The session started with a flashback, since the character of Cecily was a week behind everyone else. The cops asked her to come in for questioning, put her in a room where she sat looking at the (presumably) one-way mirror for about half an hour, and then the officer opened the door and politely said, "You're free to go. Sorry. Apparently it was all a misunderstanding." She returned to tanning and cramming and when asked if she did anything occult, or tactically significant over hte week, she said no. 

GM: D'you talk to Ben Franklin?
CECILY'S PLAYER: No reason to.
GM: Letting ol' Quaker Oats rest in peace, huh? (Flips through the cards of spells I made up.) What about this one?
CECILY'S PLAYER: So... it makes a magic device that protects you from spirits? Good idea.

To cast that spell, she needed to spend a whole day crawling towards the sun, not deviating from her path and not harming any living thing. She failed an Endurance roll while doing it, so I said she got a point of Shock on each leg.

CECILY'S PLAYER: I'm taking a point to the torso too. Crawling all day has to be killer on your lower back.

With Cecily brought back to the present through the magic of metagaming, Leo and Tracy went home. Tracy was in a terribly foul mood, and they decided to sleep elsewhere since the two dudes with magic guns had been there just that afternoon. Who did Tracy call? Why, his spiritual mentor Reverend Wright, natch. He and Leo both went there to spend the night, and the Rev told Leo that if he wanted to talk, that was fine, and if he just wanted to sleep he'd understand that too. Leo went down to get in on the discussion about how mutants were subjected to particular demonic temptation, and that while their powers might seem positive, use would always turn out badly. Leo feebly dissented, and then they all went to bed.

I was then very particular about exactly where the pen went (for good reasons). Seth flew it home and put it in his gun safe.

GM: Seth has a gun?
SETH'S PLAYER: Sure, why not?
GM: I guess I just figured that the guy who can punch through walls wouldn't see much use for one.
SETH'S PLAYER: He was issued one. Probably likes to go target shooting every now and then.

He also took it with him when the phone rang in 1:30 AM and the governor asked him to go to Dayton immediately. In the background of last session, the news had been spouting about a "toxin spill" in Dayton requiring some evacuation, and then Special Agent Schantz had alluded to it once or twice. Seth rounded up the gang and headed out. Only without Leo.

Leo, when awakened, went to talk to Tracy about riding out to Dayton.

TRACY: You've got to be kidding.
LEO: This is widespread panic, Uncle Tracy. Innocent people running, hurt... this is where you're really needed.
TRACY: I can't, and I wouldn't if I could.
LEO: I think you'll regret it.
TRACY: Don't go.
LEO: (pause) Okay.

Before the big fight started, I paused the action and told the players that, no shit, I was going to let the dice fall where they lay this time and that there was a real chance their characters could get killed or permanently crippled.

LEO'S PLAYER: Okay. Leo's Alter is in pretty bad shape right now anyhow.
CECILY'S PLAYER: I don't like Cecily that much. She's a bitch!
SETH'S PLAYER: Seth's going to have to start killing a lot more people if he's going to retain my interest.

Luckily, Leo's player knows a lot about Ohio and was able to tell me there are essentially three egress points from Dayton.

GM: Wow, I couldn't have planned that better if I'd planned it!

The cops and national guardsmen they talked to on their way in didn't know much other than chaos, fires, radios going wiggy, no contact from Vast. (Remember him? The guy from Columbus?)

They flew in to the tallest building (of four, apparently) and saw fires in one direction, heard gunshots in another, and saw a stampede of people towards a bridge in the third. They opted for the stampede and set Cecily on the ground while Seth and Bolt realized that there was a sniper atop a nearby building firing at the crowd. Seth flew, Bolt teleported, and the shooter was a SWAT cop. He shot Bolt in the face at point-blank range before Seth got the rifle away from him.

SWAT COP: I had to do it. I had to. The voice... it wouldn't leave me alone. It told me I had to do it.
SETH: Oh crap.

Even with Bolt's considerable armor, he got knocked out and had to spend a Willpower point to wake up. I, sweetheart GM that I am, decided that he'd recover half Shock from that since 'combat was over'. Cecily saw Vast on the bridge, trying to move forward through the surging masses without clobbering them. Seth and Bolt spotted another SWAT shooter, which Seth flew after while Bolt checked out a roiling mass of darkness that was heading down the street towards the bridge.

CECILY'S PLAYER: I'm going to use Mark of the Wild to race through the crowd.
GM: Nothing happens.
CECILY'S PLAYER: Wait, nothing happens or there's no response?
GM: No response.
CECILY'S PLAYER: What about the Blade of Justice?
GM: No reply.
CECILY'S PLAYER: What about Ben Franklin?
BEN: Cecily, you should get out of here. Thou art in great danger!
CECILY: Where are my spirits?
BEN: Exiled from you.
CECILY'S PLAYER: What about the gadget with the one answer to a question in it? Do I still have that?
GM: Yup.

While Cecily reassessed her assets, Seth took care of SWAT Cop #2, who was shooting inaccurately because of the tears streaming down his face. When Seth wrenched the gun out of his hands, he said, "Oh thank you. I didn't want to do it but the voice, the voice..." Seth grabbed the guy's radio and heard that various police officers had "turned" or "gone whacko".

Bolt cast Magic Missile on the darkness. Wait, I mean Lightning Bolt. Wait... well, you know what I mean. It briefly illuminated a figure inside the cloud, human shaped, about twenty feet tall, but moving... strangely.

BOLT'S PLAYER: I'm warming up to Rend the Skies.
GM: Check. Seth, as you're flying up to get perspective, you hear a voice in your ear saying, "Kill them. Kill them all." It sounds like the most reasonable suggestion you've ever heard in your life. It just makes sense.
SETH'S PLAYER: Willpower point.
GM: Check. Cecily, you now see the black thing and Vast is wading towards it, hammer in hand.
BOLT's PLAYER: I can still yell, right?
GM: Yep.
BOLT: Stay back big guy! I got this one!
CECILY'S PLAYER: Do I know any spells that would deal with this? Exile Ex Materia?
GM: Only works on astral spirits. This thing is solid as a wall. You'll need an exorcism for it.
SETH'S PLAYER: "The power of Christ compels you! The power of Christ compels you!" (This got mild chuckles.)
CECILY'S PLAYER: Then I use the one answer gadget and ask it for a spell that'll get rid of it.
GM: (Pause.) Yeah, okay. If you pay the XP for it, I'll let you learn it instantly. The Aspect of Infinite Circumference appears and... well it doesn't exactly speak, but you just know that it's ready to give you an answer. (Flipping through the spell cards again.) It knows a spell that could get rid of the dark one, but not the other one.
CECILY'S PLAYER: Is that big thing fighting Vast the dark one?
GM: The dark mass of chains surrounded by a dark cloud? Good guess. It's seven XP for that spell.
CECILY'S PLAYER: I've got five.
GM: Five XP and two Willpower then. (Hands over the card with the spell on it.) Check out what you have to do to cast it.
CECILY'S PLAYER: (Reads) "The caster strikes herself on the chest and shouts 'The power of Christ compels you! The power of Christ compels you!' if an Invoker, or 'By Baal and Beelzebub, to hell returneth! Obey the names of thy masters' if a Conjurer. Note that Christian faith is not necessary, only the words and gestures." Oh, like organized religion!
GM: Next round. The thing in the dark gestures at Cecily and a chain shoots out of its hand, flying at her. Vast yells "Deafen yourself!"
SETH'S PLAYER: I'm going to block that chain. In fact, I'm going to use Multiact and try to grab hold of it and take control of it.
BOLT'S PLAYER: Staying on target...
CECILY: Ben, I need you to keep me from hearing anything.
BEN FRANKLIN: Oh I wish that I was in the land of cotton, old times there are not forgotten look AWAYYYY...
CECILY: The power of Christ compels you! The power of Christ compels you!
GM: Roll 'em.

Cecily got her spell off and Seth blocked the chain. It wound around him, but he broke free, seized it and... it turned to smoke in his hands. The next round Cecily cast the spell again, while the first spell rolled its pool to go off.

GM: It folds in on itself and disappears.
CECILY'S PLAYER: What?
GM: It's gone.
CECILY'S PLAYER: Did I do that?

Bolt, having lost his original target, looked around to try to find the thing that had been whispering commands in everyone's ears -- presumably "the other one" that her spell couldn't affect. Now that thing had Invisibility 10, but he rolled an x10 set on his Sight pool.

GM: There's lots of smoke around from all the fires, so you see a shape displacing it, moving through the mist.

Next round, he bolted the crap out of it and it too went poof.

With the two critters gone, Seth flew up to get the lay of the land and was surprised to see Dr. Eden Majors looking extremely nervous and peering out from the top of a tall building.

EDEN: Do you have any idea what's going on?
SETH: I was going to ask you. What are you doing here?
EDEN: As a licensed enchanter, I'm obligated to assist in occult emergencies. Eisenerbrecht's here, and he can see them.

Getting directions from her, Seth flew off after Eisenerbrecht while Cecily invoked her healing spirit to help her doctor Bolt's shot-up face. Eisenerbrecht was skulking down the street holding what could only be described as "a wizard's staff" complete with elaborate carvings.

EISENERBRECHT: Oh thank heaven you're here!
SETH: Eden said you can see them?
EISENERBRECHT: The spirits? Yes. There are a few of them just around that corner.
SETH: I'll go over the top...
EISENERBRECHT: Take me with you!
GM: Flying up over the building with Eisenerbrecht in your arms, you see a lone figure walking down the street wearing an orange prison jumpsuit.
SETH'S PLAYER: Oh crap.
EISENERBRECHT: Oh thank goodness! It's okay, he's a friend!

Dubious, Seth set down and got a pleasant smile from Dr. August Park. Remember him? 'Gandalf Lecter'?

DR. PARK: Oh good, you're here... Seth, correct?
SETH: This is a surprise.
DR. PARK: I should imagine so. I got a pardon from the President, no less. The ink's still wet.

Reconnoitering with Eisenerbrecht, and after Park spoke with one of his familiars, it appeared that the city was clear of spirits.

SETH: That's it? Those two did all that?
GM: Think how much trouble you could cause if you were invisible, could fly, and people did whatever you told them if you told them four or five times. Not hard to go to the fire stations, the police stations, the power plants...

The only other events of significance that night were (1) Eden giving Seth a very intent warning about Park, saying that he was dangerous, that Seth should never go anywhere alone with him, and that she suspected he'd engineered the events of the night only to get out of jail. Then (2) while Seth was giving Park a flyover, Park started talking in a strange foreign tongue.

SETH: What gives?
PARK: Oh, I was just giving directions to one of my spirits.
GM: Roll Brains+Sense Motive
SETH'S PLAYER: I got nothin'.

Everyone traveled home for a good night's rest, and I announced that, barring surprises, the rest of the session would cover a fast-forwarded week without big fights. Seth and Bolt got medical attention (always problematical when you've got Heavy Armor) -- Seth from the doctor who treated Cecily, and Bolt got some under-the-table craniofacial surgery from a nameless doctor, in a plastic surgery spa, as arranged by a gentleman who described himself as the "Make Governor Look Good Guy."

MYSTERY DOCTOR: ...so now we're all square, right?
MAKE GOVERNOR LOOK GOOD GUY: Yeah, no worries, it's all good, the Gov loves you. He just can't show it. You know what he's like.

The doctor explained that he'd have to take Bolt's mask off to work on his face, but that "given the degree of trauma, I probably wouldn't recognize you anyway after the swelling goes down." He made inquiries about Bolt's powers and, hearing that he shot lightning, nodded and got out an ankle cuff with a trailing wire.

BOLT: You're going to ground me?
DOCTOR: Exactly. A colleague of mine was in a similar situation, the patient's body interpreted the surgery as an attack and... well, my friend wound up with fan burns through his lungs. He had both hands in at the time. What a mess!

Cecily and Seth took off to Memphis to get away and discuss the mystery pen/notebook. They discovered that neither of them could damage the pen, and decided to consult Ben Franklin.

BEN: It looks like a pen.
SETH: Great. That's the best you've got? No wonder you were never president.
BEN: Hey, who's on the hundred and who got stuck with the fifty? I'll mention this: Though geography in the spirit world is difficult to explain, I believe I saw a spirit close to you during the donnybrook in Dayton. It seemed to be a blonde woman with her lips stitched shut. Not a spirit with which I'm familiar.
CECILY: (Rolls) Doesn't ring any bells.
SETH: How can we figure out how this pen can be alive and also be the notebook.
BEN: Well, what experts can you consult? Who's interested in the book?
SETH: Letter From Prague.
CECILY: Dr. Majors and Dr. Eisenerbrecht.
SETH: That woman who was with the Mime. And that giant golden mantis.
CECILY: Don't forget Special Agent Wiener-boy.
BEN: Is there anyone on that list you'd trust to examine the object?
SETH: Not really.
CECILY: Dr. Majors more than anyone else.

Ben faded out. Then events took an NC-17 turn.

CECILY: Wanna pull over and have sex?
SETH: Are you sure that's a good idea?
CECILY: What would Elvis do.
SETH: Oh, you had to bring the King into it...

I hadn't really planned for it to be that kind of game.

GM: Okay, this is going to sound... it's relevant though. Are you going out in the woods, backseat...?
SETH: Backseat, teenage-style.
GM: Where is the pen while you're doing it?
(Various jokes were made.)
CECILY: I'll be holding it in my hand.
GM: Okay. Suddenly there's a third person in the backseat with you. He opens the door and starts running.
SETH'S PLAYER: I fly after him.
CECILY: Pull your pants up!

Despite his head start, the guy (who dropped a rifle behind him as he ran) was easily run to ground. He stopped in the woods with the notebook suspended over a puddle.

GUY: Look, let me go and I'll give you the damn notebook. Otherwise, I trash it.

Seth him him, but pulled his punch. The guy got it on the arm and jammed the open notebook into the puddle soiling and tearing it.

GUY: Ouch! You going to beat me to death too?
SETH: You're an agent of a foreign power.
GUY: Blah blah blah, I was hired to... look can we just talk? Without you hitting me?
CECILY: (Running up and panting) So talk.
GUY: First off, I want his word that he's not going to hit me and he'll let me go.
SETH: If you tell us everything, I'll let you go unhurt.
GUY: (Rubbing his arm) Little late for that. Okay. I'm a mutant, I can turn into inanimate objects, all right? I was hired to steal the notebook.
SETH: By A Letter From Prague?
GUY: Exactly right. I turned into a paper clip, got dropped in the safety deposit room after the notebook got put back, turned human when no one was looking, got the book, went paperclip again and he picked me up the next day. Then he wanted an easy way to get it out of the country to Europe, so I held it and turned into the Bic. You took it from him and I've been stuck with you waiting for the right moment.
CECILY: You pervert!
GUY: What?
CECILY: You waited until I had my shirt off to resume human shape!
GUY: Don't flatter yourself. I figured he wasn't going to get much more distracted.

Seth asked for his name, and was told some name, which the guy had on a credit card, and he took off towards the rest stop, muttering under his breath.

CECILY: Highway rest stations. They were the bath-houses of the nineties, you know.
SETH: Is this still any good?
CECILY: (Looking at the sodden, torn book.) Possibly. Probably.
SETH: I'm going to give it to you. You can burn it or work on it or whatever, but if anyone asks, we never recovered it.

Lucien (Bolt's alter-ego) just told people he'd been in Dayton when everything went crazy, caught a steel-toed boot to the face. He also found out that (1) there was footage of Bolt whaling on the 13-year-old playing on TV, (2) there was a big 'Is Surge Alive?' controversy in California, with Alexander Sobieski shooting his mouth off on the radio ("Surge IS alive! Thanks to him, they caught my liver disease at an early stage! If he's not around, it's because we don't DESERVE him!") and (3) the detectives Kwok and Putney had been asking Lucien's brother a whole lot of questions.

Leo spent the week turning Tracy's home into a fortress and re-rezzing the Alter with Willpower. He also ran into a sleazy reporter who wanted to interview Tracy (and Leo) about Leo's powers. Leo 'no commented' the hell out of him, and when he spoke to Tracy it turned out that the reporter (whose name was Vincent Fontaine) had been tipped off by Anjelica, who promised more to come unless Tracy woke up her husband. Tracy wanted it kept on the DL, even if Seth could make a harassment charge stick.

TRACY: Leo, it's my problem, it's not on you, it's... I'll deal with it. This is my thing.

As if Leo didn't have enough problems, he got a call from his old college pal telling him that Swanda (Leo's #1 fan) had been hit off her bicycle by a truck and got both her legs broke. Leo gave her a consolation call and they briefly discussed her upcoming Spring Break.

Cecily got a ride from Leo out into the wilderness in the middle of nowhere, where she got naked and invoked the Blade of Justice again. This time, it was less tractable, and only agreed to serve her for a month if she would, in turn, perform a service for it. She also successfully called some random spirit from the wild, and we agreed that I'd work that up for the next session. (Anyone out there have good ideas? Just anything that would be thematic for the woods, or her, or Leo...)

On the drive back, they got into a conversation about Leo and Anjelica and, when she found out that Leo wasn't doing anything, she let him have it with both barrels. It was a lengthy argument in which she briefly recommended going to the hospital and stepping on the comatose husband's IV tube to send a message to Anjelica. She castigated him up one side and down the other about indecisiveness, weakness, looking for excuses to do nothing...

CECILY'S PLAYER: How far back to town at this point, anyhow?
LEO'S PLAYER: Probably forty minutes.
CECILY'S PLAYER: Maybe I'll just shut up now.

Leo's phone rang, and it was his agent, who maybe had a one-time job for him up near his old school. Quick job, good money, as long as the Alter isn't harmed by radiation. Leo was enthusiastic.

Getting home, Leo found Tracy sitting at the kitchen table, staring at the sixth beer of a pack as if he was trying to work up his spirits to peel it off the plastic holder.

LEO: ...Uncle Tracy? (Looking at the five empties.) That's a lot of beer.
TRACY: Yeah.
LEO: Is something wrong?
TRACY: Yeah.
LEO: Did you use your power?
TRACY: (Laughs.) No.
LEO: Did you try?
TRACY: I told someone I tried.
LEO: Oh... oh no...
TRACY: What was I supposed to do? I went to the hospital, I put my hands on him, acted like I was doing it and then told her it didn't work, that it was better with injuries than sickness.
LEO: You could have made a real try?
TRACY: And let her win?
LEO: If you're serious about your Christianity, you should forgive her, rise above it and help her husband.
TRACY: Unless my powers are from the devil and will always, ALWAYS ruin everything they touch. I didn't want to lie, but what else could I do? Let her tell everyone? I'd never get a moment's peace! I had to find a way to shut her up.
LEO: I think you're going to regret this.