Delta Green: The Dracula Dossier

[SleepyShadow]

Spoiler: Prison Break

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As mentioned last time, the agents enacted a violent border crossing involving a yellow tank, a shoggoth, and a handful of rocket launchers. The agents knew the God Machine was going to throw the big guns at them for ruining its plans, and boy howdy they were prepared. Even so, the shoggoth came within maybe a round of cracking open the tank to get at the crew inside, and Magda and Alexia almost had their heads pulled off when it trampled onto them after Magda shot it with a goading attack. Thankfully, the agents were all able to get into Alanmar without casualties, though the tank practically had to be pushed into the garage for repairs.

Vic stayed behind to fix the tank, as did Marcella (since her player was absent), so the rest of the agents went to Pitesti Prison to rescue Natalia the teenaged arms-dealer. They had made a deal with Rustin, so the guards at the prison would give them free reign for a short time once they got there. Vic had to remind the agents to cook up some cover stories before they left; yes, it was a rescue mission, but they could still get arrested for being spies if they weren't careful.

The agents hopped on a train, then took a bus out to the prison. The guards let them pass with a hard 30-minute time limit, so the agents had to work fast. They managed to track Natalia down in the lowest holding cell, which was also the personal playground of Pacifica Oceana, a professional interrogator and former staff member at Skull Island. All of the agents, but Nassim in particular, had a bone to pick with Skull Island after their last run-in. The agents decided to take it out on Pacifica.

The fight was short and lopsided. Pacifica only had a couple of Renfields to back her up, and her tactic of "drop a combat trap and run away" was figured out pretty quickly. She only lasted as long as she did because she was able to separate half the party using Wall of Stone, but it was all over once that wall came down. The agents ended Pacifica's long career of torture with extreme prejudice.

Once Pacifica was dealt with, the agents pulled Natalia out of the strange, red-painted oubliette she had been kept in. After a few skill checks, the agents were able to deduce it was some kind of psychic battery for vampires, but they would need a more in-depth analysis to learn more. They scraped a sample of the paint off and took it with them as they left the prison. Natalia was grateful to be out in the fresh air again, even if she was skittish and quite foul-mouthed about expressing her thanks.

The agents returned to the hotel, where Vic and Marcella had patched the tank up enough to function properly again. Rustin was waiting for them as well, as he had promised to take Natalia across the border in exchange for the agents' help rescuing Princess Svetlana from Dracula's clutches. He told them that the King of Alanmar had called an emergency meeting with his advisors, as things had taken a sudden and dramatic turn for the worse on the war front. Svetlana had been sent to a resort town to do some skiing while the meeting was taking place, which was the perfect place for Dracula to strike. The agents agreed to rescue the princess while she was at the resort town, and Rustin took Natalia with him for a dangerous border crossing.

Everything was in place for a final confrontation between Delta Green and Dracula's Conspiracy.

[SleepyShadow]

Spoiler: Alanmarian Roulette

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The agents headed for the ski resort town to rescue Princess Svetlana from Dracula's clutches. By this point, the players had pieced together that Dracula wanted to turn Svetlana into his newest Bride, thereby having influence over the Alanmarian government and thus being able to secure independence for Troesia, as he considered Troesia to be his alone to rule. While some of the agents liked the idea of getting Troesia out from under occupation, they all agreed that Dracula was not the right answer to solving that problem.

When the agents arrived in town, they did a sweep of the place for anything suspicious. As it turned out, things were not as strange as they had expected. The "Bottomless Black Lake" they had heard so much about was not really either of those things. Its very clear water allowed the basalt bottom to be see, and the lake itself was 130 meters deep, but there was nothing sinister about it. Likewise, the town itself was a cheery little ski resort, without signs of monsters or conspiracy goons. Even Edom lacked any sort of presence here. There was some odd graffiti, and none of the churches had bells, but nothing truly alarming. The only thing out of the ordinary was that any time they tried to go off the beaten path from the tourist containment zone, they always got turned around or found nothing but blank walls and smug cats.

Nine distinct cats, to be specific.

On a whim, Nassim checked if they were really cats. As it turned out, they were familiars. This prompted some frantic skill rolls from the players, and Marcella recalled that, according to Abraham Van Helsing, somewhere in this town was the Scholomance Cave, where Dracula learned magic as a mortal. It was said that "The Devil mentors there and keeps the tenth as his own."

This was some bad mojo, but it did not dissuade the agents from their actual goal of rescuing the princess. They got a few rooms at a cheap hostel within eyesight of the grand hotel where Princess Svetlana and her security team were located. She had rented out the entire hotel, and her security team was very tight. This included private locks on all the hotel doors, plain clothes officers on every street corner, and a squad of snipers combing the rooftops around the hotel. Needless to say, even Dracula would need some kind of plan to get past Svetlana's team.

After catching a few hours of sleep, the agents split up once again, either to find clues as to what Dracula was planning, or to keep an eye on Svetlana in case he tried the old snatch-and-grab approach. As it turned out, Delta Green was not the only agency in town; they just happened to get there first.

Nassim, Piper, and Marcella bumped into Joshua Meadham and his bodyguard Canning. They tailed Meadham and Cunning long enough to overhear that Meadham had been outbid by Princess Svetlana on the Cobra Crown during the auction in Voclaria. Nassim got caught during the tailing, but because of his new body neither Meadham nor Canning recognized him. The serpent people told him to bugger off, and so he did without incident.

Magda and Alexia were scoping out Svetlana's hotel and trying to gather more intel about the nine cat familiars. During this operation, they bumped into three Edom agents who looked quite nervous to be there: Tyler the martial artist, Pinion the thief, and Hound (formerly Aurelie of Delta Green/The McBrides). Magda and Alexia managed to give them the slip, but Magda took a moment to puzzle out some of the strange goings-on in town. Rolling a 30 on her Mythos check, she had a bout of madman's insight and realized that this town belonged to The Devil. Specifically, it belonged to Ghatanothoa, whom Dracula served as the high priest. Here in this town, mages of the Scholomance could shift buildings at will and peer through the eyes of the locals whenever they wished.

Naturally, this revelation prompted a sanity check. Magda failed and fainted for several minutes while Edom closed in on them. Alexia fought off Tyler as best as she could, but she was no match for an Edom Duke who specialized in hand-to-hand combat. However, they were saved by an unlikely source. One of Dracula's hypnotized agents went full slasher movie on the scene, and the Edom agents quickly retreated. Alexia also ran off, carrying Magda on her back while the Slasher chased after the dukes.

Up in the mountains, Singe and Colonel Natter went to make contact with Svetlana's handler. They thought making friends with the handler would be much easier than trying to tell the princess about the situation. As it turned out, Dracula (going by "Mr. DeVille" at the time) had the same idea. Singe and Vic found Dracula sweet-talking the handler at the ski lodge's bar. Singe struggled to come up with a plan, so Vic stepped in with a half-baked plan of his own.

Acting the part of a drunkard, he swaggered up to Dracula and threw a beer on the vampire king's suit. He got a few broken ribs when "Mr. DeVille" elbowed him away, and the two traded barbs for a few tense moments before the lodge staff asked them both to leave. Both knew who the other was, of course, but neither was willing to break cover just yet. Vic couldn't open fire on Dracula and look like a psychopath in front of Svetlana and her handler, and Dracula couldn't utilize most of his powers in the daylight. They were both escorted out of the lodge, and Singe smoothed things over before taking Vic back down into town.

The agents reconvened at the hostel, swapped intel, and patched up Vic's broken ribs. It was sunset by the time the agents had cussed and discussed their situation. There was talk of trying to get the Edom agents to swap intel, but that idea was shot down. The agents settled on a plan of action, which was to take Svetlana and make their escape, while leaving the Cobra Crown behind for Edom and Meadham to fight over. At least that way they would "only" have to deal with Dracula and his minions.

However, Dracula had other plans in mind. He unleashed a localized but powerful earthquake in the town. This sealed off the mountain passes, shattered roads and bridges, and brought down hospitals. Once the initial tremor was over, hordes of Ghatanothoa's minions were set loose to destroy and murder with abandon. Dracula had trapped Sventlana in The Devil's town, and now only Delta Green could save her.

The hunt was on.

[SleepyShadow]

Spoiler: Dracula's Downfall

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The agents stormed Svetlana's hotel and ran roughshod over the first obstacle in their path - Joshua Meadham and his bodyguard Canning. The serpentmen stood no chance against the combined firepower of half a dozen determined agents. They even managed to rescue the poor girl working the front desk whom Canning had been roughing up for intel. The young woman, whose name was Sorana Serban, managed to impress the agents by being completely unphased by two serpentmen tearing their skin-suits off during the battle. Piper gave her a shotgun and told her to get somewhere safe. Vic offered her a job with Delta Green if she survived the night.

A few flights of stairs later, the agents ran afoul of the Edom trio. Although Pinion managed to score a nasty critical hit against Nassim, the agents took them down with little trouble. Magda managed to crack Tyler's sternum in an attempt to do nonlethal damage. Our agents dragged the downed Edom Dukes into a nearby hotel room. They patched up Tyler and Aurelie, while Vic took Pinion into the washroom for some enhanced interrogation. The agents learned from Aurelie and Tyler that Edom had dispatched them to steal the Cobra Crown from Svetlana, but they were mostly interested in keeping it out of Dracula's hands. After Ekaterina was extracted from Edom, Dracula slipped his leash and Edom had been scrambling to regain control of him. However, they could not battle him and Delta Green at the same time, and their resources were all but spent.

Before Tyler and Aurelie could spill more information, Angela Holcriss (Dracula's most powerful bride) crashed into the room through the window and began tearing up the Delta Green agents. The fight was short but brutal, with multiple agents suffering some pretty dire injuries. Thankfully, Magda managed to take Holcriss down using the Mu Pistol before the vampire could kill anyone. The agents did a quick patch job on their wounded, instructed Tyler to take the other Edom agents out of the city, and headed for the top floor to confront Dracula. Wanting to keep them safe, Vic instructed Magda and Alexia to head for a nearby water tower to use as a sniper post.

Outside of the hotel's royal suite, they found Svetlana's bodyguards slaughtered to a man. The hotel staff had fared little better, although Dracula had not bothered to kill all of them. Svetlana's handler stumbled out of a doorway, muttered something about having her blood taken, and collapsed to the ground in a pile of dust. The agents were horrified, but at least nobody failed the sanity check. Knowing they were running out of time, they headed for the roof where Svetlana had fled.

Faethor Ferenczy, a.k.a. Count Dracula, had cornered Princess Svetlana on the rooftop. Keeping her trapped in his iron grip, he held the Cobra Crown aloft and used his hypnotic power to gather the surviving townsfolk to the base of the hotel. As he donned the crown, a whirling ring of light opened in the air above the crowd. The agents got into position, and Magda opened fire on the vampire lord. Using the power of the Cobra Crown, Dracula mutated the crowd of helpless civilians into half a dozen hideous fleshy monsters. He then turned his full wrath upon the agents.

The battle was vicious, and things were looking bad for the agents at first. To everyone's pleasant surprise (including my own), we had an unexpected visit from Tobias! The appearance of the wizard turned the tide of the battle, and Dracula's minions were slain in short order. Dracula himself was struck down, but he used his misty form to enter the ventilation system and escape from the hotel.

Cross-referencing several old maps, Alexia and Singe were able to track Dracula down to his last holdout: The Scholomance Cave. The trail led deep beneath the earth through a cave by the black lake. A crack in the back of the cave had the word TARTARO carved above it. Knowing this was their one chance to slay Dracula once and for all, the exhausted agents went inside.

Once through the crack, the agents found a ring of stone chairs of an ancient and inhuman design. Seated upon the largest of them was Dracula's unmoving corpse. His wounds were slowly healing, but he was helpless until he completely recovered his strength. However, there was one last hurtle to overcome. Dracula's last line of defense were a group of radioactive demi-giants fueled by telluric energy. The party battled through them with every last bit of strength they have. In a last-ditch effort, Dracula called upon his psionic powers to puppet Singe and Magda's bodies, but it was not enough. Alexia and Tobias restrained Magda and Singe, while Vic plunged an ashwood stake into Dracula's heart. Marcella stuffed his mouth full of garlic, and Nassim chopped his head off with an old trusty fireaxe.

At long last, Dracula was dead!

[AllHailthed4]

Magda managed to crack Tyler's sternum in an attempt to do nonlethal damage.

What can I say? Vic's CQC training paid off...