The Nocturnum
Episode 18: Armageddon Plain
Season Two Finale
Original Air Date: 5/16/04
Brief Synopsis
(See full synopsis, below)
Great Quotes:
Anita (on phone with Twilight Order): Don't we have any teleporters!?
Drake: I'll drive.
Everyone: No!!!
Director: Hm. I wonder if Sam's cell phone still works. "Hi, Sam? What would Walter do if Drake pecked him on the head as a raven, taking into account that Walter owes Drake his life?"
Drake: I do have some good news. I didn't smell a single one of those demonic things. No, I smelled a whole lot of them.
Anita: Shk'ryth.
John: Excuse me?
Anita: They're called Shk'ryth.
Cyan: And you've known this for how long?
Anita: Well, remember the nightmare I had on the airplane all those months ago...?
Drake: Anita? Remember a few days ago when you yelled at me for not telling you what forms I can shift into? I don't ever want to hear it from you again."
Anita (re: Ekloff and John): He's an ex-CIA agent with a sordid past. He's an engaged ex-Initiative agent who's having a baby and a very bad day. They fight crime!
Director: I just can't wait for Drake to go to the upstage in his new wife-beater and parachute pants. The kids who used to worship him are going to make fun of him mercilessly.
Bob and Eric (OOC): And he'll eat them.
Ekloff: Who knew having a pet vampire was so useful? I'm going to have to look into that.
Anita: You can have Walter. He has a flaming sword.
John: Ekloff, if you want, I can call my friends and talk to them about getting you a pet vampire.
Anita: John, they're not your friends. They tried to kill you, remember?
Gerard Moore: I never thought you'd make it this far! No matter; now I finish what I began in Copenagen!
John: Screw you, and your bad soliloquy, too!
Full Synopsis:
The Episode begins with the Cast en route to Ground Zero. After trying everything from calling Pittsburgh to trying to figure out a way to teleport, a Plot Twist yielded a map of the Gobi Desert among the maps of the Himalayas they purchased earlier in the season. They discovered that the land was going to get too rough for the truck they’d stolen, so they would have to acquire horses. They attempted to negotiate with local nomads for horses, but a bad judgment call by Drake and Cyan (who revealed their powers) sent the nomads running, cursing the Cast for demons. Feeling it was distasteful, but that they had no choice in the matter, Drake assumed his raven form and took off after the nomads. A brief skirmish later yielded Drake, well-fed and with three horses for the Cast. Regrettably, one of the nomads died when Drake lost himself to the Feed.The Cast rode on to find an enormous (100 miles across) encampment formed in an equilateral triangle with a generator at one point, boosters at the other two, and a massive central tower/antenna in the middle. Drake scouted ahead in raven form, and led the Cast to a ridge running along the side of the encampment, where they could sneak up on a patrol of guards. Using a combination of stealth, Drake’s ability to shapeshift, Anita’s control over the human soul, and Cyan’s telekinesis, they took down the patrol in 2 melee rounds, without making a sound. They then commandeered the patrol’s ATV and made for the central administrative facility in hopes of finding Dr. Julian Levitz, a TemCo hostage and the only man who could reverse the magnetron field and stop the comet.
Once at the administrative building, the Cast found themselves among 75 Shk’ryth (incidentally, Anita finally told the Cast that's what the things running TemCo are called), all gathered to watch the end of the world. On the second floor, 20 human technicians worked the mundane labor of monitoring machinery, keeping electronics intact, and generally making sure everything was in readiness for the comet. They discovered where Dr. Levitz was being held when Drake pretended to be a Shk’ryth and used his emotion control power to dupe one of the technicians.
As they got to the tower where Levitz was being held, the magnetron field leapt to life, and the Cast found themselves trapped in a massive pyramid-shaped curtain of electrical energy. They attempted to negotiate with the guard at Levitz’s prison, to no avail. Just as John was about to kill the guard, some invisible force did the job for him, leaving the Cast somewhat bewildered. Still, they had a job to do, and convincing Levitz that they were on the level wasn’t difficult; the man was desperate for someone to give him hope that the comet could be stopped. With Levitz, they raced to the central tower, where he could shut down the magnetron field and with Anita, Jack, and Cyan's help, climbed the tower and began the work to do so.
Meanwhile, on the ground, John, Ekloff, Drake, and Walter found themselves besieged by the elite of TemCo’s assassins: three malformed and no-longer-human psychics (called “sentinels,”) three mutant assassins blessed by the Shk’ryth with unnatural bodies and powerful natural weapons, four human Tribunal agents with assault rifles, and their nemesis Gerard Moore.
John emptied an entire clip from his M-16 into Moore (seriously; something like 25 out of the 30 bullets hit home), and Moore just laughed at him. A voice beside John said, "Never mind him; take care of the others. Moore is mine!" John turned to see the guy from the hospital (who seemingly appeared out of nowhere, but who Drake was aware had been following the Cast for some time) charge Moore. As the two fought, their cloaking fields became disrupted and they were revealed for what they really were; the same alien species as the dead Horseman the Cast found entombed below the Nyhuus Estate.
Drake fired up the ATV and charged at the TemCo forces in an attempt to simply run them over, but was shot several times, and wound up rolling the thing before he could get to them. He got to his feet, and with Walter at his side, charged the three mutant monsters. Drake had one of them all but finished when it emptied a clip from a .45 into his chest and he went down (Drake does not suffer the standard 1/5 damage from guns that normal vampires do). Walter finished off the monsters with his flaming sword.
The Sentinels charged the tower. John and Ekloff just barely managed to take them down before they got in close (which would've meant certain death for the two of them). One of the Tribunal agents, unfortunately, took a sniper shot at Levitz, and killed him right at the computer terminal where he was working. Thinking quickly, Anita summoned his spirit to instruct them on how to finish reversing the field. Jack took over the computer terminal, and followed the instructions Anita relayed from Levitz (I had Julie making rolls for Jack, since her character and his have similar mundane skills, while I handled Walter's rolls). Meanwhile, Anita and Cyan continued their part of reversing the field (basically, changing ground switches to reverse the polarity of the field).
Cyan, on the tower, saw Drake go down and in a rage shot a fireball at the truck the TemCo agents were using as cover. The truck blew sky high (because that happens in movies and on TV); Drake woke up just in time to make a dodge roll; he turned into a raven and took off. Walter also made his dodge roll and took off running, which put him out of ground zero. Unfortunately, he still took more than enough damage to throw him a good hundred yards and put him below zero life points (even after a DP for "I Think I'm Okay." He did, however, make his survival check, so he survived the blast.
The comet was close, now, and painfully bright. Everyone had to make rolls to avoid being blinded; Jack and Cyan both failed their rolls and Anita had to frantically make computer checks to try and finish the process herself before it was too late. The comet struck the field...did Anita hit that last keystroke in time?
A pinpoint of inky blackness appeared at the point of impact, growing incredibly fast. Within the darkness were alien constellations, wherein unholy and inhuman shapes writhed, moaned, and screamed. Everyone suffered a point of madness from the sight (except, ironically, the unconscious Walter and the blinded Jack and Cyan). So once again the crazy guy (Walter) is the one who proves the most sane.
The inky blackness grew, as did the Cast's sense of loss and vertigo. Eventually, the blackness seemed to swallow them up, and everything went dark and still.
Epilogue
Everyone except Walter and Drake woke up in Mercy Hospital in Pittsburgh. Walter and Drake, due to their regenerative powers, woke up in their homes. The rest of the Cast were all in separate rooms, and as they gradually became aware that they were hospitallized, a doctor came in, his back to them, and began to check their charts. Separately, they posed the following questions:
John: Where the Hell am I?
Anita: Where am I?
Cyan: Is my baby okay?
The doctor's answers: You're in the hospital, and I'm sorry, but you lost the baby (we left this to fate; Kalie called even, and the die rolled odd.) Then the doctor turned around and plopped into a chair. At Walter's house and in Drake's crypt, the doctor also appeared--a middle eastern man with a gleam in his eye and a grin on his face.
"Well," he said, "You've all had a nice little adventure over the past few months, haven't you? But you have no idea what's coming, and I'll always be out there...watching."
Then he vanished.
Cyan, John, Anita, and Jack all checked themselves out of the hospital. Ekloff was nowhere to be found. They called Dana for a ride home, and discovered that someone, somehow, had altered the memories of many of those peripherally involved; while the world remembered the comet disaster, the panic and rioting had been forgotten, and the accepted explanation was that the United Nations had discovered a way to stop the comet from impacting. John visited Drake and Walter to check and see if they were okay, and deliver the sad news about the baby. Anita put Jack up in her house and (I presume) will be arranging for a job at the Hive Arcana for him. Sandra and Carrie paid Anita a visit the following day and smothered her with concerned affection. John received a gift from Nyarathotep: an M-16 with a ribbon tied around it and a note: "A gift from your favorite tormentor." John sent a letter to Riley Finn, and received a response: "Don't question it. Just be glad you're no longer a wanted man."
The entire Cast later received letters from Ekloff, (which I'll post later, after I compose them), informing them that he is alive and well, and in their debt. He wishes them to know that they now have a friend in high places, as he has been re-instated to his former position as a field agent with the CIA.
And another season comes to a close.