With Tim's (Devon Gray aka Serpentine!) return from Ireland, our company is once again complete. The rest of us include Paul (Kumar Singh), Billy (Chang Fan Yo), Chris (Michael Sangaree), Bruce (Arthur Michael Vincent Pulfrey-Downs), and Breanna (just around to watch).
A meek middle-management nonentity by day, he found his life to be empty and without meaning until he took up the mantle of Serpentine and went out with mask and hooked chain to walk the streets at night. He fights crime!
Chang Fan Yo is a loyal and hard-working second generation Chinese-American who spent his formative years working with his uncle in a Chinese medicine shop in Chinatown. He fights crime!
Arthur Michael Vincent Pulfrey-Downs has a new toy: an authentic military-surplus Spad biplane, brought back from Africa. Having only recently learned enough of the aerodynamic arts to be able to apply his amazing engineering prowess to aircraft, he resolves to transform it into a miracle of aviatory performance. It almost needn't be said: he fights crime!
| Vehicle | Speed | Maneuver | Armor | Weapons | Passengers |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unmodified Spad | 120 | 4 | 3 [1] | Twin Lewis Guns | 1 crew |
Repairing to his laboratory, Pulfrey-Downs makes several modifications to the aircraft: "origami" airframe, allowing it to collapse down into a shape easy to load on board a cargo plane; +3 Maneuver; +1 [2] armor, by replacing the original canvas covering with silk-steel; and +2 passenger capacity. He is able to improve the armor with half the normal difficulty due to his previous work with silk-steel.
The base time for his project is 60 days, with a +3 difficulty. He uses his Mad Scientist knack to reduce the time needed to only 60 hours, and then expends more Inspiration to double his die pool. He completes the engineering and design work in only 54 hours, and then has the work completed four hours after that. The Origami Spad's final stats are:
| Vehicle | Speed | Maneuver | Armor | Weapons | Passengers |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Origami Spad | 120 | 7 | 4 [3] | Twin Lewis Guns | 1 crew
2 passengers |
| Weapon | Acc | Damage | Str Min | Range | RoF | Capacity | Mass | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lewis Gun | 0 | 6 [4]L | 4 | 500 | 21 | 100 | 75 | 2 |
In his spare time, he also manufactures two more suits of silk-steel armor (he has a suspicion that he might need them) and a dozen doses of Fast-Healing Elixir.
It is late in August 1933 when Damian Gray and Chang Fan Yo both get invitations to attend a dinner at the exclusive Paragon Club. They are a bit apprehensive, Damian because he fears that the Paragon Club may have uncovered the link between his "daytime" identity and that of the mysterious Serpentine!, and Chang Fan Yo because he doesn't exactly fit into the typical Manhattan gentleman's club scene. However, they are heroes, so they overcome their petty fears and show up regardless.
Late August finds Michael Sangaree firmly planted in front of the bar at the Paragon Club, drinking whiskey sours and telling war stories to a bowl of peanuts. The ever-proper Paragon Club butler Jeeves approaches him with great delicacy, and informs him that he has two visitors, a young woman and a young man. Even through the whiskey sour haze, Sangaree is able to recognize the woman as Annabelle Skaggs. She is the daughter of Joe Bob Skaggs, an old Texas oilman who did some wildcatting with Sangaree in his youth. Her friend is Wayne Jones, the lead hand on Joe Bob's ranch. She claims that her father is doing well, but needs Michael's help. She'd read of Michael Sangaree's adventures out in Africa with "all those other gentlemen" in the Midland Star-Picayune, and she is sure that he is just the sort of man to deal with her father's troubles.
She continues to explain. Joe Bob Skaggs has been wildcatting out in West Texas, and he has been having tremendous problems with his latest project. He thinks someone is trying to scare his workers off by spreading tales of the Ugawa, the "Dwellers Beneath the Ground." Many of the workers are Mexican or Native American, and are prone to wild superstitions. They say that the drilling rigs have disturbed the Ugawa, and dire consequences are sure to follow. Some workers have run off, while others have simply disappeared.
Michael Sangaree agrees to get the team together. He tells Annabelle, "Waahl, it'll take me an hour ter fly out ta Pulfrey-Downs' place, then it'll take another tew haurs ta sober up after..." He promises to be back with the team in about eight hours. On the way, he recruits both Serpentine and Chang Fan Yo. He explains to them that he fights crime!
Arthur Michael Vincent Pulfrey-Downs calls up from the lab, "Gobey! Could you come down to the lab! I need someone to hold some high-voltage lines together!" Kumar Singh rolls his eyes and shouts back, "Don't we have some sort of mechanic to do that?" Pulfrey-Downs sounds a bit doubtful in his reply, "Ummm... We did. Could you come down here?" Kumar Singh quickly realizes where this is going, and addresses his monkey: "Dumaki, go hold the lines together. I'll get a broom to clean up the ash." Dumaki screeches and heads towards the lab.
Michael Sangaree waits until he and the other characters are thoroughly airborne before explaining to them, "I'm a pilot, and I do exciting things all the time. I served as a pilot in the Great War, and since then I've worked as a wealthy independent gunman. What do you guys do?"
Serpentine is characteristically succinct, stuffing the Claws of Apepi into his pocket and announcing, "I carry no obvious weapons. I'm a vigilante. I fight crime!"
Michael Sangaree is skeptical. He asks the Masked Vigilante, "I notice you're wearing your costume now. Why? I wear my pilot costume all the time because it helps me get laid. How do you keep people from just grabbing your mask and... (Serpentine sets to hit Sangaree)... Hey! Remember that hitting the pilot is against the rules!"
It develops that Michael Sangaree, Serpentine and Chang Fan Yo aren't alone in the plane. The dramatically red-headed reporter Margaret Lang managed to talk Michael into letting her on board, ostensibly so she can interview the famed British explorer Arthur Michael Vincent Pulfrey-Downs. He claims he can get her an interview, but cautions that whatever Pulfrey-Downs says, it'll either be some deranged rant about how the British Empire must rule, rule, rule, or totally incomprehensible technical nonsense. This doesn't appear to discourage Ms. Lang one bit.
As the plane approaches Pulfrey-Downs' private airfield, the characters are able to see a thick cloud of black smoke over the estate. Down on the ground, Pulfrey-Downs is scurrying about, water hose in hand, shouting, "Gobey! I'm losing water pressure out here! I need the pump running harder! Gobey!" Kumar Singh looks up from the gossip pages of the New York Post to complain, "Hey! I'm reading. Besides, I've already called the Fire Department." Pulfrey-Downs is upset to hear this: "Must you do such things! You know full well that they complained so much the last time. I thought we could handle this on our own." Kumar Singh turns the page of his newspaper and responds, "Well, we could if you'd ever finished your fire-extinguishing machine."
By this time, the plane has touched down. Michael Sangaree parks it a respectable distance from the burning storage shed, then walks over to the near-frantic Pulfrey-Downs and offers, "Pulfrey-Downs, do you realize you have a burning servant over there?" Pulfrey-Downs seems not to hear.
Recognizing that his boss is in no condition to receive guests, Kumar Singh takes over the introductions. He tells Chang Fan Yo in fluent Chinese: "This is my idiotic master. Watch yourself around him."
Once Kumar Singh has gotten everyone settled down in an unburned part of the house, Michael Sangaree explains the situation. He asks Pulfrey-Downs if he wants to go to Texas and deal with the Ugawa. Pulfrey-Downs thinks for a moment, then announces that he already knows something about them. Specifically, there is a Native American legend of a tribe that lives underneath the ground. They are hunchbacked, big-eyed and gray-skinned. Native American parents often use them as boogeyman figures in stories to scare their children. According to the legend, they were exiled below the ground by the Great White Buffalo. Some texts almost jokingly refer to them as the "Mole-Men".
By the time he has finished his description, Pulfrey-Downs has been captivated. He calls out, "We must have a specimen! Gobey! Go fetch the mole-man capture apparatus!"
Kumar Singh asks back, "Could they be the same as the mole-men we found in New Guinea?"
"I don't know. Do we still have that specimen?"
"I think he was in the part of the house that just burned down."
Kumar Singh goes off to assemble a "Mole-Man Capture Kit" composed of shovels, hats with lights on them, nets, dynamite, picks, rope, pitons, crampons, block and tackle. Plus a complete set of 1932 edition USGS topological maps for Texas. The type that still has large areas labeled "Here there be Dragons."
While Kumar Singh is off assembling equipment, Pulfrey-Downs persuades Michael Sangaree to test out the Origami Spad. Michael Sangaree is very impressed with the results, except that he was confused by all the hinges. He tells Pulfrey-Downs that the left wings folded up on him in flight, forcing him to do a series of right-handed barrel rolls to get them extended again. Pulfrey-Downs promises to fix that bug...
The characters fly back to New York, then head over to the hotel where Annabelle Skaggs and Wayne Jones are staying. Serpentine is first out of the elevator on the sixth floor, and his keen senses are the first to detect the sounds of a struggle. Everyone else remains blissfully ignorant, distracted by Pulfrey-Downs' insistence that there is a Metropolitan Hotel in New York, and Kumar Singh's ongoing responses that the only hotel of that name in the area charges by the hour.
Serpentine rushes out of the elevator and heads down the hall. Michael Sangaree notices this behavior and deduces that even Serpentine is unlikely to rush down a hotel hallway with the Claw of Apepi drawn for no reason at all. Knowing that firearms are the perfect weapons for close-in hostage situations, Sangaree draws out his weapons and follows the vigilante. Serpentine reaches Annabelle's door and wastes no time in breaking it down and charging inside. He finds himself facing a dozen cloaked goons armed with tonfas and saps, all of them menacing Wayne Jones. Annabelle Skaggs is nowhere to be seen.
The characters plow into the room and commence mowing down goons at a ferocious rate. The goons wear hoods and masks, but their visible skin looks very pale, with large pupils. And after only one round, half of them are on the ground. For their part, Annabelle Skaggs and Wayne Jones seem to be doing a two-fisted job of holding their own ground.
Fearing that there might be no prisoners left to interrogate, Serpentine lashes out with the Claws of Apepi, entangling one goon and preventing him from fleeing. Satisfied that the characters have a prisoner, Pulfrey-Downs draws out his Webley and blazes away at the surviving goons. Sangaree tries shooting another one in the knee, practically shooting the guy's leg off. Kumar Singh sweeps the remaining goons into a tidy pile, incapacitating them almost as an afterthought.
The attackers appear to be Chinese. Michael Sangaree is quick to react, "I reload." Pulfrey-Downs satisfies himself with treating the man with the wounded leg.
Chang Fan Yo asks the questions, translating for Serpentine. They find that their captives are infuriatingly ignorant. They know only that the Big Boss sent them to capture the woman and the man. Serpentine becomes frustrated with the imprecision of the captive's answers, and dangles him out the window with the "Claw of Justice" wrapped around his neck. It is only as Serpentine drags the fellow back inside that Chang Fan Yo notices that the captive has a Tong tattoo. It quickly becomes evident that all of them look like they are members of the Black Lotus Tong. They look pale and have messed-up eyes because they spend a lot of time in the opium dens (and not, as Pulfrey-Downs had hoped, because they are all Mole-Men). Based on their tattoos, they are all low-level members of the Tong (minions, that is).
The characters work out an ingenious plan to draw out the Tong. They persuade Pulfrey-Downs to dress up as Annabelle, reasoning that nobody else in the group can walk like a woman as skillfully. Pulfrey-Downs puts up a lot of objections, particularly when the other characters ask him how he does in high heels. He manages to get them to promise that after this they will go map out the Secret Underground Kingdom of the Mole-Men. Michael Sangaree is disguised as Wayne Jones, an easy job because they're both Texans. Everyone else is disguised as a Chinaman.
The characters are able to locate the car the Tong goons arrived in parked on the street. They pile in to make the trip to Chinatown. On the way, Michael Sangaree pulls out a bottle and says, "Oh god. I'm going to need to drink on the way over to fortify myself."
The characters arrive at Lin Hu Wo's Imports & Exports, a big old warehouse stacked with high piles of boxes and crates. Puddles of water are scattered on the floor. Chang Fan Yo looks at the sign over the door and exclaims, "Oh no! Uncle Ling's a gangster!" The other characters ignore him, heading to the back office, the "Chinamen" escorting the bound "captives."
There is some debate on who should go first, as one of the guys dressed like a Chinaman can't speak Chinese (Serpentine), whereas one character who can speak Chinese is dressed like a woman (Pulfrey-Downs). Kumar Singh points out that he can speak Chinese like a native, so he goes first.
The characters find an old man in the office. It quickly becomes obvious that he doesn't know anything useful, especially when he admits, "You can use office, long as you want. I pay my protection money! I owe you Tong no more money after this!" The old man goes back to his books as the characters settle in to wait for someone to show up.
Pulfrey-Downs decides to put on a show for the other characters, calling out, "Oh you dastardly Chinese men! How can you keep an innocent young Texas girl bound and captive like this!" He squirms seductively in his bonds. The other characters wince and cringe. Michael Sangaree asks if anyone has any whiskey or tequila. The others can hear the pain in his voice.
The characters wait until dawn, but nobody shows up. Serpentine and Chang Fan Yo spend their time searching the warehouse. They find only fireworks and cheap plaster Buddhas.
Convinced that their initial efforts at infiltration have come to naught, the characters start consulting their other sources. They quickly determine that there is a round-eyes (Westerner) with influence over the Black Lotus. Pulfrey-Downs listens to these reports and proclaims, "I think it's my brother!" Chang Fan Yo reacts with uproarious laughter and decides to do some more investigation. He is chagrined when his further investigation does show that the Black Lotus has a Singapore connection to some guy named Pulfrey-Downs.
The characters return to the Hyatt Regency to find that the Black Lotus Tong's agents returned in their absence. Annabelle is still there to tell the characters what happened. She says that when the second wave of Chinamen appeared, the reporter Margaret Lang advised that she should hide. She took Lang's advice, so the Tong goons took Lang instead.
The characters recognize that swift action is called for, and that it may involve violence. Arthur Michael Vincent Pulfrey-Downs takes this opportunity to offer suits of silk-steel armor to both Chang Fan Yo and Serpentine. Chang Fan Yo examines his suit, and expresses some skepticism about its effectiveness. Pulfrey-Downs launches into a sales pitch, telling Chang, "It looks like silk, but hold it up to your chest." Chang Fan Yo complies. Pulfrey-Downs swiftly draws out his revolver and shoots Chang. Bang! He boasts, "Look, barely a mark!" Chang Fan Yo tries to reinflate his lungs, croaking out, "Uuhh... Yes... barely a mark.. on the silk..." Serpentine elects to avoid a live demonstration of his suit.
The characters enter into a debate: stomp on the Tong or venture out to Texas to check on the Mole-Men. Everyone eventually agrees that Pulfrey-Downs absolutely needs to change back into men's clothing. Including the underwear. Particularly after he stomps his foot and states that he's absolutely committed to organizing an expedition to Texas to map the Secret Undergound Kingdom of the Mole-Men.
Needless to say, the decision is made to attack the Black Lotus in one of their strongholds. Pulfrey-Downs is upset that he will have to delay his Mole-Man expedition, even though this may well allow his brother to publish an article on the creatures first.
Chang Fan Yo is able to find a tenement in Chinatown where the Black Lotus operates an opium den, gambling parlor and brothel. Pulfrey-Downs heads in as a customer, accompanied by Kumar Singh. The other characters think about planning more, until Michael Sangaree pulls handguns and simply walks into the building.
Serpentine and Chang Fan Yo quickly decide to sneak in through the basement, entering through a side window. They suspect that their job will be none too hard a task if Michael Sangaree is storming the place with both guns blazing. They choose the basement because (as Serpentine puts it), "Evil always sinks down." They end up in a storage room where deceased and near-deceased patrons are stored. Chang Fan Yo steps on a broken plank, alerting two Tong members who promptly rush to the attack. Serpentine steps out from the shadows and fells one of them with a single blow, wrapping the Claws of Apepi around his neck and snapping it. Chang Fan Yo flings himself into a burst of blazing speed and punches the other until Serpentine can capture him. Their interrogation is quick and to the point: "Where did you people take the perky white woman and the white man!" The tong guard shouts out an alarm. Serpentine snaps his neck by throwing him down the stairs.
Meanwhile, Pulfrey-Downs and Kumar Singh are met at the door by a servant. An old, grandmotherly type leads them to a small room after determining that Pulfrey-Downs wishes to chase dragons, and that Kumar Singh is theoretically upset at his master's habits. Along the way, they don't see much of interest, just the Chief of Police, two Councilmen and a Cardinal. Pulfrey-Downs sings out cheerily, "Hi, Chief!" For his part, Kumar Singh maintains his monotone series of objections: "How can you do this, sir? You shouldn't be here, sir. Think of your loving wife. Think of your children."
Pulfrey-Downs and Kumar Singh have been in the smoking room for only a few minutes when they hear something outside. They fling the doors open to find the old grandmother with a half-dozen Tong members armed with Thompsons. She yells, "Don't shoot them! We want the white one alive!" as the Tong members open up on Kumar Singh. Pulfrey-Downs ducks back into the room as bullets whiz past. He finds that they're hitting him, they're just not hurting him. He muses, "How did they recognize me? Oh, right: my brother owns this place..." Kumar Singh closes on the machine-gunners, deftly avoiding all but a tiny nick from the incoming fusillade of bullets.
By now, everyone has heard the machine gun fire. Michael Sangaree heads in from the street.
Kumar Singh turns into a whirlwind of blades and murder, but only manages to down one of his opponents. He is terribly shocked. Fortunately, he recovers quickly and makes good progress against the rest of the fighters. Pulfrey-Downs covers behind the doorframe and shoots at the Tong gunmen, inflicting consistent hits but only rarely doing enough damage to actually down one. He mourns his decision to leave his Garand in the car.
The old woman runs just in time for Serpentine to show up. Pulfrey-Downs yells, "Stop her!" Serpentine rips out with the Claws of Apepi and grabs her ankle, then pulls her to the ground. "Ohh, this is just so much violence against women!" He turns to fling his chain's clawed ("business") end at the final gunman fighting Kumar Singh, ripping along the man's torso. Pulfrey-Downs shoots his guy again. Kumar ends the gunman that Serpentine attacked.
Two gunmen rush Pulfrey-Downs and beat him severely. He responds by shooting the wounded gunman again. Serpentine helps out by simply eviscerating the guy as he tries to reload. Pulfrey-Downs blazes away at the two survivors, inflicting only minimal damage. He shouts out, "I would appreciate it if you could finish these fellows, Gobey!" Kumar Singh obliges by cutting down one of them. The last guy leers up in front of Pulfrey-Downs, who reverses his now-empty Webley and knocks the guy out with a quick blow to the head. Pulfrey-Downs reloads his Webley and picks up a Thompson.
| Weapon | Acc | Damage | Str Min | Range | RoF | Capacity | Mass | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thompson | 0 | 5 L | 2 | 50 | 20 | 20 | 2.5 | 3 |
The characters turn towards interrogating their prisoner. Pulfrey-Downs announces, "I am a qualified physician, and I have a bottle of chloroform." Serpentine responds in acid tones, "Glad to know that, Jack. You might not want to use that on her until we're done with the interrogation."
Serpentine takes the lead in asking questions. Michael Sangaree arrives on the scene to comment, "But you don't speak Chinese!" Serpentine is triumphant, "Ha! But I know she speaks English!" It turns out that she doesn't know where the captive Americans are, and doesn't know where the boss is, but she does recognize Pulfrey-Downs and knows she can make a lot of money by capturing him. She knows a lot of addresses for Black Lotus houses in New York and San Francisco, and Serpentine records them all. She also tells him where the District Manager for New York is.
Serpentine then asks about Horatio Mycroft Pulfrey-Downs. She has never seen the man, but knows that he is supposed to be brilliant, ambitious, and bloodthirsty. He has a reputation as a scientist, but she doesn't know about any super-science items he's got. She does know that all the local Black Lotus Tong leaders have been ordered to give up some of their best muscle for Pulfrey-Downs' uses.
The session ends with the characters plotting further attacks against the invidious forces of the Black Lotus Tong. Each character gains three experience points.