Actual Play – Fall Ep 3 “How the Mighty…”

The session started with us catching Sophie up on what had happened after she left last time and then getting her character caught up on what we’d found out.
Darius: You remember that creature that rose up?
Alex: Yes, I was there.
Darius: You know…rrrr…..bears…
Alex: Bears?
Darius: Keep up.

I should mention here that the other day, while singing it in Rock Band, I found the ultimate theme song for my character Calvin. It’s Weezer’s The Greatest Man That Ever Lived, which has such lines as “You try to play cool like you just don’t care, but soon I’ll be playing in your underwear” and “After the havoc that I’m gonna wreak no more words will critics have to speak” as well as the lovely refrain “I am the greatest man that ever lived“. It’s just such a perfect song for Calvin’s general opinion of himself and really got me into the right cockiness frame of mind.

After some arguing about how best to follow the leader of the school’s secret society home in Calvin’s not so subtle car….

Calvin's car, dubbed Kermit by Alex.

We realised we’d given him a head start and he could be going anywhere. Eventually we decided on driving by his house and checking. His car was in the driveway, we wanted to search his room and find the mystical book we know he has. But how?
Calvin: Why doesn’t Megan just go up to the door and say she’s selling cookies for the cheerleaders or something, you know, distract him, and then we can just sneak in.
Alex: Yeah or she could just offer to have sex with him.
Calvin: Yeah, that’s what I was getting at but come on, Alex. Some of us have tact.

Megan agreed to be distracting while the rest of us waited outside. The maid answered the door and called William down, he appears shirtless.
William: You caught me just as I was going to have a shower.
Megan: Jenny told Sarah told Timmy that you wanted to ask me to the Spring Fling.
William: I…uh…
Megan: You should tell me about yourself, because you’re not the only one that’s asked.

She managed to distract him, but texted for us to wait while she talked him into going out. In the meantime Alex monkeyed up a tree and jumped three metres onto the roof. Darius finally witnesses her being super-powered and Calvin says something along the lines of I told you so. After receiving a text from Megan just saying ‘Eeeeeuurgh’ (because William is gross) Calvin decides he’s waited long enough and heads in, the front door is unlocked and he manages to sneak in undetected. Alex has made it into the top floor and is exploring. Darius stays outside minding the tiny dog and being scared that we’re doing crime.

Megan and William continue their small talk, Calvin finds some occult books locked in a cabinet in the library and Alex finds William’s room. It has framed posters of girls in bikinis on the walls and ringbinders of old skin mags under the bed. Calvin heads upstairs just as Megan convinces William to take her out.
Megan: So, are you going out later.
William:….what the hell, you’ve convinced me.
Unfortunately William needs a shirt so he goes upstairs. Calvin’s phone goes off…there is a heated and hushed conversation between him and Megan but it is too late. Calvin warns Alex, who is investigating a love seat. She hides under the bed, Calvin goes for behind the winter coats in the walk in wardrobe. Thankfully we both rolled well enough to hide successfully in what was rapidly turning into a French farce. William changed his pants, got a new shirt, Calvin very nearly punched him in the head and then William and Megan were gone.

Alex and Calvin managed to find nothing useful in the room, although the love seat was intriguing. Calvin also searched the master bedroom, since the books in the library appeared to belong to the father. A leather bound personal journal looked sufficiently cryptic that it was stolen to show to Darius. Megan had a long and boring date at the country club with William.

Alex asked to be dropped at the mall, during the ride Calvin bugged her about how she was still denying she had superhuman abilities, this eventually led to Darius getting in her face at the mall carpark, demanding that she accept her destiny. Alex shoved him a few metres onto the hood of a car. Darius went home to study slayers, Calvin went home to play Halo and Alex bought a cellphone to replace the one she had crushed in a previous episode. Darius located a slayer location spell and performed it, causing a glowing light to lead him through town and to the Limit where Mason, Calvin and Alex were all hanging out. Alex glowed all glowy like when the spell found her. In front of her boyfriend and everyone else in the club. This made Alex even more angry and led to sexy dancing….in a round about way.
Darius: You see! This proves it!
Alex: I have no idea what you did just now, but you shouldn’t have done it here! In front of everyone!
D: but it means that you’re the slayer!
A: Just leave me alone! (Storms off) (She also throws a drink over him at some point in there.)
Mason (threatening, feeling he should step in and defend her honour): I don’t know what’s going on but-
Darius: Neither do it. But I’m smug about something!

Alex pulls Mason onto the dance floor and dances all angry like. Megan and William dance for one song and then Calvin mentions to Darius that Megan had asked to be saved from William. Darius heads onto the dance floor.
D: Can I have this dance?
M: Ew! No.
D: Actually I was talking to him.
W: bug off loser.
M: (runs to bar).

Calvin joins Meg at the bar and cockblocks William, saving Meg for real. I feel I should also mention that Meg gave Calvin a kiss on the cheek when he dropped her home, because it was a surprise to Calvin 🙂

The next day Alex spent some time at Darius’ house studying slayers and trying not to speak to Darius, she then communicated at length with Megan about the old folk’s home and weirdness there.
Megan: I could hack into their computer system?
Alex: Oh that’s right, you used to do useful things other than cheerleading.
M: Cheerleading is useful.

Eventually they met up and decided to go walking through the cemetery at night, Alex called Calvin to join them, for which I was pleased. Megan wasn’t too keen on the monster baiting, but Calvin’s ‘if we can make a difference we should’ speech from an earlier episode seems to have made an impression on Alex. She might still be denying that she’s the slayer but she’s willing to patrol and slay monsters so I’m not too sure it matters. In spirit Darius was pleased though. Calvin and Alex were arguing about whether Darius should have been there and Calvin was pointing out that he did a magic spell and could potentially do others when we were interrupted by a vampire. This was Megan’s first vamp sighting and she failed her fear check…by a lot. Screamed and passed out. Alex immediately started punching the vampire, which had kindly offered to let Alex and Calvin go since he had a passed out girl to eat. Alex landed some good blows, the vampire landed some good blows on her and then Calvin decapitated it with his axe. Oh yeah, first vampire kill. It was wicked awesome.
Megan, waking up: What happened? Is it gone?
Alex: Calvin killed it by decapitation. It was pretty amazing.
Megan: Calvin is pretty amazing sometimes.
Calvin: Yeah I am.
Megan: Just sometimes.

We broke there with Calvin over the moon, the greatest man that ever lived. First vampire kill and he didn’t even get injured himself, which is good because he isn’t a slayer and can’t heal super fast.