Folie à Un
Michael
Mitch: So as Mitch spends the morning and much of Friday afternoon before his phone call with Roger pacing the hallways, walking the grounds, using both his Aura Reading and Detect (History B) to find anything unusual. Increased analysis of the auras of the participants and hotel staff doesn't give much extra information. However, after sitting in the auditorium that afternoon for a panel and concentrating very hard on the area under the stage, Mitch is able to get a much more solid conception of the pinhole that we now believe is caused by Houdini's consciousness. The repetitious whispering that Mitch heard on Thursday night was like a mantra, a way for whatever entity that is inside the pinhole to keep itself concentrating and together. That concentration, that mental energy, is the only thing keeping this pinhole (and presumably the 52 others across the globe) open. It's just a little sliver of self-belief and ego maintaining this tiny breach and keeping the "waveform," as the kusarikku said, "alive." If what Mitch knows about History B "physics" holds true, then the belief energy of a bunch of people in a séance would widen that hole, and would enable things to pass through one way or the other. Mitch can't help but think about his mental trip into Mount Shasta and the existence of a History B complex on the other side in the place of the mountain, and the pockets of personal belief that allowed penetration from one history to another over the decades. The question honestly becomes, if Houdini is dislodged from this purgatorial netherstate, what will happen to "him" but also... what also may come through after him?
Marshall, meanwhile, spends much of his morning and afternoon at the panels on mass psychology, marketing, and yes, Weird topics to see if he can draw together a group of people credulous enough to participate in an eventual séance session. And given his skills in sussing out people's beliefs, Marshall is able to identify a group of six or seven attendees (and a couple of panelists; for example, one of the "TBD" participants on the original program was in Astrology, and I've always wanted to use Sydney Omarr, the Astrologer to the Stars in this campaign and he seems like the kind of person who would attend a Carnival of Knowledge).
So call it the Rhines, Dr. Hip, Syd Omarr, and a small group of younger, weirder Esalen types who are attendees who can be a little unit of 10 or so séance participants.
And while Dave maybe can't obtain every single object on Houdini's rider list in its original form, by the time you finish recruiting people at 4, 5 pm on Friday, Marshall's suite is full of facsimiles of a good amount of the stuff that Houdini used in his water tank trick.
Jeff
Hmm, so I'm thinking it's probably desirable to exorcise Houdini, so that this pinhole seals over. But it sounds like the process of exorcising Houdini might result in a monster or six popping out of the pinhole during the séance, before the pinhole closes. That assumes the séance will close the pinhole at all — if Houdini poked a hole in reality, and is caught in that hole now, but once he's gone the hole remains? Then Houdini is straight-up guarding the world from demons, good on him. By "maintaining the breach" do you mean keeping it plugged, or keeping it from closing?
There's also the question of whether the fifty-two friends might all separately be sites of incursion. We close it here, it hangs open raggedly elsewhere. Or while we're seancing here, excising Houdini and papering over the pinhole without a hitch, we leave all the other sites vulnerable to whatever xorn or water weird stumbles in.
Belief obviously isn't sufficient to open a way on its own, no matter how deeply or sincerely held. Shasta has some secret in its geography. Maybe Houdini's supposed walk-through-walls trick was a piece of that alchemy here.
I dunno.
Brant
Would Marshall and Mitch, and maybe Dave, have time after the last panel to get back into the secret Houdini room in the ballroom to open some crates and see what’s in there? I have a feeling there’s some original Houdini stuff down there that may be helpful.
Michael
Yeah, absolutely. That will be a midnight or after midnight mission on Friday into Saturday
Brant
Second question: how much does Marshall (or Mitch) know about the distinctions between Bull Men, Scorpion Men, Sedu, etc? Like, would we know that Bull Men tend to be the artillery / heavy hitters of the Red Kings, while the Sedu are more the manipulators, etc?
Michael
I think each of you could give me a Hidden Lore (History B) check there.
Brant
>> SUCCESS by 3
Michael
Cool. I'll wait to see what Mitch gets before doing any infodumping. So it seems like the séance would likely happen on Saturday night into Sunday at the current pace.
Brant
Cool cool. I’m getting more paranoid about this given what Mitch learned (which he hasn’t shared with Marshall and might never do so, which is fine!) and given what I, Brant, know about the Annunaki. But it’s all OOC so we’ll see if Marshall in his drug and drink fueled state would put it all together depending on what info he gathers.
Like I’ll just say it out loud because we’re all good gamers who can keep OOC info OOC: if Houdini is acting as sort of a “guardian” who is both an immortal distributed consciousness AND something plugging up 53 holes in reality, it’d make sense the Red Kings would send a siege specialist to “break him” IF they want the thing(s) on the other side to get out.
But if they really WERE concerned with like healing some grave cosmic sin that Houdini is committing and which threatens the fabric of every reality, or whatever, I feel like they’d send someone more … sophisticated? Manipulative? A Marshall, in other words, as opposed to mortar cannon.
ANYWAY that’s my OOC paranoia.
On the other OTHER hand, the Red Kings are alien minds and only marginally scrutable by humans so who knows.
Michael
I'm fine with you guys meeting IC at the bar around 4, 5 pm on Friday (after Mitch's call to Roger we did last week) to chat about this stuff.
We can do Mitch's Hidden Lore roll in the context of this conversation.
Jeff
lore of also 15
>> SUCCESS by 2
The thing that makes me suspicious, yeah, is that it's the exact kind of Red King agent that we just thwarted. Like, if somebody were to scan our brains for 'what do they think a Red King agent looks like' the bull is what they'd get, and I agree that this doesn't seem like a bull kind of problem. Though making it a bull does guarantee Mitch won't deliberately try to burn it to death, since he can't win a firefight with a flamethrower.
BUT that's a thin reed to hang any kind of theory on, as you say the Red Kings are inherently inscrutable and who knows what limitations they're working under.
Or would work under, if they existed.
Which they don't.
Michael
So if the two of you are putting your heads together on "why a kusarikku," your Hidden Lore roles do reinforce the thought that yes, kusarikku are anything but sly and subtle, generally speaking. However, they are, as you two rightly point out, artillery, area effect specialists … heavy hitters. Given the fact that physically, to Marshall, this kusarikku looked old, greyed, like he'd been wandering our Earth for quite a long time … it's possible that the reason he's on the Houdini case is that he was originally assigned to take care of Houdini and now he's trying to finish the mission. Remember that ekimmû that haunted Frank and then his dad: it had a program it needed to follow, an algorithm. One of the reasons why this kusarikku might be walking around as it pleases under cover of SANGUSH is that its basic purpose here is not yet completed.
Brant
"Hm." Marshall sips his Singapore Sling.
Jeff
Hey yeah I overlooked it earlier but: Mitch has no reason not to share his thinking with Marshall, and will do so.
Michael
To continue with that line of thought: if a kusarikku got stuck here, on its own, for fifty years, with no support system, no way of tapping back into its History, no kulullû-fostered cult to give it new orders or power … what would it become??
Brant
Lighting a cigarette: “I mean I guess you’d become desperate or broken enough to ask two of your former slaves for help … ? But I don’t know, man, that just doesn’t jive with anything we know about these motherfuckers.”
Jeff
"It's hard to square a bull being trapped here in History-A for fifty ish years with … what I thought we understood about how retrocreation works. Our mutual friend, you know?"
Even in a context where he's freely throwing around terms like History-A and retrocreation, Mitch is circumspect about Zeb.
Michael
It does seem to be a... repeating motif right now, doesn't it? Getting stranded on "this side." The 1920s.
(Hidden Lore rolls, you two)
Jeff
>> SUCCESS by 5
Brant
>> SUCCESS by 2
Michael
"Maybe..." the two of you think in unison, your paranoid-weekend wires crossed about halfway between your respective third eyes, "Maybe there was a reality quake in the 1920s. A minor, non-ontoclysmic one. The evidence: Zeb. This kusarikku and Houdini. The Mount Shasta cults that started in the '20s. Other hints at weird temporal reverberations backwards (Emperor Norton, etc.)." And now I need both of you to give me a Fright check due to the Weird implications of your successful Hidden Lore rolls. Rule of 14, remember.
Brant
>> FAILURE by 2
Michael
Ooooh
Brant
(Oh shit that’s a failure I believe! My first)
Michael
Perfect. Give me 3d6+2 for the Fright check result.
Brant
36 hours of coke and drinking and little sleep is catching up.
>> 3d6 + 2 … 16
Michael
I actually need to see what happens on Mitch's roll. Because if I can, I might work with some folie à deux ideas I've had for this weekend of M&Ms.
Brant
Word!
Michael
I really dig the idea of Marshall and Mitch starting a mutual tumble into hallucinations and delusions about Houdini at this convention
Brant
The idea that Marshall might be living in a “History C” or something — an alternate ALTERNATE time line — is exactly the sort of thing that would send him spiraling.
Michael
I mean, you are going to suffer an effect no matter what. And I have some ideas on how it will go if Mitch makes his check. But I want to see how Mitch does.
Brant
Oh yeah that’s fine. I’m just commenting generally.
Michael
The History C idea does seem to haunt Uriel.
Jeff
>> SUCCESS by 2
Mitch is cool.
Michael
Ah right, Mitch IS cool. So yeah, Brant, since this is now folie à un I'd like to give you a choice of options: you can get a temporary "state" of my choosing, or a permanent Quirk of your choosing. I think either way I'd like to integrate the History C idea somehow.
Jeff
State state state state
Also does Mitch light Marshall up?
>> FAILURE by 2
Shit
Michael
Hahahahah oh wow.
All right, so the bar is getting hot I guess!
Brant
I’ll take the temporary one of your choosing.
Marshall’s gonna absolutely have a break down whatever it is. He’s drunk and high and this shit is getting too weird.
Michael
Marshall sweats. The heat in here... it's getting hotter, isn't it? Isn't that one of the signs of... the coming of a kusarikku? It's already here! Marshall's eyes dart from corner to corner of the bar. Out to the hallway. Past the veranda to the topiary garden where last night... didn't that happen last night? Or was it in another timeline? Which timeline is this? Mitch watches Marshall stand up, glassy eyed and sweaty, and walk at a brisk pace out of the bar, muttering to himself.
(If Mitch makes a Hearing roll, he'll hear Marshall muttering, "Need to get out of here. Need extraction. Immediate extraction.")
Brant
If I can add one bit of flavor, Marshall will also lapse between English and what sounds like Vietnamese.
Michael
I mean, this is basically a Flashback but we should roll for it regardless. Fail on 6 or less.
Oh wait, I roll
>> 3d6 … 10
Nope, but functionally, yeah, this is a mix of paranoia over History C and a flashback to... the temple.
(Man, am I glad Mitch went to Mount Shasta and trained the accidental Pyro 6 out of his head)
(Also, yeah, Marshall's sanity has been pretty decent so far in the game with the exception of a couple of cocaine-aided manic phases )
Brant
Well, if he has any agency, Marshall’s gonna try to find his way out of the temple-hotel, half-running as he goes. He’s gotta find his security detail — they weren’t supposed to leave him alone, fucking jugheads.
Jeff
Okay. First off, if I have any say in it I think Mitch's Uncontrollable Pyrokinesis would be specifically targeted on Marshall, and be in the heatstroke form. I was going to say this but there was a whole brouhaha over bathtime that distracted me. I guess it would have basically the same result, as Marshall would suddenly start losing FP at an alarming rate until he ran abruptly out of the bar. I'm sure either Marshall skedaddles out of Mitch's line of sight or Mitch gets a hold of himself before Marshall passes out, regardless.
Second, as soon as Marshall bugs out, Mitch will spend a little while centering himself and calming down. He's not worried that he needs to go chasing after his friend/work acquaintance right away. Then he'll amble in the direction he saw Marshall go.
His plan is to catch up to Marshall and try to talk him down. But first, he finishes his drink and maybe reflects briefly on the vicissitudes of life by ordering one last drink before he rises.
(I know it's specifically Uncontrollable Pyrokinesis so I freely admit it's probably not my purview to dictate.)
Michael
Yeah, yeah, I dig it. I guess I need to look up the heatstroke rules to see how long Marshall can last being baked.
So Marshall gets to resist with Will.
Jeff
He probably gets to make an HT roll every second he's under the effect of the power (which has a range of line of sight as we all recall so well) and he loses 2 FP if he fails the roll. It would be a Quick Contest except Mitch doesn't roll for Pyrokinesis.
Will? Ok, the above was off the top of my head
"Guessing At GURPS! The fun new party game!"
Brant
Will-16
>> SUCCESS by 5
Michael
If he fails the Will roll he loses 1 point of FP per level of the power.
Okay, so he's not taking FP damage.
He is definitely hot though.
Hot like the Laotian jungle.
Brant
Oh yeah. He’ll have pulled off his red velvet blazer and tossed it on a nearby potted plant, etc.
Michael
I'm not sure if Marshall is having actual hallucinations; it might be more accurate to say that he's experiencing the flashback in his forebrain, re-experiencing certain elements of it. Was Marshall taking acid to aid his cognitive processes in 'Nam?
Brant
Uhhhh of COURSE he was, wouldn’t you?
Michael
I think the reason why I'm hesitant to go whole hog is that I don't want to pull back the curtain on the failed temple op quite yet! Except to say that there are certain... thematic parallels between Marshall's fractured memories of that op and the 1973 trigger of considering there may have been a minor reality quake in the 1920s involving some of our URIEL cases so far. When Marshall snaps out of it I can work through some rolls for theories but right now he's too deep in the Shit.
Brant
Well, he’s gonna try to leave the hotel-temple to get outside but halfway through he lobby he’ll remember he forgot his service weapon upstairs so he will sprint off to get it before the VCs find it — why’d he ever let that fucker talk him into taking it off.
(He’s gonna try to get his gun from his hotel room.)
Michael
Namaste, Brant. Namaste.
Jeff
Was I wrong about it being per-second? Or is it just that Mitch only loses control for the one round? Or both, I dunno. Some third thing, maybe. I should probably review the pyrokinesis rules but I'm tired.
Michael
You get a Will roll to try to bring it under control, Rule of 14.
If you want.
Jeff
>> FAILURE by 1
hahaha
Michael
More heat! Another Will save for our man in Laos.
Brant
>> SUCCESS by 5
Rolling up his sleeves, unbuttoning his shirt.
Michael
He's still fine, not gaining any fatigue! He's gonna take the stairs up to the room I take it. Like the steps of the temple.
Brant
Yes, absolutely— sticking to the walls, peeking around corners.
Michael
By this point Marshall is on the second floor, wide-eyed, looking for the room where he left his gun. If Mitch is going to continue to try to arrest his Pyrokinesis while following Marshall, give me another Rule of 14 roll.
Jeff
If you say so
>> SUCCESS by 7
Okay, the heat is OFF. And that will give Dr. Redgrave another shot at a Will check (Rule of 14) to stop the flashback.
Brant
>> SUCCESS by 4
Michael
Marshall standing in the middle of the second floor hotel hallway in his shirt and shorts, finally beginning to feel the intolerable jungle heat abate a little bit, sees Mitch at the top of the second-floor landing staring back at him.
Jeff
"What's up, man?"
Brant
Marshall pushes his bushy hair out of his face and wipes his forehead with his forearm. “I … I need to take a bath. What floor is this?”
Jeff
"Uh … two? I think. Yeah, two."
Brant
He’ll go to pick up a hallway courtesy phone to dial the front desk. “This is Redgrave, what number is my suite? I need someone to come up here with the keys, I left the keys somewhere.”
Jeff
Aura sight on Marshall
Michael
Go for it.
Jeff
>> ACTIVATE … SUCCESS by 0
>> DETECT … SUCCESS by 1
>> ANALYZE … CRITICAL SUCCESS
A crit on the one where a crit might count!
Michael
Well, he's not suffering from heatstroke, at least.
Marshall's aura is disorganized, chaotic, split into tendrils of red-orange fury and fear; Mitch sees deep down that there are memories that his conscious mind does not have access to, that there is part of his brain sealed off from conscious access, and that within that part of his brain, some memory or knowledge is coiled, dangerous, ready to strike. The discussion about there being some kind of critical shift and reality temblor in the 1920s … that was the thing that tripped the tripwire in Marshall's repressed memories.
Other than that, Marshall is quite healthy, although he does have an awful lot of drugs in his system right now.
Brant
Assuming the hotel sends up a valet to unlock his suite, Marshall is going to immediately strip down and pour a lukewarm bath. He’s also gonna pop a barbiturate once he has access to his bags.
Michael
(if there's any RP to be had in the aftermath of that sanity-shattering realization, feel free to do so.)
Brant
Depends on if Mitch follows Marshall. He doesn’t need to and it doesn’t seem like Marshall expects him to; if he doesn’t he’s gonna soak until the water gets cold or until he falls asleep in the tub.
Jeff
Yeah, I think Mitch is familiar enough with drugs that he realizes Marshall needs some time to wind down and sober up before he's going to be ready to have a conversation about repressed memories. Ironically of course Marshall is the guy Mitch would want to consult about repressed memories.
Michael
This is all pretty great on a meta level, I can't lie
So I think we can probably regroup around midnight Fri/Sat, when we were planning to crack open some crates?
Jeff
Sure. Though I kind of want there to be or have been a comedy-of-errors bit where Mitch tries to raise the subject of repressed memories with Marshall and Mitch talks about “my friend” who had trouble in Vietnam, and Marshall waggles his eyebrows and is like, yes, your “friend,” I imagine that’s when his psychic powers first manifested? And Mitch is like, I guess maybe.
Michael
Oh yeah, I mean, I don't have any objection to Mitch working Marshall for an explanation of what just happened, I just meant that the crawlspace is our next action item per se.
Brant
That is the next action item from my perspective. Once Marshall’s gotten some sleep / pulled himself together a bit
Michael
You guys want to have Dave along down in the crawlspace when you guys go there to toss the crates and dusty set decoration? Or is this going to be a strictly Marshall and Mitch thing?
Jeff
It depends on whether I can burn a use of Serendipity to find something cool.
Michael
Yes, I think that if Mitch wanted to give the "Houdini pinhole" down there another look with Detect (History B), that might be something that his Serendipity would nudge him towards. No need for the sense roll since you know where it is, I would be fine with a straight IQ roll to more deeply analyze it. And if Mitch wants to spend more time analyzing it, leaving the physical rummaging to a hungover and shaky Marshall, I would say he could get the max bonus of +5 to the IQ roll. That would be intense concentration for a couple of minutes. (For character and comedic reasons, the idea of Marshall being forced to do all the grunt work while Mitch stares into the Houdini hole tickles me. Also, if Mitch's Serendipity does nudge him towards a deeper analysis of the hole, I would imagine that it might be advisable for bodyguard Dave NOT to be present.)
Regardless, Marshall can give me an Observation roll as well.
Jeff
Yeah, if your answer is yes, and it sounds like it is, then my answer is no, Marshall and Mitch alone.
So I’m rolling IQ+5.
Michael
Yeah!
Jeff
>> SUCCESS by 8
Not a crit but a nice big margin of success.
Michael
With some extra time peering at the invisible pucker in reality (behind which is ostensibly the frozen waveform of Harry Houdini's consciousness), Mitch discovers a couple of novel things about the pinhole. First of all: the whispering in German is no longer evident, but Mitch does now hear a cacophony of voices—dozens of different ones, male and female—and this time they're in English. Confused voices full of panicked pain, saying things like, "Why can't I leave? Why am I still in this hotel?" and "Where is my wife?" and "Doctor! Doctor!" Fright check time, big man.
Jeff
>> SUCCESS by 5
No fires on a 14-
>> SUCCESS by 4
Michael
I'm not sure if this series of events has made Mitch a believer in ghosts per se. But knowing what he knows about the background and history of the hotel on the little tour from yesterday, Mitch can't help but think that these voices hint that the presence of this pinhole is … activating? awakening? attracting? retrocreating? the voices of ghosts from the Stanley's history as a TB retreat.
Jeff
Hmm
Is this giving me pause that the entire Houdini connection is some kind of smokescreen? Or is it consistent with the story as we've been told it?
Michael
Well, this is definitely a new element in our current scenario. Houdini was talented enough, according to the kusarikku anyway, to escape from the bonds of death itself using his special History B-bestowed phasing ability. But these folks would all have died 10-20 years before Houdini, and had presumably no special skill to escape death at all. History B lore doesn't say anything about life after death, of course … but it does say a lot about emotional and death resonances and certain places being "important" in the loose, Irruption-related sense of the word. I may have Mitch and Marshall both give me Hidden Lore rolls now, if Mitch wants to engage Marshall on this.
Jeff
Probably Mitch wants to talk to Marshall re this. Maybe not if I get a crit success or crit failure, though. Let me roll first.
Hidden lore 14.
>> SUCCESS by 5
Yeah, tap Marshall
Brant
Once Marshall has cleaned up a bit and put on some different sunglasses, he'll rendezvous with Mitch while also trying to avoid the gaze of hotel staff. He'll tell Dave to hang out in the lobby and keep an eye on the ballroom door while he and Mitch are inside.
Observation-16.
>> SUCCESS by 4
Michael
So Marshall's inspection of the crates and curtain-draped set pieces and other stagecraft material down here in the crawlspace doesn't reveal anything Houdini-related. There are definitely some older props and set dressing but they look to be from stage plays, for concerts, etc. It's clear that if anything off the Houdini rider was once stored down here for Houdini's show, it's not here anymore. One thing Marshall does find, though, tucked into one of the crates, is a rolled up poster.
It's faded and crinkly and close to falling into pieces after having been rolled up for presumably 55 years. But it is from the original tour that featured the Water Torture Escape.
(bonus material also from the Houdini book I've been using)
Brant
Marshall will lay out the poster for Mitch to look at. “I mean, kind of fucking literal of the guy, you know? Might as well be advertising for History B at this point.”
“But what do you think? Is it useful for our uhhhh thing tonight?”
Michael
Hearing roll for ol' Mitch.
Brant
Increasingly seeming like we’re gonna have to drown or almost-drown someone to pull this off.
Jeff
>> SUCCESS by 1
"Did you — ssh! Did you hear that?"
"SSH!"
"Do you, listen man, do you know if we can help you? You need help?"
"SSH!"
Michael
Silence for Mitch. Detect (History B) notes a slightly wavering and fluctuation in the pinhole, but then it restabilizes.
(Another Hearing check wouldn't produce anything. Nothing but silence.)
Jeff
Mitch waits until he's sure, then tells Marshall that the idea was to flaunt his knowledge, that he wanted to tell them they weren't invisible and untouchable
"I think that's what he said."
"He didn't sound like he stridently disapproved of our plan, at least."
Brant
“Wait, what?” Marshall pats himself looking for a cigarette but finds none and hmphs. “Who said? Houdini? Houdini wanted to show uh … them, the Enemy, that they weren’t untouchable? So that’s why he did this thing?”
Jeff
"I think that's what he said," Mitch says again.
"Man I'm conflicted on this one. If he did it on purpose who are we to pull at the thread?"
(If I'm not misunderstanding which of course I might be, Mitch made a Hidden Lore History-B roll to analyze the situation and another roll has been called for from Marshall, and we're waiting on the results?)
Brant
“But you said he also sounded copacetic with our plan? Interesting. Perhaps an uhhh existence as a half-dead mind distributed across time and space has sanded his resolve down? Like, he may have had this purpose originally, but now that he’s done and been doing it for whatever, 55 years, you know? Maybe he feels he’s proven his point and is ready to uhh go home.”
Jeff
"I don't want to read too much into it. He was taking issue with your characterization of his poster, which, if we were about to ruin his crosstime scheme, he'd probably have bigger fish to fry? Unless it's just, like, a recording of him at time-of-death and he can't process new information outside the immediate situation. I remember that from somewhere: ghosts have anterograde amnesia."
Michael
(Yeah, I do think Marshall is due another Hidden Lore roll! We can fold it into this conversation.)
Brant
>> SUCCESS by 2
So this roll was in reference to Mitch having heard a cacophony of other voices, which he did not want to completely or definitively classify as ghosts, but given the current circumstances, well, it's on both your minds. Regardless of whether there are actual ghosts stalking the hallways and gardens of the Overlook Stanley, there's enough "death energy" here, Marshall supposes, to act as the basis for a very sly agent of History B to take advantage of it as a prerequisite for triggering a reality temblor. There would need, of course, to be that element of belief as well. And the presence of an actual Irruptor, well, that would be a huge help.
As we're tying this into our friend trapped between worlds, well, if we don't believe our musclebound, bull-horned friend that Houdini's escape act from death is going to destroy "both" our worlds, the presence of a whole bunch of dead TB patients on the grounds of the Stanley does likely differentiate it from the 52 other places on Earth that Houdini did the water cell trick. Not a lot of theaters are reverberating with that kind of death energy.
Brant
Marshall will take a seat on top of a crate and then convey this thought to Mitch, but he’s going to couch it in terms of Vietnamese Buddhist-Mahanayana cultural beliefs regarding the restless dead, loci being infused with “bad karma,” etc.
Because to the extent Marshall understands occult spirituality he understands it best through that lens.
Jeff
“I’m not liking this, man. Usually, I … I have a sense of what I should be doing, of what’s going to work out best. I don’t always do it, but...it’s like, I can always feel which way is downhill.”
(Mitch is trying to frame the experience of being Illuminated and a Weirdness Magnet with two levels of Serendipity.)
“This, though. This. It’s like we’re on a saddle point. There’s this way, where we jam a fork the electrical socket and maybe something good happens? And there’s this way where we do the Pilate thing and leave a stone un-turned.”
“Neither one feels right.”
“Maybe there’s some third way? Something we’re missing?”
Brant
Marshall nods. "Yeah. Yeah, I agree. It feels like a trap — but it feels like such an obvious trap that it can't really be a trap. But then again, I don't … I don't think the Bull knows who we … are? It's like I was saying yesterday, when we met him, I get the impression that he just picked us because we were, I don't know, in proximity to the Rhines, or something. Got us confused with them. I don't know. So maybe it is an obvious trap because he does not know we're uhhh sophisticated enough to spot it. Like if a Bull-God appeared before a random person and told them to do XYZ to save the world, without our training, that person wouldn't know not to do it."
"In most Buddhist traditions, there are these people who can uhhh 'channel' the dead. Kind of like Roger, you know? Monks and holy-women. When I was in 'Nam, I met one, this arhat who would ... God, I don't know, let the dead speak through him, I guess? He'd channel dead relatives and whatever, and people would ask questions and get answers, simple stuff, but it didn't … it seemed real enough, to me, at the time. Though at that time I was ... " Marshall trails off.
"Anyway, what I'm saying is do you think we can uhhhh invoke Houdini? And just ask him? Ask him what's up? Maybe no banish him or whatever the fuck it is the Bull wants, but just talk to him?"
Jeff
“Smells a little like sticking the fork in the socket. But drawing him out enough to talk to, that’s going to be the first step of anything we do. And if he heard you badmouthing his poster, then he’s capable of hearing us call him.”
“But Roger told me — I knew this, I forgot it — they used to try to summon up Houdini every year at Halloween for a long time. And by ‘they’ I mean his wife that he promised he would visit as a spirit, if he were able.”
“Although … Bess Houdini probably didn’t try it at the Stanley.”
“So, okay. That’s the third way. We go back to the original ‘séance’ idea and if we manage to converse, we just do whatever Harry Houdini tells us to.”
FWIW we’re having this conversation in front of the pinhole.
Is it too late to get Archie I guess to make a call on our behalf to Granite Peak and have somebody check the archives for any code phrases or passwords that were current in 1926? Houdini might respond to that
I haven't checked the history of the book, but isn't the history a, history bee nomenclature a relatively recent thing?
Oh wait, Marshall could call them directly, that would help
Brant
That’s a great idea. Marshall could do that, he has security clearance and knows people, plus he can lie about their purpose. Mike — what time / day is it in-game, exactly?
Michael
So at this point it's after midnight Friday night/Saturday morning Colorado time which means it's 7:30-ish am GMT Saturday, right before everyone went off on their Saturday morning excursions to stone circles and into the Pennines. So conceivably you could reach Archie or Roger after breakfast and before all that stuff that happened last session.
(Also, yeah, Brant, Marshall could try himself to reach Granite Peak and get some info. I would absolutely RP that here.)
Brant
OK. Marshall will suggest adjourning for the night and try getting ahold of Granite Peak in the morning — if he does it now it’ll seem suspicious. We can RP that out at your convenience.
Michael
Sounds good. This puts us on track for a Saturday evening seance before the Carnival breaks up on Sunday.
So Saturday morning, Marshall gets on the horn to Granite Peak. I am assuming you're going to ask for that same person in Records that you asked for a little … independent research last time around?
(Someone with a bit of delicacy, tact, and willingness to go into the files and not tell anyone in a position of authority what you're snooping around for, I mean. )
Brant
Yes! OOC I’m not sure how Marshall would spin the request but ultimately what he wants is sort of a primer on early 20th Century thinking re: History B, the ontoclysm, reality temblors, etc. He’d also poke around to see if he could maybe get some info on Houdini’s activities in the US and England circa 1926-1927.
Actually as a “cover story” I may be over thinking this. Marshall would probably just be like, “Hey I’m at this conference, blah blah blah, was talking to a guy about Houdini — weird, right? — and that got me thinking of a possible lead for some research I’m doing on that time period, figured I’d call you while it’s on my mind.”
Just reeeeeaaaaaaal casual like.
Michael
Excellent. (For the record, I will want to flesh out/have you pay points for this contact at some point, but for now let's just assume they're somebody Marshall either has befriended, compromised, or Enthralled at Granite Peak and can go to for reliable subrosa access to SANDMAN records.) So let's build a Fast-Talk roll, adding 2 to your skill for various status-related bonuses.
(And keep in mind it may be a few hours before your contact has results for you. So we'll get it before the proposed seance tonight.)
Brant
(I was JUST thinking the same thing re: buying this person as a Contact at the end of this mission, assuming we get XP!)
Fast-Talk 18
>> SUCCESS by 6
Michael
I do feel like I want to also take some time this morning/afternoon and flesh out a few of the panels you guys have attended... I feel like I let down the radio-music business/mass psychology elements of the Carnival that would be of interest to Mitch and Marshall, and given that we've been recruiting folks from these panels, it makes sense to do that... so I may do a little bit of that scene-setting this afternoon and then deliver the research results at around 3 or 4 pm Saturday in-game. Obviously tomorrow night's live game on video will consist of the séance itself.
Do Mitch and Marshall want to try to reach Houdini with just the two of them before any midnight séance with a larger group including the Rhines, Ricky Jay, Sydney Omarr, et al.? Because I bet you could find an hour in between panels on Saturday where the two of you could see your way clear to using the theater and descending to the crawlspace, either through Fast-Talking, Enthrallment, etc.
That is, after you've gotten the info from Granite Peak but before midnight.
Brant
I think we might want to get the information from GP before deciding.
Assuming there's time.
Michael
Perfect. And yeah, there should be!
I would think that Saturday night there will likely be musical performances in the theater from 8 to midnight but in that window between 4 and 8 Mitch and/or Marshall could try to slip in undetected and rap with the ghost.
They'll need a couple of hours to set up sound and lights, etc.
Brant
I am extremely hyped about the idea of M&M sneaking into a hidden basement during an early ‘70s experimental music performance.
Might as well drop acid beforehand, right? Can't hurt.