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CurveBallYou are on the archive wiki. The new wiki is here. CurveBallA Mage: The Ascension campaign.
Players:
Piotr Dubla (Marek Koslovish - DEAD AS A FCKING DOORNAIL) There you were. Just ticking along in your nice normal car, with your nice normal job and your nice normal house and your nice normal life. Forget normal. Normal doesn't even get a look-in where you're headed. cause that's what happens when reality throws you a...curveball. Well, Curveball has finally got underway in the Meeting Rooms (tm). We're playing Thursday 4th and 5th each week. NOTABLE EVENTS (AND CHARACTERS) SO FAR: Clyde DeVille? (No relation to the one with the Dalmatians) - Psychologist at the Fairway Clinic, dealing with the violently insane, Doctor DeVille? has an interesting day to day job. His treatment plans tend to follow on basic theme: "Give the idiot 15 milligrams of Thorazine and strap him to his bed 'till he stops thrashing." Played by: Nic Botha Steve Thompson, baseball pitcher for the Boston Red Sox. After a bad season, Steve finds himself unpopular in many circles. His coach yells at him non-stop, the rest of the team taunts him continuously, and his girlfriend Clarice (Star on the hit soap: "Days of our Wives") barely acknowledges his existence. Recently, Steve was mowed down by a team of HIT Marks while trying to cover the group's retreat with an AK-47. Unfortunately, HIT Marks are practically bullet-proof. Steve, on the other hand, wasn't. Played by: Andy Moore Neil Jericho, Professional bank robber (And equally professional Robert De Niro look-a-like). Neil is the consumate businessman, always calm and collected, even while he's pointing a twelve-gauge shotgun at your stomach. Played by: Brendan Ricky Welsch, clockmaker and inexpert Mafia snitch. Life has been hard on Ricky. He's smuggling drugs for the Mafia, while trying to turn State's Evidence at the same time. Unfortunately, no one has fully explained to Ricky the risks involved in playing both ends against the middle. Ricky is currently missing (presumed dead), lost in a madcap escape from a Technocracy base. Played by: Steve Emslie Marek Koslovich, computer science student at MIT (And serious Red Sox fanboy). Marek's not your average geek. He actually got into university on a athletics scholarship, but then focused on his other great love. Computers. However, Marek is now so far behind on his thesis that nothing short of a major re-bending of time and space will allow him to finish.Sadly, a recent rescheduling has left Piotr unable to play, and Marek left the campaign with a bang. Literally. R.I.P Marek. Played by: Piotr Dubla EVENTS WORTH MENTIONING(Please note: In response to sarky player comments, the chronological events now run from the top of the page to the bottom, and even have, <GASP> chapter titles!: Chapter 1 : Let's Play Ball! Clyde for perfecting the Evil Incarnate Psychiatrist Schtick. I was expecting him to strap electrodes to a patient's forehead and scream: "MY CREATION LIVES!" Neil Jericho displayed considerable presence of mind in not letting his face be photographed. ("Okay, everyone say...CHEESE!" Neil buries his face in his hands: "ASCHOO!") Andy's baseball pitcher (Steve) earning a special kudos for calling 911 twice in less than two hours. He asked for a special discount rate. Marek being downright disturbing in his degree of baseball obsession. The man's just KEEN. Brendan creating the most frightening intricate armed bank robbery of all time. Brendan re-drafting the plans. Brendan re-drafting again. Brendan running the robbery against the stopwatch to pull it off before the cops got there. (He didn't make it) Brendan and Andy convincing Steve (outside gametime) that the Mafia was going to have his character killed. Steve believing them. Steve's character (Ricky) getting so nervous that he let slip to the mob's principal hitman that the FBI had been talking to him. Not a wise thing to do. Hear ye, hear ye. Neil Jericho is a paranoid BASTARD. Marek's unfortunate "accident" with a booby-trapped laptop, which resulted in his untimely demise in a manner vaguely reminsicent of Wiley E. Coyote (As Brendan put it). Marek's death was respectfully acknowledged by a stream of truly awful "headache" jokes from Ricky and Steve Thompson. We'll miss ya. Steve sacrificing his Rolex so the players could get a taxi ride when their credit cards were all rejected. Jericho showing balls (and bowels) of steel, sitting down at his own laptop after Marek's "accident." Clyde self-medicating himself on Tylenol. Clyde learnt the joys of prescription medication and spent most of the session as high as a Techoncracy Orbital Satellite....not that any such things exist, of course. The players managed to find out a few more fleeting facts about the mysterious globe they're carting around. Primarily, that has some nasty defensive wards, and that obtaining it is high on the Technocracy's "To-do" list. Things came crashing down for the troupe as Technocracy cyborgs attacked the time-shifted hotel they were hiding out in in, slaughtering the only allies they'd found in their misadventures so far. The mage Raoul gave his life to slow the advancing Technocracy, dying in a Paradox backlash, while the guys climbed up a laundry shaft to safety...and 1932. Yes, 1932. After a brief, and bizarre, time-jump to 1932, the troupe returned to the present, just in time for Jericho to keep a little 'appointment' and fire an employee. With a pair of 9mm pistols. Ricky's past caught up with him, as the Mob Boss Winston Pestoni and his principal hitman, Rudoph "The Englishman" Henderson took him outside for a little chat. Ricky (and everyone else's) near-certain death was averted by the arrival of the mysterious Agent Smythe and a squad of Men In Black. The players escaped in the resulting carnage. Enigmatic clue time turned tragic, as a successful roll from Clyde rescued the gang from an attack of severe head-scratching. IT WAS OBVIOUS, I DON'T CARE WHAT THEY SAY! Chapter 2: Out of Time The Road Trip: A time-honoured feature of all too many bad movies, the gang are currently headed towards an as yet unidentified location in the imfamous Buick o' doom. (Which despite what Brendan says, WILL NOT transform itself into a black SUV) Arriving in a quiet American town called Greenhope, picket fences and all, the players promptly became insanely paranoid. Twin Peaks references abounded. Kudos for Ricky's eloquent summation of the characters' viewpoint:"Ahhhh, another fine clear morning in small-town America. Now let's get the fuck outta here!" The group inadventently stopped a kidnapping in progress, saving a little kid named Timmy. His mother took them in for the night out of gratitude. Jericho went looking for severed heads in people's fridges. The paranoia continues. Finally, the players' obsessive paranoia paid off, with the arrival of their old buddies from the government - Agents Smythe and Martinez, who pitched up at the same diner as the players. While the players were being interviewed by the town Sherriff. Fortunately, the Men In Black didn't see them, and Clyde fled to the men's room while they were distracted by a waitress. Unfortunately, Smythe needed to take a leak. Clyde hid in the bathroom until he was gone, then tried to climb out a window. Though it may refer to a different system, BOHICA is somehow the best phrase that applies here. One double botch later, Clyde crashes to the bathroom floor as Smythe hears the loud thud and turns back towards the bathroom, hand on his gun... Continuing where we left off, everyone DIES! Death Count: Ricky - Gunned down by mysterious shooter in a black car. Bled out (very slowly, thanks to time magic) Clyde - Used magic to hide from Agent Smythe (Cunning). Leapt out at Agent Smythe and tried to knock him over (Less cunning). Was shot three times as Agent Smythe - Shot in the shoulder by Jericho, then blindsided by Clyde, Jericho - Managed to take down Smythe (Go, team!) Unfortunately was shot in Steve - Went Rambo on the gunmen with the assistance of Jericho's AK-47 But then everyone woke up AND IT WAS ALL A DREAM! Or was it... Apparently twelve hours or so back in time, everyone woke up on the road to Greenhope. Complex plans were planned, mostly focused on trying to avoid their pre-ordained deaths at the 'Last Stop' diner at eight-fifteen-and-thirty-two-seconds (Thank you, Ricky)in the morning. Steve displayed a malevolent sense of irony, using Jericho's own 'Weird Shit' power against him. ("Who gets the bed?" "Flip you for it?" "Okay, head or tails?" "Edge.") Eventually, the players' (inevitable?) doom was foiled by arriving late for their meeting at the diner. They sauntered in an hour late and sat down in front of Agent Smythe, who tried very hard not to swallow his cigarette. As a side note, Clyde DeVille?'s slow slide into over-medication continues..."The giant pink rabbits think you're being too coherent, Clyde." ("Subtle" Storyteller hinting) Narrowly avoiding cigarette-swallowing death, Agent Smythe found himself confronted by the four fugitives he's been hunting for the past week or so: "You people have balls of brass, I'll give you that. Brains of brass, too." The characters (primarily Jericho) "negotiated" with Smythe regarding their current unfortunate situation (ie. Jericho stuck a gun in Smythe's ribs and they exchanged threats. Friendly threats, though). Having agreed to meet Smythe later, on relatively neutral territory - a meeting of scared and angry townspeople and gun-wielding cops, that is, the guys hung out at their hotel and received another enigmatic clue from the mysterious "Osiris". As is rapidly becoming the norm, they could make neither head nor tail of it. Deciding to case out the meeting venue (Greenhope's tiny library) ahead of time, the players uncovered a potential source of information - Louise Brooks, the librarian, has been playing amateur detective ever since the disappearances of the town's children began. Meanwhile, Ricky attempted to chat to the kid they rescued, one Timmy. Unfortunately, he was somewhat distracted by the way all the books in the library changed to one specific theme: Death. Quite literally, every book was about death. And not in an Agatha Christie way, either. "Death Death Death Death Death...etc." was on every page of every book. But when he called Steve over to check it out, the books were back to normal. Has Ricky been sampling Clyde's "medication", perhaps? At the town meeting, Smythe and the characters made contact again, but their discussion was disrupted as the meeting turned into a frenzy of fury and frustration. Sheriff Dougan started organising a posse, and they took that as their hint to leave. QUOTE OF THE DAY: Steve: "Why don't we grab some guns and join in?" Smythe: "How the hell have you guys managed to survive this long?" Ricky:"Our razor-sharp wits." Looking for somewhere to hide out, they ended up staying with Timmy's mother (again), eating her pot roast (again) and watching her drink herself into incoherence (again). But events took a darker turn as Ricky spotted the kidnapper making another try for Timmy...or so it appeared. But instead of snatching the boy, the man just tried to affix a small black box to the windowsill into Timmy's room. Ricky ambushed him, shooting him in the leg, and the response was a wave of (distressingly familiar) blue fire which blew out of the window, nearly killing all the players (and the kidnapper too). Mysteriously, the fire didn't so much as scorch the building itself, though. Even with a bullet in his leg, the kidnapper managed to take flight, and Ricky chased after him with an epic lack of success. Jericho, Steve and even Clyde took the lead, while Ricky limped after them with a sprained ankle...and somehow came out ahead of everybody. But despite Ricky's time-altering stunts, the kidnapper made good his escape, fleeing into the woods next to the town, leaving the players exhausted on the outskirts, staring into the shadowy woods in some hope of finding a trail... Steve charged valiantly into the forest, and promptly got lost, falling afoul of a coincidental magic defense. (Though he had no idea of this at the time) While Steve hunted for his tracks, walking all over them in the process, Jericho, Clyde and Ricky considered their options and decided to abandon Steve and head for cover. The sound of two gunshots from the forest only heightened their enthusiasm with this plan. Unfortunately, it was not to be. Fortunately for them, they saw the mysterious shooters' car cruising towards them BEFORE it blew them away (this time, anyway), and ducked into the forest and took cover. The two men in the car argued about entering the forest (much like the guys had been doing only seconds before), but decided not to enter. Oddly, one of the men had an artificial foot, which set alarm bells clanging in Ricky's head... Thanks to the defense spell, they lost track of their position, but were able to meet up again by using the sound of Ricky vomitting as a beacon of sorts. The reason of Ricky's...er, reaction was hanging from a tree with two bullet holes in his chest. Their unusually-fast kidnapper, in the (very dead) flesh. Steve had a sudden attack of D&D and looted his body, picking a rather nice high-caliber automatic and a couple of the weird devices the man had been trying to put on Timmy's window. He also found a small earpiece in the man's ear. Jericho put it to his ear, and heard none other than everyone's favourite federal agent, talking over a radio channel to his men. Smythe didn't sound pleased at all. Jericho: Hey, we have a radio link to Smythe! Clyde: And a tracking device to you. (thoughtful pause) Making their way through the forest, following Clyde's (extremely wrong) directions, they came across a Mysteriously Deserted Cottage In A Clearing In The Centre Of the Forest(tm). Thank god it wasn't made of gingerbread. Ricky summed it up best. "Has anyone here seen the Blair Witch Project?" Stirring up their courage, they knocked on the door, only to receive no response. Jericho prepared to bust in, but Ricky just opened the (unlocked) door. The cottage was almost totally bare of any furniture, apart from the one room with a huge computer mainframe, a table of maps and family histories and a cupboard of suits (NOT all black, thank you very much). Realising they had stumbled into Technocracy Central, they started a pretty impressive rummage through the room. (Does no one respect privacy anymore?) Clyde stumbled onto a video log on the mainframe. The log detailed the activities of Operative TN384?, Johnathan Eichmann (A.K.A the now-very-dead kidnapper). Eichmann was sent to Greenhope to track and destory a Marauder that was due to Awaken in the town. Using a complex search system and the town's genological records, he was attempting to track down the chaos mage. But since the search was taking too long, he decided to speed the process up, picking off targets who managed the predicted age of the Marauder, hoping to get the right one. Unfortunately, his actions alerted the Marauder, who locked the town into a time loop, forcing it to repeat the same 24 hours over and over. The resulting Paradox tears were causing serious damage to the town, and Eichmann did his best to keep them under control using Paradox Dampeners. Eichmann finally managed to identify the Marauder, and went in to snatch it, only to be interrupted by a bunch of out-of-towners. Sound familiar? Yup, the Marauder in the town's midst was no other than dear ol' Timmy Wallace, 5-year-old child and dangerous psychopath who can warp reality at will. Oops. A Paradox surge (helpfully sensed by Ricky before it occurred) forced the players to flee into Eichmann's back garden (which incidently, contained the bodies of half-a-dozen children.) But they weren't even allowed a breather, as the Technocracy picked up the surge and sent Decontamination Teams to clear the house. Ricky desperately scrambled back inside to grab a map from Eichmann's office before the team got inside, but his use of magic to escape went badly wrong and he nearly collapsed, bleeding from the eyes. The guys managed to get the barely-conscious Ricky over the back wall, and swiftly followed him, as the Techonocracy cleared the area. And then the shit really hit the fan, as they found Eichmann's body and a furious Smythe declared the entire town 'collateral damage' in their mission to locate and destroy the Marauder. Deciding it would be an excellent time to get the Hell Out Of Dodge, the players prepared to flee into the forest...and were promptly ambushed by Chrissy "The Carpenter" and Donny Reed, two of the Boston Mafia's hitmen...and their mysterious killers at the Last Stop earlier. Ominiously, it appears that the Mafia blames them for Big Win Pestoni's death, and the "new boss" wants them very dead. Thanks to a touch of good luck (or maybe Jericho), a branch broke, distracting the hitmen, and Steve and Jericho gunned them down. Steve was understandably shaken by his first, up-close kill, but Jericho didn't allow him the luxury of shock, keeping the group moving until they hit the edge of the forest...and found half of Greenhope aflame, as the Technocracy teams moved from house to house, methodically slaughtering Sherriff Dougan's posse. They got to their car, but their flight was arrested by the intervention of the hotel manager, clutching a hunting rifle. They ducked behind the car. The manager was blown away by one of the Technocracy teams, coming up the street. They promptly ducked around the other side of the car, all except for Ricky, who was trapped in the sights of the team's MP-5's. As the team cautiously advanced on this (apparently) alone and injured man, Jericho and the others checked weapons and held steady. In a nice display of simultaneous player mime (Brendan's habits must be catching), they came out from behind the car, guns blazing. Ricky flung himself to safety, but even his magic was unable to save him from a minor wound. Fortunately, despite their training, the operatives were caught flat-footed and disposed of. Jericho and Steve blew two away, and then Steve, wounded and panicked, crushed the third and last man by using magic to shove the car into him. Fleeing down the street, the players ran past the Wallace house - and heard Martha's shrill scream from inside. Clyde, Ricky and Steve ran to her aid, leaving a frustrated Jericho in the street ("You're all idiots.") Jericho ran to get another car. Following mysterious trail of muddy footprints, Steve led the others into the house, past Martha's body and into Timmy's room, where the demonic little kid was being happily reunited with his dad. It would have been touching, if Timmy's dad hadn't been resurrected from the grave as a filthy zombie by his insane son. Unwisely, Clyde opened fire on Mr Wallace, provoking Timmy (and his dad) into a rage. Meanwhile, Jericho, running up the steet, ran into the rest of the townsfolk. All of whom were also dead (thanks to the Technocrats) and resurrected (thanks to Timmy). Jericho tried to talk his way out. QUOTE OF THE SESSION: Jericho: (To a huge mob of blood-thirsty corpses) "Uh...hi." When that failed, he tried to blast his way out in classic Army of Darkness style. Unfortunately, Jericho's no Ash, and he met a sorry end. Meanwhile, Timmy's dad started to strangle Clyde (obviously displeased about being shot). Ricky, about to lend a hand (to Clyde, not the zombie), suddenly sensed a coming Paradox storm, in response to Timmy's little Lazarus games. He tried to use a Paradox Dampener to hold off the storm, but unfortunately a Dampener has a ten-second delay, and Ricky's attempt to speed it up with Time magic only pissed off consensual reality even more. In a fantastically ill-advised move (though admittedly, one born of desparation), Clyde tried to make contact with Timmy's mind to disrupt his magic. Unfortunately, coming into direct mind-to-mind contact with raw chaos drove Clyde utterly insane, as the Paradox storm torn the town (and group) to shreds. But the time loop held, and they snapped awake, driving into Greenhope. And this time, shaken, terrified, when Eichmann dashed in front of the car, carrying Timmy in a sack, they didn't stop. No sir. They stomped on the accelerator and drove straight over both of them, killing Timmy and thereby shattering the time loop, and fleeing town with the screams of a grief-stricken Martha Wallace echoing in their ears. (sigh) Don'cha just love a happy ending? Chapter 3 - What's Mine is Mine Car trouble. Never fun. Particularly when your engine gives out a couple of miles from the Canadian border. Steve expressed his displeasure by taking a baseball bat to the windscreen, adding to the distinct dent that Eichmann and Timmy had left. They managed to get the car further up the road to a gas station. Spotting the geriatric owner asleep in the convenience store next door, Jericho and Ricky decided to check the garage for a newer, less-wrecked mode of transport. Unfortunately, this budding attempt at Grand Theft Auto was aborted when they ran into Maude, the shaven-headed, over-muscled daughter of the owner. While Maude set to work repairing the Buick, giving the guys a strange look or two (Today's Cunning Cover Story: We hit a deer. A really big deer.), they browsed the convenience store and "enjoyed" a repast of corned beef. For some reason, everyone (bar Steve, who refused to descend further into Redneck Hell)decided to buy some Switz Army Knives (That is not a spelling mistake.) Mysteriously, one of the car seats began to glow while Maude was fixing the car. They eventually traced the glow to the globe which Steve was carrying about. It'd started pulsing with light, to be exact. Steve considered the possibility he might come out of all this sterile. By conferring with a camping map and their road map (And looking for the one spot on the map which just HAPPENED to be torn - the same as every other map they've seen since they left Boston), Ricky figured out that their destination was just a short distance up the road - some old closed-down mine. They headed up to the mine, past a chainlink fence claiming it the private property of Werner-Koch International. Deciding to approach with caution, they ditched the car and slowly approached the small cluster of deserted buildings around the mine entrance. They also considered ditching Clyde (stoned again), but ended up dragging him along. Literally. Jericho thought he saw movement in among the building, some small figure scampering about. He took drastic action. Jericho: I unzip The Bag. (Jericho's private arsenal) Getting a feeling for the lay of the land, they approached with weapons ready. Jericho started trying to organise a sweeping SWAT-Style advance (The Pincer Movement! Fear the Pincer Movement!), but was foiled by his companions, who walked straight into the middle of the encampment while he was considering tactics. The building that made up the encampment were mostly dormatories, all old and worn and on or two actually scorched as if by some huge explosion. Carefully, Steve and Ricky checked the buildings, while Jericho circled the area cautiously and Clyde talked to his shoes. QUOTE OF THE SESSION: "If I see a little kid, I'm going to fill him with lead. I don't trust little kids anymore." An abrupt burst of static from the Public Address startled them - but not as much as when it started playing "Jailhouse Rock". The King lives... Advancing on the door from which the music was issuing, Steve and Ricky stopped to argue over who was going to risk his neck and open the door. Eventually Ricky tried to kick it down. Unfortunately, the door opened outwards, so he ended up flat on his ass. There was no one in the room though, so they grabbed some hardhats (with torches) and headed into the mine. There was a sudden attack of D&D Dungeon-Crawling Fun (complete with the Obligatory Ominious Bones), along with the usual Player Paranoia. (Brendan: "I check to see if the mouth of the tunnel is lined with explosives which could be used to seal us in so we die of starvation." Me: "Huh?") Approaching a lift to the lower levels, they heard a strange and most un-cavelike sound wafting up from below. Elvis. With their usual courage and forthright attitude to peril, Ricky and Steve started arguing about whether it was a good idea to go down the lift. Possibly there was some kind of demonic Elvis-monster down there. Clyde and Jericho ended up unwilling test subjects, sent down and then brought up again before Evil Elvis could get them. When everyone finally took the lift down, they continued with the Dungeon-Crawling for a short while, until up ahead, they spotted a light coming towards them. A very bright light. Clyde: Could they fit a train down here? The light got brighter and brighter and closer and closer. Ricky (grabbing hold of Clyde): We're not here. We're not here. Clyde's invisibility trick didn't kick in, though, so Ricky called out to the light, while Steve took a sensible few steps backwards...and vanished. A moment later, the ground swallowed the rest of them, too.. As it turned out this "rescue" was the work of a bizarre little elemental called Shovel - who looks sorta like a grey garden gnome without the hat. Shovel and his buddies used to be the only residents of the tunnels, until the miners arrived. As it turned out, the little creatures were rather fond of the miners, and particularly fond of the miner's music. Yup, creepy little rocky Elvis fanboys. But then the miners disappeared, to be replaced by "the Bright Men". According to Shovel, these Bright Men live in the tunnels now, and hunt the elementals with "killing light". At this point, the sound of approached footsteps scared the hell out the little guys, who ran into the wall. And not in a Wiley E. Coyote way - just when straight through. But it wasn't the Bright Men. Nope, just Ricky's former colleagues - Chrissy Carpenter and Donny Reed. While Jericho and Steve faced off with the hitmen in a Mexican stand-off of sorts, Ricky and Clyde ran like hell down another passage - straight into the Bright Men, coming the other way. Fleeing the wall of white light that preceded the coming of the Men, Ricky and Clyde charged back the way they came - straight into the middle of the Mexican stand-off. The result was fairly obvious. Gunfire, lots of. The gunfight was cut short though, as the light from the Bright Men became unbearable. There was an even brighter flare, and both Jericho and Reed fell over, screaming. Barely able to see, Steve opened up with his AK-47, while Clyde and Ricky grabbed Jericho and ran like hell. Despite Steve's Godlike Rambo Impersonation, the Bright Men just kept coming. They ran like hell, barely able to see where they were going. Amazingly, no one ran into a wall. But when they came to a halt, they realised two things: b) Aren't there only FOUR members of this cabal? The fifth was Carpenter, who'd run with them in the confusion, and who now happened to have a shotgun pointed at them. QUOTE OF THE SESSION: Ricky: It's all over! It's all over! Oh, wait, I have a gun... But Ricky didn't fancy his fast-draw chances against a professional hitman. And Rambo had run out of ammo. There was a slightly uncomfortable moment. Ricky started to hint to the severely-freaked-out hitman that maybe gunning them all down and running straight into the Bright Men wasn't a great plan, but Carpenter was in no mood to be rational. Carpenter: The second I get outta here, you're all fertilizer. Ricky: Fertilizer's a step up from dead, right? Clyde: No. Fortunately, they were preserved by a genuine Lay-on-hands Miracle. Clyde was "tending" to Jericho (actually trying to get at one of his pistols without Carpenter noticing), but when he brushed Jericho's wounds, there was blinding flare of light and Jericho's wounds just...vanished. The light distracted Carpenter, who staggered back. Bad move. Ricky slowed him down with magic, Steve threw a rock at him, but it was Jericho (spending a quite silly amount of Willpower) who delivered the deathblow. Well, shot. Well, three of them, to be precise. Jericho was still pretty messed up after his Near-Death Experience, so Clyde gave him a "painkiller". Heheheh. The guys left Carpenter lying in the passage (after Steve "Mortician" Thompson looted his body) and headed along the passage until they came to a cliff of sorts. Here, the group made a stunning revelation. Ricky needs to work out some, 'cause he just sucks at climbing. They (eventually) got up the cliff and got out into another tunnel, where they promptly got chased by the Bright Men again. Running down a tunnel they thought led to daylight, they ducked around a corridor and nearly ran off the edge of a cliff. Well, actually, Ricky did run off the edge. No surprise there. Thankfully, Clyde caught him. When they finally started breathing again, they noticed what was over the edge of the cliff. A huge Technocratic base, constructed inside the mine. Oops. And the "Bright Men"? HIT Marks with high-intensity lamps on their arms. Steve did a remarkably good impression of a man stopping breathing for nearly a minute. It was looking bad for our guys, but Osiris managed to save their bacon, using Jericho's laptop to channel an EMP burst. They sprinted past the temporarily-inactive HIT Marks and down a tunnel which led to (real) daylight. All except for Ricky. Who got lost in the dark Damn, he needs to improve that Athletics stat. Ricky ended up wandering around the tunnels again, and ended up back at the first cliff again. Smythe was waiting for him. Smythe (understandably) seemed pretty pleased with himself. He convinced Ricky to put down his shotgun. Bad move, 'cause the second he did, Smythe went for his own pistol, and Ricky went for his backup 9mm. Quick-draw contest between Ricky and highly-trained Man In Black. Hmm. Steve will be generating a new character next session. Chapter 4: Sleep Fright Desperately fleeing the mine, our protagonists noticed a distinct lack of Ricky. More out of curiosity than any great sentimentality, they crept back into the mine...and ran into a security team of HIT Marks. Steve tried to slow the killer machines down with AK fire and his telekinetic powers, but was literally blown to pieces. Covered in Steve's blood, Clyde freaked out (again), and Jericho fled the scene, carrying the unstable psychiatrist over his shoulder and wondering if a lifestyle change might be in order. The lifestyle change that ensued resulted in Clyde and Jericho holing themselves up in a hotel south of the Canadian border and laying extremely low. I mean like flatworm low. A month into their heroic "do nothing and hope the technocrats don't find us" plan, Clyde and Jericho received an anonymous phone call from an Irishman who claimed to be their "own personal Jesus Christ". The Irishman gave them some extremely-detailed instructions on how to get to Boston without being arrested, and what to do when they got there. As it turned out what they had to do was buy a cup of coffee. Cappucino, two sugars. Following the instructions almost (but not quite) to-the-letter, the pair arrived in Boston and nearly got arrested. Like I said, not quite to-the-letter. Luckily, they got past their potential arresters and bought a cup of coffee. Two, actually. (Jericho was thirsty) Walking out into the road, coffee in hand, they were nearly hit by a black convertible. Driven by an Irishman. Coincidence? The Irishman's name was Dixon, and he claimed to be a "Karmic Facilitator" - a person who specialises in guiding people to their correct paths. He's an amiable sort, if a little...strange. He seems to possess a similar power over chance to Jericho's, though vastly more refined, which was how he managed to guide the players safely to Boston. He's under the impression there's something important they need to do in Boston, but he's not quite sure what. Dixon tried to give Jericho and Clyde some basic lessons in Magick 101. Unfortunately (and much to Dixon's surprise), they both flunked. They seem to have increasing powers, but still little control over them. Dixon's promised to set up a meeting with a friend of his who might be able to help them contact their "Avatars", some kind of spirit-guide-come-personal-magick-trainer that every all Mages supposedly have. Intrigued by Dixon's discussions of magick, Clyde tried to look more closely into the pills he's been popping to enhance his mental capabilities. With the assistance of a lengthy prescription list, he was able to mix up a new batch of them. Staying overnight in Dixon's apartment, Clyde was woken up by a nightmarish vision of a young woman's murder...as seen through the murderer's eyes. Judging from what he saw in the vision, Clyde suspects Simon Thistle, a former patient, may be responsible. But Thistle was barely-functional, there's no way that the Fairway Clinic would have released him. QUOTE OF THE SESSION: Jericho, Clyde and Dixon visited the crime scene and Clyde tried to pick up some more images. Apparently, the killer is suffering from some kind of severe migraines. Clyde got a first-hand experience of one through a vision, attracting a little too much attention, so they left before the gathered reporters looked at them too closely. Meanwhile, Ricky woke up, somewhat surprised that he wasn't dead. He was, however, strapped in a metal chair in a white room with Agent Smythe. Rather than simply ripping out poor ol' Ricky's fingernails, Smythe was quite civilised. Well, he did electrocute him a bit. But politly. Then he simply requested Ricky's assistance in locating his compatriots. The way Smythe tells it, he and the Technocracy are simply trying to prevent further damage by catching the PCs?. According to Smythe, the Technocracy actually built the globe the PCs? are carrying around as part of something called Project Vivid Dreamer. The globe was tapped into some kind of extradimensional power source, and used to create mages so the Technocracy could study them and their powers. However, everyone exposed to the globe went insane and magically self-destructed shortly afterwards. The Project was going to be closed down, when a Technocracy scientist stole the globe and fled. The PCs? knew him as Robert Tucker, the Boston Red Sox coach. Apparently, he took over the role in attempt to fool his pursuers - while they were hunting for possible fugitive hideaways, he was in plain sight. When they finally found him, he passed the globe onto the PCs? - who somehow got the globe's powers without the accompanying craziness. According to Smythe, the globe continually 'leaks' magic that turns normal people into mages. He showed Ricky an image of their route from Boston - and then pointed out the number of mystical occurances and mysterious events that occured in their wake. One example:the petrol station they visited before entering the Werner-Koch mine spontanously combusted shortly after they left. So, you see, it's the moral thing to do, to help find the others. Ricky, being Ricky, wasn't particularly interested in the moral thing to do. So Smythe provided motivation in the form of a small chip inserted into Ricky's neck. If he didn't find the others within a given time frame, the chip would send a pulse to his heart. And stop it. Suitably "Motivated", Ricky was teleported to Boston. Using a new application of his Time magic to see past and future events, Ricky started trying to track the others down. The others were doing a few things themselves, while Ricky was playing gumshoe. Dixon organised to get a couple of morgue files from a contact of his, a vampire called Randall. Randall promised more as soon as he could get them. The PCs? also tracked someone who could read their auras. Unfortunately, she couldn't tell them anything useful, but she did refer them to her mentor, Kensington Lai. Who lives in a warehouse with a spaceship made from junk. What, you were expecting something normal? In this game? As it turns out, Kensington Lai and a group of mages are planning to somehow fly this garbage pile with wings out on some kind of quest. Jericho and Clyde were predictably skeptical. Unfortunately, Kensington was so busy planning the navigation of the ship, called Wayfarer, that he didn't have time to read them. But they weren't concerned about that, because someone tried to kill them. Again! One of the crew turned out to be Anrica, a mage with the Cantonbury cabal. The one the guys inadvertantly led the Technocrat death squads to. Anrica survived, and she was bearing something of a grudge. Fortunately, the captain of the ship, a man dressed in 18th century clothes and referred to as "Skipper" persuaded her to stand down. Convinced that all these guys were nuts, Jericho, Clyde and Dixon left them be. They were driving back to Dixon's flat, when the Irishman's Karmic Radar went seriously wonky. He stopped the car, certain that some kind of significant interlinking of probablity was occuring. It sure was. Three seconds later, Ricky fell through the roof and onto their laps. See, Ricky Welsch, Ace Detective, had been somewhat...less than Ace. He got himself picked up by his old buddies in the Mafia, led by the Englishman (now in a wheelchair after Jericho shot him). The Englishman showed his personal distaste for Ricky by throwing him out of a window. Well, ordering him thrown out of window, anyway. After a somewhat shellshocked reunion, Ricky promptly snuck off to call Smythe and sell out his friends. Hey, don't blame the poor guy - he wanted his heart to keep on ticking. Later that night, Clyde had another vision of Simon. They got to the scene in time to rescue the unluckly victim. Unfortunately, Simon got the drop on them, stabbed Dixon in the belly, grabbed Clyde and fled. And about then was when the Technocracy blew down the door and strode in, silenced MP-5's blasting... And Ricky woke up in a metal chair. It turns out the last few hours of his life were simulated in VR by the Technocrats. By creating a perfect duplication of the real world, they were able to use Ricky's own predictive powers to track down his friends. In just a few hours, everything will play out, exactly as it did in the sim - but without Ricky present. He's single-handedly doomed them all. Oops. |