The Story Concludes

[Anthony Louthan]

So yeah, last night was pretty eventful. I hope you all enjoyed it. I had an idea that I thought you guys may be interested in:

Instead of me doing a recap each week after gaming, you guys can take turns recapping the events from the point of view of your character. I will grant some kind of experience boost for anyone who is willing to do this, just need to know who wants to give it a shot?

If you guys are not interested, I can simply recap it in the same fashion as the first week's game, but I thought this might be a little more fun way to get into character.

Lemme know what the consensus is.

-Tony

[Evan Newton]

Did I survive?

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Evan Newton

QA Analyst | Backflip Studios

[Anthony Louthan]

Yes The writer made it.......another in the party was not so fortunate......

[Justin Larrabee]

The night before our ill-fated outing ended, we chose to get some rest and begin the actual work the following day, IN DAYLIGHT. Personally, I don't quite understand what the dilemma was that made this worth arguing about -- I don't particularly enjoy facing the streets of Arkham past 10p.m., let alone some tentacle smoke monster that drove one man insane and killed another. I mean, hell, this was enough to get Merryweather's proverbial panties in a bunch, and that guy was sleeping with my wife while he had penis cancer. That takes some balls. Seriously.

But I digress.

The following morning we all gathered and left for the house in that pig-headed cop's car. It was a quite boring drive, and the countryside was even more bland than what passed for conversation amongst us. We drove through a charming "town" on our way there, and by the way the locals gawked at us you would expect they've never seen an automobile -- or a shower. Their milk depot however... quite enticing.

We made it to the house around 8 or 9am and quickly set to work "investigating". By this I mean we stood awkwardly outside a broken down, not-the-least-bit scary shack and looked around nervously. My boredom was soon abated when the transient Kai, upon whom I have found myself growing moderately tolerant of, found a dead animal in the bushes. Yes, this was the level of my desperation for stimulation. The animal in question, a raccoon of questionable lineage, was recently dead -- and by gaping wound in its chest it was a quite unpleasant experience. This wound was actually like many I have seen in the laboratory. The edges were surgical and the only part of the carcass that was removed was the heart, something I imagine that fool cop felt a deep camaraderie for.

I quickly grew bored explaining the oddness of this wound to the others. No doubt the small, easily digestible words overwhelmed them. While all of this was going on, Kai for some reason decided to start climbing the house. I mean, let's ignore the obviously flimsy door that we have a key for, why not just climb a house instead? It was during this pontification that something caused Kai to lose his grip on the ledge he clung precariously to. I ran to help him as the others stood by idly, and managed to break his fall. Were it not for my incredible grappling ability, there is no doubt that Kai would have been seriously injured. As it was, he had an enormous gash across his face that was pouring blood. By now I feel it wise to point out that while the others were busy packing sharp sticks and hand cannons, I thought to bring medical supplies. Supplies that by the time the night would be over would be quite exhausted.

But I digress again.

I expertly saw to Kai's injuries and stopped the bleeding, noting that the healing could be improved drastically if only we had access to a stiff glass of milk and an aromatic cigarette. As is, he will be left with a sexually intriguing scar that the other lady (or man?) tramps will find quite appealing. I'm sure he would have thanked me were it not for the constant talk of skeletons in the attic and scary "somethings" attacking him. I remained skeptical since his wounds looked like what one would expect from a shard of glass slicing the face. Given the shoddy nature of the house, it seemed perfectly reasonable that the pressure of his wild climbing was enough to cause a breakage in a poorly manufactured glass pane, thus resulting in his injuries.

The others seemed quite spooked by all of this and decided we should go back to town to question the yokels, er locals. I initially disagreed and wished to stay at the house to finish this silly outing, but it seemed wise to keep an eye on them and join. A short drive found us back in "town" and I decided to quench my prodigious thirst with some fresh depot milk while the cop and the goon decided to go harass the local minister. Kai and I entered the depot together, and as we did I couldn't help but notice a truly awful stench wafting from him. I thought nothing of it, as this stench was moderately close to his natural musk, and god knows, if you spend enough time with those others your body must choose to dispel it's distaste through the pores. 

As we were purchasing the milk and cigarettes, Kai began to "question" the lady working the counter. This went poorly. I interjected, and deciding to have some fun at her expense, questioned her haphazardly about the goings on in town. I don't remember what I even said, but I'm pretty sure I heard the words "haunted" and "town slut" more than once. It was at this point the goon returned, and deciding to "help", started yelling at her and threatening her with grunts and hand waving. Wasting no time, she pulled a gun on him and things quickly went to shit. Luckily, our other goon entered and defused the situation by removing the offending party to the back of his car. I can't say I was disappointed by this turn of events.

Once outside, we had a brief confrontation surrounding the knowledge that Kai has been secreting away the dead raccoon in his hobo sack. I will say nothing more about this.

After a few free cigarrettes, some local children told us the local hussy had vanished the day before -- an occurrence that was not noted by them as being abnormal given her proclivity to promiscuity. The others decided that this demanded immediate investigation, as CLEARLY this must have something to do with our Dark Brotherhood and being the heroes we fancied ourselves to be, we drove to the husband's farm. 

Once there, and burgeoning with our perceived authority, we broke into the poor man's house and began rummaging through his things. At this perfect moment, the farmer returned and from my vantage point inside, the cop began numbing his mind with inane conversation. To his credit, this bought us some much needed time. Kai had already gone upstairs, no doubt to pillage the valuables this poor man might own, while I found myself drawn the only remotely interesting thing in the house -- the cellar door. My logic dictated that our situation at the house was in no way connected to the woman's disappearance, and that by lex parsimoniae, it is much more likely that the farmer had killed his wife in a fit of jealous rage.

I nearly tripped making it down the stairs, and once at the bottom I almost wished I had never bothered coming down. Inside the cellar there was a distinct lack of rotting wife. Instead it was filled with the remains of god only knows what animal. I really have no idea what sick fantasies this farmer was into or if this was his idea of "preparing for the winter", but I can't express how little I cared. I quickly left the house as Kai made a racket upstairs -- no doubt trying to find a window to escape from and/or fall out of.

We regrouped outside, the farmer somehow ignorant that his house had been invaded. Sick of our folly, we decided to make our way back to the house and prepare for what we would need to do later.

We arrived at the house and with a growing sense of impatience, entered. It was filthy. On the ground were the leavings of a vagrant, and on the shelves, strangely untouched, were the notes and materials mentioned by Merryweather. The doors and windows were ringed with poorly carved runes. Were I an inter-dimensional demon, I would laugh at the effort.

My proclivity for cellars was soon invoked again, as we found a poorly lit entranceway leading beneath the house. The cop thought to get a lantern, advice I regret not taking. I haphazardly entered and began descending. The goon followed. Before I could do anything, a board swung from the dark below and knocked me to the ground. The next few minutes are hazy to me, as I was shaking off the effects of the blow. I heard gunshots. Before I know it, I am forced to my feet to address several horrible looking gunshot wounds in a hobo of questionable grooming skills. My expert ability stopped the worst of the bleeding, and gave us plenty of time to waste arguing. I don't recall what we argued about, but it strangely did not seem to involve facts related to a near-dead hobo at our feet.

Dusk soon arrived, and with that some horrific shrieks from the attic. We heard... something leave the attic at this point. I will admit, I felt a slight quake of fear at this event. However, my curiosity is always strongest when faced with challenge, and I decided to try and investigate the attic while our "demon" was away. The attic entryway was blocked, so putting my weight into it I pulled with a prodigious might. The door did not budge. My shoulder and body did however and I found myself falling to the ground, overcome with lightheadedness. As a preface to continuing, I would point out that I was completely okay and would soon rise. I needed no help. The cop, his medical knowledge clearly greater than mine, diagnosed me as needing attention with scalpel and tongue depressor. To this day I have no idea what he was attempting, but whatever he did opened me up enough that I lost consciousness.

I awoke much later and found the others to have stopped the worst of the damage done to me by the cop. They had prepared most of the ritual settings and all that was needed to begin was someone to start the chant. Despite my wounds, and general displeasure, I took the lead and began the silly chanting.

An hour later, and please, excuse the anachronism, all hell broke loose.

We heard a scream outside, and for some unknowable reason, the goon opened the door. The door covered in runes. Protective runes. That probably function best with a closed door. Focused on my chanting, I barely saw what happened next. Within a span of seconds, the goon was on the floor, the hobo now wielding what I guessed, given its effects on the goon, an iron branch. The cop, choosing now to show his usefulness, began blasting away with his shotgun. Wildly. I think he may have hit the hobo a couple of times out of the dozens of shots I estimate he took, but it did finally go down in a pile of gore. I assume that whatever force was controlling the possessed hobo was familiar with the expression "never place all your eggs in one basket", because as soon as the hobo was down he was replaced by a much more attractive zombie, in the form of the farmer's wife. At this same moment, Kai's pet raccoon (inexplicably allowed in the house with us) decided to join the fun, and showing an aptitude for flight, launched itself directly at his exposed neck.

Sensing his moment of glory, the goon decided to try and stop the raccoon by knifing it into the floor. This would have worked brilliantly, had he not missed. Repeatedly. He then decided that perhaps a knife is too unwieldily, and pulled out a snub-nosed .45.  I must report, and with some degree of sadness, that his marksmanship was worse than his knifery, as the bullet he hoped destined for the animated raccoon corpse found it's way directly into Kai's skull. A marvelous shot, if killing our compatriot had been his intention. In a last gasp of breath and what I assume to be nervous system misfirings, Kai swung his hatchet wildly at the raccoon (missing). If I am not mistaken, this frankenstein-ien breath made a sound not unlike a live-hobo yelling "SUH-MAAAUSH!".

Deprived of it's meal, the raccoon launched itself at the goon and in our first stroke of luck, struck the wall behind him. In a curious change of habit, the goon quickly dispatched the raccoon with a well-placed shot, proving that all he needed was a warmup on our dear departed Kai.

While all of this was going on, the cop was losing his fight with the zombie lady and was knocked unconscious. The goon soon followed. Sensing that between myself and the writer I contained the largest capacity for bad-assitude, I decided to end this charade and grapple the metaphorical shit out of that zombie. As I contained her in an inescapable headlock, I pondered my options. I noticed with my deep medical knowledge, that the tendons holding this zombie's head on were quite frayed -- most likely from inadvertent shrapnel from missed shotgun blasts. I firmly believed that with my strength, a well-placed tug would see this zombie's head removed in a manner befitting my skills. I can't explain why I did not act on this understanding, and my lack of action haunts me still. Instead, I simply punched the zombie. It died ingloriously. No sharp sticks or silly weapons needed.

With some breathing room, I attended to the others who were knocked out and we regained control of the situation as best we could. We still had minutes left in the ritual, and though the writer was still hard at work chanting, I knew he needed help and rejoined. In the final minute, something strange happened. A smoky, translucent shape materialized in our pentagram. It was beyond words. I was immediately enraptured by it's appearance, and with an unholy lust, found myself drawn to it's embrace. Sensing my loss of executive reasoning, my compatriots must have had a moment of uncomfortable brilliance and decided to knock me clear out.

That is the last thing I remember before waking up today. I cannot explain what happened, and I am convinced that what we did experience defies even our best explanations. I am a changed man and am grateful for the shred of sanity I still maintain -- despite my strange inability to form words outside of pen and paper. Still, I consider myself lucky. I could have been the victim of an unknowable demon -- or worse, on the receiving end of "help" from those who joined me in this adventure.

- Dr. McCallistar III

P.S. Roleplay gauntlet dropped bitches.

On Wed, Feb 20, 2013 at 10:53 AM, Anthony Louthan <alou...@backflipstudios.com> wrote:

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[Bryan Mashinter]

Gauntlet dropped indeed.

[Thomas Hoeg]

Woah....Kudos.  I may have enjoyed reading that almost as much as playing it.

Tom Hoeg
GAME DESIGNER
BACKFLIP STUDIOS

E: th...@backflipstudios.com

[Anthony Louthan]

Yeah, I have to say that this ended up being way better than I could have imagined. I will be coming up with some kind of awesome bonus XP/reward for Larrabee for this week's breakdown. If anyone wants to interject about any details feel free. 
I think after the next game we will let you guys volunteer/roll for rights to do the next breakdown. 

Also it's time to choose the next adventure, and I've decided to do something I've never done before. I am going to give you guys the titles to 3 different stories you could run through, and you guys get to vote on which you want to play. Majority rules, and if we don't play the adventure you are interested in, it will come back.

The three titles to choose from:

1. Dead Man Stomp

2. The Haunting

3. Carnival of Souls

Let the voting commence...

[Evan Newton]

Oooo... Carnival of Souls sounds interesting....

[Keith Charles]

I agree with Evan

[Bryan Mashinter]

Who doesn't love a carnival? Although I completely understand that my votes counts for .12%, which is the amount of time I've actually spent gaming with you all.