Editing Old Man Henderson (section)

==Director's Cut Part 2==

So when I ended the last story, we had a dead shoggoth, a burning building, a bunch of MIA lawn gnomes, and we totally just ordered some bitching Chinese food.

Anyway, at this point in the proceedings Henderson decided that if he couldn't get a proper brainstorming going at home as to the location of the gnomes, then he could always try Harry's bar.

Good ol' Harry was scared proper shitless of Henderson after an incident with a 'commie bastard pinball machine' prior to the game's start, so he could drink in peace and nobody really bothered him about the mounting tab.

So he's sitting there working on a new plan of action with his two best friends, Mr. Daniels and Mr. Walker, when suddenly a news report comes on. Apparently some woman was commenting on how the quiet religious group a few blocks away from the bar just had their shit wrecked. Henderson was VERY interested in knowing that they were not in fact Mormons, but rather 'Disciples of the Yellow King' which apparently were a radical sect of Buddhism that had the details promptly ignored since there was a hockey game on.

Then Henderson had a really good idea. Since somebody at the other table had the 'Dragnet' theme as their ringtone.

He knew fuck all about looking for people, but a Private Detective...

So after a few minutes in the phone book, he decides to literally call the first name he saw under the PI heading.

By sheer freakish coincidence, the phone in the Detective player's office starts to ring.

"Hello?"

"I need a man who's good at finding things, doesn't have any great love of religious loonies, and doesn't mind maybe shooting an ugly ass poodle or two."

"... I'm sorry, but WHO is this?"

"Name's Henderson. I need some help from a professional."

"No argument here. So, you're looking to hire a PI?"

"Yep. Had something precious stolen from me."

"And that was?"

"Roughly 40 thousand dollars of Lawn Gnomes."

There was a silence both in game and at the table. "What?"

"I'm not saying it was cultists, but I'm pretty sure it was cultists. Or aliens, but that seems unlikely given the circumstances. If you're interested we can talk down at Harry's on the south side by the river." And then he hung up.

Since the detective was quickly getting nowhere with his missing persons case, he decided it'd be good for a laugh.

Henderson meanwhile had discovered that Harry had acquired a Pac-Man arcade machine, and decided to fill the score board with profanity.

So when the detective arrives, he asks for 'some guy named Henderson' and was promptly pointed to a man in... unusual attire who was teaching a girl how to shoot pool.

"Henderson?"

"Hold on, just a second. The important part of a shot in pool is to make sure it's smooth. Take all the time you need to line up the shot, don't let them rush you." He says, and then he sinks his last three balls and the '8' in one stroke. He then turns to the detective.

Who promptly recognizes him, and tries to leave. Too bad for him, Henderson decided to follow. "So how do you think you're gonna go about this?"

"I'm gonna get the hell back in my car and leave the crazy ass arsonist/murderer behind."

"No shit?" He looks over his shoulder back at the bar "Which one?" He looks at the detective poking him in the chest. "What?"

"The church! You burned down a church!"

"They started it."

"Because you walked in with a shotgun?" He asked exasperated at the infuriatingly flawless logic of a complete asshole.

"No. Because they stole my goddamned lawn gnomes."

"Yeah, you mentioned that. How do you fucking steal 40 thousand dollars in decorative lawn fixtures? Where the hell did you even get that many gnomes?"

"I worked briefly as a prostitute in Thailand. The antique gnome collection was my retirement plan."

"What?"

"Ended up riding some dude's junk all the way back home. Hell of an uncomfortable ride, let me tell you. not meant for the ocean blue. And I would know."

"You... understand the logistics... of riding another man's junk... across the ocean..."

"Well, in a general sense. I took a course on ship building back in college. This was before we had these fancy navigational Gypsy Pathfinder Space-fairies."

"... I... alright, you said you were looking for gnomes?"

"Actually, that was earlier. Just now I was explaining that I knew so much about catching a ride on somebody's junk because of vigorous study in my youth."

"Let's focus on the Gnomes. You think they were stolen by a cult?"

"Only thing that makes sense from what I know. I want you to look into this 'Disciples of the Yellow King'. See if they're doing anything suspicious."

"Actually, I was looking into them already for another reason: looks like they've got a hand in human trafficking. Lawn Gnomes... seems like an odd direction to go in, but I won't deny that they're up to no good. I'll let you know if I find anything worth talking about."

"Sounds good. I'm usually at Harry's unless I'm not. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go see a man about a horse." Henderson then walked across the street, stole a bicycle, and rode off into a plot-hole for a brief period of time.


:''Now here's the question: do you guys give a shit about non-WHM related things? Because the rest of us were trying to play a somewhat serious game around him, and I wanted to know if you guys wanted the WHOLE story, or just shenanigans.

:''(several votes for whole story later)


Alright, so at this point, the guy playing the detective decided to give my character an easy-in with the group, since poor Jimmy was still on his lonesome for the moment.

In rolls James Fink, one of SEVERAL characters whom Henderson killed, and the only one besides Simon who's name ever got remembered by the rest of the group.

James is a long-time friend of the Detective, whose name I just remembered was Albert Johanson (Pronounced 'Yo-Han-Son' for some fucking reason). Back when Al was still a cop, Jim was a thug for the local mob. They worked up the ladders of their respective organizations, gained the respect of their co-workers, and eventually ended up leaving their jobs on good terms with their bosses.

In Jim's case it was because his wife had a baby on the way then, and asked him to find safer work. Al ended up in a shoot-out where his partner got killed fighting against a bunch of crazy meth addicts. Shortly after quitting they ran into each other by coincidence and discovered that the other one was 'the bastard who kept wrecking our job/getting away!' and ended up becoming fast friends. This continued on a fairly regular basis for several years until the Henderson situation, and Al decided he wanted back-up. And there was nobody in the world he trusted more.

"So," Jim said as he walked into the office. "Who's the client?"

"Some crazy motherfucker named Henderson."

"That his first or his last name?"

"Man, I have no fucking clue."

"Alright, so what's he want?"

"Apparently he thinks a cult stole his antique lawn gnome collection."

"... So drop the nutter."

"Two good reasons not to: The cult he's accusing I honestly believe to be involved in both activity illegal and bizarre. The other is that any man who can afford to just have 40 grand in gnomes lie around can write a pay-check."

"...Why the hell would somebody have fourty-"

"Don't tug on this particular string Jim. Trust me, just... don't."

"So what's our first lead?"

"Well I was gonna go kick around in the ashes of the church my new boss burned down, and then see if there were any witnesses."

"Wait, our BOSS caused that church fire?"

"Yeah. So you're in?"

"You kiddin'? I NEED to see how deep this rabbit hole goes."

That evening they went to the site, and discovered the shoggoth's corpse. There wasn't enough left of it to force san checks, but plenty to make them start asking some pointed questions.

The Professor ended up on the list of people to look into when this body was identified, and then they found the page of the Necronomicron. Recognizing the occult symbols on it, the Detective dropped it off at his office while he went to ask if he could borrow a notebook out of the cold-case evidence lockers.

Henderson meanwhile discovered that during a recent bender, he had agreed to chaperone a dance at the local high-school. So he swings by the detective's office to let him know where he'll be.

So he's at the office, and he meets Jim, asks him to pass along the info to Al, and then snags the scrap of the Necronomicron on the way out the door saying he needed paper. Jim failed his spot to notice which sheet he took. The GM fudged it, probably assuming Henderson was going to read it and he could kill him off via San-damage.

Boy howdy, was he wrong.

So Henderson shows up to the dance in his usual attire, slightly less scruffy than usual, and volunteers to sit outside and make sure punks from the other schools didn't try and gate-crash the party. The more 'proper' people were glad to keep him out, since that meant he wouldn't be able to corrupt the youth.

Henderson was glad because there was no way they'd let him smoke the monster blunt he just rolled inside.

I then realized, as he lit an 'atomica', as he called it (a blunt roughly the size of a cuban cigar), that there was currently only one piece of paper on his person.

As soon as I found out where he was IC, I went to the school to try and prevent the inevitable.

Meanwhile, Jimmy (the jock) was sitting outside, sad because his girlfriend didn't come because she was too busy being a crazy cultist.

Henderson decides to introduce him to the wonderful world of substance abuse, and like a bro passes the blunt.

To be totally honest, I'm surprised this moment didn't make the original story, since smoking the giant book of Bad Juju was the best thing to ever happen on accident.

So Jimmy took a hit, and totally failed every check the GM sent his way.

He saw Jesus, and then Jesus turned into a giant squid thing. In the deep distance, the Weed softened the blow by masking everything behind a cartoon-ey after-glow.

So imagine for a moment watching Elmer Fudd scream 'Cthulhu fhtagn' and shoot Daffy in the face. Only instead of a fucked up beak and a muttering of 'this means war', he screams 'HE COMES!" and tentacles rip out of his form to molest wildlife. [[Image:Necro_blunt_hit.jpeg|thumb|right|What taking the necro blunt is like]]

This is the part where I had to go to the door and retrieve the precious shrimp fried rice, but I came back to "So wait, I ONLY lost 15 san?"

"Yeah. What now?"

"I pass it back."

Henderson of course manages to ace the tests, and then comments on how 'this is some really GOOD shit man' and how Jimmy is 'a lightweight'.

Jimmy then does a bit better and they get to swapping stories. Pretty soon the Cult comes up, and they agree to join forces for the sake of cute girls next door, and lawn gnomes everywhere.

Sadly that roach burned fast and hard, so when Me and Al got there all we saw was the crazy old fuck and some ginger teenager crashed together against the wall giggling at 'those silly squid things in people's heads'.

So we then discover the kid's connection to the madness, and promptly discover what he knows.

This leads to the three people who DIDN'T have school tomorrow (both in and out of game) to prepare a stakeout of some church.

So at this point, we all get into Jim's van, and park down the street from a church. The church happens to be on the end of a road, at a T-shaped intersection, and we're parked a bit up the way from it.

"Man, stakeouts are boring."

"No shit, Henderson. You have anything useful to contribute?"

"Not really. I should've brought a book or something."

"Would you be paying attention to the building if you had reading material?"

"Not really."

"Then I guess that would defeat the purpose of a stakeout, wouldn't it?"

"Not if you two were watching. Hell, we could have two of us watching the third man playing bait."

"You'd volunteer for that?"

"Beats the fuck out of sitting in a van with two dudes who won't even let me smoke."

"Didn't you smoke EVIDENCE last time you lit up?"

"I regret nothing. Fuck it, you guys hungry or something? I'm gonna go grab some munchies from the gas station."

"Bring coffee."

"And some cheese doodles."

"Aight. Back in... fuck it, just leave the doors unlocked."

And he went in search of snacks. When he hopped out of the van, one of the cultists happened to see him on a lucky roll, and as he walked around the corner into the gas-station, they ran out and beat the shit out of the two of us left behind.

About the time we got dragged into the building, Henderson had FINALLY got out of the bathroom. About the time we got tied to the altar, Henderson had stopped to try on hats. About the time the ritual reached it's height, Henderson was debating which AC/DC album was the best with the cashier.

The end result of that argument was that while they couldn't decide if Back in Black or Dirty Deeds was the best album, Black Ice was pretty boss and Heralded only good.

So then with some tense tests of willpower and resolve, Al managed to free Jim and hold off the cultists while an evil presence steadily took chunks off his San score until he was no longer able to resist.

Smiling in malicious glee, Hastur began to stalk his new prey. At this point in time, Henderson had JUST walked out of the store, just in time to see my character get murder-glomped by a monster wearing my friend's face. So he does the only 'logical' thing he could. He stole a fucking fuel truck.

So then we find out he was packing C4, and was making all sorts of tests while gunning it down the road towards us. He made it, and bailed, just in time for the truck to hit him off of me, and run my ass over. Hastur rode that truck to its end, while Henderson placed a call to Jimmy.

"Hey kid, Henderson here. Found out what the nasties are weak against."

"What's that Mr. Henderson?"

"Point blank annihilation." he then hangs up the phone, and proceeds to walk off. I finished bleeding to death two turns later.

That's right, mother-fucker LEFT ME TO DIE.

Sure it wasn't like I was screaming for help, but he could have at least CHECKED.

Since I'm not sure how familiar /tg/ is with certain Cthulhu based rule-books, I was basically in what D&D calls 'alive, with negative hit-points'. So helpless, dying, but still there's hope.

Until the back trail ignited, and the tiny amount of fire damage ended me.

My one consolation was that the fire blew up the gas station and took the bar he left me for with it. Then, the detective's player, after the fastest re-roll I've ever seen, entered stage left. William Brocklaw runs in and yells about how his newly refurbished bar just got destroyed on the evening of its grand reopening.

"Hey man, if it makes you feel any better, I can help you get back at the people who did this."

"Who are you?"

"Name's Henderson. This is my right hand man, Rupert."

"... and you know who did this?"

"I'm fairly certain I do. Ever hear of the 'Disciples of the Yellow King'?"

"Are you saying that this was done by cultists?"

"Look, I'm not saying it was cultists."

"Re-"

"But it was probably cultists. Come on, your bar might be gone, but it's not the only watering hole in town. Ever hear of a pub called Harry's? You look like you could use a drink."

At Harry's bar, he got filled in on what Henderson knew, while getting a couple of drinks 'on the house'.

(I probably would've been there too, were I not slightly pissy about losing two characters in as many sessions.)

So after a few minutes of back and forth, Will decides he'll get in on it IF Henderson can provide some proof as to the whole evil cultist thing.

"So why'd you decide to go after them?"

"Revenge mostly."

"Really? What happened?"

"Same bastard who blew up your bar killed two of my buddies. This is after they stole all my fucking lawn gnomes."

"Damn. Tell you what, when we catch the guy, I'll hold him still while you kill him."

"Mighty generous of you."

This was the point where we called it for the evening, and at the start of the next session Henderson headed up a 'daring plan' to kidnap one of the heads of the cult. I'll tell that one next time, but quick spoiler: I managed to get three of MY OWN characters killed in one session.

Yeah.