Vat:17 Episodes 2

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Starring: Amiri, Pauline, Koz
Guest Starring:
Challenge: players fill this in
Location: Squirrel Hill, Frick Park
Date Played: 20-Feb-2013

No Job

Pauline: I don't like to be lazy, but when the VAT says, "We haven't got a job for you, go explore town and see what happens," I can't help but use it to catch up on my daily business. I've got a house full of kids- what else can I do?

Amiri: Jobs have been slow recently. VAT HQ told us to go around town looking for possible things for us to do and earn a little cash. I decide to spend my time with the local police, but nothing really exciting happens. I spend my time working their "scared straight" program with the local deliquents.

The Schenley Classic

Pauline: When we do have a job, it's providing security for the Schenley Classic. That puts me on the prowl for some doctors. It's mostly a non-event, and we were only there because Killer Bitchface killed some people in Monaco, and that got everyone all panicked.

Amiri: A security job. It is mostly due to "Koz's woman" killing someone in Monaco, but there is little we can do about that. It's a job in the end, and getting paid is nice. On the bright side, nothing major happened and the team got some practice in coordinating with large groups. This will be needed if we ever need to form Team 7.

Gruesome in Squirrel Hill

Pauline: But the real adventure of the week was the murder in Squirrel Hill. The side of a house was exploded by some force, and everyone in it pulverized into a pulp. We followed a trail deep into Frick Park, only to find a ton of rotting potatoes under a bridge and a lot of essence. We got suspicious.

We got nebby, talked to the neighbors, talked to the locals, and followed up on what Koz saw- a bunch of Jewish kids hanging out under that bridge a little before the attack. This turned into a trip to the Jewish Community Center. They were showing Beethoven, so I brought the kids along, in part because I wanted to have Sammy keep an eye on the Jewish teens and look for anybody sneaking out.

Which, by the way, _someone_'s been calling the house a lot lately for Sammy. And she keeps jokingly using the word "shiksa". I'm not going to pry, but I made sure there's some condoms in the stash. I don't care what she does, so long as she's safe.

Template:Amrir: Sadly, our calm moments are often us just falling into the eye of the storm. We soon saw on the TV that there were a string of murders in Squirrel Hill. These murders were unique, though, in that they were especially brutal and there was a lot of damage to property.

We followed a set of clues and a trail of essence to a bridge in Frick Park. there, we found piles of rotting vegetation. We really had no idea what to make of this, so we just took note of it that it may come in handy to remember later.

Koz informed us that there were some youths from the Jewish Community Center that hung out here. Pauline and Joseph decided to check it out, and Pauline brought her kids as cover to be checking it out. She saw that some of the older kids were trying to sneak out, so we decided to follow them.

Carrots

Pauline: Speaking of safe, we spot the kids heading back to the park. We tail them, and whaddaya know: they're summoning a vegetable golem. They've been using it to get revenge, and the mastermind is the same kid I saw last week, when doing security at the Hill festival- he won the potato carving contest.

We're mostly pulling our punches on the kids, but they're playing with forces they barely understand, and I don't care how gentle you get- people are going to get hurt. And those kids got hurt, I'm sorry to say. It's a real tragedy, but hopefully the ones that got away learned something. We talked to the local Kaballist that they lifted this magic off of, and hopefully it's done.

Amiri: We let the kids trickle out and we followed them to the park. Pauline and Joseph stayed together while I kept away from them as the kids were not aware of my involvement.

They had a backpack full of vegetables that they dumped into a pile and began to chant over. During the chat, we heard Pauline's name called, and a potato golem rose from the pile and shambled toward her.

I jumped on the pile of kids to hopefully disrupt the ritual. It sadly did not work as the essence was spent and there was still a large pool in the area. A few more golems were raised, but they were taken care of pretty easily. Sadly, some of the kids were injured, two of them severely. I'm sure they will take this lesson with them and never mess with powers that are beyond them again.

The spell book they were using was confiscated, so they should never have a resource to go back on again. Hopefully they never hit the copy shop before we got ahold of them.