The case of the vanishing tree
“You’re mercenaries. You work for money. Now you work for me.”
Witchery abounded in this adventure. It started with the group taking a case in British Kenya, one of local musicians versus the EMI music corporation. The band Majira Ya Masika had released a global bestseller, but when the producer died,
suddenly his contract with the band couldn't be found…
The group was diverse (cat burglar Thaza, mystic orphan Devika, millionaire inventor Rafe Lancaster, British spy Major Striker, and Senegal's greatest detective, Inspector M’Tombe.) This turned out to be essential, because beyond rich Afrikaners and native Africans, the country had a sizable Indian population.
Sunday. The group went about their morning routines, but each had a significant accessory stolen. With no perpetrators to be found, the group met their contact at the largest Catholic church in Nairobi,
only to find a crowd of hundreds!
It turns out inspirational leader Michael Christopher Kataron was suffering from a magical curse that left burns all over his body, one that the altar ceremony did little to fix. The group, especially the Inspector, schmoozed with the crowd, and got invited to a political rally later that day, the next city over.
En route, the road was blocked by a jackknifed truck.
A witness claimed that the car had been driverless, and had come around the corner with a cloud of magenta fire in the driver seat. The only passengers, Sikh woodworkers, had no memory of the accident and seemed disoriented.
Rafe had invested in a winch, and with the help of the seriously strong Thaza, was able to get the vehicle out of the road. The witness flirted with the major and invited him to a party that night at Happy Valley.
It was likely to be an exciting one: Thaza casually searched the woman's vehicle and found booze, pills, and ‘the white powder of excitement.’
The rally was being held across from the late EMI producer’s mansion, now full of company operatives. Devi, tired of being cooped up in the car, decided to teach the local children four-square, and made friends with the speaker's nephew Jasper. Rafe asked to use EMI's telephone, and managed to parlay that into a guided tour until smarter heads prevailed.
The rally itself was powerful, with fiery oratory by Kataron…
“We bear witness tonight, as we do every night, to the darkness of oppression that weighs upon our souls. We bear witness to the injustice that proliferates and multiplies in the stale shadows of inaction. We bear witness, alone as individuals, to our countrymen, wronged by a system of government that with one hand wrests our future from us while with the other it beats down our present. But this night, we do not gather here only to bear witness, sisters and brothers. We gather here, as one collective voice, to cast out the silence and welcome in song. We rebuke the shackles locked in place by the strokes of pens, and welcome in the light and heat of the fires of art, and education, and equality! We bear witness not only to a system of injustice, but to the unity of cause and of people that in a single searing sound, raise a call to heaven, just as we raise our fists and cry “Fair work and fair pay, there shall be justice this day!”
…and the expected attempted-assassination. The second S in the ZSS stands for security, so the group was well prepared to protect the speaker and defeat the shooter. Unfortunately, someone decided to put both barrels of an elephant gun into the perpetrator before he could spill the beans.
Even weirder, the man was a member of Majira Ya Masika, covered in first-degree skin burns! And might’ve been aiming at someone else on stage?
After the rally, the group snuck into the EMI mansion's basement, where they were spooked by flying tools and a strange orange grimace. (“I wasn't scared of the furnace,” said Devi, after the lights turned on. It turns out the flying weaponry were things she had knocked off the wall.) The group gave themselves another private tour, and found that the attic contained a recording studio. Inside a hidden horse statue was an original acetate record and a journal.
Our heroes didn't have time to celebrate though, as mercenaries entered the manse. The spy and the thief decided to shadow them, listening into their conversations… which were pretty normal, until a flaming tree trunk smashed through the floor!
There was a strange, haunting, siren-like song that prevented either group from fleeing the building.
Whatever it was shot its bark-like hands through the parquet, nearly grabbing the cat burglar raised by apes! [The group was really behind the eight ball, as the GM rolled ++++ on two consecutive rolls.] Luckily, the group had the building well-scouted, so she was able to dive through a banister and out of its grasp.
Not wanting to risk it again, she made sure to run past the slower mercenaries, which the creature found much easier to catch…
Upstairs, Rafe created an escape rope and secured it. The inspector tried to shoot at the beast… But his bullets bounced off!
[The creature had Armor 2, which meant the normal ways of combat simply wouldn't work.]
Without access to the Whammy, Devi thought laterally. The creature was magic, so if she followed its energy, it would be easy to predict where it was attacking next. Major Striker took command of the battlefield, making sure to prevent crossfire. And Rafe… bribed the remaining mercenaries.
Thaza finally got to the ground floor, where she was face-to-face with a jaw-dropping sight.
The creature had one leg, but multiple arms and nine butts. Devi swung from what was originally the escape rope, drawing the creature upwards… Where the Major emptied his clip into its cheeks
The creature fled, defeated but not destroyed, and the mercenaries explained their mission… They were hired by local activists to steal the journal, which contained a new will from the producer that not only revealed the details of the creature, but stipulated the band was to receive its fair share of royalties.
The creature, summoned by a witch, could use personal possessions to hex people. They would burn from the inside out, and when they were destroyed,
they would be erased from the memory of anyone except those there when they died.
Thaza, who had slunk off earlier, was therefore the only person who could remember the missing Jasper… And even worse, all the investigators felt their skin start to bubble and crack with heat!
Pained, the group headed to a place where there odd behavior would be less notable: the expatriate bacchanalia party. Devi was immediately disgusted by the adults, and hung out facing the corner with a lampshade on her head. The inspector found a magical tree in the courtyard, one filled with powerful holy figs…
ones the demons could not suffer to eat.
The 13-year-old former goddess sensed a dark energy from the purse of the person who killed the musician. She helped Thaza with a brush pass, and took the purse into the bathroom. Inside was a swirling vortex of fire and darkness, one that they crushed the figs into.
The creature was summoned, and immediately began vomiting out their personal possessions! The beast easy pickings after that. The witch with the stolen purse accused the warlock of betrayal, and the two shot each other in the middle of the drug party.
A great excuse to leave.
With the secret will discovered, and their burns healing, the group bathed in aloe vera and considered it a mission worth writing down, in triplicate.
