HANDS OF THE BUDDHA

GM: Bradford (Lanodantheon)
Transcribed by Bradford (Lanodantheon)
December 9, 2012

Two Weeks before the Balance had been disrupted, UW Grad Student turned Emissary of Power Ryan Belmont had been doing pretty good for himself all things considered. Possessing the body of his own killer had run him afoul of the local Russian Mob, but with the help of a few friends around town Ryan managed to break up the franchise. After chilling out for the afternoon in the Sci-Fi Museum, he took a stroll in the night air beneath the Space Needle. The serene night was shook by a brief thunderclap despite there not being any clouds.

Then a body fell out of the sky…

Ryan had always been In The Wrong Place at The Right Time, so this was about par for his night. The corpse itself was nothing to speak of, a homeless-looking man in jeans and a t-shirt. Being the first person on sight Ryan called 911, but because his host body was a mafia legbreaker, he did so anonymously on a burner cell. He took photos of the mysterious corpse on his smartphone and ran off as the authorities came faster than usual.

Ryan called his friend Leif Wotenson and together they followed up on the weirdness by getting Leif’s friend the Medical Examiner let him check out the body. Leif’s old friend was happy to let him consult since the falling body was only the third weirdest corpse he had had in the past few weeks.

The Second weirdest corpse was a teenage girl who had apparently burst open from abdomen. Uterus and lower intestines completely gone and looked chewed upon by animals. The Weirdest corpse being the top skinned half of a man with an artificial hip. Leif thought about past events and Lore and put two and two together. Big Bad Wolves obviously skinned the one body and lost their appetite when they hit the Iron-laden hip. There was also a piece of Lore Leif remembered from Jack & Zeb’s files that said that Big Bad Wolves have an affinity for virgins. When they have sex with a virgin, instead of giving birth to a single changeling, the poor girl will give birth to an entire litter. The horrific scene allowed Ryan to persuade the Coroner to get coffee with him for a few minutes while Leif examined the mystery body.

The Coroner’s initial report said that the fall was too high for the victim to have jumped off the top of the Needle(let alone wondering how the hell he got up there) and too low to have fallen out of a plane.

Leif used his Fate Sense and a little Divination to find out why the man died…

Leif saw that the homeless man’s strand of fate had been but cut. He was the man in the web from before when he looked on Mr. Nobody’s fate. Leif then saw the man’s death in a blur. He was begging on the street until he saw a pair of eyes and looked into them until he lost himself… Then the man became no longer a man, he was a Renfield. Then he was inside of a ritual circle centered with a massive Astrolabe. Power swelled around the Renfield and then poof! The man was falling…

When he consulted with Zeb, the pair deduced 2 things about the ritual in question that was visible.

1.(Lore 6) The Ritual was being performed in some warehouse. If it started up again, the search would be narrowed considerably.

2.(Lore 9) The ritual being performing was the same one Jack deduced, a high-level Transportation Spell of some potent variety. It was either bringing something in or sending something out. Most likely the Renfield was a test subject testing the waters like a diver on a diving board for the real McCoy: The summoning of some powerful entity like The Leviathon into this world. Or at least that was his best guess.

A few days later, Ryan found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time…again. He had an itching for some baked goods and just as he hit a red light he saw Silvio get his tongue ripped out… Joining the group and finding out about The Balance’s troubles Ryan decided all hands should be on deck to take down this SOB Mr. Nobody and his goons.

Figuring that the “Hands of a Holy Man” could refer to Reverend Charlie, the party went to his temple and waited. Charlie offered in Buddist fashion to let Takahashi take his hands if it meant no innocents would be hurt, but Osamu wouldn’t have it.

Takahashi appeared in the doorway…

…The party accepted his challenge and the two Monks faced off against each other.

Then a pair of ninjas with inhuman strength and speed fell out of the shadows and the fight was on.

Jack used ghosts of monks that had died in meditation and the ancestors of the locals to pin one of the ninjas to the wall. Lief went into a berserker rage threw a few Harpoon evocations at the ninjas but their speed allowed them to dodge most of them. Ryan used his Superhuman Strength to stomp the other into submission. Zeb being old and wise ran out the back with Charlie.

Osamu went toe-to-toe with Takahashi, but a few good shots from the not-so-honorable Ryan, Jack and Lief took Takahashi down.

When the monk lay very wounded and rethinking his life choices Zeb spoke in his Magma Kraken voice and got Takahashi to yield.

Lief took down the Ninja pinned to the wall.

Because Ryan doesn’t know his own strength he cracked the head of the other ninja and managed to get brain all over his hand and his favorite duds.

Among their belongs the party found a cellphone. On the cellphone Ryan and Lief found a voicemail. The voicemail said, “The Boss said, ‘the plan’s bin’ accelerated’ you get The Hands and Big G will get The Heart. The Dogs won’t know what hit ’em.” Taking this to mean The Pack, they immediately called Dozer.

Dozer accepted the news with caution but said he wouldn’t fall for any of that challenge crap. Then someone threw a bag of dog biscuits and a hail of bullets through the front window of the Motorcycle Club. Enraged by the taunt, The Pack went out for some street justice. It sounded like Dozer would lead them, then there was the sound of a door closing and the sound of meat meeting concrete…