Campaign: Facets

[tshiggins]

We held the latest session of Facets a couple of weeks before Christmas, and then took a long hiatus for the holidays. We’re getting ready to hold the next session, and that means I really need to write up the last one.

The session started with the 1918 crew in full flight from Santa Fe, the northern regional capitol of La Colonia de Nova España. I figured the group would get back together by the end of the session, so the players with characters in the 2014 world attended the session, as well, and played NPCs Frank and Jimmy.

Characters Present:

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. Recently suffered mental damage after an attack by a spirit of pain and violation. -- Played by Rebecca W. (arrived late, after the worst of it was already over)

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 “foo” spirit) -- played by Bernetta W.

NPCs Present

Trooper Frank Moses -- A former Marine who recently quit his job 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. Frank finds himself attracted to what he perceives as the much simpler life on the 1918 side of the portal.

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, Doña Eva, only to find himself in a strange, alien world to which he must struggle to adapt.

Claudia Abigail Tavulari, member of the NASA Quantum Physics Research Team, and an old friend of Arthur Jamison’s. The team has been helping Arthur research the portal physics, on the sly. -- Played by Tisa T (Absent due to higher priorities.)

Stephen Mack, another member of the NASA Quantum Physics Research Team, and outdoors enthusiast. -- Played by Jeff T. (Absent due to higher priorities.)

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

##

Henrietta, A.J., Aurelia, Frank and Jimmy woke up the next morning to overcast skies, an icy wind, and a light, steady snow. Given what happened the last time they stayed in one place too long, however, the group decided to brave the pass. Although they knew they’d nearly ruined the horses, they felt they needed them until they could get through the mountains and down to the desert, beyond. So, they saddled up the animals but burdened them as lightly as possible, and started up the winding, but well-maintained, dirt road.

By about mid-day, they sighted oa small structure with a thin stream of smoke getting whipped away by the wind. The group pulled out binoculars and eased the buggy closer, and found a block-house with thick stone walls alongside a narrow section of the road.

The team pulled the buggy out of sight, and decided on a quick dismounted recon. The experienced SAR personnel crept closer to the fortified building, saw it flying a flag of Spain, and figured it was a toll station or some other official facility. However, they noted no telegraph lines, anywhere, and decided they’d try to get past without shooting anybody (or getting shot, themselves).

The team began to scout the terrain, and soon Henrietta and Frank spotted a decent game-trail that led up to the ridge opposite the block-house. Since Henrietta and Jimmy had the most skill with the animals, they decided to walk that horses up the trail so as to avoid the Spanish troops. A.J. and Aurelia kicked back for a couple of hours to give the pair a good head-start, and then chugged up the road.

As they got close to the blockhouse, the door opened and a warmly-clad Spanish soldier emerged, while a second stood in the doorway and stared at the approaching buggy. The first soldier held out his hand to indicate they should stop, and Aurelia shoved the throttle to full. The buggy roared up the road, the soldier dove out of the way and the second man fumbled out his pistol and took a quick shot at the buggy bouncing down the slope on the other side of the pass.

The shot didn’t even come close and about 30 minutes later, they rejoined Henrietta and Jimmy, and the group continued down the pass. By evening, the snow had started to thin out and a few stars sparkled in the night sky.

The sun rose on a crisp, clear morning and the group made a hot breakfast. They then poured out a pile of oats on a patch of dry grass, rolled up the picket-line, and left the exhausted horses behind. The campground had some trees and a stream, and they hoped the animals would survive.

The next few days passed amiably enough, as the group rolled through the foothills and into the desert of what would be western New Mexico, in their world. They hoped to stay off the main road alongside the Rio San Juan, for awhile, and parallel it to the south until it reached the confluence with the Rio Grande del Norte.

Since all five of the group had experience with desert survival and navigation, and four were intimately familiar with the version of the area in their own world, the plan succeeded reasonably well. They stuck to desert trails just out of sight of the Rio San Juan until it reached the canyons cut by what would be the Colorado River on their side of the portal. They managed to cross the Rio San Juan – very low in its banks, at this time of year – and strike a rugged road on the east side the Rio Grande del Norte that they figured joined up with the main road, a bit further north.

Toward the end of the day, A.J. had Aurelia slow down so he could check the road ahead. He clambered out of the buggy and the group checked the road ahead. It showed signs of recent passage of a group of 15-20 horses, headed north on a trail that (according to the other signs) hadn’t seen any other traffic in several weeks.

After a few good Tracking rolls, the group determined the horses were well-shod and moderately burdened, which meant they probably weren’t Indian ponies. That meant a troop of Spanish colonial cavalry likely moved along the road ahead of them, almost certainly on the lookout for them. As fast as the buggy might be, as compared to travel by horse, messages moved even faster by telegraph.

(continued...)

[tshiggins]

(...continued)

The group decided on a cautious approach, hoping to spot the cavalry before it spotted them, and spent the next day doing exactly that. The group stopped periodically to check the tracks of the cavalry troop, and realized they were gaining fast. Most likely, they would encounter the Spanish soldiers sometime the following day.

Knowing that, the group decided to slow down, as they didn’t want to come across the cavalry until late in the day, after they’d dismounted and started to pitch camp. The group puttered along as quietly as possible, stopped frequently to check tracks, and kept their binoculars on the hills and road ahead. Sure enough, just past mid-afternoon, they spotted a horseman on the road ahead, and quickly pulled out of sight before the trailing scout could spot them.

The group found a dell near the river where they could kill time and wait for the cavalry troop to move a few miles further up the road. The group contemplated trying to ford the Rio Grande del Norte and possibly strike across the desert to reach the Dark Canyon area, directly.

However, they knew that while the Rio Grande del Norte would roughly follow the path of the Colorado River on their side, the fords would appear in different places and the only one they knew the location of, with certainty, appeared at the Ute Indian trading campground at the site of Moab, in their world. Moreover, because the buggy had already been damaged, once, any additional rough treatment might cause a serious breakdown that would cause them to miss the portal opening, completely, and strand them for another month in a world where the local authorities actively sought them.

With those factors carefully weighed, the group decided to wait until near dusk, and then slip forward a few miles until the tracks told them the cavalry was just ahead. At that point, they’d scout the situation, and then lay low until late in the evening -- at which point they’d try to blow past the camp, extend the distance with the buggy’s superior sustainable speed, pray the left front wheel held and nobody got shot, and escape to the north.

As the sun neared the western horizon, the group put the plan into action. They drove forward slowly until the tracks and horse-apples told them the cavalry had recently passed, then pulled off the road again. Aurelia, who had the best Stealth, pulled out her bow and slipped forward, while A.J. covered her back-trail with his crossbow at the ready. Meanwhile, Henrietta, Frank and Jimmy remained back at the camp with their firearms ready, a fresh propane tank hooked up, and the buggy boiler hot.

Aurelia moved forward through the thicker brush alongside the river until she heard the sounds of the cavalry camp, ahead. However, a copse of trees lay between her and the cavalry, so she decided to move into them and try to get a good look at the camp. Behind her and up the slope closer to the road, A.J. stopped and cursed, as he realized her intent and that he’d lose sight of her, once she moved into the cover.

The high school art teacher entered the copse carefully, moved through it quietly, stepped around a tree and through some brush, and startled a cavalry scout with an armful of firewood. The two stared at each other for a split-second, the man dropped the wood and went for his pistol, and Aurelia scrambled backwards to put a tree between her tender flesh and his .45 slugs. She drew her bow back to full extension as she heard the man moving through the undergrowth to reach her, and desperately tried to guess which side of the tree he’d move around. A moment later, she heard a thwack and a grunt, stepped around the tree and found the main lying face down with fletching of one of A.J.’s crossbow bolts sticking out of the center of his back (great shot with good damage).

With that, Aurelia moved forward, again, until she spotted the site. The cavalry had set up camp in one of the Utes’ nice trading areas, and were busy pitching tents, watering the horses and generally buzzing around doing camp setup.

Aurelia slipped back into the trees, exfiltrated, met up with A.J. and the duo trotted back to the buggy. The group realized the scout would soon be missed, and that meant they couldn’t wait until nightfall. They had to try to blast past the cavalry, right now, before someone found the body and alerted the troop to their presence.

So, the group lashed everything, down and mounted up. Aurelia, who had little skill with firearms, took the wheel again, while A.J. readied his crossbow, Henrietta pulled her nine-mil, Frank got the AR-15, and Jimmy cocked his Winchester. Aurelia rolled forward slowly until she saw a sentry on the road ahead, and then jammed the throttle open as he shouted the alarm.

The buggy’s wheels spat dust and gravel as it rattled and chugged up the road, and Henrietta opened fire in the direction of the horses as the camp began to boil, while Frank sprayed bullets through the camp. Henrietta’s shots managed to startle the horses (and the troopers leading them) enough to cause them to mill around in alarm, and Frank got dead lucky and managed to put a bullet into the cavalry commander. A few troopers managed to get pistol shots off at the buggy, but most of them either dove for cover or dashed toward their stacked rifles.

However, a sergeant who’d kept his rifle at the ready dashed out to the road behind the retreating buggy, took careful aim and then went down with a bullet in his chest after a burst of automatic fire from Frank’s rifle. The buggy sped away and into the gathering darkness, and within a few hours had traveled nearly 50 miles further north. At that point, the group figured they’d gone far enough, and bedded down for a restless night.

Unsurprisingly, the cold light of morning revealed absolutely no Ute traders anywhere nearby, so the group at a cold breakfast and got moving. They covered nearly another hundred miles by the end of the day, and had moved deeply into Ute Indian territory with no sign of any more Spanish cavalry.

The appearance of the Ute traders the next morning reinforced their sense of safety, and they cut a few deals. The did the same thing the next day as they camped at nice Ute site on the west side of the river where Moab would be on the other world. Two days later, and only about a day and a half before the portal opening, they arrived at their Dark Canyon base.

The group immediately advised Heck and Izzy, that Doña Eva would likely arrive within the next couple of months, with a plan to move through the portal permanently. Unsurprisingly, the two blood slaves seemed quite unnerved at the prospect of dealing with the vampire mistress, who had for the most part left them to their own devices.

Meanwhile, over on the 2014 side of the portal, Doc Bascher and Sunmi had arrived at Dark Canyon in the second buggy, and had set up camp. When the portal opened, the pair entered with some trepidation, not looking forward to sharing the news of the past month with the rest of the group. (G&AInc had to leave the session early.)

Each of the buggies entered the portal from its own side, and moved toward the middle of the passage. Aurelia’s buggy reached the center of the passage first, the mist rose as expected, and the green-tressed rape spirit attacked as they feared. However, A.J. had opened up several bags of rock-salt and had his crossbow at the ready, while everyone else had pulled out knives. Salt flew and blades flashed as the spirit shrieked in anger.

At the sight of the attack, Doc Bascher covered the last few feet, slammed on the brakes and grabbed her rock-salt filled shotgun. She then looked on in shock as Sunmi jumped out of the buggy, swaggered forward, and challenged the rape spirit in a voice that could only be a Creole accent. She called the suddenly terrified rape spirit a “maraguin,” and as it popped out of existence, Sunmi suddenly collapsed.

The sudden silence shocked everyone motionless for a moment, and then A.J. dismounted from his buggy to check the girl. Sunmi came around within a few moments, and the rest of the group demanded an explanation.

With some embarrassment, Sunmi explained that she’d gone to Five Points and consulted a mambo, a voodoo priestess, about the dreams she’d had since the rape spirit tried to possess her, and some disturbing feelings she’d had about pain and pleasure. The mambo had offered her a number of options, and she’d decided that the best one available required the she agree to become a “horse” – a host body – for the use of the voodoo loa of sex, love and fertility, Erzulie Dahomey. Apprently, she explained, Erzulie intensely disliked the sort of spirit that reveled in pain and defilement, and had taken control of Sunmi’s body when the rape-spirit had appeared in the portal.

The Korean-American girl also told the appalled group that Erzulie seemed quite pleased to learn of the existence and location of the portal, and had chased off the rape spirit as a one-time gift.

At that point, A.J. came close to losing his temper, noting that Sunmi had once again gone off and done something amazingly dangerous on her own, without consulting them. Sunmi argued that it was her problem to solve and they had no say in the matter. Everyone else argued that what affected her also affected them, and if she’d planned to host a powerful voodoo loa with its own agenda, it would’ve been nice to let them know.

The conversation went downhill pretty seriously, after that, as Doc Bascher took a deep breath and told the scout group about the death of JoCat, the crippling of Beatrice, the need to send Stephen and Claudia to the Academy Club, and the interest by the DEA and ATF in how Frank earned his living since he’d resigned from the Utah State Patrol, in the middle of a bunch of violent, inexplicable events.

(continued...)

[tshiggins]

After that conversation, the group made its way to Moab, and then dispersed to their homes. At her place, Henrietta went down to the basement to stash the dresses and other recent acquisitions from the 1918 side of the portal, and noticed a crate she didn't recognize, tucked back in a corner.

Suddenly worried, the archaeologist called A.J. and Aurelia, and the two rushed over. They checked the crate over, carefully, and then opened it.

Inside, Henrietta found a sizeable collection of American Indian burial artifacts of the sort that would draw the interested attention of agents with the Bureau of Indian Affairs charged with investigation of illegal trafficking in American Indian artifacts, as well as tribal councils who wished to protect sacred burial grounds. Aurelia estimated the net worth in somewhere between $40,000 and $60,000 -- enough to qualify as a federal felony with mandatory jail time.

With that, the trio understood they needed to get rid of the obviously planted artifacts, and then figure out if anybody else's homes had been infiltrated and planted with contraband.

With that, the session ended.

##


Funny Quotes

Debbie (OOC): If Henrietta has to play, then Henrietta has to drink!

Rebecca (OOC, after she stepped away from the table for a few minutes): Every time I’m not here, something stupid happens!
Bennie (OOC): Are you saying stupid things don’t happen when you are here?

Bernetta (OOC): Why do you think you have to kill anybody?!
Anten (OOC): Well, we might have to….

Bernetta (OOC): You guys have a tommy gun! Why are you worried?

G&AInc (OOC): This is going to end badly.
Bernetta (OOC): When does it ever end well?

Aurelia: I’m going to unleash the horses.
Bernetta (OOC): You’re going to cut the picket line. Horses are not “leashed.”

Rebecca (OOC, upon returning to the table after another short absence, to find that Aurelia ran into the cavalry scout): I left for two minutes!
Bennie (OOC): I really feel the 2014 side should have a chance to play, now….
Bernetta(OOC): No, really! We’re fine!

Aurelia (to Henrietta): You wanna handle this one, diplomat-person?

Aurelia: We were gone for one month, and you got the FBI involved!
Sunmi: Oh, and JoCat is dead.
Aurelia: The next time, you lead with that!

A.J.: There’s more?!
Doc Bascher: Yeah. Beatrice killed one of the ultors, so now there are three after us.

##

[tshiggins]

After a long hiatus for the holidays, we held the latest session of facets in January. I’ve since moved out to Lakewood and people got really busy, so the next session also has a long delay. We should get to it by late February, though.

The good news is that, once the party all got back together on the same side of the portal, they put their heads together and good things started to happen for them. The next session could easily prove pivotal to the campaign!


Characters Present:

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.

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.

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.

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. (Not available for this session.)

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. Recently suffered mental damage after an attack by a spirit of pain and violation. -- 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 “foo” spirit) -- played by Bernetta W. (Unable to make the session.)

NPCs Present

Trooper Frank Moses -- A former Marine who recently quit his job 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. Frank finds himself attracted to what he perceives as the much simpler life on the 1918 side of the portal.

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, Doña Eva, only to find himself in a strange, alien world to which he must struggle to adapt.

Claudia Abigail Tavulari, member of the NASA Quantum Physics Research Team, and an old friend of Arthur Jamison’s. The team has been helping Arthur research the portal physics, on the sly.

Stephen Mack, another member of the NASA Quantum Physics Research Team, and outdoors enthusiast.

Grunt: Beatrice's ally, a large pit-bull possessed by a protective "foo" spirit. (Still not healed!)

##

Upon discovery of the crate of artifacts clearly planted in her basement, Henrietta immediately telephoned the other members of the group and advised them to search their homes and businesses (if applicable) carefully. Meanwhile, A.J. and Aurelia began to shift the artifacts to a different crate, and after Henrietta got off the phone she found some blankets and buckskins from the other side of the portal to put in the planted crate.

As soon as they got the load shifted, A.J. and Aurelia put the crate in the back of A.J.’s SUV and headed toward his place. Shortly thereafter, Henrietta loaded the planted crate with the new items from Nova España, and headed north toward Salt Lake City, where she had storage space in a museum.

A.J. and Aurelia made it to his home without incident, and then took the jeep trail out the back of his property to the chattering stream that led to the Colorado River. They pulled up next to a wide, deep spot where A.J. liked to fish and, with considerable anguish on the part of Aurelia, pulled out mallets, smashed the burial artifacts, and tossed the shards into the stream (thus committing any number of federal felonies).

As soon as they were done, a thoroughly paranoid Aurelia rushed back to her place and checked all her low-tech intrusion detectors (splinters of toothpicks in door-jambs, spit-glued hairs, etc.), which indicated that either nobody had tried to intrude, or someone had intruded and then re-set all of her detectors. Still unnerved, Aurelia went into “full OCD” mode, and searched her place from top to bottom.

Meanwhile, Sunmi called and reported that she’d found nothing – which didn’t surprise her, given that she lived with her dad while going to school in the United States. However, the Korean-American student decided she should probably check out Beatrice’s place, given that the helicopter mechanic remained in the hospital and Grunt still recuperated at Doc Bascher’s clinic.

Once she arrived at Beatrice’s home, Sunmi realized the magnitude of the task. The former military mechanic had a large garage stuffed with all sorts of tools, as well as a decent-sized house with a basement. Nevetheless, she set to it, and within a couple of hours found what she feared – two kits to convert semi-automatic AR-15 rifles to full auto.

While technically not illegal to possess (and something she suspected Beatrice might have around, anyway), Sunmi continued the search with renewed urgency. Eventually, she reached the garage and began to go through the large, metal toolboxes, there. Finally, she lifted the top tray of tools out of one and, instead of more tools, she found four fully automatic rifles stashed in the bottom – exactly the sort of thing that had drawn the undivided attention of Agent Paul Richardson of the DEA, and Agent Alex Granville of the ATFE, months before.

Sunmi immediately telephoned A.J., who told her to pull her SUV into the garage, load the guns into them, and then head over to his place. Sunmi quickly did so, and arrived at the exurban compound within about 30 minutes, where she backed into A.J.’s large garage. (It had more electronics than Beatrice’s garage shop, but otherwise resembled it, fairly closely…).

After a few minutes, A.J. appeared and the two of them dismantled the rifles and stashed them in perfectly-legal pieces-parts around A.J.’s property.

After that, the group headed over to Randy’s apartment, where they discussed the situation with the still-battered extreme athlete. He invited them in and they helped search his place, but only turned up a nickel-bag of weed he had left over from his last trip to Grand Junction where he’d purchased it, legally. (Transporting across state lines, on the other hand, most certainly broke the law.)

Randy promised to get rid of the pot, and as the group left, he pulled out a bong.

A little later, as she drove on the highway north toward Salt Lake City, Henrietta’s phone rang. On the other end, one of the officers she knew from the Moab Police Department asked her location. When she responded, the officer told her she needed to return to Moab, immediately.

Feigning ignorance, Henrietta asked him why, but he refused to answer. However, he did say that Henrietta should probably talk to a good attorney, if she knew one. The archaeologist thanked him for the advice, and then telephoned the museum. They told her the name of an attorney, Jennifer McCabe, who worked with them on antiquities cases.

Henrietta rang up McCabe, told her about the phone call from the Moab PD, and asked for an appointment. McCabe agreed to meet her at a location halfway between the law office in Provo and Henrietta’s current location. Within an hour, or so, they met up and an intrigued (good reaction roll) McCabe agreed to accompany Dr. Jones to Moab.

As the two women went out to their vehicles, the attorney spotted the large crate in Henrietta’s SUV, and asked what it contained. Henrietta opened it up and showed the attorney the garments and blankets inside, and noted the unique designs. McCabe immediately expressed interest, and explained that she worked with the museum because she had a layman’s interest in American Indian art and culture.

The attorney said she’d never seen anything like the designs on the textiles, and asked their provenance. Henrietta mostly told the truth, and said they’d been made by Ute and Navaho artisans who lived in some rather remote locations. McCabe said that, if Henrietta were able to provide background information about the creators, the blankets and dresses could fetch really good prices in Santa Fe art galleries.

(continued...)

[tshiggins]

(...continued)

With that, the two women hopped in their vehicles and arrived in Moab by late in the afternoon, to see several police cars and an unmarked government vehicle that screamed “federal agent,” parked in front of Henrietta’s home. The two ladies got out and two men walked over who identified themselves as officers with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, charged with investigation of crimes concerning antiquities. They presented Henrietta with a search warrant, and McCabe promptly blew a gasket when she saw several Moab officers carrying boxes out of the house.

This started a loud argument between the attorney and the agents, during which Henrietta stood back quietly and let her attorney talk. In the end, the agents insisted upon clearing out everything in Henrietta’s house for review as to its legality, and said they needed her records that demonstrated the origins of the seized items.

McCabe threw another fit, demanded receipts for everything, and promised a lawsuit at the conclusion of the investigation. Things grew even more incandescent when the agents spotted the crate in the back of Henrietta’s vehicle, said it matched a description they had of possible illegal goods, and took that, too. However, they did not place Henrietta under arrest, but advised that she remain in contact with them.

A few hours later, as the group gathered a A.J.’s house, they heard over the police scanner that the ATFE had conducted a search of Beatrice’s home, also. Another trap narrowly avoided.

Under the circumstances, the group decided that the situation with the Scarlet Sage ultors had gone on quite long enough, and they needed to find a resolution. Aurelia called Wren, who was available, and asked the hacker ally to check the tapes from traffic cameras near the homes of Henrietta and Beatrice, to see if she could spot any suspicious activity.

The group also determined they needed more information about the ultor retribution system. Since JoCat was no longer around, and Sunmi, Henrietta and A.J. hadn’t mastered the Greek or Latin well enough to do the research on their own, that left them only one resource. Aurelia called up the Academy Club, in Denver, and asked for an appointment with the chairman of the board, Marcus Vaile. Within the hour, she had the meeting time set for a few days hence.

After that, the group searched everything again, and A.J. contacted Steve and Claudia to check on them. Late the next day, Wren got back in touch with Aurelia, and said the traffic cams had picked up three SUVs that had passed through the neighborhood unusually frequently in the past month. She’d run a check, and found that two of the SUVs were rented under obvious pseudonyms – Jane Bond and John Connery – from the same rental firm in Grand Junction.

Aurelia agreed that sounded suspicious and had Wren send the videos to A.J. The group then reassembled at the home of the engineer to discuss options. They soon determined they needed a way to track or trail the vehicles back to the location used by the ultors, and A.J. thought he might be able to rig up some bugs to allow them to do that. The discussion soon got tangled up in delivery methods, and Aurelia and Henrietta left A.J. and Sunmi to figure out something.

The two soon narrowed options down to hand delivery using some sort of epoxy or adhesive, or possibly using rare earth magnets to stick the tracers to the vehicle’s undercarriage. Sunmi got fixated on the use of drones or even a simple, modified remote-control car. Meanwhile, Aurelia returned to her neighborhood, parked down the street in an impromptu stakeout, and simply waited awhile.

Sure enough, a few hours later, one of the suspect SUVs drove through her neighborhood, again, and Aurelia got a look at the driver. She identified the former spec ops ultor and current auto salesman, Shane Haversham, in the vehicle with two men she didn’t recognize.

The school teacher let the car move down the street, and then pulled out to follow them. She stayed back far enough to avoid notice but close enough to keep them in sight (not too difficult on Moab’s quiet, late autumn streets), and watched as they passed by Doc Bascher’s busy clinic.

The SUV continued on, and Aurelia soon realized their destination. They headed down the gravel county road that led past A.J.s home, and passed it about 30 minutes later.

After that the car swung made its way back to paved roads, and then headed east. Aurelia followed it as far as State Highway 191, where it turned south. Aurelia knew traffic on that road got pretty sparse, so she took Highway 128 toward Castle Valley, and then pulled a U-turn after about a mile, and headed back to Arthur’s.

Based on what she’d seen, Arthur. hit upon a plan to use rare-earth magnets to stick some GPS trackers to the undercarriage of the ultors' SUV. He’d put a line of them across the dirt road on the way to the house, and the sound of them hitting the vehicle would resemble gravel, and thus likely remain unnoticed.

The engineer knocked together about a dozen or so examples based on a design he thought might work, but then pulled the radio trackers he’d used previously and put them with some magnets as a backup plan. That took another couple of days, and by then Aurelia had verified the pattern, noted that Haversham didn’t always use the same vehicle and that it wasn’t always him who made the rounds.

That brought the calendar forward to the day before the meeting with Marcus Vaile, and Aurelia and Henrietta set out for Denver. They arrived after a nine-hour trip, spent the night in the abandoned church they’d bought through the shell company, and then dressed nicely for the appointment.

Vaile met them at the Academy club and greeted them with distant politeness. He asked if the group had resolved the situation with the ultors, yet, and Henrietta replied that while the group had “run into some difficulties,” they may have made some progress, recently. Vaile said he and other members of the Columbine Order had kept an eye on things and, given recent events, any progress that didn’t involve federal agents would come as welcome news.

Henrietta let that one slide, and asked for some clarification about the ultor laws. She wanted to know if there were any way to resolve the situation other than for one lodge to destroy another, in its entirety. That seemed rather drastic, Henrietta said, even for a system she understood was supposed to act as a frightening deterrent.

Vaile replied that, while the utter destruction of one lodge or the other certainly fulfilled the requirements, the system was supposed to discourage violence between circles, even those considered bitter enemies. As such, he explained, any display of power strong enough to demonstrate mastery of the situation in a way the opponent could not deny could force a negotiated settlement.

Henrietta asked for additional details, and the Denver mage said that, while he’d not been involved in an ultor conflict, personally (they were understandably quite rare, for which everyone felt grateful), that to capture and disarm the opposition ultors without killing them demonstrated the greatest mastery.

Above all, Vaile explained, the lodges valued the disciplined use of intellect so as to establish control of a situation, and to capture opponent ultors alive (if not necessarily completely unharmed), demonstrated such discipline. Any subordinate beings, humans or beasts, used by ultors to support their efforts were fair game, he added, and in past disputes the victors usually destroyed the supernumeraries so as to strip those assets from the enemy.

Once one side had captured at least one or two ultors alive, contact could be made to discuss terms. Rather than allow a member to die needlessly, the lodges usually managed to find a way to stop the violence.

Upon Henrietta’s query, Vaile said the Columbine Order would consider such a negotiated settlement imminently acceptable, especially if it resulted in an agreement that kept Scarlet Sage mages out of Denver.

After a few follow-ups, Henrietta and Aurelia decided they had a decent handle on the rules and took their leave. As they left, Aurelia told Vaile he might hear from someone about a resolution, one way or another, within a week or two.

The ladies drove back to A.J.’s house and arrived by that afternoon, to find that the engineer and Sunmi had completed the work on the bugs in his machine shop. Early tests had resulted in at least a couple successful attachments to cars that passed above them. The group resolved to implement the plan, the next day.

By just after dawn (the enemy ultors never kept to any sort of schedule), Aurelia staked out her own apartment in A.J.’s SUV, and waited. Within a few hours, the opponents drove by and looked over her place, as expected, and Aurelia telephoned Arthur. Henrietta waited in the scrub a couple of miles from the engineer’s house, and alerted him when the SUV came into view.

(continued...)

[tshiggins]

(...continued)

A.J. and Sunmi quickly scattered the dust-colored trackers across the road, and waited for the SUV to drive by. It did so, and the two techies quietly cheered as they saw several bugs click up to the undercarriage.

The mood shifted, however, when A.J. fired up his laptop and tried to access the signal from the GPS bugs. Seeing nothing, he checked his equipment, and then realized he’d made a serious design error. Bugs stuck to the undercarriage of a moving metal vehicle couldn’t send a signal up to a satellite, at all (crit fail on his Engineering roll to make an effective design).

That meant only the directional radio-tracers would work, and those only had a range of about a mile. He and Sunmi had Henrietta pick them up, and called Aurelia to report the problem. She joined them on Hwy 191, and they kept the tracer ping on the edge of its signal range as they followed the ultors south.

After a couple of hours, as they approached Monticello, they saw the signal head west, and they began to have bad feelings about the whole thing. Sure enough, about an hour later, the SUV pulled into one of the (seasonally) vacant campground on the south edge of the Dark Canyon Wilderness area.

A.J. and Aurelia stopped well back, and the group took one of the trails that led through the rugged terrain to a hilltop that overlooked the location. After a bit, they reached the vantage point, belly-crawled to the top, and saw the ultors had set up a semi-permanent camp, with a sign that declared an annual get-together.

The group pulled out their binoculars and watched for a while. In addition to Haversham, they spotted the two bodyguards released from jail after the “kidnapping” of Darla St. Cloud, as well as two other burly guys who were clearly additional muscle. They accompanied a third man the group didn’t recognize, but quickly identified as a tenderfoot camper – someone inexperienced, with barely-used gear.

That made for six men, at least four of whom likely had combat experience, as well as one mage with a spec op background, and another mage of unknown abilities. They also noted the presence of three other tents, which indicated the presence of a third ultor with bodyguards wandering around somewhere out of sight.

Worried about the location of that third ultor, the group decided to exfiltrate post-haste, and they made their way back to their vehicles. They gathered back at A.J.s to discuss what to do. They faced at least three mages with lethal intentions, plus six supernumeraries experienced in various sorts of mayhem of the more mundane sort, all of whom almost certainly had firearms that violated federal law.

After a fair amount of brainstorming about ideas that ranged from snipers (nixed because the group’s best shot currently lay trussed up in the hospital, under arrest), to the use of sufficiently large amounts of explosives (nixed because of lack of a good delivery method, as well as a desire to avoid the whole “federal investigation” thing) the team decided they needed more information. For one thing, they wanted to confirm the identity of the missing ultor (they suspected Dr. Lucy Delacroix), and to discover more about the third mage, of whom they knew nothing.

Given that they’d found the camp, and knew the terrain much better than did the ultors, they decided to get a shotgun microphone with a parabolic dish, and try to get close enough to listen, while remaining under cover. Arthur went and bought one, decided the dish was too small, and created a larger version. They then set up a schedule, so that none of the group was ever alone, but which kept the ultors under surveillance between dawn and well after sunset.

The team implemented the plan, and Randy and Sunmi hit paydirt the very next day. As the SUV returned from its visit through Moab, the new man pulled the SUV into what appeared to be a temporary pavilion (the other SUV had its own, as well) and got out with his two bodyguards. Haversham greeted them with a terse demand for a report, and the man said he’d seen nothing out of the ordinary, which indicated the PC team was laying low, but that he’d had a few ideas about things to try next.

As Randy and Sunmi listened, Haversham and the other man got into what appeared to be the latest iteration of an ongoing argument. Haversham, the former special operative, wanted to take direct action, “hang the consequences,” since the group had killed not only St. Cloud, but also Haversham’s friend and partner, Alvin Carr.

The other man dug in his heals and said Haversham and Carr had missed their opportunity to end the feud quickly, and the attention of the federal government had been drawn. That meant they had to try a softer, social engineering approach, to turn the already suspicious federal agents against the group. The two men went back and forth, for a while, but then dropped the subject out of mutual frustration. Shortly thereafter, a dusty, tired-looking Dr. Lucy Delacroix, accompanied by two bodyguards, strode into camp from the north.

After she washed up and the trio of ultors started to heat up a pot of coffee (the six bodyguards had withdrawn), the argument started back up. Apparently, Delacroix disagreed with both of her colleagues, and said the best thing to do was to find the portal, which had to be somewhere fairly close by. After all, she reasoned, if the Scarlet Sage found the portal, they not only robbed the party of its greatest asset, they also had a whole other world in which to hide after any act of violence – or, quite possibly, one in which they could take direct action against the group with much more freedom.

Eventually, the argument wound down and turned into a discussion of the next day’s surveillance schedule, which seemed to include only Haversham and the third man, as Delacroix seemed determine to spend her time exploring Dark Canyon for signs of the portal. With that, Sunmi clicked off her recorder, and she and Randy made their way quietly back to her concealed car, and drove quickly back to A.J.’s.

Once there, the group listened to the recording, again, and noted that the dispute between the ultors about how to proceed provided them with an opportunity. Given that Lucy Delacroix and her two men seemed to head into the canyon every day, while one ultor team took off to Moab and the other remained behind to watch the camp, it gave them the chance to take down each one individually. While it was likely that Haversham would prefer to die rather than to face capture (in fact, Aurelia pretty much planned to make sure of it…), Delacroix and the mystery mage might prove much more reasonable – especially if the bodyguards went down before they could do anything

That brought the session to an end.

##

Funny quotes

Aurelia: Trust me, I’m completely aware of the value of what I’m getting ready to break down and toss into the river!

A.J.: If the cops say to talk to a lawyer, then talk to a lawyer!

A.J.: That’s the criminal mind at work, there.
Aurelia: It’s the artistic mind! I’m an artisan, sir!

Sunmi: They’re still hunting us because Beatrice is an idiot.

Sunmi: We could do a pressure plate! The kind that tosses the car up!
Aurelia: Humans don’t survive that!
Sunmi: We could do a gentle one!

##

[tshiggins]

We did another session of Facets, a few weeks back. We’ve got another long delay due to conflicting schedules, but we’ll have the next one here, in a few weeks.

This session started with a bit of a backtrack, since Bernetta and Samantha missed a session or two, each. Once we got them caught up, though, the session moved along, nicely. Also, Tisa was able to show up, with new baby in her arms, so her PC, Claudia, went active.

Unfortunately, Bennie couldn’t make it, and neither could G&AInc., so Aurelia and Randy went to NPC mode, this time, as did Sunmi, because Rebecca had a conflict.

Characters Present:

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.

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.

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. (Couldn’t make it, this time.)

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. (Not able to make it, this time.)

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.

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. Recently suffered mental damage after an attack by a spirit of pain and violation. -- Played by Rebecca W. (Couldn’t make it, this session.)

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 “foo” spirit) -- played by Bernetta W.

Claudia Abigail Tavulari, member of the NASA Quantum Physics Research Team, and an old friend of Arthur Jamison’s. The team has been helping Arthur research the portal physics, on the sly. – Played by Tisa T.


NPCs Present

Trooper Frank Moses -- A former Marine who recently quit his job 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. Frank finds himself attracted to what he perceives as the much simpler life on the 1918 side of the portal.

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, Doña Eva, only to find himself in a strange, alien world to which he must struggle to adapt.

Stephen Mack, another member of the NASA Quantum Physics Research Team, and outdoors enthusiast.

Grunt: Beatrice's ally, a large pit-bull possessed by a protective "foo" spirit. (Still not healed!)

##

(rewind)

Doc Bascher’s phone rang, and the caller ID indicated the call came from Sunmi’s telephone. With a sigh, she picked it up, and heard the stressed voice of the young woman, who reported that Henrietta had discovered contraband Apache artifacts in her basement.

Sunmi urged Doc Bascher to check her home and veterinarian office, to make sure no one had planted any incriminating evidence. Deeply concerned, Doc Bascher began a thorough search.

After about an hour, she opened up a small bin in the back of a storage closet, and found it stuffed with plastic bags holding an icy-looking, crystalline substance. Unable to recognize it, Doc Bascher immediately took it to an industrial sink and began to flush it down the drain while running the garbage disposal. Once she completed the work, she burned the bags and then went home and waited for the doorbell to ring.

About 45 minutes later, it did, and she answered it to find several sheepish looking Moab PD officers, as well as DEA agent Paul Richardson, who showed her search warrants for both her home and her business. Feigning upset pretty well, Doc Bascher objected loudly to the execution of the search, and complained about the need to return to her office. However, Richardson said the DEA had received information from credible sources that she might be in possession of crystal methamphetamines, and insisted.

Several hours later, as the clock neared 10 p.m., the searches had turned up nothing, and the rather less than pleased Moab PD left with a visibly frustrated Agent Richardson.

The next morning, Attorney Stan Leibnitz, walked into Beatrice’s room to find several perplexed physicians poking at the remarkably (although not thoroughly) healed stump of her left leg. He waited patiently for a few moments, but then requested time alone with his client, and the doctors all withdrew.

Leibnitz told Beatrice that he’d managed to work out a plea arrangement by in which she would plea guilty to attempted interference in a federal investigation, and accept one year of parole. In addition, Leibnitz said he’d managed to convince the judge that Beatrice’s fear for the safety of her friend had caused her to behave irrationally, and that meant she had to agree to psychiatric evaluation and anger management.

Under the circumstances, the attorney said, it was probably about the best deal she’d get. The final hearing would take place within 60 days, and Beatrice would spend the intervening time under house arrest, wearing an ankle bracelet. After that, she would have to obey the terms of her probation, but would enjoy considerably more freedom of movement, so long as she kept her nose clean, met with her parole officer once per week, and attended the court-ordered weekly sessions with her psychiatrist.

Realizing she probably couldn’t get a better plea, Beatrice signed the plea agreement, and Leibnitz took his leave. Three days later, Beatrice was released from the hospital, fitted with a bracelet around her right ankle, and Doc Bascher gave her a ride home.

About 10 days passed, and Doc Bascher and Beatrice were caught up with the rest of the group.

Meanwhile, Claudia and Steven completed their meditation training in Denver, under the care of the Columbine Order. At that point, the two NASA scientists had been away from Houston for more than six weeks, and so they flew home. Once there, Claudia fielded some serious questions about A.J.’s activities from his old colleagues.

Claudia deflected the questions as best she could, and insisted that A.J.’s work, while absolutely fascinating and with the potential to make some serious breakthroughs, remained largely theoretical. He’d had some trouble creating instruments for his “simulations,” and Claudia asked for additional advice about how to conduct his experiments with equipment that required very little, or even no, power drawn from anywhere other than the ambient environment.

She also took a bit of flak from her boss about the length of her absence from the laboratory, but not too much, as the head of the NASA team understood the potential of A.J.’s “experiments.”

Claudia spent a couple of weeks getting caught up on e-mails and meetings, and fielding suggestions about ways to assist A.J. At the end of that time, she headed back to Utah for an extended weekend, promising that she wouldn’t stay gone for weeks, this time.

(/rewind)

Claudia parked her rental car in front of A.J.’s home, and emerged to find the scientist and Sunmi busy cleaning up the engineer’s shop, where they’d apparently been building a bunch of (probably illegal) surveillance devices. A quick explanation followed about the discovery of the ultor team in the campground, and Claudia found herself in a situation fraught with the danger of lethal physical threat and felony-class legal hazards.

(continued...)

[tshiggins]

(...continued)

The group got together at Beatrice’s place, that evening, and brainstormed various ways to deal with the ultors. Everyone agreed that they should take on the ultors one at a time, as that meant they would vastly outnumber the skilled mage and his or her two bodyguards. However, the details of what to do with them led to a long period of debate.

Each member of the group agreed they needed to try to keep at least Dr. Lucy Delcroix and the unknown new ultor alive and reasonably intact. However, they also agreed that, while it would be optimal to keep Shane Haversham alive, as well, the mage and former special operative might just be too dangerous to manage.

Doc Bascher also noted that, while it might be okay with the lodges to kill off the bodyguards, she’d (narrowly) managed to avoid getting into any legal trouble, and had no desire to find herself the potential target of a murder investigation – especially given the official heat the group continued to endure.

That meant the group needed to find non-lethal, and preferably even non-violent, means to incapacitate the ultors and their bodyguards. To Doc Bascher, the best option seemed to include the use of drugs.

The veterinarian noted that her stock included a fair amount of ketamine, used to put animals (and, incidentally, children) under heavy sedation. While normally injected, it worked if consumed, as well, although it took longer to take effect. It was also stable, reliable and well-understood, and some of the memory-loss effects might prove useful, too.

The rest of the group accepted the proposal, at least tentatively, and then discussion turned to ways by which to administer it. Doc Bascher recommended she put it in the food at the ultor campsite. That meant the team needed to do some more surveillance, so they could see what the ultors did with their supplies, and if they ever left them unguarded.

That meant the group had to slip back up to the campground and spend a few days watching the ultors, again. Also, they suggested Beatrice take a look at the hilltop from which they’d first spotted the ultors, as it might be good to have a sniper to provide cover-fire, and she could do that while prone.

However, that meant they needed a way to spoof the ankle bracelet, and that meant A.J. had to take a look at it. The engineer did so, and decided the best thing to do would be to hack the computer doing the monitoring, so they could tell it which location they wanted it to report for Beatrice.

With that, A.J. hacked into the Grand County Sheriff’s Office computers, and found the necessary applications. After a couple of hours of work, he reported that he’d completed the task.

Everybody went home, and the next day Beatrice left her house and drove with Henrietta and Claudia down to the hilltop. The archaeologist and the NASA scientist helped her up the hill (the trio crawled the last ten yards, or so) and Beatrice found her sniper spot. At that point, A.J. (who had been monitoring the police band), heard the Grand County Sheriff dispatch a deputy to the area to see if Beatrice were there, as he hadn’t found her at her home. The trio quickly took Beatrice down the trail, back to her car, where the irate deputy found her a few minutes later.

The deputy – someone she knew reasonably well -- told her to get her ass back home, as this was not an authorized location for her. He dismissed Beatrice’s protests that she’d just wanted some peace and quiet out away from the town, after being cooped up in the hospital for so long. He drove behind Beatrice as she returned to her house, and then she watched out her window as the deputy visited a couple of her neighbors.

Clearly, he planned to use the “small town, everybody-knows-everybody” information network to supplement the electronic monitoring system.

(Yeah, A.J. failed his roll to reprogram the system, but not critically. The Sheriff’s Department just assumed a glitch in the system when they saw Beatrice in two different locations, and dispatch sent a deputy to check her at home. Not finding her, there, he headed to the second location and found her at the wilderness area.)

At that point, Beatrice dealt herself out of the ultor operation, because she now had no way to get out of her house without being seen and reported, and that meant the group’s best remaining shooter couldn’t provide cover.

With that, the group split out into surveillance teams, again, and Claudia joined the effort, while Aurelia remained in town to keep an eye on ultor activities, when they were there.

Within a couple of days, the group realized that Haversham and Delacroix had enough outdoors experience to keep a tight camp. They always returned food and drink to the back of their locked SUVs (parked in their pavilions), every night, and covered the coolers over with tarps so bears wouldn’t see them. The ultors and the bodyguards also policed up the dishes after every meal, and didn’t leave food lying around, unattended.

However, the group did notice they weren’t quite so careful with several jerrycans of water. The jerrycans always wound up in the vehicles, at night, but the ultors and their bodyguards usually left them on a picnic table not otherwise being used, during the day, so anybody could fill cups, coffee pots, tea kettles or water-bottles, any time.

The PCs decided they needed a way to clear out the unknown ultor and his mean from the campsite, after Delacroix had disappeared into Dark Canyon, on a day when Haversham headed into Moab to report their movements. After kicking around ideas, for awhile, Doc Bascher said she thought maybe she could trap a couple of skunks living the barn of a neighbor with sedated bait, and then the group could release them near enough to the campsite that animals would go toward the smell of food.

A.J. expressed some skepticism about the practicality of the plan, but agreed to let Doc Bascher give it a try. Within a couple of days, she managed to trap the skunks, and the group slipped back to the campground to give the plan a try.

The hilltop from which Beatrice hoped to snipe lay directly south of the three adjacent campsites used by the ultor team, about 200 yards away. A gully thick with vegetation ran from the west side of the base of the hill, and curved around the campsite, never getting closer than about 100 yards away. The gully ran from the hill up along the west side of the camp, and then to the northwest where it dropped down a steep channel into Dark Canyon, proper.

Two trailheads lay to the north of the campground. The first trail followed the steep gully down into the Canyon, and the second lay several hundred yards to the east, where it picked its way down a slightly gentler slope.

Doc Bascher opened one cage with a sleeping skunk in the gully to the west of the campground, and then dropped down into the canyon and worked her way around to the northeast trail, where she set up the other in a jumble of rocks. As the skunk in the second trap started to stir, Doc Bascher scampered away and worked her way around to the hilltop.

From there, she watched as the first skunk, down in the gully, left its carrier, look around, and then waddle its way down the wash until it disappeared into the canyon. It apparently had no desire to get any closer to humans than it already found itself. However, a few minutes later, the unmistakable stench of annoyed skunk wafted its way in from the northeast, although that animal never actually put in an appearance.

Bascher noted that the group that remained in the camp expressed annoyance at the smell, but it was distant enough that they didn’t leave or, for that matter, change much of anything they were doing. Understandably, they also indicated zero interest in investigating the source of the stench.

Frustrated, Doc Bascher, Claudia and the rest retreated to try a new plan. The veterinarian noted that the formula for the scent of skunk was actually pretty simple (it consisted of sulfur-bearing thiols), and that it wouldn’t be that hard to make, in her vet office. So, she and Sunmi whipped up a batch with little difficulty, and filled several tranquilizer darts (sans needles) with the malodorous chemical.

The next day, Claudia kept watch and Henrietta and A.J. provided cover, as Doc Bascher slipped as close to the campsite as she could, without being spotted. From about 70 yards away, Doc Bascher fired the dart at a tree located close to the camp, and then watched, elated, as it hit and burst, splashing the thiol chemical on the bark.

The group reacted, immediately, and Claudia (using A.J.’s modified shotgun microphone) reported that the mystery ultor who didn’t like camping, anyway, seemed particularly upset. Doc Bascher buried her face in the ground and kept low, while Claudia, A.J. and Henrietta watched the group toss the food in the remaining SUV and drive away – leaving several jerrycans of water unguarded at the picnic table.

After Claudia reported the group had cleared the area, Doc Bascher leapt to her feet and scampered over to the table. She unscrewed the lids and poured large doses of ketamine into each jerrycan. She also took a quick look around the camp, and noticed that the pavilions for the SUVs had wide ribbons made of silk staked to the ground around the perimeters of each. Realizing they probably held warding or warning magics, of some sort, the veterinarian decided to not get too close.

(continued...)

[tshiggins]

(...continued)

Everybody returned to their hiding spots and spent the next several hours waiting. The social engineer ultor and his two bodyguards didn’t return until late afternoon (the campground lay a couple of hours on dirt roads, southwest of Moab). They brought out several bags and unloaded cartons of Chinese food onto the picnic tables -- and then went and got some water for fresh coffee from the dosed jerrycans.

About an hour later, as the late autumn sun had nearly set, Delcroix and her guards returned from the northeast trail, and trudged back into camp. She noted the presence of the Chinese food, and Claudia heard the mystery ultor explain that the skunk from the previous day had come back and they’d left the camp until the stench disappeared. Delacroix apparently shrugged it off, and expressed pleasure at the presence of the fresh Chinese food.
With that, the group watched with some consternation as the six people present dug into the cartons without waiting for Haversham and his people, chatting over chopsticks and drinking tea and coffee. Within about 45 minutes, or so, the ultors and their guards began to behave erratically, Shortly, therafter, the ultors passed out in their camp-chairs, while the guards slumped over at a picnic table.

After a hurried discussion, A.J., Doc Bascher, Claudia and Henrietta decided it would be best to wait and try to ambush Haversham and his guards, since the ketamine would keep his colleagues under for at least a couple of hours. About the time the four of them took their positions – A.J with his crossbow in some rocks to the southwest of the campsite; Henrietta with her pistol in the center at the gully with Claudia (who was unwilling to bushwack people, but ready to provide first aid), and Doc Bascher prone behind a scrub-oak at the right, directly south of the campsite at the foot of the hill – they saw Haversham’s SUV pull into the campground.

The SUV backed into the pavilion, as usual. One bodyguard emerged from the driver’s door, the other from the passenger door behind him, and Haversham from the front passenger seat. The rear bodyguard called out a hello to the other members of the camp and, receiving no response, began to walk toward the picnic table of unconscious guards, faced etched with curiosity and growing alarm. The second guard, also alarmed, headed toward the ultors at the campfire.

Haversham, instincts screaming, quickly opened the right rear door, reached in, and pulled out a scoped military rifle. He began to scan the area, focusing particular attention on the hilltop.

A few second later, A.J.s first razor-edged broad-head crossbow bolt slammed into the chest of the guard at the picnic table, punched through his kevlar (he’d left out the ballistic plates for the sake of comfort) and dropped him to the ground. A.J. rolled onto his back to cock the Twinbow II style crossbow as Doc Bascher blew out the rear window of the SUV with a shotgun blast, and Henrietta added to the chaos (but didn’t accomplish much more than that) by firing her Glock 9-mil.

The second bodyguard drew his pistol and began to work his way through the trees around the campsites to try to flank Henrietta and Doc Bascher, since none of the enemies really knew where A.J. had shot from.

Henrietta continued to pepper away at the campsites, aware she probably wouldn’t hit anything, while automatic weapons fire dropped bark and pine-needles around Doc Bascher. She and Haversham spent several seconds generating a lot of sound and fury, but not doing much more than suppressing one another. However, Haversham did manage to work his way to the front of the SUV, to put the engine block between him and incoming ordnance of one sort or another.

A.J. got his crossbow cocked and loaded, rolled back on his stomach, and began to look for the second bodyguard. He spotted him approaching one of the tents on west end of the three campsites, which was one of those used by the guards. Fearing he might have a heavier weapon inside, A.J. aimed carefully and squeezed the trigger.

That crossbow bolt took the guard high in the chest and, badly wounded, he dove for cover inside the tent as A.J. rolled over on his back, again. Henrietta switched her aim and began punching holes in that tent.

Over on the opposite side of the fight, Haversham realized he’d likely lost both of his bodyguards, and decided the situation had become untenable. He moved around from the front of the SUV to the front passenger door, opened it, and used it for cover as he loaded a new magazine. He then fired to suppress Doc Bascher, sidestepped to try to dive into the passenger side of the SUV, a shotgun blast from the veterinarian turned his legs and buttocks into hamburger, and he passed out.

(Critical hit, followed by a roll of 14 on the critical hit table – all shots hit, and the damage passes through armor. Haversham’s triggered blocking spell didn’t roll a critical success so it didn’t stop Doc Bascher’s shot, but he managed to make the roll for his death-check and his healing spell triggered. However, he lost consciousness.)

Doc Bascher whooped with glee and she jogged forward, loading new shells as she went. On the other side of the camp, A.J. and Henrietta cautiously approached the tent, only to hear the wounded guard inside yell that he wanted to surrender, and that he hadn’t had anything to do with killing “that little old lady!” Claudia, dashed forward and rendered first aid to the unconscious wounded guard, and yelled to Doc Bascher that he looked pretty bad.

Within the hour, Doc Bascher had patched up the wounded bodyguards as well as she could, under the circumstances, and realized Haversham probably triggered healing spells that stabilized him. The group struck the ultors’ camp, burned the ward ribbons from a distance, and then ditched the damaged SUV in a gully well to the south of Dark Canyon. Doc Bascher drove the second SUV, followed by Claudia, up to the parking lot of the much put-upon emergency clinic in Monticello.

She helped the conscious guard into the driver’s seat, and ordered him to report that he and his buddy had shot each other in a freak hunting accident (or maybe an argument), and then sit tight and say nothing until their employers sent someone to pick them up. She also reminded them that, if they didn’t comply, they’d soon find themselves charged as accessories to the kidnapping and murder of JoBeth Catherine McShane, and their employers would then almost certainly consider them dangerous liabilities.

As Doc Bascher hopped in the passenger’s side of Claudia’s rental, the wounded guard put the SUV in gear and headed toward the emergency entrance.

Up north, on the outskirts of Moab, A.J. and Henrietta rolled into the engineer’s garage, and dumped the three bound, gagged and still-unconscious ultors out on the floor. They settled in to keep watch until Doc Bascher arrived to dose the prisoners with more ketamine – they did not want the mages to regain consciousness, at all.

In the wee hours of the morning, Henrietta placed a call to William DeWinter’s office, and got his answering service. She gave her name and number, and politely asked that DeWinter call her back as soon as he got to his office.

Three hours later, her telephone rang, and the archaeologist arranged to meet with the enemy mage the next day for a parlay, in Santa Fe.

That ended the session.

##

Funny Quotes

Claudia: More stuff to slap on and take readings with! That’s exciting! That may override the warning to stay out of Moab!

Henrietta (as Beatrice’s attorney describes the term of the plea): I think the anger-management would be quite helpful….

Beatrice: I think we should kill them all. I know. Anger management.

Beatrice (OOC): At this point, I think I’d probably end up in Slytherin.
Doc Bascher (OOC): Bitter, angry….
Beatrice (OOC): I’m not bitter. I am angry.

Doc Bascher (brainstorming ideas about how to deploy skunk spray): We could strap a spray-can on the back of a squirrel!

Henrietta (still brainstorming): Aurelia’s not here, but maybe somebody else could sneak up to the camp?
Doc Bascher: That sounds really risky and someone’s going to get hurt.
A.J.: As long as I don’t lose a leg, I’m okay to risk it.

Beatrice: I’m not going. As long as I’m on probation, I can’t shoot anybody.

Samantha (OOC, rolls the results of the critical hit): Who’s got the big balls, now!
Debbie (OOC): I’m gonna text Aurelia!
Samantha (OOC): Tell her the size of our huevos!

##

[Icelander]

Great job writing up the campaign.

Is anyone keeping a Felony-O-Meter? Because, damn. That's just so many kidnappings!

Somebody should probably teach Randy enough Tactics/TL8 to stay out of kill zones. Or, you know, teach him to coordinate with allies, not risk his life and theirs by ignoring lines of fire, areas of responsibility and pre-planned ambush positions. It's okay to be a conscientous objector and refuse to carry a gun, but field medics have to go through Basic too. Otherwise they are just liabilities who get their allies killed when the metal meets the meat.

Less gunplay is actually a wonderful idea for a lot of the 2014 scenarios, but then everyone needs to be on the same page about that. TASERs, LTL shotgun ammo, expandable batons, etc. Maybe knock-out spells exist?

I wish we had female players. It would give me company when I want to spend sessions shopping for my PC, planning out a menu or have the player characters gossip, flirt or act out insignificant drama amongst themselves. Unfortunately, we're not in college any more and everyone's significant other acts like our RPG nerdism is even worse than their particular brands of nerdism (programming, board games, sci-fi/fantasy fandom, reality TV, etc.).

Except one SO, our current GM's, but she's just plain badass. Hockey goalie, plays with power tools, too busy drinking and smoking cigars to play sissy games. Even if we did manage to convince her to play, she'd probably just mock Chase Taylor as a whiny little girl and start murdering everyone. Without any discussion of what anyone was wearing, unless she was planning on choking them with it.

I love the two faerie magpie girls. I'm going to try to introduce comic relief characters like those in my next campsign where it would be appropriate, try to spice up the relentless gritty Darker and Edgier feel I always default to.

I note that in something like 15 pages, you've gotten through months of time, explorations of two different worlds, development from mundanes into mages familiar with a whole secret history of the world and much, much more. I've covered a couple of hours in 12 pages in my campaign write-up. I'm like the TV show 24, with less torture (so far), less xenophobia (hopefully always) and, oddly, a similar number of bathroom breaks.

I've really got to learn to let time pass without second-by-second on-screen focus. I mean, I'm not GMing now, but it's the same problem. Any Disadvantage which imposes a game-time period more than a few hours during which the character can't act is effectively equivalent to removing the character from play for what can be real world years. I have a fantasy campaign we started when GURPS 4e came out, which is what, 13-14 years ago?, and we've only gotten through just over a year of game time. In around a thousand sessions, give or take.