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)

Personal Pursuits#

Activities between July 1st, 2017, and October 9th, 2017.

• Lance Short
  • Home Scene: Lance has an encounter with his wife Melinda (Tassos), as she returns home to find him with their daughter Melissa. He is willing to rebuild his relationship with his spouse and daughter. He offers to take them on a drive to his beloved lighthouse in Baltimore.
  • Personal Pursuit: Fulfill responsibilities. Failed the roll but gained +1 to his bond with Melinda and Melissa.
  • Broken Bonds: Lance’s bond with Liam was broken after he realized his fellow agent now possesses the Scent.
• Liam Miller
  • Home Scene: Liam is fishing for crayfish by the dock at dusk. He decides to call Emma on the phone. She picks up and he starts narrating to her about his discoveries of Bast and trips to Cairo, Egypt.
  • Personal Pursuit: Stay on the case: Failed the roll (95 on 65). He didn’t get much out of that expensive trip to Cairo, but learned quite a few things from Pitzerelli following Enoch Bowen:
    • The archaeological work of Professor Enoch Bowen based on dubious translations of Abd al-Hazred’s accounts of Bastet and Sekhmet in Al-Azif, and certain discredited etchings of pictographs found in a now-destroyed tomb in southern Gebel Dosha, reveal the Black Rites of Bast.
    • They began in southern Egypt in the late predynastic age, before 3000 BC. They were a codified regime of religious child abuse, sorcery, and torture. Priests of Bast enacted the “mysteries” of their cult on young orphans snatched from raided tribes or sold into slavery. Children were kept prelingual and carefully monitored to prolong their pain without reaching death.
    • The victims’ animal pain called out to Bast. The goddess sent warriors called her “Teeth” to avenge the children. The Teeth followed the stench of sorcery and slaughtered the priests. The priests happily laid down their lives as sacrifices, offering their blood to “make drunk” their savior with the taint of magic so she might refrain from consuming the world. The Teeth sought new prey, inevitably destroying themselves in a helpless war against unnatural chaos.
    • Surviving victims of the Black Rites became the next generation of sorcerer-priests.
    • The worship of Bast has at times been associated with bizarre behavior in animals and children. In fact, it’s unclear whether Bast finds any distinction between the two.
  • Extras: Thanks to his new friend, Zen, Liam manages to gain a new DG Bond (Lance Short again).
• Emma Lensing
  • Breaking Point: Emma develops Depression and loses her will to become a full-time professor.
  • Personal Pursuit: Study the Unnatural. Reads Anthony Cooper’s books and notes:
    • Geographic and Spiritual Alignment with Jannah: This 7th-century astronomy text blends early Muslim Arab astronomical methods with astrological and religious ideas from pre-Islamic Persia, including Manichaeism, Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, Greek paganism, Judaism, Gnosticism, and Christianity. It claims that full understanding leads to mystical enlightenment, uniting the seeker with a hidden, eternal heaven and a divine figure called the Watcher on High. The text’s complex and eclectic mix of beliefs makes it notoriously hard to interpret, and most scholars dismiss it.
    • Remote Stare - A Field Manual for Higher-Dimensional Reconnaissance: Remote Stare is Anthony Cooper’s reinterpretation of parts of Ibrahim al-Tariq’s 7th-century work Geographic and Spiritual Alignment with Jannah. Rather than translating it, Cooper distills its techniques by combining al-Tariq’s methods with modern remote viewing, drone, and satellite surveillance. The goal is to awaken perception beyond normal senses, granting awareness of higher-dimensional realities, timeless perspectives, and unseen correspondences between human and non-human modes of perception.
  • Home Scene: She secludes herself, responding only to Jocko’s calls and seeing him in person from time to time. She notices that he looks much younger, though he smells like the unnatural.
• Wendy Bennett
  • Personal Pursuit: Stay on the case. Discovers a redacted version of FBI Case 07-195121 [Redacted].
  • Home Scene: Wendy is having dinner at a restaurant with a younger man. She was introduced to him by her friend Donna. It didn’t work out, which annoyed Donna and caused additional tension in their relationship.

Denver, Colorado, Monday, 9 OCT 2017, 2:30 p.m.#

The Orders#

Working Group Masticate are redirected from current assignments to an emergency meeting at the DEA Division Office in Denver. They’re supposed to be briefed into a joint FBI/DEA task force code named HOLIDAY, tasked with gathering interstate narcotics trafficking intelligence Colorado.

Last-minute details by phone on encrypted, disposable devices. The Agents’ real destination is Denver County Jail.

Agent Jocko arrives first in a taxi, followed by Locke in a rented vehicle, then Nikita in another taxi. Myra arrives last, and late, due to a flat tire.

Pitzerelli is waiting outside the jail and briefs them on the case from the safety of a bulletproof SUV.

On Sunday the 8th of October 2017, a Friendly in the U.S. Marshal’s service was serving a prisoner transfer when the facility entered lockdown. Officials reported a small riot and mattress fire, but the Friendly insists he saw something “alien” onsite. His voicemail, recorded frantically into what he had been told was the “official secret” hotline, contains a few concerning details. Pitzerelli provides the audio excerpt:

“I then proceeded to ascertain the video feed of the cell in question over the right shoulder of the guard. The suspect puked up—sorry, regurgitated—what appeared to be…some sort of alien worm, sir. It engaged with the canine unit for a moment, but then visual confirmation was lost when concussion grenades were used. By the time optics had recovered in the security center, the threat had been neutralized by the accidental ignition of…of a contraband accelerant present in the suspect’s cell.”

Pitzerelli hands Agent Nikita a burner phone the Agents can use to reach out to him, as well as two fake DEA and two FBI badges.

The orders are:

• Figure out what the hell is going on.
• If there is an unnatural vector, identify its source and shut it down.
• Save lives.
• Cover it all up.

Denver County Jail#

Agents Jocko and Nikita enter the prison. They find Charlotte Miller, a junior officer, helming the security station. She looks terrified of them.

After questioning her, the Agents find out that the office wing is empty and that less than half of the scheduled staff showed up today. They have all taken vacation or called in sick.

She leads them inside Block 2 where they are handed over to Sgt Eddie Pelaez. The block is quiet as a funeral. It smells of bleach and smoke. He takes them to Cell 201. It is charred black and closed off with orange painter’s tape. The place reeks of the Scent.

Sgt. Pelaez tells them that the prisoner’s possessions are at the courthouse. He was brought in yesterday and was scheduled to be tried Monday morning. Pelaez tries to explain what happened and decides to hand the agents a flash drive containing the camera footage.

The Footage#

Jocko and Nikita watch the footage on a security station computer:

The footage begins with Cell 201 empty before a guard violently throws the prisoner inside. The prisoner immediately shows severe respiratory distress but is reprimanded by officers outside the cell. Despite poor audio, it’s clear he struggles to speak and coughs violently. Officers demand compliance, then bring in a K-9 unit named Keller.

For seven minutes before a fire, guards and the dog brutally attack the prisoner as he lies dying. The prisoner retches and collapses out of view, his condition masked from the hall by the cell layout. Sounds of barking, shouting, and laughter drown out his choking. Blood splatters the wall as his coughs turn to death rattles. Eventually, he stops moving, but guards take too long to notice.

When the dog approaches and sniffs the prisoner, a horrifying event unfolds: the prisoner’s lungs prolapse from his mouth, entwined with an undulating black mass that consumes the German shepherd. The black shape drags the dog around the cell, leaving blood spattered on the camera. After about 40 seconds, a bag of liquid is thrown in, bursts, and a can-shaped object falls into the cell. The footage then cuts to white and ends.

Denver City Coroner’s Office#

Agents Locke and Myra drive to the Denver City Coroner’s Office, 15 kilometers from the jail.

After talking to Ross Payton, the medical examiner on duty, they find out that he is more than happy to let the FBI take over the case and let them perform the autopsy. He provides paperwork that indicate the following:

• The body was brought in yesterday at 10:30 p.m.
• It is still inside one of the refrigerated drawers.
• The name listed in the paperwork identifies him as “Radomir Reznik”.