Dramatis Personae

• 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.”

Previously . . .

The group had successfully survived the first wave of danger to them as divine beings and managed to capture a lot of information from the people that had kidnapped them along with some valuable poisons. Ekaterini sends information about Mr. Black to the local underground, seeing if there’s someone there that will be able to identify him and anything else they might be able to share, but unfortunately they don’t have anything on him but will let her know when or if they get information. The Las Vegas Whales, the high roller society, hasn’t heard of him either.

The Thule Society’s documents aren’t exactly handwritten, but they did use a typewriter which could be a manual enough use for Callum to use his psychometry powers on. He gets an image of a room filled with several dozen people writing up reports on typewriters with carbon paper, not a computer in sight, the annoying hum of an IBM Selectric II typewriters and the scent of dust. They check for German American societies in the area, finding at least one, along with a typewriter repair shop.

A Southern Gentleman

Ekaterini “Kate” Tsakalidis and Tercallus
Southwest Modular Inc.
Saturday January 14th, 2012, 1000 hours
4460 Arville St. Las Vegas, NV 89103

Ekaterini decides on shapeshifting into the form of a studious looking person with a notebook heading for a typewriter repair shop, using a cover of doctoral student looking for a famous author with Callum tagging along so she’s not alone.

Ekaterini and Callum head towards a typewriter repair place to get information from people, with Ekaterini playing a young, 20-year-old ingenue with a southern accent and Callum playing a Klube driver. Trying to get information about an internet literature where she gets looked up and down with a bit of lecherous look. He manages to remember that Mr. Black had come around about six months back to get work done on a typewriter. A bit more flirting between them, and she gets a business card with the black sun logo on it along with the repairman’s business card. It’s for a society, getting a contact number.

Handing over the card, Callum gets a psychometric vision, shared with Ekaterini, where they get a full-on vision of Mr. Black sitting in the back of a BMW. He’s twirling the business card between his fingers. Inside is also a severe blonde woman that looks like she stepped out of a Nazi war film. They hear a conversation between them, asking if it’s a good idea, but the Olympians would want what they’ve got and that they can’t believe that it’s the only place where they repair typewriters. Mr. Black’s voice is cold and callous that can be easily felt across the space and time of the vision, like he doesn’t regard other beings as human. She gives her boss a disapproving look, but doesn’t say anything else. Outside the vision, Ekaterini sketches out a drawing of the lady next to Mr. Black, not great but good enough. Her name is Nadine Schultheiss, which he sends out to his contact groups.

Digging in the Dirt

Theroikon and Winfred Timotheos
The Venetian Resort Las Vegas Chairman Suite
Saturday January 14th, 2012, 1100 hours
3355 S Las Vegas Blvd, Las Vegas, NV 89109

Theroikon heads towards the Bluebird Society, taking care to look around the area and get accustomed to it, seeing if there’s anything wrong with the local ecology of Las Vegas, spending a few hours looking over the surrounding areas of their penthouse. It’s fairly well patrolled by the police and the security isn’t that bad either. There’s plenty of freegan vegans that show up and dig through the dumpsters at the back of the resort who Theroikon gets to know a bit, but the freegans are a bit grossed out by Theroikon’s rat form and they suggest that they don’t eat from those dumpsters anymore. Instead Thero moves to speak with another rat under the dumpster who doesn’t really enjoy the freegans. Thero also investigates the sewer systems, finding the tunnels down below the Resort they’re staying at, with lots of homeless mole people staying down there.

Winfred takes the time to speak with their other two captives, the first one being Shira Salazar and the other one is named Pat Patterson. Shira’s life history is laid bare before Winfred’s empathic gaze, a man doing wrong things but not for the wrong reasons with children but does not feel like a bad man. Pat is a carpenter who enjoys busting heads on the weekend. Winfred separates them and starts working with Salazar, getting information from them. Kevin and Casey tell them they met at a Dennys where they met a guy and got paid up front to drive vans. They tell them that there were a half dozen people kidnapped that night, two of which disappeared into a pool of blood and the only person that knows where they went is the rat faced German that had gotten murdered by the group. He works friendship magic with Salazar, slowly converting him to his side.

Bluebirds on Your Shoulder

Theroikon
Mothership Coffee Roasters
Saturday January 14th, 2012, 1200 hours
1028 E Fremont St, Las Vegas, NV 89101

While they’ve got time, Theroikon goes to visit the Bluebird Society, taking the opportunity to swap to human form and brought to a coffee shop. The people, a woman and a man, are easily identifiable by their Bluebird pins. Thero is introduced by saying that Maddie says hello and they introduce themselves as Linda Grant and John Stacy, a bit of a small White Lodge. Linda is a middle school principal, she really doesn’t screw around, and gets straight to the point that they seem like they need information and she’ll give them what she can.

The Thule Society has been operating quietly in town for the better part of a year, but the Bluebirds hasn’t done anything since the Thule hasn’t done anything, but about two weeks ago a demigod of their association disappeared and when anything was located it was in a pool of blood. When informed of the other two that disappeared yesterday, they aren’t happy with those disappearance either since they’re on good terms with most demigods. And since the call has gone out, it’s unlikely that the Thule Society will lay low much longer.

Thero tries to play things off, saying that there’s a rumor that the Thule Society has Hinds blood, try to put someone else in the hot seat. Large issue is that folks now are bunching up, so getting anyone to remotely cooperate with each other is near impossible. Before the Harrowing is almost as bad as during the Harrowing. The Compact is off before the Harrowing, and with a Great Harrowing it’s going to be worse. They can help try to hide Thero, but they won’t get involved with the fight itself. They only know the person that they’re looking for goes by many monikers, but currently it’s as Mr. Black. Thero informs Linda and John that they’d been kidnapped and barely managed to escape, and is informed that Mr. Black’s real name is Matthias Teufelhausen and they should be careful who they say it to, or even just saying it out loud in general, he’s got a name trace on it, and anyone that says it can hear it. Thero thanks the two for being so trusting as to give the name. In return, they suggest that Thero owes them a favour which is agreed and thanks for the meeting. Thero returns to the alley and turns into a hawk, heading back towards the resort.

Do Illegal Things Illegally

Ekaterini “Kate” Tsakalidis, Tercallus, Theroikon, and Winfred Timotheos
The Venetian Resort Las Vegas Chairman Suite
Saturday January 14th, 2012, 1400 hours
3355 S Las Vegas Blvd, Las Vegas, NV 89109

Coming back to the hotel, they find Winfred leading a karaoke session with Kevin, Casey, and Shira, each of them singing horribly off tune. When done, Theroikon asks Winfred how hard it is for a mortal practitioner of magic to detect a demigod on sight, to get information, it’s easier to detect when they use an ability. The bigger question would be if the Thule Society took blood while they had them kidnapped. Also, if they could back trace someone that was using a name trace spell which is potentially possible but would still alert them. They try to think if they could get some anti-scrying charms to wear instead, but it’s possible for them to be pretty expensive, at least in the mid-5 digits, and they’d need someone to do them for spec right then and there.

In the meantime, Julie had been continuing from the previous night, getting information from the documents and organizing them. Getting equipment delivered with Winfred and his new friends hauling it up. She sets up a satellite dish and runs in several cables. Callum asks about it, saying that it’s for working satcoms and getting internet from anywhere on the planet. She explains they’re going to be doing something illegal and that it’s best not to use legal lines for illegal things.

Running information, they find the address on Mr. Black’s business card is just for an office space. They try to discuss how to reconnoiter the office space and Theroikon suggests going in as a cockroach, but it may just be too easy to identify with a spell. Cal’s suggestion of sending Casey in was nixed as he was a thug-lite person that didn’t have any official connection to the Thule Society. There’s also a suggestion that Ekaterini disguises herself as Nadine to get entry. Before that, they have three dead bodies to get rid of. Ekaterini takes the lead by carving the bodies into chunks and then Callum ages the bodies into dust which they store in the 50-gallon tote.

There’s plenty of questioning as to who and what they want to send in to get information from the office building that the Thule Societies has been inhabiting.

An Eminence Front

Ekaterini “Kate” Tsakalidis, Tercallus, and Theroikon
The Venetian Resort Las Vegas Chairman Suite
Saturday January 14th, 2012, 1400 hours
3355 S Las Vegas Blvd, Las Vegas, NV 89109

They decide that perhaps the best way to work it is to perform a stakeout on the building by taking the van that Julie rented and parking it across the street to see who is coming in and out of the building. Callum hides his identity by changing his age and growing out his hair while Ekaterini mocks up a realistic looking package and summons up a uniform before shifting into a middle-aged UPS delivery person. Theroikon, meanwhile, is sniffing around the base of the building to see if there’s any place for them to get into via animal shapeshifting, it’s a fairly old building so it’s not exactly cockroach tight.

They case the location, staring around for information. There are two kinds of people that show up, the button-down with three-piece suits and then there’s the Aryan Nation with skin heads and flannels and tattoos. There’s almost 70+ people working in the building, not counting the guards who are also plentiful and armed with Uzis under their coats, alert and with proper rotations and encrypted headsets. Worst part is that police occasionally come by, speak with the security guards, and then disappear again. Thero slips inside and into the drop ceiling, investigating the basic layout. There’s around 5 floors, but not all the floors have been occupied.

One floor has been completely occupied by people in suits on typewriters, not a computer in sight. Half of the room is full of analysts with maps and cork boards and one section of room is covered with boxes of files. Their electronic devices are taken at the front desk and put into a faraday cage. Another floor has been taken over by the Aryan Brotherhood for training with small chill areas. A third has been taken over by Thule sorcerers, there seems to be a good dozen of them there, going through books and making patterns on the floor. Getting into position, Theroikon manages to determine that they’re writing dossiers from their available files. Moving on, Thero looks for someplace with hierarchies, finding a desk that’s been walled off with expensive looking screens. They find a third in command named Frank Holtzmann currently in charge of the Thule while Mr. Black and Nadine are absent. Keith J. Bishop is the one currently in charge of the Aryans. Theroikon heads back to the van and gives their report.

Aftermath

Back at the hotel they speak with Winfred, Theroikon describing the ritual that was going on with it being a ritual for transferring power. Thero speaks enough about the ritual for Winfred to tell them that they’re dealing with some major league sorcerers here and not some weak normal folks.

They try to figure out where to deal with the Thule Society, but the fact that they’re in league with the police makes things harder to do anything direct. There’re questions about how to cause trouble between the Aryans and the Thule or between the Police and the Thule. There’s discussion of staking out the building for a full day to determine what is going on, getting more in-depth information about how when/if the police are coming around. They send information about the Thule Society’s location towards Mitzidu’s way and Mr. Black’s talk of the Olympians.

After Action Report (GM)

Another really good session with the C-Team. There was a lot of moves and countermoves going on through the three and half hours we played (I’m still working myself up to the four hours I find typical in most cases with online play). The PCs made a lot of really great rolls at just the right time to get them in a position where if they play their cards right they can be extremely effective despite their small numbers. And this is before people have really dug into the social sides of their characters. Winfred has the Social Networking modular ability which if he employs it could do all sorts of things – the big one on my mind is getting some folks on the LVPD to come to their side. They know the Thule have lots of social connections too – especially among the affluent and the police. Right now the players have a couple of options before them, but most of them are going to end the same way: they are going to kick over a hornet’s nest and things are going to start stinging them. I don’t think the PCs realize how big the Thule Society is – they are dealing with but a faction within the faction. (Even if it’s led by their current leader – the Thule operate as council of sorts with the first of their number leading them and that person can change according to what they have achieved for the group right then. This is a little chaotic, but that’s what you get when you get a group of egomaniacal left-hand path magicians in one room.) The Thule have set up shop in Vegas, but this is just a beachhead. They were were first because they are organized, have unlimited muscle in the form of various white supremacist groups (including the Aryan Nation), and have the right social connections. They won’t be the last. Hell, they aren’t the last of the Thule. When the Harrowing really starts to get cranking it’s possible the entire lodge might show up and cull even the strongest of the demigods. Regardless, it was a fun session with lots of groundwork. My one concern is Winfred who is kind of left at the side for some things. Covert stuff is one of the things he’s not great at. The character is flashy and that just didn’t suit the tone of today’s session. Doesn’t mean I was particularly thrilled with leaving a PC out of the mix. Next session will need more social work for Winfred to do – even if it’s on his own. Everyone deserves spotlight time.

Other Notes

The following information was shared between teams:

Delphín gets a text message from Ekaterini Tsakalidis: “Thought you should know: we just found out that ‘Mr. Black,’ the leader of the Thule Society, is working with / claims some influence over the Olympians. We psychometrized a business card and ‘overheard’ a conversation he had with his assistant / secretary Nadine Schultheiss. This seems of general interest / importance to the local community.” What follows is a map pin for the local Thule headquarters: “Multi-story office building with separate floors for analysts documenting local targets, Aryan Nation thugs, and sorcerers busy harvesting power from livestock. Local police seem well-integrated as contacts / sources.”

Mitzidu Ito gets an Email from Tercallus: “Mitzidu, I’m emailing to let you know we staked out an office building the Thule Society is using on the Strip, specifically the building at 410 South Rampart, Las Vegas, NV 89145, which I believe is near your place. It looks like they have about a hundred people working there daily, including 12 high caliber sorcerers that used a pretty powerful ritual to sacrifice a goat. The Vegas police stopped by a few times throughout the day and seemed to be pretty friendly with the uzi-armed guys guarding the place too. We’re not sure what to do about this yet, but be advised, these guys seem to mean business.”

Soundtrack

“You’re My Best Friend” by Queen (Opening Song)
“Nature Boy” by Nat King Cole
“When Things Explode” by UNKLE
“Eminence Front” by The Who (Closing Song)