Chess and Checkers to the Masses!
Soviet Uzbek Poster, 1934
We deviate from our normal programming of moving forward a week in the game world between sessions this time, with the action picking up two days after last session. I dropped a line in the session 3 prep about a job that could have very serious consequences for Arkheologorodok as a whole and I figured I should at least give the players a chance to see if they want to take it or not.
In the early hours of the morning, Aleksandr is awoken by call from Artyom, the teenage metro worker and member of the Excavators. There is angry shouting in the background, and Aleksandr can only barely hear Artyom as he apologetically explains that he's trapped in the bathroom by his drunken father demanding his paycheck, and that he's going to be late for his shift. Aleksandr sets out the apartment blocs immediately.
Even had he not known the number, Aleksandr would have had no trouble finding apartment in question just by following the screams and shouts. Stepping over a few hypodermic needles as he crosses the threshold, Aleksandr see as bald fat man lifting Artyom by the throat as the strung out mother ineffectually pleads from the couch. Invoking the strength of Holy Death, Aleksandr commands the man to release the boy, and then makes it clear that Artyom is under protection to the stunned drunkard. Artyom thanks Aleksandr and quickly makes his way to the metro for his shift.
"Alcoholism is the enemy of health, family, society"
1983
After an intense Saturday of redistributing the cocaine caught in Spartak's hair and clothes, the Party Commissar of Propaganda Eugenii Pavlov Denisovich invites Spartak to meet an ally to the party and illusive head of the LGBTQ art collective CounterDogma, Filaret. After crawling through a portrait with some hesitancy, Spartak finds himself in Eugenii and Lavro's apartment inside the hidden gallery.
For Proletarian Art
Eugenii quickly leads him to a reference library where several artists are gathered around a statuesque man, the elusive Filaret. He tells Spartak that he has devised a way to defeat Governor Yevseyev's new media law. His agents have been able to discover the location one of Arkheologorodok's most famous son, the chess grandmaster Georgiy Shukov, who relocated to a secure bunker beneath the old sports palace years ago. The job is to escort the meek girl, Nasha, into Shukov's bunker and then hand him this handwritten letter. As reward, he will pay $1000 and he would get the choice of one of six enchanted items held in the gallery.
Filaret, CounterDogma's Heart and Soul
Nasha, the Chess Gremlin
Spartak readily agrees and quickly calls his friends to come meet him at the abandoned school above the Nazbol's nightclub. Greeting his friends at the entrance to the NNB Party's HQ, Dr Galdikas happily begins to hand out his new business cards, eager to begin networking to offer the services of his...homeless shelter. Spartak then introduces them to Nasha and explains the job.
The abandoned school ontop of Shkola Granat
Semenov, refusing to set foot in the Neo-Nazbol HQ, decides to kill time by looking around the ruins of the school. Finding a pile of old books, Semenov is able to recover an old notebook dated 1987 that he is able to recognize as an occultists spellbook. Unable to parse the idiosyncrasies at this time (he failed his translation roll), Semenov pockets it for later.
With Gavril escorting Nasha in his BMW, the rest of the party take Professor Semenov's VAZ hatchback to the northern part of Arkheologorodok where they find the old abandoned Sports Palace. Gaining access is fairly easy, and soon Spartak finds the entrance to the secret basement for experimental Olympics. Gavril is forced to contain his urge to kill as Nasha follows so closely behind him that she ruins the back of his shoes.
The Sports Palace in Happier Days
After finally reaching the bottom of a long staircase, the party finds themselves in the annex of the Experimental Olympic Training Facility. After a quick search of the "Supplements" Lab, Gavril sneaks into one of the training areas where he witnesses what could only be described as a small cult of homeless people watching three post-human gymnasts as they do impossible stunts. Deciding that discretion is the better part of valor, the party decides to take an alternate route through the tennis courts until they find a second secret staircase to the grandmaster's bunker complex.
Experimental Olympic Training Annex
In order to avoid Gavril murdering the person they're being paid to escort, Dr. Galdikas is assigned to walking with Nasha, and, much to his dismay, has his jordans ruined.
Upon reaching the bottom of the staircase, they hear a robotic voice seeming to complain. Peering through the passageway, they see a figure made of brass sitting at a chess table in front of a large vault door. The robot screams "FUCK THIS GAME" as he swipes the pieces from the board. He then asks the party to come forward, or he'll activate the turrets. The party offers to play him in a game of chess, and he offers to let them into the bunker if they teach him a new game, or he'll kill them.
Post for Soviet film "Loss of Sensation"
1935
Spartak decides to teach him a game they played on the old communal farm, and after we quickly discuss a mechanism of how to replicate rock, paper, scissors through dice, Spartak is able to win, much to the dismay of the robot. The vault door swings open, and the party enters.
Across from them, they see a darkened ice rink where a highly skilled figure skater is performing. A voice from across the rink demands they allow her to finish before speaking, and once she does, the voice of Georgiy Shukov asks their business. Spartak explains that they brought a woman who can beat him at chess while Galdikas pushes Nasha out onto the ice, who then immediately falls face first and start crying. Laughing and saying that women's deficient brains are unable to comprehend the intricacies of chess, Shukov invites them to cross the ice into his study.
Spartak hands him Filaret's letter, and after quickly reading it and laughing, the grandmaster agrees to the term. In 30 minutes, he is in shock to see he has lost. He agrees that he will make a public statement denouncing the new media law, on the condition that this event is never spoken of again.
"Sensational comedy with participation of world champion Capablanca,"
poster for silent Film Chess Fever, 1925
Technology for Youth, issue 5, 1969
"Oh, that Mysterious Moon!" by R. Avotin
After crossing back across the rink, the party are greeted by the same robot armed with a Gatling gun. He gives them his term, teach him a game that's "not fucking stupid" and he'll let them leave, otherwise he'll kill them all. Spartak suggests hide and seek, and the gatling gun begins to spin. Thinking quickly, Professor Semenov produces a pen and paper and offers to teach him tic tac toe. After a nail biting three rounds (we literally found an online tic tac toe game) Semenov is victorious, and the party beats a hasty rerteat to the surface.
With the mission complete, the party returns to the Neo-Nazbol Party HQ, which Semenov only enters with reluctance, and enter the hidden gallery through the portrait in the library. Spartak begins to lead them to the room where the artifacts are displayed on the far side of the gallery to meet Filaret. It isn't long into this impromptu tour that the rest of the party realize the gallery is more than just hidden, as they enter into an unlit chamber with massive windows looking out unto an alien vista, the light of a massive Jupiter filling the horizon on a plain of ice.
Technology for Youth, issue 3, 1968
"The People's Moon" by E. Borisov
"My god, I misspelled the name of my business on all my cards!"
The properly spelt card with an ominous motto
They then make their way through Café Goncharova, the party enters another darkened room marked "Object/Subject by Filaret." Opposite the door they entered through, the see what appears to be a large window looking out onto another, massive art gallery as giants come and go, gawking at the PCs.
Quickly making their way to the north, the party at last arrives at the room housing their selection of rewards. Of the six items on display, the party settles on three to begin arguing about. The first suggestion, a pair of brass knuckles made from teeth that transfers health from the victims to the wearer by Anastasia Fomenkova, were quickly taken out of the running when Spartak realized they did not fit his massive gorilla fingers.
So that left only two rewards to choose from for the party; a bone ring inlaid with various pills by Dmitri Antonovich Baranov, that can be convinced to heal the wearer, and a porcelain katana by Dasha Anatolievna Lel, which gave a +2 to hit and silenced all combat noises. The party finally decided on the katana, and after a tense game of rock, paper, scissors Gavril was the one to walk away with the sword.
After crawling through the portrait and back to Arkheologorodok, the Neo-Nazbol Oksana Mutsuovna
Sinodzuka congratulates Spartak and his friends on a successful mission before immediately asking for a favor. She was recently kicked out of her "apartment" by her ex-boyfriend Boris over political disagreements, and she really wants a few of her things back. If they could her back her stuff, they'd be welcome to keep whatever else they can find in the apartment. Always happy to help a comrade, Spartak agrees and Oksana tells him that the fastest way to get to the "apartment" is through the access hatch at the power substation near the river and the trainyards.
"Dams supply factories with electric current. The atom adds a lot as well. But this is not the final result, we will achieve even brighter glow!"
After piling into Semenov's hatchback, the party drives to the substation and find that it surrounded by high fences and the entrance watched by a single guard in a kiosk. Spartak leaps over the fence in a single bound, telling the guard not to mind him as he was just passing through, and shooting out his window so the guard could say he couldn't have stopped him.
As Spartak then walks towards the shack housing the hatch, the guard quickly begins to to dial the police. Seeing this, Gavril embeds one of his throwing knives in the guards sternum. Dr Galidikas and Professor Semenov are rather dismayed by this, with Galidikas rushing in to prevent Gavril from pushing the yakut blade into the man's heart. As Galidikas treats his wound, the man shouts "you could have just bribed me!"
Finally, Gavril, Aleksandr, and Spartak reach the shack Oksana mentioned. Upon entering, they find biohazard suits hanging on the walls and the keys to a metal hatch that lead down into a burn scoured room stinking of napalm. Now they were finally in the Parlor, the domain of the Sisters of Tleechy Natcha. Moving north, they find themselves at the edge of a long drained pool, now full of webbing and long dried detritus with the curled body of a man in a suit in the center.
Interested in what goodies may be inside, Aleksandr castes unseen servant to search the body, revealing the desiccated corpse of a man in Gorbachev era party boss attire and with eight limbs and clutching a gold pocket watch engraved with a combination of soviet iconography and spider imagery.
Making their way towards the "apartment," Aleksandr castes Unseen Servant to open the door, activating spikes to fall from the ceiling and onto nothing. Cautiously moving forward, they find a maze of mouseholes and webbing. Fortunately for them, Boris was not home at the time (he had a 3 in 6 chance of being home, and I rolled a 5)and the party are able to find the living area.
Spartak quickly takes several combat knives and pistols from Boris's workbench, while Aleksandr recover her tarot cards, her junji ito manga collection, her Orthodox icons, some doc martens, and her first edition of Osamu Dazai's No Longer Human from a pile marked "to burn."
Just as they are about to leave, they are interrupted by two scantily clad women flanked by two giant spiders. Making a positive result of the reaction role, the two arachnophiles inform that Boris is late on rent, and that they have also come to rob his apartment. After hearing why the party is hear, they say to tell Oksana that they say hello and that she should "fix her politics." Wanting to get the fuck out of there, the three make their way back to the surface and quickly return to the HQ.
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