Esoteric Enterprises - No Town Like Cow Town - Session Three, Part One

Session Three of Cow Town. With Coal City closed out and nobody else running a game on Monday, attendance was higher this time. We had a full house, several new characters and a new player.

In attendance:

• Acrasia, Dream of Hunger (Spook Lvl 2)
• Timothy the Rocket Surgeon (Criminal Lvl 1)
• Cassiopeia Unseelie the Third Generation Red Cap (Spook Lvl 1)
• Mort Caliginous the Inward Collapsing Void (Mystic Lvl 1)
• Clement "Clem" Cleburne, Cunning Criminal of Cow Town (Criminal Lvl 1)

The gang met at the Pound of Flesh in Downtown Cow Town. The kosher food truck sold BBQ brisket, non-dairy based sides, and forties that blatantly violated city open container laws. They discussed which job they wanted to take. They decided to visit the Megachurch and see about getting Acrasia a new arm.


The Fortress of the Servants of the King of the Universe was the size of a stadium or large theater. The vast parking lot was nearly empty given the time of day. A painting of Christ trampling a snake and lifting another in his hand watched over the vast lobby. The ticket counter and coat check were deserted.

The worship hall was enormous, with thousands of seats facing the podium. A pair of church workers were removing the flooring on the stage to access the electrical wiring beneath. A woman was fussing over the wall hangings. They asked where they should go for miraculous healing. She told them the miracles happened during regular services. If they wanted to speak with the Father about making special arrangements, they should definitely NOT go backstage to the stairs to the next floor. They should NOT ask the Reverend for a favor, and they should NOT reject the first offer he made, in order to get a better one.

They nodded and went backstage. Up the stairs, to Reverend Bacon's office. They entered without knocking. The reverend was a small man, typing on a computer in front of an enormous statue of Eve messily devouring the apple of knowledge, while a boa constrictor encircled her from the waist down. They petitioned him to heal Acrasia's missing arm. His eyes flashed blue as he assessed the situation. He identified Acrasia as a sinful being, born from the mind of a human being. Capable of salvation if she accepted Christ, like any other creature with a soul. As for divine healing, he could dispense it, but the opportunity cost was serious. He couldn't justify the expenditure of heavenly power without acquiring something for the Church in return.

So he laid out the "donation" he needed: an item held in custody by a lich in the farthest reaches of the Cow Town underground. The necromancer had something that belonged to the Church, and he wanted it back. The team seriously considered it, before remembering the woman's warning. They declared the task too dangerous and walked out the door. The Holy Father stopped them with a counteroffer. Rather than pick a fight with a lich, he had a less dangerous task he would accept.

The Church wished to acquire a holy artifact from a buried reliquary on the West side of town. A pagan fire cult refused to allow the faithful passage into the ancient vaults, citing doctrinal differences. If the petitioners could retrieve the skull of Saint Boniface of Coburg from the reliquary and return it to the Servants of the King of the Universe, Father Bacon would replace Acrasia's arm. He further informed them that they had nothing to fear from the artifact itself. His eyes flashed blue again, and he reassured them that their sins were Venial at worst. So far.

The team picked up some fire extinguishers (on Acrasia's tab, everyone else was broke) and headed Downtown. The closest underworld entrance to the target area was the Art Gallery - a crooked and wild structure. The front desk was "watched" by a portly and languid artist, more concerned with his drawing tablet than his guests. He informed the visitors that a twenty dollar suggested donation would make them friends of the museum, granting access to the town's artistic underground. Acrasia covered the rest of the group, and the fat man "unzipped" the faux rusted wall behind him, opening a hidden staircase.

The underground gallery was full of disturbing exhibits. The centerpiece was a sculpture of Francis Bacon's Figure With Meat. A group of artists were sipping a greenish-white liquid and smoking from a hookah with a seven legged brittle star floating in the water vessel. The door to the West was watched by a melted wax face over the arch, with a jaw like a ventriloquist dummy. "Don't let 'em see ya sweat!" it warned the team as they passed beneath it into the tunnel.

The light at the end of the passage was blinding. The gang emerged into a room lit by a gigantic pyre, that burned without fuel or smoke. The wall was painted with a mural of a fireball orbiting a star, orbited itself by smaller fireballs. A pair of cultists sporting burn scars slapped a small shuttle cock back and forth with pocket paddles. They told the visitors that this was the pyre of the Great Lord of Embers. The team asked if they could pass through the cultist stronghold to the reliquary beyond. The cultists asked for an offering from each pilgrim. The characters reluctantly tossed cell phones, motorcycle keys, spare weapons and other valuables into the blaze, which incinerated them faster than it had any right to. The cultists warned them not to leave the path, and went back to their game.

The path led through a treasury, where a cultist shoveled wealth into the maw of a fat, happy plasma elemental. The next room was a shrine, with a mural of an enormous fireball airbursting over a city. The chamber beyond was melted and slagged, with only the stones of the path unburned. In the following room, a burned cultist handled clear liquids under a combination prayer altar and fume hood. The door to the South was labeled RUINS ACCESS but the path also continued to the West. Tim asked him what he was handling. He was handling hydrazine. There was a lot of hydrazine going around in the dungeon. The next chamber had two doors, one on the path and one off it. The one on the path was labeled RELICS ACCESS. The one off the path was labeled DO NOT OPEN - YOU WILL DIE

They opened the one labeled RELICS ACCESS.