Burning Footsteps: Origins (Promethean)

Oh hey, didn't see you there.

No, seriously, I got nothing clever to open these with. But yeah, we've got a Promethean session for you all.

So let's get to it.

The group goes through the notebook they pulled out of the bust station locker, and they find a code of some sort. In particular, unusual characters in the corners of several pages. Taking a single gap between pages as a space and two as a line return, they wrote down the letters and figured out that it was a rough substitution cipher. Which would be tricky, or at least tedious, except that Jack has the "Translator's Eye" power[0] which let him easily translate the message:

The chamber of the rebirth has been prepared

Upon entering the machine it shall release the energies that cause the transition to a mortal state

To do so before the time is right can cause great destruction and chaos

Rudolf begins making plans to repair and rebuild the capsule. Meanwhile, Steve pretends to be a student working on a project about WWII and starts making phone calls to track down the old couple who were the parents of at least one of the soldiers from which he was constructed. He manages to make an arrangement to speak to Paul Kirby a little later in the day. 

They head back to the campsite so Rudolf can get to work and Steve can change into some clean clothes.

Jack starts doing some research on the Cult of the Neverborn Shadow.[1] Apparently they've been making their way down the coast to Florida and afterwards moved west along the southern border. The group has a pattern of building up among disenfranchised youth in one area, and then at some point it falls into infighting and breaks up. Sometimes it reaches a point to where someone is ritually sacrificed to become a physical avatar known as "The Orphan," a particular phrasing that Jack has heard before. "The Orphan" is supposed to be a leader of the cult, but any particular manifestation of the group never seems to last long after the sacrifice is performed and the Orphan is chosen.

And in case it needs to be said, the group was indeed known to be active in and around New Orleans around the time of Jack's death and rebirth. I probably don't need to explain the significance.

He can't just let that rest, though. While Steve and Rudolf are dealing with their own personal agendas, Jack dresses up in the most 'goth' clothes he can find and starts slumming around one of the worse high schools in Waco to try and get recruited for the cult. It takes him all day, but he gets a tip on a nightclub where he should turn up that night if he's interested. He also gets a glimpse of someone who appears to be watching the school, but he can't place them.

Meanwhile, elsewhere, Rudolf finishes repairing the capsule and is even able to figure out a couple of functions on it. In particular, he thinks it might be possible to use it to restore a Promethean to humanity under the right circumstances. It could also potentially infuse the essence of one of the bodily humors into someone inside. He decides to give it a test run, putting some of his own fluids into it and putting one of the staked vampires in the chamber. He turns it on, but something starts to go horribly wrong and while he's able to hit the abort button in time before things go completely off the rails and cause a Firestorm, the machine does burn the vampire to ash.[2]

While all this is going on, Steve is interviewing Paul Kirby (who is quite the old man). Paul talks about his son Grant, who went off to war in '41 and never came home. But he wrote letters to his family constantly, though towards the end he was apparently being sent out for some sort of classified mission just before he died. Paul also talks about his wife, who has Alzheimer's and never really accepted Grant's death. Paul had carefully timed the interview so she'd be napping during his talk to Steve to keep her from being stressed by the visitor. Apparently she'll often insist that Grant is still alive.[3] Once the interview wraps up, on his way out of the house Steve can't help but look back up at the house to see Mrs. Kirby, Grant's mother, silently looking at him out an upstairs window.[4]

Steve then heads back to the campsite, arriving just as Rudolf dusted the vampire with the machine. They have a bit of a chat about whether or not they should keep the other two vampires or just get rid of them. But they decide to hit the 'most goth club in town' to see if they can find a vampire upon whom they can pawn off their captives.

Rudolf feeds some of his pseudo-blood to one of them, enough to keep him from looking all dried out. And then they head all out to the club... which, conveniently, is the same one that Jack had just arrived at to track down the cult.

And that's about where I left off. I can't remember and it's not in my notes, but I might have intentionally left off right there to increase the odds that I'd have more of the group there next time -- which worked out, actually, as the next session had/will have[5] the entire group for the first time in a couple of sessions.

Anyhow, see you then!

[0]-- I'd actually forgotten that he had this, but fortunately I had a printed version of the passage that I could hand over (intended for if they'd use Intelligence rolls to solve it).

[1]-- Admittedly, if I had it to do over again, I'd have come up with a name that didn't use the word 'Cult,' because that's what I officially labeled it. But, again, as I've pointed out before, as tempting as it is I'm resisting the urge to retcon these sorts of details.

[2]-- This winds up being a Milestone for Rudolf: "Face the consequences of a hasty action."

[3]-- In case it needs to be said, this was one of Steve's Milestones. "Connect with the mortal family of his 'former' life."

[4]-- Just sort of getting more into the details of game-running, this scene was pretty short and light on details. As important as this scene was, we all agreed that I didn't need to draw this out any more than necessary. No need to bum everyone out by taking it farther than necessary to get the feel of the scene across (and the implication of a score consisting of quiet piano pieces).

[5]-- Tenses get awkward when I'm rewriting old posts for the modern day.