Sam: Azreal leads you through the crowds of carnival-goers. The night is
chilly, but not dark. The thin gray cloud is spread on high. It covers, but not hides, the sky. The moon is behind, and at
the full, and yet she looks both small and dull. The night is chill. The tents seem grey. Azreal halts before the largest
tent. What it contains, you cannot say, enshrouded as it is by moon-cast shadow. The vampire pauses, gestures you to follow,
and then disappears inside.
John: I take one of the knives out of my trenchcoat and use its blade to reflect some of the moonlight into the shadows.
Forces 2. Coincidental, right?
Sam: Nope. It would be like using a glow-in-the-dark toy as a torch.
John: Okay. Fine. Dif 5. (rolls) Only one success.
Sam: You catch a flicker within, and for the merest instant you see your own face, though it is more contorted by fury
and pain than you can imagine your face ever appearing.
John: I take it there wasn't a mirror handy when Mel died, then.
Sam: After a moment, the darkness swallows up the light, leaving all of you staring into shadow once more.
Bill (ooc): Why does Dante's Inferno suddenly come to mind?
Allan (ooc): Rule Zero.
Bill: Right. I'm going to take a sip from my whiskey flask to settle my nerves, put my hands out, and move forward, using
Correspondance 1 to find my way in the dark.
Sam: Dif 3
Bill: (rolls) Three successes. Putting two successes into duration.
John: I'll use Forces 1 to see into the infrared, put my hands (each of which is now holding a fair-sized knife) in front
of me, and move into the darkness. (rolls) Three successes here, too. Two to duration.
Nate: Hmm... I'm praying for guidance, using Life 3 to enhance my hearing until I can find my way by echo-location, using
my own prayers to guide me.
Sam: That's pretty weird, but it will work. Dif 6
Nate: Taking two turns to do it, and spending a point of Willpower. (rolls) Two successes, plus one for Willpower.
Sam: Great. That's three blind mice going into the maze.
John: It's a maze?
Sam: You'll find out soon enough. What are you going to do, Allan?
Ed: I doubt there is any way to do this coincidentally, so...
John: I smell a bad idea coming on here...
Ed: I'm taking three turns to do it, burning a point of Willpower, and spending two Quintessence.
Nate: Whoa! What are you doing, Ed?
Ed: Forces 3, Prime 2. Etching runes on the one of the daggers and chanting to make it glow.
Sam: Three turns? Two Quintessence. No witnesses. Dif 4
Ed: (rolls) Seven successes total, plus one for Willpower. Two to make it work. Four into duration. And two into
brightness.
Nate (ooc): Cool. Now you have Sting except without needing to be around orcs.
John (ooc): And tonight's overkill award goes to...
Sam: Those five points of Paradox aren't going to hit you just yet, Ed.
John (ooc): No. He's going to wait until he can hit you with a BIG Paradox stick.
Ed: At least now we won't have to wander around in the dark.
Bill: This is true. We all go inside.
Sam: It appears to be a house of mirrors crossed with a maze. Each mirror distorts your features in odd ways. The way
the mirrors are angled causes each of your reflections to be reflected into other mirrors, which further distort the distorted
reflections. There are an infinite number of reflections of each of you, each one more twisted and distorted than the last.
Nate (ooc): Cool.
John (ooc): I smell a Nephandi Labyrinth.
Bill (ooc): What is it with you and your nose tonight, John?
John (ooc): I seem to have caught a bit of a cold. If I can't smell anything literally, I can at least content myself with
smelling something abstract. It's no stranger than a tea-totaller playing an alcoholic.
Nate (ooc): Are we ready to descend into the depths of the earth with the light of Sting to guide us?
Sam: Who said anything about descending? The ground here appears quite level.
Ed (ooc): What happened to the vampire?
John (ooc): Oh my gosh. I almost forgot about him.
Sam: You can't see him in the flesh, right now, but you catch a twisted reflection of him at the crossroads ahead,
beckoning you to follow.
Bill: What choice do we have, really? Draw is following.
Nate: As long as he's not sending us to the Antarctic, how can we go wrong? Walter is following.
Ed: They can't find their way without my light to guide them. And I have a bone to pick with any vampire, even one who
is helping us hunt down Nephandi. Allan is going.
John: And I'm not about to break Rule One by running away screaming, "The Elder Gods are coming! The Elder Gods are
coming!" until the local constabulary throws me into the loony bin. Besides, I have a magician to kill. Homer is going.
Sam: I knew you'd see it my way. You walk navigate the maze of mirrors, noticing that your own reflections are becoming
progressively more twisted and sinister. Everyone give me a Perception + Alertness, dif 6.
Everyone rolls.
John: None, believe it or not.
Ed: Only two.
Nate: None.
Bill: Three! I stole all your successes. Ha ha ha!
Sam: In one of the mirrors pointing down a side corridor, Allan and Draw notice the image of a young woman, her mouth
open in a soundless scream of supreme pain as a dozen hideous men made of shadow beat her with whips made of fire.
John (ooc): Someone's watched Fellowship of the Rings one too many times...
Ed: We should rescue her.
Bill: That depends. Is she hot?
Sam: She's the most beautiful woman Draw has ever seen.
Bill: That cinches it. "Since these mirrors make everyone look like pretty much the opposite of the way they actually
look, that means any woman who looks young and gorgeous in the mirrors is actually ancient and hideous in real life. We keep
following Azreal's reflection."
(ooc) Sam wads up three pages of notes and throws them into the trash.
Ed: "But if the mirrors make everyone look like the opposite of what they are, then a woman who appears to be suffering
torture is probably actually having a good time."
Bill: "Good point. It could be an orgy. Wouldn't want to miss the fun."
John (ooc): Fun? In a Nephandi labyrinth?
Nate (ooc): Does my vow of chastity get me angst points, now?
Bill (ooc): You have my pity, but that just means more lovers for Draw.
John (ooc): What lovers? He said there was one woman being tortured by a dozen ugly men. That would be lover, singular.
Bill: If the mirrors really show us as the opposite of what we are, than the woman is an ugly man being pleasured by a
dozen beautiful women. I want a piece of that action. We're going to investigate.
Nate: What about Azreal and the magician?
Bill: The leech can wait. He's immortal, after all. What's three more hours in the whole of eternity?
Sam: Just a little side note before we go pursuing harem girls. John, do you think Fanny would be interested in playing
with us? I could work her in starting next session, if we get through what I want to tonight.
John: Sure. She's been asking me about what we do on Saturday nights. I'll help her make a character if she's interested.
Sam: Great. I've convinced Mary Shelley to join us, too. Anyway, back to reality... You follow the images toward the
beautiful young woman. With every step, the monstrous men appear less hostile. They also are less numerous - only six of
them. The woman is not quite as fair as she first appeared, but she is still very attractive. At last, you reach a large
room where the seven people are. The woman is lounging on a wide couch, drinking delicately from a goblet of red wine.
Ed: Blood?
Sam: No. It looks like ordinary red wine. One of the men refills it whenever she drains half the glass. Two others fan
her with long feathered fans on poles. Two others hold trays of delicious-looking food, and another one feeds her whenever
she looks at him. They all appear to be almost perfect specimens of manly perfection. She smiles at you. "Welcome to my
little paradise."
John (ooc): Sam, why did you put Paradise IN HELL? You know we aren't going to trust anyone in a Nephandi labyrinth.
Sam (smiling): Perhaps I failed to mention that the woman is Christabel.
John (ooc): What the?
Nate (ooc): I'm thoroughly confused now.
Ed (ooc): Same here. Do I notice any new bite marks on her?
Sam: Perception + Alertness, dif 8.
Ed: (rolls) Two successes.
Bill (chuckling): It pays to have at least one character with incredible perception in every party.
John: Unless you're playing Call of Cthulu.
Bill: This is true.
Sam: Allan, you don't see any new marks on her body.
Nate: Any slightly more obvious marks - such as places where a SWORD might have been stabbed through her?
Sam: Nope. She appears completely healthy and happy.
John (muttering): Appears.
Bill: Draw strides forward, putting on his full and recently-showered charm. "Miss Christabel, I am surprised to see you
here."
Nate (ooc): Alive...
Bill: "You screamed during William's final trick, and we feared the worst. When you were not in the coffin, we had no
idea where you might have gone."
Sam: She laughs in delight. "A cruel trick to play on an audience, but William can be a trickster at times. I played
along with an act William has used a hundred times. False blood in hollow pockets hidden in the coffin. My cries of pain
and fear only added to the atmosphere he was trying to create."
John (ooc): What a harmless, amusing trick to play - pretending to murder a woman in front of hundreds of people. Willy's a
Nephandus, isn't he?
Bill: "And who are these gentlemen waiting on you, Lady Christabel?"
Sam: "Some of William's menservants, which he left with me until he returns from a meeting with a gentleman named Azreal."
John (ooc)(imitating Christabel): Yes. Meet Lucifer, Asmodeus, Belphagor, Mammon, Leviathan, and Beelzebub. Satan will
be back in a moment. He's just gone to polish his nose.
Bill (ooc): Never name archdevils during an encounter in a Nephandi labyrinth, John.
John (ooc): Hey. I could have called them Cthulu, Nyarlathotep, Hastur...
Nate covers John's mouth with one hand and motions Sam to continue.
Sam: She looks a bit confused at not remembering their names, but continues anyway. "He mentioned something about being
forced to enter a call. Hmmm, that can't be right. Most people would make a call or put a number in their address book, and
almost never by force. Maybe it was a slip of the tongue. He must have meant he was forced by circumstances to make a call."
Bill: So, Willy's not a Nephandus, yet.
John: I'm going to cut my finger on the blade of my knife and press a drop of blood to each of my eyelids to activate
Spirit Sight.
Sam: That's your specialty focus, right? Dif 3, then.
John: Yes. (rolls) Three successes. Two into duration.
Sam: Okay. You see this scene as you did in the mirror - six hideous men beating Christabel until she screams.
John: Great. Homer plucks Allan's sleeve. "Could I talk to you for just a minute?"
Ed: "Sure. What is it?"
John: "My Spirit senses tell me something very strange is going on here. Can you see any unusual magical activity?"
Ed: "Let me see." Prime senses. Drops of blood like John, except tiny runes on my eyelids. Dif 4, right?
Sam: Yep.
Ed: (rolls) Two successes.
Sam: You see a magical collar of Mind magic around Christabel's neck, and each of the six "servants" hold a leash, which
they jerk to make her talk.
Ed: "Um, I don't quite know how to tell you this, Homer...
John: "Try."
Ed: "Her servants have Christabel on leashes and are leading this conversation."
John: "Three to two odds. We might be alright if we have the element of surprise. We attack the men on the count of
three. One. Two. Three!" Homer whips out a knife and throws it at one of the servants.
Ed: Allan does the same.
Nate: Walter blasts one of them with a Prime bolt.
Bill: Draw takes a drink.
Sam: We'll pick this up next week, then. John, make sure to bring Fanny next week.
John: Are you sure we shouldn't wait another week? This combat will take most of next session, and you won't be able to
introduce her character in the middle of it.
Sam (gritting his teeth slightly): Trust me. I want her and Mary to start playing as soon as possible...
ST (Sam) - Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Draw (Bill) - William Blake
Homer (John) - John Keats
Walter (Nate) - Nathaniel Hawthorne
Allan (Ed) - Edgar Allan Poe