Dramatis Personae

• Chad “The Chad” H. Ramirez (NPC): Demigod of Cupid. Surferbro. Good guy. Not really a great combatant. Guess he’ll die. Tagline: “Whoa.”
• Cosmos aka The Management (Adelphin’s Ally): Cat and hotel manager. No, really. He’s got keys to everywhere, but is still a cat. Tagline: *Forgets to cat*.
• Rui Qui (Adelphin’s Ally): Theogenic Demigod. Hacker, magician, and entrepreneur. The team’s backup fighter and sneaker. Tagline: “Reality is just another simulation to be hacked.”
• Siv (NPC): Demigod of unknown parentage. Not a big talker. Doesn’t understand modern-day and was obviously raised in another dimension. Tagline: “. . .”

Previously . . .

There was a week-long break that the group had taken since the rescue of Maki. Yannis had absorbed the domain of Retribution from his demigod opponent who was the son of Nemesis, while Adelphin absorbed the domain of Victory from the son of Nike. It’s been fairly quiet from the Olympians and their Spartan group. They probably know some of it, but not all of it as attempts to scry on Adelphin results in her forwarding the scrying to Zeus. Mitzidu, Liam, Suveer, The Chad, and Rui spend time training in the meantime.

Spartans and Gold

Adelphin Jean-Baptiste, Liam O’Shea, Mitzidu Ito, Suveer Patel, & Yannis Papadopoulos
Karnival Resort Hotel and Casino
Sunday January 22nd, 2012, 1200 hours
3500 Paradise Rd, Las Vegas, NV 89169

Mitzidu took some time to set up multiple shell companies that are now all directed towards setting up a multimedia company in an attempt to humiliate Poseidon and turn on the Greco-Roman gods in general via movies and little shorts released online. Adelphin took time to work with Rui and studied the blade. The current situation involves interrogating the last remaining Spartan from the kidnapping attempt and Auriol Chambliss is currently awake, and not dead, the curse having worn off.

Lynch goes into deal with the interrogation of the Spartan, enhancing his formidable skill with aetheric powers and Rui’s aid. They send Suveer out for some food while they break some kneecaps. It takes about two hours before the Spartan breaks. Mitzidu starts with asking the questions, asking why they took Maki. They took her so that they can kill her and then kill Mitzidu when they came in. Rui uses his powers to rip the Spartan’s mind from him, downloading the man’s entire life into a section of his head with the aid of Adelphin and Mitzidu. Sifting through information, Rui uploads the information to a nearby laptop, giving them the highlights.

The Spartans are far more numerous than previously thought with training camps all over the world. They’re amping up their breeding program as well as though they’re preparing for war. They only have the location of the single camp that the POW came from. As Rui is sorting through the information, he’s not too pleased with some of the memories that he’s come across. As far as he can tell, they’re soldiers/cultists for the Greek pantheon, genetically bred and fanatically loyal to the pantheon. They were tasked with targeting the kitsune to draw in the Jap since Mitzidu allied with the wrong person, Adelphin. They’re trying to cripple her power base by taking out her allies and they know a surprisingly large amount by Mitzidu. He was paying a good amount of attention to the briefing so they know that he has a Red Order on him, any Olympian worshipper is to try to kill him if given a chance.

They don’t have any actual information on The Chad and Liam wants to know why the guy kept shooting at Liam. The reason why he kept getting shot over and over was because the Spartan psychopath was scared, the Spartan kept shooting at Liam trying to get a headshot but his training kept strong and going for center mass. Liam isn’t seen as a major threat, though they’ve also got Red Orders on Suveer, Adelphin, Yannis, Lynch, Rui, and several other allied demigods. Liam seems to be the only one not on their radar as dangerous at the moment. They’ve also been told that if they come across any of Adelphin’s worshippers, to kill them. Of course there’s already been a covert war between the two for ages.

Mitzidu isn’t just collateral damage in the war, he’s being targeted for being a long living demigod that’s now active in the game. Another one that’s being targeted that Mitzidu knows is Michelle J. Lilly, the daughter of Flora who was removed from the Greek Pantheon’s protection about two hundred years ago. Mitzidu makes plans to contact her as soon as possible, though since she’s been kicked out then she probably already knows that she’s being targeted for removal. She’s got a small flower shop in Vegas, a hot house on the roof, grows her own stuff. Mitzidu gets Michelle’s staff on the phone instead, and asks for Michelle to call back at the earliest convenience.

With their use for the Spartan waning, Liam asks Rui if he can snap the Spartan’s neck now but is rebuffed that he’s not allowed until Adelphin gives the say so. They might be able to patch up the living, but they can’t cure death. Creeped out by the talk about feeding the Spartan to the hotel, Liam leaves the hotel heading for Mitzidu’s home while Mitzidu waits for a phone call back.\

And Then Some Guys In a Van Shot Me

Liam O’Shea
Mitzidu’s Residence
Sunday January 22nd, 2012, 1500 hours
9511 Kings Gate Ct, Las Vegas, NV 89145

Liam goes to known place that has a kill order there, he’s got keys to said house, he has no danger sense. He walks into a situation where he can smell blood, and immediately pulls out his shield and sword from his stash.

He can hear the shuffling of feet down the hallway, just plain movement. He’s about three yards from the front door, about ready to head for his temporary bedroom when he smelled the blood. He sneaks back through the front door and into nearby foliage. He can definitely hear the footsteps coming closer as he speed dials Mitzidu but is spotted by those around. A man in a van opens fire, barely missing Liam.

Mitzidu gets a phone call. From Michelle, who’s quite happy to hear from him and catches up a bit. He tries to warn her about the fact that she’s got a Red Order to kill on sight, which she’s aware of. He also fills her in on the recent events and gives her an update on what is happening and that they’re in force in town. She’d wanted to call Mitzidu anyhow as she’s getting married to her girlfriend and wanted him to come. . . and possibly cater the affair. They ask for Scandinavian food as her fiancée is from that pantheon, the daughter of the goddess of spring. That friendship is important, especially in these dark, dark times and asking about making specially made sweets for her spouse. The wedding is being planned for spring, since the mother-in-law may be around. They joke around for a while before Mitzidu’s phone battery starts chiming that it’s dying. Before it finally dies, he sees that there’s a phone call coming from Liam.

Liam is surrounded, men coming from the house, men coming from the street in a van. Seizing the chance, he jumps through a nearby window into the house, shield first with bullets coming in behind him. Surrounded, Liam jacks up his strength in preparation for a fight. He charges through the doorway as the men dodge away before firing at Liam’s vitals, hitting several times and severely injuring Liam. Desperate, he steps back into the office as he casts a spell to open a gate to another Plane with more bullets coming for him. He slips on some of his own blood, but barely manages to get out of the way by exerting himself. The gate opens like a tear in reality as the Spartans close in, Liam escapes through it barely alive and decides to rest for a while.

Pork Buns and Noodles

Adelphin Jean-Baptiste, Mitzidu Ito, Suveer Patel, & Yannis Papadopoulos
Mitzidu’s Residence
Sunday January 22nd, 2012, 1600 hours
9511 Kings Gate Ct, Las Vegas, NV 89145

Suveer decided to grab some food from a food truck called Hot Buns which sells delicious noodles and pork buns, ordering out their entire truck of food. He orders enough that they just drive him back to the hotel with Suveer in the front seat. The chef/driver helps Suveer haul the food inside and overcharges Adelphin’s credit card in the process with a bit of a gratuity or travel charge. Mitzidu appreciates the pork buns after a bit of skepticism, it’s strangely delicious and seems like they should be cooking somewhere important.

Adelphin moves to talk to Auriol who is still in bed and pulls along Yannis, Rui, and Mitzidu along. Auriol seems quite haggard, having lost 30lbs over the past week, though she isn’t happy with the fact that Poseidon got her daughter. Apparently Poseidon had a fling with her, but took it hard when she broke up with him and ended up raping her repeatedly. Her job was to take the package from a courier and give it to Poseidon and she’d be left alone with her daughter but it seems to have gone sideways. She claims to have stashed the object somewhere. When pressed, she reveals that it was a sword of Cronus, one of three pieces of a weapon that can kill gods. Poseidon already has a piece, she had a piece, and the third piece was lost in Tartarus. Every time it was used, it was reforged by Haephestus. Poseidon found his piece in the Marianas Trench, one piece was in a monastery in Europe which was transported to Yannis and then to Auriol.

She didn’t trust Poseidon though, as he seems to have gone mad over the years. Yannis is unable to determine where she stashed the blade since he didn’t see it with his powers previously, it definitely wasn’t in the room when he searched it. She offers the piece she has in case they can get the third piece. Tartatus is closed to almost everyone but Hermes and Hades, but Suveer says that he might have an in on the general location of where one of the pieces is, that Anubis gave him a business card and that Lynch is the son of Hermes and therefore possible. Mitzidu, on his side, wants to hold a conference call with Hades.

Aftermath

They’ve got three choices now: finding Auriol’s child Cora who has a magical tattoo on the child’s left foot, going to Tartarus, or a third option. Most everyone seems to want to find the girl.

After Action Report (GM)

Today’s game was ok. I got to do some exposition from NPCs for the players (avoiding PC exposition is one of the thing I try to do) that was (I hope) useful to the player and their character. I nearly killed Liam who decided to head to Mitzidu’s place after they learned of the Red Listing the Spartans did on everyone but him. He got away, but he was sitting at -3xHP by the end of it. Modern guns + vitals shots + high skill for the win I suppose. Liam survived but only by portaling away. I got to introduce Michelle Lilly, a demigod whose mother is Chloris/Flora and while she is very mild and happy…she can be hell to deal with if you try to hurt those who she loves. Think DC’s Poison Ivy but sweeter and a little naïve. She will become important as the campaign progresses. Problems with player cohesiveness continue in some ways and it really frustrates me. I’ve talked to the players and I think we are more on the same page now. I just wish we could have started there. I’m not going to blame people because this is clearly my fault in that I didn’t recognize what was going on fast enough. Bad GM. Hopefully the next game is better.

Other Notes

Bonus report here.

Soundtrack

“Eye in the Sky” by The Alan Parson’s Project
“Bodies” by Drowning Pool
“Groovy Kind of Love” by Phil Collins
“Live to Tell” by Madonna