DREAMERS GAME NINE Short tales and Vane attempts (March 27th, 2004) Attendees: Nathan, Christine, Hank, Gabriel, Dodge, Omeed, Jack, Simon, and Ryan. WHEN LAST WE LEFT OFF... We spent two weeks doing training and hit the little town of Lesser Eadale. According to the newspaper accounts, authorities declared that the beast that had killed two people and maimed a third (a "wild dog" of some kind) had likely cralwed off to die due to injury. But it had never been found. Simon comes up with the idea that we can conspicuously ask questions if we pretend to be an advance team from Hollywood, USA, trying to investigate the scene for a small cable TV network show about strange happenings. This works pretty well, as many people seem willing to tell us tales; particularly after we ply them with liquor. One even shows us the scene of the last mauling (the one in which the man survived). We were unable to find clues here however, due to time, rain, and what have ya. The team assembled silver and such from pawn shops and Hank had taken to making silvered weapons, including bullets. Christine made charms of protection for our front line warriors. Investigation at one point leads to the suspicion that the Vicar at the local abbey may be a creature of the night. This is further exacerbated by two botches: Gabriel incurred enough scourge to earn himself two automatic botch-like incidents at "crucial" roles during the game. One was when he tried to read the mind of the Vicar. He found that the Vicar was thinking, "You will not live through the night", and he found himself afterward unable to read the mind of the old man. A further impression that the man was dead yet walking was leant by Jack, who botched his detect life roll and became convinced that he man was not a true living being like the rest of us. I suppose though the most entertaining (and crazy) incident happened when the team split three ways. Some of us were talking to families of victims; a heart-wrenching affair. Others were speaking with doctors that treated the victims. And then an Indian and a Botanist walk onto a farm... Actually, there's a little more set-up to this. Dodge decided first to speak to spirits in the graveyard where the bodies of the two deceased mauling victims were lain to rest. During said incident the horribly pained spirit proceeded to try and possess him. He had attracted the spirit and managed to fight it off through force of will. However, our friendly neighborhood curse-detector, Gabriel, had linked up to share perceptions with Dodge. After he fought off the entity, they beat a hasty retreat from the graveyard. But one of the thoughts that Gabriel managed to pull off of the brain of the temporarily possessed Dodge, was thoughts of the deceased's loved-one; a man simply named "John", who lived somewhere in a vague general direction that Dodge took off running before we managed to track him down. In fact, it took a tranq dart and a failed soak to bring down Dodge so that we could haul him home. Now the on the way back to the hotel, the constable found us hauling the unconscious indian. Gabriel began to shovel it high into a steaming work-of-art so realistic that we too began to wonder if Dodge really were an epileptic who'd had a fit of some kind. Anyway, let's get back to the Indian-come-Security-Officer and the faux-TV-exec-botanist asking questions of John Higgins, a local that may have been involved with the deceased woman victim. He claimed to know nothing of the woman. That was when Christine, rather pointedly, said, "I understand that you do know her in a biblical sense." Well, that made no points with the man, who raised another red flag with the local constable. So now we've been warned yet again about causing trouble. One interview with a family member of a victim yielded a useful tidbit; He claimed that the "Vanes" might be respnsible. These are the local lords who live in the castle. one was said to be skulking around. But we still don't trust that Vicar. A primal perception investigation of the Vicar yielded information from his journals about the the family in the castle. They are cursed lo these past 300 years, by a witch that was accused by a female member of the family of being a witch. She was burned to death but cursed the family lineage so that all the females of the Vanes would become ravenous beasts. Armed with this knowledge, Nathan contacts Mamma M'gwanna about the curse and finds out that she (Eloise, the daughter who just turned 18 three months ago when these killing started again) needs to be hauled to hallowed ground and exorcised. For this we decide that since the Vicar (undead or not) seems to be trying to assist the family with their curse that we should try to tell him the truth and have him contact the family about the method needed to free the girl from her curse. Apparently it was enough to convince the man who only wanted the best for his daughter. She was drugged and brought to the church where she proceeded to try and rip our entrails out while she was exorcised. A combination of 15 successes on rolls by Dodge & the Vicar were needed to free her from the curse. Meanwhile the rest of us were to restrain her and keep her from getting to either of the exorcists. Jack, Omeed, and Hank do an excellent job of parrying and staying ahead until the last round of combat in which Omeed is gutted by a blow that knocks him all the way to incapacitated. They complete the exorcism and the family is free of the curse... FOR NOW! (dum dum DUUUUUM!). Apparently this doesn't break the curse for all the females; just the one that was exorcised. So this may arise again someday when a new female is born to the Vane family. Healin' Jack Sims puts Omeeds intestines back before he can bleed out. And we are done with England for now. Soon we make way for Egypt.