October 2011

The Beyond

Finding themselves literally “up a bayou without a paddle” (or a boat at all) and in a rush to return to New Orleans, our heroes (The Bourbon Street Irregulars) found themselves exploring options. Eventually Hugh used the magic of his court, and leveraged the residual magic infused into the archway, and opened a portal into the Boonieyonder. The party was soon stomping through sticky mud under strangely purplish skies. They happened upon a pair of brothers from the Cour de Boue— The Fae Folk’s Mud Court. Diffusing a potentially hostile situation, Hugh persuaded his “cousins” Frank and Beans to grant the group passage, and help them find the “Way” back to Shell Beach. After a brief “shotgun-style” demonstration of Hugh’s miraculous physical immunity, Frank was happy to lead the group to another portal on the edge of Shell Beach. Of course, he made it clear that he expected the favor to be returned at some point.

The Irregulars recovered their vehicles, and Susannah borrowed clothes from her brother. (She may or may not have told him that his boat is at the bottom of the bayou…) On the way home Greer had an unpleasant conversation with her boss Earl, who gave her a formal verbal warning for “wasting department resources by looking into the already closed case of her mother’s death.”

The group cleaned-up and reconvened at Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop gathering in the upstairs apartment. David sent word that he had other matters to attend to, and could not join them. However, Rikard, and a visiting Valkyrie-in-training, Hilda, arrived ready to help. Somehow news of the supernatural weapon (mentioned in the Red Court correspondence) had spread quickly through the clued-in community—The White Council, Monoc Securities, as well as Sugar and Vice—were all interested in “securing” the device. Joseph Luna, the senior warden of New Orleans was also present. He informed Jeanie of some surprising renovations (a false wall) done to her apartment—long before Rikard bought the bar. Warden Luna left frustrated that Hunt seemed reluctant to strictly follow the instructions they had received from the white council.

The Bank

The group arrived at the bank after-hours, just in time to see an off-duty assistant manager lead a group of mafia into the bank. Greer (and Molly) and Susannah walk in after them (with Hunt following under a veil).

Things started happening fast: The gunman alerted the rest of his team already deeper in the bank. Greer received a radio message all available units should respond to a silent alarm tripped at the bank. Molly intimidated the gunman into standing down, and Greer prepared to make an arrest, when gunfire came from the back room. Somehow a group of ghouls were already in the bank. One gunman was quickly killed. Several other Irregulars charged into the bank. Hunt used ice magic to shred one ghoul. Rikard took his axe to a second. The largest ghoul Hilda destroyed with Gungnir (Odin’s spear).

Unbeknownst to the rest of the group, perhaps the largest threat was adverted by Calvin and Hugh who were lingering in the parking lot. Johnny Sunset (a necromancer for Sugar and Vice) had arrived to one-up Santi by sending in waves of undead to take the weapon from Santi, and claim credit for securing it himself. He wasn’t expecting a close combat confrontation. When Hugh recognized him as a necromancer and shanked him in the middle of the street, he backed down quickly, hobbling away, swearing revenge on this group of heroes—and Hugh and Calvin in particular.
[GM free tip: Johnny may be the “Vice” Grimlord—but he is a major threat. He will be nursing his gut wound for a long time, and now has the aspect “The [group] will pay for what they’ve done!”]

Having eliminated the ghoul threat, and with the cops on the way, Hunt and Santi quickly determined that Santi and his men could withdraw letting the Irregulars finish the job. (In reality, Santi is nervous about whatever this weapon is, and trusts the Irregulars are less likely to actually use it then his own employer.)

The party had the assistant manager lead through the mundane vault to the Red Court vault, where the scared assistant manager tripped a magical explosive ward, killing him instantly. The Irregulars narrowly escaped before the police arrived with the 300 lbs. Ammonite fossil they retrieved from the Red Court vault. They left Greer behind to be the “first on the scene”.

Hunt and Rickard worked out a solution to let Monoc Securities claim the weapon. Although not pleased, Joseph Luna decided this problem was now out of his pay grade, and reported to the White Council that they would need to plan an assault on the Plaza Tower or take their complaint to Monoc Securities in Oslo.

The Beignets

The next day the Irregulars went to support Sunny at the CrystalCon / Beignet Fest, being held at the City Park Festival Grounds. The group spread across the festival participating in a variety of activities. Here are a few highlights:
• Shopping at the Crystal Vendors. (Calvin, flexing the most “Resource” muscle, walked away with 5 different “souvenirs”.)
• Greer and Molly tracked down a hippie selling ThreeEye in the commune, which Hugh promptly purchased.
• Calvin discovered a “Loadstone” in the fare, which robbed him of his power—and decided it would be wisest to avoid that area.
• Hilda and Sunny meeting Sparrow, a Diviner, who soul-gazed with Hilda, and foretold of: “A child crying in the darkness”, “Dark shadows moving in the water”, and his own death.

• Sunny also got to know Granite Harlow, who was impressed with Sunny’s ability to solve some longstanding digestive issues he was facing. She later discovered he was the lead singer of Megalithic—when he gave Sunny some great publicity by giving the crowd a graphic description of his digestive woes before and after Sunny’s help.
!!
• John Corvac, the quirky proprietor of the Pharmacy Museum helped connect with Alton Dulka—the self-proclaimed “Geode-mancer.” When sufficiently incentivized, he was able to help Hunt recover a conversation from a burnt-out sending stone that was discarded at the murder scene of Greer’s parents.

• Jeanie’s suspicions that she is being watched have continued and intensified. This time a blind hippie with a seeing-eye dog, and a purple-haired teen carrying a chinchilla seemed to be paying unusual attention to her.

Things were looking pretty upbeat for the party until Susannah got a text from an unknown number saying she needed to be at the activity center. She arrived as a mother was on the brink of becoming frantic looking for her son who had gone missing. Susannah texted Greer, and together they searched for the boy. Molly identifying a “porta-potty” as the most recent place he had been. When Hunt and Rikard arrived Hunt confirmed that there seemed to be recent damage to the boundary between worlds in the area. He retrieved a crystal, some candles, a magic marker, and a map of the festival and locked himself into the Honey-Pot to “get down to business.” Meanwhile Greer had been psychically assaulted by a man sitting on a park bench cloaked in the shadows of a brightly colored parasol. As she prepared to fire her gun into the Honeypot, Molly and Susanna tackled her to the ground.

At that point, a relatively young black court vampire had decided that his ambitious (albeit reckless) plan had been foiled, and resorted to his back-up plan. He mentally activated several “rough thralls” planted through the fairgrounds as a distraction. Suddenly half-a-dozen people went crazy attacking everyone nearby. Sparrow the diviner was killed by the gunfire. Fortunately, many of the Irregulars were still scattered across the park and quickly took care of the thralls. Jeanie rushed through the concert crowd beating one down with a microphone stand. Sunny chased one down on a golf cart. Calvin suspended one harmlessly in the air. Hugh threw a handful of hypodermic needles into the eye of another. Greer shot another thrall while Rikard and Susannah tag-teamed the vampire. In the end, Rikard used his hammer to knock the vampire’s magically enhanced parasol to the ground, exposing it to the sunlight. As it took on a gaseous form Susannah ran it through with Solomon’s Guard.

Hunt triumphantly emerged from the Honeypot, his spell outlining specifically the exact location of all the recent breeches between worlds. This allowed him to see the specific location the Honeypot had been moved from. The dying vampire had dropped an old Indian blade to cut an opening into a small, dark, pocket dimension where a young boy was crying in the darkness. The family was reunited as CrystalCon / Beignet Fest was abruptly canceled in the late afternoon.

Loose ends

Immediate loose ends:

• Tonight, at 9 pm, a ferry leaves the French Quarter to Algiers point. This is only remarkable because the Fomor seem interested in covertly recruiting people to be on that ferry. Apparently, “the view of the fireworks will be spectacular.”

Long-term loose ends:

• Joseph Luna revealed to Jeanie has discovered there is a false wall on one corner of her apartment in the Lafitte Blacksmith Shop Bar. Although it has been decades since he has been to the bar at all, much longer since he has been upstairs.
• Content Not Found: giaus-proctor’s church, “ Victory After Mortality Parachurch” has moved to meeting in the Superdome. He has openly declared himself a vampire, although most people and the media don’t take him seriously, the parishioners love it. Every month the crowd grows. Hunt has been asked to investigate, but prudently—the White Court are members of the Unseelie Accords, so openly hostile actions would have … implications.
• For the last few weeks, Jeanie has had the strong feeling that something is watching her.
• A couple weeks ago, there was a mysterious murder copycatting the Louisiana Axe Murderer from decades ago. Paul James (Susannah James’ brother) has been assigned as the lead detective on that case.
• Johnny Sunset, the Vice Grimload, now has a serious grudge against The Irregulars, both for the serious injury, and the foiled plans.
• The smouldering feud between halves of Sugar and Vice seem to be quickly approaching the flashpoint. Unfortunately, Santi, Calvin’s dad is on the front lines.
• Hugh owes a favor to the Cour de Boue
• Earl has moved Greer the first step along a progressive path of disciplinary action.
• Hunt and Greer have uncovered a bit of additional information about the murder of Greer’s parents and the white council’s involvement.
• As lead coordinator of the Plaza Tower development, Rikard is now under additional pressure to get it completed—it now is the “secure” location of a highly sought after Formor weapon.
• Mnemosyne and/or Felicity Proctor is “feeding” on the people of Shell Beach—although the people of Shell Beach didn’t seem to be in immediate danger, perhaps even grateful that their worst memories and most troublesome worries had been stolen from them. I mention it here because the party seemed torn as to whether this was a problem that needed to be solved. However, it doesn’t sit right with Sussanah who feels like her brother (now a resident of Shell Beach) is not completely in control of his actions.
• Greer and Hunt have new evidence of the White Council’s involvement with the death of Greer’s mother.