Session 07 - The Vegas Hive - Napalm and New Powers - Wrap-Up

Narrative Recap

Back at the Boss Voss facility, the team regrouped to face two mounting crises: a persistent insect infestation burrowing deep beneath Las Vegas, and the looming arrival of a world-ending entity — a former hero from another planet — expected to reach Earth in less than a week. Boss Voss revealed that his scientists had cracked the secret of transferring power juice between individuals, a discovery inspired by the tragic fate of the planet Terra, where all available power had been funneled into a single champion who defeated the entity but then took its place. The team was determined not to repeat that mistake, choosing instead to spread the power among themselves.

With Guy occupied coordinating assets against the incoming entity, Sammy was appointed to lead a strike team back to Las Vegas. He assembled a formidable group: Ronnie, Brittany, Jenkins, Thompson, and six security troops. The plan was straightforward — find whatever was spawning the endless tide of insects and destroy it. Ronnie, ever blunt, made his tactical philosophy clear from the start: the security troops would absorb the initial contact, preserving the team’s specialized skills for the presumed Hive Queen waiting somewhere in the depths below.

Before heading underground, the team reached out to S.C. Johnson, whose scientists arrived with three experimental chemical concoctions designed to kill the alien insects. Jenkins, Thompson, and Brittany were dispatched to capture live bugs for testing, and through a combination of effort and luck, the team secured seven specimens. After a rigorous series of tests, a blend of two formulas — designated B and A — proved most effective, killing the insects quickly and reliably. The team then confirmed the gas was corrosive to their suits after prolonged exposure, giving them a hard operational window of roughly two hours before their armor would begin to fail.

With the chemical weapon ready, the team turned to the thirty tunnel entrances pockmarking the desert around Las Vegas. They pumped the insecticide into three main openings and then fanned out to seal the rest. Brittany split herself into multiple clones to cover several holes simultaneously, while the rest of the team paired off to tackle the remaining entrances with rocket-propelled grenades and quick-drying foam, with sand and gravel brought in by dump trucks to bury what was left. The operation was brutal and efficient — until two of Brittany’s clone teams ran into a swarm of twenty bugs and found themselves badly outnumbered.

Sammy rushed to assist, firing a rocket into the mass of insects, but the shot landed behind the swarm, causing the bugs to wheel around and charge him instead. Jenkins arrived moments later, only to find three of the creatures closing in at point-blank range. With no room to maneuver, he fired his suit’s leap ability, launching himself backward into the air and releasing an explosive round at the perfect moment. The blast scattered all three bugs across the landscape, and the rest of the team converged to mop up the remaining swarm. By the time the dust settled, all thirty holes had been sealed, and the concentrated insecticide was trapped inside with nowhere to go.

Industrial fans were set up to circulate the gas and eventually clear the air enough for the team to enter safely. While they waited, a fleet of twelve surveillance drones was sent into the tunnels to map the hive. The drones descended through two levels of dead and dying insects before hitting a wall of newly constructed organic material — a wasp-nest-like secretion that blocked all further progress. Working with the S.C. Johnson etymologists, the team identified the optimal location to drill directly into the heart of the colony. An industrial drill sourced from a local oil company bored eighty meters straight down, punching through into a massive underground chamber below.

Six drones descended into the Queen’s chamber and transmitted footage that stopped everyone cold. The cavern was enormous, filled with thousands of eggs and patrolled by both familiar soldier bugs and a new horned variant never seen before. At the center of it all sat the Hive Queen herself — thirty feet tall, many-armed, and surrounded by her brood. But it was something else in the footage that truly unsettled the team: near a pillar of hive material guarded by three massive insects, a human figure was visible, restrained by organic, vein-like growths covering his body.

There was no time to deliberate. The team pumped concentrated insecticide gas down the drill shaft, filling the chamber with a toxic cloud that sent the insects into a chittering frenzy. Then came twenty-two barrels of homemade napalm — a mixture of polystyrene, gasoline, and benzene — poured directly into the hole. The screaming below was brief. When the drones returned, they found a smoldering ruin of dead insects and a charred Hive Queen. To be certain, two drones rigged with explosives were flown directly into the Queen’s corpse, finishing the job completely.

Jenkins and Thompson descended into the chamber to inspect the aftermath. They found the remains of the queen and countless dead bugs, but the human figure from the footage was gone — not a body, not a trace. Using the suit’s identification software to analyze the drone footage, Ronnie was able to pull a clear enough image of the man’s face to run a search. The result came back as Tan Jiang, a Chinese scientist. The team passed the information up the chain, noting that Xander’s earlier sale of portal technology to the Chinese likely explained how Tan Jiang had escaped the burning chamber without leaving a body behind.

Back at the facility, Sammy was brought to the obstacle course where a scientist administered the power juice via syringe. A warm, spinning energy manifested deep in his core, and when he slowed it down, he shrank — dropping several inches in height as onlookers rubbed their eyes in confusion. When he sped it up, the results were far more dramatic: Sammy shot upward to nine feet tall, his clothes shredding off his body as his frame expanded. His strength grew proportionally with his size, though the effort left him drained and hungry. He excused himself to attempt finer control in private, but the effort failed, and he returned to the cafeteria to eat an enormous meal and think through the implications of his new ability.

That same evening, Brittany arrived at Sammy’s door — but she wasn’t alone. Igor, the former lead scientist at Boss Voss, stood beside her. He had returned to resume his position at the facility, and with him came the revival of his relationship with Brittany. The announcement was delivered with polite awkwardness, and Sammy received it with characteristic indifference as the door closed behind them.

Meanwhile, Ronnie had been quietly pulling on a different thread. He tracked down the desk of Jimmy Johns, an R&D scientist linked to the sabotage of Guy’s suit, only to learn from a colleague that Johns hadn’t been seen since Miller had come by to speak with him the previous day. Ronnie went to Johns’s apartment, kicked the door off its lock, and found the room ransacked — the unmistakable signs of someone who had packed and fled in a hurry. In the trash, he found the charred remains of photographs showing fragments of a woman’s leg and hair. The conclusion was clear: Miller had been blackmailing Johns, and when Johns’s usefulness ran out, Miller handed over the evidence and told him to disappear — leaving Johns to look like the guilty party.

Ronnie took his findings to Paulie’s Bar, where he found Xander nursing a drink. Without ceremony, he slammed Xander’s head onto the counter and began asking pointed questions about his ties to China. Xander confessed readily enough — he had sold portal technology to the Chinese for one hundred million dollars, reasoning that the heat around the base had grown too intense to continue. Ronnie connected the dots immediately: that technology was how Tan Jiang had escaped the burning hive. He extorted Xander on the spot, forcing a transfer of fifty million dollars in exchange for silence, then warned him never to do business with the enemy again. The two shared a drink, and the matter was considered closed — at least between them.

Ronnie brought his theory about Miller to Sammy later that night, laying out the full picture: Miller had blackmailed Johns into sabotaging Guy’s suit, but the sabotage itself was too small a payoff for the effort involved. Whatever Miller had truly needed Johns for was already done. The two agreed that the fastest way to find out what Miller was really after was to go straight to the source. They made their way to Miller’s apartment, waited for him to emerge, and the moment the door opened, Ronnie kicked it in. Miller tumbled across the room and landed in a heap — but as Ronnie moved to pin him, Miller’s hand shot to his pocket. He pulled out a syringe and drove it into his own arm before anyone could stop him. Whatever was in that syringe, it was not medicine — and as the substance began to take hold, the confrontation hung on a knife’s edge, the outcome still very much undecided.

Memorable Moments

“Everyone find a hole and fuck it!” — Sammie

Sammie’s blunt tactical order to the team to split up and seal the bug tunnel entrances as fast as possible, immediately called out as quote of the day

A critical failure during a chemical refinement test causes a catastrophic reaction that kills one of the S.C. Johnson scientists, whose face melts in a scene compared to the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

The team was pushing the limits of the experimental insecticide formula when the worst possible outcome occurred

Jenkins leaps backward into the air as three bugs close in, fires an explosive round at the perfect moment, and achieves a critical success, splattering all three insects across the landscape.

Surrounded at point-blank range with no room to maneuver, Jenkins used his suit’s leap ability to create distance and fire (gmassistant export reads “Jens” here; corrected to Jenkins — see Quality Notes).

Sammy grows to nine feet tall during his power juice transformation, shredding all his clothes off in front of the entire assembled team, Boss Voss, and the Dragon.

Startled and exposed after speeding up his new size-altering energy for the first time at the obstacle course

Ronnie slams Xander’s head onto the bar counter and extorts a confession about selling portal technology to the Chinese, then forces a transfer of fifty million dollars in exchange for silence.

Ronnie connecting the dots between Chinese submarines, Tan Jiang’s escape, and Xander’s shady dealings

As Ronnie moves to pin Miller in his apartment, Miller pulls a syringe from his pocket and injects himself with an unknown substance, ending the session on a cliffhanger.

Miller cornered and desperate after Ronnie kicked his door in, suggesting he had been holding a power-granting serum in reserve

Drone footage of the Queen’s chamber reveals a human figure — later identified as Chinese scientist Tan Jiang — restrained by organic growths near a guarded pillar, who vanishes without a trace after the assault.

The team expected to find only bugs in the hive, making the discovery of a human captive who then disappears deeply unsettling

PC Carry-Forward

Ronnie Vint (Ant)

• MAJOR — Unraveled the Miller conspiracy: Traced Guy’s suit sabotage to R&D scientist Jimmy Johns (R&D Level 2), found Johns had fled after a visit from Miller, recovered burned blackmail photos (a woman’s leg and hair), and reconstructed the scheme: Miller blackmailed Johns, used him, then made him vanish as the fall guy. Concluded the suit sabotage was a small payoff masking a larger objective Miller has already completed.
• MAJOR — Extorted Xander for $50 million: Beat a confession out of Xander at Paulie’s Bar — Xander sold portal technology to the Chinese for $100M. Ronnie took half ($50M) for silence. His off-books wealth is now enormous. He connected the portal sale to how Tan Jiang escaped the burning hive.
• Identified Tan Jiang: Used the suit’s Silhouette Software on drone footage to ID the captive in the Queen’s chamber as a Chinese scientist.
• Recruited Sammy as a co-investigator: Brought Sammy in on the Miller theory and the two moved on Miller together.
• Cliffhanger: Kicked in Miller’s door, sent him sprawling, moved to pin him — and Miller self-injected an unknown serum. Ronnie is mid-grapple as the session ends.
• Still holds the master suit password (unused, secret) and the energy-drain ability.

Sammy Castaneda (Jay S)

• MAJOR — Received Power Juice; gained size-alteration: Injected at the obstacle course (witnessed by Voss and the Dragon). Can shrink (to ~4 ft, minimal stat change) or grow (to ~9 ft, strength scaling proportionally). Growth shredded his clothes and left him fatigued and ravenous. Fine control (enlarging a single hand) failed on first attempt. A new power to integrate into his combat role — and a new mechanical write-up needed on his sheet.
• Led the Vegas strike team: Appointed mission commander. Issued the quote of the day. Rushed to cover Brittany’s clones (rocket landed long, drew the swarm onto himself).
• Brittany breakup: Brittany ended their involvement, arriving at his door with Igor (her returned former flame). Sammy received it with indifference — relationship thread closed for now.
• Allied with Ronnie on the Miller hunt: Now read in on the conspiracy and present for the Miller confrontation cliffhanger.

Guy LeFleur (Timmah)

• Off-screen this session — coordinating the entity defense: Assigned to organize assets against the incoming world-ending entity while the others went to Vegas. No on-screen action.
• Beneficiary of Ronnie’s investigation: The sabotage of his suit is what Ronnie chased all session; the trail to Johns and Miller directly serves Guy’s revenge motive from Session 06.
• Suit confirmed clean: Ronnie removed Miller’s remote-disable command last session; the source (Johns) is now identified.

Jens Hartmann (Sean)

• Not featured this session. Jens does not appear in the Vegas strike team roster or the base subplots; he was off-screen. (Note: the gmassistant item list credits a “Panzerfaust used by Jens,” but the field combat was the Jenkins/Sammy/Brittany/Ronnie strike team — likely a Jens/Jenkins mislabel. Confirm with Sean whether Jens was present.)

What Carries Forward

Unresolved Threads

• CLIFFHANGER — Miller self-injects: Cornered by Ronnie and Sammy, Miller injected himself with an unknown serum, “presumably a power-granting serum.” Whether he becomes empowered, hostile, or worse picks up at the very start of Session 08. Ronnie is mid-pin.
• Miller’s TRUE objective: Ronnie’s key deduction — the suit sabotage was a decoy; Miller used Johns for something bigger that is already done. What did Miller actually need an R&D Level 2 scientist for? This is the live mystery.
• Tan Jiang is alive and free: The Chinese scientist seen captive in the hive vanished without a body, almost certainly via the portal tech Xander sold China. Is he a rogue powered individual, a Chinese state asset, or something else? Flagged “above our pay grade” and passed up the chain — but he’s loose.
• WORLD-ENDING ENTITY (now days away): Still inbound. Voss’s countermeasure is Power Juice transfer — spreading power across the team rather than into one champion (the Terra mistake). Guy is coordinating the defense. The confrontation is imminent.
• Power Juice distribution: Sammy is the first recipient. Presumably the rest of the team will be dosed before the entity arrives. Who gets what, and what powers manifest?
• Jimmy Johns in the wind: Fled the base in his own vehicle, drove erratically off-site. Alive, a loose end, and the only other person who knows what Miller had him do.
• Xander’s portal sale to China: Confirmed — $100M for portal tech. This is the leak behind the Chinese submarines (S05) and Tan Jiang’s escape (S07). Ronnie buried it for $50M, but the strategic damage to NATO/Voss is done and command may surface it independently.
• The hive captive question: Why was a human (Tan Jiang) restrained in the Queen’s chamber, wrapped in hive growths near a guarded pillar? Captive, symbiote, experiment, or controller? The bugs valued/guarded him.
• Carried from Session 06 (still open): Patient Zero / the Regenerator’s cure (not revisited); the Jens/Ronnie obstacle-course grudge match (the course was used for Sammy’s transfer instead); the Dragon’s status at base (present, observing).

Player-Stated Intentions

• Ronnie + Sammy will pin and interrogate Miller — in progress as the session ends.
• Team intends to spread the power juice rather than concentrate it — explicit strategic choice.
• Tan Jiang intel passed up the chain — team chose to escalate rather than pursue personally.

World State

• In-game date: ~May 5–7, 2019 (the Vegas hive operation spans several days — capture/test, hole-sealing, waiting for fans to clear the gas, drilling, assault; base subplots that evening). The world-ending entity is now only days out.
• Location (session end): Boss Voss facility, Arizona — specifically Miller’s quarters (residential wing, 2nd floor).
• Vegas infestation — RESOLVED: All thirty surface holes sealed; tunnels gassed; Hive Queen incinerated by napalm and confirmed dead by explosive drones. The Nevada hive is destroyed. One S.C. Johnson scientist died in a chemical accident during testing.
• Threats active:
  • World-ending entity — days away. Power-juice distribution is the plan.
  • Tan Jiang — Chinese powered scientist, escaped, whereabouts unknown.
  • Miller — possibly mid-empowerment via self-injection; immediate threat in the room.
  • Chinese state actor — now holds portal technology (via Xander); strategic threat.
  • Patient Zero / zombie plague — still contained at base (unaddressed this session).
• New capabilities: Sammy has size-alteration (growth/shrink) via Power Juice. Team gear upgraded with TL10 tracking/identification software and upgraded suit batteries.
• Custody/at base: The Dragon (observing, free movement), the Regenerator and Patient Zero (secured), Igor (returned as lead scientist).
• Relationship shifts: Brittany left Sammy for the returned Igor. Ronnie + Sammy now operating as a two-man investigative cell against Miller.
• Finances: Ronnie +$50M (Xander extortion) — off-books wealth now in the tens of millions.

Keeper Checklist

• [ ] Resolve the Miller cliffhanger immediately — what was in the syringe? Stat the empowered/transforming Miller. Ronnie is mid-pin with Sammy backing him. This is the Session 08 cold open.
• [ ] Answer “what did Miller really need Johns for?” — the core mystery Ronnie surfaced. Tie it to the larger Chinese/portal/Tan Jiang conspiracy if appropriate.
• [ ] Define the world-ending entity and its arrival — it’s days out now. Capabilities, ETA, how the team’s distributed power juice is meant to counter it. This is the chapter climax bearing down.
• [ ] Power juice distribution plan — who else gets dosed before the entity, and what powers emerge? Prep Sammy’s size-alteration mechanics (GURPS Growth/Shrinking; ST scaling, fatigue cost, control rolls).
• [ ] Tan Jiang follow-up — does command act on the intel? Does he resurface? Connect him to Yi Jiangku (Voss’s own Chinese head of R&D) if intended — note the name similarity for the GM to decide.
• [ ] Jimmy Johns — recoverable witness or gone for good? He knows Miller’s real play.
• [ ] Xander fallout — Ronnie sat on the portal-sale confession for $50M, but does Voss/NATO counterintelligence find the leak anyway?
• [ ] Confirm Jens’s status — was Sean’s PC present this session? Reconcile the gmassistant Jens/Jenkins conflation.
• [ ] Patient Zero / Regenerator cure — still parked from Session 06; the entity timeline may force it.
• [ ] Hive aftermath — thousands of eggs and a new horned bug variant were in the chamber; confirm the napalm/explosive cleanup got everything, and decide whether any specimens/eggs were recovered for study.

Quality Notes

• A clean, satisfying “engineering problem” session — the table treated the hive as a logistics-and-ordnance puzzle (capture specimens → test insecticide → seal holes → gas → drill → napalm → confirm kill) and executed it with real competence. The pacing from problem to overwhelming-force solution was strong.
• “Everyone find a hole and fuck it” earning quote-of-the-day, the napalm overkill, and Sammy’s clothes-shredding growth gave the session great comedic high points without undercutting the stakes.
• The Queen’s-chamber captive (Tan Jiang) is an excellent mid-victory gut-punch — the team “won” the bug fight but walked away with a bigger, stranger thread. Good escalation discipline.
• Two parallel tracks ran well: the loud Vegas op and Ronnie’s quiet base investigation. They converged thematically (China/portal/Tan Jiang ↔ Xander; Miller/Johns ↔ Guy’s suit), which made the base half feel like payoff rather than filler.
• Canon note for reconcile: the gmassistant memorable-moment caption attributes the point-blank leap-crit to “Jens,” but the Summary and Scenes both name Jenkins (NPC), and Jens (PC) is not on the strike-team roster. Treated as Jenkins. Also confirm whether Jens was played at all this session (the “Panzerfaust used by Jens” item entry is likely the same mislabel).
• Continuity flag: Power Juice (extracted, transferable power essence from a captured powered individual) is mechanically distinct from raw Meteor Fragments — worth keeping straight as the team starts dosing.
• Watch the doomsday clock: with the hive cleared, only the world-ending entity and the Miller cliffhanger remain as immediate pressure. The chapter is clearly converging on its climax.

Reconciliation Context

Reconciled: 2026-06-15 (Sessions 06 and 07 reconciled together)

GM Decisions

• Jens (Sean’s PC) was OFF-SCREEN this session. He was not on the Vegas strike team. The point-blank leap-crit and the “Panzerfaust” belong to Major Jenkins (NPC); the gmassistant “Jens” labels were the export’s Jens/Jenkins conflation. Jens’s story entry and carry-forward reflect his absence.
• Tan Jiang and Yi Jiangku are UNRELATED — coincidental name similarity, distinct individuals. Cross-reference note in Tan Jiang updated to reflect this ruling.
• Power Juice is canon-distinct from raw Meteor Fragments (extracted, transferable power essence).

Consequences

• The Vegas Terran Insectoid hive and the Hive Queen are destroyed; the infestation is ended. A new horned warrior bug variant was documented before the kill.
• Sammy is the first operator dosed with Power Juice (size-alteration); Voss’s power-distribution program has begun, with the world-ending entity now only days away.
• Tan Jiang (Chinese powered scientist) escaped the hive and is at large; Xander is confirmed as the intelligence leak (sold portal tech to China for $100M); Ronnie extorted $50M and sat on it.
• Jimmy Johns (Miller’s blackmailed saboteur) has fled; Miller’s true objective remains unknown.
• Brittany left Sammy; Igor returned as Voss lead scientist — flagged as a major security implication (the man who sold Ronnie root access to all suits is now inside the facility’s leadership).
• CLIFFHANGER: Miller self-injected an unknown serum (Mysterious Syringe) while being pinned by Ronnie and Sammy. Opens Session 08.

Salvageable Prep

• No Plan file existed for Session 07 — no planned-vs-actual triage.

Promotion

• Wrap-Up promoted DRAFT → AUTHORITATIVE. Session status → reviewed.
• New entities promoted to AUTHORITATIVE: Tan Jiang, Jimmy Johns, S.C. Johnson Scientists, Hive Queen, Power Juice, Concoction BA, Silhouette Software, Napalm Barrels, Mysterious Syringe, The Queen’s Chamber, Paulie’s Bar, Destruction of the Vegas Hive, Sammy’s Power Transfer. Existing entities updated/promoted: Xander, Igor, Adrian Voss, Brittany, Major Jenkins, Thompson, Lt. Nash Miller, The Dragon, Terran Insectoid, Voss Combat Suit, Nevada Desert (Hole Site).