Part 1: Black Forest

The team approach to the drop point seemed flawless, we closed in and dropped the cargo right on spot and Bravo team proceded to reach the target point. Once inside the forest perimeter, they began preliminary investigation about the target's position; however, a stronger threat lied waiting for Bravo team: due to some unknown device or magical trap, the earth litterally swallowed the whole team in matter of seconds.

Part 2: Enemy Contact

Trying to contact Bravo team through Radio channel proved useless, but Codec contact succeded where Radio failed. Through this we received unconstant report on the Team situation. The first communication was however the most shocking of all: the team found itself into a large cave which looked as if it was of natural origin, but they detected some kind of wire lying very well hidden on the ground, they reported that it seemed like it was made of silver. This was a terrible omen: we know of only one man using silver-made wiretraps and that is Shugerg... I ordered immediate distancing from the wire and, as soon as I said that, the trap sprung nearly beheading one of Bravo team members. Shortly thereafter, Shugerg itself appeared from the shadows and explained to Bravo team he got captured exactly as they did. This in turn alerted us of the Old Scarlet Cobras presence in the Area and I sent an emergency call back to the HQ to receive massive reinforcement at once. However, Bravo team seemed much less worried, probably due to the fact that they never faced Rolento's Trickery before and, despite my best efforts to warn them of the risk, they decided to share the common goal of leaving the caves with our enemy. I thus backed on the simple order of buying time until a stronger team could get on the spot and rescue them from the double menace.

Part 3: First Prison

The first area Bravo team explored looked like four circular caves palced at the angle of a square connected by natural hallways, appearently without exit. They found shortly thereafter that there should also have been a central chamber and concentrated on finding it. It resulted that there was a magical device, some sort of lock that could be opened by putting a living body inside a cavity and spilling much of its blood. However, Bravo team recurred to Shugerg's help to solve this mystery, from this he could glean some knowledge that he did not pass to Bravo team. The central chamber presented just a fountain, its waters obiouvsly refilled by magic means, which exorted to pouring into it one's energy to be freed. This however resulted in a trap: the energy there poured seemed to power some kind of magical process that created deformed monster  with the sole purpose of slaying anyone in sight. Bravo team realized this after a couple of fights which depleted much of their energies; I suspect that this area was simply disigned to check the captives' strength without energy expenditure on the captor's part. I also suspect that Shugerg understood this from the very beginning, but let Bravo team summon the monsters to weaken them so that his job could be easier. Although in the last fight with those beasts he seemed to get really badly injured, it was to me clear that he faked such injuries to have a wonderful excuse to dupe bravo team into fighting everything for him since he could barely move. In the end, however the team menagd to overcharge the device and thus open a way to the lower complex.

Part 4: Second Prison

Bravo team thus reached a perfectly built underground cathedral, so perfect that it could be hardly described as human-made. From the main chamber departed four hallways which the team explored. One held a fountain which sprouted blood and nothing else: I don't know in which training session they learned it, but a couple of Bravo team members decided to drink from such a fountain. It was anyone's guess that this resulted into a bad idea. The fountain seemed to strengthen their bodies but cursed them with an incredible lack in accuracy that made them fumble more often than not. Chamber number 2 held some kind of altar requesting a sacrifice in exchange for power: not satisfied by their latest experience, one of them followed such instructions. The result was some kind of empowered tool, which is good, against nearly every source of energy of the subject from strength of will to Rage to life, which is not. Bravo team depleted their last resources to heal their comrade and proceeded to door 3. Not thrusting the door safety, they had Shugerg open it: a magical blast of incredible strength erupted from the door and in a flash of light canceled everything in sight which, lucky them, it was just Shugerg. Although it really seemed that our arch enemy did vanish in the blast, it seemed clear to me that he just caught the opportunity to hide himself and lurk once again in darkness. Anyway Bravo team advanced in their scouting and reached the end of the hallway finding what looked like a magical opening. Such opening reached on the outside, exiting on the outskirts of the Black Forest. From there we could get a clear Radio contact with the Team: they seemed to have reached the surface. Alpha team made all efforts to determine Bravo team position for the pick-up, but the latter made the decision to prosecute investigation and scouting of the enemy field.

Part 5: Toward the Abyss

This was perhaps the only strong-willed and truly tactically good decision made by Bravo team, unfortunately, they weren’t up to the task and this proved their undoing. In fact, their investigation led them to the last portal and this proved the most dangerous. The door was trapped in the same way as that leading to the exit, but, seen the previous experience, Bravo team could avoid it, but what could not avoid was what was lying beyond the door. Bravo team was ambushed by an horde of strange creatures that laid waste on them, they could anyway press back the attackers and destroy them in the end (although at an high cost). At the end of the tunnel, Bravo team found some kind of church with altar included: there were laying tens of bodies of the same creatures that assaulted them in the hallway; amidst the bodies, Shugerg was lying in a near death state (fake, in my opinion). When they neared him, Rolento came to his senses and explained that after the blinding flash, he was transported in that room and had to fight dozens of those monsters, fight which depleted all of his energies and left him almost dead. I cannot stress enough the fact that Shugerg could never be put in danger by something that could not kill Bravo team, so this lead to the only conclusion that he used this as the final make up for his stage play. In fact, even this part of the building seemed closed and not leading anywhere, but soon Rolento suggested that this place could be some kind of portal and helped Bravo team finding how to open it. It is again clear to me that he already had the clearest idea on what he was facing, but opted for the use of some Guinea Pig to test his theories instead of depleting his own energies.

Part 6: City of the Damned

This time, Bravo team gained access to some kind of open space. There night had already fallen; this was probably due to some magical ward operating in what Angel defined as an Extradimensional space. In this kind of valley, Bravo team found a little village which they described as a 18^th century village filled with a strange technology that they defined something as “Steampunk”. Bravo team initiated standard infiltration routine and scouted the place finding that it was heavily inhabited by men and women with strange (victorian) clothing intent in discussion and feasting (feasting on what, it was not ascertained). Little time could they explore when they were contacted by a messenger sent by the castle sitting atop the near peak (Stereotypes a go go). The Lord of the castle had business with them. This signed the beginning of a nightmare that has yet to end. When they met the Creature, their thought immediately went to the folkloristic picture of the literary Vampire. This alone was, for us, an amazing discovery: although we supposed the existence of such creatures from a long time, meeting one of them in person was an unexpected turn of events. We warned Bravo team members that such creatures could be bent on scheming and evil doing and that they should thread carefully, however, we were not even near to understanding which danger had befallen on us.

Part 7: Shadows from the Past

The creature introduced himself as a long time acquaintance of the group; in fact it was following them since their first trip to Italy. By some strange quirk of fate, this creature was a long time rival of another dark power in Italy: the sorcerer that the young faced during the Lupin III (Leonardo’s Legacy) mission. The creature was spying on him by mean of a disguised agent: the agent took the identity of the piano teacher of the man’s young son. Such agent was what Angel called a “Ghoul”, disguised and empowered by the Creature to be undetectable even to a magical scan (otherwise a superpower like the sorcerer would have sensed her right away); when the team members carelessly entered the mage’s house and opted for incapacitating both the child and his teacher when they stumbled upon them, the agent decided to act and to turn the situation in her master’s favor. She probably nearly killed the child and wounded herself in the hope that the newcomers would rescue them and buy her story of the evil slave of the Devil who would kill his son and the one who witnessed his true face, story that worked perfectly well. From that point on the Agent had a double purpose, spy on our team, trying to glean our true identity and try to persuade us to act against the sorcerer, so that we would terminate her master’s problem without it having to move a finger. The news would already be bad enough knowing that she nearly managed to accomplish all of her objectives, but this is not all: in fact, the creature had a darker reason to spy on the mage.

Part 8: Blood Devil

From the intelligence Bravo team collected, it seems that the creature was no less that one of Leonardo’s assistants who followed the genius through many of his experiments: alas, it seems that Leonardo did uncover other secrets beyond the one concerning how to become Zooanthropes and one of his students made a dark use of these knowledges. This means, in turn, that the Creature was also aware that his master did uncover an unspeakable secret that he tried to hide from the world and was probably looking for that secret from a long time. The theft of the painting must have alerted him as it did alert us and he kept his eyes even more open. Sadly, the information gathering that the team operated in Italy, in turn did favor this creature too. So, while we cherished the accomplishment of the mission and believed that we had stolen this terrible secret from Tyron preying claws, we had instead given it freely to another dark power.

Part 9: Last Communication

This is the end of the story: as we had already ascertained, the ritual is perfectly correct and perfectly working; it seems it is also able to morph such an undead creature in an Abomination with both the powers of Darkness and Light. The Creature referred to this as the Power of Blood that made it Godlike. Simply put, the Creature had lured our and Rolento’s teams in a trap in order to study our potential and now that we surpassed even its brightest hopes, it offered to join its ranks. Bravo team tried to buy some time and contacted us: of course, the answer was never an issue, but it was important to give us the vital information they gleaned. This was the last communication we received from Bravo team….

Part 10: FootNotes

I know perfectly well which power level Shugerg can reach and I really hope that a creature that could overcome his power in an head to head fight doesn't exist, anyway, we know for sure that he left the place with his team shortly after Bravo team had to face its last challenge and he was carrying with him the bodies of our comrades. Although we tried to stop him, his escape was surely planned: he wasn’t blindly running away from a murderous opponent. We do not know if Shugerg defeated the Creature and, even if I’d like to think so for we would have one less problem to deal with, it would be easier to think that they reached some kind of deal. After all, “Dog doesn’t eat Dog”. Now we are leaving for Rolento’s Middle-East headquarters, and we do not know what we are going to face… For the sake of this War-thorn world, I hope that he didn’t sign a pact that gifted him of the same powers of that Blood Demon….