Synopsis
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January 1, 2006 Game - Back to Church, A.K.A. "In the Christian Science Reading Room"
After dragging Vince�s rotting corpse back to the hotel, they met up with Yasmine. Yasmine isn�t much of a field operative as she proves by engaging in a telephone conversation with a Delta Green member from West Virginia using the hotel phone. The party is to get some assistance from a new solo-type from D.C. who was recently helping out in West Virginia (the arrival of Vince II �Electric Bugaloo�).
Yasmine has learned that big things are going down all over the Delta Green world � the Boston Chapter has been attacked on a number of fronts and has been almost totally wiped out. It�s bad news all around. She also relates that she found Unspeakable Kults in the library, but it didn�t say how to stop the rise of Cthuhlu. It did reference another text that might. She discussed this book with the librarian from the Boston chapter (Prof. Reed Franklin), an impressive fellow who makes Yasmine look like a middle-school librarian with orthopedic shoes more suited to telling 12 year-olds to stop chewing gum than battling the forces of the mythos. Franklin agrees that the book, called the R�lyeh Text may provide the answers, but the only reliable copy is held in a Vatican vault of materials confiscated during the Spanish Inquisition. Strangely enough the Vatican made a copy of every book the Inquisition confiscated.
The group meets up with Vince II (a.k.a. West Virginia). He seems vaguely familiar. Heavily cybered and combat oriented. Perhaps even a little more stable and efficient than Vince I.
Back at the hotel Greg�s spidey-sense starts tingling. The sounds of screeching tires and a hastily opened van door signals trouble. Sure enough, some guy with guns running up the stairs to get the party and another coming up the elevator. The party splits up to navigate an exit. The guy in the stairs stops to talk and politely asks the party if they�d be so kind as to accompany him to meet with Jason Ha (CEO of Blistac) for a friendly cup of coffee. The party answers with a hail of led and a couple grenades. They resist the temptation to use Yasmine as a human shield in the process.
Meanwhile, back at the room, Frank sets up a clever claymore trap to stop the guy from the elevator. Frank manages to notice that the attacker has had a full body replacement and is carrying the biggest, nastiest gun he�s ever seen. Oh yeah, he also has a Blistac patch. Time to run!
The claymore slows him down a couple seconds as the party runs full speed for Vince II�s car. In a desperate attempt to buy a couple minutes they wisely go for the EMP grenade on the �borg just before he unleashes his Springfield CZ-4 and its 100 rate of fire barrage. While he�s down, Frank runs back and slips him his phone number so they can hook up for some man-to-metal love later.
Jason Ha calls Frank a little later and asks for meeting. They arrange to meet on neutral ground � the U.S. District Court house in Boston. Frank also hears from Rashid who makes some bizarre requests. Frank is suddenly suspicious and catches Rashid in a lie.
They meet in a conference room where everyone is �unarmed� but it goes well enough (i.e., no one gets shot). Ha is full of interesting information. He tells the party that he has actually be trying to stop the rise of Cthulhu. Apparently, based on his reading of the 13 Secrets of R�yleh and other texts, he believes that certain powerful psychics fed directly by the psychic energies of 20 or so victims can be positioned over the nexus points and form a type of barrier. He has been buying land and �gathering� psychics for this purpose. He believed that the party was hired by Cthulhu cultists to interfere with his plans. He believes that the nexus points will all be opened soon and is working frantically to close as many as possible. He has sealed the Vatican nexus point and has recently sent a team to Cambodia. He thinks the Asylum one is still sealed but it is now under federal jurisdiction and he thinks it will be released soon.
Ha and the party discuss more permanent ways to seal the nexus points. Ha is aware of a book that was destroyed in 1890 in Ireland that he thinks will have the answer. He asks the party to go back to 1880 to read it. Dismissing this as crazy talk, the discussion moves on to alternative avenues. The party suggests going to the Vatican for the R�leyh Text. Of course, if they�d known the trouble that would cause they probably would�ve jumped on the insanity bandwagon and decided to go back to 1880.
So, the party decides to trust Ha, write off Rashid as a lying sack of crap, and head for the Vatican. Ha offers them a ride on his own personal Twilight Zone plane. On the ride Greg and Ray see some crazy crap out of the window but the plan lands safely in Rome.
They head straight to the Vatican and are met by a monk who helped Ha seal the nexus point under the Vatican. He takes them to the vault and warns that no one has come back from the forbidden book room. The party soon discovers why � an invisible Spectral Hunter waits to attack any entrant. Apparently, the prior Vatican monks who never came back from the room weren�t cybered-up and armed with automatic weapons because the party dispensed with the Hunter without too much difficulty.
If only everything were that easy. On the way out the party finds the torso of their guide still clutching the doorknob. On the other side: Rashid and his pet (some big nasty). Battle ensues, Vince goes homicidal and tries to kill his new friends, damage, magic and sanity loss rain down freely on the party. Rashid turns Greg�s loyalties and Greg takes the opportunity to be a disruptive nuisance; perpetrating antics such as knocking down gun barrels and posting questionable pictures of West Virginia�s Cancun spring break antics on the internet.
Much debate takes place as they try to figure out who to kill first, beastie, Rashid, or each other. Vince and Greg come to fisticuffs as the �some big nasty� bears down on both of them. In a flurry of crazy luck, (or brilliant planning, the matter is still under heavy contention at the party�s bat cave) Greg handily throws Vince to the ground. Vince handily answers back by opening up full auto on Greg. Greg then accomplishes a fine matrix-like dodge from the wall of bullets and to everyone�s surprise the beast falls dead, full of full-auto goodness. As all this capering about effectively distracts Rashid, Frank sets about combining his newly acquired demolition skills with his questionably-acquired telekinesis skills. This results in a nice floating bomb that makes its way up the corridor and into Rashid�s face. After Rashid blows up it�s the usual desperate escape from the collapsing Vatican basement. It�s a God-awful mess by the time they are done, but they bolt out of there as fast as they can make back to the rental van and onto the streets of Rome.
"You'll never be free from the dreams you had when you were dead."
