High Fantasy Modern Storyhour - The Long Road (updated December 7)

[RangerWickett]

Halloween
9:20 pm

At the Boudreaux mansion party, Scarpedin has been making a nuisance of himself for the past two hours, trying to one-up the DJ and insult the host while managing to scare all of Belladonna friends by being phenomenally sketchy and far too honest about what he's been having to deal with these past few days. John has occasionally slipped out onto the back patio to speak with Yuko, the Asian American Bureau agent who is magically disguised as a black cocktail waitress. Belladonna flits about the party, the most beautiful woman at the ball in her Jack Daniels Fairy costume, and Nathan makes sure she introduces him to as many people as possible so he can get a reading on them.

He's amazed how many people are close-minded here. Even the debutantes trying to dance on the ballroom floor attempt to resist his readings, and he ends up getting mostly just snippets of recent embarrassments or private crushes, with the occasional hints of darker dealings. Nathan wonders if Belladonna knows exactly what her father and uncle do for a living, but then he remembers that this woman carries stilettos in her hair, with derringers and pouches of poison hidden in her dress.

Also, worryingly, Nathan gets the sense that someone is actively hiding something from him, but he cannot tell who.

Suspecting that Belladonna would not appreciate him bringing up a vision, he merely asked her to let her uncle know that they were worried that people might be after them. Maurice Boudreaux, who looks Barry Corbin, the man who played the General in "War Games," calmly assured Nathan that he has more than enough bodyguards keeping watch on the mansion.

Nathan sincerely doubts that. However, he has to be content with even this much. After all, he imagines it was hard to take him seriously, dressed as he is in a classical Dracula vampire costume. As nice as the cloak is, it probably hinders his credibility.

Belladonna and Mr. Boudreaux fade away into the crowd, and Nathan looks through the high front windows, out onto the lawn and beyond to the gate. The armored car is not parked there yet, which means that Canadians have hopefully not yet arrived.

"You know who that is?" John asks, coming back from a 'smoke break' on the patio.

Nathan follows John's glance. At the far end of the ballroom, a pair of staircases sweep a gentle arc up from the floor to a central landing on the second floor. A doorway on this landing looks like it leads to a private meeting room. Maurice Boudreaux is up there, along with several bodyguards dressed in no-nonsense white suits. Heading up the left staircase is Belladonna, along with an elderly man in a pirate costume -- he looks like Geoffery Rush -- and an even older black man who looks somewhat like Nelson Mandela. The black gentleman almost looks like he has no costume, but his brown suit is adorned in places with voodoo accoutrements.

"The pirate," John says, "is Adrien Lee."

"Belladonna's father?" Nathan asks. "He has pretty good taste in costumes."

John shrugs. "The black guy with him, Yuko says his name is Tom 'Gris-Gris' Jones. Get this. He's apparently Mr. Lee's personal voodoo shaman."

"And Belladonna claimed she didn't know magic?" Nathan frowns.

"No," John says. "She actually said she believed in voodoo. I can't be surprised. If I were rich, I'd want to have magic."

Nathan says, "Our girl's dad is a little suspicious anyway, though. Why would a businessman -- she said he works in shipping? -- why would he need a voodoo bodyguard?"

John shrugs. "I'm gonna go back and talk to Yuko some more. She said that she was getting some sort of magical reading here, and wasn't sure if it was-"

"Wait," Nathan says. "They're here."

Outside the window, hundreds of feet away across the front lawn and driveway, Nathan spots the armored car pulling up on the street.

"Get Scarpedin, quickly. And tell him not to jump out the window this time."

To be continued . . .

 

[scipio]

Sweet

Hey, I want, like, use of likeness pay or something dude.

 

[RangerWickett]

Hey, I want, like, use of likeness pay or something dude.

Yes, because a Tom Jones who looks like Nelson Mandela was obviously modeled on you.

. . . Honestly, though, you're right. Dr. Jones was inspired by you. I owe you something.

 

[RangerWickett]

Halloween
7:15 pm

Robert had a pang of conscience when he parted ways with Terry. He knows the guy is being pursued by people who want him dead, but Robert felt he had done his part. He kept the guy company for a full afternoon, letting him live like a normal person for once. But after the sun had set and Robert had a chance to sleep with Catwoman (the classic version, not that terrible Halle Berry one), it was time to let the man handle himself. Robert has no doubts that Terry will not touch either of the other two vixens he left him with, since he's still holding a torch for his dead girlfriend Lin, but he told Terry not to leave the French Quarter for the rest of the evening, so he trusts that he should be able to handle himself.

What irritates Robert most is that he's thinking of this while he's alone in a hotel room with Catwoman. Or at least she was Catwoman. He can't really think of her that way now that her costume is lying on the floor next to the bed.

Still, guilty conscience or not, Robert has made a living from lying, so no doubt the young lady thinks he's having a wonderful time. After they're done, she clings to him in the bed while he lies with his eyes open, looking at the ceiling. A radio they left on in the shower crackles with music.


I look straight at her and I say,
"BABY!
Please forgive me honey."
And then I wait a few minutes to see how she take it,
And then I say,
"BABY!
Please forgive me honey."
And then I stand back far enough so that when she swings,
I can duck.

- B.B. King, "Worry, Worry"​

Robert's phone rings.

He blinks. His body is still relaxed, but his face in tense. No one should have the phone's number.

Still laying in bed, he reaches out and picks his phone off the dresser. He answers the call but says nothing.

A voice, tinged with Louisianan drawl, asks, "Robert Black?"

Robert doesn't respond. Next to him, Catwoman stirs but seems content to cling to him quietly.

"Mr. Black," the voice continues, "this Adrien Lee. You know my daughter, Belladonna, and she spoke highly of you."

Robert softly asks, "How did you get this number?"

A pause. Robert wonders what Mr. Lee is thinking, and wishes he could see the man's face to get a read on him. From his tone of voice, Robert already knows Mr. Lee is accustomed to getting his way.

"I actually don't know," Mr. Lee chuckles. "I asked my aide to get me in touch with you. Are you not used to getting calls from thankful fathers?"

Robert frowns, but keeps his voice a cordial murmur. "I keep this number unlisted. I guess this just means you're well-connected."

"Ah, yes." Mr. Lee waits a moment, then continues. "Mr. Black, I would like to meet with you, to learn in person about the man who helped save my daughter. Also, Donna-Belle seems to have actively not invited you to tonight's party. My daughter has a poor sense of how to thank those who help her, so I'd like to tell you that you are indeed invited to the festivities."

"You're daughter had good reasons for not inviting me."

"Or your friend Terry," Mr. Lee says. "Is he with you? I want to extend the invitation to him too."

"No," Robert says. He can tell Mr. Lee is curious about Terry. "Mr. Lee, I'm sorry, but I don't feel like going to a party tonight. I'm honestly a little exhausted from a day of earlier partying already."

"Mr. Black, there are some issues that you and I need to discuss that are not appropriate for a phone conversation."

"Really?" Robert considers. "Well, then why don't you come out and meet me? Take a break from your 'party'? I know this nice restaurant at the edge of the French Quarter with a book store inside of it."

"Very well," Mr. Lee says, but Robert can tell that the man is hardly pleased.

"So you'll call me when you're on your way?" Robert asks.

"I'll have a man meet you first. You said yourself, Mr. Black, my daughter had good reasons not to invite you, and when strangers threaten my daughter, I get cautious too."

Robert laughs. "Alright, if you're afraid I'm dangerous, sure. Have your guy meet me in the lobby of," he pauses like he's thinking of a place, but ultimately he just picks the hotel he's staying at right now. "the Marriot. Half an hour."

"Very well. I look forward to meeting you, Mr. Black, and getting your point of view on a few things."

Robert hangs up the phone, puts it back on the dresser, and lays looking at the ceiling. Mr. Lee worries him. He can't put his finger on why, but the situation bothers him.

Twenty-five minutes later he pulls himself out of bed. With a smile on his face, he gets Catwoman's phone number, kisses her goodbye, then gets dressed and goes downstairs. As he suspected, Mr. Lee has sent a thug to meet him, a huge white man in a white suit. Horribly displeased with the direction things are going, Robert follows the man to the parking garage, but convinces the thug not to bother frisking him. He then gets into the car's back seat, and they head off.

On the drive to the restaurant, Robert pulls out his phone. He deletes Catwoman's number.

 

[RangerWickett]

Halloween
8:03 pm

The restaurant is fabulously decorated for Halloween, resembling a sunken pirate ship, and someone even went so far as to paint a fake 'mold line' along the wall, obviously inspired by real flood damage all around the city. Waitresses shake their way through the crowd in pirate costumes, and the bartender looks positively like Orlando Bloom.

Mr. Lee's bodyguard escorts Robert to a table where sits Captain Barbossa. The old man stands and inclines his head politely to Robert. Robert extends his hand, and they shake.

"Mr. Lee?" Robert chuckles. "Already in costume, I see."

"I'm afraid I'll have to hurry back to my brother-in-law's party after our meeting. I'm glad you reconsidered coming to speak with me."

Robert nods, hiding his displeasure. "You said you had questions."

For a moment, the two men consider each other, Robert young and sly, Mr. Lee old and cunning, neither certain whether the other is honest, or just a talented liar.

Robert orders a drink from a pirate wench swinging by, as well as one for Belladonna's father. They exchange small talk for a bit, politely acknowledging the oddness and danger of the situation Robert, Belladonna, and company found themselves in. The drinks arrive, and neither actually drinks anything. As the conversation develops, Mr. Lee frames their discussion as him wanting to protect his daughter and determine just how much he owes to the people who helped keep her safe, while Robert subtly and discreetly tries to find out how much Mr. Lee knows about magic, and just what the hell is up with this man, the father of a woman who carried copious amounts of poison in her purse.

To an outside observer, their expressions and casual attitude would look the height of polite business, but Robert knows he doesn't trust Mr. Lee, and suspects Mr. Lee doesn't trust him, and guesses that Mr. Lee knows that he knows he doesn't trust him.

At one point, Mr. Lee scratches his ear, a completely innocuous movement, but a minute later his bodyguard arrives with a phone, saying it's urgent business. Robert says he's fine to wait, and Mr. Lee apologizes as he heads outside to talk on the phone. For a minute, Robert sits, replaying the conversation in his head, looking for clues. It seemed like the man was most interested whenever Robert commented about Terry, which amuses Robert, because he hasn't been at all honest about his opinion of the young mage. Robert has been acting as if he does not know about magic at all, that he did not see anything suspicious in the past few days that could not be explained by perfectly normal, everyday terrorism and kidnapping.

As Robert is trying to figure out why Mr. Lee would be so interested in Terry, something in his mind fits into place. The people around him, he realizes, have been watching him, all through the conversation. There are at least four tables, each with two men engaged in laughter-punctuated drinking, spaced around his own table so that, no matter how crowded the restaurant got, one of them would have a clear view.

And, he now realizes, all eight of the men have concealed handguns. This doesn't scare him, though. If anything, it crystalizes his motivation. He's going to up his game.

Mr. Lee comes back a minute later, and as he sits down, Robert speaks up.

"Pretty burly bodyguard you got there, Adrian. He looks almost like Rocky, y'know."

"It's pronounced Adrien," Mr. Lee says, smiling at the joke. "Sorry about having to step away. My partner Maurice was just informing me of some trouble in one of our French investments. Thank you for taking the time to talk with me, but-"

"Belladonna," Robert interrupts, "she has a fiance, right?"

"Remy, yes," Mr. Lee says. "Maurice's son. He's actually in France right now."

Robert smirks. "Uncle Maurice. Belladonna's marrying her own cousin? That might explain a thing or two."

His tone is harsh, dramatic enough of a change from the previous joviality that Mr. Lee looks flustered.

"Pardon me, Mr. Black, but what are you implying?"

"Oh, nothing. Just, what kind of person carries vials of poison," he laughs, "and, like, six concealed handguns? Your daughter's a little strange in the head."

Mr. Lee's expression falls dark. "I like to keep my girl safe."

"Oh, safe, sure." Robert smiles. "Most fathers, they'd get their daughter some martial arts training, or buy her a stun gun, like this."

He pulls out the stun gun from his sweater, reveling in the brief start of movement from the four tables around him as the bodyguards almost attack him.

"Yeah," he continues, "by the way, your boy over there, Rocky, you might want to get a replacement. He didn't frisk me."

Robert tucks away his weapon, and keeps talking before Mr. Lee can regain his composure.

"Your people sure own a lot of nice cars. Black cars, white suits, sort of thuggish attitudes, concealed hand guns. I'm asking myself, what kind of business would a man run, where his daughter carries, like, curare and stilettos, and he doesn't feel safe at a bar unless he has a half-dozen hired guns sitting around him."

Mr. Lee leans back in his chair. "What are you trying to insinuate?"

"Me?" Robert smiles. "No insinuation. I've just got questions. Y'know, because I've been attacked a few times these past few days, and I don't know what people want with me, or Belladonna, or," he pauses briefly, "Terry. I'm just a normal guy, and I'm trying to understand what's going on around me. What kind of business do you have? What do you really do, Mr. Lee, because I can't seem to figure out why I'm getting this . . . vibe from you."

"I own a shipping company," Mr. Lee says. To Robert's delight, the man looks confused, not sure how to respond to Robert.

"Yes, but what do you ship? What . . . now, I'm not trying to look at your books, or get in your business, but I'm a little more on edge than usual here, and I can't figure you out.

"Like that guy out there you have," Robert continues, "what does he do for your 'shipping' company? Y'know, if you had to give him a job title, what would it be?"

Something seems to snap in his Mr. Lee's gaze, and his composure breaks. Robert has succeeded in making the man so fed up with him that now he's too angry to lie.

"'Assassin,'" Mr. Lee growls.

"As-what?"

For a moment, Robert blanches, and Mr. Lee's expression is one of satisfaction, of pride that he has finally frightened Robert into shutting up. Then Robert clears his throat, and Mr. Lee seems to realize just what he said.

"Yeaaaah," Robert sighs. He stretches his neck, pretending to relax. "I'm guessing, ah, I'm not invited to the party, then?"

"I'm guessing you're not," Mr. Lee replies.

Adrien Lee looks like he's about to stand, but Robert lashes out with a hand. The quick movement causes Mr. Lee to sit back defensively, but Robert is not attacking. He simply has grabbed his glass.

In one quick motion, Robert downs his drink, stands up, and plants the glass upside down on the table. He strides out of the restaurant, leaving Mr. Lee behind as the loser. But though Robert leaves with his head confidently and defiantly high, he's worried as hell. In his eagerness to one-up Mr. Lee and find out his secret, Robert had not, until this moment, realized what the consequences might be of him finding out that secret. He's quite confident Mr. Lee is going to try to kill him.

Well, Robert thinks, not if he gets there first.

He leaves the bar, tilting his head up with a smile to Rocky, and then he hails a cab. When he gets inside, he hands the driver a $50 bill and asks, "Do you know where the Boudreaux mansion is?"

 

[RangerWickett]

Halloween
9:25 pm

The black BMW skids sideways out of the gate, coming to a stop scant feet away from the armored truck. Nathan, bedecked in all the finery of a Transylvanian count, nods politely to the Canadian terrorist.

"Holy sh*t," Scarpedin says from the passenger seat. "Nice driving."

The terrorist, who looks like the lead singer of Metallica, James Hetfield, swings open the back door of the armored car and jumps inside, shouting for the driver to go. The armored car starts to chug away sluggishly, its back door hanging open. They can see Hetfield pulling out a black detonator.

"You still got that shotgun?" Scarpedin asks.

"Here," Nathan says, proferring the gun, which he had made a point to take out of his trunk before the terrorists arrived. As Scarpedin rolls down his window, Nathan drives after the armored car, getting close enough to give Scarpedin a shot. Hopefully they'll be able to handle the Hetfield look-alike before he pulls out his mini-gun.

Scarpedin leans out the side window and fires from twenty feet away, hitting Hetfield in his chest. But Hetfield, safely protected by heavy body armor, simply flips them the middle finger, then uses the same finger to mash down on the detonator.

Nothing happens. Nathan breathes a sigh of relief that the jammer is working.

The armored car swerves slightly and Nathan has to back away to keep from getting rammed. Hetfield nearly falls out the back of the truck, but once he regains his balance he hammers at the detonator a few more times, until Scarpedin fires another shotgun blast at him. This shot goes wide, but Hetfield must not want to take any chances. He grabs the back door of the truck and pulls it shut.

Scarpedin spitefully fires a shot at the truck's tires, but misses.

"This gun sucks," Scarpedin says. "Open the sun roof. I need a better shot."

In the back seat, John asks, "Was he trying to blow up the mansion?"

"Yes," Nathan sighs. "I don't just make these things up, you know."

The armored truck keeps swerving from side to side, keeping Nathan from getting next to it for a shot at the driver. From the sun roof, Scarpedin tries again with the shotgun, and John leans out the rear window with a pistol, both of them popping shots at the tires, to no appreciable effect.

The truck is nearing the interstate. Remembering his vision, Nathan guesses it's foolish to try to direct the terrorists in any one direction and risk getting his car crushed. However, same as in the vision, the truck veers northward, cutting toward the freeway at seventy miles an hour. Nathan's BMW cruises after it, following in the wake the huge vehicle cuts in traffic. There are too many cars on the interstate for Nathan to feel comfortable, and he still has no idea how to stop the armored truck, but the radio jammer has a short range, so he cannot dare fall behind.

Another few shotgun blasts sound out from overhead as Scarpedin fires round after round, most of the shots missing the truck entirely and instead clipping other cars. Nathan hears Scarpedin cursing, and glances up briefly to see him trying to pass the shotgun back down through the sun roof. In his plate armor, though, he takes up all the space, so he has to struggle to shimmy back down into the car.

"This gun sucks!" he says once he's finally inside. "Gimme another one."

"You used all my ammo," Nathan yells, "and you accomplished nothing? I thought Americans were supposed to be good with guns!"

John grumbles audibly in the back seat, then leans out the side window and puts three bullets into one of the left rear tires. The tire sags a little, but the truck still has several to spare.

Scarpedin, seeming suddenly bored with the gun fight, starts to fiddle with the radio, muttering that they need driving music. All he gets is static, the station's being blocked by the jammer. He punches the radio in frustration.

"Your car's broken," Scarpedin says.

Distracted by Scarpedin's fit, Nathan doesn't even notice until the last moment that Hetfield has slowly managed to get himself and his mini-gun onto the top of the truck, standing out of a hatch on the roof. In addition to his body armor, the man now wears a clear-fronted bullet-proof helmet, and he waves and smiles, then takes aim with his mini-gun.

Nathan swerves as dozens of bullets tear into the road where his car just was. He has to struggle to avoid crashing into an SUV, and after a moment of frantic driving, he ends up two lanes to the left of the armored car, with a family sedan in the lane between them.

"Where the f*ck-?" Scarpedin says, the rest of his cursing cut off as he scrambles to stand up through the sun roof.

"Scarpedin!" John shouts. "Get inside, dammit!"

Hetfield flashes a smile at them from twenty feet away, then fires, aiming for the body of the BMW. In an instant, Nathan knows that if he brakes, the shots will miss him and instead tear into the family car next to him, so instead Nathan slams his foot on the pedal and swerves toward the concrete median, the automobile equivalent of a distance parry. Hetfield's mini-gun volley misses the engine block and instead cuts into the passenger side doors and right rear tire. The car drops sharply, back and to the right, and Nathan grimaces as he begins driving on what sounds like a horribly mangled rim. He has run-flats, but the rhymic clipping and shower of sparks trailing from behind his car tells him the tire is not just flat, but torn and jagged.

"Scarpedin!" This time Nathan shouts it. "Get down!"

Scarpedin drops back down inside the car and glares at Nathan. "Stop screwing me up! Drive the car straight for a second."

Just then, over the crackle of the radio, the whir of mini-gun bullets, and the bleating of car horns, Scarpedin's cel phone begins to ring from inside his plate armor. He twists awkwardly to try to reach the phone, but he finally resigns himself to not being able to answer it.

"He's bloody insane," Nathan mutters, continuing to swerve as a whirring line of bullets chews up the interstate beside and behind them. "And his ring tone is annoying."

He has no idea how many rounds Hetfield has, but he can see an ammo chain feeding up from inside the truck's back compartment. Hating himself for doing it, Nathan swings his car on the far side of a large van, getting a bit of cover from the hail of bullets. To his horror, he hears the heavy, chunky clanging of the mini-gun chewing through the van to get to the BMW.

Then suddenly Nathan realizes what it means if Scarpedin is getting a cel phone signal. He glances at the radio jammer in the back seat, and sees it smoking from a bullet hole. Worse, it is spattered with blood, as is the entire back of the car. John is clutching his right arm, which is a mess of torn and bloody flesh.

"I'm okay," John gasps. "But we've gotta fall back."

For a moment he despairs, until again he hears the sound of the mini-gun, and instinctively he swerves the car, managing to avoid getting hit.

"Get closer," Scarpedin says.

John groans, "We can't handle the damn mini-gun!"

"Says you," Scarpedin says. "I'm gonna get it. Hold the car f*cking straight this time."

Scarpedin once again stands up through the sun roof, and Nathan sees him concentrating, holding the Dalai Lama prayer beads in one hand. They are speeding along at well over 70 miles an hour, barely twenty feet from the armored car, both their vehicles weaving in and out of traffic. The van that briefly provided cover has braked suddenly, and in his rear-view mirror Nathan sees it skid, overturn, and catch fire. The yellow lights of the interstate strobe across them, cars honk in desperate confusion all around, and for a moment, the terrorist loses sight of the BMW.

Nathan knows perfectly well that Scarpedin cannot use magic. Anyone would agree that it would be impossible for him to suddenly manifest spellcasting powers, without being psychic or having a ghost. But then again, impossible is Scarpedin's life.

Through the sunroof (and the various bullet holes cut in his roof), Nathan sees Scarpedin reach out a hand toward Hetfield. And then, impossibly, the mini-gun is torn from the terrorist's grasp, flies across the gap between the two cars, and lands in Scarpedin's hands.

"No way," Nathan says, smiling.

He can't help but laugh as he pulls in closer to give Scarpedin a clear shot.

 

[RangerWickett]

Halloween
9:28 pm

As Nathan brings the BMW in closer to give Scarpedin a better shot, he sees Hetfield curse briefly before ducking inside the hatch on the armored truck's roof.

"Shoot for the front," Nathan calls up.

Scarpedin dutifully aims for the rear tires. The mini-gun is huge in his hands, and Nathan suspects the knight really has no idea how to use an uzi, let alone a heavy machine gun. But, Nathan figures, it's a mini-gun. How can Scarpedin miss?

The mini-gun whirs for about two seconds, and bullets fly across the interstate, nowhere near the armored truck. Then the gunfire silences, and only the dim hum of the gun's rotating mechanism remains. Nathan realizes that when Scarpedin magically pulled the mini-gun from the terrorist's hands, the Canadian must have snapped the ammo chain. Already Scarpedin has used all the rounds he's going to get.

"God dammit!" he curses.

Nathan sighs and pulls away from the truck again, afraid of getting sideswiped. Meanwhile, John leans out the side window with a pistol in his uninjured hand, waiting for a shot at one of the terrorists.

Scarpedin tries to put the mini-gun through the sun roof, still not realizing that there is a finite amount of room of which he's taking up a large proportion. Grumbling and cursing, Scarpedin sits back down, pulling the mini-gun in after him.

Nathan stares at the man for a moment, unblinking. "That's the second gun you have managed to use completely ineffectually. Despite my unflappable British demeanor, I am astounded."

"This gun sucks too," Scarpedin grunts, unconcerned, "but we're keeping it. Put it in the back."

John groans, "A little busy now."

Finally Scarpedin looks back and sees John bleeding on the back seat.

"Sh*t," he says as he carefully stows the mini-gun in the back seat beside John. "You're pretty bad off man. Why don't you heal yourself?"

John is still looking for a shot as he replies. "I can't do that."

John pops off a shot as Hetfield reemerges from the top hatch, but the bullet hits only body armor. At the speeds they're going, hitting the man's face, his only exposed area, is nearly impossible.

Hetfield, for his part, has an easier job of it. He holds a large shotgun in his left hand, and is fiddling with something out of sight with his right.

"Now," Scarpedin says, "what did I tell you two boys about 'impossible?' Work that angel groove. And gimme another gun."

"We need to hurry," Nathan says. "If they realize the radio jammer isn't working-"

John fires another shot. This one hits Hetfield in his arm and seems to actually annoy him.

Nathan suddenly feels nervous, like something terrible is about to happen. It's not quite vision-level, but something about how Hetfield is eyeing his car worries him. And then the Canadian terrorist pulls out a grenade, bites off the pin, and tosses it. To Nathan's horror, the grenade sails perfectly in through the back passenger window, landing in John's lap.

They all scream and Nathan cringes, but John manages to grab the grenade and toss it out the window. It explodes a few feet behind the car, and though shrapnel digs into the body of the BMW, miraculously none of them are hurt.

(In-game, this is what happens when three PCs have evasion, and they all make their saves while in a car.)

"Alright!" Nathan says, "I am getting quite fed up with people blowing up my car. Here."

He pulls out his magnum, the world's most powerful handgun, and offers it to Scarpedin.

"Don't. Waste. The bullets."

"Alright man." Scarpedin rolls his eyes.

He stands up again through the sun roof, just in time to take a shotgun blast to his arm. Scarpedin curses, while John fires off another shot, doing little if any damage.

"If you can use magic," John shouts, "grab that gun too."

"I'm f*ckin' shot, man!" Scarpedin growls and fires the magnum, missing.

Nathan sighs and tries to remain calm. Another shotgun blast clips off the hood of his car, and he sees the armored truck looming near, trying to crush him. The BMW, even with one mangled, sparking tire, is far more maneuverable than the truck, so Nathan hopes to take advantage of the terrorists' exuberance. He lays on the gas and pulls ahead into thicker traffic, and as expected, the armored car accelerates to follow.

Scarpedin and John are both firing madly at the front tires of the armored car, and Nathan tries to give them as clear a shot as possible for ten seconds, as long as he's comfortable sitting still. Then he swerves and, unsurprisingly, a second hurled grenade flies roughly where his car would have been. The detonation simply cracks the interstate surface.

A few seconds later, Scarpedin sits back down through the sun roof. "You got more ammo for this?"

John, who at some point switched to his second pistol, fires one last shot, just as the armored truck is swerving in to crush Nathan's BMW against the concrete median. The truck's front tire, worn away by several shots, finally buckles, and the truck goes out of control. Nathan cuts across in front of the truck and watches in his mirrors as it strikes the median instead. Then, as the front of the truck cracks into concrete, the backside skids and twists into the air. The truck lands on its left side and gouges a short swath of interstate as it comes to a stop.

"Turn around!" Scarpedin shouts.

Nathan obliges. Two hundred feet downrange from the wrecked truck, he shifts, turns, and brakes in a bootlegger 180. The BMW stops, not quite on a dime, but maybe on a pound coin.

"Holy sh*t," Scarpedin says again. "Nice driving."

In the bloody back seat, John says, "Bring us closer. We need to finish them off."

In the distance, the back door of the truck falls open, and Hetfield staggers out. A car slows down as it comes to the wreck, and Hetfield waves for help. Just as the driver stops to find out what's happened, Hetfield moves up next to the window and fires a shotgun blast into the driver's face.

"He's gonna get away!" Scarpedin says. "Closer!"

Nathan obliges.

 

[Steverooo]

;-p

Looks like Nathan should have left the radio jammer at the mansion... Of course, there are dangers with that, too, but in this case, it looks like it might have worked better... Also, I'm surprised that no one thought of the "Junkyard Special" that American soldiers use in Iraq, where some sheets of steel and a rip saw & drill are pressed into service to turn a Hummer into an improvised APC. You cut some pieces to cover, bolt them on, and Voila!, you are armored (might cut down on the maneuverability and speed, a little, and you get worse gas mileage, but the reduction in insurance premiums and repair funds makes it worthwhile)!

Oh well, they might not have had time, anyway... Now if Nathan can just RUN OVER "Hettfield" before HE (Nathan) gets shot, too! Where are the 40 Gigawatt Plasma Rifles whenya really need one, anyway?!?

 

[RangerWickett]

Halloween
9:30 pm

Hetfield pulls open the door to the car he’s jacking and starts unbuckling the driver. In his heavy green kevlar and body armor, shooting him is nearly pointless, but he has a bag slung over his shoulder that could well hold the detonators.

Nathan supposes he could try to ram him, but the terrorist has already survived several gunshots and an overturned truck; Nathan’s not sure it’d be worth the damage he’d inflict on his BMW. So instead Nathan closes within 30 ft. and makes a hard turn left, exposing his car’s passenger side and skidding to a stop.

Immediately Scarpedin is out of his seat and out the door, charging Hetfield with sword in hand. John, wounded but not debilitated, exits the back door and scurries toward the overturned truck. Cars are backing up on the interstate, their drivers fearful of getting anywhere near the gunfight about to erupt.

“Hi there!” shouts the terrorist as Scarpedin closes. “I'm an *sshole. I know I'm an *sshole. I've been an *sshole for a very long time. I LIKE being an *sshole, the hours are good and there's no heavy lifting.”

He punctuates this by shooting Scarpedin in the chest with a shotgun. Scarpedin sags for a moment, then surges forward and hacks at the Canadian with his longsword, chopping down once on the man’s shoulder before turning the blade and slashing a low strike at the man’s kidney. The blade slices through kevlar far better than a bullet, and though it glances off plating on the shoulder, the strike to the abdomen goes through and draws blood.

The Canadian steps back, looks down at his bleeding side in annoyed disbelief, and then kneecaps Scarpedin. The knight goes down. Hetfield is about to get into his car and drive off when he notices John standing atop the driver-side door of the armored truck, kicking in the shattered safety glass. Hetfield tries to shoot John, but his shotgun is empty and he has to reload. Meanwhile, John aims his silencer inside the wrecked truck’s cabin and finishes off the driver (a Canadian terrorist who looked a lot like Noah Wylie).

Nathan, still sitting in his car, has been busy getting out ammo for his magnum and reloading it, and so as Hetfield is lining up his shotgun at John, Nathan leans across the front seat, aims out the passenger window, puts a round into the man’s waist, where the body armor offers limited protection. Hetfield grimaces and moves to take cover behind the back of the car, then pulls a grenade off his belt and tosses it in a high arc toward Nathan’s BMW. Nathan sees it coming and kicks the car forward a dozen feet, so when the grenade lands and explodes he’s a safe distance away.

Meanwhile, John has leapt off the armored car and is making a line for the fallen Scarpedin, who, although conscious, is too wounded to fight. Hetfield fires at John but John jukes sideways and the shot misses. Nathan returns fire from the front seat of his car and shatters the windshield of the car Hetfield’s hiding behind. For a few moments Nathan and the terrorist exchange gunfire, each of them ducking for cover after shooting. Nathan hopes this is distraction enough for John to get Scarpedin to safety, because knows it won’t take long for Hetfield to realize he can just go and carjack another vehicle.

In the brief moments Nathan’s head is above the level of his door, he sees that John has kneeled beside Scarpedin and is struggling to convince the knight to retreat. Scarpedin looks adamant about not fleeing, though, and finally John throws up his hands in frustration and just grabs Scarpedin. When it happens, Nathan is aiming a shot at Hetfield, not looking at his two allies, but out of the corner of his eye, perhaps even beyond the bounds of normal vision, he sees something beautiful and shining flare with light.

He is too shocked to fire, because suddenly Scarpedin is on his feet, magically healed.

Hetfield turns in surprise as Scarpedin comes at him, but the knight’s sword moves faster than the terrorist’s aim. One downward slash cuts along Hetfield’s triceps and forearm, slashing armor and flesh. Then, before Hetfield can react, Scarpedin steps in even closer, grabs Hetfield’s arm to hold him in place, and brings an upswing across the man’s chest and into his face, knocking off the bulletproof face mask and sending a spray of blood into the air. But in his eagerness, Scarpedin lowered his guard, and he takes one final shotgun round to his shoulder as Hetfield slumps to the ground.

“Sh*t!” Scarpedin curses. He turns away and staggers toward John. “The *sshole shot me. Gimme some more of that magic, John. C’mon John.”

Scarpedin assumes Hetfield is down, and so he doesn’t see it, but Nathan senses it as Hetfield, covered in his own blood, pushes himself to his knees and reaches for a grenade. He’s about to pull the pin when the laser sight of Nathan’s magnum finds the man’s throat. Nathan fires, and Hetfield goes down with a final gurgle.

“Grab the bag!” Nathan shouts. “We’ve got to go.”

Already in the distance he can hear police sirens. He imagines he could explain this situation, but he’d quite prefer not to. Some cars have started driving along the shoulder to get around them. As Nathan waits for John and Scarpedin to get back to the car, it strikes him that this is the second time he has backed up traffic like this, the second time it has been a bomb, and the second time he has seen American drivers rush around a roadblock by driving on the grass. It would amuse him if he weren’t so worried for his car.

John helps Scarpedin into the car, both of them bloodied and injured, but less than they ought to be. Nathan catches John’s eye and smiles.

“What?” John glares.

“I’m saying nothing,” Nathan says.

His car is riddled with bullet holes and pieces of shrapnel, the seats are going to stain with blood, there’s a broken radio jammer in the back seat, along with a bag holding a detonator, Hetfield’s shotgun, and a mini-gun. Leaving a trail of sparks from his right rear wheel, Nathan cuts off the freeway and onto a feeder road, and hopes he can avoid being found by the police.

Scarpedin, with the luxury of time to loosen his armor and pull out his cel phone, checks his messages.

“Who called you?” Nathan asks casually.

Scarpedin shrugs. “An unknown number, and that crazy elf girl. She sent. . . .”

Scarpedin trails off. Nathan glances over and sees Scarpedin staring with ever-widening eyes at his cel phone.

“Pictures?” Nathan asks.

He grabs the cel phone from Scarpedin’s hand before the man can object, and starts scrolling through a series of pictures taking from a picture phone. His smile widens as he sees each one. First is of what appears to be a young, dark-skinned woman with pointed ears and white hair, dressed in Renaissance Festival attire, smirking as she snaps a picture of herself. Then, photo by photo, she first removes her fake ears, takes out her contacts, washes the paint from her face, and takes off her costume to reveal a t-shirt beneath. In the last photo she winks.

“So,” Nathan says, “pictures of her ‘undressing,’ then?”

He hands the phone back to a grumbling Scarpedin.

“Call Belladonna,” Nathan says. “We won’t be headed back to the party any time soon, but I want to make sure things are alright in our absence.”

“No more visions?” John asks.

“No, no. I’m quite certain we’re safe for the rest of the night.”

In the back streets of lower-class New Orleans, they scrape and squeal their way through the night, looking for a 24-hour body shop that won’t ask too many questions. Only several minutes later does Nathan realize that they forgot to make sure Hetfield was really dead.


To be continued . . .

 

[RangerWickett]

Looks like Nathan should have left the radio jammer at the mansion... Of course, there are dangers with that, too, but in this case, it looks like it might have worked better... Also, I'm surprised that no one thought of the "Junkyard Special" that American soldiers use in Iraq, where some sheets of steel and a rip saw & drill are pressed into service to turn a Hummer into an improvised APC. You cut some pieces to cover, bolt them on, and Voila!, you are armored (might cut down on the maneuverability and speed, a little, and you get worse gas mileage, but the reduction in insurance premiums and repair funds makes it worthwhile)!

Oh well, they might not have had time, anyway... Now if Nathan can just RUN OVER "Hettfield" before HE (Nathan) gets shot, too! Where are the 40 Gigawatt Plasma Rifles whenya really need one, anyway?!?

I have yet to introduce plasma rifles to this game, but I think that might be about the only thing we don't have yet. The past few months of gameplay have witnessed such nifty things as black helicopters, Nazi biomancers, the Egyptian airforce, stinger missiles, and Excalibur. Seeing as the group suspects they're going to have to fight Godzilla sooner or later, it might not be a bad idea for them to look into the plasma cannon thing.

As for armored plating, Nathan's player did not want to muck up his pretty BMW. He asked about the possibility of interior armor reinforcement, but would not have had the time to get that installed.

By the way, the aforementioned player is one of the readers of this story-hour, and he's been pointing out 'mistakes' on my part. Since this session took place months ago, I prefer to think of them as dramatic license, rather than my failing memory, but in the actual game a few things happened differently.

The biggest dispute was that, at the end of the car chase session, Nathan insisted on ditching the mini-gun, to avoid any incriminating evidence if the police found them. However, for the session after the car chase, Nathan's player wasn't there, and as you'll see, the mini-gun played a joyously critical role because we had forgotten they were supposed to have left it. Nathan's player was a little pissed that we ignored what his character had done, but I promised to be more vigilant in the future to keep temporal consistency.

The next one or two updates will be detailed like these recent ones have been, because there are some key moments I want to write, but after that I'm going to focus on synopses for a while. Also, I'm gonna be gone for Christmas and New Years with minimal internet access, but I'm going to make sure to end in a good place before heading off.

As always, thanks for reading.