"Here be dragons."
- From old maps of the world, when describing uncharted areas.

Flight leader Gobach-Tan surveyed her control panel as the tiny Saurian fighter drifted silently through the endless night of space, somewhere past the orbit of Jupiter. The end of her shift had arrived, she noted. It would feel nice to dock with The Raptor Claw and run a few laps around the ship to relieve the tension in her muscles.

"This is flight leader, all ships report in and form up to return to base."

She listened to the call signs of half a dozen Te-Mulys over the comspeaker, and quickly realised that something was wrong.

"Flight 4, respond." She replied.

Nothing.

"Flight 4, do you receive?"

But there was still no answer.

"Can anyone see Flight 4? Can anyone see sector 129 by 45?" She asked, hoping it was nothing more than a communications failure, as the carrier ahead of her loomed larger and larger.

"Flight leader, this is Flight 6, I'm picking up unidentified craft in that sector."

Almost immediately Gobach-Tan felt the involuntary release of adrenaline, which made the dark confines of the cockpit even less bearable.

"All fighters form up on me, accelerate to 50%. Raptor Claw, this is flight leader, scramble all reserve fighters, the Gna-Tall are approaching."

Gobach-Tan pulled away from the converted asteroid that was the Raptor Claw, a cylindrical vessel over four hundred meters in length, designed solely to carry three squadrons of the small wedge-shaped fighter that formed the backbone of the Te-Mulys defensive force. It was a beautiful carrier, and she hoped she could fulfil her duty well enough to explore its decks again, even though such hopes were foolish and unlikely. They had been dispatched as a rearguard to the Exodus fleet, and she knew the Gna-Tall ships which would arrive could only be slowed down by their forces, not stopped. It would take at least ten minutes to launch the first of the carrier's remaining fighters, and Gobach-Tan would do everything in her power to make sure the Raptor Claw got enough time. If they were going to die, they might as well put up a good fight.

As she accelerated to full power, a quick visual check revealed that all the remaining fighters had taken up positions on either side of her own craft. The comspeaker chattered with an unceasing series of commands and confirmations as the ships assumed the proper formation and readied for the attack. She could hear the excitement in the voices of the other pilots, the low growl of Saurians stimulated by battle.

The enemy craft were now in sight, at least five Gan-Tall interceptors. Superior machines to be sure, but few Gna-Tall were as skilled pilots as her own squadron. Almost simultaneously, the two sides opened fire. Gna-Tall plasma balls passed long blue streams from the Te-Muly energy projectors, and ships on both forces absorbed the damage through their sophisticated shields. Then the craft were on top of each other, and Gobach-Tan banked hard to keep from overshooting the ensuing melee. Her sensors were full of ships swarming around each other in the chaos of the furball. The glow of weapon discharges criss-crossed her viewscreen as she tried to lock her guns on one of the enemy vessels rocketing through her field of fire. The only noise in the cockpit was her own heavy breathing, and the vibrations which shook the craft each time she fired her guns.

Gobach-Tan straightened out her vessel to combine fire with a wingman on a wounded interceptor trying to limp away, but was caught off guard by a pair of plasma balls from behind, which dissolved into her rear shields. In a manoeuvre often practised for space dogfights, she cut her main engines and kicked in the manoeuvring thrusters, rotating her craft 180 degrees to face the pursuer. The Gna-Tall interceptor was bearing down on her with a series of plasma balls, and she quickly squeezed off a stream of fire of her own, knowing it was probably the last attack she would ever launch. Each ship was hit by the concentrated fire of the other, and Gobach-Tan's fighter shook so violently as the Gna-Tall weapons slammed into her front shields, that she became completely disoriented.

And then there was no sound at all besides the hum of the life-support systems. Gobach-Tan looked out to see the few pieces of wreckage which remained of the interceptor. Her shields had held. She quickly took command of the fighter and scanned her surroundings. With a relieved snort, she discovered two of her own craft passing through the loose field of debris which marked the field of battle, with no sign of the enemy. Feeling most satisfied with her efforts, Gobach-Tan keyed her comspeaker.

"This is flight leader to Raptor Claw, we have been victorious against the..." But one of her wingmen interrupted before she could finish.

"Gobach-Tan, the Raptor Claw! It was a diversion!"

And as she turned her craft to face the distant cylinder of rock that was the Raptor Claw, Gobach-Tan noticed a stream of at least fifteen glowing orbs drifting towards it, from the direction opposite of the battle they had just fought.

The blast that followed was so brilliant that it washed out the sight of everything around her with a harsh, white, flood.

Gus Turnbull cranked the accelerator of his snowmobile, the rippling blast of the fireball still reverberating in his ears. He sat up in his seat, trying to get as good of a look as possible at his surroundings. The frozen Saskatchewan plains were flat and featureless, and he hoped the asteroid, or meteorite, or whatever it was called, would stick out like a sore thumb. Sure enough, about thirty meters to his left he suddenly spotted a dark speck against the white backdrop of the field. He turned his machine towards it and began to slow down, not sure just what he was going to do when he got to there.

From a few meters, it was clear that the object wasn't the top of a stump or post, and no rock would have survived long outside without being completely covered by snow. Gus crept towards it cautiously, wrapping his face in a scarf to block the harsh wind. It was about the size of his fist: a dark, jagged, lump of stone from God-knows-where.

He leaned over it, passing his hand overtop in expectation of some sort of searing heat, but felt nothing. Then Gus made sure his heavy mitten was on as securely as possible, and extended his hand to touch the strange object.

Game Mechanics: Simply put, LRP is an attempt to immerse the players into the game world, by allowing them to become their characters to a far greater extent, so that the events which happen to them and their characters are inseparable. This is achieved by doing away with the standard RPG set-up altogether, and simply giving the players the folder of info they need to start, and telling them to "get to it". After that, the GM's work is solely behind-the-scenes.

Although another group of players is working on their own LRP system, I've decided on an approach which makes no attempt to convert standard ConX rules to LRP rules. Simply put, what you can accomplish in the real world is what you can accomplish in gameplay, with some small exception. I've written out this game as I would run it, and if you decide to use it at all, you may probably want to alter the mechanics to suit your style.

I have avoided the use of rules wherever possible. Players will write up background and personalities for their characters, but they will not be able to buy any skills, attributes, or special abilities. They will choose their background organisation, but for simplicity's sake, should not be permitted to be part of any police organisation, or other backgrounds which would require more support than the GM could provide.

They will rely only on what is at their current disposal: their wits, knowledge, and whatever equipment they can gather, hopefully including a car. The characters are assumed to have just flown into the city from another, and will therefore not have any weapons on them. Using pulling strings and other sources of information would be achieved by calling on a parent cell member at their base, "Mr. Jackson", who would actually be the GM. The cell will be required to inform Mr. Jackson of their situation very frequently, (so the GM knows where they are going, and can plan ahead and alert NPCs) but they will otherwise be on their own.

With regards to combat, they should be informed that physical contact is discouraged, as they will not be required to use it, and if they do they must be careful not to harm the NPCs or destroy valuables. Great care must be made to avoid such contact wherever possible, and should only exist in the form of basic grappling and wrestling where appropriate. Gun combat is resolved simply by pointing the gun at the opponent and shouting "bang". The shot is an automatic hit and the target is considered dead, or in whatever state the GM or NPC indicates. Since the players won't have guns this should matter little except for the conclusion.

The storyline below does not take into account various actions taken by the cell, and more detailed help with how to keep the players on-track can be provided if you're interested in developing the mission, (email me at ltpeachy@hotmail.com).

The GM will explain the following information.

The cell is in (insert city) following up on a contact of theirs in the academic community.

Dr. Harry Reynolds is a geologist at a local university, and is a watchdog for Aegis in his field of research. 15 hours ago he sent them the following message through HERMES.

Hello agents,

I normally wouldn't use this channel but something terribly urgent has come up.

I just got off the phone with a colleague of mine named Gordon Foster, who sent me the results of some very interesting experiments he has been running. I've attached a copy, but I suspect that you will be unable to make much sense of them without a lot of background knowledge.

Simply put, Gordon was running a new set of scans on a group of a dozen or so fairly ordinary iron meteorite samples on loan from private collections in North America. One particular sample, H45, a meteorite found in Saskatchewan in 1972, showed some absolutely unbelievable results. Although consisting of about 20% nickel, and 79% iron, with traces of all the ordinary elements, it possessed electro-conductive attributes like nothing I've ever seen before or heard of. Gordon wanted me to go over his data and see if I could verify he had interpreted it correctly, (which he had).

Now, I haven't been told as much about this conspiracy as I would like, but I do know that when an email concerning strange discoveries from outer space gets sent across the internet, the Black Book or whoever else, notices.

I called Gordon immediately, and he told me I was the first person he had informed of the discovery, since he wanted to make sure he had got it right. I came to see him and reinforced the seriousness of the situation without being able to reveal anything. We left to pick up the sample from the lab and hide it. On the way there we were followed by a van which I managed to lose at a railway crossing. It's for this reason that I decided to distance myself from Gordon and remain ignorant of the location of the sample, (Gordon will be able to take you to it).

I dropped Gordon off at a friend's house who he said could hold onto the sample for him, and he told me he was checking into a nearby hotel, (room [-] at the [-]).

If I notice continued surveillance I've decided to leave town, so you may not be able to contact me when you arrive. Either way, do not attempt to reach me through routine means, and stay away from my apartment. I'll be at Gordon's hotel room at (-time-), or about 1 hour after you should arrive at the airport. If I'm not present, assume I've left the city and continue without me.

I hope I've managed to convince Gordon to keep a low profile until you see him, but I'm not sure how long he's going to put up with my vague threats. Please get here ASAP, I fear the enemy already has a head-start on you.

Good luck,

Harry.

The cell has just arrived at the city, and it's about the time Reynolds told them he'd be at Foster's room, (to make sure they arrive late and don't spend long waiting for him when he isn't there.)

Therefore, they should make their way over to Foster's hotel immediately.

(Note: to avoid the costs and possible inconveniences of a hotel, Foster could be staying at the house of another of his friends, who would be "at work" during the given time.)

Since the characters just got off the plane, they are unarmed and have had no time to prepare since disembarking. Their car is a "rental".

Scene 1, Gordon's Hotel Room: The players arrive to find no one responding the door, and it may be ajar if the setting selected permits. Eventually the cell will try to get inside; the door is not locked. The room shows some signs of use: cigarette butts, books, clothes thrown over a chair. There is no sign of struggle and there are no unusual details visible. The bathroom door is ajar and the light is on inside.

Opening the bathroom door reveals the body of Gordon Foster. He is seated on a chair or stool with his head lying beside the sink. His hands lie inside the sink, which is filled with very bloody water. Examination of Gordon's hands reveals that his wrists have been cut, probably with a razor found at the bottom of the sink. His face is extremely pale, and there is "no pulse". A stereotypical but vague suicide note is also found in the bathroom.

Examination of the main room reveals plenty of useless items, but there's something that should catch the players' eyes. Beside the hotel's telephone is an alphabetic phone number organiser, (the plastic kind with the numbers on paper cards which, can be easily flipped) which belongs to Foster.

All the cards from A-Z have been torn out, and the organiser lies on its side. An inspection of the organiser will shake out a business card from between the blank cards at the end of the container. The card will have a face such as the one below:

On the back of the card is a note scrawled in pen, which says, "H45:" and gives instructions for locating the sample. However, they are unspecific and meaningless without further information, (for example: "third left off road, by road marker, fifty meters to right.")

Reynolds is nowhere to be seen and will not arrive. The cell should leave, (perhaps informing the police, perhaps not) and make their way to see Stein, (the man on the card).

What is Really Happening: Gordon's email set off warnings with both the Black Book and Te-Mulys on Earth. The Book received it through their covert email surveillance software, while the Te-Mulys picked up on it with a data siphon hidden within an email server. The Book has realised that this discovery could reveal some of the conspiracy to the public, even though they have no idea what the results mean. The Te-Mulys recognise the sample as a piece of their own technology, a portion of one of their spacecraft. During the Exodus, the converted asteroids which the Te-Mulys adopted as transports and carriers had the surface layers coated with microscopic relays. These relays facilitated the projection of shields around the entire vessel, and can be detected with careful scrutiny, (even with human instruments). The meteorite found possesses these conductive properties because it was once part of a Te-Mulys vessel destroyed 65 million years ago, and fell to Earth by chance after millennia of drifting through the Solar System. If probed further by human scientists, it will be easy to conclude that the object cannot be natural, and must have been altered by intelligent life.

The Black Book attempted to capture Reynolds but lost him and Foster in a car chase, on the way to Alan Stein's house, where they were going to hide the sample.

Reynolds gave Foster specific instructions on how to stay hidden, and dropped him off at the house of the friend Foster trusted could keep the sample safe while he stayed at the hotel, (to keep the asteroid from being found on Foster in a worst-case scenario). Reynolds then left, to draw attention away from Foster. By this time Foster had been completely overwhelmed by the immensity of the situation. He was fanatical about the safety of the sample, and forced Stein to drive him out to the nearby woods where he might bury it. He then had Stein drop him off near his hotel, after making him promise not to tell anyone about the meteorite, unless the "conspirators" found Foster and had their way with him.

The Black Book caught up with Reynolds at LAX, (Los Angeles International Airport) around the time the Aegis cell finds Foster's body. The Black Book quickly interrogates Reynolds and finds out about the cell's involvement and that the sample is still in (-the city-). By the time the Book reaches Foster's hotel room however, the cell should be gone.

The Te-Mulys were the ones who found Foster first however, by tracing him to an internet cafe a few blocks from the hotel. Through data siphons hidden throughout major servers world-wide, they found Foster accessing various net accounts registered to his name, and within an hour had agents waiting outside the cafe. Foster was followed to his hotel room where the Te-Mulys subdued him with a mind stunner. The slave who operated the device however, was dull-witted and inexperienced, and used it on a level powerful enough to be dangerous. The mind stunner had such a strong effect on Foster's brain that it effectively damaged it beyond repair, reducing him to a useless catatonic state. Once the Saurians determined that Foster did not have the meteorite on him, they took copy of the lab results, and a list of friends & associates who they could question about the location of the sample. Then they faked Foster's suicide and left.

Scene 2, Alan Stein's House: Alan Stein is a respectable and wealthy geophysical consultant, who lives alone in an expensive residence. When the cell comes to see him, he will be polite and allow them inside, but his reaction will depend on how he is approached. If the players begin by announcing the death of Foster and request information, he will act shocked and afraid. If the players claim to be police he will demand identification, and will refuse to talk if the players cannot produce any. If the players do not mention anything of Foster, he will respect his word and deny knowing the sample's location. Although he should slip up slightly or accidentally let the cell know that he is lying, (example: "Gordon? Nah, I haven't seen him recently. Well actually he did come by last night for a cup of coffee, but that was it. He just wanted to say hi.")

If the players do a good job of convincing Stein that he should reveal the location of the sample, he will eventually agree to take the players to it. Either way, they should be forced to flee by circumstance.

Stein will stand by a window at the rear of the house, to get coffee or something, (this will be a signal for the other two NPCs to emerge.) He will then ask the players who the two men coming across his back lawn are. The cell will see two men walking towards the house, dressed in classic MiB uniform. These are Te-Mulys, coming to question Stein after determining he was Foster's most trusted friend. If possible, one should be readying a gun. This should make the unarmed cell members panic, and escape out the front door to their car. They will have no trouble taking Alan with them, who will be eager to escape, and will confess where the sample has been buried immediately. The cell and Stein should escape the MiB with little difficulty, otherwise the stupidity or slow reactions of the slaves should give them a way out.

After the cell has driven away, he will remember that he wrote down precise instructions on how to find the sample and left them by his bedside in case he forgot. He thinks he can remember them with ease, but the MiB won't take longer than an hour of searching his house to find them.

Scene 3, the Forest: Stein will quickly confess that the meteorite sample was buried about 50 meters from a road in a nearby wood. The cell makes its way there, and by this time it could possibly be dark, (running around in the forest with flashlights would add a lot of atmosphere). Meanwhile, the Black Book have also found the location of the sample through a psychic trained in dowsing, and have dispatched their own team.

This is where careful setting selection comes in. First of all, the location must be isolated, so all the action can happen without scaring outsiders. Preferably, there will be a good safe spot from which the GM can keep watch over where the players will park and the majority of the action occur. The team of Black Book agents will already be set up, and will vary in number depending on the numbers of players, (up to twice the amount of players). They will hide out of sight near where the cell parks its vehicle. If the entire group moves into the forest to retrieve the sample with Stein, they will set up to ambush the group from a number of sides when they come back. If the cell leaves a member or two behind with the vehicle, then the Book may move when the rest of the cell comes back and hopefully surprise the whole group, or split up and handle both parties of players. The Black Book agents will be armed with guns and will order the players to freeze and surrender. The better you can surround the players the better of a chance that they will feel as if they have no room to escape and comply. If one of them disagrees and attempts to flee, they may either be permitted to escape or shot.

The cell and Stein should be rounded up, (if you can get handcuffs, use them) and brought back to the road, (this should be after they've dug up the rock) where all the Book members will assemble. The Book agents were simply following the instructions given by the drowsing, and "stumbled" upon the players. They will demand the sample from the players, and may ask them all sorts of questions. While this is happening, a vehicle arrives. And the two MiB emerge. The Black Book agents flash some credentials and identify themselves as police, ordering the visitors out of the area, but the MiB advance towards them. They both pull out some sort of large rod, like a big flashlight or bar, which are in actuality heavy-duty mind stunners, (range highly increased). They point these at the Black Book agent one by one, who fall to the ground twitching at first, then lying still. A few agents manage to shoot before they go down, but their "Bang! Bang!" falls on deaf ears as the MiB are not affected by the shots, (defensive fields). The players and Stein will not be stunned, and the MiBs approach them and ask for the sample, (their speech should make their inhuman nature apparent).

From here the mission could be brought to a number of conclusions, which depend largely on how informed the players are about the books and how much you want to reveal.

1. Stein or one of the players heroically defeats the MiBs. How this could occur is up to you. Taking one of the Black Book guns and shooting will kill the Saurians, but only on the third or fourth shot, (Wn3 vs Ar4). One of the Book agents could also be "feigning" unconsciousness and act to kill the MiB in some way.

The cell will then have the sample, two Te-Mulys bodies, and a bunch of Black Book agents. The GM should step out, congratulate the players, and go over the postscript in standard role-playing format.

2. The Dreamspeakers, Greys, or Atlanteans could arrive. Their excuse and motivation is yours to give, as is what would happen to the cell.

3. The MiB get the sample, and leave the players, possibly "stunning" them beforehand. The GM comes in and explains the live-action is finished, and the players are left with a lot of questions and no answers.

4. The Te-Mulys attempt to make an alliance with Aegis, possibly taking them to another location to negotiate. They tell the cell everything it wants to know about the sample, and may end up revealing a great deal about Saurian affairs and history. In return they will ask co-operation against fighting the Gna-Tall, and to exchange information on various topics, (perhaps the Atlanteans).

There are a large number of other solutions, and they depend entirely on what sort of information you would like released at the conclusion. If the cell ends up with the sample, Aegis will run tests on it with a precognitive psychic who will issue the report below:

"I see, the object as part of a whole. A massive asteroid in the void of space. I cannot tell how distant in time what I see is, or was rather, but it is a great deal of time...

Thousands, millions of years perhaps.

There are beings who live within this rock, I can see reptilian shapes scurrying down dark passages in the heart of...

There is enormous panic, the emotion stains the meteorite so deeply...

It is the reason I'm seeing this event, this is the most emotionally charged moment in its history.

There are hundreds of these beings, they all cry out at once, in pain.

The rock explodes with a blinding flash. There is heat, sensations describable only through the language of the mind, inexpressible...

A small fragment of rock tumbles through the void, separated and alone...

That's it..."

Lab tests will reveal a great deal about the meteorite's composition and function as previously stated.

Other concluding details are up to you.