Halcyon B-Team S01E03 – Devil of a Time

Dramatis Personae

  • Jacob “Duke” Gage, Tier-3 Psychometabolic psi (played by +Douglas Cole): TBA. Tagline: “TBA.”
  • Levi Bassault, Tier-3 Psychokinetic (telekinetic) psi (player by +Christian G.): TBA. Tagline: “TBA.”
  • Murph Waters, Tier-2 Telepathic psi (played by +Christopher D.): A former office drone turned conspiracy theorist that knows too much. Currently moonlights as an amateur telepathic switchboard, thief, and fugitive. Tagline: “I ain’t saying it’s lizard people, but it probably isn’t Ichthyosis they’re suffering from.”
  • Menzi, Tier-2 Psychokinetic (sonokintic) psi (played by +Merlin A.): TBA. Tagline: “TBA”
  • Jeanne J. Proffitt, Tier-2 Cyberpsychic (NPC): Younger black woman, 5’6” tall, weighes 163 lbs. and has brown hair, and hazel eyes. Tagline: “I can hack it!”
  • Virginia J. Bryant, Tier-3 ESPer psi (NPC): Octogernian with a bad mouth. Ginny is 5’2” tall, weighs 106 lbs., and has snowy-white hair with brown streaks, and light blue eyes. Well preserved. Tagline: “What the [Expletive] is this [Expletive]?!”

Previously . . .

Coming back into the session, most of the gang is still at Paolo’s place telling the group that it’s time to do a podcast and that they should come back in a few hours, Murph decides to stay and learn some more of the truth while the rest evacuate back to the hotel before they can get more infected with conspiracy stupidity. Murph sits there in rapt silence as the man does nearly 4 hours of free association for a podcast, learning all he can from this expert.Coming back into the session, most of the gang is still at Paolo’s place telling the group that it’s time to do a podcast and that they should come back in a few hours, Murph decides to stay and learn some more of the truth while the rest evacuate back to the hotel before they can get more infected with conspiracy stupidity. Murph sits there in rapt silence as the man does nearly 4 hours of free association for a podcast, learning all he can from this expert.

Sleep Does a Body Good

Duke, Levi, Murph, and Menzi
Santa Fe Hotel and Casnio
Sunday, April 29th, 2016, 11:00 pm
4949 N Rancho Dr, Las Vegas, NV 89130

Back in the hotel, Duke has woken up in the fairly comfortable bed and finds Jeanne’s gear in the corner and Virginia in the next room polishing off a third bottle of bourbon and scribbling away in a hardbound book when the other boys get back. Sharing the news, Virginia warns them cryptically to avoid the “white tiger” and that they’ll know what she means when they get to it. The group promises to avoid Siegfried and Roy shows and fills Duke in on the situation and how paranoid Paolo could get.

Still Nuttier than a Fruitcake

Duke, Levi, Murph, and Menzi
Paolo’s Airstream
Monday, April 30th, 2016, 2:00 am
Unnamed Road, Las Vegas, NV 89166

Arriving at the Airstream, the group are forced to listen one last hour of the podcast. Duke attempts to screw with the guy when Paolo questions his presence, telling him that he had JFK assassination information on an encrypted flash drive. Succeeding to fast-talk the conspiracy theorist, Paolo is nearly drooling from the thought of knowing the truth and asks how much Duke wants for it. Agreeing to sell it for $10,000, Paolo informs them of what is needed for the job he wants from the group. There’s an underground fight club going on that night and he wants the top prize from the contest, it being something that he lost previously. He warns them, however that there seems to be some people there with strange powers.

“Dude! Bro! FIGHT!”

Duke, Levi, Murph, and Menzi
Somewhere outside of Las Vegas
Monday, April 30th, 2016, 6:00 pm
Unknown, Las Vegas, NV 89166

Having no other choice, the group returns back to the hotel and gets some rest before heading in. The fighting arena is a rather large pit literally dug into the ground, about 8 feet down, and covered with a tent. Well-made and smooth walls, it’s perfect for just covering over after everything is done with. The fight pits themselves are even deeper with wooden reinforced walls. The crowds are packed and there are apparently a large number of cameras sitting around, Jeanne informs the group that she might be able to protect the group’s identities, but not much else.

A large man welcomes the group and introduces the rewards to the crowd, a large amount of black tar heroin, nearly $200,000 in cash, and finally a spun golden collar, before accepting the entries into the fight pits. Murph immediately bows out and prefers to stick to the background. Menzi, Duke, and Levi enter instead, Menzi sizing up the fighters while Levi tries to give the top fighter a nice dose of heat stroke, knocking out one of 32 fighters before the fights even start. But regardless, Levi is still up first.

The fight begins with him up against an Army Ranger, both of them circling each other and looking for the best opening. Duke is opening up against a Dude-Bro, rushing forwards without any care only for Duke to step forwards and take a quick kick that just barely misses. Menzi is also up against a Dude-Bro that rushes into combat straight into a feint with a kick putting the Deuxde-Bro into a stick situation.

With Levi and the Ranger circling each other, the other fights continue on. Dude-Bro throws a punch at Duke that parries with a wrestling move and then closes in close to grapple that is denied. Deuxde-Bro throws a punch at Menzi that parries with judo and flips him onto the ground easily after the feint.

The stare off stops when Levi steps forwards and feints against the ranger with some success. Dude-Bro manages to throw a serious punch at Duke forcing him to retreat and parry, but Dude-Bro overextended himself as Duke steps back in with a leg grapple getting control of the leg with no resistance. Deux-Bro changes posture straight into Menzi’s kick.

The ranger throws a punch into Levi’s throat that he manages to move out of the way of before getting back into the fray with a kick to the nuts that the Ranger manages to dodge, questioning the move that Levi just pulled. Dude-Bro falls to his back as he throws a kick into Duke’s nuts, it’s the nutcracker in these pits as Duke does a joint lock against his opponent. And in the third arena, Deuxde-Bro stands up fully while Menzi throws another feint at the Dazed-Bro.

The army ranger moves in close, throwing a wild punch towards Levi’s face that misses barely and instead hits the torso, Levi doesn’t dodge it in time and takes it straight on the chest, and on Levi’s PK Shield, causing the Ranger damage while Levi then grabs his opponent’s hand and proceeds to crush it with TK Grab, turning the hand into some rather lovely ground meat and suggests that the Ranger surrenders.

Dude-Bro is terrified at his current position while Duke takes full control of his opponent’s leg. Deuxde-Bro attacks Menzi who easily sidesteps attack and then taking advantage of the confusion, Menzi proceeds to kick Deuxde-Bro in the face, knocking him out in a single blow and becoming the quickest victor of the three fights.

The ranger is terrified and steps back away from Levi, dropping into full guard mode. Levi attempts to intimidate him into surrendering, and with a little bit of help from Murph, the Ranger runs full on from the ring, hauling him himself outside of the ring forcing a victory through surrender. Dude-Bro, in a bad situation and being turned into Duke’s victim, desperate to try to escape the torture he finally gives up in surrender marking the end of the group’s first round.

The second round goes through easily as everyone gets into a fight with a large amount of Dude-Bros and everyone advances to the third round, equally filled with Dude-Bros. The semi-finals come around and Levi and Menzi throw their fight in favor of Menzi while Murph warms the crowd telepathically. Duke, on the other hand, gets a more difficult opponent that circle each other.

A swift kick to the torso forces Duke to try to parry, but a quick failure later and the blow doesn’t it get past Duke’s tough skin. Returning the shot, Duke aims for the man’s nose but his fist is knocked away. Offended at the nose punch, the man kicks once again but is grappled by Duke and is immediately placed into a leg lock. Now trapped in the same situation that the Dude-Bros before him, the situation starts slowly disintegrating as the man fails to break free and he is taken to the floor, taking only a second of consideration before surrendering leading to the finals between Menzi and Duke.

A contest between grapplers ends with Duke on top while Murph places bets on each round. With two of the rounds being thrown, it makes it easier for him to just walk away with more money. With the group having gotten all three top places, it’s hard to tell what the real prize was, but odds were that it was the pure-bred Golden Retriever with a gold collar that Paolo is excited to see back in his life, free from the reptilian overlords.

Aftermath

The boys come back in the morning after, collecting their IDs and selling Paolo half of the Black Tar Heroin that was won for a rather good amount of cash. The IDs are perfect, leaving the group stunned and Paolo happy with his payments. As the PCs leave Paolo’s airstream four black SUVs come barreling up behind them and Virginia lets out a warning “Here they come.”

After Action Report (GM)

I had to improvise a bit with this – and I wasn’t too happy about it – because I honestly ran out of time last week do to other concerns. It still turned out ok. Next game I’ve been planning for a bit. My first use of the GURPS Action chase rules in this campaign (and really, in a long long time). I plan to still have a tactical map set out to scale just in case the chase ends and a battle begins. The PCs had fun beating on the lower point value dude bro fighters and I had fun letting them. If you’re familiar with my GMing style the first thing I always do in a new campaign is test combat effectiveness. I do this in three ways: single combat/mook fights, larger mook fights mixed with capable NPCs, and then a fight way out of the PCs league and/or difficult. This barometer tells me what I can use or not use and lets me calibrate the campaign so PC deaths are not entirely unexpected. Overall, this was a good game and seeing the PCs try to figure out what to do with the drugs was hilarious.

Footnotes

None.

Soundtrack

A Little Less Conversation (remix)” by Junkie XL and Elvis Presley (opening song)
Eye of the Tiger” by Survivor (Pit Fights)
Whole Lotta Trouble” by Stevie Nicks (Closing Song)

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