Chapter 3, Episode 1: A Walk In The Park

Setting: Commission Headquarters Germany, city Munich, outskirts of, this building overlooks one of the local city park.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mission: During an evenings debrief of their latest action the teams are in the second story of the HQ attending a meeting when out the windows, in the small but ancient city park, strange lights are seen. The Commission Lead opens the window to hear a Woman's screams for help.... The Teams leap into action.

 

 

Leader Jorge shouts to the assembled agents (includes sidekicks) to grab what they can from the downstairs armory and don't forget some Flashlights!

Exiting the HQ, (long greystone building in the far picture edge) they fan out into the street, with the woman still screaming for help in the near distance. Night time, with a light mist rising and limited street lights reduces clear vision.  As they approach the park, they get a clearer idea of what it is, rather than just some quaint patch of green with an old statue they have driven past numerous times without a second thought.

Suddenly the woman’s scream is cut off with a horrible gurgling sound. The agents swarm into the park as the ground vibrates and a hole appears in the ground before them, down which two robbed figures flee.

Advancing across the grass, Jorge notices that there are now glowing greenish lines on the ground, some strange sigils or such, in front of the ancient stele stone. The body of the hapless victim is bound to the base of the stele, her blood pooling into the sigils.

 

"Take them down!" Jorge bellows, and stops short as a Hairy beast breaks from cover and with a great roar charges the leading agents, wielding wicked talons! From across the street a lone cultist cackles with glee as he rushes into range with his SMG and opens fire on the bunched agents!

"Fan Out You Lunk Heads!!! Remember your training!"  Franz vaults over the wall and unfortunately slips on the slimy moss covered stone fence and he performs a face plant on the turf to the laughter of some of his fellow agents.

A cultist goes down the fists of "Iron Kidney Joe", a devastating flurry (followed with Out of Action). Joe eyes up the beast and charges in. They exchange blows without regard to defense or blocking! Joe is knocked down but also dislodges the head piece of the cultist costume, revealing it’s all for show with a big burly brawler trying to scare off the weak willed!!

Further blows take out the faux-beast as a local contact runs in and adds a round of pistol fire into the costumed cultist, a courageous act for such a one as he.

 

The hole in the ground reveals a set of stairs, the local young agent calls out "its dark down there, we need li" his sentence cut short as tentacles shoot out and wrap about him, his weak struggles to free himself of no avail!  He's yanked from sight, his screams fading, fading into the stygian darkness of the depths.

 

"Okay men, if we want to save your fellow that got yanked down there, and find out just what the devil is going on here, we can either fall back to the armory and lose time or just go on with what we have."  Murmuring of voices sides with pushing on!

Down they spiral for a distance till the stairs end and a series of caverns are revealed. The walls have a series of statues along them, though hard to make out.(pitch black reduces visibility to 12") They push on, finding a large pile of Huge humanoid skulls, strangely misshapen (minor plot point) One of the young agents picks one up and looks into its eye sockets muttering "their so deep,.... deep...." and has to be slapped about to get him back to the here and now.

 

In the inky darkness they hear Clik Clik....... Clik Clik, not a metallic sound but… something, and its getting closer. Sarge takes point and is the first to make out the forms advancing on them.

Huge insectoid humanoids sway as they shamble down the cavern towards them.  Sarge lets off with a burst from his SMG, to no apparent effect. Uh oh! He falls back to the main group who join the fire fight, which only seems to slow them down. 
 
"Fall back! We don't have what we need here!"

 

A hasty retreat leaves the things in darkness but the Clik Clik sound becomes a staccato of cliks, as the band of agents falls back to the stairs only to see 2 of the monsters have cut them off and are advancing.

Jorge has the 2 SMGs overlap their bursts, those with a rifle or pistol open up as well, staggering one of the creatures. The other barely wounded, advances on the trapped agents until it gets close to Sarge, whose jaw drops (failed finesse check=scenario temp loss of 1D finesse) and whimpers about his mom before he rallies enough to not get eaten.

 

Joe leaps in to pummel the monster and knocks it down but starts to drool a bit and looks about frantically for a way out. He bolts for the stairs, dodging the other creature’s grab for him with a long sucking snout coming out of its head!

 

"Up the stairs if you want to live" screams an agent and they push and shove their way up to more sane climes.

"Go to the HQ and get your sedan, Franz and bring it back here, NOW!" 

 Franz returns in a minute from where he parked his Bentley and Jorge directs him until the front end blocks the hole to the stairs.

Reporting back to the HQ, the Commission Commander is called and advised. He orders a large explosive from the armory to be lowered down the hole and blown to seal the passage.

Most of the park, the stele and the glowing sigils collapse into the crater, leaving the populace unaware of the terrors that had lain beneath the city.

(((I purposely hurried the players to make decisions, which were for the most part on par with their needs, not knowing what awaited them, but 3 characters only had knives or bare fists, several had pistols, 2 rifles and 2 smgs....one taken from the fallen cultist.  When they decided to go or fall back to the armory, the penalty would have been, fall back = lose action cards in hand to that point, push on = keep action cards already held.

Falling back on the old  "sanity check" required when they got to with in 6 inches of a creature, They needed 2 success to adapt to seeing the creature, fail meant -1D for the rest of the scenario and additional checks till they passed one or ran out of Finesse dice. Out of dice meant that the would bolt to the safest direction they could. If they had only 1D finesse, they needed to pass that to just "hold on man!" but could not get a the required 2 to adapt to the presence of the creatures...and would most likely break and run away" The Creatures are Dreamblade figures pressed into service, I gave them 1D12 health, and 3D10 brawl, they could spring 24 inches if Unseen and then 6 inches as they approached their prey.

This Chapter has the teams pitted against the Thule Society at locations around the world as they attempt to thwart the Society and their allies from what ever their dastardly plan is!