Geist: Balance of Shadows (Actual Play)

[Baroness Nerak]

That is completely understandable. I am playing in a Star Wars: Edge of the Empire game and having a blast with it, so I think you will as well.

Yeah we are doing Edge of the Empire as well.

[ThomasM]

That is completely understandable. I am playing in a Star Wars: Edge of the Empire game and having a blast with it, so I think you will as well.

[Baroness Nerak]

We all think so too. Thanks for the kind words.

As an aside, my number of games has not decreased, I am still running 2/week 4/fortnight, but diversified. Changeling is going strong, also running two Blue Rose games and starting FFG Star Wars soon. I am not ceasing to run OPP games or anything, just...diversifying a bit. Need to do something a bit different after focusing on CoD the past decade or so.

[Taidragon]

I feel really bad for not posting my thoughts on this game - and Malibu Dream House come to think on it - more often, since these Actual Plays did so much to get me invested in these games again. Always great to hear how players solve problems, advance the story and their own characters. The relationships they had between themselves, other characters and the world was...honestly it reads like a dream game.

Ten years is an accomplishment and no mistake. Thank you Baroness, and all the other players, for going along this great ride and allowing us to come along with the APs.

Also, can I say I find it fitting that the Middle Shadows have managed to find balance in their lives?

[Baroness Nerak]

Thank you for reading, I will pass it along.

[ThomasM]

Indeed I did. I'm sorry I didn't comment more but your updates were a joy to read. Thank you (and all your players) for entertaining us for so long!

[Baroness Nerak]

So, the past few games have not been journaled. The PCs dealt with a cop's mysterious history, and a house full of doppelgangers.

The decision was made, here, to go ahead and wind down the game. It's been a good run, almost 10 years, and the PCs stories are just...coasting, not really changing or evolving, and we are at about half the original crew. So we ended on an up note, Tavia had her daughter, and the PCs finally put down the serial killer ghost under Murder Ballads. It was a good ending.

I want to thank everyone who enjoyed this game with us. This game was an unqualified success. It was a pleasure to run, and I even got to do some writing for Geist in the process. It was always be one of my favorite campaigns. I apologize for the lack of journals near the end, honestly that was another sign.

Thanks for coming with. Hope you enjoyed.

[Baroness Nerak]

Even as they begin to pin down the current case, a conflict among vampires begins


Session CCXI-CCXVI

Sara’s Stories


Tommy looked up sharply as the door opened, relaxing once he saw it was Sara and the others. He got up from the chair in the foyer, looking over everyone. “You’re OK?”

Sara smiled at him, pulling him closer for a kiss. “Just fine, a gra. You were worried?”

“Natalie said Emily was with you. And Dulcinea.” Tommy left an arm around her shoulder as they walked towards the living room. Emily followed, hand in Sara’s, though the others veered off towards other rooms.

Sara grimaced. “Not sure that second one should have been that comforting.” Tommy looked over at her quizzically. “She was... hungry, I think.”

“Oh.”

In the living room, Sara sat on the floor in front of the couch, Tommy behind her to give a back massage. Emily looked hesitant, but Sara patted her leg, and so she tentatively lay down with her head in Sara’s lap. Sara smiled, tucking a strand of hair behind Emily’s ear, careful where her fingers brushed the dent Emily’s death had left.

“So, what happened?” Tommy asked. “Natalie said there was no fighting at the club?”

“Yep, that went down just fine.” Sara leaned back into his legs. “Which is good - I hate to think what Clarissa’s response to a large scale vampire fight would be. Not that it would have been healthy for any of the mortals even if she wasn’t there... at least we got warning that Rebecca was making her move tonight.” She sighed happily as Tommy found a tense knot in her shoulders. “Ah... but you wanted to know what happened.”

Tommy chuckled. “That would be nice. Should I stop?”

Sara grinned. “Not if you want me to tell you anything. Let’s see. Natalie had already talked the Sheriff’s men into leaving via the roof by being the canary, and we’d gotten Rebecca’s sniper to stand down. After you took Lynne into your Lair, Alexia escorted Lynne’s people up the catwalks to make sure the Sheriff didn’t try to retreat back into the club, while Theresa,” Emily growled, “our ally, Theresa, took her people around to the roof. There was a big chase, apparently, and while Theresa’s ritual brought most of the Sheriff’s folks down, the man himself disappeared.”

“Apparently?”

“Yeah. Natalie saw something happening after the ritual went down, and it’s according to Theresa that the Sheriff disappeared. I had left to go get Elizabeth by that time. I sent her texts as soon as we got Lynne safe, and she said she was at Gotham City about 5 minutes before Desiree let me know that the police scanner reported gunshots there. So i teleported over there...”

Tommy interrupted her. “By yourself?”

Sara gave him a look. “Yes. I can teleport, and time was of the essence. Besides, folks still needed to keep an eye on things at Murder Ballads. It was fine - just Nicolette.”

“With a shotgun,” Emily spoke up. “With white phosphorus rounds.”

“With a shotgun,” Sara allowed. “She just wanted to her sire back, and was lashing out a little. I told her the truth, considering the surprise is kinda out, now. Which, of course, had her turning her shotgun on her backup.” Sara shook her head. “At least I convinced her not to point it at the cops.” She winced, a little. “I still had to use some supernatural persuasion to get the cops to look elsewhere.”

Emily leaned her chin back to look up at her. “Marionette? Desiree said they stopped looking for you, and you didn’t look like you had run from the cops.”

Sara chuckled, lacing her fingers in Emily’s. “Is there a particular look for that? Yeah, it was Marionette. And so we had a nice, uneventful walk home, until Dulcinea showed up to give us a ride.” Emily snorted. “Well, she did. She wanted it to be a ride to somewhere else, and with only Elizabeth, but she did give us a ride.” Tommy’s hands paused. “She was hungry, I think, so a little on edge. A little less the interested observer of her ideal society, a little more hell-bee.”

“Hell... bee?” Tommy sounded confused.

“It was a theme. She was very interested in taking anyone who annoyed her to hell and turning them into honey. But she let me drop Nicolette off at Murder Ballads, and Alexia and Coffee took her home so she could wake Kestral up while Natalie and Doc kept watch on the club. Emily and I,” she squeezed Emily’s hand, “went with Dulcinea and Elizabeth to make sure no harm came to her.”

Emily ran a finger over Sara’s thumb idly. “You trust her? Rebecca?”

Sara thought for a moment. “Yes? More than most of her allies, at this point. Specifically, I trust her in this. Rebecca has no reason to hurt Elizabeth, and more than... well, maybe just a couple of reasons, but they are big ones. None of the vampires are keen to piss us off, en masse, and Elizabeth could be of considerable help.” Tommy made a quizzical noise. “She’s got good media contacts, and the old Prince had a dead man’s switch that implicated a bunch of their folks - including Chandra, by the way, so she’s definitely been here all night, couldn’t possibly have been setting off bombs in some office building.”

“Right.” Tommy nodded, letting his hands rest gently on her shoulders. She nuzzled into them.

“I think that about gets you up to speed.”

Emily spoke up. “Theresa.” Sara looked quizzically at her. “Rebecca doesn’t trust her.”

“Ah, right.” Sara let out a heavy sigh. “Some others of Rebecca’s people unexpectedly got Torpored. I let her know about Lynne. She didn’t bring it up when Theresa showed up, but it might have been because she and her people showed up en masse and armed.”

“Dulcinea didn’t like her either.”

Sara grimaced. “Dulcinea was... testy. I don’t know if we should judge her general opinion on someone based on tonight.”

Emily frowned. “So you trust her?”

“About as far as I could throw her. She’s still our ally, and we might shouldn’t go about threatening to rain vengeance on her for being mildly threatening.” Tommy gave Emily an approving nod. Sara craned her neck to give him a look. “Sometimes you just have to put up with folks who are more... morally gray than you care for.”

“So because she’s useful, she gets away with wrongdoing?” Emily’s face was a thundercloud.

Sara ran a finger down her cheek. “No, love, no. Because she’s useful, she gets away with being rude. If we had some evidence that she was doing actual wrong, we’d do something, same as for anyone else.”

“So it’s like the Puppetmaster?” Tommy asked.

Sara nodded. “Yes, rather like that. Well... I think folks were more sure about what he was doing wrong, but less able to do anything about it.”

Emily looked between them. “The Puppetmaster?”

“Oh no. No no. Not going there. I’m not answering that, because you and Tommy are not going on a road trip of righteous vengeance, and that’s that.” Sara looked sternly down at her.

Tommy shrugged apologetically and didn’t say anything. Emily frowned up at Sara until Sara started laughing, and leaned down to kiss her on the nose. Emily laughed in surprise, and couldn’t keep from smiling back at her.

End Session CCXI-CCXVI

I put up journals as I get em

The vampire rebellion has been awhile in coming. It got set up back when they were helping Nicolette find her Sire. It seemed time to play that card.

I hope you all have been well. Comments and Questions welcome

[Baroness Nerak]

Okay time to catch up

Session CCVIII-CCX

Sara’s Letters

Hello Sasha

Things have been exciting here (for a bit). Natalie’s new friend (Desiree) has some really bad people after her. We lured them into a trap with a spirit-touched man who can look like other people. He looked like her (Desiree) and three really bad guys came after her. We won (kinda) but they escaped from the police, so they are still out there. We would have gotten in trouble with the police too, but Desiree (a policewoman) made it okay.

Emily got hurt (they had knives). She is very intense and serious (about justice) but she doesn’t always take care of herself very well. It is OK though, Doc is a good doctor and so she is better now.

We learned more about the bad men too. Desiree’s grandmother (Teresa) did a lot of bad things and one of them was to take a video that was bait for a trap (she made Desiree’s mom steal it). The thing that made the trap did not like her having it, because she could beat the trap. Some of the bad stuff that happened before she died was probably its fault. And it has bad men (the ones that attacked us) that it gives power to. One of them was the one who killed the rich man (whose mistress we found dead in the crawl space).

We helped her (the mistress) move on. Sara got a piece of her body, and did a Death-touched ritual, and so she has gone back to the cycle. We also promised that we would stop the bad man (who killed her lover) and we would make sure people knew she didn’t (kill her lover). She was not happy at first, but Natalie is very good at convincing people.

We are setting up a trap for the bad guys. Doc and me have been building a box (called a Faraday cage) so that Desiree will be safe. She is going to have to be bait (again), so she needs it. I should probably not tell you what we are going to do, but they are very bad men. They are spirit-touched and they will always escape from the cops, like the bad guys in those horror movies Zachary likes so much. We have to make sure they can’t hurt anybody (anymore), and starting up an abandoned power plant while they were in the middle of where the electricity will be seems like a good way to do it.

We also talked to Desiree’s dad (because we had to wait for the trap). He is scared of Desiree since she has luck magic and he thinks it is evil magic like Teresa (his mother-in-law) had. He recognized Natalie (probably from softcore) but I don’t think that is why he agreed to give his wife (Desiree’s mom) our contact information. She is not in the US, because she is hiding from her family (the bad ones). Hopefully she will be able to tell us about them, and we can find them, and stop them, and then he and her and maybe Desiree will be able to be together again. Maybe not Desiree though, because she will still look like Teresa, and that might be bad. But maybe they can at least not be scared (and angry) anymore.

I hope things are good with the troupe. I will keep Sara safe (she says to say she will keep me safe too).

Tommy

End Session CCVIII-CCX

Okay, maybe Tommy, not Sara.

Okay, caught up on journals. Really sorry about the delay, but you have everything that has come out. Hope to have more for you soon. Comments and Questions Welcome

[Baroness Nerak]

Have had a rough time getting meetings for this game. Still there are journals to share.

Session CCVI and CCVII

Sara’s Letters

Hey Alice!

I thought I’d stave off the worry a bit ahead this time - I’m sure Deirdre already has, or will soon tell you about our latest adventure, putting down that murder spirit in the basement of the laundromat. It went well, minimum explosions, plenty of worked out aggression on the part of our... more inclined to violence members. But we are all well and whole, and moving on to the rest of the adventure, though our work with spirits is not yet done.

Deirdre was there for Alexia talking to the doorway to the basement that had been plastered over - no real leads there, just an image of a guy that was unfamiliar, plastering over an already barred door. But when we got back home, Alexia had the brilliant idea to use Industrial Oracle on the film reels we had recovered from the mages’ house, the ones that led us to the monster in the basement. That got us some far more interesting visions, mostly centered around a tall lanky human shaped inkblot with a jagged glowing red gash for a horribly smiling mouth. I’m pretty sure it’s another murder spirit, more along the lines of the devil on your shoulder vibe than the rip your face off vibe that the last one had. Super creepy though, to hear Alexia tell it.

It was apparently partnered up with the kill-y one in the laundromat basement though. It was the one who removed the film reel from the basement, making sure it got into circulation at some kind of flea market thing, and made sure it never lingered in the hands of someone who might be able to do something about Mr Killy. I’m betting Mr Smiley is also the one behind all the rumors about the library the hedge mages had, given its not particularly spectacular nature. It made for good bait though.

More pressingly though, Desiree, our client, might be in danger. At least, she has a finely tuned Danger Sense with a capital D and a capital S, and she’s not feeling comfortable a) leaving her apartment or b) staying outside for any length of time. She’s staying at our house, for the moment, with the Fishbournes’ permission, of course. We have a plan for dealing with that quickly, and it involves another, quite intriguing new friend.

The pack may know more about his kind of entity, so I may be repeating things you already know, but he is a fascinating character. He is a skin-changer, able to create ‘skins’ to wear from dreams or memories (or by skinning people, which doesn’t necessarily kill them, so it may be euphemistic at least a little, but it is apparently quite painful anyway, so we’re not pursuing that at the moment). He can communicate with wildlife (and get skins from them as well), and see spirits, though the latter he can only do when he is wearing a skin. He can survive without any skin (though it is cold, he says), and has abandoned one at least once in a way that helped him fake his death, when he was attacked by the O’Rourkes. I also think he has some way of telling whether someone is lying, as he gave Alexia a very significant handshake after getting her to reaffirm everything she had told him about Sineaters and Geists were true.

It does come with some pretty significant downsides. Society... well, reality, kinda, tend to forget he exists. Paperwork about his identity tends to get lost. Deeds, licenses, credit cards, that kind of thing, don’t stick. Even names fade away after a time, and cease having any meaning. He is what he is for a purpose though - something that he doesn’t even know exactly what it is other than evil lies slumbering beneath the woods there near the O’Rourke house, and he and his predecessors are tasked with making sure it stays that way. Interestingly (again) it’s not a bloodline thing, nor does it require any supernatural Touch. His becoming a skinchanger happened because his mentor in the art chose him, when he began to age out of his duties. He’ll be looking for his own successor soon, being 80 going on 50 (skinchangers age slower than most). I had a brief thought of suggesting Deanna, but I think having a power like that would be like to go to her head.

Anyway, he was worried about Desiree, seeing as she is the spitting image of Teresa, a woman he knew to be evil, and who had killed one of his skins once. He was able to sense that Desiree was not Teresa, however, and was even willing to go so far as to help us draw out whoever - whatever - is causing her Danger Sense to go off. I think it helped that Alexia offered to help with the thing he was guarding against, should he ever need it. He is going to be pulling a skin of Desiree from her own dreams (apparently he does this by taking some of the sleep from her eyes before she wakes up and also apparently it will mean her face be reflected, since she mostly only knows what she looks like in the mirror) and then wearing that skin back to her apartment, where we will be on overwatch.

To that point, I probably should get some rest, to help with the whole stake out thing. Alexia was just saying earlier that she missed your keen talent for staying alert and focused in situations like that! So wish us luck and send some of that alertness along our way. I hope you are taking care of yourself, and staying warm.

Sara

End Session CCVI and CCVII

One more session to catch up. I will try to post it Sunday, but this weekend is going to be crazy so may be two weeks. Comments and Questions welcome, and Happy Holidays

[Baroness Nerak]

Okay so It's been a rough time with this game. One player got an injury that reduced his attendance, and and we had people get sick. The problem with this game is that anyone missing really impacts how much we can get done. Then we missed two games due to vacation and...it's a mess. So we had a good session two weeks ago, and I am hoping this gets back online. I am going to start posting journals now hoping to get caught up. The game is still going, and I owe you the journals. Okay, time to stop yammering and start posting

Session CCV

Sara's Stories

Fear not, we have returned! A few cuts and bruises, but nothing serious, and the spirit is banished. Its spiritual residue is really soaked into the place unfortunately, so that’s going to cause some problems. Well, potentially.

See, that other body we found, the one not associated with the spirit we were tracking, needs to be found. Her ghost wanders unresolved, and that’s still our thing, as Death-touched. Her body did rest on the spirit’s lair side of the blockage in the crawl space, but we’ve moved her to be on the other side of it, and made the blockage more impassable.

I suppose I should explain why she needs to be found. Gloria Gotterhind (name in her passport, lying nearby) died in the 90s, trapped in that crawlspace after she got stuck (Tommy almost did himself as he tried to get through, not that it would have been nearly as dangerous to him, what with all of us around). She had been running from the Laundromat Slasher, the one who’d seeded the all laundromat’s washers with pieces of the people he’d killed, and heard the spirit on the other side. When she tried to turn around, she couldn’t escape either way.

That was what our Deathsight showed us. Desiree recognized her name right off, once we got eyes on her passport. She told us that Gloria was the lead and only real suspect in a pair of murders. Francois Duchamp, Gloria’s lover, and his wife were found hacked into pieces in their room. Gloria’s footprints were found in the blood, and a diamond necklace - the one found with her body - was missing. With no other leads, and the fact she disappeared, her guilt was assumed.

Natalie spoke with the body, learning what it knew just before it died. She did not kill Francois, but instead came upon the bodies when they were still warm. The killer was in fact still on the scene, the Laundromat Slasher as I mentioned earlier, and lurched up at her from his position lying face down on the floor. She grabbed the necklace and ran.

So we’re going to try and get her name cleared, and the actual killer caught. Once the investigation is done, the police’ll be sure to give her a proper burial, and hopefully that will allow her spirit to rest. If not, we’ll have to disturb her wanderings to ask what would bring her peace. But that’s for later - for now, we need to get to the bottom of Desiree’s situation. Her grandmother’s part in this was in enacting her revenge, something that was handled quite well as part of putting the spirit down - one of the spirit’s victims was Desiree’s grandfather, and she... well, threw down some pointless violence on his corpse. Not the easiest thing to watch, but it seemed to help. But someone had a hand in getting her the house, and her intuition says its someone still alive.

So that’s immediately on the plate, along with probably getting our handsome collector of knowledge some infamous books. Nothing particularly special in the library, after all that, but its legend gives it some weight. Hopefully he’ll like his present.

Sara

Session CCV

Okay, not sure if next update will be next week or two weeks, but will be soon. Comments and Questions welcome.

[Baroness Nerak]

Yeah I need to get back with updates. We have missed one due to storm and I will be out of town for the next. Docs player has been unable to make for awhile. The main thing is coming slowly. If he continues to no show I will get on to wrapping the game up, but hopefully won't come to that. I'd like to have him back before major plot progression but we will see. I will get caught up tho thanks for the nudge.

[Taidragon]

Hey guys; was curious how things have gone with the campaign, given that it has been a couple of months with no updates on the status of the game. Has life just been prohibitive towards a new session coming along? Hopefully everyone is doing well, regardless of the circumstances.

[Baroness Nerak]

We had a slightly shorter session this time and Doc’s player was unable to show, but we still had fun. Let’s peek in.

Session CCIV

Sara’s Stories

Tommy peeked his head into the library, catching Emily’s eye. She caught on to his gesture quickly, and nodded, then turned to Sara and made an excuse to leave. Tommy came in as she left, taking her seat. “Hey, Sara.”

She smiled up at him. “Ready for the big plan? B & E, some creepy crawlspace diving, a pinch of object reading, and fighting a big, badass murder spirit infested corpse?”

“That what it is?”

“Well, death spirit, technically.” Sara sighed, flipping through the book on the desk next to her. “Good news, it’s only really dangerous when it possesses someone, so if we damage the... host...” She closed her eyes.

Tommy moved to put his arms around her. “More fighting, huh? Nee nyar guh cur leh chaylee.”

She managed something like a smile again “Chéile. Very good though. Yeah, we’ll be fine, together. It’s just... I’ve seen lots of death, and I never like the violent ones. She - it - ripped that Hunter in half. Longwise. With her - its - claws, while one arm was being shotgunned off... I’m not sure even how that worked. The father, Desiree’s grandfather, he escaped that bloodbath at Desiree’s house to get torn up by the spirit. It ate his face. His jaw, right through, into his brain.”

Tommy held her close, letting her talk. “And the coven... I don’t know what they did, how the death spirit found them. It was trying to possess her, and when it couldn’t it just... ripped half her skull off. Then possessed her body. That other body, the fifth one in the basement, that I didn’t recognize, it’s probably the body the spirit used to kill the covener with. Maybe that will help figure out why the spirit was trying to possess her, what happened.”

“Will that help? Knowing why?”

“Maybe.” Sara sighed. “It’s something to focus on that’s not bloodstains and clawmarks. There’s plenty of mystery still, not just the coveners. That woman in the crawlspace.” She shuddered. “Dying of dehydration, stuck in a small crawlspace, with some kinda of monster on one side. Though, she might not have even known about it, it seemed to avoid the ritual room that the crawlspace opened into. Wards, I guess.” She pulled back into herself, rubbing her arm where Tommy knew she had a scar from the attack that killed her.

Tommy took her hand. “The werewolves Alexia mentioned. They know spirits. And fighting?”

Sara nodded, with a smile recognizing his attempt to focus on solutions. “Yes. Deirdre and Ildefonso will be amazingly helpful.” She chuckled. “So long as Desiree doesn’t shoot her. According to Natalie, Desiree’s in a really good mood though, so probably not.” Tommy gave her a questioning look. “They have history. Deirdre apparently distracted Desiree from the werewolves’ hunt target, and Desiree cottoned on. Deirdre’s been avoiding her since.

“She was OK with it?” This time, Sara gave him the questioning look. “Deirdre. With Desiree knowing.”

“About being a werewolf?” Tommy nodded. Sara smiled. “She hopes it’ll keep Desiree from being too mad at her.”

“Think it will?”

She turned around to lean back into him. “That, or the afterglow.”

Tommy looked down at her. “Feel better?”

“I do.” She kissed his chin. “Thanks Tommy.”

“You’re welcome.”

End Session CCIV

We did get further, just was not a good point to stop and do a story. The body was determined to be a missing person who was assumed to have killed a wealthy local citizen in the 90s. And it turns out from examining her the killer was likely the one who was chopping people up in the Laundromat. But there will be more of an explanation on that…next time.

Comments and Questions welcome

[Baroness Nerak]

The team continues to work the case, focusing for now on the films. Sara had to miss, but Natalie has an update

Session CCIII

Natalie’s Diary

Sara,

We are going to need you tonight (like always xoxoxo) but we have a mission for you.

Breakfast went well. We decided to divide the case into two aspects, one being finding the library, and the other finding out who set up Desiree. After all, we searched the house, but someone lured her down there, and we need to find a way to find them. I being heroic and self sacrificing, agreed to go talk to Desiree and get her to agree to help us find the library, and smooth over the issues that may have popped up before Alexia sells us out.

Well you know me, I was of course extremely convincing. And despite the slings and arrows from Karen and Alexia, did not sleep with Desiree or even try. May have made out on the couch. But what is important is I determined she is still the same (hot) police detective we had been dealing with, being of a Straightforward and Reckless nature.

Anyway after any snogging that may or may not have taken place, we went to meet the group at Lulu’s. She actually was remarkably calm about the possibility her grandmother may be in her head. She insisted on seeing the films, which had some resistance from Alexia despite her assertions she was a homicide detective and would not be bothered. Doc suggested grabbing a generator and watching at the firehouse church. Desiree offered her apartment but they did not want that. We went back to her apartment and she gave me a taser and her pistol, then we made our way to meet the others at the church.

True to her word, she was unmoved. She watched Theresa unmoved, and studied her and her family. She seemed unphased by the zombie girl. Honestly, the disturbing part was the second reel where Theresa was describing her spell system. She said she “understood the proof” but she “had no tools and would not even begin to know how to do it.” She did, however, argue fiercely with Alexia that the proof, as presented, would work, though she “had to presume she was given all factual information” but apparently within that just understood it and felt it would work. However on a check her personality was the same, and she had no magical ability like Tracy or Timothy…she just, apparently, understood magical theory. Great.

Her guess was the Laundromat. She noted their burglar alarm went off a lot but given the history of the place they sent rookies out there after telling them what happened to scare them. So she wanted to go in and play the heavy, saying she could get a warrant but if she did they would stop be forgiving of the regular false alarms. Doc suggested I do the talking. We compromised and she started the conversation, while I jumped in and soon enough we had access to the back rooms.

Use of Boneyard proved…interesting. So there is a stairway down behind the wall in the back room of the Laundromat, and it leads to a large room with several smaller rooms. There are like five bodies in there…one at the foot of the stairs, two in the main room, two in a back room, as well as furniture. Moving around was someone moving on all fours, well, three as they were missing an arm. I had Doc walk loudly and the figure moved staying under him, following his footfalls. That was creepy.

The next stage was access. Whatever door lead to that stairway was gone, replaced by solid wall, and very solid floor below us. We would have to break the wall down to get in. Curiously, there were other options. Via the sewers there was a thin way that would have to crawl through a narrow pipe. Meanwhile next door there was a back room with a trapdoor under boxes leading to the basement, with a (less) narrow tunnel connecting it to the other basement. There was some obstruction I could not make out what it was, it had to be easier than breaking a wall down.

According to Desiree Vice had raided that place as it was a prostitution front (the store that kept changing, not the church, she knew nothing about the church but is “allergic to churches”). But it sounded like a place reluctant to call the police.

So the plan is we will break in tonight, use the basement, take the tunnel, move the obstruction. Your job will be to fly in with magic ghost body and since you can light up have a look around before we move in physically. We should be careful, all of us agreed it was a trap, and it gave Desiree a bad feeling. She also posed an interesting question…how did the film get out? Interesting huh? Also she mentioned looking for her mom. That could be interesting as well. That makes two possible leads if Jake knows little.

Perhaps I will find out more when she and I have dinner.

Well that is your update. I hope you have had fun today. Love you

Natalie

End Session CCIII

Natalie did not leave much out. Desiree did, in fact, move in quickly with the implied threat of starting to fine the Laundromat, but Natalie swooped in with her superhuman socials and headed that off.

The dredging around with Boneyard took awhile, as did negotiating over how to move next. But they found their way eventually.

More tonight, comments and questions welcome