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terryclothLast night we had a session of Lazar's GURPS Neverwhere game. He finally got around to 'killing off' my character (in a way that forces him to become an NPC, without literally destroying him), so I'll have to take over as DM next week.
It was hard to find food -- by the time we had everyone together, around 7pm, everywhere we wanted to eat was closed -- Torrerros was closed (despite having two of three 'open' signs still up in the window), Papa Murphy's was closed, even Safeway and QFC were closed! We ended up getting a bunch of stuff from Jack in the Box. It wasn't bad, really, but their taco meat was even less like beef than Taco Bell's... scary!
Actually, if I didn't know better, I'd swear it was chicken. Which I suppose means it was probably rat or something. To be fair, they did call them *monster* tacos...
The Bazaar at Petersburg W. Va. was not a terrifying, chaotic place. It was quite orderly, and looked like any other busy shopping district, if you ignored the small detail that not everyone walking around was precisely human. There were no signs of Kits or Ferals, or even Rats, though, so it looked like the coast was clear.
The Marquis took them to a jeweler who'd pay a good price for the heavy gold coins that passed for dollars in the 'Eastern' Athens they'd just come from, and told them to meet him back there at dusk to be transported back across the dimensional barrier. If they weren't back by nightfall, he'd have to just take back whoever showed up and abandon the others to their fate, because he didn't like being on his home dimension, and despite appearances the bazaar *was* fairly dangerous.
So they wandered around selling things, using a map they brought from the jeweler. Charlie decided to unload the souls-in-jars first -- apparently, three main classes of people would be interested in human souls, and since priests wouldn't pay for them, they were eliminated straight off. That left psychics, who cared about the quality of the soul, and necromancers, who usually just wanted quantity. So Chalie sold the powerful souls to a psychic (although he wouldn't buy the one who tried to solve everything using 'great wish', for much the same reason Charlie'd been afraid to bind it), and got an offer on the rest from a necromancer who needed 'a dozen souls fast'.
The offer wasn't very good, so he checked with a couple other necromancers, and ran into one of the slivers, who *was* willing to buy the Great Wish soul, but not any of the others, since they were already under contract to kill them all on Charlie's behalf. As soon as Charlie provided the last body. It also spread the word, and Charlie was forced to sell them to the necromancer-in-a-hurry who didn't care.
Charlie and Don also sold off all the random junk they had left from what they'd bought at the auction, which didn't go for much, because the enchantments were random, sloppily done, and usually entirely inappropriate. Someone tried to buy Don's wrench, but Don was unwilling to part with it (even though the power source had a limited lifespan). Instead, he pulled a similar power source out of his pocket, and sold that instead.
The only thing of value John had to sell was his familiar. At first, he wanted to keep it, but he was convinced that it was doing him no good (he had no magical abilities, and its only benefit was as a mana enhancer) and much harm (it made magic work better on him, made him unable to use a magic-negating amulet like the others were, and was DEVOURING HIS SOUL) and was, besides, worth like a million billion dollars to a powerful mage. So he asked the jeweler to find a buyer (on commission) and went out to look for a cure for Vampirism.
Now, curing himself would have been difficult enough, but what he wanted was a reusable cure that he could use on other people. The price quoted was $800,000, with a year's wait before it would be enchanted. He insisted he needed it *today*, so they thought for a bit and offered same-day shipping (using time travel) for only another $160,000. He'd still have $40,000 left! If anyone was really willing to pay a million for his pet, that same day, at least.
Unfortunately, as the group headed back to the jeweler to check on that transaction and check in with the Marquis, they were ambushed. Five paint-spraying rockets embedded themselves in the pavement around them, enclosing them in a sloppy pentagram. Charlie and Don decided that running away was the best policy, and their magic-negating amulets let them do just that -- but John was trapped inside, as was Agamemnon.
Two assassins -- a midget on a rooftop with crossbows, and a big bruiser inside the pentagram -- appeared and started menacing John, who sped himself up and fought back, but just as he hamstrung the enemy, he was grappled and kicked in the nuts, and passed out from the pain. Don fired his shotgun at the roof, distracting the midget, but Charlie was himself distracted by a ring of demons appearing along the edge of the pentagram, far too close for comfort, and opened fire on them.
Charlie's new armor protected him from the demon's claws (thanks to the antimagic), and he managed to gun it down -- while the other four started attacking *the pentagram*, trying to destroy the rockets anchoring it. Oops! They were on the party's side! They weren't very powerful, though, and also were almost all killed before they could take out the pyramid. After finishing off the midget, Don blew up one of the rockets, and John, who'd woken back up and wriggled free, managed to run out to join the others.
Charlie had noticed something that no one else had seen -- John's familiar was no longer on his body, and was instead being carried off into the air by what was presumably the mage behind the ambush (since both 'attackers' had turned out to be made of sand). He managed to finally inform the rest of the party of that, and Don took a shot with his laser shotgun, just as Charlie put up a smoke-screen to try to stop the constant barrage of powerful mental attacks that he assumed were coming from the mage, since there was no obvious source.
Then Charlie vanished, as an attack finally got through. "Did I even hit him?" Don wondered -- just before the unconscious body of the mage splattered on the ground next to him, falling through the smoke-cover. Cross off one assailant... and one pet.
As for Charlie, no trace of him remained, but the manner in which he'd vanished suggested transportation instead of disintegration. He had, in fact, been summoned by someone who was not pleased with him, and given an offer he was quite literally unable to refuse.
Stupid karma.
last week | next session
It was hard to find food -- by the time we had everyone together, around 7pm, everywhere we wanted to eat was closed -- Torrerros was closed (despite having two of three 'open' signs still up in the window), Papa Murphy's was closed, even Safeway and QFC were closed! We ended up getting a bunch of stuff from Jack in the Box. It wasn't bad, really, but their taco meat was even less like beef than Taco Bell's... scary!
Actually, if I didn't know better, I'd swear it was chicken. Which I suppose means it was probably rat or something. To be fair, they did call them *monster* tacos...
The Bazaar at Petersburg W. Va. was not a terrifying, chaotic place. It was quite orderly, and looked like any other busy shopping district, if you ignored the small detail that not everyone walking around was precisely human. There were no signs of Kits or Ferals, or even Rats, though, so it looked like the coast was clear.
The Marquis took them to a jeweler who'd pay a good price for the heavy gold coins that passed for dollars in the 'Eastern' Athens they'd just come from, and told them to meet him back there at dusk to be transported back across the dimensional barrier. If they weren't back by nightfall, he'd have to just take back whoever showed up and abandon the others to their fate, because he didn't like being on his home dimension, and despite appearances the bazaar *was* fairly dangerous.
So they wandered around selling things, using a map they brought from the jeweler. Charlie decided to unload the souls-in-jars first -- apparently, three main classes of people would be interested in human souls, and since priests wouldn't pay for them, they were eliminated straight off. That left psychics, who cared about the quality of the soul, and necromancers, who usually just wanted quantity. So Chalie sold the powerful souls to a psychic (although he wouldn't buy the one who tried to solve everything using 'great wish', for much the same reason Charlie'd been afraid to bind it), and got an offer on the rest from a necromancer who needed 'a dozen souls fast'.
The offer wasn't very good, so he checked with a couple other necromancers, and ran into one of the slivers, who *was* willing to buy the Great Wish soul, but not any of the others, since they were already under contract to kill them all on Charlie's behalf. As soon as Charlie provided the last body. It also spread the word, and Charlie was forced to sell them to the necromancer-in-a-hurry who didn't care.
Charlie and Don also sold off all the random junk they had left from what they'd bought at the auction, which didn't go for much, because the enchantments were random, sloppily done, and usually entirely inappropriate. Someone tried to buy Don's wrench, but Don was unwilling to part with it (even though the power source had a limited lifespan). Instead, he pulled a similar power source out of his pocket, and sold that instead.
The only thing of value John had to sell was his familiar. At first, he wanted to keep it, but he was convinced that it was doing him no good (he had no magical abilities, and its only benefit was as a mana enhancer) and much harm (it made magic work better on him, made him unable to use a magic-negating amulet like the others were, and was DEVOURING HIS SOUL) and was, besides, worth like a million billion dollars to a powerful mage. So he asked the jeweler to find a buyer (on commission) and went out to look for a cure for Vampirism.
Now, curing himself would have been difficult enough, but what he wanted was a reusable cure that he could use on other people. The price quoted was $800,000, with a year's wait before it would be enchanted. He insisted he needed it *today*, so they thought for a bit and offered same-day shipping (using time travel) for only another $160,000. He'd still have $40,000 left! If anyone was really willing to pay a million for his pet, that same day, at least.
Unfortunately, as the group headed back to the jeweler to check on that transaction and check in with the Marquis, they were ambushed. Five paint-spraying rockets embedded themselves in the pavement around them, enclosing them in a sloppy pentagram. Charlie and Don decided that running away was the best policy, and their magic-negating amulets let them do just that -- but John was trapped inside, as was Agamemnon.
Two assassins -- a midget on a rooftop with crossbows, and a big bruiser inside the pentagram -- appeared and started menacing John, who sped himself up and fought back, but just as he hamstrung the enemy, he was grappled and kicked in the nuts, and passed out from the pain. Don fired his shotgun at the roof, distracting the midget, but Charlie was himself distracted by a ring of demons appearing along the edge of the pentagram, far too close for comfort, and opened fire on them.
Charlie's new armor protected him from the demon's claws (thanks to the antimagic), and he managed to gun it down -- while the other four started attacking *the pentagram*, trying to destroy the rockets anchoring it. Oops! They were on the party's side! They weren't very powerful, though, and also were almost all killed before they could take out the pyramid. After finishing off the midget, Don blew up one of the rockets, and John, who'd woken back up and wriggled free, managed to run out to join the others.
Charlie had noticed something that no one else had seen -- John's familiar was no longer on his body, and was instead being carried off into the air by what was presumably the mage behind the ambush (since both 'attackers' had turned out to be made of sand). He managed to finally inform the rest of the party of that, and Don took a shot with his laser shotgun, just as Charlie put up a smoke-screen to try to stop the constant barrage of powerful mental attacks that he assumed were coming from the mage, since there was no obvious source.
Then Charlie vanished, as an attack finally got through. "Did I even hit him?" Don wondered -- just before the unconscious body of the mage splattered on the ground next to him, falling through the smoke-cover. Cross off one assailant... and one pet.
As for Charlie, no trace of him remained, but the manner in which he'd vanished suggested transportation instead of disintegration. He had, in fact, been summoned by someone who was not pleased with him, and given an offer he was quite literally unable to refuse.
Stupid karma.
last week | next session
