Keeper: Karen Twelves
Hunters: Eric Fattig, Adrienne Mueller, Sean Nittner
System: Monster of the Week
Supplement: Tome of Mysteries
Campaign Overview
Overview of the entire campaign here: Agents of Cisra
Adventure Log
The team finds that their work is being re-assigned, leaving them suddenly free. Maliq is suspicious, but Jessica and Mordecai welcome the chance to recuperate. After some arguing, the group resigns themselves to their forced vacation.
- Maliq and Mordecai attend a meditation retreat. Mordecai is eager and fully recuperated, but…
- Maliq is still recovering from his wounds, so he seats himself gingerly next to Mordecai just before class is about to start.
- Jessica reaches out to her ex about potentially seeing their kid, but it falls through. Instead she spends a lot of time running (from her feelings, but also literally),
- Stasia goes on a climbing trip that would probably be perilous if she weren’t just so darn lucky.
Jessica receives a terse, but uncharacteristically polite message from McCloud summoning her to the office in the middle of their sudden vacation. She meets McCloud in a conference room along with Dr. Scott, who viewers may recall from the gray mist incident in New Mexico. Dr. Scott reveals a crystal shard shaped vaguely like a part of a human face. She and McCloud say that this is a remnant of Dr. Roe, Dr. Scott’s predecessor and mentor (in addition to being a former CISRA director). They ask for Jessica and her team to find the rest of his remains. Jessica pushes for Brian to be reinstated, but McCloud replies that he’s declined requests to rejoin CISRA. McCloud admits that she’s pulled strings to keep special ops from investigating this because she believes a more nuanced approach is required, thus her request to bring on Jessica’s team. Jessica and team connect and agree to meet in New York, where the crystal artifact was discovered.
The team connects in the bar at the Row (a hotel in NY) to sync up before heading off to the gallery where the crystal was found. The “artist’s” name (Riley Odessa) is clearly a pseudonym, if they even exist at all. The gallery is in a nice (but not too nice) part of town next to a gyro place undergoing renovation. The team learns that Riley’s next show at the gallery is called “Fractured Justice”. Jessica meets Marcus Eiger, the gallery director and implies the artist’s process may infringe on some patents. The director says a warrant is required, which the team immediately provides, to the director’s distress. They follow him to his office where he makes a show of looking for the information before apologizing and saying he’ll have the information later. He excuses himself and bolts as soon as he turns the corner, but Mordecai is on his tail…
Meanwhile Maliq sneaks into the back of the gallery. He finds numerous fragments of crystalline body parts scattered around a bust that Maliq recognizes from the news. Judge Alder had just been involved in a big scandal the previous month. Maliq, in his surprise and excitement, knocks it over, shattering it into a million pieces, the insides glittering red.
Jessica digs through the Director’s files looking for information about Riley (with the assistance of a confused, yet compliant intern). She finds an account where money is being wired as payment for these “art pieces”.
Mordecai follows Director Eiger and tries—unsuccessfully—to listen in on his phone conversation stealthily. The panicked director immediately starts pleading and saying “she’ll kill me!” and trying to distance himself from the unsavory source of the “artwork”. Maliq manages to talk him into coming in by promising that CISRA can protect him from “her”.
Director Eiger gives the team a name: Celino Adessi. She’s a fixture of the high class social scene, attending all the hip gallery openings, parties and such. She and her parents hail from New Mexico, having left at roughly the same time that Dr. Roe disappeared. She apparently commands shiny scorpion-like creatures that can turn someone to crystal with a sting.
The team begins to put together a plan: they’ll lure Adessi out by pretending to be Eiger texting her bad news: the new art piece has been destroyed. Meanwhile Mordecai and Maliq prepare a sonic trap to shatter the crystal scorpions, although it winds up being more convoluted than they’d hope.
A furious Adessi bangs on the door to Eiger’s home where the team is laying in wait. When no one responds, her minion—a crystalline insectoid creature, equal parts mantis and scorpion—shatters the door. Instead of finding Eiger, she finds a preternaturally calm Jessica. Steaming with rage, Jessica tries to keep her from attacking while still drawing her into position over the trap. Celino fumes at the mention of Dr. Roe, spewing a stream of bratty, entitled invective. At the right moment, the team throws the switch on the trap, shattering the creature (and every bit of glass within 50 feet). Without the creature to defend her, the team sweeps in and cuffs her as she scrambles in vain to draw another summoning rune.
In the aftermath, Jessica recommends against bringing the entitled Celino as an asset, instead suggesting she be put away for her crimes.
