July 3rd 2000, Monday
4:00 pm
3518 S. Halsted St., Chicago, IL
Jessie sends a small group (about twenty) of the imperial guard, the Atejaja (ah-jah), to protect their Rani (Angelique). He also sends a “small” chest (a six by six by six cube) of Arkaelian weapons and supplies. He even manages to make it to the theater after dispatching the dozen or so giant carnivorous floating electric jellyfish (called abhrabhujin Arkaelian, which is what part of the Dreamlands they are from) and freeing up the Rock Island Armory. The Dead Men get themselves together and get ready to go meet MacHeath. Despite not liking the idea, Jonathan decides probably the best way to get crime lord agreeable is to distract him, and since Angel is already a pretty distraction…dresses her up. Then Angel, Jon, Sergei, the Russian, and Alex (who Jon wanted to leave behind because he was a cop, but Angel took anyway after a vision of what might happen without him) leave for MacHeath’s. They decide to walk (since it’s only twenty or so minutes away), to leave the one working vehicle they have for Ruby and the kids.
Angelique, Jonathan, Sergei, and Alex
July 3rd 2000, Monday
4:20 pm
2216 S Wentworth Ave, Chicago, IL
Once at MacHeath’s, Jonathan speaks with the HGIC (Head Goon In Charge) and convinces him to let them in. Angelique steals the spotlight as soon as she enters the building, her natural looks enhanced by Jonathan’s make up wizardry literally turns heads. The room is somewhere between Imperial Japan and late-Mind Dynasty, with a decidedly American influence. It is filled with fifty or sixty “courtiers,” and almost that number of guards.
MacHeath is so affected he doesn’t seem to notice the others and comes down from the dais he was on to personally take her by the arm and to the seat next to his own. They speak for a while, until Angel brings up Jonathan’s proposal. MacHeath reads it and then calls in his lawyer, who after giving him the thumbs up, agrees, but asks that Angel return for his Halloween ball that year. After that, MacHeath declares a feast in honor of their new partnership, and the PCs get to enjoy a delicious hot meal. However, during dessert after the feast, a scream and automatic fire can be heard coming from outside. The PCs rush to grab their gear and head outside, but MacHeath is first, bringing only the ever-present blade at his side.
Once outside, the PCs find a scene of horror: desiccated corpses with green eyes, white flowing hair, and disgusting long fingernails. Surprisingly, all PCs recognize them for what they are: Jiangshi, the legendary “hopping corpse,” of ancient China. They dispatch the first wave with relative ease thanks to Alex’s cryomagic and Hachiko’s metallomancy, despite the fact that Sergei nearly cuts Jonathan’s hand off by accident. The next wave ends up nearly taking out the whole team, but the Russian buys the others time as he changes into the form of a giant (over fifteen foot tall) bear, which draws all the jiangshi to him. Alex kicks his magic into overdrive and summons a ten-city block hail-storm (with basketball-size hail), while Hachiko continues using ofuda to create patches of sentient magic chains. Eventually, the cold and the iron gets to the jiangshi and the hold magic of Hachiko’s ofuda causes their undead essence to dissipate. After the battle is finished, MacHeath finds the man who was in charge of the protective detail and lops his head off, orders one of his men to do whatever Angelique told him to do until he said otherwise, and picked another one of his men to be in charge. Angelique takes the time to make sure all of her teammates, and his men are bandaged. She also takes care of MacHeath himself (which he tries to get out of, but she doesn’t let him). Afterward, they make their way back to Calamut Harbor, where Victor and General Beardsley ask them to work on “sanitizing” areas with “abnormals,” which they agree to do. They eventually return to the theater and begin prepping for their new job.
July 3rd 2000, Monday
7:30 pm
3518 S. Halsted St., Chicago, IL