Cleanup Part II

## Official Summary

Cleanup chronicles an important event in ORPHEUS's recent past, and honestly, it'd be unkind to say much more than that. Cleanup's story is a mystery, and trust me when I say that the threads that were pulled led somewhere horrifying.

Find out just where that was in this very episode.

## Detailed Recap

Having realized that the drone is equipped with a timed explosive, Eva transforms into her half-werewolf form and chucks it out the window. The explosion rocks the house, but no one is injured. She contacts ORPHEUS HQ to request surveillance support.

Cynthia wakes up, no longer drunk. She shows the sheet music to Hank, and he analyzes it, finding a pattern involving the sequence "2 3 1 3 0." They decide to try it on the door, but Cynthia suggests they shouldn't all be inside the house just in case they're wrong and the place blows, so she goes outside with Sven and Harper. But the code works fine and the basement door opens for Hank and Eva.

They don protective gear and explore the space, which is a giant industrial laboratory and greenhouse. Many psychoactive plants are growing, and rune-covered distillation equipment leads to a stone bowl. Eva heads upstairs to report their findings to HQ, and once left alone, Hank realizes there are no grow lights in the greenhouse, and so the plants shouldn't be alive. They're perhaps being fed some kind of animal protein, or maybe it's like the spider upstairs, where energy is being transferred across dimensions. He also sees ash on the floor, and a human tooth glowing like the spider did, and realizes people were burned here.

Eva gets a reply from ORPHEUS suggesting that their surveillance is being tampered with. Just then, outside, Cynthia takes a sniper bullet to the chest. Eva runs out to help her, and brings her inside to the dining room, where she and Hank perform some impressive first aid to save her life. They try to contact HQ, but their comms are jammed. Eva goes back outside with her rifle, locates two hostiles, and blows one's head off and captures the other for interrogation.

Cynthia uses psychometry on the unconscious captive and gets visions of an organization similar to ORPHEUS but an enemy or rival, which involves worship of Dionysus. They find a magic gun and alchemical bullets, and deactivate the satellite that was blocking their communication.

Finally, Cynthia attempts to make contact with the spirit of Dr. Mohindra. She succeeds, and he guides her to a vision of his death. He was attempting to shoot himself in the forehead, but couldn't bring himself to do it. Then the shadow with the proboscis appeared, and turned him to ash. He also shows her ORPHEUS soldiers forcing vagrants into the basement, where they are subject to a horrifying surgery that removes their pituitary gland while they're still alive. The glands go into the distiller and are part of the drug he makes.

The captured man wakes up and immediately tells them they must "kill it" with the magic gun. He retrieves a micro SD chip from a pocket of fake skin in his arm. They plug it in and listen to a telepathic audio recording of Dr. Mohindra's thoughts, wherein he muses about contacting another plane of existence. They also read coded orders from the captive's organization, revealing that they have detailed knowledge of ORPHEUS and extradimensional entities including the Lady Clothed in Crows. The captive bites down on cyanide and dies.

Hank, Eva, and Cynthia agree to follow Dr. Mohindra's psychedelic regimen to see if they can take the magic gun to this other plane and destroy the dangerous entity. They ingest the drug, which is bitter and greasy. Harper plays the quantum-physics music on the violin, and they go up to the black room. Sven and Harper beat out a rhythm, and the PCs feel they are descending through a stone tunnel. They emerge in a rocky, ashy mountaintop with three moons in the sky. The entity is there, an enormous insect/bird/elephant looking thing with glowing gills that seems to be sucking up living things from multiple worlds. It roars a deafening roar and Eva falls unconscious while Hank and Cynthia are merely dazed. Cynthia creates a forcefield around it that prevents it from sucking in life energy, and Hank shoots it just as it begins attacking him with its taloned trunk. It deflates and collapses, with the screams of all the souls it had consumed. The three of them awaken in the black room.

After the mission, Hank is shaken by the belief that he destroyed countless souls by shooting the creature. He grows angry that this other organization knew so much more than he did, and commits himself to learning more and being better prepared to face threats like this in the future. Cynthia sees out the other organization, thinking she'll try to play them against ORPHEUS and get herself some more independence.

## Quotes

* "Do you ever wonder what it would be like to have a normal job?" - Harper
* "This was supposed to be an end to war, such an achievement -- and in a way, it was. But when you try to steal fire from the gods, you know what happens next." - Dr. Mohindra
* "Some sort of alien, extradimensional, otherworldly ... you know, whatever." - Cynthia
* "ORDERS PRIORITY: CASSANDRA ZERO. SITE DESIGNATION: M27.4. HIGHLY LIKELY TO BE REACTIVATED BY BLIND. CATEGORY FAUST INDIVIDUAL CONFIRMED TO HAVE ACCESSED CAVE SUBTYPE 'INSCAPE' THROUGH ENTHEOGENIC BOTANY AND CODE ZIGGURAT. SITE ANALYSIS SUGGEST POSSIBLE EMERGENCE POINT FOR FOREIGNER. CONCLUSION SUPPORTED BY THE FACT THAT THE CROWS ARE WATCHING. SEAL ALL POSSIBLE INCURSION POINTS AND PROCEED WITH FULL STERILIZATION PROCEDURE. BLIND PERSONNEL LIKELY TO BE ON SITE. PROCEED UNDER ASSUMPTION OF IMMINENT ACTION."
* "If we kill it, it can't eat you. Words to live by." - Hank Gomez

## Music Credits

* Three Chain Links - Hide
* Kevin MacLeod - Lightless Dawn
* Myuu - Forgotten Factory
* Kevin MacLeod - Quinn's Song: First Night
* L'Incal Noir - Analog Horror Stings
* Three Chain Links - Drive Fast
* Kai Engel - Imminence
* Alexander Nakarada - Nomadic Sunset
* Kevin MacLeod - Ossuary 1 - A Beginning
* Kevin MacLeod - Shadowlands 4 - Breath
* ROZKOL - Ambient V-X
* Kevin MacLeod - Birch Run
* Tri-Tachyon - The Glow
* Kevin MacLeod - Decay
* Three Chain Links - Look how bright the city burns at night...
* Kevin MacLeod - Giant Wyrm
* Kai Engel - Melted Wings
* Kai Engel - Touch the Darkness
* Igor Sysoev - Chasm
* Darren Curtis - Bad Dreams
* Three Chain Links - Dance Harder