Pax Artificium - First Half - Wednesday 01

Attacks against Pax Artificium happen once every week or so. Lately, the attacking monsters have been getting bigger and badder, until three weeks ago, they just stopped.

Session start: Saturday, June 4, 2033 – 1800 hours – downtown Pax Artificium

Gerald

Gerald is hanging out at Angels nightclub with some buddies. Chadzor, Biggs, Wedge, Johnson and Redshirt... Everyone gets a message from HQ. It's gibberish, a flood of data. Like someone stuck a fire hose in his brain and turned it on.

Then, all the men simultaneously kill themselves, except for Gerald. He has the urge, but resists it. Gerald is extremely disoriented. As panic ensues and people flee the club en masse, Gerald is pushed and prodded out the door...

Sara

Sara is preaching to those who follow the Way of Janell. She gets a prophetic message from Janell: "Trouble appears with the evening stars. A great threat arises within the city's walls. The flock finds shelter here, but the shepherdess seeks a defender of men, unlike others, beneath holy wings."

Sara begins walking a direction that feels right, looking for this "defender of men." She hears a loud collection of bangs, like several guns going off at once. In that direction, she sees the Angels nightclub, and the statues atop it. She figures out that the hint indicates this nightclub, and gets together with Gerald as he leaves in a daze, just as the city comes under attack by the monsters. Sara follows a series of portents: three white dogs running by, three white pigeons that fly a separate direction from the rest of the scattered flock, and three orphan children dressed in white running into an alleyway. Janell has led them to some kind of portal—a slightly ajar door bathed in white light...

Josef

Josef is in cyberspace when his surrounding change to that of a strangely lit street. He sees millions of ants swarming around cracks in a building. He tries to jack out and finds that he cannot (which shouldn’t be possible). The ants are marching in a line toward a distant area that turns out to be a door to a building he hasn't seen before. Through the door, he finds they are crawling into a file cabinet, which when opened, produces a file detailing a neurovirus that has "total command authority over the target brain."

A man in a suit asks Josef what he is doing, and when Josef turns around, the man draws a gun and shoots Josef in the arm. When he feels real pain, he notices his display has gone semi-immersive, and he tries to jack out of cyberspace again. This time it works, but when he awakens in the real world, the same man is standing in the same spot, with the smoking gun still pointed at him.

Josef attempts to fight the man, and experiences his own death. But upon dying, he finds himself back in front of the man with the smoking gun, as though snapping out of a waking dream. He then runs, chased by the man. Somehow, miraculously, he evades the man, but is chased into an alleyway, where he finds himself at a door that emits a strange, glowing white light from beneath it...

Adam

Adam just got into town. He sees some people that then turn into monsters and attack him. He gets backed into an alleyway, and he is backed against the wall, completely cornered. The monsters approach him, but now don’t seem to be able to see him. Strangely, they give up and wander away. Then, he sees a door in the alleyway—a door he hadn’t noticed before. He sees a woman go through, leading a strangely short bearded man. The door is strangely compelling...

United

The united party finds themselves in the desert, known to be dangerous to travelers on foot. The desert is strewn with massive skeletons of defeated monsters that have assaulted the city. Gerald even recognizes a monster or two that he helped defeat. Behind them, they see a wave of imp-like creatures swarming over the city walls. Then they see a strange, semi-circular expanding shell grow around the city, destroying the assaulting creatures, which then fade from view.

They are then attacked by other desert monsters. They are saved by men in desert camouflage with sniper rifles and tranquilizer guns, but then ordered to surrender their weapons. The party is taken into custody.

XP: 500