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This one is an oddball. I thought, oh, let's try a magic character, but you'll notice that the Magic description says you have to take a page, and I suspected that might be a problem. It was, so I had said to myself it was okay if Quickstep showed up at the last minute (or sooner).
It was the last minute. So this adventure is mostly about Professor Destiny.
Written before an Assembled version of the adventure was available.
As usual: spoilers!
Danger in Dunsmouth
A Professor Destiny & Quickstep solo play
Before the Assembled edition version of the adventure was out, I updated the character to the Assembled edition and ran this.Our conversions are not identical; that’s why you might see something happen that the character in the Assembled edition shouldn’t be able to do.
Characters
For character images, see the adventure. Professor Destiny is more a low-rent Doctor Fate: put a hood on him and the magical face mask and make him red instead of blue, with a blue cape instead of a yellow one.
Professor Destiny (“Landon Go”)
Origin: Gimmick
Fair (4) Prowess Fair (4) Coordination Fair (4) Strength Fair (4) Intellect Average (3) Awareness Incredible (7) Willpower
Determination 3 Stamina 9
Specialties: Occult Expert (+2)
Powers:
- Helmet of Karnu: Incredible (7) Magic
- Mastery Good (5) Flight
- Mastery: Good (5) Force Field
Qualities:
- Powers from mask of Karnu
- Sucker for a sob story
- Secret ID (Landon Go), professor of archaeology
Quickstep (“Suzanne Poole”)
Origin: Transformed
Great (6) Prowess Good (5) Coordination Good (5) Strength Good (5) Intellect Fair (4) Awareness Fair (4) Willpower
Determination 4 Stamina 9
Specialties: Investigation, Performance [Dance], Power [Super-Speed]
Powers:
- Amazing (8) Super-Speed Extra: Defensive
Qualities:
- Eye for detail
- Not soon enough
- Professionally curious
Chapter 1: The gathering storm
Landon silently asked Kanru to make the Professor Destiny mask more transparent. Something looked weird about these two government guys, besides the fact that they were nearly identical. “Three hours ago, this atmospheric anomaly occurred over the town of Dunsmouth.” The man speaking— Landon wasn’t sure if his name was Smith or Jones — clicked his remote and the image on the laptop showed the cloud cover over New England. Cloud cover in the shape of a pentagon.
Landon didn’t know about it, because he didn’t let students look at their phones. Three hours ago, Landon had been teaching Anthropology 101, affectionately known as “Stones and Bones.”
“One of our sensitives had a premonition, so we had an agent on site.” Sensitives? “From the reports, rains came first, with droplets like fists. Then torrential waves; we don’t think there are any docked ships left there, and they prevent us from sending in the coast guard or the navy. The water rose, and most of the birds left. Gulls filled the skies with their leaving. Plants started growing, wrapping themselves around herbivores. Bees started buzzing, even in the rain.
“Then a thunderclap. Nothing since. We’ve heard nothing from our operative for twenty-seven minutes. We assume our operative is dead or suborned. The sensitives are in comas now.”
“Has someone else gone in?”
The other agent spoke. “We had someone at the FBI send a car over.”
“And?” asked Landon.
“Lightning strike. Fortunately, the wheels insulated the car, but the special agents within were badly hurt and couldn’t go in.”
The other one added, “That was the point where FEMA and the military agreed to seal off the town.”
That was it: Their suits were so black they seemed to absorb light. Not standard off-the-rack stuff. “What agency did you say you were with?
“We didn’t. The Dunsmouth anomaly is on the news now. No normal man can go in. So we’re recruiting supers.”
“Sounds like you already have supers.”
“No comment.”
“If I go in, what else do you know?”
They glanced at each other, and the laptop-agent shut the laptop. “One of the sensitives said something that might be useful: ‘The Outer Darkness.’ The other ones said it was the end of the world.”
“Spooky,” said Landon, with a bravado he didn’t feel . [1]
Landon said the words and listened. “Yes. Perhaps not the physical end of the world, but something apocalyptic.” The second agent tried to discreetly hide the fact that his phone microphone was pointing at Landon (rather, Professor Destiny). “The spell won’t work for you.”
The man nodded but did not put away his phone.
“I did see that the area is surrounded by a shield of some kind.”
“I’m sure you can get by it,” said the first agent.
“I’m sure you can help,” replied Landon. He didn’t need the help, but he was curious what this agency would do.
“I’ll do it, Wye. We have no time,” said the second agent. This was obviously something they had gone through before.
“Fine,” said the first one curtly.
The second agent pulled out a business card and drew on the back. “Show it to our operative, assuming no mental control, and you’ll get cooperation. On the back is a three-pointed star. Hold it star up, level, and say Abracadabra. You can talk to our office for six seconds.”
“Abracadabra? Really?”
The man shrugged. “Everyone knows the word.”
Professor Destiny flipped the card over. On it was a single word in boring Helvetica: MOTE
“Better get started,” said the first agent. “We’re going to try to recruit others.”
“That confident in me, huh?”
“Plan for the worst, hope for the best.”
Professor Destiny didn’t want to mess with lightning, so he decided to make his approach indirectly. The spirit of Kanru in the mask knew a place outside of space, the locus universalis. It touched all places, so all Professor Destiny had to do was shift into that pocket dimension and then into Dunsmouth, which was already in the town, more or less.
The last time he had been here, the locus was bright; now it was dark and cold and suffused with an eerie tuneless piping.
That sound is reminiscent, thought Karnu.
Fix the Dunsmouth problem, then check here again.
Professor Destiny appeared in the town square, by the bandstand. There was an odd flash of weakness.
That way is sealed , reported Karnu.
Fix this, fix that , thought Landon. Maybe .
Raindrops the size of marbles hit him. He threw up a shield [2] and looked around. Clearly they had gone all-in on picturesque new England with a side of fishing village. Presumably that was how they made their money: tourism .
And then the place was smothered with abandonment sauce; there was no one around.
He lifted into the air. Birds immediately took to the air from the trees around the square. All of them were blackbirds: psychopomps. In Celtic folklore they held souls in purgatory; in Christian folklore they were symbolic of temptation. The blackbirds kept pace with him as he flew a huge circle over the town. Perhaps all the people were turned into blackbirds? He looked down and saw that many of the windows of the houses below were clustered with bees.
A bee at the window meant a visitor coming. But a swarm of bees…?
Curioser and curioser.
And no people. No dogs, cats, ducks, gulls, horses, cows, swans, raccoons, skunks… any of the animals he might see. Only bees and blackbirds.
He headed over the marina area, now flooded and half the boats gone and the rest sunk. There, up on the hill: a flash of skin. A man!
Chapter 2: Old Joe Muldoon
He dove down and towards the man. “Hello!” Professor Destiny called. The man disappeared into a bait shop. Old Joe’s Bait and Hook .
Professor Destiny tried the door. It was unlocked, so he went in.
The place was crowded and confined. Racks of different tackle hung from hooks in their blister packs. At the far end were coolers with a sign for live bait, and then beside them the desk with two cash registers: one antique, one modern.
Professor Destiny moved slowly to the back. “I am Professor Destiny, and I am here to help. Hello?”
He heard sobbing from a back room, and he stepped faster.
An old man sat there on a cot. “You found old Joe,” he said. A shotgun was cradled in his lap.
Is his mind clouded? he asked Karnu . [3]
He is broken, replied Karnu, but he has been like this for as long as Qa’a ruled Egypt.
Landon had to translate that: over 30 years. The man was probably in his seventies.
“What happened? Why weren’t you affected?”
The old man—Joe—spoke. Sometimes his speech was halting, sometimes it was fluid.
“Was the devil came to town, three nights back. Joe knows because the sky went purple before orange at twilight, as sure a sign as any. And all the cats cowered under chairs as the wind whispered the horned one’s thousand names into the ears of the deceitful.”
“I take your word for it,” said Professor Landon, but it was too late: Joe launched into a digression about fishing practices in the Persian Gulf and the evil it represented . [4]
“Three days ago,” said Professor Destiny gently.
Joe looked at him and his eyes focused again. “ Old Joe was whittling a mast for his latest bottled ship, a replica of Queen Anne’s Revenge , when he saw a man stroll through the drag, briefcase in his hand, down toward Pickman Ave toward Graveside Hill. Joe watched the man from the window to his shop and saw him go where no one goes because everybody’s mama told them not to.
“The Ol’ Whubley Place.”
Joe shuddered. Professor Destiny got him a glass of water from the tiny sink, and Joe drank it down in hasty gulps. Without wiping his chin, Joe continued.
“Joe is the sworn defender of this town, so Joe grabbed his trusty Mossberg and followed the man. Joe stuck to the darkest thickets because the devil can’t see in pure darkness. That’s why the devil can’t look inside his own heart. Only if you’ve had a pure thought does your own heart have enough light—”
“Joe.”
“The man knocked on the door and Joe saw the older sister let him in. It was there, they consummated a pact to wash Dunsmouth into the sea. Joe is sure. Oh, the devil’s always hated Dunsmouth because it’s where God buried Michael’s sword.”
“Indeed?”
Something in Professor Destiny’s tone made Joe add, “According to the spoken traditions of the Muldoon family anyway.” He got up and turned to face Professor Destiny. “It’s the Prim sisters what turned this town on its head. They turned the whole town into mindless drones, slaves to the devil. Getting back at all those who tormented them the twenty-plus years of their lives and their entire family before them. Find the Prims and you’ll find the source. If you don’t stop this soon, the whole world’s next!”
The madness might have protected him from becoming a mindless drone, offered Karnu.
“Shhh. Thank you. Where is the old Whubley place?”
Joe went to the front and grabbed a tourism brochure from a spinning rack. “Along here, at the end Pickman Avenue, is the home of the gate for evil.”
“And all the people are there?”
“Joe never said that.”
“Where are the people?”
“Well, at the Whubley Place, but Joe never said that.”
“Sleep. Try to rest.”
“You sound like a doctor.” Nonetheless, Joe laid himself on his cot.
Chapter 3: Meeting the sisters
Outside, the rain continued.
Professor Destiny lifted into the air, but as he flew along, people began to spill out of the old big mansion on the hill: the Whubley place. Brown-robed monks, with some black robes as well, and rarely robes the colour of ox blood. Professor Destiny stopped in mid-air. Silently, mechanically, the monks began to walk to the marina.
More monks spilled out. There must have been hundreds in there.
The population of the town, minus one, offered Karnu.
The robes didn’t get wet in the rain.
From windows on an upper floor flew three witches on broomsticks, dressed for the part in Colonial garb. One was tall and muscular, one was broad, and one was in between. Each of them wore a pendant that glowed with a white eldritch light.
The Prim sisters, I presume.
Karnu said, The pendants are familiar. [5] It is a Sumerian symbol, for one of the Old Ones, a creature from beyond this dimension.
Landon thought, Is Outer Darkness the same as beyond this dimension?
The sister in the middle raised a hand and spoke: “You are too late! The summoning has already happened and HE shall awaken as soon as the stars align in tonight’s sky! Fight as you wish but your heroics shall be in vain!”
Professor Destiny darted forward — they were clearly at the center of this, whatever this was — but the monks stopped, lowered their hoods and looked up. Townspeople, eyes dull and vacant. Along the neck holes, Landon caught glimpses of soaked clothing. The robes were an illusion of some kind.
Figures in ox blood robes raised their hands. Blackbirds flew up, forming a barrier between Professor Destiny and the witches, and winds began to buffet him. [6]
He scattered them as he flew threw them, but it was too late; the sisters had vanished . [7]
He didn’t want to hurt the ensorceled townspeople, but he didn’t need them using their abilities against him, either. It was easier to make use of the current illusion . [8]
While he was casting the spell, they tried again . [9]
The spell went off. The ox blood robes constricted around the cultists and left them gasping for air. It was all illusion, of course, but because they already believed in the robes — they had thrown the hoods back, after all — they believed the illusion . [10]
Chapter 4: Toil and trouble
He searched all about. He spotted Hagatha, heading for the marina again. He was faster than she was, but did he have enough time?
She ducked down an alley to evade him, and the storm grew worse . [11]
He got the spell out but then the wind drove a large hailstone into the back of his head, momentarily stunning him. He tumbled from the air, but the spell took effect before he hit the ground, driving him through the concrete and into the storm sewer below.
The temperature shock of passing through the sidewalk revived him. He moved up through the ground, up to a higher point so he could spot Hagatha . [12]
There! She seemed confident she had lost him, and she had returned to Pickman Avenue, still heading for the docks.
Chapter 5: Big Sister
He could still catch her—he dove down and through her to let her know he was there. He hung in front of her. With luck, she had limited shots—
The pendant glowed brightly and lightning cracked from the skies, down to a store that sold knick-knacks (a dozen lacquered crabs were arranged in the storefront). The store began to flicker and within it, somewhere, there was a sound of fire . [13]
“And that’s for your dog digging up Hannah’s plants, Melinda Braithewaite!” laughed Hagatha, barely audible over the storm.
He had to disarm her, and quickly, then deal with the burning shop!
He dismissed the intangibility; in ghost form, his spells did not affect much of the real world. Kanru suggested, Perhaps the arm of the Pharaoh?
Professor Destiny chanted the words and made the gestures . [14]
Hagatha said, “Don’t you care about the ‘innocents’ who have persecuted me and my family?” Lightning danced down again . [15]
Professor Destiny could smell the ozone and the odd burned smell from the asphalt road. With the spell of the hand, he plucked at the pendant . [16]
The pendant moved towards him but weakly. Hagatha closed one hand around it and said, “You want this? No, this finally gives me power to right the wrongs I have lived with! Have this instead! ” [17]
Something shimmered through the air toward him, freezing the air as it traveled. Professor Destiny managed to turn aside . [18]
He had to distract her somehow, but he only had the arm of the pharaoh active. He began poking her telekinetically until he could grab away the pendant. She slapped at the touches and then...he had the pendant, and it floated towards him.
“No!” she cried and lunged for it, but did not get it.
Without the pendant she was still tall, but now stick-thin, and the witch’s robes transformed into a mustard-colored sweatsuit, spattered with the spots of rain.
The hailstorm and wind disappeared, replaced by the same rain as before.
“You can’t...you can’t!”
He glanced at the pendant before calling for rain to put out the fire. Of the seven stars around the central emeral, two were glowing, indicating a direction. He tucked the pendant into his bag. “To save the planet, I can.”
“You’ll never get them.” She straightened up. “We’ll still have our revenge.”
Professor Destiny took to the air.
Chapter 6: Plant of attack
The pendant took him directly up Pickman Avenue to the very end, where the old man had said was the location of the Whubley Place. At the end of Pickman Avenue was a hill called Graveside Hill and a path leading up it. The path was overgrown with wild vines and plants and overshadowed by giant thorny trees.
In the briefing, the agent had reported herbivores trapped by weeds. Mindful of that, Professor Destiny stayed in the air.
An iron gate proclaimed the house was Horace Whubley Manor. Because the women were named Prim but still persecuted, he assumed this was some surviving offshoot of the family.
The front yard held small gardens full of herbs, and a red brick walkway that led to large steps. The gardens were neat but the yard itself was unkempt and overgrown, with broken trellises along the west.
The house itself was a ramshackle Tudor-style home with darkened windows and wood siding tinged with moss and black in parts with mold. Stains marked where something had been thrown against the walls. Vines wrapped around the fence and crawled up the side of the house.
Blackbirds perched in every tree and watched.
The front bay window was broken by a fallen tree branch; in front of it was something Professor Destiny had never seen: a five-foot-tall Venus flytrap.
He didn’t need a magical detection spell to tell him this was unnatural.
As he hung there, over the iron gate, vines began to reach for him. He moved forward, still a dozen feet off the ground, and keeping his distance from the trees.
The vines could not reach him. Just to be sure, he repeated the intangibility spell from earlier, making himself a ghost.
The Venus flytrap shuddered and ripped its roots out of the ground and began to stomp toward him.
He saw the glowing pendant embedded in it and knew it was one of the Prim sisters.
He moved and different stars lit up on the pendant he held, indicating the general direction of the flytrap but to one side, taking in the house. Presumably that was the location of the third pendant.
He hovered in the air, out of reach of vines or trees, and called down. [19]
“Hannah Prim!” She was the gardener that Hagatha had mentioned.
The plant turned its...mouths...towards him.
“Your sister is defeated. You have unleashed an apocalyptic terror on this earth, and it must be stopped. I can help you deal with the persecution this town has caused but I must stop the Great Old Servitor first.”
The mouths snapped at him.
He considered flying into the house through the broken window but if the pendant was showing an average of the two other locations, he would not be able to find the third pendant. Best to deal with the one he knew about.
She was a plant, and a big one. He had no desire to get closer and test her strength. But he could create a killing frost that might wither her until he could grab the pendant. The spell he knew required touch, though.
Then he needed to let her grab him. [20]
The jagged teeth of her “mouth” clamped on his arm and cut through his force field. He knew he could take one, maybe two more of those before the pain knocked him unconscious.
Please be hurt…
Realizing that something was wrong, Hannah spat him out. Weeds caressed his body as he oozed blood from a dozen cuts and wounds. [22]
He lifted himself into the air and into the house. He did not know how to defeat her and he felt this was a delaying tactic, though he did not know for what. As a plant, she would have trouble coming in, so she would have to change to enter. At least in the building, she would be in human form and he had a chance to get the pendant from her.
Flying made it much faster to search the home, and he started to get an idea of what these women were like.
The house hadn’t changed much since it was built, except for the last three days: there were char marks on the walls of the bedrooms that were fresh, and the rooms had been ransacked. Intruders? Or inhabitants in some kind of mania? An old book was on a lectern, pages blackened as if by heat. Professor Destiny carefully looked at the front cover.
Mysterium Veteris, it said in blackletter script. [23]
Not a totally accurate tome of ancient magics to summon other-dimensional beings, but accurate where it counts. Where had they come across a copy of Mysterium Veteris? He checked the indicia: private printing, 1643, Italy
Downstairs, he heard a door open. He presumed one sister was already in the building, so that was Hannah entering. The third sister wouldn’t have had time to walk home yet. There was a ladder to the third floor, but he guessed that they wouldn’t perform magic up there. Hannah had not looked like someone who wanted to scramble up and down a ladder.
He spoke the spell for the arm of the Pharaoh again, putting more oomph into it. [24]
He heard another door downstairs: not an outside door because the background noise didn’t change. Had Hannah gone to the basement?
There would be no lights: he cast a simple charm to see in the dark. [25]
He caught glimpses of the house as he sped down, looking for the door to the basement: woodwork; faded wallpaper with designs that were old-fashioned when it was put up; faded couch, TV trays, and rabbit ears on a small old television. A calendar on the fridge. There, by the back door: the door to the basement. It was ajar—
Even before going in, the smell was terrible. He expected the smell of dead fish — they weren’t far from the sea — but something else was mixed in, something rancid and decayed. The light switch was at the bottom of the stairs, but he didn’t bother. Ahead of him was Hannah, caught in the act of changing— [26]
She was facing away from him, so he put on more speed in the hopes of distracting her, and rammed into her at top velocity. [27] [28]
He interrupted her in her chant, and hit her hard enough that she fell unconscious.
He felt bad about hitting her, but she was unconscious.
“Sorry,” he told her unconscious form, and then sucked on one knuckle. He’d hit her on bone and his hand hurt.
He quickly plucked up her pendant, and looked around.
The stench was coming from a pit in the corner, which was filled with...fish guts and animal body parts. On one wall were runes, some of which he recognized. [29]
In English, the words “The Old Fellow Awakens” had been scrawled amidst the runes and occult patterns.
Professor Destiny looked around and — there, in the corner. The third sister’s pendant, set in a gold disc.
He picked both of them up. The disc was an elaboration of the symbols he had already seen, and the conclusion was inescapable.
The third Prim sister was already an avatar of The Old Fellow.
The pendants writhed in his hands, trying to get close together. He did not have time to cast a spell, but held on with his hands, trying to keep them apart. [30]
The pendants fused into a three-lobed star with an actinic light and that throbbed with evil; Professor Destiny could feel it in his hand.
It made a sound that was suddenly silent and then there was an explosion outside, maybe a mile away.
Outside, he saw a column of light heading down into the water of the docks area.
[31] She needed a human sacrifice, and she had a town’s worth of thralls who were willing to be killed.
#
On the way he prepared: he had the arms of the Pharaoh, which was still active, and he had to harden his mind. [32]
The last Prim sister, the avatar of other-worldly beings, was walking towards the water with two men in ox-blood robes flanking Old Joe and holding his arms. All of them were in the pillar of light, but clearly it was coming from Miss Prim . [33]
He reached out with the arms of the pharaoh. and yanked Old Joe away from the two zealots and set him on the top of a nearby building.
The monks turned and ran for Joe. With luck, they would take time to get him hdown.
Miss Prim floated toward the sea. Her feet were not touching the ground.
He had to deal with her but without hurting her, because she was only a host for an extra dimensional entity. An entity which was capable of ordering the mentally-controlled slaves to kill themselves.
So first she had to be quieted . [34]
The spectral arm of the Pharaoh slid off her like rain and a glass window.
She rotated, moving out over the water while facing backward, and pointed at him. [35]
#
The Colonel had given her permission to exceed the speed of sound so long as she stuck to the path he provided. She had been running for over twenty minutes but not half an hour, and at a guess she had covered nearly three thousand miles. So maybe Mach 9 or 10. She had actually run over the invisible dome over the town and had to circle back. [36]
What she saw was the mystical guy that the Colonel had shown her motionless and surrounded by two layers of mystical energy: one gold and close to his body, one Cherenkov blue and further out. The blue energy came from a school teacherish woman floating over the water.
In a reversal of so many things in life, man good, woman bad.
She didn’t really have time to think; she rammed the woman at mach 9 or 10. [37]
The woman was still standing! And cast a second bolt of the same blue energy . [38]
That bolt missed Quickstep but by less than she had expected.
Have to watch out , she thought. She circled around again. That is not a supervillain outfit, so we’re dealing with possession or mental control or an alien bug that has taken over her brain. First step is to get her to the shore—
—Unless of course Herr Mystic here has spent all this time trying to get her to the shore. Who knows? Ehh, I’ll go with my plan until I can ask. [39]
#
Professor Destiny blinked one minute he was facing against the Prim woman, the next he was staring at the sea and she was nowhere in sight.
He scanned around and found Henrietta being held by a woman in goggles and a skin-tight outfit, over on the shore.
“Keep her away from the water!” he shouted and added his strength to the woman’s holding Prim.
“Good to know!” the woman shouted. [40]
#
Whoops: body of a wrestler under that prim exterior. She’s stronger than she looks.
Quickstep was loathe to just punch the woman; instead, she figured she could just make a vacuum around her that would keep her from breathing. Then, once she had passed out, they could deal with the real source. She hoped Mystico there knew what it was. The colonel hadn’t known his name, just that a separate government organization had sent someone in. [41]
#
Well, she’s efficient. Hardly needs me.
“We’ll knock her out, then we can stop her from being an avatar for evil.”
He began the spell that would drain energy from the Prim woman. [42]
#
That sounds like magic. I guess; I haven’t heard magic before, but if I had, it would sound like that.
She maintained speed. It sounded like Magic-Guy needed some time. [43]
[44] The storm over Dunsmouth dissipated. The thundering rain lightened to a drizzle and then stopped. The sky became blue and the sun appeared.
The cultists’ robes disappeared to become regular clothes.
“That’s good, right?” asked Quickstep.
“Very good,” said Professor Destiny. “How fast are you?”
“That sounds like a come on. What do you want to know?”
“I need a dumpster full of fish guts moved, and I’m afraid that using magic to do it will leave the fish guts with a mystical after-image that will later get up and walk. Think you’re fast enough to do it?”
“Fast enough? Yes. Stupid enough? No.”
“These women have been persecuted enough. If I ask the agency to step in, I’m afraid they’ll be further stigmatized.”
“That’s a new one.” There was a pause. “I’ll do it but you have to tell me your name?”
[1] Icons: He’s going to stunt Good (5) Detect Cosmic Disturbance (you shouldn’t need more for the end of the world), and use a determination point for it to add to the test, because he does not want to fail in front of these guys. Which is good, because even then it’s a marginal success. However, the actual awareness test succeeds swimmingly.
[2] Icons: His force field. No roll required.
[3] Icons: Let’s say that this is a Detect spell, but it has no words, just gestures. We’ll say difficulty 2 because it’s pretty obvious Joe’s not right: 6+2 vs 4+3.
[4] Icons: Can Professor Destiny impose will on Joe to get him back on track? Yes: He gets the kind of success that I wish had been on something else: 7+6 vs 4+1, or 13 vs 5, massive success.
[5] Icons: We’ll try a knowledge roll, INT+Occult versus knowledge of the pendant. We’ll say it’s difficulty 5, and if it’s a really good result, something useful will come of it. 6+3 vs 5+3. Moderate success.
[6] Icons: Let’s say there are 500 people in town, so that’s 5 zealots. They’re going to try to combine their blasts. The chosen attacker fails to hit by two, but two others succeed, for a +2, which the chosen attacker will put on the roll. Now, it’s the Average (3) air blast versus Professor Destiny’s Good (5) flight to push him back: 3+3 vs 5+5 (major failure), so it bounces off the shield and doesn’t stop him.
[7] Icons: It’s a plot point that they aren’t around, and he would have caught them, so I’ll give him a determination point as a reward. Now he’s at 3 Determination points.
[8] Icons: Magic roll, burst magic has the effect of Stunning; it only works on the ox-blood robed zealots, but I don’t regard that as a limit; still, it has Burst as an extra. The spell is created (7+5 vs 6+1).
[9] Icons: We try again: one main zealot, four combining. +0 to hit. He gets -1, but three of the other four fail, so the +1 gives him enough for a marginal hit. He fails the strength test 3+1 vs 5+4.
[10] Icons: Professor Destiny aims at the ground and barely hits—4+1 vs 0+4. The effect is a massive success (6+5 vs 4+2), so they are stunned until the end of the chapter.
[11] Icons: A bit of meta gaming: The hailstones do 6 stamina damage. Even if he created a force field to protect himself, every turn would be a chance of being stunned. So instead, he is going to cast a magic spell to make himself insubstantial while he flies. He doesn’t need much, so it’s Phasing 1: 6+2 is so high that he can’t fail the test. So next phase, he’ll be phased out. In the meantime: 1 stamina damage, and he’s stunned for a page. Fortunately, the spell takes effect, and the remaining hail passes through him. (I think that whether a spell takes effect when someone is stunned is usually “no” but it can be adjudicated on a case-by-case basis, and in this case I’d like to continue with a single hero for a bit.
[12] Icons: Does he see her? I’ll say with the storm and anything it’s difficulty 4. Professor Destiny gets 4+5 vs 4+3, so he spots her.
[13] Heroic Icons: Does the store catch fire? 3,3 Complication. Well, that sounds like the building catches fire.
[14] Icons: I don’t want this to fail, so it only needs to be Telekinesis 4. The pendant is hard to grab, but can’t cast a spell for that. He rolls 9+1 vs 4+4, for a moderate success. Next turn, the spell will be there. DP now 2.
[15] Icons: Well, that was a terrible roll, fortunately: 4+1 vs 4+6. She missed.
[16] Icons: Difficulty is +2 to get the pendant, according to the adventure. He doesn’t know that Hagatha has Amazing strength, so the first thing to do is simply try to rip it away: Prowess 4, difficulty 6. To make it more even, he’s going to spend 1 Determination and activate “Mask of Kanru” quality for +2 effort. 4+2+5 vs 6+5. He grabs it, but marginal success has no effect. Now Hagatha knows he wants it.
[17] Icons: Affliction at range costs her stamina, but she hasn’t lost any yet, so Hagatha is going to try her wave of numbing cold. The Affliction is ranged, so it’s 4+3 versus 4+5; a moderate miss. Stamina now 12.
[18] Icons: He needs to create the “distracted” quality before he tries again. So he’s going to use the Telekinesis to grab at her all over, in the hopes she’ll be distracted and he can grab the item. It is rather like a feint. First, let’s see if it works; he’s going to try a maneuver with INT and her INT will be the difficulty. 6+4 vs 3+2, so a massive success. He activates the quality, so it’s 4+5 vs 4+2-2+1, a major success.
[19] Icons: Does he remember Hagatha mentioning Hannah’s flowers? Difficulty 5: he was there for it, but busy at the time. 4+4 vs 5+2: Moderate success. Yes, he does.
[20] Icons: The magic spell is Aura, Affliction. It’s going to be rank 6, and he’s going to tie it to his force field, so he can keep that up. 7+2+5 vs 6+2 means a massive success. He flies down and tries to make it look good, but lets her grab him, so we don’t need to roll her prowess. When she chomps down on him, no effect other than the two Stamina he loses from the “teeth” 6+4 vs 7+4. He is not stunned.
[21] Icons: Best spend Determination to increase the effort of the aura, which I only just remembered I could do. So he activates Mask of Kanru for +2 effort on the Aura. This time he gets 7+2+2 vs 7+1, or a major success, so the plant needs to make another test next page. DP: 1 Stamina: unaffected because she hasn’t bitten down. She takes full stamina damage, though.
[22] Icons: Hannah rolls Affliction again, and because it’s magical, I’m going to let Professor Destiny spend his last Determination point for the +2 again. Too bad: he gets 6+2+3 vs 7+6, for a moderate failure. Hannah is not damaged again, though she’s at Stamina 4. She has the chance to use Plant Control to attempt to Bind him: Coordination to hit first, and she misses: 4+2 vs 4+6. DP: 0.
[23] Icons: Difficulty 5 to know about it; Professor Destiny rolls 7+2+1 vs 5+2: Moderate success.
[24] Icons: Difficulty 5 this time. 9+3 vs 5+4 is a major success. He has a strength 5 Telekinesis.
[25] Icons: He can’t fail, not with Willpower 7+2 occult and difficulty 1. By the time he gets there, he’ll be able to see in the dark.
[26] Icons: Who went first? Hannah rolled 4+4 for Initiative, Professor Destiny rolled 4+6. So Professor Destiny gets a chance to interrupt the change, which takes a full page. If he casts Magic, that will also take a full page, so either something with the Hand of the Pharaoh or a stunt.
Iconic Hero: Is she facing him? 5, 4: no.
[27] Icons: She doesn’t have the benefit of the force field, and he gets a moderate hit, for 6 stamina. (Flight 5+1) Moderate isn’t enough to roll for slamming or stunning. But she’s at 4 stamina from earlier, so it knocks her out.
[28] Iconic Hero: Does that break her concentration? Likely. 1,6
[29] Icons: The runes are from the Old Fellow himself, so they’re difficulty 6 to know, but he’s an occult expert with a Fair Intellect and he rolled positive: 4+2+3 vs 6+2, major success.
[30] Icons: This is gonna happen anyway, so the heroes get a Determination Point for struggling against it. Worst of Strength and Willpower versus difficulty 8; if Professor Destiny wins, he gets two DP. 4+6 vs 8+3. Nope, he loses. DP: 1
[31] Icons: Does he realize that human sacrifice is the next step? Difficulty 5. 4+2+3 vs 5+3. Yes: moderate success.
[32] Icons: It’s the endgame; I’m willing to have him keep the arms of the Pharaoh up still. But he needs to make the Mental Resistance 7 spell: Willpower 7+2+4 vs 7+4. He does it, with a moderate success. So now he has telekinesis 5 and Mental Resistance worth 7. His Initiative is 4+2 (6)
[33] Icons: They aren’t expecting it (they’re out of combat and not looking in his direction), so they’re Prowess 1 for the purposes of this attack. Prowess 4+5 vs 1+2+5 gives a moderate success. Henrietta’s Initiative is 5
[34] Icons: Professor Destiny wants to create the Quality “Silenced” because there isn’t really a power for specifically that. (I fiddled with declaring it was a specific version of Dazzle or Binding, but a Quality seems the best.) Activating the Quality “Mask of Kanru” he’s going to try to magically hold her mouth shut, and the difficulty will be her Strength. (He doesn’t know her Strength is rather high.) He will be using his TK of 5 for this.) 5+2 vs 6+5. No way.
[35] Icons: Time Control: she’s going to attempt to Stun him. This is Stunning vs Willpower. First, does she hit? 3+6 vs 4+3. Yes. Does he succumb to the Stunning? 8+2 vs 7+1: a moderate success. Well, now Professor Destiny cannot do anything for 1 page. Ewww. However, I am biased in favor of the player (me) so this is the moment where Quickstep arrives.
[36] Icons: That’s Surface Movement 1, done with a maneuver. Her Initiative will be 9.
[37] Icons: Prowess 6+1 vs Prowess 4+2: moderate success, for 9 Stamina. Not a good enough hit for a slam or a stun, I’m afraid. Henrietta’s current Stamina: 7. And Professor Destiny isn’t doing anything this page.
[38] Icons: Coordination 3+5 vs 8+1. A moderate failure.
[39] Icons: She’s going to try to wrestle Henrietta and bring her to the shore. Prowess 6+6 vs 4+5, or a major success, so she grabs Henrietta and gets her to the shore. She doesn’t want to carry the woman too far because she’s aware that she might need to correct things based on Professor Destiny’s info.
[40] Icons: Henrietta attempts to escape, and rolls 6+6 vs 7+2, for a major success. She’s free!
[41] Icons: Stunting her own stunning, vs Strength, using a DP, running around in a vortex to get rid of the air. She hits (Coordination 4+3 vs 3+3) and gets a moderate success on the Stunning (8+3 vs 6+4). So Henrietta can’t act this page
[42] Icons: Magic; Affliction, ranged, level 6 versus his Willpower+Occult roll of 9. 9+3 versus 6+3, so the spell is ready next turn. Henrietta doesn’t get to act this page.
[43] Icons: Stunning is 8+6 vs 6+3, or massive success. So Henrietta can’t act for the remainder of the chapter. Henrietta doesn’t act again.
[44] Icons: The Affliction goes off: 8+4 vs 6+1, a major success, so Henrietta is unconscious fast.
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