|
Recaps
May 2, 2016 17:40:18 GMT
Post by dtspurrier on May 2, 2016 17:40:18 GMT
Hello Fans my name is Darren Spurrier ( player of Gray Condor) and in the 20th and 21st session I filled in as guest writer and scott played a hero.
This episode is called " A matter of Sucoh Sucop (Hocus Pocus):
Scene opens with a call to Omega Blaster from Sargon the sorcerer a magician he worked with in Elgin. He invited Omega Blaster to a magic show in Carnegie Hall. Omega Blaster in his civilian identity gets permission from his boss to go to the show and get some pictures. Meanwhile Sargon also contacts Dr Masque and Magnifica who both have been touring the eastern seaboard, and ask them to perform with him and another magician Giovanni Zatarra. They both agree and head to New York. The gray condor is not available when Sargon tries to contact him. In fact he and Ragnar were flying to Brazil for an antique exhibit. While this is occurring a man new to this world by the name of Gandor the Great. Gandor is also a stage magician but also not of this world. He wants to find his home but in the meantime hears about the show at Carnegie Hall. He sees that on the card is Dr masque whom he identifies as also one of his kin and would like to meet him. He then travels to the concert
Opening act changes when it becomes news that Sargon the Sorcerer does not show up. Instead Gandor the great volunteers to go on stage as the opening act. The audience is amazed by his act and then Magnifica and Dr Masque are on next and perform greatly. However, during the final part of the 2nd act a stage hand goes up the catwalk and releases a sandbag at the duo. The stage hand is actually charmed by a spell placed by the villain. During the confusion, Giovanni Zatarra is captured by a mob family and the assistant is locked in the closet.
After stopping the stage hand and omega blaster switching costumes, the group meets and investigate the scene. They discover the kidnapping and besides a false lead planted in the mind of the stage hand about a warehouse, they find a matchbook to the Verdi square bar, a former speakeasy bar. After freeing and speaking with the assistant Juliana, the group offer to escort her back to the Waldorf hotel. when the group gets to the hotel the hotel is in chaos. Apparently more of this mob family has went into Zatarra's room and then open fired on the lobby to scare people and also shot a police officer. The group find out that the family is the Pizonias. After some more investigation the group splits up, Gandor the great to the docks and the others at the Verdi Square bar.
Gandor comes up empty but at the bar two of the Pizonias family are there. After a scene of ordering drinks and a possible scuffle that was prevented, the group decides to follow the two gangsters back to the lair. The see gandor on the way and they proceed to follow the gangsters to upstate NYC. The gangsters arrive at a guarded manor home. The group decides that Magnifica and Omega blaster will investigate the house invisibly while the others wait and pretend to have car trouble. Magnifica and Omega blaster are thorough and find out that the assistant Juliana is actually Julianna Pizonia mob moll and in charge of this kidnapping. She was tired of playing second fiddle and wanted the power and control for herself. Dr masqu and gandor the great walk to the gates apparently lost and get capture. After some scuffling with the mob guards and combat occurrs. With some heroics of omega archer knocking down doors, Gandor the great with spell casting, dr masque performing summoning tricks, and magnifica freeing Zatara, the heroes win.
Afterwards Zatarra thanks the heroes and gives them Julianna's wand and also a wand he discovered in the past he was not using. This wand can paralyze groups of people at once. The group goes back to Carnegie hall and performs a final spectacular show. Also Gandor asks Dr masque about his homeland and also why he is still on earth. Gandor departs saying his farewell and heads to Germany to find home.
|
|
|
Recaps
May 18, 2016 5:11:01 GMT
Post by Adminenkainen on May 18, 2016 5:11:01 GMT
The 24th session of the campaign picked up where we left off, with our three heroes desperately needing a diversion. They sneaked into a storage room and set a fire to distract the guards assembling in the main hall and kept quiet, even when they encountered two giant rats in there. But sneaking away from the fire they were spotted anyway and had to resort to their back-up plan of jumping into the portable hole and having an invisible Magnifica carry them around. And Magnifica spent a lot of time sneaking around, following the guards upstairs and back down, finding out that spirits inhabited the upper floor, and that the room they wanted was kept locked on the ground floor. Mag had to burn a Knock spell off a scroll to get them in and, inside, they found an office and a trapdoor leading down, which they used to escape just as the guards converged on them.
The lower level had five miners being forced to dig. They had a little useful information, and could confirm that Celie the Voodoo Priestess was down here. In exchange, the heroes agreed to free the miners. Moving through the rest of the tunnels down here, the heroes found lots of undead, but quickly developed a killer strategy of flying along ceilings and raining bullets down on everything they met. In this way, they reached Celie's cavern with minimal wear and tear.
The cavern had a large underground pool in it and Celie was talking to something large out on a rock in the middle of it for advice. Celie was also surrounded by a baker's dozen of skeletons and zombies. They didn't help her at all; Mag's Web spell trapped all the undead and Celie was gunned down before she could get off a spell. The thing on the rock swam out to attack and turned out to be a troll -- but it had to flee back into the water from their killer strategy and, even when they met it again later on land, they easily dispatched it with superior firepower. The whole lower level was like a cakewalk, with the heroes wiping out all opposition and cleaning all the treasure out of the caves -- even when five ghouls tried to rush them in their campsite, Gray Condor simply dropped a bomb on them all from up above and wiped them all out.
Everything changed when it was time to leave. Although Magnifica could have put everyone in the portable hole and dimension door'ed entirely out of the hideout, she had forgot to prepare that spell while resting. So they decided to try to escape back up through the trapdoor to the office. But the officers of the mercenary company were waiting for them. Captain Tulla went down in the firefight, but a magic-user named Wolo managed to charm Gray Condor and lead him away from the office. Magnifica and Super Soldier managed to chase off Lt. Odane, but a sgt. kept them pinned down behind the office desk with a military rifle. With Gray essentially out of the fight, Mag and Super both badly wounded and outnumbered (as soon as reinforcements arrived), it looked like the scenario had made a complete reversal and was going to end in a total party kill!
Except...while questioning Gray, Wolo found out that Celie was dead (they had actually taken her prisoner and stored her in the portable hole, but forgot and left her in there too long and she suffocated). Without Celie paying them, the mercenary company didn't really have a reason to keep fighting. So they made a truce with the heroes and let them leave.
Some time later, Magnifica received another projected image of her old mentor, Okanna. They had learned nothing about where her missing mentor was here in Trinidad, but he told her now that he was on the nearby island of Togo, and to come to him (next session!).
|
|
|
Recaps
Jul 14, 2016 5:04:46 GMT
Post by Adminenkainen on Jul 14, 2016 5:04:46 GMT
After a break, we resumed the 25th session of the campaign with three players playing Gray Condor, Magnifica, Super-Soldier, and Omega Blaster (Megan doing double duty on the latter two).
A week had passed. It was now Nov. 11, 1941. Magnifica had identified some of her new magic items, like Celie's bracers. Super-Soldier had invented a healing pill (just one!). Omega Blaster had joined them from Boston during a break in his adventures with the other heroes Ragar and Dr. Masque (and possibly to evade the law). Gray Condor was just sunning himself on beaches.
But now it was time to go to the nearby island of Tobago to meet with Okanna.
In the Shadow of Mt. St. George stood a lonely castle. Inside was a comely Hispanic lady -- Selena Castillo -- a homely black man -- Milo Merahie -- and Okanna the Veiled Prophet himself, in a suit, standing on a balcony. Okanna welcomed them to his new home and promised them answers to all their questions after a feast in Magnifica's honor. The feast was waiting for them in a dining hall on the second floor. It was at the feast, though, while eating, that Super-Soldier succumbed to the drugs in the food and fell asleep.
“I regret having to take these actions, Magnifica. I wish I could say it was for some greater good. But I have seen visions of my own mortality, and they frighten me. So much so that I have decided I must find a way to beat death. And I cannot do that without power. Much more power, such as I can absorb from the four of you.”
Battle was joined. Okanna wounded Magnifica with a spell. Magnifica went invisible to escape further harm, but Okanna cast a Detect Invisibility to find her.
Gray Condor and Omega Blaster started throwing grenades around the room. Okanna went down from a direct hit with Omega Blaster's strongest grenade, but Selena was only lightly injured on the periphery. When Milo was hit, his flesh and muscle melted away and he was revealed to be an ethereal skeleton with glowing red eyes. When he touched Omega Blaster and Gray Condor, they were energy drained!
The battle was going poorly for them. Super-Soldier was woken by the grenade impacts and crawled out of the room. Magnifica, feeling overwhelmed, also fled the fight. Gray Condor had a Confusion spell cast on him by Selena just before she fled the fight with a Dimensional Portal spell, and the Confusion spell left him sometimes attacking the bad guys and sometimes attacking Omega Blaster. Omega Blaster found himself facing Gray Condor (off and on), Milo, and an Invisible Stalker Okanna had summoned just before going unconscious. Omega Blaster took a shrinking pill he'd been holding onto for a long time and tried to slip away at 6 inches high. Milo let him go and left the battle, while the Invisible Stalker kept after its prey.
Downstairs, Super-Soldier and Magnifica had found the front door shut and locked behind them. Super-Soldier shot the lock off the door, but three wolves emerged from an archway and advanced on them. Magnifica cast a Web spell that entangled all three wolves. Then SS and Mag ran outside.
Next came OB downstairs, still being mauled by the Invisible Stalker on his trail. OB was moderately injured now, but ran into the Web to make the Stalker follow him. The Stalker became trapped in the webbing. Tiny OB wrecked his way back out of the webbing. GC came flying down from the balcony next and, in a sane moment, shot at the Stalker -- now visible because of the man-sized gap it left in the webbing -- and killed it while it was held fast. Then GC flew up to the roof of the building and sat there for two hours until the spell affecting him and making him a danger to the others passed.
Everyone else was camped outside now, applying first aid to wounds. They were pretty sure Okanna had to be dead -- he'd been hit by several grenade blasts after falling unconscious. Undead Milo was of great concern to them, but their desire for payback was greater. After 12 hours of uninterrupted rest, they went back inside the next morning.
It was agreed that they would explore the building floor by floor, methodically, rather than head straight back to the dining room. They found a kitchen where they met a well-spoken man carrying a book. GC in particular was convinced this guy was probably some form of powerful undead like Milo, though the man skirted his questions on the subject. The man explained that Selena and Okanna were evil, but that Milo had his own agenda and the man didn't know why Milo was working with them. In return for their courtesy, the man warned them about the obsidian wolf-headed statue in the next room and how to avoid animating it.
In servants' quarters, the heroes found lots -- about 30 -- zombies. They blew a lot of them up with a grenade and pretty easily mowed down the rest.
They found a sacrificial room and decided to have OB wreck the altar stone. This activated the Crystal Golem they had tried to avoid, but the golem fell to them after only modestly injuring GC.
They found a furniture storage room and, in a locked cabinet, found a silver sword and silver arrows. A note in the quiver said these had been crafted by Selena's husband at some point in the past, when he suspected her of being an evil shape changer. They also found stairs going up from the west wing to the second floor.
On the second floor, west wing, they found a sarcophagus with all kinds of sigils of dread warning on it. When OB decided to risk opening it, he appeared to be destroyed on the spot. But he'd actually been teleported inside the sarcophagus and a charred corpse had been teleported into his spot. But OB was easily able to wreck his way back out of the sarcophagus trap. From there, the heroes moved east into the main part of the building, back towards the dining hall... ((and there we ran out of time!))
|
|
|
Recaps
Jul 25, 2016 18:17:01 GMT
Post by Adminenkainen on Jul 25, 2016 18:17:01 GMT
The 26th session picked up right where we'd left off, with Gray Condor, Magnifica, Super-Soldier, and Omega Blaster still exploring Selena's castle on the island of Tobago.
Moving west from the wrecked dining hall, the Heroes checked the balcony from the waiting room and saw no one downstairs. When they went to return through the doors to the waiting room and touched the doors, though, a wolf howl could be heard very close by. Seeing no wolf, they moved into a west hallway that bent south and took them to a sitting room with nice paintings on the walls. GC took all the paintings and put them in his portable hole. Here, they found a secret door that led into a secret bathroom that had also doubled as a prison cell at one time. They found no one there and no treasure, so they returned to the sitting room and tried the door to the south.
A poison needle trap on the door handle hurt Gray Condor, but not badly, and Omega wrecked the door so they could get in without further trouble. Inside was a sumptuous bed chamber and, on the bed, a huge white wolf with glowing red eyes. People suspected this was Selena, since they knew from the note downstairs that she could change form. Not being sure, though, they were very hesitant about approaching it. The Heroes slowly fanned out into the room -- and that's when the wolf moved to attack. It had the ability to paralyze with its gaze -- and did so to OB -- and also had a vicious bite that seriously wounded Super-Soldier. The battle was long and vicious, but the Heroes wore down the huge wolf with their advantage in numbers. When it tried to fall back into the sitting room, an invisible Magnifica blasted it with a lightning bolt and knocked it unconscious. GC, thinking extreme measures were necessary, cut off its head with his silver saber.
With the wolf dead, they could loot the bedchamber. They found some treasure, though not a lot, under the bed. They also found a trapdoor under the rug in the southwest corner. It led to a "crawlspace" 5' high under this level. It led to another trapdoor, this one opening up into the corner of the secret bathroom. The crawlspace passage ended in a secret door that led to the dumbwaiter shaft they had encountered before. The dumbwaiter was big enough for two, so Mag and SS hopped into the portable hole to come along for the ride. They took it back up to the second floor and the waiting room -- where they found five wolves waiting for them. The Heroes made short work of the wolves, letting one live that slunk into a corner after being seriously injured. GC recalled the wolf howl earlier when they touched the balcony doors and believed (correctly) that it was a magical alarm that summons wolves.
They next took the dumbwaiter up to the third floor and found a game room with some sort of big, strange machine in the middle of the room. There were images of wolf faces engraved in the shiny metal surface of the cubical machine, so the Heroes were wary of it. Rather than figure out what it was for, they had OB wreck it to pieces. Instead of blowing up, or something dramatic, it just started to make a wolf howl noise but then fizzled out.
They headed east from here, still looking for the library and for Selena. What they found was a two-room giant spider lair. They moved past the web cocoons and found the giant spider. They shot it full of holes before it could even get close enough to bite anyone. Then they got around to cutting open the cocoons and freed giant rats, wolves, and even an old man who was crazy after who knows how long in captivity. They left the man to his own devices after he started chewing on a live rat.
Speaking of rats...the north-south hallway on the east side of the third floor had four doors off it that led into rooms filled with junk and giant rats. The Heroes tried to ignore the rats and move past, but got ambushed by five, and then swarmed by more when other rats started showing up. Some of the Heroes got bit and scratched up, but after they wiped out ten rats, the rest fled. The rooms were ignored.
Off an east-west hallway on the south side of the third floor, they found a room that held a young black woman resting on a bed of furs. She said her name was Wolfmaker, so called because she could work Selena's machine (the one they wrecked in the previous room, that they never found out what it did). She knew the white wolf Thunderwind and was horrified to learn he was dead. She was going to run off and tell Selena, but the Heroes dog-piled on her and held her down. When she started to turn into a wolf, GC stabbed her twice with his silver saber until she was unconscious. Then they tied her to a chair and left her here.
In the north-south hallway on the west side of the third floor, they found a boarded-up staircase going up to an attic level. OB busted them through and they found the stairs littered with the bodies of dead servants.
On the fourth floor, they were attacked by a suit of armor -- that went down as quick as the spider in a hail of bullets. They found more giant rats and tried to avoid them again, but nine rats swarmed after them and only fled after five had been killed. And they found Milo. Milo appeared to them in a black-draped room and the heroes -- fearfully of his energy draining power -- were more than willing to parlay with him instead of fight. Milo told them about how Okanna had not always been evil, but was under a curse that had made him this way. Only bathing in the waters of the Nile could have lifted the curse. Milo did not share an agenda with Selena (implying he predated her presence in the house) and did not mind if they dispatched her, but he did not know where she was. Gray Condor offered to help Milo pass on to the other side, but Milo had been here so long he no longer remembered what he was staying for.
The Heroes went back down and re-searched the house for what areas they might have missed -- and were ambushed by an invisible Selena. Selena attacked them with some powerful spells, but was outnumbered and outmatched. Selena fell, and the heroes took the house!
|
|
|
Recaps
Sept 12, 2016 17:59:29 GMT
Post by Adminenkainen on Sept 12, 2016 17:59:29 GMT
After nearly a two-month delay, we finally had the 27th session of the campaign. Two players did double-duty playing Omega Blaster and Super-Soldier, and Gray Condor and Magnifica, while they were joined by Johnny Thunder, fresh from the defunct Blue Box Campaign!
The Heroes had returned to the U.S. and Syracuse, New York. Gray Condor re-painted his beloved jet plane and visited the secret base he had rented that was gathering dust the last few months. The Heroes were back to plan their trip to Egypt, and to give Super-Soldier time to make more healing pills.
The plan was to fly to Monaco; it wasn't closest to Egypt, but it was a rare neutral country in Europe. It might have made for a nice mini-vacation -- only the Heroes stumbled across kidnappers trying to abduct Prince Louie II! The six kidnappers went down quickly from a sleep spell by Magnifica and a Hold Person spell from Prince Louie -- who wasn't Prince Louie at all, but Johnny Thunder! He had wished to be the Prince of Monaco in a fit and his Thunderbolt had listened to him for a change. Even Johnny wasn't aware his appearance had been changed, but it was soon sorted out. The Heroes all compared notes and Johnny decided to come with them to Egypt, to repay their kindness in trying to help save him.
It was GC who came up with the idea of safely circling the Mediterranean to Egypt by riding as passengers on a German zeppelin tour of the Mediterranean. The trip took a week, so it was Dec. 2 when they reached Cairo. By then, they had already heard that the British had chased the occupying Italians out of Cairo, so they weren't too surprised to see Egyptian flags over the capital.* They booked the most expensive suites in the finest hotel in Cairo (Omega Blaster, in particular, was loaded with spending money) before heading to the U.S. embassy to talk to Ambassador Alexander Kirk. Kirk said the Italians had only fled 100 miles west into the White Desert. Their forces were weak but, if reinforced by the Italians in Libya, they could retake Egypt. The U.S. had a small security force at the embassy and could do nothing to help (and wanted to stay neutral anyway). GC offered their "special skills" and volunteered to reconnoiter along the Italian lines.
But first, they had Okanna's remains to dispose of (it had been three weeks since Okanna's death; Magnifica had to embalm her own mentor). They went down to the Nile and were taking his remains out of the portable hole when a huge crocodile attacked them. But the Heroes hit it with lightning, bullets, and blasts of sheer power, killing it before it could even reach and attack them. The put Okanna's remains in the river and the curse was lifted on his remains. They even thought they saw his spirit ascending on a beam of sunlight -- which upset Omega, who had figured all this time that Okanna would be departing in the opposite direction.
GC was coming up with a plan for spying on the Italians, but his plan required a lot of invisibility and flying. Johnny Thunder didn't know how to fly, so they spent three days in Cairo while Magnifica trained the Thunderbolt to make Johnny fly. Then Magnifica cast Invisibility II (10' Rad.). Magnifica, Johnny, Gray Condor, and Omega Blaster could all fly at their slowest speed -- 40 MPH** -- while carrying Super-Soldier and cloaked in invisibility. This way, they sneaked up on a small oasis held by Italian infantry and a tank. Omega Blaster opened the earth with his powers and sank the tank into it. Then they chased off the infantry. They recovered a radio in a tent. GC contacted the Italian Army, pretended he was a soldier, and reported they were abandoning the oasis because it was haunted. The man on the radio said he would be sending reinforcements.
While they waited, GC tinkered with the radio and managed to contact the British forces in Greece and asked for back-up. But it took two hours to do that and, five minutes later, the reinforcements arrived -- four medium tanks and eighty infantry, twenty of them in an armored car.
Again, OB would lead, but this time he had a separate Invisibility spell cast on him so he could sneak up on a tank. He opened the hatch and started yanking the crew out, getting out two of the four before he was rendered visible. The two crew left put up a better fight than OB inspected, keeping him out of the fight outside for a bit. Meanwhile, the invisible team decimated the infantry with bombs and lightning bolts. Then they (minus Johnny, who stayed behind a sand dune) flew into OB's tank and helped him fight the other tanks with it. They managed to destroy two of the tanks before their own tank was set on fire. The Heroes were all damaged, some of them badly (particularly Magnifica). They allowed the one remaining tank and the surviving officers using it for cover to escape.
((*This never happened in real life, but the Italians occupied Cairo in the Blue Box Campaign because I hadn't done enough research first.)) ((**Actually, 40 MPH was supposed to be a sprinting speed, not overland speed, but I rolled with it.))
|
|
|
Recaps
Oct 12, 2016 21:26:44 GMT
Post by Adminenkainen on Oct 12, 2016 21:26:44 GMT
The 28th session of the campaign was a short one (3 hours), but an important one!
Johnny Thunder made contact with the Heroes in Egypt and found out that they planned to stick around there for awhile. Johnny wanted to join them, for the adventure of it, but needed a babysitter for his adopted daughter, Peachy. Green Lantern surprised him by having a paternal side, coupled with plans on becoming semi-retired on the West Coast. With that out of the way, Johnny returned to Egypt (using means we glossed over, because I wasn't sure how we'd do it...).
Back in Egypt, the Heroes Omega Blaster, Super-Soldier, Gray Condor, and Magnifica had encountered another ex-pat American superhero, this one going by Moon Marksman. Moon was an ex-Foreign Legion fighter turned mysteryman who had fallen into possession of a treasure map leading to lost crypts filled with undead under a mosque in Alexandria. Intrigued, the six heroes banded together to follow the map -- which, by its own admission, only led to a second map on a dead man somewhere on the west side of a maze of crypts and passages.
The Heroes spent some time reconnoitering around the mosque (mainly Magnifica, doing so invisibly), making sure it was on the up-and-up, and finding the other exit marked on the map. The stairs went down from unmarked doors to the deep crypt, where undead seemed to be waiting for them -- right there on the stairs! Johnny's Thunderbolt wiped out half of the walking dead with a lightning bolt and the rest were mowed down with bullets. It looked like this crypt raid was going to be a piece of cake.
Estimations began to be revised when they met what appeared to be the ghost of an ancient Egyptian priest, trying to silently coax them into touching a statue of Isis. Gray Condor nervously volunteered, and found that the ghost could communicate with him telepathically so long as he was touching the statue and the ghost was in the room. GC found out (and informed the others) that the priest died while consecrating these tombs and was punished with undeath for leaving his task incomplete. The Heroes, led by the ghost, found his remains in a cave-in, dug him out, and gave him a proper burial that allowed the ghost to pass over.
Sadly, this did nothing to get rid of the rest of the undead, something which became abundantly clear when they pressed on to find the second map. They encountered more walking dead in a long corridor and easily mowed down most of them again, with just two skeletons giving them trouble at the end. And that was mainly because five shadows ambushed them from the rear during the fight. The shadows were tough -- their two-dimensional-ness made them safe from Magnifica's web spell. Some people had silver weapons (Gray Condor) and magic weapons (Super-Soldier), but everyone else found their weapons useless on the shadows. And Johnny was getting double-teamed by the remaining skeletons and having a terrible time with them. Some of the Heroes, particularly Super-Soldier, were getting worried that the shadows might win this one, but eventually the tide turned, the Heroes got luckier, and the shadows started to dissipate from enough hits.
They kept following the map -- but ran into four more shadows! This time, the Heroes knew what to do and dispatched the shadows much easier.
The way was now clear to the room before the room the first map showed being the location of the second map. In this room were more walking dead. But while mowing these down, a headless mummy emerged from a sarcophagus and aided them. The weaker undead went down quickly enough that a lot of Heroes could gang up on the mummy. The mummy seemed to turn to flee towards the south wall, but was taken down from behind. Inspecting the south wall, Moon ascertained that it was just earth shored up with rotten timbers and the mummy might have been coming over here to cave in the room. Given that, the Heroes decided not to search for secret doors. Johnny did search the mummy (having had some experience with mummies already) and found some silver jewelry under the wrappings. Moon found the head in the sarcophagus. He was going to play with it, but it bite his hand and nearly broke his fingers.
In the last room were some bones and the complete skeleton of Sabah Saab, the man who held the second map. Omega took the map and showed it to the others. They were going to have to cross a lot more of these tunnels and crypts to get to the treasure room. They had been healing themselves/ each other with spells and healing pills all the while, but they were low on spells and healing pills now. It was decided that the treasure room could wait until the next expedition; they needed to leave.
The undead were not accommodating -- there were more walking dead in the last room before the stairs up. They mowed down the first bunch, and then a second bunch showed up from an east entrance, shambling towards them. Magnifica took out this second group with a lightning bolt of her own she'd been holding onto. Then it was just a simple stroll upstairs to safety, fresh air, and a good rest...
|
|
|
Recaps
Oct 24, 2016 22:01:10 GMT
Post by Adminenkainen on Oct 24, 2016 22:01:10 GMT
The 29th session was Omega Blaster, Super-Soldier, Gray Condor, Magnifica, Johnny Thunder, and Moon Marksman continuing their treasure hunt through the Haunted Crypts of Alexandria. Or at least it was after they waited a week for Super-Soldier to make more healing pills.
Or at least, that's what Super-Soldier was supposed to be doing. Unbeknownst until later, he had sequestered himself in a science lab at Cairo University working on a new design for a sub-machine gun. He was about halfway done (hopefully) by the 10th of December.
Omega Blaster found use in Alexandria, applying for permits to construct an animal shelter.
Gray Condor assigned people to watch the mosque the crypts were under in shifts, then volunteered at the aerodrome outside of Cairo. He soon made friends with the other pilots there and got some chances to fly. He also learned of an Italian military transport plane impounded there that he desperately wanted to get his hands on. He found he could bribe the aerodrome security for $10,000 to secure the plane, but he was still $1,000 short, even after borrowing from his friends.
Magnifica did some research on the crypts in Cairo, but soon lost interest in it. She also scribed her first spell scroll.
Moon Marksman went around Alexandria, taking down wanted posters of himself and avoiding the law.
Johnny Thunder spent time shopping for Christmas presents for Peachy (Gray Condor helped).
On the night of the 11th (after resting that day), they sneaked into the mosque under cover of darkness and descended once more into the crypts.
On a whim, they decided to skip following the treasure map at first and went to check out the tunnels to the northwest. The tunnels were long, and gave them a better understanding of just how huge and sprawling this complex was. Before finding any rooms, they decided to turn around head back -- and were met by a patrol of skeletal and shambling dead.
OB and SS made short work of the advancing undead, spraying them with so many bullets that OB had to reload his Tommy gun frequently. But, meanwhile, a smaller group of leaping, cavorting, half-animal undead were sneaking up on the group from behind. There were some light scratch wounds, but GC and MM kept that group in check. The two m-u's held themselves in reserve in the middle. While the tougher battle was going on behind them, OB and SS decimated a second wave of mixed undead approaching from the south.
The way was soon clear and they backtracked through the lower entry hall. Heading east (now following the treasure map), they chanced upon a patrol of two shambling dead -- but blew them away with guns. Veering off map to a room down a side passage, they found a dais and a stone box on it, surrounded by skeletons.
To no one's surprise, the skeletons were undead and started to get up -- OB, SS, and GC all sprayed bullets into the ones on the sides, leaving Johnny free to run into the room and try clubbing some with his truncheon (while M and MM guarded at the rear). The skeletons fell predictably fast to their gunfire, so fast that OB and SS decided to check out the box on the dais before the last skeleton went down. That was when OB and SS found out, the hard way, that the dais was trapped -- they fell into a 40' pit when the whole dais pivoted and flipped over. SS was unconscious from the fall and OB was injured and deeply distraught (complaining that a higher power was, perhaps, playing with him unfairly).
The trap proved vexing, but not lethal. GC and JT were able to flip the lid back open enough for OB to pick up SS and leap out. Then GC used his screwdriver and JT used swords in the room to wedge the trap closed, so they could investigate the sealed box. It did contain hundreds of ancient coins, that they collected as their due.
Back on the map again, they proceeded down a long southern tunnel with lots of side passages. MM wanted to search some of the side passages and, while he did, they were ambushed by two more of the half-animal undead they dubbed "ghouls". One went down pretty quickly, but it took GC and MM a long time to take down the second one, so agile and quick it was.
Veering off map again, they found a side room with a magic shield in it, which SS was quick to claim. They skipped the next side room they saw, since it was full of a suspicious mist, but decided to pursue the next three side rooms off the map, before reaching the treasure chamber.
The third to last side chamber contained what looked like a nest of constrictor snakes. OB decided to tackle it alone. As he started shooting at the snakes, he found out they were all attached and it was a 9-headed hydra! He expended a lot more bullets and a lot of his powers, but killed the thing before it could do more than scratch him once.
Everyone else thought this was actually encouraging, so in the next side room they all went in to face whatever challenged them! However, what challenged them there were three white, ghastly undead that stepped out of the shadowy corners and attacked. Everyone had a sense that these things were bad news -- confirmed when GC was energy drained by one of them! So they all ran out and Johnny fireballed them as the things chased after, ending them all. Returning to that room, they found more ancient coins, and gems, scattered among the bones.
The last side room was a long, steepled hall, with a mass of 10 shambling dead (or "zombies") in it, shambling towards them. Magnifica, who had been largely holding back until now, let loose a Web spell and caught all the zombies. Then the gunmen stepped forward and blasted the zombies through the webbing until they were all completely destroyed. But, while that was going on, seven shadows were stealing up on them. The Heroes tried switching to their silver and magic weapons (which did not go around enough for everyone), but knew this many shadows was going to be a tough fight. So the Heroes fled, with the magic-users both expending their last, best spells -- two lightning bolts -- into the shadows, ending their existence.
There was no treasure, per se, in the room with all those undead guardians, but there were a lot of hieroglyphs on the walls. Johnny translated them with a spell, and learned that it was the hubris of the Alexandrians who tried to build these "perfect" catacombs that first angered the goddess Isis (if it was in fact Isis who first cursed this place). But there was also talk of a "good wizard" that the treasure in the nearby treasure chamber was left in tribute to.
Said treasure chamber was just two rooms away -- but the Heroes had burnt through all their spells and powers. Even though most of them were still only lightly injured, they decided this place was too dangerous to stay in until they were at full strength.
But how to get back out, when this place was heavily patrolled by undead? GC and Mag came up with a plan where everyone climbed into GC's portable hole, then Magnifica, holding the hole, used a Dimensional Portal spell to step through and appear by the stairs that led out of this place. And it worked!
Everyone healed, sold off their ancient coins in Cairo, and confirmed with a spell that SS's shield was indeed magical.
|
|
|
Recaps
Nov 14, 2016 6:13:21 GMT
Post by Adminenkainen on Nov 14, 2016 6:13:21 GMT
For the 30th session we were missing Gray Condor and Magnifica, so Omega Blaster, Super-Soldier, Johnny Thunder, and Moon Marksman wound up on a side mission together, the next day. And it started at the Egyptian National Railway Station in Alexandria, Egypt.
Dec. 12, 1941. Friday afternoon.
A bomb had derailed a train as it came into the station at Alexandria and there was a fire on board. There was a machine gun nest outside the station house that was laying down fire to keep the National Policemen on the scene under cover. There were ten nomads on camelback harassing a crowd of innocent bystanders and keeping them from leaving the scene.
Omega Blaster used his rarely-used power of mass paralysis on the machine gun nest, and it affected everyone but the gunner. He then focused on trying to tackle the camel riders, with mixed results.
Moon Marksman leaped onto a balcony of a hotel overlooking the train station and fired arrows at the bad guys, injuring the machine gunner, but also two innocent bystanders as well.
Super-Soldier sneaked through the station house from behind it and tried to sneak up on the machine gunner, but the gunner picked up a grenade and threw it first. Super-Soldier escaped with light injuries, then got disarmed by the gunner, then pulled out more guns and shot the gunner dead.
Johnny Thunder went to the car on the train where the fire was worst, looking for passengers to save, and found two men in protective suits and gas masks tearing up the floor with crowbars. They attacked Johnny and he had to paralyze them both with a Hold Person spell.
With the machine gun nest cleared, the camel riders took off in all directions. No matter, the Heroes thought, as they had five prisoners to question. Only, their spells and powers were so powerful that their prisoners would all be paralyzed until tomorrow. OB, SS, and JT turned the prisoners over to the National Police, mentioned their FBI connections, and got permission to come to Police HQ tomorrow and help question them.
But, before that could happen, Moon Marksman watched the scene of the train station from a safe distance. He went into the train to find out what Johnny's prisoners had been after and found a wooden crate hidden under the floor. Back at his perch, he observed a plane that had been parked near the train tracks take off and fly away west. Unable to do anything about that, he waited until nightfall and broke into the station house* to look for the train's manifest. While searching, he was discovered by two policemen. A Benny Hill-like chase scene ensued, with MM dodging around the room while the two policemen tried to pin him down. When a third officer arrived on the scene and the police appeared to be getting the upper hand, MM had to flee empty-handed.
With everyone else at the hotel, MM opened the crate and found a small treasure trove of Egyptian antiquities inside. Johnny used magic to read the hieroglyphs on some of the jewelry and found these were likely ancient funeral items, long since stolen. Magnifica (in cameo) confirmed that none of them were magical. While Gray Condor (also in cameo) confirmed that the plane MM saw had been an Italian plane.
Later still that night, Omega Blaster decided to look for trouble in town. He found a man accosting a woman in the streets before midnight. Another person, an old man who reminded OB of a wizard, found the same scene. OB captured the man. OB's impression of the old man was cannily accurate, for the man introduced himself as The Sage and said he was impressed by OB's courage and strength. He was looking to hire men like OB for bodyguards. OB told him about his friends and took him back to the hotel where the others were staying. The Sage tried to impress them with his magic and cast a spell on Super-Soldier that kind of put him to sleep (though he actually wanted to go to sleep anyway). Everyone pretended to be impressed.
By coincidence, The Sage knew about the same crypts they had been exploring, though he knew considerably less than they did. They agreed to go down into the crypts with him on Monday, in exchange for equal shares of the hidden treasure (which they'd planned to do anyway).
The next day, the Heroes (with MM out of costume) went to Police HQ and questioned the no-longer-paralyzed prisoners. The men Johnny had captured in the train were Italian soldiers. Their mission had been to stop the train as publicly as possible, recover the crate and get it on the plane back to Italian High Command in Libya, or destroy the crate if they couldn't. The necessity of the public raid was to flush out the Heroes, who the Italians were beginning to suspect actually existed and weren't just invisible ghosts haunting the desert (see session 27). They had their orders from a master spy called Agent X, who always gave them instructions over the phone, and was said to be a master of disguise.
The other prisoners were all Egyptians and members of the Young Egypt Party (the "Green Shirts"), a militarized political party. They had bought their heavy ordinance on the black market and were paid for their role in cash, outside the U.S. Embassy. On cross examination, the Italian soldier could not say why the transaction had occurred outside the embassy, except to say that Agent X had insisted on it.
Johnny wondered if The Sage could be Agent X. MM was convinced that manifest he couldn't get his hands on held the key. He convinced everyone to try their connections to get it. SS tried his FBI connections. Johnny tried asking nicely. Finally, it was OB's animal shelter that won the day. The Mayor of Alexandria was a huge fan of the project and agreed to contact the Minister of Transportation and get him the manifest. Finally, MM had a list of valuable names.
At the embassy, the Heroes met with Ambassador Kirk again. He told them he'd be happy to have the Heroes do something about the Green Shirts, as it supported the U.S.'s pro-King stance in Egypt. The Heroes were less interested in playing politics than in finding Agent X. They interviewed everyone who had been on security detail the day of the exchange, one at a time, in the security director's office. The eighth security guard turned out to be Agent X.
Thinking he was caught (and not guessing that he was only going to be asked for information), Agent X threw a smoke bomb into the room and tried to make for the exit. He was as agile as Moon and no one could hold onto him. But Super-Soldier soon stun-gunned him, MM put him in a full Nelson, and that was it for Agent X.
Later, in epilogue, the Heroes took the items from the crate to be appraised and found the microfilm inside, which is what the Italians were after.
|
|
|
Recaps
Nov 28, 2016 19:12:41 GMT
Post by Adminenkainen on Nov 28, 2016 19:12:41 GMT
In attendance at the 31st session was everybody -- Gray Condor, Magnifica, Johnny Thunder, Moon Marksman, Omega Blaster, and Super-Soldier.
It was Monday afternoon, Dec. 15, 1941. The Sage came to meet the six heroes at their hotel in Alexandria. Still a little suspicious of The Sage, Gray Condor quizzed him for a bit. But they made their plans to go to the mosque together that night and use the secret entrance once more to the haunted crypts beneath.
Earlier, over the weekend, they had found the black market in Cairo and purchased lots of silver weapons there, as well as some grenades. They were feeling quite confident.
Because they had not yet confided in The Sage that they were working off of two maps of the place that showed exactly where the treasure chamber was, they decided to take a detour to the northeast first. The next room they found had 23 skeletons on the floor. While the heroes were debating on what to do about that, The Sage stepped through the room and was promptly surrounded by the skeletons as they rose up. The Heroes blasted away at the skeletons with guns and beat them with truncheons and hacked them with daggers until all of the skeletons were dispatched -- but The Sage had been killed early in the fight.
First thing was to search The Sage. His staff was likely more valuable than it appeared, and some flasks in his satchel may have been potions. Next, they wanted to do something appropriate with his remains. They debated several possibilities, but settled on burying him right here in an empty crypt, using the burial rite they learned when they interred the priest's remains on the first trip down here.
While walking to find a crypt was when they first noticed that skeletons and zombies were following them. As they got back on track of moving towards the treasure chamber, they became aware that at least 30 of them had accumulated behind them. It was not until they reached the long north-south hallway that, according to their map, lead to the treasure chamber that they actually encountered any ahead of them. OB and GC blew up the ones ahead of them with grenades, while Magnifica entangled all the ones behind them in a web spell.
Before heading north to the treasure chamber, the Heroes decided to check on the side rooms to the east. The first one was a room with a low ceiling they had avoided before because of the ominous, thick mist inside. This time, Moon Marksman decided to risk it. He felt his way around the perimeter of the room before discovering that the mist was slowly energy draining him. Before giving up, he found two passages to the south and a sarcophagus in the center of the room. The sarcophagus contained a copper box that held a ring. Moon claimed the ring as his reward for risking the energy drain, but it wasn't clear yet what the ring could actually do, if anything.
The next two side rooms, previously cleared, were still empty, but more skeletons and zombies blocked their way to the north. Gray Condor had a theory that maybe he could parlay with them, as he and Moon had just realized that they always attacked the undead down here first. But Omega Blaster wasn't interested in waiting to see if that would work; he charged up and laid waste to them.
The room before the treasure chamber had the same vampiric mist in it. GC tried to fly through the mist to see if he could move over it. In the middle of the mist, he found a giant mound of bones and some movement inside it. He flew back to the others, but not before being energy drained. They came up with a plan where Magnifica would turn GC invisible, everyone else would climb into his portable hole, and he would fly them across. He was energy drained again, but whatever was moving in the bones could not detect him.
Finally, they reached the treasure chamber. It was guarded by zombies, ghouls, and a spectre. Johnny took out most of the ghouls with a lightning bolt, but most of the zombies that were hit burst into flame and became skeletons that still kept coming. Magnifica targeted the spectre with spells, and was energy drained back. Super-Soldier was energy drained too, but Omega managed to dispatch the spectre with his magic sword. Anticlimactically, one skeleton survived last in the battle, but all the good guys won.
The rewards were great -- the treasure chamber had hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of treasure and magic items in it. But the most magical thing in the room was the archway hidden behind a giant slab of stone. Omega's earth control powers allowed him to roll the slab over, revealing the arch and a pit in front of it. The hieroglyphs on the arch instructed them to place all that they found here in the pit to gain "eternity". No one was keen on that, but they were really curious about the pit. GC flew 80' down it and still could not see the bottom with his flashlight. They tried dropping some coins and all the statues in the room into the pit to see if anything would happen, but that wasn't enough to satisfy whatever requirements the arch was expecting.
Abandoning the idea of exploring further, the Heroes settled on how to get out of there with their loot. The easiest way they had found, last time, was to pile all but Magnifica into the portable hole and have her use the Dimensional Portal spell off a scroll or a captured wand to get them back to the exit. But it was a tight fit for everyone in there and it would leave no room for all the treasure. So they packed themselves in like sardines with just half the treasure and zapped out with Magnifica's last copy of the spell.
Over the next week, they had all the treasure appraised and Magnifica identified the magic items they had found. They had over $400,000 in treasure in coins, gems, and jewelry, some of which was kept and some of which was donated to Egyptian museums. Moon's ring was a Ring of Mammal Control, but with one charge left in it. Gray had claimed a Shield +2. A magic shield Super-Soldier had claimed earlier turned out to be a Shield +1, +2 vs. Missiles. Moon got a flask of Oil of Etherealness. Omega got a khopesh sword that turned out to be cursed. As a consolation gift, he got a Potion of Giant Control. Magnifica got The Sage's staff (which served as his wand) and a powerful spell scroll from the treasure chamber with three high-level spells on it. There was also a Ring of Fire Resistance and the Sage's Potion of Healing.
Meanwhile, Gray finally had more than enough money to bribe the authorities and get him the impounded Italian Breda 9-passenger transport plane he'd been drooling over for two weeks now. He flew everyone home to the States just in time for Christmas.
((Everyone leveled up and capped halfway to the next level except for Omega Blaster, who is almost ready for 9th level.))
|
|