Mage: Pentacle City (Actual Play)

[Mrmdubois]

They didn't do that in Broken Diamond and Dave decided not to do it again after Soup Cage.

[wyrdhamster]

One thing that come to mine mind when rereading sum up opening post - Why Pentacle City? Because you want to highlight interplay of Pentacle Orders, especially divide ( or not as large ) between Diamond and Free Council? Or how they are allies against Seers? Am I at least a bit close?

As to taking notes about games - from listening DaveB's Actual Plays on Broken Diamond and Soul Cage, I know his game groups are recording they game sessions on audio files - which Dave later transcript with ST notes.

[Errol216]

I'm probably mistaken but... Mage Erotic RP?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle-earth_Role_Playing

[Ephsy]

You've obviously never played MERP. If you could figure out how to come back from the dead your character would have been god like in no time.

I'm probably mistaken but... Mage Erotic RP?

[2ptTakrill]

You've obviously never played MERP. If you could figure out how to come back from the dead your character would have been god like in no time.

[Mrmdubois]

I love that about the system. First time ever that the pressure to succeed or die was lifted.

[Michael Kenner]

Aaron, who plays Tonelli, just reminded me that in the original meeting it was his character who first finally broke and insisted that it was magic as a resolution of his spooked condition (which wasn't able to be resolved in the earlier scene). This was great because it got us past the moment where no one was willing to say it in front of anyone else.

This is the first Chronicles game that I've run and I was hesitant about the conditions at first, but I've found overall that they work wonderfully to keep the story moving and to give players an excuse to do interesting things that otherwise they might feel bad about doing. Especially with the group beats, even when one player claims a beat in a way that harms the rest of the group, they all benefit from it. It's usually the other players, when someone fails a dice roll that start asking "Oh, are you going to convert it to a dramatic failure?" It feels like the whole group are on board and happy to fail, which is something I've never seen encouraged by a system before.

[Michael Kenner]

Part Two, Let's call it magic.

In which the characters come to terms with their experiences.

A large part of this session was the characters trying to handle the mental trauma of encountering the supernatural and finding a way of dealing with it. It was telling that most of the characters had the aspiration "Take a day off" in one form or another. The characters were also beginning to realize that their wild adventure of the previous evening didn't have much to do with retrieving the journal of David Zeisberger.

The timing and pacing is a little bit odd this session. It was one of those sessions where you try to cover it as a rapid period of downtime but the characters continue to do actions that demand a bit more detailed coverage or the players want to roleplay something in more detail. It was fun and a lot of laughs were had here, but it also wasn't the most coherent in terms of plot.

Location

Bronx Small and Large Animal Clinic "Large Animals" sometimes includes people. This several room veterinary complex doubles as an emergency hospital that operates outside of the law. There's a surprisingly large number of doctors working here as "vets" who can manage services up to and including surgery here. They only see enough animals to cover their paper-trail and most of them are animals that belong to their clients.

Very early morning, 1st January, 2016

Despite a bit of arguing about their destination, it was eventually decided that they needed to get Thor somewhere that Lin Wu could treat him properly and that they would all go together. Matty had a hard time getting through to his contacts on New Year's Eve but finally reached Dr Nguyen of the Bronx Small and Large Animal Clinic. After arranging a large payment, one just at the limit of Matty's resources, they organized to meet Dr Nguyen at the clinic. When it turned out that there was little they could do with surgery or traditional medicine, they used the payment to rent access to the building and supplies over the week rather than paying Dr Nguyen to perform surgery.

Lin Wu manages to get Thor briefly stable, long enough for a group meeting to discuss the events and they go to a small office in the clinic for a private meeting. Matty focuses on the criminal aspect first, talking about the dead bodies and the fact that they killed people and were at a crime scene where other people had been killed. Although everyone thought it likely that Odin's group would cover everything up Matty didn't want to take that chance. He asked everyone for some personal details and information to lay a false-trail and create alibis. Tonelli declines, since he's already under the protection of the Mafia but everyone else accepts the offer. Lucas agrees to help with the online aspect.

Once that practical consideration is out of the way though the group starts trying to deal with what they witnessed. Thor dodging and surviving gunshots, impossible results from the scientific analysis of the drugs, the car being physically caught and thrown, the "psychic" experiences of people taking the drugs, Darren's experience of the cold energy of the curse hitting him. Everyone struggles with the decision of whether to accept whether they can call it magic, but Sigrun brings that debate to an end, "We're professionals. We can call it magic so that we have a way of discussing this just as long as we remember that we don't understand this phenomena and don't let that influence our actions."

Some other activities they get up to that evening.

• Sigrun remains on watch on the building across the road, taking advantage of the pause to ring her friend Liljiana focusing on the mundane conversation to try to recover her bearings. (Sigrun has the True Friend merit for Liljiana).
• Darren takes the stolen car to a chop-shop, selling it in order to remove some of the evidence of their activities.
• Martina talks to Dr Nguyen before he leaves about whether it's safe for her to take anything to calm her down and he recommends a drug that should be safe for her, providing some from the clinic's storerooms.
• Matty and Lucas both try to cover the group's tracks as much as possible.
• Lin Wu returns to watching Thor, still needing to occasionally intervene to keep him alive. Eventually Sigrun joins her and they both take shifts watching, giving Lin Wu the chance to get some books on Norse mythology and the occult in general from her university library expecting that they'll come in handy over the next week.

Finally they each try to get whatever rest is possible, especially with a lot of the group intoxicated on stimulants, before the next morning when Lin Wu thinks they'll have Thor a little more lucid.

Late in the morning, 1st January, 2016

She's right and the next morning Thor is awake and starts talking. Lin Wu tries to get through some medical questions, acting as a doctor while Matty interjects with a bluff asking Lin whether she's given Thor 'the antidote' yet. Matty's attempts to convince Thor that he's been given some form of slow acting poison would possibly have been more successful if Lin Wu wasn't completely refusing to play along with the bluff and instead trying to supply honest medical attention. The conversation becomes steadily more and more chaotic, with Matty and Lin Wu arguing over the top of Thor trying to get answers.

Thor ends up getting in the last word though, bolting upright and staring at Matty with flashing lightning glowing in his eyes demanding "What antidote?!" before Thor abruptly drops back to the bed, his entire body convulsing through an extreme seizure. Matty tries to carry on the bluff for a few moments longer but Lin Wu insists that Thor can't even hear them at that moment as he wouldn't be conscious. In the midst of his seizure Thor grabs hold of one of the metal support struts of the gurney he's laying on and crushes and twists the metal in his grip in a display of superhuman strength. After seeing that Lin Wu gets a powerful anaesthetic and injects Thor, intending to keep him unconscious for the rest of the day.

Sigrun, who had been watching up until this point, attempts to calm Thor by approaching the side of his bed and reciting some of the Norse poetic Edda from one of the books. She decides to avoid any of the violent mentions of war (which severely limits the options from Norse poetry) so instead decides to read a marriage poem. She doesn't speak old Norse but between her occult specialty in Norse Mythology and her experience with some Scandinavian languages from growing up in Finland she managed to get it close. This ended up being a strange dice-pool of Charisma + Academics with a +1 bonus for her occult specialty. The strange dice-pools continue as I ask those watching to roll a Wits + Occult to see what happens next. Alex rolled one success for Lin Wu, but both Mandy and Aaron critically failed for Martina and Tonelli.

As Sigrun is reciting old Norse marriage vows, Thor suddenly twists his head to look at her in the midst of his seizure and Lin Wu sees his eyes flash with blue flight. Suddenly the seizure completely stops and Thor drops unconscious to the bed. Martina and Tonelli, who had just been walking into the room at that moment to investigate the strange sounds, saw an angelic female figure floating above the bed, dressed as a Valkyrie. (Through complete coincidence though, these two characters happen to be the Christians in the group and thus 'Valkyrie' becomes 'Angel' when the player characters are discussing it for most of this session).

Sigrun (after a failed resistance roll) finds herself urged by a spirit that is now possessing her. Sam, who plays Sigrun, chose the new aspiration for that session to be finding bodyguard work (as a chance to have some time off from the strangeness). The spirit muddles her thoughts and she confusedly believes now that she has a bodyguard job and Thor is the client. This does count as fulfilling her aspiration however, even if it wasn't quite the way Sam had originally intended. Although Sigrun remains possessed for the remainder of the session, no one notices anything strange about her behaviour as Sigrun justifies the need to protect Thor for the exchange with Odin and ends up being very convincing.

...

Lin Wu and Sigrun spend the day watching over Thor. Lin Wu takes as many samples as she possibly can from Thor, intending to try to understand more of what's going on. Although she doesn't find much, she does find the same strange rainbow glints within his blood when she holds it up to the light. She also discovers that the bent piece of metal gurney has become magnetized.

...

Darren has found himself getting more and more depressed over the events that happened the previous night, especially how many of Odin's men died from him running them over with the car. (This wasn't a condition, just good roleplaying). He went to speak with Martina that morning, who tends to be one of the more compassionate and reassuring members of the group. He explained how guilty he felt, "I killed six people."
"You did it saving my life." Martina reassures him, "and the life of my child" she adds touching her belly.

No one out of character, other than myself and Martina's player Mandy knew out of character about the pregnancy which was part of Martina's back story and the reason she started taking the criminal jobs for more money. Mandy also managed to reveal this to Darren's player without anyone else overhearing, allowing another dramatic reveal of this later on in the session. It was a lot of fun to see everyone's reactions to this piece of news. Lucas (the NPC hacker) was the only other character who knows, because Martina had shared it with him during her backstory as well.

Darren starts seeing his actions in a whole new light at this revelation. Martina comforts him further by asking him to drive her around that day while she goes shopping for nursery supplies and he accepts, relieved to have something normal and wholesome to do instead. Lucas goes along as well, giving the three of them a little break from the activities of that week. This achieved both of their aspirations to have a day off.

...

The rest of the group rest and recover, waiting until that evening when they intend to speak with Thor again.

Coming Next: Part Three, Not what anyone expected.

[Michael Kenner]

Just for anyone worried by the long gap, Parts 2 and 3 are still coming. Sorry for the delay, I haven't found enough time to finish the write-up over this week. As mentioned before this session turned out rather chaotically and so it's taking a bit longer to make sure that I'm covering everything.

Also while I'm writing I just wanted to bring up an amusing element from the discussion with Odin that was left out of the original write-up of Part 1 since it was far too complicated to try to remember the exact phrasing used through that scene. However throughout most of the conversation, Matty was referring to Thor as a 'robot' (much to Odin's confusion) as Misha decided this was how his character would try to comprehend the inhuman strength and electrical blue sparks.

[Michael Kenner]

Session Three: Distracted by a Thing

Beats
We're using the group beats optional rule for this chronicle. I haven't mentioned the group's beats much before now because it hadn't been fully calculated. However over the last fortnight we got a little more organized and calculated that the group had gained a total of 28 beats altogether over the last two session. Over the rest of this session the players earned an additional 14 beats, meaning that everyone finally gains an XP. (Lucas the hacker, as an NPC, is not including in the XP calculation. I simply award him the same XP as the rest of the group, to simply handling aspirations, conditions and etc for him.)

Important NPCs

Thor: A Norse god? Apparently a young man in his early twenties. Pale skin, short blonde hair, well-built and with a competitive streak. His claims of being a Scandinavian god, somewhat clash with a strong New Yorker accent (which for the record I can't do, so it was merely described rather than acted) , however he did catch a moving car.

Part One, Truces and Treaties

In which the most important question is resolved... will the wolf puppy get shot?

The brief moment of pause at the end of last session's cliffhanger is broken with an immediate decent into chaos. Three of the 'cultists' survived the vehicular attack, with painful but non-lethal injuries but as a parlay begins to set in they push their way to the sides of the room and lean on the walls for support to clear the path and move out of danger. While combat is over, we prove that sometimes peaceful discussion can be just as chaotic and wild. (I'll try to get this roughly into order, although it was largely everyone at the table talking at once).

Matty speaks first, "We came here on a quest for vengeance, but we've already slain many of your men."

Odin speaks up "Then do you take these seven as weregild? Seven for one seems to be setting the price high."

Weregild is the old concept of bloodprice, or paying for slaying someone's kin, Matty recognizes this historical concept from his background in law. "We knew all five." Matty claims, which is true only from a certain point of view however it seems to satisfy Odin.

Tonelli, who is just poking his head around the remains of the entrance now speaks up and states "I can't speak for my boss, but I can call him and see if this satisfies them."

Odin turns to look towards Tonelli and with Odin looking away Matty starts looking around to see whether he can slip away. However the two sets of twins both seem to be watching still. When he gives an experimental lift of the wolf puppy's carrying cage Geri starts a warning growl deep in his throat, staring straight at Matty.

Odin focuses on Tonelli though and says "Certainly, if you wish to ring Lorenzo then I will not stop you." Tonelli notices that Odin seems to be referring to the family's advisor Lorenzo rather than the actual boss Joseph. Unsure for a moment which to call he attempts to use his mobile phone to make a three-way conversation... however he is unable to figure out how to do it on his phone. Even with a +2 bonus for the ease of the task, Tonelli's Intelligence + Computers still ended up as a chance die which failed. He decides to simple call Lorenzo instead and has a quick phone conversation while everyone else continues the face to face conversation conversation.

Sigrun calls over their earbud radios "Delay for time". Matty over the radio signals for Martina to go towards the door. At the same time Sigrun tells her to stay where she is. Tonelli, while on the phone waiting for Lorenzo to pick up gestures for her to come over to him.

Darren ends up ranting to Odin, who still seems upset over the insult at last session and flings up a hand in annoyance, dismissing Darren from his attention. However when Darren mentions leaving, Odin simply says "any of you who wishes can leave." With this clear permission for people to leave, Martina heads out to where Tonelli is on the phone, with Tonelli watching over her to make sure she gets out alright.

Matty talks to Odin, talking extensively about ransoms and trying to delay for time.
After a little bit of this delaying Odin asks "Are we really going to negotiate all this under the barrel of a gun?"
Matty, not really expecting Odin to accept, offers to take the dog hostage and they can meet on January 7th at the docks (based on advice from Sigrun that the shore might be considered an appropriately sacred space for such a meeting while still offering a public venue and a sniper's vantage point). To his surprise though Odin accept and despite Geri and Freki clearly being upset by this development allow him to start leaving with the wolf puppy. Despite Matty being keen for everyone to take the opportunity to leave, the other members of the group delay.

Tonelli gets through to Lorenzo who says that Joseph has only just finished gathering the soldiers together and is still forty minutes away. After explaining the situation Lorenzo approves delaying the negotiation and calling the reprisal off until then, saying that he'll contact Joseph to make it happen. Tonelli also accepts the delay and tells Odin that they will discuss this further on January 7th. However he doesn't leave yet and points to where Rico's body is hanging upside down from the ceiling. "We'll need the body back too." Odin uses his spear to cut the rope free allowing the body to drop to the ground so that Tonelli can bring the body with him when they leave.

Darren doesn't follow. Instead he waits and apologizes to Odin for his earlier disrespect. Odin asks "Do you wish to atone for your insolence?" The rest of the group starts frantically signalling for him to say no while Darren begins to ask about the price.

All this is interupted though.by Lin Wu, who has noticed some very early symptoms of shock from "Thor" who seems to be swaying on his feet a little, gone slightly pale and had his pupils dilate.

...

The almost clean get-away comes to an abrupt halt as Lin Wu interrupts proceedings by walking back into the building and announcing loudly that Thor isn't well. This seems to bring the problem to Thor's attention and he starts having more trouble staying upright. Lin Wu heads around to Thor and acting as a doctor, straight away begins to try to help him.

Odin steps out of the way to allow Lin Wu to take care of him and points the butt of his staff at Darren, "For your friend's charity you are forgiven" he announces and Darren can feel the unnatural cold sensation that accompanied the curse evaporate from his body.

Lin Wu notices that whatever the problem is it's extreme and happening quickly. Thor is beginning to rapidly undergo some sort of catastrophic collapse that will certainly be lethal very quickly. The process of leaving becomes even more delayed now as Martina walks all the way back in to the building and offers to help Lin Wu with treating him. Together they work quickly and effectively with Lin Wu performing the treatments and sending Martina off running looking for native herbs that she saw growing nearby while they were tracking the cultists to this building.

The roll for medical care ends up being ten successes here and despite my original expectation for Thor's collapse to not be curable... I just can't ignore a doubly exceptional success like that. I explain that Lin Wu can't diagnose the origin of the problem (since it's supernatural) however she is able to individually treat all the symptoms and sustain him even as his body seems to be tearing itself to pieces. This is also taking into account her holistic medicine merit which isn't a supernatural merit per se but it does suggest that her medical practice is a lot broader than most and includes a lot of unconventional thought that would help here.

Lin Wu tells Odin that Thor is dying and while the rest of the group mostly miss it, Martina's more empathic nature means that she keenly notices that Odin doesn't actually look surprised by this news. The one thing that does seem to surprise Odin is Lin Wu's exceptional skills at medicine and he watches her treat him with open admiration. Despite it all, Lin Wu realizes that without any knowledge of the causes she's going to need to maintain constant observation of Thor until whatever it is passes. She explains this to Odin as well who says, "Well it looks like you have an additional hostage. Bring him on the 7th."

...

So bringing Thor with them, the group return to the carpark and since they have a larger contingent make arrangements to drive the handicap equipped cab back and also to steal the last rental vehicle.

And to return to the original question, yes the wolf puppy survived. From here on out, since Odin refused to provide the wolf's name, the puppy will be referred to by our team of dangerous professional criminals as "Captain Snugglepants".

Coming Next: Part Two, Let's call it magic.

[Errol216]

Thanks, advice is always helpful. I'm still figuring out the best ways to write this. I'm still not sure exactly how much I should talk about the mechanics or the out of game stuff, I also don't know whether I should try to make it read more like an actual story or piece of fiction, rather than the way it currently is more like the minutes of a meeting.

I think if you find the mechanical detail interesting, so does everyone else. Part of the charm of an AP is that we know this happened at a table with dice rolling, even if that's metaphorical. If we want pure fiction, there are bookstores and fanfiction sites to trawl.

And also, if you lean too far into prose, stuff like Sigrun getting spotted starts edging towards inexplicability; we don't know if an event is due to an ST call or a die roll unless you tell us and that distinction disappears without the mechanical explanation. Personally speaking, I never get tired of STs and GMs and stuff heaving a sigh about the inevitable PC plan causing the train to not merely derail but actually take flight and turn into a swan through the sheer tenacity of probability.

[Michael Kenner]

I've only read the intro post, but this looks very interesting! I look forward to reading the rest. One suggestion from reading other Actual Plays: it may be helpful for you to take some simple notes rather than just going off of memory. It's a little bit of extra work at the table, but it makes writing them up afterwards much, much easier, especially if something comes up and puts you behind schedule.

Thanks, advice is always helpful. I'm still figuring out the best ways to write this. I'm still not sure exactly how much I should talk about the mechanics or the out of game stuff, I also don't know whether I should try to make it read more like an actual story or piece of fiction, rather than the way it currently is more like the minutes of a meeting.

Hope you enjoy the story so far.

[Second Chances]

I've only read the intro post, but this looks very interesting! I look forward to reading the rest. One suggestion from reading other Actual Plays: it may be helpful for you to take some simple notes rather than just going off of memory. It's a little bit of extra work at the table, but it makes writing them up afterwards much, much easier, especially if something comes up and puts you behind schedule.

[Tambov]

I'm pretty sure the puppy is supposed to represent Fenrir - gods (especially Odin) are unlikely to be conserned for its safety.

[Michael Kenner]

Session Two: Locating the Target

Part Three, If you go into the woods today.

Where everything turns into complete chaos and nothing goes the way I'd expected.

No plan survives player characters, and how I'd imagined events turning out was very different to the actual results. The breaking point system was working rather well here as people's decisions about their "spooked" conditions motivated a lot of the action.

After Midnight

The team decides that the danger may not have been directed towards them after all, so after the countdown and a little bit of the fireworks display they begin to move off wondering how they're going to get to where they need to go.

With absolutely perfect timing, James arrives who plays their Driver Darren. He manages to borrow a friend's large taxi with disabled access, exchanging it for his own smaller one for the next few hours. He meets up with them, receiving another confusing summary of events. It's worth noting that Darren has extraordinary skills at driving with a large number of merits, when some of the driving stunts get a little crazy later on this is worth keeping in mind.

Despite the New Year's traffic, Darren manages to get them out to the spot in a little over forty minutes although this did involve driving like a complete maniac. Once they get there, they reach a much quieter area with very little traffic going past, even just after midnight on New Year's.

...

The area of the map where the GPS shows the phone is sitting turns out to be a rough dirt carpark with small wooden barricades around it, surrounded by grass, trees and the beginning of the park. The GPS can't pinpoint the phone exactly, but a quick search finds it lying in the grass just outside the barricade. Lin puts on some gloves to examine it carefully and finds some bloodstained fingerprints on the phone. She determines that someone with slightly dried blood on their hands handled the phone and that it was probably around an hour ago, but can't get much more from the examination.

The phone however isn't locked, so they're able to access it and see that the camera was used at 11:04pm. The same time that the GPS app recorded the phone arriving here and stopping moving. A very blurry image from a bad angle, shows just the ground and some legs. However they see that the person taking the photo is wearing the sort of fine suit that one of the Trovato employees would wear and standing next to him is someone in sturdy jeans and hiking boots. They can't find anything else though, it doesn't look like the man was able to call for help or manage anything else.

The carpark also had three rental cars sitting there, currently abandoned. Darren very quickly manages to break into all three, opening them up for the group to examine. They look very clean and with no personal touches, however one of them had a small blood stain in the back seat. There isn't a lot of blood which suggests that the injury wasn't very extreme, but they guess that it was probably the reason for blood on the phone. The rental paperwork doesn't seem very convincing that the identities are genuine with names like "Sven Svenson and Bjorn Bjornson" which Sigrun points out is possible but not a very common thing to do and that it's about as likely as every car being rented out to a 'so and so junior' in English.

Lin Wu, Tonelli and Sigrun start searching for trails, Lin using a UV flashlight and Sigrun using night-vision goggles. They discover a trail of blood droplets, but unfortunately the blood is dripping fairly slowly making it hard to follow. However they try to go out into the grass and follow it. They can see that it leads inside the park, but it's going to be very slow and difficult to track it that way.

Meanwhile Matty, Martina, Darren and Lucas are searching for information around the cars. Martina looks online for a map of the park, committing the details to her eidetic memory. Lucas looks up information to find out if any strange events had happened in the park, but aside from the occasional bear attack or lost hiker, none of which seemed connected to their case, there didn't seem anything out of the ordinary. Martina does notice though that the park contains an area that was considered a sacred site to the Lenape Native Americans.

Real world note: This was a completely made up detail and (to the best of my knowledge) is not true in our actual history. However in Chronicles of Darkness, this spot was a Locus that was recognized by the Lenape before Europeans arrived.

Sigrun suggests that since the cryptic message about Odin had used the word "hof" rather than "hörgr" they should be looking for a roofed structure (hörgr is a temple without a roof). They discover that there are five buildings on the map that aren't very far away, one of them was an information center about the Lenape sacred site that was closed down ten years ago. They decide that this is the most likely location, but don't want to jump to conclusions.

Lin Wu, Tonelli and Sigrun make faster progress when they start treating the way towards the old information building as the most likely destination, while still attempting to follow the trail. As they follow it further they get a clearer view of the footprints a couple of times and realize that there were several prisoners being led along by guards and that there was around ten to twelve people (including the prisoners).

Then people started having some unusual ideas.

...

Matty suggests, "Could we hotwire their cars and drive them into the park, doesn't matter if they get scratched up and then we've got a get away prepared."

And thus they decided to drive two cars across uneven wild terrain, without lights, in pitch back darkness in order to sneak up on the people in the building. Darren took the lead vehicle, placing a reflector on the rear bumper to help guide Martina who was following in the rear vehicle. They drove slowly and carefully and despite the tricky situation managed to very quietly pull the cars up on a walking trail a short distance from the building, hidden behind a hill.

Meanwhile Sigrun, Tonelli and Lin Wu scout out the building. They see that it's a single structure, built as a sort of long rectangle. About three yards wide and twelve yards long. There's only a single door at one of the narrow sides of the rectangle. Up the top of the building are little privacy windows, narrow slits designed to let light in but be difficult to look inside. They can see flickering orange firelight from inside and hear voices though. They realize from the volume of voices inside that there's more people than just the group they followed and decide that some of the other people must have parked elsewhere. They also spot a single small motorbike parked just outside the building.

Sigrun conceals herself with a line of sight to the door, getting ready to cover them with her rifle if need be. Tonelli and Lin Wu sneak up to the side of the building and Tonelli lifts the much smaller Lin Wu up to the window. She gets out her cell phone and starts filming what she can see inside. Five naked corpses hang upside down from the rafters. Their throats have been cut but there is no sign of the resulting blood. At the back of the room Odin, Huginn, Muninn, Geri, Freki and a blonde man that she doesn't recognize seem to be officiating over the event. There are ten men, all looking like they have Norse ancestry, partying inside the room. Whatever ritual they were performing appears to be over. She also sees that there's a cage up the very back of the room with a wolf-pup inside. There are glowing braziers of hot coals lighting the room, but familiar rainbow sparkles glisten among the hot coals.

The site of the dead bodies and strange ritual troubles Lin Wu and counts as a breaking point. Alex succeeds on the roll and chooses that Lin Wu will suffer from the "Spooked" condition.

Lin Wu brings Sigrun and Tonelli back to the cars insisting that they leave at once, but eventually people talk her down and get her to share what she saw. Everyone looks at the video she took. Tonelli confirms that one of the men was Rico, he recognizes the face. Sigrun confirms that the ritual seems to be following a lot of old traditional Norse elements but also includes a lot of what she guesses are modern innovations of some sort. None of it corresponds exactly. However she can confirm that the unknown blonde man is ritually playing the role of Thor. Matty recognizes some of the other victims. They're all gangsters, one from each Borrough of New York City. Most of the ones that they recognize had a reputation for being good in a fight. They decide that this does seem similar to the Valkyries gathering up the bravest warriors to bring to Valhalla and a lot of the occult symbols seem to match, however there is the strange element that there are no women present other than the two "ravens" Huginn and Muninn. No one seems to be playing the role of the Valkyries in the ritual.

Tonelli isn't really interested in the occult elements. He's more focused on the fact that one of his colleagues has been murdered. He rings Il Generale and explains the situation. Il Generale says that they'll need to take reprisal against anyone who thinks that they can target the Trovato family and says that he'll be there with an attack team in an hour. He asks Tonelli to watch the building until then in case they try to leave.

The team knows that things are likely to get messy from here on in, so they talk about who wants to leave. Eventually, despite a couple of people considering the option, only Lucas decides he'd rather not be there. Darren carefully drives one of the rental cars back out to the carpark, gets Lucas set up in the driver's seat of the taxicab and gets him a long stick to operate the peddles in the case of an emergency. Then he returns the car and rejoins the others.

Then all hell breaks loose.

...

Once again the plan is fairly simple:
Sigrun and Tonelli are going to sit in a hidden position near the building and watch the door.
Martina, Darren, Matty and Lin Wu are going to sit in one of the rental cars facing towards the building, ready to drive up if anything goes wrong.
The other rental car is empty and parked facing the other way, for them to run towards if they need a rapid retreat.

About twenty minutes later, the door to the building opens and one of the men from inside emerges and walks around the building. They can hear him relieving himself in the bushes. As he's walking back and just reaching the door the man suddenly calls out "****!" as he spots Sigrun pointing the sniper rifle at him.

Despite stealth being an asset skill for Sigrun's five ranks of professional training, despite having concealment as a specialty, despite spending willpower on the roll... there was still only one success on the stealth check which was beaten by two successes on the poor fellow's penalized and not too good perception score. Probability apparently decided to go completely out of the window today.

As a reflex Sigrun squeezes the trigger, dropping the man with a perfect shot to the heart. It's a silenced rifle with subsonic ammunition so the shot is fairly quiet, but none the less the people in the building were certain to hear some of the commotion. Sigrun notifies the rest of the team on their radio that they've been discovered, Tonelli sends a quick prepared text message to Il Generale saying the same.

They see no one come out of the building but a few moments later something happens. Sigrun hears a flapping of wings and scrabbling of claws, out of nowhere a raven seems to scratch a long bloodly line over Sigrun's cheek going after her eye and might have blinded her if she hadn't dodged back in time. In a moment though the raven has gone, Tonelli just sees the bloody wound appear with no cause. A few moments later Tonelli hears a growl and from nowhere a wolf seems to bite his ankle before vanishing. This counts as a breaking point for both of them, being injured by a supernatural phenomenon and they gain the spooked conditions.

Darren speeds up his car and aims it for the building, without any sign of slowing down he calls to everyone else in the car "Buckle up" as he puts his foot down hard on the gas and speeds towards the door. Martina buckles up. Matty buckles up then turns the stereo on, having spent the time waiting setting it up to play Ride of the Valkyries just in case. Lin Wu sees where the car is heading and throws her door open, diving out before the crash (this was to resolve her spooked condition). Fortunately she hits the ground rolling and doesn't get hurt.

The car smashes through the door and breaks the wall, rather than slowing down, instead Darren flicks the car into a sideways slide down the middle of the room. There are sickening crunches as most of the men in the room don't dodge to the side fast enough. The car's momentum carries it down the room and looks like it's about to crush the collected "gods" against the back wall of the room. Then Thor steps forwards, reaches out a hand and catches the car. After witnessing a blatant use of supernatural power, Martina and Matty both gain the Spooked condition. James considers Darren gaining the Guilty condition after the mass vehicular homicide but after looking through the description didn't think it fit so he joined the rest of the group in taking Spooked.

Outside Sigrun can't quite see what's going on, but she does get a clear shot on Thor through the smashed remnants of the wall and takes the shot, aiming for his head as the rest of his body is covered by the car. At the last moment he jerks his head to the side, almost dodging the shot. It still grazes along the side of his head, blood spraying out and and a spray of electrical sparks along with it.

Sigrun, with five levels of professional training, some marksman and pretty much anything else that'll help a sniper is practically a perfect sniper. Once she shoots someone, that person is as a rule usually dead. However this is also the first time they've found someone who can apply their defense to a firearms attack. Between a defense of seven that was retained against the firearm attack, not having the time to aim and some natural "armour" what should usually be an almost automatic kill turned into something less. Still inflicted real damage though. I was a little nervous that one good roll could still turn this into a one hit kill.

Lin Wu and Tonelli both run towards the building, hoping to get close enough to help their friends. Both Matty and Martina, sitting on the passenger side of the car, open up their doors and climb out to run away. Darren freezes up though and looks up at the 'gods', instead of reacting a wisecrack slips out instead (resolving his spooked condition). "A delivery for you from a Mr Low-Key?"
Odin points his spear at Darren and without any apparent sense of humour says, "Your disrespectful tongue does not lie so well as Loki's. You are cursed." Darren feels some unnatural cold settle inside him but isn't sure what it means.

Huginn, Muninn, Geri and Freki all seem to be concentrating on something, muttering underneath their breath. The spectral raven and wolf attack Sigrun and Tonelli again, but this time they're not caught off guard and manage to dodge out of the way first. Thor flexes his muscles and thrusts against the car, clearly intending to throw it quite far. The result doesn't seem quite what he had in mind as the car only gets thrown a couple of yards. None the less, this still sends the car hurtling towards Martina and Matty. Martina doesn't quite get out of the way in time, but although the bumper clips her side a little, it doesn't actually manage to hurt her beyond what will probably turn into a nasty bruise. Matty isn't so lucky and gets hit a bit more solidly by the car, although it still only just clips him. Darren however, sitting inside the car is flung around and hits his head on the steering wheel.

Sigrun fires again, targeting Thor's head once again. The shot connects more solidly than the last, appearing to actually penetrate and go into his head but although it sparks like burning magnesium he doesn't show any sign of slowing down yet.

Matty tries a desperate gamble (resolving his own spooked condition) and rushes towards the back of the room instead of the entrance, ducking past the assorted gods to reach the cage where the wolf-pup is sitting. He pulls a pistol, points it at the dog's head and calls out. "Stop or the puppy gets it".

To pretty much everyone's surprise everyone stops. Odin speaks softly but in a voice that strangely carries even to Sigrun outside. "If your sniper shoots again I will kill you all."

Sigrun holds her next shot, everyone freezes, there are groans from the injured and dying but the room as a whole comes to a stop.

And with that cliffhanger, the second session comes to an end.