New Characters: Lucinda Hawkwood-Smyth (Gill); Marcus Vincent (Les); Jason Fitzgerald (Jim); Max Littlebotton (Brain); Tommy Stone (Ian M).

 

          Jason is contacted by Truefang, one of the few Garou movers and shakers in London.  He is told that his bank (Clark Conway & Associates) is at least tainted by the Wyrm, if not a front for Pentax.  He is later told that things are worst there are at least four Garou working for the company, who don't know what they are.  Truefang says that he will help if he can, but his resources are small and he feels that he can be of little help in this matter.  He says that the problem is Jason's because he should have checked the company.  Jason sets out to look into the problem, arriving outside the bank (main branch off Cheapside London) early, and fading into the Umbra, entering the building, has a meeting with an elderly trapped water spirit that inhabits the foyer fountain. 

          Lucinda arrives for work, gets a static shock off her PC as does Max somewhat later in the morning and Mr Stone in the early afternoon.  Both Max and Lucinda feel that their desks have been disturbed; Max reports the suspected incident to security. Jason arrives at Max.'s desks and spots that the spirit of his lightning globe is dying because there is some sort of Bane spirit inhabiting the PC.  He enters the real world, says hello to Max as he returns from the privy, over reacts when yelled at, goes Crinos, Max faints. 

          Jason leaves a post it notes on Max.'s head and moves on.  A tea lady finds Max and reports it, security falls into action. Jason spots Lucinda through her day dreams and the Bane device in her PC, and leaves her a post it note when she goes to lunch.  He continues to search and finds two other Bane devices, one in a security department PC and another in a bike in the courier pool.  Marcus delivers a package and feels extremely drained.  He takes it easy for the rest of the day, until finding a post it on the tank of his bike. The Post it say 'Beware, you are being watched, meet me tonight, 8.00 DiMaggio’s'.

 

New Characters: Craig Stanford, (Ian J), Carley Greycoat (Tara)

 

          The two new characters are asked to help Jason by Truefang.  At DiMaggio’s Jason arranges a suite for their meal, outside in the main restaurant, Princess Michael of Kent is in there with security. Jason steps out of the Umbra and explains to the lost ones what they are.  Carley turns Lupus in front of them.  Max, being very drunk now, has problems with the meeting.  Craig acting as security spends the whole time in Glabro form.  Mr Stone is convinced by the arguments and attempts to change.  Miraculously, he makes it to Hispo.  However, as this is his first change he looses control and runs, closely followed by Craig in Lupus form.  Two wolves causes commotion in the restaurant and Inspector Rex Vandyke arrests the rest of the party. The inspector thinks that there is something weird going on, but does not have enough on Jason to press charges; Jason gives the restaurant a large cheque to cover the damages.

 

          Max, Carley, Lucinda & Markus spend the night at Jason's Dock-lands address.  Max & Carley head off for the clubs during the early hours. Later Lucinda & Markus both go home, and Jason drives down to Gravesend. Carley ends up sleeping over with Max at his place.  Mr 'Call me Frank' Williams and Triple J representing the 'Executive' turn up and offer Max a position. Craig keeps an eye on Tommy and makes sure that he gets on the train for home. Jason finally convinces Tommy, with a demonstration of the effect that silver now has on him. Markus is offered a short term job, working as a special courier for the Executive branch, just like Mark Graves periodically has. Jason arranges for the whole bunch of them to meet again at his place.

         Carley KO's Max and brings him, the other arrive by more peaceable methods.  When they are all there, Lucinda and Markus, with a lot of coaching, manage to achieve Lupus, and Tommy changes form many times. Max although he tries (and feels something) has no success. After some bull shitting about, Carley says that they should try again elsewhere, sits him down in a chair, and takes them both across into the Umbra.  There Max finally manages to change to Lupus form.  They also spot an ancient chest hidden beneath the floor of the warehouse.

 

          They dig the chest up and make many attempts to open the thing that appears to be of medieval design.  They have no luck.  Jason believes that the thing is very heavily warded. Tommy goes out for a burn up (complete with his new attitude to life) and has a fatal (for a mortal) pile up on Oxford Street whilst being involved in a chase with the police.  He regenerates and returns to Jason's pad. They pass the evening with Chinese and beers (Jason salad for ten having being ruined by Marcus's salt & vinegar dressing). Lucinda, Tommy, Markus and Max return to their homes.

 

 

 

Retirement (To NPC Status) – Max Littlebotton (Brian)

New Characters - Sir James Macintosh (Brian)

 

          Lucinda rings in sick then goes to Jason's.  There Jason is busy with a ritual of summoning, as he attempts to summon the person who buried the box. The Ritual succeeds and the shade of a hanged workman turns up.  He buried the box in 1871 for the owner of the firm called F Johns & Sons.  On further examination the box is covered in what appears to be lines of power in the shape of a web emanating from the lock, the lines of power appear to be mage magic. Lucinda checks into the company F Johns & Sons and fines that it traded from 1868 to 1893, it imported oriental goods from pottery & curiosities to plants.  It dealt with four antique dealers (London/Cardiff/Edinburgh and Canterbury), the London dealer closed ages ago, and Lucinda pays for an investigation into the others.

          Jason calls a Silver Fang ally into help him look into the box (Brian's character), it turns out that this rich Sir is also Lucinda's second best customer and has heavy investments in Clark Conway, and he joins the fold. Markus agrees to his new assignment all he is asked to do is go and pick up a parcel from the offices of the Church of England in Lambeth.  Before delivery back to the company, he pops off at the flat and they give the scroll inside the once over on the umbra.  It's black with fiery writing and smoking.  The seal on the envelope is from the Holy See.

          Tommy goes in to work, hands his passwords over to his boss and leaves on sick with a gamy leg and fractured jaw, caused by a motorcycle crash at the weekend.  He goes home to sort out some personal business. Max meets with the executive, is made an offer that the poor Basildon lad just cannot refuse and signs up on vellum in old English with the Executive. Jason receives a message allegedly from Max saying that he has gone to France for a month or so and will check back in when he gets back.

         A group of yobs mugs Brian’s character and does some damage to Jason and Craig’s car.  The three of the track the Yobs to the local (The Dog & Duck) and dispense summary (non fatal, hospitalisation style) justice.  The day ends with Brian’s character, Lucinda and Markus off home and Jason, Craig & Carley staying at the Dock-lands flat.

 

 

New Characters - Nett (Jill)

 

          Nett arrives (via Moon Bridge from the Caern of the Wheel in Casablanca) at Jason’s flat and says that she has been sent to aid in the “troubled times, & Dark Days” ahead.  She joins the pack (if I dare to call it a pack) with little or no bother.  Jason (the default pack leader) appears to be running the whole thing as some sort of weird hippie commune.

          Marcus reports that he has taken things to Blenheim Palace, A solicitors in the west end and to an institute of horticultural research in north London. Gill’s character gets carpeted by her boss for failure to perform on several contracts.  A cursory investigation shows her that there is a frame up going on. A group of skinheads called the blood lords appear to be following the party and putting the frighteners on some of Jason’s shops.  Les meets up with one of her biker mates and finds out that they are an operation from Germany who were in the UK a couple of month’s back and have recently returned in greater numbers.  As her mate is in the money, they settle in at the Dog & Duck for a serious session.

                   One of Jason’s Internet searches is responded to by someone (thing) called Vortex.  Who advises that the box is not to be opened as you won’t want to shut it?  A strange trace appears on the call – although this does not seem to concern Jason in the least (after all he knows little of computers). Brains character has lunch at the commons with an x-MP mate of his.  He finds out that the treasury have recently made some strange decisions since the seven wise men’s members have changed (two new members apparently).

 

- AN INTERLUDE -

 

          Early in the morning, Jason’s biggest shop, in Covent Garden is fire bombed.  He is called to the scene as the owner.  He takes Carley and Craig with him as back up. Meanwhile back at the Dock-lands pad, Marcus and his mates are still at it in the warehouse with takeouts and joints.  Marcus detects a noise upstairs and goes to check it out.  There are three blood lords and a suit with a gun going through the place.  He goes Crinos and takes them on.  He slaughters one of the creatures and the suit turns Crinos himself (obviously a BSD by the look of him).  The two wolves’ battle and Marcus comes out on top although both are down by the end. Jason and his team have been racing back to the scene since his alarm has gone off. As have Lucinda and Nett, from Lucinda’s pad in Kensington, having been alerted over the mobile.

                   No one can reach Brains character as he is rather phobic about phones and his aid has been told not to wake him. All arrive back at the ranch and Jason takes a bite out of another blood lord.  The BSD gets away under blur of the milky eye.  Craig captures one of them and ties him up. To cover the corpses, Jason fire bombs his own pad – having got Marcus’s mates and the box (plus a few treasured personal possessions) out first. Jason calls the police and the fire brigade and after the paper work is done with they retire to Lucinda’s flat in Kensington, which appears to be their next base of operations.

 

          In the flat at Kensington the group eventually get together and beginning the task of questioning their captured Blood Lord gang member.  Markus takes the lead and does some “horrible”, “horrible” things to the poor bugger, largely involving the use of a toilet brush and some Detol. Lucinda has gone to work, and having failed to find any other way of getting in touch with Brian’s character, she arranges a meeting with him through oriental lady that acts as his PA, bodyguard and chauffeur. Jason goes for a walk whilst the party question the captive as he wants nothing to do with the torture that he feel is going on. Carley also had some problems with the torture bit but for some reason stayed at the flat.  We can only assume that she felt that she could do more good for the captive being at the flat rather than away from it. Jason (and incidentally all those who have left the flat at that time) feels that they are being followed and catch sight of strange men in black at many times.  Eventually Jason ends up at Kensington Gardens.  There he steps sideways and communes with the spirit of the largest Oak tree in the park.  The tree helps Jason in return for a small quest involving four acorns (and the four farthest compass points of London).  Jason confronts the man who was following him (“although the man denies it all”) and warns him that there will be trouble if the people following the group do not back off.

          The group decides that Lucinda’s flat is too exposed for all the screams and Black Sabbath tracks that are emerging from it.  They negotiate a move of base of operations to Sir James Macintosh’s estates in Epping Forest.  They acquire a White Builder’s van for the purpose and move off. At the Mansion they meet the Simpson family, Sir James’ faithful family retainers. The security system picks up a limousine hanging around the gates of the mansion with a well-groomed Rastafarian leaning on the side of the car.  The individual shows up on the “Sense Wyrm” gift.  Sir James tells them to push off.  The chap claims that he’s only just stopped for a smoke and that he’ll go when he’s good and ready.  The group attacks (as Jason looses his cool and piles in) and the car is turned on its roof.  The driver of the Limousine is bundled off to the dungeon and placed in another of the cells, near to where the abused Blood Lord has been stashed.  Apparently these dungeons date back to the early days of the manor house “we’ll say that the place is early Tudor” and have not been used in many years. They open the back of the car and find no occupants although it shows signs of recent habitation.  Carley steps off into the Umbra and goes on the hunt in the primal woodland for the two Black Spiral Dancers that she detects. Suddenly realising the danger of a lone Garou hunting in Primal Umbral woodland the group steps sideways, into the spirit world and goes to the aid of Carley.

 

Session Played On - Sunday, 20^th August 2000

Players: Jim, Ian, Brian, Les and Tara.

 

         The group caught up with Carley quite easily and began to follow a white flag stone path through the forest.  They encountered many things on their quest through the Umbral wilderness.  A house from the 1940s, The Lion that Walks (a Lion Headed Magic hating Woman), The Council of Deer,  a unexploded bomb spirit that regretted having to blow up and the village of Fambridge - cursed to relive 10 days in the summer of 1345 for all eternity.  In Fambridge they caught up with and killed the two Black Spiral Dancers and found dedicated ID on one of them <identifying the BSD as an employee or Clark Conway & Associates – it’s on of those magnetic swipe card type IDs.  They met Lord Ambrose of Fambridge (a Verbena Mage who came to Fambridge in 1695 an killed the former Lord Ambrose, in a duel over a matter of honour) – he pleaded with them to help lift his curse and get him out of this weird village – some of the group were interested by they wanted to get back and decided that the Fambridge quest would wait for another day).  The group left the Umbra in a small playing field on a new housing estate, we had quite some fun as the group of naked adults and wolves had to make it’s way some 10 miles or so back to Sir Macintosh's estate.  They arrived quite knackered at around dawn.

 

 

Session Played on – Sunday 18^th August 2002

Players – Jim, Gill, Brain, Les, Tara, Jill & Ian

 

                   The group took it easy, tidying up loose ends and starting the ball rolling on pissing off/ damaging Clark Conway & Associates.  Jason pulled all of his investments out of Conway and started the ball rolling on getting together with another broker (meeting with three different brokers due for Monday) and bad mouthed Conway in an indirect fashion.  Jason also moves out of Sir James’ estate and into an expensive flat (three flats in the block, doorman’s name is Tom, private lift to the apartment) over looking Hampstead Heath. Nett goes with Jason as helping him in the “dark days ahead” is her quest. 

         Lucinda resigns from Conway and starts moving out those clients she likes (her father and Sir James to be specific), she registers herself as a new company and sets up office at Sir James (in his mother’s favourite day room) she also bad mouths Conway to anybody who will listen and makes a few phone calls to brokers in the states.  Marcus reports in sick for work, buys some dope and acid, is convinced he’s being followed and heads back to Epping tube <right out at the end of the central line!!>.

         Craig goes looking round the estate and finds a second garage full of vintage cars that Sir James didn’t even know he had.  Craig and Carley meet up with Marcus and bring him back to the estate.  Craig and Marcus set about questioning the two prisoners <the Blood Lord and the Rastafarian driver>, it’s all very messy and to cut to the point both of the prisoners don’t give up much info <the Blood Lord gives nothing even under torture and drugs he’s still to scared of whoever his boss is !>. 

         Sir James finds out about the killings in the dungeon and politely asks that Craig and Marcus leave!  Craig and Marcus take the white builders van down to a disused area of warehouses in the docklands/east end and after cleaning it blow up/set fire to it with the two bodies inside. Marcus goes back to his flat share in the east end & Craig returns to Kensington, picks up his clapped out car and then drives to Epping – parking up for the night outside Sir James estate.  The session finishes with Sir James, Carley and Lucinda left at the Estate & Craig parked up outside, Jason & Nett at Hampstead Heath & Marcus tucked up in his flat somewhere in the exotic depths of the East end.

 

 

Session Played on Sunday 13^th April 2008

Players – Jim, Gill, Ian, Jill, Brian & Les

 

         Craig was awakened early in the morning by the Milkman – who politely asked him to move his car as it had rolled back in the night (a dodgy handbrake no doubt) and was blocking the entrance to the Epping Estate.

         Markus awoke to find a naked young Pilipino lady called Sue lying next to him in bed – Sue didn’t know why she was there, the last thing she remembered was going out clubbing on Friday night with her boyfriend Graham, in Birmingham.

         Lucinda took breakfast with Sir James and set about arranging office facilities with the assistance of Janice the PA.  Although both Lucinda and Janice talked to Sir James about it, he did take a little persuading (having an “issue” with phones and a “distaste” for new appliances in his house), but eventually permitted an installation of types – although modifications to his mothers day room were strictly forbidden.

         Jason and Nett had a peaceable morning until they attempted to leave Hampstead in Jason’s E Type Jag. Fortunately they heard the bomb prime itself scant seconds before it went off blowing the immaculate car into a thousand tiny pieces!  They spent the rest of the Morning at Hampstead police station – Chief Inspector Van Dyke turned up and Jason agreed to both Police protection and a wire tap on his phones.  After the bombing of his shop, the burning down of his docklands pad and this new explosion, to seem both innocent he had little choice in the matter.  Jason asked Nett to advise the others of the situation just so that nothing “untoward” got recorded by the Police.

         Craig got bored waiting outside the estate and drove off towards town, heading for his gym. Near Prince Regent, an 18 wheeler tried to run him off the road. There then followed a high speed chase through the docklands, around Canary Wharf, the 18 wheeler lost control and careened off the road – impacting the Partridge arms and exploding in a huge explosion.  Craig had reported the incident to the Police who promptly tuned up.  Craig was educated about the limitations of citizens arrest in the UK, but other than that and a caution for dangerous driving, he managed to avoid a problem with the law (boy, was I in a good mood). 

Marcus took Sue home to Birmingham, stopping half way up the M1 to have pictures taken and post them back to her mates in the East end (having got just a little paranoid about things and wanting to cover his arse in case something went bang and he never made if back). 

         Lucinda received a phone call from a Mr Masters who claimed to have kidnapped her Mum & Dad.  He was most persuasive and got Lucinda to agree to return to the employ of Clark Conway & associates, he also said that they wanted Jason Fitzmaurice and that she had until 15:00 on Monday to arrange for Jason to be “in their power” or her parents would be slowly killed.  Lucinda contacted her Mum’s next door neighbour and found that her Dad was actually in the garden mowing the lawn. Lucinda and Sir James rushed to Godalming bravely charging to the rescue (though the thought of another encounter with Mrs. Hawkwood-Smyth did rather leave Sir James cold).  On route, Lucinda arrange for a telegram to be sent to Jason to apprise him of the situation.  Arriving, they found that nothing was untoward – Mum was fine and Dad was raking up the last of the cuttings.  Lucinda went into the kitchen to make a cup of tea, there she found open briefcase containing a loaded .44 automatic and a massive, razor sharp bowie knife.  The case bore the crest of Clark Conway & Associates. 

         Jason and Nett met up again at Jason’s Hampstead Heath pad.  Jason decided that he’d had enough!  Stepping sideways in to the Umbral realms of London’s spirit world, they slowly made their way to the Cheapside offices of enemy. After reintroducing themselves to the elder water spirit in the foyer, they proceeded upwards – floating through the floors. Eventually they came to a floor that was warded and they had to force their way through.  Beyond, they found a static room, filled with antique furniture and carpets upon the floor – old, old, expensive stuff must have rested her for a very long time.  Jason changed in to Crinos form a proceeded to damage the spiritual nature of these objects.  They then tried to proceed higher into the exclusive levels of the building but found that the way was closed. Giving up on this, the descended into the bowels of the earth – travelled into the main generator room, ignored an ancient boiler spirit and stepped into the real world in the building deserted power switching room.  Throwing caution to the wind Jason wrecked a goodly portion of the switching equipment, plunging the building into darkness.  Stepping back into the Spirit world (using mirrors plunked from Jason’s braids) they made their escape.  Jason and Nett returned to the Hampstead Heath apartments to contemplate the day’s events. 

         Lucinda was obliged to stay over at her parent’s house.  Mrs. Hawkwood-Smyth offered Sir James a room for the night, but he politely declined and was promptly driven to the Dorchester (where in to conclude the day in a more civilized fashion). 

         Markus got back from Birmingham around midnight and making sure that the smashed in door was secure with a large plank of two by four he made himself a cuppa and settled down for (hopefully) a quiet evening. 

         Craig eventually did make it to his gym, had a strenuous work out for 4 hours straight and then headed back (no doubt via a road side café and a huge greasy fry up) to his self appointed guard post outside the Epping estate (not knowing – of course – that none of the party members were actually there).

 

 

Session Played on Sunday 17^th August 2008

Players – Jim, Brian, Jill & Ian

 

         Sunday morning was spent in much rest & relaxation.  Sir James didn’t even rise till after noon (mind you, I suspect that is not such a departure from is normal routine as I am making it seem). Nett & Jason (for whatever reasons) went boating at Henley for a few hours in the mid morning & enjoyed an excellent brunch in a nearby hostelry. Craig eventually surfaced and headed to the Epping Estate where he promptly hopped over the gate and spent most of the day checking out the rather extensive grounds and eluding Sir James’ security system.

         During the afternoon, Nett and Jason visited Lucinda at her Mother and Father’s and was told more about the tacit threats that were made yesterday.  Apparently Lucinda has no intention of either arranging for Jason to be “in the power” of Clark Conway by 15:00 on Monday or in actually returning to their employ.  She had spent much time today calling round ex-clients and (contrary to an agreement that she signed with Clark Conway when she entered their employ) telling them that she was leaving the firm & setting things up so that their accounts would be removed from Clark Conway in the very near future.  She couldn’t reach one of here exotic investors in the US, so still need to contact Mr C Coltrain.

         This did rather leave Lucinda with a problem.  Clearly her parents were in the most serious kind of danger.  Nett suggested that the Silent Striders in Casablanca could protect Mr & Mrs Hawkwood-Smyth most successfully with the added benefit of a nice Moroccan holiday.  It took some persuasion but eventually (after promising to come and stay for a weekend at Easter) Jason managed to persuade the Hawkwood-Smyth’s that a Christmas break would be nice and that they had really wanted to go for some time.

         Lucinda helped her Mother and Father Pack & by 20:00 they were on the road to Heathrow.  The tickets were rather expensive, but all considered the investment well made!  Lucinda went with her parents to help them settle in at Casablanca and ensure that they arrived safely.  Lucinda headed of to the airport, escorted by Jason & Nett – they put her on a plane then headed back off to Jason’s Hampstead Heath flats.

         No one saw much of Marcus today – infact he hung around in bed till late in the day.  Helped his landlord (Mr. Rightly) fix the damage to the door and tidied up around the flat a little.  He had an amazing trip to Tesco’s to pick up coffee, milk, sugar and a ready meal and was ambushed by nothing more deadly than a troupe of Christmas carollers!

         Weirdly, a peaceful night was had by all!

 

         Come the morning phone calls were received from Casablanca indicating that all was well & that Lucinda would be on the plane back to London later on Monday.  Marcus checked in before heading off to work (being the only one of the crew still working for Clark Conway) and eventually Sir James surfaced from his lengthy Sunday night lay in. Janice spoke to him of the things that needed sorting around the estate (not that he paid much interest, buy hey such was the ritual of Sir James Monday morning) and somehow managed to convince him that Marcus and Craig should be allowed back on the estate and that surely they had now learned their lesson. Resigned to the fact that he would in all likely hood have to ban them from the estate again he regally acquiesced!

         Eventually (after much mucking around during the day -  most of which eludes me at the point of writing up these notes) Jason, Nett and Craig arrived at the Epping estate to talk with Sir James as speaking with him through Janice was proving to be somewhat trying.  They spoke of many things and tried to establish how they were to take the battle to Clark Conway rather than sitting their waiting for one of the many attempts at endangering them to turn into an actual attempt at assassination. Little was decided upon, they established that a.) Conway needed to be bought down, b.) It wasn’t going to be easy, c.) They didn’t know what the box was, c.) There was some connection to the Arch Bishop of Canterbury, d.) They didn’t know who Conway’s associates were or how to inconvenience his business significantly without doing a lot more digging.

         Security played on the groups mind and the went out into the grounds and using the spirit speech gift, they communed with the trees in the ground and found that “strange” dark men had been watching the grounds for many weeks at that the trees were disturbed by their presence.  They also leaned that there were many secrets to the estate – but Sir James preferred that they didn’t ask any further questions long those lines!  They respected the privacy of Sir James’ affairs and he was clearly impressed by their discretion, inviting them to dinner and offering them accommodation for the night.

         Dinner was an elegant affair and Marge done her master proud.  Marcus at some point called to say that it was a “right mare” of a day & he was hitting the sack early.  He said that he’d probably throw a “sickie” on Tuesday and he’d get in touch once he was up! The group remained up quite late sipping port and telling tall tales.  At length they retired for the night, Sir James to his apartments in the North wing and the guests to their rooms in the comfort of the guest suites in the East wing.

         In the small hours, Craig and Nett were disturbed by the slightest of noises as they sat drinking in the dining room.  In the lounge, the French window that lead onto the crocket lawn were open, their creaking had disturbed the pair.  Sighing Craig went to shut them when out of the darkness sprung two likely looking chaps with skinhead hair cuts wearing black clothes and carrying one a cosh and the other a razor sharp looking fighting knife.  The one with the cosh attempted to silence Craig, only managing to piss him off and draw forth a howl from him as he shifted to Glabro and hit the guy with a handy piano hard enough to send him 15ft across the room.  Other chaps, armed with crossbows entered the room as Nett joined the fray.

         Hearing the noise the others were woken from their slumbers, other than Sir James who’s apartments had been sound proofed many years before.  He had his own problems, unknown to him – shadowy death was creeping across the room towards him where he sat in his arm chair wrestling with his own private nightmares!  Behind him, what can only be described as an 8ft tall armour plated killing machine is sneaking towards him

         Meanwhile, down stairs the battle has been joined as Jason entered the battle. Jason completely looses his cool and goes Crinos.  It turns out there are four of these skin head types in the room all seem quite inured to the prospect of fighting werewolves – though clearly not prepared for it with their clubs and knifes they stand little chance.  One of them draws a sawed off shot gun & takes a pot shot. The battle get’s chaotic and at some point two of the invaders are mortally wounded and the grand piano is badly damaged.

         Sir James manages to elude the monstrous creature and battles it out onto the upstairs landing!  Taking quite a mauling, as I recall; Jason meets him there and between them they manage to beat off this beast that takes huge amounts of damage. It falls and as it expires it changes form into a human, a bald thin, weak looking human who has taken appalling wounds.

         Two of the interlopers downstairs manage to run away out into the grounds!  As the moon light reveals them disappearing into the tree line on the other side of the neatly manicured crocket lawn, Jason lets forth a howl, calling the pack to hunt!

 

Session Played Sunday 21^st December 2008

Players: Jim, Gill, Brian, Les, Ian and Jill

 

         The call was answered by the whole pack (well, other than Marcus & Lucinda who weren't there) and they chased the two Blood Lords down within the grounds of the estate.  They managed to capture them both alive (though one dies later of his wounds in the dungeon) and lock them up in the cell beneath the estate.  Not extensive these dungeons you understand - simply three or four rooms at the end of a dust old corridor with some seriously heavy locked doors and two of the rooms are in use as a wine cellar in any case.

         The group retire for the night - having a few, not too serious wounds to lick.  Craig & Jason attend to the bodies, eventually putting them in the boot of their car & torching it in the wood about half a mile a way.  Before torching the car they did check it out & discovered the sign of a hammer & a swastika carved into the roof felt of the car. They were planning something a tad more elaborate - however, they were interrupted by a couple walking their dogs in the early morning light & had to vanish off into the spirit world in a hurry.  Luckily they were only on the edge of the wild wood & managed to find their way back to the estate with ease (rather than being drawn into the odd spirit world of the deep wild wood).

 

         Marcus came over to the estate - having rung him in sick.  To be honest, he was actually feeling rather unwell.  Rather used, dirty and fading was the best way that he could put it.  Worried - the group examined him using the sense Wyrm gift!  Although the taint of the Wyrm was not apparent, it was obvious that Marcus had been exposed to things that could only be described as ancient and evil.

         Lucinda flew back in from Casablanca and landed at Luton in the wee hours, she hired a car & drove to Epping - stopping of at home for a wash, change and to pick up her own car (a fire red Ferrari if memory serves!), by 11:00 she was at the estate and discussing with the rest of the group how best to proceed.

         Jason & Nett went off to see the Police (Insp. Rex Van Dyke) to see how the case was proceeding. The inspector told Jason that the case was going no where fast.  Infact as the only REAL lead was the Blood Lords & they were a known terrorist group; the case had in fact been handed over to MI5. For some reason this didn't worry Jason very much & they headed off for lunch (something with far too many vegetables).

         Lucinda went off to companies’ house to check up on Clark Conway’s official records.  She spent hours pouring over the accounts and statements registered by the company.  She found out that - Clark Conway used only one firm of solicitors and barristers (James Broadie, Matthews and Sons), they spin off a lot of money out to a horticultural research company (The Institute of Advanced Horticultural Management Research - IAHCMR), they make regular donations the conservative party which are to say the least substantial, they also have business interests within the estate of the Church of England & indeed have their own office within Blenheim Palace, the name Father Paul Grimwald comes up again and again (apparently a senior church banker).

         Marcus went off to see one of his mates & find out what the word on the street was about the Blood Lords.  Marcus found out that the Blood Lords were German and that their symbol was clenched metal shod fist. Word said that the Blood Lords were practically invisible - there were certainly links from them into neo-Nazi terrorist organisations but they were far more contactable that the actual Blood Lords themselves who seemed to act then vanish into thin air. The last time they had been heard of was a few weeks ago when they apparently stole a statue from the Angel of Mercy shopping centre in Oxford Street.  They also raided the Psylo a well know Goth night club though why is another question!

         Sir James was going to go off & have dinner with one of his contacts in Parliament - but I don't think that he ever got round to it.

         As the research facility seemed to the most interesting (and oddest) lead - the pack formed up & drove off to North London to check out the place. Inconspicuous as ever they headed off - Nett and Jason in Jason’s canary yellow Lamborghini, Sir James driven by Janice in the Mercedes, Craig in his beaten up Ford Cortina, Marcus on his motorcycle and Lucinda in her fire red Ferrari! By 10:00 at night they were there - just as the Tesco's mega store on the trading estate was closing up.

         They checked out the trading estate and established that it was a nice well planned out place. The research facility was in the south East corner of the estate and an extensive complex, mainly a huge smoked glass and chrome building - apparently (according the brass plaques) registered with the Ministry of Food & Fisheries.  There appeared to be two security guards but the place was shut for the night. Sir James gave a £50 note to a tramp who wanted a cup of tea & Jason & Nett checked out the Umbra realm - discovering that indeed the South East corner of the estate was shrouded in weaver spirits and evil clawing black fog which felt as it was part of the cold evil of the darkest night.

         Convinced that (for once) they had a clear object of the Wyrm to battle, the entire pack (led by Sir James as the opener of the Way - him having by far the highest Gnosis) headed off into the Umbra - entering into the Dark shadowy area. They penetrated the area & passed back into the real work through a murky pool of horrible dark muck. The passing through the area left them all feeling rather dirty & weakened - though none of them actually fell foul of the sickness of the place.

         Back in the real world, they found themselves in a huge lab & going through one set of doors - immediately noticed a huge hole in the floor with an elevator leading down into the depths.  Waving to the security guard in the next room (who could see them through the glass walls) they got onto the elevator & descended into the depths. The guard done little but gesticulate at them & pick up the phone.  The lift descended into the darkness going down some 260ft.  It was pitch black & the pack could see nothing until Sir James (again taking charge) issued forth the Lambent Flame that is the birth right of the Silver Fangs.

         The light revealed a nightmarish cavern huger than the 100 ft illumination of the fire. The chamber was filled with obscene twisted plants, foul smelling pools of ugly bubbling black mud and strange "chittering" noises.  In the distance, the pack could hear flowing water.  Jason immediately said "By Gaia, they are attempting to poison London’s' waters".  A voice from the darkness (old, crackling and with a hard to place accent) said "and what exactly do you think that you are doing here?” Sir James replied (can't remember what he said) and four creatures (strangle bipedal cat creatures, apparently formed from plant matter) materialised from the floor and combat ensured.

         The four creatures were taken down and a bolt of blue sizzling energy struck Sir James from the West - to all intents & purposes a lightning bolt.  As four more creatures materialised (called the Jagadesh if anyone is interested) we left it as the time in our real world was getting on for 23:45, in the game it was about 22:30 and next session we will pick up the combat in the next round!

 

Session Played Sunday 11^th January 2009

Players: Jim, Gill, Brian, Les, Ian and Jill

 

         The Fight carried on – getting more & more serious by the moment!  The group started getting the hang of things & burning Rage like water, out running and out-fighting the Jagadesh.  Sir James was hit by a massive lightning bolt which all but took his life.  As it was he was left with a permanently damaged lung.  The sorcerer had a just about enough time to relish this slight victor when all of a sudden the Jagadesh were all down & the wolves were on him – he didn’t last long finally falling to a lightning fast charge from Marcus which all but eviscerated him!

         During the fight Jason backed off the lift, noticing that he really wasn’t up to all this combat BS and he really needed to calm down & get a grip on the situation.  Protected by Nett he managed to – having failed to notice one of the Jagadesh creeping up on him in the dark.

         The pack investigated the HUGE room and discovered pods that were growing simulacrums of various notable & influential individuals on the British political & social scene.  They destroyed a lot of these, but noticed that there were many empty pods!  Investigating further they found a second cavern with a boat suspended over an abyss within.  They investigated and noted that the abyss led to water some 1,000 ft or so deeper.  Clearly some form of escape route!  At that point the pack noticed that the lift was heading back up & decided it was time to make use of the escape route.  Pausing only to riffle the stiff (Jason took the sorcerers broad sword, Nett his amulet & ring) they climbed aboard the boat, leaving Craig to operate the winch.

         Craig safely lowered the boat then commenced the legendary climb down.  Amazingly he made it down - though I’m still not sure how!!!  The boat was well appointed & the pack made good use of its resources as they powered up the motor and headed off down the apparently ancient underground waterway.

 

         At about 8:00 in the morning beneath five arch Bridge in Cray’s meadow (south London – near Wood Green) a huge hidden metal door opened and the pack climbed off the boat and up onto the bank.  Minutes later the doors slid shut with a gentle clang. Other than the six battered people in various states of undress – there was little to prove that the night’s violent battles had actually taken place.  The pack made its way via cabs & such back North London to pick up their vehicles, and then headed back to Epping. From there, Jason and Nett headed off to the Hampstead Heath apartments.

 

Session Played Sunday 6^th February 2009

Players: Jim, Gill, Brian, Les, Ian and Jill

 

         Craig, Marcus and Sir James spent much time healing.  Craig (using the Mothers Touch gift) helps the others heal.  Spiritually weakened by his efforts Craig then spent many hours meditating to restore his strength. Sir James heard from Lord Henry Maltravers - the old boy was rather worried and asked what Sir James had been up to!  He said that the word was that someone powerful people were gunning for Sir James and his associates. Sir Henry feared that Sir James and his associates might well be disenfranchised!  Sir James duly arranged to meet with Sir Henry at their club that evening to discuss matters further.

         Jason is contacted by Truefang and told that it’s about time that they met up.  There are some complications talking to Truefang over the phone as Jason knows that his phones are bugged.  Eventually they manage to get the message that they are supposed to meet with Truefang in a city bar called the Exchange.  Travelling from the Hampstead heath place via the spirit world, to avoid the tails and shadows that no doubt wait on the street, Jason and Nett eventually arrive at the Exchange and meet with Truefang’s group.  They exchange notes and Truefang drums home the fact that the pack has to do something about Conway before Conway steps things up a notch and actually tries to snuff them out!  Truefang also tells Jason that he will pop over to the Epping estate tomorrow morning to see if he can be of any service to anyone as he has no doubt that at least one of their numbers must be ready for the rite of acclaim by now.  Truefang offers the exchange as a safe house should they need it and mentions that the place opens weird hours - essentially call Graham (the bar tender) twenty four seven and things can be made to happen.  Truefang is very interested by Nett and some of the things that she is carrying (and being followed by) but is enough of a gentleman not to push the point.

         Jason and Nett head of for lunch then head over to Epping to brief up the rest of the pack before Tomorrows meeting with Truefang. 

         At the estate things are “afoot” Janice and Lucinda are burning up the internet trying to protect the fortunes of their respective interests!  It is apparent (after Sir James’ warnings) that there are hostile forces out on the net that are moving to make their various fortunes a whole lot less valuable.  Despite some late night tension with the oriental markets, Lucinda believes that the protections that she has put in place will resist most (if not all) of the methods that she can foresee to financially harm the pack.  All at Epping (except for Sir James, who spent the night at his club) - waiting the mornings meeting, the pack turns in for the night.

 

          10:00 - In the morning, a healthy breakfast is had by all, including Sir James at the club.   Truefang breezes in as if he’s known them all for years!  I think he made a good impression and he certainly handed out a card or two for the Exchange!  Craig made a formal challenge to True-fang (a precursor to the rite of Acclaim, nothing hostile or hate filled) and Truefang accepted.  Regrettably for Craig, True-fang made the test a game of chess and Craig lost three games out of three!  Truefang said better luck next time and they parted company.  Again Truefang advised action rather than waiting for Conway to take the initiative.

       Jason and Nett spend much of the day “messing around” or “pursuing spiritual enlightenment” which ever way you like to look at it!  This involved boating on the serpentine and an expensive dinner.

       Marcus heads off to his flat to check on his stuff, only to discover a shed load of bills – things that he’s never even seen – new credit cards, bills for stuff he’s never even bought, threats from the gas and the electric to cut him off revering to earlier bills that he’s never seen! He thinks “bloody hell” and grabs the lot intending to talk to Lucinda who knows about this sort of stuff. He then heads off to get his bike (he’s been driving the work on – remember) only to discover the lock up has been smashed into and the bike is gone. Marcus calls in the law and makes a full report.

          Lucinda continues her work ably assisted by the good Janice (whom she suspects doesn’t 100% trust her to look after this all on her own !), covering the many hacking & dodgy high powered business deal attempts that threaten Jason, Sir James and Lucinda her selves fortunes.

       After the morning’s domestic trauma, Marcus headed off to meet with a mate of his who had promised to bring his work stuff to the pub for him, to save him having to go in to get it all.  Marcus had decided to hand in his notice and didn’t want to go into the Dragon’s den to do it.  Luckily he had mates so this wasn’t an issue.  Meeting at the Mineries at lunch time Marcus and his mate Bob talked about all sorts of stuff going on in the office.  It was evident that things were being tightened up!  Bob didn’t think he’d be long at the firm either as only the “favoured few” seemed to be getting much of the work at the moment - everything was security and confidentiality.  Marcus gave Bob a letter to hand in for him and the parted after a pint or three and a LOT of catching up – it’s about 22:00 and the pub is starting to think about closing for the night! 

        22:00 - Wandering around the area thinking about getting on the tube back to Epping, Marcus suddenly realised that he was being followed.  Suspicious looking city types, all big knuckles and too much gold jewellery (right knuckle draggers) were on his tail!  Odd that that were out this late & appeared to be sober! He wasn’t too worried until he noticed that they were packing side arms.  Heading down towards the river, Marcus took to his toes - followed by the goons.

        Meanwhile Sir James was leaving his club after a pleasant nights rest and a day sitting round smoking cigars, eating rich food and talking to various “old duffers”. He’s about to head home - at the point the realised that he’d sent Janice home last night and had no transport.  Ever the resilient gent he set off at a brisk walk.  After a while, this was getting rather tedious - so our protagonist decided that perhaps public transport might (for once) suffice.  The tube being far too disappointing and claustrophobic - Sir James ventured onto a late bus heading in the right direction to get him home. The conductor wasn’t impressed by being offered a £50 note for the fare but was fairly quickly persuaded of the utility of the situation when told to keep the change (one does this with taxi drivers Sir James reasoned, surely the same logic applies to drivers of busses?)

           Craig is wandering round the house wondering what’s going on. Jason and Nett have earlier returned once more to the Hampstead heath apartments’ to oversee the builders works (something about a 500 gallon tropical fish tank and installation issues - or some such) - when the phones rings.  Marcus has made it to a phone and asks for help!  Craig leaps at the opportunity and reach round the door into the computer room - half inches the keys to Lucinda’s canary yellow Ferrari! 

            Tyres screaming he heads for the East end of London at frankly silly speeds!

            Marcus meanwhile is SERIOUSLY on the run, whilst he was on a public phone (it had to be a public phone as his mobile had mysteriously stopped working) calling the Epping estate for help they actually opened fire on him, wounding several innocent bystanders in the process.  Marcus is in Glabro form and ducking a diving -  he’s managing to keep ahead of them -  but knows it to only be a matter of time before they catch him as they seem to know the place as well as he does and at the very least they outnumber him ten to one!  Meanwhile, fifty or sixty traffic violations later Craig is almost in the right area.  Marcus runs across the road - Craig catches sight of him but is travelling WAY to fast to turn down the right side road.  Handbrake turning; you can almost hear the Ferrari owners club saying “but you can’t do that in a £200,000 car! He heads off down a near road, he screams round a corner and catches up to Marcus - sending one bad guy flying into a wall (splat!) and putting the car between Marcus & the nearest bad guys.

            Quickly realising that it’s Craig here as get away - Marcus piles in (through a window) to the car & Craig puts the accelerator trough the floor (in reverse - can you hear the owners club weeping again?) taking out the two guys rushing at the back of the car (not to mention about £20,000 worth of body work & lady only knows how much mechanical damage).  Slapping it straight into 4^th and gunning the engine, they take off onto the main road heading east back towards Epping. Five minutes further down the road the inevitable happens and Craig finally looses control of the car and rear ends a bus at 65 miles per hour (BANG!) - Wouldn’t you know it - it’s the bus that Sir James is on.  Swerving violently out of control, across traffic trailing body work & bits of engine the car smashes into front of a Chinese supermarket (it simply has to be called Mr. Ping’s doesn’t it?) and continues into the back of the shop, noodles and Soy sauce every where.

            Having been thrown clear of the bus (well actually right through the bus and onto a washing machine rep’s Maestro), Sir James promptly comes to and climbs off the bonnet.  He staggers out of the road onto the pavement and stands there outside Mr Ping’s noticing that the whole world has just gone mad.  Not only are the smoking vehicles everywhere, but by this time there are sirens and helicopters as the emergency services are mobilising themselves to cope with the large number of accidents along the Commercial road.  Also, obviously there is about four or five armed response units descending on the area to cope with the gun fire and the death that the dudes who caused all this have dealt out. 

            Marcus notices Sir James and snaps him out of it, dragging him into the shop.  Craig takes a little longer to climb out of the car - having to go Glabro to rip out of the ruins of the car.  They head for the back of the shop.

 

Session Played: Sunday 24^th May 2009

Players: Brian, Les, Jim, Gill, Ian and Jill

 

<Note: that the account of what happened in the Session is a foul work of fiction constructed by your dearest Storyteller, as he couldn’t find the notes of what actually happened!  Perhaps I shouldn’t leave it for over a year before writing the notes up?>

 

            Ignoring the VERY irate Mr. Ping – Sir James, Marcus and Craig duck out through the back of the shop and into an alley. Sir James is quite a mess, so they pause for a moment whilst Craig uses Mother’s Touch to heal some of Sir James’ aggravated damage.  Marcus - keeping watch - sees another of the gun men coming down the alley, pulling what appears to be an Uzi -  Marcus charges straight into the cross fire, taking a few hits for his trouble, but protecting his distracted pack mates!  He hits the gun man good and hard, hearing the reassuring crutch of bone. Dumping the broken guy in Mr. Ping’s dumpster they head off, making for Mile End and the tube link to Epping.

            They head through the late night street of London attempting to avoid both the Police (who are by now heavily in attendance) and the strange assassins – who are still on their trails. Though they are now having gun battles with the Police in places now.  All our chaps are wounded – so they don’t really want a pitched battle.  Wandering into Bromley – moving through the back streets to avoid pursuit, they suddenly realise that what they though was a police helicopter is probably not – as it’s just opened up on them with mini-gun fire!  Desperate for a quick solution to their deadly problem and wondering what the heck is going on – Marcus pulls up a man hole cover and despite Sir James’s protestations, the plummet into the Sewers of the old East end.

            Heading as best as they can towards Mile end they suddenly realise that something is following them IN THE SEWER.  From the tunnel to the right they see a Black Spiral Dancer in Chrinos form, from ahead three dirty suited guys with automatic weapons and back the way they came there are lights at the end of the long straight tunnel – obviously the authorities are hot on their tails!  All looks bad for our three protagonists when everywhere the water boils with activity – there are RATS all over the place! 

            The suited guys open up – Marcus takes a hit as does Craig, Sir James manages to dodge out of the way!  He yells that “THAT’S NOT CRICKET – WE’RE UNARMED” and goes Chrinos – charging the bad guys.  The Black Spiral Dancer yells something in what sounds like Celtic and let’s rip with what appears to be green fire (Balefire!!!) – Water boils and there are rats flying every where! Ahead the three guys are being swarmed by rats and have a howling Chrinos Sir James in their face – he goes down, equally badly swarmed by rats.  Some of the rats start changing into man rat like creatures! Three of the huge rat things face off with the Black Spiral Dancer and he wades in - two of them vanish and then reappear behind him with massive filthy knives.  They basically gut him in short order!  The Marcus and Craig stager around and are faced by a fully armed SWAT team virtually on top of them!

               Strangely, the coppers move past – down a tunnel to the left as if there’s a wall between the party and they cannot hear the howls and screams of the butchered bad guys! Puzzled Craig and Marcus “power down” and turn to find that things have calmed down a little! One of the Chrinos Rats goes human, picks up the unconscious Sir James and walks towards the groups says “Here’s your mate, you’d better take him away with you – he’s none to well off.  I’m Rumbold, you wolfs had best know that Bromley belongs to the Ratkin!! If you ever come back here you better be flying a white flag well and high or we’ll mess you up good and proper!  We don’t appreciate you bringing your troubles down here – we’ve got enough of our own to cope with. Now, we’ve got an unconscious Black Spiral to torture to death, so you guys need to flock off!”  Answering no questions the rats all Ninja away into the shadows (dragging the smashed and bloody BSD with them) – many of them are hissing at the wolves. 

               Carrying a heavily wounded Sir James and dripping in sewer water, the group leaves the sewers by the nearest man hole cover that’s not in the middle of a busy road - they make it back to Mile End and onto an Epping train!  They pick some bottles of booze off some piss heads and clean the worse of the blood off of Sir James so they can simply appear as a bunch of lads on their way home after a hefty night on the tiles. With an incredible amount of good luck they manage to avoid the attentions of station security!

            Back at the estate Lucinda and Janice continue to fight a seemingly never ending battle of their own against the internet and the forces of all the banks which definitely seem to have turned against them all. Jason, Lucinda’s private clients and Sir James all appear to be under attack from scores of hackers and every conceivable sort of back handed financial practice - all of which seem designed to ruin the value of their stocks and shares.  The battle goes from poor to hopeless as their share values in the Nikkei plummet towards the floor – Janice slaps in a group of resource shifting programmes that she’s been working on that she thinks may hold them off for a few hours!  It seems to be working – Lucinda gets some rest on the office sofa whilst Janice holds the fort.

 

              2:30 am – Marcus, Sir James and Craig get back to the Epping Estate, having taken a circuitous route back.  Patching their wounds up they crash, big time!  Lisa (who was on Night watch at the estate) let them in and helped with the 1^st aid.

              7:30 am - Leaving his Hampstead apartments, an odd hour for Jason – but one has to do what one has to do. Jason has arrives at city airport promptly at 9:00 – perhaps with the weather starting to turn poor, Jason has picked the wrong day to take his Tenth light aircraft pilot’s lesson, but as the appointment had been made for several months – clearly he wouldn’t want to miss it would he  Not only that, there was that bet with Richard Branson at the event hosted by the DTI that he’d never be able to get his Pilot’s license before the end of the year!  If he gets it – Branson has to pay £1,000,000 to the charity of Jason’s choice.  If he doesn’t, well – let’s just say that the line of successful alternative life style shops that Jason owns will become part of the Virgin franchise!   He meets with his instructor Captain Jack Papadopoulos of Ex of the Greek RAF and the lesson goes swimmingly and as normal the Captain congratulates Jason on he excellent skills one more lesson and the Captain says that Jason will have the necessary hours with which to apply for his pilots license.

              All through the morning Lucinda and Janice continue to wrestle with the system!  They are holding their ground but the attacks are becoming so increasingly more and more sophisticated that they are certain that it’s simply a matter of time before their systems (and their respective fortunes) are ruined!

             10:30 - Janice is again holding the fort whilst Lucinda checks to techie stuff on the latest batch of attacks.  She’s getting desperate now and is digging hard on hacker BBS in the states – she’s probably describing the situation a little too accurately, but she’s on a laptop and not the main systems so she’s not too worried.  However, when the laptop display suddenly turns into a swirling black puddle on the screen, her attention is rather focused. “Hi” says and echoing voice from the Sound Card “You’ve reached the Vortex – I’ve been watching your struggles with the CC101 DB Systems!  I’m sympathetic with your plight – I’m an associate of one of your clients the mysterious Mr C. Coltrain.  I can gen you up that you have exactly 14:12:02 minutes before it has 100% control over ALL your assets & then it’s GAME OVER! I have a way to get CC101 off your back, you wanna deal?” Rather desperate now Janice and Lucinda have little choice but to grasp at straws, they can see the end approaching with increasing speed.  They ask for proof of faith and Vortex proves it hands down – cracking two of the nastiest viral attacks in 30 seconds flat!  Lucinda’s been looking after Coltrain’s investments for years and it’s the key that seals the deal “Ok - how much will it cost us?” they ask!

               “0.1%” comes the reply “of the lot!” “Now get a games station linked up to that laptop and do it double quick” They link up a SNES with leads and gaffer tape and a lot of luck. “Now here’s the score – what’s going to happen is that I’m going to down load some shit hot code into the games disk that your going to load into the SNES in a moment – when you run the game the code will hit the system and it will look like CC101 has won, it’ll close in to wipe you out!  But what has really happened is your assets have been hidden from the attacking system!  As soon as it looks like the attack is over, end the game and remove the link to the system – the SNES will ask you for an account number of your super secret Swiss bank accounts, yeah, I know you have them - don’t try to deny it!  Put in the numbers pretty damn quick – yeah, I know the SNES will have no connection to the network at that point – how will that work?  Well let’s just say it’s a little of my magic and why you’re going to pay me so much money!! Anyway, the hidden funds will be lodged in the accounts and your moneys safe – go get some bearer bonds, cash or whatever from Banka De Swiss for running cash and stay off the system until you’re sorted your problems and all should be cool.  Yeah – you don’t trust me at all – but hey in 10:12:02 you’re wiped out!  So slap that disk in and watch the master at work”

              Janice still looks worried but as the clock ticks down, Lucinda slaps Super Mario Cart into the SNES and starts the game “Ok Vortex – go!” – Data immediately starts to hit the Read only game cartridge – the laptop tells Lucida that the download speed is WAY more than her Modem should be capable of delivering! The game plays at about Mach 3 – doing all sorts of crazy things! “On your head be it” says Janice; “its only money” says Lucinda – sweating.  At exactly the time predicted, the ladies boards go dead and the accounts are all emptied; it’s a black moment for the team. All Comms traffic dies and all the attacks seem to stop. Lucinda, with a shaky hand, ends the game and thinking that she has finally cracked, disconnects the SNES from the net!  Immediately it prompts for account numbers – Janice puts in hers and Lucinda hers! The system indicates that data is transferring – again at unbelievable speed and this time with no network connection.  Finally it’s all gone silent – whatever has happened has finished!

             11:00 - Nervous as anything, Lucinda uses Janice’s “swept” line to contact her Swiss banker and query account totals!  It’s all there to the penny!!!!  With a few more phone calls, they arrange a sum of money to be delivered later today – cash £2,000,000!  Leaving instructions with Homer the ladies begin to crumble!  It’s been a long, long time at the keyboards and the drugs are starting to wear off!

              14:30 – the money turns up and Homer secures it in the vault.

              16:00 – Jason and Nett turn up – the happenings of the day are explained to them.  They settle in for a relaxing evening, three of the pack are down and need to be guarded through the night.

              22:30 – Having left the estate quietly and secretly, Nett strides through the quiet halls of the British Museum and pushes the massive door of the hall of Egyptology wide open!  She approaches the sarcophagus of the Pharaoh Huni. She presses the Cartouche in very specific manner and as if by magic a man swathed in black steps forth. “My greetings Nett – three of the brotherhood died when we enquired in New York about the London operations of Clark Conway.  I and Mahmud continue to investigate, but a simple investigation of a commercial bank has set us against very serious people with underworld connections.” 

              Nett replies “The pack here moves slowly – but they lead on this, I only hope for a break through soon!  Conway has begun to move against them”.  The Shade replies “ Hmm, I believe I may have discovered someone here – a minor functionary -  who I can put pressure on – I will know more on Sunday evening – we should speak again at the point.  As ever the Order of Anubis works to further the end of the Silent Striders! Duty and Honor!” He salutes and as he turns, his image flickers and fades. His image fades and Nett is left considering what is happening in New York.   Nett returns secretly to the estate – mysterious these Silent Strider types aren’t they?

            The forces of the world leave the pack to their rest – the night passes peacefully (for all except Sir James – of course!)

 

 

Session Played: 05/09/2010

Players: Jim, Gil, Brian and Les

 

Jason arose early (6:30) and wandered in the grounds of Haranshire hall, playing upon his flute and musing about the nature of the world. At about 9:00 a vehicle was seen coming down the drive - Jason Truefang waved at Jason Fitzmorris and vaulting out of his car jogged over to se him complimenting him on the tune and asking if he was a musical man. Jason showed some interest so Truefang invited the group to the latest gig that night at the Falcon exchange - apparently the latest Belgian Electronic, Experimental Noise band a happy little troop of chaps call DroneQue! Simply an aside of course, as Truefang was actually here to perform a rite of accomplishment for the pack - he apologised as he felt that he should have done this a lot earlier.

          They went to the house and all were woken up (rather early for some of the late risers) - Lucinda had a message on her mobile to ring the Metropolitan police - but obviously pack business took priority. The rite as conducted in the great hall and the pack were all entitle to change up their temporary renown. Both Jason and Craig qualified for Rank two and need to challenge Truefang to achieve those lofty heights. Craig (having failed in a challenge at Chess several days ago) was obliged to once again face off over the board with Truefang! This time the game went entirely differently and Craig won hands down with fools mate and 10 minutes. Jason was then challenged to essentially a game of find the object and had to seek for an small crystal that Truefang hid somewhere in the house - eventually (2 hours later) he located the crystal in a trophy room (filled with animal heads, skins and Sir James decanter collection). Both Craig and Jason were acclaimed as Rank 2!

          In the morning news papers, last nights shenanigans had been written off by the police as Irish Terrorist factions having a shoot out in the East end. Many reports speculated that this was a less than convincing story - but the authorities are sticking to their guns. There were some fuzzy photos of Sir James, Craig and Marcus - but nothing that stood out. Mr. Ping however was being hailed as a "have a go hero" having taken down one of the bad guys with a carving knife - many arguments in the press about the moralities of Mr. Pings actions!

          Lucinda then rang the met - promptly followed by her solicitor! As the loss of her car involved a serious RTA and fatalities the Met were quite aggressive - however, once they heard that she was staying at Haranshire hall, their tone changed rather a lot and they volunteered to send a Chief Inspector round to see Lucinda at 14:00 clearly Lucinda wanted her solicitor to hand so she arranged for one of the senior partners to be there are 13:30.

          Marcus asked the rich souls for help in paying off his false debts! Sir James was only too happy to assist and immediately wrote him out a cheque for £5,000 from his Cootes bank account. Homer then drove Marcus into town to sort out the dept! The bank was rather short at first but seeing the Cootes cheque they rapidly changed their tune and any overdraft was suddenly at Marcus disposal. He turned it down but it was rather tempting and simply asked for a few grand, rather than the tens of thousands which he could no doubt have asked for. Marcus then vanished off to buy a replacement bike (2nd hand of course) and checked that all was cool with his insurance claim.

          Jason wandered back to Hampstead and checked that all was ok - the 500 gallon fish tank was in place and the wide screen TV’s behind, the stereo was in place and the chair at its default location! All was going well with the whale song mediation chamber. Checking his answering machine he discovered that his shops around the country were having issue placing orders for replacement stock. He rang round the various managers (names like Susan Stormcrow, Mooncloud, Sweet blossom and such other alternative affectations) and told them not to worry & that he was on the problem. There was also a call from Inspector Van Dyke and another which just sounded of Comms traffic. He calls the inspector and tells him he's ok - the inspector mentions that the "others" seem to have Jason pre-judged as guilty and he's not chuffed about that "cos it's not right", he's investigating and will let Jason know hen he gets anything. Jason then goes for a walk on the heath having first stepped into the Spirit World.  He talks some Willow spirits and asks them to watch over his property - they say they will, but they'll have to let him know what they want for their services as no ones' ever asked them something like this before.

          The Solicitor (an elderly chap by the name of Symonds) arrived at the house and after pleasantries with Sir James, he and Lucinda held a quick meeting and agreed a statement for the Police. Chief Inspector Smith turned up and all was tidied away - though he was not sure that the insurance company wouldn't quibble with the claim. Lucinda handled a call with Mum and Dad and remembered that she needed to be in Casablanca on Monday for Christmas with Mum and Dad or face the issue of them returning to the UK in a hurry. Vortex got in touch and Janice and Lucinda arranged to pay the chap in the agreed manner.

          Sir James and Lucinda had quick chat and Lucinda explained away the cash flow issues and that cash was indeed the option of the moment. Sir James then headed off for Lunch at the in and Out club. Five courses later at the agreed time the group met up at the Falcon Exchange to partake in the dubious delights of DroneQue! Before the gig Jason had a word with Truefang asking him if he knew any Mages that might be able to identify the sword (not to mention the ring and the amulet) that they had looted from the dead body of the Sorcerer. Truefang indicated that Vincent Du’Lacey the owner of the Psylo was likely to be his best bet - he said that Du’Lacey was certainly a Mage and appeared to run with a group that operated out of somewhere near Kings Cross.

          The gig proceeded and DroneQue lived entirely up to expectations - the new (45 minute) track called "Oblivion" was particularly "interesting". The various muso's (notably Rolf from Antwerp) in the audience were suitably infatuated and the other somewhat deafened/dumfounded. After suitable night caps, the group headed home - Jason to Hampstead heath and the others back towards Haranshire hall and the Epping estate.

          Getting back to Hampstead Jason finds a guy lurking in his doorway - he wanders over and says excuse me. The chap asks for a light. A conversation ensues at one point the guy asks if Jason lives here alone. Jason says "well yes, just me and the Police watching me from over the road and those chaps over there watching - don't know who they are, but cor, don't they look interesting?" Fair enough chief say the guy and shrugging his shoulders he (and the rest of the team who Jason hasn't seen) promptly hustle away.

          On their route back - the rest of the group (in a cab) come round a bend (on the borders of the estate) to be confronted with a lorry pulled across the road. The cabbie does his best, but can do little to avoid the lorry. The ambush is sprung - as the lorry starts up and prepares to depart, 6 armed guys all dressed in day to day clothes, draw guns and step towards the group. Sir James remonstrates with one whilst Marcus piles into two of them. Lucinda charges the other three on her own - getting shot several times and falling over for the trouble. One of those three wanders into the middle of the road and ignoring Lucinda takes a shot at Sir James. The Cabbie - reverses straight at that dude - flattening him. Loosing the argument and his cool Sir James goes Chrinos and piles into the two on the other side of the road - Marcus and Lucinda go Glabro and start regenerating. After much falling into and getting out of ditches the last one goes down! The group set off on foot towards Haranshire Hall - the Cabbie, having seen the shape changing lost it (both his wits and the fare) and drove off in a big hurry.

          Back at the hall a swift drink is had and whilst the tired chaps retire to bed - Craig, having finally got up, is asked to go and see what he can do about disposing of the bodies. Always being up for an opportunity to check out bodies Craig hops to it - another 6 bodies in a shallow grave in Epping and £600 pound in cash plus 6 .38 handguns for Craig’s collection. Craig returns to the roost and the rest of the night passes peacefully, Nett sneaking back into the Hampstead apartments at about 4:00 am!            

             

 

Session Played: 3^rd October 2010

Players: Jim, Gill, Brian, Les, Jill and Ian

 

Jason was up with the lark (for a Sunday) at 8:00 and after a healthy breakfast of something dry, tasteless and no doubt cosmically carbon neutral, he and Nett departed for Henley for his constitutional Sunday morning row upon the Thames.  Nett insisted that they stopped off sometime during the journey for something resembling and normal cup of tea and a bacon sandwich, her not being of the leaf munching persuasion.  Following the no doubt intense cardio work out of the constitutional Jason took Nett to a wonderful Falafel serving “new age” pub for lunch – they then headed back to Haranshire estate as Jason had noted that the cash in his pocket was running a little light and the only ready cash in the party is locked in a safe at the manor house.

Lucinda set off for Heathrow and booked a flight to Casablanca leaving 06:00 on the 24/12 coming getting back into Heathrow 12:00 on the 27/12, as not spending Xmas day and Boxing day with Mum and Dad would rapidly become an issue with matrimonial consequences! Having booked the flight, Lucinda returns to the estate in time for luncheon.

Marcus attempts to obtain tickets for the Psylo for Xmas eve, only to be told it’s sold out and there are none. On finding this out Sir James indicates that no doubt cash can solve the problem on the night “not to worry”!  Someone else remarks that if it’s that popular, no doubt there will be ticket touts!

Lucinda is packing, Craig, Marcus and Sir James are having luncheon when Nett and Jason return.  As they pull into the drive they notice a black car drive away from the gates.  The gates have been forced!  A quick inspection proves that two individuals had entered the grounds.  Raising the alarm the pull the car into the grounds and set off on foot to pursue the interlopers.

Eventually the chase is up and Craig smashes in a door of the garages to confront a chap trying to gain access to the main house.  Craig is in Chrinos, but the guy doesn’t bat an eye lid – he turns with remarkable speed – draws two .45 autos and lets Craig have four shots, nicely grouped, in the chest!  Crinos or not, Craig drops and the guy looks smug for about half a second – at which point Nett bowls in and rips his throat out with one mighty bite!  Barely has the body hit the floor than Nett uses Mother’s touch to restore some health to Craig’s damaged form – he shrugs off unconsciousness and coughing up a bullet, he struggles to his feet.

Meanwhile a similar pursuit has gone down on the other side of the house – behind the Kitchens.  However, this chap is different; he stops running and challenges Sir James to a sword duel on the lawn.  Running and skulking is not honourable he states! He introduces himself as Farouk and admits to being a paid assassin, he congratulates the group on their defeat of Jonas (apparently the other guy) and suggests that if they do not burn the body then their problems will be far from over.  He limbers up with his shining scimitar and it’s apparent that the chap is a world class blades man.  Sir James (an extremely over confident chap) has no problem with the concept of a duel and only worries about not having a blade.  Jason offers him the blade of Cul Maran - not knowing that the black blade is about as suited for a finessed duel as a crowbar with the edges knocked off, he happily accepts.  After much posturing the duel starts. Farouk acts as soon a Sir James raises his guard – delivering a perfect blow that would have pretty much ended the duel there and then!  However, the blow fails to land – the black sword hums into life, its runes throbbing red – it parries the blow at the last possible minute and delivering a devastating riposte that leaves Farouk on the floor with blood pouring from a fatal throat wound.  Shaking off the moments stunned silent, Craig steps forward and in an uncharacteristic act uses Mothers touch to prevent Farouk’s death.

After the drama is over – Sir James feels attached to the sword, clearly it is a champion’s weapon and as a Silver Fang, it’s clear that the “precious” thing should be in his care. Jason takes no issue this and after the group has some written discussion with Farouk (who’s clearly in no fit state to talk) – Jason and Nett head off back to Hampstead.

Jason decides that a possible way to find out about the Amulet and the ring might be to call up a spirit of occult knowledge. Nett suggests (for innocent reasons of course) that they should go to the British museum, which being a place of knowledge and no doubt a focus for such spirits. Departing via the Umbra (to avoid the material watchers on the place) they travel across London’s spirit world (not a pretty place) and reach the museum.  Entering via a mirror in the gents they proceed to the reading room – avoiding the guards by main stealth! Stepping again across in to the Umbra – Jason (aided by Nett) conducts the Rite of Spirit summoning and succeeds; calling forth a spirit that introduces itself as Edward of the Court of Dee. 

They show Edward the artefacts and he indicates that be believes that they are connected with an legendary evil known as Cul Maran who according to Lore taught the blackest sorcery to the Picts and originally came from a far, far more ancient time. He suggests that there are three artefacts that Maran was alleged to carry – his sword (a magically puissant item), his ring (that grants protection) and amulet (that focused Marans will and enabled him to do evil of even greater potency). 

He suggests that if the items are alive then so is Maran! 

Edward then talks AT GREAT LENGTH on the subjects of Elizabethan Sorcery and Occultism. It takes much for Jason to stop him – in the end he asks for Edward to join him again in three days at the place of the Willow Spirits on Hampstead heath.

Nett indicates that she has some private business to conduct and asks Jason to wait for her outside. Oh well thinks Jason – Silent striders – perhaps there’s some ancestor in the hall of Egyptology that she has to pay her respects to.

With Jason now gone - Nett strides through the quiet halls of the British Museum and pushes the massive door of the hall of Egyptology wide open!  She approaches the sarcophagus of the Pharaoh Huni. She presses the Cartouche in very specific manner and as if by magic a man swathed in black steps forth. “Greetings Nett” he says “we have interrogated the functionary that we have located – we have stripped his soul unto shadows! I was not content with this course of action – but you indicated that the matter was of import. The functionary indicated that he understood that the America branch of the bank was purely to funnel money to unscrupulous people in the Americas, the mobs, the drug cartels and even we suspect – Pentax! He indicated that there was no paper trail for these transactions anywhere other than the source of the investments – the Bank of the Church of England, apparently through something called the Lodge of Lambeth” – Nett instructed her contacts about how the UK end of things was going and broke the connection.

Re-joining Jason back outside – they head back to the Hampstead apartments over the dangerous and difficult Umbra cape of London, for some well earned rest!

          

 

Session Played: Sunday 28/11/2010

Players: Jim, Jill, Ian, Brain and Les

 

02:00 am – Cab arrives to pick up Lucinda to take her to Heathrow, Marcus having volunteered to do so, gets up and helps her carry her bags to the cab. Returning to bed, he finds that he cannot get to sleep – tossing and turning, he finally gives up and goes for a walk at about 3AM. It turns out that Jason (over in his Hampstead heath apartment) is experiencing the same problem. Both feel drained – indeed, they have both managed to loose a point of Gnosis!

The group meet up at the Hampstead apartments and unbeknown to all their pictures are taken by the various groups that have the apartments under surveillance.

From the apartments they head off to the “In and Out” Club where Sir James hosts them to and extremely entertaining luncheon – which no doubt will make his expenses rather extreme for January – but hey, Xmas costs us all doesn’t it?

Tickets tonight to the Psylo to see the Blues legend “Ruttling Orange Peel” are procured off scene by Janice who leaves word at the In and Out that all is in place.  After a sterling lunch the group go their separate ways to prepare for the evenings entertainment, agreeing to meet up at 19:00 under the clock at King’s Cross for the short stroll to the nightclub, this will give them time to change into there finest party gear (or what passes for it) and give them an hour or two for last minute Christmas shopping in the West End.

Marcus asks Nett about what being a Silent Strider means as he’d noticed that their wolf forms were very similar and finally sussed that Nett has been on the tribe scene all her life and could no doubt teach him some very useful lessons should she wish to do so. Nett seems happy enough to take Marcus under her wing – what will come of this only time will tell.

At 19:00 they meet and parade in all their finery to the nightclub. It’s busy as hell, but having tickets and being turned out as rich buggers they get in without too much ado.  The club is a fine opulent place, with many interesting architectural weird features.

At the club there are all sorts of interesting people – at the VIP bar a weirdo hippie is strumming on a guitar talking to an odd looking chap in a lab coat and a pissed Druid who’s lamenting the fall of Clam McLeod. The chap in the lab coat vanishes promptly as a Goth pimp turns up to buy drinks, saying that he has to check in his fridge.  It’s evident from the fawning of the waiters and the bar staff and the security that the Goth Pimp is none other than Vincent Du’Lacey, the owner of the Psylo and the Mage that the group has come here to see!

There are others here of interest – of course. James Caan and his new bride are here. Hugh Grant is lurking away, drinking heavily and trying to forget/hide from the Divine Brown incident and the attention of the Media. Keith Richards turns up for the gig as Ruttling Orange Peel is an old Blue hero of his and promptly vanishes back stage to support the old guy – clearly they jam on stage later, which makes this a pretty legendary night for those into this kind of music. 

Not being exactly music aficionados the pack does it’s best to blend in – they also notice as beautiful red ball gown dressed woman lounging with her entourage, the woman is VERY pale and shows out as not human and very cold – the pack peg her as an old and possibly quite powerful Vampire; her name is Margaret Percy.  Lecturing at another bar is a man who also seems cold – but is not apparently a creature of the Wyrm – he talks much about Jewish mysteries and occultism to a crowd of Goths that seem “into” this sort of thing; his name appears to be Saul Bendracht.

A pretty young kid kicks up all sorts of stick, angrily telling folks that this isn’t a proper Goth club and that they should go to the Bar to be Right (nearby) if they want PROPER Goth entertainment – she’s a right fire cracker and everyone seems to treat her with much more respect that her age would indicate; they make out her name is Mary and that NO WAY is she either a Vampire or of the Wyrm. Sir James gets talking to Mitchell Savoy – a charming chap who passes his card to the packs resident aristocrat saying that he’s welcome at his club - the guilty pleasures - anytime.

Once the gig is over – which seemed to be to none of the packs taste (but they enjoyed DroneQue – go figure!) – the group manage to get into see Vinnie who invites them upstairs to his residence. A Voodoo priests and Harlem pimps crash pad. They get round to business and Vinnie tells them a thing or two about the artefacts. With all the accoutrements which one would expect from a Mage of Vinnie’s tradition (and more to the point – those that a bunch of Werewolf’s would expect of a Voodoo Priest) Vinnie uses some Level one and two Entropy and Prime effects to examine the artefacts.

The Sword – Sir James produces (not that anyone’s realised that he’d had it with him all day – least of all he himself – it just hadn’t felt right to leave it behind) the Sword to all’s consternation and Vinnie gives it the works – he says that it’s clearly bloody old and of pre Roman manufacture, the runes are a mystery to him, but he thinks he recognizes them! He says he’ll look in to that and get back to them.  However, it’s clearly bound with spirits of combat and a mighty puissant item that could turn even the most pathetic of swordsmen into a veritable killing machine – there’s many spirits in the sword says Vinnie and they are all rather nuts – he’s not sure what keeps them in check and under the control of the wielder other than main strength of will.

The Ring – The ring Vinnie says is forged, again, in some ancient era and although the Magik is very complicated and alien to the way Vinnie does things – he feels that it is an item of protection. Vinnie goes on to state that the ring needs to be turned on and that it’s probably a simple spoken command to do so.  Without the ring being tuned on, he can’t tell the pack much more about how it works – he suspects that the command is on the ring somewhere and that some kind of condition would reveal the words, probably in some kind of Antediluvian script which you’d need to be able to read. Vinnie thinks that the condition that will reveal the hidden inscription is something to do with cold, but he can’t fully figure it. Again, he says that he’ll look into it and get back to the pack.

The Amulet – Vinnie congratulates Nett on the Amulet that he notices she’s wearing, but doesn’t shed any light on that for the pack, as clearly that’s their business and not his. He says that the Amulet of Cul Maran is a sorcerer’s focus – it’s bound to Cul Marans Magick and in his possession makes his Magick far more potent.  To someone who doesn’t use Magick the way that Cul Maran does.  It’s pretty much a lump of pretty ancient metal and whilst probably worth a fair penny as a curiosity – mystically its worth bugger all.  It’s no good to Vinnie as he doesn’t use Magick in the same way as Cul Maran – he’s a Euthanatos Mage whilst what Cul Maran is, is anyone’s guess. Vinnie suggests that letting Cul Maran get this back would be even worse than him getting the Sword and the Ring back.

They arrange to meet Vinnie again on Boxing Day – at Haranshire estate, so that Vinnie’s got a chance to look into the items he’s seen and so that he can have a look at the mysterious box that was found under Jason’s flat in the Docklands.

Meanwhile downstairs Marcus has noticed that there is more that one Blood lord lurking around the place. Alerting Vinnie to this problem (his place, his problem – the pack rationalise) – Vinnie doesn’t seem concerned (knowing the powerful people in the place at this time – he knows that the Blood Lords would get mashed if they started anything) the pack takes its leave of the Psylo and heads back to Haranshire Hall. The group retire early, no doubt much wrapping of presents is to be done and that’s why they are hitting the sack early?

Sir James attends midnight mass at St. Godolfs’s

 

 

Session Played: 13/02/2011

Players: Jim, Brian, Les, Jill and Ian

 

Far away from our heroes – in the warm climbs of Casablanca, the Hawkwood-Smythe family are having an excellent Christmas – which is keeping Lucinda’s Mum rather happy.  The good lady even forgets to mention prospective husbands to Lucinda until almost 19:00 on Christmas day; clearly the inevitable “heated discussion” rather ruins the day.  However, one suspects the family Christmas wouldn’t be the same without such heated discussion.

Back in Haranshire Hall the group are in the same place for the first night in a long time!  Surely on Christmas night of all nights all will be fine – of course not!  The clock strikes midnight and nothing in the house moves, not even a mouse; well that’s not completely true – plenty of mice are moving and other lesser creatures too, but that doesn’t scan very well does it?  Anyway – back to the point everyone’s asleep, even Sir James (which would surprise him as normally he’s leaping round the room screaming, but he can’t be surprised right now as he’s asleep) sleeps the sleep of the righteous!

Sir James is rather surprised when he awakens, it’s not the fact that he’s awake that concerns him (he’s rather used to waking up suddenly – normally screaming) it’s the fact that there’s sun shining through windows that shouldn’t be there, a normal door (instead of the armoured digital lock that normally prevents him running screaming through the house) and a raging fire in the fireplace that was bricked up 30 years ago! More, it’s clear that there’s a chap in the chair, smoking a pipe.  Sir James can see his crossed legs with the stripped pyjamas and feet wearing carpet slippers. Sir James arises, slips into a dressing gown and introduces himself – the chap is quite elderly and wears a fez over his night-time attire. The man says it’s not normal to “do the job” with a candidate like Sir James and that they wouldn’t be bothering except a truly powerful spirit had insisted upon in. He looks at his watch and “hurrums” – well he says, as we’re breaking the rules perhaps you’d better get your pack mates so we can continue?

Sir James departs to get the others – each of them is resident in their own dream and Sir James wanders in to request their company in his dream. All are quite content to do so, even Jason – who couldn’t recognise who Sir James was – one can only suppose that Jason’s dream was rather dull and that the prospect of visiting within another’s dream intrigued the old hippy. The whole pack then returned to Sir James room for some explanations from the old man.  Collecting himself the old man once again “hurrums” then says – “you mustn’t laugh – but I am the ghost of Christmas past and tonight you will be visited by three spirits”. He proceeds to take the group on a tour of some of the significant dates in Sir James’s past – the first Christmas that Sir James can remember and the First Christmas following the deaths of his parents. Not a great deal happens other than Jason and Sir James talking to the Grand Old Oak in the middle of the grounds (a burned stump in the present – but a healthy ancient tree in the past) something Jason says to the tree gives it a clue to it’s future. 

The old geezer vanishes and the Ghost of Christmas present turns up (a Mary Poppins type) she takes them to the grand room down stairs and shows them just about opening their Xmas presents – Marcus glances at the clock and sees that it’s about 13:30. Promptly on the half hour two SWAT types smash through the windows along with some Chrinos form Black Spiral Dancers and start dealing out death. They are tooled up with grenades, automatic weapons and a bad attitude. Vision Jason legs if for the Umbra after a sound kicking, followed by Vision Nett who dodges most of the bullets – only getting winged, Vision Sir James takes a grenade to the lap – which kind of ends his day, Vision Marcus takes a Silvered fighting knife to the Chest and Vision Craig manages to get himself brutalised – virtually loosing and arm and a leg before passing out.  Mary Poppins leaves and of course is replaced by the Grim Reaper who takes the group to the funeral of Vision Sir James and Vision Marcus – Vision Craig is at graveside but is a shadow of himself - in a wheel chair missing a leg, an arm and eye with a armed police escort and Vision Jason and Vision Nett are far from the grave side and dressed in a manner that suggests that they are distinctly on the run. The Reaper gestures and in a harsh voice says “!!! LEARN THE LESSON OF THIS VISION WHICH IS YOUR YULE TIDE BLESSING !!!” and promptly they are all back in their beds at dawn on Christmas day.

Rushing rather, they note that the Great Oak is off course still alive and never got struck by lightning.  Only the fact that Jason never remembered his dreams enabled them to learn from their Vision and start planning to change their fate – Sir James sends the Simpson’s away (as he doesn’t want to have them exposed to any danger) – Janice is away anyway (as she always takes Christmas and Boxing day off). Sir James plans to cook Christmas dinner himself. The Vicar is due at 16:00 and the death squad is due to beat up the pack at 13:30 (thanks to Marcus and the clock – they are able to be that precise) – so Sir James announces that dinner will be at 11:00 at little uncouth and early - but today’s business is of course rather pressing! 

Presents are exchanged (much Platinum changes hands) and then Sir James heads for the kitchen, rolling up his sleeves – only to find Marge hard at work – together they continue to prepare and cook. Marge leaves extensive notes for her boss before she agrees to actually leave. The rest of the pack begins elaborate and violent plans to repel the assault. Marcus dons a breastplate off a suit of medieval armour and Craig starts building traps to line the floor inside of the windows with nails.

Christmas dinner turns out to be excellent and the group depart as their various alarms/watchers tell them that interlopers are in the grounds. Elaborate plans are hatched to take out the two groups of interlopers when Sir James simply goes Chrinos and calls the pack to the hunt.

They charge off into the woods and take out the Black Spiral Dancers (a party of three) with VERY LITTLE effort and then head off to what turns out to be two VAN LOADS of tooled up humans preparing to storm the house.  They wade in and with, again surprisingly LITTLE EFFORT take out 8 of the bad guys and captured 4 of them – at one point during the fight they thought that there might have been someone else off scene involved in the battle but no other threat emerged. At about 14:30 all was clear the captives were carried to the Haranshire hall dungeons, along with their arms and one of the vans.  The other van was filled with the bodies and Craig drove it away – quite where he was going with this particularly nasty cargo I don’t know – I’m sure the workings of the mind of the Mad Repo Man will be revealed in due course!

Of course 16:00 came round and Father Thomas turned up to discuss the traditional Haranshire Hall Boxing Day’s activities. It was agreed that the Donking Day Service would start as planned at 10:00 on Boxing day at St Godolfs’s church and the barrel race would start as normal at the top of the South Field at about 11:30.  The volunteers would be around at 09:00 to deliver the kit for the race and set up the bunting.

After such busy a day and with the promise of another busy day tomorrow the group enjoys drinks until the wee hours and then all crash at Haranshire hall once again.  After all, they do need to make an early start and sort out the prisoners in the morning!  They can’t leave them chained out down in the dungeons whacked out on sedatives forever can they?

 

 

Session Played: 20/03/2011

Players: Jim, Brian, Les, Jill & Ian

 

Sir James attended the early morning St. Donking’s day service at St. Godoff’s church and then retuned to Haranshire hall where moves were afoot to prepare the grounds for the days festivities. The day went of SURPRISINGLY well – with absolutely no trouble at all the above high street team stole the below high street team – winning the victors keg! The loosing captain was promptly bathed in the remains of the spoiled kegs and all the locals had a fun day and the pack watched the ancient tradition go off with much amusement. The only slight strangeness in the papers was the highlighted event of the burning of De’Turville manner – another priceless family home up in flames!  Clearly the nation is going to wrack and ruin. 

Vinnie came round that evening as promised and pointed out what they had asked him to find out was tough work.  He didn’t expect progress for some time if at all – finding someone that understood the pre-human languages that the pack needed translating was interesting but Vinnie certainly was going to get involved with the kinds of nastiness that he’d have to get involved with to sort their problems out – the best he could offer was to offer that if he found someone friendly who was in the know then he’d point them the party’s way – the pack accepted the offer and Vinnie pointed out that it might not be worth them holding their breath over this!  Simply protect the items and keep them away from Cul Maran!

Vinnie took a look at the Box and indicated that he though that it was the “Box of Delights” a prison for an ancient Chinese god. Open the puzzle box and it would grant the wishes of the opener BUT it would twist the wishes as much as possible in an attempt to win its freedom and damn the soul of the opener. A horribly dangerous thing in Vinnie’s view – he promptly offered to buy it!  The group, whilst intrigued weren’t in the selling mood and kind of came to the conclusion that the best place for the box was probably at the bottom of Mariana’s trench!

Jason & Nett headed off to Hampstead heath for their next appointment a rendezvous at midnight with Sir Edward of the Court of Dee, at the place of Willows.  Getting there rather early they spoke with the Willows who said that they had noticed mortals breaking into the house that he had asked them to watch – they’d have told him about it – but they had no way of reaching him. He suggested that in future they contact him though the great Haranshire Oak – they duly agreed. Still, they wouldn’t ask for anything.  At that point the place went strangely cold and the Spirit of Sir Edward tuned up.  He still had little to tell them.  However, he offered to summon up “something” that would be able to read the text on the items – should they be willing to pay the price.  Less then keen, they rather ended the audience promptly and decided that have traffic with Evil Elizabethan Sorcerers probably wasn’t the wisest course of action.

Heading for the flat - they noticed that it was till being watched! Jason knocked on the window – the chap claimed to be with the gas board. Jason pointed out that the flat had been visited by bad people and that further had likely had a bomb planted within.  He suggested that the gas board might know some people who would fix the problem.  The man made phone calls and came back – essentially he told them to bugger off for a couple of hours whilst the “gas board” investigated the problem.

Pooping off for a coffee at all night stall near Hammersmith (even open on Boxing Day) Jason & Nett returned in an hour.  The “gas board” chap said all was fine and the problem was gone now – he said that they should ensure that they were at home 10:00 tomorrow as Mr Smith for the “customer service” department needed a “word” with them.

 

 

Sir James was (for some reason) up and wandering the house at about 6:00. He checked on the grounds and found nothing stranger than normal – he couldn’t escape the feeling of a coming storm.

At 8:00 Truefang tuned up for a quick chat with Sir James – telling him about the possibility that he might get an invite to the Albion Ball on news years eve.  He bought Sir James up to speed about the treaty of Albion (the agreement between Mages, Vampires, Werewolf’s and Changelings in London) where by the they were bound to the Peace of King Albion of old and had to meet once a year to ensure that the peace continued and so that tensions could be discussed on neutral ground.  As a new pack operating in London, Truefang felt that they were likely to be invited – especially considering Sir James’ Austere Howl background and the fact the Truefang was currently considered persona-non-grate by the powers that be.  On request he offered to once again conduct the Rite of Accomplishment – he challenged Sir James and Marcus to a Chess game for advancement to 2^nd Rank - Sir James succeeded, Marcus failed (this time!).

At 10:00 three chaps visited Jason and Nett. Two were obviously heavies, carrying themselves with military confidence and clearly armed.  The other would not have looked out of place along side George Smiley in tinker, tailor, soldier, and spy! The older chap introduced himself as Chief Inspector Smith of the Westminster Constabulary – whilst sticking to that identity he pretty much indicated that he was MI5 and here to debrief them. He said that despite indications from the highest levels he was satisfied that the Jason was not guilty of what he was suspected of.  He offered a formal apology and said that as of him leaving the phones would no longer be tapped and Jason would no longer be watched.  He indicated that they were aware of something strange going on with Jason and his associates, but that the matter was not one for his department to deal with and had been formally closed as an anti-terrorist investigation. He gave Jason a card and said that if he needed assistance with these “odd” matters that the “gas board” had a department that would be VERY interested in talking to him. The card read DCS Smith – Department S - and gave a West London phone number – call anytime the number is manned 24/7 he said.

However, he was still concerned about the national status of Nett. He reached into his pocket and drew forth a brand new passport, which he tossed onto the table.  He said that he hopes this “favour” would help to eliminate any possible bad blood caused by the investigation and might convince Jason and Nett that the authorities were indeed on the side of the common man – again he highlighted that the department might be able to help! On that he once again offered his apologies and departed –wishing them a good day and Jason continued success in his business endeavours.

Marcus made the most of the rest of the day.  He went to see Stan the Man and Drongo – sorting out various matters and getting out money to pay off his perceived dept to Sir James and Jason. Said debts were paid and Marcus secured himself a position with Sir James household, working for Janice and Homer as mechanic (in the garages on the estates) and general assistant to the household – Janice put him on £3,000 a month to be going on with.

Craig (after dark) – with the assistance of Marcus, ensured that the entire captive population in the dungeon were VERY well sedated and the proceeded to load them into the black van.  Driving out of London – clockwise round the M25 they dumped the captives at various places, ensuring that each was still breathing and at least had a chance of not dropping dead of hypothermia on this cold December night. The dumped the last at the first service station on the M4 and headed of towards Gatwick to pick up Lucinda who was due to touch down at 4:30 Friday morning.

 

 

Session Played: Sunday 18^th April 2011

Players: Jim, Gill, Brian, Les, Ian & Jill

 

We start the day with Craig and Marcus at Gatwick awaiting the return of Lucinda from her Christmas vacation with Mum and Dad in Casablanca.  The flight is delayed – the pair gets the run around from the desk staff at the airport. Getting annoyed Craig and Marcus have a good look around and notice that other planes are landing ok and there appears to be a heightened police presence at the control tower. Clearly there's something up!  Wandering around the Umbra they gather more information and find out the plane has been sky jacked and re-routed to Turnberry Airport in Scotland. Craig rings Jason and the game is afoot!

Craig and Jason borrow a fast car and hit the motorway heading north – keeping it legal, but putting the miles behind them as fast as they possibly can.

Jason, Nett and Sir James head for the city airport and contacting Jason's flying instructor (Captain Jack) they take to the skies. Not only heading for Turnberry airport but also knocking up enough time on his flying license to get Jason a license before the end of the year.  As far as the system is concerned this is Sir James flight and Janice has already rung ahead booking rooms, renting a car to meet them and the airport and importantly getting them a game at the famous golf course for Saturday morning.

Meanwhile – on the plane Lucinda is coming round after clearly having been drugged.  The kidnappers appear to be (from conversations over heard whilst Lucinda feigned being out cold) an Arabic gent – called Aziz Tefnanti, a big guy (clearly a Black Spiral Dancer from his demeanour and rank smell) by the name of Baletender and shifty looking American who the others call Bobby the Needle (or the prick when they are feeling annoyed with him).  Aziz spots that Lucinda is faking it she goes Glabro and hacks into Baletender, he starts to turn Chrinos – Aziz forbids it! Lucinda smacks him again & gets lucky knocking him into a nearby loo. He's up like lightening and hits Lucinda HARD – something breaks and Lucinda falls, with a huge syringe in his hand Bob give Lucinda a monstrous injection that makes her first feel sick then pass right out!

Later the plane touches down at Turnberry.  The group are there to meet it, but they can't get access to the airport as it's crawling in military.  Once the plane touches down, there's some intense negotiation and all of a sudden it is his by gas grenades.  In the confusion, the Special Forces storm the plane. Baletender is killed and carried out to a refrigerated meat wagon – it would appear that whilst the Special Forces were storming on end of the plane, Aziz and Bobby snuck out the cockpit door and vanished.

Lucinda and the other passengers are taken off the plane to hospital – where an announcement says they are spending the night under observation in case there is an adverse traumatic effect from the ordeal.

The group retire to their five start hotel - dreadful how they are forced to rough it at every turn :-)

 

After a leisurely breakfast and round or two of golf the group picks up Lucinda from the hospital and picking up her luggage they retire once more to the rough accommodation of the five start hotel.  After a leisurely lunch and much pleasant conversation they head back South to London.  Jason flies the plane (a bigger one this time – with Captain Jacks help) and they touch down at city airport at about 22:00.

Captain Jack says that he feels confident that Jason has achieved his pilots licence and is willing to file the paperwork right there and then! Not that anything will happen with the paperwork till Monday morning – but this does mean that Jason will have won his bet with Richard Branson – Result!

Heading back to the Haranshire estate the pack notices that the pressure appears to be back on.  They are most certainly being followed.  Marcus identifies a Blood lord (aka skinhead nutter) and Craig several heavies – one of which he recognises from the adventure in the sewers.  Clearly someone’s on high alert!  The group get back to the manor with no incident – only to find an invite to the Council of Albion awaiting them – as per True-fang’s warning. 

 

 

Session Played: Sunday 10^th July 2011

Players: Jim, Gill, Brian, Les, Jill and Ian

 

          Awakening, the group gather for breakfast and Sir James explains the invite to the Council of Albion to them (to the best of his ability). He let's them know what they'll need for the night then settles down to a large plate of devilled kidneys, in an almost dismissive fashion. The pack decants, to attend to their various different activities. Jason, Nett and Craig head to the flat near Hampstead Heath. Lucinda heads off to her Kensington apartments. Sir James and Marcus remain at the estate – Marcus talking to Bart about his various duties and finding out that they are more “odd job” man, as Bart appears to be the grease monkey of the house. Lucinda discovers that her flat has been turned over, not recently – she suspects, but rather thoroughly.

          They all attend to getting their masks sorted out for the Council – which is apparently a masked affair.  Jason purchases a Lone Ranger type of mask, Nett a cat mask and Craig obtains a Witch Doctors mask in teak from one of Jason's shops.  Obviously, Sir James attends his Saville Row tailor and attempts to buy a mask. Rather wrong footed when asked for such an item (not normally on of their standard renditions of sartorial elegance) the resort to the records and come up with a top hat made for a funeral director – it has a roll down face veil & thus they felt counted as a mask. Sir James exclaimed that it was excellent and put it on his tab.  Marcus went down to Epping and purchased some new clothes and something in a domino mask from a costumer (I think he did, memory's a little light on this). I'm afraid that memory is a COMPLET blank as to what form of mask that Lucinda choose.

          Throughout their various shopping trips, the pack notice that they are (once again being followed) – as they are confident that it's not the spooks or the police any more, they figure it might be something a little more significant. Certainly, those that are doing the following are of the Blood Lord persuasion or (at the very least) large and Arian in nature.

          Later that evening, back at Hampstead Heath – the Willow Grove tells Jason that something is wrong at the apartment and that he and his guests are being watched by bad men who seem to be planning something – certainly, they gathered in his wake as he walked to the Willow Grove and appear to be waiting for his return. Perhaps they wish him hard suggest the Willows. Checking he finds that there are five Blood lords and a large Germanic looking chap in abuse for him upon the heath. The large chap has the mark of the Vampire about him. 

          Returning to pick up Craig and Nett, Jason gives battle. Craig creates a distraction by jumping on parked cars and setting of alarms then proceeding to munch several car tyres.  The three of them give battle and not one of the Blood Lords escapes the scene of carnage on the heath. The Vampire, clearly in the grip of some sort of mystic ritual, seems to be immune to damage and capable of wielding strength vastly greater than his physical form would suggest. Eventually he goes down ageing into the form of a 90+ year old man. A cursory search of the bodies reveals little other than a note on one of the gangers in German sighed Balthamus. Leaving the heath before the police arrive to investigate stories of screams and the BEAST OF HAMPSTEAD HEATH, the group return to the apartments by a circuitous route. Before going to bed, Jason rings Sir James and leaves a message of warning with Homer.

 

 

          Upon the morn, Sir James rises early and goes to church. Completely failing to talk to Homer (who gets up late on a Sunday) he drives himself to church (enjoying the novel experience – it's Janice's day off after all) he enjoys the sermon and leaves his traditional donation of two £50 notes.

Going outside he sees a bunch of youths messing around with his car. Greeting them in his normal hugely confident manner, he completely fails to notice that they are trying to threaten him. No chance of a test drive on of them asks – no problem, hop in replies our protagonist. Perhaps it's his confident nature, perhaps it's his charming manner, perhaps it's the black rune sword that he takes from beneath his coat an places on the passenger seat without a conscious though, but the youths become less threatening an a little more polite. Sir James drops them at a less than salubrious council estate and with a nonchalant “stay out of trouble boys” he heads back to the estate.

          Later they arrive at the Mansion house, some by cab – some in a Limo. Obviously, they are expected! They are shown upstairs by extremely competent and professional staff and taken into the presence of Lord Edgar Whitestone – a TROLL.  He introduces himself as Lord Chancellor of the Kingdom of Roses – a Changeling and their host for the evening.  He proceeds to explain to Sir James and his guests the details of their duties. That the Council is a voicing ground for the year, a chance for the powers to announce things that might be of concern to the other powers so that they can stay out of each other’s way and not damage the wider Kingdom of Albion with their contests and conflicts.

          With an hour to the meeting – the group are taken to the library and told that their footman will be there to escort them to the Council meeting promptly 5 minutes before the hour

 

Session played: Sunday 21^st August 2011

Players: Jim, Gill, Brian, Les, Ian and Jill

 

The Council of Albion

 

            The footman arrives and escorts the pack downstairs through the Egyptian hall and down into the secret vault of the Council of Albion. This vault is a huge room, some 700 ft on a side.  In the centre of the vault is a stepped dais with the council table upon it.  Forty feet about the table on the ceiling is a huge hemispherical shape that seems to have a fiery eye within.  Around the wall are gathered some sixty to seventy bronze warrior statues. Six stairs lead up to the table from the floor of the chamber and at the foot of each stair way is a group of easy chairs – clearly for the councillor’s companions. Sir James ascends the stairs and joins Lord Edgar at the table, the pack takes its seats at the foot of the stairs and Jason starts reading the Irish times.

          One by one, the other representatives and their entourages enter the chamber, Mitchell Savoy (for the Mages – drunk), Prince of London, Richard Llewellyn (for the Vampires – accompanied by the elders of the Tremere, Nosferatu and Toreador clans), Edgar Whitestone (for the Changlings of the Kingdom of Roses), Lord Berwin Lidell (for Changeling’s outside of London – accompanied by three of his knights), The Shade of Richard Plantagenet (Alone & only part materialised) and finally Clark Conway (representing his own vast empire and accompanied by five Black Spiral dancers.  The meeting gets under way, with Lord Edgar firmly in the seat -  the Mages lead with a rambling speech about their intent to destroy the evil Technocracy and the Iron League this year, he promises great things from the new Mages at Platform X and also promises to trounce the Vampires at every option. 

          Lord Edgar states that the Wraiths have noting to add and they move on.  The Vampires make their statement the Prince being smoother than smooth and reserving his final statement until Conway and Macintosh have made theirs. From what he says it looks like the Sabbat has an off shoot called the Church of Thorns and that the Church of Thorns is currently working with the Iron League.  He further states that the rumoured return of Mithras is pure rubbish and that the Vampires have proof of his final death during the 2^nd world war, during the blitz.

          Then Conway opens his mouth and begins.  He states that things are rapidly coming to a head and that he intends to finish things with Macintosh this very night, he bravos for a moment or two and then in from the shadows, past the pack and up the Werewolf’s stairs stalks this old geezer, his skin the pictchest black with tattoos of blue wearing nothing but totems, fetishes and charms, he walks with the aid of callipers and a withered Oaken staff. 

          At the table he introduces that he's Blackblood Soulripper and HE speaks for the Black Spiral Dancers. He tells Conway that he's got till the end of January to sort out the Macintosh LADDIE or the streets of London will run with the blood of men and boys. He turns and departs into the darkness, the pack notice the sound of a door opening, screaming and the heavy scent of crude oil – the door slams and it goes silent,

          The meeting goes down hill a bit from there Conway has gone all pale, takes of his bright metal talisman and for some reason slams it down on the table.  He tells Lord Edgar that he'll pick it up next year.  Macintosh's and Conway trade treats (all very civilized – but all deeply serious) for a while, with Conway mentioning the Grand master of the Iron League is Cul Maran and HE'S NOT DEAD – indeed (threatens Conway) he'll be along later to reclaim is effects and you're nothing without that big black sword Macintosh!  So you say, replies our hero and proceeds to finish his statement including his aspiration to Destroy Clark Conway and bring down all the Black Spiral dancers, oh and he intends to rescue the village of Fambridge from it's eternal prison.  At one point, Sir James challenges Conway to a duel, to sort it out one on one – but Conway won't fall for it; claiming that only a fool would go up against that Rune weapon.

          The Vampire Prince then concludes by saying that a war between factions is certainly in no ones interests.  However, these things have to happen every so often -  so the Vampire will stand aside & out of the way of the two factions.  However, they must protect the Masquerade or the Vampires will move to defend it and if necessary, he in person will intervene! However, he tells Sir James that he excuses True-fang his obligation to his treaty with the Vampires for the duration of the conflict as a personal favour to Sir James.

          Concluding a summing up – Lord Edgar asks if there is any other business.  All are reasonably quiet (other than some last minute playground politics between Clark and Sir James) until the Ghost of King Richard steps forth rather commandingly and in the way only a harsh King can, states that from this moment until he states else wise – the grounds of the Tower of London are off limits to ALL sides in the War. Go there and face the final end.  He steps back – his statement final.

          On this (yet another bomb shell) the meeting breaks up. Lord Edgar ensures that he and Sir James are the last to leave.  He mentions that if there's anything that is within his power to assist the Werewolves then the Wolfs would be wise to speak unto the Fae!  Sir James rejoins the pack and they move upstairs to the party.

 

The Albion Ball

 

          Up at the ball, all is sweetness and light!  The beautiful and the not so are mingling and informally chatting Vampires mix with Mages as equals, no one seems threatened by the other parties, all are under the protection of the treaty of Albion – no worries then.  Only our boys the dear old pack know that it's all about to go pear shaped. So they go to work – initially, Sir James is all for heading to Conway and continuing their conversation.  However, he spots True-fang in the crowd and instead takes him aside and essentially tells him to prepare for war.  True-fang, Moire and Green-pelt head off to the Falcon Exchange to “tool up” - he says that they'll be outside around midnight and leaves Sir James his card - “ring when you need some fire power” he says.  True fang doesn't looked particularly chuffed – but the Silver Fanged Sir James runs the roost as far as he's concerned or he'd never have stepped down from the Council in his favour.

          Jason hits the dance floor, showing off some of his funky moves to the string quartet.  Clearly, as we'd all worked out by this point, Mr Fitzmorris dances to his own tune. Nett joins in the dance as the music changes. The tempo picks up to the strains of electric guitar. Dandelion having used a vulgar correspondence effect to move from the dance floor to the minstrels gallery and powered up the Guitar of Guthrie, to lead the strings in rather more modern music.

          Marcus warns inspector Rex Vandyke that there may be trouble later – Rex, whilst grateful for the tip, says “are you mad? That's the head of MI6 over there, that's the Lord Mayor of London, and that's the chief banker of the Church of England – have you any idea how much security is actually lurking about this place? Still, hope you know what you're doing – don't make me have to nick you later mate!”

          Sir James gives True fangs card to Lucinda – who immediately programmes it onto her phone – speed dial to number 3.  Coming up to 11:30, Jason, Nett, Craig and Marcus head outside, through the servants entrance out onto Mansion House place and wait in the shadows for the trouble to start. At 11:55, Sir James arrives at the front of the Mansion House and begins to slowly walk down the left hand stairs, quietly muttering under his breath “Clark Conway, you disappoint me”!

 

Session Played: Sunday the 4^th March 2012

Players:  Jim, Gill, Brian, Les, Ian and Jill

 

          Suddenly the whole of the Bank area glowed emerald green in the form of a ritual circle that roughly forms (though Sir James does not know this) a circle that describes the underground passages that around the Bank circus area. It glows like a throbbing LED in the dark brighter and dimmer, dimmer then brighter – quite annoying really. With a crack lightning fizzes up from the entrances to the underground and four packs of ravening undead creatures (elements of the Blood lords neo Nazi coterie) emerge from the underground and as if by magic Conway and his team stand awaiting Sir James in the centre of Bank Circus – Marcus (the leader of the Blood Lords), The Black Spiral Dancers (executives in Clark Conway and associated) Pain Tango, Heatrender, Tripple J, Garnash Foulbreath, Heartbane Blooddrinker & Soultaker. Together with the resurrected Antediluvian Magician Cul Maran and arch enemy Clark Conway himself, holding an ancient sword in his hand; carried like an old friend. 

The undead hordes advance – one into the centre gathering behind the Clark Conway and associated bad guys – the other three head towards the three Police road blocks and begin a frenzied attack on the lightly protected mortals.

          It begins – Clark Conway draws his sword and flourishes at the Advancing Sir James.  He then turns to Cul Maran and says “he appears to be carrying your sword; how careless of you”!  Cul Maran laughs – gestures and the black rune sword tumbles through the air from Sir Jame’s hand into the claw of the ancient sorcerer.  Seeing Sir James disarmed the pack forms up behind their “leader”.  Pretty much to a Garou the pack all take either Chrinos or Hispo form – Sir James from behind the lead shield of his sky rocketing over confidence fails to see attacking an obviously expert swordsman unarmed as an issue and balling his fists advances on Clark Conway (why he feels that Marquis of Queensury rules should apply is a mystery to me).

          Much Rage spending goes on amongst the group and combat is joined at a rate of knots! Craig spends enormous amounts or Rage tuning into a positive whirlwind of death. Cul Maran spends the first round or two of combat recovering his ring and amulet from Nett. Eventually, somewhat cut up by Conway, Sir James gets the picture that he’s going to get annihilated if he fails to do something about it and also goes into Crinos form – finally doing some damage to the seemingly indestructible Clark Conway.

          The packs of Vampires killing police and security all over the place finally start to have a harder time of things as the armed response units turn up and with much “hut, hut” start laying the smack down on the undead spawn of the night – it’s not easy for the dear old mortals, but it is New Years Eve and they have been dragged away from more entertaining events are a NOT IN A GOOD MOOD!

          The fight is complex and I won’t try to give you a blow by blow run down (not least as I can’t remember what happened blow for blow) in essence Marcus takes down Pain Tango, and between her and Lucinda they dispose of Triple J. Nett and Jason remove Bloodrinker from existence and Craig (a blur of teeth and claw) obliterates Hearttaker, Foulbreath and Solutaker.  The whole pack accounts for numerous vampires.  Cul Maran goes into one of those moments where the villain, reacquainted with his items of vast cosmic power, starts describing how badly he’s going to mash up the good guys and neglects to notice that they have him surrounded. Lucina, Jason and Nett do an exemplary job of shredding the old soul and he falls to the ground in a pile of tattered bones, icor and crackling impotent fury!

          Despite being in a duel Sir James and Conway get separated by the tide of the fight and though Sir James howled in protest – claiming Conway as his, Craig hit the arch enemy from behind in the melee virtually ripping his spine out! Conway hit the floor, a mess but still breathing until Lucinda fell upon him and ripped his head away from his body – ending him.

          Frustrated Sir James returns to human from and picks up the Rune sword from the pile of goo that used to be the antediluvian sorcerer. Fortunate really! As from behind him the leader of the Blood Lords is sneaking up on him in final bid for vengeance on the part of the bad guys!  With a contemptuous sneer, Sir James thrusts the mighty sword backwards and up – splitting the Vampire elder in twain and granting him the final death.

          The pack (together with a prideful and damaged Sir James) head back to their base, Jason and Nett heading off to the Hampstead flat.  A swift departure needed to be made as the more perceptive in the pack (Nett) observed military helicopters approaching the scene of the battle and the army was turning out to see of the last of the Nazi Vampire nutters.

          What next? Now that Clark Conway is gone together with all of his executive committee (except Mr Littlebottom – the Basildon lad), Cul Maran once more wanders the land of the dead, Nett has the ring and the amulet again and Sir James again has the sword and a case of frustration against his entire pack. 

Where next?  The obvious treat is at an end – but what of the Blackmoon Soulripper the beats of the North, what of the Church of England connection and what of the village of Fambridge and other equally fascinating side quests? 

For these things and other my friends, you’ll need to check in again for the next confusingly fascinating episode of FINANCE IN PERIL.

 

 

 

Next Session to be played: Sometime before the end of 2013 if I can get on the dear old schedule and not to mention book with one of our dear venue holders J

Players - Hopefully everyone – but let’s not be silly J