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."