Frustrating news. One of my players – the one who plays Sofia – is out this week due to family issues. It’s now a toss-up whether there will be a game; at this point, I’m putting it at a 50% chance of gaming since one of the remaining players is historically bad with attendance. Sad to say, I’m really getting some Volume III flashbacks here … wish I could figure out a better way to make this particular game rely less on specific player attendance…
Anyway, on the presumption that the game goes one, it means I need to revise my plan.
As explicated previously, Scene 1 picks up with the OBSI guys wrasslin’ with the poor doomed bastard that’s going to turn into a Wraith until he burns out. Since Moretti’s player will be out, I figure that the easiest solution there is to have the backpack hurled by the guy actually be an explosive of some sort that probably detonates and throws her back (thus knocking her out of the fight at the very least.) I don’t want to kill her or knock her out for the duration, so basically having her be stunned somehow is probably the best option. I can also use this explosion to break up the wrasslin’ match – presuming that this backpack is filled with C4, I can look at High Tech p183 … and feel my eyes glazing over as I try to figure out exactly how much damage this will do. Okay … “modern military C4 comes in 1.25-lb blocks (5dx3 cr ex) … that’s what I needed. So, 5dx3 … that’s pretty lethal but fortunately, I can remind the two players that they can dodge for cover and/or burn a CP to take only a single HP of damage. In fact, since this is GM mandated and is potentially killing, I might even just go with the “Burn 1 FP to reduce this to 1 HP” rather than require them to burn a CP, especially since I’m only awarding 1 CP per session for this. Plus, since I’m being “nice” with this, they can’t argue over the “By the way, I’m throwing your butt across the penthouse thanks to the explosion.”
Regardless, the explosion should hurl the PCs back across the room, thus ending the grapple (and likely killing the idiot mook who threw the backpack at the same time.) Following the boom, the PCs will likely be mostly deafened (HT check at a minimum, probably going to assign a -4 to it, lasting 20-HT minutes) and potentially blinded for the same amount of time (another HT check, also at -4). The explosion will have torn apart the inner area of the penthouse, thrown Agent Moretti (the ATF NPC that the player who has to miss was running) out into the hallway. The two OSBI agents witness the guy they were wrasslin’ turn into the Wraith, they fight, then witness the Wraith disintegrate into ashes after X number of seconds.
Once this fight is over, Agent Moretti will stagger back into view – she’s at under half HP due to the explosion though fortunately, her kick ass body armor absorbed most of this. PCs will hear (and feel) a loud RIPPING sound from the Master Bedroom followed by a woman’s scream. Presume that the PC(s) rush to investigate where they will find an open Tear in reality. Jack has seen this before – it’s a portal to the Nevernever, he thinks – but Woo has not (so Woo needs to make another Fright Check; ignore any results greater than 12.) The portal shrinks rapidly, but overly aggressive PCs might charge through it, in which case we jump to scene 2 instead of playing out what they find on the other side. (This is probably the most likely course of action with the characters in question.)
Alternately, it may collapse before the PCs can go through, but a successful PER check (Jack succeeds automatically due to Enhanced Time Sense) allows them to recognize a distinctive sign: it is the Sweet Tooth manufacturing plant (aka the recently purchased and refurbed Compass Manufacturing plant.) There is no sign of the screamer, which PCs should take to mean that a hostage has been taken through. Also? All (but one) of the hostages who were kept in the Master Bath have been killed. Missing is Audrey Petersen, the wife of the professor who owned the penthouse…
Scene 2 will play out as written, with Colin in his Chase.
Scene 3 will then jump back to the OSBI guys and will play out in one of two ways:
- If they went through the portal, they exit in the Sweet Tooth manufacturing plant where a handful of additional bad guys are assembled. Depending on how they went through, I could (and probably should) start out with them sneaking in the dark where they can learn that Audrey Petersen is guilty of conspiring with the bad guys, although she’s thoroughly pissed off that the leader killed her husband and their other guests. That wasn’t part of the plan! “Nicholas” will hear of this! The leader smacks her around a bit – got to show that he’s a POS, after all! – PCs should also learn that another strike is in the works, but not where. Depending on how long the fight in scene 1 went, this scene could end with another fight or it could end with the PCs seeing the leader guy straight up gut Audrey Petersen so as to fuel a diabolic ritual that calls forth the candy golem that I statted in a previous session. Might even be interesting if Audrey is at the center of the golem.
- If they didn’t go through the portal, they now have to deal with the aftermath of the explosion. This will take some time – a lot of time, what with the multiple casualties and the like – but in the process, they will discover that Audrey Petersen is missing. And then, several hours later, her body is discovered at the Sweet Tooth manufacturing plant…