Session 15 Play Report: Weaponized STDs and You

 

Syphilis Can Be Cured! 1922

Center-left: "Syphilis can be cured quickly at the onset of the disease."

Center-right: "Neglected syphilis can be cured by a long neat treatment"
Center-bottom: "Consequences of untreated syphilis; Insanity, Paralysis, deformation , stillborn children, idiotic children

The party reconvenes after having successfully secured and cured the werebull Dr Peter Jordanson, and proceed to discuss the political implications there in. Governor Yevseyev personally tied himself to Jordanson in order to show he can bring "influential" people to Arkheologorodok, while also using him to appeal to his conservative base and as a symbol of increased medical tourism. With the beginning of the election, and the Cheech's antipathy towards Yevseyev for that little GSS ambush in the sewers, there's much that can be done with Jordanson. 

After much discussion of strategies, goals, and the political parties, the Archaeology Dorks were torn between backing the Saburov aligned Faith & Works Party and the New National Bolshevik Party of Eurasia. Self-interest took prime position over ideology in their calculus, and they ultimately decided to back the New National Bolshevik Party of Eurasia, as they had more connections and influence with the Nazbols and that the whole underground occult crime thing would probably get a lot easier. As for Jordanson, they've decided to hold onto him for now while they observe the progress of the election and learn more about the Refurbishment Party. 

With their strategy regarding the surface adequately mapped out, the Dorks set their sights below ground. Deciding the malady the arachnophilic Info Sluts over in the Parlor were suffering was the most time sensitive and that having the city's foremost information brokers indebted to you would be handy, the gang bribes the guards at the power substation and enter the Parlor. 

Stop! 

Anti-workplace theft poster

The fastest route to the Sister of Tleechy Natcha's den from the burnt room beneath the substation was to the north, but that would require going through Boris the Were-Spider's nest full of traps while also risking running into Boris, who hates their guts. With this in mind, the Dorks decide to take the southern route for the first time, in hopes that it should round back towards the boudoir. Zoram scouts ahead into the dark with his NVGs, and so spots the approaching armed trio before they can spot his compatriots in the burnt room. So forewarned, the Dorks quickly climb back out so the unknown party can pass by unaware. They see a Chinese man speaking Arabic to two Central Asian looking fellows, when they don't even acknowledge the question he asks them, he switches back to an exasperated Russian so they can reassure him that this is the right way to the "harlot soothsayers." Spartak's drug addled mind is able to make certain intuitive leaps others cannot, and he realizes that these three men must be jihadis affiliated with the Bektashi-Wahabist Union (the power Mad Insight is such a gift to a GM, let me tell you).

"I am free now" 
Anti-religion poster encouraging women to join the Komsomol
1921

Deciding digression is the better part of valor and with no desire to make enemies of these heterodox Jihadists, the Dorks let them pass to the north before continuing south, where they find a parallel path to the north that avoids Boris's apartment/nest. The path is longer, but is not without its loot, and its dangers. They manage to smash some spiders to get $1000 worth of fur coats off a rack, but have a little more difficulty dealing with the faceless "energy spiders" they encounter is a moldering library. 

Imagine this but grey and the human head is just perfectly smooth. 

For whatever reason, the Archaeology Dorks didn't find the slenderman face, sickled legged spiders terribly threatening and opted to observe them. Three spiders made a beeline for Professor Semenov, hoping steal the spells he had prepared in his Noospheric aura for dinner. Spartak and Cheech used their bodyguard ability to block two of the spiders, but one managed to eat Semenov's Command spell. Thoroughly unhappy about this outcome, Semenov opted to cast AK74 on the hungry little monster. The spiders were able to gets some hits in, but the party was able to kill two of them, causing the third to flee into the walls behind the book shelves, which the party promptly set about blocking. 

Around the time they finished that effort, the same three men from earlier burst into the room, guns drawn and...lower them before offer friendly greetings when they realize they were just some explorers fighting spiders. (Esoteric Enterprises has a table for NPC reactions and the roll I got put this interaction as friendly). One of the Central Asian chaps introduces himself as a "Murid" and gets a sharp elbow in the side from his compatriot for the trouble. The Chinese man who appears to be the leader of this small troop introduces himself Muammar and tells the Dorks that if it is the Sisters that they seek, they will be sorely disappointed, as the whole lot of them have been brought low with a terrible illness  that has clouded their minds, blotted out their prophecies, and ravaged their bodies. He believes that this sort of malady requires both a physician and a metaphysician, and that he and his friends will return with both, as the insights of the Harlot Diviners is sorely needed. They warmly say their goodbyes and the groups part ways. 

Tatar Club
1935

Carrying on, the Archeaology Dorks enter a well appointed dining room with banners proclaiming "A Happy New Years to the Members of the Arkheologorodok Komsomol; 1990" with all the decorations that would entail covered in the dust of decades. They make a point to skirt around the edges of the room and make a quick exit, because there are 4 squirming silken effigies seated at the table.

Happy New Years!

Crossing the buried gymnasium to the northeast, they enter what might have once been a locker room but had until just recently been serving as a boudoir where the Sisters would lure men to paralyze and eat (or in the case of Mayami Import, actually have sex with for cocaine). Now the place is a shambles, the record player spinning uselessly as a delirious arachnophile walks in eccentric circles around the room. The Dorks cross the room and enter the inner sanctum, which once served as both living quarters and home to their "Great Work" a massive web of individual relations and events on a massive board, with computers spitting out projected outcomes of everything from stock prices to weather events. Now it serves as triage, the board made incoherent as they continued to update it despite their cognitive decline. There are 5 bedridden arachnophiles being attended by Ivanna, who is doing only marginally better than her sisters. 

Talking with Ivanna, they come to agree with Muammar's conclusion, as she describes the exact moment they all took ill a week ago. "It was like something slide into place, like I could sense a cord being cut somewhere, and immediately the fever set and sores appeared." Questioning Ivanna more, she feels like she knows who gave it to them. It was a couple, an cancer patient thin old man and a younger women, almost certainly a streetwalker. They were both so eager, completely lacking in fear, even when the chelicerae came out, they welcomed it. She hands over their belongings to the Dorks, and they find the women to have been a nurse at the D.I. Dankovsky Hospital and two syringes with Korean script on them. There's one woman in Arkheolgorodok that they know could both manufacture super syphilis and is funded by the DPRK. Dr Orlova and her Polyclinic. Seeing this as their best lead, the Dorks head north from the Parlor to the Hanger.

Thank you, heart, for being so good at love
Soviet Anti-Prostitution Poster
1988

The Dorks enter the buried ruins to the north through the Parlor's gymnasium and contend with a couple syphilitic spiders, which they dispatch handedly. From there they enter the many service tunnels underneath the Institute for Experimental Aeronautics and nearly get shot by some very jumpy and coked out Mayami Import goons manning a checkpoint. They speak with the goons a bit and learn that the spiders from the Parlor have gotten way more aggressive and that they've had drive some of them off several times, not counting what the couriers have had to deal with in the nearby tunnels. 

Cheech briefly tries to explain to them that the Sisters have been poisoned, but the two goons are too excited about the "prophylactic expedition" that's being planned by Oleg, a capo who got the clap real bad. Realizing that the finer points of the situation would be wasted on these two as they do a line off the silencer on one of their MAC10s, Cheech asks where they can find Oleg before turning over their weapons for holding as they enter the Hangar.  

From the Materials of the XXIV Congress of the CPSU
1971

They find Oleg inside the monstrous Mil V-12 that has been converted into a neon drenched club simply called "Mayami," where he is in a private room where the old crone Baba Galina is applying some sort of poultice to the effected and extremely tender area. Oleg seems pretty gun-ho about wiping out the Info Sluts, both because the spiders are majorly cutting into business and because he feels personally slighted that they gave him the clap because "it's a major breach of trust and they fucking promised this couldn't happen." The Dorks take note that the nature of Oleg's malady is significantly less severe than what the Sisters are dealing with.  Cheech explains to him that the sisters are dying and the spiders are acting this way because some unknown third party has intentionally infected them. 

Oleg is given pause, especially as Baba Galina concurs with the Dorks that it doesn't make any sense for the sisters to try and start shit with Oleg. It's around this time another capo shows up that the Dorks have worked for before, Slava. He is quick to suggest that the Dorks join in on the extermination, promising payment and whatever they can carry out of there. He tries to keep Oleg committed to the path of violence while Cheech offers the path of reason, with Cheech passing the opposed charm roll thanks to his flask of Elf Wine. Oleg tells them he needs to be alone to think, but he seems to be seriously reconsidering things. 

Now imagine this done up to look like the club from Vice City

Taking the opportunity to buy some grenades from Comrade Cowboy, some of Baba Galina's herbal remedies, and some of Chef Mosolov's experimental cuisine, the players then collect their guns and leave the Hangar via the surface. The choose to re-enter the Underground via Gastev Station, which takes them much closer to Dr. Orlova's Polyclinic. Rapidly greeted by the new privatized transit cops, the Dorks are made to pay a hefty bribe before being allowed to continue to the Underground Frontier through the hole in the women's bathroom. 

Making quick progress barring a rather nasty little fight with some starving troglodytes, the Dorks make their way south and east through the dug tunnels and enter the domed chamber that holds the Polyclina building, only to find it in flames with several gaunt silhouettes outlined by the roaring fire.