Session 25: Deeper and Darker
General Summary
The session began a few hours after the capture of the 1st Vanguard. Gerrek, Kenny, Kutter, Cecile, Quinten, and the heavy sleeper Jason were debriefed. Then, Colonel Garvey introduced the players to Gramps, an Alpha Squad operator assigned to help them train their recruits. The players also learned that during Kenny's interrogation of Hercules, Hercules had escaped. Before they left, Gerrek asked to be let into the armory. Garvey was not amused and politely ejected them from the base.
From there, Gerrek tried to acquire the rocket launcher that had almost blown up the party's vertibird. However, the engineers investigating the base refused. During this conversation, Cecile sneaked behind them and stole it. The players then returned to base and gave Gramps a brief rundown before heading off to bed. Cecile, Kutter, and Kenny felt their disease rage as they slept. When he woke up, Kenny went to find another trio of ghoul messengers who once again delivered him another scroll from his master, beckoning him. Finally, he relented. The players joined him as they set off to Dunwich Bores, but first, he returned home one last time to gather a few things. He collected the first scroll, grabbed his music holotapes, then went into the attic where he found his pre-war turtle, now mutated to massive size. They radioed the Gorillas to come collect them.
Then they went north, and finally, the players arrived in the grove where the first of them were almost eaten alive by the wretched ghouls so long ago. Kenny, Gerrek, and Quinten took up observer positions, where they saw a muscular, cloaked man. Getting closer, Kenny recognized his old friend turned cold rival from before the war, Harry. Their greeting was cold as Harry explained that Kenny had to face his master and defeat the horde of feral wretches. The players had mixed feelings about him. His dispassionate explanation of the destruction the horde would unleash if it wasn't stopped was offputting, but Cecile got along well enough with him. Kenny asked if Harry could still stop bullets, and Harry said he could, so Gerrek shot at him. Harry deflected three bullets with his fists before holding up one finger, warning Gerrek it was his last chance. Gerrek allowed him to walk away.
The players called in support from The Order Luminarius and Centurion and called Gramps to deploy their men on the backline. As their forces arrived, they took up defensive positions and prepared to face the horde. Together, Kutter and Cecile made an inconsistent but ultimately rallying speech to their men. Then, Centurion unleashed the artillery barrage. Countless ghouls died, but as the dust settled, the remaining ghouls surged up any paths they could. The soldiers covered the choke points and provided covering fire as the players pushed to the bottom. When they reach the bottom another wave of damage surges from the virus in the infected players, Kenny faints from it. Before the players took the dive into the abyss, a familiar figure rode the quarry wall down to the bottom. RM returned, apologizing for leaving and explaining that she'd been trying to develop a cure to no avail. However, she had developed an antibody, which she had injected into stimpacks, allowing the players to heal and getting Kenny back on his feat. She only had enough for one each, but they gladly accepted.
They entered the underground portion of the quarry into a long mineshaft, where they eventually encountered strange occult wretches with crowns of thorns. They defeated them before making their way down to the bottom, past countless wretches curled up on the ground in prayer. After hours or days, they reached the bottom, where they met Kenny’s master. He stood on a stone pillar surrounded by occult artifacts and texts. He told Kenny of his design, that he had made a pact with Ug-Qualtoth, selling his soul to grant Kenny great power. The pact could not be broken, even by death. His crown acted as the contract, which was how Kenny survived the war. He had died, but his soul was collected by Ug-Qualtoth, and a new body was made over the course of 200 years. Now, to seal the pact, Kenny had to strike him down so that he might receive the power to change the world. Kenny solemnly accepted the duel, intent on saving his master by breaking the pact somehow.
Report Date
24 Jun 2024
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