Mayday Plays - Doomed to Repeat, Ep. 20 - “The Ones We Leave Behind”

Episode Date: April 2, 2022

As the only agents still operational in Lansing, Boomer and Warp convince Detective Emille Browne to join the cause. Meanwhile, Merit gets up close and personal with Marlene. Agent Tuck and Hyde put a...side a long-standing grudge. With Merit’s life on the line, the agents race to track him while playing keep-away with Marlene’s ceremonial dagger. Phenomen-X finally acts out their bloody revolution and an agent of PERENNIAL is caught in the crossfire. TRIGGER AND CONTENT WARNINGS: Violence, blood and gore, death, body horror, mental illness, Dissociative Identity Disorder, PTSD, manipulation, gaslighting, religious trauma, infighting, the topic of Covid-19 including conspiracy theorists, drug and alcohol use, gun and knife violence Published by arrangement with the Delta Green Partnership. The intellectual property known as Delta Green is a trademark and copyright owned by the Delta Green Partnership, who has licensed its use here. The contents of this podcast are © Mayday Roleplay, excepting those elements that are components of the Delta Green intellectual property. CAST OF CHARACTERS • Aaron - Agent Samael • Allegra - Agent Tuck • Amanda - Agent Boomer • Caleb - Agent Merit • Eli - Agent Hyde • Zakiya - Agent Warp • Sergio - The Handler MUSIC & SOUND EFFECTS • Post Sound Supervision: Sergio Crego, Eli Hauschel • Mixed: Eli Hauschel • Original Music: Aaron A. Pabst, Joe Sanders • Soundstripe (soundstripe.com) • Glitch Machines (glitchmachines.com/) • Soundly (getsoundly.com/) DELTA GREEN LINKS • Delta Green (http://deltagreen.com/) MAY DAY ROLEPLAY LINKS • Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/maydayrp/) • Patreon (https://patreon.com/maydayrp) • Twitter (https://twitter.com/maydayroleplay7) • Mayday website (https://www.maydayroleplay.com/) • Twitch (https://twitch.tv/maydayroleplay)

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Doom to Repeat is a Delta Green actual play podcast with violent themes in adult language. For a full list of trigger and content warnings, please check our show notes before each episode. Listener discretion is advised. Hello and welcome to episode 20 of Doomed to Repeat. I'm Sergio, your handler. I'm Erin A. Papps, and I'm Agent Samuel. I'm Allegra. I'm Agent Tuck.
Starting point is 00:00:21 I'm Amanda Dominic, and I'm Agent Boomer. I'm Caleb, and I'll be playing Agent Merritt. I'm Eli, and I'll be playing Agent Hyde. I'm Zakiya, and I'll be playing Agent Warp. In this, the penultimate episode for this arc, I'd like to take the time to thank each and every one of our patrons, who have helped us grow. You are the folks who motivate us to create our content. We're humbled by your love and support, and we hope more listeners will consider joining
Starting point is 00:00:44 us. If you're interested in joining the party, head to patreon.com forward slash made a RP, where a $2 pledge gets you access to our Discord server. $5 gets you access to behind-the-screen content, original scenarios, one-shots, artwork, music, and a lot more. Thanks again to our patrons, Mirrod Onk, OGPan, Trogbren, Tony0303, Vince, seems like Emily, He Who Wants Jeans, Ladybug, Thea Maticus, C. Rose Sherwood, Hollow the Wise Wolf, Captain Creepy, Zeraloth, Koitsushima, Skelly Litchboy, Togus, Chief McClain, Sean Tompkin, Sick Daniel,
Starting point is 00:01:32 Albel Trakovich, P. V. Robot, Jabril, The Space Jamber, Dungeon Glitch, Beals Bjorn, Eric Axel, Jay Chess, Redstar87, Sneaky Beeping, Pencil Critter, Brian H., Daniel G., Greg C., Navar J., and Scott M. Now, let's begin. Before he… before Meadowbrook, he warned me that it might be at the cost of my life. Where's the cost of his? But I didn't care. For so long, the one thing that's kept me here and the program has been finding out what happened to Mia.
Starting point is 00:02:32 If it was just me that was taken, I… I feel like I could've let it go or deluded myself that it was a normal kidnapping turned nightmare by a traumatized nine-year-old like I told everyone else, but… but I lost her. I left her behind. And if some otherworldly being had something to do with that, I wanted to know. I still do. And it made me hesitate. When we pulled Marlene out of the septic tank and she started babbling to save her own
Starting point is 00:03:07 skin, she said… well, she said what she said and I hesitated. And I can't help but feel like my hesitation is the entire reason we're here. I'm not sure when I started caring about these idiots. This team. Perennial. I mean, a month and a half ago, Merritt made me want to pull out my hair. Warp wanted to take a detour on a work trip for wool. Samayal was a big flight risk to all of us, and I literally punched Hyde in the face.
Starting point is 00:03:42 I mean, Boomer doesn't count, she was… we were trauma bonded before this whole mess even started, but the point is, I get anxious when we're all separated from each other for too long now. I mean, maybe it's because of Cicada, I mean, we couldn't get to warp, we couldn't call the team, and when we came back, Seeks was in charge of Hyde, and we put Samayal into an experimental nonsense. Even when we were home, Warp was almost hurt in the most basic danger known to a person living in a society, like a home break-in.
Starting point is 00:04:12 Not even related to our job. God, I wonder if that fucking knife who knows what would have happened to her. And Merritt came back… different. God, there's something behind his eyes, something even he is trying to hide from, and I'm afraid it's going to swallow him whole before he can. Samayal had a black eye. Boomer met with some shady motherfucker who says we don't even know who we're working for, and then, when we did come back to work, Warp, Merritt, and Boomer almost killed Hyde.
Starting point is 00:04:46 We're running headlong into danger, and 90% of the time it's danger we cause, and if we don't have each other's backs, no one goes home. Merritt is literally in the line-set right now. We were gone, and he was taken. Boomer and Warp are on their own, with lunatics closing in on one side and undead sadists on the other. Samayal and I made promises to a ghoul that we'll maybe never keep and probably just made another enemy for ourselves, but honestly, all I can bring myself to care about is getting
Starting point is 00:05:17 back to the team, making a plan, getting Merritt back so we can all deal with this shit together. Sometimes we're good together. At this point, I can't keep hunting these monsters if I'm constantly looking over my shoulder for another one. I can't do my job if I'm stalking a mystery. So I'll do my job. These people are my job. These people are here, and now they're my team.
Starting point is 00:05:47 I have a duty to get them back to their families like they're trying to get me back to my wife. They have people who love them. I might be one of them. Who knows? Me is gone, but I can keep them safe. I can do for them what I never managed for her, and that has to be enough. This job, it's a living, until it's not in more ways than one. I'm going to get Merritt back.
Starting point is 00:06:38 I'm going to get Merritt back. I'm going to get Merritt back. It's Wednesday, June 3rd at around 5 p.m. Agents Warp and Boomer. In a few hours, Detective Emile Brown is going to be visiting lifestyles, hot tubs, and he's going to expect to see Agent Merritt. But unfortunately, the individuals of Phenomen X have complicated that plan. What are you guys doing right now?
Starting point is 00:07:26 I'm going to head straight over towards the hot tub, because I know we've got in the car, and I'm going to go ahead and try to pull out my phone and say, do we need anyone to call? I'm trying to think of who we need to call next. We don't need to call anyone if there's any way. We don't have the terrorist phone number, so I think that's it. I have no idea how to get this guy on our side without probably blowing his mind with all the supernatural shit.
Starting point is 00:07:56 Do you have any ideas? I see. Well. Because I got a plan, but it's not like a Tuck plan or a Merritt plan. It is a Boomer plan, and that involves me and my personality. I have questions now, but I think as long as we exchange information, and I don't know be as honest as we can, considering our line of work, it should be okay. That being said, are we in agreement that if this doesn't go right, he stops here?
Starting point is 00:08:27 Yeah, I need him. Yeah. We'll deal with one disaster at a time. If that is another route, we have to get rid of them and we'll put them in a trunk or something. I don't know, but we'll do that. Okay. Yes.
Starting point is 00:08:40 That won't be a problem. As long as we agree. Yeah. You're good, and you're okay with step. You're good with handling that part. At this point? Yes. Okay.
Starting point is 00:08:50 You both head on your way to Lifestyles Hot Tubs. It's probably going to be an hour or two before this detective shows up. And on the drive there, you each recall a time when murdering someone wasn't so easy to just say and do. Let's cut to Agent Merritt. Oh, no. Poor boy. Fuck.
Starting point is 00:09:15 Okay, buddy. It's bad. Merritt, you're being driven somewhere. Your stomach is on the floor of this truck. Eventually the car stops, the door opens, and you are pulled out by the same folks that put you in. You have only a few moments to take in the surroundings. Give me an alert mis-roll.
Starting point is 00:09:35 I have a six, which comes under my 50. The sun kind of blinds you for a moment, but you adjust quickly, and you see that they are carrying you into a home, a modest home. You can see the address on the door, seven, six, four, two, and you can kind of look around enough to see that you're in a slightly rural neighborhood. The houses have plenty of space between them. In fact, you can even see that on the other yard, less than 100 feet away from you, there is a child watching you being carried in from the yard and into the house.
Starting point is 00:10:08 We were given an address by Hyde during the last phone call that Marlene made with us, right? Or was that? Specifically, you remember that it was a lumber mill or some kind of saw mill. So completely different from where I am now? Yes. Okay. You are brought in, the door is shut, and again, you are in darkness.
Starting point is 00:10:29 The front door immediately leads to the living room, and you can see past it a kitchen, and then there is a hallway kind of to your right that leads in deeper into the house. But you are kind of dropped onto your knees, your arms and your legs are still both tied by these zip ties. And the whole time there is this nervous chatter coming from the Phenomen Xers, holy shit, we got one. Oh my God, it worked. Oh, fuck.
Starting point is 00:10:55 One of them, kind of the skinny, nerdy guy that has been wearing a Guy Fox mask this whole time. You hear him say, God damn it, Margaret, put the phone away, we can't incriminate ourselves. They are just kind of arguing amongst each other. What are you doing in this moment? I think as soon as he says the name Margaret, I think Merritt mutters loud enough for him, all of them to hear underneath his breath, he says, Margaret. And then he goes immediately back into his breathing exercises.
Starting point is 00:11:26 He can see them obviously, and I think he is going to make a patient effort to look at each of their faces and meet their eyes. And I think he is talking to himself under his breath, nothing audibly for them to hear, but enough that they can see he is speaking. But he is not engaging in any communication, he is trying to throw them off. One of them when you say Margaret, says, God, don't fucking use our names. And then you hear the voice of what used to be Erica Young say, leave the camera on. And they kind of walk to the front of the room, kind of between the kitchen and the
Starting point is 00:12:05 living room. And these other five or so individuals are all kind of surrounding you. The body that was once Erica Young that you know is Marlene, the entity, kind of looks down at you. They are wearing this robe, kind of a really crushed velvet, but like a dark fabric of some kind. And they continue when they say, Special Agent Orson Bradham, you have been brought before your peers to be judged.
Starting point is 00:12:28 Will you confess? Are you filming this? Right now, Margaret does have her cell phone out and is filming it. Who's this for? It's for you. It's for them. It's for the whole world. I see.
Starting point is 00:12:39 If you confess your crimes, I will make sure that we are lenient. I'm not sure what you want from me. Have you ever murdered someone? Yes. And who was the first? How is this relevant to what you want? It's relevant that these folks here understand that I am an angel of the Lord and I do not lie.
Starting point is 00:13:02 And you have done things that are unspeakable, things that they need to understand their government is doing. That makes sense. So many cults before have been put together on false prophets. It's good to see you're continuing the tradition pilgrim. Agent Bradham, tell these people what you have done for your organization. Not just for my organization, it was for my country too. No one could understand the stakes that we're at.
Starting point is 00:13:30 The things that have to be done. One of them speaks up, the one that has the kind of America number one t-shirt on and he says, were you were you a part of the the Stevenson's? Those folks who got murdered in Messick? Why is it important to you? Because it's wrong to kill people. You shouldn't kill anybody. Those kids are without a family now.
Starting point is 00:13:52 For what? And what of your prophet? How many bodies have they taken? They look to Erica Young's body who says, I have only taken those who were already gone. I do not kill. You have the same excuse I do. You have the same excuse that anyone does for what they do. And that's for you.
Starting point is 00:14:13 It was all right. So what would me admitting to anything serve you? I did these things because I thought that I was doing the right thing. So you confess? Yes. Oh my, what the fuck, I knew it, fuck. You know, there's this commentary from the peanut gallery around you. Marlene takes a step forward and says, what would everyone have of this man?
Starting point is 00:14:38 What would you do? And they each one at a time, you kill somebody, you die, you gotta kill, I for an eye. And one at a time they kind of make a comment. One of them, the skinny guy who was wearing the guy Fox mask has been not as active as the other Phenomen Xers. They ask him to speak up and he's just kind of, he's just hesitant. He's like, this is weird. I agree.
Starting point is 00:15:02 Why are we talking about this? We need to be talking about how to avoid being getting by the cops. Like, like, are they going to figure out where Margaret lives and shit? You know why I did this? You and I'm looking directly at him. Do you understand why she's asking me these questions? He shakes his head, no. She's trying to get you to understand that I'm the enemy.
Starting point is 00:15:26 That I'm the reason you're here. But you need to understand this. Everyone that I took for this program, everyone that I had to take away, I would do it again and again if it meant that I could stop whatever this is because you think that she is a person, you think that it is something you can talk, that you can talk to, that you can worship, that you can change, but you can't. And the people that got in their way, they died. Not because of me, because of them.
Starting point is 00:16:00 And they will continue to die just like you. And if you kill me, they'll kill you. It's a never ending cycle, but it has to happen. People like us have to step up. You want to know who I killed first? I killed my best friend first, because that's how you get in, because they need to know that you can do it, that you can stop people like her. And if you can't, this is what she does to you, what she's doing to you now.
Starting point is 00:16:29 They're taken aback by this. They are speechless for a moment. One of them speaks up and says, we didn't ask you to do this. We didn't ask you to do any of this. This is murder. This isn't what we thought our government is supposed to do to its own citizens. If you think this is what the government is okay with doing to stop her, then I need you to ask yourself a question before she silences me and everyone else who can help you.
Starting point is 00:17:00 What does that mean about how dangerous that thing is? They've promised us things. They know things about us that no one would know. Are you going to help us or not? And they look at Marlene and she says, this man, he and his intentions are only to destroy. And I want to help you. But the only way that I can help you is if I can get that blade. Orson, convince your other agents to give me the blade and I will let you live.
Starting point is 00:17:34 They will let you live. Do you think you could do that? If you think that I'm about to do anything for you, then you pick the wrong agent. I told you his goal is only to better himself and the corrupt satanic government he works for. Margaret, yes? You have a septic tank out back, don't you? Yes, I do.
Starting point is 00:17:59 If you all want what you want, then I need the blade. And I don't think that this man is going to do anything unless we make him contemplate his actions. You don't have to do this. I have a dog. I have a brother. I have a father. He works in the FBI.
Starting point is 00:18:17 My brother is incarcerated currently, but I call him every week. I have a girlfriend, a long time girlfriend who used to be my partner's wife. I love the people I work with. I love my job. I take out the trash every other day. We don't have to do this. We can do something else. He's a murderer with a family.
Starting point is 00:18:38 Every option they give you, you can say no. You can be better. You can be better than anyone that came before. You can do the right thing. My name is Orson Bradham. You know my name. I have a dog. I have a brother.
Starting point is 00:18:49 I have a mother. We don't talk anymore, but I miss her every day. Please, don't. I'm going to ask that you make a persuasion check, and it will be against her persuasion check. Okay. I have a 15. Holy shit.
Starting point is 00:19:12 That is a success over her 10. Oh, my God. Yes! Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God.
Starting point is 00:19:22 Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Holy shit. Arlene just let you talk too much, and the other Phenomen Xers are just scared. They're confused. They were clearly led here under certain pretenses by this person, this entity. But the fact that they have a federal agent in their living room is starting to give them butterflies, and they're just, they're not committing to it.
Starting point is 00:19:51 One of them says, just tell them to drop the knife off somewhere, and we'll drop you off somewhere. Let's just be civil about this. The closer you are to it, the less chance you have of living through the night. I have been honest with you this far. I did not have to tell you the things that I did in front of a camera in front of all of this unless it was this serious. If you stay close to this being, if you continue doing what you're doing, you will not live.
Starting point is 00:20:19 Arlene takes the camera phone from Margaret, says, give me that. If you turn this man in now, he is going to turn you all in. You are all going to jail. You cannot turn around now. If you want what you truly want, you have to stick to your guns. It's killed everyone to get here. It's climbed into bodies. It may have told you it was Lazarus.
Starting point is 00:20:43 It's not. It's the closest thing to a demon we have. There is a reason I do what I do. You have to help me. I think it's time to cut away from you for a moment. Oh my Jesus. I am. Is it?
Starting point is 00:20:59 Agent Tuck, Samael, Hyde. You have jumped on the Challenger 605 and you are heading back as fast as you can back to Michigan. You know that you are going to land at 9 p.m. And while you are flying, Agent Hyde, you hear a knock on the pilot's door. Come in. I'm going to try to tuck my hurt arm underneath this wheel as much as possible. Agent Mallory walks in and she sits down.
Starting point is 00:21:35 I just realized it was probably best you didn't speak to Nancy. They have a similar issue than you. I don't know. Maybe you should have spoken to her. I don't eat people's brains, Mallory. No, you don't. But what I'm trying to get at is I know that you're still in the beginning stages of kind of understanding what's going on with you, but you don't have to struggle alone.
Starting point is 00:21:56 I was diagnosed with cancer a year ago. I went on a mission and it did something to me. But the program helped me. We can get you the psychological treatment you need. You just have to ask for it. I think cancer is a little bit different than my situation, don't you think? Not necessarily. I mean, there's good people out there, people who know how to treat issues of the mind.
Starting point is 00:22:21 And the program is going to take the time. Believe it or not, it would be against our interests to just get rid of every agent with a problem. You'd be surprised how many people with legitimate psychological issues are high up. Mallory, I fly planes for you. I commute assets from one place to another place. I am just a pilot. I have no intrinsic value to this program outside of what I can do.
Starting point is 00:22:48 And if I can't do that, I'm not worth a damn. And I know what that means. You will take the help? I'll think about it, I guess. I don't know. You're not just a pilot, Hyde. You're our pilot. You're Perennial's pilot.
Starting point is 00:23:04 This is really up to Perennial. Warp can't even look me in the eye right now. What is there? I don't know. Is there anything else? I'm just offering you help. Hi. I'll go.
Starting point is 00:23:18 One more thing, Mallory. Why didn't you tell Oaks? Why didn't I tell Oaks about you? Yeah. Why didn't you say something? You had an opportunity to tell the director of security that one of your security is compromising you chose not to. I want to know why we would do something like that.
Starting point is 00:23:40 I would hope the fact that I'm sitting here trying to have an honest discussion with you would lead you to the fact that I care about you. You're part of a team that I put together that's my baby. Like I said, I'm trying to prove a point. You don't... But why do you care about me, man? I've never met you. The only thing the program ever gave me was just more questions that I can never get answers
Starting point is 00:24:09 for and I don't know what you want from me. I did the cushy ass job and you plucked me away from that and put me here with these people that I've had to try my damnedest to look after when all I wanted to do was just finish out what the program asked of me and move on with my life so that my family could move on with their life. The truth is, is we don't always get the jobs we want. You were recommended by Thornbill. I just want what's best for you and if you're saying you're not cut out for the job hide,
Starting point is 00:24:47 you just have to say it. I'm not going to say anything back to her. She'll get up and leave and she'll come out to the cabin area with everyone else. Say I'm in tuck, she's going to sit down and mention that she tried to give hide some advice for help. Well, that was your first mistake. They're not very keen on accepting help, I've noticed. Well Sam, I realize I haven't actually spoken to you since the experiment in New York.
Starting point is 00:25:18 How are you holding up? I'm fine. I'm more worried about everybody else. That experiment in New York tuck, that scientist, Halo, did you interact with her? Yes, I spoke to her. Anything suspicious? She doesn't know me. Did you suspect that she might be lying?
Starting point is 00:25:41 No, I think she was genuinely afraid and I don't know what to make of it. Our job is a weird shit that doesn't make any sense and sometimes you just have to take that it's weird shit that doesn't make any sense. The evidence doesn't back that up. You asked me to do a background check on her. Wait, you really did it? Yes, of course. I thought it was just going to be some like brushing.
Starting point is 00:26:10 Please tell me. Tuck, my interest is in maintaining operational security. A trusted agent comes to me and tells me that this stranger is potentially a vector. I have to look into it. What's weird is her background check is fine. I mean, she's existed. She's a real person. But what's strange is that in the past four years, there's no real no real paper trail
Starting point is 00:26:37 of her. No, no, no receipts, no expenses, nothing that ties her to a home or to a life, no, no, no media presence, social media presence. But then four years after Meadowbrook, she shows up one day in an application for March. I asked around, turns out the organization had already tried to scout her before Meadowbrook. So they took her in without question. Wait, when did Meadowbrook, when did, when did the files say Meadowbrook happened? Meadowbrook occurred in 2017, didn't it?
Starting point is 00:27:09 Yeah. Okay. You said four years and my brain zipped for a second. Sorry. Yes. That's right. I'm including the 2017 in that. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:27:18 So what? Let me on. She sought out. She sought out March Industries, not the other way around. So apparently this Dr. Hooks was a cult specialist and anthropologist of some kind. She had told a recruiter from March that she had successfully summoned an angel and that was what had caused the burns on her body. They were interested in her knowledge, but Meadowbrook happened and she disappeared.
Starting point is 00:27:49 The point is, of all of this, is I'm not convinced that she isn't just Dr. Hooks. I'm wondering if there's some way that maybe when all of this blows over, we could look into her more, investigate her. Yeah, yeah, we, we can do that. Why are you saying it like that, Samuel? She would like, I think, for me to take her out. Oh. This is, this is good, actually.
Starting point is 00:28:29 This is exactly the kind of inn we need. There are also potential connections between Halo and Hooks Halo, whatever you want to call her, and the Lord of Thought that came up in the 1984 case we put on the server as well. We'll need to cross-reference that. We need to understand who we're working with. She's either an agent of someone or a cultist, maybe. But if I take your word, Tuck, there's something else that happened to her. She literally disappeared in front of you.
Starting point is 00:29:08 Yeah. She signed the book, the book that they all talked about in 84, and I don't, Samuel, do you remember if in 84 people disappeared when they signed the book, or did they just stick around? I can't remember. It wasn't clear. Okay. I didn't think so.
Starting point is 00:29:27 Nothing good happened to him. Well, no, that's for sure. Great. A literal, a literal date with the devil. Fantastic. This can't be the first time for you. You know? I'll get back to you on that.
Starting point is 00:29:43 We'll watch your back, God. You know, getting back to the issue at hand, has anyone heard from Merritt or Warp or Boomer? Oh. Did we not tell you? It appears that Merritt has been captured. Oh, shit. I don't really know what to say. Things just keep getting worse.
Starting point is 00:30:03 Yeah. That's about how we feel. Now, Mallory, you understand we're not capturing this thing. I need you to understand that. I can look the other way, but I have my orders, Samuel. You have your orders. Believe me, if I thought there was a way to capture it, I would be happy to follow that order.
Starting point is 00:30:26 I just don't see how it's possible. There's nothing to gain from putting ourselves in more danger to keep this thing alive for what, for the government to sell it to tech company? What? But it wouldn't be sold. This functional use would be an espionage in helping our side. I mean, imagine putting the enemy in a room with that thing. It'd know everything they know, and we wouldn't have to torture anyone for that information.
Starting point is 00:30:54 No more feeding people to Nancy. I assume you can control it. If we can't control it, then we'll put it in a hole somewhere. That's...you've put an incredibly powerful thing in a hole already, and they've tried to take it away. The more powerful things you put in holes, the more holes there are to sink the shit. God, I mean, I have...I know how to kill the thing, and as far as I know, there's no way...what am I going to do?
Starting point is 00:31:21 We rounded up, we put it in a cage, then what, it just jumps into a different body? How do you contain something like that? There's no way that that can be controlled. I tried, I looked into it, the facts told me it's not doable. I'm not going to give it a try. I don't understand why it needs to be more complicated than that, frankly. I'm not going to argue with you, Semi-O, you do what you need to do, and I'll just try to do as much damage control as I can.
Starting point is 00:31:44 Listen, if I come up with it, if there is another way, I'll find it, but I don't believe that there is. I...I have a feeling you're right. And, just, um, slightly less serious question, we don't happen to have any kind of SWAT team that we should know about. No, we don't have a SWAT team. Uh, I didn't think so. What about Oaks?
Starting point is 00:32:10 Tuck, this is...this is our problem, it's not Oaks' problem. This is security, isn't it? She's head of security. At the end of the day, if we can't conceal this, if we can't put this all away, they're going to just put us away. This isn't their problem to solve, this is ours. This entire...this entire organization is their problem. One of all, you have three security agents who are all injured.
Starting point is 00:32:38 All of us. All of us who know how to fight, all of us who know how to use a gun, are hurt. And if you want to keep this thing either contained or dead, you're going to need people who can fight and who can kill. And you have three very smart nerds, and maybe an agent and a half in total. I'm fully aware of the severity of the issue, of the situation, Tuck. If you guys need time to get better, then figure out how to keep this knife from this thing.
Starting point is 00:33:08 I mean, you just have to run out the clock, basically. We have to...so you're saying...we would have to make it three days. The lunar eclipse is on the 5th. That's when she's trying to do the ritual, right? I understand that. She's not going to keep Merida alive for three days. She's not going to keep the town in a working order for three days. If she doesn't get what she wants, she's going to tear that town apart.
Starting point is 00:33:33 Well, I'm glad you understand the situation, Tuck. This needs to be dealt with immediately. I understand that. You need to take the initiative and figure out how to stop this thing. We can't do that when we have three agents who can't...who can barely shoot. Welcome to being a part of the program. Fuck the program, my God. And Tuck's going to get up and, like, storm toward the front.
Starting point is 00:33:55 Well, can I at least have a gun? We can land the plane or we can stay flying if there's anything else that needs to be done. After that comes down, the only other thing I would like to do is pull Tuck aside. I don't care if Mallory hears. And just say, listen, I don't think that I can...miss ritual, I don't think I can finish it on my own. You don't have to.
Starting point is 00:34:25 There's five other people here. And I need as many people as possible to know how to do the ritual, because I might not make it through the whole thing. I might not even...I might not even make it to the start. What do you...you're going to make it to the start? We're not going to let anything happen to you, but... Well, one bullet to the head's all it's going to take. I mean, I'm not far behind you, to be fair, so write it down.
Starting point is 00:34:55 Write down what you know. I don't think it works that way. Okay, then teach me. Okay. And I'll start going through the process of teaching Tuck how to do it. It's going to cost you, and I think you do have enough time. Does it help that I was there when he was learning it from Gene Quals? It does.
Starting point is 00:35:21 It absolutely does. It costs a D8 to learn insanity of the...to learn the spell. So if you are going to commit to memory how to perform this, you'll need to roll a D8, and that is how much sanity you are going to lose right now. Oh boy. Oh boy, boy, boy, boy, boy. I'll be here with the psychotherapy if you screw up. I only lost one!
Starting point is 00:35:49 Yay! Save it for later. Yeah, we're using all our luck in the first half. You can project it if you want. I'm not risking that willpower right now, no, no, no. He teaches it to you specifically kind of the chanting and the body motions, the hand gestures that need to be done. One person is going to activate the ritual, so either you or Sam.
Starting point is 00:36:15 However, if Sam does not have at least five willpower, he will not be able to complete the ritual, which is where you will come in, or anyone can come in, where you would have to sacrifice one power, so you would reduce your power score by one, and you would give him the willpower needed to complete it. Okay, I thought you said that we could share willpower, that not interrupting...the entity has to be within 30 feet, no interruptions, and it costs five willpower, which can be shared as well as a D6 of Santa. It costs five willpower, and the sharing portion is what I'm explaining now, is that you have
Starting point is 00:36:50 to share its one power as opposed to willpower. Oh. Yeah, it's a little bit of a sacrifice there. I understand now. Yeah, that sucks, Alex. The good news is that one power equals ten willpower, so you would be giving him enough and then some to complete the ritual. Santa doesn't even have to expend any willpower in that case.
Starting point is 00:37:15 That's the good news, huh? Right. Which, I don't see a scenario where I get above five willpower between now and then. I mean, if we want me to kick it off. Either way, we can figure that out later, I think. I have power to burn, and I have ten willpower right now, so I can eat all that and be okay. Okay. Ish.
Starting point is 00:37:42 Well, let's make that a field decision. We will cut to warp and boomer. You guys have had some time to wait and to plan out what you're going to say to this person. It's 8 p.m. now. Are you inside the store, or are you in the car? Where are you? I'm gonna, I feel like inside the store would be best.
Starting point is 00:38:03 Yeah, definitely. You walk up to the back door where there's a little welcome mat and you check under and just like Mallory said there would be, there's a key and you're able to get in. And while you are waiting, some lights kind of cross your view and you realize there is a car pulling up and you look kind of through the front glass because the entire front is made of this kind of tinted glass and you do see a police cruiser stepping out is detective Emile Brown and you can see that there is one police officer in the car with him and he says something to that police officer and then he starts walking by himself towards
Starting point is 00:38:44 the front of the store. I'm gonna look to warp and I'm going to be like, you ready? No, but we don't have a choice. That's exactly what I needed, I'll be like, here you go, okay. All right. You're welcome. Let me do all the talking, oh wait, is there chairs, like is there like how it's laid out like it was before?
Starting point is 00:39:17 I was gonna say, were there early, warp is 100% gonna secure that, like even if it's just moving like stools or steps to hot tubs, there's some sort of setting. Okay, well, there is the front of the store, which is just nothing but like hot tubs on display and then there's the back room and is it like three chairs? What is it? Yeah, it's three chairs and whatever table held the muffins our first time, just short sweet but yeah. You can see that Detective Brown kind of cups his eyes around the window and kind of looks
Starting point is 00:39:52 in, can't really see through the tins, you know, turns on a flashlight and is kind of walking around the front, checks the front door, which is locked, I assume. Yeah, no, I was gonna say I can go get him if you want, it might be a little more dramatic. Oh, perfect. Okay. And I'm gonna get in that chair and like try to sit, I'm like very serious, hands folded. If it's a rolly chair, my chair will be backwards if it is a rolly chair, I wouldn't like that
Starting point is 00:40:20 so much. Sure, you find a rolling chair. It was a rolling commuter chair back into the door and I'm like, okay, I will be right back and she goes to the front to see a male like shining through and just cracks up in the door. You don't have to, do you want to just come in? Hi, I'm with. I remember you, you were with Special Agent Bradham and Moore, where's Agent Bradham?
Starting point is 00:40:47 He told me he was going to meet here alone and you can see that he has his revolver out. There's been some recent developments that we would love to update you on, but I'm going, I can show you them now. He looks back to his patrol car and gives a nod and kind of turns around and says, alright, show me in. Incredible, follow me and walks me through. What did you say your name was?
Starting point is 00:41:11 You can call me Warp. It's a pretty unique name. It's a unique job. What is it exactly that you do? Research, okay? Find things for people, help people find things. You lead him to the back and he stops when he sees the kind of open room and that he can tell there's another person in here sitting in the chair trying to wait for him.
Starting point is 00:41:35 Boomer's going to quickly do, she's not even that religious, she's going to do the sign of the cross and then go ahead and rotate over and be like, Mr. Brown. It's Detective Brown and do we really need to do the theatrics? Detective Brown, take a seat. No, I'm not taking any seat. Where's Agent Orson? I am going to reach into my pocket. I am not pulling a weapon, but I can show you exactly where he is, but I need my phone.
Starting point is 00:42:07 Are you okay with that? Slowly pull it out slowly and he starts to raise his weapon. And then I'm going to slowly let the jack in the go into the phone. It is a phone, as you can see. It is a phone. So I'm going to put my passcode to do and then I will bring up the video and I'll be like, this is where he is. I'm going to hand the phone over to play the video.
Starting point is 00:42:29 Ms. Warp, could you grab the camera for me? Sure. And just holds it and rotates it back to a meal. Would you like me to press plays? I'm going to press play. What am I looking at here? You are actually looking at our security agent. That is Agent Merritt.
Starting point is 00:42:49 And he right there, as you see him being dragged out of that subway, is being held hostage against his will by a cult. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, this is Agent Bradham. So this is why I wanted you to have the seat, because we have a lot to get through. And frankly, I know you have a buddy out there. Is there a time limit that I need to be aware of before he calls more of his buddies? No, he will call more of his buddies if you pull anything on me. OK, well, sit down.
Starting point is 00:43:18 So this is what's going on, all right? No, no, no, no, no, hold on. I'm asking the questions here. First of all, are you telling me that a special agent, an FBI agent, is currently being held hostage by people? I am telling you that a current FBI agent is not only being held hostage, but he's also probably going to be used for a sacrifice to bring forth probably the end of the world by kind of a demonic bitch.
Starting point is 00:43:44 So do you want to talk about who are these people? Let's let's let's start at the beginning. Thank you. So this is where I want to go. So detective, you were correct. OK, so like I said, we are part of some governments where I'm going to say this demons exist, angels, witches exist. Roswell probably happened, and there's a big fucking squid in the ocean that we're going
Starting point is 00:44:10 to probably bomb in a month or two. So here's the thing, Chupacabra, all that exists because what you are seeing is literally a walking talking corpse starting a satanic cult. And I'm fucking crazy to say this out loud. You're right, it is crazy to say this out loud, but if you look there, that is an FBI agent being held by a satanic cult. You are already leading in the right spot. He was actually trying to save you from us because here's the thing, buddy.
Starting point is 00:44:42 Once you're in, you are in. So question, do you want to help me save the world or do you want to just stick around and just see who has like a dick swinging contest? Warp's going to press the stop play button on the video. I told you, it's a lot of fucking info. It wasn't quick. We'll also be here to answer any questions you may have. All right.
Starting point is 00:45:09 Okay. By the way, that little video, like that thing, take a look at the creepy creature. That is the same walking talking corpse that has been going around murking people. I just see some person in a robe. I can't really tell any features here. Let's see. What else can we show? Look, hold on.
Starting point is 00:45:28 Hold on. Hold on. Okay. Never mind whether I believe you or not. Okay. I have to deal with one thing at a time. The fact is, is that you two are currently suspects in my investigation. I pulled some bullets out of a wall in a apartment building here in Lansing, and it turns out
Starting point is 00:45:49 it matches the same bullets that were found in Messick. And I have a sneaking suspicion. One of you folks might have been involved. I do recall that several suspects mentioned Latino women being involved in Messick. That sounds slightly racist. Let's not go there, but okay. So I understood. Okay.
Starting point is 00:46:16 So again, messing. Whether we were there or not, most likely you could put two into. What I will say is very quickly, did you check everywhere where you found those bullet holes? Did you check to see if there was, I don't know, markings and trees, septic tank that was open that, you know, could have things inside? Did you not pay attention to your surroundings to realize that a lot of the freaky shit that's been going on you've been keeping track of and it's all been going back to this cult? These people, I haven't heard of these people before, but.
Starting point is 00:46:53 I'm going to also point to my phone to work. Look in there earlier. This is group called PhenomenX. I actually got, this is what I do. I went in and I got things from their phones and you can see from their message boards and security footage, they have security footage of the hospital and here's the thing. They paid off security at the hospital and I'm going to go ahead and show him the evidence that's also within my phone.
Starting point is 00:47:18 He looks at this stuff and he's like, never mind the fact that you're telling me you hacked these civilians phones. This is, this is pretty bad. I mean, this is evidence that this person paid for the footage. Look, this shit is terrifying and here's the sad thing. This doesn't go by laws of man. It goes by laws of God and supernatural and shit that goes bump in the night. This shit is terrifying and I don't want to be here, but I have to be here because one,
Starting point is 00:47:51 it is actually the right thing to do with the world possibly ending. You were already to, you were, I hate to say this, we try to divert you away, but you picked up on the breadcrumbs and this is where you're at. We have an agent that could be used to be murdered as a sacrifice for this very entity that has been killing people. Do you understand? So my question to you is we want to help us, help us. Look, look, here is what I understand.
Starting point is 00:48:18 I believe what I see and I see some strange footage and you're telling me that an FBI agent is currently being held hostage by some people. That's what I see. Whether I believe you is going to be dependent on the kind of evidence that I see, but all I know is an FBI agent should not be being held hostage by civilians. So that needs to be solved. Yes. We will get there.
Starting point is 00:48:40 Awesome. I'm going to call in an APB. We're going to make this as public as possible. We're going to get agent right on back point of order, a point of order, a male point of order. This actually the reason why we're being so secretive about this is that it, it has to stay private as possible. It at least certain matters of it has to stay as private as possible.
Starting point is 00:49:05 The Phenomen X people, sure, as public as you want to be, they're on the internet, right? At some point they're consenting to being perceived, but I mean, look, the fact that they grabbed a, an FBI, a federal agent, that's grounds for acts of terrorism. I mean, look, these people are in hot shit. I'm not going to deny that to you. Exactly. Exactly. We need your support on, on that front.
Starting point is 00:49:30 Make it as public as you like. The way you can get my support though is that if, if, if I do this through the legitimate means, if these people are holding him hostage, we need to get a SWAT team out there to stop them. The reason why I think we're being, we want to be very transparent with you is I don't think your unit is prepared to deal psychologically with what is going to go down. Now that's where I'm getting at. We need your help.
Starting point is 00:49:58 But if you're going to get other innocent men and women involved, understand this is not, this is more than life and death. They can deal with even souls and shit. Go. Do we need to get our man out of there with the least amount of casualties, get in the crosshairs? All right. So what, what do you suppose that I do?
Starting point is 00:50:16 What do we go? What, what is your plan? We are going to re, we don't, do you know where these people are? We have a good, we have an address and we're letting you know that other agents are coming in as well. If you're, like I said, it sounds like you, if you are with me in warp here, then we can get you in and, but we needed to keep it as minimum as possible. Other agents like Agent Moore.
Starting point is 00:50:39 Yes. Look, I'm not in with anything other than with the law, okay? So if you're telling me, if, if guess what, if we're wrong, you can, you're going to probably arrest us. If not, you're going to probably see some shit that you're going to have a hard time explaining. I'm an officer of the law. I've seen some shit before.
Starting point is 00:50:57 Okay. I think I can handle it. Would you like a demonstration? Oh, what are you talking about? Okay. And I, I take out, I take out the knife and I put it on the table as slow as I can. And I take five steps back and I say, try to apprehend me. I don't understand.
Starting point is 00:51:25 Are you going to try to grab the knife? No, no, I'll even step back farther away from it. Just try to apprehend me right now. And I'm also stepping back, arms up like, go, see, this is not a trick. He still has his weapon at the ready and he begins moving forward towards you. What does it move? He gets close to you. And he starts putting your hands behind your back and the knife suddenly on the table flips
Starting point is 00:51:51 in your direction. Did you see that? He lets you go and stumbles back and is like, how did you do that? I didn't do that. That is the nicest thing we've encountered in the past two months and it's not a lie. We're talking about what we're trying to rescue Merritt from, Orson from, what we're trying to avoid with this naked woman that you've seen in the cameras, way worse than that knife.
Starting point is 00:52:15 And it's, it's not something that we can be public about. Not only that, but, but the bitch is performative. If you're tired of these dramatics, any, any kind of show is going to just put him in more danger and the people of Lansing. So we need to be discreet. He's going to first make a sanity check after witnessing that. Good. He does succeed.
Starting point is 00:52:38 He does succeed. So he does not lose any sanity. And when you succeed, it means that you are in denial and he is, oh no, he's, he sees something that he doesn't understand and he says, look, I'm not into this voodoo shit. I don't know what you're talking about. I had my suspicions about the dead body, but this government conspiracy stuff. I just want to help you get Bradham back. Okay.
Starting point is 00:53:07 I think if nothing else for my own investigation, I will stick my hand out in like a shake and be like, I can agree to that. Oh yes. I need my hands back. Thank you. I'm going to bump your fist because it's the middle of COVID. Oh, fact. Sorry.
Starting point is 00:53:22 And then, yeah, his plan is to go to the police and inform them. What do you want him to do? If not that, we're going to reconvene with our agents to come up with the best plan. And obviously you're with us on that. So if you'd like to, you, you can come with us or you can, we can reconvene because I know you got your buddy in the car and question, you're not wired tap. So he heard everything out there. We have to bring him involved, right?
Starting point is 00:53:54 I'm not going to tell you whether I'm wearing a wire or not. Well, that's going to be bad because a homeboy just heard shit about demons and stuff. Could I feel that he was wearing a wire? I don't know. How would you feel that he was wearing a wire? If he was, you know, doing the hand apprehending thing. I think that would require your hands on him. Okay.
Starting point is 00:54:14 Cool. If you'd like to attempt to give him a pat down, you're welcome to. He says that guy in the car, that officer of the car is my backup in case this one's sour, because to be honest with you, I have a warrant that is still pending. But if it goes through, I will legally have access to these weapons that that were supposedly used in both situations. And if I find that there's a connection, it's going to be real hard to pull back. You know, it's going to be really hard as if we don't stop this psychotic cult witch
Starting point is 00:54:51 bitch. I'm not joking. She's going to probably mess with reality. Yeah, sure. Don't get, well, that if you don't like, like I said, come with us, regardless, we have an agent. Well, I'm definitely going to come with you. I am not letting you out of Michigan without me knowing whether you are full of shit or
Starting point is 00:55:11 not. What about your guy? But what about your guy in the car? Don't worry about him. The next time you guys have an idea about what you're going to do next, you let me know. You keep me in the loop, but I have to warn you, if it sounds like shit's popping off, I'm going to bring the Calvary. That's fair.
Starting point is 00:55:26 Honey, you need to bring the priest. I don't know why you're wasting time with that. That's fair. I can't believe I fucking agree to this, but all right. I know. Do you guys own this property, by the way? How do you think we got in? We rented it.
Starting point is 00:55:40 We're the men in black. Pick up. Shit. Look, I'm going to go to work like, yo, I'm vamping as long as I can. Do you want to think of some shit? Yeah, I feel like we're done here. Okay. Personally, I think we did it.
Starting point is 00:55:56 I think we did it. I know. I'm not fucking tough. Wonderful. Wonderful. So we will contact you with next steps. I think that's it. She literally stands up and folds her chair.
Starting point is 00:56:12 I'll see you soon when he leaves. I think that went okay. Warp is almost dry heaving. You know, I'm not joking because this is the second time I've had to literally kind of talk my way out of shit. I mean, the last guy at least laughed. This guy's kind of a stick in the look. You talked out.
Starting point is 00:56:36 Is that, is that out? I, look, he was two things. He was, I thought he'd be more gung-ho about it, but apparently miss. Oh, I'm in denial, but he already was suspecting a zombie was on loose, but whatevs, I said, let's start from the beginning. You said demons are real and there's a big squint in the ocean. We're going to blow up because you're going to do that. That's not our assignment.
Starting point is 00:57:02 When is it like, let's be for real. We don't know. Shit. We just dealing with demonic demons that's about to slit our like, our like, our like, that just took one of our own. What have we not been dealing with? A squint in the ocean? That's probably going to happen.
Starting point is 00:57:19 I'm just preparing. Nine o'clock rolls around and the plane eventually lands. What are you guys doing? As soon as you're on the ground, I'm calling you. Yep. Oh my God. Hi. Where are you?
Starting point is 00:57:42 We've been doing this through a status up that we still lost Marat's and through uh, work's amazing, uh, improv skills and my ability to bullshit. Believe me? Now we got Detective Brown sort of on our side. Uh, we may have a loose cannon with a cop that was in the car, but that's another time in place, but he doesn't really believe us, but he at least believes that Marat's in danger, so that's good. That's like a we can get.
Starting point is 00:58:09 And there's no ATV out for us. So. So. Didn't know that was an option. Glad it's not right now. Um. That's right. That's right.
Starting point is 00:58:19 Uh. I think I should be able to get believing interrogations for a while. You did great. This, even getting us this far is awesome. You and Warp killed it. Um, not literally. Oh, fuck. Not yet.
Starting point is 00:58:33 Not yet. Uh, let's meet back at the motel. Uh, we need to, we need to debrief, I guess. You do not currently have a hotel as you ran from the last and the other one I'll say was only for a night. Well, let's get a hotel and go from there. New digs. I can help with that, says Mallory.
Starting point is 00:58:55 She makes a call. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. You are able to find a hotel, uh, make a luck roll, see if you find any that are even open honestly or that have any room. Who should do that? I don't know. Whoever's feeling lucky.
Starting point is 00:59:09 Allegra, are you feeling lucky? I don't trust any of my dice. I haven't rolled any of them, but I don't trust any of them. I'll do it. Go. 12. Oh, heck yeah. Hey.
Starting point is 00:59:19 You, you managed to find one downtown Lansing. It's expensive, but they find a couple of rooms. Cool. Okay. Well, then let's get the other dress out and rally whatever shambling mess of a team we have left. You all eventually meet at this place, uh, all of you except for Merritt. Thanks asshole.
Starting point is 00:59:44 I'm trying to make the, the, your lack of presence felt. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I'm loving this septic tank. Thanks. It looks like I know. It's getting close to 10 PM. Many of you are exhausted.
Starting point is 00:59:57 Many of you need rest. What is the game plan? How are you moving forward? You have about 48 hours before it's the fifth, right? So we have, we have one more night before the fit, before the, the full moon. Right. Okay. So, um, I think obviously that means we need to make our move, um, well, I was going to
Starting point is 01:00:19 say tomorrow, but now that I think about it the day after the fifth on the sixth would be better because then, uh, the, um, consequences for failure aren't as high. Yeah. But should we get married a life that long? Right. No. Back. We need.
Starting point is 01:00:35 I listen, I'm sorry to say it and it hurts me to say it, but I don't know if that's our top priority right now. I just, I'm. That's great. I'm not listening to that. So we have a, when do you want this detective Brown to meet with us? Cause frankly, if we're going to do something, we also need to have backup plans for him. Can I ask if there are any keys laying around and can I slink outside?
Starting point is 01:01:00 Uh, I don't know what keys would be laying around other than the, uh, yeah, the hotel keys, car keys. Sure. People's car keys. Um, I think that unless no one has a problem with that, you can do it. If someone does, I'll need to ask, you know, uh, a stealth role from you hide. I, I don't think, I don't know. I don't think Samuel is going to be comfortable with, with hide being out of, of you.
Starting point is 01:01:23 Yeah. I'm not going to be looking for hide too. So hide, make a stealth versus everyone else's alertness. Oh no. That doesn't fail in the 94. Yeah. So what does that look like hide? I'm just kind of in like, as everybody's been talking, just kind of trying to slink
Starting point is 01:01:47 towards like the walls. And then I've been trying to make my way for the door and I was just going to like, I see keys on like a table and I'm just going to try to loop one of my fingers of my good arm and like try to lift it up as I'm like trying to open the door. Where are you going? I'm going to pocket the keys and just put it in my back pocket. I just wanted to step outside. Uh, it's cramped in here.
Starting point is 01:02:11 Can't breathe. With the keys in the middle of planning, while the world's going to end, that's when you need to step outside. You can tell me what you need me to do. There's nothing really I'm involved in. So we need every brain we can get on this. Also hide. Don't take this the wrong way, but you're not exactly on terms to be walking around by
Starting point is 01:02:30 yourself right now. I'm fine, Sam. You're not. I'm sorry. You're staying, you're staying, you're staying right here with everybody else. Doctors orders. You're not technically a doctor, Sam. I'm not, but you're, you're staying put regardless.
Starting point is 01:02:48 Fuck. Hide. We're going to need you to, what, what, what, what about Brown and hide, we need your input on that as well. If you're still, you know, you, I'm just going to give Boomer like a very nasty, pointed look at her. Look, hide. If you want to take a walk, can you take one of us with you?
Starting point is 01:03:05 Would anybody like to go on a walk with me? I'd love to hide. Let's go. Oh, okay. I guess we'll, we'll figure out the Emil situation. I guess we can, you know, split up again. We can have them. Cool.
Starting point is 01:03:21 I'm going to go outside. Can I go outside with it? It's nice to have you back. I'm going to flip Boomer off. Easy. It's a door slam. Easy. I'm behind her the entire way.
Starting point is 01:03:32 I was going to go to the edge of the hallway, lean up against the rail and not even look at a tuck for a minute. Boomer, come on. You know she's sick, right? Come on. You're right. You're right. I think one of our own is held by Satanic, whatever fuck called, I will be lenient.
Starting point is 01:03:58 Well, thank you. So, I mean, to answer your question, Boomer, I mean, God, I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's, I'm glad we have a meal. I'm not. But why not? First off, guys, kind of a wank. Second off, it's like, it's, it is spiraling out. Let's be honest.
Starting point is 01:04:21 I want to get F out of Michigan. I don't want to come here. Well, that's, that's my concern is it's spiraling out. Do we risk more by having him present than we? He's got, he can either fuck us really over or we can try to get him to not fuck us over and just fuck with us. That's how I'm thinking. I am, I'm usually, this is my, not my job.
Starting point is 01:04:46 I, I thought we were, we were leaving that, that same, I mean, a meal is helpful until he's not. And then when he's not, you know, sort of what we planned. So I, I wasn't there. If you, if you were the decide, what, what would you recommend that we do? Because we could, I mean, we can call him over here right now and give him the whole. I would like to, but I don't know what Tuck and also hides. Cause I, I figure security would like to be involved in having, you know, an operative
Starting point is 01:05:23 come and help us. We, yeah, we should decide a plan first and maybe have Tuck do the talking people that know how to shoot guns, like to talk to people that know how to shoot guns. That's something I've observed. So the question is, is our be comfortable having him come here where we're staying or do we need to meet him at a third location? I mean, we could try the hot tub place again, but I think that's been used too many times. So it doesn't have to be this room.
Starting point is 01:05:52 Oh, maybe we can book a business room. Well, I, what I'm getting at is if we tell him where we're staying, do we all get swept up and arrested? Well, that's true. If the warrant is pending, we have less than 48 hours regardless. There's a warrant on all of us or just, just merit. Oh shit. No.
Starting point is 01:06:13 There's a warrant in the possible possible warrants. Got a little racial, but we don't know. But like again, it could, it's just doesn't sound good. So that's what we're saying. Maybe we can have, maybe we could set up a phone call, a zoom, I like, you know, the problem is, is that we won't be able to monitor who's listening in on his end. While the three of you discuss this, what's going on outside with hide and tuck? I think tuck probably mirrors hide.
Starting point is 01:06:43 Are you going to start telling me that you feel like sorry or like you want to help me or you think I'm sick or have a problem? Because if you are, it'd be better if you just didn't say anything, tuck. Honestly, I was just going to apologize for punching you. That was like a month ago. That was good. I know, dude. I know.
Starting point is 01:07:04 But it doesn't do any good now. But yeah, cool. I appreciate it. Yeah. I think we all forget that you have feelings too. Because you're not loud about them like the rest of us are. But you do. We kind of left you on your own a lot.
Starting point is 01:07:23 That's not really okay for a team to do. So we should have done better by you. I'm sorry about that too. Do you understand why I did what I did? Do you understand that, tuck? I do now. I do. I don't necessarily trust your doctor or agree with them.
Starting point is 01:07:42 I don't trust Doc either. I don't trust anybody, tuck. What the fuck, dude? Like, we're in the program. If there was somebody I could trust in this program, I would. But he's not around anymore. And that's it. Nobody else to trust.
Starting point is 01:07:58 I know what I gotta do. That's her. Do you think you could learn to trust us? I do trust you, tuck. I trust everybody in that room. I have to. I don't have a choice. Tuck, I'm a soldier.
Starting point is 01:08:13 I went to war. I know how the shit works. I know that I don't get to choose the people I get to work with. Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do and you gotta buckle up your bootstraps. It's the name of the game. I'm not unfamiliar with it. Okay.
Starting point is 01:08:25 I know. I did. I was trying to look out for y'all. I don't care if I get punched for it. What I do care about is doing something that was wildly out of character for me and hurting somebody I had never intended to hurt. And I don't know how to ratify that. And I don't know if we got time to ratify that
Starting point is 01:08:40 because we gotta go get married. Yeah. I think... I think she knows it wasn't your choice, though. I think in some weird way, it was a choice that I wanted. I don't know how to...
Starting point is 01:08:57 I don't know how to explain it. I don't know how to explain it to you, Tuck. I don't even remember what the fuck happened. All I know is right now, I'm scared. And I don't know what to do about it. And I don't have anybody in my corner right now. And that's fine. I get it.
Starting point is 01:09:13 I would like for all of us to be in your corner. I think we're all scared and I think we're all in the middle of a situation that's even more off the rails than we... have experienced yet, which I didn't think was possible. But I think the best way for us to make it out is to trust each other
Starting point is 01:09:32 and be in each other's corner. And I will work on being better at that for you. And that's all I can promise, honestly. I don't really want to... Everything else feels empty. But I promise I'm gonna try and do right by all of you. Right. I mean, same.
Starting point is 01:09:52 I just... I'm still here, ain't I? I'll get it from the other thing. It's probably been five minutes and my promise is a promise. I'll head back into the room. Tuck. Yeah. Final decision.
Starting point is 01:10:11 What's up? Are we taking a... Are we taking a mill in or are we gonna leave them in the dark? No, we bring them in. You heard me on the plane. We need all the hope we can get. So the question is,
Starting point is 01:10:23 it sounds like we have to choose between operational security and firepower. Security. Obscastic first. You're right. Yeah, probably that first. If they have posted anything recently,
Starting point is 01:10:37 have we checked the website? Boomer, can you track their phones? You were hacking into them earlier. A bit about Merritt's phone. Could I track his phone? Yeah, we have Merritt. Because Marlene took Merritt's phone and that's how she called Warp. That seems like the best bet, right?
Starting point is 01:10:51 Which I'm assuming Tuck knows because people told me. I would absolutely, yeah. Tell about the call. I don't know if you could track Merritt's phone because, one, his burner phone is very old and probably that's the point of it. He does have a personal cell phone, but you've had too little interaction with it,
Starting point is 01:11:12 I think, for it to be fair that you can access it. I have a question. He called my wife. I called her on the personal because I wouldn't want that information to get back to DG because DG probably tracks the burners. If I call Rue and I ask her if she has the phone number, can Boomer track through that?
Starting point is 01:11:30 I think that that's a start, yeah. We'll say that you do that. It's same time zone, so she's probably getting ready for bed. She gives you his number and Boomer, I'm going to ask that you make a, we'll say, computer science role. I'm very loving on the phone.
Starting point is 01:11:49 I tell her how much I love her and I don't tell her anything scary, but I do tell her how much I love her because I have to say it every time because I love my wife. Out of an 80, I have a 94. No. Fucking hell.
Starting point is 01:12:04 iPhones are a little hard to crack when you don't have it in front of you and with you. It could also be on airplane mode. They could have destroyed it. There could be a lot of reasons why it doesn't exist or why you're not able to get it. I technically still have a number if it's still active, I could text Marlene
Starting point is 01:12:22 because I was in contact with Marlene. I would say don't contact that number, but Boomer, if there's any way you can try to trace that number. I'm sure they'll be nowhere. Boomer, I will remind you that you did hack the phones of two of the other folks with phenomenons. Yeah, I want to look up their last known location.
Starting point is 01:12:43 I'm not sure if they took a photo, that'll have a geotag, or what cell tower they called out that's nearby or something like that. The two individuals, one of them, the cell phone is not on, one of them it is the woman, Margaret Gaylord-Breen. Her phone is on
Starting point is 01:13:02 and you see that it is in a rural neighborhood in northern Lansing. And if you take the time, we'll say that it takes another 20 or 30 minutes, but you think you are within the neighborhood, you don't necessarily have an address, but you suspect that you could probably zero it in within two or three houses.
Starting point is 01:13:25 Okay, so this is generally, I'm going to point, if I have a way to scan and I'll send it to everybody's phone like a PDF of that general area and zoomed in of the approximation of what I'm thinking, this is our best bet. This is where I feel confident. Can you use that?
Starting point is 01:13:48 I think we need to decide if we're going after Marlene or if we're going after Merritt before we do anything else. I think it has to be Marlene first. I know that sucks, but... I think they're together. I'm sorry.
Starting point is 01:14:03 Where one is, she will probably be there. I understand that, but we need to be focused on one thing at a time. Fine, fine, fine, fine. Because if we kill the bitch, she won't kill Merritt, so... Exactly. Right.
Starting point is 01:14:17 And I don't think these followers, they're exactly that. They don't seem like they make their own decisions. You said there was, he didn't seem like he would come in with us if we didn't go through the proper channels, boom. Yes, but if he has technically a warrant out for Merritt,
Starting point is 01:14:36 and we just tell him, hey, he's here. That could be plan X. Tuck it. It would be... I mean, you're the only law enforcement officer we got right now. I don't think he's going to trust anybody,
Starting point is 01:14:51 but you... I mean, if... I mean, Boomer, Warp and I could tell him anything that we want to do, but at the end, anything we want, but at the end of the day, he's just going to see us as civilians. Okay, so in the morning,
Starting point is 01:15:05 we call Brown, I talk to him, I try and... pull him further to us, I guess. That's it. Yep. And then if that goes sour... Then plan B. Plan B.
Starting point is 01:15:17 And then if that goes really sour, he's plan X. Yes. Great. So you are all sleeping. Oh, Sergio. I... Before I would have gone to...
Starting point is 01:15:31 Before I go to bed, I would like to text my wife, just to, like, say, like, general goodnight texts. I'm still alive. Hope you're doing well. Blah, blah, blah. Yada, XO.
Starting point is 01:15:41 Got to be good wives. You all attempt to maintain a semblance of a normal life as you get ready for bed. Agent Merritt, you are not so lucky. Merritt, throughout the evening, the Phenomen Xers do not leave the home. They remain there,
Starting point is 01:16:01 which you begin to establish is the home of Margaret, the only female member of this group. They eventually make dinner for themselves and are kind of eating as a group in the kitchen area. And you and Marlene are sitting in the living room.
Starting point is 01:16:19 You are still on the floor, tied. And they are just kind of patiently sitting on the couch, staring at you. And Marlene would eventually speak up and say, It doesn't matter if you convince them that I'm some sort of devil. They're already in too deep. They're going to do what I say,
Starting point is 01:16:38 including killing you. I think that you, you underestimate what humanity has to offer. You are what humanity has to offer. And I've already killed you once. You tried to. But like all of your kind, you don't understand the way this world really works.
Starting point is 01:17:00 Would you enlighten me? I'm surprised it's taken any of you this long to even ask me. After all, I said that I knew the last time we met. Where would you like me to start? From the beginning. The only place you can. There's no way to explain it.
Starting point is 01:17:17 Not fully. Not to you. There are worlds beyond your world, Orson. And I come from one of them. And all of this, and she gestures to the home and the people in it, It's a dream in the mind of a blind, idiot God.
Starting point is 01:17:36 And humanity, well, it's many things to many people. To some, you're an experiment. To others, you're a resource. To the chaos, a plaything. But to be honest, most are just apathetic towards you.
Starting point is 01:17:56 You know, it's interesting to me. Despite you indirectly quoting Shakespeare, there's something very interesting to the idea that something as old as you, as powerful as you seem to be, as eternal as you claim to be, wanting desperately to be here in my dream.
Starting point is 01:18:22 All you want to be is a tick like me. You jump from corpse to corpse, acting like you can be me. Like you can be human. Like anything you do can be anything other than suffering, and miserable existence, than knowing too much.
Starting point is 01:18:41 But you can't. Can you? What you fail to understand is that it's suffering all the way down. For you and your kind, it's all you can ever know. You're just getting in my way, one way or another.
Starting point is 01:19:02 I will get that blade, even if it means destroying your entire group. And what happens then? What happens when you get the blade? I become whole. You'll get to see me at my full potential. And if you think I've got followers now, just wait till then.
Starting point is 01:19:25 Right. Merritt, do you want all of the agents to die? Because I will make it my tireless effort. That is, if you don't just convince them to give me the knife. I don't have the knife. If I did, things would be so much easier for you and I, wouldn't it? It would.
Starting point is 01:19:48 And you know, the thing on both of our minds is whether these people actually care about you enough to trade for it. Oh, that's silly. It's silly of you to assume that I've even thought about it. I know that some of them care for me. I think all of them do, but it doesn't matter because the second that I was taken,
Starting point is 01:20:07 I was already dead. You and I both know that. Now every second that I'm alive, it's an information gathering exercise. It's how much I can learn against you until inevitably they come for it. They come to end it and they will and they're going to do their best
Starting point is 01:20:21 and either opportunity, you die, I die, they die. Either way, it's already happened. So don't act like you understand this anymore than I do. It's done. Don't try and play on my emotions. I do that every day. That is my job to know how to pluck at someone and I'm not about to have it from you,
Starting point is 01:20:42 some deathless fucking idiot. So kill me or don't. It's already happened. I have an idea. You've just given it to me now. She stands and leans closer to you and says, get some sleep, Orson. You're going to need it.
Starting point is 01:21:02 And then she walks away from you. The morning comes, merit. I'm going to say that you need to make a constitution times five role. Do they put me in the tank? No, they do not. You managed to convince them that was too inhumane. But you are probably put in a closet
Starting point is 01:21:26 and the closet is locked and you're kept in there most of the night. So Marlene leaves me, essentially. Marlene is never far away. None of them are. But you are eventually, yes, you are eventually kind of just stuffed into a closet. I think I'm going to spend the entire night
Starting point is 01:21:41 trying to talk to Marlene, like just trying to get their attention. I think I make as much noise as possible. I call out her name. I never call her Marlene. I call her pilgrim. I kick against the doors. I throw myself across like whatever I can do.
Starting point is 01:21:56 If I'm going to be awake, I'm going to be fucking awake. All right. So I'm giving you the option that con times five role means you got sleep. If you'd rather not get sleep, you can, but you will be at a minus 20 all day tomorrow. Yeah, I'm going to take the minus 20.
Starting point is 01:22:10 I want to make as much fucking noise as possible. I think one of them might even come in and give you a kick or two. I want to know where her true form is, I think. I think that'd be the next ask. You'll see my true form and you will understand that I am an angel of the Lord. Right, right.
Starting point is 01:22:27 What Lord is that? The one true Lord. Jesus Christ of Nazareth and she looks at the others who are nodding their heads. Right, you're telling lies to them so they continue, right? She's not lying.
Starting point is 01:22:40 She knows things about us. Right, you all are Christians, yes? God damn right I am. Okay, all right. And you believe that Jesus would come back in this form? She didn't say she was Jesus. She said she was an angel. An angel, right.
Starting point is 01:22:54 What are your depictions of angels in books? Does it look like this woman? They look human sometimes. Yeah, sometimes, right, right. But why won't she show you her true form without the knife? Because she said you're the ones that are trapped her in this body. She can't get out.
Starting point is 01:23:09 She needs to be her true form with the knife. Right, right, right. Is there any knife mentioned in the Bible? Or blood sacrifice in any part of the Bible? I mean, Abraham sacrifices his son or attempts, you at least. Absolutely, yes. Does God ever sacrifice other beings with the knife?
Starting point is 01:23:29 Bloody, absolutely bloody release in your New Testament, in the love of Jesus Christ. Make another persuade roll. Oh, yeah. Let's go, baby. Let's go, baby. I'm a study day ass. That's so good.
Starting point is 01:23:45 Nothing about this book, but you're going off, and I'm proud of you. I have a 37. In the New Testament, he doesn't do any sacrifices. The Old Testament. That, yes. Yeah, I paid attention to that. Merit, you can see that you are making progress
Starting point is 01:23:59 with some of them. Most of them are just scared that they're in too deep, and they don't know what to do next. Those who are the most fervent, such as Margaret, Marlene, the tall guy with the America First shirt, they eventually just convince the others to shove you in that closet. And you can spend all night long making noise,
Starting point is 01:24:20 and you will probably keep them up. They will be annoyed. I think you've definitely shaken at least half the group. You're making progress. The New Day has come. We'll say it's about 7 a.m. You get a text. I'll say warp.
Starting point is 01:24:37 You get the text. And it is the video from Margaret of Merit with his hands tied in a living room. And the text reads, give us the knife tonight at 8 o'clock, and we will give you Merit. Meet us at the softy freeze. So they saw that whole video?
Starting point is 01:24:58 Yes. Is that Margaret? Yeah. I'm going to specifically try to get that filed because I'm going to see if there's a geotag that can really directly pinpoint. You do that and with your skills at such a high level in computers, you are able to pinpoint the exact house
Starting point is 01:25:18 that it was done in 7642. Okay, boomer. They said 8 p.m., right? That means we have to make our move before 8 p.m. We're not doing this on their terms. We ambush the house? Yes. In broad daylight?
Starting point is 01:25:35 Yes. Because that's the only thing that they're not going to expect. Tuck, do you want to call in our buddy? I think we have to. We need that, yes. A couple of points to order really quick, Serge, just out of curiosity. Merit managed to file that paperwork
Starting point is 01:25:52 about his gun being taken. Yes. Okay, that's good. Second point of order, do we heal any at night? Yes, I believe all of you need to make, if you are down health, a Constitution times five roll. If you succeed, you go up one health. Success.
Starting point is 01:26:10 And what about willpower? Willpower, you can roll a D6 and add that to your willpower. I go up by one willpower. I'm going up by one and two. I failed by two points. Oh, Sam. Seated on the con and got three on the willpower. Where do you find yourselves in the morning?
Starting point is 01:26:31 What's the move? We have an address now. Yeah, we don't want to meet Emil here, right? No. We can meet him at the address. Well, that's where he's at, if he needs to. I don't think that's wise. I think we need a third location.
Starting point is 01:26:49 If we trick him into it. Yeah, that doesn't seem smart to me. Think of it this way. The bad guys are there. There's a shootout crossfire. Right, but they're not going to bring everybody. They're just going to panic. Well, hold on.
Starting point is 01:27:02 I mean, Boomer, is there any way you can tell about how many people might be in that house? If I had X-ray vision, yeah, no, but like I can, if there's security cameras within, if the house has like, I don't know, at least a security camera inside or a pet cam, I could possibly, but like to be, I would have to probably get closer
Starting point is 01:27:21 just to see what routers there so I can link in that way. I don't hate this idea of honestly, of having Emil show up unaware. But the biggest problem would be Marlene. If we can draw Marlene away for a moment. The only thing she's going to leave him for is the knife. If we're going to infiltrate this house, we either got to remove the cult from the equation
Starting point is 01:27:43 or we got to remove Marlene from the equation because we can't handle both at the same time. We need to handle one of them. We can, we can just make a condition that I, I won't give the knife to anyone but Marlene because then she'll meet us at whatever it's called. Tasty freeze or whatever. But why would she not,
Starting point is 01:28:00 why would she not bring the goons with her? Well, it doesn't matter. I'm sorry, I'm not. She might, she won't, she might not bring everybody. If she does, then I mean. But we're trying to do this before eight o'clock so we need to get rid of them before eight o'clock so that we can knock down doors and get married
Starting point is 01:28:18 and maybe take care of business at the same time. But wait, if we separate Marlene from the house then the police can really come in. So therefore the police can go in and rescue. Yeah, if we can draw Marlene out then we can infiltrate the cult and we can get Elise married back. If we're gonna do that,
Starting point is 01:28:37 we're gonna have to be damn sure that we're getting Marlene isolated. I don't think she's going to isolate herself. Yeah, and that's, that's, that's my concern. Or we draw them out and or we draw those guys out and then have the cops bag them away from the house and we never mentioned the house at all. Either way, we gotta just separate the party.
Starting point is 01:28:57 Yep. I think the first step, I think the first step is to talk to Emil because he might be able to help us with that. I think what we have to, I think something we have to also take into account is there's every chance Marit's gonna go to jail. And we either have to decide that we want him in jail alive
Starting point is 01:29:12 or we just want him dead. That's kind of where we're at right now. So if we want Marit alive, but in jail, potentially, we call in Emil and we say, hey, we're doing this right now, let's go. And he brings the cavalry, we get Marit. I don't see a way out of this if we don't have some, if we don't have another gun.
Starting point is 01:29:32 Okay. So we're calling, we're potentially sending Marit to jail. Are we all okay with that? I, it's better than him being dead. Okay, I agree. He just, remember, he's not in prison yet. He's just gonna probably end up in jail with police and at least he'll be out of that area
Starting point is 01:29:47 and we can handle that. Or we don't tell Emil until he gets there and then we at least got 20 minutes to try to handle this shit before the cops actually show up and then we figure it out in 20 minutes. Time out really quickly. The warrant is still not out for him yet, right? The warrant's not done yet.
Starting point is 01:30:08 Make sure the timeline is made for you. It might be done now, but it wasn't done last night. All the more reason to have a conversation with him. Okay. So we talk, let's talk to, we call him, we let him know the plan. I hide, I know what you're saying, but I think that's gonna shoot us in the foot
Starting point is 01:30:26 more than it's gonna help us. Okay. All right, so you call Emil and you wanna meet with him? Yeah. Where do you wanna meet him? Fucking Starbucks again? Yeah, Starbucks parking lot. Okay, he meets with you
Starting point is 01:30:44 and do you all go? You all walk into the Starbucks? I think that's best. You all go? I think that's best. No, I think that's too many people. You guys stay in the car, I'll talk to him outside. Yeah, I think that's...
Starting point is 01:30:59 Do you wanna do it on your own? He's already talked to Boomer and Warp. I think Warp, because Warp and Brown had that time together, I think Tuck and Warp will go and we just stayed back. We'll be nearby in case, I don't know, you get snatched. Okay. But...
Starting point is 01:31:15 I'll keep a line open, I'll just like call Boomer and put it in my pocket. Sounds like a plan. Let's walk with you. Tuck, you meet up with Detective Brown and the first thing he says to you is you keep a very strange company agent more. Well, as I understand it, my associates
Starting point is 01:31:31 have told you a bit about our job and sometimes your company is the best. Yeah, they've told me some things, that's for sure. I assure you anything they've told you is true. I just wave. Look, the situation still stands that a special agent is apparently being held hostage Yes.
Starting point is 01:31:52 It's a little awkward with the fact that I also... We have a warrant pending to investigate him, but you explain to him, you explain to him the current situation, or let me ask you this, what do you explain to him? I think I say, Detective Brown, what are the odds I can get you to hold that warrant pending a little bit longer?
Starting point is 01:32:16 Why would I do that? We may have evidence that may lead to an arrest for the case that you're... for the case that you've been following, the Mesut case, that doesn't involve my agent. Okay, you're telling me these people, do you know anything about them?
Starting point is 01:32:44 Have you learned anything about these people? I can't do anything if I don't know where these people are. I know where they are, we have a location. I need you to hold that warrant pending a little bit longer so that my agents and I can deal with an as-yet-unknown threat. Agent, if you know where these people are, why don't we go make an arrest?
Starting point is 01:33:05 Why don't we... Because I need all of my agents, and I need you not to arrest him on site. I like to do one thing at a time, okay? One foot in front of the other. I don't want a dead FBI agent in Lansing, okay? I'm willing to help you. Okay.
Starting point is 01:33:21 What I need from you is some kind of reason why I need to go to that house, or wherever these people are. If they are clearly some kind of threat, then I can call in backup, then I can make this a thing. I'll... Do we all have the video?
Starting point is 01:33:40 Yeah, I'll say yes. Yeah, it's on her phone. Then if I knew that we had the video, I've probably taken a screenshot of him in the video, not the whole video. I've put the video in a different file, and I just have the screenshot of Merritt in the house,
Starting point is 01:33:57 and I'll show it, and I'll say, this was sent to my agents this morning. We have a geotag. We know the location where he's being held. All right, how about this? Let me go to the house, I'll knock on the door, and say I'm doing a wellness check.
Starting point is 01:34:12 How about that? I'll ask them all to come out. If things look suspicious, I can call for backup. I'm concerned about your safety in this as well. These are fanatics, zealots. We don't know what they're capable of.
Starting point is 01:34:25 They've already... They've already kidnapped and held an FBI agent. Okay, well, you're a federal officer. Why don't you join me? I can do that. Would this circumstantial evidence
Starting point is 01:34:40 be enough for him to at least have backup, like an extra patrol car and an extra officer or two? Yes, if he walks up to this house and he gets the sense that there is someone in danger in this home, the instinct is probably to call up backup officers,
Starting point is 01:34:56 and this becomes a hostage situation. All right, my team is going to be with us. They'll be in the car. They look like civilians. Okay. That's kind of the point. I don't know if I feel comfortable with them, but maybe if they're far away, that's one thing.
Starting point is 01:35:11 You want to have backup at a location where an FBI agent is being held, far away from us. If they get in the line of fire, that's what I'm worried about. Do you understand how crazy this sounds, Agent Moore? Trust me, Detective Brown,
Starting point is 01:35:26 I actually can't say that I've been where you are because this has been my entire life. From the time I was nine years old, this has just been a fact of my life. But I can respect that coming to this realization as an adult is horrifying and confusing and scary and weird and seems impossible. And I know that I sound crazy and she sounds crazy
Starting point is 01:35:50 and all of the motherfuckers in the car sound crazy. But I wouldn't be bringing you into this if it weren't dire. All right, let's just get this over with. Let's go to the house and see now. All right. I'm gonna put on my vest. Oh, yeah.
Starting point is 01:36:08 That's dropped. Yeah. I'm gonna have my FBI badge clearly visible on my hip. Where's Warp in the knife? Where's Warp in the knife? I'm still with you on this. We're like walking back to the car. Oh, yeah.
Starting point is 01:36:21 Like as we're sorry, I jumped in my brain. Okay, yeah. Yeah, then I'm also coming back to the car. Can I just squeak one thing in? While Tuck was out there talking to Emile, can I pull Warp aside and give her the same kind of rundown that I gave the Tuck about we need to have redundancy with this ritual?
Starting point is 01:36:42 Can I teach it to you? I don't think you can teach it to her in a Starbucks parking lot. Okay. You guys jump into separate cars. Emile has his own car. Tuck, are you going with Emile? I'm gonna go back to our car and just kind of,
Starting point is 01:36:57 they were on the line with me the entire time, so they know what's going on. I think this is the best we're gonna get. Are we all okay with this? I don't see what other option we have. We're not taking the knife, though, to the front door, though, right? I think we should keep the knife.
Starting point is 01:37:13 No, I will be a part of the far away team, yeah. Keep the knife as far away as possible. The plan is you're gonna come with me, or fuck, I don't want to leave them alone. Warp, can you stay with Mallory? Sure. Boomer, give them the gun just to be safe. Oh, I have a gun,
Starting point is 01:37:30 and she takes out the gun that Merrick gave. Great, okay, awesome. I forgot he gave you that. Awesome. Okay, then you stay with Mallory. You lock yourselves in. You don't let anyone else in until you hear from us. Not the first time, not the last time.
Starting point is 01:37:44 I know, I'm sorry we keep locking you in rooms. You're doing great, though. It's okay. Okay, good. Be safe. Sam, I'll actually, do you want to stay with them, too? Um...
Starting point is 01:37:58 We need to redundant the ritual, we can. If you think that I'm not going to be needed at the house, then yes, I will do that. I just, I don't want to have both people who know the ritual at the house, in case something happens. Then sure, if that's what you think is best, I'll stay with Warp. I don't know what's best,
Starting point is 01:38:17 if that's the only thing I can think of. Okay, it's your call, I'll do it. Hyde, what do you think? Yeah, that's the best thing. I think keeping our research team safe is priority. Boomer, I hate to ask you to come with us, but I need you for hacking, I need you for checking their phones,
Starting point is 01:38:35 I need you for... I can, yeah. Stay in the car. Oh, thank you. That's, I think that's for the best. Yeah, put on the Kevlar, hold onto the gun. Well, I'm gunless. You are gunless.
Starting point is 01:38:48 So, Boomer will have to give me the gun. Boomer give... This is just swab. What's it called? Musical chairs with guns. Yeah. I will hand the gun, because I will be in the driving scene.
Starting point is 01:39:02 I will have my big car battering ramp, so... You're gonna want the keys. Yeah, keys for gun. I don't have the keys. You guys wouldn't let me take the keys. Yeah, I had the keys, I'll get them to you. You two go back to Mallory, you two drive to the place I'll drive with,
Starting point is 01:39:19 Detective Brown. Okay. Go team, go. Great. Oh, Erin, you should teach Zakiya the thing. Yeah, I will. Yeah, we'll do that. Yeah, sounds like you would have time
Starting point is 01:39:33 if you go back to the hotel and do it. We'll get to that. Tuck, Boomer, Hyde, and Detective Brown all make their way to this suburb in Northern Lansing. It's full of trees, homes, every couple of yards. There's plenty of room in the front yards, a lot of trucks, a lot of American flags.
Starting point is 01:39:55 And you eventually come to a home, 7-6-4-2, and there's a big white truck parked in front of it, and a meal steps out and waits for you, Tuck. I will put on the Kevlar strap-it. Where do you want me? I think at our back, watching. Can I? I'm going to be close, though,
Starting point is 01:40:22 because I have a sawed-off shotgun. Where do you have this from? It's in my inventory, because I have a sawed-off shotgun. I sent you all of the things that I have, Sergio. It's in the old handwriting, too. It's from, like, old times. It's from Meadowbrook days, boy. Who's taking the shotguns?
Starting point is 01:40:44 Shotguns have a pretty close range, but I don't want to roll up. With a shotgun. With a shotgun. Yeah. Just racket on the front porch. So I'll give... You can just give it to me.
Starting point is 01:40:58 Absolutely. You don't need it. You take the shotgun, I'll take the pistol. Okay. A meal leads the way, and you go up to the house, and he says, I'm going to knock.
Starting point is 01:41:12 I'm going to ask to speak with the homeowner, and as soon as they give us any resistance, we can back up, so we don't have to escalate things. Walks up to the home. Inside Merit, you have been dragged out and fed a little bit of oatmeal in the morning,
Starting point is 01:41:30 and at a certain point, you hear one of them by the window say, Oh, shit. It's... Oh, shit. I think it's cops. Somebody's walking up to the door, and they all start kind of in a panic,
Starting point is 01:41:44 you know, getting up, grabbing things. The gentleman who is wearing camo, he draws his pistol. There are other members of the group who say, Margaret, you got any guns? What do we do? Do we pull out our guns? Well, don't open the door.
Starting point is 01:42:00 If you fire on them, you're never walking out of here. Shut up! Shut up! You'll be meeting Jesus Christ a lot faster than you thought you did. The big guy with the I Love America t-shirt kind of leans up against the door,
Starting point is 01:42:13 and once the door knocks, he doesn't say anything. Marlene steps between them and walks forward and puts her hand on the door and says, Keep them busy. And she starts walking out of the back door
Starting point is 01:42:26 past the kitchen. Emil, you hear on the other side of the door, Oh, who is it? And Emil Brown says, Hey, this is Detective Brown. I wanted to see if I could speak to Margaret Gaylord Breen. She's owner of this home, correct?
Starting point is 01:42:41 Margaret, she doesn't want to talk to you. Who am I speaking with here? My name doesn't matter. What do you want? Go away. I'm going to yell out. I don't have eyes on her. She's coming around the side of the house.
Starting point is 01:42:54 You have to act quick. Tuck, you hear that, and then what happens is that Merritt, one of the men, gets spooked by you saying that and they just kick you in the face. Yeah, that's fair. You're going to be dealt three damage.
Starting point is 01:43:06 Okay. Shit. As he just hits you across the jaw, knocks you onto your back, but Tuck, you're outside. You hear the familiar voice of Merritt screaming. Brown, call it in, and then I'm going to back up from the door
Starting point is 01:43:19 and I'm going to back up to hide, and I'm just going to keep us looking in opposite directions. Yeah, can I look around to see if anybody's leaving the house? Right now, you don't see anyone leaving the house. I'm going to run to the back then. You guys secure the front.
Starting point is 01:43:33 I'm going to take steps back to try and keep hiding my eye line as long as I can. I'm going to go around the back of the house. While you're doing that, Tuck, Detective Brown is saying, open the door. Who has that? God damn it.
Starting point is 01:43:45 Open the fucking door right now. Hi. Give me a athletics roll, please. That is a success with a 33. Out of 34. You start running around the back and you see the body of Erica Young making a corner around the opposite side of the house.
Starting point is 01:44:07 She also succeeded on her roll, so though you have seen her, you have not had a chance to catch up with her. Are you going to chase after her? I'm going to run after her. Okay, give me another athletics check. Ah, damn. That's a success with a 10.
Starting point is 01:44:24 She also succeeds with a 57. So you come around the corner, you come around the corner again, and you see her going for the car. What are you doing? She's attempting to open this truck and get into it. I'm going to try to hit the truck
Starting point is 01:44:42 to see if I can disable it so she can't run with the truck. Let's have you just make a called shot. So you're just at minus 20. That's a fail with a 96. You start firing at her and most of it hits the grill, the front of the car,
Starting point is 01:44:59 it even, you know, it doesn't shatter, but it leaves a puncture wound in the front window. But she does manage to get into the truck. Just more and a meal. Are they in the sight line of seeing this happen?
Starting point is 01:45:16 Tuck's just telling him to call it in and get back up. Okay, if that's what you told him, then he would actually back up, get on his radio, and start radioing in that he has a suspicious activity happening at the address.
Starting point is 01:45:28 He's calling it in. Tuck, you can more easily and quickly see that there is somebody climbing into the truck and a bunch of shots are just fired at the truck. Okay, I'm trying to shoot the wheels out. Oh, shit. You can make a minus 20 called shot
Starting point is 01:45:45 if that's what you're specifically doing. Is that? Well, she can still drive with it. She can still drive with it with popped wheels though. Shoot the engine block. Yeah, then I'll shoot for the front then. It's still a called shot,
Starting point is 01:45:57 but I'll shoot for the front. To fail the 83, motherfucker. Damn it. You shoot and you definitely see bullet holes in the door in the top of the vehicle. Again, some of the window is smashed in, but you don't think you're doing the damage you were hoping to do.
Starting point is 01:46:16 Okay, we've had Hyde, Tuck, and Emil go. Let's have Boomer. What are you doing in this moment? You're probably close enough to at least see what's happening. Obviously get the car in gear and ready to go just in case the truck, like can I block it in the driveway?
Starting point is 01:46:33 You could attempt to. Yeah, let me go ahead and just like, I'm gonna get up because if they haven't taken off yet, I'm gonna go ahead and put the car like as close to it as possible. So even if it like, because it's so close to it, it wouldn't have enough ramming speed
Starting point is 01:46:45 to hit me or something. I think that you have enough move, especially if that's your whole move and action and everything. Yeah, I think you can peel the car up and kind of park right behind the vehicle just as it's beginning to back up. It does smash into your car,
Starting point is 01:46:59 but it doesn't move fast enough to really do much. Okay, I'm gonna also kind of put the parking brake in there to make it as difficult as possible. Merritt, you hear the commotion and the gunshots happening outside. Inside it's pandemonium. They're all screaming.
Starting point is 01:47:14 They're not sure what to do. Somebody comes out of the bedroom with a rifle, like an old bolt action rifle. And they're like, this is it! This is our last day and we gotta fucking fight off these fucking commies! Where's the skinny one that had doubt
Starting point is 01:47:27 that first night? The one with the most doubt. I think that he is standing near you and he's just like shivering. He's watching everybody kind of getting ready for war. I think I'm gonna look him straight in the eyes the best I can and I'm gonna say, I told you, you had a decision.
Starting point is 01:47:42 You can still make this right. You can still do what's right. You know more than you thought and you know that I can help you. Stop this. Stop your people. Let me stop her. How do I make this stop? How do I do that?
Starting point is 01:47:56 Tell them you're going to give me to them. Stop your friends. Let me free. We have to go after her. If she gets the knife, you don't know what she becomes. He's gonna run over and start yelling at his friends to stop.
Starting point is 01:48:11 I'll say that you do still have an action if you wanna try to do something. I'm gonna try and break those zip ties again. Go ahead and make a strength roll. Strength times five. They did kind of double zip you. So this is going to be difficult. I have a 43 under 55.
Starting point is 01:48:28 You are making considerable progress. You're pushing with all of your might. I think it's gonna cost you another point of health. Totally fair. You feel as if you are very close to being able to kind of at least remove your hand from one of these but it's going to require another roll on your next turn.
Starting point is 01:48:45 At the top of the initiative, both Hyde and Marlene have the same dexterity. Let's make a luck roll to see who goes first. I succeed with... It's a 39. You see that Marlene has smashed into the back of your vehicle with Boomer inside
Starting point is 01:49:07 and you get the sense that she's about to clamor out of this vehicle. Would I have enough time to get to the other side of the car as she's trying to clamor out and hold the shotgun at her? Yeah, I'll say that you can swing open the door on the passenger side, aim the shotgun at her. Are you holding in action?
Starting point is 01:49:23 I'm going to hold in action if she keeps moving, but I'm gonna tell her it's like I will blow the last fucking body you have right now if you do not stop. On her turn, she takes her chances and leaps out of the chair. Let's go ahead and make an attack.
Starting point is 01:49:39 Let's go. Let's go. Let's do it. Punch, capture her right here. Fucking the bitch. That is a success with a 30. With a solid 30. That's right. A shotgun blast at close range
Starting point is 01:49:58 is 2d10. No. Let's go, baby. Come on. That's 20 points of damage. Hell, yes. Hell, yes. I cocked that bitch and I fire.
Starting point is 01:50:17 We forgive you for everything. You fire at her and she kind of moves exposing her back to you and you literally just blow her right hand and her right arm and her right shoulder just off. Blood all over the inside of this vehicle
Starting point is 01:50:35 you get the sense that her body kind of collapses over on the other side. But when you look, you can see that the body gets up and keeps shambling forward. Oh, shit. You got to reload.
Starting point is 01:50:51 Can I just go after her? I got a knife. Sure, on your next turn you absolutely can. On her turn, she leaps out of the car with this wound hide and boomer. You both need to make sanity checks
Starting point is 01:51:06 for witnessing this gory violence. Fuck. I rolled and I got a 35. I failed with a 70. Alright, if you succeed, you're not going to lose any sanity and please put a point towards adapting to violence.
Starting point is 01:51:22 If you fail, you're just going to lose one sanity. It's just a disgusting mess. On Marlene's turn, she can't do much else besides run around to boomer's car. It's a free action to attempt to open the door.
Starting point is 01:51:38 Boomer make a dodge roll against her to see if you can lock the door in time. I would have told her to lock the door as soon as I'm going to say I would have told her to lock the door as soon as we fucking locked. It's one thing to tell her, it's another thing if she did it. Can I roll a lock roll if I did? That's what you're deciding now.
Starting point is 01:51:54 Because you did not tell me beforehand that you locked the door. That is true. But that's sad because I felt like it would be instinctive but that is true. We didn't say it out loud. That's my... Gotta say it or it didn't happen. Oh Dex, okay, yeah, come on girl.
Starting point is 01:52:10 Yeah, we got this. No, we don't got shit, 89. Fuck, fuck, fuck. So her Dex is a 17 which means 85, she rolled an 80. Oh. So that means you witness her come around and you're just so taken
Starting point is 01:52:26 aback by the gore that you realize the door... You don't realize in time the door is unlocked and she swings it open. But that's all we... That's all she can do in her round. You are now inches away from Marlene. Okay, is it the passenger door she opened or my door, the driver's side?
Starting point is 01:52:42 I think she is in the passenger side. She opened the passenger side door and is now like climbing in. She's like in the passenger door. Inches from your face, this gore dripping down on the seats and stuff. Oh, drive baby. I'm coming. Boomer, it's your turn. What are you doing?
Starting point is 01:52:58 God, shit guys. You're in the car. Come on. Yeet out. Disable. I yeet out. That's it. Laptop, yeet out. You grab your laptop as you see her climbing in and you just get out of the car. No, peel. No, no, no, peel.
Starting point is 01:53:14 Drive with her. Oh, we can't... We're not there. I'm sorry. No, no, no. Guys, I have no weapon. I got it. I got it. I got inches from my face. I have no fighting. And I got a shotgun toting chick very nearby. I'm getting out of blasting range. So I'm grabbing the laptop. I'm going to haul ass out.
Starting point is 01:53:30 So you just kind of stumble out of the car. You still have an action. Do you want to do anything other than get as far away as possible? Take the keys. I'm going to take the keys out. I think that's something you can do. You have the keys. Fuck.
Starting point is 01:53:48 And that's it. I feel like that's more... Because in the moment, I'm sorry. It is about getting the F out, take the keys out, laptop, and I'm out. I think that's more than enough. Merit. Merit, you're inside. You see that there is a serious argument about what to do amongst these people, but they are distracted. What are you doing?
Starting point is 01:54:04 I'm going to break the wrist bindings, you know, now that I've got them nearly done. And then I'm going to go for the ones around my feet. Make a strength times five roll. That's another success for the 41. The last one you feel has been stretched enough that you can just
Starting point is 01:54:20 pull your hand out. And as you do it, you scrape a lot of the top layer of skin, another point of damage to you, but your hands are now free. Now, just go for my feet, I guess. I'm just trying to get out of this situation as fast as possible. I think I'm looking at that skinny dude
Starting point is 01:54:36 and basically begging for any help I can get in that moment. If you give me over, no one has to die. None of your people have to die. I think that they see that you have broken your wrists and they are now pointing their weapons and saying,
Starting point is 01:54:52 you're not going anywhere. Don't you fucking go anywhere. The prophet left you. Where are they? Are they going to be there when you go to jail? When you die? The gentleman who has this long grey hair seems to be somewhat of a comic book nerd. He's like, I'll just get the fuck
Starting point is 01:55:08 out of here. And he runs out the back. The guy with the rifle is going to say, hell no, I'm not going anywhere. He's going to aim out the window and he's going to fire. Oh god. And let's decide who he shoots. On a success
Starting point is 01:55:24 we're going to say that it's Tuck. So he's going to fire at you. He does succeed with a 38. You can attempt to make a dodge roll if you'd like. It's a rifle. Alright kids. Tuck. Tuck.
Starting point is 01:55:42 Don't make that face. Allegra. Okay. You are shot for 10 points of damage. Oh my god. It's over. You are reduced by
Starting point is 01:55:58 three. Still over. Okay. Hyde. Merit. You hear this deafening blast from inside Merit. It's even louder for you. But Hyde you look real quick and you see Tuck throw her arms up and just fall backwards onto
Starting point is 01:56:14 the lawn. Oh no. It's Emile and Tuck's turn. Emile is going to kind of duck for a moment. See that you fall and Tuck and drag you over to like the corner of the house. And he's just going to do what he
Starting point is 01:56:30 can to try to stop the bleeding to try to help you in some way. Sometimes it's possible to resuscitate a dead character. If the handler says resuscitation is possible, which I'll say that maybe stabilization is possible at the best.
Starting point is 01:56:46 Someone must make a first aid test. This must occur within a number of minutes after death, which I think we're in that time frame. Basic first aid is at a 10. I believe that as a officer of the law, he would have some kind of training.
Starting point is 01:57:02 I think he would have at least a 30. So he's stopping the bleeding. He's trying to get your heart to beat again. See what he gets. He gets a 30 on the money. He's here. F**k, you f**king go!
Starting point is 01:57:20 There's no f**king way. You got to take a picture of that, people are going to doubt. Shit. Agent Hyde, you don't know exactly what's happening. You see him working on her. We'll go to the top of the initiative
Starting point is 01:57:36 with you. You can go and you can go after Marlene or you can go and check the top. What are you doing? Yeah, I have to assume that there's a chance that she's going to be still alive. So I'm going, if Marlene's
Starting point is 01:57:52 climbed in the car, can I jump on top of her and take my knife and just slit that b**ch's throat? Go after Marlene, get that b**ch. You run over to her, you reach in after her and you just start stabbing. Go ahead and make a unarmed or a melee weapons
Starting point is 01:58:08 attack roll against her. That's a success with a 47. That is a one point of damage. You stab it into her but she is still riding, still reaching for Boomer. If I'm on top of her though, is
Starting point is 01:58:26 that Elise holding on to her since she's climbing through a car? That's a separate action. What you have chosen to do with your action is deal damage to her. You're right on top of her for sure. At least I'm on top of her. It is her turn.
Starting point is 01:58:42 As soon as you pull the blade out, some of that wound begins to heal. She sees that the keys are out of her reach. She is going to push you, attempt to push you. Let's make
Starting point is 01:58:58 opposed athletics rolls. Come on, hide, kick her a**. I succeed with a 2. She succeeds with a 90. How does she have a 90? With a superhuman like strength, she just shoves you and throws you off of her. Give me a dexterity times 5
Starting point is 01:59:14 roll. That's a success with another 2. Damn. She attempted to throw you against the truck behind you but you managed to roll out of the way. She is going to use the rest of her movement to
Starting point is 01:59:30 start rushing down the sidewalk. She's just literally running down the sidewalk and now she's about 30 to 40 feet away from you, just down. At this point, you kind of look in her direction and you can see folks getting out of their houses and
Starting point is 01:59:46 checking and some of them are on their phone. Oh no. A scene is occurring. Just watch the f**king corpse run down the sidewalk. Oh my god. Boomer, it's your turn. The person who shot, are they in the window? If I see them, will I blatantly see them?
Starting point is 02:00:02 Yes, right now you can blatantly see a guy with an old rifle who is just fired at Tuck. The truck that's right in front of me, the keys still in there? The keys are probably still in the truck, yes. I would like to do is take my phone out and take a
Starting point is 02:00:18 3 second video, very purposeful showing Emil giving resuscitation to Tuck with someone with a gun in the window as I try to get into said truck that I block. It's a free action to turn your phone on, start recording things. You have enough movement to get to
Starting point is 02:00:34 the driver side of the car. If you wanted to turn the car on as an action and move it, I would allow you to. That's as far as I want to do to just because if they're going to start shooting again, I'm just going to go ahead and make a scene. I need you to make another sanity check as well for witnessing Tuck
Starting point is 02:00:50 get shot. I'm, I'm, yeah. F**king out. Uh, I got a 50. 50? Uh, you are only going to lose one sanity high. Could I ask you also to make that sanity check? Let's go.
Starting point is 02:01:06 Oh, that's a success with a 22. Oh, that's a crit success. And I'll say that you lose no sanity. You are determined to you're too focused right now to be thinking about this merit. It's your turn. You're on the inside of the house. One of these guys is aiming
Starting point is 02:01:22 their, their kind of handgun at you. And they're warning you not to leave. Oh, f**k. If, if they've already fired at the window and they've got that handgun against me, I don't have anything against my hands, right? No. Is, is that the only gun pointed at me? There is a rifle
Starting point is 02:01:38 that has been aimed at Tuck and there is a handgun that is being held by someone else that is being aimed at you. Do I think that I could disarm the handgun? Is it within that range? If they got close enough, you can attempt to fight back and take it from them. Yes.
Starting point is 02:01:54 So I'm going to goad them in and then try and disarm them from the handgun. I think to first goad them in is make a persuade check. What is going to happen is that if you succeed on this persuade role, he is going to approach you and you will be within range to make a move
Starting point is 02:02:10 which is called fight back. It's like dodge where you choose to forfeit your next action to do this now. Sure. Uh, I succeed. 31. On his turn, which is next, while the others are, you know, kind of reacting to the gunshot,
Starting point is 02:02:28 the guy in the window is still screaming that he's going to shoot at anybody, the gentleman with the gun, the kind of larper who dresses in camo and stuff comes up to you and is like shut your fucking mouth, shut your mouth! And he's close enough that you feel you can make a strike against him. If someone attacks your agent with a melee
Starting point is 02:02:44 weapon or unarmed combat, we'll say that he's going to go like strike you with the weapon. He's going to like bop you on the head. And make an unarmed combat or melee weapon to block and counter attack. So let's both make unarmed combat attacks or I'll say melee weapon for him.
Starting point is 02:03:00 What the fuck have you done? Ho, ho! With a 22. He fails. You disarm him. I'll say that what you basically do is like you take it out of his hand and you kind of back-slap him. So go ahead and make roll a d4. He takes
Starting point is 02:03:18 the, oh, that is not good. He, I mean you basically just did the same amount of damage that he did to you. He stumbles backwards and you now have the gun. Okay. The other folks in the room are going to make some checks to see if
Starting point is 02:03:34 they can notice the commotion that's happening. Gun is definitely pointed at the one with the rifle. So the one with the rifle does not notice you. He's just in a frenzy at this moment. However, Margaret and one of the other folks
Starting point is 02:03:50 see their ally kind of crumple to the ground and they see that you have the gun and they're just kind of yelling in your direction. Put it down! What the fuck did you do? What the fuck did you do? The gentleman with the rifle is just in a frenzy. He looks out the window
Starting point is 02:04:06 and the only other person he can see is Boomer. He's going to take a shot at you, Boomer. No! You made no mention of hiding or doing anything like that. I like to counter charm this. Counter spell? Countess spell?
Starting point is 02:04:22 I mean, he is going to succeed, so if you'd like to dodge you can attempt that. Oh, yeah, I would like to dodge. Please dodge. Come on, Boomer. Have Kevlar on still. Please. I have one. Yes!
Starting point is 02:04:38 I am going to action hero dodge out the way. Our fucking roles. You've been staring at him with his gun kind of half out the window, so when you see it swing around to you, you just know to drop off the ground. Yes, I do. And you do hear a shot go off, but you are okay. Woo!
Starting point is 02:04:54 Bad, bad, bad, bad. I won't lie. One of us had to succeed on dodging, I'm so glad it was you. A meal is watching over Tuck, but he is going to fire where he thinks there are people, which is the door. He's at this point trying to kind of just scatter these people.
Starting point is 02:05:12 So he's going to make a shot. He is going to succeed. He's just kind of firing into the door. It's hard to tell whether he's doing anything. However, merit from inside you can see the front door begins to kind of splinter and explode and they are in the process
Starting point is 02:05:28 of moving away from it. However, we're back at the top of the initiative with Hyde. Hyde, give me another luck roll to see if you can go before Marlene. Please. That is no, that's an 81. Marlene succeeds with a 38. She is going to use all of their movement,
Starting point is 02:05:44 all of their action, and they disappear behind a house. Would you like to give chase? I am chasing her. I'm going to chase her. We are going to do a chase. You need to have two successes and the problem is that if we both get successes, we
Starting point is 02:06:00 cancel each other out. Let's start off with two athletics checks, just to see if you can keep up with her. That's a success with a 16. They succeed with a 24, which means that that success is canceled. It's still 0-0. On their turn,
Starting point is 02:06:17 they're going to attempt to throw something at you. They grab like a trash can that is way heavier than anyone can feasibly lift over their head with such ease and they're just going to throw it at you. Is there a way I could use
Starting point is 02:06:33 instead my alertness to try to find a way to duck between the houses and try to circle around instead? Sure, you're trying to get some kind of advantage on them. I want to see if I can cut them off in some way, but at least go around to try to avoid them.
Starting point is 02:06:49 You can make either a stealth role. You could make a survival attempt a navigation role, a navigate role. I'll attempt a navigate role. That's my highest. That's a success with
Starting point is 02:07:07 a 30. They are going to know that you're so close though and they are going to grab that thing. They're going to attempt an unarmed combat to kind of strike at you if they see you. They have an unarmed combat of 75 and they rolled a 77,
Starting point is 02:07:23 which means that they fail and you succeed. So you can hear them like in a back alley holding this big heavy thing waiting for you. You're like on the other side of a fence. Can I try to like cut her
Starting point is 02:07:39 leg, try to get her immobilized for a little bit, at least slow her down enough to try to instead of trying to subdue her, just like. How about this? If you succeed on your unarmed combat, you will deal her damage, but she will probably
Starting point is 02:07:55 attempt to run nonetheless. Okay, I'm in. Okay, so go ahead and make your unarmed combat or excuse me, if you're using your knife, it's a melee weapon attack. That is a success with a six. They
Starting point is 02:08:11 succeed, so they're going to attempt to run away, go ahead and roll your d4 and see how much damage you deal. Four damage. You slice at the leg, which causes I mean, you slice right at the Achilles heel, which causes the leg to kind of buckle
Starting point is 02:08:27 and the body falls forward and you watch the face slam into the pavement and the body is not moving. Holy shit. We don't know, she could be posseming. Raker in, Raker in.
Starting point is 02:08:43 Oh, she's done this to us before though. She's going to show up somewhere. There's not anything dead for her to jump into right now. Are you doing anything right now, Hyde? I'm going to put a smidge of distance over me,
Starting point is 02:08:59 maybe put my boot on her back or something like that, but I'm also looking around because I have no idea what the fuck is going on. But I'm holding up my knife at least. Make an alertness roll. Oh no. Please, it's my highest stat.
Starting point is 02:09:15 I think he's bluffing. I think he's bluffing. It's a 94. It's a 94, I got a 94. Boomer, it's your turn, what are you doing? Shred bag? Oh, that's good. Boomer, I'll say this,
Starting point is 02:09:31 you can hear the sirens coming. Both ambulance and police. Okay, I'm debating if I want to hit the gas and hit the fucking rifle guy. Or if there's any, just do that. Run Boomer, run. You're a civilian right now, just a reminder. Oh, okay.
Starting point is 02:09:47 I'm going to go to, I'm going to actually, since I'm kind of down, I'm going to get out of the truck and do the detective and Tuck. And I want to get like a status on this really quick. It would require all of your movement and all of your action to get to them,
Starting point is 02:10:03 but I think you could. That's fine, that's what I'm going to do. As the maniac in the window is like reloading his rifle, it gives you enough time to just book your ass to the other side of the house and you now kind of join Detective Brown, Tuck's body.
Starting point is 02:10:19 Tuck is covered in her own blood. He has revived her in the sense that he says he can feel her heart beat, but it is waning. She is stable for now. She needs medical attention immediately and that's what you understand. But she appears unconscious.
Starting point is 02:10:35 If the detective has me hold down anything like a blood, I don't know, I won't do that. That's fine, that's fine. So he shows you where to kind of hold on the pressure point. Merritt, it's your turn. Yeah, I'll stand and the gun is still pointed at the rifleman,
Starting point is 02:10:51 but I'm also bouncing between targets to make sure none of them try anything with me. I'm just going to call out to him and put the gun down! Put the gun down! And I'm trying to control the situation, get them to stop.
Starting point is 02:11:07 It is the rifleman's turn. He hears you. I think that the other Phenomen Xers at this point know that the situation is completely fucked and they are going to follow the lead. Two of them run out past you and he is going to
Starting point is 02:11:23 aim his weapon at you. I think because it is a ranged weapon he's going to have minus 20% on that attack against you. Yeah, he's going to fail. So he swings the weapon around and fires and like, a chandelier near you shatters
Starting point is 02:11:39 and I think that he's going to probably start moving towards you to engage with you. I think he is just going to hold his position and he's keeping an eye on anyone that might come through that front door. I think at least one of the Phenomen Xers might do that
Starting point is 02:11:55 and when they do that he would probably attempt to tackle them to the ground and he will succeed. So he tackles Margaret in fact, the woman, to the ground. Let's go to the top of the initiative again with high.
Starting point is 02:12:11 The body is not moving, but you are alone here. What are you doing? I'm looking around to see where Marlene could possibly be. I'd like to make sure that she can't jump back to this body. Is that possible? Can I remove a head that she can't come back to it?
Starting point is 02:12:27 You are going to approach the body and I'm going to allow you to make either an alertness roll or a medicine or first aid roll to tell if they're alive. That's a success with the 38. The body is twitching
Starting point is 02:12:43 and moving in a way that you feel that the consciousness of Marlene is still in this body. The longer you stand here watching it the more you see these wounds closing. Then I want to try to capitalize and like slit the throat or something like that that permanently stops this body from being usable.
Starting point is 02:12:59 You are going to attempt to slice the throat. As you get down on one knee to put a knife to the throat, one of the pieces opens up and what looks to be a dad kind of pokes his head out and sees you doing this.
Starting point is 02:13:15 Shit! Like you lock eyes with this guy as he sees you putting a knife to this thing's throat. Can I try to get him to go back inside and call 911? Like I'll say
Starting point is 02:13:31 I'm a part of a counter-terror of fast words can you please call 911 and then when he dips can I then slice her throat? I'll say this, you have to, it's one action so you can persuade him now and on your next turn you can attempt to slice the throat of this thing. Yeah, I'll do that.
Starting point is 02:13:47 I have to persuade that person because I can't slice a throat. Okay, make your persuade roll. Fuck! I have the charisma of a spoon! This is growth! That's a nine!
Starting point is 02:14:03 What the fuck! Whatever reasons he has, he sort of gasps at the sight of you. This body is literally missing a part of its torso so he just kind of gasps. I'm going to have him make a sanity roll. Oh yeah, he fails with a 95!
Starting point is 02:14:19 Run, just run, just run away! He just runs away exactly as you describe whether he's going to call somebody that's something else. On your next turn you can attempt to strike at this thing. Okay. It's my turn. Boomer and
Starting point is 02:14:37 Boomer, are you doing anything? You see a meal kind of tackling somebody and starting to cup them. Are they definitely subdued or is he in the process? It looks like he's got him. He looks like he's got him. She's a small woman. I'm going to just be like, get it! Get married!
Starting point is 02:14:53 Get something! I'm just going to hold Tuck down because that's... Did anyone call Warp? I think I'm only focusing on Tuck. There's blood and there's not much you can do with a gunshot wound other than hoping that the ambulance gets here as soon as possible.
Starting point is 02:15:09 It sounds like they're moments away. They're turning a corner any moment. Okay, I am honestly going to be like you come on you asshole don't you do this to me. I'm actually kind of doing a little stupid jingle just kind of, I don't know why
Starting point is 02:15:25 I'm just doing that and just like trying to see if they'll hear me and be like, don't leave. No, you got this. This is nothing. What are you doing? Merritt, on your turn, you see that this big guy is lumbering towards you. He's going to strike at you unless you do something about it.
Starting point is 02:15:41 Yeah, it's an active shooter. I'm taking him out. It's a firearm shot. Okay, go for it. Two. Two in the chest. It's a success with a 75 under 80. Wow. Go ahead and do your damage. I think that's a d10. Four points of damage. You shoot him
Starting point is 02:15:59 in the stomach. He is a big fellow. It looks like he can take that shot although he does stumble back and he's kind of now gripping his gut. Blood now pouring out of it. He is still, I think, conscious enough to
Starting point is 02:16:15 try to attack you. He's going to try to swing at you with that big rifle. Okay. So he's going to make a melee weapons attack against you. Oh, he succeeds. Okay. I'll say that he's going to deal you just a straight D4 of damage.
Starting point is 02:16:31 That's two damage. So although you shot him in the stomach, he stumbles back but then raises the pistol up and just clocks you across the head. The pistol kind of shattering across your head and you can feel the warm blood trickling down the top of your head. He's probably cracked
Starting point is 02:16:47 your skull. What are you at, Katelyn? Four right now. Fuck. Still looking good. He's smiling. Emil has subdued the woman and is now going to go to the front door.
Starting point is 02:17:03 Sees that this man is attacking you and I think he's going to fire at him. He succeeds with a 51. He is... Where are my D10s? Here we go. Yeah. This man cracks you over the skull and right as he's going to lift it again,
Starting point is 02:17:19 he gets shot from in the chest and you see that the bullet comes out of his chest and that collapses to the ground. Dead. At the top of the initiative, let me have you make a dexterity roll. Dex roll? Let's go, Heidi. Dex times five.
Starting point is 02:17:35 That is a... That is a success with a 62. Marlene, who you have allowed to heal over the last two rounds, succeeds with an 80. Fuck you, shit. And they are going to strike at you.
Starting point is 02:17:51 They are going to make an unarmed combat attack against you. They succeed with a 54. No, they don't. At least it wasn't a crit. She's alone. I know. Five damage.
Starting point is 02:18:07 Okay, I'm still up. Just barely, man. Because you've taken five damage, make a con times five roll. That is a success with a 28. She mostly propels you off of her. She does not manage to
Starting point is 02:18:25 knock you out or anything like that or kind of dizzy you. But you are thrown across a fence and you kind of crack into the fence half falling into it. She gets up and she starts running. Actually, you know what? I think she gets up and she just wants to kill you.
Starting point is 02:18:41 So she's going to continue to engage with you. It is your turn if you would like to strike at her. I can't go again with her. Do I have enough do I have enough distance to run? I think so, yeah. Then I'm going to run because fuck that. Okay.
Starting point is 02:18:57 I'm going to head back. Yeah, I'm going to run in any direction that I can possibly get out of here. Yeah, I think if you use your movement and your action, you can get away from her. Okay. Boomer, you see the ambulance pull up to paramedics who are leaping out of the car and rushing
Starting point is 02:19:15 towards you. Anything you want to do when they come up and approach and start inspecting Tuck? I'm going to check Tuck's question. Like is there like a medical bracelet or anything I need to be aware of? You don't see anything like that. I will just be
Starting point is 02:19:31 here. He'd like just get them to take over. Is everybody is all the cops like a police up there? You do see police cars pulling up and their attention seems to be drawn to the phenomenon extras who are now kind of dashing out from the back
Starting point is 02:19:47 yard and going in every direction. I will point to them and be like, we got hostages in there and their suspects who were holding hostages get them now counter to hopefully that'll point to them because I'm going to
Starting point is 02:20:03 fuck, do I want to go in the house? I want to check in on Merrick's. I know Merrick's in there. I'm going to go ahead and go into the house. You walk in and you see the dead body of this man. You see a meal standing in the doorway. You see Merrick. Merrick, I'm going to ask that you
Starting point is 02:20:19 make a sanity check for the fact that you shot this guy and you witnessed some guy. I fail with a 48. Okay. I think that roll a d4. I lose three.
Starting point is 02:20:35 Are you projecting that sanity? No, I'm just going to take it. So, Boomer, when you go in the threshold of the door, you see a shaken Merrick who is holding a weapon. A meal asks you to put the weapon down. Yeah, I'll drop into the floor, but immediately
Starting point is 02:20:51 where's Hailey? Where's Hailey? She's been shot. We have medics, we have paramedics on site right now. Can I see her? Where is she? Is she okay? We've got to get her to the hospital. If you want to follow, that's fine. Fine. I'm going to be like
Starting point is 02:21:07 that we hide when after Marlene. We know Hailey's going to the hospital. That's there, but we need to go probably find it. Is she okay? Max, are you okay? I had a bad fucking day. I'm not as bad as you.
Starting point is 02:21:23 I'm not going to lie. So, let's go in the direction that hide to them. They're not going to let me. They're not going to let me. I need to go with a meal. Take a meal? I look at a meal like that. Maybe that's a possibility. I mean, if they're still an active suspect,
Starting point is 02:21:39 I'm willing to go after them. We have to go then. Let's go. Alright, let's jump in my car. As you step out of the house, you see the paramedics putting Tuck onto a gurney, lifting it up and bringing it towards the ambulance. Max, maybe you go with her.
Starting point is 02:21:55 Maybe I stay with a meal. She needs one of us. Okay. I will think about that and honestly I'll realize I'm not really good in this kind of fight situation. So, I will go with Tuck in the ambulance. I'm almost dead. She'll take my body if I die. So, Boomer jumps into the ambulance
Starting point is 02:22:11 with Tuck and as you are watching the ambulance take off, Agent Hyde comes running back. This is, am I being pursued? You are not being pursued. Fuck.
Starting point is 02:22:27 Yeah, I think I've got to open a passenger site on the cruiser. They're going to go for warp. I didn't stop her. We got to go. Did you see where she ran or should we go straight there? She's going to go for them. She needs the knife. Okay. Okay.
Starting point is 02:22:43 Yeah, I'll call. Do I have my phone? I don't think you have your phone, Merid. You can look for it in the house. No. Fuck it. Oh, wait. No. Yes, I have to get my phone first. I don't want to wait for that shit. Can I get a car?
Starting point is 02:22:59 Can I go? So Hyde is taking off. Merid, you get your phone and then what are you doing? I'm getting in a cruiser with a mill and I hope that Hyde gave me the directions to this hotel. We'll say that they do. Yeah. I'll call warp. I'm going straight to the hotel.
Starting point is 02:23:15 It doesn't take you very long to get there. Warp, you get a phone call. Marlene? No, no, no. It's me. Warp, listen to me. It's me. It's really me. Okay. Listen. I'm back. Tuck got hurt, but we're on our way back.
Starting point is 02:23:31 We're coming back to the hotel, but so, so is the pilgrim. They, they must have read our minds. They know they got away from Hyde. They're coming for you now. You have to be ready. Okay, we'll go. We'll go now. Where are you going? Where are we going? I don't know. We'll figure that out.
Starting point is 02:23:47 I don't know. Maybe another motel or Chicago. I don't know. Somewhere close. You make any move. Make it fast, but don't think about it too much. Mary, do whatever you can because we need to be in the same location before she gets to you. Okay, then
Starting point is 02:24:03 I was going to say don't. I like, I like the plane. Let's, let's go to the plane. Okay, I'll meet you there. Yes. Okay, let's go. Hyde will say that you pull up and by the time you're there, they're pretty much ready to go.
Starting point is 02:24:19 I'll text Boomer as well, so Boomer's in the loop. Okay. I will, any update on Tuck, I will send it their way. You all reconvene at the airplane and it's now at this point getting on three o'clock and I'd like to know what everybody's
Starting point is 02:24:35 initial reaction is once we're all back together, what is said, what is done. We're either prepared to make our stand and kill this bitch right now or we are getting in this plane and we are flying far in the fuck away. I don't see how we've ever had a better advantage
Starting point is 02:24:51 than now. I don't know how you're feeling but we've hurt her and she's on the run and she's looking for a body, she's scrambled. If we can draw her here with a knife I think we have a chance. What do you think? She's, she's healing at a rapid rate. I couldn't get her
Starting point is 02:25:07 put her down fast enough to to even begin that. As long as she can't complete the ritual she can't maintain the body. Tuck and Boomer in the best position they possibly can, we should leave. We give her time and she can do this to us again. She
Starting point is 02:25:23 will, we know Merit you're right the difference is that she can only do her ritual tomorrow. So if we face her right now we are taking the risk that she will acquire the knife and be able to perform her ritual tomorrow. Operational security says we leave Merit. The only thing that guarantees success is our
Starting point is 02:25:39 leaving this state. Tuck in the hospital is the best place she is going to be. We can give Boomer a head start maybe, but that's it. But as long as this knife is out of play, Marlene cannot succeed her mission. What's going to stop
Starting point is 02:25:55 her from doing it again tomorrow? What's going to stop from another person dying? I, I know what you're saying and I'm with you and I know that that's what we have to do and I but if we don't do it now I don't know if we're ever going to have
Starting point is 02:26:11 another chance. Can I look at Mallory of Mallory's with us right? Yeah. You're our handler. What do we do? We complete the mission. If we leave this open they clearly have an intent to try to expose us
Starting point is 02:26:27 and we put it down right here right now. Let's cut away for a moment. Boomer, you are taken to the emergency room you rush in with Tuck. Eventually they have to separate you from Tuck as they
Starting point is 02:26:43 perform open chest surgery to remove the bullet. I am going to, for the hospital I am going to roll a treatment or a stabilization to see if we can get you to get somewhat stable Tuck
Starting point is 02:26:59 I'll make a first aid roll I think 60% is more than fair to see if they can succeed it is a hospital. They roll a 56 which is a success. I will roll a D4 Okay.
Starting point is 02:27:21 For health is returned to you. However you are unconscious. Boomer, eventually you are met in the waiting room by a physician, by a surgeon who says that he has good news that Agent Moore is stable they think she's going to get better
Starting point is 02:27:39 she is unconscious at the moment and they are not sure when she is going to come back they are also concerned that she might have issues with walking in the future they don't know what kind of damage has been done to her
Starting point is 02:27:55 because you did take so much damage Tuck I am going to ask that you make a con times five roll God damn it. Failure indicates a permanent injury It's a 79 out of 60 The handler can select a stat
Starting point is 02:28:15 to be permanently reduced by the number on the lowest 10 sided die so 9 You were shot basically in the chest I think
Starting point is 02:28:33 that either we reduce your con by 9 that doesn't outright kill you does it your con is higher than 9 right 9 times No, it would be like a 4 Either that
Starting point is 02:28:49 or we reduce your dexterity symbolizing a potential paralyzation My dex would be literally 1 Tuck is retiring now essentially is what we are doing right? Sorry kid Yeah
Starting point is 02:29:05 Um Hang on I rolled for it I said odds or con evens or dex so I rolled a 3 so it's con We'll get to the ramifications of this
Starting point is 02:29:21 You are alive but stable but unconscious and boomer you are staying by her side Let's go back to the group The day is getting long and the longer that you wait the closer
Starting point is 02:29:37 Marlene comes to restoring all of her strength What are you doing? How are we going to find her? We have no time to spare We tell her we're here with the knife come get it I'm looking at Emile
Starting point is 02:29:53 How does he feel about all this? Emile is letting you guys discuss this but Emile feels that he has to deal with these folks who actively shot at him who actively shot a federal agent these people are going away these people are doing
Starting point is 02:30:13 time for their crimes but he also knows that he's dealing with folks that he's got warrants waiting for you That's my problem He has not seen anything Marlene has done besides be violent he has not seen any kind of
Starting point is 02:30:29 unnatural events Would he have seen her get shot with a shotgun blast it off and then keep going and start healing? He would have seen that I think that's probably what is keeping him around
Starting point is 02:30:45 is that he's finally seen something that is beyond normal He's going to say I can help you but it would be a lot more useful if we staged some kind of trap and had some of my men with me
Starting point is 02:31:01 Is that a possibility? Yeah it's a possibility but I mean the more real this shit becomes the more I realize this is not for the faint of heart I'm sure you are very confident in your abilities I think that the fewer people involved
Starting point is 02:31:19 the better Emile you have to understand if any of this gets out you know what this would do to a community I knew something like this beast was real it changes things that's why we do what we do that's why we're a part of the organization
Starting point is 02:31:35 Boomer told you about I'm going to ask that one of you make a persuade role and this is going to determine Emile's kind of final thoughts on this Oh god Merit I think that's you Oh god it's a 10
Starting point is 02:31:53 It's a success It's a good job It's a big success I'm going to look at him and say listen I asked someone a long time ago that meant a lot to me
Starting point is 02:32:09 to trust me and understand that we are trying to do good and that's all I'm asking from you here you saw it we saw it you saw it long before you saw it in the flesh you have to know this is real you want to get
Starting point is 02:32:25 embroiled in something like this if it wasn't real I'll do whatever it takes to get that freak off the streets so let's fucking do this Okay Let's do this Call Marlene
Starting point is 02:32:41 Call Marlene I'll call her You call Marlene and they pick up and they say I'm still alive We know Do you want the knife or not?
Starting point is 02:32:59 Yes Okay Then Meet us at the airport Did we agree on a time? Now Okay As soon as you can
Starting point is 02:33:15 Meet you at the airport Why don't you meet me where I'm at? Because we're at the airport and we have the knife Is there something confusing about what I said? Oh no
Starting point is 02:33:31 One of you has been shot which means they're at the hospital I'm on my way now and they hang up And I think that's a pretty good place to stop for this session We gotta go to the hospital Let's go
Starting point is 02:33:47 Yeah, we do Call Boomer Fuck

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