Voodoo Child

Cast

The Games of Papa Ghede: Kyle Gibney, Nathan Dayspring, Kurt Wagner, Monet St. Croix, Sam Guthrie, Tabitha Smith, John Allerdyce, Yvette Petrovic, Mondo, Janet Van Dyne, Medusa Amaquelin

The Road of Kalfu: Crystal Amaquelin, Amanda Sefton, Angelo Espinosa, Laurie Collins, Danielle Moonstar, Sooraya Qadir, Angelica Jones

The House of Marinette-Bwa-Chech: Ororo Munroe, Scott Summers, Shiro Yoshida, Marie D'Ancato, Clarice Ferguson, Logan, Garrison Kane

The Song of Erzulie: Pete Wisdom, Remy LeBeau, Marie-Ange Colbert, Doug Ramsey, Mark Sheppard, Sarah Morlocke, Illyana Rasputin, Wanda Maximoff, Sofia Mantega-Barret

NPCs: Fred Duncan

Villains: Dr. Peter Alarune, Belladonna Boudreaux-LeBeau, Arcade, Heinrich Klar, Candra, Karl Mordo

Timing

June 1, 2007 - June 4, 2007

Plot Summary

Selene has been long dealt with, but her cult still remains, like a cast-off shell once the creature has died. Unfortunately for everyone, there are secrets that still have power, and the shape still exists for someone to take power over it once more.

Candra, a former pupil of Selene, and a powerful bokor sorceress in her own right, embarked on a dangerous plan to seize Selene's power and resources. Manipulating her own fellow cultists into a sham ritual to find Selene, she instead planned to drain the witch's power for her own.

The tools needed rest with the X-Men; a series of magical stones taken from them in Nova Roma. The X-Men are a dangerous foe, far beyond her means alone. But as a student of Selene, cunning and treachery are second nature to Candra, and she developed a complex scheme to get control of everything she wants.

The Games of Papa Ghede

Arcade's rumoured Murderworld does exist. In fact several of them do. They are all secretly built complexes, of varying sizes, hidden all over the world. Lowenstein makes a lucrative business 'renting' the complexes to criminals, corrupt rich, warlords and the like, as a way of dispatching their enemies in a unique style. Whether he or someone else does the kidnapping, the victims awake inside a part of the complex, and are faced with a series of challenges to move through it safely. Many of these challenges have been specially tailored for the specific person, for the sake of irony or revenge. Failing a challenge always ends in a grisly death.

The cult, through Heinrich Klar, has hired Arcade to set a trap for some members of the school. They have provided some rough information, which Arcade uses. However, once he's set up the scenario, it is up to the renters to capture the victims. One day in Westchester, Sam Guthrie was convinced to enter a local contest from a new travel agency and wins a package vacation to Las Vegas. As part of the promotion, they are offering identical packages for sale at discount rates. When Sam wins, he convinces some of the students and staff to go.

The first day in Las Vegas, Arcade's people captured those who had gone, drugging them and hustling them into Murderworld. While their absence would normally be noticed within a day or so, the other incidents going on simultaneously serve to distract the mansion from their disappearance right away. Inside MurderWorld, they were split up, forced to survive and try and find each other, while solving the lethal puzzles in their individually designed death cells. However, it turned out that they had an unknown ally. Arcade, furious that the cult never told him that kids were going to be involved in the kidnapping, secretly sabotaged his own complex to give them a chance to win.

The kidnappees managed to escape their rooms, only to be regassed and put into the second stage of Murderworld; a giant deadly pinball game, and a twisted circus. Through teamwork and deperate effort, they managed to survive the second stage of traps and into a final maze, in which Arcade provided the final set of hints allowing them to break into the control center, while notifying the mansion of their location. The X-Men in the group engaged Heinrich's men, defeating them while the younger students escaped from the complex as it exploded around them. Once outside the complex, the members of the West Coast Annex where there to return them to the mansion.

The Road of Kalfu

During one of the normal outings to drive the kids into the city, the van was suddenly and immensely professionally hijacked. Assassins from the Guild boarded the van, collecting the new hostages, including Amanda and Angelo. Their plan was to hold them against the delivery of the stones.

Fortunately, the Assassins had little information on some of the more unique students in the van, allowing Sooraya Qadir to tag along hidden with the vans as the students were split up and taken to a farm in Pennsylvania to serve as hostages to retrive the stones.

Amanda Sefton and Angelo Espinosa met with the person behind the kidnappings, Belladonna Boudreaux-LeBeau, who had Angelo badly beaten when he attempted to fight his way free. Amanda was seperated and eventually shipped off to Selene's apprentice outside of New Orleans.

With the help of Dust, the five students formed a plan to escape into their captivity, eventually succeding with the help of a stampede and the use of their individual powers. Cain Marko proceeded to exchange the stones with Belladonna, only to discover that she had betrayed them, twisting the wording to not include Amanda in the exchange. Cain then proceeded to pick up the kids and return them to the mansion.

The House of Marinette-Bwa-Chech

X-Force tracked the stones to a massive apartment on the 48th floor of the Baxter Building, a downtown Manhattan building. They can't go after them without abandoning Amanda, so they pass the details on to the X-Men. The danger is that the building is right downtown, and houses a great number of wealthy people. As well, there's no actual evidence to tie them to the kidnapping yet, so wrecking property damage and thumping everyone in sight is not an option. The X-Men need to smart their way through.

Facing them is a state of the art alarm system, a series of guards both normal and magical, overlapping wards which deaden telepathy, and the need for total restraint. The ritual is extensive, which gives the X-Men team time to formulate an actual plan, based on who is available. By the trap in Las Vegas, the cultists have nicely split the already stretched X-Men to the breaking point.

The X-Men break in and successfully disrupt the ritual, they will be confronted by the head of the cult, not the Professor but a powerful business man named Karl Mordo who owns the building. He threatens all manner of legal recourse, and the lives of the hostages if they don't leave immediately. Surprisingly the X-Men do, after receiving a call that the hostages are all safe.

As the X-Men enter the one elevator, Fred Duncan with ten FBI agents in tow entered the building. Turns out the Professor was canny enough to register the stones with the Brazilian government as a culture treasure, and get the rights to study them at the institute for a time. The possession by the cult is immensely illegal, and a quick search of the apartment adds up a whole host of other charges. The entire power structure of the cult is arrested, breaking all the financial backing of the Selene cult permanently.

The Song of Erzulie

Amanda is taken by force back to Candra's home outside of New Orleans, where she is tortured and rescarred with a version of Rack's ritual, designed to specifically use her as a bypass. Once the ritual starts with the power flowing to Selene, Candra's ritual will reverse the chant, pulling Selene's remaining power and shunting it directly to Candra.

When the X-Men disrupt the ritual following the knowledge those trapped in MurderWorld are safe, the ritual cuts out. Belladonna states her contract with Candra is complete, and her assassins leave the estate ahead of X-Force, who have been able to track Amanda down. They hit like a tornado, eventually overcoming Candra's guards and bringing her down.

During the battle, Pete Wisdom kills Candra for her attempts, retriving Amanda from her captivity.

External links

Voodoo Child

Meta

Plotrunners: Dex

Subplotrunners: Avital, Rossi, Erin