Episode 3 - Ballroom Blitz
Friday, June 6th
As Zeke, Kayla, Sonja & Danny made their way out of the swamp,
several in the group got the uneasy feeling that they were being
watched.
Danny opened up his Chi senses but it was hard to pick up
anything
against the "background noise" of all the swamp's normal life energy.
Certainly he didn't sense anything unusual for the swamp.
Once everyone was back to their cars, Danny, Kayla and Sonja
headed
back to their respective homes/hideouts. Zeke decided to head
over to St. Catherin's to pick up Father Charley to perform an exorcism
over the alligator.
Mike and Julian were left to keep an eye on the alligator itself while
waiting for the arrival of the wranglers. Eventually they arrived
along with Dr. Alice Lima. A makeshift raft was cobbled together
to get the gigantic beast out of the swamp. From there, it was
loaded aboard a truck to be taken back to the zoo where it could be
properly put down.
Back in town, Ceridwen finally arrived back home. She had been
gone the past week to attend her sister's wedding in Faerie. Of
course, for Ceri, it had only been one day but the flow of time in
Faerie is never constant. Still, Ceri was normally better
able to
navigate the time difference but the irritation at having to deal with
her sister and extended family left her less able to concentrate than
normal. Gretel was ecstatic at Ceri's return, even though she
liked having the 'Book Lady' keep an eye on things. Ceri knew
Gretel was referring to Ghillie, the owner of 'The Hidden Shelf',
Vibora Bay's best occult book store. Ceri took a few moments to
scratch Gretel behind the ears the way the dog liked before catching up
with mail and messages. While doing that, she heard a tapping at
the window and noticed a large black crow sitting on the window ledge.
Opening the window, she found it bore a message from Suisan, the
piper and song writer for 'Wild Hunt' one of the city's most popular
local bands. The crow spoke back the message, telling her that
odd things had been happening at Wild Hunt's shows lately and they
wanted her to find out if someone was trying to sabotage them.
Ceri cast the spell needed to send the crow back to Suisan,
informing her that she'd be at Saturday night's concert.
Saturday, June 7th (the wee hours)
Mike & Julian accompanied the wranglers taking the gator back to
the zoo. They had to do some re-arranging with the other
alligators in order clear out a pit large enough to contain the 50 foot
beast. Alice immediately set about gathering the materials needed
to study the beast. Mike went out to wait by a zoo entrance to
let Zeke in once he arrived with the priest. Julian suggested to
Alice that she might want to get some x-rays of the giant alligator
before they put it down. Really this was just a ruse to get her
out of the area so that Father Charley could perform the exorcism.
Father Charley informed them that the beast would have to be awake for
the exorcism. Mike grit his teeth and changed to his angelic form
before climbing into the pit to wake the beast and try to hold it
still. He got a good grip and the beast came awake and almost
immediately began thrashing about. Mike struggled and even though
he had the superior leverage and the beast was chained, he still was
barely able to maintain his grip. Father Charley began the
exorcism. Back in the lab, Alice & Julian could hear the
commotion. She was surprised that the beast was awake, considering how
large a tranquilizer dose she'd given it. Julian began trying to
distract her from heading back to the alligator pit but she admonished
him to stop "goofing around" and help her gather enough tranquilizer to
put the beast back down.
Meanwhile Mike lost his grip on the beast at least once and Father
Charley continued trying to force the demonic spirit out of the beast.
He was sweating profusely with the effort but eventually both
Mike and Zeke sense the demonic presence leave. It was then that
Mike realized that instead of wrestling with a 50-foot pissed-off
demonic giant alligator he was wrestling with a 50-foot pissed-off
perfectly normal giant alligator. He hoped out of the pit and
changed back just as Alice returned from the lab with the drugged meat
to feed the gator. She did a double-take, not sure if she'd just
seen wings on him or not and concluded that she really needed to get
some sleep.
Saturday, June 7th (civilized hours)
Ceri called the rest of the group to let them know that she had
some friends experiencing some apparently mystical trouble and she
wanted their help. Zeke declined to go, feeling that a rock
concert would prove too much temptation for the demon to resist.
Instead he was going to use the evening to try to track down more
information about this 'Fairy Dust' he'd heard about from his
underworld contacts. The rest of the group agreed to go,
though Mike had already been given a ticket by a co-worker. Later
that morning, Danny went back by the Bujinkin-Do Ninjitsu Dojo and hung
out unobtrusively until class let out. Once it did, he approached
Susan to see if she wanted to go to the 'Wild Hunt' show. She
eyed him warily, his behavior setting off her 'stalker radar' and
informed him that she would already be there as she worked the club
where they were playing. Danny noticed that Sensei John had
spotted him hanging around.
Saturday, June 7th (at Gator Alley)
The group arrived about an hour before the show was scheduled to start.
Many were put out by the fact that they'd have to leave their
weapons checked, however Julian managed to conceal his pistol in his
pants and Mike kept his newly-acquired machete under his ever-present
trench coat. The coat drew several odd looks considering the
Florida heat in conjunction with the humidity and Mike's all
white outfit evidenced exactly how much he was sweating. The team
were introduced to the band: Suisan was the pixieish piper and song
writer, Cael was the hulking drummer with green hair and fingernails
and Queron & Riona (the twins) were the band's lead singers and
bassist and guitarist respectively. The group was struck by the
fact that the twins were nearly as outright beautiful as Ceri was.
Once the show started, it became obvious why the band was one of the
most popular local bands. Their set consisted of a blend of
Celtic music and punk rock and the singers showed a practically inhuman
vocal range. The crowd was dominantly punk though there were a
few goths and norms scattered about, so the team didn't stand out too
much. Everyone was having a good time even though Susan declined
Danny's offers to dance or buy her a drink (she was working, after
all).
About 40 minutes or so into the first set the group noticed a commotion
up on stage. A small misshapen figured leaped up on stage and
began throwing glowing sparks out at the crowd. At first, the
crowd all thought it was part of the show, but several patrons near the
stage were burned by the sparks and the band appeared surprised by the
occurrence. Ceri almost immediately recognized the creature as a
Boggart (a twisted and evil Brownie). Kayla, Danny, Mike and Ceri
immediately converged on the stage, being the nearest and attempted to
subdue the Boggart. Julian, who was at the opposite end of the
club by the bar was about to head over when he noticed one of the
patrons by the bar start going into convulsions. As he watched,
the young man doubled over and quickly transformed into a werewolf.
By this point, the crowd realized that something was wrong and
began to panic. Sonja did her best to try to direct people towards the
exits but the crowd was too panicked.
The Boggart let out a blast of fire that did more to injure the crowd
than it did to any of the team fighting it. Then, realizing it
wasn't going to win a fight in close quarters, it flew up to the
rafters.
Once it did, though, Danny let loose a Chi Bolt that struck it in
the arm it was hanging by. It fell back to the stage and lost
consciousness. When it did, it reverted form back to a young
lady. Julian just barely caught a glimpse of this out of the
corner of his eye and it was a good thing as he was just about to shoot
the werewolf that had been clawing at him. Instead he picked up a
bar stool and tried to pummel it. In the mean time, Susan who had
been assisting the bar tender, hopped the bar and planted a hard kick
to
its back.
In the middle of the dance floor, another patron went into convulsions
and Sonja had the best view to watch as he turned into a troll.
She hurled a drink at it in an attempt to distract it but he
lumbered over and unleashed a vicious toaster-sized fist into the face
of another panicked club-goer. This sight was too much for Mike's
protective nature and he unleashed his full angelic fury. His
wings flew him over to where the troll was so that he could engage it
directly. Ceri hit it with a Phantom Arrow, hurting it but
not sending it down. Kayla charged over to attack, but as she
arrived a ghoul appeared out of thin air a few feet away. She
launched a vicious roundhouse kick at the ghoul but the blow just went
straight through and the creature vanished. Mike delivered a hard
overhand blow to the troll's shoulder, sending it to the ground,
bleeding. As it lost consciousness, it reverted like the Boggart
had.
As his companions were subduing the troll, Danny charged across the
dance floor to assist Julian who was still fighting the werewolf.
As he reached the monster, he unleashed a vicious punch that
caught the beast under the ribs, lifted it off its feet and deposited
it on top of the bar. Out cold, it reverted to a young man with
several broken ribs.
By the time the fight was over, the dance club was completely cleared
out. Julian and Kayla found the back office where they could
remove the security recordings. Danny & Sonja attended to the
injured patrons. Ceri got Gretel from the car and had her sniff
around for signs of Fae magic. Gretel was very interested in the
pockets of the three unconscious patrons and the group found packets of
a silvery-gray powder. The powder resembled what Julian had found
in the old smuggler's shack out in the swamp. After the hasty
investigation, the team took off before the police could arrive.
Saturday, June 7th (an unnamed alley
down in the Tangles)
Zeke was having little luck in his attempts to find information
about 'Fairy Dust' when he noticed he was being followed and the
recognized the smell of ghoul-stench. As he was getting ready to
get jumped from behind, two men stepped out of the alley he was walking
past. Both had drawn guns and demanded he follow them into the
alley. Zeke complied and as he got about half-way down the alley,
he heard a step behind him. He was unable to turn in time to
prevent the claws of the ghoul behind him raking his back. The
ghoul gloated about how it was going to kill him, which was the opening
Zeke needed to recover from the blow. He darted around the ghoul,
putting it between him and the two gunmen and ran back out of the
alley. The ghoul howled as it turned to pursue and Zeke heard the
retort of the two pistols as the gunmen opened up fire.
Zeke realized he couldn't win in his human form without time to prepare
his magic before hand. With little choice, he eased his control
on the demon within him, allowing it to take over his form as he
continued running. The ghoul continued to try to slash at Zeke's
fleeing form but could not land a solid hit. Likewise, with the
ghoul so close, the two gunmen could not get off clean shots. At
the end of the block, Zeke found himself in the parking lot of a 7-11.
He noticed a police car parked around the side and the officer
just coming out to investigate the gunfire. Zeke yelled out that
he was being attacked. The ghoul stopped just short of the
parking lots lights. When the police officer drew his weapon and
ordered Zeke's pursuers to surrender, they turned and ran.
Zeke, now fulled transformed into his demonic form, led the officer
back to the alley where he'd been ambushed. The demon could not
resist the urge to "play" a little and attempted to get at the officers
fears. However, the police man was able to quickly break free of
the demon's influence. Deciding that getting shot at by someone trained to use a pistol was a bad
idea, it quickly flooded his mind with pain and ran back out of the
alley to make its getaway.
The demon decided to continue Zeke's mission, but in its own fashion.
Finding a drug dealer in the Tangles was not difficult and it got
lucky that the first one it found did have some information about the
'Fairy Dust' dealers. The drug dealer himself worked for the
Sovereign Sons,
a local gang with Jamaican, Dominican and Caribbean membership.
They were pissed about this new group
pushing drugs in their territory. It was obvious that the gang
was getting ready to go to war over the issue and were planning to hit
one of the rival gang's hide outs. The dealer in the demon's
clutches didn't know the name of the other gang or where the hit was
going down as he was just a pusher, not an enforcer or leader.
After getting what information it could, the demon left the man a
gibbering wreck on a street corner.
Saturday, June 7th (sometime near
midnight)
The group that had gone to the club agreed to meet back at
Mike's place to go over the club's security footage. When the
arrived, however, Mike noticed that his door was ajar and that the dead
bolt had been forced straight through the door frame. Inside, the
place was trashed and they could smell the thick odor of ghoul stench.
Tinker, who had been hiding in the back yard, told them that a
ghoul and a couple of men came in and ransacked the place.
Nothing appeared to be stolen. Instead, the ghouls appeared
to be more interested in petty vandalism. The group found the
same scene at Sonja, Danny and Kayla's homes. Kayla had a moment
of panic before she reached her sister on the cell phone.
Apparently Molly had gone out for the evening. She didn't
say who she was with, but Kayla could hear a boy's voice on the other
end.
Experience Awards
- Everyone who made it gets 2 EPs
- Everyone who took part in the Gator Wrasslin' gets +1 EP: