A secure, encrypted call comes in to DLHQ from an unknown, untraceable source. It’s a woman who identifies herself as the head of espionage at CHESS – code name “Queen”. The Bishops report to her.

She’s come to believe that some person or persons at a high level in her organization has been compromised and isn’t sure who she can trust, so she’s turning to outside help.

She asks the team to infiltrate an InterCrime facility in New Jersey. She believes that the power armor IC agents have been testing is based on the Knight armor suits her organization developed, which the team has previously encountered. She suspects the theft of the technology might have been an inside job. She’s prepared a USB stick (which the team can find in their post office box) containing a virus of sorts which, if introduced by plugging the stick into one of the servers at the data center in the facility where IC worked on the armor, might be able to gather enough information from their network to identify the source.

IC agents aren’t a very trusting bunch and there are multiple factions within the organization – one of which maintains a secret tunnel out of the facility that the others don’t know about, so it remains largely unguarded. It connects from beneath the IC compound to the basement of an apartment building nearby. There are security devices in the apartment building, but they appear to be connected to the public power system. Because of the current heat wave there have been rolling brown-outs through the area, and she’s going to arrange for one to happen as the team enters the building, to increase their chances of getting in undetected.

As they enter the apartment building, they’ll see the superintendent asleep at a desk near the entrance… a deep slumber almost as if he’s been conveniently drugged to allow them to enter unnoticed. The basement contains some laundry facilities, along with some empty metal shelving. There’s a locked side room (whose door can be easily banged open with a strength check) containing assorted tools, some plumbing and cleaning supplies, and a partially-disassembled clothes drier that looks as if repairs were started on it but never completed. (Curiously, it also has rollers for feet.) Behind this is what appears to be some kind of ventilation grate through which the tunnel can be accessed.

The tunnel is about 100 feet long and unlit. It ends and a similar grate which opens on behind a candy machine along a wall in a T-shaped hallway with doors leading into a server room, a storage area, and what appears to be a locker room with shower facilities. An IT person is reclined in an office chair with his back to the door, seemingly playing a game on a phone. The desktop is littered with soda cans and candy wrappers. After a few minutes, he’ll curse at his phone, having just lost the game he was playing, and will get up, grabbing a newspaper and heading out another door to head toward the rest rooms in the shower/locker area.

Shortly after the stick is plugged in, the sound of battle will come from above. The King, Knight 1, and Rook 1 will come down into the area from the stairs, barging into the server room in search of the Queen, whose emergency beacon is broadcasting from there. (It’s the USB stick.) They’ll demand to know what’s going on, but the conversation will be interrupted by the arrival of two of the IC power armor troops and five of regular IC troops, who will come down the same stairs and open fire on the CHESS agents.

As the battle goes on, the Queen, armored now, will arrive through the tunnel with two cloaked bishops, along with Knight 2. The king will say, “There you are! Let’s eliminate these InterCrime troops and then figure out what’s going on here!”

Queen: “I’m afraid that’s not how this is going to work. You see, I’ve entered into an arrangement with these folks to work together to eliminate a… mutual obstacle. Queen’s knight 2 to King’s Knight 1. Queen’s bishop 1 to King’s rook 1. Bishop 2, with me. The rest of you,” – gestures at D-Listers – “finish off the riff-raff!” (She goes invisible, combat ensues.)

How it played

The players were immediately suspicious of the Queen’s motives but went along with the plan with the understanding that they were going to take a skeptical approach to whatever events transpired. This didn’t actually end up helping them much, since it wasn’t until the fighting started that the Queen’s treachery became apparent.

Parts of the fight were difficult, as the team faced heavily armored opponents with some significant damage capability, but by working together with the King and those still loyal to him, they were able to take out all the visible opponents. The Queen and her Bishops proved more difficult, employing fire-and-move tactics to largely avoid damage (to the point where the fight became tedious, to be honest). Velocimancer hit on the idea of using her shaping ability to create a light dust to throw around the floor of the room. As she spread it around, it limited where their invisible opponents could move without leaving visible tracks, but spreading it was a slow process.



A break came when the King accidentally moved through the space occupied by the invisible Queen. She failed an agility save and he bumped into her, then immediately reached out and grappled her. Everyone else piled on while he held onto her, keeping the grapple in spite of taking multiple point-blank head-shots himself (which almost took him out). By the time she broke free, a critical hit had damaged her armor and her invisibility field was inactive.

When the Queen went down, the bishops fled the scene.

The D-Listers now have a tentative truce with a very weakened CHESS as the King moves to purge the organization of compromised operatives and rebuild.

It turns out that D&D flavored dungeon tiles and scatter terrain can be pressed into service to build the basement of a supervillain lair in New Jersey. Small desks were vending machines, the larger table was a computer desk, and the mossy green walls represented racks of servers. A mix of D&D and re-purposed Heroclix minis replaced our usual tokens-glued-to-washers, which are wearing out at this point at need re-printing and re-gluing for the frequently used characters.