Waiting for Duncan
Oct. 16th, 2004 02:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothLast night we had a session of the 1890's/Neverwhere GURPS campaign. If you boil it down, the entire session was basically the 'You meet an old man in a tavern' scene, where we were informed about possible quests we could take, and fluttered about trying to decide whether we should actually take on one of them or not.
Let's start with Dodger. Dodger was ignored at the police station, of course, but managed to get the incriminating documents noticed, and left as the police tried to determine just how they'd gotten their hands on them. Then he headed home, where a family of four had inexplicably moved in and set up shop -- years ago, from the looks of it. Undaunted, he found his bed -- or rather, the much nicer bed in the room he'd used as a bedroom -- and went to sleep.
Meanwhile, the others were spending an uncomfortable night in a storage room. They were awoken in the morning by a professor trying to open the door, which Don had locked behind them, and were forced out into the hallway as the janitor came by and basically broke the lock off.
The hallway was *extremely* crowded, with dozens of people -- not only students of Ohio University, but the strangely-dressed folk they associated with the other world... but these people couldn't see them, either. Don had built a sort of mechanical hat in his sleep, and tried to test it out on random passersby, mostly the strange-looking ones. "You know, if you keep doing that, you'll shift over to their world," someone told him, and the party turned to talk to Duncan.
Duncan offered to trade with them for items or favors. Charlie offered charms against disease and spirits, in return for finding him some proper ritual materials and totems, as well as finding Anastasia for JR, who was wondering what had happened to her. JR tried to come up with something he could offer, and offered to kill any monsters that were bothering Duncan. "You'd kill a feral?" "Sure!"
A meeting was arranged for a few hours hence in 'The Front Room', a coffee-and-tea house in the back room of the student union. Duncan would need that long to find Anastasia. The party agreed, and since they had some time, Charlie decided to go steal a gun to replace the one he'd lost.
As he walked into the town's only gunshop, he cheerfully greeted the shopkeeper, expecting no response. But no, she could see him, and so he was forced to pretend like he'd known that all along, and pay actual money for the gun. It cost a *lot* of money, because he wanted a rather expensive type of gun, and because she charged a premium for her 'higher quality' merchandise. She mentioned that she sold to people from both worlds, and had always assumed that everyone could see both.
She also offered an assortment of bullets -- silver, cold iron, gold, and a quartz-like crystal that Don recognized as the same stuff he'd tried to shoot out of his shotgun, when he melted off the barrel. Charlie declined to buy any of those, but picked up some of the cheaper silver and cold iron, just in case he somehow knew when it would be appropriate to use them.
Meanwhile, Dodger was awake, and busy playing Beetlejuice to the family who'd moved into his house, breaking dishes, moving furniture, and otherwise messing with their minds. It wasn't working. But while he was engaged in this pursuit, he noticed one of his prime suspects, JR, hanging around suspiciously outside the gun shop across the street. Soon, he was joined by Don and Charlie, the latter with a new and expensive-looking gun, which he concealed under his long coat.
Dodger decided to secretly tail them to whereever they were going. Now, the party had a car that they were generally driving around in, but the Front Room was close to the gunshop, and Charlie tended to get carsick, so he decided to walk the three blocks. Otherwise they might have been harder to follow, although their destination was probably in *sight*, so...
At any rate, JR spotted Dodger following Charlie, and set up an extra chair for him at the table he found. The Front Room, like the gun shop, served clientelle from all worlds, although in this case there were different staff for each world. They got some tea and muffins, and watched the crowd as they waited for their meeting.
Outside, Dodger was startled to hear a sudden voice in his mind, which greeted him and said it had missed him during his long absence. "Who are you?" Dodger asked. "You should know better than to ask me that." "WHAT are you?" "I'm this place." The speaker was, in fact, the spirit of the Front Room, or at least a spirit of the place on which the Front Room had been built. It was Dodger's friend, because Dodger was one of the few people who acknowledged it when it spoke (that is, that could hear it, although it didn't sound like it understood that).
It had a lot of information to impart -- apparently it could read the auras of everyone in it. It told Dodger that Don was definately not a murderer, that Charlie had killed (he'd killed the bear) but wasn't entirely dark, and that JR was definately a killer. It told him that it could only talk to him while he was 'between' like this. It told him other things, like 'I'm the spirit of this place' over and over until he finally understood. Dodger found this spirit very very useful, and wanted to take it with him, but couldn't think of any way to do so.
At any rate, Charlie invited Dodger to sit with them, and soon Duncan and Anastasia arrived. They were both very excited that JR was able to kill Ferals, and wanted to take him to 'Uncle Istvan' (or something like that) to send them to the next world right away -- it was dangerous for them to stay between, since they might get stuck like Duncan and Anastasia were, and that would suck. Charlie and Don had doubts about JR's ability to kill a Feral, since apparently he didn't even know what one was, so they asked various questions along those lines...
It turned out that Ferals were incredibly dangerous -- they moved five times as fast as any human, and only the Nobles of the other world could stop them. They were created at 'The Mountain' (only approachable on the other plane, and guarded by the nobles' law) when some ritual failed -- a ritual only the nobles understood. Before the nobles had come to protect the people, they'd basically depopulated the Athens area in the other world, reducing a city of 50,000 to less than 250. And, worst of all, someone was summoning them to 'The World Above' (the party's home world, the regular mundane reality) which, in the process, involved taking them 'Between', where Duncan and Anastasia and all their friends were then endangered.
The Front Room revealed to Dodger that it knew at least one of the mages who were summoning the monsters, and the ritual used for the summoning, because it had been done in his presence. He gave him the information, and told him that while he couldn't give a physical description of the person, the person came by every wednesday at 5. It was Saturday. They couldn't afford to wait that long, since they'd get stuck.
Dodger decided to leave and go check on his house at this point, so Charlie had Agamemnon follow him to make sure he didn't vanish, or try anything stupid. He just went to the gunshop and had a shell casing he'd found rummaging around in Don's old dorm room identified, though -- yep, it was a freeze ray crystal. But Don wasn't a murderer...
Duncan also admitted, to the others, that he couldn't get them anything along the lines of supplies -- but he could take them to 'Uncle whatsisname' who'd send them over to the other world, where they'd 'have a place'. Since Charlie was a 'death shaper', and death shapers were valued there, he'd undoubtably have the equipment he'd asked for.
So they spent some time discussing options for killing a feral, or finding the source of the ferals, and thought about whether or not to let themselves be shifted to a new, strange world, and didn't really come to any decisions.
last session | next sesion
It didn't occur to me after the game that I *had* seen a Feral -- at the library, the ghoul-looking thing. I think someone there even called it a Feral. That means the blue-armored samurai-type must have been a noble.
Let's start with Dodger. Dodger was ignored at the police station, of course, but managed to get the incriminating documents noticed, and left as the police tried to determine just how they'd gotten their hands on them. Then he headed home, where a family of four had inexplicably moved in and set up shop -- years ago, from the looks of it. Undaunted, he found his bed -- or rather, the much nicer bed in the room he'd used as a bedroom -- and went to sleep.
Meanwhile, the others were spending an uncomfortable night in a storage room. They were awoken in the morning by a professor trying to open the door, which Don had locked behind them, and were forced out into the hallway as the janitor came by and basically broke the lock off.
The hallway was *extremely* crowded, with dozens of people -- not only students of Ohio University, but the strangely-dressed folk they associated with the other world... but these people couldn't see them, either. Don had built a sort of mechanical hat in his sleep, and tried to test it out on random passersby, mostly the strange-looking ones. "You know, if you keep doing that, you'll shift over to their world," someone told him, and the party turned to talk to Duncan.
Duncan offered to trade with them for items or favors. Charlie offered charms against disease and spirits, in return for finding him some proper ritual materials and totems, as well as finding Anastasia for JR, who was wondering what had happened to her. JR tried to come up with something he could offer, and offered to kill any monsters that were bothering Duncan. "You'd kill a feral?" "Sure!"
A meeting was arranged for a few hours hence in 'The Front Room', a coffee-and-tea house in the back room of the student union. Duncan would need that long to find Anastasia. The party agreed, and since they had some time, Charlie decided to go steal a gun to replace the one he'd lost.
As he walked into the town's only gunshop, he cheerfully greeted the shopkeeper, expecting no response. But no, she could see him, and so he was forced to pretend like he'd known that all along, and pay actual money for the gun. It cost a *lot* of money, because he wanted a rather expensive type of gun, and because she charged a premium for her 'higher quality' merchandise. She mentioned that she sold to people from both worlds, and had always assumed that everyone could see both.
She also offered an assortment of bullets -- silver, cold iron, gold, and a quartz-like crystal that Don recognized as the same stuff he'd tried to shoot out of his shotgun, when he melted off the barrel. Charlie declined to buy any of those, but picked up some of the cheaper silver and cold iron, just in case he somehow knew when it would be appropriate to use them.
Meanwhile, Dodger was awake, and busy playing Beetlejuice to the family who'd moved into his house, breaking dishes, moving furniture, and otherwise messing with their minds. It wasn't working. But while he was engaged in this pursuit, he noticed one of his prime suspects, JR, hanging around suspiciously outside the gun shop across the street. Soon, he was joined by Don and Charlie, the latter with a new and expensive-looking gun, which he concealed under his long coat.
Dodger decided to secretly tail them to whereever they were going. Now, the party had a car that they were generally driving around in, but the Front Room was close to the gunshop, and Charlie tended to get carsick, so he decided to walk the three blocks. Otherwise they might have been harder to follow, although their destination was probably in *sight*, so...
At any rate, JR spotted Dodger following Charlie, and set up an extra chair for him at the table he found. The Front Room, like the gun shop, served clientelle from all worlds, although in this case there were different staff for each world. They got some tea and muffins, and watched the crowd as they waited for their meeting.
Outside, Dodger was startled to hear a sudden voice in his mind, which greeted him and said it had missed him during his long absence. "Who are you?" Dodger asked. "You should know better than to ask me that." "WHAT are you?" "I'm this place." The speaker was, in fact, the spirit of the Front Room, or at least a spirit of the place on which the Front Room had been built. It was Dodger's friend, because Dodger was one of the few people who acknowledged it when it spoke (that is, that could hear it, although it didn't sound like it understood that).
It had a lot of information to impart -- apparently it could read the auras of everyone in it. It told Dodger that Don was definately not a murderer, that Charlie had killed (he'd killed the bear) but wasn't entirely dark, and that JR was definately a killer. It told him that it could only talk to him while he was 'between' like this. It told him other things, like 'I'm the spirit of this place' over and over until he finally understood. Dodger found this spirit very very useful, and wanted to take it with him, but couldn't think of any way to do so.
At any rate, Charlie invited Dodger to sit with them, and soon Duncan and Anastasia arrived. They were both very excited that JR was able to kill Ferals, and wanted to take him to 'Uncle Istvan' (or something like that) to send them to the next world right away -- it was dangerous for them to stay between, since they might get stuck like Duncan and Anastasia were, and that would suck. Charlie and Don had doubts about JR's ability to kill a Feral, since apparently he didn't even know what one was, so they asked various questions along those lines...
It turned out that Ferals were incredibly dangerous -- they moved five times as fast as any human, and only the Nobles of the other world could stop them. They were created at 'The Mountain' (only approachable on the other plane, and guarded by the nobles' law) when some ritual failed -- a ritual only the nobles understood. Before the nobles had come to protect the people, they'd basically depopulated the Athens area in the other world, reducing a city of 50,000 to less than 250. And, worst of all, someone was summoning them to 'The World Above' (the party's home world, the regular mundane reality) which, in the process, involved taking them 'Between', where Duncan and Anastasia and all their friends were then endangered.
The Front Room revealed to Dodger that it knew at least one of the mages who were summoning the monsters, and the ritual used for the summoning, because it had been done in his presence. He gave him the information, and told him that while he couldn't give a physical description of the person, the person came by every wednesday at 5. It was Saturday. They couldn't afford to wait that long, since they'd get stuck.
Dodger decided to leave and go check on his house at this point, so Charlie had Agamemnon follow him to make sure he didn't vanish, or try anything stupid. He just went to the gunshop and had a shell casing he'd found rummaging around in Don's old dorm room identified, though -- yep, it was a freeze ray crystal. But Don wasn't a murderer...
Duncan also admitted, to the others, that he couldn't get them anything along the lines of supplies -- but he could take them to 'Uncle whatsisname' who'd send them over to the other world, where they'd 'have a place'. Since Charlie was a 'death shaper', and death shapers were valued there, he'd undoubtably have the equipment he'd asked for.
So they spent some time discussing options for killing a feral, or finding the source of the ferals, and thought about whether or not to let themselves be shifted to a new, strange world, and didn't really come to any decisions.
last session | next sesion
It didn't occur to me after the game that I *had* seen a Feral -- at the library, the ghoul-looking thing. I think someone there even called it a Feral. That means the blue-armored samurai-type must have been a noble.
