Protagonists#

• Short, Lance - Foreign Service Officer (Γιάννης)
• Miller, Liam (Agent Dave / Jocko) - Naval Special Warfare Group One (SEALs) (Παναγιώτης)
• Lensing, Emma - Professor of Philology (Τάσος)
• Bennet, Wendy - Criminal Intelligence Analyst / Assistant Professor of Criminology (Κωνσταντίνα)

Licking the wounds#

In the aftermath of the encounter in the marshes, the agents spend the next few days to recuperate and discuss their experiences, thoughts, and agree to the spiel they will sell to Delta Green.

Emma finds to Jaivon Simon at St. Laurence Church. The boy mentions that:

• Sredni Vashtar is violent and savage but honest and pure.
• Sredni Vashtar lives only to hunt.
• Just like human animals eat other animals, Sredni Vashtar eats other gods.
• Sredni Vashtar is truth. It does not tolerate the lies and unnatural corruption of the Hungry Mother’s factory farm.

Lance informs Chilikov that she should not worry about Perez anymore.

Wendy asks Chilikov to forward to her, the correspondence she exchanged with ScribeLife420. After reading through it she finds out that he had a bachelor’s degree in creative writing.

Realizations#

The agents realize that:

• An unnatural force, a god (only knows as Shredni Vashtar), has claimed them. They were summoned by it to destroy another at Cornucopia House in 2001, and they never escaped its service. It drives them to hunt for it.
• There isn’t really any choice. Everything they ever do has already been written somewhere, and free will is a delusion.
• The Children knew. They fed themselves to it, weaving effortlessly along a current of events the Agents can never see. They sharpened the Agents into their god’s new Teeth.

Wrapping-up#

Meanwhile, Pitzerelli arranges for group MASTICATE to gather at the hospital, late at night on Monday, September 19th, 2016.

The agents mention that:

• Thomas Perez is dead.
• They found nothing of importance in Killian’s apartment, except for a photo that resembled Agent Clove.
• Eckstein won’t be a problem anymore. His laptop is in Pitzerelli’s hands.
• The police case folder had been removed from the sheriff’s office.

Emma:

• Emma on the fact that all the murderers have been disposed of.

Wendy:

• Mentions to Pitzerelli the name of Conradin Hopko and that he might be indirectly involved in the case.
• Provides details about the children, their self-sacrifices and the god they worship, and that she believes the Speaker is Conradin.

Jocko:

• Shows Pitzerelli his scars and tells him all about the unnatural chimeras.
• He tells him that he smells. That Pitzerelli has the Scent.
• Realizes that Pitzerelli understands or knows, that the agents have been compromised.

Home Scenes / Personal Pursuit#

• Lance
  • Personal Pursuit: Full Responsibilities
    • Gains 1 Bond in Melinda & Melissa for spending time.
  • Home Scene:
    • Lance asks his friend Salamanca for a new job. He intends to keep distance from his wife Melinda. Moves to Washington DC. His smartphone wallpaper depicts has his wife and daughter.
  • Various:
    • Lance is now adapted to violence.
• Emma
  • Personal Pursuit: Study the unnatural
    • Gain access to rituals from Yelena Kalamatiano’s notes. Has enough time to study one of the following:
      • Call Forth Haedi Nigritiae
      • The Closing of the Breach
      • Estrus of the Mother
      • Exchange Personalities
      • Infallible Suggestion
      • Healing Balm
      • Obscure Memory
    • Loses 4 points Bond from Fr. McKenzie since she doesn’t attend church anymore.
  • Home Scene:
    • A phone call with Fr. McKenzie.
• Jocko
  • Personal Pursuit: Study the unnatural
    • Manages to contact God and gets to ask questions. He receives visions that makes little to no sense. One these leads him to a name: Professor Enoch Bowen
  • Home Scene:
    • Jocko gets a new tattoo on his right shoulder. It depicts an alligator getting bitten by a sharp fang / tooth.
• Wendy
  • Personal Pursuit: Stay on the Case
    • Approaches, befriends and helps Charles Noella, on his study of a new physics particle, which she names. Over a period of a few months, she learns the following:
      • A subatomic Particle that lurks in higher dimensions suggested by string theory, interacts with known particles that our tools perceive.
      • Changes to the Particle can cause changes to other subatomic particles: nudging their masses, toggling their charges, altering their spins, mixing the colors and flavors of quarks and neutrinos.
      • Enough alterations to charge and mass, facilitated by the Particle, could ripple upwards until they altered the macroscopic world. The laws of entropy limit the scope of such changes sharply, but the implications are profound. It should be possible to use the Particle to alter the function of neurons to shape behavior.
      • The possibility that the Particles are the tool of a single consciousness carries shattering implications. A being existing in the 0-dimensional quantum foam would essentially exist outside time, but it would still need to expend energy to perceive and shape the reality detectable by human tools.
      • Calculating the energy requirements would require processing capabilities only guessed at by humanity, such as the inexhaustible computing power of hypothetical computronium. The form and appetites of such a system would occupy most matter in the known universe, perhaps the 68% of total universal energy expenditure currently explained away as mysterious “dark energy.“
      • If true, it would be more accurate to say the universe is part of the Teeth’s God rather than the other way around.