(RC) Hell’s Kitchen – Ch. 10, part 2

Summary: The Cabal locates and enters the Hong Kong Aethenium and face off against a group of cannibals. The Cabal also makes a grisly discovery.

Recap:

The Cabal goes down to the Hong Kong underground. They need to get themselves into the tunnels, but cannot just jump into the tunnels because the plexiglass walls stand between them and the tunnels. They decide to get aboard a train and then Kontonshin would use her new sword (acquired from Mingly’s hidden stash aboard her junk) to cut through the plastic “wall” that covers the area between rail cars. It takes longer than they thought and several passengers call the Transit cops who rush after the cabal after they run into the tunnel. Mori’s use of the Forces Arcanum keep the Transit cops from catching up with them.

After journeying through the tunnels for over half an hour, the Cabal finds an abandoned rail line and travel down the tunnel. They see the flickers of light ahead as if someone had a fire going. They arrive at an open area – perhaps where workers stored equipment before the underground rail lines were finished. Kontonshin detects five minds within earshot and they all see the alcove leading to the entrance of the Tong’s Aethenium. Several Atlantean runes written in what looks like blood, are positioned in an arc above the entrance.

The Cabal decides to sneak in. Mori lowers the ambient light in the room while Kemosiri creates deep shadows for them to walk in. They get to the entrance of the Aethenium unnoticed, but when they try and sneak in, a mage cannibal detects their presence and warns the others. The other cannibals see them and begin closing in to attack.

The Cabal use their key to get into the Aethenium. Mori uses vulgar Prime magic to attack the cannibals, but triggers a Bedlam paradox he cannot absorb as damage and becomes Paranoid of any Cannibals. He runs into the Aethenium just as the cannibals reach the door and the Cabal closes the door.

The Aethenium is a small chamber. Inside are a few stone shelves. Aside from a few artefacts, there are 4 large scrolls as tall as a man. Kemosiri grabs them quickly and opens one of them and begins reading it with the help of the copy of the Codex. He quickly scans all four of them and comes to the conclusion that they are all parts of the Shinwa Taizen.

In the meantime, Mori finds the dark shadowy roof to be because the Matter spell made the roof clear – and the Aethenium is under Hong Kong Harbour.

Kemosiri begins to get a feeling that there are more pieces of the Shinwa Taizen across the hall where the cannibals came from. Mori won’t go back out to face the cannibals – his fear and paranoia are still operating. Tenzin stays with Mori while the others decide to back Kemosiri up in trying to retrieve the other scrolls. They devise a plan to use a Ghost Gate to exit the Aethenium and then open a second gate, incapacitate the cannibals and then retrieve the scrolls.
Kemosiri opens the first ghost gate and the rest follow. They exit the Aethenium and watch from Twilight as the cannibals futilely try and enter the room they were just in. They also see the cannibal mage follow them out. When Kemosiri opens the second gate, the cannibal mage directs his minions at the gate as it opens. Kemosiri, Kontonshin and Mingly jump out of the gate and combat ensues.

In one fell swoop, Kontonshin dispatches the cannibal mage with vulgar magic, while the others engage. Mingly, despite an Armor spell, is overwhelmed by two cannibals and viciously stabbed in the stomach repeatedly. Kontonshin tries to help her but is blocked by another cannibal who tries grappling and biting her. She slices him open with her sword and dispatches the cannibal repeatedly stabbing Mingly. The other one is now engorging himself on Mingly’s bloody entrails which are beginning to spew out of the cavernous opening in her stomach. Kontonshin lets loose another volley of strikes with her sword and dispatches the blood covered cannibal. Kontonshin calls to Tenzin through the Ghost Gate to get out of the Aethenium and help her with Mingly.

Meanwhile, Kemosiri uses his Rotting Flesh spell to injure two of the cannibals. The sight of flesh, sinew and muscle melting off bone disgusts him, but he continues to cast the spell at them. A paradox occurs causing the entire area around him to merge with Twilight. Everything in the area now exists in both the Material World and in Twilight. Mori sees this and begins to fear for his life as he is still under the influence of the Paradox he had created. He begins to cast spells to weaken the integrity of the Aethenium roof. Still, it is too late for the cannibals as the last of them is felled by Kemosiri’s Rotting Flesh spells. They are still alive, but incapacitated.
Tenzin runs from the Aethenium to find Mingly barely alive. He stablizes her and uses magic to heal her a bit. She remains unconscious, but alive.

Kemosiri goes into the room to find the two new scrolls. What he finds are two scrolls made of the flesh of the torsos of two dead people. Appalled, Kemosiri uses Death Magic to find out how they died, and when. To his dismay, he gets a complete picture of how they died (6 successes on the die roll). Six months previous the two unfortunate souls, one man and one woman, were kidnapped and taken to the cannibal’s sanctum. After spending an extended period underground, the cannibal mage used Life magic to keep the victims alive and conscious so they could witness every last excruciating moment of their lives. First, they boiled them alive (to remove impurities). Then, the cannibals performed a ritual wherein they tore their limbs from their sockets (drawn and quartered) and then cauderized the stumps to prevent more bleeding. Then, the victims watched as the cannibals devoured their limbs while the cannibal mage used a heated sharpened blade to scrape the flesh and sinew off their torsos down to their muscle. As a final indignity, even while the victims were begging to be put out of their misery, they watched while the cannibals began devouring their torso – starting with their genitals which the cannibals declared to be sacred jewels. Then, the victims were decapitated using a blunt axe – all the while feeling the agonizing pain each indignity offered.

Kontonshin arrives in the chamber and sees the inhuman scrolls. She asks Kemosiri how they died. Kemosiri, still in shock at what he was seeing, tells her. Kontonshin goes white and then red with absolute rage at what the cannibals had done. She exits the room and before anyone can stop her, mutilates the still living bodies of the cannibals killing them outright (loss of one Morality point with no degeneration). She is covered in gore and blood after the ordeal and is rasping heavily. She almost slips on the slick blood soaked concrete surface and mutters to herself that they deserved it. Kemosiri cannot figure out how to transport six large scrolls to the surface as well as carry Mingly and the other artefacts. Kontonshin uses her Life magic to enhance the strength of everyone there and they begin the trek to the surface of Hong Kong.

Next: Hell's Kitchen, part 3

(RC) Hell's Kitchen - Ch. 10, part 1

Summary: The Cabal travels to Hong Kong to find more pieces of the Shinwa Taizen and become embroiled in an open war between a fractured Consilium and the Seers of the Throne.

Recap:

The Cabal arrives in Hong Kong. Kemosiri is taking no chances. He leaves the original scroll of the Shinwa Taizen and the Codex in Kyoto and instead brings copies of the Codex with him. The Cabal make their way to a bank located in Kowloon, the purported headquarters of the Tong of the Sixth Dragon, a Hong Kong cabal Ms. Ogawa was told might be able to help the Cabal. They are to meet Hok Wo Sung.

When they arrive at the bank, they find it boarded up and abandoned. The entire bank was firebombed and destroyed. No members of the Tong are nearby. The Cabal spots a lone motorcyclist on the street. Kemosiri and Mori pass through an opening in the wooden security wall surrounding the bank. The other two stay on guard outside.

Kemosiri looks into Twilight and uses Mage Sight to find out what happened.

While they are investigating, a biker gang flanked by 2 Hummers appears outside. The lone motorcyclist disappears and the biker gang begins to drive up and down the block.

Suddenly two Hummers crash through the wood walls and two mages get out and begin tossing vulgar magic at the Cabal. The Cabal fights back, but between the mages and the Sleepwalker bikers, they are hopelessly outnumbered. Then, a Spirit Road door into Shadow opens, and the motorcyclist appears beckoning those into the door. They run into the local Shadow and travel for a while before exiting in another part of Hong Kong.

The girl introduces herself as Mingly Sui. She is a young member of a local cabal called the Five Thunders. Their cabal is part of a triumvirate of Cabals facing off against the Seers of the Throne who have gotten very aggressive in the past few months. She takes them to a small apartment – a safehouse she calls it. She will take them to her junk at Aberdeen where her stuff actually is. The Players try to get her to tell her what is going on, she says she will do what they want, but they need to find the Aethenium. The person who can tell them, a mage named Moolie (the last member of the Tong of the Sixth Dragon) had been kidnapped a few days earlier by a criminal group known as the Shay Ling.

After getting supplies at Mingly’s junk, the Cabal travel back to the Chungking Mansions located in Kowloon to visit Moolie’s last known hiding place. They find a few things they could use to find the Aethenium in his apartment. Mingly warns them that another local cabal had fragments of some old scroll and had to be put down like rabid dogs when they turned to infernalism and cannibalism.

Using Sympathetic Magic and a hidden key they find in Moolie’s place, the Cabal locates the Aethenium – it is underground near some subway tunnels. They also see humans feasting on what looks like other humans in front of the entrance.

Next: Hell's Kitchen, part 2