Cailin and Jack were turned into the blue-white orbs of light traveling skyward and then reappeared in the van traveling downward, before the orbs reconstituted into the duo.

Space was at a premium next to the driver. "Stop," Jack said and the driver stopped the van. "Why don't you step out and sit on the side of the road for me." "Of course," the driver said,  opened the door, left the van, and went over to the side of the road where he sat down.

Jack slid over to the driver's seat, stood up so that the rest of you could see him out the door. And he waved you over.

Abe hustled across to the truck and tried the rear door to see if they'd be able to get in without stopping the truck to unlock it.

Unfortunately, the back door was locked. But as it was already stopped, Jack shut down the engine, got the key out of the ignition, and joined Abe in the back.

The door was soon unlocked and the door opened. Inside was a wood crate about seven feet long and another much smaller crate. Each of them maybe a foot tall and a foot wide.

Having done what she had to do - and not liking it at all - Cailin exited the truck and took a few steps away to let the others do their thing.

Still, she couldn't help but get closer, pushed by her curiosity she wanted to know what the truck was moving for so many people to be interested in whatever that was.

Caillin joined Abe and Jack at the rear of the truck where she too could see the two crates.


[OOC: If you want to check inside the crates, you need to go inside.]

Abe looked over to Cailin.  "Look, I don't like it as a thing either.  But as none of us could think of any other way to keep him from dying tonight without revealing Shadowland - which would end up with him dying anyways, I can't complain about having limited mind control as an option."

He hopped up into the truck, and to open each of the boxes, hoping to get an idea of what they were dealing with.
This message was last edited by the player at 20:08, Tue 14 Apr 2020.

Abe used a crowbar someone had left in the van to open the crates that had been nailed shut.

In the larger one, he saw four staffs in packing material. They were each a couple of inches shy of being a foot taller than he was. The end closest to him was tear-shaped and the far end was shaped like the pupil of a cat. In general, the staff was about an inch in diameter, with a few protrusions here and there, bronze-like in color, with etchings all over its surface.

He then touched one of them. Before repeating the process with the smaller crate.

In the smaller case was a strange-looking type of jewelry worn on the left hand. Half of it was a band, perhaps half an inch wide, that wrapped around your lower arm. The band was connected to a circular gold mounting with a blue gem in it with a diameter of about half the width of a palm. That mounting was connected to five rods, one for each finger. And each rod connected to a gold ring on the first section of each finger, and a cap that would cover the last section of each finger, including the fingerprint.

And Abe touched it too.

Abe picked up one of the staves from the case and gave it a spin to test its balance.  He then held its tear-shaped end back as he had seen the armored men do in his vision, being as careful of he cat's eye end of the staff as he would with a rifle barrel, and resisted the urge to fire a trial shot out into the desert.  He showed the others what he had learned from his vision.  "These are staff-rifles, but they fire energy instead of bullets.  If you're familiar with both halves, you may want to use them in the coming fight.  They have a dark history though - they're tools of war, and possibly oppression."

He picked up the piece of jewelry from the smaller case and tried to put it on.  "This, though.  This seems to be the opposite.  It exudes safety and enlightenment."  He moved his fingers in different gestures, willing something to happen, trying to get the smaller device to reveal what it did.
This message was last edited by the player at 12:36, Wed 15 Apr 2020.

After having picked up, twirled, and demonstrated how to shoot with the staff, Abe returned it to the crate and picked up the jewelry. He placed the band around his left arm, the rings around his fingers, and the cap on his fingertips.

After "using" it for about a minute, Abe was surrounded by a nearly invisible cylinder.



[OOC: As a simplification, the staff looks something like below. Protrusions not included. The parenthesis section would be more closely symbolized by a single longer parenthesis on each side to get the cat's pupil shape, but I don't have characters that look like that.]

 ()
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/  \
\__/

"Those look like the Goa'uld weapons from Stargate. The jafa or something one, you know, the one Teal'c carried around?" Cailin commented about the staves. "They made big holes too. And they weren't exactly a peaceful and benevolent empire... Theocracy? People, either." She didn't move to take one though, and turned to the case of jewelry.

"Why would someone want to move things diametrically opposed? Why would those Banshees of yours want them?" Cailin shrugged, "And while we're at it... How did they learn about those in the first place?"

There seemed to be more questions than answers. Perhaps answers would come when you faced the Banshees. Perhaps not.

You packed everything back into the van, Dean jumped into the driver's seat, and headed west.


[What do you do?]

Abe had never watched Stargate.  He had figured it was a rip-off of Star Wars and not bothered with it, so he shrugged at Cailin when she asked about it.  It was apparently a sci-fi deficiency he would have to remedy.  "So, what's this one do, exactly?"  He asked her about the more peaceful and decorative item on his hand.

Before Dean started driving, Abe took a minute and opened a portal back to Sparrow's, and asked everyone to help put any unused staves through, leaving the boxes in the truck.  Even if they failed tonight, he didn't want the weapons - or whatever the other thing was - to fall into werewolf hands.  He held on to the jewelry device,

He let Tom (or Cailin if she wanted) take the front seat with Dean, as they were the most capable of defending themselves in hand-to-hand.  He hopped in the back.  He intended to practice with the hand jewelry once Cailin explained what she could of it.  If it turned out not to be useful for combat, he would put it in his pocket until after the fight.

OOC: If Cailin was wanting the wrist thing, Abe would be happy to let her have it and hold onto a staff instead.

GM passing a message.

"I know I've seen it," Cailin said. "But I don't remember what it does. Or how to use it. Sorry."

[OOC: Do you want to play around with this on the trip, do you want to take a staff weapon, or both?]

Abe focuses his effort on the handware, but keeps a staff on hand as well in case he can't get the hand thing to be useful for the coming battle.  He tried various hand gestures, pressing the jewelry as he gestured, and willing it to do anything as he gestured as well.

Much like Abe, Dean seemed almost clueless as to the nature of the items they has found.

As the van accelerated down the road, the streetlights steadily racing by them, he craned his bulky frame around in the seat to glance back at the other passengers and their strange cargo.

It was not so long ago that he had been carefree and on another trip with Abe. Now  he seemed stark, hard and pale in the artificial street light.

Sure, he had the same basic shape, around the eyes he still looked like the Dean Abe had known. The kid dreaming of going pro in football of all things. The kid with the athletics scholarship.

But how long would that last?

"So what's the deal? You wanna find a place to stop and try this stuff out real quick?" he asked with another glance in the rear view. "Or you wanna head straight there?"

Abe considered Dean's suggestion of stopping only for a moment before nodding.  "Good idea.  Let's pull off for two minute to figure out what we can use, then get back on the road - don't want to be too far off schedule and miss the main event."

The items they had obtained might be extremely effective, but bringing them into combat without being sure how the work might just be handing them over to their enemies.

Dean did just that, and found a quiet place to pull off out of the way.

With the engine idling, he stepped out of the van, the whole thing rocking on its suspension and cast a wary look towards the sky, obviously considering the time.

That ever present, subconscious terror of being caught in the open come dawn.

He walked around and hefted one of the staves carefully and looked it over.

"Doesn't look like any kind of gun I've ever seen." he said "Good heft though...probably break a bone if you swung it hard enough.". He glanced around, cocked back and swung it baseball bat style towards an old rusting trashcan, long since abandoned in the back lot.

Abe noted Dean's concern about the sun.  "Don't stress too much about the giant hurt-ball.  If we are cutting it close, I'll be able to send you to my home just like I did the extra equipment."

When they hopped out, Abe imitated the snake-headed men he had seen in his vision, holding the staff at his waist, similar to how they did.  He practiced discipline with both his finger and the end of the staff as best he could.  When he lined up a shot on a stone a ways away, he let his trigger finger go searching for a trigger.

OOC: Forgot about the success in forming a cylinder with the hand thing.  Focusing on the staves.

Abe tested the hand thing. Manipulating the obvious controls without success and trying more outlandish control methods as he was forced to become more creative when all of his attempts to use it failed.

They pulled over to test the staff weapons.

Dean swung it like a baseball bat, but it was long and unwieldy to use in that manner. But he still hit the trashcan.

Abe test-fired it first and as he wasn't in a combat situation, the bolt of fire that shot forth from the staff just hit the rock that was about 10 yards away. And it did about as much damage as an M16, but was much less accurate. On the other hand, it seemed to shoot fire, which would give the wolves the upper hand against the vampires.

Dean bristled a bit as the thing went off, kind of an unpleasant grimace and a slight turning away, his lips just barely coming apart to show the whites of his teeth.

"Huh..." He said, either unimpressed or wary. "Well I don't think that's going to work for me." he told Abe, and then gingerly set the one he had picked up back in the crate. "Good to know though...I wonder where they came from?" he asked aloud, then rolled up the sleeve on his motocross jacket just enough to peek at his watch. "You good to go?" He asked Abe. "Or you wanna mess with this stuff a little more?"

"Nah.  Let's get a move on."  Abe replied.  He pocketed the hand device to experiment with later - he much preferred its enlightened and peaceful aura to the violent aura of the staffs.  He kept the staff in hand for now anyways.  Preferences  always take a backseat to survival.

He hopped back into the truck and closed the door, ready to ride on to their "meeting".

Dean concurred, and loaded back up into the van.

Soon they were back on the road and en route to a fateful rendezvous. For the first time in Dean's life at least, he was willingly, if under duress, heading towards the threat of violence and death.

Ever since that first night he had feared it in some way, getting pulled into this ancient struggle, and despite his best efforts it seemed that he had failed.

They were, in some ways, going to war.

The group continued to drive westward for some time when suddenly something landed on the roof. Several somethings.

In a well-coordinated move, four sets of claws cut a 2 by 1 yard square hole in the roof of the vehicle. And as the ceiling fell down, two werewolves accompanied it. And there were another two of them still on the roof.


[OOC: Your turn begins her. Whoever posts first acts first.]

Dean, with a frantic look towards the streetlight now pouring into the passenger compartment, suddenly punched the gas and took the van through a sudden shift of direction in hopes of shaking loose the two remaining attackers on the roof, and of potentially knocking ones already inside off their feet.

"Hold on!" He shouted as the engine roared and the tires squealed.

Dean Mason rolled 12 using 3d6.  Drive: Automobile (15), Knock off the roof attackers.
This message was last edited by the player at 19:53, Sat 28 Aug 2021.