Vignettes

With the activity, the heightened nanites have caused some nasty weather conditions... it's one week before the convergence, and there's already some weirdness going on. Early Saturday morning, a week before Convergence, the group awakened to a thick fog; unable to get back to sleep, they wander sleepily to Saga (sans Priya, who somehow was able to sleep in). Halfway through breakfast, Agent Kit Muller called them. As he explained it, he has been somewhat injured after an altercation with a group of loup-garous south of Shreveport, and his car had gotten a flat, and he can't travel in the pouring rain. Deana was knocked out, and since the group had such good connections to all things weird, would they mind determining if he was about to turn into a werewolf?

They traveled there in two cars; Alistair narrowly managed to outrun a cop, but got there in time for Will to give some first aid, and wake up Deana, even though rain was pouring down like it was preparing for another Biblical flood. Kit was actually fairly hurt, but Alistair was able to at least assure him that he wouldn't turn into a werewolf. Loup-garous were just angry people, nothing to worry about. James pulled up in Will's car, and hopped out to change the tires, managing to get it quickly fixed. And a good thing, too - Alistair got a call from a distraught Mrs. Dolouse, who begged them to come help.

Returning to campus for Priya, they headed to the church. The Risen Church was hit by a tornado; while the Rev. and Mrs. Dolouse were safely in the back bathrooms, Bob had gone to secure the front doors, and got trapped under a fallen wall. James, Will, and RC put their shoulders to the wall, and managed to lift it long enough for the Reverend to shove a board under it. Crawling under, they pulled Bob out; he had a nasty bump on the head, but otherwise seemed ok. Mrs. Dolouse showered them with praise (in addition to the heavy rainfall). "I knew you boys would be able to help, with the tornado doing all this damage the police couldn't even get to us and the fire department is backed up and you just got here so fast, thank you, thank you!"

Next, they got a call from Officer Jones, the fellow who investigated them after the incident with the pedophile; it seems he was pinned down by "some weird stuff", and one photographer named Leslie begged him to call them for help. He was near the train tracks on 5th.

Arriving, the group managed to get up next to the officer, who confessed that he had no idea what was going on, but whatever they did, this seemed to be in their wheelhouse, and nobody at HQ would believe that he was fighting... well, whatever it was. Leslie, of course, was overjoyed to see them. As they spoke, a blast of lightning zinged into a tree, and another onto the path!

Priya and James, working quickly, put together a lightning-rod lance, and chucked it over the train car they were hiding behind into the path of the lightning blasts; it stopped the lightning enough for James, Will, and RC to get over to the creature - a huge lightning demon! Dodging bursts of lightning, RC went for the knee, and managed to trip the huge monster; unable to get it, Will and James were able to beat it to a pulp. And then Alistair nearly blew himself up touching its corpse.

All's well that ends well, though, and the group got out without any new injuries. Officer Jones thanked them, and Leslie couldn't stop beaming about the pictures she took.

Finally back on campus, little damage was done, apart from the flagpole being flung, spear-like, into the student center.

RC and Alistair each had a package waiting for them; RC was gifted a baseball bat, the first metal Louisville Slugger to come off the assembly line, in 1978; through its illustrious history, it had been a collector's item in several collections, but each time it was used as a weapon against intruders, and each tiem it knocked the burglar out in a single hit. The bat has two properties; first, the first time it causes a non-lethal wound, it automatically causes a second. Second, when doing agility-based tricks, it lends a +2 to the roll. Bob insisted the Reverend bring it over; he had purchased it a few years prior for his sports memorabilia collection, but felt it was a useful gift for the people that saved his life.

Alistair's package came from Kit; it was an old manuscript, a leather scroll upon which was written, "Hadrian's Form For Scroll". The 2 power point shield ritual requires a chip of a tombstone older than 100 years and chalk; its effect was to subtract 2 from an attacker's roll, either ranged or melee (or 4 on a raise). Alistair immediately did a little more research, finding an old grave site and getting a handful of chips. Additionally, a member of the ROTC crowd contacted him; having heard of their exploits, a few cadets were willing to lead a little extra time to the cause, given enough notice.

One week until finals...

Back From The Grave

As graduation draws nearer, so do the ley lines. Last-minute project failures aren't exactly uncommon, but it seems much worse this year; even the ultra-prepared are having trouble getting software and hardware alike working. Last week, the campus transformer blew out... twice. It's still 4 weeks until Convergence, and looming finals aren't helping anything.

Friday, the 8th of April, 2022, four weeks before graduation. It's midnight on a Friday; for once, everything seems to be working as it should be, so the group decided to blow off some steam at a Greek St. frat party. Just as the group met up, James caught sight of a shadowy figure, lurking in the darkness between two houses... He charged in, with Alistair right behind him, and the others trailing a little more cautiously. As James drew near, the creature snarled, then dashed... through the wall? James didn't recognize the creature, but Alistair did - Shadow, from Paccu Mansion!

The two dashed around the corner and in the back door, then headed upstairs... which looked suspiciously like a Pac Man maze. They wound through the passages until they came to the creature, standing at the end of the hall. With a shriek, it rushed towards them, but was rapidly bludgeoned into mist. The room returned to normal.

Regrouping outside, Priya spotted another creature - a hideous, bug-like monster - Eddie Ruiz! But wasn't he dead? James charged ahead, though the creature seemed intent on heading for Priya. Will passed James, and managed to land a blow; RC splatted a large number of bugs it summoned, as did Priya; James managed to get a couple blows in before Priya finished it off. This time, it seemed a whole lot tougher than before... and a lot more... moldy?

They didn't have long to contemplate before they heard a scream, just up the road. Some quick investigation revealed a were-tiger! It leaped out, but coordinated efforts put it down, hard.

Panting, they looked around, waiting for the next big nasty to jump out at them. They jumped when Will's phone rang - it was Leslie, once again asking for help. She was in her office, and a man was holding her hostage, and forced her to call.

At the offices of Cryptid Underground, everything seemed normal, except a crack/scrape in a hallway wall; once they opened the door, however, Dr. Miller, freshly in his werewolf form, bared his teeth... as a hulking frost demon crashed down behind them!

Will and Alistair fended off the werewolf, as the others attacked the frost demon; it beat James fairly severely, and handed out one or two wounds to the others as well. Will, finally, managed to chop through the werewolf, and turned to help just as the huge demon collapsed into ice and ash.

Priya managed to bind some of James' wounds, but only time would heal the rest.

Back To The Future

The laptop data recovered from EyePhi's silo had a fair amount of information about the plans set in place, but one piece of data stood out - some anomalous energy signatures near the loop. Three different locations, in fact. After a little prep, the group decided to start searching the various locations. That Friday, Jan. 28, they headed out - after getting an invitation to a party of some sort.

The first location revealed... nothing. They weren't able to find anything out of the ordinary. Further investigation near the second site - a school - revealed a blobby, man-sized shape, barely visible to human eyes - though Alistair's ley-line-revealing eye-drops showed it as a bluish cloud of dust-like particles. The next location revealed even more - a field full of blobs! Some seemed recent, others less so. Confused, they headed back to the first location, widening their search to a park in the middle of some very, very nice houses. Alistair spotted a couple fellows in white polos, as well as another person-shaped blob - this one more recent still, and intact enough to make out some basic details. It was definately a man, wearing a jacket, apparently looking at his watch.

They spent a few hours poking around before the party - only to realize the party was at the house with the polo-clad frat bros! While LeTourneau isn't exactly a preppie kind of place, the residents of the house were, in fact, ultra-rich, and in some cases forced to go to LeTourneau as a punishment of some sort. They served a lovely snack bar, next to their heated pool; a few students were already there, and others drifted in. Those the group recognized were fellow adventure-hunters; Leslie, from Cryptid Underground, a few survivors of the Burn, and others they had at least met in passing.

After some hanging out - and realizing that the rich frat boys were stereotypically snobby and condescending - they noted a party-goer who didn't seem to fit in. Fairly average looking, wearing a leather bombers jacket, and staying off to one side... Any time someone tried to approach him, they were intercepted by one of the frat members.

One of the frat guys called for the party's attention. The reason for this little get-together was a treasure hunt, for a prize of $5,000; given a small number of clues, they were expected to find the location of a... watch-like object. Almost immediately, about half of the party headed off, some to the field where the group had found the blobs of ley-dust (or nanite-clouds, as it were), and others to various locations around the city. The rest stayed behind, hoping for more clues. Priya and Alistair managed to corner the jacket-wearing fellow, and demanded to know if he was mind-controlling the rich snobs. He laughed, and managed to excuse himself.

The group initially followed the students heading for the blob-covered-field, but Will got a phone call from Leslie - she said she was trapped in a closet, but had discovered something, and... then the line went dead. Quickly, they hurried back, and crept in a side door; searching the rooms, they found a bow and some other weapons, as well as a fresh-as-a-daisy nanite-blob in a closet, in exactly the shape of Leslie...

Just then, two of the snobby frat guys stepped into the room - one with a bow, the other with a sword. As it turns out, not only do you have to be really rich to join their frat, you also have to have an amazing skill. Granted, no matter how good your skill with a rapier is, if you have five angry students with spears, baseball bats, and pipe-wrenches, you're going to have a bad day. It didn't take long before the two students were knocked unconscious. Just down the hall, the group found the jacket-clad man, and engaged him in battle; he kept trying to slap Alistair and the others with a weird glove, connected to an odd backpack, but was knocked out before he could.

While Priya was making sure the students and the unknown man didn't bleed out, the others rifled through the man's pockets. They uncovered a watch, a single penny, a rectangle of clear plastic, and a heavy gum-pack-sized thing. Alistair put on the backpack and the watch, and... vanished. For about 15 minutes.

After some creative interrogation, the jacket-clad man introduced himself as Artemis, a time traveler from 3082 AD, sent to recover a dangerous time device. The various objects were a time machine (the watch and backpack), a communication device (the clear plastic rectangle), a battery (the gum packet), and... a gun (the penny), which he gifted them, in exchange for their help in finding and destroying the watch. He'd spent too long here already, and being from the future, he'd know if the watch were destroyed, so he was confident they would be able to do it. He mentioned it was known to fall into the hands of a number of people - one of which happened to share a last name with Alistair's roommate. Coincidence? No, actually; allowing the man to return to his own time (though keeping the penny that could turn into a gun), they went to Alistair's frat, and found his roommate, who grabbed the watch for them - it was smashed from holding up a wobbly table. Alistair, of course, instead of destroying it to keep the future intact, carefully repaired what he could, resulting in what was effectively a fancy holographic cell-phone.

Their adventure over, it was midterms week, and happily, they managed to pass. Only one more set of tests before the end...