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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Nareau" data-source="post: 1350643" data-attributes="member: 969">Here's the First Serial:Prelude:The characters are exposed to the full collection of Artifacts, which they promptly lose to a variety of bad guys.  They learn some of the mundane significance of the Artifacts, but none of their true powers.  Conveniently, everyone they meet during this adventure will end up being a Bad Guy.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Which bad guys end up with which Artifacts depends on the PC's:- If the PC's can hold onto the Artifacts, Dr. Cortex of White Sun, Inc. will get most of the Artifacts.  He will likely sell some of them to other Bad Guys at some later point.  I think he will get The Osiris Plan, so I can introduce the cyber-zombies early on.- Dr. Ashe knows that Khaemhat was more than an early surgeon; he suspects that Khaemhat foresaw his own death, and prepared a way for himself to come back.  Ashe is holding onto the Lost Tombs (maps of wealthy kings' tombs) and The Tears of Isis (a resurrection formula), in the hopes that he can finally prove his theories about Khaemhat are correct (and finally earn the respect he deserves!)- The Mesah Nesamun will likely end up with a couple more of the artifacts; once the PC's leave Professor Ashe, the Mesah will likely hunt down the dig and try to capture the Professor.  Since the Professor is holding onto some of the artifacts (without White Sun's knowledge or consent), the Mesah might get some.The intro (an optional cut-scene):  We witness the final moments of Khaemhat's life--thousands of slaves (both living and undead) are swarming towards the fortress-temple of Akhetatun.  Khaemhat has lost control over his zombie hordes, and knows that they now are coming to attack him.  Khaemhat betrays his master at the last moment, drinking the the first stage of the Isis Tears that will let him come back to life someday.Present Day:The Briefing:  Captain Franklin explains the mission to the PC's:  "My old-friend Dr. Anthony Cortex from White Sun, Inc. has requested that we retrieve and protect a case of very valuable items from an archeological dig they're funding in Africa.  Travel to Egypt, meet with Professor Ashe, and retrieve the Artifacts of Khaemhat.  Return to the US, and deliver them to White Sun HQ in Olympia, WA.  You will be posing as White Sun Security agents, come to retrieve what belongs to them.  I don't know why these items are important, but I know Dr. Cortex is a collector; these things are probably worth millions.  While this is in technically in violation of international law, and it is not Agency policy to do illegal favors for private corporations, this is an exception.  White Sun, Inc. develops and produces most of our high-tech prototypes, and they know more about the Agency than any other group in the world.  Between my long friendship with Anthony, and White Sun's service to the Agency, this is one favor we can afford to do."In truth, Franklin has become increasingly nervous about White Sun's position towards the Agency.   He may even be somehow responsible for Dr. Cortex knowing much more about the Agency than any outsider should.  White Sun has become powerful enough that they might be able to effectively shut the Agency down by exposing them to the world.  Franklin hopes that this mission will be sufficient to keep Dr. Cortex's organization quiet.Furthermore, Cortex has been searching for Khaemhat's tomb for years.  He heard about it long ago, and has become obsessed with finding it.  He is the one who funded Professor Ashe's archeological dig, and he expects to reap the substantial rewards from whatever is left of Khaemhat's writings.  However, Cortex knows he's not the only one after Khaemhat's discoveries.  He has thus decided to use the Agency to safely retrieve and deliver them.The PC's will have transport to Africa, but will need to find unofficial transport (preferably air, as there is very limited road access) to the dig site.The Trip:The PC's will be directed to an old friend of Franklin's, a Soviet ex-KGB agent named Sergi Traminov.  After the fall of the USSR, he retired to Egypt where he lives royally on the profits from his illegal military hardware sales.  Unfortunately for the PC's, Sergi has been channeling decommissioned weapons (mostly Russian) to the Mesah for years.  They have a spy planted in his estate, and that spy sent word when the PC's rented the plane.  Since they're friends of Captain Franklin's, Sergi insists that the PC's take his favorite plane:  a mint-condition, antique, fully-functional American WWI fighter (possibly with a working and armed machine gun on the back).<a href="http://diglib.auburn.edu/images/sparcimages/101-96-066-3244.jpg" target="_blank">http://diglib.auburn.edu/images/sparcimages/101-96-066-3244.jpg</a>He advises the PC's to fly under 100', so as to avoid detection by Egyption air-controllers' radar.  From there, the trip to the dig site should be smooth and easy.The Scientist:Professor Ashe will be grateful to have the PC's here to protect the goods.  However, he may express some dismay that White Sun would send their own goons to collect these items.  The professor is a teacher in Boston University's Egyptology department, and the grant he received was through them.  White Sun doesn't have any direct claim to these items...they belong in a museum!  However, he realizes that they will simply pull his funding if he refuses, and is willing to let the items go after seeing the right paperwork (although he is hiding two of the most important ones).  He will express concern about taking the items out of Egypt (as the Egyptian government has a strict policy against such things), and he is also concerned that other groups might be wanting to get their hands on these items (though he is reluctant to say who).  He will also talk for as long as they'll let him about Khaemhat--who he was, what he did, what these discoveries might mean, and how he died.  Most of this information should bore them to tears:  "...and he developed this kind of stone-cutting technique, that was 10 times more efficient than the one before it, because it used an Aluminum Isopoptate alloy, which he also discovered, I think he took refined Sodium Silicate from the el-Oraptin mine south of..."  But some of it should contain nuggets of foreshadowing:  "...and some people say he served as advisor to Tuthmosis III, but that's crazy-talk, he is clearly mentioned in reference to the great funeral of Akhenaten, and he rose to the throne 54 years after Tuthmosis III died, and that would have made him 142 years old, ha-ha-*snort*-ha-ha."Dr. Ashe should sound eager, innocent, and more than a bit crazy.  He is an Ubergeek when it comes to ancient Egypt.Dr. Ashe has come to love Khaemhat as the world's most brilliant scientist.  In fact, he believes that Khaemhat foresaw his own death, and planned to be resurrected someday.  The Professor has been able to crack part of Khaemhat's personal code (he wrote in an encrypted form of heiroglyphics).  From these writings, Ashe has come to believe that he can revive Khaemhat using some of the artifacts in his tomb.  If he does that, he will finally get the recognition he deserves.  He is keeping a few of the artifacts for himself.  Unfortunately, his life will become very complicated once he brings Khaemhat back to life...The Ambush:  The Mesah Nesamun have heard that this dig was going on, but haven't been able to locate it.  They believe (correctly) that Professor Ashe has finally found the Tomb of Khaemhat, and they have been monitoring all traffic in the area for the past 6 months.  When the PC's finally entered the country, they got lucky (with thier spy in Sergi's estate).As the PC's are flying away from the dig site over the rocky desert terrain, three jeeps appear from behind a large dune and start shooting.  Between the machine guns and the RPG's, the plane should be forced to land.The terrain here should be a combination of 40' dunes and 150' rock formations.  At some point, they should have to fly through one of those wind-carved stone-moniliths that has a big hole through it.  Like these:<a href="http://www.caravanserai-tours.com/images/libya/ds_acacus2.jpg" target="_blank">http://www.caravanserai-tours.com/images/libya/ds_acacus2.jpg</a><a href="http://aochycos.ird.ne/HTMLF/JOURNAL/IMAGES/situhydro/desert.jpg" target="_blank">http://aochycos.ird.ne/HTMLF/JOURNAL/IMAGES/situhydro/desert.jpg</a><a href="http://www.stockphotography.co.uk/Upload/Stock/Previews/8423.jpg" target="_blank">http://www.stockphotography.co.uk/Upload/Stock/Previews/8423.jpg</a>The PC's must fight to protect the goods.  The Mesah are only after the Artifacts, and will call off the assault once they have them (or at least some of them).  The PC's should be able to fight them off, and the Mesah should be able to escape after half of them are killed.  If the PC's lose all the artifacts, they will fail the mission, and that would suck.  During this, at least one jeep should be disabled (but not destroyed), giving the PC's a way to return to the city safely.Sergi will be very angry when he discovers his antique plane has been destroyed.  Heh heh heh.I may throw in another scene, or (more likely) I'll use the following as the second session:    - Professor Ashe has not reported back as to his exact location (for fear of being robbed), so the PC's need to contact his beautiful-but-dangerous sister, who's the only one to have heard from him in months.  Of course, she lives the high-life working the casinos around the northern Mediterranean.  We might even be able meet some of the other bad guys (Khaemhat's minions?), who are also there to extract information out of Ms. Ashe.  That way, we could have a first fight scene, and the jet-ski race through the streets of Venice.    -Or maybe on a cruise-liner    -Maybe this could be the second session--Professor Ashe has disappeared after the transfer, and his beautiful sister is the only one who might know where he is.<a href="http://www.lonelyplanet.com/mapshells/europe/venice/venice.htm" target="_blank">http://www.lonelyplanet.com/mapshells/europe/venice/venice.htm</a><a href="http://www.hotels-europe.com/info-countries/italy/italy-map.jpg" target="_blank">http://www.hotels-europe.com/info-countries/italy/italy-map.jpg</a>Spider</blockquote>

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