Session started at 6:47 pm on 11/07/2006
Attending players: Ben, Sarah, and Eva
Presiding GM: Aaron
The coffee shop is a dive sort of place. I bet their black coffee tastes like dirt. Naturally, the girl doesn't care, cause she's high as a kite. She lets us steer her out into a corner and sits on a couch. She can't seem to deal with much of anything and is hardly responding to the environment. We hang out with her for over an hour. She's getting better, but still isn't even vaguely coherent.
The doctor decides to try to do a little analysis of the woman's blood. She's so far gone she doesn't even protest when the doctor draws some blood to examine. The doctor says there are slight traces of ecstasy but not enough that the girl should be messed up like this. The doctor suggests that she might improve with rest and some food.
She's willing to eat whatever we put in front of her. Including napkins. B is being stupid.
"Baethan, she's not a toy."
~ the doctorWe decide to take her back to our hotel room. I "name" her Jessica in case anyone asks about our drunk friend along the way. Ajax bails when we get up to the room. He was mumbling something about the hotel bar.
It takes almost five hours for the girl to go from nearly catatonic to a bit more aware and then asleep. She never gets to the point where she can respond to questions though. After watching her for a while, the doctor says it might have been some sort of energy drain on her mind or soul that screwed her up like this. Not good.
I don't have any idea what could cause that sort of horrible soul sucking drain. The others suggest that Ajax might be able to find a few hints online. He's not responding to his comlink, so I go downstairs. He doesn't seem to be in the bar or the rest of the lobby and lounge. I try paging him from the front desk, but he doesn't respond. At this point I'm getting a little pissed that he would vanish like this. I send him a snotty email and tell the others that he's not down here. The doctor doesn't quite believe me, so she comes down to look for herself.
The doctor notices what I didn't see in the bar, an empty booth halfway behind some of the fake trees with Ajax's comlink on the bench. There's a spilled soy beer on the table top and that creepy symbol we keep seeing has been crudely drawn in it. Maybe I shouldn't have sent that email. It looks disturbingly like the club "got" Ajax in some sense. Shit.
("There's an email but you can't read it, it's secured."
~ Aaron, to the doctor after she finds Ajax's comlink
"Anyone who can hack into his comlink can replace him."
~ Eva)B wants to talk to the folks at the front desk. He asks after security footage to figure out what happened to "our friend" but they claim they don't have any security systems. The clerk does remember seeing Ajax leave with a teenage boy. This boy probably had a mohawk combed down and was dressed in club going gear. The doctor asks if the boy had the symbol on him. The clerk looks a bit shaken but says that he doesn't recognize the symbol. The doctor quietly relays that he lied. We eventually coax out of him that the boy had on light kacki's and a dark rock t-shirt.
It's a bit unnerving to know that this rather random civilian knows the symbol and is disturbed by it. I was already assuming it has some sort of sinister meaning, but now it seems likely that something more widespread is going on if some of the general populace know. Once we've located Ajax it might be worth talking to the clerk again.
("So are we dealing with a bloody comlink or a non-bloody comlink?
~ Sarah, after we realize we don't know if Ajax's comlink is embedded
"For now it's just a comlink, we'll find out later. It might be his hat."
~ Aaron)So I guess we have to go back to the club and try to find Ajax. Not what I wanted to do tonight.
It's only about midnight so the club is still open. The baseline of the music is audible halfway down the block. Their neighbors must hate them.
("As you approach the club you remove your pants and feel..."
~ Aaron
"A draft?"
~ Sarah)We enter the upstairs of the club. I stick near the doctor just in case. B points out some people over on the side of the room who are behaving suspiciously. He begins feeding us a filtered audio stream of their conversation.
"We have a bit of a situation back at the clubhouse. Could you come?"
~ The woman
The guy nods and follows her.As they leave several other people from nearby join them. The doctor says they're both awakened. I follow the group while the others stay back about a block so as to not be seen. There are four of them. They meet they leave the building. About four blocks down they meet two more people in front of a warehouse/office sort of building, speak briefly, and then head inside.
The outside of the building has a number of regularly spaced doors with a small window to the left of each door. The door the mages went into is labeled "Cove, Ltd." Something for Ajax to look up, assuming he's still alive.
The doctor checks out the outside of the building astrally. She says there doesn't appear to be anything special about the building when she returns to her body. She can't tell about internal wards but says there aren't any external ones.
I take a look around the building. There's a row of loading dock doors in the back, each with a normal door next to it. So there is a second exit for them. I'm not liking the charge in plan, especially since there might be six mages in there, but I'm not thinking of much better myself.
The doctor suggests that we try to get some recon before we rush in. She summons an air elemental and sends it into the building to find out who what is in there. Unfortunately there is apparently a ward around the building. Fun.
The lock on the door is just a low end dead-bolt, but the door is crappy plastic so I can probably kick it down. B picks the lock in about ten seconds, so I guess I don't need to.
We open the door so the doctor can check out the ward. She doesn't think it's an alarm ward. There's a crappy reception area visible. We step inside and the doctor sends the air spirit off to look around.
It's back in less than ten seconds and tells us there are seven humans and one spirit. I guess they noticed it, because half a second later one of the guys steps out at the end of the hall. Someone else is looking out around the corner as well.
B throws a grenade down the hall at them. Damn... That was a bit hasty. There's an ear shattering explosion that sets off the sprinkler system. I now know that I need better earbuds. Ouch.
Through the haze of water and smoke I can see that B over threw and the two guys are both still there and looking mostly okay. Lucky for them, but not for long. I draw my gun and tag the guy standing in the middle of the hall. He staggers but stays on his feet. B fires down the hall and hits the older guy peeking around the corner, who drops. I think B got him in the forehead.
Over the gunfire I catch the doctor ask if Ajax is in the building and her spirit respond yes. Well that's good to know. I think she's set the spirit on the baddies, but I can't focus on that right now.
(The spirit has actually gone off to fight the fire elemental which was attacking it astrally.)
I move about halfway down the hallway and lay down suppression fire. I'm more than a little surprised when a bullet catches the standing guy in the throat and he falls gurgling and twitching.
I move up to the office door and peak in. I'm met by a stunbolt, a powerbolt, and two manabolts. Thank God for the doctor and her counter spelling. There are four scared looking mages hiding behind some desks in the back end of the room and Ajax, passed out in a chair in the middle of the room. Shit. I guess another grenade is out of the question.
I pop off a shot at one of the mages and duck back behind the wall. I think I hit him, but I'm not sure how bad. B jogs up to join me and the doctor moves about halfway down the hall towards us. B sticks his head out for a few volleys of shots and ducks back behind the wall with me. I can't tell if he got anyone, but at least he seems okay.
I step out and take a shot at the left-most mage, around B. The mage goes down with a spray of blood. B pops off a few more shots so the remaining mages keep their heads down.
I manage to tag one of the women. I think I got her, but we'll see if she pops back up. B fills the other woman full of lead. So there's one male target left. I haven't seen the doctor's spirit at all, hope it's not dead yet.
As I'm beginning to aim on the last guy, a huge three legged mud creature materializes in front of B and myself. Lovely. I step up around B and attack the creature. Its gooey mud-slush hide is tougher than it looks.
(The doctor is boosting her speed with magic. She gets three extra passes.)
B carefully aims around the mud creature and snipes and the last mage who's hiding behind a desk. I can't tell how he's doing but the mage is keeping his head down at least.
I duck and weave as the creature swings its rather substantial limbs trying to pound me.
(While he can't really reach the mage, B examines one of the corpses in the hall and notices it has the tattoo.)
My blows are still sliding off the thing's hide, but at least I've got it distracted.
The doctor moves up near me so she can target the mud creature.
There's a cry from the mage behind the desk and a weird static hiss as if someone had let the air out of a balloon or a bottle of soda. I'm still fending off the mud creature without much success. The doctor hits it with a massive stunbolt and it quivers angrily. It tries to grab me, but I roll out of the way.
(The doctor glitches on a stunbolt, but she manages to resist the extra drain it causes.)
The doctor hits it with a second stunbolt. It collapses into a puddle and begins to evaporate out of reality. Woo!
(The Air spirit has been fighting a Fire elemental. The Air elemental manages to hold out until the mage goes down and the Fire elemental goes away.)
When we look behind the desk there's a hole melted in the wall between the office and the front secretarial desk. B peers through and yelps that the door out of the building is open, not how we left it! Shit!
End of Session.