Aeon V-Team S01E03 – You Can Be Alice…

Upon entering Wonderland the PCs are separated from some of the other members of their group (Katori Legend and a couple of AEGIS STARRS), though Elena Pushkov aka the Pusher remains. The PCs find themselves on a garden path with lots of human faces in flowers and pollinating bees that are shaped like literal alphabet “B”. The PCs hear the flowers saying all sorts of things: “Oh, yes! Work that stamen!” “Dude, you wanna get high?” “He loves me…(plucks petal from body as it bleeds while screaming)…he loves me not.” and other…disturbing words. The PCs opt to leave as quick as they came and begin to display traits from their “chosen” roles (Silkworm gets a turtle shell, Dr. Mnemonic gets mechanical bunny ears on his steampunk mask, Valkyrie is dressed as a maid, etc.).

After wandering around (about 2 hours of game was just this) they made their way to the Red Queen’s garden. The PCs hear “Four!” and two hedgehogs go sailing through the air. Ginny makes a DX roll to catch them and critically succeeds. They hear a loud voice scream for them to retrieve the croquet balls and the PCs hide (everyone is Batman rolling crits except for Dr. Mnemonic and Silkworm). Bianca Rosetti aka White Rabbit comes running forward to retrieve the hedgehogs and the PCs work out a plan to mug her and figure out what’s going on. White Rabbit critically dodges attacks from Dr. Mnemonic and Silkworm (which is crazy because Silkworm has six freaking “arms” to grapple, but a four is a four). Warlock uses Teamwork! to set up a feint and then transfers it to Valkyrie who makes her attack Deceptive and nails the rabbit using the Kay-O rules to knock her out. A Two of Hearts Card Soldier comes to find out what’s going on and he too gets mugged, but it’s not so stealthy this time.

Unfortunately, this alerts the Red Queen who sends out her massive wave of mind-controlling “love me! love me!” I spend Doom to screw over Weather Girl’s roll so she fails…but Silkworm also fails. Valkyrie is immune to mind-affecting effects and because of her and Warlock’s bond so is he. Dr. Mnemonic makes his roll and assesses the situation. Hundreds of card soldiers begin attacking the PCs and rush forward. Silkworm begins attacking her own people starting with Weather Girl. Pushkov, a little crazy from the reality warping gets angry that someone is “stealing her girl (Weather Girl)” and drinks a combat enhancing drug. Thanks to the effects of the reality warp it has a side effect: she grows taller… Angry she smashes into the cards and literally rips some apart until she gets to the Red Queen at which point they enter into combat.

Weather Girl summons a tornado (ST 300 winds!) and bounces Valkyrie around inside of it…but it doesn’t work because her battlesuit is made of orichalcum which begins to absorb all the kinetic energy the bouncing is producing. Valkyrie comes up with a quick plan to continue occupying Weather Girl (since she can’t be hurt) and to absorb the energy so it can be channeled.

Valkyrie instructs Warlock to get Silkworm to safety and he uses his powers to teleport her in a series of portals until she reaches terminal velocity and is stuck in a loop and sick. He then opens portals around Valkyrie as the orichalcum armor overloads and instead of a radial explosion he concentrates the fire from other portals onto the card soldiers absolutely decimating their ranks. The PCs decide to remember this trick later.

Dr. Mnemonic realizes the Red Queen is controlling the others and whips up a gizmo (a natural 3) bullet that allows him to negate 150 points of DR, Injury Tolerance (Damage Reduction /1000), and a bunch of other protective traits via an affliction. He asks to shift the damage from the bullet as a follow-up to the affliction which I allow as it seems like a feature. He critically succeeds his roll to hit her in the eye using one of his “taser” bullets and the Red Queen drops.

The Card Soldiers are confused for a minute and after the mind control effects go away Weather Girl expands her tornado and just sweeps the cards up in it. Silkworm comes back to herself and shakes off the effect of the constant ‘portation. The PCs have found two of the members of Hatter’s team and now goes to look for Hatter himself.

After Action Report/Rules Notes
The PCs blew through the plot I’d prepared stupidly fast (about 16 hours of material in 4 hours) with a bunch of good rolls, some quick thinking, and good tactics. I didn’t plan on half the PCs to be mind-controlled, but the players went along with it and produced genuinely difficult combat for their friends. The turning the explosive overload trick into a combo using three supers was nothing short of brilliant. The players intend to use that against any tough supers in the future even though it takes about 2-3 seconds to “charge up”.

I wasn’t happy with how physically tired I was. I’d been up the night before because I was so happy about getting close to the plot for Aeon. It feels good to be so close and hopefully I’ll be able to finish it up between May and October (I’m guessing around June or July myself, but we’ll see) so I can start another campaign. I also think that the multi-interlinked campaigns is working and I’m likely going to do it again.