Once again, we are blessed with perfect attendance. Because Bruce is hosting, the others are relatively willing to listen to him prattle on about how overworked he is. Chuck simply sits back and exults upon the fact that his work environment continues to get better every day. Chris reflects upon the strange similarities between many state employees and exploding monkeys. Mike nods his head in mute agreement, remembering the many times he has had to clean exploding monkey entrails off his shirt before attending an important meeting. Paul just looks disconsolate. Tim shows up late and points out to everyone else that he's running the game, so he can't possibly be late.
Emile "Le Messager" Bonhomme spends 3 experience to buy SMG 1. Jacques "Le Troll" Griveau spends 3 Base Will to increase his HyperBody to 4d and 3 experience to buy MG 1. Jean-Pierre Foretnoire retires from the Resistance, owing to the fact that he is now shy an arm.
Jacques Levy, Mike's sensory Talent and also a member of the One Arm Club, remains active for the time being to act as a spotter for the characters' captured 88mm Flak 42.
The characters get a supply drop from the English. Most of the contents are fairly mundane, but they do include a diving mask and two oxygen tanks for Le Apparition. The French Talent is quite pleased, as this will both make him look like a total mutant and allow him to stay insubstantial for much, much longer.
The Stalker makes another records run on the Gestapo headquarters. He comes away with a list of the Uberkrauts heading into the area. He doesn't get detailed descriptions of their powers, but he does get their fighting names:
Some of these make the characters a bit nervous, particularly Soother. The Alchemist suggests that Holder probably can fly and use super-strength, but only if he's holding his crotch. Nobody believes him, even with some of the goofy Uberkraut powers they've seen so far.
The empty places at the dinner table remind the characters that many of their compatriots are still rotting in a Gestapo prison. The restaurateur Maurice Vilde, the society wife Jeanne Verney and the criminal Leon are all gone, killed by the Gestapo. Five more remain imprisoned: Loren "Liar" Longwillow, Marelle Lechance, Pepe "Sewer Rat" Le Main, Jean LeClerk, and Marcel-Marie Loussaint. The task of rescuing them is complicated by the fact that the other characters don't actually know where they are held.
Of course, the characters aren't the only people the Gestapo are holding. Some of their other prisoners include:
The characters send out the Stalker again to grab records from the Gestapo headquarters. He manages to learn several interesting things about the prison camp. The most crucial piece of information is the location: some distance outside St. Lo, in a converted farm compound. There are three main buildings. One of them is the cellblock proper, and has been respectably fortified. The second was once the farmhouse, and has been converted into a barracks for the guards and other staff. The third building was once a barn and very appropriately has been turned into an administration building. The Germans have put a radio tower up on the roof.
A perimeter wall of chain link fencing topped with concertina wire surrounds the entire compound. Two wooden guard towers, each topped with a machine gun nest, stand at the Northwest and Southeast corners.
In addition to the more mundane Heer guards and a generous supply of guard dogs, the staff includes three Uberkrauts. One of them is extremely strong. Another looks like he is made out of metal. And nobody seems to know what the third Talent can do, but wild speculation is that he either has 800 Will or the Zed power.
The characters' initial plan is very simple: attack during a lightning storm. The hope is that the dogs will be less effective in bad weather. The first target will be the radio antenna, followed by the tower and perimeter guards. The assault team will be composed of five separate groups, each with a split-minute timetable and a detailed target list.
Hobert "Le Engine" Grunner listens to the planning session with a pained look up on his heavy features. He protests, "No! Wait! This plan is too complicated. One of us will drive in through the gate with a truck. One of us who is invulnerable, like me! Then Alchemist and Saucy Jack take out a guard tower and everyone else storms in with guns blazing." Saucy Jack tells him, "This sounds like a terrible plan. I think we'll all be killed."
From the back of the room, an unfamiliar voice asks, "What's your Talent?" An equally unfamiliar but strangely disturbing voice responds, "I can suck the chrome off a trailer hitch."
The new plan is much simpler. Team #1 consists of Alchemist and Saucy Jack. They hit the guards in the Northwest tower first. If nobody notices, they will proceed around the perimeter and hit the guards in the Southeast tower. Team #2 consists of almost everyone else, riding in a truck. Henri Villon drives, with Ralph Lundgren next to him manning an MG42. Charles Moulin the Hypersniper, Le Engine, Le Troll and Stalker are in the back with several others. Stalker is equipped with his new breather helmet. When the tower guards have been suppressed, or when the alarm is raised, they use the truck to crash through the South gate. Team #3 is stationed under cover some distance back from the gate. It includes the one-armed Jacques Levy and Emile "Le Messager" Bonhomme and a pair of panzerfausts. They have the panzerfausts pre-aimed at the barracks, clean through the Southeast gate. They have a truck nearby for quick getaways, should that become necessary.
The weather is bad. The sky is crying. Team #1 moves on the Northwest tower. Saucy Jack takes apart the machine gunner soundlessly, but his head flies from the tower down to the ground where one of the dogs starts chewing on it. The Alchemist kills the other tower guard by turning him into salt. Saucy Jack really starts to enjoy this sort of thing, right up until he sees the dog with the head. He responds by taking out the guard who had been leading the guard. The dog runs off underneath a truck.
Saucy Jack sneaks around to the Southeast tower. The Alchemist follows. They get around to the tower and suddenly realize that there is a Talent inside. He realizes that there are Talents sneaking up on him. Saucy Jack attempts to rip him apart. He spends 14 Will to kill him, and gets three back for winning. Congratulations all around, even though it is becoming quite obvious that Saucy Jack will be one of those tragic postwar stories. The Alchemist ends this chapter by changing one of the tower supports into sodium. The tower falls.
The truck crashes through the gate and pulls up in the compound. Ralph Lundgren mans the MG42 and blasts pieces out of one of the guards. Right on cue, Jacques Levy blows a hole in the side of the barracks with his panzerfaust. And Le Apparition becomes insubstantial and runs out into the center of the scene in a diving helmet. Le Troll steps out of the truck with his large bag of stolen manhole covers (Sewer Rat was originally his source for black-market manhole covers) and a mean expression on his face. And fighting breaks out all over. Jacques Taureau clomps a dog on the head. Saucy Jack shoots a Heer trooper in the leg. And Le Troll hurls a manhole cover through the wall of the administration barn.
A moment later, Stalker teleports to the top of the Northwest tower and appears behind the MG42. He sweeps hundreds of bullets across the courtyard like a broom, wreaking havoc upon the guards. More guards go down. Hobert Grunner machineguns down a soldier cowering in the Admin building. He takes a couple of bullets in return, but ignores them as inconsequential. Le Apparition phases into the barracks drops a grenade, only later discovering that the ground floor is empty. There are obviously some guys in the second floor - he can hear them reflexively shooting at nothing.
Le Troll puts one grenade in through the hole in the wall of the administration barn. Hobert Grunner puts in another one. They explode, eliminating all resistance from the four soldiers inside. Le Apparition and Jacques Taureau throw grenades into the Barracks second floor, clearing it except for one Uberkraut who is clearly made of sterner stuff. The Uberkraut tumbles out of the second floor into the courtyard, dressed only in the tatters of his clothing. Stalker opens up on him with an MG42. Bullets spatter off him, which makes things very exciting for Taureau, who is standing right next to him. One of his legs is broken, one of his arms is crippled. He tries to surrender, but Stalker cannot hear his protestations. Someone else captures him.
We take the place. And free the prisoners. And learn that the Germans were able to control the Talents basically because none of the captives had a power that could hurt the metal-skinned Uberkraut. Plus they had the Zed just in case. Captured documents suggest that the Germans did encounter one Talent who could set things on fire; they couldn't figure out how to contain him, so they just executed him.
The characters make the prisoners they don't know wear blindfolds on the way to the safe house. The captured Uberkraut gets not only a blindfold but chains and a lot of careful scrutiny from Le Troll and Le Engine. On the drive, the characters test out Peter Tancy's powers on him. The Uberkraut furrows his brown in annoyance and asks the characters to, "Take that damned limey Tancy away."
Ralph Lundgren comments, "Are you aware that we just managed to capture a second truck, without losing ours in the process?" The characters reflect upon how they really need a bottle of champagne to celebrate, and wish that they'd remembered to bring one.
The characters swiftly determine that all of the prisoners have different opinions on who might be a German spy:
| ACCUSER | Allen Pendrake | Mark Callahan | Peter Tancy | Deirdre Labaste | Georges Teuieou | Johan Crauqui |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Allen Pendrake | X | X | ||||
| Mark Callahan | X | X | X | |||
| Peter Tancy | X | X | X | |||
| Deirdre Labaste | X | X | ||||
| Georges Teuieou | X | X | X | X | X | |
| Johan Crauqui | X | X |
Deirdre Labaste is a fourteen-year-old French girl with Hyperskills in Brawling and Torture (linked to Brawling, because when she sees German she goes for eyes). She appears to have had quite a hard upbringing, and has been in prison for quite a while.
Georges Teuieou is completely motivated by greed. The characters shoot him in the head, in spite of the fact that he is the one prisoner who is the most like the characters. Georges is the only prisoner who doesn't know how to torture people, because he has never been tortured.
Johan Crauqui the Algerian soldier was captured at the beginning of the war. Understanding that the Germans were likely to simply shoot him, he managed to convince them that he knows something and is holding out on them. They've shuffled him from prison to prison, exposing him to a tremendous array of torture and interrogation tactics along the way.
Saucy Jack talks to the two British guys to verify that they're really British. They both know who the Queen is and can name several noted cabaret singers. The only problem is that one of them is an Arsenal fan. Saucy Jack thinks about telling the others that the fellow is a mole, but decides not to. Peter Tancy causes the characters some significant concern by demanding that they return him to his family in Lyon. The characters' conclusion is that if they do, he will be picked up again very rapidly. He knows too much about the characters' operations already, so they can't allow that to happen.
The characters send the captured Uberkraut to the English. Allen Pendrake, Mark Callahan and Peter Tancy go with him. Deirdre Labaste sticks around with the characters, who suspect they can find a use for her. Jacques Taureau gets the job of watching her, mindful of the fact that she has 4hd in Brawling and 4hd in Torture (but only against Germans). After all the torture he has been through, Johan Crauqui is something of a shell of a man, but he still wants the Germans out of France. He also wants the French out of Algeria, but he's willing to set some priorities. And he has a lot of useful skills, including firearms and torture. Bruce picks him up as a character.
Some time after the characters send Peter Tancy off to the English, Police Inspector Mayer does a background check on him. It takes him very little effort to determine that Tancy doesn't have a family in Lyon and that the import-export company he claims to work for has never heard of him. The characters swiftly conclude that he is actually a German mole. The characters don't tell him that they know, but Mayer gives the pilot taking him back to England a note saying, "We think this man is a spy. Work him."
The characters gain the standard experience awards of one experience point for everyone and one point of Base Will for the Talents, with another experience point and Base Will point per player to give to the most deserving character(s). As a side note, Mike informs us that he will be out from 8/30 to 9/11. He will be in Mexico City, learning about international marketing. We offer him the best of luck, and urge him to avoid taking cabs. :-)