At Your Door Session 5 & 6 – Dawn Biozyme

It’s been a busy fall….  All through October there was never more that one (or maybe two) players available on any given weekend, so we haven’t played this campaign since mid-September (At Your Door – Session 4)?! I have to admit, I’d totally forgotten what was going on and what was to happen next and didn’t have a lot of time to reread the entire campaign module… Nevertheless we forged ahead! Amanda (Dr. Sarah Berenstain), Rick (Lord Stang),  Patrick (Joey Roberts),  and Dave (Leonard Tipple) were all able to make it out the past two evenings….

WARNING: SPOILERS CONTAINED WITHIN - If ever you think you might play the Cthulhu Now adventure At Your Door, read no further! 

Saturday Afternoon – 21 July 2012

After their meeting with Det. Sgt. Joe Macklin, Agent Van Alden was called away on some other business and the rest decided to follow up on some leads involving Peter Tait’s ex-girlfriend and co-worker, Jenny Armbruster. They went by the address they had listed for her to find it had been rented out for the last couple months. They also checked out the gym where she worked out and found they hadn’t seen her either for a few months.

Next they planned to see if they could get a tour of the Dawn Biozyme facility on Monday and took Sunday off.

Monday morning Dr. Sarah Berenstain phoned up DBZ to see if they could get a tour of the facility and after being switched around a few times and sitting on hold for a while she was eventually told they could have a tour on Wednesday. With a very (VERY) successful (unskilled) persuasion roll she was able to get in Monday afternoon.

Before heading over to DBZ they checked in with Det. Sgt. Bolling to see if he had any leads on Jenny Armbruster – perhaps through the DMV? a new address?

In the afternoon they drove out to the DBZ facility and had a rather extensive tour (though they were not allowed into the P7 Lab area – for safety reasons). They also got to meet Dr. Howard Finely and asked some very pointed questions about the nature of the nature of the “Special Projects” going on in the P7 facility – including asking about the missing tentacle creature from the lab. When he denied knowing anything about any tentacle creatures, they showed him pictures they had taken of it. He explained matter-of-factly that he head no idea what they were talking about and asked where they had found the creature and who had indicated that it had come from his facility. They told them that it had come from Peter Tait. He told them that Peter Tait had never been involved in the P7 facility and was likely disgruntled after have been given notice a couple weeks back and trying to get back at DBZ with this elaborate hoax.

Afterwards they convinced their tour guide to show them the warehouses where they discovered some odd stuff. A foul-smelling, large room that had a chain-link fence within in closing over the central area that was covered with a tarpaulin… rooms full of foul-smelling carboys and drums all labeled with biohazard symbols… A locked room at the back…

They decided they must break in that night…

Without much planning or forethought they drove off a highway across the field from the rear of the facility and hid their truck among some bushes. They hoofed it across the field and went over the wall cutting the wire and disarming the alarms.

They broke into warehouse two and went directly to the locked room at the back. Within they discovered more of the tentacle creatures in the same Plexiglas containment cylinders they had see the previous one in. There was some large equipment that was determined to be some sort of large electromagnetic filed generator and a computer that operated in and seemed to be running some automated timing program.

Then the cops arrived.

Then the field generator sparked up on its own and some other automated machined kicked, lights came on in the big room, video cameras monitoring the room showed they tarpualin being rolled up exposing a large cylindrical pit.

The investigators tried to pass themselves off as researchers running an experiment and told the police to come in and shut the door as they suspected bad stuff was about to go down in the next room. Unfortunately the players with the most convincing arguments had NO PERSUASION SKILL and they were so busy trying to talk to the cops that the player WITH persuasion couldn’t get a word in edgewise… They were unconvincing.

Then some other automated deviced kicked in and Shub-Nigguarth appeared in the other room. Leonard Tipple had a heart attack, Lord Stang was terrorized and suffered a new Major Phobia (Darkness… MWA-HA-HA-Ha-Ha-ha-ha-haaaaa…). Joey Roberts was unfazed – he’d seen scarier stuff in video games. Dr. Sarah Berenstain was also unfazed. The cops, however completely lost their shit…

At this point we had to call it a night.


The following week we started "in media res"…

As things were at the beginning of Session 6; Leonard Tipple on the ground suffereing from a heart attack. Lord Stang shaken and suddenly not liking the dark any more. All the  cops shaken (except one).

We’ve started using the Adventure Deck. It just so happened that Dave was dealt a card that allowed him to immediately heal one wound – but suffer some permanent scar – so I said he pounded himself in the chest and got his heart started but was no longer incapacitated – but still suffering three wounds. Someone else had a Rally card that allowed all allies to no longer be shaken…

The Dr. Finley appeared with a whole bunch of short Asian guys (Tcho Tcho) armed with assault rifles.

I forgot to take pictures of the action. I meant to at least get a picture of when Finley bustred in with the Tcho Tcho… alas… Here’s what it all looked like at the very end:

To make a long story very short there was some resistance, but in the end everyone ended up having their hand zip-tied behind their backs with bags over their heads – then they were jabbed with a needle…

Roberts, Stang, and Tipple awoke some time later, individually, and alone in a cell of some sort. A windowless room with a concrete floor (which they were laying on) with a drain in the middle. A single bulb in the ceiling dimly lit the room. The only entry/exit was a large heavy steel door. Roberts was missing a leg, Stand was missing his left arm below the elbow and Tipple no longer had any toes…. The wounds were roughly sewed up and bandaged – soaked with blood and smelling terribly.

Dr. Sarah Berenstain woke up in the woods… naked… covered in blood and vomit… with a whole bunch of new deep horrific-looking scars…

Aaaaaaand that’s where we left it….

Hopefully Sheriff Carter Jones and Agent Van Alden will be able to return to the case next week to figure out what exactly has happened to these guys!?