Dramatis Personae

• Allissa “Lisa” J. Zamarripa aka Dreamweaver (NPC): Annoyingly mysterious. Poet laureate. Sees the future Power: Dream Control. Tagline: “I had a dream about you.”
• Carol W. Pfeifer aka Burn (NPC): Pyrokinetic. Linguist. Very intense person. Power: Fire Control. Tagline: “I’ll show you how I burn.”
• Felicity E. “Flit” Chou (NPC): Talks to fast. Hopeless romantic. Musician. Loves to skateboard. Power: Teleportation. Tagline: “Here. There. Everywhere.”
• Lynne C. Duane (NPC): Holder of Bachler’s degree in neurobiology Daughter of a famed neurosurgeon. Athletically gifted. Withdrawn and not herself. Power: Telepathy. Tagline: “…”
• Raymond J. Parrish aka Raybeam (NPC): TBA. Power: Hyper-Intelligence and Technopathy. Tagline: “This is going to be great. Look what I made?!”
• 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. Powers: Hyper-Intelligence and Kyberic Energy Control. Tagline: “No me respondas.”
• Warren P. Clark (NPC): Computer and electronics nerd. Very tall for his age (over 6′) and big. Powers: Hyper-Strength and Technopathy. Tagline: “Oh. What does this button do?”

Previously . . .

Something that Harvey and JJ have learned during their working with Hardison is that they weren’t able to really adjust the size of the beam device to be smaller, instead it grew larger as they actually put some safety features into it to keep it from exploding. At the moment, it looks remarkably like Frankenstein technology. Sadly, as they have had to focus on building the device, that means that they need to ignore focus on the anti-psi technology and similar.

Several people, not having worked on, have spent time by Lynn’s bedside with Steve making excuses for the group for them to make things up later. Fiona is almost inseparable from her while Harlowe and Tabbs play some music using the harmonica and guitar.

It’s now several days later when Lynn is getting discharged, the day before Halloween with the anti-psi stuff is almost done, the process itself takes. Sunday, the day before Halloween, and Fiona is chatting up the nurses who find her annoying and weird. Lisa has been practicing to bring people into her dreamscape properly. Lisa claims that it’s working just fine while Warren says he woke up with Bell’s Palsy as his lip starts drooping a bit. They wonder if Lisa is really up to it, and try to imagine ways to help her. On the way out, Fiona decides to tells the nurses there to suck it.

So Many Wires

Benjamin, Fiona, Harlowe, Harvey, and JJ
Hardison’s Antiques
Sunday October 30th, 2005, 0900 hours
36 E 12th St # 1, New York, NY 10003

Back at Hardison’s basement, they’ve got her surrounded by the Franken-Light Show equipment. Hardison is already very confused by the number of children there as they set up. There’s a very large protection circle there along with the psychic separator that supposed to help sever the link. Another thing that Hardison has set up is what looks like a very weird video camera pointed directly at Lynn that’s feeding directly to a television. On the TV it shows a weird, multi-colour aura that’s shifting around with black splotches around the heart and the head which is a bit different from what Harvey generally sees with his goggles. Another thing they can see is a white-rope-like connecting Fiona and Lynn. Hardison claims that he got it off of a KGB agent from the 80s.

Harvey suggests that he and Warren take apart the camera later, only for Hardison to say flat out no. It runs off lots of things, including some that may be radioactive which causes JJ to wave a gizmo around the camera to detect what sort of radiation is coming off of the device, but it seems non-dangerous but unusual while Harlowe simply translates the fading Russian labels on the camera to say “Dangerous: Red Mercury.”. Harvey and JJ look over the camera and they’re fairly sure they can make it without the nuclear fissionables, but they’d need something of equal power output which’d likely be some measure of orichalcum.

Hardison returns, finally, saying that he had one of his friends come in and they need to give him at least an hour. His friend has something for him and he just wants to get it and talk with him, telling the kids to just leave his camera and light device alone. They chat for a while as they take turns going in front of the camera to see their auras. Everyone’s are remarkably similar, though Chessur has an aura that’s easily multiple times its size.

A while later, Hardison comes back down, thanking the group for their time. Fiona wants to know what he got and if it’s going to be helpful only to be told that it’s got nothing to do with the task at hand and then turns to Lynn before saying that it’s time to dig into her head. There’s multiple cots around the room where they can lay down and Lisa is already looking rather sleepy. They’ve already decided to leave people behind the dream, only Tabitha and Carol joining them. The rest there to protect against more dimensional beings and making sure that the machines are running fine, Lisa on the other hand, cannot actually join them on their dream journey as she has to stay behind with the boat. They lay down and Lisa comes around, touching those that are going for a few moments before going back to her cot and falls asleep.

So Many Chains

Benjamin, Fiona, Harlowe, Harvey, and JJ
Lynn’s Dreamscape
Sunday October 30th, 2005, 1000 hours (time standing still)

The walls start slowly fading and falling away, leaving them on a beach where Lynn and Lisa are talking. Fiona is immediately concerned about what everyone is wearing, preferably something comfortable. Harlowe is the only one there that is still wearing his normal attire that he fell asleep with and therefore the odd one out. Lisa greets them and points out that the doorway is a trapdoor in the sand, the surroundings looking dark, eroded, and rotten. Fiona and several others summon up some flashlights and look down the hole.

The stairs down have an almost living sheen, almost like insect chitin. Most are reluctant to head down the stairs, Fiona suggests trying to flush it out using salt water first which Ben latches onto, creating a trench through the sand that causes the stairs to simply become slick. Everyone heads down, carefully. Fiona is quite curious about their surroundings as the walls fall away from the stairs almost a hundred yards down. Once they get to the bottom, the stairs retract back.

There’s statues of things, figures of demons and angels with their faces that are chiseled away in a rough hewn pattern. There are chains connecting several landmasses together while a large amount of fog is obscuring a lot of their vision, including down into its pit. Impossible light emanates from large carved skulls all around the area. Fiona suggests that Benjamin attempts to talk to the stone statues, get some information from them but he says he can’t quite do that, but he does try to investigate the earth and it feels like normal earth. Harvey attempts to investigate the statues, seeing the face bubble up on it like it’s made of cheese, making a face of utter horror and is terrifying to behold.

Harvey tries to talk to the group about it but no one else sees it. Fiona dismisses it as being part of things that probably have nothing to do with Lynn and pokes at the own part of her brain that is now connected to Lynn. She can feel a bit weird and it feels distant when Lynn says something.

Fiona investigates the chains, they’re large, black, shiny, and where it enters the stone it looks like the stone is wibbling like flesh that has been pierced like a hook has been inserted deeply into flesh. Thinking about the instructions that Hardison gave, they have to follow the link, find the chain, they may have to fight an entity to be able to break it. They look around, not happy with the chains as being a method to get over the pit when Fiona screams out and there’s a response from deep in the fog with a huge roar of sound of fury and a giant dragon lands out from the fog. JJ immediately visualizes his pistol.

Harlowe conjures a force field between themselves and the rather large dragon. Ben heads towards the edge to see what the roaring is about while Fiona calls for Ben to come closer before trying to drain it of water, it doesn’t seem like it’s affected though. It breathes down the broken bridge that the group is on, breathing out what looks like black shadows or negative burns in a film, severely injuring Harvey and Fiona. Staying “conscious”, Harvey envisions himself having a rather large ranged weapon to use against it, popping into being a squad level weapon that fires laser beams and calls for Harlowe to protect him. JJ aims his pistol towards where the breath came from as Tabitha attempts to activate a useful power, ending up gaining super skill at archery, but is unable to visualize a bow. Carol moves forwards, hoping to use her ability to deviate any potential fire coming their way.

Harlowe eyes up the dragon, waiting to see if it attacks again and planning to use his forcefield then. Benjamin summons a board of rock below himself and calls attention to himself. The dragon decides to ignore Benjamin and breathe at the group, ducking under the force field that Harlowe puts between himself and the dragon, barely interposing another force field to try to reduce damage to himself and Fiona. Harvey spins up the laser gun and fires it into the dragon, injuring it severely to the point where it has fallen. Tabitha mostly curses in Spanish while JJ gets closer.

Harlowe, still toasty, places a permeable force field around its head while it’s still stunned, not dealing nearly enough damage to get through its hide. Benjamin visualizes a rather large bundle of dynamite, prepping to throw it. Fiona starts staggering away from the dragon while cheering on the rest of group, assuming its head has been restrained. Harvey is annoyed by the recharge time of his weapon though. JJ aims at the large dragon now that he’s close enough to see it. Tabitha is still cursing when attempting to determine what is going on as Carol summons and throws small bits of fire that deals more damage than what Harlowe was capable of.

Harlowe, for lack of anything better to do, sets up another force field to try to block more fire as Benjamin throws the lit dynamite at the large dragon which manages to weather the blow. Fiona still staggers away from the rest of the group as the dragon snaps back to its senses. Harvey attempts to envision something to shield himself from flames and summons a copy of JJ’s force field generator. JJ fires at the dragon who dodges the shot while Harvey attempts to envision a bow for Tabitha and Carol gets ready to defend.

Harlowe, tired of defending, leaps across the pit and slides underneath the dragon, stabbing into what looks like sensitive parts like a pirate ripping down a mast drenching himself in dragon gore as it collapses on him. Fiona asks for healing from Tabitha, who has to explain that she’s currently an archer and can’t heal anyone as Harlowe hacks his way out of the dragon’s intestines and it dissipates into the oily black energy of the previous kyberic beings.

Aftermath

They take some time to wander around the landscape, finding another building at the far end of the chasm and enter it to find another stairway down, leading them to an inky black landscape.

After Action Report (GM)

Did I just use a dragon in a superheroes game? You’re damn right I did. It wasn’t even that dangerous if I’m being honest. Yeah, people got hurt, but it wasn’t THAT bad. Besides, that’s all just FP loss. Well. It is until they actually get to the Further. Right now they are just in a liminal space that’s between reality and the Further – i.e., the human mind’s dreamscape. The Further itself is what is outside of the various timelines and dimensions of AEON. It’s a space that is a non-space. A place where kyberic entities dwell. Now in AEON I decided very intentionally to do something I don’t often do in modern games with supernatural elements: I ignored them. I went for my own thing first and then fit the mythology to it. In AEON the afterlife (if there is one) is somewhere, maybe it’s own dimension vibrating weirdly. But the Further? The Further is outside and it has its own rules, well its own lack of rules. Beings that reside there tend to be incomprehensible and its also where the big bad of the setting dwells. Though I don’t know if we’ll ever see that in a game. Too much stuff to contend with first. That said. The Further is neat and a fun part of cosmology. I really need to dig into it more. It’s on napkins and scraps of paper that have been scanned into Evernote at the moment.

Other Notes

None.

Soundtrack

“Dreamweaver” by Gary Wright
“Through the Fire and Flames” by DragonForce
“Rainbow in the Dark” by Dio