Posted by Eldaeros
It was quite the session this weekend as we wrapped up this episode and saw Sally (finally) brought to justice of a sort.
Episode 2: Along Came A Spider (Part 5)
Game Session 8The session opened with the group meeting at the Liberty to discuss their plans now that they had learned where Sally was when she attacked Jessica’s father, Detective Wolf, the previous evening. Oghma passed out several Bluetooth headsets he picked up during the day, suggesting that they would be useful for the group to stay in touch during their ‘work’. Malphas raised the question as to why they were bothering to it in the first place. Oghma responded by asking him if he preferred that Sally continue to wreak havoc on the streets. Tanuwa agreed with Oghma, and added that it would also garner them some respect within the supernatural community, which could go a long way.
They arrived at the rundown abandoned warehouse that was two-and-a-half high. Yellow police tape was set up hastily across the door, and was already starting to peel away with the force of the rain.
Using Life magic Tanuwa shifted his fingers into long, hooked climbing claws and scaled the old brick structure, attempting to get a better vantage point via the upper windows. Meanwhile, Malphas scanned the building with Mind magic, finding no other sentient minds within. Both mages experienced the same resistance to their spellcasting they did back in the vampire’s apartment the previous evening; when Jess attempted to use Space magic to look inside the warehouse, she found herself unable to muster enough power.
Judging the cost was clear, Tanuwa called the others inside while he remained as a look out. While the others searched around the building, Oghma moved to the centre of the warehouse and prepared a hastily constructed ritual circle in order to assist him with his magic. He then stretched out his senses, getting an idea of all the materials in the warehouse, including the presence of a woman’s blood stains on the concrete floor, about 24-hours old, and unusual chemical components in the far corner of the warehouse. Investigating, Jessica found a metal box filled with syringes and several vials, now mostly empty of their contents. Using his investigation skills Malphas also identified that a fight had took place. It was short and quick, with the assailant taking her victim by surprised before escaping, but not before she had been injured – the source of the blood trail.
At that moment Tanuwa and Malphas were suddenly attacked by several large, malformed spiders about the size of grapefruits. Fending them off before they could do any real damage, the mages quickly grab the box of medical equipment and left, leaving the spiders to skitter back into wherever they had come from.
The mages examined the contents of the box more carefully and identified that the equipment had come from a 24-hour clinic located near the warehouse. Jessica used to her magic to also learn that Sally had been given the equipment by a Doctor Andrew Franklin. With that information the group decided to pay the good doctor a visit.
Arriving at the clinic, a small, tired establishment tucked away in a side street, the mages found that the interior seemed to be washed out and muted in colour beyond simple interior decorating. Even the receptionist, an old lady sporting the name tag ‘Daisy’, seemed overly strained and weary. The mages also sensed an even greater impedance to their magic here than the other two locations, which they surmised must have been affecting the material as well.
Not in the mood to play games after being attacked by the spiders at the warehouse, Malphas used his Mind magic to force the woman to show him where the doctor was. She complied and introduced them to the doctor who was in the middle of speaking to a patient, asking them to wait outside while he finished. Malphas pressed the issue. Once again using his magic, he attempted to convince the doctor they were police detectives, but found the man’s unusually strong will difficult to overcome when coupled with the magical impedance of the area.
The doctor asked them to leave before he called the real police, at which point Jess noticed a woman in a hoodie attempting to sneak out the back door. She called out Sally’s name, and the woman stopped suddenly before making a run for it. Jessica and Tanuwa quickly gave chase, with Malphas and Shiryo preparing to following just as the doctor’s expression changed.
Dropping the façade of a caring doctor, the man lashed out at Malphas, trying to stop him from assisting his friends catching Sally. Shiryo stepped in to assist Malphas, using his martial skills to subdue the doctor while Malphas distracted him by throwing office supplies at him. At that point the doctor’s patient politely asked if he could leave. Malphas quickly wiped his mind and let him go as they noticed several small spiders scurrying away from the doctor’s body.
At that point Oghma arrived in the hallway, restrained by one of the apparent ‘patients’ with a syringe held at Oghma’s neck. Malphas used his magic to make the man release Oghma and drop the syringe, before the trio rushed to assist Tanuwa and Jess.
Meanwhile, in the loading bay of the clinic, Tanuwa and Jess found Sally standing alongside the man that smelled of vinegar. Upon seeing the man’s mostly decayed body, the pair of mages realised that it was not vinegar they smelled, rather the preservation fluid used by morticians to preserve a body to be displayed at a funeral. Then, as the pair of mages watched on, several fist-sized malformed spiders dropped from beneath the man’s heavy trench coat and onto the floor, before swarming towards Jess. At the same time, Sally attacked Tanuwa.
As Tanuwa began besting Sally, the decaying man joined the fight. He grabbed Jessica, using his unnatural strength to restrain her as he bit into her shoulder with a pair of spider fangs hidden in the roof of his jaw, poisoning her with deadly venom. At that moment Shiryo burst in, using his natural speed to move ahead of Malphas and Oghma, and punched the man off of Jess, breaking his nose before following up with a solid kick to his chest, splintering his fragile rib cage. Defeated, the man collapsed as hundreds of tiny spiders swarmed out of his mouth, nose, and ears. Malphas, having just arrived, attempted to control Sally with his magic, but she just smiled wickedly and said "You can't stop mother" before likewise collapsing, spiders bursting from her just like her colleague. Tanuwa quickly moved to Jess and used his magic to purge the venom from her system just as she started going into convulsions, saving her life.
With Sally and those working with her defeated, the mages cleaned any evidence of their passing at the clinic, cleaning the security tapes and using magic to decay the bodies, eliminating any trace of them. In their search of the premises the group found more strange vials of the poison used on the vampires, as well as several human corpses in garbage bags. Investigation into the bodies revealed that they had been bodies that Dr Williams had mentioned who had gone missing from the morgue earlier. The decayed man they fought was one of those bodies, although he had been missing for about four weeks.
After they finished at the clinic, Tanuwa made contact with the vampires. He informed them that they had dealt with the situation and had evidence that cleared Sil of his so called crimes against the masquerade, earning them some respect with the vampires, and a friend in the form of Sil.
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