Razzin'-frazzin' freakin' boards! If they behave for a few hours, I'll post our latest play session. Stay tuned.
OK, here it is:
Part IV: Hayseed Horror
After a lot of discussion on how to handle the “something big going down” at the olde tyme country warehouse. Joshua and Julie were determined to observe and figure out as much as they could and figure out as much as they could about it and how it related to their particular and personal mysteries. Tricia (sorry, I’ve been spelling it wrong all this time, but I’m not going to go back and change them all now!) on the other hand, was more determined to stop it. Since we didn’t know what “it” was, there wasn’t broad agreement on this strategy.
Some really wild plans were proposed, including Amanda and Jenny parachuting down to the gatehouse in bikinis and asking if this was where the bachelor party for Stan was while the rest of us snuck past the guards into the compound itself. What we finally settled on was that Amanda, Tricia and Jenny would parachute down (thanks to Chopper Dan from WRPG news in Chicago, who happened to be a friend to… one of the girls anyway, can’t remember who.) However, they’d parachute discreetly to the roof, where the blueprints told us they should be able to watch through two large skylights the proceedings below. Julie and Joshua, on the other hand, would stay outside the perimeter with night vision binoculars, rifles with bipods and laser sights, as well as tranquilizer rifles (which Joshua, at least, promptly set aside – having no interest in tranquilizing people who were probably going to be trying to kill him – assuming things went badly.) Julie was opposite the main gate and had a directional mike in addition to her other equipment, hiding in the woods near the perimeter, while Joshua was at the opposite end, where he could keep an eye on what looked like three water towers and a generator, with several guards. At about 22:00, Joshua and Julie were in place, and Amanda, Tricia and Jenny were jumping from the plane.
Joshua watched nervously, but the three were able to make their drops silently and apparently, without being seen. They landed smoothly, nobody got hung up on the water tower, and they quickly got in position themselves to watch what was going on through the skylights. Apparently, what they saw was a large symbol scrawled in something reddish on the floor with about 8-10 folks in brown robes around the symbol chanting. About a dozen guards were also visible in the warehouse, although several of them were merely playing cards around a table in the opposite corner. These were nearest the large loading dock and “garage” door. This state of affairs lasted for about an hour or so.
Around 23:30, Julie heard a car approaching – a 2002 Lincoln Town Car (we did ask the year, by the way, since two of us work for Ford.) The windows were blacked out, but switching her night vision to I/R, Julie was able to determine that there was a driver and two other individuals in the back seat. They pulled up to the gate and were rather quickly waved through. From there, they entered the small lobby door of the warehouse.
Not too long later, the three girls on the roof saw two individuals in brown robes approach the circle. They were carrying a case that looked exactly like the case in Matt’s old photos, and they walked with it as if it were extremely heavy. When they arrived at the symbol on the ground, which was starting to glow faintly now, they walked inside carefully not to smudge it, and set down the box. They opened it, and inside was an orb of some kind, scrawled with strange symbols and glowing fiercely. The chanting was getting louder.
Suddenly, Tricia decided that it was time to stop whatever was happening. Joshua looked on in frustration (deciding, after a rather difficult internal struggle not to shoot her with the tranquilizer gun) as they opened up several gas grenades and let the knock-out gas (not Russian made, to my knowledge) seep through the air ducts and the small hole Jenny had cut in one of the panes of the skylight. However, as they were doing this, one of the guards looked up and made eye contact with Jenny.
Suddenly, things started happening much more quickly. Tricia took her tranquilizer gun and shot the two men with the case, causing them to fall to the ground. This had two unfortunate side effects. First, the orb fell to the ground and suddenly shot out seven brilliant plumes of light, which traveled (in two cases at least) thousands of miles through walls, earth or whatever else to hit each of the seven PCs right in the chest. Joshua and (up in Alaska) Tim passed out, but luckily their players rolled really low on the amount of rounds they’d be out. The second unfortunate side effect is that the second man smudged the symbol on the ground as he fell. Suddenly the symbol erupted in a blaze of light, completely vaporizing the two men inside. And then, the creature appeared.
In the symbol now stood a strange being that looked somewhat skeletal, 10 feet tall with tiny horns and freakishly long fingers. It was bathed in red light and had a fleshy tongue that extended several feet from its mouth, and a monstrous black sword. Moving almost so fast that it was hard to follow, it quickly descended on the poor fools surrounding the circle, cutting several of them in half before they could react. Even two of the girls on the roof (can’t remember which two, though) stood rooted to the spot in fear, shock and loathing at the sight of the creature. However, the third quickly started pumping lead into the creature as best she could, finally succeeding in (at least) getting its attention. With preternatural ability, the demon (or whatever it was) leaped up through the skylight and cut Tricia down viciously.
By now Julie was running for the HummVee, and most of the guards and brown-robed ritualists were running screaming from the building, while the guards who patrolled outside were dumbfounded at the bright light that had streamed from the building. Quickly sensing the mood of panic, though, many of them hopped in cars and drove screaming like bats out of hell away from the warehouse. Joshua woke up to see some strange creature chopping away at Tricia, with Jenny and Amanda shooting at it at close range to limited effect. Carefully lining up his rifle, he took two shots at the creature from a distance. Julie was now pulling the Hummer up to the building while Amanda, was able to fell the creature with a hard blow to the back of the skull. It disappeared in a flash of light. At this point Joshua promptly forgot everything that had happened to him since before he left for Chicago, as did most of the remaining guards we discovered. Amanda and Jenny searched the warehouse for clues, finding a diary of Marcus’ that was written in a very esoteric fashion so casual readers wouldn’t understand much of what was in it. The sword and the orb were also confiscated. They did not, however, search for surveillance cameras, and even talked to several of the guards before walking away. Julie patched up Tricia as best she could, and was amazed to discover that her wounds hadn’t actually bled nearly as much as she would have expected. In addition, she could actually watch them closing right before her eyes, and before long, Tricia was walking around nearly as good as new, to Julie’s complete astonishment. Perhaps more disturbing however, was that some of the cuts had originally gone to the bone. Tricia’s bones were not white, but rather an odd grayish color. (Wolverine, maybe? Quick healing and adamantium skeleton…) Joshua was rounded up, and everybody left the area.
Coming next – Matt and Tim in Alaska. They did some stuff, but they’ll do more on the road to Chicago this weekend for the gameday, so look for an update next week on them.
A few metagame comments – Julie and I both agree that 6 levels of the Smart hero is two or three levels too many. The class doesn’t have enough bang for the buck, even in a campaign like this where combat has been extremely uncommon and we’ve been able to use our skills more than we might have otherwise. Also, I’m really concerned about the encounter at the warehouse. In my opinion, that was a complete disaster. We didn’t get to see anything that might have explained what was going on with us, anyone we could have asked has been fried or cut in half, all we got for our effort was a lousy diary that explains nothing, and a strange orb in a lead-lined case that we know nothing about. What’s worse, about a dozen folks saw us walk away with the orb (at least my character wasn’t seen by anyone!) and can place us at the scene, if they even need to. I find it hard to believe that Venture Resources will go to the trouble to make sure blueprints for the building aren’t available, yet don’t have security cameras. If we’re lucky, Jenny and Amanda (at least) will now be wanted by the police in connection with the mysterious deaths of about half a dozen people. If we’re not lucky, then the police won’t even get their hands on this as the cover-up comes in. However, that makes me even more nervous about who does know we were there, and that we walked away with their orb!
