[Buffy/Angel Actual Play] Nocturnum: The Pittsburgh Chronicles [Archive]

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The Grey Elf

05-23-2005, 04:45 PM

I don't often talk about my game or group on here, but I'm pretty damned pleased with how this season is going. After 3 years, these guys haven't even come CLOSE to getting tired of playing their characters--on the contrary; they get better and better with each passing session. They're not afraid to grab the reins and go for it, no matter what the cost.

I'll give you an example: this past Sunday, I had planned a goofy little one-off: a converted Call of Cthulhu scenario (which most of my sessions are, to be honest) entitled "I Want You To Kill the Ice Cream Man." It's available online for free; just do a Google search for it.

Anyway, like I said, it was designed to be a goofy little one-off. I've hit a turning point in the season and have been debating where to go from here, and my players deserved a fun session without angst, rage, darkness, murder, and someone's back story biting them in the ass for a change...

Or so I thought.

My players TOOK that goofy one-off and TURNED it into a trip down the road to darkness and insanity. At the end of the session, Cyan had gone completely dark (a la Season 6 Dark Willow) and the Cast had to organize a potentially violent intervention to get her to England where she has gone into "magic rehab" with Willow, Giles, and the Devonshire Coven. Cyan is now out of the game for at least a month game time. And all of this was 100% unplanned and completely driven by choices the players made for their characters, many of which had little to nothing to do with the scenario at hand.

Don't get me wrong; I'm praising, here, not complaining. My group rocks. I've never been so happy with a gaming group in all my years. I gave them the option to put their characters to rest after this season and start with a new crew and a new game set somewhere else, basically because I've wrapped up most of their back stories. The skeletons will all be out of the closet by the end of the season, and after 3 years of play, they're pretty damned powerful.

None of them were very keen on giving up their characters. It seems as if they're now busting ass to give me more fuel to use to screw with them. Heh.

Anyway, if there's anyone 'round here who hasn't kept up with our game and would like to see what our crew is up to, check out my website.

http://buffy.grey-elf.com/

And by-the-by, I claim the honor of being the FIRST one to cut an opening credits sequence for their cast ;)

TechnoGothic

05-24-2005, 01:16 AM

Its all Good, all the Time. - Herbal, Dark Angel

Anyways...

Sounds good.
If they want to continue, let them.
Sounds like they have ideas to run and advance their characters too Go with it, enjoy ;) We know you do ;)

Ask them, each one in private...if they have more story ideas they wish to explore with their characters.

Drake became human right.
Later on temp him with becoming a vampire again.
Or maybe, he starts to crave human blood after seeing someone killed. The urges of his old nature start to return for an unknown reason. Someone casts a Protection spell vs Demons, and later when Drake tries to attack someone, he get a mystical *bam-Pow* instead for trying it. Would that freak him out :D

The Initiative guy being offered to run a Group of Agents...with government sponsorship and backing. Would he be tempted ??

Cyan while coping with her magic addiction runs into another young girl abusing magic too, tries to help, Only to fall victim to the childs magics which sucks out Cyans magics entirely, barely leaving her alive...Entire the crew to help. Will Cyan try to recover her magics ?? Or will she be willing to let them fade away with the young girl ?? When i say sucked the magics out her, i mean sucked the very knowledge of how magic works out her, leaving her a Normal person unable to work magics. She cannot even grasp magic theories as a concept anymore...

One of the group is out one night a sees Walter *Who is dead if i remember right*
Is this Walter or Has he returned to life somehow. Then later another member of the group spots Kat *the Goth Slayer* killing a vampire in an Alley.
They could be from another dimension/reality, the Old friends back from the dead, they could be that Pure Evil entity from the buffy show season 7...

Go back to Old stories and make new twists to Old Ideas/plots, evolve them beyond...

brightstar

05-24-2005, 06:05 AM

Yeah yeah we rule. :D

Seriously, we wouldn't be the group we are without our fearless leader, who puts so much time and creative energy into the game, thus inspiring us to be the crew that we are.

Thank you.

The cd kicks some serious ass, btw.

The Grey Elf

05-24-2005, 06:31 AM

TechnoGothic

05-25-2005, 12:25 AM

The Grey Elf

05-25-2005, 06:48 AM

Ahh thats right...Forgot about that part of Walter's story...my bad.

He is in a New body ??

Would the group like it if something was using his Old body ??;)

Anyways, glade you liked a few of my ideas.
I have tons of them, all the time.

He's in a new body because his old one was cremated. One of his last requests that John found in his apartment when he died. ;)

I've decided to kick it up a notch. I'm trashing a number of episodes I had planned this season and am going to see to it that the fit hits the shan this week. Conspiracy, destruction, shadow wars...it's all on the horizon, along with some startling and terrifying revelations. Should be a good episode.

The Grey Elf

05-25-2005, 01:36 PM

So I just finished putting together this weekend's episode.

As a bit of a "Next Week on Nocturnum," I give you a cryptic flash of things to come, in the form of a poem by W.B. Yeats.

“The Second Coming”

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

TechnoGothic

05-26-2005, 03:17 AM

shway...

The Grey Elf

05-31-2005, 09:21 AM

<a href="http://www.grey-elf.com/buffy/ep314.html">Season 3, Episode 14: Things Fall Apart</a>

The episode begins as Anita rolls out of bed in the morning. Her shift at the Hive is not to start until noon, so it’s roughly 9 am when she awakens, showers, gets dressed and heads downstairs for coffee. As she goes down the stairs, she hears a strange noise coming from the back room: a sort of half-coherent moaning.

Investigating the sound, she discovers Alan, beaten and bruised, in her dining room. His clothes are tattered and he looks much the worse for wear. He looks up at her and says simply, “I failed.”

He will not have her call anyone; he’s utterly paranoid at this point and she is the only one he trusts. His story is that he finally tracked down the Black Sorcerer and tried to kill him, but failed, and now is in grave danger. He’s going deep underground, but will be back very soon. He may need her help to put an end to this once and for all.

Things get even darker. Alan reveals that it was none other than Daniel he had to go after.

As they talk, Anita sees a figure in black outside her window, leveling a silenced gun at either her or Alan (she can’t tell which). She dives for Alan, knocking him to the floor as the shot breaks through the window. Two Combine agents attack Anita in her house. She defeats the first by giving him an out of body experience and capping him in the head; the second goes after Alan. Anita jumps on the assassin’s back and puts her gun to his head, ending his career.

Meanwhile, arriving at the Hive early, Drake finds Jamie talking to Father Bob, terrified. She can’t find Daniel and certain members of her Wiccan Coven have decided that it’s time to fight back against the other Covenants, particularly the Rosicrucians, who they seem to believe have been keeping them down for centuries. They’re calling this a second Burning Time and are determined not to let it happen.

Not long after, John is approached upstairs by Sandra, who needs his help. She’s just rescued Carrie and Kay Hito from a massacre and has them, “someplace safe.” She asks John to come with her to talk. If he is hesitant, she tells him that Drake is welcome to come along as well, and tells him that caution is likely well-founded right now.

Once John agrees to go along, she takes him to the Upstage, which is closed this time of the morning. Sandra produces a key and unlocks the back door, explaining, “I’m friendly with the owner. He lets me crash sometimes.”

Inside, Carrie and Kay Hito sit quietly at a table. The two girls are beaten and bruised, but their injuries don’t seem serious. They are very shaken up. Sandra begins the story. She has quit the Sentinels. She has a story about how they’ve declared war on all the other Covenants as enemies of Heaven and are collapsing in on themselves. When she was ordered to spy on her friends in other Covenants, she stormed out. She suspected that the corruption couldn’t just be in the Sentinels and went to find Carrie and Kay at one of the Cabal’s safe houses. When she arrived, she found a group of unknown assailants attacking the place. Carrie speaks up, saying that she and Kay were coming out of their morning meditation when the attack happened. It caught everyone off guard. Kay’s foresight enabled the two of them to escape more serious injury, and Carrie’s telekinesis enabled them to fight their way towards the door. They met Sandra halfway, brandishing her flaming sword and trying desperately to get as many people out as she could. The two girls hail Sandra as a hero, and Sandra looks as embarrassed as John has ever seen her, insisting that she just did what she had to do. They dove down a sewer grate and made for safety, avoiding the demon underworld as best they could. Sandra brought them here so they could think a bit and track down help.

As they tell their tale, Drake hears the quiet rattling of the locks to the front door. Someone is picking the lock. John takes up a position beside the door, and as a Combine agent enters, he shoots the man in the head.

At this moment, a Combine strike team bursts into the room and attacks. There are fifteen agents, covering all three possible exits. Drake goes down in a hail of gunfire, but Sandra takes position over him, both to fight the agents with a sword of fire, and to heal Drake. Between Sandra, John, Drake, and Kay, the group finishes off the Combine agents and makes for the Hive. Sandra insists that they weren’t followed and she has no idea how the Combine found them. Kay, thanks to her Remote Viewing powers, notes that someone has put a mystical trace on John and Drake, and probably their other friends as well.

As the group deliberates this alarming turn of events, Amara shows up. Except it’s not just Amara. It’s Amara, sharing her body with Katherine. Drake moves to attack Amara, when Katherine speaks through the vampire, saying, “I’d appreciate it if ye wouldn’t be doin’ that, love.” Drake is aghast, and Katherine explains: some Tainted force is reinforcing the wall between the Threshold and Death Realms, and Malkuth. If Katherine didn’t create an anchor, she might not be able to get back to Earth. Because Amara is an ensouled undead, Katherine was able to create a more permanent bond with Amara, and Amara agreed.

Anita arrives, and Amara calls the Cast into the theater, where she informs them that the House of Thanatos is actively recruiting undead from the demon underworld, gearing up for war. Their first targets are to be the Twilight Order and the Iscariots. She suggests that Anita warn the Order, but asks that she return before dinner time. Amara has a few friends coming with whom she’d like the Cast to meet. If the Cast tells Amara about their misadventures this morning, she will be grim, but unsurprised. “It was only a matter of time,” she says, “before our enemies targeted you. You are the only thing standing in their way. But there will be time to discuss this later. Now, the Twilight Order must be warned.”

Anita goes to warn the Order, but John insists she swing by his house first, and get a bullet-proof vest. Given the situation, he’s not willing to risk any of his team. She agrees, and informs John that Daniel is the Black Sorcerer.

After leaving John’s, she goes to the Order where she’s greeted by a panicked supervisor and ushered into the office, where she’s shown a surveillance tape of a battle in an alley. The fight is between two agents of the Order that Anita knows personally, and two Rosicrucians that she’s seen in the store. The Rosicrucians brutally murder the agents of the Order. She’s told that the tape represents only one of several attacks on the Order by various Covenants and that the Order is going to war. She’s ordered unequivocally to cease any and all contact with members of other Covenants. If she refuses, she’ll be expelled from the Order and branded their enemy. Anita notices a subtle corrupting/manipulating influence on the necromancers in the Chapel House. She tries to reveal this and talk some sense into her superior, who says, “how do I know you’re telling me the truth? Perhaps it’s you who are being manipulated.”

He then informs her that if she’s not with him, she’s against him. He pulls out a pistol and tries to shoot her. She dives for cover, and makes for the front exit. On her way out, another (weaker) Necromancer tries to hit her with her own medicine: for an instant, Anita sees her body from above, but her formidable necromantic powers enable her to shake off the attack, and she gets away.

At 4:00 PM, Amara’s friends arrive. Amara suggests they hold council in the theater. The newcomers are none other than the Archangel Michele and two other unusual characters: a huge one-eyed man dressed in a brown poet’s blouse, breeches, and suede boots, who reeks of power and claims to be Odin himself; and the ghost of Benjamin Franklin. They have a story to tell and are looking to take the Cast in as a “war council” of sorts. For several years now, they have been preparing for the Reckoning, which they believed to be closer than anyone could’ve imagined. They believe that the Combine is behind it, and that in a twist of dramatic irony, the Combine has been infiltrated by a dark supernatural power.

Michele also has a dark revelation for the Cast: the Combine was founded by none other than the archangel Gabriel; this is the very reason Michele went into exile. Gabriel is one of the leading members of the Heavenly Host, and has manipulated his way into too much power for her to touch him. She has fallen out of favor with the Host and has gone underground until the time is right for her to come forward again. They also believe that a dark force rising within the Rosicrucian Order—the Black Sorcerer—is in league with the power behind the Combine’s push, though they don’t know exactly who this Black Sorcerer is. By way of sparing Jamie’s feelings, Anita and John forego revealing the Sorcerer’s identity; they merely say it’s someone they know and trusted.

The Alliance has come to the Cast because the heroes are embroiled in this plot up to their eyeballs, and the time for the power players has not yet arrived. “As horrible as things look now,” Amara will say, “There are far worse terrors on the horizon, and to tip our hand now would be the destruction of what may be the world’s only hope in the near future. The forces of darkness must not learn that the Old Gods have returned, and that an Alliance is being formed in the wake of the coming storm.”

John asks her to elaborate, and she responds, “think of myself, Michele, Odin, and Benjamin as four aces. Would you reveal your hand before all the bets are in?” John concedes it’s a strong strategy.

“Besides,” Odin adds, “the time for the gods to rule the world is long gone. The world belongs to man, now, and it is man who must fight to save it. It is merely our domain to help to create the alliance that will stand against the darkness.”

Right now the Templars, the one organization thus far untouched by the corruption of the war, are forming the backbone of this Alliance, and will be helping to absorb the castoffs from the coming storm into the organization. John then reveals to the Cast that he is a member of the Templars.

A final bit of information from their council horrifies the Cast. The Church of Revelations has gone public. It’s now protected by the First Amendment, and untouchable without severe legal repercussions. As they chat in the theater, they hear screams from the café proper, and as they race for the theater doors, an explosion rocks the place. Rushing outside after they get up, they’ll see the front room in a shambles, with bodies laying about the rubble. Father Bob, Jamie, and Dana are barely alive under the mess. In an ironic twist, while the Gifted barely survived, Jim is dead. The story the Cast gets from various survivors is the same: a black automobile pulled up in front of the store, the window rolled down, and a man in a black suit threw a hand grenade into the place. The car then sped off.

Michele and Amara are grim: it seems that the Cast has been targeted as enemies of the conspiracy. Not unexpected, but disheartening that it should’ve happened so soon and so suddenly.

It occurs to Anita that there may be some clues as to this whole mess left behind at Alan’s house. She goes to Alan’s and is sifting through the rubble. At that very moment, back at the Hive, Drake has a psychic vision of the scene playing out at Alan’s.

Many of his books and artifacts are still intact, including a few that she didn’t know he had. A few which are somewhat…dark…in nature. Anita discovers a few loose floorboards. Hidden under the floor, she’ll discover two books. The first is an ancient manuscript written in a proto-Germanic language. It’ll take time to translate, but deals with something called the Deeper Dark, a Black Stone, and an ancient sorcerer named Xalotun. It seems to be Hyborian in origin.

The other book is far more shocking, and Anita’s heart sinks as she lifts it from the floor.

It is the very copy of the John Dee Necronomicon that had gone missing from the Rosicrucians after Anita turned it over 2 years ago.

As Anita looks at the books, a quiet voice rings out behind her, “I’d really hoped you wouldn’t come here, Anita. I’m surprised the Rosicrucians didn’t discover those after I got away.”

As Anita turns, her worst fears are confirmed: Alan stands behind her, cloaked in black. He looks sad as he says, “You weren’t ready for this revelation, yet.”

Alan isn’t looking to fight; he’d much rather seduce her into joining him, and makes some very Darth-Vaderesque offers of power and glory to her if only she’ll accept Leviathan into her heart. Anita has been through a great deal and she’s seen what Leviathan can do; she is sorely tempted to accept his offer. In the end, she quietly says, “Alan, you know I can’t do this.” She begs him to come away with her and leave all this behind.

Alan simply says, “I’d hoped you would see it differently,” and unleashes a blast of Taint that blows Anita off her feet, across the room, and into a wall. But then, as she lays on the ground, bloodied, barely conscious, and waiting for him to finish her, she sees a touch of sadness, mercy, and conflict in his eyes, and he merely says, “I really do love you,” and proceeds to bind, gag, and blindfold her, and drag her down to the basement, where he chains her to the furnace.

As she lies there, beaten and broken, consciousness slowly returns and another quiet, pained voice sounds from the darkness. “Anita? Is that you?”

It’s Daniel, also chained in the basement and severely injured, but conscious. He reveals that he was the one who tracked down Alan and discovered that he is the Black Sorcerer. Daniel came here to put an end to Alan’s madness, and was unprepared for the strength of the sorcerer’s Taint. Alan beat him badly, but couldn’t bring himself to kill Daniel, and so dragged him down here and chained him up while he debated what to do with the man. “Now,” Daniel says, “It looks like we’ll be sharing the same fate, whatever that is. Anita, I’m so sorry.”

Alan knows the rest of the Cast will eventually track Anita and Daniel down; he leaves a few surprises behind to guard the prisoners, and buy him the time he needs to get away. Before he leaves, he summons a Shaitan, and six tainted creatures known as Serpent Hounds, and leaves them behind to torment and guard the prisoners.

Drake’s psychic vision of the exchange, along with some directions from Amara (who followed Anita there once before) leads the Cast to Alan’s house, where they have to deal with the welcoming party. After they have rescued the two, Daniel tells his story: Alan had disappeared months ago, and was always suspected of being in league with an Old One, but Daniel wasn’t able to tell the Cast for two reasons: first, the Rosicrucians forbade him reveal his mission to find Alan, and second, he knew Anita would never believe him. He’s also aware of the shadow war between the Covenants, and believes that Alan and Leviathan are behind it. He’s willing to set up a meeting between the Cast and the leaders of the Rosicrucians to exchange notes and see if his organization can help.

Anita is taken to hospital, where the rest of the victims from the attack on the Hive are recovering. John has left Sandra and Carrie behind as guards to ensure the Combine doesn’t try again. Sandra stays at Anita’s bedside until she’s released from the hospital.

Drake has another flash of memory from Draco: the secondary book that Anita found, the Black Sorcerer told Draco, is the book upon which Von Junzt based his own Black Book, Unaussprechlichen Kulten. If the Cast can get hold of a copy of that book, they might be able to get a clue what Alan’s next move is. Anita recalls that there is one in the University of Pittsburgh’s Darlington Memorial Library, for access to which they’ll need an appointment.

And things fall apart…

The Grey Elf

06-13-2005, 08:37 AM

Episode 15: The Demon of Catheway
Original Air Date: 6/6/2005
This episode is based upon two Call of Cthulhu scenarios by Dr. Michael LaBosierre. The adventures can be found here (http://www.chaosium.com/forms/Demon.pdf) and here. (http://www.chaosium.com/forms/badplace.pdf) For those of you looking to adapt these to your own games, be forewarned: it's entirely possible for your group to run through these scenarios without ever having to enter combat. Mine did (though I threw in a gratuitous zombie fight to give John something to do).

Special Guest Stars:

Omar Sharif as Dr. Armedt

Synopsis
Anita, in an effort to guess Alan's next move, spends a week studying the contents of Von Junzt's Black Book at the University of Pittsburgh's Darlington Library. She comes up with some positive, if frightening leads which point to the small town of Catheway, about 45 minutes northeast of Pittsburgh and south of New Castle, in Amish country. She meets with the Cast and presents her findings.

The Cast has a meeting with Daniel and with Dr. Armedt, the leader of the Pittsburgh branch of the Rosicrucians. During this meeting it is determined that the Rosicrucians as a whole are not tainted by the goings-on within the Covenants, but have been made a scapegoat for the war by Alan. In addition, Dr. Armedt reveals that a student of his, Bryan Dumont, purchased a rare piece of Egyptian jewelry for Bryan's girlfriend. When Armedt saw the jewelry, he was intrigued as to its origins and asked Dumont if there was any more where this came from. Dumont went to New Castle to visit the pawn shop where he'd purchased the jewelry, and hasn't been heard from since.

Anita reveals her findings from the Black Book, which indicate a cult ritual to resurrect an ancient Hyborean Sorcerer named Xalotun at a place of power marked by five Black Stones. She asks Armedt if he has access to a spell that will allow her to place an Elder Sign on the area, to stop the ritual. He promises to check the Rosicrucian archives and call her with whatever he finds.

Armedt suggests the Cast go to check out the happenings in New Castle and Catheway. Meanwhile, he will dedicate the resources of the Rosicrucian order to trying to hold off the Covenant war that's near boiling point in the city, if not as John reveals, the world. He also informs the group that a new mysterious tome has surfaced at the Carnegie, and that his agents are watching over it. Daniel is going to be assigned to attempt to decipher the manuscript, and if it turns out to be important, he'll contact the Cast.

It's off to New Castle. Following their leads, the Cast rents a hunting cabin in a housing development where there have been a string of recent disappearences. They then visit LaVec's pawn shop in New Castle to investigate the jewelry. LaVec shows them six more pieces and asks for $400 each. The Cast talk him down to $350 and Anita later informs the group that these artifacts are priceless and belong in a museum. There's no good explanation for why they are here; they could only have come from an Egyptian tomb.

Anita and Kay go to question Janet Green, whose husband was killed under mysterious circumstances. Mrs. Green is currently being kept at the New Castle Medical Center for observation, but is scheduled for transfer to Mayview State Hospital (a Sanitarium). The two women get very little from Ms. Green, as she starts raving about "a moose with dead eyes, and skin that was hanging, loose, from its flesh...a loose moose on the loose!" The staff have to restrain and sedate Mrs. Green, and explain to Anita and Kay that these ravings are commonplace with her. Still, her ravings, combined with the mentions of her story in the local papers, make Anita think zombies. The two head back. Armedt calls Anita and gives her the spell to activate the Elder Sign. First, the sign must be placed in something permanent: carved into wood, chiseled into stone, etc. Second, it must cover the entire area to be warded. Third, where this ritual is concerned, the points of the star must touch the five black stones, which Armedt believes are the poles for the resurrection spell.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch (literally), John and Drake are sitting on the porch having a beer and cigar, when just after dark they hear noises in the woods. John attempts to shine a floodlight in, to no avail. They approach the woods to investigate, and John calls Anita to tell her about the noises. She suggests they stay back until she get there, but at that moment, 11 zombies--6 human, 3 dogs, and 2 cows--burst out of the woods. John drops his phone and he and Drake proceed to decapitate the undead. As they backpeadal towards the cabin, a horde of undead emerge from the woods. Drake and John run for the house.

Ten minutes later, Anita and Kay arrive, driving over several zombies to get as close to the door as possible. Anita uses her necromantic powers to impart an aura of undeath on both herself and Kay, enabling them to move unmolested through the press and get in the house.

Once inside, the group debates what to do next. They're trapped and don't have the resources or power to get all four of them through an entire horde of zombies. John calls the Templars to appraise them of his situation, then nails a few tables to the windows, and they decide to try and get through the night. If they can get some sleep, they can come at the problem with clear heads in the morning.

At roughly 2 am, Kay has a terrifying vision of what appears to be a Satanic Black Mass going on in the woods. The vision includes four chest-high black stones, and a fifth, massive monolith, atop which sits a horrific, bloated, toadlike creature. The cultists dance in a 60 square foot area between these stones, which appears to be covered in some kind of ash. Along with the eight human cultists, a group of reptilian creatures and deformed, pygmy-like humanoids also dance and chant. The Cast nearly panics when Kay's eyes roll back into her head and she begins speaking in tongues, but she comes back to normal and tells them what she saw, and that she knows where the ritual spot is.

The next morning, miraculously, the zombies turn to ash. The Cast exit the cabin and make for the ritual site. Upon arrival, they find the area Kay described, but only four stones and no sign of a fifth. Worse, Kay is unable to get her bearings to figure out which end of the site the fifth Black Stone appeared, and without this knowledge, it's a shot in the dark where to place the top of the star that forms the Elder Sign.

Exploring the area, the group finds a hidden vault, roughly the size of the ritual site, that contains a cage. The cage itself radiates magic energy, and there is something dark and tainted within, that the Cast can sense, but not see. John approaches the cage to examine it, and is knocked off his feet by a charging Anita, who explains that she saw a black, vaguely-human shape manifest within the cage and try to grab John through the bars. No one but Anita saw the thing, leading to the group's assumption that it is some sort of ghost or phantasm of someone once living.

The shape within the cage begins to speak, trying to tempt Anita to let it go with offers of anything she wants. The conversation sends chills up Anita's spine, and she finds that she is actually afraid of the thing in the cage. Though it never introduces itself, she is certain that she's speaking to Xalotun.

John places a call to the Templars, asking for as much concrete to be flown in as possible. He explains the situation and informs them of his intention to create two Elder Signs in the area: one on the ritual site, and another on the concrete they're going to fill this vault with.

"Xalotun" overhears John's conversation and informs Anita very casually that if they create an Elder Sign on this area, two things will happen. First, it will simply be more difficult for Xalotun's friends to free him, but far from impossible, and Second, that when he is free, he will murder the entire Cast, one by one, in their sleep.

Anita announces that she feels the Cast should simply lie in wait for the cultists and (she assumes) Alan to show up. Xalotun says he likes this idea and encourages her and all of her friends to stick around all day, and not go anywhere. The seeds of doubt firmly implanted in her mind, Anita and the Cast eventually decide to go get breakfast and debate their next move.

They return to the pawn shop in New Castle, and bribe Mr. LaVec to give them the identity of the guy who sold the Egyptian artifacts to him. He gives them the name "Leland," and tells them that this Leland kid makes him uncomfortable and is often seen with a "Goth chick" and a few other guys, but that the stuff Leland pawns makes him good money, so he doesn't ask too many questions.

The Cast then goes to talk to Dan Jacobs, the man who rented their hunting cabins to them. Jacobs informs them that he hates Leland and his cronies, and would love to see them go down. Jacobs is an ex-cop who is convinced that Leland is involved in drugs and fencing. He tells John that Leland doesn't work, but still has money to rent a house and purchase a Trans-Am and three pickup trucks. He then asks the Cast to get back to him with any solid evidence they can find, and that he'll get the New Castle police in on things.

Leland's address in hand, the Cast goes to investigate his house, where they find the credit cards of the missing people, a lock box with an Egyptian scarab in it, and a phone book with the names of all of his gang (7 names and numbers, making 8 cultists in total). In another bedroom, they discover a quarter of the floor covered with sheet metal and the remnants of lots of burned items. The room is also full of accelerants and flammable materials--the indications of a pyromaniac. Also in this room they discover a journal with a hand-drawn map of the town and many key buildings marked with "X's".

Going to investiage some of the "X-ed" buildings, they discover homemade fire bombs set on the foundations. They debate on the meaning of this before coming to the horrific realization that most dark rituals require a sacrifice of some sort, and a ritual like the one to bring this Xalotun back would require a massive sacrifice...like the whole town.

They run to Jacobs with an "anonymous tip" about the evidence they discovered in Leland's house and he promises to work on getting a search warrant. They then rush to the ritual site to meet up with the Templars, who are flying the concrete in. The problem still remains of where the fifth stone appeared, and Anita touches upon the idea of calling forth the spirit of a sacrificed victim to ask. It takes an heroic effort on her part, due to the tightening of the walls between Earth and the Threshold, but she pulls a spirit forth and asks its help. The spirit tells the group where the fifth stone was, and Anita passes out from exhaustion.

When Anita awakens, the concrete has been poured and is beginning to set. The Cast manage to work the powerful and dangerous Elder Sign ritual together--twice--and the area is sealed. They go home victorious, feeling positive about being able to stop a dark act before it ever happened for a change.

Epilogue "Cut Scene"

The town of Catheway sits quiet in the dusk. The news of Leland’s arrest and his plot to destroy the town has not reached the ears of the townsfolk yet.

Two miles away, in the forest, the ground begins to tremble. The two newly-crafted Elder signs rumble and glow as an ancient evil struggles against the magic holding it at bay. With one final scream of rage, the evil sends all its power skyward. The heavens darken; dusk becomes black as midnight, and a green glow forms over the skies of Catheway.

Suddenly, a massive bolt of sickly green light shoots from the heavens, engulfing the entire town. In an horrific eternity of seconds, greenish flames cover every last building in the small town. The screams of the inhabitants last the barest of an instant. Then the light fades back into the darkness, which returns to the ground beneath the Elder Sign, a black mist that reveals the dusky sky beneath it.

Catheway is gone, utterly consumed by unholy fires.

“I didn’t know you had it in you,” a voice says from the forest.

“It wasn’t I,” comes a muffled voice from within the vault. “A side effect of those cursed wards, perhaps reacting to my anger.”

The figure steps from the forest, and Alan Collins stands surveying the Elder Signs. “More likely, the Elder Signs ensuring there are no nearby sacrificial victims to sate your hunger. I can’t free you from here, now. She’s a clever girl, my Anita. She and her friends are far more dangerous than we’d anticipated. An oversight on my part, I admit.”

“An oversight? You fool! I’ll never get free, now!”

“Relax, my lord Xalotun. There are other ways, other routes to the Deeper Dark. I’ll tear your soul free and you will return in all your glory. And then, my friend, Leviathan will rise to consume this world in eternal night. We shall be gods.”

“As of this moment,” Xalotun replies, “I care not about godhood. I will settle for vengeance.”

Collins nods, pats the side of the sealed vault, and says, “We shall speak again, soon.”

The Black Sorcerer turns and walks into the forest, as the last rays of daylight disappear on the horizon.

TechnoGothic

06-13-2005, 08:52 AM

sound cool still ;)
lots happening.

Bronze_Dragon_ECHO

06-13-2005, 12:46 PM

Its all Good, all the Time. - Herbal, Dark Angel

The Initiative guy being offered to run a Group of Agents...with government sponsorship and backing. Would he be tempted ??

Go back to Old stories and make new twists to Old Ideas/plots, evolve them beyond...

Yeah, except, as John player's, to him, he's already got that with the current group and the backing of the Knights Templar. Now if only I could convince Sandra, Carrie, and Kay to dress like Charlie's Angel and get Farah Fawcett hair...

:cool:

gunguy@greyelf.bizland.com

brightstar

06-13-2005, 07:58 PM

you and your friggin charlie's angels wet dream.

The Grey Elf

06-14-2005, 07:55 AM

If John even suggested that to Sandra, she'd break his nose, then ask God for forgiveness.

The Grey Elf

07-26-2005, 08:10 AM

Episode 16: The Heart of Ahriman
Original Air Dates: 6/26/2005 (Part 1) and 7/10/2005 (Part 2)

Special Guest Stars:

Omar Sharif as Dr. Armedt

Marisa Tomei as Amara

Lea Salonga as Kay

This Episode was inspired by the Robert E. Howard story, "The Fire of Asshurbanipal." The story itself can be found in the collection entitled Nameless Cults, published by Chaosium. I have taken some liberties and dramatic license with Howard's conception of the Mythos, combining his Fire of Asshurbanipal with his Heart of Ahriman, mentioned in the Conan novel, The Hour of the Dragon. I don't feel the parallels are too far of a literary stretch, however. The two gems are similar in appearence and power. 'Nuff said. On to the episode!

Oh, a P.S.: Some of you may recognize Don Tyson's name. Yes, he's a real guy, but no, I doubt he's really a Rosicrucian Scholar, and yes, he did write what in my opinion is the best game resource Necronomicon on the market, and the only one that succeeds in being faithful to Lovecraft.

Part 1 Synopsis
The Cast returns home from Catheway. They stop for a late dinner, and go their separate ways. That evening, Drake and Kay share a psychic vision: a man, slender and gaunt, looking like he might once have been attractive, but now is malnourished and obsessed, pours over a collection of ancient books, scribbling feverishly in one of a thousand notebooks on his desk. The vision shifts; a woman who was beautiful 20 pounds and 15 years ago tosses and turns in her bed, in the throes of a nightmare. It returns to the man, muttering in strange tongues as he reads and translates.

Suddenly, a vortex opens in the office. Papers blow everywhere, and the vision is shot with bursts of red, yellow, green, and purple lights, as well as lights in colors Drake and Kay have never seen before. A man—at least, it seems to be a man—steps forth from the portal and into the light. The man is Arabic, and yet somehow not Arabic. He wears a head wrap and the robes of a nomad, and sports a thick black beard, but his nose and ears have been cut off, leaving him to resemble a skeleton with skin. He approaches the man, puts his hand on the man’s shoulder, grins, and says, “It is time, Martin. The Fire awaits.”

Perhaps most horrifying is that the man speaks Arabic, but both Drake and Kay understand him clearly.

Then, the two men merge into one, the Arab vanishing into the body of Martin, who hastily collects a couple sheets of paper, throws on his coat, and walks out into the night.

Drake and Kay both wake up in their respective homes.

Drake, upset because the vision interrupted his viewing of the Mickey Mouse cartoon Steamboat Willy, first calls Kay to double check that they shared the vision, then goes to wake John, who in turn makes sure Anita and Kay get phone calls. As Drake briefs the group on his dream (and begs anyone around to tell him how Steamboat Willy ends), John gets two phone calls: first, a call from Cyan in England, who gets extremely angry that John and Anita drank a $3,000 bottle of wine, and hands the phone back to Willow as John begins to elaborate on the events of the past few weeks, saying, "I can't hear this if I'm going to get well."

The second call is even less pleasant: Max calls from the Templars to inform John that Catheway is gone, wiped off the face of the Earth by a brilliant green flame that rained down from the heavens about an hour after the Cast left town. John and Anita fear it's backlash from the Elder Signs they carved a few miles away.

The next morning, a woman named Amanda Seymour approaches the Cast, looking to hire Blake Investigations to find her husband, Martin, who disappeared into the night a week ago. The police have been unable to track the man down, though his car was found in long-term parking at the local airport, indicating he's possibly left the country (in which case it is a voluntary disappearence, out of the country and the police can't do anything about it).

Amanda mentions that Martin had been feverishly working on some new “pet project” of his lately, something about the key to translating some ancient historical text or another. Amanda, a housewife with a high school diploma, had little interest in her husband’s passion for amateur archaeology and ancient religions, so she doesn’t know anything about the exact nature of his studies. She will say, however, that recently he’d become more and more obsessive, ranting and raving about “the key” and how the secrets to the universe were his for the unlocking. Once she’d suggested he take a break and get away from the work for awhile, and he went mad, accusing her of working for “them,” and threatening her life if she ever interfered again. A combination of love and real fear of the madness behind his eyes kept her quiet, living in terror, until the night he vanished.

Anita, Kay, and Drake go to investigate the scene, where they find more pages from the Voynich Manuscript, and translation notes. They call Dr. Armedt of the Rosicrucians to inform him they've made an important find, and he says he'll be over as soon as possible; he has a few very valuable books he'd like the Hive security systems to protect, and one in particular could be of use to Anita and crew.

John makes a few phone calls--one to the Templars, and one to a certain high-ranking CIA operative--and is able to determine that Martin bought a ticket to Saudi Arabia.

Armedt shows up and presents Anita a "hot off the presses" English translation of The Necronomicon of Abd Alhazred, completed by a Canadian Rosicrucian scholar named Donald Tyson. He looks over the translation notes from Martin's office and says these are a breakthrough. He moves to take them to Daniel right away and asks that the Cast keep in touch while in Saudi Arabia.

John takes Kay to go get supplies for the trip, and Anita begins reading the Necronomicon. As she reads, she gets a visit from Nyarlathotep in his usual Ebonor guise. He offers information, makes a snide remark about Alan, Anita smarts off to him, he puts her face through a table, and leaves to go talk to John and Kay. John and Kay are more polite and respectful, and Ebonor informs them that one day Anita is going to push him too far and he's going to rip out her spine. Then he tells John and Kay that the path Anita's boyfriend is walking stands a chance of waking up Azathoth, and as he puts it, "you do not want Azathoth waking up and having coherent thoughts. It would be bad." John asks him to elaborate, because John is tired of being in the dark about the Mythos. Ebonor offers to take John to an alternate dimension for a thousand years to "give you the basics," then return him to this very spot in time, after which, "you'll wind up gibbering in a mental institution for the rest of your mortal life, but you'll know the truth, man!"

John declines.

Anita's research indicates that Martin may have summoned the spirit of the Mad Arab himself, and that he is headed for the Nameless City beneath Irem in the Empty Space of the Arabian Desert. The gang correctly surmises that nothing good can come of this and resolves to find and stop Martin before he gets there.

The group sets off for Saudi Arabia, where they learn that Martin has caused some trouble at a temple in Mecca. People are reporting frightening supernatural events occurring. The group charters a jeep and goes north to investigate. It seems that Martin walked into the great temple at Mecca, announced that the Old Ones were returning, cut off his nose and ears, stabbed several people, then lifted off the floor and flew out through a hole in the cieling.

Outside the temple, the group is attacked in an alley by a group of men who have the holy symbol of the Zoroastrian god Ormazd tattooed on their bodies. Drake winds up needing hospitalization, but they defeat the attackers. They try to take one alive, but discover that the agents all wear poisoned rings and have false tooth caps with cyanide capsules in them. Suicide devices.

Not to be outwitted, Anita summons the spirit of one of the men back, and the spirit informs her that they are members of a group called the Society of Ormazd, whose sacred duty it is to protect the location of the Black City. Even the members of the Society don't know how to find the city, but swear their lives to protecting the secret from the world. Hidden within the city, the spirit reveals, is a gem called the Fire of Asshurbanipal, or the Heart of Ahriman. The group recalls that this gem is one of the ways Alan can resurrect Xalotun, and wonders why it is the Mad Arab wants it. The spirit surmises that perhaps if Alhazred gets the gem, he can resurrect himself, but warns that there is a legendary and horrific guardian at the temple that will devour those who try to remove the gem from the priest Xuthltan, who is cursed to hold it in his dead fist for all eternity.

The spirit then reveals that the Cast are not the only ones who seek the city. A group of Tainted individuals have also arrived and are looking for Martin and the city. The assumption of John and Anita is that it's the CoR, sent by Alan. The race is on.

Part 2 Synopsis
The group flees into the desert, pursued by both the Society of Ormazd and the Church of Revelations. After a shootout with the CoR in the mountains, they steal additional supplies and follow the instructions in the Necronomicon: make a deal with the desert ghouls to lead them to the Black City.

They spend the next few days in the company of a pack of ghouls, seeking the city, when finally one morning, they awake to find the ghouls gone, and the city itself in the distance. The sight is foreboding, not simply because the city itself appears to be made of obsidian, but because it's above ground; the Necronomicon described it as being subterranean.

The group, however, has no time to debate. The armies of both the Ormazd Society and the Church of Revelations are hot on their tails, and not far out of rifle range. The group leaps on their horses and races for the city. Once they make the gates, they bob and weave through alleyways, searching for any building where they might find the gem they seek. They ditch their horses, the easier to remain stealthy, and begin their search. Eventually, Drake spots Martin--now quite obviously possessed by Alhazred--making a run for a temple of Ba'al at the far end of the city. The group gives chase just as the Church of Revelations reaches firing range.

With bullets whizzing by their heads, the group makes the temple. Anita, Drake, and Kay dash into the sanctuary after Martin/Alhazred, while John takes up firing position at the entrance, to try and buy them some time. Unfortunately, there are just too many of them, and John is overcome and knocked unconscious.

Meanwhile, in the sanctuary, Martin dashes for the front, where a mummified figure sits upon a throne, clutching a fist-sized glowing ruby: the Heart of Ahriman. Kay blasts Martin/Alhazred with her biokinetic powers, knocking him off his feet, and giving Drake time to try and get to him. Just before Drake catches the man, however, a gunshot rings out and a voice yells, "Stop right there!"

Drake turns to see about twenty to thirty members of the Church of Revelations, guns trained on the group. One of them throws John's unconscious body on the floor at their feet. Anita uses her Necromancy to check on him and announces that he's alive. The leader of the CoR group tells Martin/Alhazred to take the gem.

More gunfire. The Ormazd society has made the town, and the place erupts in chaos. John wakes up from the fire and begins taking out cultists. Kay and Drake turn to see Martin reaching for the gem. Both are accosted by CoR cultists and don't have time to get there to stop him. Anita calls upon her Necromantic powers to force Alhazred's spirit out of Martin's body and hold it prisoner. Martin collapses...but knocks the gem from Xuthltan's fist as he falls.

The temple quakes, and the walls split open, and a horrific tentacled thing emerges, wreaking havoc amongst the combatants, many of whom pass out in sheer horror. Drake, John, and Kay all manage to withstand looking at the thing, but not without certain sanity-draining consequences.

In a moment of desperation, Kay kicks the gem into one of the creature's mouths. There is a blinding flash of light, and the temple begins to sink. The Cast barely has time to notice that the Ormazd Society has emerged victorious in the battle against the CoR as they race for the city gates. They and seven members of the Ormazd Society make it out before the city is once again swallowed by the Desert.

The Ormazd Society thanks the Cast for their efforts, and asks the Cast to agree to be initiated into the group, to swear to protect this secret until the day they die. The Cast agrees, and go through an initiation ritual with the mysterious leaders of the Ormazd Society, the Council of Seven. At the end of the ritual, the Cast realizes that they can no longer remember where the city is, or even details about what it looks like, save the throne room with the Heart of Ahriman. They have no problems with this arrangement.

Returning to their hotel, they are greeted by a young man who asks them to accompany him, saying, "some friends from the United States await you in a nearby cafe."

Amara and Armedt have arrived in Saudi Arabia. Something new has come up for the Cast to look into...

As always, quotes, links, and images can be found on our site at http://buffy.grey-elf.com/

The Grey Elf

07-28-2005, 10:00 AM

Episode 17: The Tomb of Ash

Original Air Date: 7/24/2005

This episode is based upon a Call of Cthulhu scenario by Dr. Michael LaBosierre. The adventure can be found here. (http://www.cthulhufan.com/docs/scenario-tomb-of-ash.pdf)

Special Guest Stars:

Omar Sharif as Dr. Armedt

Marisa Tomei as Amara

Lea Salonga as Kay

Omid Djalili as Mubarek

Synopsis

Returning from the desert, the tired, dirty, and hungry cast is greeted by Amara and Dr. Armedt, who bring both good news and bad. The good news is that they've brought an old friend with them: Cyan, who has completed her time with the Devonshire Coven and returned to lend her services once again. Cyan brought gifts, as a means of apology for hurting her friends. For John: a nickel-plated and engraved .50 caliber Desert Eagle with a single bullet in a locket. Included, a note that reads, "My heart and life are in your hands." For Drake: a hand-forged katana from Japan, the metal in the blade folded 1,000 times, his name etched onto the blade. For Anita: an original, hand-illuminated copy of the Malleus Maleficarum, dated to 1485. This volume contains a later-excised section on demonology including the names of many Qlippothic entities.

As the group catch up, John notices everyone stops moving, and a hand falls on his shoulder. He sighs and says, "What do you want?"

Ebonor stands behind him and says, "Can't stay long. Not my part of the world, but just wanted to say 'hello'." He then puts a bottle in John's hand. It's an exact replacement for the $3,000 bottle of wine John and Anita drank. Ebonor then proceeds to arrange Anita and Cyan so that they are (well and truly) lip-locked, winks at John, then disappears.

Normality resumes and Anita and Cyan realize (with some shock) that they're kissing. They break apart and have an awkward moment complaining about Nyarlathotep.

Armedt and Amara launch into their story: the Covenant War is escalating out of control, with members of every Covenant killing each other in back alleys and abandoned parking garages all over the U.S., and possibly the world. In the midst of all this, the Rosicrucians are racing to finish the translation of the Voynich Manuscript copy. Just as they thought they'd hit a wall, an astounding find from Egypt turned up. A millionaire collector and afficionado of ancient Egyptian culture and religion was excavating a small tomb outside of Cairo. A few low-ranking Rosicrucian scholars stumbled upon the man a week ago, gibbering mad in the desert, the rest of his expedition vanished. Among the man's possessions was a photograph of a wall inside the tomb, which contained markings very similar to those found in the Cipher Tome!

Further research revealed another expedition to this same tomb back in the 1920's, an amateur no-name explorer named Johnathan Southport. Southport's expedition were also all killed, with only Southport escaping. The surviving documentation provides a description of the tomb.

If indeed these markings are what they appear to be, Armedt says, it could be the final, missing key to unlocking the Voynich Manuscript. With some reservations, the Cast agrees to investigate the situation. As they make plans, Drake and Amara share a few uncomfortable moments together.

John and Cyan have a lot of sex over the next couple days, as the Cast drives across Saudi Arabia and through Israel, taking a long circuitous route so that they can spend a couple days in a more U.S.-friendly part of the Middle East.

Arriving at Cairo in the early evening, the group debates on whether to investigate the tomb in the middle of the night or wait until the next day. They opt to wait, against Kay's insistence that it's no more dangerous at night, and in fact will be easier going. Kay decides to scope out the tomb via remote viewing, using the wall photograph as a focus. She sees the exact description as written in the Southport document, but senses that there is definitely a presence of some kind there, and notes that inside the sarcophagus in the final room are piles of bones, many of which have modern and pre-modern (20's era) clothing, guns, and wallets. She informs the rest of the Cast, except John and Cyan...who are having sex.

The next day, the Cast sets out. They find the tomb using GPS systems, and after a brief reconaissance of the abandoned camp site, they enter. They have a close call and brush with madness as they enter a room that is inhabited by a powerful astral entity who infects the area with all the pain and suffering that has gone on in this tomb for thousands of years. With ingenuity and more than a little luck, they survive the psychic onslaught and continue.

In another room, they do battle with three bronze-masked mummies, and Cyan reveals her newly-focused powers by utterly incinerating all three of the abominations. John takes a mask as a souvenir.

They enter the sarcophagus room and begin snapping photos with digital cameras. Then the sounds of clattering bones erupt from outside. John sees twenty re-animated skeletons wielding war clubs and khopesh coming down the hall. He takes up a defensive position, hoping to give the rest of the Cast time to finish photographing the room.

Anita notes that the hieroglyphs on the wall seem to indicate some sort of passage to the underworld through the sarcophagus in the middle, but notes that they don't have time to check it out before the undead overwhelm John. They take their cameras and as a group manage to fight their way to the exit.

Back at Cairo, they give the photos to Dr. Armedt, who admits that much of the pictures they got seem to be beyond his and Anita's expertise, but that he has people he trusts at the University of Cairo that can send someone to help. The Cast agrees, but is concerned that the Church of Revelations might take action against the tomb. So John, Cyan, and Drake go to stay at the abandoned camp outside the tomb, while Anita stays behind with Armedt. Kay agrees to act as a go-between for the two groups.

Looking at the glyphs, Armedt points out to Anita that there seem to be two sorts of incantations present in the tomb: one set is to imprison evil forces, and the other is to awaken them. "It's almost like," Armedt says, "Someone is playing some kind of cosmic pratical joke."

Anita turns pale. "And we just happen to know the greatest pratical joker in the universe."

The next day a portly, friendly man arrives from the University, introducing himself as Yassir Mubarek, a cryptolinguist. Mubarek begins to translate the hieroglyphs with Anita and Armedt, and comes to the conclusion that the glyphs are part of a spell designed to keep a dark force imprisoned in the tomb. This dark force is apparently the spirit of a priest who made a deal with a dark god known as the Dweller in Darkness, which Anita later realizes could also be interpreted as the Haunter of the Dark. The priest was executed for his actions, and his spirit forever imprisoned--along with his servants--inside the tomb.

He then confesses to being something of a student of the occult and claims he knows people who can help to modfy and focus the spell, to trap the spirit within a single stone, thereby rendering it inert. By now Anita and Kay have become quite distrustful of Mr. Mubarek, and Kay tries to read his emotions. After what seems to be a brief "hiccup" in her powers, in which she can't get a reading, she determines he seems to be on the up-and-up and is genuinely interested in helping. She informs Anita of this, and then goes off to let John, Drake, and Cyan know the status of things.

Against her better judgment, Anita gives Mubarek a copy of the files to take to his occultist friends (who wish to remain anonymous because they all purport to be good Muslims, and such things as spells and rituals would be looked upon as evil by the proper Muslim community). Kay later on tries to view Mubarek via Remote Viewing and locates him in the city, doing exactly what he promised to do: translate and focus the spell. Kay is unsure if her vision is genuine or if Mubarek can somehow fool her powers, but she reports her vision to Anita.

A few days later, Mubarek returns with the completed spell. He informs the Cast that they must journey to a hidden second level of the tomb, a room filled with ash where the spirit of the dark priest is housed. There they must perform the ritual while withstanding an onslaught of the priest. In other words, business as usual.

Anita and Kay rejoin John, Drake, and Cyan at the tomb site, where they reason that it took the skeletons about fifteen minutes to animate last time they were here, so if they hurry they might make the second level before having to deal with any undead. Their plan is successful, and through use of their metaphysical abilities, John and Drake are able to easily remove the stone from the sarcophagus. The group journeys down a narrow staircase into a lower room that seems to mirror almost exactly the one they just left.

Journeying down a dark hallway, they come upon a vast chamber that seems to be guarded by two enormous statues of Anubis. John takes a few steps in and freezes as he is certain he's seen one of them move. Kay suggests removing the swords from the statues, and John tells her she's welcome to try if she likes. For an eternity of seconds the Cast stands, waiting to see what the statues do. John begins to cautiously approach one, when Kay dashes through the chamber and makes it to the other side. Anita and Cyan follow, then Drake. Finally, John brings up the rear.

The Cast enters the room covered with ash. As they set up the ritual and begin, they feel an ominous chill sweep through the room, and are sickened by the sense of Taint filling the place. One by one, they are assaulted by the mental attacks of the invisible priest, but the steel themselves against the attacks and stand firm, completing the ritual. The screaming spirit is sucked into a stone. From upstairs, they hear clattering as the awakened skeletons crumble to the floor.

It's then that they notice this room is covered with Voynich-Manuscript-like glyphs and pictographs. As the temple begins to quake and stones begin to fall from the ceiling around them, John and Cyan yell for everyone to get out and begin to snap photos.

The Cast dodges and weaves falling blocks as the tomb begins to collapse around them, with John and Cyan following after they finish photographing the room. John is clipped by a falling block, but manages to roll clear and the two of them leap from the entrance just as the stones collapse around.

Silence falls for a few seconds, and just as the Cast thinks they're safe, a massive shadowy form emerges from the wreckage and looms over top of them. The Cast looks horrified into the face of the Haunter of the Dark as it comes for them. Anita loses it and collapses to the ground, giggling maniacally.

John pulls his sword and begins backing away, when a voice rings out from behind, saying, "If I were you, my friends, I would run, now."

It's Mubarek, who seems to have come out of nowhere. He steps forward and begins conversing with the Haunter in a strange language none of the Cast recognize. Drake throws the still-giggling Anita over his shoulder, and the Cast get into their truck and head back to Cairo with the photos.

Back in Cairo, Armedt is thrilled with the photos and says he'll get them to Daniel as soon as possible. He believes this may be the breakthrough that gives them all the answers they need. Amara takes her leave, saying she has to consult an old friend about a few things, but that she'll meet them back in Pittsburgh. Before leaving, she turns to Drake, and Katherine's voice asks Drake if it would be okay if she gave him a "proper farewell. I thought I'd ask first, given the state o' things, which're awkward to say the least."

Drake agrees, and the two kiss goodbye. The Cast then boards a plane and flies off into the sunset, back towards home...

The Grey Elf

08-09-2005, 05:42 AM

Episode 18: The Renders of the Veil

En route back to Pittsburgh from Egypt, the group receives another visit from their old friend Ebonor, who assures them that things are "getting very interesting" on the home front.

When they arrive at the Pittsburgh International Airport, the group is greeted by James, one of Dr. Armedt's most trusted aides, and by two Templars who have been dispatched to aid the group. The gang narrowly averts a Combine attempt on Armedt's life, and gets back to the city, where they discover all the power is out and the streets are deserted.

Upon arrival back at the Hive, they find the place closed for business and full to bursting with Gifted in various states of physical and mental health. Jamie is sitting in a corner, catatonic, staring at the wall. Father Bob is upstairs, keeping Meghan occupied.

Carrie and Sandra see the group enter, and run up to the group in tears, Carrie throwing her arms about Kay and Sandra embracing Anita. At Anita's gentle prodding, Sandra exclaims through sobs that "The Sentinels did this! How could they? They were friends...allies! I trusted them with my life and my faith!"

At this point, James and the Templars usher the Cast into John's security office where they explain that the Sentinels went on a rampage last night, murdering Gifted all over the city as enemies of Heaven. The authorities as of now are calling it a terrorist rampage and several terrorist organizations have in fact stepped forward to take credit for the mass murders throughout the city. The assault coincided with a lightning strike that took out a power transformer, knocking out power all over the city. All the Rosicrucians' diviners confirmed that the lightning strike was not magically induced; the Sentinels, it seemed, merely took advantage of the situation and escalated the war between the Covenants. Some witnesses--Sandra included--report that somehow the Sentinels were still able to use their miracles, despite the clear corruption of their ideals. There are conflicting reports of Taint that lead the group to suspect that Leviathan is secretly granting Miracles to certain members of the Sentinels. The Twilight Order chapel house in Mt. Lebanon is destroyed, as are the strongholds of almost every Covenant in the city, save the Rosicrucians.

The city government has called in the National Guard to attempt to maintain peace should the attacks begin again the next night.

It gets worse; the Church of Revelations has also taken advantage of the situation. James plays for the group a security tape which clearly shows Alan and a mysterious new female ally from whom he is apparently taking orders. Alan and the woman kidnapped Daniel and the cipher manuscript, along with all the translation notes while the Sentinels stormed the library.

Just as all hope seems lost, Amara enters the picture, waving a USB stick which contains files that Daniel e-mailed to her moments before his kidnapping. The files contain every last one of his translation notes. Anita remembers that the original Voynich manuscript is still in existence at Yale. Amara confirms that she and her allies have called upon the Templars to guard the book until the Cast can get there, and that she has a cryptolinguist waiting to help the Cast translate the book. John wants to stay and wipe out the Sentinels until it's pointed out that such an act is likely exactly what Leviathan wants, and that the Sentinels are as much pawns being played in this mess as the other factions.

A knock at the door sends John upstairs, where he sees an old friend has come to join the party: Riley Finn has been dispatched with a group of troops to keep an eye on the National Guard units. He wants John's recommendations for supernaturally-gifted humans to help with the peacekeeping efforts. Dana, Kay, Carrie, Sandra, and Father Bob all volunteer.

Armedt charters a private plane to get the group to New Haven, and explains to John that there will be a blue Jeep Cherokee waiting for the group when they arrive. With the arrangements made, the group heads for New Haven with Amara in tow.

Upon arriving in New Haven, the group finds the town a war zone. Cars are overturned, buildings on fire, bodies litter the ground. It looks like a similar massacre happened here, only ten times worse than the one in Pittsburgh. Realizing that they are conspicuous in the Jeep, they ditch the vehicle and walk to their destination, a brownstone where Amara says she left the cryptolinguist, Klaus, with a friend.

Arriving at the brownstone, the Cast finds an ambush waiting: twenty Combine agents sit in bushes and shadows around the place. Within moments of the Cast's arrival, the battle is joined. Moments in, the Cast finds help from an unexpected source; a brutally scarred and deformed half-human creature with long claws and teeth leaps into the fray, screaming in anguish, as he slices into the Combine agents. Behind this creature walks their old friend the Archangel Michele, who simply stands in the middle of the fray, surveying the scene.

At the battle's end, the "thing" transforms into a fairly attractive man that Amara and Michele introduce as Klaus, the cryptolinguist and a Disciple of the Flesh, one of a group of Gifted who gain their powers from severe abuse and trauma suffered in their past.

The Cast gets into Michele's brownstone and Klaus begins going over the translation key, which he pronounces as legitimate and an astounding find. He spends about an hour looking over the notes before proclaiming that he is ready to go look at the Voynich Manuscript itself. The cast heads for Yale's Beinecke Rare Books library, where John discovers that his friends Max and Lisa are the Templars guarding the book.

Working together, Anita and Klaus translate the opening passage to the book and read it aloud. Upon doing so, the entire book shimmers as a wave of mystic energy shifts through the room, and it is suddenly readable in the Queen's English! The group is both delighted and horrified at the turn of events: does this mean that Alan's book is also now readable?

They get to work studying the tome. It seems that the book Alan has is a corrupted book written by Roger Bacon, dedicated to bringing the Mad Gods forth into the world, and the Voynich Manuscript is a counter to that tome, written by Dr. John Dee. The Voynich Manuscript provides instructions for obtaining the materials for a potion, a sort of mystical grenade, that will disrupt the ritual to summon forth Leviathan. The book also mentions that a massive sacrifice of hundreds or thousands of souls is necessary for the ritual to defeat Leviathan, and that it must be performed at a place of mystical convergence. The group reasons that Alan plans to perform the ritual sometime during the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Festival, when thousands of people gather at Point State Park.

The book also mentions that one of the ingredients for the potion--the Night Rose--is only found in the Twilight Lands, an alternate dimension that the Cast has been once before, and isn't excited about returning to again. Worse, the only spell they have to get there awakens the slumbering Mad God that rules over the place. But then, Anita remembers that earlier this year, the group acquired a tome called the Book of Twilight from the ghouls in New Castle. Such a book, she thinks, may have a spell to get the group to the Twilight Lands.

As the group prepares to return to Pittsburgh with their new information, John learns that sometime in his past, Klaus was horribly abused by the Cult of Revelations, and as such he offers the man a place in the group, which Klaus readily accepts. Cyan, meanwhile, approaches Anita about everything that's been going on, and begins to prod her to reveal why she is unable to simply see Alan as an enemy, and not as the same man she fell in love with. She brings up the ring she found earlier in the year in Anita's house, and Anita is far from forthcoming about her emotional scars. Eventually, however, en route back to Pittsburgh, Anita gives in and reveals her past to the group (you'll have to go to the site to read her back story).

In the end, the group discovers a spell that will get them safely to the Twilight Lands, and prepares to make their sojourn to that hellish place...

-----------------
A few more updates: I've finally done NPC profiles for Amara, Michele, Max, Lisa, and Ebonor, and updated Cyan, Anita, and Alan's profiles to incorporate changes from this season.

http://www.grey-elf.com/buffy/

The Grey Elf

09-07-2005, 09:51 AM

Episode 19: A Return to Twilight

Our heroes get news from Amara and Dr. Armedt that Daniel has used powerful Invocations to escape from Alan, but that something went wrong in the casting, and now the Rosicrucians have lost contact with him, almost as though he had dropped off the face of the Earth.

On the heels of this news, they gather their supplies and cast the spell that will transport them to the Twilight World, a Tainted nightmare realm which is connected to both Malkuth and Hod. Anita, Drake, and Cyan have been here once before, <a href="http://www.grey-elf.com/buffy/ep23.html">when they defeated and banished the Shk'ryth, Gary Augustine, to the mercies of the Twilight Queen</a>, a Mad God who has taken up residence in this reality.

Upon arrival in the Twilight World, the Cast is relieved to find the tower that imprisons the Queen has been rebuilt, somehow, and that she apparently slumbers once again. The air here is filled with sulfur, and the sky is the yellow-purple of a bad bruise. The landscape mirrors that of Earth, but all the buildings are blasted out, as though a full-scale nuclear war had taken place here. Zombie-like mirrors of all the people they know back home walk the streets mindlessly. Anita reasons that these must be dream-reflections of the real people, and that it's probably best to leave them alone.

As the Cast tries to determine where in this bleak world they can find the Night Rose, they find themselves under attack, first by a gang of vampires, then by a group of horrific, skeletal, gargoyle-like creatures covered in spikes that seem largely immune to the Cast's attacks, save those of Klaus, who tears through them like a hot knife through butter. Given the disparity in numbers (there are over a dozen of these hellish creatures,and some are winged), the Cast runs for the hills, when a group of what appear to be resistance fighters charge from the shadows to their rescue. To the Cast's dismay, many of these saviors seem to be tainted sorcerers. Others are Disciples of the Flesh, like Klaus.

The Cast's saviors aid them in running a gauntlet from the Twilight mirror of Oakland to the mirror of downtown Pittsburgh, and into what on Earth is a subway stop. Here the opening leads to an underground series of tunnels filled with more Disciples and Tainted sorcerers, who the Cast learns are Mockers.

During their time with the Mockers, the Cast learns the "rules" in the Twilight Lands: time passes far more quickly here than it does on Earth, but no one in the Twilight Lands ages. In fact, more than five years have passed in the Twilight Realms for the past year on earth. The world is the reflection of mankind's nightmares, and so contains features that aren't exactly logical; for example, blasted-out, destroyed stores and homes may still inexplicably contain fresh food and water. There is no electricity here, but battery-powered objects brought from other worlds will still function, and batteries may sometimes be found in stores. Anything that is feared by someone on Earth could become an horrific monster here. In addition, everyone on Earth has a mirror in the Twilight World. These mirrors, though generally zombie-like manifestations of the real person's subconscious, can be awakened and made to serve evil forces. Anita begins to wonder if Alan is the real Alan, or some sort of twisted double.

The creatures the Cast fought are called Shadow Stalkers. They serve the mysterious rulers of this realm. This sparks a realization in the Cast that the Twilight Queen is not, in fact, the ruling power in this realm, but is a prisoner in the tower. The Mockers and Pariahs managed to stop an invasion of Earth well over twenty years ago (Twilight World time) but several groups became trapped here in the process. Now many remain voluntarily, acting as a resistance movement and counter against further attempts to invade Earth. Anita hits it off very well with the Mockers, finding their madness endearing. She discovers through talking to various Mockers and Pariahs that the Mockers are a group of Tainted men and women who once served the Mad Gods, but have since turned away and though quite mad, now fight against them. She files away information about the Covenant in case she needs it later.

Neither the Mockers nor the Pariahs have heard of Gary Augustine. They have, however, heard of the Night Rose, and are able to provide the Cast with directions on where to find it. The Journey will take roughly two weeks of travel through the wilds of the Twilight World. The Cast are instructed to avoid shadowy areas and stay in the light as much as possible, for Shadow Stalkers are formed of shadow and can attack invisibly so long as they remain in darkness. The Cast can, if they must, fight the Shadow Stalkers through the use of their powers. For reasons unknown, the attacks of Pariahs are especially effective against Shadow Stalkers, but all magic or magically-enhanced powers will harm the creatures.

After a night's rest, the Cast sets off for the Night Rose, battling Shadow Stalkers, scrounging for food, and nearing their destination: the Twilight World version of the Poconos. As they reach the base of the mountain range, a figure comes staggering out of the shadows, with several Shadow Stalkers on his heels. The Cast leaps to the rescue and defeats the Shadow Stalkers, only to discover that their badly wounded chage is none other than Daniel! They take him to a storefront where they bind his wounds and heal him through magic as best they can. When he awakens, he is surprised to see the Cast, and they exchange notes. Daniel, it seems, became trapped here when a Gateway Invocation he used to escape from Alan's clutches misfired and opened a dimensional portal instead of one back to Pittsburgh. He has been trapped in the wilds ever since.

When the Cast describes the flower they seek, Daniel says he's seen it, up in the mountains just outside of a small town. He says there is an entire bush full of them there.

With Daniel in tow, the Cast resumes their trek. Daniel leads them to a bluff overlooking the Twilight World mirror of <a href="http://www.grey-elf.com/buffy/ep21.html">Miner's Folly.</a> He guides them to the remains of a bush, which has recently been burned to a cinder. The Cast's hearts sink. Daniel says, "I was just here! This has to be recent. I only know one thing for sure..." then turns and plunges a knife straight into Anita's chest, sneering, "Alan says hello."

Drake immediately leaps into action, devastating the man with a series of punches and kicks. To the group's surprise, "Daniel" turns into a puddle of black ooze under the weight of Drake's blows.

At just that moment, forty Shadow Stalkers and twenty Tainted sorcerers emerge from the rocks surrounding the Cast, and a spell renders the group unconscious...

The Grey Elf

09-12-2005, 11:46 AM

Return To Twilight
Part Two:
The Cast awakens in a prison cell, each of them chained spread-eagled to the wall, a few feet off the floor, except for Anita, who lies unconscious and delirious on the floor, frothing at the mouth, convulsing, and crying out at whatever nameless horrors the poison coursing through her veins is causing her to see. They test their chains and discover that they are magical, designed to adapt to changing strength and shape. Cyan is gagged as well as bound, rendering her mostly incapable of spellcasting. The room is Tainted.

Eventually, the door opens and a pair of tainted cultists enter, flanking an unwelcome and familiar (to Cyan and Drake) face: the Sh'kryth Gary Augustine, who apparently survived his encounter with the Twilight Queen and fled here. He has set himself up as a god amongst the local cultists, and has brooded for years (remember, time passes differently here) waiting for his opportunity to avenge himself upon the Cast.

He is wearing the Night Rose as a boutonniere.

He mentions "friends on Earth" who informed him of the Cast's impending arrival, and orders the cultists take Cyan out of the room.

One by one, the Cast are taken from the room, tortured for hours, and brought back. It seems Augustine simply wants them to suffer, rather than to die; a "grave tactical error," as John phrases it later. Anita, for her part, is removed and not brought back. The Cast fears the worst.

Eventually, the Cast manages to free themselves of their shackles through a combination of brute strength and Cyan calling upon dark magics once again. They are visited by a member of the Mockers, who have infiltrated the cult. The Mocker advises the Cast to bide their time and wait for his signal, which he says they'll know when it happens.

Anita awakens in a hospital, and is visited by Augustine and four cultists. When she resists their orders to leave, Augustine calls upon shadowy magic to imprison her with tendrils of darkness; he carries her through the town she recognizes as the Twilight World version of Miner's Folly, and to the torture chamber. When she sees the torture table, Anita goes ballistic, managing to use Wishkill to free herself and escape into the town. She comes upon the same Mocker who visited the Cast, and he gives her clothes, then begins to argue with an imaginary friend while she gets dressed.

The town erupts into chaos as the Mockers attack in force. Anita rushes for the Sherriff's office, where the mysterious Mocker told her the rest of her companions were. She arrives in time to help the Cast dispatch two Hellions (Shadow Stalkers) and four cultists.

Together, the cast reasons that since Augustine has set himself up as a ruler, he may be living in the Mayor's chambers at City Hall. They fight their way through the town, to the building, where they discover their weapons locked in a file cabinet. In another room, they catch Augustine climbing out of a window. He cries for help, and four more Hellions walk in, along with a beautiful, black-skinned woman with feathery wings who Augustine introduces as his bodyguard, Mara. The Cast recognizes Mara for what she is: a Fallen Seraphim. Cyan once again calls upon dark magics, using a spell to steal the Night Rose right from Augustine's jacket! John, Cyan, and Drake then attack Mara while Klaus and Anita finish off the Hellions.

Mara fells Cyan and Drake. Klaus and Anita run past the angel and John, and dive out the window to give chase to Augustine. Together they defeat the Shk'ryth once and for all, just in time to save John, who has been holding his own but is fast weakening. Upon Augustine's defeat, Mara, realizing she is no longer bound to this dimension, flees to the skies.

The Cast emerge into the city to find the Mockers victorious. Their new allies point them to the location of another portal to Earth, in a cave complex nearby. The Cast gather there and re-cast the dimensional gate spell, which leaves them in the abandoned mines outside of Miner's Folly on Earth. They call upon an old Ally, John Stonehill, to aid them in getting transportation back to Pittsburgh, and return home with their prize.

Upon their return, they discover that the Rosicrucians have found Daniel. Unfortunately, the man is comatose, his soul trapped somewhere in Hod due to the malfunctioning of his Gateway Invocation, which he'd only recently learned. Until the Rosicrucians can awaken him, they have no way of knowing what, if anything, Daniel knows about Alan and his mysterious new ally...

The Grey Elf

09-12-2005, 11:46 AM

The Dweller in the Well

It has been one week since the Cast's return from the Twilight World, and they have been brewing the Night Rose potion, concerned that they've no real clue what to do with it once it's complete. Then, Sunday night/Monday morning, the Cast are inexplicably attacked by Night Terrors in their respective homes at 3:00 am.

Drake, still living in the guest house on John and Cyan's property, defeats his assassin and crashes through John and Cyan's window, naked and wielding his katana, to assist them with the two Night Terrors who are attacking them.

At her own place, Anita realizes these creatures must have been forcibly removed from Hod and made to incarnate on Earth, weakening them. It seems someone was trying to send a message. Klaus, staying with Anita, is the only Cast Member not attacked, and he rushes to Anita's rescue, helping her to defeat the creature that's invaded her bedroom.

The Cast gather together after their respective attacks (and after Drake, John, and Cyan share an awkward moment where they're all naked, brandishing weapons). and reason that Xalotun had threatened to kill them all in their sleep if he ever got a body. This threat was made before Klaus joined the gang, and so Xalotun would not be aware of the man's existence. They fear the worst.

The next morning, the Cast completes the potion, and are paid a visit by their old buddy Ebonor, who makes cryptic remarks that "you'll need the Crystal Urn to make that work. And to get that...you'll have to descend into the Well."

The Cast begin to do research. Anita checks the Watcher Chronicles and finds a (very) recent entry detailing Angel and Spike's visit to something called the Deeper Well, in England, where the bodies of all the Old Ones are kept in eternal slumber.

A phone call from Detective Joe Knonaem interrupts their studies. It seems that in Tionesta, PA, in the middle of the Allegheny National Forest, a group of students have been found dead, murdered during what appears to have been an occult ritual. Joe notes to Anita that they've been drained of blood, but there are no wounds. He also mentions that he has a journal entry from one of the students, and that several of them were students of Alan's at CMU. He's informed the State Police that the Pittsburgh PD has a task force on occult affairs, and that he'd promised to ask Anita and her crew to come out and look over the scene.

Anita and Klaus go to the police station to collect the journal, which talks about the summoning of Leviathan. Joe also warns Anita and Klaus that the local Seneca Indians have set up a protest at a burial ground nearby and are causing problems for the State Police. After giving Joe a warning about the Church of Revelations, they return to the Hive to collect their fellows and set off for Tionesta. En route back, Ebonor appears in the car, advising Anita that she might need "that children's edition of Al Azif you like to carry around."

They arrive at the crime scene around 7 PM. John and Drake comandeer a uniformed officer to go talk to the indians at this burial ground, while Anita, Klaus, and Cyan look at the crime scene. During investigations, Anita recognizes the ritual as a summoning ritual for a Mythos creature known as a Guardian. It appears the students (unwittingly, juding from their journal entries) offered themselves up as sacrifices to these creatures, which are the heralds of resurrecting powerful ancient sorcerers. When the State Police insult Anita and the group for their theories and expertise, the frustrated Anita and Klaus make a grave tactical error and reveal Klaus's monstrous Pariah form. This results in gunfire, and then the expulsion of the group from the crime scene.

Meanwhile, John and Drake approach the burial ground to find an horrific site. The protesters and all of the police assigned to keep the peace are dead. Many of the protesters (including a shamanic circle sent to purify the land) have been drained of blood; the rest have been torn to pieces. Unfortunately, the two have no opportunity to examine the scene, as at that moment the officer's walkie talkie goes off, the Detective ordering him to escort John and Drake back to their car with the rest of their friends.

The group exchange notes, have a brief tiff about the mistake Anita and Klaus made, then decides to hole up in a small hotel for the evening, after going to talk to the local Seneca indians. John reasons that someone who isn't involved in the antagonism between them and the State Police has to deliver this news.

Upon arriving at the local Seneca village, they talk to the chief who delivers to Anita a piece of clothing from one of the shaman, so that she can attempt to contact the dead and get some information. She is greatly disturbed to learn that the souls have been unbound: they no longer exist. The tribal chief calls upon the Cast, if they are indeed warriors against these sorts of things, to avenge his people and purify the graveyard.

That night, Anita and Cyan are afflicted with horrible nightmares. Unable to get back to sleep, Anita passes the time studying the Necronomicon.

The next day, the Cast circles through the woods, John and Drake using their training to track their way to the burial ground from an opposite end from the police crime scene. They sneak in and make their way towards a shrine at the center of the burial ground, which Cyan spots and Anita and she note is carved with Elder Signs. They discover a deep shaft at the center of the shrine, which is illuminated in an eerie bluish glow and extends down as far as the eye can see, with large, box-shaped sarcophagi inserted into the walls all the way around.

Ebonor appears again, informing the Cast that this is the Deeper Well, and it is in there that the Cast must go to retrieve the urn. He summons forth rapelling equipment which he tosses to the Cast (he won't enter the shrine because of the Elder Signs), tells them that they'll find a landing leading to the tunnel a few hundred yards down, and to be careful, try not to wake up the Old Ones, and to remember his name. John asks if this is the same Deeper Well that is in England, and Ebonor responds, "after a fashion," then disappears.

The Cast carefully descend into the well, overwhelmed by the sheer power and evil that surrounds them in this place. They reach the landing unmolested, but are then set upon by two Blood Guardians, enormous, tentacled masses composed entirely of blood. They defeat the Blood Guardians and descend into a dark tunnel, where they are overcome by a sense of vertigo, of time spinning in all directions, of falling up and climbing down, and of strange visions of non-euclidean geometry. Finally, they emerge into a sort of central chamber, with five hallways branching off and a shaft at the center.

From the four other hallways, scores of reptilian creatures charge the Cast. Thinking quickly, Anita opens the Necronomicon to something she'd read the night before. She reads for a few seconds, then holds the book up and cries, "IA! NYARLATHOTEP!"

The lizard men fall back into their tunnels, hissing venomously at the Cast. Cyan asks what that phrase means, and Anita answers that she is invoking the god's name against the creatures. John gives her a concerned look at this revelation.

The Cast descend into the shaft, which brings them out into the tomb of an ancient wizard named Nectanebus. Anita recognizes the name from her reading the night before, and realizes that somehow, they've traversed halfway around the globe and are now in Egypt. Cyan steps forward to examine a seal on the abdomen of the mummified wizard, and the moment she moves the seal, she falls unconscious. Anita witnesses the spirit of Nectanebus rise from the mummified body and begin to converse with Cyan, though she cannot see or hear Cyan's spirit responding, since Cyan is not dead.

Nectanebus claims to be an ancient enemy of the wizard Xalotun and offers Cyan a deal upon realizing the Cast is doing battle with Xalotun. The offer is this: Nectanebus will share with Cyan the power to defeat Xalotun, but in return, Cyan must allow Nectanebus to experience the world through her. His proposal is that their two souls merge into one. He agrees to relay messages to Anita from Cyan, so that she may ask her friend's advice. With Anita's counsel, Cyan reluctantly agrees to the merging. The rest of the group witness Cyan's body and the body of Nectanebus both enveloped in a sickly green glow. Her body rises off the floor to float next to his, then his body explodes into dust. Cyan's body falls to the floor and she awakens. She then proceeds to open a hidden panel beneath the sarcophagus of Nectanebus, where the Crystal Urn is hidden. She also now knows exactly how to use the potion in conjunction with the urn; unfortuantely, using the potion requires that the ritual begin, which means people are going to die.

She also now knows exactly when and where the ritual to bring forth Leviathan has to occur.

Tired and worn down, the Cast return to Pittsburgh to prepare for their final showdown.

The Grey Elf

10-03-2005, 08:59 AM

World On Fire: Season Three Finale

(Note: this episode included appearences by every single recurring NPC in the game. (http://www.grey-elf.com/buffy/gueststars.html))

Another week has passed since the Cast's adventure into the Deeper Well. There are three days left before the ritual at Point State Park, which will take place during the city's Fourth of July celebration.
Anita and John are surprised when a representative of Wolfram and Hart shows up to request their presence at a dinner meeting with Lilah Morgan, who has a business proposal for them. Intrigued but suspicious, they accept. The rest of the gang, assuming they aren't invited, decides to go to the Upstage after a light dinner. Anita goes home to change, while everyone else accompanies John and Cyan back to their house, since John wants Cyan to make sure he is presentable for the meeting.

Upon arriving home, Anita finds a plain, brown package in her mailbox. After scanning it for an Essence signature and making sure it's not ticking, she carefully opens it, discovering inside a video tape labeled, "PLAY ME." She puts it in the VCR and watches, in horror, as the tape reveals a group of cultists pulling Kat's rotted body out of the Hellmouth. Panicked and enraged, she calls John and yells, "GET OVER HERE, NOW!" then hangs up the phone.

At John and Cyan's, Drake, having heard her through the phone and across the room, charges out of the house, leaps on his motorcycle, and takes off, beating the rest of the group to Anita's by several minutes. He kicks the door down, swords in hand, to find Anita staring at a blank, blue TV screen with a drink in her hand. She sits him down, where they await the arrival of the others, and she re-plays the tape. All are horrified. Anita tries to call Joe to report the incident but is informed that due to a personal emergency, he is not in the office.

Anita goes upstairs to use the bathroom, and as she reaches the top of the stairs, smells an awful, pungent odor. She calmly walks into her bedroom and proceeds to smash anything breakable. John runs upstairs, catches the odor (and recognizes it as the stench of rotting flesh), and peeks in Kat's room, where his worst fears are confirmed: the young Slayer's body is neatly laid out on her bed. He closes the door and stands in front of it, until Cyan and Drake come upstairs. Cyan goes into Anita's room and closes the door behind her, at which point Drake, John, and Klaus wrap the body in linens. Klaus and Drake take it to a crematorium to be disposed of. Drake calls Father Bob, Amara/Katherine, and the gang to meet at the mausoleum, where Kat's empty urn is interred, so they can finally have a funeral and lay the girl to rest. When he tries to reach Sandra, he gets her voice mail and leaves a message.

Anita calls Lilah Morgan's office to inform them that she and John will be a half hour late for dinner, and the group attends Kat's impromptu funeral. When they pull the empty urn from the mausoleum to place Kat's ashes in it (at last), they discover the following slip of paper tucked into the urn:

A light extinguished
Heaven gains a new angel
We will miss you Kat

-John Forsythe

John looks slightly embarassed at the discovery.

Following the funeral, John and Anita go to meet Lilah at the Grand Concourse restaurant, where Lilah informs them that the CoR is a mutual enemy, because they're "screwing with our [W&H's] time table." She then offers every last security commando at W&H's disposal to help the group stop the ritual at the Point, no strings attached. When John suggests she investiate the backgrounds of their security forces for CoR involvement, she tells him that they've already executed several traitors that their seers have uncovered. After John mentions his intent to riddle the head of the cult (presumed to be Alan) with bullets, Anita gets up and leaves.

Meanwhile, Cyan, Drake, and Klaus go to the Upstage, where Klaus and Cyan proceed to get wasted, Cyan doing "immoral" things to a pole, and Klaus calling Anita's cell phone to demand she come drink with them. After Drake takes the phone away from Klaus, he talks to Anita and, noticing how down she is, asks her to meet him at his house. He then calls John to come pick up Klaus and Cyan and heads home.

John retrieves the drunken Klaus and Cyan, and takes them home. Drake meets Anita, and the two of them have a long talk, which goes a good way towards getting Anita centered again.

That night, Cyan and Drake have visions. Cyan's vision involves walking through an ancient Egyptian necropolis with Nectanebus, who has been tutoring her in the ways of magic. As they talk, Nectanebus offers her a dangerous but potentially useful gift: the ability to (one time only) tap into all of her magical knowledge. The price, however, is potentially high: it could lead to Cyan not being able to process the power and falling into a coma. She decides the potential benefit is worth the risk, and agrees to learn the phrase of power that will unlock Nectanebus' knowledge. Nectanebus further tells Cyan that she's missed something and needs to recheck the books about the coming ritual.

Drake's vision is substantially different: he first sees Alan, violently arguing with the mysterious Black Witch, screaming that there are some lines you just don't cross, and that he can't believe she's actually done what she has. In the end, she (combined with Xalotun) delivers a severe mystical smackdown on Alan. The vision then shifts, and Drake sees the entire city in flames, buildings blasted out, bodies everywhere. In the middle of the carnage is Alan, kneeling down and sobbing.

The next morning, the group convenes at the Hive to research the books and hold council. Cyan, with Anita, Drake, and Klaus's help, discovers that a specific sacrifice is needed to bind Leviathan to this dimension once he is through the portal...a sacrifice that must consist of a Seer, one blessed of the gods, and an innocent, bereft of power. Panicked, and knowing well that Xalotun and Alan are going to target them directly, the Cast begins making phone calls, to discover that Kay Hito, Sandra, and Lexie Carver have all gone missing in the past few days. Detective Joe Knonaem puts aside his badge for the time being to offer his services to the Cast in fighting this final battle with the CoR.

Things are further complicated when Odin, Michele, and Amara show up to inform the Cast that a contingent of Covenant Refugees are en route to Pittsburgh to assist in the final showdown. The bad news is that Ben Franklin has disappeared, and Katherine has left Amara. When Anita tries to contact Franklin or Amara, she finds that the Veil between worlds is closed; Earth is almost completely cut off from the other Sephiroth, and she can't get through. The only way to repair the gates between the Sephiroth, she reasons, is to stop Leviathan.

A call from Dr. Armedt provides at least some good news: the Seers and Spirit Masters among the Rosicrucians have been able to combine their powers to pierce the Veil and locate Daniel's spirit in Hod. They think they can have him back on his feet soon.

The Cast also comes to the horrific realization that this Covenant War has been far more than a distraction: it's creating a body count that's adding to the massive sacrifice needed to bring Leviathan into the world, and the Cast strongly suspects it's scheduled to come to a head the night of the ritual. John makes phone calls and begins assembling a veritable army to patrol the city and do whatever it can to stop Leviathan. He also begins work on modifying the Crystal Urn to fit into a gas-powered grenade launcher, which he can then use (he figures) to fire the urn into the rift when the time comes.

Finally, the night of the ritual arrives. The Cast assembles, with their army scattered about, at Point State Park. Drake and Klaus take position near the stage closest to the Hellmouth, while John, Anita, and Cyan stake out the other stage. As the fireworks launch and the band begins playing, an explosion rocks the city. As people turn, more explosions rock downtown, followed by gunfire. The war has begun. The crowd at the park panics, a situation only made worse when about thirty percent of the people reveal themselves to be vampires, and start feeding with impunity.

The Cast leaps into action. Seconds later, robed cultists charge into the mix, along with dozens of werewolves who leap from behind and atop the stages. As Anita, John, and Cyan do battle with these creatures, Anita gets blindsided by a hard punch that sends her reeling, and a sneering voice says, "Hello, Mom."

She turns to look right into the face of her dead Slayer, Kat, who sneers at her and draws a huge knife. Anita, truly traumatized, freezes like a deer in headlights. Cyan calls upon Nectanebus's power, and casts a levitation spell, grabbing Anita and floating 30 feet in the air. Kat responds by leaping high into the air and plunging her knife into Anita's back, then doing a backflip to land twenty feet away from John. John draws down and fires a shot at Kat, who catches the bullet, then leaps over the crowd to land in front of John, attacking him with her knife. The two go back and forth, until finally John (with the aid of Righteous Fury, Full Offense, and a Heroic Feat Drama Point) defeats the Slayer, who turns into a puddle of smelly yellow ooze, thus revealing her origin as a Twilight World doppelganger.

Cyan uses healing magic on the unconscious Anita.

Meanwhile, at the other stage, Klaus and Drake fight their way to the stage, when Alan is thrown onto the stage, on his knees, and the Black Witch herself steps out behind him, revealing her identity to all.

The Black Witch is none other than Lexie Carver.

The entire Cast is dumbfounded at the revelation, and astonished that they could've been so blind as to miss the signs of it. Worse, a small rift has opened over the Hellmouth as Lexie performs the ritual incantation to bring forth Leviathan. Drake launches himself over the crowd and lands on the stage opposite Lexie. A ferocious battle between the two begins.

Cyan, realizing that John has the Urn and that they're at the wrong stage, sets Anita down on top of a tunnel, and goes to pick up John. She is partially thwarted when vampires attack the two of them, allowing time for the rift to widen. A massive tentacle tears it open, and the audience gets their first full look at the Mad God as it struggles to get through the opening. Many people die outright just from seeing the monster.

The battle is going badly for Drake, even as Klaus makes his way onto the stage to assist his comrade. Things take a turn for the worse when Detective Joe Knonaem, unable to process the fact that his girlfriend is the evil behind all this, starts shooting at Drake to save her.

On top of the tunnel, Anita sees Alan leap out the back of the stage and begin to run away. She jumps down and starts to fight her way towards where she saw Alan, knowing well she has little chance of actually catching him.

Cyan and John dispatch the vampires. Cyan grabs John and levitates upward, then summons a gust of wind to blow them towards the rift, which is widened enough that Leviathan is actually squeezing through, its tentacles swooping down and scooping up innocents, feeding them into its thousands of mouths.

Anita as well, finds herself lifted from the ground by a gust of hurricane-force wind, which lands her atop the stage, beneath which Drake and Klaus are fighting Lexie. From a catwalk, Daniel emerges, sheepishly offering, "Sorry I'm late. Let's go get Alan." Together the two jump off the roof (Daniel's magic allowing them to land unharmed) and chase down Alan.

Below, Lexie throws Drake against a wall using Telekinesis, then blasts him with Taint and engulfs him in flame. Drake grits his teeth against the agony, and puts everything he has remaining into one last storm of blades against Lexie. His heroic effort is successful, and "Lexie" falls...dissolving into a puddle of pungent yellow ooze. Drake then drops his swords and turns to face Joe, who, unable to process any of this, simply opens fire on Drake, who falls to the ground motionless.

Over the Hellmouth, John levels the grenade launcher and fires. The urn sails past Leviathan and into the rift. Cyan summons another gust of wind, and the two fly as fast as they can away from the rift. Klaus, seeing this happen, scoops up Drake's body and runs.

Meanwhile, a group of sorcerers atop a bridge complete a spell they've been chanting for several minutes. The park is suddenly bathed in sunlight, torching all the vampires.

Behind the stage, Anita and Daniel catch up with Alan, who stands waiting for them, tears streaming down his face. He begs forgiveness for what he's done, and Anita tells him, "you're coming back with us to make this right, now."

At that moment, the rift explodes, the tainted shockwave hurling everyone in the park to the ground. When the dust settles, the rift and Leviathan are gone. As the combined armies of the Alliance, Wolfram & Hart, the military, and all the others John got together work cleanup, Alan leads Daniel and Anita to where Sandra, Kay, and the real Lexie were being held prisoner. They dig through the rubble and find the three women, unconscious and injured but alive. Alan falls to his knees, repeating over and over again, "What have I done?"

As Anita and Daniel are about to get Alan out of the park, a voice behind them all says, "He isn't going ANYWHERE." Anita turns to find herself face-to-face with Nodens, a powerful Elder God who is an eternal enemy of all the Mad Gods and Outer Gods. Justifiably enraged at Alan's sins, Nodens drags the man off to unimaginable torment. Anita, grieved beyond reason, simply falls to the ground, comatose. Daniel picks her up and carries her out of the park.

Klaus attempts to use his healing powers on Drake and is relieved to find that they work; Drake is not dead, though he's far from okay. As Klaus brings Drake out of the park, Katherine comes running up, wearing a physical body, and begins to fawn over Drake. She explains that she's been in the battle this whole time, that she was pulled out of Amara when the Veil dropped, and she had to take physical form to remain in this reality. She asks the group not to question where she got the Essence reserves she needed to maintain her body for two days.

The group walks home, through the burning husk of a destroyed city.

The following morning, Anita walks the wreckage of Point State Park alone, when she feels a familiar presence. She turns to see the spectre of her fiancee, Chris. He smiles at her as she gapes, and tells her she needn't blame herself for what happened to him, nor should she worry. He is, he says, at peace. He goes on to tell her that she has done well and he expects her to continue to do well, and that he will always be with her, watching over her. He joins her on her walk through the ruins before returning to the Death Realms.

Epilogue: One Month Later...

Rebuilding has commenced on the city, with millions in federal disaster aid having been diverted to Pittsburgh. The official story was that a massive terrorist attack upon the city caused millions of dollars in damage and lives in the thousands. The incident at the Park has been officially explained away as hallucinogenic compounds released in the air, and most people seem to buy it...at least openly. There are many, however, whose lives will never be the same.

John and Cyan's wedding takes place at Heinz Chapel near the Hive. The guest list includes our heroes, Riley Finn, Timothy Ekloff, Willow, Faith, Kennedy, Giles, Buffy, Amara, Michele, and all of the series' regular NPC characters. In the middle of the ceremony, an explosion rocks the back of the church, and a group of CoR cultists charge in, vowing revenge against the Cast. Just as Cyan prepares to incinerate the cultists, someone cries out a phrase of power, the chapel glows with energy, and the cultists are consumed. Out of the shadows steps the Cast's old friend Silas, who says, "Sorry I haven't been around much. I've been working on that incantation for months. Consider it a wedding gift."

John and Cyan are married. Anita, the maid of honor, does not show up at the reception.

After leaving the reception, Drake goes home, packs a bag, and stops at the Hive to gather a few things, where he's the first one to see a letter from Anita (http://www.grey-elf.com/buffy/anitaletter2.pdf), hung beneath a sign on her office that reads, "Blake Investigations closed indefinitely."

Drake reads the letter, returns it to its place on the door, and leaves for Ireland, where he spends the summer with Katherine. He doesn't say good bye to anyone.

During the summer, Katherine tells Drake that he has done well and saved them both. She says he no longer needs her as a guide, bids him to enjoy his well-earned new life, and tells him that when his time comes, she will be waiting for him on the other side. For now, it is time for her to at long last cross over to her final rest.

After their honeymoon, Cyan is treated to a surprise when she discovers that John has placed (as Klaus puts it), "two cupcakes in her Easy-Bake Oven".

Clark

10-03-2005, 09:32 AM

[b]John and Cyan's wedding takes place at Heinz Chapel near the Hive.

Hey, that's where my folks were married!

The Grey Elf

10-03-2005, 09:56 AM

Hey, that's where my folks were married!

;)

I've always wanted to get married there some day myself. I just don't want to deal with the 5-year waiting list to do it. But in a fantasy game (particularly one where the characters are filthy rich) you can pull off stuff like that :D

Clark

10-03-2005, 11:23 AM

I've always wanted to get married there some day myself. I just don't want to deal with the 5-year waiting list to do it. But in a fantasy game (particularly one where the characters are filthy rich) you can pull off stuff like that :D

Heh. I've heard about that. My folks were dirt-poor hippies in 1971, so I'd imagine it wasn't quite so much the desirable place, or maybe cost was waived by a sympathetic padre. I dunno, I should get around to asking.

It's really nifty to see someone running an RPG in geography I'm familiar with. Keep going with the Actual Play postings!

The Grey Elf

10-03-2005, 12:22 PM

Heh. I've heard about that. My folks were dirt-poor hippies in 1971, so I'd imagine it wasn't quite so much the desirable place, or maybe cost was waived by a sympathetic padre. I dunno, I should get around to asking.

It's really nifty to see someone running an RPG in geography I'm familiar with. Keep going with the Actual Play postings!

I have more details, including extra downloads, quotes, great moments, and such, over on my website in addition to the synopses. The site is at http://www.grey-elf.com/buffy/