Drhoz

HORROR ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS - MILAN - A NIGHT AT THE OPERA

Jan 1923
 
In Which The Investigators Enjoy Opera At Its Finest And Other Mental Disturbances
 
Lt. Huxley has made his stage debut at la Scala, which is certainly something to be proud of, and a big step up from the amateur dramatics he was involved in back at school. Of course, at Greyfriars he didn’t have to contend with dangerous lunatics in the audience, or trying to smuggle an evil artifact out of the building in front of thousands of opera-goers. 
 
He also has to hold off doing anything until the next scene change - the old man with the Diva’s voice has no such reason for delay. The old woman that was with them is also on the move, but at a much slower and confused pace. The cultist and his minions hurry out of the building and around to the side door, followed by Alex, who sees the goons beat up the doorman and enter the backstage area. Both goons and doorman do seem rather off-put by the old man’s young, and female voice. Alex returns to fetch Florence. 
 
Huxley takes the first opportunity he can to grab the Torso of the Simulacrum, snap off the wooden base, and hurry for the side exits - just in time to run into the cultist and his goons. He flees upstairs, stuffing the Torso into a hiding spot and attempting to hide himself, but to no avail at least for the last bit. He is forced to topple a stack of props to slow down the pursuit. By the time Alex and Florence catch up (after recommending whiskey as a cure-all to the brutalised doorman) the Lieutenant has left quite a mess. 
 
Alex: I think we know what klutz made that.
GM: Indeed - you can see him at the end of the corridor, still dressed in sandals and loincloth, pursued by two of the goons.
Florence: Yes, that's our klutz.
 
But where can Huxley be going? 
 
Alex: Where can you go in a loincloth?
Florence: There’s clubs for that
GM: Whatever party the lead tenor has planned.
 
The two two investigators can either pursue flat out, or proceed over the pile of props at a more moderate velocity. They choose the latter.
 
Florence: A safer speed would be better in these shoes.
 
And just as well, since it gives them the opportunity to spot the Torso where Huxley hid it. They wrap it in a drape, and head upstairs to leave via the costume department’s fire escape, with the assistance of a helpful stagehand. Unfortunately they run into the old man and one of his other minions coming the other way. The older man is too preoccupied to notice what the investigators are carting, but his bodyguard is more observant. The resulting scuffle on the stairwell goes on for some time, even after the old man draws a knife and injures Alex, and even after Flo escapes with the Torso, and despite all the yelling of “Pervitito!” by Florence. 
 
Alex OoC: We always have such fun on holiday!
 
Meanwhile Huxley has escaped his pursuers and intends to change back into his day clothes, and return to where he stashed the Torso. Admittedly he’ll have to do a loop of the entire building and go up and down three different floors, but backstage la Scala is a maze. It’s also unfortunate that a furious stage director spots him and frogmarches him back to the changing rooms to get back into costume, no doubt uttering dire threats to the other spear-carriers if they let him wander off again. He does spot the older woman wandering around with an expression of deep confusion and deep concentration, but his fellow extras have orders to keep him planted where he is, even when the scuffle above the stage is clearly visible to the cast members. 
 
Florence doesn’t seem to have the Lt.’s Bump of Direction, and gets herself quite lost trying to find the costume department, and has to barricade herself into a storeroom when she’s spotted by some of the goons. By the time a badly wounded Alex finds them, and comes back with some help, the old man and the other minion have also found Florence’s hideyhole, and they’ve already shot out the lock and half bashed in the door. At least the first goon through gets himself brained with a chairleg. 
 
The goons also seem reluctant to open fire on the opera staff - the one with the gun even puts it away in a hurry - despite the shrieked orders from the old man. Not that he’s shrieking for long, because the old woman has caught up and launches herself at the man’s throat. Alex takes the opportunity to put the boot in - they’re probably going to have to get a new tuxedo now this one is so full of knife holes and bloodstains. 
 
Old woman: *in an old man's voice* GIVE ME BACK MY VOICE!
 
THAT gives Florence an opportunity to drop the old man in the s***.
 
Florence: He cursed her! That’s the Diva! Stregoni!
 
And since some of the opera patrons coming out of their boxes to see what all the commotion is recognise Signora Cavollaro’s jewelry, and the old man tries to defend himself with the Diva’s unmistakable voice, the growing crowd on the third floor has a excuse for some peremptory justice. Some of the staff patch up Alex and check that Florence is OK, then hurry off after the rest of the mob.
 
GM: If there’s going to be a lynching, they don’t want to miss it.
 
Not that any of this has affected the performance much - the Show Must Go On! In fact Huxley doesn’t get to make his escape until Alex comes looking for him, and the first thing he does is check Alex’s bandages. They’re a bit insulted by his dismissal of their first aid skills, even if he is the professional medic of the party. 
 
Alex: I got all my Girl Guide badges you know.
 
At least Alex got a souvenir - the old man's knife, which to Huxley's eye seems better suited to delicate work than to your average stabbing. Flo, struggling under the awkward weight of the Torso, still hasn’t found the fire escape, and ends up out on the terrace overlooking the plaza. Where every hair on the back of her neck stands up, as she’s overwhelmed by the same primal terror of a small animal that KNOWS a large predator is somewhere very close, and getting closer. She hurries back inside, badly shaken. The Torso, if anything, is getting harder to carry, in much the same way cats seemingly get heavier at will. 
 
Florence: Don’t you realise we’re trying to get you back together????
 
The statue seems to get more cooperative, and before too long she's tottering along the edge of the plaza like she’s merely twelve months pregnant.
 
Florence: Good girl. Good statue.
 
That’s where Huxley finds her, while everybody else is distracted by the police cars pulling up at the opera house. She doesn’t want to tell him what happened, because she’s still thoroughly wigged out by the fear that gripped her on the terrace. 
 
Florence: We need to get this out of sight... There’s something around.
 
Might still be, too - somebody is watching them from the balcony. Huxley doesn’t recognise them from this distance, at night, but they’re tall, slim, and have unfashionable long hair if they’re male. And they’re looking. Right. At. Florence. And. Huxley. Florence is quite glad to get back their rooms at the Galleria, bolting all the doors and windows, and dumping the Torso next to the Arm. 
 
Florence: See? See, I told you, there’s your arm. *gives the Torso a friendly pat*
 
Nonetheless, she insists they get out of Milan as soon as possible - for one thing staying literally just across the road from la Scala is asking for trouble. The trio pack up in a hurry, and intend to wait at the train station until the next Orient Express leaves for Venice - which won’t be until after lunch. At least the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits provides an excellent waiting room for passengers on their train. The Orient Express staff may well wonder if the investigators got AM and PM confused, but they're far too polite to actually say so.

HORROR ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS - MILAN - Note For Note Pt.2
 
Jan 1923
 
IN WHICH THE INVESTIGATORS DISCUSS THE MEANING OF LIFE AND LIVE ORGAN TRANSPLANTS
 
While Lt. Huxley is off investigating the disappearance of opera diva Caterina Cavollaro, and accidentally stumbling across what appears to be an organlegging ring in 1920s Milan, Florence and her first-cousin-once-removed Alex are relaxing in the apartment at the Galleria. At least until Florence remembers that she’s supposed to be writing about her trip for her editor Edward Huntington-Smythe back at the Daily News London.
 
She probably can’t write about the horrifying death of Col. Herring in the Simplon Tunnel - as much as it’s highly newsworthy (at least for certain papers, like The Scoop) publicising it would make her persona non grata with the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits. And her Great-Uncle Henry and Great-Aunt Esther would be appalled when they find out the details.
 
On the other hand she can always write about the disappearance of the diva - the kidnapping of attractive young women is always newsworthy, as long as they’re rich, white, and famous. Get a few statements from members of the public, and suitably damning statements from the authorities, and you might even have enough for a special Sunday feature section. Florence can even get her own photos, although she’s initially reluctant to go to il Duomo and photograph the shrines and votive candles dedicated to the opera star. She and Alex are both firmly CoE, for one thing. 
 
GM: I mean if you’ll burst into flame stepping through the door, I’ll understand if you don’t.
Florence: Or the Archbishop of Canterbury suddenly sits bolt-upright and says ‘SOMETHING IS WRONG’.... It’s not like we went in there to see the artwork. It’s like they know.
 
Refreshments at Biffi’s, on the ground floor of the Galleria, first. Although actually getting the meal is delayed when la cameriera has an emotional breakdown before she’s even finished taking the order. Apparently the disappearance of the diva has left many of the Milanese in an overwrought state - God help the kidnappers if they are ever caught.
 
Waitress: La Scala is the heart of Milan, Signora - and the Diva is the heart of La Scala!
 
That’s not the only thing that the Milanese are overwrought about - a couple a few tables away have a blazing public row that culminates with the woman slapping her partner and storming out. 
 
Florence: Well, this is Italy.
GM: Apparently it was an argument about fashion.
Florence: Yep, Italy. Definitely going in the article. 
Alex: The volatile temperament of the Latin.
Florence: “Even in the midst of this city-wide tragedy, the passions of the people run hot”
 
It’s all a bit much. Although Father Angelico at the cathedral has a theory about why the Milanese have been so excessively emotional of late. He certainly disagrees about which building is the heart of Milan.
 
Father Angelico: We Milanese have lost much faith in the One True God. Our lack of animation stems from a soulless devotion to appearance instead of substance. In these dim days, we worship actors and singers. As attendance at Mass decline, attendance at la Scala increase! La Scala is the house of evil! *bewilderingly bursts into tears*
 
That might explain why he wasn’t entirely happy to have Florence photograph the shrines dedicated to Cavollaro’s safe return, but in return for a donation to the church roof fund, and a chance to practice his English, he’s happily to show Alex and Florence around the building, at least until he has to prepare for the evening service, and before he has the aforementioned outburst.
 
He’s not the last eccentric they encounter in il Duomo, either - there’s the older gentleman who has apparently misplaced his pet chameleon, but who hurried off when Alex and Flo offered to help. At least, it’s presumably his chameleon - the lizard certainly seems interested in the bottleful of dead moths the man dropped in his haste. Alex manages to catch the beast while Florence tries to track down the owner. For a reptile with conical eyes, it certainly manages an expression of withering contempt.
 
Alex: Yeah, I’m not that fond of you either, creature.
 
Eventually they leave the lizard and handful of dried bugs in the care of a baffled priest, in case the owner comes back for them. Why would you even bring your lizard to church anyway, wonders Florence. It’s not like it’s an orphan lamb that needs hourly feeding. Or even that possum her mother cared for that time. Or the kangaroos. In fact, in retrospect, it’s probably just surprising that the animal is a lizard.
 
Florence: I give him some money in case he has to look after the lizard, long-term. 
 
Huxley returns to the Galleria in time for supper - he’s a bit perturbed, to put it mildly. Lung transplants are completely impossible, and there is no reason at all why you’d transfer the diseased organs back into the ‘donor’, especially if you were just going to kill him anyway. 
 
Florence: The Great War has advanced medical technology in leaps and bounds?
 
Although this leap has taken the surgeons well past the Moral Event Horizon.
 
Huxley: The body of Ennio Spinola has been obviously tampered with by a person or persons with medical capabilities beyond anything in the published literature.
   The idea of replacing diseased or damaged body parts has been around for millennia. As early as 600 BC, the use of autogenous skin flaps to replace missing noses was conceived, and by the 16th century, Tagliacozzi and other pioneering plastic surgeons were successful with such procedures. And certainly we have made great strides in skin grafting in the aftermath of the Great War. But the transfer of entire internal organs from one person to another… human to human… and to do it so seamlessly… no one has ever succeeded!
    I mean, the base surgical techniques one would theoretically need for such a procedure are in their infancy. It’s been barely a decade since Alexis Carrel walked away with the Nobel Prize for the perfection of vascular suturing, his work is amazing!… let me think… there were technically successful kidney transplants in the early 1900s… not by Carrel… who was it?.... yes, Emerich Ullman… dog autotransplant and dog-to-goat xenografts… and then of course those abhorrent human renal transplants performed by Jaboulay and Unger using goat and monkey donors. But, none of those xenografts functioned for more than a few days and compared to… to THIS… it’s like comparing a crude Palaeolithic sculpture to a Michelangelo!
   How they did something…so… so exquisite is beyond me. To take a seemingly healthy man, cut him open, to remove his lungs and graft in a substitute pair and to do all so seamlessly and without stitches.
    And yet, the genius behind this must also be possessed with diabolical intent. The sacred duty of all medical practitioners is to do no harm. Why would someone go to the trouble of installing filthy disease-riddled lungs into the patient… the victim? Could the rampant tuberculosis be an unwanted side-effect of the procedure? Poor sterilization… not likely in an operation so meticulous. No… these are the lungs of a victim riddled with tuberculosis for years.
    I fear we are facing a medical genius whose intellect is marred by the most infernal depravity, a mind on par with Doyle’s Professor Moriarty.
 
But it's not until later in the evening as they’re preparing for bed (and Florence is developing her negatives in the bathroom in the portable dark room) that anything further happens to upset Huxley’s equilibrium. Because that’s when he hears singing - very familiar singing. It’s the Ritorna vincitor! aria from Aida. And it’s Caterina Cavollaro’s voice. 
 
Thankfully, the Lieutenant is not hallucinating - Alex can hear it too, although Florence is too busy with the negatives to come check. People and police are coming out onto the streets, too, but all the echoes from the tall buildings and cobbled roads make it impossible to locate the source before it falls into silence. And that silence is broken only by the sobs of distraught Milanese. 
 
Huxley starts putting the disjointed pieces of the puzzle together - the Torso of the Sedefkar Simulacrum was purchased by somebody from Teatro alla Scala. Flavio Contio, industrialist and patron of la Scala, has miraculously recovered from tuberculosis, at the same time a unionist miraculously acquired a pair of tuberculosis-riddled lungs and free extra stabbing. Caterina Cavollaro, star of Aida, has been kidnapped by somebody she probably knew from the opera house. And the Diva has apparently been turned into a lizard. Or was a were-chameleon the whole time. It would explain why that chameleon shows up again, in the last alley he heard the Diva’s voice in. 
 
GM: And of course, if there IS somebody in Milan collecting healthy lungs for transplant experiments, well, an opera diva would have to have pretty healthy lungs. 

Huxley: I’ve just had another horrible thought - was that even Cavollaro singing tonight? 
Alex: There can’t be that many people that can sing like that.
Huxley: That’s true.
 
Alex: It must be interesting to be inside your mind, Lt.
 
He persuades Alex that a late-night visit to Conti’s apartment is in order. There certainly seems to be somebody inside, although they’ve left all their upstairs windows open on a winter’s night. If Conti still has tuberculosis, he must be insane. Happily, he’s also left his door unlocked, so Huxley can go in and ask him in person. And why he has the same model Alfa Romeo RL Limousine the Diva was last seen getting into. Alex is reluctant to follow this lead (especially without Florence the steak-knife-wielding team bruiser along) but lets themselves be persuaded. 
 
Alex: Alright, let's go get ourselves arrested.
 
They can find weapons inside, surely.
 
Huxley OoC: I’ll grab the pokiest poker. +3 Vorpal Pokey.
 
Sneaking into the house, Huxley promptly knocks over a vase, and has to grab frantically to stop the crash. At least whoever is upstairs never heard the noise. 
 
GM: Although you’re getting the same look of withering contempt from Alex that Alex got from the lizard earlier.
 
Of course then the two of them knock the vase over together, and Alex tumbles down the cellar steps. THAT lures Conti out.
 
Flavio Conti: Chi è là?
Huxley: Mr. Conti? I need to ask you some questions about the disappearance of Caterina Cavollaro. 
 
Conti’s reaction is to freeze, then run away back to his room and slam the door. That’s enough evident guilt to fill Huxley with a righteous wrath. 
 
Huxley: I grow a single hair from my chest.
 
He can hear Conti yelling into the phone in his study (and at least one word is Polizia!) and bangs on the door. Time to test some other hypotheses.
 
Huxley: Cavollaro! Tuberculosis! Spinola!
 
Conti shoots him through the door. 
 
Fortunately the bullet only grazes his ribs, so he lies off to one side, banging with the poker and yelling more keywords until Conti runs out of bullets, then charges in and wrestles the old man to the ground. Now they have to interrogate him.
 
Alex: We should have brought Flo with us - she can get anybody to spill the beans. 
GM: It’s nearly 11PM, and they’re not back yet. Do you want to go see if anything happened to them?
Florence: They’re grown adults - I’m going to bed.
GM: So we’ll cut back to Conti’s apartment, where the two grown adults have just had a loud scuffle with multiple gunshots and all the windows open, and left the front door open. 
Italian Policeman at the door: Signore Conti?
 
Alex tries to distract him with her complete lack of Italian. Huxley starts inventing a plausible story to explain all the commotion, but doesn’t notice that Conti doesn’t yell for help now that rescue has apparently arrived. In fact, the moment that Huxley and the policeman are distracted, he leaps out the open window. Most unwise - even with fresh young lungs, the man is nearly 60, and it’s a second-storey window. By the time they get downstairs he’s bleeding out. At least he gets a few last words, staring at the blood flowing from his body. 
 
Conti: But… but.. The Brothers of the Skin. Cannot… die…
 
At least the police believe Alex and Huxley when they claim they only wanted to talk to Conti about the diva, but he went berserk the moment they mentioned her name. The language barrier actually helps, once they convince the British Consul of their innocence and get him to intervene on their behalf. Having all that money obviously proves they’re respectable people.
 
Detective: I hope this doesn’t ruin your opinion of Italy. You are perfectly safe here *glancing down at Huxley’s bloodstained shirt* under normal circumstances.
 
Of course, that’s the same reason a different police station uses to refuse the investigators a gun permit in the morning - Mussolini’s Italy is safe for law-abiding foreigners, and Mussolini is Always Right. 
 
That’s not the only thing that leaves Florence cranky - she had to go around to the police station in the middle of the night, with their passports, after an exhausting evening preparing the negatives and text for her news report.  
 
GM: Going to add anything about Conti to your article?
Florence: I’d only just finished writing it up before I got rudely woken up.
GM: You’re not going to rewrite it just because your friend got shot.
 
At least there’s some telegrams from Beddows and Prof. Smith waiting for them at the Telegraph Restant office - they report that the Professor is recovering well, and the records of the Teutonic Knights indicate they’ll need to find Sedefkar’s scrolls to finally destroy the Simulacrum. 
 
The police have finally declared Cavollaro’s disappearance a kidnapping, but they’re keeping their investigation of Conti’s involvement quiet for now. It doesn’t seem Conti was calling the police last night, because nobody shows up to arrest Huxley and Alex. None of that stops the papers being full of headlines like CAVOLLARO ABDUCTED, OPERA STAR MYSTERY, and GIVE AIDA BACK!. And the following - 
 
CAVOLLARO'S DISAPPEARANCE
Another tragedy?
 
Arturo Toscanini, director of La Scala, announced today that "Aida" would open tonight with understudy Maria Dimattina appearing in the title role. Original star Caterina Cavollaro is still missing.
Toscanini, in response to comments regarding the "ghost voice" of last night and other reputedly unnatural occurrences, said "There is no substance to these stories. They are mere gossip and old wives' tales."
Paolo Rischonti, props manager for the opera, told a different tale. "We thought our troubles were over," he said, "when the costumiers' curse ended with the preparations for Aida, but now the bad luck is on the set itself. People are being injured or falling ill, and props are disappearing. Where will this end?"
Tonight's performance is booked out, but the opera is scheduled over the next four weeks.

They still have to investigate the opera house, which is utter bedlam less than a day from curtain call. By the time they actually find somebody with answers, they’ve been injured by chariot wheels, had to pass off unexpected wooden heads, and the lieutenant has been recruited as an extra by the lead tenor, who Alex and Florence both notice is checking out Huxley’s ass. Huxley himself is oblivious. 
 
GM: Very affectionate people, the Italians. 
 
Paulo Rischonti, the props manager who purchased the Torso in Paris as part of a job lot, is not exactly happy that Alex and Flo want to buy it. Or at least, not happy that they want to buy it tonight, of all nights, when he has a hundred other things to do. He keeps his temper, barely, but develops an instant migraine.
 
Rischonti: You are clearly rich, eccentric British collectors, so of course I must drop everything to satisfy you. At least go and have a look at the thing first, but please, don’t come back here today. 
 
But when they find the costumier’s department, where the ancient evil artifact was being used as a dressmaker’s dummy, they discover it’s already gone. Apparently one of the younger stagehands collected it earlier. 
 
Ancient Seamstress: The one with the hair and the nose. 
Ancient Seamstress 2: Oh, his grandfather was so handsome.
 
That report leads to three different rumours - it’s been thrown out, sold to a collector, or accidentally dropped into the basement - but by then it’s so close to opening time they’re going to get chased out anyway. Alex and Florence track Huxley down to tell him the news, before going back to the Galleria to change into formal wear for the performance. The Lt. is half-dressed as an Egyptian soldier. Florence, of course, gets a photo. 
 
Florence: We need to go get changed for tonight.
Huxley: I seem to have roped into a non-speaking part.
Alex: We wouldn’t miss it for the world.
 
Huxley: I think I might be exactly where I need to be - the only reason these ‘Brothers of the Skin’ would be in Milan is if they know one of the pieces of the Simulacrum is here. And all these wild coincidences are coming together. 
GM: Welcome to the opera.
Huxley: If nothing happens this evening I’m going to be very very surprised. 
 
Florence gives their now superfluous front row ticket to that waitress from Biffi’s - she’s extremely excited.
 
Waitress: I will sing along with the aria tonight! I have so many things I would like to wish for!
 
Thousands of people are waiting to see the opera when they return but the mood is funereal. The understudy is certainly no patch on Cavollaro, but when she sings the aria the opera house thrums with sound. Hundreds of people are singing along tonight - so many desperate wishes and fervent desires. 
 
And one of them is singing is Cavollaro’s voice - the old man Alex and Florence saw at the cathedral, only a few seats away across the center aisle. He has a scarred throat above his collar, as does the aged, slack-mouthed woman with sagging skin beside him. On the stage Radames enters the Temple of Phtah to receive his armour, and as the priests lift it off the dressmaker’s dummy the Torso swims in the spotlight. The investigators recognise it by the sheen like opalescent marble, but Arturo Faccia, Brother of the Skin, recognises it by the leap in his greedy, obsessive heart. He screams in ecstasy, with the Diva’s stolen voice, even as the spotlight on the Sedefkar Simulacrum dies. 

The complex under the Lucky Bones is decorated with images of Mahathallah, the Dowager of Illusions, and one of the few female entities to have achieved much recognition in Asmodeus’ grossly misogynist realm. It’s also not abandoned.
 
Mook 1: Got any Fours?
Mook 2: Go Fish!
 
At least they have the advantage of being attractive women, so Rajira doesn’t immediately stab them. The rest of us block the obvious exits while Rajira gets their attention with some hostage-taking. 
 
Rajira: Keep. Your weapons.  Sheathed.
The Women: *drop their cards and look surprised* Okay… and what are you doing here?
Rajira: I seek the twins Angus and Phennio Shellet.
The Women: You'll need to be quick then, for Mahathallah’s chosen will soon spill the blood of those twins on the altar, and the Whore Queen herself will descend upon you!
Terzo: Ah. Well, that answers one question anyway.
 
Unfortunately the combat doesn’t wake up the other guards. Unfortunately for them, that is, because after she’s finished off the first two Rajira can go room to room and cut their throats as they sleep. 
 
GM: For a party of non-murder-hobos, Rajira is exceptionally skilled at murder.
Civilla OoC: There’s nothing murder-hobo about her, she’s a murderer. An assassin.
Ayva OoC: And getting very well-paid for it.
Rajira OoC: No I’m not - it's one of the things I’m disgruntled about.
 
The devotees of Mahathallah certainly seem to like decorating with razor-sharp pieces of metal. Doesn’t seem to be doing the mood of the locals any good though - the Bearded Devil sitting behind the desk looks very bored. Rajira hurriedly signals for assistance.
 
Bearded Devil: More cutists... Whadya want? They’re not ready yet. Honestly, waiting for the cusp of adulthood to sacrifice a soul is a bloody waste of time! souls are souls regardless of how long they’ve been lodged in living flesh… Luculla Promised me the Thirteenth soul, what are we at now, five? 
Rajira: Can we at least check on them? The boss is getting antsy and she’s taking it out on us.
Bearded Devil: They’re over there.  I can’t believe I have to wait for eight more of these before I get mine.
Civilla: That hardly seems fair - you’re doing all the.. Work.
 
Two young men, both thin and disheveled, cower in the southeast corner of the otherwise bare chamber. Faces dirty and streaked with tears, both teens are bound hand and foot by manacles chained to a single ring set in the stone floor. Scratches on the stone walls from desperate fingers attest to the fact that these twins are not the first of this room’s recent prisoners.
 
Civilla: Well, there’s only five have come in through THIS office…
Bearded Devil: Are you implying… No, I know if Luculla was trying to stiff me. As you can see  they’re perfectly fine and will be alive for whatever you cultists have planned. And tell them to get some more, I want this to be OVER.
Rajira: I don’t have much interaction with the catch teams, but I’ll do what I can. Oh, but I do have something else to give you. It’s important. *STAB*
 
It’s not a one-stab-kill, but we do kill the devil and get the kids out. Will do find a set of iron doors, sealed and marked with a dire warning by the Order of the Torrent. Probably NOT worth opening. The temple we find next, decorated with images of a number of unpleasant entities, also has a few interior decorators who remain oblivious of Rajira and the celestial leopard until Too Late. The aforementioned Luculla, unfortunately for us, is alert enough to Summon a Giant Fiery Wasp from Heck. Unfortunately for her, Civilla can substitute any summoned monster with one of hers and replaces it with a Shadow Chicken. A very confused Shadow Chicken. 
 
Civilla’s player complains that the symbols for most of the Pathfinder gods are too complex.
 
Ayva’s player: I wouldn’t want to be a cleric of on of those religions - ‘Holy s*** a vampire - give me 20 minutes.’
 
Whilst the Order of the Torrent certainly sealed off part of the complex down here with assorted dire warnings, they appear to have missed a secret door down a pit.
 
GM: Rajira and Civilla go around the outside of the pit.
Civilla’s player: Two trailer park girls go round the outside, round the outside… sorry. 
 
GM: You find the hidden switch to disable the traps around the pit.
Ayva: Part of me wants to add a label - ‘ pull for light’.
Terzo: So, do you need me to stay up here as an anchor for the rope?
GM: I don’t think you want to try and jump the spike pit, Terzo.
Terzo: We COULD just drop all the tables, beds and mattresses down the hole. 
GM: …
Civilla OoC: We got everything we needed in the earlier rooms - oh my god it’s a reverse Gygax dungeon.
 
The rooms beyond are cold. Unnaturally, dead-of-winter cold. And it certainly sounds like there’s plenty of dead down here to go with the cold. And suspicious pale yellow fungus, which we set on fire from a cautious distance. We find ourselves not far from the doors the Order of the Torrent sealed.
 
Civilla: Yeah, real secure guys.
Rajira: Oh, be fair, they didn’t know about the secret door.
 
It’s just as well that Ayva has Deathsight, so we aren’t surprised by the ghost of the halfling woman we soon encounter. 
 
Ghost of the Gambling Halfling: A wager? A game? Oh, I’ve waited so long! These bones are lucky tonight! Care to wager part of yourselves, to earn my secrets?
Civilla: Can we specify which part?
Ghost: Just part of your lifeforce.
Civilla: Then no. 
Rajira: So, what’s the game?
 
She wants to play Odds or Evens, a very simple dice game of pure chance. 
 
Ayva: We’d better get to use our own dice.
Civilla: I should hope so, she’s certainly going to insist on using hers. 
 
Rajira wins the first round, and the ghost cheerfully answers her question about the other residents - we were right, there are quite a few other undead. Unfortunately, for the next round someone else has to roll, and Terzo can’t inspire his own skill in Sleight of Hand. Happily he doesn’t have to. 
 
Terzo: The Lady appears to be with me this evening, madam. You said yourself there are no other gamblers down here - is there any way we can help you go on to wherever you might find others of your proclivities? Hobby? Profession?
Ghost: You want to help me Move On! Such kindness from those I would have considered prey in life! I do miss the sunlight - you could see to it the dawn touches my bones. 
 
Ayva wins the next round too.
 
Civilla: I’m looking around for a hidden shrine to Desna (Goddess of Luck).
Ayva: I certainly owe her a big favour.
 
Ayva: Tell me all the secrets down here.
Ghost: That’s a touch broad - how about ‘A river runs beneath us, you know, and its dark currents have brought in new visitors below our feet…’ - there, that’s suitably vague. 
 
Civilla: Before I roll, there are things I need to know. What if you can’t answer?
Ghost: Well, I’m hardly omniscient - I was just the old Guildmaster. ‘I don’t know’ is a legitimate answer, Oh wait, I just told you something about myself! You’ll have to play twice. 
Civilla: I don’t think so. 
 
Civilla loses, but the ghost wasn’t cheating.
 
Ghost: I do try to play fair. Now hold still, this won’t hurt a bit. I just want some of your memories.
GM: Take 3 CON damage.
Civilla OoC: Oh thank god, I thought you were going to say 6 Negative Levels.
Ghost: Such wonderful memories!
Civilla OoC: Are you sure about that? Every night for a Changeling is nightmares, dreams and visions sent by our Hag mother.
 
So it might be a matter of some concern that a lot of the people that we’ve been killing down here are also probably Changelings.
 
Civilla: Dammit, I need to play another round - there’s an answer I NEED to know.
 
She loses again. And has to risk a third round.
 
Civilla: Those of us that wish to escape our pasts must do so on their own, as the Redeemer Queen did. Did the Changelings we killed here have the same mother?
Ghost: Indeed! And you killed her. 
Civilla OoC: Hmm. There’s a head I need to collect.
Terzo OoC: Am I going to regret asking?
Civilla OoC: Probably - there’s a magic item you can make from the shrunken heads of evil hags, used by witches who want a coven but don’t want to associate with evil hags.
Terzo OoC: I was right, I do regret asking.
Ayva OoC: The heads are still animated, incidentally. 
 
Terzo happens to know that the Redeemer Queen was the first succubus, but has become a goddess and rejected Chaotic Evil. Which has him looking at his student with an odd expression. The Guildmaster’s ghost hopes we’ll actually follow through on putting her to rest, but there’s still more of the complex to explore.  And Wretchghosts, which are what happens to very unfortunate addicts. And who can inflict the same addiction on the living. 
 
Terzo: Don’t let them touch you!!!
Wretchghost: Firssst Onnnne Freeeee!!!!
 
This is very, very bad for us - Civilla (already badly weakened by the ghost earlier) promptly succumbs, Ayva isn’t much better, and Rajira has nothing that can hurt them - apart from that intelligent Kukri which would be a move of utter desperation. Desperate retreat is in order, until they stop following us.

Fireflash’s player: This is mostly for [Hardlight’s Player], but it's also a heads up for everyone else. Fireflash has had an idea. A wonderful, awful, terrible, great idea. The whole situation as regards the Moreaus is balanced on a legal knife-edge. (I've been chatting to [The GM] about this.) Particularly in terms of Property and Corporate law. Moreaus are classified as "wildlife"...and wildlife cannot own property or hold corporate office.
We know Moreaus who do both of those things.

Fireflash is going to talk to our friendly neighborhood corporate overlord about a possible way to kick over all the dominoes. If we find a WILLING Moreau who's in that position, we then sue them in court (or the corporation they work for) over that position. If we can get past initial standing issues, we should have a real shot at completely upending the current legal status of Moreaus. At the very least we should get some good publicity for their cause.

Hero Shrew’s player: Is 'part-time troubleshooter for the Justin Hammer-expy' a corporate position?
Fireflash’s player: Probably not a sufficiently high one. You're an employee, not a manager.
Hero Shrew’s player: true - plus putting Scooter anywhere near a courtroom is asking for the kind of chaos you don't want.
Flux's player: Plus I think Hardlight suing himself might not be appropriate.
Hardlight's player: I mean... I... COULD actually pull it off. I can technically be in both places at once - though if someone with even an inkling of special detection powers sits in the courtroom, the entire jig is up
GM: The issue would be Gareth Lowell suing Lowelltech.
Hardlight's player: yeah, probably not the best idea. I'm sure there's another poor dude who tried to get a job at Tyrell or something
Fireflash’s player: We need someone who actually has the position.
Flux's player: It just struck me that the keeping/sale of exotic wildlife is technically illegal in most states without a suitable permit. Please tell me that little hiccup was smoothed over ages ago Last thing we need is a wild VS domestic issue coming up. And now thanks to reading legal documentation I had to look up what a mayhaw is.

PENAL CODE - PEN
PART 1. OF CRIMES AND PUNISHMENTS [25 - 680.4] ( Part 1 enacted 1872. )
TITLE 14. MALICIOUS MISCHIEF [594 - 625c] ( Title 14 enacted 1872. )
599b. In this title, the word “animal” includes every dumb creature; the words “torment,” “torture,” and “cruelty” include every act, omission, or neglect whereby unnecessary or unjustifiable physical pain or suffering is caused or permitted; and the words “owner” and “person” include corporations as well as individuals; and the knowledge and acts of any agent of, or person employed by, a corporation in regard to animals transported, owned, or employed by, or in the custody of, the corporation, must be held to be the act and knowledge of the corporation as well as the agent or employee.

Flux's player: ok, that's interesting. "dumb creature" “or any other dumb animal." Not sure if that's a good or bad thing. Oh my god, you are allowed one potbellied pig per residence in addition to normal pets.
GM: A number of Supreme Court rulings have stated that the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantees of due process and equal protection do not apply to sentient aliens, extradimensional entities, artificial intelligences, and the undead, because they are not “persons” under the law. On the other hand, they do apply to mutants, mutates, clones, and genetic constructs based on human stock. Congress has, however, passed laws granting at least limited rights to all “independent, free-willed, sentient entities” in American territory.

Although the GM does point out that for the last fifteen years, the local courts have always reached whatever decision stopped the cases going to a higher court. Which is especially odd since quite a few of the people involved hate Moreaus, and some of these decisions found in the Moreaus’ favour. Everybody in Edge City seems to accept that as the norm, and only outsiders like The Magus have thought it worthy of comment. It might be because some of us have high enough Power Defenses, or because some of us have even left town for more than a day.

GM: Remember that character you had to play for a while because Flux had been kidnapped?
Flux's player: Sunnuvabitch.
GM: Remember that ritual? My arms were getting tired swinging the clue bat.

Madam Lil is rather surprised when Fireflash brings her idea to her - she’s noticed the weird lack of impetus on the problem too, and had given up trying to push the matter forward.

Madam Lil: So it suddenly changed for you? I’ve noticed that before - it’s like this city can turn on a dime.
The Magus: … I’ll be back in 20 minutes.

He hurries off to check the ends of the local leylines - he has a suspicion that something arcane has been affecting the city for over a decade. But if it is, it’s really well hidden. But then it’s quite likely that we keep missing the clues the GM keeps dropping.

GM: You guys are REALLY distractible.

GM: You’re not a superteam, you're a therapy circle!

The Magus has a moment of inspiration - somebody has been summoning Memes. In fact they’ve been summoning multiple Memes.

GM: And then you take one look at Edge City and think ‘well f***, that explains so much.’

Memes are essentially AIs that run on peoples’ brains and spread by argument. They’re not essentially antagonistic towards humans, but the odd behaviour of the Edge City population suggests they aren’t necessarily benign either.

We get a request for a meeting, apparently from somebody who’s appearance just screams ‘Gothic Vampire Chick’.

Flux: Oh, a zombie.
GM: Wait, what, you see THAT picture and think ‘Zombie’?
Hero Shrew: Well, she’s not doing much breathing with a corset that tight.

The Magus’ player: Vampires aren’t really that dangerous in Champions.
Flux's player: What with all the androids, energy beams, etc.
The Magus’ player: They’re expensive pointwise too. They could be a lot more dangerous but it’s a really inefficient build.
Hero Shrew’s player: Well there’s the Watsonian and Doylist explanations.
GM: They also have the Stoker problem - everybody knows their weaknesses now.

The vampire Laura is amiable enough when she appears, out of a cloud of mist.

Fireflash: Nice trick.
Laura: Thanks - you try long enough and you get the knack.

She’s concerned that we’ve been rounding up some of her ‘blood relatives’, but just as concerned that the aforementioned vampire thalls have been acting openly enough that they got caught. Laura has also recently killed her sire, who is the DoLs mistress, which may have been a factor in their increasingly incautious activity. On the other hand, the DoLs vampirism was a new method recently invented by them, possibly in an effort to fill the void in their minds.

Laura: I’m trying to be a socially responsible vampire.

Laura: Now, I’d like to leave before your associate explains to you why using my blood won’t work.
The Magus: I wasn’t going to bring it up.
Laura: I want them to know, I just don’t want them to know about it.

Laura: I sorry but I don’t swing that way - you HAVE read Camilla, haven't you?

Laura turns back into a cloud of mist, which rolls off avoiding the increasingly stiff wind.

GM: She’s not a very powerful vampire.
Fireflash: That’s just how she rolls.

Flux: We keep getting all these fliers for cheap henchmen.
The Magus: Well, there’s an idea, if you have the money - hire all the henchmen and use them for public works, and price the villains out of the market.
The Magus: ‘I haven’t been shot at in weeks, AND I get dental!’
GM: Hey, don’t underestimate the Goon-ion.

Eventually we find a corporation that’s willing to volunteer to be the target for the lawsuit, with a Moreau employee that’s willing to risk their job if the suit doesn’t play out as everybody plans. Apparently the corporation is puzzled that nobody has tried it before too.

Corporate-type: Finally pulling the trigger on that, are they? Have at it!
Hardlight: If he turns out to be a goat I’m out of here.
The Rep: Yeah, that would be bad optics.

On the other hand, even as the various lawyers and groups involved conspire to kick the case up to the Supreme Court, we still have to deal with the feral memes. Although how feral are they, if they’re so tightly constrained to Edge City? Are they short-lived in this reality, which would explain why Edge City is so prone to sudden reversals in public opinion? We’ll have to keep a close eye on the zeitgeist in Edge City, to try and locate whatever summoning circle our opponents are using to sabotage social progress. Since they only spread by word of mouth, we may be able to track the associated memetic rumours.

Flux: Part of me wants to warn the Spinnerets about this, and then the rest of me goes ‘stop, no, that’s a terrible idea!’ - we don’t want the Spinnerets to even know these things exist!

The Magus: F*** me, this is a bleak apocalypse - there’s probably nobody in Edge City that’s still the person they’re supposed to be.

The corporation we’re working with to advance Moreau right via lawsuit is Erikson-Gulsvig Logistics GmbH, and their subdivision E-G Employment, who have been doing a lot of social outreach, street clinics and charitable programs lately - Safe houses for domestic violence victims, Homeless shelters, Rehab counseling & a number of camps where troubled youths receive guidance.

Flux OoC: It’s depressing, in the superhero settings, how often charitable groups turn out to be Evil.
GM: That's because we never get to see what the Johnathan and Martha Kent Foundation actually do.

We start an investigation, just in case our choice of collaborator is going to bite us on the bum laer. Scooter pokes around at street level, and suspects some of the Greys are staying at the homeless shelters, but nothing that would count as a big end-of-episode reveal.

We should probably tell somebody about the meme problem, in case something happens to us.

Hero Shrew: Flux knows Witchcraft, doesn’t he?
Flux: No no, Witchcraft kindly refrained from killing me the last time we met.
Hero Shrew: Well, she’d probably take it seriously if you go to her for help

On the other hand The Rep is probably immune to the meme, since any meme trying to infect him would have to get past his worldclass bulls***ing skills.

Although calling the Greys over the secret underground phone line does go a little strangely - apparently the ones at the homeless shelters are there to help, because the Moreaus suddenly approached them for help. But everything is going fine despite the Greys suddenly meddling in surface affairs. But meeting them in person to discuss it further is a bad idea. Really bad. Absolutely not on the table.

Grey: I mean, even if we met at Lake Park at 3AM someone would see us.
Fireflash: I… see. Well, you’ve been very helpful.
Grey: Actually I’ve been no help at all.
Hero Shrew: I’ve clearly missed something there.
Fireflash: Things are far from normal and they want to meet at Lake Park at 3AM.
GM: Their cyberpathy might not be the strongest but they can absolutely tell when a phone line is tapped. And this is their secure line.

The Grey Commune is currently highly stressed because somebody contacted them, psychically, and helped them out with a few problems.But now the time has come to pay them back, with little bits of psychic manipulation around town. Nothing apparently major, but some of the Greys are worried about it - some of the alterations they’ve been asked to do are weird. And it’s very weird that the psi-boosting drug they are provided with works on the Grey’s genetically modified biology.

The Grey we’re talking to is keenly aware that they’re going to get exposed sooner or later, but is doubly sure no-one will trust them because they’ve been hiding behind the scenes manipulating stuff for the last 15 years. And any sort of mental manipulation counts as Assault.

Grey: But don’t let the fact you might expose us stop you from doing the necessary.

Either way we’re going to need some way to tell when somebody has had their mind altered recently.

Fireflash: So you two had better invent some aura-detecting glasses. Or better yet goggles - that way when you fail we can say ‘The Goggles Do Nothing!’

The Magus’ sneaking around reveals that some people in the clinics are getting mental work done on them without their consent. The people are certainly in need of help, but it shouldn't be secretly like this. And there’s at least one member of stuff here who starts getting very suspicious whenever Magus and Flux report their discoveries, which may indicate a powerful dangersense. Her build - Russian Factory Worker - and Mama Bear vibe make the Magus reluctant to get any closer.

Hero Shrew: OK, these people need help, but the people given the help are going to be in so much trouble when they get found out. How will they react if we tell them we know?
Flux: Have you ever been mauled by a bear, and not in a sexual way? Because that’s what is going to happen if we get any closer.

We decide that they need to turn all the work they’re doing to voluntary treatment only, or we’ll arrest them. It’s a clear abuse of superpowers, so we won’t even need a warrant.

Hero Shrew: And if they do try to kill us then obviously they WERE up to something evil and we get to stop them anyway.
The Magus: The quickest way to get a result is to walk into the ambush and punch them in the face if they start anything.

Hero Shrew’s player: What the hell is that noise in the background, Weldun? It sounds like a cricket on cocaine.
The Magus’ player: What have you been doing on the weekends that you know what a cricket on coke sounds like?
Fireflash’s player: Have you been doing unauthorized experiments? Again? Reminds me of those experiments on spiders.
Hero Shrew’s player: I’ve got the t-shirt.
Fireflash’s player: My favorite was LSD.
Hardlight's player: Why would you give a spider drugs?
The Magus’ player: It’s way easier to get funding for spiders than orphans.
Hero Shrew’s player: Now THAT sounds like something The Magus would say.

Although to be honest they all seemed pretty in-character.

The Magus and Fireflash head in while the others watch for trouble - the Russian greets them cautiously, and certainly recognises Fireflash.

The Russian-presumed-Super: Permission? Written permission? Do you need written permission to take person through guided meditation? We tell them we will change their minds.

They claim they did have permission, but won’t let Fireflash see the files. She warns them that she’ll probably have to report them if they won’t.

The Russian: Why, because we are telepaths? You are bigot! This no different to telling ‘we summon good feelings into you!’

The counselors might well be licensed to operate in California, but the Greys looking through two-way mirrors in each ‘counseling session’ certainly aren’t. At least as mutates based on human stock their personhood is beyond legal dispute, and they don’t have to be registered as medical devices.

GM: It becomes, legally speaking, a very grey area.
Hero Shrew: ha ha.

On the other hand there’s also the matter of the drug our Grey contact mentioned. We’ll avoid mentioning that until we’ve done some more staking out and legwork. And background research on this Russian dame. If the Karen Sholokhov we investigate is actually the same person, she’s known as ‘Perestroika’ - Russian for ‘reconstruction’. She’s a rather powerful mass telepath, who can make any nearby her willing slaves, if they’re weak-willed enough. Although the Magus didn’t notice her actually using her own powers. She left Russia about the time Putin came to power. Surprisingly, she’s not superhumanly strong - but her Combat Luck and Danger Sense have kept her alive so far.

It looks like the aromatherapy program the Greys are on includes a psychoenhansive inhalant And with some sneakiness we can get hold of the stuff.

GM: Continual surveillance on somebody with Danger Sense could count as cruel and unusual punishment.

And then coming up with something to counter her Danger Sense will just ramp up her paranoia - ‘why can’t I feel them watching me anymore???’

The drug turns out to be very odd indeed, with some similarities to drugs circulated by the Scarlatti drug family in Baltimore in the 1990s. One of their customers was the first iteration of PSI.

The Magus: I’m just looking up the entry for the current iteration of PSI, and it says they’ve never been defeated thanks to caution and careful planning. And then they got accidentally defeated by Quadrant.
GM: Just goes to show you where bad luck can get you.

Flux: Now I’m worrying that somebody will get hold of the PSI drug and dump a bunch in some city’s water reservoir.

GM: PSI is also one of the few supervillain groups that hasn’t been plagued by internal betrayals.
The Magus: It helps where you’re basically the top rung of a psychic powers pyramid scheme.

It also looks like all of the precursor chemicals are coming from a company tasked with destroying them. A company that has all the facilities to turn merely dangerous chemicals into extremely dangerous chemicals. In industrial volumes.

Hero Shrew: Looks like the city reservoir idea is back on the menu.

We could always get them on Improper Storage And Disposal violations, but it’s probably going to require sneaking around first. It’s just as well we do sneak, because everybody in the facility is armed. With blasters. And there’s something weirdly fuzzy about them, even on the Magus’ scrying.

Hero Shrew: What are laws about private ownership of energy weapons?
GM: Not that different from kinetic weapons, honestly.
Flux: So you can only own an Orbital Death Laser for educational purposes.

And Magus’ mental awareness power is going ‘ping!’ continuously. And also weird that the rest of us didn’t think the place was weird until now.

Hardlight: Are we going in lasers blazing?
Hero Shrew: I can think of a few reasons not to, and one of them is that scene from Robocop.

(next session started with a long discussion that by complete coincidence included Bhopal, the Tianjin city explosion, the Halifax disaster and the fertilizer explosion in Beirut.)

Hero Shrew OoC: Anyway, speaking of chemical factory explosions…
GM: I haven’t found a map for the chemical factory.
Hero Shrew OoC: Just find a crater, it’ll probably end up that way.
Hardlight: Let’s just watch our backstop shall we?

Flux: On the bright side, if we do f*** up on the scale of any of the above, we won’t be around to get in trouble for it.
Fireflash: That’s not as reassuring as you think it is, Flux.

Unfortunately the moment we march onto the premises to announce the raid, the guards react by transforming their uniforms into armour. At least one of them is superpowered, too.

Fireflash: Nice trick.

And then the other defenses go off, which include an alarming amount of electromagnetic radiation going well up into the ionising variety.

Fireflash: Ouch!
Hero Shrew: Well, aren’t they going to be embarrassed if we were just here to invite them to a charity event.

A second super shows up.

Fireflash: A scary black person?
GM: A LIVING SHADOW
The Magus: I thought it was Hardlight with Foot-in-Mouth Disease
Flux: The difference is he does it by accident.

Magus hits one of the supers with a very effective illusion of teleportation to an alien cliff, Hardlight hits a mook with a point-blank PHOTON WAVE CANNON, and Scooter goes after another.

Hero Shrew: What’s the move in Mortal Kombat where you tear somebody’s entire spine and skull out through their a**hole?
The Magus: … I think that may have been from another title.
Hardlight: I’m pretty sure he pulls the opponent’s spine *upward*.
Fireflash: Forward, Down, Forward, High Punch in close range with Sub-Zero.

The mook instead gets thrown at the next one.

Hero Shrew: He’s probably just relieved I didn’t tear out his entire spine etc.

At least the radiation field doesn’t interfere with one of Flux’s powers.

The Magus: ‘BWAHAHAHA, you will never escape my anti-teleportation trap hero- oh f*** he can walk.’

The Magus: That would have been a good thing to add to the illusion - a giant sandworm appearing in the distance.
Enemy Super #1: *shakes his head to get rid of the illusion* Well, aren’t you a tricky one *lightning bolts Magus*

The living shadow is swooping in, and appears to be giggling. And the mooks have Goop Rifles. And the first supervillain hits Scooter in the face with a ball of lightning (and an under-the-breath ‘Hadouken!’).

GM: You are also blind for a time, and your radio is all staticky.
Fireflash: Hey! That’s my trick!
Flux: Then maybe you should stop demonstrating it to the bad guys.

It’s just as well Hardlight is such a bombastic character that there’s no chance Scooter will attack him by accident.

GM: ‘Don’t worry old chum, I’ll help yo- oh, you’re getting up by yourself.’

Fortunately, whoever the shadow is, we never find out what he had planned because he’s entirely vulnerable to EGO attacks. The Magus suspects that somebody has the ability to let their dark side off the leash.

Losing his back-up, and having his point-blank attack on Fireflash have absolutely no effect, the lightning-wielding super thinks that this might be a good time to leave. He just doesn’t leave fast enough, and get sniped out of the air by Magus. We’ll have to disentangle him from the maze of pipes later. Hero Shrew blinks off his blindness, and goes to deal with a mook that’s still blinded by Hardlight’s earlier, otherwise ineffective attacks.

The Magus: Yes, you should probably take that gun off him before hurts someone.
Hardlight: *charging up another PHOTON WAVE CANNON* Third time’s the charm…
The Magus: Oh, you think you can handle him now he’s blind and disarmed?

Hardlight: Remember your backstop!
Hero Shrew: I am. That’s why I’m not throwing a concrete slab at those two.
GM: I reserve the right to make bad suggestions on occasion

Shortly thereafter Hardlight finds himself in a very unfortunate position as regards a familiar-looking robot dinosaur.

GM: It opens its mouth.
Hardlight: … am I about to be Godzilla’d?
GM: Well, Mechagodzilla’d

Hardlight: That blast is going to hit 3 of us!
Flux: But nothing explosive. I think.

The energy blast certainly takes Hardlight out of the fight, and even knocks Scooter out briefly. In fact, if there is somebody in that Tokusatsu suit he’s certainly confident if he’s standing in the middle of three heavy hitters. And smart enough to Gank The Wizard First.

The Magus: Bad luck for him that I've got the strongest defenses in the team.

And further bad luck that Hardlight had taken out his Lightning Horn, before it could blat us with atomic fire from range again. Of course Gareth is probably the only person on the team that would recognise the cultural inspirations of the suit and target accordingly.

Hardlight: AlI know is that I want one.

Of course if the Mechagodzilla was supposed to keep us busy while the bad guys were getting away, they have a problem, because a few lucky hits leave it dazed on the ground, and Hero Shrew is coming around.

GM: Scooter, you’re awake.
Hero Shrew: Gimme a minute, I’m looking around for the asteroid that hit me.

Scooter goes full HULK SMASH on the suit, and after that rounding up the rest of the bad guys is short work. As well as all their other rather advanced technology, which includes subdermal radios and colour-change armour, the mooks have guns with mental controls.

Hardlight: Shoot. SHOOT. Hmm, maybe I’m not thinking hard enough.
The Magus OoC: If I remember the EGO of the rest of this party, then yeah, not thinking hard enough is definitely the problem
Hero Shrew: Huh. Were the lights supposed to come on?
Hardlight: WHAT???
Hero Shrew: The lights on this gun. Look, they’ve all come on. *waves it around*
The Magus: Hmm. Well, many Moreaus are at least passively psychic, although I don’t believe that’s common knowledge.
Hardlight: PUT THAT DOWN
The Magus: Huh, it must simply take a powerful enough mind to activate it.
Flux: That’s just mean.

We might not find where the drug pipeline actually starts, but we’ve shut down the literal pipeline at least. Although the clinic we were investigating has been cleaned out by the time we get back there.

The Magus OoC: He wants to spend a point to put a trailer on the Quadraphibious Qruiser.
Flux: It’d make a good accessory.
GM: … He wants to turn the Qruiser into an articulated truck.
Hardlight: I’m gonna make some scans of the MechaGodzilla so The Rep can make action figures.
GM: Did you negotiate likeness rights?
Hardlight: err…
Flux: ‘We have made a legally distinct villain who might look very similar but is actually legally distinct.’

Of course, as the Magus points out, the psi-boosting drug really is a very minor problem compared to some of the other things going on in Edge City, like the Sentient Memes. Gareth Lowell agrees - one wonders if somebody threw the drug situation at us to distract us from the issue at hand!

The complex under the Lucky Bones is decorated with images of Mahathallah, the Dowager of Illusions, and one of the few female entities to have achieved much recognition in Asmodeus’ grossly misogynist realm. It’s also not abandoned.
 
Mook 1: Got any Fours?
Mook 2: Go Fish!
 
At least they have the advantage of being attractive women, so Rajira doesn’t immediately stab them. The rest of us block the obvious exits while Rajira gets their attention with some hostage-taking. 
 
Rajira: Keep. Your weapons.  Sheathed.
The Women: *drop their cards and look surprised* Okay… and what are you doing here?
Rajira: I seek the twins Angus and Phennio Shellet.
The Women: You'll need to be quick then, for Mahathallah’s chosen will soon spill the blood of those twins on the altar, and the Whore Queen herself will descend upon you!
Terzo: Ah. Well, that answers one question anyway.
 
Unfortunately the combat doesn’t wake up the other guards. Unfortunately for them, that is, because after she’s finished off the first two Rajira can go room to room and cut their throats as they sleep. 
 
GM: For a party of non-murder-hobos, Rajira is exceptionally skilled at murder.
Civilla OoC: There’s nothing murder-hobo about her, she’s a murderer. An assassin.
Ayva OoC: And getting very well-paid for it.
Rajira OoC: No I’m not - it's one of the things I’m disgruntled about.
 
The devotees of Mahathallah certainly seem to like decorating with razor-sharp pieces of metal. Doesn’t seem to be doing the mood of the locals any good though - the Bearded Devil sitting behind the desk looks very bored. Rajira hurriedly signals for assistance.
 
Bearded Devil: More cutists... Whadya want? They’re not ready yet. Honestly, waiting for the cusp of adulthood to sacrifice a soul is a bloody waste of time! souls are souls regardless of how long they’ve been lodged in living flesh… Luculla Promised me the Thirteenth soul, what are we at now, five? 
Rajira: Can we at least check on them? The boss is getting antsy and she’s taking it out on us.
Bearded Devil: They’re over there.  I can’t believe I have to wait for eight more of these before I get mine.
Civilla: That hardly seems fair - you’re doing all the.. Work.
 
Two young men, both thin and disheveled, cower in the southeast corner of the otherwise bare chamber. Faces dirty and streaked with tears, both teens are bound hand and foot by manacles chained to a single ring set in the stone floor. Scratches on the stone walls from desperate fingers attest to the fact that these twins are not the first of this room’s recent prisoners.
 
Civilla: Well, there’s only five have come in through THIS office…
Bearded Devil: Are you implying… No, I know if Luculla was trying to stiff me. As you can see  they’re perfectly fine and will be alive for whatever you cultists have planned. And tell them to get some more, I want this to be OVER.
Rajira: I don’t have much interaction with the catch teams, but I’ll do what I can. Oh, but I do have something else to give you. It’s important. *STAB*
 
It’s not a one-stab-kill, but we do kill the devil and get the kids out. Will do find a set of iron doors, sealed and marked with a dire warning by the Order of the Torrent. Probably NOT worth opening. The temple we find next, decorated with images of a number of unpleasant entities, also has a few interior decorators who remain oblivious of Rajira and the celestial leopard until Too Late. The aforementioned Luculla, unfortunately for us, is alert enough to Summon a Giant Fiery Wasp from Heck. Unfortunately for her, Civilla can substitute any summoned monster with one of hers and replaces it with a Shadow Chicken. A very confused Shadow Chicken. 
 
Civilla’s player complains that the symbols for most of the Pathfinder gods are too complex.
 
Ayva’s player: I wouldn’t want to be a cleric of on of those religions - ‘Holy s*** a vampire - give me 20 minutes.’
 
Whilst the Order of the Torrent certainly sealed off part of the complex down here with assorted dire warnings, they appear to have missed a secret door down a pit.
 
GM: Rajira and Civilla go around the outside of the pit.
Civilla’s player: Two trailer park girls go round the outside, round the outside… sorry. 
 
GM: You find the hidden switch to disable the traps around the pit.
Ayva: Part of me wants to add a label - ‘ pull for light’.
Terzo: So, do you need me to stay up here as an anchor for the rope?
GM: I don’t think you want to try and jump the spike pit, Terzo.
Terzo: We COULD just drop all the tables, beds and mattresses down the hole. 
GM: …
Civilla OoC: We got everything we needed in the earlier rooms - oh my god it’s a reverse Gygax dungeon.
 
The rooms beyond are cold. Unnaturally, dead-of-winter cold. And it certainly sounds like there’s plenty of dead down here to go with the cold. And suspicious pale yellow fungus, which we set on fire from a cautious distance. We find ourselves not far from the doors the Order of the Torrent sealed.
 
Civilla: Yeah, real secure guys.
Rajira: Oh, be fair, they didn’t know about the secret door.
 
It’s just as well that Ayva has Deathsight, so we aren’t surprised by the ghost of the halfling woman we soon encounter. 
 
Ghost of the Gambling Halfling: A wager? A game? Oh, I’ve waited so long! These bones are lucky tonight! Care to wager part of yourselves, to earn my secrets?
Civilla: Can we specify which part?
Ghost: Just part of your lifeforce.
Civilla: Then no. 
Rajira: So, what’s the game?
 
She wants to play Odds or Evens, a very simple dice game of pure chance. 
 
Ayva: We’d better get to use our own dice.
Civilla: I should hope so, she’s certainly going to insist on using hers. 
 
Rajira wins the first round, and the ghost cheerfully answers her question about the other residents - we were right, there are quite a few other undead. Unfortunately, for the next round someone else has to roll, and Terzo can’t inspire his own skill in Sleight of Hand. Happily he doesn’t have to. 
 
Terzo: The Lady appears to be with me this evening, madam. You said yourself there are no other gamblers down here - is there any way we can help you go on to wherever you might find others of your proclivities? Hobby? Profession?
Ghost: You want to help me Move On! Such kindness from those I would have considered prey in life! I do miss the sunlight - you could see to it the dawn touches my bones. 
 
Ayva wins the next round too.
 
Civilla: I’m looking around for a hidden shrine to Desna (Goddess of Luck).
Ayva: I certainly owe her a big favour.
 
Ayva: Tell me all the secrets down here.
Ghost: That’s a touch broad - how about ‘A river runs beneath us, you know, and its dark currents have brought in new visitors below our feet…’ - there, that’s suitably vague. 
 
Civilla: Before I roll, there are things I need to know. What if you can’t answer?
Ghost: Well, I’m hardly omniscient - I was just the old Guildmaster. ‘I don’t know’ is a legitimate answer, Oh wait, I just told you something about myself! You’ll have to play twice. 
Civilla: I don’t think so. 
 
Civilla loses, but the ghost wasn’t cheating.
 
Ghost: I do try to play fair. Now hold still, this won’t hurt a bit. I just want some of your memories.
GM: Take 3 CON damage.
Civilla OoC: Oh thank god, I thought you were going to say 6 Negative Levels.
Ghost: Such wonderful memories!
Civilla OoC: Are you sure about that? Every night for a Changeling is nightmares, dreams and visions sent by our Hag mother.
 
So it might be a matter of some concern that a lot of the people that we’ve been killing down here are also probably Changelings.
 
Civilla: Dammit, I need to play another round - there’s an answer I NEED to know.
 
She loses again. And has to risk a third round.
 
Civilla: Those of us that wish to escape our pasts must do so on their own, as the Redeemer Queen did. Did the Changelings we killed here have the same mother?
Ghost: Indeed! And you killed her. 
Civilla OoC: Hmm. There’s a head I need to collect.
Terzo OoC: Am I going to regret asking?
Civilla OoC: Probably - there’s a magic item you can make from the shrunken heads of evil hags, used by witches who want a coven but don’t want to associate with evil hags.
Terzo OoC: I was right, I do regret asking.
Ayva OoC: The heads are still animated, incidentally. 
 
Terzo happens to know that the Redeemer Queen was the first succubus, but has become a goddess and rejected Chaotic Evil. Which has him looking at his student with an odd expression. The Guildmaster’s ghost hopes we’ll actually follow through on putting her to rest, but there’s still more of the complex to explore.  And Wretchghosts, which are what happens to very unfortunate addicts. And who can inflict the same addiction on the living. 
 
Terzo: Don’t let them touch you!!!
Wretchghost: Firssst Onnnne Freeeee!!!!
 
This is very, very bad for us - Civilla (already badly weakened by the ghost earlier) promptly succumbs, Ayva isn’t much better, and Rajira has nothing that can hurt them - apart from that intelligent Kukri which would be a move of utter desperation. Desperate retreat is in order, until they stop following us.

HORROR ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS - MILAN - Note For Note Pt.2
 
Jan 1923
 
IN WHICH THE INVESTIGATORS DISCUSS THE MEANING OF LIFE AND LIVE ORGAN TRANSPLANTS
 
While Lt. Huxley is off investigating the disappearance of opera diva Caterina Cavollaro, and accidentally stumbling across what appears to be an organlegging ring in 1920s Milan, Florence and her first-cousin-once-removed Alex are relaxing in the apartment at the Galleria. At least until Florence remembers that she’s supposed to be writing about her trip for her editor Edward Huntington-Smythe back at the Daily News London.
 
She probably can’t write about the horrifying death of Col. Herring in the Simplon Tunnel - as much as it’s highly newsworthy (at least for certain papers, like The Scoop) publicising it would make her persona non grata with the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits. And her Great-Uncle Henry and Great-Aunt Esther would be appalled when they find out the details.
 
On the other hand she can always write about the disappearance of the diva - the kidnapping of attractive young women is always newsworthy, as long as they’re rich, white, and famous. Get a few statements from members of the public, and suitably damning statements from the authorities, and you might even have enough for a special Sunday feature section. Florence can even get her own photos, although she’s initially reluctant to go to il Duomo and photograph the shrines and votive candles dedicated to the opera star. She and Alex are both firmly CoE, for one thing. 
 
GM: I mean if you’ll burst into flame stepping through the door, I’ll understand if you don’t.
Florence: Or the Archbishop of Canterbury suddenly sits bolt-upright and says ‘SOMETHING IS WRONG’.... It’s not like we went in there to see the artwork. It’s like they know.
 
Refreshments at Biffi’s, on the ground floor of the Galleria, first. Although actually getting the meal is delayed when la cameriera has an emotional breakdown before she’s even finished taking the order. Apparently the disappearance of the diva has left many of the Milanese in an overwrought state - God help the kidnappers if they are ever caught.
 
Waitress: La Scala is the heart of Milan, Signora - and the Diva is the heart of La Scala!
 
That’s not the only thing that the Milanese are overwrought about - a couple a few tables away have a blazing public row that culminates with the woman slapping her partner and storming out. 
 
Florence: Well, this is Italy.
GM: Apparently it was an argument about fashion.
Florence: Yep, Italy. Definitely going in the article. 
Alex: The volatile temperament of the Latin.
Florence: “Even in the midst of this city-wide tragedy, the passions of the people run hot”
 
It’s all a bit much. Although Father Angelico at the cathedral has a theory about why the Milanese have been so excessively emotional of late. He certainly disagrees about which building is the heart of Milan.
 
Father Angelico: We Milanese have lost much faith in the One True God. Our lack of animation stems from a soulless devotion to appearance instead of substance. In these dim days, we worship actors and singers. As attendance at Mass decline, attendance at la Scala increase! La Scala is the house of evil! *bewilderingly bursts into tears*
 
That might explain why he wasn’t entirely happy to have Florence photograph the shrines dedicated to Cavollaro’s safe return, but in return for a donation to the church roof fund, and a chance to practice his English, he’s happily to show Alex and Florence around the building, at least until he has to prepare for the evening service, and before he has the aforementioned outburst.
 
He’s not the last eccentric they encounter in il Duomo, either - there’s the older gentleman who has apparently misplaced his pet chameleon, but who hurried off when Alex and Flo offered to help. At least, it’s presumably his chameleon - the lizard certainly seems interested in the bottleful of dead moths the man dropped in his haste. Alex manages to catch the beast while Florence tries to track down the owner. For a reptile with conical eyes, it certainly manages an expression of withering contempt.
 
Alex: Yeah, I’m not that fond of you either, creature.
 
Eventually they leave the lizard and handful of dried bugs in the care of a baffled priest, in case the owner comes back for them. Why would you even bring your lizard to church anyway, wonders Florence. It’s not like it’s an orphan lamb that needs hourly feeding. Or even that possum her mother cared for that time. Or the kangaroos. In fact, in retrospect, it’s probably just surprising that the animal is a lizard.
 
Florence: I give him some money in case he has to look after the lizard, long-term. 
 
Huxley returns to the Galleria in time for supper - he’s a bit perturbed, to put it mildly. Lung transplants are completely impossible, and there is no reason at all why you’d transfer the diseased organs back into the ‘donor’, especially if you were just going to kill him anyway. 
 
Florence: The Great War has advanced medical technology in leaps and bounds?
 
Although this leap has taken the surgeons well past the Moral Event Horizon.
 
Huxley: The body of Ennio Spinola has been obviously tampered with by a person or persons with medical capabilities beyond anything in the published literature.
   The idea of replacing diseased or damaged body parts has been around for millennia. As early as 600 BC, the use of autogenous skin flaps to replace missing noses was conceived, and by the 16th century, Tagliacozzi and other pioneering plastic surgeons were successful with such procedures. And certainly we have made great strides in skin grafting in the aftermath of the Great War. But the transfer of entire internal organs from one person to another… human to human… and to do it so seamlessly… no one has ever succeeded!
    I mean, the base surgical techniques one would theoretically need for such a procedure are in their infancy. It’s been barely a decade since Alexis Carrel walked away with the Nobel Prize for the perfection of vascular suturing, his work is amazing!… let me think… there were technically successful kidney transplants in the early 1900s… not by Carrel… who was it?.... yes, Emerich Ullman… dog autotransplant and dog-to-goat xenografts… and then of course those abhorrent human renal transplants performed by Jaboulay and Unger using goat and monkey donors. But, none of those xenografts functioned for more than a few days and compared to… to THIS… it’s like comparing a crude Palaeolithic sculpture to a Michelangelo!
   How they did something…so… so exquisite is beyond me. To take a seemingly healthy man, cut him open, to remove his lungs and graft in a substitute pair and to do all so seamlessly and without stitches.
    And yet, the genius behind this must also be possessed with diabolical intent. The sacred duty of all medical practitioners is to do no harm. Why would someone go to the trouble of installing filthy disease-riddled lungs into the patient… the victim? Could the rampant tuberculosis be an unwanted side-effect of the procedure? Poor sterilization… not likely in an operation so meticulous. No… these are the lungs of a victim riddled with tuberculosis for years.
    I fear we are facing a medical genius whose intellect is marred by the most infernal depravity, a mind on par with Doyle’s Professor Moriarty.
 
But it's not until later in the evening as they’re preparing for bed (and Florence is developing her negatives in the bathroom in the portable dark room) that anything further happens to upset Huxley’s equilibrium. Because that’s when he hears singing - very familiar singing. It’s the Ritorna vincitor! aria from Aida. And it’s Caterina Cavollaro’s voice. 
 
Thankfully, the Lieutenant is not hallucinating - Alex can hear it too, although Florence is too busy with the negatives to come check. People and police are coming out onto the streets, too, but all the echoes from the tall buildings and cobbled roads make it impossible to locate the source before it falls into silence. And that silence is broken only by the sobs of distraught Milanese. 
 
Huxley starts putting the disjointed pieces of the puzzle together - the Torso of the Sedefkar Simulacrum was purchased by somebody from Teatro alla Scala. Flavio Contio, industrialist and patron of la Scala, has miraculously recovered from tuberculosis, at the same time a unionist miraculously acquired a pair of tuberculosis-riddled lungs and free extra stabbing. Caterina Cavollaro, star of Aida, has been kidnapped by somebody she probably knew from the opera house. And the Diva has apparently been turned into a lizard. Or was a were-chameleon the whole time. It would explain why that chameleon shows up again, in the last alley he heard the Diva’s voice in. 
 
GM: And of course, if there IS somebody in Milan collecting healthy lungs for transplant experiments, well, an opera diva would have to have pretty healthy lungs. 

Huxley: I’ve just had another horrible thought - was that even Cavollaro singing tonight? 
Alex: There can’t be that many people that can sing like that.
Huxley: That’s true.
 
Alex: It must be interesting to be inside your mind, Lt.
 
He persuades Alex that a late-night visit to Conti’s apartment is in order. There certainly seems to be somebody inside, although they’ve left all their upstairs windows open on a winter’s night. If Conti still has tuberculosis, he must be insane. Happily, he’s also left his door unlocked, so Huxley can go in and ask him in person. And why he has the same model Alfa Romeo RL Limousine the Diva was last seen getting into. Alex is reluctant to follow this lead (especially without Florence the steak-knife-wielding team bruiser along) but lets themselves be persuaded. 
 
Alex: Alright, let's go get ourselves arrested.
 
They can find weapons inside, surely.
 
Huxley OoC: I’ll grab the pokiest poker. +3 Vorpal Pokey.
 
Sneaking into the house, Huxley promptly knocks over a vase, and has to grab frantically to stop the crash. At least whoever is upstairs never heard the noise. 
 
GM: Although you’re getting the same look of withering contempt from Alex that Alex got from the lizard earlier.
 
Of course then the two of them knock the vase over together, and Alex tumbles down the cellar steps. THAT lures Conti out.
 
Flavio Conti: Chi è là?
Huxley: Mr. Conti? I need to ask you some questions about the disappearance of Caterina Cavollaro. 
 
Conti’s reaction is to freeze, then run away back to his room and slam the door. That’s enough evident guilt to fill Huxley with a righteous wrath. 
 
Huxley: I grow a single hair from my chest.
 
He can hear Conti yelling into the phone in his study (and at least one word is Polizia!) and bangs on the door. Time to test some other hypotheses.
 
Huxley: Cavollaro! Tuberculosis! Spinola!
 
Conti shoots him through the door. 
 
Fortunately the bullet only grazes his ribs, so he lies off to one side, banging with the poker and yelling more keywords until Conti runs out of bullets, then charges in and wrestles the old man to the ground. Now they have to interrogate him.
 
Alex: We should have brought Flo with us - she can get anybody to spill the beans. 
GM: It’s nearly 11PM, and they’re not back yet. Do you want to go see if anything happened to them?
Florence: They’re grown adults - I’m going to bed.
GM: So we’ll cut back to Conti’s apartment, where the two grown adults have just had a loud scuffle with multiple gunshots and all the windows open, and left the front door open. 
Italian Policeman at the door: Signore Conti?
 
Alex tries to distract him with her complete lack of Italian. Huxley starts inventing a plausible story to explain all the commotion, but doesn’t notice that Conti doesn’t yell for help now that rescue has apparently arrived. In fact, the moment that Huxley and the policeman are distracted, he leaps out the open window. Most unwise - even with fresh young lungs, the man is nearly 60, and it’s a second-storey window. By the time they get downstairs he’s bleeding out. At least he gets a few last words, staring at the blood flowing from his body. 
 
Conti: But… but.. The Brothers of the Skin. Cannot… die…
 
At least the police believe Alex and Huxley when they claim they only wanted to talk to Conti about the diva, but he went berserk the moment they mentioned her name. The language barrier actually helps, once they convince the British Consul of their innocence and get him to intervene on their behalf. Having all that money obviously proves they’re respectable people.
 
Detective: I hope this doesn’t ruin your opinion of Italy. You are perfectly safe here *glancing down at Huxley’s bloodstained shirt* under normal circumstances.
 
Of course, that’s the same reason a different police station uses to refuse the investigators a gun permit in the morning - Mussolini’s Italy is safe for law-abiding foreigners, and Mussolini is Always Right. 
 
That’s not the only thing that leaves Florence cranky - she had to go around to the police station in the middle of the night, with their passports, after an exhausting evening preparing the negatives and text for her news report.  
 
GM: Going to add anything about Conti to your article?
Florence: I’d only just finished writing it up before I got rudely woken up.
GM: You’re not going to rewrite it just because your friend got shot.
 
At least there’s some telegrams from Beddows and Prof. Smith waiting for them at the Telegraph Restant office - they report that the Professor is recovering well, and the records of the Teutonic Knights indicate they’ll need to find Sedefkar’s scrolls to finally destroy the Simulacrum. 
 
The police have finally declared Cavollaro’s disappearance a kidnapping, but they’re keeping their investigation of Conti’s involvement quiet for now. It doesn’t seem Conti was calling the police last night, because nobody shows up to arrest Huxley and Alex. None of that stops the papers being full of headlines like CAVOLLARO ABDUCTED, OPERA STAR MYSTERY, and GIVE AIDA BACK!. And the following - 
 
CAVOLLARO'S DISAPPEARANCE
Another tragedy?
 
Arturo Toscanini, director of La Scala, announced today that "Aida" would open tonight with understudy Maria Dimattina appearing in the title role. Original star Caterina Cavollaro is still missing.
Toscanini, in response to comments regarding the "ghost voice" of last night and other reputedly unnatural occurrences, said "There is no substance to these stories. They are mere gossip and old wives' tales."
Paolo Rischonti, props manager for the opera, told a different tale. "We thought our troubles were over," he said, "when the costumiers' curse ended with the preparations for Aida, but now the bad luck is on the set itself. People are being injured or falling ill, and props are disappearing. Where will this end?"
Tonight's performance is booked out, but the opera is scheduled over the next four weeks.

They still have to investigate the opera house, which is utter bedlam less than a day from curtain call. By the time they actually find somebody with answers, they’ve been injured by chariot wheels, had to pass off unexpected wooden heads, and the lieutenant has been recruited as an extra by the lead tenor, who Alex and Florence both notice is checking out Huxley’s ass. Huxley himself is oblivious. 
 
GM: Very affectionate people, the Italians. 
 
Paulo Rischonti, the props manager who purchased the Torso in Paris as part of a job lot, is not exactly happy that Alex and Flo want to buy it. Or at least, not happy that they want to buy it tonight, of all nights, when he has a hundred other things to do. He keeps his temper, barely, but develops an instant migraine.
 
Rischonti: You are clearly rich, eccentric British collectors, so of course I must drop everything to satisfy you. At least go and have a look at the thing first, but please, don’t come back here today. 
 
But when they find the costumier’s department, where the ancient evil artifact was being used as a dressmaker’s dummy, they discover it’s already gone. Apparently one of the younger stagehands collected it earlier. 
 
Ancient Seamstress: The one with the hair and the nose. 
Ancient Seamstress 2: Oh, his grandfather was so handsome.
 
That report leads to three different rumours - it’s been thrown out, sold to a collector, or accidentally dropped into the basement - but by then it’s so close to opening time they’re going to get chased out anyway. Alex and Florence track Huxley down to tell him the news, before going back to the Galleria to change into formal wear for the performance. The Lt. is half-dressed as an Egyptian soldier. Florence, of course, gets a photo. 
 
Florence: We need to go get changed for tonight.
Huxley: I seem to have roped into a non-speaking part.
Alex: We wouldn’t miss it for the world.
 
Huxley: I think I might be exactly where I need to be - the only reason these ‘Brothers of the Skin’ would be in Milan is if they know one of the pieces of the Simulacrum is here. And all these wild coincidences are coming together. 
GM: Welcome to the opera.
Huxley: If nothing happens this evening I’m going to be very very surprised. 
 
Florence gives their now superfluous front row ticket to that waitress from Biffi’s - she’s extremely excited.
 
Waitress: I will sing along with the aria tonight! I have so many things I would like to wish for!
 
Thousands of people are waiting to see the opera when they return but the mood is funereal. The understudy is certainly no patch on Cavollaro, but when she sings the aria the opera house thrums with sound. Hundreds of people are singing along tonight - so many desperate wishes and fervent desires. 
 
And one of them is singing is Cavollaro’s voice - the old man Alex and Florence saw at the cathedral, only a few seats away across the center aisle. He has a scarred throat above his collar, as does the aged, slack-mouthed woman with sagging skin beside him. On the stage Radames enters the Temple of Phtah to receive his armour, and as the priests lift it off the dressmaker’s dummy the Torso swims in the spotlight. The investigators recognise it by the sheen like opalescent marble, but Arturo Faccia, Brother of the Skin, recognises it by the leap in his greedy, obsessive heart. He screams in ecstasy, with the Diva’s stolen voice, even as the spotlight on the Sedefkar Simulacrum dies. 

HORROR ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS - MILAN - Note For Note Pt.2
 
Jan 1923
 
IN WHICH THE INVESTIGATORS DISCUSS THE MEANING OF LIFE AND LIVE ORGAN TRANSPLANTS
 
While Lt. Huxley is off investigating the disappearance of opera diva Caterina Cavollaro, and accidentally stumbling across what appears to be an organlegging ring in 1920s Milan, Florence and her first-cousin-once-removed Alex are relaxing in the apartment at the Galleria. At least until Florence remembers that she’s supposed to be writing about her trip for her editor Edward Huntington-Smythe back at the Daily News London.
 
She probably can’t write about the horrifying death of Col. Herring in the Simplon Tunnel - as much as it’s highly newsworthy (at least for certain papers, like The Scoop) publicising it would make her persona non grata with the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits. And her Great-Uncle Henry and Great-Aunt Esther would be appalled when they find out the details.
 
On the other hand she can always write about the disappearance of the diva - the kidnapping of attractive young women is always newsworthy, as long as they’re rich, white, and famous. Get a few statements from members of the public, and suitably damning statements from the authorities, and you might even have enough for a special Sunday feature section. Florence can even get her own photos, although she’s initially reluctant to go to il Duomo and photograph the shrines and votive candles dedicated to the opera star. She and Alex are both firmly CoE, for one thing. 
 
GM: I mean if you’ll burst into flame stepping through the door, I’ll understand if you don’t.
Florence: Or the Archbishop of Canterbury suddenly sits bolt-upright and says ‘SOMETHING IS WRONG’.... It’s not like we went in there to see the artwork. It’s like they know.
 
Refreshments at Biffi’s, on the ground floor of the Galleria, first. Although actually getting the meal is delayed when la cameriera has an emotional breakdown before she’s even finished taking the order. Apparently the disappearance of the diva has left many of the Milanese in an overwrought state - God help the kidnappers if they are ever caught.
 
Waitress: La Scala is the heart of Milan, Signora - and the Diva is the heart of La Scala!
 
That’s not the only thing that the Milanese are overwrought about - a couple a few tables away have a blazing public row that culminates with the woman slapping her partner and storming out. 
 
Florence: Well, this is Italy.
GM: Apparently it was an argument about fashion.
Florence: Yep, Italy. Definitely going in the article. 
Alex: The volatile temperament of the Latin.
Florence: “Even in the midst of this city-wide tragedy, the passions of the people run hot”
 
It’s all a bit much. Although Father Angelico at the cathedral has a theory about why the Milanese have been so excessively emotional of late. He certainly disagrees about which building is the heart of Milan.
 
Father Angelico: We Milanese have lost much faith in the One True God. Our lack of animation stems from a soulless devotion to appearance instead of substance. In these dim days, we worship actors and singers. As attendance at Mass decline, attendance at la Scala increase! La Scala is the house of evil! *bewilderingly bursts into tears*
 
That might explain why he wasn’t entirely happy to have Florence photograph the shrines dedicated to Cavollaro’s safe return, but in return for a donation to the church roof fund, and a chance to practice his English, he’s happily to show Alex and Florence around the building, at least until he has to prepare for the evening service, and before he has the aforementioned outburst.
 
He’s not the last eccentric they encounter in il Duomo, either - there’s the older gentleman who has apparently misplaced his pet chameleon, but who hurried off when Alex and Flo offered to help. At least, it’s presumably his chameleon - the lizard certainly seems interested in the bottleful of dead moths the man dropped in his haste. Alex manages to catch the beast while Florence tries to track down the owner. For a reptile with conical eyes, it certainly manages an expression of withering contempt.
 
Alex: Yeah, I’m not that fond of you either, creature.
 
Eventually they leave the lizard and handful of dried bugs in the care of a baffled priest, in case the owner comes back for them. Why would you even bring your lizard to church anyway, wonders Florence. It’s not like it’s an orphan lamb that needs hourly feeding. Or even that possum her mother cared for that time. Or the kangaroos. In fact, in retrospect, it’s probably just surprising that the animal is a lizard.
 
Florence: I give him some money in case he has to look after the lizard, long-term. 
 
Huxley returns to the Galleria in time for supper - he’s a bit perturbed, to put it mildly. Lung transplants are completely impossible, and there is no reason at all why you’d transfer the diseased organs back into the ‘donor’, especially if you were just going to kill him anyway. 
 
Florence: The Great War has advanced medical technology in leaps and bounds?
 
Although this leap has taken the surgeons well past the Moral Event Horizon.
 
Huxley: The body of Ennio Spinola has been obviously tampered with by a person or persons with medical capabilities beyond anything in the published literature.
   The idea of replacing diseased or damaged body parts has been around for millennia. As early as 600 BC, the use of autogenous skin flaps to replace missing noses was conceived, and by the 16th century, Tagliacozzi and other pioneering plastic surgeons were successful with such procedures. And certainly we have made great strides in skin grafting in the aftermath of the Great War. But the transfer of entire internal organs from one person to another… human to human… and to do it so seamlessly… no one has ever succeeded!
    I mean, the base surgical techniques one would theoretically need for such a procedure are in their infancy. It’s been barely a decade since Alexis Carrel walked away with the Nobel Prize for the perfection of vascular suturing, his work is amazing!… let me think… there were technically successful kidney transplants in the early 1900s… not by Carrel… who was it?.... yes, Emerich Ullman… dog autotransplant and dog-to-goat xenografts… and then of course those abhorrent human renal transplants performed by Jaboulay and Unger using goat and monkey donors. But, none of those xenografts functioned for more than a few days and compared to… to THIS… it’s like comparing a crude Palaeolithic sculpture to a Michelangelo!
   How they did something…so… so exquisite is beyond me. To take a seemingly healthy man, cut him open, to remove his lungs and graft in a substitute pair and to do all so seamlessly and without stitches.
    And yet, the genius behind this must also be possessed with diabolical intent. The sacred duty of all medical practitioners is to do no harm. Why would someone go to the trouble of installing filthy disease-riddled lungs into the patient… the victim? Could the rampant tuberculosis be an unwanted side-effect of the procedure? Poor sterilization… not likely in an operation so meticulous. No… these are the lungs of a victim riddled with tuberculosis for years.
    I fear we are facing a medical genius whose intellect is marred by the most infernal depravity, a mind on par with Doyle’s Professor Moriarty.
 
But it's not until later in the evening as they’re preparing for bed (and Florence is developing her negatives in the bathroom in the portable dark room) that anything further happens to upset Huxley’s equilibrium. Because that’s when he hears singing - very familiar singing. It’s the Ritorna vincitor! aria from Aida. And it’s Caterina Cavollaro’s voice. 
 
Thankfully, the Lieutenant is not hallucinating - Alex can hear it too, although Florence is too busy with the negatives to come check. People and police are coming out onto the streets, too, but all the echoes from the tall buildings and cobbled roads make it impossible to locate the source before it falls into silence. And that silence is broken only by the sobs of distraught Milanese. 
 
Huxley starts putting the disjointed pieces of the puzzle together - the Torso of the Sedefkar Simulacrum was purchased by somebody from Teatro alla Scala. Flavio Contio, industrialist and patron of la Scala, has miraculously recovered from tuberculosis, at the same time a unionist miraculously acquired a pair of tuberculosis-riddled lungs and free extra stabbing. Caterina Cavollaro, star of Aida, has been kidnapped by somebody she probably knew from the opera house. And the Diva has apparently been turned into a lizard. Or was a were-chameleon the whole time. It would explain why that chameleon shows up again, in the last alley he heard the Diva’s voice in. 
 
GM: And of course, if there IS somebody in Milan collecting healthy lungs for transplant experiments, well, an opera diva would have to have pretty healthy lungs. 

Huxley: I’ve just had another horrible thought - was that even Cavollaro singing tonight? 
Alex: There can’t be that many people that can sing like that.
Huxley: That’s true.
 
Alex: It must be interesting to be inside your mind, Lt.
 
He persuades Alex that a late-night visit to Conti’s apartment is in order. There certainly seems to be somebody inside, although they’ve left all their upstairs windows open on a winter’s night. If Conti still has tuberculosis, he must be insane. Happily, he’s also left his door unlocked, so Huxley can go in and ask him in person. And why he has the same model Alfa Romeo RL Limousine the Diva was last seen getting into. Alex is reluctant to follow this lead (especially without Florence the steak-knife-wielding team bruiser along) but lets themselves be persuaded. 
 
Alex: Alright, let's go get ourselves arrested.
 
They can find weapons inside, surely.
 
Huxley OoC: I’ll grab the pokiest poker. +3 Vorpal Pokey.
 
Sneaking into the house, Huxley promptly knocks over a vase, and has to grab frantically to stop the crash. At least whoever is upstairs never heard the noise. 
 
GM: Although you’re getting the same look of withering contempt from Alex that Alex got from the lizard earlier.
 
Of course then the two of them knock the vase over together, and Alex tumbles down the cellar steps. THAT lures Conti out.
 
Flavio Conti: Chi è là?
Huxley: Mr. Conti? I need to ask you some questions about the disappearance of Caterina Cavollaro. 
 
Conti’s reaction is to freeze, then run away back to his room and slam the door. That’s enough evident guilt to fill Huxley with a righteous wrath. 
 
Huxley: I grow a single hair from my chest.
 
He can hear Conti yelling into the phone in his study (and at least one word is Polizia!) and bangs on the door. Time to test some other hypotheses.
 
Huxley: Cavollaro! Tuberculosis! Spinola!
 
Conti shoots him through the door. 
 
Fortunately the bullet only grazes his ribs, so he lies off to one side, banging with the poker and yelling more keywords until Conti runs out of bullets, then charges in and wrestles the old man to the ground. Now they have to interrogate him.
 
Alex: We should have brought Flo with us - she can get anybody to spill the beans. 
GM: It’s nearly 11PM, and they’re not back yet. Do you want to go see if anything happened to them?
Florence: They’re grown adults - I’m going to bed.
GM: So we’ll cut back to Conti’s apartment, where the two grown adults have just had a loud scuffle with multiple gunshots and all the windows open, and left the front door open. 
Italian Policeman at the door: Signore Conti?
 
Alex tries to distract him with her complete lack of Italian. Huxley starts inventing a plausible story to explain all the commotion, but doesn’t notice that Conti doesn’t yell for help now that rescue has apparently arrived. In fact, the moment that Huxley and the policeman are distracted, he leaps out the open window. Most unwise - even with fresh young lungs, the man is nearly 60, and it’s a second-storey window. By the time they get downstairs he’s bleeding out. At least he gets a few last words, staring at the blood flowing from his body. 
 
Conti: But… but.. The Brothers of the Skin. Cannot… die…
 
At least the police believe Alex and Huxley when they claim they only wanted to talk to Conti about the diva, but he went berserk the moment they mentioned her name. The language barrier actually helps, once they convince the British Consul of their innocence and get him to intervene on their behalf. Having all that money obviously proves they’re respectable people.
 
Detective: I hope this doesn’t ruin your opinion of Italy. You are perfectly safe here *glancing down at Huxley’s bloodstained shirt* under normal circumstances.
 
Of course, that’s the same reason a different police station uses to refuse the investigators a gun permit in the morning - Mussolini’s Italy is safe for law-abiding foreigners, and Mussolini is Always Right. 
 
That’s not the only thing that leaves Florence cranky - she had to go around to the police station in the middle of the night, with their passports, after an exhausting evening preparing the negatives and text for her news report.  
 
GM: Going to add anything about Conti to your article?
Florence: I’d only just finished writing it up before I got rudely woken up.
GM: You’re not going to rewrite it just because your friend got shot.
 
At least there’s some telegrams from Beddows and Prof. Smith waiting for them at the Telegraph Restant office - they report that the Professor is recovering well, and the records of the Teutonic Knights indicate they’ll need to find Sedefkar’s scrolls to finally destroy the Simulacrum. 
 
The police have finally declared Cavollaro’s disappearance a kidnapping, but they’re keeping their investigation of Conti’s involvement quiet for now. It doesn’t seem Conti was calling the police last night, because nobody shows up to arrest Huxley and Alex. None of that stops the papers being full of headlines like CAVOLLARO ABDUCTED, OPERA STAR MYSTERY, and GIVE AIDA BACK!. And the following - 
 
CAVOLLARO'S DISAPPEARANCE
Another tragedy?
 
Arturo Toscanini, director of La Scala, announced today that "Aida" would open tonight with understudy Maria Dimattina appearing in the title role. Original star Caterina Cavollaro is still missing.
Toscanini, in response to comments regarding the "ghost voice" of last night and other reputedly unnatural occurrences, said "There is no substance to these stories. They are mere gossip and old wives' tales."
Paolo Rischonti, props manager for the opera, told a different tale. "We thought our troubles were over," he said, "when the costumiers' curse ended with the preparations for Aida, but now the bad luck is on the set itself. People are being injured or falling ill, and props are disappearing. Where will this end?"
Tonight's performance is booked out, but the opera is scheduled over the next four weeks.

They still have to investigate the opera house, which is utter bedlam less than a day from curtain call. By the time they actually find somebody with answers, they’ve been injured by chariot wheels, had to pass off unexpected wooden heads, and the lieutenant has been recruited as an extra by the lead tenor, who Alex and Florence both notice is checking out Huxley’s ass. Huxley himself is oblivious. 
 
GM: Very affectionate people, the Italians. 
 
Paulo Rischonti, the props manager who purchased the Torso in Paris as part of a job lot, is not exactly happy that Alex and Flo want to buy it. Or at least, not happy that they want to buy it tonight, of all nights, when he has a hundred other things to do. He keeps his temper, barely, but develops an instant migraine.
 
Rischonti: You are clearly rich, eccentric British collectors, so of course I must drop everything to satisfy you. At least go and have a look at the thing first, but please, don’t come back here today. 
 
But when they find the costumier’s department, where the ancient evil artifact was being used as a dressmaker’s dummy, they discover it’s already gone. Apparently one of the younger stagehands collected it earlier. 
 
Ancient Seamstress: The one with the hair and the nose. 
Ancient Seamstress 2: Oh, his grandfather was so handsome.
 
That report leads to three different rumours - it’s been thrown out, sold to a collector, or accidentally dropped into the basement - but by then it’s so close to opening time they’re going to get chased out anyway. Alex and Florence track Huxley down to tell him the news, before going back to the Galleria to change into formal wear for the performance. The Lt. is half-dressed as an Egyptian soldier. Florence, of course, gets a photo. 
 
Florence: We need to go get changed for tonight.
Huxley: I seem to have roped into a non-speaking part.
Alex: We wouldn’t miss it for the world.
 
Huxley: I think I might be exactly where I need to be - the only reason these ‘Brothers of the Skin’ would be in Milan is if they know one of the pieces of the Simulacrum is here. And all these wild coincidences are coming together. 
GM: Welcome to the opera.
Huxley: If nothing happens this evening I’m going to be very very surprised. 
 
Florence gives their now superfluous front row ticket to that waitress from Biffi’s - she’s extremely excited.
 
Waitress: I will sing along with the aria tonight! I have so many things I would like to wish for!
 
Thousands of people are waiting to see the opera when they return but the mood is funereal. The understudy is certainly no patch on Cavollaro, but when she sings the aria the opera house thrums with sound. Hundreds of people are singing along tonight - so many desperate wishes and fervent desires. 
 
And one of them is singing is Cavollaro’s voice - the old man Alex and Florence saw at the cathedral, only a few seats away across the center aisle. He has a scarred throat above his collar, as does the aged, slack-mouthed woman with sagging skin beside him. On the stage Radames enters the Temple of Phtah to receive his armour, and as the priests lift it off the dressmaker’s dummy the Torso swims in the spotlight. The investigators recognise it by the sheen like opalescent marble, but Arturo Faccia, Brother of the Skin, recognises it by the leap in his greedy, obsessive heart. He screams in ecstasy, with the Diva’s stolen voice, even as the spotlight on the Sedefkar Simulacrum dies. 

Champions Campaign, set in Millennium City. A DEMON worldwide plot in early 2021 (with lots of sideplots) is being opposed by our heroes, a motley crew from Ravenswood Academy of students and teachers, combined with a few independent heroes and some of the few from DOSPA and the FBI:
 
Even before the current nastiness in Ukraine, one of the super-students has the background of being half-Ukrainian, her mother coming from Zaporizhzhia. Her grandfather is a former Soviet superhero himself, now quite elderly, and having expended most of his powers fighting a fire at a certain nuclear reactor in the north of the country. He asks the FBI superhero, Keystone (no jokes about cops) to help him as he thinks a Russian "hero" is going to offer him something he intends to refuse:
 
Kamin': I didn't come all this way to the United States, to rejoin my youngest daughter and her family, after thirty years, just to get zapped by Molnya.
Keystone: What makes you think he's going to zap you? Maybe he just wants to talk about the good old days, when the two of you were a team.
Kamin': I don't need to talk about those days any more. They aged like a fine milk.
 
Kamin' offers Keystone some ice cream (a favorite dish of those from the former Soviet Union regardless of the season).
 
Kamin': I've got French vanilla, chocolate chip cookie dough, butter pecan, and - LAINO!
Keystone: What's that? Laino?
Kamin': Apparently, "Napoleon-itan", but without the chocolate. My grandson got into my freezer last weekend.

Well, I haven't been keeping up with Digna's escapades, misadventures and misdemeanours. Jrska, OTOH, I remember with vivid clarity.
And a certain degree of terror.
 
Your hypothesis about the Porn Singularity seems to sound science, based on current physics models.

No kidding. Remember how well Drhoz played Jrska, his insane, irrepressibly, imaginatively and energetically perverse Slaanesh-worshipping dog-headed beast woman? Now there was a walking weaponized Smut FieldTM .

True enough, but I think that Digna's catching up there in that category -- otherwise, there probably would've been a
Porn Singularity* when she and Jrska got together a few posts back ( ).
 
(*Porn Singularity: a powerful phenomenon created when two or more Smut Fields come into close proximity to
one another, creating a near-irresistable attractive force. Unless they're very lucky, those who are close enough to
witness the creation of the Singularity either as it's taking shape or shortly afterwards are doomed to be sucked in
to become part of its bacchanalian depravity for the duration of its existence. Note that this is a certain guarantee in
universes where Evil Chaos Entities have a ridiculous amount of influence on certain inhabitants -- Warhammer 40K
GMs being especially susceptible to their influence.)
 
 
Major Tom 2009

Civilla: Ooh, I can summon crocodiles now.
Ayva: They’re a good aquatic option.
Civilla: But if I make them chthonic…
Rajira: A pair of eyes, not just above the waterline, but just above the grass…

Ayva: We’re running a (legitimate) printing press… we’re going to get so many orders. And signatures.
Civilla: Well, yes.
Ayva: You truly are an Alazario. I say this with all the love I can muster - you are a conniving bitch.
Civilla: I set out not to be my mother’s daughter - and I ended up my mothers daughter.

Ayva: We need to squeeze more money out of this rebellion thing.

With the help of our agents throughout the city, we ensure the Nox rumour thoroughly overtakes any whispers about the real rebellion.

Thrune: There is no rebellion, it’s clearly Nox! Either that or incompetence - PICK ONE.

Thrune releases a Tenth Proclamation.

POSSESSION OF POETRY OR PROSE WRITTEN BY THE FOLLOWING AUTHORS IS HEREBY FORBIDDEN AND PUNISHABLE BY A FINE OF 100 GOLD PIECES OR IMPRISONMENT: BOSWYTH THE BARD, TERZO PORCINUS, CHARLETTA D’VANEP, GHENRAIL OF VYRE, AND THE ANONYMOUS MISCREANT WHO CALLS THEMSELF THE “POISON PEN OF KINTARGO.” ALL DOCUMENTS BEARING THE WRITINGS OF THESE MISCREANTS MUST BE TURNED OVER TO THE DOTTARI FOR DESTRUCTION BY SUNDOWN.

Terzo: … I’m going to kill him.
Civilla: Terzo, we’re going to go to my library, and you’re going to pick a few select volumes - no more than four - that we’re not going to hand over.

Civilla: This is an opportunity to broaden your stylistic horizons, Terzo! You’ll have to choose a nom-de-plume, of course.
Ayva: I recommend a female name.
Civilla: And reduce the amount of caniphilia references.
Terzo: I note he hasn’t banned graffiti.

Civilla: I’m thinking we start planting books with Terzo’s name on the cover and Sepia Snake Sigil on the frontispiece.

Using a Bag of Holding, an excellent bluff, and her good looks, Civilla manages to save most of Terzo’s output, before handing over a stack of spare copies.

Civilla: I admit I had a fair amount of his work in my library, officer, but he was my tutor.

Civilla: We can also claim you didn’t have many copies of your own work because you keep foisting them off on people.
Terzo: *sigh* Unfortunately, that is quite believable.

Investigating the missing children is at least a good distraction from Terzo’s plans of revenge. Although the old woman at the tenement yells abuse at us apparently assuming we’re jobless layabouts, until we make it clear that we actually have jobs. And money. The twins were apparently nearly of age, and their family practically respectable, at least compared to some of the other residents, particularly one who is out all hours and comes home stinking of death. Probably just an abattoir worker.

The Parents: Strange that people of your station would take an interest in the likes of us.
Rajira: The situation in Kintargo is in flux - if we don’t look after each other, no-one else will.

Apparently the twins worked at the Lucky Bones, which was burnt to the ground by the Order of the Torrent just prior to them being outlawed. Which is suspicious, especially given the hellknights’ hatred of kidnappers, the age of the twins, and the subsequent disappearance of said teenagers. Fortunately, we find one of the kid’s diaries, with some intensely disturbing reports about the kind of things the kids overheard at what was apparently a secret drug den.

Civilla: Called it.

Prayers to Norgorber, the evil god of assassination, secrecy, and theft, are particularly worryig, since one of the precepts of the religion is murdering anybody that might have overheard your devotions.

Most of the neighbours didn’t see anything, or refuse to talk to us, but Varl Wex, the one that stinks of death, urine, cheese, and irregular work hours, may have actually seen something since there’s no predicting when he’ll be home.

Terzo OoC: Plus he’s an obvious red herring.

Rajira starts picking Wex’s lock.

Terzo: I didn’t see anything, I know nothing…
Civilla: Well if you keep acting like that it’s almost like you want to get noticed. We’re doing something entirely illegal here and the sooner you accept that the better.

Wex’s lock is considerably more difficult to pick than Rajira expected. And the room beyond stinks of Slurk grease, presumably the same appalling odour shared by the resident. He also has a number of books on alchemy. And a trail of bloodspots from the window to the bathroom. And a hidden crawlspace in what should be a load-bearing pillar. And a glowing kukri on a stand.

Civilla: *looks from the knife to Rajira* Moonlighting?
Rajira: It’s not mine.
Civilla: …. That’s the Temple Hill Slasher’s blade.
Ayva: Well, if we’re not touching it-
Rajira: Who said I’m not touching it?
Civilla: It’s an intelligent weapon!
Rajira: Yes, and I’m sure I can control it-
Civilla: That’s not my point, I’m concerned you want to try it out HERE.
Rajira: Ah, I’ll concede that.

Wex’s notes are disturbing, and obsessed with the serial killer and his magical weapon. It’s a relic of a very unpleasant cult, and Wex is convinced that he was put in the world to continue the monster’s work.

Ayva OoC: We did remember to lock the door behind us, yes?
Civilla OoC: We did not.
Ayva OoC: We don’t break into enough places, we need more practice.

That is probably why Wex, wearing a bloody apron and wielding a merely mundane dagger, is suddenly growling behind Terzo’s ear.

Wex: Give me the blade and no-one gets hurt.
Ayva: You’re getting quite good at those voices, Terzo.
Terzo: *knife at his throat* …
Rajira: Well, it looks like we get to do this somewhere private.
Ayva: Our good deed for the day.

Luckily for Terzo, Civilla has a Celestial Leopard and a few spells to keep the maniac busy even as he’s trying to keep his grip on Terzo. The rest of the stuff Rajira and Ayva bring to bear are just as ruthless.

Civilla OoC: Terzo is getting up-close-and-personal proof that the rest of us are not nice people.

Terzo is basically being swung around the room by the neck as Wex fends off attacks and spells from all sides, since the spell Deja Vu ensures he has to keep doing that rather than cut Terzo’s throat and drop the body. Eventually Wex succumbs to sudden disembowelment by Rajira, on top of all the other horrendous injuries.

GM: The magical kukri Balgorrah would probably be salivating about all of this if you hadn’t stuffed it into an extradimensional space.
Balgorrah: You cut-teasing b****!
Rajira: If I can control it, I’m keeping it.
Civilla: Why???
Rajira: It’s a kukri.
Civilla: We’ll make one just as good that won’t turn you evil.
Ayva: What are we doing with that one?
GM: The temples of Abadar or Shelyn will buy it off you.
Ayva OoC: To destroy it or redeem it, respectively
Rajira: We’ll take it to the Temple of Shelyn, I don’t want anything to do with those f***ing Abadarians.
Civilla: What?
Rajira: They’ve taken over my temples since the worship of Calistria was banned.
Civilla: They’ve taken over stewardship of the buildings.
Rajira: Yes, and that’s what we’re unhappy about!
Civilla: Yes, I can understand the anger, but it’s misdirected!
Ayva: Are we really having this conversation while we’re cleaning up all the blood?
Terzo: I’m more concerned whether the neighbours heard all the fighting.
Civilla: Probably - we’ll just spill some Slurk grease around the doorway - no-one will want to come in.
Ayva: *To the landlady of the tenement* Good news! We got rid of some of the smell, but there’s some things even Prestigitation won’t shift.

Terzo's player: Do we actually need the Niccolo Alazario standee anymore
Civilla's player: Probably, he’s an NPC now.
Ayva's player: And he’ll probably end up wandering into an overpowered encounter. Like the last two.

Rajira's player: Aw, you moved my line-dancers.
GM: Eh?
Rajira's player: The four Thug standees that were in front of me.
Ayva's player: Oh fine, I’ll move them back over there.
Civilla's player: Huh, they really do look like a line of dancers.
Terzo's player: ‘When you’re a Jet/You’re a Jet your whole life…’

But having accidentally dealt with a copycat serial killer, we still need to find out what happened to the missing twins, since apparently the aforementioned serial killer was smart enough to not kill anybody that lives in the same tenement. We send one of the Silver Raven to the Hellknights of the Torrent to ask exactly why they burned the Lucky Bones down. It might take a while to get a complete answer - the birds can only handle 25 words at a time.

GM: Are you sure the ravens aren’t blue?

Rajira OoC: OK, we’ll go meet Octavio and give the appropriate sign and countersign. And if it’s ‘show me your tits’ we’ll just kick him in the nuts afterward.
Terzo OoC: ‘Yes, those are the authentic tits’.

Octavio has snuck back into the city, but at least his current hiding place has fewer corpses lying around. Fewer, not none. Anyway, the Lucky Bones gambling and opium den that fronted for the slave ring known as the Grey Spiders, which were themselves an arm of the Cult of Norgorber. After the Knights of the Torrent started investigating, the Spiders assassinated the Torrent’s founder, and the rest of the hellknights brought the hammer down on their entire organisation - but never actually dealt with whatever was left under the Lucky Bones.

Civilla: Why do they always choose names that tell everybody what they do? If you ever hear of a group called The Rainbow Unicorns, know that I have gone into the slaving business.

At least the tunnels under the ruins of the Lucky Bones might make another hideout for the Rebellion. If we clear it out.

Rajira OoC: Hmm. I’ve got 40 HP now.
Terzo OoC: 43 here, but that’s mostly fat.

We’ll probably need those points, since we soon find a well-oiled hidden trapdoor in the ruins. But it’s very very stinky down there, and something is slithering. They’re Otyughs.

Terzo OoC: ‘I don’t care what you smell, get in there!

Terzo OoC: Why is it, whenever we find a new possible hideout for the rebellion, we have to clear out s*** like this?
Ayva OoC: It’s all cultist basements, what did you expect?
Rajira OoC: We’re the antagonists in a game of Cultist Simulator

Terzo: What do you brush your teeth with, stale urine and pig s***???? (it might even be true, I’m just hoping my tone of voice confuses them even if it doesn't make them burst into flame).

Before long the last of the things is cowering in a corner. Not that any of us have figured out what the hell they are.

Terzo: Er.. you know I don’t think this thing is a threat to us anymore? Maybe we can just leave it to do… whatever they do.
Rajira: I don’t want to spend any more time up here than we have to - it STINKS.
Ayva: We’re up to our ankles in literal s*** and you want to go lower down.

Unfortunately we’ve got even more poison to worry about before we can even go down another level.

Civilla: I don’t mean to sound like a heartless bitch, but as long as we can keep you from actually dying from it, there’s no reason why we can’t-
Rajira: Keep pressing on, I know.
Civilla: Don’t put words in my mouth. I was going to say ‘benefit from it’.

She wants to develop an antivenom from Rajira’s bad case of ‘poisoned’.

GM: I’m going to assume that by ‘milk’ you mean ‘drool into a cup because her saliva is poisonous’. Because I don’t want to think about the other options.

At least we find some interesting stuff amid the refuse, including a magical bead.

Rajira: Is it Venerable?
GM: Actually, when you look at it you wonder ‘how the F*** hasn’t that exploded yet?’
Rajira OoC: Ah. Necklace of Fireballs.
GM: Nope. Bead of Force.
Rajira OoC: Ah. That’s even worse.

Civilla’s player has been a bit shocked to learn that the Alazario family are actually canon in the Pathfinder setting, especially since they’ve played 3 different Alazarios across the various campaigns, and they’ve all been politically connected and cunning troublemakers. That pretty much describes the ones in the canon, too. An example of that cunning will feature in today’s episode.

Kintargo’s Ghosts spend much of the next fortnight on various schemes, including the installation of not just one printing press, but two - one upstairs printing legal stuff to cover the noise of the one printing all the libel underground. Not cheap, especially given the cost of cleaning out that cesspit and erasing the summoning sigils, and paying the workers for absolute discretion. We also plant the rumour that Thrune’s bodyguard Nox was seen fleeing the city, instead of occupying a number of unmarked graves under the Phantasmagorium. All but one of her team of Redactors are also thus interred. Just goes to show that good leaders lead by example.

We do hear rumours coming the other way, however, including whispers that more children are going missing, including twins from the Iudeimus tenement; that Captain Cassius Sargaeta of the Chellish warship Scourge of Belial is no fan of the current regime; and that the temporary jail currently occupied by many of Thrune’s enemies is also the residence of something far from human. Thrune has also massively increased the toll to cross the bridge between the north and south parts of the city, effectively cutting off the rich side of town from the poorer - and greatly inconveniencing the market stalls that operate on the bridge.

He’s also announced a Ninth Proclamation - that the Hellknight Order of the Torrent are now declared outlaws, all their properties seized, and that citizens are commanded to hand over any may have escaped the authorities. That might be because the Order of the Torrent really don’t like slavery, despite slavery being legal in Chelliax. Or he just wants to install a more loyal order of Hellknights in their place, such as the Order of the Rack.

Laria, a veteran of the Kintargo Coffee Wars, wants to know if we can help one of her rivals, at the Tooth and Nail. Given the fact that Setrona Sabinus is a cousin of the Torrent’s erstwhile leader the Lictor Octavio, we can take an educated guess about what kind of assistance she needs. Unless it’s a ploy to get all the people that might sympathize with the Hellknights in one place.

Setrona Sabinus: Thank you for coming - it’s been a bit of a week.
Rajira: I can imagine.

Apparently a fair number of the Hellknights were outside the city when Thrune tried to break them, and Setrona is confident that a man of Octavio’s code of honour will side with the rebellion given the chance, even if he disagrees with our methods. She even has an idea where he might be hiding - a small shrine in a swamp outside the city. Thankfully not too far - if we all vanish for a few days, people will notice. As it stands we should all leave Kintargo separately, and meet up outside. Suitable outfits might help, too - Civilla, for example, will be unrecognizable if she just wears an outfit that doesn’t cost a handful of gold. Rajira has a variety of outfits - for ‘entertaining’ - but not all of them are suitable for slogging across rough country even if they are made of leather.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FHlW2kBVIAg1ALh.png 

Civilla's player: It’s amazing how many people keep Link in the Gerudo Armour even after they leave that part of the game. On the other hand the unofficial name for Breath of the Wild is “Everybody Is Thirsty For Link”

Civilla's player: It still s***s me that Australians call the smallest things lakes or rivers.
Terzo's player: Well we have so few of them.
Civilla's player: ‘Welcome to Southern River’ ‘ What river? You mean this creek? That I can step over?’

The shrine is on the other side of a tidal stream that counts as flowing enough to frustrate many divination spells. Setrona has tagged along - it might help or may not. Her having the family signet ring certainly does.

Shrine Guardian: Who goes there!
Rajira: Friends! Seeking a friend.
Shrine Guardian: You already seem to have some.
Rajira: A particular friend who is … less than welcome in the city these days.

Shrine Guardian: The one you seek has been granted asylum below. If you wish to talk to him, you must prove worthy to pass the shrine of Saint Senex. Good luck, friends.

The shrine is filled with fog, which is a bit much given it’s dedicated to those that died at sea. The fact that the Saint expects us to perform artificial respiration on the statue of a drowned sailor is perhaps more understandable.

Lictor Octavio Sabinus is downstairs in a room with the magically preserved bodies of the drowned.

Rajira OoC: Camping with the dead? That’s usually a very bad idea.

Civilla: Yeah, he’s Chellish alright - look at that dour expression.
Rajira: And the widow’s peak and slightly pointed ears.
Civilla: Hey, the blood of the High Men is spread quite widely around the Inner Sea.

Lictor Octavius: Ah - the Ghosts of Kintargo.
Rajira: Our reputation precedes us.
GM: Let's face it, you’re not the Silver Ravens anymore.
Civilla: I plan on playing out the whole 'ghosts of Kintargo' thing to be the ghosts of the original Silver Ravens. The spirits of the vengeful dead come back to battle a great injustice.
Rajira OoC: Are you sure you’re not playing a bard?
Civilla OoC: I’m going to get Terzo to pretty it up, I’m just writing the basic outline.

Lictor Octavius: You are certainly hopeful idealists, but in my experience, passionate revolutionaries lack discipline. Like my cousin, you have good hearts, but it takes more than heart to stand up for what’s right. If I’m to throw in with the Silver Ravens, I need two things. First, I need to know that my surviving armigers are safe. Second, I need to know that the Silver Ravens are more than thugs who seek to fight in the streets—I need to know you can exercise subtlety and work at least partially within the bounds of the law to solve problems when such an option exists. As it so happens, this is a perfect chance for you to accomplish both goals.
Civilla OoC: This module really assumes we’re playing murder-hoboes, doesn’t it.

Civilla: If diplomacy doesn’t work there’s always having them chase non-existent shadows outside the city. Just providing options.

There’s also the thing his order was investigating when the Ninth Proclamation was released.

Lictor Octavius: We were investigating rumors that Lord-Mayor Bainilus didn’t actually flee the city for Arcadia as the government claims. I believe she’s been imprisoned—or worse—by Barzillai Thrune. It didn’t help that I took offense, quite publicly, at our new lord-mayor’s recruitment of the Order of the Rack as additional guards. The man spins webs like a spider, though I can’t decipher his design yet. Whatever his reason, I’ve come to believe it bodes ill for all of Kintargo.

The outlawed hellknight is concerned about repercussions to the citizenry if we do get his fellows out of prison. Terzo is very pleased about this, and shakes the man’s hand with both of his.

Terzo: Then I am very pleased to meet you, good sir! There is hope for the country yet! *hugs him firmly*
GM: He seems a bit taken aback.
Terzo's player: I don’t doubt it, but I’m quite sincere - if even one order of Hellknights has recognised that there’s a problem in Cheliax, it’s a good sign.
Rajira's player: ProblemS.

But then Terzo still hasn’t realised he’s the only Good member of the party, despite all the murderising, poisoning, and dismemberment going on in his vicinity. Denial is not just a river in Osirion.

The fugitive Hellknight also provides us with his mother’s mithril shortsword, which should convince the other members of the Torrent that we’re allies, and might be useful against the rumored demonic entity in the jail. At least we can still carry swords in public - Thrune hasn’t banned anything longer than a dagger yet.

Civilla does come up with one plan straight away - fake prisoner transfer papers. We perhaps shouldn’t be surprised she has a Masterworked Forger’s Kit and Esquire Attache Case. Alternatively we can blackmail the person in charge of the jail to send real transfer papers. Or better yet, forge an order that looks like it was forged by Nox. Civilla’s cousin might be able to help with that - he was one of her Redactors after all.

The warden of the Holding House is one Sabo the Spider, an Inquisitor of Asmodeus. It’s rumoured that she’s killed multiple lovers.

Terzo: I’m surprised she isn’t called Sabo the Black Widow.

We do come up with another name associated with the Holding House - one Ghenemahl, who is the only other permanent inhabitant of the Holding House, and one that even Sabo is scared of. Civilla casts Ears of the city, to determine 1) Who is Ghenemahl? - a Devil of considerable power and sadism; 2) Where are the prisoners being transferred to? - the Temple of Asmodeus, since they’ve been sentenced to be the first public Excruciations sanctioned by Thrune 3) Who else is a prisoner there? - four unlucky curfew breakers and halflings

There’s no way we’re going to leave those other innocents in the prison, so we have to get them out too. Civilla also considers planting a subtle compulsion on Sabo.

Terzo: So ‘clear out the prison, you have a lot more prisoners coming in?’
Civilla: ‘I’m sick of all the screaming, I want them out gone, out of my prison - the sanctimonious pr***s.’

Rajira suggests we disguise ourselves as Hellknights of the Order of the Rack - although whoever leads the group will have to carry the mithril sword so the armigers of the Torrent don’t kick up too much of a fuss when we drag them out. We’ll need to find out who does their laundry, even if Terzo and Rajira turn their theater skills to the rest of the costumery.

Rajira: And then I’m going to pull the old Purloined Letter trick, and go on a little nighttime excursion. Break into the laundry, replace the real uniforms with cloth, and start a fire.

GM: I must say I’m pleased to see you’re turning what could have been some simple dice-rolls into a whole investigation.
Terzo's player: Look at the way we played Shadowrun.

Will will need to copy the Lictor of the Rack’s handwriting and signature too.

Rajira: Time to go dumpster diving.

Although she’ll probably have to break into the Temple of Asmodeus to find some.

Civilla OoC: This is why you burn sensitive documents, people - otherwise, if they have enough pieces intact, one cantrip later you have the whole thing.

Civilla: I hope you don’t think badly of me that I have all these materials for forgery.
Terzo: I'm just glad all those calligraphy lessons I gave you helped.

Terzo leads the group of fake Hellknights of the Rack to the prison - as Civilla points out, he has the build of an officer that’s let himself go.

Civilla OoC: One of nature’s sergeants.

We also bring a cart to carry the prisoners.

Civilla OoC: I can’t believe we’re pulling one of Moist von Lipwig’s heists from the second book. I know you accuse me of having read the module, but I‘ve just read a lot of Pratchett.

Even Inquisitor Sabo would have difficulty recognising the forgeries, although she does look up when Terzo pauses at one question.

Sabo: And who are you representing?
Terzo: …
Sabo: *looks up suspiciously* A bit of a pause there?
Terzo: *gestures to the uniforms* The Order of the Rack - I would have thought it was obvious.
Sabo: Apparently. These days it’s hard to tell who’s who. *suddenly pointing at Ayva* You! How long have you been worshipping Asmodeus?
Terzo OoC: You could just tell the truth ‘Since before I joined the Hellknights’
Ayva: I’ve worshiped my God for about 50 years, ma’am.

Which is true-ish - she’s certainly been worshiping HER god that long.

Unfortunately, not all the prisoners are in their cages.

Gaoler: Uh, I’m afraid this prisoner isn’t available, ma’am.
Sabo: What? Where is she?
Gaoler: Ah, Ghenemahl has her, in the Interrogation room.
Sabo: Ah. Oh. Well, let’s go fetch her. You, get the rest of the prisoners ready.

Civilla OoC: And now Terzo has to lie to a devil of Law.
Terzo OoC: Believe me, I am keenly aware.

The armiger is bound to a rack, and has been gruesomely mutilated.

Ghenemahl: And who are you? Covered in lies, I can smell them on you. Do you wish me to remove them? You will just have to wait - I have this one to minister to.
Terzo: Hardly. We’re here to transfer the prisoners to the temple.
Ghenemahl: Come to ruin my fun, have you?
Terzo: I’m sure you’ll have more prisoners soon.
Rajira OoC: Probably Sabo, if this works
Ghenemahl: Well, show me the orders.
Terzo: *gestures to Sabo to hand them across*
Ghenemahl: The signature is misaligned on this one.
Terzo: *starts sweating bullets*
Ghenemahl: But they pass.

Civilla: *writes them a receipt for the manacles* Sign here please
Sabo: *signs*
Civilla OoC: And now I have a copy of her signature.
Ayva OoC: And we nonchalantly run away at top speed.
Rajira OoC: No we don’t - we drive the cart off in the direction of the Temple, THEN head off into an alleyway.
Civilla OoC: And get the Armigers into the fake uniforms so they can get out of the city. ‘Lictor Octavius says hello’

We were very lucky - the Bluff and forgery checks we needed to pass were in the 30s - and we only passed them by 1. But now we have the Hellknights of the Order of the Torrent as allies and advisors.
 

Fireflash’s player: This is mostly for [Hardlight’s Player], but it's also a heads up for everyone else. Fireflash has had an idea. A wonderful, awful, terrible, great idea. The whole situation as regards the Moreaus is balanced on a legal knife-edge. (I've been chatting to [The GM] about this.) Particularly in terms of Property and Corporate law. Moreaus are classified as "wildlife"...and wildlife cannot own property or hold corporate office.
We know Moreaus who do both of those things.

Fireflash is going to talk to our friendly neighborhood corporate overlord about a possible way to kick over all the dominoes. If we find a WILLING Moreau who's in that position, we then sue them in court (or the corporation they work for) over that position. If we can get past initial standing issues, we should have a real shot at completely upending the current legal status of Moreaus. At the very least we should get some good publicity for their cause.

Hero Shrew’s player: Is 'part-time troubleshooter for the Justin Hammer-expy' a corporate position?
Fireflash’s player: Probably not a sufficiently high one. You're an employee, not a manager.
Hero Shrew’s player: true - plus putting Scooter anywhere near a courtroom is asking for the kind of chaos you don't want.
Flux's player: Plus I think Hardlight suing himself might not be appropriate.
Hardlight's player: I mean... I... COULD actually pull it off. I can technically be in both places at once - though if someone with even an inkling of special detection powers sits in the courtroom, the entire jig is up
GM: The issue would be Gareth Lowell suing Lowelltech.
Hardlight's player: yeah, probably not the best idea. I'm sure there's another poor dude who tried to get a job at Tyrell or something
Fireflash’s player: We need someone who actually has the position.
Flux's player: It just struck me that the keeping/sale of exotic wildlife is technically illegal in most states without a suitable permit. Please tell me that little hiccup was smoothed over ages ago Last thing we need is a wild VS domestic issue coming up. And now thanks to reading legal documentation I had to look up what a mayhaw is.

PENAL CODE - PEN
PART 1. OF CRIMES AND PUNISHMENTS [25 - 680.4] ( Part 1 enacted 1872. )
TITLE 14. MALICIOUS MISCHIEF [594 - 625c] ( Title 14 enacted 1872. )
599b. In this title, the word “animal” includes every dumb creature; the words “torment,” “torture,” and “cruelty” include every act, omission, or neglect whereby unnecessary or unjustifiable physical pain or suffering is caused or permitted; and the words “owner” and “person” include corporations as well as individuals; and the knowledge and acts of any agent of, or person employed by, a corporation in regard to animals transported, owned, or employed by, or in the custody of, the corporation, must be held to be the act and knowledge of the corporation as well as the agent or employee.

Flux's player: ok, that's interesting. "dumb creature" “or any other dumb animal." Not sure if that's a good or bad thing. Oh my god, you are allowed one potbellied pig per residence in addition to normal pets.
GM: A number of Supreme Court rulings have stated that the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantees of due process and equal protection do not apply to sentient aliens, extradimensional entities, artificial intelligences, and the undead, because they are not “persons” under the law. On the other hand, they do apply to mutants, mutates, clones, and genetic constructs based on human stock. Congress has, however, passed laws granting at least limited rights to all “independent, free-willed, sentient entities” in American territory.

Although the GM does point out that for the last fifteen years, the local courts have always reached whatever decision stopped the cases going to a higher court. Which is especially odd since quite a few of the people involved hate Moreaus, and some of these decisions found in the Moreaus’ favour. Everybody in Edge City seems to accept that as the norm, and only outsiders like The Magus have thought it worthy of comment. It might be because some of us have high enough Power Defenses, or because some of us have even left town for more than a day.

GM: Remember that character you had to play for a while because Flux had been kidnapped?
Flux's player: Sunnuvabitch.
GM: Remember that ritual? My arms were getting tired swinging the clue bat.

Madam Lil is rather surprised when Fireflash brings her idea to her - she’s noticed the weird lack of impetus on the problem too, and had given up trying to push the matter forward.

Madam Lil: So it suddenly changed for you? I’ve noticed that before - it’s like this city can turn on a dime.
The Magus: … I’ll be back in 20 minutes.

He hurries off to check the ends of the local leylines - he has a suspicion that something arcane has been affecting the city for over a decade. But if it is, it’s really well hidden. But then it’s quite likely that we keep missing the clues the GM keeps dropping.

GM: You guys are REALLY distractible.

GM: You’re not a superteam, you're a therapy circle!

The Magus has a moment of inspiration - somebody has been summoning Memes. In fact they’ve been summoning multiple Memes.

GM: And then you take one look at Edge City and think ‘well f***, that explains so much.’

Memes are essentially AIs that run on peoples’ brains and spread by argument. They’re not essentially antagonistic towards humans, but the odd behaviour of the Edge City population suggests they aren’t necessarily benign either.

We get a request for a meeting, apparently from somebody who’s appearance just screams ‘Gothic Vampire Chick’.

Flux: Oh, a zombie.
GM: Wait, what, you see THAT picture and think ‘Zombie’?
Hero Shrew: Well, she’s not doing much breathing with a corset that tight.

The Magus’ player: Vampires aren’t really that dangerous in Champions.
Flux's player: What with all the androids, energy beams, etc.
The Magus’ player: They’re expensive pointwise too. They could be a lot more dangerous but it’s a really inefficient build.
Hero Shrew’s player: Well there’s the Watsonian and Doylist explanations.
GM: They also have the Stoker problem - everybody knows their weaknesses now.

The vampire Laura is amiable enough when she appears, out of a cloud of mist.

Fireflash: Nice trick.
Laura: Thanks - you try long enough and you get the knack.

She’s concerned that we’ve been rounding up some of her ‘blood relatives’, but just as concerned that the aforementioned vampire thalls have been acting openly enough that they got caught. Laura has also recently killed her sire, who is the DoLs mistress, which may have been a factor in their increasingly incautious activity. On the other hand, the DoLs vampirism was a new method recently invented by them, possibly in an effort to fill the void in their minds.

Laura: I’m trying to be a socially responsible vampire.

Laura: Now, I’d like to leave before your associate explains to you why using my blood won’t work.
The Magus: I wasn’t going to bring it up.
Laura: I want them to know, I just don’t want them to know about it.

Laura: I sorry but I don’t swing that way - you HAVE read Camilla, haven't you?

Laura turns back into a cloud of mist, which rolls off avoiding the increasingly stiff wind.

GM: She’s not a very powerful vampire.
Fireflash: That’s just how she rolls.

Flux: We keep getting all these fliers for cheap henchmen.
The Magus: Well, there’s an idea, if you have the money - hire all the henchmen and use them for public works, and price the villains out of the market.
The Magus: ‘I haven’t been shot at in weeks, AND I get dental!’
GM: Hey, don’t underestimate the Goon-ion.

Eventually we find a corporation that’s willing to volunteer to be the target for the lawsuit, with a Moreau employee that’s willing to risk their job if the suit doesn’t play out as everybody plans. Apparently the corporation is puzzled that nobody has tried it before too.

Corporate-type: Finally pulling the trigger on that, are they? Have at it!
Hardlight: If he turns out to be a goat I’m out of here.
The Rep: Yeah, that would be bad optics.

On the other hand, even as the various lawyers and groups involved conspire to kick the case up to the Supreme Court, we still have to deal with the feral memes. Although how feral are they, if they’re so tightly constrained to Edge City? Are they short-lived in this reality, which would explain why Edge City is so prone to sudden reversals in public opinion? We’ll have to keep a close eye on the zeitgeist in Edge City, to try and locate whatever summoning circle our opponents are using to sabotage social progress. Since they only spread by word of mouth, we may be able to track the associated memetic rumours.

Flux: Part of me wants to warn the Spinnerets about this, and then the rest of me goes ‘stop, no, that’s a terrible idea!’ - we don’t want the Spinnerets to even know these things exist!

The Magus: F*** me, this is a bleak apocalypse - there’s probably nobody in Edge City that’s still the person they’re supposed to be.

The corporation we’re working with to advance Moreau right via lawsuit is Erikson-Gulsvig Logistics GmbH, and their subdivision E-G Employment, who have been doing a lot of social outreach, street clinics and charitable programs lately - Safe houses for domestic violence victims, Homeless shelters, Rehab counseling & a number of camps where troubled youths receive guidance.

Flux OoC: It’s depressing, in the superhero settings, how often charitable groups turn out to be Evil.
GM: That's because we never get to see what the Johnathan and Martha Kent Foundation actually do.

We start an investigation, just in case our choice of collaborator is going to bite us on the bum laer. Scooter pokes around at street level, and suspects some of the Greys are staying at the homeless shelters, but nothing that would count as a big end-of-episode reveal.

We should probably tell somebody about the meme problem, in case something happens to us.

Hero Shrew: Flux knows Witchcraft, doesn’t he?
Flux: No no, Witchcraft kindly refrained from killing me the last time we met.
Hero Shrew: Well, she’d probably take it seriously if you go to her for help

On the other hand The Rep is probably immune to the meme, since any meme trying to infect him would have to get past his worldclass bulls***ing skills.

Although calling the Greys over the secret underground phone line does go a little strangely - apparently the ones at the homeless shelters are there to help, because the Moreaus suddenly approached them for help. But everything is going fine despite the Greys suddenly meddling in surface affairs. But meeting them in person to discuss it further is a bad idea. Really bad. Absolutely not on the table.

Grey: I mean, even if we met at Lake Park at 3AM someone would see us.
Fireflash: I… see. Well, you’ve been very helpful.
Grey: Actually I’ve been no help at all.
Hero Shrew: I’ve clearly missed something there.
Fireflash: Things are far from normal and they want to meet at Lake Park at 3AM.
GM: Their cyberpathy might not be the strongest but they can absolutely tell when a phone line is tapped. And this is their secure line.

The Grey Commune is currently highly stressed because somebody contacted them, psychically, and helped them out with a few problems.But now the time has come to pay them back, with little bits of psychic manipulation around town. Nothing apparently major, but some of the Greys are worried about it - some of the alterations they’ve been asked to do are weird. And it’s very weird that the psi-boosting drug they are provided with works on the Grey’s genetically modified biology.

The Grey we’re talking to is keenly aware that they’re going to get exposed sooner or later, but is doubly sure no-one will trust them because they’ve been hiding behind the scenes manipulating stuff for the last 15 years. And any sort of mental manipulation counts as Assault.

Grey: But don’t let the fact you might expose us stop you from doing the necessary.

Either way we’re going to need some way to tell when somebody has had their mind altered recently.

Fireflash: So you two had better invent some aura-detecting glasses. Or better yet goggles - that way when you fail we can say ‘The Goggles Do Nothing!’

The Magus’ sneaking around reveals that some people in the clinics are getting mental work done on them without their consent. The people are certainly in need of help, but it shouldn't be secretly like this. And there’s at least one member of stuff here who starts getting very suspicious whenever Magus and Flux report their discoveries, which may indicate a powerful dangersense. Her build - Russian Factory Worker - and Mama Bear vibe make the Magus reluctant to get any closer.

Hero Shrew: OK, these people need help, but the people given the help are going to be in so much trouble when they get found out. How will they react if we tell them we know?
Flux: Have you ever been mauled by a bear, and not in a sexual way? Because that’s what is going to happen if we get any closer.

We decide that they need to turn all the work they’re doing to voluntary treatment only, or we’ll arrest them. It’s a clear abuse of superpowers, so we won’t even need a warrant.

Hero Shrew: And if they do try to kill us then obviously they WERE up to something evil and we get to stop them anyway.
The Magus: The quickest way to get a result is to walk into the ambush and punch them in the face if they start anything.

Hero Shrew’s player: What the hell is that noise in the background, Weldun? It sounds like a cricket on cocaine.
The Magus’ player: What have you been doing on the weekends that you know what a cricket on coke sounds like?
Fireflash’s player: Have you been doing unauthorized experiments? Again? Reminds me of those experiments on spiders.
Hero Shrew’s player: I’ve got the t-shirt.
Fireflash’s player: My favorite was LSD.
Hardlight's player: Why would you give a spider drugs?
The Magus’ player: It’s way easier to get funding for spiders than orphans.
Hero Shrew’s player: Now THAT sounds like something The Magus would say.

Although to be honest they all seemed pretty in-character.

The Magus and Fireflash head in while the others watch for trouble - the Russian greets them cautiously, and certainly recognises Fireflash.

The Russian-presumed-Super: Permission? Written permission? Do you need written permission to take person through guided meditation? We tell them we will change their minds.

They claim they did have permission, but won’t let Fireflash see the files. She warns them that she’ll probably have to report them if they won’t.

The Russian: Why, because we are telepaths? You are bigot! This no different to telling ‘we summon good feelings into you!’

The counselors might well be licensed to operate in California, but the Greys looking through two-way mirrors in each ‘counseling session’ certainly aren’t. At least as mutates based on human stock their personhood is beyond legal dispute, and they don’t have to be registered as medical devices.

GM: It becomes, legally speaking, a very grey area.
Hero Shrew: ha ha.

On the other hand there’s also the matter of the drug our Grey contact mentioned. We’ll avoid mentioning that until we’ve done some more staking out and legwork. And background research on this Russian dame. If the Karen Sholokhov we investigate is actually the same person, she’s known as ‘Perestroika’ - Russian for ‘reconstruction’. She’s a rather powerful mass telepath, who can make any nearby her willing slaves, if they’re weak-willed enough. Although the Magus didn’t notice her actually using her own powers. She left Russia about the time Putin came to power. Surprisingly, she’s not superhumanly strong - but her Combat Luck and Danger Sense have kept her alive so far.

It looks like the aromatherapy program the Greys are on includes a psychoenhansive inhalant And with some sneakiness we can get hold of the stuff.

GM: Continual surveillance on somebody with Danger Sense could count as cruel and unusual punishment.

And then coming up with something to counter her Danger Sense will just ramp up her paranoia - ‘why can’t I feel them watching me anymore???’

The drug turns out to be very odd indeed, with some similarities to drugs circulated by the Scarlatti drug family in Baltimore in the 1990s. One of their customers was the first iteration of PSI.

The Magus: I’m just looking up the entry for the current iteration of PSI, and it says they’ve never been defeated thanks to caution and careful planning. And then they got accidentally defeated by Quadrant.
GM: Just goes to show you where bad luck can get you.

Flux: Now I’m worrying that somebody will get hold of the PSI drug and dump a bunch in some city’s water reservoir.

GM: PSI is also one of the few supervillain groups that hasn’t been plagued by internal betrayals.
The Magus: It helps where you’re basically the top rung of a psychic powers pyramid scheme.

It also looks like all of the precursor chemicals are coming from a company tasked with destroying them. A company that has all the facilities to turn merely dangerous chemicals into extremely dangerous chemicals. In industrial volumes.

Hero Shrew: Looks like the city reservoir idea is back on the menu.

We could always get them on Improper Storage And Disposal violations, but it’s probably going to require sneaking around first. It’s just as well we do sneak, because everybody in the facility is armed. With blasters. And there’s something weirdly fuzzy about them, even on the Magus’ scrying.

Hero Shrew: What are laws about private ownership of energy weapons?
GM: Not that different from kinetic weapons, honestly.
Flux: So you can only own an Orbital Death Laser for educational purposes.

And Magus’ mental awareness power is going ‘ping!’ continuously. And also weird that the rest of us didn’t think the place was weird until now.

Hardlight: Are we going in lasers blazing?
Hero Shrew: I can think of a few reasons not to, and one of them is that scene from Robocop.

(next session started with a long discussion that by complete coincidence included Bhopal, the Tianjin city explosion, the Halifax disaster and the fertilizer explosion in Beirut.)

Hero Shrew OoC: Anyway, speaking of chemical factory explosions…
GM: I haven’t found a map for the chemical factory.
Hero Shrew OoC: Just find a crater, it’ll probably end up that way.
Hardlight: Let’s just watch our backstop shall we?

Flux: On the bright side, if we do f*** up on the scale of any of the above, we won’t be around to get in trouble for it.
Fireflash: That’s not as reassuring as you think it is, Flux.

Unfortunately the moment we march onto the premises to announce the raid, the guards react by transforming their uniforms into armour. At least one of them is superpowered, too.

Fireflash: Nice trick.

And then the other defenses go off, which include an alarming amount of electromagnetic radiation going well up into the ionising variety.

Fireflash: Ouch!
Hero Shrew: Well, aren’t they going to be embarrassed if we were just here to invite them to a charity event.

A second super shows up.

Fireflash: A scary black person?
GM: A LIVING SHADOW
The Magus: I thought it was Hardlight with Foot-in-Mouth Disease
Flux: The difference is he does it by accident.

Magus hits one of the supers with a very effective illusion of teleportation to an alien cliff, Hardlight hits a mook with a point-blank PHOTON WAVE CANNON, and Scooter goes after another.

Hero Shrew: What’s the move in Mortal Kombat where you tear somebody’s entire spine and skull out through their a**hole?
The Magus: … I think that may have been from another title.
Hardlight: I’m pretty sure he pulls the opponent’s spine *upward*.
Fireflash: Forward, Down, Forward, High Punch in close range with Sub-Zero.

The mook instead gets thrown at the next one.

Hero Shrew: He’s probably just relieved I didn’t tear out his entire spine etc.

At least the radiation field doesn’t interfere with one of Flux’s powers.

The Magus: ‘BWAHAHAHA, you will never escape my anti-teleportation trap hero- oh f*** he can walk.’

The Magus: That would have been a good thing to add to the illusion - a giant sandworm appearing in the distance.
Enemy Super #1: *shakes his head to get rid of the illusion* Well, aren’t you a tricky one *lightning bolts Magus*

The living shadow is swooping in, and appears to be giggling. And the mooks have Goop Rifles. And the first supervillain hits Scooter in the face with a ball of lightning (and an under-the-breath ‘Hadouken!’).

GM: You are also blind for a time, and your radio is all staticky.
Fireflash: Hey! That’s my trick!
Flux: Then maybe you should stop demonstrating it to the bad guys.

It’s just as well Hardlight is such a bombastic character that there’s no chance Scooter will attack him by accident.

GM: ‘Don’t worry old chum, I’ll help yo- oh, you’re getting up by yourself.’

Fortunately, whoever the shadow is, we never find out what he had planned because he’s entirely vulnerable to EGO attacks. The Magus suspects that somebody has the ability to let their dark side off the leash.

Losing his back-up, and having his point-blank attack on Fireflash have absolutely no effect, the lightning-wielding super thinks that this might be a good time to leave. He just doesn’t leave fast enough, and get sniped out of the air by Magus. We’ll have to disentangle him from the maze of pipes later. Hero Shrew blinks off his blindness, and goes to deal with a mook that’s still blinded by Hardlight’s earlier, otherwise ineffective attacks.

The Magus: Yes, you should probably take that gun off him before hurts someone.
Hardlight: *charging up another PHOTON WAVE CANNON* Third time’s the charm…
The Magus: Oh, you think you can handle him now he’s blind and disarmed?

Hardlight: Remember your backstop!
Hero Shrew: I am. That’s why I’m not throwing a concrete slab at those two.
GM: I reserve the right to make bad suggestions on occasion

Shortly thereafter Hardlight finds himself in a very unfortunate position as regards a familiar-looking robot dinosaur.

GM: It opens its mouth.
Hardlight: … am I about to be Godzilla’d?
GM: Well, Mechagodzilla’d

Hardlight: That blast is going to hit 3 of us!
Flux: But nothing explosive. I think.

The energy blast certainly takes Hardlight out of the fight, and even knocks Scooter out briefly. In fact, if there is somebody in that Tokusatsu suit he’s certainly confident if he’s standing in the middle of three heavy hitters. And smart enough to Gank The Wizard First.

The Magus: Bad luck for him that I've got the strongest defenses in the team.

And further bad luck that Hardlight had taken out his Lightning Horn, before it could blat us with atomic fire from range again. Of course Gareth is probably the only person on the team that would recognise the cultural inspirations of the suit and target accordingly.

Hardlight: AlI know is that I want one.

Of course if the Mechagodzilla was supposed to keep us busy while the bad guys were getting away, they have a problem, because a few lucky hits leave it dazed on the ground, and Hero Shrew is coming around.

GM: Scooter, you’re awake.
Hero Shrew: Gimme a minute, I’m looking around for the asteroid that hit me.

Scooter goes full HULK SMASH on the suit, and after that rounding up the rest of the bad guys is short work. As well as all their other rather advanced technology, which includes subdermal radios and colour-change armour, the mooks have guns with mental controls.

Hardlight: Shoot. SHOOT. Hmm, maybe I’m not thinking hard enough.
The Magus OoC: If I remember the EGO of the rest of this party, then yeah, not thinking hard enough is definitely the problem
Hero Shrew: Huh. Were the lights supposed to come on?
Hardlight: WHAT???
Hero Shrew: The lights on this gun. Look, they’ve all come on. *waves it around*
The Magus: Hmm. Well, many Moreaus are at least passively psychic, although I don’t believe that’s common knowledge.
Hardlight: PUT THAT DOWN
The Magus: Huh, it must simply take a powerful enough mind to activate it.
Flux: That’s just mean.

We might not find where the drug pipeline actually starts, but we’ve shut down the literal pipeline at least. Although the clinic we were investigating has been cleaned out by the time we get back there.

The Magus OoC: He wants to spend a point to put a trailer on the Quadraphibious Qruiser.
Flux: It’d make a good accessory.
GM: … He wants to turn the Qruiser into an articulated truck.
Hardlight: I’m gonna make some scans of the MechaGodzilla so The Rep can make action figures.
GM: Did you negotiate likeness rights?
Hardlight: err…
Flux: ‘We have made a legally distinct villain who might look very similar but is actually legally distinct.’

Of course, as the Magus points out, the psi-boosting drug really is a very minor problem compared to some of the other things going on in Edge City, like the Sentient Memes. Gareth Lowell agrees - one wonders if somebody threw the drug situation at us to distract us from the issue at hand!

Civilla: Ooh, I can summon crocodiles now.
Ayva: They’re a good aquatic option.
Civilla: But if I make them chthonic…
Rajira: A pair of eyes, not just above the waterline, but just above the grass…

Ayva: We’re running a (legitimate) printing press… we’re going to get so many orders. And signatures.
Civilla: Well, yes.
Ayva: You truly are an Alazario. I say this with all the love I can muster - you are a conniving bitch.
Civilla: I set out not to be my mother’s daughter - and I ended up my mothers daughter.

Ayva: We need to squeeze more money out of this rebellion thing.

With the help of our agents throughout the city, we ensure the Nox rumour thoroughly overtakes any whispers about the real rebellion.

Thrune: There is no rebellion, it’s clearly Nox! Either that or incompetence - PICK ONE.

Thrune releases a Tenth Proclamation.

POSSESSION OF POETRY OR PROSE WRITTEN BY THE FOLLOWING AUTHORS IS HEREBY FORBIDDEN AND PUNISHABLE BY A FINE OF 100 GOLD PIECES OR IMPRISONMENT: BOSWYTH THE BARD, TERZO PORCINUS, CHARLETTA D’VANEP, GHENRAIL OF VYRE, AND THE ANONYMOUS MISCREANT WHO CALLS THEMSELF THE “POISON PEN OF KINTARGO.” ALL DOCUMENTS BEARING THE WRITINGS OF THESE MISCREANTS MUST BE TURNED OVER TO THE DOTTARI FOR DESTRUCTION BY SUNDOWN.

Terzo: … I’m going to kill him.
Civilla: Terzo, we’re going to go to my library, and you’re going to pick a few select volumes - no more than four - that we’re not going to hand over.

Civilla: This is an opportunity to broaden your stylistic horizons, Terzo! You’ll have to choose a nom-de-plume, of course.
Ayva: I recommend a female name.
Civilla: And reduce the amount of caniphilia references.
Terzo: I note he hasn’t banned graffiti.

Civilla: I’m thinking we start planting books with Terzo’s name on the cover and Sepia Snake Sigil on the frontispiece.

Using a Bag of Holding, an excellent bluff, and her good looks, Civilla manages to save most of Terzo’s output, before handing over a stack of spare copies.

Civilla: I admit I had a fair amount of his work in my library, officer, but he was my tutor.

Civilla: We can also claim you didn’t have many copies of your own work because you keep foisting them off on people.
Terzo: *sigh* Unfortunately, that is quite believable.

Investigating the missing children is at least a good distraction from Terzo’s plans of revenge. Although the old woman at the tenement yells abuse at us apparently assuming we’re jobless layabouts, until we make it clear that we actually have jobs. And money. The twins were apparently nearly of age, and their family practically respectable, at least compared to some of the other residents, particularly one who is out all hours and comes home stinking of death. Probably just an abattoir worker.

The Parents: Strange that people of your station would take an interest in the likes of us.
Rajira: The situation in Kintargo is in flux - if we don’t look after each other, no-one else will.

Apparently the twins worked at the Lucky Bones, which was burnt to the ground by the Order of the Torrent just prior to them being outlawed. Which is suspicious, especially given the hellknights’ hatred of kidnappers, the age of the twins, and the subsequent disappearance of said teenagers. Fortunately, we find one of the kid’s diaries, with some intensely disturbing reports about the kind of things the kids overheard at what was apparently a secret drug den.

Civilla: Called it.

Prayers to Norgorber, the evil god of assassination, secrecy, and theft, are particularly worryig, since one of the precepts of the religion is murdering anybody that might have overheard your devotions.

Most of the neighbours didn’t see anything, or refuse to talk to us, but Varl Wex, the one that stinks of death, urine, cheese, and irregular work hours, may have actually seen something since there’s no predicting when he’ll be home.

Terzo OoC: Plus he’s an obvious red herring.

Rajira starts picking Wex’s lock.

Terzo: I didn’t see anything, I know nothing…
Civilla: Well if you keep acting like that it’s almost like you want to get noticed. We’re doing something entirely illegal here and the sooner you accept that the better.

Wex’s lock is considerably more difficult to pick than Rajira expected. And the room beyond stinks of Slurk grease, presumably the same appalling odour shared by the resident. He also has a number of books on alchemy. And a trail of bloodspots from the window to the bathroom. And a hidden crawlspace in what should be a load-bearing pillar. And a glowing kukri on a stand.

Civilla: *looks from the knife to Rajira* Moonlighting?
Rajira: It’s not mine.
Civilla: …. That’s the Temple Hill Slasher’s blade.
Ayva: Well, if we’re not touching it-
Rajira: Who said I’m not touching it?
Civilla: It’s an intelligent weapon!
Rajira: Yes, and I’m sure I can control it-
Civilla: That’s not my point, I’m concerned you want to try it out HERE.
Rajira: Ah, I’ll concede that.

Wex’s notes are disturbing, and obsessed with the serial killer and his magical weapon. It’s a relic of a very unpleasant cult, and Wex is convinced that he was put in the world to continue the monster’s work.

Ayva OoC: We did remember to lock the door behind us, yes?
Civilla OoC: We did not.
Ayva OoC: We don’t break into enough places, we need more practice.

That is probably why Wex, wearing a bloody apron and wielding a merely mundane dagger, is suddenly growling behind Terzo’s ear.

Wex: Give me the blade and no-one gets hurt.
Ayva: You’re getting quite good at those voices, Terzo.
Terzo: *knife at his throat* …
Rajira: Well, it looks like we get to do this somewhere private.
Ayva: Our good deed for the day.

Luckily for Terzo, Civilla has a Celestial Leopard and a few spells to keep the maniac busy even as he’s trying to keep his grip on Terzo. The rest of the stuff Rajira and Ayva bring to bear are just as ruthless.

Civilla OoC: Terzo is getting up-close-and-personal proof that the rest of us are not nice people.

Terzo is basically being swung around the room by the neck as Wex fends off attacks and spells from all sides, since the spell Deja Vu ensures he has to keep doing that rather than cut Terzo’s throat and drop the body. Eventually Wex succumbs to sudden disembowelment by Rajira, on top of all the other horrendous injuries.

GM: The magical kukri Balgorrah would probably be salivating about all of this if you hadn’t stuffed it into an extradimensional space.
Balgorrah: You cut-teasing b****!
Rajira: If I can control it, I’m keeping it.
Civilla: Why???
Rajira: It’s a kukri.
Civilla: We’ll make one just as good that won’t turn you evil.
Ayva: What are we doing with that one?
GM: The temples of Abadar or Shelyn will buy it off you.
Ayva OoC: To destroy it or redeem it, respectively
Rajira: We’ll take it to the Temple of Shelyn, I don’t want anything to do with those f***ing Abadarians.
Civilla: What?
Rajira: They’ve taken over my temples since the worship of Calistria was banned.
Civilla: They’ve taken over stewardship of the buildings.
Rajira: Yes, and that’s what we’re unhappy about!
Civilla: Yes, I can understand the anger, but it’s misdirected!
Ayva: Are we really having this conversation while we’re cleaning up all the blood?
Terzo: I’m more concerned whether the neighbours heard all the fighting.
Civilla: Probably - we’ll just spill some Slurk grease around the doorway - no-one will want to come in.
Ayva: *To the landlady of the tenement* Good news! We got rid of some of the smell, but there’s some things even Prestigitation won’t shift.

Terzo's player: Do we actually need the Niccolo Alazario standee anymore
Civilla's player: Probably, he’s an NPC now.
Ayva's player: And he’ll probably end up wandering into an overpowered encounter. Like the last two.

Rajira's player: Aw, you moved my line-dancers.
GM: Eh?
Rajira's player: The four Thug standees that were in front of me.
Ayva's player: Oh fine, I’ll move them back over there.
Civilla's player: Huh, they really do look like a line of dancers.
Terzo's player: ‘When you’re a Jet/You’re a Jet your whole life…’

But having accidentally dealt with a copycat serial killer, we still need to find out what happened to the missing twins, since apparently the aforementioned serial killer was smart enough to not kill anybody that lives in the same tenement. We send one of the Silver Raven to the Hellknights of the Torrent to ask exactly why they burned the Lucky Bones down. It might take a while to get a complete answer - the birds can only handle 25 words at a time.

GM: Are you sure the ravens aren’t blue?

Rajira OoC: OK, we’ll go meet Octavio and give the appropriate sign and countersign. And if it’s ‘show me your tits’ we’ll just kick him in the nuts afterward.
Terzo OoC: ‘Yes, those are the authentic tits’.

Octavio has snuck back into the city, but at least his current hiding place has fewer corpses lying around. Fewer, not none. Anyway, the Lucky Bones gambling and opium den that fronted for the slave ring known as the Grey Spiders, which were themselves an arm of the Cult of Norgorber. After the Knights of the Torrent started investigating, the Spiders assassinated the Torrent’s founder, and the rest of the hellknights brought the hammer down on their entire organisation - but never actually dealt with whatever was left under the Lucky Bones.

Civilla: Why do they always choose names that tell everybody what they do? If you ever hear of a group called The Rainbow Unicorns, know that I have gone into the slaving business.

At least the tunnels under the ruins of the Lucky Bones might make another hideout for the Rebellion. If we clear it out.

Rajira OoC: Hmm. I’ve got 40 HP now.
Terzo OoC: 43 here, but that’s mostly fat.

We’ll probably need those points, since we soon find a well-oiled hidden trapdoor in the ruins. But it’s very very stinky down there, and something is slithering. They’re Otyughs.

Terzo OoC: ‘I don’t care what you smell, get in there!

Terzo OoC: Why is it, whenever we find a new possible hideout for the rebellion, we have to clear out s*** like this?
Ayva OoC: It’s all cultist basements, what did you expect?
Rajira OoC: We’re the antagonists in a game of Cultist Simulator

Terzo: What do you brush your teeth with, stale urine and pig s***???? (it might even be true, I’m just hoping my tone of voice confuses them even if it doesn't make them burst into flame).

Before long the last of the things is cowering in a corner. Not that any of us have figured out what the hell they are.

Terzo: Er.. you know I don’t think this thing is a threat to us anymore? Maybe we can just leave it to do… whatever they do.
Rajira: I don’t want to spend any more time up here than we have to - it STINKS.
Ayva: We’re up to our ankles in literal s*** and you want to go lower down.

Unfortunately we’ve got even more poison to worry about before we can even go down another level.

Civilla: I don’t mean to sound like a heartless bitch, but as long as we can keep you from actually dying from it, there’s no reason why we can’t-
Rajira: Keep pressing on, I know.
Civilla: Don’t put words in my mouth. I was going to say ‘benefit from it’.

She wants to develop an antivenom from Rajira’s bad case of ‘poisoned’.

GM: I’m going to assume that by ‘milk’ you mean ‘drool into a cup because her saliva is poisonous’. Because I don’t want to think about the other options.

At least we find some interesting stuff amid the refuse, including a magical bead.

Rajira: Is it Venerable?
GM: Actually, when you look at it you wonder ‘how the F*** hasn’t that exploded yet?’
Rajira OoC: Ah. Necklace of Fireballs.
GM: Nope. Bead of Force.
Rajira OoC: Ah. That’s even worse.

Fireflash’s player: This is mostly for [Hardlight’s Player], but it's also a heads up for everyone else. Fireflash has had an idea. A wonderful, awful, terrible, great idea. The whole situation as regards the Moreaus is balanced on a legal knife-edge. (I've been chatting to [The GM] about this.) Particularly in terms of Property and Corporate law. Moreaus are classified as "wildlife"...and wildlife cannot own property or hold corporate office.
We know Moreaus who do both of those things.

Fireflash is going to talk to our friendly neighborhood corporate overlord about a possible way to kick over all the dominoes. If we find a WILLING Moreau who's in that position, we then sue them in court (or the corporation they work for) over that position. If we can get past initial standing issues, we should have a real shot at completely upending the current legal status of Moreaus. At the very least we should get some good publicity for their cause.

Hero Shrew’s player: Is 'part-time troubleshooter for the Justin Hammer-expy' a corporate position?
Fireflash’s player: Probably not a sufficiently high one. You're an employee, not a manager.
Hero Shrew’s player: true - plus putting Scooter anywhere near a courtroom is asking for the kind of chaos you don't want.
Flux's player: Plus I think Hardlight suing himself might not be appropriate.
Hardlight's player: I mean... I... COULD actually pull it off. I can technically be in both places at once - though if someone with even an inkling of special detection powers sits in the courtroom, the entire jig is up
GM: The issue would be Gareth Lowell suing Lowelltech.
Hardlight's player: yeah, probably not the best idea. I'm sure there's another poor dude who tried to get a job at Tyrell or something
Fireflash’s player: We need someone who actually has the position.
Flux's player: It just struck me that the keeping/sale of exotic wildlife is technically illegal in most states without a suitable permit. Please tell me that little hiccup was smoothed over ages ago Last thing we need is a wild VS domestic issue coming up. And now thanks to reading legal documentation I had to look up what a mayhaw is.

PENAL CODE - PEN
PART 1. OF CRIMES AND PUNISHMENTS [25 - 680.4] ( Part 1 enacted 1872. )
TITLE 14. MALICIOUS MISCHIEF [594 - 625c] ( Title 14 enacted 1872. )
599b. In this title, the word “animal” includes every dumb creature; the words “torment,” “torture,” and “cruelty” include every act, omission, or neglect whereby unnecessary or unjustifiable physical pain or suffering is caused or permitted; and the words “owner” and “person” include corporations as well as individuals; and the knowledge and acts of any agent of, or person employed by, a corporation in regard to animals transported, owned, or employed by, or in the custody of, the corporation, must be held to be the act and knowledge of the corporation as well as the agent or employee.

Flux's player: ok, that's interesting. "dumb creature" “or any other dumb animal." Not sure if that's a good or bad thing. Oh my god, you are allowed one potbellied pig per residence in addition to normal pets.
GM: A number of Supreme Court rulings have stated that the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantees of due process and equal protection do not apply to sentient aliens, extradimensional entities, artificial intelligences, and the undead, because they are not “persons” under the law. On the other hand, they do apply to mutants, mutates, clones, and genetic constructs based on human stock. Congress has, however, passed laws granting at least limited rights to all “independent, free-willed, sentient entities” in American territory.

Although the GM does point out that for the last fifteen years, the local courts have always reached whatever decision stopped the cases going to a higher court. Which is especially odd since quite a few of the people involved hate Moreaus, and some of these decisions found in the Moreaus’ favour. Everybody in Edge City seems to accept that as the norm, and only outsiders like The Magus have thought it worthy of comment. It might be because some of us have high enough Power Defenses, or because some of us have even left town for more than a day.

GM: Remember that character you had to play for a while because Flux had been kidnapped?
Flux's player: Sunnuvabitch.
GM: Remember that ritual? My arms were getting tired swinging the clue bat.

Madam Lil is rather surprised when Fireflash brings her idea to her - she’s noticed the weird lack of impetus on the problem too, and had given up trying to push the matter forward.

Madam Lil: So it suddenly changed for you? I’ve noticed that before - it’s like this city can turn on a dime.
The Magus: … I’ll be back in 20 minutes.

He hurries off to check the ends of the local leylines - he has a suspicion that something arcane has been affecting the city for over a decade. But if it is, it’s really well hidden. But then it’s quite likely that we keep missing the clues the GM keeps dropping.

GM: You guys are REALLY distractible.

GM: You’re not a superteam, you're a therapy circle!

The Magus has a moment of inspiration - somebody has been summoning Memes. In fact they’ve been summoning multiple Memes.

GM: And then you take one look at Edge City and think ‘well f***, that explains so much.’

Memes are essentially AIs that run on peoples’ brains and spread by argument. They’re not essentially antagonistic towards humans, but the odd behaviour of the Edge City population suggests they aren’t necessarily benign either.

We get a request for a meeting, apparently from somebody who’s appearance just screams ‘Gothic Vampire Chick’.

Flux: Oh, a zombie.
GM: Wait, what, you see THAT picture and think ‘Zombie’?
Hero Shrew: Well, she’s not doing much breathing with a corset that tight.

The Magus’ player: Vampires aren’t really that dangerous in Champions.
Flux's player: What with all the androids, energy beams, etc.
The Magus’ player: They’re expensive pointwise too. They could be a lot more dangerous but it’s a really inefficient build.
Hero Shrew’s player: Well there’s the Watsonian and Doylist explanations.
GM: They also have the Stoker problem - everybody knows their weaknesses now.

The vampire Laura is amiable enough when she appears, out of a cloud of mist.

Fireflash: Nice trick.
Laura: Thanks - you try long enough and you get the knack.

She’s concerned that we’ve been rounding up some of her ‘blood relatives’, but just as concerned that the aforementioned vampire thalls have been acting openly enough that they got caught. Laura has also recently killed her sire, who is the DoLs mistress, which may have been a factor in their increasingly incautious activity. On the other hand, the DoLs vampirism was a new method recently invented by them, possibly in an effort to fill the void in their minds.

Laura: I’m trying to be a socially responsible vampire.

Laura: Now, I’d like to leave before your associate explains to you why using my blood won’t work.
The Magus: I wasn’t going to bring it up.
Laura: I want them to know, I just don’t want them to know about it.

Laura: I sorry but I don’t swing that way - you HAVE read Camilla, haven't you?

Laura turns back into a cloud of mist, which rolls off avoiding the increasingly stiff wind.

GM: She’s not a very powerful vampire.
Fireflash: That’s just how she rolls.

Flux: We keep getting all these fliers for cheap henchmen.
The Magus: Well, there’s an idea, if you have the money - hire all the henchmen and use them for public works, and price the villains out of the market.
The Magus: ‘I haven’t been shot at in weeks, AND I get dental!’
GM: Hey, don’t underestimate the Goon-ion.

Eventually we find a corporation that’s willing to volunteer to be the target for the lawsuit, with a Moreau employee that’s willing to risk their job if the suit doesn’t play out as everybody plans. Apparently the corporation is puzzled that nobody has tried it before too.

Corporate-type: Finally pulling the trigger on that, are they? Have at it!
Hardlight: If he turns out to be a goat I’m out of here.
The Rep: Yeah, that would be bad optics.

On the other hand, even as the various lawyers and groups involved conspire to kick the case up to the Supreme Court, we still have to deal with the feral memes. Although how feral are they, if they’re so tightly constrained to Edge City? Are they short-lived in this reality, which would explain why Edge City is so prone to sudden reversals in public opinion? We’ll have to keep a close eye on the zeitgeist in Edge City, to try and locate whatever summoning circle our opponents are using to sabotage social progress. Since they only spread by word of mouth, we may be able to track the associated memetic rumours.

Flux: Part of me wants to warn the Spinnerets about this, and then the rest of me goes ‘stop, no, that’s a terrible idea!’ - we don’t want the Spinnerets to even know these things exist!

The Magus: F*** me, this is a bleak apocalypse - there’s probably nobody in Edge City that’s still the person they’re supposed to be.

The corporation we’re working with to advance Moreau right via lawsuit is Erikson-Gulsvig Logistics GmbH, and their subdivision E-G Employment, who have been doing a lot of social outreach, street clinics and charitable programs lately - Safe houses for domestic violence victims, Homeless shelters, Rehab counseling & a number of camps where troubled youths receive guidance.

Flux OoC: It’s depressing, in the superhero settings, how often charitable groups turn out to be Evil.
GM: That's because we never get to see what the Johnathan and Martha Kent Foundation actually do.

We start an investigation, just in case our choice of collaborator is going to bite us on the bum laer. Scooter pokes around at street level, and suspects some of the Greys are staying at the homeless shelters, but nothing that would count as a big end-of-episode reveal.

We should probably tell somebody about the meme problem, in case something happens to us.

Hero Shrew: Flux knows Witchcraft, doesn’t he?
Flux: No no, Witchcraft kindly refrained from killing me the last time we met.
Hero Shrew: Well, she’d probably take it seriously if you go to her for help

On the other hand The Rep is probably immune to the meme, since any meme trying to infect him would have to get past his worldclass bulls***ing skills.

Although calling the Greys over the secret underground phone line does go a little strangely - apparently the ones at the homeless shelters are there to help, because the Moreaus suddenly approached them for help. But everything is going fine despite the Greys suddenly meddling in surface affairs. But meeting them in person to discuss it further is a bad idea. Really bad. Absolutely not on the table.

Grey: I mean, even if we met at Lake Park at 3AM someone would see us.
Fireflash: I… see. Well, you’ve been very helpful.
Grey: Actually I’ve been no help at all.
Hero Shrew: I’ve clearly missed something there.
Fireflash: Things are far from normal and they want to meet at Lake Park at 3AM.
GM: Their cyberpathy might not be the strongest but they can absolutely tell when a phone line is tapped. And this is their secure line.

The Grey Commune is currently highly stressed because somebody contacted them, psychically, and helped them out with a few problems.But now the time has come to pay them back, with little bits of psychic manipulation around town. Nothing apparently major, but some of the Greys are worried about it - some of the alterations they’ve been asked to do are weird. And it’s very weird that the psi-boosting drug they are provided with works on the Grey’s genetically modified biology.

The Grey we’re talking to is keenly aware that they’re going to get exposed sooner or later, but is doubly sure no-one will trust them because they’ve been hiding behind the scenes manipulating stuff for the last 15 years. And any sort of mental manipulation counts as Assault.

Grey: But don’t let the fact you might expose us stop you from doing the necessary.

Either way we’re going to need some way to tell when somebody has had their mind altered recently.

Fireflash: So you two had better invent some aura-detecting glasses. Or better yet goggles - that way when you fail we can say ‘The Goggles Do Nothing!’

The Magus’ sneaking around reveals that some people in the clinics are getting mental work done on them without their consent. The people are certainly in need of help, but it shouldn't be secretly like this. And there’s at least one member of stuff here who starts getting very suspicious whenever Magus and Flux report their discoveries, which may indicate a powerful dangersense. Her build - Russian Factory Worker - and Mama Bear vibe make the Magus reluctant to get any closer.

Hero Shrew: OK, these people need help, but the people given the help are going to be in so much trouble when they get found out. How will they react if we tell them we know?
Flux: Have you ever been mauled by a bear, and not in a sexual way? Because that’s what is going to happen if we get any closer.

We decide that they need to turn all the work they’re doing to voluntary treatment only, or we’ll arrest them. It’s a clear abuse of superpowers, so we won’t even need a warrant.

Hero Shrew: And if they do try to kill us then obviously they WERE up to something evil and we get to stop them anyway.
The Magus: The quickest way to get a result is to walk into the ambush and punch them in the face if they start anything.

Hero Shrew’s player: What the hell is that noise in the background, Weldun? It sounds like a cricket on cocaine.
The Magus’ player: What have you been doing on the weekends that you know what a cricket on coke sounds like?
Fireflash’s player: Have you been doing unauthorized experiments? Again? Reminds me of those experiments on spiders.
Hero Shrew’s player: I’ve got the t-shirt.
Fireflash’s player: My favorite was LSD.
Hardlight's player: Why would you give a spider drugs?
The Magus’ player: It’s way easier to get funding for spiders than orphans.
Hero Shrew’s player: Now THAT sounds like something The Magus would say.

Although to be honest they all seemed pretty in-character.

The Magus and Fireflash head in while the others watch for trouble - the Russian greets them cautiously, and certainly recognises Fireflash.

The Russian-presumed-Super: Permission? Written permission? Do you need written permission to take person through guided meditation? We tell them we will change their minds.

They claim they did have permission, but won’t let Fireflash see the files. She warns them that she’ll probably have to report them if they won’t.

The Russian: Why, because we are telepaths? You are bigot! This no different to telling ‘we summon good feelings into you!’

The counselors might well be licensed to operate in California, but the Greys looking through two-way mirrors in each ‘counseling session’ certainly aren’t. At least as mutates based on human stock their personhood is beyond legal dispute, and they don’t have to be registered as medical devices.

GM: It becomes, legally speaking, a very grey area.
Hero Shrew: ha ha.

On the other hand there’s also the matter of the drug our Grey contact mentioned. We’ll avoid mentioning that until we’ve done some more staking out and legwork. And background research on this Russian dame. If the Karen Sholokhov we investigate is actually the same person, she’s known as ‘Perestroika’ - Russian for ‘reconstruction’. She’s a rather powerful mass telepath, who can make any nearby her willing slaves, if they’re weak-willed enough. Although the Magus didn’t notice her actually using her own powers. She left Russia about the time Putin came to power. Surprisingly, she’s not superhumanly strong - but her Combat Luck and Danger Sense have kept her alive so far.

It looks like the aromatherapy program the Greys are on includes a psychoenhansive inhalant And with some sneakiness we can get hold of the stuff.

GM: Continual surveillance on somebody with Danger Sense could count as cruel and unusual punishment.

And then coming up with something to counter her Danger Sense will just ramp up her paranoia - ‘why can’t I feel them watching me anymore???’

The drug turns out to be very odd indeed, with some similarities to drugs circulated by the Scarlatti drug family in Baltimore in the 1990s. One of their customers was the first iteration of PSI.

The Magus: I’m just looking up the entry for the current iteration of PSI, and it says they’ve never been defeated thanks to caution and careful planning. And then they got accidentally defeated by Quadrant.
GM: Just goes to show you where bad luck can get you.

Flux: Now I’m worrying that somebody will get hold of the PSI drug and dump a bunch in some city’s water reservoir.

GM: PSI is also one of the few supervillain groups that hasn’t been plagued by internal betrayals.
The Magus: It helps where you’re basically the top rung of a psychic powers pyramid scheme.

It also looks like all of the precursor chemicals are coming from a company tasked with destroying them. A company that has all the facilities to turn merely dangerous chemicals into extremely dangerous chemicals. In industrial volumes.

Hero Shrew: Looks like the city reservoir idea is back on the menu.

We could always get them on Improper Storage And Disposal violations, but it’s probably going to require sneaking around first. It’s just as well we do sneak, because everybody in the facility is armed. With blasters. And there’s something weirdly fuzzy about them, even on the Magus’ scrying.

Hero Shrew: What are laws about private ownership of energy weapons?
GM: Not that different from kinetic weapons, honestly.
Flux: So you can only own an Orbital Death Laser for educational purposes.

And Magus’ mental awareness power is going ‘ping!’ continuously. And also weird that the rest of us didn’t think the place was weird until now.

Hardlight: Are we going in lasers blazing?
Hero Shrew: I can think of a few reasons not to, and one of them is that scene from Robocop.

(next session started with a long discussion that by complete coincidence included Bhopal, the Tianjin city explosion, the Halifax disaster and the fertilizer explosion in Beirut.)

Hero Shrew OoC: Anyway, speaking of chemical factory explosions…
GM: I haven’t found a map for the chemical factory.
Hero Shrew OoC: Just find a crater, it’ll probably end up that way.
Hardlight: Let’s just watch our backstop shall we?

Flux: On the bright side, if we do f*** up on the scale of any of the above, we won’t be around to get in trouble for it.
Fireflash: That’s not as reassuring as you think it is, Flux.

Unfortunately the moment we march onto the premises to announce the raid, the guards react by transforming their uniforms into armour. At least one of them is superpowered, too.

Fireflash: Nice trick.

And then the other defenses go off, which include an alarming amount of electromagnetic radiation going well up into the ionising variety.

Fireflash: Ouch!
Hero Shrew: Well, aren’t they going to be embarrassed if we were just here to invite them to a charity event.

A second super shows up.

Fireflash: A scary black person?
GM: A LIVING SHADOW
The Magus: I thought it was Hardlight with Foot-in-Mouth Disease
Flux: The difference is he does it by accident.

Magus hits one of the supers with a very effective illusion of teleportation to an alien cliff, Hardlight hits a mook with a point-blank PHOTON WAVE CANNON, and Scooter goes after another.

Hero Shrew: What’s the move in Mortal Kombat where you tear somebody’s entire spine and skull out through their a**hole?
The Magus: … I think that may have been from another title.
Hardlight: I’m pretty sure he pulls the opponent’s spine *upward*.
Fireflash: Forward, Down, Forward, High Punch in close range with Sub-Zero.

The mook instead gets thrown at the next one.

Hero Shrew: He’s probably just relieved I didn’t tear out his entire spine etc.

At least the radiation field doesn’t interfere with one of Flux’s powers.

The Magus: ‘BWAHAHAHA, you will never escape my anti-teleportation trap hero- oh f*** he can walk.’

The Magus: That would have been a good thing to add to the illusion - a giant sandworm appearing in the distance.
Enemy Super #1: *shakes his head to get rid of the illusion* Well, aren’t you a tricky one *lightning bolts Magus*

The living shadow is swooping in, and appears to be giggling. And the mooks have Goop Rifles. And the first supervillain hits Scooter in the face with a ball of lightning (and an under-the-breath ‘Hadouken!’).

GM: You are also blind for a time, and your radio is all staticky.
Fireflash: Hey! That’s my trick!
Flux: Then maybe you should stop demonstrating it to the bad guys.

It’s just as well Hardlight is such a bombastic character that there’s no chance Scooter will attack him by accident.

GM: ‘Don’t worry old chum, I’ll help yo- oh, you’re getting up by yourself.’

Fortunately, whoever the shadow is, we never find out what he had planned because he’s entirely vulnerable to EGO attacks. The Magus suspects that somebody has the ability to let their dark side off the leash.

Losing his back-up, and having his point-blank attack on Fireflash have absolutely no effect, the lightning-wielding super thinks that this might be a good time to leave. He just doesn’t leave fast enough, and get sniped out of the air by Magus. We’ll have to disentangle him from the maze of pipes later. Hero Shrew blinks off his blindness, and goes to deal with a mook that’s still blinded by Hardlight’s earlier, otherwise ineffective attacks.

The Magus: Yes, you should probably take that gun off him before hurts someone.
Hardlight: *charging up another PHOTON WAVE CANNON* Third time’s the charm…
The Magus: Oh, you think you can handle him now he’s blind and disarmed?

Hardlight: Remember your backstop!
Hero Shrew: I am. That’s why I’m not throwing a concrete slab at those two.
GM: I reserve the right to make bad suggestions on occasion

Shortly thereafter Hardlight finds himself in a very unfortunate position as regards a familiar-looking robot dinosaur.

GM: It opens its mouth.
Hardlight: … am I about to be Godzilla’d?
GM: Well, Mechagodzilla’d

Hardlight: That blast is going to hit 3 of us!
Flux: But nothing explosive. I think.

The energy blast certainly takes Hardlight out of the fight, and even knocks Scooter out briefly. In fact, if there is somebody in that Tokusatsu suit he’s certainly confident if he’s standing in the middle of three heavy hitters. And smart enough to Gank The Wizard First.

The Magus: Bad luck for him that I've got the strongest defenses in the team.

And further bad luck that Hardlight had taken out his Lightning Horn, before it could blat us with atomic fire from range again. Of course Gareth is probably the only person on the team that would recognise the cultural inspirations of the suit and target accordingly.

Hardlight: AlI know is that I want one.

Of course if the Mechagodzilla was supposed to keep us busy while the bad guys were getting away, they have a problem, because a few lucky hits leave it dazed on the ground, and Hero Shrew is coming around.

GM: Scooter, you’re awake.
Hero Shrew: Gimme a minute, I’m looking around for the asteroid that hit me.

Scooter goes full HULK SMASH on the suit, and after that rounding up the rest of the bad guys is short work. As well as all their other rather advanced technology, which includes subdermal radios and colour-change armour, the mooks have guns with mental controls.

Hardlight: Shoot. SHOOT. Hmm, maybe I’m not thinking hard enough.
The Magus OoC: If I remember the EGO of the rest of this party, then yeah, not thinking hard enough is definitely the problem
Hero Shrew: Huh. Were the lights supposed to come on?
Hardlight: WHAT???
Hero Shrew: The lights on this gun. Look, they’ve all come on. *waves it around*
The Magus: Hmm. Well, many Moreaus are at least passively psychic, although I don’t believe that’s common knowledge.
Hardlight: PUT THAT DOWN
The Magus: Huh, it must simply take a powerful enough mind to activate it.
Flux: That’s just mean.

We might not find where the drug pipeline actually starts, but we’ve shut down the literal pipeline at least. Although the clinic we were investigating has been cleaned out by the time we get back there.

The Magus OoC: He wants to spend a point to put a trailer on the Quadraphibious Qruiser.
Flux: It’d make a good accessory.
GM: … He wants to turn the Qruiser into an articulated truck.
Hardlight: I’m gonna make some scans of the MechaGodzilla so The Rep can make action figures.
GM: Did you negotiate likeness rights?
Hardlight: err…
Flux: ‘We have made a legally distinct villain who might look very similar but is actually legally distinct.’

Of course, as the Magus points out, the psi-boosting drug really is a very minor problem compared to some of the other things going on in Edge City, like the Sentient Memes. Gareth Lowell agrees - one wonders if somebody threw the drug situation at us to distract us from the issue at hand!

Civilla’s player has been a bit shocked to learn that the Alazario family are actually canon in the Pathfinder setting, especially since they’ve played 3 different Alazarios across the various campaigns, and they’ve all been politically connected and cunning troublemakers. That pretty much describes the ones in the canon, too. An example of that cunning will feature in today’s episode.

Kintargo’s Ghosts spend much of the next fortnight on various schemes, including the installation of not just one printing press, but two - one upstairs printing legal stuff to cover the noise of the one printing all the libel underground. Not cheap, especially given the cost of cleaning out that cesspit and erasing the summoning sigils, and paying the workers for absolute discretion. We also plant the rumour that Thrune’s bodyguard Nox was seen fleeing the city, instead of occupying a number of unmarked graves under the Phantasmagorium. All but one of her team of Redactors are also thus interred. Just goes to show that good leaders lead by example.

We do hear rumours coming the other way, however, including whispers that more children are going missing, including twins from the Iudeimus tenement; that Captain Cassius Sargaeta of the Chellish warship Scourge of Belial is no fan of the current regime; and that the temporary jail currently occupied by many of Thrune’s enemies is also the residence of something far from human. Thrune has also massively increased the toll to cross the bridge between the north and south parts of the city, effectively cutting off the rich side of town from the poorer - and greatly inconveniencing the market stalls that operate on the bridge.

He’s also announced a Ninth Proclamation - that the Hellknight Order of the Torrent are now declared outlaws, all their properties seized, and that citizens are commanded to hand over any may have escaped the authorities. That might be because the Order of the Torrent really don’t like slavery, despite slavery being legal in Chelliax. Or he just wants to install a more loyal order of Hellknights in their place, such as the Order of the Rack.

Laria, a veteran of the Kintargo Coffee Wars, wants to know if we can help one of her rivals, at the Tooth and Nail. Given the fact that Setrona Sabinus is a cousin of the Torrent’s erstwhile leader the Lictor Octavio, we can take an educated guess about what kind of assistance she needs. Unless it’s a ploy to get all the people that might sympathize with the Hellknights in one place.

Setrona Sabinus: Thank you for coming - it’s been a bit of a week.
Rajira: I can imagine.

Apparently a fair number of the Hellknights were outside the city when Thrune tried to break them, and Setrona is confident that a man of Octavio’s code of honour will side with the rebellion given the chance, even if he disagrees with our methods. She even has an idea where he might be hiding - a small shrine in a swamp outside the city. Thankfully not too far - if we all vanish for a few days, people will notice. As it stands we should all leave Kintargo separately, and meet up outside. Suitable outfits might help, too - Civilla, for example, will be unrecognizable if she just wears an outfit that doesn’t cost a handful of gold. Rajira has a variety of outfits - for ‘entertaining’ - but not all of them are suitable for slogging across rough country even if they are made of leather.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FHlW2kBVIAg1ALh.png 

Civilla's player: It’s amazing how many people keep Link in the Gerudo Armour even after they leave that part of the game. On the other hand the unofficial name for Breath of the Wild is “Everybody Is Thirsty For Link”

Civilla's player: It still s***s me that Australians call the smallest things lakes or rivers.
Terzo's player: Well we have so few of them.
Civilla's player: ‘Welcome to Southern River’ ‘ What river? You mean this creek? That I can step over?’

The shrine is on the other side of a tidal stream that counts as flowing enough to frustrate many divination spells. Setrona has tagged along - it might help or may not. Her having the family signet ring certainly does.

Shrine Guardian: Who goes there!
Rajira: Friends! Seeking a friend.
Shrine Guardian: You already seem to have some.
Rajira: A particular friend who is … less than welcome in the city these days.

Shrine Guardian: The one you seek has been granted asylum below. If you wish to talk to him, you must prove worthy to pass the shrine of Saint Senex. Good luck, friends.

The shrine is filled with fog, which is a bit much given it’s dedicated to those that died at sea. The fact that the Saint expects us to perform artificial respiration on the statue of a drowned sailor is perhaps more understandable.

Lictor Octavio Sabinus is downstairs in a room with the magically preserved bodies of the drowned.

Rajira OoC: Camping with the dead? That’s usually a very bad idea.

Civilla: Yeah, he’s Chellish alright - look at that dour expression.
Rajira: And the widow’s peak and slightly pointed ears.
Civilla: Hey, the blood of the High Men is spread quite widely around the Inner Sea.

Lictor Octavius: Ah - the Ghosts of Kintargo.
Rajira: Our reputation precedes us.
GM: Let's face it, you’re not the Silver Ravens anymore.
Civilla: I plan on playing out the whole 'ghosts of Kintargo' thing to be the ghosts of the original Silver Ravens. The spirits of the vengeful dead come back to battle a great injustice.
Rajira OoC: Are you sure you’re not playing a bard?
Civilla OoC: I’m going to get Terzo to pretty it up, I’m just writing the basic outline.

Lictor Octavius: You are certainly hopeful idealists, but in my experience, passionate revolutionaries lack discipline. Like my cousin, you have good hearts, but it takes more than heart to stand up for what’s right. If I’m to throw in with the Silver Ravens, I need two things. First, I need to know that my surviving armigers are safe. Second, I need to know that the Silver Ravens are more than thugs who seek to fight in the streets—I need to know you can exercise subtlety and work at least partially within the bounds of the law to solve problems when such an option exists. As it so happens, this is a perfect chance for you to accomplish both goals.
Civilla OoC: This module really assumes we’re playing murder-hoboes, doesn’t it.

Civilla: If diplomacy doesn’t work there’s always having them chase non-existent shadows outside the city. Just providing options.

There’s also the thing his order was investigating when the Ninth Proclamation was released.

Lictor Octavius: We were investigating rumors that Lord-Mayor Bainilus didn’t actually flee the city for Arcadia as the government claims. I believe she’s been imprisoned—or worse—by Barzillai Thrune. It didn’t help that I took offense, quite publicly, at our new lord-mayor’s recruitment of the Order of the Rack as additional guards. The man spins webs like a spider, though I can’t decipher his design yet. Whatever his reason, I’ve come to believe it bodes ill for all of Kintargo.

The outlawed hellknight is concerned about repercussions to the citizenry if we do get his fellows out of prison. Terzo is very pleased about this, and shakes the man’s hand with both of his.

Terzo: Then I am very pleased to meet you, good sir! There is hope for the country yet! *hugs him firmly*
GM: He seems a bit taken aback.
Terzo's player: I don’t doubt it, but I’m quite sincere - if even one order of Hellknights has recognised that there’s a problem in Cheliax, it’s a good sign.
Rajira's player: ProblemS.

But then Terzo still hasn’t realised he’s the only Good member of the party, despite all the murderising, poisoning, and dismemberment going on in his vicinity. Denial is not just a river in Osirion.

The fugitive Hellknight also provides us with his mother’s mithril shortsword, which should convince the other members of the Torrent that we’re allies, and might be useful against the rumored demonic entity in the jail. At least we can still carry swords in public - Thrune hasn’t banned anything longer than a dagger yet.

Civilla does come up with one plan straight away - fake prisoner transfer papers. We perhaps shouldn’t be surprised she has a Masterworked Forger’s Kit and Esquire Attache Case. Alternatively we can blackmail the person in charge of the jail to send real transfer papers. Or better yet, forge an order that looks like it was forged by Nox. Civilla’s cousin might be able to help with that - he was one of her Redactors after all.

The warden of the Holding House is one Sabo the Spider, an Inquisitor of Asmodeus. It’s rumoured that she’s killed multiple lovers.

Terzo: I’m surprised she isn’t called Sabo the Black Widow.

We do come up with another name associated with the Holding House - one Ghenemahl, who is the only other permanent inhabitant of the Holding House, and one that even Sabo is scared of. Civilla casts Ears of the city, to determine 1) Who is Ghenemahl? - a Devil of considerable power and sadism; 2) Where are the prisoners being transferred to? - the Temple of Asmodeus, since they’ve been sentenced to be the first public Excruciations sanctioned by Thrune 3) Who else is a prisoner there? - four unlucky curfew breakers and halflings

There’s no way we’re going to leave those other innocents in the prison, so we have to get them out too. Civilla also considers planting a subtle compulsion on Sabo.

Terzo: So ‘clear out the prison, you have a lot more prisoners coming in?’
Civilla: ‘I’m sick of all the screaming, I want them out gone, out of my prison - the sanctimonious pr***s.’

Rajira suggests we disguise ourselves as Hellknights of the Order of the Rack - although whoever leads the group will have to carry the mithril sword so the armigers of the Torrent don’t kick up too much of a fuss when we drag them out. We’ll need to find out who does their laundry, even if Terzo and Rajira turn their theater skills to the rest of the costumery.

Rajira: And then I’m going to pull the old Purloined Letter trick, and go on a little nighttime excursion. Break into the laundry, replace the real uniforms with cloth, and start a fire.

GM: I must say I’m pleased to see you’re turning what could have been some simple dice-rolls into a whole investigation.
Terzo's player: Look at the way we played Shadowrun.

Will will need to copy the Lictor of the Rack’s handwriting and signature too.

Rajira: Time to go dumpster diving.

Although she’ll probably have to break into the Temple of Asmodeus to find some.

Civilla OoC: This is why you burn sensitive documents, people - otherwise, if they have enough pieces intact, one cantrip later you have the whole thing.

Civilla: I hope you don’t think badly of me that I have all these materials for forgery.
Terzo: I'm just glad all those calligraphy lessons I gave you helped.

Terzo leads the group of fake Hellknights of the Rack to the prison - as Civilla points out, he has the build of an officer that’s let himself go.

Civilla OoC: One of nature’s sergeants.

We also bring a cart to carry the prisoners.

Civilla OoC: I can’t believe we’re pulling one of Moist von Lipwig’s heists from the second book. I know you accuse me of having read the module, but I‘ve just read a lot of Pratchett.

Even Inquisitor Sabo would have difficulty recognising the forgeries, although she does look up when Terzo pauses at one question.

Sabo: And who are you representing?
Terzo: …
Sabo: *looks up suspiciously* A bit of a pause there?
Terzo: *gestures to the uniforms* The Order of the Rack - I would have thought it was obvious.
Sabo: Apparently. These days it’s hard to tell who’s who. *suddenly pointing at Ayva* You! How long have you been worshipping Asmodeus?
Terzo OoC: You could just tell the truth ‘Since before I joined the Hellknights’
Ayva: I’ve worshiped my God for about 50 years, ma’am.

Which is true-ish - she’s certainly been worshiping HER god that long.

Unfortunately, not all the prisoners are in their cages.

Gaoler: Uh, I’m afraid this prisoner isn’t available, ma’am.
Sabo: What? Where is she?
Gaoler: Ah, Ghenemahl has her, in the Interrogation room.
Sabo: Ah. Oh. Well, let’s go fetch her. You, get the rest of the prisoners ready.

Civilla OoC: And now Terzo has to lie to a devil of Law.
Terzo OoC: Believe me, I am keenly aware.

The armiger is bound to a rack, and has been gruesomely mutilated.

Ghenemahl: And who are you? Covered in lies, I can smell them on you. Do you wish me to remove them? You will just have to wait - I have this one to minister to.
Terzo: Hardly. We’re here to transfer the prisoners to the temple.
Ghenemahl: Come to ruin my fun, have you?
Terzo: I’m sure you’ll have more prisoners soon.
Rajira OoC: Probably Sabo, if this works
Ghenemahl: Well, show me the orders.
Terzo: *gestures to Sabo to hand them across*
Ghenemahl: The signature is misaligned on this one.
Terzo: *starts sweating bullets*
Ghenemahl: But they pass.

Civilla: *writes them a receipt for the manacles* Sign here please
Sabo: *signs*
Civilla OoC: And now I have a copy of her signature.
Ayva OoC: And we nonchalantly run away at top speed.
Rajira OoC: No we don’t - we drive the cart off in the direction of the Temple, THEN head off into an alleyway.
Civilla OoC: And get the Armigers into the fake uniforms so they can get out of the city. ‘Lictor Octavius says hello’

We were very lucky - the Bluff and forgery checks we needed to pass were in the 30s - and we only passed them by 1. But now we have the Hellknights of the Order of the Torrent as allies and advisors.
 

Civilla’s player has been a bit shocked to learn that the Alazario family are actually canon in the Pathfinder setting, especially since they’ve played 3 different Alazarios across the various campaigns, and they’ve all been politically connected and cunning troublemakers. That pretty much describes the ones in the canon, too. An example of that cunning will feature in today’s episode.

Kintargo’s Ghosts spend much of the next fortnight on various schemes, including the installation of not just one printing press, but two - one upstairs printing legal stuff to cover the noise of the one printing all the libel underground. Not cheap, especially given the cost of cleaning out that cesspit and erasing the summoning sigils, and paying the workers for absolute discretion. We also plant the rumour that Thrune’s bodyguard Nox was seen fleeing the city, instead of occupying a number of unmarked graves under the Phantasmagorium. All but one of her team of Redactors are also thus interred. Just goes to show that good leaders lead by example.

We do hear rumours coming the other way, however, including whispers that more children are going missing, including twins from the Iudeimus tenement; that Captain Cassius Sargaeta of the Chellish warship Scourge of Belial is no fan of the current regime; and that the temporary jail currently occupied by many of Thrune’s enemies is also the residence of something far from human. Thrune has also massively increased the toll to cross the bridge between the north and south parts of the city, effectively cutting off the rich side of town from the poorer - and greatly inconveniencing the market stalls that operate on the bridge.

He’s also announced a Ninth Proclamation - that the Hellknight Order of the Torrent are now declared outlaws, all their properties seized, and that citizens are commanded to hand over any may have escaped the authorities. That might be because the Order of the Torrent really don’t like slavery, despite slavery being legal in Chelliax. Or he just wants to install a more loyal order of Hellknights in their place, such as the Order of the Rack.

Laria, a veteran of the Kintargo Coffee Wars, wants to know if we can help one of her rivals, at the Tooth and Nail. Given the fact that Setrona Sabinus is a cousin of the Torrent’s erstwhile leader the Lictor Octavio, we can take an educated guess about what kind of assistance she needs. Unless it’s a ploy to get all the people that might sympathize with the Hellknights in one place.

Setrona Sabinus: Thank you for coming - it’s been a bit of a week.
Rajira: I can imagine.

Apparently a fair number of the Hellknights were outside the city when Thrune tried to break them, and Setrona is confident that a man of Octavio’s code of honour will side with the rebellion given the chance, even if he disagrees with our methods. She even has an idea where he might be hiding - a small shrine in a swamp outside the city. Thankfully not too far - if we all vanish for a few days, people will notice. As it stands we should all leave Kintargo separately, and meet up outside. Suitable outfits might help, too - Civilla, for example, will be unrecognizable if she just wears an outfit that doesn’t cost a handful of gold. Rajira has a variety of outfits - for ‘entertaining’ - but not all of them are suitable for slogging across rough country even if they are made of leather.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FHlW2kBVIAg1ALh.png 

Civilla's player: It’s amazing how many people keep Link in the Gerudo Armour even after they leave that part of the game. On the other hand the unofficial name for Breath of the Wild is “Everybody Is Thirsty For Link”

Civilla's player: It still s***s me that Australians call the smallest things lakes or rivers.
Terzo's player: Well we have so few of them.
Civilla's player: ‘Welcome to Southern River’ ‘ What river? You mean this creek? That I can step over?’

The shrine is on the other side of a tidal stream that counts as flowing enough to frustrate many divination spells. Setrona has tagged along - it might help or may not. Her having the family signet ring certainly does.

Shrine Guardian: Who goes there!
Rajira: Friends! Seeking a friend.
Shrine Guardian: You already seem to have some.
Rajira: A particular friend who is … less than welcome in the city these days.

Shrine Guardian: The one you seek has been granted asylum below. If you wish to talk to him, you must prove worthy to pass the shrine of Saint Senex. Good luck, friends.

The shrine is filled with fog, which is a bit much given it’s dedicated to those that died at sea. The fact that the Saint expects us to perform artificial respiration on the statue of a drowned sailor is perhaps more understandable.

Lictor Octavio Sabinus is downstairs in a room with the magically preserved bodies of the drowned.

Rajira OoC: Camping with the dead? That’s usually a very bad idea.

Civilla: Yeah, he’s Chellish alright - look at that dour expression.
Rajira: And the widow’s peak and slightly pointed ears.
Civilla: Hey, the blood of the High Men is spread quite widely around the Inner Sea.

Lictor Octavius: Ah - the Ghosts of Kintargo.
Rajira: Our reputation precedes us.
GM: Let's face it, you’re not the Silver Ravens anymore.
Civilla: I plan on playing out the whole 'ghosts of Kintargo' thing to be the ghosts of the original Silver Ravens. The spirits of the vengeful dead come back to battle a great injustice.
Rajira OoC: Are you sure you’re not playing a bard?
Civilla OoC: I’m going to get Terzo to pretty it up, I’m just writing the basic outline.

Lictor Octavius: You are certainly hopeful idealists, but in my experience, passionate revolutionaries lack discipline. Like my cousin, you have good hearts, but it takes more than heart to stand up for what’s right. If I’m to throw in with the Silver Ravens, I need two things. First, I need to know that my surviving armigers are safe. Second, I need to know that the Silver Ravens are more than thugs who seek to fight in the streets—I need to know you can exercise subtlety and work at least partially within the bounds of the law to solve problems when such an option exists. As it so happens, this is a perfect chance for you to accomplish both goals.
Civilla OoC: This module really assumes we’re playing murder-hoboes, doesn’t it.

Civilla: If diplomacy doesn’t work there’s always having them chase non-existent shadows outside the city. Just providing options.

There’s also the thing his order was investigating when the Ninth Proclamation was released.

Lictor Octavius: We were investigating rumors that Lord-Mayor Bainilus didn’t actually flee the city for Arcadia as the government claims. I believe she’s been imprisoned—or worse—by Barzillai Thrune. It didn’t help that I took offense, quite publicly, at our new lord-mayor’s recruitment of the Order of the Rack as additional guards. The man spins webs like a spider, though I can’t decipher his design yet. Whatever his reason, I’ve come to believe it bodes ill for all of Kintargo.

The outlawed hellknight is concerned about repercussions to the citizenry if we do get his fellows out of prison. Terzo is very pleased about this, and shakes the man’s hand with both of his.

Terzo: Then I am very pleased to meet you, good sir! There is hope for the country yet! *hugs him firmly*
GM: He seems a bit taken aback.
Terzo's player: I don’t doubt it, but I’m quite sincere - if even one order of Hellknights has recognised that there’s a problem in Cheliax, it’s a good sign.
Rajira's player: ProblemS.

But then Terzo still hasn’t realised he’s the only Good member of the party, despite all the murderising, poisoning, and dismemberment going on in his vicinity. Denial is not just a river in Osirion.

The fugitive Hellknight also provides us with his mother’s mithril shortsword, which should convince the other members of the Torrent that we’re allies, and might be useful against the rumored demonic entity in the jail. At least we can still carry swords in public - Thrune hasn’t banned anything longer than a dagger yet.

Civilla does come up with one plan straight away - fake prisoner transfer papers. We perhaps shouldn’t be surprised she has a Masterworked Forger’s Kit and Esquire Attache Case. Alternatively we can blackmail the person in charge of the jail to send real transfer papers. Or better yet, forge an order that looks like it was forged by Nox. Civilla’s cousin might be able to help with that - he was one of her Redactors after all.

The warden of the Holding House is one Sabo the Spider, an Inquisitor of Asmodeus. It’s rumoured that she’s killed multiple lovers.

Terzo: I’m surprised she isn’t called Sabo the Black Widow.

We do come up with another name associated with the Holding House - one Ghenemahl, who is the only other permanent inhabitant of the Holding House, and one that even Sabo is scared of. Civilla casts Ears of the city, to determine 1) Who is Ghenemahl? - a Devil of considerable power and sadism; 2) Where are the prisoners being transferred to? - the Temple of Asmodeus, since they’ve been sentenced to be the first public Excruciations sanctioned by Thrune 3) Who else is a prisoner there? - four unlucky curfew breakers and halflings

There’s no way we’re going to leave those other innocents in the prison, so we have to get them out too. Civilla also considers planting a subtle compulsion on Sabo.

Terzo: So ‘clear out the prison, you have a lot more prisoners coming in?’
Civilla: ‘I’m sick of all the screaming, I want them out gone, out of my prison - the sanctimonious pr***s.’

Rajira suggests we disguise ourselves as Hellknights of the Order of the Rack - although whoever leads the group will have to carry the mithril sword so the armigers of the Torrent don’t kick up too much of a fuss when we drag them out. We’ll need to find out who does their laundry, even if Terzo and Rajira turn their theater skills to the rest of the costumery.

Rajira: And then I’m going to pull the old Purloined Letter trick, and go on a little nighttime excursion. Break into the laundry, replace the real uniforms with cloth, and start a fire.

GM: I must say I’m pleased to see you’re turning what could have been some simple dice-rolls into a whole investigation.
Terzo's player: Look at the way we played Shadowrun.

Will will need to copy the Lictor of the Rack’s handwriting and signature too.

Rajira: Time to go dumpster diving.

Although she’ll probably have to break into the Temple of Asmodeus to find some.

Civilla OoC: This is why you burn sensitive documents, people - otherwise, if they have enough pieces intact, one cantrip later you have the whole thing.

Civilla: I hope you don’t think badly of me that I have all these materials for forgery.
Terzo: I'm just glad all those calligraphy lessons I gave you helped.

Terzo leads the group of fake Hellknights of the Rack to the prison - as Civilla points out, he has the build of an officer that’s let himself go.

Civilla OoC: One of nature’s sergeants.

We also bring a cart to carry the prisoners.

Civilla OoC: I can’t believe we’re pulling one of Moist von Lipwig’s heists from the second book. I know you accuse me of having read the module, but I‘ve just read a lot of Pratchett.

Even Inquisitor Sabo would have difficulty recognising the forgeries, although she does look up when Terzo pauses at one question.

Sabo: And who are you representing?
Terzo: …
Sabo: *looks up suspiciously* A bit of a pause there?
Terzo: *gestures to the uniforms* The Order of the Rack - I would have thought it was obvious.
Sabo: Apparently. These days it’s hard to tell who’s who. *suddenly pointing at Ayva* You! How long have you been worshipping Asmodeus?
Terzo OoC: You could just tell the truth ‘Since before I joined the Hellknights’
Ayva: I’ve worshiped my God for about 50 years, ma’am.

Which is true-ish - she’s certainly been worshiping HER god that long.

Unfortunately, not all the prisoners are in their cages.

Gaoler: Uh, I’m afraid this prisoner isn’t available, ma’am.
Sabo: What? Where is she?
Gaoler: Ah, Ghenemahl has her, in the Interrogation room.
Sabo: Ah. Oh. Well, let’s go fetch her. You, get the rest of the prisoners ready.

Civilla OoC: And now Terzo has to lie to a devil of Law.
Terzo OoC: Believe me, I am keenly aware.

The armiger is bound to a rack, and has been gruesomely mutilated.

Ghenemahl: And who are you? Covered in lies, I can smell them on you. Do you wish me to remove them? You will just have to wait - I have this one to minister to.
Terzo: Hardly. We’re here to transfer the prisoners to the temple.
Ghenemahl: Come to ruin my fun, have you?
Terzo: I’m sure you’ll have more prisoners soon.
Rajira OoC: Probably Sabo, if this works
Ghenemahl: Well, show me the orders.
Terzo: *gestures to Sabo to hand them across*
Ghenemahl: The signature is misaligned on this one.
Terzo: *starts sweating bullets*
Ghenemahl: But they pass.

Civilla: *writes them a receipt for the manacles* Sign here please
Sabo: *signs*
Civilla OoC: And now I have a copy of her signature.
Ayva OoC: And we nonchalantly run away at top speed.
Rajira OoC: No we don’t - we drive the cart off in the direction of the Temple, THEN head off into an alleyway.
Civilla OoC: And get the Armigers into the fake uniforms so they can get out of the city. ‘Lictor Octavius says hello’

We were very lucky - the Bluff and forgery checks we needed to pass were in the 30s - and we only passed them by 1. But now we have the Hellknights of the Order of the Torrent as allies and advisors.
 

Civilla: Ooh, I can summon crocodiles now.
Ayva: They’re a good aquatic option.
Civilla: But if I make them chthonic…
Rajira: A pair of eyes, not just above the waterline, but just above the grass…

Ayva: We’re running a (legitimate) printing press… we’re going to get so many orders. And signatures.
Civilla: Well, yes.
Ayva: You truly are an Alazario. I say this with all the love I can muster - you are a conniving bitch.
Civilla: I set out not to be my mother’s daughter - and I ended up my mothers daughter.

Ayva: We need to squeeze more money out of this rebellion thing.

With the help of our agents throughout the city, we ensure the Nox rumour thoroughly overtakes any whispers about the real rebellion.

Thrune: There is no rebellion, it’s clearly Nox! Either that or incompetence - PICK ONE.

Thrune releases a Tenth Proclamation.

POSSESSION OF POETRY OR PROSE WRITTEN BY THE FOLLOWING AUTHORS IS HEREBY FORBIDDEN AND PUNISHABLE BY A FINE OF 100 GOLD PIECES OR IMPRISONMENT: BOSWYTH THE BARD, TERZO PORCINUS, CHARLETTA D’VANEP, GHENRAIL OF VYRE, AND THE ANONYMOUS MISCREANT WHO CALLS THEMSELF THE “POISON PEN OF KINTARGO.” ALL DOCUMENTS BEARING THE WRITINGS OF THESE MISCREANTS MUST BE TURNED OVER TO THE DOTTARI FOR DESTRUCTION BY SUNDOWN.

Terzo: … I’m going to kill him.
Civilla: Terzo, we’re going to go to my library, and you’re going to pick a few select volumes - no more than four - that we’re not going to hand over.

Civilla: This is an opportunity to broaden your stylistic horizons, Terzo! You’ll have to choose a nom-de-plume, of course.
Ayva: I recommend a female name.
Civilla: And reduce the amount of caniphilia references.
Terzo: I note he hasn’t banned graffiti.

Civilla: I’m thinking we start planting books with Terzo’s name on the cover and Sepia Snake Sigil on the frontispiece.

Using a Bag of Holding, an excellent bluff, and her good looks, Civilla manages to save most of Terzo’s output, before handing over a stack of spare copies.

Civilla: I admit I had a fair amount of his work in my library, officer, but he was my tutor.

Civilla: We can also claim you didn’t have many copies of your own work because you keep foisting them off on people.
Terzo: *sigh* Unfortunately, that is quite believable.

Investigating the missing children is at least a good distraction from Terzo’s plans of revenge. Although the old woman at the tenement yells abuse at us apparently assuming we’re jobless layabouts, until we make it clear that we actually have jobs. And money. The twins were apparently nearly of age, and their family practically respectable, at least compared to some of the other residents, particularly one who is out all hours and comes home stinking of death. Probably just an abattoir worker.

The Parents: Strange that people of your station would take an interest in the likes of us.
Rajira: The situation in Kintargo is in flux - if we don’t look after each other, no-one else will.

Apparently the twins worked at the Lucky Bones, which was burnt to the ground by the Order of the Torrent just prior to them being outlawed. Which is suspicious, especially given the hellknights’ hatred of kidnappers, the age of the twins, and the subsequent disappearance of said teenagers. Fortunately, we find one of the kid’s diaries, with some intensely disturbing reports about the kind of things the kids overheard at what was apparently a secret drug den.

Civilla: Called it.

Prayers to Norgorber, the evil god of assassination, secrecy, and theft, are particularly worryig, since one of the precepts of the religion is murdering anybody that might have overheard your devotions.

Most of the neighbours didn’t see anything, or refuse to talk to us, but Varl Wex, the one that stinks of death, urine, cheese, and irregular work hours, may have actually seen something since there’s no predicting when he’ll be home.

Terzo OoC: Plus he’s an obvious red herring.

Rajira starts picking Wex’s lock.

Terzo: I didn’t see anything, I know nothing…
Civilla: Well if you keep acting like that it’s almost like you want to get noticed. We’re doing something entirely illegal here and the sooner you accept that the better.

Wex’s lock is considerably more difficult to pick than Rajira expected. And the room beyond stinks of Slurk grease, presumably the same appalling odour shared by the resident. He also has a number of books on alchemy. And a trail of bloodspots from the window to the bathroom. And a hidden crawlspace in what should be a load-bearing pillar. And a glowing kukri on a stand.

Civilla: *looks from the knife to Rajira* Moonlighting?
Rajira: It’s not mine.
Civilla: …. That’s the Temple Hill Slasher’s blade.
Ayva: Well, if we’re not touching it-
Rajira: Who said I’m not touching it?
Civilla: It’s an intelligent weapon!
Rajira: Yes, and I’m sure I can control it-
Civilla: That’s not my point, I’m concerned you want to try it out HERE.
Rajira: Ah, I’ll concede that.

Wex’s notes are disturbing, and obsessed with the serial killer and his magical weapon. It’s a relic of a very unpleasant cult, and Wex is convinced that he was put in the world to continue the monster’s work.

Ayva OoC: We did remember to lock the door behind us, yes?
Civilla OoC: We did not.
Ayva OoC: We don’t break into enough places, we need more practice.

That is probably why Wex, wearing a bloody apron and wielding a merely mundane dagger, is suddenly growling behind Terzo’s ear.

Wex: Give me the blade and no-one gets hurt.
Ayva: You’re getting quite good at those voices, Terzo.
Terzo: *knife at his throat* …
Rajira: Well, it looks like we get to do this somewhere private.
Ayva: Our good deed for the day.

Luckily for Terzo, Civilla has a Celestial Leopard and a few spells to keep the maniac busy even as he’s trying to keep his grip on Terzo. The rest of the stuff Rajira and Ayva bring to bear are just as ruthless.

Civilla OoC: Terzo is getting up-close-and-personal proof that the rest of us are not nice people.

Terzo is basically being swung around the room by the neck as Wex fends off attacks and spells from all sides, since the spell Deja Vu ensures he has to keep doing that rather than cut Terzo’s throat and drop the body. Eventually Wex succumbs to sudden disembowelment by Rajira, on top of all the other horrendous injuries.

GM: The magical kukri Balgorrah would probably be salivating about all of this if you hadn’t stuffed it into an extradimensional space.
Balgorrah: You cut-teasing b****!
Rajira: If I can control it, I’m keeping it.
Civilla: Why???
Rajira: It’s a kukri.
Civilla: We’ll make one just as good that won’t turn you evil.
Ayva: What are we doing with that one?
GM: The temples of Abadar or Shelyn will buy it off you.
Ayva OoC: To destroy it or redeem it, respectively
Rajira: We’ll take it to the Temple of Shelyn, I don’t want anything to do with those f***ing Abadarians.
Civilla: What?
Rajira: They’ve taken over my temples since the worship of Calistria was banned.
Civilla: They’ve taken over stewardship of the buildings.
Rajira: Yes, and that’s what we’re unhappy about!
Civilla: Yes, I can understand the anger, but it’s misdirected!
Ayva: Are we really having this conversation while we’re cleaning up all the blood?
Terzo: I’m more concerned whether the neighbours heard all the fighting.
Civilla: Probably - we’ll just spill some Slurk grease around the doorway - no-one will want to come in.
Ayva: *To the landlady of the tenement* Good news! We got rid of some of the smell, but there’s some things even Prestigitation won’t shift.

Terzo's player: Do we actually need the Niccolo Alazario standee anymore
Civilla's player: Probably, he’s an NPC now.
Ayva's player: And he’ll probably end up wandering into an overpowered encounter. Like the last two.

Rajira's player: Aw, you moved my line-dancers.
GM: Eh?
Rajira's player: The four Thug standees that were in front of me.
Ayva's player: Oh fine, I’ll move them back over there.
Civilla's player: Huh, they really do look like a line of dancers.
Terzo's player: ‘When you’re a Jet/You’re a Jet your whole life…’

But having accidentally dealt with a copycat serial killer, we still need to find out what happened to the missing twins, since apparently the aforementioned serial killer was smart enough to not kill anybody that lives in the same tenement. We send one of the Silver Raven to the Hellknights of the Torrent to ask exactly why they burned the Lucky Bones down. It might take a while to get a complete answer - the birds can only handle 25 words at a time.

GM: Are you sure the ravens aren’t blue?

Rajira OoC: OK, we’ll go meet Octavio and give the appropriate sign and countersign. And if it’s ‘show me your tits’ we’ll just kick him in the nuts afterward.
Terzo OoC: ‘Yes, those are the authentic tits’.

Octavio has snuck back into the city, but at least his current hiding place has fewer corpses lying around. Fewer, not none. Anyway, the Lucky Bones gambling and opium den that fronted for the slave ring known as the Grey Spiders, which were themselves an arm of the Cult of Norgorber. After the Knights of the Torrent started investigating, the Spiders assassinated the Torrent’s founder, and the rest of the hellknights brought the hammer down on their entire organisation - but never actually dealt with whatever was left under the Lucky Bones.

Civilla: Why do they always choose names that tell everybody what they do? If you ever hear of a group called The Rainbow Unicorns, know that I have gone into the slaving business.

At least the tunnels under the ruins of the Lucky Bones might make another hideout for the Rebellion. If we clear it out.

Rajira OoC: Hmm. I’ve got 40 HP now.
Terzo OoC: 43 here, but that’s mostly fat.

We’ll probably need those points, since we soon find a well-oiled hidden trapdoor in the ruins. But it’s very very stinky down there, and something is slithering. They’re Otyughs.

Terzo OoC: ‘I don’t care what you smell, get in there!

Terzo OoC: Why is it, whenever we find a new possible hideout for the rebellion, we have to clear out s*** like this?
Ayva OoC: It’s all cultist basements, what did you expect?
Rajira OoC: We’re the antagonists in a game of Cultist Simulator

Terzo: What do you brush your teeth with, stale urine and pig s***???? (it might even be true, I’m just hoping my tone of voice confuses them even if it doesn't make them burst into flame).

Before long the last of the things is cowering in a corner. Not that any of us have figured out what the hell they are.

Terzo: Er.. you know I don’t think this thing is a threat to us anymore? Maybe we can just leave it to do… whatever they do.
Rajira: I don’t want to spend any more time up here than we have to - it STINKS.
Ayva: We’re up to our ankles in literal s*** and you want to go lower down.

Unfortunately we’ve got even more poison to worry about before we can even go down another level.

Civilla: I don’t mean to sound like a heartless bitch, but as long as we can keep you from actually dying from it, there’s no reason why we can’t-
Rajira: Keep pressing on, I know.
Civilla: Don’t put words in my mouth. I was going to say ‘benefit from it’.

She wants to develop an antivenom from Rajira’s bad case of ‘poisoned’.

GM: I’m going to assume that by ‘milk’ you mean ‘drool into a cup because her saliva is poisonous’. Because I don’t want to think about the other options.

At least we find some interesting stuff amid the refuse, including a magical bead.

Rajira: Is it Venerable?
GM: Actually, when you look at it you wonder ‘how the F*** hasn’t that exploded yet?’
Rajira OoC: Ah. Necklace of Fireballs.
GM: Nope. Bead of Force.
Rajira OoC: Ah. That’s even worse.

Fireflash’s player: This is mostly for [Hardlight’s Player], but it's also a heads up for everyone else. Fireflash has had an idea. A wonderful, awful, terrible, great idea. The whole situation as regards the Moreaus is balanced on a legal knife-edge. (I've been chatting to [The GM] about this.) Particularly in terms of Property and Corporate law. Moreaus are classified as "wildlife"...and wildlife cannot own property or hold corporate office.
We know Moreaus who do both of those things.

Fireflash is going to talk to our friendly neighborhood corporate overlord about a possible way to kick over all the dominoes. If we find a WILLING Moreau who's in that position, we then sue them in court (or the corporation they work for) over that position. If we can get past initial standing issues, we should have a real shot at completely upending the current legal status of Moreaus. At the very least we should get some good publicity for their cause.

Hero Shrew’s player: Is 'part-time troubleshooter for the Justin Hammer-expy' a corporate position?
Fireflash’s player: Probably not a sufficiently high one. You're an employee, not a manager.
Hero Shrew’s player: true - plus putting Scooter anywhere near a courtroom is asking for the kind of chaos you don't want.
Flux's player: Plus I think Hardlight suing himself might not be appropriate.
Hardlight's player: I mean... I... COULD actually pull it off. I can technically be in both places at once - though if someone with even an inkling of special detection powers sits in the courtroom, the entire jig is up
GM: The issue would be Gareth Lowell suing Lowelltech.
Hardlight's player: yeah, probably not the best idea. I'm sure there's another poor dude who tried to get a job at Tyrell or something
Fireflash’s player: We need someone who actually has the position.
Flux's player: It just struck me that the keeping/sale of exotic wildlife is technically illegal in most states without a suitable permit. Please tell me that little hiccup was smoothed over ages ago Last thing we need is a wild VS domestic issue coming up. And now thanks to reading legal documentation I had to look up what a mayhaw is.

PENAL CODE - PEN
PART 1. OF CRIMES AND PUNISHMENTS [25 - 680.4] ( Part 1 enacted 1872. )
TITLE 14. MALICIOUS MISCHIEF [594 - 625c] ( Title 14 enacted 1872. )
599b. In this title, the word “animal” includes every dumb creature; the words “torment,” “torture,” and “cruelty” include every act, omission, or neglect whereby unnecessary or unjustifiable physical pain or suffering is caused or permitted; and the words “owner” and “person” include corporations as well as individuals; and the knowledge and acts of any agent of, or person employed by, a corporation in regard to animals transported, owned, or employed by, or in the custody of, the corporation, must be held to be the act and knowledge of the corporation as well as the agent or employee.

Flux's player: ok, that's interesting. "dumb creature" “or any other dumb animal." Not sure if that's a good or bad thing. Oh my god, you are allowed one potbellied pig per residence in addition to normal pets.
GM: A number of Supreme Court rulings have stated that the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantees of due process and equal protection do not apply to sentient aliens, extradimensional entities, artificial intelligences, and the undead, because they are not “persons” under the law. On the other hand, they do apply to mutants, mutates, clones, and genetic constructs based on human stock. Congress has, however, passed laws granting at least limited rights to all “independent, free-willed, sentient entities” in American territory.

Although the GM does point out that for the last fifteen years, the local courts have always reached whatever decision stopped the cases going to a higher court. Which is especially odd since quite a few of the people involved hate Moreaus, and some of these decisions found in the Moreaus’ favour. Everybody in Edge City seems to accept that as the norm, and only outsiders like The Magus have thought it worthy of comment. It might be because some of us have high enough Power Defenses, or because some of us have even left town for more than a day.

GM: Remember that character you had to play for a while because Flux had been kidnapped?
Flux's player: Sunnuvabitch.
GM: Remember that ritual? My arms were getting tired swinging the clue bat.

Madam Lil is rather surprised when Fireflash brings her idea to her - she’s noticed the weird lack of impetus on the problem too, and had given up trying to push the matter forward.

Madam Lil: So it suddenly changed for you? I’ve noticed that before - it’s like this city can turn on a dime.
The Magus: … I’ll be back in 20 minutes.

He hurries off to check the ends of the local leylines - he has a suspicion that something arcane has been affecting the city for over a decade. But if it is, it’s really well hidden. But then it’s quite likely that we keep missing the clues the GM keeps dropping.

GM: You guys are REALLY distractible.

GM: You’re not a superteam, you're a therapy circle!

The Magus has a moment of inspiration - somebody has been summoning Memes. In fact they’ve been summoning multiple Memes.

GM: And then you take one look at Edge City and think ‘well f***, that explains so much.’

Memes are essentially AIs that run on peoples’ brains and spread by argument. They’re not essentially antagonistic towards humans, but the odd behaviour of the Edge City population suggests they aren’t necessarily benign either.

We get a request for a meeting, apparently from somebody who’s appearance just screams ‘Gothic Vampire Chick’.

Flux: Oh, a zombie.
GM: Wait, what, you see THAT picture and think ‘Zombie’?
Hero Shrew: Well, she’s not doing much breathing with a corset that tight.

The Magus’ player: Vampires aren’t really that dangerous in Champions.
Flux's player: What with all the androids, energy beams, etc.
The Magus’ player: They’re expensive pointwise too. They could be a lot more dangerous but it’s a really inefficient build.
Hero Shrew’s player: Well there’s the Watsonian and Doylist explanations.
GM: They also have the Stoker problem - everybody knows their weaknesses now.

The vampire Laura is amiable enough when she appears, out of a cloud of mist.

Fireflash: Nice trick.
Laura: Thanks - you try long enough and you get the knack.

She’s concerned that we’ve been rounding up some of her ‘blood relatives’, but just as concerned that the aforementioned vampire thalls have been acting openly enough that they got caught. Laura has also recently killed her sire, who is the DoLs mistress, which may have been a factor in their increasingly incautious activity. On the other hand, the DoLs vampirism was a new method recently invented by them, possibly in an effort to fill the void in their minds.

Laura: I’m trying to be a socially responsible vampire.

Laura: Now, I’d like to leave before your associate explains to you why using my blood won’t work.
The Magus: I wasn’t going to bring it up.
Laura: I want them to know, I just don’t want them to know about it.

Laura: I sorry but I don’t swing that way - you HAVE read Camilla, haven't you?

Laura turns back into a cloud of mist, which rolls off avoiding the increasingly stiff wind.

GM: She’s not a very powerful vampire.
Fireflash: That’s just how she rolls.

Flux: We keep getting all these fliers for cheap henchmen.
The Magus: Well, there’s an idea, if you have the money - hire all the henchmen and use them for public works, and price the villains out of the market.
The Magus: ‘I haven’t been shot at in weeks, AND I get dental!’
GM: Hey, don’t underestimate the Goon-ion.

Eventually we find a corporation that’s willing to volunteer to be the target for the lawsuit, with a Moreau employee that’s willing to risk their job if the suit doesn’t play out as everybody plans. Apparently the corporation is puzzled that nobody has tried it before too.

Corporate-type: Finally pulling the trigger on that, are they? Have at it!
Hardlight: If he turns out to be a goat I’m out of here.
The Rep: Yeah, that would be bad optics.

On the other hand, even as the various lawyers and groups involved conspire to kick the case up to the Supreme Court, we still have to deal with the feral memes. Although how feral are they, if they’re so tightly constrained to Edge City? Are they short-lived in this reality, which would explain why Edge City is so prone to sudden reversals in public opinion? We’ll have to keep a close eye on the zeitgeist in Edge City, to try and locate whatever summoning circle our opponents are using to sabotage social progress. Since they only spread by word of mouth, we may be able to track the associated memetic rumours.

Flux: Part of me wants to warn the Spinnerets about this, and then the rest of me goes ‘stop, no, that’s a terrible idea!’ - we don’t want the Spinnerets to even know these things exist!

The Magus: F*** me, this is a bleak apocalypse - there’s probably nobody in Edge City that’s still the person they’re supposed to be.

The corporation we’re working with to advance Moreau right via lawsuit is Erikson-Gulsvig Logistics GmbH, and their subdivision E-G Employment, who have been doing a lot of social outreach, street clinics and charitable programs lately - Safe houses for domestic violence victims, Homeless shelters, Rehab counseling & a number of camps where troubled youths receive guidance.

Flux OoC: It’s depressing, in the superhero settings, how often charitable groups turn out to be Evil.
GM: That's because we never get to see what the Johnathan and Martha Kent Foundation actually do.

We start an investigation, just in case our choice of collaborator is going to bite us on the bum laer. Scooter pokes around at street level, and suspects some of the Greys are staying at the homeless shelters, but nothing that would count as a big end-of-episode reveal.

We should probably tell somebody about the meme problem, in case something happens to us.

Hero Shrew: Flux knows Witchcraft, doesn’t he?
Flux: No no, Witchcraft kindly refrained from killing me the last time we met.
Hero Shrew: Well, she’d probably take it seriously if you go to her for help

On the other hand The Rep is probably immune to the meme, since any meme trying to infect him would have to get past his worldclass bulls***ing skills.

Although calling the Greys over the secret underground phone line does go a little strangely - apparently the ones at the homeless shelters are there to help, because the Moreaus suddenly approached them for help. But everything is going fine despite the Greys suddenly meddling in surface affairs. But meeting them in person to discuss it further is a bad idea. Really bad. Absolutely not on the table.

Grey: I mean, even if we met at Lake Park at 3AM someone would see us.
Fireflash: I… see. Well, you’ve been very helpful.
Grey: Actually I’ve been no help at all.
Hero Shrew: I’ve clearly missed something there.
Fireflash: Things are far from normal and they want to meet at Lake Park at 3AM.
GM: Their cyberpathy might not be the strongest but they can absolutely tell when a phone line is tapped. And this is their secure line.

The Grey Commune is currently highly stressed because somebody contacted them, psychically, and helped them out with a few problems.But now the time has come to pay them back, with little bits of psychic manipulation around town. Nothing apparently major, but some of the Greys are worried about it - some of the alterations they’ve been asked to do are weird. And it’s very weird that the psi-boosting drug they are provided with works on the Grey’s genetically modified biology.

The Grey we’re talking to is keenly aware that they’re going to get exposed sooner or later, but is doubly sure no-one will trust them because they’ve been hiding behind the scenes manipulating stuff for the last 15 years. And any sort of mental manipulation counts as Assault.

Grey: But don’t let the fact you might expose us stop you from doing the necessary.

Either way we’re going to need some way to tell when somebody has had their mind altered recently.

Fireflash: So you two had better invent some aura-detecting glasses. Or better yet goggles - that way when you fail we can say ‘The Goggles Do Nothing!’

The Magus’ sneaking around reveals that some people in the clinics are getting mental work done on them without their consent. The people are certainly in need of help, but it shouldn't be secretly like this. And there’s at least one member of stuff here who starts getting very suspicious whenever Magus and Flux report their discoveries, which may indicate a powerful dangersense. Her build - Russian Factory Worker - and Mama Bear vibe make the Magus reluctant to get any closer.

Hero Shrew: OK, these people need help, but the people given the help are going to be in so much trouble when they get found out. How will they react if we tell them we know?
Flux: Have you ever been mauled by a bear, and not in a sexual way? Because that’s what is going to happen if we get any closer.

We decide that they need to turn all the work they’re doing to voluntary treatment only, or we’ll arrest them. It’s a clear abuse of superpowers, so we won’t even need a warrant.

Hero Shrew: And if they do try to kill us then obviously they WERE up to something evil and we get to stop them anyway.
The Magus: The quickest way to get a result is to walk into the ambush and punch them in the face if they start anything.

Hero Shrew’s player: What the hell is that noise in the background, Weldun? It sounds like a cricket on cocaine.
The Magus’ player: What have you been doing on the weekends that you know what a cricket on coke sounds like?
Fireflash’s player: Have you been doing unauthorized experiments? Again? Reminds me of those experiments on spiders.
Hero Shrew’s player: I’ve got the t-shirt.
Fireflash’s player: My favorite was LSD.
Hardlight's player: Why would you give a spider drugs?
The Magus’ player: It’s way easier to get funding for spiders than orphans.
Hero Shrew’s player: Now THAT sounds like something The Magus would say.

Although to be honest they all seemed pretty in-character.

The Magus and Fireflash head in while the others watch for trouble - the Russian greets them cautiously, and certainly recognises Fireflash.

The Russian-presumed-Super: Permission? Written permission? Do you need written permission to take person through guided meditation? We tell them we will change their minds.

They claim they did have permission, but won’t let Fireflash see the files. She warns them that she’ll probably have to report them if they won’t.

The Russian: Why, because we are telepaths? You are bigot! This no different to telling ‘we summon good feelings into you!’

The counselors might well be licensed to operate in California, but the Greys looking through two-way mirrors in each ‘counseling session’ certainly aren’t. At least as mutates based on human stock their personhood is beyond legal dispute, and they don’t have to be registered as medical devices.

GM: It becomes, legally speaking, a very grey area.
Hero Shrew: ha ha.

On the other hand there’s also the matter of the drug our Grey contact mentioned. We’ll avoid mentioning that until we’ve done some more staking out and legwork. And background research on this Russian dame. If the Karen Sholokhov we investigate is actually the same person, she’s known as ‘Perestroika’ - Russian for ‘reconstruction’. She’s a rather powerful mass telepath, who can make any nearby her willing slaves, if they’re weak-willed enough. Although the Magus didn’t notice her actually using her own powers. She left Russia about the time Putin came to power. Surprisingly, she’s not superhumanly strong - but her Combat Luck and Danger Sense have kept her alive so far.

It looks like the aromatherapy program the Greys are on includes a psychoenhansive inhalant And with some sneakiness we can get hold of the stuff.

GM: Continual surveillance on somebody with Danger Sense could count as cruel and unusual punishment.

And then coming up with something to counter her Danger Sense will just ramp up her paranoia - ‘why can’t I feel them watching me anymore???’

The drug turns out to be very odd indeed, with some similarities to drugs circulated by the Scarlatti drug family in Baltimore in the 1990s. One of their customers was the first iteration of PSI.

The Magus: I’m just looking up the entry for the current iteration of PSI, and it says they’ve never been defeated thanks to caution and careful planning. And then they got accidentally defeated by Quadrant.
GM: Just goes to show you where bad luck can get you.

Flux: Now I’m worrying that somebody will get hold of the PSI drug and dump a bunch in some city’s water reservoir.

GM: PSI is also one of the few supervillain groups that hasn’t been plagued by internal betrayals.
The Magus: It helps where you’re basically the top rung of a psychic powers pyramid scheme.

It also looks like all of the precursor chemicals are coming from a company tasked with destroying them. A company that has all the facilities to turn merely dangerous chemicals into extremely dangerous chemicals. In industrial volumes.

Hero Shrew: Looks like the city reservoir idea is back on the menu.

We could always get them on Improper Storage And Disposal violations, but it’s probably going to require sneaking around first. It’s just as well we do sneak, because everybody in the facility is armed. With blasters. And there’s something weirdly fuzzy about them, even on the Magus’ scrying.

Hero Shrew: What are laws about private ownership of energy weapons?
GM: Not that different from kinetic weapons, honestly.
Flux: So you can only own an Orbital Death Laser for educational purposes.

And Magus’ mental awareness power is going ‘ping!’ continuously. And also weird that the rest of us didn’t think the place was weird until now.

Hardlight: Are we going in lasers blazing?
Hero Shrew: I can think of a few reasons not to, and one of them is that scene from Robocop.

(next session started with a long discussion that by complete coincidence included Bhopal, the Tianjin city explosion, the Halifax disaster and the fertilizer explosion in Beirut.)

Hero Shrew OoC: Anyway, speaking of chemical factory explosions…
GM: I haven’t found a map for the chemical factory.
Hero Shrew OoC: Just find a crater, it’ll probably end up that way.
Hardlight: Let’s just watch our backstop shall we?

Flux: On the bright side, if we do f*** up on the scale of any of the above, we won’t be around to get in trouble for it.
Fireflash: That’s not as reassuring as you think it is, Flux.

Unfortunately the moment we march onto the premises to announce the raid, the guards react by transforming their uniforms into armour. At least one of them is superpowered, too.

Fireflash: Nice trick.

And then the other defenses go off, which include an alarming amount of electromagnetic radiation going well up into the ionising variety.

Fireflash: Ouch!
Hero Shrew: Well, aren’t they going to be embarrassed if we were just here to invite them to a charity event.

A second super shows up.

Fireflash: A scary black person?
GM: A LIVING SHADOW
The Magus: I thought it was Hardlight with Foot-in-Mouth Disease
Flux: The difference is he does it by accident.

Magus hits one of the supers with a very effective illusion of teleportation to an alien cliff, Hardlight hits a mook with a point-blank PHOTON WAVE CANNON, and Scooter goes after another.

Hero Shrew: What’s the move in Mortal Kombat where you tear somebody’s entire spine and skull out through their a**hole?
The Magus: … I think that may have been from another title.
Hardlight: I’m pretty sure he pulls the opponent’s spine *upward*.
Fireflash: Forward, Down, Forward, High Punch in close range with Sub-Zero.

The mook instead gets thrown at the next one.

Hero Shrew: He’s probably just relieved I didn’t tear out his entire spine etc.

At least the radiation field doesn’t interfere with one of Flux’s powers.

The Magus: ‘BWAHAHAHA, you will never escape my anti-teleportation trap hero- oh f*** he can walk.’

The Magus: That would have been a good thing to add to the illusion - a giant sandworm appearing in the distance.
Enemy Super #1: *shakes his head to get rid of the illusion* Well, aren’t you a tricky one *lightning bolts Magus*

The living shadow is swooping in, and appears to be giggling. And the mooks have Goop Rifles. And the first supervillain hits Scooter in the face with a ball of lightning (and an under-the-breath ‘Hadouken!’).

GM: You are also blind for a time, and your radio is all staticky.
Fireflash: Hey! That’s my trick!
Flux: Then maybe you should stop demonstrating it to the bad guys.

It’s just as well Hardlight is such a bombastic character that there’s no chance Scooter will attack him by accident.

GM: ‘Don’t worry old chum, I’ll help yo- oh, you’re getting up by yourself.’

Fortunately, whoever the shadow is, we never find out what he had planned because he’s entirely vulnerable to EGO attacks. The Magus suspects that somebody has the ability to let their dark side off the leash.

Losing his back-up, and having his point-blank attack on Fireflash have absolutely no effect, the lightning-wielding super thinks that this might be a good time to leave. He just doesn’t leave fast enough, and get sniped out of the air by Magus. We’ll have to disentangle him from the maze of pipes later. Hero Shrew blinks off his blindness, and goes to deal with a mook that’s still blinded by Hardlight’s earlier, otherwise ineffective attacks.

The Magus: Yes, you should probably take that gun off him before hurts someone.
Hardlight: *charging up another PHOTON WAVE CANNON* Third time’s the charm…
The Magus: Oh, you think you can handle him now he’s blind and disarmed?

Hardlight: Remember your backstop!
Hero Shrew: I am. That’s why I’m not throwing a concrete slab at those two.
GM: I reserve the right to make bad suggestions on occasion

Shortly thereafter Hardlight finds himself in a very unfortunate position as regards a familiar-looking robot dinosaur.

GM: It opens its mouth.
Hardlight: … am I about to be Godzilla’d?
GM: Well, Mechagodzilla’d

Hardlight: That blast is going to hit 3 of us!
Flux: But nothing explosive. I think.

The energy blast certainly takes Hardlight out of the fight, and even knocks Scooter out briefly. In fact, if there is somebody in that Tokusatsu suit he’s certainly confident if he’s standing in the middle of three heavy hitters. And smart enough to Gank The Wizard First.

The Magus: Bad luck for him that I've got the strongest defenses in the team.

And further bad luck that Hardlight had taken out his Lightning Horn, before it could blat us with atomic fire from range again. Of course Gareth is probably the only person on the team that would recognise the cultural inspirations of the suit and target accordingly.

Hardlight: AlI know is that I want one.

Of course if the Mechagodzilla was supposed to keep us busy while the bad guys were getting away, they have a problem, because a few lucky hits leave it dazed on the ground, and Hero Shrew is coming around.

GM: Scooter, you’re awake.
Hero Shrew: Gimme a minute, I’m looking around for the asteroid that hit me.

Scooter goes full HULK SMASH on the suit, and after that rounding up the rest of the bad guys is short work. As well as all their other rather advanced technology, which includes subdermal radios and colour-change armour, the mooks have guns with mental controls.

Hardlight: Shoot. SHOOT. Hmm, maybe I’m not thinking hard enough.
The Magus OoC: If I remember the EGO of the rest of this party, then yeah, not thinking hard enough is definitely the problem
Hero Shrew: Huh. Were the lights supposed to come on?
Hardlight: WHAT???
Hero Shrew: The lights on this gun. Look, they’ve all come on. *waves it around*
The Magus: Hmm. Well, many Moreaus are at least passively psychic, although I don’t believe that’s common knowledge.
Hardlight: PUT THAT DOWN
The Magus: Huh, it must simply take a powerful enough mind to activate it.
Flux: That’s just mean.

We might not find where the drug pipeline actually starts, but we’ve shut down the literal pipeline at least. Although the clinic we were investigating has been cleaned out by the time we get back there.

The Magus OoC: He wants to spend a point to put a trailer on the Quadraphibious Qruiser.
Flux: It’d make a good accessory.
GM: … He wants to turn the Qruiser into an articulated truck.
Hardlight: I’m gonna make some scans of the MechaGodzilla so The Rep can make action figures.
GM: Did you negotiate likeness rights?
Hardlight: err…
Flux: ‘We have made a legally distinct villain who might look very similar but is actually legally distinct.’

Of course, as the Magus points out, the psi-boosting drug really is a very minor problem compared to some of the other things going on in Edge City, like the Sentient Memes. Gareth Lowell agrees - one wonders if somebody threw the drug situation at us to distract us from the issue at hand!

"I found religion."
"Really?"
"Yes. Who knew it could fit into chainmail so well?"

HOOROR ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS - MILAN - NOTE FOR NOTE Pt.1
 
Jan 1923
 
In Which The Investigators Develop An Aversion To Smoked Herring To Go With Their Aversion To Barbeque
 
In 1923 (and for decades to come) the longest and deepest tunnel in the world is the Simplon Tunnel, which is barely short of 20 kilometers long, and is buried under 7000ft of Alpine rock. Alas, our investigators are in no mood to appreciate the engineering marvel rushing by the windows, since they’re more concerned by the military pensioner burning alive in front of them. 
 
As the burning man casts distorted flickering silhouettes upon the stone beyond the windows, Lt. Huxley is making a vain attempt to extinguish the flames with a tablecloth and Florence Braxton-Hicks, who is all too aware that it was something the Duc did that set Colonel Herring ablaze from the inside out, attempts to stab the Frenchman to death. 
 
Unfortunately, his reaction to being stabbed in the chest is not what she was hoping for.
 
Duc Jean Floressas des Esseintes: Do you mind? This shirt is silk!
 
She follows up with another frenzied stab, this time leaving the knife firmly stuck in the Duc’s heart.
 
The Duc: Monsieur Huxley, kindly control your woman!
‘Alex’ Braxton: Oooo.
Lt. Huxley: Ah, maybe we should all take a step back and calm down?
 
Fortunately Alex has dashed back from her cabin with the fake scroll and case that Edgar Wellington made. The lieutenant and the dilettante launch into an impromptu performance of ‘Convince The Duc It’s The Real Thing’.
 
Alex: I have the scroll!
Huxley: No you fool, I meant hide it!
Alex: We’ll die if we don’t give it to him!
 
The Duc does seem pleased that at least SOMEBODY is taking him seriously, but this is the point Florence throws an urn-full of fresh coffee over him. That at least seems to produce a result, scalding the Duc’s face and neck quite badly, so she tries to follow it up by beating him about the head with the silver-plated vessel. Alex and Huxley drag her off him, understandably concerned that she’ll be the next to go up in flames.
 
Huxley: Uh, Would you like me to attend to your burns?
 
But the Duc has what he thinks he wants - retrieving the fake scrollcase from the ground, standing and straightening his suit, and delivering the still rabid Florence a dire warning.
 
The Duc: You will regret that.
 
And with that he flicks a loop of horsehair rope around himself and vanishes into thin air. 
 
The Simplon-Orient staff, rushing up with the fire buckets and carafes of water for the alas very dead Colonel Herring, are also concerned with the Duc’s apparent theft of the tableware.
 
Waiter: But, what has Monsieur done with our knife?
Huxley: Blast the damn knife!
 
Alex drags Florence off to their cabin, while the staff try to calm the other passengers that were witness to the scene, and give what assistance they can to the hysterical Mrs Herring.  At least Huxley has a plausible explanation for what happened to the late Colonel, and has literature to back him up. Although it’s not exactly clear if he’s trying to convince the Swiss and Italian police, the Simplon-Orient staff, or himself. 
 
Huxley: His prodigious drinking, smoking, temper and body fat must have combined into the perfect conditions for Spontaneous Human Combustion, as described by Dickens in Bleak House.
Alex: Those must be some strong drugs.
 
Poor Mrs Huxley will have to remain here in Iselle, just within the Italian border, until suitable arrangements can be made for the late Colonel’s pre-cremated corpse. What she does after that is probably not the investigator’s concern.
 
Florence: She’ll go find some nice young man. 
GM: And what would you like to prescribe to Mrs Herring, Lieutenant?
Florence: Cognac.
 
The staff seem reluctant to even mention the Duc’s presence at the incident, but the death of Col. Herring is already going to be a blow to the company. Adding vanishing sorcerers to the police report is hardly going to help. The investigators, on the other hand, are right to be highly concerned. The Duc is going to be quite annoyed when he opens the scrollcase and finds blank parchment.  Retaliation seems certain.
 
Alex: Is there any way we can protect ourselves?
Florence: More knives
Huxley: Why would he act so overtly, and reveal himself as an abomination?
Florence: He’s a man that likes making people scared.
 
So they’ve added the Duc to a list that includes the Midnight Strangler, whoever set Professor Smith house and the Professor himself on fire (and murdered a bunch of Smith’s associates as well), the madman Sedefkar of Simulacrum fame and whoever else worships the Skinless One, and Mehmet Makryat too, because why not. 
 
Alex: I know he’s already dead, but it’s not normal to leave dead copies of yourself around London.
GM: You certainly seem to have a knack for accumulating dangerous enemies. 
Huxley: Maybe there will be infighting among our pursuers?
GM: You certainly seem to be the most optimistic member of this group. 
 
Even with the Orient Express leaving Iselle and Domodosolla almost an hour late, they reach Milan, capital of Lombardy, just a little after lunch. Plenty of time for Florence and Alex to figure out a way to get the Left Arm of the Simulacrum and the Scroll of the Head through customs. They decide to hide the latter down the front of Alex’s pants, and the former down the back of Florence’s dress. 
 
GM: You’ll be walking a little stiffly when you get off the train.
Florence: Good posture. Alex and I learned that at school.
 
Florence OoC: Alex missed my diatribe on the state of woman’s underwear in the 1920s.
 
She also points out that as rich Englishfolk, it’s practically di rigeur to go home with your luggage stuffed with priceless cultural artifacts. 
 
GM: Why are their Pyramids in Egypt?
Florence: Because they were too heavy for the English to steal.
 
Florence is sure she can get the artifacts through Customs because nobody will expect the woman to be the hardcore smugglers.
 
Florence: We are weak delicate flowers
GM: Says the woman who was trying to beat someone to death with a coffee urn earlier.
Florence: I was psychotic and can claim I was on my period.
 
It probably helps that she gets the entire party to hand over their guns, sword-canes, etc to Customs for safekeeping until they can get permits on Monday morning. 
 
Florence: You freely admit to the small stuff and they don’t even look for the big stuff.
Alex: That’s astonishingly sensible of you, cuz
Florence: It’s how you get away with the real things you’re up to. Like writing a 90 page novella in class.
 
It works, despite Florence shuffling through the station with an entire statuary arm strapped to her back. 
 
Florence OoC: They just think we have impeccable poise. You can balance an entire stack of encyclopedias on my head. My etiquette teacher would be so proud.
 
After going through all that trouble, it’s disappointing that Milan, heart of culture, fashion, and fascist culture is, well, disappointing. The Stazione Centrale looks like a bomb hit it, Il Duomo is a mass of scaffolding, and the people themselves don’t seem entirely whole either - depression, mental exhaustion, disintigrating friendships and sniggering lust seem the order of the day. Milan is a city that is sick in the soul. 
 
But at least they arrived here intact, and can get about their purpose - locating the P. Rischonti who purchased the Torso of the Sedefkar Simulacrum, and locating the opera diva Caterina Cavollaro, who has gone missing despite the fact Aida is supposed to be opening with her in the main role, tomorrow night. Catarina had instructed her manager to arrange opening night tickets, and rooms for them at the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, overlooking the many shops and cafes of the famous nineteenth century shopping gallery, and indeed he had. The investigators enjoy a light lunch and make their plans. 
 
GM: Although you do wonder if it’s wise putting a full coffee urn anywhere within reach of Florence. 
 
Florence, however, is a bit put out about the meal’s server, who is openly ogling her. Italians might have a certain reputation, but such behaviour from the staff is bizarrely rude. 
 
Florence: Where’s that coffee pot.
 
And he won’t stop, either, and Florence returns to her room in disgust.
 
Florence: Men suck.
Huxley: What did I do this time?
 
Florence: I think a day to recuperate and actually plan after all the murders would be nice.
GM: AHAHAHA - yeah, good luck with that. 
 
Because if they want to find Signora Cavollaro before La Scala opens its doors tomorrow, they have a lot to do today - and Alex and Florence are feeling too burnt out to do any of it (although less burnt out than the late Colonel Herring, presumably). Also, it’s Sunday. Huxley will have to go to the central Post Office tomorrow to see if Professor Smith has sent them any telegrams. They might be a bit busy at la Scala, too, although consulting the city directory reveals that a P. Rischonti is the stage director at the opera house. VERY first, Huxley will have to run around to the diva’s townhouse to, if he’s very lucky, thank her for the tickets and accommodation, but more likely start investigating the details of her disappearance. 
 
Alex: Run along, there’s a good boy.
Huxley: Don’t go overboard if the Duc makes an appearance.
Alex: Don’t go overboard if the Duc appears in her bedroom???
Florence: I’ll only stab him a little this time.
 
GM: By the way, Brian, I’d like you to roll against your Power stat. No reason. No reason at all… 
Players: *paranoia spiking*
 
Suddenly feeling a little naked, Alex searches the suite of rooms for any weapons, just in case the Duc DOES show up. She doesn’t find anything. At least some of the papers are in English. 
 
Florence OoC: In a few years Gregory Peck will be working for one. Although in this version of reality if Audrey Hepburn stuck her hand in that thing it probably WOULD get bitten off. 
 
There’s some guidebooks to Milan, at least - one mentions a quaint superstition about la Scala - that singing along with the aria on opening night can make your fondest wish come true. That might come in handy - perhaps they can wish the Duc trips down the hill in Lausanne and breaks his neck.
 
It takes about three baths to get the smell of smoked Herring off. At least Huxley is out in the open so it’s less noticeable. Cavollaro’s maid, Ysabel, is rather upset - she hasn’t heard from her mistress since she got into a black car at the Stazione Centrale. She’s certain that somebody from the opera picked her up - she wouldn’t have got into a vehicle, even one as expensive as she describes, with just anybody. In her opinion the police have been useless, but it’s not like they’re going to go harass the wealthy patrons of la Scala.
 
Huxley: That’s a bit worrying. By the way, do you know Mr Rischonti at la Scala?
Ysabel: I don’t *know* him, but I have met him, when I serve the mistress in her room, you understan- wait, you think he is the one that has taken her? AVRÒ IL SUO SCROTO
Huxley: No no, I don’t think he’s responsible, it’s entirely unconnected… probably. 
 
Huxley decides to ask the porters at Stazione Centrale if they saw the model of car, and recognised it, and then go find out what the polizia actually know. One of the porters, busily brushing building rubble off the flowerbeds, did indeed notice the car - an Alfa Romeo RL limousine. 
 
Porter: They are a fine car, I suppose, even if they are no train. They make them here in Milan. I didn’t see who the Signora was talking to - she did not even take her luggage with her. 
 
Huxley checks the papers from anything that might be connected to opera patrons, or comes across two articles that make him uneasy.
 
A WELCOME RETURN 
 
Flavio Conti was a welcome face at last night’s party for patrons and supporters of La Scala. Mr. Conti has been unwell in recent months with some erroneous reports that he was afflicted with tuberculosis. It was clearly a much less serious complaint. Mr. Conti has made a complete recovery and was the life of the party.
 
 Also present were fellow opera patrons Mr. Nunzio Tocci, Mr. and Mrs. Matteo Sorrenti, Miss Angela Susco, Mr. Arturo Faccia, and Mrs. Serena Spagnolo. The company were entertained by selections from this week’s opera Aida, as performed by members of the cast. Rosario Sorbello accompanied on the piano. It was a most glittering occasion.
 
 
AUTOMOBILE WORKER MURDERED
 
The body of automobile worker Ennio Spinola was discovered today in a laneway off Via Tavazzano in Portello, not far from the Alfa Romeo factory where he worked. Spinola had been stabbed to death.
 
Police are pursuing enquiries among workers in the area. Spinola was an active unionist, and is reported to have been arguing about union matters with other workers in recent days.
 
Alex: ‘Stabbed to death’?
Florence: Wasn’t me.
 
The vigili are, in fact, taking the disappearance of Cavollaro seriously - it seems increasingly likely she’s been kidnapped. Huxley gives them what information he can, which isn’t much, but does enquire about a possible connection to the Alfa Romeo factory. That makes the police a little cagey - apparently Spinola’s body has yet to be returned to his family.  Not that they are particularly invested in solving the crime - after all, fascists get murdered by unionists, but unionists only get murdered by other unionists. There’s even a small protest by Spinola’s co-workers outside the police station, briefly, before the blackshirts show up. But there are few oddities about the body that Huxley offers to consult on, in his medical capacity.
 
The coroner investigating the cause of death noted the unusual nature of the stab wound and internal injuries, but of rather more concern was Spinola’s extremely advanced case of tuberculosis, revealed during the autopsy. Very odd indeed, since there’s no way he could have worked a strenuous industrial position with a case that bad. There’s also absolutely no sign that the infection had spread to his spine or other organs, and apart from the lungs the rest of his body appeared to be in rude health. 
 
Huxley, closely examining the remains, comes to a very disturbing conclusion.
 
Those aren’t his lungs. 

Horror on the Orient Express - Lausanne - Nocturne Pt. 2   Jan. 1923

In Which The Investigators Enjoy A Product Of The Swiss Pharmaceutical Industry
   
Dream Lausanne, Edgar Wellington’s hiding place from the horrors of the early 20th Century, is distinctly ‘olden times’, as he claimed. One may wonder why Edgar prefers to take that highly suspect potion just to dream of a medieval taxidermy shop, without benefit of formaldehyde or refrigeration, but every night he’s Dreaming in Dream Lausanne is a night he isn’t dreaming of the trenches of the Western Front.

Most of the pile of equipment Flo and her cousin were clutching as they went under is changing to match the tenth century aesthetic.

GM: Your flashlights aren’t flashlights, they’re torches - actual torches. And there’s also the distinctly unpleasant sensation as your clothing slithers and transmogrifies into new fabrics and configurations.

GM: Dream Lausanne is best described as Gothic Nightmare.
Florence OoC: So, corsets, black nail polish?

Happily, the crowd outside all seem to be trudging uphill towards the tolling cathedral bells, and ignoring the taxidermists. Since it seems unlikely there’s a 10th Century equivalent of the modern Swiss banks, it’s most likely Edgar hid the real Sedefkar scroll somewhere in the dream-reflection of his shop. The two women turn the place upside-down - or rather, further upside-down since somebody has already trashed the place. Picking the lock to the upstairs apartment proves unwise, and they swiftly slam the door shut on the Wellington’s living quarters when it instead reveals the nightmares of the Somme. The rest of the building isn’t much better, but at least the rotting corpses here are merely animals. Alex takes a particular note of the fully grown bear, its internal organs now reeking horror.

Alex: You know, If I wanted to hide something where nobody would look for it, I have an idea where it might be.
Florence: Oh god no.
GM: … well, I have to admit I didn’t expect you to figure it out that quickly.
Alex OoC: Thanks. I just went by the rules of crime fiction; if it's pointed out to you it's important and it was the most disgusting possibility I could come up with 🙂 I'm trained by years of gaming with Stephen Dedman.

Alex reaches into the festering offal, but it’s not just them that throws up. Florence babbles about some of her memories of growing up on a sheep farm.

Florence: -we didn’t find the ewe for a week and the insects had already started on her and the lamb was halfway out-
Alex: Could you NOT tell me about your childhood?

In Waking Lausanne Huxley is having to prop up their bodies so they don’t choke on their own vomit. And honestly the players aren’t feeling much better.

Alex: I never want to see something like that again. I’m never going hunting again

The real scroll is, indeed, hidden in a waterproof case inside the bear’s corpse. Now they just have to escape with it - if Edgar’s soul is somehow still alive in Lausanne, he’ll have to fend for himself.

But escape might be more difficult than they think - the drifting bitter ash in the blasted landscape between Dream Lausanne and the Waking World has covered their footprints. How do they return to their bodies?

Florence: *slaps Alex across the face* WAKE UP
Alex: Hey!

Huxley is monitoring their vitals when he’s distracted by a knock on the hotel room door. Apparently the police want to ask more questions about the murder and attempted murder of the Wellingtons. Just as well they didn’t come ask in person - the two unconscious women in the bed might be difficult to explain. His usual excuse about collecting replacement documents after the fire at Professor Smith's house probably wouldn’t cut it. Lorna Cambell-Barnes, one of Huxley’s antique customers and who by wild coincidence is staying at the same hotel certainly doesn’t seem to believe it. She’s a collector of illuminated European and Arabic manuscripts, and had apparently been contacted by Wellington as a potential buyer for the Sedefkar scroll. She thought he was dodgy enough to decline - wise choice. Perhaps they’ll see each other again on the train? After Huxley has finished tending to whoever it is he has in the hotel room?

After sitting for an hour in the wasteland, waiting for the drug to wear off, or Huxley to bring them around, or anything, The cousins decide that maybe they need to be closer to their bodies in Dream Lausanne? Perhaps they can find the equivalent of the hotel there. Unfortunately, navigating is easier said than done, given the steep, twisting cobbled streets, the non-stop press of the crowd, and gaping fissures blasting freezing gales. Perhaps the fissures and the decay in the Wellington’s shop is a sign that the reality of Dream Lausanne is collapsing with the death of the Dreamer? Florence and Alex decide to hurry back to the shop, and come face to face with Death.

Also an Angel, a medieval Soldier, a Lion, a Turk, an Assassin, and a Rustic Lass and Rustic Lad. They are costumed flagellants who wind in procession through the chaos, weeping tears of blood from startling, expressionless, china-blue dolls’ eyes. They chant in Latin as they move, and the reek of incense and a distant cacophony of bells entirely at odds with the bells from the cathedral follows them. As the bells reach a crescendo, the Lion figure sprouts wings and flies away, closely pursued by the Soldier. Their bloody tears fall on the investigators from above and scald them.

Florence recalls that a Winged Lion is the symbol of Venice, which surrendered to Napoleon in 1797. Evidently Alex played truant for most of their History lessons.

Huxley OoC: Note to self - buy an umbrella before we get to Venice.

Spherical bunches of tiny white flowers sprouting from thick stems, growing from cobbled streets, is another oddity. As is the street musician that loses all his limbs to an empty top hat.
And the living chessboard with murderous pawns. And the barbed wire cage festooned with scraps of flesh, that sings with Signora Cavallaro’s voice. The only person that actually talks to them is an old woman cooking something in a big black cauldron.

Highly Suspicious Crone: You two look like you need a good feed. Come, try some.
Alex & Flo: *politely NOPE*
Crone: Not going to the Jigsaw Prince’s court? He has some Englishman a prisoner, I hear. But that one has so much to say - I don’t care to listen.

By the time they make it back to the shop, their agitation is obvious enough that Huxley starts injecting a stimulant. Their first demands are a shower and alcohol. But at least they have the real scroll, and the fake, as well as an English translation of the original - something Wellington denied having. The Scroll of The Head is certainly the work of a madman, as evinced by the following excerpt.

I have seen the powers which stalk the night and strike fear into the hearts of all those who worship the false god. I know Him and I worship Him. The Skinless One has spoken to me. He whispered secret words into my heart of hearts and I know what I now must do. I have seen It in visions and It is all that my Lord said It was. In my dreams I have seen Its perfection striding above the ruins of cities. Kings and countries have fallen before It. Even gods must fall before It. I recognized it the first time I beheld It as an object of power. Power that would bring the world to its knees. It glistened like the finest pearls. It woke when I flayed alive the wretch who sought to steal my treasure from me. That night He came to me for the first time and told me what to do. I meditated before Its glory. All praise to the One without Skin. I performed the seventeen devotions and opened It for the first time. Within the artifact was soft and smooth. As I ran my hand across Its inner surface it felt like the skin of a newborn babe. I offered four children as sacrifice to my Master. Then I used It for the first time. In His wisdom the Lord of Naked Flesh had made It to my height. In all modesty I believe It was made in my image. Blessed is the chosen of the Skinless One. I have been careful to keep It untarnished. The substance is the color of purity and should not be tainted by that which is unclean.

Lt. Huxley heads off on some errands, and learns that Maximillian has been asking around for them - but not to worry, because von Wertheim is in such bad odour at the Beau-Rivage Palace that they wouldn’t have let him in even if he had actually known where the investigators were staying.

Things to do include sending a telegram to Prof. Smith and Beddows, to inform them on progress thus far.

+++ARM IN HAND+++AHEAD ON FINDING PAPERS+++

Then around to the hospital to check on the health of William Wellington - highly precarious - and then around to the police station to answer more questions, and try and explain that he and the girls really have to leave for Milan in the morning, since they have tickets for the opening of Aida. The Inspector is initially skeptical, but surprised that they haven’t heard the news - the opera star has vanished. It’s in all the papers coming up the train line from Milan.

Opera Star Missing! - Fears of Abduction
Police have expressed fears that soprano Caterina Cavollaro may have been abducted from Milan’s Stazione Centrale. The singer has not been seen since she alighted from the train from Paris yesterday at 1pm. Since then she has not returned to her apartment or attended rehearsals at La Scala, where she is due to sing the part of Aida, which opens Monday night. Arturo Toscanini, music director of La Scala, has confirmed that he has had no contact from the singer since she departed Paris.

Police request that any members of the public contact them if they have any information on the whereabouts of Signorina Cavallaro. We heartily urge all Milanese to join the search for our most beloved star.
 
Florence OoC: Have they checked Box Five?

At least they reach the train without incident in the morning, and eventually stagger down to the dining car for breakfast. Lorna Cambell-Barnes hasn’t come from her cabin yet, but they’re not the only people there, even this early in the morning. One is Colonel Herring, an obnoxious retired military man currently complaining about the food, at top volume. His wife can do little more than mutter ‘yes dear’, and ‘no dear’. Cornered, Lt. Huxley confesses that he is a former military man himself, and cautiously suggests a stomach-calming draft if the garlic is too much? Perhaps the Colonel will be disembarking at the next stop?

Col. Herring: The wife wanted to see the continent. God knows why - all Frogs, Wogs, and I-ties. They can’t even cook an egg properly, ha ha.
GM: Roll Psychology. Mrs. Herring’s expression is one of someone who has plotting murder for the last two decades. The waiter is also plotting murder, but won’t do it where it will upset the other passengers.

At least the beauty of the view out of the windows is distracting - the Alps, snow pink in the light of the rising sun. It’s so distracting that the investigators don’t realize how much danger they are in until a waiter asks “Will Monsieur be dining alone today?” and the Duc Jean des Esseintes replies. “No, I think I will eat with my friends.”

After being reseated with Huxley and the others, who are frozen in alarm, the Duc puts a small valise down, orders his meal and turns his attention to the party.

The Duc: Ladies, gentleman, if you will excuse my hurried bluntness, I will come to the point. You have in your possession an item that is rightfully mine. You will give it to me, or it is you I will destroy. Your answer promptly, please. I have little time.

Huxley, in a fit of unbridled optimism, asks if the Duc’s interest in the scroll is academic.

The Duc: Hardly, monsieur. The knowledge within belongs only to those with the will to use it, and I judge that none of you possess that strength of will.
Alex: But it’s not yours!
The Duc: Debatable. I am certain I can find witnesses who can state otherwise. And testify as to your presence in the Wellington fils shop. So unfortunate, what happened to your countrymen.

Huxley tells Alex to go fetch the scroll, and she rightly assumes he means the fake. Unfortunately, the Duc isn’t fooled for a moment, and correctly guesses they plan to thwart him.

The Duc: Do you take me for a fool, sir? I assure you that is a regrettable error - perhaps I should make an example of one of you, to prove my point?

It’s at this point that Col. Herring gets involved, since he’s been quietly eavesdropping on this whole conversation and is now purple with rage.

Col. Herring: Just who the devil do you think you are, sir?! I don’t know how they do things around here but I’ll be damned if I stand by while some bloody Frog threatens a proper Englishman!

Alex makes a run for the cabin and the fake scroll, Florence pockets one of the sharper knives on the table, Huxley stands to try and intervene between Herring and the Duc, and the Duc is merely muttering under his breath and gazing steadily at the enraged pensioner.

Who bursts into a pillar of flame.

We are now on Episode 44 of the current Golden Age campaign.  I went back to Ep 1 and looked at the quotes:
 
Tarraingteacht [OOC]: Why is my character a Missouri Prisoner of War?

[confused looks from the rest of the table]

Double-Time [leaning over and looking at her character sheet]: "MoPow" is an abbreviation for More Powerful…

Call of Cthulhu : Poissy to Lausanne (via Other Places)   JANUARY 1923

In Which The Adventurers Complete the Second Leg Of Their Journey, and Acquire An Arm

Sub-Lt. Huxley, journalist Florence Braxton-Hicks, and dilettante Alexandra ‘Alex’ Braxton are currently guests of a French doctor and his wife, who would probably have reconsidered their offer if they knew the kind of excitement the party were bringing into their lives. Admittedly, the fact that their daughter apparently saw a boogeyman outside her upstairs window has no obvious connection to their visitors, but the repeated disturbances in the guestroom, and the discovery of what lies under Chez Lorien, certainly does.

But beginning at the beginning, there doesn’t appear to be a mitten-biter or any other kind of bogeyman outside Quitterie’s upstairs bedroom window when Huxley checks, nor any sign that anybody was in the yard. On the other hand, there doesn’t appear to be anybody else in the room when Florence finds herself flung across the room with considerable force in the middle of the night. Or perhaps there was, because Huxley suffers similar injuries the following night, in the same room, but unlike Flo he recalls a horribly withered figure holding him by the throat and hissing “Which god do you serve?” in Latin.

Of course that does raise the question of how this attacker got into the room in the first place, since only the Loriens have the other key.

Florence: I’m searching the walls for hidden doors - I’ve read enough mystery novels to know the score.

Both Florence and Huxley have bruises that strongly resemble a powerful grip around their throat.

GM: And as far as you know she’s not into autoasphyxiation.

Of course they wouldn’t have had to stay at Chez Lorien that long if they hadn’t botched locating the ruins of Fenalik’s mansion, twice.

Florence: I look at the map again and realise I was holding it upside down. Sacré bleu!

Although it’s Veronique Lorien pointing out that they’re doing all their measurements in metric, when the estate map they were given was pre-Revolution, that uncovers Fenalik’s cellar. Of course, it still takes another day of digging - by Huxley - to excavate the door.

Florence: Hard work never killed anyone.

What lies beyond is certainly hellish, so it appears Captain Malon’s report from 1793 was accurate in that regard. It’s probably just as well Huxley acquired holy water from the church in Poissy. The subterranean garden is bad enough, given the unfortunate parallels with the garden where Florence's stillborn siblings were buried. But hey, at least they find the Left Arm of the Sedefkar Simulacrum! Although Huxley does have a new concern.

Huxley: I think we have another pursuer.
Florence: Charming.

The Left Arm is certainly a curious artefact - apparently ceramic, and inscribed with an intricate pattern of hundreds of left arms. And whatever glaze the creator used darkens from pearly white to a deep blue in sunlight. It’s also flawless, with the exception of a vaccination scar exactly where Alex has one - but that they can’t find again when they doublecheck. Huxley can’t even confirm what it’s made of, since when he tries to scrape off a sample his shoulder starts to hurt.

GM: But then you did do a lot of digging yesterday - that’s no doubt why.

At least they can telegram Professor Smith the good news - he’s apparently recovering from his burns, and has started sending letters to his contacts across Europe to help how he can. And Remi assures his friend that he’ll find a copy of the Diary of an Unknown Soldier and post it to them no matter where they are in Europe. The message from Antonio is less promising - it turns out that de Gremanci is one of the most common surnames in Venice, so finding out if the reputed sorcerer Alvise de Gremanci ever got his hands on part of the Simulacrum is proving difficult.

GM: The telegram is already a bit terse, but Antonio is basically complaining that it’s like asking every Smith in London if their great-great grandfather was a sorcerer and did he leave them any body parts in his will?

On the other hand, now that they know what the Simulacrum actually looks like, they can find out which auction house in Paris sold one of the pieces after The War, and exactly which Milanese gentleman they sold it to. The couple of days are fruitless, until one of the auction houses takes pity on them (or perhaps are impressed enough by the obvious quality of Alex’s suit) to point out that it might have been a private auction - or not sold as statuary at all. THAT clue uncovers a pamphlet where something that sounds very much like the Torso, from the collection of one Dr Rigault (1746-1794), was put up for auction as a ‘Porcelain Anatomical Model, Maker Unknown’. Rigault was the Royal Physician prior to the Revolution, and a name already connected to the raid on Fenalik’s house.

But it appears it didn’t reach the reserve price, and a few years later it was auctioned off as part of a job lot, with a bunch of period costumes, dress weapons, costume jewelry, and dressmaker’s dummies. They were purchased by one P. Rischonti. At last the Investigators can head to Milan - with a brief stop-over in Switzerland to interrogate one Edgar Welligton about his knowledge of the Simulacrum.

Huxley is reluctant to let the Arm out of his sight.

Huxley: I’ll keep it close. At hand.
GM: That pun is a bit of a reach.
Huxley: Does this arm come with a manual?

At least the other guests on the Orient Express as it departs Paris after midnight are less obnoxious than that preteen on the train from London. Indeed, Signorina Caterina Cavallaro, star of Parisian and Milanese opera, is charming, witty, and very generous, complimenting Alex on her suit and promising to get Huxley and his friends rooms at the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, as well as front row tickets for opening night of Aida at La Scala. She has quite a story about how she went to her first opera, fully intending to wish for a pony as she sung along to ‘Ritorna vincitor!’, but decided on the spot to wish to be an opera singer instead. Looks like it worked. She sings the aria for the other travellers, to rapturous applause.

Florence OoC: Sing Freebird!

The investigators stagger off to bed, and wake up on a cobbled street in somewhere apparently called Ulthar, which has a lot of cats. Florence is pleased about that - the nature of the trains here, less so. That Alex has switched genders is a bit of a surprise too, although perhaps less than some might expect.

Huxley: Between a woman I normally see in men’s clothing anyway and the fact we’re riding on giant elephant octopus things under a sky where I don’t recognise a single constellation, the fact that Alex is apparently male here barely registers.

Chatting with some of the other passengers on the Dreamlands Express, they learn the train was created to give a chance for any passengers of the one in the Waking World a chance to discard their worries, in the Gulf of Nodens beyond the cloudcity of Serranian. Although there is some philosophical debate in the Dreamlands about which world is the ‘real’ one. After all, as one of the other passengers, one ‘Mac’ Mackenzie from Scotland, points out, sometimes dreamers from Earth die there and live on here, which adds some weight to the question. Although Mackenzie does warn the dreamers away from one Karasov, apparently an arms dealer in the Waking World. Karasov is instantly unpopular with the investigators, and doesn’t help his case any by saying that if he didn’t sell weapons to the governments of the world, somebody else would. Karasov also won’t say why he’s on the train, although MacKenzie’s reason is that he wishes to be a poet in Sona-Nyl. Hopefully there’s some kind of training program there, because his poetry is awful.

The other out-of-place person here is one Madam Bruja, apparently an Elizabethan widow, who wants nothing to do with any of the male passengers on the train, but does warm to Florence when she explains that women have much more freedom in the waking World then they used to - she’s a journalist and travels widely of her own recognizance, for a start. Bruja does warn her to beware men.

Madam Bruja: Men are animals - worse than animals. They’ll take what they want from you, and I won’t let him.

The incredible luxury of the pavilions on the Dreamlands Express is certainly relaxing, and gives Huxley a chance to discuss his concerns with the others. Such as his suspicions about that ‘psychic assassin’ that attacked them in Poissy. He’s sure that at least three different groups know that they’re after the Simulacrum.

Huxley: The Midnight Strangler, Sedefkar of many corpses, and whoever likes skinning people.
GM: Well, Sedefkar probably died quite a few centuries ago.
Florence: PROBABLY
GM: Although Professor Smith DID say that possessing the Simulacrum was to possess immortality.
Huxley: I’m not sure what I believe anymore - my skepticism is eroding rapidly.