Professor Harington’s apartment, just off-campus, has been the epicenter of strange sounds, smells and lights reported in recent weeks. These phenomena went wild for 20 minutes coinciding with the time of his death. This can’t be a coincidence.
"Hey!" Guy shouted, waving at the gaggle of college students milling awkwardly on the sidewalk in front of the smoke shop below Harington's apartment. "Scram, all of ya! Nobody benefits from you bunch of rubberneckers!" The onlookers hesitated until Guy unlimbered his tonfa, at which point, they scattered.
***
"What do you want? I've had enough of people sniffing around here! A man's dead, damn it!" the sharp-faced landlady barked, the door open only as far as the chain bolt would allow.
"I understand that, ma'am," Carried replied coolly. "The dead man was my brother, and since my ungrateful children don't speak to me any more, he's all the family I had left. I'd like to be able to retrieve his personal effects."
"Oh, you poor dear," the landlady softened. "I know how that goes, my own children don't talk to me either. Of course you can go up."
"Does Carrie even have kids?" Lisa whispered to Steve.
"I don't know, but man, she lied so easily and so smoothly to get us in..."
[With two successes in the narrative scene, the hunters can deploy one move in from any table edge, effectively gaining an extra free move.]
Turn 1:
Sensing something extra-off about a pile of garbage next to the pizzeria, Guy sauntered over and turned over a trash bag, revealing a pile of skinned rats. "Well, that's something you don't see every day," he said, taking a few photos.
Lisa entered the smoke shop, took a moment to appreciate the decor, and then moved upstairs into Harington's apartment. Looking at Harington's decor, she shook her head. "This guy was neck deep in some bad mojo," she said to herself, documenting everything.
Paul and Carrie moved to where they could better support Lisa as she searched Harington's apartment, while Steve entered the ramen restaurant, locating some interesting papers hidden in one of the booths.
Swarms of rats emerged into the street, one cluster working their way towards Guy, and one moving into contact with Carrie but without any actions left to attack with.
Turn 2:
Paul moved to defend Carrie from the rats, swinging his baton but failing to inflict any damage. Carrie fell back away from the rats (successfully dodging their counterattack, and cast "Deja Vu" on Paul, allowing him to perform an extra action later in the turn. Carrie readies herself to attack the rats at range if Paul fails to kill them.
Guy charged the rats, swinging his tonfa, sending them scattering back to the sewer and continued on towards the portal they'd emerged from.
Steve made his way towards the rear exit of the ramen restaurant, but got distracted by the smell of fresh-cooked ramen.
Lisa collected Harington's laptop and some accompanying external hard drives, and retreated back downstairs.
The collection of the laptop triggered the emergence of the Nexus, rising out of the floor of the ramen restaurant with a rumble and ominous chanting. "Hey Carrie? You should see this..." Steve said into his cell phone.
Rats emerged from portals 1 and 3, swarming Guy and Steve; Paul gets bitten by the rats already in front of him, and guy takes a wound from the swarm attacking him. Steve avoids being bitten, and rats reach Lisa but can't attack her.
Activating again thanks to the Deja Vu spell, Paul fails to kill the rats and moves away from them, taking an attack of opportunity that wounds him again. Carrie blasts the rats with an "Arcane Bolt" spell.
Turn 3:
Steve struggles ineffectively against the rats swarming him, the horde of rodents dancing away from his knife. Carrie scatters a swarm of rats blocking the doorway to the ramen restaurant with a well-placed pistol shot and enters the restaurant, approaching the Nexus.
Lisa moved away from the rats (their attack failed) towards Paul, and administered a healing potion, pouring the syrupy, copper-flavored serum into his mouth and watching the bloody bites on his arms closing up. She turned and attempted to tase the rat swarm unsuccessfully. With a curse, she whipped a Repellent out of her purse and tossed the vial of salt, silver shavings, garlic and wolfsbane. The rats scattered.
Revitalized, Paul returned to the street, working his way towards the nearest portal.
Guy killed the rats swarming around his boots, and approached the portal in front of him, harvesting 4 Arcana.
More rats emerged from portals 2 and 4; the rats Lisa had repelled moved to attack Guy, one of the new swarms attacked Paul (neither succeeding to inflict a wound), Steve takes a wound from the rats attacking him.
Turn 4:
Paul managed to disperse the rats attacking him, approached the portal, and harvested 3 points of Arcana. Guy killed the rats attacking him and closed the portal in front of him, while Carried harvested 8 points of Arcana from the Nexus before closing it down. Lisa, exiting the smoke shop, began making her way towards the fourth portal, pausing to successfully tase a swarm of rats.
I forgot to take photos of a lot of this.
Steve finally killed the rats attacking him, and headed out the back door of the ramen restaurant to reach the last portal. He froze, however, when he saw what was emerging from it.
"Well, crap," Steve said.
One swarm moved to attack Steve, though he successfully resisted taking damage. Carrie, being taken by surprise by rats pouring through the walls of the building, took a Wound.
Turn 5:
After some fumbling, Paul closed the portal in front of him, and then moved into cover behind the police car as another rat swarm drew close.
Carrie killed the rats in front of her, stomping them with her boots, moved out of the ramen restaurant and killed a few more rats to assist Steve, who was also killing rats.
Lisa chugged a Kaiju Energy Drink and buzzed in place for a moment before managing to get the shakes under control enough to move towards the portal, but failed to harvest any Arcana. Guy dashed after her to assist or provide cover.
A pair of cowled cultists spawned right on top of Guy and Lisa, savagely beating Guy down to the pavement and leaving Lisa staggered, with only a single wound left to lose. Meanwhile, rats swarmed Paul, biting and clawing.
Turn 6:
Paul and Steve, despite some struggle, managed to kill the rats that were attacking them. Carrie harvested 4 points of Arcana from the portal and closed it, then blasted another swarm of rats with an Arcane Bolt.
Lisa tried to fight back against the cultists, but failed her Dodge Defense roll against the cultists' "Self Defense" trait, and slumped to the ground.
With police sirens drawing near, the cultists withdrew. The members of the Webster Street Irregulars still on their feet collected their comrades and made their own retreat.
***
"Well, that could have gone better," Paul said grimly, swirling beer in the bottle. Guy and Lisa were bruised and battered, but had ultimately suffered nothing worse than a few cracked ribs, and were now resting at their respective apartments after having been patched up at the ER.
"In this business, every victory comes at a price," Carrie replied. "We're lucky it wasn't worse this time."
"At least we got something out of this, right?" Steve asked.
"Right," Carrie said. "Lisa finding Harington's laptop was a huge help to us. I've been going through the files and it seems Harington was working with the red-robed assholes, but had an attack of conscience and tried to get out of it. They killed him to keep their secrets, and were probably on their way to search his apartment themselves when we ran into them. If we'd been 20 minutes later they probably would have had everything cleaned out."
"What were they working on?" Paul leaned forward.
"They're working on summoning something called 'the Knight of the Black Blade' to Earth."
Steve shifted uncomfortably. "That sounds... bad."
"Bad's an understatement," Carrie affirmed. "The Knight of the Black Blade is a prince of Hell, a powerful demon of carnage and war."
***
So it's a victory, but a bit of a Pyrrhic one; the Irregulars collected enough clues to advance their investigation, and harvested 19 points of Arcana that will be used to upgrade their gear. They also earned a total of 15 experience points towards skill advancements.
Rather than let Guy and Lisa be killed by the cultists, I'm choosing to use the Dark Secret and Odd Touch optional rules. Their brushes with death have changed them. Going forward:
- Lisa will be obsessed with finding every Clue she can. She can fight in self-defense but cannot be the aggressor; all her actions must be put towards collecting clues. She can slip into a shadow dimension briefly, allowing her to teleport up to 8" to a point within line of sight.
- Guy is traumatized; losing 2 from his Resolve and taking a -2 to all Terror rolls. He's also experiencing a profound sense of outrage and loss, the rage and sorrow of the victims of the Dark Spawn in this campaign. He can scream this outrage out, causing every Dark Spawn on the table to flinch and lose an action die.
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