Bring Down The Red Star - Session II
This was the second session of the UA campaign.
read the last entry here
Crowe got on the phone while we were driving and said he'd meet us at The Pyre. What he'd been doing the whole night, he never mentioned. His memory seems to only last as long as the money in his pockets. He must have taken the express, because I think he was there before all of us.
Jeff was the driver because I think Valis had a DUI on his sheet, and he pulled us up outside the club - the towering ritz-from-hell I'd seen about thirty of in New York. Red lights and black suited bouncers and slow grinding music made with little plastic keyboards. Now, I knew that it was easier to get in the front and that Jeff could handle himself. So I let him go in first, dance up the fire escapes with his parkour skills. Meanwhile I light up a cigar and try to get my thoughts in order while I play the black strings, try to get someone on from downstairs. When I feel right and Doc is playing Dream Evil I ash it by the no-smoking sign and sweep away to the grand entrance.
The bouncer is a fan, and I seem to run into so many of those. He asks me to sign for his girlfriend since she loves my second album. I thought it was a little rocky, still the original 10,000 Cuts crew and only just under the new management. He calls in to the manager before me and Valis get in, no problem.
The innards of it feel like the worst kind of party.
The whole thing was probably some kind of ritzy apartment complex in the 1920s and now the floor is sticky, scratched epoxy and the black painted banisters have scratches from a thousand rings on a hundred thousand fingers.
People pound their feet as that slow bassy techno licks up and down the balconies, and sway like ghosts in silk shirts. I wish I could hang around with them, but instead we all gather up and move toward the bar on the second floor so we can plan. Birdman - I call him that because he reminds me of all the stories about Tony Hawk, when he was young - hugs me and says he missed his favourite uncle and the taxi he took here was driven by some crazy russian guy. He's three drinks deep already, because he'll down anything in front of him.
Jeff tells me Potentis, guy who runs the Black Hand thule society freemasons, is up on the third floor in the VIP section. I take on bird watching duty and tell the rest to text me if they see our target, the spanish girl from my vision.
About halfway up we stop and I try to put a fix on Crowe, stop him from spilling our plans to anyone who mentions it to the kid. In hindsight I could have given him something lighter than Horse, but it was only a little and it wasn't the worst thing he'd put into his body, maybe not even the worst thing this month.
People like Birdman live and die by an act of god, or the other thing.
The bouncer checks people for tags or tattoos, valid tickets for this crowd, but I still have the line open so she clears me with just a little pressure. Birdman is a stump, so I leave him in safe hands while I mingle.
Some of the people there don't seem the type to be there. The local colour are more at home in bible breakfasts and sports clubs. Makes me feel like they got dragged into an event somehow.
The idea was that the girl was one of Pete's roadies, and we might be able to flip them with a little more information on who they are. Then that would give us a shot at his vril powered spaceship or whatever he has stored away. So all I had to do was make an appearance, maybe storm out or toast drinks or otherwise be memorable, and they would come and seek me out like the spell should work.
Lucky - because then Potentis himself rolled in like a new age rockefeller, sleek, hairless, with eyes three degrees colder than the rest of him.
He buses me out to an old smoking balcony and says he likes someone who feels so at home in a public setting, I cut quite a figure, all the sales pitch I've heard before when someone wants you to join their secret club. Then he hands me a card for his secret club.
STOKOFF - SKOTADI ILION
It has his phone number on it. I don't give him mine. He says to call any time, and never bring my nephew here again. I tell him I'll allow him his sense of manners but I have to go now.
Happens to be that my friends found the lady we were looking for at the bar. I take Birdman off of the bouncer's hands and trade him for two fifties, so she says I can come again any time. I might need another bodyguard someday.
The gang handles getting Birdman a club soda while I try to warm up to whoever this girl is. Don't mind if I sit down, you don't seem to like being here, you seem to want something you're not getting, give an old man a hint.
So bit by bit we learn that she's Pete's wife, she hates him, and it's because pops owed him money. She wishes he would have a stroke.
So I say I can try my best, but it's pretty short notice. Because I realise that with a guy like Stokoff, money is how he makes things like himself. It's how he spreads. The building we're in is probably owned by him or one of his cronies somehow, and that means there's all kinds of bad mojo sitting right at the heart of it. So she - Amelia - says what. Call him, you'll find out, yes really, try it. So she does. Which is enough, so in about four minutes of yelling in two languages he's coming down.
Then everybody watches him drop down a flight of stairs and bust his nose, because I'd reached over and knocked over Birdman's drink onto the other thing that Jeff was working on earlier with a cocktail napkin. Only for him to leap up to wagnerian levels because he jumps up onto the balcony of the level and starts yelling at Stokoff before he can get up off the ground. I don't remember everything he said, but Potentis kind of personally offends Jeff because he has that Moonchild thing going on. I think it meant a lot to Pete, but also the whole club was watching him take shit from a guy in a timothy leary spiderman mask. People laughed. I think for a man like Pete, that's more than he could take.
When he came running up the stairs he got grenadine in the eyes and that's when I drop the cigar and decide me, Amelia, Doc, and Crowe should all get out. Amelia hesitates for a second until I ask if she wants to deal with Stokoff for the rest of the night, and then we're all hustling to Doc's car.
I do the quick math and tell Birdman to get in the trunk so there's room for the girl. Works okay for him, he can sleep off the rest of the H.
Jeff swings out of there about the same time we leave, and he's in the car before us. It's like thursday evening in Tijuana.
Crowe makes enough noise that I get him on the phone, and he says he's having visions about chess boards with human faces. One of those things.
We get to Amelia's house, a big forecourt house in a gated community with a modern art futurist thing outside, and the butler lets her in while Doc and Moonchild knock the nose off of the statue with gardening tools.
Amelia comes out holding a baby in one of those big carryable car seat things. A small suitcase full of whatever else. Instead, we all talk about where she's gonna stay. Assuming she doesn't have anybody else right now. There's my temple of darkness, but my kids are still there, and the other option is The Moon Cave, and attached 2 bedroom house.
So when we get to Jeff's house I ask about the kid, and her name is something like Moriah. I leave Amelia two benjamins and my number in case - in case. Say I'll be in touch with Jeff tomorrow to look over some things.
Then Doc drives me back to the pad, and I call up Stokoff. Act like my people pulled me out of the club suddenly and I'm a senile old cracker. He pauses from screaming at his minions to say he's happy I called, and that before we can have a meeting I'll need to bring a plus one. But they can't be white. I say I'll work it out and hang up on him.
Doc heard it all. I figure we might actually have to kill the crazy bastard.
relevant mechanics to this session: used a lot of gutter magic! The first time in the car, trying to tick off "spending time in a way that matters", letting our boy Moonchild go in first as a kind of human sacrifice. It got me a boost to Status as long as I was trying to fit in at the club.
The other time was trying to boost Crowe's Secrecy in protecting our plans, but I flubbed that one. although got +3% for it.
I enjoyed thinking up explanations for why I could use my Peruvian Death Grip powers to do all this more than I thought I would, but I might have to rewrite that ID to something more fitting, like "Famous In Hell".
The other players spent a lot of time investigating or working out how to use their own magic. Jeff Moonchild's powers only work once per day, so I'm excited to see those more starting next session.
I also failed a roll to evaluate Potentis - Evaluation rules are a little different at the table, more like flagging someone to monitor if or when they take stress checks. But it added +4% to my Old School Rocker ID.
No milestones this session :(( although Jeff took on Amelia as his Responsibility, which adds some mechanical heft to this whole sideplot.