The Chronicles of Ceteri C-Team: Season 2, Session 2

Dramatis Personae

  • Agrivain Tashaslan (played by Travis E.): Inhumanely attractive and a genius spellcaster, Aggravaine is trying to make a name for himself in the supernatural world of Ceteri.. Tagline: “TBA.”
  • Jackson Taft (played by Dylan D.): TBA. Tagline: “TBA.
  • Leo Brienza (played by Emily S.): A werewolf private investigator. Leo has a fondness for Twinkies and is a disappointment to his family. Tagline: “TBA.”
  • Ranulf Graeme (played by Christopher D.): Ranulf is a man that introduces himself with a heavy sigh, not only because his name would bewilder the most experienced barista, but also because his life has recently gone down the toilet. Put in administrative leave for something that wasn’t his fault, he’s now forced to join up with some of the folks that actually caused his misery until they make his life better. He’s not going to rely on them alone though, as a tychomancer, a tellurgist, and he simply is one of the best cartographers and survivalists on the Autumn Road. Tagline: “No amount of careful planning can beat pure luck.”

Previously . . .

Last time, Agrivaine has activated SPY protocol while Leo and Ranulf flee from the damaged Silver Lion headquarters. Ranulf demands the legal counsel’s names from the guards and manages to fast-talk them into getting both the names for the counsels of the Silver Lions and the building itself. The group immediately leaves the building and goes to visit Helen Taft to find out more about what’s going on. They find her in a retirement home on oxygen, smoking a cigarette. She was an employee with the Telluric Department that was then part of the Silver Lions until she got magic cancer.

[Bleep] Cancer

Agrivain, Leo, and Ranulf
Golden Ends
Friday, June 3rd, 2000, 12:30 pm
75 Sylvan St Ste. B102, Danvers, MA75 Sylvan St Ste. B102, Danvers, MA75 Sylvan St Ste. B102, Danvers, MA75 Sylvan St Ste. B102, Danvers, MA

Asking what Ranulf was doing there, he explains that he’s mostly there to make Agrivain and Leo’s life miserable, but mostly to just get some information on the whys and hows of how Ranulf ended up signing the papers to authorize the ley line for the Silver Lions. At that mention, the old woman pulls out some weed and Leo and Aggy help roll her some blunts before inquiring once again about the organization.

She tells the group that they’re a horrible group. Using groups of wizards to brainstorm the next generation of spell crafting and then making them disappear, it was one of the reasons why Helen quit. Bright young minds would come in and six months later they would be gone. A small company to be sure, but they more than make up for it in sorcerous might. Taking them on by a small group is probably not the best idea, at which mention Leo can’t help but give Ranulf a side eye. She tells the group they’re going to need some more muscle if they want to take on the Silver Lions as Ranulf insists that he has more than enough muscle, he goes hiking regularly.

Shaking her head, she writes down a name on one of her papers and hands it over, explaining that it’s her nephew. He failed the sorcerer trials and is currently living in Helen’s apartment in the city. He’s able to shoot things and has a mild anger problem. Before waddling back into the hospice care, she tells them to look in the garage for something nice. Leo drives them over to the address in Dorchester as Come on Eileen plays on the radio and Ranulf sings along horribly to make Aggy and Leo’s life miserable.

Files, Boxes, and Other Debris

Agrivain, Jackson, Leo, and Ranulf
Helen Taft’s Home
Friday, June 3rd, 2000, 1:30 pm
6 Arion St, Boston, MA 02125

It turns out that Helen has a nice little ranch style in Dorchester that her nephew has moderately destroyed with dishes and pizza boxes and books strewn all around. Knocking on the door Jackson Taft meets the Brick House (AKA Leo), the Model (AKA Aggy), and the Pencil Pusher (AKA Ranulf). Mentioning that they heard that Jackson was looking for work, they swoop into the home. Amazed by the mess, Aggy invokes a hidden housekeeper to clean the home as he speaks with Jackson.

They finally introduce themselves to the man inside and check the news to find that no one has been reporting on the explosion in downtown. Jackson willingly joins up while mentioning that he drives a mini-van and tells them to get the jokes out of their system now. Leo mentions that he has a hatchback, Aggy regrets not stealing Landon’s Rolls-Royce, and Ranulf fanboys out over the van as it’s like a truck but with more passenger space. They boys recall what Helen said and go into garage to find boxes upon boxes of HR files she pulled from her job before she was fired. Ordering some pizza, they go through it finding out that even the mundanes are in on the more magical side. They’ve got sorcerers galore, werewolves, and even a jotun, a giant.

Summing up, we know that the Silver Lions are using sorcerers for mindstorming that disappear after so long, they’re a PMC company for the Conclave and others, they’ve got a high magnitude ley line piping power into their building that explodes twisted. And then the boys find that the Silver Lions have two locations, the main office is in the downtown building while they have a second location up north, outside of Boston in Willowdale State Forest, surmising it to be either one of their training facilities or an R&D area.

They also find a picture of Richard Morrow and Taylor Bloyse from House Cagliostro. The latter has been in nearly every form of military possible in the past 100 years ago. A third man in the picture is Anton J. Dyer, one of the founders of the Silver Lions. It’s a Vietnam era photograph with the men in fatigues. Thinking back, they realize that the last time they saw Magnus was back when Brimstone Law was exploding from the tripped ley line. But still, Bloyse is still a dangerous man to confront and not someone that’s afraid of self-defensing a person to death. Dyer, on the other hand, is a battle hardened sorcerer, at least 30-40 years worth of rumors of people being killed, full of shady means and methods. Leo ends up being the one to run through the financials while the others are finding out that Jackson has some brains on him.

Ranulf, on the other hand, investigates the land itself, finding that they have their facility sitting on a dragon well, three ley lines converging on them. Originally surveyed as a magnitude 3 ley line and signed off 15 years ago by Morrow. Jackson tries to find blackmail information while Aggy contacts Olivia via Thought-Casting. She is not pleased with the large explosion that occurred downtown as Aggy was involved and that it wasn’t even reported to the Custos. When Aggy reports what is going on, Olivia is immediately suspicious and orders them to investigate further but to leave the House Cagliostro connection alone, completely alone. Aggy’s last request for Olivia is get a list of managers that retired and moved over to the Silver Lions, it will take the better part of the day to do so.

4 hours later, Aggy’s SPY protocol comes back and gives a long winded report typed out on a typewriter. Several people talking about someone that is too valuable to kill so far, but after the project is over then it’s time to kill them but making House Cagliostro angry. The people have photos of the team staking out their building, discussing Leo’s ancestry and Aggy’s connections. They start to lock down the location and sweep the location for bugs. The report over, they package it up and leave it at a Dunkin Donuts with Ranulf having cast Dead Letter Box on it to make it harder to find and then Managrams Olivia a location.

Aggy attempts to inquire as to why a building was built in the middle of a state park, it’s simply that they’re leasing the property from the government with Dyer’s name on the lease. They’re trying to figure out what they need to do now, scout out the facility or find Morrow’s place. Ranulf goes with his gut instinct and instead insists on going back to the building itself.

Back to the Scene of the Crime

Agrivain, Jackson, Leo, and Ranulf
Silver Lion, LLC
Friday, June 3rd, 2000, 5:30 pm
100 Summer Street, 
Boston, MA 02110

They find an officer is dazed along with most of the other folks there as though they were there, but once in the sub-basement, Ranulf realizes that what he did broke the ley line permanently. He’s interested in the 13th floor now and decides to head up there. They encounter a single guard up on the floor protecting the offices. Jackson intimidates the guard while Ranulf attempts to bluff his way past them, managing to get into the office without much more ado seemingly. Ranulf manages to detect that what they were working on was huge, even larger than quintessence and Jackson starts to identify and gather stone shards from the lab while Ranulf grabs more documents and hard drives in a file box.

Leo sneaks in behind some more guards and gestures that they have more company while Aggy keeps the original one occupied. They manage to gather everything they can of value and start shoving what they can into Jackson’s car along with whatever Leo grabs randomly. Aggy, in the meantime, gives the guard some life advice. Noticing some Silver Lions approaching, they quickly load the car while Leo and Aggy wipes the security footage, scarily making it so that it doesn’t look like there’s a gap at all.

It’s A Kind of Magic

Agrivain, Leo, and Ranulf
Helen Taft’s Home
Friday, June 3rd, 2000, 6:30 pm
6 Arion St, Boston, MA 02125

The group returns to Helen’s house again where Jackson attempts to piece together the stone shards they found, with Aggy noting that it’s not something he recognizes. It’s an Egyptian tablet and would take several days to put together. He’s able to make out one string which is Heka, magic as a personified form. Aggy attempts to help them by printing out hieroglyphics and Leo just tries to help where he can before he finally just decides to prep some charms, spending almost 8 hours on a single charm for invisibility.

Aggy, in the meantime, attempts some improvisation magic to reassemble the tablet. In the center of tablet is a large crystal, a ley focusing crystal. Some of these survive to the modern day and it was the Egyptians that have managed to do it so far. It’s one of the largest that he’s seen, almost 3 inches in diameter. The tablet is instructions on how to use the ley line enhancer. The tablet is from the middle dynasty era, a little after Tutankhamen. The crystal itself increases the magnitude of the ley line, makes it stronger and more powerful over time. Ranulf questions how long it might take for a Magnitude 3 ley line to turn into a Dragon Pool if they had one of those things, and answer is the better part of a couple decades, about the same amount of time they’ve been leasing the land in Willowdale State Park.

Leo is able to find someone that can replicate the ley line focus with normal crystal. In the meantime, Aggy realizes that he just literally stole the focuser from them using a Logos. Worried about the results, Aggy drops the tablet into the labyrinth along with the ley line focuser. While they’re gone, the team splits a bit with Leo and Ranulf heading towards Hospice care. The moment they get to her room, Helen is fighting with her nurse over tapioca pudding. Ranulf assures the nurse that they’d take care of it and then just hands it to Leo while they explain what is going on. When Ranulf explains that he’s going to case Off The Grid on her to keep her undetected, she threatens to punch him in the nuts.

Aftermath

Dylan is alone at the house when Silver Lion people show up and start peering through the house. They try to get in through the back door when Dylan screams at them to get off the property unless they want to get a faceful of lead, sufficiently intimidated by the rather angry man, the Silver Lions run from the house.

Back at Hospice, Ranulf casts Off the Grid on Helen who then immediately takes a swipe as threatened but nearly falls out of bed instead. For now they shouldn’t be able to find Helen for at least the rest of the night.

After Action Report (GM)

Today’s game was the first with a new player (Dylan) who fit in so remarkably well that introductions were made, he waited till I could get his character involved with the rest and then just ran with it. Here’s hoping it continues.

Th PCs got into the meat of the current plot thanks to Travis using a logos (word of power) to shift all the peices of the strange sandstone tablet they found. Learning they found a Telluric Focusing Crystal was a bit underwhelming to them – for now – but given how intact it is now and how valuable it is to just about any supernatural critter it should be interesting to see what they do with it.

Other Notes

Bonus Report here.

Soundtrack

Come On Eileen” by Dexy’s Midnight Runners
Pistol Packin’ Mama” by Bing Crosby & The Andrews Sisters (Hospice Facility)
A Kind of Magic” by Queen

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