Campaign: Facets

[tshiggins]

(...continued)

The chief of security at the DoubleTree Hotel in Colorado Springs had seen the broadcast on a local television channel, Hamilton said, and contacted the Colorado Springs police, who had immediately called the DPD. The detective told Frank that the security chief had reported he’d been contacted by one Utah State Trooper Frank Moses, some weeks back, who had claimed to be part of an interstate task force investigating trafficking in methamphetamines.

Surprisingly, the Hamilton said (sarcastically), no such “task force” existed, and nobody – particularly not Trooper Frank Moses – had mentioned any such investigation to the DPD. (“What the f***, Frank?!”)

Caught flat-footed, Trooper Moses recovered quickly and spun a story about a rumor he’d heard during a routine traffic stop, and decided to investigate on his own. He’d told the security guard what he needed to, in order to secure cooperation, and uncovered the meeting between the Angels of Purity and woman he didn’t know, at the time, was Darla St. Cloud. Since his initial investigation hadn’t turned up anything but some interesting intel, he’d dropped it.

He then turned the interrogation around on Hamilton and his partners, and took them to task for giving him a bad time when he’d just tried to help (good roll against “Acting” skill).

The DPD detective was not at all satisfied with Frank’s response, but couldn’t punch any holes in it. The security camera footage from the Academy Club had indicated Frank spent all of his time at the Labor Day party with the gentlemen movers and shakers of the club, and he’d come nowhere near Darla St. Cloud. As such, while the evidence indicated Trooper Moses had exercised some bad judgement, nothing indicated any misdeeds on his part.

That said, Hamilton said he thought Moses knew a lot more than he was telling, and told Frank the next time he came to Denver, “don’t!” Stay the hell in Utah.

Frank drove back to Moab, the same night, and went to work the next day. A frustrated Lt. Exeter pulled Frank into his office, soon after he arrived, and told him the DPD had called with a lengthy diatribe. He asked Frank what was going on, as the trooper had been an exemplary cop until the shooting incident in Dark Canyon, three months previously.

Frank said he was fine, and apologized for the difficulties he’d had recently. Frank said he’d like to concentrate on the murder investigation, and Lt. Exeter tiredly dismissed him.

Meanwhile, during Frank’s rough day in Denver, the group has reached Texas, located the Fort Dallas car dealership, and cased it. The next day, as Frank went back to work, Randy had gone on the lot, ostensibly in search of a good 4x4.

There, he'd been approached by a jovial salesman, and Randy allowed the manto lead him all over the lot to look at everything except 4x4s, and eventually was able to check out sales floor.

Once inside, he spotted Haversham’s vacant desk, tolerated the salesman’s efforts to get his cell-phone number for as long as he could, and then left.

At the same time, A.J. managed to hack into the dealership’s closed-circuit television setup, and saw absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. Given the circumstances, Aurelia decided the only way to learn anything was to go into the dealership, after closing, and search Haversham’s desk.

Later that evening, they did exactly that. Bennie made a good lockpicking roll, a better Security Systems roll, and that meant Aurelia spoofed the ball-drop circuit and spotted the IR motion detectors. She then crept slowly across the sales-floor to Haversham’s desk, and saw no family photographs or any other personal items. She jimmied the basic locks on the drawers, found the hanging files, and started to leaf through them. She immediately spotted a lot of names prefixed with such titles as “Sgt”, “Lt”, “Cpt” and even a “Maj” and a “Col” or two.

From this, she deduced Haversham might have a military background, and now served as the “go-to” guy when soldiers wanted new cars.

The discovery made it imperative she find out more, so she made her way to the dealership’s HR office (great roll), and found Haversham’s file. From that, she confirmed he had a U.S. Navy background, and secured an address for his home. The “high school art teacher” then took a photo of the documents, exfiltrated the dealership, and joined the other three members of the group.

Under the circumstances, A.J., Aurelia, Henrietta and Randy decided to push their luck, a bit. They made their way to Haversham’s address, and found it in a high-end gated community in a Dallas residential area. A.J. quickly noted the walls had cctv camerals every 20 yards, or so, and used them to determine the location of the security office and hack the feed (really good rolls, again). He pulled up the video stream, located the two security vehicles patrolling the area, and the group figured out their rounds.

As soon as the two vehicles had started to move away from Haversham’s address, Aurelia and Randy jumped the eight-foot wall, and made their way to the house. There, Aurelia scoped out the place, noted it had a monitored alarm system, spoofed it so it continued to send pings to the monitoring station, and the two broke in.

Randy stayed to watch the door, as Aurelia did a quick search and found Haversham’s den. From the photos on the wall, and various items lying around, she determined that Haversham hadn’t been a simple sailor. Instead, he’d been a U.S. Navy Seal, on active duty in the Persian Gulf, and had only recently mustered out.

Alarmed at the discovery, she took an additional look around the den, and spotted a place with a particularly wide wall. Suspecting that he might have magical books, inside, or other items of particular interest, Aurelia tried to find the access panel, but failed.

A few minutes later, the scale of her failure became apparent, when two Dallas PD cruisers pulled to a quick stop at the gate of the community and one office punched in an access code. At the same time, A.J. saw the two security guard vehicles suddenly turn around and speed toward the gate.

He immediately notified Randy and Aurelia, who hurriedly wrapped up everything, and exited the house as the patrol cars approached. The two tried to slip away without being noticed, but the edge of one of the patrol vehicle headlights caught Randy (failed Stealth!), and the cop hit the lights and siren.

On the other side of the wall, an alarmed A.J. dashed down a ways, and began to squirt alcohol hand sanitizer along the top of the barrier, as he heard the police loudspeaker demand that Randy and Aurelia halt. For her part, Henrietta started up A.J.’s SUV to prepare for the getaway.

Upon hearing the demand to stop, Randy did so and, rather than leave him behind, Aurelia did so, too. The two patrol officers, guns out, advanced and demanded the two put their hands on their heads, and drop to their knees. The two did so, and even let themselves get cuffed.

As the police started to call in the incident, Aurelia picked the locks on her cuffs (good roll against “Escape”) and Randy decided to try to disarm his arrester, even though he remained cuffed. Unaccountably, the group’s hand-to-hand combat specialist smoothly rose to his feet and knocked the gun away. Aurelia got her hands on the pistol of the other officer and began to try to wrestle it out of his hands.

That was the last good thing to happen. Randy tried several leg sweeps to take down his cop, but G&AInc missed three rolls in a row and wound up with the cop’s forearm around his throat.

Aurelia had it even worse. Her officer managed to pull his gun out of her grip, and proceeded to shoot her twice, before the badly-wounded Aurelia (who resisted the stun) knocked the gun away.

Thoroughly alarmed, A.J. chose that moment to set the hand-sanitizer alight, as Henrietta popped out of the SUV long enough to fire three quick shots over the wall.

The cops immediately scrambled for their guns and tried to find cover, and the security guards (who had been advancing to help them) ran back to their vehicles. Aurelia helped the still-cuffed Randy over the wall and then scrambled over, herself, as the sound of sirens grew closer.

The two crawled into the car as A.J. ran back over. Once everybody was inside, Henrietta put A.J.’s SUV in gear and sped away.

Unfortunately, within a couple of blocks she saw a Dallas patrol vehicle in her rear-view mirror (failed Driving roll), and he hit his lights and sirens – which promptly caused Henrietta to panic and slam the accelerator to the floor.

A short car-chase commenced, in which the cop slammed his vehicle into her rear bumper twice, while A.J. tried to get Aurelia’s wounds bandaged. The archaeologist, who had no training with combat driving, managed to retain control after the first strike, but the second caused her to careen off the street, bounce into a front yard and slam into a tree.

The Dallas PD patrol vehicle screeched to a stop and the officer popped out, propped his elbows on the roof of his patrol car, and demanded the occupants exit the vehicle.

Randy, still cuffed, looked at the wounded and bleeding Aurelia and asked if she was ready to help him take out the cop, so they could escape.

With that, the session ended, as the clock had reached 7 p.m. and the staff at Wizard’s Chest wanted to go home.

(continued...)

[tshiggins]

(...continued)

Funny Quotes

Aurelia: No starting wars with vampires!
Randy: We can add a row to the book. One: No deals with faeries. Two: No starting wars with vampires.

Doc Bascher: Don’t draw blood in front of the vampire-people! That’s a bad idea!

Henrietta: We could stick something in their cars, so we could track them wherever they go.
A.J. : If I could stick something in their cars, I would blow them up.

Randy: Well, the thing is, the vampire-thing is only killing things because it needs to eat.
Aurelia: This is still a problem!
Frank: Yeah, but is it our problem?

Randy: We did just drive all the way to Texas. We could just rob the guy.

###

[tshiggins]

Okay, we held the most recent session of Facets, tonight, but this is the write-up from the one from several weeks ago.

We met at the Wizard’s Chest, again. That venue seems to work out, pretty well, and we’re moving toward making that the semi-permanent location – at least until I get a housing situation that doesn’t suck.

We join our heroes (?) in media res, with A.J.’s SUV wrapped around a tree in a Dallas suburb, where a cop has his pistol out and trained on the four party members inside.

I should have time to write up tonights session, this week, I hope. It would be nice to get everyone a new installment pretty quickly.

Here we go:

###

Characters Present:


Trooper Frank Moses -- A former Marine currently working as a trooper with the Utah Highway Patrol (UHP), based out of the Section 13 office in Moab, under Lt. Lee Exeter. Moses works with 4CSAR as needed, and has an interest in Doc Bascher. -- Played by Mike H.

Dr. Henrietta "Indiana" Johnson -- A personable, age 29-and-holding Anthropologist who specializes in the pre-Columbian indigenous people of the American Desert Southwest. A Native of Apache Junction, AZ, "Indiana" is good with people and has been fascinated by American Indian religion and folklore since she was a child. Henrietta speaks Apache fluently, and not-so-secretly wishes archaeology could be more like Raiders of the Lost Ark and less like digging in a trench with a trowel and a toothbrush -- Played by Debbie S.

Randy "Random" Shoop -- a twenty-something, semi-pro mountain-bike competitor who has trouble staying focused, but is basically a good and reliable member of the team, with an unexpectedly strong moral character -- Played by Gold & Appel, Inc.

Dr. Belody "Doc" Bascher -- a local veterinarian for both large and small animals, who frequently fixates on her job and uses 4CSAR as her primary social outlet. -- played by Samantha H.

Dr. Arthur "A.J." Jamison -- a retired NASA scientist with a home in one of Moab's nicer canyon sub-developments, who volunteers for 4CSAR because he needs to do something to get out of the house. Considers himself responsible for Sunmi Jones, who is enough of a science-geek that the two of them can actually hold a conversation. -- Played by Anten S.

Sunmi Jones -- A Korean-American prodigy and student of chemistry at Utah Valley University, who spent most of her childhood with her deceased mother's family in Korea, but has come to Utah to attend college and work with her father's petroleum exploration firm. Somewhat moe, awkward-but-cute, glasses-wearing nerd girl, who only volunteers with 4CSAR because volunteer work is required for her degree. -- Played by Rebecca W.

Beatrice "B" Lawrence -- U.S. Army veteran who works for a local air charter service as a helicopter mechanic. A cynic about men, and accompanied by "Grunt," the biggest, best-trained pit-bull anybody has ever seen (purchased as an ally, and a totally badass dog, even before it was possessed by what appears to be a benign spirit) -- played by Bernetta W.

Aurelia R. Lockrin -- A young woman with a shady past who teaches History at Grand County High School (Home of the Red Devils!), and volunteers for 4CSAR because she's a bit of an adrenalin junkie, and likes the companionship. -- played by Bennie Rae P.

Jimmy Ehrland – A fugitive from the 1918 Colonia de Nova España, on the other side of the portal, he had fled from his vampire mistress, only to find himself in a strange, alien world to which he must struggle to adapt. – Played by new player, Kyle H. (Had to leave early.)

NPCs Present

Grunt: Beatrice's ally, a large pit-bull possessed by a protective "foo" spirit.

Hops About: A nunnupi (one of the "Little People" from Comanche folklore) who frequently takes the form of a quadruple-sized magpie. The party has determined that she is a faerie, and as such is mischievous, rather random, inhuman and appallingly dangerous. Likes ants, ham sandwiches and Looney Tunes.

Twirls Thrice: Another nunnupi, and the sister of Hops About. More laconic and observant than her rather hyperactive sister, but at least as dangerous in her own way. Likes ants, ham sandwiches, and particularly Bugs Bunny.

###

Henrietta’s face stung where it had been hit by the airbag, but she didn’t rub it. The cop had told her to keep her hands where he could see them, so she didn’t dare move them from the top of the steering wheel.

In the passenger seat to her right, partially concealed by collapsed airbags and the bulk of two vehicles, Randy squirmed as he slid his cuffed hands past his butt and started to work them down his legs. He was tired of having them behind his back, and figured the group would need to move soon.

In the back seat, the badly-wounded Aurelia told A.J. to leave off the first aid for a minute. Already concealed because she was lying down, Aurelia squirmed between the two front seats and stuck her head past Henrietta’s right knee so she could reach the underneath the driver’s side dashboard. In the seat behind, A.J. raised his hands as the officer commanded.

Aurelia pulled out a multi-tool and used the blade to punch through the firewall and poke a hole in the fuel line, where it fed into the filter underneath the master cylinder. As the gasoline began to stream into the floor Aurelia told the rest of the group to get ready to run.

Henrietta, A.J. and Randy (still cuffed, but now with his hands in front) opened the doors and, holding their hands well-above their heads emerged from the car and asked the cop to not shoot. The nervous officer told them to get back into the car, but held his fire.

Inside, Aurelia yanked loose the wires to the fuses and, pulling them as far back as she could, twisted them together close enough for the leads to spark, and dropped them into the pooling gasoline (good roll on Demolitions). She scrambled out the passenger-side back door as flames filled the SUV’s passenger compartment.

The cop swore and ducked, involuntarily, and Henrietta, A.J. and Randy ran toward the back yard of the house, Aurelia got herself clear just as the gas tank cooked off, and ran past the patrol vehicle and crossed the street, just as two more turned into the block from either end of the street.

One of them caught her in his headlights as she dashed through the front lawn of the house across the street from the burning SUV. He immediately threw his car into reverse and tires screeched as he backed out of the block.

On the other side, the swearing Dallas police officer gave chase to Henrietta, A.J. and Randy. The trio jumped the chain-link fence into the back yard and Randy slipped and fell, as the back door opened to show a burly homeowner with a big German shepherd. Randy scrambled to his feet and began to run as the cop hurdled the fence behind him, and the homeowner released the dog.

Randy jumped the fence as the dog reached him, and he heard the animal yelp as it slammed into the fence. He picked up a few yards as the cop made it past the dog. Up ahead, A.J. opened up the back gate of house across the alley, and the trio began to cross blocks by running through suburban yards, with the cop chasing them on foot.

Aurelia did the same as she tried to escape in the opposite direction. As she dashed across the privacy-fenced back yard of the first house, the rear door opened and a man with a shotgun stepped out. Cursing the “castle defense” laws in Texas, Aurelia barely made it through the back gate before the top of it exploded from the shotgun blast.

The “high school teacher” rolled across the alley and tried to huddle down so the cop couldn’t see her, as he pulled from the street to the end of the alley. He started to move down the narrow lane, and Aurelia noted that he seemed to be focused on the houses to his left, the directions from which she’d run.

Realizing she would likely get run over if she remained where she was, Aurelia rolled to the opposite side of the alley and tried to squeeze herself flat so the patrol vehicle could pass by without hitting her. However, as the cop reached the damaged gate, he stopped his vehicle right next to her.

The cop got out and then began to circle the car. Aurelia played cat-and-mouse with him, for a few seconds (good Stealth rolls!), and then the homeowner opened this shattered gate and asked the cop if he’d seen anything. The officer turned to tell the man to return to his home, and Aurelia took that moment to try for the fence on her side of the alley.

The suburbanite saw her move and yelled to the cop, who ran around to try to catch her. She managed to make it over the fence despite her injuries, and a second foot-chase began.

The badly-wounded Aurelia managed to make it across the opposite street and into the front lawn of the house, there, before the cop caught up to her. He grabbed her by the shoulder as she failed to cross the privacy fence to that home’s back yard,

Aurelia went for his gun and missed, and the cop snapped off three quick shots. Two missed but the third grazed her ribs, and she avoided the stun. She then made a good Acrobatics roll (despite penalties) to flip herself over the fence, and the cop put three more rounds through the thin planks, but they all missed.

The foot chase resumed and, despite her injuries, Aurelia’s superior agility began to make the difference. She steadily gained ground from the patrolman, by crossing fences and hedges better than he could, dodged to the right once she thought she had a good enough lead, and found a place to hide.

Exhausted and frustrated, the cop gave up the chase and called in his location as Aurelia slipped away, the sounds of sirens all around her.

(continued...)

[tshiggins]

(...continued)

About seven blocks away, Randy, Henrietta and A.J. had almost as difficult a time. As they jumped the fence into their third or fourth alley, Randy landed badly and sprained his ankle, which hobbled his movement. However, with the help of Henrietta and A.J., he managed to stay ahead of the increasingly winded cop, who had begun to slip and fall, himself.

At one point, the frustrated officer stopped and popped off three shots, but they all missed. Shortly afterwards, that officer, too, gave up the chase and called for backup.

A.J. called up a map of the area on his cell phone, and kept the group moving toward increasingly open areas with fewer people. He wanted to find a woodlot or other area where they could lay low, for awhile – at least long enough to wrap Randy’s ankle and break the cuffs.

After about a mile that featured lots of trudging and a few dodges of cops, they found a shed at the back of large lot, and ducked in there for a few minutes, to wrap Randy’s ankle, break the cuffs and make a call.

A couple of miles away, Aurelia made her painful way further from the crash, and realized she needed a place to hole up before she bled to death. At about that time, she heard the distant sound of a barking dog, and realized the cops had called in a K-9 unit.

She looked behind her, and the street lights were bright enough to show the trail of blood she’d left behind. Thinking quickly, she pulled some gauze and duct tape from her backpack, and wrapped her wounds as tightly as she could. She then staggered on, as quickly as possible, and managed to cross several busy streets without leaving a blood-trail or otherwise drawing attention to herself.

Aurelia found herself in another cookie-cutter suburban neighborhood, and started to look for “For Sale” signs. After a bit, she found one, peeked in the windows, and saw no furniture or other signs of habitation.

The wounded woman found the key lock-box, picked it, and used the keys to let herself in. She staggered upstairs to a bathroom, and cursed when she found the water had been shut off. She managed to get the lid of the toilet-tank off, took a drink from the clean water, there, and used the rest to clean up her wounds as best she could.

As she collapsed into the bathtub, wounds slowly seeping blood, her phone rang. Aurelia gave A.J. her location, as best she could, asked him to call her ally, Wren, to check her phone’s location via GPS. Then, she passed out.

A.J. quickly telephoned Sunmi, who groggily answered. He said the quartet had run into trouble in Dallas, and someone needed to come and get them. Still mostly asleep, Sunmi jotted down the information and got dressed. Now mostly awake, she called Beatrice and told her about A.J.’s call, and then said she planned to head for Dallas after stopping off for some snacks.

Alarmed, Beatrice told her to hold off for a bit, and then called Frank and Doc Bascher, waking them both up. Bascher and the trooper agreed that they needed to know what had happened, and Beatrice said she’d call A.J. to get more information, and hung up.

Right about then, Frank’s phone rang, again. It was the sergeant at the Utah State Patrol post, who asked him if he’d seen A.J., recently. Frank said he hadn’t seen the semi-retired NASA engineer for about a week, and said A.J. had planned an extended autumn fishing trip.

The sergeant asked if Frank knew the location, and the trooper replied that it was somewhere along the Colorado River, but pretty remote. The sergeant thanked him, and told the trooper to call back if he remembered anything more about A.J.s whereabouts.

Now thoroughly alarmed, Frank logged into his Cop-net account and searched for Dallas BOLOs, and found queries about A.J. and “known associates.” Frank quickly found the preliminary report and, appalled, called Beatrice, Sunmi and Doc Bascher, and said they needed to meet ASAP.

The quartet gathered at A.J.’s house, where JoCat and Jimmy were still staying, and shared information. Beatrice had called A.J., and gotten particulars, and said they needed to get down to Dallas, pronto.

However, Doc Bascher said that, given what they knew about the severity of Aurelia’s injuries, the teacher likely wouldn’t survive until dawn, much less 16 hours – assuming the cops didn’t find her, before then, or a realtor didn’t walk in on her.

Frank added that, ideally, A.J. needed to get to a police station – a Utah police station – within two hours or so, and report his car stolen. While he might be able to extend it to (maybe) four hours, he absolutely had to make it back in enough time that there would be no way for him to have been in Dallas at the same time as his SUV.

Beatrice declared that flatly impossible. As a former crew chief, she said she technically knew how to fly a helicopter, but didn’t have a license to do so and, besides, even if she “borrowed” one from her employer, there’d be no way to file a flight-plan, make it to a Texas landing pad, find A.J., and get him back to Utah within two hours. (Or even four. Or six.)

Stymied, the group started to pack up and make the road-trip, anyway, and Jimmy insisted upon coming along. Then, the nunnupi, who had sensed the excitement and hitched a ride on Doc Bascher’s pickup, piped up with a suggestion.

Hops About said she and Twirls Thrice could guide the group through Faerie to Dallas. The trip would take several days, each way, through Faerie, they explained, but (depending on the “straight tracks” they took), only two or three hours would pass in this world.

Thoroughly aghast that they even had the consider the offer, Beatrice asked about the details. Hops About said she and Twirls Thrice would act as guides, only, and get them to Dallas and back again, in three hours or less. In exchange, Twirls Thrice said each and every person they guided through Faerie, either there and back again, or even only one way, would owe the nunnupi sisters a “fully negotiable” favor.

In keeping with what she understood about Faerie traditions (she’d been doing some reading…), JoCat said that meant the favor would become fully negotiable “currency” that the nunnupi could trade to other faeries. Those faeries would consider the traded favor to be fully binding, and would react with considerable hostility should any of the humans try to weasel out and declare the favor owed only to the original givers.

At that point, an unhappy Frank made a counteroffer. He said the favor could not require any of them to murder any one or anything, on this world or any other.

Hops About complained that, as far as they could tell, the group didn’t seem to have any trouble killing all kinds of people, anyway, and asked why the favor should have that restriction? Frank replied that needed to happen according to the human’s own choices, and not because a faery required it of them.

Twirls Thrice said the trip through Faerie might require violence that resulted in death, and said such actions could not be considered a deal-breaker. Moreover, given the restriction, the duo would act as guides, and advise the group about any hazards they might face, but neither nunnupi would consider themselves under any obligation to defend the humans, any more than that.

If they had to fight, the humans were on their own.

The group agreed, and asked the nunnupi to wait 30 minutes while they geared up. The sisters then advised the group that the presence of any equipment made of ferrous metals – weapons or anything else – would be considered an act of war by any faery they encountered. As such, the nunnupi would not open the portal to Faerie, or guide the group, if the humans tried to bring anything made of iron or steel.

Reluctantly, the group stacked their firearms and knives, and began to go through the other equipment to make sure it had no iron. Fortunately, as trained SAR volunteers, they tended to purchase durable, light-weight items of aluminum, titanium and carbon composites, and the nunnupi said all of that was okay. They’d also made sure Jimmy had good gear, as well (the young man, used to items made of wood and heavy canvas, was amazed by anything that said “REI”…).

Frank and Jimmy went down into A.J.’s basement, and came back with the two huge bronze blunderbusses they’d picked up on the first trip through the portal. The group had already laid in some smokeless powder and lead ball-bearings, so they could load the shoulder-cannons.

Beatrice ran down to the Wal-Mart and picked up some wrist-rockets and aluminum tent-stakes, while Doc Bascher loaded her pack up with additional medical supplies. Sunmi ran out to grab some food, and came back with a half-dozen packs of Ramen noodles, some beef jerky, a big box of Cheddar-bite crackers and not enough water.

The remaining four members of the group looked at their high-protein, high-carb dehydrated foods and just shook their heads. At Beatrice’s insistence, Sunmi got another couple of bottles of water, saying they didn’t want to eat or drink anything but what they brought, themselves, while they were in Faerie.

After that, the group helped themselves to A.J.’s sacred space, and burned some faceted spell components to create healing spells. Frank’s turned out to be the cleanest, while the rest of the group had varying amounts of improper mana.

Within about 40 minutes they were ready to go, and the Twirls Thrice said they needed to find a place with water. They went out back to A.J.’s fish pond, but Hops About said that was too “tame” to be useful.

(continued...)

[tshiggins]

(...continued)

The nunnupi led the group away from A.J.’s property, found a stream that lead toward the Colorado River, and started to walk along it. They came to a narrow canyon, made their way through it quickly, and emerged to find that the full moon had risen.

Then, they remembered that the night wasn’t supposed to have a full moon. Beatrice took a deep breath and said, “We’re there,” and Hops About confirmed the guess.

In Faerie, the moon is always full, Twirls Thrice added.

The group trudged on through the night, for few hours, and near dawn they reached a spot by the river where large trees grew up next to a small marshy area. Hops About said that, although the lands were rapidly moving toward Winter, now that the autumn equinox had passed, the days would continue to be very hot and dry for a while yet. As such, they advised the group to seek shelter during the day, and travel at night.

The weary group pitched camp and ate and drank a bit. Then as the early dawn poured rose-colored light across the land, they wondered at the beauty of Faerie. The colors shown more brightly and contrasted more vividly, as the Faerie version of a painted desert grew brighter in the hot sun, in a sky of several shades darker blue.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Painte...ted_Desert.JPG

The tired group split into watches (much to the amusement of the nunnupi) and rested reasonably well.

As the hot sun began to set and the day rapidly cooled, Sunmi looked out across the marshy area, where a mist had started to form. She saw about a half-dozen pretty globes of light appear, and start to drift toward the group.

Fascinated by the beautiful orbs, Sunmi walked out a ways into the marsh, and soon found herself squelching through mud, with water up over her ankles, as the six fuzzy globes drifted in her direction.

Beatrice, who was on watch at the time, noted that Sunmi had moved away from the camp and, seeing the glowing lights, grew alarmed and called for Sunmi to come back.

The headstrong teenager refused, saying she just wanted to take a closer look, and Beatrice began to shake people awake as she moved toward Sunmi. Beatrice reached the girl and tried to drag her back to camp, only to have Sunmi get annoyed with her and refuse to budge, saying she’d be fine.

At that point, the six fuzzy glowing orbs began to close rapidly on the arguing pair and, growing a bit perturbed, the two watched them come. Suddenly, about ten feet away, the six broke into two groups of three each, and lightning arced between each of the three in the groups.

Now thoroughly alarmed (finally…), Sunmi began to back away from the advancing orbs, only to have them swarm her and Beatrice, as Frank and Jimmy raced for the blunderbusses and Doc Bascher scrambled for a crossbow she’s picked up.

Three lightning bolts arced out from the will o’ wisps around Beatrice, and the mechanic dropped unconscious – one-punched by the faerie creatures. Sunmi lasted a few more seconds as she retreated back toward Beatrice. The frustrated Jimmy and Frank tried sight in on the bobbing wisps, only to see Sunmi in their line of fire.

That changed when the wisps who had downed Beatrice started to race for the group. Jimmy waited until he had a (mostly) clear shot, and squeezed the trigger. The blunderbuss boomed and spat smoke and death, and the three wisps simply evaporated as the load of lead shot tore through the cluster.

Frank continued to aim at the three remaining wisps, who succeeded in dropping Sunmi a couple of seconds later. That cluster dissolved, as well, as soon as Frank pulled the trigger.

He joined Jimmy in hastily reloading his blunderbuss, as Doc Bascher raced to administer First Aid. The veterinarian found several third-degree electrical burns on the two downed women, and started to drag them back to the dryer ground of the camp.

Once they finished loading, Jimmy and Frank came to help, and the unconscious party members soon were back on dryer ground. Doc Bascher gave the First Aid she could, but said the wounds were severe enough that they’d require magic healing before either Beatrice or Sunmi could be well enough to travel.

Doc Bascher used her spells to bring Beatrice around, and then the mechanic used hers to heal Sunmi. Neither of the wounded women were fully healed, but Frank declined to use his spells, because he said the wounded party members in Dallas would need them.

During the spell-casting, the use of the incorrect mana caused the casting to include some weird harmonics. Doc Bascher glowed with an aura of green with gold spots, accompanied by the strong smell of lavender. Beatrice caused the autumn-killed grass around her to suddenly turn lush and green.

The veterinarian dosed the two women with painkillers and spread antibiotic ointment and a topical anesthetic on the burns. That allowed Beatrice to move along fairly decently, but Sunmi remained in enough pain that she required extra stops to rest.

The trip through the first full night passed peacefully (if painfully) and Frank spotted a nice copse of huge scrub-oak near the river. The group built blinds to shield them from the path along the river, and the healthy members took the watches.

The first part of the next evening of travel went well enough, but at about midnight when the moon was at its brightest, the nunnupi spotted the tracks of large canines, They pointed them out to the group, and everybody but Beatrice spotted them instantly. Frank soon figured out that there seemed to be two different animals, and that they’d probably passed through the area shortly before dawn.

For her part, Beatrice grew increasingly alarmed that she couldn’t seem to see the tracks, even when they were pointed out to her.

The nunnupi said the tracks most likely belonged to a couple of Black Dogs – likely a mated pair, hunting deer in the area. Beatrice said that, “Black Dog” didn’t sound at all friendly, and Frank asked for more details.

Hops About said Black Dogs in Faerie operated about the same as they did in the stories from the human world. Large, intelligent predators, Black Dogs weren’t necessarily hostile and (if reasonably well-fed) probably wouldn’t mess with anybody who didn’t mess with them.

Frank expressed the hope that they’d missed the Black Dogs, as it had been nearly 12 hours since they’d come through. Hops About snorted a laugh, and called that highly unlikely.

After all, she said, these Black Dogs may not have seen a human being in centuries (if ever), the group was moving through their hunting grounds, some of the members of the group were wounded, and Beatrice still labored under the temporary curse of unluck that had afflicted her when she cast the polluted spell. That combination made it a nigh-certainty that the Black Dogs would come calling, Twirls Thrice declared.

Now quite nervous, the group pushed on through the night, and found a campsite in a cluster of larger, aromatic evergreens on hill overlooking the river. The nunnupi said they’d traveled a fair distance to the southeast, along the faery track, and would soon come into an area that was a bit more lush. From there, they could head east, away from the river, through an area of prairie patched with groves of trees.

The group had finished setting up camp, for the night, and most had started to turn in when Frank, who had the first watch, turned around and saw a huge Black Dog looking at him from about 10 feet away. The size of a small steer, the dog’s glowing red eyes didn’t have to look up very far to see directly into the trooper’s. The dog growled as Frank started to swing the blunderbuss around, and the trooper realized that the dog could be on him before he could bring the bulky bronze punt-gun-sized weapon to bear.

Meanwhile, over on the other side of the camp, Grunt suddenly sat up and stared into the forest, where two more red eyes had suddenly appeared. The shape of a second Black Dog emerged from the gloom, its eyes fixed on Grunt’s emerald green ones.

Beatrice quickly stood up and called Grunt to heel, as Sunmi and Doc Bascher rose to their feet. Unaccountably, the dog ignored her and, ears perked up in interest, he started to walk toward the Black Dog, at the edge of the camp.

Unnerved. Beatrice called him again and, when Grunt continued to ignore her, she stepped forward and grabbed his collar. Although he looked much less intimidating in the presence of the two faerie canines, Grunt was still a huge dog and he began to drag her along as he tried to get closer to the second Black Dog.

Doc Bascher rushed to help, and tried to use her experience wrangling animals to make Grunt listen, but to no avail. The dog continued to pull both women toward the edge of camp to where the Black Dog stood waiting. Meanwhile, on the other side of the camp, Frank and the first Black Dog remained locked in a staring contest.

That left Sunmi, who saw that Jimmy had fallen asleep already and hadn’t woken up. Thinking quickly, she grabbed some spiced beef jerky, tore open the package, moved up next to Grunt and tossed the treat toward the Black Dog.

The animal made doggie snarfling noises as it wolfed down the treat, and suddenly Beatrice and Doc Bascher were able to drag Grunt away. Sunmi quickly tore open another beef jerky packet, and looked up to see the second huge predator looking right at her, instead of Grunt, and suddenly remembered she was badly wounded.

(continued...)

[tshiggins]

(...continued)

Sunmi hurriedly tossed the second piece of jerky to Black Dog, who snarfled it down with the biggest, whitest, sharpest teeth she'd ever seen on an animal. It's ears pricked up in interest, and Sunmi quickly unwrapped a couple more pieces of jerky and fed them to the faery animal. It stepped up close enough that she could see its black ears were tinged with red.

Once Beatrice and Doc Bascher had dragged Grunt safely (…) to the other side of the fire, Sunmi tossed the rest of the double-handful of beef jerky to the Black Dog, and slowly backed away. The dog delicately picked up each of the packages in its mouth, and then trotted into the forest. On the other side of the camp, the animal facing Frank wheeled around and merged into the gloom.

For her part, Twirls Thrice commented that went much better than she’d expected.

It took a while for the jittery group to relax, but eventually they did so and the remainder of the day passed quietly.

The group set out at dusk, and soon came across the tracks of deer, which they surmised the Black Dogs had been hunting. A bit later, Hops About dropped back and disappeared for awhile, only to return and announce that the situation had gotten rather more dangerous than it already had been.

The party quickly demanded an explanation, and Hops About explained that, given the slower pace of the trip and hard deadline they faced, the two sisters had moved the group a bit deeper into some territory they’d been trying to skirt around. The local region belonged to the “zips” (pronounced “seeps”), a faery people who acted as guardians of the fae deer that had left the tracks they’d seen earlier.

The zips were another group of “little people” fae, they said, with feet that looked like cats paws. They usually dressed in bright feathers and beads, and armed themselves with war-clubs and javelins edged and tipped with flint or (preferably) obsidian. While they couldn’t fly, the two nunnupi explained, they could make prodigious leaps and, as with most faeries, a blow or stab from their weapons would cause the wasting paralysis of elf-stroke.

As a general rule, they said, the zips didn’t mess with anybody who left their deer alone, but tended toward uncompromising territoriality. However, complicating matters was the fact that the nunnupi generally liked to raid the zip deer flocks (“Them’s good eatin’!”), and the two faery peoples were traditional enemies.

As if that weren’t enough, Hops About said, the deer, themselves, were faery creatures with a glamour that caused most predators that saw them – including humans -- to compulsively hunt and kill them. This usually gave their zip guardians the pretext needed to, in turn, hunt and kill the attackers, in defense of the flock.

Given the circumstances, the nunnupi urged the party to travel more quickly, so they could reach a gateway to Dallas, before their tracks where spotted by the zips.

Doc Bascher dosed up Sunmi and Beatrice with more painkillers, and the group stepped up the pace. That worked for awhile, but as they started to move into a more lush and thickly-wooded area of deciduous trees with huge boles, Hops About buzzed in from the back-trail and said she thought a zip scouting party might be following.

The group stepped up the pace even more, and eventually found the trail headed into a copse of gigantic oak trees. As they began to move into the grove, they suddenly heard a sweet voice say, in a sexy southern drawl, “Mah, mah, mah. Visituhs, and all unannounced!”

The group came to sudden halt as they saw ahead of them, leaning seductively against a giant oak tree, a green-skinned, perky and terminally-cute little five-foot female faerie, absolutely nude, with a riot of tiny oak leaves in fall colors, instead of hair, on top of her head.

With that, the session ended.

###

Funny Quotes

Henrietta <as gasoline begins to slosh around her feet>: We’re already in enough trouble, we might as well make it exciting!

GM: Are you guys wearing your ballistic vests?
Anten <OOC>: Any time we go anywhere with Randy, we wear our vests.
G&AInc : Hey, now!

GM <rolls a hit against Aurelia>: And, you are shot, again!
G&AInc <OOC>: It must be Tuesday.
Kyle <OOC>: What day is it?
Anten <OOC>: Sunday
Bennie Rae <OOC, whose character just got shot>: Why is this so hard?!

Frank: She’s not a samurai! She’s a thief!

Randy <Scrambling for ways to slow down the pursuing cop>: Never underestimate the stopping power of a kitten!

G&AInc <OOC>: Foot chases use "Running," more than DX rolls and "Acrobatics."
GM: Yeah, but I wanted to evoke the foot chase in the first Point Break film. Jumping over fences and dodging through the crap in people's back yards seems more like DX and Acrobatics, to me, and not so much a straight speed contest.
Anten <OOC>: So, when does the cop blow his knee out, and stop chasing us?
Mike<OOC>: Yeah, can we just cut to that part?

Sunmi <Learns that the group must head into a dangerous situation against lots of cops, to rescue four party members>: Hey, I’m not going. Y’all have a good time, and I’ll see you when you get back.
<She hears the deal offered by the nunnupi.>
Sunmi: Wait! Now I wanna go!
Beatrice : You didn’t want to go, before, because it was too dangerous, but now you want to go into Faerie?!

<The group quickly takes inventory just before heading into Faerie, checking that each of them had enough water and high-end dehydrated food to make it several days, without relying anything. Then, they see Sunmi stuffing her pack with cheap ramen noodles, cookies, peppered beef jerky, and cheddar crackers.>
Sunmi: Hey, this is what I eat, okay?

Doc Bascher <Sees the grass grow green and lush around Beatrice, when she casts her problematic spell>: Hey, could you move over there?
Beatrice: Why?
Doc Bascher: I want to see if the green grass follows you around.

<Sunmi tosses a stick of spiced beef jerky to a Black Dog, which snarfs it down.>
Frank: Snap into a Slim Jim!

G&AINC (OOC): Sorry that I wasn't feeling well this session, guys. The Volcano God is angry. I just need to find a virgin to throw into it, and then everything will be-
Rebecca (OOC): [begins to stare at him with a comically-exaggerated look of wide-eyed, drop-jawed shock)
G&AINC (OOC): [super casual] Hey, Rebecca. You got any plans after this?
Rebecca (OOC): [speechless and looking even more alarmed]
Bernetta <Rebecca's Mother> (OOC): [laughs!]

###

[SionEwig]

I'll agree with the "?" after heroes. Last session and this one just written up seemed to find the party, or at least part of it, in serious trouble. Their luck had to run out sooner or later. Still, it looks like you gave them a relatively easy way out of their tough spot. That favor is going to come back and bite them down the road. Sounds like everyone had a good time, can't wait for the write up for today's session.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by SionEwig

I'll agree with the "?" after heroes. Last session and this one just written up seemed to find the party, or at least part of it, in serious trouble.

Heroes are always in trouble. Otherwise they wouldn't have any reason to get up and be heroic in the morning.

[tshiggins]

Originally Posted by SionEwig

I'll agree with the "?" after heroes. Last session and this one just written up seemed to find the party, or at least part of it, in serious trouble. Their luck had to run out sooner or later. Still, it looks like you gave them a relatively easy way out of their tough spot. That favor is going to come back and bite them down the road. Sounds like everyone had a good time, can't wait for the write up for today's session.

It was only sort of easy, and I'll raise the hood a bit to demonstrate why.

I modeled Faerie after Jim Butcher's version, in that I wanted every trip through it to be fraught with danger and require smart choices. I have a pretty clear idea of the motivations of the Faerie beings they run into, and I operate them according to that defined nature.

The Black Dogs were the most dangerous things they actually encountered, and I really had to think hard about how to handle that situation. Black Dogs are powerful enough that combat with the two of them, given that half of the four members of the group were so badly injured, could have easily resulted in a TPK.

However, they are (not quite) apex predators in Faerie, and living in an area where they usually had no problem hunting -- the occasional group of annoyed zips notwithstanding. That made them mostly curious about the presence of the humans and, although quite willing to take any prey (such as Grunt) they could easily get, they were neither starving, nor desperate, nor pathologically evil.

That put the ball in the party's court, really, and the outcome depended primarily on the choices they made. Mike's decision to not attack the male BD, and let the tug-of-war over Grunt to happen, meant he chose to not escalate. The other party members also declined to attack the female BD, and just focused on saving Grunt.

Rebecca's decision to try feeding the beef jerky to the female BD as a distraction was a moment of inspired, desperate lunacy of the sort she comes up with, and resulted in a really good reaction roll.

So, I rolled with that, and had the distraction work and (on the fly) decided that the Black Dogs liked the peppered beef jerky, and allowed themselves to be "bought off," as it were.

By contrast, the combat with the will-'o-wisps turned out to be more dangerous than I initially anticipated and, once again, Rebecca's decisions about Sunmi's actions was directly responsible. The wisps have only one HP each, and do only 1d6 damaged per attack, and have skills of 12.

I figured that they'd attack the party en masse, have divide themselves into one wisp per party member, with one on Grunt and one extra to double-team someone. That would have resulted in some painful shocks but no serious injuries to anybody.

Instead, Sunmi's actions, and Beatrice's reaction, divided the party and allowed the wisps to attack them in detail. The creatures aren't intelligent, but they are pack animals and operate according to pack tactics.

In that case the obvious pack move was to take down the two closest prey, first, and then move to the rest. The die roll distribution meant that all three of Beatrice's hit, the first round, but only one of Sunmi's tagged her. The three that hit Beatrice rolled well on damage, dropped her to zero in a single round, and she failed her HT roll to stay conscious. Down she went.

Again, what mattered most was the party's actions. In the first encounter, Sunmi behaved foolishly, Beatrice got sucked into it, and the party had to use two-thirds of its available healing spells, just to keep going.

However, that made them much more cautious, from there on out, and they made much smarter -- and much more creative -- choices, in the second encounter. If they'd behaved equally foolishly, at least one or two members, would probably have died, right then.

(As an FYI, I think about my encounters carefully, and generally do an okay job balancing the opposition against the party strengths. Once I've selected them, I usually don't alter them, unless the party does things to avoid the situation or just make it harder for things to encounter them. I'm perfectly willing to let that work for the group, and reserve the encounter until some other time -- or just let it go, completely.

The two Black Dogs were dangerous, but to a healthy group of four, backed by Healing spells, the encounter would have resulted in some serious injuries, but only death if the die rolls went badly. However, at the time of the encounter, two of the party members were injured and most of the Healing spells were gone, which made that whole thing much more potentially deadly.

However, I didn't change the encounter. The presence of the Fae deer made for rich hunting grounds, and the presence of the zip guardians meant a mated pair would be much more successful than a single Black Dog, alone. Two Black Dogs were the choice with the greatest verisimilitude, so that's what I went with -- and decided to let the chips fall where they would, based on the decisions the players made.)

[tshiggins]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

Heroes are always in trouble. Otherwise they wouldn't have any reason to get up and be heroic in the morning.

QFT, and a fundamental part of my GM philosophy. :)