Cult Encounters of the Aslan Kind

There wasn't much more to do so we headed off to Mardi Gras in New Orleans, LA. Well, our accomodations were actually in a nearby town since New Orleans was fully booked so after checking in and getting a brief introduction from our receptionist, we drove around for what felt like hours before finding parking in the city. during which I set up a Grindr to see if anyone would attempt to catfish. We split up into the crowd, I went with Hilda (as each other's beards) I got a few hits on Grindr, the first one didn't seem too interested after all so I sent Hilda after him in case she was more his taste. Hilda needs a wingman, that's all I'll say about that. The second lead was more interesting. We agreed to meet near the parade floats and while I was waiting, Hilda tailed behind under the cover of a pokemon Go pub crawl. Just before my guy showed up, another mysterious person came up to me, insisting they were suppose to meet me to give me a looking glass that I would supposedly know when to use. That person then vanished into the crowd as my date showed up. His place was closer so we headed there, it was one of the ritzy hotels that was all booked up for Mardi Gras. His roommate was occupying the room though so I suggested a restroom makeout session would be safer than a quicky park in the dark as par the cult related abductions. Afterwards, I rejoined Hilda and we set out to regroup at Jane's stake out location. We mulled over our options and eventually decided keep a watchful eye on this cult base while we investigate other leads through out the week.
 
The next day, Hilda, Eleanor and I tracked down the IP address I hacked from their website to this hell swamp. Gators, snakes, frogs, leeches, but we did uncover an Aslan facility. Unfortunately we weren't able to get too close before being spotted by some guards and quickly had to fumble through a college research alibi to make it out alive, barely. On the way back we had to grab some meds for Eleanor who swallowed a lot of swamp. Later that day, after much needed rest and recuperation, Richard and Jane took Hilda to their party to follow up on the lead they met the previous night. Eleanor of course remained at the hotel with me while I set up and tested out the new drone I bought. In hindsight this was probably what we should have done for the initial recon of the Aslan swamp facility. I wanted to return to the swamp but needed an alibi so I texted the guy I met the previous night to arrange a breakfast date in costume to hopefully elude the cultists. At some point in the evening, we had a visitor, the mysterious person who gave me that spyglass. Allegedly they stopped by to check on our mission's progress and give us a bit more insight to both the use of the spyglass and the Aslan situation in general. Apparently the foundation is not the only organization interested in the rumored biblical powers Aslan holds to cleanse the earth, and the spyglass can reveal hidden things invisible to the naked eye, such as the mark of Aslan. After they left, I continued work on my costume I would wear to breakfast, and more importantly to surveil. We hadn't heard from the party party for a while when Eleanor alerted me to the breaking new of a masked shootout situation in the area they went, so we decided to call the foundation for some help since we couldn't do much from the room. All they could do was slow the investigation and cops to buy the team a little time. Jane, Hilda, Richard managed to get away mostly unscathed and just about when the police arrived to the party so Eleanor and I met them at a Denny's to hack cultists phones since we didn't want to risk trailing any cultists back to our hotel. We had a nice waitress serve us a few things while I cracked the phones, which took rather longer than usual but eventually gave us a few things of note: the cult leaders names, Father Donald Cohen and his wife Janet; the email address they used to communicate which I used later on to once again disrupt their ticket distribution after they'd subverted my first hack; and finally, a mysterious pic of a tall figure with a strange dagger in hand backstage, the significance of which would be revealed at our attendance of the play. We finished up rather late, Hilda and Jane having disposed of the phones afterwards and headed back to sleep once we were convinced the cultists hadn't tracked us thus far.
 
Met with my date Johnny F Uppercut at the same Denny's the next morning, persuaded him to grab coffee to go and head to the swamp to test fly the drone to surveil the Aslan complex. Got a brief look at the perimeter and a count of 5 guards. Johnny was a little put off by Eleanor's trailing us (but I asked her to just in case they had stationed more guards near the facility) so we left soon after that. Upon getting back I discovered Jane and Hilda having a sewing party for more costumes since remaining anonymous among the cultists was getting more difficult. So while they weren't looking I put the finishing touches on which dare I say made them pretty professional looking. Then everyone except Hilda went to this mansion for Richard's meeting which turned out to be with Virgil Mack, the benefactor to these Narnia plays and special confidant to Aslan. Eleanor and I remained outside to keep watch, another opportunity to use my drone but after realizing how limited a normal lens was in a mostly opaque and giant complex, I resolved to install infrared as soon as possible. Still, we could hear well enough with our connected pieces and Virgil, we found through the dinner conversation, was tasked with prolonging his friend's children's lives but passed that task on to the demon (Buer) who somehow was able to flip their contract and trap him. Now in Buer's service, the most he could do to spare some of the LGBTQ victims was to hire them and hide them from Buer/Aslan. After betraying Aslan's true identity he perished on his own terms and had his men create a scene of struggle to cover it up. The cultists would eventually come check out the place so we set up a cam and planned to pin the attack on them from the safety of our hotel. But after the cops arrived, gunfire ensued and then a blinding light followed by an angelic lion goat demon bursting from the mansion. The foundation informed us it was not Aslan himself but the result of 2 branded cultists fusing.
 
We planned for our encounter at the theater the next day when we bought a supply of super soakers, water balloons, chain and locks and zipties, pepper spray, then proceeded to a gun friendly church (actually several churches) to have everything blessed. Finally at the church, we ran into our androgynous friend, who finally named himself as Dan. He was there to watch the play but also had a rabbit for/from the 3 different owls. Father Donald Cohen led the audience through a moment of prayer and the pledge of allegiance? before the actual play's commencement, as the cult was known to do to channel power to Aslan. Throughout the first act, I used the spyglass but found that only the actors had Aslan's brand, and Cohen's wife Janet remained vigilant at the foot of the stage. Before the show, I tested the glass on Dan, and to some amazement, he was painted grey while the rest of the world came in color through its lens. As we appraoched the sacrifice scene, that mysterious stage hand from the phone pic wielding the strange knife also appeared gray. During the intermission Hilda called HQ to fill them in on what we'd just witnessed and the auction. The presence of the stagehand was enough to spook Dominic and he told us to stop the rest of the play at any cost. Eleanor volunteered to simulate a shooting to panic the audience in hopes of evacuating them. During the hysteria, I ran through one of the rooms in the lobby that a cultist was guarding and down to the basement where I woke the angelic fusion demon that we saw flying away from the mansion last night. I managed to splash it with a holy balloon and run back upstairs where a few more cultist and guests lingered. Now that the cat was out of the bag, Janet wanted us all dead. The beast then took her in its arms and duplicated itself. One was an illusion as Eleanor suspected and I figured out after throwing a holy balloon through it while the other chased Hilda and Richard out the side exit and into the evacuating crowd. Needless to say this freaked people out and lost us some points. After making my way out as Eleanor held off another cultist, I hopped in the car that Jane had on standby with Hilda and we went around the back to cut off Donald from escaping. Jane tapped him with the vehicle and I got out to interrogate. Apparently the play was part of a ritual a mysterious 'Benefactor' had the cult perform to transfer power to Aslan. He also said this 'Benefactor' contacted them through a book he was carrying so I grabbed it and got back in the car to go pick up Richard and Eleanor on our way out, who had apparently taken down the beast by then but were still pursued by cultists led by Janet. Eventually we drove the car around to the front again, where I tried to help Richard escape Janet's grapple. During the skirmish I got shot and Eleanor and Hilda helped drag me back into the car. As we drove away, the foundation filled us in on the other force at play, the cult of the scarlet king who, similarly was known to use plays to spread a memetic virus that causes people to go insane and kill each other. Afterwards, we headed to a back alley doctor at Tony Flanders house to get patched up before turning in at the hotel for the night. But before we could get any rest, a haunting spectre, meant for Jane but visible to all tempted us with information held within the newly acquired book. Tempting since this spectre seemed to know a lot about us and particularly about my family's history...
 
The next day we prepared for our final encounter in the swamp by buying wetsuits, meat for hungry gators, and for some reason were sold on experimental gator repellent. Next, we would need a boat to approach the facility from the water, which thanks to everyone pitching in, didn't set us back too much. Finally, there was naught to do but wait for sundown. The news reported several cultists including Donald Cohen hospitalized after the church incident but investigations were ongoing for the rest of them. Dan approached just as we made to cast off into the swamp and again reminded us he would be there to collect his prize afterwards and proceeded to walk into the murky water and meet us at the end. Under cover of darkness we floated just out of the faint glow cast by the facilities lights. The team minus me splashed into the swamp as covertly as possible while I proceeded to feed the gators to keep them occupied while they swam closer. Our plan to neutralize guards saw the team dragging them into the dark depths and have the gators do the rest. Eleanor and Richard took one while Hilda and Jane took the another 2 guarding the goat pen. Things were going swimmingly for a while, but then one of the drowning guards alerted the rest at the same time that Aslan showed up unexpectedly. I say he almost caught us by surprise because we were expecting to find him in one of the facility's buildings and my drone was able to scout him before he got too close. Richard did manage to find the generator powering the place, and a bit of motor oil in a locked shed so we used this to give us full darkness through which the guards could only see in the scopes of their flash lights. Meanwhile, Hilda lay some of that oil which Jane quickly ignited when she shot another guard trying to tend to his gator bitten friend, thus buying us enough time for me to dock the boat close to the goat pen and release most of them. Everyone was just able to get back to the boat holding on to the goats before Aslan spread his wings and gave chase. We escaped the facility and guards but Aslan was unrelenting so we unloaded our blessed and holy ammo, my drone served one last distraction before he swatted it down like a fly. Eventually we clipped one of his wings, dropping him into the foul waters but even so, he terraformed the land around our boat as the final stage. Richard and I took this opportunity to create the binding salt circle from opposite sides, closing it just behind Aslan as he pounced at Hilda and the rest of the party. Luckily they managed to evade him long enough to start the exorcism. The first round weakened him greatly but a second round was needed to seal him but he did not go down lightly, even breaking the salt circle with a beam that nearly missed Richard. After the battle, Dan reappeared out of the swamp as promised. Now that Aslan was down, Dan could reveal his true identity turning out to be Satan of all beings. Even so, I rather trust him with a demon from hell than our foundation who might only want to weaponize it or accidentally release it. Jane, who initially held on to the hypergeometry cube with the freshly captured Buer, passed the decision onto Richard who more or less agreed with me, and as expected, Hilda and Eleanor were a bit more hesitant to trust the warden of Hell. With that, Satan opened the cube and absorbed Buer's soul into his fleshy body of many eyes and bid us adieu. We called the mission in shortly after, though we left out the part where Satan took Buer, until we could figure out a way to explain that in the least suspicious way.