7.07.2024

Scion: Requiem for the Fallen Cities, Session 3

 After speaking with Keegan, the troupe calls it a night and the next morning gets in touch with Francesca "Frankie" Gutierrez at her restaurant. She's adamant that Keegan is responsible for Ben's death, but the band had already spoken to him, and they didn't feel like Keegan was the one that did it. The also were told that Jessica was living with Ben and decided to follow up with her after they ended their meeting with Frankie.

The band didn't have any luck getting Jessica to return their calls, so they reached out to Elena to see if she could help and Connal decided to consult his raven, which only said "Battlestar Galactica". This led nowhere, but Elena called them back and let the band know that Jessica was in a nearby Starbucks. This led to many groans. They spoke to Jessica briefly in the cafe. She was clearly distraught and seemed genuine in her care for Ben, explaining that he took her in off the streets and was like a father figure to her. 

Jessica suggested they walk to a nearby park and talk further, where she revealed she had seen Ben get killed by a large metal mummy-looking thing. She had brought him a scroll that he said was for summoning something and when the thing appeared, she grabbed the scroll and Ben's journal and took off. Inspection of the scroll turned up no magic associated with the thing, and it was actually a ritual that would allow "separation of self". Jessica also revealed to the heroes that one of the reasons Ben took her in was that she was a Scion of the Titan, Aten, and he knew the others in his band wouldn't stand for one of their "enemies" living among them.

As she talks to them, an explosion of light occurs nearby and there stands the 12' tall creature she had described to them. At the same time, some of the sand creatures from before also coalesce and a single corpse-looking humanoid with terrible burns all over its body. Arne and Yrsa begin to pick off the smaller guys from range while Cahir and Connal engage in hand to hand with the large statue thing. Realizing that most of the baddies are moving toward Jessica, Alex gets her motivated to run for Cahir's men at their van. 

A knockdown drag-out fight occurs, and everyone (except Alex) takes some licks. Cahir's men begin to fire on the sand things when they get close behind Alex and Jessica, and they take Jessica into the van while Alex peels off toward Cahir's Relic car. Imbuing a point of Legend into it and coaxing its spirit to do what he needs, the car roars to life and Alex steers it right toward the construct, crashing onto it and doing enough to finish the thing off. 

Elena arrives on the scene ahead of the rest of LVPD and tells the Band that they need to get out of there and she'll smooth everything over with a cover story that she's gotten from witnesses. Everyone picks up what she's putting down and though Cahir has to leave his car, they all get out of there, which is where we left off for the night.

Cast of Characters
Alex Saito, Heroic Scion of Tsukiyomi - Taylor
Arne Berg, Heroic Scion of Skadi - David
Cahir MacMannus, Heroic Scion of The Morrigan - Chris
Connal MacMannus, Heroic Scion of The Morrigan - Jon
Yrsa Vinter Strand, Heroic Scion of Skadi - Sam

Notes
• This combat ran loooong. I'm not sure what's causing us so many problems when it comes to smooth combat in this system, but we've not hit our stride yet. Other rolling periods seem smoother, but Storypath seems clunky to us. It's really bugging me, because the group are WoD/Storyteller vets.
• I condensed the story once they hit on Jessica. I had a lot more prepared, but I didn't feel a need to drag it out further. They will have time to explore some other parts of it once they dig into Ben's journal some and talk with Jessica more.
• I was expecting the group to be at Legend 2 at the end of this session. I might need to step up the opportunities for them to accomplish deeds. Yet another growing pain with the new system.

No comments: