Having been removed from the house of the alleged book thief rather unceremoniously, the Mages decide to regroup at the edge of the grounds. Once Rex has finished telling Nokoni and Marissa about the Argus Follies and everyone has stopped having a good laugh at Argus’ expense, soon to be a recurring theme of the campaign, they formulate a less crazy plan to re-enter the estate under cover of darkness and steal the book from the person who stole it from them. After all, turnabout is fair play.

Queue: Mission Impossible Theme Music

The mission, should they choose to accept it:

1. Crawl through the sewer drain uncovered by the Acanthus child, Marissa
2. Break into the massive estate house
3. Find and retrieve The Loquacious Grimoire
4. Bring the book to the NY Public Library Mysterium Reliquary unharmed
5. Get Marissa to bed before 9pm EST and head off to the pub for some much needed refreshment

The crawl through the sewer drain went far more smoothly than I had hoped. I blame Nokoni for abusing his powers as a Thyrsus Mage to clear the path of verminous critters. As they make it to the point where they can see the outlet onto the house grounds (way too many characters have the “Direction Sense” merit for me to even bother having them make rolls to make sure they are going the right way, damn them all) Argus goes invisible. Surprise, surprise!

But… attack dogs can still smell him! Hah-ha!

Damn Thyrsus Mage, Nokoni, “Triggers the Lizard Brain” and makes them all playful of course, so they really don’t care about the invisible guy trying to shoot his way through the enormous door lock with his sizeable handgun. You’ll note I said “trying”, not “succeeding”. It’s an important distinction.

Thanks to “Sound Mastery” no one could actually hear the gun shots, but his partners in attempted crime had no problem seeing the rather large holes being put in the wall near but not quite on target with the locking mechanism. It also prevents Argus from hearing his fellow Mages laughing at the FBI Agent’s inability to hit a stationary target.  (The GM had no problems hearing them whatsoever.) This one is a job for the Moros Mage! Rex turns the deadbolt into paper so that it will fold and pull right out of the wall. A simple DEXTERITY+ATHLETICS roll later (to avoid ripping the deadbolt as they open the door making it impossible to cover the signs of their passage later – and only because they came up with the idea of opening the door carefully themselves) and they are in.

This leaves Rex saying “You’re up!” to Argus, who attempts to use the Locator spell to try to find a book that he has no sympathetic connection to. As you might imagine, this does not pan out. Neils uses Prime magic to attempt to find any spells that might be securing the book. Sadly, DeLacey does not have the ability to cast Ward spells and so there are no spells to find. Nokoni keeps the attack dogs happy and quiet so that they don’t wake anyone up. Marissa casts a Fate spell and wanders aimlessly to see if she can happen to stumble upon the room the book is in (stupid Acanthus Mages!), while the GM makes WITS+COMP rolls for the book thief and his staff to see if anyone happens to notice that a group of Mages has broken into the building and is wandering about aimlessly.

Naturally everyone at the DeLacey estate who belongs there happens to be having the best dreams they have ever had in their lives and not a single one of them hears a thing. #grumble

Marissa leads the group right past all of the rooms filled with dangerous people and things and right to the room with the book in it.  One more paper deadbolt and a quick Post Cognition, to see where DeLacey put the book when he was done with it, and the group is heading stealthily (enough) out of the door to avoid disturbing the dancing sugar plums in the heads of their adversaries. Then it’s back to the Bibliotheque Nationale de France, and from there the portal is reopened and they are back in New York where it just so happens to be Miller Time.

It’s only the end of the second session and already I hate these guys!