NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Desdichado" data-source="post: 358762" data-attributes="member: 2205">Part III: Garbled GambolingWell, hopefully this post will bring us entirely up to date on our game sessions so far.  As mentioned previously, this one is a little bit harder for me to write, as I missed portions of it, or at least, was unable to devote my full attention to some of the stuff that was going on.  In addition, our group splintered as we tried to accomplish more quicker by splitting up, so how much I got of the other players circumstances may be somewhat missing.  Anyway, I'll take a first stab at this, and if I remember really significant things I later, I'll fill them in via an edit or another post.As Jenny was talking to the deputy and Joshua was tracking down Doug Trenton, Matt and Tim decided to take a bus back to Chicago to retrieve Tim's Harley and Trisha's HumVee (which was loaded with surveillance equipment as well, something we thought might come in awfully handy.)  On the bus ride, they apparently talked quite a bit, and Matt showed his picture to Tim, who recognized another one of Matt's 120-year old buddies as someone he had dealt with recently through Venture Resources.  They come up with a working theory, and a bit more of a plan, but as the rest of us don't hear about it until later, I'll add it in as we learned of it.Meanwhile, Julie, Jenny and Trisha now team up to go to the coroner's office.  Since Yeager doesn't have a really well-qualified coroner, the body we found in the shed was left sitting there while someone was fetched from Chicago to deal with it.  Julie, as a leading genetic researcher from NYC, feels she can pass herself off as a CDC agent, investigating the unusual death to make sure there is no threat to the area.  The coroner accepts her story (and that Jenny is a collegue of hers) so the two of them are left inside while Trisha talks to the cops up front, dropping her names from the Chicago force that she's worked with closely in the past.The coroner is glad to see her, because some elements of the body are very intriguing to her, and she doesn't want to have a very intriguing report with her name attached.  She decides to write the report up as a simple suicide by fire, but before she does, she shows Julie some of the very unusual features of the body.  First of all, although commonly believed to be Scott Strohbel, the dental records of this corpse do not match his, so her report will call the victim a John Doe.  Second, which she will not put in her report, each of the digital phalanges (finger bones) show an unusual extension, giving the victim uncommonly long -- in fact, freakishly long -- fingers.  And finally, a strange artifical "box" of shiny metal is attached firmly to the base of the spine, with filaments that dig through the vertebrae into where the spinal column would have been if it hadn't been burned to nothing.The coroner agrees to allow Julie to perform an autopsy, and with a judicious call from Trisha that pulls her to the front desk, Julie and Jenny are left alone with the skeletal corpse.  First, Julie cuts the box free from the spine and scans it with a digital camera.  It appears to have smooth, yet tiny, markings all over its surface.  She photographs it from all angles, including with an x-ray camera.  She then examines the skeleton itself, looking at the strange fingers.  She takes a tiny core sample of one of the bones and makes a few more startling discoveries -- it appears that the bone isn't just burned on the outside surface, as one would expect, but also is burned at it's core, as if the skeleton burned from the inside out!  Using a high-resolution color fax, she sends the data to some collegues in NYC for further analysis, as well as keeping the core sample in the hopes that some DNA can be extracted from it.Meanwhile, back at the hotel, I has found that Doug Trenton discovered my careless hacking and sent me an e-mail.  I e-mail him back (after first establishing the most anonymous and secure e-mail account I can devise) and tell him that actually I'm investigating the apparent death of Scott and want more information.  Doug responds fairly quickly that some kind of box has been delivered to the warehouse of Venture Resources -- he fears that something big is going down tomorrow night.  He says he will meet me at his house tonight at 10:00 PM.Amanda does some searching on the warehouse, and finds that the building permit and zoning are all on the up and up, but she can't seem to find out who the actual owners of the building are.  She calls the appropriate county offices to get the blueprints, but is surprised that she cannot (as legally, she should be able to.)  Trisha also calls and tries, and with a slight tinge of panic in his voice, the county clerk that should give her the blueprints tells her to get lost, and wonders what all the interest in this warehouse is anyway.  On a whim, I try to call and get blueprints for another nearby building, and am told that there's no problem, I can come pick up copies the next morning.  When I hang up and give my account, the group is somewhat sobered.  Trisha decides that its time the buidling got the once-over with her high-tech surveillance equipment, but as its only about 5:00 PM, we decide to go to the local bars to see if we bump into any of the Dragons.Actually, I want to go to the local Big Boy, but when I'm told by the Day's Inn Desk Clerk that some of these bars are locally famous for the cheeseburgers and onion rings, I'm convinced to go with Amanda, Jenny, Julie and Trisha.  Not surprisingly, since we're a big group huddled in a corner and are 10-15 years older than the audience we're targetting, we don't really see much.  Amanda tells us all to get up and mingle.Around this time, I get a cell phone call, and I duck into the men's room to take it.  It's Tim.  Apparently, he and Matt are going to Alaska!  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f631.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":eek:" title="Eek!    :eek:"  data-smilie="9"data-shortname=":eek:" />  While searching for more information, they discover the Venture Resources, which has a corporate headquarters there, has burned to the ground just a week or so ago.  While the trail is still hot (no pun intended) they want to quickly investigate it.  I also get to hear Tim's story (related last "issue") which the girls actually still don't know, as well as the theory advanced by Matt that Venture Resources has uncovered, or maybe developed, some kind of technology that enables time travel.  I advance the counter theory that maybe we are all clones of this original group, and that's why we are suddenly all being pulled together.  (To that, my DM tells me I've been reading too much Dark*Matter!)  In any case, I tell the girls that Tim and Matt will be in Alaska investigating Venture Resources.  When I get the inevitable slew of questions, I have to beg ignorance (only partially feigned) of what they're up to and what they know.After dinner, Trisha pop across the border to set up a stake-out on the warehouse, while Julie and Amanda drive me in the Honda Civic to Doug's house for our meeting.  Jenny tells us she can get a hold of the blueprints we didn't get before.  Julie and Amanda decide to stay back so as not to alarm him with a large group.  The house seems dark except for one light from a room upstairs.  I approach the house cautiously, though, on the look-out for anything unusual, and I hear the sound of a running automobile in the garage.  Before knocking, I decide to check it out.  The garage is pitch black inside, but as I open the door I'm assaulted by the stench of exhaust.  I quickly open the large garage door and flick on a light -- as I fear, Doug is sitting in the car, his skin somewhat blue -- wearing nothing but a large brown cloak.  Amanda rushes up to try and administer CPR, although Julie can tell immediately that he's been stone dead for several hours.  I rush through the house to find clues, but not much is forthcoming.  In what is presumably Doug's room, a computer is on, with a timed out logon to the Internet.  I log back on, and notice that the last action he took was to send his e-mail to me.  In the back of the house, we also find that the door has been forced open -- the dead bolt is still extended, although the wooden door frame has been broken where the dead-bolt was.With this, Julie and Amanda leave, and I call 911.  Since I had an appointment with Doug already, I decide I'm not a suspect.  I'm questioned for an hour or two, but that's about it.When I get back to the hotel, Jenny has arrived with the original blueprints for the warehouse.  "What is it you teach those sixth-graders again?" I ask.  Not for the first time.  Later in the evening, Trisha arrives, with a little bit of information herself -- the warhouse is surrounded by an electrically charged chain-link fence topped with barbed wire.  Two armed guards patrol it regularly.  She didn't see any sign of any other activity.Although it's late at night, we have a rather heated argument about our next course of action.  Julie says, "I was told to come here to get answers, and instead I find we're being led by the nose by someone who hasn't given us a thing!" (Julie is played by my wife, Julie, by the way -- isn't she wonderful?! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" />) so why not just return to NYC and her successful life?  I'm also not in favor of risking my neck over whatever is happening with the Dragons and Venture Resources, although I'm at least curious.  There's also considerable debate over whether our anonymous summoner is in league with this group or opposed to them.But as our debate can have no satisfactory conclusion without more info, it trails off and we finally go to sleep.  And with that, I'm caught up!  More fun next week, I presume.</blockquote>

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