Episode 29

# 03.29: Deals and Business

Cynthia suggested an alliance, Frank found a different source of help, Milo attended a meeting, and Tom made a deal.

## Characters

The PCs:

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

NPCs:

* Camille
* Quest Oyer
* Enoch Price
* Death 114
* Jo Brennan
* Auden
* Cyrus
* Additional Courthouse Man
* Quest Oyer
* Willa Holt
* Selene Hight
* Jack Elleby
* Eero Kirst
* Camden Oyer

## Summary/Notes

##### **01/17/2015: Saturday**

* Milo, disturbed by his nightmare and sleepwalking, pays a visit to Frank, whom he knows has dealt with sleepwalking before. Frank chides Milo on his choice to hike during alone during avalanche, and invites him on a ghost hunt.
	+ The two head for Habbit Brook, where they run into Camille.
	+ She doesn't have a direct way to contact the ghost who's been mentoring her, instead typically relying on him to find her.
	+ Camille speculates that he'd be more than willing to deal with Kohler's ghost, though. Evidently he's been complaining about Robin trespassing.
	+ Camille also confirms that she's seen him wield lightning before, although he has yet to teach her that particular trick.
	+ Milo and Frank resolve to check out the lightning crater next, where Milo last saw Kohler. On the way there, Milo gets a call from Quest.
		- Quest warns Milo that Tom has fallen under suspicion lately, and might be very dangerous.
		- He also offers to invite Milo the next time he and his friends get together to discuss the situation, since Milo may have some useful insight.
		- Frank then mentions Tom's affiliation with 114 to Milo, and brings him up to date on Tom's motives for poking around the Gore.
	+ The trip to the crater doesn't yield much. It's snowed over and distinctly lacking supernatural presences.
* Cynthia resolves to poke around in the woods behind the courthouse.
	+ She circumvents the property lawn, and quickly stumbles across a few very old trees among the younger forest growth. One of them is dead: split down the middle and lacking its top half.
	+ As she pokes around the area, the weather worsens noticeably. Snow begins to melt off the dead tree, which is lit by burning embers from deep within the trunk.
	+ A flash of lightning reveals the spirit of a large, severely burned man with rope burns around his neck. Cynthia initiates a negotiation.
		- The man, whose name is Enoch Price, is upset with a murderer residing in the Granton Historical Courthouse.
		- He tells Cynthia that if she can get Cyrus alone, he'll speak to him. Communication is easy, because Price is generally aware of everything going on in Granton on this side of Habbit Brook.
	+ Cynthia takes the deal, determined to deal with the threat the men in the courthouse pose to her town.
	+ She attempts to reach out to Tom for updates, but he doesn't pick up.
* In the afternoon, 114 turns up on Tom's doorstep. When Tom attempts to discern what they want, they warp him to Brennan's train platform in the Gore.
	+ Brennan wants to talk to Tom since their interests have fallen into alignment.
	+ 26 is mostly back to full capacity, but Brennan admits that their professional relationship has become strained lately. He was making good progress with 114, too, but the recent events Tom's been involved in have been a setback in that regard.
	+ When Tom explains his distrust of Brennan, owing to Cynthia's trepidation, Brennan points out that Cynthia's mind is addled by her boss, and her concern about him should be interpreted in his favor.
	+ Brennan wants Tom to keep an eye on 114 for him while he tends to his other business. In exchange, he's willing to provide any information that will be useful to that end.
		- Given 114's penchant for hunting for things that don't belong to them, and the continued existence of at least some of those lures, Tom is to ensure they come to no further harm or negative exposure. This will ideally allow them to focus on their own recovery.
		- 114's rehabilitation is vital to the local ecosystem, and thus far more important than Tom's well-being. Brennan also considers info on the thing lurking in Tom's house to be a distraction; it's the sort of thing he'd want separate arrangements made for.
		- Cynthia's boss is capable of completely destroying the identity of a host. In humans, this basically invariably results in death, and it leaves supernaturals entirely susceptible to the whims of their reputation.
		- Brennan has so far been able to uncover a motive for Cynthia's boss's actions as far as 114 is concerned.
		- 114 took steps to avoid this fate, but entirely too late to preserve themself entirely. The water is a subtle influence until it's too late.
	+ Tom is left to sort out the rest of the new arrangement with 114, who takes Tom home. They don't show any sign of leaving.

##### **01/18/2015: Sunday**

* Frank calls Cynthia. He's disappointed to learn she's prioritizing the situation at the courthouse over Sal's health, and decides to take matters into his own hands.
* Frank plans to track down Price himself, but stops at the Granton Cemetery first.
	+ Morgan has been keeping an eye on a guy wandering the small forest behind the graveyard with a stick. She warns Frank about him, but Frank decides to sneak into the woods for a closer look.
	+ Frank finds the man easily enough, but when he tries to talk, the man wrenches the surrounding trees into a barrier between them.
	+ By the time Frank has made his way around the obstruction, the man is gone, leaving only his stick and his footprints behind.
	+ Frank follows his tracks until it becomes clear he's being led in circles. When he returns to the graveyard, Morgan tells him the man was messing with his truck.
	+ She also asks Frank to tell Milo she isn't a Halloween attraction.
	+ Frank notices the footprints around his truck lead up the road toward the courthouse. He calls Cynthia for confirmation that this is the third denizen of the courthouse, and to ask about his possible hex-related inclinations. Cynthia doesn't particularly want him involved.
* Frank pivots, deciding to talk to the men at the courthouse rather than poke around in their backyard.
	+ Auden answers the door. Frank asks about hexes, and Auden supposes his housemates might be able to help.
	+ The household, plus Frank, settle in the small living room. The man from the woods earlier is present.
	+ Cyrus assures Frank that they'd most likely be able to help him if they had access to Sal.
	+ They discuss Cynthia for a while, and Cyrus brings up that his friend's been looking into the local water, which is evidently strange. Not much progress has been made in that regard.
	+ The lightning has also been a problem for them, and Cyrus is clearly unnerved upon learning the source of that particular problem.
* Cynthia calls Tom again to set up a later meeting.
* Milo hears back from Quest. He's hosting a little gathering to attempt to sort things out.
	+ Willa wants to come with, so Milo takes her along.
	+ Quest, Selene, and Jack are waiting at the trading post to talk shop about the situation with 114 and Tom.
	+ The group pretty quickly hit a wall with information. Camden, who was eavesdropping, offers to help in exchange for getting to participate. Quest objects, Willa instigates, and Camden is finally given permission to help.
		- He explains that 114 was trying to get better.
		- When they got into his head, they began digging a hole out in the woods. When it was big enough, their body got in. They were originally going to fill the hole back in, but it flooded, which did the job for them.
		- More recently, 114 had begun attempting to disinter itself. Tom ended up stepping in to take care of that.
	+ On the topic of Abbot, the coyotes had seemed to attack him for no reason in droves.
		- Jack points out that Abbot had a severe machinery accident, which may well have killed him when 114 was out of commission.
		- That made him a target, first for the coyotes, then for 114 once they were back in their own body.
	+ Eero pipes up to articulate her best guess as to how 114 might work, in particular the idea that they would be beholden to public perception of them. She doesn't know how 114 could have been messed up in the first place, but she shares Brennan's idea that swaying public opinion might be a way for it to recover.
		- She also lays out the group's options: either they sit tight and hope things improve (and that Tom isn't trying to take advantage of a messed up reaper), or they start scavenging for information.
		- She proposes that they could try to track down 114 to gauge their situation better, but Selene is banned from threatening Tom with a deadly weapon.
	+ Milo is left in charge of keeping an eye on Tom. Eero is going to do her thing, the Hights need time to grieve, and the Oyers are on guard against any future reaper appearances.
	+ Delighted by Eero's step up to authority, Willa congratulates her. In doing so she jokingly calls her 'PsycheErosion' Kirst, which Eero does not appreciate.
* Tom drops by Cynthia's place after work as planned. She's having an existential crisis that he doesn't really have time to involve himself in. She'll have to manage isolating Cyrus on her own.
* Speaking of, Frank calls Cynthia to convince her to leave the guys at the courthouse alone long enough for them to cure Sal.
	+ He exacerbates her crisis immensely by pointing out that her boss seems to be targeting people looking into its existence rather than genuine threats to the town.
* Tom has Auden over for dinner. He mostly learns that Auden is not volunteering information about the strange men in his house.
* At night, Cynthia's house floods
	+ She is dragged down into the mire, and loses consciousness.

← Episode 28 | Episode 30 →