Nomadic:Sessions:20060715

Max leads the way northward, passing a couple of police cars speeding toward the park. Vincente, exhausted, sleeps with his head resting on Valerie’s shoulder. They reach their hotel in Joliet in less than twenty minutes. While still in the parking garage, the group debates what to do with Durr’s corpse and the two injured Nazis. The one knocked out by Sevren has various other flesh wounds, and the other had been stabilized but still has a couple of bullets in him (presumably from the firefight back in Normal) and has lost a significant amount of blood. JT notes that the latter also bears scars at the base of his skull from some significant previous surgery; Sevren identifies the man as the worldwalker he’d seen bringing Nazis through the gate on the ISU campus. Awakened for the occasion, Vincente casts Aura on the worldwalker and notes “exotic” traits (worldwalking and gate control), an addiction or dependency of some type, and a strong streak of sadism and cruelty; he has experienced great pain, which has twisted his personality. JT wonders whether the Nazi’s worldwalking ability was granted by exotic brain surgery or an implant of some kind. Searching meticulously, Sevren discovers a small ampule sewn into the cuff of the Nazi’s pants.

Valerie: “So we can’t leave him anywhere.” Vincente: “No, he has to die. If he gets enough strength, he could just… walk away.” Valerie: “Or he could stay here and do bad things.” Sevren: “Or walk away and bring people back with him.” JT agrees “We can’t leave him alive,” adding sardonically, “Unless we could wake him up and get him to promise not to do anything bad.”

With Stephanie hovering nearby, Gilbert wanders over. “You need any help with these guys?” Vincente: “Like what?” “Need me to heal them so you can interrogate them?” “We don’t need that one healed,” Vincente replies, indicating the worldwalker. JT adds, “He’s the one that brought thirty-some Nazis through back in the quad.” “Really,” Stephanie exclaims, stepping up while chambering a round. The others stare at her, and JT says, “Now wait a minute.” After a few seconds, she puts her gun away.

After a few more rounds of discussion, it is decided that waking up the worldwalker will do the group no good. JT injects him with a concoction to “ease him into the next world.”

Vincente determines that the Oregon quarter grants him an extra level of magery. [It depicts a view of Crater Lake, Watchman and Hillman Peaks, and… Wizard Island.] JT: “You need to give that back to her.” Vincente: “Why?” JT: “Because no mana’s an island.”

With help from Vincente’s Levitation spell, the group carries the remaining Nazi up to their hotel room. Max whips out his pliers and removes the fake tooth. Vincente casts Foolishness on the man. He gives his name as Private Leo Eggin, from “Germany, 1984.” Asked what happened in Normal, he says that sharpshooters shot at them and all except himself, the commander and the mule were killed or scattered. The mule had been carrying quarters, but he thinks the “bag of air” took some of them and the commander got the rest. In answer to most other questions, Eggin says he doesn’t know or doesn’t remember.

Eggin asks repeatedly to be given his car back because he wants to drive. Finally Max says “I’ll take him down to his car.” Max puts him behind the wheel, and under the guise of checking fluid levels wipes the car clean of fingerprints. After Eggin happily drives off northward, Max phones the police, gives them the license plate number, and says it’s connected with some shootings down in Elwood.

The group goes somewhere for a late lunch, then heads back to Elwood around 5:00pm. Although according to the group’s reckoning there should be one more loose quarter, Vincente’s Seeker spell comes up empty. Valerie: “We can hope that Durr and his driver had already picked up one quarter, and the police station was going to be their second attempt.” Sevren: “Or Rhodes is here.” Vincente checks for Rhodes, but the archmage is nowhere within 100 miles.

The group now has 27 quarters. Since they don’t know whether they have to have all 50 (or however many) in order to do whatever is needed, they decide they need to go to the next shard. Sevren: “But Gilbert doesn’t know if he can get us there, so we’re going to have to wait for the fog.” Valerie: “Well, last time he brought the fog himself.” Gilbert: “Yeah, but we were in a very, very high mana area. The magic was thick.” Valerie: “And you consistently refuse to believe in your own abilities. How many times do we have to kick your butt about it?” Gilbert looks sheepish as Vincente says, “At least one more time, it looks like.” Max: “Give him that quarter you were talking about earlier.” Vincente, muttering: “Fat chance of that.” Then, “Gilbert has been sandbagging. He’s more powerful than he lets on.” Gilbert, stammering: “I’m sorry, but you never give away your full capabilities. It’s dangerous. And I don’t know y’all that well… although you did save my life a couple of times.” Stephanie gives Gilbert a disapproving look, and Vincente says, “Yes, but you lied to us so much, why should we even trust you?” Then he answers his own question, “Because we need you. Now let’s go.”

(Sevren: “I’ve only lied to you three times, and they haven’t been that bad.” JT: “Well, *four* now.” Max: “How many do you want? I haven’t ever *quit*.”)

The shard in Elwood is cordoned off with police tape. As the group rolls past the park, Vincente sees Durr and the mule standing there, watching them go by. Vincente: “Do we want to talk to Durr and the mule?” Valerie: “What? In case you’ve forgotten, Vincente, they’re dead.” JT: “In case you’ve forgotten, he talks to dead people.” Valerie: “Then why were we worried about…” JT: “We should’ve killed the guy in the first place, so we could talk to him!” Vincente: “This is the first time I’ve seen any ghosts during this sequence of events.”

Max parks on the southwest side of the park. Vincente leads Sevren and Valerie to the shard. “Commander, how are you?” Durr: “I thought you’d be able to see me. You took the coin.” “I didn’t need the coin to see you.” Sevren lays his hand on Vincente’s arm; he can see the ghosts as pale fuzzy patches and hear their voices as from a great distance away. Durr: “You think you’ve won, don’t you.” Vincente: “Well, you didn’t win.” “We may be ghosts, but we can still travel back to our home base through these shards. There’s nothing you can do about it.” “That’s fine. Since you’ve already won, you wouldn’t mind answering a few questions before you go, would you?” “Oh, I’ll tell you everything you need to know.” Durr claims that Rhodes only took “two or three insignificant coins” from them. The mule acknowledges that the surgery had given him the ability to worldwalk, but since he started traveling the road he hadn’t needed the injections. “This has let me pass among quanta. Before, I was restricted to one level. The Commander is betting our existence” that he can still use the road.

Vincente: “Now, Commander, we pulled fifteen coins off of you…” “Yeah, you did, didn’t you?” Durr begins laughing loud and long. Vincente continues patiently, “But I thought you had about thirty. Did Rhodes get all the rest of them?” “Oh, I’d already sent some back to the Fatherland, so he can’t ever get them all.” “Can we get to the Fatherland through these shards?” “He can,” Durr says, indicating the mule. “You can’t. You can’t stop us. We’re going to go back, and then we’ll come back for you.” Vincente: “Not you, but I understand the sentiment. So if we wanted to, we could go to Germany using the shards?” “Of course.” “Some of the shards landed in Germany?” “We’ve learned more about these than you have. We’ve been traveling this road much longer than you have.” “Yes, and we have more coins than you. What does that say?” “You got lucky.” “Well, I would say ‘believe that till your dying day,’ but since that’s already past…” “How do you think we got back to the shard after you killed us?” “I don’t know. How did you get back to the shard?” “See, you don’t know as much as you think you do.” “Well, actually, we killed you near the shard, so you just rolled over here. Now the other guy, I’m not sure about him.” (JT: “We don’t know exactly where he died.”) Vincente continues, “Well, thank you, Commander. I would say ‘see you again’ but… maybe, maybe not.”

Sevren: “Can you hear me?” Durr turns his head toward Sevren and says, “Oh, you can transmit it. I never tried that. It didn’t occur to me.” Sevren: “It looks like you don’t know as much as you thought, also.” “Yes, but I’m learning, and I’m going to take all my knowledge back to Germany with me.” “Since you’re being so forthcoming and you know so much, what’s next on the road?” “I can’t tell you that.” “If you don’t know, that’s okay.” “I don’t know,” Durr says, smirking. Vincente: “Let me give you some knowledge. In every reality that I’ve ever been in, the Nazis lost.” “We didn’t.” “You will, now that we know about you. In *every* reality that I’ve been in, you’ve lost. So I’m coming. I’ll be behind you, don’t worry. You can go now.” When Durr hesistates, Vincente eggs him on. “Go ahead, jump. See if you can leave. Go ahead.” (Max: “Stop in Rowe on your way back.”) “Bastard,” growls Durr, and he and the mule turn and walk away. (Valerie: “Vincente, that was one of the greatest lines in this whole film.”)

As they return to the cars, Valerie asks, “Why did he laugh when you said you took fifteen coins from him.” Vincente: “I don’t know. I hope he didn’t have any stuck in places we didn’t look. But if he’d had them on the inside, I still would have sensed them.” JT: “They might have been outside the area when you checked.” Something about the timing bothers Vincente. JT: “He was either lying to us, or there’s nothing we can do about it.” At Max’s suggestion, Vincente steps on the shard and tries again… and senses four quarters north of Joliet, moving along a highway toward Chicago. He gets a Trace lock on them.

A big classic Harley with no license plate pulls up between the two cars and the rider stands up. He’s 6’4”, muscular, tattooed, clad in biker’s leathers and a bandanna. As Sevren approaches, the biker asks “Y’all just get off the road?” “Yeah, I was looking for a tattoo parlor. Where’d you get yours?” “Down in Chicago, a couple of lines over. You from Homeline or somewhere else? Your car don’t belong here.” “Where’s Homeline?” “That answers my question. If you don’t know Homeline, you ain’t from there. My name’s Nathan, Nathan Bedford. And yeah, I am kin.” Max: “I’m Max, and this is Smith and Wesson.”

Nathan identifies himself as part of something called Nexus Oversight. Vincente: “Nazis are running all over the place. Where have you been?” “What line are they from?” Sevren: “Somewhere the Nazis won.” “There are three or four of those.” He did see the Corvette on the road blasting past him a half-day ago. He mentions a banestorm that occurred three or four weeks ago. JT tells him that the memorial stones from the Washington Monument are “scattered up and down this road, opening nexuses.” “We’re talking reality shards?” Vincente, gesturing into the park: “Go look at that one, you’ll see what you’re talking about.” As Nathan walks off, Sevren checks his saddlebags, finding an assortment of electronic gear. “Nathan, he’s the police,” JT warns him.

Valerie, Vincente, Sevren, and Rick drive off after the four quarters. JT quizzes Gilbert, who says he’s never heard of Homeline or Nexus Oversight, then watches Nathan examining the shard. Max notices someone hidden among the foliage watching the shard area through binoculars.

Twenty miles north of Joliet Vincente and Valerie spot a black sedan with government plates in the middle of a three-car convoy, and the Trace indicates the quarters are in the back seat of that vehicle. Three quarters are being held by a man, one by a woman. Following Vincente’s instructions Valerie blows past the tail car, then eases up slightly as they approach the target car. Vincente sees through the heavily tinted windows that there are four people in the car. Vincente: “This is not going to be good. Pull out your weapons. You two in the back scoot over; I’m bringing someone in between you.”

Vincente teleports into the man’s lap. The man’s body turns to stone. Vincente teleports the woman into the back seat in front of Sevren. Sevren tosses his gun to the floorboards and starts searching the woman, who is wearing some sort of coveralls with many pockets. The woman has a look of concentration; Rick strikes her in the head with the butt of his gun, stunning her. The stone man draws a large gun. Vincente teleports 25 yards straight up, taking the stone man with him; the stone man is momentarily disoriented. Vincente lets the man go as they both drop. Sevren tries a judo move and the woman starts screaming; Rick hits her again and knocks her out. Vincente: “Valerie, back off.” Sevren turns up the Rhode Island quarter (which adds +5 to his climbing skill). Vincente casts Levitate on himself and shoves the stone man with his foot. The falling stone man strikes the trunk of the tail car with such force that its front wheels actually rise off the ground. Valerie hits the brakes, spins the car around, and drives up the shoulder. Sevren ties up the woman and continues searching her. The tail car flips onto its hood, throwing up sparks as it slides along the highway, then catches fire. The lead and target cars attempt to execute the same turnaround that Valerie did; the lead car makes it, but the target car starts to roll. (Valerie: “I hope the Steadicam guy got this on the first take. I don’t want to do this again.”)

Vincente reaches the stone guy, who is sprawled unmoving on the ground. He doesn’t find the quarters in the man’s clothing, so they must be within the stone. Valerie pulls the car up alongside; Sevren rolls the woman out onto the median, and Vincente teleports himself and the stone man inside. Valerie pulls across the median and heads south. Vincente casts Dispel Magic but the man is still stone.

Max has circled around behind the binocular guy. His equipment is of advanced technology. There’s a sleek weapon at his left hip, and he’s wearing an earbud. Max throws a stone to draw the guy’s attention, and touches the cattle prod to his neck to stun him. When he falls out of the tree, Max kicks him a couple of times in the head to knock him out. (“I guess I should have asked if Nathan had a partner, first.”) Max takes his gun and ammo, a combat knife, and communicator. His wallet yields 400 pounds in notes and MI6 ID that gives his name as Hiram Dungy. There’s also a white plastic card with a magnetic stripe on one side. Max: “I think this guy is British Intelligence.” JT: “Well, ask him.” Max: “Umm… he’s unresponsive.”

Max slings Hiram over his shoulder and JT meets him near the shard, which Nathan is still studying. “This is pretty powerful,” Nathan comments. “It’s a little one,” replies JT. Nathan refers to this reality as Britannia 3. JT has Nathan stand on the shard, then points in the direction of Lake Michigan. “I think that’s where the remainder of the monument is standing. That’s where we’re headed. We need to fix this. Who are you with, again?” “Infinity Patrol, Nexus Oversight,” replies Nathan. “You overlooked this one,” JT retorts. “It’s new; I’m here looking into it.” “It’s not *that* new.” “It’s a big multiverse.” Nathan says he’d stopped at three other exits off this nexus, doing a quick survey to see how far it goes, but he hadn’t noticed the shards before. “It’s already taken me across three quanta, which in itself is remarkable.” JT repeats “We need to fix this” and Nathan says “Trouble is, we’re really close to Centrum territory.”

“Do you know this guy?” Max asks as he walks up and turns around. Nathan replies in the negative, then looks over the equipment Max confiscated and mutters an expletive. “This equipment is Centrum’s. He’s an operative of another cross-dimensional organization. They interfere in timelines, move them around.” Max: “Interfere. Is that what we’re doing?” Nathan: “They don’t try to fix things.” JT: “Well, I guess it all depends. The last place we were at, they thought they were going to have this great Renaissance of magic because of the shard there. And we’re trying to fix it, which won’t help them very much, now will it?” Nathan can’t sense magic.

Max lays the inert Hiram on a bench, pulls down Hiram’s pants, and with his pocketknife carves his name in his butt.

JT explains to Nathan that they have a gatemaster from a British reality who has been following the road from Texas, and his protector. Nathan: “Well, I picked it up in Nevada, down in Quantum 5.” The name Rhodes is familiar; he thinks he read it in a file. JT explains that Rhodes is the head of the Cabal on Gilbert’s world. Nathan: “Is he close to completing this?” JT: “I don’t know. We’re trying to shut it all down.” Nathan agrees with this goal.

Nathan is from the year 2035, and in Homeline there are fifty states in the United States of America. JT: “Somewhere there’s a lot of magic, the Washington Monument blew up. All over the place. And these coins have something to do with it.” Nathan: “That must have been the banestorm.” JT explains that the quarters are aspected, and they increase the mana level, “so if you’re in a high-mana world, standing on a shard, holding one of these coins… just about anything’s possible.” Nathan gets a sick look, and JT goes on, “Now, Rhodes is an archmage, and we think he’s got eighteen of these. We’ve got twenty-eight of them, and our friends went off to find the other four that are around here.” “Okay,” says Nathan, “I’ll help any way I can.”

The lead car is following Valerie’s car. She accelerates until she’s out of sight, takes the next exit, watches as the lead car blows on past, then gets back on the highway. When they get within headset range, Valerie says in response to JT’s questions that they’d encountered three Dominion government cars, “and we have one man, except he looks like a statue, but Vincente says he’s got three quarters on him.” JT tells her he thinks Centrum’s the group they’re going to have to oppose “in the big final fight scene.”

Vincente has Valerie pull off the highway into the cover of some trees. Sevren has stuck something down the back of the stone man’s throat, trying to make him throw up. Vincente levitates the stone man out of the car.

<There is a gap of somewhat over an hour here; I hope to fill it in sometime.>

Those inside the dog park hear the roar of an engine. Sevren and Valerie run that way. Vincente casts Missile Shield on himself. Max drives back toward the park. “The Mustang’s out,” calls JT. Nathan, riding his Harley, clutches the bullet wound in his shoulder.

The gray sedan bursts into the area, 25 yards from Sevren, aimed directly at Valerie’s car. Rick pops the trunk and reaches for a shotgun. Valerie finds herself running faster than ever before [+4 Move from the quarters]. A half-block away, Max guns his car. Sevren aims at the sedan’s driver.

Max enters the park, chasing the gray sedan. Valerie leaps into the air and fires, shattering the windshield, and lands on the roof of the car. Sevren shoots the driver twice, severely wounding him; the front passenger grabs the wheel, and the rear passengers prepare to bail. Vincente teleports to the top of the sedan’s trunk.

Valerie leans over and shoots into the car. Vincente fires through the rear window, hitting a man twice; the door comes open and that passenger falls out. The other rear passenger bails, losing his gun as he tumbles out of control; Sevren shoots at him and misses.

Valerie reaches in and grabs the steering wheel. (Valerie: “Driving by the Ginger Rogers method, backward and in high heels, except I don’t have high heels.” JT: “More like the Ray Charles method – blind.” Vincente: “Driving by sound – as long as you don’t hear anything, you’re okay.”) Somehow Valerie misses Rick, her car, and Max’s car. Sevren moves toward the unarmed passenger, who is fumbling for something at his ankle. JT says “Go over by Nate,” and Max steers in that direction. Sevren aims at the passenger’s leg. Vincente casts Levitation on himself. (Valerie: “I know what I’m doing. Just watch the show!” Vincente: “Oh, I am, I’m watching that too. I’m very impressed.”)

The driver’s foot must be pressing on the accelerator, because the car hasn’t lost any speed. Valerie steers toward a cinder-block building. “Freeze,” orders Sevren. Ankle guy glances at Sevren and spreads his empty hands. The passenger reaches his leg over and stomps on the brake; he fails to throw Valerie off, but Vincente starts hovering. Vincente shoots the passenger three times; the passenger goes limp and jostles the driver’s foot off the accelerator.

Valerie cuts the wheel so the car goes in a tight circle until it finally stops. Sevren ties up ankle guy. JT doctors Nathan’s shoulder wound. Max checks on the people in the Mustang. Vincente puts his gun to ankle guy’s head. “I don’t have a lot of time. Are you one of these vitamin— er, Centrum agents? Don’t waste my time.” “No, I work for Gibson.” “Who is Gibson?” He points to the one who bailed out on the other side. “Over there. That’s Gibson.” JT: “You don’t work for him anymore.” Sevren: “Who does Gibson work for?” “I don’t know. He just hires me when he wants something done.” He admits they were supposed to “capture or kill some people – whoever was in the vehicle we were following.” Subsequent questioning reveals that he really doesn’t know anything. Vincente: “Are you a Nazi?” “What’s a Nazi?” Vincente: “Well, if he’s not a Nazi, I’m not going to kill him.” “How do I get back home?” Sevren laughs, and Vincente says, “You’re not gonna get back home. You’ll have to learn to make a living here.”

Valerie searches the dead men. Their cash is in pounds from Britannia 3. Gibson has one of the blank white cards with the mag strip, and some high-tech equipment. She tries manipulating Gibson’s hand to shoot his gun, but it won’t fire, so she leaves it.

Sevren borrows Stephanie’s lipstick. He ties one of the men to a tree in a sexually suggestive pose, having removed all the man’s clothes except his underwear, and writes the word SLAVE in lipstick across his chest.

JT revives one of the men from the Mustang, who admits he works for Centrum and was here because of the shards. “Gibson said we needed to grab you and interrogate you, find out who you are… He was going to fill me in more after we had a couple of subjects.”

The group finally hears sirens in the distance. They dump the other Centrum agent they’d captured at the park. It’s a little after midnight as they head for Lake Shore Drive.

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