Welcome to Dead Letter Bureau.
If you're a regular listener, you'll notice that we're doing things a little differently today.
it's your first time here, then you've picked a perfect jumping in point.
Today's episode is kind of an orientation.
We get a lot of questions about Delta Green.
How do I start playing?
uh
what are the rules?
And this is gonna be our answer to some of those questions.
So we're gonna introduce you to the game and hopefully show you some impossible choices in front of these agents and explore the rules as we're doing it.
We'll be doing this by running a special session designed to teach the core rules.
It's the intro session, last things last.
To help me out, I have two guests at the table.
First, our veteran player, Ryan, welcome.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
My name is Ryan Murphy.
I will be playing Morgan Barone, uh a mechanic who's infatuated with death metal.
That you will.
And joining us for the first time is a completely new player who's coming in fresh.
He's never played a game, never seen a character sheet before the one I just sent him.
Welcome to the conspiracy.
Thank you.
I'm Zach Lemus.
I'll be playing Emmett Flint, a firefighter who likes starting and finishing fires equally.
Beautiful.
ah
Yeah, happy to be here.
uh Played a couple other RPGs, but never Delta Green.
Excited to jump in.
Yeah, and so on that note, everything is done with, almost everything is done with a D100 dice.
So you can do that two different ways.
You have a percentile dice, which usually has two digits on it, and you have a D10, right?
So you roll your percentile and your D10, and then you get a number.
And you're typically trying to roll under a target in this game.
Now,
If you don't have a percentile dice, try to get two D10s of different colors and say, this one is my 10s and this one is my one, right?
And then you can roll that way as well.
Now you're looking for multiples of 11 for criticals and that's critical success or failure.
Any critical success is under your target number.
Any critical failure is above your target.
100s are always fails, critical failures, and then 1s are always critical successes.
Make sense?
Let's do it.
we're stateside.
It's been a few weeks since the incident at the convoy.
I think you're trying to forget, Agent Barone.
You're at a hole in the wall bar at dusk, the kind of place where the whiskey's cheap and the regrets are free.
You are looking around the bar.
Can you roll alertness for me?
Sure, can do.
So alertness, alertness is pretty good.
I'm looking for 80.
I got 86, starting off with a failure.
And so with an alertness of 80, a lot of times we don't even have somebody roll, right?
Because it is so alert.
But since you're drinking and it's a dark bar, I went ahead and had you roll anyway and you did fail.
So you don't see anything at first.
But as time goes by, you see him across the room, nursing a drink.
It's a face you can't quite place at first.
And it makes the back of your neck prickle a little bit.
You know him from some.
Alright Barone, this is why you're here.
You got this big girl stand up straight and I walk over and pull the stool out next to him with it with the loud screech and sit down.
He looks up and smiles at you and puts a hand out and says his name's K.
Uh, yeah, Kay, nice to meet you again, I guess.
I shake his hand decently tight, trying to look more confident than I am feeling.
Yeah, go ahead and roll persuasion on that.
Okay, sure.
Persuasion.
I just have my bass of 20 and I got a 90.
he sees through that.
He sees the nerves, the goosebumps on your arms after recognizing him are still present and you sit there and you're shaking a little bit.
uh He tries to give you a disarming smile.
I'm not sure it works.
And he leans towards you uncomfortably close and just says, I'm here to reach you in.
read me into what?
You don't have anywhere to be tonight, right?
Oh no, yeah, no, this was it.
This is all I got.
Yeah, he reaches down into a small satchel beside him and pulls out a stack of $100 bills and in plain sight in this bar just sets it in front of you.
ah Can I see the bills like already?
Yeah.
Oh Jesus Christ!
I zip it and pull it off.
I'm like, what?
You can't...
You just...
Just a flashy boy, aren't you?
Just sticking that right out there, huh?
It's, I guess, a way to grease the wheels a little bit to ensure that you're with us tonight.
Yeah, mean, consider them greased.
How much is this?
You'll get to count it later.
All right, yeah, sure.
I zip it up and it's like a duffel bag, I assume.
It's just a stack of $100 bills.
That's it.
So yeah.
I'll stick it in my jacket trying to look around and make sure nobody sees me.
Yeah.
Go ahead and roll alertness again.
Sure, Alerna still good, 80.
I got a 27.
with that alertness role, you notice in the corner in a booth, a man sitting alone, a large man, and he's been looking over to you and Kay nervously.
Hey, uh, do we know this guy over here?
And I kinda put my head over my shoulder.
Yeah, he just raises his hand and flicks his finger three times and emit.
From the corner, you know that that's your signal to join him.
You've been patiently waiting and curiously waiting as well for this conversation.
Yeah, I slowly stand up, leaving my barely sipped beer on the table and make my way over, trying to appear just a little more hunched over.
I know I'm a big guy that I draw a lot of attention to be at bars.
So I try to slink over to the bar top and slide in next to Kay, uh kind of doing the little
Leading forward, trying to look past K and then leaning back and trying to get a read on Barone here.
ah But still a little nervous.
Don't say it.
Don't say anything.
Yeah, so there are some special roles to kind of gauge somebody.
It's called human intelligence or human.
Can you give me a role of human to see what you can glean about Burone?
Doesn't seem like we'll be able to glean BUNCE much.
I only got 10 % here.
So let's see.
That is a 2.
So actually I can read her quite well.
You know, I've experienced people like Barone in my past.
And I just look her up and down and I act like I know her whole life story already.
as you look at Barone, you see somebody, it's like a flash to the past.
You see yourself sitting in that chair.
You see yourself sitting with Kay wondering what the fuck is going on?
Why is this person talking to me?
And you also saw the stack of cash go her way.
um You think about the stack of cash in your coat pocket right now, and it feels like you have a kinship immediately with this one.
I lean back and reach a hand over and say, Emmett Flynn, nice to meet you.
I expect you to be my new partner.
Is that it?
K laughs.
uh
Yeah, but maybe so.
Take his hand, shake it.
Does the finger thing work on you every time?
Uh, Kate just said, wait for my signal.
And I, you know, I've never seen him act and move so much with a whole flake of the wrist and a snap.
So I figured that was it.
Yeah, he's a pithy guy, that's for sure, and I look over at K.
Don't worry, the cash isn't a bribe.
It's for gas, hotel rooms, whatever you might need if things don't go your way.
Considerate your new expense account and you get to keep whatever's left over, obviously.
um Well, you guys ready to jump in?
Yeah, why not now?
Yeah, let's go.
uh
All right, a few weeks ago, somebody had a bad day at the office.
His name was Clyde and Clyde doesn't live too far from here.
He lives in an apartment.
Our buddy Clyde used to be active with us for a few years, but Clyde had a massive heart attack and we need some help cleaning up after Clyde.
I'm sorry, you need help cleaning up after a heart attack or removing bodies?
That's a good question.
his body has already been taken care of.
I believe it was found by a neighbor, but in a day or two, I'm not quite sure his children are gonna come looking through his stuff.
So you are hiring us to just clean his house.
We could hire some maids if you need.
Yeah, in a sense, I guess so.
But I need you to look for anything out of the ordinary.
Any files he might have had, any objects that seem strange to you or give you a strange feeling.
That's what you're cleaning up.
And if we do find any of these files, what should we do with them?
Keep them and in three days, meet me right back here, about now.
I mean, works for me, we could always get rid of them.
And he pulls out a lighter and flicks it, sparks a light, lets it sit there for a couple seconds as he looks at it and pulls out a cigarette and lights it.
Give me you a knowing look.
Yeah, the lighting the cigarette illuminates your face.
Barone, this is the first good look you've gotten at Emmett Flint.
um Looks like a, how would you describe yourself?
uh You can tell that growing up, Emmett was probably just a tall string bean.
He's really now grown into his body, getting into the uh firefighting to help quell some of his darker urges.
If he's been working at it, he wants to make sure that he can not only save people, but also make a quick getaway if he caused a little more damage than he expected to.
ah So he has now more of a chiseled jaw, long face, real angular looking in the cigarette light.
As you look at her she looks down and looks at you and realize you're both kind of wearing the same colored shirt and she's like, nice shirt.
Yeah, thanks.
You know, got it from my old high school and kind of faded down now and just trying to fit into this bar.
I can't wear my actual suit walking around these days.
Yeah, your actual suit?
you know, fire retardant, has some bright yellow reflective material, you know, kind of draws a lot of attention.
Right, got you, the fire guy.
Yeah, yeah, okay, now that makes sense, and she points at you lighter.
my old uh, my old nickname fire guy?
f- Well, it's extremely literal and straightforward, apparently.
I really grew into my name.
uh Agent K looks between you two, again shakes his head and says, I have a lot of high hopes for the two of you, um so don't disappoint me.
And gets up, sets down a $20 bill on the table and starts to leave.
Alright fire guy.
that $20 bills, is that another, is that also part of our payment?
And like looking at you, I could like reach for it and then the bartender quickly snatches it away.
Yeah, no, big boy, we have a stack of our own.
Let's get going.
when you see the bartender lift up the $20 bill, there is a piece of paper under it that just sits there.
Bartender doesn't concern themselves with the piece of paper.
Okay, now I think that probably is for you.
Not the tip?
Oh, okay.
And I grab the piece of paper, unfold it, and I scooch one seat over, be sitting next to it around, and yeah, we take a look at it together.
There is a scrawled address that, and below it says Clyde Bauman.
Is this address in town here?
Are we taking a trip somewhere?
Where do we got to go?
In town?
Well that makes it easy.
All right, ah I guess I'll get the cab.
Let's go.
And then I'll turn around and start heading for the door.
Yeah, you get out, the street is lit with the neon light of the bar,
The bar's name is The Long Face.
You look up at the long face and think why the long face about this guy sitting next to you, but don't verbalize that.
And you're hailing a cab it sounds like.
Yep, I'll stick my hand up and wave a Hailin cap down
it takes about 15 minutes for one to pass you.
You're on the fringe of the city and you get into the cab with Emmett and start driving to this address.
so you are both in the cab on your way to this apartment.
um Any conversation between you two?
So how did you meet Kay?
How do you find yourself in this situation?
Uh, well, our moms are best friends and we used to hang out when we were 11 or 12 and then we grew up and grew distant for a while.
No, man, I fucking...
a really sketchy situation on a convoy in the middle of nowhere.
I assume it's probably the same for you.
Yeah, not the convoy part, but he did, you know, he actually did pull me out of a fire one time.
I don't know how he knew about this.
I don't know if he's the one who started it, but I was called to a house fire.
And he seemed to have quite an interest in what survived, what didn't, especially what didn't survive.
And he grabbed me right then and there.
metaphorically grabbing me, not physically grabbing me.
Well, I mean, I don't know about that.
You did just say that he pulled you out of the fire.
I don't think he metaphorically pulled you out of the fire, did he?
A little column A, a little column B, you know, I have things handled, you know, but I'm glad he was there.
Yeah, I'm sure you did, big guy.
have a masculinity of the titan
So, uh, are you a music person in incapacity?
you know, some good classic rock, top 50, a little bit of everything, you know.
What about you?
Oh man, all sorts of shit.
All the heavier stuff usually slaps, like...
Let's see.
Gorn fatuation.
Oh shit, malice and knives is pretty good.
uh Bleeding out from a throat wound is probably up there.
Intestine copulation is pretty solid.
you fucking can't do anything without violence.
Violence absolutely slaps.
Are we still talking about music here or are a kink?
Little column A, little column B.
can't.
Touche.
Touche indeed.
Yeah, no, that was all music, my guy.
I gotta look him up.
I mean, watch your search history with that.
Yeah, you're a Alta Vista web browser.
um Would be betraying you at this point.
Yeah, you're starting to get there.
The cab pulls up.
You see the place, you know the place.
I'm sure you do because you've driven past it a hundred times in your life, maybe a thousand.
It's just one of those apartment buildings built in the sixties, blocky and drab.
Looks like it was designed a man who, or excuse me, looks like it was designed by a man who hated shapes and color.
Maybe people too.
It's kind of slumped.
in a declining working class neighborhood.
And it's a place where the American dream came to cough up a little bit and sputter and then eventually die.
And there's a small office at the bottom floor and it looks like it's two stories.
Entering in the front, you walking around, what's your approach?
Yeah.
Did we have a apartment number on the address or just this building?
201.
Yeah, we, I say we just walk in like we own place, head on up, you know, like we're guests of Clyde.
Yeah, absolutely.
think going and acting like we're supposed to be here is the best way to look unnoticed.
You open the door, it's a glass door and you get to a second door with some stairs behind it.
Off to your right, there is a aging woman sitting with her feet up reading a book and she kind of looks up at you as you go to that second door and proceed up the stairs.
And you get to the door, it is locked.
Uh, H.
McBaron, do you have any way to get in here?
I, you know, don't want to make too much noise just yet.
We could definitely break this door down, but I want to defer to you first.
I sadly, I think these doors usually don't do as much as people want them to.
You could sometimes slip a credit card in there and get it right open.
And I will get a credit card out and try exactly that.
Yeah, and so there is no credit card skill for opening a door, right?
So in these instances, I would have you look at your character sheet and look at your main statistics.
This is strength, constitution, dexterity, intelligence, power, and charisma.
And then I would make you do a score times five role based on what I think is the best one to use, right?
So in this instance, dexterity is probably the best.
So give me a
Dex times five roll.
Sounds good.
My base deck score is 14 times 5 would be 70.
And here we go.
I got a 5005.
Aced it.
All right, you slip the credit card in, you feel the telltale wiggle of the door starting to wiggle open and the uh bolt just slides back as your credit card goes through and then
the door swings a jar slightly.
right I think this is our way in.
I'm glad that worked.
That was just yeah tell me about it.
I was just guessing man that fucking absolutely and I'll inch it open just a little bit and I'll listen first.
I'm not expecting anybody to be here but it doesn't it doesn't hurt to double check so listen first and then if I don't hear anything I'll open slowly
With your alertness of 80, there doesn't seem to be anything in there.
You do hear back down the stairs, some rustling.
It seems like the lady who is down there is moving around a little bit.
you know, sorry.
As the door opens and you're listening, it's not any sight that hits you, it's the smell.
It's like a ghost of a million cigarettes.
wafting into your face.
In fact, you probably almost cough a little bit with how stale and uh nasty that is and you can even see in just a little bit through the crack you're listening that there's a
patina of like white and yellow cigarette smoke in the walls.
Tina Filth.
That's another great band name.
Yeah, there you go.
Alright, yeah, I'll open quickly and make quick work of getting inside.
Come on.
I slip in, quietly close the door behind me and uh, uh, Verona, I was going to say we should close all the blinds, but I think we do need to crack a window here.
This is for working in here for the next hour or two.
This ain't gonna fly.
yeah, no, I'm down with that.
I thought you'd be kind of right at home, but uh, yeah, I guess let's open one.
I mean, I'll walk over and go to window and crack it open.
get the lights at least.
Yeah, reach around for a light switch, try to get the lay of the land, know, try to understand kind of the layout first before we start digging into a search.
you find the light switch no problem.
The apartment is Spartan and grim.
There's a worn out couch that faces an archaic squat television tube and it kind of is just staring back at you like a hunched over pagan dead TV God.
There's a coffee table with the last remnants of life stalled out on it.
You see unfinished crossword puzzle, a book with a bookmark.
right in the middle of it and some old issues of Reader's Digest.
And next to that is a box of powdered donuts that look like they're probably crumbly and dry now.
And from that living room, if you could call it a living room, uh you see a kitchen.
And the kitchen is more like a morgue.
It's pretty bare looking around.
There are a few cans and pans left out.
The refrigerator humming is the only splash of life you get in this apartment and it's when you open it if you open it the light would probably not work.
But on the fridge as you're walking around you see a child's drawing with a stick figure it says grandpa on it without the D and it's signed by a little girl named Cassie it looks
like and there are two gold stars on the bottom of that.
It's the only
splash of color in this gray place anyway.
Hey bro, did Casey win Clyde passed?
long ago was?
Well, I think it was recent.
I think it was within the last couple days.
perfect, then I go and pick up a couple of donuts and start munching.
That is absolutely fetid.
Does it taste like the room smells?
Yeah.
You know, everything just kind of tastes the same at this point.
You know, it's already in my nose.
It's trying to get some powdered up there as well.
know, anything helps right now.
I guess get some sustenance in when you can man, it's...
yep, alright.
So when searching for something, we will have both of you roll a search, right?
And with enough time in any location, you will succeed a search.
The only reason I'm having you roll is to see how much time it takes.
Does that make sense?
Yeah, sounds good.
Yeah, give me a search role.
So find search on your character sheet, roll it and see if you get under it.
Be.
Both of you, you're first though.
Let's see here, my search, 40%, not too bad.
Let's see what we have, and that would be a 96.
I'm still just up in my face with donuts.
I've moved over to the kitchen, opened up the fridge.
Take a couple more sniffs, make sure nothing smells too bad, and start rooting around in there instead.
Yeah, it's pretty Spartan.
There's no milk or anything, but there's no rotten food yet.
There wasn't anything in there that could go rotten.
It's just mostly condiments.
Agent Barone, go ahead and hit me with that search too.
Yeah, sure.
I'm looking for a 50.
I got uh a 53, barely.
Okay, you know, we can fail by degrees, so it's gonna take you a little bit longer.
One thing you do notice as you're rooting around, since your nose isn't in the fridge, Barone, you can smell just a strange smell from down the hall.
And like, if you were to follow it, it would lead you to the bathroom.
Yeah, mean, absolutely any lead looking for anything a bathroom wouldn't be the first place I think to start.
But if some's leading me there.
Yeah, you get there and the room is in a disturbed state.
The towel rack is busted off the wall.
The shower door is cracked.
It looks like a new crack.
There is little shards of ceramic in the toothbrush holder.
And it looks like some of the ceramic has been swept into a corner.
And it looks like there was some clumsy thing happening in here.
And yeah, the smell.
kind of says maybe this was the place he died.
Hey hey fire guy, did uh...
They said that he died by a heart attack, right?
Yeah, heart attack and what he was brought out of here a few days ago.
You find something?
Well, I mean, I don't know.
I don't know of many people who have a heart attack into the shower, into the mirror, into the spread glass and ceramic all over the place.
And I'll start looking a little closer at the bits and shards and try to piece together what happened in here.
Yeah, give me a forensic role and if you are doing the same, you can give me a role as well.
Yeah, as Varun asked me about it, I come over and see the scene in this bathroom.
I like, boy, all right.
Maybe this is his death rose, but this looks a little more forceful than someone just kinda slipping over and falling into the tub or something.
yeah.
Weird.
I have forensics of zero, so I'm going to be rolling anyways.
And I rolled a 65, a failure, obviously.
So what would happen if you have a zero?
What would you need to actually succeed or you just can't succeed?
A what?
A one?
I have forensics of 60.
Actually, I've seen some scenes of destruction before and caused some of my own.
And we have a 43 out of 60.
Yeah, you look around and at first it is pretty intense.
Like the scene does look like a lot of destruction, but you can kind of imagine it in your head.
Him getting up off the toilet, something happening, his heart attack hitting.
It looks like maybe he smashed his head into the shower door based on where the crack is and then fell down and some part of him hit.
the ceramic sink and cracked and knocked over the toothbrush holder and then it looks like whoever got the body out of here swept some of the ceramic in the corner.
They didn't bother doing too much cleaning.
So it still kind of looks to me that this was his death rose and not someone actually throwing him around.
Yep, absolutely.
Well, doesn't really seem like flat foul played.
Based on the amount of damage here, it doesn't look nice.
I wouldn't have wanted to have seen this, but you know, hard attack still seems like it's on the menu.
Interesting.
All right.
mean, I've seen, I mean, I'm an ER head right now.
I'm digging deep in that show, but I guess I assumed when everybody had a heart attack, they just kind of passed away safely in bed, not while they're taking a dump and smash
their head into the porcelain.
That's a sight, huh?
down the hall, you see the one bedroom apartment door open.
You can see that it is a bedroom.
It's dark in there.
What are you guys doing next?
uh Yeah, it doesn't seem like there's anything else in here.
Check out the bedroom.
Did he look like he had an office set up in the living room or is just his lazy boy chair in front of the TV?
Yeah, just this Lazy Boy chair, you do notice if you're back in the living room, you do notice that there is a key ring uh by the chair on the wall behind it that has some keys
on it.
Yeah.
Does it look like it's just his apartment key or something more than that?
Yeah, it looks like there's an apartment key and then you have, there's one key that looks hefty and like it could be to a padlock.
And then the third key on it, you just see has a white sticker and it's faded and a big C on it.
Alright, I'll grab that key ring and look for something else with a big old Fated C on it.
I'd say we head into the bedroom.
yeah bedroom sounds good.
uh usually in a complex like this if there's not enough room there could be a storage locker or something down below so let's just take the room number and you know see if
there's anything like that after the bedroom if we haven't come up with anything
like the way you think.
But yeah.
And then, so then I sashay towards the bedroom.
You
Yeah, you get to the bedroom and there's a bed addresser that has some photos.
It looks like he was married once.
see.
two kids in graduation photos with what looks to be Clyde.
He looks like a man in his 60s in those pictures.
So depending on how long that was ago, he's might be fairly old or was fairly old when he died.
um And yeah, the wife disappears from the pictures later and it's just him and the kids.
There's no computer in here.
is not an office.
It looks like there's some paper on a bed or sorry.
You look over and next to the bed there are a stack of papers on a nightstand and that's about it.
dibs and I run over the paper hopefully uh trying to make myself useful botching so far in forensics and all these other roles and not doing super great.
Let's head for that paper.
Yeah, do you have any bureaucracy?
bureaucracy.
I do.
Yep, sure do.
All right, give me a bureaucracy role.
And again, with enough time, you will succeed, but this is just to see how much time it takes you to do it.
bureaucracy for the dibs you called and I will if you success I will uh honor that dibs.
Dale, I'm looking for a 40 and I rolled a 66, a critical failure.
Yeah, you are flipping through a lot of it.
There is just life stuff.
There's bills, there's medical bills.
There is a registration for a car that's expired.
And with some time, about another half an hour, uh you come across a title to a cabin that is about three hours north of here.
Huh, uh, C for cabin, and I take the paper up and I wave it.
You know what?
I think we check the storage and we'll check the cabin.
I mean, in case these are some pretty sensitive documents, they may be up there, but you know, you got to look in all the lesser known hiding spots.
And then I just take the mattress and flip it up,
Yeah.
god, yeah, let's go.
And I push over the nightstand.
Like, woo, we're in it here.
Yeah, bud.
doing it, yes.
There's just a dead hooker in between the mattress and the, no, no, no.
no, no.
No, it's not clean, but there's nothing hidden in there.
you're looking through, you find a death certificate ah for Marlene.
It looks to be his wife.
That's the only other thing you find that kind of piques your interest.
I'll take note of the name, but I think we should leave that certificate here, or as gives defined.
Yeah, 100%.
They might want it for sure.
You know, you always hope that you go before your partners.
Yeah, but that only works 50 % of the time, right?
I mean, if the chances are anywhere near that easy, I guess so.
Uh, sure.
And I, I fold it up and put it back where I found it.
And as I think about that, I turn around and back up slowly.
And as a fire guy goes to walk out of the room, I take the thing that I pushed over and slowly put it back where it was very quietly and respectfully and walk out of the bedroom.
Beautiful.
We didn't see any car keys attached to those keys, did we?
Yeah, you can roll luck to see if you find car keys in the apartment.
a luck roll is always a 50, 50 shot, right?
Under 50 is going to be you were lucky, over 50 you were unlucky.
Unless there's some unnatural thing happening that makes you particularly lucky or unlucky.
Go ahead and roll luck for me.
I got an 83, yet another failure today.
Yeah, no car keys in the apartment.
Okay, so speaking of failures in all of these times I'm failing, I assume you get a little bit better every time you fail something, yes?
There you go, yeah.
So in your character sheet, next to each skill, there is a place you can check where you fail.
So every failure that comes up, have a chance in your between, or sorry.
When you fail a skill, you check it off on your character sheet.
And then between sessions, you have a chance to raise that percentage by rolling D4 on each of your failures and then adding that to the ah percentage you have.
So it's incremental growth, but it's growth.
Awesome, sounds good.
Well, my sheet looks like tic-tac-toes with no O's and all X's, so let's get going.
Yeah.
Well, actually I did want to check out, you said there was a book on his coffee table with a bookmark in it.
Could I check out that book?
You know, see if it has any significance and see what page he's turned to.
Yeah.
No, it's the Doubt H-ing.
Now, it is the um second Dune novel, Dune Messiah.
It's a shorter than the first, but he's smack dab in the middle of um it.
looks like just looking at the page that the uh main character Muad'Dib um or Paul has recently been blinded by something and that's all you glean from it.
Oh man, Clyde had a great taste in fiction.
I mean, I just watched the movie the other week and know, Marnie McFly, he was in it, right?
And Captain Kirk, I don't know, all those guys, I mean, those computer graphics were amazing.
That shield fight they did with the knives and man, have you seen that one?
Or are you too busy listening to Ice Gouge Shouter, whatever you like here.
I mean come on man they're a little too soft for me I wouldn't put that shit in my ears if I fucking had to.
that book though that's a that's about where I stopped after that man that whole thing it's got an acid trip my god.
Yeah, so you have a Fiorber drive in front of you.
We're pushing about 10 p.m.
How are you gonna get up there?
You took a cab here.
um What's the tact on getting a car and driving up there?
Barone.
Oh shoot.
Well, we failed at keys in the easy route.
I don't really want to steal something.
We have a whole heap of cash.
ah What does a car rental look like at this time of night?
nothing would be open.
So unless you wanted to hoof it to an airport or take a cab to an airport.
Yeah, absolute waste of time.
Well, I see you're good with fire, apparently.
Are you good with theft and other illegal things and felonies?
I mean, now's a good as time to start, right?
Yeah, I guess we have a thick parking lot full of metal behind us as well.
um Actually, yeah, I am decidedly familiar with cars and what makes them tick and run.
um Usually I wouldn't take something that's not mine if I don't absolutely have to at this point in time.
I think we probably have to.
Let's go back in that parking lot and search for a new vehicle.
Yeah, go ahead and roll me luck again.
Both of you can roll this time.
50, we got a 12.
Thank God because I got a 56 healthily failing again.
You can't get better at luck, can you?
No, okay.
All right, I was looking for a box for that X, that's for sure.
know.
Yeah, uh you look around and you see a pickup truck, a small Chevy love LUV and there is a window cracked open that you think you could fit your arm through to unlock it.
uh Yeah, call over, barone, and say, hey, I think we could uh hop into this one.
And I reach through, don't even need to get on my tippy toes, I'm just big enough to reach my hand through and find that unlock button.
It's slipping to the driver's seat.
yeah, cool, got it.
As soon as the second it's open, I will ah get supinated and jump right in under there looking for those wires.
Yeah, you are so familiar with engines and the electronics on these simple older trucks that you're able to hotwire it without a roll.
um And it sparks to life.
What do you, you guys just hopping in and taking off?
Yeah, I don't think we should stick around here if we're committing some grand theft auto.
So yeah, we got the address, the cabin.
Your estimation, good, sorry.
is there any paper and like a pen or marker in here?
Sure, Glove box.
take a piece of paper and say, borrowing this slash will bring back and then toss it out the window and drive off.
All right, done.
uh Paper lands on the ground and you are on your way north into the woods.
You don't know the area up here, but the drive is long and sprawling through dark canopies of forests.
You see the stars every once in a while peek through them, but it is quite dense and forested up here.
Any other conversation as you go or do you wanna just get right to the cabin?
So have you ever been out to the woods up north here?
I'm definitely not a city girl and I may have slept under the stars once or twice with a platoon of people in the middle of fucking nowhere so yes and no-ish I mean I don't think
I've really been camping around here too terribly often what about yourself?
Yeah, I like to vacation up here
Speaking of, and I'll turn on the radio and see if there's anything on.
Yeah, it is AM radio and you're dealing with middle of the night preachers screaming the gospel in your face.
Okay, wrong type of screaming.
I'll turn that right back off.
I guess we'll just sit here in silence unless you want to tell me a story.
Well, about four years ago, and it all started when I was on the job.
oh
together, we need to learn when jokes are happening and not and get this, you know, back and forth going.
That was that was a ha ha joke.
We are sitting in silence and I'll roll down the window so it's not completely silent and keep driving.
you leave the city behind, it's long ago.
The road gets, for lack of a better term, mean on the truck.
It's bouncy, you've pulled off of the main highway.
ah Your guess is that this place would be pretty dangerous if the weather was poor and rainy.
And you keep going down this dirt road with a bunch of potholes.
And then you see it looks like a bad secret that somebody forgot to bury a cabin.
It's kind of sad and little one story high box made of wood.
It's trying to.
It's trying its best to show you that it's a real home.
um Your guess is the outside wood is faux.
It's not even real logs.
It looks cheap.
and looks lonely.
There's a big stone chimney that juts out of the roof.
It's cold and dead against the gray sky.
And there are power lines that snake themselves through the trees and come into the cabin.
Looks like this has power at least, or did at one point.
um And you pull up, what do you do?
Sure.
Did we pass any oh neighbors on the way through and up?
Is there anybody within, you know, even a mile or two or even three ish?
Your guess is absolutely not, so.
Okay, great.
Yeah, think popping out, would aim the truck to kind of blast and bathe the entire house in light.
And I'm going to turn on, if there's fog lights or anything like that, I'm going to assume this probably doesn't have power unless proven otherwise.
So I'm going to try and light the place up to maybe make our search a little bit easier with no neighbors around.
You I don't think we have to worry about being inconspicuous and pop out of the car and...
start heading towards the cabin.
Hey, you got that key?
Yeah, and I toss it underhand to you.
And yeah, you go check the door.
I'll do a little loop around the cabin and see if I can see anything.
yeah, sounds good.
Watch out for bears.
pull out my axe just in case.
I was not thinking about bears until this very moment.
Yeah.
Yeah man, they're man eaters out here for sure.
Go ahead and roll me a search um as you're looking around the cabin.
This is for Emmett, sorry.
Alright, got my search at 40.
That's a four.
I'm rolling hot.
Yeah, you are casing it.
Maybe you've cased some arson joints before.
You know what to look for.
You see a shed further back on by the tree line that looks pretty big and newer built, not as old as the cabin.
You also see a outhouse right behind it, not the shed, but right behind the cabin and...
As you're walking around close to it, you also notice that any plumbing coming out has been hacksawed off.
out of the house or out of the outhouse?
Out of the house.
Huh.
And yeah, I think that's a little odd.
um And I'll go and check like, hey, can I tell if this is recent?
I don't know why someone would want to remove indoor plumbing from place instead of having it back on.
Hit that forensics again.
Alright, forensics, something good at.
We got 60 % here.
Looking at a 48.
That's a success.
it and it looks like it's been months, maybe a year.
There's no PVC, um there's no, yeah, shavings around.
It looks like it's been hacked off for some time.
um Yeah, I will try to follow the line of like where it would have gone, see, or if it just like goes right into the ground and out of sight out of mind.
um But I'll then check out the outhouse see if that's probably been used more recently than anything inside.
Yeah, so in this instance, as you're looking at the outhouse, go ahead and give me a intelligence times five role just to see what you can glean from it since there's no
shitter in the back of the cabin skill.
I think we need to talk to the Delta Green creators then about adding that in.
Let's see here, Intelligence 10, that would be a 50, and I got a 25.
That's another success.
you look in there and I think the big thing is like the plumbing that you saw coming out of the house being a firefighter, you know that that is drain plumbing.
So why is there an outhouse with something that is plumbed for a septic tank?
And it just kind of is curious to you, but we'll hold that thought and cut over to Brun going into the cabin.
You just unlock it and go in.
Go ahead, sir.
yeah, I think well, ish like there's a time to be a little more aware and that's before you know something is safe and in Delta green, I assume nothing is safe, Nick.
So let's let's go ahead and do a little peek through the windows first on our way to the lock.
Yeah, you go around and look inside.
It looks like a very simple cabin.
Doesn't look lived in as much as his apartment did.
um But there's no monster in there.
There's no shadows moving.
It looks fairly safe.
No monster yet.
ah Yeah, and I assume there were no like tracks leading up that seemed, you know, a lot newer um than ours by any means.
Well, not newer than ours.
That'd be crazy.
Yeah, um with the other forensic role, Emmet would have been able to tell that it looks like no one's been here in a while.
Got it.
Cool, cool, Yeah, sweet.
Let's go ahead and slide that key in um and make our way inside.
Yeah, you get inside cozy, right?
Smells of pine and wood smoke.
But that's an illusion because this isn't that place.
You get in there, the door groans open and the silence is thick in there.
You could choke on it if you could choke on silence and the air stale layered with dust and ghosts of cold nights.
This uh is a depression cabin, not a glamping cabin.
m There are cobwebs that hang in the corners like forgotten Christmas tinsel.
And the whole thing is furnished from garage sale rejects, probably stuff you found free on the side of the road.
um
It is beaten down and it's just a living room and a small kitchen and then you see a door to a bedroom.
All parts of a home, but it doesn't add up to one.
And it's got a rustic decor that city people might think is charming, but it looks cheap and sad to you.
damn Clyde you could have taken care of your things at least a little bit here goes nothing and i'll try to turn the lights on
Yeah, go ahead and give me another luck roll.
67.
We'll get a roll sometime.
That is a healthy failure.
the flicker for a second and then just go right off.
Looks like you're using your flashlight.
Yeah, sounds good.
And I will do exactly that with light pouring through the windows.
I'll try to open up the curtains a little bit to try and let some of that light in.
But yeah, we're using our flashlight here.
Turn that sucker on and let's just start square by square from exactly where I'm standing.
look around and it's, there's nothing in this common room.
um It looks a little strange to be this empty, like he didn't frequent it.
Why would he have this place if he's not gonna really live in it?
um But yeah, you're walking around, you get to the kitchenette, I'm assuming.
And again, there is...
Dust-filled cabinets, everything is clean except for the dust on it.
There's no rotten food or anything.
The fridge is completely empty.
um It's been a long time and you could get that sense by the fireplace too.
You would think that you would smell remnants of a fire.
uh You can if you stick your head right in it, but there's just nothing coming out of there except for that stale air.
Yeah, she thinks about it and she's like, yeah, I keep my head out of that one.
Let's head over to the bedroom.
Yeah, as you get to the door, we will cut back to Emmett.
Emmett, you are outside and looking at this outhouse perplexed as to why he would have an outhouse with a place plumbed for a septic tank, plumbing that has been cut.
And you said you were trying to find where those pipes lead.
Yes, I was just trying to follow the, yeah.
Yeah, you walk toward that shed, right?
The one that looks newer than everything else.
And you start to feel as you're walking the ground divot down, and it looks like it's been dug out.
And you see a round em trap door of some sorts with a chain.
tight between two metal hoops that looked like they were welded onto it and a massive padlock.
Take a look at that.
And so this is like right by the shed or is just kind of in between the shed and the house and the cabin.
And yeah, yeah, looking down at that, just thinking to myself, usually the septic tank isn't locked tight like this.
Does it look like it would be a septic tank or like maybe it's been repurposed for something else?
It looks like a septic tank hatch.
Usually they're buried.
Why is this one dug up and why is there a lock on it?
Right?
That's what's coming up.
I do take note of that.
know that Barone has the keys currently and padlock probably looks like the one that was on the key that was on the key ring from before.
I was kind of expecting that to be on the cabin.
you know, I'm not going to force my way in just yet.
I'll meet up with Barone, but before I make my way back to the cabin, I do want to take a look at the shed.
Hoping that that one's unlocked if there's no, if the padlock's already been accounted for.
you get into the shed and before you open it, you smell gasoline.
Like this is your bread and butter.
It smells delicious to you.
It's like making your mouth water in fact.
And you open the shed and there are brand, look, they look brand new.
Gas cans just lined up.
That's it.
Yeah, it's like those two stink lines, you know, come and pull my nose and I'm almost floating my way towards the shed, you know, compelled and pulled in there.
And, yeah, as I swing the door open, I see these gas cans and, ah you know, I feel like I'm in heaven.
just start, you know, taking the cans down, you know, creating a little pile by the door to bring back to the pickup truck.
you know, as I'm kind of pulling things off the wall and off the shelves, seeing if there's literally anything else in here, is it just all gas?
There is a rake, there are a few yard tools, but nothing of note.
interesting.
So yeah, I'll just take two jerry cans and make my way back towards the cabin.
Yeah, is there like gas spilled all over?
Did it look like someone was maybe trying to clean up or, you know, destroy any traces or it's just neatly packed up and okay.
Yeah, you're looking at um almost an OCD level of organization of these gas cans when you encounter them.
And your estimation is there's, yeah, exactly.
There's about 20 gallons or so um that you're picking through.
Right, yeah, I'll take a couple of jerry cans back towards the entrance to the cabin, knowing we may actually have to cover our own tracks after this.
And I pop in and say, know, Barone, do you see anything in there?
We've got something quite interesting out back, but, you know, let's see if you can find anything here first before we move on.
Barone, you get into the bedroom and again, it's not very lived in.
The bed is made and what are you looking for as you go in there?
Sure.
Yeah, nothing in there, fire guy.
Maybe something over here.
Hold on one sec.
What am I looking for over here?
Well, I think any...
Now, knowing this guy is decidedly tidy.
ah Let's see, things that people would not want to be found.
uh What exactly that is?
Maybe documents, uh stored data of some capacity, which back then, who knows what that would be?
It's not hard drives.
Well, maybe it is hard drives.
ah Looking for anything that would, you know, uh collate information in one way or another.
Great, so you're just generally searching the room.
What's your search again?
My search is pretty ding-dang good.
It is at 50.
Yeah, no need to roll.
Since you have a little bit of time, you look around and under the bed, you see a long and heavy foot locker.
And you can tell that it has a padlock on it.
Okay, great.
uh Knowing keys going locks, let's go ahead and test it.
Why not?
Yeah, it's under the bed, so you're have to rip it out of there.
Yeah.
Yeah, you scooch it out, makes a big screeching sound throughout the cabin.
Emmett, you hear that.
I'm assuming, are you coming in?
Are you staying outside with the gas?
coming in.
Help search.
Okay.
I mean, think Big Girl here can deadlift this up with no problem whatsoever, but I guess I'll use a hand if it's here.
Yeah.
Mostly just supervising you, seeing what you're capable of.
you're able to get it out.
um you try and the keys on the deadlock or the deadbolt thing.
Yeah, yep, sure.
Might as well.
We have, we have two keys.
Let's do it.
Yeah, it flips open the padlock and you undo the heavy latch, you just open it right up.
Mm hmm.
Well, the way you say that, Nick, I opened it up very carefully.
The carefulest.
Yeah, great.
Awesome.
No, yes.
I want to see what's inside.
Let's go.
Yeah, you flip it open and the first thing you notice is there is a cut piece of paper taped to the lid just saying,
To whom it may concern, if you're reading this uh note, there you go, that's word, I can assume I have died or become incapacitated before I had the courage to complete my final
mission.
That's ominous as shit.
You will find about 20 gallons of gas in the shed behind this cabin.
And I turned around and look at fire guy.
holding two dairy cans like I think I think we got it
Alright, check in that one.
Pour it into the septic tank beside the cabin and ignite it.
You'd be happier if you didn't look inside.
Please make sure that the remains are kept from my children.
I am so sorry.
God, please forgive me.
Hmm.
Oh, that is more questions than answers.
Is there a septic tank out?
What's, what, what, what's, what's he talking about?
Yeah, that's kind of what I want to talk to you about.
We got septic tank, we've got some cut plumbing, so I don't think the septic tank is full of waste.
I think it's full of something else.
And Clyde here is just giving us free rain to start some fires.
I am quite curious.
I do want to peek my head inside, but I think we should carry out his final wishes in his honor.
know 100 % yeah for sure I hate being told what to do and if somebody says don't think of the pink elephant the first thing I do is think of the pink elephant I can tell you
curiosity is gonna kill this cat someday for sure let's go check it out hold on let me let me finish up uh this this chest though and I'll fold it up and I guess I'll leave it in
the chest I don't really want to keep this note
Yeah, you look in down below, you see a just covering other things, a big reel to reel tape.
It's a recording of something on it is labeled 15, OGG 72 to 29, SEP 72.
So it looks like some sort of recording.
then handwritten on a white note is Saint Yig scale, the Redeemer.
Hmm.
You think that was Clyde's nickname back in the day?
Same.
that...
that goes hard as fuck man, yeah for sure, that'd be wild.
Okay, so you see a cardboard box and um you open it up and there is a neatly folded suit that is covered in old, old dried blood.
um Below that you see a...
annotated doctor, doctoral dissertation that's titled Sky Devils archetypical figures in Native American mythology.
uh Looks like it was rejected on first glance um based on the notes on the cover page.
um There are three tear gas grenades in there as well.
m There's a knife that is iron, looks old.
It would take some investigation to figure out how old or what the meaning of it is.
And then there's a, go ahead, sorry.
There's a leather pouch and when you open it up, there's some black hair in there.
There's small teeth that look human and some feathers.
What the actual fuck?
I mean, this is going in the fire pit for sure, right?
And I hold up the jacket and everything and yeah, I, okay, great.
starting like a burn pile and not burn pile over there.
Yeah, I could tell you something that we're not burning and I grabbed those three gas grenades and I'm like with these guys for sure.
I mean, I'll take the handle of it and like hanging off off the back of my belt or something for storage.
But this is all burning all hell for sure.
um The dissertation, I assume this is like a healthy many hours read like the whole second half of Dune type.
Okay.
um
Quickly flipping through that, do we see any illustrations?
Do we see any pictures, photographs?
Anything of proof that he's trying to prove?
For lack of a better term.
go ahead and do you have any occult?
up.
I, yes, I have 20 % in a cult.
Yeah, give it a roll.
That would be an 85L
with some time you think you could probably get through this.
Maybe it's something you keep for yourself.
You don't turn in and you give it a read if you're interested in it.
um As you've started flipping through it though, ah you realize that it wasn't all the dissertation.
Behind it is a sizable stack of paper that looks like financial um records.
uh
And it's just financial record after record and there's annotations and lines being drawn from transactions to different group names.
um Yeah.
I can't make heads or tails of that.
That's just over Emmet's head.
Now this boring stuff.
You want to add this to the uh burn pile?
Burn?
maybe let me take a quick look.
I assume this would be a bureaucracy roll to see any, okay.
I'm definitely gonna do that.
I have a 40 and bureaucracy as we know, and I got a 13, so it did pretty good.
Yeah, you see that this is something called the Vintaja Corporation.
It looks like they're an Argentinian company and it looks like import-export transactions with a thing that's dubbed K Group.
And as you're looking through it, this K Group looks like there's some World War II era financial em
It's hard to say, they're financially related to it.
Like maybe they moved money, maybe they were investing money, but this group was definitely on some sort of watch list and it looks like he was surveilling them.
And there's a paper that says the schkiel formula on it and it is completely blacked out with Sharpie.
Like it's empty.
It was.
um completely redacted.
Have you ever heard of the the SKEEL formula before?
That's how you add up your taxes, right?
I don't know.
I don't handle this kind of stuff, but.
math is really a foreign subject for you as well, huh?
Yeah, we, you we got people for that.
I got my CPA and he does, you know, my skills formulas and my numbers and.
Let's have a contested rule to see if Barone falls asleep.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, Z is just floating up in the air from her.
Yeah, I I for some reason I don't think that's what it's for, but I've also never heard of it.
And apparently it's not something you could easily read about.
And I flashed the paper with all the the black um across the front.
Yeah, I don't think we're going to learn much from that piece of paper, but you know what I am into is some good sci-fi movies, just like Dune.
um And I look around for a projector anywhere in the cabin, see if we could get these reels spun up.
Yeah, there's no reel to reel machine here.
This would take some, um we take it back and turn it in investigation type thing.
So, or you can steal it and take it for yourself if you want to.
Yeah, there's a question.
um We really kind of didn't get, well, I guess we did get briefed on quote unquote cleanup, but we didn't have any help or definition on what to take return, know, sift
through for information or just get rid of.
Is there any knee jerk like, hey, generally this might make sense to take versus not out of this pile.
Yeah, so you know that um your guess is they would want everything, right?
You haven't been given instructions on um destroying things.
So your guess is that they would take everything and destroy it for you if it needed to be destroyed.
So other than what um Clyde's note said, um he directly wants you to destroy something obviously.
Got you.
Yeah.
So second thought on that burn pile.
Maybe we should put that on the back burner, if you will, and take this with us and I'll pop everything back in the box and doing that fully thing with the top where you fold one
and the next one all the way around.
So it makes like it a cardboard anus in the top of the box for you.
And I'll start start packing it up.
Yeah, you pack it up or you throw it in the back of the pickup truck?
Yeah, I think that's probably the best place and God knows that love me a good tarp if there's a tarp or anything back there to cover it to make it inconspicuous.
I would like to do that as well.
Yeah, you noticed there was a tarp in the shed, so you're able to grab a tarp and throw it over the um back of the truck.
Yeah, I help Varone just load everything in the truck.
um Yeah, nothing I really want to keep for myself here.
I am quite interested in watching that reel to reel, but that's something for another time.
And after we're done loaded up, I lead Varone over to the septic tank patch and he's like, well, uh this is it.
This was his Clive's final dying wish.
uh
Said not to look inside, but I think we're both in agreement here.
Gotta at least peek, right?
100 % sons out guns out and she pulls out her pistol and she's like, I mean there's no son but You have to say something right before right?
Yeah, wait, why'd you pull your gun out?
Are you expecting something alive still in there?
I mean, I don't know.
I've never really...
don't know...
I don't know what to expect, period.
So I think just being prepared is probably the way to go, especially with something that you don't fucking know, fire guy.
Mm-hmm.
I mean, do we open the hatch and you drop a gas grenade in just in case?
that do we know if that's the tear gas?
Is that like damaging to documents to anything or just something organic?
Yeah, go ahead and roll your heavy or your demolition skill to see what you would know.
That would be a 70 for Emmet here.
And a 64.
Success.
when they first are ignited, but then the rest is just gas.
It can get a little warm.
So if it's directly on a piece of paper, it would catch.
The one thing you do notice investigating them is they're over 20 years old.
So you're like, maybe they work, maybe they don't, but they wouldn't necessarily damage anything.
and also thinking that this is an old septic tank, there might be a good amount of methane, even if it hasn't been used in a while.
So maybe we just open it up and shine some lights down there first and then assess the situation and yeah, take the keys from Verone and see if the same padlock key works on
this one as well.
does not.
So uh back up plan, I take out my fire axe and try to chop at the chain.
Yeah, usually when you're striking something you would use your melee weapon skill.
So give me a roll.
You're very strong, so you're going to eventually succeed.
This is just to say how many times you hit it before you succeed.
So have a melee weapon skill and I have a skill on the item itself.
I guess those are the same.
Okay, cool.
And I have an 80 with my axe.
That is a 69.
All right, you come down and you just split the lock right off the chain and you're able to pull the chain off.
You hear the echo of an empty tin tube coming from up as you knock it off.
And then you hear a slight whimper.
Nope, and I jump back and also pull out my 1911 and look at Barone.
uh You heard that, right?
Or that wasn't you?
No.
I would I whimper like that?
No, definitely not.
I did hear that though when I uh cock my GP-100, like that's why this is out.
And I'll inch kind of forward a little bit.
So we're both equidistant from the tank.
Yeah, who's pulling it open?
You Emmett or?
uh Actually, I go prone so I could have my head right next to the door and be able to shine in.
was like, bro, can you get this and I'll get a draw on them.
Yeah, I got it, teamwork.
um And I will have pistol in one hand, the other hand is reaching to open it enough to see in.
you start slipping it open, you have your flashlight on, I'm assuming, and you see just darkness at first and then your flashlight cuts in.
looks like a underground crypt.
The floor has a skim of dark water on it.
There's no ladder or anything.
It looks pretty deep down there, about 10 feet down.
And as your flashlight
hits one of the far corners from you, you see a shape.
It's a woman laying down there nude in the corner and um her flesh.
looks pretty gray, maybe from lack of the sunlight.
There's not much meat left on her bones.
She's sagging all over and she looks up at the light and her eyes look straight towards you.
She probably can't see you because the flashlight and she stands up and starts to, in a hunched manner, walk toward the opening.
And I just start saying, ma'am, ma'am, please stay right where you are.
We need to assess the situation.
you okay?
Can you talk?
Yeah, she looks up and she croaks, like, clears her throat.
I, ah, please get me out of here.
Help me.
What is your name?
We're here to help.
We just want to make sure everyone's safe.
I'm Marlene.
Marlene's my name.
Get fucked, absolutely.
um Go ahead.
Oh, yeah.
With that quick realization, both of you roll your sanities and.
for sure.
So rolling your sanity is when an agent encounters something that is strange, unnatural, extremely violent, or they feel helpless in.
This is both unnatural and helplessness, because you're looking at this like strange lady uh naked in a septic tank and feels unnatural to you because the realization that Clyde's
wife had a death certificate in his apartment, right?
So losing sand is dangerous and
You can project it onto a bond if you want.
um That is a big part of the game is using your bonds and your most important relationships to steal yourself to continue to do this job, right?
So you would roll your SAN, which you have a current sanity score that you wanna roll under.
And when you lose SAN, that score goes down.
So the more and more insane you go, the quicker it happens.
It's a flywheel.
So keeping your sanity up at the beginning is important if you want your agent to live longer, right?
That's why projecting is a good thing earlier, because it gives you life in this game.
um Now, let's say you roll your San and lose, and then I just tell you to roll a D8.
If you roll over a certain amount, but it's five in the rule book.
So if you lose more than
five sanity at once, you go temporarily insane and you choose a fight or flight response.
Make sense?
uh Yeah, the projecting.
How does that work?
question.
So you would roll your SAN and then if you were to fail you would roll whatever your failure dice is.
That can be just a binary where it's zero or one so you lose one SAN or you lose no SAN or you roll a D4, D6, D8 and on.
Some people even have a D20 of SAN loss for extreme circumstances.
Right?
So
you would say, oh, I wanna project before you roll that sand loss, right?
So you don't know how much sanity you're gonna lose before you project.
And projecting like story-wise, just means I lose a relationship with one of my bonds and that would come back to bite me in the future.
So what we would do is you would roll a D4, which would say how much you reduce that SAN loss by and how much willpower, another uh thing on your character sheet, you lose at the
same time, right?
And then you subtract the amount that D4 is from both your willpower and the bond you're projecting.
So,
Give me that D100 San loss or not lost, excuse me.
Give me that D100 San roll and tell me if you fail.
D100 sand loss, is all or nothing right now.
uh I have a current sand of 15, I ruled a 34.
All right.
sweet.
Let's see how Baron does.
I got an 82.
I failed San.
Okay, so give me a D6 Sanloss, Barone.
I think I am gonna project.
Let's see how this goes.
um I'd like to project onto Bradley, uh my therapist that I trust with everything that has definitely seen my dark side.
So let's start there.
And I got a three.
Okay, and then roll me a D4 for the projection.
And the D4 is also a 3.
Okay, so you take no sand loss, but you lose three willpower and you reduce that bond by three.
Now, when you're projecting on a bond, there is some bitterness, some upset at them.
Like what, in this moment, what would you be thinking about your therapist to make you sour the relationship a little bit?
Like how would you be feeling about them in this moment?
Yeah.
So I think, uh, therapists arm with help arm people with like coping mechanisms, right?
Um, and I think immediately I start leaning on one of those coping mechanisms for something so, you know, crazy and disconnected or disconnecting like this.
And my coping mechanisms just fail immediately.
They're just a fucking straw man lit on fire.
And I think my frustration with the time spent in these sessions just burns right up with it.
Yeah, absolutely.
It is frustrating.
You've gone to therapy for a few years, spent how much money you don't even know, and it can't even get you through this moment.
m But you still take no sand loss and you see the sting below you asking you to help it.
How do you respond?
My firefighter training kicks in.
I've rescued people from burning buildings before, people in distress.
seeing that this is just a frail old woman, we know who she is, even though we've never met her before.
I tell her to make her way to the hatch, make her way, we'll lift you out.
Jerome, can you grab a blanket?
Was there any bedding or clothing inside?
We gotta warm her up and make sure she's okay.
Yeah, sure take this and I'll just take my jacket off and kind of Toss it over to him did well I wouldn't know if there was a ladder out in the garage, but I guess I would think
that shed is that shade close Great, I'm going to when I toss my jacket.
I think I'm gonna sprint to that shed looking for a ladder
You get in there and there is a, looks like a septic tank type ladder that has been customly welded.
Looks like somebody was using it for this purpose.
You're bringing it over.
Yeah, I think I'll grab that and, you know, start making my way back pretty hastily.
m
About how deep is the septic tank, you know, from the standing water on the floor to the hatch.
10 feet.
Yeah, I'm like, they're trying to like reach down and, you know, stay, stay on top and see if she could reach, but can't quite make it.
And yeah, as you come back to the ladders, you know, perfect, perfect.
And I roll out of the way and let you shimmy the ladder down there.
yeah, as she gets close to you, um any other thing you're trying to, are you looking at her in any special way or saying anything to her?
m And she is hunched over looking up at you.
It looks like she hasn't used a lot of her limbs in a long time.
She is quite emaciated, probably couldn't jump, but she looks up at you and is just wide eyed.
um
um I'm just, I'm there like reassuring her as like, we're, here to help.
We'll get you out of there.
But I'm also trying to see if she has like restraint marks on her wrists or anything, if there's anything more off or about her body than, you know, just being kind of curled up
in the darkness for who knows how long.
Yeah, give me a search since you're under duress and she's under duress to see if you can um glean any details.
That would be a 40.
Roll to four.
Success.
Yeah, you are looking around and you see scratch marks on the walls of this thing.
You look at her feet.
They look bloated from being in this water and look water bogged.
Her skin is quite, quite pale and almost bluish now that she's close.
And she is half smiling up at you just waiting for you to grab her.
You can kind of reach with your fingertips and touch her, but um you would definitely
need that ladder or some other way to pull her out.
Yeah, I think I'm going to go and try to try to help her up the ladder.
You got things up here.
Yeah, no, I'm good, I'm good.
And I'll start maneuvering the ladder into place.
oh I'll jump down into there m and then try to help her up the ladder as Barone helps her up top.
Yeah, she looks at you and now that you're down there, um she goes to the ladder.
Barone, actually give you a second.
Anything you want to do as he's trying to help her up?
Yeah, maybe one of those.
uh I'm not sure if human would do any good here or maybe like a quick scan.
So you said like there's marks around like are they different shapes than I would expect a fingers like from a human to be shaped or anything that like clearly this is a crazy
situation, but anything that stands out as supernatural or off putting in that way.
Yeah, give me human for her and then yeah.
And then if you have a cold or a natural, give me that.
sure, human definitely failed I got a 42 out of 10 and um then occult or unnatural, unnatural zero occult I do not have listed so it's just the 10 and yeah same thing I did
pretty good 19 but definitely not under a 10
Yeah, yeah, nothing, nothing coming up for you.
Emmett, as you're helping her up, she looks at you and she says, thank you.
Thank you.
It's been so miserable down here.
I'm so weak.
And she grabs the ladder.
You put your hand on her and guide her up or how are you helping?
Yeah, just make sure she could grab on all right.
You said like her hands were kind of curled in a bit, but it looks like she's able to use them.
And I'm just there kind of spotting her from behind and giving her just a little push up, making sure she doesn't fall back off the ladder.
Yeah, you touch her, she is cold as ice as you're pushing her up.
It's, you know, oddly cold and it's very cold down here.
So you get your guesses, you know, like it's just really cold down here.
But you push up and her skin is so emaciated and flabby.
comes between your fingers in strange ways.
um As she's climbing out, she's doing it slow and she's kind of like.
She's excited.
She's laughing a little bit.
She's like, and she is getting to the top.
Baron, are you helping her up at top?
Yeah man, at this point in time I think I have a choice to either put my pistol away and help this person or keep a pistol out and I think the wrong choice is to put it away but I
think I'm going to put it away and try and help this poor, poor human out of the hole.
Yeah, you um reach in and grab her and pull her out.
She flops on the ground next to you, completely nude and is laying there for a second.
Just looks dazed by the sky and um her, know, you would expect somebody to just be in pain or something, but she's kind of like giggling still um as she flops around and she tries
to stand up, but is having a tough time rolling over and getting up.
don't you don't need to stand up don't you don't stand up you're fine i'll take my jacket from the ground where i tossed it um next to fire guy um and kind of put it over her for
some semblance of decency and maybe a smidge of warmth out here in the middle of nowhere
And she's, thank you, thank you so much.
um Please, I think I should stand.
And um she keeps the jacket and then finally gets up um all the way after she stabilizes herself and starts to kind of move around to get the cracks out of her bones.
wiggling her fingers back and forth.
Again, her eyes are all over the place.
Emma, are you coming out?
Um, I yell up, it's like, just make sure she's all right.
And I'm just going to take a beat to kind of cast about and see, is there anything else down here?
Or is this just herself?
Just her, give me an intelligence um times five.
10 so looking for 50 as of 42.
Yeah, you look around, you see the scratch marks.
You don't see or smell any defecation.
You don't see any food or food wrappers, no plate.
uh And the death certificate was two years old at this point.
uh It strikes you as extremely odd.
Yeah, that there's no other storage.
Doesn't seem like I was using this for anything else, but just is quote unquote dead wife down here.
Yeah, I'm quite confused at this point.
I don't know who in their right mind would do this.
And I climbed back up to the top and yeah, see how she's doing.
She says, uh thanks again.
uh I've been in there for so long.
um
I'll be fine though, thank you, thank you.
I I don't think you'll be fucking fine at all if I was stuffed in a hole by my husband, ex-husband, whatever you want to call it, and just left there to die.
One, I don't think I'd be standing.
I'm kind of surprised at that.
two, why?
uh Why did he put you down there?
How long have you been down there?
It can't have been two years.
I don't know.
Two years, is that how long I've gone?
That's when you officially died.
Do we remember what it said on like the cause of death on the death certificate?
covers the gamut there.
Yeah, right.
A heart attack while taking a dump and smashing your head.
know, same, same.
Yes, yes, I don't know why he would do that, but he did.
um But again, thank you so much.
I owe you the world.
I just need some food and I'll be fine.
um
Yeah, let's bring you in the cabin.
It seems like you need some warmth, little bit of rest.
I think we got some power bars in the truck.
um Do you know why Clyde did this to you?
Oh, by the way, he recently passed.
I think you should know that.
hope that's happy feeling, a sad feeling for you, but at least you know now.
Thank you for telling me.
um She gives no indication whether happy or sad about the news.
um Really, I just need some food.
I don't need any rest.
um Your bars of power that you spoke of would be just fine, fine, fine, fine, fine, fine, fine, fine, fine for me.
I uh will, I will, yes, yes, just the food is all I need.
Yeah, let's, we'll lead her over to the truck, grab a couple snacks for her.
And as she, you know, tear, I'm sure tears into them.
Do you, do you know why Clyde left you down there?
Was he, he seemed, from what we read of his notes, he seemed kind of scared of what was in this, the static tank.
you lifts are scared of me.
I'm nothing.
I'm skin and bones.
He must have been insane.
He must have been crazy.
When was the last time you've seen him?
When did he come?
Does he check on you?
Does he leave you food?
No, he did not leave me food.
It's been some time since I've eaten.
I'm so hungry, so hungry.
But he would peek down once in a while and try to talk like it was old times and like I was his Marlene.
And he would regale me of stories and stories upon stories of what used to be with us.
but he left me down there, he was afraid of me.
And again, look at me, nothing to be afraid of.
Amen.
that is weird.
A human can survive multiple weeks without food, definitely not years, and it's even less than that without water.
It's like it stays and you said he never came and I will grab my pistol out of its holster.
Are you doing that stealthily?
Okay, go ahead and roll me stealth.
And so I'm gonna roll her alertness and this will be our first contested roll.
Okay, sounds good.
I got a 93 out of 30, so that is a failure.
Bro, she rolled a 100, no joke.
she is, yeah, she's lost in the sauce.
Your failure doesn't uh counteract her critical failure.
So she misses you pulling your pistol.
um She's looking towards the pickup truck.
In fact, she's leaned over it a little bit while Emmett is grabbing those power bars.
Do you give her the food, Emmett?
Yes.
Yeah, I want to make sure that she's all right.
She's tearing them open and eating them uh ravenously.
Her fingernails are quite long.
You see her pinky one is completely torn off like she was scratching the walls and lost it.
And she just starts eating and eating and eating.
um Yeah, I do a little sidebar with Barone and was like, hey, how do you want to handle this?
I mean, we can't take her to a hospital.
I mean, do we just drop her off?
No one should know that we were here.
I mean, yeah, definitely nobody should know that we are here, but she shouldn't be alive, my guy.
That's not a uh time that a human can stay alive unless uh they're not.
down there.
I don't know if she might have some parasites or something.
I mean drinking that stagnant water, but I mean there's definitely enough water to keep her going.
I don't know about the food though.
I mean two years, fire guy?
Nobody stays alive for two years unless you're...
not...
human.
There's not...
you...
you don't.
Not human.
I mean, we saw all, they've been married for who knows how long.
We saw all their family photos.
Thank you.
that's not actually Marlene.
I'm actually Marlene.
Yeah.
um And I.
Go sorry.
So as you guys are whispering about this, I'm going to roll her alertness.
um
She succeeded and what is everybody's decks?
Just the raw number, not the times five.
14.
Okay, so we are now in combat order as she knows that you are onto something.
Her dex is 17, so she's going to go first.
So, and then we would just go in the order of highest to lowest in the dexterity count, okay?
You are the closest to her, Emmett, and she unnaturally jumps straight onto your chest with her claws out.
Well, uh ma'am?
Ma'am?
You are unable to speak as she digs her claws into your shoulder blades like this and starts to tear and go ahead and roll dodge to see if you can get out of this grass before
taking damage.
um dodge is 50 I feel like I'm quite surprised I was on her side this whole time trying to almost protect her from barone I would say I don't know is there some sort of like penalty
dice that I'm not expecting this whatsoever that I would roll with
No, you're capable with your athletic score.
So I think you would be able to throw this off.
um If you were a dorky like accountant, then sure.
Mm-hmm.
That is a ten flat.
All right, Tin, she rolled a 42 and hers is over.
Hers is still higher.
So in a contested roll, you take, if you both succeed, you take just the highest number of the contested roll.
Does that make sense?
And so her claws dig into your shoulders and you will take D3 damage.
I can roll that since D3s are hard to come by.
You take one um damage as she starts to tear into your collarbone and you feel her fingernails ripping on the actual bone itself as they've dug in.
I believe you are next Emmett.
She is on your chest.
What are you doing?
uh Actually, Barun is next with a dex of 14.
Yep.
I'm just yelling.
I'm just flailing around with this little old lady on me.
Yeah, no question that this is now an enemy and there's no words to say.
think I take that GP100 that's in my hand, um aim and pop, pop.
Okay, you are very close, so you get a 20 % to that.
You just don't wanna critically fail.
sure.
I'm looking firearms.
I have a base of 50.
That'll be up to 70.
And let's go a 71.
Barely failed.
Failed by one.
Typical Barone.
You fire and still hit her, okay?
And it goes through her arm.
Roll me the damage on that.
But the ricochet hits the truck and then comes back and hits you, Emmett, in the shoulder as she's on you.
So Emmett, can you roll me a D4?
And that's how much damage you'll take from that bullet shot in the shoulder.
Go ahead, Bro.
Roll your damage for her.
Sure, with the GP100 I have damage of 1d12 and let's get a 10.
Let's go.
All right.
So yeah, you shoot her through the throat and you see it rip out the other side.
Her guttural scream turns into a sloppy like hissing um and her viscera and bile starts coming out on your chest, Emmet.
um And then how much did you take from that shoulder shot?
It took three.
Yeah.
So that is gonna wound you significantly in that arm.
So you will have a disadvantage to anything you do with that arm, including your dodge.
It is your turn.
Yeah, as she jumps on me, was like, bro, help, bro, bro, what are you doing?
And then the shot goes out and I just feel like I don't even notice that it goes through her neck and I just feel like, bro, and shot me as it don't, no, not like that, come on.
God damn it, bro.
I wanted, I mean, I don't feel like I can reach for my gun.
Definitely can't reach for my ax right now.
I just want to throw her off of me.
I don't know if I could do some sort of like judo.
Like I fall back to my.
onto my back and try to like use the momentum thrower off.
Yeah, you absolutely can.
You just give me an unarmed.
Okay.
And will that be with a penalty dice because of the shoulder injury?
Okay.
Looking for an 80 then.
And I rolled a 90.
I'm still surprised.
I do not know what's going on and I try to throw her off and just fall backwards.
And now she's right on top of me.
she is on top of you, but your back is on the hood of the pickup truck and she is slashing.
So she comes in and you see her mouth open up wide and unnaturally wide and her teeth are coming straight for your face.
Go ahead and roll a dodge and this will be at a 10 % disadvantage.
Okay, then I'm looking for a 40 for that.
And got a 75.
I rolling hot all day until combat starts.
She failed too and her role was a 72.
So her mouth comes down and you're able to get one of your hands up to stop it from biting you, but she does bite your hand as well.
You don't take any damage, but she's locked into your hand with her mouth.
Agent Barone.
uh fuck.
I'm so sorry fire guy And then I'll uh re aim and take another shot this thing.
I'm not getting anywhere near that I'm staying as within range, but not as close as possible
OK, so you're not going to walk up and point blanket.
You're going to keep your distance.
Dangit Nick, point blank was so so sweet.
I am gonna do that.
Yes, yep.
How many steps forward do I have to take to get in point blank range again?
Let's do it.
That seems doable.
Let's go please.
cannot fail the shot, but roll me anyway.
And then if it's a critical failure, then something bad happens too.
It is not a critical failure.
Yeah, right.
No, it's it's a 65 under the 70 again
Give me the damage.
Oh, it's a ten again!
Yeah!
and fire um and Emmett, you just hear the sound of this massive report um echo through your head.
You feel the vibration.
In fact, you see the flash from somewhere and parts of this woman's jaw fly off and onto you.
um onto your chest, but she is still struggling to get at you and raking towards you.
It is your turn.
Yeah, her teeth still kind of sunk into my hand.
She doesn't have a jaw anymore.
yeah, yeah, yeah.
Your hand is free.
Well, I'm a little more free.
Yeah, I just, she's still on top of me.
I'm on top of the hood of the car.
And I just want to, I do have my combat knife.
Yes, I think it me I am like struggling as she is, you know, bearing down on me and I'm trying to lean to one side and reach for my boots and pull out the combat knife.
And I'm
I just want to put this into her temple and try to hit her off.
gonna do two rolls.
So give me athletics to see if you can reach it and bear through the pain in your shoulder to grab it.
And then if you can and you succeed that, then we'll do a melee roll.
Alright, my athletics is 80.
and got a 60 flat.
Yeah, reach for my knife and I'm gonna, you know, try to use my momentum, do a little torso twist and use all my force and punch this into the side of her head.
Got another 80 flat, that is, um if it meets it beats or is that a success or failure?
oh just barely.
you know, this is happening breakneck fast.
In fact, you were going for your knife when her mouth was on your hand and then you felt the gunshot and hurt it and you were already pulling your knife and you jab it straight
into the rest of what's left of her head.
Go ahead and roll the damage on that.
This is D6 plus 2 and also says armor piercing 3.
I don't think she has any armor but just the skull armor that we all have.
That is going to be a 2 plus 2 of 4.
Great.
You feel her entire body go slack as that knife enters where maybe there's a functional brain, it's hard to say, and you're able to knock her off of you and she flops down to the
ground.
The body is twitching quite a bit still.
What do you do now?
We are out of the combat turn order.
I scramble back a little bit, take a couple deep breaths and then just pull out my 1911 and put two more into her head.
I'm real shaken up and that's just my first instinct to make sure that this is no longer moving, whatever this is in front of me.
Yeah, the head is completely obliterated at this point.
It's just a like mess of flesh and few recognizable parts.
Some teeth here and there.
The tongue is kind of flopping around um out of the neck hole.
But yeah, it's completely obliterated.
um It's over to you.
and.
All right, Barone, I will listen to you moving forward.
I think you've had a couple more run-ins than I have with something like this.
I think my firefighter training took over and I just want to help this like woman.
But yeah, what do you make of this?
And I'm just like double over.
I've literally never seen a fucking single thing like this.
This is absolutely insane, but no human being could have stayed alive in a hole like that for- for two years.
This- this doesn't- this doesn't make sense.
That doesn't make sense.
This isn't normal, right?
Right?
Yeah, you say human.
I'm second-guessing that.
I don't know if you saw her jaw, but it was more snake-like.
I think she was trying to swallow me whole.
It just unhinged and went right for me.
teeth for days, 40, 50, she had none, she had none fire guy, they were supposed to be inside, in the chest, they're big and ch- what, I, what the fuck was that?
I don't know, but you know, think Clyde's suggestion of burning it all up is sounding pretty good right now.
And I...
And I'll put my gun away and start um making for the two gas tanks, the gas canisters that were put into the back of the truck.
Yeah.
Yeah, and I'll just grab her by the ankle and start dragging her back towards the septic tank.
Roll alertness.
Me, both of us.
Got a 50 for that and rolled an 8.
Yeah, you feel the twitching still and her leg starts to like move a little bit.
What do do?
no, no, no, no, and I drop it and take a couple steps back.
Uh, Bronn, I don't think she's done here, and I'm rooting around for my axe.
I don't know if I left it over by the septic tank when I jumped in and I-
faded luck rolls.
Mmm.
Feeling lucky today.
Alright, yeah, you back up and step on your fire axe laying by the edge of the septic tank.
She's still wiggling and wobbling down there.
What are you doing?
Yeah, I want to just go limb by limb if I can and make sure that even if she's still alive, there's not going to be much that she can do.
You go limb by limb.
Can you roll me sanity for violence as you're hacking apart this once female figure?
That would be an 87 fail.
roll me a D4 of sand loss.
One.
I will just hit that on my sanity.
you are doing this.
What about this is disturbing to you?
Um, just having to, you know, still seeing this as a frail old woman, even though knowing what she not knowing what she actually is, but you know, in my head that this is someone I
was supposed to save.
now I am.
Whatever the complete opposite of that is doing it to her right now.
Um, yeah, I've, I've used my ax on many things that I've not used it on a human body before and the sounds, the sights.
Yeah.
Yeah, you are hacking her to bits.
It's like the old 80s movie, Evil Dead and Evil Dead 2, as you dismember this corpse that was trying to animate.
And what do you do with these disparate pieces?
uh Going back to the original plan, I'm just going to toss them one by one down to the septic tank.
uh Barone's coming with the gas from the truck.
I'm going to go back to the shed and grab the rest that I can and start pouring.
um I know the best way to make a gas trail, how far we need to stand back to stay safe and make sure that anything and everything is not going to survive down there once we're done
with it.
Yeah, Barone, um you grab the gas cans and immediately turn around and you see um Flint just.
chopping away at this corpse in the distance in the dark you hear the hunk hunk you start hearing it go through the bone and into the dirt below it so you hear like mud being
squished at the same time as this body being torn apart and are you helping him drag all these body parts into the hole too or keeping your distance
No, I think we've chosen the divide and conquer route.
I'm farmer carrying both of those jugs directly to the pit and filling it with that sweet sweet burn liquid.
Yeah, yeah, you're filling it up.
There's an arm flies by you into the hole.
There's a leg um part of a torso, another section of a torso um flaps down in there.
The flesh hits the water mixes with the gasoline.
uh You're prepared.
handling the body, I still feel it twitching and moving like these disparate parts no longer connected to the central nervous system?
Are they twitching around still?
absolutely.
What?
Yeah, and in fact you get, oh go ahead, sorry, yeah.
oh yeah, make sure we douse each body part individually as well before it gets tossed in there.
Yeah, you get most of Marlene, for lack of a better term, into the pit.
Let's see how thorough you can be in picking up these parts.
Can you roll me a search to see if you can identify all of them?
Both of you.
search 40 and rolled a 65 fail
I got, I was looking for 50, rolled 28, success.
Okay, yeah, you feel like, know, Flint Emmett has done a good job, um but you're kind of looking around with your flashlight and seeing like little bits of her here and there.
And you're kind of doing the cleanup.
You get an eyeball m that you can bring over, but you're able to get it all down there.
Okay great, I'm going to make my way up to the shed um where before I probably wouldn't have known.
Well, I guess it was in the note.
It is filled with gasoline.
I will keep training down the rest.
I will just bring more and more gas.
I want to fuck this thing.
I want to make sure it is absolutely obliterated.
And you think that's what Clyde was trying to do.
That there's so much gas here.
It's overkill.
It's more gas than you would need to do anything with this.
um Yeah, you're able to fill it up.
Every single part of this creature is floating in it.
What are you just dropping a match in?
You know, I'm assuming Emmett's doing the honors here.
Yeah, I take the his handwritten note about all the gasoline and everything.
I light that up and drop it down.
Yeah, salute.
And the note flutters down like a leaf as sparks come off of it.
It illuminates the whole tank briefly and it hits the gas.
And it's not an explosion.
This isn't a unless you throw the hatch down, uh but some fire does start to spread and then you feel the heat come up and hit you in the face from this hole and you watch it
burn.
Yeah, feeling that heat is something I'm quite used to and I just, you know, love getting lost in the fire and knowing the powerful destructive nature of it.
I feel a little easy now, still shaken up, still bleeding.
And then I feel a twinge of pain in my shoulder and look towards Barone, knowing that she shot me.
Yeah.
But uh I don't make her feel bad for it at this time.
Yeah, I noticed you look at look at your shoulder and wince a little bit and look at me and I'm like, oh yeah.
uh Sorry about saving your life, fire guy.
Jesus, lock it up.
Yeah.
right, I think we make a good team here and uh I'll let this one slide, but just don't shoot me again.
mean, if we're gonna be working together now, I think we need to have a little trust.
I I'm not sure how long they'll keep us together.
This, you know, this may be one thing or another, but yeah, I will try my hardest not to get people around me killed.
I can promise you that.
And I hit him on the shoulder.
Oh, shit, I forgot already.
I'll tell you what, though.
I don't think I'm ever going to sleep again.
How do you feel about coffee?
Yeah, let's get some food and a cup of joe.
And I kick the um hatch shut on this object tank.
it's a pit of fire and lava down there.
And you get into the truck, you have the trunk of presumably what this organization was looking for.
You're a few days ahead of schedule.
You get on the road and are driving back.
the realization that you have destroyed something.
completely unnatural and horrible for this reality you live in, bolsters your sanity.
Give me a D8 and you can add that to your sanity.
In Delta Green, if you come across the unnatural and destroy it without losing too much of your marbles, you get sanity gain.
Awesome.
D8 of sanity.
Well, I just replenished the one I have lost.
There you go.
I got a good old fiber.
All right, and your max sanity is your max sanity.
So you can go above what your last sanity was.
You can gain more sanity than your starting point ah in Delta Green as well.
What?
Yeah.
I guess it's so hard fought they're like, you know what?
We'll throw you a bone here.
You're like, great.
Thank you.
Yeah, yeah, and you're able to get some coffee, get some food.
um You get to day three and Agent K is waiting for you at the bar.
Do you turn in everything?
Like have you picked through some of the stuff?
What's going on?
think we spend a little time trying to read through the dissertation.
I don't know if we can get our hand on a reel to reel.
But yeah, over coffee and flapjacks, we are just flipping through.
We kind of divide and conquer the documents, trying to make heads or tails of it.
And a lot of it's going over Emmett's head.
Still just thinking back to Marlene and who or what she was.
I argue in three days and a stack of hundred dollar bills uh that's in my jacket that I definitely took back from this woman before we threw her into the pit.
uh Okay, just connect those dots.
would say it'd be pretty easy to get reel to reel in.
Once you start digging in, there's no going back.
I might as well know more.
So I think we absolutely take that reel to reel, find a dark room somewhere and spin it on.
Yeah, um studying ah the dissertation will give you a plus 1 % to your unnatural, but reduce your SAN by a D3.
So if you're looking at that, give yourself one a natural and then reduce by a D3 of SAN.
And the reel to reel is more interesting.
You put it on and you're hearing, it's not a video, it's all audio.
You hear, it looks like a pseudo Christian service involving snake handling.
And the further and further you get into this sermon, this congregation of.
insanity later because you just start hearing everybody cry.
You can start picking out some chanting and some unnatural elements.
And at the end, you hear two voices talking.
They are discussing how to essentially bring someone back from the dead.
They're talking about using bear fur, strange feathers from rare birds.
uh
infant teeth as a part of a ritual with snakes to have somebody live again.
And you know, this probably had a big importance to Clyde, you're guessing, as um he lost his wife a few years ago.
Mm.
Bron, you found the feathers and teeth and everything.
We still have that, right?
Yeah, it's not too far-fetched to uh follow the line there and figure out that Clyde brought his wife back.
What she actually turned into when she was back though...
Who knows?
Did it say any-
snake.
The whole child thing.
and cold as ice i don't think that explains the teeth however that doesn't make any sense but i don't think i care the whole it's no that's a big old no for me dog
Yeah.
Do know what they were doing with the snakes?
Were they like using the venom or were they having the snakes bite them?
Were they live snakes?
Go ahead and roll humanent as you are listening to see our human
CUMINT is only 10 and that is a 22.
So that's a crit fail.
It's hard to say.
It was a chaotic sounding thing, so.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, I got even worse than that.
got 57 out of 10 fail as well.
but you studied a dissertation and you got some puzzle piece to what was going on with Clyde, um turning it all into K.
um Yeah, I think before we turn it into K in in those papers we did have for nine financial papers that mentioned the K group and Obviously we know that that Clyde was
working for Well, I'm sorry was it explained that Clyde was working for Delta Green specifically
Nothing directly pointed it out, but he insinuated that he did some work for Delta Green.
Yeah.
Got you.
Is there anything in here that can that can, you know, connect the dots of if Delta Green was having him look into this or if this was just a man grieving, you know, hoping not to
have to deal with the loss?
Yeah, um the K group stuff seems unrelated to the loss, but the evidence thing, your guesses could be lifted from any FBI evidence store room.
So the reel to reel.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay.
I mean...
K group, is this like the letter K or is this like agent K or handler?
K group, just the letter K.
Some World War II era associations.
ah If they're on a watch list, you're guessing probably Nazis.
Yeah, 100%.
Yeah, that makes sense.
Okay, great.
All right, well, I think I'm done with all of this bullshit and I would like it off my lawn, please.
And I will take that box.
And I'm imagining we're back in the bar and I shifted across the bar to K.
This is your problem now.
these are the type of problems that um I enjoy.
So I thank you for your work.
Here's some more for a job well done.
Another stack of a hundreds.
um And he also passes you both pagers.
He says, you might be getting a page from me or somebody else.
um Be sure to call back quickly.
And he
unnaturally hefts that giant thing up under his arm and walks out into the streetlights and walks across the street and gets into a car you haven't seen.
a little smoother than expected and still got a lot of questions, but I don't know if I want those answers.
Baron, I think we're done here.
It's been a pleasure.
you don't want to sit down and get absolutely rip-roying drunk with me for a little bit?
Now I need to make it back to Morgan and try to forget everything over the past three days.
I could I'll tell you what that some things you can't forget and I'm gonna drink so much fucking coffee I can never sleep again.
That's for sure and I'm I'm definitely not gonna be able to forget that I'm I'm staying but if you're a if you're out fire guy, it was uh, it was nice knowing you and she holds
her arms out for a hug
Yeah, I didn't take you as much as a hugger, but yeah, why not?
Why not?
And you know, I'd come and hug you.
I imagine your head comes down to like my sternum.
And yeah, give you a nice squeeze.
And as we release, I flick you a quarter.
So you know, if you're going to be here a while, why not put on one of your Deathcore?
bulge songs.
Yeah, got it.
I'll put one on just for you.
uh Take care of yourself out there
Will do.
Just like every Delta Green operation, it ends in a hug