11/3 Session (part 2 of 2) The Empire City Centurions in: The Yeti Attacks!
After the group spends some time discussing their next plan of attack, Mr. Mystery decides to do some good ol’ fashioned investigation work. He went to the police station and met with Police Chief Flannigan. Flannigan told Mr. Mystery that the two Russians were Comintern and that the feds were coming down to pick them up. The chief also provided Mr. Mystery with a list of the artifacts that had been stolen over the past few weeks. Before leaving, Mr. Mystery asked if he could borrow the recovered Chutt amulet for a while, which Chief Flannigan was happy to allow.
Mr. mystery returned to the club with the list, and Simon began to look over it in detail. He was able to determine that all of the items on the list had some sort of mystic resonance about them and that, if used in conjunction as some sort of mystic energy battery, could be used to power something dangerously powerful. Simon was also able to attune one of his own mystic artifacts, Rasputin’s Cross, to the other items’ energy, turning it into a sort of divining rod.
Working on a hunch, Simon contacted some local art and antiquities dealers to see if there has been any activity on similar items recently. He was told that there has been many inquiries into such items of late, and the buyers usually had Russian or German accents.
Mr. Mystery headed back out onto the streets, this time canvassing the city’s German and Russian neighborhoods. After a while, he found out that there has been a lot of hiring of locals from the German neighborhood near the waterfront. Mr. Mystery got the address of a warehouse from one of the German immigrants and headed down to the docks.
Back at the club, Doc Nitro was digging around for some more information on the Chutt people. He found out that the Chutt were a very insular civilization, and the fact that several of them appear to have traveled several thousand miles away from their homeland is highly unusual. Only two reasons could have led them to do this: either their shaman ordered them to do it for religious reasons, or their village was being threatened and they were coerced into it.
Mr. Mystery approached the warehouse and marches right in the front door.
[Drew asked for a compel of Mystery’s Acts, Then Thinks aspect, which I happily obliged. I then took Drew outside and explained to him what he found. I compelled Mr. Mystery’s Wrong Place, Right Time aspect, which Drew accepted, and I had fun little suprise ready for him. I wasn’t planning on this, but it was too perfect to pass up. I really dig how compelling aspects can really drive where the adventure goes.] Mr. Mystery walked right into a room full of gun-toting Thule Society agents being ordered about by Der Blitzmann! Mr. Mystery and Der Blitzmann knew each other by reputation only, but they did recognize each other.
Mr. Mystery: “Der Blitzmann! We meet again for the first time. Er, maybe.”
Der Blitzmann: [in a bad German accent] “Ah, Mr. Mystery. You seem to have found what you were looking for, but you have arrived at just the wrong time. For you, that is. Bwa-ha-ha-ha!”
Mr. Mystery was quickly surrounded by the gun-toting proto-Nazis. Mr. Mystery pulled out the amulet and holds it out for all to see.
Mr. Mystery: “You may have captured me, fiend, but I still have this!”
The amulet was quickly snatched from Mr. mystery’s grasp by one of the goons.
Der Blitzmann: “Thank you for returning that to me, fool.”
Mr. Mystery: “Um, you’re welcome?”
Out front in the Mystery Machine, Girl Assistant got a feeling that something very bad was happening.
[Girl Assistant was built as a Companion for Mr. Mystery. In fact, Drew spent three stunt slots for her advancements, so she is, mechanically, almost as capable as Mr. Mystery in many things. Drew plays her as being the more capable of the two, making for some fun roleplaying bits. One of Girl Assistant’s advancements is Communication, which Drew explained as intuition. GA knows MM better than he knows himself, so she always knows what he’s thinking and what he’s planning on doing. She also knows when he gets himself into trouble. It seems to happen quite a bit...] Knowing she needed help, Girl Assistant headed immediately back to the Century Club for backup.
After Girl Assistant told the group what went down on the docks, they all piled into the Mystery Machine
[it’s a big limo] and headed for the warehouse. Not wanting to take time planning things out, Girl Assistant plowed the Mystery Machine through the fence and into the front door of the warehouse. Both the villains
and the heroes were taken completely by surprise by this action, but the heroes recovered first and got the drop on the bad guys.
The warehouse was filled with 20 goons and Der Blitzmann. There were a lot of crates, barrels, and machinery around, and there was a conning tower of a u-boat sticking up from a hole in the floor. (The warehouse was built on a pier.) Many of the crates and barrels were being loaded into the u-boat.
[The minions were split into five groups, one for each PC, and Blitzmann was attached to one of them. Thanks to Mr. Mystery, one of the Chutt’s that was present was wearing the yeti amulet. He was in Blitzmann’s group. I assigned the aspects Cluttered and Industrial Machinery to the scene.]
Simon Magus started the action off by cutting the support of a stack of barrels with his swordcane. The barrels rolled towards the group he was facing
[a blocking maneuver while tagging the Cluttered aspect and invoking his Seat of His Pants aspect], and began spilling diesel fuel
[Nick paid a Fate point and made the declaration.] Doc Nitro then leveled his gun at the spilled oil and ignited it with some hot lead
[a maneuver that added the On Fire! aspect to the scene. Doc Nitro invoked his Nitro Wants Big Boom to get this to work.] This caused a large explosion, which knocked several of the combatants off of their feet.
Girl Assistant, extremely pissed off, took out the four goons facing her with a flurry of kicks and blows.
[Drew rolled very well and I rolled very poorly, so all four Fair minions were taken out in one round. Drew didn’t describe the action itself, he just described the sounds of the beating and the reactions of everyone watching. It was hilarious. 
]
Warren Peese, taking note of Simon’s maneuver with the barrels, decided to roll a nearby oil drum at his opponents
[another blocking maneuver tagging the Cluttered aspect. I added a Fuel to the Fire! aspect to the scene.]
Der Blitzmann attempted to zap Ironclad, but the hero managed to duck behind a crate just in time
[another tag of the Cluttered aspect.] Ironclad then attempted to smash his nearby opponents, but they managed to avoid his blows.
Seeing an opening in the flames, Simon Magus attacked Der Blitzmann with his sword. He got a very lucky blow and damaged Der Blitzmann’s Tesla Suit.
[Another great roll by the player and a poor roll by me. Blitzmann got hit for a minor consequence, and Nick declared that he cut some of the wiring, causing the suit to spark madly.]
Noticing the exposed wires on Blitzmann’s Tesla Suit, Doc Nitro aimed for one of the electrical lines dangling about, shooting one end so that the wire swung down and contacted Der Blitzmann.
[I let Dr. Paul attempt this, but I set the Difficulty level at Epic. Dr. Paul rolled a Fair effort, meaning he would need to invoke three aspects to get the +5 he needed to pull this off. He used It Works On Paper!, Tesla’s Technology, and Electrical Mayhem, and he explained it all in a way that sounded cool, so I let him have it. The maneuver worked, and Paul assigned the temporary aspect Frozen Joints to Der Blitzmann. BTW, I did notice after the encounter began that Der Blitzmann and Doc Nitro have some very similar aspects. I quickly decided that Der Blitzmann and Doc Nitro share a past, and I may give Doc Nitro an aspect to reflect this.]
Simon managed to take down three of Der Blitzmann’s minions, though the Chutt wearing the yeti amulet escaped. The Chutt rubbed his amulet and transformed into a raging yeti.
Girl Assistant marched straight towards the u-boat, dismissing the incapacitated Blitzmann with a disgusted glance and wave of her hand as she walked by him. The yeti attempted to prevent her from reaching the ladder of the conning tower, but she surprised him with a flurry of blows to the face.
[The yeti attempted a blocking maneuver, but in yet another case of good roll vs. bad roll, Girl Assistant beats the block with her Fists. Another funny Girl Assistant moment.]
Warren hopped onto a loading tractor and rode down the four remaining goons. A couple of them managed to avoid being crushed by the wheels by clinging to the front of the tractor, but they were promptly smashed into the brick wall of the warehouse as Warren drove through it.
[Warren tagged the Industrial Machinery scene aspect to declare the loading tractor was nearby. Pulp villains became pulped villains.]
Ironclad, seeing only the yeti still standing, decided to take him out. One of the larger crates had fallen into some of the spilled fuel on the ground. Ironclad pushed the crate with all of his might, sending it sliding into the yeti and smashing him into the side of the conning tower.
[Ironclad used his Herculean Strength stunt and used the environment to his advantage. The yeti, being only a Threat-level minion, took enough stress to be taken out.]
[I declared at the beginning of the next round that I was assigning the aspect It’s Gonna Blow! to the scene due to the raging fire and the number of fuel drums still around. Everyone had this round to try to make it to safety before the big boom.]
Simon ran for the safety of the u-boat, leaping aboard and dropping down the hatch in the nick of time. Ironclad, too, headed for the u-boat, but he stopped to scoop up the unconscious Chutt on the way. Doc Nitro, not really paying attention to the inferno around him, kicked over another fuel drum and sent it spilling towards Der Blitzmann.
[Doc Nitro’s Nitro Wants Big Boom was compelled.]
Warren saw that Nitro was still in the warehouse that was about to explode. He spotted a water tower nearby, and he aimed the tractor for one of the support legs. He smashed the tractor into the leg, and the water tower toppled over right into the roof of the burning warehouse. Thousands of gallons of water washed away most of the burning fuel, preventing the explosion from obliterating the site.
[Marianne paid a Fate point to have a water tower conveniently located right next to the warehouse. It was a warehouse district set in the midst of a rail yard on the waterfront, so it made sense there would be one there. She also invoked Warren’s aspects Bullseye and There’s Gotta Be A Better Way to pull off the maneuver.] The fire was contained, but much to Doc Nitro’s dismay, Der Blitzmann was nowhere to be seen. Instead of meeting a firey doom, he must have been washed away in the flood. He must have certainly drowned when he was washed into the water, though. Surely, nobody could survive that.
[Riiiiight...]
The flood also damaged the warehouse support structure already weakened by the fire.
[I declared the scene aspect It’s Comin’ Down!] Doc Nitro made his escape just as the roof came crashing down. As the police cars and fire trucks pulled up, the rubble that was formerly a warehouse shifted a bit, and the top hatch of the u-boat’s conning tower popped up through the debris. Out climbed the rescued Mr. Mystery, Girl Assistant, Simon Magus, and Ironclad, carrying the still-unconscious Chutt.
Mr. Mystery walked over to Chief Flannigan and handed him the Chutt amulet. “Ah, Mr. Mystery, again you save the day!” Behind Mr. Mystery, Girl Assistant shook her head and messaged her temples...
The team decided to give the u-boat a thorough once-over before it was confiscated by the feds. Ironclad discovered that the u-boat had been enhanced and refitted to allow it to dive to far greater depths than what a u-boat could normally handle. Simon Magus found that the u-boat has been loaded with enough fuel and provisions to last a small crew a very long time. He also uncovered the stash of stolen artifacts. Doc Nitro made the most concerning discover of all, however. He found the log book of Captain Jonas Grumby, a fellow Centurion who has been missing for the past 18 months. In the same lockbox, Doc Nitro also found a map marked with coordinates off the coast of South America and the signet ring of yet another, unknown member of the Century Club.
Where were the Germans planning on going in the u-boat? What were they planning on doing with all the mystical artifacts? How is this all connected with the missing Captain Grumby? Who does the Centurion ring belong to? That all is for another tale...
|| WANT! - The Dresden Files
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