Mitch at Point 10
Monday, October 9, 1973.
Michael
Point 10 (epicenter 35° 9' 39.06" N, 86° 25' 14.8074" W, unincorporated forested land, 8 miles east of Fayetteville, Tennessee): Mitch finds himself face-to-face with Sidney Gottlieb at his briefing. The team itself seems to be made up of ice-cold, high-ranking Sandmen. And Mitch definitely seems to be the only "weirdo" on the team. The briefing is mostly made up of Gottlieb speaking directly to Mitch.
"This one is hitting us close to home, of course," Gottlieb says to Mitch, referring the Huntsville being the SANDMAN HQ for this op... but wasn't Marshall Space Center/Redstone Arsenal chosen as HQ after the irruptions happened, Mitch thinks to himself? Is Gottlieb talking about SANDMAN or Mitch himself, Mitch then wonders. "The computer says you're one of the best seers in the whole Project. We've got another couple of lower-level taishers already keeping an eye on the zone, making sure it doesn't extend towards any major population centers... but what we need you to do—along with a team of commandos, of course—is hike into the forest that this zone is enveloping and gets eyes on the situation. Specifically your eyes."
"The mission parameters are simple: recon and elimination of any B-entities found. Aerial shots will be provided for you, but I think I can show you some of them to give you an idea why we assigned you here," Gottlieb says, laying some black-and-white photos on the table in front of Mitch. Three separate shots show the heavily hilly-and-forested zone of south central Tennessee with quite-clear paths of knocked-down trees, a few meters wide and a hundred meters or so in length, transecting in several rays from the assumed epicenter of the zone. "We know there's an irruptor or irruptors down there, Agent Hort, and we know you can engage with them without them trying to kill or seduce you. So your task is to do just that—venture in solo, find any irruptors, gather as much intel from them as you can, either through observation or direct interaction, and then call in the commandos to eliminate them if found. Secondary objective, if no irruptors are found, is to read the subduction zone for information on its etiology, exact size, and any other visual or paranormal evidence within the zone. You'll be driving up there after this briefing; base camp is a farmhouse in Mulberry commandeered for this purpose. Any questions?" Sidney Gottlieb looks at Mitch with a weary, distasteful look on his face; Gottlieb's aura seems to indicate he has an immense amount of disdain for having to use Mitch in this fashion; the auras of the commandos and esmologists surrounding Mitch and Gottlieb likewise look like they're in disbelief they have to depend on this young hippie-looking man for valuable, life-and-existence-saving intel... but they also have a tinge of fear to their auras, like maybe they've seen something in Mitch's file that gives them serious pause.
Jeff
Sudden temperature shift on 15+
>> SUCCESS by 7
"Well, sir. What's the distance between the epicenter and the base camp? What kind of elevation changes are we looking at? I don't want to go in expecting to be in radio contact and find myself stuck at the bottom of a gorge.
"What's the apparent size of the zone? Is it something I'll be able to traverse on foot in an hour, four hours, two days of hiking...?"
Do these knocked-down-trees paths look recent or do they appear (due to retroactive history changes) to have been there for months or years?
"Anything new-slash-old in the local folklore?"
Mitch feels more than a little isolated, here among the square-jawed squares, and attempts to affect the demeanor of Roger at his most businesslike.
Michael
The strategists/esmologists flanking Gottlieb look impressed at this kid's attention to detail in asking for more information. Fear turns to wary respect in their auras. One of them offers a USGS map of the area, pointing out that while there are changes in elevation in the area, they're gentle and gradual and none should markedly block communication. Of course if there's another EM surge all bets are off, but under Earth-normal conditions Mitch should be able to reach his backup quickly. They'll be waiting in a surveillance vehicle on the side of the road closest to the epicenter, Massey Hollow Road.
"Existing borders of the zone as measured by instruments and taishers is roughly a one-mile uneven radius around the epicenter, so it could be traversed and investigated in detail over the course of a day, easily." Mitch has Hiking so he can tell from the photos and the geodetic maps that he can handle this terrain easily; he's climbed Mount Shasta! Twice!
Again, the esmologists look impressed at Mitch's question about local folklore, "Nothing much other than the fact there are a few backwoods cemeteries to the north of the zone; early settlers, mostly, graves mostly dating from the early 19th century and 'forgotten' by many of the locals."
As for whether or not the trees are newly-knocked down or "have been" for years; the aerial recon photos don't show conclusively that they've been knocked down recently but there doesn't seem to be any overgrowth covering the fallen tree limbs. It's early October (at slight elevation) so the branches of the deciduous trees are still green and the fallen branches look covered in fresh leaves. Also the three paths appeared over the past 48 hours one at a time; again, this doesn't mean a lot in a world with retrocreation but it's highly suggestive that they were knocked down, in the present, one at a time. There are no tracks or trails visible from the recon photos of either vehicles or "wildlife."
Jeff
What does the center look like? I'm imagining these three paths converge at a (seemingly undistinguished) central point?
Michael
The paths do not converge! They are three seemingly-random slashes across the face of the zone, they do not connect and again, to re-iterate, there don't appear to be any tracks or trails connecting these slashes. They don't follow any natural features; hillsides or gradations of elevation, but they all are in areas with heavy foliage; the zone contains a few natural clearings and creeks and the slashes all stay well away from those.
Jeff
How straight are they?
Michael
Two of them have a very slight arc to them, the third is fairly straight.
Jeff
Huh okay. I was initially visualizing something like a simple triskelion, is why I asked. Something more like a circle with an inscribed tribar, I'm getting now
Michael
I suppose I could sketch it out, but before I inflict a primitive map on all of us, maybe this is an apropos moment for Mitch to have a Hidden Lore (History B)-16 roll.
Jeff
>> SUCCESS by 1
Whew
Michael
It does look a bit like whatever entity created these marks is slowly and deliberately inscribing something on the landscape, stroke by stroke. Is this a mile-wide glyph? Who would or could even see it? And then it occurs to Mitch. Of course. The satellites and the spy planes would. But that would be ascribing meaning to a phenomenon that right now is merely three random, if suggestive, lines. At this rate the glyph would take days to complete, and even with his basic knowledge of the geometry and alphabet of Anunnaki glyphs, Mitch can't deduce which glyph this would end up as. Too little data.
Jeff
When was the most recent aerial photo taken?
Michael
It would have been a night-vision/infrared series of photos from around 3 am Monday, six hours before the big briefing. The third and most recent stroke appears on those photos.
Jeff
So less than eight hours ago?
Michael
Yep.
Jeff
Ok
Michael
If Subduction Sighting with the jam is still the plan, we can zip ahead to that. It's a little less than an hour drive up to Point 10. No need to break out the black helicopters and be excessively conspicuous.
Jeff
Ok, yeah.
Mitch's plan is to remote-view scout as much as he can before going in on foot, but he doesn't expect to be finished until he's gone all the way in on foot.
Since he's going to be hiking he isn't going to be able to do more than one remote-viewing FP spend, of course
Mitch's plan is to remote-view scout as much as he can before going in on foot, but he doesn't expect to be finished until he's gone all the way in on foot.
Michael
I guess the order of operations would be:
Eat jam, use Subduction Sight-15 to peer a little ways into the subduction zone for free. If anything gets revealed at this point, use Detect (History B) and/or Aura Sight to probe further. Deal with the subsequent Delusion about the subduction zone, if applicable.
If the Subduction Sight craps out, use Clairvoyance to remote view in once (FP spend)
With that recon done, depending on the results, venture into the zone on foot. The jam will still be in effect so it will give Mitch a kind of "distance vision" that will let him sweep much more surface area with much less actual moving around than might be required otherwise. Again, deal with any Delusions from the jam as necessary.
Jeff
So do I start with a Subduction Sight-15 roll?
>> SUCCESS by 1
Inauspicious!
Michael
The Point 10 security team drives Mitch to the spot closest to the zone on Massey Hollow Road and give him a tacit distance to observe and be in the presence of the subduction zone. Mitch (surreptitiously?) takes a spoonful of the jam Mary-Lynn packed for him before he left the Bay; it makes Mitch think of her, and the day they made jar after jar of the stuff, and there's a little tug of regret and sadness in its tartness. But then Mitch feels the berries kick in; he puts the Bay Area, Downer Ranch, and all that out of his head as his senses twirl and his perception feels almost sucked into the subduction zone. First things first; there's no illusion or trick here on the part of the SANDMAN higher-ups; the ontological ground in those woods is deeply unsettled. It is absolutely a subduction zone; the berries are able and eager to extend Mitch's sight. In his new Subduction Sight, the crowded dense foliage almost parts for Mitch... he's able to see on this sunny day about 700 yards into the zone even through the dense growth. And 700 or so yards is far enough to reach and scan one of the "marks" of knocked-down trees.
(Given the circumstances, I think it makes sense for Mitch to now use Detect (History B) and activate-perceive-analyze things at this physical point, since this line of knocked-down trees is presumably physical evidence of History B interaction in History A.)
Jeff
>> ACTIVATE … SUCCESS by 5
>> DETECT … SUCCESS by 4
>> ANALYZE … SUCCESS by 5
Michael
Mitch's extended sight into the subduction zone lets him project his Detect abilities outward, and as Mitch scans the trail of destruction left by whatever entity created the second slash (the one closest to the west side of the subduction zone), his Detect (History B) allows him to understand the deeper nature of the arboreal destruction.
It's a plan.
A joyous plan, entreated by the Kings of Us All, by Those Who Provide, and put into play by Their glorious technology and by the wills of hundreds of local worshipful souls who all wish to make this land of rolling hills and fecund fields and gorgeous forests into a place fit for Their coming.
In a vision, Mitch sees an egg-shaped machine, about 15 feet high, with three oddly-jointed mechanical legs coming out of its bottom half. Also extruding from its bottom half are a series of buzzsaws on mechanical arms, giant mauls made of iron and orichalcum, and sweeping bars meant to knock down the trees after they've been cut or smashed. And in this vision Mitch also sees obedient History B humans, clad in robes, skins, and mismatched homespun garments, their hair and skin all the colors of the human rainbow, gently praying and honoring the sacrifice of these trees for a Greater Purpose. Every now and again the egg-machine, whirring purposefully and without thought or caution, accidentally cuts a human in half or smashes his or her legs to bits but the machine and the humans just continue on, clearing brush and honoring the dead trees like gentle, pacified commune hippies with shell shock screaming behind their glyph-tranquilized eyes.
Mitch believes that these people and this machine have physically been here, on this side, in History A, perhaps cloaked by a powerful GU.SHUB glyph, and then faded back into History B when their work is done. But maybe there's physical evidence—blood, or brains, or sinew—left behind in our side of the forest after the Kings' machine sacrificed one or two of the forest-honoring human servitors.
And please give me a Fright Check, 13 or less.
Jeff
>> SUCCESS by 3
Michael
Oh, also give me a 2d6 roll for length in minutes of the jam effect. That was about a minute to zoom in, use Detect, and see that vision.
Jeff
>> 2d6 … 4
Michael
Lotta seeds in that spoonful
Jeff
Ah, screw it. Absent a landmark to focus on I may as well just tromp in.
"This is Mitch," he radios in as I imagine he's just out of earshot.
"I'm seeing the knocked-down trees as evidence of irruption, humans with a doodad looks like. They maybe already faded out, don't see them here now. Heading in."
Michael
"Forward base here, we copy, over." Your Subduction Sight is up for a few more minutes so why not give me an Observation-18 roll to scan the path of arboreal destruction at a distance while the effect is still up (assessing a +2 for the effect of the Detect).
Jeff
He turns, gestures to the guys he just spoke to on the radio, then walks in.
>> SUCCESS by 6
Michael
As Mitch gets a few dozen yards closer to the path of destruction, he does see physical evidence of the killings he saw in his vision. The bodies are gone—where Mitch saw them fall, he can see no dead people, they probably "dissolved" the way Irruptors do when the subduction ebbs and flows—but Mitch can see blood spatter on the trees and rocks bordering the second "scratch," right where the vision showed him those worshippers' deaths. The effects of the jam fade away after a few more minutes, but with that few minutes of Subduction Sight, Mitch can blaze a fast efficient trail straight to the second slash, if he wants to. It is his most basic and only landmark in the zone at the moment. You can also give me another set of Detect rolls to see what you see as you traverse the zone.
(And Mitch can obviously use more jam but that will lay on the possibility of a second Delusion. And I haven't yet given you the Will roll for the first one.)
Jeff
Mitch takes photos of the gore as best he can.
>> ACTIVATE … SUCCESS by 7
>> DETECT … SUCCESS by 5
>> ANALYZE … SUCCESS by 6
He'll keep moving, further in as practical
Michael
The vibes at the scratch are bad. It feels very much like an unfinished project of the Kings, which is of course what Mitch knows it is now thanks to the vision. There is no architecture to warp and corrupt around here, so They had to resort to radically changing the natural landscape. But Mitch also has the weirdest instinct that maybe, in some strange way, the paths for these defoliations were already here, centuries and centuries ago. Not as roads or dry creeks or anything like that, but as... telluric potential. The path was in the land and thus the land was made ready.
Mitch hates when that internal monologue gets that cod-biblical feel that it always does when he thinks about the Kings and their high-and-mighty horseshit. Listen-18.
Jeff
>> SUCCESS by 3
Michael
Very faintly, on the breeze, coming from the east, Mitch can hear human voices. Two or three. Maybe, maybe, two women and a man. They are... singing. They are... chanting.
This is what they are chanting. All vocals, no drums or cymbals or instruments like in the video... just the words.
Jeff
"God damn it."
Mitch radios "I'm hearing human voices, I think. East of my current position. Gonna...gonna try to make contact, scout them out...."
He sighs heavily after switching the radio off again to conserve battery life.
"God fucking damn it."
Michael
It doesn't take Mitch very long to track down the source of the kirtan chanting. It is, indeed, by the looks of it, three young devotees of Krishna Consciousness tramping through the forest. They're dressed in ISKCON garb, flowing saffron robes, with sturdy-looking sandals to handle the forest terrain. The two young women carry baskets in which they seem to be collecting fruits, nuts, berries, and fungi; their heads are covered with light off-white shawls. The young man—tall, skinny, bespectacled with a shaved head, has a satchel over his shoulder and carries a simple walking stick. All three are all smiles when they see Mitch.
"Hare Krishna, brother," the man says to Mitch; the two girls murmur the same salutation while standing behind him, beaming. "It is indeed a blessed day the Lord God has provided us, no?" Assuming Mitch is a lone hiker, the three are open and friendly but also keep their distance and do not approach.
[secret Aura Sight analysis roll]
All three of their auras are untainted by parasites and hitchhiking Irruptor spirits. The kids' bodies look healthy (and they are young by Mitch's Aura Sight, probably in their early '20s) but they're also all pretty skinny and a little malnourished. Their emotional auras near the surface are placid, although it seems pretty clear to Mitch that the lad has a streak of flashy fool's gold in his aura—pride and superiority—deep in his heart. The girls seem fairly untroubled but both definitely harbor a jagged red-purple turbulence—trauma or hatred—a little deeper past the mantras and collecting berries.
Jeff
"All right, Gilligan, Mary Ann, Ginger." Mitch assigns the latter two names randomly. "Time to go. It's not safe here. I'll walk you out."
Michael
One of the women furrows her brow and actually speaks up, "I'm sorry? What do you mean?"
Jeff
Do Mitch's circumstantial reaction roll bonuses affect his effective intimidation skill?
"Time to go: now is the time for leaving. It's not safe here: this place is dangerous. I'll walk you out: follow me, please."
He beckons them.
Do Mitch's circumstantial reaction roll bonuses affect his effective intimidation skill?
Michael
Okay, so first I am going to have you make a Fast-Talk-18 roll (+1 from Charisma, +3 from Aura Sight): the rules say this "specious intimidation" applies if you "attempt to be intimidating if you can't back it up," and technically this situation is 1 against 3 and Mitch isn't, like, brandishing a weapon. Now, if that succeeds you will actually end up with another +3 to your subsequent Intimidation roll; if the Fast-Talk fails, it's a Very Bad reaction automatically.
Jeff
>> SUCCESS by 6
Successful activation of cryokinesis 1 on 14-
>> SUCCESS by 1
Pyrokinesis skill roll for the local temperature to suddenly dip dramatically.
>> SUCCESS by 1
Mitch's eyes unfocus for 1.0 seconds
Michael
Nice, okay, so all the Intimidation bonuses. Skill is 16, +3 from the Fast-Talk, +1 from Charisma, and another +3 from Aura Sight (plus it just got very cold in this forest). I get to roll Will for each of them vs. your single check of Intimidation-23. Hah.
Jeff
>> SUCCESS by 14
MoS of 14 looks like
Michael
Under... more or less normal circumstances, these kids might have stood up to Mitch, or gently asked him, "What, what do you mean, there's no danger here in this beautiful forest on this perfect day. They're not pushovers. But these are not normal circumstances, the emotional terroir of this subduction zone is not in fact a perfect, beautiful October day in the wilds of backwoods Tennessee, and in this moment, it is clear on some level these three kids cannot consciously accept, Mitch is not an ordinary man.
The three young Hare Krishnas attempt to follow Mitch, but the girl who spoke up to him says before starting off, her voice tremulous, "We... we can just go back to our home. Our commune." She gestures to the east. "We... we won't come back. I promise. We promise."
(We'll say "Mary Ann" is the one who spoke up)
Jeff
I've seen aerial photos, is there something that could be a commune within a couple miles of the far side of the zone?
Michael
Yeah, a mile or so past the edges of the eastern side of the zone (so, maybe 3 miles or so from this spot) were a couple of farmhouses where the forest turns into cleared-away areas. They looked abandoned in the aerial recon, or at the very least really run-down.
Jeff
"C'mon." Mitch beckons again for them to go back the way they came. "I got a car this way, get you there way quicker. How'd you end up over here, so close to The Site?"
Mitch pronounces the capital letters.
Michael
"The Site?" the young man says. "What do you mean?"
And then Mary Ann speaks up again. A penny seems to have dropped; Mitch's Aura Sight shows him that she feels a sense of cold calm, like she just figured something out. "Mister, I swear, we won't tell anyone what you're doing out here. With the trees, I mean. Just please don't hurt us, please don't harass us. We love our little farm. We just want to live out here and worship in peace. We believe in God too; we just call Him a different name than you do."
Jeff
"Sure, sure, that's fine. There any more of you out here today? And how many on your farm?" Mitch continues to attempt to herd them towards the drop-off point, out of the subduction zone by the shortest route. (edited)
Michael
Mary Ann says, "Just twenty. Our organization purchased the farm last year for real cheap, we've been trying to fix it up... we didn't know the forest got purchased, though, we thought it was public land. That's why we forage there."
Gilligan says, "It's just us out here today. Are you telling us we can't hike and forage on this land anymore?"
Jeff
"I'm saying it's dangerous. You'll need to evacuate."
Mitch will Detect at them, in case that yields anything useful.
Michael
Mary Ann: "Leave... completely? Like, forever?"
Jeff
"Hopefully just for a day or two."
Michael
(Go ahead and Detect.)
Jeff
>> ACTIVATE … SUCCESS by 1
>> DETECT … SUCCESS by 0
>> ANALYZE … SUCCESS by 2
I assume their auras seem to indicate they're truthful?
Michael
The kids are untainted by History B. Of course the land here isn't, and that overwhelms Mitch's senses. Mitch gives a suspect eye to the kids' baskets full of forage, given what he knows can happen when the land is the locus of History B energies... but the Downer Ranch wild berries were growing there for generations, mutating under decade upon decade of History B energy. The mushrooms and berries these kids have picked don't seem to be especially tainted at all as Mitch peers at their baskets, but if the zone remains for a while... that might be a different story.
Mitch has been in the zone now for about 15 minutes or so now—and he can feel the edges of the vibe of the subduction zone starting to creep actively into his head, especially with his Detect activated. To have that vision of that egg, and a bunch of creepily devoted History B humans helping it, dying for it gladly... and then to meet these kids, for there to be a Hare Krishna commune close to the zone! Christ! That's not a coincidence. That's not an accident. That's by design.
These kids and their friends are a part of the plan.
But wait. Is that a for-real realization thanks to the Detect (History B) analysis? Or is it the jam talking? Is Mitch having what happened to Bernadette when she saw and was preached to by Beale Downer happen to him? Mitch suddenly has a dull, throbbing headache.
I assume their auras seem to indicate they're truthful?
Yes. They are scared but being sincere and truthful.
Jeff
Okay. Mitch's plan at the moment: lead the cultists out to the commando team, tell them how they need to evacuate this supposed commune, preferably without bloodshed which can do things in a zone, let them go deal with that, take a water break with Tylenol if there's any available, then have another spoonful of jam and head back in.
The downed-tree breaks in the landscape suggest something that starts at the edge of the zone and moves in and through until it reaches the other end, right? There's an apparent directionality to how the trees are knocked over?
Michael
They're not crossing through the zone like that from edge-to-edge. I would picture it like.... hmm. Say the zone is a roughly round piece of paper, and someone is drawing the strokes of a complicated, multi-stroke ideogram on it with a fancy brush. Which means this egg and its custodians, presuming it's able to materialize and dematerialize at will, are appearing spontaneously at a point in the zone, moving in one direction (sometimes straight, sometimes with a slight arc), and then disappearing when that phase of the "plan" is completed to their satisfaction, when that stroke of the character is finished.
Mitch is actually more sure than ever that this act of vandalism across the subduction zone is glyphic. It's the theory that makes the most sense.
Jeff
Sorry, I must have misunderstood. The breaks have terminus points that aren't at the edge of the zone?
Michael
That's right.
Maybe I should have just drawn a picture, as embarrassing as it would have been
Jeff
Well, that doesn't affect Mitch's plans at all, regardless
Okay. Mitch's plan at the moment: lead the cultists out to the commando team, tell them how they need to evacuate this supposed commune, preferably without bloodshed which can do things in a zone, let them go deal with that, take a water break with Tylenol if there's any available, then have another spoonful of jam and head back in.
Michael
Mitch leads the "castaways" out to the Point 10 field team parked on the side of the road after having radioed it in, and in a minute or two some local law enforcement (or more likely, Sandmen disguised as local law enforcement) take the kids into custody and head off to the northeast to scout out the ISKCON commune. One of the team esmologists asks Mitch, before he heads back into the zone, what the status is and what he thinks of the kids... were they lured in there to become foci of belief for the Enemy? Also the team would like a general sitrep on what Mitch saw on his first jaunt into the zone.
By this point, the first dose of jam will be trying to work its Delusion on Mitch. He can make a Will-21 roll (16+5 for SANDMAN anti-Anunnaki bonuses) to resist it and shake it off. ("The user can make an optional roll vs. Will at the end of the first half-hour to end effect before end of 1d hours. A failure on this roll means the maximum of 6 hours for the Delusion; a critical failure on this roll makes Delusion permanent.") Also, Mitch will need to roll d6-3 for Corruption for the first dose of jam.
Jeff
>> SUCCESS by 10
>> 1d6-3 … (2)
Michael
Getting out of the hot zone has allowed Mitch to tamp down where the jam might have led him delusionally. (Of course he's heading back in with more jam but I digress.)
(Yeah, Jeff, if you want to let me know what you're telling the team while I'm at work today, that would be great. Also let me know what your goals are on your return trip into the zone and I'll narrate after work.)
Jeff
"I don't like to ascribe that kind of capacity for long-term planning to the Enemy. Better to think of it as opportunistic, plus willing to rewrite local history as needed to support its emergent behavior. So, yeah, I think they're dupes of the Enemy's 'plan' but I wouldn't hold it against them.
"I didn't get very far in before I encountered them, but what I'm feeling is that the Enemy is carving up the landscape to make some kind of glyph. It'd show up on aerial photos I guess. But really it's just flexing its muscles: bringing into existence a magic Atlantean thresher, or something, and a bunch of ecstatic cultists to operate it and carve a swathe through the woods. Not a lot of concern for worker safety. Belts and blades without guards, that kind of thing.
"Which is all pretty promising, when you think about it: cultists you can shoot, machinery you can smash. None of the animal-headed ones here. Not yet, at least."
Mitch's agenda for the second trip in: cross the zone, passing through its central point; visit the origin points of each of the three breaks; let Serendipity lead him to the incipient-emergent fourth break.
Whether he had an ikoter on him before, he's grabbed one now.
Michael
(Just gonna reply to these one by one in the order that the Point 10 team bigwigs would encounter them.)
"I don't like to ascribe that kind of capacity for long-term planning to the Enemy. Better to think of it as opportunistic, plus willing to rewrite local history as needed to support its emergent behavior. So, yeah, I think they're dupes of the Enemy's 'plan' but I wouldn't hold it against them.
The Point 10 field team's lead esmologist, Dr. Harold Davids, consults with Major Ray Wofford, head of the commando contingent. "All right," Davids says. "Take 'em back to the commune, ikoter them and give them a cover story, and keep two SR personnel on the farmhouse for the next 24 hours."
"I didn't get very far in before I encountered them, but what I'm feeling is that the Enemy is carving up the landscape to make some kind of glyph. It'd show up on aerial photos I guess. But really it's just flexing its muscles: bringing into existence a magic Atlantean thresher, or something, and a bunch of ecstatic cultists to operate it and carve a swathe through the woods. Not a lot of concern for worker safety. Belts and blades without guards, that kind of thing.
Dr. Davids has a thoughtful inhale of breath at this set of revelations. He takes a moment to consider the implications. Major Wofford helpfully suggests, "They can't sketch a glyph into the forest if there's no forest. I can get a few black 'copters up here tonight, load 'em up with an 80% Agent White/20% Agent Orange mix, there'll be no appreciable live foliage in the zone within 48 hours." Dr. Davids considers this. "Okay, approved. Do it."
"Which is all pretty promising, when you think about it: cultists you can shoot, machinery you can smash. None of the animal-headed ones here. Not yet, at least."
Davids says, "Less foliage will mean easier recon as well. This... machinery, it sounds like it might be able to make marks on the landscape even if it's dead foliage, but if we can see and target these... machines and humans as they traverse the zone, we can hit them too. Wide-array ikoters for the humans, should send them back where they came from, and then hit the machine, retrieve the bits left over. Good news there's no Irruptors among them. Good job, Hort."
Mitch's agenda for the second trip in: cross the zone, passing through its central point; visit the origin points of each of the three breaks; let Serendipity lead him to the incipient-emergent fourth break.
Jeff
"I don't want to declare victory prematurely," Mitch says. He's adopting a more formal cadence but can't bring himself to say sir. "My gut is generally right, and it's telling me there's another piece to the puzzle. What you just said, sounds like maybe I'm done here? I don't think I'm done here. All due respect."
Michael
Davids has a look at Mitch; his aura is gilded with lavender concern, caution, tentativeness (while Major Wofford's is a fair bit more gung-ho-let's-take-action-NOW red). "Do you want any backup going back into the zone, Agent? I'm not going to stop you if your instincts say there's more to be observed."
Jeff
"Nah, better I'm alone on this one. I don't think it'll be a situation where I need firepower to bug out, if it comes to it."
Michael
The quartermaster hands Mitch a (rifle? pistol?) ikoter and Dr. Davids says, "All right, good. We'll await your return."
Mitch's agenda for the second trip in: cross the zone, passing through its central point; visit the origin points of each of the three breaks; let Serendipity lead him to the incipient-emergent fourth break.
Will work on this tour of the zone a little later today but a single set of Detect rolls would be great for now.
Oh, and a Subduction Sight-15 roll for your second dose of jam if you're still planning on taking it.
Jeff
Subduction Sight-15.
>> SUCCESS by 0
Dang
Mitch is doing a great job of rolling v low-margin successes today I think.
Detect (History B).
>> ACTIVATE … FAILURE by 1
Dang again
Deep breath
One two three, spend an FP
>> ACTIVATE … SUCCESS by 3
>> DETECT … SUCCESS by 4
>> ANALYZE … SUCCESS by 1
Mitch is def rolling high a statistically notable amount in this channel
Michael
Mitch's agenda for the second trip in: cross the zone, passing through its central point; visit the origin points of each of the three breaks; let Serendipity lead him to the incipient-emergent fourth break.
Mitch uses his Detect (History B) and the Subduction Sight to survey all three of the "scratches" carved into the forest. At each of the three he gets the same vibes, the same faint visions of the intrusions from the other side in the form of the machinery and its worshipful, slaughter-prone assistants. But in surveying all three scratches, he also begins to understand better the boundaries and conditions of the subduction zone. On "the other side," this place is a locus of power, plugged into a series of, for lack of a better word, ley lines. For a moment, Mitch flashes on the branching golden tunnels under Shasta, but in a radically smaller and more subtle form. Like the difference between a transistor board packed with microchips (Shasta) and a single fine golden wire slowly twisting itself into a meaningful shape (Point 10). That "wire" traverses this area, and Mitch's instincts about that wire are what lead him to the putative start of the fourth scratch yet-to-come.
Mitch stands at the site where the egg will reappear, or at least where Mitch believes it will appear. Mitch wonders if on "the other side," this glyph is already part of the landscape. What has fueled/will fuel this glyph and this subduction? What started all this mess in the first place?
Mitch's Detect didn't give him quite enough insight to fully analyze things, but given the lack of "buildings" here (or at least Their need to "build" a structure in the form of a glyph to intensify Their presence), it's likely one of the other two B's: "belief" and/or "blood." Well, the Krishna kids could be the "belief" of course; their presence close to the zone and thematic similarity to the sacrificial Anunnakku servitors is very suspect. But there's only a couple dozen of them at most: not a lot of belief energy there, although Mitch supposes if a kulullû came to them in the form of Lord Krishna, say, it might cause a big output of intense belief energy. They're also not likely to be shedding anyone's blood; by Mitch's estimation, they could barely hurt a fly and aren't likely to be whipped up into some kind of violent rage. Likewise, the sacrifice of "fake" History B people by the egg wouldn't be enough to trigger a reality temblor, or there already would have been a further slide into History B during the course of these three strokes.
Mitch considers how his Serendipity led him here, to the soon-to-be site of the fourth stroke. It hasn't happened yet. It lies in the future. And then it hits Mitch: what if the blood and belief that initiated this subduction zone weren't anything to do with anything happening today, but something that happened in the past, or is yet to happen in the future? Well, the past is easy enough to research, it's part of SANDMAN's jobs on gigs like these obviously, and it's with that realization that Mitch flashes on those nearby cemeteries full of white settlers, along with the mounds Hilary mentioned. Probably worth a look, or at least consulting with Dr. Davids on local history generally around here.
We'd be really up shit's creek if the singular event meant to fully slide Point 10 into History B were in the future, though. That'd mean that this site would need to be monitored for good by SANDMAN, for as long as it took something else to happen here. Like finding Zeb in Oakland in 1930 and knowing he was going to do something important in 20 or 30 years and just... watching. For some reason, to Mitch's mind that doesn't seem like a narratively fulfilling ending for the story here at Point 10. Although, with that in mind, the Agent White/Orange option sounds better and better to Mitch, at least for stopping a further inscription of the glyph over the next few days and weeks and buying the Project some time.
Mitch has another flash of serendipitous insight as he gets ready to leave the site of Stroke 4, and suddenly thinks about old Pat Price for a minute, and his cockamamie "foolproof" real estate plans to find "the most important buildings" that are one day to be built in Silicon Valley. Then that passes as well as the wildberry jam's effect runs out.
Jeff
Okay, what's the next move here?
Also, time is nothing.