I didn't have time last night to fill Brian in on what he got out of reading Chrome's mind or wrap things up as much as I wanted to, so I figured that I would just go ahead and post it here. It will probably be more complete and easily recalled this way anyhow. In fact, there was some other information that some players had requested to get that I had planned on getting to last night, but the fight went longer than I thought it would. I may post some more stuff after this one just to keep things rolling, I want to try to get done in the next four weeks. Anyway:
Dr. Kimberly Chase, or Chrome, is working in this secret lab for several different reasons. She is not on the payroll of Allied Chemicals. She agreed to work on something called Project: Helios in exchange for having this lab set up for her and all the materials she would need, plus a steady supply of heavy-metal salts and minerals which she needs to ingest to live; stuff the company can supply easily with little notice. Project: Helios is trying to create some kind of an "ultra-plasma" substance which can channel and control tremendous amounts of heat. This substance has already been created and tested, although it has so far proved to be unstable and vulnerable to low temperatures, and she is working on a way to fix these problems. The test involved was the "accident" at the chemical plant that turned Maria Spiros into Phosphorous. It was not an accident at all but a deliberate test to see what effect it would have if a human was exposed to it. Chrome does not know who actually arranged the accident, but she suspects it was a man she knows only as Photon, a superhuman for whom Project: Helios is being developed. Chrome used to work at the Horizon Inst. before she became a criminal, and she has been trying to set up a system here in the lab to contain Phosphorous like the one they have there; she has been planning to kidnap her from the Horizon Inst. and bring her here to conduct tests on her.
She has had contact with Photon only a few times, she does not know why he has the ability to pull strings at Allied Chemicals the way he does. She does know that only a very few employees know about her, her lab, and her project; mostly the upper management (including the President, Terrence Martins) and a few select employees like the 4 security specialists who rotate shifts guarding the lab while she works. She theorizes that either Photon is one of those people in disguise (though she doubts it, she has seen Photon with many of them at the same time), he has some kind of blackmail power over Martins (or threats to harm him/family?), or he has some kind of other deal worked out with Martins.
Why is she doing this? Because she also is allowed to use the lab to work on her own projects. The mutations she triggered in herself by injecting herself with Alloy's blood have not stopped; she continues to mutate and is worried that she may develop the same disease that killed Alloy. She has been kidnapping people and bringing them to this lab to perform experiments on them designed to further her theories on inducing paranormal abilities, as well as find a way to understand her own. Most of her subjects are now dead, but one experiment in trying to create a regenerative serum resulted in the creation of Ooze, who she is keeping alive until she can figure out a way to refine it. He is quite mad from the transformation, but does not seem to be aware of his madness. She plans to eliminate him when she has learned all she can from him. She believes him to be safely contained in one of the tubes in the auxiliary lab.
Okay, I think that's about it for what can be gotten from her brain, if you have any further questions go ahead and ask.
As far as other things you discover while searching the place, Ooze seems to have killed the security guard on duty and stashed him in the generator room. Power to his containment vessel was temporarily interrupted very recently, allowing him to escape before the backup generator took over. Perhaps it was when Vanguard cut the relay box outside.
From the stuff that Vanguard went through in the administrative building, none of the employees that work at the Terminal know about the lab. All business is legitimate although sometimes the chemical deliveries are wrong or come at odd times. The manager has sent several memos recommending that the place be decomissioned and a more modern and efficient facility replace it; these memos have been ignored.
Thursday, July 14, 2005
Tuesday, July 12, 2005
Mall Crazy
Vanguard Mission Log:
The base nears completion. The base computer is still in Beta testing phase and is not ready for full time duty just yet. Dammit, of course the pure mahogany conference table with the 14 karat gold inlay is on backorder. It will be nice to have a real conference table for a change, not that the Prof's house isn't cozy...
I spent some time going out on the talk show circuit. Did all the locals, (Good Morning L.A., City File, and This Week), hoping to get a national spot on NPR, maybe Diane Rehm? I'm really trying to get across that this insurance issue is really about privacy. On the other hand, I can't appear to be putting paranormal's concerns above the general public. Damn, this is a dangerous political road to follow.
I called a meeting at the new base in order to figure out the "group's" next move. There was a lot of interest in the vampire woman who knows all about us. I assured everyone that I am very concerned about it as well. We just don't have any leads right now. I convinced everyone (some still grumbling) to help me check out the Terminal. It's not as urgent a problem, but at least we know where the target is. We started making plans when the Prof noticed some commotion at the New Urbana Galleria, a fancy new shopping mall. We headed down there.
We arrived at the mall to find...Nothing. Nothing seemed to be happening. We split up and pretty soon we run into a certified 24k looney: Foxbat. Sure, all criminal "masterminds" are messed up, but this guy needed help, he was trying to steal a big fake diamond! He had a "centipede mobile and a cast of wierdos:
Agent X, Agent 1, and Agent Orange. No I'm not making this up.
Exoskeleton Man.
harmonious Fist
and some chick called Charlie.
We started in on trying to reel these guys in when G.R.A.B shows up! (Cheshire Cat, Black Diamond, Bluejay, and Hummingbird.) These guys are thieves, but at least they seem to try and not hurt anyone while they are doing it.
Now it's total chaos. You can't tell the players without a program. I get a chance to talk to Hummingbird, and I find out that they thought the diamond was real too. Something strange is going on.
Well, we manage to capture some of the wierdos and G.R.A.B bugs out. I didn't know where Mason and Tripleforte were during the fight. Turns out, Mason found a bunch of wireless camera around the mall. 'Forte turns up naked in a store, I'm still not sure about that one.
I took the cameras back to the base to examine in our new electronics lab. I have to admit I'm a little rusty in the lab these days, I guess that happens when you turn into an executive. I was able to determine that my company makes these cameras. Well, nice to see our stuff stands up to rough field conditions. I'll try to find a way to trace the cameras, but I suspect it'll just lead to some kind of internet connection, as the cameras have a fairly short range.
Who is recording us, and why?
The base nears completion. The base computer is still in Beta testing phase and is not ready for full time duty just yet. Dammit, of course the pure mahogany conference table with the 14 karat gold inlay is on backorder. It will be nice to have a real conference table for a change, not that the Prof's house isn't cozy...
I spent some time going out on the talk show circuit. Did all the locals, (Good Morning L.A., City File, and This Week), hoping to get a national spot on NPR, maybe Diane Rehm? I'm really trying to get across that this insurance issue is really about privacy. On the other hand, I can't appear to be putting paranormal's concerns above the general public. Damn, this is a dangerous political road to follow.
I called a meeting at the new base in order to figure out the "group's" next move. There was a lot of interest in the vampire woman who knows all about us. I assured everyone that I am very concerned about it as well. We just don't have any leads right now. I convinced everyone (some still grumbling) to help me check out the Terminal. It's not as urgent a problem, but at least we know where the target is. We started making plans when the Prof noticed some commotion at the New Urbana Galleria, a fancy new shopping mall. We headed down there.
We arrived at the mall to find...Nothing. Nothing seemed to be happening. We split up and pretty soon we run into a certified 24k looney: Foxbat. Sure, all criminal "masterminds" are messed up, but this guy needed help, he was trying to steal a big fake diamond! He had a "centipede mobile and a cast of wierdos:
Agent X, Agent 1, and Agent Orange. No I'm not making this up.
Exoskeleton Man.
harmonious Fist
and some chick called Charlie.
We started in on trying to reel these guys in when G.R.A.B shows up! (Cheshire Cat, Black Diamond, Bluejay, and Hummingbird.) These guys are thieves, but at least they seem to try and not hurt anyone while they are doing it.
Now it's total chaos. You can't tell the players without a program. I get a chance to talk to Hummingbird, and I find out that they thought the diamond was real too. Something strange is going on.
Well, we manage to capture some of the wierdos and G.R.A.B bugs out. I didn't know where Mason and Tripleforte were during the fight. Turns out, Mason found a bunch of wireless camera around the mall. 'Forte turns up naked in a store, I'm still not sure about that one.
I took the cameras back to the base to examine in our new electronics lab. I have to admit I'm a little rusty in the lab these days, I guess that happens when you turn into an executive. I was able to determine that my company makes these cameras. Well, nice to see our stuff stands up to rough field conditions. I'll try to find a way to trace the cameras, but I suspect it'll just lead to some kind of internet connection, as the cameras have a fairly short range.
Who is recording us, and why?
Mason's Diary, pt. 1
Because of possible legal concerns, I have decided to document my daily activities in hopes of providing a written record of my mental state, my investigative activities and perhaps some clues for the police or other investigators in the event of my demise.
My name is Samuel Mason, I am a writer.
Since July of 2001, I have found myself involved with a group of “heroes.”
I use the quotations because they sometimes are less like Time Magazine presents them and more like a large dysfunctional family. Very caring, but very opinionated and not always in agreement.
Since having helped them in some small way in a Canadian manner, I have found they sometimes desperately need my skills, if not my opinion.
Since 9/11 and the information we found then, I have felt drawn to this group by the secrets we have in common. They have a wonderful view upon such a strange and fantastic world, I suspect that the inspiration will be worth some of the danger…but I digress.
Having been present at the riot/altercation between the white supremacist supers White Lightning and Carnivore against the African American super Brother Hood & the Forty Knights street gang, I decided that it would be a good idea to try and help resolve the situation by infiltrating the supremacist group lead by Marshall Endicott. To this end I have taken a job within a “racially friendly” trucking company as a union delivery driver, Michael Wilkinson.
Michael was born 12/15/1973 in Oklahoma City, OK and until moving to Los Angeles 11 months ago had never excelled at any thing in his life. He was an average student from a slightly broken home; mother re-married when he was 12, went out for football but hardly played.
His introduction to the “life-style” was as the result of his father, who had always exhibited a low-grade racism because of various affirmative action programs which always seemed to go against him at the local Bandag plant. When Mike’s mother re-married one of the plant managers who supported the programs, his dislike of Mike’s father combined with his father’s opinion of the manager pushed his rebellious teenage mind towards a dislike of change and anything ‘different.’
Mike drifted from one labor job to another until one night…
He was playing Texas Hold-‘Em in his local watering hole when everything happened. Sitting across from him was what he thought was a normal human, maybe Mexican or one of those freakish mulatto types whose mothers didn’t have enough sense to stay within their own race. Thoughts like those must have been the reason why he had a headache all night ‘cause the place wasn’t as smoky as other nights.
He was sitting on 4th street with 2 pair, thinking about his bet.
The chink had bet heavy off the deal, probably holding Big Slick, and hadn’t slowed down. Everyone else had dropped out either pre-flop or after, but Mike suited 9-8 had reaped the benefits of the flop of K-9-8. But the chink had kept up the betting, as if his hand was made. Since there wasn’t a flush on the board, the best that Mike could see was 4 to a possible straight, or a K-9 pair, but betting a K-9 as heavy as that from the deal would have been dumb. This has to be a bluff, he thought.
4th Street showed a 4th suit on the board with a deuce attached. The chink bet and re-raised up to the table limit. Mike considered the likelihood of K-9 being down in front of the chink. He had played big all night long, but had cashed in each time.
His luck can’t run forever and he can’t be playing anything on this hand, Mike finally decided, calling.
The River turned up another 8. Full house.
Mike bet, re-raised, and called to the limit. After he flipped the boat, the chink flipped his cards and started raking in the pot.
Mike remembers seeing all the cowboys on the table, between the board and the chink’s hole cards. He remembers being pissed off for having not seen the additional king on the board and having missed played so badly, but then he remembers Bill Carlson asking the chink what he thought he was doing?
Bill had arrived late and had been watching the game until a seat opened up, but right then he was looking over the table asking why a full house was beat by 3 of a kind?
Mike re-looked at the cards and saw three kings.
The table exploded with activity.
Several people grabbed at the chink, a couple of people moved around behind him to block his exit, the bar tender Mattie grabbed a shotgun from behind the bar and pointed it at the group, Mike grabbed for the chips as the chink flipped it up in the air, scattering cards and chips everywhere.
A scuffle happened, people tried hitting other people, several people brought down the chink, Mattie fired the shotgun at the crowd, sending a couple of people down, Mike pulled out his knife.
People holding the chink were hit from behind by others in the bar, Mattie re-loaded the shotgun, Mike stepped towards the fray, arm extended towards the chink.
Mike turned his head as he felt his shoulder grabbed from behind by Bill when someone bumped into his extended arm.
Bill’s face went white as Mike tried to figure out why he had turned him and the noise of the fight ground to a halt.
When Mike turned around, his knife was sticking from the chink’s chest and the man was grabbing at it, trying to remove it by its blood-slicked handle.
Then the chink’s head exploded.
Everyone in the bar turned towards the door as the green clad armored form standing there holstered its weapon. The markings on the armor looked military in nature, with a G evident on the chest. The figure turned and walked out of the bar in total silence.
Bill helped him out to his car where he threw up repeatedly. Mike decided at that time to leave the state and hasn’t been back since.
He believes that he might be wanted in questioning for the murder of the man.
Since that time, he has heard of the organization by the name of Genocide who is working against the mutant threat and strongly believes that the chink was a mutant. Mike now ranks mutants worse than any non-whites than he ever interacted with and is sometimes quite vocal about it.
This of course is the cover story that I have built for the cronies about Michael Wilkinson. Based partially in fact as a note, their having been an incident in Oklahoma City about a year ago fitting the outline of the story. Mike wasn’t really present, nor is he wanted in questioning.
Enough for today. I will begin the real documentation tomorrow.
April 7th 2002:
Trauma (aptly named) is staying over nights at my house in order to monitor my behavior more closely. After the tragedy involving the break-in and attack by those kids I welcome the observation. Despite his questionable morals and judgment making facilities, he is quite an able EMT. I figure as long as we can stay away from conversations about philosophy, rehabilitation, the criminal justice system, the Hooligan, Canada and almost every other topic in existence, things will go smoothly.
I suspect that he will be talking me into researching Nicodemus’s problem more, in which case I will attempt to get him to get me unrestricted access to the man. His history of how he came to this disease will be invaluable to finding a possible cure, let alone getting eyewitness information as to the manner of life within the country he was born.
April 8th 2002:
A list of potential questions:
When did he first notice the disease?
What form did it initially take?
When did he notice it getting worse?
What are the symptoms? When do they get worse?
What has he tried to alleviate the symptoms, what has worked, what hasn’t?
He went into a suspended animation, what method was used for that?
What were the expected conditions for his sleeping body during the suspension?
Were they the same as he expected when he arose?
Are there others whom he has known with this disease?
April 9th 2002:
Well, yesterday was a good starting point.
The compiled story of the questions above: After he had started studying the principles of alchemy on his own is when he discovered the symptoms. As time went on he found the symptoms getting worse. He really hasn’t ever found anything that has alleviated the symptoms. After a certain point he placed himself within the suspended animation in order to let time pass. There weren’t any surprises about the suspension. He hasn’t heard of anyone else having suffered from this disease, but then he hadn’t thought to look.
I am noticing that he isn’t as sharp a tack as we originally thought…I was able to get him speaking about his home country and conditions of the time without any problem. He also made several admissions as to why he initially went into alchemy… I will be checking on those over the next few days. Meeting with the studio and Durante tomorrow, hope that goes well.
April 10th 2002:
Studio execs are such arrogant pricks. I don’t quite see how Durante deals with them as often as he does. Of course he would tell me that he isn’t a movie star, he is a jazz musician.
I can handle the changes to the script, I can handle the changes to the story, I can even handle the changes to the timeline, but making a serious meeting about changing my name in the credits? This was not worth my time away from researching the Nicodemus problem.
At least the movie is still going forward, that much is making me happy. This way Shadowdancer won’t be looking to revenge himself against Durante or myself anytime soon. Perhaps if the movie gets put straight to video, or gets locked away for a long time we should watch for problems against the movie studio execs, but that shouldn’t happen.
I got a few of the materials Nicodemus recommended for me to review… almost a primer of information for alchemy. Perhaps I, with my other knowledge, I can get to the root of the problem.
April 12th 2002:
It happened again, but this time not in the house.
I don’t know really if I want to weep or be happy that it happened.
Yesterday, Mike was at the local bar again, spending time with the Endicott people winding down after work.
In walks White Lightning, to a hail of cheers and applause. I stand up, make some noises myself, trying to figure out how to get closer to him in order to determine where he is staying or when he will be available for detainment for the police.
He walks over to the bar in a crowd when Seth, the bartender, suddenly shoots him twice in the chest and once in the head.
The crowd scatters, guns are drawn, tables are upended, and windows crash in.
Seth strips off his latex mask revealing a masked figure underneath, I believe his name is The Crusader. Standing up by the windows are several other “costumed” figures, all drawing guns and starting to shoot people who are moving towards The Crusader.
I duck back down and keep covered, while his posse of friends covers his escape from the bar.
After they left several of us got up and went after them, looking for a bit of payback for White Lightning.
The bulk of us went east after the group in the distance, but I knew that had to be a ruse, so I turned and headed west quietly and carefully.
Then I heard the click behind me.
I slowly turned around and found Gunslinger with “the drop” on me. He said something witty as I was trying to explain what was really going on…and prepared to shoot.
Then everything went black.
When I woke up, Gunslinger was lying in the alley, dead. No marks, no blood, nothing.
I heard the other group returning, so I did the only thing I could think of, I shot his body three times. Once in the hand, once in the chest and once in the head.
I am a hero to the group. I took down one of the people who helped kill White Lightning. I suspect this will get me closer into the Endicott inner circle and the compound.
I feel so sick. I took another life again and I can’t control it. I will work another couple of days on the job and then take some extended vacation… I don’t think the managers will complain. I’m the hero because I am a murderer.
I really want these people to cease.
I am going to go crawl around a bottle of Glenmoraige. Trauma can wonder.
April 18th 2002:
At least the last several days have been productive.
I found the books that Nicodemus recommended, read them and then researched in some other texts. I think that I have an idea.
As the song goes, “there are two paths you can go by…” Fast and slow.
The fast path, which Nicodemus took, seems to have a strong disadvantage to it. It seems to force a flaw into the practitioner. There are many documented cases of this type of effect entering into the system of a practitioner within the literature and tomes.
With a couple of exceptions they all seem to be fatal. I am following up on the exceptions in the next couple of days.
The other path, slower, seems related to the Rosicrucian belief system and is presided over by the Order of the Rosey Cross. I will see what Nicodemus has to say about that when I meet with him next.
Trauma was at least been observant enough to comment on my heavy drinking the other night as being unusual and watched me carefully as I recovered from the hangover and have been researching for the last couple of days.
His observance however is overshadowed by his idiocy when it comes to this project. He admittedly doesn’t know the first steps to take in order to help Nicodemus, yet made this promise to him that we would work towards finding a cure before he dies. When I try to work on the cure and get his assistance, he refuses to understand the basic concepts of the process and wears his ignorance as a badge of honor.
Then, his obvious intent in helping Nicodemus being as a rehabilitation tool, he degrades and treats the patient without the simplest forms of respect. He constantly mispronounces his name in a derogatory fashion which belies his obvious distain for the patient/prisoner. This from a person who indicates that he has respect for the Hippocratic Oath!
I suspect that I need to point out to him that the line about “I will use my power to help the sick to the best of my ability and judgment; I will abstain from harming or wrongdoing any man by it.” refers to more than just his ability to grow, shrink and heal, but also his voice, actions and manner. By treating this man with no respect at all, he does him wrong and prosecutes harm against him.
I suspect that there is no reason to cause my blood pressure the increase as the finer points of this argument will be lost on the dunderhead.
Regardless, I will stay the course since he has promised us to the cause. Perhaps Vanguard will be able to speak to him about promising these types of things in the future.
April 19th 2002:
What started him on the path of alchemy?
Was he approached by anyone with interest in teaching him?
Did he seek out anyone to teach him?
Why did he study by himself?
How fast was his rise in power?
Since the symptoms seemed to have increased across time, were they really increasing along a gradient with his power rather than time?
Has he ever heard of the Order of the Rosey Cross?
Is he familiar with the Rosicrucian’s teachings?
Has he heard of the following names: Angelico of Venice, Isabella Del Oro, Vjerkond Struamactson, and Kiief Harksen?
April 20th 2002:
I have no idea how Nicodemus ever learned how to perform alchemy, he can’t read Greek. Heck, he is hardly literate at Latin, let along some of the more esoteric dialects of Italian needed to make simple transformations. He almost earns the sobriquet that Trauma puts on him, but he has been alive for almost 6 centuries because of his will to live, so I guess I can’t call him too dumb.
He did recognize a couple of the others who had died of similar causes, but the others he didn’t know of. I guess there isn’t really an alchemist’s network of sharing secrets in existence today, let alone then.
Kind of a guarded profession with a decent amount of industrial espionage. Hmmm, I think there is a story idea in there somewhere…
It seems as if he moved quite quickly along the rise to power. He knew of the Rosicrucians, and although he had sought out a teacher with them, they seem to have rejected him in some manner…perhaps they have some way to resolve this problem, or their method of teaching the skill sidesteps the problem involved. Shame I don’t know any one who is a member.
April 22nd 2002:
Research research research.
Isabella Del Oro, born in the late 1670’s, lived in the Los Angeles area, was reputedly killed by the Church in 1715 when accused of consorting with demons and devils on the property that she owned. Strong probability that she was an alchemist and might have been made of gold? (Alchemical accident?)
The good people that rose up and killed her never found the body, assuming that it was spirited away by her malefactors, er benefactors in this case. They burned the hacienda to the ground.
I have a location of the property, I will see what happened to it from there… she seems to be a good lead for possibly having made any progress on this disease.
April 24th 2002:
Went back to work at the route yesterday, everyone has great things to say to me for how I handled myself at the bar a few weeks ago. I suspect that sometime in the future I will need a great deal of therapy as the result of this. This is not the thing which people should be lauded and rewarded for. They should be punished and made to sit in a small box for a very long time. The only solace that I have allowed myself in this is that I am not certain what happened in the blackness. It is quite likely that I killed him, it is almost the only explanation, but I have only tenuous proof.
Proof that it has happened two times to me, but no proof that it was me acting either time.
That aside, I have found something interesting about the property I am researching.
It seems that the property sat empty for about 50 years before it was purchased by a Mexican woman, who paid with newly minted gold coins. When she died, unwed and childless, the property was left to a niece of hers who traveled a long distance to claim it.
The niece, who died unwed and childless, also left it to a niece… and so on and so on until the most recent niece, Anita Ramirez, claimed the land from her aunt’s estate about 20 years ago.
So, Durante and I are going to go have a meeting with Mrs. Ramirez on the pretense of enlightening the woman as to the interesting history of her familial home. We will be asking her if she wouldn’t mind us poking around the grounds looking for a hidden tunnel or room which might not have been noticed.
However, I suspect that we will be speaking with Isabella herself, in which case I need to bring a proper gift for her. Perhaps Shadowdancer will use his good taste in jewelry to direct me towards something I can afford and can present to her.
April 25th 2002:
I have to remind myself on a regular basis that Shadowdancer is a thief. He does indeed have good taste in jewelry, but he is a thief.
Luckily I have something I forgot about. The Stone.
After calling the property and arranging a meeting with Ms. Ramirez we went shopping.
Durante indicated that her name was present within the High Society pages at local art gallery openings and fashion shows, sometimes with a date, sometimes not, never the same man.
After wandering around Rodeo Drive for a bit, looking at various pieces of art made with precious metals and jewels, we found a delicate gold crown with metal veil which gave the proper implication of the gift and receiver.
The solid gold version of it would have set me a back a bit, but we were able to find a sterling silver version for ¼ of the price which I adjusted into gold.
Then Durante, Trauma and I went to the hacienda.
She seems to have a man-servant around the house. He met us at the door, took our gift and bade us wait in the foyer for his mistress’s pleasure.
After a few minutes he led us into a library where she was seated with the box on her lap. A pleasant woman, stunning with her dress and face, which it should have been since it wasn’t real… when I concentrated on her after sitting down I could tell that it was a projection.
We danced around the topic for a bit, Trauma being blissfully silent during the verbal fencing, when I took the leap by speaking in Spanish and addressing her by her real name. I was quite quick to tell her that we were not fortune hunters in any way, but if we could follow the trail, others could. I offered to help her with that oversight and then, switching back to English, asked her to relate some details of her history. She talked a little about how the peasants were easily frightened by things they didn’t understand and snorted derisively with the suggestion that she was consorting with devils or demons in the household.
We spoke of Nicodemus, whom she had heard of, and his malady asking if she had perhaps studied this problem and if she would have any pointers to give.
She indicated that she had actually found an elixir that might heal him, having a similar problem herself, but she was unable to avail herself to it. She then dropped the projection of flesh and blood and showed herself in her “natural” state.
She is quite gorgeous, being made of solid gold. Her features are quite rounded and pleasant to view, as opposed to angular or hammered.
I began to ask a few questions about her continued existence, since she obviously is not able to, or in need of ingesting solid food. She indicated that she has another concoction that she imbibes, through the use of alchemy which requires a certain amount of prepared gold. She gestured towards the veil and crown indicating that they were beautiful, but that she would likely melt it down in order to continue her existence. I suggested that I had access to a Philosopher’s Stone and could make her some other gold so that she wouldn’t have to destroy the gift.
She then started asking me about the Stone and what could be done. It seems that the cure she has for the disease would work on her if she was more human that she is. She believes that the Stone could change her body back into flesh if I was a little more skilled with its usage.
A deal was then struck that we would acquire the ingredients for the elixir and she would make multiple draughts of it, for herself and Nicodemus if I would agree to use the stone to transmute her back into human, once I had gained the skill.
Before agreeing to the terms, I asked her a few of the questions I had asked of Nicodemus. Why she had decided on alchemy, had she found a teacher or learned on her own, had she heard of the Rosicrucians,
She gave us a mystical shopping list, most of which she indicated that she would be able to obtain (Virgin’s tears, Bat Wing, etc.) but three ingredients that were unique.
Vampire Dust (A destroyed vampire)
The Gem of Amora
The heartsblood of the Chernibogg demon
Well, it sounds like an interesting list. Tomorrow I will start figuring out what it is all about.
Of course I will have to pick up Durante from Anita’s house, in the morning. *sigh*
My name is Samuel Mason, I am a writer.
Since July of 2001, I have found myself involved with a group of “heroes.”
I use the quotations because they sometimes are less like Time Magazine presents them and more like a large dysfunctional family. Very caring, but very opinionated and not always in agreement.
Since having helped them in some small way in a Canadian manner, I have found they sometimes desperately need my skills, if not my opinion.
Since 9/11 and the information we found then, I have felt drawn to this group by the secrets we have in common. They have a wonderful view upon such a strange and fantastic world, I suspect that the inspiration will be worth some of the danger…but I digress.
Having been present at the riot/altercation between the white supremacist supers White Lightning and Carnivore against the African American super Brother Hood & the Forty Knights street gang, I decided that it would be a good idea to try and help resolve the situation by infiltrating the supremacist group lead by Marshall Endicott. To this end I have taken a job within a “racially friendly” trucking company as a union delivery driver, Michael Wilkinson.
Michael was born 12/15/1973 in Oklahoma City, OK and until moving to Los Angeles 11 months ago had never excelled at any thing in his life. He was an average student from a slightly broken home; mother re-married when he was 12, went out for football but hardly played.
His introduction to the “life-style” was as the result of his father, who had always exhibited a low-grade racism because of various affirmative action programs which always seemed to go against him at the local Bandag plant. When Mike’s mother re-married one of the plant managers who supported the programs, his dislike of Mike’s father combined with his father’s opinion of the manager pushed his rebellious teenage mind towards a dislike of change and anything ‘different.’
Mike drifted from one labor job to another until one night…
He was playing Texas Hold-‘Em in his local watering hole when everything happened. Sitting across from him was what he thought was a normal human, maybe Mexican or one of those freakish mulatto types whose mothers didn’t have enough sense to stay within their own race. Thoughts like those must have been the reason why he had a headache all night ‘cause the place wasn’t as smoky as other nights.
He was sitting on 4th street with 2 pair, thinking about his bet.
The chink had bet heavy off the deal, probably holding Big Slick, and hadn’t slowed down. Everyone else had dropped out either pre-flop or after, but Mike suited 9-8 had reaped the benefits of the flop of K-9-8. But the chink had kept up the betting, as if his hand was made. Since there wasn’t a flush on the board, the best that Mike could see was 4 to a possible straight, or a K-9 pair, but betting a K-9 as heavy as that from the deal would have been dumb. This has to be a bluff, he thought.
4th Street showed a 4th suit on the board with a deuce attached. The chink bet and re-raised up to the table limit. Mike considered the likelihood of K-9 being down in front of the chink. He had played big all night long, but had cashed in each time.
His luck can’t run forever and he can’t be playing anything on this hand, Mike finally decided, calling.
The River turned up another 8. Full house.
Mike bet, re-raised, and called to the limit. After he flipped the boat, the chink flipped his cards and started raking in the pot.
Mike remembers seeing all the cowboys on the table, between the board and the chink’s hole cards. He remembers being pissed off for having not seen the additional king on the board and having missed played so badly, but then he remembers Bill Carlson asking the chink what he thought he was doing?
Bill had arrived late and had been watching the game until a seat opened up, but right then he was looking over the table asking why a full house was beat by 3 of a kind?
Mike re-looked at the cards and saw three kings.
The table exploded with activity.
Several people grabbed at the chink, a couple of people moved around behind him to block his exit, the bar tender Mattie grabbed a shotgun from behind the bar and pointed it at the group, Mike grabbed for the chips as the chink flipped it up in the air, scattering cards and chips everywhere.
A scuffle happened, people tried hitting other people, several people brought down the chink, Mattie fired the shotgun at the crowd, sending a couple of people down, Mike pulled out his knife.
People holding the chink were hit from behind by others in the bar, Mattie re-loaded the shotgun, Mike stepped towards the fray, arm extended towards the chink.
Mike turned his head as he felt his shoulder grabbed from behind by Bill when someone bumped into his extended arm.
Bill’s face went white as Mike tried to figure out why he had turned him and the noise of the fight ground to a halt.
When Mike turned around, his knife was sticking from the chink’s chest and the man was grabbing at it, trying to remove it by its blood-slicked handle.
Then the chink’s head exploded.
Everyone in the bar turned towards the door as the green clad armored form standing there holstered its weapon. The markings on the armor looked military in nature, with a G evident on the chest. The figure turned and walked out of the bar in total silence.
Bill helped him out to his car where he threw up repeatedly. Mike decided at that time to leave the state and hasn’t been back since.
He believes that he might be wanted in questioning for the murder of the man.
Since that time, he has heard of the organization by the name of Genocide who is working against the mutant threat and strongly believes that the chink was a mutant. Mike now ranks mutants worse than any non-whites than he ever interacted with and is sometimes quite vocal about it.
This of course is the cover story that I have built for the cronies about Michael Wilkinson. Based partially in fact as a note, their having been an incident in Oklahoma City about a year ago fitting the outline of the story. Mike wasn’t really present, nor is he wanted in questioning.
Enough for today. I will begin the real documentation tomorrow.
April 7th 2002:
Trauma (aptly named) is staying over nights at my house in order to monitor my behavior more closely. After the tragedy involving the break-in and attack by those kids I welcome the observation. Despite his questionable morals and judgment making facilities, he is quite an able EMT. I figure as long as we can stay away from conversations about philosophy, rehabilitation, the criminal justice system, the Hooligan, Canada and almost every other topic in existence, things will go smoothly.
I suspect that he will be talking me into researching Nicodemus’s problem more, in which case I will attempt to get him to get me unrestricted access to the man. His history of how he came to this disease will be invaluable to finding a possible cure, let alone getting eyewitness information as to the manner of life within the country he was born.
April 8th 2002:
A list of potential questions:
When did he first notice the disease?
What form did it initially take?
When did he notice it getting worse?
What are the symptoms? When do they get worse?
What has he tried to alleviate the symptoms, what has worked, what hasn’t?
He went into a suspended animation, what method was used for that?
What were the expected conditions for his sleeping body during the suspension?
Were they the same as he expected when he arose?
Are there others whom he has known with this disease?
April 9th 2002:
Well, yesterday was a good starting point.
The compiled story of the questions above: After he had started studying the principles of alchemy on his own is when he discovered the symptoms. As time went on he found the symptoms getting worse. He really hasn’t ever found anything that has alleviated the symptoms. After a certain point he placed himself within the suspended animation in order to let time pass. There weren’t any surprises about the suspension. He hasn’t heard of anyone else having suffered from this disease, but then he hadn’t thought to look.
I am noticing that he isn’t as sharp a tack as we originally thought…I was able to get him speaking about his home country and conditions of the time without any problem. He also made several admissions as to why he initially went into alchemy… I will be checking on those over the next few days. Meeting with the studio and Durante tomorrow, hope that goes well.
April 10th 2002:
Studio execs are such arrogant pricks. I don’t quite see how Durante deals with them as often as he does. Of course he would tell me that he isn’t a movie star, he is a jazz musician.
I can handle the changes to the script, I can handle the changes to the story, I can even handle the changes to the timeline, but making a serious meeting about changing my name in the credits? This was not worth my time away from researching the Nicodemus problem.
At least the movie is still going forward, that much is making me happy. This way Shadowdancer won’t be looking to revenge himself against Durante or myself anytime soon. Perhaps if the movie gets put straight to video, or gets locked away for a long time we should watch for problems against the movie studio execs, but that shouldn’t happen.
I got a few of the materials Nicodemus recommended for me to review… almost a primer of information for alchemy. Perhaps I, with my other knowledge, I can get to the root of the problem.
April 12th 2002:
It happened again, but this time not in the house.
I don’t know really if I want to weep or be happy that it happened.
Yesterday, Mike was at the local bar again, spending time with the Endicott people winding down after work.
In walks White Lightning, to a hail of cheers and applause. I stand up, make some noises myself, trying to figure out how to get closer to him in order to determine where he is staying or when he will be available for detainment for the police.
He walks over to the bar in a crowd when Seth, the bartender, suddenly shoots him twice in the chest and once in the head.
The crowd scatters, guns are drawn, tables are upended, and windows crash in.
Seth strips off his latex mask revealing a masked figure underneath, I believe his name is The Crusader. Standing up by the windows are several other “costumed” figures, all drawing guns and starting to shoot people who are moving towards The Crusader.
I duck back down and keep covered, while his posse of friends covers his escape from the bar.
After they left several of us got up and went after them, looking for a bit of payback for White Lightning.
The bulk of us went east after the group in the distance, but I knew that had to be a ruse, so I turned and headed west quietly and carefully.
Then I heard the click behind me.
I slowly turned around and found Gunslinger with “the drop” on me. He said something witty as I was trying to explain what was really going on…and prepared to shoot.
Then everything went black.
When I woke up, Gunslinger was lying in the alley, dead. No marks, no blood, nothing.
I heard the other group returning, so I did the only thing I could think of, I shot his body three times. Once in the hand, once in the chest and once in the head.
I am a hero to the group. I took down one of the people who helped kill White Lightning. I suspect this will get me closer into the Endicott inner circle and the compound.
I feel so sick. I took another life again and I can’t control it. I will work another couple of days on the job and then take some extended vacation… I don’t think the managers will complain. I’m the hero because I am a murderer.
I really want these people to cease.
I am going to go crawl around a bottle of Glenmoraige. Trauma can wonder.
April 18th 2002:
At least the last several days have been productive.
I found the books that Nicodemus recommended, read them and then researched in some other texts. I think that I have an idea.
As the song goes, “there are two paths you can go by…” Fast and slow.
The fast path, which Nicodemus took, seems to have a strong disadvantage to it. It seems to force a flaw into the practitioner. There are many documented cases of this type of effect entering into the system of a practitioner within the literature and tomes.
With a couple of exceptions they all seem to be fatal. I am following up on the exceptions in the next couple of days.
The other path, slower, seems related to the Rosicrucian belief system and is presided over by the Order of the Rosey Cross. I will see what Nicodemus has to say about that when I meet with him next.
Trauma was at least been observant enough to comment on my heavy drinking the other night as being unusual and watched me carefully as I recovered from the hangover and have been researching for the last couple of days.
His observance however is overshadowed by his idiocy when it comes to this project. He admittedly doesn’t know the first steps to take in order to help Nicodemus, yet made this promise to him that we would work towards finding a cure before he dies. When I try to work on the cure and get his assistance, he refuses to understand the basic concepts of the process and wears his ignorance as a badge of honor.
Then, his obvious intent in helping Nicodemus being as a rehabilitation tool, he degrades and treats the patient without the simplest forms of respect. He constantly mispronounces his name in a derogatory fashion which belies his obvious distain for the patient/prisoner. This from a person who indicates that he has respect for the Hippocratic Oath!
I suspect that I need to point out to him that the line about “I will use my power to help the sick to the best of my ability and judgment; I will abstain from harming or wrongdoing any man by it.” refers to more than just his ability to grow, shrink and heal, but also his voice, actions and manner. By treating this man with no respect at all, he does him wrong and prosecutes harm against him.
I suspect that there is no reason to cause my blood pressure the increase as the finer points of this argument will be lost on the dunderhead.
Regardless, I will stay the course since he has promised us to the cause. Perhaps Vanguard will be able to speak to him about promising these types of things in the future.
April 19th 2002:
What started him on the path of alchemy?
Was he approached by anyone with interest in teaching him?
Did he seek out anyone to teach him?
Why did he study by himself?
How fast was his rise in power?
Since the symptoms seemed to have increased across time, were they really increasing along a gradient with his power rather than time?
Has he ever heard of the Order of the Rosey Cross?
Is he familiar with the Rosicrucian’s teachings?
Has he heard of the following names: Angelico of Venice, Isabella Del Oro, Vjerkond Struamactson, and Kiief Harksen?
April 20th 2002:
I have no idea how Nicodemus ever learned how to perform alchemy, he can’t read Greek. Heck, he is hardly literate at Latin, let along some of the more esoteric dialects of Italian needed to make simple transformations. He almost earns the sobriquet that Trauma puts on him, but he has been alive for almost 6 centuries because of his will to live, so I guess I can’t call him too dumb.
He did recognize a couple of the others who had died of similar causes, but the others he didn’t know of. I guess there isn’t really an alchemist’s network of sharing secrets in existence today, let alone then.
Kind of a guarded profession with a decent amount of industrial espionage. Hmmm, I think there is a story idea in there somewhere…
It seems as if he moved quite quickly along the rise to power. He knew of the Rosicrucians, and although he had sought out a teacher with them, they seem to have rejected him in some manner…perhaps they have some way to resolve this problem, or their method of teaching the skill sidesteps the problem involved. Shame I don’t know any one who is a member.
April 22nd 2002:
Research research research.
Isabella Del Oro, born in the late 1670’s, lived in the Los Angeles area, was reputedly killed by the Church in 1715 when accused of consorting with demons and devils on the property that she owned. Strong probability that she was an alchemist and might have been made of gold? (Alchemical accident?)
The good people that rose up and killed her never found the body, assuming that it was spirited away by her malefactors, er benefactors in this case. They burned the hacienda to the ground.
I have a location of the property, I will see what happened to it from there… she seems to be a good lead for possibly having made any progress on this disease.
April 24th 2002:
Went back to work at the route yesterday, everyone has great things to say to me for how I handled myself at the bar a few weeks ago. I suspect that sometime in the future I will need a great deal of therapy as the result of this. This is not the thing which people should be lauded and rewarded for. They should be punished and made to sit in a small box for a very long time. The only solace that I have allowed myself in this is that I am not certain what happened in the blackness. It is quite likely that I killed him, it is almost the only explanation, but I have only tenuous proof.
Proof that it has happened two times to me, but no proof that it was me acting either time.
That aside, I have found something interesting about the property I am researching.
It seems that the property sat empty for about 50 years before it was purchased by a Mexican woman, who paid with newly minted gold coins. When she died, unwed and childless, the property was left to a niece of hers who traveled a long distance to claim it.
The niece, who died unwed and childless, also left it to a niece… and so on and so on until the most recent niece, Anita Ramirez, claimed the land from her aunt’s estate about 20 years ago.
So, Durante and I are going to go have a meeting with Mrs. Ramirez on the pretense of enlightening the woman as to the interesting history of her familial home. We will be asking her if she wouldn’t mind us poking around the grounds looking for a hidden tunnel or room which might not have been noticed.
However, I suspect that we will be speaking with Isabella herself, in which case I need to bring a proper gift for her. Perhaps Shadowdancer will use his good taste in jewelry to direct me towards something I can afford and can present to her.
April 25th 2002:
I have to remind myself on a regular basis that Shadowdancer is a thief. He does indeed have good taste in jewelry, but he is a thief.
Luckily I have something I forgot about. The Stone.
After calling the property and arranging a meeting with Ms. Ramirez we went shopping.
Durante indicated that her name was present within the High Society pages at local art gallery openings and fashion shows, sometimes with a date, sometimes not, never the same man.
After wandering around Rodeo Drive for a bit, looking at various pieces of art made with precious metals and jewels, we found a delicate gold crown with metal veil which gave the proper implication of the gift and receiver.
The solid gold version of it would have set me a back a bit, but we were able to find a sterling silver version for ¼ of the price which I adjusted into gold.
Then Durante, Trauma and I went to the hacienda.
She seems to have a man-servant around the house. He met us at the door, took our gift and bade us wait in the foyer for his mistress’s pleasure.
After a few minutes he led us into a library where she was seated with the box on her lap. A pleasant woman, stunning with her dress and face, which it should have been since it wasn’t real… when I concentrated on her after sitting down I could tell that it was a projection.
We danced around the topic for a bit, Trauma being blissfully silent during the verbal fencing, when I took the leap by speaking in Spanish and addressing her by her real name. I was quite quick to tell her that we were not fortune hunters in any way, but if we could follow the trail, others could. I offered to help her with that oversight and then, switching back to English, asked her to relate some details of her history. She talked a little about how the peasants were easily frightened by things they didn’t understand and snorted derisively with the suggestion that she was consorting with devils or demons in the household.
We spoke of Nicodemus, whom she had heard of, and his malady asking if she had perhaps studied this problem and if she would have any pointers to give.
She indicated that she had actually found an elixir that might heal him, having a similar problem herself, but she was unable to avail herself to it. She then dropped the projection of flesh and blood and showed herself in her “natural” state.
She is quite gorgeous, being made of solid gold. Her features are quite rounded and pleasant to view, as opposed to angular or hammered.
I began to ask a few questions about her continued existence, since she obviously is not able to, or in need of ingesting solid food. She indicated that she has another concoction that she imbibes, through the use of alchemy which requires a certain amount of prepared gold. She gestured towards the veil and crown indicating that they were beautiful, but that she would likely melt it down in order to continue her existence. I suggested that I had access to a Philosopher’s Stone and could make her some other gold so that she wouldn’t have to destroy the gift.
She then started asking me about the Stone and what could be done. It seems that the cure she has for the disease would work on her if she was more human that she is. She believes that the Stone could change her body back into flesh if I was a little more skilled with its usage.
A deal was then struck that we would acquire the ingredients for the elixir and she would make multiple draughts of it, for herself and Nicodemus if I would agree to use the stone to transmute her back into human, once I had gained the skill.
Before agreeing to the terms, I asked her a few of the questions I had asked of Nicodemus. Why she had decided on alchemy, had she found a teacher or learned on her own, had she heard of the Rosicrucians,
She gave us a mystical shopping list, most of which she indicated that she would be able to obtain (Virgin’s tears, Bat Wing, etc.) but three ingredients that were unique.
Vampire Dust (A destroyed vampire)
The Gem of Amora
The heartsblood of the Chernibogg demon
Well, it sounds like an interesting list. Tomorrow I will start figuring out what it is all about.
Of course I will have to pick up Durante from Anita’s house, in the morning. *sigh*
Saturday, July 09, 2005
Friday, July 01, 2005
Blood Sucking Fiends
Vanguard Mission Log:
I was waiting on top of the warehouse, when this really freaky guy comes at me. I later found out he is a monster hunter named Ebonfire. He yells "Duck!" I ducked. He then toasted a Vampire who was sneaking up behind me. After a brief thanks, I look down to see Mason, Trauma andTripleforte on the ground by the warehouse. I let them know our teammates are about to become Vampire snacks and tell Trauma to make us door.
Well, I was glad to have some of the mystic types around to help us with Vamps. Well, the battle got underway. I didn't seem to be able to do much to the bloodsuckers with my TK, so I decided to try and draw some gunfire toward me and off of the others. Seemed to work for a while.
Out of the corner of my eye I could see Mason, Ebonfire, Trauma and Tripleforte seemed to be doing well. I thought Flea and Hooligan might be in a little trouble, but I figured the best think I could do was keep the Vamps with the hand cannons off of them. I managed to smash a couple with some boxes, I think maybe the wood hurts them.
We managed to overcome most of the Vampires. I'm not sure how effective my powers were, but I hope I managed to take some heat of the others.
Then we found out the bad news. Seems one of the head vamps was able to mind control Flea and find out all about us, including secret ID's and all. I can't blame Flea, but it's something that we are going to have to deal with as soon as possible. It could totally ruin me.
Well, after talking to the Mystic types, we were able to put together some theories. The warehouse is owned by some ex-Mafia types, who joined up with the Shadowfists rather than be destroyed with the rest of the Mob. Justin Grishom took over other parts of the old Mob as well. So it looks like we have some Shadowfists looking exist as immortal Vampires. Great.
After delivering the some stuff for the Mystics, we are summoned to the park by the cops because of a bomb. Doesn't sound too bad....
Vanguard Mission Log Supplemental:
Approved the final plans for the base renovation. Doing a big computer update and adding in a lot of security cameras. Have a nice secret enterance under the street, so that none of our identities can be comprimised. Mason asked if he could reside at the base. I wasn't my intention for us to live there, just to rally there. I thought about it for a while, and I guess it would be good to have a team member there to handle things.
I was waiting on top of the warehouse, when this really freaky guy comes at me. I later found out he is a monster hunter named Ebonfire. He yells "Duck!" I ducked. He then toasted a Vampire who was sneaking up behind me. After a brief thanks, I look down to see Mason, Trauma andTripleforte on the ground by the warehouse. I let them know our teammates are about to become Vampire snacks and tell Trauma to make us door.
Well, I was glad to have some of the mystic types around to help us with Vamps. Well, the battle got underway. I didn't seem to be able to do much to the bloodsuckers with my TK, so I decided to try and draw some gunfire toward me and off of the others. Seemed to work for a while.
Out of the corner of my eye I could see Mason, Ebonfire, Trauma and Tripleforte seemed to be doing well. I thought Flea and Hooligan might be in a little trouble, but I figured the best think I could do was keep the Vamps with the hand cannons off of them. I managed to smash a couple with some boxes, I think maybe the wood hurts them.
We managed to overcome most of the Vampires. I'm not sure how effective my powers were, but I hope I managed to take some heat of the others.
Then we found out the bad news. Seems one of the head vamps was able to mind control Flea and find out all about us, including secret ID's and all. I can't blame Flea, but it's something that we are going to have to deal with as soon as possible. It could totally ruin me.
Well, after talking to the Mystic types, we were able to put together some theories. The warehouse is owned by some ex-Mafia types, who joined up with the Shadowfists rather than be destroyed with the rest of the Mob. Justin Grishom took over other parts of the old Mob as well. So it looks like we have some Shadowfists looking exist as immortal Vampires. Great.
After delivering the some stuff for the Mystics, we are summoned to the park by the cops because of a bomb. Doesn't sound too bad....
Vanguard Mission Log Supplemental:
Approved the final plans for the base renovation. Doing a big computer update and adding in a lot of security cameras. Have a nice secret enterance under the street, so that none of our identities can be comprimised. Mason asked if he could reside at the base. I wasn't my intention for us to live there, just to rally there. I thought about it for a while, and I guess it would be good to have a team member there to handle things.
Gaming and Grilling
Just a reminder, boardgaming at my place on Saturday, July 2nd, starting at noon. Grilling starting around five, then round two of boardgaming. Attended any or all portions, as you see fit. "To Protect and To Serve Grilled Meat"!
Wednesday, June 29, 2005
Recent Headlines
Idiot King escapes Asylum...again!
President says evidence of superhuman creation program in Iraq, requests UN resolution to begin inspections.
Institute for Human Advancement donates advanced anti-superhuman equipment to PART.
City Council considering resolution to rescind County statute on metahuman insurance requirements. Hewson takes heat from protestors.
"Brother Hood" makes court appearance, supporters clash with protestors outside courthouse.
Black Phantom prevents riot.
Construction begins on City Center Building.
President Otanga of Luranga accuses King Ayawan of Unadai of sponsoring campaigns of genocide against mutants in neighboring nations.
Ambassador Smith of San Muerte gives evidence before UN Security Council of Chilean-sponsored terrorism in his small nation; says President Zerstoiten "will not tolerate such attacks on our sovereign soil."
Morgan "Tripleforte" Durante presented medal by Queen Elizabeth for stopping terrorist attack on Tower Bridge.
President says evidence of superhuman creation program in Iraq, requests UN resolution to begin inspections.
Institute for Human Advancement donates advanced anti-superhuman equipment to PART.
City Council considering resolution to rescind County statute on metahuman insurance requirements. Hewson takes heat from protestors.
"Brother Hood" makes court appearance, supporters clash with protestors outside courthouse.
Black Phantom prevents riot.
Construction begins on City Center Building.
President Otanga of Luranga accuses King Ayawan of Unadai of sponsoring campaigns of genocide against mutants in neighboring nations.
Ambassador Smith of San Muerte gives evidence before UN Security Council of Chilean-sponsored terrorism in his small nation; says President Zerstoiten "will not tolerate such attacks on our sovereign soil."
Morgan "Tripleforte" Durante presented medal by Queen Elizabeth for stopping terrorist attack on Tower Bridge.
Tuesday, June 28, 2005
Answer for Edgar on my machine.
Edgar this is for you.
I could pour through the bible pages you set out for me but in the end I come back to this.
Right now my soul is screaming this. Until this stops I will not even be able to make heads or tails of your questions & answers.
I've been given a chance to souls search & until I do some of that. Here is my answer for you.
(Durante sings & plays in a jazz mix)
So, so you think you can tell
Heaven from Hell, blue skies from pain?
Can you tell a green field
From a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?
Did they get you to trade
Your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
And did you exchange
A walk on part in the war
For a lead role in a cage?
How I wish, how I wish you were here.
We're just two lost souls
Swimming in a fish bowl, year after year,
Running over the same old ground.
What have we found?
The same old fears.
Wish you were here.
I could pour through the bible pages you set out for me but in the end I come back to this.
Right now my soul is screaming this. Until this stops I will not even be able to make heads or tails of your questions & answers.
I've been given a chance to souls search & until I do some of that. Here is my answer for you.
(Durante sings & plays in a jazz mix)
So, so you think you can tell
Heaven from Hell, blue skies from pain?
Can you tell a green field
From a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?
Did they get you to trade
Your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
And did you exchange
A walk on part in the war
For a lead role in a cage?
How I wish, how I wish you were here.
We're just two lost souls
Swimming in a fish bowl, year after year,
Running over the same old ground.
What have we found?
The same old fears.
Wish you were here.
Sunday, June 26, 2005
Hooligan's Log
Something you should know about me right off the bat is that I am the LAPD’s bitch.
It isn’t The Man keeping me down.
It isn’t a rogue cop with an agenda.
It’s my own fault.
This is important to keep in mind as I chronicle my latest adventures as the Hooligan…
I’ve got the satellite dish fired up, watching Scotland take on Moldova. It’s 2-0 for the Tartan Army, 87th minute, when the phone rings. Sure enough, it’s my guy at the LAPD, requesting another “job.” It seems that a rap superstar named Arthur Paindragon (Vanguard assures me his nickname is “Ice”) became a victim of spontaneous combustion while performing at a large concert. I’d seen a bit about it on the news, but I’m not much of a rap fan – if it’s not outlawed tunes on outlawed pipes, it’s shit.
Of course, it’s interesting to note that Mr. Paindragon was not the first person in the L.A. area to go up in smoke on their own recently. He was the eighth person in the past few months – which made me wonder why the LAPD was just now getting around to really looking into things, but hey - what do I know? Apparently this Paindragon fellow was popular with the kids, and so the media attention has been pretty negative.
You have to give the LAPD credit, though – they don’t ask me to collar the perp. They just ask me to clean up.
I like to clean up.
I don’t have a lot to go on other than the list of victims and a newspaper report that a gang called the Oguans had taken credit. My first impulse, no matter how misguided, was to seek out my favorite ambulance company owner, but he wasn’t in. My buddy Price was, however, and told me what he knew – which amounted to jack.
My next move was to head down to the Councilman’s office. Hope that the Flea would be there as well. Three heads working on the problem had to be better than my battered noggin.
The councilman was in with his ward…err, intern…and the three of us set to work – I delving into my knowledge of the L.A. underground, the councilman using his network of contacts, and the Flea scampering all over the Inter-Net to fill in the holes.
We managed to dig up the following about the eight victims…
Crysta Gayle – exotic dancer at an establishment called “The Creamery”
Jason Bakerfield – LAPD detective
Bob Wilkins – techie at Gablesoft and hacker whose online handle was “RadioFlyer”
Darla Chase – middle management at Yoshima Corp.
Jengis Kwan – leader of a local gang known as the “Mongol Horde”
Aleph Gradinger – pharmaceutical scientist at Fordham ChemTec
John Taggart – no info; killed outside a 7-11
Arthur Paindragon – rapper
Items we learned while delving into the list…
§ I went down to The Creamery (which was HARD work) and tried to find out anything I could about Crysta. I learned that she had been laid up with a respiratory illness, that when she came back she was dancing “better than ever,” and that another dancer named “Jessica” may have had it out for her.
§ Vanguard talked with Bakerfield’s former partner, Detective Gehl. They were investigating the Shadowfists, the gang which controls most of the L.A. drug trade. Bakerfield had apparently learned the location of a factory which was manufacturing Flame, a new designer drug. I learned that the Shadowfists were the ones who ended the New Guardians as a superhero group. Also found out that the poor bastard had colitis, and that he was “itchy” before he went up in flames.
§ The Flea found some interesting info on Bob Wilkins. Internet rumors had it that he: developed a crippling ‘net virus, was killed by a computer program which could remotely incinerate people, and was new to the internet. None of this information could be corroborated, so we left it alone.
§ Darla Chase was a woman with no family and no friends, apparently. Career driven, perhaps?
§ Vanguard set to work on the Mongol Horde and found out they were readying to take some turf from the Tiger Claw gang in Chinatown until their leader (Jengis Kwan) was stabbed in the kidney.
§ Vanguard had a chat with Gradinger’s widow, and found out he had been working on a secret project at ChemTec. He had been laid up recently with chemical burns and had received skin grafts as a result. The Flea couldn’t make anything of the files that Vanguard brought back, so I called a friend of mine in the Chemistry department at USC to try and decipher the mess.
§ The Flea learned that Taggart ran an illegal gambling parlor called the “Pair-a-Dice Club.” He was charged in connection with the club, but charges were dropped before he could come to trial.
§ Paindragon had recently checked into the Jim Morrison Center for Drug and Alcohol Rehabilitation. Interesting.
There seemed to be a pattern with the medical problems, although they didn’t pop up for everyone on the list. We decided to put that possibility on the backburner and go get some firsthand info from the Mongols. (As a side note – why do I always have to drive? Why does no one ever chip in for gas? It’s bloody ridiculous. The AMC Pacer was NOT intended to hold more than, well, me. I could look past that if I got A FEW BUCKS here and there from my comrades.)
I lurked in the shadows across the street while Vanguard had a chat with some loitering Mongols. Why did I lurk? Because Vanguard wanted to get the info from them without any physical violence. Flea seemed to agree. I pouted.
Irony of this? Vanguard managed to start a fight with them. It was nice to crack my knuckles a bit – it had been a while – but these poor guys weren’t much of a challenge for three of us. Hence the reason I wanted to do it by myself.
The Mongols did reveal that:
A) The Oguans had killed Jengis
B) When Jengis had been stabbed before that a “Dr. Black” had treated him
C) A pair of paramedics named Gasser and Mack knew where to find Dr. Black
We didn’t get a chance to follow up immediately on these leads, however, as a return trip to the Hoolimobile revealed a pair of misfits reclining on my hood. Before I could give them a proper Scottish greeting, we learned they were Oguans and had been sent by Ignatius, the leader of the gang. Apparently, he was under the impression that we were looking to join the bunch? Lord Almighty.
Their compound – and I use that term generously – was an old house surrounded by a high fence. A high fence and a bunch of drugged out freaks, to be specific. We had a chat with the locals, namely Ignatius, who soon learned the error of his ways and decided to do us in. For the record, Vanguard once again goaded them into a brawl – and I’m the one who can’t be trusted in group settings?
There were some nasty villains involved. Guillotine? Ugh. Pain. Lots of flying blades. Lots of diced Scotsman. As usual, yours truly took one for the team and got beat to hell while the rest of them got to show off. (Did I mention the Merc with the auto cannon? Ack.)
(Did I mention we won’t be seeing Guillotine again? Heh heh.)
We apprehended a woman trying to leave. Lara. She was a hacker of some sort. I let the Flea and the Councilman deal with her. What she gave us was enough for us to realize that Ignatius and the Oguans had NOTHING to do with these spontaneous combustions. Ahh well. Back to square one.
Vanguard came up with the bright idea of raiding this Flame factory that Det. Bakerfield had been investigating. I have no objection to getting this garbage off the streets, so I went along amiably. What I will have an objection to from now on is dropping into the middle of a large combat through the skylight. We dealt with some run of the mill thugs for a bit until I started sparring with one who seemed way too strong to be in the mook business. Sure enough, a few head butts started to flake some skin off, and a few kicks to the groin were met with a loud TING!-ing sound. Cyborg. Great. The good news is that the ‘borg thought it would be funny to lift me off the ground by the throat. So there I am – dangling from a robotic hand, everything starting to go black, Vanguard cheering me on (NOT HELPING, MIND YOU. THE BLOODY GIT WAS STANDING THERE WITH HIS ARMS CROSSED SAYING CLEVER THINGS LIKE, “Uhh, go Hooligan. That guy’s a chode. Huh huh. Huh huh. I said chode.”) when who should appear in the doorway buy Justin Grishom.
My first villain. From way back in the day. Trying to scare convenience store owners into selling. I told him what I thought of his dastardly plan and resorted to fisticuffs.
He beat me pretty bad.
Justin sees me dangling there and says (and I’m still seething about this one) “Don’t I know you?”
I managed to choke out a weak, “I believe we’ve met.”
His reply – and I’m really still seething about this one – “Didn’t…didn’t I kill you?”
My clever reply – “Aaaaaaaach…”
Justin thought things were well in hand, so he walked away. Just walked away. Someday he’s going to pay for a lot of things. I have to tell myself that. He’s got one coming. Well, really, he’s got several coming.
Somehow, we managed to emerge victorious even with my lack of breathing and Vanguard’s later lack of consciousness. That Flea, man – what a powerhouse. I corralled a few techies by making my “England 5 Scotland 0?!?” face and snarling. They cowered like little Welsh girls.
Flea got a look at the ingredients of Flame and quickly decided that no, this wasn’t causing anyone to blow’d up. Dead end again. At least we got the place shut down and got a little bit of it off the streets. Of course, as we take a minute to celebrate, some weird lookin’ git – all black, with stars and such swirling around his “body” – drops in through the skylight, smiles at us, and tosses a bomb into the factory, which lead us to, ahh, “skedaddle”.
We finally decide to check and see if the others on the list had ailments of some sort, and sure enough, they had. Everyone on the list had been a transplant recipient recently. We split up – Flea decided to tail Mack and Gasser, while Vanguard and I shoved off for the hospital to find out about the transplants – they’d all been performed by some sort of “independent contractor”, and we wondered what was up.
Turns out every one of them had acquired their organs illegally. They’d been way down on their respective organ lists and jumped right to the top. The doctor we spoke with (whose name I’ll withhold for his protection) explained that he was ill at ease with these procedures, and that they had all been performed by Dr. Black. He thought maybe the Chinese Tongs were supplying the organs.
Shortly after this conversation, we get a radio shout from the Flea, saying, “I followed Gasser and Mack. Guess what they were doing!”
Vanguard and I replied in unison, “Harvesting illegal organs?”
After a slight pause, the Flea regained his composure and said, “How did you…well, I followed them all the way…”
Vanguard cut in. “…to Dr. Black’s office?” Now, was it anyone else I know, they would have been loathe to speak any more. Not the Flea. He’s unflappable. He makes your average help-an-old-lady-across-the-street Boy Scout look like your average help-a-young-altar-boy-across-his-lap priest. A real straight shooter.
The Flea seemed to think that whatever drug Dr. Black was using in his patients to fight rejection may have been the cause of the combustion. A quick trip to his office allowed me to flex my lock picking skills – well, to be fair, my ramming-my-head-through-a-door skills – and we were in. Then I found the alarm. Got to get better about that. Do it ahead of time from now on.
We didn’t find much in the office proper, but I managed to find a secret door in one of the examination rooms and got it open without much trouble. The hallway it revealed led to a lab, but as we stepped in, a computer voice asked for the password. Before either the Flea or I could do anything, Vanguard says, “Uhh, Klatu Verata Neck (cough cough cough).” Needless to say, I wasn’t surprised when the doors slammed shut and the pleasant hiss of gas escaping into the room could be heard.
For a while, things get hazy. I think the gas got to me a little worse than it did Vanguard or the Flea. I’m told that Flea and I managed to break us out of the room through another door, only to wade into a mess of Tongs with machine guns. They gave us very little trouble. (I find this hard to believe. .50 caliber slugs hurt.) Vanguard flung one of them down an elevator shaft, and then talked me into patching the bastard up. (It had to be the gas. Or his constant sniveling about protecting every human life – even the bad ones.) The next floor up was a surgery, well stocked, but nothing out of the ordinary. Another floor up gave us more Tongs, and a slew of super baddies. My particular fight was with some arsehole named Speedfreak, who moved like the bloody wind. He did me in pretty good. Also, Dr. Black thought it might be fun to take a scalpel and cut me up a little while I was out. (Needless to say, there will be payback for that one. Lots of payback.) Vanguard and the Flea overcame some nasty nasty baddies – Vanguard still babbles about one called Decay (to be fair, Decay f***ed Vanguard up pretty good – I patched him up as best I could) – but Dr. Black got away.
Vanguard managed to find a few papers Dr. Black hadn’t destroyed, and pieced together the awful truth of the situation – unbeknownst to the bad doctor, he had been using a supply of organs harvested from vampires. (Editor’s note – this can only go well.) The recipients would burst into flames as soon as they went out into the sunlight. We destroyed the rest of the organs and called in my good friends with the LAPD to clean up what I hadn’t cleaned up.
At this point, my job with the police was over, but we clearly couldn’t allow this sort of thing to continue. Flea and I decided to assume our normal identities and head to the Tech Noir, a place where members of this Vampire gang were rumored to hang out. Let me tell you – a pipe-smoking man in a tweed jacket doesn’t look as Goth as you might think; yet we were able to get in touch with a girl who said she could lead us to the people we needed. She gave us the address (TRAP!) of (TRAP!) a (TRAP!) moderately (TRAP!) old (TRAP!) moderately (TRAP!) rundown (TRAP!) warehouse (TRAP!) on (TRAP!) the (TRAP!) docks (TRAP! TRAP! TRAP!). Vanguard reasoned that they wouldn’t realize we were paranormal, and I listened (TRAP!). We knew it was probably a trap, but we thought we could handle ourselves – and Vanguard planned to come along and help if things got rough.
They did.
We got to meet the head chick. She asked if we were the people who’d raided Dr. Black’s operation. I was a little taken aback, but we decided honesty was the best policy (TRAP!). We said yes. She asked what we’d done with the organs. Flea told her we’d destroyed them. She asked if we’d told anyone the awful truth. We assured her we had not, that we were men of our word. She said, “Good, good…you may kill them now,” and that’s when the vampires jumped out of the shadows.
Oddness begins at this point. As Flea and I went back to back…or is that ankle to back?...the cavalry arrived. By cavalry, I mean Vanguard…Trauma…Triple Forte…and that strange writer guy. Mason? I think it’s Mason. The fight was on. The vampires…and it gets even more odd here…beat up on some of the other members of the team, but not this guy. I was still on my feet at the end. Unscratched. Unscathed. (Side note – is it bad if members of the team had their blood sucked by vampires?)
We learned that the local mob, which was all but destroyed by the Shadowfists, had decided to go immortal and become vampires. That’s PERFECTLY natural. We also learned that Flea unwittingly told the woman who I presume was the head vampire everything he knew about us…you know – addresses, phone numbers, secret identities.
Un-freaking-believeable. So that’s on the agenda next, I suppose – getting to her before she gets to … well, whatever it is she plans on doing with this info.
It isn’t The Man keeping me down.
It isn’t a rogue cop with an agenda.
It’s my own fault.
This is important to keep in mind as I chronicle my latest adventures as the Hooligan…
I’ve got the satellite dish fired up, watching Scotland take on Moldova. It’s 2-0 for the Tartan Army, 87th minute, when the phone rings. Sure enough, it’s my guy at the LAPD, requesting another “job.” It seems that a rap superstar named Arthur Paindragon (Vanguard assures me his nickname is “Ice”) became a victim of spontaneous combustion while performing at a large concert. I’d seen a bit about it on the news, but I’m not much of a rap fan – if it’s not outlawed tunes on outlawed pipes, it’s shit.
Of course, it’s interesting to note that Mr. Paindragon was not the first person in the L.A. area to go up in smoke on their own recently. He was the eighth person in the past few months – which made me wonder why the LAPD was just now getting around to really looking into things, but hey - what do I know? Apparently this Paindragon fellow was popular with the kids, and so the media attention has been pretty negative.
You have to give the LAPD credit, though – they don’t ask me to collar the perp. They just ask me to clean up.
I like to clean up.
I don’t have a lot to go on other than the list of victims and a newspaper report that a gang called the Oguans had taken credit. My first impulse, no matter how misguided, was to seek out my favorite ambulance company owner, but he wasn’t in. My buddy Price was, however, and told me what he knew – which amounted to jack.
My next move was to head down to the Councilman’s office. Hope that the Flea would be there as well. Three heads working on the problem had to be better than my battered noggin.
The councilman was in with his ward…err, intern…and the three of us set to work – I delving into my knowledge of the L.A. underground, the councilman using his network of contacts, and the Flea scampering all over the Inter-Net to fill in the holes.
We managed to dig up the following about the eight victims…
Crysta Gayle – exotic dancer at an establishment called “The Creamery”
Jason Bakerfield – LAPD detective
Bob Wilkins – techie at Gablesoft and hacker whose online handle was “RadioFlyer”
Darla Chase – middle management at Yoshima Corp.
Jengis Kwan – leader of a local gang known as the “Mongol Horde”
Aleph Gradinger – pharmaceutical scientist at Fordham ChemTec
John Taggart – no info; killed outside a 7-11
Arthur Paindragon – rapper
Items we learned while delving into the list…
§ I went down to The Creamery (which was HARD work) and tried to find out anything I could about Crysta. I learned that she had been laid up with a respiratory illness, that when she came back she was dancing “better than ever,” and that another dancer named “Jessica” may have had it out for her.
§ Vanguard talked with Bakerfield’s former partner, Detective Gehl. They were investigating the Shadowfists, the gang which controls most of the L.A. drug trade. Bakerfield had apparently learned the location of a factory which was manufacturing Flame, a new designer drug. I learned that the Shadowfists were the ones who ended the New Guardians as a superhero group. Also found out that the poor bastard had colitis, and that he was “itchy” before he went up in flames.
§ The Flea found some interesting info on Bob Wilkins. Internet rumors had it that he: developed a crippling ‘net virus, was killed by a computer program which could remotely incinerate people, and was new to the internet. None of this information could be corroborated, so we left it alone.
§ Darla Chase was a woman with no family and no friends, apparently. Career driven, perhaps?
§ Vanguard set to work on the Mongol Horde and found out they were readying to take some turf from the Tiger Claw gang in Chinatown until their leader (Jengis Kwan) was stabbed in the kidney.
§ Vanguard had a chat with Gradinger’s widow, and found out he had been working on a secret project at ChemTec. He had been laid up recently with chemical burns and had received skin grafts as a result. The Flea couldn’t make anything of the files that Vanguard brought back, so I called a friend of mine in the Chemistry department at USC to try and decipher the mess.
§ The Flea learned that Taggart ran an illegal gambling parlor called the “Pair-a-Dice Club.” He was charged in connection with the club, but charges were dropped before he could come to trial.
§ Paindragon had recently checked into the Jim Morrison Center for Drug and Alcohol Rehabilitation. Interesting.
There seemed to be a pattern with the medical problems, although they didn’t pop up for everyone on the list. We decided to put that possibility on the backburner and go get some firsthand info from the Mongols. (As a side note – why do I always have to drive? Why does no one ever chip in for gas? It’s bloody ridiculous. The AMC Pacer was NOT intended to hold more than, well, me. I could look past that if I got A FEW BUCKS here and there from my comrades.)
I lurked in the shadows across the street while Vanguard had a chat with some loitering Mongols. Why did I lurk? Because Vanguard wanted to get the info from them without any physical violence. Flea seemed to agree. I pouted.
Irony of this? Vanguard managed to start a fight with them. It was nice to crack my knuckles a bit – it had been a while – but these poor guys weren’t much of a challenge for three of us. Hence the reason I wanted to do it by myself.
The Mongols did reveal that:
A) The Oguans had killed Jengis
B) When Jengis had been stabbed before that a “Dr. Black” had treated him
C) A pair of paramedics named Gasser and Mack knew where to find Dr. Black
We didn’t get a chance to follow up immediately on these leads, however, as a return trip to the Hoolimobile revealed a pair of misfits reclining on my hood. Before I could give them a proper Scottish greeting, we learned they were Oguans and had been sent by Ignatius, the leader of the gang. Apparently, he was under the impression that we were looking to join the bunch? Lord Almighty.
Their compound – and I use that term generously – was an old house surrounded by a high fence. A high fence and a bunch of drugged out freaks, to be specific. We had a chat with the locals, namely Ignatius, who soon learned the error of his ways and decided to do us in. For the record, Vanguard once again goaded them into a brawl – and I’m the one who can’t be trusted in group settings?
There were some nasty villains involved. Guillotine? Ugh. Pain. Lots of flying blades. Lots of diced Scotsman. As usual, yours truly took one for the team and got beat to hell while the rest of them got to show off. (Did I mention the Merc with the auto cannon? Ack.)
(Did I mention we won’t be seeing Guillotine again? Heh heh.)
We apprehended a woman trying to leave. Lara. She was a hacker of some sort. I let the Flea and the Councilman deal with her. What she gave us was enough for us to realize that Ignatius and the Oguans had NOTHING to do with these spontaneous combustions. Ahh well. Back to square one.
Vanguard came up with the bright idea of raiding this Flame factory that Det. Bakerfield had been investigating. I have no objection to getting this garbage off the streets, so I went along amiably. What I will have an objection to from now on is dropping into the middle of a large combat through the skylight. We dealt with some run of the mill thugs for a bit until I started sparring with one who seemed way too strong to be in the mook business. Sure enough, a few head butts started to flake some skin off, and a few kicks to the groin were met with a loud TING!-ing sound. Cyborg. Great. The good news is that the ‘borg thought it would be funny to lift me off the ground by the throat. So there I am – dangling from a robotic hand, everything starting to go black, Vanguard cheering me on (NOT HELPING, MIND YOU. THE BLOODY GIT WAS STANDING THERE WITH HIS ARMS CROSSED SAYING CLEVER THINGS LIKE, “Uhh, go Hooligan. That guy’s a chode. Huh huh. Huh huh. I said chode.”) when who should appear in the doorway buy Justin Grishom.
My first villain. From way back in the day. Trying to scare convenience store owners into selling. I told him what I thought of his dastardly plan and resorted to fisticuffs.
He beat me pretty bad.
Justin sees me dangling there and says (and I’m still seething about this one) “Don’t I know you?”
I managed to choke out a weak, “I believe we’ve met.”
His reply – and I’m really still seething about this one – “Didn’t…didn’t I kill you?”
My clever reply – “Aaaaaaaach…”
Justin thought things were well in hand, so he walked away. Just walked away. Someday he’s going to pay for a lot of things. I have to tell myself that. He’s got one coming. Well, really, he’s got several coming.
Somehow, we managed to emerge victorious even with my lack of breathing and Vanguard’s later lack of consciousness. That Flea, man – what a powerhouse. I corralled a few techies by making my “England 5 Scotland 0?!?” face and snarling. They cowered like little Welsh girls.
Flea got a look at the ingredients of Flame and quickly decided that no, this wasn’t causing anyone to blow’d up. Dead end again. At least we got the place shut down and got a little bit of it off the streets. Of course, as we take a minute to celebrate, some weird lookin’ git – all black, with stars and such swirling around his “body” – drops in through the skylight, smiles at us, and tosses a bomb into the factory, which lead us to, ahh, “skedaddle”.
We finally decide to check and see if the others on the list had ailments of some sort, and sure enough, they had. Everyone on the list had been a transplant recipient recently. We split up – Flea decided to tail Mack and Gasser, while Vanguard and I shoved off for the hospital to find out about the transplants – they’d all been performed by some sort of “independent contractor”, and we wondered what was up.
Turns out every one of them had acquired their organs illegally. They’d been way down on their respective organ lists and jumped right to the top. The doctor we spoke with (whose name I’ll withhold for his protection) explained that he was ill at ease with these procedures, and that they had all been performed by Dr. Black. He thought maybe the Chinese Tongs were supplying the organs.
Shortly after this conversation, we get a radio shout from the Flea, saying, “I followed Gasser and Mack. Guess what they were doing!”
Vanguard and I replied in unison, “Harvesting illegal organs?”
After a slight pause, the Flea regained his composure and said, “How did you…well, I followed them all the way…”
Vanguard cut in. “…to Dr. Black’s office?” Now, was it anyone else I know, they would have been loathe to speak any more. Not the Flea. He’s unflappable. He makes your average help-an-old-lady-across-the-street Boy Scout look like your average help-a-young-altar-boy-across-his-lap priest. A real straight shooter.
The Flea seemed to think that whatever drug Dr. Black was using in his patients to fight rejection may have been the cause of the combustion. A quick trip to his office allowed me to flex my lock picking skills – well, to be fair, my ramming-my-head-through-a-door skills – and we were in. Then I found the alarm. Got to get better about that. Do it ahead of time from now on.
We didn’t find much in the office proper, but I managed to find a secret door in one of the examination rooms and got it open without much trouble. The hallway it revealed led to a lab, but as we stepped in, a computer voice asked for the password. Before either the Flea or I could do anything, Vanguard says, “Uhh, Klatu Verata Neck (cough cough cough).” Needless to say, I wasn’t surprised when the doors slammed shut and the pleasant hiss of gas escaping into the room could be heard.
For a while, things get hazy. I think the gas got to me a little worse than it did Vanguard or the Flea. I’m told that Flea and I managed to break us out of the room through another door, only to wade into a mess of Tongs with machine guns. They gave us very little trouble. (I find this hard to believe. .50 caliber slugs hurt.) Vanguard flung one of them down an elevator shaft, and then talked me into patching the bastard up. (It had to be the gas. Or his constant sniveling about protecting every human life – even the bad ones.) The next floor up was a surgery, well stocked, but nothing out of the ordinary. Another floor up gave us more Tongs, and a slew of super baddies. My particular fight was with some arsehole named Speedfreak, who moved like the bloody wind. He did me in pretty good. Also, Dr. Black thought it might be fun to take a scalpel and cut me up a little while I was out. (Needless to say, there will be payback for that one. Lots of payback.) Vanguard and the Flea overcame some nasty nasty baddies – Vanguard still babbles about one called Decay (to be fair, Decay f***ed Vanguard up pretty good – I patched him up as best I could) – but Dr. Black got away.
Vanguard managed to find a few papers Dr. Black hadn’t destroyed, and pieced together the awful truth of the situation – unbeknownst to the bad doctor, he had been using a supply of organs harvested from vampires. (Editor’s note – this can only go well.) The recipients would burst into flames as soon as they went out into the sunlight. We destroyed the rest of the organs and called in my good friends with the LAPD to clean up what I hadn’t cleaned up.
At this point, my job with the police was over, but we clearly couldn’t allow this sort of thing to continue. Flea and I decided to assume our normal identities and head to the Tech Noir, a place where members of this Vampire gang were rumored to hang out. Let me tell you – a pipe-smoking man in a tweed jacket doesn’t look as Goth as you might think; yet we were able to get in touch with a girl who said she could lead us to the people we needed. She gave us the address (TRAP!) of (TRAP!) a (TRAP!) moderately (TRAP!) old (TRAP!) moderately (TRAP!) rundown (TRAP!) warehouse (TRAP!) on (TRAP!) the (TRAP!) docks (TRAP! TRAP! TRAP!). Vanguard reasoned that they wouldn’t realize we were paranormal, and I listened (TRAP!). We knew it was probably a trap, but we thought we could handle ourselves – and Vanguard planned to come along and help if things got rough.
They did.
We got to meet the head chick. She asked if we were the people who’d raided Dr. Black’s operation. I was a little taken aback, but we decided honesty was the best policy (TRAP!). We said yes. She asked what we’d done with the organs. Flea told her we’d destroyed them. She asked if we’d told anyone the awful truth. We assured her we had not, that we were men of our word. She said, “Good, good…you may kill them now,” and that’s when the vampires jumped out of the shadows.
Oddness begins at this point. As Flea and I went back to back…or is that ankle to back?...the cavalry arrived. By cavalry, I mean Vanguard…Trauma…Triple Forte…and that strange writer guy. Mason? I think it’s Mason. The fight was on. The vampires…and it gets even more odd here…beat up on some of the other members of the team, but not this guy. I was still on my feet at the end. Unscratched. Unscathed. (Side note – is it bad if members of the team had their blood sucked by vampires?)
We learned that the local mob, which was all but destroyed by the Shadowfists, had decided to go immortal and become vampires. That’s PERFECTLY natural. We also learned that Flea unwittingly told the woman who I presume was the head vampire everything he knew about us…you know – addresses, phone numbers, secret identities.
Un-freaking-believeable. So that’s on the agenda next, I suppose – getting to her before she gets to … well, whatever it is she plans on doing with this info.
Trauma's Log!
Excerpted from Trauma's Mission Journal -
Why is Mason on this mission?
That's been the question on my mind the entire time. I wanted a chance to get to know him a bit more before continuing on in a group with him. He can be a pompous jerk at times and he really doesn't seem to want to see my point of view very well, but he does at least pay lip service to moral issues. I just don't understand why it's so hard for him to see things the way I do. He seems like one of those smart guys who can't see the obvious. I need to review what I've learned about this guy from what's happened so I'll try a recap of events here in my log to set my mind straight about him.
I had decided to start my program of reforming supervillains with Nick-O'Dumbass first. I knew what his main problem was and how to go about fixing it (assuming that my theory about villainous behavior being just symptomatic of a root disorder is correct). Also, he needed immediate help and couldn't get it done himself or from any other willing outside agent. Lastly, he's already in jail with Canadian babysitters to watch over his rehab to see if he's faking it all or not. His need is severe so the potential chance for major behavioral change is high. If I can succeed with him, I can continue with others like Price, the mutant teens, the 40 Knights and even maybe BlkD.
So I got Durante and Mason to lead me to some gold-plated lady who seemed to know what was up with this whole thing. She wanted to share the cure with numbnuts (still suspicious). She gave us a magic grocery list of stuff to find and give to her. Mason said we should talk to some Toad guy about it and he blew us off because someone cursed him. Said we needed to go to Scotland and talk to his uncle about lifting the curse before he'd give us the answers. Sounded kinda childish and stupid, but I guess so is cursing someone if you don't like him.
In Scotland, Mason ups and deflates out tire without telling me what he's doing. Then we had to walk a few miles to get to the guy's house. I coulda punctured the tire easily, but he just isn't the kinda guy to make a joint plan. Also, he took the battery out of Durante's phone (I dunno why). I'll get back to that point later. Once we got there, we met the kid who's the uncle of the Toad. He challenged Durante to a wizard duel-deal (also kinda childish). Mason offered us up to be killed if Durante lost. Fortunately, our guy won. So he said he'd meet us in LA later. English food was awful.
We were in some Dutch place where I got lost. But I guess Durante and Mason made a deal with some Facet-guy to help us find the Triad. These guys were about to rob a casino in Monaco. So we took a train there and got into position. French food was terrible, too. I just figured out what the Triad was up to when I saw them. I called Durante's cell for back-up, but his phone had no battery. So I had to fight all three of them myself. I did ok for a little while, but at least I managed to make enough noise that Durante and Mason showed up to finish them off after I went down. We took their magic jewels outta their skin (which is where their powers came from, I think) and turned 'em over to some French cops for a reward.
Facet met us at the train station when we were leaving. Mason walked off (I thought to find cover) and I signalled to Durante to help me take him out. But that didn't happen. Facet punched me in the nose and Mason gave him some cruddy-looking copy of our magic jewels and Durante whammied his brain into thinking it was the real thing. When we got off the train in Rome, there he was again. Durante and I took him down, finally and turned him over to an Italian nuthouse for another reward. When we got back to the states, we met Adrian - the ancient adolescent and he went with us to talk to the Toad.
I'd like to write what happened there, but Mason opened his mouth again. Adrian was talking about how he got to LA ahead of us and offered to send me to China. I said "no, thanks" and Mason played the fool. So, I walked around the Great Wall for awhile, tried to find people who spoke English, stopped a crazy lady from killing a chicken and selling it to me, bought some silk PJs and tried to convince some old dude not to carry me on his back. So, after awhile - trying to arrange a flight back to the states wasn't happening -1 just poofed into some sewer with an old Japanese guy living in it.
Ebonfire was the guy there who said he'd help us hunt a vampire. I asked him about the possibility of redemption for them, but he seemed to think we were after the ones beyond help. Also, a lady talked to us about her Dad having defeated the magic thing we were after once. Mason got a book about it. So we walked out of the sewer (ruined my new pjs) and we met some creepy, dead German opera dude -Toastenguy or whatever. He said he'd help us kill the demon-thing. He met back up with us in Delhi, India. I told Mason I didn't wanna eat snakes and he fed some to me anyway.
On the Pakistani border, we found a cave with a bunch of thugee fanatics living in it. Some cyclone-guy tried knifing us all a bunch of times. Toastenguy ripped his face off and scared the thugees to death. I tried to get him to stop that, but very little success. We killed the monster guy, got its blood and turned the spinning guy over to the Indian cops to stop the nuclear war that was about to erupt because of all the murders these guys were doing to incite conflict between the two powers.
We had to get to London to finish of the demon-deal but got delayed in Cairo by a sandstorm. At London's Tower Bridge we found the moss that held the soul of the jitterbug-demon(sp) which we'd forced him to tell us about. I fought a tiger-guy and the demon showed up to stop us with a new load of fanatics. Toastenguy and mason handled them while Durante helped me with the tiger-guy. Durante almost got killed and I knocked the thing into the river. We killed the demon and saved the bridge from the terrorists and got medals.
Now that we have all the stuff (except the vampire ashes we need to get now), we need to find out if the golden girl is on the up-and-up and save the alchemy asshole. Then we'll see if he can do anything to help people and if Mason can understand why we went through all this. Even though he's been a big load of trouble on this mission, he has been useful. I just wonder if he understands my purpose in life and the importance of turning villains back over toward our side. I can't seem to get him to act like a team player, yet. If I can make him understand what I'm about, then I think the rest of the hero community can get behind what I'm doing, too.
Why is Mason on this mission?
That's been the question on my mind the entire time. I wanted a chance to get to know him a bit more before continuing on in a group with him. He can be a pompous jerk at times and he really doesn't seem to want to see my point of view very well, but he does at least pay lip service to moral issues. I just don't understand why it's so hard for him to see things the way I do. He seems like one of those smart guys who can't see the obvious. I need to review what I've learned about this guy from what's happened so I'll try a recap of events here in my log to set my mind straight about him.
I had decided to start my program of reforming supervillains with Nick-O'Dumbass first. I knew what his main problem was and how to go about fixing it (assuming that my theory about villainous behavior being just symptomatic of a root disorder is correct). Also, he needed immediate help and couldn't get it done himself or from any other willing outside agent. Lastly, he's already in jail with Canadian babysitters to watch over his rehab to see if he's faking it all or not. His need is severe so the potential chance for major behavioral change is high. If I can succeed with him, I can continue with others like Price, the mutant teens, the 40 Knights and even maybe BlkD.
So I got Durante and Mason to lead me to some gold-plated lady who seemed to know what was up with this whole thing. She wanted to share the cure with numbnuts (still suspicious). She gave us a magic grocery list of stuff to find and give to her. Mason said we should talk to some Toad guy about it and he blew us off because someone cursed him. Said we needed to go to Scotland and talk to his uncle about lifting the curse before he'd give us the answers. Sounded kinda childish and stupid, but I guess so is cursing someone if you don't like him.
In Scotland, Mason ups and deflates out tire without telling me what he's doing. Then we had to walk a few miles to get to the guy's house. I coulda punctured the tire easily, but he just isn't the kinda guy to make a joint plan. Also, he took the battery out of Durante's phone (I dunno why). I'll get back to that point later. Once we got there, we met the kid who's the uncle of the Toad. He challenged Durante to a wizard duel-deal (also kinda childish). Mason offered us up to be killed if Durante lost. Fortunately, our guy won. So he said he'd meet us in LA later. English food was awful.
We were in some Dutch place where I got lost. But I guess Durante and Mason made a deal with some Facet-guy to help us find the Triad. These guys were about to rob a casino in Monaco. So we took a train there and got into position. French food was terrible, too. I just figured out what the Triad was up to when I saw them. I called Durante's cell for back-up, but his phone had no battery. So I had to fight all three of them myself. I did ok for a little while, but at least I managed to make enough noise that Durante and Mason showed up to finish them off after I went down. We took their magic jewels outta their skin (which is where their powers came from, I think) and turned 'em over to some French cops for a reward.
Facet met us at the train station when we were leaving. Mason walked off (I thought to find cover) and I signalled to Durante to help me take him out. But that didn't happen. Facet punched me in the nose and Mason gave him some cruddy-looking copy of our magic jewels and Durante whammied his brain into thinking it was the real thing. When we got off the train in Rome, there he was again. Durante and I took him down, finally and turned him over to an Italian nuthouse for another reward. When we got back to the states, we met Adrian - the ancient adolescent and he went with us to talk to the Toad.
I'd like to write what happened there, but Mason opened his mouth again. Adrian was talking about how he got to LA ahead of us and offered to send me to China. I said "no, thanks" and Mason played the fool. So, I walked around the Great Wall for awhile, tried to find people who spoke English, stopped a crazy lady from killing a chicken and selling it to me, bought some silk PJs and tried to convince some old dude not to carry me on his back. So, after awhile - trying to arrange a flight back to the states wasn't happening -1 just poofed into some sewer with an old Japanese guy living in it.
Ebonfire was the guy there who said he'd help us hunt a vampire. I asked him about the possibility of redemption for them, but he seemed to think we were after the ones beyond help. Also, a lady talked to us about her Dad having defeated the magic thing we were after once. Mason got a book about it. So we walked out of the sewer (ruined my new pjs) and we met some creepy, dead German opera dude -Toastenguy or whatever. He said he'd help us kill the demon-thing. He met back up with us in Delhi, India. I told Mason I didn't wanna eat snakes and he fed some to me anyway.
On the Pakistani border, we found a cave with a bunch of thugee fanatics living in it. Some cyclone-guy tried knifing us all a bunch of times. Toastenguy ripped his face off and scared the thugees to death. I tried to get him to stop that, but very little success. We killed the monster guy, got its blood and turned the spinning guy over to the Indian cops to stop the nuclear war that was about to erupt because of all the murders these guys were doing to incite conflict between the two powers.
We had to get to London to finish of the demon-deal but got delayed in Cairo by a sandstorm. At London's Tower Bridge we found the moss that held the soul of the jitterbug-demon(sp) which we'd forced him to tell us about. I fought a tiger-guy and the demon showed up to stop us with a new load of fanatics. Toastenguy and mason handled them while Durante helped me with the tiger-guy. Durante almost got killed and I knocked the thing into the river. We killed the demon and saved the bridge from the terrorists and got medals.
Now that we have all the stuff (except the vampire ashes we need to get now), we need to find out if the golden girl is on the up-and-up and save the alchemy asshole. Then we'll see if he can do anything to help people and if Mason can understand why we went through all this. Even though he's been a big load of trouble on this mission, he has been useful. I just wonder if he understands my purpose in life and the importance of turning villains back over toward our side. I can't seem to get him to act like a team player, yet. If I can make him understand what I'm about, then I think the rest of the hero community can get behind what I'm doing, too.
Saturday, June 25, 2005
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
The Hooligan says...
For starters, I blew up no hospital. It's good to know that if fellow team members think they hear something about me on the radio from Howard Freaking Fitzwater they believe it without question.
Secondly, I didn't blow up a factory. The "factory" in question was producing Flame, which is a GOOD thing to get off of the streets, and anyway, we don't know who blew it up. What I can tell you definitely is that it wasn't me.
One further thing you should all know - I will be responding in some manner to this raging jackass. If any of you are going to chastise me for not allowing him to spew hatred against me all over SoCal, do it silently or in writing, because I don't want to hear it. I've stopped arguing with the rest of you about what our goals are. I've conceded that our goal is to arrest criminals and let the courts do their job, and I've only struck out with lethal force when I felt my life was in direct danger. In exchange, I expect that I will be granted some leeway to deal with certain matters in my own way. Just because I don't share your exact moral code does not make me a bad person, and I'm beginning to resent to implication. Hell, I'm not beginning to resent it - I've resented it for quite some time.
Now, if someone has a constructive way to get back at this arsehole, I'm all ears. I don't want to write a letter. I don't want to boycott the Taco King just because it advertises on the station. I don't want to wait the guy out. Steps must be taken.
Secondly, I didn't blow up a factory. The "factory" in question was producing Flame, which is a GOOD thing to get off of the streets, and anyway, we don't know who blew it up. What I can tell you definitely is that it wasn't me.
One further thing you should all know - I will be responding in some manner to this raging jackass. If any of you are going to chastise me for not allowing him to spew hatred against me all over SoCal, do it silently or in writing, because I don't want to hear it. I've stopped arguing with the rest of you about what our goals are. I've conceded that our goal is to arrest criminals and let the courts do their job, and I've only struck out with lethal force when I felt my life was in direct danger. In exchange, I expect that I will be granted some leeway to deal with certain matters in my own way. Just because I don't share your exact moral code does not make me a bad person, and I'm beginning to resent to implication. Hell, I'm not beginning to resent it - I've resented it for quite some time.
Now, if someone has a constructive way to get back at this arsehole, I'm all ears. I don't want to write a letter. I don't want to boycott the Taco King just because it advertises on the station. I don't want to wait the guy out. Steps must be taken.
Thursday, June 16, 2005
Excerpts from the Howard Fitzwater Jr. Show
...and what about this creep who calls himself The Hooligan? Yeah, that's right, he's at it again. I mean, what an appropriate name for this foreign freak eh? I tell you people, the worst thing that ever happened to this country was a bunch of vigilante wanna-be's putting on pajamas and going out at night doing what we pay good tax money for our police to do.
And what they oughtta be doing is arresting this guy. Now have you heard what he's been doing? Rumour has it he's been spotted at the scene of THREE recent gang clashes. He blew up a factory for crying out loud! And you know how these pajama types are always fighting each other, well apparently he fought these two mercenary types, I dunno, a brother and sister duo who call themselves Guillotine and Dagger since these freaks can't ever use the names their mother gave them. Anyway, from what I've been told, this Guillotine guy somehow got his neck snapped.
So what do all you liberal pantywaists have to say about that? This is the same guy you all applauded behind your backs for causing a riot last summer, just because he shut down some kind of white power rally because God forbid free speech extend to people we don't like. Well, I have news for you, this Guillotine guy was BLACK. That's right, your Black Panther Party token white boy beat up a whole bunch of black guys this time, and after that he moved right on to beating up Chinese fellas. I don't even want to tell you how many of these are sitting in the hospital right now (on the taxpayers dime, no doubt) with broken this and ruptured that.
I mean, can you believe this? He's shown his true colors alright. He's no better than those neo-nazis he smacked around, hell he's probably worse. He's just another worthless vigilante thug out to get his jollies off by lording it over the rest of us law abiding normal folk. I'll tell you one thing, those guys on the board of supervisors got it right for once, passing that law that makes these costumed clowns have to have insurance if they want to continue to go around blowing up buildings and putting street trash in the hospital. And what do you all think about this bleeding heart liberal councilman, Hewson, who is trying to undo all the County's good work by basically nullifying the new ordinance with a city statute? This guy has always been a little left of center, but come on people...mutants pretty much declared war on this country on September 11th, and this guy wants to give em the key to our city! I'm not saying all mutants are bad, but isn't it better to be safe than sorry? We don't know which ones we can trust and which ones we can't, so I say keep em on a short leash. What do you think?
Let's go to the phones.
And what they oughtta be doing is arresting this guy. Now have you heard what he's been doing? Rumour has it he's been spotted at the scene of THREE recent gang clashes. He blew up a factory for crying out loud! And you know how these pajama types are always fighting each other, well apparently he fought these two mercenary types, I dunno, a brother and sister duo who call themselves Guillotine and Dagger since these freaks can't ever use the names their mother gave them. Anyway, from what I've been told, this Guillotine guy somehow got his neck snapped.
So what do all you liberal pantywaists have to say about that? This is the same guy you all applauded behind your backs for causing a riot last summer, just because he shut down some kind of white power rally because God forbid free speech extend to people we don't like. Well, I have news for you, this Guillotine guy was BLACK. That's right, your Black Panther Party token white boy beat up a whole bunch of black guys this time, and after that he moved right on to beating up Chinese fellas. I don't even want to tell you how many of these are sitting in the hospital right now (on the taxpayers dime, no doubt) with broken this and ruptured that.
I mean, can you believe this? He's shown his true colors alright. He's no better than those neo-nazis he smacked around, hell he's probably worse. He's just another worthless vigilante thug out to get his jollies off by lording it over the rest of us law abiding normal folk. I'll tell you one thing, those guys on the board of supervisors got it right for once, passing that law that makes these costumed clowns have to have insurance if they want to continue to go around blowing up buildings and putting street trash in the hospital. And what do you all think about this bleeding heart liberal councilman, Hewson, who is trying to undo all the County's good work by basically nullifying the new ordinance with a city statute? This guy has always been a little left of center, but come on people...mutants pretty much declared war on this country on September 11th, and this guy wants to give em the key to our city! I'm not saying all mutants are bad, but isn't it better to be safe than sorry? We don't know which ones we can trust and which ones we can't, so I say keep em on a short leash. What do you think?
Let's go to the phones.
Friday, June 10, 2005
The Doctor is out...of his mind.
Vanguard mission log (June 9, 2005)
We really started to act like a team during this mission. I'll try to highlight that during this report.
"Break down that door" I yelled. Like lightning, Hooligan blasted it, it buckled but did not break. Next, Flea stepped up and tore it from the hinges. We were able to escape whatever fate was prepared for us. We searched the rest of the floor, and ran into a bunch of Chinese Tongs with automatic weapons. We dispatched them pretty easily. I tried to fling one of them into his friends. Well, I flung him alright, but I missed the others and he broke into the elevator and down the shaft. We retrieved him, but he was in bad shape. I talked Hooligan into patching him up, I gave him some story about needing him for interrogation. I'm not sure if he bought it, or if he just did it to shut me up. Need to be careful using my full power on normals.
We went up to the next floor. Found a well stocked surgery. Flea examined some of the chemicals we found, but could not determine much without the proper equipment.
Up to the next floor. Of course the bad guys were waiting for us. There was a whole mess of Tongs, plus a rather interesting cast of villains:
We really started to act like a team during this mission. I'll try to highlight that during this report.
"Break down that door" I yelled. Like lightning, Hooligan blasted it, it buckled but did not break. Next, Flea stepped up and tore it from the hinges. We were able to escape whatever fate was prepared for us. We searched the rest of the floor, and ran into a bunch of Chinese Tongs with automatic weapons. We dispatched them pretty easily. I tried to fling one of them into his friends. Well, I flung him alright, but I missed the others and he broke into the elevator and down the shaft. We retrieved him, but he was in bad shape. I talked Hooligan into patching him up, I gave him some story about needing him for interrogation. I'm not sure if he bought it, or if he just did it to shut me up. Need to be careful using my full power on normals.
We went up to the next floor. Found a well stocked surgery. Flea examined some of the chemicals we found, but could not determine much without the proper equipment.
Up to the next floor. Of course the bad guys were waiting for us. There was a whole mess of Tongs, plus a rather interesting cast of villains:
- Salvo: a eurotrash mercenary with a high tech energy rifle
- Speedfreak: can run so fast he's a blur
- Esper: telepathic woman with mind control powers
- Decay: a grotesque monster with the power to decay matter
- Dr. Black: crazed surgeon who seemed to get off on blood
Well, we started off squaring off with Salvo and some tongs. Salvo managed to peg me and flea with some energy blasts, that eventually sent me flying down the stairs. We managed to start pairing down the thugs, until Speedfreak got involved. Not long after I got myself out of the stairs, Salvo was down but so were Hooligan and Flea. I moved to shield them with my TK, to give them a chance to shake off the cobwebs. Speedfreak came back for another pass, I concentrated all my TK into defending us. By this time, the thing called Decay was also closing in on us. Speedfreak ran into my wall of TK force, and about knocked himself out. He seemed unsure after that, and withdrew for a while. Hooligan and Flea managed to get up, and we continued the fight against the thugs and Decay. Soon we could hear Dr. Black and his minions getting ready to leave. I had to send Flea and Hooligan in to try and stop them. I was too busy with Decay. He touched me several times and I could feel my flesh burning. I hammered him as hard as I could, but I wasn't sure he even felt it.
Meanwhile, Hooligan got overwhelmed by Speedfreak and Esper. I managed to catch the speedster with another wall of force, but not fast enough to help out Hooligan. At this point, Dr. Black slashed the throat of his assistant, and inhaled the steam from the blood. He seemed to get stronger, faster, and more crazed. I was getting mauled by Decay. Flea reported that Esper used her powers to get him to sit down and not fight. Dr. Black tried to cut up Hooligan with a scalpel. Good thing he's tough. Flea broke out of the mind control, but Dr. Black used some kind of nasty chemical on him. Buy this time it seemed that Speedster and Black had enough. They started for a fire escape. We were not able to stop them. I was still getting shredded by Decay, luckily Flea recovered and came to help. Working together, we were able to put Decay down, although it took an amazing amount of pounding.
I had taken so much damage from Decay I though it might be the end. We got Hooligan up, and he managed to stabilize the damage.
I looked through what was left of Dr. Black's papers. He didn't manage to destroy all of them. It took me a while to piece together but eventually I figured out the horrible truth. Dr. Black hadn't even put the pieces together. (Pun intended) The parts that caused the flame outs came from a street gang called the Seperoths. After examines all the evidence, it seems like these gangers are all vampires! I know it sounds crazy, and in the past I would never believe it. But all the pieces fit. The vampire organs burst into flames when exposed to sunlight. Seems these vamps got into a fight, took enough damage to go dormant, then were sold to black for parts. We destroyed all the vampire parts and called the L.A.P.D. for the rest.
Learned that this gang hangs out at a club called Tech Noir. Hooligan and Flea asked around. They were offered information if they came to a warehouse that night. Well, of course this smells of a trap, but it was our best lead. Besides, I didn't think they would know we are paranormal.
Hooligan and Flea went to the meeting. I flew in and waited on the roof as backup. This chick who thinks she's in the cast of "Innocent Blood" starts talking:
"You are the group who raided Dr. Blacks operation?"
"Yes."
"What did you do with all of the parts?"
"We let them burn in the sun."
"Good, Ok....kill them."
Suddenly I hear a whole mess of Vampires jump out of the darkness. Yep, stepped right in it again...
Tuesday, June 07, 2005
Sunday it is
Okay, Sunday will be the cookout and history session, starting at 5 pm and going til whenever people get tired and wanna go home. Or 10pm, whichever comes first. :) If people are bringing SOs that's okay, but let me know so I know how much extras we will need. Also, if some of you could bring buns that would be great as well. I'll have baked beans, fruit salad, chips, soda, pasta salad etc for y'all.
In other news, it appears that no matter what I do, I will either be short Nigel or Matt for the next session. Therefore I have decided that I will just go ahead and run this thursday for Tim and Nigel, and Matt will just have to suck it. I believe I won't have a Nigel for the next Thursday session, so it's better that way I suppose. It's good that Tim has been keeping such good mission logs, as it means that nobody gets completely left out of the loop.
All this is dependant, of course, on Nigel and Tim still being able to do Thursday. If neither of you two has checked the blog and replied by this evening, I will be calling you. Or rather, will have already called you, from your temporal perspective.
In other news, it appears that no matter what I do, I will either be short Nigel or Matt for the next session. Therefore I have decided that I will just go ahead and run this thursday for Tim and Nigel, and Matt will just have to suck it. I believe I won't have a Nigel for the next Thursday session, so it's better that way I suppose. It's good that Tim has been keeping such good mission logs, as it means that nobody gets completely left out of the loop.
All this is dependant, of course, on Nigel and Tim still being able to do Thursday. If neither of you two has checked the blog and replied by this evening, I will be calling you. Or rather, will have already called you, from your temporal perspective.
Sunday, June 05, 2005
Flame on
(From June 2nd 2005)
Vanguard Mission Log:
I still wanted to check out the Flame angle, even though it seemed likely to not be related after out encounter with the Ogouns. Part of me just didn't want Det. Bakerfield to die in vain. I thought of it as following through with his last case.
We approached the "Flame Factory." Flea scouts ahead and confirms that it's active. Hooligan and I crash through a skylight and the game is on. At first there appears to be only your basic thug, but then things get a little weird. This real nasty looking thug grabs the Hooligan by the neck. A couple of headbutts later and it's clear that this thug is some kinda cyborg under his skin. I tried to help the Hooligan out, but I wasn't able to get a grip on him with both of them thrashing about. I was reduced to shouting encouragement. Before I know it, there's this slick looking business man and his wacko looking henchmen who join in. They refer to him as "Mr. Grishom" and he seems to know the Hooligan. He even says "Didn't I kill you?" What a prick. Well he dismisses us, and leaves his henchmen to fight us. I got nailed pretty good by Grishom's goon, and went down. I was able to deflect most of the bullet impact but it stunned me pretty good. We managed to overcome all the enemies, and capture some of the techs.
We examined the office materials. Flea didn't think that Flame, (a fun mix of amphetamines, steroids, and hallucinogen) could cause someone to burst into flames. Damn. Another dead end.
The next thing we know, this weird person drops through the ceiling. I didn't get a great look at him, but he was all black, had no pupils, and seemed to have stars or something all over him. He drops a bomb into the chemicals so we have to evacuate quickly.
I get back to my office the next day, and there's someone named Dawkins waiting to see me. He's from the Institute for Human Advancement. He tries to convince me to support the statute requiring all paranormals to get insurance for property damage. I tell him straight up that I think this bill is nothing but an end run to registering mutants and paranormals. The conversation quickly goes south and he predictable threatens me politically. The next day, there are some protestors in front of my office.
We decide to dig further into the medical records of all the victims. Flea is able to get information that all of the victims had some sort of transplant. Furthermore, they had the transplant not in the hospital, under less than legitimate circumstances. We split up. Flea follows our favorite shady paramedics, while the professor and I go down to the hospital to talk to a doctor. He tells us that these transplants are illegal. He thinks that Dr. Black is behind them, and that the Chinese Tongs might be supplying body parts. Soon after that, Flea calls:
Flea: I followed Mack and Gasser, you'll never guess what they were doing though.
Vanguard: Illegally harvesting organs?
Flea: How did you know that? Well I followed them to China town...
Vanguard: ...to the office of Dr. Black.
Flea: Yeah, I think so, how did you know all of that?
Heh. Just one of the great little moments. Flea has a great idea that maybe it's whatever he's using to stop the organ rejection that might be the source of the combustion. We head on down to this office. After breaking in, we find nothing. Nothing incriminating at all. Yet we saw our favorite two medics come in here. So we look a little harder and find a secret door. Hooligan is able to get past the security door. We enter and underground lab. Suddenly we hear: "What is the password?" I quickly say "Kuata Veratu Nictrr...eh..uh....to.." but that doesn't work. A door slams down and we hear a hissing sound.
To be continued....or maybe not.
Vanguard Mission Log:
I still wanted to check out the Flame angle, even though it seemed likely to not be related after out encounter with the Ogouns. Part of me just didn't want Det. Bakerfield to die in vain. I thought of it as following through with his last case.
We approached the "Flame Factory." Flea scouts ahead and confirms that it's active. Hooligan and I crash through a skylight and the game is on. At first there appears to be only your basic thug, but then things get a little weird. This real nasty looking thug grabs the Hooligan by the neck. A couple of headbutts later and it's clear that this thug is some kinda cyborg under his skin. I tried to help the Hooligan out, but I wasn't able to get a grip on him with both of them thrashing about. I was reduced to shouting encouragement. Before I know it, there's this slick looking business man and his wacko looking henchmen who join in. They refer to him as "Mr. Grishom" and he seems to know the Hooligan. He even says "Didn't I kill you?" What a prick. Well he dismisses us, and leaves his henchmen to fight us. I got nailed pretty good by Grishom's goon, and went down. I was able to deflect most of the bullet impact but it stunned me pretty good. We managed to overcome all the enemies, and capture some of the techs.
We examined the office materials. Flea didn't think that Flame, (a fun mix of amphetamines, steroids, and hallucinogen) could cause someone to burst into flames. Damn. Another dead end.
The next thing we know, this weird person drops through the ceiling. I didn't get a great look at him, but he was all black, had no pupils, and seemed to have stars or something all over him. He drops a bomb into the chemicals so we have to evacuate quickly.
I get back to my office the next day, and there's someone named Dawkins waiting to see me. He's from the Institute for Human Advancement. He tries to convince me to support the statute requiring all paranormals to get insurance for property damage. I tell him straight up that I think this bill is nothing but an end run to registering mutants and paranormals. The conversation quickly goes south and he predictable threatens me politically. The next day, there are some protestors in front of my office.
We decide to dig further into the medical records of all the victims. Flea is able to get information that all of the victims had some sort of transplant. Furthermore, they had the transplant not in the hospital, under less than legitimate circumstances. We split up. Flea follows our favorite shady paramedics, while the professor and I go down to the hospital to talk to a doctor. He tells us that these transplants are illegal. He thinks that Dr. Black is behind them, and that the Chinese Tongs might be supplying body parts. Soon after that, Flea calls:
Flea: I followed Mack and Gasser, you'll never guess what they were doing though.
Vanguard: Illegally harvesting organs?
Flea: How did you know that? Well I followed them to China town...
Vanguard: ...to the office of Dr. Black.
Flea: Yeah, I think so, how did you know all of that?
Heh. Just one of the great little moments. Flea has a great idea that maybe it's whatever he's using to stop the organ rejection that might be the source of the combustion. We head on down to this office. After breaking in, we find nothing. Nothing incriminating at all. Yet we saw our favorite two medics come in here. So we look a little harder and find a secret door. Hooligan is able to get past the security door. We enter and underground lab. Suddenly we hear: "What is the password?" I quickly say "Kuata Veratu Nictrr...eh..uh....to.." but that doesn't work. A door slams down and we hear a hissing sound.
To be continued....or maybe not.
Do that Voodoo
Vanguard Mission Log: (from June 23rd 2005)
We had just dispatched the Mongles when two weird looking folks came up to us. They said they represented the Ogouns and that their leader wanted to see us. After a little talking, we discovered that the leader, "Ignatious," is under the impression that we would like to join him. So we decided to go with them.
I'm asking myself: why did I agree to go with them? It's surely a dangerous situation. I guess I just wanted to get to the bottom of things. Also, the invitation was just so strange. They just came up to us an invited us, because they think we want to join? I had to know what was going on.
We are lead to a walled compound in Downtown L.A. Inside is a scene right out of The Serpent and the Rainbow. (well if you add automatic weapons) There's a bunch of naked degenerates dancing in a drug haze around fire. This ignatious dude is voodoo priest right out of a Hollywood movie. There's also some crazy Merc with a autocannon. Ignatious has your expected femme fatal at his side, all decked out in pointy things ready to be thrown at yours truly. It quickly becomes evident that this Ignatious and his minions are completely nuts. He offers us a spot in his group, which of course I decline.
At this point I had a choice. Start a fight or just get out of there. I started the fight. Sure we were outnumbered, but I felt like they were unorganized, and frankly, second class "bad guys." Still wondering if power is going to my head. This certainly wasn't the best tactical move in the world.
The fight was on. Hooligan delivered his usual brand of mayhem in his extreme style. I got rid of the autocannon guy for a bit, I didn't want to deal with that until we got some of the odds down. As usual, the ace in the hole is The Flea. It just seems that most of these guys can't deal with the unusual combination of powers he possesses. They can't usually hit him, and he hit's real hard. I sparred with Ignatious and the knife chick. We did well, but we fought more like three individuals instead of a team. Fortunately, so did the enemy. We need develop a better feel for each other in combat. Well we had the most trouble with this Cyborg or robot that they brought out. After winning the fight, The Flea captured a girl who was trying to escape. She turns out to be a computer specialist who was trying to get away from the Ogouns. Her name is Laura, her online handle is Wytoka. We agree to let her go if she gives us all the information we need to put away the Ogouns. She agreed. After examining the evidence, it appears that Ignatious was not behind the burnings, although he was crazy enough to think he was. After all that, a red herring. But at least the Ogouns won't be bothering anyone for a while.
We had just dispatched the Mongles when two weird looking folks came up to us. They said they represented the Ogouns and that their leader wanted to see us. After a little talking, we discovered that the leader, "Ignatious," is under the impression that we would like to join him. So we decided to go with them.
I'm asking myself: why did I agree to go with them? It's surely a dangerous situation. I guess I just wanted to get to the bottom of things. Also, the invitation was just so strange. They just came up to us an invited us, because they think we want to join? I had to know what was going on.
We are lead to a walled compound in Downtown L.A. Inside is a scene right out of The Serpent and the Rainbow. (well if you add automatic weapons) There's a bunch of naked degenerates dancing in a drug haze around fire. This ignatious dude is voodoo priest right out of a Hollywood movie. There's also some crazy Merc with a autocannon. Ignatious has your expected femme fatal at his side, all decked out in pointy things ready to be thrown at yours truly. It quickly becomes evident that this Ignatious and his minions are completely nuts. He offers us a spot in his group, which of course I decline.
At this point I had a choice. Start a fight or just get out of there. I started the fight. Sure we were outnumbered, but I felt like they were unorganized, and frankly, second class "bad guys." Still wondering if power is going to my head. This certainly wasn't the best tactical move in the world.
The fight was on. Hooligan delivered his usual brand of mayhem in his extreme style. I got rid of the autocannon guy for a bit, I didn't want to deal with that until we got some of the odds down. As usual, the ace in the hole is The Flea. It just seems that most of these guys can't deal with the unusual combination of powers he possesses. They can't usually hit him, and he hit's real hard. I sparred with Ignatious and the knife chick. We did well, but we fought more like three individuals instead of a team. Fortunately, so did the enemy. We need develop a better feel for each other in combat. Well we had the most trouble with this Cyborg or robot that they brought out. After winning the fight, The Flea captured a girl who was trying to escape. She turns out to be a computer specialist who was trying to get away from the Ogouns. Her name is Laura, her online handle is Wytoka. We agree to let her go if she gives us all the information we need to put away the Ogouns. She agreed. After examining the evidence, it appears that Ignatious was not behind the burnings, although he was crazy enough to think he was. After all that, a red herring. But at least the Ogouns won't be bothering anyone for a while.
Odds and ends
I have to say that Thursday night was one of those perfect sessions for me as a gamemaster that makes it worth while. So much got done, questions were answered, plots advanced. And there was a really great scene, with the Hooligan suspended in the air with a cyborg's hand wrapped around his throat, flailing wildly as Vanguard stood off to the side shouting encouragement..."You've got him now, Hooligan! He's right where you want him!" "Achhhhelllp meeee *choking sounds*" And a recurring enemy was made...I know I have done my job right when Matt says "I HATE that guy". And then the session ended on a cliffhanger. Awesome.
Let's see. Game log reminder again, after this week we should be rejoining the whole group. Things have gone very well, I almost hate to join you guys again! It's been very good for character development I think, because everyone gets a bit more screen time in the smaller groups and I can concentrate more on individual interests.
I still want to do the History thing, so next weekend, Saturday (or Sunday if people would rather) I will hold a barbeque at my parent's chateau to which you are all invited as long as you bring some paper, pencils, some meat to grill and some beer to share. I will provide side dishes, soda, dessert, stuff like that. Say around 3pm? Please let me know.
Finally, the Thursday group is on Monday again this week, unless Nigel says he can't.
---Brad
Let's see. Game log reminder again, after this week we should be rejoining the whole group. Things have gone very well, I almost hate to join you guys again! It's been very good for character development I think, because everyone gets a bit more screen time in the smaller groups and I can concentrate more on individual interests.
I still want to do the History thing, so next weekend, Saturday (or Sunday if people would rather) I will hold a barbeque at my parent's chateau to which you are all invited as long as you bring some paper, pencils, some meat to grill and some beer to share. I will provide side dishes, soda, dessert, stuff like that. Say around 3pm? Please let me know.
Finally, the Thursday group is on Monday again this week, unless Nigel says he can't.
---Brad
Thursday, June 02, 2005
Edgar again!
Brian...there is a note for you at your apt. when you get home, with the questions Edgar asked written down with numbers next to them.
Who was Adam the son of? See Luke 3:38
Does God have an opposite? See Exodus 3:14 and Ephisians 4:4-6
How many sons of God are there? Romans 8:14-17
Are the sons of God also gods? John 10:34
Are any sons of God less than others? Colossians 3:4
What is the goal of prophets and teachers? Ephisians 4:11-13
How many minds are there? Deuteronomy 4:39 and Exodus 3:14
What is a human being? Genesis 1:26
Is mankind finished or in process? John 3:2
How much can we and should we attempt? John 14:12
What is the purpose of life and consciousness? 2 Corinthians 9:8 and Luke 12:32
What is the next step? Romans 8:19
Who was Adam the son of? See Luke 3:38
Does God have an opposite? See Exodus 3:14 and Ephisians 4:4-6
How many sons of God are there? Romans 8:14-17
Are the sons of God also gods? John 10:34
Are any sons of God less than others? Colossians 3:4
What is the goal of prophets and teachers? Ephisians 4:11-13
How many minds are there? Deuteronomy 4:39 and Exodus 3:14
What is a human being? Genesis 1:26
Is mankind finished or in process? John 3:2
How much can we and should we attempt? John 14:12
What is the purpose of life and consciousness? 2 Corinthians 9:8 and Luke 12:32
What is the next step? Romans 8:19
Monday, May 30, 2005
Vanguard Mission Log
As things get more complex, I decided it was prudent to record something of my adventures as Vanguard. I don't know where this journey will take me, but I feel like I cannot take these powers for granted. I'm currently forming my team for a run at the state assembly. Hopefully this will be the first step on the road to the White House. A mutant in the White House, now that would shake things up.
Date: (Brad help me out here)
I've been talking to American Eagle about acquiring the old super base downtown. I'm not sure if we qualify as a "super team" just yet, but a place to meet seem like a good idea.
Heard that there was gunfight, and Crusade killed White Lightning. I can't say as I'm sorry to see White Lightning go, but I can't condone Crusades methods. I might have to take him down.
The Professor brought to my attention some recent reports of people bursting into flame and burning up. A Jamaican gang called the Ogouns has taken credit. Together with the Flea, we looked up all the past victims.
I called some police contacts, and found out the Mongle Hoard have been taking over territory from the Tiger Claw gang in China town.
The Hooligan checked out "The Creamery." Found out that Crysta had a respitory illness last year.
The Flea investigated Taggart. Found out he ran the Pair-a-dice club, an illicit gambling place. He was charged, but the charges were dropped.
We were not able to get much on Chase, she had no close friends or family in the area.
Talked to Grandinger's widow. He was working on a secret project for work. He burst into flames while at the beach. Recently, he had skin grafts from chemical burns received on the job. Picked up some files on the job, sent them to a friend of the Prof's for analysis.
Found out that Paindragon checked into the Jim Morrison dependency clinic a while back. He used to be involved in gang activity, but that was many years ago.
I talked to Bakerfield's partner, a Detective Gehl. He said that Bakerfield was acting "itchy" right before it happened. He was investigating the Shadowfists, who basically run the drug trade in L.A. Bakerfield had the location of a possible drug factory, probably manufacturing Flame. The Shadowfists are well financed, well equipped, and employ super-powered muscle. Six years ago, they basically ended the new Guardians as a group.
Bakerfield recently had medical problems also. This is becoming a pattern.
Lastly, we went to question some Mongels about their leader, Jengis. They said it was the Ogouns who killed him. They claim he was treated recently by Dr. Black. They said that two para-medics, Gasser and Mack know where to find Dr. Black.
At this point things got out of hand. I provolked the gangers into attacking us. It was not my intention, I was just trying to project a "tough" street attitude. For some reason, I went to far. Does this have something to do with having so much power? Does power really corrupt? Maybe it was just the Irish in me. Heh. We easily dispatched them, but it didn't have to go down this way. Have to keep track of my temper. I want to display a positive public image as a mutant.
There definitely seems to be a pattern here of drugs, gangs, and strangely enough, medical problems among the victims. We will probably follow up on the Dr. Black lead next.
--Vanguard
Date: (Brad help me out here)
I've been talking to American Eagle about acquiring the old super base downtown. I'm not sure if we qualify as a "super team" just yet, but a place to meet seem like a good idea.
Heard that there was gunfight, and Crusade killed White Lightning. I can't say as I'm sorry to see White Lightning go, but I can't condone Crusades methods. I might have to take him down.
The Professor brought to my attention some recent reports of people bursting into flame and burning up. A Jamaican gang called the Ogouns has taken credit. Together with the Flea, we looked up all the past victims.
- Crysta Gayle : exotic dancer at "The Creamery"
- Jason Bakerfield: an LAPD police detective
- Bob Wilkins: a hacker who goes by "radioflyer"
- Darla Chase: middle manager for yoshima corp.
- Jengis Quan: leader of the Mongle Hoard gang
- Alif Gradinger: a pharmaceutical scientist for Fordem Chemtech
- John Taggart: killed outside a7-11
- Arthur Paindragon : a rap singer
I called some police contacts, and found out the Mongle Hoard have been taking over territory from the Tiger Claw gang in China town.
The Hooligan checked out "The Creamery." Found out that Crysta had a respitory illness last year.
The Flea investigated Taggart. Found out he ran the Pair-a-dice club, an illicit gambling place. He was charged, but the charges were dropped.
We were not able to get much on Chase, she had no close friends or family in the area.
Talked to Grandinger's widow. He was working on a secret project for work. He burst into flames while at the beach. Recently, he had skin grafts from chemical burns received on the job. Picked up some files on the job, sent them to a friend of the Prof's for analysis.
Found out that Paindragon checked into the Jim Morrison dependency clinic a while back. He used to be involved in gang activity, but that was many years ago.
I talked to Bakerfield's partner, a Detective Gehl. He said that Bakerfield was acting "itchy" right before it happened. He was investigating the Shadowfists, who basically run the drug trade in L.A. Bakerfield had the location of a possible drug factory, probably manufacturing Flame. The Shadowfists are well financed, well equipped, and employ super-powered muscle. Six years ago, they basically ended the new Guardians as a group.
Bakerfield recently had medical problems also. This is becoming a pattern.
Lastly, we went to question some Mongels about their leader, Jengis. They said it was the Ogouns who killed him. They claim he was treated recently by Dr. Black. They said that two para-medics, Gasser and Mack know where to find Dr. Black.
At this point things got out of hand. I provolked the gangers into attacking us. It was not my intention, I was just trying to project a "tough" street attitude. For some reason, I went to far. Does this have something to do with having so much power? Does power really corrupt? Maybe it was just the Irish in me. Heh. We easily dispatched them, but it didn't have to go down this way. Have to keep track of my temper. I want to display a positive public image as a mutant.
There definitely seems to be a pattern here of drugs, gangs, and strangely enough, medical problems among the victims. We will probably follow up on the Dr. Black lead next.
--Vanguard
Memorial Day
"...Thanks for the memories..."
Not really, This is just a reminder that several of us agreed to meet at Nigel's this evening to help playtest the political party, trick card game, Big Top Party. I figured I would show up in a couple of hours and make him fire up the grill, cook some food and wait for a bit, maybe play some shorter games.
Who's with me...lets GOOOOO! - Bluto from Animal House.
Not really, This is just a reminder that several of us agreed to meet at Nigel's this evening to help playtest the political party, trick card game, Big Top Party. I figured I would show up in a couple of hours and make him fire up the grill, cook some food and wait for a bit, maybe play some shorter games.
Who's with me...lets GOOOOO! - Bluto from Animal House.
Friday, May 20, 2005
Gaming Next Week
Just a note to remind people:
Brian, Shawn, and Jeff, you are still on for Wednesday. We will NOT be switching days to Thursday, it will stay Wednesday.
Nigel, Tim, and Matt are on for Monday next week, then back to the regular Thursday after that, unless someone knows something I don't. That is all.
Brian, Shawn, and Jeff, you are still on for Wednesday. We will NOT be switching days to Thursday, it will stay Wednesday.
Nigel, Tim, and Matt are on for Monday next week, then back to the regular Thursday after that, unless someone knows something I don't. That is all.
Thursday, May 12, 2005
POST IT you fools!
About a month and a half ago, Tim posted some character questions for 50 fathoms. I eagerly waited to see what people would post. Finally I posted my answers, figuring I'd get the ball rolling. To this date nobody else has answered. I realize that the post in question is probably out of people's minds by now, which is why I am reminding you of it. I want to see what people write, SO DO YOUR DUTY. Besides, it's more xp, and the more you people level the longer you will keep my sorry ass alive.
Tuesday, May 10, 2005
Champs History
Nigel and I were talking about Brad's proposal for us to write down everything we can remember about the Champs games. We thought it would work better if we did it as a GROUP, maybe take an hour or so and work through all the plot lines together while someone takes notes. Then we could write it up later. Whadda think?
Wednesday, May 04, 2005
Cinco de Matto
For those of you interested, an evening of beer, food, and trivia will be had at Old Chicago on Thursday, May 5th, which may or may not be linked to the fact that that day is my 30th birthday.
I'm hoping to be there by 6:30, and I'm not sure how long the Old Chicago portion of the evening will last before I head downtown. Long enough to re-establish my NTN dominance*, anyway.
So...come one, come all.
Incidentally, how cool is the Old World Bestiary?
* - That's right, Tim. Dominance. Suck it. Suck it long, suck it hard.
I'm hoping to be there by 6:30, and I'm not sure how long the Old Chicago portion of the evening will last before I head downtown. Long enough to re-establish my NTN dominance*, anyway.
So...come one, come all.
Incidentally, how cool is the Old World Bestiary?
* - That's right, Tim. Dominance. Suck it. Suck it long, suck it hard.
It's Christmas!
Everybody: Your gaming orders have arrived! If you all are coming to Matt's B-day party on Thursday, please let me know. I will bring you your stuff and you will bring me the money plus $2 shipping...I need to send Shawn a check soon. If you are not going to make it on Thurs, please make arrangements to get your stuff and pay in the next few days. Brian, I did not give you an invoice yet, but the Warhammer book you ordered is in and cost $30.00.
Thanks!
Oh, and in other news, I am a character in the new Hudson City supplement for Champs. HAHA!
Thanks!
Oh, and in other news, I am a character in the new Hudson City supplement for Champs. HAHA!
Monday, May 02, 2005
Hooliganisms
So, I was preparing the new character sheets for the Champs run, making them on the Hero Designer program to replace the old Heromaker sheets. I'm probably going to have to give you back your old sheets too, because a lot of you kept notes and stuff on the sheets themselves. Some people kept lists of NPCs, enemies, plot lines, etc. (In fact, I might suggest that people get themselves folders like Nigel had for our characters in his game, it may help for keeping track of notes and things) Matt, however, kept quotes on his character sheet. Just random stuff people said during the course of the game, completely without context...and they are hysterical (and mostly uttered by Jeff). I thought I would share his collection of quotables with the group:
August 14: "This may not be TOTALLY bad..." --Jeff
Sept. 4: "I was hoping you would suffer more." --Jeff
Sept. 11: "Well, yes...that particular money he stole." --Jeff
Sept. 25: "Go home you idiot." --Jeff
Oct. 24: "It's like he was gay, but no-one allowed him to get any ass." --Brad
Oct. 24: "G. Gordon Liddy finds you heartless." --Tim
I remember the context of two of those quotes...the Sept 4th was in reference to the Hooligan's punishment for attempting to murder White Lightning, and the G Gordon Liddy quote was in response to Jeff's suggestion that the gang of mutant kids squatting in the abandoned building should be evicted. If anyone remembers the context of the others, including my own, I kinda want to know. I find the Sept. 11 quote to be particularly hilarious.
Tim had one on his sheet too, which I believe was in reference to a statement Jeff made to the effect that he had hired Price to be the muscle..."To be fair, he did outsmart you. Maybe you hired him as brains." But I don't know who said it.
Funny as hell though.
August 14: "This may not be TOTALLY bad..." --Jeff
Sept. 4: "I was hoping you would suffer more." --Jeff
Sept. 11: "Well, yes...that particular money he stole." --Jeff
Sept. 25: "Go home you idiot." --Jeff
Oct. 24: "It's like he was gay, but no-one allowed him to get any ass." --Brad
Oct. 24: "G. Gordon Liddy finds you heartless." --Tim
I remember the context of two of those quotes...the Sept 4th was in reference to the Hooligan's punishment for attempting to murder White Lightning, and the G Gordon Liddy quote was in response to Jeff's suggestion that the gang of mutant kids squatting in the abandoned building should be evicted. If anyone remembers the context of the others, including my own, I kinda want to know. I find the Sept. 11 quote to be particularly hilarious.
Tim had one on his sheet too, which I believe was in reference to a statement Jeff made to the effect that he had hired Price to be the muscle..."To be fair, he did outsmart you. Maybe you hired him as brains." But I don't know who said it.
Funny as hell though.
Sunday, April 17, 2005
Bachelor (ette) party
Brian's Bachelor party (and Melanie's party) will be Saturday the 23rd. We will eat at Peking Buffet in Coralville at 6:30. From there proceeding to Daisy Dooks for nakedness. Spread the word!
Friday, April 15, 2005
Title for this weeks session
I say we call this week "Brad, The Betrayer."
Any seconds!
That was a very fun game.
For those who were not there
Betrayl at the House on the Hill is a great game which I give 2 thumbs way up!
Any seconds!
That was a very fun game.
For those who were not there
Betrayl at the House on the Hill is a great game which I give 2 thumbs way up!
Saturday, April 09, 2005
Next Week
Nigel will be gone next week, so we should decide what we want to do. We can still use his place if we want to. We could do a one shot, do another beer n trivia, or a board game. If we want to do a board game, I'd like to suggest Game of Thrones, which rocks. Opinions?
Thursday, April 07, 2005
Gaming Cancelled
Just reminding everyone if they didn't get the message that gaming is a no go for tonight. We will have another edition of Beer & Trivia night at Old Chicago.
Saturday, April 02, 2005
Sin City!
I believe that Tim and I are making plans for the 4:45 show Sunday at the Wynnsong. I invite all who wish to join...I think we will meet at my house and go from there. Call me if you decide to show. Also, I don't have to work that night, so even if you skip the movie I was wondering if there was any interest in having a Beer n Trivia night again at Old Chicago afterwards. Probably around 8pm? RSVP if you are interested, so I don't sit there by my lonesome.
Friday, March 25, 2005
The four No's
I've been thinking about our current situation in the game & had an idea. I know there has to be some link between the first senarios we went through in the VR machine & the new senario. It would be easier to remove the bad implants if there was some similarities between the two sets of senario's. So when we went to the furnace room we are going through the dungeon crawl mission in the sewers. I propose that when we go to the roof. We will end up in the space garbage skow mission. So now the question is what equates to the video store senario & what equates to the mech warrior senario? Is the gym the key to one of the places? I mean we have the odd transition where we were wrestlers. This leads me to believe the gym is the key somewhere.
What does everyone else think?
What does everyone else think?
Wednesday, March 23, 2005
Character Questions
Here's a chance to earn some XP! A simple reward for those who are willing to think about their character. (and also a reward for those who actually read the Blog)
Answer these questions in Character. 1 xp for a good response, 2 for and excellent response.
What is your goal in life?
We think Caribdus is still drowning. How does that make you feel?
How do you amuse yourself during long boring sea voyages?
What's the first thing you want to do when you hit port?
How did you get along with your parents (if you had them!)?
Which of your companions do you like/respect the most? Why?
Which of your companions do you not like/understand? Why?
Also, could those of you who have your Character Sheets bring them to the game? I want to enter them into my new fancy computer program. Thanks.
Answer these questions in Character. 1 xp for a good response, 2 for and excellent response.
What is your goal in life?
We think Caribdus is still drowning. How does that make you feel?
How do you amuse yourself during long boring sea voyages?
What's the first thing you want to do when you hit port?
How did you get along with your parents (if you had them!)?
Which of your companions do you like/respect the most? Why?
Which of your companions do you not like/understand? Why?
Also, could those of you who have your Character Sheets bring them to the game? I want to enter them into my new fancy computer program. Thanks.
Monday, March 14, 2005
St Patrick's Day
So, I thought maybe we might want to discuss plans for thursday...I hope most of you will be able to make it. Transportation, meeting arrangements, that sort of thing might be useful. I don't know if anyone wants to be a DD, but one would certainly be useful.
Sunday, March 06, 2005
Arkham Horror
Check this out. Lots of details of Arkam Horror 2nd ed. It looks like a major overhaul, not just a tweaking.
http://www.yog-sothoth.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=188
http://www.yog-sothoth.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=188
Wednesday, March 02, 2005
The First Annual Beer and Trivia Challenge
Here ye here ye!
Thursday, March 3, 2005 shall be the First Annual Beer and Trivia Challenge! Come to Old Chicago and flex your mental might, while drinking fine malt and hops beverages.
I for one am throwing down the gauntlet against Quiz Bowl Boy! Bring it on.
Thursday, March 3, 2005 shall be the First Annual Beer and Trivia Challenge! Come to Old Chicago and flex your mental might, while drinking fine malt and hops beverages.
I for one am throwing down the gauntlet against Quiz Bowl Boy! Bring it on.
Monday, February 28, 2005
Saturday, February 12, 2005
Warhammer
Thought you all might find this interesting.
http://www.blackindustries.com/wfrp_playtestersreview.htm
http://www.blackindustries.com/wfrp_playtestersreview.htm
Tuesday, February 01, 2005
Drafted
I've been drafted Thursday! Actually my wife is going to be out of town, so I have to watch Aidan. Sorry, I won't be able to be there on Thursday.
Justice Restored to Middle Earth
In response to the aggression of Rohan, re-arming and building up along the Fords of Isen, the Dark Lord Sauron has reluctantly taken the situation in hand. "It was with heavy heart that I ordered the Nazgul to begin slaying elvish children in Lothlorien, but the duplicious perfidity of the Western Alliance needed to be put down." In revenge for this just move Tree-Men plundered the home of the gentle mage Saruman, elves of the Grey Havens greedily annexed the Shire as the "19th province of Elfdom", and treacherous Gondorians blocked a peaceful parade and demonstration at Minas Tirith by elite siege troops of Near Harad and Minas Morgul. Aragorn the Usurper executed the wise king Denethor, and then along with Gandalf the so-called White staged an invasion of the holy land of Mordor, nearly injuring several gentle hill trolls. In the capping indignity, scruffy hobbits, having stolen the Ring of Power which even the treasonous "Lords" of the West admit is the property of Sauron the Just, attempted to destroy the ring in the Cracks of Efficiency. Fortunately, as one would expect of their kind, they began quarreling among themselves, and were easily apprehended by loyal members of the Gestapo. So all citizens can take heart, the traitors have met their just fate, and the economy will soon be going great guns, and the trains will run on time.
Sunday, January 16, 2005
Wednesday, January 05, 2005
The Question is...
So the question is, are we garbage men dreaming we are exterminators? Or, are we exterminators dreaming we are garbage men?
Tuesday, December 21, 2004
A chance meeting
Delphino surveyed the carnage. Kraken are not prone to being sentimental, but this waste of life caused even him to pause. Of course, these slavers deserved no pity, and would get none from Delphino or his crewmembers. He winced from the fresh bullet wound in his shoulder. Suddenly, he noticed one of the freed slaves looked familiar. It was Marish, a Masiquani sailor he had served with on an a frigate some time ago. One of the few "dry-earthers" Delphino had come to call a friend. He strided over to Marish and raised his hand in greeting. Marish was glad to see his old crewmate, and was overjoyed considering the circumstances. Delphino and Marish exchanged stories. The masiquani sailor told about being waylaid in a dark alley in Baltimus. Then Marish told Delphino a most interesting tale...
Sunday, November 21, 2004
Bring out the sheep...
Matt has decided to join up with us! He shall now finalize his membership by performing the "rites" on the "ritual" sheep. Good luck Matt.
Tuesday, November 09, 2004
Gaming Day
Saturday, November 27th will be a board gaming day at Nigel's. Festivities will start at 11 am. That night, I'd like to get a Texas Hold 'em game going, probably at Brintle's. My kid needs a college fund.
Friday, November 05, 2004
The d6 question
After the zombie adventure, I'm convinced I like the "extra D6" for a raise damage rule. It's fast and quick, and leaves us with basicaly one roll where you have to count multiple raises. What does everyone else think? I don't think I'll change it in the middle of a game unless everyone else agrees to it, but I'm going to use it in the future.
Tuesday, November 02, 2004
Bennies and Cards
Tim and Lee and I were having a discussion the other day about bennies and adventure cards, and it got me to thinking. Tim pointed out that the reaction to adventure cards has been less than enthusiastic, which he found odd considering they are just free perks that don't need to be given out to begin with.
I see his point on this, although the natural reaction for someone who is given a card that he doesn't think will come in handy at all is to groan about it, it's certainly no worse than not having a card at all, and generally better. The main grousing point has been the card which allows a player to go through the deck and get a card of his choice...easily the most powerful card in the deck, and the one which people seem to like the least. ???
Now, I kind of understand the problem with it, as I once had the card myself and I kind of froze with it, not wanting to blow the card too early and regret it later. Those who get the card seem to suffer from somewhat the same problem...too many choices makes it difficult to make any choice at all, and it feels like it slows the game down. Tim has offered to take the card out of the deck...which is okay, I guess, but it will be detrimental to us over all even while making things easier on us the players. Perhaps the problem lies simply in the fact that we are all new at the Adventure deck, and aren't familiar enough with it. I know that if I had the deck down much better it would probably make it easier for me to judge how to use the card. What do you folks think?
This is an important question. I like the cards, but we as players need to make our feelings about them better known. Right now Tim thinks we'd rather not have them, which I hope is not the case, and if it isn't we need to show more appreciation for what the cards do for us, or we may lose them as a perk.
Now, bennies. Bennies are unanimously loved, I think, but there is a wide difference in how each player handles them. Most exemplified by the two players who seem to be at opposite ends: Shawn, who spends his bennies like water and me, who tends to horde them.
Shawn will spend his bennies early and often if he doesn't like a roll he gets, thus usually meaning he has none at the end of a session. Nothing wrong with that per se, but sometimes he gets a bit beat up on account of he runs out of soakers or doesn't have a bennie at a crucial moment. On the other hand I almost never spend my bennies unless I am soaking damage or I need to re-roll something which is crucial to the success of a plan (ie, the plan will fail if I fail my roll). I am a paranoid gamer who fears taking a big hit and reaching for a bennie to soak the damage...and finding them all gone. Or that I will need multiple bennies to soak the hit because I fail one or two of the soak rolls. In other words, I don't feel very safe unless I have two to three bennies at all times. Luckily my current character's power helps me keep bennies handy while still spending them.
Most everyone else is between Shawn and I on the "bennie spending" spectrum. Other than Shawn and Nigel (who starts with less), most folks have one or two bennies left by the end, but are willing to toss a bennie here and there to re-roll a damage roll (something I am LOATHE to do) or something along those lines. I am not advocating that anyone needs to change their bennie habits...Shawn's way is no less valid than mine. In the first half of the session though I think nearly everyone is a bit wary of spending a bennie until they have a general idea of how things are going. While persusing the bennie rules in the main book, I noticed something that could change the dynamics a bit, making those of us on the miserly end of the spectrum a little more free-spending and those on the free-spending end able to every once in a while have a bennie or two at the end of the session.
The rules state that, on the average, the GM should give out one or two bennies per session to each player, depending on play. Obviously you might get less if you suck, and more if you do some way cool stuff or make a great joke or what have you. I don't think I've ever seen more than one player gain one bennie in any session, and usually none. Are we just not doing very well at impressing you, Tim? Or have you chosen to set the bar higher? If you chose to set the bar higher in my case, given my character's unique edge, I would understand that. Something like the cliff-dive last session I would think would be benny-worthy, for instance...but if you thought "Well, I'd give a bennie to anyone else's character who did that stunt" I'd understand that. I'm not trying to grub for more bennies, is what I'm saying, but I do think it might be good for the others if you gave out more.
Then again, I could be wrong. We seem to do pretty good even without the extra bennies, so if you have indeed chosen to raise the bar as to what it takes to earn a bennie mid-session, I'm not going to argue too strenuously. I guess what I'm saying is, I'd like to know about where the bar is so as to give people more of a chance to try to impress the gm and earn some. Until I re-read the section on bennies I hadn't even given any consideration to that aspect of the game...it could have an entertaining effect on game play if people think more about things they can do to earn some bennie love.
I see his point on this, although the natural reaction for someone who is given a card that he doesn't think will come in handy at all is to groan about it, it's certainly no worse than not having a card at all, and generally better. The main grousing point has been the card which allows a player to go through the deck and get a card of his choice...easily the most powerful card in the deck, and the one which people seem to like the least. ???
Now, I kind of understand the problem with it, as I once had the card myself and I kind of froze with it, not wanting to blow the card too early and regret it later. Those who get the card seem to suffer from somewhat the same problem...too many choices makes it difficult to make any choice at all, and it feels like it slows the game down. Tim has offered to take the card out of the deck...which is okay, I guess, but it will be detrimental to us over all even while making things easier on us the players. Perhaps the problem lies simply in the fact that we are all new at the Adventure deck, and aren't familiar enough with it. I know that if I had the deck down much better it would probably make it easier for me to judge how to use the card. What do you folks think?
This is an important question. I like the cards, but we as players need to make our feelings about them better known. Right now Tim thinks we'd rather not have them, which I hope is not the case, and if it isn't we need to show more appreciation for what the cards do for us, or we may lose them as a perk.
Now, bennies. Bennies are unanimously loved, I think, but there is a wide difference in how each player handles them. Most exemplified by the two players who seem to be at opposite ends: Shawn, who spends his bennies like water and me, who tends to horde them.
Shawn will spend his bennies early and often if he doesn't like a roll he gets, thus usually meaning he has none at the end of a session. Nothing wrong with that per se, but sometimes he gets a bit beat up on account of he runs out of soakers or doesn't have a bennie at a crucial moment. On the other hand I almost never spend my bennies unless I am soaking damage or I need to re-roll something which is crucial to the success of a plan (ie, the plan will fail if I fail my roll). I am a paranoid gamer who fears taking a big hit and reaching for a bennie to soak the damage...and finding them all gone. Or that I will need multiple bennies to soak the hit because I fail one or two of the soak rolls. In other words, I don't feel very safe unless I have two to three bennies at all times. Luckily my current character's power helps me keep bennies handy while still spending them.
Most everyone else is between Shawn and I on the "bennie spending" spectrum. Other than Shawn and Nigel (who starts with less), most folks have one or two bennies left by the end, but are willing to toss a bennie here and there to re-roll a damage roll (something I am LOATHE to do) or something along those lines. I am not advocating that anyone needs to change their bennie habits...Shawn's way is no less valid than mine. In the first half of the session though I think nearly everyone is a bit wary of spending a bennie until they have a general idea of how things are going. While persusing the bennie rules in the main book, I noticed something that could change the dynamics a bit, making those of us on the miserly end of the spectrum a little more free-spending and those on the free-spending end able to every once in a while have a bennie or two at the end of the session.
The rules state that, on the average, the GM should give out one or two bennies per session to each player, depending on play. Obviously you might get less if you suck, and more if you do some way cool stuff or make a great joke or what have you. I don't think I've ever seen more than one player gain one bennie in any session, and usually none. Are we just not doing very well at impressing you, Tim? Or have you chosen to set the bar higher? If you chose to set the bar higher in my case, given my character's unique edge, I would understand that. Something like the cliff-dive last session I would think would be benny-worthy, for instance...but if you thought "Well, I'd give a bennie to anyone else's character who did that stunt" I'd understand that. I'm not trying to grub for more bennies, is what I'm saying, but I do think it might be good for the others if you gave out more.
Then again, I could be wrong. We seem to do pretty good even without the extra bennies, so if you have indeed chosen to raise the bar as to what it takes to earn a bennie mid-session, I'm not going to argue too strenuously. I guess what I'm saying is, I'd like to know about where the bar is so as to give people more of a chance to try to impress the gm and earn some. Until I re-read the section on bennies I hadn't even given any consideration to that aspect of the game...it could have an entertaining effect on game play if people think more about things they can do to earn some bennie love.
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