Session Six - Only The Good Die Young

Day 13

Having spent the entire night drinking the cheapest homemade alcohol that the bar could provide Andy spends much of the morning vomiting into a corner of the room. He stumbles outside and stops again to vomit onto the pavement as a van pulls up in front of him. In his weakened state he puts up little fight as the gang surround him and the mountain giant pushes him forward into the back of the van. Alan awakens and makes his way downstairs to get ready for tonight when he is dues to travel to the nexus point in time for sunrise on tomorrow's summer solstice. He exits the building in time to see a van hastily driving away closely followed by a mountain giant driving a specially constructed motorcycle that still looks ridiculous with his enormous frame on top. Alan shrugs it off and continues with his day.

David becomes accustomed to his new surroundings in the prison hospital and it isn't long before he finds himself being questioned by the warden in regards to Ian's curious behaviour. They confess to him that they are a little unsure what to do with Ian, they aren't exactly equipped to deal with the mentally disturbed and he doesn't seem like a threat. That with his constant insistence that all he was trying to do was return the truck it seems like he is guilty of nothing more than "being a bit off" and with guidance could become a functioning member of society. David agrees with them, explaining he had no idea the truck was stolen and  that in his experience Ian can be a little unpredictable.

In addition to this David decides he wants to sue Ian for his lose of leg (and general emotional damage). The prison authorities say they'll see what they can do. In speaking with Matt, David discovers how woefully under-equipped the prison hospital is and offers to build them some psychically powered devices out of the scrap they do have to help them out whilst he is stuck here. Under Matt's supervision he gets to work on this.

Alan picks up a few ritualistic supplies, candles and such like, before meeting the group of mages outside of the saloon where the guild meets. They have hired an armoured bus to take them to The Hunt Lodge where they will be flown by helicopter to the nexus point in the middle of the ancient jungle that fills the crater. Alan climbs on board and decides to get some sleep on the journey over so that he is well rested by the time they get there.

Earlier in the day Andy has been traveling in a similar direction. As the van makes it's way he makes one last attempt to escape and jumps at the two gang members guarding him. Unfortunately this fails spectacularly and he falls into them. He succeeds in surprising them but now lying at their feet they respond by unloading their shotguns into him, well aware that he can take the hit but only really trying to hurt him. Andy passes out from the pain and awakens some time later to find himself still in the van but tied to a chair which has been bolted to the floor.

He is facing the backdoor which sits open and the four man gang is standing outside looking in at him. An old man approaches who is recognisably the same old man who was being eaten by the giant spider before. He explains that he thinks Andy needs to be taught a lesson in manners and since he seems to think he's such a tough guy maybe that should be put to the test as well. He encases Andy in a forcefield of psychic energy and Andy hears the van start up, apparently by itself. The doors close and the van lurches forward and it is suddenly very apparent where they are as the van goes flying off of a cliff edge. It tumbles down the rock face, smashing itself to pieces for what seems like forever with Andy being kept relatively intact with the psychic forcefield before it comes crashing to a halt at the bottom, leaving Andy stranded and alone inside the crater, the mysterious jungle surrounding him.

Day 14


Alan awakens as they arrive at 'The Hunt Lodge'. The lodge is a lavish mansion bigger in itself than some of the settlements in the rest of the county. There are two other buildings, one on either side, an extensively stocked armoury and a vehicle bay equipped with a wider array of militarised vehicles than the army itself. Alan and the mage group board a combat helicopter and are joined by five heavily armed mercenaries from the lodge who make them all look pretty weak and pathetic by comparison. The flight sets off for the nexus, an hours journey over the dense jungle of the crater.

The nexus point is alive with energy as dawn approaches on the summer solstice, the ley lines converging into a glowing mass that is visible long before the group arrive. The chopper lands at a strategic position, weapons pointed square at the nexus and the mercenaries file out to scan the surrounding area for threats. Alan and the mages exit more cautiously and set themselves up around the nexus as the mercenaries take up sentry positions.

Ian is called in again for more psychological testing and given a proposition. Unfortunately the prison and the sheriffs office in general is extremely overworked and there's no place for treating psychological disorders (if there was half the people in the county would probably be candidates). Ian doesn't seem to deserve incarceration, but conversely they're not convinced he should be allowed back out on the streets unsupervised. To try and find a happy medium the warden offers Ian a job, sort of. Ian will remain on at the prison as a guard, unpaid but with a guards living quarters and free food, as well as supervised leave out of the prison within certain limitations. Ian only seems to have been half listening and agrees without any further questioning or putting much thought into it at all really. The warden and his guard team are apprehensive but glad that a compromise has been reached, although they watch Ian with suspicion as he skips away.

David is largely healed and working hard building a psychic diagnosis machine under Matt's supervision and since Matt's release is coming up in three days they decide to release David at the same time, the idea being that if David requires further care Matt can look after him as a condition of his release.

In the crater Andy awakens. He is badly hurt, barely living and still chained to the chair in the back of the smashed up van. Fortunately the chair has loosened itself from the floor of the van and Andy manages to break the chair free completely and shake free the chains that bind him. He clambers out of the broken structure of the van and sees his surroundings for the first time, one side dominated by the thousand foot cliff face and the other by the jungle with a small clearing between the two running the length of the cliff. Andy is too weakened to venture forth and risk coming face to face with any of the carnivorous life forms that might inhabit the jungle of the crater so he takes refuge in the van to rest up.

Alan sneaks off from the rest of the group to search the surrounding jungle in the hopes of something dead being nearby but isn't equipped to venture too far from the group and isn't lucky for anything to be nearby so returns to the camp that is being set up in front of the nexus. Several of the mages are busy preparing rituals but many of them have just come along for the ride are already busy building a barbecue and getting drunk as dawn approaches. Alan looks over the group and decides these probably aren't the people to help him further his magical studies.

Dawn arrives and with it the surge of magic energy that the group has been waiting for. The problem is that the surge also opens up a rift right on the nexus, a gateway that could lead anywhere with any number of unspeakable horrors on the other side. This wasn't an entirely unexpected occurrence, actually it was quite a high probability so the mercenaries are on immediate alert. For a moment the scene is quiet before a small group of humans exit through the rift and enter the clearing. They wander towards the mages who stand transfixed by what is now clearly a group of extraordinarily beautiful women.

As they approach the mages their abnormal presence doesn't go unnoticed by the mercenaries and one of them opens fire, blasting one of the women to pieces. The others freeze in place and utter an unearthly monstrous scream and proceed to morph into hideous demonic lizard creatures (succubi - although nobody in the group correctly identifies them). The majority of the mages scatter in fear, those that can fight prepare themselves and the mercenaries move in. Alan falls back and begins throwing magic nets into the fray. As the succubi pounce upon the mages the mercenaries unload laser fire into their opponents, and unfortunately mistakenly injuring some of the mages who luckily paid in advance. The only real slip up is when one of the mercenaries slips and unloads half a clip into the side of the helicopter.

Back in the prison Ian decides to strike up a conversation with Mouse who is surprised by his advance. Ian enquires as to the proposition Mouse was talking about in the cupboard before which confuses Mouse further since he took being locked in a cupboard as a sign of hostility. However, Ian seems quite  friendly, almost disturbingly so. Mouse can't handle it and confesses his true motivations. The reality is that the man he works for likes him to identify new comers who are alone and vulnerable and can be exploited for cheap labour. However, after their previous encounter Mouse would rather not have to deal with Ian any further so tells him to just move along and they'll speak no more about it. Ian shrugs and walks away.

At the nexus the battle with the succubi continues but the mercenaries are winning and the mages retreat has saved them any heavy casualties. Eventually the succubi are defeated with only three deaths amongst the mages, one of which turns out to be merely a death trance, one of the mages pretending to be dead and allowing the battle to take place around him. He casually stands up and rejoins the group unscathed. Unfortunately there have also been half a dozen serious injuries amongst the group and it is agreed that once the the helicopter is loaded up and the handful of rituals underway with the shortest timeframe remaining completed the group will return to the lodge.

As the group pack up Alan looks over the battleground and sees all the dead bodies a young necromancer could want but no time to do anything about it. Not wanting to waste the opportunity he sneaks away from the group and on the pretense of helping pack up ransacks the bodies. He goes unnoticed as he manages to gather three arms and ten claws from the succubi corpses. He packs them in amongst his belongings and goes back to the helicopter whistling nonchalantly.

The helicopter returns to the lodge and as the day draws to a close Ian is greeted by the warden once more as his team prepare him for his new job and show him to his new guards quarters. Once this is done and Ian is donned in a shiny new guard uniform one of the other guards enters and speaks privately with the warden. The warden turns to Ian and asks if he remembers the prisoner by the name of Mouse, the one he locked in a cupboard once. Ian remembers and asks why. The warden explains that Mouse has just been found dead in his cell having apparently hung himself.

Ian seems shocked and the warden asks if Mouse seemed suicidal to him. He says no but explains what Mouse told him before about the man he works for. The warden nods, it doesn't seem entirely new information to him, but he and the guards have much work to do so they leave Ian in peace in his new chambers. Before going they explain that since Ian is a skilled driver they will see if they can fix him up with some work along those lines to keep him busy.

Back at the lodge the mages regroup and those of them fit enough to travel, including Alan, board the bus that brought them down the previous night to return to their homes in The Capital Fort. Alan looks over his gains, not massively impressive a haul but worth a pretty penny and could be just the windfall he was looking for, if he can find somewhere to sell it.

As nightfall approaches Andy feels his strength returning and inspects the van. The passenger door hangs on by a thread so he breaks it loose and enchants it with superior strength. He then pulls off the front bumper and does the same. He know has a shield and a weapon, sort of, and inspecting the area using his knowledge of the land he decides that tomorrow morning he moves north hoping the join the ley line that should be a couple of days journey away. Coincidentally, if his calculations are correct, his arrival at the ley line will coincide with David and Matt's release from prison. The two of them eagerly plan their next move and as David finishes up the psychic diagnosis machine and sees how impressed the warden is with his work he realises there could be some money to be made here once they are free to make their way in the world.

More to come ... Session Seven - Travelers Beware

Session Five - Talking Turkey, Turning Canary and Doing Bird

Day 10

Attending another meeting of the mages guild Alan manages to befriend a group of young mages planning a trip to the nearby nexus point for the summer solstice which is in four days time. This trip is half to use the power of the nexus to do some high level enchanting and half to drink beer and party (they're not exactly the smartest or most disciplined group of mages you ever met). Fortunately they are smart enough to have hired out some heavily armed mercenaries to escort them and if Alan picks up his fair share of the bill he's welcome to tag along. With a skip in his step Alan leaves the meeting but the motel is a bit too pricy for him on a regular basis so he moves to a rundown saloon on the other side of town.

Meanwhile Ian has spent the night quite happily in a holding cell at the sheriffs office and is due for processing this morning. They charge him with stealing the truck and attempting to kill Ramirez, Ian argues he only borrowed the truck and Ramirez was in the way of him returning it, and he sticks to that defence rigidly. If nothing else this confuses everyone else involved in the trial, but they take it as some sort of confession and put Ian in the prison whilst they decide on a sentence. David is in a coma in the prison hospital where he is being treated by a new player character, Matt.

Matt - a cyberdoc (doctor who specialises in cybernetics if that wasn't obvious from the name) who owned a shop in one of the southern towns of the county and is currently serving a three year sentence for, among other things, public nudity. He refuses to divulge any more information than that. With only one week left on his sentence and a long history of good behaviour he has been put to work in the prison hospital.

Unable to save David's crushed leg and with somewhat limited resources at the prison hospital Matt has little choice but to amputate David's left leg. With this done Matt's daily duties mostly consist of trying to maintain the poor quality equipment the hospital is supplied with, as well as assisting the rest of medical staff as necessary.

Outside of the prison Andy attends work at the bank as usual knowing that he must meet tonight with the gang who assaulted him. He goes to the bank, signs in and is put in the workshop with a variety of others to see what he can make out of the raw materials they have available for sale on their shop floor. He carries on as if nothing is out of the ordinary, finishes his first working day and proceeds to his meeting the trio who stabbed him the night before. His instructions were simply to go to a shack in the slums and when he arrives he sees it is a very unimpressive ten by ten structure with no windows.

Cautiously he pushes open the door and goes inside to find nothing but a chair sat in the middle of the room. He wanders round the interior of the shack but finding nothing of interest reluctantly decides to sit in the chair, at which point the door blows closed. After a few seconds he decides to get up and reopen it and in doing so discovers that the door now leads to a deep cavern where a variety of stone structures are built creating a small community where people wander around. This curious event draws Andy out of the shack, which has apparently been transported in it's entirety to this new location.

He watches the variety of people wander around this elaborate underground structure before he spots a recognisable face, the mountain giant who destroyed his makeshift workshop back at the mine, approaching him at speed. The mountain giant stands before him and instructs him into a temple like building at the far end of the cavern. Andy enters the temple to find the other three familiar members of the gang standing by whilst an elderly man floats in mid air on the other side of a large table. The man addresses him telepathically, Andy, however, is unimpressed by the elaborate arrangements of this meeting. The two of them enter an argument regarding the unfriendly way in which Andy has been treated thus far, with both sides seeming to think they deserve more respect from each other.

With the argument going nowhere the elderly man is suddenly ripped in half by an invisible assailant and moments later a giant green spider-like monster appears behind him, apparently having been invisible this entire time and using the man as a puppet. Andy seems unsure how to react to this latest bizarrely theatrical change to the meeting and as the giant spider asks "impressed yet?" Andy shrugs and says "I suppose". With the conversation making slow progress the mountain giant takes Andy from behind and stabs him in the neck. The giant spider informs him that they have just implanted a bomb into his spine and if he fails to cooperate with them they will detonate it. He is to draw them a detailed floor plan of the working area of the bank and report back to the shack the following night where he will receive further instructions.

Andy is promptly thrown out of the temple and presumably returns to the shack because the next thing he remembers is being inside and opening up the door to find himself back in the slums. With a sore neck and a throbbing headache Andy seems not one hundred percent sure that what he witnessed actually just happened so he returns to his motel room to sleep.

Day 11

Ian wakes up to his first day in prison and starting as he means to go on walks up to the first prison guard he sees and asks a series of innocuous questions about prison life. The guard answers happily enough and at the end of the questioning Ian says thank you and tells him his shoes are untied, which they aren't. The slightly confused guard then watches as Ian walks up to the next nearest prison guard and asks him the exact same questions again (yes, he really did) and ended that conversation by telling the guard his shoes are untied, which again they weren't. He proceeds to do this as many times as possible.

Meanwhile Matt continues to work off the last of his sentence as trouble free as possible and David remains in a coma. Alan continues his attempts to look for work and in a bid to get his hands on a dead body secures himself a custodians job at the hospital.

Andy on the hand goes in for his second day working at the bank. As he moves through the building he makes a rough sketch of the layout but decides to try and secure some help to get out from under the thumb of this gang. He goes about this in a slightly unusual way though and makes a gold statue of the giant spider-like d-bee he saw the previous night in the hope that somebody will recognise it. Nobody does, they just give him strange looks for his bizarre creation.

That night Andy returns to the shack in the slums and enters as before, but familiar with the set up he simply closes the door and opens it again. This time the door opens up onto a small desert island where the three gang members are lounging around in the tropical sun. Andy approaches and they give him a small device that they instruct he is to plug into the banks computer system so they can download the security schematic and access codes to all of the doors. They then shove Andy back into the shack and he finds himself back in the slums once more.

Day 12

At the prison Ian awakens to find himself being beckoned by a guy in an adjoining cell to join him for a private chat in a nearby supply closet. Without a thought in his head Ian follows him and the man introduces himself as Mouse. He goes on to explain that he represents somebody on the outside who is always looking to recruit new "help" and for prisoners he is the only outside contact they will have as he is the only psychic powerful enough to penetrate the protections that the psi-nullifiers and nega-psychics amongst the prison guard can offer. Mouse's boss can make prison life much more bearable for a few small favours. Ian hears him out, tells him his shoes are untied, picks up a mop from the cupboard and leaves, but before returning to his cell he jams the supply closet door closed using the mop, locking Mouse inside.

Andy awakens and comes to a decision he probably should have already come to and decides to actually seek help for his situation. He starts by going to the bank and talking to his would be boss. He takes out the giant spider-like d-bee model he made the previous day and puts it on the desk and tells the bank manager "that told me to rob the bank". The manager stares back at him in confusion and replies, "okay, is it telling you to do anything now?".

It's hard to express quite how poorly worded Andy's first attempt to explain his predicament was, you really had to be there, but eventually Andy manages to explain himself and presents his would-be boss with the device he was supposed to install into the banks computer system. The boss looks it over it, wraps his elongated fingers around it and snaps it in half. Andy explains he was hoping to use the device to trick the gang and at the very least it was evidence against them. The boss simply tells him that he should have explained that earlier. Unfortunately for Andy no sympathy is going to be found here and the boss calmly tell him that he can't risk the banks security, suggests Andy goes to the police and has him thrown out.

At the prison following his locking a fellow prisoner in a supply closet Ian is called in for psychological evaluation. He is requestioned regarding the truck incident but his story remains the same and with David in a coma it seems his version is what they are stuck with for now. However, several guards can attest to Ian's curious behaviour and they feel it is necessary to study his state of mind a little further. They begin with an inkblot test to which Ian gives the same response for every picture, a brief questionnaire follows to which Ian gives random and pointless answers to every question and the meeting ends, although as Ian leaves the room he makes sure to tell the psychiatrist that his shoes are untied, which they aren't.

Andy swings by the hospital on his way to the police station to look into getting the explosive removed from his spine, but a quick examination reveals that there is nothing there and only a flesh wound at the impact site. Andy runs to the police station and tells his tale to the man at the front desk who defers him to a deputy who takes him to a private room. The deputy asks Andy who it is that he is being forced to work for and Andy replies by showing him the spider-like d-bee statue and explains (exact wording) "when I first met him he was sucking all the juices from an old man" (I promise you, exact wording of what he told the deputy).

Fortunately rather than assuming he was a crazy person the deputy knew who Andy was talking about. The man in question is named Marvin and is not a giant spider, nor is he an old man, although he likes to appear as those two things. Truth is nobody has the slightest idea what he looks like as he is an extremely powerful psychic who only ever appears as visions or illusions to trick feeble minded individuals into doing his bidding. The four men Andy met are the only real members of his gang. He asks Andy if he knows a location of the gangs hideout. He doesn't. He asks if he knows anything about them, about their lives. He doesn't. He asks if he has any way of contacting them, of forcing them into a trap. He doesn't.

He asks Andy what exactly he's supposed to do about this. The sheriffs office is stretched pretty thin as it is, they aren't exactly in a position to put him into protective custody, the best they can offer is locking him up in the prison so they can keep an eye on him, an offer Andy refuses. On the plus side the gang have very high bounties on their heads so if Andy can help to trap them he could make some serious cash.

Disheartened Andy wanders the town making sure to stay to well lit crowded areas trying to find somewhere safe to spend the night. He ends up at 'The Truckers Saloon' a favoured dive of the various delivery, mercenary and general travelers that come through the town. The advantage here is that there are people coming and going all through he night so Andy finds himself a seat in the bar and settles in for the a night of drinking.

Coincidentally Alan has a room in this saloon but doesn't notice Andy as he returns from working in the hospital and goes up to bed. He enters his room and starts packing as tomorrow night he travels with his new mage friends to the mercenary town where they are to meet the group they will be flying out to the nexus point with. The nexus can be found in a dense patch of otherworldly jungle and during the solstice it's a dangerous place to be as a rift could open and anything could come through. Alan realises it's unfortunate he can't afford a gun, but figures he'll probably be okay.

Ian wanders back into the prison under the watchful eye of the guards who are now viewing him as some sort of special needs/straightjacket worthy case. Mouse also watches him return with disdain and immediately goes to contact his boss on the outside.

Matt wanders the hospital wing keeping an eye on his patients safe in the knowledge that he will be a free man in less than five days time. All he has to do is bide his time.

David wakes up.

More to come ... Session Six - Only The Good Die Young