Monday, June 1, 2020

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...

No comments:

Post a Comment