Red Stitch Report: Episode 1

For the Page Name just go with whatever it's listed as on Twitch.

## Summary

A brief summary of key events that happened. Basically what they would say happened previously on the following episode.

## The Details

Our tale begins, as all good adventures do, with a bureaucratic meeting inside an Insurance Society. Florence Ferrari, a private detective, has been called in unreasonably early for a meeting with none other than the owner of Hunter Palms Insurance Society himself: Hunter Mayweather Palm. She is joined by Cadmus Ebcott, a former wrestler and politician, Craigor Smiff, a friendly specialist from another land, and Isabelle Floop, the world’s unluckiest intern. The four are informed by their mysterious boss that one of their clients, Marco Falcone, a researcher, has gone missing. This was troubling for Mr. Hunter Palm, as Marco had a premium life insurance policy attached to him, meaning the payout in the event of his demise would be significant. So, to make sure that this wasn’t attempted fraud, with Marco simply laying low somewhere, Mr. Hunter Palm tasks the four of them to track down Marco as soon as they can.

Mr. Hunter Palm explains that he’s leaving the matter up to his employees, rather than the police, in the interests of both pride and excitement. As a result, their leads are limited, as they only have the Insurance Society records and word of mouth to work with. Because of this, their only real option to begin with is to get in touch with the woman who reported him as missing - Carol Stepford, who has agreed to meet them in a local park. Before they leave, a fifth member of staff joins them for the mission, a walking shitstain by the name of Ian Sagitta. The five of them make for a very dysfunctional team, but it’s all they have to work with for now.

Taking a company car, Cadmus takes the would-be party to the park, where they meet with Carol and begin asking questions. She claims that she regularly met up with Marco for lunch, but had not seen him for a day or so, leading to her concerns. Marco was a character who was very devoted to his work, but also rigorously stuck to schedules and routines, so even this minor lapse in appearance signified something troubling. Ian prods her with questions that were far too personal, resulting in immediate physical admonishment from the rest of the group, but Carol does admit that she has no romantic partners and that her and Marco were simply friends. Despite having no connection to (or understanding of) his research, the two bonded over the restaurant that they both frequented for lunch, leading to their routine of eating together. Supposedly, before he disappeared, Marco had dropped hints to her about “something big” that he was working on. Something red. However, the discussion concludes without much else being added, due to the party being a group of dysfunctional weirdos that come across as very off-putting to Carol. However, before they go, she does give them a lead for them to follow up on - the location of a junkyard that Marco’s car had been taken to.

Given it is still far too early in the morning, the group arrive to find the junkyard closed, with barbed wire fences dissuading attempted trespassers. While Cadmus is happy to wait until the establishment opens in a few hours, Ian is not, and immediately jumps the fence. With Ian having broken in, Florence and Cadmus begrudgingly join him, and begin trying to figure out which car belonged to Marco. Given that they’ve already resorted to illegal actions as part of their investigation, Craigor begins to scope out the perimeter for signs of trouble, and Isabelle opts to stay in the car, given that, as a bad luck magnet, it would be unwise for her to illegally wander through a landscape of broken cars.

The trio inside the lot proceed to break into the office, snoop through the records, and successfully manage to identify which car belongs to Marco. Before they can return to it, however, two motorcyclists, Copperhead and Mammoth, ride into the lot and apprehend them. The group attempt to feign ignorance, and Cadmus even tries to claim that he’s a worker there, a bold strategy to use against actual members of staff who are employed to guard the establishment. However, the duo are young, dumb, and capable of calling forth multiple goons to their side, so they decide to forego regular procedure in favour of a scrap. With a battle imminent, Craigor phones Isabelle to tell her to join the others, as he also begins sprinting to a place he can jump the fence.

While the hotheaded duo expected this to be an easy excuse to beat up some ne’er-do-wells, the party more than made up for their questionable teamwork with a whole host of impressive combat skills. While Florence was a mundie through-and-through, she carried both a gun and a knife, and did not hesitate to use it against the switchblade-wielding mass of goons. Cadmus, a former wrestler, does not need much extra explanation. Isabelle, while not one to directly target a foe, is capable of weaponising her bad luck - whether that’s intentionally, or unintentionally. And Craigor, a man of many talents, came equipped with an arsenal of weapons that somehow all fit into his coat, using flashbangs, shotguns, and stun guns against the enemies in his way. Meanwhile, Copperhead attempted to entangle all of the party in wire before coursing electricity through it, a bold strategy which only caused him to electrocute himself, and himself alone. Mammoth, wielding a stop sign, did try to beat down the party with brute strength - but with tactics and numbers against him, the duo and their goons were swiftly dispatched, and the party were free to investigate Marco’s car.

With the rowdy workers dealt with, and the time for a “gentle touch” long gone, the group break into the car, and obtain Marco’s address from the information left inside. Craigor interrogates Copperhead, hoping to obtain more information about Marco, but Copperhead admits that he’s merely paid by his uncle “Cool Gary” to guard the junkyard from trespassers, and doesn’t care to know anything else about it. Cadmus attempts to mend things with Copperhead and Mammoth, having wanted to handle things properly from the start, but this is sabotaged by the rest of the group, who try to bury their tracks and leave. You know, like psychopaths.

The group arrive at Marco’s apartment complex, taking a moment to discuss how to break in, before walking through the open door and introducing themselves to the receptionist, Angel Marks, like normal functioning human beings. The nonchalant front desk worker directs them to Marco’s room, number 203, and only asks for a modicum of ID when the group ask for his keys; gladly handing them over when Cadmus and Florence flash their badges.

In Marco’s room, the group are immediately taken aback by the heavy scent of smoke (and his multiple guitars), but take little time to discover a hidden computer room behind his closet. Thumbing through Marco’s files, it’s difficult to put together much of what’s written down - due to a mix of indecipherable shorthand, bad handwriting, and intentional obfuscation - but it’s clear that Marco was working on something called (or involving) a “Red Stitch”. Meanwhile, Isabelle manages to accidentally discover a secret passage through Marco’s oven (while making an omelette), leading to a worrying room littered with wires and seemingly covered with blood. The blood is dried, at least a couple days old, and Craigor and Florence become intrigued by an additional room in the back, featuring a sewing kit with a beautiful yet haunting red thread glowing within. Florence notes that it feels as if Marco had gone beyond the world of epithets and had begun meddling with the supernatural and occult, clearly messing with things that he shouldn’t have.

To the other side of the hidden room was yet another room, hiding a lab with the apparent source of the red thread, and a green tube that looked as if there was a person inside of it. In fact, the group struggled to make heads or tails of the lab at all - with the technology on display being far beyond their comprehension, and/or paygrade. No progress is made until further inspections of the person inside the tube result in it eventually shattering, releasing a woman by the name of Leianne Nightingale, dripping with a dark substance and clearly in mental turmoil. Conversation is attempted, but Leianne is not in the right state of mind to answer questions, and so the group calmly but subtly try to leave.

At first, the group see no reason to deal with her, and instead slam the door on the deranged woman to prevent her from pursuing. However, it takes but a brief moment for a mirror image of Cadmus to appear, materialising from the viscous liquid that had coated him, showing that a greater fracas was inevitable. Cadmus manages to hurl the entity against a wall, defeating it immediately, but Florence quickly sees an image of herself appear before her as well. This, too, lasts for but a moment, taking but a single attack from Craigor before dissipating.

Inevitably, Leianne manages to break through the door, with the liquid clones and other chemicals managing to distract the party’s attention and open the way for her. The liquid clones continue to re-emerge, even after they are defeated. Florence manages to realise that Leianne’s epithet is “☆Decontamination☆”, but also realises that this isn’t the whole picture - the red stitch attached to her has underlined “☆Contamination☆”, morphing her epithet into a new one. After dubious substances are unleashed and injected, Cadmus eventually manages to wrestle Leianne through a counter, taking her down.

Following the encounter, the group discuss what to do with the leftover supplies from Leianne - contemplating destroying it over using it, fearing the potential consequences - and Florence takes some time to really consider the effect of the Red Stitch, wondering how much of the damage done to Leianne was inherent to the use of it and how much was due to the change effectively reversing her epithet entirely, subjecting her to a power antithetical to her existence. Unfortunately, most of the investigatable material in the room was damaged in the fight, making it difficult to decipher much of the extremely unusual environment they still lingered in. Flicking through some reports, the group discovered more of the same for Marco’s writing, but a second set of reports penned by someone else - possibly Leianne - that were much cleaner and comprehensible. In them, the Red Stitch is referred to again, claiming that progress has been promising and that it would soon be ready for implementation. Another report angrily and briefly stated that “I filled the tube with goo”, and nothing more.

Not wanting to leave them behind (or unattended), Florence gathers as many pieces of the red thread that she can, with Craigor also picking up some dolls that seemingly had it stitched into them (either as practice, or for darker reasons). While the group argues about what to do with Leianne (between calling the police, getting medical attention, or dealing with her themselves), Craigor starts to make his way back down to reception, waiting by the stairs for the others. Eventually, they decide to try and aid Leianne; but no good deed goes unpunished, as an unknown man stands atop an ambulance passing by the outside of Marco’s apartment, wielding a readied chaingun, and unloads into the apartment - before climbing up the side of the building and breaking in.

Cadmus, with his long history of combat sports, recognises the man as Heartthrob Hutch; an extremely famous wrestler, who is now attacking them for reasons unknown. He asks for them to hand over Leianne, without giving much of an explanation. Rather than give them answers, he displays his power to intimidate the group, smashing a couch in two before repairing it to perfect shape a moment later. Rather than indulge in discussions that would just delay the inevitable, Cadmus took this as a moment to rekindle his former glory, and immediately threw down the gauntlet to charge Hutch. You know what happens next.

Beyond the big gun he was brandishing, Hutch’s combat abilities and epithet made him leagues beyond any of the others that the party had faced that day. Ian immediately made a motion to simply run as soon as they began facing such a famous foe - but the others still felt that they could win this, up until they noticed the wounds they inflicted on Hutch passively healed as they continued fighting, making them feel excessively outclassed. Hutch smashed Cadmus through several walls, and then the floor, taking the fight into the reception - much to the surprise of the underpaid Angel. Combat continued until Angel herself stepped into the ring, glowing with rage, and burst Hutch’s head like a watermelon; an act which did not kill the regenerative wrestler, of course, but gave the group enough time to decide whether this was a fight or flight situation. While they considered trying to beat down the nigh-immortal wrestling pro, they instead opted to flee, and quickly packed into the car.

Hutch doesn’t take long to catch up, however, getting on a motorcycle and tailing the group. Craigor threw a grenade at him, a risky manoeuvre that helped to buy them some time, before the group arrived back at the junkyard and burst through the gate with their car. Copperhead, Mammoth and the Goons were still around, playing Bocce Ball, and, while they tried to play it cool initially, immediately folded as soon as they learned that a chaingun-wielding Hutch was after them. With free reign of the junkyard to set a trap, Ian stashed Leianne in a car, Florence entered the junkyard Excavator, Craigor stole Copperhead’s Motorcycle, and Cadmus prepared to monologue dramatically to Hutch like a true heel. With Hutch finally arriving on the scene, Cadmus materialised a Kusarigama into his hand, and succeeded in getting Hutch attached to the Excavator’s Scrap Magnet, letting Florence drop him in the car compactor and watch as the crunching gears managed to apparently outpace his healing factor. With the blood of the world’s most famous wrestler on their hands, and knowing that there is no way they can reasonably write off such a gruesome end as self defence, the party agree to keep this a secret amongst themselves, and prepare to report back to Hunter Palm.