Mid-West Campaign
Session Forty-Seven

Saturday, 3 February 2001 (continued)

The agents return to the motel. Jane shuts herself in her apartment with little intention of coming out. At 6:30pm Artemis receives a telephone call from Chuck Johnson who is at Joplin airport having returned from his holiday. Artemis orders Chuck to the hotel and he promptly heads for the nearest pole-dancing club (Pink Pussy Cat Club).

Chuck eventually turned up and is briefed by Artemis. While this happens Drake manages to seal himself in his chalet, seal all the windows and blow up his TV. Artemis goes to see Jane, and offers her a drink. Jane is sitting in the dark trying to come to terms with another ghost. She is roused from this reverie by the fact Drake's apartment is on fire. Jane kicks the door in and Artemis extinguishes the blaze. Artemis puts Drake in with Chuck, but Chuck realises that Drake is cursed and rebels. He gets his own deluxe chalet with a hot tub and twenty-four hour porn. Artemis tries to move Drake in but Chuck gives Drake some money for a hotel somewhere else. Drake isn't sure what happens next but he wakes up in a flower-bed covered in mosquito netting.

Sunday, 4 February 2001

The agents have breakfast at a local diner. Chuck's gun goes off blowing a light fitting off the ceiling that brains Drake. Although Chuck is reprimanded it becomes increasingly obvious that something is very wrong with Drake, and so the agents return to the motel.

At the motel the agents receive an email from Valerie Hudson containing a top secret glossary of supernatural creatures, beasties, demons and other ne'erdowells. The agents realise that they are far from the only section of the US government working on supernatural cases. Follow this link for a full transcript of the document.

They decide to use Benedict's potentially heightened senses to see if they can find what it is in the graveyard upsetting the dogs. However, when Benedict uses these senses on Drake he sees tendrils of unluck coiling around his body. They seem to concentrate on the arm Drake used to pick up that book in the library (Civil War Joplin: Environs). The other agents leave Drake in his room and head to the cemetery. Once they have departed Drake sees his right hand has turned into the colour of old paper, and he can see small lines of writing form on his fingers.

In the area Benedict's senses discover a lingering 'miasma of evil' around the exhumed graves, but nothing particularly conclusive is discovered. The agents wander ineffectually around the graveyard, and check under bandstand. Artemis takes a call from Eisenstein postponing their meeting until Monday 12 February. Then a frantic telephone call from Drake sends them all hurrying back to the motel.

In his room Drake informs the agents that he has been possessed with a Class IV spirit named Jedidiah Bartholomew. The spirit resided in the book Drake picked up in the library - a book that was intended for Jedidiah's son (surname of Carlton). Jedidiah has been trapped in the book since 1894, but isn't entirely sure how he got there. He knows about the thefts of bodies and tells the agents (through Drake) that the thefts are carried out by a cabal of black necromancers during special alignments of stars that happen every fifty years. Jedidiah tried to stop them. He is a white necromancer, trained in the art by a crippled old soldier-cum-necromancer many years ago. Jedidiah is a guardian of sorts, and used to sit in the graveyard with guns shooting necromancers. He does not know what the black necromancers want to do with the bodies. He suspects they are attempting to steal a number equal to a significant prime number such as seven (six bodies have already been taken) and then summon something nasty. They have plenty of time because the alignment will last several months. Jedidiah says he can help the group because of his knowledge of Hebrew and the town as it was a century ago.

Apparently, Drake's unlucky behaviour is due to Jedidiah siphoning his life force in order to manifest. Jane doesn't like the sound of that. No-one knows what will happen during the manifestation or how much of Drakes life force will be gone. There is also no real reason to trust this Jedidiah. Jane advises they whisk Drake away to Los Angeles and send him through SCHULT's shield thus purging Drake, and do it quickly before it is too late. But Artemis doesn't seem to agree with this (and neither does Drake). The chances are these necromancers will return on Monday after the lights are turned off, and the agents need every assistance in stopping them.

With most of their leads dead until the following day the team pays visits to the county morgue (Freeman Hospital West) and to the teaching hospitals (St. Johns Medical Centre). Mr Hall, the administrator of the County Morgue informs the team that they have been getting less corpses recently and that the teaching hospital is busier than normal.

At the teaching hospital nothing particularly suspicious is found. There is one body of a soldier (Private Hernandez) who broke his neck while climbing a high wall. He is being sent back to Fort James Cohen tomorrow morning and will be buried in the afternoon. While the lab technician is distracted, Jane places one of Chuck's bugs on the body, just in case.

Then Jane hears the whispering. It is coming the technician and the other agents are looking at. They are seeing nothing unusual, but Jane sees the gaunt and obviously dead face of Kirsty. As Jane approaches Kirsty declares, "The game has begun again. One of the three is lying. You should have come back….."

Jane is shaken, and outside the morgue she tells Artemis and the others what happened. This is obviously bad news. No-one wanted the Game to begin again this soon. The three in question are obviously the three other players of the game. Two players and two blind players. Is Jane a blind player this time, or is it still Artemis? The agents take the rest of the day off.

Monday, 5 February 2001

At 5:00am Chuck tells Artemis that the bugged body of Private Hernandez has been moved from the morgue, probably to the army base. At a more civilised hour Black makes a few calls. Judge Davies gives the agents sanction to dig up the bodies, army chaplain, Reverend Jason King, is commissioned to re-bless the graves after this violation and Artemis moves his meeting with Brian Walker forward to this afternoon. Tonight is when the necromancers could strike so the group must be ready.

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