Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} May 1, 1776 Thursday  Iktomi/Rick and Ruth/Kismet are having no luck finding crystals but they do see a ship unloading its cargo that has three mind link threads leading to it. They stay and watch until a man with a mind link exits the ship and heads down Dockstreet. They shadow him until he enters Franklin Stoves on Market.  Kismet and Iktomi (as a NPC) notices that the roof of Franklin Stoves is covered with several lightning rods.  Kismet follows him in and overhears the man asking to see Squire Franklin to design a special hearth for the home his employer is building. The clerk, whose name is William, makes arrangements for Franklin and the man to meet the next afternoon.  While the man is talking to William Kismet tries to tape into the mindlink the man from the ship has. She is surprisingly successful and gets a glimpse of a huge hive mind that spans both time and many other dimensions. Kismet recoils slightly but is able to change to scope of her connection to just the here and now. She learns that the Deomoreans have already replaced Thomas Paine and are looking to do the same with Benjamin Franklin.  Kismet withdraws and goes to find the others to tell them what she learned. Constable wants to go ‘have a conversation’ with the fake Thomas Paine but Paladin stops him. Paladin is concerned that if the group tips their hand the rest of the hive-mind will get involved.  As a storm starts to roll in the group decides that it is imperative to safeguard Benjamin Franklin. They travel to his house to see he escorting guests out of his home while he going to his carriage. They intercept him. He tries to brush them off as he has an important appointment…with destiny. They will not excuse him and wind up joining him on his travel.  He rushes to his workshop at Franklin Stoves on Market. He rushes in and calls out for William asking if everything was in readiness. William answers that all is ready. Franklin rushes to his basement workshop with the group hot on his heels. Constable and the others realize that the area is set up very much like the time machine departure point in 2018 New York.  Paladin asks him when is he going? Franklin asks, in surprise, if they understand the configuration of the mechanisms in the room? Paladin says they do. Franklin asks if they know Stanely Bradford? They don’t, so Benjamin says they have much to talk about when he comes back. He is off to converse with the Pharaoh of Egypt. He says that Pharaoh speaks Latin so they have a point of commonalty. Franklin says he has used the machine in the past. He wants to make another trip with it before he is due to travel to France.  A bolt of lightning strikes the lighting rods on the roof activating the machine. Franklin says he will come back when the next bolt of lighting strikes the Franklin Rods on the roof. However the group will not let him go through and the charge dissipates and the gate closes.  They convince Franklin to go to a place of safety. He agrees. Paladin has him write down where he will hiding and seals the note, unread, in case of emergency.  It was getting late so the group finds an inn for the night.  Bear sleeps in the common area, Constable, Iktomi, and Paladin take one room while Lady Paper and Kismet take another. Shortly after midnight Kismet is woken by a masked-man holding a double barreled musket pistol to her head. He draws a second double-barreled pistol at Lady Paper and wakes her as well. Meanwhile Paladin’s danger sense has roused him and he is on his way to the girl’s room. Kismet paralyzes the man. The group disarms him before Kismet releases him to be interrogated.  The man, Simon Pure, knows they are time travelers and has come to see if they are friend or foe to the revolution. They speak for a while and tell him they are on a mission to intercept Corky Baxter. Simon claims he knows there Corky is; he is a house guest of Charles Vogel. Vogel is rich and powerful but not a friend of the rebellion.  They return Simon Pure’s gear to him.  The group has Simon lead them to the house of Vogel. Simon leads Constable through the slave quarters and up to the guest room where Corky is sleeping. There is a writing desk with several sheets of paper. Also on the desk is a short, but modern, ball point pen. Constable lights a couple of the pages and uses the fire to signal Kismet. She teleports in, grabs Corky, and teleports out. Bear then carries Corky a ways away from the house. Simon leads Constable out, then gets his horse and rides away.  They wake up Corky a safe distance from the Vogel house and begin to question him. They want to know where the book of time travel plans is. Eventually he tells them that the book is in a time capsule placed in the foundation of the North-West corner of the Chase Manhattan bank. He placed it there in 2015. He says he can’t go back there because he already exists in 2015, which all the Brooklyn Brigade members do also. He says the his group gains access to the book and builds the time machine in 2150.  Realizing that copy of the book is out of there grasp they decide to go after the one penned by the time machine’s inventor…Benjamin Franklin himself.  They get some information from Corky about the Demoreans, their view of themselves as perfect and how that makes every shape they assume flawed by lack of flaws. No scars, no birthmarks, no loss of limbs, full hair, etc. He also tells them Demorean can propel themselves through time by use of psionic power…no machines needed. They also travel naked. He tells them Demoreans are telepathic, can kill you by scrambling your brain, knock you out with mental force, etc. He also tells them that they keep the people they are impersonating alive because they access their skills and memories. If they die they lose that connection. He also tells them that the Demoreans occasionally need to come back and refresh their memory of the shape they are assuming. So, until they don’t need him any more, Thomas Paine has not been harmed. When they don’t need him anymore…it is likely he will be terminated.  Paladin lets Corky go with a warning to know screw around with history. If he does, next time they encounter him things will not go well for him. They then let him go. Corky giddily thanks them for taking over his mission and that he was going to go home now.  Constable has eidetic memory and has read Thomas Paine’s work. He suggests that he can recreate the original works if they can find and destroy the works created by fake- Thomas Paine.  End of Session