That Asshole Dracula is Back (Again)

I got the chance to run Vampyrvania for the first time as part of my Halloween season game offerings. This post will be part recap of what happened, part review of the game. For our session, I cobbed together an adventure from the stuff at the back of the core rules, The Clock Tower supplement, and a few of my own additions. (My copy of The Clock Tower was printed kinda crooked and it was surprising how much a little skew made it harder to navigate in play.)

Vampyrvania is very much a "Castlevania simulator," and I didn't bother to hide that fact. The premise was that Dracula was back, and an assortment of brave heroes descended upon the clocktower he had taken over. Our characters for the session included Alucard (son of Dracula), Fiona Belmont (the latest Belmont heir), Wulf Nedazni (a pirate whose ship was wrecked by Dracula), and Tulfa and Orsil (twin magicians who were palette swaps of each other; one had fire powers, the other had ice powers).

The game began with the characters marching through the gates of an undead-infested Targovishte. After fighting some introductory skeletons, they were faced with a branching path as a horde of zombies closed in: head to the inn or proceed to through the center of the town. They chose to head to the inn; inside, they fought more skeletons that were trying to hack down the door to the kitchen. 

Once vanquished, they were given a few power-ups by the townsfolk hiding in the kitchen, then they climbed the stairs and ended up to the inn's roof. They now had to master a platforming section as they jumped from rooftop to rooftop. Failed rolls meant crashing down into a room below with another fight against skeletons.

When they reached a ladder, they climbed down and discovered that they were by the town's well. Of course, bones erupted from the well and then a dragon skull snake thing emerged to fight them. When that fight was over, they scarfed some wall meat and touched the pulsating orb that fell from the sky--initiating a level up sequence. (Having all the character sheets on an editable google doc meant the players could do their level ups as a group in real time. Neat.)

They made their way up Targovishte's cemetery hill and found themselves before the clocktower. Of course, some enemies dropped down before they could enter, but that didn't slow them down much. The doors opened ominously, and the characters marched inside. 

On the first floor, they learned they could destroy the spawning point so they weren't overrun by vampire bats. They also fought a suit of armor and jumped over a spiked pit--well, most of them made it over the bit, at least. They also found a hidden room where a hooded stranger traded coins they had gathered for subweapons and the hearts needed to use them.

The second floor was full of tricky jumps involving large, spinning gears and eyeballs rolling down the stairs. It looked like it might be GAME OVER when a bunch of the characters got knocked down to a lower level with a giant eyeball rolling back and forth.

The third floor had them climbing ropes, getting more wall meat, and fighting blood-gooped skeletons and gargoyles. At the top of the clocktower, a ghost indicated that they needed to go through a door to the outside of the clocktower for a boss fight.

Of course, Dracula awaited them! The outside of the clocktower's apex had several platforms, so they had to master the art of jumping and attacking at the same time. At one point, Dracula did the Dracula thing and burst into a horde of bats, hitting everyone on the screen in a really cheap attack. However, that didn't stop Tulfa from draining his health bar with a well-paced pillar of fire. 

Dracula was vanquished once more! Will it last? No, there will be another game coming out just before Christmas, most likely.

So, how well did Vampyrvania capture the 8-bit Castlevania experience? Pretty perfectly, I think. Collecting hearts to power subweapons and eating meat found in cracked walls hit the right notes, as did the character types on offer. The system was a tad fiddly in some areas, but overall it was pretty light and the action kept flowing. This is a great "beer-and-pretzels" rpg and it is especially well-suited for one-shots. I don't really see much potential for a long campaign here (I think the shtick would wear out sooner rather than lately) but we had a blast leaning into the "game-y" nature of it for a night. That said, I would love to see a future supplement that adds rules for a Symphony of the Night-style Metroidvania experience...

The Jaeganrad, the Linden Gallows Gang, and the Syndikor Ministry

Below are three groups that are new additions to Krevborna. We have a version of the mythical "Wild Hunt" that is actually anti-human insurgents, a Wild West-esque gang of banditos, and a group of Church-sanctioned exorcists.

The Jaeganrad

The Jaeganrad is a group of pomenysh insurgents regarded as savage, inhuman terrorists.

    • The Jaeganrad fights a guerrilla war against mankind in Krevborna, hoping to one day reclaim their land.

    • The Jaeganrad ventures forth from Aeldentree to raid human settlements and wage a war of terror against humanity.

    • Powerful fey from the Verdant Lodge support the Jaeganrad.

The Linden Gallows Gang

Squires who do are judged unworthy to join the Knights Labyrinthian are cast out into the wilderness in shame. Most die. A handful of the survivors have found each other and banded together as a posse of bandits calling themselves the Linden Gallows Gang.

    • The Linden Gallows Gang share the Knights Labyrinthian’s mania to collect artifacts from Grail Tombs, but they are more apt to ambush successful delvers than they are to explore vlaak dungeons themselves.

    • Like the Knights Labyrinthian, the Linden Gallows Gang are skilled gunfighters, though they lack the Knights’ mystical techniques.

    • The biggest coup a gang member can achieve is to kill a Knight Labyrinthian in a duel.

    • The Linden Gallows Gang are led by a dhampir pistolero named Wagner Highcross.

The Syndikor Ministry

The Syndikor Ministry is a special branch of the Church of the Holy Blood tasked with performing the sacred rite of exorcism. 

    • Clergy selected to join the Syndikor Ministry are invariably marked from birth by obvious spiritual gifts.

    • Though some Syndikor exorcists are permanently stationed in the Church’s larger bastions, others wander the land to confront malicious demons and spirits.

    • As an occupational hazard, members of the Syndikor Ministry are prone to becoming hosts for unclean spirits; “fallen” Syndikor are mercilessly hunted by their compatriots.

Logan Tithe

The Vespermark’s most powerful villain is Logan Tithe, a vengeful undead gunslinger. The inspiration behind Logan Tithe is extremely simple: do you remember the undead gunslinger that Brom did for the cover of the old Deadlands? That shit rules.

Logan Tithe

Once a celebrated gunslinger of the Knights Labyrinthian, Logan Tithe was slain in a pitched battle with highwaymen. Unable to go to a quiet grave, Logan rose from the dead as a revenant with murder on his mind. After all of the brigands who participated in the ambush that took his life had been killed, he still found that death would not take him. For reasons he does not understand, Logan is cursed to ride the Vespermark, sending others to an eternal rest that has been denied him. He runs down travelers and caravans on a rotting stallion, but he does not ride alone—he is almost always accompanied by a posse of dead-eyed wights.

    • Appearance: Logan Tithe appears to be a worm-riddled corpse clad in a moth-eaten duster and a black wide-brimmed hat; he bears two hellfire-spewing six shooters at his hips. 

    • Personality: Though the embrace of death refuses him, he relishes sending others to their doom. 

    • Motive: He cannot still the Hell that's in his hands.

    • Flaw: Logan fears being hunted down by his compatriots in the Knights Labyrinthian.

The Saturnine Chalice

As is the custom, I ran a Call of Cthulhu one-shot because the calendar has ticked over into Spooky Month. The premise for this one-shot was that the four characters were a gang of bank robbers (Tiny, Wildman, Goon, and Mouse) who had just pulled off a heist in Ithaca, NY and were now en route to Buffalo via some backwoods roads. In case you want to avoid spoilers, the scenario I ran was "The Saturnine Chalice." I didn't quite manage a Total Party Kill, but three out of four characters ain't bad.

Events

Tiny was at the wheel of the getaway car; Wildman was in the passenger seat acting as navigator--he found an isolated road for them to stick to. Unfortunately, something went wrong with the car; despite the gas gauge reading "Full," it sputtered to a stop at the side of the road, apparently out of fuel. Fortunately, they spotted a driveway winding up a wooded hill. Surely, the residents might have some gas to spare or at least had a phone to call into town? 

After they rang the bell, an old man answered the door. Dressed in the uniform of a butler, he invited them inside and asked them to steady the step ladder he was using to change the lightbulbs in the chandelier overhead. Goon helped him, but failed to notice that the wires were actually too frayed for the chandelier to be operational.

The characters were joined in the hallway by an older man (Augustus, the master of the house), Veronica (his daughter), and Rosemary (the maid). Veronica was wearing mourning dress, but everyone else was dressed normally. Rosemary had a disconcertingly wide smile.

The group requested aid, so Augustus had the butler (Jeremiah) take the characters out to the garage to fetch some gas. Unfortunately, the gas cans were empty and Jeremiah said that the family's Rolls-Royce was nonfunctional. Back in the house, they used the family's phone to request that the general store in the next town over deliver a few cans of gas so they could get their car started.

At this point, August and Veronica invited them to have tea in the dining room while they waited. The long dining room table was already set for an astounding twenty-two people. They explained that they were expecting guests for a dinner party later that night. However, the characters noticed that the candles in the candelabras on the table weren't actually burning down. 

They also spotted a small lead sculpture of an ox with a strange symbol inscribed on its base: a square subdivided into nine numbered squares with a line moving from one square to another. Augustus told them that the symbol was a kamea and pointed out that the sum of the numbers in the squares all added up to fifteen in every direction. He said he couldn't remember where he picked up the item. When Goon asked about Veronica's mourning clothes, neither of them could remember who she was grieving. Clearly, something strange was going on in the house.

The characters were left on their own in the dining room, which gave them a chance to explore further. They found a lounge with bright white walls. The room had several paintings of the family, including Augustus's wife (whom they hadn't encountered in the house), as well as a metal bust of Augustus. The bust was positioned to look out the window. When Wildman examined it, he saw that it was inscribed with a different kamea. Beneath it was a scrap of paper that offered a clue on how to decipher the kamea's hidden message. 

Veronica came in to play the piano while they worked on the code. They also noted that the library was full of occult and theological works, particularly focused on the role of angels in the Abrahamic religious traditions. Engaging the group in light conversation, she said that she loved to travel. When pressed further, she said that she had just been in Scotland before returning home--but couldn't remember why she had left to come back to her father's house.

The group moved upstairs to explore further. Strangely, none of the residents of the house tried to stop them from poking around. The upstairs bedroom featured a desk with more books. From the materials on the desktop, it was obvious that someone in the house had an interest in the Book of Abramelin, an occult tome focused on summoning a guardian angel. 

Mouse tried to open the door leading to the balcony, but it was nailed shut and the gaps around it were sealed with red wax. She noticed that although it should have been just past noon, it was now dark outside. She also saw a line of identical cars approaching the house.

Wildman tried to leave the house, but found the space beyond the front door barred by a stout brick wall. He yelled for Jeremiah, but the butler insisted that he couldn't see any wall.

Back upstairs, Mouse found an oratory room with whitewashed walls. There was a stone altar in the room; hanging over the altar was a odd-looking lamp. When Mouse climbed up onto the altar to get a better look at the lamp, she saw the corpse of a woman in mourning dress hidden behind it. The dead woman had a three-foot wooden wand driven through her chest. Undeterred, Mouse clambered onto the altar and saw that the lamp's glass sides were crystalline and unusually clear. There was a wick inside, but the lamp was out of oil.

Meanwhile, back downstairs, the guests for the dinner party arrived. There were all identical middle-aged men, and all of them went by the name Lester Goodman. The Lester Goodmans had no trouble simply walking through the brick wall in front of the door. There were sixteen of them in total. (Sixteen of them, plus the four characters, plus Augustus and Veronica added up to the twenty-two settings on the dining room table.)

Frantic to figure out what was going on, the characters descended into the basement, where they found the corpses of a man in a butler's uniform and a woman in a maid's uniform clutching each other in death. They noticed a shadow move across the wall; it was unusually tall and seemed to have feathered wings on its back. 

They returned to the room with the altar, bringing with them a bottle of lamp oil from the pantry. When the lamp was lit, they found themselves in the presence of a winged angel who said "Be not afraid." The characters involuntarily dropped to their knees before the angel. The angel told them that all they needed to do to escape the house was to destroy or deface one of the kamea statues in the house; he explained that the family had botched a magical ritual and had inadvertently turned the house into a prison.

Tiny rushed downstairs and toppled the Augustus's bust onto the floor, breaking it. 

Back in the altar room, the others watched in horror as the angel began to glow brighter and brighter, until the being's innermost light burned out their minds, leaving them catatonic. The angel, which was never an angel, was now free. It then departed to wreak havoc on an unsuspecting world.

Tiny found that he was also now free--the house was empty and there were no bricks between him and freedom. Returning to the garage, he found that the gas cans were actually full and that the Rolls-Royce was perfectly operational. Leaving his co-conspirators to their grim fates, Tiny departed with all the loot from the bank job and put the horrors of the Saturnine Chalice behind him.

Graves and Guitarras

About a month ago I had someone on my discord who lives in the UK approach me to ask if I could run a Krevborna game for them since they knew they would have a September night free for it. Look, if someone is willing to stay up that late for one of your games, you gotta say yes, right? It's too flattering! The premise for this one-shot was simple: the characters were all grave robbers given a simple task that quickly became complicated.

This adventure was adapted from one of the scenarios in Keys From the Golden Vault, in case you're wary of spoilers.

Characters

Harriet Grimstone, a big, tough, mean bruiser

Percy Rood, a sneaky urchin with a dark secret

Cornelia Draven, a necromancer who likes to source her own materials

Events

The grave robbers gathered in the back of a pub called the Old Leather Boot to receive a mission from the Angel of Graves herself. Serafina explained that the first woman blackened skald, Attilika (real name: Olga von Glau) was buried in the cemetery of Tillsbury. She was interred with a magical, skull-shaped guitarra. Their mission: dig up Olga von Glau's grave, retrieve the guitarra, and bring it to the Angel of the Graves.

They found the grave under the cover of night. Unfortunately, it appeared to have already been disturbed. They dug up Olga's coffin anyway. Olga's remains were inside, but the guitarra was missing. Percy was startled by a movement at his peripheral vision; a white mist poured from the earth, coalescing into a corpse paint-wearing specter. Once they reassured the ghost of Olga von Glau that they weren't there to defile her bones, she told them that her guitarra had been stolen by an elven woman and a fat man. She could only point them in the general direction that the thieves ran; she couldn't stray beyond the boundary of the cemetery.

Proceeding in that direction, the grave robbers found a house on a hill surrounded by a ruined orchard. The house was once a grand manor, but had deteriorated. They spotted a sign on the road up the hill proclaiming that the building was now the Lark Conservatory. 

They noticed that there was a stained glass skylight atop the building, which goaded them to scale the building to try and enter via the roof. Looking through a clear section of the skylight revealed that the room below was a large music hall sporting a variety of instruments. 

Percy was small enough to wriggle down the chimney into the unlit hearth below. The rest of the group shimmied down to a connected balcony. After scouting the room, and not finding Olga von Glau's guitarra, they approached a door...and three small demons suddenly materialized out of the ether. They look like humanoid ratmen devoid of all hair; each one of them brandished a different, smoking-hot implement of torture. When each of the demons was killed, it dissolved into a bubbling puddle of goo. Harriet did a lot of the heavy lifting here.

As they explored further, they found a hallway with an elevator cage. Next to it was a suit of armor. They were very afraid of the suit of armor. They located the master bedroom, which had a large footlocker at the foot of the bed. When it was opened, a piercing scream filled the air. They shut it in short order.

By the spiral stairs leading down, they discovered that an oil painting was actually a secret panel leading into a hidden study. The paperwork on the desk filled in some of the blanks about the conservatory. Whoever Lark was--they were badly in debt. It didn't improve Lark's financial situation when the group stole a wooden coffer full of coin they found in a desk drawer.

On the floor below, they stepped out onto a mezzanine. They could hear the sound of voices below. They also heard the sound of the elevator ascending from the first floor. The grave robbers quickly scrambled into the first room they could get into to avoid being spotted. 

The room turned out to be a bedroom used by one of the music students at the conservatory. Strangely, there was a statuette of a demonic, full-breasted woman holding a cat o' nine tails on the dresser. The other rooms on this floor appeared to also be bedrooms for the conservatory's students, but none of them had anything as outlandish as the diabolic statuette.

They proceeded down the stairs to the first floor, working their way through a parlor decorated with antique crossbows and hunting trophies. They passed a particularly large stuffed wolf next to a locked door; Percy noticed that there was a key shoved back into the wolf's mouth.

Unfortunately, they were then attacked by the same (reformed!) demons from earlier. They killed them off again, but not before taking some wounds themselves. 

Closer to the front door, they surprised most of the household to barging into the dining hall while they were in the middle of after-dinner drinks. There was a handsome man with blonde curls (and features that were a little too perfect) and three teenaged music students. 

The man with the blonde curls stood up, swished his wine, and commanded the students to head into the kitchen for their own safety. He then revealed himself to be an incubus and attacked the grave robbers. In the middle of the fight, the elevator came back and Lark (and his rapier) joined the fray. The incubus was defeated and Lark was grievously wounded. Lark surrendered and agreed to hand over the stolen guitarra.

Lark led them back to the door by the stuffed wolf and used the key that had been stashed within the wolf's mouth to unlock the door. Inside was a room that was once a chapel, but it had been profaned as a satanic ritual space. Cornelia recognized that it was dedicated to Abzula, the Demon Queen of Lust. 

Once the guitarra was passed over, the grave robbers left the conservatory in great haste. They went back to the Old Leather Boot and turned the instrument over to Serafina, who was impressed with their work, and paid handsomely for their troubles.

The Screaming Place

A recap of the last episode of Krevborna High.

Characters

Daytona, misunderstood, quiet loner with a secret heart of gold

Panthalassa, do-gooder who loves to meddle in others personal affairs, a bit of a nerd

Pendleton, self-medicating overachiever teetering between valedictorian and total burn-out

Garazi, unusually outgoing art student

Raoul, goth, rich kid, theatre kid

Events

The characters' transportation options had narrowed since the last session. Raoul had his keys taken away by his parents after his arrest. Alie won't be around to drive them places because she's looking after an injured Sera. Daytona busted the radiator in his truck during the car chase. 

Daytona went to take a look at how bad the damage to his truck was, but found that someone was already working under the hood. His mysterious benefactor turned out to be Kassidy Durango, the woman who owns the local hunting and fishing shop. She explained that she couldn't stand to see a vintage truck like his out of commission at the side of the road, so she went to Gary's U Pull It and got a replacement radiator. Daytona offered to work the cost off at her store, but she told him to just apply for a job--it would beat working at the gas station, at least.

After picking up Raoul and Pendleton, the boys went to Laura's bookshop to see if she knew anything about "the Screaming Place" that Sera had dreamed of on the operating table. Laura knew that the Screaming Place was a concept from local Waronak native folklore: it was a liminal space between the world and the afterlife. She also pointed them to an old book written by a parapsychologist; the book's thesis was that the Screaming Place was a Waronak name for similar concepts such as Limbo and the astral plane. They looked into ways of accessing the Screaming Place, such as ecstatic dancing, occult ritual, drug use, etc. 

In the book, they also saw a primitive device that connected a living woman and a skull as an experimental means to enter the Screaming Place. This explained both why Emily and Imogen Garner's skeleton was missing. It did not explain why Emily may have been abducted for that purpose.

Later that night, Garazi and Panthalassa went to the practice space to help Alie load up her guitar and amp. Since she had broken her hand, she wouldn't be able to participate in the Battle of the Bands at the Freedom Warehouse. Before they left, Alie had to use the lady's room. Following girl code, Garazi and Panthalassa went with her. While they were in the bathroom, the lights went out. And then they were attacked by the same knife-wielding masked figure who had slaughtered kids in the woods.

Garazi and Panthalassa got stabbed up trying to escape, until Garazi hit the killer with a fire extinguisher and got Panthalassa on her feet. Alie got her Firebird started and they peeled out. Since two of them were now badly wounded, they went to Doctor F's house. Doctor F patched them up and gave them some strictly off the books medication for the pain.

Speaking of off the books medication, when the group reconvened at Panthalassa's apartment, they burned incense, put on Emily's favorite music, and took Pendleton's hallucinogens in an attempt to reach the Screaming Place. Most of the teens had a bad trip, hallucinating a menacing version of Siouxsie Sioux. Garazi, on the other hand, hallucinated that she was the beloved queen of nature, sat upon a throne of living wood, and found Emily in the Screaming Place. Emily told her that she couldn't remain in the Screaming Place much longer, but Garazi did return from her trip with more clues for them to follow.

After the final day of classes, Pendleton was obligated to clean Doctor F's lab. She asked him if he had seen two "helmet-like devices" because they were now missing. Remembering the illustration in the parapsychologist's book, he verified that the missing items were part of a similar apparatus. (Doctor F admitted that she had done some work for the US government on accessing the Screaming Place for the purposes of remote viewing.) Pendleton was also told that he would be contacted by "scientists with unusual accents" after graduation and offered an opportunity to study science at the fringes without government oversight.

The group then patterned up again with the Graymalk sisters. (To get their aid, Daytona had to agree to go on a date with one of them.) The Graymalks were able to clear up some aspects of the mystery: someone was using a device to summon and control the murderous ghost of Judge Mason Powell. Imogen Garner's skull was being used to fuel the "death" part of the equation; Emily was likely being used as fuel for the "life" side. Why was Emily chosen for this? She was a distant cousin of the Graymalks, so she had the blood of witches running in her veins.

Panthalassa also went on a sailing date with Thomasina. It went well! Thomasina agreed to hang out again; they'd rent Bound and watch it together.

One of the things they learned about the place Emily was being held is that it had wood-paneled walls and bowling trophies, indicating a basement. Panthalassa looked into it and discovered that the trophies could be connected to Erasmus Feist's family. The group hatched a plan to pay him a visit: Raoul and Daytona would arrive at the front door on an "apology tour," while Pendleton and Garazi would find a way to sneak in and explore.

It didn't quite go as planned.

For one, the door was answered by Erasmus's older sister Severina, who led them into a very dimly lit living room and offered them bottles of Crystal Pepsi. Raoul excused himself to use the bathroom, opened the window and let Pendleton and Garazi in. Unfortunately, someone grabbed Garazi's foot and pulled her back outside!

Meanwhile, when they had an opportunity to flick the lights on, they discovered that Severina was keeping it dark so they wouldn't notice the bloodstains in the living room. The jig now up, she attacked them with a knife--the same knife she had been using in her attacks to throw the group off her brother's trail.

Outside, Garazi and Pendleton had to deal with Erasmus Feist. Bargaining with him availed them nothing; ultimately, Garazi had to bum rush him. Erasmus hit his head on a rock and was incapacitated.

Back in the house, Severina was cutting the teens to ribbons. (For reasons that will never be explained, Daytona did not make use of the taser he had.) On the way back to the living room, Raoul stopped to grab a knife from the kitchen--which he used to murder Severina.

They all ran downstairs to the wood-paneled basement and found Emily on a cot, her head cradled one of Doctor F's stolen helmets. The skull of Imogen Garner was connected to another. A third helmet was currently vacant. Pendleton wisely stopped Raoul from disconnecting Emily. (That would have killed her instantly.) Instead, Garazi put on the third helmet and found herself within the Screaming Place. One there, she was able to "lead" Emily out--and get her consciousness back into her body.

The group heard the sound of people prowling around upstairs. They braced themselves for the worst and ran up the stairs--but they discovered a coalition of Dr F, Laura, Vanessa Laurant, and Helena Graymalk. The women who dealt with the killings that happened back in the 80s! 

The adults took over. Dr. F treated their wounds while Helena destroyed Erasmus's machine. Vanessa and Laura emptied cans of gasoline in the house and set it ablaze to destroy all evidence. (Including Severina's corpse.) Erasmus was bound and loaded into a car; he would never be seen again.

The group was sworn to secrecy about what they had discovered. Really, they should just be happy to be alive, even if prom was canceled.

Car Crashes and Microfiche

Here's a recap of what happened in the second session of Krevborna High.

Characters

Daytona, misunderstood, quiet loner with a secret heart of gold

Panthalassa, do-gooder who loves to meddle in others personal affairs, a bit of a nerd

Pendleton, self-medicating overachiever teetering between valedictorian and total burn-out

Garazi, unusually outgoing art student

Raoul, goth, rich kid, theatre kid

...and Alie, their kinda dumb metalhead friend

Events

We left off in the previous session with a white Cadillac peeling out of the video store parking lot. Since that was the same white Caddy that seemed to be staking out Daytona's house, the group went into high gear trying to chase it down: Raoul and Alie pursued the Cadillac in their cars, while Daytona took a cross-street to cut the driver off. Unfortunately, his maneuver meant that the Caddy plowed into his truck, busting the radiator. Since he was already concussed from the brawl he got into earlier in the day, he was now in BAD shape.

The driver of the Cadillac got out and was, understandably angry. The driver was none other than Erasmus Feist, one of their high school nemeses; the kid had a reputation for being a repulsive little creep. Things escalated when Raoul tried to intimidate Erasmus and Daytona forcibly snatched his wallet. Protip for players: if you want information out of a guy, going aggro is sure to make someone clam up unless you have the heat to back it up. In this case, they didn't: Erasmus scuffled with them, and it took Pendleton entering the fray, and catching a stray fist, to break it up.

Since Garazi and Panthalassa didn't want to have to deal with the cops, Alie drove them out of there; they headed to the library.

The others...sped away from the scene of an accident AND a crime, which meant they got pulled over and arrested in short order.

Over at the library, the remaining characters hit the stacks and the microfiche to learn more about Imogen Garner, the accused witch, and the similar killings that had taken place in the 80s. They learned that Imogen was probably accused of witchcraft by Judge Mason Powell because she spurned his advances. They also discovered that the symbols on her gravestone translated to "REST UNTIL NEEDED." 

The witchy Graymalk sisters arrived at the library and demanded to see one of the books the group was using. The group struck a deal with them: they'd share information. From the Graymalks, they learned that it was the Graymalk family of yesteryear who erected Imogen's grave marker.

As they left, they spotted Alie talking to Thomasina, Panthalassa's crush. The thing about Alie is that she is an outrageous flirt who has a way with women--and it looked like Alie was poaching Panthalassa's girl. Not so! Alie did Panthalassa a solid and declined Thomasina's offer to go sailing. (She feigned seasickness.) She did, however, set up a sailing date for Panthalassa instead.

When Saturday morning rolled around, it found Daytona at work at the local Apple Gas station. A kid came in to buy condoms, but then abruptly had to borrow the key to the restroom. Thomasina came in, bought a pack of Big Red and got a job application. After she left, the kid in the bathroom still hadn't emerged. When Daytona went to check on him, he found what looked like a crime scene: broken mirror, lots of blood, but no body.

Since they already had a couple run-ins with the law, Daytona called his friends instead of the cops. When they got there they...cleaned the crime scene (!!!).

That night, Raoul was scheduled to deliver a couple kegs to the bonfire party in the woods. Since the party was being thrown by members of the baseball team, and since one of the murdered students was a baseball player, the party became an impromptu memorial. The somber atmosphere didn't stop two of the teens from sneaking off to make-out in the woods. Sera showed up to do a paper-bag "delivery" to one of the girls at the party, which had Panthalassa suspicious about what her roommate was involved in.

(Spoiler: Sera is dealing illicit copies of Titanic on VHS that "fell off a truck" so she has money to put toward Panthalassa going to college.)

Of course, the kids who wandered off never came back, so the teens grabbed some flashlights and went looking for them. They found them, all right: disemboweled and hanging from a tree!

To make matters worse, they heard screams coming from the party. They ran back and found teens being slaughtered by a knife-wielding masked figure. They ran for it. Sera and Alie got separated in the chaos, which the group only realized when they got back to their cars at the edge of the woods. Some characters were too scared to go back for them, but a few brave souls soldiered back into the woods to find their friends.

They met Sera and Alie halfway. Sera had been stabbed by the killer and was losing a lot of blood; Alie had broken her hand punching the masked killer in the face to save Sera. They were both bundled into the cars and driven to the hospital. Sera was stable after surgery, but she had something she needed to tell them: while under anesthetic, she had a vision of Emily, Raoul's missing girlfriend. Emily told her that she was in "the Screaming Place," a room of blue light with two exits, but wouldn't be able to remain there much longer.

They had new leads to follow, but now they knew that they were up against the clock if they wanted to save Emily.