Jack's London - Campaign Log - Season 2

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== Season 2: ==
Rake's version of events is told in James' Tale
=== Session 1: ===
==== Sunday 14th June 2015 ====
An invitation was sent out for people to attend court at 7pm that evening.
The court assembled, although with a new addition who ended up mostly being called Rake also showed up escorted by Paul Needles.
Mr Tweed chaired the meeting, suggesting that Rake be shown the ropes by Azrael and Apprentice.
He pointed out that the next Equinox Murder would be next week (Sunday 21st June) and that they were still no closer to catching them, although he did reitterate some of the clues so far. That the killers did not leave jack-boot prints, they did use fae-magic and that they were ritualistic, always removing the left hand.
There was a more disturbing development when he revealed that a group called Pax Anglos had made contact with the Freehold giving a vaguely welcoming letter, saying that they were aware of the operations in Seven Dials. Apprentice was volunteered.
Nobody wanted to contest the court leadership so nothing happened there.
Eventually they broke up for tea coffee and socialising, with Apprentice, Azrael and Rake asking some useful questions about Hedge Gates and the Future. Poppy offered Rake the standard deal of money, a phone and a place to stay if he would owe a small favour, but he declined.
They tried to research the term Pax Anglos. Rake was fortunately more skilled with computers than the others and looked up Pax Anglos, aside from being a minor social group that arose in the wake of the Roman departure from Britain, it was also a pub in West London.
So they planned to "Gang Rake" Rake's Fetch and piled into Apprentices Car.
Driving past the House Rake was struck by the strange double vision of his fetches point of view (He was in his bedroom) and so they attempted to get into the house. They tried the gate, but didn't have the correct key fob to open it, so going instead to the back gate, Azrael and Apprentice tried to wrench it off its hinges with the pocket-knife blade, but made slow progress. So Rake instead climbed over and opened the front gate.
Running around they opened the main gate and Rake opened the emergency key safe, letting them all into the House. However by the time they got upstairs, the Fetch had legged it out the back door and out of the Garden. He hared down the alleyway with Azrael hot on his heels and Rake shortly behind and out onto the main street, but the police arrived quickly and so Azrael reluctantly broke off the chase.
Meeting up again they decided to lay low for a while and try later in the evening (by now it was about 10pm). So they went to the Pax Anglos pub (Founded 1801 and allegedly built on the site of a Roman Tavern), where Rake noticed a greater than normal number of security cameras.
Enjoying a pint Rake noticed that the security Cameras were focused on Azrael and shortly afterwards a young professionally dressed woman called Sarah came over to them and invited them upto the function room. Which they note is quite defensible from the inside and has more security cameras. The walls are decorated with armour and weapons, the carpet thick and lush, whilst the room is dominated by a circular table and 4 individuals. A Vampire named Albert Lupus, with fangs, pale skin and wearing a neat evening suit.
He introduced himself and Pax Anglos as an organisation for supernaturals to seek mutual defence and to keep a low profile. Pointing out himself as a vampire, a pair of mages Oberon and Morgana, and a shapeshifter called Charles.
Azrael and Apprentice made their excuses saying that they couldn't decide on such matters and would need to talk to their leaders, but after some pressing they mentioned some aspects of Changeling existence and about their plan to kill Rake's Fetch.
Azrael also discovered that his interactions with his Fetch had made the news, in the Mirror which was how Pax Anglos found them.
They left planning to return and try to kill Rake's Fetch again
=== Session 2: ===
Leaving Pax Anglos, Azrael got a call, it turned out that there was some good paying work over the next day or so and that if he wanted it, he'd have to go immediately.
Poppy called and explained that John Potter was in some distress in Camden Market and that she was calling in her favour to ask Apprentice to assist. They decide that the Fetch won't take too long and that they will head upto Camden afterward.
Apprentice and Rake drive off to deal with the Fetch. This time realising that their primary mistake was allowing Rake to alert the fetch by getting too close, Apprentice went in alone, with Rake staying at the end of the alleyway ready for a phonecall that would signal the all-clear.
Apprentice clambered over the gate and examined the house, seeing that there was movement within, he decided to be patient and see what was happening. The blinds on the windows obstructed most of the view, however he could see figures moving around the kitchen and could hear a man and a woman talking. So he decided to wait until they left and meanwhile, prized the lock off the garden shed, as a place to lay low until then.
==== Monday 15th June 2015Edit ====
An hour or so later (after midnight at about aybe 01:00) the kitchen lights go off and Apprentice moves to investigate. Going up the driveway he can see a car leaving and hears the front door closing. Presumably the fetch's lady friend had left, leaving the fetch alone. Apprentice attempted to pick the back door lock, however lacking the appropriate skills he resorted to brute force and engineering, using a screwdriver to force the lock
Breaking in is fairly silent and he hears footsteps upstairs at the front of the house (likely the study), however as he moves outside the room, his foot accidentally hits a table, causing the Fetch to come out and investigate.
They come face to face and the Fetch grabbing the first thing that comes to hand, tries to hit apprentice with a laptop. Thankfully Rake was never much of a fighter before his abduction and the fetch is equally incompetent. Apprentice takes a bloody nose, but eventually manages to restrain the fetch and quickly calls in Rake. Together and after much prevaraction, Rake finishes the Fetch with garden implement namesake. Retrieving his life and feeling pangs of guilt for killing somebody so similar to his old self. The fetch crumpled to paper, thorns and wire coat hangers and a few minutes later Rake comes out wearing a suit for the first time in years.
They also drive by Camden Market at around 2am. Despite the late hour, it is still busy with club-goers and the occasional inept dealer of weed. John Potter meets them in the closed shop alleys and tells them of a gollum-like monster with a huge maw full of large sharp teeth barely dressed who he saw running around and whose appearance terrified several people. Rake finds the hedge gate that the thing left through and exploring it they find a clearing with a talking tree (called Wallace, a former grounds keeper at Kew Gardens, whose Keeper spontaniously lost interest in him on the way back to Arcadia and just planted him in the ground until he began to grow roots and slowly metamorphise into a tree.) Wallace tells them that the "chewing thing" left down one of the hedge passages and gives them directions, but they don't want to chase it without backup first.
Unable to do much more that night, they call it and go home to sleep and resolve to call Big Zach the next day.
Later that day, Rake calls in sick and goes to the hospital to visit Janey, who is doing much better and has been active and lively ever since she woke. They spend most of the day together talking, catching up and playing cards, although Rake dodges the question of why he looks so different now and promises to tell her when he's worked it out himself. He also catched up with Sharon Twiss, who is doing some extra training, hoping for a promotion and is going out with a new boyfriend.
Apprentice puts in a solid days work at the shop and keeps a firm hand on the rudder.
That evening they meet up at the Queens Head, a nice pub in Holborn (Central London) and invite Big Zach and Poppy along,
They return to Camden, drop Poppy off with Wallace in the hedge and follow the trail, emerging in a dormitory block attached to Kings College. Searching around they find one dorm room that stinks of rotting food.
The victim (James Crisp) is eventually persuaded to let them in (after Apprentice gets some food for him from Spar). Where he explains his predicament. Recently he has been feeling starved, with an insatiable hunger, which no normal food can sate. Apprentice with a keen nose for such things, notices the abandoned packets of some food a Chinese food place (actually Taiwanese) in Camden Market, which Mr Crisp explains is the only food that makes the hunger go away. Unfortunately since the physical changes he fears that his appearance would prevent him from safely reaching Camden. Apprentice and Rake promise to help him, and talk with Zach outside about it. They fear that if left alone he might turn his appetites on his fellow-students,
Apprentice calls Pax Anglos and Albert Lupus answers quickly. They describe the problem and send him a picture of the victim. Albert hazards the suggestion that it could be an Aswang, a type of Philapeno vampire, unrelated to western vampires, however Aswang are universally female and are born into their condition, making it unlikely to be the same creature. Albert suggests that they could tell more if they were able to examine James directly, and that they have specialists and holding facilities that could be of use.
Rake phones up Mr Tweed, who actually takes on a more courteous tone with Rake when Rake feeds him useful information, he also mentions the Aswang, but Tweed mentions the Legend of the Wendigo, which Rake recalls from a film, as being a curse that comes about when people become canibals in a certain way. Although this does not quite explain why James Crisp seems to be the only victim.
Big Zach tells them that he will be around if they need him, but that he needs to run some errands whilst he's here. So they head back upto Camden to look for the take-away, which is easily found. After eating a generous amount of the sold Chinese food, he concludes that it's definitly human, although they are puzzled about how to confront this problem.
Rake decides to observe the place for a few hours to see if he can see anything suspicious, but the over-crowded street makes it hard to distinguish any unusual activity. Apprentice meanwhile goes home for the night.
After a while of being unable to find anything Rake visits Poppy in the hedge who fills him in a bit more about Wallace and suggests that it might be possible to transplant him to a "safer" area of the hedge, but that it would be a huge undertaking, requiring almost all the Freehold to help.
She invites him to sit down and offers to help him relax, soon after things get intimate and they enjoy each others company. Poppy also introduces him to the joys of Opium, which he gladly accepts.
=== Session 3:Edit ===
==== Tuesday 16th June 2015Edit ====
Another day another dime, Rake and Apprentice both go to their respective jobs. Rake discovers that his other self, in addition to taking ample holidays to exotic places and sleeping around the secretarial pool, displayed questionable ethical standards in its business dealings. However his bosses were quite insistent that they needed him in the office regularly.
Apprentice discovered that whilst he left his business in capable hands, they were not particularly inspirational hands and they made slightly less in this quarter.
Azrael coming back from a couple of late nights with his "associates" who pay cash-in-hand, he spends a bit of money on fashion contact lenses to make his eyes appear green and is still dying his hair. They meet up after work in the Swan and tomato winebar in Central Holborn.
Filling Azrael in on the sitation in Camden they debate for a while the best course of action.
Eventually Albert Lupus calls them up. claiming that one of their group wishes to talk to "The Metal Man" about the Equinox Murders.
Deciding that the Vampire can wait, they move up to Camden and try to look into the Taiwanese place.
They quickly hit the problem of trying to determine what they are looking for. Since they weren't sure how the take-away was getting fresh meat.
So they looked around back, they couldn't actually find the back, but there were a set of double doors leading upstairs, the place was padlocked, but a wave of Rakes magic paperclip opened the lock, and they found a coridor filled with padlocked rooms. Rake again located the door that led to the area above the take-away and they looked inside. It appeared to be the room of a prostitute. A quick search revealed a button that would tilt the bed up and land the unfortunate customer in the freezer of the take-away below.
At that point the propriator had clearly noticed that something was wrong and came up with a woman, with a wide shark-like mouth full of rows of razor-sharp teeth and a meat cleaver.
The man shot apprentice in the chest and the woman attacked Rake first. Apprentice briefly paralyzed the man with the basalisk shield. Rake tried to throw off his attacker and Azrael grabbed the shotgun. After a brief tussle the man got the shotgun back and blew a sizable chunk out of Apprentice, The woman sank her teeth into Rake and the shotgun man was chased off by Azrael.
Leaving only the woman left, she tore into Azrael, Rake hit her on the back of the head with a lamp and she threw Azrael backwards after taking a beating herself, then fled. Rake took some of the hedge fruits that Apprentice had gathered, ate one himself and let apprentice have the others.
Unfortunately her partner had taken the time to reload and was coming back, so they baracaded the door and opened a hedge-gate into the hatch in the floor. Clambering through into the Hedge. Where Rake directed them to some Goblin fruits (of which Apprentice had some and
Coming out through the Goblin Market in Camden they appeared under a bridge on the main road. Rake tried to call for an ambulance but had a panic attack when he heard the voice on the other end. So using Rakes phone Azrael tried instead. An ambulance promptly appeared and whisked Apprentice to hospital. Azrael fled and asked Paul Needles to do him a favour and deliver him to Big Zach, who himself had access to a medical doctor who could help. Rake on the other hand went off to see Poppy, whose healing hands cleared up the rest of his injuries.
Azrael went to a GP who owed Zach a favour and had his wounds quickly patched up, although it turned out that there were a couple of spiders in the wound. Eventually after much coaxing, the wounds were stitched and cleaned up and Azrael got some fluids.
Apprentice got excellent medical care and Rakes visit with Poppy ended in opium and sex. She also mentioned that if he joined the Spring court that she could teach him to heal.
Everybody spends some time recouperating.
==== Friday 19th June 2015 (The murder happens on the 21st in two days time)Edit ====
Following the messy conflict in Camden Market, Azrael found that he had further work lined up and if he wanted to continue eating he would need to turn up.
Apprentice and Rake had gone their seperate ways as well.
Apprentice woke up in hospital and with some vigorous exchanges of opinions they agreed to let him go with a set of crutches. As he was on his way out, his family came in. His wife wanting to know why he had changed.
He tried to explain that it was complicated and offered to show her what he meant when he got home. Thankfully Susan had to work, so it was just Him Veronica and Jeremy at Veronicas house when he burnt off his glamour. Jeremy didn't seem overly concerned, but it left Veronica with a lot of questions. Including "why do you keep ending up in hospital" and "what do you mean this could put us in danger?" Eventually she said she needed some time to process this and allowed Apprentice to recouperate.
Rake meanwhile went to the office and worked, before getting a phone call from Sharon Twiss asking if Janey had a history of making things up. So he headed over to the hospital to meet them both. Sharon and Doctor Fiona Jefferies expressed concern that Janie may be halucinating as a result of residual damage from her head trauma and prolonged coma.
Talking with Janie however she seems very calm and pleased to see her dad. However she mentions a male nurse that was in her room who took her vitals before leaving when Dr Jefferies came in.
==== Saturday 20th June 2015 (The murder happens on the 21st tomorrow.) ====
He stayed until late when Albert Lupus called him and stressed that their seer wanted to talk to him and that if he could spare half an hour he could arrange a taxi to pick him up.
The black cab was driven by a young-ish black woman who seemed slightly out of it.
She told Rake that the perpetrators of the Equinox murders met in a cottage with a white picket gate in the middle of London the night before the murders and it was there that they got their instructions on who to kill. She clearly didn;t know the meaning of this information, but Rake also asked her about the unknown nurse in her daughters room. To whch she instructed him to talk to his friend about the unseen man. Whilst doing her predictions she seemed less lucid and narrowly avoided a car crash.
Back at the hospital he talked to Sharon, but just asked her if she knew an unseen man, which she said she didn't.
Talk to Tweed and the Autumn Court,
Collect Zach,
go to hedgeways.
go to the cottage,
the fight scene.
The Aftermath
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