Added 1/10/04

Bara’s Interview with the Vampire

Bara is "called" by the vampire, Rebecca Maxwell, to a building downtown where she is offered the chance to join her. However, Bara having decided long ago to destroy her for the frustration, humiliation, and dishonor she caused (not to mention the mental rape of Alexi, Midian performed at her behest) has none of it. Disregarding the army (including Narek) arrayed in front of Rebecca, Bara bravely and stupidly (overconfident) tells her without fear that her continued existence on this world is a blight and that she has harmed Dan with her lies of love for no heartless shadow of a living thing could hope to understand that emotion.

After quite a bit of debating during which Bara is surprisingly logical and unemotional in her hatred, Rebecca sends away her troops and asks her to "bring it" in not those words, failing to bait her with other means. Bara declines and leaves, returning shortly after with the gas tank of an SUV. Trailing gasoline into the building, she forces open the door Rebecca retreated into, and hurls the gas tank inside, igniting it. However, Rebecca is standing back and has an assault rifle.

In a deadly fight where Bara unknowingly leaps over a minefield, she kills Rebecca with her flaming attacks and decapitates the flaming husk with the assault rifle butt. Carrying the skull, she buries it on a hilltop under the sunlight. Later, she tells Dan, "By the way, I killed your girlfriend." But, not in those words.

However, the paranoia and distrust the looming threat of Rebecca and manipulation of her friends has caused continues to grow like a cancer in her brain.

Assembling Allies

Thinking back to people Master Hawkins had mentioned, Dan goes to see Julius Renault (actor would be Ian Holm if this were a movie) in the suburbs. He is a man so nervous his speech is half broken and most of it is talking to himself. He invites Dan in and feels the middle of his forehead, seeming to be re-assured. "Is it safe? Is it safe?"

Dan tries to get him to agree to break out Hawkins from Mri Granka, but this is a guy who doesn’t seem to have left his house in perhaps months. Julius Renault speaks of a subversive movement in the Aura Community, of people who have been "turned." He also has something to say about Christopher Channard and his School for Gifted Children in London. Renault eventually agrees to help Dan.

Battle Creek Trial

The national news is awash with word of the Battle Creek Police Massacre. Before Ravenna took out the power station, she waded through the police station, slashing with claws and decapitating with her teeth. It is being said there is a tape showing a man with a criminal record performing these crimes with a homemade weapon, though the tape has not been shown. Realizing this man was framed, Dan heads to court. Though he is intent on rescuing Master Hawkins from Mri Granka.

This is a city caught the fervor of a big national trial. Dan meets with prosecutor Fielding about the trial under the pretense of being there on the night it happened (a witness). He also meets with the defending lawyer, Simon Hershey. Afterwards, Dan notices another aura user in the "trial crowd," follows, and confronts him. This man is Zachary Lockenfelt, kind of a hippie. From Chicago, he came here because he sensed something amiss. After Dan meets with him, he is threatened by a man named Vincent Bellock to stay out of this.

At the trial, the tape is shown, and Dan manages to see through it. There is a psychic imprint on it covering up the real image of Ravenna. This being unheard Dan tries to see if he can cancel it out and let the courtroom see the image using his telepathy in his biggest Stunt yet. However, someone in the courtroom is blocking him, and a psychic struggle ensues! With all his effort, Dan manages to succeed, and the true horror is brought to light. Dan sees the back of a trenchcoat-wearing man leave the courtroom in a hurry.

Infiltration of Mri Granka

Dan makes repeated attempts to rescue Master Hawkins. He asks to Zod Randal and Julius Renault to spy on Mri Granka for a time, and then wait for him while he goes the rest of the way. I don’t know what else happened because Scott ran the session where Dan got inside.

However, bad things happened.

Afterwards Dan becomes more and more distant until eventually the character vanishes from the game entirely.

The Iron Fist Tournament: February 1997

Reimi J’hana has initiated the Variable Geo tournament in Japan. The announcement for the KOF ’97 has been made. But a more traditional tournament is starting in France, hosted by Heihachi Mishima, and Roy receives a call from Bayman (fellow Special Forces guy) about there being something "up" with the Iron Fist tourney so the party meets up with him to investigate it.

Onizuka

In the week before the Iron Fist, Alexi and Mamoru Kusanagi (no relation to Kyo?) investigate suspicious persons entering a building in a rather bad neighborhood of Paris (cause Kusanagi has a bad feeling about it). Bullying security into believing they belong, they sneak into the lab, where they a spy three Japanese men: a young crafty scientist with rectangular glasses, a man with spiky hair and a leather jacket bearing the character Oni, and a dark-skinned white-haired man in a high-collared purple longcoat rimmed with black feathers (not to mention makeup from The Crow). They seem to be running some kind of synchronization experiment with six machines containing what look like human babies.

Of course wanting to intervene, the players are forced to deal with Onizuka who seems to be nigh invulnerable. Being ill-equipped to deal with him, they flee, but Onizuka pursues until he is hit by a Mack truck. This annoys Onizuka.

Dangerous Arenas

Like the previous Iron Fist, energy attacks are not allowed; however, this year’s organizer Heihachi has spiced things up with electrified barb wire, water pitfalls, and mines. The party recognizes Helena Fame from the various news articles (both parents killed since the last Iron Fist tournament), and her father, Douglas Fame, hosted the last Iron Fist tournament. Desolation Joe "The Nomad" (previous IF champion) has returned (along with the DOA3 and Tekken cast). Heihachi is kind of not believed to be on the level so the party starts investigating the tournament and other holdings he may have in Paris.

Narcotech

Investigating a Heihachi operation at Narcotech, a Paris Pharmaceutical company, the players catch Helena Fame doing the same so they catch up. She mentions the rivalry between Heihachi and her father, and the unlikelihood that her parents deaths were accidents. It is genetics research and Shadoloo operatives are here to oversee operation of their equipment, the Psychotron. These agents, Col. Arcane and Nefrit, are highly skilled and have a ninja, Ein, on their side.

The party is glad for the assistance from Gloria Ingram whose hunt for Shadoloo has led her here. Kusanagi is the only conscious one who sees her new head-exploding technique which she uses on one of the Shadoloo agents. Kagero saves Helena from a mystic blast, and Ayane, a dangerous spell-casting ninja, escapes.

Helena recognizes the mind control on Ein (fortunately the psychic Gloria is here) and the unconscious Kasumi is discovered. Ein (whose real name is Hayate) is questioned about Project Epsilon which was not entirely a failure. Shadoloo was here because giving a clone a spirit was always elusive. Dr. Makishima only had one success prior to this one. Hayate does not know who either of those two successes were.

Bara and Helena rifle through the files in the lab and discover that Heihachi was after Douglas Fame’s medical research (Fame was quite the corporate mogul) all along, and he didn’t have to pay the high price since he had him killed. Heihachi stole both his research and his tournament and has twisted both.

Also, another laboratory is discovered related to Heihachi. The rest of Ayane’s Darkness Clan ninja’s are encountered, including Kamisori of the fist blades. The lab is growing crows with human-like hands and doing other crow genetic research. Are these tengu? Is Heihachi preparing an army of the martial art masters of yore? What is this Project Epsilon?

In the continuing tournament, Bayman is taken apart nearly literally by Christie, a Snake Style assassin. Desolation Joe fights underwater and shatters the transparent metal tank with his opponent’s body. Alexi Martin defeats Bass Armstrong and gets a buttload of glory.

Criminal Paris

The party charts out the criminal underworld of Paris, including the area were Onizuka was encountered which seems to be off-limits to crime. The bosses George Lamont of Shadoloo and Prince Falvot who seems to work for some kind of Kaiser are fought and defeated. Did they really have anything to do with the other goings on?

Later, the party investigates the laboratory where Onizuka was encountered. The place is empty. Completely.

Also, the Darkness attempts to have its revenge, but Microburst blows them away. Roy also encounters Kane’s new girlfriend, or something like that.

Helena corners Ayane at an opera house, but a needlessly contrived a gas leak and explosion (which they caused) cuts their fight short. The party takes Helena to the hospital and prods the charred corpse of Ayane.

Heihachi’s Lair

A secret lair is discovered beneath the tournament arena. Ayane is alive and well?! And a man-sized Tengu, the Tengu Lord is sent to play with the party. Heihachi has been preparing to build a Tengu army after all. When his allies fail, Heihachi transforms into a dragon somehow (which never helps) and it light of the greater supernatural foes the party has faced it is kind of sad funny. Still he is strong, but Desolation Joe punches a hole in the wall and crushes Heihachi. Apparently, he has been seeking revenge for the murder of his family all this time. Another victim of Heihachi ambition, and now Heihachi is a victim of it. The laboratory is destroyed and somewhere in the shadows, a man-sized capsule with a foreboding serial number is destroyed without being discovered.

Further Adventures (page 11) Soon

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