July 3rd 2000, Monday
10:30 pm
5200 S Blackstone Ave, Chicago, IL
Intercepting a distress call from the Chicago Fire Department about “living fire” the Dead Men make off towards the Blackwood Apartments in Colt’s truck to help. Arriving surprisingly fast they are greeted by a full structure fire with little “gobs” of flame about the size of a baseball1 running all over the place setting everything on fire that they can. Splitting up, Sergei, Hachiko, and Jon run into the building to assist the firefighters to get everyone out, Jon and Hachiko stopping longer enough to put on some turnout gear; Noah, the Russian, and BFG help the firefighters on the ground with hose control/hook up; Angel and Alex stay behind and began to work up a spell between them to put out the blaze before it can get further out of hand or spawn more flamelings. Over the course of the next five minutes, Sergei, Hachiko, and Jon bring out people from the fire and run back in, never pausing or stopping. By the time Angel and Alex’s spell takes effect (which is so powerful it changes the nature of two flamelings into two icelings!) Sergei, Hachiko, and Jon have gotten out twenty people and end up collapsing onto the ground, catching their breath.
They find a busted gas main a few blocks away that’s managed to catch fire and with a little application of TK and ESP ability to see through the street, Angel manages to shut the valve completely.
The Dead Men get very little time before they receive a call from Beardsley to head over to East Garfield Park.
July 3rd 2000, Monday
10:50 pm
1113 West Belmont Avenue, Chicago, IL 60657
Stopping at a small strip mall, the Dead Men see a ton of looters breaking and taking, when a scream is heard, Hachiko and Jonathan go to investigate while the rest of the team deals with the looters.
They see a trio of men attempting to rape a young woman, without any words the two move toward the them to stop it. Hachiko doesn’t give any warnings, but simply lops the heads off of the others while Jon deals with the one actually trying to rape the girl. With a series of rapid strikes, Jonathan snaps his target’s C4 vertbrae and throws him onto the ground while Jonathan kicks the man in the groin with the heel of his boot. Not enough for him, Jon climbs on top of the man and begins pounding the man’s face in with his fists. When Hachiko finally pulls him off, Jonathan grabs the would-be rapist and drags him by the hair to a nearby light pole where he ties his hands together and hangs him from the pole. He then writes, “I am a rapist” in the man’s blood on his chest and leaves him there.
July 3rd 2000, Monday
11:50 pm
East Garfield Park, Chicago, IL
Much to their horror, the Dead Men come across a scene with dozens of dead bodies being gnawed on by thousands of rats2 and several large (dog-size) rats3. The team’s Princess Bride jokes are interrupted when Hachiko spots at least one thrashing (still living) person at which point they spring into action. Though it doesn’t take them long to kill the rats, they focus on getting those being attacked that are still alive to safety and then bandaged up. As soon as the threat was eliminated, Alex calls for one for an ambulance, in this case a Hostess Twinkie truck with a spray-painted red cross on the sides. Once the civilians are evacuated, the PCs try to head back to the Calamut Harbor camp, but Noah intercepts a call from a stranded Marine team near the North Branch Chicago River.
July 4th 2000, Tuesday
12:40 am
North Branch River, Chicago, IL 60618
Once at the riverfront, the Dead Men see thousandsof large barnacle-like creatures4 cover a parking lot, the road, and the rest of the surrounding area from the river. Inside this huge field of creatures is the Marine’s humvee, one of their number has had his leg blown off by something. Their leader has managed to staunch the blood loss, but neither look good. Angel and Sergei realize that the creatures are Blitz Barnacles and the danger they pose. To complicate matters, there is a fracture in the local ley line, and it’s causing havoc with all numina. Risking it, Angel uses her TK to levitate herself and fly across the Blitz Barnacles to retrieve the wounded soldier. Once she’s got the Marine safely back on the other side, she begins treating his wound. Jonathan decides to run across the dangerous field of semi-moving landmines and manages to get across to the trapped devil dogs, but from the river come five huge snail the size of a VW bus5. The Dead Men watch as the snails mucous anesthetizes the barnacles long enough for them to eat them. Unfortunately, the snails mistake the humvee as one big barnacle and begin to attack it. Angel lures one of them to her, thereby creating a path as the creature’s mucous paralyzes the barnacles. Jonathan even rides the snail over, but it bucks him off, and he ends up with a barnacle spine through his lung. The Dead Men rush back to the camp after Angel performs a bit of quick field surgery.
July 4th 2000, Tuesday
1:50 am
Calamut Harbor, Chicago, IL, 60633
Though it takes quite a while, Jestinius repairs Jonathan’s damaged shoulder/lung and then heals him. Eventually, he wakes up, but several hours have passed. Angel and Hachiko end up in the command tent, where Angel is pleasantly surprised to see the Brother’s Green, Elwood and Silas helping General Beardsley with his various problems. Soon after a (shirtless) Jon finds Angel, they, along with Sergei get “bad feeling.” Walking along the pier, they see a cloud moving against the wind towards them. When Hachiko sights it through a scope, he can barely believe his eyes, the cloud is alive and is being escorted by shan’tacs. The base goes on general alert, and Angel takes control, syncs, and gives commands to a platoon of Marines. They begin bringing out every anti-tank weapon and explosive device they can get their hands on. When the thing finally lands in front of them, half off the pier, they realize what it is: a shoggoth– although it’s a pretty small one, comparatively to some of the ones from legend. The Marines and the Dead Men lay into the beast, but it easily absorbs most damaging effects. Though the PCs are unable to do anything about it, they know that the base itself is being attacked from another front, so they decide to concentrate on trying to repel or slow down the monster before them. Colt fires his lever-action shotgun at it, using some sort of bespelled ammunition, which actually seems to hurt it to some degree. The fighting is intense and the Dead Men and their allies stay just out of the creatures reach, slowly retreating backward every time it moves forward. Jestinius launches a spell that fills the sky with lightning as the shoggoth is struck repeatedly. Despite the fact that they are using grenades, RPGs, and anti-tank weapons – the protoplasmic mass seems unstoppable even when the Russian shifts his shape and goes into hand to hand combat with it. Channeling his chi, Sergei focuses power into his blades, which Hachiko enchants with a spell that allows any damage inflicted with it to continue to re-inflict the harm it’s already done. After several seconds of “charging up,” Sergei launches an attack so rapid and so swift that he lands dozens of blows in the space of a second. Though this doesn’t kill the shoggoth it does wind it in a way it’s never felt before. Getting close to it, Angel draws on her deepest reserves and psychically drains the strength from the creature immobilizing it under its own bulk. Still, she goes further, draining its life force until it turns to dust under the weight of her psychic assault and Hachiko’s spell. Despite doing what no one has done for millennia, the Dead Men find that the rest of the base is under the control of the Weatherman and his forces. He demands that Angel give herself up to him, but she refuses. Trying to coerce her, he shows her that he has the little boy and tells her he’ll kill him if she refuses again. However, Angel falters for a second, and the Weatherman gives the order to kill the boy. Angel rushes at the Weatherman in a rage as Jonathan tries to stop the merc holding the crossbow to the kid’s head. Pushing his abilities to the limits, Alex wraps the crossbow bolt in some of his icy magic so that it won’t inflict any actual harm if it is somehow released. The Weatherman realizing he can’t win throws a bone knife at Jonathan and hits him squarely in the heart. The knife had been enchanted to kill the first being whose blood it tasted. Seeing Jonathan drop to the ground Angel’s mind suddenly becomes focused again and she tries to help her boyfriend, but it’s too late.
Suddenly, Alex begins to chant in Old Norse as his eyes turn white, ice begins to creep along the Weatherman’s hand and eventually encompasses him until he is a frozen statue. All around them, the mercs and shan’tacs begin to freeze as well. Drawing his sidearm, Hachiko puts two bullets in the Weatherman’s head and his form shatters. When Alex comes out of his trance, he sees Colt on the ground and recognizes him for who he truly is, his uncle, the man who raised him. Not understanding what is happening, Colt tries to tell him something whisper “Don’t…don’t…,” but dies before he can say anymore. As the sun rises for the first time in three days, the Dead Men realize just what their victory has cost them. Angel threatens Jestinius with using necromancy again to bring Jonathan back, but he refuses to let her, and the two begin to argue. Angel sheds a few tears on Jonathan, whom she holds close, removing the knife from him, and he begins to breathe again. Rushing him back into the surgical theather both Angel and Jestininus operate on him, using a mix of medical knowledge and magic to restore him. Because of the trauma, he’s been through and all the multiple supernatural healing that he’s been through, he lapses into a coma.
July 4th 2000, Tuesday
7:20 am
Calamut Harbor, Chicago, IL, 60633
1This small elemental creature is a being of animate fire that is about as intelligent as a child and exists only to burn things. Mostly harmless (except in large numbers) they can be found living anywhere fires are (furnaces, fireplaces, etc.).
2These swarms of rats (between fifty and two hundred) are no more intelligent than a typical member of their species, but were being directly controlled by the rat-things.
3 Rat-Things are larger than normal rats (between the size of a small dog and a large one) and used to be human beings before they donned their current shape. They are as intelligent as they were before and have very sharp teeth that can gnaw through anything. Some rat-things possess the supernatural abilities that had in their previous life. They can be created through curses, magic gone wrong, or “gifts” from dark gods.
4Blitz Barnacles resemble a cross between actual barnacles and sea urchins (when their spikes are out) and are highlyexplosive. Even stepping on one can cause it to explode as its spikes extend (which can also happen if it senses a nearby person). They are the natural prey of a Walloping Welk which has anesthetic mucous that temporarily numbs the barnacle allowing it to be eaten.
5These creatures are Walloping Welks; in addition to their anesthetic slime, they have the ability to project a stream of foamy spit that has flame retardant properties. They also have powerful reticular muscles that they can use to propel themselves at speeds upward to 24 miles an hour! Finally, their head has muscles and a hard protrusion from their shell that allow them to exert pressure over 5,000 psi (about what a jackhammer can do).