Issue #5: Journey Into Darkness

Issue #5 (September 13th, 2003)

"JOURNEY INTO DARKNESS"

CAST OF DOCTORS:
Jeff (Dr. Judge LAW & Dr. B4)
Robert (Dr. Twelleker & Dr. Orland)
Alan (Dr. Geoff Gardiner)
Michele (Dr. Hunter)
Jim (Dr. Rift)
John (Dr. Falcon)

DON'T PAY THE FERRYMAN

Characters start by getting a call that downtown at the site where they are digging up a hole for the foundation of a new building, they have discovered a being that was uncovered. At first they thought it was a body buried there long ago, but when it opened it's eyes they felt the need to evacuate the area.

The individual turns out to be "B4", Jeff's new Data character. He claims that he is unable to remember many things but that he is there to assist the Sentinels.

Not long after that there is an alert that a cloud of fog is passing through town and that in its wake the streets are iced over. Upon arrival, our heroes get to meet VOID. Think "Charon", the boatman over the river Styx. He's floating on a boat through town and changing people into Fire Zombies. Our heroes engage and Orland is lucky to get out with 1 BODY left; Hunter takes a pretty good shot after she does a jump up onto the boat and gets tagged. Mental attacks are easily repelled by him. Void gets nailed by a blast and takes copious amounts of knockback and is finally subdued. The judge gives him an extra mental blast for good measure. The Fire Zombies are easily held up by the Steambots, who seem to take little to nothing from the flames.

Anthem is allowed into the base for safe keeping. She recognizes the symbol on the book that cipher denoted was "A proper noun or representative of someone". It's that circle with two lines through it. She says she's seen it in the subway, on the ground at the Carmell Exit in the Sunrise district.

A brief investigation of a scene of some child abductions brings about a very strange little encounter. The characters track a strange "sparking" from power lines, neon signs, street lights, etc. They follow it for blocks until it leads them to a dead end alley. They are there looking around when two other figures show up. One is a rather sluttily dressed woman and the other is a pale woman surrounded by a black amorphous cloud and floating of the ground. The floater takes off through the wall. While she's gone, the characters talk to the other woman. She asks for a light, and during questioning lets the characters know that they are tracking the same thing. When offered a chance to be "cooperative" and pool resources, she says that their results will vary; They have a different form of justice in mind. The two spooky ones eventually leave. One said to call her "Maggie".

Subsequently they are identified as looking much like two of the previous sentinels. The slutty one looks somewhat like Muse, and the spooky floating one looks like Gossamyr.

Characters investigate the subway. They find the symbol. The janitor says he can't get it cleaned up. He says there's all kinds of writing down in the subway tunnels, but he doesn't go down there; it's not part of his job and it's dark and the trains come through there.

Characters subsequently go to 43rd street. Audra Blue strenuously objects, but is blown off. The team investigates.

43rd street is home to a large abandoned building; site of the demise of the previous team of Sentinels. They find the site of Burn's demise (where he was squashed beneath an elevator), and go to the sub-basement level. There is a collapsed corner of the building that appears to lead through to a tunnel beyond. A swarm of rats come flowing out at one point. The search upward yields a room on the 7th floor which appears to be home to a male squatter; it features a wall covered in all manner of pointy objects, from scissors to jagged objects, but primarily nails... lots and lots of nails. And in one office there is a picture of Anthem, a couple of years younger, and a nail has been driven through the photo at her forehead.

There's plenty of unexplained electrical interference inhibiting radio and cell-phone usage. A chair comes flying down the elevator shaft at one point; source unknown.

The characters go down the tunnel once the Steambots clear a passage. It goes several miles deep before the characters find a section where it T's. Going deeper into the earth they eventually encounter a large chamber that features a few scaffolds, several brick walls that may have been uncovered, and a few works of art, including the mosaic from the museum. "Maggie" from earlier appears, seemingly stepping out of a pillar. When asked about her past she does not seem to remember being muse and gets upset when forced to recall. Another individual in the darkness address the players. He is cloaked in darkness that blocks the senses from making out the details of his features. He says it is customary to bring a tithe. The players ask what they could offer and he says that there are things from the museum that can be brought. He also says that they could retrieve for him the two who the heroes captured. He calls them "The Infinitum". Eventually any conversation blows up with the characters leaving. But before this happens, another being makes himself seen; a man with a fistful of nails. He looks disheveled, reminiscent of a homeless man. The characters manage to prompt a one-sentence response out of him. The man in the darkness calls him "Joseph".

This is significant in that when the characters come back to the surface and send the information to Audra and ask her to play it back for Anthem, she recognizes the voice and takes off. While they are trying to figure out how to track her down, she shows up at the scene! She's ready to kick some ass and must be talked down. A clever mimicry trick by B4 gets her to come back before she goes down and faces the unknown.

On the way back they check the other direction of the "T", and find a subway tunnel. That's when they spy some tracks... tracks not unlike those of Geoff Gardiner's Robots, only larger. The print they leave is almost signature; he could swear it was something he made, but he's never made one this large. He recalls ATLAS, the robot he designed but could never solve the issue of how to power it because the amount of coal or wood it would take to heat it almost guaranteed it shutting down quickly. Those plans were left behind, long ago, before his jump to this time.

They go to THE KEEP to interrogate the two prisoners, VOID and ZERO, to find out what they can about the man in the dark below. Turns out VOID does nothing but cackle. He seems incapable of saying anything of use. ZERO however, wants to know where "He" is. He offers to make the characters wealthy in return for the knowledge of his location. He cannot be bought with promises of "less time"; he wants out now. It seems that he thinks that everything is ending "very, very soon". When asked why he's here, he says, "Can't you feel it? All around you? This is the place. I've been to the other cities; this is the one."

Knowing that the characters will have opportunity to harm the man below, he tells the characters that "He thinks he is holy, but he is wrong. Holy things will harm him. Relics, blessed things."

The man below is a pope who reigned between 304 and 308 AD; he performed his business more like dictator than a pope and subsequently was erased from all Vatican records. That 4-year period historically had no pope, during the reign of Diocletian in Rome.

Characters go the city's most prominent church, one that has been brought over from Europe and reconstructed brick by brick; St. Marcellinus church. Pope Marcellinus is the pope until 304 AD.

To throw more numbers at you, it should be mentioned that when B4 (Jeff's character) came to consciousness with impaired memory, his internal chronometer was set to 654 AD for some reason.

At the church characters meet with the Bishop. (Not to be confused with the "Bishop" that Orland encountered earlier. Oops... I glossed right over that part. I'll backtrack later.). This bishop has no "relics" to offer, saying the building itself is the only thing of value. He does however bless the couple of things that people ask to be blessed (Phasers?).

By the way.. blessed phasers didn't seem to make a difference in the fight. Hunter's knife however...

JOURNEY INTO DARKNESS

Characters go down and confront the Evil Pope, Gossamyr (now called MONARCH), Muse (now called MAGDALENE) and Joe Bellamy, aka "Coffin Nail Joe" (to anyone on the streets where he hangs out drinking and bumming cigarettes) aka CRUCIFIER. In the ensuing fight, Falcon, and the Phaser brothers (B4 and Rift) hurt Monarch pretty easily due to their light-based powers. In the end the group is captured and brought back. Good thing you knocked the Black Pope unconscious, because muse used her AID power to raise one of his powers by 22pts (and that was a low roll); so he was going to whomp some but given the chance. But he couldn't hurt the steambots.

He also, for some unknown reason, called Hunter "Delilah".

By the way, now that she has been shown the symbol in the book you guys recovered with cipher's help, she seems to recognize it but gives out minimal information.

The team captures the bad guys and send the Black Pope to the KEEP. The others are brought to the chuch with some hope of cleansing them.

Now to backtrack a moment...

This is one of those things that nobody was witness to, but Orland. Nonetheless, I'll include it here in the recap. Orland had lunch with Anthem when trying to convince her to come on board. During that lunch an individual introduced himself as "Bishop". He asked Orland to "Come home".

Also, Rift came to Dr. T (also with no witnesses) and asked him to take a mysterious sample and examine it for "Mutant powers". The blood did yield properties of mutancy.


	Issue #5 (September 13th, 2003)

"JOURNEY INTO DARKNESS"

CAST OF DOCTORS: Jeff (Dr. Judge LAW & Dr. B4) Robert (Dr. Twelleker & Dr. Orland) Alan (Dr. Geoff Gardiner) Michele (Dr. Hunter) Jim (Dr. Rift) John (Dr. Falcon) DON'T PAY THE FERRYMAN Characters start by getting a call that downtown at the site where they are digging up a hole for the foundation of a new building, they have discovered a being that was uncovered. At first they thought it was a body buried there long ago, but when it opened it's eyes they felt the need to evacuate the area. The individual turns out to be "B4", Jeff's new Data character. He claims that he is unable to remember many things but that he is there to assist the Sentinels. Not long after that there is an alert that a cloud of fog is passing through town and that in its wake the streets are iced over. Upon arrival, our heroes get to meet VOID. Think "Charon", the boatman over the river Styx. He's floating on a boat through town and changing people into Fire Zombies. Our heroes engage and Orland is lucky to get out with 1 BODY left; Hunter takes a pretty good shot after she does a jump up onto the boat and gets tagged. Mental attacks are easily repelled by him. Void gets nailed by a blast and takes copious amounts of knockback and is finally subdued. The judge gives him an extra mental blast for good measure. The Fire Zombies are easily held up by the Steambots, who seem to take little to nothing from the flames. Anthem is allowed into the base for safe keeping. She recognizes the symbol on the book that cipher denoted was "A proper noun or representative of someone". It's that circle with two lines through it. She says she's seen it in the subway, on the ground at the Carmell Exit in the Sunrise district. A brief investigation of a scene of some child abductions brings about a very strange little encounter. The characters track a strange "sparking" from power lines, neon signs, street lights, etc. They follow it for blocks until it leads them to a dead end alley. They are there looking around when two other figures show up. One is a rather sluttily dressed woman and the other is a pale woman surrounded by a black amorphous cloud and floating of the ground. The floater takes off through the wall. While she's gone, the characters talk to the other woman. She asks for a light, and during questioning lets the characters know that they are tracking the same thing. When offered a chance to be "cooperative" and pool resources, she says that their results will vary; They have a different form of justice in mind. The two spooky ones eventually leave. One said to call her "Maggie". Subsequently they are identified as looking much like two of the previous sentinels. The slutty one looks somewhat like Muse, and the spooky floating one looks like Gossamyr. Characters investigate the subway. They find the symbol. The janitor says he can't get it cleaned up. He says there's all kinds of writing down in the subway tunnels, but he doesn't go down there; it's not part of his job and it's dark and the trains come through there. Characters subsequently go to 43rd street. Audra Blue strenuously objects, but is blown off. The team investigates. 43rd street is home to a large abandoned building; site of the demise of the previous team of Sentinels. They find the site of Burn's demise (where he was squashed beneath an elevator), and go to the sub-basement level. There is a collapsed corner of the building that appears to lead through to a tunnel beyond. A swarm of rats come flowing out at one point. The search upward yields a room on the 7th floor which appears to be home to a male squatter; it features a wall covered in all manner of pointy objects, from scissors to jagged objects, but primarily nails... lots and lots of nails. And in one office there is a picture of Anthem, a couple of years younger, and a nail has been driven through the photo at her forehead. There's plenty of unexplained electrical interference inhibiting radio and cell-phone usage. A chair comes flying down the elevator shaft at one point; source unknown. The characters go down the tunnel once the Steambots clear a passage. It goes several miles deep before the characters find a section where it T's. Going deeper into the earth they eventually encounter a large chamber that features a few scaffolds, several brick walls that may have been uncovered, and a few works of art, including the mosaic from the museum. "Maggie" from earlier appears, seemingly stepping out of a pillar. When asked about her past she does not seem to remember being muse and gets upset when forced to recall. Another individual in the darkness address the players. He is cloaked in darkness that blocks the senses from making out the details of his features. He says it is customary to bring a tithe. The players ask what they could offer and he says that there are things from the museum that can be brought. He also says that they could retrieve for him the two who the heroes captured. He calls them "The Infinitum". Eventually any conversation blows up with the characters leaving. But before this happens, another being makes himself seen; a man with a fistful of nails. He looks disheveled, reminiscent of a homeless man. The characters manage to prompt a one-sentence response out of him. The man in the darkness calls him "Joseph". This is significant in that when the characters come back to the surface and send the information to Audra and ask her to play it back for Anthem, she recognizes the voice and takes off. While they are trying to figure out how to track her down, she shows up at the scene! She's ready to kick some ass and must be talked down. A clever mimicry trick by B4 gets her to come back before she goes down and faces the unknown. On the way back they check the other direction of the "T", and find a subway tunnel. That's when they spy some tracks... tracks not unlike those of Geoff Gardiner's Robots, only larger. The print they leave is almost signature; he could swear it was something he made, but he's never made one this large. He recalls ATLAS, the robot he designed but could never solve the issue of how to power it because the amount of coal or wood it would take to heat it almost guaranteed it shutting down quickly. Those plans were left behind, long ago, before his jump to this time. They go to THE KEEP to interrogate the two prisoners, VOID and ZERO, to find out what they can about the man in the dark below. Turns out VOID does nothing but cackle. He seems incapable of saying anything of use. ZERO however, wants to know where "He" is. He offers to make the characters wealthy in return for the knowledge of his location. He cannot be bought with promises of "less time"; he wants out now. It seems that he thinks that everything is ending "very, very soon". When asked why he's here, he says, "Can't you feel it? All around you? This is the place. I've been to the other cities; this is the one." Knowing that the characters will have opportunity to harm the man below, he tells the characters that "He thinks he is holy, but he is wrong. Holy things will harm him. Relics, blessed things." The man below is a pope who reigned between 304 and 308 AD; he performed his business more like dictator than a pope and subsequently was erased from all Vatican records. That 4-year period historically had no pope, during the reign of Diocletian in Rome. Characters go the city's most prominent church, one that has been brought over from Europe and reconstructed brick by brick; St. Marcellinus church. Pope Marcellinus is the pope until 304 AD. To throw more numbers at you, it should be mentioned that when B4 (Jeff's character) came to consciousness with impaired memory, his internal chronometer was set to 654 AD for some reason. At the church characters meet with the Bishop. (Not to be confused with the "Bishop" that Orland encountered earlier. Oops... I glossed right over that part. I'll backtrack later.). This bishop has no "relics" to offer, saying the building itself is the only thing of value. He does however bless the couple of things that people ask to be blessed (Phasers?). By the way.. blessed phasers didn't seem to make a difference in the fight. Hunter's knife however... JOURNEY INTO DARKNESS Characters go down and confront the Evil Pope, Gossamyr (now called MONARCH), Muse (now called MAGDALENE) and Joe Bellamy, aka "Coffin Nail Joe" (to anyone on the streets where he hangs out drinking and bumming cigarettes) aka CRUCIFIER. In the ensuing fight, Falcon, and the Phaser brothers (B4 and Rift) hurt Monarch pretty easily due to their light-based powers. In the end the group is captured and brought back. Good thing you knocked the Black Pope unconscious, because muse used her AID power to raise one of his powers by 22pts (and that was a low roll); so he was going to whomp some but given the chance. But he couldn't hurt the steambots. He also, for some unknown reason, called Hunter "Delilah". By the way, now that she has been shown the symbol in the book you guys recovered with cipher's help, she seems to recognize it but gives out minimal information. The team captures the bad guys and send the Black Pope to the KEEP. The others are brought to the chuch with some hope of cleansing them. Now to backtrack a moment... This is one of those things that nobody was witness to, but Orland. Nonetheless, I'll include it here in the recap. Orland had lunch with Anthem when trying to convince her to come on board. During that lunch an individual introduced himself as "Bishop". He asked Orland to "Come home". Also, Rift came to Dr. T (also with no witnesses) and asked him to take a mysterious sample and examine it for "Mutant powers". The blood did yield properties of mutancy.

"JOURNEY INTO DARKNESS"

CAST OF DOCTORS: Jeff (Dr. Judge LAW & Dr. B4) Robert (Dr. Twelleker & Dr. Orland) Alan (Dr. Geoff Gardiner) Michele (Dr. Hunter) Jim (Dr. Rift) John (Dr. Falcon)

DON'T PAY THE FERRYMAN

JOURNEY INTO DARKNESS

CAST OF DOCTORS:
Jeff (Dr. Judge LAW & Dr. B4)
Robert (Dr. Twelleker & Dr. Orland)
Alan (Dr. Geoff Gardiner)
Michele (Dr. Hunter)
Jim (Dr. Rift)
John (Dr. Falcon)