Harrowed Halls

GM (Evil Mike): Cruel, Silver Tongued Devil
Samuel Smythe (Steve): Occult Branch, Polish National, the Healer & the Shooter
Balthazar Magnusson (Owen): Operations Branch, Swedish, The Lindquist/Forger & our Team Leader
Cyrus Lowenstein (Ben): Operations Branch, American, The Ladies Man & Tech Op
Nick Harmon (Mike): Occult Branch, American, (a real live) Combat Psychic & Thief

This week we had our final Agents of Oblivion game for this campaign. A lot happened and, as you’ll see, we may have opened the wrong box…twice.

This week’s story begins somewhere on the outskirts of Chernobyl as we wait for our extraction. We obtained the large box for our untrusted ally, Alexi, who leads the Polish Vampire cartel. Strangely this was one of our few operations that we actually told our Oblivion superiors about. That is why we get a timely extraction instead of figuring out our own way out of Russia.

A large twin-blade helicopter lands and we load everything on board. The copter is being piloted by our own Mr. Mister. He’s actually proud (and surprised) we pulled this off. Although we have strict instructions from Alexi to not open the box, he said nothing about not x-raying it. As we discussed our various options, the copter is hit by an air-to-air missile. We began dropping like a rock. Agent Smythe is flung out of the gaping hole in the copter’s fuselage. Only Agent Harmon’s psychic powers saved him for certain death. Agent Smythe swore never to make lite of Harmon’s powers ever again.

We quickly put on parachutes and secured the box with one also. Mr. Mister was going to draw off our pursuit. This most certainly meant certain death for him, certainly. We jumped from the helicopter. Soon after, it exploded into the side of the mountain. We landed safely, along with the big box, although we did lose some gear.

Our trek through the mountains brought us to a rope bridge crossing a deep gorge with a cabin on the far side. The cabin appeared to be one used by trappers or hunters. Once across the gorge, we discovered several unusual items in and around the cabin. First, was an ancient shield displaying Chinese characters on it. The characters were arcane in nature and apparently enhanced the shields bearer’s abilities. Second, was a Chinese puzzle box. Agent Magnusson discovered it and spent much of his time that evening trying to unravel its secrets.

We awoke in the night to find Agent Magnusson gone. Agent’s Harmon and Smythe headed out into the night to look for him. Agent Lowenstein stayed behind to watch the big box. That’s when the proverbial dog dodo hit the fan.

In a strange moment of preparedness, Agent Lowenstein loaded his shotgun with acid rounds. It wasn’t soon after this that he saw men moving across the old bridge. He fired his acid rounds at the old bridge’s lines that secured it to the ground. At least one of the men was thrown into the gorge. The rest open fired on Lowenstein, who was using the big box as cover. Bullets battered the box (and Lowenstein). Several holes appeared in the box and long-contained dust and air was released. Lowenstein applied his baking powder and vinegar to the holes in an attempt to seal them, but it was too late. The box’s seal was broken.

Meanwhile, Agent Smythe trailed Agent Magnusson further into the woods. He could tell that Magnusson was speaking to the box and it sound like the box was replying, soothingly telling Magnusson to press on through the woods. It was obvious that their destination was an ancient tree. Shots from the cabin turned Smythe’s attention away from Magnusson for just a moment–long enough for a giant tentacle flailing brain to attack him. Smythe screamed like a girl and was entangled in the brain’s worm-like appendages. Once again Agent Harmon came to his rescue. Armed with arcane bullets, he opened fire on the brain. This allowed Smythe to wrestle free and continue his race to save Magnusson from whatever fate awaited him at the tree.

Smythe caught Magnusson just as he was entering the opening in the tree. Smythe fired at the box, but failed to damage it. Again he fire, this time calling on the powers-that-be (an adventure card) to help him. He succeeded. His bullets smashed into the box—destroying it. In its stead grew a steadily larger creature—a demon. Just as the demon was about to lunge for Magnusson, a temporal vortex of some kind opened up and sucked the demon into it. Magnusson would have been lost too had it not been for his cat-like reflexes that enabled him to hold on to the tree’s opening for dear life.

With the demon gone, the giant brain vanished in a haze of smoke and ash. Agent Harmon had been fighting it valiantly, but was glad to see it go.

Meanwhile, back in the cabin…

The lid of the big box burst open and out climbed an ancient vampire. It lunged for Lowenstein in an effort to quench its centuries old thirst for blood. Lowenstein waited to die; but it was not to be. This just awakened fiend was not quite at 100% and critically failed his attack on Lowenstein. The ancient vampire stumbled out of the cabin and into the gorge…and was gone.

It was then we all hear Alexi’s voice in our minds. “This is bad.”

Agent Smythe

GM: Evil Mike, Cruel, Silver Tongued Devil
Samuel Smythe (Steve): Occult Branch, Polish National, the Healer & the Shooter
Balthazar Magnusson (Owen): Operations Branch, Swedish, The Lindquist/Forger & our Team Leader
Cyrus Lowenstein (Ben): Operations Branch, American, The Ladies Man & Tech Op
Nick Harmon (Mike): Occult Branch, American, (phony?) Combat Psychic & Thief

<Due to security reasons the following session details have been scrubbed by Oblivion. I hope to have a full recap of our upcoming session available soon. If I survive.>

Agent Smythe

GM: Evil Mike, Cruel, Silver Tongued Devil
Samuel Smythe (Steve): Occult Branch, Polish National, the Healer & the Shooter
Balthazar Magnusson (Owen): Operations Branch, Swedish, The Lindquist/Forger & our Team Leader
Cyrus Lowenstein (Ben): Operations Branch, American, The Ladies Man & Tech Op
Nick Harmon (Mike): Occult Branch, American, (phony?) Combat Psychic & Thief

Over the last several weeks we’ve been witling down our list of need-to-do covert operations. This week it was finally time to begin the infiltration of the bio-weapons facility at Chernobyl in the Ukraine. Our mission was two-fold; steal a 3’ x 8’ box weighing around 220 pounds from an underground laboratory and “pollute” the facility’s research data by whatever means possible. (Lowenstein brought gasoline and baking soda.) As with all our missions we first started off with some information gathering.

Ben played an adventure card that gave us the lowdown on the facility and the surrounding area. Apparently the area was still highly radioactive and with rumors of mutated creatures wandering around. There was also a check point we had to pass through to get into Chernobyl. We spent a huge amount of time coming up with a plan to infiltrate the facility. Should we try to be official visitors? Should we try a high altitude midnight drop? Should Lowenstein be allowed to carry around a bunch of flammable liquid? All these questions and many others where asked and answered. In the end we went for the straight forward approach.

Using Lowenstein’s Tech Ops ability we obtained the name of the company regularly delivering supplies to the facility. Then Harmon, our thief, broke into the company and stole papers that Magnusson could forge so we could get pass the check point. He also stole a sizable amount of cash. I should mention that Harmon was a ghost during this assignment. I think he got a raise on just about every roll. He and Lowenstein also stole a truck from the company yard. They cut the lock to the fenced and drove the truck out into the night. When asked why they didn’t just break down the fence with the truck, Magnusson, our leader, was quoted as saying: “You want to know why? Because we’re professionals, that’s why!”

Magnusson’s forgeries were of the highest quality I’d ever seen. (And I saw the rolls to prove it.) Unfortunately the checkpoint guard was bored. Upon seeing my papers, he got suspicious and asked for further ID. My ID and a wad of stolen cash got me through the checkpoint just fine.

Magnusson managed to hit something on our way to facility. That something turned out to be a giant mutated Ukrainian snail—with acid slime. The slime was eating its way through our truck as we fired round after round into it. Magnusson tried to back away from it only to bump into its friend; a giant centipede. The battle was fierce, but we managed to kill both creatures and not ruin our truck.

Next time, we’ll be infiltrating the facility. That should go as smoothly as our other jobs. Why? Because we’re professionals.

Agent Smythe

GM: Evil Mike, Cruel, Silver Tongued Devil
Samuel Smythe (Steve): Occult Branch, Polish National, the Healer
Balthazar Magnusson (Owen): Operations Branch, Swedish, The Lindquist/Forger
Cyrus Lowenstein (Ben): Operations Branch, American, The Ladies Man
Nick Harmon (Mike): Occult Branch, American, Combat Psychic

We have a natural talent for ending previous sessions on critical failures. Last session was no exception as Agent Lowenstein critically failed his Stealth roll to sneak up on some…well we don’t know because Lowenstein’s com suddenly went silent.

“You in the church! Come out with your hands up or your friend here gets it in the head.”

We seriously considered staying in the church.

Agent Magnusson and I exited the church with our hands up. Meanwhile, Agent Harmon and Willow snuck out the back window and hid. Once out of the church we found Lowenstein, bound and gagged, and in the clutches of some robe wearing cultist fanatics. We were led into the graveyard behind the church. There by an ancient tree the cultists called the “hanging tree” we prepared to meet our fate. All three of us were now bound and kneeled, execution-style, in front of a cultist. These fanatics also carried wicked looking swords. “Where was Harmon and Willow?”

I made the first move. (My action card was a Joker!) Escaping from my bonds, I stood up. Uh, that was the end of my turn. (Yes, I know. Not very exciting, but escaping from professionally tied bonds is not as easy as I made it look; Just ask Lowenstein.) I believe Magnusson also got out of his bonds and turned on his executioner. Lowenstein did the best he could, bound. He took a pounding. The rest of us were dodging bullets and swords; trying to take down as many cultists as we could.

I saw Agent Harmon do the hand waving gesture that meant he was using he supposed physic powers. Nothing happened. Why doesn’t he just shoot them! Then I saw him pull his gun. Finally! The leader of this cult of fanatics was giving us a hard time. Apparently he was wearing some high-end super stealth suit because he vanished from sight. (I just notice that I’m starting to sound like a doubting Thomas, which I am not. I weld the mystic powers with the best of them. Just maybe this cult leader also had some magic as his disposal.)

We eventually dispatched the cultist fanatics. I healed Lowenstein of his wounds and, after a time, we cut him loose. We also finally got Willow to a safe drop-off point at the docks. A job well done…by most of us.

Next we have a little appointment with a biochemical plant located in Chernobyl. Sounds like a nice place.

Agent Smythe

GM: Evil Mike, Cruel, Silver Tongued Devil
Samuel Smythe (Steve): Occult Branch, Polish National, the Healer
Balthazar Magnusson (Owen): Operations Branch, Swedish, The Lindquist/Forger
Cyrus Lowenstein (Ben): Operations Branch, American, The Ladies
Man Nick Harmon (Mike): Occult Branch, American, Combat Psychic

We last left our intrepid agents just after they had entered a rundown Buddhist temple in Gdansk. It was dark and they had discovered they were not alone. It wasn’t the man bound and gagged on the alter that roused their suspicion. No, it was the drop dead gorgeous women lingering in the darkness.

4 hours ago…

Agent Harmon attempts to rejoin his Oblivion cell by parasailing into the city of Gdansk. He knew we would be heading for the Buddhist temple, so he headed there also. He arrived first. It was still daylight. He looked over the building using all of his Agency training. It seemed innocuous enough. It was dead quiet as he slipped into the darken temple. As he moved toward the center of the building, he caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of his eye. And that’s when he realized he was not alone…

Back to the present…

Seeing the beautiful women caught us off guard momentarily. When we finally paid attention again to the bound form lying on floor, we realized it was Agent Harmon. Were the women somehow involved? Were they prisoners too? Could we possibly have dates for this Saturday night? All this went through our minds…along with a tugging notion that all is not as it seems. Our minds were right. One of the women transformed into a hideous demonic hag.

As I looked at the women near me, I paused. Was it the moonlight shimmering off her hair? Or her perfectly soft, creamy skin? Or maybe it was the womanly curves of her body that distracted me? No, I think it was rather my critical failure at this point that caused everything to go south for me. Seeing the demonic hag reveal her true self, I immediately moved to protect the woman near me. In return, she kissed me. I nearly died. Literally.

Lowenstein was sucking face with the other gorgeous babe seemly oblivious to his fate. I got a hold of myself and emptied a three-round burst into my “date”. She turned to ash. Then the battle began in earnest. I killed Lowenstein’s date, thus making us even. (It was he who got my date killed at the museum debacle.) The other two women became a real problem. We tried to stop them, but they got away. Agent Harmon even used his freaky physic powers to lift on of Lowenstein’s grenades and carried it to one of the creatures. His damage sucked. It lived.

No one had bothered to release Agent Harmon. Thankfully he paid attention during his Oblivion training (unlike Agent Lowenstein) and was able to untie himself. After establishing a perimeter and following all the proper procedures, we contacted Oblivion. We were ordered to sit tight with Willow until a team arrived to pick her up.

Lowenstein went outside to guard the perimeter. He was at the side of the temple when he heard a large vehicle moving in front of the church. Using his Oblivion training, he went into “stealth mode”. Lowenstein critically failed his Stealth roll. (I think he realized he skipped that Oblivion class as well.)

With a critical failure waiting to be resolved, we called it a night.

What could possibly go wrong?

Agent Smythe

GM: Evil Mike, Cruel, Silver Tongued Devil
Samuel Smythe (Steve): Occult Branch, Polish National, the Healer
Balthazar Magnusson (Owen): Operations Branch, Swedish, The Lindquist/Forger
Cyrus Lowenstein (Ben): Operations Branch, American, The Ladies Man
Nick Harmon (Mike): Occult Branch, American, Combat Psychic

Previously we had extracted a double-agent, named Willow, who was working for both the Chinese and the Russians. She had wanted to defect and we were in the right place at the right time to help her. Our handler, Mr. Myster, ordered us to escort her to a drop-off point in the city of Gdansk on the northern coast of Poland. Using the tech op at our disposal (Lowenstein) we discovered that someone, mostly likely the Russians, had planted a tracking device in Willow’s bra. We removed it and destroyed it. But now we knew that they knew that we knew…and they would be watching for us to transport her to somewhere safe.

Together, the brightest minds of the group (Lowenstein and Smythe) concocted a fiendish plan. After the “Giant Badger” plan failed, we went with plan B. This entailed driving into a tunnel where three look-a-like vehicles would emerge all traveling to different locations. This seemed to work for a while, until Agent Magnusson announced we were being followed. Willow had to visit the ladies room, so we stopped (again)—keeping a careful eye on the tailing car. It passed us by. Smythe escorted Willow to the ladies room. While waiting outside, Agent Smythe heard a commotion coming from inside. Agent Smythe burst in to the small bathroom to find Willow being pulled out through the window. His agency training took over and he lunged for her lithe, beautifully formed ankle. He must have been distracted by the ankle, because he missed. The next sound he heard was a car peeling out from behind the building.

Agents Lowenstein and Magnusson took off in hot pursuit of the car. Agent Smythe “borrowed” a car from a friendly lady at the gas station. Smythe wasn’t exactly sure if she gave him her car because of his charismatic charm or because of the machine pistol he was waving in her face. Anyway, Smythe joined the chase.

There were a couple of tense moments during the chase when both Lowenstein and Smythe critically failed their driving rolls. Agent Lowenstein plowed through several cars yet managed to get him, Agent Magnusson and the SUV out of it all unscathed. (Thanks to Lowenstein’s Ace edge that allowed him to soak the multiple wounds to the car.) Agent Smythe had no such edge. He had to depend upon the loving kindness of Evil Mike the GM…who told him to double the damage roll due to the critical failure. The GM ruled that agent’s Smythe’s car had hit a concrete barrier. Fortunately Smythe “Rolled a Mike”. That is, he rolled damage so low that doubling it only caused him to make a driving roll. Smythe survived.

During the chase Magnusson showed off his shooting prowess by taking out two tires on the lead car. But the kidnappers were the best of the best and were not going to let the loss of two tires stop them. Then Agent Smythe plowed his borrowed car into the back of their car. With the back of their car destroyed, they had no choice but to surrender. We required our package for delivery.

After a quick search, we left the kidnappers tied up in the trunk of their car and the trunk of the car Smythe borrowed.

It was dark when we reach Gdansk. Our orders were to drop Willow off at an old Buddhist temple. We found the temple in a rundown part of the city. We scoped it out using all of ours Agency taught skills. It seemed innocuous enough. As we slipped into the darken temple we could hear whimpering. As we moved closer, we saw men bound and gagged on the floor. And that’s when we noticed we were not alone…

Anonymous

GM: Evil Mike, Cruel Silver Tongued Devil
Samuel Smythe (Steve): Occult Branch, Polish National, The Healer
Baltasar Magnusson (Owen): Operations Branch, Swedish, The Lindquist/Forger
Cyrus Lowenstein (Ben): Operations Branch, American, The Ladies Man
Nick Harmon (Mike): Occult Branch, American, Combat Psychic

We had known for a while that the Russians were up to something at the Wroclaw Art Gallery. They were somehow going to pass on sensitive information using paintings. We had obtained one of the paintings and discovered the hidden code within in the painted shades of the art work. Although we couldn’t decipher the code, we did have a fair idea when the paintings would be handed over to the buyer or buyers. The Wroclaw Art Gallery Gala was happening in just a few weeks. International buyers from all over the world would be there. We’d be there too.

We obtained a couple of invitations to the Gala. Our plan was simple. Agent Smythe (and a date) would attend the gala as himself. The Russians already knew agent Smythe and would be watching his every move. Meanwhile, Agents Magnusson and Harmon would be disguised as waiters. They would be searching for persons of interest. Agent Lowenstein would hack into the surveillance cameras from outside and provide valuable identification information. Agent Lowenstein disguised himself as a bum and took up residence inside a trash dumpster located at the side of the gallery.

As the diversion, Agent Smythe was extraordinary. The man known only as “The Russian” tracked Smythe’ s every move, thus keeping him from noticing Magnusson and Harmon. Using some previous intel, Magnusson followed an exotically beautiful women to a smaller gallery. As luck would have it, Agent Lowenstein identified this woman as “Willow”, a Chinese operative looking to defect. Magnusson used all of his training to ignore Willow’s hints and direct commands to leave. This paid off.

Soon a group of men were seen heading to the same gallery. Agent Harmon stealthily followed. Smythe also followed but was noticed by The Russian. Smythe used a little of his power to cause the lights to go out so he could stealthy follow Agent Harmon to the gallery. Agent Lowenstein identified the men as known operatives from Italy, Israel, and the United States. Each was escorted by their own pair of armed goons.

…and that’s when the “shit hit the fan”.

As Smythe stealthily followed behind Harmon, he drew his machine pistol…which went off with a mighty cascade of bullets that nearly hit Harmon. (Yes, I critically failed my Stealth roll.) The goons at the end of the hall took up positions to protect their charges; firing their guns in our general direction. To add to our difficulties, Russian agents from within a secret room exited into the gallery shooting everyone, including Willow.

Bullets were flying everywhere and no one was sure just who was on what side of the battle. Willow was in grave danger. Knowing that we needed to extract her, Magnusson concentrated on getting her to a nearby elevator. Harmon overpowered the Israeli operative and used him as a bullet shield against the Russians. That ended well for Harmon. Not so well for the dead Israeli.

Lowenstein reported that the Russians had captured my date and were moving her out of the building. She was innocent of everything that was going down and was terrified out of her mind. Lowenstein left his post to save her. We were still in the middle of a firefight for our lives. Fearing more Russians Magnusson called for the doors to the gallery to be locked shut. Unfortunately Lowenstein was already heading to the front of the building (pushing his hobo shopping cart.) We somehow managed to get everyone in the elevator without Agent Lowenstein’s help.

Out front, Lowenstein opened up on the two Russians holding my date. One went down; the other pulled a combat shotgun and nearly killed Lowenstein. We were all betting on the Russian at this point. Before Lowenstein could do more than bleed all over the sidewalk, the Russian killed my date and ran off.

We all escaped will Willow. Unfortunately the U.S. and Italian operatives cleaned out the coded paintings and disappeared into the night.

Our handler, Mr. Myster was not happy.

Agent Smythe