Bruce (Arthur Michael Vincent Pulfrey-Downs) is euphoric! He suggested that the group should go to the Down the Alley Bistro in Georgetown, and for a change this was a successful choice! Huzzah! Neither Chris (Michael Sangaree), Paul (Kumar Singh), Mike (Jack Smith) nor Chuck express any significant complaints about lunch. Sadly, Tim (Serpentine) decided to get in a touch of overtime and misses lunch. Fortunately, the Down the Alley Bistro is open until 5pm on Sundays, 7 pm on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and 11pm on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Just go down and see them across from the Palace Theater on Austin Ave in Georgetown.
Michael Sangaree, Jack Smith and Arthur Michael Vincent Pulfrey-Downs are sitting in the basement of the Museum of Natural History in Berlin. They had hoped to steal the Crown of Charlemagne. As it happens, they were more than a little distressed to find out that Horatio Mycroft Pulfrey-Downs had already taken the item and the Gem of Urighu set into it. This did nothing to improve their already foul moods, as getting into the museum had involved a running gun battle with a cordon of heavily-armed Ministerium fur Kultursichherheit agents and Berlin police, led by the indomitable Herr Professor Baron Anton von Todenhasen, Direktor of the MKS.
Arthur Michael Vincent Pulfrey-Downs suggests that since the characters drove their way into the museum, they should sneak out through the skylights. Michael Sangaree scoffs at this plan. He loudly declares that because the hallways are wide enough to drive through, nothing will stop him from driving back out of the building. To support this idea, he persuades Pulfrey-Downs to sneak up to the first floor and figure out which way out is least-heavily defended. Pulfrey-Downs decides to start his explorations at the front of the building. He quickly discovers that the police outside are a bit nervous and more than willing to open fire at even the slightest sign of movement.
Last session, the other characters sent Kumar Singh and Serpentine off to follow various other leads, most of which looked like thankless dead ends. Fortunately, the two of them swiftly tired of their assignments and decided to follow the other characters to Germany. They determine where the other characters are simply by following the sounds of gunfire and screaming.
The arrive in the neighborhood to find the Museum of Natural History surrounded by four police cars and two "police" Mark I Panzers. Kumar Singh tells Serpentine, "Okay, you take the tank on the right and I'll take the tank on the left." Serpentine agrees and sneaks off to kill a tank crew. He is more than a bit disappointed to find out that the tanks are only slightly larger than Volkswagen Beetles and armed with nothing more than machine guns. He thinks, "Only a madman would try to storm his way through Belgium with these things..."
Serpentine and Kumar Singh take the sound of police gunfire (triggered by Pulfrey-Downs' prowl through the first floor) as a signal to action. Serpentine leaps up atop one tank and uses the Claws of Apepi to puree the gunner. Kumar Singh deals with his target with slightly less bloodshed, but just as much finality. As one, the both of them take control of the tanks' turrets and open up with the machine guns, sending MKS police running for cover.
Things become marginally more dicey when one of the drivers shoots Serpentine in the crotch. Fortunately, the driver is armed only with a paltry low-caliber pistol that barely even smudges Serpentine's silk-steel armor. In an unusual touch of mercy, Serpentine draws up his Cloak of Dread and scares the driver into fleeing the scene. He leaps from the turret as the tank motors off into the darkness.
By this time, the whole cordon has been thrown into chaos: some men are shooting at the museum, others are running around madly, and nobody is obeying orders. Serpentine simply walks through the chaos. Nobody challenges him. He gets into an unoccupied police car and starts up the engine. Meanwhile, Kumar Singh slips down into the driver's position in his tank and tries his hand at running people down. He gets two.
Meanwhile, Pulfrey-Downs reports back to Michael Sangaree that the streets along the right side of the Museum look clear. Sangaree takes a look and angrily replies that there isn't a big enough door on that side of the building. Refusing to follow Jack Smith's suggestion that he drive through a window, he heads right back out of the south entrance, straight into the thick of the police. His nearly-wrecked car careens down the stairs as he howls out, "They're all afraid of my driving! Look at them cringe!" Pulfrey-Downs tries to inject a note of rationality by mentioning, "It could actually be the machine gun fire that they're responding to..." Michael Sangaree cares nothing for Pulfrey-Downs' words until he realizes, "There's a tank coming at us!" Once again, Pulfrey-Downs steps in as the voice of rationality, observing, "Actually, it looks like it's running in crazy circles trying to run down policemen."
Michael Sangaree, Jack Smith, Arthur Michael Vincent Pulfrey-Downs and Smith's man Pierre change cars, boarding the police car Serpentine commandeered for them. Their original car, which in better days had been a Berlin taxicab, falls to pieces as Sangaree steps away from it. Just to be different, Serpentine abandons the police car in favor of Kumar Singh's Panzer I. He busies himself reloading the machine guns as both vehicles head out towards the aerodrome.
It quickly becomes obvious that the Panzer is only barely able to break 30 kph, so the characters don't make very good time. However, Serpentine promises that anyone who tries to follow them will get... how you say... a lead sandwich. It doesn't take long for him to get an opportunity to make good on his promise, as four police cars appear and give chase. Serpentine quickly learns the virtues of heavy weapons as he shoots his way through a series of police cars with the tank's machine gun. The surviving policemen decide to let the characters go.
With the characters' little convoy approaching the airport Kumar Singh calls out, "Do you have any more ammo left? We might need it for the airport!" Serpentine is disappointed to find that he's burned through every ammo belt in the tank. The two of them decide that these vehicles are probably only used for "traffic enforcement", and that actually firing the machine gun is not normally necessary. They speculate upon why the German police appear to have enough equipment to march on Moscow, and why a police vehicle might contain a manual on combined-arms tactics written in the very strictest German. Serpentine is even more perplexed by the fact that the manual is autographed, "For the Love of the Fatherland! - Heinz G."
The characters decide to fly out in the Origami Spad. This presents a bit of a problem, as there are six of them but only three places (one pilot, two passenger) available in the aircraft. Michael Sangaree looks over the assembled group and announces that he's going to need four people to hang on the wings. He picks out Serpentine, Kumar Singh, Jack Smith and Smith's man Pierre as the best candidates, primarily because he is more annoyed with them than he is with Pulfrey-Downs.
As Michael Sangaree taxis the badly-overloaded Spad towards the runway, Serpentine yells out, "This is so making the German newspapers!" Kumar Singh yells back, "No it isn't. Except maybe as an item about an attack by some Polish Special Forces." Kumar Singh goes on to explain to Michael Sangaree, "We would have been here earlier, but they were giving away free beer at a hall back there. All you had to do was join some political party. The New Socialists or something like that." Michael Sangaree is upset by the thought that he missed a chance to get some free beer. As a consolation, Kumar Singh gives him the little medallion and a black armband that the guys in the beer-hall gave him.
Both Michael Sangaree and Arthur Michael Vincent Pulfrey-Downs have their fingers crossed as the Origami Spad approaches the Flying Dutchman and its untested Aerial Capture Apparatus. The Spad's flying characteristics are not helped by the extra passengers out on the wings, so the landing requires a Piloting roll at +2 difficulty. Everyone gasps as Michael Sangaree misses one of the capture hooks and brings the Spad in to a kidney-bruising stop. The Spad takes a level of damage, and the four guys on the wings are forced to make Athletics rolls to continue hanging on. Fortunately, nobody vanishes into the darkness below.
Pulfrey-Downs scrambles out of the aircraft and does a bit of quick Engineering (6 successes) to get the Spad hooked on better. The other passengers are just happy that they can crawl off the wings and onto the comparatively solid floor of the dirigible. Michael Sangaree simply bounces himself out of the cockpit, takes a long pull from his flask, and tells the others that the Flying Dutchman is currently hovering over Jutland. This gives him an opportunity to tell several long stories about his pivotal role during the famous naval battle. None of the other characters ever realized that Michael Sangaree had been Admiral Stonewall Jackson's personal pilot and dropped the crucial depth charge to sink the Yamato, ensuring Flemish control of the South Coral Sea through the remainder of the war. After finishing his story, he bemoans his onrushing sobriety and heads off to the bridge to refill his flask.
The other characters join Michael Sangaree up on the bridge to discuss plans. Michael Sangaree fixes Pulfrey-Downs with his bloodshot stare and says, "Okay, your brother has at least one stone. And he doesn't look like some kind of genetic freak, so he probably has at least two stones. We need to make sure he doesn't get himself three stones, or he might go off and sink Tuscon. And then he might go on to do something really damaging." Pulfrey-Downs has nothing to say to this.
Kumar Singh reveals that he found something helpful in Hong Kong. A long silence ensues. Sangaree rather skeptically asks, "So, what did you find in Hong Kong?" Kumar Singh rather dazedly replies, "I don't know... wait, I found there are islands in the South Pacific!" Sangaree is incensed! He hammers upon the table with the butt of his pistol and shouts, "Those bastards! They've been holding out on us!" Kumar Singh tries to explain, "No, wait! It's not just the islands! It's the natives on the islands! The natives on the Enoch Islands. The natives there are happy, fun loving folks who like to make love and eat fruit all the time, except when they're being cannibals and dabbling in earth-shattering sorcery!" Arthur Michael Vincent Pulfrey-Downs wakes with a start and offers, "The Enoch Islands? I'm not sure we should go to those islands."
Nobody seems to like the idea of going to the Pacific, so Serpentine offers another possibility. He suggests that there may be another Gem of Urighu in Egypt. Everyone decides that Egypt is much closer than the Enoch Islands, so they're going to go there first. His leads start off in Cairo, which makes everyone happy. Michael Sangaree remembers that there are Muslims in Egypt, so he recommends that the characters stop off in Italy to pick up an extra stockpile of booze. Jack Smith reminds Sangaree that the English have conquered the country and civilized it, by which he means that only dark-skinned people get murdered there nowadays, and that liquors of all types can now be obtained with little trouble.
Kumar Singh pipes up, "I heard that one of the gems was located on a beach in Spain. I'll be off to go look for it." Everyone except Pulfrey-Downs figures out his scheme and stops him from leaving the room.
Halfway through the trip to Egypt, the Flying Dutchman is attacked by Luftwaffe planes. There are four of them, all nice, modern fighter aircraft. Oddly enough, they have MKS markings on them.
Michael Sangaree leaps into the Origami Spad and flies out to meet them. Arthur Michael Vincent Pulfrey-Downs, Serpentine and Kumar Singh man the heavy machine guns. Jack Smith ties himself to the depth charge rack and prepares to fire with his long-rifle.
Sangaree manages to draw off two of the attackers, leaving the third and fourth to engage the dirigible. He spatters one of his targets with fire from the Lewis guns, then reflects that the planes are probably armored enough to avoid all damage. He makes a note: "Must upgun the Origami Spad…" Changing his tactics, he starts making trick shots to hit the pilots. This works much better, and he is quickly able to knock down two of the planes. A third plane suffers a jammed machine gun and quickly retreats. Kumar Singh and Pulfrey-Downs blaze away at the final plane, damaging it enough to send it spiraling to its doom.
Sangaree lands the now-damaged Origami Spad with no problem. He quickly locates Pulfrey-Downs and complains bitterly about how the heavy machine guns are wasted in their mounts on the Flying Dutchman. Pulfrey-Downs agrees to remount one heavy machine gun on the Origami Spad, in place of the Lewis guns. While he is about it, he also patches up the bullet holes on the Spad, all the while bemoaning the things that happen to his beautiful handiwork.
The Origami Spad now has a single heavy machine gun, and the Flying Dutchman is down to two heavy machine guns. And the characters have two spare Lewis guns, one of which Pulfrey-Downs gives to Jack Smith.
The Flying Dutchman drifts in to a peaceful landing on the outskirts of Cairo. Pulfrey-Downs steps down from the gangway, takes a deep breath of the local air, and asks, "So, what's Cairo look like nowadays? It's been a long time since I was last here. Actually, I've never been here." The other characters, taking their lead from Kumar Singh, completely ignore his ravings.
Serpentine explains to the group that he has an appointment with a local "academic" named Abdul Akhbar at an appropriately seedy bar. Some would point out that he is not actually employed by a museum . Some would call him a treasure-hunter. Some would call him a ghoul, a vandal and a looter. These people make him feel terrible, forcing him to return to his small apartment and wallow among the various antiquities he has liberated from the cold, dark ground.
Before the meeting, Jack Smith looks up a couple more of his old Foreign Legion buddies. One of them is a Portuguese named Raoul who seems to have long experience in working as a guide to Great White Hunter types like Pulfrey-Downs. The other is a bartender named "Twilight" Mahoney who knows all kinds of things, including the fact that the English recently conquered the country.
The characters use their sidecar motorcycles to negotiate Cairo's crowded streets and alleys. They bring weapons. Lots of weapons. Along the way, the other characters manage to get Jack Smith to admit that he has "issues" with his rifle. He tells Pierre that he had problems the last time he wanted to use it. Pierre looks at Smith with a deeply concerned expression as he edges slowly away.
The bar is located in a particularly crowded section of marketplace. Michael Sangaree gives a couple of local orphans several pounds to keep an eye on the characters motorcycles.
Abdul Akhbar is seated in the back of the bar. He wears a shifty, weasel-eyed expression. His teeth are stained by nicotine. A cup of thick coffee sits on the table in front of him. Serpentine sits down next to him and casts a web of Rapport over him. Six successes later, Abdul gazes back into Serpentine's eyes and murmurs, "What's the Arabic word for padawan?" He invites Serpentine and his friends to join him at the table. Serpentine seems distracted by Abdul's beauty, so Pulfrey-Downs asks him what he knows about the Gems of Urighu. Abdul explains that the last time he went exploring in the Valley of Kings, he found a map. He unrolls a piece of papyrus upon the table. The more erudite characters are able to see that it is decorated with symbols that are not Egyptian hieroglyphics.
Arthur Michael Vincent Pulfrey-Downs and Kumar Singh are immediately drawn to the papyrus. Everyone else makes perception rolls. They notice that the crowd in the bar is parting like the Red Sea as a dozen guys make their way towards the characters' table. Even worse, Serpentine sees Dr. Herbert "Subekhatan" Bruunderspeck following the goons. Enraged at the sight of his hated Nemesis, Serpentine leaps to the table and shouts out, "How dare you show yourself here, in Egypt, where your entire cult is based?" The other characters look at each other in the way that makes it clear that they understand that Serpentine has forgotten to tell them something very important.
Of course, violence ensues. Serpentine starts out by wrapping himself in a nice, comforting Cloak of Dread, ensuring that only the big guys will attack him. The other characters start shooting at mooks. A moment later, six mooks are down. A moment after that, all of the mooks are on the ground.
Subekhatan lashes out at Serpentine with the Staff of Anubis. Serpentine brushes the attack to one side with a flawless parry. Subekhatan whirls the staff about and cracks it across Michael Sangaree's side. The Texas gasps as he feels ribs crack. Confident that none can oppose him, Subekhatan ignores the characters to snatch the parchment off the table. Serpentine is insulted by this behavior. He slashes Subekhatan with the Claws of Apepi, inflicting enough damage to eviscerate a lesser man. Subekhatan staggers. Serpentine whispers to Kumar Singh, "He's out of dodges! Just kill him!" Kumar Singh feels sorry for the deranged Dutchman and inflicts a single additional level of damage with his attack.
The characters advance upon Subekhatan, confident that they have won the day, when the entire bar erupts into abject chaos. Fifteen more of Subekhatan's cultists appear at the front windows. Gunfire clatters out as they fill the room with lead, shredding furniture and patrons on all sides. Subekhatan leaps through a skylight and up to the roof. Serpentine leaps after him, grabbing his foot just long enough to Mark him for the next two weeks.
Kumar Singh, Jack Smith, Michael Sangaree and Serpentine all clamber through the shattered skylight, desperate to stop Subekhatan. They see an autogyro swooping down low over the building. Subekhatan is clinging to a rope ladder hanging from the bottom of the aircraft. One of his cultists leans from the side of the autogyro, helping his master climb inside. Kumar Singh leaps for the ladder. Jack Smith leaps for the ladder. Serpentine swings the Claws of Apepi out to hook the cultist, deftly pulling the man from the aircraft. The cultist serves Serpentine as a counterweight, whisking him up past the other characters to end up nose-to-nose with his Nemesis. This looks so cool that he gets an extra experience point for this description.
Michael Sangaree is last onto the roof. He sees what is happening and readies his gun. He takes careful aim and shoots twice, once at each rope of the ladder. The first rope is severed with a terrible crack. The second rope shudders, but the bullet leaves a single strand intact! Michael Sangaree is grimly triumphant.
Casting caution to the winds, Serpentine sends the Claw of Apepi lashing upwards to sever the one remaining strand, just as Kumar Singh hacks at Subekhatan's ankles. Subekhatan falls from the ladder an instant before the rope breaks, sending the other characters down as well. Kumar Singh yells out, "I chase the bad guy down!" Jack Smith calls out a more practical bit of advice, shouting, "Try to hit laundry lines!"
Rather anticlimactically, it turns out that a fall from ten meters does only three dice of damage. Bashing damage. None of the characters suffer anything worse than a nasty bruise.
Serpentine staggers back out into the streets. He is confronted by mobs of people, many of them panicked. Subekhatan is nowhere to be seen. Serpentine uses Marked Man to sense that the villain is about a hundred meters down the street. He rushes after him, running smack into a Bedouin-looking fellow with pale, dead eyes. Serpentine tries to learn Arabic from his mind. He finds nothing, then gets beaten badly. He takes a remarkable amount of bashing damage. Pulfrey-Downs arrives on the scene to see the Bedouin beating the stuffing out of Serpentine. He adopts a flawless Queensbury stance and punches the fellow, with no visible effect. Serpentine makes a rather stunned effort to take the Bedouin out with a quick claw swipe, only barely starting to suspect that there might be something more at hand. His attack goes wide. Then gets hit several more times. Serpentine feels woozy, then falls. Unconscious. On the ground. Pulfrey-Downs shouts out, "Gadzooks!" The creature continues to throttle Serpentine, shaking his limp form around like a rag doll.
Pulfrey-Downs tries to box with the creature, which continues to totally ignore him. Kumar Singh arrives on the scene, sees what his boss is trying to do, and cries out in horror, "What on earth are you trying to do?" He stabs the thing with his super-fractal kukri, chopping it into dust and rags. The threat dispatched, he turns to lecture Pulfrey-Downs in his sternest voice, "Now, what have I told you about getting into fistfights with supernaturally-strong monsters?" Pulfrey-Downs rather shamefacedly explains, "I was just remembering what you said earlier about not "accidentally" shooting friends..."
For no reason, Paul starts to solve his Rubik's Cube with demonic intensity. Chuck start to sing, "Good-night Irene..." Everyone laughs maniacally.
The session ends with most of the group standing in a crowded Cairo street, looking down at Serpentine's unconscious form. Each character gains three experience points, except for Serpentine who gets four.