MAG 119: Stranger and Stranger

Art courtesy of UstalavianAgent.

Audio
Transcript
Warnings

> Case #0170708
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## Unknown

The Unknowing has begun, and the strangers are beginning their dance.

John encounters Sarah Baldwin, then Daniel Rawlings speaking in Sarah's voice, two people who have been taken by The Stranger. John is convinced by Sarah that she is “Tim”, and he gives her the detonator without knowing what it is.

Meanwhile, Daisy is being pursued by the couriers Breekon and Hope. They claim to be Basira, and Daisy threatens to kill them. They taunt her, and she laughs as she kills Hope.

Tim sees Basira, but does not know who Basira is, who tries to comfort him. She says names do not matter here, and she knows she is here. Tim does not believe her and tries to strike her, before running away. Basira does not understand.

John says it is not real and Nikola taunts him, saying "just because you don't understand, doesn't mean it's a lie". She claims to be Tim, then Sasha back from the dead. John tries to threaten her, but she tells him to make a fist. He cannot, not even knowing what a hand is. Nikola, now wearing Gertrude's skin, calls him pathetic, and chides him for failing to prevent the Unknowing. She spent years disrupting rituals and saving the world, and John fails at preventing even this one. Nikola starts wearing Jurgen Leitner's skin and “joins in”. He says it is John's fault that he was bludgeoned to death in the basement of the Archives while John left to smoke a cigarette, and mockingly reminds John that smoking kills. Jurgen asks if John even remembers what a cigarette is, or a pipe. John asks what they want, and Nikola, now acting as herself, asks him to dance. John screams in surprise as he is presumably pulled away.

Daisy is in a brawl with Breekon. She attacks Breekon, while laughing hysterically. Breekon catches her by the throat and tosses her in the coffin, as the courier calls her a stupid animal

Basira is trying to ignore the madness. She knows that she is in a place, and if it is a now, then it has an end. The other things are too much, and too many, and want to hurt her. She decides to leave by picking a where and moving.

Nikola tells John "it's almost there", a terrible new world, and it is all his fault. John sees the sad clown, bitter and hateful, going to a circus to find his fame before being torn apart by a cruel ringmaster. He is sometimes a doll, sometimes a mannequin, but is always hiding with another's skin and another's name. Nikola and Sarah talk and argue, with Sarah urging Nikola to finish the dance.

Tim leaps in and attacks Sarah and wrestles the detonator from her. He is then disorientated and starts to attack John in a fit of confused rage. John uses his Beholding to ask Tim what he sees, which breaks the strangeness and lets Tim get his bearing. Tim sees the clown that took his brother and for a time, wore his face. John uses his Beholding again to ask Tim what is in his hand, which is the detonator. Nikola whisks John away, begins to taunt Tim and say it is too late. Tim replies with, "You sound stressed. You know I hear the Great Grimaldi's in town. You should go see him, cheer yourself up,"

Nikola says his joke is not funny and Tim simply responds "I know." before activating the detonator.

There is an explosion and the tape cuts off.

## Trivia

* It is unknown if chaos of the Unknowing is merely the result of the Stranger's power or of the entity physically manifesting, though if the latter is true then this marks the first time we see John inside of an entity.
* Tim's joke about "The Great Grimaldi" references Joseph Grimaldi, a Regecy-era clown whose latter years were marked by depression and illness. Orsinov's makeup in Sneak Preview is said to resemble Grimaldi's, and Danny Stoker is heard mumbling the name "Joey", implying that Orsinov may have *been* Joseph Grimaldi at some point.[1]