Well, with this third session we finished up the adventure. The group consisted of Temper the Unkneeling Coinbearer, Lefleur the White Court Con Man, Lenny the Iron Alchemist, and once again John Whitfield the War Vet Warden. The four of them were stuck on an old oil rig, with no way to get home thanks to the explosions of the Iron Alchemist. Temper managed to find an old radio, and fixed it; Lefleur used it to contact the Coast Guard and ask for help. Temper then tried to argue that it would be less trouble to Sovereign Glue together the blown up pieces of the boat and steer the remnants back into port across miles of open ocean with no real means of navigation or propulsion than to ask the government for help. Thanks Temper. Needless to say, more sensible members of the group shot this idea down. Not wanting to get arrested, the group dumped their guns into the ocean before the CG showed up.
While Temper and Lefleur worked to get rescued, the Iron Alchemist delivered the draught of the living death to John, who was perplexed. After all, he didn't order the thing. Nevertheless, he paid Lenny the agreed upon amount and took it, asking some questions and the letter he supposedly sent. He wanted to find out who sent it.
With the help of the Coast Guard, they made it back into town; Lefleur spun a story about how a fuel line broke, causing an explosion and forcing the survivors to take shelter on the oil rig, deflecting any suspicion. Everyone went back to plan their own business. Lefleur arranged a meeting with Simon Walters to continue his long con; Walters wanted to check out the property before he bought it. Lefleur scheduled it slightly before John's duel with the Summer Knight, to meet up at the property he claimed to own. Knowing Lenny's plans, he also informed the Iron Alchemist that Walters would be out of his office.
Lenny brewed up some potions to help with his planned burglary of Walter's office. He wanted to steal Marie Laveau's gris gris bag, since it was rare and possibly magical.
John had a duel to prepare for, and whipped up a potion to shake off mental fatigue. He had a rough night, beaten up by faeries and everything. He also did a thaumaturgy ritual to try and find out where that letter came from; it turned out to be from Edinburgh. Another member of the White Council wrote it for him? He also arranges a meeting with Fix before the duel, to basically whine about sending dudes to attack him. Fix denies involvement, and John remembers that the gruffs said something about orders from "the Lady." By now he probably thinks Lily is behind these attacks, but I don't think he's really figured out what's going on.
Nicodemus contacted Temper with what he learned. It appeared that his driver was trained in tactical driving, and took multiple routes to work. Instead, he presented another solution: attack him at an off-site meeting with some other crook in the 9th Ward. He had gotten a copy of today's itinerary, and that meeting with Mr. Finn (aka Lefleur) was the perfect opportunity. His daughter Deidre would accompany Temper as backup (and because she loves killing people).
Whitfield shows up at the duel in the Superdome, with Fix and his second the centaur whose name I have conveniently forgotten. Also present are the injured Ignatius, John's second, Jack Ellis, to cheer on his team, and Titania the Summer Queen. Nicodemus is there as referee, and even Morgan shows up in case his pupil needs any help. Jack tries to tell John that Temper is working with the creepy wheelchair guy, and that she might do something stupid, rash, or evil. I throw a compel John's way on his Summer Hatin' aspect, saying he wants to concentrate on the duel, not whatever Temper's doing. So he blows Jack off, and doesn't try to stop Temper.
Fix comes onto the field wearing an improvised Farraday Cage, sporting his magic sword and a sawed-off shotgun. John brings his gun and copper rod. Without any preamble, Nicodemus says begin. The duel is on! Fix goes first, trying to overwhelm John with a torrent of summer flame before he can even respond. Fortunately, John put up his shield before the duel, and avoids being cooked. He does end up Singed (minor consequence). John avoids any lightning attacks, instead using air attacks to throw Fix up into the air and slamming him into the ground. What a cheater. Fix ends up with the Bruised consequence and some more stress. Fix gives up the magical attacks, charging across the football field to attack with his sword; John takes a Deep Cut from the attack, then responds with another brutal wind attack. This time, he manages to break Fix's leg from the fall.
At the end of his rope, Fix is determined to win. Or at least take John with him. He uses his sword as a crutch to rise to his feet, then attacks John once again, but his broken leg slows him down too much: John dodges the attack. John responds by creating a vacuum sphere around Fix, holding him in place and suffocating him. Both sides took some consequences and a lot of stress, but John was victorious. Fix was taken out, knocked out by John's attack. John walks over to Fix's unconscious body, kneels over him, then pores the draught of living death down the Knight's throat. Fix dies (temporarily).
Nicodemus checks out Fix, and declares Fix dead. The duel is over. Titania recovers the Mantle of the Summer Knight from Fix, what she wanted all along. John was a most useful pawn. Morgan congratulates John, asking what he poured down the champion's throat. John tells him that Fix is only temporarily dead, and he'll recover. Jack then tells John about how Temper is going to kill Walters, so he has to hurry off to try to stop her. He asks Morgan to tell Fix's second about the potion, so they don't bury him alive or anything. Morgan agrees, then John is off to intercept Temper.
He's far, far too late. Lefleur meets with Walters first, and they work out the details of the deal. Walters uses some high pressure tactics to knock off some money from the price, but Lefleur doesn't care. It's not like he owns this land. What he has been doing, however, is installing his own locks in all of the houses. He attracts some unwelcome attention during this time, and they're on the move. But Lefleur is clueless about this, and the deal is almost finished. Walters is about to transfer the bank money to Lefleur's account, and he's about to sign over the deeds. Then Jimbo Hill shows up, identifying Lefleur as the guy who stole his briefcase full of cash.
Chaos and mistrust ensues, and Lefleur tries to pull some con, but it isn't quite working. So instead, he just turns on Inhuman Speed, steps forward, and transfers the money from Walters for him. Everyone reacts with hostility, and Walters tries to Intimidate Lefleur, invoking his "I Own This Town" aspect. Lefleur takes some stress, and decides he best get going. So he runs, cutting through yards. Jimbo and his boys chase after Lefleur, some on vehicles, some on foot. Unfortunately for the thugs, none of them have Inhuman Speed. Lefleur avoids the cars by cutting through yards, and keeps ahead of the weregators. After a few rounds of a foot chase, he kicks open a gate, then hides inside one of the homes, invoking his Price on His Head aspect to boost his Stealth roll. He's now lost the pursuing thugs; he waits a few minutes for them to pass him by, then sneaks back to where the meeting was, to see what was going down while he left. He's also too late.
Temper and Deidre park near the meeting site, shifting into their evil demon forms to avoid identification (and just to be overall badasses). They move closer to the meeting, and arrive in time to watch Lefleur and the thugs run away. While Walters is pulling out a cell phone, probably to get some more information about Lefleur, Temper charges. A monstrous scorpion now menaces Walters, and he dodges out of the way. He begins firing point blank at Temper with his pistol, but it's ineffective vs. her Armor 2 and insane Stress box track. The bodyguard also tries firing, and radios for the tail car to come in and get them out of there. Deidre moves in and quickly kills the bodyguard.
Walters runs towards the tail car, heading away from Temper. Temper follows with fury, while the mercs in the tail car open up on Temper...doing no real damage with their fancy assault rifles. The driver also tries to ram Temper with the car. If only they had holy water or something. Temper then invokes Walters' Disbeliever aspect, forcing him to stand still and deny that he's actually being menaced by a pair of monsters. Poor guy. Temper inflicts some awesome damage on her nemesis, giving him the Extreme Consequence "The One Armed Man." Heh.
Deidre moves in and kills the driver with her razor hair. Walters continue to fire at Temper, acting on sheer reflex, but it doesn't make a difference. She kills Walters, pinning him to the hood of the car with her scorpion tail. Deidre finishes off the last two mercs in the tail car.
Lefleur shows up, and demonstrating more bravery than common sense, asks what's going on. Temper's dead father appears behind Lefleur, telling her that Lefleur is no better than Walters and that he deserves to die as well. Temper sadly resists my Compel, and escapes from the crime scene with Deidre. Lefleur then books it himself, happy that he's now several hundred thousand dollars richer. By the time Whitfield shows up, the police are there, photographing the crime scene; he's shocked by the brutality and blood, and just drives by.
During all of this, Lenny tries to rob Simon Walter's office. Between a blending potion and his chameleon cloak, he has no trouble bypassing most security. He uses his solvent to melt through a locked door, then finds a still security guard outside Walters's office. He's dead, but Lenny isn't observant enough to notice this. The office door is open, and Lenny finds the safe, using his criminal past (Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy) to aid his burglary check. He sees the Gris Gris bag, but then grappled from behind. It's some kind of monster made out of grey tendrils or cord, in the shape of a man. They struggle over the bag, but Lenny ends up dissolving one of Pierce's (the name of the Demonic Thief) tendril arms with his Solvent. He also uses his Ruthless Competitor aspect to stop Pierce from grabbing the bag. Lenny doesn't want to deal with this guy, who/whatever he is, so he drinks an escape potion, phasing up to the roof.
Showing more faith in his potions than perhaps he should, he drinks a potion of feather falling and steps off the edge of the skyscraper. This wasn't even a compel or anything, this is just something Lenny did. Pierce is pretending to be Spider Man, however, and is clinging to the side of the building. As Lenny floats down, he uses his super long arms to grab hold of the superlight Lenny. Lenny considers using Solvent to dissolve the tendrils again, but I invoke his Now For Something Completely Different aspect and force him to use another method to get free. I want Pierce to escape with ML's voodoo bag. Instead, he uses a crowbar to break free, floating down to safety. Lenny taunts Pierce from the ground, saying how that Pierce would never, ever find him...then slides his van door shut, revealing the name, address, and phone number of his alchemy company. Awesome, and similar to Indiana Jones, so double awesome. I gave Lenny a FP for this awesomeness, since he wouldn't have the name of his business on the van if he weren't a Ruthless Competitor.
With all of these scenes ended, the adventure was over, and everyone had fun. I hope. We did the denouement as well, with Lefleur arranging to pay off the man he owes money to and call off the Price on His Head. This will play a major role in the next adventure. Lily and Fix show up to meet with John, and they thank him for his cleverness in sparing Fix's life (even if Fix lost his job as the Summer Knight). Now Lily says that she owes John a debt, and she kinda apologizes for sending the gruffs to kill/kidnap him and prevent him from winning the duel and killing Fix. Temper, after killing Walters, is lying low and staying away from the other group members. Shame, guilt? Paranoia? Who can tell? She's certainly on a dark road now though, if you ask me.
And, of course, Nicodemus and Deidre show up at Lenny's alchemy shop. Nick, still in his wheelchair, talks about how he wants Marie Laveau's voodoo bag. Lenny tells him that he wants it too. Nick suggests buying it, but Lenny isn't interested in the money. "Deidre, the knife," Nick calls out, and Lenny, in a flash of fear, goes for his weapons. Actually, Deidre was pulling out a case holding an ancient knife and offers it to Lenny. Nick suggests an even trade, the knife of Brutus for the gris gris bag. Lenny looks it over, historically it might be the knife, and it has a lot of mystic power as well. Nick takes the bag, and warns Lenny that if he uses the knife, to only use it once. With some study, Lenny learns that the knife can inflict 40ish stab wounds on someone in one blow. Neat, he thinks, and takes the deal. He also figures that if he refuses, Nick and Deidre will kill him (he isn't wrong).
So that ends the session. I figure the next session, the A Plot will focus on Lefleur trying to pay back his debt to "Jabba," with some B Plots focusing on some of John's family, maybe Temper being wanted or just more of her descent to the Dark Side. Everyone gets a skill point, and John might switch out his Summer Hatin' aspect for something else.
