Arc 13: The Denver Swarm

## Session 1 (2/26/2022)

* It’s Saturday, September 1st, 1pm; 2 weeks after arriving home after the Tony mission
* What the group’s been up to
	+ Ian’s been waiting on info on his targets, been spending his time sniping bandits on the inn’s highway sign
		- A black-tailed hawk with an absurdly large wingspan and a white spot on its back drops an envelope onto his scope
		- Once opened, a letter very similar to the first he received from Hauptman, requires blood and burning
		- Ian goes out into the woods and drops some of his blood on the paper before burning it, summoning Hauptmen
		- Hauptmen tells Ian’ he has another job for him: 2 of his targets are in Denver
			* Gale Glover and Lindsey Brewer, both infiltrator cyborgs, have embedded themselves into Denver’s resistance group
				+ Gale (going by John Smith) is stationed at the Fort St. Vrain Nuclear Plant with a contingent of resistance, head of security
				+ Lindsey (going by Jane Smith) is with the Unity battalion at HI assembly plant, in charge of the groups supplies
			* No intel on who they’re working for, likely not just themselves
		- Thomas Boyle and Rob Heart are the only leads on who has any pull in Denver
		- The resistance has commandeered the nuclear plants
		- There’s been monster attacks in the streets, word of people drained of blood and their corpses left to rot
		- Hauptman tells him there’s a dead drop filled with ghost steel and ghost steel armaments about 20 miles southwest of Denver
		- He gives Ian the contracts and asks him to burn their blood on it so they can be assured the contracts are fulfilled
		- Hauptman disappears into the wind after that
	+ Addie’s been trying to figure out wedding stuff
		- River left sometime around 5 am, hasn’t been seen around, neither has Mac
		- Ian finds Addie in the kitchen, tells her he has word about a couple of his targets in Denver and asks if she wants to come with
		- Very soon after, Simon shows up at the door, and tells Addie he has some news on Denver
			* He got a call from Vickers, sent through mentally: Vickers is stuck at the agency office in Denver, along with two agents that need rescuing, and Simon could sense in his fear he was being hunted
			* Simon’s got reports from Vickers that people were going missing in Denver, with the Unity scrambling to deal with it, almost like their own Boise Horror
			* The Unity has been fighting a resource war, squabbling with other factions but that appears unrelated
			* As far as Simon knows, surrounding communities are still under Unity control, roads are still cleared for commerce
			* At Ian’s comment that the resistance has been compromised, Simon mentions that may mean his intel is inaccurate
			* Simon asks Addie if she wants a battalion of trainees to take into Denver, used to get their feet wet
				+ Addie tells him she’s used to her team and would rather work with a smaller group, but to keep the battalion on call a ways outside the city
			* Simon heads back to Boise to hold down the fort, but not before Addie confirms he’s coming to the wedding
			* Adie goes to gather the team
	+ We come into focus on one of the roads leading into Sumpter from the West, 2 people in a blue jeep with a loud engine
		- Anya has a mask that covers his face, save for one eye, and Anaazi looks almost like an orc
		- Anya pays no mind to the fluttering coming from the engine, that is, until the gas pedal slams itself down, accelerating the car out of control
		- Anya slams the brakes, just able to pull it over to the side of the road
		- Anya’s partner, Anaazi, loses their makeup compact in the near-crash, and Anya digs around for it while Anaazi takes a look at the engine
		- Mac pulls up with River, asking if they’re okay
			* Mac offers to take a look at the jeep
			* River hops out of the truck, telling the two she and Mac don’t mean any harm, they live around here and don’t care for visitors
		- At River’s questioning, Anya and Anaazi mention they were going to Junkyard, Anaazi wanted to stay in a motel
		- At Mac’s assessment, the jeep needs a replacement part, he offers to replace it at his shop, and tows the jeep back near the inn
	+ Out in the woods near the inn, Joel’s practicing his Toxic Shaman abilities with Red
		- Addie had asked Red to teach Joel, wanted him out for the wedding anyway
		- He has Joel practicing bolts
		- Noni drops in (literally) to tell him there’s a team meeting
	+ Choc’s been working on getting running water through the town
		- Found city plans in city hall’s archives
		- Been working on getting the water to pump out of the reservoir and build a water tower soon
* Before the group meets up, Addie talks to Anne privately
	+ Addie asks Anne’s opinion on the situation; she says she we should let the place burn
		- Addie tells her if they let the problems fester in Denver, it won’t leave them alone, which Anne reluctantly agrees
		- She tells Addie she has an idea on what the monster might be
			* She’d led a Combine scavenging trip to the Agency building in Denver, and it became a slaughter
			* Something there was angry and liked blood, killed a lot of her people before she could get the data and escape
			* According to the Agency’s files, they kept a lot of things on ice, one of which was a mist fiend: feeds on fear and blood, had to congeal it into a corner to and contain it
			* Anne says flamethrowers help in dealing with it
			* The creature has to have a focus, a skull locked deep in storage
			* Also in the files, a blessed agent used faith power to corner and help capture it, exorcism would be best use to deal with this thing if the time is there
			* They likely kept it around to keep people from poking into agency files after it fell
			* It had been appeased before, with the occasional wanderer and the fear in Denver, but the reorganization of the city had left it hungry
* Team meeting
	+ Mac starts making snacks as everyone, save Richard because he’s choosing to be late for magic science reasons, piles in
	+ Addie asks River where she’s been, she says she was trying to look for a present for Addie, Addie mentions she doesn’t want presents
		- Choc pipes pu that the thing he’s doing for River will be done soon, and River snaps at him for cluing Addie in
	+ Anya and Anaazi are introduced to Addie
		- Addie casts confession on Anya to make sure he’s not a spy
	+ Ian tells the group all he knows about their targets and the attacks
	+ At Addie’s questioning if River had any ties inside the resistance, she mentions she knew their leader, John Conner, since he helped her escape Denver
	+ Anne lets slip that River’s her daughter, and at prodding of her knowledge of Denver by Ian, Anne reveals her identity
		- Ian does not take that well, and takes it a *little* worse when Addie admits she knew from the start
	+ Anne mentions the Plattville nuclear plant was heavily fortified with anti-aircraft missiles and false walls hiding more missiles
	+ Anne mentions she could help ID the infiltrators, might have the same ID on their cyborg AI chips, within 100 feet
	+ After a bit of conversation, the initial plan is to split the party into two groups, Anne included due to her experience and knowledge in Denver
		- Those going through the main entrance on an old Unity-extended invitation and publicly to deal with the monster attack, to make entering easier and draw attention away from those that would be recognized (mostly Ian)
			* Addie, Choc, Na-way, River, Joel
		- And those sneaking in from another way, to remain less conspicuous as we move in
			* Ian, Noni, Anne

## Session 2 (3/5/2022)

* 3 days of driving later, on Tuesday, September 4th, early afternoon
	+ Noni links everyone up on a mindlink on the way into Denver
	+ Flying far above is a Union raptor with 100 Vanguard recruits and a Templar vet, ready to move if called in
* We move in on one of the towns around Denver
	+ In the middle of the plaza is an innocuous looking office building
		- Surrounding it, abandoned Unity vehicles and bodies littering the ground alongside signs of fighting
		- The bodies are mostly picked clean of flesh
			* Ian recalls that when vampiric creatures are very hungry, they tend to be less discriminant with their food and tear into flesh too
		- A few bodies in cars still have the flesh on their bones, but have swollen faces and black liquid leaking out of their orifices: their insides have been liquified
			* Upon investigating them, one tries to go for Ian’s gun before he quick draws on the undead and brains them
			* Addie dispatches the rest in the car by stabbing her sword through the doors
	+ Screaming starts coming from the office building
		- Addie hears Vicker’s voice in her head, like a prerecorded message: “Simon, if you can fucking hear me you piece of trash, send someone. I’m dying.”
		- Addie uses protection on herself and River before charging into the building, led by the vague link to Vicker’s location
		- Anne says she’ll stay back, and Noni remains to watch her
* The group, sin Noni and Anne, head into the building, Levy summoning up light to help guide them
	+ Blood, organs, and other fun fluids cover the floors
	+ Levy and Ian catch an ominous feminine voice singing, almost something like a nursery tune
	+ As the group moves through a particularly entrail-flooded room, Na-way moves ahead and finds roach-like bugs crowding over a corpse
		- Na-way grabs a fist full of bugs, and devours them
			* A second after, he notices sweat on his skin and a roiling in his stomach, and Na-way vomits up blood and takes a wound
		- Addie asks Na-way if he’s okay, walking up to him, then finds herself sneezing up blood as she starts to feel faint and a strong migraine
		- Addie pulls Na-way back as the bugs start to swarm them, casting environmental protection on the group
	+ Combat begins
		- Levy, Addie, River, and Na-way manage to crush a bunch of the insects
		- A voice, the same Levy and Ian heard earlier, says: “No one told me we had guests. Children, meet our guests show them our way.”
		- The insects turn to ash and reform into humanoid figures with hundreds of bugs forming the body, standing two heads taller than Addie
		- The group holds off an assault by these creatures, barely, as no matter how many times the creatures go down, they get back up
		- Levy turns invisible and finds the source of the woman’s voice, catching her by surprise and taking her out
		- With their apparent leader gone, the rest of the swarm goes berserk and starts recklessly attacking
		- The bug soldiers are put down, and don’t get up this time
		- During this time, River, after taking an attack from one of the roach soldiers, went to find Vickers
			* She finds him and is just able to use her healing to stabilize him, calling for Addie to mend him completely, which she does
	+ With combat over, Levy examines one of the bugs
		- It’s made of metal, with some sort of magic energy radiating off it
		- At the movement of the one, the rest try to congregate to it
		- Seem to have some sort of hive mind, as taking out their leader made them go berserk
		- Levy is able to use her metal manipulation to start shifting some of the bugs
		- She suddenly hears a voice in her head: “Immortal gnat snaps the lord of locusts”, and the sound almost pops her eardrums
		- The entity drops its grip on her, and she has control of a sort of ferrofluid
		- Levy hears Na-way starting to crush the remaining bugs and scrambles to get more samples
	+ Back to Vickers
		- Addie walks in on River pressing her hand to a wound on Vickers’ neck
		- Addie’s able to heal the wounds, but Vickers appears to have aged almost 20 years
		- Vickers says they don’t have much time, and proceeds to tell them what he found out:
			* According to the Agency archives, Nazi scientists from WWII had been frozen in the basement by the government before Throckmorton thawed them out
			* They’d created something over a century ago, the first nano-bots that became called the Swarm
			* They were used to make deadlands, creatures that could consume all matter and existed to kill more and more
			* The Unity had come here to clean up the mess with the mist fiend, and got slaughtered when they made contact with the Swarm
			* Two people in the Resistance stabbed them in the back
				+ One was the person Levy killed (Gale)
			* He found a litanty that Blessed had used before to incapacitate the Swarm, can be used by Templars
		- Levy says a gun spirit is controlling the Swarm, and wonders if they’re working for the horsemen
	+ Addie picks Vickers up and leads the group back down to the ground floor
		- Vickers tells her his Agency contacts, Harley and Hank, could be in danger
		- He also restates something Anne said: the mist fiend’s anchor is a skull in the Agency basement
			* He believes the mist fiend and Swarm are working together in some way
* The group rests a few miles away from the building, planning their next move

## Session 3 (3/12/2022)

* A few hours into our rest after rescuing Vickers, we hear an announcement from John Conner, leader of the resistance: All HI factories have been overrun, Unity forces are routed, everyone in the city needs to head to the nuclear plant with their weapons
* Agreeing it’s definitely a trap, the group heads out toward the nuclear plant to find out what’s going on
	+ On the way, Vickers mentions that last he checked, the Swarm was taking on HI factories, and must have taken it over
	+ The Swarm had definitely taken over the HI hospital, center of the cyborg program
	+ Anne mentions Toussaint would have had to shut down the AI through its actual main power source: under Saint Vrain, not the decoy in HI building
* The weather starts changing on the trip: winds picking up and clouds swirling—likely a hellstorm
* Team Front Door travels on the main road, following vehicle traffic toward the power plant
	+ As we’re caught in a backup, a siren approaches, and we notice what appears to be a water tower collapsed on the road
	+ A woman appears to be trapped under it
		- Once approached, things seem off: the water tower’s positioning with where it’d have to fall, the woman has black eyes, looks like she’s half under a sewer grate
		- With knowledge of undead in Deadlands, Addie goes to stab the apparently deceased woman, and she grabs the sword as it comes down, screaming as the blade burns her
		- The ground shakes, and a massive ball of undead, the woman at the top, bursts from the ground
		- The water tower melts into ectoplasm
		- Anne, getting the mental image, mentions it’s a glom: a mass of corpses formed from all the bodies dumped in Denver’s sewers
			* It should have a main brain at the center
	+ Two people in bright red full body armor come out, telling the civilians to take cover
		- Steel knights, the resistance’s robo-hunters
	+ The group fights the massive creature, distracting it from civilians
		- Na-way gets the final blow, jumping into the middle of the creature’s mass, tearing into the red, greasy skull of an old man in the middle, and ripping it out
		- The mass of bodies collapses, and drips into the sewer
			* Choc dumps ethanol into the sewer grate and lights it on fire
* Addie asks the Steel Knights about Denver’s situation
	+ One says there’s been attacks every day, the Swarm took out radio towers and power systems
	+ Conner is planning to take Denver’s people to Junkyard, Denver is lost
	+ Even if the swarm has the factories to manufacture nukes, the Knight mentions even the AI couldn’t get the assembly lines to work
* Vickers says he has a theory: the mist fiend was fused with the Swarm, and getting the fiend’s skull would help us take this thing out
	+ The group head’s back to the Agency building, to the basement
	+ There’s a room covered in magic runes written in blood
		- River mentions they’re signs of protection, lights up if a dead person’s around, meant to ward off evil but it’s been tainted, power diverted elsewhere
* Through the back of the room is a door that leads to what looks like a hallway hospital

## Session 4 (3/19/2022)

* We resume on the group making their way through the apparent hospital hallway deep underground
	+ There’s empty wheelchairs all around, splats of blood on the wall, smell of blood sweat and feces
	+ This is the reeducation center of Denver
* Addie leads the group in her armor, giving everyone speed and environmental protection
	+ As Addie steps on a bit of floor, it melts into liquid metal, and she’s barely able to backpedal before the Swarm in its fluid metal form is upon her
	+ Vickers is able to read the litany and force the Swarm to recoil
	+ Levy uses the opportunity to manipulate the Swarm’s metal, and separates the shell from the electronics, deactivating them
		- She uses the metal goo to form a statue of herself
* We hear a feminine scream from deeper into the building, and head toward it
	+ At the end of one hall, the ground once again gives way beneath Addie, and she can’t get out of the way
		- Joel catches her by the armor, barely, screaming, perhaps shitting himself
			* Addie is able to grab a hold of the ledge and pull herself out
		- Addie starts breaking a way through the walls past the pit
	+ Meanwhile, Ian recognizes there are two screams, and goes toward the feminine one
		- He and Levy find a woman in an old, torn hospital gown trying to hide from a massive bug
		- Levy punches the bug and squashes it
		- The woman said she doesn’t know where she is or what time it is, she’d just gone to sleep and woke up and giant bugs were killing those sleeping around her
		- Ian guesses she’s an escaped slave captured for reeducation
			* Red hats would bring people here for fun, people would come in and never come out
		- Ian tries to calm her down, puts down his weapon and slides her an MRE
		- It’s then as she goes to grab it that her hand dislocates at the wrist, and she fires a grenade at him
			* It’s Lindsey
		- The grenade goes off in the room, with Ian and Levy barely able to get into cover
	+ During this, Addie barrels toward the center room, unaware of what’s going on
		- She finds a young man screaming inside one of the waiting rooms, one she recognizes from Templar training
			* He’s being swarmed by the nanites and bleeding heavily
			* Addie asks River and Vickers to read the litany, which stuns the swarm into a sand-like substance
		- Addie heals the Templar, picks him up, and takes him out of the room
		- It’s then that the explosion happens and she runs back toward Ian
	+ Ian’s yelling “BORG” loudly, swearing at Lindsey as she goes invisible and grapples him
		- He’s able to throw her off, but she seems relatively unfazed
		- As the others approach, she sinks into the ground, the nanites making a sort of swirling sand pit
		- A few men step out of doorways while others run down the hall
			* The group is able to take care of them
			* Addie breaks a hole in the ground and tells Ian and Levy to go after Lindsey
	+ Seeing things going south, Lindsey yells for her people to retreat to Saint Vrain
		- Ian follows their retreat, pursuing Lindsey and shooting her bike so she crashes
		- He finds her caught up in the bike’s flames, the nanites melting and shifting
		- He sees her skull at the center of it, shoots it to pieces, and it finally stops moving
	+ In the basement, after stopping in their pursuit of Lindsey, Choc and Levy look around
		- Choc finds a skull effigy covered in metal on a spike, in the cyborg creation machine
			* The metal reveals itself as nanites that swarm Choc, which he burns with spook juice flames
		- Choc uses his spirit catcher on the skull, confirming its identity as belonging to the mist fiend
			* Levy greatly disapproves -50
	+ Addie speaks to the Templar
		- He says his group got ambushed, his partner’s dead
		- Lindsey had them captured for 24 hours, held as bait, things were soon going to start popping off at the nuclear plant
		- Swarm needs a host to make contact with the mainframe at the power plant, and Lindsey and Gale are hosts
		- Cyborg works best as a host, the spirit acts as the AI and manitou at the same time
	+ With Ian’s info, it’s determined the skull, the brain within the cyborgs is their human form, their weak point and anchor
		- Lidsey’s was destroyed, but Gale’s wasn’t there
		- The one we thought was Gale wasn’t likely Gale at all
* The group decides to quickly head to the nuclear plant

## Session 5 (3/26/2022)

* A large storm thunders above the group, a scream of pain echoing in the skies as lightning flashes and bloody rain falls down
* Levy notices a wall of black tailing us: millions of Swarm insects
	+ The controls on our vehicles go haywire
	+ Levy plants her leg down on the gas pedal, detached it, climbs up on the roof of Ian’s monster truck, finger guns at the Swarm and uses her metal manipulation to turn part of the massive group into a metal wall
	+ Joel uses his web powers to toss a barrier behind us, sticking some of the creatures to the buildings and themselves
	+ Addie has trouble keeping control of her bike on the slick roads
		- River attempts to help her drive, trying to help steer the handlebars but completely botches, and sends both her and Addie careening over the guardrail on the highway exit
		- Joel is just able to use his web to catch Addie’s leg as she goes over, and Addie grabs River, both dangling over the edge
		- Addie tosses River back up over the side, a little too strongly, and she lands poorly on her neck
		- Addie climbs back up with some help from Anne, healing River’s injury
	+ Levy holds the Swarm back long enough for the rest of the group to get back in their vehicles and speed off
* Heading into Saint Vrain
	+ Anne directs the group toward the Swarm’s likely target: the AI center in the commissary
	+ John Conner radios the group as we head into the fray, and Levy fills him in on what we know of the Swarm
		- John curses at the mention of Gale and Lindsey, as they were his lieutenants
		- He asks us to help keep the heat off his group while they fire back at the Swarm
	+ Addie contacts the Vanguard under her command, headed by a veteran Templar named Rat
		- She tells him to move the soldiers in, to a specified path given by John
	+ Anne sneaks up on and violently kills an enemy, revealed to be a Hartman soldier
		- Addie refuses to give Anne access to her cyborg weapon systems, but lets Noni give her a couple guns
		- Anne heads out to take some pressure off the resistance fighters
		- Anya comes in the with Vanguard, and runs into Anne while attempting to find the group
			* He asks if she’s okay, she yells at him to get his head down before he dies, and drags him off by the scruff of his jacket as a Hartman soldier shoots a grenade at them
			* Anne enters a building the Resistance is holding out in, dragging Anya with her
			* Fuck I started this summary 2 months ago and never finished it; my bad
			* Anya sees a surprised soldier inside, and asks him if he needs to sit down
				+ The man is so surprised he doesn’t even shoot him
				+ Anne takes the opportunity to shoot his brains out, gray-red blood splattering
	+ Meanwhile Addie deals with another soldier shooting the group from the alley
		- Addie uses her shield to advance on his position, while Joel takes shots at the man
		- Joel uses Smoker’s Cough, which forces the man into a heavy coughing fit and he falls from his window to the ground
		- His face is covered in a gas mask
			* These were the same people who we fought at the Damocles bunker, and the ones that had chased Noni when she was alone
			* Without the mask, he looks like the husk of a man, has circuits running through him, on the back of his neck is an H surrounded by spiderwebs
		- After Addie sends a mental image to the group, Anne replies that they’re soldiers from Reinhardt Industries
			* Levy knows they were a competitor of Pentacorp
			* Anne tells the group RI was a steel milling company that supposedly died on Jday, on their way to bankrupcy
			* Reinhardt had tried to work with the Combine, but they’d gotten into a creative dispute on headbanger chips, and the man went to do his own thing
			* They specialized in cyborgs
			* These guys don’t seem to have wired reflexes, do have premium eyewear though, don’t have mouths
		- Addie ties up the soldier to interrogate later
* Just as the Resistance started to group up
	+ A sound like nails on a chalkboard screeches through everyone’s palmcorders, and the Swarm speaks: “Say goodbye to your dead gods, children of Adam.”
	+ Massive amounts of Swarm nanobots fly up and form into a massive bot in the form of a humanoid insect
	+ Addie gets on her armor and Choc aims his canon at the creature as combat starts
		- Choc gains a fear of flying creatures
* Combat
	+ Choc fires his cannon and hits an invisible wall surrounding the creature
	+ As Addie and Levy approach the creature, Levy uses her metal magic to form a syringe, and injects Addie with a serum that grows her to the Swarm’s size: 12, several hundred feet tall
		- Joel, Levy, and River get hoisted up on her shoulder
	+ Choc shoots a piercing blast at the massive bot, which breaks through its shield and rattles it, but doesn’t harm it
	+ The Swarm sends groups of nanobots toward Addie, gnawing at her armor, taking off her helm and chest plate
	+ Addie stumbles, straightens back up, and slashes the wings off the creature, slices through its waist, and slams her sword through its head as it falls
	+ The Swarm screeches and starts to fall apart, a skeleton appearing amongst the nanobots
	+ Addie catches the skeleton, runes on its bones, and Joel gets down the runes as River asks him too
	+ River reads the litany, and the skeleton starts screaming, writhing in agony, and starts burning, turning to goo
	+ The roach soldiers that had been marching fall into metal dust
* The aftermath
	+ With the help of River’s dispelling magic, Addie returns to normal size quickly
	+ Choc notices lights going into the air: spirits exiting the nanobot remains
	+ The Resistance meets up with the group
		- Addie heals Resistance fighters
		- John tells the group they’d executed Mengele when they’d found out about his experiments, and the cyborg hospital was his lab
		- Anne says the secondary copy of his experiments would be in the AI’s core, John asks who she is, she goes stiff, says it was a pleasure, and runs off
		- Levy and Choc agree to help rebuild the city
		- Levy mentions she wants the knowledge about the Swarm and its tech brought to the Librarians, Addie fights her on the request, preferring Menegle’s experiments and any knowledge tied to them buried
			* Addie is outvoted, and demands to be assured of the Libraries security
		- Jorgan, head of the Steel Knights gives us a brief on the status of our allies: the Vanguard are safe, save for a couple injuries, Resistance and remaining Unity are regrouping
	+ The group decides to stay in Denver for a while to clean up the city and restabilize it

### Text RP

* Addie gives a tale tellin' speech that lowers Denver's fear level to 1 over time