Ceteri B-Team Guest Appearance: Agrivaine Threatens to Trap PC Party in the Realm of Death for Disrespecting Him

The Cast:

(The cast blurbs for the B-Team were shamelessly stolen from Douglas Cole's blog, where he normally does session summaries.)

Kamali Blackshear (18): Kamali is a young boy in his early teens. He is healthy and is of mixed ethnicity of Caucasian South African and native South African. He is a determined youth who believes in a justice of his own, likening himself to the knight of the round whom he has read deeply into. Just as they stood against the darkness of their age so too does Kamali seek to do the same. For his sister, for his friends, and for the world.

Tag: “A knight without a sword carrying a faith nobody believes.”

Lorenzo DeModouco (18): A handsome and charismatic musician. The loss of his parents didn’t dampen his spirits and he soldiered on after their death. He’s the cheery one always trying to make others happy and sometimes spontaneously breaks into song. Perceptive of others and their feelings, Lorenzo is the one who knows what people are thinking by the looks on their face. He’s also a boy scout and is quite comfortable in the wild.

TAG: “He’s a Jukebox Hero. He’s got stars in his eyes. A Jukebox Hero – he’ll make sure you survive.”

Amos M. Humiston (19) – This boy is far from where he started out at the orphanage. His comfortable existence already gone and instead has gotten used to his new life. Not like his brothers, his talents lay more in mental pursuits and has already started towards getting a double Masters degree at a local college aiming for his goal of becoming a research librarian. Following in his family’s footsteps almost unknowingly, he exhibits certain talents towards more occult pursuits such as druidism and alchemy, mixing up herbal supplements and elixers for the team. And while he’s still somewhat still slipping along behind the group, he has become a lot more outgoing with the rest of the Orphans and have started making friends with folks outside his adopted brothers. Always showing concern for them and trying to make sure they know everything that they need to when it comes to the dangers they face.

Tag: “True alchemists do not change lead into gold; they change the world into words.”

Gabriel MacAlister (18) – Built like the natural athlete he is, he has grown taller, stronger, and more solidly good-looking. A quiet and hard-working lad, always ready to lend a hand with any work, which he will do without complaint or obligating the other person to respond. He is an expert martial arts teacher, and has been following in the footsteps of a carpenter for some time now. Emphatically not a pushover or weak personality, but also not one to purposefully show off. Has been in many horrible places and seen many horrible things; he’s a bit of a compulsive planner as a result, as well as always feeling that most folks don’t really know how lucky they are. He lost a leg fighting zombies; he got an artificial replacement and kept on fighting the good fight.

Tag: “To serve others is the highest calling; to protect the meek the noblest endeavor, and our works are judged by the effort that went into them”

Timothy I Mitchell (19): Timothy possess an honest if forgettable face. He tends towards comfortable, though inexpensive clothing and durable running shoes, rounding off his typical attire is a deep pocketed jacket and a backpack slung over one shoulder. Timothy appears to be a poster-boy for bad kids, often finding himself in trouble with any and all forms of authority. A victim of neglect, driven to never become a victim again he often acts seemingly on impulse, taking any dare or challenge in his stride. Timothy doesn’t have friends, not in any real sense. Too few of the people who enter his orbit can deal with him in anything more than bite sized pieces, a fact which only further frustrates the young teenager.

Tag: “Darkness is within all of us, it’s how you use that darkness that matters”

Agrivaine Tashalan (19): An extremely attractive sorcerer, Agrivaine is an extremely gifted magical prodigy, as well as a planning mastermind. Driven to try and do the right thing, Agrivaine seems to have the weight of the entire situation in Boston weighing on his shoulders.

Events:

Amos and Agrivaine leave Brimstone Law, driving over to a ramshackle firehouse. The group has been dealing with some Vampires or something, and they're immediately curious who Amos has brought along.

Agrivaine introduces himself, and alerts the crew about what he's been instructed to do by Aldrick. 

They dicker for a while about the vampire they were interrogating, and the vampire's boss, before Aldrick drives up on his motorcycle, carrying a bundle. It has Maryam's body inside- or whatever is left of it.

Aldrick has to head off a fight as Agrivaine loses his patience with the teens giving him lip and almost zaps Kamali with Agony. 

Aldrick explains the nature of the spell. Someone (Aldrick and Gabe) anchors the spell, someone casts (Agrivaine), and the rest have to go into the land of death to convince death himself to let Maryam return back to the living. 

The Norse demigod admonishes the others for squabbling rather than conducting themselves like capable adults. 

Agrivaine and Walter, his usually invisible butler, begin work preparing the ritual site. Agrivaine calls in Trish to help with the dancing portion of the ritual, knowing that he's in for a risky dance.

Everyone except Trish, Aldrick, and Gabriel are thrust into an astral realm of some sort, floating above all of us. Aldrick is beating a drum in time with their hearts, which is sustaining their bodies throughout the ritual.

He gives them advice about following doors.

Agrivaine is being held up by Trish in the real world.

Within the firehouse, the door to the kitchen instead leads to a park. Kamali stops to comment on the insanity of going to convince death to give back Maryam. Lorenzo talks about offering death another individual who's been cheating death for a long time. 

It appears like they're in, Christian Herter Park, the way it appeared three days ago. There's a barbecue going on. Karl and Karl's father are both there, and so's Maryam. It's evidently quite peaceful and ennjoyable. Amos barely resists being pulled in by the illusion of how things didn't turn out, and Kamali has some trouble shaking it off.

They go through the next door.

They find themselves in a lavish room, filled with almost every worldly possession somebody could want. There's a tall man, maybe six feet tall, blonde hair, with a cruel cast to his face.

It's Ector- Agrivaine's brother. Kamali takes a look at his soul and looks upon one of the most vile, evil creatures he's ever seen, a half demon who has fully given himself over to sin and debauchery. 

Ector can't directly interfere, but he's hoping to throw Agrivaine off his game so that Aggie fails. Kamali and the others aren't afraid of him despite the fact that Ector is a fan of explosions- Oklahoma City sized explosions.

We decide to press on, figuring that Ector can't do anything to interfere, so might as well press on through the next door.

A garden stretches out ahead of us. An old man is tending to the garden, weeding and planting things.

He introduces himself as Anubis, and goes on about gardening. Agrivaine tries to equate it to keeping a drug dealing organization going. Anubis gets the gist, but isn't wowed.

He warns us that things are going to be getting harder moving forward, before telling Kamali that they have a long history going back.

Anubis tells us bringing back Maryam will likely require sacrifice, and gives Amos a plant, an Omani Frankincense tree. Hobbs, Amos' cat, decides to take the opportunity to make an appearance.

Kamali uses a skill to listen in on the cat and Anubis talking, evidently the cat is going on about how cats aren't properly worshiped anymore. Realizing that Kamali is listening in they break off talking. Anubis takes a moment to whisper to Timothy.

We leave the garden and are greeted by the biting cold of winter temperatures, and the crunch of snow under our feet. The others recognize it as a cabin that they've been at before. Next to the cabin is a gigantic creature of some kind.

It's eating a body that the B-Team seems to recognize. It spots us, and hauls a gigantic halbred out of the snow, swinging it at Timothy and Lorenzo. It slams Timothy in the chest, throwing him back and hitting for a lot of damage. Lorenzo starts turning into a werewolf or something. 

Agrivaine zaps it with a spell that kinda just slides off of it. He recognizes it as an Abattoir demon, a mass of corpses stitched together and then implanted with a spirit. This particular specimen is particularly beefy.

Timothy gets up and limps away.

The Demon swings at Timothy, Agrivaine, and Kamali. Kamali's tactical awareness is the only thing that saves Agrivaine from getting gutted.

Lorenzo- suddenly in werewolf form and wreathed in holy flame- comes up behind the demon and grabs it by the arm, wrenching it and forcing it to drop the halbred.

The demon screams in pain as the holy fire begins to burn it.

Kamali leaps up, draws a sword, and slashes at the demon's foot. Wrecked by the attack, the appendage is crippled.

Amos preps a holy water pellet.

Agrivaine recognizes the sigil of the creator of the demon.

Timothy draws a dagger, it sucks out some of his soul, and then he suddenly has a couple of astral blades. He plunges both into its chest and carves it up like a Christmas turkey, scoring a critical hit that dispatches the beast.

Agrivaine binds the demon spirit into his service- and the demon critfails its resistance roll. Agrivaine has made it his bitch, sending it after Ector to make his life difficult.

The giant halberd has shrunk. Kamali picks it up. Meanwhile, Timothy is getting attacked by the dagger he used.

They ask Agrivaine to help, and he taps into a latent power he has, attempting to pull out the dagger with holy light wreathing his hands.

Suddenly, Aggie, a fallen angel, and Timothy are all present in Timothy's mind. The Fallen Angel mentions a contract that Timothy signed.

Agrivaine has gained amazing insight into Timothy's life and character. Agrivaine knows every bad deed that Timmy has ever done- as well as every good deed. He knows that he can absolve Timothy- if Timothy is willing to repent.

Agrivaine casts Death Vision, forcing Timothy to see the lives that he ended early- all the lives that he took that worked against the cosmic good. The last vision is of his own baby brother, who he killed in an attempt to spare him the pain of life. He sees visions of the life his brother would have lived, as well as the further chances Timmy has to turn his life around.

Timothy is having trouble accepting that anybody else has made the choices he's had to made, prompting Agrivaine to reveal the brand on his soul.

Samael, known to the B-Team as Mr. Black, shows up to also try and convince Timothy to turn away from the darkness. Timothy makes his decision, and the Fallen Angel screams in agony as Timmy rejects it.

The fallen angel and Agrivaine are ejected from Timothy's mind. Samael collects the dagger and ensures that its denizen will never escape again.

We decide to move on through the lodge door. Lorenzo heals Timothy.

We find Maryam eating a hotdog in a bowling alley. The others ignore what they think is an apparition of Maryam, and get yelled at by the proprietor that we need bowling shoes to bowl.

Death offers us food and asks us to sit. Kamali lays out his concerns involving bringing Maryam back, going into how he's not convinced about it.

Maryam is asked to give her input on coming back. She puts out a cigarette and then recognizes she's surrounded by her pupils. At first, she doesn't remember clearly, but then Death grants her her memory back.

Agrivaine and Maryam both express appreciation for how many conventional explosives they used to take her out.

Death and Maryam talk a bit- the fact that the B-Team want her input on whether she wants to actually come back or not has Death more interested than he'd normally be. Duty, Honor, Sacrifice, and love of her children are the reasons Maryam has fought repeatedly to come back to the land of the living.

Kamali's convinced that she's passed that legacy onto the boys, and Lorenzo's arguments the boys aren't fully trained seem to convince Maryam that she wants to return. Kamali's not happy about it, convinced that she deserves her rest.

Death and Maryam both state that Maryam's kid, Darius, isn't actually dead, unlike what Kamali believes. Evidently he was nabbed by a witch, but he's not dead.

Maryam asks about Annie and the Demonreach Murphy Island explosion.

Kamali talks about how people need to let go, move on, and move past the things in their pasts that are holding them bound to repeat their mistakes over and over again.

The vampire behind everything the B-team has been going through- the deaths of their parents, 66 victims, 13 survivors, and 7 children- it was a ritualistic killing.

Agrivaine recognizes the date as an important date- the stars were properly aligned for a specific type of sacrifice.

Agrivaine inquires about the soul of his nephew, making some particularly nasty threats about stranding everyone in the realm of death if he doesn't get answers. Death informs him that his Nephews' soul is in fact residing in Heaven.

Death goes on to claim that Timothy is a descendant of Cain, as was Grendel and Grendel's Mother. Aldrick really doesn't like descendants of Cain.

Maryam has a Sidhe who supplies her with death-defying charms that keep her from permanently dying. Something counteracted the magic, which Agrivaine suspects was the same work of the person attacking all of Boston.

Death is amused and conjures drinks for the B-Team to drink to seal the bargain to bring Maryam back to life.

Kamali drinks. Timothy drinks. Amos drinks. And Lorenzo drinks.

Everyone wakes up in the firehouse. Maryam is returned to life, the teens are restrained from hurting Agrivaine for making threats, and Agrivaine limps out into the darkness with Trish to return to the Bedford Building.