Key Points:
- Managirl found herself at gun point from one of the deputies of Raske. However, the sheriff (Oku), defused the situation quickly. Soon, the group gathered to hear the tales and woes of the ghost of Raske...
- The townspeople claim that a ghost murdered the captain of the town guard (Jemos) as well as three other guards at the town's southern guardhouse. Jemos' corpse was set on fire (though he didn't smell of gasoline or other ignition fluid), but the other victims had their throats torn out. Jemos was found with a wolf mask and a red cloak.
- Many claim that the ghost is a man called Otho. A stranger in Raske, he was a thief and a con artist. Otho was reported to be "strange", many people thought he was a manaborn, but there wasn't sufficient proof to confirm what he was, since he didn't match the description of a deva, a tiefling, or a genasi.
- Otho was rumored to be killed by the Red Wolves. He was beaten to death, then burned in a pyre. Otho only really committed small crimes, nothing worthy of that treatment.
- The Red Wolves are a vigilante group of concerned citizens in Raske. They have driven off outsiders from the town before, but they've never had such a violent turn like this. They are considered outlaws, but Oku believed that Jemos protected their identities.
- Although Otho wasn't a mage in life, people reported his ghost to be able to use magic. Hellfire, unholy blights, and the ability to appear instantaneously.
- Tommik, an eccentric gnome who specializes in the occult, was the one to see Otho attack the guardhouse. He insists Otho is a ghost.
- The group offered to help solve the mystery in Raske in order to protect its citizens. Oku agreed, as she was short staffed. She didn't necessarily offer any reward, but she did say that she would pay for the group's expenses while in town.
- A dockworker, short of breath, arrived and warned the group that the ghost was attacking people at the dock.
- At the dock, several people (guards and workers) had been killed. A dwarven woman was trying to escape from a figure cloaked in smoke.
- Kembu leaped (an impossible distance for a normal man) to defend the woman, but for his troubles, he had black cancerous tar and poison spewed on him.
- Managirl supported him from the roof of a nearby shock, raining her magic down upon the figure.
- Roan, likewise, supported the group from a distance. He had several impressive sniper rifle shots (including knocking an amulet off the ghost's neck).
- Del and her crew of animals and spirits headed to support Kembu from the rear. Her healing magic and her animals (who got their licks and swipes in) were a boon.
- Trajan, recklessly or fearlessly (your choice), engaged the ghost in melee. He learned that it was really a man in there, and find him a competent hand-to-hand fighter. Trajan had an awesome nut shot though...
- Throughout the fight, several things happened...
- Kembu sprained his wrist.
- Kembu, the dwarven woman, and Del all contracted a disease.
- The group discovered that the ghost was looking to get revenge for Otho. So unless he liked to talk in the third person... this wasn't Otho.
- The ghost was powerful, giving everyone a good fight.
- Kembu and the Dwarven woman tried to escape by boat, but the ghost destroyed it with his fire magic. The ghost, then, disappeared into ash (having been bloodied by the group).
- Kembu and the woman survived the boat's explosion, but Del (instructing Trajan) saw to the dwarven woman being given mouth-to-mouth to save her life.
- After the fight was over, the group began to lick their wounds. Igam (the dwarf woman) had been saved, though she didn't give much insight into the ghost situation. She seemed in favor of what the Red Wolves did, and seemed to insist that Otho deserved what he got. She is convinced that this is the ghost of Otho, though, out for revenge.
- Del's theory is that this is a twin brother of Otho getting his revenge.
- Roan retrieved the amulet-half he shot off of the ghost, and later, it was revealed that the other half of the amulet was in the town's evidence locker. The other half was given to Del by Oku. When combined, the gold amulet shows the visage of a dragon breathing firing.
- Trajan seemed perturbed, yet interested that the image of a dragon kept coming up (on the amulet, in the ghost's smoke). He didn't take well to Oku calling dragons 'fictional'.
- Igam is being kept by Oku temporarily in the town's jail (for protection, yet, she is also suspected of being a Red Wolf, as the wolf mask and cloak was found at the docks).
- Trajan, Roan, and Kembu noticed throughout the night that a very tall (7'0) bald man with the look of a bodyguard kept observing the night's affairs from afar. Roan found that the man high-tailed it out of there after the sheriff arrived at the crime scene. He fled to the Raske estate, which the group learned belongs to a wealthy family that the town was named after.
- After retrieving Dr. Klein, the group turned in for the night at the Red Eye Inn (where they met the halfling inn keeper).
Current Objectives:
- Complete the Middleman's Second Job: Escort Dr. Klein to Quiet Mountain to investigate the mana reactor there.
- Complete the Middleman's Third Job: ???
- Receive the Middleman's Answers.
- Catch the murderer ("ghost") of Raske.
Key Points:
- Trajan woke up to another one of his dreams. Afterwards, he encountered the infamous Bag Lady of Babylon, and purchased some choice magazines and a bag of oranges from her for a silver.
- Roan himself had an (un?)pleasant dream too that he didn't quite want to wake up from, but reluctantly did. He eventually would go pick up Kembu, thinking that the kid could use a ride.
- Del dreamed of her mentor while Managirl dreamed of an event in a past. The two bonded a little in the early morning.
- Kembu too was not safe either from dreaming, recalling something he had thought he had forgotten. Though, he got to have breakfast with Lisa.
- Somehow, someway, each of the crew members received a newspaper with a PDA hidden in it. Given to the group by the Middleman and the Watchdog, they each now have a way to contact each other.
- The PDAs each had an event in it: telling the crew to meet with the Watchdog over breakfast.
- Managirl and Del arrived first at the dwarven themed diner with Roan and Kembu not too far behind them in the truck. Trajan was last to arrive, figuring out the meeting a little later than the others.
- Over dwarven food for breakfast, the Watchdog offered the group a choice.
- He had a unique client that didn't mind her identity to be revealed if it meant getting a good team.
- The group agreed to meet the client, and encountered the eccentric Dr. Vesper Klein.
- After learning that she was interested in investigating an abandoned mana reactor near the town of Quiet Mountain in the name of SCIENCE, the group agreed to help her out. She seemed friendly enough (if a little weird).
- Klein gave her 'magic science bag' to the group as a gift, which it ended up being filled with numerous goodies.
- The group purchased a few other goods and Del even sent a letter back home. After hooking up Klein's trailer to the truck, the group left Babylon for Quiet Mountain.
- As they traveled, the group was asked to stop on the side of the road by Del and Klein.
- A group of horl choos (porcupine bushes) was spotted near a set of humanoid bones. The group found that these plants had been mutated by mana radiation, and were very much alive.
- Trajan tested them out by offering some of his oranges to them.
- The group kept a good distance away from them, and Del put up a note on a nearby tree to warn travelers of the danger of these pushes (as they were found to have acidic quills).
- Klein gathered some valuable information and sketches on them, before consenting to leave (secretly, disappointed that they did not uproot and take one with them).
- By sunset, the group had made it to the town of Raske, where they would (probably) be staying the night...
- Along the way, they found several disturbing items...
- A dwarven woman rode a motor boat into town along the rivers.
- An effigy of a man in red with a wolf's mask for a head could be seen hanging by a noose out in the forest.
- Signs warned of a murderous ghost in town and told travelers to turn back.
- Roan stopped the truck short of the closed town gates.
- Kembu went up to the gates to eavesdrop and heard a large crowd of villagers arguing with the town captain over the 'ghost'.
- Managirl and Trajan went to the wall, where the latter gave the former a boost.
- Managirl, while looking over, was snatched up by someone and dragged onto the other side of the wall!
New Items:
- See this thread: http://terranullius.freeforums.org/session-4-loot-t21.html
Current Objectives:
- Complete the Middleman's Second Job: Escort Dr. Klein to Quiet Mountain to investigate the mana reactor there.
- Complete the Middleman's Third Job: ???
- Receive the Middleman's Answers.
- Solve the trouble in Raske?
Key Points:
- With three rooms down and two to go, the group entered the next testing room. Likened to a dungeon hall in a fantasy castle, the group had to reach the end of the hallway within a time limit.
- The hallway had trapped statues that shot out fire. A few people tripped it (Trajan and Managirl), but neither were really harmed by it thanks to their testing suit. Del was able to find the 'on/off' switch for the first one, before using Jergo's blinking ability to get some of the others across without triggering the other trap.
- Trajan was the first to find the trip wires too. One of them caught him bad and took him to the ground, but after that, Kembu was able to cut the rest of the first set of wires down while from across the room, Roan shot out the main wire from the second set further down the hallway.
- Kembu was the only one to trigger one of the trapped floor-pits, but he avoided falling into it.
- The last trap, a swarm of angry bees, were kept from harming the party by... Trajan keeping his suit on fire from the traps and scaring off the bees with smoke and fire.
- The group was only allowed access to the next room after they all made it across the room successfully.
- The scenario for the final room consisted of a murky, dirty swamp. They were tasked with taking a research specimen alive.
- After Del found some tracks, Managirl noticed some shadows across a bridge in the swamp. Kembu, having crossed that bridge, found himself swarmed by bullywugs.
- As Managirl attempted to provide artillery support, she took a nasty spill into the swamp, falling off the bridge. There, she was nearly dragged underwater by a bullywug, but her infernal wrath killed it, and with the help of Jergo, she got back onto the bridge.
- Trajan's MMA and wrestling fighting style found himself rushing to Kembu's aid. He grappled one of the Bullywugs and kept it pinned to the ground, choking it all the while.
- Kembu engaged the bullywug's chieftain, who missed its spell against the swordsman. With several deft strikes, the chieftain was bloodied. It was Roan with the careful aim of his sniper rifle that knocked out the chief in the end with rubber bullets.
- The bullywug soldiers gave the group a run for their money. Both Kembu and Trajan were severely wounded by them throughout the course of the fight. Not to mention Del's poor summoned toad!
- Del herself got in a few good licks, hitting one of them with her staff and having Kiki, her bear, maul another one. Managirl herself claimed a few 'kill shots' with her impressive 'super powered' magic.
- During the combat, Trajan sustained an infected wound.
- In the end, two research specimens were left alive, and so the group completed the testing facility.
- With the trials completed, the group found donuts and fruit punch waiting for them in a small break room. There, the cleaning robot, celebrated, but was ultimately dismayed with his inability to party. Not only that, but the group caught a lab technician personnel, who went to leave the donuts, but found himself tempted by them as he forgot to leave before the group showed up.
- Many of the party members were unhappy and tried employing a number of tactics to get information out of the technician. While intimidated, he seemed to not back down on several key points. He assured that the group that this testing facility could only be used by screened personnel and that he would wipe any tracing signs of the group's identities from the test so that it could not be used against them in the future.
- With those assurances in mind, the group agreed to the terms of returning the equipment they borrowed, and were awarded their payment (as well as the ability to leave).
- As they left, the group found that Kembu had gone alone ahead of them, and it took some convincing when they found him to get him to come along with the group in the truck. In the early morning, the group returned to their residences for some rest...
New Items:
- 75 GP each [Middleman Payment.]
- All items from the testing facility were recollected and taken away from the group before they were allowed to leave.
Current Objectives:
- Complete the Middleman's Second Job: ???
- Complete the Middleman's Third Job: ???
- Receive the Middleman's Answers.
Key Points:
- As scenario #1 queued up, the group found themselves assigned to the task of eliminating all hostiles. In this case, the hostiles was a group of jackals lead by an elven marshal. The battlefield itself was an elven ruin in a desert in Ramesses. With efficiency, the group finished off their targets one by one and learned that they were robots in disguise.
- In scenario #2, the group was placed in a simulation of the business district of Babylon. There, they had to subdue a pair of terrorists before they completed their plans.
- Trajan found a lead for Kembu and Roan who pursued it into the Exodus Corporation building.
- Del, in the mean time, found a suspicious person in the crowd. With Managirl, Trajan, and her animals backing her up, she confronted him and discovered that he had a bomb on his chest. The trio was able to knock him out and remove the threat of the bomb.
- Kembu and Roan found their suspect on the 20th floor of the building. He had armed a bomb right before they arrived. After a brief skirmish, the terrorist had his brains blown out by Roan.
- With some quick thinking, Roan and Kembu removed the bomb, put it in the break room's fridge and put the fridge facing the floor. It did enough to dilute the explosion from harming them, although the shockwave almost threw them off the stairwell's stairs!
- Onto scenario #3, this one seemed the most outrageous of the three. Created by a lonely someone in love with animation and comics, the goal here was to rescue a VIP from mercenaries with the assistance of sexy police women.
- Roan, Managirl, and Del went towards the back of the court house where the VIP was located. With the use of Jergo, Del's blink dog, the group was able to teleport into the back of the court house.
- Trajan, going the sewers, managed up on the east side of the building and ended up in the court house's bathroom.
- Kembu went through the front of the building. Using Roan's duffel bag, he hid his sworn in it and claimed to have the merc's ransom within it. In reality, he used it as a bluff to get close enough to the terrorists and draw his sword from the bag.
- When Kembu made his move, so did the others. Trajan broke a man's neck, Del conjured her druidic water tides and used her staff, Managirl unleashed a 'mana bomb' of magic, and Roan sniped his targets.
- The VIP is safe, and 'rewarded' the group with sexy, dancing cops.
New Items:
- Blue Communicators [One for each PC]
Current Objectives:
- Complete the Middleman's First Job: Test the Training Facility.
- Complete the Middleman's Second Job: ???
- Complete the Middleman's Third Job: ???
- Receive the Middleman's Answers.
