Dramatis Personae

• Arnold Zahn (NPC): Son of Ares. Has a deathwish. Drunk. Tagline: “How about that drink?”
• Julie Wilms aka The Assistant (Winfred’s Ally): Human, probably. Former covert agent turned convert. Now spends her time assisting, guarding, and herding Winfred. Tagline: “Time to go, Sir.”
• Sarah J. Pokorny (NPC): Daughter of Thoth. Magician. Capable as hell. Tagline: “I may be in a wheelchair but I’ll kick your ass.”

Previously . . .

It’s been six month hence and the group has been slowly working on their Baby Turtle Initiative, otherwise known as BTI. They’ve garnered several more recruits to their cause though still low. The Crimson Tongue and The Bluebird Society are still nominal allies, with Jessica becoming liaison between all three groups. Winfred directed funds from his foundation towards Leslie to fund the BTI with Pokey and Jessica getting everyone minor relics in the form of phones that are working on a secure network with a bunch of other various security options.

Getting Physical

Ekaterini Tsakalidis, Tercallus, Theroikon, and Winfred Timotheos
Regency Towers
Tuesday July 24th, 2012, 0500 hours
3111 Bel Air Dr, Las Vegas, NV 89109

It’s 5 in the morning and Ekaterini is working out with Julie and Callum to the dulcet tones of Olivia Newton John. Theroikon is doing his general neighborhood patrol. Winfred gets knocked out a deep sleep from another reoccurring nightmare and decides to just deal with the morning duties and e-mails for his Foundation. The blaring music coming from downstairs still bothers him so he stumbles downstairs past the workout area, glaring at the people working out before heading for the kitchen only to find a blender sitting on the counter filled with something horribly green that smells like algae and a series of strange post-it notes telling him to drink it, not to eat cereal, not to add ice cream to the mixture either. Figuring it’s no longer salvageable, Winfred dumps the entire blender into the garbage and takes one of the post-it notes, writing “buy new blender” on it and sticking it on the fridge.

By now, Theroikon has come back from his patrol. The cloud of miasma is still hanging over the city, slowly, very slowly getting better but the streets are still tense. There’s more violence in the city, animals moving strangely. There’re not necessarily more deaths, mostly just violence. He’s been working with folks around him for ecological impact and how to improve things.

Julie has come downstairs from working the other two demigods and comments on Winfred tossing out the entire blender. Her and Ekaterini clean up and change clothes, Julie gets her normal outfit of jeans, shirt, and combat boots before cooking some truly fancy cooking with macadamia pancakes, gruyere cheese omelets, chipolata sausage, and bacon. She refuses to let Winfred have ketchup for the omelets and they have an argument about his diet, finally finishing with getting some jam from the fridge and slapping it between the pancakes, sticking the omelet and bacon between it, and tucking in with a fork and knife while the rest enjoy the high-class ingredients and maple syrup flown in from Canada.

Zahn is drinking and Pokie has been sitting at a table reading books on magical theories, neither look like they’ve had sleep. It’s either too early in the morning or too late at night to bother Zahn so he goes to see what Pokie is working on, she quickly turns the books she’s working on upside down trying to hide what she’s doing. After some questioning, it’s determined that she’s working on a protection spell and all the books she’s got supports that, but it’s too early in the process to say anything specific, maybe she’d show it to him once it’s further along.

Ekaterini gets news that someone attacked one of the folks at the laundry, but was quickly subdued by employees. She does employ several hardened folks or former convicts, the assailant is now in the hospital, and in custody. As far as they’re able to tell, it was just a wigged-out guy that attacked over laundry. They do get someone downstairs that wants to speak with whomever is in charge of BTI. When they head downstairs, the man, Alexander Greenfield, rather incompetently attacks Winfred claiming that Winfred killed his brother. Theroikon moves to subdue him, but he already subdued himself, collapsing on the floor sobbing. Winfred sees nothing wrong with being attacked and suggest that they go upstairs. While they’re getting him settled, Ekaterini finds a file in their Thule documents about an Alexander and Mark Greenfield, about seven months ago both brothers were fine. They’re also the sons of Sol and Njord, cross-pantheon godlings. He basically clings to Winfred, crying his eyes out until he can’t cry any more. Winfred assesses the situation, determines that Alex is having a mental breakdown. Winfred comforts him, leading him out to the balcony for some fresh air and then shoves him into the pool which is still cool from overnight to break him out of the cycle.

Once in some fresh clothes and a bit more put together, Alex tells them of a branch of the UFC that’s been pitting demigods against each other for entertainment, after ten wins they’d be brought to a sanctuary to protect them against the Harrowing. During his ninth bout, he got beheaded by his opponent. Mark had a particularly special deal, fighting against multiple opponents during one of the bouts and he’d be allowed to take Alex with him. Supposedly there’s been multiple winners of the ten bouts, but folks haven’t seen them since they got whisked away to the sanctuary. He thought it may have been Winfred and company that would have been responsible for what’s going on, but looking around it’s rather unlikely anymore.

He says that he could probably take them there, but they’d have to talk to one of the organizers that decide if they can fight or not but Alex isn’t sure what they base the decision on. It’s pretty obvious that they’re pitching it as being completely fair and easy, they only need to win against ten people to get to a sanctuary. Ekaterini and Cal plot to get some tickets to the place to figure out what exactly is happening. Cal gets his friend, Jay Fernandez, to help him out, he’s a spellcaster that focuses on tychomancy but is also filthy rich. He’s more than happy to get them tickets, talking about demigods fighting chimera and dragons and whatnot. He’s made so much money in the past two months.

Getting Bloody

Ekaterini Tsakalidis, Tercallus, Theroikon, and Winfred Timotheos
The Sanctuary of Warriors
Tuesday July 24th, 2012,1800 hours
4050 W Sunset Rd, Las Vegas, NV 89118

Apparently everyone wants to head out there, so Jay sends a hummer limo for them to pile in along with Zahn and Pokie. Julie insisting that everyone dresses up properly so even she and Pokie are wearing gowns. They end up at a building on the outside of town where they’ve hollowed out a basement area, a hollowed out fighting pit as done with earth magic. The walls are far too smooth to have been tooled and the sheer depth is rather odd. It’s not so much a cage as it is a pit with strange indentations on the walls and floor surrounded with balcony lofts and observation places, there’s large amounts of tech wired up and from the scent there’s probably a kitchen somewhere. They’re told that occasionally there’s obstacles like wall spikes or half-flooded. It’s some time before the fights actually happen, give the atmosphere some time to ferment and the bloodlust to spread. From their seats in the balcony, they spot Tyler, the leader of the Crimson Tongue, who comes over to speak with them.

He’s pretty surprised to see them there. Apparently he was one of the few that had gotten involved with in since the beginning. He’s not too thrilled with people being killed, but as long as they’re willing then that’s their choice. The Kindly Ones aren’t involved since they don’t allow for things like sanctuary and Tyler is surprised that they haven’t come down on them yet. Then again, he’s also surprised that the BTI haven’t been smashed either.  There’s not a lot of knowledge, especially with how they could get the monsters in that they do, there’s no set schedule, they normally have to come in and just see what they get. When they first started then they used to have 5-6 fights, some taking hours. Normally they’d send an alert the night before that there’d be a fight happening, nowadays it’s taking place around every three days or so.

Zahn is already enjoying the place since the food and drink is free.

Tyler hasn’t managed to get any blood from their arrangement, but he did get plenty of money for his lodge. He still doesn’t know who is running the matches, just that they’re known as The Chairman and he got an invitation about two months back and he always enjoyed a good bloodsport. The face of the fight is Jamie, she’s a bit disturbing and seems rather into the blood part, seems to really like to watch people die. They’d record the fights and release it on the dark web for PPV with plenty of folks paying for it. The currency spent is either normal money or aetheric coins who Tyler could give them a name to get some aetheric banking done up.

Julie isn’t too happy, the situation reminding her of Myanmar, while Thero also isn’t quite happy with the situation. Apparently there’s plenty of fights going around, the other night was a fight between two cockatrices, the audience being protected by a barrier between them and the pit. They get most of the food and alcohol out of the way before the fights begin. The lights dim and the arena brightens as an announcer wearing a slinky black sequined number that spindles down from the ceiling welcoming them to the entertainment. It’s a very special night apparently.

They’ve got a genuine son of Thor that night, that will be fighting the son of Anana, a Mesopotamian god. A quite rare occurrence and it’s asked how they might complicate it. Audience members cry out suggestions and the one finally accepted is snakes and the announcer snaps her fingers and venomous snakes appear in the pit. They seem to be quite upset at their situation and stay away from the middle of the ring. A chunk of wall opens on opposite sides of the pit and the two fighters enter in. Neither are identifiable and dressed in shorts. No weapons or anything but the man that is the son of Anana is heavily tattooed. Ekaterini tries to put hearts on the fighter’s shorts but nothing happens, except for a large amount of anonymous men move to the tables and talks to their host who covers and then tells them not to mess with the fight again unless they want to die.

It’s a brutal hour long fight between two experienced fighters, but in the end it’s the son of Thor that gets his head ripped off. The next few fights are shorter, but just as brutal as the announcer offers a small amount of colour commentary. There’s more than a little amount of betting going on. The son of Anana was in three consecutive fights before he stepped back on a gurney, he’s now on his ninth fight and needs to only win two more. There’s no monster fights, but there is one between two wizards that go all out. One is part of the Crimson Tongue so Tyler is cheering for him. Since there’s no Aethera on the line, but they still need the money and the Crimson Tongue fighter removes the blood from his opponent’s body and places it into a container.

The group bets on the various fights over the night, Cal coming out with a sweet three-quarters of a million while Ekaterini gets a couple hundred. Jay made another ten million from that night alone. Between fights, they do small shows and things like take all comers fights. Apparently the Crimson Tongue fighter, Mac, has been in the fights multiple times, and Cal is curious as to what will happen if they get ten wins. In this case, they’d win a thousand aetheric coins. Ekaterini manages to discern that the head of the Las Vegas syndicate, Calhoun, is there sipping some brown liquor. He’s completely mortal and one of the most dangerous men in the city. The Chairman, whomever they are, is running a very tight operation, they’ve got mortal and divine assets, plenty of support staff and back-end operators, high end magic, local mafia and even full deities watching the fights, including Ares watching the situation unfold. Cal elbows Zahn and asks what he thinks of things and the response is that there must be something they aren’t seeing.

Aftermath

Ares actually approaches their table and extends a hand to Zahn who shakes it reluctantly. Ares looks around the table where Thero cautiously nods. Ares comments that he heard that Winfred was a good man and extends his hand to Winfred, not having any reason not to take it Winfred shakes his hand, he bends over and whispers something into his ear before nodding again to the table and walking away. The rest of the night goes fairly smoothly and they head back to the Regency Towers.

After Action Report (GM)

Good opening session after a break. The players requested a more meaty plot than the previous few so I provided one. This thing has lots of layers and hopefully the PCs will be able to peel them back enough to get to the juicy center. There were some entertaining bits with the PCs interacting with each other about not much at all – something I enjoy in moderation. Getting the PCs to follow the plot I threw down as pretty easy and I left Windfred in an interesting situation at the end as Ares whispered in his ear: “There is more going on here then it appears and it could be dangerous if it is not looked into by someone willing to stop it. I cannot interfere at the moment and by the time I could it would probably be too late.” I know, I know. God of War and bloodshed wanting to stop bloodshed . . . but the current Ares is an interesting character and has now spanned both teams. He’s not like the original Ares whom he killed and is going to play an important role as things progress.

Other Notes

None.

Soundtrack

“Physical” by Olivia Newton John (Opening)
“Can’t Hold Us” by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis
“Slip Slidn’ Away” by Paul Simon (Closing song)