Session 1 (April 10, 2021)

The Party: John Rimbauer, Maz, Felix Haun

There's an art gallery in town that mainly features local/regional art but also has a visiting exhibition gallery. Felix does some volunteer work there, and in the past 2 weeks there have been 3 murders. The third murder was just last night, and John happened to pick up an unexplained/supernatural code for it on his police scanner. so he called Felix to ask "hey did you know there was a murder at the gallery where you volunteer?" and Felix (who had asked some of his coworkers to let him know if there was another murder) had also just heard about it, and was like "yeah that was murder number three." so they ended up getting together at a cafe near the museum to chat about murder, like ya do, and they decide to break into the gallery to investigate, because the shady rich gallery owner always has it cleaned and hushed quickly.

They go across the street to the gallery, which is cordoned off and there are a few cop cars and an ambulance outside. There's also a cluster of custodial staff who are waiting to go clean up, and Felix spots Brian, the janitor who called to tell him there was another murder. so he goes over to chat with Brian and finds out that it's gonna be a few more hours at least until the gallery opens. He spins a story about how his sister is in town and he's supposed to take her to dinner but he's a dumbass and forgot her gift in his locker at the museum, and asks if he can borrow Brian's keys. Obviously he failed his roll for this and Brian's like "sorry, that sucks and I like you, but that's not worth my job." which Felix of course understands. So the three of them go around to the side door where there's a children's art program. Maz teleports inside, and is able to learn that the murder happened in Gallery 2. Felix knows that the first murder was in Gallery 1 and the second was in the exhibition gallery, so each murder has been in a different place. but Maz almost gets spotted and has to teleport out again. John decides to call the curator's office from a pay phone, and while John is distracted, Felix goes over to investigate the door. There's a very simple alarm connected at the top, so Felix has Maz disconnect it (he wasn't tall enough to reach), and then Maz can teleport in and let all of them in, which Maz does.

The children's art area is in the basement, which is also where the security office is. So Felix suggests they check the meager security footage (there’s only one security camera in the whole place). They find it, but they're both so engrossed in it (and Maz is not paying attention to anything) that they don't hear the cop who's coming down to get the footage until he's almost at the door. John manages to lock it in time, and they hear the cop radio for keys. Felix takes the security tape and puts it in his jacket, and then takes his handkerchief and wipes down the whole area for prints, because none of them were wearing gloves. John gets another tape and puts it in instead. Felix goes to the other tapes to try to find the ones from the other murders, but the whole tape cabinet comes crashing down, which the cop hears and starts beating on the door. Maz grabs both John and Felix and teleports them all back to John's house, but they end up just above a rancid, stagnant, excessively gross indoor pool (John is not yet aware of all the rooms in his house and hadn't been to this one). Felix tried to use his magic to put a wall between them and the pool, but ofc he failed the roll, and they all fall in.

Eventually, after crawling through a tiny laptop-sized door and along a hallway whose proportions make no sense (because John’s house is awful), they make it into a part of the house John knows. They take out the tape, which of course is soaking wet. Felix tries to use magic to fix it. He failed the roll, obviously, but one of his class abilities allows him to still succeed on a failed use magic roll, but the magic will glitch like crazy. so he successfully rescued the tape, BUT John's house got really angry about him doing magic and essentially spat him out the front door, and he hit a tree in the yard and hurt himself. and then the house would not let him back in. SO Felix decided "fuck this, I'm going home, I have a tape player at home." and John was like "cool, call me after you watch the tape, I really want a shower."

Between games, Felix will hang his filthy clothes on the balcony to dry (to be sent away for dry cleaning later), take some ibuprofen and a hot shower. He’ll be tempted to also take a long relaxing bath with fancy bath stuff and a glass of wine, but ultimately his curiosity and concern will win out and he’ll watch the tape.