Dramatis Personae

• The Commander (Doug) – telekinetic super-soldier with a really angry dog (Yukio). The dog is a powerful ally (250-300 points) and very intelligent and very, very aggressive.
• Zephyr (Merlin) – Real name Murui; Shaolin Kung Fu expert and super-speedster.
• Eamon Finnegan (Kyle) – smooth talking gravity-master; a lawyer so good he can actually prove a negative.
• Ezekiel (Christian) – Techno Master, Genius, Esper, Super Archer
•  (Richard)

The Train to Cairo

When we last left, we’d come up with a list of potentially actionable items, and established we were on a train to Cairo. The list?

• Interrogate/interview Blue Skies CEO for any info on a rival factions (Nazis, etc)
• Track down skulls
• Figure out Zero and what’s his history; why does he hate the US Govt so much
• Find out what’s going on with Arc Light’s wife, her crystal skull, and her anti-meta campaign
• Discredit Pres Blackwell since his plans seem to defeat the metahuman “antibodies” to the Void Creatures
• Research history of Atlantis and ancient Egypt (Osiris) to see what we can pull together from those clues
• Grill Rosencrantz and Legend and Basilisk about what the hell happened with the Nazis

But . . . to the train.

We’re going along, and then something happens to the train. We all take 5 points of damage, mitigated by DR (minimum 1), which leaves us dazed but alert. The train has derailed, and is sitting on it’s side. Zephyr goes to see if we’re under active attack, while the rest of us prepare to either fight a bad guy or help the injured on the train, of which there are many. We set work on the “helping” front, and while we probably save about 50-60 people or more.

As we work, we come across a shortish guy wearing a white linen shirt, with a wide-brimmed hat. He looks about 70, and he’s staring at a dying baby, in the arms of a dead mother. Zephyr calls out “who are you,” and the man looks around as if “what’s going on, are you talking to me?” Marcus, the VAST intelligence, is there, dying as well; the prophecy woman Alyssa Kerrigan is dead – she was the mother.

What brought these two – prophecy and all – to Cairo, on this train? Oh, and by the way, the baby is Katana, who will be the ghostly 4-yo that we meet, and is currently my girlfriend in present day. Zephyr crit-fails a reaction roll, and the crying baby BLASTS Zephyr through three train cars, inflicting 78 points of damage (!), and sits there floating in midair.

Children of this age – less than a  year old – almost never develop powers at all, much less that kind of control.

Oh, this kid and the terrible twos are going to be fun.

We perform first aid on Marcus, but he needs to get to the hospital fast. Zeke quickly improvises a litter with an airfoil on it, so it can fly behind Zephyr, who can tow it fast enough to have it fly. The ultimate air ride trailer. But at Zephyr speeds it’ll only take about 10-20 minutes round trip.

The only dead on the entire train were those near the child; to save herself, the infant manifested her powers, forming a telekinetic bubble around her, crushing those around it and holding her in place like a giant, lethal (to others) airbag. The bubble formed about three seconds before the derailment took place.

The Commander is feeling very disturbed that he’s looking at and holding his current girlfriend as an infant.

Also, we recognize the old man as philanthropist and zillionaire Maxwell Robinson. He looks a bit worse-for-wear than we usually see on TV, but a quick exam shows that it’s just age. Eamon asks Maxwell for help. The Egyptian authorities are going to show up soon, and accuse the child and us of causing a train crash, maybe being terrorists. The Egyptian view on metas is “they’re in our military or they’re a threat.”

Eamon wants to stand with Maxwell and go Propaganda press conference. Maxwell agrees, and says he needs to get to New York RTFN. He shakes Eamon’s hand vigorously, and a faint whiff of decay emanates from his hand. He’s also looking a bit . . . pallid.

We create a TK bubble and get to the airport really fast. Minutes . . . and there is “The Maxwell,” a supersonic private jet. 

We start interacting with Maxwell more . . . and more rotting, cloying, decay stench again. Like embalming fluid.

“Um. Have you been hanging around a mortuary lately?” Oh, good heavens, no. Grisly places.

Zephyr arrives out of the bathroom with some fabreeze. Maxwell claims to having been visiting old tombs from an archeological dig – including the one we were just at.

Something’s up with dead guy here.

We arrive, and he starts to stroll off. Then he turns around and notes that he’s missing someone, and only knows he’s in New York. Gabrielle, General Legend’s wife, appears on the landing strip. She holds her hands out for the baby. The Commander asks a few leading questions that he knows the answer to from being involved with the adult version of this child, gets answers that are congruent with his expectations. He hands her off . . . and then adult-Katana appears. We banter, and I drop myself into a hole verbally, in traditional relationship style. “Nothing good comes of time travel.” “OH?! What do you call our relationship, then?!” OK, I’ll just sit here in this hole I dug for myself while you claim the moral high ground until at least a good meal and a massage.

Katana moves on (which is both good and bad for me) and notes that there’s been even more weird stuff than usual in NYC. We sense that there are weaknesses and shifts in reality that feel . . . hard to describe.

We decide to check out Yankee Stadium. We also ask Richard to describe this person he’s trying to find. “He’s a personal acquaintance of mine. Terry Anne Diggs. Paid for her to dig up a tomb. Tall, slim, long dark hair, dresses smartly, pretty . . . don’t tell her I said that, ha ha . . . but she’s gone missing, and I really need to find her.”

She’s the sister of the woman we found dead at the tomb site

It should be noted that Maxwell’s player has a native English accent; listening to him stumble through the above in a great method-acting way was simply priceless.

He gets a phone call, with something ‘happening to the North.” His butler, Alfred, just called, and said something felt wrong to the North. A big wrong, and many tiny little wrongs. And since wrongs don’t make rights, perhaps we should check it out, eh chaps?

(and technically, he does have a butler named Alfred, and there is trouble to the North . . . nope. He rolls a 16).

Eamon: “Who are you and what’s really going on?”

“Well, it feels like something fishy to me.”

“We have that in common. Something feels fishy to me too.”

“Oh, it’s probably just the embalming fluid. A shower will fix that right up.”

Zero (oh, we forgot about him) says flat-out that there’s a rip in reality to the North. He’s not sure how to close it – Zephyr suggests we talk to the Blue Skies CEO about opening and closing rifts in reality.

Eamon and The Commander head to Ft. Tilden to interrogate the Blue Skies CEO (we garble the name and call him the Enchilada).

We chat him up, he’s insulting, and tells us that a powerful metahuman has to sacrifice himself to close it. He starts writing out the ritual, including a magical incantation (phonetically). We look at it, and it looks like the real deal. Maxwell perks up “ancient rituals? Ancient? That’s the ticket!” Cool your jets, dead guy.

We’ll need some things, including the right hand of a holy man, and a bunch of other things. The person doing the sacrifice has to truly love the person that they’re killing, too.

We check out the rift, too. We can see the green of the grass in the middle of Yankee stadium dying. 

We head over to Zephyr’s girlfriend’s place, who happens to have all the relics we need in her apartment. And they’re love. Oh, someone’s gonna die. Zephyr “comes clean” with her, and starts to talk about someone being willingly sacrificed. Not entirely sure who’s supposed to be holding the knife.

And revenants are coming out of the rifts. We also see Richard’s other half tied up on the other side of the portal. And we need to stuff the revenants back in, get her out, and use the ritual.

Now.

***************

We end there. Next session is the last session of the campaign.