Session 17: An Eldritch Ritual Part 1

 October 15th, 2013 

The Irregulars set about exploring the town of Little Compton in search of clues. Francois and Tia chatted up the town's grand total of two hobos for information. One seemed clueless, but the other was worried and reluctant to talk. Little Compton was a bad place to be homeless. The nervous hobo told the group “later” when asked about the disappearing vagrants, and asked for their hotel address, which Francois gave without a second thought.

Chiara, meanwhile, failed to schmooze up the townsfolk, but got the strong sensation of being watched, not helped by the townsfolk she interacted with acting somewhat closed off and cold. Tia and Eric both noticed spiral symbols around town, and Tia picked up a map to mark them on so they could try to identify a pattern. Eric also noticed the townsfolk's suspiciously watchful eyes, more on the south shore and north ends of town. He also managed to locate an awesome felafel place without one of the spiral symbols.

The group looked up the spiral iconography online and picked up sources about rituals and channeling chakras and stuff, and some of the descriptions seemed to match pieces of the web-ritual code. Nonetheless, Chiara was absolutely convinced it was a symbol for a yoga studio.

The group got felafel for dinner.

Eric and Tia assembled the map and found a pattern in the spiral symbols, a straight line bisecting the town diagonally from the north-east corner to Sakonnet Point, and an Archimedes spiral with endpoints at the Point and a location toward the north-east.

While working out the map, a note was slid under the door. It gave an address and the note, “Look for the Book.” The address was for the Little Compton Historical Society, which fell fairly near the centerpoint of the spiral on the map. According to the internet, the Society had apparently suffered a fire and subsequent water damage several years prior and was still “closed for repairs” with no sign of work being done.

The group made plans to go to the Society the next morning, and set up watches for the night in their joined rooms since none of them trusted the townsfolk. Midway through the night, during Eric's watch, the rest of the group dreamed they were on an old, creaking boat on black water in a thick fog bank, a solid white wall all around. Creepy unintelligible whispers drifted through the fog, and the dreamers felt a sense of foreboding and dread, like fingers up the spine.

The group woke to whispers coming in from outside. They looked out the window and saw a procession of robed shadows walking down the street, and snuck out to follow. Eric fell down the stairs, making a lot of noise, while Simon turned ninja with how quiet he was. The robed procession continued down the unnaturally straight street toward the sea. The shadows didn't seem to notice the group the whole way, and the whispers continued until the procession crossed a sandbar at low tide to a small sandy island. The motley heard the phone sound again, and Eric heard words in it calling him to the island. He resisted the pull.

And the group woke up from their shared dream back in their hotel rooms.

They discovered all their electronics were drained. They searched the rooms for the cause of the dream, since the experience reminded them of a dream vessel, using Kenning to track down a pair of medallions affixed in a hidden spot in the wardrobes under a drawer. The medallions were metal with the spiral engraved on them, and were ice-cold to the touch. Also not drained, though regular dream-vessels would have been. Holding them too long showed the holder glimpses of their durance, and the Kenning impression was of slimy viscous fluid. Eric melted them both, despite fear trying to hold him back from even touching the second medallion. Everyone then tried to get some sleep.

 October 16th, 2013 

The next morning, under Eric's direction, the group picked a breakfast location at random in a gas station.

Chiara looked up tide timetables so the group could plan their day, and then they headed to the Historical Society building.

They found the Society overgrown with a padlocked gate on the fence. While everyone else took the hard way in by climbing over, Simon picked the lock for an easier entrance. The building looked like it hadn't been touched since the fire, though the fire damage itself was fairly minimal. Usable furniture had been cleared out of the interior of the building, which was a fairly nice repurposed house, making it odder that it would be left in disrepair for so long. Luckily for the motley, at least, the nearest neighbors were an acre away and the Society's lot backed up against a forest.

Inside the group explored the ground floor, with Eric bumping into things and shaking ash and dust down on his head. Kenning indicated they should head downstairs, and they found the basement access in the kitchen. While the kitchen looked kind of modern, prior to the fire, the basement was wholly 1800's era, with rough stone floors and a root cellar area. Eric lit it up by calling sunlight there with a Contract (much to the Darklings' complaint), and the place was full of storage crates and bins. The basement was at least as large as the floor above.

The motley found a desk at one end of the room with drawers that were all locked, so Simon applied his lockpicking skills a second time. They found papers (financial records), pens and pencils, a medieval dagger (no bloodstains to be found), and finally under a false bottom in a drawer, a ledger. The ledger contained names and dates going back to World War I. All the dates were in October toward the middle of the month, and they were spaced every five years. 2013 was the next year in the sequence, but there was no name in the ledger yet. The motley determined that the dates were likely the full moon of each listed year, and the next would be in two days.

Eric also discovered a more cleverly hidden tray in the desk, containing a contract outlining a deal wherein the townsfolk would provide a “soul” every five years to the Mist, in exchange for varying boons. There were several families listed, as well as Christina Morrison herself despite it dating to almost 100 years ago, and one signature was a black smear that seemed to leave the paper around it with signs of decay or acid burn.

Tia triggered Kenning again, and got such a clear impression that she could tell the contract felt like a tainted Pledge, and that there was a changeling behind the locked door to the root cellar (an impression of cloth and stitching and chains). The group picked the padlock and opened the door to find Hannah, sitting on a low cot and staring blankly ahead. She didn't react to them, except to sand when Chiara pulled her to her feet. Tia used her Contract of Eternal Spring to rejuvenate Hannah, snapping her back to alertness. Hannah didn't remember anything after working on her paper and getting a phone call, though the group deduced that the call must have been some trigger for a post-hypnotic suggestion to come to Little Compton, and determined they had to get Hannah out right then. They took photos of the contract, tucked it into the ledger, and took book and Hannah with them as they went to leave.

They were met at the front door by Orla Greene, who scolded them for trespassing where they shouldn't go. Eric went to leave, but was attacked by two Things that suddenly appeared outside on either side of the door, melting out of the shadows. They were robed figures, trailing smoke with emptiness where their faces should have been, and claws with which they attacked Eric. A fight broke out.

Somehow Greene—who had registered as “normal” to Kenning—turned off everyone's Contracts and connection to Glamour, leeching it slowly from them and dropping the local temperature ten degrees. At this point she suddenly pinged as supernatural before Chiara's Kenning wore out. The two Things, meanwhile, attacked with claws. Chiara took on one while Tia beat the other about the chest and head with her poker, while Greene backed out of the building and ran when people turned on her. Simon snuck out the back with Hannah and aggravatedly slashed Greene's tires with aggravated damage (from his arrowhead token). Eric couldn't get his Contracts to work again, nor could he activate his kith blessing, and found himself severely hampered, not to mention his hand injured when he set it on fire trying to invoke a catch. With his combat effectiveness down, he opted instead to set fire to the paper contract they'd found in the basement, in the hopes that it would do something to Greene. It didn't.

When Greene ran for it, Francois chased her down, going “Tanya Harding” on her to knock her down. Tia then “accidentally” injured her a bit more. Chiara and Tia finished off the Things, though one melted all over Chiara as it died, leaving her smelling of crude oil, raw fish, and something so foul a rancid dumpster would be sweeter. With the Things taken out of commission, the group quickly made plans for what to do next.

NPCs Met
Orla Greene, not a normal personal assistant

Enemies
Orla Greene

Two Things that smell foul, fight dirty, and make no sound in the process

Other Stuff
Session 16: A Strange Conspiracy (Part 3)

Session 18: An Eldritch Ritual (Part 2)