Vat:16 Episodes 1

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Starring: Amiri, Pauline, Joseph
Guest Starring: Bucky, Connie (not the one from VAT)
Challenge: players fill this in
Location: Millvale, Larimer, Polish Hill
Date Played: 13-Feb-2013

Millvale Minotaur

Prologue: Joseph gets Lost

Joseph: While I was a'walkin' 'round the town o' Millvale, I seemed to git myself all turned around. I was dead sure that I had a handle on where I were, but then it turns out that I didn't. Usually these things only happen when I've bin drinkin', but I hadn't had a drop of the stuff.

Gettin' near a gas station I try to use the telephone when I hear the breathin' o' some critter that sounds the size of a bull. Lookin' to make myself scarce take cover behind a metal bin. I hell obscenities at it, as whatever it is is now followin' me. Then all of a sudden it lifts up the metal bin—the size of a small carriage, mind ya—and I see a (formerly mythical) minotaur.

I hightail it outta there just as quick as my legs'll take me. I spy a good tree to hide in, an my lucks turns swell, a (formerly mythical) elf pulls me up inna tree! The elf doesn't care to chat, havin' done its good deed fer the day...

Might as well check it out…

Pauline: It's not that we didn't believe Joseph, but he has been a little crazy lately. So when he told us about a minotaur roaming Millvale, we weren't exactly champing at the bit n'at. But we went anyway, and we went with a plan. We were going to get lost.

We had the hardest time finding bad directions, which was shocking. Eventually, with enough booze and weed, we got ourselves lost and encountered the minotaur. It was fairly harmless, so we didn't hurt it. It socked Joseph, but he had it coming. I gave it some candy and it was pretty happy with that.

Joseph: As I regained my wits and consciousness, I kin now confirm that the minotaur understands English and is sensitive to colored remarks.

Amiri: Joseph came into work on one of our many slow days with a bit of a story. Evidently there was a minotaur that accosted him in front of the 7-11. Also, he was saved by an elf. Now, living in Millvale makes it easy to drink (for more reasons than one), but he seemed to believe this with all of his heart, so we figured it would be worth looking into.

We find that minotaurs can actually hail from a variety of places and that they are partial to mazes. They also make themselved known when someone is lost. By looking at previous attacks in Millvale, we find that other people have been attacked in various states of drunkeness trying to get home. So, naturally, we get a plan to get drunk and get lost.

Sadly, for us, the plan was really hard to implement. It was hard for me to get in a proper state of drunkeness, and even harder to get a set of bad directions. After a few hours of trying, we end up down a dead-end street where there should have been a T. So, when we turned around he came face-to-face with some heavy breathing and a hulking man-bull.

Joseph begins to mouth off at it and took one to the lip. With him down, we began to try to communicate with the beast. It had some limited understanding of us, but really couldn't communicate back. He seemed pretty harmless in the end, so Pauline gave it some candy to appease it and the beast went away.

The Bucky Ball

Pauline: In the meantime, my dealer, Bucky, was using Joseph for favors. That's bad enough, and as soon as I heard about it, I started planning to bawl Bucky out a good one. But it gets worse- he wanted to find his girlfriend so that he could beat her. Now the poor girl has taken hostages and is demanding that Bucky be arrested. It's a situation that we absolutely have to defuse, so before our afternoon Vat work, I lead the team over to where Bucky probably is.

We scare him out of hiding, he tries to run like the little rat he is. I pop him a good one- well, I pop him one anyway, and Amiri makes sure he gets escorted out in cuffs.

Joseph: So the residual effects of the headless horseman still have me seein' faces melting and tentacles. Introduce some Chinese medicine into that mix and violá, a clear head. Well, I reckon a mostly clear head. Turns out that Pauline's fella kin supply me wit it, so I trade him some favors. Nothing disastrous, at least, my themselves...

Amiri: The next moring, I got a call about a hostage situation from Pauline. Evidently something has done down with one of her associates. She really didn't give me all of the details, but she told me that there are some innocent kids involved, so that was good enough for me.

We began the hunt for this guy named Bucky so that the battered woman would calm down for the police in the hostage situation. We hopped to a few houses before we discovered he was at a deadbeat relatives place. As we go to the front, he tries to sneak his way out the back. We quickly make our way down the alley before we intercept him at his car.

A neighbor leans out of his window with a shotgun pointed at us, asking us what we were up to. I quickly yell out, "He's wanted and there's a reward!" When asked how much, I remember that the DTF offers rewards up to $10,000, so I yell that out. He quickly climbs back inside his window and comes out of the back door with his gun trained on Bucky now, telling him not to go anywhere. The police eventually come, and I inform him that I said there was a reward. They are assured when I tell them that we don't want one, and they can probably get away with giving the guy two grand by saying it had to be split between all parties involved.

Polish Festival

Joseph: My head isn't in the right place, so the events of the polish festival are a mystery to me.

Amiri: Pauline invites us to a polish food festival later that week. There are lots of little events happening around us, including a few art exhibits. The one that we notice the most is a young kids that is evidently really good at carving things out of potatos. All and all, it was pretty uneventful and a nice time killer.

Diabetic Minotaur

Joseph: We gather and reckon ourselves a plan. We're gonna put a collection of maze puzzles and wax crayons into a wagon and trap the minotaur inside. Then we're a gonna move it to a new location.

I'm flabbergasted. The plan worked.

Amiri: Over the next few days, we heard of reports that women were being mugged by a large man in a fur jacket in Millvale after leaving bars, but the only thing taken off of their person were mints, candy, and other suger filled things.

We decide to lure him out like the kids did in that ET movie. We made a maze of candy through the woods at the top of Millvale and had a moving truck that we fit a cage inside. Inside the cage, we put more candy and a bunch of maze books, blank paper, and some drawing implements.

As soon as we laid the last piece of candy, we say that the minotaur arrived and had eaten the pieces behind us under some means of masking our perception of him. He willingly climbed into the van, and we shut the doors behind him. Pauline stayed in back to keep him occupied.

We were able to deliver him to the jet as a "wild bull" and everything was smooth sailing. I like when we can end these without bloodshed and a happy ending.