Introductions 

September 18, 2014

New Year's Eve, 1989.  Our group was out celebrating that they had survived another year of hunting.  While some individuals in the group have faced vampires, the group has only faced ghouls, ghosts, poltergeists, and spirits in their time together in Chicago.  They closed a bar down and then went their separate ways, fortunately living reasonably close together in the town.  

Cameron wakes up and glances at the clock.  It's a few minutes after four am, New Year's Day.  He's ready to close his eyes again, not sure why he woke up, when he hears a noise coming from outside.  It sounds like someone grunting and something being dragged.  Curiosity, and not wanting to be taken off guard, Cameron gets up and goes the window.  Four brownstones down, he sees a figure, he recognizes Ollie, a local kid that will come over, dragging someone else toward Cameron's place.  Cameron isn't completely sure but he thinks he sees the figure being dragged leaving a blood trail.  Cameron heads down to the front door and meets Ollie.  

"What's going on?"  

"I found her and she's hurt.  I said I would get her to someplace and so thought of you."

Cameron was almost ready to call an ambulance when he took a good look at her.  Her wounds could be claw marks and she was wearing, to Cameron's untrained eye, military clothes.  This could be something he would want to know as well as his group.  He opens the door wide and helps Ollie get her downstairs.  Cameron has to open the Chop Shop door, and there is a release so not anyone can get in, and then goes into the operating area.  It's kept clean, with sheets and the standard green scrubs.  Cameron hits the sterilizer for the instruments, and then a kit and takes a look at her.  He starts ordering Ollie around about what to get or do and Ollie follows the orders, asking a few questions here and there.  

The woman is young, possibly five years younger than Cameron's own thirty three.  She's fit and Cameron could tell wearing body armor as he helped drag her downstairs.  He gets out his good scissors and cuts away along seems to reveal the wounds.  She's got two main points of worry.  A long cut on her leg, which probably nicked the femoral artery and a series of what could be claw marks on her abdomen.  Those don't look as bad.  Cameron works for several hours and gets her stabilized.  Finally, he turns to Ollie.  

"What the hell happened," he asks Ollie.  

"I don't know.  I found her by a warehouse.  She wanted help and I thought of you."  He pauses for a second before continuing.  "Oh, she had friends she mentioned.  Would you be interested in that?"  

"Why didn't you say anything?"

"Don't yell at me!  I just thought of it.  I can show you where I found her."  

"No, just a sec.  Let me call the rest of them."  Cameron calls Darryl and Shep over to look at the wounds and has them call the others.  Eventually, everyone is there.  After a search of the woman, they find a .22 with one clip of bullets that are all silver, two silver knives, some pills in a sealed package, and some very advanced Night Vision Goggles.  Ollie says he will take them to where he found her.  Against his better wishes, Cameron agrees to take her in the van and monitor her.  

They get to the warehouse area and check out the place.  Mike scouts and sees another body and a van in a warehouse.  They go in there and find two more dead military types.  Back in the van, she starts convulsing again and Cameron starts trying to help.  She regains conscientiousness long enough to say "tell the Valkyries, it was too late" and then dies.  Cameron is pissed and goes to tell the group the news.  As he arrives, though, the group is gathering up at a door, weapons out.  Before Abraham can open the door, it bursts open and a man painted blue with a broad sword attacks!  There are three of them total, dressed as Celtic warriors, painted blue and wielding broad swords.  They attack back and several of the party are hit with swords but they do manage to defeat them.  Cameron is not sure what to think of the group.  He tried to stabilize anyone hurt but the group wasn't happy with him helping the enemies.  He did it anyway.  

And that's when they feel it.  Something happened.  Something changed.  The sky was already threatening snow but now it gets darker and the snow starts coming down fast.  The wind picks up and seems to easily go into their clothing, even the leather jackets don't seem to be helping as much as they should.  Darryl and Bobby shiver from some unseen force.  They don't know what that was but figure it's time to get going.  

They check the van and bodies and find MP-5s, a computer, cameras recording, ammo, and another body suit.  Bobby takes what he can of the equipment.  They just get the stuff out when someone notices the bomb.  They jump out of the van as a thermite charge goes off and destroys anything they didn't get out of the van.  The group decides to get out of there after taking what they can.  The icy roads prove to be a bit of a problem and there is a small scraping of the van but they get to JR Guns, where they store the weapons and then they head back to the Chop Shop.  Once there, Cameron works on the group.  It takes several hours of surgery to fix them up and they are sore but better.  

Late the next day, there is a news item and there are pictures of the van.  They aren't very good pictures but it's the van to the group as it's the warehouse.  They rest the day, looking at the equipment and pills and starting their examinations.  Cameron eventually crashes and is found sprawled out in the lab.  

The modified .45 turns out to be a .45 but with oversized bullets.  One seems to have liquid silver and the other, after a lot of chemical analysis, some sort of liquid ultra violet.  Roger thinks he can make this but they were protected with hand grips that only let the correct person use it, so he will have to figure everything out.  At least he has a good base and Abraham will be able to help with the fabrication.  Mike goes to ask Yuki what Cameron said about the Valkyries.  She's not happy about it and says she will tell him more but only if he does something for her.  He's to go kill a vampire at an address she provides.  He's fine with that.  When he takes it back to the group, Roger is fine with it, as is Bobby.  The others are reluctant but agree.  Those that were wounded are still feeling a bit stiff but are otherwise okay.  

They do a quick drive by and it's a gang house.  They jokingly say it's the Cribs but several know it's really the Black Disciples.  Cameron calls up his contact, DJ Hammer of Four Corner Hustlers, and asks if he can do them a favor.  DJ is willing to have some fun and make some noise to get the others out.  An hour later, with Mike watching the house, there is a flurry of activity and all but one guy at front and one guy at back rush out, jump into a car and leave.  Abraham walks up to the guy on the front, asks for a light, and when the guy obliges, shoots him several times and starts to arrange him out front.  Mike sneaks up on the guard in back and takes him out.  Bobby curses that he didn't bring some zip ties or hand cuffs and is worried about leaving him.  He almost takes out a knife but looks over at Cameron and then stops.  He's not happy but he let's it go.  He does run around front to help Abraham and is happy and impressed when that guard is dead.  

The group searches the house.  The top floor reveals drugs and money, which they happily load into the van.  They find the secret basement area and see a figure on a cot.  Mike and Roger kill the vampire with a shotgun and bonesaw and take the skull as proof for Yuki.  They get the heck out of there.  Mike goes and talks to Yuki and comes back to tell the group that there is a known government group called Task Force Valkyrie that hunts the supernatural.  This is probably what she meant by Valkyries.  

4 points awarded 

GM Notes

• My wife decided to help me make an audio blog of this and is helping to keep the recording tight and on topic.  Due to that, since we spent so much time in the first hour figuring out details, she only got a minute and thirty seconds of the story in that hour!  Hopefully the next several hours worth of recording yield more.  I have wanted to have audio logs of the games for a while and so it's nice that my laptop is able to do the recording and also run the other programs I need.  
• We are using *click* as the term for when they hang up on someone.  It got used a lot in this session.
• I think I need to add some conditions when people are healed mechanically but it happens so quickly.  Basically, I'm not sure they should have been moving even two days after getting stuck by blades!  In the interest of keeping it going, though, I think it's fine but maybe anyone wounded will get the "Old Injury" flaw until enough time has passed.  This opens the doors for a LOT of other good stuff.   
• Overall, I think this was a very good start to the campaign.  We still have more to figure out but we can do that as we go.   

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