Session Eleven: Baked Alaska

   Overall, the dinner party was more confusing than successful. They looked at some more rooms, accidently set up poor Arthur for near-mortal embarrassment, and Ranko acquired the Sword of Yoshima, an ancient Katana. Sadly, the “elder shaman” was in a deep trance – along with a circle of other fusion-bomb creatures – trying to precognitively sort out what the Darkmage might try and have spells ready to counter it. He did another personal-energy global spell – trying to block off the major magical power nexi – shortly after they gave up and left.

   Unfortunately, at home the kids had been preparing for a siege. The Chauffeur and Monopole had been setting up some sensible security systems, but the children had been doing whatever came into their heads – and had set up hundreds of little booby-trap spells all over the place. None of them really had enough power to be very effective, but there were enough of them that they probably would hinder an attack. Thank god no one had let them watch “Home Alone”.

   Back at the Crypt, the White Necromancer had a bigger problem. Two of the apprentices had tapped into the Altars power to set up triggered summoning-wards – but one had opted for demons (versus any attack on the Crypt or its guardians) and the other for lesser spirits of light (versus creatures of evil) – and they’d started triggering each other. Unraveling that little magical knot took some doing. The White Necromancer told them: NO DEMON SUMMONING FROM NOW ON.

   The youngsters had to agree that that was a good idea.

   Afterwards they checked the “To Do” list… There were those Vehicle thefts – probably Panzer – and only a few major vehicle-experimentation labs left to go. There was a march in support of minority religions which would pass nearby, two more sets of children’s souls to trace back to their bodies from that mess at Halloween, necromantic research to do, the legal mess with the werewolf triplets, and more. Still, most of it could wait. It looked like keeping Panzer from upgrading himself was the highest immediate priority.

   They had enough connections to find out where the best experimental tanks were being kept, and headed down immediately. They managed to get the base commander to let them stand guard, but Panzer managed to get away with the tank anyway – although Hugin had to abandon his body and they managed to drive Das Impetus out of the young skinhead he’d been put in. They also managed to find out that Deathurge was headed for Cheyenne Mountain to launch a nuclear strike on Alaska. They placed a frantic call to the Thunderbolts, got the Chauffeur to pick up Fist of God and the Indestructible Man, got the security forces warned, found a minute for Ranko to visit her husband and swap out her weapons (a trip which had unfortunate consequences for the young skinhead Das Impetus had been possessing; the War God turned him into a cat-person) and headed there themselves – jumping into the Astral Plane to try and intercept the Whermacht there.

   Unfortunately, Fenris, and Das Ubermensch had brought a division of WWII ghosts along to keep everyone busy, Panzer was blasting his way into the mountain on the physical side, and Deathurge was nowhere to be seen. While the White Necromancer and some Justifier super-soldiers fought Panzer – and eventually won, partly due to his total lack of enthusiasm for the fight – Ranko got badly kicked around by Fenris and Das Ubermensch before managing to turn a portion of their own army against them, Fist of God was blasted into a coma, and the Indestructible Man was tied up fighting a tank platoon. That left Ranko heading in to confront Deathurge in a complex full of nerve gas. Fortunately, she was immune. Unfortunately, he could summon troops faster than she could. Fortunately, she blasted the computers before he could launch more than three missiles. Unfortunately, she wound up unconscious and being prepared as a sacrifice in an attempt to revive the computers by necromancy. Fortunately the White Necromancer made it down with a few Justifier super-troopers before Deathurge could kill Ranko. Unfortunately, he still had far more troops.

   Feeling that there had to be a way to break this pattern, they launched a coordinated assault – which wound up blowing Deathurge to bits. Unfortunately, that still left three missiles headed for Alaska – to the “Elder Shaman’s” place. Evidently the Darkmage didn’t take well to opposition… A frantic call to Timewalker and Mara took care of one, the Chauffeur caught another – but the third was too close. They got the self-destruct code, but had no way to use it until the White Necromancer decided to complete Deathurge’s spell and revive the computer.

   That took care of the last missile – and they even managed to shut down the undead computer before it could vampirize too many power systems.

   5 XP all around.