Dramatis Personae

• Jamie J. Billings (NPC): Nonverbal. Mathematics savant. Communicates via a PDA. Shy. Tagline: “I Can Show You The Math.”
• Lynne C. Duane (NPC): Holder of Bachler’s degree in neurobiology Daughter of a famed neurosurgeon. Athletically gifted. Arrogant and overconfident. Tagline: “Of course I’m right. I’m smarter than you.”
• Tabitha E. “Tabbs” de Orellana (NPC): Latina from the Bronx. Aptitudes for mechanical engineering, chemistry, and materials science. Speaks her mind. Bossy and cocky, but not arrogant. Tagline: “No me respondas.”
• Warren P. Clark (NPC): Computer and electronics nerd. Very tall for his age (almost 6′) and big. Tagline: “Oh. What does this button do?”

Previously . . .

The group find themselves in the middle of a collapsed cavern that their cabin was exploring, having been exploring a crack into an old military bunker during their nature walk from the camp. The major players being Benjamin Bailey, a geology enthusiast, Fiona Egan, a Olympic level swimmer, Harvey Clarke, a biologist genius, and Harlowe Hobbs, a chess grandmaster while their cabinmates are Jamie Billings, Lynn Duane, Tabitha de Orellana, and Warren Clark while their camp counsellor Steven. Tabitha is trapped by some of the rocks during the cave in while Steven has been knocked out with a head wound while strange, unnatural light in impossible imaginary colours.

Down in the Underground

Benjamin, Fiona, Harlowe, and Harvey
Cave Underneath a Casemate
Saturday June 17th, 2000, 1130 hours
2000 Montauk Highway, Montauk, NY 11954

Benjamin investigates the walls in case of further cave-ins, noticing the strangely smooth texture of the wall with various layers and minerals, it doesn’t look like something that should be possible in the modern era with the tools available to them. They’re in the middle of a cavern shaped like a torus, in the valley.

Harvey diagnoses Tabitha and Steve with the help of Harlowe, determining that Tabitha just has some scrapes while her leg is trapped under a boulder while Steve has several visibly broken bones, possibly a concussion, and none of them have a first aid kit while Jamie is rather non-verbally nervous.

Benjamin focuses on investigating the hole they fell through while Warren tried, and failed, to move the boulder off of Tabitha. Fiona suggests that they may need to investigate the lights or further into the cavern to find something they need to help. Fiona and Lynne attempts to climb into the center but both fall onto their butts, Fiona quite spectacularly. Benjamin goes around the torus to investigate quickly after notifying the others. In the light, he’s able to notice that there’s small animals in there, with all of them dead. Rats, squirrels, birds and all the same sort dead on the ground. Benjamin can’t detect anything too unusual in the air and investigates one of the birds, a raven, lifting it up and it seems to come back to life and struggles for a moment. He comes back to the rest of the group with one of the dead animals and the raven, informing them of what he’s seen.

Harvey investigates the birds that Benjamin brought back while Warren stares up the ceiling mentioning that there’s a piece of rebar up there. The first thing that Harvey can tell is that the bird is affected by something metabolic in nature, its heart is beating rapidly and having trouble breathing. The other animal, he cannot determine what happened to it as there’s no physical trauma that occurred to it, just that it must have gotten in and died.

Fiona stares at the bit of rebar to determine how useful it would be for them, Fiona is pretty sure that it’s loose enough that if they can get someone up there it could get pulled loose and used as a lever to free Tabitha. They suggest that Lynne and Warren work together to get it loose while Harlowe, seeing what they’re planning and knowing that they’re in a 1930s military bunker that hasn’t been maintained in decades and on the coastline while having just suffered a seismic shock, steps back from them. Jamie, meanwhile does some mathematics and points out the best place to stand to try to get it. Their first attempt results in Lynne missing and having to be caught by Benjamin and Fiona. Benjamin attempts it next and climbs onto Warren’s shoulders to try to make sure to help the others. He manages to catch hold of the rebar and it slides out of the concrete, getting the wind knocked out of Benjamin, Fiona, and Lynne while a piece of loose concrete drops straight onto Harlowe’s head prompting him to say that he warned them.

Benjamin sets up the rebar as a fulcrum where Warren uses it to shift the boulder and the others push with their strength getting the boulder off of Tabitha, her leg is alright with a few bloody cuts. Benjamin keeps being concerned about getting out and getting help while Harlowe has to point out that they’re in an abandoned bunker where the easy entrances of the bunker were concreted over before being sealed and they’d gotten through a crack in the wall making it hard, so they head around the cavern to search for other entrances.

On the opposite side, Benjamin, Lynne, and Fiona they find perfectly spherical stones which Benjamin can’t identify what sort of stone it’s made from, perhaps a completely new mineral. Benjamin pockets a few of the smaller ones in case he can write something later while Fiona takes one and slams it onto the ground, causing a spark of strange earthquake light, neither the orb or the cavern cracking. The group heads onwards.

Harlowe, Harvey, and Tabitha walk around the other side, noticing that there’s indentations on the side of the central pillar, strangely perfect for climbing. Harvey calls out to the others that they found some indentations. Fiona comes around, kicking one of the stones, calling for them to check out the cool rock that she’s found. Harvey suggests climbing upwards which Benjamin says that only one other persons should investigate which Fiona immediately jumps for while the two climb up the wall with Tabitha following them.

They see a rock in the exact center of the nearly perfectly circular pillar that looks simultaneous solid, gaseous, and liquid which is giving off plasma discharges with the weird lights that’s almost hypnotic to look at. It’s almost two or three feet in diameter. Tabitha is very confused by things while Benjamin shouts out that there’s a weird floating thing there. Fiona pokes it with the back end of her flashlight causing an explosion of energy to flood the cavern knocking out almost everyone but Harlowe, Harvey, Fiona, and the Raven are knocked out but they’re incapacitated by the pain as the energy hits them and then a second pulse before everyone passes out.

Aftermath

When they wake back up, everyone is back at the camp, having been found since Counselor Steve had a GPS on him where they headed to where they last had contact before it was fried.

After Action Report (GM)

Starting back up my supers campaign has been a lot of work – and a lot of fun. There have been three different C-Teams in AEON. The first was a group of black ops/spies working for AEGIS – the Advanced Emergency Global Interdiction Service. The second group technically worked for them as well, but they ended up transported in the Dark Future. The third group – this one – is a kind of zero to hero, incipient superhero style game where the players start off as kids who get powers and over the course of several sessions learn how to use them and maybe use them for good. We’ll see. I was most pleased with the players who came up with good ideas to start and then I helped expand on those. Jenn is sitting this one out for now (her life is very hectic) and we’ll miss her lots, but the show must go on.

I enjoyed the start of this one. The players had very well-defined, very specific ideas about their characters and it showed while we were roleplaying. I especially liked Fiona’s interaction with Lynn and Benjamin flailing around the cave (it was his natural habitat after all). The PCs worked together fairly well (better than expected) and used their abilities and skills (such as they are) to great effect. Overall, a good session and one I’m happy with.

Other Notes

The session itself was shorter than I would have liked but one of the players (Will) had a freaking tornado watch pop up in his area so we stopped after about 3 hours.

Soundtrack

“You’re Only Human (Second Wind)” by Billy Joel
“Stuck” by Norah Jones
“Summer Place” by Andy Williams