Going to Church
    Early in the spring of 2000, a little thought of patch of jungle was purchased from the Nicaraguan government by an American company, and soon after that excavation of the site began, partially sponsored by the Fowler museum in Los Angeles.

    In late 2002, when excavation went deep enough, an 11th century Catholic church was uncovered. Wendy Teeter, director of acquisitions for the museum and the person directly involved in control of the dig, gathered several more knowledgeable colleagues and a more capable security presence to investigate further. Two professors from the UCLA History department, a Catholic priest, three experienced men to back up the local security, including Wendy's own personal security advisor, a demolitions technician, and the strange man sent from Asia to watch her, for some reason.

    Landing on a strip of road converted to a runway, the seven newcomers spent the day exploring the site, and indeed, an amazingly well preserved church placed in the middle of a fairly typical Mayan village.

    Early that evening, into camp rode Remy after a full day ride from Puerto Cazebas, slipping away from the cruise ship when he and his parents had stopped into the port. A young boy in his teens on a dirt bike, for some reason he doesn't go to school that often.

    The second night at the dig, out of the night slipped a half dozen jungle cats, all strangely, slightly transparent in the dim light around the camp. After a brief firefight, ineptly contributed to by the dozen or so locally hired goons, the bodies of the cats were examined. Similar to cougars of the northern hemisphere, and while not insubstantial, they had a strange translucence to them.

    The next day began a more thorough investigation of the church, eventually breaking through a door into catacombs, sealed from the inside. Entombed inside were nearly twenty Mayans in open graves, and three Englishmen in carved stone coffins, two knights and a priest. Though the bodies of the knights were quite decayed, the priest's was fairly well preserved and his coffin contained the priest's journal and an ivory and gold carved crucifix on a jeweled chain.

    The journal told the story of eleven people who fled England by ship after the battle of Hastings in 1066, the storm that blew them far out to sea and the months of sailing before spotting islands, and then land beyond, and the journey inland until they encountered a small village. The journal detailed in great degree the life and culture of the village, and the eventual acceptance of the foreigners within it. Within a year, seven of the foreigners had died, leaving only the two knights, Sir William, and Sir Rolland of Wickford, and the priest, Brice St. Gilles. Dates marking each entry in the journal continued steadily, the last one dated the seventh of July, God's year 1251.

    That night brought another disturbance, the eighteen Mayans entombed beneath the church rose and entered the camp only a few moments before more of the translucent cougars. High explosives were abound. At sunrise, the order was given to pack up the camp.

    Arriving at the airstrip, they encountered Simon, Wendy's personal security advisor, destroying vehicles and planes with rockets and a short firefight ensued, Simon eventually falling after being hit several times from the Land Rovers being used as transportation.

    The wreckage cleaned up, the people who were heading back to the US packed the artifacts recovered from the dig into an old modified Lancaster and took off down the runway, the plane lifting off on autopilot on a line over the dig as it's bay doors opened and followed by a huge blast as the church, the excavation, and a sizeable section of jungle were leveled.

Agents and Angels
   The flight back to the US was fairly uneventful, landing again at Burbank-Pasadena where Wendy stood waiting. When Wendy saw the people she'd sent climbing off the plane, she ran to her car and drove off. After a bit of discussion, David Blair, the other UCLA professor, Damita and Felix who were two of the dig site crew left on their own way, eager to put the rather traumatic series of events of the last few days behind them.

    The crates filled with artifacts were packed up and driven to a garage out of town that Leveni assured them would be an extremely safe place to keep them for the time being, and while they were there they sold a new Audi they'd found at the airport that was registered to Simon, trading it for an almost new Ford Excursion. 

    Quick work at heading to Wendy's house found a Camaro in her garage that didn't belong to her, and a motel receipt for several months worth of rent. Being their only direct lead, they headed for the motel. On the way, they spotted Wendy's Lexus heading the other way on the highway, and a short chase quickly started, ending when the SUV rammed into a Dodge Neon. After Father Martin placated the owner, they all resumed their drive to the motel.

    Arriving at the motel they spoke briefly with a man who was in the room in question, though it quickly degenerated when he fired a shotgun at Gabriel. A short fight subdued him, and in one of the two bedrooms they found the unconscious form of Wendy. Looking quite weak and with an IV in her arm, they carefully brought her and the man to the garage, again, what seemed to be the safest place. After brief interrogation of the man, and speaking to Wendy in the morning, they decided that they should return to the motel and wait for a girl named Julia, who had apparently been paying the man to sit in the motel room for the last few months and watch Wendy.

    After several days of waiting, and Alex's breakthrough discovery of magic, four people in suits appeared at the door to their motel room. Identifying themselves as agents for the Fish and Wildlife division of the Department of the Interior, the three men and woman were allowed to enter. Questioning the six people about their recent activities in Nicaragua, the whereabouts of Wendy and Simon, and pressing for information about any "unusual" occurrences, the four agents departed, sadly deprived of any answers that would be useful for them.

    The following evening, Alex managed to identify the properties of several magical items they had recovered from Simon, and shortly before 3am, they were all awakened by the incredibly graceful impacting of man and floor as he fell through the motel room's skylight.

    Introducing himself as Edward Wyndham-Pryce, and the girl who had somehow slipped in through the room's second floor window as Harmony Ward. The two inquired about the federal agents who had visited and the questions they had asked, and in turn answered a few questions about the agents and what might be going on. Also deprived of much information by the ever-paranoid group, Edward and Harmony took their leave. Harmony again through the window, Edward, flexing his 16 wisdom, chose the door.

    Several more days of waiting resulted in a young woman, vaguely fitting the description of Julia arriving at the motel in a Lexus. Jumped as she walked past their motel room, a brief and explosive fight led to an even briefer and more explosive chase down a stretch of Highway 101, the woman and person driving the Lexus vanishing into the night before the car exploded.

    Heading for the garage that morning, they again talked to the now-conscious Wendy and the still recovering man. Then heading back down to LA, they passed the motel and saw numerous police and emergency vehicles at the motel and at the wreckage of the Lexus, along with the four F&W agents.

    Arriving at Wendy's they found an old Honda crashed into her garage, and the Camaro that was there earlier missing, and sadly, on the floor of the hallway leading from the garage into the house was the body of the man they recognized as the driver of the Lexus the night before. Moments later they heard a radio call over a police scanner, a description of their SUV and a dispatch of officers to Wendy's house.

    Taking the opportunity to head back to the garage, another call over the radio cancelled the description of their vehicle, but requesting a coroner to Wendy's house, an arrest warrant for Wendy for murder. 

    The next morning Father Martin received a call from his superiors at the Vatican Inquisition, informing of them of their much anticipated arrival at LAX. After meeting with them in their commandeered airport hangar, then driving back to the garage to get the artifacts, the Vatican paid the six for the recovery of the pieces and analyzed a sample of Julia's blood. Returning five DNA matches, three of them dead, one missing, and one imprisoned in Oregon, the Inquisition Bishop instructed Father Martin to uncover the reasons for Wendy's impersonator and find the people behind it, giving him free reign to hire outside the Vatican's normal circle of personnel to conclude the investigation as quickly as possible.

    And so lead them, to Oregon to find their best available lead. Jennifer Fitzpatrick, currently serving time for vehicular manslaughter.

Black Creek
   But the road was long, and night fell as they passed into lower Oregon. Following the highway north through the mountains a distressed call came over their radio. A woman named Marilyn, distraught and confused, claiming to be trapped with her daughter in a small dark room, though unable to remember how or why she'd gotten there, only that she remembered going on a trip to visit her brother and remembered driving past a sign reading Black something.

    After a few minutes searching their maps they located the town of Black Creek, about twenty miles away and a ways off the Interstate. Driving through the town at night revealed little, several boarded up buildings and not much in the way of lights at all, so the intrepid group decided to pull back and wait until morning.

    In the light of the morning they explored what seemed to be an all but abandoned town in the middle of dwindling farmland. Old trucks and beaten sedans parked along the town's only two main roads, a single cross street. A closed school and boarded up gas station at the edge of town, all signs of abandonment save for a single fairly new minivan with Delaware license plates.

    Registered to a Michael Delany, a quick rummaging through the van turned up a garage receipt signed by Marilyn Delany, and the search was on.

    And then was quickly off, as Ken spotted movement behind a building to the east. A brief chase ensued and they managed to corner a lone person, a twisted form of a rural looking man with mottled skin, reddened eyes and glowing of magic, he quickly jumped at Alex as the battle was joined by another seven like him.

    But while it was quickly discovered that their mighty +3 attack bonus was no match for the group of six, they proved difficult to dispatch as they kept rising moments after they were put down. Father Martin managed to Charm one of the twisted men, who then stood dumbly muttering of food while the others like him were killed.

    Some coaxing at the charmed man led them to the back of a house, where a shallow pit had been dug and heaped full with the chopped remains of decayed human bones. A quick search of the house was interrupted at the sound of gunfire from the north end of town. Just past the school was found a recently abandoned police cruiser, tires slashed and radio. Quickly finding a handful of spent pistol casings, the six quickly followed a trail of footprints and bleeding drag marks through town, leading up to an old barn back behind a junk dealer.

    Within the barn was darkness, two beaten sheriff's deputies hung from chains on one wall in front of an old picnic table coated with gore and scattered with bloody cleavers and saws, an old wood chipper pushed back into the shadows among rotting bales of hay.

    Moving quickly into the barn to save the deputies, a dozen or more of the twisted humans leapt from the shadows or fell from the hayloft, as the wood chipper rolled forward to bash at Gabriel. Ken, Miguel, Leveni and Gabriel engaged the creatures as Father Martin and Alex carried the deputies to safety. Withdrawing quickly from the barn in time for Leveni to bring it crashing down on the strange humans, the wood chipper inexplicably trundling out of the collapsed barn to be dispatched by Ken and Gabriel.

-
   -

-
   -