Journals

Volume 1 (June 2015 - September 2015)

08/06/15 - The great escape from the Snowstorm without a Fire Demon

Jack, Amber, Peter, Zander, Steve and Llynos are at the roadhouse in a snowstorm. They prepare for winter outdoor conditions and load up 4x4. They attempt to drive from secret base but are snowed in without Sam Jack melts snow outside and tries to find the door to the secret base Peter pushes the garage door and Llynos blows the snow away as quick as it falls Peter uses super strength while standing on car to open the door as Amber uses an angled ramp forcefield to drive them out of the base They turn right Outside of the storm they discover Gotham and turn around to drive to Bludhaven to find Sam The snowstorm was completely isolated and only affected the roadhouse Once together, the group split to cover both Melville and Mealtide parks Jack and Llynos (*and Steve?) go to Melville to check out the bandstand Sam, Zander, Amber and Peter go to Mealtide to destroy the altar They make their way through a few ranks of guards and eventually reach the altar (persuading guards that they are part of the ritual) Amber puts up forcefield and they walk up to altar Sam sees an alternate dimension where the altar is a tentacled monster, the pillars are tentacles and the guards are fish people. Zander bursts into blue flame and Sam sees that he is wearing a twisted helmet, two tablets in an ancient language strapped to his chest and back and girded loins. Peter rips up the stone altar (Sam sees him rip out the monster's tongue) and begins smashing it into pillars. Sam sets them on fire as Zander hits them with his scythe. A portal opens and a dead but still living Nina (a 9-foot blue Panther) appears She attempts to explode minds and teleport vital organs out of bodies Sam is shot and loses consciousness. Llynos flies over to Mealtide to help with Nina Amber holds up a single forcefield behind them all as the guards open fire. Meanwhile at Melville, Jack speed runs into the park but is stopped by a barrier as he sees his Mother, leaving him unable to use his abilities and stuck halfway through a fence surrounding the park in severe pain. Trevor goes to fly Steve to help Jack Llynos arrives at Mealtide to kill Nina.

15/06/15 - Where everyone goes to the other park

Destroyed altar at Mealtide park Nina teleports Llynos into the ground but thanks to a failed forcefield, she survives Nina attempts to attack Zander but is thrown out of the park by an explosion which also evaporates the snowstorm and all guards dressed in white Sam regains consciousness Trevor officially turns on group and attempts to kill Jack and Clive. Holly resurrects Jack and he rips himself out of the fence he was stuck in and escapes into the speed force to heal himself and "suit up". He begins a ritual with Jack's entrails at Melville park. A huge black portal appears above the park. Sam, Zander and Peter leave to confront Trevor, Amber stays with Llynos stuck in the ground A mysterious black and white stranger (Jack) frees Llynos and goes to "do the thing" with Trevor. Llynos flies Amber to Melville park, she is drawn to the black vortex but resists A limousine and snipers are spotted at the park Zander somersaults across park and is struck by lightning and shot Clive and Steve (as punk and catsuit strangers) appear with a solution to stopping the ritual with Zander's tablet Peter webs Zander to drag him out of the park Steve and Peter are shot Sam burns trees in attempt to stop snipers Clive possesses Trevor and holds him there Trevor throws Jack and himself into other dimension before returning Jack moves Zander to "safety" and vibrates Trevor into the ground and dislocates his spine Nina returns from 'secret errands' and teleports behind Jack.

22/06/15 - Thai's Leaving Game!

Nina claws at Jack unsuccessfully, teleports away Llynos and Amber run around park to entrance Sam and Steve burn/chop down trees Sam burns the bandstand, at last! The group all gather at entrance to Melville Lady Clive tells Zander that Death has explained how to use the tablet, she tells him to physically remove the invisible tablet from around his shoulders The tablet is removed, revealing Zander in sandals, girded loins and twisty hat. Lady Clive and Peter decide to break the tablet into pieces (why would you do this?) They throw it against a wall (*I think?), nothing happens The group all touch the tablet, wanting to share the power. The tablet splits into 8 equal pieces as if by magic, everyone know has a stone cube Some of the group enter the park and are shot at by snipers Llynos summons a wind through the trees and Sam continues to burn things Jack goes to the bandstand to battle Trevor and "Do the Thing" The black portal in the sky opens and fish people step down from the sky in hordes Lady Clive possesses a fish person, her body goes still and drops the cube The fish person turns on its fellow group and causes chaos Zander charms dozens of fish people to worship him, they are now his. Sam burns more fish people Nina returns, teleporting briefly in several places Sniper Clive aims at Nina and succeeds in a headshot, leaving Nina with half a face but enough strength to teleport away. Everyone is in the park and the black sky portal begins to close. A dark shadowy figure emerges from Jack and pulls itself into the portal Jack runs from the bandstand, leaving Trevor Amber puts a forcefield around the burning bandstand Llynos suck the air out of it, putting the bandstand fires out Steve reveals that Nina left bombs all around the park, they detonate in 5 seconds! Everyone runs! BOOM! Sam, Llynos and Amber are injured in the blast, everyone else is ok, except for Steve who collided with a building very hard Nina watches from a building and walks away Trevor hits the forcefield around the bandstand but is shielded from the blast, he crawls away with 4HP. Everyone regroups and perform first aid, enough to get back to the road house. At the road house, it's Christmas Day (*or was it Eve?) and the group sit around the fire with various beverages and a buffet laid out on the table (which Jack eats most of). The group are wearing knitted jumpers from Llynos and a Christmas tree stands in the corner covered in 90's tat. Peace at last...

29/06/15 - The diverted Christmas adventure

The players give out Christmas gifts! Llynos gives handmade knitwear, of course! Sam gives very fancy Gucci clothes Sam Werewolf drops off hand carved wooden statues before disappearing, each of a different member, with Llynos and Amber being particularly intricate Amber gives second hand books, Oliver Twist for Peter, Dante's Inferno for Sam, Sherlock Holmes for Steve, To Kill a Mockingbird for Clive, Jane Eyre for Zander, Peter Pan for Llynos, Frankenstein and Little Women for Sam Werewolf, and A Christmas Carol for Jack. Zander gives Amber chocolates and an expensive necklace, Amber shares the chocolates round Peter gives 90's tat? (*I don't know what specifically) Christmas Day was a little short lived as already new troubles plague Bludhaven A curfew is introduced to Bludhaven and all those without ID are imprisoned in New Haven, surrounded by a guarded 40-foot wall A new drug is sweeping the market And "Peter's Bombers" take the blame for the Melville park bombing New plans are revealed to rebuild the parks with a new bandstand Clive, Amber and Zander go to check out New Haven, they meet a guard names Moses Jones, and spread rumours of the Mayor's illegitimacy, they show ID and enter New Haven Peter and Sam go to Melville park, it is destroyed but they find the lead developer. Sam pleads that they do not make a bandstand; make a nice pond instead! The guy reveals that he has been ordered by the boss to create some kind of ritual circle, preferably in the form of the traditional bandstand. Sam and Peter give up trying to persuade him as anything built will be some sort of occult device anyway. Llynos puts posters around Bludhaven, looking for her son In New Haven, the group encounter a mysterious mob that they scare off with threats of Peter's Bombers, a gate asking for gold tribute, a bustling market full of disabled people and mixed races called Centre Town, and another gate for the river where they ask to see Big Bertha after Llynos and Sam joins them after declaring Llynos insane at the gates. Sam saw a crazy man leap out of a window upon seeing her, she steps over his limp body before entering Centre Town. At the river, Llynos, Clive, Amber, Sam and Zander arrange a meeting with Bertha, a scantily clad warrior Frank Frazetta-esque woman. Bertha offers them accommodation and talks about potential revolution against Bludhaven with a union between the other tribes, one of which being The Madam in Centre Town. The tribes are river/water, stone, metal, cloth, wall, and the wild people. Zander charms Bertha and she demands he join her in her chamber while the other retire to bed. Llynos gives him "protection" and the group go their separate ways to bed.

06/07/15 - The one where everyone cosplayed Mad Max characters

Clive searches for the source of the water people's waterfall from their fort, he discovers they have a single water source from Bludhaven. They once tried turning it off only to be without water for 4 days before it returned. Peter goes to New Haven and declares himself without ID, they let him in. He sees a naked man tripping out get shot by running too close to the wall. Then a truck drives in full of people in grey cloth. The wall guards shoot them, but they shoot back with harpoons and drag the soldiers from the 40-foot wall before escaping. Zander rejoins the group after his sleepover and they head to Centre Town to kit themselves out. Amber works at an armoury exchanging work for studded shoulder pads while Llynos and Clive set up a makeshift first aid centre, conning poor people of their valuables while making them feel slightly better. They earn enough for leather and scrap metal gear, Llynos finally gets her Tina Turner outfit! Peter web swings his way to Centre Town as Steve enters New Haven. They meet at the gates (by way of Peter missing his web swing and face planting and Steve laughing at him) and Zander, Sam and Llynos eventually open the gates to let them in. Clive and Amber question guards to take them to the "Madam" to no success. Clive offers Amber as "tribute", which doesn't go well. Amber tries to punch the guard but misses. The group rejoin in the centre and Sam offers her gold bling necklace as tribute to see the Madam. It works and they enter a clean underground sewer that is furnished, but on the condition that they hand over technology/weapons (headsets, guns, fire extinguisher etc.) only Clive and Zander bluff to keep their gear. Through a door, is a comfortably furnished room with 2 paintings on the wall. One of Nina as a policewoman And another of a purple panther. And a living human Nina steps forward...

20/07/15 - The one where things with Nina escalated quickly

The group speak to Nina but without a coherent plan, she dismisses them. Clive, Llynos and Amber tell her about their ‘revolution’ plan with Bertha. Nina/The Madame clearly has “history” with Bertha and loses interest. Amber blurts out that they are united under the Bludhaven Bomber (Peter). Nina instantly transforms into a purple were-cat... oops. She goes straight for Peter, pinning him to the ground, attacking with claws and teeth. Amber puts a forcefield across the were-cat to protect Peter while Llynos flies up onto Nina’s back, Clive tries to calm her down at gunpoint and Steve shoots at her. Nina is not happy as Amber tries to drag Peter out from under her, her claws cutting him as she does so. Zander opens the door to the outer room, revealing the situation to the guards outside. They call for backup as Zander flips over to them and attacks using his draining power. Clive enters a guard’s consciousness and attempts to close the door as another guard puts his foot in the door. Clive proceeds to jump through consciousness’s to wreak havoc and confusion among the guards. Zander crit fails on his life draining and something strange happens to the guard he is knelt on... Amber manages to drag Peter out from under Nina while Llynos strangles her. Nina pulls through the forcefield, shredding the skin on her arms and gouging a huge wound across Peter’s stomach. Nina and Peter faint while Clive and Steve go back to the outer room to retrieve Llynos’ sewing kit. Amber puts a forcefield around Nina to trap her and Amber and Llynos work together to heal/stitch up Peter, it’s not enough but adequate for now. They also heal some of Nina’s wounds. Clive finds a secret passage by the bookcase and they decide to leave with Nina.

27/07/15 – There’s a vampire in the tunnels!

Before entering the secret passage, the group want their stuff back, but in the outer room, something weird is happening to the guard Zander touched and even more guards are filling the room. Amber drops the forcefield around Nina (leaving Llynos to watch her) and goes to put one up in the outer room, she asks Sam and Zander to help her push the forcefield across the room with the intention of pushing the guards back so they could get their stuff (Zander doesn’t push quickly enough and faceplants). To the guard’s surprise, an invisible wall pushes them back, but another commotion is happening behind them as the supposedly dead guard gets up and is transformed as a huge, scrawny vampire creature with long claws and a snout. A hideous massacre ensues as Amber strengthens her forcefield and the others rush to the secret passage, abandoning their headsets and fire extinguisher. Nina still in were-cat form crawls into the passage before them, they follow. Sam picks up Clive’s limp body along the way. Amber is last to turn away from her forcefield as she sees the vampire creature rip into the guards and blood splatters everywhere. She runs to the tunnel, which is very dark. Sam leads the way, (her horns scraping along the roof of the tunnel) using her fire to light the passage (which may have accidentally lit Clive’s head alight first, but she got it the second time). Llynos uses her power to blow anything out of the tunnel after Steve saw something. Amber goes back to shut the passage opening, but not before something passes her first. The group shuffle along in part darkness, Nina limping/crawling ahead of them. Something swipes at Amber and misses, she freaks out. She holds out a forcefield as a shield as the something lunges again, revealing claws and a snout. The vampire is right behind them! Amber screams for the others to hurry, as she is repeatedly attacked. They eventually find some stairs, it's very dark so Llynos stumbles into them and breaks a finger. She makes a huge deal of it while Amber loses it (her forcefield gone after it was smacked into by the vampire-thing). They head up the stairs to find themselves on a tiny slippery ledge on a cliff overlooking the sea. Nina is nowhere to be found. Llynos flies out. Sam flies off the ledge with Clive and drops down, as Steve steps out and immediately flattens himself against the cliff, refusing to listen or budge to the rest of the group. Llynos and Peter both try to coax Steve along the ledge, no one else can get out of the tunnel onto the ledge. Amber hears something behind her and freaks out again. Eventually Sam and Llynos fly Clive’s body and Steve to safety above the cliff, she then takes Peter but drops him because he's wet with blood. He manages to web himself to safety, Zander cartwheels along the ledge to the top of the cliff and Amber (last to leave the tunnel) is picked up by Llynos and taken up. Sam returns to the tunnel to look for the vampire, she conjures a flamethrower to pour flame into the tunnel. Nothing. The group collapse at the top of the cliff, the sun setting in the sea in front of them.

17/08/15 – The one with the Crazy Hobo ambush and getting Peter to the Vet

Atop the cliff, the group try to decide where to go next, Peter needs immediate medical attention, but would be recognized in Bludhaven if they left New Haven. They walk in the direction of River Dale, when Peter (carried by Sam) wakes long enough to realize they are in danger. The group get out of the main road and find cover in an alley, as they hear wild, crazy laughter and banging metal. Amber commands them to stop and leave them alone but the laughing continues. Sam flies up with Peter as about 40 wild, emaciated bodies covered in track marks throw themselves out of windows, into walls, each other and the ground below. Many die instantly, but the rest fight. A particularly dangerous one (wearing a wellington on his head) punches Llynos with surprising force. Amber and Llynos brawl, Zander somersaults away and Steve hits some (*I think?) Zander waits for them on a wall up ahead as Llynos and Amber leave the tunnel Fighting is still breaking out in the alley and the hobos are basically killing themselves until no one is left standing. The group find themselves in an orchard, where they pick slightly old, withered apples. Zander squeezes apple juice into his gnome (this is bizarre in or out of context). Sam decides to fly ahead with Peter (who is not looking good) and Clive’s body and flies straight to Centre Town. When she lands, it’s eerily empty. Guards literally quit and flee before her and she notices strange shuffling figures in the shadows. She leaves straight away and goes back to the group: “It’s zombies.” is the conclusion. So Sam flies back to River Dale instead. Everyone else follows on foot. Sam arrives at the top of their tower and shifts down, heading down the stairs with Peter. The rest arrive at the gates of River Dale and are let in without fuss. Inside they request a doctor immediately for Peter (Sam raises some eyebrows) and are taken to their closest thing: a Vet. Upstairs, the Vet takes a look at Peter and requests payment for her services. Peter offers his glasses and Zander hands over his gun (lethal, not a stun gun). Peter finally receives halfway decent medical attention! But he will still require 12 hours to recover in-game. The Vet also gives Sam a jumpsuit to cover up. The rest of the group goes to see Bertha, who wants to know how the meeting with the Madame went. They admit it didn’t go well, however there are more pressing matters at hand: vampire zombies apparently (along with a huge vampire monster on the loose below Centre Town). Bertha is somewhat skeptical (assuming the monster for the were-cat Nina) but the group try to convince her. They turn to Zander for vampire expertise. Bertha looks to him, as he ends up admitting he is a vampire. She isn’t happy. She gives them 12 hours to recuperate, but after that, they will never be welcome in River Dale again...

24/08/15 – The one where Zander apologises and the group were actually Heroes

Amber, Llynos, Sam and Zander stand under a small tarpaulin stretched between four poles outside as they contemplate their situation. Amber and Llynos insist that Zander goes to apologise to Bertha, it’s the only way to redeem the relationship. Zander is reluctant. Amber hears a strange howl in the distance and Llynos flies off to investigate, agreeing to be back within an hour. Sam waits under the tarpaulin while Amber and Zander go to the tower to see Bertha. At the tower, Zander convinces the guards that Bertha wants to see him and they are let through. They walk up to the throne room and wait at the stairs as Bertha is having a meeting. Llynos flies out near Centre Town and spots something down below. She flies in a bit closer to see monsters below her: a vampire, a were-cat and a werewolf fighting (this is not the start of a joke!) She wants a closer look and summons a wind to lift the werewolf, she overestimates and sends the werewolf howling and snarling into her face. Meanwhile, Sam waits patiently for Llynos to return. One of a group of guards who had been watching her in her tight-fitting jumpsuit approaches and begins flirting. Sam calls him distracting; he doesn’t know how to respond. He asks why to which she explains she is counting (the 60 minutes before she could go find Llynos!). The guy’s come-ons are flat-out and brutally refused. Back in the throne room, Amber and Zander listen as Bertha’s soldiers tell her about strange goings-on in Centre Town and the monsters that are ravaging the people. Eventually they leave and Zander approaches Bertha. She doesn’t look up from her book whatsoever. Zander proceeds to make one of the worst apology speeches ever. Amber facepalms out-of-sight by the stairs. She motions for him to come back but stops after Bertha reacts to him walking away. Amber silently mouths for him to shut up with his stupid excuses, go back and apologise properly! Zander tries again, a bit better this time but falls short of an true apology. Amber decides it’s time to intervene and steps out from the stairs. Meanwhile, Llynos is in the air with an angry werewolf attached to her, digging his claws in painfully. She eventually manages to get lower and get the werewolf off of her (I can’t remember how) and flies straight back to River Dale to tell Sam. Amber steps out behind Zander and commands him to give the speech of his life, saying word-for-word what to tell Bertha: to grovel, explain he’s not worthy, that she’s the best thing that has happened to him in his miserable life, that he couldn’t live without her, that he respects her, that he loves her etc. etc... Five minutes into the speech, she holds up her book to hide her smile and eventually stops him and forgives him. Just as: Sam and Llynos burst in with news of zombie vampires, a vampire monster, were-cat and werewolf are headed this way, and Steve and a punk-dude with a green Mohawk, leather jacket, baseball bat and big ass boots called Isaac run in to announces the zombie vampires are at the gates! Everyone runs outside to see a horde of shambling vampire zombies storming the gates. They have already broken through the West gate and the River Dale army is holding them back. Amber runs to the gate and put up a forcefield at the entry point, Sam carries Isaac up to the wall for a vantage point. Sam struggles to burn the horde, but Isaac seems to have no trouble sending out sheets of electricity to decimate the attackers. Zander gets out his scythe to cut down the horde, Steve shoots through rows of them at a time, Llynos sends them flying into the air and Amber enters the fray to punch whatever comes close. The horde are many in number but singularly weak and it takes a mere 15 minutes for the group to wipe them out. The Steve shoots the last one as the remaining guards begin to applaud the group. Sam sets about burning corpses as Llynos and Amber see to the wounded. Suddenly through the hole in the gate, Steve spots the vampire creature approaching them, dragging a black furry creature behind it. Steve attaches metal to himself and magnetises himself towards the gap in the gate (*I think that’s how his power works?) only to smash into Amber’s forcefield (it’s a rite of passage by this point). Amber lets the field down and Steve continues towards the vampire. Amber agrees to go back to explain the events to Bertha as everyone else leaves River Dale to confront the vampire outside. Steve shoots the vampire but they are both sent flying away from each other as Zander, Isaac, Sam and Llynos arrive on scene.

31/08/15 – The Revolution Committee

Amber spots Bertha, she is wielding two double-handed battle axes (one in each hand) like a boss and cutting down vampire zombies like grass. Amber puts up a forcefield at the East gate and brawls through the horde. Meanwhile, Zander, Sam, Llynos and Isaac reach Steve and the Vampire Steve shoots at it from the ground, hitting perfectly, but the creature still stands. Sam flies in the air, Zander unfolds his scythe and Isaac electrocutes the vampire. Sam plummets to the ground, landing on top of the vampire, causing it to faint. Two figures emerge from a nearby building, a nondescript adult male and a short woman with curly strawberry-blonde hair, long ‘hippie’ clothing and a gnarly wooden staff containing a crystal. They introduce themselves as Jim and Easter. Sam proceeds to chomp on the vampire’s neck before burning the body. Upon the vampire’s death, the remaining vampire zombies drop motionless in front of Bertha’s army. Amber investigates a body; no response. She instructs the soldiers to burn all the bodies and let’s Bertha know the status of the West Gate. Bertha sends 2 soldiers with Amber as they go to join the others. Sam wonders where the black were-cat went and everyone searches. Jim and Zander notice a strange creature crawling along the walls, but Steve sees the cat crawling silently and slowly away in the shadows. They follow it into a building and Sam creates a fire to light the room. The were-cat legs it upstairs and Sam puts the fire out. Isaac lights his baseball bat like a light bulb instead. The group head upstairs while Sam keeps watch in the doorway. Addition by Sarah: Jim looted the vampire guard after the others killed it and found a set of keys Easter accidentally offended Sam right after meeting her by calling her a costume, then one of the damned. She apologised so they're cool now. Easter used her hippy skills to make were-cat Nina less aggressive. Easter then healed and calmed Nina and turned back into a human, accidentally almost killing her in the process (she has less HP as a human). Llynos and Easter worked together to heal Nina enough that she didn't die. Both Sam and Jim went to Centre Town to investigate and to reclaim the group's gear. Sam poked one of the dead bodies and all the guts spewed out. Sam thought it was pretty standard, Jim threw up. Sam remembered where the trapdoor to the Madame's home was and they went down. There were dead bodies everywhere. Sam thought that was actually pretty gross, Jim threw up again. With the looted keys they got all the stuff back and found a survivor! Yay! Amber and the 2 soldiers leave River Dale and approach Sam just as the others carry Nina’s naked body out of the building. The skin on Nina’s arms is torn, strangle marks wraps around her neck and huge gashes cover one side of her torso. Easter, Llynos, Amber, and Zander heals her wounds as best they can, keeping her unconscious. The group create a make-shift stretcher out of wood and Amber and Zander’s shoe laces. They decide against taking her back to River Dale (knowing her history with Bertha) and they return her to Centre Town instead. Sam flies Nina’s body to the Madame’s room, where she finds the group’s gear (headsets, fire extinguisher, stun guns etc) as well as an unconscious guard. She leaves Nina safe with someone to help her recover. Centre Town is empty and full of motionless vampire bodies. Easter suggests making a funeral pyre and the group set about piling bodies while Zander keeps watch. They set the bodies alight and in the fire, Amber sees a terrifying face while the others feel strange as the flames climb high and last a bit longer than they should as they die out slowly. Only Steve sees Death herself personally take the innocent souls with her to the afterlife. As the flames reduce to ash, dawn breaks over Centre Town. Amber and Zander gather some supplies from the abandoned stalls. Suddenly they look up to see Bertha and her army approach from River Dale, at the same time as a set of free runners covered in patched cloth and a huge metal truck arrive from different directions. They all look pissed off. Bertha steps forward as a man covered in patchwork clothes and another man on the armoured truck step forward. The metal leader asks who’s in charge of Centre Town. The group explain that the Madame still lives and therefore owns it, and Llynos inadvertently ends up asking the three armies to unite their forces and escape New Haven together. Everyone falls silent and listens to Llynos. They agree to hold a peaceful parley in half an hour to discuss a plan. The group set up a round table and chairs as they develop a plan. As they speak, Steve notices 2 member of cloth leave in the direction of the wall and goes in pursuit, but cannot find them. The people of cloth do not respond to questions. The three leaders return to parley. Llynos introduces the group and their powers, as their skills are integral to their escape. They explain their two-pronged attack: Sam is to fly immediately to the Mayor Benjamin Josiah's mansion with Jim to capture him, before anyone can suspect an attack. Steve and Isaac are to take out guards upon the wall from long range, as Amber, Llynos and Steve combine their powers to reinforce the armoured truck and ram it into the wall to bring it down. Easter and Zander are to follow up through the wall to help with the ensuing revolution to create a distraction for the Bludhaven police force and protect the escaped members of New Haven. Isaac will then take out the metal robot units as everyone works to overthrow the militarised police, Law Tech and the corrupt Mayor. The leader’s listen intently and when Llynos is finished, everyone applauds the plan, except for the people of cloth who are reluctant to cheer. With everyone in agreement, they are ready to commence with The Revolution.

7/09/15 - The Revolution Begins

The group spend a significant amount of time fine-tuning their plan of attack. The people of Metal have rigged the armoured truck with explosives and gasoline and it's practically ready to blow. Sam leaves just as dawn breaks, she takes Jim and they fly to Josiah's Mansion. The rest of the group draw out their plan of attack, because New Haven is difficult to navigate in straight lines and the truck being so volatile, they decide to attack one of the main gates using the already straight roads, but they have to move quickly before the alarm is raised. Steve and Isaac go out to the their posts near the wall to discover guards waiting for them along the top, they already knew! They begin sniping out guards one by one. Amber and Zander get in the truck and Zander drives slowly to the gate. Amber holds up a forcefield above the front and top of the truck, protecting it from attack. Easter stays back with the people of Cloth and Llynos with one of the other tribes. The various tribes filter out into surrounding houses, ready for the wall to be breached. Sam and Jim reach the mansion after flying around the New Haven wall. They decide to land on the roof, away from the many guards that have sprung into action below. Sam shifts down and waits naked on the roof while Jim heads inside. He uses his cover of darkness to sneak past cameras and guards until he reaches a room thought to be the mayor's. But he's not there, instead it's a woman. She doesn't spot Jim but leaves with the guards outside. (*Did Jim search the room at this point?) Back at the wall, The truck slowly builds up speed as Steve and Isaac pick off more guards. They are a few hundred yards off from the wall, but still not fast enough! Llynos joins them and uses her wind powers to help speed up the vehicle. Guards begin shooting the truck, but Amber's forcefield is holding up. Eventually they reach about 60-70mph and Zander grabs a brick and shoves it on the acceleration. He leaps out of the truck, does a few cartwheels and somersaults and walks casually into one of the buildings by the road. Suddenly he becomes aware of a vast amount of blood somewhere to the South of them. Easter with the people of Cloth, has been betrayed. Everywhere they are turning on others and the leader holds Easter at knife-point, she was an inch away from having her throat slit. She manages to break free and uses her staff to hit him in the crotch. Meanwhile at the mansion, Sam notices a commotion on the ground. Jim returns to the roof with no sign of the mayor. They look down at the gardens below them to see a single figure running away covered by a jacket and surrounded by dozen of security guards! They seize the opportunity and Sam shifts back into demon form and carries Jim down to the figure below. Jim uses powers of darkness around themselves, but Sam can't see though it so they struggle to land but somehow Jim grabs hold of the mayor. They fly off as guards aim rocket launchers at them and fire, but fortunately they are not hit. They fly away successfully with the figure they deem to be the mayor. Back in the truck, Amber's forcefield has taken about all it can take. Steve holds his turn and waits for Amber to escape, she leaps out from the now speeding truck and rolls. Not as gracefully as Zander but without hurting herself. Steve uses his magnetic ability to 'shoot' the truck directly at the wall. But the forcefield has taken a lot of damage and the truck can't take much more before it explodes! The remaining guards fire and take out it's last hit point just as the truck launches and reaches the wall....

.....BOOOM!!!

The truck just manages to take out the wall and the guards, but it also destroys the houses in the vicinity, including where Steve and Isaac are standing! They fall into the rubble. Llynos and Amber head South to help Easter and Zander looks for Steve and Isaac. They emerge from the rubble in one piece but a little worse for wear. Amber and Llynos reach Easter and help her fend off the people of Cloth, who cut their losses and run away. They all regroup by the wall, which is now a pile of rubble, to see the New Haven tribes pouring out of the gap and into Bludhaven as Steve notices two helicopters off in the distance, carrying a Lawtech crate...

14/09/15 - The Revolution Happens

Sam and Jim successfully kidnapped the actual mayor! On the way back to Center Town, Jim noticed some People of Metal and had Sam drop him off, he wanted to convince them to join the revolution. Sam returned back to Center Town with the mayor. He took one look at Sam and basically passed out. Thankfully Easter was there and she patched him up a little. While Sam and Easter were trying to decide what to do with the mayor, two People of the Cloth attacked them! The Cloth people were wildly unsuccessful and were both unconscious in 1 round; one took a staff to the gonads and the other got fire punched. With that problem dealt with, Sam left the mayor with Easter and flew away to rejoin the others by the hole in the wall. Sam let Easter borrow her comms because they assumed she wouldn't need them. Back at the People of Metal, Jim convinced them to take him to their leader to discuss a deal. The leader is basically an 8ft tall man made entirely of muscle, with a 2-handed battle axe and absolutely covered in makeshift armour. After a lot of discussing, they agreed that the team would give 1/4 tonne of (Sam's) treasure and in return the metal people would join the fight. The People of Metal immediately streamed out to join the fighting just outside the wall. Meanwhile, Llynos had noticed the 2 helicopters coming over the horizon carrying a 'Lawtech' box. Using her wind powers, she forced the helicopters to collide with each other, totally destroying them. They also landed on top of the newly re-build bandstand, destroying it again. It turned out there was a 12ft tall robocop-type robot in the crate, and it was still functional. It shot Llynos out of the sky making her unconscious before marching off to join the fight just outside of the wall. Steve this whole time had been sniping wall guards, and found himself surrounded by some sort of elite guard force. He ducked into a building for cover but was taking heavy fire. Sam arrived in the same area and noticed the guards were carrying heavy weapons and heading right for the civilians outside the wall. In an attempt to distract them she did a lot of flamethrowers, and it was enough for Steve to duck out the backdoor of the building he was using for cover and escape. The guards tried to shoot Sam but only injured her. The leader of The People of Metal and Giant Robocop had a fight at this point. It was very cool, the Metal guy was winning and it turns out robocop can't shoot straight. At this point Jim had arrived at the by the wall hole and saw Sam fighting the guards. He ducked behind cover and used his powers to create a shroud of darkness around the gunmen. Unfortunately it wasn't very effective, and the gunmen shot Sam again and she fell unconscious to the ground. Easter had been spending her time trying to put the mayor somewhere he couldn't escape from. She wasn't strong enough to carry him, and instead rationalised that she should just drop him down a 10ft hole and just heal him afterwards. So she did. She handcuffed the mayor to The Madame's bed, noting that Nina had completely vanished from the room. With her work done she decided to rejoin the rest of the group. Jim saw that Sam was in trouble and made an attempt to rescue her. He darkened the dark shroud around the guards, but one of the guards got lucky and managed to shoot him anyway. He was also knocked unconscious and the darkness shroud dissipated. Then Easter showed up! She snuck around the guards and hid behind Sam's giant unconscious body while healing her. The guards noticed that Sam was getting up again and opened fire, but they were both mostly fine. The Metal man and Robocop are still having a 1x1 fight at this point, until Steve and Llynos show up! Steve does his Steve thing and shoots half the robots face off, but the robot is still standing. Llynos decides that she should just lift robocop up really high and then drop him, so she uses her wind powers and raises him up. She then drops him about 4 stories, and at the same time Steve shot his leg off. Metal man uses the momentum of robocop falling to slam him into the ground with his axe. Robocop is definitely dead and sitting in a crater. MEANWHILE, Sam and Easter are trying to decide how not to die as the guards prepare to shoot them again. Easter suggests using her powers to imbue Sam with energy, effectively increasing what damage she could do. Sam agrees, they're dead if they don't try something radical. Sam begins to glow red, it is not a pleasant feeling and burns badly. Sam sets herself on fire, flies high into the air, then slams down into the guard's formation. They are extremely dead and Sam is covered in gore. Pretty standard as far as this day is going. The group regroup and Easter heals everybody up while they discuss their next move. They decide they need to take the (still unconscious) mayor to the roadhouse for interrogation and handcuff him to a chair in the secret basement. Llynos demands that they give him a cushion for the chair and a cup of tea. Now they just need to figure out what to do about the rioting!

21/09/15 - The Downfall of Josiah Benjamin

The group have the (still unconcious) mayor handcuffed to a chair in the roadhouse basement while they decide what to do now. The eventual decision is that they need to stop the riot. Step 1: deactivate the killer robots that are gunning down the rioters. Jim and Eostre head to the main police station in Bludhaven to try and turn off the robots, and while they're there they encounter a woman named Sandra Draephus who is the ex head of the police. Sandra bosses around the police to do their damn jobs and is generally really cool. The current head of the police appears and tells Sandra to leave, but Eostre threw a snowglobe at his head and he got knocked out. Sandra regains control of the situation, and tells them that they need to create a scene and a scandal so big that Josiah and LawTech couldn't possibly keep going.

Jim and Eostre relay the information to the others, and they leap into action. Llynos,Steve and Sam all head off to the town hall with (still unconscious and handcuffed to a chair) Josiah in tow. When they get there they notice two LawTech robots gunning down civilians and we're HEROES now so we're not going to stand for that!!! Llynos and Sam try to get the robots attention by doing a dance and yelling 'LOOK AT ME I'M A DEMON AND I KIDNAPPED THE MAYOR' but the robots don't notice. Sam tells Llynos to do something illegal to get their attention, so she goes and flies in front of them. The robots tell Llynos it is illegal tofly without a permit and they open fire on her. In an impressive manoeuvre, Llynos flies between the two robots so they start shooting each other. They both get stuck in a loop of “HALT! You are damaging LawTech property!” and shooting each other.

With the most imminent threat neutralized, the group make their way to the balcony on the town hall. Llynos screams really loudly for people to stop fighting,almost deafening the group in the process. With order mostly restored the group make a pretty lame speech about how Josiah is BAD and LawTech is BAD and that they should feel BAD. (Lots of Bludhaven news crews recorded it and edited it later so they sounded better, though.) Thegroup tells the tribes and groups of Bludhaven to select a representative, and to meet back at the town hall the next morning so that they can start putting together a council. Sandra arrives to arrest Josiah, and Sam happily gives him to her. They have the following conversation:

Sandra: do you have the keys for these handcuffs?

Sam:…..........................no.

Sandra: ok then.-throws him in the truck-

The group spend the night in the town hall. The creepy guy from the water plant is here because Peter told him to get a new job, so he has a new job! They watch themselves on the TV. Also it turns out that all the LawTech robots have been recalled, and lots of the police who got fired for being not-corrupt were given their jobs back.

The next morning,representatives from all the groups and tribes in Bludhaven arrive at the town hall. The group tell them that they don't want any hand in running the city, they just staged the coup to get rid of Josiah because he was ridiculously evil. The group hangs around for a while to make sure things are civil, but the people of Bludhaven arrange the new council on their own. The group disappear into the night,presumably to get a beer or something because it's the end of the plot arc. Oh, also Sam takes Peter to hospital and puts Clive in her house to use as a hat stand. The end.

Volume 2 (October 2015 - January 2016)

12/10/15 - Timey Wimey

Two weeks have passed. The group are back at the road house, enjoying drinks and a moment's respite. Bludhaven has settled into some sort of "normality" citizens have their homes and family back, rebuilding has begun and a diplomatic leader has been instated.

Peter arrives, he's been at hospital for a long time, but is a lot better now. Llynos gives him a bath gift set and hands Amber another present to give to him. Amber apologises for the whole Nina tearing him apart thing, but Peter doesn't remember what happened. Amber leaves it that way.

There's a knock at the door.

Peter opens it and shuts it again immediately before heading upstairs.

There's another knock.

Llynos opens it and outside is a man in a suit with some papers and a clipboard. A Limousine is parked in the drive. He asks for Peter to sign something. He comes back down reluctantly. The man asks Peter to sign for a letter he received not long ago, acknowledging that he read it. Peter signs it and the man leaves. The group ask Peter what the letter was.

He takes out a letter on ancient vellum and reads. It's in his own handwriting and asks that he seeks out a bank account held in Star City that will help him obtain a time travel machine from Neo Nazi's. Something about deposits in the Middle Ages and that whatever happens: DO NOT LET THEM PUT THAT THING ON SAM'S HEAD! The group are thoroughly confused.

Peter and Llynos leave together for Star City, she flies him there since it's quicker. They arrive at a modest looking building, but inside it is richly furnished, red plush carpet, marble and deep, dark wood counters and walls. Peter goes to the woman at the desk and asks for an account under his name. She asks for a finger print and a small blood test to confirm his identity. He clears it and she prints off a paper slip with his account details. It takes some time to calculate.

The woman hands Peter the slip, he turns and opens it before making a strange sound and closing it again. She asks if he'd like to see his vault and whether Llynos may be trusted. Peter nods and they are taken down a corridor, with armed security at intervals. The door is a wood finish but upon opening is 2-foot thick and made of metal. They come to a large circular door. Peter is prompted for a password. He inputs his birth date and the vault opens…

Inside is a 3 by 5 foot pile of about 400 solid gold bars.

Peter and Llynos look at the bars, underneath each one is a stamp of an eagle carrying a circle encasing a swastika mark and beneath that, a number. Behind the gold bars in the moderately sized room, some paintings are hanging up. Peter looks at them and recognises most of the paintings as masterpieces lost or stolen during WWII. Llynos takes a gold bar and puts it carefully in her handbag, the weight is barely noticeable to her.

They walk back to the counter with the woman. Llynos leaves early and flies back with the gold to the road house. Peter asks the woman how far his bank account records go back to. She says they go back further than their own electronic database and has to call their other branch in France. They tell her it will take some time to examine the scrolls. Peter excuses himself to the bathroom. He screams in the bathroom for a long time.

Back at the road house, Llynos shows the others the Nazi gold, confirming that what was written in Peter's letter is at least partly true. Steve stores the gold safely in the secret base and while the others discuss time travel, Amber heads to the computer upstairs to research Nazi gold. She discovers there's approximately 400 missing bars, each with an identifying number stamped into it. She confirms the number on the bar Llynos brought is one of these pieces. She then looks up time travel conspiracies and among the hundreds of thousands of articles, finds an interesting detail about fixed points. Basically that there are certain large events that happen that can never by changed or undone, such as WWII (but whether it's the start or end of WWII is uncertain) and no matter how it happens, the event will always unfold, just maybe in a different way. The other detail being that even a small change (whether positive or negative) can have a disastrous ripple/butterfly effect that is irreversible.

Llynos flies Eostre to Star City to see how Peter is getting on. Peter emerges from the bathroom eventually and goes to see how long his account has been with this bank. The woman explains that the scrolls date the account all the way back to 400AD around the fall of the Roman Empire when the account was held by one of their former organisations. The records then show various investments made by Peter's ancestors (also called Peter funnily enough) including: the Tudors, the works of Shakespeare, the rights to Hollywood, the novelist Stephen King, the Star Wars franchise, a computer company called Acorn, and a small business called Amazon, to name a few. Peter then opens a Platinum account starting at $4,000,000 and takes out $20,000 dollars on a debit card. Llynos, Eostre and Peter meet outside the bank, and go to a dealership to buy a car, a phone and some new clothes.

Back at the road house, the group are looking at the computer (*or TV?) when they sense a presence behind them. They turn to see a tall man in rich blue and red clothing and pantaloons. He claims to own the building and the surrounding land, next to the Native Indians to the North. He explains he holds the deed to the land. The man insists that it's sometime in the 1800's, despite the group knowing that it's of course 1998. Peter throws a salt shaker at him to test whether he's an illusion or not. They question him for some time and he reveals something will happen in a year's time when a voice calls to him from upstairs.

A short woman in a similar outfit is downstairs. The man stands to attention and bows before her, he refers to her as 'the matron'. The group sense that these people are not what they appear to be. She asks what year it is and is shocked to hear it's 1998. The woman scolds the man for appearing before his time and meddling. It turns out that the two are actually fairies. She tells the group not to mind them and they'll be on their way. The woman can see right through Sam's human disguise and asks her why 'he' hasn't called her home yet.

Sam asks what's happening in a year and the woman smiles through gritted teeth and glares at the man kneeling on the ground who is suppressing laughter. She tells them that in a years time there will be a war between the angels and the demons, and the group will be able to decide who wins. She tells them not to get in their way and there won't be any problems. Two double axes appear in her hands for a split second before disappearing again. Amber recognises them. And no sooner had they appeared, the two strangers vanish...

19/10/15 - The Last Unicorn!

Steve, Eostre and Zander (being the only Caucasian members of the group) decide to investigate the Neo Nazi’s and head to a known bar using Steve's dubious connections. (*Unfortunately I wasn’t present for most of this and also distracted due to being high on RedGen, if E or A could write up the missing details that would be amazing! :) )

Amber, Peter, Sam and Llynos (being ethnic minorities) stay at the roadhouse, twiddling their thumbs. They decide to investigate another trail: either abnormally large rats; the green goo in the sewers, or the powerful RedGen drug that is sweeping the market. They have had quite enough of rats and goo for several lifetimes, so they choose to look into the RedGen. Amber goes to the computer and discovers the drug has caused two high profile deaths (that have been conveniently avoided/covered up by mainstream media) including Amanda Scullion, 23, daughter of James Scullion and [Insert name], 21, daughter of the Police Chief.

The two girls were in similar upper class social circles, and it's thought to be the current drug for the rich and is more addictive and effective than any drug before on the market. They decide to head out and try and secure a drug dealer to check out this RedGen. Llynos had heard of a place where you can get some; The Blue Moon, funnily enough. Before they leave, the girls head to Sam's to borrow some fancy clothes and Peter goes to buy a tailored suit.

All dressed up and ready to party, they go to the Blue Moon and order drinks (wine for Peter, a Grasshopper for Llynos, a bottle of vodka for Sam and a Dark and Stormy for Amber), they use Amber's staff discount card and Sam refers to the bartender as 'Mr. Bar Man'.

At the Neo Nazi bar, the white people are looking for a buyer for some highly collectible items. Unfortunately they don’t find anyone willing to buy their Nazi gold, apparently they only want useful items. Later, they discover a recruitment team to join the Neo Nazi’s and they each go down to offices to file paperwork.

Back at the Blue Moon and after some time of drinking together and talking about big parties and meeting and marrying David Bowie, a woman sitting alone starts paying attention. While Peter is in the bathroom, she approaches them and asks if they'd like a good time. Amber, Sam and Llynos (who is now tipsy despite her still full glass) agree enthusiastically. She brings out a few glass bottles of RedGen as Peter returns. She turns to him and explains how to use it: you hold the bottle to the main vein on your neck, squeeze it to release the seal, and it enters the bloodstream and makes you feel amazing.

Peter says he'll save his for later as he's looking after the girls. After some coaxing, Llynos and Amber use it. Sam asks if you can just take half and the woman nods, and says you just squeeze it a little. She does but there is no half and it all enters Sam's bloodstream. The woman takes the last bottle and hands Peter a card, the first lot is free of charge (her treat) if they want more, just call.

The girls start to feel pretty damn good. They want to go home and get in their pyjamas, but they suddenly don't care where they are, they're going to get changed now. As they start feebly pulling at their clothes, Peter realises he's got 3 uncontrollable, high as kites, delirious, unstoppable women with super powers on his hands! It turns out they can't walk however as they try to make a move to follow the woman. Peter picks all 3 women up and takes them outside, he returns only to give the bartender $80 in notes and slides out the bar.

He calls a private driver and they all pile in to go back to the roadhouse. Sam and Llynos get a little upset, as poor Sam is a demon and God doesn't love her! Llynos insists that God will forgive her, when a bright, unmistakeable beam of light shines out of the roof on the car and upon Sam!! Amber gasps--a miracle!! Then Llynos gets sad again, she can't find her son, but besides he was born out of wedlock so she'll never get into heaven like Sam can! It starts raining in the car. Sam says it's ok, her son was born out of wedlock too. Llynos feels a little better and it stops raining.

At Neo Nazi recruitment, everyone wears very practical, grey jumpsuits. The men are tall, well-built, blonde, blue-eyes and quite handsome. The women are attractive, with exaggerated curves, blonde hair, blue eyes. Eostre is separated from the boys and goes into an interview alone. She is questioned on a highly personal and invasive level including frequency of periods, willingness to have children, how many and how soon. Her interview seems to go well and she is sent to another room filled with seats and a projector. Zander is questioned together with Steve and they are asked about their ancestry. Zander comes from an Irish/Italian line, isn’t too bothered about children but is pretty interested in office work. He is ushered into the same room as Eostre. Steve however potentially comes from Israel and is a gay communist. He is invited to leave, immediately. The door slams behind him. (*I don’t know what happens after this or how they get back to the roadhouse, sorry!)

Back at the roadhouse, the girls sit in the living room while Peter figures out what to do with them. Sam gets angry that Peter won't obey her and sets fire to the wall. Peter puts it out with a fire extinguisher. The girls want to go find the missing sons and Llynos gets sad again, it starts raining inside. Amber puts a hand on Llynos' shoulder, the fact that her son is missing makes Amber really angry. Suddenly her eyes glow red and beams of light shoot out and burn into the wall opposite. The girls freak out.

After another episode, the girls realise they are pretty unstoppable. They can do whatever they want, in fact, you might say they are Goddesses! (Sam, Llynos and Amber gain 2D in all physical ability, mental abilities lose 1D) They insist that Peter bows before them and worships them as Goddesses.

The girls decide that, as Goddesses, they could summon whatever they wanted. How about a Unicorn? Sure! They sit in a circle and wave their arms and chant and use random super powers together. In the middle of the circle, against all probability, a Unicorn actually appears. A huge white shire horse with a golden horn. The girls stare, unbelieving. They fawn over him, stroking his soft nose and mane. It's decided he shall sleep in Sam's room.

Peter is having none of it and immediately calls builders to arrange a stable be made in 72 hours. The rest of the group arrive back at the roadhouse to see Amber, Llynos and Sam embracing the Unicorn. Then the girls get really hungry. They demand the others order a take away, but it won't get there immediately so they summon a sandwich. It doesn't work.They collapse to the floor: so hungry!

Amber starts nibbling her hand, yum! Steve see she's chewing and drawing blood so he ties her up to a chair. Llynos feeds her some take out and Amber nearly bites her fingers off! The girls are coming down from their high now and all they can think about is their next hit. Llynos and Sam are on the floor, trying to get away. Llynos comes around from the drug enough to warn the others, she tells them to lock the three of them up. Steve and Peter trick Sam into going into the secret basement, apparently there’s loads of RedGen down there! She goes down the stairs and they lock the door behind her. Amber, who is hopping away on the chair she’s tried to, is taken to a room upstairs and locked in. Llynos is locked in her room also.

Peter, Eostre, Steve and Zander regroup downstairs. Steve emerges with a huge box full of RedGen bottles and puts it on the table. He has lots of samples ready for testing from a recent business deal. However the lab kit is downstairs. In the basement. With the fire demon. Who is currently having the worst comedown in her life...

26/10/15 – Damn You, Wolf News!

The game started with Eostre using her healing powers to purge the RedGen from the girl's systems. It takes a huge amount of energy and Eostre can only heal one of them a day. First she heals Amber (she's eating herself), then Sam (angry basement demon) and lastly Llynos (the least likely to hurt herself or others). They still feel a little cruddy, but all in all they're feeling much better (apart from the fact they're slightly more crazy now)! Unfortunately that really nice secret base the group had got set on fire and completely trashed after they locked Sam in the basement. Moral of the story: don't do drugs, kids.

On the TV in the diner, Wolf News is reporting that a very large shambling creature is making its way through the swamp towards Bludhaven. Peter, Steve, Xander and Sam decide to go and check it out. They track down the mutant to a clearing in the swamp, it's a 15 foot tall humanoid creature with huge deformed muscles and strangely, two heads. Also in the clearing is a very surprised-looking cyborg man who's essentially half robot.

Sam recognises the mutant as something she's dealt with before, they're not dangerous unless you provoke them but this one is bigger than the last one. Peter suggests that she goes and tries to talk to it because that worked last time, and Steve says he'll go with her for backup. Sam approaches the mutant in a non-threatening way and asks it where it's going, it points towards Bludhaven and says 'home'. Sam suggests that she takes him there, and the two start slowly heading towards the city. Peter talks to the cyborg man, his name is Victor and he was in the swamp because all his Russian friends died suddenly from poisoning (I wonder how that happened???). Peter invites Victor to join the group, hooray for new friends!

Back at the roadhouse, Eostre is still watching the news. Wolf News dragged up some crazy pastor who is saying that the demon and the giant are yet another sign of the End Times, the giant is clearly a Nephilim and the demon obviously want to fornicate with everybody's wives and daughters. Eostre tells the others that the news isn't putting a good spin on it. Amber starts researching how to put a tracker inside a bar of gold, and finds that it's technically very easy; the only problem would be making the gold look like it hadn't been tampered with afterwards. (what else did they do?)

Sam and the mutant made their way into Bludhaven. There are police sirens in the distance and this makes the mutant very upset, he grabs a car and starts bashing it on the ground yelling “NOISE! NOOOISE!”. Nothing Sam says to him will make him stop, and she asks Eostre to try and get the police to turn them off. Eostre calls the police HQ and asks the desk sergeant to put her through to Sandra Draephus, saying “just tell her about the snowglobe thing, she'll remember me”. She's eventually put through, and she asks Sandra to turn off the sirens because they're distressing the mutant. The sirens get turned off and Sam and the mutant continue on their walk through Bludhaven. He refuses to put down the car and just drags it behind him.

Sam and her new mutant best friend eventually end up outside an apartment building. The mutant points to one of the apartments and says 'home'. Steve figures out which apartment he's pointing to and rings the bell, he tells the person in the apartment that they've found somebody who says they live there. The person asks if this is some kind of joke and says that “my sister doesn't need this”. Steve tells them to just look out the window. Steve, with his super sight, sees a woman's face look out of the window who then faints. A few moments later the same woman comes running outside the building. The mutant points to the woman and says 'home'. Aww. The woman hugs the mutant. Sam explains that they found him in the swamp and asks for his name. The woman tells her that the man's name is John Edwards, and that he went missing shortly after he got a job handing out leaflets for the New Dawn. Eostre sees that the news is suddenly not reporting the mutant story anymore.

The police finally arrive, lots and lots of police with guns trained on the mutant. Sam steps between the mutant and the police, explaining that he's not dangerous. One policeman steps forwards, an african-american man with greying hair. He asks what they're supposed to do about the mutant now. The group explain that this was a man that had been missing, and how he re-appeared looking like this. They come up with a plan to keep the mutant in the zoo away from the public, which the police agree to. The zoo keepers arrive to tranquillize John, and with Sam and Peter's help, they take him away in an elephant transport truck. Wolf News starts reporting on what a good job the police did resolving the mutant situation, erasing the group's involvement entirely. Peter and Sam are pretty peeved about that, but Steve says it's probably for the best.

The group try to come up with a plan to find out if the New Dawn has any involvement with the mutants. Eostre decides she needs to go on a date with that hot guy, Steve, to interrogate him. She heads to the New Dawn HQ and arranges a date with Steve in the building's cafe at 7:30.

02/11/2015 – Screw the Plot, We Got Cats!

After the secret base got burned down, the group decided that they needed to assess the damage and replace everything that got wrecked. Peter, Amber, Steve and Jim went into the basement and drew up a list of all the things that needed to be replaced along with a few new things that would be incredibly useful. It’ll put a dent in Peter’s new riches but he feels it's worth the cost. The rest of the group start tidying up the roadhouse, and Llynos discovers how absolutely disgusting the toilet is. She marches over to the others and tells them off for leaving the bathroom in such a state. Viktor recognises this as an order and dons a frilly apron to scrub the loo. Sam and Eostre pull up the carpet because it’s still got a massive bloodstain on it.

Llynos, Eostre and Amber decide that what the roadhouse REALLY needs is a cat. Sam is vehemently opposed to getting a cat, reminding Llynos what happened to Mr Tiddles (rest in pieces) but the other girls are absolutely determined to adopt one. All the girls (and Zander) go to the adoption centre to choose a cat. The centre only has five cats to choose from, and two of the cats grab the group’s attention. The first cat is a smoky grey colour with brilliant blue eyes, and the second cat is black with half its fur missing.

Zander senses that the grey cat is very aware of the group, all the other cats are freaking out because there’s a demon and a vampire in the room, but the grey cat is perfectly calm. Sam tries to convince the others not to get the grey cat, suspecting supernatural shenanigans, but she’s completely outnumbered and the group ends up adopting both cats because Eostre and Llynos felt sorry for the black one. They are named Smokey and The Bandit. The lady from the adoption centre explains that they need to do a home inspection before they can adopt the cats. Sam very reluctantly agrees to hold the inspection at her apartment.

After the group finished getting cats they met up back in the roadhouse. They decide that they really need to deal with the Nazis before they can begin any renovations, and they still need to plant the tracker inside the gold. Steve and Sam discuss working together to try and disguise the tampered part of the gold: Sam will melt a small part of the bar, Steve will part the liquid gold and then put it back together after the bug is planted. Amber suggests that they practice the technique, bringing them a melted lump of metal from the basement to test on. Sam puts way too much effort into her fire and set the whole lump alight. The metal is on fire, the table is on fire, the floor is on fire, everything is on fire. Amber yells at Sam to do something about it, so Sam dumps water on it. Boiling steam immediately fills the room, Amber’s throat and lungs start burning then she passes out. Llynos and Eostre hear the commotion and rush to help. Llynos attempts to use her air powers to blow out the steam but instead it starts to rain inside the room, confusing her a great deal. When the steam clears Eostre heals Amber, and there’s now a very nice piece of metal modern art in the middle of the room. Sam and Steve decide to move outside while they practice the technique.

The rest of the group decide they should explore the upstairs of the roadhouse, since they’ve never really been up there before. There’s a variety of different rooms that seem to have been pre-prepared for the group. A room filled with crystals for Eostre (“wow, that’s exactly how I would set out my crystals!”), a very comfortable room with a Welsh theme for Llynos (“there’s a picture of my son in the draw??”), a room with strangely clashing colours for Amber (“I don’t even like it but it feels the most normal”), a room for Zander with several pieces from his uncle’s collection, a room for Jim (comfortable, but with a bag ready for a quick escape) a simply comfortable room for Peter, a room with a soviet theme and a nice chair by a plug for Viktor and a room furnished completely with metal and leather for Sam (only discovered because they opened her closet and it was full of whips). Zander notices that the leather in Sam’s room is actually demon skin; he decides not to tell her about it.

The group also find a room that used to belong to Glory. The window had been busted open and there were signs there had been somebody in the room recently. They found out somebody had been using a cup on the floor to listen in to the conversations downstairs, they also found a bag of powdered blood which could be used for rituals or eaten by vampire-types. Amber notices that the room seems to be devoid of colour, and the supernaturally aware members of the group get a bad feeling about the room. Sam states that the whole thing absolutely stinks of vampires. Peter webs the window shut and they lock the room again.

The session ended with Amber, Sam and Steve successfully planting the bug inside the gold, with the meeting with the buyers scheduled for the next day. The group decide that somebody should probably guard the gold overnight now that they know somebody has been eavesdropping. Peter, Sam and Eostre volunteer to keep watch.

09/11/2015 – Turns out the Nazis are Bad Guys

Sam decided the best course of action was to do a dragon impression and sleep on top of the gold overnight. This was evidently very successful because nobody attempted to steal it. Eostre was up at dawn to ‘greet the morning’, and before anybody else had a say she very helpfully restocked the roadhouse pantry with healthy vegan options. Everybody was very upset about this, especially Sam who’s a carnivore. The group also don’t appreciate Eostre’s healthy herbal teas, with Amber being grumpy that there’s no coffee and Viktor being absolutely appalled at the thought of soy vodka. Llynos offers to go shopping for ‘real’ food so everyone could eat, slightly offending Eostre. After breakfast Llynos and Eostre head off to pick up the cats, Jim and Steve head out to attend the meeting with the Nazis and everybody but Sam and Zander had something better they could be doing. Realising that he’s still asleep, Sam decides to wake up Zander by bursting into his room banging pans together.

Jim and Steve arrive at the meeting with the Nazi liaison. They find out it's their choice where the exchange will take place, so they decide it should be at 5pm at the giant crater in the swamp (it's late January so it'll be dark, and the swamp isn't too far from the roadhouse). After the meeting they decide to get some real breakfast before heading back to base.

Llynos and Eostre arrive back at the roadhouse with the cats, plus an unreasonable amount of cat toys and food. Smokey looks very relaxed and falls asleep on the bar, but Bandit is unwilling to leave his carrier; Eostre attempts to tip him out and gets told off by Llynos. The rest of the group start coming up with a plan for when the gold exchange takes place. Zander and Amber will be waiting in a car with the tracking device, Sam and Llynos will be stationed in the air in case things don't go to plan and the others will be hiding in cover around the clearing. Amber suggests they should have a signal in case things go sour, and Llynos suggests a rumble of thunder using her new found weather powers. Steve and Jim decide they need to go check out the clearing, and Llynos goes outside to practice.

Steve and Jim arrive in the swamp clearing, only to find that there's very little cover at all. The only trees in the area are bare and there isn't even a bush to hide behind. Jim tries to use his darkness powers to darken the area as an experiment for later, but something goes seriously wrong. The area goes pitch black and the darkness begins smothering the pair; Steve starts panicking because he can't see and Jim finds he can't turn off his power, it isn't supposed to work like this at all! They stumble around trying to find a way out of the swirling darkness as they start to suffocate.

Back at the roadhouse the group are blissfully unaware of the trouble. Eostre is doing some gardening, Amber is setting up the cats in an unused bedroom and Llynos is practicing her thunder outside. Sam decides she wants to scout out the swamp clearing from the sky to get an idea of where she needs to be, and on the flight over she notices the extremely obvious swirling cloud of darkness in the swamp that seems to be moving in one direction. The rest of the group end up outside and notice the darkness too, and they rush into the swamp to help while Amber looks very confused. Llynos uses her powers to try and blow away the darkness with little success, then Viktor strolls up and absorbs the whole cloud into his arm solving the problem immediately.

Eostre heals Jim, and Steve notices a helicopter heading towards them in the distance. With his super vision he sees that the helicopter is khaki green, the pilot is a man with blonde hair and blue eyes and the passenger is a man that looks very similar to Hitler. The team get the heck out of dodge and regroup at the roadhouse. With this new knowledge that the Nazis have a helicopter, the group have to quickly come up with a new plan. Sam and Llynos will follow the helicopter by air, then tell the rest of the group via mobile phone when the copter touches down to tell them where it is.

One hour before the exchange is due to take place, Peter carries the palette of gold to the clearing with Jim and Steve. They notice that there are suddenly MORE trees in the clearing than there were before, which is highly suspicious. Steve sees that the trees aren't even real trees, just very sophisticated fakes. Peter concludes that they must be people in tree costumes, and decides to uproot one of the real trees and break it in two to intimidate them. The trees don't react. Peter leaves the clearing, Steve and Jim decide to stay and guard the gold until the Nazis arrive. Steve notices people army crawling in the swamp towards the fake trees, and concludes they must be professionals because even he wouldn't have noticed them if he wasn't aware something was up. They decide not to do anything about them because they don't want to alert the Nazis and potentially scare them away.

The hour of reckoning finally arrives! Everybody is in position when the Nazis arrive by hovercraft and helicopter. The Hitler-looking man is there, along with the buff helicopter pilot, the liaison that Jim and Steve spoke to initially and a scientist guy. They test and verify the gold and they don't discover the bug, woo! The buff pilot gives them two backpacks full of notes and takes the gold into the helicopter. Jim and Steve decide to count the notes, and Steve notices that the majority of the money is actually fake. They decide not to make a stink about it because they don't want to ruin the plan. Jim asks who they should talk to if they come across more of the gold, and the Hitler guy gives him a business card. Just as the hovercraft and the helicopter leave the area, Steve sees the glint of a gun barrel; the guys in the fake trees open fire! Wow, curse their sudden yet inevitable betrayal! Steve manages to dodge the shot but Jim is hit, and just as the battle starts the session ended.

16/11/2015 – Viktor has a Near Death Experience

The session started with combat. Jim is on the ground unconscious after being shot, and Steve retaliates by shooting at the gunman hidden in the fake tree. To everyone's shock and horror, he misses. Llynos makes a rumble of thunder to alert the others that there's trouble before she and Sam take off after the helicopter; at the same time Amber drives off to chase the signal. Eostre and Viktor hear the thunder and recognise it as Llynos' signal, they rush off towards the swamp dragging the oblivious Peter with them.Things are not going very well for Steve, he misses again and gets shot multiple times by the three Nazi gunmen. Eostre, Viktor and Peter show up to help, but they're on the other side of the clearing far away from him. Peter uproots a tree to use as a shield and the three start slowly advancing forwards.

Things continue not going incredibly well vs the Nazis, all three of Steve's backup get shot with Viktor being hit the worst. The tree absorbs some of the bullets but it's looking pretty worse for wear. Eostre does her best to heal everybody, then she has an idea to imbue the tree with her powers, making a better shield for them. The tree glows sparkly green and sprouts leaves, it's now much more resilient! They advance with their new super tree shield (Eostre calls her 'Trinny').Meanwhile in the air, Llynos and Sam are successfully tailing the helicopter. They start to lag behind as the chopper speeds up, and at some point it disappears into the smog above Bludhaven. Both Sam and Llynos notice metal glinting underneath them, and after following it blind for a few moments they see it land on top of a warehouse not far from LawTech. It's actually warehouse number 3, the same one the group failed to investigate several months ago, when they went into the wrong one (warehouse number 1) and then got distracted by averting Total Atomic Annihilation.

As agreed Sam phones Peter, but he doesn't pick up because he's a bit distracted at the moment. She leaves a message that's made up of the wind and wing-beating noises, good job, Sam. They decide to head back now that they've found the location.After driving for a long while and eventually losing the signal completely, Amber tracks the tracker to somewhere inside the LawTech compound. As she drives around to triangulate the area, Amber sees that there are strange 7ft tall silver bullet-shaped objects scattered around the LawTech buildings. She tells the gate guard that she's here to visit a member of her family who works in the bio labs, after checking her ID he waves her through without any trouble. Amber follows the tracker to the third warehouse and parks outside, waiting for the others.

Eostre imbues the tree again, making it even more robust as they start to close in on the Nazis. Steve recovers consciousness and finally hits his target, killing the tree-Nazi instantly. Then the Nazis somehow manage to shoot Viktor again, despite the fact he was behind Eostre who was behind Peter who was behind the tree (curving bullets????). Viktor is in a very bad way and passes out, Eostre tries to heal him but because he's half-robot it's not as effective as usual. Steve hits a second Nazi, who's now also dead. Peter smashes Trinny into the remaining fake Nazi tree, knocking the last gunman unconscious. Right on cue Sam and Llynos return to the clearing. Sam takes the still unconscious Jim back to the roadhouse and Llynos helps to patch people up. They explain where the helicopter landed, absolutely nobody is surprised by this.

They decide they need to come up with a new plan for getting inside the Nazi stronghold because of how tough the gunmen were, which means Amber is going to need to come back. Llynos flies off to fetch Amber. When Viktor comes around he remarks that he 'saw Jesus'. Peter carefully removes the one surviving Nazi from his ruined tree. They decide they need to dump them all by the side of the road and make an anonymous call to 911. Eostre checks over the one survivor and decides to heal him because he might be dead by the time the ambulance arrives. Not long after he attempts to escape, but Peter catches him with his web. The Nazi tells them some nonsense about the unstoppable new race, and he's told pretty categorically to shut up. Sam intimidates him, he tells her “You cannot stop the return of the Fuhrer!” and then attempts to kill himself with a cyanide capsule. Eostre is having absolutely none of that and purges the poison from his system.

When he wakes up he starts sobbing and wailing in German like a big baby. Sam and Eostre then have an argument about what they should do with his dead friends. Eostre feels that they deserve a proper burial because they're still people with families, Sam thinks they should just burn the bodies because they don't deserve a proper burial and they're probably roasting in heck anyway. The argument goes on and on, but Eostre eventually gets her own way after Peter urges Sam to drop the subject. Eostre knocks out the crying Nazi with anti-healing and the group retreat into the roadhouse.

Llynos arrives back at the compound. After a brief encounter with a very nice guard, she approaches Amber's car and explains she needs to come back to the roadhouse. Amber is not pleased with this idea, she wants to deal with the Nazis sooner rather than later. Llynos says she's just the messenger and doesn't want to fly back and forth relaying messages. Amber reluctantly agrees and the two drive back to the roadhouse. On the way they pass several ambulances and police cars, and behind the roadhouse are two CSI vans. They drive into the base through the secret entrance and tell the others about the CSI vans.

Then there's a knock on the door. Then a much more forceful knock when they don't answer. The group start panicking and hiding, leaving Peter to answer the door. Turns out it's only Sandra Draephus and a very green young policeman. The rest of the group start appearing again, and as soon as he sees Sam the policeman draws his pistol and points it at her. Sandra tells him very sternly to 'put that thing away'.

30/11/2015 - *Insert Time Travel Sound Effect Noise*

The newbie policeman stands pointing a gun at Sam in 10-foot demon form. Sandra Draephus calmly takes her partner outside to wait and closes the door to deal with the group. Sandra doesn’t think it was a great idea for them to call the police with 2 dead bodies at the road house—a building they don’t hold the deed to or need law enforcement snooping around. She explains that she can deal with the cops and bodies, however, the group must contact her first should they decide to cause anymore trouble again. They agree and they take her phone number again. After giving them a stern warning, Sandra leaves with the rest of the police and the group reconvene to plan their next move.

Eostre and Amber agree that it should be a two-pronged attack on warehouse 3 and another part of LawTech, perhaps a laboratory, in order to distract the LawTech droids from the warehouse containing the Nazi gold and (supposedly) the time machine. Eventually they decide to focus their attack on the main warehouse but to split into two teams: Sam and Llynos are to take Jim to the warehouse directly, dropping in over the enclosure into the LawTech compound using Jim’s cover of darkness, while Amber drives Peter, Eostre, Steve and Viktor to the gates. The group all prepare to leave while Jim feeds the cats.

Sam and Llynos arrive at the compound quite quickly, being able to fly directly. Jim lays down a cover of darkness and sneaks with Llynos up to the warehouse. Meanwhile Amber and the guys in the car are hit by traffic in Bludhaven. Amber turns on the radio to hear that there’s a huge New Dawn parade happening through the streets today, and they’re heading straight to the LawTech compound! Amber drives through the side streets to avoid the congestion when some of them notice posters on the streets and walls to support the revolution. There’s an odd realisation of ‘hang on, aren’t the revolution the good guys?’ when suddenly the Police are ahead putting up barriers to route the parade down this road! Eostre quickly calls up Sandra Draephus and asks her to reroute the parade away from them and take the long way round to LawTech. After a moment the Police remove the barriers and the parade passes by, leaving Amber to drive uninterrupted to LawTech.

At the guard post, a security guard asks Amber where they’re going. She explain they’re going to surprise her relative at the bio-chew lab with a Birthday party. They show their IDs and he waves them through. They drive up to the inner military security gates and Amber parks around the corner. They get out and look for a way to get through the gates.

Steve and Peter shoot and web the nearby security cameras respectively while Viktor takes out the lock system on the gate. It’s easy work at this point and the group are in. Llynos has created a thick mist in the compound so they wearily approach the warehouse. They see a figure up ahead but as they get closer they recognise Llynos. They all go up to the warehouse that Jim has already opened and go inside… In the warehouse the group find themselves on a metal catwalk that zig zags down to the floor, where around 40 Nazi soldiers are lined up wielding futuristic weapons. To the side, several scientists are operating large computers and feeding gold bars into a machine that powers a large circular gateway in which a vortex is being pulled out into a long tunnel—what could only be identified as the time machine! Above which, a countdown ticks down from 9 minutes.

Amber puts a forcefield up at the opening where the scientists are putting in the gold. The scientists scratch their heads and look confused as they can’t push the gold into the slot. They shrug and go to the machine and press the big red button, starting up the time machine. Sam goes down to the gold and heats it up to melt it. A scientist goes to pick one up and shrieks as their hand catches fire! The scientists become very interested in the spontaneously combusting gold.

Meanwhile marching can be heard outside and the New Dawn parade has arrived outside. Sam, Llynos and Jim have closed the warehouse doors and are busy locking it so no one can get in. Amber puts a forcefield and can feel something pulling her backwards. The force pushes her to her knees and she has to stop, just as Viktor is sneaking past the soldiers to the time machine. As he does, a magnetic force from the time machine vortex suddenly pulls him straight into the tunnel. Peter quickly webs Viktor before he goes to far. Amber, Steve, Eostre and the others hold on to Peter as they attempt to pull Viktor back. The soldiers below notice the commotion and begin shooting. Viktor draws energy from the time machine in an attempt to escape but instead erases a week from 1978 from the memories on the group members holding on to the webbing. Fortunately nothing too vital is erased, we hope. The group also remember a dark cyborg figure standing in the corner of their childhood memories, spooky.

Peter decides that dragging Viktor towards them and avoiding the 40 soldiers is too risky and dangerous and suggests jumping into the vortex. The group all agree except Amber, who protests but reluctantly goes along as the whole team count down from 3 and jump..!

Everyone falls into the time machine and they all feel a strange pulling and dragging sensation. As they fall a memory emerges from each of their consciousnesses, and everyone witnesses their most treasured or tortured moments (spoiler alert, they’re all pretty tragic). Llynos remembers giving birth to twins, one monstrous and dead within moments and the other happy and healthy, she names him Secret. Steve remembers being beaten to a pulp by a gang in an alleyway. Peter remembers a similar experience at school, being beaten on by bullies. Amber remembers a teenage girl holding a bleeding wound on her face while a boy stands over her with a knife, Amber beats on the air in front of her crying and screaming. Sam remembers the birth of her son, a cute little black demon baby. Scorch marks and deep scratches are gouged into the wall and bed around her. Viktor remembers looking up at scientists experimenting on him, implanting wires and technology (not unlike Wolverine’s origin story). The group never speak of this again.

And then they’re out, and they all fall out of the sky onto the ground. The group are piled together on a straight dirt road, around them countryside and hills, it’s a warm sunny day. Ahead of them is a sprawling city surrounded by seven hills. None other than Ancient Rome…

07/12/2015 - When in Roma...

The group find themselves on a long straight road leading to a sprawling city surrounded by seven hills. Peter informs the group that this is ancient Rome. With nowhere else to go, they approach the city. Inside is a bustling market full of people wearing various togas and simple dresses and skirts. Roman soldiers are everywhere, not particularly threatening but their presence is known. They notice some of the guards wear red armbands. Uh-oh. Eostre tries talking to a soldier, but he just speaks loudly back in Latin. Peter is the only one who understands and tells the group that the soldier said he didn't understand and they should just carry on moving. They give up and head further into the market. In front of them is a familiar figure. As they get nearer, they see a blonde, very well-endowed woman--the spitting image of Nina.

Eostre asks her what year it is and Nina replies that it is the fifth reign of Gaius Octavius (is this right?). The group can understand her perfectly, and Nina can understand them, much to her own confusion. Peter translates the year as 61BC. Eostre asks Nina if she was born here or remembers where she came from. Oddly, Nina can't seem to recall anything from her childhood. They ask for a place to stay and Nina directs them to an Inn across the street. The Blue Moon Inn.

They enter and Eostre uses a crystal from her pouch to order a carafe of wine from the bar. It's weak and watery, but the group drink and discuss their predicament. A man at the bar, hearing their foreign tongue of some kind of Bretton, shuffles closer and pretends not to listen. The group notice and Eostre goes up to him to say hello. He doesn't respond. Sam goes to calm Eostre down, but she accidentally mentions that Sam is a demon and the highly superstitious bar goes silent. The group make to leave, but the man at the bar comes over to chat. He doesn't speak in Latin, but an ancient Bretton that the group can actually piece together.

Eostre asks him why some of the soldiers wear red armbands and he says they are a part of a new order that are showing their support for change. He says if they are interested in finding out more, they can meet him at the South-East gate at the Third watch, and leaves. Peter explains the third watch isn't until 12-3am, so they leave the bar to kill some time.

They go with Nina to get new clothes, as right now they aren't really fitting in. It takes a while to get something big enough to cover Viktor and Sam takes a lot of convincing to wear the patched rags, but eventually they are clothed appropriately for the period. Further in, the smell gets pretty bad, and there are way more threatening Roman soldiers here. They quickly finish up buying clothes and head back up to the middle district, where suddenly in a side alley, a portal appears in front of them, and out falls a woman with black, straight-cut hair, olive skin, a business skirt suit and high heels. She falls into a pile of unmentionable muck, before carefully taking off her shoes and demanding to know what just happened.

The group are just as surprised as she is, when suddenly a voice is heard behind them. They turn to see the dressed up fairy who visited them at the roadhouse not long ago (I can't remember his name!). He speaks to them cryptically about magical dimension travel, painting Death's house pink and the mess they find themselves in. Apparently he cannot help them get back to their time, as dimension and time travel is different. They have to get home the same way they got here, through a time machine. As suddenly as he appeared, he is gone and they are left with a very confused mud-covered woman, who introduces herself as Gina, a private investigator from New York, 1997, a year before the group’s present day.

So the group proceed to the higher tiers of Rome, where it's less smelly and dirty. The women start noticing that there are far more men and less women around. The men are wearing heavier clothes, they appear older and of a higher ranking in society. Eventually they come across a courtyard full of older men in long togas over their shoulders. They looks strangely at the group. One of the men comes over and addresses Peter, why have you brought these women here? Peter responds by saying they are working women (in Latin). Only Peter and Gina understand the conversation and Gina exclaims at being called a prostitute! The man turns to Gina and backhands her. She tries to kick him in the crotch but is restrained by Sam and Eostre. Amber asks why the men are pointing and waving purses, Peter tells her and Amber shouts at him. Peter politely declines the men's purses and guides the group hurriedly away.

By this time, it's nearly night time, so the group make their way to the Blue Moon to wait for the Third Watch. On the way they notice a lot of young boys around, and groups of Roman soldiers wearing their red armbands around their wrists. At the South-East gate, they come across the Bretton again, who they join on his constitution. They walk with him as he explains what the new order wish to achieve. He wants the group's help with something. They want to create a resistance to overthrow Marcus Philipus and instate Marcus Lucius (I forget names??) to create equality in Rome. If Philipus should be assassinated, that would be very helpful. He just so happens to lead them outside Marcus' home and bids them goodnight.

The group deliberate and among them, realise that this is the start of the civil war in Rome. Amber insists that they must not change the course of history and that the Civil War must happen, which sadly means that Marcus must not be assassinated and the resistance must not win this one. They notice a group of soldiers in strange armour approach. Suddenly they fire actual guns at the soldiers at Marcus' gates! A few soldiers get hit and collapse. The group intervene, Amber puts up a forcefield at the gates and Jim covers the soldiers in darkness. They stop firing. Jim puts the darkness down and Amber, Eostre and Steve (or Sam?) rush the futuristic soldiers while Peter webs a gun from one of their hands.

It's over before it's begun as the last thing the gun-wielding soldiers were expecting was a group of civilians to rush and brawl them. Amber says that they need to remove evidence of the guns, her and Eostre removes bullets from the bodies and Amber, Eostre, Peter and Steve take an empty gun each. Marcus appears at the gates and invites them inside, not batting an eye at Sam in demon form. The group remember that this is the powerful politician famous for his controversial parties. He offers them all exclusive entry, giving them all a chance to decline if they don't feel like they have a taste for his unusual get togethers--they are not for the faint of heart. Amber immediately declines with a sensitive stomach, followed closely by Gina and Eostre. Then Peter changes his mind and joins them. Sam, Steve, Viktor, and Jim enter and a young boy called Jupiter greets them to ask to hand over their togas.

The partial group strip and enter an extravagant palace full of naked men and women. A lot of men appear to be strapped to crucifixes and most of the women are wielding flogs, paddles and whips. It’s unusual here that gender roles are reversed.

Marcus reappears in front of them and removes his toga. They stand in awe of his body, Viktor and Jim crit. fail their presence and see him as the most perfect and pure adonihs of a man and want to be with him forever. The rest can see why he is so revered. Welcome, he says.

14/12/2015 - The Totally Innocent Drunk Butt-Naked Party

Jim and Viktor are quite taken with Marcus and they follow him into the mansion and join the group or adoring fans that hang on his every word. Viktor reaches out to touch him, only to find his abs smooth and cold to the touch. Weird.

Sam rather quickly joins and women with flogs and paddles, quite in her element. In the middle of the palace is a large fountain of very strong red wine. Steve gets in and swims/drinks happily, closely followed by Jim. While those of the group who are inside are having fun, Amber, Gina, Peter, Llynos and Eostre wait outside.

And wait.

…And… wait…

…Until they get rather bored and Llynos and Eostre decide to investigate. They try the front door but don’t really fancy getting undressed so they try the servant’s quarters round the back. They find the kitchens full of attractive blonde and blue-eyed men and women in revealing togas. They ask how to get to the party, but the servants don’t have access to the upper levels. Eostre explains that they are part of ‘the act’ and they are instructed to go to the stage where the oil supplies are ready for them.

Eostre and Llynos after a brief explore of the servant’s corridors (a bit smellier then the rest of the mansion but still quite clean) back out and try the front entrance again. They bump into Jupiter again who asks for their togas. Llynos tries to convince him that they need their clothes (they don’t leave much to the imagination anyway) but he is not swayed. Peter overhears and goes up to the door, effortlessly removing it from it’s hinges amongst Jupiter’s futile protests. Peter walks right up to the fountain and drags a very inebriated Steve and Jim out of the strong liquid and takes them outside to the barn where Amber and Gina are chatting to themselves.

Peter dumps them off and goes back to look for the others. Jim crawls into the barn under cover of darkness and passes out. Gina grabs Steve and goes for a ‘walk’. She runs around with him very quickly, leaving a trail of Steve’s vomit, before putting him to bed in the hay with Jim. Amber stands turned away, avoiding eye contact with the butt-naked men.

Viktor has vanished with Marcus somewhere and Peter can’t find him. Eostre, Sam and Llynos explore the mansion a bit more down corridors where the party guests retired to private rooms. Eventually they do find Marcus’ room where Viktor is lying in bed, but they don’t find much else. They come outside to the barn (Peter quietly places the door back upright and apologises to Jupiter) and they all settle down for the remainder of the night while some take watch.

In the morning, they wake Jim and Steve up from mind bending hangovers and decide to all go to the Emperor’s castle where the senator’s vote is taking place later that day. They travel to the castle in the upper circle where fewer and fewer women can be seen and the number of guards increase. Llynos hides in a street to take off into the sky and fly herself in. The rest come across a bridge with a row of Roman soldiers where Peter challenges them to an arm wrestle to let them pass as they don’t have the coinage to enter the castle grounds. The largest brute of the bunch (Brutus?) squares up Peter’s slim frame and accepts the challenge. Peter easily beats him and Brutus demands a best of three. Peter beats him again and Brutus wants another round but Peter insists he’s won fair and square. So the soldiers let them pass. During all of the commotion, Amber, Eostre and Gina slip past unnoticed.

Inside the grounds, small groups of senators protected by soldiers roam around, discuss matters of state and frown upon the women who have entered their domain. As they enter the inner castle the looks become more and more questioning. They reach the steps just as a small group approach them. But before anything happens, Gina decides to run up to the podium and make a speech. She powers up and crit. fails, landing herself 90 points of damage as she trips instantly and falls flat on her face (squish). The group spring into action, Amber puts up a forcefield to take some of the fall, Peter shoots a web to catch up and Sam shifts up into demon form and jumps to catch her in her wings.

The whole courtyard stands shocked at the 9-foot winged demon in their midst…

21/12/2015 - The Assassination (requiescat in pace)

With Gina unconscious in Sam’s leathery wings, all of the soldiers and senator’s attention is on the 9-foot demon. The soldiers surround the group. Amber puts a forcefield around Sam and Gina with an open roof for their escape. Sam takes off vertically and very slowly ascends. Spears are thrown and shatter against the wall behind them.

Peter jumps up and sticks to the wall, climbing up to the window. Steve blends in with the crowd as Amber orders the nearest guard to get the senators to safety. The soldier obeys and everyone else in the courtyard start filing out through the large door.

Meanwhile, Llynos is still flying overhead. She approaches a tower at the top of the castle. She peers inside and see the emperor speaking to a man with a small moustache and Nazi soldiers! She summons a strong wind to the door of the room in order to keep it shut then sucks the air out of 2 Nazis at the window (who were looking down at the commotion below) suffocating them instantly. Then she reaches the window and grabs 2 more Nazis who had come to the window and hurl them to the ground below (badass).

In the courtyard, 2 Nazis drop out of the sky and meet their demise on the solid ground. A crowd gather around them. Amber, Jim and Steve look through the crowd to see what’s happened. Sam is now fully airborne with Gina and she flies her far away to the outskirts of the city to recover. Peter pulls himself up into the room of the castle and webs a rope down below for the rest to join him. The others ignore the rope as the 2 dead Nazis are far more distracting. Peter searches the room he finds himself in. There are lots of fascinating historic documents that he would have loved to read, but sadly now’s not the time! Peter leaves the room and heads downstairs. He finds himself in a large hall with barred doors leading to the courtyard. He goes upstairs instead.

Llynos has now entered the room with the Emperor Marcus. The man with the moustache seems to have disappeared, but Marcus cowers in the corner from the glowing and levitating middle-aged housewife. She calls out in a booming voice for Marcus to stop the Nazi Druids by order of Jupiter. Everyone in the vicinity hears including Peter who has just made it up the stairs. Emperor Marcus is cowering by the door (which won’t open) crying and gibbering incoherently. Llynos decides not to kill him.

Peter reaches the door and pushes against it just as Llynos stops forcing it shut with her wind powers. The door hurtles open and Marcus runs out immediately. Peter follows as Llynos takes a shortcut out the window. Marcus bursts out into the courtyard and calls his guards, they immediately go to his side and protect his from all sides with their shields in the classic tortoise-shell fashion. They race for the gates as the last people in the courtyard are filing out. Amber and Steve dash after them, dodging through the gates just as they close.

They see the tortoise formation run through the streets, darting left and right at a moment’s notice, Amber runs after them and stops them in their tracks with a forcefield. BANG! They hit it at full speed, knocking the first soldiers senseless and toppling the rest of them over each other. Eostre and Peter try to catch up after breaking down the gates, Llynos approaches overhead. Meanwhile Gina has recovered and Sam decides to fly them both back to the rest of the group.

Amber dives into the soldier’s chaos and grabs and hurls one of the guards to one side. Steve behind her, summons the metal from their armour to form a shield around himself (making Amber look pretty awesome in the process). Amber puts a circular wall around herself, the remaining guards and the Emperor. Llynos reaches them and uses her wind power to send one of them flying up into the air. Eostre is still running to the fight as Peter reaches them, he runs straight into Amber’s forcefield.

Amber finally reaches the Emperor, kneeling beneath the guards. She is suddenly overcome by intense anger. What happens next is anyone’s guess. Some saw Amber pull double axes out of nowhere and smoothly behead the 4 surrounding soldiers and the Emperor, while others say the soldiers murdered themselves by sheer accident, or even simply exploded into showers of blood. But whatever the details, all of the Roman soldiers and the Emperor Marcus, are dead. Amber faints and Eostre rushes to her aid as the whole group feel an odd pulling sensation as they slip through time…

28/12/2015 - All of the EXP / The Christmas & Halloween Special Part I

Most of this session was devoted to EXP and upgrades, but we did begin our next Halloween/Christmas adventure.

The group awake in a church. Everyone is present and intact, except Zander appears to have joined them again but Amber is convinced it can’t possibly be the actual Zander. A pool of light before them falls onto the dead body of Father Francis on the steps to the altar. Before the group can respond, a Nun appears and cries, ‘The Father is dead!’.

Jim approaches the body and finds a bloody wound in his chest and a cross upon a thong around his neck as well as a key. He takes the key. Peter explores the church and finds 2 doors, one leading to blackness outside. He goes through and the scenario resets: ‘The Father is dead!’. This time the group discover an empty cabinet next to the altar which looks like it has been forced open. Inside are 12 empty slots, there are 12 missing ‘apostles’, also known as the Seven Dwarfs: Happy, Grumpy, Doc, Sleepy, Bashful, Sneezy and Dopey. Although the other 5 can never be agreed upon.

The group continue to search and reset, search and reset, until they eventually find the key around the Father’s neck fits the third door in the church which leads to the cellar. Sam, Jim, Amber, Llynos, Eostre and Steve go inside to looks around but it’s too dark. Jim sees skeletons lining the cellar in the darkness and Amber notices something move further in. Llynos summons light into the cellar but it’s way too much, blinding Steve and Jim. Eostre uses the crystal in her staff to create a dimmer light and they look into the darkness. There, hundreds of animated skeletons slowly approach…

Volume 3 (January 2016 - April 2016)

04/01/2016 - The Christmas & Halloween Special Part 2 - Happy New Year!

Peter deduces that they are in a 16th century church in Italy. They speak to the distraught Nun, Sister Florence and learn that the dead Father is Father Francis Medici, next in line for the pope. Jim investigates the body but crit fails and holds what looks like the murder weapon (the cross around his neck) covered in blood. Viktor also crit fails a sneak roll, slips on the blood on the floor and face plants the altar, knocking all the candles to the floor and landing atop the dead Father. The echoes reverberate around the church hall as Sister Florence wrestles the two away from the corpse and acuse them of murder!

That went well. Meanwhile Peter explores the church, he finds a ‘stoop’ by the door which is filled with clean water, pilgrims use it upon entry to the church to bless themselves. He opens the main door to the church to reveal blackness. Another internal door opens to a white void, Peter puts his hand in and the world resets again: ‘The Father has been murdered!’ Etc, etc.

The group turn their attention to the crypt below, Jim grabs the key from the father and they all (except Gina and Peter) enter the crypt. Inside it is very dark, Jim (who can see quite well in pitch black darkness) makes his way to the back of the crypt and discovers a large cross, he takes it. As Amber, Zander, Llynos, Sam, Steve and Eostre go further, a horde of skeletons animate themselves and stumble towards them aggressively. Amber, Eostre and Llynos brawl the Harryhausen-horde, they are relatively weak and it doesn't take long to dispose of a handful, but the crypt is full of them--there are probably a hundred down there!

Furthermore, the skeletons, once a pile of bones on the floor, begin moving and putting themselves back together! Peter comes down and helps them brawl skeletons out of the way. Zander turns red and uses his scythe to knock down a swathe of the horde. It works and the Hausen-horde turn to dust! Eostre uses the crystal in her staff to the same effect. Suddenly a burst of light fills the room, Amber lasers a skeleton from her eyes, the beam is a vivid magenta. More dust. Sam sits bored by the stairs, the crypt is much too small to shift up and she can't use her fire powers otherwise.

Meanwhile Gina is speaking with the crowd of Nuns and Monks upstairs, she asks the priests to begin blessing the people. Then she decides to intimidate them all for doubting her and declares herself the Angel Gabriel, come down from the heavens to bless them all. She uses her super speed to run from one end of the church to the other and the crowd believe her. Gina lines up the people and blesses them one by one in Latin. Downstairs, Zander and Sam feel searing pain and find themselves unable to go upstairs. Amber also feels pain, but not as much.

Back in the crypt, Peter takes a skeleton and tries to bring it upstairs, it explodes into dust, that's the solution! Amber heads to the back of the crypt to push the skeletons up towards the door.

Gina continues her blessings upstairs, and Sam and Zander’s pain gets worse. Amber still manages to get through the throng of skeletons, she reaches Jim and makes a path for him to get out of the crypt. At the back, she turns and makes a forcefield in front of her to push the skeletons out, when suddenly Sam and Zander are crippled by the pain, Zander can see no end in sight and is terrified, Sam knows it will be over soon but is knocked unconscious from the pain.

...And they all wake up in a church…

11/01/2016 - The Christmas & Halloween Special Part 3 (RIP David Bowie)

Another woman stands with them, it's Nina! Llynos questions her but it seems to be another Nina clone and of no immediate danger.

3.. 2.. 1… ‘The Father has been murdered!’

Jim and Viktor get down to business, grab the key (after Viktor slips on the blood, face plants the altar, candles everywhere, lands on the father etc.) Eostre makes a distraction as they go down into the crypt, grab the cross and bring it back to the Father upstairs. Llynos helps them and they discover that the cross fits the wound in his chest almost perfectly, the only way to be 100% sure would be to actually insert the cross, which they do not do, so they settle with 99% sure.

The rest of the group look around, there are other people milling about the church, they must have been there all along. There are 3 monks, 3 nuns, 2 pilgrims and 3 well-dressed nobles. That's 12 for the 12 apostles if you also count the dead Father!

As they begin discussing amongst themselves what to do next, Amber notices a crowd gathering and talking by the dead Father. The conversation gets louder and Amber approaches to listen. It sounds like an argument brewing as they wonder what to do next. Amber goes to the tearful Sister Florence with Llynos and comfort her. Florence explains that the Father was well loved and how devasting this will be for everyone. The last time she saw the Father was at matins, the morning prayer.

A monk from the crowd approaches curiously and listens in. Amber turns to him and asks what he thinks of it all. In a very gossip-y fashion, he says that truly, no one will be sad to see the Father go. He wasn't particularly… effective at his duties and is a little too… forgiving. The monk, Brother Patrick, leans in and divulges a horrible rumour of the Father taking certain Sisters behind the altar and doing unspeakable unholy things! Amber and Llynos are horrified but keep listening. Brother Patrick fancies himself as the next Father and wishes to be appointed this time. He would make a much better bishop, maybe even Pope! Amber and Llynos wish him well and they approach a certain Sister Magda with Eostre.

Sister Magda is particularly anxious and flighty. She insists the last time she saw the Father was at compline prayer last night, not recently at all. Everyone has a spare key to the 12 apostle cabinet for cleaning (she cleaned them herself 2 days ago) but only the Father has a key to the crypt. They ask her what she was doing by the crypt door, cleaning it apparently, but when questioned to why she would have to open the door to clean it and how she had a key, she clams up. Magda is definitely hiding something but won't spill the beans. The others, speaking to Florence, discover there's an argument over land. Jim is taken to one side for his own safety (he said some very inappropriate things to a Nun) and Steve horribly offends one of the nobles.

Amber and Llynos go to speak to Brother Ambrose, apparently he's one of the most hard working monks here. He explains that the Father would go down to the crypt during the day and say mass at the cross down there, he hadn't been seen since matins that mornings, so that's what he must have been doing. Brother Ambrose warns them of Brothe Patrick, who is a lazy, arrogant fool who bends the truth to his liking.

Questioning Brother Cylian and the pilgrims doesn't reveal much. But suddenly Nina goes up to Llynos, having just remembered something. She says, “I know something, about a secret!” Llynos is overwhelmed and showers Nina with questions. Sadly she doesn't know anything further, except that the person who told her was a woman called Bridget with auburn hair who works as a waitress. Jim comes over, “I know Bridget!”. Turns out it's a said story, they used to live together and had a daughter together, but she left suddenly leaving behind only a note. Nina can't help them any further but hopefully they are both a step close to finding Bridget and Secret!

The group find out a few more things about the apostles artefacts, they are brought out for the procession of the apostles on Wednesday. There's a great song that goes along with it, it goes “Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work we go!” And they all have a little song and dance. The first seven apostles are definitely called Happy, Doc, Sleepy, Sneezy, Bashful, Grumpy and Dopey, but the last five are oft debated. Popular names include Repenty, Abstinency, Chastity, Diligency, Patience, Charity, Humility, Sexy etc.

Speaking to the last Nun, Sister Mary Clarence, Peter recalls an interesting story about Hugh of Lincoln, bishop of the cathedral. At an abbey in Normandy that he was visiting, he saw their holy relic of Mary Magdelene’s arm bones and decided to take a piece, he couldn't break it off, so bit off a finger bone, which he kept for his own cathedral! They approach a kindly noble named Edbull the Steward, who is holding a suspicious bag. After some questioning, he openly admits to having all 12 apostles on his person! Holy relics are a funny business, and apparently ‘stealing’ is not recognised as an offence or sin!

Anyway, they grab the relics and speak to Dame Diadora (who mentions seeing Magda cleaning something outside in the trough this afternoon) then they all put the gnomes back in the apostle cabinet, and everything resets. “The Father is dead!” Ya-dah, ya-dah… They immediately confront Edbull and take the apostle gnomes back.

Then they go to Sister Magda and insist she murdered the Father. She denies it but Sam presses her further and explain she must have done it because she was jealous of the other Nuns and wanted the Father all for herself even though it was forbidden. At which point Magda breaks down into tears and collapses into Brother Ambrose’s lap. He comforts her and tells the group they have done enough here and should leave.

Everyone feels pretty bad, but they go and put the apostles back, this time they check the numbers and puts them in order in the right slots. When everything is finished, the church fades away and they all awake in a dense jungle.

It turned out that if the group had questioned the other people more politely, then the kind nobles would have mentioned actually seeing Magda cleaning a bloody cross outside and they could have pressed her for a confession. Also the skeletons in the crypt were a COMPLETE RED HERRING.

Lesson learned; try talking to people politely and you might find out more than from fighting a horde of undead and not turn a few hours side quest into 2 and a half roleplay evenings.

18/01/2016 - Mad Shots and Nazi Drops in Ancient Tenochtitlan

The group find themselves in a dense jungle at midday. The air is thick and humid and unbearably hot. Eostre reaches out to speak to a tree telepathically, but the tree doesn’t like her very much and explodes disastrously. The shockwave and the debris damage everyone in the surrounding area, Eostre most of all. The shock disintegrates her crystal and trusty staff, leaving her hands empty. Amber and Llynos rush to her aid to help the distraught and bleeding Eostre.

Zander attempts to self-heal, but only succeeds in killing the grass at his feet. Sam tells him to stop but he does it again and the patch of dead grass grows further. Sam and Llynos look around and figure that they are in a jungle that could realistically be on the equator in present day, but could just as easily be a jungle anywhere in the world thousands of years ago. Amber reckons they are somewhere in the Amazon in South America.

Llynos flies up into the air and spots some kind of settlement 4 miles ahead, she flies back down and leads the way. The heat and humidity is really getting to the group, Peter, Amber and Sam are slightly more accustomed to the temperature though. They hear drumming in the distance as they walk down the path. Everyone is getting really hungry and thirsty now.

Llynos flies up again but smacks straight into a tree, Sam catches her and the group heal her. It starts raining. Not just any rain, but particularly wet, cold, drizzling Welsh rain that runs down your back and into your shoes. Amber and Zander crack open their green gnomes to catch the rain to drink, the others use leaves or stand with their mouth open. The rain stops, leaving everyone shivering and damp.

They reach the valley where they look upon a vast mud brick town, and right in the middle is a huge red brick stepped-pyramid Ziggurat. Peter looks at the settlement and discovers they are in Tenochtitlan, an ancient city full of religious buildings in the 12th century, 1300 years after their trip to Ancient Rome, but 400 years before their murder mystery adventure. He finds it odd that the famous lakes are mysteriously missing—the holes are there, but there’s no water. In the centre of the town at the foot of the steps to the Ziggurat, a celebration is taking place. About 2000 people are singing, drumming and dancing around a 5-point star made of red earth stones. And in the centre, a girl—calmly tied to a pole in a white dress.

Peter, Llynos and Sam (closely resembling the ethnicity of the townsfolk) separate to investigate, leaving the others at the outskirts. Suddenly, 5 masked figures emerge from the top of the temple and stand there in huge strange costumes and masks and holding zulu-type shields. They appear to be much taller than they should be, about 15-foot and a big mirrored headdress on the middle, largest figure, appears to reflect beams of light in all directions. Sam heads back to the others, but faints, leaving her alone. Zander crumbles into a heap from severe sunburn.

The masked figures reach the bottom of the temple steps and approach the girl tied to the pole. Llynos goes to one of the figures and wrenches his mask off! Under the mask is a blue-eyed blonde white muscled male, it’s the Nazi from New Dawn! Llynos strikes him with lightning, it hits but not for very much damage! He stares at her and Llynos faints. Steve tells the others what’s happening below, Amber goes to the now conscious Zander and gives him a big leaf to cover his face (for the sunburn) and she runs down to the others with Steve and Eostre. Zander sits relaxing by the trees. Peter rushes to Llynos and avoids the Nazi staredown. He grabs her a jumps as high as he can, clearing most of the 2000 townsfolk. He does land on a very unfortunate person though. The townsfolk turn angrily to the intruders and ineffectively attack without weapons. From their new location, Llynos blindly summons another thunderbolt and hits the Nazi’s, to their extreme surprise.

Sam regains consciousness and shifts up. The whole town telescopes in her vision and looks very strange. She suddenly teleports to the star circle where the masked figures are, the young girl’s throat appears to have been cut. Amber reaches the town and deep shadows cover the buildings and she feels quite sick, almost like she’s lost a part of herself. She carries on behind Steve, but a bit slower. Llynos tries to summon rain to scare away the crowds, but instead creates her very own, personal drizzle cloud. Of the Welsh variety mentioned earlier.

The lead masked figure approaches Sam, she instinctively knows that he is her God and Master, but at the same time she knows he should’t be. The God explains that he wants to use her to open the door to the Underworld, Sam asks why, but he doesn’t have a particularly interesting or unique reason. She tries to act against him but it’s extremely difficult, eventually he forces her jaw shut, stopping her from speaking.

Back at the top of the valley, Zander has changed. He joins the others in the centre, suddenly half a foot taller, stronger, cat-like and significantly prettier than before. He finds Amber about half as attractive as before however. Amber pushes a forcefield through the crowd to allow the rest of the team to help Sam. Llynos flies up to see that the young sacrificial girl has already been killed. Furious, she dives down and plucks the attractive Nazi off of the ground.

Peter jumps up onto a building and with strange wings, dive-bombs the ground with spectacular (and helpful) fashion. The God orders Sam to take someone with them in order to open the Underworld, as they have everything else they needed. Sam grabs the new Zander and carries him up the Ziggurat with the others. Llynos drops the hot Nazi from about 20-foot and goes after another one. Steve shoots one of the masked figures for a whopping 180 points of damage. The poor Nazi basically explodes—he never stood a chance.

Amber pits up a forcefield at the top of the steps to stop the remaining 2 masked guys from leaving. She feels a strange pulling sensation. Sam pulls away from her master as Zander breaks free in order to beat up the Nazi God leader. Peter tries to web the leader, misses and cocoons Zander instead. The Nazi God grabs the webbing around Zander, ripping it in the process and drags him up the last few steps. Steve notices another Nazi slowly crawling to the door of the temple, but the leader is the more pressing issue. He takes aim and shoots the leader for 64 points and suddenly it’s over.

As Sam’s Master falls, a voice calls to Zander and says, “The Deal will open the doors…”

25/1/16 Like a Sinner Before the Gates of Hell

Although the battle is won, a Nazi still managed to crawl away into the Ziggurat. The group decide to go after him and head up the steps (in Steve’s case very slowly) and enter the temple. Inside is a tiny room, barely big enough for them all to stand in. Paintings of masked gods line the walls. Below there is a line in the floor dividing the room. The Nazi is nowhere to be seen.

They step forward and suddenly the floor splits open and a silvery shimmer appears for a moment around the edges. They fall a few feet into another, slightly bigger room. Above them is darkness. The walls have more paintings in a slightly more comic, abstract style of people fighting and jumping etc. The floor has another line in it like before. Jim and Gina have also landed next to them out of nowhere. Somebody jumps on the floor and it opens up again, this time they drop 20 feet down. Peter webs to the room above, Llynos flies up but everyone else lands heavily on the floor. This room is bigger again and the paintings on the wall are of people prostrating themselves, the first is standing and the rest slowly lean further down like an animation until they are kneeling on the floor. The last painting prostrated in the direction of a door opposite them. It is also quite warm.

Eostre and Sam light up the dim room. The single door is made of wood, with a wood and metal fastening. Eostre performs a group healing ritual, giving everyone 20pts health, except Amber and Sam who only get half and Zander who gets nothing. Except now Sam and Zander have changed shape. Sam appears more strange and monstrous in demon form and Zander looks not unlike Nosferatu. The group get weirded out, but particularly Steve who flips, goes NOPE and runs the other way, which means beating his fists on the nearest wall till they're bloody.

Llynos tries to reassure Steve as Eostre heals him. Peter restrains him in a web to stop him hurting himself, but it doesn't help him calm down. Zander tries to persuade him to calm down but he just freaks out more. At this point Gina wakes up from the second fall and screams. She immediately crit. fails speeding away and crashes into Sam at 120mph, for 60pts damage each, ouch!

Jim and Viktor open the door into a long, dark corridor. And somebody, somewhere is tolling a bell (sorry) deep below. Sam and Zander feel pretty good, like they're at home. Amber, Llynos and Viktor feel unnerved. Jim sees Gina running out of the door (slowly by her standards) and into the pitch black corridor. Jim can see odd patterns and indents on the floor and walls. Suddenly Gina is in a corridor full of fire. Llynos makes it rain around her filling the air with steam while Peter finally calms Steve down.

Gina turns to see the glowing Angel Gabriel (Llynos levitating) glide down from the heavens to rescue her. She picks her up, cradling her gently. Gina feels very safe and relaxed now as Llynos glows a very deep gold, she’s the only thing in this whole world, that’s pure and good and right. Wherever she is and wherever she goes, there’s always going to be some light. The group (now calmer) all approach the corridor. Eostre hands Peter an imbued crystal to light the way and he clings to the ceiling and heads down to the tunnel where the deadly are rising (well, at least in the crypt they were). Jim and Amber check the floor and walls for trap switches (most of which have been triggered already by Gina) and the rest of the group follow cautiously, aided by light from Peter, Sam and Llynos.

They reach a turn in the corridor filled with black sticky stuff. It looks flammable and the fumes make the group whoozy. Peter struggles to stick to the ceiling as the sticky stuff oozes from the walls endlessly, but moving quickly seems to do the trick. Sam puts out her fireball and they proceed slowly. Past the curve in the corridor, they find a white dove flapping against the inside of a wicker cage. A large horned door stands before them (without a handle this time) and an altar with blood rivulets next to the birdcage. Jim knocks on the door. No answer. Peter punches it and the wood splinters and bursts and his fist bleeds but the door stands firm.

Behind them, Viktor casually stab the bird with a blade and completes the ritual. The blood goes down the rivulets and the door swings open. Eostre, Amber and Llynos aren't too happy about sacrificing the bird without talking about it (there must have been another way!) but they all head through the door anyway and into another corridor like before. It's getting really hot now, in fact, you could say “it is as hot as Hell in here.” -Sam

They reach a new room filled with sand and a large 40-50 foot snake lies coiled on the floor sleeping. Llynos doesn't like snakes and holds Sam’s hand, but a physical speak stops them and they recoil from the pain. The bright flash causes the snake to stir. Everyone sneaks past the snake: Jim, Steve, Sam, Viktor, Amber and Peter all make it past and nearly to the door. Llynos sadly fails to sneak and crashes into the snake, it opens it’s big, yellow eye. Gina comes over and announces “Hail, oh Fidian!” and waves, at which the snake coils up and looks directly at Llynos, Gina, Eostre and Zander. Viktor trips over the snake’s tail and it whips round to grab him and dop him with the others.

Jim, Steve, Sam, Amber and Peter all make it to the door and slip through unnoticed, but Peter goes back to help the others. The snake introduces itself as guardian of the gate. Eostre reckons a gatekeeper will want something in exchange for safe passage. The snake asks them for an offering, each. Zander gives the snake his gnome and is met with the most unimpressed look a snake could possibly give. The snake explains that it doesn't need anything of monetary value, or treasure of any kind as he does not desire anything, but instead somethings that is precious to the giver.

Gina offers the snake her ‘97 Nokia phone and shows him an 8-bit version of Snake. It looks curiously for a while before rejecting the offer. Gina instead offers a locket around her neck with a picture inside, the snake accepts and let's her through. Viktor offers the bar on his arm that show loyalty to his home country and the memories of fighting with his people. The snake accepts. Llynos struggles with a few photos of her son Secret at different ages but eventually offers a photo of him as close to present day as possible. The snake accepts. Eostre offers a crystal, but it's one of many so means nothing.

Peter, Zander and Eostre are left negotiating while the rest of the group emerge in another corridor outside. It leads to an infinite blasted landscape filled with sand, fire and brimstone. Nothing ever grows in this rotten old hole and everything is stunted and lost, it's also pretty damn hot in here. A vast stone gate lies a little way inside, it's huge doors are shut with an altar in front of it with rings around it. There's a much smaller, innocuous door off to the left in the sand that Sam doesn't recognise. Jim and Viktor open the small door but it's just black inside. Viktor holds onto Jim as he puts his head inside but it doesn't go well and he emerges quite bewildered.

Sam explains they are in some sort of pocket dimension at the literal Gateway to Hell. Llynos is utterly gobsmacked. Sam can tell this place is mythical and should not technically exist as there is supposed to be a perpetual war down here. It's supposed to be a figurative place for mortals to return to their world and the doors will not open without some sort of (probably virginal) sacrifice.

Meanwhile Zander strikes a villainous deal with the snake (instead of trading his hot pink Lycra bodysuit) and leaves the room. Eostre and Peter, suspicious of Zander rashly make their deals to leave as soon as they can. Eostre gives up the precious memory of her Brother and Peter gives up all knowledge of the Hebrew language. They all leave and bump into Amber who is still stood by the door because the hot sand makes her wrists burn and a voice scream in the back of her head. Suddenly, there's a man in the shadows with a gun in his eye and a blade shining oh so bright. Ahem, a blonde, buff Nazi springs out and stumbles for the altar with a dagger! Zander acrobatics towards him and Llynos blows the Nazi away. He collides with Zander as he somersaults. Amber puts a dome around the altar, but accidentally seals Zander inside.

Sam heats the knife in the Nazi’s hand, but instead of dropping it, he puts his other hand around it, forcing his hand shut as it melts to the dagger. Amber strengthens the force field around the altar and Zander, but for a split second, it flickers as it is disturbed by something Viktor was doing across the sand (probably crit. failing with 5x 1’s) and Gina, who just so happened to be by the force field when this happens, super speeds into the dome with Zander. (What were the chances??)

Gina clutches her prayer beads as Llynos preaches to her not to give in to temptation! Gina is a good, Catholic woman who must keep her virginity despite Zander’s devilishly good looks! But Zander has other ideas and although Sam tries to get through to him to stop, Zander pulls out his scythe and smoothly and poetically, slices Gina’s throat.

01/02/16 The Hell Gates Open, And Like a Bat Outta Hell, We’ll Be Gone When The Morning Comes

Gina tumbles onto the altar, blood spilling all over it. The gates in front of them shudder and a shimmer of dust falls as the ancient gates ease open slowly. Sam and Eostre urgently try to figure out a way to stop this from happening. It looks like only a divine action or a virgin sacrifice will close the gates. They agree not to try another sacrifice, ‘cos nothing's ever worth the cost.

Sam summons fire inside the dome that encases Zander and he sets alight. She notices that the flames that leave his body, arch towards the open gate. Gina succeeds her first willpower roll, yay! Peter runs towards Zander. Amber puts down her force field and makes a new personal bubble just for Zander. He punches it down in one hit.

Sam contemplates the ritual again, she doesn't know a single one that doesn't involve death. But she did learn of certain highly disregarded methods while growing up, you could destroy the altar, but it would explode and kill whoever smashes it, or a Hell Demon could do a good, divine deed, or you could hold the doors shut from the inside for all eternity. All of which are not terribly great options, but better than killing anybody… probably.

Eostre kneels at the altar and smears the blood around to uncover an ancient language carved into the stone. Hmm, looks like Hebrew. Peter face-palms, but doesn't know why. Eostre can just about put together that the ritual is actually keeping the gates closed, and in giving a sacrifice, Zander has actually stopped the ritual, rather than started one. They have to find a way to start the ritual again, oh and make sure that Zander does not take Gina’s ripe soul, that would be bad. Though no-one is particular sure if Zander even has that ability, but maybe it’s more to do with dead souls passing through the actual Hell Gates as per Disney’s Hercules…

Amber puts another dome around Zander. The group all interrogate Zander and convince him not to kill Gina. Although that doesn't appear to be his intention anymore. He tries to reason that he's the only person who can save her now by making her undead like him. Amber insists that Zander tell her the truth as they've known each other longest, although she still think there's something off about him, she trusts him and let's him go from his personal bubble. Despite the group’s protests, Zander takes Gina from the altar and takes her to safety.

It turns out in order to start the ritual, they need 4 things that are acts of God. After some hinting, the group realise it must be the four elements of Earth, Air, Fire and Water. But the altar needs purifying first, so Llynos summons a heavy rain to drain the blood off, then she sets to scrubbing it. It hasn't been cleaned for some time so it's gonna take a while. Sam and Peter help. Amber takes a step forward into the sand, but doesn't feel too good. Steve and Eostre go to Gina’s stiffening body and fashion two needles and a pipe out of metal and a bong (any blood and method will do at this point!) to perform a crude blood transfusion. Jim offers to be the blood donor.

As the altar is being cleaned, the forgotten Nazi suddenly gets up, Peter’s pre-cognition (Spidey-Senses) go off and he rapidly shoots a web out behind him that perfectly catches the Nazi’s knife arm before he can stab himself. Sweet. Peter clings to the Nazi, immobilising him. Horns bellow from deep in the gates and strange undulating waves appear, hordes upon hordes of lesser demons are approaching and heading straight for them! The army marches!

Zander and Eostre head back to altar where Llynos is still frantically cleaning. Sam and Eostre insist that she should stop, it's fine as it is (Llynos protests a lot but eventually gives in, she ran out of bleach anyway ha ha). The group gather their elements: holy water from Zander’s gnome, strong winds from Llynos, fire from Sam and metal from Steve. They leave Jim with Gina, who may or may not be prodding her boob and wondering what to do with the needles. Amber remains on the sidelines, the screaming in her head getting worse. Phenomenal cosmic power is here for whomever wants it, just sayin’.

Eostre completes the ritual by beginning her chant, ah hee, ah ho, ah ho, ho, ho etc. There’s evil in the air and there’s thunder in the sky, as the four combined elements swirl and merge into a vortex above their heads, and the doors begin to close! A scream can be heard from the gates. Amber, seeing the hordes marching towards the closing gates, puts up a forcefield at the doorway and screams like her soul is being ripped away. The pain is excruciating!

Meanwhile Gina is not doing too good, her soul is trapped in the doorway and looking worse with every passing moment. Nobody else seems to want to save her, but Zander returns to her body, cuts a small gash in his left arm and puts the blood to Gina’s mouth as a last resort to save her life. It looks like the ritual Eostre began in working, although everyone involved is in serious pain, Viktor, and Peter join the chanting, Viktor loses the power to his electronics. Amber is in unbearable pain as she struggles to keep her force field. The scream gets louder as the elements draw together and everything gets pulled through the gates as everyone feels a strange sucking sensation.

As the doors finally close on the nearing horde, a voice calls out Sam’s infernal demon name. Uh-oh. And then everything goes quiet.

The brief silence is interrupted by Gina, who sits up abruptly, “I’m alive!” and in the distance, Amber collapses. Gina is a bit weirded out that she can feel her neck wound but there's no blood--ah, the perks of the undead. Peter asks for help with the Nazi, he is unarmed now but his mind is gone and a mercy kill is probably the safest solution. Everyone gathers by the door, looking to make their escape. They all leave into the blackness, one by one. Until only three are left.

Zander and Gina have a private moment, she possibly asked him out on a date. Eventually they notice that Amber is still unconscious on the ground and has not been seen to yet. Zander picks her up and drops her through the doorway. Gina goes through next and last to leave, is Zander, like a bat outta hell when the morning comes! (OK, enough Meatloaf lyrics!)

08/02/16 - The Dragon Slayers

Through the doorway, time stretches and pulls as they fall through and out onto green grass, blue skies over head. Gina’s heart is not beating and she faints. Eostre goes to heal her and Viktor, Amber and Zander helps. Her heart starts again and her skin is somewhat tighter than before. Zander notices that she is not alive per se… She also does not seem to be a vampire. Eostre examines her and concludes that her insides are basically mush after being dead so long and isn't quite sure how she can be walking and talking right now.

The Nazi who came through the portal sits on the grass a short distance away, blissfully unaware of, well, anything. Peter looks over and sees that his arm is attached to, not a hand, but a stump that ends in a knife. Viktor pokes him, no response. Zander nonchalantly uses him as an elbow stand while he explains that he gave angina his own vampire blood in order to save her, but now isn't sure what she is. We were at the gates of Hell, so she could literally be anything. Eostre tries to fix the Nazi’s poor dislocated arm, but crit. fails and rips the whole thing, leaving the arm hanging loosely from the skin, ugh.

Jim looks around and sees there are surrounded by forests and gentle hills, one of which is a lot higher (could even be a mountain) and shrouded in thick mist. A stone castle stands not far away. Ah, still not Bludhaven, then. Peter reckons they could be somewhere in England, circa 1100-1200’s. Jim starts walking away from the group towards the castle while everyone discusses the moral issue of what to do with the poor Nazi. Mercy kill? Abandon him? Take him to a village? In the end they take him with them as they catch up with Jim, who is already nearly out of earshot.

At the castle, it looks deserted. There are no flags or banners, no water in the moat (which is overgrown with grass and weeds) and the drawbridge is up and the door closed. The castle looks abandoned and very dirty, black marks cover the top of the battlements, it appears to have been badly… Scorched? Suddenly the drawbridge rattles down and out steps a great shire horse carrying a man in armour with a sword and lance. Scared people look out from inside the castle behind him. The man has a coat of arms, but Peter doesn't recognise it, so they are likely to be a very small town.

The man steps down and removes his helm, he is in his late 50’s and speaks in slightly archaic English. He introduces himself as Roberts and asks what they are doing in this far and desolate land. The group explain they are lost and ask how far they are from London, which turns out to be 4-5 weeks journey, South, Roberts points. The group ask if they could stay for a time and he wonders aloud why they would want to stay in this accursed place? Accursed? Yes, because of the dragon’s torment! Dragon?!

That piqued the groups curiosity and they offer their services as Dragon Slayers! Yes! The drawing arrived 2 months ago and has massacred his people, crops, livestock, castle and forest alike. He comes from the Misty Mountain and every mercenary, knight and scout he has sent out to see or kill the dragon has not returned. In fact there was a mercenary unit of about 4 people 2 weeks ago who left with magic sticks that also never returned! Magic sticks? Yes, they spout fire and sparks and make a loud noise. Hmm, did they happen to bear this symbol? Steve points to the swastika on the Nazi’s arm. Yes! That was their coat of arms! So the Nazi’s came to medieval England as well!

Roberts invites them all inside the castle as guests. Inside, it is a complete wreck. Fire has swallowed up all of the buildings and destroyed half of the surrounding stone. All that's left is a few lean-to’s and about 20 townspeople out what should have been a 40-50 strong population. All of which are looking worse for wear, there are no children and even the stable boy who takes Roberts’ horse is an old man. There is soot everywhere.

There is a horrible smell, Gina notices that it couldn't be fire from bombs, explosions and probably isn't something chemical--this is something pure and so hot and intensely targeted, it could only come from some sort of flamethrower. Or maybe a dragon?

Eostre offers her healing abilities to help the injured, and Roberts leads her and Amber to what used to be the main banquet hall, that is now a makeshift infirmary. Brother Cuthbert is the only one standing and is tending to the 20 or so burned bodies on the floor. The room is dark with no fires lit and the smell of burnt flesh is intense. Eostre examines the bodies and notes that most of these people can actually be cured quite easily with modern understanding of medicine. Using sterile water and cleaning and bandaging the wounds hygienically should be enough for most people. Even the worst will probably pull through.

They introduce themselves to Brother Cuthbert and show him the healing procedures of their parish far to the West. He had been doing a marvellous job already healing the bodies for the time period, but basic hygiene goes a long way. Amber distracts Brother Cuthbert by teaching him new methods in order for Eostre to perform some glowy healing magic over the room.

Outside, everyone else has been asked to help the healing effort. Gina runs to a nearby forest to gather firewood (running feels a bit weird to her, but her super speed still seems to work), Steve grabs fresh cloth and linen for bandages, Zander helps by using first aid, and Peter fetches water from the well while Jim distracts the growing crowd away from him. The townsfolk are quite interested in the strangers now. Peter climbs expertly down the well and throws up the wood and debris down there that was blocking the fresh water from the river flowing below. It’s smelly and hard work but soon, the well water runs clean and the injured people are well on their way to healing. Some of the people bring out tiny loaves of bread as thanks for their services. The group are quite overcome by this small, but meaningful generosity as the people simply have nothing to give.

Gina returns with firewood and pulls out her rosary beads to bless the wounded, after a while the rosary smokes in her hand, just by the cross as it happens. It doesn't hurt her but probably wouldn't do any good either to burn her hand, so she stops. They heat the water till it boils and sterilises, then bandage and clean the wounds. It takes most of the day and night. The group notice that while a lot of people are physically hurt, those able to stand are also weak, clearly they have not eaten in days.

They ask Roberts if they have any provisions, he is sad to say there is nothing left. 2 months in hiding from the dragon has left them too weak to hunt or farm and everyone is demoralised. They had to send the children away weeks ago and there are no animals aside from the horse. The forest used to be teeming with deer, but since the dragon, there hasn't been a lot of game recently.

Jim, Steve, Viktor and Amber form a hunting party, they take bows and arrows from the armoury and enter the forest at night. They can all see pretty well in the dark, and shooting their targets is no problem, but it's up to Amber’s survival skills to track down and catch their prey. They find and kill 5 deer and 6-7 braces of rabbits (which is about 2 pairs, one in each hand for a total of 16-18 rabbits), but the real trouble is getting their haul back to the castle, which takes the rest of the night.

Back inside, Amber spends the morning skinning and gutting the deer and rabbits and prepares a stew for the whole castle (which may or may not have been inspired by her Dad’s famous gumbo recipe). As the castle wakes up that morning, they enter the banquet hall to the delicious smell of deer and rabbit stew. It's the first hearty meal they've had in weeks and the entire town shows up for a portion.the people are so grateful and morale is high for the first time in months. Roberts does not line up for a meal, but instead smiles and watches as his people happily gather and eat. Everyone settles down and has a nice nap, the whole town’s survival rate has easily gone up by 40%!

The group haven't eaten since ancient Rome so they gladly have a bowl of stew. As they have satisfied their hunger and thirst at last, they all slip into a heavy sleep, regardless of where they were sat or how much they try to stay awake. As they sleep, Eostre and Viktor snore heavily, Amber snores in a quiet, slightly adorable fashion, with a bit of drool. Gina sleeps normally. Jim sleeps normally but heavily, but not as much as Peter and Steve who are out for the count and easily fall into the deepest sleep.

Zander and Amber sleep undisturbed, but the others have horrible dreams. Nightmarish visions, hellish you could say, chase them and they are awfully aware of how they have stared into the gates of Hell and they have this foreboding sense that one day, Hell will return for them…

They all awake satisfied and well-rested, but for some, a little more troubled than before...

15/02/16 - Fellowship of the Dragon Slayers

Eostre wakes up first at the crack of dawn and heads outside of the castle walls so nobody can see her to purifying her new staff, but her ritual withers it. She picks up a new one nearby before bumping into Sam who appears through a blue portal. They walk back to the group inside the castle next to the infirmary.

The group concludes that they should head out to the mountain ASAP and so they gather rations and weapons from the armoury as to not make it look like they are heading out unprepared and make the people of the castle suspicious after waking up Zander & Gina. Gina reveals to Zander that she actually cannot touch her cross rosary anymore without burning her finger and could in fact be a vampire. Zander teaches her vampirism and the group sets off for the mountain through the forest.

Gina attempts to run ahead to scout the path but finds her super speed is still not working. The group sets off with Steve navigating by using his magnetism. Viktor tries to suggest to use Sam as bait as a possible mate for the dragon to no avail. As the group progresses through the forest it gets naturally darker but unnaturally quiet, there is no birdsong and no sign of any wildlife to speak of. They come across a large river after walking half a day, Sam volunteers to safely fly the group over one by one while Steve uses his magnetism to hover over the river.

By the time everyone has crossed over, night has fallen and so the group sets up camp for the night. Somebody suggests that they sing a song around the campfire but Steve threatens to shoot the first person to start singing. Viktor volunteers to keep watch for the duration of the night as he does not need to sleep.

Day breaks again and the group continues towards the mountain as Peter has a vision of a scorched barren land before something large comes flying toward him. Zander also senses a large presence ahead as the group braces themselves. The large thing flies overhead and in the direction the group came. They cautiously step out from behind the trees they hid behind and continue toward the mountain which is now in view just up ahead. Gina attempts to run again, colliding into a tree then knocking herself out. She wakes up again as the ground rumbles and a small path of lava comes down the mountain towards the group as they casually side-step it. The lava envelops a nearby tree which instantly bursts into flames.

Sam sets off into the sky to look ahead and comes back to report ash clouds, smog, and more lava ahead. Another spout of lava comes down the mountain and clears a hole in the ash cloud giving the group a way through it. They start climbing the sand-like mountain but the cloud repairs itself over time and so Sam creates a fireball instead making another hole in the cloud for the group to pass through. Gina pauses at the entrance through the cloud to say a very long prayer. Once she finishes, both Sam and Zander become bound by their limbs and fall to the ground. The cloud closes again and Gina is caught on the other side, separated from the group.

Viktor absorbs the energy binding Sam and is freed but the energy causes him to glow so brightly that no one can look directly at him. He tries to approach Zander to unbind him but Zanders skin lightly sizzles. Viktor instead stabs Zander with his tail to absorb the energy from long range , freeing him. Peter attempts to convince Sam to create another fireball and let Gina through the ash cloud safely but refuses. Peter attempts to reason with her stating that most people had made a few mistakes getting to grips with the group dynamic. "Remember how you set us all on fire the first day you met us?" But Sam insists that was mostly the fault of Amber and her force-field, and that Gina had now brought harm to her on multiple occasions and that she was through helping her.

Eventually, Eostre used her powers to create a way through the cloud and Gina came through and safely rejoined the others. Another spout of lava comes down the mountain which everyone safely dodges except for Eostre who heroically used her action to warn the others who didn't see it coming and is struck by the lava current. Eoster catches fire as Zander quickly goes back to fling Eoster out of the lava while she is still burning, setting alight Zanders hands. Peter makes a fire blanket out of his web for Eoster and extinguishes the flames and Zander tends to his burnt hands.

The group reaches an opening in the mountain which is very hot. The opening clears out to a thin path revealing a vast cave with a dome. There is a massive pile of raw gold in the cave, some of which Peter instantly recognises as being identical to the Nazi gold in his vault, and Steve notices that there are figures moving some circular thing in the distance. Peter has a vision of the dragon returning in roughly 20 minutes and urges everyone to quickly move on.

22/02/16 - Puff The Magic Dragon's Tea Party

The group are at the mouth of a large hollowed out mountain, with tunnels large enough for a very big thing to walk through comfortably. Ahead is a golden cave, shimmering in the darkness. Below an overwhelming heat is rising from magma inside the mountain and lumbering figures are moving heavy items. Peter reminds them that something very large and angry is flying this way very fast, they only have about 20 minutes!

Amber, Jim and Eostre head into the cave, Amber feels very uncomfortable around Viktor for some reason. They sneak inside and find lumps of shimmering gold separated from ore in its unaltered form. Jim and Eostre rummage among lumps of gold, but Amber discovers a huge chest of treasures, coins, jewels, gems, jewellery, you name it! She pulls out a diamond ring, that suddenly becomes visible to Jim and Eostre. Eostre realises that the treasure has been glamoured for some reason, only Amber can see it. Then she pulls out a magnificent crown, which Eostre wants. Amber thinks it might be bad to wear potentially cursed treasure, but when Jim wonders if it's a man’s or woman's crown, Amber immediately puts it on Eostre’s head.

The ground starts rumbling, Amber removes the crown again, but the ground doesn't stop rumbling so she puts it back. She also pulls out Nazi gold from the hoard along with a bejewelled staff for Eostre, gold bullets for her gun, a golden fire-proof shield with a dragons head on it and they all stuff their pockets with coins and jewels that suddenly manifest. They run out of the cave and join the others heading down to where the figures are moving rocks below.

A line of slaves with tattered remnants of clothing are chained together carrying large rocks that appear to glitter. The people are burned and unhappy, some look like Nazi’s while others like the town folk from the castle. At the end of the line, the rocks are thrown into a pit of molten lava and after a moment there is a whoosh sound as a pillar of molten fire and metal shoots upwards sending out very intense heat. Eostre tries speaking to the slaves but they don't respond. She imbues the chain and shatters it with her staff.

The slaves continue their work. Viktor pushes a slave over, then hugs them. Gina exclaims that the slaves are all free to go now! No effect. Gina hurls her cross away, her God has abandoned her. Jim looks into the dark tunnel where they are mining rock, bodies litter the floor. Eostre thinks the slaves have been mind controlled, the ones who have been here longest may never recover.

Peter mentions that the thing flying this way will be here any moment now, Steve looks up as a shadow flies overhead. They hurriedly discuss a plan of action, Peter knows dragons are always killed in stories by beheading by galant Knights, but Sam thinks they could try talking to the dragon before resorting to slaying it. Suddenly something large and bat-like lands on the top of the mountain, just out of view. The slaves hit the deck, and the group follow suit as a very dragon-like roar shakes the mountain.

A large, reptilian head appears around the tunnel with piercing golden eyes, it's followed by a long slender neck and a large body with 4 huge clawed limbs, a pair of massive bat wings and a tail ending in 4 sharp spikes. The Dragon’s scales glow red, but upon closer inspection, the scales are actually white and are just reflecting the red pool of molten metal beneath. The Dragon moves past them and enters the cave, where they roar loudly and angrily, “Who dares disturb my realm?”.

The Dragon jumps gracefully and cat-like from the cave down to where the group are cowering. They look accusingly at the group, only Jim remains hidden in the shadows. Nobody speaks. Then Gina approaches, stuttering. She asks for the Dragon’s name, “Ithraal.”. The Dragon has enslaved, murdered and tormented a whole kingdom for long enough, why settle for that when you could rule the whole land? Steve face palms. Gina’s God has clearly abandoned her so she offers to worship the Dragon instead.

Gina strikes a deal with the Dragon and is offered to become Ithraal’s Grand Vizier in exchange for leaving the castle alone. Ithraal accepts and reaches out to touch Gina’s forehead. Her skin peels back to reveal shining scales. Amber on the other hand sees Gina literally become a tiny dragon. Ithraal orders Gina to kill her friends and then make tea. Gina hurried herself with finding a pot, while Sam speaks to the Dragon to reason them out of the first command. Sam offers Ithraal cake instead of eating her friends and after some thought, the Dragon accepts if she returns within the hour. Sam flies off in search of cake. Gina helplessly asks the group if they can make a pot. Peter looks for one in the cave.

Sam arrives back at the castle where they are rationing Amber’s gumbo stew. There is no bread or cake, sweet or otherwise. The nearest bakery is probably Norwich, 3 days journey North. Sam grabs a bowl of gumbo and flies back. Gina is frantically trying to make tea for her new Lord and Master. She asks Amber for some wood for the fire but she has none. Ithraal wonders who Gina is talking to as no one is there, perhaps she is talking to Eostre? Hmm, Amber seems to be invisible to Ithraal.

The Dragon demands entertainment, so Eostre imbues crystals to levitate and glow. Amusing. Sam returns with her special “Gumbo cake”. Ithraal eats it bowl and all, and quite likes it actually. It's quite meaty, but as the Dragon does not know otherwise, this is what cake tastes like. Gina now has a pot, hot rocks and tea bags! But no water… Amber gives her her Gnome with water in. While the tea brews, Gina entertains Ithraal with her gnome that she throws away and then pulls out of her bag again. Unsurprisingly the Dragon cannot see the Gnome at all and stares at her unimpressed. Amber tries standing in front of the Dragon and waves, Ithraal does not respond at all. The others see Amber transform as a sparkling ball gown flows from her shoulders and 2 heavy battle axes hang at her waist. Amber cannot see the dress strangely enough.

Tea’s ready! Eostre used some of her Jasmine and herbs in the tea and the Dragon drinks it up. Ithraal chuckles a little. Turns out some of Eostre’s herbs are still partly ‘medicinal’ cannabais. They make more tea with the last of Eostre’s weed and Ithraal drinks that too and laughs, a little surprised at themselves. Gina holds out her hand for a hi-five, and the Dragon hi-fives Gina with a huge clawed hand, squishing her for 9 pts of damage. The Dragon is now quite stoned.

Steve throws some metal at Gina and Ithraal laughs. He does it again, Ithraal laughs. Gina protests that she is not some Jester, so Steve makes a bell and throws it at her, it jingles and Ithraal laughs, what’s that? Sam holds up the bell to the Dragon, it's a bell! Ithraal takes it and rings it, they laugh again.

But the fun doesn't last long as Viktor asks if the Dragon wants to see a magic trick and touches Ithraal’s outstretched claw, absorbing its power. The Dragon fades for an instant then comes back as Viktor feels burning throughout his human and metal body. Viktor glows sparkly blue this time. Ithraal is very unimpressed and stares down Viktor with pure anger and hatred. Uh-oh.

Zander uses vampirism on his scythe and hurls it at the Dragon's eye, it bounces off harmlessly. Ithraal stares at Viktor and breathes in deep. Fire rages in its belly and hot, raging flame and sparks pour out of Ithraal's throat. It misses Viktor but he's caught it the spray, as well as Amber who was standing directly below the flame, unnoticed by Ithraal. The Dragon then swipes at Sam who takes it easily, and again at Eostre who has to dodge out of the way to avoid getting hit.

Amber gets really mad that she got singed and undergoes her full transformation into a cat-like being in a royal sparkly blue ballgown, (cue 'let it go, let it go!') only Eostre has seen this before, though it's a similar colour to Viktor blue energy before. The 2 battles axes are now in her hands and she is furiosa, er, furious.

She swings at Ithraal's breast, the fist misses, but the the second axe hits a cleaves a large gash across the Dragon for 15 pts. Sam shifts up and claws the Dragon for further damage. Then Viktor decides he wants to be thrown onto the Dragon and asks Steve to throw him. Viktor electrifies himself and then Steve fires him at Ithraal using magnetism on his metal body to shoot him at the Dragon's chest. He hits for 22 pts and clings on, just.

Peter webs the Dragon's mouth shut and holds on tight, clamping Ithraal's jaws closed. Gina speeds herself up and runs up the slope to jump off and land on the Dragon. Sadly the running part went pretty well, but the jump crit. failed miserably and she falls towards the molten metal lava pit below Ithraal. Jim is the only one left to save her and Heroically forms a solid mass of darkness over the lava to break her fall. They both take damage as she shatters the darkness at almost 90mph.

The group find themselves being attacked from every direction, the slaves are attacking them too! Zander somersaults onto the Dragon, misses and smoothly arcs over and lands on the other side. Ithraal looks at Amber and mumbles something, it looks surprised. Flame and smoke flows out from the gaps in the Dragon's teeth and Peter's webbing which catches fire, it won't last long. Ithraal can't move, so swipes at Viktor on its chest instead. It hits and Viktor is sent flying into the wall opposite. The Dragon lunges forward and clumsily lands on Amber, causing 20pts damage (probably the most she's ever been hurt by the GM), ouch.

Sam holds her action and Peter attempts to strengthen the webbing on Ithraal's jaw. He crit. fails and is thrown up by the Dragon and smacks against the wall where he webs himself stuck there 15ft up, whoops. Steve shoots the Dragon for 80pts, but it only takes 32 pts thanks to Dragon armour. Eostre uses her telekinesis on Gina to pull her away from the lava before the darkness cracks and drops her in the lava (which would have been basically instant death at a minimum of 200 pts damage).

Jim casts darkness on Ithraal's head which works but doesn't seem to hinder it. The Dragon is fixed on Steve and targets him with a fresh stream of flame. Sam stands in the way, using her fireproof demon form to protect Steve. Ithraal swipes at them again. Amber remains stuck underneath the Dragon and can't move without wiggling out first, so she decides to laser the Dragon's belly instead. The others can smell an odd burning smell, different from the general fire and lava smell.

Eostre imbues more crystals and hurls them at Ithraal, who rears up and finally falls, cold and unconscious. The Dragon lands back onto Amber, leaving her unconscious also. The fight is over.

Note: the Dragon could have been banished if anyone had the ability, entertained to sleep, told stories of the future, or even convinced to become a pet to whomever is a greater Witch or Wizard.

07/03/16 - All The Critical Fails

The Dragon lies in front of them, unconscious but still drawing heavy breaths. Llynos appears out of nowhere and is greeted with Ithraal’s large head, she screams and is very confused. Sam gives her a brief rundown of events. Peter calls down from the wall above them and asks Sam to help get him down from his own webbing. She flies up and pulls him down.

Eostre tries to heal Gina who is lying there, still covered in scales and looking a little dead (again). They discuss what to do with the Dragon, Viktor wants to kill it but Eostre thinks it should stay alive, Sam thinks they should leave immediately. They decide to try reasoning with it again. Then someone remembers that Amber is still stuck and struggling to breathe underneath the Dragon. They try to figure out where exactly she is. Llynos decides to heal the Dragon, who stirs slightly.

Eostre uses telekinesis on the Dragon but crit fails, causing Llynos to suddenly fly off and hit the wall, instead of Ithraal. Peter lifts Ithraal carefully and Sam pulls the still unconscious Amber out, Peter puts the Dragon back down, very carefully. Eostre heals Gina enough to bring her back to the living and they decide to have Llynos reason with the Dragon as she's the only one it hasn't met and might be convinced by her powers.

Eostre imbues Llynos with energy to make her glow more, but instead she feels intense burning all over. Llynos casts a large rain cloud over everyone to get rid of the burning sensation, Ithraal wakes up and looks at the group cautiously. Eostre stops imbuing and Llynos stops the rain. Sam approaches the Dragon and says “I think we got off on the wrong claw…”. Ithraal gets up and retreats a little, curling it’s tail around itself and glaring with it’s big golden eyes.

Llynos introduces herself and speaks to Ithraal of the famed Welsh Red Dragon, Y Ddraig Goch. Ithraal bristles at the name and finally speaks to Llynos, What of the Y Ddraig Goch, Little God? Llynos doesn't seem to realise the significance of what the dragon just called her. Eostre asks if a Nazi like this one (she pulls over a slave in Nazi uniform) passed through here, Ithraal confirms there were 4 but the slightly sheepish dragon seems to have eaten the remaining people. Sam and the others talk to Ithraal of the importance of keeping the human race alive, they talk of the invention of cool stuff like television and video games in 600 years, Ithraal is interested but too impatient to wait that long. Amber looks in the golden treasure for an interesting human invention, but doesn't find anything. Then they talk of music, the Dragon perks up at this and Amber reaches into the treasure pile pulls out a golden harp and a flute.

Peter and Llynos start singing and Amber plucks the harp but crit fails and breaks all of the strings, ouch! She abandons the instruments and gives Peter the flute and takes over singing. While Llynos was doing a lovely job with her Welsh choral voice, it doesn't quite compare to Amber’s sudden jazzy tones which isn't like anything the Dragon has heard before. Then another sound like nothing has ever heard before emerges from Zander, but sadly he crit fails singing as he opens his mouth and lets out the most atrocious sound ever heard and Sam instantly slaps him to shut him up.

Together, Amber, Llynos and Peter (and Eostre’s Magic crystal light show) makes a fairly nice performance and Ithraal listens peacefully. The Dragon likes the music and steps forward and transforms into a stunning 18 year old girl with long silvery hair, she is completely naked. Jim steps out of the shadows. Sam offers her her dress to reclaim some modesty. Ithraal asks for more music, Gina is warbling in the corner so Sam slaps her. They toy with the idea of taking Ithraal to Northwich for some music, but decide to head back to the castle for now as it’s a bit easier.

They gather up the remaining slaves (the enchantment chain has been broken so the spell should wear off soon) and herd them towards the castle. Sam and Llynos can help scout the way. Gina asks Ithraal for her normal skin back, and just as she does, Llynos and Amber suddenly see Eostre push the Nazi slave deliberately off the path and into the lava. Amber is the only one to act but unfortunately crit fails her forcefield.

As they feel the stretching and pulling sensation of the time vortex, Amber can see a glittering gold forcefield appear around Ithraal, trapping her, as the group disappear and leave her behind. :(

Traveling through the vortex, they see flashes of Hell below them, a small Sam demon stands beneath them and she's arguing with another smaller demon, it seems really important. The vision is replaced suddenly by a cold landscape where a robed man can be seen talking to Gina, she seems really frustrated with him. Suddenly they both flash really quickly and reappear looking very startled. Eostre now stands in a room shouting angrily at an older man. She grabs something from the mantelpiece and hurls it at him. It hits his head and he goes down, motionless.

Suddenly they are all very cold. They appear to be in the middle of thick snowfall that covers their feet and the ground, it is freezing cold. Welcome to Russia! Llynos warms them up a little by raising the temperature a few degrees. Viktor looks around and can tell exactly where they are, it's Petrograd, soon to be renamed Leningrad and eventually to become known at St. Petersburg, Russia. Llynos and Amber are horrified at Eostre’s actions and confront her. She insists she was doing the right thing by dealing with the Nazi but Llynos is angry at her being a hypocrite. Amber feels bad about leaving Ithraal behind. The snow is falling thickly and the group are slowly freezing, they decide to find a tavern, quickly.

They find a place called the Tsar’s Arms. Inside there are tables of men and women and the bar is well stocked with alcohol. This is helpful to Viktor and Peter who know they must be just before the Revolution when the people will have nothing but vodka. It must be the early 1900’s, before WWII. A hush falls in the tavern as they walk in. Viktor is glowing, despite speaking to them in Russian, the people clearly don't what him there. When the glowing Llynos walks in, the people definitely don't want them in there and ask them to leave as they reach for weapons. Turns out most of the patrons are armed.

One of them says “We don't want your kind in here.” Viktor tries to be friendly but it's no good and everyone leaves. Outside it’s grey and still cold and snowing, it's not yet nightfall so they head to the bank. Peter remembers that he is supposed to be making deposits of money and gold to accumulate interest over the centuries, then he remembers they had just left the Middle Ages, and did not deposit any money as per a certain warning. According to the letter from future Peter, this is going to be a nightmare to fix. Oops.

The bank doesn't have an account under Peter’s name but Llynos thinks he should open a new account to deposit their leftover money and gold in after buying some clothes. Peter crit fails a history roll and is sure that depositing money in Russia before the Revolution is absolutely no problem at all. Viktor knows better though and shakes him out of it, the group decide not to let Peter handle the money for now. They head to a pawnbroker to exchange their gold ore for Rubles.

Inside the pawn shop, the pawnbroker is rather alarmed at Viktor and Llynos, he scrambles underneath the counter and pulls out a blunder buster yelling “Demons!” at them. Jim manages to give the man his gold in exchange for all the money in the register, about 6000 Rubles. The pawnbroker ushers them out of the shop and shuts the door and pulls down the shutters after them. Out in the cold, some are getting the sniffles and Jim, Zander and Gina are slowly turning blue. Gina runs on the spot to warm up, Sam crouches over a small fireball and Llynos increases the temperature a bit more, it's still about -3 degrees though.

With their 6000 Rubles, they go to a fur seller and buy enough fur coats for everyone but they don't have quite enough for winter boots and pants, so prioritise people like Peter, Sam, Amber, and Gina who are not that appropriately dressed for winter and strike a deal with the shop owner. Then they search for a cheap inn to stay the night, away from the richer district. The most human-looking of the group head in and give a piece of gold ore for 3 rooms to book. The Innkeeper takes out a knife and scrapes a piece off and bites it to check. He nods and shows them to their rooms.

Inside, Peter shoves open the window which was painted shut and Llynos flies the others up to the room. Llynos, Sam and Jim share the first one, Eostre, Peter and Zander in the second, and finally Gina, Viktor and Amber take the third. They talk about what to do next. Viktor and Peter talk about what they know of a man named Rasputin, who was friendly with the royal family. There is little confirmed about it because many records were burned by the Revolution, however rumour has it that he was poisoned, shot twice in the chest and again in the head before falling into the ice and drowning as his coat got caught and dragged him under. His body was then buried in an unknown location and that was the end of the Russian Royal family. They put the year at 1916-1917, on the brink of the Revolution when the divide between rich and poor gets larger as the rich become more wealthy and the poor were sent to fight and die in a war they don't believe in.

The New Dawn must have come here to stop the Revolution from happening or to make an ally out of Russia, as it could determine Germany’s fate in WWII. They use another small bit of gold to pay for some stew bubbling gently over the fire downstairs. Eostre, Jim and Amber fill up some bowls and bring it to the others for dinner. It's chewy and not a patch on Amber’s gumbo, but it’s not bad. They all eat thoughtfully and all head off to their rooms for bed.

A recap on Peter’s letter received at the start of the Time Travel Paradox chapter:

Future Peter writes a letter to Peter in Bludhaven 1998, telling him to find his bank account at First Western in Star City where he finds a vault full of classic paintings, Nazi gold and untold wealth, somewhat proving the contents of the letter to be true. Future Pete explains that Rufus & Rufus (remember that feeling that someone is following Peter) have been on their trail for months and that the New Dawn led by Hans are trying to stop the Third Reich from falling at the end of WWII in 1945. Peter will become a Hero as long as they put a stop to the New Dawn and put money in his account in the past to build interest. It's super important to make a deposit in the Middle Ages because that was a real problem to sort out. The technology to make another time machine doesn't exist and there is a possible future where they do not travel back to sort this out and the New Dawn succeed in having Nazi Germany win the war. The results are bad and we have to stop this from happening. Finally, in order to set off this chain of events, we must write and send this letter to Peter to receive in 1998, which must be sent from the Five Sisters in Bludhaven, 1944. Hopefully someone will remember this and write the letter to send to our future/past selves...

21/03/16 - The Superhero Costume-Making Montage

Overnight, Jim, Sam and Llynos all spoon each other (Jim’s in the middle in case you were wondering). Gina doesn’t get a wink of sleep thanks to Amber and Viktor’s snoring/whirring. Everyone else sleeps peacefully. The next morning, as Victor is the only person who actually speaks Russian, some time is invested in teaching the local lingo to the others with varying successes. It takes most of the day, but only Gina and Amber learn any Russian from Viktor. It’s not much but enough to get by, Eostre seems to think she learned a lot but is spouting nonsense.

Gina asks the group if they have any makeup, or perhaps a fur coat. Nobody is really fashion-conscious enough for that, but Llynos has some lippy she gives to Gina. Zander finally wakes up (nobody thought to wake him so he could learn Russian). They decide to address the group’s slight issue with not looking human. Llynos is glowing slightly, but she can be covered with a hood to make it less noticeable. Viktor’s glow however is too bright for that. Jim offers to cover him with darkness but Viktor objects and says a black person in Russia would be a bad idea. Amber and Sam turn on him, angry and indignant at the remark on their skin colour.

Eostre tries to channel Viktor’s energy into a cup, but the cup explodes and Eostre’s skin blisters as the strange energy flows through her. Sam thinks that divine and natural energy does not mix, hence the reaction! Amber offers to counteract the lightwaves around Viktor to mask the brightness. She manipulates the lightwaves to reverse the effect and the glow does indeed lessen. However in dark places, a small pool of light will still glow at Viktor’s feet.

They go down to the bar which is so busy with all of 3 patrons! Amber and Gina speak to the barman in Russian about central square and whether there is a parade or celebration or some tourist attraction to do in the city. The barman gets very suspicious at the mention of parades in the square. They head to central square in search of news on Rasputin and the party notice that St. Petersburg appears to be gearing up for some kind of large ball or event, they look at the newspapers and discover there is a ball happening tomorrow with guests from all over the world invited. It’s a big deal! They are unsure of Rasputin’s involvement, but since everyone knows that Nazi's love to party, the group decide to invite themselves along.

At the Winter Palace in Petrograd, they approach the guards at the door. Eostre asks for “work” and the guard’s look a bit confused before Amber intervenes and they are redirected to the servant’s entrance to apply for jobs at the ball. The palace is massive so it takes some time to go around the building. Amber knocks on the door and speaks to Andre the butler. At a loss of what work to do and because the group look like a bunch of ragamuffins they decide that instead of trying to get invited as guests they'll pass themselves off as the evening’s entertainment performing various circus acts.

Amber can sing, Llynos can control weather, Peter can lift incredible weights, Gina can do magic tricks, Eostre juggles crystals in the air and Zander can do all sorts of acrobatics while Viktor performs music. The butler accepts their application and arranges to see them at an audition the next morning, there has to be a certain standard of performance after all. They consider sneaking into the palace to have a look around, they notice a balcony above them overlooking the river, but there are servants and guards at nearly every window, so they think better of it.

The ladies all insist on getting matching costumes/disguises for their new job and spend some time discussing where to shop and their budget and colour scheme. They decide to go to a middle of the range tailor (equivalent to M&S) where they can buy classic but stylish clothes to alter to their individual liking. It’s a ball after all so they have to look good!! Zander looks for a sparkly suit while Eostre wants a corset. They can’t afford one, so she offers sexual favours to one of the shopkeeper’s in exchange for the corset, she stays at the shop all night long.

The others makes their purchases using the last of their gold to buy sapphire blue and canary yellow gold silk and sequins and head to a nearby barn to alter the clothes. Jim and Peter simply go to sleep (how helpful) while Sam, Amber and Llynos get to work making dresses and suits. Gina leaves for a “lady lizard” walk. Amber, Sam and Llynos make themselves floor length, form-fitting, sleeveless gowns. Amber’s includes elbow-length gloves and a touch of glitter on her deep blue dress inspired by Don Bluth’s Anastasia. Sam has a slit going all the way up her skirt and a feather boa. Llynos goes for more of a Chuck Jones’ ‘Red Hot Riding Hood’ look that is more leotard than dress.

Peter and Jim get 70’s Austin Power-like ruffles all over their suits as they did not get involved with the ideas or the alteration process. Zander is in a sequinned deep blue suit with a bright yellow ‘Z’ emblazoned on the chest in sequins that is rather fabulous. Viktor gets a fur collared suit blazer. And Gina receives a frilly crop top and shorts that don’t leave much to the imagination.

Eostre finally stumbles in the next morning with her sparkly blue and gold corset, so now they’re all dressed and ready for the rehearsal! Back at the palace, the group dazzle Andre with their various 'circus acts' (or at least their comedic failure routines). Peter and Llynos team up as a strongman and acrobat routine (with Llynos flying through the air with her magical twist after Peter lifts her) and Andre is rather impressed actually! Victor lays down some beats as a human jukebox but sadly Amber crit fails her singing, so the synth tracks barely make up for it. Eostre uses her powers of levitation to make some crystals sparkle and fly. Andre is less impressed. Jim uses disco lights to flash on and off while Zander somersaults and flips across the room, which is quite effective. Lastly Viktor crit fails his synth beats and accidentally plays dubstep to Gina the lizard woman’s exotic dancing.

Despite a few mishaps, Andre is somewhat impressed by their acts and accepts them as additional performers to work on a rota taking turns from 2pm the next day. They all head back to their respective rooms to get some sleep and practice their routines for the next day.

11/04/16 - Drove A Tank, Held A General’s Rank.

The group arrive at the Palace in their sparkly new threads and are shown in to a waiting area. The 'green room' appears to be cabbage green as that is what is in the store room as well as some boxes of flour. Boredom sets in and is followed by hilarity and cabbage-based humour. Jim puts a handful of loose flour into his pocket - just in case.

Llynos and Jim hear a strange cracking sound and Sam and Eostre notice something in the air as if the planes have shifted. Peter is suddenly overwhelmed by a vision of Bludhaven burning but it is an event that the group have already seen happen - albeit in the future - and not something new. Gina starts bitching about being cold so Eostre helpfully tries to imbue her with natural energy to warm her up as which point Gina starts screaming before her skin peels off revealing her form as an 8-foot draconian ice lizard queen. Sam is able to teach Gina how to shift back down but unfortunately it's too late for Gina's pretty new outfit which lies in tatters on the floor. There is nothing to use as a substitute so Jim uses his powers of darkness to make a dress for Gina out of midnight. Just to reiterate, Gina is now wearing a dress of f***ing darkness! This is much to the chagrin of Eostre who is most unhappy at losing her position as most prettily-dressed super heroine.

Unsure where the cracking noise came from, the group decide to ‘Scooby’ it and split up to explore two different ends of the corridor. Unfortunately, the two people who can sense the plane shift go the wrong way and the group who does go in the right direction have no idea what they're looking for. The group comes back together just in time to be ushered in the direction of the banquet hall by one of the aids. Gina enquires about the number of 'penguins' at the function and when the aide finally understands what the heck she is talking about shares the information that it is a function for the diplomats of a handful of important nations. Peter is again afflicted by a migraine and has a number of eclectic visions running through his head as numerous possible futures flood in. It seems that the events of the evening has knock on implications for the future - best not to screw this up then....

Some of the group also note that Amber is missing, although only the ones who have known her a long time have concrete memories off her. To the newer members of the group their recollections are vague and no one can really remember when anyone last saw her. Gina and Viktor as the newest members, forget her completely.

Entering the great hall, the party find that most of the guests have already arrived, arranged by country at a large horseshoe tables where the diplomats and their aides are seated (with little flags). Peter and Llynos are first up but as Peter prepares to lift Llynos into the air, she gets distracted by a colourful piece of fluff and ends up being thrown into a wall. The Belgian Ambassador, who Llynos misses by inches, seems less than impressed but Victor saves the situation by playing the classic -Wop wop woooop- fail music and a few people chuckle at the antics of the clowns.

Jim and Viktor take over with a musical light show which goes down well and it is at this point that Rasputin enters. Earlier Peter had had a vision of Rasputin being murdered at this function but the others called bullshit as everyone knows Rasputin didn't die till years later. Of course, if he did die at this party then that would have negative implications for world history - but no one is trying to change history here, right?

Llynos takes over as a singer with Viktor as the Czar, Czarina and Princess Anastasia enter. They take their place at the head table and Jim sidles over to make sure that they're protected if something untoward were to happen. Anastasia is a fan of Llynos' lilting celtic tones and as the princess relaxes others in the room seem to be more content. Hawkeye Steve is finally able to pick out a suspicious looking group in the busy ballroom and points the blonde haired, blue eyed sore thumbs out to the group. Eostre starts her act, juggling glowing crystals into the form of a happy princess-pleasing dog just as the excrement hits the proverbial air conditioning unit.

A number of people have been moving into position, including the four Nazis who close in on Rasputin, and before you can say 'Sympathy for the Devil' it all kicks off.

Pistols are drawn, mad monks are seized and the guests are screaming and heading for the doors only to find that the exits are barred. Peter is first to react, realising that his vision from earlier is actually happening, and thwaps a web on to Rasputin pulling him out of the grasp of those rascally Nazis. Jim leaps on top of Anastasia to protect her - much to the ire of Czar Nicolas II who thinks his daughter is being attacked, and who starts beating on Jim.

Zander leaps into action, taking out one of the 'aides' who has moved behind an ambassador in order to assassinate them while Victor takes out another converting the sonic waves of his air guitar into a rocket blaster. Eostre takes out three more as she slings the crystals she has been juggling through the air but feels a little drained by this action as using the energy of nature to take out living creatures is not the most natural thing she could be doing.

Gina shifts up again into her ice-lizard form, zooms across to a Nazi and punches him in the face without smacking into a wall herself - good going! There is uproar in the room as the crowd tries to open the obviously barred doors and the Belgian and Swedish ambassadors land face first in their soup after being shanked by more subtle assassins. They were killed by aides.

A man with a semi-automatic pistol (a weapon not invented for a good few years) leaps up on the main table and starts being a revolutionary dick. Sam shifts up also and heats up the OOPArt (Out Of Place Artefact) which the man drops. The weapon explodes at his feet, knocking him off the table and there is a sick cracking sound as his head hits the floor.

Llynos goes all ’Thor’ on Nazi ass and fries one with a lightning bolt while Steve kills two with ease using the power of metal and keen eye-sight.

Carrying a now-unconscious Rasputin over one shoulder, Peter tears open the door to find, not only was it barricaded shut, but that there are a number of barrels filled with black powder places outside. There is also a trail fizzing it's way across the floor towards a big finish. Zander leaps into action - and straight into the floor as he heroically face plants and a smitten Gina runs to his side to sweep his emo fringe out of the way and see if a kiss of life is required. Fortunately Llynos doesn't choke (either by using her skills or on Gina's tragic romantic gesture) and makes rain fall down on the barrels by the exit. Victor announces in Russian that now would be a good time to evacuate and the guests don't need asking twice.

Before the heroes can escape though the barrels placed at the other exits explode and Sam, Jim and Gina join Zander in the soft embrace of unconsciousness. Sam, who had used her demon form to frighten away the guest is able to block the blast with her body and so no civilians are injured in the making of this epic.

As the room crumbles about them, engulfed by flame, Peter, Llynos, Steve and Eostre are able to carry their comrades to safety along with the mad monk still slung over Peter's shoulder. As they exit through the main doors there is a shift in the air and everything goes all wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey....

Volume 5 (March 2017 - present)

06 / 03 / 17 - Guldar Killed Muninn

The group is now faced with several uncomfortable truths; the doomsday war is imminent and they have to choose a side. Will our collection of bumbling doofuses manage to not screw this one up?? (Spoilers: probably not have you met this group?)

The group discuss who they should consider backing. Simply choosing 'Earth' is not an option, as that would result in all the magic and belief disappearing from the world. Guldar asks Sam on her opinion of Lucifer as the big boss, but she doesn't give him a straight answer. Zander's uncle had appeared just moments earlier in a dramatic cloud of smoke inside the roadhouse to give his recruitment drive speech, but was met with a decidedly frosty reception. The current stance is 'we don't have a stance'.

Jim remembers that they adopted cats for the roadhouse prior to the time-travel plot and goes to check on them. Smokey and The Bandit are still alive and well, if slightly more rotund than they were before thanks to Rosie over feeding them. Jim decides to introduce the cats to Muninn, Amber's new and highly suspicious 'pet' raven. Bandit is uninterested, but Smokey launches into action and leaps towards the raven. Guldar gives Smokey a buff (because the bird is an asshole), and to everyone's surprise and horror, Smokey catches Muninn and kills him. A sudden storm kicks off overhead, and the discussion turns towards how they were going to avoid the wrath of Odin now one of his eyes is dead. Zander suggests turning it into an undead bird, Sam says she can put his soul back into his body as a last resort but she can't heal him. Guldar heads out into the oncoming storm, just in case Odin shows up. Hoof beats sound in the distance, and with a sudden flash of lightning Muninn comes back to life. Zander offers to take him to a vet since he's still in a bad way, and the group do their best to patch him up.

Jim heads outside to present a ritualistic offering of alcohol to Odin for forgiveness, using the last of Guldar's incredibly potent alien booze. Meanwhile, Sam tells the group about her child who went missing a few weeks ago. She left her house to run errands, but when she returned she discovered the babysitter, Melissa, had taken her baby and left a note that said 'the hunters found us'. Guldar suggests looking up where Melissa last used her credit card, and Wes discovers that it was last used a week ago, right here in the roadhouse. Sam calls Rosie Palm and asks her if a woman named Melissa came in last week. Rosie said yes, and she had a child with her that liked chargrilled food and had a skin condition that needed looking at. She said a 'Mr. Hunter' was after her, and when (werewolf) Sam overheard he went white as a sheet and offered to give them a lift in his truck. Nobody in the group had heard of 'hunters' before, so Jim offers to call his werewolf daughter, Angelica, for more information. Angelica freaks out when he mentions hunters, and tells Jim he needs to destroy his phone ASAP. Jim explains that (werewolf) Sam has a child that they're looking for, and they need to find him. Angelica says that he probably ditched Melissa and his truck somewhere safe, and would have taken the baby to a place as remote and inaccessible as possible. The group figure he probably went into the swamp. Needing more information about the hunters, Zander decides to call his uncle. His uncle explains that 'the hunters' are the zealot's zealot, humans with holy weapons and an agenda against anything even vaguely supernatural, including supers. They're generally mercenaries for hire, but if they find something by accident they'll pursue it until it's dead. Zander tells him they're planning to go after them, and his uncle says he 'may not be a complete disappointment afterall'. Zander sheds a single tear.

The group prepare and gather supplies to go after werewolf Sam, what's likely to be a very long trek through the swamp. Everybody is on board since the hunters are a threat to all of them, but Rei is adamant that he'd prefer to stay in the roadhouse. The group quiz him on why he doesn't want to go, but it's definitely not swamps, children or demons. Zander pulls out his best alluring face and charms Rei into joining the expedition party.