The Chronicles of Ceteri – C-Team – S01E09

Dramatic Personae

 

Previously…

TBA.

 

Title Forthcoming
We prepare to head into the Autumn Road. Once we get to George’s Island we spot a gigantic lion pacing across the inner courtyard of the fort. It’s an offspring of the Nemean Lion, boasting all kinds of immunities to various types of damage- specifically piercing, impaling, and direct magical attacks.
The mists are convincing the mundanes to get out of the area.
The lion roars and we make fright checks. Raleigh and Mike both step forward to tank for the group. The Lion leaps forward and swipes at Raleigh. Raleigh takes a step back and avoids the claws.
Mike uses an unorthodox grip to bash the lion with a less cutty and more crushy part of the blade, hitting it for 14 base damage.
Raleigh is up next and goes to punch the Lion. The Lion avoids it. 
Yanay casts shield on Mike.
Agrivaine uses awareness to try to and pick apart the magics at play- separating Lion from Not-Lion. Sure enough, whatever is the source of the compulsion on the Lion is sitting inside of it somewhere. (Emily deems this the Evil Hairball).
Yanay sees if she can get an emetic out of her herb bag.
The Lion goes after Mike and gets him in its claws, while also lashing out at Raleigh. Raleigh can’t dodge in time and takes 18 damage for a major wound, also making a successful death check.
Mike baps the cat’s paws with his sword. Raleigh, somehow still standing, flanks the cat and punches it, releasing a spell that buffets it with a crapton of knockback. Kevin uses a Drama Deck card to enhance the effects, knocking the cat onto its back.
Aggie casts Alertness on Yanay to enhance her senses for what she’s about to try.
Yanay dives into the Lion’s mouth with her right arm to try and grab the “Evil Hairball” inside. 
She’s able to grab the source of the spell on the Lion, and it pukes all over Yanay, who also starts retching. 
Aggie tends to Raleigh with Teamwork for First Aid. He conjures up a hidden housekeeper to clean off the hair and gunk. Once finished, what’s left is a small statuette of Janus.
The group starts joking around about Angel fur. Beelzebub decides to mishear “Samael” as “Beelzebub” which has got to be the most selective hearing of all time. He finishes off a subway sandwhich and a cup of soda with really annoying sucking straw sounds.
He tells us that something is being summoned by something monitoring the Lion we dispatched.
Yanay does her best to soothe the Lion, and it responds by licking her until her skin is raw and inflamed. It then does the same to Agrivaine.
We enter the Autumn Road, and Raleigh takes point on navigation.
After a ways we find a Rabbit arguing with a Fox about marital issues. A dryad steps out from behind a tree, cradling a small rabbit, evidently the source of the strife. We avoid avoid avoid as much as possible.
We come across a cave where they’re holding Teresa. Raleigh is having some kind of realization, but sits on the info because now isn’t a good time.
There’s a ward around the place. Raleigh takes to looking at it- it has something like 430 SP tied into it. They immediately begin working on a spell to disrupt it long enough for us to sneak in. The spell 
works and rips a six-foot tall hole in the ward.
Yanay does her best to convince the Lion to stay outside the ward. We step through the ward. 
We’re presented a branch- ahead or right. Ahead is a door, to the right is a passage. 
We prep for a bit, Yanay linking everyone but Raleigh together with a spell, so everyone can share thoughts.
Something ahead senses us. Mike invokes true faith and causes some zombie-like things to leave us alone. As we get further ahead, Raleigh freezes and feels the presence of a Demon Prince.
We back a few of the creatures into a room where the demonic presence allows them to stop having to back away from Mike.
Agrivaine prepares some damage auras around himself.
We halt in the hallway. Yanay starts being completely unhelpful- Raleigh determines that she’s being mentally affected by something. Agrivaine dodges an illusory attack, only realizing that his assailant is an illusion once Raleigh sees through it. 
Eventually we realize Yanay got possessed when she tried to reach out her magical senses. 
A Demon Prince is talking to Teresa, who we’re supposed to try and save.
Raleigh gives Agrivaine a spell that helps see supernatural stuff. 
We keep advancing through the caves. We encounter some restless demons. Leo opens up on one of them with his pistols.
Agrivaine promptly ends the fight by banishing all of them. Up ahead, there’s a fallen Angel. Mike’s divine senses are screaming at him. Teresa has been thoroughly tortured. 
When Mike asks him why he tortured Teresa, the demon responds that he was paid to. Leo’s unable to approach his sister, due to a cage of fire that forms around her.
Agrivaine recognizes the fallen angel as Rhamiel. He’s a Fallen Angel, a grunt, sure, but still a Fallen Angel.
Yanay almost botches a spell, but Raleigh redirects her from buffing the baddie to buffing Leo instead. Leo is wreathed in a flaming aura of holy fire from Yanay’s goddess.
Mike and the Demon clash with swords. The Demon’s sword takes a bite out of Mike’s- the size mismatch means that parrying it is a risky proposition. Rhamiel is wielding a nephilim blade- a dangerous artifact.
Leo steps up close to get the demon into range of an aura that’s surrounding him, then opens fire for the vitals. Rhamiel misses.
Raleigh takes aim.

Agrivaine summons up his demon ally Alichino.

Rhamiel casts some kind of dispell that whams all of us. Basically all of us lose active effects or spells we had up. He then enters all-out defense.

Mike does a run-around attack on the demon, who parries his attack.
Leo gets hit with something and falls to their knees, screaming. 
(There’s a bit where we roll Tactics because we forget, being the B-Team rejects and all.)
Raleigh runs forward and gets up into Rhamiel’s grill. Yanay attempts to bewitch the demon, but it aces its resistance check. 
Rhamiel tries to smite Raleigh with a -16 (-8 to defenses) deceptive attack. Raleigh sprouts owl-like angelic wings, a halo, and a flaming sword, then uses a blocking spell to try and block the attack.
Raleigh somehow manages to deflect the blow (which would’ve been a DOOZY).
Rhamiel backflips over Mike and tries to stab him, but Yanay’s protective magic helps him defend. He then releases some major magical mojo to try and murderfy everyone, but it fizzles.
Mike spins and slashes with his sword, slicing through Rhamiel’s left arm completely and continuing on to slice into Rhamiel’s left leg. 
Leo’s completed a transformation, and is now whaling on Rhamiel as a werewolf, biting him for basically the lowest damage possible on 4d6.
Raleigh takes umbrage that Beelzy has been rifling through chests that are behind the throne Rhamiel was sitting on. They start fighting over the treasures.
Yanay dispells the fire cage surrounding Teresa. 
Aggie uses Gizmo to cast destruction, spending 2 cards from the drama deck to ensures it crits (to make resisting MUCH harder) for 20d damage. Rhamiel is instantly incinerated, leaving behind a pile of dust, a single feather, and the sword.
Leo and Rhaleigh start attacking Beelzy to deprive him of the box he’s trying to make off with.
Agrivaine casts Pentragram trap on Beelzebub, using the fly he was given as a summoning token as a conduit to make it more effective.
The REAL Beelzebub shows up, while the one that was with us suddenly becomes a dark-haired man wearing a blood red trenchcoat and red wings.
Beelzebub seems to believe that the imposter was dead.
Beelzy (the fake) and Raleigh talk about there being someone in the box, and how Beelzy and Raleigh are on the same side for this.
Mike recognizes Beelzy as Mephisto. He fell in love with one of the tenders of Yggdrasil, and when they were told to abandon their love, both left heaven. Mephisto claims that Mike’s mother was a good person.
Beelzebub is really pissed that he’s trapped in a Pentragram trap. He fails to bust through it and conjures up a chair to recline in.
Mephisto is busy bargaining for the box containing his love’s spirit, as well as the key. Yanay and Mephisto bargain that the box will be opened immediately upon returning to Brimstone Law. 
Aggie confers with Beelzebub a bit in Helltongue and then releases him. Beelzebub scorches Aggie a little with hellfire and then leaves for his own time and place.
We loot the rest of the room.
Alichino takes control of the demiplane that Rhamiel was using as his personal pad.
We leave back to Brimstone law. The Lion continues to follow us. Aldrick freaks a little bit and tries to chop it up with an axe. Yanay explains that it likes us. Raleigh questions whether Aldrick’s axe would harm it, and evidently it’s been magicked up to the gills.
 
 
Aftermath
Mephisto is busy getting wards and runes off of the box so he can get it open. He finishes, inserts the key, and opens it. Inside is a Witch Bottle. Mephisto offers blood to the bottle, and it cracks open in two halves, emitting a big cloud of green mist. 
The cloud forms into a woman. She falls into Mephisto’s arms. It’s clear that Mephisto is so deeply in love with her that it’s beautiful to see. (Yay regaining Long Term Stability).
The group starts to question if they need to know more about Agrivaine considering some of the capabilities he’s brought to bear. Raleigh and Leo also get some pointed questions about their origins and capabilities. Agrivaine is pretty adamant that Olivia is all of the oversight he needs and that his background isn’t subject to discussion.
After Action Reports/Game Notes
We’re ticking down to the final sessions of the season and the PCs are a bit scatterbrained (and the GM too). There is so much to do and so little time and the puller of strings continues to pull at the threads of the player’s sanity. (Total aside, but I am SO GLAD I decided to use my Stability Point System from Mad as Bones for this campaign. It just /works/ in the best possible way for the campaign.) A lot of stuff was let loose in this session even though the players may not be fully aware of it. The String Puller’s identity is in the files that Mephisto gave Mike, but more importantly, they’ll realize that the photo is so much more interesting. Overall, things went well and while I wasn’t exactly happy for another “pet” (the Nemean Spawn) – no matter the campaign I run I seem to have players that collect pets – it was an amusing way to get it (Evil Hairball for the win). The Beazles reveal was also pretty funny – that and Aggie actually summoning the REAL Beelzebub and somehow holding the Demon Prince in a pentagram was kind of hilarious.
Overall, the C-Team is rushing to get people on their side but they’re missing one, key, salient fact: You can’t use your army to fight if you don’t have an army to fight. They’re going to need to figure out a way to get the opposition and The String Puller in one place so they can smash the hell out of him.
We’ll see how it goes.
Session Soundtrack
“Samson and Delilah” by Bear McCreary and Shirley Manson (opening song)
“I’ve Got You Under My Skin” by Frank Sinatra (the fight with Rhamiel)
“I Will Find You” by Clannad (Mephisto and Amarue reunited)
“Time Has Come Today” by the Chambers Brothers (closing song)
Posted in Session Recap and tagged , , .

One Comment

  1. Pingback: GURPSDay Summary Feb 23, 2018 – Mar 1, 2018 – Gaming Ballistic

Leave a Reply