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Message: <blockquote data-quote="RangerWickett" data-source="post: 16112" data-attributes="member: 63">Chapter Seven:  The Tower of the DragonJune 4, 2000While the rest of the group investigates Max Dorman, aka Dornankanir, in Savannah, the Bureau assigns Tagin-Eve to a clean-up job abroad.  Hong Kong.Two days ago, Giriuko, the Dragon publicly known as Hong Kong millionaire Li Tsi Tong, was assassinated in her private offices on the 70th floor of her Hong Kong corporate skyscraper.  The place was a wreck, charred by intense-heat burns in swaths across the walls and floor in addition to what appears to be frost damage on parts of the furniture.  The only bloodstains are Draconic in origin, and security cameras in the lobby outside her office do not show anyone entering or exiting, only odd flashes through the cracks in the door.  Obviously, anyone who was able to slaughter a Gold Dragon in her den without receiving any serious wounds is a serious threat not only to innocents, but also to the secrecy that keeps magi from the eyes of normals.  Fortunately Tagin will not have to worry about the attacker.  With his mind-boggling hacking skills (a total bonus of +17 with unfamiliar systems: +5 skill ranks, +1 Intelligence, +3 Skill Emphasis, +2 synergy bonus from Disable Device, +2 synergy bonus from Knowledge (computers), +4 from Magic Touch feat), Tagin’s job is to liquidate Giriuko’s assets.  As the Chieft jokingly explains to Tagin, the Bureau needs to get its funding from some place, doesn’t it?  Her actual hoard has yet to be located, and that’s mostly what the Bureau is looking for, but if the ‘Clean-up and Redistribution’ team can send some actual cash at the Bureau, all the better.  It is a bit of a dirty practice in human eyes, but has become the standard for Bureau business.Tagin-Eve will be working with two other Bureau agents, neither of them knights.  The term ‘Knight’ is used to denote someone who might be able to hold his or her own in combat against a magi, and neither of his co-workers meet this criterion.  The first is Brian Greenman, who upon meeting Tagin immediately mentions that he knows Tagin’s “buddy,” Finagle.Tagin smiles sarcastically:  “Yeah, I’ve already held him at gunpoint once.  I hope you and I can be buddies too.”The other agent who he’ll be working with is Dalavar Keneil, a half-Elf who’s been with the Bureau pretty much since birth.  He’s a telepath, trained by Autumn Yeiotana, though nowhere near her power.  Tagin asks Neil what they need a telepath for, and Dalavar nervously replies that he’ll make sure no one sees them as they sneak into the most secret locations of a high-security skyscraper.  Then their fourth ‘teammate’ makes his appearance, commenting that if Tagin and Brian were foolish enough to think they’re just creep their way into a skyscraper owned by a paranoid dragon, then they should leave most of the thinking to Dalavar.  The insult doesn’t actually reach their ears, but instead creeps into their head like something wet and heavy.  They all turn to see the BMM’s head telepath Yondo J’Qwuan, who normally resembles something out of the Cthulhu mythos.  Much to their surprise, instead looking all purply-green and tentacley, he just looks like a severe-faced Chinese human, still dressed in a business-suit.Again, J’Qwuan seems to telepathically mutter that they were stupid enough to think an Illithid would go out in public without a disguise . . . but they couldn’t hear exactly what he said, so the two humans let it pass.  J’Qwuan will transport them to Hong Kong, then discreetly scan for any powerful magicks, and alert the rest of the group if anything approaches that might threaten them.  Additionally, J’Qwuan will alter the memories of Giriuko’s most highly-trusted business partners to make sure they don’t get the foolish notion that their CEO was a Gold Dragon.  Meanwhile, Dalavar and the two hackers—Brian and Tagin—will enter discreetly into the building and ascend to the 65th floor where the main business suites were.  Dalavar will use his mental powers to make sure no one sees them.  Once they’re inside the office, Tagin and Brian will hack into the system and get the job done.‘Why two hackers with only one telepath watching their backs?’ Tagin wonders silently, to which J’Qwuan replies telepathically that he trusts any magi at least twice as much as he trusts any mundane.  To accentuate his point, he hands Dalavar a light sword, leaving the two hackers with only pistols (and Tagin’s switchblade).One more admonishment before they leave.  J’Qwuan warns Dalavar not to go near the crime scene.  A powerful enough magical aura can shut down another magi’s powers, and even the residue of a Dragon’s aura can be dangerous.  [Meta:  This adventure resulted because Chad, Tagin’s player, missed the previous adventuring session.  I believe it turned out to be one of the coolest sessions we ever ran.  Jessie, our DM, had already introduced the hacker Brian to Finagle, so everything just clicked when she realized she had to run a solo adventure with Tagin-Eve.  For this adventure, I jumped into the side-seat and roleplayed Brian Greenman, while the player who normally portrayed Cai just sat in for the hell of it.  Since we ran this game before we knew about the commoner and expert clases in the DM’s Guide, Brian happened to be a 0th level character.  Yay me.]  The party uses a key to get into Hong Kong, in an alley behind a Buddhist shrine in a shadier district of town.  Casually, arogantly, J’Qwuan leads them through the streets toward downtown.  Dalavar tries to get to know the two hackers by showing how he can make people stop looking at them.  He points to a couple of prostitutes on a corner looking at them, and then with a grin from Dalavar, the two oriental women just turn and look away.Brian comments that it was probably just Neil’s smile that made them look away, but Tagin remains silent.  He’s used to people not looking at him, and he’s been able to pull it off without magic.  He remains silently unimpressed through the rest of the walk/ride (Brian whined that his feet hurt and asked if they could take a cab), until they reach the tower of Li Tsi Tong.  They walk through the doors as if invisible; everyone looking away at just the right moment to never see them.  Once inside, the three mammals and the squid-guy part ways, taking separate elevators.They reach the 65th floor, and casually walk into a small archipelago of offices.  A discreet telepathic scan of a security guard reveals which room they want, and Dalavar leads them into a wide office stretching across one side of the building.  The blinds on the windows are parted enough to fill the room with dim light, revealing ornate decorations.  This is apparently Li Tsi Tong’s own office, and the walls are decorated with Chinese-character wall scrolls and Japanese paintings, a few ubiquitous potted plants in elaborate vases that sit in the corners, and a full set of Samurai armor that stands mounted slightly behind and to the side of the main computer terminal.  While Brian practically drools over the oriental artifacts in the room (“Whoa, look!  A rice-paper Chinese Zodiac!”), Tagin sits at the desk and examines the currently shut-off computer.  It’s a Pentium III, high quality, hooked up via ethernet cable.  The keyboard is in Chinese, which he hadn’t considered ahead of time.  He plans to rely on handy Windows icons to help him locate a DOS shell, and he’ll work from there.  The screen boots up to an “Enter password”-style window, only the text is in Chinese, and there appears to be a clock ticking backward, with about a minute left.  On either side of the screen, two gold Dragons stretch languidly in traditional Chinese style.  Certainly not something your typical “Enter Network Password.”Brian briefly panics, but after a quick argument, Tagin’s cool head convinces them to not try to unplug it, so Dalavar runs over, memorizes the characters, runs to the door, and establishes a link with one of the guards, trying to use the guard’s knowledge of Chinese, and his own ability to translate thoughts, to figure out what the prompt is asking.  With about 15 seconds left, Dalavar shouts back to them that it says,“Twelve arrive, twelve are blessed.  Enter the date.”Tagin throws his hands up in the air.  “Great job.  Like I know what the hell that means.”With about five seconds left, Tagin types a few random keys on what would normally be the numeral line, then clicks what he guesses is ‘Enter.’The screen flashes briefly and the two gold Dragons turn their gaze out at Tagin, through the screen.  Their eyes flare an angry red, and Tagin and Brian feel themselves perfectly caught up by that hypnotic gaze . . . when Dalavar shouts, “Look out!”Snapping out of their momentary daze, Tagin and Brian see a shadow coming up from behind them, falling across the desk.  Twirling around, Tagin sees the suit of samurai armor drawing its katana.  The face of the helmet is covered with a fearsome mask, and after a moment of abject terror, Tagin is able to leap away just in time to avoid a downward slice from the katana.  The blade cuts straight through the modern plastic desk, and the unfazed samurai drops into a fighting stance, facing Tagin.Tagin draws his pistol, but Dalavar says as loudly as he dares not to shoot, since he can’t block that much noise telepathically.  Cursing, Tagin-Eve takes a few steps back and draws his switchblade, trying to keep the desk between him and the samurai.Meanwhile, Brian babbles incoherently for a few moments, saying they should have found out what the date was from the guards, and now Tagin’s gone and gotten them all killed and he’s never going to get to play D&D third edition when it really looked cool from what he saw online, and how he’s never going to ever want to play a game in an Oriental setting because he doesn’t understand what the heck these stupid squiggly lines on the keyboard mean.  Tagin tumbles out of the way of a high cut, but a low slash catches him on the shoulder and digs deep.  He comes to his feet grimacing in pain, almost staggering into a glass display case as he tries to keep away from the armor.  He shouts for Brian to shut up and give him some help.Dalavar, sifting from Brian’s incoherent ramblings a piece of actual advice, gets as far away from the samurai armor as possible, then closes his eyes, concentrating on the guards outside.  Brian, meanwhile, yanks a lamp off the desk and hurls it at the armor.  As the lamp was still plugged in, its flight is aborted as soon as its cord runs out.  Tagin feints a leap backward, then tumbles to the armor’s side and around its back, then stabs his switchblade into where a kidney oughta be.  Not surprisingly, the armor doesn’t notice, and instead just backhands Tagin in the face, knocking him away.  Dalavar’s eyes flutter open, and he inches around the samurai/hacker battle to get to the keyboard.  Brian’s about to throw the monitor at the suit of armor when Dalavar bends over the keyboard and types several keys, muttering “June 4th, 2000” under his breath.  Then he clicks enter.The screen flashes again, but Dalavar averts his eyes.  Judging by the sound of Tagin scrambling across the carpet away from the still-active armor, Dalavar guesses that “June 4th, 2000,” is not the right answer.Tagin moves backward toward the full-length window, making a few threats at the samurai armor in an attempt to goad it into charging him, but apparently the animated armor is wiser than Tagin, because it instead feints with a downward chop, then sweeps Tagin off his feet with a low kick.  Tagin is barely able to avoid getting his leg severed as he leaps away.  “Dalavar, don’t you have a stupid sword?!  Kill this thing!”“I’m busy,” the telepath replies cooly, again closing his eyes and focusing on the guards outside.Finally getting his panic under control, Brian yanks the arcane blade’s hilt out of the half-Elf’s pocket and rushes at the armor, igniting the blade and filling the room with an emerald glow for a moment before the magic fades into the form of a broadsword.  Since the armor’s back is turned, Brian bravely swings to slash at it.  The weapon digs into the armor at the back, above the hips, cutting through and into the hollow interior.  With lightning reaction, the armor whirls around and bats the exposed end of the arcane sword’s hilt with the back of its katana, flipping around and slashing at Brian’s hand to cause him to lose control of the blade and drop it.  Cursing, Brian staggers away, biting his lip as he stares at the armor’s snarling mask.The armor makes two quick slices, but Brian reveals that he is much faster than one would expect for such a pudgy guy.  So fast, in fact, that he staggers backward into the glass display case he’d been admiring earlier for its Zodiac wall scroll.  He lightly cracks the glass, but, still panicking, he turns and tries to keep running.  “Dammit, Neil!” Tagin shouts as he leaps upon the armor’s back, tackling it.  He kicks it in the back of its knee, and the armor begins to fall, but as they go down, the samurai spins so Tagin lands on the bottom.  “Neil!  Do something constructive, okay?!”Breaking out of his concentration, apparently unsuccessful, Dalavar Kineil glances about, then grabs a vase and heaves it off the ground, trying to get close enough to smash the armor.  Meanwhile, the armor hits Tagin in the face with its elbow, then rolls over and pins the hacker at the legs and throat.  Brian, who in his panic has been staring dead into a zodiac wall scroll for 10 seconds, gasps and then shouts, “I got it!”Just as the armor is about to take a lengthwise slash across Tagin’s neck, Brian runs past it toward the desk, stumbling over one of the armor’s legs.  Brian keeps running, but in that moment, one of Tagin’s legs was free.  Hooking his leg up and around the armor’s back, he leverages sideways and flips them over to put the armor on the bottom of the pile.  Free from the armor’s pin, Tagin kicks away just as a katana slices through where his throat should have been.  The armor begins to get up, when a massive Chinese vase crashes atop its chest, knocking it to the floor.  With a few moments’ respite, Tagin runs over to the arcane broadsword and grabs it, yelling at Brian to tell them what he’s doing.“Enter the date, right?  Twelve arrive and bless?  It’s the zodiac!”Tagin gives a shrugging nod in agreement as the samurai armor does a dramatic martial arts kick-flip to its feet.  As Tagin and the Samurai armor circle, swords pointed at each other, Tagin nervously asks, “Yeah?  And you’re going to start typing when?”“Well, by the Chinese zodiac, it’s the year of the Dragon.”  Grinning at his own greatness, Brian sits down at the desk.  Dalavar steps away and closes his eyes, saying, “I’ll find out what ‘Dragon’ is in Chinese.”As Tagin shows his true colors by ducking when the Samurai swings at him, Brian shouts to Neil, “Nah, don’t bother.  I got it.  I have more than enough Chinese Magic cards.”With a few quick keystrokes, Brian types in “Dragon” in Chinese, then clicks enter.  The samurai, its sword raised to behead Tagin, stops.  It takes a step back, wipes the blood from its sword, and sheathes the weapon, then bows to Tagin.  Tagin looks up sheepishly, watching as the animated warrior takes its place back at the stand.  A few breaths of relief pass, and then Tagin nods his thanks to Brian.  Brian grins back, and then turns his attention to the screen as Windows loads fully.  Before the fat, roleplaying hacker can get a chance, though, Tagin comes up beside him and ousts him from the chair, saying to let him handle this.  As Tagin hacks his way into the system and changes the language standard to English, downloading a translation program from the net, etc., he graciously thanks Dalavar for getting them into that mess.For Dalavar, it’s all he can do to sweep up the dirt and plant pottings off the floor, hoping to leave little trace of their presence.  Brian gives the suggestion to dump the dust down the slit he cut in the armor’s back, so as Dalavar, Tagin, and Brian leave the office half an hour later, they leave the estate of Li Tsi Tong a few million dollars poorer, but with a lovely suit of samurai armor, filled with a fern.The trio load into an elevator, and as the doors close Dalavar’s finger hovers over the button for the Lobby floor.  Then, looking upward at the ceiling as if in a daze, Dalavar presses button 70.Brian coughs nervously, glancing at Dalavar.  “What are you doin’, man?”Tagin says, “Neil, don’t screw something else up, okay?  Let’s just leave.”Shaking his head, Dalavar gestures upward with a nod of his head.  “No, I just have this feeling.  I want to check it out.  It might be important.”Brian, shaking his head vigorously, half-shouts, “No man.  This is like some kind of bad horror film.  Like, ‘Press 70 for DEATH!”  Think, man!  You’re freaked out.  We can’t trust you.”  He turns to Tagin. “You know we can’t trust him, don’t you?”With a soft toll, the elevator doors open, and without further ado, the telepath—their shield—walks out into the 70th floor lobby.  With no other choice, the two hackers follow Neil to the doors of Giriuko’s private room.  Dalavar, again in a daze, reaches out and pulls open the door, but before they can reveal more than a peek of the room beyond, Dalavar’s eyes roll back into his head, and he crumples to the floor.Tagin and Brian both try to get as small as possible, as quick as possible, but the various guards stationed on the floor spot them suddenly, and they don’t take kindly to intruders.  Leveling small arms at the two white men, they rush to surround them, barking orders in Chinese.  Guessing their intent, Tagin and Brian raise their hands in the air and try to look as innocent as possible, as quick as possible.  Then, to their side they hear a door click at the edge of the lobby, and the guards suddenly shrug and turn to look away, going back to business as usual.  After a moment’s confusion, the two agents look at the fire stairs and see J’Qwuan walking into the room, his head raised haughtily above them.  He stops a few dozen feet away and telepathically asks them to shut the door to the Dragon’s room.  That done, the two hackers drag Neil to the fire stairs, and once away from the aura of the dead Dragon, Dalavar slowly recovers.  Afraid to let them take the elevator again, J’Qwuan orders them all to walk down the stairs, and so for 69 flights, Tagin shares every insult he can think of with Neil, until by about the 68th floor Brian has to tell Tagin to chill.“C’mon man.  He’s a telepath.  Haven’t you ever seen Babylon 5?  You don’t mess with them.  Just lay off.  He knows he did wrong, but it’s cool now, right?”The SCAD student remains silent and makes the rest of them ignore him for the rest of the trip back to the departure spot.  The mission was a success, if a bit of a fiasco, and things get even worse when they reach the alley to teleport back.  A group of local teenagers are hanging out in the alley, spraying it with graffiti.  There are too many for J'Qwuan to charm them all into leaving, so the Illithid has to find a payphone to call the Bureau.Tagin grumbles and says that he’s going to get a cel phone first thing when they get back stateside.While J’Qwuan makes the call, Tagin and Brian both notice that across the street is a high-tech, sort of technobrothel, the latest craze in techno-savvy Hong Kong.  A soft, sweet singing reaches their ears, and ignoring their commanding officer, the two weak-willed hackers stride through the doors into the club, followed a moment later by an alarmed Dalavar Kineil.The singing guides the two Americans through the crowd until they reach an exotic dancer draped with a feathery shawl, dancing erotically around a pole while jarring techno beats fill the air.  Tagin and Brian stare at her beauty gape-jawed, until Dalavar comes up behind them and slaps them both across their heads.  “Sure,” Dalavar says, “she’s sexy now, but how about when I dispel the charm she put over you?”Annoyed that the half-Elf interrupted their viewing, Tagin and Brian look back up, but now see that the feather shawl is actually real feathers growing from the slightly-misshappen woman.  Staring knowingly up at the woman, Dalavar remarks into the hackers’ ears, “A siren.  Good job guys.  You’re probably the first idiots since Odysseus to avoid getting eaten by one of them.”The siren looks down at them, sneering at Dalavar.  She calls over to her boss in Chinese and then steps down off the dancing dais to stand beside the agents.  With a strange accent in her voice, she tells them she has something important to share about the killer they’re looking for.  “Interests” perked, the agents follow the swaying hips of . . . err, follow the siren into her dressing room, where she locks the door for privacy.  Dalavar remains on guard, entirely certain she’s just trying to trick them again.Her feathers ruffling softly over the distant noise of the techno music, the Siren says, “I’m not going to kill you.  I don’t need meat, do I?  Your agency so nicely gives me animal meat to dine on.  Frankly, I miss the old ways.  Days when Dragons weren’t dead.  Things were nicer then.”They notice that she seems to stare off a bit into space when she talks, but she seems to speak English well enough, even though she’s not making much sense.  They prompt her to go on about the killer.Siren:  “He came in here after he killed the lizard.  I think he wanted to kill me, but things were too public for his tastes.  I would have killed him, but he was already dead, and it wouldn’t have done any good.”Confused looks pass among the agents.The Siren sighs and walks out into the hallways, motioning for them to follow her as she heads toward an alley exit.  “He wants to be like a legend, but all the legends are dead.  He wants to be like the Archangel, battling his Dragon in the Apocalypse.”Tagin frowns at the Christian symbolism.  “I thought Sirens were Greek.”“My family converted a long time ago,” the Siren answers, actually lucid briefly.Brian says, “Well, that explains you knowing Christian stuff, but what about you being here in China?”The Siren growls in frustration.  “Your agency told me to get a job if I wanted to live on Terra.  Told me they’d keep an eye on me.  They keep an eye on every magi that walks your ‘Earth.’  But humans. . . .  Humans they don’t mind.  I don’t mind humans either.”Brian smiles dumbly.Siren:  “What I mind is the nasty fake meat you give me to eat.  My kind do not eat animal flesh.  Our nature cannot be held back forever.  Your killer knows that, and that’s why he wanted to kill me.  Why he did kill the lizard.”Tagin shrugs at Brian, still confused.  “So . . . you were saying that the killer is dead.  What do you mean, dead?”Having reached the alleyway behind the club, they stop.  The siren points across the street, to where J’Qwuan, still disguised as a human, is making a phone call.Chuckling, she points a feather-rimmed hand toward the Illithid.  “Must be hard to make a phone call without lips.  I imagine he just gurgles into it.”Tagin snorts a little, and Brian laughs, pretending to be a phone operator:  “Oh, it’s J’Qwuan.  Hello sir.  Are you alright?  One blbopbpoblalp for yes.  Two blbopbpoblalps for no. . . .  Wait, was that two, or just one long blbopbpoblalp?”The siren shakes her head and hums a little ditty, walking down the street toward the nearby river while Dalavar tries to make sure no one sees them.  They follow out of curiosity for nearly a minute, while all the siren does is hum softly as she strolls toward the bridge that spans the river.  This late at night there’s barely any car traffic, and so the Siren is able to stop in the middle of the road, on a part of the bridge where the shore is still beneath them, some thirty feet below.  She walks to the railing, glances down curiously, then leans her back on the railing.Staring at them, she addresses Tagin.  “You know, skinny one, you’d taste good.  But I can’t do that.  That would hurt the humans.  Scare them.  Yes, your agency doesn’t mind the humans.  But they can’t hold back my nature forever.  The whole world is rebelling.”Brian looks around in boredom.  “Yeah yeah.  So, . . . who’s the killer?  He talked to you?”Siren:  “He’s dead.”A pause, and then Tagin chuckles.  “Yeah, a buddy of mine shot him as he ran away from another Dragon he killed.  But you said he was already dead.”The Siren shrugs, her feathers rustling.  “I can’t live like this.  My kind have lived on your ‘Earth’ since the Greeks, but now we are forced to either go away, or live in the walls you make for us.  We are numbered, ordered, told what to do.  Our lives are owned by you.“Ahh,” she pauses, eyes frighteningly wide as she lolls her head from side to side, “but he was already dead, and he helped the lizard stop living this lie.  Stop living with hunger repressed, urges controlled.  I should have let him end this lie for me when I saw him.”Brian realizes she’s about to jump just before she spins and vaults over the railing.  He grabs her foot, and Tagin grabs Brian around the waist, but then against his will, Brian feels his fingers opening, releasing his grip.  The Siren plummets to the rocks below and lands with a crack.  Brian whirls around to Dalavar, then sees J’Qwuan coming up behind him, dark in the dim lights of the bridge.  J’Qwuan states that it was her wish to die, so he forced Brian to let go and grant her that desire.  Brian begins to shout at the Mind Flayer, but J’Qwuan ignores the complaint, saying that he was able to glean a few things from her mind before it died, while her defenses were down.Brian gapes in disgust.  “You’re a monster!  You let her die just so you could. . . .  That’s revolting!”J’Qwuan glares down at Brian.  “You’re just a desk worker.  Don’t talk up to me.”Brian shakes his head, his expression livid.  “Oh, I’m not talking up to you.  I’m talking down to you, because you’re just scum on the ground, you brain-sucking squid-faced Monster Manual reje-”[Meta:  At this moment, Jessie, the DM, put a hand over my mouth to shut me up.  She then said, “When Brian wakes up a few seconds later, he pushes himself off the pavement, and J’Qwuan turns silently to head back to the gate back to the Bureau.”]Apparently the Bureau’s chief telepath considers insubordination a pet peeve.  Sure, Brian has just received the worst ice cream head-ache of his life, but it felt dang good to get that off his chest.  He even caught Tagin smirking later in pride, so Brian took a liking to Tagin.  Tagin just said it was funny that Brian just passed out in mid-sentence.Having Dalavar call this time, they get someone to come pick them up, and to recover the Siren’s body.  They make it back slightly after the knights in Savannah return from wrecking Dornankanir’s house, and are debriefed by the Chief, then scanned by Autumn Yeiotana to make sure they weren’t charmed.As Brian and Tagin leave the examination room, waving goodbye to Autumn, J’Qwuan glides in, greeted by sneers from both hackers.   [Meta:  So, Tagin, for once, had to be heroic and take center stage.  Brian actually grew a backbone, much to my delight as his part-time player.  And both of them found a friend, though Tagin refused to admit it.  In hindsight, that riddle’s answer should’ve been patently obvious (I even had a “Year of the Dragon” desktop wallpaper from WotC’s website), but it sure felt gratifying to get it right.Oh yeah, and we were still confused as hell as to how the killer could have been dead, when we had just seen him all bright and chipper running away from a crime scene a few nights earlier.  Stay tuned.]</blockquote>

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