Inside the Steam Tunnel

 

03/17/2009 

 

Back at the house, Carter received a phone call from Hendricks, they knew it was us that trashed the place. Because of that, they moved Hendricks out of this jurisdiction. Also, he thinks they will hire mercenaries instead of coming after us themselves, and that they are nervous and afraid of us. In addition, Hendricks thinks there is something big going on, like a conjuring of some sort of Sumerian gods.

 

Steven's phone rings. He stares at it...hesitates, sighs and opens it.

"Have you had a chance to look into this situation?" asks a woman's voice that can be heard through the phone. "I'm handing you off to Gordon," he says.

Steven and Gordon then get into an argument over who is going to talk to Persephone on the phone, as neither one wants to talk to her.

"I'm sorry, he isn't here, I'll have him call you back" says Steven, as he hangs up the phone.

"So, did I miss anything?" says Gordon as he walks back in the door.

"Call Persephone, she is calling about some of her kind turning up missing in our neighborhood. I think one is the nosferatu that we killed because she said one was in the office building where we killed him, but I don't know for certain. I don't know why she called me either."

 

Julie called again, asking if we were coming to look at the crime scene, we agree and head out. It turns out the summoning is over by IIT, and that is where Persephone said the other vampire disappeared.

Julie is standing there impatiently "wow, it sure took you guys a long time to get here..." as she lead the way down to the steam tunnels. The layout looks very similar to the previous one, same markings as well. This time though, the bodies were those of teenagers.

 

It has been a few hours, the scents are not as fresh for Michael to smell, but he can tell the exit they took.

 

Jon Goranson: there's something in the tunnel with you guys

Jon Goranson: Several something's

Jon Goranson: the smell of sulfur is getting strong again

Tony Pine: activate 2 world sight, move away from the something's without acknowledging their existance towards the group

Tony Pine: I motion to Daniel to activate his mind meld thing

Tony Pine: without being obvious, I hope

Jon Goranson: the two that were killed are still here, just watching

Tony Pine: did he get his mind ability up?

Jon Goranson: you hear a growling from down the tunnel

 

Michael gives up trying to get Daniels attention and just tells Daniel "Dan, turn on your new ability."

 

Once on, he tells the group mentally "The smell of sulfur is stronger, the spirits of the two people dead here are standing over there watching us, and there is a growling coming from down the hallway, prepare yourselves."

Jon Goranson: hell hounds - ten of them

 

"You better hurry, I sense nine or ten hell hounds coming down the tunnel!" says Michael

 

Carter launches himself across the way and slams down on a hell hound as they enter the room he pounds it into the ground. Almost at the same instant, eight rounds go off and slam into another one as Gordon's 1911 discharges, dropping a second one.

 

A third hound rushes up and bites Carter, but except for messing up his pant leg, doesn't hurt him.

A fourth hound can make it to Gordon, but he is able to move in such a way that the hound can't get a bite or get past.

Steven, unable to get close, uses a telekinesis strike at the hounds, starting it past his party members.

Michael, unable to get past, lifts up his pistol and shoots past Gordon, dropping the one that Gordon had stopped.

Steven unloads with his pistol, dropping another one.

Another one claws at Gordon and manages to do some heat damage, although it was unable to do any kind of biting damage.

Daniel, drawing his pistol, shoots over Steven and manages to hit a hound in the head, dropping him.

Steven starts looking down both ways of the tunnel, to see if the hounds are a distraction of some sort. He activates his supernal vision and is able to see a figure at the end of the tunnel.

Steven passes the vision to Daniel so he can pass it on to the rest of the group. At that moment, he also recognizes that there are 4 claymores surrounding the party, and the figure has the clacker.

Michael shoots at another hell hound, hitting it in the head and dropping it. At this moment, it looks like only 3 are left on either side.

Carter, knowing the woman is there, pushes past Steven and the hounds, moving down the tunnel. He then lifts up a hound and throws it at the figure that he can tell is a woman. The hound slams into the woman and knocks her down, and whatever she had in her hand she drops.

Daniel moves up to the hell hounds, aims his pistol at the head of the hound, but it ducks and he misses totally.

Steven moves up to a claymore and manages to pull one of the remote detonators out.

Michael, looking back at the group, misses the hound he was shooting at.

Carter tries to jump on the woman pinning her to the ground, rushing past the hounds like they are not there. He hears a loud snap as he thinks he cracked her ribs landing on her.

Gordon aims and drops a hound with six shots landing in its head.

The woman manages to grab the device on the ground, and pushes a button on it. It clicks....

Steven, realizing it is probably too late, tries something he has never tried before: he tries to generate a wave barrier to stop the RF signal. As he does this, all the lights on the claymores go on, but they do not detonate.

Michael shoots at the last hound at the rear, dropping it. He then does a partial change. He can see the lights are on showing it is armed, but it has not discharged.

Carter, lying on top of the woman, reaches forward and smashes the transmitter, smashing a few of her fingers in the process.

One of the hounds manages to get past Gordon and Carter, breath fire, and manages to clamp his jaw down on Daniel. Daniel avoiding the fire, draws his pistol and shoots the dog, causing it to release his arm.

Steven went to disarm another claymore, thought about if he wanted to drop the field, and then relaxes as he drops it.

Michael, rushes back to disable a claymore, picks it up in his furry paw like hands, and thinks through the link "How do I disarm this again?" Through the link, comes a chorus of "NO, put it back." So Michael sets it down.

 

The group moves up and is able to quickly disarm the last claymore before anything happens. They pick up the heavily injured woman and try to bandage her up some before they leave.

 

Jon Goranson: The spirits are still there

Tony Pine: Ah...and is she the demon, or the summoner, by smell?

Jon Goranson: neither

 

Michael: What are you doing here.

you can see us?

"Yes."

"We can't move"

"Let me look closer"  there are runes on the ground where they are, you do recognize them.  You can probably take care of it yourself, this is spirit stuff.

Michael pushes some power into the lines and tries to erase them to free the spirits. A couple of the runes disappear, and with the spirits. They smiled and disappear.

Michael then addresses the group "I have a shaman ability, I can look at images and impressions locked in the stone, maybe they will tell us who cast this summoning. Do you wish me to try?"

The group shrugs, not impressed with the ability, but agree it might be worthwhile.

 

Gordon carries the woman upstairs and gives an update to Julie. Two paramedics rush over and begin working on her, looking up at Gordon trying to figure out what he did to injure her so severely.

 

Gordon, seeing someone in the crowd, realizes that they had a shocked look on their face, as if they were surprised that Gordon survived. Gordon sends this information back, and Daniel rushes up the stairs to catch up and back him up, running all out, yet nobody can see that he is running. While he is doing this, he is suggesting to the person that they should stop and tie their shoe

 

The guy being chased does not slow down, but instead becomes more crafty in dodging. Gordon sends this information back to Daniel but doesn't get lost in his pursuit. Suddenly, the guy reaches down, grabs a motorcycle from the side of the street, and throws it at Gordon! Gordon ducks out of the way, sending a message to Daniel "He picked up a motorcycle and threw it at me!" Daniel answers back "yeah, I just figured out he's the one that was blocking me earlier." Gordon thinks this would have been good information to have had before hand.

 

Daniel comes around the corner in time to see the motorcycle fly over Gordon and slam into a car that was driving by on the street. The car lifts up on two wheels and drops back down, the cycle imbedded in the side of the car. Daniel tries even harder to get into the runners head, but even as he is about to take control, he is suddenly shoved out.

 

Gordon jumps up and tries to catch the guy, but he is managing to stay away. He suddenly slows, realizing this person has some sort of epic strength, and that it is just him and Daniel. But he suddenly solidifies his resolve and charges ahead as fast as possible. The guy jumps over yards and through allies, their speed just incredible as they pull way out and away from Daniel. Realizing he can't catch up, he walks into the street, stops the first car he sees. They stop looking confused at him as he opens the door and sits in the passenger seat. He then says "Thank you, would you please drive ahead three blocks and then turn left?"

 

The driver smiles and follows the directions without question.

 

Meanwhile, in the steam tunnels, Michael finishes up the ritual.

Jon Goranson: What you saw was the woman and a man, not like any of the giants, setting up the claymores.  The man does the ritual, tells her to stay there and make sure that the enemy dies.  Then, he leaves her there.  You do see she manages to use some magic to turn invisible.

Jon Goranson: I am skipping over the gruesome scene of the ritual, the demon ripping its way out of the bodies.

The man was:  5'10"  black hair.  hazel eyes.  Dressed in casual jeans and a shirt, polo shirt. Although he has no scars, he does have a tattoo of flames on the back of his hands.

 

Michael finally says "I'm done with what I'm doing here, let's go catch up to those guys."

Carter, not even hearing everything that was said, is already barreling down the tunnel towards the cars.

 

Gordon is leaping over fences without even trying in the chase. The acrobatics and speed are hard to watch as the two are bouncing off of walls and using anything in their path to either jump up on and over or use as a stop. Gordon finally pulls out his pistol and tries to shoot at the runner, managing to hit him in the leg, and he stops.

 

Daniel comes pulling around the corner and has the driver pull over and let him out. As he is calmly walking over towards Gordon, a small white car pulls up. Two men get out. Although they look like normal humans, it is obvious what they really are: giants.

 

Suddenly, the runner smiles and throws off his disguise as he too is a giant.

 

The three move towards Gordon and Daniel. Without hesitation, Gordon shoots the runner again. The echo of the gun indicates it was a good hit, and he can see where the round hit, but did almost no damage.

 

Daniel activates "spatial map" and then tries to make himself invisible to the giants.

 

The shot Giant leaps up in the air, a sword materializes in his hands as he brings it down upon Gordon.

One of the new Giants runs up and tries to cut Gordon's legs out from under him.

The sword whooshes by cutting his pants but missing any skin. The second one also misses in his swipe at Gordon.

Gordon shoots again at the Giant in front of him and somehow manages to knock him off his feet.

Daniel sees this, and decides to open up on the other two. He walks up to a giants and hits him, for 7 points of lethal damage. Even so, he isn't even penalized from the damage.

 

Gordon walks up to the giant on the ground, and from point blank range, unloads his pistol into his face. Unable to dodge, the giant dies.

 

Carter, who had been running the entire way, suddenly arrives at the intersection. He leaps through the air and his skin shimmers as it is entirely covered in metal. A war-cry resounds off the buildings as he shouts and drops on top of a giant. A slash opens up from the top of the giant all the way down it's back from the attack.

 

Behind the giants, still unseen by them, Daniel shoots again at the wounded giant. He hits him four times squarely, and can tell the giant is listing a bit from the impact. The giants, wounded and angered, look at Carter and attack him.

 

The sword smacks into Carter opening a bright red line across his chest. The second giant spins around to attack as well, but the injuries throw him off balance and he misses completely.

 

Having turned his back on Gordon, Gordon laughs at the stupidity of turning his back, and opens up with his pistol, shooting the giant five times in the back.

 

Carter decides to do something fancy, as he stomps on the ground, generating a shock wave. The giant is launched into the air from the shock. As he is thrown into the air and begins to fall, Carter jumps up in the air as well. When they meet, he puts his hands together into a fist over his head and brings them down slamming into the giant, shoving the giant into the ground. The impact is enough to make the giants sword fly from his hands.

 

Daniel, still unseen by either giant, again shoots at the same giant. Seven more rounds impact the back of the giant, who sways and falls to the ground, dead.

 

Steven had been aiming where the giant had been before he was lifted into the air. Even so, he spins the truck into a power slide stopping just before where the giant would be. Aiming the shotgun out the window, he shoots and hits the giant who is still in the air. Michael, not wanting to be trapped in the truck, opens the door and jumps out - shifting in mid air and lands on the ground in near-wolf form.

 

The giant, shotgun blast the back, additional pressure on his chest from Carters hit, slams into the hood of Stevens truck on the driver's side. Seeing the incoming impact, Steven jumps over towards the passenger seat, avoiding being crushed as the force of the impact causes the entire truck to bounce a foot off the ground.

 

"WHY DID YOU PARK THERE?" yells Carter, as Steven gets out of the truck and unloads his shotgun into the giant in anger.

 

Steven pulls out a tarp as Carter attempts to bend the truck back into useable shape. The rest of the group gets the other giant vehicle. Carter folds the giants and places them into the bed of the truck.

Gordon directs us towards Persephone's house to drop off the giants. She comes walking out as the vehicles show up.

 

"I have not seen very much..." she says, as she signals to some others to come out and unload the bodies.

 

She comes back out and asks "so have you learned anything about the vampires?"

"No, we think these might be some sort of experiment from Valkyrie or something. It's very odd."

 

With nothing else, we leave and go check the other vampire spot.

Michael takes this time to tell the group what he saw in the steam-pipe tunnel.

"Well," says Daniel, "given the giants, and the fire, and the fact that they recognized Gordon, I'd say we are dealing with followers of Loki."

 

We arrive at the warehouse and find the area the nosveratu was killed. This person was living in the abandoned building. He did have several computers.

 

Michael again tries to determine the history of the area, to see if he can determine what happened to the vampire.  He can see men in army fatigues attack the nosferatu.  They manage to grab him and hold him down.  They literally use metal spikes to hold him down to the ground.  Then they pull out a weapon that looks like one of the experimental weapons and shoot him several times, watching his flesh slowly roast.  He screams in pain for a long time before the whole body goes up in flames and all that's left is ash. They go to the computers, mess around with them for a while, gather up the ashes and leave the area. 

 

Michael walks over to where the vampire was killed. He manages to find a small amount of ash that had been overlooked. He grabs a baggie out of his pocket and puts the ash into it.

 

Meanwhile, Gordon looks at the computers. He determines the hard drives are erased but probably not completely formatted so possibly it could be recovered. He also can see there is a T3 line coming in.

They manage to pull up the information. It seems like surveillance photo's. Video's and stills that look like maybe blackmail information. Even though only 15% was recovered, it was enough to see these computers had a lot of information on them. Any overall picture is eluding them though.

 

Michael confers with the others, and all of them go over the information they have learned.

 

We drive back to Persephone's to talk with her.

"Can I get you anything? I know I have something to eat or drink? I take it you found out something? I knew I went to the right people."

Gordon tells her what happened to both of them.

"Ah. He wasn't working for me. Do you know who did this?"

"We are guessing Valkyrie, but we have no proof at this time."

"Well thank you very much for looking into this for me."

 

Michael is be watching everything, being very uncomfortable but trying to be polite

He can tell that she is a bit on edge as well but it's strange not to smell things from her.

 

Everybody can tell that we are being followed as we head back to the mansion. It seemed to be multiple vehicles, sedan's and others. Six blocks from the house they seem to stop following.

We decide to box one of the cars in and stop it. They just sit there, waiting to see what we are going to do.

Carter gets out and walks over to the driver window. The guy looks up and says "I'd like a large order of fries and a cold drink."

Carter smiles back, and pulls the car door off. He then leans back to Daniel and says "You want ot make people not pay attention to this?"

"Well what the hell was that for! Can you put it back!"

"Why are you following us?

"We were just driving this way, we were late for a show.

Carter tries to intimidate the guy by leaning in close and saying "Really?" as he is pushing against the car and lifts it up on two wheels.

The two men we pretty calm, but when the car starts to lift up they go for weapons and each pull out pistols. Suddenly, they stop. Carter can tell now that they are tranquilizer guns. Carter calmly reaches in, grabs a gun, and shoots three of them, knocking them out leaving only the man in the back awake.

 

Carter releases the car, allowing it to thud to the ground. He then opens the back door nicely and says "will you mind telling me who you work for now?"

The guy carefully pulls out a wallet and shows them to Carter. It's an FBI badge.

He glares at the guy, who suddenly says "yes, we are with Valkyrie, and we have been following you and making videos. Here, here they are, and we have some photos. Here take those. And this is where I live, and ...." the just keeps talking quickly. Carter thinks "damn, I'm scary" not knowing that it was Daniel in the car that had caused the guy to confess everything.

 

Daniel wipes the memory of the guy, so he will forget what he said. Carter knocks him out with another dart. And then Carter writes with his finger into the truck 'Back Off' to leave a message.

 

Arriving back at the mansion, the group decides they could use a good night's rest.

 

5XP

 

Back - Rayne

 

GM Notes

• It's a running gag to damage Stephan's car.  It worked out well this time.  
• The hell hounds were a joke.  I was expecting them to do a bit more but they didn't.  
• Even the claymores might not have been effective!  (IRL, they kill out to 50 m and explode out to 240 m.)  However, that's not a bad thing in terms of drama.  It might be bad for realism, though.  
• Still looking to have more action at this time.  There is role playing but going toward action a bit more for now.