EXHUMED

## Briefing:

The players are contacted through the usual channels and asked to meet their handler behind a truckstop outside Burlington on Highway 89, where they will be given the keys to a 2003 ford transit parked out front, and the "greenbox" parked nearly 40 feet beneath Bethlehem NH.

Back in the cowboy years, the Group left a package in the landfill site at Bethlehem, New Hampshire.  Unfortunately,  the site was re-opened late last year,  and is already being mined for increasingly valuable non-ferrous metals, as humanity exhausts it's environment enough to begin rooting through it's own garbage.  A-cell has decided that the time has come to extract this liability and relocate it somewhere more suitable.

Go to the following coordinates:

**44°15'36.2"N       71°37'42.0"W**

Erase any markings you see, and remove the Package from the vehicle.

You will be provided with a delivery location once you have the package in transit.

## What's going on

Back in 1986 a man named Dr Carl Reinbacher acquired decades-old designs for a device that promised to unfold "compactified" dimensions to better align with the 4 we observe, making early string theory accessible to physical experimentation.  M-cell were called in to clean up the mess.

In the course of operation BLIND MOUSE the device was destroyed, and several vectors of contamination were identified and neutralized before the situation went completely FUBAR and ANDREA was summoned to secure the site.

Unfortunately, Dr.Reinbacher  himself took on some very usual properties and proved totally impervious to destruction, so M-cell used "specialist techniques" to seal the body in the back of a 1974 Ford Econoline and rolled it straight into the deepest hole available.

Now that landfill mining is becoming a serious industry, the re-opening of that hole in 2018 has rendered this hiding place non-viable.

## Retrieving the package

First, the agents will have to get past site security and excavate the Bethlehem Greenbox.  There excavation and reclamation equipment on the site warrants a total of 6 private security contractors, but guarding a dump isn't thrilling work, so they're just as likely to be sat in the temporary hut at the front gate as patrolling the perimeter fence.

\*Posing as external consultants in the retrieval process only takes a computer science roll for forgery, but will be a tough cover to pull off with the workers who actually know what they're talking about.

\*Neutralising the guards by night isn't all that tough, but the agents will need to stop them from getting a call out to avoid attracting unwanted attention, and killing innocents will take a toll on their sanity.

\*Selling a story to delay a shift of workers and then replacing them is likely the most successful avenue, requiring only normal persuade and computer science checks.

The agents will then need to approach the coordinates and excavate the green box using the diggers on site. (Use Heavy Machinery!) If they have employed stealth to get inside, this is likely to attract the attention of security.

Rooting through the detritus of the last thirty years might not be enough for a SAN roll by itself,  but if the agents are subject to any disorders or ongoing themes, churning endlessly through decayed trash is the perfect time to show them something they don't want to see.

Once located, the rusted old van is not difficult to open.  A badly decayed packing crate is visible within, and a line of gibberish characters in marker pen line the inside of the back doors.  These runes are part of M-cell's containment of Reinbacher and aren't immediately obvious, requiring an alertness check if the agents don't remember their briefing. If an agent enters the van before these sigils are erased roll a d6:

1-Blood vessel bursts in brain. CONX5 test or suddenly dizzy and lose d10 DEX and WP

2-Organs riddled with holes – CONx5 test or coughing up blood and lose D10 CON

3-Hand cut clean off- just disappears.  Lose 1d10 HP

4-The agent becomes strongly magnetic for 2d10 hours, and adheres to the inside of the van.

5-Thunderous noise only audible to them. CONx5 test or deafened.

6-The agent experiences an overwhelming sense of guilt.  (A WINGED SERVITOR [HG228] manifests nearby)

Mechanically, the  crate containing the doctor's body is just another Tillinghast resonator.

Anyone who touches the box will start seeing beyond the veil in pretty short order, as will anyone coming into physical contact with \*them\* before the effects wear off.  Symptoms will fade after a couple of minutes, but only outside the physical proximity of the crate.  To keep things entertaining, the effects should be distributed unevenly, so that some agents are fighting apparitions invisible and intangible to the others.

## The Drive

With the crate successfully removed, the Handler will provide the coordinates for the long-abandoned Vershire copper mine an easy hour and a half's drive West.  Law enforcement may be in pursuit depending on the impression they left on site security.

The crate intermittently glows with violet light, and occasionally produces wheezing and scratching sounds.  Should any agent actually open the crate, they will discover an alive but catatonically insane physicist, and the agents will find themselves surrounded by THOSE BEYOND [HG227]

At this proximity to Dr Reinbacher, the agent driving the van will soon begin seeing ghostly figures in their path, the first of which will require a 1/1d4 SAN check and a drive check at –20 to avoid a traffic accident.

If there is a collision serious enough to cripple the vehicle, the agents will of course have to acquire another vehicle, either by flagging down a passer-by and acquiring theirs, or by reaching a nearby town on foot.

As time progresses, the agents who physically moved the crate will begin to see a spectral forest of twisting, floating fungus passing by, obscuring the surrounding scenery, populated by blupes, and other squirming light sources.

This ghostly landscape is soon populated by dark, interconnected disks, needle-sharp tumbleweeds and eyeless snake-like creatures, which all swim closer, thirsting for the blood of the agent that has begun to enter their dimension.

If all has gone to plan, the agents should now be covered in trash, swerving along the highway in a stolen car, firing wildly at "Invisible monsters", so feel free to introduce police pursuit at this juncture.

(Again, after a few minutes separated from the package the agents' pineal glands will return to normal, but any officers allowed to investigate the crate will quickly start jumping at hallucinations.)

If the agents can evade or destroy whatever snowflake/shark/jellyfish ghosts their altered perceptions attract during the ride out to the ghost-town of Vershire, several long metal crates of penthrite and ammonium nitrate explosives are waiting just inside the yawning black entrance to the mine , allowing the agents to close up the mine shaft once they have deposited their package inside.

At least nobody else will ever have to go through that. Nobody's going re-open an old copper mine, right?

~~---~~—

http://www.sciencealert.com/a-hospital-ward-has-been-quarantined-after-5-people-fall-ill-with-mysterious-hallucinations

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloria\_Ramirez

## Credits

EXHUMED was written by Nicholas Brown for the 2018  shotgun scenario contest.

Published by arrangement with the Delta Green Partnership. The intellectual property known as Delta Green is a trademark and copyright owned by the Delta Green Partnership, who has licensed its use here. The contents of this document are © Nicholas Brown, excepting those elements that are components of the Delta Green intellectual property.

EXHUMED is not available here under CC-BY-SA.