Episode 24

# 02.24: Informative Conversations (for Better or Worse)

Cynthia had a concerning conversation, Frank was ambushed, Milo gained a roommate, and Tom took in the flies.

## Characters

The PCs:

* Cynthia
* Frank Smith
* Milo McCrery
* Tom di Pasqua

NPCs:

* Willa Holt
* Madoc Jones
* Jo Brennan
* Death 26
* Christmas Shreely
* Michelle Laine
* Death 114
* Marshall Evins

## Summary

##### **01/05/2015: Monday** (cont.)

With Milo back in operation, Willa wanted to know what progress he had made under her direction. She wasn’t particularly pleased to learn the answer was “not much”, and bemoaned the fact that meant she would have to talk to Eero. She returned Milo’s old phone to him, which was almost operational in her hands but very dead and waterlogged for everyone else.

Having heard the debrief, Willa resolved to sleep for several days. Tom drove her and Milo back to the B&B, where they both crashed.

Frank called Madoc Jones to check in. 26 is now up and about, but he’s been avoiding bringing up Cynthia.

Cynthia visited Jo Brennan at his clearing in the Gore, in the process of investigating her most recent order. 26 arrived in the clearing near the end of their conversation, and wasn’t pleased to see Cynthia. Cynthia didn’t stick around after that.

##### **01/06/2015: Tuesday**

Frank went looking for Christmas. He found them walking home on his way out, and convinced them to answer a few questions about what they found in their book. Christmas was reluctant, but agreed.

Cynthia called Tom, and let him know what she had learned from Brennan about their missing person and the territory dispute, as well as the figure she saw at the courthouse. He passed along the information about the weather to Milo.

At the end of Tom’s shift, Michelle stopped by to have a chat. He learned she tries to get Marshall some food every so often. She promised to stop by and give him a proper welcome to town sometime.

While Frank was getting ready for bed, he was ambushed by 114. He put up a decent fight, for a man armed only with his kitchen chairs against death, but it was a losing battle. They eventually ended up in his parking lot, where Marshall happened to be driving by—and ran 114 over with his van.

Marshall demanded to know what happened, and eventually got Frank to admit he had been killed by 114 before. After determining 114 wasn’t necessary to have the ethical dilemma about whether Frank should be around or not, Marshall hit them over the head with a baseball bat and they crumpled. At this point, 114 presumably decided the parking lot wasn’t the best place to be, and vanished.

Frank, having attempted to call Madoc several times and not received an answer, asked Milo to see if Madoc was around. Madoc wasn’t happy to be interrupted, but was convinced to call Frank. He let Frank know reapers will bounce, that it’s fine to do enough damage to take them out of commission for a bit, and that 26 will probably want to follow up later.

   Tom had only been home from work for a bit before someone was knocking on his door. He opened it to find 114, looking rather banged up. With little idea what else to do, Tom half-let, half-guided the reaper into his house, and patched them up. In the process, he picked up on their constant sense of anxiety. They spent the night on his couch, and were gone by the time Tom had to leave for work the next morning.

##### **10/07/2015: Wednesday**

   Cynthia did some thinking about Brennan’s advice for finding memory loose ends. She realized the first memory she has is of being in her house, though not with the sense of being new to the world, rather, she’s settled into her life. She also discovered her battered old book had resurfaced, still with her orders included. There was also half an old photo tucked in the front, which she has no memory of. She called Tom, who was very tired, and offered to drive her to the Welcome to Delham sign tomorrow.

Milo visited Frank, and got the basic rundown of yesterday evening. When he got back to the B&B, Willa, Madoc, and Beth were standing in the front yard. Willa let him know the B&B had flooded and they were in trouble, and thus should talk to Eero as soon as possible.

## Notes

Willa’s here and has questions and some information

* She’s solving her murder, which is also/actually a string of murders
* Someone in the Gore hit her over the head with a shovel before she spent some time in a shed, and then was in the under-stream sludge
* She’s been in a memory-consuming void
* Willa: not a wandering corpse, just really determined to still be around
* Eero: anti-supernatural; Willa’s death wasn’t good for their “business relationship”; hopefully still has a copy of their work
* “fix the weather” was out of general discontent with the cell service in the Gore (mentally sending emails: not ideal, or the most effective)
* She and Eero aren’t from town, were staying at the B&B

Brennan @ Cynthia:

* He can’t recommend looking into her employer’s motives, it doesn’t enjoy that
* She also learns he’s been shot
* She should be having problems with who shot him, so it’s concerning she wasn’t aware
* She doesn’t have anything that makes a good offer, so he can’t provide information on her boss’s motives as to his death
* Brennan isn’t unconcerned with what has hooks in Cynthia, but he has different major concerns:
	+ They’re both missing someone very important
	+ Someone Cynthia doesn’t remember anything about
	+ Implication that those memories were taken very deliberately
* To answer her question, and put her in his debt: he’s in town disrupting the carefully constructed information supply (or lack thereof)
* He can’t trust she’s capable of acting as her own person (prove him wrong, Cynthia)
* He’s restricted by his occupation (as it were), so he can’t do anything without payment
	+ However, finding who he’s looking for would be doing him a big service
	+ Start with: vague memories, places that are intriguing for no obvious reason, etc
* She was around when they went missing (were taken? fell off the map) and he wasn’t
* There’s no way to stay neutral anymore, and he’s a bad enemy to have

Frank interrogates Christmas asmr

* They don’t recommend knowing things, it’s detrimental to staying alive
* What’s the super dangerous, destroy this book information? Idk, could be any of it
* No real info on the stream overrunning its banks and trying to kill them
* A guess at the most important information in the book: the 4-month gap between some of the most recent entries
	+ They were looking for something big and hard to describe, and then didn’t write for 4 months
	+ Only found out later how long it had been
	+ Kind of odd they haven’t found it yet, usually looking for something is relatively easy
	+ Very concerning that they didn’t write anything down: if it isn’t in the book, they can’t know it
	+ Where were they that they couldn’t write, and did they learn anything?
* Asking Milo his mother’s name was to see if he was a person or just something that looked like one—that’s usually a good way to tell
* They’re mostly in the woods and Delham, so don’t have anything on Cynthia
* Nothing specific on the ghost Camille has mentioned, but that’s again out of their area—that whole place is malevolent, so not a great spot to go
	+ Lorna’s rumored cult sacrifice could end up causing something like that, yeah
* They haven’t run into Brennan, though they don’t tend to go in the Gore
* Weird things with the weather? The courthouse, but that’s not new
	+ Speaking of angry things. He’s one
	+ A big tree was struck by lightning and died
	+ There’s more there but it’s dangerous to investigate so they’ve mostly stayed away
* Had not heard about death going missing, notable things about a year ago is just Camden (which is related, but they hadn’t figured out what was happening there)
* Hector Schoen
	+ They try to visit (he’s very lonely), though the security cameras have made it harder to get other visitors
	+ They’re looking into what boils down to perception vs identity
	+ Someone unlucky who died horribly in his house vs the stories everyone told based on that event about malevolent ghosts
	+ They’d been making progress, and then it got worse—probably because Milo got a photo and showed the GPPS

Madoc & 26:

* Gay.

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