The Vampiric Grail

Mutants and Masterminds. Everyone present except Ben.

It's early in the morning after our strange excursion into made-up land, around 4am. Mr. Hogarth has gathered us at the private dining room again, and unexpectedly, Lux is present.

It appears our absence was not noticed, but Never's attack wasn't merely about us (Jack McCoy) supposedly breaking our truce during our attack on the Generalganger.

No, it's worse. He stole something from Lux. One of his agents broke into the basement defenses and while he didn't get all the way in, he managed to steal one of the experiments.

From there, Never's agent broke into Neilatech Headquarters on Rose Island. Only one still image was caught, and it was definitely not Never, as the man in the picture has dark hair. Dark splotches cover his hands.

Our objective is to examine the scene, discover what was stolen, and secure the device.

The experiment is a nanite solution, and renders the user invisible. It has a bad side effect though, as it burns the skin. Quite painful.

Lux gets us into the area as Police consultants (Michael Schroeder's drone makes a good hiding place for me). Jack McCoy is wearing sunglasses at night, and Michael is wearing his suit. Shroud tries to not draw too much attention.

We arrive by van. The other two cops in the back with us think Michael and Shroud look kind of strange, and they're not sure if we're for real until Jack says simply we're an unnamed unit. Our badges say GHT on them.

The van stops, and we get out.

The street in front of Neilatech Headquarters is buzzing with activity. Cops are standing around, as if waiting. A fancy looking lawyer is talking the police and claiming that Neilatech can handle this internal matter.

A blonde lady in heals is blocking entrance into the building. She says that the scene is locked down, but Michael wirelessly hacks the door, and we walk past her.

In the main lobby, there are more Neilatech guards, whose helmets seem to be obscuring my ability to see into their minds. There are also more executive type people, and some lab workers. One sees Michael in his suit, and starts scribbling notes. The blonde haired lady follows us in, complaining we don't have access.

I read her mind, and she's some sort of executive, but she works at night. She knows the item that was stolen is called a "Vampiric Grail", and it looks like a sphere with fine pointed spikes on the bottom, and a small cup on the top of the sphere, where gathered energy collects. She's not head of R&D though, so she doesn't know any more than that. Head of Security would know the most.

I float to the top of the room, to see if the Neilatech guards can sense me. One seems to get a glimpse, but he loses track.

Jack pretends to use his cell phone, and then fries most of the Neilatech weaponry. The PR Lady tells him no electronics are allowed, but Jack ignores her, and puts his phone back in his pocket and shuts down the other weaponry.

Michael's drone wanders off by itself, and I follow a bit behind. The walls feel weird as I pass through, and we find ourselves in a security room. Two guards are taking apart a camera and arguing with each other. On it, there are images of the burglar we saw an image of before.

Back in the other room, Jack tries to walk forward, but the PR lady hits a button and steel comes down and lights go boop boop. Where Michael's drone and I are, the walls fizz with energy.

A serious looking security gut, probably the head of security, apologizes to Jack, and says if he's willing to fill out some paperwork, he's willing to give him a tour. Jack agrees, although he probably isn't truthful.

Michael's drone hacks the security system, and pulls some footage of the burglar. The burglar seemed to move quickly while deftly preventing his face from being seen. There seem to be strange gaps in certain places too. We return to the others, still concealed from sight.

The security guard gets Michael, Jack and Shroud some visitor badges, and we go up to the third floor.

There are four people in the hallway. A door opens into what looks like a small storage room. Cases inside are sealed, and several people seem to be investigating the scene with little success. One of those investigating is holding a small bag with a torn playing card inside, which Michael's drone seems to think is threaded with iron.

The tech puts down the bag, and I monitor his thoughts, while the others ask him questions.

How did the burglar enter? Through the door apparently. Casualties? Injected and spiked. No witnesses other than still images (his surface thoughts indicate he seems to think it might have been done by an insider...or maybe alien attack). The card seems like it could be significant, but not sure if it's a calling card or not. No suspicious, other than Mr. Anderson was robbed recently too. Could be related, as he's an important shareholder.

I mind probe the lead tech, and try to get any leads from him. The card wasn't found when Mr. Anderson was robbed, but not much more useful.

Michael's drone pokes around, and Jack gets a vial of wall scrapings from the tech.

Shroud senses into the past and sees some blurry events. A man, a man with a mask, and short dark hair and coat with a popped collar pulls out a futuristic looking lock pick and gets through the door. He grabs an alien looking device, with spikes on the bottom and a small cup. Shroud notices also that his shoes have thick soles. As he leaves, a card falls out of his pocket.

We make our way back to the Manor. Michael is talks to Mr. Hogarth, and then we agree we should checkout Mr. Anderson. Mr. Andderrrsssonnn.

We find our way to Mr. Anderson's. Let's just say that Shroud made a lot of portals and narrowed down the location based on a picture we had.

We take the car. Apparently Jess will murder us if we just portal our way there.

His mansion is fashionable, and there are several gardeners on the premise. Jack introduces himself and Shroud as investigators, and the butler leads us to the sitting room.

The sitting room is fancy, and the wall has a slick display. At the far end of the room a small shark is swimming in a tank, which I make my home. There's a lot of teal in this room.

Suddenly, an EMP hits, and Michael who was hovering outside, is knocked out of the sky. He lands next to a gardener with quite a clash, which sends the gardener running inside. A maid asks if everyone is alright, and she leaves us with a lantern. Some emergency lights flicker on.

The gardener runs in screaming about a metal man, and Shroud transforms his memories. The butler comes in and asks whats wrong, and Shroud tells him the gardener saw a snake.

Michael searches for his drone, and Shroud noticing Michael's problem, moves the grass around so Michael can more easily find it. Michael grabs it, and Shroud portals Michael into our secret private dining room lair.

The butler speaks to us, and he tells us Mr. Anderson will be kept busy, but he is happy to answer any questions. The robbery happened last Thursday evening, and most of the staff was out. Only solid evidence was some sort of gray liquid, and there are no solid leads. Just liquid leads. I read his thoughts, and find that not one but, two items were stolen. The first was a Neilatech prototype, which was properly reported. The other was a piece of modern art that was obtained on the black market.

Mr. Anderson was looking at buying clubs on the east side, so perhaps it's related to that. Jack suggests it could be gang related, which the butler doesn't believe. In any case, Jack takes a list of clubs Mr. Anderson was looking at.

Shroud makes an illusion that looks like the car is repaired and running again, and we leave.

Lux has found a night club that the card belongs to. The club is called the "Ace of Spades".

When Michael's suit and drone are repaired, we take a portal to the alley outside the club. There's lots of minds around, and Jack can also sense a lot of electricity. Michael's drone also notices everything is threaded with iron.

The bouncer is a large man, and he asks for a password. Jack looks at the card, and sees something weird about a little girl with a balloon with it. He tries to answer based on it, but the bouncer isn't interested, so I decide to take care of things.

With the bouncer in control, my companions easily make it in.

The stairs lead down into the basement, to the actual night club area.

Shroud's illusion fails, but fortunately being a 7 foot tall alien isn't out of place here. There's a live band, but the woman on stage has six arms. The bartender is "tending", but the glasses and cocktail shakers move on their own with a certain style, filling themselves without any apparent intervention. There are neon and ultraviolet lights everywhere, and a dozen people are on the dance floor, many of them looking just as unusual as ourselves.

Jack heads to the bartender, and notices he looks like the guy in the security images, and he's even wearing leather gloves. I establish mental contact, and Jack tries to tease out his involvement, but there's no response. I try probing, and he definitely doesn't seem to know anything.

Jack asks if he knows how a card got into Neilatech Headquarters. He says the law doesn't concern him, nor Neilatech. (In his surface thoughts, he thinks to himself that he needs to call Jack, a different Jack). Jack asks who he might suspect, and he says there was a man here a few days ago who got thrown out. He might have a grudge.

Jack talks to the waitresses, and finds out the guy was trying to cheat at cards, and he was a regular for a few weeks. He was a friend of Carlon, and he was called the Bondsman. Got the feeling he wasn't a heavy hitter, ya know? An image of him is projected into Jack's mind.

I briefly sense an extra mind in the bar, but it disappears after just a moment.

We return home. Shroud makes a tiny portal to the train yard, and locates the Bondsman. He then creates a larger portal in front of him, causing the him to fall backwards in surprise.

Shroud takes the briefcase from him, and the man dissolves away.

We find the device in the briefcase, but Michael claims it is probably a fake. Shroud impales one of his hands on the spikes, and his blood pools into the basin of the device. He's pretty sure it's what the device is supposed to look like it's doing, but it's not really doing the right thing. It's just Shroud's blood with black dye in it.

Shroud speaks to the cup's spirit, and finds out the real cup was with the duplicate, back at the guys house. I probe its "mind" and find where it was made.

Shroud makes another portal, and finds the another briefcase. We spirit back to the manor, and we settle into the room, hiding under Shroud's illusion.

We listen. Someone is complaining about the damage the nanites that burned him. Another wondrs if we're supposed to meet him now? Better get the item and go. They sound the same, and when they come into room, they are almost the same and just like the guy who dissolved earlier, only different because of their hats, and one has scars on the backs of his hands.

They pick up the "suitcase" and leave.

They walk down the street, and we follow, hidden. The enter the train station, and are joined by another duplicate. The first one passes the briefcase to one of the others, never noticing the briefcase is completely not real. They board a train, and we follow, hidden.

Twelve hours later, they get off, and we follow, hidden.

It's a small town with big walls. Northpoint it is called. They get some keys, and enter a nice little house. They seem like they're chilling out. One of them makes a phone call, and I read his surface thoughts. He's talking to a buyer for the item. The original buyer was Never, but he double crossed Never, and found a new buyer for the real item, except the one he has isn't real either.

I probe his mind, and find out that the "real" duplicate is on the phone, so I possess him, and dismiss his duplicates. Jess is sad.

Shroud puts the duplicate in prison, and we probe his mind. Never contacted him, and he broke into Mr. Anderson's house for Never, using a weird drone Never had. He left the card because the bartender pissed him off, and he sold the jammer from Mr. Anderson to Never. He sold the art piece seperately. Adam's Coin was used on Lux's manor.

2 Power Points. It's raining outside. Or it was. Now it's not.