Mage One Shot: Wreckage (Gloria Mundi spinoff)
Now, a little background on New Orleans in my World of Darkness. First, I rolled Katrina back a year, so it hit in August of 2004 (we'll ignore whether Bush would still have stolen the election if that fiasco had happened during an election year). Second, the mages of the city divide themselves into four "krewes." The Gold Krewe deals with mortals, keeping the city solvent, keeping the Seers out, and lately cleaning up after Katrina. The Bone Krewe deals with vampires, ghosts and other undead (a full-time job in the Big Easy). The Paper Krewe chases down magical knowledge and artifacts. Finally, the Silk Krewe deals with mage relations, making sure the cabals don't step on each other's toes and that visiting mages are treated well.
And they are. Visitors are welcome in New Orleans. Of course, if you're a resident and you choose not to join a krewe, you're treated like shit. Each krewe has several cabals in its membership, and in New Orleans your krewe defines you more than order or even Path. That said, the Moros in New Orleans share a bond that Path members usually don't. It's just that kind of city. Caucuses of the Path of Doom are therefore more frequent events, often when something death-related happens or a new Moros comes to town.
So, Kali was a visitor. The other characters:
The characters met up at the home of Duvalier, a former Bone Krewe mage who recently switched to the Silk Krewe, figuring that other mages could handle the rough stuff. After some small talk, he told the characters about some problems in the city. Apparently, there had been reports of slow, shuffling folks attacking and biting people. James mentioned that a friend of his had been attacked near the railyard, and MB said that several of the rival gangs had started wearing gris-gris, but in response to what he wasn't sure. The Moros decided to investigate further before turning it over to the Bone Krewe, but before they left Duvalier slipped everyone except Kali a note, saying that he wanted their assessement of this new mage.
Kali, meanwhile, was perhaps not at her best. Every night at sundown, she's been disappearing and staying, alone, in the room, each time for a longer stretch. This night, she was there for 16 hours. Knowing that she needed to find a way to circumvent this, but intrigued by the other mages, she didn't mention it (dunno what they'd have done anyway; not a dot of Space in the bunch).
At the hospital, the mages talked with the injured man. He said another man - muddy and half-dressed - had attacked him and taken a chunk out of his shoulder. Alanzau and TWMLC examined him magically, and found that while the wound could have turned him, the poison was working its way out of the body. That meant, though, that these biting creatures were infectious.
Morty tuned in to local frequencies and discovered that an ambulance was inbound with a dying body. The mages raced to intercept it, and found the ambulance crashed into a light pole. Morty pulled the driver from the car; he was fine, apart from a broken nose. In the back, however, man beat on the inside doors, trying to escape. Kali identified him as a zombie, and used her favorite rote to take control (but found it was harder than she thought). Opening the car, Alanzau and Morty found the other EMT bleeding to death from a bite on his throat. Alanzau healed him, and Kali destroyed the corpse just as the police arrived.
The mages conferred on what to do next. MB called his posse and found that one of them had been bitten. Worried now about how these zombies were getting spread through town so quickly, the mages went to the house where the bitten man was holed up. TWMLC, not wanting to drive his Benz into that neighborhood, went back to the hospital to pay off an orderly for information (see below). At the house, the other mages found that not only had the man been bitten (his ear torn clean off), but the zombie had beaten him with a plank until he'd started bleeding internally. Alanzau examined him and determined that he was dying, but a few vulgar spells later (and a little bit of Paradox damage), he was improved enough to live. He told the mages where he'd been attacked, and the Moros were off.
TWMLC, meanwhile, had spoken with an orderly and learned that the first of these strange bite cases actually came from northwest of the city, in a little trailer park community called Frenier. TWMLC called James and James remembered that Frenier had once been fairly large and populous, until a storm in 1915 destroyed it. The orderly had mentioned a storm last month that ripped through the area just before the biting started. TWMLC decided to go to the railyard, and then meet the others to head to Frenier.
The others went to the corner where the man had been attacked, and they found the zombie was still there, waiting. It attacked them, but someone took control of it (honestly, with four characters with Death 3 or better it's hard to remember which one), and then destroyed it before anyone could see. They noted that it looked muddy, as though dunked in a swamp, and that it wasn't animated by Awakened magic.
At the railyard, TWMLC was having his own problems. Three zombies attacked, but he threw up a wall of shadows to protect himself. He held them off until the others arrived, at which point James charmed them with his sax and Kali destroyed them. The mages drove northwest along the causeway to Frenier...
There, they found the road forked, one side leading to the "town," and one leading into the dark. Off in the distance, they could see a dilapidated fence. They took the Robert Frost option and headed the way less traveled and discovered strangeness.
Inside the fence, everything was dirty. Dust clung to their cars in seconds. The very air seemed electric, and they found puddles of oil-like water. Names were hard to remember, and when Kali looked into Twilight, she saw more spirits than she'd ever seen in one place. TWMLC scrutinized the area and noted a complex melange of resonance, roughly divided into five categories that seemed to correspond to the four bodily humours, plus one he'd not seen. They saw a ring of cars, set up like a stone clock, but no living beings.
MB looked back in time a month, and saw a horrible storm with crimson lightning, and saw bodies crawling out of the water. Kali spoke with a storm-spirit and it agreed to answer questions if she would help it discharge its power. She altered the conductivity of a car, turning it into a lightning rod, and the spirit struck it, sending out lightning in all directions. It told them that there had been "false people" here, but they were gone, and that the storm had animated the corpses. The storm, now, was gone (and TWMLC confirmed that the resonance and other weird effects were fading).
Morty saw a ghost hiding, and questioned him. He wasn't much help on the "false people" front, but did tell the mage that some other folks had fought a zombie here and destroyed it with wreckage from the storm. He asked Morty to find his dog tags; Morty did and the ghost read off his serial number, nodded as though he'd forgotten something, and vanished.
Now armed with some knowledge of how to destroy the zombies, the mages, informed the Bone Krewe, who began a city-wide purge.
After, though, Duvalier took the mage's assessments of Kali. Reckless and arrogant, yes, but with some magical skill. Duvalier, warning Kali that the recklessness needed to be curbed, offered to tutor her, and Kali joined the ranks of the Bokor. She still has the problem of appearing in the Empty Room, however, and it gets longer each time...
And they are. Visitors are welcome in New Orleans. Of course, if you're a resident and you choose not to join a krewe, you're treated like shit. Each krewe has several cabals in its membership, and in New Orleans your krewe defines you more than order or even Path. That said, the Moros in New Orleans share a bond that Path members usually don't. It's just that kind of city. Caucuses of the Path of Doom are therefore more frequent events, often when something death-related happens or a new Moros comes to town.
So, Kali was a visitor. The other characters:
- MB (Free Council, Gold Krewe): A street thug, gang leader and entrepeneur. Lately he's been magically changing jewelry (bling) into gold, and working Fate and Time into the spell so that when the spell wears off, the bling suffers a weird accident or is lost.
- James Highwater (Adamantine Arrow, Bone Krewe): A saxophonist who found a jazz funeral during his time in Stygia, replaced a dying sax player, and after his Awakening took the sax with him. This Artifact allows him to control the undead while he plays.
- Morty (apostate, Bone Krewe): A recently Awakened mage, Morty works as an EMT, saving lives where he can and helping the dying pass on.
- TWMLC (Mysterium, Paper Krewe): It's Hebrew. It's pronounced "salmauvet", roughly. A linguist and occultist, TWMLC is looking to develop High Speech into a workable language.
- Alanzau (Mysterium, Paper Krewe): An Adept of Death, but a Master of Life, Alanzau knows many of the dark secrets of New Orleans, including a gateway to the sample Atlantean temple that the Boston cabal found.
- Kali (Adamantine Arrow, visitor): And, of course, Kali, whom you might know as Morrigan from the demo.
The characters met up at the home of Duvalier, a former Bone Krewe mage who recently switched to the Silk Krewe, figuring that other mages could handle the rough stuff. After some small talk, he told the characters about some problems in the city. Apparently, there had been reports of slow, shuffling folks attacking and biting people. James mentioned that a friend of his had been attacked near the railyard, and MB said that several of the rival gangs had started wearing gris-gris, but in response to what he wasn't sure. The Moros decided to investigate further before turning it over to the Bone Krewe, but before they left Duvalier slipped everyone except Kali a note, saying that he wanted their assessement of this new mage.
Kali, meanwhile, was perhaps not at her best. Every night at sundown, she's been disappearing and staying, alone, in the room, each time for a longer stretch. This night, she was there for 16 hours. Knowing that she needed to find a way to circumvent this, but intrigued by the other mages, she didn't mention it (dunno what they'd have done anyway; not a dot of Space in the bunch).
At the hospital, the mages talked with the injured man. He said another man - muddy and half-dressed - had attacked him and taken a chunk out of his shoulder. Alanzau and TWMLC examined him magically, and found that while the wound could have turned him, the poison was working its way out of the body. That meant, though, that these biting creatures were infectious.
Morty tuned in to local frequencies and discovered that an ambulance was inbound with a dying body. The mages raced to intercept it, and found the ambulance crashed into a light pole. Morty pulled the driver from the car; he was fine, apart from a broken nose. In the back, however, man beat on the inside doors, trying to escape. Kali identified him as a zombie, and used her favorite rote to take control (but found it was harder than she thought). Opening the car, Alanzau and Morty found the other EMT bleeding to death from a bite on his throat. Alanzau healed him, and Kali destroyed the corpse just as the police arrived.
The mages conferred on what to do next. MB called his posse and found that one of them had been bitten. Worried now about how these zombies were getting spread through town so quickly, the mages went to the house where the bitten man was holed up. TWMLC, not wanting to drive his Benz into that neighborhood, went back to the hospital to pay off an orderly for information (see below). At the house, the other mages found that not only had the man been bitten (his ear torn clean off), but the zombie had beaten him with a plank until he'd started bleeding internally. Alanzau examined him and determined that he was dying, but a few vulgar spells later (and a little bit of Paradox damage), he was improved enough to live. He told the mages where he'd been attacked, and the Moros were off.
TWMLC, meanwhile, had spoken with an orderly and learned that the first of these strange bite cases actually came from northwest of the city, in a little trailer park community called Frenier. TWMLC called James and James remembered that Frenier had once been fairly large and populous, until a storm in 1915 destroyed it. The orderly had mentioned a storm last month that ripped through the area just before the biting started. TWMLC decided to go to the railyard, and then meet the others to head to Frenier.
The others went to the corner where the man had been attacked, and they found the zombie was still there, waiting. It attacked them, but someone took control of it (honestly, with four characters with Death 3 or better it's hard to remember which one), and then destroyed it before anyone could see. They noted that it looked muddy, as though dunked in a swamp, and that it wasn't animated by Awakened magic.
At the railyard, TWMLC was having his own problems. Three zombies attacked, but he threw up a wall of shadows to protect himself. He held them off until the others arrived, at which point James charmed them with his sax and Kali destroyed them. The mages drove northwest along the causeway to Frenier...
There, they found the road forked, one side leading to the "town," and one leading into the dark. Off in the distance, they could see a dilapidated fence. They took the Robert Frost option and headed the way less traveled and discovered strangeness.
Inside the fence, everything was dirty. Dust clung to their cars in seconds. The very air seemed electric, and they found puddles of oil-like water. Names were hard to remember, and when Kali looked into Twilight, she saw more spirits than she'd ever seen in one place. TWMLC scrutinized the area and noted a complex melange of resonance, roughly divided into five categories that seemed to correspond to the four bodily humours, plus one he'd not seen. They saw a ring of cars, set up like a stone clock, but no living beings.
MB looked back in time a month, and saw a horrible storm with crimson lightning, and saw bodies crawling out of the water. Kali spoke with a storm-spirit and it agreed to answer questions if she would help it discharge its power. She altered the conductivity of a car, turning it into a lightning rod, and the spirit struck it, sending out lightning in all directions. It told them that there had been "false people" here, but they were gone, and that the storm had animated the corpses. The storm, now, was gone (and TWMLC confirmed that the resonance and other weird effects were fading).
Morty saw a ghost hiding, and questioned him. He wasn't much help on the "false people" front, but did tell the mage that some other folks had fought a zombie here and destroyed it with wreckage from the storm. He asked Morty to find his dog tags; Morty did and the ghost read off his serial number, nodded as though he'd forgotten something, and vanished.
Now armed with some knowledge of how to destroy the zombies, the mages, informed the Bone Krewe, who began a city-wide purge.
After, though, Duvalier took the mage's assessments of Kali. Reckless and arrogant, yes, but with some magical skill. Duvalier, warning Kali that the recklessness needed to be curbed, offered to tutor her, and Kali joined the ranks of the Bokor. She still has the problem of appearing in the Empty Room, however, and it gets longer each time...