Mid-West Campaign
Session Forty-Eight

Monday, 5 February 2001

By 10:00am all the mid-west agents are awake and ready to tackle the day (except Chuck who is ordered to stay in bed). Drake reveals that the spirit of Jedidiah can be exorcised with another local history book and so Jane and Benedict head off to the library. Artemis locks Drake in his room with some paper and crayons and orders him to write a report on the matter and not to leave the house under any circumstances. He then heads for his meeting with Brian Walker.

Drake rebels and goes to buy a pen. The instant he does so, his chalet is hit by a falling satellite and completely destroyed. Chuck barely manages to rescue his laptop computer from the burning wreckage of his own room. The police, paramedics and fire brigade soon arrive and the uninjured Drake is struck in the face with a blast from a high pressure hose. Radiation is then detected at the site, and the entire place quarantined.

Chuck notifies Artemis what happened, but Black has very little intention of involving himself in the hell on wheels that Drake's life has become - particularly as he has just collected his Lotus-7 from the garage. He turns his phone off and goes to Brian Walker's comfortable (yet strangely isolated) home. The bookbinder and local historian is happy to see Black and makes him some tea. However, it is suddenly apparent to Artemis that the tea has been poisoned! Black resists the toxin, but as he is trying to talk himself out of the situation, Walker pulls a gun from his bureau, points it at Artemis and fires.

But if it was that easy to kill Artemis Black, the rest of evidence response would have done it long ago. Be it luck, demonic intervention, or simply Artemis's smarm field interfering with the mechanics of the revolver, the gun jams in Walker's hand. Artemis instantly makes an arrest and cuffs Walker a heavy antique chair. He then allows himself the luxury of collapsing to the ground.

At the library, Jane and Benedict are contacted by SCHULT. Artemis's nanites have revealed to the alien supercomputer that Black has been poisoned. Jane and Benedict race to the scene to discover Walker making a very slow getaway across the kitchen floor. Benedict covers him while Jane rushes into ministrate to Artemis. She succeeds in reviving him and is stunned that Artemis managed to imbibe enough rattlesnake venom to kill a cow but is still breathing and equally oily as before.

Meanwhile Benedict, by changing his form in to something resembling a demon, has got Walker to spill some of the beans. He is one of the black necromancers in the town, and he says that the stolen bodies are kept at the local hospital. However, he doesn't get the chance to say any more because Benedict's mind wanders, and he speculates whether he could produce a chemical like the one the Queen Brain Bug used back in Wichita. In seconds he and Walker are shot through with this chemical and are on such an unbelievable high that they aren't coming down for some time.

Jane can't do anything to bring Benedict back to his senses. She calls the police and has them secure the crime scene. Benedict and Walker are taken away to hospital while she accompanies Artemis to get a check up.

Artemis is given a clean bill of health by incredulous local doctors and the pair return to Walker's house while Drake and Chuck are still having the skin flayed from their bodies by DECON. Walker's house has been ransacked, and there is no sign of the police that Jane left guarding the place. Evidently, someone in the police was in with the necromantic cult.

The pair search the house but discover nothing of interest except for a drawing of an occult symbol on a piece of paper under the desk. It is of a seven-pointed star - a symbol Black says is associated with the Wisdom of Solomon. Each of the seven points could refer to the seven bodies taken from the graveyard (assuming they also take private Hernandez). They would also need a recent kill…

Jane's telephone rings. It is the hospital informing her the sad news that both Brian Walker and Senior Special Agent Benedict Oaxaca have passed away. Their bodies have been taken to the morgue if they want to see them. Jane says they will be over shortly. This is obviously a trap. The necromancers have rescued Walker, and now they have Benedict as a sacrifice.

With a lot of ground to cover, Artemis feels the team needs help. He phones Dominic Rocaan in Los Angeles and asks him to bring his team over to Joplin to help them stake out the graveyard. Dominic says he will obviously come if so ordered, but he and his team are about to head out onto the streets of LA in pursuit of the creature killing the homeless (case 0015-GCF). Dominic gently points out that Artemis abandoned this case last week, and asked the west coast team to mop it up. Artemis agrees that Dominic and his team are needed in LA. To buy some time, Artemis phones the cemetery and offers to pay the electricity bill for keeping the flood-lights on for one more night.

Jane and Artemis collect a shiny Drake and Chuck and head to the hospital. While they are parked an ambulance hits Artemis's car completely destroying it. Artemis spends five minutes on a tirade over how he was planning to sue the hospital for all it was worth, before realising that it wasn't his Lotus-7, and that the garage gave him the wrong vehicle. Drake might still be phenomenally unlucky, but Artemis's unique powers are still protecting him.

The agents bundle into the hospital and (after insisted Drake walks thirty feet behind them at all times) are led into the morgue. At first they think they've found the right place, but the sound of cultish chanting is coming from a cheap Lovecraft flick on the TV the mortuary assistant is watching. After scaring him to death, the group discover that the 'bodies' of Walker and Benedict were moved to the Freeman teaching hospital across the street.

In the bowels of the Freeman Teaching hospital the group can hear an eerie otherworldly chanting. However, they cannot hear it through their ears, but rather it appears in their minds. This is distinctly unnerving for all the party - put especially Chuck who collapses at the sound of the noise and has to be dragged from the morgue by Jane.

Artemis searches the morgue, trying to ignore the strange noises. He bursts into a back room with his gun drawn and completely terrifies the man sitting in there. The man tells Artemis that the mortuary assistant is Mark Neeves who lives on the military base with his father, Lieutenant Colonel Kenneth Neeves. The group assume that Neeves is also a necromancer, and that the bodies have been taken elsewhere. Jedidiah (inside Drake's head) says that the chanting is a psychic echo of some sort and that the real ritual is happening right now, but somewhere else.

The agents leave the hospital and, when Chuck has recovered, they get the transmitter to see where the body of Private Hernandez is. The tracer indicates the body has been moved to the vicinity of the military cemetery, and so the agents head off to their destination.

The flood-lights are on when the agents arrive, and they follow the faint transmission from the tracking device to a small crypt in the oldest part of the cemetery. There is evidently some way down within this crypt, and Jane spots tracks leading to a stone sarcophagus. She can barely budge the lid, but Chuck locates a secret lever disguised as the breasts of a statue of Venus, and the lid slides open. A ladder leads down into darkness.

Heading into the unknown does not strike anyone as a good idea. Jane suggests getting the army involved (a dozen heavily armed soldiers never hurts in a fire fight). However, the civilian liaison on duty (Captain Wright) will not help. He calls the thing a hostage situation which calls for negotiators. He is right, but he doesn't know that something big and powerful and horrible is going to be summoned unless they act now. The four agents head down into the unknown (with the unlucky Drake a significant distance behind).

At the foot of the ladder is a small corridor and a room beyond. Slowly the agents head toward the door. As they approach they can hear chanting, and the scent of recently dressed corpses.

In the room is a seven pointed star (like the diagram in Walker's home). There is a corpse at each point and the still living Benedict is at the centre tied to a dais. Benedict is still high on the chemical he manufactured and seems to be enjoying the show. Many black-robed necromancers are in here conducting some dark incantation. Something is happening to the floor. It is boiling and writhing, as if something from another dimension was coming through.

Chuck completely forgets who he is, or why he is here. Jane gives into fear and runs at the sight. But Artemis Black… the man whose smarm is like a shield of steel… Artemis Black isn't fazed by the mere presence of multi-facetted horrors from beyond time and space… Artemis Black acts!

Drawing his gun, Artemis rushes into the room liberally shooting cultists with gay abandon. They are too worked up in the ritual to anything to stop him. He shoots a flare at a barrel of formaldehyde hoping to start a conflagration, but misses. Artemis rushes over to Benedict and begins to untie him. He pauses only to shoot some more cultists, just to teach them a lesson Goddammit.

Now Drake rushes into the room. He steps on a loose floorboard, catapulting Artemis's still burning flare into a barrel of formaldehyde. Artemis hits the deck, using Benedict as cover. A recovered Jane who has just entered the room dives out again. The formaldehyde explodes and the entire chamber is engulfed in fire.

Artemis and Benedict were protected by the dais, but all the cultists (and Drake) were completely blown to bits by the explosion. Jane rushes into the burning room and helps Artemis drag Benedict to safety. Oddly, Alex Drake staggers to his feet. He has been crispy fried and couldn't look more dead if he was Nathan Harlow, but he is still up and moving around. The necromancer in his mind, Jedidiah, is somehow keeping Drake alive. The explosion stopped the ritual. The dimensional rift has been closed. The cultists are dead. The world has been saved.

Artemis throws a coat and hat over Drake and tells him to remain incognito. Inside Drake's mind he can hear Jedidiah repeated "stay alive, stay alive" over and over. Behind them the fire bakes the earth making entering the chamber again all but impossible.

Artemis knows what they achieved here today. They prevented a summoning of the elder god, Yogsothoth - a class 7 creature according to Hudson's email. If the summoning had worked then the entire world would have been put in jeopardy.

Tuesday, 6 February 2001

A few hours after dawn, the mid-west agents (with Drake in a body bag) have arrived back in Wichita. It becomes evident that many of the people the team met in Joplin were necromancers in some fashion. Brian Walker is never seen again, neither are many members of the military police, the regular police and students from the teaching hospital. The mortician Mark Neeves and the librarian, Bertha Stimson are also gone (Artemis rues giving her $50,000).

Back in Wichita HQ news reaches the team from Eisenstein's office. Artemis is a field agent no longer. He has been given a desk in Quantico where he will properly fill Eisenstein's role prior to his promotion.

It is the end of an era. Even though the mid-west team has only been in existence for nineteen weeks, Artemis has experienced more strange happenings, and been shot at more often, than most FBI agents would manage in two lifetimes. Jane admits she will be sad to see him go. His departure will leave her the longest serving (and longest surviving) agent in the team. Blackthorne is a living statue. Drake is mad. Stone is gone. Jane doesn't even want to think about Harlow.

Benedict Oaxaca is promoted to Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the mid-west team. Chuck is his number two, and Jane the only other agent. New recruits will definitely have to be found, but then that's Artemis's problem now.

The news, the plans and the speculations of what happens next keep the agents occupied for the rest of the day. Artemis suggests an extended period of down-time. Working the grey-case files is extremely stressful and meeting an outer god even more so (unless you're Artemis Black, of course). This combined with the fact that entire Wichita HQ will have to be closed to allow the construction of the Blackcave prompts Artemis to give his agents seven weeks off.

While all his happening, Drake unzips his body bag and struggles out. The power of Jedidiah is still keeping him alive and Drake realises what must be done. He must leave this place and find a way to restore his body. This one thought drives the crispy agent as he slips out of the HQ. By the time anyone notices he has gone, Drake is far away.

Artemis tidies his desk. He stares lovingly at all the various awards and accolades he has received over the past few months. He also believes that he will be able to genuinely help the team in his new role. Jane expects him to promptly forget them the second he walks out the door, but she doesn't say anything. She is surprised that Artemis's last act as her psychiatrist is to declare her sane. Then with a cigar clamped happily between his teeth, and the roar of his Lotus-7, Artemis Black is gone into the night.

Thursday, 8 February 2001

Jane Munroe leaves Wichita and returns to Augusta, Maine. She rents an apartment close to the Restful Acres sanitarium and begins to visit her mother on a daily basis. During her stay Jane encounters her father, but does not make any progress in trying to reunite the family.

Monday, 26 February 2001

After almost three weeks enjoying his new job, his large desk and his hot and cold running secretaries, Artemis is approached by Eisenstein. Eisenstein wants to introduce Black into MK-Ultra, a secret organisation of which Eisenstein is already a part.

Once indoctrinated Black discovers many things that he would have loved to know when he was a field agent. MK-Ultra are into psychotropic drugs and are obsessed with creating the ultimate soldier. Albert Johnson (aka Apache Joe) was a rogue MK-Ultra agent. His death was faked by the agency, before he absconded. However, Vitrano and Lavin had nothing to do with MK-Ultra. They, and their shadowy foreign paymasters, had their own agenda.

Artemis also discovers that certain parts of the world are inhabited by people whose genetic make-up is slightly awry. This makes them immune to psychotropics and MK-Ultra conditioning. Winterset is one of these places.

One further interesting titbit revealed to Artemis is that Eisenstein is much older than he looks. He was working as an agent for the FBI in the 1940s. Quite how this is possible has not been revealed. Let's hope it doesn't involve time travel.

Thursday, 1 March 2001

Jane Munroe briefly leaves Augusta and visits her sister, Danielle, in New York. She persuades Danielle to come to Maine and visit their mother on a day Jane is certain her father will not be about.

Friday, 2 March 2001

Planning permission comes through for Artemis to build a home in Winterset. He sets about commissioning an architect and a reputable building firm.

Monday, 5 March 2001

Jane and Danielle Munroe visit their mother at Restful Acres. The experience is a little too upsetting for the pregnant Dani who says she cannot cope with seeing her mother in such a state. Danielle returns to New York. Jane spends the rest of her stay on the east coast alternating between Augusta and her sister's home in New York.

Tuesday, 13 March 2001

Artemis Black is now firmly settled into his job, as well as happily entrenched in his society and charity work. His name is put forward to before the next governor of Virginia. Artemis is now faced between the choice he always knew he would have to make: politics or law enforcement. After a great deal of thought Artemis decides to concentrate on his work in the FBI. He wants to remain close to evidence response - and besides, this makes the person trying to blackmail him with millions of dollars of shares look pretty stupid.

Thursday, 15 March 2001

The decision to stay with the FBI made, Artemis looks into making the lives of his teams that little bit better. He thinks it is high time that he did something for poor Joshua Blackthorne who has now been petrified for three months. The team knows that the curse can only be lifted by the person who cast it (either willingly or through death).

If Artemis had taken the decision he now takes while playing the game with Lillian Winter his soul would have been as damned as Nathan Harlow's. But he isn't playing the game, and the decision to have the witch Veronica Cunningham murdered by his MK-Ultra contacts is completely free of demonic interference. Artemis gives the order, and sits back and waits for the results.

Saturday, 17 March 2001

News reaches Artemis and the rest of the evidence response team that Veronica Cunningham has died in a car accident. Her husband, Paul Cunningham (leading agent of the high threat response unit), is distraught and has taken an extended leave of absence from the FBI.

Jane Munroe takes the first flight back to Wichita. She hurries to her garage where Joshua is being stored while the refurbishment of the Wichita HQ is taking place. However, Joshua is exactly where Jane left him (facing a small portable television set and wearing head-phones). He is still quite petrified.

Jane deduces that Veronica Cunningham was not the person who cast the spell on Josh - that it must have been the other woman, Josephine McKenna. Unfortunately, there has been no word from the APB Jane placed on the woman three months ago. Jane finds the death of Veronica Cunningham rather odd, but she it doesn't occur to her that Artemis had a hand in it. After all, why would Artemis do Josh any favours? Meanwhile, in Quantico, Artemis is entirely unaware that his scheme has failed.

Monday, 19 March 2001

After a weekend of talking through the ramifications of Joshua's state with Benedict, Jane returns to Augusta to continue ministering to her mother.

Saturday, 31 March 2001

With the refurbishment of the Wichita HQ now complete, contractors move the statue of Joshua Blackthorne from Jane's garage to headquarters. Jane does not accompany the statue because she is still in Maine.

Sunday, 1 April 2001

Jane flies back to Wichita from Augusta in order to start work again the following day. Her mother's condition is largely unchanged from how it was in February. Jane hopes that she doesn't stay away too long.

Monday, 2 April 2001

The refurbishment of the Wichita HQ is complete, the Blackcave is finished and it is time of the mid-west team to return to work. Jane arrives early to find headquarters largely unchanged from the outside, except for the entrance to the new underground car park. She has been dreading how many more cases have been added to the nine that were outstanding back in February.

As she drives in, Jane notices a naked figure crouched in the doorway of the building, shivering against the cold. She gets out and investigates the form only to discover that it is Alex Drake, somehow returned to the flesh…

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