October 19, 2018 Friday Paladin drives to the Saietta’s Long
Island estate. The voice on the intercom speaker at the gate told him
to just set the proposed sites on the ground. Someone would come and
collect them. Paladin refused. He wanted to put the document in the
hands of someone. He said he would wait. The voice said someone would
be out – eventually.
“I’ll wait 5 minutes then I will
hope the gate and bring it to the door.” The voice said then he would be
arrested for trespassing.
Before the five minutes elapsed a
little girl, 11 years old, exited the house and started walking down
the drive to the gate. She moved at an extremely leisurely pace. At
the gate she takes the offered flash drive through the bars. Paladin
asks if she is going to be at the fight. She says ‘of course. ‘You
challenged my family to a death match, where else would I be?’ Paladin says it would be a shame for
someone so young to get involved as they might not survive, but if
she partakes in the crimes her family indulges in maybe it wouldn’t
be such a bad thing after all.
Paladin then heads Avenger’s
mansion. He wants to try to get in touch with someone who can get the
helmet and hammer of Magni back to Asgard where they belong.
At the mansion he speaks to the only
person on staff there, Jarvis. At first he does not have any
suggestions for Paladin but after thinking for a while he remembers a
half Asgardian who operates a bakery with her boyfriend. He promises
to send the name to Paladin as soon as he remembers it.
After the Master told Kismet that the
creatures that attacked Lady Paper who born of this earth she decides
to see if she could discover if the creatures were mutants. She goes
to the library and digging through records. After doing research at
the library she plans on going to the museum to examine the statue of
Azor.
Cyberpunk Sees off
Sara (his little sister) then heads over to the super secret base.
He finds a couple
of girls playing in cards, with them was a large bear-like creature.
The creature, Mughi, was attracted to Cyberpunk, nuzzling him with
curiosity. He asks them if they are part of the team. They answer no,
they are just visiting but they are law enforcement. 3WA.
During the
conversation Cyberpunk comes to realize that they are aliens. He asks
if they have a space ship? Yes. Can he see it? No. Where is it?
Parked beside the Brooklyn Brigade’s ship. What, we have a ship.
Yes, it was given to the team by the Count of Ubudgin for rescuing
his family from space pirates.
Cyberpunk excitedly
contacts Paladin and Kismet over the mind links and babbles in his
enthusiasm about the ship(s) and aliens.
Chris is wondering
around looking for crime to interfere in.
During his
exploration he comes across a rumor that the Brooklyn Brigade is
gathering every cape (i.e. super hero) they can for a major battle
against a minor crime family with the goal to completely wipe it out.
Permanently.
This sounds like
the kind of activity he is looking for so he heads for the Bunker.
Kei talks Cyberpunk
into playing strip poker with her and Yuri. They comment that he
can’t help his shortcomings, after all he is descended from
primates. He points out they mentioned that several times, what did
they evolve from? They say they might tell him sometime, if he’s
good.
They then take him
to the cleaners.
The girls keep a
couple things as trophies but give the rest back to him.
Paladin gets back
and pointedly ignores what Cyberpunk and the girls are doing.
The door rings.
Paladin sees a figure in a hat and trench coat standing there. He
says his name is Chris and he speaks in English but his sentence
structure is…odd. They speak on the warehouse level of the base
never venturing to the living section in the basement.
Paladin accepts his
offer of aid for the upcoming battle but is suspicious as the fight
is not common knowledge. The people involved are not likely to spread
the information around.
Chris will be back
Wednesday in time for the battle.
Jarvis gets in
touch with Paladin with the information he promised. The
half-Asgardian is named Sophitia Alexandria. She is half Asgardian
and operates a bakery in San Francisco called ‘Not Just Cakes’.
She runs the bakery with her boyfriend Daimon.
It is about 11AM,
8AM in San Francisco, so Paladin calls the bakery. It is open, a man
answers the phone. He is unwilling to let Paladin talk to Sophitia
until she wrestles the phone from the man. The man is Daimon, her
boyfriend. When Paladin tells her why he called she laughs. She is
not half Asgardian, she is half Olympian. Paladin asks if she can get
word to Asgard, or at least, to someone who can reach Asgard.
She says she will
try but it will take time. If she can’t find someone who can help
she is sure that Daimon will be able to.
Sophitia promises
to call as soon as she knows something.
Paladin patiently
waits.
It is nearing 5PM
as Kismet finds nothing in her research. She gathers her research
material so she can go through it more carefully again later.
Meanwhile she needs to get to the museum before it closes. She heads
there via Starbucks to get a Grande coffee; black, to revitalize her
grey cells.
Kismet tells Cyberpunk about her
research for mutants who might have eaten Lady Paper. Taking her
research he starts running to various internet searches while
scouring the databases that he has access to.
He finds something. Six months ago a freelance journalist
named Frank, the Fedora, Keaton wrote a human interest story about
the homeless in the city. While the majority of the article was about
the transitory nature of the homeless population, people coming,
people going, some improving their situation, others dying. Embedded
in the story were recollections from some of the homeless who claimed
that their friends had been grabbed off the street for
experimentation and others were grabbed as donors for organ
harvesting. One lady claimed that a couple of yellow monsters (one
big, the other tiny) came up from the sewer and grabbed people to eat
them. Bingo. Kismet called Frank and asked where
that homeless person was. He told her he met her at The Sisters of
Amazing Grace Soup Kitchen. She tells Frank there might be a story
for him. She also tells him if he comes up with any additional
information he can call her or send the information to PART officer
Stan Brown.
She finally gets to Starbucks for her
Grande Black Coffee as Cyberpunk teleports to join her. He orders
something time consuming. In short order they are off to the museum.
Curator Boyd Rosario takes them to the
16 inch tall statuette. Kismet takes 30 minutes of extra time and
tries to read the objects past. The strength of some of the visions
leap out at her. She sees a youngster among his people, a tribe of
hunter gathers in the distant past. In a flash she sees a glowing
stone in the bottom of a crater. She sees the same young man near the
glowing stone. She sees him back among his tribe, stronger and
tougher than anyone else. He takes control of the tribe.
Under his leadership the tribe
conquers everyone else they encounter. The need for food forces them
to be constantly on the move. The tribe grows through conquest
forcing them to move ever more often. As a man, Azor has many
children. He gives them a portion of his super-tribe and sent them
out to conquer. Then Azor started to study magic.
Kismet sees him becoming a powerful
sorcerer. She sees him in the Astral plane standing before a huge
door, chained closed and secured. He tries to open it but can’t.
Then the vision falls to black. A pair
of disembodied piercing blue eyes form out of the blackness and stare
at her. ‘Who dares disturb me?’ The contact is broken as Kismet is
flung backward landing squarely on her backside.
She tells Cyberpunk and Boyd what she
saw but there is little sense of time associated with the vision. She
knows the first scenes were thousands of years ago, they came through
only because of the strength of the scenes associated with Azor.
As she is leaving the museum a 6 foot
in diameter silvery circle appears beside her. At the same time
another circle appears beside Paladin and by Chris (because their
fates are entwined in this).
They step through and are in the
presence of the most powerful living mages on the Earth; the Master,
The Revered Elder, Lord Arcane (the Revered Elder’s apprentice),
Doctor Arcane, Lady Arcane (Doctor Arcane’s daughter and
apprentice), and Vyss the Bloodletter.
They are the successors of the circle
of Seven that imprisoned Azor in the first place. If he were to get
free then everyone is in dire peril. The Revered Elder’s master was
one of the original Seven, everyone else is separated by several
successors.
Two of the original Seven are still
alive but they have been imprisoned for their own acts of evil. They
are Malice and a being called the Sphinx.
The mages at the table tell the
Brooklyn Brigade the story of Azor, the Blood, the Nocturnals, and
the Others.
The Master began the tale.
Approximately 50 thousand years ago, the dawn of modern man, Azor was
born to a simple hunter gatherer tribe. During one of his foraging
he, still a young man, came across a pit with a glowing stone in it.
The stone was The Stone of Destiny, a strange visitor from outer
space. Azor was the third to come across it. The other two were
Anthro of the Bear Tribe and Krong of the Blood Tribe. The stone
imparted godlike power to both of them. The Bear tribe and the Blood
tribe were warring with each other but that isn’t part of Azor’s
story.
When Azor found the stone it bestowed
its remaining power upon him.
Azor returned to his tribe and took
over. The stone had made him a physical powerhouse and gave him power
to control darkness but the greatest gift he received was the power
to see what was in the minds of other and twist their wills to his
own.
His lust for power was not quelled by
conquering his own tribe. Using his ability to control minds he added
every tribe his nomadic people encountered to his legions. Any tribe
that resisted was added to his by force.
Two things were limiting Azor’s
power lust; one he had to keep his followers reasonably close to him
as his control weakened over distance and two finding enough food to
keep his minions feed.
The children he had with his many
brides inherited a portion of his power. Azor was truly immortal
seeing the passing of millennia, his children lived for centuries but
eventually age did claim them. They also possessed other powers but
they varied from individual to individual.
The children of Azor who were most
beautiful and perfect in form came to be known as the Blood of Azor,
or just the blood. Their children were always beautiful, just as
their parents had been. His children who were twisted and ugly, but
still powerful in their own ways, were called the Nocturnal. The
Nocturnal also bred true, their children were as hideous as their
parents had been. A third branch, the Others, did not fit so neatly
in a description. Some were ugly but had beautiful children, others
were beautiful but bore ugly children. And so it was among the
descendants of the Others.
Azor gave a portion of his
ever-growing legions to his children in order to extend the range of
his rule. They spread across the earth consuming everything in their
path like locus.
The children of Azor eventually came
across a tribe (actually a civilization) that was able to resist
their advances. They had power and were able to resist Azor’s mind
manipulations. They called for their patriarch for assistance.
Azor was able to lay waste to those
who opposed him but in doing so he discovered a power that rivaled
his own, it was called ‘Magic’.
For the first time in uncounted years
Azor felt something he barely recognized; fear. He spent the next few
centuries learning about ‘magic’. He continued to use his mind
twisting power to keep his followers pliable to his whims, and the
orders of his children, but he was removed from their active lives
for the first time.
As Azor became a powerful sorcerer
some of those he ruled, subjects and kin, got their first tastes of
freedom. He did not notice as he was consumed by the need to so
powerful that nothing could challenge him. He learned of the Mythos during his
quest.
The elder gods went by many names even
in this period of antiquity. They had been sealed away and wanted
release. Azor wanted more power and a place to rule unchallenged.
They came to a bargain.
They added considerably to Azor’s
already immense power and gave him the unspoiled world of Ean to
shape as he willed. In exchange he would work ceaselessly to free the
great old ones so they could regain their control of Earth’s
dimension.
Azor took the Blood and his human
followers to Ean leaving his imperfect children and the rest of
humanity behind on a plundered and ravaged Earth. Without Azor’s
protection the Others and the Nocturnals were hunted and slain by
their vengeful victims. Azor dedicated himself to the task of
freeing his benefactors leaving his children to shepherd Ean. The
seeds of freedom that were planted during his quest to master magic
continued to bloom without him noticing.
When he exited a few centuries of
contemplation he found a King (a member of the Blood) ruling in his
stead. His people balked under his demands for tribute and recoiled
from the amusements that he demanded.
He severely punished them for a few
decades before returning to his mission to free his benefactors. The king took umbrage with Azor siring
children with his harem. The descendants of his original followers
objected to being enslaved by their god-king when he left his
studies. Everyone on Ean feared the next time Azor would take a break
from his endeavors and were terrified of when he finished the task
completely.
Azor needed to be dealt with.
The King of Ean put together a Council
of Ean. The strongest Blood and the most powerful mages sat on the
Council. After years of looking into how to free themselves of their
mad god they came to the conclusion that they could not, not by
themselves anyway.
In their studies
they rediscovered the secret of their origins, the world of Earth;
the place where Azor came to power, the place that he feared, the
world that he fled from. Yes, Earth must be the place where the
secret of Azor’s demise would be.
Envoys were
selected and sent to Earth. What they found on Earth beggared what
they expected. The people of Earth were advanced in arts and science,
possessed powerful mages, and had a military of unparalleled might.
Coming from a world
where there was only a single government the Eans were confused by
the two mighty empires, Atlantis and Mu, that had divided the world.
The empires existed in an uneasy truce waiting for the other to show
weakness. The Eans came to the city of Atlan and
sought out the Archmage (sorcerer supreme) of the day; Arkadios
Ampelius.
They Eans explained the situation and
while Arkadios was reluctant to get involved in the internal dealings
of another Empire the threat to Earth’s realm if Azor was
successful made the decision for him.
The council of Ean sent the research
they had on the spells that sealed the Elder Horrors away with their
envoys. The Imprisoning spell would require no less than seven
sorcerers of the same power level as the Archmage to be cast. Sealing
Azor away using the same magic he sought to undo appealed to
Arkadios’ sense of poetic justice. Besides it would be easier than
trying to kill a god. He sent out word the most powerful
mage of Mu, Quintilianus Caius, asking for his aid in defending the
world. Missives were also sent to Celtic witch Malice, the Egyptian
super sorcerer Sphinx, Comang of the orient, Hugororm the stranger,
the last of the circle was the sorcerer Vyss of Ean.
The Circle was complete. They ventured
to Ean and sealed Azor behind barriers very much like the ones he
sought to destroy. Ean and the Earth were safe, or were they? The Blood and their kin (the
Nocturnals and the Others) all held a spark of Azor in their
bloodlines. The Circle convinced the Council of Ean that their world
should be locked away to protect the universe from them and add
greater security for Ean against Azor and his benefactors.
The spells that formed Azor’s prison
were adapted to seal Ean away from the rest of the cosmos for their
mutual protection. Vyss worked the spell from within while the others
did their portion from Earth. The Circle of Seven completed their
work and returned to their lives. In the eons since Malice and the
Sphinx both used their dark arts to try to consume and control the
world. The mages that stood against them imprisoned them in stone
tombs under Nubian sands where they remain to this day.
After completing the tale the Master
confesses that is why he was so concerned when Kismet told him that
the Saietta claimed to be descended from Azor. If something connects
Azor with something outside of his prison he might be able to use
that to escape. If Azor escapes that could put the entire universe in
danger.
The Others and the Nocturnal were
supposedly all destroyed millennia ago.
Paladin asks how does this affect the
Brooklyn Brigade’s planned actions against the Saiettas? Vyss the
Bloodletter says that any Saiettas that fall in combat need to be
killed, it is the only way to ensure that Azor will never escape.
Murdering people is something that the
group isn’t willing to do. They ask if there is another way. The
Revered Elder suggests imprisoning the Saietta in small globes where
time does not pass within. Since none of the group are mages the
Circle of Mages decides to create a device that can cast the spell
for them, such as a wand, staff, or rod.
Paladin suggests that Kismet is the
best person to carry the device when it is completed. He also reminds
the Circle of Mages that they only have until Wednesday to get the
device to them. The Elder promises that the device will be ready.
Imprisoning them in globes is only a
stop-gap. It is decided that they should be sent to Ean where they
can be safely kept. The Revered Elder shifts his gaze to Vyss who
admits that 1) he is a member of the Blood, and 2) he is from Ean.
Lady Arcane says that he must know the
way to get through the barrier.
Vyss holds up his hand and says that
is not the case. He managed to come to Earth because he managed to
piggy-back behind another member of the Blood, Otto He Who Finds the
Paths. Otto escaped Ean with several members of his immediate family
to come here. Vyss cast a spell that let him follow in Otto wake. He
is here to kill Otto and all the Blood who came with him and then
self destruct. The Council of Ean gave him this mission.
If Otto and his family can be brought
back to Ean then they don’t have to die. As a bonus Vyss won’t
need to commit suicide upon completing the assignment.
Chris decided to point out the
‘elephant in the room’. The barrier that sealed Azor away was not
impenetrable. Kismet touched him with her mental powers and Azor
swatted her from wherever it is that he is imprisoned.
Now that Azor knows there is a means
to get around the barrier he won’t stop until he can use it again.
There traits are universal among prisoners and prisons.
The spells that erected the barriers
will need to be updated and improved based on this information.
Knowing the stakes
concerning the battle with the Saietta have been raised but with a
modified battle plan in place the Circle of Mages were prepared to
send the group back where they were plucked from (or anywhere else
that they desired).
Safely back away from the Circle of
Mages Lady Arcane teleports to the group except for Chris who opted
to go back where he was plucked from. Everyone else went to the
Bunker.
She offered to erase the group’s
memory of what the Saietta’s truly are, the existence of Azor, and
the rest. She offered to let them get back to chasing bank robbers
and purse snatchers, leaving world shattering events like Azor to be
handled by people like the Revered Elder and his apprentice Lord
Arcane (no relation to Doctor Arcane or Lady Arcane).
Paladin declines the offer. He quips
that dealing with the Saiettas is one of the easiest things on their
list of things to do!
Lady Arcane during the meeting of the
circle also asked ‘what ever happened to the Stone of Destiny?’
After the meeting when she appeared to the group she proposed that
since the Stone of Destiny gave Azor his powers to start with maybe
it could take them away? She also asked what ever happened to the
other two who came in contact with the Stone (Anthro and Krong)?
End Session 6PM