Sunday, November 4, 2018

Return to Ceteri 3: Friendly Extraction

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.

Jackson Taft: A crack sharpshooter hiding a more malicious second half who you won't like when he's angry.

Events:

We try and determine what to do next. The initial options seem to be investigating the Lion's outpost, or dealing with their own response to our actions.

We opt to head out to their facility. It's warded up to the gills, clouding any attempts at ley sight or similar. They're using ward tokens affixed to IDs to allow people through them,

This is in addition to mundane security. Main transport in/out is via automobile, and the ley lines deflated like a balloon once we stole their focusing device. There's roughly 12 cars parked outside the wards.

We stake out the facility.

Leo crits on Detective! There's 24 people inside, a very good suite of mundane security devices (infrared, motion sensors, etc). 

Aggie also crits on seeing the supernatural security setup. Their supernatural defenses are formidable, including a ritual ward that's ridiculously powerful and difficult to put into place. The only hole is that things can gate in, but that's a one-way trip. The Ward will zap any supernatural intruders- a primary concern for Leo.

Leo's enhanced senses pick up the scent of Magnus inside the facility, and groks his overall position in the facility.

Aggie attempts to turn the ward onto the security enchantments in place- and botches horrifically, taking 5 points of injury from magical backlash, and undoing wards in a massive 100 mile radius.

Leo and Ranulf rush the building. Leo rips a door off its hinges using his werewolf strength. Ranulf follows. Aggie limps to the car and preps their getaway car.

Inside, Leo and Ranulf find Magnus chained to a wall. A guard with an automatic carbine sprays at Leo, who dodge and drops out of the way of the spray.

Ranulf pulls a blocking spell to avoid the bullets himself.

Leo recovers and launches himself at the guard, slamming into him and driving the guard onto the ground. The guard fast-draws a cold iron knife plated with silver and stabs at Leo. Ranulf causes a freak accident to happen, and the guard is fried as a live wire from the ceiling is dislodged in the melee and falls on him.

Magnus is surprised to see Leo, and seems concerned about people being able to utilize his work once its done. The work is locked into a gunsafe, which Leo intends to carry out. Ranulf sees about freeing Magnus from the desk he's chained to.

With a 500lb gunsafe on his back Leo's at heavy encumbrance, and moving about 5 yards per second.

Leo and Ranulf manage to get out without running into anyone else. We tie the gunsafe to the roof of Leo's hatchback and then pile in and drive off. 

Magnus confirmed that Taylor Bloise and Morrow had a falling out about 20 years ago- he doesn't suspect that Taylor was involved in the kidnapping.

We use Helen Taft's house as a safehouse again, assuming that it's already been searched and won't be now that it's cleared.

Evidently Magnus got an idea from the events surrounding some of the wards Aldrick screwed around with during the Babel crisis.

Magnus has a prototype and research notes in the gunsafe. He says it's a new form of magical matter.

Leo's convinced that Magnus' work is the equivalent of magical radioactivity and would rather not get zapped by it.

Magnus explains- he's learned how to concentrate quintessence using a ley line, and the process enriches Quintessence to be about 100x more powerful than normal quintessence. Being physical magic, Quintessence makes enchantments far easier, and allows for some badass spells on the fly.

It takes Leo an hour to crack the safe. Aggie takes some time to perform first aid on himself, and also reaches out to Olivia to keep her appraised of things.

She's very unhappy about the wards thing, but is relieved that Magnus is alive. She instructs us to drop him off with his house, and to return to her to get our payment.

We talk a bit about what to do with the research when Olivia knocks on the door.

She's particularly unhappy with our methods, and isn't surprised when we mention that Magnus has developed paradigm changing tech.

Olivia completely understands the process to the make the stuff once explained. Olivia casts a spell on Magnus, catching him once he falls. She then placed a geaus on us to not speak about what we found.

All of us are handed three grand as pay, plus whatever we grabbed from the safe. Olivia strongly encourages Aggie and the others to get a stronghold into place, and to integrate more into society,

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