A Dark and Terrible Magic

A Dark and Terrible Magic
Part of A Cabin in the Woods
Date 2085-10-01 GM Fangblade Location Seattle Status Threat Level: Medium
Factions Involved
ShadowHaven	Major Corp
Pasiphae Red Rover 175Y 8175Y Johan Liebert Otsdarva Monica Faulkner	Character1 Character2

Summary

A book from the Pinehurst Memorial Library goes missing from a shipment, and when the nature of the book scares both the mages of the library and Monica Faulkner, help is called in to find out where the book has gone. A search of Seattle leads to a bloody trail and an insipid ritual that is interrupted for the better.

Background

Monica Faulkner is going over a latest import of rare books from overseas; some look promising like they hold actual magica knowledge, though others not as much. yet, when one goes missing, a "A talk of Blood and carrapce - Linny Zweig, 1891". Given the nature of the books title and it now going missing, she hires runners to look into its disapearance. Monica and the others of the library believe in "Securing knowledge, Containing knowledge, and Protecting Knowledge" instead of destroying that which they find dangerous, so they wish for the book to be returned for it to be studied and handed off to a magical university run by the likes of Schwartzkopf, or even the Draco Foundation, for safekeeping.

The Meet

Monica mentions to the team the nature of the missing book and the danger of its knowledge. The only problem is, she doesn't know yet if the book contains actual knowledge related to blood magic, or if its a dud book just pretending to be so. The problem though is even if the knowledge inside is fake, people could act on it with the wrong intentions anyway. So, hiring the team of literal misfits to look into it, they all agree while butting heads with each other. 6 K to delete the problem and make sure nobody can use it for evil, or extra if they manage to bring the book back.

The Plan

The team is gonna hit the pavement and look into the nature of the disappeared book. Given the nature of the story of the disappearance, the team gets a feeling it was an inside job, and immediately go after the truck's route, since it didn't take a straight path to the PHML. With a general idea of when it happened, they find a camera for tickets that caught the truck, and clearly see another car it was passed off to.

Pasiphae calls up known haven contact Johan Liebert but are met with Otsdarva messing with his comlink. A short squabble gets Johan on the phone, who agrees to help since the person who had stolen the book; Jurri Fuchs, had been arrested and potentially implicated Johan's necromancy business (though that never came to fruition thankfully). With a 1 hour search, Johan's spirit marks the car as being near Crystal Lake.

The Run

Once arriving at the cabin, they notice the background count, spirit guards, and the physical barrier. With this, they realize something wrong is happening. They approach the first wave of guards and silently smash into them, taking them out with Pasiphae's magic fist, 175Y 8175Y's mono wire slashes, and Red-Rover's CFA on the remaining guard. Next, the barrier is destroyed by Pasiphae. yet, inside the cabin, 175Y 8175Y notices a collection of people's belongings, and inside the nearby barn they notice a ritual of impure nature happening.

The book that was stolen contained the information to attempt a ritual of spirit pact, and the ritual of mages using greater ritual were adding their force to allow Jurri to commune and make a pact with an absurd spirit. yet, given how little time had transpired, the mages caught in the ritual knew their time was up as the team started to unload into the barn. Within seconds, the faux-blood mages ritual had been shattered, and the rebound (and flashbang) drove the spirit off and knocked out most of the mages. With the leader Jurri now mad, they were taken out by 175Y 8175Y, the remaining adepts taken out by Pasiphae and Red-Rover. Red Rover, however, shot a lightning bolt that glitched critically and set the bar and surrounding areas on fire. As 175Y 8175Y grabbed the book and Pasiphae picked up the unconscious Red Rover. Leaving, they noticed another terrifying spirit approaching from the water, but with a second take disappeared, seemingly now haunting the team.

Shaking it off, the team drove the four-eyed dark spirit from their minds, trying to now forget the ichor and blood of the failed ritual to commune with the darkened other side.

Aftermath

The team is able to restore the book with Monica, who is troubled that while the book didn't seem to be blood magic related, it did contain the workings and spirit formulae from another time, and so this book was immediately kept under wraps, and promptly delivered to the Draco Foundation.

Rewards

• 6,ooo nuyen - 3 RVP
• 2,ooo nuyen Negotiations
• 7 Karma - 7 RVP
• 2+6 CDP - 3 RVP

optional rewards

• Monica Faulkner C2L1 for 2 RVP
• Johan Liebert C6 L1 for 5 RVP (IKAG Discount)
• Otsdarva C4 L1 for 4 RVP
• SFDA for Itsy Bitsy at 2 RVP

Game Quotes

Amusing quote from game.

Player After Action Reports (AARs)

Red Rover - "That was some NASTY mojo they were doing there. Bunch of those mages looked like real novices, but sorry, dudes. I can't let that slide in my crew's neighborhood. That Itsy slitch was real solid in tracking these fraggers down, and the big girl sure was good at squashing 'em. Chick's always lookin' in the astral, though. That shit's dangerous, know what I mean?"