China Town / Little Italy / Punchinello

Timeline Note: This game takes place before Mateao and Sam get out of quarantine on Stronghold.

     The press reports on the attack but the story is buried in Metro and the number of "dead" is written to sound more like there were wounded, lots of property damage and a few other "deadly incidents".  But for those of you there you know that there were at least a dozen dead, maybe more.  Jason is a bit upset about the bloody event and Jade is taking is even worse.   Sam is your only registered bail bondsmen so you need to wait until he gets out of Stronghold to pick up more bonds.  The Black Tower is always on the horizon but no one seems able to get to it.

     With Mateao out of action Mr. Rush hires Kirby for temporary muscle. Jade is out of quarantine in six hours due to her government / political contacts and also because of her job - she had been assigned to look into a few high profile politicians both of which are ill.  She, as a doctor, checks it out. Both have signs of a strong influenza bug.   Contagious.  She tells them to take keep the fluids up and the contact with others to a minimum and get some rest. 

     While Jade, Jason, Kirby and Miranda are hanging out at Absolute Bail Bonds 24-7 a man comes in and time seems to .... stop.   The man is William Gravel, the street samurai mage on the American Minor Arcanum.  He discusses the King events with the group:

               *  There is clearly a magical event horizon happening.  It's spiraling rapidly out of control.  You all, a group in Chinatown and a group in Little Italy seem to be at the center of it and it's obviously about Stephen King.  

               *  Things from King's books seem to be coming to life.  So far the Buick 8 Red Hook incident is the only horrible one.  Everything else has been contained.  He doesn't elaborate on what "everything else" entails.   He speculates that a lot of really powerful, horrible supernatural things happen in King's books and the world could pretty much be doomed unless a solution is found and since the Absolute Bail Bond group seems to be the most reliable center of attention he thinks the best way to tackled the solution is to push head on.  Pretend you are in a novel and do what characters in novels do.  Move forward.

               * He suggests you don't hide from anything King like in your life.  Embrace it all.  Move forward.

               * He says he and the other Arcanum are working on alternative solutions.  They have Stephen King working on a novel where a bunch of awesome supernatural "good" things happen but William isn't sure that is going to work as King needs time to write and time seems to be running out.

               *  He doesn't know what triggered this and he is really, really unsure what Foxbat has to do with any of it. 

               *  He assures you that the American minor Arcanum and the Albion Minor Arcanum are working on solutions.

               *  When William leaves time picks up again and Miranda doesn't even seem to have noticed he was ever there.

     Jason has something for the group to do.  He wants to head into Chinatown and Little Italy and see if he (they) can turn up any information about the Foxbat fliers that had been left in the two neighborhoods.  The group had previous received information that FB fliers had been delivered to an address in Italy to a young man named Lorenzo Russo and in China Town to a kid named Kun Liu.

     China Town:

          Jason, Jade and Kirby head into Chinatown to track down Kun Liu.  He's a young teenager living in the heart of Chinatown.   They find him, talk to him about the FB fliers and the kid acknowledges receiving them but says he turned them over to a local gang and doesn't have any left or even remember what they said.  Jade reads the kid's surface thoughts and knows that he's lying and they convince Kun to turn his last flier over.   But Jade also picks up that Kun sends a "help" TM out to someone.  A few local gang kids show up and try and flaunt their clout.  Nothing really happens though. 

     Jason ends up with a picture of one of the Chinatown FB flier's. Eventually they get a translation and it's a bunch of silly trash talking about a male Chinese fighter.  In the lower right hand corner is more Stephen King references.  It least, Jason assumed they were Stephen King references.  They read:

     "Remember kids: Dead is in fact, much, much worse.  Countdowns from 100 fucking suck. Buyer beware, true dat!"

     Then there is a small picture of an old time ski resort / hotel with a message on it that reads,  "Not to scale, yo".

     Little Italy-

          Little Italy is close to Chinatown so the group walks to the quite streets of the all Italian neighborhood.  They are quickly rolled up on but a car of Italians who tell them, "Big Pussy" wants to talk to you. Salvatore's down the street.  Right now".   The group walks down the street to meet "Big Pussy".  He's a made guy.  He knows why they are here but the problem has already been taken care of.  He tells them to go home and get out of Little Italy.  He's very polite about it.  Orders them dinner.  Orders them wine.  Orders them cannoli.  But his message is still clear, "The FB fliers are gone.  We got rid of them.  We own everyone in Red Hook so we know everything you do.  Fuck off".

     The group doesn't really "fuck off".  They head over to the apartment of Lorenzo Russo.   Jason and Jade sneak in.  Kirby hangs outside at a bar across the street.  Kirby is approached by a real looker of a woman.  She pumps him for information about "where his friends are".  He spills the beans that they are, "Across the street but I'm not sure where they went.  They told me to wait". The woman leaves and immediately passes along the information that the group didn't, "Fuck off".  

       Upstairs Jason and Jade are casing Lorenzo's place but it's been scrubbed clean.  Suddenly they are attacked by a crazy Italian man in a clown costume.  "Punchinello" attacks them with toys that explode and cut and entangle.  The combat is furious but Jade manages to take Punchinello down. 

     Downstairs Kirby is attacked by a three trigger happy Italian kids.  Bullets bounce off him and he smacks them around a bit. They run. 

     Jade and Jason didn't find anything upstairs and the group splits before cops or reinforcements arrive. 

     Back in Red Hook

     The group is back at a local bar where they often drink with Kirby. The group discusses the new King angles - the hotel in the Chinese FB flier is probably the hotel from "The Shinning" but no one recognizes the three references yet.  Jade mentions that she has seen two recent patients with a really strong influenza bug.  Jason points out that a super powerful influenza bug called Captain Tripps is what wipes out 99.9% of the population in King's, "The Stand".  

     Kirby's pal Randy stops over to join them for a drink.  He's as happy and fun as ever.  Until Jade accidentally reads his surfaces thoughts.  Which are dark.  And then he sends her a telepathic message, "That cunt is reading my mind.  I think I should have her raped to death".  Then he blocks her telepathy.   Randal makes a few more jokes and is on his way.

     Jade tells the group what just happened between her and Randy.  Jason mentions that "Randal Flagg" is the super powerful sorcerer antagonist in several of Stephen King's novels including "The Stand" and "The Dark Tower".  In fact, they look up Randal Flagg on Wikipedia and read about all of his aliases in King's books including this one: "Nyarlathotep, the Crawling Chaos, God of a Thousand Forms, Stalker Among the Stars, Black Pharaoh, Messenger to the Other Gods".

     The Other Gods - Lovecraft's pantheon of world destroying elder creatures. 

     On that positive note Jason gets word that Mataeo is out of Stronghold and heading back to Absolute Bail Bonds 24-7.   The group goes to meet him.