AEON B-Team: Season 5, Session 8 – The Debut of Soul Cage

Dramatis Personae

  • Rafe Hanlon aka Nyx (played by Chris D.): An umbrakinetic and a petty thief out of prison on work release. Tagline: “Not for glory, not for fame…. For one person. In the dark. Where no one will ever know or see.”
  • Amar Gupta (played by Christian): Brick. Taxi Driver. Ass-Kicker. Sikh. Tagline: “Being a man of faith means to live it.”
  • Marduk (played by James): TBA. Tagline: “TBA”
  • Kenneth Rhames aka Doctor Thanatos (played by Merlin): TBA. Tagline: “TBA”

Previously . . .

The Commander has been recalled to military service, classified military service, with his dog leaving only the four in Project Vanguard. The personal assistant, Cassandra, is making sure that the group has what they need while they recuperate from the last mission. . . for far too long. Cass asking why they aren’t going out and doing hero stuff leads the group to question where they should be going. Explaining how the Police Band works in rather bad detail on how to find crimes and they discuss how it should work.

Cass drops a police band radio on their laps which they try to tune into to find something that’s going on in the city. They’re greeted by screams on the radio that they were transporting folks and they broke out. Thanatos, identifying themselves, asks for a location and the man on the other end, though he still gives an address. Jumping into the VOTL, they head off for their destination about 45 miles away and get there at the speed of plot.

Breakout!

Doctor Thantos, Marduk,  and Nyx
Monday, April 4th, 2017, 12:00 pm (EST)
4th Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11232

Arriving at the scene they see a bunch of cars, traffic cones, overturned vehicles, a smushed cat and four people in jumpsuits pinned down by cops. Thanatos detects life and their powers. A man with the ability to spit acid, some super strength, a dynokinetic, and the final is a hyper-agility. Thanatos heads forwards and gives the cops the rundown that they’re there and they retreat.

The man with hyper-agility doing some parkour into position and aims a carbine rifle at the troupe. Amar takes a running leap at the Hyperagility, landing on top of him with  a rather heavy blow, ripping off the man’s arm. Marduk sheds his mortal skin and zaps through the security systems to arrive on a roof overlooking the three other prisoners. Not as fast as the others, Thanatos runs forwards shouting them asking if they have any demands, distracting them. The brick leaps over the prison van and slams into Amar, disarming him and knocking him backwards over a planter. The dynokinetic reflexively detects Marduk’s presence and attempts to control him. Nyx, in the meantime, warps forwards beneath the police van and lets loose with his trademark shadow binding trapping the acid spitter and the dynokinetic.

The Hyper-agility rolls forwards, grabs his arm, and acrobatically runs away with Amar leaping after him and landing next to the man. Marduk aims a lightning bolt across the street striking the brick in the skull, stunned from the shock. Thanatos continues to run forwards claiming that they’re willing to negotiate. The brick desperately tries to shake of the tingly feeling as the dynokinetic tries to control Marduk again but fails and then somewhat falls to Nyx’s shadow tendrils crippling his feet.

Amar leaps forwards, grabbing onto the hyper-agility prisoner. Marduk throws another lightning bolt at the brick to stun him again, dropping him to the ground foaming at the mouth from a heart condition. Thanatos runs forwards calling for surrender, the acid spitter and dynokinetic moaning out their surrender with the brick foaming and twitching and the hyper-agility just throwing down his arms.

Battlefield triage over with the medicinal aid of Doctor Thanatos. The injuries are few, just a brick with a heart attack that Marduk helps solve with shocking him back into standard rhythm. Crippled feet healed and arm somewhat healed and reattached.

Taking a look around, they investigate the van and find that the shackles in the back seat weren’t even locked to begin with and the driver is in a come in the front seat. Thanatos attempts to interrogate the prisoners to find out what happened. Apparently it was “The Voice” that caused the damage, but the revealing of that causes another prisoner to elbow him. The promise of drugs get him talking though, that the voice promised to free them and then the shackles were unlocked.

Doctor Thanatos finesses his powers and reattaches the man’s arm and then gives them a talking to about their futures and how they should dedicate themselves to being better people as the prisoners get loaded up into the van and locked in. They see a translucent phantom purple image of a man descend from the sky, with Rafe stunned at the sight. He seems angry at being deprived of having minions. Thanatos requests the phantom’s name, claiming himself to be Soul Cage a name that they will learn to fear. Upon being told that they are going to have to hunt him down now, the phantom explodes into purple dust and the men around them dropping comatose, their eyes filled with purple.

Thanatos starts examinations while Amar checks the radius of those affected by the purple, the furthest away being 60 feet out and they call in ambulances to transport people, but the affliction still seems quite long lasting with only one police officer unaffected. Thanatos investigates the officer to find out that he’s a physical based metahuman with no knowledge of that fact. They decide that they need to do some research on the man and why he’s gathering people and how he knew about the prisoner transport.

It’s very possible that it’s an inside job and Marduk’s search finds a GPS device in the wheel well. Dragging the prisoners onto their VTOL, they head off for Rikers’ to finish the transfer where they’re put in the medical wing of the E Block to see how long they’ll be affected by the purple eyed affliction.

Riker’s Island

Doctor Thantos, Marduk,  and Nyx
Riker’s Island Penitentiary
Monday, April 4th, 2017, 13:00 pm (EST)
The Bronx, NY

Thanatos gets approached by a blonde named Cindy that is rather infatuated with him and has the most common superpower, being really interested in him. She’s rather willing to look through the past prison records to find past cases and informs Thanatos that her father used to be cop that might have some more information before slipping her number into his breast pocket. Nyx, on the other hand, stops by the guards that he used to know and chats with them, speaking with Marko about how the prison transports are going, that their budgets have been cut necessitating doubling and tripling the people per transports. Marko, impressed by how far Nyx has come, asks if the team they’re on is hiring anyone since they’ve had another person with similar circumstances that had held up a hospital. Giving Marko his number and Cassandra’s number in case they can’t get in contact, he promises to keep in contact.

Aftermath

Nyx investigates the GPS tracker, knowing the man that actually made them while Thanatos calls the police and gets a large amount of bureaucracy to get information on past cases. He turns to Cassandra and puts it even more upon her where she demands a raise. Things end with him on the phone asking their board of directors for some room in the budget to give her one.

After Action Report (GM)

This session was a good one even though we lost a player. The PCs used my new “Superhero Event” generator and got “Breakout” + “Supervillain” x 4 + “Masterplan”. Essentially, the breakout of four supervillains from being transported to the Riker’s Island E-Block (where they keep superpowered criminals).  The combat was interesting because the PCs were smart: they went after targets that were not the same as theme (e.g., the brick went after the villain with super-agility instead of going after the brick). Also, Merlin (the player of Doctor Thanatos) did something I found really cool – he talked the entire combat (it only lasted a few rounds). The rest of the team pulled their weight plus his and Thanatos’s use of Talker! to confuse the criminals was something I did not expect and rewarded (you always reward good roleplaying and innovative solutions.

Other Notes

Doug had to resign from the team for now – too much on his plate at the moment.

Soundtrack

“Chain Gang” by Sam Cooke (Opening Song)
“Thunderstruck” by AC/DC
“Fight the Good Fight” by Triumph (Closing Song)

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