Episode 2 opened with a harrowing car chase through the streets of Manhattan which ended with the bad guys' truck crashing due to the combination of a sharp turn, Claire Tremont's [me] mystic power to daze the driver into inaction, and oil spread on the road courtesy of scientist Fenton Westinghouse's [Wil] tricked-up roadster. After spending a couple days recuperating and researching the item up for auction, and pursuing leads on Doctor Wu, we were surprised at our hotel by his minions (led by his henchman Chu, the fat Chinaman) and brought to Wu's airship for a discussion. The doctor claimed to be interested only in the bracelet, while our employer expressly desired the hand, so we seemed to reach a cordial understanding with Wu about splitting the items. Immediate disaster was narrowly avoided when Miss Tremont used mystic mindspeak to warn the impetuous ace pilot Nick Timber [John H] from making any rash moves against Wu. However, on leaving Wu's airship, the elevator went below ground level and began filling with water...

As tonight's episode opened, our heroes were trapped in an elevator slowly filling with water. Via loudspeaker Doctor Wu explained he could not trust us and as we did not reveal to him the location of the auction, he would have to take other measures. Fortunately, Westinghouse had once worked as an elevator repairman, and was able to hotwire the elevator to return to the warehouse on the surface. Ex-British army officer Thomas Keefe [Pat] had brought with him a satchel full of dynamite, and so he left a dozen sticks with a lit fuse in the elevator and sent it back up to the airship before we hurried out of the warehouse. We reached the door just as the dynamite blew, and discovered henchman Chu and a couple goons were down here on the ground waiting for us. After a brief struggle our heroes put down the minions and narrowly avoided the falling wreckage of the airship's docking tower, which seemingly buried the vile Chu. However, we also saw the badly damaged but still flying airship limping towards New Jersey.

Regrouping at another hotel, we made our final plans for the auction the next morning. Mr. Keefe would take Westinghouse's car, hire three other people, and drive for a while heading out of the city, in an attempt to mislead Wu's minions, while the rest of us headed as circumspectly as possible to the auction site. [Pat had to leave early, and this is how we decided to proceed. Incidentally, our fifth player, John P, has been out of town on business the past two sessions so his detective character is still missing, last known to be pursuing a lead.] At the auction, who should appear but our erstwhile employer Mr. Achmed! Judging by his alarmed reaction, we suspected he was no longer vying with Doctor Wu for possession of the items, a suspicion he soon confirmed. Fortunately we still had the funds he had provided us for the auction, and we were now determined to prevent these artifacts from falling into the hands of either Achmed or Doctor Wu. We were concerned whether Achmed had greater funds available, but then Miss Tremont had a thought and assured her companions she could take care of Achmed, so long as we sat behind him, which we did.

Several other buyers were present for the auction, which featured ten items, including an alchemical treatise by Roger Bacon, a mystical Tibetan carving, and the mummified hand and bracelet which was the last item up for bid. Westinghouse handled our bidding, and deliberately drove up the bidding on some of the early items in hope of preventing other attendees from being able to bid successfully on the artifacts we sought. Using our own resources, he also won the bids on Bacon's treatise for himself and the Tibetan carving for Miss Tremont. Finally the last item came up for bid. Westinghouse made the first bid and exchanged a couple small ones before Achmed jumped to a considerably higher figure. Then Miss Tremont put her plan into action. After Westinghouse made the next bid, she summoned her psychic power and tried to *daze* Achmed, preventing him from being able to bid again. Achmed almost hesitated but bid again. Westinghouse topped him, and Miss Tremont tried to *daze* Achmed again. But again he shook it off, though visibly disturbed, and raised the bid. We had now bid all of the funds Achmed had provided us, and only had our limited resources to add. Westinghouse raised the bid again, and Miss Tremont concentrated hard... going once... going twice, Achmed struggled... sold! Sold to us! And Achmed's hand finally shot up, too late to bid! Achmed jumped up and stared at us, deeply dismayed, before fleeing the auction house. Jubilantly, we collected the items we'd won...

Meanwhile, across town, a pudgy hand broke free from the rubble of a warehouse and airship docking tower...

The best thing was realizing I had the power to hinder Achmed from bidding, and it was just a zero-level power. Tony didn't expect that, and I didn't tell the other players what I was going to do, I just told them in character that I'd take care of him. (Of course the problem with that is, although Harper's character has some idea that I've got occult powers, Wil's character doesn't, so he has no idea I really did anything -- since he was bidding he wouldn't have really noticed me staring at Achmed.) I realized afterwards that I had forgotten the main limitation of the power, which is that it only affects beings of 5 HD or less (we players don't know Achmed's level of course but it's probably higher than 5). Tony doesn't know all the powers by heart of course, and didn't think of checking the details -- I'd used it successfully on a few minions so we weren't thinking of that limitation. But the target does get a save, and for psionics the difficulty is a d20 roll plus power level and (psion's) ability modifier -- which means sometimes it'll be easy to resist and sometimes hard. And Achmed's first two save rolls exactly matched the difficulty, so it was a close thing.