Watanabe agrees.
__________________
The PCs are now part of the BMM, some more reluctant than others. Jared’s new boss exits with nothing else to say to the PCs, Twilight has been referred to a department which specializes in perpetuating the idea that magic is fantasy (they have their hands in much of the media), and Trudi, Watanabe, and Delria fill out paperwork to begin their initiation in the Knights. Whitman is in charge of the process and says he hopes to become their new commander.
While all this is happening, Del runs into an acquaintance: Alexander P’tarr. The clean-up crew agent she had spoken to in the theater is happy to see her again. “Hey, Del! Great news, I’m gettin' a promotion!”
“Great, congratulations. What’s goin’ on?”
“Not sure. I was told to talk to Whitman after you guys are done.”
“Well, hey, good luck!”
Trudi watches him intently, then as he leaves, leans closer to Delria. “So uh ... What is he?”
“Half-Elven. Well, half-Elven, quarter orc, and quarter human.”
“Cool!”
Del grins. “You’re the only person I’ve heard of to consider that ‘cool.’ Most folks don’t know what to think.”
“It’s not his fault ... I think he looks fine.”
“There’s a first for everything.”
The PCs eventually regather in the meeting room, Jared tells the others how relieved he was to not have to speak to the head psion again. He instead had been interviewed by an Elven woman named Autumn Yieotanna. Twilight is again rather silent, but now beaming: she’s been given permission to videotape again. Sokar the bat flies to Watanabe again, and Watanabe shows a genuine smile as she pets him.
The PCs are now given the last of the meetings they are to have that night. They are taken deep into the Bureau, and quickly the former mundanes understand how little they know about Gaia (the magic realm). The further they go, the more the architecture in the office building shifts. It changes from a very familiar office space, to a strange material; roots seem to grow through the walls. Whitman informs the mundanes that half of the Savannah, Georgia BMM office is built into an Elven tree; a huge, magically grown tree that can be seen towering over the tree-tops from Gaia’s side of Savannah.
Finally the PCs are led into a room that’s dark and organic. Plant life grows all around, and the only lights glow from dozens of pools around the room. An ancient Elf in fantasy-like robes stands over one pool, then walks over to shake Whitman’s hand. He introduces himself as Kenji’rogardi, a spirit speaker. When the PCs ask what this means, he motions for Sokar. The bat obeys and lands in the Elf’s hands. Kenji’rogardi then walks to what appears to be a mirror, but upon closer observation is a tall pool of water suspended against the wall. When Kenji’rogardi places Sokar down in front of the reflecting pool, all see another reflection take shape.
A man nearing forty stands beside Sokar, tall and dark. He wears a stern expression, and Trudi recognizes that the suit he wears looks like it was made in the sixties. Kenji’rogardi takes out a pouch and tosses a fine silvery powder onto the pool, which somehow allows all those in the room to hear this new figure speak.
“Twilight Lokya,” he says in a deep voice, dipped in a fine, Russian accent. “I have bonded to you. My name is Dimitri Sashenka.”
Kenji’rogardi informs them of the details regarding human magic: those of full-human blood cannot cast magic. However, a spirit may bond with a human, and with this added spiritual power a human may learn.
Twilight again seems unsurprised. “I know. Thanks for letting me cast earlier.”
Twilight and Dimitri have a terse conversation, Dimitri doing the majority of the talking there is.
Watanabe seems stunned. “Wait, wait. You’re human?”
“I have possessed this animal,” Dimitri replies.
“I held you to my chest!” Watanabe cries.
Dimitri grins. “I’m grateful. It’s been a while since I’ve had a body.”
While Watanabe turns red, Twilight asks why Dimitri chose her. “You look like the woman who murdered me,” he replies in a low tone.
As Sokar is returned to Twilight, Watanabe seems disappointed the figure in the mirror is gone. She remembers how much Russian guys turn her on.
Kenji’rogardi then motions for Trudi. “I’m ... not exactly sure if I’m correct ... Can you cast?” he asks her.
Trudi looks confused. “No?”
“Something is odd ...” He takes Trudi’s shoulder and leads her to the mirror. Everyone has to look very closely, but indeed there is another form in the mirror beside Trudi. His features are difficult to make out, but they get the general idea that a middle-aged man wearing casual dress is beside her.
“WHOA!”
Again Kenji’rogardi tosses the silvery powder, again a voice begins to speak.
“I ... You know I’m here?” a man’s voice begins.
“Yes,” Kenji’rogardi urges the ghost. “Who are you?”
“Trudi ... YOU IDIOT!” The ghost’s confidence in speaking grows exponentially, and he proceeds to rip Trudi a new one. He shouts in years and years of pent-up frustration about how much he’d loved her mother as her professor, and how much of a disappointment Trudi was. Oh, the indignity of trying to bond with her to help her and never bonding correctly. From all this the PCs end up gathering the ghost’s name is Charles, and that something in Trudi had prevented Charles from bonding with her. Trudi does a fine job of totally ignoring any of the insults her ghost has thrown at her, more interested in the fact that she has a ghost.
“I’ve heard of this sort of thing happening,” Kenji’rogardi whispers, “but in all my years I never thought I’d see it. Amazing.”
“And as soon as this spell ends I’ll never to be able to speak again!” Charles snaps angrily.
“Have you ever tried to touch anything?” Whitman offers. He explains that while the spell is in effect, perhaps it’d be easier for Charles to try holding something. To demonstrate, Whitman takes out a pad and pen.
Gingerly Charles reaches for them and everyone is silent as he places his incorporeal fingers around them. When Whitman lets go, an awed gasp escapes Charles: he is still holding the pad and pen. The spell ends and Charles proceeds to nag Trudi via pen, writing bitter and snide comments, but Trudi is thrilled.
_________________________________________
Within the next few days, the PCs make several trips back to the BMM. They grow used to the idea of working there; Watanabe, Jared, Trudi, and Twilight grow used to the idea of telling no one about their new jobs. They are all officially Bureau Knights, and their team leader is Alex P’tarr. The Elf/orc/human has been a member of the Bureau for nearly twenty years, but has never had a position of leadership. He’s been in the clean-up crew for about six years.
During training over the next few weeks the PCs get to know each other well enough, and especially Alex. He wears his heart on his sleeve, but is fairly mellow. Or at least he’s rather ... relaxed. While he does wear the BMM standard uniform (the MIB suit), he always manages to make it look like it’s spent a week on the floor. He keeps his tie loose, the jacket open, the shirt untucked. Trudi is happy to be a “secret agent,” and during training spends all her breaks designing costumes for the group.
July 26, 1996
Training comes to a close, rather fast Alex notes, and the PCs are given their first field mission. Supposedly its a rather routine mission. The PCs are to go to Atlanta, where the BMM has had it’s hands full with monitoring the Atlanta Olympic Games. With so many people coming in from all over the world--mundane and magi alike--the Bureau has been forced to devote all of its efforts in and around Atlanta to the Olympics. So the PCs will be helping other agents from Savannah perform a few routine tasks, namely ridding the sewers of a large number of pest-like lizard creatures known commonly as “sewer demons.” They have animal-like intelligence, vicious appetites and deadly claws--and have been gathering around downtown Atlanta because of the growing concentration of magi. Delria and Watanabe are both iffy on an extermination run of things close to animals, but are given the okay to capture the sewer demons if they can.
The group heads to Atlanta and is directed by the management there to head into the sewers off of Dr. Martin Luther King Dr. They begin their search of where the nest is supposedly located, but are greeted with a much more gruesome sight than they expected. Blood stains the water, and dozens upon dozens of sewer demons bodies litter the tunnels. Not a single one has been left alive, signs of combat stain the walls.
Watanabe notes that traces white fur can be found on some of the sewer demon bodies, ones with wide claw marks left in them. After a search of the nests, the PCs are unsure what’s happened. Alex is distant, thinking. He finally pulls out his cel and calls in to the Atlanta temporary headquarters. He informs HQ of the situation, and the fact that he suspects that the Knights of the Round got to the sewer demons before the PCs did. Delria is aware of what that means, though the other PCs only glance at one another.
While Alex continues to speak on the phone, Del explains. The Knights of the Round have existed since the last and greatest war between mundane and magi. The magi lost that war and were ordered to leave to Gaia. Most did, some didn’t. As a reaction to this, a group of humans who called themselves Knights of the Round, in honor of their dead king Arthur, formed. In the millennia since then, the KotR are known more as a terrorist group. They have no organization, they are instead just thousands of small groups of humans and part-humans who happen to carry the same title. They claim to wish only to protect humanity, yet are well-known for their zeal and often violent ways of defending mundanes. Murdering magi is not below them, and many KotR groups have no qualms with violently killing magi to maintain their idea of peace.
Alex allows Del to finish, then informs the PCs that they’ve been ordered to find out if his suspicions are true. They are to discover whether the KotR are indeed responsible, and if so, arrest them.
---
The PCs find a trail of drips of blood, and track it to a set of apartment complexes just outside of downtown. Watanabe claims whoever was wearing the white fur should live there. They end up breaking into a single-bedroom apartment, although it’s empty. Jared is amused as he searches the apartment, seeing rows and rows of Japanese animated tapes in the resident’s collection. The PCs also find a large amount of blood staining the sink in the bathroom. Confident that they have the right apartment, the PCs begin to look for clues as to who this is. Trudi finds costumes in the closet, and proceeds to make copies of the patterns instead of helping. Alex finds there are three messages on the answering machine:
*“Hey, Roy. You’re coming to the con, right? Call me back, it’s Shin.”
*“Zel here. We got sewer demons. Call my cel.”
*“Hello? Oh, please have made it home, Roy. Please, please pick up.”
“Yes, I’m here.”
“You’re okay! Thank you! Are you gonna be able to make it?”
“I’m not missing the con, no way. I’m not that hurt.”
“Alright! We’ll meet you there!”
“Yeah, bye.”
Jared snaps his fingers, he knows where they must have been going. There is a minor Japanese animation convention happening in a hotel downtown. Trudi finds clues as to what this “Roy” may look like when the PCs get there: among the costuming are bits of an orange wig, and black make-up lying on the bed.
So the PCs know at least a few things. This Roy is a KotR with at least three others: a young man named Shin, another slightly older man named Zel, and a very young woman with a perky voice. Watanabe also assumes that Roy must be a “furry.”
-----
The PCs arrive at the hotel and get tickets to enter the con. They split up and begin their search. For a while nothing seems suspicious, and Trudi is excited by all the “cosplayers” (fans dressed as anime characters). She sees a particularly well-made costume on a Sailor Mars, from “Sailor Moon,” and talks to her. The Asian woman is a good deal older than most of the other cosplayers, at least thirty, but is happy to talk with Trudi about fashion. Watanabe is frustrated by the diversion and is about to walk off when she sees someone staring at her, someone who looks aware of her half-Elven heritage. He’s a man in his mid-thirties, brown hair hanging limply over the left side of his face in an attempt to hide the scars that cover it. The sword at his side looks real.
At the same time, Jared and Del are walking around, with Jared looking more at a set of game booths nearby than the crowds. Del senses magi near, and looks up. Her eyes grow wide when she gets a good look at the massive man all in orange. When she points him out, Jared says the guy is dressed as Tora from “Ushio to Tora.” Del says that’s not what she meant: much of his costume is not costume.
Not too far away, Watanabe tries not to look like she’s watching the man with sword, even as a younger man, an Asian who looks no older than nineteen, walks up to him and they whisper between each other. The two split up and the younger man comes up to Sailor Mars and tells her and Trudi to wrap it up. She obliges and says goodbye to Trudi, she and the young man walk off whispering.
Twilight and Alex meet up with Watanabe and Trudi, and decide to find a discreet way of following them. Alex tells Trudi to find Delria and Jared, and finds this is a mistake as the young woman walks off: “DELRIA! HEY, DEL! WHERE’D YOU GO?!”
Eventually Del hears Trudi calling and tells Jared to follow “Tora.” Jared agrees. While the rest of the PCs regather, Jared notes that a heavily scarred man with brown hair speaks to Tora for a moment, then leaves quickly. Tora then walks down the hall at a hurried pace. Jared hopes he hasn’t been spotted, and follows Tora anyway. Tora leaves the main part of the con, going into the stairwell and eventually heading into an “Employees Only” area. Jared does his best to remain out of sight, slinking behind Tora as he heads through a series of supply rooms.
Tora stops abruptly and turns. In a throaty, guttural voice he growls, “You’re Bureau, aren’t you?”
Jared stops in place, turning pale. “Uh ...”
“Bad enough we have to do your job for you, but you think you have the right to follow us around.”
A second voice, the young female one from the answering machine, calls from behind Jared, “Not for much longer.”
Jared spins to face the young girl--eighteen? Nineteen?--next to an Asian man of the same age. He thinks he’s surrounded for only a moment, but the door behind them opens and the rest of the PCs step in.
“We don’t want a fight,” Del begins.
“But we are going to have to arrest you,” Alex cuts in.
Tora says nothing more, and instead leaps at the Bureau Knights. Combat begins, the young man pulling out a sword hilt--a glowing blade forms. Three more KotR come in, Sailor Mars, the scarred man, and a third man wielding a long, two-pronged lance. Tora shows the PCs how little on him is actually a costume as he throws off his wig and turns into the hybrid form of a were-tiger.
Watanabe gets out of the fight to guard the door to the main hall and ensure that no one else can get in [her player fell asleep]. Jared calls upon his psychic manifestation Platinum to ram Tora into a shelf; Alex pulls out a double-bladed sword and for the first time the PCs get to see their commander in action. Twilight summons a dog to help fight the were-tiger.
The fight continues, Trudi knocks down the young Asian guy. In response the teenage girl screams in fury: “No! Masaki! How dare you hurt him, I love him!” As she starts swinging at Trudi with a set of brass knuckles, the scarred man is thrown into the wall by Platinum.
Amazingly, the were-tiger is slowing down from Jared, Alex, Del, and Twilight’s attacks. Tora manages to kill the dog Twilight summoned, only for Alex to nearly sever his leg just above the knee. Howling and screaming, the were-tiger hits the floor.
Sailor Mars (a fire mage) is having trouble hitting Del with her spells, and in frustration calls for the man with the lance to run and get help somehow. As soon as she says this, the man with the lance stops, his face tensing.
“Run away? No ... I mustn’t run away ... I mustn’t run away ... I mustn’t run away!” He lets out a cry of rage and bull rushes Jared. Jared manages to defend himself and stop the berserker’s advances, while Trudi finally beats down the girl.
Seeing she’s the only one left standing, the fire mage turns and runs for the adjoining supply rooms. With a burst of speed, Jared follows behind, hoping that Sailor Mars will give herself up when trapped between himself and Watanabe. As he gets into the next room, however, he makes it in time to watch Sailor Mars hit the floor. A dark figure stands over her body, a long slash gutting the body from neck to belly. The woman-shaped form clothed in darkness smiles at Jared, and slowly places a finger to her lips. While Jared stands in horror, the woman slinks magically into the shadows and disappears.
---
The surviving KotR are taken into custody by Atlanta BMM Knights. The PCs are congratulated for a job well done; and Jared finally tells the others what happened to Sailor Mars once the clean-up crews are fully engrossed in their work. The group listens to him describe the “dark lady,” and are concerned, but unable to do more at that time.
Alex tries to cheer everyone up by offering the new Knight team a dinner at the Cheesecake Factory the next night. Everyone agrees, and with the day’s events heavy on their minds, they take the rest of the day off.
Last edited:
Acquana
First Post
Mind Flayer in a suit!
Minor update today. Drew J'qwuan and stuck him in the gallery. He's linked at his first appearence.
...
And what the heck, here too.
http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/news...ame=gallery&file=index&include=view_photo.php
Minor update today. Drew J'qwuan and stuck him in the gallery. He's linked at his first appearence.
...
And what the heck, here too.
http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/news...ame=gallery&file=index&include=view_photo.php
RangerWickett
Legend
Well, it's a little disappointing that no one is showing up to comment. There was a lot more interest last summer, and I guess it's a shame I didn't find the time to write back then. We could've gotten a lot more interest.
If you are lurking here, drop us a line real quick and tell us what you like or dislike.
If you are lurking here, drop us a line real quick and tell us what you like or dislike.
Elder-Basilisk
First Post
I'm reading I just don't generally have a lot of specific commentary. I like what I've read so far though.
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