Great.
Ding, ding, ding.
Agent Barone.
you head out from Atoka, Oklahoma, presumably going home.
What do you do?
Yeah, definitely.
think, Barone takes the long way home.
Head over to, to West Virginia there.
she's trying to find something off, off the beaten path.
she has one, one last thing to, get off of her shoulders and out of her backpack, if you will.
So we're gonna, we're gonna do a bit of, back to nature.
What she needs to find is a place in the middle of nowhere where she could dig a deep.
deep hole and put Agent McHale's, Ranger McHale's head into and get the the final dirt and muck of this operation off of her hands.
Yeah, do you memorialize him in any way or is it just a nondescript hole out in the back country?
I don't think she ever wants this thing found and she doesn't want anybody else to go dig in or looking or find it.
So I think this is she may have a mental memorial and you know kind of word of silence in the silent apology for things gone wrong type thing.
But I don't think she she's not you know making a Karen or anything to signify.
Hey look here find Barone's dirty mess where things went wrong.
I think she more is getting rid of evidence and saying a silent apology than anything else.
Yeah, you bury it and have your own internal memorial, it sounds like, for the ranger.
Barely knew him, was really friendly.
Can you give me a sand roll?
Yeah, sure.
Sanity is 42.
Okay, and that's under.
oh currently.
aiming for 42 and I got over 54 so Phil
Okay, so the failure still, you gain one SAN from that by getting back to nature.
and you reduce a bond by one.
who, what responsibility are you ignoring?
What responsibility am I ignoring?
I think, let's see here.
Just because I haven't taken a hit to it yet in Well now Let's go ahead and let's do Bradley So let's say, know, I probably am scheduled to see him once a month or whatever
and I've I've been Missed that appointment entirely and I've have hasn't even crossed my mind to you know Give him a call and reschedule or anything like that.
So let's go ahead and do that
Yeah.
So Bradley is your therapist.
So you've missed a few sessions.
therapist, yep.
and yeah, okay, good to know.
So you finish your trek out to home home, I'm assuming.
Yeah, to home home.
Yeah, once once I'm I'm relieved of that there's no more evidence.
I I'm taking the slow road still enjoying a bit of, you know, peace and quiet.
And by that I mean loud metal screams in my ears to drown out the my thoughts on my drive home with all the windows down.
So there's a cacophonous cabin.
But yeah, I think I'll just head home.
Yeah, and since you passed your breaking point as well, what?
yeah.
What mental condition do you think starts to creep its way in?
My thought was, oh, go ahead, yeah, go ahead, yeah.
was just gonna say, we have a list of Delta Green approved mental conditions or is it find something that makes sense?
It's find something that makes sense and I'll add a mechanic, but there is a list of them.
And for me, being betrayed as much as you were, like paranoia sounds like a decent one.
And so what paranoia would do is essentially make it so if you lost more than two San at one time, you would start getting paranoid of the people, the other agents.
specifically other agents.
And it would be hard to get over that paranoia until you rested or made another sand check to get over the paranoia.
Does that make sense?
Yeah, does.
Another s- Yeah.
Okay, yeah, I don't I don't hate that.
I think I'd want to want to avoid in inbuilt character tension that like every time something happens like, all right, well, it's it's it's Ryan against Jordan now, or it's
Ryan against, know, whoever.
But at the same time, I think that does make sense because of, you know, the stuff that happened with Ryan and then, you know, the one person who she just blatantly followed the
rules and orders of then all of a sudden is
betrayed her and doesn't know.
Like I think that makes sense that she's, you know, unsettled by this.
And it could also be paranoia toward the organization too.
Like whoever's hiring you, you're just like, they sent us out here to die and that kind of like thought gets stuck in your head, right?
So.
Yeah, I don't hate that.
having been pretty paranoid and then the one time he kind of like let his guard down, he died, right?
So it's like lesson learned secondhand.
Yeah, for sure.
Cool.
I like that.
I'm into that.
Let's do exactly that.
Great.
Describe your house to me if you can, if you want to.
Describe my house.
My house is is mainly garage the the things that keep me happy are my hands and my tools and my projects, you know, I have Hold on one second
She's man cats.
swear they want in and they want out and they want on your lap and they want on your shoulder and then they want out of the room entirely.
I got.
Okay, great.
Right.
So yeah, so her things that keep her happy are her her projects in her hands and her tools in the things that that around that she can, you know, build on and make it better and
track progress of life because after a certain point like how do you measure for getting better if you're not getting stuff done so her?
Her house is small and tidy-ish, but it is attached to the garage.
And you could easily see that that's where she spends the most time by the number of projects and things that she has around.
has, you know, in old Indian motorcycle, that's a project bike that, you know, is maybe 15 % done, but there's pieces that were hanged and painted and waiting to dry.
And, you know, another...
a bigger project of, her father's car that's just covered in the corner.
And, know, maybe has the headlights taken out and smart, small bits taken care of and, you know, all sorts of little projects of things that she could fix up and measure against
around her space.
Yeah.
You have an answering machine, I presume?
Yeah, definitely.
you have a decent amount of messages on there.
The first one is from Jaden.
It's like clicks on worlds.
It's like, hey, hey there.
Morgan, it's been a while since I've heard from you.
I'm a little worried about you.
We, I don't know, like to stay in touch still.
So just calling you to let you know that I haven't seen you in a bit.
And then.
clicks off.
Next one is Bradley and it's like, hey, I know you've had a lot going on lately, but you know, we had an appointment today and just curious if you were going to come by and we can
reschedule and then it stops.
And then the next one is worlds up.
Hey, this is Bradley again.
Sorry, you couldn't make it.
I just have to call just to make sure that
Everything's safe and okay with you.
I would appreciate a call back and I hope I see you next week.
Looking at your calendar, that next week would have been yesterday.
And the last message is like, hey, Barone, this is Bradley again.
Just again wanted to check if you still wanted the time slot that I have for you.
Please let me know otherwise.
I'll give you one more call and I'll have to give up the time slot unfortunately if I don't hear from you.
Click.
And then the very last message is, Jaden, hey, I don't know what's going on, but again, I'm worried about you.
Let me know when a good time to meet up is.
I dropped by the place and you weren't there, so I hope you're okay.
I know that.
you your new job has you running around quite a bit, but it's been a while since you've checked in.
Barone, missing the mark left and right here, aren't you?
Okay, all right.
Okay, I think.
So let's go ahead and give Bradley a call back really quick and do you want to play through it or do you want to just like hey this is what happened on the clock.
Yeah, I'll roll luck to see if he's in session or not.
87, he's in session.
So, but you're believe a message.
What do you wanna get across?
hey, sorry about that.
I've been out of town for work for a bit.
I definitely have some, some learnings and some things to talk through.
I'm still a bit busy and putting my life back together now that I'm back.
But if, uh if we could schedule, I don't know, uh a week out from now or a couple of days, let me know what works best.
yeah, call me back.
Bye.
Do you call Jaden?
So we've taken quite a bit of hits on Jaden.
What is uh a life hit point for a relationship like this?
Yeah, what's his bond at currently with you?
God.
Okay.
Yeah, your relationship with him has irrevocably changed in his eyes basically.
But you can still reach out.
You can use fulfilling responsibilities to repair the bond if you want, or you can do other stuff.
That's a good question.
An idea was to lose myself in some books and form a new bond, but if that does the same thing as fulfilling responsibilities and building back an old bond, I think that's kind of
the same thing.
And now that I have a little bit of an answer to what ails me, I don't
know if I'm going to dedicate that much time digging into science and you know, might keep that journal going and do a little bit of study, but I don't think I'm going to lose
myself for a cure if I already have the cure.
I think having lost so many wealth, having feeling like she's lost so many things already, I think maybe it does behoove her to try and keep what she has built.
So I think I will go ahead and do fulfill responsibilities and try and build that.
build that back up with my ex spouse because this is somebody you know, I had put enough life force and energy into you know, just to let it die because she was out of pocket for
too long, you know seems irresponsible.
So let's do that.
Yeah, so let's do a scene of how that manifests.
Like, do you invite him out for dinner?
Do you guys work on a car together?
Like, how does the relationship manifest and what can we role play to like bring that to life?
Yeah.
think it's exactly that.
think that they met being mechanics and they both understand, you know, how working with their hands and that's maybe why, you know, stuff didn't necessarily work out because
that's where it stopped.
They didn't know how to work with their voice or their hearts and hands is what they knew most.
So she knows that she can lean on that.
So I think that's exactly what she's going to do.
She's, you know, going to...
nudge the Indian motorcycle project and ask for a bit of help with that.
yeah.
Yeah, you give him a call.
He's like, hello?
Hey, uh, Jaden.
Hey, it's me.
Uh, I, listen, I'm, I'm, I'm really sorry I've, I've been out of touch for a bit.
There's a lot of, a lot of stuff's happened at work and you know how it goes with the CIA.
There's some things you, you can't really talk about and you just kind of choke on or work past and I'm somewhere in between the two.
You'd fix their cars, Morgan.
Like, what do you mean?
You can't talk about the type of engine they got or if it's a V8 or is there some secret engine that you're working on out there?
Yeah.
V6 turbos and shit and they're just crazy all over the place, which, you know, breaks, breaks my brain a bit.
Yeah.
Yes, some something like that.
Hey, listen, I'm, I'm sorry.
If you want to if you want to swing by, you know, sometime this this weekend and maybe put a little bit of time in the old
in the old Indian, maybe I could use some help and hear what you've been up to.
I'm a little busy, Morgan.
Let me see.
I'll have to get back to you on that.
Go ahead and roll sanity again.
43 and I got a 23 success.
Great, go ahead and give me a D6.
D6 we got a two.
Okay, so you improve the bond by two, right?
So in a day, he gives you a call back and says he's gonna be by this weekend.
And he brings his tool, he has specialty tools for motorcycles.
And you have the same ones, but I presume it's a guy thing, you let him bring his tools out, that he would appreciate that.
And you guys set to work and shoot the shit.
He does bring up, there's something, there's a distance there.
And he's like, you seem strange, Morgan, what's going on?
Why are you so, I don't know, you're just a little different.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely a bit, you know, we were never really good about talking uh emotions and stuff and kind of let our hands do our talking, which built up some walls and
sometimes those walls need to stay up for a bit.
And I'll tell you what if
If I ever need to dig into it a bit more instead of just need somebody to lean on for a bit of help and a bit of solitude, I'll let you know.
But if you could respect that just a little bit, I'd appreciate that.
uh Do you want a beer?
Yeah, I'll grab it.
So he knows where it's at.
Pops open the fridge, grabs a beer.
He uses a ring on his right hand, not his left hand, to pop open the beer caps, sets one down, and sits cross-legged under the engine next to you and gets to work.
So there's a bit of actually learned about this when I was looking at, know, and then we kind of uh get fall into it and get get lost in working with their hands and not focusing
on the thing in front of us instead of, you know, the stuff that's fallen and affected around.
Yeah, one step forward, right?
You don't wanna sit there and stay in the depression, right?
You wanna keep going in a direction.
And this is the direction you're going.
After a while, he's laughing.
Give him a few 30 minutes under the engine, some grease on his hands.
He's just like he was before, right?
But.
You can tell in the quiet moments, there's a curiosity behind his eyes as he looks at you and he's respecting your space, but you can tell his wheels are turning, there's something
different about you.
And he also rips you about not wearing a tank top, because you're always in a tank top when you're fixing engines and now you have like a full on sleeve shirt and everything.
yeah.
Good.
Yeah.
She would definitely cover up, especially like she doesn't really want any, any questions of, of anything else, but absolutely.
She would, she would be more in a, in a cover all then than not, which is her, her tax before.
oh
Yeah.
And so with the amount of time that spans in this home scene, you can do one more thing.
Do you know what you want to do?
Hmm.
I think if you give me a couple minutes, I could probably figure something out.
Yeah, that's great.
Yeah, I would think like you could do special training if you wanted to improve a skill or learn a new skill, you could improve one of your base stats too, if you like.
You can also go to therapy.
You you've already gained a decent amount of sand.
for somebody in this.
But you can also, if you go to therapy, you have the chance of getting rid of your disorder that you just got.
first, you know, things like that.
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
play parts of the game and since since I work so hard to get it.
uh Let's let's definitely do that.
So right now I do have a check mark on Bradley with one in Jackie.
I still have a check mark on Jackie, but I don't have a number next to it.
Yeah, so your number would be, it would start at nine.
uh I don't believe, yeah, it's your charisma is what your bond starts at.
Okay, got it.
then, then Jaden is nine minus two now with that repaired.
So it's at seven and then Bradley is at eight and then there Jackie is at nine.
Cause I didn't record what I took to hit it.
Okay, great.
I wonder if I take that for something else.
um Shoot.
I thought there was a, I've lost my edge.
I used to have somebody that I competed against, Rival Shop Mechanic.
Yeah.
that.
Yeah, you're right.
You're right.
Yeah.
It was just one.
I believe so, yeah.
Maybe, yeah, yeah,
it is now.
So let's do that.
So skills actually, let's do a skill.
Let's do a fun skill.
Let's do, what's coming up?
What do we have coming up that I might need a bit of help on?
Alertness is pretty good, navigate.
So the interesting thing is you have to fail the skill check in order to gain more of the skill, right?
So you have to be kind of bad at it in order to get better at it, more likely.
So like maybe picking something that you're middle to bad at could be better.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, so like my my low things are like 30s and then I have some 60 70 and 80 and then a lot of fucking nothing.
There's nothing at all.
So on average, you're going to add 11 to it, right?
It's 3D6 worth.
uh And so thinking about something that you'd be happy to have 10 more skill at and that you, if something has a 30, that means you've got about a 2 thirds chance of actually
benefiting from it.
Whereas we'd love a 70 to be an 80, but it's just probably not going to.
Yeah.
not going to unit, you know what we have used a decided amount of that she is really bad at and then maybe she's she's learning to get better at and so human right reading people
so like we could tie this back a little bit to you know learning from Ryan and not reading him right and then not not reading butterfield right and then learning from Dell and then
now setting these barriers with with Jaden to be like hey I'm here putting in time.
to like help our relationship back to where it was just a little bit, but like, you know, don't push boundaries.
She's learning to communicate and you know, take taking Mark of the things that she didn't quite get right.
And she's learning a little bit about people.
And I think that would that would make sense to be something that we could, you know, learn off of and grow as a person too, which means add some skill back to.
Yeah, yeah, you're doing this, you're living this with Jaden.
You're trying to patch it up and he's sussing you out and you're starting to recognize that he's sussing you out, right?
So you're being in tune to these signals.
And you even grab a book, right?
You pick up a book, just a psychology 101 type book, pop psychology and you read through it and maybe you get a second book.
And...
you start getting more interested on nonverbal tells for people, right?
And then that leads you to a poker book where you're like, okay, like how do you tell when somebody's bluffing, right?
So you pick up this like poker book and go ahead and roll me your human right now.
Awesome, sure.
So human right now is 12.
So I just got two from failing so many times.
So human is 12.
Obviously I'm not gonna get under that.
Oh, that's a lie.
I got a zero zero six.
I take it that's not 600.
I take it that's a six.
Let's see.
just seeing if there's any gain at all.
no!
Well, bite you in the butt that one.
I mean, yeah, the beauty part is, I guess, that a six wouldn't have worked anywhere, right?
It's not like you picked the wrong skill, just the dice fucked you.
Dang.
Yeah, so you don't gain any humans, sorry.
But you also, but...
was a 43, ding-dang.
Yeah, the one time you want to fail.
because you narrated it so well and tied it to Jayden, I won't make you lose.
Cause you also lose one from a bond if you do that, because you're spending time doing that.
But since you're doing it live with Jayden, like you get to keep it.
um, yeah.
And yeah, Barone, you, what do you, what would you do on a Friday night, outside of the home?
Like, let's say you're going out.
What do you, what'd you do?
Yeah, think, gosh, were we talking about a little bit ago?
I think going to like dirt rallies, finding local dirt rallies or like forest races, kind of anything like that, that she could hear a loud engine and see some speed.
and watch people move and feel and be alive is what she's gonna do.
So be it a forest race, a local dirt rally, anything like that I think would be right up her vein to blow some steam.
Great.
What do you drive usually?
What do I drive?
So she does have a healthy affinity for her Bronco.
um So I would say a 1987 Ford Bronco that she has repainted who knows how many times after every time she rebuilds it a bit or this or that and feels like a change.
It's like somebody dyeing their hair but instead of dyeing her hair she changes her car color because that's something she could add to another project and it, you know.
signifies how she's feeling that year or two years or however often she does it.
Yeah, sorry, what color is it now?
let's do like a dark navy blue.
Yeah, yeah, you're watching the Derby.
It's really fucking loud and the cars are just smashing into each other.
And there's usually a break between like different rungs of the race.
the, during a downtime one, the announcer is kind of talking and then announcement comes up saying that a Navy Bronco within the parking lot has its lights on.
whoop, shit, and she finishes the last spittle of Budweiser, Bud Heavy, if you will, that was in her bottle, and she sets it down next to where she was sitting, you know, up on the
bleachers, you know, that's her baby.
She doesn't want it to, you know, have anything wrong with it, so she heads right out to take care of it.
You get out there and the lights aren't on in your Bronco.
What do you do?
I think that the first thing that she does is reach back and make sure that trusty, know, GP 100 is still tucked in the back of her waistband, folds her flannel back around it
again so it's secured and takes kind of a wide arc around the side of her car.
Yeah.
As you're walking around the car, you notice the gas thing is open on your car, your gas tank flap.
Yep, yep, I'll take a little glance around and then edge my way over, stick a finger in there like I have so many times and pop that bad boy all the way open to make sure
nobody's tinkered with it.
Yeah, in fact, you have a lock for it.
You have a locked gas cap and you pop it open.
There's nothing in there.
While you're down there, you're holding the tire and you feel something on the tire.
Oh, OK.
All right, and yep, absolutely.
It's just a paper sack with something in it.
I give it a little rattle.
Does it make any sounds?
Just one object doesn't make really any sounds, feels plastic.
There's like a texture on it.
Okay, so likely can't be anything too harmful.
She'll just do a quick turnaround and glance around the parking lot.
And if she doesn't see anybody, she's going to get inside her car and then go ahead and open it up.
Yeah, it's a brick brand new Nokia phone and you power it on, it comes on and in there is the saved one saved number and that's it.
Okay, I ignore that and open up snake instead and start playing snake.
And then after about 45 seconds, I've lost as many times as somebody can in that amount of time gets a bit frustrating.
She's like, all right, Butterfield, what do you have for me now?
And then I'll go ahead and give the give the number a call.
Yeah, you give the number a call and it reads off another phone number.
You give that number a call.
It reads off another phone number.
You give that number a call and a pre-recorded message fizzes to life.
And what it tells you is next to nothing.
It says, in three days, El Paso, Texas.
great and I mean it doesn't necessarily need to have been written down per se but I think her her first inkling is to get out a piece of paper and grab her number two pencil
trustee number two pencil from the advisor and write down three days of Paso Texas and just write down the the date and circle it.
What do you do with the phone?
I think she keeps it for now.
She's not going to dispose of it here in the middle of nowhere.
She's going to find a better place.
She knows a little bit better than that.
for now, she'll just tuck into the pocket or fleece and rev up the engine of that Ford Bronco and then turn on her lights and head out and away from the Derby.
Great, and that's where we'll leave Burrone.
Caroline.
Sorry.
Caroline, you go home.
Do you live alone?
Do you live with somebody?
You got some family.
Yeah, actually, I don't have a permanent address.
I have a PO box.
But I mostly make the rounds when I come back to town.
Friends, cousins, aunties, family, surfing, couch surfing, to make the rounds and stop in and see people.
She is undeniably parasitic.
in that adaptation, but I think she also is pleasant and fun enough that she doesn't feel like a leech, right?
She has a large enough network that she can just dance on to the next.
Yeah, so you are fluid in your housing and you spend the time with acquaintances and friends and maybe do a little partying with them here and there.
Yeah.
Yeah, what do you get up to?
Yeah, well, there is something of an unease in downtime.
The idea that there is some next step to be taken.
And I may not know what that is yet, but if I am to wait for someone to ask me to take it on, I'm already behind.
And so I am going to take the fight to them and I am interested in trying to ascertain anything I can about where the tendrils of this case point next.
Yeah, do you think you would look into Butterfield or do you think you would look into some of these things that you read about like March Tech, Armitage, Kharos?
Yeah, I think the other players are important here.
I think Barone is thinking plenty about Butterfield for both of us, and I don't really know what to make of him.
So he is less of my concern, I suppose.
I am interested in what he is interested in.
Great.
Yeah, go ahead and you can roll both criminology and bureaucracy.
Okay?
All right.
Bureaucracy first is a...
Oh, 46.
Plenty good under a 70.
And for criminology, 24 is less than 40.
Beautiful.
you're tapping your networks, right?
You're persuading people on the phone.
You're just trying to get more information.
First, some general information about March Tech on the surface, defense contractor.
There's probably more to that and more to every defense contractor as far as you're concerned.
And you look at the link between Armitage and...
them, Armitage basically did the R &D for March Tech.
They were basically March Tech, but they spun them off, you know, who knows, maybe tax reasons, maybe hiding some sort of trail.
And you start to contact people deeper and deeper in the organization maybe, and you're getting more and more hangups on you.
Like who the hell's this?
Not gonna talk to you.
Right?
And then it kind of goes quiet for a while.
Right?
Really quiet.
You call numbers and you're using pay phones.
You're trying to mask this in multiple ways.
And you should be getting some answers, but you're getting nothing.
Where are you standing right now?
with mama leon at her trailer uh
Yeah, Mama Lynn.
Is Mama Lynn home?
Yeah, I reckon she is.
She rarely gets off the sofa.
it.
You sitting with her set a little scene for me.
Yeah, we are in the living room, which is most rooms in her house.
She has a pack of cigarettes on her tray table that there is a set of three of them, three more folded up in the corner.
But this one is a permanent fixture right here.
It might as well be a regular table.
And there are...
m
nieces and nephews running about.
Most of them either only have a bottom of clothes or a top of clothes on as it is just kind of like, you know, the trailer parks impromptu daycare as, you know, people go off to
their day jobs and things like that and the children are left to wander as a flock and Mama Lynn tends to be kind of a congregating spot on account of she always has snacks and
she's always home.
So I think I am just talking to her about goings-ons, the people that I met, the towns that I've seen since we spoke last.
Yeah, roll alertness.
Right?
yeah, nine, which is under 20, so I'm okay.
Great.
You're sitting there, it is like home.
It's a little irritating, honestly.
Not much changes here.
You were hoping there was some big change in your life and it's been a few months since you've heard, you haven't heard anything, right?
And as you're sitting there, you hear like a tinking sound in the central air in this thing, right?
Moving through and you start to smell something.
in the air, can you give me a con times five?
Yeah, I don't want to, but I will.
I fail on a 75.
Okay, yeah, you fall peacefully asleep.
Okay.
Who knows how much time passes, but you wake up and there is Mama Lynn still asleep.
on the couch, her hands are zip-tied in front of her, and sitting across from you is a strange man you've never seen holding a silenced pistol, and he has a hairnet on, and
there is plastic on the floor below you.
And he's tapping the pistol on his leg.
Yeah, as I groggily come to...
I'll just say, door's always open, you coulda come in.
speaks through a voice changer.
Why are you looking into Armitage?
Why are you looking into me looking into Armitage?
Yeah, he pulls out, points his pistol at Mama Lynn and shoots her in the leg.
She wakes up screaming.
And then you see the second man next to her shove a rag into her mouth as she's biting down on it and screaming through pain.
What do you want with us?
I have stumbled upon the loose end of Julian Carras and
He has.
opened both a portal to another dimension and
portal to my curiosity that I cannot close.
saw the things that Karas was working on.
and I know that I have so much to give.
to further these efforts.
If only I could find someone to take me seriously.
Roll Persuade.
22, critical success.
Yeah.
He ponders it for a second and says, who else have you talked to?
Um
Yeah, I mean, I will be totally honest that I am working with an agent, goes by the name of Ryan Dwyer.
And, you know, I will instantaneously fess all of the information I know about, yeah, that postmark address in Virginia.
I will rattle it right off.
What about Bob Butterfield?
Hmm.
Well, I seem to only have had one meeting with him and it looks an awful lot like this.
So simple to say that.
Well, I'm not exactly on his good side either.
He pulls out from a pocket on his cargo pants, just a burner phone, another Nokia brick, tosses it to you.
You report to us.
Yes, I do.
says, he rattles off three other addresses that you've been staying at.
All right, I will open up the contacts.
I will check to see that there is indeed a listed.
And I'll just ask, how often would you like to know that I am still around?
How often should I check in?
or you have something to tell us.
Understood.
Do you have any questions for him or anything else?
Yeah, guess there will be kind of like a almost like a shedding of the weight that was here, right?
They were gesturing with pistols, but now that was all just posturing on account of that's not what we're here to do anymore.
And so there's kind of a well, all right on with it.
What on earth is it that Bob is after here anyway?
And how might I steer him in a way that is
conducive.
He looks to his friend and his friend, still holding your mother's face down on the couch as she struggles through the pain, just gives him a nod.
He says, keep him away from March Tech.
Keep him away from MJ-12.
Okay, just so long as you understand that an exit route isn't always a straight line.
That is to say that sometimes one must be allowed the freedom to wander closer with the understanding that distance will be coming afterwards.
Do you understand what I mean?
I can't be seen to usher him away.
overtly, you have to allow me the freedom to accommodate natural sway.
Of course, you deign to think that I don't know how to do my job.
No, no, I am just trying to understand the boundaries of our agreement.
There are no boundaries.
I will be here whenever I want to be here, be behind you every step of the way.
As far as you're concerned, it's boundary-less.
But you want something, and I want something too.
I want my life, and you want, well, Butterfield to stay out of whatever it is he's getting his nose into.
All I'm saying is, we don't have to keep pretending.
You can tell me what you want, sir.
There's half a million for you if you bring me his head.
Now these are the details worth hearing.
All right.
Yeah, I I think the other line of questioning that I have for them is to understand where Butterfield is going to be inclined to go next.
What his next angle is so that I can start looking prepared ahead of the curve.
Yeah.
He's a loose cannon.
He's just creating chaos for us.
Everything he does and anything he does, assume it's to prevent us from doing what we want to do.
All right, he must be very good at his job then.
Yeah.
Are you specifically asking, is there anything I can give to Butterfield?
Right.
No, I, Jordan, want to be able to justify Caroline training in arts.
And so she wants to understand that we need to be looking at the art world and try to figure out a way to get into that.
Hmm.
Yeah.
Interesting.
Yeah, we'll save that for your criminology role.
Yeah.
He motions over to the other agent.
Unfortunately, the other agent smothers your mother to death.
I'm not wanting anybody to see this besides you.
Can you roll me sanity?
Yep.
Yep, yeah, that's a 35.
But it's also a whole ass bond.
Yeah.
So I don't know.
I don't know what that does.
Yeah.
For a pass, you roll a d6.
Okay.
And yeah, you can take that bond off and your next bond will, unless you do, you know, establishing a new bond will be probably with Barone out in the field.
No, I think that makes good sense.
Cleave on to the new family in a weird way.
All right, I lost six.
That puts me at 57, which is one over my breaking point.
So we got that queued right up for next time.
Man.
in this moment, you lost six at one time, so you will fight, flight, or freeze.
Caroline, what would you do first, second, and third?
I mean, I guess flight is number one because there's nothing else to do here, right?
I get, like, I feel like that was them saying like, you should have hung up the phone a little while ago.
And then freeze, I guess, because this place that...
has had innumerable memories for me, has just been recolored as something entirely different.
And fight is maybe an instinctual reaction, but you know, the surest way to die.
So probably not.
Sorry, I was writing those down.
So, when you roll this D6, four, five, and six will be flight.
Three and two will be freeze, and then one will be fight.
Yep, all right, here it comes.
Five.
Five, okay.
Yeah, they're on their way out and you charge to the back of the trailer, watching them smother her.
They pay you no mind and you're trying to claw your way out the window.
Later, you come back to and you're laying in the woods in whatever you were wearing before, maybe your pajamas and you wake up.
What do you do next with your home scene?
Howdy.
think...
I think there is a frantic scene like someone who is packing for an abusive boyfriend that is about to come back, right?
Just throwing things in a satchel, you know, screaming out of the driveway, you know, basically swearing off of this, you know, this town.
It was her home in as much as there was one, but for the same utility as she didn't have one before, there needn't be one anymore.
She takes off and she is heading down closer towards New Orleans, a population center, a place with people and intoxicants and enough noise to distract her.
Great.
As you're doing that, you're heading out.
Do you check in with your other bond at all?
Cassius, yeah.
Yeah.
I think he probably was involved in some of this phone tree work.
um
Cassius brings you information, right?
He gives you a call back and it's like, well, sweetie, I do have something for you.
Remember we were talking about that stuff you were looking for?
Yeah sure, are you sure we should be talking about it here and now?
we...
I mean, you can come on by.
Yeah, yeah, maybe that would be better.
Yeah, later you get to Cassius' house.
Tito and Spike are on the porch and Cassius is inside.
They're both packing.
They're listening to, I don't know, it's hard to say.
It sounds like rap rock to you.
It's like a little medley, a little rocky.
Yeah, yeah.
They're kind of vibing and you get into his halfway decent house, Scarface posters all over.
There is a glass case with a replica of one of the pistols from Scarface in it and he's sitting there on the couch in his boxers and a Weft beater and he gets up and comes up and
gives you a big hug
Mm-hmm, yeah, it is absolutely reciprocated.
And she'll gesture to the posters and she'll say, I love what you've done with the place, but you could use a mountain here or there.
Just, you know, could be more piles of cocaine.
It would look nice.
Yes.
Baby, you know that my budget is very, very, very shoestring right now.
um But yeah, I did find out a little something, something for you though.
You know I love a little something something
Yeah, he gives you a somber look with that.
It's kind of like nodding his head and then it quickly disappears.
He's like, anyway, baby, you were talking about cocaine.
While I don't have any cocaine, I do have this.
And he pulls out a strange powder.
He's like, sure to get you high.
say less and she will settle in right next to him on the couch in a well-formed divot.
Yeah, then we'll cut to your next pursuit.
Right,
got my bar pumped up to the max, so yeah.
Yeah, what's your next pursuit?
scene.
well my next one to two if possible would be investing in my understanding of the arts, period.
And I think the direction that I go is more from the appreciation and human understanding side.
So the tact that I might take for starters could be something like
auction houses, finding through lines of what it is that resonates with people.
When somebody gets into a bidding war, what is it that they are connecting with?
Why does it make them emote?
I think I might also look for an opportunity to shadow, like a museum curator, somebody who does restoration work or
They have intimate knowledge of processes and materials that go hand in hand with the way to speak about art.
You understand?
The way to speak about mediums, the way to discuss competing ideologies.
I think that's where I'm starting, to understand really kind of like.
the art world at its floor.
So you are going to train in art.
You have a 0 % in it, I'm guessing.
So yeah.
So you can roll it.
Not art, but like roll your D6s.
Holy 14, we're starting strong.
okay.
You can add 14.
And so you get on with a art studio and you talk to the curator and you do learn a lot from him with your high human.
You're able to pick up on all that he's putting down.
Sorry, Barone.
Yeah.
So you start to get an idea of the profile of person that buys art, pretentious.
rich, signaling to their friends usually, or law firm, doctor's office, these like corporate structures that want to feel more warm and human through art.
Then it gets to the interesting stuff.
You start hearing tell of the underground art stuff, like the weird shit, like.
this painting was painted by somebody who was executed right after it was done.
Or this painting is rumored to have some traces of blood in it, right?
And those, that's where the real money is.
And that sticks with you.
Like the real money's in the dark side of art.
And you're starting to pay attention to film too.
you start learning about film stock.
You understand that, you know, during this period, they use this film stock.
During this period, they use this.
And there's this new thing starting to come out, digital, but no one likes how it looks because it doesn't look like film.
And you you learn that reels run at 20 or most things are 24 frames a second, right?
And you start to kind of get a picture of
arts through film as well.
Yeah, so as I am picking up these tidbits, I'm also starting to parcel them into a persona that I might wear on my own face sometime later.
The idea of a someone who has been thrust into this world and it has become a part of it but may not have done so organically.
Think
perhaps like a newly married wife of a wealthy person who is involved in keeping their own collection curated, right?
And so perhaps the naivete is even kind of like part of the charm, right?
the fact that she is maybe a little in over her head, there is money floating around, I do like that one, know, buy it for me won't you?
That kind of a thing.
Is, sorry, am I able to push further and do another round of art development?
you have one more thing.
Is that what you wanna do with it?
Just go and, okay.
I do.
And with this idea that like the thing that you see is like what we have all considered art before, but then like as I'm getting into it, realizing that like the more tantalizing
things, the more like magical elements, you have to like be involved in the making of, right?
Like that's where it has been imparted.
And so like I'm observing it, but it's already there.
And so in order to understand how that magic gets imparted, I'm going to find a local troupe that makes art.
So specifically, I'm going to go looking for somebody who has a workshop or a loft that makes a float for the Mardi Gras parade.
And they are like in the process of doing some sort of like multimedia sculpture work.
And that they
I would also like them to have some sort of like supernatural bent to them, right?
Like maybe they're Wiccans, right?
Like maybe they just take this stuff a little more seriously than people who normally cut shapes out of foam, right?
That's great.
They're not wiccans.
You meet up with some people who practice voodoo.
It's Louisiana, very easy to find.
In fact, they have a church and it's run out of the back of a tavern called the Nola Tavern, Nola Voodoo Tavern.
they are building a float out there and they're doing multimedia sculptures with wax and paper mache, things like that to build this big skeletal looking thing.
Go ahead and give me the roll, but go ahead, yeah.
yeah, yeah, well, in a roll against the 14, I think in jumping into this, there is a willingness to get messy in a way that is not just physical, right?
It is like spilling of self and soul.
The idea that like my blood should be in this thing.
I should be a part of this craft.
I got a, what is that?
39, that's above.
Let's see here, 3D6.
14 more.
That's up to a 28.
And then I do have to kind of take a specialization, right?
So I think your human bent is like your art is the art of people, right?
And the art of artists, right?
Like, so I think you can use it to profile, right?
So I would say you can just keep it art and you don't have to specialize if you don't want to.
So, yeah.
guess we have our own understanding of what that knowledge means.
You could just type in meat art.
Yeah.
Meat art.
But yeah, as you're working with the Voodoo people, you start to grow an affinity for like these.
folks out here, they, you know, you've heard, you know, like voodoo is all about sacrifice, all about these things, right.
And some of it's a part of it, but really like it humanizes it, seeing it in front of you.
It's not, you know, a lot of it's dispelled and you know, you learn that voodoo comes from, you know, the phone language, which is, you know, from West Africa and it just means
spirit.
And it's like, spirit, like this voodoo, you know, we talk about voodoo dolls and things like that.
and you really start to kind of vibe with it a little bit as you're learning more and more about it.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
I think, yeah.
49, close as it gets.
yeah, Romeo D6.
Okay, add that to your unnatural.
And does that depress any of my sanity scores or anything like that?
It'll just make your max and lower, but you're so far below max, I don't think it'll matter.
Unless you use all of your home scene stuff to go to therapy.
So I don't think Caroline would do.
Yeah, you, who are you staying with here?
I mean, think it would generally have been Cassius most often.
think he has the most protection, seeing as the idea of disappearing off the grid didn't seem to be relevant, you know, given the surveillance web I'm under.
Yeah, great.
Yeah, you're staying with Cassius.
You presumably hanging out.
Great.
Yeah, there is a knock on the door.
I'll assume it's not for me.
Somebody in the Trap House will go and answer.
Yeah, Tito answers and Tito opens it.
And just as the knock had happened, you know, he was a little slow, right?
But there's no one there.
There's just a paper bag sitting there.
You lost us that customer.
He grabs it and opens up and pulls out a cell phone.
It's not on.
doesn't look like he knows how to turn it on.
He's just kind of messing with it.
He tosses it over to Cassius.
Cassius smiles and turns it on with a beep and starts going through it.
He's like, you know the thing about this baby?
I mean, I don't know anything about it.
Does it have a number in there?
Yeah, he calls it and holds it up to his ear.
And then he goes, get me a pen, get me a pen.
And then, yeah, Tito tries to get him a pin in time.
He has to hang up, recall it again to get the number again, but he writes it down, calls the next one, writes it down.
You see a string of four numbers.
And then the last one, saying El Paso text is three days.
Do you have any business in El Paso?
Maybe I am not the sharpest tool in the shed, but you and I both know the type of shit you were looking into falls directly in this realm.
And he hands you the phone.
Look, I was just trying to make sure you didn't want it.
I'll go.
I don't mind.
I've never been to Texas.
Never thought I would go.
A little too hot for me, but try to.
There's not much to lack, but duty calls.
I can join you, baby.
You know I worry.
Yeah, but you're much better here, I think, than worrying.
Don't wanna sacrifice another bond.
Okay.
Well, sweetie.
Well, we got three days to live it up.
And then presumably the party starts.
and live we shall.
That's where we'll leave Caroline.