Prep for the Arrival

Monday afternoon July 7

Prospero took the party to check out the STRIKE FORCE Protective Custody safe-house in Fishtown. It was a two bedroom ground-floor apartment in a six storey block.

There was a lounge/living area, kitchen, hallway, bathroom and laundry. The Fishtown suburb was pretty divey, so there were plenty of locks on the front door. The back door exited onto a blind alley with a one-way gate out to the street. Five other ground-floor apartments also shared this alley.

Every room, except the bedrooms and the toilet, had a CCTV camera in it, plus there were discreet cameras in the alley and one covering the front door.

Down the street, about three minutes walk, on the third floor, was another STRIKE FORCE apartment. Prospero told them that this was the Surveillance room, that monitored all the cameras in the apartment.

Monday sunset 8:32 pm, July 7

No-eavesdrop Ruby

Mina arrived at the Elfrith Alley apartment, and let herself in.

Sledge was fiddling with the No-eavesdrop Ruby. Mina saw him.

"Ooo ... a magic ruby?" she said. "May I see it?"

Sledge handed it over, without question.

Mina weighed it and had a closer look, then passed it back to Sledge.

"That works like my Shroud down in the cellar," she said.

Monday midnight, July 7

The group decided to check the STRIKE FORCE Protective Custody house after dark, so went down to Fishtown. The streets were teeming with whores and pushers and the dregs of society.

There were lights on in the safe-house, so, intrigued, they went to the Surveillance room to have a nosey.

It didn't take Ebony long to open the tricky security locks.

Inside the small apartment was a wall covered with monitors. Each labelled: "Gate", "Alley", "Laundry", "Hall", "Kitchen" and "Lounge".

Sledge and Ebony switched them all on, and they came on slowly.

At first the rooms showed up as empty, but all the lights were on. All were empty bar two.

On the screen labelled "Lounge", in the centre of the room, there was a woman, in her twenties, black-haired, topless, manacled to a chair, wrists and ankles, and a heavy iron chain on her neck. She was badly bruised, cut, and spattered in blood. It was all over the floor. She was slumped, head down, unconscious on the chair. She'd been badly beaten.

The "Kitchen" monitor revealed a heavy-set man, in a dress shirt and trousers. He was making himself a coffee. He drank it, then returned to the girl in the lounge. He lifted her head up. There was no response, so he let it drop again.

"Nothing to see here," said Jacob, and he turned off the monitors.

"Um ... I think we should phone Prospero," said Ebony.

Ebony phoned Prospero. It was well after 1 am. A tired voice replied.

Ebony mentioned where they were and what they saw.

"Turn the screens off," said Prospero. "Leave it."

"Yes, sir."

Tuesday morning, July 8

Sledge happened to notice something unusual about the No-eavesdrop Ruby. The Ruby had a pin, so that it could be worn like a medal. On this pin there had been threaded a tiny bead. Sledge was sure that this bead wasn't there yesterday.

"Seems Mina gave us a gift?" he said.

Theo checked it and there was no tingling.

"Maybe it is unique and can be tracked," posited Jacob.

Reggie put the bead on a Greyhound bus, and watched as it drove away.

"Track that, Mina," he muttered.

Tuesday afternoon, July 8

"Lassard and Thomson are on-time for tomorrow," said Prospero. "He's being well-guarded by Philly's Finest. So you lot will not be needed until the evening, after dark."

Prospero had Lassard's itinerary. He passed it to the group. You will be given passes to all these events.

• Wednesday night: a public meal at the Philadelphia mayor's house, Mitchell Nutter
• Friday night was home at the safe-house.
• Thursday night he was attending a function at the Fleischer Art Memorial

There was a pause as it sunk in.

"But that is Mina's house!" exclaimed Ebony.

The Fetch

Saturday Midnight, July 5

Reggie consulted his pocket edition of the STRIKE FORCE constitution, printed on rice paper.

He couldn't find any section in the constitution that specifically mentioned robbing of graves nor the violation of the dead.

"You can go ahead," he said dryly to Jacob.

Sledge and Theo set to digging, with Ebony, goggles and all, watching and guarding the whole time.

Sunday 2am, July 6

Theo's spade struck rotten wood. He scraped the grave dirt off the top of the 155 year-old coffin. The lid was broken, and it was no problem to take the skull from inside. He tossed it up to Ebony, who hid it in her backpack.

Theo and Sledge then back-filled the grave. And tidied it up to make it look undisturbed, best they could.

Everyone piled into Jacob's SUV. Ebony glanced behind with her etheric goggles. The graveyard still looked like it always did: the ghostly dome engulfing the entire cemetery, and the old ghostly church in the centre. But she noticed, etherically, that there was a ghostly coffin rising, vertically, out of the grave they had just dug, very slowly.

"Uh... we... better get going, guys," she said.

Jacob turned the key. Click, He tried again. Click.

The ghostly coffin slid further out of the ground, more than half way now.

"Try taking the skull out of the car!" squeaked Sledge.

Ebony took the skull a few paces away. Jacob turned the key again; it started this time.
Ebony ran back and jumped in. The engine kept running, so Jacob gunned it, and took off. Ebony cast a goggled-glance backward - the etheric coffin was now fully out. She thought she saw the ghostly lid fly open, like a door.

Jacob was soon on the interstate, travelling flat out, towards Philadelphia.

Throughout the whole trip, Ebony kept looking behind with her goggles. Something, a glowing speck, was up in the sky, a way in the far distance, but definitely following them.

Ebony phoned Siri.

"Siri, help!"

"Ebony? So you have the skull?"

"Yes yes. And it was guarded, and Jacob's car wouldn't start when we had the skull. And something's following us! Help!"

"Provided you maintain your speed you should be okay. We shall meet you in Tarquin square. Follow my vehicle when you get there."

Sure enough, Siri, her PA and the bodyguard were there. They waved at Jacob, who then followed in the SUV.

The convoy headed north from Philadelphia. The dot was still following, and it was closer.

Siri & Co drove into some woodlands, then left their car and walked.

The party followed likewise, skull and all. They ran.

In a clearing, in the centre of the woods, there was a campfire. Siri calmly knelt down next to it, thighs wide, and started a chanting ritual. Her soldier girl pulled out an MP5,  and her PA produced a pistol.

The party did likewise

A few minutes later, Siri was in some kind of trance, when something heavy-footed, but quick as a gazelle, came rushing down the forest path. It was a skeletal creature; all teeth and claws. It ran headlong into the clearing; well, it tried to, but instead it smacked into an invisible barrier on the edge of the clearing. Hardly stunned, it started to claw at the barrier. There was the horrendous noise like iron scraping on blackboard.

Reginald didn't need prompting. He opened up with his MP5, and emptied an entire clip (of 30) into the creature. Sledge blasted away with both magnums. Leo opened up with his shotgun. They all certainly hit the creature, but none of this fire-power seemed to do anything tangible. Ebony tried her final etheric grenade; the creature was caught in the blast, pieces fell off it, and it gave a keening roar.

Then Siri got to her feet. She extended both arms gracefully, thumbs crossed, fingers out-spread, and pointed her palms at the thing. She pronounced some throaty word, and a white-hot beam of fire shot from her palms right into the creature. It was utterly consumed by the fire.

The party rubbed their eyes as the after-burn faded.

"That," said Siri, "was a fetch."

"Thanks for warning us," said Reggie, sarcastically.

"I was not sure one would materialize. Best not to alarm you unnecessarily."

Ebony handed over the skull.

"Why d'you want the skull anyway?" she said.

"For magical experiments."

"What's so special about it?"

"Well, my research tells me that Thomas Mornay was cursed by a mage. The effects of a curse linger, you see."

"Why was there a fetch?" said Jacob. "Wasn't the guardian ghost enough?"

"They are different things. Fetches are physical manifestations of unrequited curses. Guardian ghosts look after a cemeteries, and all occupants therein."

"But if we destroyed the guardian ghost," asked Theo. "What happens to the cemetery then?"

"A good question," said Siri. "An unguarded cemetery is prone to ...  mischief. Grave-robbery, tomb-raiding, and plenty of foul misdoings; words with the 'necro' prefix. The parts of the dead are useful for many veil creatures."

Leon screwed up his face in disgust.

"Now, we must bid you all adieu," said Siri. "Thank you for your endeavours. Miss Stephenson has your reward."

Miss Stephenson handed to Ebony a colourless gemstone the size of a marble. It was cloudy.

"Here's your Gem of the Veil," she said. "Takes eight hours to link to the holder. Then it'll go clear."

Siri & Co departed.

The party stayed a little while to decide who would get the gem. Jacob got it.

Theo was feeling sick with guilt. [ His Morality stat dropped to 6. ]

[ Morality is an interesting WoD rule mechanic. All characters start with Morality of 7. Every in-game action has an associated morality: Examples: 10: lying, selfish thoughts; 9: selfish acts; 8: minor assault; 7: petty theft, 6: burglary; 5: assault, arson, rape; 4: man-slaughter; 3: murder; 1: mass murder. If your character performs (or sanctions) an action equal to or lower than your current Morality, then there is a chance that it will drop by 1 (24%@7). When this happens, there is a chance that your character picks up a derangement (12%@6). Morality can be recovered by XP and "concrete acts of contrition".
Creatures of the veil are counted as sentient beings, so that could be a problem if the Hunter character goes around killing them willy-nilly. So, we are playing with the Hunter rules mod which allows the morality-safe killing of evil veil creatures, plus the Hated creature concept which allows a character to go to town on his hated foe - even good ones. ]

Sunday morning, July 6

Jacob spent the day acclimatizing to the gem.

Monday morning, July 7

The party went into STRIKE FORCE and updated Lieutenant Prospero on Siri's job. He didn't pass judgement on them for working for a witch, nor for grave-robbing, as they expected he might. And he was very interested about the fetch, and had never met one personally.

"However," he said. "You will need to work out how you are going to pay the ten percent STRIKE FORCE tithe for the gem thing you got off witch Siri. So long as STRIKE FORCE gets the gross tithe, I don't care whether Jacob pays it solely, or if your group pays it."

Then he had some news.

"On Wednesday morning, the local STRIKE FORCE commander of the tri-state area is coming here from New York for three nights.  Captain Lassard is his name. He will be bringing his Adjutant with him: Colleen Thomson

The Philadelphia Police Department will cover him during the day, but I want you lot to organize night-time cover for him; especially Veil cover. I don't want him killed, bitten, possessed or demonized. Nor do I want to see his body parts available on Ebay. His Adjutant should be protected too, but not at his expense.

Do you think you can manage that?"

"Too right, sah!" snapped Reginald. "It would be an honour."

Prospero continued.

"Very good. We have a STRIKE FORCE 'protective custody' apartment that you can use: a ground-floor two-bedroom dwelling.

It has a security system with motion sensors and CCTVs, all controlled from a separate room nearby. This gives it adequate mundane protection.

A shipment of Veil weaponry has recently arrived, so I'm authorizing its use. It will be lent to your group for this job:

• silver bullets
• iron shotgun pellets
• Keep-me-here Grenade - stops teleports in or out for five rounds
• Non-eavesdrop Ruby - stops magical scrying
• Deadman's Candle - stops the casting of mage or fae spells in its area
• Worm of Toulon - a living worm that eats areas of rotting flesh and necrotizing fasciitis. Turns aggravated wounds into lethal wounds (so they heal faster).

Of Ghosts and Graves

Friday noon, July 4

The group got together in the Elfrith Alley apartment.

"I don't think we can handle the Warden," said Jacob. "Demons are too powerful."

The rest of the group nodded assent, with mutterings "too powerful", "reflexive teleports", "multiple forms".

"And we should stop working for veil creatures that we know nothing about," said Reginald. "It gets us into too much trouble."

"But Mina's trustworthy," said Theo.

"Really?" said Reginald. "Would you trust her with your life?"

Theo nodded. So did Ebony.

"We're hunters. Veil-aware humans. Why're we working for the creatures we hunt?"

"Well, they aren't all evil," said Theo. "Some are good. Like Mina. We don't hunt those ones."

"And Cello," added Ebony

"STRIKE FORCE doesn't have any work for us anyway," said Jacob. "Prospero says they are still recruiting."

"Where else do we find work?" asked Leon.

Just then Ebony's mobile rang. It was witch Siri.

Witch Siri

"I have a job for your group," she said in her dulcet tones.

"Yes," said Ebony enthusiastically. Ebony liked Siri.

"Meet me at Tarquin Square tonight, just on sunset."

"We'll do it!" said Ebony.

Ebony told the group. Reginald rolled his eyes.

"What were we just talking about?!" snapped Reggie.

"Well, it won't hurt to hear what Siri is offering."

Friday sunset, July 4

Siri the witch, her PA Miss Stephenson, and her bodyguard Jules (another girl in military fatigues with a side-arm) met up with Ebony and Jacob. The rest of the group, Leon, Reggie and Theo, hated mages and witches, so stayed back. Juan was still with the Morte Christe bikers. Sledge was having a meal with his fiancee Safiya and mum.

Siri outlined the job: It was to go to Salisbury (Maryland), three hours south of Philadelphia, to a graveyard on the north outskirts of the city. There was an 1859 grave of a Thomas Mornay, and Siri wanted his skull.

Payment offered for the job was a Gem of the Veil.

"We'll do it!" said Ebony.

"There might be a problem," said Siri sheepishly. "The graveyard will have a guardian ghost. You might need to deal with that."

Ebony hated ghosts.

"We'll do it!" she said.

Ebony and Jacob relayed the job to the rest of the group.

"Siri assured us that she won't use the skull for any evil purposes. She needs it for 'magical experiments'," said Jacob.

They grudgingly accepted. Reggie wanted to only investigate. He was not too happy about grave robbing. Neither was Theo.

"Why are we working for another veil creature?" said Reginald, annoyed.

Friday late, July 4

Still fearful of the Warden, the party stayed the night in Reginald's safe-house. All except Ebony, who was forbidden entry; she stayed in the apartment.

Mina was there too. She offered Ebony her wrist for a drink.

"Not tonight, thanks," said Ebony.

Saturday morning, July 5

The party headed down south to Salisbury, and had no trouble to find the Methodist Trinity church. The attached graveyard had about 1000 guests and was full; the graveyard was closed in 1950.

Contemporary geist theory states that the ghost of the last person to be buried in a cemetery becomes the guardian ghost. This ghost's task is to protect the graveyard from supernatural incursions, and would have this job (and could not "move on") until another occupant was buried. So when a graveyard gets full, it's a raw deal for the last one to be interred. In this case, parish records stated it was a John Smith.

The graveyard was surrounded by a cast iron fence, taller than a man, with spiked tops, and the only entry was a single iron gate next to the church building. This gate was padlocked closed each night.

The group had a wander through the cemetery. Despite being the height of summer, it still felt cold. And Theo's sixth sense was buzzing the whole time. But they found Thomas Mornay and John Smith's plots with no trouble.

Saturday noon, July 5

The party did a bit of research on Thomas Mornay and John Smith. Mornay was a blacksmith in 1850s, and he died in 1859 of "natural causes". Smith was an engineer who died in 1950 of a heart attack. Neither character appeared to be of any significance, and didn't make any impression on the local media of the time.

While they were back at the church, the Morte Christe gang happened to roar past on their way into Salisbury. The party chose to not let themselves be seen.

Saturday sunset 8:30 pm, July 5

The party waited outside the graveyard until it was dark. Ebony wore her Etheric Goggles. Sure enough, through the goggles, a ghostly dome could be seen surrounding the graveyard. In the centre was a small ghostly church (no sign of this in normal vision), and wandering around were five ghostly humanoid forms. They didn't react at all to any amount of shouting nor waving by the party outside the cemetery, However, the moment Ebony put her hand through the fence, the closest one reacted, and moved towards her.

The ghost drifted close. It was half skeletal, with chunks of rotting flesh drooling off it. Its eyes gleamed with a feral light. It bellowed and roared at her, trying to scare her. Then it turned inside out. Ebony managed to resist its scare, and found she could speak with it, so long as she had her hand through the fence. The rest of the group, standing nearby, could hear her but not the ghost.

It was indeed John Smith, but he was bitter at being last interred. When Ebony suggested she be allowed in the gate, he suddenly extended his fingernails, long as your forearm, and scratched her. The rest of the group, could see these nails. The theory was, that when the fingernails are corporeal, they are no longer etheric and are thus visible.

She asked about the other ghosts, and all he said was an abstruce "They're me".

Ebony moved to the iron gate, picked the padlock, and then pulled it open. Theo drew his katana and poured holy water on the blade.

Etheric Grenades

Ebony entered the graveyard, the five ghosts drifted towards her. She pulled one of her etheric grenades (obtained from STRIKE FORCE previously [ using Merit points ] ) and dropped it, then ran. The ghost recognized it too and attempted to run, but got caught by the etheric shrapnel.

Now the ghosts were wary, so when Ebony and Theo entered again, they were loathe to approach. However, one did, Ebony threw some holy water at it, and it just vanished. Another one drifted close, fingernails out and extended, and attacked. Holy water failed this time, but Theo could now see something to hit, so he swiped ... and missed. It clawed Ebony.

Theo struck again, and this time hit it. It drifted off, so Ebony threw a second etheric grenade, and caught it in the full blast. It vanished. And the other three ghosts instantly vanished too.

"Now we can dig up the skull in peace," said Ebony.

"Wait," said Reginald.

Hunt the Warden

Thursday late, July 3

"Switch to plan B," said Jacob.

Jacob phoned the Warden's land line and got the Warden's P.A. Ms Sutton. So, then, Reggie phoned the Warden's mobile and got the Warden herself.

"We have the four escapees. Meet you at the old abandoned foundry in Crackton."

"Well," said Warden Candy Clam. "That is indeed a surprise. See you soon."

In the foundry, in an empty office building, Angel and Drowbar were arranged on the floor pretending to be tied. And the seven werewolves hid in a side room,

Headlights approached. The Warden's Alfa Romeo pulled up.

By now, the party suspected that Ms Sutton wasn't all she appeared to be. And, worried that it might be Sutton, and not Warden Clam, who was driving again, Theo approached the car to greet her. He had his Sixth Sense at the ready. Sure enough, when Ms Sutton did step out of the car (there was no-one else in it), the sense tingled. He scratched the back of his head - the pre-arranged signal - and escorted her inside, and into the room with the two "captives".

Ms Sutton looked at the captives with a frown.

"They're not very well tied," she said.

"NOW!" shrieked Theo as he drew his katana.

Seven angry Dalu werewolves sprung into the room, holy water dripping from their claws.

Ms Sutton's eyes flashed a feral flame, and then, quick as a cut snake, she just vanished, with a loud wet pop, and a reek of sulphur.

A second or two later, the noise of the Alfa's engine gunning outside filled the air, followed by the screech of tires.

Everyone raced outside, to see the Alfa's tail-lights racing off. Reginald opened up with his MP5, Sledge with his magnums, and Leon with shotgun. Reginald emptied a clip, and managed to take out a tyre.

Everyone bundled into the truck (the hired truck with the roller doors), and they took off after the wounded Alfa, Reginald driving [ one of the few with the Drive skill ]. With a wrecked rear tyre, the Alfa struggled to drive, and Reggie had no trouble to shunt it off the road with the heavy truck. It rolled twice and came to rest - empty of occupants.

Off in the distance there was another pop, then a flickering of fire.

By the time the group got to the location of the flame, there was simply a ring of fire fading from sight. Sulphur reek filled the air.

"Interesting," said Jacob, party demon expert. "This burning ring is a demon Teleport spell remnant, but it appears that demons have a short-range version of the spell which is very fast to cast [ reflexive action ]. I did not know this."

"How the hell do we catch something that can blink away?" asked Theo to no-one in particular.

"Are we are out of our depth?" said Jacob. "I hate demons."

They dismissed Angel and his werewolves, offering him the truck so he could drive his mates back to Morgan Forest.

"Back to my safe-house," said Reggie.

Because Ebony had given Ms Sutton the Gem of the Veil, the group were worried that she could be tracked in a similar way to the way that Cello tracked owned items. So, Ebony was forbidden to enter Reginald's safe-house. [ Reginald's safe-house is four-dot Security. That means it is safe to all terrestrial forms of tracking and locating. But only a safe-house with five-dot Security is immune from magical location and detection. ]

So Ebony was sent packing to STRIKE FORCE's offices.

"Speaking of which," said Jacob. "Ebony had looked at Ms Sutton through the gem. Why did she not show up as demon? Sutton only showed up as 'veil aware', like us. Why?"

No-one answered.

Theo and Leon didn't want to hide, so returned to the Elfrith Alley apartment.

Vampire Mina was there. Theo updated her about everything. Mina's demon knowledge wasn't particularly useful, but she did point out some things.

"If Warden Clam is so powerful, why didn't she harvest the hearts of the escapees herself?" she asked. "Why does she need you lot at all?"

Friday morning, July 4

Back in STRIKE FORCE, the party updated their progress, and the latest events, to Lieutenant Prospero.

"If Warden Clam is so powerful," said the Lieutenant. "Why does she need you lot at all?"

"We need some more information on demons," said Reginald.

"Jacob is your demon expert," said Prospero.

"Does STRIKE FORCE know of any other demons in the city?"

"I believe that there are three plus the Warden," said Prospero. "I have a list. Here."

He got out a bit of paper.

1. Fat Freddy: shop-keeper in the central city. 
2. Dr Bryan Philby: cardio-thoracic surgeon in the Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. 
3. Joanna Borgia: owner of the Sacred Heart Retirement Village in Ludlow.
4. Candy Clam: Warden of the Eastern State Penitentiary.

Friday mid-morning, July 4

Reginald phoned the Warden's land-line, several times, pestering her with questions as to why she released the four escapees if they were not legally due to be released. She didn't rise to the bait particularly. Her main argument was that they were missing the 16A form, so were illegally out. She didn't even appear to sound particularly enraged as to what happened last night. Though, she was a little annoyed at having lost her Alfa Romeo 4C.

The party went to "Needful Things", a small trinket store, in the city centre (Mort had got his vampire stake-gun here a few weeks ago; not that any of the party knew this). After the usual dancing on the head of the pin over admitting that you are, or are not, veil-aware, Theo finally got a chance to meet demon Fat Freddy. Theo had to hand over a significant amount of money. Fat Freddy put Theo's money to one side.

Demon-expert Jacob knew that demons possessed people. This victim was called the demon's cover. However, he didn't know that this possession actually destroys the victim's self - their soul, their all - utterly. The demon becomes the person; is them. And demons of greater power can have several covers. So, it was assumed that both Candy Clam and Ms Sutton were covers of the same entity. The demon does have a true form, but this is a horrific thing enough to wreck the mind of a mundane. When the demon does reveal this form, this act is called going loud.

As to the rapid teleport, this is called Blinking. There exists grenade called the Deblinker Grenade, which stops the teleport spell (including blinking) of any creature from working within its radius. Fat Freddy had no Deblinker grenades in stock.

"It would be more than my life's worth to sell those!"

Asked who was the most powerful of the demons in Philly, Freddy said that would be Dr Philby.

"And why didn't Ms Sutton show up as demon when Ebony looked at her through the Gem of the Veil?"

"Well, demons have an ability called Spoof, which allows them to hide their true self in magical detection situations. It's not automatic, so you need surprise."

Let them fight !

Wednesday morning, July 2

Lieutenant Prospero phoned back.

"I've looked into the release of the four [ Angel, Bogan, Cletis and Drowbar ]. They were sentenced to 12 years for Armed Robbery, Intimidation and Assault, then released early after 9 years. In these cases, the normal procedure is to lodge a 23B Early Release form, and then an additional 16A Parole Application form, or, sometimes, a 4A Governor Pardon. In this case, we are missing a 16A. The system should not allow this to happen."

"Who signed the 23B?"

"Warden Clam"

"Can she lodge a 23B without a 16A?"

"No," said Prospero. "The system would not allow that."

"Unless it was hacked?"

"Unless it was hacked."

"Technically, they are illegally out of prison. Technically they are escapees"

Wednesday noon, July 2

Reginald contacted Juan. Juan had been sent on another pledge job by the Morte Christe bikers, so couldn't talk much, but he did give Angel's mobile number to Reggie.

Reginald phoned Angel and admitted to him that the party worked with Juan, that they were Veil-aware, that they knew Morte Christe had eight werewolves and eight fae, and that the party was originally hunting the four escapees at the behest of Warden Clam of the Penitentiary. But, after recent information, the party had totally changed sides, and were now actively hunting the Warden, and that they were pretty sure they could achieve this goal with no ramifications nor casualties. Reginald then pressed Angel for martial help.

"Werewolf support would go down a treat."

Angel said he'd have a meeting of the Morte Christe elders and discuss this.

Wednesday early afternoon, July 2

The party then returned to Philadelphia. Ebony met up with the Warden's PA, Ms Sutton, and returned the borrowed Gem of the Veil. She, of course, did not tell Ms Sutton that the party was now hunting her boss.

Wednesday afternoon, July 2

Jacob and the party met with Lieutenant Prospero.

"We have changed tack, Lieutenant," said Jacob. "We now hunt the Warden."

"You what?!" said Prospero.

"We're now hunting Clam."

"But you said she was a demon. You do know how powerful demons are?"

"Jacob claims he's a demon expert," butted in Leon.

"This is true," said Prospero, scratching his head. "But I do hope you know what you're doing."

"Yeah."

"Well, preserve the Veil at all costs. STRIKE FORCE will do the best to cover it up your civilian collateral if it gets messy, but we can't give you any more support than that.

Wednesday late afternoon, July 2

Angel got back to Reginald.

"Th' elders have met. I's'll join ya, and I'll bring with me eight fighters - werewolves."

Warden Clam's Alfa

Wednesday evening, July 2

The Warden had a flash new Alfa Romeo 4C, with the number plate "WARDEN"

Ebony snuck into the Penitentiary car park after dark (the Warden often worked late), and placed a magnetic GPS tracker on the back of her car. With that, the party was able to track the Warden back to her house.

Warden Clam lived in a five bedroom house on Grayling Avenue, a quiet street of Narberth, an upmarket suburb of Greater Philadelphia. The house was clad in black marble and was surrounded by a high wall. She had an electric gate to pass through to get into the property.

Thursday noon, July 3

Today was the day of the attack. They would hit the Warden when she arrived home.

The plan was for Ebony to disable the Warden's electric gate, and then would wait, well-hidden, in a convenient tree nearby.

When the Warden arrived home and the gate didn't work, she would get out of her car to check it.

At that very instant, a hired truck, with side roller-doors, would drive down the street, and stop. It was to be driven by Reginald (with his MP5) and Leon riding shotgun (with shotgun). Inside the truck, would be the eight werewolves. They would all be in Dalu form (the "wolfman" form; not as powerful and unstable as Garou, but better than man form Hishu), and they would be accompanied by Theo and Angel. Also in the truck would be a blessed stele of holy water, and Theo would try to get the Dalu werewolves to dip their claws into it. The roller doors would be raised, and the wolf-men would all jump out, as one, and tear apart the demoness. The claws, wet with holy water, ought to do extra damage on her.

Jacob and Sledge would be at either end of Grayling Avenue, and would deploy smoke grenades in an attempt to block off other cars (it would be 9 pm and the street would be quiet). Sledge had a hatred of werewolves, so it would not be safe for him to be in the melee anyway. And Jacob could not fight to save himself.

"Would" indeed.

Thursday evening, July 3

Sure enough, right on cue (after dark), the Warden's Alfa pulled up. Ebony had done her work successfully, and the gate failed to open.

The loaded truck approached down the street.

The car's single occupant paused a bit, then she got out.

But it wasn't Warden Candy Clam, it was her PA, Ms Sutton.

"Abort abort!" shrieked Reginald as he floored the accelerator, and the truck never bothered to stop. It just carried on down the street and around the corner into Winsor Ave.

Ms Sutton watched, bemused, as it drove off in a cloud of diesel smoke.

Morte Christe

Saturday morning, June 28

Sledge and Reginald wanted to go squirrel shooting in the woods. Initially tempted to use their MP5 and .357 magnums, they finally saw reason (and sportsmanship), and bought a BB gun in the Morgan general store. They got only one squirrel apiece. The wretched things were cooked; they didn't taste too good.

Saturday night, June 28

As soon as it was dark, as like the previous nights, the Morte Christe gang came rumbling into town, and went to the pub. Juan arrived in Morgan too, and, rather than join the party, it was suggested that he infiltrate the gang. He was well-briefed beforehand of the situation, so he joined the gang in the pub, and immediately started buying drinks.

Ebony took Reginald to the standing stones clearing to give him a look. Reginald had a bit of Occult knowledge so it was worth his opinion.

Reginald saw the large broiling cloud with Ebony's Etheric Goggles, and he decided that the centre of this circle was a werewolf cairn or Locus, and the etheric cloud thing was a portal into the Hisil.

The Hisil (rhymes with "thistle"; also known as the Umbra, Spirit World, or Shadow Realm) is a parallel world that has the same dimensions and geometry as the real world, but mirrors and distorts certain things. Mundanes and terrestrial creatures have no analogue in the Hisil and don't appear at all. Most veil creatures are visible and glow a little bit, mirroring their terrestrial form, except for vampires and risen which don't. Veil-aware creatures, like the party, appear as floating glowing hearts. But beings of power, and witches, mages and ghosts appear bright (Cello must be something to behold!). Landscape and terrain is mirrored exactly; old forests appear but not new ones. Buildings and structures do not appear in the Hisil unless they have been up for a long time, or unless some major event has happened in them. Areas of major negative emotion and trauma in the real world (mass murder sites, battle fields, sites of evil spells) have their own distorted and blighted appearance.

Reginald also pointed out that Locuses normally have guardians, and that they better be careful. Not wanting to chance this, Reginald and Ebony quietly withdrew and headed back to Morgan.

Meanwhile, Juan befriended several of the gang, and made such an impression with his generosity at buying drinks, his racist Latino views, his anti-vampire sentiment, and his abusive ad-libs, that Angel took him aside. Angel (escapee one, and known fae) was the leader of Morte Christe. He invited Juan to pledge to the gang "subject to some initiations".

Saturday midnight, June 28

Juan was invited back to the bikers' camp (SE corner of the forest), and given a biker chick for the night. After he had slaked his carnal needs, and his girl was lying unconscious (from bourbon) in his assigned tent, Juan sneaked around camp, and noticed a group of eight of the bikers heading down the second forest path towards the standing stones. He snuck after them.

One of the eight was Drowbar (fourth escapee and known werewolf). Juan's sneaky skills were up to the task, and anyway, the eight had been drinking heavily the whole evening.

After a 15 minute jog, they entered the clearing and Juan hid down by one edge. The eight bikers then proceeded to change into werewolf form - the Garou form. This is the terrible 4m giant form, all teeth and claws, and is an awful sight to behold. Normal humans [ of Juan's lackluster willpower ] would run screaming in terror, but Juan, being veil-aware, held his resolve [ made his Resolve/Composure roll ] and managed to stay to watch the scene. The werewolves did a little dance, a delicate little quadrille, to some tune which Juan couldn't hear, but in Garou form it appeared like a screaming clawing battle. They raked the standing stones and urinated on the ground. One of them even vanished for some time; Juan guessed he had passed through the portal into the Hisil.

Juan snuck back to camp before they finished.

Sunday morning, June 29

In the morning, Angel took Juan aside.

"I gotta job for you," said Angel. "The owner of the Fairchild gas station insulted us. He needs a lesson. Go kill him. You have the day."

Fairchild was a tiny dot on the map, twenty minutes away from Morgan, with one house and one gas station. Juan scoped it out, and then, not wanting to get his hands dirty, called the party.

Sledge contacted STRIKE FORCE and managed to convince Lieutenant Prospero to help.

Prospero sent out Detective Noble and some men.

She arrived a few hours later at Fairchild with a fresh corpse (from the morgue). They told the garage owner that he was to be killed, and he was quite happy to go into hiding with them.

Juan put some bullets into the corpse, then set fire to it and the gas station.

And he returned to Angel. Angel was impressed.

"That will learn him."

Sunday afternoon, June 29

The Warden asked for a progress report. Ebony moaned that it was too hard.

"But there are 16 veil creatures," she whimpered. "And we don't know if they are werewolves or fae. We can't take on 16 werewolves!"

The Warden failed to hide her disgust and contempt.

Sunday evening, June 29

Juan, dedicated catholic, went back into Philly to attend mass.

Juan's Buell motorbike

Monday morning, June 30

Angel sought out Juan.

"Your next job is to get you-self a bike," said Angel.

So Juan went to Philadelphia and bought a motorbike. A Buell Custom. He then bashed the lock around a bit to make it looked like it was stolen, and returned to Morte Christe camp.

Angel and the gang weren't so impressed this time; they all had Harleys.

At the same time, the party headed went back to Philadelphia.

The Warden rang Ebony.

"Meet my P.A. at Betsy Ross's cottage at 11 am," Warden Clam said. "I've just obtained something that might help you."

Ebony headed down there and met the PA, Ms Sutton.

Ms Sutton, Warden Clam's PA

Ms Sutton gave Ebony a small bag.

"There's a Gem of the Veil in there," she said. "Veil things will show themselves. Warden Clam said it's 'spensive, so she'll be real mad if you lose it. Real mad."

Ebony took the bag.

"Bring it back on Wednesday, here," said the PA. "Call me when you ready."

After Ms Sutton had left, Ebony did some testing with the gem. Mundanes had no effect and looked normal. But when she looked at herself and the party, she could see a glowing heart. Looking over the crowd in a street of Philadelphia, she could see a few souls, maybe 1 in 500, with a glowing heart.

"They must be veil-aware," she said quietly to herself.

It didn't work through windows and glass, but water had no effect.

Monday afternoon, June 30

Back in Morgan, Ebony had a look at some of the bikers when they did errands in town. Sure enough, the Fae bikers appeared as wispy creatures through the gem, and the werewolves as wolves.

There were eight werewolves: all male, one who was Drowbar. And there were eight fae: seven males (Angel included), and one female.

Sledge's fiancee Safiya Runihura

Monday evening, June 30

Sledge had a nice meal with his mother and fiancee Safiya. He decided he loved her even more now, now she had a new look.

Tuesday morning, July 1

Ebony decided to do some research on poisons, with the intent of drugging the entire gang through their beer. She concocted some recipes: One for diarrhoea, one strong for werewolf sleep, one weak for human sleep.
The problem was the dose to sleep a werewolf would kill a human, and the dose to sleep a human won't affect a werewolf.

Sledge talked wistfully and longingly of other ideas:

• String piano wire across the road to behead the gang as they drove on by.
• Get up on a hill and snipe them, long range, with his scoped PSG1.
• Get among them with him, Reggy, Leon and Theo, and take to them with twin .357 magnums, MP5 bullets, shot-gun blasts, and katana.

Tuesday evening, July 1

Juan learned that the bikers were planning to leave Morgan on Saturday (July 5). They were headed down south to Salisbury (Maryland).

Juan decided to 'come clean', and told Angel that he was sent to infiltrate and spy on the gang because the Warden wanted the four dead.

Angel blinked and said "Why she want us dead?"

"You escaped prison."

"No," said Angel. "Did our time. We was released."

"That aint what she told us."

"You brave tellin' me this. Getcha killed."

Juan nodded wanly.

"Did you kill that gas station guy?" asked Angel, warily.

"Uh. No. Faked it."

"And that 'stolen' bike."

"Uh. Bought that."

Angel didn't take it any further, but just said "'Preciate it."

Tuesday late evening, July 1

Later, Juan texted the party this surprising news, and so Reginald phoned Lieutenant Prospero.

A sleepy voice answered.

"Are the escapees escaped or actually released, you ask?" Prospero muttered. "I thought they'd escaped."

"So did we."

"Well, I'll need to contact the Central Repository. It's midnight. Will get back to you in the morning."

The Bikers

Thursday afternoon, June 26

The party arrived at Morgan Village just after lunch. They passed through the little village (Holiday Inn, hotel, general store, gas station and a few houses), and traversed down the southern edge of the Morgan Woods, along an unsealed road, and stopped at where the Morgan creek left the woods (about the middle of the bottom edge of the rectangular woods).

Here, Cello cast her Locate Person spell using belongings of Cletus and Drowbar.

• Cletus was located in the general store of Morgan (bordering on SW corner of the woods)
• Drowbar was in the north-eastern corner of the woods.

Jacob and Leon went into Morgan to investigate and, sure enough, spotted Cletus. He was with two others. They were on heavy motor-bikes, and dressed as bikers. The gang patch name was "Morte Christe".

Asking around, the bikers had been in this area for "about a month". The four escapees had escaped the penitentiary six days ago.

While the group was waiting by the creek, several bikers passed by, some going west and some east. In fact, this kept up all day.

Jacob & Leon returned and the whole party went west down the road. There was a big biker camp here, on the SE corner of the woods, with heaps of bikers, like about 40. The party withdrew back to the Morgan creek and made camp (a la RV) there.

Having no further need for Cello, Jacob took her back to Philly (she had been paid her $2000 in advance).

Thursday night, June 26

All the bikers came into Morgan and went to the Morgan hotel to drink and party.
Reginald reconnoitered and hung about in a corner of the bar.

Leon and Theo kept guard in camp, fishing in a swimming hole of the Morgan creek. Leon caught a huge cat-fish.

Ebony and Sledge sneaked down the road to the site of the biker camp. Sledge had his gen II night-vision goggles, and Ebony had her Etheric goggles (which act as gen 3 night-vision goggles). There were two biker chicks in camp tidying, and no-one else. Ebony and Sledge melted into the forest and headed down a forest path to the site of where Drowbar had been located by Cello's spell.

Thursday midnight, June 26

An hour later they came to the site. There was a clearing in the forest with two log cabins, a well, a small woodshed and an outhouse. It looked olde worlde, but it was all faux and made of modern materials.

They snuck inside, the place wasn't even locked, and did a little search. They guessed seven were staying in the cottages.

The bikers left the hotel at 2 am and headed back to their camp.

They then followed some other forest paths. They found nothing of significance, but this took a goodly time and it was 5 am by the time they got back to the RV to sleep.

Thursday 5:10 am, June 27: New Moon

Friday sunrise 5:34 am, June 27

Brother Theo was up at first light to perform matins, and Reginald for his morning acoustic calisthenics. They then proceeded to make a noisy breakfast, much to the annoyance of the sleepy Sledge and Ebony.

Then fished all morning. Leon caught another cat-fish.

Friday midday, June 27

Not wanting to give the bikers any grounds for suspicion, they upped camp and headed into Morgan to the Holiday Inn camp-ground. Jacob got himself a room here too.

Friday sunset 8:33 pm, June 27

Theo and Jacob arrived at the Morgan hotel before dark and got an outside table near the door. Theo had his back to the door so that all the bikers would need to pass near him.

Sure enough, the entire Morte Christe gang arrived, and they streamed in to the hotel. Theo made careful note as to how many set off his Sixth Sense veil detection.

The total was 34 bikers, 10 biker-chicks. 15 of the bikers set off Theo's detector and 1 of the girls. So this meant 16 were either fae or werewolves.

Meanwhile, Ebony and Sledge snuck back into the forest and headed down a second forest path off the biker camp. This lead about twenty minutes to another clearing. In here, were some standing stones. But Ebony's etheric goggles revealed a hovering, swirling cloud-like mass, the size of a bear, right in the centre of the circle. This thing didn't appear in Sledge's goggles at all. Many of the stones of the circle had been scratched, too, by large claws.

They headed back up to the cabins, and waited, and waited. The intent was to take out some of the bikers, so Sledge had his PSG1 with a night-scope (gen 2).

Saturday early morning, June 28

Drowbar arrived with six others. Sledge decided not to make the kill shot, after all.

Sledge and Ebony headed back to the standing stones. It was the same as before (cloud and all), but there was fresh urine on the grass. So they headed back through the forest to Morgan.

Saturday morning, June 28

Jacob phoned Cello and described the standing stones. He deliberately didn't mention what Ebony had seen.

She said standing stones are normally built on the site of ley line crosses. She suggested a nexus could be built there.

The Warden's Problem

Tuesday afternoon, June 24

Prospero introduced a new party member to the group: an ex-soldier, good with a shotgun, named Leon [ new player David Campbell's character ]. Prospero adjudged that Leon was totally trust-worthy hence that was a good enough recommendation for the group.

When they got back to the apartment, Abu was working down in the Nexus, like he had been for the past week. Sledge asked him how he was progressing.

"In one week, I think," said Abu. "I will know how to engrave the glyphs on human skin and how to activate them,"

"Will they still age you a year per day?" asked Sledge.

"Oh yes," replied Abu. "That is the next problem for me to solve."

Sledges' phone rang. It was the Warden of the Eastern State Penitentiary, Candy Clam, asking to speak to Mort. Sledge explained that Mort was no longer here in Philadelphia. In that case, the Warden wanted the see the party, and she demanded, vehemently, that they go to her office. Now.

So they all went out there.

Angel

The Warden had heard about the group (somehow through the Veil grapevine), plus she did know about Brother Theo when he himself worked with Peter, the Prison Chaplain, two weeks back. She seemed to know the party were Veil-aware, and could handle it. She didn't reveal her demon nature, nor did she seem to know that they knew that she was a demon. But then maybe she knew that they didn't know, or that she knew that they knew, but knew that they didn't know that she knew.

Anyway, she wanted to employ them to do some work for her.

"I run a tight ship here," she hissed, eyes flashing a feral gleam, her irises aglow. "No-one escapes from my prison, alive. No-one.

Bogan

Four felons some how got away four days ago. So I want them caught. With extreme prejudice. If they die in the capture, so be it. We will shed no tears."

She tossed down four personnel files: Angel "eyes" Fornel, Bogan Baltimore, Cletis Crawdad, Drowbar Wolven.


"They are all in for armed robbery, 8 and 12 years a piece," she continued. "And are ex bikers. They were last seen in Morgan forest, two hours to the East of the city. The local police did a cursory search, but I pulled them back. I was worried about Veil breaches. Although, two are human, Angel is fae, and Drowbar is werewolf.

Cletis

If you happen to catch the escapees alive, phone my cell before you bring them in. If they happen to die, bring me their hearts. Any questions?"

"Yes," said Ebony. "I thought this was a male prison."

"It is."

"Then why is Fay one of the escapees?"

"Fae," said the Warden wearily. "Fairies, faeries, sidhe..."


"She?" said Ebony. "'She' is a girl?"

Drowbar

"S I D H E! It is from the Irish gaelic word for fairy."

"Sid he?"

"No! Pronounced 'she'!"

As payment for successful completion of this "job", the Warden offered the group a Veil item. A Ring of Power Healing. This item is attuned to one person over a week. After that it will increase rate of healing by about 20 times: [ Normally, Bash damage is healed in 15 mins, Lethal damage in 2 days, and Aggravated damage in 1 week. With the ring: 1 minute, 2 hours, 12 hours ]

Tuesday late afternoon, June 24

The party returned to STRIKE FORCE HQ to do some research.

Morgan forest was about 10 to 15 km on one edge and 5 km on the other. On the West end was the village of Morgan and the Morgan creek flowed through the woods.

They also selected some special weaponry [ by spending Endowments ]. Leon got some iron shotgun pellets, iron being good on fae. Reginald got a clip of silver 9 mm bullets for his MP 5, and an iron hammer. Sledge got a clip of silver .357 magnum shells. Silver was effective against werewolves, of course.

"We will need a witch," said Jacob. "To locate the escapees easily."

They contacted Siri and arranged a meeting. Siri's Locate Person spell could only cover a few kilometres. That was too small, so Siri suggested they try Nonce or Cello.

Nonce couldn't do much more range than Siri.

After some attempts, they managed to get through to Cello (the best witch in Philly) and arranged a meeting. Cello's spell could stretch to 12 km, so they asked to hire her. Her rates were one grand per casting that spell, or two grand for the whole day, but she wasn't free until Thursday daytime. So they booked Cello.

Tuesday night, June 24

Mina arrived at the apartment.

"If you guys can find out what happened to Mort," she said. "There's ten thousand dollars in it for you. I would like to know. It seems that demons got him. You know the Warden is one?"

"Yes. And Warden Clam doesn't seem to know," said Ebony. "We did ask."

"You working for her?"

Ebony nodded.

"Do tell."

After Mina had listened, she gave some suggestions, but the group already knew of the iron and silver.

Mina offered Ebony a "drink", but she graciously declined.

Wednesday, June 25

Juan had taken possession of Mort's hearse - Mort had donated his safe-house apartment (no longer safe) and his hearse to the group. Juan started the pimping process. He was heading for this:

Thursday morning, June 26

Sledge hired an enormous RV motor-home, at $350 a day.

 Jacob had an RV and he picked up Cello, to keep her separated from the mage-haters: Reginald, Leon and Theo, and they all headed for Morgan.

Payment in Kind

Monday 5 am, June 23

The party went to Oberon's place, half an hour before sunrise, and told him all about Mort, in every sordid detail.

As an elder vampire, Oberon was well-versed in facial control and keeping his emotions in check. Nevertheless, his eyes burned like hot coals, and his calm visage revealed the truly horrendous form beneath, if only for a fraction of a second.

"Bring me the tape," he said.

"We will get it for you tonight," they replied meekly.

Since it was only half an hour until sunrise, Oberon dismissed them. "I need to make some calls."

Monday morning, June 23

After breakfast, the party (sans Juan) went to STRIKE FORCE to report in to Lieutenant Prospero, and to fetch the security tape. Here, the Lieutenant introduced Reginald Gates to join the team [ Darryl's new character ].

Gates was an ex-corporal from the marines, and self-styled STRIKE FORCE expert. He had memorized the STRIKE FORCE constitution, and was always the one to push correct protocol and procedure. He always addressed his superiors as "Sah!"

The spent the rest of the day bringing Reginald up to date.

Monday sunset 8:33 pm, June 23

Straight after dark, the party hurried to Khyber Pass Bar & Grill and up to Oberon's offices. They quickly handed over the tape. Oberon dismissed them while he viewed it.

When they returned an hour later, he had his PA, the curvy Ms Anderson, give them a brief case

"So the culprit was right under your nose all the time," he said coldly. "You will find your reward in there."

Not fully trusting Oberon, they took the case to a deserted back-alley, and examined it thoroughly. There was a tiny locator GPS pin on the back-hinge, and Jacob spotted a rune by the handle. Sledge was brave enough to open the case. Inside was a pile of uncut diamonds. Each time one was taken out, the rune flashed.

Ebony phoned Oberon and got his PA.

"Um, what's with the rune on the case?" said Ebony.

"If you separate the diamonds from the case," she grinned. "They will melt." Then she hung up.

Jacob thought about this for a while.

"Diamonds can't melt," he said. "I think they can burn, but you need to get damn hot for that."

"Let's get a second opinion," said Sledge.

Sledge managed to track down the phone number of witch in town (using STRIKE FORCE's database), who was not Cello. This one was called Siri, so he rang her and arranged a meeting.

Monday night, June 23

Siri met the party in a quiet square, and she identified the rune as a combination Counter and Messenger.

"There will be another rune, somewhere, paired with this one," she said. "It will count removals from the case."

She also spotted a Fire rune on the case too, which the party hadn't noticed.

"That one can be triggered from a distance," she said wryly.

"How come all you witches are so attractive?" stated Ebony, unable to be discrete.

Siri smiled.

"You will find that all creatures of the veil," said Siri. "Witches included, tend to go in extremes on the human scale. Scary and ugly at one end, and beautiful and well-wrought at the other end."

Monday night, later, June 23

There was a street of Jewellers in Philadelphia, so the party took the uncut diamonds and case there, and found a jeweller who was still open. The owner was quite happy to value them, but it would take all the next day. He also assured them that diamonds do not melt. So the party left only the diamonds with the jeweller, and took the case away.

Ebony stuck the now-empty case on the back of a Greyhound bus which was leaving town.

Tuesday afternoon, June 24

They returned to the jeweller. The place was still intact. There wasn't a smoking crater 20 metres deep, nor was there a fleet of ambulances carting off badly-burned corpses. The jeweller had valued the uncut diamonds at $430,000. He was happy to buy them off the group for that value, less 20%, so they agreed and got a bank cheque for $344 K.

They went and opened a party bank account.

Reginald, who knew the STRIKE FORCE constitution backwards, was happy to point out that STRIKE FORCE required its members to pay 10% gross on any income they made while doing "Veil business", so they ended up with $301 K in the end.

When they were paying STRIKE FORCE its cut, Lieutenant Prospero had some news.

"It seems your mate Mort was caught in JFK airport, New York, yesterday," he said. "The silly fool was trying to smuggle some Semtex in his carry-on luggage onto the plane."

Jacob laughed.

"Oberon, I bet!" snorted Sledge.

"So Oberon does know?" said the Lieutenant.

"Yeah"

"I see. That might explain the Semtex..."

"But how could Oberon possibly work so fast?" said Jacob. "And Mort was travelling under different papers and stuff, like you said, Lieutenant."

"Um... no," said Prospero. "Mort had never joined STRIKE FORCE. He was entitled to nothing..."

Prospero paused, mid sentence, as if gathering his thoughts, then suddenly burst out hysterically: "Nothing! You hear me?! Nothing!"

Jacob and the others took a worried step back. Prospero calmed a little.

"So ... we didn't actually give him papers. He was travelling under his own passport with his own name: Mort Gezkowski."

While this sank in, Prospero continued.

"Anyway, it was day-time. Mort was put into an airport holding cell while enquiries were made, and while Homeland Security and the Guantanamo Butt-reamers were fetched. But then, mysteriously, he vanished from his cell, late afternoon. The CTV camera recording in his cell was all blurred out at the time.

"Luckily, we have top men in the airport..."

Prospero cast his gaze off into infinity in the best STRIKE FORCE manner, and said, again: "Top men."

"So they managed to get to his cell before the CSI boys arrived," he continued. "And do you know what they found?"

"Erm... no"

"I'll tell you!" said Prospero. "Sulphur, an iron powder residue, and a burnt circle on the floor. You know what that means?!"

"Demons!" cursed Jacob.

Prospero nodded sagaciously.

"Thanks to you lot, we know that the Penitentiary Warden Clam is one," said Prospero. "You think she is involved?"

Blank looks all around.

"There is no love lost between demons and vamps. So, if the demons got Mort, maybe he is still very much alive."

Mort's Departure

Sunday afternoon, June 22

Jacob, Mort, Ebony and Sledge were in STRIKE FORCE Operations Room Four, and had just viewed the security tape which clearly showed Mort with the stakes. Theo was in the hire-car baby-sitting Dimetrius's ghoul Rolly Barton.

Jacob texted Lieutenant Prospero and he joined them, and was updated.

"You have committed a grave act, Mort," began the Lieutenant. "While those staked vampires are creatures of the Veil, we don't have direct evidence that they are not innocents."

"But they are vampire scum and deserve to die," said Mort.

Prospero just looked at him coldly, and continued: "You will not be sanctioned. STRIKE FORCE has clear policies regarding this. We will not turn you over to Oberon, but nor will we offer you refuge or succour. And anyway, you have not yet ... even ... joined our ... team ..."

"I was only up to page four of the Constitution!" protested Mort.

Prospero addressed the group: "Is this the only tape?"

"No," said Jacob. "While we are sure that the actual nest wasn't under direct surveillance, there were other cameras, other tapes."

"Can you get the other tapes?"

"We're working on it."

The plan was to get Ebony and Mort into the prison after dark and get the tapes. They knew that the prison was always looking for cleaners, and Mort had Joan, the HR lady's mobile number. So he rang her, and got transferred to the Night-time super. And it turned out that they did need extra help for tonight; 9 pm until 5 am.

The security tape was secured in a STRIKE FORCE safe.

The party headed back to the Elfrith Alley apartment, and deposited Rolly in an upstairs room. They were very careful not to let him see the iron door down to the cellar (and Nexus). Rolly was in severe ghoul-withdrawal, so he probably wouldn't have noticed it anyway. He had soiled the hire-car several times with blood, copious vomit, urine and large amounts of sticky cloying diarrhoea. Ghoul diarrhoea is particularly obnoxious in that it is tinged with coagulated vampire blood remnants, so not only reeks like the very stench of hell, but stains too. The car-hire firm certainly made a loss on the $100 car-soiling fee that day.

"You needn't think we will have your business ever again, Ms Mendoza," the disgusted rep said.

Sunday sunset 8:33 pm, June 22 

Ebony and Mort went out to the Eastern State Penitentiary. They were both in disguise. Ebony had to look like a man (they didn't hire women cleaners for a male prison), so they christened her Edward; and Mort didn't want to be spotted in case someone had seen the tapes. They were met by the Night-time super who let them in and told them to begin cleaning Wing B.

"The crims are all locked up secure," he said wryly. "But don't stray too close to the bars."

Half an hour into the shift, Mort's cell phone rang. It was Mina.

"So it was you."

Mort stammered: "Was me what?!"

"You know very well what. How long do you think you can evade Oberon, you little worm?"

Mort squeaked: "Was me what?!"

"I'd advise you to get to your safe-house ... now." She then hung up.

Mort panicked, and turned to Ebony/Edward.

"I have to go. Now." He scurried off

"What about my ride?" said Ebony, as Mort vanished through the doors.

Sunday 9 pm, June 22

Sledge, Theo and Jacob went to report in to Oberon. They updated him on the progress about the ghouls and the tapes, and the prison. And were very careful not to mention the tape that showed Mort's guilt.

Oberon wanted all four ghouls brought in to him, and he would get his guards to personally deliver Binro to the prison to retrieve the tapes in the morning. Sledge managed to convince Oberon that it would take all their effort to recover Binro, and that they'd get the other ghouls tomorrow. Oberon grudgingly agreed.

So they headed out to Fairmount. Binro still had the GPS tracker pin on him so was very easy to track down. When they promised to him that his Mistress Marceline had all forgiven him, and that she was dying to feed him, he was happy to go with them back to Oberon's.

Binro was delivered to Marceline, and they embraced and fed.

Sunday 10 pm, June 22

Sledge went to visit his fiancee Safiya at his mum's place, to see how she was getting on. She was in good health, and her CCD lessons progressing well, which meant the marriage date was fast approaching. This would be a good thing, for Sledge's loins ached with unrequited desire.

His cell phone rang. It was Mina.

"Why didn't you tell me?" she said.

"Tell you what?"

"That it was Mort!"

"How did... what was Mort ...  do?"

"I thought so," she said. Then hung up.

"Shit" said Sledge.

Sunday midnight, June 22

Mort, ensconced in his safe-house, got the warden's phone number (via Sledge via STRIKE FORCE Contacts and Investigative techniques).

Bearing in mind that Oberon was going to use Binro to get the tapes in the morning, the NEW plan was now to alert the Warden, so that hopefully she would hide the tapes somewhere else, before Binro arrived.

Mort rang the warden from his safe-house's land-line.

"Hello, Candy Clam," he said.

"Who is this?"

"Just a friend ... You have some tapes. They are in danger."

"How did you get this number?"

He hung up.

Monday 2 am, June 23

Ebony had finished four corridors (of the seven) when she was sent to clean the upper corridor of the admin block.

Demon Warden Candy Clam

Warden Candy Clam's door was slightly ajar. There was flickering coming from within the room, as if there was a fire in there.

Ebony glanced inside, surreptitiously and quietly. There was a tall woman in a smart suit, her back to the door. There was a safe in the wall, and it was open. Inside were stacked tapes. However, the room stank of sulphur and there was a flaming torch, floating, next to the woman. Ebony quickly withdrew, and made some loud cleaning-type noises out in the corridor.

The flickering instantly stopped and the door flew open. It was the indeed the Warden, fierce feral beauty and all. Her eyes blazed, literally, for a fraction of a second. She stared at Ebony, long and hard.

"You are new here," said Ms Clam. It wasn't a question.

"Uh, yes, Miss," stammered Ebony in her best baritone. "Edward Bounty"

"Carry on, Edward," said Ms Clam and she slammed the door, then strode past Ebony carrying a satchel. Ebony got another whiff of sulphur.

Monday 3 am, June 23

Sledge, Jacob and Theo were in the apartment chatting about their latest information.

Suddenly, Mina walked in, in her usual elegant unassuming (and silent) style, as if she owned the place.

"I caught the tail end about Mort," she said.

"Mort staked the vampires," said Jacob suddenly, as if lifting a great weight. "Sledge said you knew that, right?"

"Well, I was 75% sure," said Mina quietly, her eyes a seething cauldron of rage. "But now I am 100%."

Mina calmed herself, and took some deep breaths - even though she wasn't technically alive and didn't need to breathe, some old habits were hard to stop.

"I certainly will not tell Oberon," she said. "It was his faction that suffered here, and that helps me. That said, in some cases, blood.. nay, vampire blood is thicker than water. So maybe I should..."

They all looked worried.

"... or not. But when Oberon does find out," Mina went on. "and, rest assured, he will find out, Mort's life will be short, and his demise unpleasant. Oberon has a long reach.

And how will you lot ... cover yourselves? How long have you known?"

"Since yesterday afternoon..." began Jacob.

Mina interrupted: "... and you never told Oberon this night?"

"Um no..."

Monday 3:30 am, June 23

Jacob contacted Lieutenant Prospero about the latest news. Bearing in mind that Mina now knew, and Oberon was probably not far off from knowing, Prospero suggested to Jacob to tell Mort to pack up and leave. Now.

"I hear Invercargill in New Zealand is a nice place to visit," said Prospero drolly. "I'll have someone meet Mort in Philly airport with papers and stuff."

Jacob relayed this news to Mort in his safe-house.

Monday 4 am, June 23

Ebony/Edward finished her shift early. The Night-time super was so impressed with her work efforts (she had done the work of two men, and faster than two men) that he let her go an hour early (on full pay).

Ebony grabbed a taxi and went straight to the Khyber Pass Bar & Grill and up to Oberon's rooms; the guards were used to her now, so motioned her through with a curt nod. She told Oberon what she saw, and that Warden Clam had taken the tapes. He summoned Cello (who was very disgruntled at being woken at 4 am) and Ebony related her tale.

"Interesant. It seems ze warden; she is a demon," said Cello. "You smelt sulphur. The floating torch you saw is ward to stop magical scrying. Why the Marceline ghoul would contact demon, I have no idea."

"We will have to ask dear Binro," said Oberon ominously. "Leave this to us."

Cello also gave Ebony some tips about demons. Salt burns them; just ordinary table salt - iodized or not. A line of salt will stop them crossing (but does not stop their magic). And then Oberon dismissed Cello.

As Ebony was leaving the building (it was only a short walk to the Elfrith Alley apartment), she thought she heard a terror-tinged hysterical scream coming from Oberon's rooms.

Monday 4:30 am, June 23

Ebony arrived back at the apartment. Jacob, Sledge and Theo were there, Rolly Barton asleep upstairs, and Mina was downstairs in the cellar, at the Nexus.

"You look wan and tired, Ebony" said Mina, entering the room.

"An exhausting cleaning shift at the prison. I did all Mort's work too."

"Here," said Mina proffering her wrist. "Have a drink."

Ebony looked at Mina's delicate wrist and could almost taste the delicious blood.

"Go on," said Mina with a coquettish smile. "You know you want to."

Ebony looked again and nodded. Mina slashed her own wrist with an elegant fingernail, and pressed the gushing wound to Ebony's mouth. Ebony drank greedily and thirstily. All her tiredness melted away.

Ebony then updated the party, and Mina, about the demoness Warden and her visit to Oberon, and the salt. They updated her on Mort.



When Mort arrived at the Philadelphia International Airport, he was greeted by a guy in a suit, all sleep-deprived eyes and stubble aplenty.

"You Mort Gezkowski?"

"Who's asking?" said Mort in his usual inimitable style.

"Lieutenant Prospero woked me up to tell me to give you this."

He handed Mort a single envelope and strode off.

Mort opened the envelope. It was a greeting card with a single white dove in flight, on a sky-blue background, with the words "Bon Voyage !". Inside, under the card's printed "Have a great trip!", there was a note, hand-written in pen:

Maybe you should have joined STRIKE FORCE.

So it is Revealed

Sunday morning, June 22

Ebony, Sledge, and Theo revisited the pumping station, again, to see if they had missed anything.

But rather than it being deserted, they were surprised to see lights, and men in fluorescent overalls and hard-hats. These fellows were scrubbing things down and cleaning. When confronted, they grimly said nothing; closed-mouthed

Ebony phoned Ms Charleston, Oberon's PA. She said that these men were "Oberon's Cleaners" and that they were sent to clean the area of any "detritus and things suspicious". She offered to phone them to tell them to wait until the party had retrieved what they wanted. This was agreed.

The cleaners had not yet got as far as cleaning the ghoul quarters room, so the party checked there. Sure enough, they did find some more things; personal items. They bagged them up and took them back to Oberon's offices (upstairs above the Khyber Pass Bar & Grill) to Cello.

Cello cast her Locate Soul spell using each item, and got a reasonably accurate location as to where the two of the ghouls were.

The party met Mort around that area of town, and they cruised the streets of the general vicinity.

The first ghoul spotted was Rolly Barton. He was in a bad stage, in advanced ghoul-withdrawal. They didn't get much info from him, but he did give them enough clues to spot Sarah.

Sarah was more lucid. She seemed very scared of Vladislav. In fact, he was her master. Rolly's master turned out to be Dimetrius.

Jake the Blade was the next ghoul spotted; he was the ghoul of Petra. And finally they found Binro; he was the ghoul of Marceline. Both Jake and Binro were quite lucid.

After a lot of questioning, the party worked out the whole sorry story: The skeletal mummy and mist had scared the four ghouls away (assumedly from its powerful Fear aura), and then when they finally got brave enough to creep back to the nest, they found that most of the vampires had been staked. So, fearing reprisal from their masters (after all, the protect of the vampire nest was the ghouls' raison d'tre), they fled. They obviously didn't think too far in advance, because they would have known that a ghoul without daily blood from its master starts to go into ghoul-withdrawal.

With some subtle coercion, Ebony managed to find out that Sarah actually had one of the missing security tapes on her person. The party got it off her with promises of forgiveness from her master. The other nine tapes had been hidden away "in a secret location". None of the lucid ghouls would reveal where. Rolly didn't know.

Ebony managed to surreptitiously attach a GPS tracker pin to Binro's clothes. Then they showed Binro Sarah's tape and claimed that Sarah had told them where the rest of the tapes were.

Binro got worried and took off. So Ebony and Mort followed him with the GPS pin. He arrived at the Penitentiary. And allegedly visited the Warden Candy Clam there. Was she involved in this?

While Mort and Ebony were following Binro, Sledge went to follow Jake the Blade. Even after being shown Sarah's tape he just went and drank with some other bums.

Sunday afternoon, June 22

They needed to check Sarah's tape. It was a miniature digital tape, so Jacob volunteered one of the tape-players in STRIKE FORCE HQ.

With only Jacob, Ebony, Sledge and Mort in Operations Room Four, Jacob started the tape.

The date and time read: 20140618 0800

Jacob fast-forwarded to the next day, and the next.
20140620 0814 The cameras were low-light sensitive. A grey figure, in high contrast, came into view, walking down the tunnel. He was carrying a large bundle of stakes. It was very clear who it was.

"Mort!" gasped Jacob.

Mort walked under the camera and out of view. Jacob fast-forwarded.

20140620 0935 The lone figure of Mort, this time his back to the camera, wandered back down the tunnel. He now had no stakes.

"Burn the tape!" squeaked Mort. "Erase it!"

Seeking Evidence

Saturday Morning, June 21

While Jacob, Sledge and Ebony were exploring the sewer pumping station at North Fifth Street and Fairmount Avenue, Mort was back at the apartment with Abu and Theo.

There was a knock on the door.

Two locksmiths arrived to fix the iron door. They were expected (Mina had arranged this the previous night), so Mort let them in, and they spent a few hours re-fitting and re-welding the iron door to the basement (this door had been smashed, six days ago, when the party broke in down here to kill the mummy - the first time)

An hour later, around 11:30 am, there was another knock on the door.

Mort opened it with the safety chain on. There were two thick-set men in suits, and the Elvira clone Cello; cleavage and all.

"Who are you?" said Mort.

"I am lady Cello," she said. "Oberon asked me to check out zees place."

"Well, you're not coming inside."

"But Oberon, he asked me..."

"Oberon doesn't own this place."

"I'm afraid he does."

"Prove it," said Mort, firmly. "Show me the title."

Cello's eyes blazed. But one of the suits stayed her arm.

"I will be back with ze title," she said. The three left.


Half an hour later, Ebony, Jacob and Sledge got back from their trip to the sewer pumping station.

"Cello is planning on returning here." said Mort.

"She must not see the Nexus, nor Mina's shrouded area," said Ebony. "I'll hide the iron door." She set about to pushing one of the bookcases to cover it. She did a good job too.

Mort asked Abu to put some power hieroglyphs on walls of the living room.

"We want something that the witch can detect as magic. To try to trick her,"

 Abu explained that his knowledge only extended as far as placing glyphs on living tissue, not on hard walls. This was one of the things he was so interested in down below - the mummy had obviously done it, so he was trying to learn how.

"Well, put some normal hieroglyphs up. Maybe that will fool her."

Around 3pm, Cello and the two suits arrived back. Mort and the rest of the party let them inside.

Cello spent half the time in a magical trance, trying to sense any magic. There was none, and Mina's Shroud down in the cellar seemed to be working. Cello didn't detect anything.

Saturday Night, June 21

Mort no longer trusted the night. He always made sure he was firmly ensconced in his safe house before dark. Mort had also started the slow process of shifting safe-houses. He no longer trusted the party any more. It would take four days.

The rest of the team went to Khyber Pass Bar & Grill to do their nightly report to Oberon. Dimetrius and his elders, and Cello were there too.

Again, Mort's absence was noted.

Cello also pointed out Mort's distinctive rudeness and contempt earlier that day. Oberon explained to the party that if this kind of non-cooperation happened again, his men would be asked to show less restraint at not using excessive force.

"If you catch my drift," said Oberon.

The items recovered from the pumping station were taken note off. Cello said to leave them bagged and not to handle them too much.

"I can cast spells using zem," she said "Maybe locate zeir owners."

Cello took the items off to another room.

While they were waiting, Ebony and Jacob asked Oberon and Dimetrius more about the missing ghouls.

The current batch of Dimetrius's ghouls were made ten months ago. The previous batch had been killed in a gun fight with police. Only four were made this time: one for Dimetrius, Vladislav, Marceline and Petra. They chose them because they were "gypsies", but it turned out they were the homeless and bums. Dimetrius didn't know there was a difference.

This, apparently, was news to Oberon. He was not very pleased.

"Just because they are ghouls, does not make them bright."

To make a ghoul, a vampire just gets a person to drink his blood. Ghoul-ing enhances the ghoul's physical attributes. But there is a cost; the ghoul gets addicted to her master's blood. The ghoul is totally devoted to the master for half the number of days that she has been a ghoul. The master can detect if the ghoul is alive.

Cello returned some time later.

"These items are corrupted. There is no clear owner," she said. "I want you to return to the nest to locate some more items. Some personal items. They must not have been handled recently by anyone except the owner."

"We'll do it in the morning," Ebony said.

Dimetrius's Nest

Friday Afternoon, June 20

Mort arrived back at the apartment after doing his vampire slaughtering. His cognitive dissonance persuaded him that he had done a great thing today. But he did wonder if others might not feel the same way. So he kept quiet about it and didn't tell a soul.

Abu was down by the Nexus studying it. The rest of the party was having a quiet day, licking their wounds and relaxing.

Before dark, Mort took off and returned to his Safehouse.

Friday Sunset 8:33 pm, June 20

Mina arrived at the apartment soon after dark. She didn't look very pleased.

"Where is Mort and Juan?" she asked succinctly.

"Um ... Mort in his safe-house," said Ebony. "And Juan is at the bar. Why?"

"Apparently, that nest of vampires you found with the mummy," she said. "Well, they have been all been destroyed. All staked. The true death. Some time today. Know anything?"

They all shook their heads in denial.

Mina asked Ebony to contact Mort. She did via Mort's land-line (there being no cell reception in Safehouses). Mort assured her, through Ebony, that he was innocent.

Mina looked dubious at the news, but she continued:

"It was a nest controlled by a Eastern European vampire called Dimetrius. He, and his elders survived but not the rest. This is Oberon's area. Oberon will not be pleased."

Sure enough, Ebony got a ring.

"Oberon wants to see us, all of us," said Ebony. "And ... he does guarantee our safety."

Oberon's PA Ms Anderson

Ebony, Jacob, Theo and Sledge headed off to the Khyber Pass Bar & Grill, Oberon's usual haunt. The place was packed; Juan was flat-out working the bar. The party was ushered upstairs to Oberon's room. It was full too: Oberon, Oberon's PA Ms Anderson, three other women in smart suits, an older vampire in a cliched red-lined Dracula cloak, an ancient vampire with the 1922 film Nosferatu look in dusty robes, two male vampires, and three female vampires. And one woman looking like Elvira: big hair, big boobs, big mascara.

Oberon came straight to the point.

"This is Dimetrius here," Oberon gestured to the Dracula clone, "his elder Vladislav," gesturing to the Nosferatu clone, "and his other elders Auroch, Livingstone, Giania, Petra, Marceline."

Vampire Dimetrius

"Some ... amateur ... destroyed the rest of his family, in their nest where your group killed the Risen
yesterday. It was only the locked caskets of these elders that saved them. We do not know what happened to the servants."

"I have summoned you here for two reasons. The first to ascertain your guilt in this matter."

Jacob moved to speak, but Oberon silenced him with a wave.

"This lady," Oberon gestured to the Elvira clone. "Is Cello, a witch. She will cast a spell to check the truth of your words."

"I'm not having no witch cast spells on me," shrieked Theo. "I'm leaving."

Superior Witch Cello

Theo stormed out. Theo hated witches.

Ebony, Jacob and Sledge nodded wanly.

Cello stood up, stretched, jiggled her massive bust, and then began incanting in Latin and waving her arms around. She threw a handful of gold dust into the air, and it slowly drifted to the ground in a large cloud enshrouding the four.

Oberon spoke: "Did you stake, or destroy, or kill any vampires yesterday or today?"

"No," said Ebony. 

"No," said Sledge.

"No," said Jacob.

"Do you know anyone who did?"

"No." "No." "No." 

"Zey speak zuh truth," said Cello in her husky Romanian drawl.

Oberon pressed on, pushing the bounds of the spell. 

"Have any of you harmed my servants, or any of my interests in the last year?"

"um,,, no... I don't think so", "no", "don't know", "um"

"Do any of you four, in the forsee-able future, intend to harm me, or any of my agents, or any of my interests, or connected interests, or future propositions in any way shape or form?"

Cello interrupted him.

"Incipient Veracity, she does not work that way," she said. "She can not foretell future events nor can she compel ze future actions. And anyway, the spell; she has worn off now."

"You work... for me!" exclaimed Dimetrius in a very strong Romanian accent.

Oberon waved him silent, then turned to the party.

"Which brings me to the second reason I asked you here. Your group has certain skills, and has shown certain success, so I, well Dimetrius here, intends to hire you to find out who did kill his family..."

"You work... for me!" exclaimed Dimetrius again.

"You will be well paid," continued Oberon. "But I... we want the guilty brought to me, or evidence of their death brought to me.

"We kill them very hard, dead," said Dimetrius. "True death."

Dimetrius passed them a briefcase. 

"I want a report every night," said Oberon. "And if you need to contact someone during the day, my PA..." he gestured to the stunning woman in a smart suit next to him. "Ms Charleston here, will take your call. She is human."

Dimetrius also gave Jacob a list of the four servants (ghouls) that were supposed to have guarded the nest of coffins during the day: Jake the Blade, Sarah the Savant, Binro the Tramp, Rolly Barton. The last time they had been seen was just before sunrise on Thursday (the day of the mummy slaying). 

The party returned to their apartment. 

Mina was still there and she questioned them thoroughly. She also told them that Lord Defacto, the leader of the third vampire faction in Philadelphia, was making moves into Oberon's turf.

To lighten the mood, Theo asked Mina: "What is the collective noun for vampires? Is there an official term?"

"Well," she said. "I use 'coterie' for awake vampires, and 'nest' for sleeping ones. There's also some glib alternatives: 'clot', 'stackhouse', 'stoker', 'cloak', 'voraciousness', 'vein' and 'count'. So take your pick. But just don't let a vampire hear you."

"Not all vampires have my sense of humour," she said with a deathly dead-pan face, with emphasis on the word 'dead'.

Saturday Sunrise 5:32 am, June 21

As soon as the sun was up, Jacob, Sledge and Ebony left the apartment, just before Abu and Mort arrived.  The three went straight to the sewer pumping station where they had defeated the mummy on Thursday. 

All the coffins had been cleared away, but apart from that, the place hadn't been two badly disturbed. Jacob was in his investigative utopia. Straight away he found three stakes, so carefully bagged them. There was also several sets of boot prints in various parts of the tunnel.

While this was going on, Sledge found a small room near the pumping area with four double bunks.

All three of them checked this room out. This was presumably where Dimetrius's group's ghouls lived. There was a water boiler and a kitchenette. Jacob took samples.

They found a secret door in one of the walls. It lead through into a small room with several monitors on one wall. Pictures from CCTVs were shown. The cameras filmed the five main sewer lines (and paths) that entered the nest (the sewer pumping station area proper). There were no cameras on the nest itself, but this made sense because creatures of the Veil can not be filmed. The camera footage was recorded onto digital micro cassettes. But all the cassettes were missing, and there were none in the drives.