End Times

Played with Jake Thombson (Julian/scakah) & N.8 (Tomas/Rubliko)

Exhibit No. 8, Saint the Elder and Jake Thombson, all of whom are Vessels, are dispatched to a hilltop town surrounded by fog. They speak with a couple of locals, then head to the town hall to speak with the mayor, who directs them to the newspaper office to speak with the paper's editor, Mr Frosch. A lot of people there are depressed, because their printer has broken down.

No. 8 threatens the editor, while Jake & Saint look at the enormous printing press, the former lighting an anti-magic candle beneath it. Upon hearing a scream, they check back in with No. 8, who has stabbed Frosch’s hand. They first close the door to keep the old man’s employees from rushing in to help him, then Jake scares them off by putting on a spooky mask. They then return to the printer and activate it, just to see what happens.

It turns out that the printer is partially magical, so with Jake’s candle still burning bright, the complex machinery begins tearing itself asunder. Oops. Meanwhile, No. 8 forces the elderly editor to peer into a pool of his own blood, as part of a ritual to summon his patron, the Clockwork Conceptual of Time. Then she turns Frosch’s blood acidic and attacks Time with her bloody knife. Saint also figures out that he can hurt Time by attacking the printer with his maul, so precedes to spend pretty much the entire rest of the mission doing this.
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No. 8 has lit some candles of her own, which keep Time from using his most impressive powers. He’s momentarily stunned upon discovering this, and she takes the opportunity to boot him through the door and jump on him. They scuffle for a bit while Jake periodically slaps Time with another of his candles, doing him no harm, but keeping his powers locked down. No. 8 also engulfs Time & herself in flame, but with one being metal and the other bone, neither is seriously harmed.

After getting headbutted hard enough to fracture her skull, she backs off long enough to grab Frosch, yank him over and force his bloody hand to grip Time’s spine. As the acid gets to work and the conceptual writhes in agony, Saint lands a final blow on the printer, which dramatically accelerates its collapse. He has to turn himself into a swarm of bats just to get out before being buried alive (well, undead).

The editor’s acid blood soon finishes eating through the brass spine, Time falls still, and their badges ping. Jake teleports out at once, but the other two stick around long enough to witness a few inky, black portals open nearby, each of which disgorges a tentacled, toothy maggot-thing that works with its fellows to drag the conceptual’s remains back with them though the portals.

• Saint the Elder Vampire