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
We’re back in Davis. Mordecai approaches Dr. Beech. Contact happens. SOMETHING happens. We zoom into the eye of Mordecai. Everything it gets dark. We zoom out.
===
We’re having a dinner party. The four of us. At Mordecai’s. Occasionally we hear knocking, but we get distracted, prepare dinner, then we hear it again. Mordecai frets over the roast, pops out the kitchen and again to banter – witty-punned apron (I’m a fun guy + mushroom) included. Mordecai drinks Chardonnay. Malik is checking the books to see if they open secret doors. Wondering how Mordecai’s place is so immaculate compared to Jessica’s. Stazia is swapping out records on the vinyl.
Mordecai hears strong knocking at the door; passes the mit to Jessica, Malik follows behind with the wine. McCloud is at the door; disheveled, looks bad. Says she couldn’t reach him by phone. Asks to come in. Says she can’t stay long. Says she needs us to do something as soon as possible. There has been a security leak. We need to get some information before someone else does. She seems to be talking directly to Mordecai. She needs us to go as fast as possible to two places. 1) There is some evidence that was left behind at Marcus Eager’s house (Crystal Mantid man, Romeo’s old boss); we set off a sonic boom to kill the mantis there. There’s some evidence there. 2) Something also in Serling. (Creepy mist and red matter.) The clean-up crew may have missed something in Dr. Scott’s lab. We need those pretty quickly. They’re concerned there may be a mole. Eager may have had a safe. She cannot share exact information at this time.
Malik asks, “how will we know when we’ve found it?” while he slowly puts the silverware back.Jessica says “We’ll just be thorough.
Mordcai, ‘Who else is interested?’
As she starts to answer, a black claw rips her into the darkness. We all run out into the darkness and we hear screaming but can’t see anything, in the middle of the woods. Malik kicks on his super-beam kickstarter flashlight. We try to follow the noise and it’s already pretty far away. We see the creature that Hanson was turning people into in Chicago. (Big scary dog thing.) Far away. Its eyes reflect back in the light and it takes off. Nightwalkers. I come to McCloud and she is not revivable. Malik chases the Nightwalker into the dark, but can’t catch it.
Malik is now totally on board with investigating these two sites. Now that she was affected the conspiracy, does he trust her. Now he know the line was above her. We agree to all go to New York – Stazia will hold down the fort at the office.
===
Very quickly, we’re in New York and not too far from Marcus’ house. Mordecai and Jessica discuss the whole in CISRA and that we need to be wary of the mole. Mordecai wonders about Romeo. The details of Romeo’s situation are … fuzzy somehow. Malik urges us to get data and not worry about who the next director is. Wants us to do NOW. Personal, perhaps, because of his guilt.
We enter Eager’s house and the door is unlocked, It looks dark from the outside but its kind of lit from the inside. Looks like the last time we were there; fully furnished. Jessica investigates the bedroom and has a really hard time staying focused and keeps looking through the same drawer.
Malik is confused about why we’re investigating Marcus’ place- he was nobody. Wants to investigate where rituals happened. Gets Mordecai’s assistance, maybe or maybe not because Mordecai has better knowledge of all things occult. Malik remembers we were waiting for her to come in and then we heard something before she came in… isn’t sure what we’re looking for. Mordecai is standing in the doorway and Malik walks him through step by step and then, out of the corner of their eye, they see some movement from the street. He turns and points the light… and we see Celina Modesto. She looks the same as last time we saw her. She looks pissed off and is stalking towards the door. Malik seems to be replaying the original moment – but from the perspective of Mordecai.
She keeps stalking straight towards us. Mordecai pulls a weapon, “Hands up. No incanting.” She keeps advancing a little bit,… Mordecai steps a side; doesn’t want to force a confrontation. She goes right up to the front door and stops there. She doesn’t seem to respond to Mordecai, who himself doesn’t have the nerves of steel to pull the trigger. He decides to wait to see how the situation evolves.
She stops a the door and starts yelling for him to come out. She seems to be having the same conversation that he heard the last time we were here…. Mordecai observes, stands back, lets things play out.
She starts incanting. Malik tries to ready the mega-ultra-stereo thing to fry the mantid. Jessica demands she stops, pointing the gun. Malik keeps furiously trying to get the thing done; but is torn between standing behind Jessica and doing so and eventually gives up on the wires and stands beside her. Urges her to let things play out. Jessica hesitates. And noone does anything to stop her from finishing the incantation and a crystalline bug appears at her side. He approaches Malik and Jessica, and we back into the bedroom, getting out of its way. Malike, in a brotherly way, tries to protect her. We both make it to the other room, but the crystallid takes a swipe. Malik says, “Jessie, run!”
It tears into the Malik and cuts him from shoulder to navel, but he’s not dead. Jessica helps get power to the device and Malik kicks some ass. It shatters into shrapnel and Malik gets hurt some more. Celina screams, turns and runs. Jessica yells for Mordecai to shoot. Mordecai consults his dark past, everything feels fuzzy, and he realizes Malik is bleeding out and runs to him.
Malik grabs Jessica’s arm as she tries to help stop the bleeding, “Don’t tell mom I got hurt. I’m sure she’s going to get mad at me and we’ll both get in trouble and stop messing with my stuff.” It feels nostalgic… she hesitates, and Malik dies.
Mordecai starts digging through the room, trying to figure out what he’s missing. Something is going on that doesn’t seem real. Jessica urges him to go to Serling. As she pulls her hand away, she takes with her Malik’s hackery usb and gigawatt flashlight.
====
Serling. It looks like a ghosttown. We make our way to the lab, working our way through town as we do so. Mordecai is finding everything fuzzy. A dust storm is on the horizon. Mordecai is concerned this already happened. His memories of this place right here are becoming clear. Maybe Dr. Scott will be here.
We make it to the lab and it looks exactly as it was when we left it. There’s paper everywhere, white boards. ’Wasn’t there a dog?” The dog walks in. Jessica urges Mordecai to look at the scribbles on the white board while she deals with the dog. He investigates the scribbles, trying to remember what happened here. He remembers quite clearly what happened here. Jessica and Dr. Scott took the last piece of red matter and drove into a rift. “We solved this problem.” We can do it again. Jessica urges him to return to Davis. He now remembers blacking out. Mordecai will go to Davis.
===
Davis. Outside Herring Hall. Jessica urges him to go in. ‘Am I in there?’’
We make it to the auditorium. Innocent people filing in. Mordecai tries to remember the situation. He remembers we tried to stop him. The supergorilla was with him. We tried to slow him down. Jessica and Stazia bought Mordecai time and we went up and laid hands on them. Doesn’t really remember who else was there. Maybe we’re all the team is, was, … this doesn’t feel good.
Jessica and Mordecai confer. He understands he has a chance to perform the ritual again, but now has the knowledge, from the ritual and and the equations, to perform the ritual again confidently. This is the only thing clear in his mind right now.
He performs the big magic. The ritual succeeds. He connects to the other dimensional entity and frees it from Dr. Beech. He feels a sudden absence of pressure and as thought something has been released. And also a strong pulling sensation. Sees Jessica screaming for CPR and also feels a pulling away, sees himself being transferred to a medical center, and deposited… and then, eventually, he wakes up in the hospital.
He wakes up and finds her asleep in an uncomfortable chair. “Jessica?” “You’re awake.”
They have a heartwarming waking up scene. She apologizes for not being there. He tells her that no, she was.
The creature is successfully freed!