Synopsis
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Once the prolonged agony of watching the ladies window-shop was over, we got on to business. Namely a meeting with Frank�s contact Sarapedon, the self-proclaimed �veteran of a thousand psychic wars.� And where better to meet such an esteemed veteran than the local Denny�s? This meeting followed the party coming across a number of news reports about gang warfare between a group called the Cranials and some other gang. Sarapedon confirmed that the Cranials contain a number of psychics who have gone on the rampage to find and either capture or kill other psychics. He attributes this anti-social behavior to some disturbing psychic energies. Frank has felt these too. He�s been irritable and moody. And it�s happening more than just the normal once per month.
While at the Denny�s the Cranials showed up for the Grand Slam breakfast and decided that they�d like a side order of psionicist to go. The party made a run for it when the half dozen Cranials started shooting. During the mad dash out of Denny�s the party tried, unsuccessfully, to ditch Sarapedon. He clung to the side of their stolen van like a turd you just can�t flush.
Once the party made its get away, they decided to follow-up on some of the information Sarapedon gave them about an organization called Delta Green. The party determined that someone connected with Delta Green was living and running an operation above a 7-11. So the party embarked on a stakeout and information gathering mission, which went pretty well considering it was amateur hour. During the stakeout some crazy flying creature attacked the building only to be fought back by a couple heavily armed men. The whole thing was so scary, Ray stopped digging through the trash and made a run for it.
The party came back the next day and decided for the front door approach of knocking and asking the residents what was up. They found a slightly hostile bunch who eventually let them in. One guy was pretty beat up but Frank offered to fix him up in exchange for information. Frank worked his magic and the guy was as good as new, less one or two limbs. Upon returning to the residence over the 7-11 the party found it was a large facility housing the local Delta Green chapter which Lowenstein explained is a group of people who know about the unknowable that exists beyond the known reality. There is some disagreement between Delta Green members over whether the government is actively helping the �other side� or if it is just that the government has been infiltrated. Either way, the government certainly knows more than it lets on to the outside world. The only question is what are they doing about it?
Lowenstein refers the party to the local Delta Green librarian, a UC Berkley professor of Arabic History, who serves as the central repository of information and who hands out assignments to members of the various local cells.
The adventure started out with the party trying to remember what the hell they were supposed to be doing. Oh yeah, investigating EIB Financial Services. EIB�s use of a certain symbol raised the suspicions of Yasmine Adula librarian for Delta Green.
The investigation started with some rather expensive hiring of a freelance hacker to do some background investigating into EIB. The party would�ve just asked Rick to do it but he was indisposed attending a hacker convention in San Jose. Frank was also absent Doing what you ask? Seems his Aunt Gladys was diagnosed with a rare form of toe cancer. He went to visit her.
The hacker�s investigation revealed the names and addresses of the three partners in EIB and showed that EIB had engaged in some type of accounting impropriety. One, Joshua Fleger, was clearly the leader. He is very wealthy having made millions on some shady but apparently above-board investments. The other two are much less wealthy and are generally unknown. Although EIB has only been operational for 6 months it had obtained 10s of million of dollars from mostly retired investors. The investigation seemed to show that the investors were being taken advantage of and were unaware of any impropriety. Nonetheless, EIB was skimming money off the top from the investment.
Greg�s study of witchcraft revealed that the EIB logo is some type of ward.
So the party started it�s investigation in earnest. Which, of course, meant that the weirdness also started. They decided to start with David Petlak, one of the EIB partners. They pull up to Petlak�s condo in the plumbers� van, like a scene out of a Three Stooges movie. Larry, Moe and Curly � armed to the teeth proceeded up to the condo. They picked the lock and went inside to find a claymore pointed at the door. Then it gets a too weird to explain. It�s like this: a butcher knife in the kitchen but nothing else, an empty living room with writing on the walls in some shiny liquid, a bedroom with a cot and 5 empty and very clean galvanized metal buckets, and a bathroom with more claymores than you could count. The claymores are wired to the bathroom doors and are pointed at the bathtub. Greg walks almost nimbly to the tub and discovered it was full of what appeared to be orbs the size of baseballs. Some had broken from an exploding claymore. Greg used a bucket to scoop up some of the orbs breaking some in the process. The fumes forced Greg to grow an inch. A very bizarre circumstance that is sure to have a dramatic effect on his wardrobe. Unfortunately, Greg doesn�t have any money to spend on clothes so he�s content to walk around in high waters and shoes that are too small.
Having grabbed some orbs, the party takes them back to Yasmine at UC Berkely. They meet her in an empty chemistry lab where she demonstrates a mixture or fascination and fear. Some might call it awful curiosity. She explains that these items are eggs of a creature too horrible to describe and that they must be destroyed immediately. Luckily the chemistry lab has the necessary facilities and the party is able to do the job with no one increasing in size or growing extra limbs. After a frustrated discussion with Yasmine in which she was unable (or unwilling) to provide the party (specifically Juan �answer my questions or I�ll make you swallow this orb� Valdez) with answers to all their questions, the party left to continue their investigations.
They went to the house of EIB headman Joshua Fleger. During the stake out they saw Fleger leave with his daughter and go to the park. While Fleger and daughter played in the park, Vince decided to place one of his tracking devices on Fleger�s car. Greg was to provide a distraction by striking up a conversation with Fleger. But before he got there, the daughter (Emily) gave him a nasty look and it took all Greg�s willpower to avoid busting a cap in her. It wasn�t so much that the look was nasty, but the fact that for a second see looked like death warmed over with deep gashes in her face. Of course, no one else saw it and she quickly reverted back to normal. Greg vowed to lay off the Sour Skittles for a while.
After following Fleger back to his house. The party decided to check out the offices of EIB Financial. They arrived around 8 pm and the place was deserted. With the plumber�s van parked outside they engaged in a little breaking and entering. Inside they found a lot of paper and a couple hideous sculptures of ugly frog things in the offices of Fleger�s assistants. Fleger had a file folder about his daughter, a strange metal box with the EIB emblem, and a computer � all of which goes into the plumber�s van. They also discovered a trap door under Flegers desk.
They opened the door for a look-see. Below the building was a long room with a hideous mottled toad statue standing about 11� tall in the back. The party concluded that the room must have been built around the statue. In typical cthulhu investigator fashion the party opened up all manner of automatic weapons on the statue in hopes of possibly limiting any dark usefulness it may have had. In front of the statute were four pedestals with bowls on top filled with some jokers used motor oil. The party concluded they would have to get the oil to an authorized recycling facility and approached. Hillarity ensued. The oil attacked. Vince unloaded hundreds of rounds into it with little or no effect. The oil formed tentacles and even mouths, one of which decided it was hungry for grapefruit a�la Greg. In no time Greg was being eaten alive, head first. A truly terrifying experience, made worse by the fact that it was slowly digesting him alive. Only one way to solve this dilemma � light em up! Luckily the party had lighter fluid with them. Why? No one knows, but it was probably in the bag with the salt.
So Ray and Vince lit the oil engulfing Greg�s head on fire. As Greg started to fill out a new character sheet he was pleased to find that the flames eventually killed the nasty. While clinging to life with the tenacity of little girl hands grasping for gauzy invisible threads, Greg managed to win free of the beast and evaluate his grenade collection. The party then unloaded the rest of its ordinance on the remaining oil monsters. Expensive incendiary grenades rained down like rice at a wedding and the party soon found itself free of the menacing stains but empty of ordinance reserves.
As they come upstairs they hear a faint bell ringing. Looking through the front door they see little Katie standing there ringing a small bell. Then a strange ape-like creature showed up in the hall and briefly tried to pound on the party before he was filled full of lead. Darkness filled the area before the party could get a bead on Katie. They went out a window and to the front but she was gone.
So they did. They hired a hacker to bust into the computer and found a treasure trove of information. Sort of. Using the information gained from the computer combined with Frank�s knowledge of local history, some trips to the library and the Chinese Historical Center, and some talks with Yasmeen the party learned a lot. So much so that they essentially completed the mission in a rather anticlimactic way.
It seems that EIB Financial�s real business is attempting to find pages from the �Book of Eibon.� Eibon was some powerful wizard and his book is rumored to be a tome of great and horrible spells. EIB has obtained a few of the pages and, according to the computer files, they are genuine.
Why does EIB Financial want the book of Eibon, you ask? Well, Vince was willing to put his sanity at risk and get part of the big picture from Yasmeen but no one else felt they could handle the truth. On a more mundane level, the reason EIB Financial is doing all this is because little Katie Fleger is telling them to.
Yes, that�s all well and good, but what about the money. You see, the party had accomplished their mission by finding out what EIB Financial was up to and had no reason to further investigate Katie Fleger, EIB or head-eating oil. Not unless Yasmeen was going to pony up some more green. Saving humanity don�t come cheap, you know. Yasmeen paid the group for learning the truth behind EIB Financial and agreed to further pay their exorbitant fees for the simple task of destroying the EIB Financial offices and the temple underneath plus wacking Katie, her dad and the other EIB employees. They wanted money and some rare magical items. That�s right � magic. What is this D&D? Greedy bastards.
So, more investigating: It seems that little 7 year old Katie changed after a field trip into the woods about 6 months ago. She was �off� ever since she came back. And the party now knows why. It turns out that a Chinese immigrant working on the railroads outside San Francisco was died (or probably was killed by Whitie for being a rabble rouser) in the mid 1800s. He was rumored to be some type of sorcerer by his people, but was just considered a trouble maker by the railroad owners. Apparently, he was exiled from China for practicing the black arts. In any event, he was buried with a small bell as was the custom of the Chinese of the time (at least according the Frank�s research). The type of bell used in this custom is remarkably similar in appearance to the one carried by scary-Katie. It turns out that the Chinese wizard was killed an buried near the campgrounds where Katie turned weird 6 months ago.
The party went to the camp site and using some of their new magic toys followed Katie�s trail to a mound of earth. They went to dig it up but as soon as Vince started, all the dirt fell in revealing the desiccated corpse of Katie Fleger. Then the exploding, acid spitting tree-frogs showed up. Bang-bang, spit-spit, burn-burn. A few gunshots, and a couple pieces of melted high quality armor later, and the ground was littered with little bits of weird frog-things. It would�ve been worse but Frank had with him some substance that he claimed to be a base that would counteract the acid�s effects. Of course, the GM lacked the scientific knowledge to call the bluff so the scheme worked to stop the acid from melting holes in people instead of just armor.