See how deep the bullet lies
Steampunk-ernatural Season 2:
Child of Darkness, Mother of Ruin, Father of Salvation
EPISODE 2
We join our heroes as they come to terms with being in the wrong bodies after jumping through a portal last episode. Evie recognises the area they're in as still Cliffside, though it's a Cliffside unlike the one they just left; mist rolls over ruined buildings. A little thought (using Academia: Occult) and she comes up with three options - one, this is an illusion. Two, it is an alternate reality (she's read about such things in Agency reports and dismissed them as crazy, but maybe there's something to them). Three, they're temporally displaced, which to her seems the most logical option given how time in the Hunting Grounds is all wibbly.
While she's pondering this the others scan the ruins and spot a humanoid figure with a whip herding several small children carrying buckets. They disappear into the mist.
Evie calls for two motions - one, everyone gets the right kit back (she takes her dad's gun off Sam's body and her rifle and the mourning chain with her wedding ring on off Malcolm, and everyone else sorts themselves out - Rudie and Jacob have a moment exchanging clothes) and two, rollcall to get whatever the fuck is going on straight.
Which seems like a good point to re-introduce the party.
Rudepar's meatsuit sticks up a hand and goes “Well, I'm me” in a smug smirky way which could only be Jacob Forge (Evie: “... okay, you're a cunt. So that's easy”) - Malcolm's younger brother, Sam's father, Evie's... something or other, the resident huckster, and a randy wee bastard.
Currently wearing Jacob's meat is Father Rudepar Saint, alcoholic preacher with a phobia of 'Ugly big things with wings'.
Malcom Forge, the Harrowed Gunslinger, and Evelyn Tallow, who joined the team as an MIB Agent posing as an archaeologist in need of muscle and is now 'affectionately' known in occult circles as the Mother of Ruin, have swapped skins (Evie is pleased to note that having a stomach full of dead Huckster seems to have done the trick in re-attaching Malcom's leg; granted, she's used to being lame but that's pushing it!) as have Isaac Davis - a cavalryman and brother to Albus Davis, the poor sod from Area 51 who lost his legs fighting the Lost Angels last season - and Samuel Dean Forge (GM-controlled NPC and all-round enigma), Evie and Jacob's son who, if you believe the hype, has the potential to be the greatest force for either good or evil that has ever existed.
Game Mechanics Stuff
For the purposes of the session the characters were referred to (after much head-scratching and sentences like “Mal-Ev... Malcolm-in-Evie... no wait, that sounds wrong”) by compound names invented by the GM - Jacopar, Rudecob, Evom, Malvie, Samsaac and iSam. For the purposes of this recap the name of the mind will be used, since those corresponded to player, and pronouns will match the mind not the body - i.e. Malcom-as-Evie will be a 'he', and Evie-as-Malcolm still a 'she'. Game mechanics wise this body-swap was handled by using the physical stats of the host body and the mental stats of the foreign mind, with hindrances and edges likewise divided into physical or mental - for example, Evie gained Malcolm's 'thick skin' trait (ignore 1 level of wound penalty) but not his 'two fisted' (reduce offhand penalty - as shooting two guns is something Malcolm's learned to do and Evie hasn't). Skills remained as per the mind (on the grounds that they were learned rather than innate) with one exception; Malcolm's manitou was also considered to have remained with his body, so Evie had all his Harrowed powers for the duration.
During the rollcall Sam first asks “Mom?”, which is easily enough solved. He then asks which of the party is his Dad - Evie points to Jacob, Sam frowns and asks again, glancing around until he spots Malcolm.
While everyone's getting their heads straight, loading weapons etcetera Sam tugs on Evie.
S: “Mom? Where are we?”
E: “Cliffside, I think?”
S: “When?
E: “I'll get back to you on that one”
S: “Oh.”
It should be noted that Sam is always unnaturally calm - it's a trait he's had since he was a baby in the Hunting Grounds, and only recently has it begun worrying his mother. The rest of the party are creeped out by it. He adds “... you should probably know. We've been seen.”
The rest of the party perk up at this. Malcom goes to investigate the cliff (which when they'd been there previously lead to a mineshaft and Tent City). Evie continues to question Sam - who's seen us? He doesn't know, but they're a really interesting mind; “Can we go meet them?” Jacob argues instead that we should get the fuck out of Dodge, and Evie tells Sam that his father (emphasising the word) has the right idea.
Glancing over the edge of the cliff Malcom spots a huge black lizard - and it spots him, and he recognises the glint in its eyes; hunger. He yells a warning to the rest of the party. Evie moves, as per usual, to protect Sam while Malcolm downs it easily enough with some quality shooting (he's pleased to note that Evie's body, for all its shortcomings, is still reasonably deft; later he'll retract that comment when his dice turn on him, noting that her hands are “too fuckin' small to be any use”). The shots seem unnaturally loud in the cold, misty stillness, and sure enough they attract attention from the town itself - a delegation heads towards the party, comprising of 3 creatures resembling the walking dead from Ghoul City and one slightly more human figure heading up to investigate the shooting. The posse as per their usual optimistic outlook on first meetings take to reloading weapons and scrutinising the newcomers.
Cue Evie's first wobble of the session - she's a bundle of neuroses by this point, so has a great many - as she realises, seeing the leader, that she's not quite as much of a widow as she thought (or, to be pedantic, as much as the Agency told her she was). Except that the last time she'd seen her husband he'd been gibbering away in the Mt. Katahdin Institute - short version: if Evie has a type, it's doomed Hucksters.
Malcom also realises that the figure is harrowed like himself... except not exactly, because it's like the manitou (who is phenomenally powerful) has a lot more control, like it's integrated with the host personality.
The Mysterious Harrowed takes a look around the group - he glances at Malcom, and there's a moment... and the manitou sees into him and realises this isn't Evie, and turns his attention to Rudepar (who currently looks like Jacob, though we all assume that he sees souls and not bodies and therefore is addressing Rudie) and addresses him as 'Sir', asking with great concern what is wrong and offering to kill whomsoever is responsible for putting him in danger. Rudepar, slightly confused, says that won't be necessary and asks the figure to go ahead and prepare something to eat in the Hotel. He replies that it will be his honour to escort us; two of the walking dead fall back to cover the rear of the party, and we head into town.
The changes in Cliffside are now far more obvious. Malcolm notices that the front of the Hotel has been clawed away (and not unreasonably rationalises that it might have been the result of his fight with spider!Clarke), and everyone notices that the school has changed beyond recognition - now sad looking lines of children carrying buckets, their fingers bloodied, mangled and raw, shuffle in through the doors. Evie gets a look inside school as they pass, and sees stairs leading underground and various machines which, with her tinkering skills, she figures are some sort of locomotives. Rudepar asks what the children are doing, and our guide gives him a strange look - they're working in the ghost mine, as per his orders.
Jacob is pleased to note that not only is the brothel intact, it looks like it's been improved.
Rudepar further confuses our guide - who introduces himself as Sticks, which is a name several of the party recognise but can't place (and which confuses Evie somewhat... that's not a nickname she remembers) - by asking who is in charge here (Sticks says he is, unless his lord has changed his mind?), what year it is (1806 - which confuses everyone, because they'd been in 1877 a minute ago; Evie is especially confused since the trappings are clearly of the Deadlands, and that only started spilling through into our reality with The Event of 1863) and why we're being taken to the Church when we asked to go to the Hotel.
The Church itself is... well, it's horrible. It looks like it's been warped, all religious iconography has been inverted, and a dreadful moaning can be heard from inside. Evie tries to cross-reference this with reports of cults from 'the real world' (aka 1877) and comes up dry, but realises with a sickening feeling (and her second wobble) that this place is closer to the Deadlands than the real world.
Sticks is now looking at Rudepar - or at Jacob's meat, which Rudepar is currently occupying - a mite funny. They don't use the Hotel any more, he explains, and his revered Master usually stays at the Church. Surely He remembers this? Malcolm is quick to try to cover, and draws his pistol and trains it on Sticks' head, asking if he thinks contradicting The Boss is a good plan; Evie likewise draws hers and trains it on the rear guard should they try anything.
… and then Rudepar, who is disgusted at the desecration of the Church, shoots Sticks in the head.
Sticks reels backwards, and then rights himself almost immediately, his face already starting to stitch back together. He yowls “Kill them!” and the doors of the Church burst open. Inside those looking that way can see wave upon wave of walking dead warriors, mostly armed with spears, spilling out of a portal. Jacob also spots what looks like himself commanding them
- which is an interesting moment for him, because he, like his brother, is cursed (some ancestor made a deal with a demon, and the Forges are still feeling it). In many ways Malcolm got off lucky with just needing to kill an innocent. Jacob has blackouts, and now finds himself worrying that he's got an evil personality who's been making trips back in time and founding some sort of ghost-rock powered empire during the days, weeks, months he can't remember... -
Jacob bolts, and Rudie chases after him screaming “Come back here with my body!” Malcolm shoots the guard at the front, and Evie and Isaac dispatch the two at the back. Evie yells at Sam to run, and he refuses, saying he's not going anywhere without her; they argue for a while, and the zombie horde gets closer. Isaac has no such qualms, especially when Evie yells that if anything happens to Sam's body then once she figures a way out of this - and she will, make no mistake - then she'll kill him. Malcolm drops another zombie while mother and son are still disagreeing about the importance of running, and then some of the zombies are on the party; Sam and Evie get swiped at a bit, and one lucky zombie stabs Evie in the arm with a spear but being as she's in Malcom's body it doesn't bother her too much beyond stinging like a bitch.
Since combat was pretty frenetic this session I've probably missed something in the recap which follows - for example, I'm pretty sure Jacob cast Shadowwalk a couple of times and with his usual panache pulled Black Jokers (that hex seems to be cursed where he's involved) but can't for the life of me remember exactly when - but this should be the general, though admittedly fairly Evie-centric, gist of it.
Jacob, having made it away from the horde, collapses (Black Joker!), and Rudie stands guard over his (which is also, um, his own. Confusing!) body, invoking the Armour of the Lord just in time to be shot at by Sticks - God is on Rudie's side and the bullet merely makes his clothes a little more 'holey' (credit for that hideous pun goes to Isaac, who apparently still has time to quip while being chased by zombies). Evie finally manages to get Sam moving, but only by running herself, leaving Malcolm - who is in her body, with her crippled leg (and only d6 quickness) - to the mercy of the horde as he covers their retreat; Sam gets clawed but it doesn't seem to hurt him much (Isaac's player, eager to protect his body, uses a few chips to keep Sam safe) and Evie gets stabbed in the guts but shrugs it off fairly easily, and then with a burst of speed they are away and up to Rudepar and Jacob.
Evie, Jacob and Isaac all try to cover Malcolm's escape by winging shots at zombies with varying degrees of success - some shots force them to drop weapons, others whistle close to Malcolm's (or should that be Evie's?) head - but in Evie's gammy body he isn't making much ground. Evie grits her teeth, having a pretty good idea that if her body dies it'll be curtains for her soul rather than Malcolm's (7 years with the Sacramento office studying portals may seem a hideously ironic specialism now, given her neuroses, but it comes in useful occasionally), and tells Sam to stay with his father, and Sam predictably refuses; she says it's not a suggestion - it's a fuckin' order - but he is still close on her heels as she dives back into the fray, grabs Malcolm, throws him over her shoulder and legs it with almost superhuman speed (one of the advantages of being harrowed being that you don't need to worry about wind loss and can therefore push to double normal pace without penalties). Zombies swipe at the three of them, and Malcolm fires off plenty of bullets but can't hit anything.
Rudepar, however, is on amazing form, and shoots Sticks with almost supernatural precision; his head explodes, the more spiritually-attuned members of the party spot a small puff of smoke spiralling out of the wreckage of his neck, and Evie dies a little inside.
Evie spots a door open in the Hotel, and heads there, yelling to the rest of the posse to follow. They reconvene in the wreckage of the kitchen (a familiar location from the previous episode). The Hotel, like the Church, is more in the Spirit World than the physical one and Evie flips out, finally (and gains a Major Phobia: Hunting Grounds / The Deadlands to go with her existing Minor Phobia: Portals). Eventually regaining her composure she and Jacob construct a hasty barricade out of the iron stove while everyone else reloads their weapons. It occurs to the smarter members of the posse that this is where they were when they jumped into the previous portal, so maybe heading back to the rooftop is a good plan.
As the party move through the wreckage of the Hotel Evie spots something out front - it's a girl, crouched under the remains of a table. She looks about six. The old Evie - the ruthless pragmatist from the first series - would have left her there and called it an acceptable loss, but some maternal instinct stops her just running by, and she ventures cautiously over (and naturally Sam follows her despite her protests); Malcolm spots this and yells “Quit fuckin' around with my body, bitch!” as he heads up the stairs after Rudepar and Isaac, who have now made it to the roof. Evie, undaunted, yells to the child that bad shit is about to happen and she should keep her head down and her eyes shut, but the girl decides that this means 'follow the big ugly gunslinger man' (seriously; Evie seems to make children suicidally brave) and the three (Evie, Sam, random!girl) make it back to the stairs just as the zombies burst through the ruined front of the Hotel.
Up on the roof Rudepar spots what looks like a younger Jacob with a different scar (our!Jacob has three claw-marks across his cheek, while this figure has a single deep stripe across his) riding around on a giant throne with horrible spidery legs (... apparently there was a discount on spider-legs at the Villain Emporium, since Clarke also had them). Rudepar also sees something else, which none of the rest of us are allowed to know about but which is enough of a pivotal moment to warrant spending the last remaining legend chip on seeing (after a hideous roll where a spirit check of 38 is negated by a nightmarish botch - 6 consecutive 1's, once extra dice were added with chips to try and negate the original botch - presumably part of this involves a figure whose face is hidden who lurks at the edge of the town with his hands clenched in prayer, because he's mentioned a few times in the heat of battle but everyone's too preoccupied to pay him much attention). Cogs start turning - that isn't Jacob down there. But before anyone can breathe a sigh of relief the realisation hits them; who else looks like a young Jacob?
… and then things get bad, because Malcolm's manitou cackles and flexes and suddenly Evie isn't in control any more (Evie pulled a Black Joker, and so under the simplified dominion House Rules.... bad news). The others don't know this, though, and are still screaming at her to get moving.
Jacob tries to Shadowwalk up the stairs, and for once succeeds - though not without drawing a Black Joker (which seems to be magnetically attached to that hex these days); Malcolm feels something slam into the back of his skull and enters into a familiar battle of wills with an unfamiliar manitou who feels like a twisted version of Jacob. Luckily Malcolm comes out on top.
Sam whispers to Evie, too low for anyone else to hear - “I'm coming, Mommy. I'm almost here.”
Malcolm picks off a zombie or two as Evil!Evie picks up the girl, apparently carrying her to safety - even if she is holding her unnervingly like a human shield - and heads up the stairs, which are crumbling and barely hold. The manitou catches sight of Rudepar, and Evie can't stop it raising her gun and firing off a shot which barely makes it through his Armour O' Righteousness to leave an impressive scar but cause little actual damage. All eyes are on Evil!Evie-in-Malcolm who tries to lamely bluff that it spotted something behind Rudie - Jacob and Malcolm are not convinced, and as they reaches the roof he hollers a warning; it ain't Evie in the driving seat. He tells Rudepar to deal with her. Rudepar asks how far Malcolm's happy for him to go with his body, and he says to do the same as last time, i.e. take the legs off.
Evil!Evie reaches the top of the stairs and hands Sam up to Malcolm (bizarrely the manitou still thinks Sam needs protecting, almost above its own survival) before telling the girl to hold onto her back piggy-back style as she pops Malcolm's claws and climbs up to the roof. On arriving there her right leg is promptly shot off by Rudepar and Evie, mercifully (or otherwise, dependent on your view of the events which follow), blacks out.
I think it was at this point that Malcolm pissed himself; having been harrowed for 15 years and a man for 30 or so before that the sensation took him somewhat by surprise. Nothing breaks the tension of combat like a man stuck in a woman's body yelling “Holy fuckin' Jesus, was that an orgasm?”
The traumatised girl is quickly forgotten by everyone else, and spends the rest of the encounter curled up and trembling.
The leg flies off, and Isaac dives to catch it and tumbles towards the edge of the roof; Malcolm dives to catch Isaac (because a) he has his leg, and he'd like that to be back on when he gets back to his body, and b) he is in Sam's body and he's obligated to protect him). Isaac, hanging off the edge, looks down and sees what he thinks is a Jacob!clone now climbing up the side of the building and flips out (gained - Minor Phobia: Heights) but luckily Malcolm manhandles (womanhandles?) him back onto the roof.
Behind the group the air crackles with the by-now familiar electricity as a portal begins to open.
The spider-thing reaches the roof, and if there was anyone left scratching their heads about whether it was Jacob or not, our!Sam's eyes fog over. Jacob cuts in with “Kill us, you destroy yourself and everything you have here never happens”, and both Sam-s look hurt and respond in unison - “I wouldn't kill all of you”.
Rudepar takes a shot at Spider!Sam, and the bullet turns to ash before it touches his skin.
Malcolm takes a deep breath - which is something of a novelty for him, having been dead for 15 years - and, with an apology Evie completely misses due to still being unconscious, pops smaller versions of his trademark claws and snarls “Alright, you little brat. Come to momma” (at which point Jacob realises that whatever's tormenting the Forges has decided to welcome Evie to the family), launching towards Spider!Sam and slashing him across the face. For a moment time seems to stop - lightning splitting the sky and glinting off the claws, illuminating spider!Sam's look of shock - and then spider!Sam falls away, tumbling back much as spider!Clarke had... and Malcolm, Looney-Toons style, realises that he's hanging over a whole lot of nothin'.
Isaac pushes Sam through the portal, and jumps through himself.
Jacob sees Malcolm falling, produces his cards with a desperate flourish, and Shadowwalks from the roof out of the shadow his brother is casting on the wall as he falls, grabbing onto Mal. Now it should just be a simple case of shadowwalking back onto the roof... right? But as we've learnt by now, much to our continued nail-biting hair-ripping horror, Jacob's manitou hates shadowwalking (Jacob pulls another Black Joker - his fifth this session). Now both of them are falling.
Back on the rooftop Rudepar considers jumping through the portal himself. Evie (still in Malcolm) is just beginning to stir, and Rudepar sighs the sigh of the long-suffering and righteous man and heaves Malcolm's body through the portal, yelling an exhortation to make sure they never reach this point. He waits for the brothers to re-emerge from the shadow, watching in horror as the final bolt of lightning snakes down towards the portal in a terrible, agonising slow motion; if that reaches it before they're through, they'll be stuck here.
Malcolm desperately scrambles for some purchase on the wall; he manages to halt their descent, but stuck in Evie's body doesn't have the strength to pull the pair of them up. Jacob tries for one last desperate cast, and the pair tumble into the shadow...
… and emerge a frustrating few yards from the portal just as the lightning reaches it.
Rudepar bullrushes the brothers from behind, and they don't budge.
The portal crackles.
Rudepar and Malcolm exchange a desperate look, combine their strengths...
… and the hapless trio launches into the void with barely miliseconds to spare as the gap in space seals behind them and they tumble out, joining the rest of the party on a familiar hilltop with everyone back in the right body though that is, at the moment, cold comfort to them as everyone's attention turns to Sam.
Sam's attention is on Evie; “What's wrong, Mommy? Aren't you pleased with me?”
Evie reckons she needs some alone-time with her son, but the posse are far from ready to give her it; they, understandably, have more than a few things to say. Rudepar asks what that was, and Sam replies that it is what is, or rather what will be. Jacob points out that it's evil, and evil is bad - Sam again glances over to Evie, and she seconds Jacob's assessment (“Your father's right. For once, anyway”).
But Sam's still confused. He's just copying what the posse have shown him, what his parents (he glances from Evie to Malcolm) have taught him. Don't they kill people everywhere they go? Doesn't Malcolm - or Daddy, as he again calls him (Sam is, as per usual, unreadable, but suspicions are rising that he's doing that deliberately whenever Jacob's around, since he's never had any confusion as to Mal being an uncle before now) - eat people?
(This last point chills Evie almost more than the rest, because Sam was unconscious while that was going on, so there's no way he could know... but he'd said he was with his Injun daddy. What is Crow playing at?)
It's Malcolm who steps up to the plate, trying to teach Sam this lesson the way he taught him to shoot. Except this is a bit more complicated. He starts by explaining that the party try to do good things, to help people and save lives, and to fight monsters like the ones Sam was using... ultimately, like the one he turned into.
Sam - “So you do evil with the excuse that your intentions are good?”
Malcolm explains no, they don't do evil, that's the point. They stop other people doing evil. Sam again brings up eating people, and Malcolm says that's something he has to do. Sam asks if that's because of a choice he made, and Malcolm says no, he never had any choice when it came to bad things he might have done, and that's the difference between them and what Sam turned into; Sam actively chose to become an agent of the Reckoners, to bring the Deadlands into our reality.
Malcolm leaves Sam with a warning - if he chooses to go down that road, if he chooses evil, then it will kill his father (another meaningful glance in Jacob's direction), it will kill him (Mal), and it will most definitely kill Evie... and if that's not motivation enough to be good, then Sam should know that the last thing Malcolm does before he dies will be taking Sam with him. That's a promise.
Sam has a warning of his own, however; he can only copy what he's seen from his family, and what they've taught him so far isn't leading anywhere but the ruins of Cliffside, the ghostrock mines, and the endless armies of the walking dead...
IN TRUE SPN STYLE AFTER THAT REVELATION THERE WILL BE A HIATUS BEFORE THE NEXT EPISODE
STEAMPUNK-ERNATURAL RESUMES EITHER MAY 2ND OR MAY 9TH.