Tuesday, October 16, 2018

Return to Ceteri 1: An Explosive Twist


Our Cabal:

Aggravaine Tashalan: Inhumanely attractive and a genius spellcaster, Aggravaine is trying to make a name for himself in the supernatural world of Ceteri.

Leo: A werewolf private investigator. Leo has a fondness for Twinkies and is a disappointment to his family.

Ranulf: Paperpusher, ley line expert, and victim of Brimstone Law. Ranulf really wants his old life back, but likely won't get it.

Events:


It's a month after we toppled the new Tower of Babel and defeated a master vampire that had crippled the Boston supernatural community.

Brimstone law was quickly dissolved. Mike and Suzette left together to chase down leads on his parents. Yannay is busy trying to figure out how to get Aldrick out of the Labyrinth. Raleigh is "not intervening" as much as possible. Landon is still comatose, and Cormac is working overtime for The Library.

That leaves Leo and Aggrivaine as the only members of the Brimstone Law cabal who are still in touch and not otherwise engaged in projects.

We're at the Conclave HQ. Aggravaine is dropping off paperwork for Olivia- nicely forged in her handwriting to reduce her workload.

She hands over forms finalizing the end of Brimstone law as an entity within the Conclave.

Olivia asks Aggie and Leo how they're doing, where they're living, what they plan to do, etc. She's unimpressed that Aggie is mooching off local startups by posing as an employee to sleep and eat on their dime.

Unimpressed when Aggie suggests taking control of the mundane remnants of Brimstone Law, she suggests taking on some of her non-paperwork.

Silver Lion is a PMC on the Mundane side, chock full of dangerous sorcerers on the Supernatural side. Olivia offers per diem, expenses, and $2,000 each for us to check them out. She says that they are using a leyline for security, and suggests that we get in touch with someone who just got put on administrative leave.

Olivia clocks Silver Lion as about 100 people. They operate out of Boston, renting space in a financial district skyscraper.

We decide to hunt down the expert Olivia suggested. He turns out to be Ranulf, paper pusher and ley line expert.

Ranulf greets us at his cubicle. He's pretty pissed, because evidently he's getting fucked because of the Brimstone ley line shenanigans we pulled to save the world. We help Ranulf with his paperwork mountain over the course of 4-5 hours.

Ranulf finally looks over the files we have on Silver Lion- they've got permission to tap directly into a powerful ley line to power their security measures. It looks like Ranulf signed off on the original paperwork. The Lion's request is unusual, since they've tapping into a magnitude 5 out of 6 ley line.

Aggravaine uses speed-reading to go through records to find out more about the authorization- and the supervisor, Richard Morrow, who originally signed the order is now working for the Lions. At the time, he wasn't, meaning there wasn't any obvious conflict of interest. He retired from the Conclave about a year ago.

The Lions would have been activated during the Babel crisis, but we don't know just how active they may have been during the crisis. Aggie and Leo suspect that they might not have been as helpful as they could have been.

Aggravaine uses his "I Know a Guy" advantage to seek out somebody who didn't particularly like Richard Morrow. Helen Taft was fired from the Conclave about a year ago, and the reason listed in her profile is clear HR-Speak for bullshit. We don't have any info on her current status.

Ranulf seems determined for us to make his life better, and is going to doggedly follow us until we do.

The Silver Lions are on the 13th floor of their office building. Surprise surprise.

We opt to case the office from the outside. Leo succeeds by 9, Aggie by 10. Ranulf tries to find a coffee shop to assess the leyline from.

The mundane security is terrible- overweight, inattentive, and too interested in Boston sports to pay much attention.

Ranulf approaches them and asks to get into the basement. Meanwhile, Leo tries to slip past them into the basement.

Leo's caught by someone from security. Ranulf is promptly shown inside to "check on the boiler". Leo and Ranulf try to play it off as if Leo is with Ranulf.

Aggravaine takes the opportunity to cast Intercom and Remote Teamwork on Leo, allowing him to communicate with and make Complimentary Skill rolls for Leo.

Once in the basement, Ranulf uses his ley sight to look at the leyline. It's being actively tapped. The wards for it are on the 13th floor. Ranulf attempts to sabotage the leyline while making it appear like an accident.

Agrivaine, sensing that this is likely to end poorly, pulls the fire alarm.

Once Ranulf finishes sabotaging the ley line, an explosion rocks the 13th floor of the skyscraper. (OOC: Aggravaine used Foresight to pull the fire alarm after Ranulf's tinkering blew things up. Aggie got to keep the use of Foresight because he crit on the mastermind check to see Ranulf's actions ahead of time.)

The ley line tap breaks in the basement. Twisting the line while it was being actively drawn on helped contribute to the explosion, but Aggravaine can't tell if what Lions was doing with the leyline played a part or not.

The evacuation reveals a number of Silver Lions folk- most of whom are carrying "canes" or "walking sticks". Some wounded are starting to trickle down into the lobby.

Aggie casts Echoes of the Dead and is surprised to learn nobody actually died in the explosion. He assists with stabilizing a bystander who was caught in the explosion who is bleeding heavily.

Agravaine takes the opportunity to implant an eavesdropping spirit into the foci of a Lions executive leaving the scene.

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